Matrix of Dreams
Chapter One

Rating: PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): Zack/Seph, Cloud/Reno.
Warnings: Angst, dream imagry
Summary: Sephiroth has a long journey home. But he’s not alone…
Notes: For miss janae_twilight, winner of the Problem With Pickles contest! My lady I hope you enjoy your guest appearance! I have to say I was very nervous, I very much hope I portrayed you to your satisfaction!

The upside to being genetically overhauled was that it made one virtually impervious to illness. The downside was when you got sick – you were sick. And Sephiroth was very, very ill. Zack sat beside Sephiroth’s unmoving body, stroking the long silky hair, feeling the heat radiating from his lover’s body, hearing the slow laboured breathing, and the wet rattling sound deep in his lungs. Zack looked up at Dr. Gaywell.

“What’s wrong with him?”

“Acute viral infection of the lungs,” she said. “He’s a very sick little bunny.”

Zack glanced around to see where the kids were, breathing a sigh of relief that Miki was playing with her toys on the play mat with Akira, and the babies were asleep. He turned his attention back to Gaywell.

“How sick?” he asked softly.

She glanced at the children as well, then looked back to Zack. “He has a fifteen percent chance of surviving the night. If he makes it to sunrise I would say his chances go up to a twenty five percent chance of seeing next week.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Send the kids off to Grandma and Grampa, keep him warm, and calm. I’ll give him a shot and set up an IV, and come back in the morning. I’m sorry Zack, he has to fight this battle on his own. But he could be contagious. It would be wise to get the kids out of the house.”

Zack nodded. “Okay. I’ll call my parents, and then hear the veiled ‘you really shouldn’t have married a man let alone this man’ comments.” He sighed heavily, raising his hands to his hair and gripping it tightly, willing himself to remain in control. “Okay. I’ll get the kids off to my parents. Can you sit with Baby while I take them to Gongaga? If my parents come here it will just… well mom will try to “help” and then dad will get pissed off that Seph’s just lying around and… you know what? This looks like a job for Uncle Cloud and Auntie Reno.”

Zack walked into the kitchen and picked up the phone, looking down as he felt a tug on his pants. It was Miki.

“Is Mommy okay?” she asked quietly.

Zack knew better than to lie to Miki; she was an empath, like himself. “Mommy is very sick. I’m going to ask Uncle Cloud to look after you kids for a while.”

“Can’t I say and help?”

“No, because whatever Mommy has could be transmitted to you, and you might not survive it.”

“Is Mommy going to live?”

“He will if I have anything to say about it,” said Zack. He finished dialling the number, then heard it ring at the other end. After a couple rings, Cloud picked up.

“Hello?”

“Cloud it’s Zack. I need you to come get the kids. Baby’s sick. He’s… he’s real sick, he’s got some sort of virus and…”

“I’ll be there soon as I can,” said Cloud softly. “Don’t worry.”

“Easy for you to say,” said Zack.

“Just hang on. I’m coming. Where are Yazoo and Loz?”

“Yazzy is off with Andy, and Loz is off with Phoenix listening to the wind rushing through their ears.”

“Okay Reno and I are on our way. He’ll take the kids home and I’ll stay with you.”

“Cloud…”

“You can’t be alone. What if he…? Anyway you can’t be alone. I’ll stay with you.”

Zack smiled. “Thanks Cloud.”

“No problem. I’ll be right there.”

Zack hung up, then glanced down at his daughter. Miki’s green eyes were shimmering with tears.

“What if Mommy dies?”

“I’m going to do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Yeah but what if he does?!”

Yeah, what if? What if he had married that cocktail waitress in Wutai and had normal kids instead of empathic ones who knew all too well how scared he was? Zack knelt down so he and Miki were eye to eye.

“You’ll still have me, and your siblings, and Uncle Cloud and Auntie Reno, and everyone else. And we’ll all be very, very sad for a long, long time, but eventually we’ll all be okay again. All right? But Mommy’s not dead yet, and I think he’d be pretty cranky that we’re already talking about putting him in a big cigar box and burying him next to the koi pond, where we buried your pet cockroach.”

“He was a good cockroach!”

“Yes he was a very good cockroach. We have to thank Yuffie for mailing you a six inch hissing cockroach for your birthday, and having your mother pitch a complete fit when it laid eggs all over the house.”

“It wasn’t Throckmorton’s fault all those eggs appeared! He was a boy!”

Yeah an egg-laying boy, like that happened in real… wait a minute.

“Okay. It wasn’t his fault. It was another hissing cockroach that somehow made it up here from the Cactaur Islands. The point is… no matter what happens… we’re all going to be okay, all right? And Dr. Gaywell and I will do our best to make sure Mommy gets better.”

Miki nodded, clearly unconvinced. But she wiped at her eyes and nodded. “Okay.”

***---***

He was in the life stream. He knew he was because he had been there before, struggling with madness and reality, stumbling through the warping corridors of his own mind. But why was he here now? What had led him back to these same strange halls among the hissing snakes of rain, where reality was even more subjective than usual?

“Sephiroth,” said a voice.

He turned, moving slowly in the psychedelic swirls of liquid mako, his hair floating around him in a silvery haze. Standing before him was a woman clad in gleaming black, her dark skin shining softly from the mako. Her hair was tied back into a ponytail, and along one arm was tattooed a chrysanthemum with the words “Perfectly Imperfect” framing it. Her ears were pierced with gems and strange bars of precious metals, and her dark eyes gazed at him from behind black-rimmed glasses.

“You have returned once more to paths you left,” she said.

“I don’t know why I’m here. I was in my bed, and I felt so very very hot, then… cold as ice. Then I was here. Am I dead?”

“No. But you are dying. There is still a small flame of life in your body.”

“I don’t want to die,” said Sephiroth. “I finally have something to live for.”

“Your spirit is already returning to the planet.” She pointed to the left, and Sephiroth saw before him a deep vortex, slowly spinning, drawing vibrant streaks of light into its core. The streaks of light would emerge from the other side as new life in a new form.

“What would I be?” he asked, understanding somehow that this woman was a part of this place, and not simply another soul passing through.

“It is not for me to say. You may be a white dragon. You may be a mushroom. I am but a guide.”

“Well I can promise you that I shall not be a mushroom. I do not tolerate cold, dark, damp, and worms are right out. If you do not mind I shall be walking home now.”

“Sephiroth,” she said gently, “there is no road home. Not for you. It is time to return to the planet. You are weary, and your life force flickers as does a candle flame in a winter rain.”

“No,” he said. “No I am not ready to die. You cannot force me to stay.”

“I have no intention of forcing you to stay. As I said, I am but a guide.”

“Then guide me home.”

“If you wish to go home, then you must defeat that which is smothering your life force.”

Sephiroth gazed at the beautiful woman standing amidst the swirling colours of the life stream. Once she had been mortal, but her many lives and gathered wisdom had raised her to this spirit plane to guide the weary to their appointed paths.

“And how do I do that, trapped here?”

“Do what you do best, Warrior.”

Yeah that was helpful, thanks a lot.

“I heard that,” she said smoothly. “Now you hear this. Behave yourself or I’ll kick your arrogant ass right down that potty into the after-life and make sure you come back as a worm.”

“You’re no fun.”

She smiled. “I am just a guide.”

“Yes I heard that, now can you please give me a hint?”

“You must plot your own strategy for escape.”

Strategy. Yes he had been very good at that, hadn’t he? He needed a plan… and a path.

“I thank you,” he said softly.

“We shall meet again.”

“I look forward to it.”

Sephiroth turned away from the guide and the vortex, swimming slowly and easily through the clear fluid with the strange swirling bands of colour that were in fact other souls. They showed as eel-like smears of red and green and blue and gold – the colours of nature. His own was a dead silver-white with a streak of black; proof that Hojo’s tinkering had indeed removed him from anything natural, and the other souls avoided him as fish avoid a shark. He undulated through the life stream, seeking a well that led up to the surface, but found nothing. Why could he find an exit before…?

Because he had been alive, that was why. He had fallen in, badly wounded but alive. Now he did not have enough strength to find the wells. His body was failing. There may not be a journey home this time.

Sephiroth kept on, determined, seeking…

***---***

“How is he?” mumbled Zack.

Cloud glanced over his shoulder at Zack, who was settled in an easy chair.

“I thought you were asleep.”

“I wish.” Zack got up and walked over to the bed, reaching down to touch Sephiroth’s body. “He’s burning up.”

“We’ve done everything we can to lower the fever,” said Cloud. “He’s not responding.”

Zack slowly stood up, thinking. “We need to put him in cool water, get his body temperature down.”

“Yeah I thought of that, but where would we put him? He’s too big to lay flat in the tub, and we would need someone in the tub with him to help support him.”

“The koi pond,” said Zack. “C’mon.”

Together they hoisted Sephiroth’s long body and slowly carried him out of the house to the koi pond. As fish darted madly in confusion and fright, Zack and Cloud sat down in the water with the seriously ill man, Zack supporting Sephiroth’s head against his chest.

“You throw some strange parties, Zack,” said Cloud.

“He’s not dying,” said Zack grimly. “He’s not allowed.”

“You don’t think he would be better off in a hospital?”

“Dr. Gaywell says they can’t do any more for him there than we’re doing here.”

“They might have a bigger tub.”

“No one’s making you sit in my pond, Strife.”

“I have to, I’d never forgive myself if I let a superior officer be eaten by fish.”

“Don’t get koi with me.”

“Har har.” Cloud reached forward to move aside a tendril of hair that had slid into Sephiroth’s face. It was a crystal clear summer night, and the moon was high, turning the surface of the pond into a rippling mirror of silver. All around them, tiny frogs peeped and chirped, forming a strange harmony with the crickets. “He’s lucky to have you, Zack.”

“It’s the other way around, although I know from the outside it doesn’t look like it.”

“It’s not,” said Cloud softly. “You’ve given him everything you have and everything you are. I don’t know where you get the strength.”

“It’s nothing you wouldn’t do for Reno. It’s nothing Cid wouldn’t do for Vincent. It’s nothing Rufus wouldn’t do for Reeve. If something is important enough then you find the strength.”

“It’s not that simple,” said Cloud. “And I don’t think you realize just how much you’ve done for him.”

“So what, does that earn me a medal? He’s my husband, he’s my life. I’ve loved him since I met him. Okay so maybe some people would have given up on him, and man I gotta say I never saw so many people anxious to abandon a sinking ship and start throwing flaming arrows when he got sick. He was a fucking war hero, saved thousands of people, and when the pressure gets too much and he finds out what games have been played with his head he breaks. Does anyone come to help? No, they start condemning him for having the bad manners to break. I’d like to see half of those fuckers stand up under what he has! They damned well couldn’t! Okay, so he’s damaged. So are you, so am I, so are Reno and Vincent and Rufus and every damned one of us. If we don’t stand up for the people we care for then who will?”

“I’m sorry,” said Cloud. “I wasn’t trying to imply that you shouldn’t. And you’re right, I would do it for Reno. All I meant was…”

“Some people would have given up by now.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah well I never did know when to quit. And he’d do it for me.”

“No,” said Cloud, “he would rip up the entire planet until someone came to help because he wouldn’t have the first idea what to do.”

Zack smiled. “Well Baby has his ways of getting things done and I have mine. Get the thermometer, would you? I want to see if his temperature is coming down at all.”

Cloud went to get the small electronic device, returning to pass it to Zack.

“Baby hates this thing,” said Zack. He checked Sephiroth’s temperature. “Nothing yet. I think we’re gonna be here a while yet, Cloud.”

“I’ll make tea.”

“Terrific, I’ll sit here and amuse the frogs.”

***---***

He’d been swimming a long time, searching turning to wandering, determination turning to despair. He had made his way to the Nibel reactor where first he lost his mind, and was surrounded suddenly by screaming raging spirits; the murdered dead who had died as a result of his madness. They attacked him from all sides, tearing at him weakly, their unending fury weakening them, condemning them to an eternity circling the place where they died, slowly becoming angry spectres that would haunt the land. Sephiroth shook them off and fled, his spirit-form darting away and following the life stream to Mideel and the great pond of liquid mako that now sat where once the town had.

He saw the circle of light above him, marking the exit from the life stream and streaked towards it, his body like a long silvery fish streaked with black. He swam with all his might, suddenly breaching the life stream and rising into the air, throwing sparkling drops of mako into the night, his body like radiant mercury in the moonlight, twisting and shining. His glorious exit was seen only by a mother and her small child, who did not wish to go to bed yet, and the pair watched in amazement as what looked to be an eel of purest star-fire leapt from the life stream where no earthly fish lived. It hovered for a moment, then fell back into the liquid, splashing droplets of pond-moonlight. The little boy forgot his tantrums and pointed.

“Mama! Fishy!”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I saw.”

Sephiroth rested in the liquid, wondering what had gone wrong. He had found an exit, his spirit should now be flying towards his body. Why was he still in the life stream?

The mighty fish sulked, fins drooping at a petulant angle. It even managed to stick its lower lip out.

“Sephiroth…”

Oh just what he needed, Miss Matrix. Perhaps she could give him a pill that would take him back to reality. He turned to look at her.

“Yes?”

“I think I said you need to plan a strategy.”

“I did. This was it.”

“Swimming hell-bent for a hole and leaping?”

“I’m sure I can come up with something else, given time.”

“You do not have time. You are in the life stream. You are dead. Come with me, Sephiroth. Come back to the planet. You are weary. None should have to face the trials of this place twice.”

Sephiroth gazed at her. “I’m not leaving my family,” he said quietly and firmly. “How can I do that to Zack after all I have already put him through?”

“This is not your fault.”

“That hardly matters,” said Sephiroth. “We’re talking about my family.”

“Many others have also…”

“To be perfectly blunt I don’t give a shit about the others. I have been through more than enough hell and I am not lying down and dying! I am not abandoning my husband, the only true friend I ever had, to raise four children alone. Now you can help me, or leave me alone. But I am not meekly giving up and spiralling down that…. toilet!”

“Sephiroth… what you are proposing is not impossible. However… it will lead you through a world you have never seen before. A land of shadow and demons, and of death.”

“I am not afraid of battle and darkness,” said Sephiroth quietly. “Nor am I afraid of madness and the monsters therein. You are a guide in this world. Guide me home.”

She nodded. “Very well. Come with me. We have a long way to go.”

She turned and walked away, revealing a matched pair of swords crossed over her back. Sephiroth followed after her, still in his spirit form. It would be hard to fight like this, but he could do it. He could do anything if it would get him home.

***---***

Click here to go to part two