Ballad of a Dove

Chapter 1 - Awakening

by The Secret SOLDIER

Cold. And wet. Soft mud seeping in through his clothes where he lay in contact with the ground. The acrid smell of gunpowder, the nauseating smell of blood and death, hung thickly, as if even the air refused to be washed clean by the rain. Zack had been on enough battlefields to know where he was even without opening his eyes. What was the real surprise, though, was the fact that he was alive to begin with. His memory was a little hazy...

Right now, thinking only made his head hurt worse. He forced his eyes open, blinking up at the gray sky as if it held all the answers. Moving was a bad idea too, it seemed, as pain knifed through his chest with every shaky breath he drew. He guessed several ribs were at least cracked, and his skull and left arm weren't feeling much better.

He closed his eyes again with a sigh, pushing the pain away and instead imagining himself in Aerith's church... His head no longer rested on stone but on her lap; the rain washing the five years of grime off his face was instead her gentle fingertips; the slight murmur of wind was her voice, calling his name, or laughing as she went about her work, or singing to herself when she thought he wasn't around. Aerith. So full of life. He would think of her; she would see him through this day, as her memory had seen him through the last five years. She, and Cloud.

Cloud!

His whole body jolted convulsively as he tried to sit up. Where was Cloud? He rolled onto his side and slowly propped himself upright on his elbows. His field of vision was too narrow to make out much other than walls of rock and pools of mud, but by the amount of blood he saw running into those pools, there'd been a massacre here. One in which he'd had no part. Oh, Gaia...Cloud...

Zack rotated his head slowly; his eyes were near-useless from this position close to the ground, but his other senses were as sharp as ever. The scent of blood and gunpowder was strongest to his left, but whatever lay over there was hidden by an outcropping. Time to get moving, then. At his first attempt to stand, he felt something strain deep inside his chest and decided that he'd have to find an alternate means of transportation. Ignoring as best he could the stinging mud seeping into the open wounds on his arms, he dragged himself along the ground, gritting his teeth as he forced his aching body over the stone and sand.

What had happened to him? He could remember the truck ride, and the snipers set up on the roadside, and hauling Cloud out of the bed of the vehicle, and then - nothing.

He finally made it far enough to see the entirety of the battlefield and stopped in shock and horror. Most of the corpses had already dissolved into the Lifestream, but there were enough broken weapons scattered about to have equipped an entire battalion. And the blood...crimson rivers diluted by the rain ran away into the cracks in the ground. But in one direction the red was undiluted, trickling thickly among the rocks. A limp body was stretched on the ground, dark uniform almost blending in, with a broken sword barely clasped in one hand.

Zack's whole body went cold. No, this can't be! Pushing aside all awareness of pain, he lurched to his feet and stumbled forward, falling on his face an arm's-length away from Cloud. He didn't - he couldn't - believe that this was his friend lying here so still. It wasn't possible! Cloud had survived so much, it just couldn't end like this. But Fate was cruel, and there was no denying the reality of the blood pouring out of the blond's many wounds, nor the multitude of bullet holes that perforated his shirt and stomacher.

Zack bent over his friend, vision wavering and hands trembling, utterly lost. He hardly recognized his own hoarse voice. "Cloud...don't leave." He'd lived with this man for the last year, and beside him for four more - he couldn't lose Cloud now! But he didn't know what to do.

"Cloud," he whispered again, leaning forward, hoping against all odds to catch the faintest sound of air being drawn in and out of torn lungs. Zack's chest constricted. This couldn't be happening...! But then -

A hiss of breath through clenched teeth.

The black-haired SOLDIER nearly collapsed with relief. Cloud was alive - they'd make it back to Midgar yet! Then his own jaw tightened as he realized what pain the blond must be in, to have survived all those wounds and still be alive. What he needed was a doctor, and fast.

Unfortunately, Materia was in a short supply; Zack carried none, and the bodies of the dead troops were disintegrating too quickly for searching them to be an option. He glanced up, squinting through both the rain and the pain in his head, and was able to make out a dark smudge on the horizon. Midgar wasn't more than a day's travel away at the most. Once there, hiding would be more difficult, but hopefully a visit to a hospital would not only heal Cloud but wake him from his coma. Then, with both of them awake and active, evading recapture ought to be easier. Getting there in time would be the challenge.

Zack looked down at his injured friend, then glanced over his shoulder at the hilt of the gigantic Buster Sword secured to his back. He frowned, closing his eyes. He doubted that in his present condition he could carry both the sword and Cloud. Angeal, I know you'll understand...I'll always have my Honor. But I need Cloud, too.

"I promise I'll come back for it," he murmured, disengaging the sword and laying it at the bottom of the rock wall that towered over them.

Without further thought, Zack knelt, bracing his knees on slippery rocks, and lifted Cloud by the shoulders. The infantryman groaned quietly and Zack prayed that he stayed unconscious. The blond was heavier than he looked...or my strength's been waning...and it was with effort that the SOLDIER hoisted him over one shoulder. Definitely not the best way to carry a nearly-dead man, but he did what he had to do.

Getting to his feet was a whole other battle. The world rocked and swayed, and Cloud's weight all on one side did nothing to help balance. Finally Zack stood upright, one hand on the rock wall in front of him, the other holding tightly to Cloud as if the blond could do anything to support him. Zack took a deep breath and stepped away from the wall, his movements painfully slow and unsteady. Scratch his earlier idea. It would take the better part of a week to get to Midgar at this speed, and that wasn't even considering the rain and troops and other obstacles.

They'd gained an agonizing twenty feet when sharp SOLDIER ears picked up a sound behind them, coming from where Zack had woken up earlier. Footsteps. A lot of them. Of course there would be reinforcements. He accelerated into a staggering run, well aware of the easy target he was making, and prayed for a miracle.

He could hear the shouts as the troops came into view of him; his body tensed involuntarily, expecting at any moment to hear the rattle of gunfire and feel a hundred bullets ripping through him. But they seemed to be taking their time, and as a pinnacle of rock reared up ahead out of the rain and mist, he allowed himself a brief hope that he might be able to get to shelter before the troops made their move. His chest aching with every jarring step, he'd almost reached a spur that could cover him when he heard a single rifle crack behind him. He threw himself at the ground, and several things happened simultaneously.

Cloud jerked once against his back and Zack felt a sharp exhalation against his arm; accompanying the breath came a searing pain cutting through his left shoulder and he completely lost his grip on the infantryman. Zack pushed himself to hands and knees, already getting his feet under him and gathering up Cloud again when he happened to glance at his friend's face. Blood trickled between pallid lips and blue eyes were half-lidded and unfocussed. Zack realized, with a knife through his heart, that Cloud was gone. In the end, he hadn't been able to save him.

The SOLDIER leapt to his feet with all of his enhanced speed and whirled on the approaching troops, face contorted into a snarl and right hand reaching back for his weapon. But the sword wasn't there for him, and at the sight of the wall of men and weapons bearing relentlessly down on him, he broke. Leaving Cloud dead on the ground, he fled into the twilight, his only thought that he ought to have stood and died. But he couldn't. Not yet. Not with her waiting for him.

"Aerith...I'm coming. Finally." He didn't know how he could face her after this, but he knew he couldn't just die and leave her without a word.

Gunshots echoed after him, sending chips of stone flying as bullets ricocheted overhead, but no more struck him. Even after he was long out of sight of the battlefield, stumbling from weariness and blood loss, the noise continued; he refused to let himself think of what they were doing to Cloud's body, taking out all the anger they must have at losing a whole battalion. Oh, gods, Cloud - I should have been the one to take on the army and you should be the one walking away free. I'm so sorry...

He fell to the ground, clenched his bloodied hands in the soft sand of the Wastelands, and screamed to heaven, not caring who heard, "Why? Why him?" His voice broke and he added barely audibly, "Why not me?"

As if in answer, the sky above him opened for a moment, letting a single ray of sunlight touch his face in a caress; then the storm returned, breaking loose and pouring a cold, drenching rain on the SOLDIER weeping for his friend amidst the thunder.

At last he raised his head as the storm abated; the sky was still dark, but now with the dusk rather than with clouds. The rain had helped him: it washed away his trail, and soothed the wounds on his head and shoulder, making the pain more bearable. But the pain inside was all he felt at the moment. He'd failed to save one of the few things he loved. There was now only one person left to him.

Aerith. His thoughts ultimately, as always, led him back to her. It had been five years since he'd last seen her, a month or so since the last Angeal Copy had delivered the letter she'd sent who-knew how long ago. A lot could happen in a month. A lot could happen in a matter of seconds. He didn't know what she was doing now, or even if she was still living where he'd left her, or if she'd found someone new, or even if she was still alive.

She was the one treasure left him, and he wasn't about to let anything happen to her, even if it cost him his life. He looked back the way he'd come and saluted slowly, muttering an oath to himself - and Cloud - that he would have vengeance yet. But not today. With a grim determination, he turned his face to the city on the dimming horizon and set off toward it, not looking back again.

A/N: This is an incredibly overused way to begin a fic, but it's the only way I could think of. Updates will be sporadic, but I do have a plot all planned out - and I've been told I write good plot, so the story is worth sticking around to see!

And I'll give a bit of a spoiler to those who otherwise might leave this fic because Cloud is dead: he's not dead. But it will be a while before he shows up again.

Thanks for reading!

(P.S. The more people show interest in this story, the more likely I am to update regularly. Just sayin'.)

(P.P.S. I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to everyone who reviewed/favorited/read my first story, Comfort for the Comfortless. You guys have encouraged me enough to want to write more for this account!)