A/N: WHOOPS.

So, first of all, there was absolutely supposed to be an update on the 31st of July. The reason there wasn't was because I got all my dates mixed up. I was SO BUMMED because July 31st is Rex's birthday and I wanted to update just because that would've been cute. But I messed up.

THEN I didn't update AGAIN because omfg Chapter 20 gave me ISSUES. As you'll already know if you've been reading these ANs, I wrote most of these chapters before I started posting them, all I do is edit them every week (incidentally I'm running out of said material—BIG sweatdrop). But I got to Chapter 20 and I just…hated it (the pacing, not the actual material—I've just moved what happened to a later part of the story, because it's still important, just slow). So I ended up changing the entire second half but I agonised over it for days and days and days. I've said before that the story is a slow burner, but the figurative candle begins to burn both ends here for a while O_O.

But ANYWAY. We got some long-awaited exposition last chapter. Aster finally told Zack that she was part of a small monster-exterminating team led by Bryan, the dude from waaaaay back in Chapter 1. And we as readers got to know a little bit more about the nature of the attacks back in Icicle Inn. And of course, Newberry seems to be losing his goddamned mind. More questions have been raised than answered but believe me, they will be. Eventually. And I. can't. wait.

Love you guys. Thank you so much for your patience, especially since I left you on a corker of a cliffhanger o_o. Shall we see it resolved? Buckle in because this one is dramatic as hecccc.

Have yourselves an amazing WEEK. Just a week. Honest.

14th Aug '19

Chapter 20: Promises

Vague shouting, muffled, through cotton wool ears. There was the sound of a loud bang, and a very heavy pin dropping to the tiles like a stone in an empty cave. It was the cheap lock of the door snapping off the frame after the DI's boot blasted it open. More yelling. Then, the loudest sound, a groan. It took her a while to realise it was coming from her.

Vision returned, dizzy and unclear, and confusion took over. The floor lurched away. Her stomach turned as she fell towards the ceiling. An arm against her back. Rex. It was Rex's arm. His face smeared by blinding light.

"Aster."

She closed her eyes to stop her from falling, stop the floor from moving and the ceiling spinning, but felt nudging—a hand shaking her arm, rubbing her cheek.

Awareness sank in slowly. The floor was not moving. She was not falling towards the ceiling. Rather, Rex had lifted her onto his lap, sitting on wet tiles, and was holding her neck and head in the crook of his elbow, fighting to keep her conscious. Her hair was damp and sticking to her back and his arm, surely soaking him. Dumb as it may be, it was enough to snap one of the brittle chains of daze that clenched her. Her body began to relearn to move on its own.

Sounds—real sounds—returned next. Rex's voice gave words she couldn't understand. Probably 'how you going?' or 'she'll be right' in his sun-drenched twang, but beneath the screaming, they drowned. Who was screaming?

Aster squinted through the brightness. The Red Cap. The Red Cap was screaming. But not at her. At a figure. A brooding figure with broad shoulders and a dense aura. Newberry. Right. What happened again? Something happened.

A final bark. Newberry saluted and stormed out through the limp door. For his punishment? Wonder what it was.

In her face, more screaming. She shrank in against Rex who held her weight at her elbows. Standing? Right, Rex helped her up. When? Ugh, did it matter? Her head rolled against his collarbone until the world sharpened into focus with a whoosh that popped her eardrums. Her feet became solid. She understood language. And Rex stopped struggling against a dead weight.

The Red Cap's eyes were a hot blue against his contorted face. "Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir," she said, startling Rex with her previously absent awareness.

"Good," the Red Cap said through gritted teeth, then he turned to the rest of the squad. Rex was the only one to breach the shower room, but one or two other cadets were stood right at the door. Everyone else was presumably staying out of the way. "As for the rest of you, get out on that damn track," he said, storming through the door and rounding up troops like a sheepdog. Or wolf.

The storm passed. And when the wind settled, only silence remained.

Aster pressed a hand to her head and stumbled out of Rex's grasp. "What was he yelling at me?"

But Rex just stared at her, his lips poised with a thousand questions. He rolled them into one. "Mate, what the hell?"

"Sorry, I couldn't hear him," she said, watching the last of the recruits streaming out of the bedroom.

"No, I didn't mean that. I meant what the hell is going on? It started off bad enough, but Aster, it's getting worse. It's like—" He stopped to swallow his tumbling words. "It's like he'd kill you if he got the chance, mate. Wh-what'd you do to him?"

"I didn't do anything," she snapped, whirling around and instantly regretting it as her head spun. She pushed her fingers to her eyes and regained her balance. "Even you don't trust me anymore?"

He squinted at her. "Of course I trust you. But something isn't right. This isn't some dumb rivalry anymore."

"I'm gonna get to the bottom of this, Rex."

His lips drew into a thin line. "I know you will. You're gonna have to be a bit careful about it, though. He…he's…"

His eyes pulled to the shallow pool of water from where he'd picked up her limp body. A pinkish stream of blood pulled from it, like the tide pulling oil across the shore. Aster touched her upper lip and her fingers came away with the same.

He's angry, twice her size, and thirsty for her pain, was what Aster figured he meant. Murderous was what she thought.

He's out to get you, and he's not going to stop.

"Yeah. I know," she finally said.

Aster got the lesser punishment.

It seemed like a bad joke that she was facing punishment at all; the only thing she did was get wailed on. But the military is the military, and a fight is a fight.

Newberry all but disappeared. Didn't know where he was or what he was doing, and her head hurt too much to bother thinking about it.

Once more, only that which was bolted remained in place. That was her discipline—tidy up. Again. The old military favourite. But it felt like, just maybe, the DI pitied her and let her go with a gentle punishment for her crime. But then again, the pain in her skull was blistering and sleep-deprivation needled into the spaces between her ribs, so maybe her judgment wasn't at its strongest.

The cabinets stood gutted, their contents dropped in piles unceremoniously, with utter disregard for any man's possessions. His clothes, his bedding, his personal effects.

She started with the uniforms, easy enough. The methodic, repetitive shaking out, folding and stacking in each cabinet until each was identical was somewhat cathartic. At home, her bedroom carpet was lost beneath her clothes wherever she shed them, but somehow the organising the clothing of twenty men helped her compartmentalise her thoughts and settle a scattered brain.

It is hard not to snoop when someone's belongings are strewn before you. Necklaces, rings, a compass, lockets—even a twist of hair in a small metal box labelled 'first curl'. A view through the keyhole into the secrets and lives of her comrades. The hardest not to look at were the photographs.

She found herself smiling as she held a picture of what was an even younger, even smaller Sparrow, standing between those who must be his parents in ghastly matching sweaters. But Sparrow—Archie—looked happy, clinging to a certificate of some kind, and it radiated from the image. Aster pinned in on the inside of his locker door with a yellow magnet.

She noted Rex, who she was perhaps secretly looking forward to learning more about, had brought nothing with him at all. No pictures, no possessions. Only a couple of plain t-shirts and pants.

Somewhat disappointed, she moved onto her own space—second to last. The third time, this was, that she was forced to clear her emptied things. A familiar light and silky dress brushed her fingertips as she took it from the floor and hung it up gently. Maybe she'd wear it to the pass out ceremony. Maybe not. Maybe she'd wear it to the next SOLDIER inauguration, hopefully as a newly instated member of the Turks. A survivor. And there, she could reveal her whole truth to Zack. She could stand before him in the very same dress of their date, reminding him that she was the very same person.

But was she?

She worked on autopilot until the room was spotless save for the floating dust that caught the light and the blemish that was the only untidied bed—deliberately left until last. To root through his things would be to humanise him. It is so much easier to hate someone when you cannot contemplate how similar they are to you. Maybe that was their biggest issue. Similarities masked as differences.

A few photographs caught and burned her eyes. She looked away as if they'd tell Newberry she'd been snooping, pinned them up inside his cabinet as gently as she had anyone else's, then cracked her knuckles to assuage the desire to tear them into shreds. But there was one that clung to her. It slipped from the magnet and drifted onto his bed like it begged to be seen.

Closed eyes, laughter, and sun-dappled skin. A girl with dark brown hair and olive skin, freckles scattered over her nose. Dimples either side of her white smile.

A sister? A girlfriend? Maybe even Jack Newberry was capable of love.

The other side of the photograph read one word, in thin, evenly-squared letters: Hina. Aster put it back and closed the door, but the smile of the stranger stayed in her mind.

A sigh pulled from deep within her. The punishment was over. Ready to grab a nap before lunch, she reached to straighten Newberry's spare boots, to place them at the end of his bed in line with everyone else's. But something stopped her.

Her finger brushed a snag of torn stitching in the lining of his shoe. Barely wider than an inch. It was so faint, so well done, that she had to push her finger into it to be sure. Slipped straight into the padding. And something grazed her fingertip.

Her eyes widened. She worked out the card-like square. Dark and worn.

"What the hell?" she murmured, unfolding the carefully scored paper.

She had seen it before. Back when she had first caused the DIs to gut the room. When she had dived into a pile of clothes to grab her blood-soiled clothes and hidden survival knife, Newberry—whose name she did not know at the time—had snatched this. Definitely. Some kind of flyer. Slightly glossy paper, deep purple-black. Writing in white.

The end is in sight. May 8. S6, SW 209.

Aster's mouth went dry. Why bother hiding something unless you don't want it to be found?

Voices echoed down the hall. She ravelled the flyer back into its previous shape, fold lines weak and white after repetitive, almost obsessive opening and closing, and shoved it deep back into the open stitching.

She set them at the foot of his bed and returned to her own bedside, pushing her hand to her seemingly permanent migraine. The pulsing of her blood was a hammer to a bruise.

The door slid open, and the voices petered out like a boil to a simmer. Aster met none of the eyes on her, whether they held contempt or pity, and simply placed her helmet over her head and laid to rest on her damning military cot. Her bones melded to the frame. Exhaustion weighed heavily.

Newberry did not return to the barracks.

She knew this because her twenty-minute nap came and went without sleep, and because Huntington and Barnhill had big mouths.

"Heard he got hard labour without trial," Huntington said. His voice was low but somewhat nasal. Like a horn, it could not be silenced.

"Shit. Where'd you hear that?"

"Heard the DI shouting at him. He almost got recycled."

"Shit," said Barnhill again. "Back how far?"

"Beginning of Phase Three."

"Holy—that's three whole weeks. All because he—"

Aster stopped listening. All because he what? Because all he did was launch an attack on a fellow cadet? A planned attack. He locked her in the showers. He made the floor unnaturally slippery by leaving other showers to run on hot. Made it easier to get her down. Then, he waited for her. A trap.

Yeah, such a petty crime. Gaia forbid he be sent back to repeat Phase Three after knocking out a fellow recruit. Heat surged through her body.

He. Him.

What was he, some kind of god? Placed on a pedestal and revered? Were they afraid to say his name?

Jack Newberry. And Aster Doe would never bow to him, and by Goddess was she going to get to the bottom of the silk of secrets in which he cocooned himself.

She grabbed her PHS from the bedside table and wrote a note to herself,

The end is in sight. May 8. S6, SW 209, and launched the phone into the drawer with a clatter.

Yes, the end was in sight.

Days stretched longer. Weeks. Wake to a bludgeon in the gut and fall at the release of the night. Aster spent every moment she could ease free from Shinra's clutches with Zack.

The Mako in his system had fixed his fractured ribs, yet still, an ache in his chest kept him up at night. But for Aster, it was nightmares. Genetically modified insects crawling under her skin and black ooze pouring from her tear ducts. Anti-SOLDIER units ravaging Seventh Heaven. Bandersnatches, blood in the snow. Dead infantrymen. Then, the threat in the very room she attempted to sleep.

The DI referred her to the doctor's office for a prescription to aid her. The pills worked, knocked her out, but Tseng had to hit her harder in the mornings to wake her.

But no pills stopped those nightmares. No pills woke her from the feeling of hands wrapping around her throat and lifting her from her bed—because she wasn't dreaming. Tears streamed down Jack Newberry's face, caught in the red light of the sealed door.

She would choke, she would splutter, if not for the fabric shoved deep into her mouth. She hung from his hands, her own dangling against her bed. The room was dark, but not so as the real darkness pulling her. It dragged her someplace like home. Somewhere like sleep.

Until fear lit her up. All cylinders fired at once, panic, defence, and self-preservation. She stayed limp, then smashed her knee up into his crotch.

He couldn't scream. Could only stagger back and bite his wrist until his teeth pierced his skin and blood spilt over his lips to transfer the pain because anything else would wake witnesses. Give him away.

She hit the bed when he let her go. After ripping the socks shoved in her airways, she gasped for life. It seared. Tears stained her cheeks as she clung to her throat and staggered to her feet.

"Newberry," she croaked, but it wasn't worth the pain. She grabbed a pair of pants from her locker, threw them on and bolted through the door, leaving Newberry rolling on the floor, stricken by his own grief.

When it gets so bad that you fear for your life, get out, Tifa had warned in fewer words.

There was only one place where she knew safety to dwell.

She ran through the compound beyond the infantry courtyard and towards the Residentials. The fresh night air lost against the burning of her skin. She was running, but couldn't breathe. His hands may well have still been around her throat.

By the time she reached his door, she couldn't pant for the pain but her breath rasped on anyway. The agony of a circular saw grinding through her flesh from the inside out. Composure was long gone, and she rapped her knuckles against Zack's door in a panic.

It was three in the morning. He wouldn't be awake.

But he answered the door with sleep heavy on his eyelids and hair stuck at odds. "Aster?" Fear lit him up, too. "Aster—are you alright?"

She stumbled into the threshold of safety, into his arms, against his chest. A cry lurched from deep inside her, and her shoulders shook, and it all became too much to take.

He held her firmly and closed the door, but the hoarseness of her breathing must have destabilised him. He gently peeled her away from his body.

And he became utterly rigid. "Who did this to you?"

Her neck had swelled and deep bruising surfaced from beneath her pale skin. Crescent moon gouges pricked with blood, punctured by fingernails. Her lips were as dark as if she'd painted them in blood. Eyes bloodshot. Trembling.

"I c-can't," she began, voice like crumbling rocks from a cliff, "do this, anymore."

"Do what? You don't have to do anything, you're safe now, I promise," he said, and brought her head back into his chest. "I've got you."

His chest was warm against her cheek, unbearably so, in a way that overwhelmed her. But it was pulled away too soon when he brought her to another room and helped her sit down. It was only when he let go of her hand to rummage in a drawer that she realised she was amongst his sheets on his bed, with his pillows behind her back and head.

"Here," he said, sitting next to her knee and twisting the steel cap off a vial of what she knew to be a potent healing item. Frosted on the glass was the Shinra logo. "I know it'll hurt to swallow, but it'll help."

Aster couldn't help but worry. Not for the pain or the potion, but for the fact that in Zack's line of work, he was put under strain so frequently to such extent that he kept some of the most potent medicines Shinra could supply in his bedside table like anyone else might keep paracetamol. And the thought made her throat tighten, and the agony even worse.

So she took the bottle from him and tipped the liquid into her mouth. It fizzed as though it were carbonated, burned like neat whisky, and spread through her neck-like hot, sweaty hands.

Zack took the canister from a limp hand when it fell into her thigh. When the panic subsided and adrenaline evaporated from the skin, Aster lost every battle to the exhaustion that threatened her. Even keeping her eyes open became difficult. When Zack's thumb brushed against her temple, it became impossible.

"Rest up," he said. "We can talk about it tomorrow."

The room was lit but the window was dark. It took a moment to register that the light was artificial-a warm yellow glow emanated from a bedside lamp that hardly reached the four walls. It had probably been on all night. Aster could tell because it was hot.

The sheets that pulled her in weren't her own. Not the haggard green blanket she slept under in the cold, hard barracks. There was a soft, charcoal grey comforter with white pillows of cotton that breathed a quiet sigh when she sat up. They didn't crunch like plastic as hers did.

Zack wasn't here. Not in the bed anyway. In all her confusion, the feeling of safety never left her, because she could smell him on the sheets: fresh air, sand, and something like patchouli.

She could make some sense of her surroundings, like how the left side of his bed was perfectly made, besides a few creases near the edge. Like it had never been slept in. Probably hadn't. Not for a while anyway. The bedside table to the left had nothing on it, so it made sense that she was sleeping exactly where he usually would, closest to the lamp, the drawer, and closest to the door. Closest to escape? No, he probably wasn't as paranoid as she was.

Then, he walked in.

He was dressed, wearing his full uniform and sword on his back. He hesitated, clearly not having expected her to be awake yet. After all, the sun had not risen.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. He set his sword against the wall and it flashed in the low light.

"B—"She tripped over her aching throat. Words were harder to shape than she anticipated. "Better, thanks. W-where did you sleep?"

He pointed to the floor, just beyond the creases in the sheets. "Your breathing was raspy all night. I didn't wanna leave in case you choked" —he blanched, and his voice fell— "again."

"But this is your bed."

He shrugged. "You needed it more than I did."

"I…" Her voice croaked, so she rubbed her neck. That just made it worse. "I guess that's not what I meant."

He knelt beside her and ran his fingers over the swelling of her throat. It wasn't as bad as it could've been. Like the assailant had had second thoughts. "Goddess. What happened, Aster?"

She slipped her legs out of bed and pressed her hands to her eyes. At some point in the night, she removed the jeans she arrived in, coated in sweat by the heat of a spring Midgar night. So unlike the nights in the north. She hoped his eyes wouldn't wander and stick to the bruise on her thigh from Rex's boot in training a few days prior, but remembered herself. A bruised thigh was nothing on her red and blue throat.

But his fingers did trail against her injured skin. A hand on her neck, a hand on her thigh. She swallowed. It ached.

"Do you know who it was? Who did this to you?"

Her lip quivered. The truth gave away too much. Neither could she bring herself to lie. "I-I can't…"

Zack was quiet for a moment, like her reluctance told him everything he needed to understand. "It was someone you know," he said. His fingers curled into his palm atop of her leg. She didn't breathe a word.

The sound of a heavy fist pounded at the door and broke the immediate tension. Zack swore under his breath. For a moment, he looked to ignore it. Until a voice barked his name.

Aster glanced at the time, 7:23, stamped in red across an old digital clock with worn buttons across the top where Zack had smacked it too many times. The screen was cracked across the seven where he had perhaps once knocked it off the side, or hit it far too hard. "You're late," she croaked shortly, because more words meant more pain.

"Just a sec," he said, and left the bedroom.

Every word drifted through the door left ajar.

"Zack—for Gaia's sake, answer your goddamn PHS once in a while." The voice, deep and rich—and right now, positively reverberating—could only belong to one man. Angeal Hewley, SOLDIER First Class, and although he had little professional bearing on Zack's attitude and conduct by virtue of equal rank, he held a powerful sway over the younger man, residual of the days he was his mentor.

"Sorry, something came up."

"Yes, something came up," Angeal said close to snapping. "One of the cadets is missing."

Aster tensed like his words were physical and flew for her face. She pulled on her jeans.

"One of mine?" Zack asked.

"No, mine. The girl. She did not report to the Turks this morning, and the DI hasn't seen her since late last night."

Aster sucked a breath through her nose and her heart drummed against her ribs. Would he, a man who owed her nothing and knew her nought, honour a promise he had no reason to keep?

I won't tell Zack. Not while it is none of my business.

"Tseng and Reno are currently looking for her. I thought I'd ask—"he hesitated "—if you had seen her."

She slipped through the door, staring at her feet. As Zack told him he hadn't seen her. Why would he have seen her?

Then Aster looked up at Angeal and his brow creased deeply in discontent until his eyes could recognise that that was no dark shadow cast over her neck.

"What on earth," was all he managed.

She sheepishly lifted her hand to cover her throat.

Eventually, Angeal cut through the slick. The bruising that wrapped Aster's neck like a noose went unaddressed. But if it was a noose, it was in Angeal's hand, and it was his decision whether to kick out the life-preserving stool beneath her feet.

He made his decision. He said, "Well. If you see her, ensure that she attends combat training. Without good reason, she will be punished." His eyes flicked to Aster's. "I'm sure she has good reason."

She only looked away. He continued, "As for you, Zack, we've mission plans to finalise, and you're over an hour behind schedule. Hurry up. Where's your sword?"

"Shit," he muttered. Of course, Angeal was never caught more than a three-foot radius from his sword and expected all SOLDIER members and certainly his former mentee to maintain the same standard.

When he ducked back into the bedroom, Angeal leaned towards Aster with severity etched into the lines of his face. "These lies must stop. Report to Tseng at your earliest opportunity."

"Yes, sir," she breathed.

"I will not cover for you again."

"Understood, sir," she said, then lightly shook her head with defeat sitting on her shoulders. "You won't have to, sir."

"Good."

Zack returned and holstered his sword across his back. Angeal turned to him. "Meet me in the usual briefing room in thirty minutes. Lazard will not be kept waiting."

"Yeah, you got it, 'Geal," he said, but lacked the carefree and careless tone he was known for.

The front door closed on him and quiet took hold for a beat. Zack said, "I'm sorry."

Aster spoke her bravest against the ache. "You shouldn't be. You've already done so much for me."

He shook his head. "This mission plan, the actual mission is scheduled for this weekend. I'll be away for about four days. What if this happens again?"

"It won't."

"How are you so sure?"

"I—I do know who did it. You were right. And I know it won't happen again." She fought the urge to cough when her voice scratched her mouth like she'd swallowed a box of pins.

Zack placed his hand where Newberry's had been the night before and smoothed it over her inflamed skin. The same place, an entirely different touch. She didn't flinch. "What the hell happened, Aster?"

She took his wrist in her hands. "When you come back, I'll tell you everything.

I promise."