[Fic] Too Good To Be True - FFVII, Zack/Cloud, 17/21
Got a good haul this Christmas, though a large amount of it was treating ourselves from Christmas money and going a bit overboard. We are now very poor in money, but two game systems and several games richer than we were yesterday. We've been getting better about the impulse buying habits we have, MUCH better, but Christmas is always a dangerous time.
Oh, well. We'll just eat a lot of sandwiches in January and be grateful we don't have to pay taxes just yet. *sheepish*
Still hoping to finish this by the new year, despite the distraction of new game shinies. *determined*
Also, I JUST noticed that I apparently have 25 'messages' of some kind that show up on the main LJ page when I log in. Gods only know how long THOSE have been there. *sheepish*
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: 4354
Total Length: 88,080
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?
Usually Tifa loved riding on airships, especially when Cid was at the wheel. The view from the Sierra's bridge was always amazing, and she never tired of watching people and buildings pass by below them looking so tiny they could have been toys.
This time the enjoyment had been somewhat eclipsed by their failure to find anything in the North Crater, leaving her grumpy that her fun had been spoiled as well as exhausted from the trip itself.
"You two should come back to the bar with me," she invited her companions as Cid set the ship down on a flat bit of ground outside of Edge. "The least I can do is make dinner for both of you. Yes, you too," she cut Vincent off before the ex-Turk had a chance to make the refusal she knew was coming. "I've got those documents from Hojo's lab for you, don't forget. Not that I expect they'll mean much more to you than they do to us, but it's something."
"You springing for drinks, too?" Cid asked slyly, and Tifa snorted.
"The first round is on me. The rest you pay for," she replied, knowing from experience just how much Cid could put away. He chuckled, amused rather than offended by the response. "Cloud should be back from Costa del Sol by now, he'll be happy to see you both."
She'd spoken to him briefly on the phone each night that they'd been gone, checking in. After that first night, when he'd probably still been at the race, he'd answered every time as promised. He'd seemed subdued when she'd spoken to him, but then he'd never been much of a phone conversationalist. Hades, he'd never been much of a conversationalist at all. Her news that they hadn't found anything had seemed to depress him even more, though.
Who could blame him, really? Tifa sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, staring out over the buildings of Edge and the ruins of Midgar. The crater had been their only real chance of finding an answer to the riddle of Sephiroth's reappearance. Without it, the best they could hope for was for Zack and Cloud to track the bastard down and kill him yet again, then wait until the next time he showed up to do it all over.
It couldn't go on like this forever. Sooner or later something was going to give beneath the repeated strain, and Tifa was very much afraid it might just be Cloud. At the very least Cloud wouldn't always be young and strong, and once he was too old or injured to fight who could possibly have a hope against Sephiroth? Zack, but he would be in much the same state by then. And there wouldn't be any new SOLDIERs, let alone ones with the knowledge and experience to be able to take on the greatest SOLDIER of all time.
They had to find some way of ending it once and for all, but Tifa was fresh out of ideas and she knew Cloud was, too. If Zack had come up with anything he wasn't sharing, but she doubted he would keep it to himself if he'd had any brilliant revelations. That left the information from Hojo's files as their only hope, but who knew when or even if they would find anything in that scientific jumble?
"Hey!" A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump. She turned to find Cid looking at her, his grizzled face lined with concern. "You okay? You been doin' a lot of woolgatherin' on this trip."
"Just worried," Tifa shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on here and now instead of the possible future problems. "Cloud's not going to be happy to hear that we didn't find anything, but there's nothing we can do about it now. Come on, let's get back to the 7th Heaven, and then I'll see about tracking him down. He's probably at Aerith's church, if he hasn't been called away on a message run."
"Why not call?" Vincent suggested as they made their way off the ship. "Since he's taken to answering." The dry amusement in his tone was clear to anyone who knew him as well as Tifa and Cid did.
"I tried, but there was no answer this time," she admitted. "Which is why I think he's probably at the church, there's no signal there for some reason. I want to get my stuff put away and the kids back from the neighbours before I go looking, though."
He nodded, and fell silent again. Cid and Tifa spoke quietly about various unimportant things as they made their way through Edge, Tifa waving and smiling briefly to everyone who called out to her as they passed. Most people knew her on sight, probably even more than would recognize Cloud, simply because her bar was the only place for miles around where liquor other than moonshine was available.
As they approached the bar, however, Vincent frowned and cocked his head. "Someone is there," he warned them, tossing his cape back off one shoulder and resting his hand on the butt of his gun. "I don't recognize the voice."
Cid and Tifa tensed. She couldn't hear anything, but she knew the Chaos project victim's senses were sharper than her own. Cid shrugged his shoulders to settle his lance where it hung across his back, making certain he'd be able to get at it easily, and Tifa tugged her gloves on quickly. Most people knew better than to try to start something with her, but there were always the drunks or crazies who might decide to make trouble.
Signalling the two men to stay just behind and to the side of her, she cautiously approached the building that had become her home. Less than half a block away she paused, hearing the voices for herself. Bright masculine laughter rang out clearly, and she relaxed. "It's okay," she assured the other two, rolling her eyes. You didn't have to know Zack for longer than a few hours before the sound of that laughter was fixed in your memory. "It's just Cloud and a friend of his."
"Cloud has friends?" Cid asked, raising an eyebrow. "Other than us?"
Since that was pretty much exactly the same thought she'd had, Tifa's lips twitched. "He does now," she agreed, waving them forward. There was no way they'd believe her even if she tried to explain. Oh, they'd believe who Zack was and what he'd been through, because they all knew very well what Shinra had been capable of and willing to do to its people. But if she'd tried to describe the way Cloud behaved around the ex-SOLDIER, well, that was a different story.
Besides, it would be more amusing to see their reactions for herself the first time they witnessed Zack tease a smile out of the taciturn blond.
"...totally full of it," she heard Cloud exclaim as they came within proper hearing distance.
"I'm serious! Ramuh's own truth, man!" Zack's voice replied, full of injured pride and wounded dignity at having his word questioned. Just the tone made Tifa smile. She had no idea what they were arguing about this time, but it was a familiar course for the conversation to take.
As the building came into sight she looked around, wondering what they were up to. It wasn't until Cid nudged her and nodded towards the roof that she spotted them, though. They were sitting astride the peak, repairing the shingles there by the looks of it. Both men were shirtless in the warm, unusually sunny weather, and she had to pause to admire the sight.
"You don't remember this?" Zack asked, raising his voice slightly to be heard as he hammered a row of nails into the shingle Cloud was holding in place. "You were there, you really don't have any memory of it?"
"Okay, now I know you're bullshitting me," Cloud retorted, though he was grinning at his friend and lover. "What the hell would I have been doing there? You, I can believe, but I was just a private."
"You were standing guard at a door about ten feet behind us," Zack informed him, highly amused at the memory. "All muffled up in your helmet and scarf. We didn't even know you'd been there until you told me the next day. "
"Yeah, right," Cloud rolled his eyes, now really not believing the older man. "Like he wouldn't have known I was there."
"You know, contrary to popular belief, Sephiroth's senses weren't that much sharper than a 1st Class," Zack replied, laughing. "We both knew someone was there, but it wasn't like he could identify you by scent or something."
"So, what happened then?" Cloud asked, fascinated by the story in spite of himself. Sephiroth had been more active than ever since they'd returned to Midgar from Gongaga, but somehow listening to Zack tell stories about the man from their time in Shinra wasn't as painful as it could have been. It was almost like they were two different people, the inhuman madman who had destroyed his life and the charismatic general who had been his hero. It was easier to think of him that way.
"Then Seph took the sheaf of orders," Zack continued the story he'd been telling, his eyes bright with mako and remembered glee. "You know that paper folding art they have in Wutai? He must have picked it up somewhere during the war, because he folded the pages into this pretty flower. A lotus, I think; something with lots of sharp, spiky petals, anyway. Then he offered it back to Heidigger along with an excruciatingly polite suggestion about where exactly the bastard could stuff it..."
"What?" Cloud burst out laughing at the image. He could picture it clearly: Heidigger sputtering and choking on his incoherent rage, Sephiroth standing there with a perfectly blank expression holding out the flower, and Zack nearly strangling in an attempt not to laugh in their superior's face. "Now I really don't believe you!" he exclaimed, though he was starting to wish he could remember. "There's no way he'd ever have done something like that!"
Still unnoticed below the two men, Cid leaned over to murmur into Tifa's ear. "Who is that, and what has he done with the real Cloud Strife?" he asked, and she wasn't entirely certain he wasn't serious. Vincent was simply standing there staring up at the two, but he was probably just as shocked as Cid.
No less shocked than she'd been, the first time she'd heard the two friends bantering like that. "It's really him," she said, shrugging. "Despite this new mess with Sephiroth, he's changed a lot in the last few weeks. It's kind of a long story, but I'm sure you'll get to hear it." She hadn't told them the tale of Zack's miraculous reappearance, figuring it was up to Cloud to decide how much he wanted the rest of AVALANCHE to know. As far as she knew only she was aware of the whole story of the history between the two men, since she'd somehow been there in Cloud's mind when he'd remembered the truth about his past.
Planting her hands on her hips, she raised her voice to catch the attention of the men on the roof. "All right, you two! What did you break?" she demanded. She couldn't think of any reason other than guilt that they would be doing heavy repair work on the building without her asking, especially work that wasn't terribly urgent. Yes, she'd been meaning to get around to replacing the shingles for half a year now, but the leaks were still small and manageable.
Jumping, Cloud managed to avoid tumbling off his precarious perch only thanks to his mako-enhanced reflexes. Zack was laughing at him; he wasn't sure if the older man had already known Tifa was there or if he'd just been less startled by her sudden question, but either way it made Cloud flush. "We didn't break anything!" he protested automatically.
Then, because he felt compelled to honesty, "...important," he added sheepishly. Even when he'd been living alone he'd usually managed to break something minor at least once a week, and with Zack added into the equation the damage seemed to grow exponentially. It was just the price of having the increased strength of a SOLDIER. Even after years of living with it, it was still easy to forget himself and find that he'd damaged something in a moment of inattention.
"We'll fix it," Zack added his assurance with a laugh. They'd pretty much totalled Tifa's ladder when they'd first taken it into their heads to work on the roof, but he'd been desperate for something to take Cloud's mind off Sephiroth's growing threat before the blond brooded himself into a funk. There hadn't been any point in trying to deal with Sephiroth before Tifa returned, leaving them with too much time on their hands. As willing as Zack was, sex only worked as a distraction so many times in one day.
Which was another reason to work on Tifa's building, actually. Zack suspected Cloud was trying to ease the guilt he was feeling over 'cheating' on his 'girlfriend'. That probably wouldn't change anytime soon, certainly not until he talked to Tifa about it and got it dealt with. Given everything else that was happening, that might not be for a while.
"You're damn right, you'll fix it," Tifa growled, throwing her hands up in exasperation that was only half feigned. How could any two people who were so incredibly adept in a fight be so amazingly clumsy in day-to-day life? "Come inside, I'm not telling you about this trip by yelling the information for the whole neighbourhood to hear. After cleaning up!" she finished hastily when they stood up and she got a good look at how much dirt they'd picked up.
Cloud looked at Zack, and Zack looked back at him, and the same thought occurred to them both at the same moment. The only place to clean off without going inside was the water hose at the back of the building... and whichever of them got to it last was probably going to be thoroughly sprayed down by the one to reach it first.
Without any further reflection, without even any warning they were going to move, they both bolted down the slanted side of the roof, laughing and shoving at each other as they had in the race out to the ocean in Costa del Sol. Not even bothering with the ladder, they leapt off the edge of the roof.
Watching them disappear from sight, Tifa shook her head. "I don't believe the two of them," she muttered to Cid and Vincent, gesturing for them to head inside the bar. "They're worse than the kids by a factor of about a million."
"He a SOLDIER?" Cid guessed shrewdly, and Tifa nodded.
"1st Class," she told him, figuring that much at least was safe to reveal. "He and Cloud were friends when they were both in Shinra together. Cloud found him again a couple of weeks ago, and it's... really made a difference for him." That was putting it mildly.
"Huh." Cid grinned around his cigarette when Tifa winced at a thud and a crash from outside, and the sound of shouts and laughter reached them dimly through the walls. "You know, there was a saying in Shinra, back when I was still stationed in Midgar instead of out in Rocket Town."
"Oh?" she looked at him curiously, and his grin widened.
"SOLDIERs at play are ten times more dangerous than SOLDIERs at war," he quoted, and she had to laugh.
By the time Cloud and Zack came inside they'd both been thoroughly soaked by cold water from the hose. They'd managed to wring out the worst of it and use their discarded shirts to mop up a good deal of the rest, but they were still decidedly damp-looking as they entered the room. Tifa's lips twitched and she hid a smile behind her hand, though she couldn't help but note with a twinge how close together the two men were walking. Had something happened in Costa del Sol after all?
Seeing the way Cloud glanced at her and then looked hastily away again, and Zack's apologetic expression, she was pretty sure something had. Swallowing, she promised herself that she wouldn't allow herself to be upset where either of them could see it. There was no point in being a sore loser; she was better than that.
"So? What did you find?" Cloud asked, trying to divert Tifa's attention from him and Zack. The look on her face was making him very uncomfortable, but he didn't want to get into that particular conversation in front of Cid and Vincent.
"Absolutely nothing," Tifa sighed, tossing a couple of beers to Cloud and Zack and gesturing for them to join the group at a table. "No sign of Sephiroth, no sign of Jenova, no..."
Vincent, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed rather than sitting with the rest of them, shifted uneasily. Cid was the one who spoke up, however. "Hey now," he objected, frowning at Zack. "Old friend or not, should we be discussin' this in company?"
Tifa understood his objection; after she'd explained the situation to him and Vincent, the three of them had agreed that the fewer people who knew about it outside of AVALANCHE, the better. The last thing they needed was to cause a panic, and people still remembered all too well the destruction wrought by Sephiroth. She looked at Cloud questioningly, letting him decide what to tell them.
"Zack's as much a part of this as I am," the blond said firmly, taking a seat and kicking another towards the ex-SOLDIER. "Maybe more. If we're going to beat the bastard once and for all, it'll be with his help. You can trust him."
He did not mention his certainty that Zack was in fact the carrier of Sephiroth this time around. There was no point in rousing the others against his friend, and even if he was fairly certain that Sephiroth was probably aware of everything that Zack knew about their attempts to stop him, it didn't matter. Without Zack's help they were in a lot more trouble, and as long as Cloud accounted for the fact that anything his friend suggested might be influenced by Sephiroth, it wouldn't make a difference.
So he kept telling himself, anyway. Maybe eventually he'd really believe it, and the sick feeling in his gut would go away.
"Zack, this is Cid Highwind, formerly of Shinra's space program, and Vincent Valentine, former Turk," he introduced his friend as Zack sat. "Vincent is the one I told you about, the one who's part of the Chaos project."
Vincent frowned to hear that Cloud had been discussing his past with strangers, but Zack just nodded and looked the man square in his eerie crimson eyes. "I was taken to the lab from Nibelheim, same as Cloud," he said, and some of the tension in Vincent's shoulders eased. "The two of us escaped together, but that's a long story. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get you out at the same time; if I'd stopped for anything, they'd have caught us again."
"It is of no matter," the ex-Turk shrugged gracefully. "I would not have gone, even had you tried to free me. I was not yet ready to face the world at that time."
Zack could understand that well enough. If someone had thrown open his tank a year ago and offered him the chance to escape, he wasn't sure he would have taken it. He'd been too absorbed in the pain of old memories and past failures, and far too lost in the mako to care about freedom.
"I worked closely with both Cloud and Sephiroth, and I knew Aerith," he continued. "I've got a few choice things to say to Seph once we catch up to him, you can be sure of that. And it seems appropriate that Cloud and I face him down together in the end." Since they'd both been there at the start of it, when Sephiroth had snapped that first time.
He exchanged a glance with Cloud, who nodded. "That's the short version," the blond concluded. "The long version can wait. So there wasn't anything useful at all in the crater?" he asked, though he didn't doubt that Tifa had told them everything. If there had been anything at all, she would have been fairly bursting to tell him. Truly, he'd known the answer the moment he'd looked down from the roof and seen her expression.
"We were probably exposed to more mako than is healthy, but that's it," Tifa confirmed despondently. She drained a good quarter of her beer, almost wishing she dared to get drunk and forget about it for a little while. About Sephiroth, and Zack and Cloud, and everything else.
She was stronger than that, though, and she wasn't going to let it beat her. "So, we'll just have to look somewhere else," she continued doggedly. "Have we heard back from Reeve about Hojo's notes? Or Cid, have you heard from any of your contacts?"
"Honestly, your best bet would be to go straight to the top," Cid shook his head. "Just 'bout everyone I knew is gone from Rocket Town now, but I heard tell a good lot of 'em have gone right back where they started - workin' for Shinra."
"For Rufus, you mean?" Cloud said shrewdly, and the pilot nodded. "Damn it. What's he want with them? Don't tell me he's hoping to set up Shinra again. Even he can't be crazy enough to think he could reinstate the reactors."
"No, but I'll bet he's got plans to regain power some other way," Tifa countered. "Either by getting a monopoly on the new energy sources somehow, or by dominating some other area of commerce. He's obviously still got some resources left to him. Maybe we should take this to him."
"The day I go to a Shinra for help will be the day they're tying a tag on my toe," Zack declared flatly. "I've heard he's better than his dad - he sure as Hades can't be much worse - but I still trust him about as far as I can throw him."
"I have to agree," Cloud murmured, his eyes dark. "Rufus is a last resort at best."
"Guys, I think we may be on our last resort," Tifa pointed out. "We're running out of options, here."
"There's still a chance we could confront Sephiroth directly," Zack insisted. "He's getting a lot more bold; there've been sightings of him every night since we got back from the western continent. I think we should try staking out the city, see if we can corner him."
That sounded like a phenomenally bad idea to Cloud, but he couldn't say why without explaining his theory about the connection between Zack and Sephiroth. The absolute last thing he wanted was to confront the bastard without some way of dealing with him that wouldn't hurt Zack, but Tifa was right that they were running out of options.
Besides, if Zack was encouraging them to avoid Rufus... didn't that mean that was probably what Sephiroth wanted? Going to the caves together had turned out to be a huge mistake, even if Zack had saved Cloud from the attraction of the Lifestream; it had given Sephiroth a chance to get at them both on his turf, so to speak.
"I'll talk to Rufus," he said abruptly, and tried not to notice the shock and hurt in Zack's eyes at this sudden withdrawal of support. "If he can help in any way, I'll shake it out of him. By force, if necessary. He owes me, and I'll make damn sure he knows it." His eyes glinted, and Tifa couldn't help a grim smile of her own.
"I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you go," she said, raising her bottle to Cloud in a silent toast. "Staking out the city isn't a bad idea either, but if he hasn't come near you two yet, that's got to be deliberate. He just may not show up wherever you are."
"Then they should not be the ones to do the hunting," Vincent put in, making them all look at him in surprise. "Leave that to the rest of us. Call in Barrett and Yuffie, Cait and Nanaki. There are more than enough of us to form a watch, and we are strong enough in pairs to at least hold him at bay until the others can arrive."
"Now that's the best idea I've heard all day," Zack said approvingly. He didn't much like the thought of getting more people in the line of fire, but it wasn't like these were civilians. All of them had faced Sephiroth down multiple times before, they knew what they were getting into. And Vincent was probably right that they could handle Sephiroth at least long enough for Cloud and Zack to get there and take him down.
Cloud grimaced, unable to find a way to veto the suggestion that wouldn't require explanation. And now more than ever he didn't want people to know what he'd already realized; Tifa might be an exception, but if the rest of AVALANCHE ever realized that Zack was the one carrying Sephiroth, they might well attack him without a second thought. Cloud couldn't allow that to happen.
It just meant he'd have to find a solution soon, before they had a chance to catch Sephiroth and pin him down in a fight. Privately Cloud resolved to track down Rufus as soon as humanly possible. One way or another this was coming to head, and if he didn't want to lose his best friend again then he was going to have to move fast.
Oh, well. We'll just eat a lot of sandwiches in January and be grateful we don't have to pay taxes just yet. *sheepish*
Still hoping to finish this by the new year, despite the distraction of new game shinies. *determined*
Also, I JUST noticed that I apparently have 25 'messages' of some kind that show up on the main LJ page when I log in. Gods only know how long THOSE have been there. *sheepish*
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: 4354
Total Length: 88,080
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?
Usually Tifa loved riding on airships, especially when Cid was at the wheel. The view from the Sierra's bridge was always amazing, and she never tired of watching people and buildings pass by below them looking so tiny they could have been toys.
This time the enjoyment had been somewhat eclipsed by their failure to find anything in the North Crater, leaving her grumpy that her fun had been spoiled as well as exhausted from the trip itself.
"You two should come back to the bar with me," she invited her companions as Cid set the ship down on a flat bit of ground outside of Edge. "The least I can do is make dinner for both of you. Yes, you too," she cut Vincent off before the ex-Turk had a chance to make the refusal she knew was coming. "I've got those documents from Hojo's lab for you, don't forget. Not that I expect they'll mean much more to you than they do to us, but it's something."
"You springing for drinks, too?" Cid asked slyly, and Tifa snorted.
"The first round is on me. The rest you pay for," she replied, knowing from experience just how much Cid could put away. He chuckled, amused rather than offended by the response. "Cloud should be back from Costa del Sol by now, he'll be happy to see you both."
She'd spoken to him briefly on the phone each night that they'd been gone, checking in. After that first night, when he'd probably still been at the race, he'd answered every time as promised. He'd seemed subdued when she'd spoken to him, but then he'd never been much of a phone conversationalist. Hades, he'd never been much of a conversationalist at all. Her news that they hadn't found anything had seemed to depress him even more, though.
Who could blame him, really? Tifa sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, staring out over the buildings of Edge and the ruins of Midgar. The crater had been their only real chance of finding an answer to the riddle of Sephiroth's reappearance. Without it, the best they could hope for was for Zack and Cloud to track the bastard down and kill him yet again, then wait until the next time he showed up to do it all over.
It couldn't go on like this forever. Sooner or later something was going to give beneath the repeated strain, and Tifa was very much afraid it might just be Cloud. At the very least Cloud wouldn't always be young and strong, and once he was too old or injured to fight who could possibly have a hope against Sephiroth? Zack, but he would be in much the same state by then. And there wouldn't be any new SOLDIERs, let alone ones with the knowledge and experience to be able to take on the greatest SOLDIER of all time.
They had to find some way of ending it once and for all, but Tifa was fresh out of ideas and she knew Cloud was, too. If Zack had come up with anything he wasn't sharing, but she doubted he would keep it to himself if he'd had any brilliant revelations. That left the information from Hojo's files as their only hope, but who knew when or even if they would find anything in that scientific jumble?
"Hey!" A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump. She turned to find Cid looking at her, his grizzled face lined with concern. "You okay? You been doin' a lot of woolgatherin' on this trip."
"Just worried," Tifa shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on here and now instead of the possible future problems. "Cloud's not going to be happy to hear that we didn't find anything, but there's nothing we can do about it now. Come on, let's get back to the 7th Heaven, and then I'll see about tracking him down. He's probably at Aerith's church, if he hasn't been called away on a message run."
"Why not call?" Vincent suggested as they made their way off the ship. "Since he's taken to answering." The dry amusement in his tone was clear to anyone who knew him as well as Tifa and Cid did.
"I tried, but there was no answer this time," she admitted. "Which is why I think he's probably at the church, there's no signal there for some reason. I want to get my stuff put away and the kids back from the neighbours before I go looking, though."
He nodded, and fell silent again. Cid and Tifa spoke quietly about various unimportant things as they made their way through Edge, Tifa waving and smiling briefly to everyone who called out to her as they passed. Most people knew her on sight, probably even more than would recognize Cloud, simply because her bar was the only place for miles around where liquor other than moonshine was available.
As they approached the bar, however, Vincent frowned and cocked his head. "Someone is there," he warned them, tossing his cape back off one shoulder and resting his hand on the butt of his gun. "I don't recognize the voice."
Cid and Tifa tensed. She couldn't hear anything, but she knew the Chaos project victim's senses were sharper than her own. Cid shrugged his shoulders to settle his lance where it hung across his back, making certain he'd be able to get at it easily, and Tifa tugged her gloves on quickly. Most people knew better than to try to start something with her, but there were always the drunks or crazies who might decide to make trouble.
Signalling the two men to stay just behind and to the side of her, she cautiously approached the building that had become her home. Less than half a block away she paused, hearing the voices for herself. Bright masculine laughter rang out clearly, and she relaxed. "It's okay," she assured the other two, rolling her eyes. You didn't have to know Zack for longer than a few hours before the sound of that laughter was fixed in your memory. "It's just Cloud and a friend of his."
"Cloud has friends?" Cid asked, raising an eyebrow. "Other than us?"
Since that was pretty much exactly the same thought she'd had, Tifa's lips twitched. "He does now," she agreed, waving them forward. There was no way they'd believe her even if she tried to explain. Oh, they'd believe who Zack was and what he'd been through, because they all knew very well what Shinra had been capable of and willing to do to its people. But if she'd tried to describe the way Cloud behaved around the ex-SOLDIER, well, that was a different story.
Besides, it would be more amusing to see their reactions for herself the first time they witnessed Zack tease a smile out of the taciturn blond.
"...totally full of it," she heard Cloud exclaim as they came within proper hearing distance.
"I'm serious! Ramuh's own truth, man!" Zack's voice replied, full of injured pride and wounded dignity at having his word questioned. Just the tone made Tifa smile. She had no idea what they were arguing about this time, but it was a familiar course for the conversation to take.
As the building came into sight she looked around, wondering what they were up to. It wasn't until Cid nudged her and nodded towards the roof that she spotted them, though. They were sitting astride the peak, repairing the shingles there by the looks of it. Both men were shirtless in the warm, unusually sunny weather, and she had to pause to admire the sight.
"You don't remember this?" Zack asked, raising his voice slightly to be heard as he hammered a row of nails into the shingle Cloud was holding in place. "You were there, you really don't have any memory of it?"
"Okay, now I know you're bullshitting me," Cloud retorted, though he was grinning at his friend and lover. "What the hell would I have been doing there? You, I can believe, but I was just a private."
"You were standing guard at a door about ten feet behind us," Zack informed him, highly amused at the memory. "All muffled up in your helmet and scarf. We didn't even know you'd been there until you told me the next day. "
"Yeah, right," Cloud rolled his eyes, now really not believing the older man. "Like he wouldn't have known I was there."
"You know, contrary to popular belief, Sephiroth's senses weren't that much sharper than a 1st Class," Zack replied, laughing. "We both knew someone was there, but it wasn't like he could identify you by scent or something."
"So, what happened then?" Cloud asked, fascinated by the story in spite of himself. Sephiroth had been more active than ever since they'd returned to Midgar from Gongaga, but somehow listening to Zack tell stories about the man from their time in Shinra wasn't as painful as it could have been. It was almost like they were two different people, the inhuman madman who had destroyed his life and the charismatic general who had been his hero. It was easier to think of him that way.
"Then Seph took the sheaf of orders," Zack continued the story he'd been telling, his eyes bright with mako and remembered glee. "You know that paper folding art they have in Wutai? He must have picked it up somewhere during the war, because he folded the pages into this pretty flower. A lotus, I think; something with lots of sharp, spiky petals, anyway. Then he offered it back to Heidigger along with an excruciatingly polite suggestion about where exactly the bastard could stuff it..."
"What?" Cloud burst out laughing at the image. He could picture it clearly: Heidigger sputtering and choking on his incoherent rage, Sephiroth standing there with a perfectly blank expression holding out the flower, and Zack nearly strangling in an attempt not to laugh in their superior's face. "Now I really don't believe you!" he exclaimed, though he was starting to wish he could remember. "There's no way he'd ever have done something like that!"
Still unnoticed below the two men, Cid leaned over to murmur into Tifa's ear. "Who is that, and what has he done with the real Cloud Strife?" he asked, and she wasn't entirely certain he wasn't serious. Vincent was simply standing there staring up at the two, but he was probably just as shocked as Cid.
No less shocked than she'd been, the first time she'd heard the two friends bantering like that. "It's really him," she said, shrugging. "Despite this new mess with Sephiroth, he's changed a lot in the last few weeks. It's kind of a long story, but I'm sure you'll get to hear it." She hadn't told them the tale of Zack's miraculous reappearance, figuring it was up to Cloud to decide how much he wanted the rest of AVALANCHE to know. As far as she knew only she was aware of the whole story of the history between the two men, since she'd somehow been there in Cloud's mind when he'd remembered the truth about his past.
Planting her hands on her hips, she raised her voice to catch the attention of the men on the roof. "All right, you two! What did you break?" she demanded. She couldn't think of any reason other than guilt that they would be doing heavy repair work on the building without her asking, especially work that wasn't terribly urgent. Yes, she'd been meaning to get around to replacing the shingles for half a year now, but the leaks were still small and manageable.
Jumping, Cloud managed to avoid tumbling off his precarious perch only thanks to his mako-enhanced reflexes. Zack was laughing at him; he wasn't sure if the older man had already known Tifa was there or if he'd just been less startled by her sudden question, but either way it made Cloud flush. "We didn't break anything!" he protested automatically.
Then, because he felt compelled to honesty, "...important," he added sheepishly. Even when he'd been living alone he'd usually managed to break something minor at least once a week, and with Zack added into the equation the damage seemed to grow exponentially. It was just the price of having the increased strength of a SOLDIER. Even after years of living with it, it was still easy to forget himself and find that he'd damaged something in a moment of inattention.
"We'll fix it," Zack added his assurance with a laugh. They'd pretty much totalled Tifa's ladder when they'd first taken it into their heads to work on the roof, but he'd been desperate for something to take Cloud's mind off Sephiroth's growing threat before the blond brooded himself into a funk. There hadn't been any point in trying to deal with Sephiroth before Tifa returned, leaving them with too much time on their hands. As willing as Zack was, sex only worked as a distraction so many times in one day.
Which was another reason to work on Tifa's building, actually. Zack suspected Cloud was trying to ease the guilt he was feeling over 'cheating' on his 'girlfriend'. That probably wouldn't change anytime soon, certainly not until he talked to Tifa about it and got it dealt with. Given everything else that was happening, that might not be for a while.
"You're damn right, you'll fix it," Tifa growled, throwing her hands up in exasperation that was only half feigned. How could any two people who were so incredibly adept in a fight be so amazingly clumsy in day-to-day life? "Come inside, I'm not telling you about this trip by yelling the information for the whole neighbourhood to hear. After cleaning up!" she finished hastily when they stood up and she got a good look at how much dirt they'd picked up.
Cloud looked at Zack, and Zack looked back at him, and the same thought occurred to them both at the same moment. The only place to clean off without going inside was the water hose at the back of the building... and whichever of them got to it last was probably going to be thoroughly sprayed down by the one to reach it first.
Without any further reflection, without even any warning they were going to move, they both bolted down the slanted side of the roof, laughing and shoving at each other as they had in the race out to the ocean in Costa del Sol. Not even bothering with the ladder, they leapt off the edge of the roof.
Watching them disappear from sight, Tifa shook her head. "I don't believe the two of them," she muttered to Cid and Vincent, gesturing for them to head inside the bar. "They're worse than the kids by a factor of about a million."
"He a SOLDIER?" Cid guessed shrewdly, and Tifa nodded.
"1st Class," she told him, figuring that much at least was safe to reveal. "He and Cloud were friends when they were both in Shinra together. Cloud found him again a couple of weeks ago, and it's... really made a difference for him." That was putting it mildly.
"Huh." Cid grinned around his cigarette when Tifa winced at a thud and a crash from outside, and the sound of shouts and laughter reached them dimly through the walls. "You know, there was a saying in Shinra, back when I was still stationed in Midgar instead of out in Rocket Town."
"Oh?" she looked at him curiously, and his grin widened.
"SOLDIERs at play are ten times more dangerous than SOLDIERs at war," he quoted, and she had to laugh.
By the time Cloud and Zack came inside they'd both been thoroughly soaked by cold water from the hose. They'd managed to wring out the worst of it and use their discarded shirts to mop up a good deal of the rest, but they were still decidedly damp-looking as they entered the room. Tifa's lips twitched and she hid a smile behind her hand, though she couldn't help but note with a twinge how close together the two men were walking. Had something happened in Costa del Sol after all?
Seeing the way Cloud glanced at her and then looked hastily away again, and Zack's apologetic expression, she was pretty sure something had. Swallowing, she promised herself that she wouldn't allow herself to be upset where either of them could see it. There was no point in being a sore loser; she was better than that.
"So? What did you find?" Cloud asked, trying to divert Tifa's attention from him and Zack. The look on her face was making him very uncomfortable, but he didn't want to get into that particular conversation in front of Cid and Vincent.
"Absolutely nothing," Tifa sighed, tossing a couple of beers to Cloud and Zack and gesturing for them to join the group at a table. "No sign of Sephiroth, no sign of Jenova, no..."
Vincent, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed rather than sitting with the rest of them, shifted uneasily. Cid was the one who spoke up, however. "Hey now," he objected, frowning at Zack. "Old friend or not, should we be discussin' this in company?"
Tifa understood his objection; after she'd explained the situation to him and Vincent, the three of them had agreed that the fewer people who knew about it outside of AVALANCHE, the better. The last thing they needed was to cause a panic, and people still remembered all too well the destruction wrought by Sephiroth. She looked at Cloud questioningly, letting him decide what to tell them.
"Zack's as much a part of this as I am," the blond said firmly, taking a seat and kicking another towards the ex-SOLDIER. "Maybe more. If we're going to beat the bastard once and for all, it'll be with his help. You can trust him."
He did not mention his certainty that Zack was in fact the carrier of Sephiroth this time around. There was no point in rousing the others against his friend, and even if he was fairly certain that Sephiroth was probably aware of everything that Zack knew about their attempts to stop him, it didn't matter. Without Zack's help they were in a lot more trouble, and as long as Cloud accounted for the fact that anything his friend suggested might be influenced by Sephiroth, it wouldn't make a difference.
So he kept telling himself, anyway. Maybe eventually he'd really believe it, and the sick feeling in his gut would go away.
"Zack, this is Cid Highwind, formerly of Shinra's space program, and Vincent Valentine, former Turk," he introduced his friend as Zack sat. "Vincent is the one I told you about, the one who's part of the Chaos project."
Vincent frowned to hear that Cloud had been discussing his past with strangers, but Zack just nodded and looked the man square in his eerie crimson eyes. "I was taken to the lab from Nibelheim, same as Cloud," he said, and some of the tension in Vincent's shoulders eased. "The two of us escaped together, but that's a long story. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get you out at the same time; if I'd stopped for anything, they'd have caught us again."
"It is of no matter," the ex-Turk shrugged gracefully. "I would not have gone, even had you tried to free me. I was not yet ready to face the world at that time."
Zack could understand that well enough. If someone had thrown open his tank a year ago and offered him the chance to escape, he wasn't sure he would have taken it. He'd been too absorbed in the pain of old memories and past failures, and far too lost in the mako to care about freedom.
"I worked closely with both Cloud and Sephiroth, and I knew Aerith," he continued. "I've got a few choice things to say to Seph once we catch up to him, you can be sure of that. And it seems appropriate that Cloud and I face him down together in the end." Since they'd both been there at the start of it, when Sephiroth had snapped that first time.
He exchanged a glance with Cloud, who nodded. "That's the short version," the blond concluded. "The long version can wait. So there wasn't anything useful at all in the crater?" he asked, though he didn't doubt that Tifa had told them everything. If there had been anything at all, she would have been fairly bursting to tell him. Truly, he'd known the answer the moment he'd looked down from the roof and seen her expression.
"We were probably exposed to more mako than is healthy, but that's it," Tifa confirmed despondently. She drained a good quarter of her beer, almost wishing she dared to get drunk and forget about it for a little while. About Sephiroth, and Zack and Cloud, and everything else.
She was stronger than that, though, and she wasn't going to let it beat her. "So, we'll just have to look somewhere else," she continued doggedly. "Have we heard back from Reeve about Hojo's notes? Or Cid, have you heard from any of your contacts?"
"Honestly, your best bet would be to go straight to the top," Cid shook his head. "Just 'bout everyone I knew is gone from Rocket Town now, but I heard tell a good lot of 'em have gone right back where they started - workin' for Shinra."
"For Rufus, you mean?" Cloud said shrewdly, and the pilot nodded. "Damn it. What's he want with them? Don't tell me he's hoping to set up Shinra again. Even he can't be crazy enough to think he could reinstate the reactors."
"No, but I'll bet he's got plans to regain power some other way," Tifa countered. "Either by getting a monopoly on the new energy sources somehow, or by dominating some other area of commerce. He's obviously still got some resources left to him. Maybe we should take this to him."
"The day I go to a Shinra for help will be the day they're tying a tag on my toe," Zack declared flatly. "I've heard he's better than his dad - he sure as Hades can't be much worse - but I still trust him about as far as I can throw him."
"I have to agree," Cloud murmured, his eyes dark. "Rufus is a last resort at best."
"Guys, I think we may be on our last resort," Tifa pointed out. "We're running out of options, here."
"There's still a chance we could confront Sephiroth directly," Zack insisted. "He's getting a lot more bold; there've been sightings of him every night since we got back from the western continent. I think we should try staking out the city, see if we can corner him."
That sounded like a phenomenally bad idea to Cloud, but he couldn't say why without explaining his theory about the connection between Zack and Sephiroth. The absolute last thing he wanted was to confront the bastard without some way of dealing with him that wouldn't hurt Zack, but Tifa was right that they were running out of options.
Besides, if Zack was encouraging them to avoid Rufus... didn't that mean that was probably what Sephiroth wanted? Going to the caves together had turned out to be a huge mistake, even if Zack had saved Cloud from the attraction of the Lifestream; it had given Sephiroth a chance to get at them both on his turf, so to speak.
"I'll talk to Rufus," he said abruptly, and tried not to notice the shock and hurt in Zack's eyes at this sudden withdrawal of support. "If he can help in any way, I'll shake it out of him. By force, if necessary. He owes me, and I'll make damn sure he knows it." His eyes glinted, and Tifa couldn't help a grim smile of her own.
"I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you go," she said, raising her bottle to Cloud in a silent toast. "Staking out the city isn't a bad idea either, but if he hasn't come near you two yet, that's got to be deliberate. He just may not show up wherever you are."
"Then they should not be the ones to do the hunting," Vincent put in, making them all look at him in surprise. "Leave that to the rest of us. Call in Barrett and Yuffie, Cait and Nanaki. There are more than enough of us to form a watch, and we are strong enough in pairs to at least hold him at bay until the others can arrive."
"Now that's the best idea I've heard all day," Zack said approvingly. He didn't much like the thought of getting more people in the line of fire, but it wasn't like these were civilians. All of them had faced Sephiroth down multiple times before, they knew what they were getting into. And Vincent was probably right that they could handle Sephiroth at least long enough for Cloud and Zack to get there and take him down.
Cloud grimaced, unable to find a way to veto the suggestion that wouldn't require explanation. And now more than ever he didn't want people to know what he'd already realized; Tifa might be an exception, but if the rest of AVALANCHE ever realized that Zack was the one carrying Sephiroth, they might well attack him without a second thought. Cloud couldn't allow that to happen.
It just meant he'd have to find a solution soon, before they had a chance to catch Sephiroth and pin him down in a fight. Privately Cloud resolved to track down Rufus as soon as humanly possible. One way or another this was coming to head, and if he didn't want to lose his best friend again then he was going to have to move fast.