Disclaimer: I don't own, not making any money, you won't get much if you
sue me. Nothing actually, so don't bother.
/.../ - italics //...// - thoughts *...* - mindspeech/telepathy "..." - speech (duh) ----------------- - Scene change, flashback, dreaming (it's a multi- purpose stream of dashes)
Xehorista Tora
By Asprosdracos
------------------
"Under the stars each night, I wonder if stairs go there. And under the stars tonight I wonder if someone cares. I'm lonely that's the way I feel I can't feel no stairs.I'm only just a man of steel"
- "Man of Steel" Frank Black
------------------
The tide had gone out.
As the green waters faded, their swirling miasma inducing faint feelings of nausea even at this distance, Sephiroth turned to examine the reality that was now creating itself before him. It was a harsh reality, a world of sharp edged steel and glinting glass and metal.
It was a place he had been before.
He remembered this place, not fondly of course, but he remembered it nevertheless. It would be impossible to forget this, the block out the memory of soft edges and sharp glares.
Of emotionless eyes and cold fingers, no gloves. Never any gloves. Instead the hands burned white, only the faintest pink tinge to them. As a child, the pale color had always reminded him of his own skin and hair, and he hated those hands for the association they created in his mind.
He hated them for other things too. In fact, it was only when he was nine or ten that he had linked what the hands did, what the hands held and injected, to the person behind them. Before that, they had just been hands, hands that never stayed still and had the nervous habit of linking together in front of the whiteness.
Perhaps thinking of him had invoked him into the reality. Still, Sephiroth tensed as the white coated figure appeared, the greasy hair shining under the lights, the hands reflecting it off of pale, washed skin. Decaying hands with long, tapered fingers. They moved to link together in front of the lab coat, the small movement causing the light to scatter.
That was an interesting point. Sephiroth remembered seeing the room create itself as the green faded away, but he couldn't remember the lights showing up.
Nevertheless, there were lights, blinding and brilliant shades of white, the white of the lab coat, the white flare as the Professor's eyes began to move rapidly from one side to the other, and the faint white gleam of the scalpel, suddenly very close. As close as if he were right next to it, strapped down onto that table, a young boy again, defenseless, weak and afraid.
Seeing that scalpel descend in a time that was not now and a place that was not here, Sephiroth felt memory and awareness rush to him, and he woke up to meet a glare of light.
This light lacked the harsh ethereal quality of the previous one. Instead it was soft and natural. The sounds that filtered through were sparse - faint footfalls, the hum of electronics somewhere, and the small movements across the cold tile that translated themselves as sound.
//Cold tile? //
There was coldness in the lab, the coldness of the floor, and the table and restrainers and for one frozen second the world hung still and Sephiroth thought he was there again.
But there were people shouting; frantic, panicky voices that collided with each other constructively in the air, amplifying themselves. He had yet to move, and his ear could pick up the sensations of many hurried footfalls as people ran from place to place.
Hojo never allowed chaos like this in his lab. He scoffed at chaos, and was quick to fire many an intern who encouraged it. This, then, could not be his lab, and that was perhaps the first reassuring thought that came to Sephiroth since the start of this whole endeavor with the blond man and Zack.
Speaking of which, where was the SOLDIER? Zack had been with him, and wherever here was, it seemed to Sephiroth a fairly safe assumption that Zack was here too, as well as the blond haired man.
With that to drive him, Sephiroth slowly began to rise to his knees, using his left hand to support his weight until he could get his legs under him. Groggily, trying to orient himself despite the spinning sensation in his head that was only beginning to die down, his body protesting the change in posture and rise to the vertical, Sephiroth glanced about him.
It was a room that managed to look vaguely familiar and unlike anyplace he'd ever been, both at the same time. Sephiroth decided then and there that a half-realized feeling of deja-vu was decidedly uncomfortable and downright irritating.
It was populated with tile, harsh squares of black, white and the off green color that managed to come close to looking like something he'd dug out of Zack's locker once to embarrass him in front of the new group of cadets. Although in the end, Zack had gotten him back for that little stunt, and rather spectacularly so too, if he remembered correctly.-
The clicking sound of a gun safety released sounded throughout the room, echoing as it was repeated multiple times by the soldiers that were no doubt surrounding them. Sephiroth didn't have to lift his gaze from the tiles to realize that they were trained on him, the tense feeling in the air betraying the willingness of those present to shoot more than anything else.
Sound behind him, someone rising to his feet. There was no movement from the multiple personnel around him, their guns still trained on him.
//So.not a threat.the blond man? //
"Sir?"
For one frozen instant, he could almost think that they were addressing him, the careful respect and reservation so apparent in the tone, a tone he had heard so many times before, usually accompanied by a nervous hitch in the voices of new recruits, a shuffling of feet, a shifting of eyes.
It was strange beyond strange, watching a moment that he knew had happened before, just like this. Except he would not have been on the ground, on the cold tile, instead he would have been the one answering with authority that came with breathing, innate as living, as thinking -
"It's alright. At ease."
Discord now, the lack of harshness he would have expected from someone who commanded that much influence, that much power.
".Sir??" The questioning tone in the soldier's voice hang in the air, uneasy in a place it clearly didn't belong, doubting an absolute, doubting his absolute.
"I know, soldier. It's.not him. Neither of them. Just place them under security lock."
//Not him? Who is /him/? Which one of us did that refer to? //
"Yes Sir!"
Disoriented as Sephiroth was, the part of the conversation that involved being placed under security lock didn't register until the soldiers had already approached him, their guns trained to guide them both to the cells.
-----------
Cloud wasn't surprised that Zack approached him as soon as he left the room. Worry radiated from the cautious stance of the man and the tense muscles in his hands and face.
"Spike?" One word that was less a question than an invitation, a polite way to ask if he was alright.
"It's okay Zack. Really, I'm fine."
"Spike.do you really think you're fooling anyone? Especially me, of all people. I think I'm going to go be insulted now."
"Zack, I'm sorry." Cloud could do this, this was normal, expected, the usual business. Respond to Zack's banter, trying to hide how much he felt like collapsing where he stood.
"For what? Cloud.anyone would.I mean.argh.First things first, I guess. The bitch's status?"
"Jenova's dead. She wasn't expecting me to come after her." The tone that Cloud assumed was automatic, as was the hand that came up to rake through his bangs.
//There was so much though.so much I wasn't expecting. You again, me again.Him.//
If Zack noticed the small shudder, which he most likely did, he chose to avoid comment on it for Cloud's sake.
//Him.again and for the first time. //
Zack turned then, gaze and attention directed inward, to the problem at hand.
"We can't keep them both under lock and key for the entire war, Spike. I mean, even if word didn't get out to the higher powers, and even if that didn't set off a panic that I don't want to see, we can't keep them there."
"I know that, Zack. I know as well as you do that as soon as Reeve finds out about this - or any of the Turks, or Scarlet or God, or anyone - the Planet help us."
Zack didn't reply to that at first staring at Cloud, not wanting to accept how complicated there lives had both become, so much worse than before, when things had been bad enough.
//Never simple.it's never simple, never easy, never anything but real. //
"So there's only one alternative then."
"But we need precautions.I can't.I can't handle two of them, Zack. The forces we have can barely even handle one of them."
"I know, Spike."
He knew. He knew how close that barely was to being not at all, how close everything was to going to hell, and if there was the barest hint that Jenova could create an encore performance that would shatter all their hopes of winning, this entire plan would be impossible.
"So you'll go and speak to them then, while I arrange the precautions."
"Wh-What? Me? But at the moment there's more than one of me. You want me to speak to myself? When did I start taking orders from you, anyway Spike?"
"Since I became right. Besides, they can't deny your existence, while they'll think I'm nuts." And despite the ghost of a smile gracing his features, Cloud wondered how far that would be from the truth.
Zack shrugged one shoulder, flicking one long piece of black hair over to join the rest of the mass. "But, what, I'm supposed to waltz up and explain things? I don't think they'll take that well."
One hand came up to rest in his bangs again. "Zack, you know that they can't say you're not real. Besides, I'll come with Doc and the Turks - Reno and Rude should be even more reassurance."
An unspoken thought hung between them, tainting the air. If it all went to hell, the Turks would be needed to help being them down. Neither wanted to say it, but both accepted it.
"I hate you Spike."
"I know."
-------------------
Years ago, Cloud could remember finding an old map of the Shinra headquarters, could recall tracing his fingers over the stark lines of corridors and rooms, the vulnerable openings of doors and windows - war of a different sort, another kind of army. While the building had been destroyed in Meteor, it had been rebuilt along the same architectural plan, following the same veins of ink and concrete.
And while it was a bit disconcerting that the passageways here mirrored those he had walked so many years ago, under the same flickering fluorescent lights, highlighting everything in sharp contrast, it certainly did make finding people easier.
Although, in truth, the Turks were rarely easy to find. Reno, Rude and Elena were as busy as Cloud and Zack, possessing all the commitment and all the respect of generals without the actual rank.
//They never wanted the rank though.they're Turks and that's enough for them. //
Any other time, Cloud would have been forced to issue a command for the Turks on base to report to him, else spend time he didn't have searching for them. Luck appeared to be with him today, a rare occurrence, for the first few inquiries into the Shinra infrastructure had yielded the fact that the trio was partaking in the required physical.
//So I can go to the Infirmary, grab the Turks and the Doc and go. //
It was killing two birds with one stone, and thus it was luck that rarely graced Cloud with its presence. It was a way to save a lot of time and effort and.
.it meant going to the Infirmary ward. The large double doors were approaching him swiftly as he strode down the corridor and Cloud tried to suppress the shivers of long ago terror creeping up his spine.
//Well, fuck. //
It was an infirmary much like any other, save for the grander scale of it. The rooms were bathed in the fluorescent light, ones that did not flicker, lights never flickered in labs, only beat down on you constantly. Pristine tile reflected the light back, so everything in the room appeared to glow. The syringes glistened in the double light, the scalpels glinting, and the tubes of blood ready to be analyzed seeming to glow from within.
Cloud wondered whenever he went into these rooms if one could be selectively claustrophobic, for it was only here that the walls appeared to press in on him, only here where his breath came short and harried when he let it. When he heard the hard sound of footsteps behind him, it took all his self-control not to whip around and attack.
"General Strife, to what do I owe this honor? I would have thought that the only way to get you in here was stoically kicking and screaming."
The voice belonged to the one person Cloud didn't mind meeting in an infirmary ward and turning, Cloud caught the eye of the doctor and addressed her softly, his apprehension gradually disappearing at her presence.
"You can stoically kick and scream, Doc?"
Doc tilted her head up at him, regarding him behind the frames of her glasses. She tapped a pen softly against her mouth contemplating his question, before returning it to the pocket of her rather colorful lab coat.
"I'm sure you'll find a way, General Strife."
Doc's real name and title was Doctor Tabitha, but no one ever called her that. A diminutive woman, several inches short of five feet, Doc could pick at man apart with words just as well as with a scalpel. She had risen through the medical ranks on pure skill and her blunt nature. Once at the top, she immediately had the entire medical department restructured. Many had come to fear the short woman in the brightly colored lab coat and pulled up hair.
Cloud was not one of them. The woman was as unlike Hojo as it was humanly possible for anyone to be. He coat was not only brightly colored in all shades, a tie-dye construction that was almost painful to look at, but it was also several sizes too large, the extra fabric gathering at her small hands and the coat reaching down far more than most lab coats did. She was a person of loud chaos, and proud of it.
"You never answered my first question, General Strife."
Remembering the question itself took Cloud several seconds. I need you and the Turks - who I hope are still here - to come with me to the Cell blocks."
"May I ask why?"
Cloud grimaced inwardly. //Sure you can, but I'd been hoping that you wouldn't.//
"I have two prisoners I need you to examine. The Turks' presence is required for credibility."
An arched eyebrow greeted his last statement. "Credibility? What kind of person would not take you at face value, General?"
Cloud couldn't help the thoughts that leapt to his mind then, and he devoutly hoped that none of them showed on his face. "Unique prisoners, Doc. I'll just have to trust your sense of curiosity to lead you on."
At that Tabitha broke into an open smile. "Unique prisoners.If you give your troops as much information as you give me, one wonders that you lead any sort of army at all. Well, I suppose that's neither here nor there. You said you wanted the Turks, General?"
"Yes."
Tabitha brought her hand up to casually tuck shoulder length black hair behind one ear. "Well then, I suppose I'll go get them. Wait here, General, I'd ask you to follow, but that would mean venturing further into the ward, and it has been known to eat people on occasion." She turned away from Cloud, and moved swiftly away, pushing aside a screen and disappearing behind it.
-------------
Faced with the harsh reality of that cell door and the knowledge of who was behind it, Zack cursed many things. His life, job, Cloud, Sephiroth, the other him, and the lifestream were just a few of the topics. One would notice however, that most of the mental flaying gravitated toward Cloud and the other were left more or less untouched.
//I'm going to hurt you Spike.oh, come on, Zack, staring at it isn't going to make it go away. // Moving slowly, with the dejected gait of one who hopes that if he takes enough time to get there it will go away, Zack accessed the code for the cell and opened it. Inside, he heard the soft sounds of someone - two someones - getting hurriedly to their feet. Zack stepped inside.
If it had been any other time, in any other situation, it would have been funny. He remembered what Sephiroth was like was like back in SOLDIER, in the days before everything changed, and he'd never seen him drop his jaw in shock before. The other Zack - Zack was already delineating him in his mind as Zackery - had staggered back against the wall in shock. Zack didn't give them time to do anything, and launched into speech.
"Look, I know right now you probably don't have any idea what's going on, and you're probably thinking that I'm evil or a clone or one of Hojo's pet projects that he works on when the lab rats revolt. If I was in your situation, and in a way I suppose I /am/ in your situation, I'd think the same thing. But I swear to you I'm no one else but Zack, and that's all there is." Zack paused, considering, then added: "And if you don't believe me, there are so many stories I can tell about the things I -you- used to do. I'll tell you the one's about Seph, but there aren't all that many, are there?"
Zackery shifted his weight off the wall and raised his hand like he was in class. "How.how can you be Zack? I'm Zack, and last time I checked, there was only one of me."
Zack folded his arms over his chest, composing words in his mind. "Let me tell you a few things about how you got here. A man that you didn't recognize came out of nowhere and beat the crap out of a whole lot of your SOLDIERS without trying all that hard, and by using a weapon similar to a buster sword, right?"
At Zackery's nod and Sephiroth's level gaze Zack continued.
"And after he'd done that, a giant monster thing that looked as ugly as all hell came out of the ground and attacked people. One of the people in attacked was Cloud, I bet. The SOLDIER who wasn't commenced with the ass kicking of said monster, and after that you and you and him got sucked up by a lot of green light, right?"
Sephiroth had avoided looking at Zack from the beginning of his speech, but now he locked gazes with him. "And how do you now so much about it? I can tell you that all that's true, although you already knew that, didn't you?"
Closing his eyes briefly, Zack exhaled softly and began speaking again. "I know all this because, well, because, I and.someone else sent the man back to your time. Yes, /time/. Because."
//Damn it Zack, just spit it out already! //
"Because this is the future."
--------------
Author's Notes -
Something about this chapter vaguely irritates me, but I want it out of the way so the fun stuff can begin. Let me assure all of you that Doc Tabitha is in no way, shape or form a self-insert. If I was going to self-insert myself, I'd do it with a character that got more action than sticking needles into people and using sarcastic remarks. Trust me on this one, or ask Ftera - she'll set you straight. Zack gets stuck with all the shit jobs, doesn't he? ^_^
/.../ - italics //...// - thoughts *...* - mindspeech/telepathy "..." - speech (duh) ----------------- - Scene change, flashback, dreaming (it's a multi- purpose stream of dashes)
Xehorista Tora
By Asprosdracos
------------------
"Under the stars each night, I wonder if stairs go there. And under the stars tonight I wonder if someone cares. I'm lonely that's the way I feel I can't feel no stairs.I'm only just a man of steel"
- "Man of Steel" Frank Black
------------------
The tide had gone out.
As the green waters faded, their swirling miasma inducing faint feelings of nausea even at this distance, Sephiroth turned to examine the reality that was now creating itself before him. It was a harsh reality, a world of sharp edged steel and glinting glass and metal.
It was a place he had been before.
He remembered this place, not fondly of course, but he remembered it nevertheless. It would be impossible to forget this, the block out the memory of soft edges and sharp glares.
Of emotionless eyes and cold fingers, no gloves. Never any gloves. Instead the hands burned white, only the faintest pink tinge to them. As a child, the pale color had always reminded him of his own skin and hair, and he hated those hands for the association they created in his mind.
He hated them for other things too. In fact, it was only when he was nine or ten that he had linked what the hands did, what the hands held and injected, to the person behind them. Before that, they had just been hands, hands that never stayed still and had the nervous habit of linking together in front of the whiteness.
Perhaps thinking of him had invoked him into the reality. Still, Sephiroth tensed as the white coated figure appeared, the greasy hair shining under the lights, the hands reflecting it off of pale, washed skin. Decaying hands with long, tapered fingers. They moved to link together in front of the lab coat, the small movement causing the light to scatter.
That was an interesting point. Sephiroth remembered seeing the room create itself as the green faded away, but he couldn't remember the lights showing up.
Nevertheless, there were lights, blinding and brilliant shades of white, the white of the lab coat, the white flare as the Professor's eyes began to move rapidly from one side to the other, and the faint white gleam of the scalpel, suddenly very close. As close as if he were right next to it, strapped down onto that table, a young boy again, defenseless, weak and afraid.
Seeing that scalpel descend in a time that was not now and a place that was not here, Sephiroth felt memory and awareness rush to him, and he woke up to meet a glare of light.
This light lacked the harsh ethereal quality of the previous one. Instead it was soft and natural. The sounds that filtered through were sparse - faint footfalls, the hum of electronics somewhere, and the small movements across the cold tile that translated themselves as sound.
//Cold tile? //
There was coldness in the lab, the coldness of the floor, and the table and restrainers and for one frozen second the world hung still and Sephiroth thought he was there again.
But there were people shouting; frantic, panicky voices that collided with each other constructively in the air, amplifying themselves. He had yet to move, and his ear could pick up the sensations of many hurried footfalls as people ran from place to place.
Hojo never allowed chaos like this in his lab. He scoffed at chaos, and was quick to fire many an intern who encouraged it. This, then, could not be his lab, and that was perhaps the first reassuring thought that came to Sephiroth since the start of this whole endeavor with the blond man and Zack.
Speaking of which, where was the SOLDIER? Zack had been with him, and wherever here was, it seemed to Sephiroth a fairly safe assumption that Zack was here too, as well as the blond haired man.
With that to drive him, Sephiroth slowly began to rise to his knees, using his left hand to support his weight until he could get his legs under him. Groggily, trying to orient himself despite the spinning sensation in his head that was only beginning to die down, his body protesting the change in posture and rise to the vertical, Sephiroth glanced about him.
It was a room that managed to look vaguely familiar and unlike anyplace he'd ever been, both at the same time. Sephiroth decided then and there that a half-realized feeling of deja-vu was decidedly uncomfortable and downright irritating.
It was populated with tile, harsh squares of black, white and the off green color that managed to come close to looking like something he'd dug out of Zack's locker once to embarrass him in front of the new group of cadets. Although in the end, Zack had gotten him back for that little stunt, and rather spectacularly so too, if he remembered correctly.-
The clicking sound of a gun safety released sounded throughout the room, echoing as it was repeated multiple times by the soldiers that were no doubt surrounding them. Sephiroth didn't have to lift his gaze from the tiles to realize that they were trained on him, the tense feeling in the air betraying the willingness of those present to shoot more than anything else.
Sound behind him, someone rising to his feet. There was no movement from the multiple personnel around him, their guns still trained on him.
//So.not a threat.the blond man? //
"Sir?"
For one frozen instant, he could almost think that they were addressing him, the careful respect and reservation so apparent in the tone, a tone he had heard so many times before, usually accompanied by a nervous hitch in the voices of new recruits, a shuffling of feet, a shifting of eyes.
It was strange beyond strange, watching a moment that he knew had happened before, just like this. Except he would not have been on the ground, on the cold tile, instead he would have been the one answering with authority that came with breathing, innate as living, as thinking -
"It's alright. At ease."
Discord now, the lack of harshness he would have expected from someone who commanded that much influence, that much power.
".Sir??" The questioning tone in the soldier's voice hang in the air, uneasy in a place it clearly didn't belong, doubting an absolute, doubting his absolute.
"I know, soldier. It's.not him. Neither of them. Just place them under security lock."
//Not him? Who is /him/? Which one of us did that refer to? //
"Yes Sir!"
Disoriented as Sephiroth was, the part of the conversation that involved being placed under security lock didn't register until the soldiers had already approached him, their guns trained to guide them both to the cells.
-----------
Cloud wasn't surprised that Zack approached him as soon as he left the room. Worry radiated from the cautious stance of the man and the tense muscles in his hands and face.
"Spike?" One word that was less a question than an invitation, a polite way to ask if he was alright.
"It's okay Zack. Really, I'm fine."
"Spike.do you really think you're fooling anyone? Especially me, of all people. I think I'm going to go be insulted now."
"Zack, I'm sorry." Cloud could do this, this was normal, expected, the usual business. Respond to Zack's banter, trying to hide how much he felt like collapsing where he stood.
"For what? Cloud.anyone would.I mean.argh.First things first, I guess. The bitch's status?"
"Jenova's dead. She wasn't expecting me to come after her." The tone that Cloud assumed was automatic, as was the hand that came up to rake through his bangs.
//There was so much though.so much I wasn't expecting. You again, me again.Him.//
If Zack noticed the small shudder, which he most likely did, he chose to avoid comment on it for Cloud's sake.
//Him.again and for the first time. //
Zack turned then, gaze and attention directed inward, to the problem at hand.
"We can't keep them both under lock and key for the entire war, Spike. I mean, even if word didn't get out to the higher powers, and even if that didn't set off a panic that I don't want to see, we can't keep them there."
"I know that, Zack. I know as well as you do that as soon as Reeve finds out about this - or any of the Turks, or Scarlet or God, or anyone - the Planet help us."
Zack didn't reply to that at first staring at Cloud, not wanting to accept how complicated there lives had both become, so much worse than before, when things had been bad enough.
//Never simple.it's never simple, never easy, never anything but real. //
"So there's only one alternative then."
"But we need precautions.I can't.I can't handle two of them, Zack. The forces we have can barely even handle one of them."
"I know, Spike."
He knew. He knew how close that barely was to being not at all, how close everything was to going to hell, and if there was the barest hint that Jenova could create an encore performance that would shatter all their hopes of winning, this entire plan would be impossible.
"So you'll go and speak to them then, while I arrange the precautions."
"Wh-What? Me? But at the moment there's more than one of me. You want me to speak to myself? When did I start taking orders from you, anyway Spike?"
"Since I became right. Besides, they can't deny your existence, while they'll think I'm nuts." And despite the ghost of a smile gracing his features, Cloud wondered how far that would be from the truth.
Zack shrugged one shoulder, flicking one long piece of black hair over to join the rest of the mass. "But, what, I'm supposed to waltz up and explain things? I don't think they'll take that well."
One hand came up to rest in his bangs again. "Zack, you know that they can't say you're not real. Besides, I'll come with Doc and the Turks - Reno and Rude should be even more reassurance."
An unspoken thought hung between them, tainting the air. If it all went to hell, the Turks would be needed to help being them down. Neither wanted to say it, but both accepted it.
"I hate you Spike."
"I know."
-------------------
Years ago, Cloud could remember finding an old map of the Shinra headquarters, could recall tracing his fingers over the stark lines of corridors and rooms, the vulnerable openings of doors and windows - war of a different sort, another kind of army. While the building had been destroyed in Meteor, it had been rebuilt along the same architectural plan, following the same veins of ink and concrete.
And while it was a bit disconcerting that the passageways here mirrored those he had walked so many years ago, under the same flickering fluorescent lights, highlighting everything in sharp contrast, it certainly did make finding people easier.
Although, in truth, the Turks were rarely easy to find. Reno, Rude and Elena were as busy as Cloud and Zack, possessing all the commitment and all the respect of generals without the actual rank.
//They never wanted the rank though.they're Turks and that's enough for them. //
Any other time, Cloud would have been forced to issue a command for the Turks on base to report to him, else spend time he didn't have searching for them. Luck appeared to be with him today, a rare occurrence, for the first few inquiries into the Shinra infrastructure had yielded the fact that the trio was partaking in the required physical.
//So I can go to the Infirmary, grab the Turks and the Doc and go. //
It was killing two birds with one stone, and thus it was luck that rarely graced Cloud with its presence. It was a way to save a lot of time and effort and.
.it meant going to the Infirmary ward. The large double doors were approaching him swiftly as he strode down the corridor and Cloud tried to suppress the shivers of long ago terror creeping up his spine.
//Well, fuck. //
It was an infirmary much like any other, save for the grander scale of it. The rooms were bathed in the fluorescent light, ones that did not flicker, lights never flickered in labs, only beat down on you constantly. Pristine tile reflected the light back, so everything in the room appeared to glow. The syringes glistened in the double light, the scalpels glinting, and the tubes of blood ready to be analyzed seeming to glow from within.
Cloud wondered whenever he went into these rooms if one could be selectively claustrophobic, for it was only here that the walls appeared to press in on him, only here where his breath came short and harried when he let it. When he heard the hard sound of footsteps behind him, it took all his self-control not to whip around and attack.
"General Strife, to what do I owe this honor? I would have thought that the only way to get you in here was stoically kicking and screaming."
The voice belonged to the one person Cloud didn't mind meeting in an infirmary ward and turning, Cloud caught the eye of the doctor and addressed her softly, his apprehension gradually disappearing at her presence.
"You can stoically kick and scream, Doc?"
Doc tilted her head up at him, regarding him behind the frames of her glasses. She tapped a pen softly against her mouth contemplating his question, before returning it to the pocket of her rather colorful lab coat.
"I'm sure you'll find a way, General Strife."
Doc's real name and title was Doctor Tabitha, but no one ever called her that. A diminutive woman, several inches short of five feet, Doc could pick at man apart with words just as well as with a scalpel. She had risen through the medical ranks on pure skill and her blunt nature. Once at the top, she immediately had the entire medical department restructured. Many had come to fear the short woman in the brightly colored lab coat and pulled up hair.
Cloud was not one of them. The woman was as unlike Hojo as it was humanly possible for anyone to be. He coat was not only brightly colored in all shades, a tie-dye construction that was almost painful to look at, but it was also several sizes too large, the extra fabric gathering at her small hands and the coat reaching down far more than most lab coats did. She was a person of loud chaos, and proud of it.
"You never answered my first question, General Strife."
Remembering the question itself took Cloud several seconds. I need you and the Turks - who I hope are still here - to come with me to the Cell blocks."
"May I ask why?"
Cloud grimaced inwardly. //Sure you can, but I'd been hoping that you wouldn't.//
"I have two prisoners I need you to examine. The Turks' presence is required for credibility."
An arched eyebrow greeted his last statement. "Credibility? What kind of person would not take you at face value, General?"
Cloud couldn't help the thoughts that leapt to his mind then, and he devoutly hoped that none of them showed on his face. "Unique prisoners, Doc. I'll just have to trust your sense of curiosity to lead you on."
At that Tabitha broke into an open smile. "Unique prisoners.If you give your troops as much information as you give me, one wonders that you lead any sort of army at all. Well, I suppose that's neither here nor there. You said you wanted the Turks, General?"
"Yes."
Tabitha brought her hand up to casually tuck shoulder length black hair behind one ear. "Well then, I suppose I'll go get them. Wait here, General, I'd ask you to follow, but that would mean venturing further into the ward, and it has been known to eat people on occasion." She turned away from Cloud, and moved swiftly away, pushing aside a screen and disappearing behind it.
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Faced with the harsh reality of that cell door and the knowledge of who was behind it, Zack cursed many things. His life, job, Cloud, Sephiroth, the other him, and the lifestream were just a few of the topics. One would notice however, that most of the mental flaying gravitated toward Cloud and the other were left more or less untouched.
//I'm going to hurt you Spike.oh, come on, Zack, staring at it isn't going to make it go away. // Moving slowly, with the dejected gait of one who hopes that if he takes enough time to get there it will go away, Zack accessed the code for the cell and opened it. Inside, he heard the soft sounds of someone - two someones - getting hurriedly to their feet. Zack stepped inside.
If it had been any other time, in any other situation, it would have been funny. He remembered what Sephiroth was like was like back in SOLDIER, in the days before everything changed, and he'd never seen him drop his jaw in shock before. The other Zack - Zack was already delineating him in his mind as Zackery - had staggered back against the wall in shock. Zack didn't give them time to do anything, and launched into speech.
"Look, I know right now you probably don't have any idea what's going on, and you're probably thinking that I'm evil or a clone or one of Hojo's pet projects that he works on when the lab rats revolt. If I was in your situation, and in a way I suppose I /am/ in your situation, I'd think the same thing. But I swear to you I'm no one else but Zack, and that's all there is." Zack paused, considering, then added: "And if you don't believe me, there are so many stories I can tell about the things I -you- used to do. I'll tell you the one's about Seph, but there aren't all that many, are there?"
Zackery shifted his weight off the wall and raised his hand like he was in class. "How.how can you be Zack? I'm Zack, and last time I checked, there was only one of me."
Zack folded his arms over his chest, composing words in his mind. "Let me tell you a few things about how you got here. A man that you didn't recognize came out of nowhere and beat the crap out of a whole lot of your SOLDIERS without trying all that hard, and by using a weapon similar to a buster sword, right?"
At Zackery's nod and Sephiroth's level gaze Zack continued.
"And after he'd done that, a giant monster thing that looked as ugly as all hell came out of the ground and attacked people. One of the people in attacked was Cloud, I bet. The SOLDIER who wasn't commenced with the ass kicking of said monster, and after that you and you and him got sucked up by a lot of green light, right?"
Sephiroth had avoided looking at Zack from the beginning of his speech, but now he locked gazes with him. "And how do you now so much about it? I can tell you that all that's true, although you already knew that, didn't you?"
Closing his eyes briefly, Zack exhaled softly and began speaking again. "I know all this because, well, because, I and.someone else sent the man back to your time. Yes, /time/. Because."
//Damn it Zack, just spit it out already! //
"Because this is the future."
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Author's Notes -
Something about this chapter vaguely irritates me, but I want it out of the way so the fun stuff can begin. Let me assure all of you that Doc Tabitha is in no way, shape or form a self-insert. If I was going to self-insert myself, I'd do it with a character that got more action than sticking needles into people and using sarcastic remarks. Trust me on this one, or ask Ftera - she'll set you straight. Zack gets stuck with all the shit jobs, doesn't he? ^_^