Hello all!
Yeaaaah... It's been a while, eh? Sorry bout that.
Well I can't exactly promise frequent updates due to college, and I think this chapter is not that great but... neh? hope you like it? hehehe.
I'm kinda depressed. In case you can't tell.
Thanks for the reviews! It's actually the only reason I can get enough inspiration to update, to be honest.
So please read and review!
Don't own don't sue.
"Ah, Director. Please, take a seat." Reeve stepped into Sephiroth's office, resisting the urge to look around and try to figure out just what made the world's number one hero tick. He couldn't afford to look like a simple fool, for as much as such a mindless survey might be able to tell him. He did as he was told and pulled up a chair across from what was arguably the most powerful man in existence, at least physically. Reeve ignored the nervousness that thought tried to instill and strengthened his resolve. "I'm sure you are wondering why I've asked you here," the General began, staring Reeve down in a way that he was sure was supposed to be intimidating. He refused to take the bait.
"Actually, I was rather glad when my secretary said you'd called." Reeve crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair as though he didn't care who was sitting just on the other side of that desk. "I had hopes of establishing a similar meeting myself, but I admit I know nothing of your intentions. Tell me, just what can the Department of Urban Development do for SOLDIER?" He knew he was being awfully bold, but Sephiroth was, technically, in a position inferior to his. Surely that allowed him some room for posturing. Sephiroth looked at him strangely for a moment. He probably hadn't expected such a reply from such an unremarkable man. Reeve simply smiled back.
"Do you remember the odd occurrence with the vending machines the other day?" Sephiroth stood up as he spoke, wandering over to stare out the window in an attempt to downplay the importance of their subject. Reeve was too used to this kind of environment to fall for it.
"Hmm, I might." He mused, realizing where this was going. "I assume you would rather I forget it?" Sephiroth didn't seem to know what to make of him. Reeve bit the inside of his cheek and took the final plunge. "Keeping secrets from the Science department I presume? No wonder Hojo is so displeased." The silver-haired man whirled around to face him, confusion evident in his eyes, hand half-reaching for a sword that wasn't there. Luckily for Reeve the massive blade was resting against the wall somewhere closer to the door. His smile grew wider. "Relax, General. I'm sure we can arrange something." He wondered what kind of a picture he cut, all traces of his usual dopey look completely gone. Did he still seem foolish, sitting like he was in front of the famed Demon of Wutai? He hadn't been killed yet so he must have been doing something right.
"What are you hinting at, Director." Sephiroth growled, his eyes narrowing as he stalked back to the desk. Reeve played it cool and acted like he wasn't more frightened than he'd ever been in his life.
"Get Tseng in here, then we'll talk." Reeve met The General with equal venom, his smile cold and dangerous. He stared down unnatural, emerald eyes and willed himself not to look away. This had to work, or his whole life was useless anyway. His whole dream swept away by the actions of one, foolish, cruel scientist.
Sephiroth picked up his phone violently, grumbling things too lowly for those without the benefits of Mako to hear.
"Get me Tseng," he growled into the receiver, and Reeve thanked every god he knew. Finally, he was getting somewhere!
Zack woke up to find blue eyes staring him down. It was a sight far too familiar after this past week. He would fall asleep watching his cadet friend every night, and when he awoke those sightless eyes would be there to greet him—seeing him, but not really seeing anything at all. Cloud was looking at him like that now, his gaze vacant, mind wandering Gaea knew where. For one heart-stopping moment he'd almost thought that the blood pumping chase through the Shinra building had been only a passing dream, and that his friend was cursed to stay here in this apartment, trapped in his own mind and a child's body for the rest of eternity.
"Cloud?" He questioned, determined to banish the fear with words. Words were real. They gave him something to hold on to other than the wispy musings of his racing psyche. Words were his focus and his light in the black abyss of silence. They had kept him sane in the war and they would have to keep doing so now. "Are you here with me buddy?" It was as if his question had drawn Cloud back to the earth. Slowly he watched the light of consciousness seep back into mako-bright eyes until finally the cadet looked away.
"I don't know." The blond muttered solemnly, a strange expression on his face. Zack couldn't place the emotion, but it bothered him nonetheless. He fed his own smile a little more light, hoped that with cheer he might bring some back to Cloud.
"Well if you're talking to me, then I'd say you are." He was overwhelmed with the fear and the pain of the last week, watching his friend waste away like a vegetable. He might not have known the blond extremely well before all this, but Cloud was still his friend, still one of the people he cared for and would protect with his own life. Something in him was adamant in its worry and care for the boy—some unnamed piece of himself that he couldn't reach or comprehend. Zack didn't question it, for as strange as it was. Cloud needed him, and truth be told he needed Cloud.
The blond didn't say anything in return, just shrugged and continued staring at some point in the distance. He looked defeated, as though he had seen too many battles, outlived too many good men. The SOLDIER thought he'd seen the same posture and expression on Wutai war veterans, especially sole survivors and regular foot-soldiers. Zack couldn't help himself any longer. He leapt forward, hugging the blond with a fierceness he didn't quite understand. Something in him died a little when he felt Cloud flinch away from his touch. It was an action instinctive and ingrained. He wondered what had happened to make Cloud react that way—and if it had been happening even before all this mako-poisoning madness.
"Please don't." The request was filled with a strange kind of pain, and the overly-thin body in his arms shivered with unnamed grief. Filing the reaction away in his mind and refusing to act like anything was wrong, Zack pulled away with a smile on his face.
"It's so good to see you actually awake!" He spoke, trying to lighten the mood. Cloud took another few moments to get over his odd response before he was back to the cool, dead look he'd been wearing earlier. Zack resisted the urge to pick up his sword right now and hunt someone down, instead throwing himself into his goofy persona. "Well, awake and not running away from me, I suppose. How the hell did you get so fast anyway, Spike?" A flicker-flash of that same grief ran through Cloud's eyes before he clammed up again.
"Mako." He said the word as though it were a bittersweet curse, with all the familiarity, hatred and awe of a veteran SOLDIER 1st. It took the whole of Zack's focus not to frown.
"Well yeah, I guess. But I've got some too, had it for a lot longer than you, and you're faster than me!" Cloud just shrugged, his face impassive, but his hands clenched tight in the sheets. Zack saw all the signs of a man about to break. He tried to think of something safer to talk about
"Your bunk-mates were asking for you the other day." It seemed a simple-enough statement. He had hoped it would trigger some kind of fondness in his friend, make him remember that there was good in the world. Instead, Cloud looked at him as though he were crazy before he seemed to realize something, blue-eyes wide. "They wanted to know if you had shown any signs of getting better." Cloud didn't seem to be listening any more. This time, Zack really did frown. Perhaps the doctor had missed something when they checked Cloud over? Or maybe this was an effect of mako-hallucinations. He hadn't read about anything like this, but maybe—
"So then… I'm still in the SOLDIER program?" Cloud seemed to be posing the question more to himself than to Zack. The dark-haired warrior half-wondered if he was even supposed to have heard it at all.
"Well yeah. How long did you think you were asleep, anyway? Absences of less than a month are still within program parameters." Cloud turned to him and Zack could see the mind whirring behind those eyes. His friend seemed to be on the edge of something deep, something important. "You were only out for about a week. Seph hasn't taken you off the roster yet." Cloud's whole body seemed to spasm at the mention of the General's name, pain and resolve and a thousand other things Zack didn't want to think about ran rampant in his expression for that brief instant, but quick as he could blink they were gone.
"But I failed. I failed the test." Zack's frown grew deeper. He'd been watching Cloud train, secretly because he didn't want the little guy to get teased for favoritism like he'd been. He'd been able to handle it but he didn't know if the shy kid from Nibelheim would have brushed things off the same way. In any case, Cloud had easily topped many others in his year in terms of skill. The boy was a born fighter, strong from years of mountain living and willing to take direction. He didn't understand why on Gaea anyone would fail Cloud.
"Really? I hadn't read the exam results yet because of all this madness but…" Silence reigned for a few moments as they both tried to put their thoughts together. Zack wondered if the reason for some of Cloud's pain was because he'd failed. "You know, most people fail the first exam. We get most of our good SOLDIERs from the make-up test six months later." The blond covered his face with his hands and curled in on himself. He shook once, and Zack almost took it for a sob but then Cloud was back to his cold front, hands at his sides and face perfectly blank. Zack's eyes narrowed. There was no way this was just from the hallucinations. These reactions and instant-masks were far too easily employed. Something had been going on for a long time to make his friend like this. Zack felt his blood boil at the thought.
"So then I haven't gone into the regular yet?" The regular was military talk for the unenhanced army of Shinra. They were comprised largely of cast-offs from the SOLDIER program and petty criminals with nowhere else to go. The thought of Cloud as one of them left a bad taste in his mouth.
"What? No! You aren't automatically signed up for them when you fail. You can go where you want from here, Cloud." Although, Zack supposed, whatever had happened to poison Cloud had apparently been rather traumatizing. What if Cloud didn't want anything more to do with Shinra? What if he left? Zack steeled himself against the unreasonable sense of abandonment that thought effected and made himself accept it. Perhaps it would be better for the kid to get out of here—away from what had hurt him. If that were for the best then… so be it.
"Go where I want from here?" Cloud echoed the thought like it was something profound, a kind of disbelief and wonder shining through his cool mask. To anyone else it might have been imperceptible, but Zack was used to reading Sephiroth so Cloud's looks were easy to decipher. The teen laughed once, bitter and full of perverse pain, before he shook his head. "No, what I want has never been a part of it." The words were mumbled and distant. Zack wouldn't have heard them if he weren't a SOLDIER, but as it was... He was just about to ask what his friend meant when his phone cut him off. The cheery ring seemed somehow inappropriate in the stagnant silence. Cloud stared at the device with an expression that seemed torn between remembered amusement and bittersweet sorrow.
"Zack here." He answered, feeling too drained to bother with some other, more characteristic greeting.
"Zackary, it is possible that there may be more complications surrounding Strife than I had realized." Seph's tone sounded strained and worrisome over the phone, and Zack probably would have given more thought to it if Cloud's reaction to the man's voice hadn't been taking up so much of his thoughts. The blond had frozen in place, every muscle in his body clenched and ready to spring. Emotions Zack didn't want to believe his friend capable of flickered rapidly in his eyes. Pain, regret, exhaustion, need, guilt—all of these and more ran high-speed over Cloud's visage and Zack had no idea what could make a man look quite like that. Cloud looked positively tortured with every word Sephiroth said.
"—listening to me?" Oh shit! Sephiroth was talking. Zack remembered to breathe again, logged Cloud's reaction away for later, and tried to focus on his commanding officer.
"I am now. What did you say?" The General sighed at him in exasperation and Zack knew he really must be tired to be letting his perfect mask crack like that.
"My office. Now, please." Now that he was paying attention, he could hear what sounded like arguing in the background, and Zack felt his worry escalate. Seph said that something about Cloud was a problem? Gaea. The kid had already gone through so much… He felt his protective instincts rising again. If Shinra did one more thing to hurt the blond, he swore he was taking his sword and going on a killing spree, SOLDIER and honor be damned.
"Got it. Be there in ten." He didn't bother to wait for a reply before closing his phone and turning to the cadet in question. Cloud still looked haunted and seemed to be trapped in his own mind once more. Zack laid a cautious hand on a barely-trembling shoulder, hoping to bring the kid out of it for once and for all. Instead, he found himself dodging an extremely fast right hook. "Holy Shit!" He cursed as the punch grazed his left cheek, stinging like hell even though it hadn't even really made contact. Gaea. What had they done to make Cloud this strong so quickly?
"Sorry." The cadet managed to choke out after a few minutes. He sat there shivering; eyes clenched shut and hands twisted awkwardly in the sheets as he tried to regain some kind of control. Zack didn't want to leave him alone when he was like this, but he had the feeling that there wasn't much choice. This meeting had to be important for Seph to call him personally, and if it was about Cloud…
"Listen I gotta go for a bit. You gonna be ok without me?" He reached out to try and comfort the blond, but Cloud flinched away from his touch. His heart ached to see his friend like this, and he didn't know what to do. "I—I can just tell Seph it'll have to wait." He mumbled as he picked up his phone again. He wasn't going to leave Cloud in this state, important meeting be damned. The kid would run again, wasn't in his right mind. He was just about to dial Seph's number when a steady, pale hand reached out for his own. Dead eyes met him when he looked up, and Zack had to fight not to shiver.
"Go," Cloud murmured, a completely different person from the boy who had been shaking in front of him just a few seconds ago. "I'll be fine." Those eyes gave him no clues as to what his friend was thinking. Zack frowned, but stood to leave nonetheless. He'd call in a favor from Tseng and have one of the Turks watch, but Cloud didn't have to know about that. Maybe the kid needed a bit of alone time.
Still, it didn't feel right, walking out of his apartment and leaving the blond behind.
Sephiroth fought the urge to rub his temples and stave off the coming migraine as he took in the scene around him. Tseng and a few of his men stood imposingly near the door to the office. The Director of Urban Development was seated across from him at the desk, wearing an expression the General would never have thought him capable of before today. But then, a lot of unexpected things had been occurring lately.
"So in short," Sephiroth began, his voice starkly resonant in the silence of the room. "Acting in the interest of my men has given Hojo motive to attempt a coup." Tseng and Reeve both nodded, though they didn't need to. The General understood the situation well enough. He should have seen it sooner, to be honest, but he'd been so desperate for rebellion, so blinded by his own need for independence and control that he'd ignored all the consequences. He should have known it wouldn't be that easy.
"Hey, can you make this quick? I don't really don't like the thought of leaving Cl—oh hey, wow Seph. You having a party in here?" Sephiroth's migraine threatened to increase tenfold as his subordinate bounded into the room without knocking once again.
"Seph?" Tseng repeated the nickname with a raised brow. Sephiroth ignored it. Maybe if he didn't react, the Turks wouldn't decide to use that moniker in all their official paperwork. They had a rather vicious sense of humor at times.
"Just come in and sit down, Lieutenant." He growled, eyeing the open door. His office was, perhaps out of fear, one of the few rooms in this entire building not bugged by the Turks and Hojo and the President and god knew who else. The hallway, however, was a completely different matter. He wasn't entirely sure that meeting here was a good idea, but alternative ones were not within his reach at the moment. Zack shrugged, slammed the door behind himself in his usual fashion, and loped into the room as if he hadn't a care in the world. The tension Sephiroth could see in his shoulders, however, belied his worry.
"The director here was just telling us about a conversation he overheard." The SOLDIER first grunted in reply, let himself fall bonelessly into Sephiroth's favorite chair. If he hadn't known the man for years he would never have been able to see the fierce protective glint in his eye, or the subtle way he had poised himself. Zack was ready to spring, "slouching" posture or no. He was on a hairpin trigger, despite the fact that he was usually one of the most easy going people Sephiroth knew. Perhaps it had been a mistake to call him here if he was to be so irrational when it came to Strife.
"Right. Hojo's going to call for Scarlet to absorb Lazard's position at the next executive meeting." Zack frowned at the words, not understanding their implication. Sephiroth knew his second in command was intelligent, but he wasn't quite used to the way politics worked in this office yet.
"That doesn't make any sense. Why dissolve the department? And why would Hojo want to give Scarlet more power?" Sephiroth used this time to start organizing some of the forms still scattered across his desk. He'd already heard this explanation once anyway.
"Because right now, Sephiroth is acting head of the department. Which means Sephiroth basically has the same amount of power Hojo does. He's untouchable. Hojo doesn't like that." Sephiroth gritted his teeth against the simple explanation and tried to ignore it. He hated this. Hated that his men were in jeopardy solely because he'd tried to keep them safe. "Trying to promote a new person to the head of the department would be risky for Hojo. Someone he doesn't know could be just as hard to control as if he'd left Sephiroth in charge. Scarlet, on the other hand, is someone he knows how to deal with, and a person who won't have any problems with his less than ethical experiments."
"Why not just take the department for himself?" Gaea, what a nightmare that would be. The thought of Hojo in direct control of his precious SOLDIERS was… Sephiroth shuddered minutely and hoped that no one noticed. They didn't.
"He can't. He doesn't have the time. If he had to deal with all the mess that SOLDIER entails, he'd never have room for his experiments. And putting a subordinate in charge like Heidegger does with the Turks is just as risky as allowing Scarlet to take control. At least this way Hojo gets access to some of Scarlet's technology and her support in the board room." Zack looked as though he was beginning to realize just what this meant. His hands were clenched into shaking fists on his lap, even if his face showed nothing.
"So what are we going to do about it." And there, Zack had hit the problem. Sephiroth had been sitting here for the last ten minutes wondering the exact same thing. The Director took them all completely by surprise, his grin sadistic and looking severely out of place on a man they were so used to ignoring.
"That, gentlemen, is exactly why I've been trying to get a hold of you these past couple days." And the Head of Urban Development proceeded to show them just how wrong they'd been to write him off before.