This one-shot is dedicated to Frankokomando, who won it through my "After Saving the World" trivia question. I hope that despite the dismal setting, this satisfies any present Zack-and-Cloud-friendship-fanfic cravings you might have.

Here's a wake up call: I don't own FFVII.


It was only a few weeks after their initial imprisonment. For Zack it could have been months. Zack tried every way possible to wrest control from the madman's grasp, even if it was merely to resist getting the mako treatments. Hojo had tried punishing him physically with torture, mentally with mako, but he had yet to try playing at their emotions. But then, being the apathetic man he was, Hojo wouldn't know much about emotions.

Monday came around like a slingshot, much too quick for Zack's liking. Every Monday was the mako injections, but he dreaded it more for Cloud then himself. He at least had some immunity to it due to the mako treatments that came with being a SOLDIER, but Cloud had nothing to help him bounce back from the mako sickness every week.

Without variation, the guards brought Zack in and strapped him to the chair, fitting his hands and ankles into the manacles that pinned him tight. Only, something was wrong.

"Where's Cloud?" Zack demanded, craning his neck around to view the doorway. He thought the guards had been bringing the blond only steps behind him.

"Quiet, Specimen Z!" an assistant called out authoritatively.

Zack was sick of all the 'specimen' nonsense. "How about you be quiet?" he grumbled.

She caught his complaint and raised an eyebrow in serious disbelief. "Do you want to be electrocuted again?"

Ignoring her, he pressed, "Where is Cloud? Where have you taken him?"

"Silly boy," a greasy voice slid into the conversation, the tone picking at Zack's gallantry and effectively sending a chill of fear down his spine. "This is a lab. Specimen C merely has other purposes to fulfill."

Zack shivered involuntarily. This was the first time Hojo had separated them for experiments, and Zack didn't approve of the set up. They could do anything they wished to Cloud, and Zack would neither know about it nor be able to stop it from happening.

"If you touch him–" Zack threatened, knowing the threat held no merit under his pressing circumstances.

Hojo laughed and signaled the go ahead for the assistants to begin the mako injections. Though this time, Zack was worried and resistant. He had to get to Cloud. What if they were torturing him, or worse, going to kill him! He didn't care if he ended up being punished for his misbehavior. It didn't matter; he wanted to escape anyway. Why not try before they weakened him with mako?

As he thrashed about, he noticed Hojo's oddly self-absorbed expression as the proceedings continued despite Zack's outburst. He let out a string of curses as an assistant approached with the shot of green fluid. "Don't stick that thing in me," he snarled.

That's when it happened. The manacle on his left wrist groaned, and SNAP! It broke off with an ear-grating crack. Zack didn't waste any time. Punching the assistant in the stomach as she closed in, Zack released a scream of agony as he wrenched his other fist free.

Forgetting his feet were still shackled to the seat, Zack stood up and tried to step forward. He fell to the floor almost immediately and groaned, feeling his ankles twist painfully awry. Somewhere an alarm sounded and Zack knew it would be over before it began if he couldn't get his feet free.

The assistant had slinked away while the guards already placed in the room forced Zack to his feet. "Thank you." Zack aimed a left hook at one and cracked the breastbone of another. They crumpled and Zack went back to work on his ankles. Too late.

The room flooded with Shinra issue outfits and they aimed on Zack, waiting for his move.

"Shoot if you must, but if you kill him I will have every one of you as part of his replacement," Hojo said from a corner in the room where he had gone to avoid the excitement while writing furiously in his notes.

Zack reasoned within himself, wanting to fight so badly. Just wanting to get out of this underground prison, but…he couldn't go without Cloud, and he wouldn't be much help if he was full of lead. With a sigh that conveyed his bitter grief more then words, he raised his hands in defeat and let the guards unstrap his feet from the chair and pin him down in the second one. A second assistant rushed forward and injected a small dose of some type of numbing agent. Within seconds Zack could barely flick his fingers.

The guards filtered out of the room and the assistants stood at the ready. Zack averted his eyes when Hojo sent him a glare of amusement and went to the intercom. "Bring him in," he cackled.

Zack barely glanced up as the door squeaked open on rusty hinges, but he heard the harsh breaths escaping into the stillness of the room. In surprise and alarm at the sudden recognition, Zack's eyes darted upward. His mouth dropped open in horror. "Cloud?"

Hojo circled around the guards supporting Cloud and came to a stop in front of the blond. Nothing could have hidden the dark bruises that marred his face, made all the sicklier by the reflection of green mako on his porcelain skin. Cloud's pained eyes found Hojo standing within inches. So close yet so impossibly far. He sucked in the trickle of blood leaking from his mouth, gathered it together in his mouth, and spat the red substance onto Hojo's sterile white lab coat.

Hojo stood unbothered and unreactive to the stain. He always had blood on his coat by the end of the day anyway. Cloud had merely testified to being the first victim that day. He turned his back on Cloud and faced Zack, looking him squarely in the eye to intimidate.

"Specimen Z, you think you're actions around here go unchecked, but you are sorely incorrect. Every action has its consequence, and I have now decided upon the consequence for your outbursts and misbehavior." Hojo nodded to one of the guards still remaining in the room.

The guard moved forward, the two supporting Cloud holding him up firmly. Drawing back his fist, he aimed for Cloud's stomach. Cloud flinched and tried to turn away, and Zack cried out in desperation. "No!"

The curled fingers made contact with Cloud's soft, newly healed flesh, still tender from Masamune's stab, and he yelped like a wounded puppy, whimpering as the bruise began to form.

"No, please," Zack pleaded. He didn't even pause to think of how he was begging to the likes of Hojo. His mind was too embroiled in the physical abuse Cloud was receiving, and it was his fault. Zack's fault. So it was up to him to stop it. "Hojo, no. You don't have to do this to him. Let me take the beating. Please! Just stop."

Hojo didn't seem to hear him. The guard looked over and Hojo nodded impatiently. "Continue."

Cloud's grunts and cries of pain filled the room, and Zack shrieked loudly, begging for reprieve on Cloud's behalf. It might have been minutes, it could have been hours. Down in Hojo's laboratory it was hard to tell.

At the end of it, they were led back to their cells, Cloud's beating a sharp reminder of the consequences of defying their new authority. "I'm so sorry, Cloud," Zack said, only just regaining his ability to move after the numbing injection.

On his cot, Cloud rolled onto his back with a loud groan.

"I'm sorry, I– I didn't know. I–"

"Shut up, Zack," Cloud grunted. "It's like you said. You didn't know."

Zack froze. Forgiveness wasn't the first thing he had expected. Anger would be expected in this situation, but Cloud seemed to understand. Softening his tone, Zack asked. "Let me see how bad it is."

"Why?" Cloud stared at the ceiling, his facial features twitching of their own volition as he fought back another groan. "So you know how long you can feel sorry about trying to escape?"

Cloud had a point, but Zack shook his head. "No," his voice hitched on the rising anger, "so I know how hard to hit Hojo when I get my hands on him."

Cloud let out a small chuckle despite the painful situation.

"So let me see." Zack stumbled across the room, his legs still trembling from the effects of the drug. He made a mental note not to do anything to result in getting it in his system again.

Cloud groaned as his sat up, eyelids cinched in pain. "Fine," he relented. As he pulled the white t-shirt over his head, Zack's breath caught in the back of his throat. He swallowed hard at the sight.

Dark bruises colored nauseating hues of blue, purple, and green covered his stomach and chest like a starchy paint canvas. His natural skin coloration had disappeared under the blotches, and imprints of the guard's gloved knuckles were showing in some of the marks.

Zack held in a gasp of dismay and gave Cloud a sympathetic smile instead. Trying to lighten the mood, he commented. "Well, if you get bored, it could almost be like looking for pictures in clouds."

With a roll of his eyes, Cloud collapsed backwards onto the cot, clutching his shirt over his exposed, splotchy stomach.

Zack sat on the edge of the bed and smirked at Cloud's mutilated face. "Look on the bright side."

"And what's that?" his eyes stared absently at the ceiling.

"It doesn't seem like they are giving us any more tests today. That way you can rest up for when we escape."

"…when," Cloud echoed.

"Yeah," Zack looked down contemplatively. "When." They let the silence drift past them naturally, and when the moment was over, Zack questioned, "Did they give you mako treatments?"

Cloud shook his head.

"Me neither," Zack admitted confidentially. "I wonder what Hojo has in mind." His voice rose, "I'm not going to stay long enough to find out though."

Cloud rolled onto his side, fingers stuck in place on the grimy white t-shirt. "So what's the plan, Lieutenant?" he mocked.

Leaning against the wall with his arms behind his head, Zack casually threw his legs out and crossed them in a teasing fashion. "Well, for starters, what does our armory look like?"

Playing along, Cloud reported back with half his face buried in his pillow, his body curling up naturally to ease the pain. "We've got nothing but the kitchen sink," he mumbled, his voice beginning to lighten.

"We've got the beds," Zack pointed out. "There's got to be something useful attached to one of them."

"Perhaps," Cloud consented.

"I'll look later," Zack decided with a finalizing nod. "Alright, how about food storage?"

Cloud gazed pointedly at his stomach. "It won't hold out for long."

"Right then," Zack nodded. "So we'll need more food. How about clothes?"

Cloud frowned. "I don't know. What time of year is it? Winter? No, it has to be fall. It's cold but not cold enough." Forgetting about Zack, Cloud followed his track of thinking out loud, not even sure where it led him. "It was October when we got put in here. We can't have been in here more then a couple weeks, right?"

"Cloud?" Zack asked, his voice lilting with concern.

"It can't be winter yet," Cloud continued mumbling to himself, deeply troubled about something. "It just can't."

Disconcerted by the sudden change in mood, Zack tried to pull Cloud out of his state of mind. "Uh, hey, Spike, I bet you're pretty tired. Why don't we get that shirt back on you so you can go to sleep for a while?" Without waiting for an answer, Zack helped Cloud sit upright and slide the alabaster shirt over the repulsive bruises. He coaxed Cloud under the covers of his blanket, but the blond still muttered under his breath.

Zack knelt by his bedside. "Cloud, what's wrong with winter?"

Cloud's desperate eyes flashed to him from under thick lashes. "I…it's just, how long have we been here? It can't have been long enough for winter to come. That would mean it's been a couple of months, right?"

Zack nodded.

"But it doesn't feel like it's been that long." Cloud frowned, a small curve of the lips resembling a slight pout more then concern. "Zack."

Zack watched Cloud intently to let him know that he was paying serious attention.

"You've never seen a Nibelheim winter. If this is all the protection from it that we have, we'll freeze. No, if we go out there in the middle of winter, we'll probably die." The serious inflection of his voice concerned Zack. Cloud's eyes pled for understanding of the significance of the revelation despite how simply it could be dismissed as a fickle concern.

"That bad, huh?" Zack didn't think anything could be worse than the lab, but Cloud was the expert. He had grown up surviving the Nibelheim winter storms of which Zack only heard horror stories about.

Cloud nodded uncomfortably.

"Well, nothing we can do about that right now," Zack said. "Try to get some rest."

"I'm not tired, Zack," Cloud protested.

"You're going to wish for it later," Zack pointed out. "I'll think of something. Maybe I'll look around."

"Zack," he pushed himself up on one elbow.

Releasing a defeated sigh, Zack relented, "Yeah, Spikey?"

"I want to help. I'm not tired," Cloud insisted. "Really."

"Okay."

The two got up and while Cloud rolled under his cot looking for something loose to use, Zack began surveying the bed with interest, wondering if somehow the cot itself could be transformed into a weapon.

Cloud fiddled with the bolts attached to the angular support beams holding up the frame of the cot that held the stretched material "mattress" aloft. "Hey, Zack?" he called out.

There was a brief pause before Zack answered, "Yeah?"

"What kind of things are we looking for?"

"Oh, anything that we can wiggle loose. We can find a way to use it somehow."

Cloud examined the mattress frame more closely. The bolts attached the supports from the wall to the opposite side of the cot, but other than the beams themselves, nothing looked like a suitable weapon of any sort.

"Um, Zack?" Cloud hesitantly spoke.

All he could hear in response were the distant screams of other specimens in the lab down the hall. Cloud winced. He had seen how, one by one, people he used to know were led down the corridor to be fitted with an internal monitor. 'Don't let that be me next,' Cloud begged. At night Cloud could hear the disgusted whispers of gossip from the guards. It was rumored that Hojo never gave anesthetic. He claimed the results were more accurate if the patient was awake for the surgical procedure. Then woe befall anyone whose monitor was broken or damaged while being placed inside their bodies. They were either replaced, or the specimen was… an icy finger traced Cloud's spine and he shivered.

He and Zack were lucky so far. They were at the end of the row of cells so they would be among the last few to get their sensors in, unless they got out first. That was their deadline. They had to get out before then or…

"Zack," Cloud tried again. His voice strained under his fear, and he raised it slightly to mute the cries of the sufferers.

"Hmm?" Zack hummed. "You say something, Spike?"

"Uh, yeah," Cloud affirmed. "I uh…" He shifted. "I thought of something we might be able to use."

With a bit of hope, Zack crouched down beside him as Cloud explained how they could take out the bolts and use the metal beams as weapons as they made their way to freedom. Zack praised Cloud for such clear-minded thinking and bounded to his cot with increased interest.

That problem solved, Cloud had nothing to fill his thoughts and he again felt the endless screaming cutting him through. Goosebumps rose as a chill washed over his body. He was exhausted, simple as that. He had never felt so tired since his early days as a trooper. However, the difference was, then he had worked so hard that he was sore, and now he was merely punished for something he didn't do, and still felt the same way.

Trying to lift himself off the ground, Cloud let out a piercing cry. It felt like he had been impaled by Masamune all over again. Still fresh, the bruises hadn't hurt much, but now they throbbed with an intensifying pain.

"Cloud? You okay over there?" Zack immediately checked.

With a sick feeling consuming his stomach, Cloud lay back on the stone floor. "Yeah, I'm okay." He bit back a groan. Now his chest was beginning to ache. He didn't want to worry Zack though, so Cloud resigned himself to lying on the floor until the pain subsided.

The screams continued in the background.

Cloud focused his attention on Zack's frustrated grunts instead as his friend tried to stick his fingernail in the tiny space between the metal and bolt. "Argh," he complained. "This'll take forever!" Then a bit darkly, he added, "We don't have forever."

Giving up, Zack lay under his cot, trying not to listen to the screams. At first there had been threats as the man was taken from his cell, but at the sight of the restraints and mako tanks, his pleadings could be heard through the corridors. Now his screams echoed through the walls, joining a dozen other souls who had to suffer the same fate. In the end, only the pained sobs would haunt the cells as each person took their turn in the mako tanks and succumbed to the silence.

Zack called out to Cloud. Upon receiving no answer, he called again, turning on his side and squinting through the dim light to see his friend motionless under the opposite bed.

"You're not falling asleep on me, now are you?" Zack teased with only a hint of worry.

"No," but Cloud's voice sounded faint.

With half a laugh, Zack rolled out and crawled over to Cloud. "I think you'd be more comfortable on the bed, kiddo."

"Hm," Cloud closed his eyes wearily.

"Come on," Zack hauled Cloud from under and helped him up, but not without a significant amount of groaning on Cloud's part.

Zack pulled the blanket over his ailing friend. "A bit more tired than you thought, eh?" Zack teased gently.

Cloud just smiled dimly and sank into the bare warmth of his covers.


Hope you all liked it.

-Dante