Cloud gives Sephiroth's hand a squeeze. Takes in a shuddering breath. He's on the lab table again, but the image of Hojo above him is shuddering, as though coming apart at the edges. More and more trees break in to the picture, allowing the man to tease apart that this is a vision on top of reality. Wherever the trees are, that is where he needs to be. Where he actually is.

He needs to follow the feeling of a grip around his hand. The warmth of it, something he hasn't felt in a good long while. It is, truly, just the anchor he needs. Sephiroth's words that follow, even more so.

The kind of comfort he hasn't heard or felt since he had family around him, as far as he can remember. But now, those words come from his hero. Sephiroth tells him he's real and always has been, and that being afraid is okay.

It may as well be every dream he ever had, fulfilled. Time will tell if it stays that way when Cloud fully comes to, and realizes just what is going on, and with who.

"I'm not there right now, am I?"

More of the memories fall away. Reality presses just around the seams of it all. He's drawing near it.