Hey guys! Hope the week is going good for all of you. I FINALLY finished up the hoard of tests and assignments I had to do for school which means two things: 1. I shall know what sleep feels like again, and 2. I will have my free time back to write. I worked on this chapter for a few days so that it would be a little longer. Hope you all like it. As always, the comments are greatly appreciated :D And without further ado…read on and enjoy!
Good ol' disclaimer: FF not mine.
Chapter VII
"SHIT!" Zack exclaimed as he held his right index finger in his shaking left hand and squeezed hard. That was probably the tenth time he'd been cut by the metal of the link spring under his cot. It had been getting harder to work since the second wave of mako effects hit. For the past hour he had been trying to focus hard on making his hands do what his brain was telling them to, all the while he had to fight against the growing pain in his abdominal muscles that made him want to curl up into a ball on his side. He heard the faint sound of the toilet being flushed and decided he should take a break and see how Cloud was doing. Slowly, he pulled himself out from under the cot and used the side of it to sit himself up.
"How you doin', kid?" he called in hoarse voice in the direction of the washroom. Cloud appeared then in the doorway. Zack gasped. Several thin lines of blood were running down both his inner arms originating at the inner elbows. Zack started to lift himself up but stopped, his stomach dropping as he noticed the same thing happening to his own arms. How long have I been bleeding? he wondered as he took note of the smeared blood in his inner elbows. He wiped some of it away trying to see where it was coming from. His gaze fell onto the small holes left in his skin from the needlework in the lab. "What the hell…" He didn't know what to think.
"Zack…" Cloud's weak voice interrupted his thoughts. "I think something's wrong with us," he spoke, his words barely making it out of his pale lips before his trembling legs refused to keep him standing any longer and he fell to his knees, he slumped against the door frame, his whole body trembling. His arms hung limp at his sides as the blood continued to run down in small streams, starting to form small circles on the tile floor. Zack had to snap himself out of the shock he was in. All that kept running through his mind was what the hell is happening to us?! He took off his shirt and started to tear it into strips. The effort made the blood flow faster. It was different somehow. Thinner.
Holding the strips of fabric, Zack moved himself over to where Cloud sat. He took Cloud's left arm and wrapped one of the strips around it, tying it off as tight as he could. He did the same to his left arm, feeling a twinge of guilt as he saw Cloud holding back the urge to cry out from the pain. The poor kid had been suffering though a broken wrist for what seemed like days now. After finishing with Cloud, Zack tied off his own arms using one hand and his teeth. Something was definitely not right. They had lost far too much blood far too quickly. Zack sat quiet for a moment watching his friend. It seemed that every inch of Cloud's skin was glistening in sweat.
"You warm, buddy?" he asked after a moment of observation. Cloud shook his head.
"Re-really cold," he answered slowly, his voice shaking. Zack leaned forward and put his palm against Cloud's forehead. His eyes widened. What he felt he wasn't expecting. He had been expecting Cloud to have a fever. What he felt was the opposite. Cloud's skin was like ice. Zack wondered if that's what his felt like. He always felt cold in that room and it was hard to determine what your own temperature was. He wasn't sweating like Cloud though. "It's kinda hard to breathe…" Cloud almost whispered. Only a second later, Cloud's eyelids fell and his head dropped to his chest. Zack's heart sank hard and he grasped Cloud's head in his hands, lifting it.
"Cloud!" he said his name frantically, shaking his head a little, trying to will him awake. "Come on, Spike, you can't sleep right now!" He tried to keep the panic of his tone as low as possible. Cloud's eyes opened then. Zack let out an exhale of relief and forced a smile to his face. "Hey, it's not naptime yet, kid," he joked. Cloud looked at him gravely.
"Zack…your nose…" he said tiredly. Zack looked back at him in confusion before reaching his fingertips to his nose and feeling something wet. More blood. That's not mine, he thought then as he looked on the blood that was smeared on his palm. Cloud. He returned his eyes to his friend, holding his jaw and coaxing his head to the side. A small stream of red had emerged from his ear and was making its way down the side of his neck. There was another coming from his other ear.
"Oh god…" Zack couldn't help himself from breathing the words that came up from the bottom of his gut where the fear was starting to take over.
"I don't wanna die here, Zack," Cloud said then, his voice shaking. The tears were building up in his eyes.
"Listen to me, Cloud," Zack said firmly, grasping his shoulders. "You're not dying here. No one is. Not you, not me. We're gonna get out of here, you got it?" Zack looked hard into Cloud's watery blue eyes. Zack could see the doubt there. He couldn't blame him. He had doubts himself. But he had to fight them. Cloud lowered his head as the tears started to fall. Zack pulled him forward and held his friend as he cried softly into his shoulder.
…
Dr. Marsh punched in the code on the key pad outside the heavy door and she took a deep breath as she prepared herself for the hardest thing in the world: facing Hojo's specimens. What she wasn't prepared for was to enter their room and see them both unconscious on the floor bleeding from practically everywhere. Arms, noses, ears, even their eyes. The streams of their blood mixed together on the floor in small puddles. She ordered the guards that accompanied her to retrieve gurneys from the med sector. She took a few steps towards the two young men. It was so quiet. The only sound came from her own breathing. She bent down, checking their pulses tentatively, almost afraid to touch them. Their pulses were weak, but they were there.
It took a few minutes for the guards to arrive back with the gurneys. They hoisted Zack up first, a low groan escaped his throat as he was moved. He could feel himself being moved, but it was like being in a dream. Everything was so hazy and dark. He couldn't be sure if his eyes were even open or not. There was no pain really. Just the cold and the numbness.
Cloud was picked up second and laid out on the other gurney. Dr. Marsh urged them to hurry, getting them to the med sector. Zack could hear her say that but before he felt himself being moved again he had phased out. He had no idea how much time had passed when he felt his one eyelid being opened and saw a bright light shine into it. The light disappeared and was replaced with the face of Dr. Marsh. She was saying something to him but he could barely make it out over the loud ringing in his ears.
"Zack," she spoke loudly, looking down at his heavy lidded eyes. "Blink if you can hear me."
Blink if you can hear me? Zack questioned in his groggy mind. He wasn't one hundred percent sure that's what she had said but decided to go with it and gave a slow but definite blink. She nodded then.
"Don't worry, you're going to be fine," she assured him. She disappeared from his view then. He could just barely make out the sound of something happening to his right. He turned his head slow, it seemed near impossible to do, his neck felt so stiff. He saw a blur of white coats moving frantically, reaching for things that he couldn't identify. Amongst the rapid movement he managed to squint enough to make out some spikey blond hair, matted somewhat from a mixture of sweat and blood. Then came the sentence that gripped his heart and squeezed hard making him beg to god he hadn't heard right.
"He's fibrillating!"
The high-pitched sounds of beeping monitors filled the area.
"Paddles!"
Zack couldn't make out the faces or distinguish the voices of anyone but Dr. Marsh.
"Charging…clear!"
There was a loud THUMP and then the sound of one long bleep coming from a monitor.
"No pulse!"
Cloud, no! Zack cried out within his head.
"Again. Charging…clear!"
"Nothing!"
"Again!" Marsh's voice held a hint of the panic Zack was feeling. "Charging…clear!"
That time, the assistants had parted just enough that Zack could make out Cloud's torso rising and falling fast with the electricity of the defibrillator.
"Still nothing!"
Zack felt like screaming. He wanted to jump up and leap off the gurney, push everyone out of the way and shake Cloud awake himself so that he could give him shit for being such a little jerk thinking he was just gonna check out and leave him behind.
"AGAIN!" Marsh insisted. "Charging…CLEAR!"
This time the THUMP was followed up by the bleep on the monitor breaking up into slow repeated bleeps.
"He's back!"
Those words brought more relief to Zack than he could ever have imagined. The frantic aura of the area seemed to die down a little almost instantly. The assistants parted again and Zack could see his friend lying still. Still, but alive.
"Alright, we'll keep monitoring him for now and prep Z1 for surgery," Marsh's voice cut into Zack's brain. Surgery? Before he knew it, he was in motion, the gurney being wheeled away and down a short hallway into another room. When the motion stopped he waited in anticipation for what would happen next. He wanted to see Marsh, wanted to know what the hell was going on and what had happened to he and Cloud. He didn't get the chance as the last person he would see for awhile would be some random assistant with a mask covering her mouth and nose. She unscrewed the tube attached to the oxygen mask covering his own mouth and nose and screwed in a different tube. He could feel the air being forced into his body, but only for a few seconds as the uncontrollable urge to sleep took over and he closed his eyes, letting the darkness take him away.
…
"What is the status on the specimens?" Hojo asked from his seat at the head of the table in the board room where he and his assistants had convened.
"They're stable," Marsh answered tiredly as she took a seat, having just come from the med sector.
"What happened?"
"After analyzing some blood samples, it's evident that the high concentrations of raw mako have radically changed the composition of both specimens' red blood cells, as well as eliminating almost any possibility for the blood to clot."
"Is it reversible?"
"Not reversible…but their bodies are still producing normal red blood cells. It will take time to filter out those affected by the mako. Not only that, but the mako has also caused a great deal of damage to their circulatory systems at the points of entry. Basically, it has been disintegrating the veins and capillaries in the tissues surrounding the direct entry points. We had to perform surgery to repair arterial damage in both specimens.
Hojo thought for a moment, clicking his pen a few times as he stared across the table. "What would happen if they were to receive another injection?"
Marsh looked at him incredulously. She almost couldn't believe he'd actually ask. But then she reminded herself who it was she was talking to. The man was devoid of many things…humanity appearing to be one of those things.
"It is unlikely either of them would survive another injection," she stated firmly.
"Hmmm…" Hojo continued to ponder. "We need to develop a different way of administering the treatment. If the same amount could be transferred in a less concentrated way…" he trailed off, seemed to be in his own little science world. The assistants looked at one another. He spoke up again suddenly, startling some of them. "How long until the specimens are recovered?"
Marsh almost laughed but restrained herself. There was no way to be sure Zack and Cloud would ever recover fully. That answer would be unacceptable to Hojo though. She struggled to respond with a length of time she knew herself would be cutting it close. "A month maybe." Hojo scoffed.
"No," he said as he shook his head.
"Professor, you want your test subjects to be as healthy as possible when you perform your procedures don't you? Otherwise the results may be skewed." He studied her hard. "At least three weeks," she suggested, though she almost felt like she was begging. He released a long breath before rising from his chair, bringing everyone else to a rise as well.
"Fine," he said in an irritated tone. "Three weeks. During that time we'll work on developing a different means of administering the mako." With that said, he headed for the door.
…
When Zack opened his eyes he felt like he had been asleep for months yet was still unbelievably tired. First thing he did was reach up to his face and pull the oxygen mask down that was covering his mouth. He took a deep breath and let it out slow. His arm hurt. It was bandaged, starting at the inner elbow and ending mid-way up his bicep. Lifting his left arm, something restrained his wrist making a CLANK noise. He made a painful effort to raise his head and shoulders and saw that his wrist was cuffed to the guard rail on the bed. He laughed drying before letting his head fall back onto the pillow. His noticed something then. Tubes. Several and they seemed to be going into him. One was connected at his wrist and went to a bag of clear liquid. Hanging next to that bag was one unmistakably filled with blood. He followed the tube with his eyes where it disappeared under the sheet and blanket on top of him. Pushing the covers down a little he stared with an open mouth at the where the tube was entering the center of his chest, above his heart.
"Gross," he muttered, his voice coming out hoarse and broken. Sure, he thought that was gross until he discovered where the third tube went. It turned out to be a catheter. He laid back, listening to the sound of the monitors. After a moment he was able to pick out two different heart monitors going. One was his. The other…
He looked to his right where a curtain was drawn. Reaching over as far as the cuff on his wrist allowed, he stretched painfully till his fingers caught the curtain. He pulled it open as hard as he could. Luckily it slid pretty easily and he could see his companion. Poor kid, he thought as he looked on at his friend. I hope I don't look like that. There was bruising all over what part of Cloud's chest he could see and around his eyes. He came to the conclusion it was probably from his momentary departure from life and the effort it had taken to get him back. Zack felt himself get emotional all of a sudden. He was glad Cloud wasn't awake to see him shed some tears 'cause he would have felt like an idiot. He couldn't help thinking, however, how bad it would have been if he had been left alone there. Cloud didn't know how much Zack needed him to be there. But then, Zack hadn't really known either.
He heard the sound of footsteps then. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and waited to see who it was. He was happy to see it was Dr. Marsh. He was hoping for an explanation. A faint smile came across her lips as she entered and noticed Zack was awake. It was gone quick though and her stoic expression returned.
"Good to see you awake," she said as she shut the door behind her.
"I knew you'd miss me," he said with a wide grin. She rolled her eyes.
"Believe me, I prefer you unconscious. I enjoy the quiet. It's just good to see you didn't slip into a coma after the surgery."
"Nah, you like me unconscious can then you can take advantage of me," he said with a wink.
"I suppose I don't need to ask you how you're feeling, you seem to be just fine."
"I've been better," he responded a little more seriously. "Anything you can offer to help dim the pain from whatever the hell you guys did to my arms?"
She nodded slowly then headed to a cabinet that she unlocked with a set of keys and took something out of. She filled a syringe with some clear liquid and administered it to his IV feed. "This should help," she said before discarding the syringe.
"So, what happened?" Zack asked then. She thought through her explanation before delivering it.
"Uh, the concentration of mako you and Cloud have been given in the injections has had a corrosive effect on some of the veins in your arms. We needed to do surgery to repair some of the damage."
"That's why we all of a sudden were bleeding out of every orifice?" he asked, looking at her skeptically.
"No. Apparently that much mako doesn't enhance the cells in the body, rather it starts to break them down. Your blood composition changed and your bodies stopped clotting."
Zack went to cross his arms out of habit when he remembered the hand cuff. "Is this really necessary?" he asked, holding his hand up showing the cuff. The doctor cleared her throat but said nothing as she moved away from Zack's bedside and over to Cloud's where she watched the monitors for a moment. "Is he gonna be okay?" He asked then, somewhat afraid to hear the answer.
Marsh met his eyes. Right then he swore she was going to burst into tears. Her lower lip quivered a little before she forced a tight smile to her face. "Sure," she said, nodding and looking away. "You seem very close with him," she pointed out then. Zack let out a nervous laugh, scratching the back of his head.
"Yeah…well…" he struggled with a response.
"He's lucky to have a friend like you," she added in what seemed to Zack to be a sad tone. She turned then and headed for the door.
"Hey, Doc," he called to her and she paused, looking back at him. He felt what he was trying to say lingering on the tip of his tongue but it just wouldn't leave his mouth. On one hand he wanted to thank her for being the only person he and Cloud had come into contact with down in that basement who still treated them somewhat like they were human. On the other hand, she was one of them. The scientists. Worse! They thought what they were doing was right but he could see in her eyes that she knew what was happening to them was wrong and yet she did nothing. In the end, that's what it came down to. He averted his eyes then. "Never mind," he said softly. She stood by the door for a few seconds more before opening it to step out.
"Get some rest," she said before leaving the room and closing the door.
…
It took another day and a half for Cloud to wake up. Zack hadn't even realized at first when he did. He had grown so bored in there that he had started to sing to himself. The song he was singing was actually the cadet chant that was taught to new initiates when they entered the academy. Cloud came out of sleep like he was coming out of a tunnel. He saw the bright lights behind his lids and could hear sounds nearby. He opened his eyes a little, wincing against the sting of the fluorescent lights. Is someone singing? was the first thought to enter his mind. Oh no. Not that…he thought then as he recognized the tune. Stiffly, he dragged his hand up to his face to pull his oxygen mask down. He swallowed hard against the feeling of sandpaper lining his mouth and throat.
"Of all the songs in the world…" he barely managed to get his words out just loud enough that Zack heard him, his head turning to him fast."…you pick that one…" Cloud finished.
"Spikey!" Zack exclaimed, pulling himself up on his elbows. "'Bout time you woke the hell up!"
"Ugh…I feel like roadkill," he muttered.
Zack couldn't resist. "Yeah…you kinda look like it too. A chocobo run over by a motorcycle," he said through a smirk. Cloud started to laugh but it finished as a cough.
"Oww…don't make me laugh," he said, a smile still evident on his face. "What happened?" he asked then, turning his head toward Zack.
Zack sighed. "Hojo's experimentations are failing miserably, that's what." There was a few moments of silence then before Cloud spoke again.
"Zack. Did something happen to me?" he asked awkwardly. Zack looked back at him, his brow furrowed. "Never mind," he said then, shaking his head.
"You coded."
"What?" Cloud questioned, looking back at his friend.
"Your heart stopped. They brought you back with the paddles," he replied, pointing to the defibrillator near the wall. "It was pretty cool actually," he added, laughing a little. Cloud studied Zack's expression. He watched as the humor fell from his face and his eyes seemed to darken a little. "And by cool I mean scary as hell," he said then, his voice quiet as he kept his gaze directed down to his lap.
"I'm…I'm sorry," Cloud said softly, not really sure if that's what he should say.
"Yeah…" Zack agreed. "You better be. Do it again and I'll kick your ass," he said seriously before grabbing an empty paper cup off the table next to his bed and throwing it at Cloud. It bounced off his forehead and landed next to him. Cloud sighed, pretending to ignore the cup for a few seconds before grabbing it and throwing it as hard as he could, trying to catch Zack off guard. Unfortunately it only made it to the guardrail on the side of his bed where it bounced off and landed on the floor. "Your grandmother teach you that one?" Zack fired at him.
Cloud tried to hold back his laughs. "Jerk, quit it," he warned him again to stop making him laugh.
"You're just lucky I can't get to you," he said, holding up his hand to show he was cuffed down. "Then I'd really bug the shit outta you," he added, smiling wide.
"You're doing a pretty good job from that distance," Cloud remarked, smirking proudly at his insult.
"Ohhh, you're gonna get it, Spike, just you wait," he threatened. Cloud shook his head, closing his eyes against the bright lights overhead.
…
A week had passed before Zack and Cloud could be released from the med sector and brought back to their room. They were given fresh clothes before being led back to their cell. Both of them were pretty weak but they were both pretty doped up on morphine so they weren't in much pain. Cloud had finally been given a cast for his wrist. It had to be broken again and re-set because it had already begun to heal on its own in an awkward alignment. Luckily he had been knocked out during that whole procedure.
Zack was hoping once they were back in their room that they would be left alone for awhile so that they could just relax. No such luck of course as a few hours later the door was opening and their favorite Turks were stepping over the threshold.
"Wow, you ladies look like shit!" Reno commented promptly.
"Yeah, we're modeling our look after yours," Zack replied, lying on his cot with his hands behind his head and not bothering to sit up when Reno and Rude entered.
"You're funny, Fair," Reno snapped back. "Wanna look like the bottom of my shoe next?"
Zack laughed. "I may be funny, but you're fuckin' hil-arious. What the hell do you want anyway?"
"Well, I just thought maybe you guys would have had enough of staring at the walls and that you might like something to read. Here, I brought something for both of you," he said happily as he took out some folded sheets of newspaper and handed them to both Cloud and Zack. Copies of the front page of the Daily Midgar. Zack skimmed over the column, his eyes widening as he got further into it. He sat up slowly and held the paper closer to his face as if getting closer to it would reveal it to be a mistake. Midgar mourns the loss of First Class SOLDIER Zackary Fair and Private First Class Cloud Strife of the Shinra Militia…
"Fuck me…" Zack uttered in disbelief.
"They had a funeral for us?" Cloud spoke then, his voice shrouded in confusion. His eyes darted to the picture provided of two caskets and a crowd of people clad in black, two of the people much closer in the foreground. He read the caption. Parents of Zack Fair say a tearful goodbye to their beloved son. Zack looked on at the picture as well, feeling his heart ache as he stared at his parents captured in black and white.
"It was a really nice service," Reno said then, his hands in his pockets casually. "A lot of people showed up. For you anyway," he continued, looking at Zack. His eyes shifted to Cloud then. "Didn't look like many showed up for you, baby boy."
"What a shock," Cloud responded sarcastically, glancing over at Zack.
"Aeris was there," Reno muttered, almost to himself as he studied his finger nails on his one hand. Zack's eyes shot over to him. "She didn't stay long though. She seemed upset, so naturally I went to make sure she was alright…"
"Fuck you, Reno, you stay away from her!" Zack said firmly, anger welling up in him fast. He crumpled the paper up into a ball in his fist and rose from his cot, stepping up in front of Reno, outmatching him in height by a few inches though Reno tried to make himself seem taller.
"You gonna stop me, Fair?" he challenged. Zack narrowed his eyes.
"You wanna fight, Turk, let's go," he responded coolly. "Otherwise, get out of sight." With that said he flicked the ball of rolled up newspaper from his hand and it hit Reno's chin before falling to the floor. Reno's eyes gazed down at it then back up to meet Zack's hard glare. The tension was so intense it seemed explosive. Cloud was watching and waiting, expecting Reno to throw a punch at Zack. Surprisingly, he backed off, taking a few steps backward before turning toward the door. He paused though before leaving.
"I'll be sure to pick you up one of those flowers of hers next time I see her," he said with an evil smirk before stepping out and slamming the door shut. In the same second, Zack had leaned down, retrieving the paper ball so he could haul off and whip it at the door as it shut. It hit with surprising force considering it was paper. Zack turned from the door then, running his hands through his hair before dropping himself back down onto his cot, his hands resting on his chest. There was silence then for a few moments before Cloud looked up from the paper he had just read over for about the 5th or 6th time. He just couldn't believe it.
"I'm really sorry, Zack," he said tentatively.
"For what?" Zack questioned, trying to get the image of Aeris at his funeral out of his head.
"I'm sorry you had to see the paper. All those people there for you…your parents…" His words weren't coming out the way he was hoping.
"Yeah. Well. Think of how stupid they'll all feel when they see us come strolling into town."
Cloud got that he was trying to lighten the mood. Sometimes he hated Zack for that. For always making jokes no matter how serious a situation But then he would remind himself that if Zack didn't do that then he would probably fall apart and that was a thought too troubling for Cloud to bear.
