Chapter Text
”I will never be a memory.”
Defeated again by Cloud Strife and burning with rage, Sephiroth makes a desperate final effort to escape his imminent fate.
Already feeling his feeble body dissolve, he looks into those frosty blue eyes that consume him, haunting him in death as well as all states in-between, and smiles.
Without any further thought, he gathers all his remaining powers to the ruins of Midgar and hurls his consciousness into the times of the past.
Finally, all the wrongs will be rectified.
Finally, Cloud Strife will suffer.
And, after all the suffering, Cloud Strife will be his.
Claudia Strife, 18, looks at her bump and smiles. She can't wait to meet her baby.
The pregnancy has gone well, except for the first 15 weeks she spent vomiting and fearing that she would miscarry. She’s got nothing bad to say about mid-pregnancy, but the closer she gets to her due date, the more her pelvis starts to ache. It hurts to walk, it hurts to stand, and so she opts for cycling around the small village of Nibelheim with her big belly, swollen legs and creaky bicycle, being the talk of the town.
She is the talk of the town for other reasons, too.
You see, her baby appears to have no father. Nobody knows why Claudia Strife was suddenly pregnant, although they definitely know how that happened. Even though Nibelheim is backwater, they do offer some sort of sex education classes at school after all, mainly with the aim of telling the kids to abstain from it altogether until marriage.
Many wonder if Claudia Strife had slept through them all to end up in the predicament she was in.
There were, of course, rumors. Of secret horny trysts with foreigners in the forest, of Shinra personnel visiting the reactor for maintenance and other things, or of some older Nibelheim men seeking younger flesh while their wives patiently waited at home.
But Claudia Strife herself never explains anything, tells anything, or mentions anything to anyone, holding her head high while going about her life in the village, her belly growing bigger week by week, month by month. And finally her bump is so big that she can only move around with her bicycle, sending the villagers whispering about how utterly irresponsible she is, not caring about the safety of her unborn child at all.
She says nothing, only smiles placidly and holds her head high.
On the morning of the 9th of August, Claudia feels some mild contractions. She decides to ignore them for now because she’s got a lot to do. The harvest season is approaching quickly.
Although her symphysis pubis, as Dr. Sheeran had explained, hurts like hell, the stabbing pain absolutely unpleasant, Claudia plucks a few carrots out of the black soil and gives them a long look. They are maybe not the best, too thin and pale, but they would have to do. She also chops off some overgrown kale, which would be easy to dry in the oven and use in the future.
But as the contractions start getting more frequent and more painful, she decides it is time for her to leave her allotment garden and go inside, maybe let the healer-midwife of Nibelheim know about the upcoming birth of her baby.
The thought makes her giddy and she breathes through another contraction, humming a low aaaaa like the healer had instructed her to. ‘Relaxing one opening helps the other to relax, too,’ the healer had explained, making Claudia blush furiously at the time.
The advice doesn't feel so stupid anymore.
She breathes through another contraction, more painful than the previous one, her belly tightening into a painful knot for a long minute until relaxing again. Her back aches.
Soon her little baby is here, she thinks ecstatically. Her brain is hazed by hormones while she suffers through the splitting pain of the intensifying contractions.
Soon, very soon.
But little does Claudia Strife know that the contractions would take a few days until her baby is finally born.
After 50 exhausting hours of labor, of pain, of sweat and tears and guttural screams, Claudia Strife gives birth to a tiny wrinkly baby boy whom she immediately names Cloud. The clouds on the Nibel sky that day are beautiful, white and puffy, almost as if the sky itself is celebrating the arrival of her son. And hence Claudia knows Cloud is the perfect name for her son, that he just cannot be called anything else. A blessing bestowed upon her from the heavens.
Lying on her bed, she looks at the baby, swaddled and sleeping in her arms, his tiny red face peaceful and relaxed. A wave of deep tiredness washes over her.
Claudia always thought she would feel an immense wave of love immediately when looking at her baby, but all she feels is bone-deep exhaustion, lingering pain in her body and a small amount of wonder.
She immediately swears to be better, to love her Cloud - no matter how long it takes - and to be the best mother for him. To make sure he would be happy.
But she soon realizes she hasn't been prepared at all at for what lies beyond the rosy cotton candy -flavored image of motherhood. Postpartum period with its crash of hormones slowly makes her think she’s losing her mind, even though she has sometimes heard the old wives whisper about the so-called baby blues.
Claudia finds herself sweating like crazy every night, waking up in clammy sheets that are soaked all the way to the mattress. She starts sleeping with only towels wrapped around her, breasts leaking with milk and her whole crotch bloodied, swollen and absolutely burning. Postpartum contractions come as a surprise, too.
And she is teary, feeling like the whole world is about to come crashing down. Cloud keeps her awake, feeding for hours at night, still in his own world. But breastfeeding hurts like fucking hell and Claudia clearly hasn’t been prepared at all how time-consuming the whole ordeal of taking care of a baby actually is.
Claudia has no parents, no husband, no partner. She is alone with tiny Cloud, who after the first two weeks of only sleeping, starts to cry.
Cloud cries for hours every day and Claudia feels helpless. She tries breastfeeding him, holding him, patting his tiny bum, but nothing seems to calm the baby down. Claudia changes tactics, soothing him with the movements of her own body and rocking him gently, but Cloud only screams, his small face red and ugly.
It’s mid-September when Claudia is sitting on a bench at the Nibelheim village square, holding her crying baby and desperately trying to breastfeed him. She’s got tears in her eyes and a lump in her throat and her eyes are heavy with the lack of sleep. She tries to put her nipple into Cloud’s mouth, tries to gently nudge him to accept it, but Cloud just cries just like his mother. She feels the gazes of the other people around them, but no one stops to really help them. Some mutter weak words of encouragement under their breaths but hurry away nonetheless.
With dark circles under her eyes, Claudia tries to figure out how to take care of the baby while taking care of all her necessary errands. She learns to babywear Cloud in a wrap to have her hands free and even accepts a few sewing jobs for new winter gear to get more money. Despite her reputation and young age, she happens to be the most talented seamstress in Nibelheim, after all.
But she feels weary from work, from the baby, and not having any time at all for herself. Sometimes Claudia watches Cloud with a detached expression on her face, thinks about dumping him in a garbage bin so that she could get some sleep, some peace, some rest for her poor ears and breasts and mind.
She hopes someone would come and take Cloud for a walk so that she could sleep, or even harvest some of the veggies still in the ground without being interrupted.
But no one does, of course. No one cares.
They treat her with distant tolerance, but there is an invisible barrier nowadays between herself and the rest of the villagers. The stigma of a young single mother is too strong in backwater places like Nibelheim. Having a baby outside wedlock is unheard of, and the town elders are scared of Claudia Strife.
It is better to tell everyone not to associate with Claudia Strife and her son too much. She’s too courageous, obviously bad influence.
After the initial months of constant crying, during which Claudia thinks she will simply go mad, Cloud develops into a sunny little baby, his mood as cheerful as his tuft of thick blond hair that stands out like sunshine on earth. Years pass and Cloud grows up to be a spirited toddler. Claudia’s life isn’t easy, but after the initial shock of suddenly having someone else dictate her life, she’s started to find some joy in motherhood.
Claudia re-wows to be the best mother there is to her son.
Even during the terrible twos, followed by Cloud’s transformation into a spirited threenager, Claudia grits her teeth but tries to smile through it all, telling herself to try to enjoy the calm between all the tantrums. And, despite the struggle of her days, at night, when Cloud is already sleeping in his bed next to his mother’s, Claudia sighs contently. She thinks about his tiny son, the apple of her eye, who is no longer a baby. Instead, he has turned into a fascinating little human being with his own will and adorable ideas he likes to proclaim loudly with his barely understandable babble.
Kind.
Creative.
Bold.
Adventurous.
Funny.
And finally Claudia can say she loves her son from the bottom of her heart, even though the rest of the villagers do not.
They have good times, and they have bad times. Some times are worse than others, times when she feels like they are merely screaming at each other. She vividly remembers the old Nibel saying that having kids means having to argue with a little version of yourself everyday.
They don’t have much money so Claudia tends to go for outdoors activities during their free time. They hike in the woods and the mountains, and plant vegetables to harvest later. In the winter they ski and skate together, and even though Cloud is still young, he has developed quite a sense of balance already. At the tender age of three, he teeters skillfully on his skates, and at four he learns to bike, riding his tiny, rusty bike around the village square with a huge smile on his face, squealing in delight and getting a lot of offended looks.
Claudia watches and wonders if that is the look of complete freedom, of a state of mind without any worry in the world. She wouldn’t know because she has plenty of undisclosed worries.
But the older Cloud gets, the more he starts to inquire why he’s the only one always left out of all the fun. Why nobody asks him to join play dates, to go out with him. There is a small daycare center in Nibelheim, but even there the other kids tend to avoid Cloud. The only one that stubbornly keeps playing with him is Tifa, sweet Tifa, a girl year younger than him. But she, too, does it in secret, because if her father knew…
Cloud is only five, but he’s starting to understand he’s not wanted. That he’s an outsider in this very home village of his. Consequently he spends his free time almost exclusively with his mother, and Claudia in turn tries to make every day a tiny piece of heaven for her boy. If only she had more money she would take them away from Nibelheim, to a faraway place where they’d be accepted as they are, without any of their baggage.
If only she had money, they could start anew.
Claudia makes sure to always show a brave face to Cloud, but in the moonlit darkness of the night she cries endlessly, sobs desperately into her pillow yet again for someone, anyone, to come and help them, share her load, be a friend to Cloud.
Her sweet boy, her sunshine, her utmost joy. How is he going to make it in this rotten world when it's treating him so badly already?
But a surprising something happens that suddenly brings Cloud a lot of joy. Even though the other kids don’t accept Cloud into their games, he is not unaffected by fads and periods of childish infatuation that define those early childhood years.
One day, when Cloud is six years old, they are watching evening telly together. The TV is their treasure; Claudia had saved for a long time to buy an used TV from the village butcher.
The news broadcast starts and suddenly Cloud gasps. Claudia stares at the screen, too, at the moving image of a silver-haired boy there.
It is the first time Cloud hears about young hero Sephiroth.
A teen, maybe about ten years older than Cloud, Sephiroth is said to be rising the ranks of Shinra at a quick speed, already adept at battle and proclaimed a hero. Cloud watches in rapt interest as Sephiroth fights some meaningless monsters on screen and that’s that.
Cloud has no eyes for anyone else after that.
Claudia smiles at Cloud’s infatuation. She’s not worried, she knows Sephiroth is really popular especially with young boys. A role model to look up to. A killer, her mind sometimes whispers but she ignores it. A hero sounds much better and, as such, there is nothing wrong with Cloud looking up to Sephiroth, nor him practicing sword-fighting with sticks.
In fact, Claudia encourages him. It’s better for Cloud to get a little bit stronger, to learn how to defend himself, she often thinks when looking at Cloud running around with his stick after daycare. She also hopes the interest in Sephiroth could be something that could create bonds between the kids. A common topic to talk about, to introduce in plays.
It doesn’t, however, take long for Claudia to realize that Cloud seems to be the most infatuated with Sephiroth among all the kids. He wants to see every television appearance by Sephiroth, wants a poster, wants other Sephiroth goods. It breaks Claudia’s heart to see that disappointed look in Cloud’s eyes when she explains they cannot buy anything because they have no extra money to spend.
The only thing they can truly afford is the Sephiroth chewing gum that tastes icky but comes with a bad quality sticker. Unfortunately Cloud has collected them all already.
But Claudia wants to spoil her boy, so she saves really hard, eating smaller portions herself, skipping some meals altogether. Her job as the village seamstress gives them just enough money for them to make it, but there is nothing extra. She is happy, though, that the people still use her services even though they don’t associate with them otherwise.
Claudia doesn’t know what she would do otherwise.
After a few months, she has finally saved enough money to purchase a cute Sephiroth plush toy. She places the order at the village market, which has it delivered all the way from Shinra Official Store in Midgar. The toy costs a lot and the express delivery even more but, if all goes well, the parcel should make it to Nibelheim for Cloud’s seventh birthday.
Claudia cannot wait to see the expression on Cloud’s face. He's been denied so much in his life already, but at least she’s able to give him this.
And when Cloud opens the wrapping and squeals in delight, when his eyes light up, it makes all the trouble worthwhile.
School starts almost immediately after Cloud’s birthday. Claudia hopes, hopes so much that suddenly everything will change, that the kids start treating Cloud better. That they acknowledge he even exists, that somehow the change of environment from daycare to school would force everyone to grow up and accept Cloud.
The feelings of hope are feeble, but they're all she has.
On the first day of school Claudia walks with Cloud, holding his hand. She can tell he’s anxious, his eyes darting around wildly and hands clutching his brand new Sephiroth plushie now called ‘Sephy’.
Her hopes soon come crashing down.
“Look, Cloud’s got a toy with him! He’s such a ba—by!”
Claudia flinches and looks around, desperately trying to find who's responsible for the hurtful words. But everyone’s looking away, avoiding her eyes.
She feels Cloud’s tighten his hold of her hand, seeking comfort and safety.
“Baby. Don’t pay them any attention,” she whispers, but instinctively knows the words mean nothing. She looks down at her son, at Cloud, his beautiful blond hair on a small ponytail.
Cloud meets her eyes steadily and the look on his face is unfathomable. He hugs Sephy closer to his chest. His new black backpack looks too big on him.
Something inside Claudia breaks.
“Cloud. Don’t let the define you,” she says again, but maybe the words are too big, too profound for a seven year old, because Cloud only stares at her blankly.
She tries again. “There are always people in the world who try to belittle you. I know it’s hard but you have to not let them do that. You have to be stronger, you have to live. Be better than them.”
Cloud looks at her curiously but with eyes full of anguish. “Okay, ma,” he says in his bright voice, now hushed with defeat. “Here. Take Sephy home.”
Claudia looks at him in surprise. “But… it’s your Sephy. You wanted so much to share your first day at school with him.”
Cloud shakes his head dejectedly and his shoulders slump. “Don’t want that anymore,” he says quietly and all but tosses the plushie to Claudia. “Take it away.”
She know she should say something but she’s at loss for words. Mutely she holds the plushie with one hand and pats Cloud’s head with the other.
“I should go,” announces Cloud, not sounding very enthusiastic, nervously fidgeting on his feet.
‘Mmm yes,” answers Claudia. “You go. It’s your big day. You’ve got this, honey.”
Cloud gives her a small wavering smile and a thumbs up, but Claudia immediately knows his heart's not in it. She watches as he turns around and walks inside alone, all the other kids around him flocking with friends, smiles plastered on their faces.
It’s her turn to clutch Sephy to her chest.
Something changes after that day. It seems that her sweet boy is gone, replaced by a small angsty boy that drives her to the brink of madness.
Cloud screams for hours, seemingly for nothing. He rages like he’s been affected by a Berserk spell, trashing around when Claudia tries to hold him down. He scratches at her, bites her. Claudia looks in horror at the full-teeth bite mark on her arm. It's going to bruise.
Cloud stares at him wildly, still screaming.
Going to school is horrible and they fight about everything from Cloud’s clothes to his breakfast.
“You can fucking go naked!” Claudia finds herself screeching one morning, completely at her wit’s end. Cloud answers by throwing his plate on a wall with food still in it.
His socks are always uncomfortable.
His backpack is the wrong color.
His pants make his skin itch.
He hates his homework.
And Claudia just wants to leave and travel somewhere alone.
One day Cloud rages for two hours because the flower he drew for his math assignment doesn’t look like the one in the book. He melts down after not learning his sword movements immediately. He refuses to wear a coat when it’s only 10 degrees outside, and Claudia sends him to school without. He comes back after school crying, his fingers red with cold and face streaked with tears, and at least the look matches Claudia’s since it hasn’t been a moment that day she hasn’t felt the burning sensation of about-to-fall tears in her eyes.
She hugs him and he melts into her arms, his mother’s arms and cries.
He never tells what’s wrong and Claudia can only assume.
Even Sephy doesn’t seem to bring him any joy or comfort. He only stares at it angrily and huffs, as if Sephy is to blame for all his mood swings.
The truth is, Claudia is utterly exhausted, all the way to the bone. It’s been going on for too long now, she thinks, and wonders if there is something wrong with Cloud’s head. She wonders if other kids are as angsty as Cloud, but she has no one to ask.
Hey, my Cloud’s turned into a small devil. How about your kid?
The answer would probably be no and Cloud's reputation would get even worse.
Despite everything, every night she tucks Cloud to bed and strokes his hair, watching those angry features finally smooth out. And every night she swears everything will be better tomorrow.
After a few months of meltdowns she books an appointment with Dr. Sheeran, the only person she trusts in the whole village. She explains everything to him and Dr. Sheeran listens to her with a compassionate look on his face. It's been so long since anyone has given her an understanding look like that.
“It sounds like your son is going through an adrenarche,” he says, nodding as if to make a point.
Claudia frowns. It sounds… something potentially dangerous. Her expression must give her thoughts away since Dr. Sheeran pats her arm lightly and continues.
“Not to worry, Ms. Strife. I understand this is an extremely tiring period for you, but I would like you to understand what’s happening with Cloud is perfectly normal. Mood swings and meltdowns happen when the child’s body starts producing adrenalin and other teen hormones a few years prior to puberty.”
Claudia frowns, feeling only a tiny bit of relief. “You mean that hormones are the reason why my son is behaving like a demon?”
Dr. Sheeran chuckles. “Yes. More or less. It will pass, although I cannot tell you when since every kid’s an individual.”
After the appointment Claudia feels a little bit better. It’s just a phase, she keeps telling herself like a mantra when Cloud lashes out in sudden rage, refuses to eat and sleep, and screams bloody murder over nothing. She’s sure the neighbors can hear him, can hear them, because Claudia cannot stay calm after all. Sometimes she even has to bodily hold Cloud from destroying things or from hurting himself.
One day, when she sees the bruises on Cloud’s arms caused by her, she feels horrible. Cloud, too, stares at the blueish marks with wide eyes, silent and looking scared.
“Darling, I didn’t mean to… I… You know, you can’t break things or hit mama…”
The excuses sound futile and Cloud only looks at her for a long time until he turns around and silently goes to his room. Claudia doesn’t see him until the next morning.
Cloud passes the first grade with mediocre results but Claudia is so proud of her son, of herself.
They spend the summer relaxing as much as they can and being away from school does wonders to Cloud’s temper. He seems more and more like the boy Claudia knew, the smiling, content little fella she loved to hang around with. Sephy is welcome to join them again, the plushie there for Cloud to cuddle whenever he wants.
Weeks pass without them fighting and Claudia feels their life is about to take a turn for the better. She's feeling lighter, happier and more energized.
But when Cloud turns eight their small family is hit with yet another unpleasant surprise.
It’s September and they are outside harvesting potatoes, when Cloud suddenly falls to the ground and lets out a piercing high-pitched scream, clutching his head in agony.
Claudia runs to him, gathering the boy to her arms. Cloud sobs, tears in his eyes, and whimpers.
“It hurts!! Ma, make it stop!”
Claudia doesn’t know what to do, only cradles Cloud’s trembling body in her arms. He’s sweaty and clearly in pain, eyes squeezed shut. Time passes and they just huddle there on the ground of their veggie garden, both breathing heavily.
“Can you feel it?” asks Cloud suddenly with a pained expression.
“Feel what?” she answers, not knowing what he means.
Cloud tries to open his eyes before answering. “There’s something… The echo… my head. Hurts.”
He winces.
Claudia doesn’t know what to think. It doesn’t make any sense and so she does nothing but hold Cloud close and hope that this, whatever it is, will pass soon.
Except it doesn’t. Instead of going away, Cloud’s headaches only become worse.
Every time Cloud falls to the ground from the force of the splitting pain, cradling his head and moaning, Claudia feels a part of her crumbles, too. The headaches range from minor to debilitating, and even though they don’t happen all the time, they happen often enough for Claudia to be worried.
Some days Cloud just lies in bed, unable to get up and go to school. Other days Claudia is called to pick him up in the middle of a lesson, forced to leave all her work behind.
She takes care of her son during the day and tries to handle her sewing during the nights.The dark circles under her eyes grow in size, become more prominent.
Forbidden thoughts cross her mind. Does Cloud have a… cancer? A tumor? The old baker in Nibelheim had passed away from what they said was a brain tumor.
After two months of watching Cloud suffer she books and appointment with Dr. Sheeran again. Migraine, he doubts, and prescribes painkillers and some other medicine for Cloud.
Unfortunately the meds are of no help and Cloud’s suffering continues.
“Ma,” she hears Cloud whimper one night. “It feels like I have a shadow inside my head,” Cloud says softly, wincing as a flash of pain wrecks his small body.
“Hush, love. Mama’s here,” Claudia says and tries to sound calm and collected. Inside she is shattering, watching her little boy curled up into a small ball and hugging Sephy tightly.
Cloud is withering away and there is nothing she can do.
The thought fills her with dread and as soon as Cloud falls asleep, she runs to her bed and screams into the pillow. She screams and screams, screams until there is nothing in her to let out anymore, until she has no voice.
She doesn’t know what time she falls asleep, still clothed and face ugly red from crying. It feels like the world is ending.
Years pass and Cloud barely makes it from the one grade to another. He’s labeled sick by the other kids; they call him 'cripple' and 'sicko'. Regardless, Cloud stoically goes to school whenever he can, ignoring the others and focusing on his studies with that solemn dejected look on his face.
He turns ten and the headaches are very much a part of his everyday reality, slowly transforming him from a joyful, adventurous, smiling child into a walking shadow.
Claudia has cried so much over the years that she thinks they could fill the nearby river with her tears. Every night she kisses Cloud’s cheek, his long blonde hair, puts a wet cool towel on his forehead, whispers how much she loves him and steps away before she has to watch the boy moan again in pain
She running out of ideas to help. She doesn’t know what to do. She has no resources to help Cloud with.
There are days she wonders if she should just kill them both and let them out of their shared misery. This is no life. Her dreams and hopes for the future, all violently taken from her.
Fuck this, fuck this all. Fuck the headaches, fuck this horrible village, fuck her earlier hopes of a beautiful life with his son.
Fuck Cloud.
She wishes Cloud would disappear, cease existing, give her a fucking moment without any worry. She’s exhausted, tired beyond any sense, years and years of having to bear this burden alone. Some lonely nights she hates Cloud so much she thinks she’ll burst.
She hates him, hates him, hates him.
She wants Cloud gone, she is too tired. She doesn’t want to do this anymore, doesn’t know how to keep going anymore. She has no more tears to shed, no more mental energy to use.
And, for some reason, this time destiny decides to listen.
Sitting at Dr. Sheeran’s office, like all those times before, Claudia stares at the doctor, her lips thin and face expressionless. She knows how she looks like: gaunt, sunken eyes, tired. At least ten years older than she actually is.
“Claudia,” says Dr. Sheeran, looking directly at Claudia with his kind, understanding eyes.
Claudia smiles back nervously, wringing her hands. Fortunately Cloud was able to go to school that day, leaving her free to visit Dr. Sheeran alone to discuss Cloud’s condition. No need to worry him, unless absolutely necessary.
“Dr. Sheeran,” she then replies. “What is it?”
Dr. Sheeran looks at his papers from behind his glasses with a small frown on his face. Claudia’s mind drifts, the weather’s already colder outside, signaling the arrival of autumn. They have some harvesting to do.
“I know you've been having tough time with Cloud’s disease,” says Dr. Sheeran and his tone in soft and kind. “I’m sorry I haven’t been able to do more. Unfortunately these are the only resources we have.”
Claudia nods. Of course. Nibelheim is far away from everything, they don’t have the latest meds nor medical technology for even conducting proper examinations. At least they were able to rule of a brain tumor.
“Of course,” she says. “I know you’ve done your best.”
Dr. Sheeran nods and turns his attention to his papers again.
“So… I took the liberty of contacting some former colleagues from medical school. Some of them live in Midgar. I explained Cloud’s condition and it seems there is something we could try after all.”
Claudia’s heart flutters and there is a sudden lump in her mouth. “A… solution, medicine?” she croaks, voice hoarse with flashing hope.
Dr. Sheeran nods. “I have received a call from Shinra Electric Power Company.”
Claudia frowns, her heart beating a quicker beat. “You mean… Shinra as in the company the hero Sephiroth works for?”
Dr. Sheeran gives a small smile and nods. “Yes. I received some information that they are just about to start a trial for a new mako-based biological medicine for children with neurological diseases.” He then frowns and looks at Claudia. “For some reason, the word of your son had already reached their ears.”
Claudia burrows her blonde brows, her mouth falling open. How?
“They want to… help Cloud?”
Dr. Sheeran nods, a tiny bit of enthusiasm present in his movement. “It certainly seems so. I don’t know all the details yet, but if you’re interested, I can ask for more information so you can make a decision of whether to participate or not. Your son would be in the care of Dr. Hojo, who has a solid history with working with children.”
Claudia doesn’t answer, she’s too busy staring at the village doctor. She has no idea what was going on. Why Cloud? How do they even know about Cloud? She hears the wind howl outside. Autumn is definitely coming and, after that, yet another harsh winter.
Another year of watching her son suffer without ever being able to help him.
Another year of endlessly suffering herself.
She doesn’t allow herself to think, only act. Her heart is set and simultaneously it shatters into millions of tiny pieces.
If there is someone in the world finally willing to help them, she will gladly accept. She refuses to question this stroke of luck, especially since it’s the trustworthy village doctor delivering the news. She's never been offered help before and the feeling is heady like a drug. It makes her head buzz and stomach warm up.
“Yes. Please,” she croaks, her voice small and begging, tears falling from her eyes. “If I can afford it, I will have Cloud sent to Midgar for the research.”
Dr. Sheeran gives her a small smile. “Participating in the research is free for all the families. Travel costs, too, will be compensated and the children will also be educated at the Shinra military boarding school. I hear they even promise a job at the infantry after the trial, should their condition improve.”
Claudia finds herself nodding vigorously, a burst of exhilarating happiness coursing through her, pumping her veins full of hope for the future.
There might be a cure for Cloud's headaches, after all. And, for the first time in forever, Claudia can rest without worrying herself to death.
She’s too tired to think about possible consequences of sending her son away at such a young age. All she wants is some time to rest.
Yes. Cloud must go to Midgar. There is no other option.
A brief smile passes her face.
Maybe, just maybe, Cloud will be lucky enough to meet his hero, Sephiroth.
Now wouldn’t that be a dream come true?