Disclaimer: Do not own.
Memories of Freedom
"52325." Loz asked me softly, coming to sit beside me. It had been weeks since we had escaped and I was starting to feel the effects of being without the drugs for so long, everything was so confusing. The stupidest things would set me off, and I would yell, and scream and fight. I never meant to hurt either Loz or Yazoo, but sometimes I just couldn't help it.
"What?" I snapped.
"I… uh…" he stopped, and I knew he was crying, even if he wasn't looking at me "Sorry… I'll just…"
"No!" I turned. "569, I'm sorry! Don't… don't just go. It's just the meds… they screwed with my head…" I looked at him pleadingly. Willing him to understand… they had strapped me down, pumping me full of drugs-mood altering, emotion suppressants. Loz had been the body experiment; it was obvious; he was bigger, more muscular even at fourteen than anyone I had seen, even the soldiers. He'd been trained for fighting; no one cared about his mind. But me... I had always been told I was the genius of my division of the clones; I was the one my scientist prised above the others, the one they would all have to watch.
The Soldier Clones were too stupid, Yazoo a failed experiment, I was the one with the brains and the will to use them.
So they had tried to make me safe to them… it hadn't worked, at least at the time I'd thought so… I always knew when it was coming and I fought it.
But now. Without the drugs, away from the experiments it was still happening, it still crept up on me, and I had to fight it, because if I didn't I didn't know what would happen.
I felt arms circle my waist and I was pulled back against Loz's chest and he held me. I hadn't realised I was shaking until he had started to comfort me. And I felt better with his arms to concentrate on… something solid.
"It's ok 92966, come on." I heard Loz whisper, and I opened my eyes to see Yazoo standing a few feet away, looking at me in that abstract way he had.
He hadn't spoken a word since we escaped, and I could never remember him speaking before, at the labs. He didn't do a lot most of the time except stare into space. And you were never sure if he was listening when you spoke to him, never knew if he was even on this plane of reality most of the time; until he did something surprising, like wiping away Loz's tears if he suddenly started crying at something, as if telling him not to.
Or wrapping his arms about me before even I knew a fit was coming on, grounding me in reality before I flew completely off the rails.
I had an idea.
*x*
"Ka-daj… come on Yazoo, I know you can say it. Kadaj."
I sighed as I watched them. Kadaj had taken on the sudden and unusual task of teaching Yazoo to speak. He'd been at it for weeks, sitting cross-legged in front of Yazoo, repeating his name and my name to him, trying to get him to say them. So far he had had no luck.
Yazoo had tried, really tried a few times, opened his mouth and tried, but nothing.
I was surprised Kadaj hadn't had another of his swings and flown off the handle with him yet; he'd done it a few times over much less frustrating things. Strangely though this seemed to help, and I was glad. As much as I love him, he was impossible to live with those first months after the labs.
"Come on Yazoo, please. I know you can do it. Just repeat it after me. Ka-daj." he was looking at him with such earnest.
Yazoo looked helpless, he had flinched a few times at the start when he couldn't do it and Kadaj looked like he was getting angry. That had stopped Kadaj in his tracks, and he spent the rest of the night telling Yazoo that he would never hurt him, no matter how angry he got. His face scrunched slightly in effort, closing his eyes and trying to say the word, trying very hard.
Kadaj leaned forward suddenly and kissed his forehead lightly and whispered. "It's ok. We'll stop for tonight."
Yazoo opened his eyes and looked at him, hand going up to his forehead, he looked at me in askance, and I could do nothing but shrug. Kadaj smiled at me.
*x*
Kadaj had tried to help me learn to speak, I could repeat his name in my head, over and over, his and Loz's and I wished I could say them aloud, but I couldn't seem to get the sound past my lips. Father always told me it was because I'd been made wrong, that all my brain didn't connect in all the right places, he was always so angry about it... Hated me for it... I had tried when I was younger, but I couldn't…
52325
569
92966
Five-two-three-two-five
Five-six-nine
Nine-two-nine-six-six
Kadaj
Loz
Yazoo
But I couldn't say any of them.
We were on the move. I didn't notice much, I rarely did. Loz said it was like my head was in the clouds, and laughed, but I didn't understand. It was always just easier to get lost in the nothingness of my thoughts. I know they hated it, but I couldn't stop it.
We passed through a village and I heard a word that caught my interest, I wanted to ask Kadaj and Loz about it… but I didn't know how…
"Jess! Come on, please give it back!" a little boy, no more than five begged of an older boy, who may have been eight or nine
"No!" the older boy said with a smirk.
"But Jess! It's my ball! Come on, please!" the little boy jumped up, trying to snatch said ball away.
"Uh-uh." the older boy laughed and moved one quickly.
"Gimme it!" the younger boy started running, tripped over a stone and fell, letting out a wail. In a second the older boy was back.
"Damnit-Danny, are you ok?" the little boy didn't reply, just kept crying, clinging to the older boys shirt. The older boy wrapped his arms around him, letting the ball fall forgotten to the ground, lifting the little boy up as best he could. "Come on little brother; let's go so mum can see your leg."
And they disappeared up the street.
Brother…
I liked the way that sounded, and I wondered what it meant exactly.
*x*
I was startled by the sudden scream, I'd never heard the word before or the voice, but I knew who it was, and who he was calling. Loz and I shared a single look and we were on our feet and running in the direction of the voice, Loz strapping on his weapon, and taking Yazoo's gun with him. Whoever had dared do anything to Yazoo that had made him break his silence in fear was going to die.
He'd gone to collect firewood, a task we let him do alone, if only rarely; simply because he was easily distracted, I'd once found him crouching beside a tree, staring intently at a flower. He hadn't even realised he's been doing it for over two hours. However, even with distractions he would complete whatever task we gave him to do. I hated the fact that we had to give him such exact instructions, but we'd quickly learnt that anything less than that made him withdraw even further into himself.
We reached a place in the forest to find Yazoo kneeling on the ground, holding his stomach, leaning forward. There were a number of soldiers surrounding him, with uniforms not unlike those worn by the guards at the labs. They were asking questions, demanding answers, striking out each time Yazoo did not respond.
Where they from the Labs? Had they finally sent someone out after us? Wee they hear to make us go back?
No one was going to take me, Loz or Yazoo back to labs!
I wasn't about to let them.
So I did the only thing I could have possibly done, given the situation. Attacked.
I could feel Loz charging beside me. He barrelled straight through the soldiers to Yazoo, giving him his gun before turning to help me kill the soldier bastards. We dealt with them quickly enough, Yazoo had recovered enough to shoot three of them, Loz and I handled the rest.
When it was finished and the rage left me I looked at Yazoo. He was watching us with those eyes I hated, the ones that were resigned, expected to be punished, because that was what happened at the labs, I hated them, and I couldn't look at them; I can't look at them, without wanting to torture the bastard that made them like that.
I went to him, kneeling in front of him and I pulled him into a hug.
He tensed in my arms, startled, like he wasn't expecting it at all. I did not release him. The bodies surrounding us meant nothing now, just the fact that Yazoo was safe.
"Can you say it again?" I asked him, making my voice gentle; curious to know if that one panicked scream would be the only time we would hear his voice. I pulled back so I could see him properly. "The word, the word you used to call us here." I reminded him, seeing a blank look of confusion pass over his face.
"… B… br…" he stopped and looked at me, helplessly.
"Try Yazoo, please." I said, pleased he had even made the attempt.
"Br… brot… h… her." he finally stuttered out
"Brot-her." I repeated, sounding it out myself. "Brother… I like it; I wonder what it means…" I smiled at Yazoo then, knowing that this was only the beginning. My eyes flicked upwards and to Loz who was smiling too, through his tears.
We had a name now for what we were, and I couldn't help but wonder then why they thought it would make us weaker? Why the scientists worked so hard to keep us separated. My eyes then swept over the bodies around us. We had destroyed them in minutes, fuelled by concern, by fear for our own.
And Hate… hate for the labs…
I understand now of course
*x*
Winter was setting in colder than anything Kadaj and Yazoo had ever had to deal with in the labs or out of them so far. During the winters there I had envied them, envied their rooms with the perfectly regulated temperatures while I, and the others Soldier Clones, had been forced to spend the winter days training in the freezing conditions, spending our nights in metal boxes designed to grow even colder than the air outside.
It was cruel, and every winter we were always less another few who hadn't been able to stand it. At times, back then, I had hoped that it would be me next, that I wouldn't wake up for the next round; that I could slip away into the cold and stay there.
I lived, obviously, but it was a closer thing than I've ever let Kadaj and Yazoo know.
But it was a good thing I did, because despite all the training they made Kadaj undergo, there is nothing in him resembling common sense. In a way he was like Yazoo, leave him on his own with a task and you would get results, but they'd inevitably involve some elaborate scheme and a murder, because that was what he was created to do, scheme, infiltrate and kill, and he did all of the well.
Where I got my sense of practicality from I doubt I'll ever find out, but all that matters is that I do have it, and under all this muscle is a brain that I do use, more often than I think people would like to believe.
I knew we needed to stay low, keep as much under the radar as possible, which was why I had willingly followed Kadaj into caves, mountains and forests, the less time we spent around other people the better, after all, we had no real interaction with anyone other than our scientists and trainers, and if other people wee anything like them, then avoiding them was necessary.
But even more we needed somewhere to stay, somewhere we could hide. The year previous we had spent further south, and the winters were mild and easier for us to handle out of doors, but we had moved north during the year, we couldn't really afford to get too comfortable in one place, but the closer we got to winter the more I realised that we couldn't stay out, not as we were.
That was when we found the Mansion, and it became our home. Only for that one winter, simply because staying longer would have made the people of the town notice we were there.
*x*
It is dark in the stairwell. Dark and suffocating. But I keep going down the creaking wood of the stairs, one hand trailing across the wet wall as I descend further and further into the maddening darkness below.
The corridor is dark, musty, a tunnel of earth that pressed over my head, strong and powerful but with a weakness waiting to be found so that it could sink and destroy everything hidden here.
I pause, just for an instant at the doorway where the sleeping man lay, dead yet not dead, hovering on the brink of the soothing abyss, begging to be allowed to cross over into it, to leave the world behind. I continue onwards, there is nothing I can do for him, though I would like to push him over the edge. The Nothingness is always a nice place to be, everything is so simple there.
The door opens easily under my hand and I step into a room of learning, though I know that the books have nothing to do with the knowledge gained within these walls. My eyes moved to them, to the true vats of knowledge here, suspended in the nothingness together.
He wants to wake up, he fights with all he is to wake up, to open his eyes. But there is a darkness that is keeping him here, forcing him to stay in this sleep.
A darkness that is…
…
…
NO!
*x*
"Where is he?" I was growing more and more agitated each time Loz looked at me in helpless regret. He didn't know. I didn't know.
Yazoo was gone.
He had disappeared, just vanished into thin air. We had the run of this house, in all its dilapidated glory, because the people in the town thought it was haunted. The children got as far as the door before they got scared and ran. It was the most perfect of places for us, no one ever came in and we were safe.
I was the only one of the three of us who left, and that was only late at night when the townspeople wouldn't see me, to steal food or whatever else we needed. Loz was too large to go unnoticed for long, though he always offered because he was designed to deal with extreme weather like this, and we would never send Yazoo out there on his own.
Which was why it didn't make any sense that he wasn't here. He'd never shown even a single inclination of wanting to go outside into the biting cold. In fact, he almost seemed to be enjoying exploring the things left by the previous owners.
"Where is he?" I repeated, gritting my teeth, turning away from Loz sharply, unable to stop the way my hands were beginning to shake, the way the fit was about to creep into my mind. I needed to know where he was, what had happened to him.
Was it the labs?
Had someone taken him from us… without our being aware?
"Where is he?"
"I DON'T KNOW!"
I turned back, my eyes wide, because of the three of us only I ever raise my voice, my emotions getting so out of control that it's either scream or kill, and I don't want to hurt them, or be the one responsible for them being sent back there. Loz looked now like he had reached the end of his infinite patience
I wasn't being fair; he was just as worried as I was.
But I needed to know where Yazoo was, I needed to know. How was I supposed to protect him if I didn't know where he was!
*x*
I hate that Kadaj is the leader.
Not because I'm jealous of him, never that.
But because I'm the oldest.
I should be the one looking after both him and Yazoo, always, and I know I do what I can. I know I help steer us all in the right direction once in a while, but in the end it's Kadaj who makes the plan, it's him who makes sure we all get to where we need to be, and it's Kadaj who makes sure we're safe. He's the youngest, and it's not fair that he has to do all that and cope with what the scientists did to him.
He was about a hairsbreadth away from having one of his fits, one of the one's that happens because he gets frustrated and scared and doesn't know what to do. I think, in some ways, the fits are the proof that he's still a child in a lot of ways.
Yazoo had taken off on his own earlier in the afternoon, we'd both watched him leave the small back room we had tied up to live in, neither of us even thought to go with him or ask him where he was going. He'd been gone little over an hour before Kadaj had started to get restless and went to find join him. He was back in less than ten minutes, panicked.
Yazoo was not in the house.
We'd checked again, just to be sure, but he wasn't in any of the rooms. It took less than a minute for us to begin imagining the worst, and it wasn't long after that that Kadaj began questioning and I lost my temper.
I lost my temper…
That should seem normal… Everyone loses their temper occasionally, at least, that's what I've learnt since being out of the lab, but before that instant I never had, and I felt terrible afterwards, so terrible that I began to cry, nothing unusual you might think… but these were nothing like the stray tears that happened without my conscious thought…
These were…
*x*
… Heartbroken…
As if something very precious had been taken… This was what I walked in on, still confused and unsure… I stood by the door watching as that part of me that doesn't exist fled back and into the nothingness. Loz was crying, heaving sobs that were so unlike him that it felt as if my heart would stop…
Neither of them was paying attention to me, Kadaj's attention focused completely on Loz, trying desperately to stem the flow of emotion… I watched it pour out of him, like a flood, destroying everything in its wake, threatening to leak out his very soul…
"Yazoo!"
I blink hazily… The floor? When had I ended up on the floor?
"Where have you been? Yazoo! Where were you?"
Kadaj was yelling.
"Tell me! Where have you been? We've been worried sick!"
Loz was crying, different tears now, the dam was back.
"Yazoo answer me!"
"… I… don't know…"
And I looked at him, puzzled, confused, anxious… because I hadn't gone anywhere… had I?
And then Kadaj was crying and hugging me and I had no idea why, or what I had done. The part of me that didn't exist had crept out of the Nothingness, and it was trying to tell me something…
*x*
It was amazing!
It was huge, bright and filled with everything!
Something of that four year old inside me stirred when I saw it that first time, that naïve little child came rushing to the surface as if years hadn't passed, as if all that had been done to me in the years between was suddenly undone.
It was childhood. One Loz, Yazoo and I had never had. It had fascinated us as we made our way along the edge of the desert, this giant floating golden tree, we had tried crossing the desert to reach its base, believing that it actually was a tree, and we'd been disappointed when we couldn't make any headway across the shifting sands. We'd resigned ourselves to never getting to see it up close by the time we reached North Coral.
The place was a heap, and the people there so wrapped up in their own self pity to really pay us any attention, but one old man, sitting outside a tent house pointed us in the direction of the cable car to the Golden Saucer.
Hoping it was a way to the giant golden tree we took the cable car, and when we arrived we were overwhelmed, the music was too loud, the lights were too bright, but it was magnificent!
Just for this once we didn't even notice anyone else there, we didn't care about the labs, or about people trying to take us away from each other… at least, we didn't care after we'd gotten past the woman at the ticket booth. We had just enough money to scrape the cost of two tickets with what I had stolen in other places we had been, and upon working this out we were ready to get back in the cable car and return to North Coral and continue our meandering journey.
She stopped us before we could though and gave us three tickets and a smile and wink I didn't know how to respond to… And we were in!
We went on everything, saw everything, did everything, and it was the most amazing thing in the whole world!
*x*
I was 17, and a Soldier Clone, I wasn't a child, none of us were. But for the first time, in that one place, we could be the children I think each of us always wanted to be. Kadaj laughed and smiled and played, all without a single hint of that slightly mad glint I still sometimes see in his eyes.
Yazoo pointed out things, and quickly he and Kadaj were convincing me to win them Mog toys in the games, sneaking off while I did to win me one of my own on another game.
I think… I think we were all a little sad to leave it…
*x*
… I want to go back…
*x*
The slums of Midgar were easy to get lost in, which was a good thing, what with everything that was going on in the world. Sephiroth was a whispered demon among the people. Silver hair, black clothes…
When people saw us they looked, did a double take.
We were made of him, not matter how much we didn't want to be, and people noticed that. But in the slums all we got were looks, and as long was we did nothing to stand out they looked away again.
We wouldn't be here long, not with the rumours and whispers flying around us. We'd be out of the city before anyone really noticed us. We couldn't afford to be noticed. With all the stories about Sephiroth now if we were caught we would be terminated.
I wasn't going to let us be terminated.
*x*
In a way I was glad there was such a huge danger to the whole world, it meant that no one paid us any mind as we moved from slum to slum, gathering food, money, clothing… anything and everything we could carry. We were going to find somewhere far, far away from everything, the entire situation, and we were going to finally stop running.
With any luck when everything was finished with, when Sephiroth was stopped, if he was stopped, they would have forgotten all about us.
We would be leaving the city long before the giant gun was fired.
*x*
My eyes never left the sky, there was something coming… something that could change everything.
…
…father…
…brother…
…
Mistakes were about to be made that couldn't be undone… but there was nothing I or my brothers could do about it…
…
…father…
…brother…
…
The sky is where the evil comes…
The earth is where it lands…
…
…mother…
…
NO!
*x*
It was perfect!
A place devoid of people; lost and forgotten through the white trees. It was like something out of one of those books I had scavenged up to teach Yazoo to read with. Maybe now I could actually start teaching him. Because this was it, this was where we were going live now.
It was like being in the deepest depths of the ocean, sweeping and soothing, a place of peace. Our new home.
*x*
We chose one of the small houses to make our home in, preferring the closeness we found in them. We raided the other houses of things until we had everything we could possibly need, and we made ourselves comfortable.
We were safe here, at long last, we were safe, and we each knew it.
*x*
…
…father…
…brother…
…Kadaj! Loz!...
…
…
…MOTHER…
…
…
NO!
…
I don't know what woke me up, but something did. I sat up, looked around to find Kadaj gone. Kadaj never left at night… not unless a fit was coming on… but he hadn't had one in months. I got up off the mattress Loz had found for us to sleep on and went to look for him. I didn't like the fits… they made me think about the first time I had ever seen him… it was a cruel reminder of the labs…
"Where're you going?" Loz asked sleepily, hand catching my wrist.
I turned to look at him, blinking slowly. "Kadaj…" I said softly. "I think he's going to have another fit." two years ago and I wouldn't have been able to say that sentence, not with stuttering my way through it.
Loz nodded but didn't release my wrist, just trundled on past me, tugging me behind.
Kadaj was outside, staring up at the sky, I looked up, and stopped. It was the strangest and most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Green streams of light weaving across the sky-thousands of them, all racing towards something.
Loz continued to pull me forward until we reached Kadaj.
"It's beautiful isn't it?" he asked us.
Loz looked up; I knew he did, even though I didn't see it. "What is it?" he asked after how long I'll never know.
My eyes dropped from the sky when Kadaj shrugged, something tugged at the back of my mind, the part that didn't really exist, that told me things were going to happen before they did. The part that slid the image of Kadaj falling to his knees, staring at the sky and screaming, across my vision. Before I knew it, I was moving, wrapping my arms around him, just as he stiffened and started to fall. I fell with him, feeling Loz behind me.
Kadaj screamed.
One word.
"MOTHER!"
*x*
The numbers are only there to separate my thoughts…
1) Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo seem to have gone slightly OOC for the whole story, so I apologise for that, and due to that fact this part of the fic may be redone at a later date.
2) Yes, the mansion they are in is Shinra Mansion, they arrived there the winter after the Nibelhiem Incident, so Zack and Cloud are still in the labs in the basement. (I have a timeline printed off and everything so I know these things.)
3) The Golden Saucer… This particular bit was difficult… how do you write the wonder of three children who have never seen anything as amazing as the Golden Saucer? I was tempted to just write the word WOW for all three and leave it at that… but I figured you might like some elaboration (I can totally still do the WOW bit if you think it would work better)
4) The part in Midgar (in case you missed it) takes place just before Weapon attacks.
5) They laid claim to the forgotten city… and just as they get settled that damned Jenova calls for them! Damn you Jenova!
6) I hope you have enjoyed this story and will review it.