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: This chapter is a little dark, not quite as dark as the last chapter though. I said this to one of you, but it is very difficult to write a full story from only one perspective, but I will try to have stories that are in flashback form, like those characters are telling Zack the story of what happened. All of the monsters in this story are in FFVII and I look them up in my original game guide, so the one mentioned in this chapter is in the game.

To the guest reviewer, E: Thank you for your review. I'm not real sure if you are liking the progress of the story, or not. Of course, I hope that it is that you do like it.

Reviews, critiques, and flames are welcome. I love reviews, I utilize good constructive criticism and I feed the flames to the fires of my imagination!

My regular beta isn't available to beta for a short time so I got Queen of Jokers and (someone else who doesn't want to be named but she is a big fan), to go over this chapter for me. Thanks ladies!


"Happiness depends on ourselves." –Aristotle

To You I Give My Heart

Chapter 33

~You Look Really Familiar~

Waking to the cold cell and the warm body on top of him, he'd been crying in his sleep, his cheeks wet with tears. He hadn't realized that Tifa was Cloud's friend until after he'd paid for her company and been captured by the scientist.

Tifa was one of the many things that they'd talked about after Hojo captured them. Cloud hadn't been able to spend time with Tifa before Sephiroth lost his mind and that was one of her regrets, and embarrassments, as she hadn't made Soldier yet. The Soldier exams were taking place the next month after they were supposed to return to Midgar from the Nibelhiem mission, but that didn't compute to the town, they'd think her a failure just for not being one then. Zack had wanted to tell her that her friend was a prostitute, and the only reason he knew was because of his visit before Sephiroth locked himself in the mansion. Zack soon realized that she knew what Tifa had become when she told him the shocking story just couple of months into their captivity with Hojo.

Cloud pulled her hand out of his and back through the bars and asked , "You remember that night that we went dancing, the first time?"

Hearing her voice change to sadness, Zack asked back, "Yeah, what about it?"

"Well, it was that night… it was that night that I realized I was free, that I had a choice."

Hearing her sniffle, Zack cleared his throat, "What do you mean?" He remembered how her whole aura changed during the song, dancing as if her life depended on it and leaving something painful behind.

"There was a reason that I came to Shinra," Clearing her throat, she stuttered, "M-my mother was… a prostitute."

Thinking back to the whore house, Zack remembered seeing a beautiful blond woman who'd always sat in the back, looking out the window, like she was waiting for something, or someone. However in his maddened anguish, he'd not recognized her from the small picture of her mother that Cloud kept on her bunk back in the barracks. Zack suddenly felt horrible, "I… I didn't know, I'm sorry."

"That's not all, I just… If I hadn't left when I did, I would have had to start working as one too, like my friend Tifa. My mother did everything she could to keep me safe and… untouched," Pausing for a moment, she continued through light tears, "Nibelheim is one of those places that people, even the mayor, visited the whore house, but everyone treated us like trash." Full blown tears threw her into almost hysterics, "People like my mother and Tifa were good enough to fuck, but damned if they talked to us like we were anything but human garbage! Even though I never worked as one, I was treated the same… just because of my mother!"

Swallowing, Zack wiped the light moisture at his eyes. He himself had treated Tifa like she was nothing but a prostitute. Did she have dreams, fears, and ambitions? Did she even want to work as a prostitute, or was she just born into it like Cloud? Suddenly having an attack of conscious, Zack started, "Cloud, I-"

"Don't Zack! Don't try to make me feel better about my mother and best friend being what they were, what I almost was, and what the entire town thought I should've been instead of pursuing a stupid dream, like being a Soldier," Cloud stopped for a moment as she blew her nose. In a calmer tone, she started but then her voice rose in volume as the words left her mouth, "That is why I wanted to become a Soldier. I promised Tifa and my mother that I would come back for them… and I failed!"

After his restless sleep, Zack felt far less stiff but with less pain, so daring the sleeping Harding to hurt him, he began trying to move but the door opened. With a start, Harding rose his head from Zack's chest and watched as Hojo walked in, "I see it has claimed you as its own."

Zack had to lift his neck, sliding the top of his head on the tile, to see Hojo at the door, upside down, but it didn't stop him from speaking, "Morning to you too."

"What happened to it, will happen to you unless you tell me where my specimens are." Still perched on Zack's body, Harding began to mock the scientist with vocal murmurs, but with a simple gesture of his hand, Hojo had the man cowering back to the corner. He spoke to Zack, "I told you, I taught Sephiroth well. Human emotions and ties to silly human things was what would bring about his demise and now this… thing knows." Indicating Jacob with a flick of his eyes, Hojo sneered at Zack as he asked, "Where are my specimens?"

"Zackary Fair, Soldier First Class, 871-623-167."

"Zzzz-ackary Fair!" Harding giggled at the sound that the former Soldier's name sounded like in his voice.

Hojo's eyes glanced briefly to the nude man in the corner before returning a glare to Zack, "I will not play these games Z. It is important work that I am doing here."

With a sarcastic snort directed at Hojo's last statement, Zack moved his head back to the floor and looked at Harding. It was difficult to control his emotions at the thought of not being able to see his daughter or Cloud anymore, but it was more difficult to fathom giving up and telling him where they were last seen. With a fair amount of control over his voice, Zack said through a lax jaw, trying to sound as comfortable as he could, "Zackary Fair, Soldier First Class, 871-623-167."

"I see." Pausing to unfold a chair that an assistant brought in, Hojo sat, "It is in your best interests that you cooperate. The more you cooperate, the less that this man, or you, has to suffer." Indicating Harding, the cowering man lowered his eyes from Zack's and Hojo's looks.

With a certain amount of wary cockiness, Zack dared to ask, "Can I ask what exactly did you do to him? I just want to know what I have to look forward to before I decide whether to answer." Zack had a feeling he knew what he'd done to him, but he couldn't help the need to needle the scientist into a fit of anger.

A subtle twitch of Hojo's lip started a stoic look that chilled Zack as he spoke, "It really does not matter because if the infant that the specimen gave birth to has not started the properly regimented injections of the specialized mako mixture by the time it is two months of age, its health will decline until it ultimately ends in death."

Was the scientist bluffing? Did his daughter stand a chance to live out from under the thumb of Hojo, or was she destined to become a weapon like Sephiroth had become? The timing of Hojo's statement made him wonder, why he hadn't said anything earlier if it was that imperative, he knew that Hojo valued the lives of his specimens only if it furthered his work.

Deciding to call the man's bluff, he rolled to his side, pulling on the bindings around his ankles, "Dead."

Seeing a twinge of anger cross the scientist's poker face, the pertinent questions that he wanted, he asked, "Who? When?"

"Both of them," Leveling his eyes to Hojo's, Zack stated, "Several months after we escaped, Cloud had a seizure, hit her head on a rock, passed out and choked to death on her own vomit," The blank look from the scientist set Zack into a stride of daring dead-panned answers, "You know, as in died… dead… deceased… and, the baby died with her." Trying to sound as non-committal as he could, he thought back to one of her many fits and if he hadn't been right there to help her, she surely would have died.

The beady black eyes narrowed and studied the former Soldier, looking for any weakness in the story, but seemingly found none. Zack knew that Hojo knew first-hand, by his experiments, what mako poisoning did to a person. Leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees, Hojo said, "I do not believe you."

Shrugging his shoulders, Zack laid back down on the cold tile, his chest erupting in goose bumps, he talked with a certain amount of disinterest, "Eh, believe what you want then."

A noise in the corner of the room caught Zack's attention, it was Harding, beginning to cry and repeated the same words over and over, "Clooud, can't die. Clooud, can't-"

Over the rising volume of the filthy man in the corner, Hojo fumed, "Quiet down J or I will get your toy."

Immediately Jacob quieted and wrapped his arms around his legs. Turning back to Zack, Hojo asked, "Where are the bodies located?"

"Don't remember."

With a laugh, Harding repeated defiantly, "Dooon't 'memmmber!"

"That's it," Standing up, Hojo reached out and a nondescript assistant handed Hojo the stuffed animal that he'd seen the man holding when he first woke up, a small, fluff-filled baby Jumping, a child's toy. How something so innocuous could become something so sinister was beyond him. Only something evil could turn an avatar of cuddly cuteness into something of nightmares. It occurred to Zack that not everything was as it seemed, it was a lesson that his parents had taught him, there was a time for wariness of everything, and everyone, even the sweetest sounding intention could turn to poison in your mouth.

At that point, he now associated Hojo and his loathsome and offensive demeanor to the twisted version of that stuffed animal and it was all the mad scientist's doing. After all, a weapon alone doesn't hurt anyone, it's the person behind the weapon, behind that mask of deceit that holds the power to destroy the lives surrounding them.

The puppet master pulling the strings, the power that Hojo held over Harding was absolute, the man was powerless to the monster and the weapon of fear that he wielded. Without a second thought, Harding quickly stood and ran to the man's side, falling to his knees at his master's side.

Hojo held the toy at eye level to Harding, immediately lowering his eyes, he dropped his head and reached out blindly, stroking at Hojo's pant leg, in a childlike voice, Jacob's head tilted, barely looking at the scientist from the corner of his eye, "beee gooood… promissse."

Callously, Hojo kicked him as he stood up, he addressed Zack, "We shall begin with you then, until you tell me where you left the bodies of my specimens."

With a yelp, Harding rolled backward and landed on his feet, crouched, he watched Hojo leave and two large men in white orderly uniforms come in with a dog catching rod, with the loop of wire at the end of it. With practiced ease, they slipped the loop over Harding's head and tightened it as the man struggled. As suddenly as Jacob started fighting, he stopped when a jolt of electricity went through his body. The orderly holding the rod said condescendingly, like he was talking to a dog, "Come on boy, we've got a treat for ya if you're a good boy."

Growling out, Harding stopped and looked up at the man and excitedly asked, "Treeeat?"

Leading him out, the man said, "Yeah, let's go."

Zack was dumbfounded, he couldn't think of what to say at first, but just before the second man in white walked from the room, he asked, "So… you just want me to wait here?" The flash of the look Zack got made him laugh out apprehensively, but the man just shut the door and left him there, alone.

Wiggling around, he was able to finally move better and he sat up, reaching for the tattered remains of his shirt, slipping it on, taking care of not bending his still broken and crooked ring finger. Taking the front part of his shirt and putting it in his mouth, he took his left ring finger in hand, quickly jerked it, re-breaking it and re-positioning it. Dampening his grunting curse with his shirt before pulling it out of his mouth, he then tore a part of the hem off and wrapped it around his ring and middle fingers, splinting it, hoping that it would heal quickly, before Hojo started his newest torture.

Reaching down, he worked at the ropes around his bare ankles with his right hand, careful not to jostle his pinky finger that was still healing from Harding breaking it. Once free of the ropes, he tentatively stood and with the blood rushing to his head at his change in place, he reached out to the wall and steadied himself.

His bare feet chilled at the feel of the cold tile. Looking around the room in his standing position, he mentally kicked himself for not noticing before. Along the back wall, it was really a false wall. He'd seen these before, these cells were where the captured monsters were kept. While he was just a new Second Class, Angeal had brought him to see what the scientists did, how they tested the creatures to help the training Soldiers at different levels. It also gave the computer scientists an idea of creature power so that the VR battle area could be tightly controlled with what monsters did what kind of attacks.

Looking up at the camera, he hoped that there was someone watching, someone other than Hojo, someone he knew before the Nibelheim incident. He prayed that the Turks still hacked into the camera feed from their offices above the basement labs in Midgar, more specifically, the basement labs in Shinra Tower; he was sure that he was back in Midgar, the place where his journey to Soldier began.

The false wall rose with a screech, revealing several Kalm Fangs darting forward. Pack mentality kept them together, but hunger made them unpredictable and just that much more dangerous.


A/N 2: 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."

Please send me your reviews if you want. It is really easy. Just click your arrow in the little box, write what you thought or felt about the chapter and then click right down there, just below the box. A little lower… a little to the right… yeah, right there! Click it! *grinning*