A/N: This story takes place at the beginning of Crisis Core, just before Zack goes to Wutai and Angeal and Genesis go off the rails xD It is a brief background story of my original character, Juneaux Greenslade, who features in my other FFVII story "The Skies Over Wutai". Enjoy!
A Light in the Darkness
xXx
It was perpetually dark; she had lost all sense of time and her circadian rhythm was completely out of sync. She had no idea whether she should be asleep, or awake, and she felt neither sleepy nor fully alert. It had been some hours – or had that been days? – since she had been subjected to the horror, which she found peculiar.
Perhaps they weren't getting anywhere with her results. She would almost be relieved to be deemed a 'failure'. But then they would simply destroy her, discarding her like a used syringe needle.
She was a traitor and a backstabber of the most vicious kind. At least, in the eyes of Shinra, she was. A double agent. A spy.
An assassin.
Hired to take out one of their very own SOLDIERS, in fact. It had been a suicide mission at best; she was aware of this. But she knew she was good – and the other agents knew it, too. There would have been nobody else more fit to carry out the task, than she.
She'd already lost count of the months she'd been holed up in this laboratory, like a rat in a cage. Since she had been found out of her double-crossing intentions, Shinra had pledged no mercy upon her. They'd thrown her immediately to the feet of Professor Hojo, like a piece of meat if he should so choose to do anything with it.
The other option was the slaughter. She'd spat in their faces at their suggestion of converting her to their side, to become one among the Turks. Her skills were certainly admirable, after all. Needless to say, that was no longer an option for her.
She was only human – she had no escape, no means of defending herself except combat, and she'd been stripped of her weapons upon her incarceration. Now, what lay ahead of her was merely a death sentence – or, worse – to become a mutant experimented upon and tortured by the Planet's most corrupt scientist.
Hojo had chosen to take advantage, however, of her 'abilities' as an assassin. She was strong, could kill with deadly accuracy whether it be by weaponry, sword or simply combat. If he could 'tweak' her abilities, by exposing her to mako and such, she could make a complementary addition to SOLDIER.
Perhaps he would reach the breakthrough he'd been trying all these years for. If she responded positively to the treatments, Hojo would perhaps declare her a success and incorporate her into SOLDIER as a mercenary, but not before cloning her cells, first. Her experiments, as Juneaux had come to know, were affectionately named 'Project SN', standing for the initials of her alias, Soraya Nordstrom.
Juneaux turned over on the hard, uncomfortable bed. The chamber she was delegated to was a grim affair; stainless steel walls, no windows, drab grey vinyl on the floor, and a tiny shower and toilet cubicle off to the right. Everything smelt sterile and clinical; everything she touched was frightfully clean, like that of a hospital. A single bunk-bed was hard up against the left hand side far corner. Juneaux chose to sleep on the bottom one.
No light seeped in, bar the glary, fluorescent lights in the ceiling whenever she was about to become subjected to more torment. Whenever those lights flickered on, she knew agony awaited her. Otherwise, she was left in darkness, subject to the groans of other 'specimens' from down the hallway, just as out of their minds with mako poisoning as she often was. She was lucky to be kept in isolation, though. Having a roommate in these conditions was not something she wished for, however lonely she might feel sometimes.
It had to have been almost a year, at least. She was surprised that Hojo hadn't merely given up on her, by now. She was not becoming the superhuman mercenary he wanted her to be, despite vast amounts of mako and other steroidal-type drugs he had pumped her up with. She was only human, had no special abilities, harboured no magic to speak of, could not withstand materia any more than the average human, and so in theory she thought what he was doing was a complete waste of time.
She often dreamed of escaping, waking only to find that it was just that: a dream. She was the one who had gotten herself into this mess, but she was resolute on getting herself out of it. With the renewed strength she had now acquired from the mako in her bloodstream, Juneaux was confident she could make an escape. It was just a matter of timing it right. Over the months, she had deciphered Hojo's routine:
Experiments would take place in the morning; she would then get a small amount of bread and water – sometimes soup, if she was lucky – and then more experiments would be carried out in the afternoon. In the evening, she would get a bowl of something mushy, usually, to sustain herself at least through til the next day, but sometimes she got nothing at all, 'fasting' for the next experiment that Hojo had in mind.
At night – or what she guessed was night; she could never be sure due to lack of natural light – she was allowed to sleep for a few hours, but occasionally she would be woken and manhandled out of her cubicle by guards back to the lab for a midnight 'run'.
There was only so much mako a human could withstand in the space of 24 hours. But Hojo was pushing her to her limits. As if she was unbreakable, Juneaux seemed to be able to handle it. Hojo seemed intent on breaking her, however, but she remained resistant. The worst she remembered feeling was after the first few days of being infused with mako, where she couldn't stop vomiting.
It got to the point where she was vomiting bile, pure liquid mako and then blood, and finally she thought if it didn't stop she was going to hurl up her innards. Hojo must have taken pity on her eventually – or just become annoyed – and had stabbed her with an anti-vomiting agent, so that at least she wasn't trying to throw up while he carried out other experiments on her.
Perhaps that's why he had kept her locked up here so long, now. If he couldn't break her, he would probably kill her and dispose of her like he did his rubber gloves every day into the biohazard bin; Juneaux wasn't entirely sure which would be worse. Her livelihood, like so many others in Midgar, would be wiped from history, as if she never existed. Only an empty space that she once filled would be left behind. One thing for sure, Juneaux knew, is that she would not be missed by anyone.
xXx
Juneaux's ears pricked as she heard a sound in the hallway. It wasn't just another muffled moan coming from one of the other prisoners. It was the light tip-tap of footsteps, but it was as if they were taking great care not to be heard. She knew the sounds of the guard's steel-caps on the concrete – rough and heavy, like a draught horse. Hojo's gait was a type of lame shuffling sound; the warped old man wasn't what one would call agile.
Suddenly the footsteps halted outside her door; Juneaux shrank back into the corner. She fervently hoped that the guards weren't going to drag her down to the lab for a 'run'. It had been nice having a few days off; perhaps Hojo had gone on vacation, or was ill. Maybe it was the statutory Festival holidays. She could think of no other reasons.
She gazed at the door with round eyes as she heard the sound of the lock being picked. It could only mean one thing and she felt herself relax. The only person needing to pick her lock was someone who technically wasn't allowed on this level of the Shinra building, but she always looked forward to seeing them whenever they managed to find the time to sneak in to see her.
"Hey," the tall figure whispered, slipping into the room. They closed the door silently behind them. "It's just me."
Juneaux made out a tall shape in the darkness coming toward her, then felt it sitting on the end of her bed. There was a rustling sound, followed by a click, and a flashlight of sorts turned on, illuminating the corner of the small room. Juneaux squinted her eyes to adjust to the glare for a moment, then exhaled in relief to see the handsome SOLDIER face staring back at her.
Zack Fair, at six-foot-three, looked a little hunched, sitting on the end of her bunk. The bed above him was at usual height that a bunk bed should be at, but due to his height he had to bend down slightly. However, he didn't seem to mind having to crane his neck to look at her.
She never questioned how he got past the guards; Zack could usually sweet-talk his way around anything, anyway, but maybe he was able to pull a few strings, too. She noticed he had brought with him blankets, and what looked like a container of food, which smelt overpoweringly delicious, compared to what she had been given earlier. Her stomach let out an abrupt and very audible growl.
Zack chuckled and set the torch onto the nightstand next to her bed. "Sounds like you could do with something to eat?" he whispered. "I brought you some lasagne from the cafeteria."
"I'm…pretty hungry, actually." she confessed.
"Here," he said, shuffling closer and wrapping some blankets around her. He handed her a Styrofoam container and a plastic knife and fork. "Eat up. It's still warm."
She opened the container to find a thick wad of lasagne inside, complete with mouth-watering melted cheese and a meaty tomato sauce dripping down all sides. Hungrily, she wolfed it down. Zack simply grinned like an idiot as he watched her eat, ravenous as she was.
"Pretty good, huh? I had some before, too." He patted his stomach for emphasis.
Juneaux wiped her mouth and took a drink of water to wash it down, then lay back down on her lumpy pillow, satisfied. Her stomach now gurgled with the healthier sounds of digestion. She drew the blankets up a little higher around her chin, peering at Zack from behind them.
"Thanks for coming, Zack. It's really nice of you."
He waved a hand dismissively. "It's no problem. I…I try to do all I can for you, Juneaux. I never feel like it's enough, though." He hung his head a little.
"It's more than enough." she replied, thinking that, apart from Hojo and the guards, Zack was the only other human face she had seen in close to one year.
Zack rubbed his arms. "Say…is it always this cold, down here?"
Juneaux didn't notice any kind of change in temperature, and shrugged. "I guess so." She noticed him still sitting looking rather hunched and uncomfortable. "Do you want to lie down?"
He appeared stifled for a moment, and then shrugged. "Um, sure! Why not? I guess it would be more comfortable." He then manoeuvred himself so he was lying in behind her, tucking his knees into the space behind hers. "Can I have some blanket?"
Juneaux chuckled and let him in under the covers, boots and all. There wasn't much space for both of them on the single bed, so they had to wriggle in close together. She sighed inwardly as he moulded in behind her. The feeling of having a warm, live, breathing human so close to her after so long of going without almost made her feel dizzy with contentment.
Zack extended his muscular arm so it was outstretched beneath her head, and she gladly lay down upon it. He draped his other arm over her casually, on the outside of the covers, and Juneaux couldn't help but feel intoxicated by his masculine scent. His breath tickled the back of her neck, in rhythmic in-and-out motions. His heartbeat was strong and steady, which she felt thumping against her back.
"So, I'm going to Wutai, soon." Zack continued, ever the chatterbox.
"What for?" Juneaux asked, still in whispers.
"A mission. We've been having some trouble over that way with a 1st-class SOLDIER gone rogue. His name is Genesis; the guy always kinda gave me the creeps, reciting his LOVELESS verses all the time…kinda weird, if you ask me."
Juneaux recalled meeting him once or twice, often in the company of a striking yet somewhat aloof man with a mane of knee-length silver hair, named Sephiroth. Something about them both had made her skin crawl. Angeal had been the one to introduce them to her, and she had found herself engrossed watching the three of them sparring in the training room through the two-way glass. They were the most deadly fighting machines she'd ever witnessed and she almost wanted to try out her own skills against them. That, at the time, had of course been impossible for her.
"How long do you think you'll be gone for?"
She felt him shrug. "I don't know; could be a week, could be a month. Depends how strong their resistance is, I guess. But I have every confidence that Angeal and I will be able to take them down!"
Juneaux bristled at the sound of his name. "…how is Angeal?"
Zack was subdued for a moment, not realizing what he had just said. His mentor had been the one that Juneaux had been hired to assassinate, and ultimately ended up in her being where she was now.
"He's…good, I guess. Same as always, you know? 'Protect your honour', and all that. He's a good mentor; I think I've got a lot to learn from him, yet."
"He's a good man," Juneaux admitted, feeling dizzy again.
She'd never met a man like Angeal, so masculine and hard, yet gentle and caressing when he wanted to be. He joked rarely, and was most of the time serious. He was the pure essence of man, they way he had once cradled her in his muscular arms, stroking her cheeks with calloused hands. It was hard for Juneaux to think about him. The look of betrayal in his eyes was one of the last she had ever seen him give her.
"He stands by his morals. I wish things hadn't turned out this way." she finished quietly.
"Me, either." Zack replied, nuzzling into the nape of her neck a little. "But then, I would never have gotten to meet you!"
Juneaux frowned. "Why do you even care about me, Zack?" she asked, still facing away from him. "Nobody else ever comes to see me, least of all should it be my target's apprentice." she deadpanned at that.
"Hey…" he said softly, turning her over to face him. "What's wrong with that? Unless you want me to stop coming…"
She shook her head fervently. "No, I always look forward to your visits."
His mako-blue eyes softened. "I'll always carry a torch for you, Juneaux. And I'm going to get you out of here, I promise."
"I'm going to get myself out." she turned back over.
"How?"
"I have a plan…sort of."
She thought about her dicey plan, which involved unscrewing the light fittings and escaping through the ceiling, climbing through the air ducts and breaking through to the outside. She had no idea how long she would be stuck in the pipes for – the Shinra building was a maze in itself, let alone its ventilation systems – but it was her only hope. By the time they realised she was missing, she would either be on the outside, or still stuck in one of the vents. But it was a risk she was willing to take.
"That's suicide," Zack concluded, after listening to her account of how she planned on getting out. "They'll kill you if they catch you!"
"I'd rather die trying than die stuck in here." she snapped. "I don't want to end up a failure, Zack. Not to Hojo, but to my agent, and to myself."
"Who is your agent?"
"Can't say."
"Hmm. What will you do if you do manage to escape, then?"
"Run." she said simply. "What other choice do I have? I can't stay in Midgar, Zack. They'd put the Turks on me and have me killed without more ado."
"They'll probably put the Turks on ya, anyway." Zack replied. "Where will you go?"
"Probably south. Mideel looks like a nice place."
"It is! I used to holiday there as a kid. It's not far from Gongaga." He paused as a thought occurred to him. "Hey…why don't you go there? You could stay with my parents."
Juneaux was aware that Zack was a country boy from the south, and smiled. "I don't want to bring trouble to your family."
"Well then…how about you write me there? They'll let me know that you got to safety, then."
"Fine, but I'll have to sign it off anonymously. You'll have to give me their address."
"I will." After a time of silence, Zack asked, "Where are you from, originally? You're not from Midgar, are you?"
"No," she replied. "I'm from the north – Icicle Inn. I've never been further south than here, before."
"Huh," Zack muttered. "That's why you're so pasty!" he joked, taking a dig at the pallor of her skin, which was so pale it was nearly translucent.
She grimaced at this, and thought in envy of the healthy tan that Zack always sported. "My parents were Wutaian, actually."
"'Were'?"
"They were murdered when I was fourteen."
Zack expelled his breath. "Man, it really is all doom and gloom with you, isn't it?"
She didn't say anything.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, and pulled her in closer to him. "That was insensitive."
"But it's true," she mumbled dismissively. "I only wish I could have something to be proud of."
"What are your dreams, Juneaux? Director Lazard asked me that, today."
She snorted a little. "I always wanted to be a professional chocobo rider."
"Then go and do that. Escape from here, run as far away as you can, and go ride chocobos for a living. That's something you can be proud of."
"You make it sound so easy," she murmured.
"Hey," he turned her over to face him again. "Anything is easy, if you put your mind to it."
They gazed at each other in the torchlight; Zack's eyes were such a hypnotizing colour, like the sky on a summer's day. Not that you could really see much blue in the skies over Midgar, nor of Icicle Inn, Juneaux thought, which was always shrouded by snow-laden clouds. They were more like the colour of the skies over Wutai, on a stiflingly hot day, where heat waves would shimmer on the horizon. They glowed luminously in the darkness, watching her.
Although Juneaux was older than Zack by two years – he was sixteen and she eighteen – she still felt him an attractive young man. He was tall and well-developed for his age and his thick black hair, gleaming white smile and bouncy personality pointed to the fact that he was in as good a health as ever. She felt a pang of desire for him in that moment, but chased it off. Somehow, it felt wrong.
Zack lifted a gloved hand up from the bedspread and pushed her hair away from her face. Juneaux was ashamed at how she looked, now, and avoided his gaze. She'd recently caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror in one of the labs and had almost shrieked out loud at the face staring back at her.
Her usually full, oval-shaped face was now hollow, and her dark brown irises had turned a ghastly scarlet colour as a result of the mako infusion. She knew that that was irreversible. Her usually athletic physique was now borderline-atrophied due to the lack of activity and proper nourishment. Her hip bones jutted out like the shares of a plough, and her ribs were like ripples in the sand on a low tide. Finally, her dark brown, shoulder-length hair – which was naturally fine and thin, anyway – was now brittle and falling out.
"What happened to your eyes?" Zack asked after sweeping her hair back. He looked alarmed for a moment at the rich redness of them.
"It's the mako," she muttered, looking away.
"I remember when you first came here," Zack smiled. "I thought your eyes looked like the colour of melted chocolate. And your hair was like the bittersweet kind. You looked so delicious; I could have eaten you all up!"
She chuckled at his corny flattery and looked down, wishing she could have those looks back. Juneaux had posed as a university student writing an essay on military business to infiltrate Shinra, claiming that she needed to complete so many hours of "work experience" to pass her degree. Her agency had made up phony references at the University of Midgar, and an alias for her, which all checked out. It hadn't even crossed Shinra's mind that she might be a spy; she came across as far too innocent.
Shinra was flattered – to say the least – that a student was so interested in the way things worked at their company. They assigned her to be put under the very wing of her mark – Angeal Hewley – and his apprentice. Zack had gone starry-eyed the moment he'd laid eyes on the demure brunette 'student', who would be hanging around for the next few weeks 'observing'. He hung on her every word, and followed her around like a lost puppy. But it was Angeal that Juneaux had had eyes for, and she'd fallen in far too deep.
"I still think you're beautiful, though, Juneaux."
When she looked up for their eyes to meet, Zack slipped his hand around the back of her head and pulled her in, so he could kiss her. She wasn't really expecting this to happen, but she wasn't going to pull back, either, because it felt so achingly good. His lips were warm and tender, not at all rough, or forceful. His clean-shaven face was smooth against hers, with only a hint of stubble to suggest he would need to shave again in the morning.
It had been over a year since Juneaux had kissed anyone – Angeal had been the last – but she had not forgotten. She snaked her arm around Zack's torso and struggled to get closer to him, entangling their legs, allowing her to put more effort into the intimate gesture. Zack used his other arm to draw her in closer as they became more desperate for each other. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes and a lump rose in her throat as she thought of Angeal and the numerous kisses they had shared in the very brief time before she'd come clean.
Perhaps it was because she and Zack had been so starved of intimate human contact for so long; Juneaux wasn't really sure. But the fire and the passion they felt for each other that night as they made spontaneous, fanatical love, was both out of desperation and longing, and left them both gasping and quivering afterwards.
Zack had groaned almost too loudly into her neck as he'd reached his release, sinking his shaft to the hilt as she eagerly received him. He'd accidentally made her hit her head against the wall as he forced his essence out of his body and into hers, but she barely felt it.
Juneaux was in ecstasy at the feeling of him ravaging her, his hot naked skin against hers, clothes shed long before in an urgent frenzy. He paid due care to every nook and crevice of her – albeit malnourished – body, swirling his tongue over her nipples and stroking her moist sex with his inexperienced fingers. He was a little clumsy – Juneaux had to admit – but she cared not as they lost themselves in the ardour.
Afterward, she wondered vaguely if she was his first, then thought probably not. He was sixteen, sexually mature and fully charged up at that; boys were having sex as young as twelve, these days.
"Zack?"
"Mm?"
"What month is it?"
"…you don't know what month it is?"
She fell quiet.
"February,"
"…what day?"
"Twenty-ninth. It's a Leap Year, this year."
She groaned and muttered an obscenity.
"What's the matter?" he sounded confused.
"I turned nineteen, yesterday."
He giggled and tickled her a little. "Happy birthday, you old grandma!"
She elbowed his wiggling fingers away from her ribs. "This has been the best birthday present I think I've ever had, Zack."
And she was completely serious. Apart from receiving presents from her parents when she was a child, since she reached the age of fourteen and fled to Midgar after their gruesome demise, her birthdays had always gone uncelebrated.
"You bet it is." Zack replied, cocky as ever.
Juneaux curled herself more tightly into him, resting her head on the flat muscle of his shoulder, and dozed.
xXx
"Zack? What time is it?"
She had no idea how long they'd been sleeping for. It was risky for him to still be here, yet they remained lying nude next to each other under the sheets, dozing sleepily as if not a care in the world.
Groggily, he checked his phone. "Quarter to one. Damn it!"
"You should be back at your quarters."
"I want to stay here, though…" he whined.
"You know you can't."
"Yeah…" he rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. "I might not see you for a while, you know…" he traced circles around her breast which was still exposed.
"When do you go to Wutai?" Juneaux fingered the dark curls on his chest absentmindedly.
"The day after tomorrow." He replied. "I've got simulation training in the morning for it. Been working on it all week. I just wanna get out there and do some real fighting!"
"I'll be gone by the time you get back." Juneaux stated softly.
The SOLDIER frowned, as if that had not occurred to him. "But, I might only be gone for a week or two…"
"Zack…I need to get out now, while I still have fighting strength left in me." It was painfully obvious to her, but apparently not to him.
"Strength? You're as weak as a kitten, Juneaux, look at you! You're skin and bones…"
She shook her head. "I'm not going to get any stronger, either."
Zack was now standing, pulling on his pants and buckling up his leathers. He seemed, for once in his life, speechless. He sat down on the bed and pulled on his boots, lacing them up with a little more force than was necessary. He leant back, sighed heavily and flexed his head from side to side, eliciting a couple of cracks. Then he looked at her.
"How good is your memory?"
"Crystal."
He proceeded to tell her his parents' address in Gongaga, saying he didn't have a pen and paper. Juneaux was not allowed such objects in her room, in case she tried to kill herself with them. She knew she would remember that address, however, and in any case, Gongaga was not a large town. It wouldn't be hard to find them, if she did end up there.
"If I don't see you again, then…be safe, alright?" Zack knelt down on the floor beside the bed. He grasped her hands with his. "Get strong again. Write me, or get my parents to write me, so I know you got to safety. 'Kay?"
"I'll try, Zack. But please, don't keep your hopes up."
"I'll never forget you," he whispered, placing his hands on either side of her face. "Please don't forget me, either."
Juneaux smiled grimly. She knew she would certainly never forget the likes of Zack Fair. He was an indestructible force of nature and had indisputably made his mark on her.
"I won't." she whispered back, lunging forward to kiss him one last time. "I promise."
Little did either of them know, Zack would receive 90 letters over the next five years. Only one of them would have been from Juneaux, and all would go unread.
xXx
The sunlight was blinding in all its glory as it flooded in to the opening of the Shinra ventilation outlet; Juneaux couldn't remember seeing such a bright, shiny thing before. Her pupils contracted into pinpricks painfully as the daylight burnt her retinas. She had only seconds to spare as she kicked open the grated end of the duct and jumped out, like a cat dropping from a fence post. Alarms were going off in all directions around her – Shinra was on red alert – and she knew this was her only hope. Despite the weakness in her bones, the burning of the mako in her veins, she had to keep running.
She ran through the dreary streets of Sector 8 for what felt like forever, until she came to a vast empty space out in front of her, and plummeted feet-first off the edge of the plate and down into the slums. She knew the slums would be her best means of a hiding place until she figured out what to do and where to go. She couldn't go back to her old hideout where she'd lived originally upon arriving in Midgar; Shinra had probably already swarmed the area, or other vagabonds might have taken up residence in her old shack.
Juneaux really had no idea how much Shinra knew about her. She'd adamantly refused to release any information on whom her agent was; it was a felony amongst the circle to reveal such information, and if she did, she'd be killed. Her options were looking grim; if she wasn't killed by Shinra, she would be killed by her agency due to the failed mission.
She wondered if ELITE even thought about her now, after her incarceration at Shinra. They were probably embarrassed by the whole incident – the first time in history where one of their best agents had succumbed to falling in love with their mark – and would probably assume she was already dead. Undoubtedly a replacement would have already been found for her.
There was no such thing as compassion, or love, within ELITE. It was an organized crime ring of assassins who worked for the higher-ups – the people that gave them their jobs – sometimes going as far as killing each other to get the better contracts. But everyone knew how accomplished Juneaux was.
She was one of the most prized members of the circle, and if anyone so much as laid a hand on her, they'd best sleep with one eye open. Death did not come immediately all of the time. Often it snuck up on you when you least expected it. Juneaux had bore witness to some nauseating examples of this.
But assassins were assassins, and there were many of them. They were merely at the disposal of the bosses, more or less, and if one was lost, they could be replaced by another. The bosses cared for them not – they were regarded as collateral until a job was carried out successfully – they would get their reward, and a new contract assigned to them if they did a particularly good job. Juneaux had landed the contract with Shinra due not only to her skill in the field, but to her looks.
Assassins worked behind the scenes, in essence, and were not the prettiest of creatures, especially the men. The objective was often to remain hidden, and so any distinguishing features were usually covered up. The women were often plain, a device essential for blending into the crowd. They were faceless, made to be that way for their profession.
But Juneaux was different.
Standing at 5'8", Juneaux was tall for a woman, and her facial features were what one might describe as beatific. In her jobs she had often relied on this fact and used it to her advantage. Men were helpless in resisting her and women became green at the mere sight of her. She wondered now if she would receive the same reactions from people as she used to, with her scarlet eyes and hollow cheeks.
Towards dawn the next morning she found a suitable hiding place. Once she was sure she wasn't being chased anymore, she had gone to the Wall Market and purchased some peroxide with the Gil that Zack had left for her, and a pair of blue contact lenses, as well as a new outfit.
She went to the hairdresser and cut off all her hair, so short it resembled a man's cut, and then put the bleach through it, burning her scalp at the same time. She put in her lenses, purchased a pair of non-prescription glasses and a train ticket, and then left the city, heading south. The sheer multitude of people in Midgar worked, for perhaps the first time, in her favour. She blended in, and her heart was pumping madly as she pretended to read the newspaper on the train as it left the heaving, overpopulated capital.
As the train slid away from the city limits, Juneaux thought of Zack, and prayed that he would always carry a torch for her. He had been her light in the darkness, and he had set her free.
xXx