The door leads to a cell. Ten paces wide and twice as deep. Grey walls, concrete floors, a steel toilet and sink.
A blue forcefield divides it in half, the kind that burns anything it touches. Subject C skids to a stop just in time.
There's a bed bolted into the wall with a narrow, lumpy mattress. A black-haired man sprawls face-first on it, his arm hung over the edge and picking at a lunch tray. Lifting a spoon of gruel to his mouth, he swallows and then looks up.
Boredom and disdain melt into shock, and C falls momentarily into the bright, mesmerizing blue of his eyes.
"Zack," he breathes. It comes naturally, with him standing right there. That's Zack Fair, storybook hero. Everyone's favorite SOLDIER.
Zack's bowed mouth traces an unheard name. He leaps to his feet and jogs as close as he can. None of it makes a sound, blocked by the barrier. C wants to press his body against it and bang his fists. He stands, impotently, as the other man's eyes rove over him.
The smile fades steadily, turning sad, and then angry. He says something at the ceiling. Crosses his arms. Emotion overwhelms Subject C—longing, relief, and fondness for such simple things as how Zack juts out his chin when he's arguing, or the way he taps his foot.
The barrier flares, and then disappears.
"You're alive!" Zack's arms come around so fast it almost knocks C off his feet. He laughs breathlessly, so goddamn happy.
"So are you."
"Damn right, it'll take more than one rogue SOLDIER to punch my ticket. Even if that SOLDIER is Sephiroth. Come here, let me get a look at you." C squirms as Zack puts him at arm's length, hands on his shoulders and head bent forward to inspect him. He doesn't seem pleased.
"M' fine," C mumbles, shifting foot to foot.
"Doubt it, with those eyes. How much did they give you?"
"I… don't really know. Five hundred?"
"Micros?"
"Milligrams."
"Total?" Zack's eyes widen.
Subject C works his jaw. "Per day."
The taller man rubs the back of his neck, his lip twisting. "That fast? Wow. They're really pushing you up the ladder. Though I guess the brass couldn't ignore a guy that beat the General in single combat. Congrats."
This isn't how C thought this would go. He doesn't follow what Zack's saying, the events he's referencing. He crosses his arms, anxious of his own ignorance. "What do you mean by that?"
Now Zack's confused, which makes C even more anxious. The taller man points back and forth between their eyes.
"They made you SOLDIER, right? And now Heidegger sent you here to get me back to work."
"I—no. I don't know who that is. Or who you are."
Zack's face falls, and C's heart twists in his chest. He grabs his arms, afraid to lose him so soon. The other man's gaze snags on the mangled handcuffs.
"I dreamed about you. Us. We were… laughing, happy. I woke up next to you upstairs, and I needed to know you were alive. So I pestered Hojo—"
"Hojo. He did this?" Zack takes the chain between C's wrists and snaps it. "So you're like me. Stuck in here."
"Yeah," he ducks his head. He wishes he was a big hero, come here to save him. He'd walk him right back the way he came if it weren't for the collar and the doors. He'd kill everything in this building if he had to.
"Five hundred a day." Zack shakes his head. "That's not enhancement, that's poison. No wonder your head's jacked. You're lucky you can even walk with that much mako in you."
"Sorry," C shrugs. That just makes Zack look sadder, until a fake smile covers it.
"Bet your stomach's fucked." He smacks C's arm playfully. "Come here, I've got a fix for that."
He waves C to the bed and nudges him to sit, then grabs his hand and lays it flat over his larger one. His thumb slides to the center of C's palm, a soothing weight that quiets the rough edges of his mind. He watches with strange intensity, his skin tingly and hungry, as it rubs a slow circle over his lifeline. Pleasant shivers come over him in waves.
"Bodies have nerve clusters all over the place. Turns out, you can get a lot of weird stuff to happen if you know where to push." Zack pinches the skin between C's thumb and forefinger, gentle but firm. The pressure behind C's eyes eases, and the pain dulls to a low thrum.
"Oh…"
"Cool, huh? It's an old SOLDIER trick. Mentors teach it to you when you make 3rd. Those first dozen shots are rough."
"Yeah." C stares at their hands. He doesn't say that the touch itself feels better than whatever it's doing to his head. The pinch loosens, and Zack moves down over C's palm and wrist, a bit past his pulse. "This one's for the stomach. Only works while you're pressing on it, which sucks, but it's better than nothing."
It works. C's shoulders dip as the pressure in his belly abates. It's been there so long he forgot what it's like to feel okay. Relief melts him, making him lean against Zack's side. His face heats when Zack puts his arm over him without a hint of a tease.
Hot, molten feelings bubble up, and he lets himself relax.
"Hey," C manages to mumble, after a minute of trying. "We're… friends, right?"
"Of course." Zack's brow furrows.
"So you won't laugh if I ask a dumb question."
"How dumb are we talking here?"
"Pretty fuckin' dumb."
He feels the quiet huff as much from Zack's body as from his mouth. "If I did, I wouldn't mean anything by it. I laugh when I'm uncomfortable. Can't help it."
C's lip quirks. He knew that about him. It's something he likes. Zack was constantly laughing and smiling, and it was never at him. Never too personal. He's just like that. Naturally happy. Indomitable.
"Can you… tell me what my real name is?"
Zack curses, colorfully. C hunches forward, regretting it until Zack kneels in front of him, fake smile long gone. The touch to his wrist disappears, transforming into something sticky and intimate, a holding of hands.
"It's Claude. After your mom. But that's an old geezer name, so you go by Cloud because it sounds cool."
"Cloud," he echoes. It feels right. It lifts a weight within him. "Cloud… Strife."
"That's right! A good name for a SOLDIER, all tough and mysterious like." Zack wiggles his brows.
"Shut up," Cloud pulls his hands back and crosses his arms, even as a flush heats his face.
"Oh, there it is, the signature Cloud pout." Zack's real grin spreads on his face, the one that's just a bit too manic to be handsome, with his mako eyes gleaming and his canines peeking out from the line of his teeth. "Glad to have you back."
"Ass," Cloud rolls his eyes.
"You love it." Zack shoves him playfully, and pushes up on his knees to stand. That seems to inspire him, because he keeps going, doing squats.
Memories flood back of his friend's weird nervous tick, and all the ridiculous places he'd indulged it. Ocean ferries, mission briefings, bar trivia. On one memorable occasion he'd done it in Heideggar's office, right in front of him while delivering a mission report.
Cloud snorts, remembering the color the Security Director's face turned as he tried not to reprimand one of his best SOLDIERs, who had just averted a crisis that any other operative would have turned into an international incident.
"What are you giggling about now?" Zack stills, not even winded, and sets his hands on his hips.
"Nothing." Cloud leans back on the bed. He gets a good look at the room, the drab walls and buzzing overhead lights, the security cameras unsubtly following their every move.
Amid the shots and tests and illness, he'd lost the urgency of his early confinement. He'd been driven almost wild by it those first days. It resurges then, with his body healed and Zack's fiery energy igniting him.
"We have to get out of here," he says.
"That's not a good idea." Zack darts his eyes to the cameras, the message clear. Shut up, idiot.
If Cloud knew when to stop, he wouldn't have made it down here. He shuffles to the metal sink and turns on the tap. The white noise of falling water is especially loud in the small space.
"There's only one guard at night. We can take him."
"And the doors? Biometric scanners? Toxic gas? We'd never make it."
Cloud cups his hands under the water and takes a drink, to keep the rouse but also because he's damn thirsty and it's right there. "There's stuff in the other room. Big motors. We could rig up something."
"And then what? We go on the run? From Shinra?! They'll send the whole army after us. We'd be smoked in a week, tops."
"Then what's your solution? Sit here and let them play god with us? We're no safer here than out there." Cloud growls, takes another drink, and glares at the water circling the drain. Zack reaches around to turn off the tap.
"We're KIA, Cloud. Nobody's looking for us. I had a little hope that maybe you got out, but I'm never that lucky. So here we are, and we're not going anywhere until Hojo's satisfied."
"He'll never be—" Cloud starts, cameras and microphones be damned, but Zack's arms snake around him and he presses his face to his back. He doesn't need memory to know this is new. His body doesn't uncoil, doesn't keen to it like a cat in a sunspot. It's tight and guilty, like this is something he's not allowed to have.
"I know that look," Zack whispers, just for his ears. "I get it. This is humiliating, it's awful, but you can't stubborn your way out of this one. I just got you back, and I can't—if your pride gets you killed, I don't think I could keep going."
His knuckles are white on the sink edge, body strung tight. Zack's fingers grip the fabric of his shirt.
"So please, Cloud, I'm begging you. Please just go along with this until we have a realistic chance at escape."
Water drips from his bangs onto the backs of his hands. A wet spot is spreading over his shoulder from Zack's hair. He can't give this up now. It's the most alive and human he can remember being, even if fear and dread still simmer underneath.
"Okay," he sighs. He grips Zack's wrist where it's pinned itself to his chest. The other man hugs him tighter.
"Together, or not at all," he says, muffled by the fabric of the shirt. Cloud feels the words in his skin.
"Together," he nods.
The crackle of the overhead speakers tears them apart. When Cloud pulls his fingers from the sink there's a line of oval divots around the rim.
"Well, isn't that sweet. A touching reunion," Hojo sing-songs. "I take it you appreciate your gift, Subject C?"
Cloud untangles himself from Zack, and tries to leave his emotions in his arms. A deep breath in and out, a rolling of his shoulders, and he is Subject C once more.
"Yes, professor," he says. "Is it time for our work?"
"Indeed, my boy. What a pleasant change of attitude. Perhaps Bennet's hypothesis was correct, and Subject Z has a stabilizing influence on you."
Cloud's eye twitches, but he doesn't clench his jaw. Zack's plea rings in his ears, keeping his hands open at his sides and his face an impassive mask. He doesn't have to like it, he just has to play along. Buy time. That's not so hard to do, with Zack's life in the balance.
"Do we have to chit-chat?" he says. "I thought we were running late."
Hojo tsks, but his voice is all business when he next speaks. "Right you are. Two steps back, Subject Z. Re-activating the barrier."
Zack moves just in time, falling into a defensive stance even though there's nothing to fight.
"Sit tight, don't make trouble, and I may be persuaded to arrange a sleepover. Wouldn't that be nice?"
Cloud drinks in the sight of him through the hexagon pattern of the forcefield, trying to memorize every detail and hold it in the leaky bucket his memory has become.
Zack pounds his chest twice with his fist. A warrior's goodbye. Stay strong, it says silently. Leave no man behind. Cloud mimics it, meeting the determined stare with his own.
The door whooshes open behind him, and he doesn't let himself look back. He lifts his chin, sets his shoulders, and marches into the atrium, his military identity returned to him.
Bennet's there with a squadron of K-9 guards with dogs. No more grunts for his escort.
She struts toward the Cradle and scans them through the door.
Cloud follows, resolute.