Splintered Dreams
Chapter 34
"Break"
"I have to pee."
Zack tilted his head, slanted a look over his shoulder. "So you've mentioned. Four times now."
"Well," Yuffie rolled her eyes, "then pull over, or there's gonna be a puddle back here."
"Make that two," Aerith held up her hand.
"A rest stop would be appreciated," Red added. "I could use a stretch."
Zack turned forward, peered out the front windshield. Hours ago, the lush greens and thick trees of Gongaga had started to thin, replaced by flat surface dotted with dark, craggy rocks. Not much cover, he mused, searching.
"What about up there?" Tifa pointed.
Up ahead, a few hundred feet, there was a small area of bushes and trees. "All right," he nodded. "We'll take fifteen." He drove the buggy down the slope, into the brush, to park.
Outside the buggy, Zack stretched his arms over his head, cricked his neck. Red had been right. A stretch felt good. He glanced to his left, spotted Tifa doing some impossible looking thing with her leg and thought it a giant testament to his willpower not to drool right there.
She must have felt his eyes on her because she stilled, lowered her leg and sent a veiled look over her shoulder.
Guilty, but smiling shamelessly, he waved.
She blushed—that pretty shade she always did—and turned away, shaking her head. Gods, she was adorable.
Zack jumped when Barret cuffed him on the back of the head. "Ow, damn it."
"Five minutes," Barret called out. "No one go too far!"
"Blah, blah." Yuffie flapped her hand as she strolled by them.
Zack nudged her shoulder playfully. She was a mouthy kid, but a good one.
"Tifa headed that way," Barret commented, nodding in the direction Tifa had walked.
"Yeah," Zack raised a brow.
"So, I expect you to go that way." Barret pointed in the opposite direction.
"Is the over-protective father-figure routine really necessary at this point?"
"Are your balls really necessary?"
"You make a persuasive argument."
With a grunt, Barret marched off to take care of his own business. Zack rolled his eyes, shook his head.
He glanced around, spotted Aerith emerging from behind some bushes and frowned. Reno's words about Tseng still lingered in the back of his mind, and Zack wondered—not for the first time—just exactly what her relationship with Tseng was.
Ruffling the back of his head, he decided to bite the bullet and just ask. He knew she didn't want to talk about it—she had told him as much—but the luxury of privacy was something they were all losing.
"Stay with the buggy," he told Cait, who was laid out on the ground, tapping at the rocks.
With a determined stride, Zack made his way to where Aerith was crouched, picking at one of the bushes.
"Hey," she smiled her soft smile as he approached. The one that was only ever for him.
"Hey. What're you doing?"
"There's some berries here." She held up a small handful. "Yummy." She tossed one into the air.
Zack caught it in his mouth, grinned around the bumpy red fruit.
"So," she said, popping one past her own lips. "What's on your mind?"
"Still read me like a book."
"Mmm, no," she shook her head and her smile was slightly wistful. "But I do know that little frowny look."
"Frowny look?"
"Yeah, whenever you have something you on your mind, you get this crease," her fingers traced the upper part of her nose, "right there."
Zack rubbed his face. "Damn. That'll probably wrinkle."
"Doubtful. You're not much of a thinker."
"Hey!"
She laughed and Zack felt the crease ease. He loved her laugh. It was probably the first thing he did fall in love with all those years ago. It was light and sharp, like bells on the wind. He realized, in that moment, it had been a long time since he'd heard it. His frown reappeared, as he wondered just how hard all of this was on her. How much hurt was she holding?
"How are you?" he asked finally.
She cocked her head, gaze quizzical. Not the question she'd been expecting. "Fine."
Zack lowered himself onto one knee beside her, plucked a berry from a branch. "No, Aer. Really, how are you? We've been so crazy with everything, I haven't really asked, so I'm asking now, are you okay?"
She nodded. "I miss Mom, but I'm okay. This is something I have to do, Zack. There's so much about the Cetra...about myself, that I don't know." She flashed him her sunbeam smile of reassurance. "I'm not saying this isn't all terrifying, because it's pretty scary. But even when I get scared or lonely, I'm okay, because I have you and Tifa, and the others. How could I not be okay with so many blessings?"
Aerith's optimism and genuineness would never cease to amaze him, Zack thought with a warm pulse in his chest. She took all the crap life handed her, all the heartache and danger and questions and somehow she managed to simplify it into what really mattered.
He smiled at her, leaned close and brushed his lips on her forehead. "If you're ever not okay, you come to me."
Green eyes softened to moss. "Always."
Zack cleared his throat. "And, running the risk of ruining this sentimental moment...I have to ask you a question."
"All right."
"About Tseng."
"Ah." She turned back to the bush. Her fingertips danced over a few berries, her breath a sigh. "Tseng...has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember." She slanted him a look. "He was my friend."
"Was?"
Moss sharpened to emerald in a look that cut. "He lied to me, Zack. He told me you were dead."
Not really wanting to defend Tseng, but feeling he should at least acknowledge, he said, "For all he knew I was."
"He took my letters," the words hissed between her teeth. "Every week and swore—he swore—he would get them to you."
Kind of hard to do with him a lab-rat in a tube, Zack mused, but withheld comment.
"And then, one day, he tells me your dead. And that he's sorry." Aerith closed her eyes, took a breath. "He came, every day, after that. For weeks. And..."
"And?" Zack prompted when she stalled.
Almost guilty, her eyes flicked to his, then away. "And it was nice."
"Nice," he repeated.
She nodded, bit her lip. "And, one time...he kissed me."
Imagining Tseng kissing anyone was difficult. He was cold, aloof, and gave the impression that if he did kiss anyone it'd be clinical and detached, but something in Aerith's voice, the way it deepened, told Zack that he was probably wrong on that account.
"After, he apologized." Her smile was sad. She turned to him now, and her eyes were shades of guilt. "But I wasn't sorry," she confessed on a whisper.
Before she knew he was alive. Before they'd made peace with the changes between them. He understood, Zack thought, why she thought she had to feel guilty. He reached out, squeezed her hand. "You had no reason to be," he told her.
She nodded, but he wasn't sure she took his words to heart. "What happened after?" he asked.
"He stopped visiting. He started sending Reno instead." The scrunch of her nose told Zack what she thought of that. "And that's it. It's nothing, really."
Except, it was, Zack thought. For both of them. Tseng—by the rules, Shin-Ra loyal, Turk elite—falling for the last Cetra; his assignment. It was romance novel cliché, and so unlike him. And Aerith, alone and lost and broken and finally letting someone in, only to have them just leave her...
For it to have been Tseng that went to her house, took Aerith from her home and brought her to Shin-Ra...how that betrayal must have hurt her! Zack grit his teeth. Tseng, you fucking idiot.
"So, now you know," she shrugged, stood with berries pooled in her skirt. "I think I'll bring these to the—Zack!" His name no more than a raspy croak, causing his head to snap up, immediately on alert.
Lurching from the bushes, only a few feet away, was a behemoth—possibly the biggest Zack had ever seen. The animal swung its head towards them, its nostrils flaring.
"Shit." Shit, shit, shit. He'd left his sword in the buggy, not fifty feet from where they stood, but too far to do any good at the moment. "Aerith..."
"Yes?"
"How fast can you run?"
"As fast as I need to," she answered, shakily.
The behemoth snorted, clawed the ground, swung it's bone spiked tail; preparing to charge.
"Go, go now!" Zack pushed her towards the buggy.
Berries hit the ground as Aerith took off running.
The behemoth roared and in its gaping jaws were the torn remains of another animal. It ducked it's head and plowed after Aerith.
Zack threw himself at the beast, took the brunt of impact and the gnashing of teeth that was meant for her.
Pain stole his breath, sucked it clear from his lungs, as one of the beast's two massive horns tore through his shoulder and emerged out his back. Okay, all right, so not one of his best plans. His fingers felt numb as he scrambled to find purchase on the animal.
The behemoth roared, its body bunched, claws digging furrows into solid rock as swung it's massive head, trying to dislodge Zack from its horn. Relying on instinct and ignoring the hideous burning of his muscles, Zack balled up his fist, struck the animal hard in the side of the head. His knuckles cracked, blood oozed from the splits, but Zack hit again and the beast howled, stomped, and continued thrashing, but Zack wouldn't be shaken free—couldn't get free—as much as he wanted to be.
Frothing, the animal slammed itself into the rocks, mashing Zack against unforgiving stone with brutal force. Blood erupted from his mouth like a geyser and Zack briefly thought how gross that looked before pain burned away all other thoughts. Somewhere, over the growls and the pounding of blood in his ears, he heard Aerith loose a shrill scream and he heard Barret's deep shouts.
"Shoot it!" Zack shouted. "Shoot the fucker!" The bones in his shoulder ground together and he swallowed bile. As he shouted, he tried to wrench the animal's head up so that Barret could get a clean shot, but the horns and his body prevented it, he knew, but the pain was grinding and horrific, so he shouted again, "Shoot it!"
He couldn't, Tifa realized as she raced over the small hill, drawn by the commotion, and took in the terrible scene in front of her. Barret couldn't shoot the monster without hitting Zack.
She tried not to let the sight of Zack, bloody and screaming, shake her focus. Determined, she rushed forward, her gloves molding over her knuckles. "When he's loose, you shoot!" she ordered Barret as she sprinted by.
"What the—oh hell," Barret readied his arm. "Don't get dead!" he shouted after her.
Hope not, she thought, lowering her head and shoulders. She had a slim chance, at best, to make this work, so she'd better be focused. She ran, as hard and as fast as she could, and before either animal or the man had noticed her, she jumped, braced her feet against the rocks and grappled the behemoth's free horn down.
The animal swung its head, causing Zack to shout, and her grip to falter. Blood splashed her face, and to her utter horror, she realized it was Zack's. The horn was tearing him wide open. She kicked the behemoth in the eye, dropped to the ground, and desperately tried to think of another attack.
Behind her, Red burst from the bushes all fang and fury, a growling mass of vengeance. He latched onto the behemoth's neck, front claws leaving track on the thick hide.
Eyes glowing, it roared at her, but stopped gouging the rocks and in that moment, Tifa grabbed the horn, swung herself up and kicked Zack—hard—in the chest and sent him flying backwards.
It had to have hurt him, and for that she was tearfully sorry, but it was the only way she could get him loose. Her heart broke as he tumbled along the rocky ground, and stopped motionless.
Hard, blunt, teeth in her thigh reminded her that her attention should be on the monster she was still holding onto. She drew back and slammed her fist into the animals muzzle, freeing her leg. Red flipped over to the other side, taking a hunk of meat from its haunches as he went.
The monster staggered to the side drunkenly, and Tifa used its confusion to roundhouse kick the side of its head.
"Teef! To the left!"
She moved, immediately.
The first bullet struck, just beside the eye, the next three in the neck and the raging animal went down, hard enough to shake the ground. Barret jogged over, entered four more into its head—for good measure, he said.
Panting, coated in blood and saliva, Tifa whirled, raced to where Zack lay, unmoving, on the ground with Aerith over him.
"Zack!"
Dimly, Zack heard voices, but they were cotton muffled by pain. He saw the sky—it looked like rain—but the faces hovering over him were blobs of indistinct features.
Pain clawed along his shoulder and deeper and he closed his eyes. Make it stop, he thought.
"We're trying, Zack, hold on." Tifa. He may not see her face, but he'd know that voice anywhere.
He took an agonized breath. Why wouldn't the pain stop?
"Get his shirt off. I need to see." Aerith.
"He's bleeding an awful lot." Yuffie.
"We can see that." Barret.
"What can we do to assist you, Aerith?" Red.
"I don't...I..." The voices got as foggy as the faces.
"Zack!" Tifa cupped his face, slapped his cheeks. "No, don't you dare close your eyes. Stay with me, okay? Please, please." She pushed his hair back, worried over his pale complexion and lax features. "Zack." Her throat was tight, eyes burning. "Come on, wake up."
Beside her, Yuffie wept while Barret tugged off the tattered remains of Zack's shirt. "Gotta hang on, Princess," he said, and Tifa was surprised by the wealth of emotion he allowed in his voice.
Aerith held her mouth when Zack's wound was fully revealed.
Tifa felt her own chest constrict. How could anyone survive that? She thought, shaking. He was wide open, blood pulsing out with every faint beat of his heart.
"Aw, hell." Barret shook his head.
"Do something," Yuffie demanded, sniffing.
"Aerith?" Tifa looked up.
"He's fading," she said, her eyes closed and her hands hovering over Zack. Warm wind stirred hair and light pulsed in time with his heartbeat. "I can't feel him very well." Wet, emerald eyes opened, locked on Tifa. "Give him something to hold onto," Aerith instructed, her breaths short and sweat forming on her forehead. "Talk to him."
Tifa stroked Zack's face, crooned to him. "You have to fight, Zack. You have to come back. Come back to me." Why wasn't he breathing?
Aerith made a sound—small and pitiful. "He's slipping. Oh, gods, I'm losing him."
Tifa's heart stopped and her world crumbled. Please, no, not Zack.
"Here." Yuffie shoved a glowing white flask into Barret's hand.
"What's this?"
"Phoenix Down."
Tifa blinked through her tears, eyes snapping up to meet Yuffie's. Phoenix Downs were rare—as in extremely rare—and expensive. They were reputed to be able to bring people back from the brink of death. Despite stories, and fabricated accounts, they could not bring the dead back to life. Dead was dead.
"It can't hurt to try," Yuffie whispered. "He'd try for us."
He would, and they would fight for him.
Barret flipped the top off the flask, poured the liquid over the wound and into Zack's mouth. They watched, in fascination, as Zack's muscles and skin began to pull together. "Keep talkin' to him, Teef."
"Tell him he can see you naked," Yuffie suggested, wiping her eyes.
"You can, you know," Tifa leaned close to him, brushed her lips against his, then his ear. She stroked his cheek. "I promise. Please, Zack, just come back to me. I can't lose you." She placed her forehead to his. "Fight."
"He's breathing." Aerith trembled, swaying with the effort to maintain her healing winds.
"His fingers moved." Cait noted.
"I think he's trying to talk," Red said.
"Is he gonna be okay?"
Tifa leaned close. "Zack?"
Slow, Zack opened his eyes, found dark chocolate drenched in tears staring down at him. "Naked..." he rasped. "You promised..."
"He's fine," Barret snorted.
Laughing, Tifa pressed her mouth to his. If she got a little smeared with blood, so be it. He had come back to her.
Given the events and excitement and Zack's need for rest, the group decided to make camp. Red and Barret scouted the area for anymore monsters, and finding none, they came to the consensus that this particular behemoth was probably a rogue.
Still, to be on the safe side, they all carried their weapons handy.
Barret—with his usual tactfulness—demanded everyone stop babying Zack and get their asses to work setting up tents and prepping food and making fire.
To Tifa's surprise, he had also set up bedding inside the buggy. When she asked him about it, he shrugged, told her that, "Princess should stay in there tonight. I got out here covered." Then, even more surprising, he added, "There's room enough for the both of you," before stomping off to sass Yuffie for something or other.
Tifa helped set up the camp, ate wandering rabbit and tasty berries, and then, when all was quiet, made her way to the buggy where Zack was asleep inside. Or, she had thought he was.
He was sitting up, arm propped on one knee when she opened the hatch. "Hi," she greeted, crawling inside.
"Hey."
Feeling just a little out of sorts, Tifa approached, searched his bare chest for signs of the injury. Old scars remained, but only a faint redness indicated where he'd been skewered by the horn. Seeing her gaze, Zack prodded his chest and shoulder with his fingers.
"All healed up," he murmured.
"Feeling okay?" she whispered, settling across from him.
"Better than I should be," he acknowledged. "How's Aerith?"
"Good. Tired."
"Healing takes a lot out of her," he said, and there was a hint of guilt in his tone. "Would've been easier with a materia or a potion."
"There was no time. Besides," Tifa's lashes came down, hid the pain, "potions wouldn't have mattered. We had to use a Down on you."
Zack blinked. "No shit. I was that far gone, huh?"
"Yes." Why did she still feel so broken?
"Hey. Come here." He reached for her, tugged her into his lap. "It's okay," he stroked her hair.
"It is not okay," she whispered. "I was scared. I almost lost you." Her fingers danced over the spot the behemoth had torn through.
He offered no words to that. What could he say? So instead, he tilted her chin, lifted her mouth to his.
She slid her hands up, the sensation making him shiver, and linked them behind his neck. Her mouth was heated silk and tasted like red berries.
In one smooth glide, his hand slid up, over her shirt, his thumb brushing the side of her breast teasingly—testing. She sighed his name into his mouth and Zack took that as approval. He slanted his lips on hers, took more, demanded more, and gave all of himself.
Her lips parted, tongue tentatively playing with his, and he groaned. "Tifa," he growled, moving to cover her cheeks, ear, neck. There was desperation in his touch, fire in his blood. Had he always wanted her this much? Or was it the aftershocks of near death that made him want to grab the prize—life and her—and never let go.
Her fingers threaded his hair, her head falling back to allow him to taste wherever he chose. He followed the line of her throat with his tongue, tasted the dip in her collar bone, found her soft, pliant mouth once more.
Wasn't she exquisite?
His hands moved, slid beneath cotton to smooth over skin and touch her in ways that made her gasp.
He wanted her. So much he ached and throbbed and could barely think, but he was not—would not—take her on the floor of a dirty buggy with his skin still stained with blood and sweat. No matter how much his body tried to override his brain—and that, could have happened, but his heart refused to be denied what would be so, so right between them.
"Not here," he mouthed against her pulse. "Not yet," he breathed. "But with candles and soft music where there's only you and me and nothing else. Then," he kissed her along the jaw, pressed back so she was laying beneath him. "Then, Tifa, I want to make love to you."
"Yes," she sighed, arching into his seeking touch. "I want that, too."
Thank you, he silently sent to whatever deity was in charge of super sexy women and their wants.
"But we can have more of this, right?" She mouthed, teeth on his ear. "Now?
Oh, hell, yes. He smiled, hands on her hips as he found her mouth again. He shifted, hissed a breath when the friction tightened him to the point of delicious agony.
The sound made Tifa pull back, her head tilted and concern in her eyes. "I'm sorry. You should be resting. Oh, gods, Zack, I'm sorry."
She squirmed, trying to scoot from beneath him and he groaned.
"Am I hurting you?" she asked, frowning up at him.
Zack groaned again, dropped his head onto her shoulder. "Not like you think you are."
"Zack, I don't—"
"This." Slow, he rolled his hips, moved himself against her. He nuzzled her neck, repeated the motion when she gasped.
"Zack!" she clutched his shoulders, legs curling around his hips. The new position increased contact, even through clothes, and he panted damp gasps into her skin.
His body—despite what his brain and heart demanded—wanted to feel her quiver against him, and his hand traced skin and thigh until his fingertips brushed soft cotton.
She shifted restlessly, her eyes wide. "Zack...what?"
"Has no one ever...?" he stopped himself. Of course not. She had been waiting for Cloud. A small flicker of guilt sparked in his heart and he dropped his head, eyes veiled by dark hair. He was taking what wasn't his to take, he thought.
She must have seen it on his face, because her palms came up, cupped his cheeks. Her smile was brilliant, and her eyes steady. "Zack." His name. Him. She was there with him.
"Trust me?" he whispered.
She nodded. "Of course."
He smiled gentle and tender, moved his hand, rubbed her through her panties.
"Oh!" Her hands clutched in his hair.
She was damp and hot against his palm, and her small, broken sounds sent his blood pounding.
"Zack?" She fidgeted.
Careful, mindful of her innocent trust, Zack slipped beneath the elastic and touched, stroked, and adored her.
"Zack?" her eyes were wide, mouth parted, breaths short and fast.
"Almost there," he pressed kisses to her shoulder, neck, took her mouth. "You're so soft and slick," he breathed, adjusting his wrist and angle. "So beautiful."
Sensation.
It was all she felt.
Her body was a tingling roll of pleasure that was building and building with each brush of his fingers. When he shifted, breathed her name into her ear and told her he loved her, that pleasure crested and she shook as the tides of it washed over her.
She was gorgeous in her release, Zack thought, watching as her eyes shut and her sharp, startled cry filled the buggy.
Slow, he brought her back down, adjusted her clothes.
Heartbeat in her head and dancing blue lights behind her eyes, Tifa trembled. "Wow," she said after a time, and she felt Zack chuckle. She opened her eyes, found his soft and tender on hers. "That was...I have no words." She smiled, face flushed. "Do I thank you?"
His chuckle turned into a grin. "No. If anything I should probably thank you."
"But I didn't do anything." She paused, thoughtful. "Do you want me to do something? Would you like me to touch you like that?"
And all the blood left his brain.
"Zack?"
"Uhhhh...no. You don't have to." He shook his head. Tempting...oh, so damn tempting, but no. Not tonight. Tonight it was enough that she trusted him—was open to him. "I just want to hold you," he said.
"That's such a line."
"True." He shifted, curled his arm around her and tugged her against his side. He kissed her head. "But it's also the truth."
She was quiet a few minutes."Zack?"
"Hm?"
"What if I want to touch you?"
He closed his eyes. There was really only so much self-restraint a man could have. "Tifa—" Anything else he may have said died in his throat when her hand slid down his chest, over his stomach and rubbed him through his fatigues.
She rolled, looped her leg so that she straddled him. "Can I make you feel like you did me?"
His head thumped the floor twice before he could answer. "Yes."
Her face was red—even in the dark—but her touch was firm. "Tell me how." She leaned forward, tasted his lips. She had almost lost him today. She wanted to feel him—needed to feel him—pulsing and alive with her. "Teach me what you like."
Fifteen minutes later Zack muffled her name into her shoulder as his hips jerked and her unschooled touch took him over the edge of control.
AN: Nothing like a little near-death to bring out the 'smex'. (ahem) Annnnyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Almost to Cosmo Canyon now. THANK YOU for all of you that are reading, and especially for those that take the time to review. It really does inspire and I thank you so much.
AN2:Chaosbahamut123 has rightly mentioned that Phoenix Downs are feathers and not flasks of liquid (good catch on their part), and although I knew this, I couldn't find a logical way for a feather to work. So I have decided that Phoenix Downs are strong herbs blended with the ground remains of the feather of the mystical bird. This will probably be addressed in-fic in some coming chapters, as to why they are so rare and such, but I thought to avoid any confusion I'd mention it here too. Although much of the FFVII universe remains the same, this is still AU and some things will be tweaked, just a bit. THANK YOU!