The Caged Birds

The Caged Birds

"Have some sympathy fuh me. Put me down easy, Janie, Ah'm a cracked plate."

-- Old Nanny

from Their Eyes Were Watching God

by Zora Neale Hurston

"We're lost in here."

"I know."

It was always nighttime in the corridor. It was a place as sleepless as the diseased city of Midgar, for none of the inhabitants of the cells ever slept – they weren't deemed worthy of sleep. And even if they were, they wouldn't have gone to rest for any temporary period. No, if someone went to sleep in one of the cells, it was the eternally blissful release of death that they dove headfirst into. The torture, pain-wracked, diseased souls would allow their owners no other type of release.

"All we are is a bunch of cracked plates. Our pieces can never be put back together again."

"Yeah, I know."

The stench of bitterness hung so thickly in the air that it could have been cut with a knife. It burned the lungs of the other inhabitants and poisoned their systems, sometimes infecting them with the disease that plagued their cellmates, but only sometimes. Sometimes they choked to death on the rancid emotions that their companions emanated. And so would end the short life of another nameless prisoner.

"We've gotta get outta here, you know."

"You like to try, hon?"

"Baby Girl got out…"

"She needed to get out."

But not all the prisoners in the corridor of cells were nameless. In fact, most of the trapped ones had been born with names, titles bestowed upon them by parents that were sometimes loving and sometimes indifferent. But names didn't matter in this place – all that mattered was one's usefulness with the time for choosing came. If you weren't any good, you were "scrapped."

"We need to get out of here, too…or I'm gonna go insane."

And no one wanted to be scrapped, so they focused all their attentions on making themselves appear to be the best, the strongest, the most healthy, the most spirited, anything to avoid a certain doom. And in doing so…names were forgotten.

"Baby Girl will come back for us."

But there were some who refused to forget their names, refused to forget their hearts and their spirits. Such creatures were considered dangerous, and so they were kept separated where the other caged birds were not subjected to their aroma of prospective liberation. They were kept in the darkest, farthest, most treacherous part of the corridor.

"I…hope so. No! I don't hope, I know she will return, won't she…Serena?"

The key to their cell was only given to a select few because they were beguiling and tricky. There were three in the beginning. One was smooth-talking and dangerously strong, another knowledgeable and unbelievably shrewd, and the third was just the silent one, the mystery of the corridor.

"It's okay to wish for her return, Blue Eyes, but don't call her here with yer heart now, honey. She needs her freedom."

Yes, there had been three in the beginning, but now there were only two. The silent one had flown long ago.

* * * * * * * * *

"We all need freedom," the blue-eyed man said as he peered through the bars of their cell, his gloved hands gripping the slimy metal columns numbly as if one day he would suddenly acquire the strength to rip down the bars and take off to the sky once again. But such strength was only a fleeting memory to him – memories of time when he had been in SOLDIER, a man of some importance, he believed. But he didn't like to remember those times because attached with those memories was a man, an evil man. This man had flowing gray hair and eyes of cold blue-green fire and a heart of ice. This man was named Sephiroth, and he was the Great Destroyer. But he was dead now, thank the heartless gods that had dished out such a cruel fate for the blue-eyed man and his cellmate.

"Don't you start slippin' on me now, Blue Eyes," she warned, staring at the strong outline of her companion's back from her seat against the far wall. "You stay right here with me now, you hear?"

The man blinked his Mako blue eyes slowly, lowering his dark head so that some of the wild spikes fell against his face. "Yeah, Serena," he said quietly, his voice sounding naked and lonely. "I understand."

"Somethin' tells me that you don't, Zack," the woman named Serena replied shrewdly. She had long ago acquired the ability to judge her cellmate's moods with lazy ease. Most of it was due to her affection for the dark-haired man, but she had always been adept at such things, even with perfect strangers. It was in her blood.

"You're right," Zack replied, shaking his spiky head and pressing his forehead dismally against the rusted surface of the door. "I don't understand at all, and I just don't care anymore. I just wanna get outta here. It's been so long…"

Sympathy burned in Serena's pale green eyes as she drew her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them, trying to ignore the fact that her jeans were in tatters due to the rough life she had been forced to live for – lord, how long had it been since she and her family were captured and forced underground by men whose faces she was no longer allowed to remember? It seemed like ages ago, but she knew that in all reality, she had been down here for only two years, tops. Most humans had no perception of how time passed underground, but Serena did. Her heart, not her eyes or her mind, told her when the sun had risen over the kingdom of the earth and when the moon reigned supreme over the living night. She alone amongst the prisoners experienced the passage of time, and she was starting to think that she was the only one who even cared any longer.

"Zack," she called to her cellmate, voice teeming with gentle authority that Zack, despite his rebellious spirit, always seemed to pay heed to more than the sometimes harsh, sometimes cold, voices of the guards who oversaw them.

Her companion turned so that his profile was silhouetted against the light seeping in from the dimly lit hallway. "Hm?" he mumbled, not even moving his lips. A strand of unruly black hair flopped against his face, and he lifted a gloved hand to absently brush it away.

"Come sit over here with ol' Serena," the woman urged congenially, smiling a little.

Zack hesitated, and for a moment, she thought he was going to remain staring dismally out into the untouchable hallway. But then he heaved a sigh and began to trudge over to where she was seated against the wall.

"You're not old, Serena," he told her half-heartedly, all the laughter having been leeched out of his voice a long time ago. It was such a pity, too, since Zack had always been one who was ready to laugh for just about any reason. Now, he didn't even smile…

"How do you know I ain't old?" Serena teased him gently as he settled his warm body next to hers against the wall, his pale, muscled shoulder brushing hers gently. "I could be an old grandma, and you'd never know, honey."

A bit of weary humor flashed in Zack's luminescent blue eyes as he stared at her. "Babe, you sure as hell don't look like no grandma I ever seen. How old do you think you are anyways?"

Serena smiled, white teeth flashing in the darkness. "Honey, I know I'm twenty-two years old as of February 21."

Zack leaned his head back against the stone wall, a frown tugging at the corners of his mouth as the look in his eyes became misted and pensive. "I wonder how old I am?" he said softly, voice just loud enough to disperse itself into the darkness of the cell.

The dark-skinned woman patted him on the knee, feeling the worn, purple material beneath her fingers like the will of a warrior stretched thin by pain and strife. "You young and handsome, Zack," she told him softly, studying his profile with its pale skin and striking blue eyes.

"I think I was sixteen when I was brought down here," he continued, staring at the barred window on the door, as if beyond that, there lie the answer to every question he had. "And if I've been down here longer than you have, and you've been down here two years at least, then that must make me older than eighteen…" He suddenly turned to her and declared, "Hey! I'm a legal adult!"

She laughed softly, reminded of just why her affection for this man was so immense. Perhaps too immense. She was starting to think that maybe she was falling in love with him.

Zack suddenly leapt up from his position against the wall and started pacing the small cell like he always did when he got worked up about something. He was probably going to start wearing tracks into the rock floor.

"You know," he said earnestly as Serena tracked the movements of his shadowy figure in the darkness. "If I knew how old Cloud was, then I would know how old I was! Cloud was my best friend back in my old Shinra days, and we had the same birthday, too!" Blue eyes suddenly fastened on her. "Isn't that the freakiest thing?" he asked.

Serena smiled up at him. "That ain't no freaky thing, Zack. That is the Wheel of Fate spinning for you and yer friend."

"I wonder how Cloud is doing right now," Zack said, more to himself than to her. He suddenly began to do some sort of exercises, bending his knees and pumping his arms in sync with some military workout rhythm of his past. Serena often found that he did these sorts of things without even knowing he was doing them. Her heart ached for him: this young, passionate man torn from his life at such an early age and imprisoned down here like a rare item being kept under lock and key. She knew that no matter how much she tried to soothe him with her presence and her words, Zack was mostly left to deal with the phantoms of his past all by himself. She heard him mutter strange names while he slept; the mysterious "Cloud" was practically an old friend of hers.

She only hoped that her baby girl would be able to find this long lost friend of Zack's.

"Wonder if Baby Girl has found Cloud yet?" Zack suddenly asked, as if reading her mind, something that seemed to happen quite often, in fact.

"She'll find him, believe you me," Serena assured him firmly, folding her arms across her chest with absolute finality. "She won't stop until she does."

"I worry about her, though," Zack muttered as he walked back up to the barred window and wrapped his hands around the bars. No matter how long he paced, he always returned to that accursed window, staring out into the unattainable hallway beyond, so close yet so far from some semblance of freedom.

"I worry too," Serena told him calmly. "But she'll make it. We taught our baby girl well."

Zack suddenly laughed softly, a sound she hadn't heard in what seemed like forever. He whirled around and leaned casually against the rusted door, a coyness rising in his eyes that Serena had never seen before. A small smile played on his lips.

"'Our' baby girl?" Zack quoted in amusement, blue eyes glittering affectionately at her. "I guess that makes us husband and wife or something?" He smiled at her.

Serena dismissed this bit of silliness with a wave of her hand, trying not to think of how that brilliant smile had made her heart skip a beat like a lovesick little schoolgirl.

"Think whatever you want, Blue Eyes," she told him with an indulgent grin. "But you get one thing straight: Serena Mayfair don't answer to no man."

Zack rolled his blue eyes. "I don't doubt that for one minute, and you done gone and drilled that into Baby Girl's head. No man is gonna want to get near her on the streets." He suddenly paused and murmured, "Baby Girl… You know, Serena, we should have given her a name or something."

Serena shrugged. "No matter what she calls herself, she always be my baby girl."

Zack looked at her thoughtfully. "You'll make a good mother one day, Serena."

"I just hope I'm gonna get the opportunity to be a mama," she replied, basking on the warmth of the rare compliment. "I got a feeling our days are limited, Blue Eyes. When they find out that Baby Girl is gone…"

"It's the torture room for us," Zack replied with stinging bitterness, spitting these harsh words at the darkness rather than at his companion. "They'll try and make us tell them everything, but I ain't gonna do it, Serena. I'd rather them kill me and put an end to this misery than tell them where Baby Girl went."

"There ain't much we can tell them anyways," Serena added, tugging on one of her dark, spiraling curls thoughtfully. "All we know is that she went topside and she's going to look for your friend."

"I wish I could of gone with her," Zack said, the pain evident in his voice. "Someone has to take care of her. She ain't never seen the world outside of this goddamn cell. She needs someone to guide her!" Something cracked in his voice, and he suddenly whirled around and sent a punch flying at the cell's door, gloved fist striking the metal with a loud bang and creating echoes that sang melancholy arias all the way down the hall.

"I'm not supposed to be down here," Zack seethed, his voice strained and his entire body trembling. "It feels like I've been down here my entire fucking life! I want…I want to be free, Serena!"

Serena rose quickly to her bare feet when she realized that Zack was about to go into one of his rages again.

I have to stop him before he ends up screaming so loud that he brings the guards…

She was just opening her mouth to try and calm him down when he suddenly grabbed the bars of the window with his strong hands and shook them violently, trying to dislodge them, something that he had done a million times before. And like the million times before, the bars refused to budge.

"You can't keep me down here forever!!!" he raged, talking to his unseen captors. "I ain't gonna stay locked up in here like a goddamn animal for much longer!!!"

"Zack," Serena said softly, her heart aching for him as she crossed the small cell in two steps and reached to place her slender hands on his trembling back. "Blue Eyes, come on. You just calm yourself down."

"I need to be free!" he exclaimed, but almost all the rage was gone from his voice. He sounded like nothing more than a panicked child now. "God…I just wanna be free…"

"Oh, Zack," Serena whispered, feeling her heart breaking at the utter defeat she sensed was threatening to claim him. Tears stung her eyes as she slipped her arms around his waist from behind, feeling the strong muscles of his belly trembling underneath her touch. She pressed her face into the area between his shoulder blades and heard the steady pounding of his youthful heart racing underneath the thin fabric of his purple uniform.

"I'm gonna die in here," Zack whispered forlornly as he laid his head against the callous bars of the window with a loud thud. "We're all gonna die in here…"

Serena felt these grim words fill the air like the rancid odor of a thing long dead and already decaying. For all her strength and wisdom, she could find no heartfelt phrase or verbal expression that would ease her companion's pain. She could find nothing, nothing at all. Words meant nothing to Zack; he was a man of action. Not for the first time, she wondered what kind of man he was before he was imprisoned down here, a caged bird robbed of its voice that could only watch in horror as the remnants of its hopeful song dissipated into the hungry darkness.

He's right, she realized. He was never meant to be down here. He'll die if he stays down here much longer.

"Zack," she heard herself whisper, like the breath of spring trying to drive away the winter. "My Zack. Is there nothing more I can do for you, Blue Eyes?"

"Escape with me," he murmured, voice barley audible. "When the time comes, escape with me. I'm not going to leave without you, Serena."

A tear rolled out of one of her eyes, but in spite of herself, Serena smiled. "Sure thing, Zack," she told him firmly, tightening her grip on him. "You couldn't get rid of me even in you wanted to, Blue Eyes. We gonna get outta here one day, Zack. One day."

"One day," Zack whispered softly, those two words hanging in the air before the hungry darkness swallowed them up.

* * * * * * * * * *

Reno took another drag of his cigarette and let his head droop back against the back of the chair. He held the smoke in his mouth for a few seconds before expelling the hazy poison into the air of the living room in one rank cloud that drifted up towards the ceiling before it was lost in the darkness.

Yawning sleepily, Reno stretched his arms over his head and arched his back to ease his strained muscles before letting his gaze drift to the figure of the girl named Rena, who was sleeping on the couch across the room from him.

Though Reno had thought that their whole introductory process in the kitchen earlier in the night would have made Rena trust him a little more, he soon learned that the little bit of familiarity they were starting to feel towards each other was not enough to dislodge her distrust of what seemed to be everything in the goddamn world.

He had spent half of the night trying to get her to change out of her "borrowed" clothes and into one of his shirts and on old pair of his pants. God, he swore that Rena had the tenacity of a grumpy mule. She had steadfastly refused the clothes he offered her, insisting again and again that what she had on was fine. He told her she looked like a "skanky slut" and quickly learned that such biting phrases had absolutely no effect on her. Every insult he threw at her, she either ignored or caught and flung it back at him. She had responded to his less-than-cordial description of her attire with, "Yeah, and look who picked up a skanky slut and brought her home."

Women, Reno thought grumpily as he recalled how he had been at a loss for words after that sharp retort. I don't know why I freaking bother with the lot of them.

In the end, Reno didn't know how he had done it, but he had finally convinced her to change into the clothes he offered her. Of course, they were way too big on her slender frame even though Reno was by no means a big tub of lard. The white dress shirt gaped open at the collar and showed a section of her stomach since Reno had accidentally gotten the bottom of it caught in his car door and all the buttons except for two had popped off. The pants were also too wide for her way-too-slender waist, and Reno had spent precious minutes searching for a belt before giving up in frustration and taking the belt off of his own pants for her to use.

By then, he had been utterly and completely exhausted. Between arguing with Rena every five seconds and his previous battle with the Stalker, the night's adventures had been way too much for him.

Your skills are deteriorating, Sasuki, he told himself as he took another drag of his cigarette. First you can't even take care of one freak in a trench coat, and now you pick up a girl who's a handful, even for you.

But in spite of his sour feelings, Reno allowed himself a small smile when he remembered how he had insisted that he would sleep on the couch while Rena slept in his room. She, of course, had been violently opposed to this (probably just because he suggested it) and had plopped herself down on the couch before he could do or say anything. More problems had arisen when Reno had sat down in the chair across the room to smoke a cigarette. Rena hadn't said anything, but she had glared at him relentlessly for what had to be fifteen minutes, apparently trying to give him the Evil Eye and make him drop his cigarette or something.

Fortunately, Reno had only burned his goddamn hand when the cigarette fell out of his mouth just as he was starting to ask Rena what the hell she was staring at. As he cursed in pain, Rena, clearly satisfied that he had gotten his just desserts, rolled over calmly and, for all appearances, went to sleep, leaving a pissed-off Reno to smoke his cigarette alone in the dark.

Now that cigarette was nearing the end of its short lifespan as Reno took a final drag and snuffed out the butt in the overflowing ashtray on the windowsill behind him. The moonlight streaming in from the window behind him was blotted out by his slender figure as he rose to his feet, wincing at the ache in his limbs as he did so. Feeling ten years older than he really was, Reno crossed the night-darkened living room to where Rena was sleeping on the couch.

A strange emotion washed over Reno as he stood there, throwing his monstrous shadow over her sleeping figure. In the realm of the unconscious, Rena looked a lot younger than he had first assumed. He thought her to be anywhere from eighteen to twenty, but looking at her now, he realized that she might actually be a lot younger, maybe the same age as that brat on Cloud's team, Tuffie or Buffy or something like that. Rena's shrewd golden eyes and her formal, rigid way of speaking were what probably made her seem older then she actually was.

Sleep, however, had hidden the fire of those golden eyes and washed away all the mannerisms that Rena employed in her waking hours. She was lying on her side on the sagging couch, her face turned into the back of it with her legs half drawn up to her chest. Her hair was spread out behind her in a waterfall of dark fire that flowed over the edge of the couch and almost touched the floor. Her long dark eyelashes fluttered slightly, and Reno wondered what she was dreaming of.

"Always has to be the prettiest ones," he muttered under his breath before giving Rena's sleeping form one last glance and leaving her to slumber alone in the dark living room in a pool of cold moonlight.

In his dark, cramped room, Reno collapsed on his bed with a sigh, the bedsprings violently protesting the sudden change in weight. Not even caring that he was still in his clothes, Reno just lie there in the darkness, listening to sounds of his own breathing like he always did when he was sober enough to do so. In fact, tonight was one of the first nights in a long time that he wasn't drunk off his ass. And being that his mind was somewhat coherent, thoughts began running their courses through his head as his body started the process of shutting down.

Damn car is broken…have to call Rude in the morning…did I lock the front door…feel a draft on my toes…that damn hole in my sock…wonder what Strife and his crew are doing now…gotta shower in the morning…damn, didn't eat supper…note to self: bum breakfast off Rude tomorrow…wonder if Rena will try to escape during the night…better not…I'll probably know if she does try to do it, anyways…she's so pretty…

Reno's last thoughts before his consciousness faded were of Rena's slender figure lying on his ratty old couch like a goddess from another time, bathed in moonlight and wearing his clothes. Then he was gone into the abyss of dream, and he knew nothing else.

* * * * * * * * *

"I see," Reeve said as calmly as he could manage, but he still couldn't conceal some of the worry in his voice. He was just glad that the man on the other end of the phone couldn't see the rising tide of fear in his eyes or hear the ever-increasing pounding of his heart in his chest.

Not that the man would have noticed; he was too busy being terrified himself.

"Sir," Reeve urged with a practiced mixture of firmness and gentleness. "Calm down. I'm going to get on this as soon as possible. You say the last place they struck was in the hill country above Kalm?…I see…alright…Everything was destroyed? Are you sure there were no survivors left?…Oh! Sir, I'm sorry! You're the only survivor, then?…Okay…How many of them were there?…Four?…Five?…It's alright, sir. I'm sure it was a very traumatic experience for you. You just stay right where you are in Kalm, where it's safe…No, I'm not going to let them destroy Kalm…Yes, I have some people in mind who can do something about this…You're welcome, sir. Take care now."

Reeve tried not to notice the trembling in his hand as he resettled the plastic phone on its cradle with a click that resounded through his empty office in Midgar. He rubbed his face with his hands, fingers grazing his beard and producing buzzing noises as he did so. He was worried, very worried. The harsh ceiling lights in his office seemed to beat down on the top of his dark head, and he could feel the beginnings of a headache starting to pound at his temples with a fervor that rivaled the throbbing of his worried heart in his chest. It was usually at times like this that he finally knuckled under the pressure of a hard workday and went home for the evening.

But not tonight. He had a feeling that he wouldn't be getting any sleep for a while…

Instead of getting up, turning off the lights, and grabbing his coat, Reeve remained seated in his swivel chair behind his desk and reached for his phone again. Quickly, he dialed a number that he had long ago committed to memory.

A sleepy voice picked up on the other end.

"Tifa?" Reeve asked. "Yes, it's Reeve. I'm sorry to have woken you…Could you put Cloud on the line, please?…Yeah, we've got problems…"