#strifehart

He suspects her withdrawn attitude might be caused by the sudden break of her previous bethrothal, and decides not to push her on it

Nevertheless, he does his best to spend time with her and entertain her is the days leading up to the wedding. They will be working together for the rest of their lives if this goes well, and he'd like it for them to start out on the right foot

His friends would never believe it if the could see him now: he's never spent so much time willingly being around another person, let alone speaking to them, in his life. Yet, every time he manages to get a reaction out of his fiancee, he feels a bit of a thrill. He's never been one to back out of a challenge, after all

He also shuts down any gossip about his bride-to-be; that she's too quiet, too tall, not elegant enough – several maids and stable boys get a stern talking to after being overheard by Squall or his friends

Aerith asks him once, if he regrets this marriage, if he'd rather have someone else. Squall reassures her he quite enjoys her company, and not to listen to people who don't know what they're talking about

He even dares take her gloved hand in his own, to place a kiss upon the back of it, as he swears to protect her not only from danger but from cruel words as well. He carefully tucks a lock of blonde hair behind her ear where it's come loose, as he tells her he'll make sure she'll feel safe here, in his care

The quiet is more contemplative this time, but he hopes his words manages to assauge her fears

The wedding goes as planned, though it's a smaller affair than expected for a royal wedding due to the hasty arrangement. In particular, very few of Aerith's people are there, only a small retinue consisting of twelve soldiers under the command of their general, Sephiroth; and the princess' personal maidservant, Elena

The ceremony goes well, and so does the following banquet, thoguh Squall does notice his bride hasn't touched a bite the entire time. He'd almost expected it, because she'd been very careful of her veil the entire time, and before this had only partaken in meals in her own chambers. He decides he'll ask a maid to bring a serving up to his – their – chambers so that Aerith won't go hungry all night

When it's all over, he takes Aerith by the hand and leads her back to their chambers, pleased to see his request had come through and there's a meal waiting for them there. He asks if she would like to sit down and eat, but she declines, telling him she'd rather they did their duty first

For all his acceptance of the inevitability of marriage and all it entails, this is one of the few things Squall will admit to feeling nervous about. He supposes most people would be, for their first night with another. Thus he's feeling rather grateful when Aerith does not feel the same hesitance, and starts to carefully divest him of his garments. There is no passion in her movements, not yet, but there is care, and Squall feels his nerves quiet at the act

It's not until he's standing there, in naught but his drawers, that he moves to return the favor. With careful hands he pinches the edge of the veil before slowly lifting it up and uncovering her face

He has a split second to register what he sees – delicate, but handsome features, crystalline blue eyes wide in apprehension, framed by those golden blonde locks – before those same eyes cloud over into a terrifying blue-green and he feels gloved hands tighten around his neck

Squall is pretty sure the only reason he survives the ensuing scuffle is due to the multi-layered wedding dress his assilant is wearing. It hinders Aerith (?) enough that he manages to trip her (?), the grip around his neck loosening enough for him to slip away. He doesn't have time to breathe for long, because the assassin is on him again, this time with a blade, drawn from somewhere deep in the folds of the dress no doubt

The longer the fight goes on, the more sure is he that this is not the princess he was supposed to marry – for one, he's pretty sure a regular bride wouldn't try to kill him on their wedding night, and he's incresingly certain the body he can feel underneath the wedding dress when grappling the attacker is a bit more masculine than expected for someone of the title of princess

He finally manages to wrestle the person onto his bed, unfortunately not without knocking their head into the bedpost so hard they lose consciousness. Maybe it's for the best, though, because the fight has not gone over quietly, and he can hear the sounds of guards approaching the door

He quickly tears off a length of lacing from the dress and ties the attacker's hands together just in case, before covering them with the duvet

At the knock on his door, he rushes over so he can open it a crack lest someone decides to take matters into their own hands and break in to check up on him

He doesn't know why he decides to lie to the concerned guard; not giving up his assailant, instead claiming they got a little carried away as it were – the enthusiasm of their wedding night getting to them

Luckily the guard believes him, or maybe is embarrassed enough to leave him be in either case

Sighing, Squall turns back to the unconscious form on his bed. He needs to figure out what happened tonight: Who is this person disguising as his bride, on whose order did they act, what would be accomplished by murdering him, and most important of all; what should he do next?

When Cloud wakes up, two voices war for attention in his head. One tells him insistently, "You failed your mission. You failed your mission, and will face the consequences". The other, a much softer one, tells him, "You will be safe here, in my care. I'll make sure of it". It's quieter than than the first one, but he wants to believe it even more so

That same voice asks him if he's awake, which makes him realize he's not alone. Opening his eyes, he sees the ceiling of an unfamiliar room, and realized he's been tied to a bed – presumably by the man sitting on a chair next to said bed, watching him intently

"Kill him," that first voice whispers in his mind, "Leonhart must die."

Despite the rising urge to follow through, he manages to shove the thought aside for now, and instead answer some of the man's questions. Not least because he's got quite a few questions of his own. His memory of these last few days… Weeks… Years? His memory is quite foggy, regarding a lot of things

For some reason though, when working past the unnatural urge to do violence to this man in front of him, a feeling of warmth and comfort replaces it whenever he lays eyes on him

The man asks his name, his purpose here, who sent him and what their goal was. Of all these, Cloud can only confidently answer the first one. For some reason, despite the frown on the mans face, he seems… Relieved at Cloud's ignorance?

Either way, the man explains that whatever plot was planned, it's been foiled for the moment, but there are definitely people around who must have known what was going on, people who might cause trouble if they realize Cloud has been stopped. Specifically, General Sephiroth and the maidservant Elena

At the general's name, a great pain spikes through his head, and Cloud almost passes out as memories claw their way to the surface. Memories of following the back of a silver-haired man clad in black, memories of said man turning on him and sudden pain in his torso. Memories of seeing him again, parted from Cloud by the bars of a cell, talking to an older man, long black hair tied back and a wicked smile on his face

Then pain, strange liquids he'd been forced to swallow, foul and sour, more pain, and words. Words that told him who he was, who he wasn't, who he was meant to be, what he was meant to do. Repeated over and over and over and–

Warm hands on his brow pulls him out of the spiral his emerging memories have pulled him into. He looks up to see the man – Leonhart? – leaning over him with a concerned look on his face. Cloud can't help himself but laugh. Here he is, being fussed over by the person he presumably tried to murder just last night?

He shares what he now remembers, and Leonhart surmises that the most likely explanation is that he was somehow manipulated through pain and various other methods in order to set him up for this mission. The instinctive thoughts to cause harm at the sound of Leonhart's name seems to point to some sort of brainwashing, as it seems like Cloud has no idea who he is outside of those voices

The man asks him to think of him as Squall, if it makes it easier, and also tests out a theory; does the names of anyone else cause the same reaction?

They find out that Cloud has some reaction to the names of both of Squall's parents, the King and the Queen, as well as his older sister, heir to the throne. Presumably, if he hadn't been stopped by Squall, he'd be off hunting down the rest of his family to murder as well

They do still have time, it's far from dawn still, but they need to come up with a plan nontheless. They do, while Squall feeds Cloud the meal he'd skipped over earlier, because while Squall isn't trusting him enough to let him free just yet (something Cloud agrees with; he doesn't trust himself yet either), Cloud still hasn't eaten in much too long

This tells Squall one important thing: if they don't manage to come up with a plausible explanation for why Cloud has not finished his mission, the conspirators will know their plan has failed the moment the alarm bells fails to ring the next morning for the death of the royal family

What they decide is thus: Pretend Cloud never got triggered into beginning his mission, but is still waiting for the right moment to arrive. He does seem to have had a specific reaction to his veil being removed, and together with the claim of it being tradition to not remove until the wedding night, it seems whatever manipulation has guided Cloud's actions so far has been tied to the specific action of lifting that veil. It must have been to ensure Squall would be attacked at a presumed moment of unguarded weakness

Squall says he'll pretend to have had reservations of spending the night – or at least their bed – together, and act as if he never saw Cloud's face at all. Cloud would have to do his best to act as if he's still under control of whomever holds his reins, and hopefully this will buy them a day at least. Enough time for Squall to consult with the Queen and King and figure out what to do next

It means Cloud will have to be convincing enough to not arise suspicion from Sephiroth and Elena while Squall is busy though. He'd take him with, but considering they don't know how he will react to seeing his former targets, they decide it's best to leave him out of it

It does mean Coud will have an opportunity to figure out more about the plot from noting the general and the handmaiden's reactions to him, and maybe overhear some conversation or two that can help them figure out the best way to proceed from here

The horizon glows red by the time they finish planning, and Squall releases Cloud from his bonds. He helps him pull off the dress, leaving Cloud in a simple chemise, to add to the illusion he'd slept there peacefully the entire night, before Squall leaves to hunt down the guards that overheard them last night, to command them not to say anything about what they heard, and if asked, that they saw Squall sneak out of the room in the early evening, not to return

Before he does, though, he turns to Cloud, sitting quietly on the bed, massaging his freed wrists. He takes one of those wrists in his hand and places a gently kiss upon it, leaving Cloud speechless.

Background info, or what happened before all this:

Squall tells him that even if this is not exactly how he thought his first day as a married man would turn out, he is still a man of his word: He promised Cloud would be safe in his care, and he intends to keep that promise, no matter what happens from here on

After the door closes behind Squall – behind his husband – Cloud quietly swears to himself that he will do all he can to keep Squall safe too

The reason why Aerith's engagement with Zack was called off was because Sephiroth, secretly working for the nobleman Shinra, ambushed his travelling party and took him prisoner, and sent word in his stead to Aerith's mother that they deal was off, using his seal

Shinra did this because he'd been trying to get his son Rufus married to Aerith before this, but the deal had been rejected, and now he needed another way to work himself into power. The solution was to incite the "breakup", as it were, and exploit the ensuing distraction surrounding the expedited new match with Squall to stage a coup

They kill Aerith's mother, but Aerith herself manages to flee with her maidservant (and bodyguard) Tifa before they can capture her too

Now in control of Midgar, Shinra decides to take further advantage of the proposed match by sending in an assassin in disguise, whose mission would be to weaken the Esthar kingdom by offing the Royal family, leaving the country vulnerable for an invasion. Trade agreements would not be enough when Esthar was so rich in valuable natural resources; Shinra wanted the land itself

The candidate they choose is Cloud; former childhood friend of Tifa and Aerith training to become a royal guard, who was picked out by Sephiroth as a potential candidate for Hojo's mind controlling experiments

Sephiroth had taken Cloud with him and some other members of the guards into a patrol in the woods one day, but slaughtered them all except for Cloud, and staged it as an ambush. He told Aerith and Tifa he had been captured by enemy soldiers and likely excecuted, when in reality, he'd been transported to Hojo's personal lab

Hojo being a dubiously qualified natural scientist that serves as Shinra's personal physician and trusted advisor

This was a while ago: Cloud has lost approximately a year and a half of his life to these experiments. In addition to instilling him with a need to obey Hojo's exact orders, they also ensured that he'd enjoy other benefits, such as a immunity to all sorts of poisons, a higher pain tolerance, and the ability to continue fighting even if rendered without a limb if necessary

Still, this mission is the first he's been sent to do. Others before him had been succesfully conditioned and had performed well on simple kill missions, but no one had ever been sent on a prolonged undercover assignment beforehand

Luckily for Cloud, Squall managed to counteract some of the instilled conditioning by acting kindly and courteously towards him before the trigger was set off. The new associations with Squall of warmth and safety helped him stay in his right mind when waking up after he got knocked out