A/N: I apologise for all spelling/grammar mistakes, all are my own – I don't have a Beta, so I accept full blame.

It's so strange coming to this genre of fan fiction. You'd think that fan fiction is fan fiction and it's all the same, but the differences between genres are quite startling. I'm sorry if I happen to confuse anyone with my jargon during A/Ns, but I'm still having a bit of trouble adjusting to the culture shock. When I first got into Stargate: Atlantis fan fiction, it took me a while to get used to all the writer's jargon they used. Now I find myself trying to distance myself from that particular dialect of writer's jargon and trying to learn another. It's more challenging than it sounds…or I'm just not very bright, which is probably more likely…

Oh, and I should just mention that any warnings for this chapter are the same as from the last. More of a filler chapter, but meh shrugs.

Summary: Hojo is not a nice person, as SOLDIER-in-training Cloud Strife finds out when Hojo makes him pay for his friend Zack's deeds against the evil scientist.

Anyways, here we go – Chapter Two! Sorry, but I couldn't even think of a decent story name, so it might take me a while to name the chapter – but I will, eventually!

The Only Difference Between Martyrdom And Suicide Is Press Coverage

Swear to shake it up if you swear to listen.
Oh we're still so young, desperate for attention
I aim to be your eyes
Trophy boys, trophy wives.

((And the song even works – the chorus is basically a filler, right? And this chapter is just a filler…how nifty is that, eh?))

0o0o0o0o0

Zack scrubbed a hand over his weary face as he struggled to stay awake. Keeping up with his training and duties while also trying to spend as much time as possible at Cloud's bedside was really starting to wear him down. Still, it was the least he could do, considering that it was really his fault in the first place for the kid's sorry state.

He had seen enough cases of mako poisoning on the front lines of the war against Wutai to know each stage of the 'disease' intimately. First came the sickness – vomiting blood, coughing fits, difficulty breathing, seizures, rupturing blood vessels, heart attacks, strokes, haemorrhaging, just to name a few of the symptoms suffered. Then, if the victim survived, they would drift into a state of catatonia, sometimes punctuated by delusional spells. Then, if the person were lucky enough to survive and overcome the catatonic state, they would most likely fall into deep psychosis because of the sudden bombardment of memories. The other most common side effect was permanent amnesia. It was no wonder, then, that there were such strict regulations in place to avoid mako poisoning as much as humanly possible. Pity the damn regulations didn't work.

It was the third day before the sickness finally passed, leaving Cloud staring half-lidded at the ceiling with complete disinterest, and Zack talking animatedly in a chair beside his bed, taking great effort to pick up the slack, by talking enough for the both of them, leading to some rather one-sided conversations. Of course, it wasn't exactly much different from usual, considering that Zack already talked enough for two people while Cloud hardly spoke at all.

It was the fourth day before General Sephiroth returned from a mission his mission to find his weary friend slumped in a chair next to a hospital bed in the Intensive Care Unit, struggling valiantly to hold a two-way conversation with just one person.

The silver haired General strode into the Academy's infirmary wing with his usual commanding, decisive step. Walking over to where his black haired friend was tiredly hunched in one of the uncomfortable infirmary chairs, Sephiroth picked up a chair for himself along the way and set it beside his friend's.

"Zack," he said by way of greeting, nodding politely to the man in question.

Zack quickly broke off his explanation of why shirukens were cooler than nun chucks, while both held and infinitely higher coolness factor than the simple knife-pistols standard to lower level ordinary troopers. "Sephiroth! When did you get back? I though you weren't expected until late Thursday…"

"It is late Thursday, Zack, and I only just arrived back. I was a little concerned when you weren't in your office and a few of your reports were missing. I asked one of the cadets and he said I might be able to find you here, what's going on?"

"Sorry about the reports sir, but Cloud-o here's got a nasty case of mako poisoning. Couldn't exactly leave the kid stranded here. I brought a couple of the reports with me to work on, but I've been having a bit of trouble concentrating…"

"That's alright. I'd be a cold-hearted monster to say that paperwork comes before people's health. How is he? It can't be that bad, can it? There are a lot of protocols in place to prevent things like this, but accidents to happen every now and again–"

"It was no damn accident!" Zack growled darkly, his weariness dissipating, quickly replaced by a look of pure loathing. "Hojo did it on purpose, just to get back at me for stopping that last little shop of horrors he had going."

"Zack, I understand that you are angry and looking for someone to blame, not to mention you and Hojo don't exactly have the best track record, but how can you be certain that Hojo is behind Cloud's poisoning? A slip of the syringe and any poor nurse could have accidentally given him too much mako. People make mistakes, it's only human. I hate Hojo as much as you do, but you have to get proof before you can start pointing the finger at people. Least of all the head of the Science department."

"Who's to say I don't have proof?" Zack glared, before sighing and calming himself a bit. "Look Seph, sorry about that. I've hardly slept for three days and I think it's beginning to show. But you've got to understand, I know that Hojo was behind this, without a doubt. For starters, I know that accidents can happen, but it was just way too much to possibly be an accident. Secondly, Hojo decided to oversee this round of enhancements personally, which he never does. Not to mention that the perfect way to get back at me would be through hurting my trainee. I would say friend, but I doubt Hojo knows the meaning of the word, if he knows the word at all."

"You should get some sleep. You look like shit. I'm not even going to comment on poor Cloud's appearance, but I think it's a given that when suffering from mako poisoning one must indeed look like a sufferer of mako poisoning. How long has he been out of it?"

"Haven't then given you any information at all?" Sephiroth shook his head in response, making Zack remember that he had been stationed at a remote outpost for the better part of the last fortnight, with no means of communication at all until he was nearly back at Midgar. "He's been drifting like that since yesterday. I hate to say it, but I'm kinda glad that he's drifting. I could hardly stand to keep watching him puke half his blood out every five minutes, and the seizures at midnight, ugh" Zack shivered in remembrance, "just try not to be asleep in one of these chairs when that happens. The cushioning is just soft enough to stop you from being able to get up properly, but just hard enough to hurt your head when you fall down again after trying to get up." Sephiroth cocked an eyebrow in amusement at the thought. Despite the gravity of the situation, he found the image of Zack trying to stand up, but only managing to fall on his butt and bang his head on his chair quite amusing.

Sephiroth only allowed himself a rather brief moment of amusement, however, before getting back to the reality of the situation. "So exactly how bad is it, really?"

"To be honest, he's lucky he got this far. The docs were surprised he survived the first night, let alone four whole days. In fact, the sickness passed rather quickly. I don't know whether that's a good sign or not, but I'll take what I can get at the moment. Considering he's suffered a far higher exposure level any other recorded case of mako poisoning in history, we don't exactly have a base line to compare his stats with. To put it simply, even the doctors are working purely on speculation and guess work at this point in time. By all rights he should be dead already. I told 'em, though. Cloud here's a fighter. It's gonna take more than a little case of mako poisoning to keep this kid down. Ain't it, Cloud-o?" he said cheerfully, turning his attention to the catatonic boy in his last sentence. Sure enough, no response was given from the 15-year-old, not even so much as a blink.

Zack's smile didn't quite reach his eyes, and quickly left his face, Sephiroth noted. "How much mako did he receive?" the General asked grimly.

"Almost three times his threshold. Far too much."

Sephiroth nodded dismally. Like it or not, Zack was going to have to face facts. "You realise that even if he manages to survive, he will be permanently removed from the SOLDIER program?"

Mako was like paracetamol, in some respects. Sure, if you took paracetamol in the recommended dosage you could knock out your headache and continue working at 110, but if you accidentally overdosed, your liver would slowly begin shutting down, letting you die the long and painful death of liver failure. The real kicker, though, was that you'd still have your headache. If the mako enhancements were delivered in small, tolerable quantities, they would be more or less safe, as well as being able to get enhancements from the mako. If you got too much mako and suffered poisoning, it would almost certainly make you highly allergic to mako, which would prevent and future treatments, but it would also not give you the enhancements it was taken for in the first place.

Zack nodded dourly, signing again. "I know. Poor kid, he's gonna be devastated. All he wanted to do was become a SOLDIER. He wanted to be like you, did you know? Wanted to be strong and brave and unmovable like The Great General Sephiroth..."

0o0o0o0o0

So, there we go, up to Chapter Two on my first ever Final Fantasy fic. Whoo! I should probably point out, also, that despite the opinions of several severely misguided contacts on my MSN list, I am not a doctor, and therefore inherently have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about. The only thing I actually do have some reasonably accurate knowledge on, is the fact that paracetamol overdose does cause liver failure, which is fatal unless you get a stomach pump. On the other hand, I have absolutely no idea whether your headache would go away or not. I think I'd be more inclined to think the headache would go away, but for the purposes of this story, it stays. IT STAYS, DAMNIT! MWUAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

Uh…anyways, read and review please!

Free Sephiroth pl00shies to all those who reviewed last chapter, and Cloud pl00shies to anyone who reviews this chapter! And I'm not entirely sure how long I can keep Sephiroth sane for…so be warned, be may turn evil in chapter four. If you want him to stay kind, review! Heck, even if you want him evil, review anyway!

And before I go, can I just add some shameless self-promotion? I decided to try my hand at making music videos, and thus have uploaded my first EVER video on Youtube (it makes me feel rather accomplished, actually), so if anyone wants to watch it, go to Youtube and look under my username – Suicune1000 . (I'd post a link, but I don't think they work, do they? If they do, let me know and I'll put it in next chapter, but usually websites don't let you put links in…) The song is Nerina Pallot's 'Everybody's Gone to War' and it features, naturally, Final Fantasy VII. It's not great, and the quality sucks, but hey, at least I tried

So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye!

xoxoxox

Suicune.