~Fifty-Five~

Tseng stood for a moment in the hall outside Cloud's apartment, delaying his inevitable entry. It had been a long thirty something hours since the parade attack and he was exhausted. He'd brought some more of his personal items with him for his second night in the suite that Cloud had been sharing with Rand, though he wasn't sure how many more nights he would need to be there. He really wasn't sure how much nightly supervision Cloud even required. He certainly seemed to have been fine the night before. He was only awake for about an hour of the time Tseng was there in the evening and about the same in the morning before he needed to go to the lab. He slept through the whole night and nothing that could raise concern had occurred.

He needed to decide if he was going to try again to get some clear information from Cloud on what had happened at the parade from his perspective. It didn't seem so much that Cloud was trying to be evasive as it seemed he didn't know how to explain what had happened or answer questions about it. When Tseng had questioned him the night before, he'd quite quickly been hindered by actual physical head pain that had him unable to focus or even speak after mere minutes. For Tseng, himself, it was painful just to watch. He suspected he was going to have to be more precise with his questions and he wondered if he should just wait until the ballistics report he'd ordered was ready.

His team had gone to great lengths to ensure they could take possession of any bullets or fragments that had been extracted from anyone from Shinra who'd been shot at the parade before the city police could get their hands on them. The company was analyzing them to determine if any had been fired from the same weapons. One of the biggest mysteries outside of who specifically fired the weapon that was meant to kill the president, was the sudden reappearance of a previously assumed dead military soldier. It wasn't just any soldier, but one which the whole world would recognize if they were paying attention to the news at the time. His face had been on television screens and in newspapers on a daily basis for weeks when he was being held hostage in Wutai with other members of his unit.

It was a story with a tragic ending. Demands had been made by the rebel group holding the soldiers and when Shinra refused to submit to the demands, Johnny and another of his unit were executed and the video of the execution released to the public. It had been difficult to positively confirm the execution. Tseng still remembered that. After intense pressure from the company, the rebels provided some photographs of the bodies. The nature of the head trauma inflicted from the execution and possibly prior to it and the angle at which the photos were taken made it impossible to identify the boys by facial recognition. Instead, some features on the bodies were used to make a tentative ID. The final decision on the legitimacy of the video came when one of the other members of the unit was unexpectedly released from captivity and returned to base. He'd been assumed dead with the others. The rebels hadn't sent him home empty-handed. He brought back with him the dog tags from each of the unit members who'd been captured and killed and he confirmed that he had seen the bodies himself.

After talking to Rufus, Tseng knew the reason Johnny Six was at the parade and he had no intention of revealing that information. What he wanted to know, just as everyone else did, was how he ended up with a bullet in his brain, this time for real. He'd been over to the hospital and he could say for sure that no one was going to get any information directly from him anytime soon. Identifying the eco-protestor group responsible for the attack had been the easiest part of the investigation so far. Their motives had been tied to the recent partnership of Shinra with Hark Inc. Still left to determine were the specific individuals responsible for the various injuries sustained by members of Shinra and how they would be charged.

There were two separate investigations as far as Tseng was concerned though. While the protesters were attacking there was something else going on. Something that he believed involved Zack, Rand, Johnny, and Cloud. Possibly it had something to do with Genesis and Lazard as well. Genesis had been shot multiple times but was in stable condition. He was able to speak and he didn't try to hide the fact he'd attacked Lazard. He'd claimed it was in retaliation for his attempt to destroy the remains of Jenova, a valuable resource that belonged to the company. As far as who had shot him, he couldn't say. He hadn't seen the person.

Zack had been charged with attempted murder in relation to his attack on Rand and if Rand took a turn and his current condition deteriorated, that charge could become something even more serious. Finally, though, he had the chance to talk to Cloud without having to worry about being interrupted and as difficult as it was to address one glaring issue, it was one that he'd wanted to address for some time.

When he entered the apartment, Cloud looked up at him from where he was sitting on the couch in the living area. The television was on but the sound was off. It didn't seem that he'd been watching it. There was a book sitting open on the coffee table in front of him. It looked to be one of the reference books he'd delivered to him weeks earlier.

"Did you eat something?" Tseng asked as he shut the door behind him, and Cloud nodded. "Good," he said in return. It was after 8 pm so he was glad Cloud hadn't been sitting hungry while he was working. He headed to the bedroom he'd once observed to be unused and put his bag down. He'd used the room the night before, though he hadn't slept much. He had asked the question he'd already known the answer to, or rather he'd stated to Cloud that it appeared both he and Rand had been sharing one bedroom and Cloud hadn't denied it. He'd openly admitted to it in a way that indicated how normal he believed it to be. But he hadn't been so willing to admit to the details of the nature of his private relationship with Rand.

"I'm not supposed to talk about it."

Those had been his words. They had sunk into Tseng like rocks to the bottom of a body of water. It hadn't felt like the right time to say anything else about it, but after spending hours awake thinking of it, he knew there was never going to be a right time. Rand was laid up in the hospital and if there was a reason to keep him away from Cloud indefinitely—and he believed he knew what it was—he wanted to know now.

Cloud read the words on the page in front of him but he couldn't concentrate on them enough to take them in. He couldn't make himself focus. He glanced back at the bedroom where Tseng was and wondered if he should ask him the questions that kept running through his mind. When would Rand be back? When would Hojo be back? What was he supposed to be doing? It was strange to be in the apartment without Rand and it was even stranger to have Tseng there in his place, although it was only for a few hours at a time. He hadn't seen Kunsel since the parade and he wondered when he would continue training.

After a few minutes, Tseng emerged from the bedroom. He was without his tie and jacket, the most casual he'd seen the man look. He poured himself a glass of water and came to sit in the armchair adjacent to the couch. "How are you?" the man asked then.

"Okay," he replied simply.

"I'm sorry that you've been cooped up here alone most of the day," the Turk spoke almost tiredly as he rubbed his forehead a little. "It must be boring," he added.

Cloud shrugged after thinking about it. "I guess," he said.

Tseng smiled tightly at the response. "You've had a lot of days alone in the past though, haven't you?" he asked and at first Cloud shrugged once more but then he nodded. Of course, he had. Months and months of limited or no real human interaction. Nothing that would be considered normal anyway.

"Rand isn't coming back tonight?" Cloud asked then.

"Not tonight," Tseng answered through a bit of a sigh. He leaned forward then and rested his arms on his knees. "But I want to talk to you about Rand," he said and Cloud slowly closed the book in front of him on the table. "You said last night that you aren't supposed to talk about the nature of your relationship with him here at home, is that what he told you?"

Cloud looked from him to the cover of the now closed book, tapping it lightly with the index finger of his hand that he rested on it. "It can be hard to explain or for people to understand," he said softly and it sounded like the explanation Rand must have given.

Tseng let out a slow breath before speaking again. "You don't need to explain," he told Cloud. "You just have to answer some questions, alright?" Cloud looked back at him then. "It's important," he added.

"Okay," Cloud said in acceptance.

"Rand has a lot of physical contact with you, correct?" Tseng asked him, delving in despite how uncomfortable it was.

"Yes," Cloud agreed after a short moment of thought.

"Does he ever touch you in a sexual way?" he asked. He forced himself to be as direct as he could with the question. He didn't want there to be any ambiguity. Despite the clear language he chose, Cloud still regarded him with an expression that indicated either he didn't know what it meant or simply didn't want to acknowledge it. He leaned back on the couch and looked down at his hands that he rested in his lap.

"Do you know what I mean when I ask that question?" Tseng inquired when Cloud stayed silent. Cloud nodded and he began running the tips of his fingers over the black band adhered to his right forearm. It was hard to watch, having some knowledge of how and why the tag had been applied. "Has he done that?" he pried gently and finally Cloud responded with another nod.

Getting that first admission from Cloud was only the beginning. He knew there was more, but he needed to hear it from him. "Has he forced you to do things with him sexually that you didn't want to do?" he asked Cloud next.

"I don't know," Cloud said back to that but quickly changed his mind. "No. It's part of a good relationship," he claimed. It was clear to Tseng that he was repeating more of what he'd been told before.

The answers Cloud provided to his following questions made everything crystal clear. He and Rand had been engaged in a very serious and intense sexual relationship that had begun almost immediately after arriving in Midgar from the Gongaga facility. It had begun with touching, progressed to oral contact and eventual intercourse, during which it seemed that Cloud was usually drugged. The details had Tseng feeling sick to his stomach. It was obvious Rand had spent a great deal of time convincing Cloud that what they were doing was normal and necessary and that there really wasn't a choice whether to participate or not, for either of them.

Since the involuntary brain surgery Cloud had been subjected to, he seemed to struggle with fully comprehending or understanding situations he was put in, especially in the 'infancy' stage of his recovery, as Rand had called it. It was very apparent now that Rand had taken advantage of Cloud's mental incapacitation in one of the most egregious ways possible. You could call what had been going on in that apartment on a near nightly basis a relationship, or you could call it what it really was: a series of assaults perpetrated systematically by someone Cloud felt powerless to question and sometimes physically powerless to refuse.

It was hard enough knowing the past tortures that Cloud had been through with Hojo and his team of workers, but what Rand had been putting Cloud through in that apartment was so harrowing and infuriating that Tseng found himself having a physical response. He thought back to when Reno had come back from Gongaga and informed him that he'd seen evidence in the facility that indicated Cloud had been sexually assaulted while in custody. Reno had thought it could be at the hands of Cloud's so-called Keeper, but there'd been no way to know for sure. He wondered now if Reno had been right.

He had to stand up from the chair where he'd been seated. He felt like he couldn't get a good enough breath to expand his chest fully. He approached the windows across the room and wished that they had the ability to open so he could get just one quick inhale of fresh air. He stood for a long few moments with his hands in his pockets and silence filling the space in the apartment before Cloud spoke up.

"Did I do something wrong?" he asked, and Tseng turned to look back at him over his one shoulder.

He was met with a concerned expression from someone who was also apparently equal parts cold killer and innocent child. It was nearly impossible to look at Cloud and not just see some sad boy. That had always been true for Tseng. Although Cloud was a few years older now and he'd gained significantly in body mass over time, Tseng could still sometimes see what was looking back at him from captivity in Nibelheim.

"No," he replied as he turned around fully to face him again. He leaned his back up against the window behind him. "But this isn't okay," he added.

"Sorry," Cloud said, his eyes falling downward once more.

Tseng pushed himself away from the window then and approached him again. "No, it's—it's what Rand has done that's not okay," he told him. "He shouldn't be making you do things like that, it's wrong," he explained.

"He didn't," Cloud argued surely.

"Didn't make you?" Tseng questioned and Cloud shook his head. It confused Tseng a little. "Did you want to do those things?" he asked.

"What if I did?" he asked.

"Did you?" Tseng questioned in return, knowing there was no way Cloud could have decided it was something he wanted for himself. Not based on everything he knew of Cloud and had seen since his implant surgery.

"I don't know," he answered finally, confirming what Tseng already knew. "But, I don't think he…I don't know," he tried to elaborate but couldn't.

Tseng took a seat once more on the armchair nearby. "Look, I know this is difficult to understand, but even if for some reason you thought you wanted it at the time, there are circumstances involved here that make what he did wrong. He's in a position of power and you're what's surely considered vulnerable and probably not capable of really consenting to something like that. You didn't get to choose your circumstances. Do you want to have this kind of relationship with him?"

"There's a contract…" Cloud started to speak and the reasoning made Tseng angry. He could hear the words coming from Rand's mouth.

"That doesn't matter," he told Cloud quickly, his tone sharp. He could tell then that Cloud was quickly becoming overwhelmed. "Rand has a contract with the company," he began to explain a little more softly. "His contract pertains to you, but you are not in a contract with him. The relationship between you is a professional-based one. You have no obligation to have a physical or sexual relationship with him, no matter what he tells you."

"But, he said—" Cloud began to argue and Tseng stopped him.

"It's not true."

"He…lied?" Cloud asked him and he nodded. "Why?"

As blunt as Tseng felt he could be about it, he decided on a more sensitive explanation. "I think it's something he felt he needed to tell you to get what he wanted." He watched the words sink in to Cloud slowly. There wasn't much of a reaction from him outside of confusion. "Cloud," he said softly, getting his attention back. "There's no way he can come back to work here should he recover and be willing to continue working, do you understand that?"

Cloud shook his head. "What do you mean?" he asked.

"He has abused his position with you. He can't be trusted near you," the man explained to him.

"Then," Cloud uttered slowly, "when will I see him?"

"You won't be seeing him," Tseng concluded.

Confusion. That's all Tseng could see in Cloud. He wasn't sure if Cloud was really understanding everything he was saying. He watched as Cloud leaned forward on the couch and put his face into his hands.

"I don't know what I'm supposed to do without him," he spoke through his hands.

Tseng wasn't really sure what he should say to that, or what he should do. He moved himself off the chair onto the couch next to him where he placed a hand on Cloud's back. He told him he was going to be fine without Rand in the most convincing tone he could while truthfully having no idea if that was the case. Together Hojo and Rand had done something worse than murder. He supposed they'd been successful in what they'd tried to create with Cloud. The president was certainly happy with the finished product and so were the investors. Cloud had proved himself formidable and willing to act, ruthlessly if needed, to protect the president and other company members. But, other than a useful weapon, what was he? He'd had his life stolen and the parts of him that gave him some kind of personal identity and autonomy had been ripped away or supressed to the point he was unable to even simply live without being told how. If he was being honest with himself, Tseng could see how keeping Rand away from Cloud might be just as harmful as letting him back into that apartment with him.

000

The first night in the holding centre was hard for Zack. He didn't sleep at all. He couldn't seem to shut his brain off. If he was able to silence his racing thoughts for even a moment, he felt like the walls were closing in around him and he started to feel panicked. The room was small. It made the cell he'd shared with Cloud while locked up in Nibelheim feel like a mansion on its own. There was no separate bathroom space. The toilet-sink combo was mere feet away from him. If he leaned forward on the edge of his bed and stretched his arm out he could just brush the opposing wall with his fingers. He almost wished the one wall had bars instead of a wall closed off with a steel door and a small window. He'd happily have sacrificed the privacy to feel less confined. He was alone in the room and it was quiet. It wasn't a jail exactly so the facility wasn't teeming with prisoners. The only time he could really hear anything at all was when guards were passing by his cell.

He easily saw himself going crazy in that room and tried not to dwell on the knowledge that he could be spending months in there. He was already certain he wasn't going to be granted bail in the morning so he was going to be spending however amount of time it took until his trial in what felt like a closet, unless they wanted to transfer him somewhere else. He was already hoping for that.

He spent a lot of hours worrying about Johnny's condition, and a lot of hours thinking about Cloud. He ran through over and over in his head the moments when he realized what had happened to Johnny and when Cloud came at Rayna with a sword, fully intending on cutting her down. He liked to believe that Cloud wouldn't have purposely gone on to try to attack him as well but he didn't know. Nothing he'd been told by Tseng about Cloud's transformation or what he'd seen in the media could have prepared him for the encounter he'd had with him. His friend had been within his reach and at the same time never felt so far away. He'd looked into Cloud's eyes and had seen someone else. Someone, or no one. For a moment he hadn't even seemed human. He tried not to let the thoughts in, but he couldn't help thinking the worst. That the Cloud he knew and cared about so much it hurt might be gone. That no matter what he tried to do now to save him, it was just…too late.

After a long night of agonizing thoughts punctuated by bouts of crying, he was exhausted when he was led down to the courtroom at the other end of the facility in the morning. He was hesitant to look around. He really didn't want to see anyone he knew in the gallery. He suspected Aerith would probably be there and she was, along with Tifa, wearing an expression he really didn't expect from her. He thought if anything she'd be disappointed, maybe even angry, but she just looked sad. They both did. Rayna wasn't with them, which he couldn't help but worry a little over. He wondered what she would be thinking given the hell she was no doubt going through.

He couldn't say for sure exactly the depth of relationship she'd had with Johnny but he knew they spent a lot of time together on a near daily basis given she'd been working closely with him for quite some time. Johnny wasn't one to share on the topic, but he knew their relationship had been physical on some level at least from time to time. The look on her face when she'd witnessed what happened to Johnny in the street at the parade had been one of utter shock and devastation. Whatever she felt for him, it was strong enough for her to turn a gun on Cloud in retribution. Zack wondered if Rayna was angry with him as well and perhaps blamed him for what had happened. He certainly couldn't help feeling responsible. He also wondered if she was angry, what she might do with that anger now.

Although Rayna was absent, another person sat with Aerith and Tifa and it was that person's presence that actually surprised him. It was Reno. It surprised him that Reno would want to place himself anywhere physically in the same vicinity. He'd been so concerned until that moment with Shinra knowing he was back in Midgar and certainly hadn't wanted to be connected to him and the others. When he locked eyes with him, Reno just shook his head, shrugged at him and gave him a sad kind of half-smile. It was a knowing expression that seemed to say he understood why he was there but was also calling him an idiot for it.

There was one other person he recognized sitting at the back of the gallery. It was the Turk who'd been in the interview room with the city detective the day before. Anya. She looked back at him in a challenging way that he was tempted to return but ultimately he didn't want to look at her or anyone else. He just wanted to get the hearing over with. He was pretty sure he already knew the outcome.

He'd met with his public defender a half hour earlier and the man had been unrealistically optimistic about getting him released while awaiting trial. That's how Zack felt anyway. The lawyer pointed out he had no criminal background, nothing on record in Midgar anyway, and that he hadn't made any attempt to flee during arrest or been combative in any way after. He'd also only been what he called minimally evasive during questioning and it was after a sustained head trauma.

The lawyer laid out those things to the judge at the hearing, he assumed. He had a hard time focusing and listening. He did happen to be listening when someone for the city prosecutor's office explained the severity of Rand's injuries and that he had been placed in a medically induced coma and therefore the full impact of the attack on him wasn't yet known. He hadn't intended to but suddenly the judge was questioning if he thought something about the medical status of the victim was funny and he realized he'd been smiling, just a little, to himself. His lawyer looked at him briefly and then replied to the judge for him.

"The accused also sustained a head injury the day before yesterday and he's been having trouble concentrating or controlling his emotional responses. It's typical for that kind of trauma," the man rationalized.

"The accused has a violent history," the prosecutor pointed out.

"He was an officer in SOLDIER, would you say a police or army officer has a violent history?" the defender argued. "His past employment doesn't make him a threat to the public, which is ultimately what matters here for this hearing," he stated.

"The interviewing officer can attest to statements made by the accused that he had never had an in-person interaction with Randon Cane before the attack. If the accused can attack a person he's never met before so violently then I'd say that makes him a threat to the general public," the prosecutor suggested.

"Alright, that's enough," the judge said to silence them. "I do not consider Mr. Fair's past employment with Shinra's SOLIDER program to be indicative of a violent history. I think his service through SOLDIER to the city and elsewhere is entirely commendable. That being said, the crimes he is charged with are serious and I believe the notoriety that Mr. Fair has gained recently gives him a certain power that the public can be very vulnerable to." The man looked directly Zack's way then. "And I need to consider the victims of your alleged crimes as well, Mr. Fair, and whether I believe you to be a danger to them. And I do. I believe it would be unfair to set a bail amount and allow you to return home when Doctor Cane cannot. He has not been able to speak for himself since his assault and so I need to do that for him. Therefore, bail is denied and a preliminary trial date will be set for two weeks from today. You'll remain in custody until that time."

The banging of the gavel ended the hearing the way Zack had anticipated. He didn't really feel anything because he'd never gotten his hopes up. The feelings came when he looked back at Aerith once more and could see the hopes she'd had for both of them being dashed. He tried to seem more positive than he'd been with Aerith the day before when she and Tifa came down to the area of the facility where they could visit with him. He told them it was fine, that he'd already known he wouldn't be granted bail. Aerith told him she'd been in contact with his parents and he told her he was okay with her keeping them updated on what was going on, even though they both knew she didn't need his permission. He actually preferred her being the one to talk to them right now. He wasn't sure he'd be able to keep control of his emotions if he tried to talk to them himself and explain what had happened.

Tifa had wanted to talk about Cloud but he told her he couldn't in the nicest way he could manage. She didn't try to argue or force him to talk about it, maybe because she'd had to watch as his eyes filled with tears at the mention of their friend. He promised her he'd talk with her soon about it and she'd accepted that. He wasn't sure he could honor that promise, anymore than he thought he could honor his promise to Aerith to do what he could to fight to get himself free and home with her but at least when they left they seemed okay, or reassured in some sense. Alone once more, he lay in his cell and accepted the view he had at that moment was what the next two weeks were probably going to look like unless some miracle happened.

When a guard game to his cell in the evening to bring him back to the visitation room yet again, he couldn't think of who it would be, but he was praying that whoever it was they'd have information about Johnny. It was agonizing not knowing. When he entered the room and found Kunsel standing on the other side of the bars, he felt immediately relieved. Perhaps he'd get those answers he desperately wanted.

"Wow, that is really not your colour," his friend said with a smile as he approached. Zack couldn't help but smile back at the comment.

"Everything's my colour," he said in return.

Kunsel winced then. "Man, you're really bruised," he noted. "Have you seen yourself?"

"Can we not talk about what I look like?" Zack replied with a sigh. "How's Johnny?" he asked.

Kunsel too released a long audible sigh as he took some steps backward to sit on a bench that was a few feet away from the bars.

"Somehow he survived the trip to the hospital. Surgeons were able to remove the bullet from his brain," he began to explain. "Somehow he survived that too. And he had a stroke post surgery, and somehow he survived that. They've got him, I guess, semi-stable now," he concluded, and his tone was grim.

"But?" Zack asked.

"He's in a coma now," Kunsel told him. "It's pretty bad. He's on ventilation because he's not breathing on his own. He's got some serious brain swelling so they're trying to deal with that as well."

"Shit," Zack breathed out slowly as he let the information sink in. "Is he going to be wake up, or—"

"It's too early," Kunsel replied gently, shaking his head. "They're trying to track down his family to let them know." He scoffed then. "Can you imagine? 'Hey, so that son you thought was killed in Wutai, actually he was alive this whole time, but you may never get to talk to him anyway'," he said, mimicking a theoretical announcement to Johnny's parents.

"Like they'll care," Zack spoke bitterly in return. "They kept his brother's death from him, they didn't attend his army funeral, they wouldn't even accept his damn dog tags. If given the choice they'd probably just have the ventilator shut off right now."

"That's harsh," Kunsel replied as he stretched his legs out ahead of him and crossed his arms.

Zack shook his head before pressing it to the space between two bars. "This can't be it. It isn't right. In Wutai we thought he'd died this way. A bullet to the head, you know. I just, I dunno…"

There was silence a moment before Kunsel asked, "Did you see what happened?"

Zack lifted his head to look at him again. "You don't know?"

"No, Shinra's got the bullet but we don't know who the shooter was yet. It was fired point blank though," Kunsel told him.

"Really?" Zack asked, trying to make it sound like he really was oblivious to what had happened. "What about Lazard, do you know if—"

Kunsel shaking his head had him stopping mid sentence. "He didn't make it," he revealed.

It was a hard pill to swallow. Lazard had been such an unexpected presence in Zack's life. This man who looked like Angeal and somehow harboured some of his essence. The man had been something of a guardian for him and admittedly held him back and kept him from acting irrationally on more than one occasion. He'd lost touch with the man in Gongaga and had been unable to summon him the way he'd previously been able to do. He had no idea Lazard had still been following him. If he had known, perhaps he could have done something to save his life.

"But Genesis made it, right?" he asked his friend and Kunsel nodded. "Of course," Zack scoffed. "Do you know anything about how Cloud's doing?" he asked then.

"He's fine," Kunsel replied. "I think a rocket could hit him and he'd be okay," he added. "Hojo caught a bullet in his chest that of course missed all vital organs and arteries, if he even has any. I think this event is proof he's not actually a human being. Rand on the other hand…well you're lucky he survived."

Zack rolled his eyes at that the update on Rand. "I really could care less," he said as he put his hands into his jumpsuit pockets.

"Oh, yeah?" Kunsel shot back fast as he came to a stand once more. "You should. If you went down for murder, then what?"

Zack shrugged in return. "They've got enough charges stacked to put me away for the same amount of time so it doesn't really matter."

Kunsel was shocked by his reply, he could tell. "What the hell, Zack?" he exclaimed.

"What?" Zack replied.

"You were refused bail and you're going to be going to trial for some serious charges, are you not concerned at all right now?" he asked almost angrily.

"For myself? What's the point?" Zack countered.

"What about Aerith?" his friend said. "You gave her a ring, Zack. That was supposed to be a promise of a future for her, wasn't it?" he questioned.

"It was just never gonna happen, okay," Zack told him and he was met with a confused expression.

"What?" Kunsel asked.

"I tried, alright, Kunsel!" Zack blurted back at him loudly. "I tried to do what I'm sure is the right thing, to just settle and be happy with what I have, and all it did was make things worse."

Kunsel shook his head, not understanding. "How?"

"It's," Zack started to respond quickly but he paused then, trying to figure out how the hell he was supposed to explain. "It's like, I can feel this thing, like a heavy presence, or like some wall closing in behind me," he began to tell him, pacing the few steps to the one wall adjacent to the bars and leaning his back against it. "And the urge to look back or to turn around to see what it is, is so overwhelming, but I know that once I do everything's going to crash down around me." His eyes started to dampen at the thought.

"I don't know how to face everything that's happened to me and Cloud," he went on softly. "I haven't to this day allowed myself to think about it long enough to fully process it. I don't even want to, but it's there, it's waiting, always right behind me, tapping me on the shoulder, demanding my attention. And I can't look back. Until one day I won't be able not to." He rested his head back against the wall behind him and stared up at the dirty ceiling. "I know in my core that I'm already broken to pieces, you know, it's happening from the inside and the cracks just haven't made it to the surface yet. It scares the hell out of me to imagine Aerith seeing that happen, of what it's going to turn me into."

The silence in the room was deafening then. Zack thought for a moment about that truth he didn't want to face most days. He'd been physically, emotionally, and psychologically damaged by the things that had been done to him in the mansion. He felt like he'd been running on a treadmill since then. Day after day, after day. The point he ran toward never changed. Freedom. Ultimate freedom for both him and Cloud. Eventually though, whether he could reach that point or not, he was going to have to fully face the damage that had been done. He'd faced up to some of it in small doses but the entirety of it was so crushing he had fears that it would ultimately swallow him up and he wouldn't be able to resist the restraints of his past trauma. It was going to keep pulling him back again and again to that prison.

"I have to tell you something," Kunsel said then and his tone was something almost foreign. It made Zack look at him immediately and there was only one word to describe the expression on his friend's face. Shame. Guilt-laden shame. It was so apparent that Zack worried what the next words from Kunsel would be. "It's my fault the lab evidence you had disappeared," he stated before placing his hands to his face, covering his mouth and nose as he closed his eyes tightly.

All Zack could do for a long breath-stealing moment was stare at him, not believing he'd heard right. "What?" he asked.

Kunsel nodded and lowered his hands from his face. "After you released that video and mentioned you had evidence, they pulled me into an interrogation room and hammered me about it," he said.

"What?" Zack repeated, shaking his head in shock and still not understanding.

"They thought I must know something about it," Kunsel continued. "I really tried to deny it, but, they wouldn't let up. They said they had a deal in the works, that they wanted to let you go, you were going to be free, and that Cloud had already agreed to it," he said. "They made it clear they were going to destroy you if I didn't help them get that evidence, and not just you, your family, anyone helping you..."

Zack pushed away from the wall and turned back toward the bars in front of him, gripping two of them in his hands. "I never told you where it was, no one knew except Aerith," he declared.

Kunsel nodded. "I went into your apartment and I found a receipt for the locker," he said.

"Oh my god," Zack uttered as he shut his eyes, took some deep breaths and tried not to see what Kunsel had done as a complete betrayal. Perhaps he understood on some level but he was still angry. He slammed his one palm against the bars separating them. "That was all I had to prove what happened, Kunsel!" he found himself nearly shouting as he stared his friend down. "It could have saved Cloud!"

"Oh, come on, Zack!" Kunsel shouted back at him then. "It wouldn't have done anything for Cloud! The company would have found a way to discredit it or use it against you somehow. There's more evidence out there anyway," he argued.

"What if there isn't?" Zack shot back at him.

"You really think Hojo would destroy all documentation?" Kunsel asked him and he shook his head.

"I don't know, I wouldn't discount it," he said in return.

"There's people who know what happened, the evidence you had wasn't everything," Kunsel tried to assure him.

Zack turned away from him and sat himself down heavily on the bench on his own side of the visitation area. He didn't think he would be able to keep standing for much longer. He felt weak and sick to his stomach.

"I'm sorry," Kunsel spoke after a quiet moment. "I wanted so badly for you to have a chance to have a life again…and I couldn't risk your or anyone else's life to save what was in that locker."

Zack didn't look at him as he spoke. He held his head in his hands instead and stared at the floor between his feet.

"I'm quitting the company," his friend said then after a few long seconds. He did look up at Kunsel then.

"What?" he replied.

"I'm leaving SOLDIER," Kunsel told him. "I should have done it a long time ago," he added.

Zack shook his head at the revelation. "No, you can't, what about Cloud?" he said.

Kunsel exhaled deeply and looked up at the ceiling before answering. "You know, we're pretty sure he set a car on fire at the parade," he spoke finally. "With his bare hands," he told Zack. "He used his own body to take bullets that were meant for people who held him captive and turned him into whatever he is now."

"Whatever he is?" Zack fired back sharply.

"He's changed, Zack," his friend started to explain softly. "Even over the time he's been back in Midgar. When he first came back he was like some shy kid again, like some alternate version of what he was when he was fourteen years old at the Academy. Now…he's just, I dunno. It's not him anymore, at all. He barely shows any kind of emotion, unless he's frustrated then maybe you get anger or impatience. All he seems focused on or preoccupied with is being what Hojo or Rand, or the company want him to be. He never talks about anything from his past or from the Gongaga facility. He gets weird if you even try to bring any of it up."

"What am I supposed to do, Kunsel? Give up on him? Because he's not acting like people think he should?" Zack spoke in a challenging tone.

"It's more than that," Kunsel tried to claim.

Irritated, Zack rose from the bench below him and approached Kunsel again. "So then what?" he asked. "What are you saying?"

Kunsel took another slow breath before answering. "Things were different when there seemed to be a time limit involved in helping Cloud, but…all I'm trying to say is that he's at a point where whether you try to save him today or months from now, the time just isn't really a factor anymore. I guess I'm saying the damage has been done. What you should be doing right now is worrying about yourself and doing everything you can to get out of this place and back home with Aerith."

Zack was unsure how to take that advice. It was one thing for him to ponder to himself about how hopeless the situation seemed when it came to saving Cloud, about how his friend had seemed to have vanished over time, it was another to hear it from someone else.