[Closed]

[livemydream]

Who: Zack Fair and Sephiroth
What: A reunion of sorts.
When: Some time after Sephiroth's first post.
Where: Near the Recreation area.
Warnings: Nothing planned.

Comments

[livemydream]

Zack's eyes widened a bit in surprise at Sephiroth's words. That was the last thing that he had expected to hear from the other man. It would have been handy to known back then, but Zack was also fairly certain that his answer would have been the same as it was right now. "No, you don't have to do that," Zack replied, reassuringly.

The offer alone was enough for Zack, he could honestly and wholeheartedly say that he was honored by that show of trust. Zack could take the leap of faith too and trust that Sephiroth wouldn't snap on everyone. He was doing well so far. So he was hopeful things would keep going in the right direction.

Despite the several changes of pace, Zack managed to keep up fine. However he was grateful when Sephiroth slowed the pace. A small frown crossed his face at the other man's question. It seemed Genesis hadn't had all the details. "I lost consciousness just after Cloud managed to throw you into the Lifestream in the Mako Reactor. When I woke up again, I was inside the laboratory at Shinra Mansion. Cloud was there too. So I grabbed him and made a run for it. He was suffering from Mako poisoning and pretty much comatose. I had to carry him around and protect him from Shinra as well as Hollander and even Genesis."

He rubbed his head and sighed, as he finished relating the story to Sephiroth. How Cissnei of the Turks had helped him as well as his final fight with Genesis, when the Goddess of the Lifestream healed the other man. To finally when Shinra's troops had caught to them just outside of Midgar and he sacrificed himself to keep Cloud falling into their hands.

There was no regret in voice when it came to saving Cloud. It was fairly obvious by his tone that he would do it all over again and still accept the same fate, if it meant his friend would survive.

[rapunzeroth]

"ShinRa Mansion?" But he'd been told about that. He'd locked himself in there to read the files. What was left there? He wasn't certain why he'd never looked before except that he'd assumed the place cleaned out and condemned. "I was...born there." He spoke haltingly, and shook his head a bit to clear out that thought. "I can say I'm very sorry you ended up in Hojo's hands. I wouldn't wish that for an enemy, never mind a...friend."

That was true enough. He'd been known to kill purely so Hojo couldn't have an experiment. He wasn't certain if Zack was a friend, but he was at least an ally and Sephiroth found, oddly, he didn't want to think of what Hojo might have done.

"Strife was comatose from Mako and is alive? Without brain damage?" He hadn't been sure that was possible. The levels of Mako to induce a coma without killing....

But he was quiet through the rest of it, only giving a derisive snort at Turks. He didn't even have anything against them personally, it was just SOLDIER habit. "And so you performed your last heroic action against the evil company," Sephiroth completed. "I feel as though I should apologize for Genesis giving you a hard time as well. He...enjoys it." No sense in lying about it. He couldn't imagine how desperate Genesis had been, how relieved to be healed.

He studied his hands again, rubbing over a red strip of skin absently. "It would seem I have a lot to atone for. I wonder if my mind had degraded badly enough to drive me to that." He felt fine so far. But he'd seen Angeal and Genesis literally fall apart.

[livemydream]

"Yeah, I never liked Hojo from the moment I met him." Zack admitted. There was something not quite right about that man from the start. He was definitely a face that Zack never wanted to see again. "Cloud did suffer some brain damage. He lost his memories for a long time there. Eventually he started to recover them, but it wasn't easy for him."

He could remember when Aerith's presence in the Lifestream awakened him, followed by their conversations about Cloud. However Zack choose not to relate that story. That was something between him and Aerith. In any case it was in the past, Cloud had gotten most of his memory back and was doing fine.

"I pretty much figured that out. I was just glad that I didn't have to kill Genesis, since he seemed resigned to it when he challenged me." Zack replied, rubbing the back of his head. It honestly had been the last thing he had needed at that point, but at least it didn't end the way things had ended with Angeal. Definitely memories he wouldn't mind forgetting.

"I really couldn't say. You became a whole other person. I couldn't recognize you anymore." That was just the sad truth of it. When he looked into Sephiroth's eyes that fateful day in the Mako Reactor, the man he had known was just gone.

[rapunzeroth]

"I've known Hojo my entire life and I'm rather sure there's not a person alive who thinks he's mentally sound," Sephiroth noted grimly. If the President had put a stop to it...if someone else had protested...but no one had and here they were.

"Loss of memories completely? That would be..." Feasible. It would explain why his brief conversation with Cloud had gone as it had and he couldn't target specific memories. "That is unfortunate," He finished diplomatically.

Green eyes took in the other man. He didn't seem that much older. He didn't look very different from he had on a day that had been far in the past for him.

"I still don't know what would set me off," Sephiroth told him softly. "Having been told even what was in the files I was reading...I only feel confused. No urge to destroy the world." A brief smile. "More of an urge to destroy ShinRa."

[livemydream]

"I think that's putting it mildly," Zack replied with something of a mirthless laugh. It seemed Shinra preferred the crackpot scientists over the sane ones and look where that got them in the end. It definitely made Zack feel like a idiot for following the company for as long as he had.

"Not completely. He did manage to create a new identity for himself during the time." Though Cloud tried to apologize for forgetting, Zack couldn't really hold it against him. He knew first hand those times had been hard, but he hadn't been the one to suffer Mako poisoning the way Cloud had. "Cloud does remember the past now."

Zack could only sigh as he had no theories or answers for why Sephiroth had lost it at the time. Maybe it did tie in with Jenova, but who could really say? "You locked yourself away to read through those records and files for days. You didn't come out to rest or take a break. It was just nonstop reading."

The only thing he could really think of was maybe, just maybe, Sephiroth had felt alone and truly isolated; since Angeal was dead by that time and Genesis was stark raving mad. Sure, he and Zack had become friends at that time, but he doubted that he could take the place of Angeal and Genesis. Those two had been the other man's best friends.

[rapunzeroth]

Sephiroth's shoulder hitched in a shrug. "I've locked myself away before. I don't need to eat or need to sleep very frequently." Well, he did need the food. But he could still function without it. He was slowly realizing that wasn't even the point. The point was that no one had been able to get through to him.

"I died in Nibelheim. Then I came back? Years later?" With everyone else springing back from the dead, it shouldn't surprise him. "Do me a favor. Next time I die, make sure my body is in ashes." Though that wouldn't stop a determined Planet. Or alien force.

"Then you were...dead. But aware of what was going on?"

[livemydream]

"Well to be fair you were thrown into the Lifestream. We all just assumed you were dead, because you hadn't surfaced. They never found your body though," Zack said with a slight shrug of shoulder.

"How about we hope that no one dies out here, hmm?" Even jokingly, Zack didn't want to think about it. This place was their second chance after all.

At that last question Zack began to rub the back of his head, lightly. "Not at first. I didn't become aware again, until Aerith died. Her presence in the Life stream woke me up." He admitted. "So I only really know what she told me and then what I witnessed after that."

[rapunzeroth]

"This is beginning to give me a migraine and we do not have nearly enough drugs on this ship to ease the pain," Sephiroth muttered. He was still rubbing his temples, as though that could stimulate his mind to remember any of this.

"Aerith who went to the Lifestream because I killed her," Sephiroth replied. As long as they were on the same page. "Because I was jealous that she was an Ancient and because Jenova told me to do so? Or because she was saving the planet?"

He thought he would make a chart when he got back to his room. Then at least he could reference it. Could memorize what he was supposed to know and ask about where it didn't line up.

"Don't do that, you'll go bald," He snapped in response to the hair rubbing. He'd said it often enough in the past. "Tell me something horrible about me. About what I would have read," He requested. "See if...that triggers anything. Though I believe Genesis told me everything."