Be warned: Lame sci-fi jokes continue.

---

Clara woke up at eight o'clock the next morning. She stood up and looked around, noticing Tyler was asleep behind the bar in the sleeping bar he kept there. A smiled curled Clara's lips, but it quickly turned into a grimace when another one of her headaches hit. She winced in pain and sank back into her chair. The Mako in her system was acting up again; it had only been a matter of time. Clara cursed herself for not recognizing the signs. She had passed out in the middle of the street, and she had had the strangest dream the night before. She did not remember the particulars of the dream, but she thought it was quite strange. She was in a first person frame of reference, but was effectively a silent observer seeing what was occurring through another person's eyes. The landscape was of a lake in a beautiful forest, although she felt overwhelming sadness and guilt throughout the dream. Clara could not completely remember what the dream person had been saying, just that he (at least she had thought it was a he) was in an incredible depression and was talking to some woman who was not with him there. Regardless of the content of the dream, if that dream wasn't a sign of some Mako disorder, what was?

"You okay, Clara?" Zack asked, walking into the room with a cup of coffee. He was wearing the same clothes as he had the night before. She could tell because they were all rumpled. Zack looked particularly cheerful that morning.

Clara turned to look at Zack and smiled reassuringly. "Yeah," she told him. "I'm perfectly fine." She sure did not feel fine, but there was no way she was going to tell him that of her own free will. If she said anything, Zack would not rest until he got all of the details from her, from the run in with Sephiroth to the surreal and depressing dream.

"I don't believe you," Zack said, in a happy tone, and sipped his coffee. He sat down at the table next to Clara. She was more likely to spill if she knew he was not going anywhere. Zack knew she hated any situation that could be considered awkward.

"Hey, I'm not depressed or anything!" Clara said in rebuttal, matching his tone. She laughed at herself for saying that so cheerfully. Zack grinned, too. "Don't worry!" Clara said, wondering just a little why it seemed to her that Zack was more than a little worried about her. Quite frankly, there were these moments where it seemed that way. It was like he was half afraid that she would disappear any moment, and it scared Clara that he felt like that.

Zack gestured towards Tyler with his coffee cup. "You think we should wake him?" he asked her conspiratorially. The moment had passed; he was back to normal.

Clara grinned. "Nah. All of us need as much sleep as we can," she decided. Tyler had looked like he needed it. "But, if he starts snoring," she said, "I'll wake him up myself."

Zack smiled and took a sip of his coffee. He could not help but think that Clara was exactly like he was before... everything. Zack sighed.A lot could ruin a person, he supposed. "What do you think Shinra will do after this next operation?" he asked the girl, a grin plastered on his face once more. She did not seem to notice his lapse.

Clara shrugged and replied nonchalantly, "I dunno. He'll probably do something drastic like hunting us down and having us all publicly executed." She rolled her eyes.

Chuckling, Zack shook his head. "And you don't think that's something to say lightly?" he asked her disbelievingly. Clara could pull off dry humor, but Zack still thought that Sephiroth held the Grand Mastership in that particular ability.

"Well, there are worse things that can happen," Clara said hesitantly, remembering her dream. She still could not get over how strange the nightmare was. It had seemed so real, too. Like she was actually there. It was cold in that place, wherever it was. Clara paused in her thinking and realized she was in desperate need of a caffeine fix. She had almost started to fall asleep again. Maybe the Mako was still acting up in her system. Certainly explained the dizziness. Clara gestured to the coffee. "Where can I get some?"

Zack put on a very stoical expression before pretending to concentrate. "I got mine at the Starbucks halfway across the city," he decided after much thought.

"Zack, you cannot be serious," Clara said in a no-nonsense tone.

"Of course I'm not," Zack replied good-naturedly. Gesturing towards the pinball machine, he told her, "Take the elevator down. Wedge made the coffee after he got back this morning, but don't mention getting paid to Barrette. Not only will she flip, but Wedge will glare at you." He chuckled a little at Wedge's current disposition.

Clara winced. There was only one explanation for an angry or disgruntled Wedge. "He got a pay deduction, didn't he?" she guessed.

Zack nodded, then explained in a mock-dramatic voice, "Apparently, it's a 'dark time for the rebellion.' Therefore, the fighter pilots got a pay cut." He shrugged and added, "I guess it's just the way of things." He paused and grinned before continuing mysteriously, "The way of the dark side of the war effort."

Clara laughed at Zack's antics and excused herself from the table to go get a cup of coffee. She went downstairs via the elevator and saw that Jesse was working on some gadget having to do with avoiding recognition on the train ride today. Wedge was glowering in a corner, drinking coffee, and another one of his friends was glaring at him from the other side of the room, eating an unsavory-looking military ration with writing in some foreign language on it. This friend was rather dour-looking. Clara wondered why Wedge had brought another of his friends for today's operation instead of Luke. Barrette was watching the television intently, absorbing everything President Shinra was saying and then yelling at the TV about how everything that he said was a lie. Clara, who for the most part ignored Barrette for the moment, walked over to the coffee machine and poured herself a cup. The drink smelled excellent, and she picked up a pop-tart before turning around and turning her attention the television. The news was on.

"When General Sephiroth was asked what his comments on the reactor being destroyed," the news reporter began, "he replied that he 'wasn't aware anything had happened,' and that he had been 'too busy watching Animal House to give a damn.' President Shinra, what do you think of the General's conduct in this matter?"

On the screen next to the reporter, Shinra put on a semblance of thinking about the question. President Shinra began to speak: "The General is-"

"Hypersensitive about his free time and doesn't like to be 'bothered by idiots,'" Zack finished. He had followed Clara downstairs after a moment. Sometimes he wondered why President Shinra even allowed the media around Sephiroth, the walking PR disaster.

"But you would think he'd say something a little less worse for public relations?" Barrette mentioned, shaking her head. The Shinra Company made so little sense. They were not only destroying the planet, but the Executive Board seemed to have the combined IQ of hash browns, with a couple people excluded.

Zack laughed derisively and answered frankly, "Hell, no! He hates Shinra almost as much as we do!" If any of them knew what had really happened to Sephiroth, they would probably have doubled their efforts at taking down that company.

"Then why doesn't he join us?" Clara asked Zack, curious as to why Sephiroth still worked for Shinra if he did hate the company so much.

"Because that wouldn't be a good use of his talents," Zack replied. This was a little more complicated to explain. "Don't you know that the only people you can actually count on to get their work done in that place are Seph, the Turks, Reeve, Scarlet, and Rufus?" Not that any of them really could agree on anything for a long enough period of time in order to outvote the useless people. Zack really wondered how they had all worked together for so long without forming at least some sort of coalition.

Clara was about to answer, but paused. "What does Reeve do?" she asked.

"I dunno," Zack said in return, shrugging. "But all I know is that he actually gets his work done," he continued. Zack had the feeling that it had something to do with the Urban Planning department; although why there would still be a department like that he did not know. Probably the useless part of the Executive Board had not figured that out yet.

"Wait, didn't you say that you used to work with Sephiroth?" Jesse said, remembering the conversation the night before. He was rather suspicious, and this was the perfect opportunity to find out some useful information.

"Yeah," Zack answered honestly. "Seph has always been like that. He used to threaten to kill me at least once a week. Those were good times," Zack reminisced, grinning and remembering all of their misadventures. Zack would generally drag an unwilling participant ('an unwilling participant?' no, say his name!) into his wacky plots, and Seph invariably had threatened to kill Zack a lot more during a mission than any other time, but those were the things that made that time all the more important. Zack's grin faded. That was a different world. A different time. It was a much different time.

He knew that Seph was not the one that belonged in this world. To anyone, that much was obvious. The Sephiroth that belonged here had gone missing, Zack remembered, right after the Nibelheim incident. Obviously, no one knew or could remember the difference, but Zack did. He had been here too long not to. There had been something that made the two really, really different from each analog, besides the fact that the Sephiroth's analog in this world had not gone crazy and had worked with Alan and Clara. Zack had the sneaking suspicion that the analog had cast some sort of memory spell or something to keep everyone thinking that Sephiroth was the analog. Everything had fit too perfectly from Nibelheim to now, but Zack did not dare voice any of this to anyone. Who could he talk to about it, other than Aeris, without sounding truly mad?

"Regardless," Clara said, breaking the silence that had followed Zack's comment, "we should get ready for the attack on the reactor. There's definitely going to be a lot more security all around." The others in the room nodded in agreement. Jesse went back to work on the fake ID cards as Barrette went back to dissecting the news broadcast.

At that moment, Tyler wandered downstairs wearing only his boxers and a t-shirt and took all of the remaining coffee. "When are we leaving...?" he asked sleepily. Wedge stared at him with an ever-suffering look on his face. Had he not just gone through this once already? That said, this incident was much less bizarre than Janson wandering around the hangar. Thank heavens that Luke had said he would deal with the paperwork.

"When you get your pants on," Barrette replied, dead serious. Did that boy seriously have to act like this every single morning? She sometimes regretted letting him stay around, but she always was glad she had kept him when they fighting Shinra.

Tyler looked down at his attire. Sleepily, he said, "I thought something was weird..." and continued to drink the coffee he had appropriated.

Clara could not help blushing a deep red. She could stand many things, but her childhood friend walking around in his underwear was not one of them. "Tyler! Get dressed, God dammit!" she implored him, trying not to stare at him.

"You're up, Clara...?" Tyler said in a voice even more dazed than it previously had been. He seemed to consider where he was and what he was doing. Wedge's friend rolled his eyes at the situation. Janson was infinitely better at pulling that act off.

"Please get dressed!" Clara pleaded after turning around, her face still deep crimson. The action made Tyler decide that it was probably better if he wandered back up stairs and got dressed. What was wrong with her anyhow?

"This day just gets better and better!" Zack decided happily as he made another pot of coffee. This time he would use that nice brew from Mideel.

Wedge was starting to understand why Sephiroth had gone insane.

---

"Cloud! You shouldn't be up!" Tifa scolded. She sighed in exasperation. How he had caught this malady, she did not know, but she felt it had something to do with that jaunt he had taken to who knows where with that golden chocobo of his. They were standing outside Tifa's bar, and Cloud was prepping his motorcycle so he could go to work.

"Leave me alone, Tifa. I'm perfectly fine," Cloud replied softly, face flushed with a fever. "I'm well enough to work..." he said, having trouble putting his gloves on. It was so cold out, he thought. Looking at Tifa, he wondered why she did not feel the temperature. Maybe she was right and maybe he was sick. No, he had to go to work.

"No, you aren't!" Tifa exclaimed. "You could barely walk down the stairs!" She knew he could recover from practically anything quickly, but he wasn't going anywhere until she was sure he was better. He could not even put his gloves on properly. There was no way he could drive that motorcycle. He was being irresponsible.

"I could, too, and we both know we need the money," he said, looking straight at her. The glow in his eyes was duller than normal, like they always got when he was sick or injured. However, the hurt look in his eyes was still easily detected.

"But, Cloud-" Tifa protested. Why could he not see reason?

"I'm fine!" he shouted at her, more harshly than he had intended. His breath hitched when he realized exactly what he had said. He shut his eyes. He felt slightly better-at least the world had stopped spinning. He opened his eyes again. Tifa looked upset. Cloud felt badly (why did he hurt everyone he cared about) and ripped his gaze away from her, concentrating on the ground. His chest hurt, he was swaying on his feet, but he had to go.

"Cloud..." Tifa looked away and stayed silent for a moment. "You're not feeling well, I can tell, but, no matter how much we need the money, you shouldn't be working if you can't even see straight!" She turned to stare at him and continued, "You could get yourself killed!"

Cloud was about to retort, but he stopped and apologized. "I'm sorry, Tifa, but if I miss another day of work I'll get fired," he reminded her pleadingly, hoping she could not tell how terrible he was feeling. "You remember how angry my boss was with me the last time I called in sick!"

"I'll call it in, then!" Tifa stated. She hoped that he would at least acquiesce to that. "You are in no condition to drive, much less actually work today!" She could barely stand it. Why did he feel this need to beat himself up so badly all the time? It hurt her so much to see him in this shape. If he had only stayed in town, then he would not have gotten ill. Cloud's recklessness continually caused him to get in jams like this.

Knowing Tifa was right and that she would argue with him till he agreed, Cloud nodded and turned his motorcycle off. They both went back inside. Tifa idly wondered if Cloud knew how much he was leaning on her. "You want me to go back upstairs?" he asked. He hoped she would make him stay at home for the rest of the week. If she ran interference, then maybe he could keep his job and finally recover from this disease.

"Yes. I'll be up in a bit with some chicken soup and 7-up," Tifa replied from the kitchen.

"Okay..." Cloud trudged up the stairs, leaning heavily on the wall. He went immediately into his room and shut the door. He felt worn out just from walking up the stairs. Tifa had definitely been correct: he couldn't have worked today. But, this was the first steady job he had had since forever, and now he was going to be fired. His boss thought he had been malingering most of the days he had called in sick, even though Cloud really had been ill. He had been warned the last time that if he called in sick another time this month, his boss wouldn't think twice about firing him on the spot.

Cloud let out a deep, shuddering sigh. He didn't want to think. Sleeping suddenly felt like a very good idea. He changed back into his pajamas and went back to bed. Almost instantly, Cloud fell asleep.

Tifa knocked softly on Cloud's bedroom door. She didn't receive an answer, so she opened the door quietly and saw that he was fast asleep. "I told you so," she whispered. Tifa walked over to the nightstand beside his bed and set down the soup. She realized that he really did need break from it all. Not just work, but maybe reality itself as well. Smiling, she brushed some hair out of his eyes. He was curled up in bed, sleeping peacefully despite whatever was wrong with him. Cloud was still the shy, kind, and warmhearted boy she had known for what seemed like forever, no matter what tragedies happened in his life. "Sweet dreams..." Tifa kissed him on the cheek and walked out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

When she was back downstairs, she immediately called the doctor.

---

Sephiroth was at his nice corner office in the Shinra building in the middle of Midgar. Why he was stuck being a paper pusher was beyond him. Groaning, he read the most recent memo from Hojo. The crazy scientist wanted his participation in some new experiment. Sephiroth was going to have to find some way to say no to it without it sounding like an obvious death threat. Then again, maybe he should play along with it. He could try to spare whatever poor soul was going to be experimented on. Maybe Hojo had been able to catch whoever was the equivalent to Aeris in this reality. A thought then hit him. What if Aeris was in this reality, too? That presented a plethora of possibilities, most of them not good. One of his least favorites included her whacking him with that metal pole of hers, shouting curses at him for everything he had done. Of course another included her making those infuriatingly snide backhanded remarks she seemed to be master of.

There was a knock on the door. "General Sephiroth?" said a voice on the other side.

"Enter," Sephiroth said, not even bothering, really, to look up.

A scientist from weapons development entered. "My superior wanted me to deliver this note to you," he reported. The scientist handed the note over to Sephiroth.

The General turned the note over in his hands. "I don't remember being contacted by anyone in Weapons R&D..." He looked up, but the scientist was gone. "Strange," he murmured, opening the envelope. There was a handwritten letter inside. The only reason Sephiroth could decipher it was because he had years of practice reading Hojo's "writing."

"Dear Sir or Madam,

Hello. I just felt like telling you the following: yes, I actually do exist; and no, the last thing on my mind is trying to destroy the world. Unlike a certain person I know of. No, I am not talking about the creature from the black lagoon known as Hojo. I speak of you.

Well, the purpose of this letter is that I wanted to ask you if you knew whom else from your world (the base timeline) is here, and, more importantly, if you know if the one you fought against is here. If he is, some difficulties may arise... but, if the opposite is true, bad things will happen anyway, so why the hell am I writing this? Maybe I should just toss it in the scrap heap... Why am I still writing? Why are you still reading? Stop, dammit! Oh shit, I cast the spell on everyone... Crap... Hey! It's silent! Too bad Stop never worked on Zack. That was a darn shame sometimes. Nice talking to you, anyway."

Sephiroth stared dumbly at the letter. His doppelganger was definitely as crazy as he was, if not crazier. Then again, it could be one of those clones of his playing another trick on him. Or, if he dare thought it, Zack. Of course, if it had been Zack, the doofus would have barged into Sephiroth's office by now with a big grin on his face and said "Hey, Seph. What's new? I haven't seen you in forever!" Shortly following that would be a pointless conversation, followed by Zack trying to get Sephiroth to go find a girlfriend. Before returning to work, the One-Winged Angel decided it was more of a blessing in disguise that he had not run into Zack yet.

---

Alan grumbled as he worked in the flower garden his older sister Aeris kept in the old, abandoned church in Sector 5. She had made him come today because she hadn't slept well the night before. Alan silently wondered if it had to do with his sister's new boyfriend. She rarely talked about the young man, but she had mentioned him this morning. Alan had noticed that their stepmother had paused with this strange look on her face when Aeris had spoken about her boyfriend.

It didn't really matter, though. Alan was more concerned with getting the weeding done in the flower patch as quickly as possible. He wanted to go back to Sector 7 and find Clara. He hadn't seen her in years! What a strange twist of fate that he'd see her again in this dreary city! Maybe he'd ask her out on a date or something. But how could accomplish that? Alan shook his head. She would not want to go out with him. He decided that she going out with him was as likely as her falling out of the sky and into his arms the next time he saw her. He sighed and continued weeding, daydreaming about what would never be.

---

In her room, Aeris stared at the ceiling. No matter how hard she tried, she just could not get to sleep. If she were right, Alan would be bringing home a bodyguard (he doesn't need one), who Elmyra would ask to leave during the night without Alan knowing. She resolved to pretend to be sick so that she would not have to meet whoever came. Aeris did not want to fall asleep, but she did anyway, silently hoping that she would not be visited by the nightmares. A few hours later, Aeris was awakened by Alan making some racket. She rubbed her eyes. "What's going on?" she asked, still half-asleep.

"Um," Alan said, looking down at the floor where had half made a temporary bed, and hid his pillow behind his back. Oh how he hoped that his sister did not mind.

"Why are you in my room?" Aeris asked. "And why are you hiding a pillow behind you?" Her head was still a little foggy, so she couldn't remember why she shouldn't have been surprised.

"Well, you see," Alan started nervously, playing with the hem on the pillow's case. He was praying that she did not mind. "I-well, I sort of had to bring someone home."

Aeris remembered why she had planned to feigned illness, but she realized that she had to continue to act as she had been. In any case, she did not particularly like it when her brother came home from late-night romps and woke her up. "And you are in my room because?" she asked him sleepily.

"Well, she, my friend, is in my room, and it'd be sorta weird if..." Alan trailed off, leaving the rest of the sentence unsaid. He wished that his sister would be understanding.

Aeris nodded amiably. "Just try not to make so much noise next time," she said, yawning. She thought about going back to sleep but decided to get details out of her brother. He had awoken her, so she figured he should at least tell her what had happened. "So," Aeris started innocently, "What's this girl like?"

Alan stopped what he was doing and turned to his sister, a little shocked and more than slightly embarrassed. "It's my friend that I was talking to you last night about!" he said, defending himself as he went back to making the bed on the floor. "Geez, you say it like she's my girlfriend," he murmured, not really intending for Aeris to hear.

Aeris got a thoughtful look on her face and essayed, "That is because it is somewhat obvious that you like her." Aeris hid a smile as her brother turned bright red. She continued sagely, saying, "It is not like you can hide these things from me."

"She's not my girlfriend," Alan grumbled as a pathetic come back. Why was she insistent upon being so gossipy tonight? Could she not leave him alone tonight? He would tell her everything in the morning. Well, he had the intention of telling her. If something happened, and he did not get the chance, it was hardly his fault, was it not?

"So, how did you run into her today?" Aeris asked, determined to get the full story and nothing short of it. She was determined to find out exactly what was going on. Maybe she could keep what happened to her from happening to him. After all, Jenova was still out there, waiting for someone to awaken her.

Alan rolled his eyes. There was no getting out of this, he knew. "I was doing that weeding you said you were too tired to do. You're obviously all better," Alan said, staring pointedly at his sister. He wondered for a moment why she had wanted him to go there, but he quickly decided that he was better off not knowing. After all, it was not like she could see the future. He resumed his tale, "So while I was weeding, she fell right onto me, through the ceiling from who knows where."

Aeris nodded understandingly and asked, straight-faced, "Did you ask her out?"

Alan turned an even deeper red, but he wasn't about to let his sister win. "No, I did not," he denied, which was true, although he had had the intention to do so. Nevertheless, why was it that whenever a talked to him, all his sister thought about was dating? "I was about to talk to her about certain things when the Turks showed up," he continued with the narrative. "They were apparently after you again, but they still have the orders to go after me and, strangely enough, Clara, too."

"Really?" Aeris asked, puzzled. This circumstance was very different, but Aeris would bet anything that the Hojo here was not an analog and that he was the real Hojo. No two people in the entire universe could be so completely disturbed. She wondered in passing who dealt the final blow to the unesteemed professor back home. She hoped it had been someone who was taking their revenge for whatever Hojo had done to them. Dramatic irony was always so nice in those situations.

"Yes. Apparently she has been in some contact with the demented scientist of doom, because once Reno, who was kind of confused, said they were after both of us, she completely froze up. I had to forcibly drag her out the back way. Clara finally got hold of herself by the time we were out of the church, but I thought she would have been in shock for a while longer," Alan reported, settling into the makeshift bed he had prepared on the floor of Aeris's room. "Can I tell you the rest in the morning? It's late, and I'm really tired."

"Sure," Aeris replied thoughtfully a couple moments later. She noticed that her brother had fallen asleep even before she had answered. He was sometimes annoying, but Aeris decided that it was mostly because they were so much alike. She really did care about him. But these strange new developments... Aeris was not sure what to think. She eventually fell asleep, reminiscing about when she asked a certain young man to be her knight in shining armor.