Davis sat on a chair beside Jensen's bed, holding an ice pack to his head to keep down the swelling from where he had been knocked unconscious by Liam's gun. It was horrible having to hold it there for so long, but he had been ordered not to take it off.

Jensen looked terrible. His eye had been bandaged so much that it was almost impossible to see his uninjured eye. He was sleeping right now, having been drugged up so that his body could have as much time as possible to work on fixing him. Using materia was always a last resort.

The doors to the infirmary opened and Davis looked over, wincing as his head pounded from the movement. Jinx entered, eyes wide as he rushed over.

"The funeral's in two days and Lazard said we can't go!" he burst out.

"What? Why not?" Davis asked angrily, standing up and frowning.

"Apparently we've already missed enough classes being on mission and stuck in the infirmary." Jinx folded his arms and rolled his eyes at the pathetic excuse he had been given.

"But he was our friend!" Davis snapped, giving up with the ice pack and letting his arm drop to his side.

"I was hoping you'd get fired up like this. Wanna come with me to go beg again?" Jinx asked sneakily.

"Definitely!" Davis said, putting the ice pack onto the table beside Jensen's bed. "If he doesn't let us go, I don't know what I'll do. But it won't be pretty."

He then followed Jinx out of the infirmary, the two of them making their way to Lazard's office before summoning the courage to knock on the door. They had to show that they weren't going to take no as an answer.

"Come in."

Davis was the one to turn the handle and push the door open, stepping in before Jinx came in behind him.

"Sir," Davis said, keeping his chin up even as Lazard looked up from his work and saw them there, his eyes narrowing slightly in confusion. "I'd like to request permission to attend the funeral in two days-"

"I already said no." Lazard said. "You've missed too many lessons and still need time to heal entirely."

"But we're both fine, and Cloud didn't even go on the mission so he should definitely be allowed to go!" Davis complained. "You can't just tell us to go about our daily lives without even going to the funeral! Besides, he deserves as many people to attend as possible."

Lazard sighed and folded his hands on top of his desk, watching the two boys curiously.

"You really care that much?" he finally asked.

"Yes." Davis said immediately.

"Then I'm proud of you. You've shown incredible devotion to a team member and I'm sure that if you ever become a SOLDIER you'll be someone I can count on never to leave a man behind." Lazard said, standing from his chair and walking around his desk slightly. "Very well, who would you like me to give permission to go to the funeral?"

Davis swallowed hard to stop the grin that wanted to appear on his face and instead lifted his head a bit higher.

"Myself, Jinx, Cloud, Alec and Jensen." Davis listed them off. He had thought about suggesting Edvard as well but decided against it, thinking he'd probably have to speak to Hojo about that.

"As long as you all promise to catch up on the classes you miss, I'll let you go." Lazard said. "Except for Cloud Strife."

"What? Why can't Cloud come too?" Jinx argued, annoyed at being let down moments after he'd thought everything was going to work out.

"I see you haven't heard of what happened to him while you were in the infirmary?" Lazard asked, both eyebrows raised. The boys shook their heads slowly. "Strife chose to undertake the tests to become a SOLDIER and completed the first few the day that you were sent out."

"Yeah, he said he was gonna try and become a SOLDIER. What does that have to do with him coming?" Davis asked.

"Earlier today he was participating in the last test to become a SOLDIER and, to put it quite bluntly, he failed." Lazard said.

"So just because he failed you're not letting him go to the funeral of a friend?" Davis hissed, his hands clenched into fists by his sides. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

Lazard leant back against his desk and sighed, a slight frown on his face. "The last test to becoming a SOLDIER is having a small amount of mako injected into your system so that we can be sure you're able to cope with it. Strife could not cope with it and his body... rejected it. He was sent to Hojo to have the mako removed again and as soon as that's done he'll be placed in the infirmary to recover. I would allow him to attend the funeral, but I don't think he'll feel up to it."

"Oh." Davis and Jinx murmured, the anger seeping out of them again.

"Sir..." Davis frowned. "Does that mean Cloud can never become a SOLDIER?"

Lazard straightened and walked behind his desk again, pulling out his chair and sitting down before looking up at them once more.

"Yes," he said truthfully. "He will never be a SOLDIER."

Davis and Jinx left the office with subdued happiness. They were glad they would be attending the funeral, but upset for their friend since he was never going to be able to achieve his dream.

They never heard Lazard whisper, "It would be far too dangerous."


Kayli's silence whenever Liam spoke to her was proof of just how hard she was trying to push the reality of the situation away. It was obvious that she wanted to leave, so Liam had begun tying her wrists together and whenever they camped for the night she was also tied to a tree so that she couldn't run off.

All the while, Liam would tell her he was sorry and that if she just trusted him he would let her out of the ropes.

As if that was possible.

They reached the town the next afternoon and Kayli was left in the care of Yakov while the rest of the group attacked and soon had total control of the whole area. Liam came back for Kayli and took her with him when he entered the town's storehouse. Kuja and Kuta were already piling together supplies and food, packing it all into whatever bags could be found.

"How does your leg feel?" Liam asked quietly as he helped her rest against a table in the room.

'Like it's been shot,' Kayli would have grunted if she wasn't intent on ignoring him, clenching her teeth together. Liam seemed to take no notice of her bad mood or the fact that he hadn't received an answer and instead turned to help collect provisions needed.

"What's the plan after this?" Yakov asked, walking into the room after making sure none of the townsfolk were going to try and attack them.

"We'll be travelling to the next ShinRa station and taking them out." Lee said, tying up a bag and moving to another.

"What about Sergei? Shouldn't we rescue him?" Yakov folded his arms and frowned slightly, glancing over at the twins before looking back at Lee again.

"It's too risky," was all Lee said.

"We could join forces with another rebellion group! Sergei's known pretty well around these parts, I'm sure we could find some others who might want to help-"

"I said it's too risky." Lee snapped, turning to face him. "Kayli might escape."

Yakov was silent for a moment, considering what had just been said and trying to think of what he could say without offending his superior.

"We could leave her in a town here and come back for her." he suggested finally, raising both eyebrows and waiting to hear what Lee would have to say to that. Surely he wouldn't be able to think of an excuse.

"What's the point? Sergei will get out by himself, I'm sure. By the time we get there he'll probably be gone." Lee turned away from Yakov and remained quiet, not responding when Yakov continued to say that they should still offer their support to their friend.

Finally, Yakov left the room in a huff.

"Kuja-ta," Lee addressed the twins. "Where's Tarou?"

"No idea," said Kuja as he tied up another bag. "Kuta?"

"He disappeared as we were heading down here. Who knows where he's gone." Kuta replied with a small shrug.

Lee frowned and put his hands on his hips, looking around the room slowly for a minute as he thought through the information in his head.

"Alright," he said finally. "Watch Kayli. I'm gonna go find him."

Kuja and Kuta watched curiously as Lee left the room and then both glanced over to Kayli. They didn't know why she was so precious to Lee, especially since he hadn't seemed very fond of looking after her in the first place, but it wasn't their place to ask questions.

Kayli was very aware of the eyes on her and did her best to appear very weak, slumping more against the table and half closing her eyes. She wanted them to think she had no chance of escaping so that they would relax.

When the twins turned back to finish collecting the supplies, Kayli seized the opportunity to judge the distance between her and the door. Her loud winces and groans of pain whenever Liam moved her were fake, although her leg did hurt. It wasn't as bad as she hoped everyone thought it was.

Lowering her eyes to the boot she was wearing, she wondered if it would grab the twins attention if she bent down to them. She had to be careful that no one discovered what was hidden there or there really would be no hope for her at all.

Something that Angeal had handed out when they were still in the helicopter and approaching Wutai was a tracker which they were instructed to slip inside their boots. It was a simple device which sent out a signal so faint it wouldn't be picked up by any instruments found in Wutai. Angeal had said that sadly it meant it was harder for ShinRa to pick up on the signal from back in Midgar, but if ever someone was to get into a desperate situation they could press a button on the device and the signal being sent out would be strengthened.

That meant Wutaians would no doubt pick up on the reading, but it would let ShinRa know immediately there was something wrong so that they could send more backup to the exact location of the signal.

Kayli needed to press the button, but she had to do it secretly or else they would discover the device and smash it, rendering her efforts useless.

"Ah!" Kayli let out a fake cry and clutched at her leg, dropping to the floor. Now her hand was closer to her boots and the device, but she still had to wait for the right moment.

Kuja and Kuta immediately walked over to see what had happened.

"Is it just your leg?" one of them asked. Kayli lowered her head to ignore them and bit her lip, her heart pounding quickly in fear.

"Just forget her," the other twin sighed, pulling his brother away. "Let Lee worry about her if he wants to, but I refuse to act as a babysitter."

His brother nodded and the two of them left her alone again, not only gathering provisions now but also other things that caught their fancy.

Kayli took a deep, quiet breath and inched her fingers towards her boot, her eyes changing from watching the men and the door. Then she could feel the device beneath her fingers and she found the button, pressing it quickly before pushing herself to stand up again.

She wondered how long it would take for help to find her.


Sephiroth stood next to Lazard, studying the screen in front of them with his mako vision. After discovering that Angeal had given the grunts trackers, Sephiroth had told Lazard and the two of them had started searching for the signal which would lead them to where Kayli was being held captive.

Lazard grumbled under his breath about how annoying it was that the signals had to be made so faint and then tapped a few keys on the keyboard. They had received a few pulses from the signal but so far it was proving difficult to narrow down on the actual location.

"I honestly don't know if it's worth it anymore, Sephiroth." Lazard sighed, rubbing a hand across his face.

"What do you mean? This tracker will lead us straight to the rebels." Sephiroth said, narrowing his eyes.

"We don't know that. Look, if Roy was still alive he would have pressed the button. They've probably dumped his dead body somewhere and already travelled far away from it." Lazard explained, slowly pushing his chair away from the computer and standing up. "You'll just have to go question the prisoner again."

"We don't know that Roy is dead." Sephiroth said defiantly. "Maybe he hasn't had a chance to press the button yet. He may have his hands bound."

"Then by all means Sephiroth, continue sitting here trying to close in on the location. If you manage to do that then I'll think about allowing some men out to see whether Roy's still alive or not." Lazard said, heading towards the door.

"You'll need to send more than just a few men." Sephiroth growled.

"We don't even know if the tracker is anywhere near the Wutai-"

"And if it is? You're going to send a few men in to be beaten just as easily as Angeal and Genesis?" Sephiroth interrupted with a snapping tone, clenching his teeth together. Surely Lazard couldn't be stupid enough not to realise...

"Oh, I see. You want me to send you." Lazard folded his arms.

Sephiroth straightened slightly.

"Fine. If you can find the location I'll let you go and see for yourself." Lazard said with a shake of his head. "But if Roy is dead the rebels will be far from his body, I can assure you."

Sephiroth nodded and allowed Lazard to leave, sitting himself down in the now empty chair and focusing on the computer screen. Even if Kayli was dead, he wouldn't find it too hard to pick up on the Wutai soldier's trail. He would kill them all for doing so much damage to the team he had ordered to be sent out. He would have revenge.

Sephiroth was typing another command into the computer when a shrill beep startled him and made him pause, eyes flicking up from the keyboard to the screen. His mouth opened slightly as he saw the large pulse on the frequency monitor and an instant later another shrill beep interrupted the silence. Co-ordinates blinked into existence at the bottom of the screen, changing slightly every few seconds.

The button had been pressed.

Sephiroth only had time to move his head before Lazard rushed into the room again, eyes wide as he came to see what was happening.

"Unbelievable! He's alive!" he gasped.

"I guess we'll be sending a whole rescue squad, then?" Sephiroth asked curiously, feeling smug even though he hadn't been sure whether Kayli was still alive or not for himself.

Lazard nodded immediately, eyes still glued to the screen.

"I'll get onto organising a team right away. You'll be leading it." Lazard said and Sephiroth stood up, squaring his shoulders before leaving the room. He needed to fetch his sword.