Chapter Fifty-Seven: Say Goodbye

Evening came. Zack was only able to rouse Cloud once. It had taken a lot of jarring and near shouting at him to wake him, but eventually he did. Seeing his eyes open but not hold any sort of light just served to continue Zack's worry, although it had been lessened from the panic he had been feeling during his attempts to rouse him. Cloud just stayed awake long enough to stumble to the bathroom in silence. He did not acknowledge Zack, nor his own injuries. He did not acknowledge his uniform that lay by the toilet, smeared in Ratcliff's blood. He did not acknowledge Ratcliff's suicide.

Cloud vomited, sobbed, then exited.

Zack had skirted behind him after he finished and made his way back to the bedroom. Cloud swayed in a daze without uttering another sound. There had been something haunting about the way he walked, as though a part of him had died, as though his very purpose had been defeated. He sank down onto the bed and sobbed himself to sleep.

This behavior continued for the next few days. When Cloud was not crying, he was sleeping. When he was not sleeping, he was crying. He ate little, moved even less. By now, the only thing he acknowledged was Zack's presence, and that was by crying harder if Zack were to stroke or kiss him. As time passed, sleep began to claim his crying. That was all Cloud seemed capable of doing.

The psychologist stopped by several times. Cloud refused to talk to her in the moments that he stayed awake long enough during her visits, and most of that was to take care of his basic needs. The psychologist advised Zack that this was a possible symptom of those dealing with tragedy and depression, but that served as little consolation to him. Over time these acute symptoms should wear off, she said; however, if Cloud was unable to overcome the initial bereavement, he would need help. This was of no consolation.

No symptom lessened. For a week longer, Cloud was fixed in a translucent limbo. Zack could only look in, powerless when it came to consoling him, only able to watch him exist day to day with meager scraps of sanity, fed to him during the brief moments when he could cry no longer, when all he could do was breathe and rest. These moments were no more nourishing than trite condolences Zack offered for all that had happened. Cloud would once again starve for something that Zack could not give.

It was becoming more apparent that Cloud needed help, help that Zack was reluctant to give. There was so little that he trusted, and who he trusted, that he began to distrust his own decisions.

Yet he knew—they both knew—that the inevitable was coming.

The funeral ceremony for Johnny Ratcliff came eleven days after his death. It had taken time to contact his only remaining family member, and for that member to make his way from Icicle to near the Chocobo Farm where Ratcliff's body was being laid to rest. It was an unremarkable day in terms of weather. There was no dramatic rain as one would see often in the movies, not even grayly shrouded skies. There was a delicate breeze, carried far from the ocean, its unique scent having been weakened on its journey there. It was barely strong enough to cause the endless green fields to bow in respect, but it did well to help dry the tears on the faces of those few who gathered. The sun shined brightly, oblivious to the sorrow below it, but not shining obliviously to at least one person there. Cloud noticed it. Its warmth reminded him of Ratcliff's smile. It was something he did not wish to remember at that moment, but no sooner would he ever wish to forget it.

No one bothered to keep track of who showed up to the burial; it wasn't very many. Zack was right alongside Cloud, standing protectively and ready to console while trying his hardest to remain sound. Kunsel, too, who drove them both there in silence. He did not shed any tears, but the sorrow apparent in his face was more than enough to convey.

The psychologist was there without child. She was muffling her sobs behind a fraying tissue, paying Ratcliff her respects, but thinking of her late husband as well, with every right. Elici's wife and child were present, the wife coddling her boy's face against her neck to comfort him, but was thinking about how she no longer had anyone to return this gesture. Haskin, Kumpf, and Zabalza attended, all solemn with heavy expressions. The boy, Pawn, stood nearby, sickly shaking from undeserving guilt of knowing too much.

Cissnei and Reno also attended, but from afar. Cissnei looked native, holding a sympathetic look and watching with as much respect as a stranger could. Reno appeared out of place. He only seemed to be there to observe, as though he had been passing by and stopped to watch when he found the crying faces to be curious. His eyes were fixed more on Cloud and Zack than the deceased being lowered into the dirt.

Aside from the two gravediggers, who only worked with diligence to get the job done, there was one other standing beside the fresh mound of overturned dirt. To Cloud, it was strange to see someone not of the army or from Shin-Ra at the funeral. He was taken by surprise when a man in his late twenties with long, shoulder-length hair and body-piercings on every part of his face, introduced himself as Joey Ratcliff, Johnny's older brother and only remaining family member.

Joey had a tired look, as though he had lived for years longer than he really had. He welled the weariness of an elder in the struggles of endless hardship. There were faint traces of wrinkles that branched from his eyes like budding sprigs on a sapling, new and insignificant now, but holding promise to grow into the boughs of an old, mighty tree. Vitality was lacking in his skin, skin that wrapped around thinning muscles and bones that ached of a long life. His shoulders drooped low and inward, but had been that way for longer than his brother had been gone. Gray strands of hair hid between blond and were only noticed by those who bothered to observe this frail man; those who were sympathetic enough to take one look at him and put themselves in his shoes to try to figure out what kind of life he possibly led to appear this way so soon.

But it was more painful than strange, for Joey and Ratcliff resembled each other in features, voice and smile, albeit Joey's was brief and empty. It was hard to hold eye contact with him, so Cloud didn't. Zack sensed this, and his hand was down by Cloud's to grip it very tight without hesitance, silently telling him that it was okay not to look. In fact, all who cared about Ratcliff were unable to hold Joey's gaze for very long, but Joey seemed understanding to this difficulty. He, too, did not make much eye contact with anyone. Even after the last shovel of dirt was tossed upon the remains, long after the mourners had said their goodbyes and left, Joey remained to himself.

Cloud and Zack observed him for a long time. Joey stood, staring to the dirt and sharing an intimate moment with Ratcliff's memory. In an instant, he was able to relive their whole lives together; perhaps an early memory of their childhood, times when they laughed, times of great happiness and others of great sorrow, arguments and apologies, meals shared, games played, traditions upheld; and secrets created, which dare not ever be spoken. All these thoughts would be his alone to relive fondly, and his alone to suffer through.

Cloud had his own memories, perhaps ones that didn't run as far or as deep as Joey's did, but they were as personal. And they were painful. The sad memories were of a natural, expected hurt, but it was the lighthearted that became corrupted. The thought of Ratcliff having been standing alive and next to him not two weeks prior, laughing and loving, now gone forever in an instant burned his heart black.

Ratcliff had once been here. He had. Everything about him had been alive and true. His voice was still sounding in Cloud's ears: 'I'm sorry, yeah? About everything'. Cloud's last words to him were still fresh on his tongue: 'I do' and 'Goodnight'. The thump of Ratcliff's heart that had been beating so heavily against Cloud as they embraced for what would be the last time still held residual life in Cloud's own heart. He could still feel the heat of Ratcliff's blood on his skin.

As Cloud remembered his friend, who still seemed so very alive, the image of Ratcliff's handwriting flourished across his vision. What he had read of his final note was what he fought to forget. It was the rest that he had yet to read which he fought to resist: '… keep him close, because in this life with these monsters, you'll never know when you'll lose the one you love to death …'

He wanted to forget this note, yet he now kept it close at all times, tucked away inside his pocket. This was his alone to suffer through.

The wind began to pick up. It was a reminder to Joey, Cloud, and Zack to move again, to keep breathing, to continue. Joey raised his head and turned to face his observers with downcast eyes and a polite, still empty smile. He gestured for them to approach, and then he stepped aside, allowing them their turn in saying goodbye. Zack stayed behind several steps after murmuring to Cloud that he would be right there for him.

This brand-new grave sat side-by-side to one other, both nestled beneath the swaying shade of a lone tree. The other grave was relatively new in respect to the eternity it would stay, but it seemed old with how it was already forgotten. When Cloud fully approached, he realized that he had not visited Mick Elici's grave since his funeral. There was also one other grave missing.

Guilt pressed upon him so much that he began to falter. It started in his feet; a cold numbing sensation. It then spread rapidly up through his legs and to his hips. He sank down, his knees being lost in the moist, vulnerable earth. Behind him, Zack stepped forward in fear, but stopped when Cloud began to openly weep, uncaring of how noisy he was, or who was left to hear him.

Cloud realized that no matter how loud he was, or how desperate he became, Mick Elici, Casey Graves, and Johnny Ratcliff would never hear him again. They were dead, and he was left to grieve and to carry the guilt of being unable to change any of it until the day he joined them.

Zack and Joey allowed Cloud to take as long as he needed beside the two graves, and a long time he took. Neither man dared to hurry him, nor even approach. They stayed back and not once thought to let their patience slip. The sun was lower, growing dimmer. It finally had witnessed the mourning below, and as a courtesy it thought to submerge itself in the rich, deeper colors of the evening. It was a kindness that was overlooked.

In what was left of the fading daylight, Cloud clambered to his numb and icy feet and began a search of the ground. He walked past the lone tree, shuffling through the tall grass and causing it to part around his legs. Each blade of grass that brushed past his shins or beneath his feet had never been touched by anything other than the wind or the rain. Now each became easily disturbed, even crushed by this single person. Behind was left a trail of broken grass, where some blades began to immediately raise, and others stayed down, perhaps to wilt and die.

Cloud came upon what he was looking for in his search; it didn't take long, despite the tall grass obscuring most of the ground. It was a rock, modest in size, smooth, and fitting for what he needed. He picked it up with some difficulty, and found it even more difficult to carry it back to the lone tree, as he had walked far out to find it. The rock grew heavier in his arms with each step, and by the time he made it back, the muscles in his arms and legs were weakened and his breath very labored.

Zack watched the entire search with intensity, as did Joey. It wasn't until Cloud dropped the rock next to Ratcliff's grave did Zack ask, "What're you doing?"

"Making a grave for Graves," Cloud said.

Neither Zack nor Joey were close enough to hear Cloud's heavy breathing, or to see the tremble in his legs. They could only see as he dropped once again to his knees, and arranged the rock between Elici's grave, and Ratcliff's grave.

Zack caught Joey looking at him in the corner of his eye. At first, he didn't want to face Joey, or the likeness of his brother held within him, but he did. He found himself regretting it when Joey smiled.

"Johnny told me a lot about you, and especially Cloud," Joey started simply. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cigarette. He offered one to Zack after he placed one between his lips, but Zack silently declined. "He cared a great deal about Cloud."

"He cared a great deal about everyone," Zack said.

Joey hummed in thought, a non-committal noise that made Zack feel uneasy. "He cared too much sometimes." He didn't wait for Zack to inquire further as to what he meant. "Johnny told me everything that Angels did to Cloud. He did the same to my brother, you know. Even after all that Angels did to Johnny and his friends, Johnny still cared for him."

Zack looked away and over to Cloud without responding. He watched as Cloud scratched words onto the surface of the makeshift headstone using a smaller rock in his hand. It was most likely Graves' full name that he was carving, but from where he stood, Zack couldn't see. That uneasy feeling grew stronger.

"I really hope you get that man one day," Joey said.

"Your brother didn't tell you? Mejia is dead."

Joey hummed again. "Johnny didn't think so. At least, not in his last letters."

Zack looked to him and allowed his gaze to turn indignant, angry. "What do you mean?"

Instead of being fearful, Joey seemed understanding to his change in demeanor, almost sympathetic. "Johnny thought Angels had something to do with your friend Casey's death."

"Impossible. He's dead."

Joey took a short drag of his cigarette, blowing out the smoke before he pulled the filter away from his lips. He shook his head. "Your friends are the ones dead, and by Angels' hand."

"He's dead!" Zack yelled. His voice ripped through the wind and echoed far past the fields, across mountains and trees, down into the earth, straight into Cloud.

Cloud stopped scratching at the rock and sat frozen until the echo of Zack's words disappeared. He began sobbing.

"I figured you'd want to know that was what Johnny was thinking," Joey said.

Zack ignored him and rushed over to Cloud, sinking down on his knees beside him. He turned Cloud's face into his neck where he continued to cry until the sun was gone and replaced by the night.

Joey left not long after those few words were exchanged. The only ones remaining by the lone tree were Cloud and Zack, with Kunsel waiting in his truck in the distance. It was time to go. There was nothing more that could be said or done, thought of or remembered. Zack urged Cloud to stand, but he made no effort to try on his own. Cloud was reluctant to leave his friends in the ground, to leave the memory of them behind in some forgotten field. Zack didn't have the heart to be the one to convince him further, not even when Cloud pulled away from him to lie on the dirt between their graves where he cried himself to sleep.

Eventually, Kunsel pulled the truck around and walked over to help move Cloud into the truck for the long ride home. When Zack scooped him up, he noticed the rock that Cloud had been using dropped from his hand. It was irregularly shaped, and sharp on several of its sides. It had traces of Cloud's blood on it, and Zack looked down at his hand to see that he had been gripping the rock very tight as he used it, and the edges bore into his flesh. Kunsel saw it, too, and they both looked to the headstone and saw that Cloud had indeed been carving Graves' name onto the surface. His last name was unfinished, so Zack passed Cloud's sleeping body to Kunsel, picked up the rock, and finished the name.

Kunsel held Cloud until Zack climbed into the seat of the truck, then he gently set Cloud onto Zack's lap, where the boy slumped against him lifelessly and remained that way.

As they drove away, Zack watched the reflection of the lone tree grow smaller and further in the side mirror. He bid his friends a silent goodbye. When the image was finally gone, he glanced to Kunsel, whose eyes darted from the rear-view mirror back to the path ahead. Zack then looked to Cloud, whose face was resting against his shoulder. He was expecting to see Cloud asleep, but his eyes were open and staring out the back window of the truck. Cloud was bidding his final goodbyes, as well.

They returned to Midgar very late. The streets and motorways were barren; a stark contrast to how lively the city was during the day. It served as a somber reminder of what they had just left behind. Cloud had slipped into sleep again not long after they departed, and had stayed that way throughout the rest of the trip. They didn't have to stop for his motion sickness, which they had been prepared to do, but instead to allow Zack to stretch his legs from having Cloud's weight on them. Cloud didn't stir while being handled inside the truck, and now he continued to lie dormant in Zack's arms as they pulled into Shin-Ra's underground parking.

Kunsel helped Zack carry Cloud up to the 1st Class SOLDIER floor. The two hadn't said much of anything to each other on the ride, not even when they took a brief moment to say goodnight. It was a few simple words, and Kunsel went his own way, while Zack went his. He waited until the elevator descended before he pulled Cloud's arm from off his shoulder and scooped him up in his arms to continue carrying him. Cloud made a soft sound, as though letting Zack know he was still alive, and his head rolled to the side and buried against Zack's chest. Zack looked down at him with sadness, and for a moment, he contemplated turning around and taking him to the infirmary.

He stood still and struggled with both premonition and his instinct. He was waiting and willing for Cloud to wake, to smile at him in a daze and mumble something to let him know that he was going to be fine, that taking him to the infirmary would be a waste of time.

But Cloud continued to sleep in his arms, and Zack received no other sign. He only had that premonition. It was enough to frighten him.

There was someone standing at his door, rigid and professional. It was Tseng. Zack gripped Cloud tight. One of the elevators dinged behind him, and out slithered two more—Reno and Cissnei. They came up behind with purpose, boxing him in between Tseng, who was still standing at his door in wait. Zack gripped Cloud tighter. Cloud made a sound of discomfort, but he didn't stir any further.

He stopped in front of Tseng, feeling the other two Turks hovering behind him. It was cunning for them to corner him when he held Cloud's fragile body in his arms; when they were both so vulnerable. He wouldn't be able to escape, not peaceably. Tseng must have anticipated this, yet he made no indication that he had any plans to fight if Zack were to become hostile.

Zack couldn't see, but Reno and Cissnei had their weapons at the ready.

"You were given plenty of time," Tseng began, his voice holding no hint of care, not even artificial sympathy, "more than enough to help Strife seek treatment."

"Your point?"

"My point has already been made," Tseng said.

"And my point was that your point was pointless," Zack said quickly.

Reno snorted behind him.

Tseng was unfazed by any humor or threat that were in Zack's words. "I think I've been more than gracious with this matter, Zack. I've been understanding. What I won't be is disobeyed."

Zack thought hard about it, but in no more time than it took to exhale an angry breath. He knew this had been coming all along, and he could sense the Turks behind him stepping closer after he caught a subtle flicker in Tseng's eyes.

"I'll talk it over with him," Zack finally said.

Tseng's eyes flicked once more, and his two Turks stepped backwards. "See that you do. If not, then I will." He passed around Zack, paying no mind to the unconscious Cloud, or to the SOLDIER who was following his movements with an illimitable glare. When he passed Cissnei, he nodded to her. She stayed behind, while he left in the elevator with Reno.

Cissnei hurried to Zack's door when she saw him struggling to get it open. She held it for him, but only received silence as a thank you when Zack stepped through with Cloud. She followed him to his bedroom and offered the same courtesy, and pulled back the blankets on the bed before Zack set Cloud down. All was without thanks, or even eye contact.

First, Zack took care to remove Cloud's boots, then his socks. He rubbed at his feet idly, watching his face for any sign of pain when he touched his healing foot. He also was idly waiting for Cissnei to see herself out, but she stood in silence, without intimidation. She only observed, but Zack felt as though she loomed above them, waiting for the moment to prey upon them in their weakness.

"Are you here to follow through?" Zack said to her over his shoulder. "Because I'm not taking him. Not now."

"No, but I am assigned to ensure you do by tomorrow."

"You don't need to stand here to ensure that."

"I know," she said with kindness, "I was making sure you're both okay."

"You see that we're fine. So go."

Cissnei crossed her arms, and when she spoke, her voice was almost maternal. "He's skinny, Zack."

"So what?" Zack said, scooting close to Cloud's body on the bed, as though to shield him from any more scrutiny, no matter how accurate it was. "So are you."

She ignored his comment, but not how it was laden with defensiveness. "Hiding him away is in no way beneficial to his health, or yours."

Zack remembered how reluctant the psychologist was to take Cloud to the infirmary the night Ratcliff had killed himself. It perpetuated so much of his paranoia. He wondered if he was slowly becoming the one with the impaired judgment, or if there was any valid reason behind it.

"Tell me one thing, Cissnei. Should I trust you?"

"No."

He scoffed. "I thought so."

Cissnei stepped into Zack's view, and he looked up at her for a brief moment before looking away. "But you still can."

"I won't."

"I know you won't. But, you don't have many you can trust."

"I don't have anyone."

Cissnei motioned to Cloud, who was breathing lightly and looking peaceful for once as he slept. "You have him. That should be reason enough to make sure he gets healthy again, no matter what it takes."

Her words began to sink in. Zack stopped rubbing Cloud's feet and looked down at them, realizing how bony they felt, as if he were to press any harder, he'd shatter each bone inside. His eyes moved to Cloud's thinning hands that lay at his sides. Zack picked one up gently and placed it on Cloud's stomach with care. It was like a child's hand—light and small, one that he would want to hold and never let go for fear of harm coming to him. But he released his hand, his own then trailing across Cloud's stomach, which was concave and frightening thin to how it used to be. Cloud was more than just skinny. He was wasting, and his spirit was long since stripped of the essence that defined him. A shell hardly remained of both his body and mind.

Zack folded across Cloud's body and wept into his chest. It was silent and still, but Cissnei knew. It was in that silence, and in her sympathy that she could feel Zack's pain. She placed a hand upon his shoulder, looking first to him, then to Cloud as she spoke.

"I'll be outside the door if you need anything."

Zack shook his head. Cissnei hesitated and squeezed his shoulder.

"You don't have to worry about him going alone," she said, then hesitated further. "Tseng not only wants him to see Dr. Arolin, he … wants you to see her, as well."

The shoulder beneath her hand tensed. Zack's weeping stopped. He raised his head and shrugged out of her grasp as every word of protest began to collect on his tongue. Cissnei was beginning to form her own defense against his, but Zack remembered, truly remembered that the psychologist was reluctant. Cloud's own psychologist did not want him initially to seek medical treatment when he in every right should have. Instead, she came to them to check up on him; she offered her phone number and services to them on her own time. There was a reason for it, for his paranoia being justified.

"Understood," Zack said, "we'll both go."

In the morning, they did both go as promised. It was a hard fight against himself on the matter, let alone one with Cloud. It was a battle to wake him, and the battle only got worse when Zack explained that he needed help at the infirmary since he was no longer functioning properly. How the boy did cry, and how he refused and clutched at Zack, and begged not to be taken there. Zack couldn't do anything more but to be honest with him.

"I'm not doing this to upset you, baby. It's an order from Tseng. If you don't comply, you'll be discharged," Zack said, wiping away Cloud's tears as he cried harder.

Cloud shook his head, and his bottom lip quivered as if to say something, but nothing came out. He clutched at Zack's arms with desperation.

"If I could keep you safe from this pain, I would. But I can't anymore."

"Th-Think of something," Cloud pleaded.

Zack continued to wipe Cloud's face, that beautiful face which was consumed with a hope that Zack felt he were about to maim with reality. "I've thought of everything, I have, but my hands are tied. I thought I could protect and take care of you, but I'm useless."

"N-No," Cloud said, his head shaking rapidly as the hope on his face became dead to despair. "That's not true, that's not—"

"It is true, Cloud. You—we need help. If you won't go to the infirmary, then we at least have to go see Dr. Arolin. Together."

"To … gether?"

"That's right." Zack held Cloud's face in his hands and kissed his forehead with eyes closed. He pulled away as slowly as he could, careful to express all his support and assurance in that single kiss. "I'll be there with you," he whispered. "We'll both go talk to her. We'll get through this, because we're all we have. We can't afford to lose each other after losing so much already."

There was a hand brushing against his cheek, and he opened his eyes to see Cloud looking at him with his own faint traces of assurance. He brought up his other hand, and his thumb brushed against Zack's other cheek, beneath his eye.

Zack had not realized that he, too, was crying.

Cloud couldn't speak, but he nodded and mouthed an okay to go.

Cissnei was not where Zack expected her to be when they left his quarters. He assumed she would be standing out by his door in wait, but she wasn't. It made him nervous to think where she, Reno or Tseng, could be and why they weren't seeing to it that he followed through like they said they were going to.

They made their way to the psychologist's office as promised to one another, regardless of how reluctant they were. Their pace was slow, almost like they were strolling through a park on a date. Cloud was clearly uncomfortable with the pace, so they walked faster. Perhaps he wanted to get it over and done with as fast as possible. Zack fought every urge to hold his hand as they made their way there. There were too many people around in the halls, and he still was on the lookout for signs of Turk shadows. Even if they were walking alone, Cloud's hands were too busy wringing together for Zack to grab hold. He did, however, reach over and squeeze Cloud's shoulder in a gesture to calm him.

"It'll be fine," Zack murmured with a smile.

Cloud looked over at him, but their eyes met briefly before he looked away and continued to wring his hands with renewed vigor.

The psychologist's office was alight with soft music and a low chatter. The receptionist tapped away at the computer on her desk, with the phone to her ear and another patient standing before her and trying to inform her of something she most likely was too busy to hear. So Zack and Cloud sat in wait. Zack sat nearest to the desk, next to an end table full of magazines he never considered reading, and instead tried to read Cloud's body language. There wasn't much of it. He sat closest to the door, rigid and on the edge of the seat, eyes locked onto a doorway down the hall.

It was a full ten minutes before the receptionist was off the phone and done with the patient before she glanced to Zack, then over to Cloud. Her eyes widened in shock when she saw Cloud. It could have been because she wasn't expecting to see him, or that he was being accompanied by Zack. Or perhaps it was because he was frail, no longer the person she remembered working with, albeit such a short time. The shock in her eyes turned to a moment of sorrow before she resumed her professional demeanor.

"Here for Dr. Arolin?" she asked, but didn't wait for a response before moving away from the desk, then down the hall. "I'll see if she's available."

Cloud's eyes followed her as she disappeared down the hallway. They sat for only a few tense seconds before she returned with the psychologist following behind. The psychologist stood at the end of the hallway and surveyed them in awkward hesitance. She shifted on her feet before walking to them. She slipped onto one of the seats beside Cloud, who still stared down the hallway as though petrified.

"Come with me," she whispered, and she hovered her hand at his arm and waited for him to stand. "Come on," she whispered again, this time giving his arm a light touch to persuade him.

Cloud flinched. Yet, his gaze never left one of the doors down the hall, even as his eye twitched as if begging for him to blink.

"Cloud, we have to, remember? We've made it this far, we can go just a bit further," Zack said, standing and then sliding onto the seat on the other side of Cloud. He placed his hand on his other arm, and tried to urge him to move. "I'll be there with you, right?" He looked to the psychologist then for her approval. She shook her head grimly. "No …?"

"I'm afraid it's against regulations."

Zack grew fearful that Cloud would back out of the agreement, but after one final little push, he rose to his feet.

"I'll be waiting out here for you," Zack said sadly.

As Cloud and the psychologist passed the first door, Zack saw her hurry him past it, and he thought he heard her mutter, "Don't look."

Zack found himself now staring at the door, and that premonition from the previous night was back again.

The air conditioner was off; that was the first thing Cloud noticed when he stepped foot in her office. And despite this, Cloud was welcomed with a different kind of chill. It was one he felt on his own when he sat on her couch, next to that little beaded pillow of which he had grown fond. A silence was settled upon him since the vent above his head was not blowing air, nor bringing the sound of other voices—a particular voice—through it. The sights and smells inside her office were the same; cheerful but professional décor, old books and clean fibers of the rug, the wood which made up her desk. With everything appearing the same, Cloud wondered why it felt so unfamiliar.

But different circumstances had brought him there.

All of the past ones that caused him to sit on that couch seemed inconsequential. He felt ashamed for those reasons. Those trivial, meaningless, pathetic reasons for seeing this woman; for using up her time and her tissues, for clutching that pillow for such equally pathetic needs. He had lost and he had suffered, but what was all that compared to how he suffered and what—who—was gone now?

It was so much different. And absolutely foreign.

For a while the psychologist observed him and asked gentle questions that Cloud failed to hear. She stood from her desk and began to pace as the questions turned more direct, and then to questions that led to deeper questions, then to follow-up questions if Cloud actually gave an answer. The most he offered were nods, head shakes, shrugs, or just affirmative silence. He never met her gaze.

Not until she stopped pacing, leaned against her desk and asked him, "Are you hurt?"

He looked up at her, peering deep into such a vague question that could have meant anything, or everything. He nodded.

And it meant everything.

The psychologist looked as though she were trying to keep her composure in her face. She returned the nod and fell silent for a while. She turned her head to the picture frames sitting on her desk, and her hand went to one of them—Cloud was certain it was the one of her and her husband. She didn't pick it up. She only gave it a simple touch, but it was enough to transform her face into grief.

"When you get hurt," she finally said, her voice holding a slight tremor, "there's a loss. A loss of blood maybe, loss of pay because you're hurt and can't work … a loss of security." She pulled her hand away from the picture frame, but then decided to adjust it fondly where it sat. It looked like she smiled briefly, but it could have been a grimace. "Maybe you feel unsafe that it could happen again." She looked back at Cloud finally, and any suffering on her face was tucked away behind her duty to her patient. "But what happens after you get hurt?"

Cloud needn't consider his answer.

"You either heal … or you get worse and die."

"Yes, those are the possibilities," the psychologist said. "But you don't want to die. You want to get better, right?"

Cloud's hand went to his pocket, to Ratcliff's suicide note.

The psychologist stiffened in wait for his answer.

"Right, Cloud?"

… to be continued in Chapter Fifty-Eight: Denied Answers.

Ending Author's OMG: AAAAAAH IT'S BEEN SINCE APRIL SINCE THE LAST UPDATE I AM A HORRIBLE PERSON PLEASE FORGIVE ME. ; A ; Assuming there are still readers who have stuck around to do some forgiving. I am truly sorry that it's been so long. I don't have many valid excuses, other than writer's block. And a lot of distractions. tumblr being a HUGE one. And watching tv series with friends on Livestream. And I guess depression.

Writing this chapter was really hard though. I wanted to have a certain tone to it. I definitely wanted more narrative than dialogue to help convey the despair, isolation, and mistrust the characters were feeling. So each and every word was carefully considered and chosen with precision. I hope that I accomplished it! And I hope that it was somewhat worth the wait.

With that being said, I'm gonna ask a favor of everyone that I hope I won't regret. I always get such nice and amazing reviews about how good my writing is, but is there anything about it that I should work on? I wouldn't mind some constructive criticism once in a while. Also, has anyone noticed a change, whether good or bad, with my writing? Has it gotten too technical, less creative, or has it gotten stronger, more streamlined? I'd appreciate the feedback!

ANYWAY. I dunno when the next chapter will be out. I HOPE NOT IN NINE MONTHS LIKE THIS ONE WAS.

OH, AND MAJOR SHOUT OUT TO BOTH THISISTHSOU AND KIMIEVII FOR GIVING ME MUSIC TO HELP ME WRITE. I asked my followers on tumblr for sad/moving instrumental music (music with words distracts me too much when I'm writing) and they both sent me some music through Dropbox that really helped kick me into gear. Thank you so much to the both of you. I love you both omfg.

I hope everyone's Christmas and New Years was nice! :3 Thank you for being awesome!

-Ziggy

P.S. Oh and I know it's not Tuesday, the day when I normally update, but I figured it was long enough since my last update that I wouldn't make anyone wait any longer. Plus some people on tumblr are about to riot if I don't update. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. Hehehe.