Chapter 33: Indomitable, or Something

Summary: It's just a pleasant drive in the country. What could go wrong?

AN: I hope you all had lovely holidays. (Best of luck in the Year of the Tiger.) I am not writing any faster, but I am still writing. I know where I want this story to end up (and I've probably got half the final chapter written), but some of my characters aren't cooperating. (I'm looking at you, Kunsel!) I've also had a story idea from Teen Wolf pounce on me. (Would it be a plot puppy, rather than a plot bunny, considering the show's premise? hmmmm) I keep petting it on the head, but it's not going away.

TW for serious injury from a fall.

The expressway between Junon and Fort Condor had two wide, well maintained lanes of asphalt maintained and patrolled by Shinra to keep it clear of holes and monsters. It took two days to get to Fort Condor on it – 27 hours if you had a second driver and you were both willing to push it.

However, Cloud didn't lead them to the expressway, Instead, he guided them down a badly maintained, barely-wide-enough-for-one-vehicle, gravel track that hugged the coast and hit every tiny village that existed next to the sea.

It was beautiful and Zack loved it. No walls, no cages – just sea and sky so big and wide and open.

He'd given up his motorbike to Genesis at their first break halfway through the morning, because the SOLDIER had complained about sitting in the truck while it bounced and jittered and "rattled the teeth right out of my head". Figuring the drama queen had exaggerated (he hadn't) Zack had swapped over. It was still worth it.

While Tifa drove, he could look out the window. When he drove, he still looked out the window.

Plus Aerith sat in the middle because she couldn't drive at all. That meant, no matter which side he was on, driver or passenger, his amazing girlfriend was snuggled right up next to him.

As a bonus, he liked the company. Aerith was, well, Aerith and therefore wonderful, but Tifa was tough and smart. No matter what kind of limiting small-town biases she'd grown up with, she was learning, adapting, and growing. It was a skill Zack admired considering how few people were willing to do it.

She also filled him in on all the childhood backstory that Cloud had glossed over. Quite frankly, even filtered through Tifa's generous town-princess memories, Nibelheim seemed like the perfect place – to be from.

Still didn't deserve Sephiroth burning it down though.

Fucking Hojo.

The road was mostly a track and a half cut from the sides of looming mountains. Occasionally, it widened into little flat areas where trees and wildlife eked out a living. They had to wait while big-horned goats used the road to migrate from one pocket of green to the next. It was too late in the year for baby goats, but Aerith and Tifa cooed anyway.

They'd also let a bear have the right-of-way (it hadn't bothered them, so they didn't bother it) but twice they encountered metal plant-like things that Aerith's Assess labelled as capparwires.

Capparwires were small, they hung out in groups (hordes? swarms?), and they aggressively opposed attempts to shoo them off the road. Their lightning attacks hurt like a bugger.

One of them had tried to fry Genesis. The redhead had howled in triumph as the ring he'd bought in Junon did what it was supposed to. He'd then proceeded to slaughter the capparwires with gleeful abandon. The only reason the rest of them had gotten involved was because Aerith and Cloud wanted to grow their materia.

Those encounters barely caused a blip in whatever schedule Cloud kept in his head. He pushed them past dusk, past two indistinguishably small villages, past dark until they reached one called Munlo Cove. He knew someone, of course. Someone who cooked like a god and almost made it worth the bone-crunchingly bad road they'd drove in on.

It also had a 4-room bed and breakfast that Cloud hired entire. It completely sold Zack on the trip.

Renting the whole place meant he and Aerith got a room to themselves – all to themselves, all night long. Considering they usually had to sneak time during absences of either Aerith's ma or Cloud, this was a luxury. They made the most of it by trying not the make the bed springs squeak. Movements had to be small and controlled, gentle rubs instead of thrusts. With the light of the moon coming through the window outlining Aerith's slender body above him, Zack could've believed it was some kind of divine test of his will power.

When their control snapped neither of them cared about the squeaking. They also didn't care that the headboard knocked on the wall with their movement. Only the rhythm mattered, and the rhythm was good.

They repeated the experience in the morning, but quieter. Last night had been bouncing and thumping. This morning it was breathing, in and out. They laid spooned together and Zack moved inside Aerith, soft and slow and shallow. It was so fucking amazing that Zack wanted to jump off rooftops - as soon as he could get his limbs to, y'know, actually move.

He tucked his nose into the top of her spine and wondered how he'd gotten so lucky.

"You're so silly," Aerith murmured as she snuggled backwards into him, touching him head to heels. "You're not lucky. I just deserve you."

She sounded so smug, he had to laugh.

"I'd hate being SOLDIER, except that it brought me to you," he confessed, placing a soft kiss on a shoulder lightly covered in freckles.

She turned to face him, and Zack mourned the loss of full body contact. "Don't," she said, cupping his face in her hand. "Don't hate what you are. Because you are wonderful. Being SOLDIER just allows you to be that more."

"What if–"

She put a finger over his lips. "We'll deal with it." She tucked herself under his chin and used her surprisingly strong arms to hold him tight. "We'll deal with anything that happens."

Zack wasn't sure it was going to be that easy, but he let it go. Content to just hold Aerith and breathe in the reality of her.

Given Tifa's blushes every time Zack handed her a scone over the breakfast table, she'd had the room next to theirs. He was probably a bad person, but it made him happy that someone else knew – even by inference – that Aerith was the one for him, that she had chosen him.

He didn't even bother to hide his smile. Not even when Genesis smirked knowingly at them both.

The morning of the second day was much like the first. He did his turn at the wheel and explained to Aerith the basics of steering, the gas pedal, the clutch, and (most importantly) the brake. He had her shift the gear lever for him since it was in the middle of the floor anyway. She demanded a high-five from Tifa every time they did it without grinding.

Then a flock of pinky-purple birds dove at Cloud from the trees, and they were forced to stop and deal with them. They were more annoying than effective, but Aerith happily announced that her All and Revive materias "had gotten better." Cloud gave a satisfied nod, and they spent the next 20 minutes discussing which materia to swap in, which to keep and which could be sold.

Since the two materia nerds were immersed, and it was nearly noon anyway, Zack brought out lunch. A delicious lunch packed by the culinary god in Munlo Cove, made better by Zack's memories of the night that followed.

It was the middle of the afternoon when things went bad. It wasn't a monster. It was the fucking bad road.

They stood looking down at the huge gap that had fallen out of the track and down towards the sea.

"Wash out," Tifa said.

"No shit," Zack grumbled.

It hadn't taken out the whole thing, and Cloud and Genesis had already driven the motorbikes to the other side. Driving the little truck over the gap, however, wasn't happening.

"We can leave the truck, and double-up on the motorcycles," Genesis said.

"That's only four," Tifa said, peering down at the boulders. "There're five of us."

"We could probably jump it over," Zack said. "Build a ramp, gather some speed, and whoosh! " It might be able to make it. If he and Genesis gave it a push.

"Or can lay down some wood here." Cloud waved at the smallest part of the gap. "Truck's wheelbase is narrow, so less hole to cover. Might scrape the mirror, but…." He shrugged.

It was still a good two metres, but there were trees around. Zack looked into the surprising dense cluster of hardy pines. "I don't see any deadfall."

Cloud gave him a small eye-roll and walked back to the truck. He untied the tarp and dug around for a moment as they all joined him. With a small smile, he pulled out a hatchet. "Slower than a chainsaw, but lighter and easier to sharpen." He handed it to Zack. "Look for something with a straight bit twice as tall as you."

Zack grinned, took the small axe, and sing-songed, "Work, work, work, work, work."

Aerith came with him. They didn't spend too long kissing because the sun was getting close to the mountains which meant it was going to be dark soon. It helped that the trees weren't as tight-packed as they sometimes were in these small pieces of dirt. Unfortunately, that meant most of them were twisted by the steady wind that came off the ocean or down the mountain – or sometimes in both directions, apparently.

The one Aerith finally spotted was skinnier that he liked, but there was a decent length of it that was mostly straight.

It was hard to tell if it was long enough when he was looking straight up at it, so Zack gave an internal shrug and started chopping. Cloud had sharpened the axe, so it didn't take long. Then he had to drag it out which gave him scratches all up his arms and a tear in his only purple shirt. (It had flowers that reminded him of the jungle around Gongaga. He'd bought it in a fit of nostalgia.)

When they emerged from the tiny forest, it was to see that the others were unloading the truck and stacking everything well to the south of the gap, close to the motorbikes.

"Lighten the load," Zack said with a nod. "Good idea."

He let Cloud take the hatchet. His friend looked at the log like he was buying a weapon. It was probably about as important, Zack supposed. "Bit short," was Cloud's assessment.

He pulled a metal wedge from one of the supply boxes. "I'll split it, but you and Genesis gather rocks, big ones, to anchor it on either side."

So Tifa and Aerith shifted supplies and Zack and Genesis built rock piles. They actually managed to gather enough rocks to partially fill the gap. A couple big ones down first, then build up on top of it. It wasn't great support, but it was something. Then it was just laying down the three uneven planks that Cloud had managed to get from the tree. They alternated directions so that a wide base was next to a narrow top.

It didn't look very sturdy.

"I'll drive," Zack said. "If something happens, I can probably jump clear before it falls too far."

Tifa lifted her chin. "I'm better with the truck." Which was true.

"Zack's right though," Cloud said. "Need to be enhanced to survive if it falls. However–" he lifted his chin at Zack, "–you're too heavy." A chin point at Genesis. "And he's too careless." Genesis just shrugged. I got the next most mako dumped on me." He shrugged, his point obvious.

"I'll cast Barrier!" Aerith offered and Cloud nodded thanks before moving to the driver side of the truck. Genesis, already on the far side, cast an ice spell at the ground Maybe he hoped that it would freeze the tree trunks to the dirt, but Zack was pretty sure it wouldn't work.

Once again, Zack seriously missed his old set of Shinra-manufactured materia. He used to have a gravity materia that could've pinned the tree to the ground like glue or lifted the truck so they could've just floated it across. He didn't have his old materia.

He didn't have a lot of things from his old life, but mostly that was okay because what had replaced it was (in many ways) better than what he'd had before.

The truck was a little 3-wheeler. Shinra's workhouse utility vehicle. The two wheels in front did both the steering and the driving. He'd offered, but honestly, Zack was better with military trucks and motorcycles, all of which were rear-wheel drive. Cloud was definitely the smarter choice.

As Zack watched the skinny tires roll slowly over their makeshift bridge, he held his breath. He couldn't help it. All he could see was all the ways this could go wrong. Cloud could be seriously hurt, and it would be his fault.

Alternatives to the current setup flashed through his brain: more stones under the wood; he and Genesis could've stood under the bridge, supporting the wood. He rejected that one as really stupid, but his follow up idea was they could've blown a new path out of the mountain, and that was actually a decent idea. Certainly a better one than letting his best friend drive out there like that going over uneven, untreated, springy planks they hadn't even lashed together.

It wasn't a huge distance Cloud had to cover, and Zack could see the shimmer of Aerith's Barrier, but he still held his breath as the boards shifted and groaned. They'd offloaded every bit of extra weight, and sure, it was a small truck, but it was still a truck: a tonne and a half of vehicle.

He and Genesis could've carried it….

The right front tire shifted off centre. Not an immediate catastrophe – Cloud quickly steered it back – but a concern. It made the thin plank shift away from its fellows. It wasn't a wide gap, but it was a gap, and since it was Cloud on the line, Zack stood up to call out a warning.

The back tire fell through a spot where the wood didn't meet. Zack had been so focused on the front that he hadn't even noticed.

Cloud could still pull it off, the front wheels were the drive wheels, but as they pulled and dragged the back end, the back tire forced the boards apart wider at the far end, because that was how angles worked or something.

Cloud wasn't going to make it.

Without further thought, Zack flung himself forward. Using all his speed, all his bulk, he hit the tailgate and pushed the little truck the final few paces. The front wheels caught the solid dirt and dragged the back end with it.

Cloud was going to have a hell of a case of whiplash, he thought. And then he fell.

The first drop wasn't bad – he and Genesis had piled the rocks pretty high. Really, it was more like a big step down than a fall.

They hadn't piled the rocks well, however.

Zack's sudden weight was enough to destabilize the jury-rigged mass and Zack fell again. This time the rocks rolled and tumbled and crashed down the slope. There was nothing to brace himself against, so he rolled and tumbled and crashed along with the big fucking stones that seemed to do most of their crashing into him.

'Ow' and "shit!' were on constant repeat in his mind, in between trying to remember all the instructions he'd received so long ago about falling on an incline. Should he try to somersault, or was he supposed to roll?

Didn't matter anyways. Every time he thought he'd got the rhythm, he got whacked by another fucking great rock and lost it.

He was hitting the rocks, or the rocks were hitting him as they passed, and he couldn't predict.… There was no pattern, and normally he was okay with chaos, a little, but not like this. If he used his arms to protect his body, then the rocks hit his head. If he protected his head, then his chest or stomach got pummeled. And his legs had no protection at all.

Head, hips chest – fuck, that one hurt. Maybe a rib. Back, cheek, hips, and thigh. Definitely a rib. Thigh, stomach – that felt like a kidney – hip again. Ow, ow, ow and fuck.

Then his foot caught in something. It was held in place while his body kept falling and all he could do was anticipate the…SNAP!

Zack finally let himself shout. He hoped it was a curse-laden shout, but it was probably a scream.

He was now kind of tumbling headfirst down the cliff and he knew he should try to get back into a defensive(ish) position, but between the rolling and the pain, he was feeling a little sick.

Then he hit something really big, and really solid, and stopped completely.

That was definitely a rib. Maybe four.

He had his Heal materia on him. He could cast that – he would cast that. As soon as he caught his breath. And could concentrate, because he wasn't thinking anything other than 'holy shit' and 'ow', so he'd just close his eyes for a bit, and breathe.

He'd cast Cura in a sec. Just a sec.

And then he'd get up and figure out how to get back up the slope (without falling down again, because fuck that).

In a minute…

He could hear the waves of the ocean crashing into the shore.

"Well, that was dramatic," he heard. "You've worried your girlfriend."

"Gen'si'?"

"Indeed."

That didn't make sense. Why would Rhapsodos be down here?

A wave of cool healing sparked over him, lighting up the dark behind his eyelids. He could feel his bones being pushed back together, ribs and ankle.

"Gen'sis."

"Yes. We've already established that."

Zack felt himself lifted in Genesis's arms in an embarrassing bridal carry. Was he planning on climbing all the way back up with Zack in his arms? The healing had helped but Zack still hurt a lot. Every bump would be painful.

But there were no bumps, just a gentle, bouncy glide, as if the other SOLDIER's steps were cushioned. It felt kind of nice, actually. Like one of the dreams where he flew over mountains and through forests.

It wasn't until he was pelted with Curas from Cloud and Aerith and Tifa, and actually had the energy for thought, that Zack realized Genesis wasn't bouncing. He was flying.

He was flying Zack up to the road.

He was flying Zack, and his wing was out where everyone could see.

"Why?"

Quietly, after a long gliding pause, "Because I was the only one who could."

He touched down as gently as he had flown. Zack opened his eyes to see Genesis – sarcastic, entitled, and selfish – give him a wink. "Plus, it was a good time to find out if I still could."

That bastard.

He hadn't known if he could still fly or fly with extra weight. In other words, Genesis could've dropped Zack at any time, and they would've both been stuck down there.

He lifted a middle finger at the redhead even as the healing spells surrounded him, soaked into him, and made him feel lightheaded.

They loaded the truck without him.

Zack tried to raise himself up on his elbow once, and Aerith and Tifa descended on him like a pack of hedgehog pies, so Zack let himself be pushed back down, covered with a blanket… and had his temperature taken? That one didn't make sense, but Aerith's hand felt nice against his forehead.

He got another wave of Curas. He tried to tell them that he felt much better. Neither of them cared.

Aerith gave him a lovely, but short, kiss.

Tifa had looked at him skeptically. "I'm not doing that, so don't even think it."

They were teasing him, so that meant Zack was once again, a long way from dying.

He went back to lying down in the sunny spot Genesis had put him in, and watched the others load up the truck. They had to lift the crates over the side, since the bent tailgate wouldn't go down anymore. Zack tried to feel bad about that but couldn't. They'd bought the thing second-hand. It was four different colours – none of them original – and there were so many dings and dents that the tailgate fit right in.

He said exactly that when Aerith tsked at him for rolling onto his side for a better view. Cloud, walking by, shrugged. "Engine's good."

There was no skipping over a village or two this time, no driving into the night. Once he was loaded into the truck, Cloud led them to the next village, and they stopped.

It didn't have a secret master chef like last night's, and it didn't have a 4-bedroom cottage they could rent, but it did have food and it did have beds, and honestly, by the time they reached the place, that's all Zack wanted.

If they talked about Genesis's wing, or what it meant, he didn't hear it. He had a bowl of stew and plate of veggies. Aerith cast another Cura and he was out.

It would all be better in the morning.

End notes: Supposedly, Upper Midgar is about 8462.23 (see James Barger's calculations in a Quora thread where he uses Cloud's canonical size as his base unit (search for "How-big-is-Midgar-size-wise-from-the-Final-Fantasy-VII-remake-vs-the-original"). However, that's about the size of Tokyo and Yokohama combined, which seems… unlikely. So I've decided to use 750km2 as its area. That makes it slightly larger than the Isle of Man, or the city of Boston which has 6.75 million people. Midgar (upper and lower) seems dreadfully underpopulated in comparison.

Quick question: if I set up a Discord server for this and other stories, would anyone be interested in joining? I admit I'm not great at the social media thing, but I miss talking to people about writing and things only generally related to fandoms.