Hey guys, sorry for the long delay. Thanks for being patient!
Disclaimer: No own FFVII. Ug.
Chapter XI
At 5:30 am, Zack's cell phone woke him up from where he was sprawled across the one hotel bed. He'd only been asleep about three hours. He rolled onto his back and reached into his right pocket for the phone, flipping it open and raising it to his ear.
"Zack," he spoke groggily into it.
"You sound about as great as I feel," Kunsel's voice spoke back to him.
"Yeah?" Zack asked with his eyes still closed. "You just wake up?"
"Never went to sleep. Still working," Kunsel replied.
"'M sorry, man, I'll be in shortly and I'll be able to help you finish up," Zack said as he finally pried his eyelids open and looked over at where Johnny was still asleep in the other bed.
"The kid still out?" Kunsel questioned next.
"Yeah. I better get him up and into the shower. Give him a chance to get himself ready for one of the worst days of his life," Zack said with a smile, thinking of the few times he'd had to early morning train after a late night of drinking.
"At least it's Sunday. He won't have any classes to go to after his exercises."
"Yeah. Did you get the other cadets back to the dorms alright?"
"Sure did. You gonna join your dorm on the field at seven?" his friend inquired.
"For a few minutes. Just to make sure they get started alright. After that, I'm just gonna shower and get some food and I'll meet you in the office. I'll take over for you if you wanna go grab a few hours sleep before that meeting at one."
"Sounds good. See you in a couple hours."
"Later," Zack said before flipping the phone shut. He closed his eyes and exhaled long before forcing himself up and off the bed, straightening his uniform shirt a little as he moved into the bathroom. He splashed some water on his face from the sink's tap before turning the shower on and returning to the main room. He leaned over the bed Johnny was lying in and nudged him, calling his name a few times until he began to stir.
Johnny groaned, opening his eyes only slightly before turning away from Zack and curling into himself.
"Nuh uh," Zack refused to give up on getting him up, grabbing hold of the blankets and pulling them down in one swift movement. Johnny pulled his arms and legs into his body more tightly and reached for the pillow under his head, using it to cover his face. "Come on, Cadet Six, the day ain't gonna wait for you," Zack urged, grabbing the pillow and pulling it from his grasp. "There's a nice hot shower waiting for you though and if you don't get your ass up I'll throw you in there with your clothes on."
Johnny continued to refuse. He did manage to grumble out one thing. "Fuck off." In all likelihood he wasn't one hundred percent aware of what Zack was saying. It was highly possible he was still a little intoxicated.
"Alright," Zack said as he stood back with his hands on his hips. He moved away from the bed into the bathroom where he grabbed one of the plastic cups off the counter and filled it with cold water from the tap. "You're not gonna go to the shower, so the shower's comin' to you," he said firmly as he marched up to Johnny. In one quick moment, the water was hitting the side of Johnny's face and neck. The cadet moved then, turning and sitting up a little. Zack didn't give him a chance to say anything as he grabbed his one upper arm and pulled him off the bed. Johnny stumbled a few times as Zack dragged him toward the bathroom. He let him go in front of the shower, grabbing a folded towel off the counter and throwing it at Johnny who barely held onto it as he reached out and grasped the towel rack next to him. Without another word, Zack pulled the door shut, leaving him alone in the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, Zack heard the sound of the water being shut off. He sat back in the chair he'd pulled out from the small desk and waited. A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened and Johnny came out slowly, dressed, though his hair was still dripping.
"Well well," Zack spoke up. "The walking dead."
Despite being cleaned up, Johnny still looked exhausted and worn. His lip was a little more swollen than it had been the night before and there was a little extra bruising on his jaw that hadn't been visible before. For a moment he just stood in the doorway, looking around the room a bit before letting his eyes meet Zack's.
"Where are we?" he questioned finally.
"A hotel not far from the Academy," Zack answered simply.
"Why," Johnny asked then.
Zack studied his expression. The cadet seemed to be asking something else. Something more specific.
Zack sighed. "Couldn't take you back to the Academy dorms. You were intoxicated," he explained.
"I think I still am," Johnny muttered as he took a seat on the nearby bed, facing away from Zack.
"It wasn't all alcohol was it?" Zack inquired seriously.
"No," Johnny admitted.
"What was it?"
"Amytal," the cadet answered without turning.
Zack shook his head and took in a slow breath. "Well…you could have picked something worse I suppose. Still, you better pray there's no surprise drug test this week."
"Doesn't really matter. I'm finished," Johnny stated.
"Finished?" Zack repeated.
"At the Academy," Johnny clarified as he looked back at Zack.
"Really?" Zack questioned as he leaned forward in the chair, resting his elbows on his knees. "Why?" Johnny didn't answer. After a moment, Zack switched topics. "Is the owner of that place really your uncle?" Zack asked and Johnny looked back at him.
"What?" he questioned confusedly.
"The owner of the club you were in. He claimed to be your uncle," Zack clarified.
Johnny scoffed. "No. That's just what he says about all the guys who—" he stopped abruptly. Zack looked at him expectantly. "Who worked for him," he finished softly, facing forward again.
"Were you a pusher?" Zack questioned after a moment, referring to drug trafficking.
"Yeah," he confirmed reluctantly without looking back. He turned after a few seconds and rested his one knee on the mattress. "How'd you—" he began to question but Zack cut him off.
"Eh, the guy had a look about him. And there're only two reasons someone like that hires boys to work for him. I took a guess on which one."
Johnny lowered his eyes, pushing some of his still-wet hair from where it was clinging to his forehead. His hair had been growing out since he'd arrived at the Academy with deeply blue black strands. Now, his roots revealed his natural dark brown hue.
"Or was it a combination job?" Zack questioned then.
The cadet remained silent as Zack studied his expression closely. He wouldn't confirm or deny Zack's rising suspicions. In Johnny's mind, it was bad enough that the officer knew he'd been a pusher, responsible for selling drugs to not just adults, but kids as young as ten. He wasn't about to divulge all the other things he'd done to survive on the streets, many of which were shameful and degrading. It wasn't like any of it was far in the past either. The last time he sold a drug was just a few weeks before joining the Academy.
"I'm kinda shocked," Zack went on then. "You're still pretty young to have been a pusher…" Another suspicion crept up on him. "But you aren't actually fourteen are you?"
Johnny shook his head slowly. "Sixteen," he revealed. "Changed my birth date at the same time I changed my name." He'd imagined at the time that by changing the date he could erase some of the years he'd spent on the street. So that maybe it would feel like they'd never happened. He was wrong.
"Still. Young," Zack said with a sigh. He wished suddenly he'd taken the time to go through the warehouse. To find out just what secrets the owner was hiding. But he knew it would be nearly pointless. Local authorities were rarely concerned with issues of that nature. They didn't care if adolescents were selling drugs or their bodies so long as they weren't vandalizing at the same time.
"Kinda worked to my advantage," Johnny said as he shrugged slightly.
"Do you really wanna go back to that life?" Zack asked, almost as if he had read his thoughts on his past.
"No," Johnny responded softly after a moment. A wave of emotions ran over him suddenly and he wasn't able to stop the tears that sought release. "But I don't belong at the Academy. It was never my dream," he claimed as he gripped the inner corners of his closed eyes with his thumb and forefinger, stopping the tears from running down his cheeks.
"I don't agree. I had a look at your Instructor Reports and running transcript. You're in the top five percentile in the program. That's incredible! The Academy and you fit nicely together, if you ask me. And as far as dreams go, why not make it your dream?" Zack suggested.
Johnny looked at him with reddened eyes before casting them downwards. "I dunno…"
Zack exhaled strong before moving himself to the mattress, sitting next to Johnny. "You have a chance at a great life," he pointed out softly. "Don't you think your brother would have wanted that for you?"
000
Cloud groaned when he woke to the sound of several alarms going off in the room. He dragged his one arm closer to his face so he could see his watch clearly. 6:30 am already. He felt like he'd just gone to sleep. He fully planned even before getting out of bed to get right back to sleep after morning exercises. He felt the bunk frame move as Lou got down from the top bunk. Cloud waited until he'd headed off in the direction of the bathroom before sitting up slowly, keeping his blankets close to his body. It was getting colder in the dorm in the mornings. As he looked across from his bunk he noticed Paul was already up and about somewhere. Rubbing his eyes, he moved to the edge of the mattress, lowering his feet to the cold tile floor. He stared down at his arm then, at the phone number written in pen. He had to remember to call that girl, Sophie, later and let her know they'd found Johnny the night before. Though, found or not, he had his doubts about Johnny coming back to the Academy. But then, where else would he go?
"Hey," a voice spoke from behind him and he turned to see Paul coming towards the bunks. He was dressed and ready for training.
"How are you ready to go already?" Cloud questioned through a yawn.
"I've barely been able to sleep. I kept waking up thinking I was late for morning exercises. At six I gave in and got up," Paul explained as he sat down on the edge of his bunk. Cloud nodded as he forced himself to abandon the warmth of his bed and stand up. "You think Johnny's gonna come back?" Paul asked then. Cloud shrugged a little.
"I dunno, maybe. He told me yesterday that he never wanted to be in SOLDIER. He was doing it for his brother. May seem kinda pointless to him now," Cloud suggested.
"Yeah, I guess so," Paul agreed.
It was a bit of an anxious wait on the field as they stood and waited for their drill officer to show up. The first flakes of snow for the season fell that morning. Tiny little flakes that drifted down from the sky slowly like white dust. Cloud had been watching, along with Paul, the doors that led into the training facility's locker rooms, wondering if the next time they opened, Johnny would be heading through them and onto the field. But when one of those heavy metal doors finally opened, it was Officer Vargas that emerged instead. The man approached quickly and wasted no time in getting the dorm started with their warm-up exercises. Cloud was in the middle of one of the stretches when Paul nudged him. He looked up and toward the facility to see Zack and Johnny coming toward the group. They came to a stop next to Vargas.
"Morning, Scott," Zack greeted the driller.
"Zack," Vargas replied with a nod.
"Sorry Cadet Six is late, there were some things I needed to talk to him about," Zack explained and the driller nodded again.
"Alright. Six, start warming up with the others," Vargas ordered and Johnny moved past him. He headed toward Cloud and Paul.
Cloud watched as he approached. He didn't look as bad as he'd been expecting. In fact, Cloud felt far worse than Johnny looked. He was expecting the cadet to stop next to him and Paul but he didn't. Johnny walked past them towards the back of the group without even really looking at them. Paul seemed a little more bothered by it than Cloud was.
Even though Johnny had seemed relatively unaffected by the previous night, he did stop in the middle of the run abruptly, moving off the track where he stood, leaning over a minute with his hands on his knees. Cloud hadn't noticed until one of the boys running behind him commented on it.
"Six is gonna puke," the cadet said with a light laugh to someone running next to him. Only then did Cloud see Johnny as he was rounding the one end of the track. Johnny never did actually throw up. Vargas approached him, shouting as he went.
"Let's go, Six!" he called out. "Whatever it is, you can run it off!"
Johnny pushed himself back into a slow run. After that, he managed to keep up pretty well, which Cloud found pretty annoying. The guy could go out and get trashed the night before and still perform better than he could on a good day. He couldn't be too upset over it. He'd practically made it his mission to bring Johnny back there. Now, Johnny was back. So now Cloud could get back to his primary goal. SOLDIER.
000
"The numbers are clear," one of the Finance directors spoke as he used a laser pointer to bring attention to some of the totals on a spreadsheet that was projected onto the one wall of the room. "The project is well within our budget," he added.
Zack was barely listening. He was trying not to fall asleep as he sat slouched in one of the boardroom chairs, not really caring if he looked as bored as he felt.
"But is the project necessary? That's the more important thing," one of the program directors challenged.
Zack resisted the urge to release an agitated sigh. The meeting was pointless. Just a bunch of higher-ups sitting around debating something they would likely vote in favor of anyway. There was really no reason for Zack to be there. But his presence was mandatory because he'd been one of the people to put together the projected numbers for the project being discussed. It was unlikely anyone would actually have a question for him. And indeed he was correct as finally the board members made their decision and the meeting was declared over. He dragged himself up from the chair, grabbing the few folders off the table in front of him and shooting Kunsel a look.
"I can't handle these meetings, man," he said tiredly. "One day I'm gonna hang myself from the projector screen."
"Pretty sure it wouldn't hold your weight," Kunsel replied as he was gathering his things.
"You callin' me fat?" Zack questioned.
"Yes," Kunsel answered with a smirk.
"Gee thanks," Zack said and his friend released a short laugh. "Well if I am fat it's 'cause all we do is sit around. I gotta get out of this place. I need something exciting to do."
"Well there's some inventory reports that need looked at. Those could be exciting," Kunsel suggested jokingly.
"I'm serious, Kunsel," Zack said as they left the board room and entered the hallway. "I'm going to talk to Lazard." Kunsel looked up at him.
"He's just gonna tell you what he's told you before," Kunsel pointed out.
"Well…guess we'll see," Zack retorted as he turned and began heading in the opposite direction toward the elevators. Kunsel stopped and looked after him a moment before shaking his head and continuing on his way to the offices.
Zack thought about what he was going to say while he rode the elevator to one of the higher floors in building. The fifty-ninth floor. He'd tried to talk to the SOLDIER program's executive manager several times before and had been denied. But that was something like five or six months ago. Since then, he'd just done his work and kept quiet. He couldn't do it anymore. He grinned a little in self-satisfaction when Lazard's secretary called into his office and was told to let Zack in.
When Zack entered, he found the well-groomed manager seated in front of the computer at his desk. He turned his chair to face him.
"Zack, good to see you," the manager spoke. "Have a seat," he offered. Zack sat down in one of the other chairs at the desk. "What can I do for you?" the man asked as he adjusted his thin-framed glasses a little.
"Well, for starters you could put me back on the mission list," Zack replied, wasting no time in getting to the point. The manager smiled tightly and cleared his throat a little before answering.
"Zack, as I've said before, it is protocol when a close friend is lost that a SOLDIER complete a six-week bereavement process with one of the program's counselors. Which you have yet to do."
Zack opened his mouth to argue but Lazard stopped him.
"And as you know," the manager went on "We did break protocol for you in the beginning. Because you seemed very sure that your emotions were not going to affect you in the field. And they did. Confirming for us the reason why the bereavement process is upheld."
The manager finished and Zack took a brief moment to think about what the man was saying.
"I get that, sir," he began his reply. "But it's been almost a year. I won't mess up like I did before." The manager sighed and looked away from Zack but Zack wasn't about to give up. "I'm being wasted, sir. All my training, my skills. They're useless if I'm not out there on missions. Please, sir, let me do what I was meant to do," he begged. Lazard looked at him and smiled.
"I do want to get you out in the field again, Zack. But you need to follow the protocol," the manager urged. Zack exhaled in frustration, sitting back in the chair and looking away. "I promise you, that if you do this, then I'll have you sent out on the first mission in January."
Zack returned his gaze to the manager. He groaned in protest before nodding slowly. "Alright," he agreed finally.
"Do you want me to set up the first appointment for you?" Lazard offered.
"No," Zack said through a short sigh. "I'll do it."
"Good," the manager said. Zack rose to his feet. "You'll be fine, don't worry," the man assured him. Zack nodded reluctantly as he headed for the door. He paused midway there, turning back.
"Sir," he spoke hesitantly and Lazard turned back to face him. "General Sephiroth…" he began but the manager interjected.
"Is still on personal leave."
"Don't suppose you could—"
"As I've said before, the general has asked that I not disclose his location and I've agreed to honor that request," Lazard said simply.
Zack scratched the back of his head. He smirked a little at the comment he was about to make. "You make him go through the bereavement process too?" he questioned. The manager raised an eyebrow.
"Nobody makes the general do anything, Zack, not even me."
That being said, Zack left, dreading the inevitable trip he had to make down to the Mental Awareness and Well-Being facility across the grounds.
000
Cloud stood in front of the line of phones in the Cadet Resource Center, staring down at the number written on his arm. He'd been putting off what he'd said he'd do. Slowly, he picked up the receiver on one of the phones and put in his ID number. He waited for the prompt to tell him to dial the number he wanted. He did so at a snail's pace, making sure each number he pressed with his index finger was the one he really wanted. He listened then to the ringing.
"Hello," a female voice answered after only two rings. Cloud had almost hoped there'd be no answer. He hadn't been particularly excited to talk to that girl, Sophie. He just hoped that once he told her Johnny was back at the Academy she'd say 'thank you' and hang up.
"Hi," he spoke into the receiver. "Is this Sophie?" he asked.
"Yeah, who's this?" the girl questioned.
"Cloud Strife. You called last night about—"
"Yeah I know. Did you find him?" she cut him off abruptly.
"Yeah, he's fine," Cloud replied.
"He's at the Academy?"
"Yeah."
"Where was he last night? At that club?" she questioned next.
"Yes," Cloud confirmed sharply, growing impatient.
"Was he high?" she asked and Cloud rolled his eyes.
"Look, if you care so much about him, then why don't you call him yourself?" Cloud suggested. "Or visit him?" There was silence on the other end of the line. "I gotta go," Cloud said after a moment.
"Thanks," the girl said then.
"You're welcome," Cloud said casually before hanging up the phone. He stared at the receiver where it sat. If you care so much…He really needed to take his own advice. Hesitantly, he picked the receiver up again, punching his ID number into the key pad before dialing the very long-distance number for back home. His mother picked up after the third ring.
"Hello?" she spoke almost in a questioning tone, like she was surprised someone was calling her. No doubt she was. When Cloud had lived at home the phone rarely rang. Most times that it did it was a person who'd dialed the wrong number.
"Mom, hi, it's me," he said a little awkwardly.
"Oh, Cloud!" his mom said happily, her excitement clear. "I was beginning to think I'd never hear from you again," she said with a laugh.
"Yeah, it's been pretty busy and mail doesn't get sent out very often," Cloud explained. "How've you been?" he inquired.
"I've been well. But I've missed you, are you keeping yourself healthy and working hard?" she asked.
"Yeah, I have—"
"When will you be home for Christmas?" his mother interrupted. It sounded like there was someone talking to her in the background. Before Cloud had a chance to answer his mother spoke again. "Oh, Cloud, Tifa's here, she wants to talk to you."
Cloud froze.
"Cloud?" Tifa's voice drifted through the receiver that he let slip from his hand. He snatched it up quickly. "Cloud? Hello?"
"Uh, hi," Cloud said as he finally found his voice.
"Cloud, you sound different," Tifa said with a smile in her voice. He could almost see it.
"I do?" he questioned. He cleared his throat a little. "That's weird," he added, not really knowing what to say.
"I wrote you a letter. I mailed it a few weeks ago, have you gotten it yet?" she questioned.
"Uhh…no, no letter," he denied. He was lighting up on the inside over the thought that there was something headed toward him though.
"Soon hopefully," Tifa said with a small sigh. "I really miss you, Cloud."
The words wrapped themselves around Cloud. He blushed a little and was thankful to be standing alone at the phones.
"I-I miss you too," he replied somewhat lamely. It just sounded strange to him when he said it. Though he did mean it.
"I have to go. I'll give you back to your mother," she said cheerily and he waited to hear his mother's voice again. His mom went on and on about several things, none of which Cloud was really paying attention too. He uttered some 'yeahs' and 'uh huhs' all the while thinking the same thing over and over. She misses me?