FOUR MONTHS AGO

"So you were really set on joining SOLDIER, huh?" The truck was shaking us all up pretty roughly inside, but me and the blonde guy managed to get towards the end next to the cabin. Shaking wasn't so bad there. I don't know what brought him so far to the back of the truck, the other guys were all hunched together towards the tailgate. The sun managed to scrape itself through the little holes in the fabric over the top of the truck, speckling across them. They all looked like animals in the jungle, crouched down and snarling over a kill. Or something like that.

I didn't know much about the blonde guy...He kept to himself, he hardly ever spoke, and when he did it was fairly concise. One of the types who you knew was always eating lunch alone when he was a kid. I don't mean in the courtyard under a tree. I mean he had a whole table to himself, because the other kids were scared to death of him. Yeah, there was deffinitly something not right about him. Probobly why he didn't make it into SOLDIER, and was just a guard. I did know his name though, but it was hard to remember. Hell, I had to know everyone's name, but the only really important guy was Sephiroth. He was the reason all these guards were tagging along, riding in the back of a covered pickup where the spots of sun moved like scared bugs away from us. The reason iI/i was in the back of this truck. I guess I was supposed to be the right hand man. Huh, sure thing I thought, running a hand over my hair. That's why I was back here with the rest of the grunts. I unslung my buster from my shoulders and planted it in the wooden deck of the truck in front of me, draping my arms over the top, crossed. What iwas/i the blonde guy's name?

My stomach growled, loud enough for the blonde guy to look at me. I looked down and blinked. How the hell was I supposed to remember names when I was ihungry/i too? I wasn't even sure where we were going, and now I had to worry about when we were going to get something to-

"You're hungry, huh?"

I jerked my head away from the back of the truck where I'd been resting it, but the truck also chose that exact moment to go over a bump in the road. iThwack/i. DAMNIT! I'd meant to be surprised, not face-first into the flat of the buster. I shook my head and pulled back, staring at the blonde guy. Strife, hey, that was it. I smiled at him and shrugged. Cloud Strife. "Yeah, guess I slept through breakfast." This was the first time he'd tried to make conversation with ianyone/i, so near as I knew.

So cool, I was the first. I smiled again.

This time Cloud even smiled back, which probobly would have shocked me again, if I wasn't so ihungry/i. He brushed one of the bangs out of his eyes and spoke again. He was real soft, the kind of guy who expects to be interupted so when he does talk, he makes it a point to be intimidating in that weird...unspoken way. Kind of like Sephiroth, only not nearly as confident. Now that I thought about it, their build was kinda similar too. "Me too."

Maybe it would have struck me wierd that he used so few words but that kind of thing didn't bother me usually, which was ever, which was at all. So I kept talking. Hey, it was better than being silent staring at all the other guys. Wait, I did know where we were going. Augh, too many names all at once. "Maybe we can get somethin to eat once we're in Nibelheim. I mean there's gotta be food someplace, right? I think we're all pretty hungry-"

"I didn't answer your first question." Cloud was watching me kind of like a little kid watches its older brother. It was sorta weird, because it wasn't completely like that. More like the looks I get from some igirls/i. First question? Oh yeah. About SOLDIER. I waved a hand and dropped the buster down on its flat in my lap, reaching my arms back and folding them behind my head. I wasn't so curious so much as I had been trying to make conversation. He cocked his head, the light bangs delayed but still falling across his forehead. The guard uniforms looked weird on this guy, and that's all I'm saying to it. "Aren't you annoyed?"

I grinned at him again. "Wow, and they told me you never said more than two words. Nah, only three things annoy me." I took one of my hands from behind my head and held up fingers, dropping them down while I talked. I could see the kid with one eye closed now, I was tired anyway. "Haircuts, customs control and people who don't know when it's time to run." Honestly I'd made those up on the spot, I probobly had a lot more things that annoyed me, but those were the first three to mind. iAugh/i I was hungry. Maybe if I got to sleep for a while the hunger'd subside. Cloud just watched me with those confused eyes again, and I could swear he started blushing whenever I talked to him. Maybe not, maybe that was the light-flecks messing with my eyes.

Cloud looked down at his hands, and about that time I dropped my hand back behind my head and shut my eyes. He came off as having the build for SOLDIER, so it really musta been psychological grounds he got rejected on. Me, I was just there because it was something I knew I'd be good at. It wasn't so hard, being a glorified grunt. Hey, at least you went places. Staying in one place too long was never for me anyway. Maybe someday I'd find myself someplace I felt like staying. But that wasn't likely. Anyone who signed into SOLDIER had some reason to keep moving. Maybe Cloud had a reason, I wasn't sure, and I was thinking that right up until he asked-

"...What's your name?" He asked it like I'd just asked his. I blinked my eyes open and saw he wasn't looking at me anymore, but down at his hands, where he twisted the hem of his shirt. He sure was nervous. More cut out for the tactics than the fighting the way he was acting. I blinked again and smiled, nodding forward.

"Zack." I leaned back a moment, thinking over in my head how this guy seemed so outta place with the guards. The one advantage for me of being in SOLDIER is that wherever you went, you had the luxery of being as alone as you wanted. For someone like me who liked to sleep late, be nice and be antisocial at the same time, that worked out real good. For some reason people really respect the hell out of you when you never hang around em, but youre real nice to em. It's like when you're not there, some sort of cultivated hero-worship takes place. I don't really mind that, just so long as they don't start tagging after me. I'm no good with pets, especially ones who follow you around. This kid seemed though like he could benifit from being in SOLDIER...the oportunity to be an accepted outsider might do him good. I sat up and leaned forward, looking up towards the top of the truck's canopy. The flecks of light coming down left blotches in my eyes, but it was better than staring at the inside... "Hey, if you're still interested in going into SOLDIER, I could help you study up for it. Being the nice guy that I am." I tossed Cloud another grin.

The bangs bounced as he snapped his head up to look at me. There was some serious shock in his eyes. "You'd really help me join SOLDIER?"

Taking in air before talking this time, I sort of rolled my eyes back upwards. I wasn't what you would call the best person with book work and studying, and a lot of SOLDIER was that. I'd barely made it through, and ever since then I'd become sort of attatched to falling dead asleep in the middle of any book that didn't have pictures. So it was questionable if I could help him there, but with training and rules and stuff like that, I figured I could do him some good. "Weeeeeeell the next time you could take the exam isn't til next month, so we'll hafta wait til after this mission, but sure." I gave a short laugh. I did that a lot when I knew I couldn't do something...like say, for example, help study books. "But you gotta handle the research work yourself, hard information and this member of SOLDIER don't mix."

This time even Cloud laughed a little, looking back down at his hands and slouching slightly against the sides of the truck. Guess he had the same idea about hunger that I did. "No problem."

The guys on the other end of the truck started shouting louder about something, and watching Cloud shut his eyes, it made me kinda remember before I was in SOLDIER. I was a lot like him, only a lot less...uhm...blonde. And I didn't have that aura of snapping at any second, that was for sure. But he seemed like a nice kid. And he sure as hell seemed more interesting than the rest of them. Arching back my head, I barked at them. "Yo, pipe down, Strife's tryin to sleep over here."

For a minute he stared at me again, but the guys got him looking their way when they shouted back. "Yeah, right, sure thing Zack," and kept right on laughing. I pulled a scowl and unsnapped one of the wrist guards I wore as a part of my SOLDIER uniform and held it out in front of my face. Nice thing, nice and heavy anyway. Snapping it back up, I lobbed it at the back of one of the guards heads. Cloud blinked once and shook his head in disbelief, and the other shaken head got the rest of them to shut up right away.

"I said pipe down," I reiterated with a smirk, folding my arms back behind my head and shutting my eyes. If Cloud Strife thanked me, I didn't hear him. I hated being hungry.