Disclaimer: I do not now or before and most likely not in the future, own Final Fantasy, Square Enix or any of the characters.

A/N: Yea, an update! Sorry for the delay, life happens. I've started back to school and am taking 15 hours again this semester. Also, don't forget the baby name contest. I have gotten an overwhelming number of you that have put in your choices, both in reviews and in PMs, thank you! There is still time to send me your choices if you have more ideas or if you haven't yet! Please enjoy, and let me know what you think. (I also uploaded a new AMV and the link is on my profile.)

Thanks to my wonderful beta SubZeroChimera!


"The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible." –Arthur C. Clarke

To You I Give My Heart

Chapter 22

~Weigh the Balance~

Cleaning up the old house took the rest of what they had left of the day of their arrival and the rest of the next day, but after everything got done, Zack was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. The two-bedroom house turned out as quite quaint, and full of research that he relocated to the small storage building behind the house. He moved his and Cloud's things into the largest bedroom that also had a small bathroom, Nanaki took the front room that had held the research, naming it his bedroom. Among the paperwork, files, boxes, samples of leaves, jars of preserved small wildlife, there was a couch and a large wooden desk.

The kitchen was quite impressive, in that it played host to several different types of insects that had once feasted, nested, bred and died on the remnants of food that apparently got pulled from the cabinets and refrigerator in raids from the larger wildlife. He would have to repair the door, as it hung loosely from one hinge, but there were tools neatly organized in the shed. A few broken windows patched and a couple of desiccated dead animal carcasses removed later, it was a home once again.

Nanaki went out to do a quick perimeter check and Zack worked on getting Cloud and himself cleaned up, "Tomorrow I'm going to try to go hunt a little, get some fresh meat, maybe start a little garden. You want to help?" Cloud's head lolled forward when he sat her up to take off her clothes, "I take that as a yes. Sharna put some seeds in the bag, don't know what they grow, but I guess we'll find out."

Pulling out some clean clothes and laying them to the side, he continued to talk, filling the silence that reminded him of his own memories too much, "Me and Nanaki were able to repair the well, and I got the generator going so we have running water and electricity, at least for the moment. So how about a nice bath?" When getting her undressed and down into the tub, Zack noticed that he could see the baby moving under her fair skin. Little knobs of hard appendages pushed out and rolled around, undulating in trying to turn over in her womb. Zack sat, mesmerized, and his hand found a place above Cloud's protruding belly button, a smile crossed his stressed face, soothing the hard lines.

Cloud's head lay to the side, cheek resting on her shoulder, as her eyes stared blankly down into the water. Just then, an especially hard kick from the baby shot a gasp and a giggle from the large brunette, "Hey now little guy, it's not time for you to come out yet." His voice dropped in sadness as the implications again settled in as he spoke, "I can't wait to meet you, but your mommy needs to wake up first, I know she'll want to meet you too…" Again, he became mesmerized by the baby, its movements slowed, as if hearing and understanding what Zack said.

Finishing her bath, drying her off and dressing her, Zack sat on the side of the bed, staring at his family.

Nanaki's voice echoed in the somewhat barren bedroom, he stood behind the former Soldier and watched the man's face change from smiling, to sadness and again into anger at what Hojo had done, "Zackary, we must talk, when ever you are finished."

Snapping from his trance, he nodded, "Yeah, okay. I'll meet you in the kitchen, I gotta start dinner anyway."

Dragging his feet, he went to the kitchen and started pulling things from one of the bags. He tried to occupy his mind with cooking some of the things that Sharna had packed, a few potatoes, dried meat, corn on the cob and wild mushrooms soon filling the repaired wooden kitchen prep table, "I'm starting a garden out back and going hunting tomorrow, do you have any idea what we could hunt for food around here?"

"According to the research that we found in the files, there are epiolnis that are apparently healthy and good to ingest."

Pulling out a fire materia, that he'd bartered from one of the travelling merchants, from his bracer, Zack lit the wood burning stove to start boiling the water, "That sounds good, I'll look at the pictures that the researcher guy took to make sure I don't come home with something poisonous." Popping a piece of raw potato in his mouth, he chewed around the question, "Now what did you want to talk about?"

"Grandfather told me of your woman's condition, that she is unable to wake," Zack shot a glare at him, knowing that his four-legged companion meant nothing by his statement, Nanaki continued, "For that reason, he gave me a book for you, in the improbability that you have to cut the baby out. I believe you humans call it a cesarean section."

Shaking his head in annoyance and denial, Zack harshly spoke, "No! She'll wake up before then."

"I am sure she will, but you should prepare, just in case the baby comes early, or if there are complications." Deep down Zack knew that Nanaki spoke logically, but he just couldn't bring himself to think about it. As if hearing his thoughts, Nanaki asked knowingly, "What is it that you are apprehensive about?"

Could he voice his feelings to a virtual stranger? Before he could debate anymore, his mouth said what his mind did not want to comprehend, "I can't hurt Cloud. I can't just cut her… open." Suddenly feeling nauseous, he gagged at the thought of causing her pain, possibly killing her. Never letting the thoughts get to that point before, he had never let it cross his mind that giving birth could kill her. Women died giving birth all the time, but if he had to actually cut her open, he could be increasing her chances of a death sentence even more, she needed a doctor.

Shaking his head at his own thought of taking her to a doctor, he audibly groaned. He didn't have a cure materia, and he quickly made a plan on the spot to try and find one as soon as possible. Raising his eyes to the one good eye of the four-legged creature in front of him, he said something that made him sick, "I can't do that to her… she needs a…doctor."

Eying the man, Nanaki sat and listened as Zack went on, letting loose of something that built up in his soul, quietly he choked though the words, almost as if he were reading it from a book, "Harding sh-should be here, he would know w-what to do."

Increasing his speed at cutting up the vegetables, tears threatened to stream down his face, as he yelled, "If it weren't for me she wouldn't be pregnant in the first place!" Taking in a loud breath, he slammed the knife down, jamming the tip into the tabletop, "She wouldn't have been captured by Hojo if I had been stronger!" Picking up the large metal pot in front of him, he flung it across the room, shattering a vase that had once held a large bouquet of plastic flowers. Leaning forward, his palms on the table, he panted out his quieting sobs of anger and frustration.

"Life is full of what-ifs," Nanaki blinked and sighed, causing the former Soldier to look up, "You can stand here and beat yourself up all you want, but breaking ugly vases and throwing our dinner on the floor is not going to fix Cloud - as she is now."

The storm in his violet eyes calmed as he strained a terse smile, "Sorry." Relenting, and making himself busy, he washed the potatoes that he had thrown and finished preparing dinner. Cloud ate well that night, she always did like stew. During their short walk, she even walked most of the way on her own, only needing Zack to keep her from running into things or falling off of the four stairs on the small porch.

It took almost a week for Zack to get through the book that Bugenhagen had sent with Nanaki for him. Mistakenly, he had read it before bed and with Cloud sleeping next to him, he would glance at her from time to time, trying to picture whether he would be able to deliver the baby by cesarean if necessary. Of course, nightmares about it plagued his nights and many times he woke up in a sweat after dreaming that Cloud bled to death while giving birth, and what made it worse was that she died without ever waking up.

In the morning, Cloud slept quietly next to him, he eased out of the bed. Dressing in some heavy jeans and his sleeveless black shirt, he laced up his boots and glanced over his shoulder at the blond in his bed. He couldn't help the feelings of love that swelled up in his heart, but fear bubbled and festered in the lingering wound that thoughts of Hojo always tore open again, it threatened to cover him, swallow his last remaining bit of humanity. Leaning over, he touched his lips to her warm cheek and let them linger longer than he usually did. She anchored him to sanity and he needed that bit of extra time, skin to skin, to pull himself back together.

Sitting back up and brushing some strands of blond hair back from her temple, his eyes traced the beautifully made soft lines of her jaw, high-set cheek bone, and the gentle curvature of the shell of her ear, "I'll see you in a bit, I've got to get some hunting done."

In the kitchen, he grabbed one of the horrendous cereal bars that the military once put in every field issued meal, not to mention that he and Cloud survived on them for months. They didn't taste bad, he just had trouble swallowing them do to the fact that he was terribly tired of eating them. With the cereal bar hanging from his lips, he grabbed his sword and addressed Nanaki as he read more of the books from the researcher, "Going hunting," was all he said as he exited.

Nanaki's distracted response, "Hmm… 'kay," Was what Zack heard as he shut the door. There was no need to worry, Nanaki would take care of Cloud and make sure that nothing tried to hurt her. Also, he had the advantage that if something happened, he could find Zack by smell. Although Zack's sense of smell, though enhanced, Nanaki still had a superior nose, which came in handy a few times.

Marshmallow roamed in her newly built pen and 'warked' when she saw her dark-haired master. Patting her side he soothed her with his stressed, but pleasant-sounding voice, "How are you today?" Reaching for her bucket, he filled it with greens. Happily, the chocobo ate with a hungry vigor that he felt in his own stomach, but he chewed the cereal bar and forcefully swallowed it down his throat.

Walking in a familiar military search pattern, Zack finally caught the noise of an epiolnis, which the researcher had so graciously recorded for later analysis. Hunching down, he waited for it to get closer and he would pounce, like the patient hunter that he wished he was. While waiting, the feeling of being watched came back, and from his lowered position, he glanced around, trying to see who, or what, it was. Panic stopped him short as he wondered if it was Shinra.

Just as quickly as the feeling started, it stopped. Completely confused and shaken, he failed to hear the animal he was hunting approach until it pecked him on the shoulder, startling him. When he jumped, the almost-relative to the chocobo ran and he ran after it, but lucked out when it clothes-lined itself on a draping vine. Quickly breaking its neck, he untangled it and hefted it up over his shoulders, hissing at the pain in the rising bruise where it had gotten him with its beak earlier.

Approaching the house, he noticed Nanaki sitting out on the small porch, reading, "Here's dinner."

Without looking up from the notes, Nanaki answered, "I'll skin it and clean it in a few minutes. Let me finish this one file."

Dropping the dead animal in front of his housemate, he shook his shoulders to loosen up his strained muscles, "Good. Damn thing stinks until it's cooked properly," Pushing open the door, Zack froze in his tracks.

In front of the large picture window on the other side of the living room, a bright ray of sunshine fell upon the frail frame, lighting up her hair and brightening the room. She stood, staring out the window and Zack approached, cautiously he whispered, "Cloud…?" He felt that if he spoke to loud, he would wake up from this dream, and she would turn and fall back into the deep sleep that she lived in for so long.

Her hands hung limply from her equally limp arms, a slight sag to her shoulders and a blank look in her eyes dampened his spirit again, but undeterred, his voice found the strength that he lacked and a bit louder, he asked, "Cloud?"

Slowly she turned to the direction of his voice and the far off look in her eyes was thankfully replaced by a focus that he had only seen once before; back in the paradise where she woke for just those few precious seconds, it had become his security blanket, it was his assurance that she was still in there.

She furrowed her eyebrows and confusion swam in her deep blue eyes, but then she spoke, hesitantly, her innocent voice floated to his ears, "… I'm… Cloud."

Vigorously, he nodded and took her by her shoulders, "Yes! You're Cloud!" His heart soared, beat with renewed passion, he had his Cloud back and now they could be happy, together. Hearing the door glide open behind him, he dared not turn away from the cobalt eyes that captivated him, "Red, she's awake!"

Just as quickly as his heart pounded, it fell, tumbled and crashed when she asked him, "Who are you?"


A/N: "I love cliff-hangers!" I giggle as I duck behind my desk. I know that some of you hate cliff-hangers, but sometimes I just can't help myself. I feel that it enhances the anticipation and emotional tie to the story.

Thanks to everyone who reads, favorites, subscribes and/or reviews, I appreciate your time and I dedicate all of this to you. To quote another author, "Getting reviews makes me feel all warm and squishy."

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