...like a wound in the mouth that would heal if you'd just stop poking at it with your tongue. But I can't stop.

Disclaimer: The characters and places and other things and the whole Final Fantasy 7 belong to Square. I have merely twisted the plot a bit, and made up some original characters. There.

Recap: Sephiroth is missing, Vincent killed Cloud and took off as Chaos, Zax was wounded and taken to Hojo's lab and Jenova is plotting something. Hojo is being a meanie. Bad Hojo.

This bit kicks off around the time the game starts. And there will be quite a few spoilers. Be warned.

Blood of the Innocents

Interlude.

-

Over four years locked inside a tube had weakened his body some, even though he was a Soldier. Still, he'd ran all the way, away from the laboratory, up the stairs, through the mansion and out the door. With a limp body over his shoulder. After killing a man. He was quite proud of himself, all that after years of almost no exercises at all. But then shock overrode the pride.

It was a late evening, almost night already, and it was raining hard. The kind of cold rain that soaked you through to the bone, making you wet, cold and miserable. The rain soaked all of Nibelheim, the small houses huddled together for warmth around the small town square. Warm, yellow light streamed through the windows, illuminating patches of the ground. A flower bench in front of one house, a colourful ball forgotten in a puddle of water, a lonely cat sitting on a stair, out of the rain, asking to be let in.

Zax stumbled down the stairs to the front yard, staring at the town. This was impossible, he'd seen the place in ruins with his own eyes, but now it was back to how he remembered it from his first visit. Exactly the same, as far as he could remember. But who would build it the same? What was going on?

He wanted to go to a house and ask the dwellers what had happened, but the cold rain brought him back to reality, and the Soldier took off running. The limp form on his shoulder moved with his steps but didn't even twitch as a complaint for the weather or the rough ride. This wasn't the time for comfort or answers, they'd have to get as far from here as possible, and as fast as possible.

He ran through the whole night, straight to the south, towards Cosmo Canyon. Rocket Town would have been a bit closer, but with the dead weight over his shoulder and only the Buster sword to protect them with, Zax didn't feel like crossing the mountains and battling the persistent monsters. The grasslands were as full of monsters as the mountains, but they were softer as food was plentiful there.

The rain had stopped only an hour ago and dawn was almost breaking when the Soldier finally decided to stop for rest, in a small cave near the mountain range that separated them from the Gold Saucer area. The feet of the mountains were full of small caves like this, and easy enough to climb, but no more than a hundred feet up, the mountains were uncrossable.

Zax lowered the body from his shoulder to the ground and sat down next to it with a long, exhausted sigh. He threw his wet hair away from his pale face and just stared out the mouth of the cave, waiting for his heart to slow down.

They were out. Now what?

Zax closed his violet eyes, feeling the sting of tears underneath the eyelids. He was so tired, so cold, and wet to the bone. It felt like he'd never be warm again. Or happy. Or secure. Or safe. All of that, Hojo and the last few years had taken from him. His spirit, his happiness, his friends, his love. All gone. All he had left was his trusted sword and the limp body beside him.

The blue eyes were open again but didn't appear to see anything, ignoring the world around them, the cold, the rain, the pain. The body was nothing but a shell, the soul nothing but dreams and memories forced into it. But still, Zax couldn't leave it behind. He hadn't had the strength of mind to destroy it, either, even though he'd known it might have been the best thing to do. But he couldn't, not even now, even though he knew that he'd have no problems disappearing by himself, hell, he could even get to Midgar easily if he wanted to.

With a sigh, he laid down on the cold ground and wrapped his arms around the thin puppet, drawing it to his chest and buried his face to the soft, blond spikes.

"Don't worry, Cloud... I'll think of something..."

A.N: You didn't really think I could do this without my favourites?