Forget
By S.J. Kohl

Pairing: (Zack/Cloud)
Rating: PG

Summary: Cloud begs Zack to let him forget.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. Sob
Author's Note: This is a companion fic to Forgotten by Phoenix Dayze, written with her permission. You don't necessarily need to read that one first, but you should definitely read it. Before, after…whatever. It came first, and it's what gave me the idea. It's Cloud's perspective on the whole ordeal. Phoenix doesn't have it posted here yet, but you can find it on her Live Journal, Jenovasunderscoreboy, on her Cloud dark table under the prompt Coffin/Buried. Or, if you want an easier way to find it, send me a message and I'll send you the link.

He drifted in a liquid fog of green, awash in a vast sea of bruised and battered souls, the spirits of those who had passed on, who had given their strength to the Lifestream. He should have passed on too, but something—someone—held him back. He was waiting for Cloud. Cloud…

Zack shifted in the fog. Something teased at the edges of his muted senses, drawing him, calling him toward the world he had left behind. A tauntingly familiar, pain-wracked voice coiled around the center of his awareness and lured him from the green. A frigid drop of water—a bitter tear—splattered against him, and then the world snapped into focus around him. A familiar hilltop overlooking Midgar. Cold frustration shivered through him. They'd been close, so very close to freedom. But he'd failed. Cloud's agonized cry ripped him from his harsh regret. "And I still love you!"

I love you too, Zack tried to say, but he had no voice. He was dead. Nothing more than an aftertaste left on the air and in the earth of this place. Cloud's beautiful face was twisted with grief, and Zack could feel the cold as each wet tear slammed down upon the barren earth of the hilltop on which he'd died, could taste the furious salt of those raining drops. Cloud's slender, shaking hands tore into the ground, ripping at the indifferent dirt, and Zack tried to curl his fingers around them, but, again, he could not. All he could do was listen and watch. And ache with helpless pain and guilt. He had failed. He had left Cloud alone in a world that had turned against him.

And then the tears and the violent sobs drifted into silence and those too familiar hands ran lovingly over the earth, their tender care seducing him, begging him to return to life, to go back to his beloved. "I can't do this anymore," he heard Cloud whisper, as if from across a great distance, and a pang of fear shot through him. Zack focused everything he had to give on the hilltop. On Cloud. "I can't go on living with your ghost." No. Cloud, no. "So I'm going to forget you, Zack." What? Cloud… Zack almost lost himself to the pain, almost fell back into the green fog that pulled at him, that tried always to drag him back into its emerald depths. But he couldn't go. Not yet. "I'm going to bury you so deep inside myself that everything will disappear. All the love. And all the pain." No! Zack screamed, but his voice was not even a whisper on the wind. Don't do this, Cloud. Please…I love you.

"Please, Zack," Cloud murmured brokenly, his words an echo of Zack's thoughts. "If you love me…help me to forget."

Zack's heart cracked and shattered into a thousand slicing shards that tore at the very essence of what made him who he was. And memories assaulted him. His memories…and Cloud's. Cloud, trapped in a glass tube of mako, awaiting the approach of Hojo and his scientists. Cloud's body, limp and nearly lifeless in his arms. Him, screaming at Cloud to run as he threw himself in the path of the bullets. The thudding pain of the bullets that bit into his flesh. The spark of agonized understanding in blue eyes that had been blank for so long. His own muted, gasping breaths of fatal pain. The light of life leaving his eyes. Death. And the crushing emptiness that bore down on Cloud, growing heavier with each passing day. And he knew. He knew with a horrified certainty that he and he alone had the power to take that pain from Cloud. And he knew that now—just as in life—he did not have the strength to deny Cloud's pain. But…Zack steeled himself and drew strength from the air around him. He had failed in life. Maybe in death he could finally grant Cloud the peace he should have been able to give him long ago.

So he sent out a tiny thread of green mist toward Cloud's bent, shivering form. He coiled himself around his lover—though they'd never gotten a chance to consummate the love they shared between them. Shinra and his lackeys had certainly made sure of that—and glided smoothly, slowly into Cloud's delicate, shattered mind. And nearly lost himself in the crushing weight of Cloud's mental anguish. With a soundless scream, Zack flailed and reached for something, anything to hold on to.

And found a brace in the memories they shared, good memories, old memories. Though there were precious few of those. He let out a breathless sigh of sorrow and began calling to him all memories, thoughts, remembered sensations—anything that resonated as his. And he took them all into his own mind, dry tears slipping down nonexistent cheeks as he did so. Dimly, he heard Cloud scream, an animalistic sound of pain and regret. With one last pang of grief, Zack absorbed Cloud's final memories of him—the happy ones—and slipped from his broken lover's mind to drift upon the air once more.

The hilltop shifted into focus just in time for him to see Cloud rise to his feet, a mask of peace settling over his usually bleak face. And then he turned and walked away, not once looking back. Zack shattered, a primal cry of agony and misery ripping through him, a plea that no ears would ever hear. As the green drew at him, drawing him once more toward its empty depths, he stared down at Cloud's retreating figure. I'll be waiting for you, Cloud.

And then he let the fog consume him, wondering bitterly if there was still a reason to wait.