[Fic] Too Good To Be True - FFVII, Zack/Cloud, 16/21
If it's not one thing, it's another, I swear. *bemused* We lost power for a couple of days in the big windstorms that hit the west coast; which isn't too bad, considering there are people not far from where I live who've now been without power for a month and who are being evacuated. It's amazing just how much we rely on electricity, though. That's the longest I've been without power since I was stuck in the ice storm in Ontario and Quebec in early 1998.
And once again, another novel-length story. ;p I really do need to learn to write short again.
Title: Too Good To Be True
Series: Final Fantasy VII
Pairing: Zack/Cloud, some Cloud/Tifa, mention of Zack/Aerith
Rating: R, NC-17 in other chapters
Warnings: violence, sex, yaoi, the usual.
Chapter Length: 5357
Total Length: 83,726
Author's Note: This takes place after AC, and is slightly AU in that Zack would not have been present with Aerith in the moments when Cloud touched the Lifestream. Or just tell yourself he was hallucinating Zack, if you like.
When things seem too good to be true it usually means there's a catch hidden somewhere. But hasn't Cloud earned his happy ending ten times over?
As much as Zack enjoyed being able to sleep in and laze about on the days when he didn't have to be up early, today he found himself reluctant to simply roll over and go back to sleep after waking the first time. It wasn't hard to figure out why, not when he had Cloud tucked up against him and a rare opportunity to see the younger man when he was sleeping.
It was a sight worth admiring; early morning sunlight shone through the windows, bathing the bed and its occupants. It turned Cloud into a golden version of himself, gilding his tanned skin and making his hair shine with auric brilliance. The lines of worry and wear were missing from his face, making him look his true age or maybe even younger. As he had that morning at Tifa's, Zack found himself tempted to wake the blond in the most pleasant way.
And why not? After what they'd done the night before, Zack could be certain beyond a doubt that Cloud would not only not object, he'd participate enthusiastically. The thought made him smile brightly, and his body stir with interest.
First, though, there was a rather urgent matter that needed to be taken care of. With a sigh of regret, Zack eased himself out from under Cloud and hauled himself out of the bed.
Returning from the bathroom, he paused as he caught sight of Cloud's phone where it had been carelessly dropped in their hasty race the night before. It was blinking, indicating that there was a message, and Zack grimaced as he realized they must have missed Tifa's check-in call the day before. And after he'd promised her he would make sure Cloud answered his phone!
Picking it up, he brought it with him back into the bedroom to be dealt with after he'd woken Cloud. To his disappointment however, the blond was already awake and sitting up in the bed, rubbing at his eyes with one hand as he yawned. He'd been startled to discover that Tifa's description of Cloud as an early riser had been an accurate one for the most part, but he'd hoped that the younger man was tired enough to sleep in for a while.
"Now that's cute," Zack commented, making Cloud blink at him sleepily.
"Cute?" Cloud's voice came out a little husky, and he gave Zack a look that was both disbelieving and heated. "After last night, the best description you can come up with for me is still cute? Obviously I need to try harder."
"You try any harder and I'll die of exhaustion," Zack chuckled, sliding back into the bed and tugging Cloud down to lie beside him again, the blond curled against his side with his head on Zack's shoulder. "I'd die happy, though. Here," the ex-SOLDIER added, offering the phone. "I think we missed Tifa's phone call."
Regarding the blinking red light sourly, Cloud winced. Tifa was something he'd been trying not to think about. He still wasn't sure exactly what she'd meant to say to him the last time he'd seen her, and he could feel guilt for 'cheating on her' eating away at the happiness being with Zack had created within him.
"Feeling guilty?" Zack guessed when he saw the expression on his friend's face. Cloud looked like he was half expecting the phone to jump up and bite him.
"Yeah," Cloud admitted, not seeing any reason to hide it. Zack could read him like a book, anyway. Reluctantly he reached out and took the phone from his friend, though he still didn't open it. "She said some things to me just before we left; I can't tell whether she was trying to remind me that we're supposed to be together, or saying she would understand if something like this happened."
Chewing on his lower lip, Zack debated whether to mention his own conversation with Tifa to the blond. "If it makes you feel any better, she and I talked about it as well, and she said she wouldn't be upset if you and I ended up together," he finally confessed. "Hurt, but not upset. At the time I told her she was worrying over nothing, but... well, I hadn't reckoned on me falling for you in the meantime."
"You talked to her about it?" Cloud exclaimed, dismayed. "When? Why?"
"That first morning, sleeping at her place," Zack explained. "She walked in and found us curled together on the floor, and jumped to the wrong conclusion."
"So that's why you ran out of there," Cloud realized, sighing and rubbing at his eyes again. "I don't want to hurt her. And I do love her. Just... maybe not quite the way I thought I did." And definitely not enough to be willing to give up this; having Zack against him, knowing the older man was his... no, there wasn't much that could ever convince him to relinquish that.
"I don't want to hurt her either, but she's a big girl," Zack replied softly, running one hand through Cloud's silky hair. "And it's better to hurt her now and let her get over it than to drag things out if that's not really the way you feel about her, I guess." He tried not to feel grateful that Cloud had ended up with him instead of her after all, but it was hard not to. Not when Cloud was just about everything Zack had ever wanted in a lover, and a few things he hadn't known that he wanted.
"So, are you going to check the message or not?" he added, because there was no point in putting off the inevitable. "Besides, she might have called to say she needs us."
"Right." Flipping the phone open, Cloud hit the button that would let him get his messages, then entered the code when asked for it. He listened intently for a few minutes; all Zack could hear was the faint sound of Tifa's voice, he wasn't able to make out the words.
"Well?" he demanded when Cloud finally ended the call and closed the phone again.
"They're fine," the blond assured him, tossing the phone to land on his bag and shifting a little closer to Zack. "She said there's been no sign of Sephiroth, or anything else. But the caves are even more extensive than we thought, and it's probably going to take them a couple of days to get through it all, at the least."
"Better to be thorough about it than to have to wonder if they missed something," Zack agreed. "Well, at least Sephiroth is leaving them alone. And none of them should be drawn to the Lifestream the way we were, so they're safe on that count as well. I guess we can relax, as long as Seph doesn't pull something nasty in Midgar while we're gone."
Reminded of the other thing he'd been trying not to think about, his certainty that Sephiroth wouldn't show up anywhere that Zack wasn't, Cloud grunted his agreement and buried his face in Zack's shoulder. He prayed the others would find something in the caverns, because they were rapidly running out of options.
At least he hadn't had any nightmares last night, whether because Sephiroth had given it a rest or because he'd been just too worn out to dream. Hopefully that meant the bastard hadn't put in an appearance to terrorize the residents of Costa del Sol as well.
"So, what now?" Cloud asked. "Dio will send us back whenever we want, or we can even wait for Tifa and the others to be done and Cid can transport us back in the Sierra."
"I'm all for not going back to Midgar right away, unless we hear about something from the Turks," Zack immediately voted. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that it would be far more pleasant to spend the time here on a warm sunny beach, instead of cooped up in the dreary atmosphere of Edge. And there were fewer ghosts here to haunt them, either of them.
"Do you want to stick around here, then? Or," a thought occurred to Cloud, and he lifted his head. "Do you want to take the birds overland to Gongaga, maybe? I finally got around to writing your parents and telling them what had happened to you last year. Now I wish I hadn't."
"My parents?" Zack regarded him with some surprise. "You wrote my parents? Aw, damn," he grimaced as he realized the implications. "It must have just about crushed them to hear I was dead." He was their only child, and for all that he'd had his issues with his parents he would never, ever wish that kind of suffering on them. They'd done their best for him, they just hadn't understood his determination to go out and make something of himself as a SOLDIER. He felt guilty that it hadn't even occurred to him until that moment that he probably ought to let them know he was still alive. Even if Cloud hadn't written them, after so many years they'd surely just about given up hope.
"Yeah, I guess I'd better go visit them," he agreed. "You don't mind coming with me? It'll probably be all the usual sort of family crap, I don't doubt you'll end up feeling like a third wheel, but I could use the moral support."
Since he'd been half afraid Zack would say it was something he needed to do on his own, Cloud shook his head gratefully. "No, I don't mind," he assured his friend. "Today? Or later?"
"Might as well do it today," Zack decided. "If I put it off, with my luck something will come up and we'll get pulled back to Midgar, or up to the crater, and I'll lose the chance. There's no huge rush, though," he added with a sly smile, running his hand down from Cloud's hair and over the bare skin of the blond's back, making him shiver. "No reason we can't take the time to enjoy waking up."
That earned him a heated smile in return, and Zack was glad they'd woken up so early. As it was, he doubted they'd be on the road any time before noon.
On a normal chocobo the trip from Costa del Sol to Gongaga would probably have taken the better part of two days. On Karasu and Kinya, they were there just in time to catch a gorgeous sunset as the forest came into sight. Zack's slightly melancholy smile at the thought of seeing his hometown turned into a horrified gasp.
"What... what the hell happened?" he exclaimed, reining Karasu in and staring in shock and alarm at the ruins of the once-proud city. A huge section at the centre of the forest had been blown away, leaving bare ground for nearly a mile in all directions around the twisted remains of the city's reactor. Even though he'd seen the damage to Midgar for himself, Kalm and Costa del Sol had been so nearly untouched that it hadn't even occurred to Zack that his hometown might have suffered so badly.
Then again, Kalm and Costa del Sol had both relied on other nearby reactors for their power, they hadn't had any of their own. Were all of the reactor towns so decimated?
Kicking himself for not remembering that Zack wouldn't know about Gongaga's destruction, Cloud reined in beside him. "There was an accident in the reactor, during the time you and I were locked away in the labs," he explained, reaching out to touch his friend on the arm. "Apparently it overloaded and blew, with almost no warning. I'm sorry, I should have told you. I forgot you wouldn't know."
"Gods." Stunned, Zack just sat there and stared. Gongaga hadn't been a huge city, certainly not on Midgar or even Junon's level, but it hadn't been a tiny little hamlet either. They'd been one of the first places to notice the deadly blight that crept out from around the reactors as the area's mako was sucked up, as the trees and plants of the forest began to wither and die.
But this... this was beyond anything he'd imagined. He couldn't even begin to guess how many people must have died. He tried to grasp the idea that most of the people he'd known growing up were probably dead, and failed. War was one thing; he'd lost a lot of good friends in the mountains of Wutai, but that was different. You expected casualties in war. And he hadn't known enough people in Midgar for its destruction to hit him on a truly personal level. Despite what he'd told Tifa that first day in Edge, apparently some part of his subconscious mind had still considered Gongaga 'home'.
"My parents," he said urgently, turning to Cloud with fear in his eyes. "You're sure they're both alive? How did you find them to write them, anyway?"
"I'm sure," Cloud hastily reassured the older man. "We ran into them when we were travelling through here, the whole group of us. When I told them I was a SOLDIER they asked if I knew you - but of course at that point I still didn't remember you existed. I told them I'd never heard of you. Unless something has happened to one of them since then, they're both still alive." Fervently he hoped no ill had befallen the elderly couple. He didn't think Zack would take it well if one of them was dead.
"Only one way to find out, I guess," the ex-SOLDIER said grimly, turning Karasu's head towards the road into the forest and kicking the bird to get him moving. "Let's go."
Once they passed beneath the trees the sight of the ruined reactor and remains of the city were blocked out, and Zack breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Here in the cool green light, listening to the touch-me frogs singing to each other in the underbrush, he could pretend that nothing had changed. "Still don't believe me that there are monsters around here that can turn you into a frog?" he asked Cloud, rallying his good cheer with an effort.
"No, I've been frogged a few times, I know they're real," Cloud admitted with a groan. It wasn't a pleasant experience, suddenly finding yourself a frog. "You have to admit it sounds like something that couldn't possibly be exist, though. You can't blame me for not believing you!"
"Nobody ever does, until they come to Gongaga and see it for themselves," Zack agreed with a soft chuckle. "I never could be sure if Aerith was the one person in the world who actually believed me, or if she was just humouring me."
"Who knows, with her?" Cloud shrugged, a little sad at the reminder. It must have been doubly difficult for the half-Cetra when they'd travelled through this area; not only would the injured forest have been crying out to her, but meeting Zack's parents had to have been a painful reminder for her. Especially since Cloud had continued to deny any knowledge of the man who had been his best friend.
They reached the graveyard, the rows of crosses and headstones laid out neatly by the path that led to the town, and Zack flinched. Carefully he kept himself from looking too closely, not wanting to see any names he recognized. He clung to Cloud's assurance that his parents had both survived the explosion, though he had to wonder what sort of lives they'd led afterwards.
As he'd more or less expected, when they finally reached the town - no longer a city by any stretch of the imagination - he didn't recognize a single thing. The wood and thatch huts were nothing like the buildings he remembered, though it was obvious that the survivors had done a good job of adapting themselves to their new circumstances.
"Which way?" he asked quietly, feeling odd that he had to ask for directions to his own parents' house. Cloud pointed, and they dismounted to lead their chocobo through the narrow streets.
The two of them drew a few curious looks as they walked, but if anyone recognized Zack they didn't say anything. And why should they? He'd left home when he was all of thirteen years old, and he hadn't been back until this moment. He resembled that gawky, awkward adolescent about as much as Cloud still looked the way he had when Zack had first met him. Dark hair and blue eyes were common in this region, and as far as he could recall he didn't strongly resemble either of his parents. There was no reason for anyone to know who he was just by looking.
Sensing Zack's introspective mood, Cloud said nothing as they approached the little hut where he remembered the older man's parents living. He hoped they were still there; if they'd moved, finding them could be difficult. "There," he said softly, nodding at the door. He held out a hand for Karasu's reins, and Zack handed them over willingly.
Staring at the plain wooden door, Zack tried to gather his nerve. "Ah, hell," he muttered, amused at himself despite how anxious he was. "I've faced down deadly dragons and Wutai ninja, and I'm scared to knock on my own front door."
"Going home is never easy," Cloud replied, touching Zack's arm again in a gesture of support. "It'll be okay."
Drawing a deep breath, Zack reached out and knocked sharply on the door. For a moment there was no sound beyond, and he was just debating whether to knock again when he heard a soft shuffle and the sound of a latch being drawn back.
The door opened to reveal an elderly woman with white hair, and Zack felt a flash of disappointment. His parents must have moved after all, or else something had happened to them. All four of his grandparents had died when he was small, and he didn't have any extended family.
"Yes? Can I help you?" the woman asked them somewhat suspiciously, one hand holding her shawl closed at her throat. She peered back and forth between Zack and Cloud, trying to get a good look at them in the lantern light spilling out of the doorway. "Oh!" She stared at Cloud, her eyes widening in recognition. "You! You're that SOLDIER boy, the one who wrote us about our..."
Realization hit Zack and the woman at the same moment, and they gaped at each other in equal amounts of shock, though for different reasons. "Zack?" she quavered, her voice shaking with age and emotions. "Oh gods, Zack, is that you?"
"Mom?" Zack's voice cracked on the word as well, and he swallowed hard. This was his mother? His strong, vibrant mother, who had worn her few grey hairs with pride and who'd had more than enough energy to keep up with even as energetic a toddler as Zack had been?
"Zack!" she shrieked and let go of her shawl, flinging herself into his arms as she babbled and cried at the same time, rendering herself incomprehensible. He held her back automatically, careful of his strength; he was almost afraid he would break her in half if he so much as breathed on her hard.
Of course, he realized numbly. His mental image of his mother was of a woman in her late thirties, and it hadn't aged in all the years since. She would be into her fifties now, and after everything she'd been through it shouldn't have surprised him that she looked more like she was in her sixties. The explosion, spending so many years wondering what had become of him, only to be told that he'd died years before... that would age anyone before their time. And now that he was looking he could see hints of the woman he'd known in her face, especially her eyes.
"Hi, mom," he murmured, accepting that this was truly his mother and burying his face in her hair so she wouldn't see the tears in his eyes. "I'm home. Sorry it took me so long."
How strange it was, to be taller than she was! She'd still had at least half a foot on him when he'd left home, but now he was a full head taller than her. She felt delicate beneath his touch, even more so than most non-SOLDIERs did. She clung to him and cried, and he tried not to feel guilty for what she'd gone through. Most of it wasn't his fault, after all; he hadn't asked to be locked up in a lab and experimented on for years, and he hadn't dared to go anywhere near Gongaga when they'd been on the run for fear that Shinra would be waiting for him there.
"What's going on out here?" The deep masculine voice was less altered with age than his mother's had been, and Zack recognized it instantly. He looked up and found his father glaring out at them from the entrance, obviously nonplussed at the sight of his wife sobbing in a stranger's arms.
"Dad," Zack said, grateful that his voice didn't crack this time. "Dad, it's me. Zack."
"Zack?" His father looked understandably shocked, but to Zack's relief the shock was followed by disbelieving joy. He'd been half afraid the next reaction would be anger; he and his father hadn't always gotten along well, and when they'd never answered any of his letters he'd feared the man was too angry with him for abandoning them to want to speak to him.
If that had been true, though, it was obvious that having his son apparently return from the dead was enough to overcome whatever anger had been there. The older man moved forward and caught Zack in a tight embrace with Zack's mother between them, and then suddenly all three of them were laughing and crying and trying to talk at the same time.
Hanging back with the chocobo, Cloud was fairly certain they'd forgotten about his presence entirely. That was fine with him; as Zack had predicted, this wasn't the sort of thing he should be involved in as an outsider. It did raise a sharp ache in his chest as he thought of his last visit with his own mother, and he tried not to remember the sight of her broken and bleeding on the floor of their house as it burned down around her. He hadn't even been able to save her body.
Just because he could never see his mother again didn't mean he begrudged Zack the chance, though. When the three showed no signs of breaking up after a minute or two, he wondered whether he should take the chocobo and go find the inn, leaving Zack to his family for the night after all.
Before he could make up his mind, however, Zack's mother pulled away from her son and wiped her eyes. "But how?" she asked, looking at Cloud. "Your letter said he'd died!"
"I thought he had," Cloud admitted gruffly, sorry for the pain he'd undoubtedly caused them in his ignorance. "I only just found him again. I was as shocked as you are."
"Why didn't you come home?" Zack's father demanded, and now some of the anger Zack had expected was there. "How could you leave your mother and I wondering all that time what had happened to you?"
"I... wasn't able to come back, or even contact you," Zack answered, choosing his words with care. His parents didn't need to know about all the horrors he'd gone through. "I was more or less comatose, and under close supervision. I nearly did die. This is the first chance I've had to come home."
"And what about before that?" the man insisted. "I realize you had duties and responsibilities and couldn't visit whenever you wanted, but one letter in five years..."
"Wait, one letter?" Zack interrupted him, frowning. "I wrote you guys like, every month! Every other month at the very least, even during the war. I... I kept hoping you'd eventually forgive me and write back, if I just kept trying," he admitted, somewhat shamed.
Cloud blinked. He very definitely remembered Zack's mother mentioning the one and only letter they'd ever received from their son, telling them about his promotion. At the time it had meant nothing to him and it hadn't occurred to him to think about it since, but now it struck him as very odd that Zack would only have written one letter home. Granted the older man had never been good at sitting still and doing paperwork at the best of times, but Zack was the sort of person who was just too decent to leave his parents worrying about him like that. Even if he hadn't left under the best of circumstances.
"I don't understand," the brunet's mother was saying now, one hand over her mouth. "We only ever received one, when you got your promotion..."
"Zack," Cloud broke in, and all three of them turned to look at him again. He tried not to wince, feeling like an interloper. "In the letters, did you ever say anything negative about Shinra? Anything at all?"
"Huh? Yeah, sure, I guess so," Zack replied, frowning. "I mean, I tried to keep the letters cheerful, but even after the war it was hard to find anything good to say about Shinra when you were looking at it from an inside perspective. What does that have to do with..."
The light went on, and he stopped talking in mid-sentence, his eyes wide. "They censored me," he murmured, appalled but not actually as surprised as he could have been. That was just the sort of thing Shinra would do in their never-ending efforts to preserve their PR. "The bastards censored me!"
"Shinra controlled the mail, it would have been easy enough for them to do even if you didn't send the letters out from HQ," Cloud pointed out with a sigh, now feeling bad for both Zack and his parents. For both sides of the family to spend all those years thinking the other didn't care enough to even write them a letter... it must have been hard for them.
"Those fucking...!" Flushing, Zack glanced at his mother. He very much doubted the frail woman in front of him now was capable of holding him down to wash his mouth out with soap for swearing, but old habits died hard. "Sorry, mom. But I think this is one situation where stronger language is appropriate."
"I just might agree with you," she replied, startling both him and his father into a laugh. Before his very eyes life was returning to her; she stood a little straighter, and some of the weight of sorrow and age that had been in her eyes had faded. "But! We're standing out here in the cold, when we could be inside," she chided them, making shooing gestures at the door. "Inside, everyone. You too... Cloud, wasn't it? You brought our son back to us, the least we can do is invite you in for dinner. Dear, will you get extra water and wood for the fire, please?"
"I'll do it," Zack leapt to volunteer, earning a wide smile from his mother and a nod from his father, both of which made him feel about a million times better.
"The wood is behind the house, and the well is a block that way," his father told him, pointing.
"I'll just take the chocobo and get them stabled at the inn for the night," Cloud told them, twisting the reins in his hand and tugging at the birds to get them to turn around. "I'll be back by the time Zack's done with that stuff."
"You just come right inside, both of you," Zack's mother told them. "I'll have hot tea ready, and dinner not long after that."
As the elderly couple made their way back inside the house, Zack flashed Cloud an elated grin that was brighter than just about any Cloud could remember seeing from him before. Smiling back at him, Cloud waved him off towards the woodpile. Urging the older boy to come home had obviously been the right thing to do, and he was glad it had occurred to him. He'd do a lot to see that smile on Zack's face.
Getting the birds squared away wasn't difficult; he had more than enough gil to pay for the stabling, and if the innkeeper was disappointed that Cloud wouldn't be taking a room for himself, he was still more than happy to have the custom at all. Cloud stayed long enough to be certain the stablehand knew what he was doing, then headed back to Zack's place once he was satisfied.
The path from the inn led him back towards the rear of the hut, and he caught sight of Zack stacking up a pile of wood to carry inside as he approached. "Glad we came?" Cloud asked softly as he joined his friend, grabbing some of the wood for himself. Seeing that there was more of it unchopped than ready for the fire, he made a mental note that they should offer to do some of the heavy chores for the couple before they left.
"Yeah," Zack agreed enthusiastically, then frowned. "Though I don't think I'm going to stop being pissed off for a while. I can't believe Shinra would..."
The mako in his eyes flared as he got angry again, and suddenly the bright blue glow turned green. Then everything turned green as that agonizing headache hit both of them at the same time, dropping them to their knees with a clatter of falling wood.
Clutching at his head, Zack fought fiercely against the influence of Jenova, or Sephiroth, or whichever of them it was that caused these fits. He got them periodically, usually when he or Cloud was upset about something, but it had been a while since the last one. This one was worse than usual, and he almost swore he could feel Sephiroth hanging over his shoulder.
I will take everything that ever mattered to you, the man's insidious voice whispered. Everyone you ever loved, and everyone they ever loved, until there is nothing left.
Moonlight flashed off a silver blade, the long arc unmistakeable. There was a sharp sound of impact... and then the presence was gone, leaving them both kneeling and gasping for air.
His head pounding, Cloud opened his eyes and glanced up at Zack. The older man looked just as shaken as he felt, and that was saying something. Feeling sick to his stomach, Cloud looked higher and saw a deep slash that had been left in the side of the house, as if a sword had been drawn across it.
"Zack," he croaked, and the brunet followed his eyes.
"Damn it," Zack muttered, getting carefully to his feet and moving to examine the cut. It was clear and precise, the edges so sharp they could have been cut by a laser. He'd seen what was left of monsters after Sephiroth got through with them too often not to recognize that mark when he saw it. "Masamune. No doubt about it."
Groaning, Cloud buried his face in his hands. Things were getting worse even faster than he'd thought, if the bastard was this bold. This was the first time he'd appeared when Zack and Cloud had both been awake and together, and he didn't like the implications. At all.
"Maybe we'd better not stay here too long, after all," he suggested hoarsely. The warning - or threat - had been clear, and he knew if Sephiroth did anything to Zack's parents, his friend would never forgive himself when he realized the truth.
Staring at the mark a moment longer, Zack finally nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "Leaving sooner rather than later is probably a good idea. I can always come back." Assuming, of course, that there was anything left of any of them by the time Sephiroth got through with them.
And once again, another novel-length story. ;p I really do need to learn to write short again.
Title: Too Good To Be True
Series: Final Fantasy VII
Pairing: Zack/Cloud, some Cloud/Tifa, mention of Zack/Aerith
Rating: R, NC-17 in other chapters
Warnings: violence, sex, yaoi, the usual.
Chapter Length: 5357
Total Length: 83,726
Author's Note: This takes place after AC, and is slightly AU in that Zack would not have been present with Aerith in the moments when Cloud touched the Lifestream. Or just tell yourself he was hallucinating Zack, if you like.
When things seem too good to be true it usually means there's a catch hidden somewhere. But hasn't Cloud earned his happy ending ten times over?
As much as Zack enjoyed being able to sleep in and laze about on the days when he didn't have to be up early, today he found himself reluctant to simply roll over and go back to sleep after waking the first time. It wasn't hard to figure out why, not when he had Cloud tucked up against him and a rare opportunity to see the younger man when he was sleeping.
It was a sight worth admiring; early morning sunlight shone through the windows, bathing the bed and its occupants. It turned Cloud into a golden version of himself, gilding his tanned skin and making his hair shine with auric brilliance. The lines of worry and wear were missing from his face, making him look his true age or maybe even younger. As he had that morning at Tifa's, Zack found himself tempted to wake the blond in the most pleasant way.
And why not? After what they'd done the night before, Zack could be certain beyond a doubt that Cloud would not only not object, he'd participate enthusiastically. The thought made him smile brightly, and his body stir with interest.
First, though, there was a rather urgent matter that needed to be taken care of. With a sigh of regret, Zack eased himself out from under Cloud and hauled himself out of the bed.
Returning from the bathroom, he paused as he caught sight of Cloud's phone where it had been carelessly dropped in their hasty race the night before. It was blinking, indicating that there was a message, and Zack grimaced as he realized they must have missed Tifa's check-in call the day before. And after he'd promised her he would make sure Cloud answered his phone!
Picking it up, he brought it with him back into the bedroom to be dealt with after he'd woken Cloud. To his disappointment however, the blond was already awake and sitting up in the bed, rubbing at his eyes with one hand as he yawned. He'd been startled to discover that Tifa's description of Cloud as an early riser had been an accurate one for the most part, but he'd hoped that the younger man was tired enough to sleep in for a while.
"Now that's cute," Zack commented, making Cloud blink at him sleepily.
"Cute?" Cloud's voice came out a little husky, and he gave Zack a look that was both disbelieving and heated. "After last night, the best description you can come up with for me is still cute? Obviously I need to try harder."
"You try any harder and I'll die of exhaustion," Zack chuckled, sliding back into the bed and tugging Cloud down to lie beside him again, the blond curled against his side with his head on Zack's shoulder. "I'd die happy, though. Here," the ex-SOLDIER added, offering the phone. "I think we missed Tifa's phone call."
Regarding the blinking red light sourly, Cloud winced. Tifa was something he'd been trying not to think about. He still wasn't sure exactly what she'd meant to say to him the last time he'd seen her, and he could feel guilt for 'cheating on her' eating away at the happiness being with Zack had created within him.
"Feeling guilty?" Zack guessed when he saw the expression on his friend's face. Cloud looked like he was half expecting the phone to jump up and bite him.
"Yeah," Cloud admitted, not seeing any reason to hide it. Zack could read him like a book, anyway. Reluctantly he reached out and took the phone from his friend, though he still didn't open it. "She said some things to me just before we left; I can't tell whether she was trying to remind me that we're supposed to be together, or saying she would understand if something like this happened."
Chewing on his lower lip, Zack debated whether to mention his own conversation with Tifa to the blond. "If it makes you feel any better, she and I talked about it as well, and she said she wouldn't be upset if you and I ended up together," he finally confessed. "Hurt, but not upset. At the time I told her she was worrying over nothing, but... well, I hadn't reckoned on me falling for you in the meantime."
"You talked to her about it?" Cloud exclaimed, dismayed. "When? Why?"
"That first morning, sleeping at her place," Zack explained. "She walked in and found us curled together on the floor, and jumped to the wrong conclusion."
"So that's why you ran out of there," Cloud realized, sighing and rubbing at his eyes again. "I don't want to hurt her. And I do love her. Just... maybe not quite the way I thought I did." And definitely not enough to be willing to give up this; having Zack against him, knowing the older man was his... no, there wasn't much that could ever convince him to relinquish that.
"I don't want to hurt her either, but she's a big girl," Zack replied softly, running one hand through Cloud's silky hair. "And it's better to hurt her now and let her get over it than to drag things out if that's not really the way you feel about her, I guess." He tried not to feel grateful that Cloud had ended up with him instead of her after all, but it was hard not to. Not when Cloud was just about everything Zack had ever wanted in a lover, and a few things he hadn't known that he wanted.
"So, are you going to check the message or not?" he added, because there was no point in putting off the inevitable. "Besides, she might have called to say she needs us."
"Right." Flipping the phone open, Cloud hit the button that would let him get his messages, then entered the code when asked for it. He listened intently for a few minutes; all Zack could hear was the faint sound of Tifa's voice, he wasn't able to make out the words.
"Well?" he demanded when Cloud finally ended the call and closed the phone again.
"They're fine," the blond assured him, tossing the phone to land on his bag and shifting a little closer to Zack. "She said there's been no sign of Sephiroth, or anything else. But the caves are even more extensive than we thought, and it's probably going to take them a couple of days to get through it all, at the least."
"Better to be thorough about it than to have to wonder if they missed something," Zack agreed. "Well, at least Sephiroth is leaving them alone. And none of them should be drawn to the Lifestream the way we were, so they're safe on that count as well. I guess we can relax, as long as Seph doesn't pull something nasty in Midgar while we're gone."
Reminded of the other thing he'd been trying not to think about, his certainty that Sephiroth wouldn't show up anywhere that Zack wasn't, Cloud grunted his agreement and buried his face in Zack's shoulder. He prayed the others would find something in the caverns, because they were rapidly running out of options.
At least he hadn't had any nightmares last night, whether because Sephiroth had given it a rest or because he'd been just too worn out to dream. Hopefully that meant the bastard hadn't put in an appearance to terrorize the residents of Costa del Sol as well.
"So, what now?" Cloud asked. "Dio will send us back whenever we want, or we can even wait for Tifa and the others to be done and Cid can transport us back in the Sierra."
"I'm all for not going back to Midgar right away, unless we hear about something from the Turks," Zack immediately voted. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that it would be far more pleasant to spend the time here on a warm sunny beach, instead of cooped up in the dreary atmosphere of Edge. And there were fewer ghosts here to haunt them, either of them.
"Do you want to stick around here, then? Or," a thought occurred to Cloud, and he lifted his head. "Do you want to take the birds overland to Gongaga, maybe? I finally got around to writing your parents and telling them what had happened to you last year. Now I wish I hadn't."
"My parents?" Zack regarded him with some surprise. "You wrote my parents? Aw, damn," he grimaced as he realized the implications. "It must have just about crushed them to hear I was dead." He was their only child, and for all that he'd had his issues with his parents he would never, ever wish that kind of suffering on them. They'd done their best for him, they just hadn't understood his determination to go out and make something of himself as a SOLDIER. He felt guilty that it hadn't even occurred to him until that moment that he probably ought to let them know he was still alive. Even if Cloud hadn't written them, after so many years they'd surely just about given up hope.
"Yeah, I guess I'd better go visit them," he agreed. "You don't mind coming with me? It'll probably be all the usual sort of family crap, I don't doubt you'll end up feeling like a third wheel, but I could use the moral support."
Since he'd been half afraid Zack would say it was something he needed to do on his own, Cloud shook his head gratefully. "No, I don't mind," he assured his friend. "Today? Or later?"
"Might as well do it today," Zack decided. "If I put it off, with my luck something will come up and we'll get pulled back to Midgar, or up to the crater, and I'll lose the chance. There's no huge rush, though," he added with a sly smile, running his hand down from Cloud's hair and over the bare skin of the blond's back, making him shiver. "No reason we can't take the time to enjoy waking up."
That earned him a heated smile in return, and Zack was glad they'd woken up so early. As it was, he doubted they'd be on the road any time before noon.
On a normal chocobo the trip from Costa del Sol to Gongaga would probably have taken the better part of two days. On Karasu and Kinya, they were there just in time to catch a gorgeous sunset as the forest came into sight. Zack's slightly melancholy smile at the thought of seeing his hometown turned into a horrified gasp.
"What... what the hell happened?" he exclaimed, reining Karasu in and staring in shock and alarm at the ruins of the once-proud city. A huge section at the centre of the forest had been blown away, leaving bare ground for nearly a mile in all directions around the twisted remains of the city's reactor. Even though he'd seen the damage to Midgar for himself, Kalm and Costa del Sol had been so nearly untouched that it hadn't even occurred to Zack that his hometown might have suffered so badly.
Then again, Kalm and Costa del Sol had both relied on other nearby reactors for their power, they hadn't had any of their own. Were all of the reactor towns so decimated?
Kicking himself for not remembering that Zack wouldn't know about Gongaga's destruction, Cloud reined in beside him. "There was an accident in the reactor, during the time you and I were locked away in the labs," he explained, reaching out to touch his friend on the arm. "Apparently it overloaded and blew, with almost no warning. I'm sorry, I should have told you. I forgot you wouldn't know."
"Gods." Stunned, Zack just sat there and stared. Gongaga hadn't been a huge city, certainly not on Midgar or even Junon's level, but it hadn't been a tiny little hamlet either. They'd been one of the first places to notice the deadly blight that crept out from around the reactors as the area's mako was sucked up, as the trees and plants of the forest began to wither and die.
But this... this was beyond anything he'd imagined. He couldn't even begin to guess how many people must have died. He tried to grasp the idea that most of the people he'd known growing up were probably dead, and failed. War was one thing; he'd lost a lot of good friends in the mountains of Wutai, but that was different. You expected casualties in war. And he hadn't known enough people in Midgar for its destruction to hit him on a truly personal level. Despite what he'd told Tifa that first day in Edge, apparently some part of his subconscious mind had still considered Gongaga 'home'.
"My parents," he said urgently, turning to Cloud with fear in his eyes. "You're sure they're both alive? How did you find them to write them, anyway?"
"I'm sure," Cloud hastily reassured the older man. "We ran into them when we were travelling through here, the whole group of us. When I told them I was a SOLDIER they asked if I knew you - but of course at that point I still didn't remember you existed. I told them I'd never heard of you. Unless something has happened to one of them since then, they're both still alive." Fervently he hoped no ill had befallen the elderly couple. He didn't think Zack would take it well if one of them was dead.
"Only one way to find out, I guess," the ex-SOLDIER said grimly, turning Karasu's head towards the road into the forest and kicking the bird to get him moving. "Let's go."
Once they passed beneath the trees the sight of the ruined reactor and remains of the city were blocked out, and Zack breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Here in the cool green light, listening to the touch-me frogs singing to each other in the underbrush, he could pretend that nothing had changed. "Still don't believe me that there are monsters around here that can turn you into a frog?" he asked Cloud, rallying his good cheer with an effort.
"No, I've been frogged a few times, I know they're real," Cloud admitted with a groan. It wasn't a pleasant experience, suddenly finding yourself a frog. "You have to admit it sounds like something that couldn't possibly be exist, though. You can't blame me for not believing you!"
"Nobody ever does, until they come to Gongaga and see it for themselves," Zack agreed with a soft chuckle. "I never could be sure if Aerith was the one person in the world who actually believed me, or if she was just humouring me."
"Who knows, with her?" Cloud shrugged, a little sad at the reminder. It must have been doubly difficult for the half-Cetra when they'd travelled through this area; not only would the injured forest have been crying out to her, but meeting Zack's parents had to have been a painful reminder for her. Especially since Cloud had continued to deny any knowledge of the man who had been his best friend.
They reached the graveyard, the rows of crosses and headstones laid out neatly by the path that led to the town, and Zack flinched. Carefully he kept himself from looking too closely, not wanting to see any names he recognized. He clung to Cloud's assurance that his parents had both survived the explosion, though he had to wonder what sort of lives they'd led afterwards.
As he'd more or less expected, when they finally reached the town - no longer a city by any stretch of the imagination - he didn't recognize a single thing. The wood and thatch huts were nothing like the buildings he remembered, though it was obvious that the survivors had done a good job of adapting themselves to their new circumstances.
"Which way?" he asked quietly, feeling odd that he had to ask for directions to his own parents' house. Cloud pointed, and they dismounted to lead their chocobo through the narrow streets.
The two of them drew a few curious looks as they walked, but if anyone recognized Zack they didn't say anything. And why should they? He'd left home when he was all of thirteen years old, and he hadn't been back until this moment. He resembled that gawky, awkward adolescent about as much as Cloud still looked the way he had when Zack had first met him. Dark hair and blue eyes were common in this region, and as far as he could recall he didn't strongly resemble either of his parents. There was no reason for anyone to know who he was just by looking.
Sensing Zack's introspective mood, Cloud said nothing as they approached the little hut where he remembered the older man's parents living. He hoped they were still there; if they'd moved, finding them could be difficult. "There," he said softly, nodding at the door. He held out a hand for Karasu's reins, and Zack handed them over willingly.
Staring at the plain wooden door, Zack tried to gather his nerve. "Ah, hell," he muttered, amused at himself despite how anxious he was. "I've faced down deadly dragons and Wutai ninja, and I'm scared to knock on my own front door."
"Going home is never easy," Cloud replied, touching Zack's arm again in a gesture of support. "It'll be okay."
Drawing a deep breath, Zack reached out and knocked sharply on the door. For a moment there was no sound beyond, and he was just debating whether to knock again when he heard a soft shuffle and the sound of a latch being drawn back.
The door opened to reveal an elderly woman with white hair, and Zack felt a flash of disappointment. His parents must have moved after all, or else something had happened to them. All four of his grandparents had died when he was small, and he didn't have any extended family.
"Yes? Can I help you?" the woman asked them somewhat suspiciously, one hand holding her shawl closed at her throat. She peered back and forth between Zack and Cloud, trying to get a good look at them in the lantern light spilling out of the doorway. "Oh!" She stared at Cloud, her eyes widening in recognition. "You! You're that SOLDIER boy, the one who wrote us about our..."
Realization hit Zack and the woman at the same moment, and they gaped at each other in equal amounts of shock, though for different reasons. "Zack?" she quavered, her voice shaking with age and emotions. "Oh gods, Zack, is that you?"
"Mom?" Zack's voice cracked on the word as well, and he swallowed hard. This was his mother? His strong, vibrant mother, who had worn her few grey hairs with pride and who'd had more than enough energy to keep up with even as energetic a toddler as Zack had been?
"Zack!" she shrieked and let go of her shawl, flinging herself into his arms as she babbled and cried at the same time, rendering herself incomprehensible. He held her back automatically, careful of his strength; he was almost afraid he would break her in half if he so much as breathed on her hard.
Of course, he realized numbly. His mental image of his mother was of a woman in her late thirties, and it hadn't aged in all the years since. She would be into her fifties now, and after everything she'd been through it shouldn't have surprised him that she looked more like she was in her sixties. The explosion, spending so many years wondering what had become of him, only to be told that he'd died years before... that would age anyone before their time. And now that he was looking he could see hints of the woman he'd known in her face, especially her eyes.
"Hi, mom," he murmured, accepting that this was truly his mother and burying his face in her hair so she wouldn't see the tears in his eyes. "I'm home. Sorry it took me so long."
How strange it was, to be taller than she was! She'd still had at least half a foot on him when he'd left home, but now he was a full head taller than her. She felt delicate beneath his touch, even more so than most non-SOLDIERs did. She clung to him and cried, and he tried not to feel guilty for what she'd gone through. Most of it wasn't his fault, after all; he hadn't asked to be locked up in a lab and experimented on for years, and he hadn't dared to go anywhere near Gongaga when they'd been on the run for fear that Shinra would be waiting for him there.
"What's going on out here?" The deep masculine voice was less altered with age than his mother's had been, and Zack recognized it instantly. He looked up and found his father glaring out at them from the entrance, obviously nonplussed at the sight of his wife sobbing in a stranger's arms.
"Dad," Zack said, grateful that his voice didn't crack this time. "Dad, it's me. Zack."
"Zack?" His father looked understandably shocked, but to Zack's relief the shock was followed by disbelieving joy. He'd been half afraid the next reaction would be anger; he and his father hadn't always gotten along well, and when they'd never answered any of his letters he'd feared the man was too angry with him for abandoning them to want to speak to him.
If that had been true, though, it was obvious that having his son apparently return from the dead was enough to overcome whatever anger had been there. The older man moved forward and caught Zack in a tight embrace with Zack's mother between them, and then suddenly all three of them were laughing and crying and trying to talk at the same time.
Hanging back with the chocobo, Cloud was fairly certain they'd forgotten about his presence entirely. That was fine with him; as Zack had predicted, this wasn't the sort of thing he should be involved in as an outsider. It did raise a sharp ache in his chest as he thought of his last visit with his own mother, and he tried not to remember the sight of her broken and bleeding on the floor of their house as it burned down around her. He hadn't even been able to save her body.
Just because he could never see his mother again didn't mean he begrudged Zack the chance, though. When the three showed no signs of breaking up after a minute or two, he wondered whether he should take the chocobo and go find the inn, leaving Zack to his family for the night after all.
Before he could make up his mind, however, Zack's mother pulled away from her son and wiped her eyes. "But how?" she asked, looking at Cloud. "Your letter said he'd died!"
"I thought he had," Cloud admitted gruffly, sorry for the pain he'd undoubtedly caused them in his ignorance. "I only just found him again. I was as shocked as you are."
"Why didn't you come home?" Zack's father demanded, and now some of the anger Zack had expected was there. "How could you leave your mother and I wondering all that time what had happened to you?"
"I... wasn't able to come back, or even contact you," Zack answered, choosing his words with care. His parents didn't need to know about all the horrors he'd gone through. "I was more or less comatose, and under close supervision. I nearly did die. This is the first chance I've had to come home."
"And what about before that?" the man insisted. "I realize you had duties and responsibilities and couldn't visit whenever you wanted, but one letter in five years..."
"Wait, one letter?" Zack interrupted him, frowning. "I wrote you guys like, every month! Every other month at the very least, even during the war. I... I kept hoping you'd eventually forgive me and write back, if I just kept trying," he admitted, somewhat shamed.
Cloud blinked. He very definitely remembered Zack's mother mentioning the one and only letter they'd ever received from their son, telling them about his promotion. At the time it had meant nothing to him and it hadn't occurred to him to think about it since, but now it struck him as very odd that Zack would only have written one letter home. Granted the older man had never been good at sitting still and doing paperwork at the best of times, but Zack was the sort of person who was just too decent to leave his parents worrying about him like that. Even if he hadn't left under the best of circumstances.
"I don't understand," the brunet's mother was saying now, one hand over her mouth. "We only ever received one, when you got your promotion..."
"Zack," Cloud broke in, and all three of them turned to look at him again. He tried not to wince, feeling like an interloper. "In the letters, did you ever say anything negative about Shinra? Anything at all?"
"Huh? Yeah, sure, I guess so," Zack replied, frowning. "I mean, I tried to keep the letters cheerful, but even after the war it was hard to find anything good to say about Shinra when you were looking at it from an inside perspective. What does that have to do with..."
The light went on, and he stopped talking in mid-sentence, his eyes wide. "They censored me," he murmured, appalled but not actually as surprised as he could have been. That was just the sort of thing Shinra would do in their never-ending efforts to preserve their PR. "The bastards censored me!"
"Shinra controlled the mail, it would have been easy enough for them to do even if you didn't send the letters out from HQ," Cloud pointed out with a sigh, now feeling bad for both Zack and his parents. For both sides of the family to spend all those years thinking the other didn't care enough to even write them a letter... it must have been hard for them.
"Those fucking...!" Flushing, Zack glanced at his mother. He very much doubted the frail woman in front of him now was capable of holding him down to wash his mouth out with soap for swearing, but old habits died hard. "Sorry, mom. But I think this is one situation where stronger language is appropriate."
"I just might agree with you," she replied, startling both him and his father into a laugh. Before his very eyes life was returning to her; she stood a little straighter, and some of the weight of sorrow and age that had been in her eyes had faded. "But! We're standing out here in the cold, when we could be inside," she chided them, making shooing gestures at the door. "Inside, everyone. You too... Cloud, wasn't it? You brought our son back to us, the least we can do is invite you in for dinner. Dear, will you get extra water and wood for the fire, please?"
"I'll do it," Zack leapt to volunteer, earning a wide smile from his mother and a nod from his father, both of which made him feel about a million times better.
"The wood is behind the house, and the well is a block that way," his father told him, pointing.
"I'll just take the chocobo and get them stabled at the inn for the night," Cloud told them, twisting the reins in his hand and tugging at the birds to get them to turn around. "I'll be back by the time Zack's done with that stuff."
"You just come right inside, both of you," Zack's mother told them. "I'll have hot tea ready, and dinner not long after that."
As the elderly couple made their way back inside the house, Zack flashed Cloud an elated grin that was brighter than just about any Cloud could remember seeing from him before. Smiling back at him, Cloud waved him off towards the woodpile. Urging the older boy to come home had obviously been the right thing to do, and he was glad it had occurred to him. He'd do a lot to see that smile on Zack's face.
Getting the birds squared away wasn't difficult; he had more than enough gil to pay for the stabling, and if the innkeeper was disappointed that Cloud wouldn't be taking a room for himself, he was still more than happy to have the custom at all. Cloud stayed long enough to be certain the stablehand knew what he was doing, then headed back to Zack's place once he was satisfied.
The path from the inn led him back towards the rear of the hut, and he caught sight of Zack stacking up a pile of wood to carry inside as he approached. "Glad we came?" Cloud asked softly as he joined his friend, grabbing some of the wood for himself. Seeing that there was more of it unchopped than ready for the fire, he made a mental note that they should offer to do some of the heavy chores for the couple before they left.
"Yeah," Zack agreed enthusiastically, then frowned. "Though I don't think I'm going to stop being pissed off for a while. I can't believe Shinra would..."
The mako in his eyes flared as he got angry again, and suddenly the bright blue glow turned green. Then everything turned green as that agonizing headache hit both of them at the same time, dropping them to their knees with a clatter of falling wood.
Clutching at his head, Zack fought fiercely against the influence of Jenova, or Sephiroth, or whichever of them it was that caused these fits. He got them periodically, usually when he or Cloud was upset about something, but it had been a while since the last one. This one was worse than usual, and he almost swore he could feel Sephiroth hanging over his shoulder.
I will take everything that ever mattered to you, the man's insidious voice whispered. Everyone you ever loved, and everyone they ever loved, until there is nothing left.
Moonlight flashed off a silver blade, the long arc unmistakeable. There was a sharp sound of impact... and then the presence was gone, leaving them both kneeling and gasping for air.
His head pounding, Cloud opened his eyes and glanced up at Zack. The older man looked just as shaken as he felt, and that was saying something. Feeling sick to his stomach, Cloud looked higher and saw a deep slash that had been left in the side of the house, as if a sword had been drawn across it.
"Zack," he croaked, and the brunet followed his eyes.
"Damn it," Zack muttered, getting carefully to his feet and moving to examine the cut. It was clear and precise, the edges so sharp they could have been cut by a laser. He'd seen what was left of monsters after Sephiroth got through with them too often not to recognize that mark when he saw it. "Masamune. No doubt about it."
Groaning, Cloud buried his face in his hands. Things were getting worse even faster than he'd thought, if the bastard was this bold. This was the first time he'd appeared when Zack and Cloud had both been awake and together, and he didn't like the implications. At all.
"Maybe we'd better not stay here too long, after all," he suggested hoarsely. The warning - or threat - had been clear, and he knew if Sephiroth did anything to Zack's parents, his friend would never forgive himself when he realized the truth.
Staring at the mark a moment longer, Zack finally nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "Leaving sooner rather than later is probably a good idea. I can always come back." Assuming, of course, that there was anything left of any of them by the time Sephiroth got through with them.