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: Just to remind everyone, this story is all from Zack's POV, so it is his interpretations of what others are doing and the possible meanings behind them, this chapter included. This is a bit of a transition chapter, sorry to those who don't like transition chapters, but they are a necessity. Just to let you all know, I changed my pen name so you don't think you're seeing things.

Honesty time - I got this chapter back from my beta a long time ago... and... I did NOT completely forget all about it... Okay yeah, I forgot about it, but I have a really good excuse... um, no I don't... Sorry.

Reviews, critiques and flames are welcome. I absolutely love all reviews about the story as it gives me motivation, I use good constructive criticism to help my writing improve and I feed the flames to the fires of my imagination.

Thanks to my whip-wieldin' beta SubZeroChimera


"Reputation is for time, character is for eternity." – J.B. Gough

To You I Give My Heart

Chapter 40

~A Burdensome Reunion~

Shocked and widened blue eyes met his sad and tearful violet ones.

"Zack?"

Not able to keep from touching her cheek, he nodded slowly as he kept his eyes on hers. He couldn't talk, didn't know what to say, or what to say first. It all muddled together, making his brain a flustered mess. He remembered her now, how he'd kept her from his thoughts and kept her from becoming a restless murmur on his lips in his delusions that Hojo inflicted. She'd become a thing, not a living person that he'd sought out. He'd held onto his secret; away from Hojo, from the assistants and from Harding.

Retracting his hand, he suddenly remembered her love for Harding. She'd held the man in esteem at one point and was sure that knowing what the man had done for them, the hell he'd gone through was something he had to tell her. She had to know what he'd done to the man who saved them from Hojo.

Finding his voice, it cracked, "Cloud, I n-need to tell you something-"

Putting her finger to his lips, her eyes filled with tears and she whispered, "Just wait. Let me have this moment… please?"

Pausing, she studied his face, slowly she felt of his skin, ran her fingers through his hair just before she raised up to meet his lips with hers. They remained there, unmoving, but her sigh of contentment was followed with her tears as they streamed down her face.

Zack didn't know what to do. He knew she needed this, she required this contact with him, but he couldn't help but feel his skin wrinkle as he winced at the perceived pain he felt. When she wrapped her hands around his face, pulling him harder to her, he couldn't help the way he felt with the well-intentioned touches… revulsion. Reactively, he pinched his lips tight and pulled away.

Lowering her eyes, she bit her lip as she shuddered, letting her hands fall to her lap.

His heart hurt, he wanted to hold her, wanted to take her in his arms and love her until their worlds fell apart, but he needed time.

Sniffling, she wiped at her eyes, "It's what Hojo did isn't it?"

Dodging her looks, he gazed at the floor, unable to answer. Instead of wrapping his arms around her, as it should be, he wrapped his arms around himself.

"Cloud," Raising his eyes slowly back to her face, he began, "It's Jacob."

Furrowing her eyebrows, she angrily spat, "He did this to you too?!"

Flinching back, he shook his head, "No, he… he helped us escape when he found out you were…" Swallowing back a sob, he blinked back more tears, "pregnant."

Her face fell and she choked back another biting remark. A flash of memories played across her face, he could imagine the memories she saw of the man injecting them with everything Hojo ordered, and performing the tests that he was told. Harding was the model lab assistant, except for the occasions when regret darkened his young face.

"I don't want to talk about him," Cloud firmly protested.

"-But, he-"

"No! I've spent so much time hating him for what he's done, I can't change that… not now."

"Cloud, listen." Gripping her wrist, he spoke calmly, "He's dead."

"Good."

Shaking his head, he squeezed his eyes shut, "No, its not." Opening his eyes slowly, he hated that this was their first conversation they were having after being reunited.

"Don't make me miss him Zack. I just got you back, I don't want to mourn for him, I don't have it in me."

"I killed him." Pulling her hand until she looked at him, he added, "Hojo made us… he conditioned us…" Closing his eyes again, he willed the painful past away, he tried to convey the message without reliving it all, but it was useless and his breath hitched at the thought of all he and Harding went through at the hands of one man, "Harding was my friend in there and…"

His words trailed off, he couldn't finish what he needed to say. She finished for him, "He made you fight each other?" Making him look back at her, she asked, "For what?! Food, amusement, training? What?!"

Zack said one word that sent chills down her spine, "…E-everything."

Her knowledge of Hojo filled in the blanks, all that she'd seen that the man was capable of made her ask, "He found out Jacob helped us and did the same that he did to you?" He couldn't look at her anymore but her next question made his new-found world crack open a little, letting that darkness he'd been in begin to seep slowly back in, "Did he suffer like we did? Like you did this time?"

Closing his eyes, he whispered, "Worse I think, because of what he went through from me too."

Rising to her feet, she paced and angrily announced, "I'll make Hojo pay for what he's done!" Falling to her knees in front of him, she took his gaze into hers, "I swear."


The next day, was a whole new day to try to start a normal life. He'd slept very little, his dreams kept him awake more than asleep, but he was safe now. Cloud made him sleep in the room with her to keep him close, but he insisted that he sleep on the floor while she slept on the bed. He'd woken up with a blanket over him and a pillow under his head and he wondered how she accomplished that without waking him.

Now he was bored and in the kitchen with Cloud. He sat at the table… coloring… in a coloring book featuring princesses with long hair, big smiles and frilly dresses.

"Hello?!" A feminine voice echoed through the house from the front door.

"In the kitchen!" Cloud stirred the pot of stew and tossed a bite of raw celery dipped in peanut butter in her mouth. Zack pushed the coloring book aside and watched the brunette enter the kitchen.

"Wow, you look so much better Zack." With a large smile that rivaled the princesses depicted in the coloring book, the pretty brunette sat down at the table and gazed in his eyes.

Fidgeting from the eye contact, he swallowed the mouth full of water, "Thanks, I think."

Her eyes glimmered with knowledge and the shimmer traveled from her eyes to her smile, "Remarkable."

His questioning looks went from the brunette to the blond and back, "What is?"

Sitting straighter in the chair, she bounced in place, "You are! Your daugh-" Glancing to Cloud she stopped talking and put her fingers to her lips, "Cloud I think he will be just fine if he knows."

"Aerith, he remembers everything now."

Confusion clouded his mind for a short time, as his eyes darted to the blond while she moved around the kitchen, taking a sample of the food she was cooking, she pushed the sample close to his mouth, "Taste this." Blowing the steam from the spoonful of stew, she moved it to his lips, urging him to test the flavor of the concoction.

Aerith put her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her palm, smiling with a twinkle in her eyes. Averting his eyes from the brunette, he felt like he was under scrutiny again, like in the labs, but he pushed the feeling away and took the spoon in his mouth.

"How does that taste?"

Waiting for his answer, he squirmed in his seat and tasted the food. Tasted it. For so long, he didn't taste things. He didn't want to taste anything: raw animals and sloppy garbage left over from the Soldier cafeteria upstairs; a foul, soupy mess injected with vitamins. The whole mishmash that wasn't befit a farm animal was what he was used to eating, and tasting it was never an option.

The mouthful of food was hot, and he let it linger on his tongue. The acidic bite of tomato, flavorful bits of minced onion, fresh vegetables crunched, and the flow of juices warming him up made his mouth water more before he swallowed it. Glancing up at the blond, he said all that he could think of, "It's much better than what Hojo fed me."

With a nod, she returned to the stove, "Yeah…"

Aerith spoke to Cloud with a noticeable rise in her voice, "I think he's ready."

Returning to the table with bowls of stew for all three of them, Cloud sat next to Zack, and across from Aerith, "I guess now is better than never."

Scooping up a large spoonful, Zack asked between bites, "Ready for what?"

The blond said simply, "Charlotte."


Sitting on the couch, he fidgeted, stood up, paced around the room, sat down on the edge of the side table, took a drink of water and wrung his hands in anticipation of re-meeting his daughter. What did she think of him, did she think of him like a pet, a stray animal that she found and brought to her mother hoping that she'd let her keep him?

She'd seen him at his worst; damaged, sullied, unchangeable and unstable. What did he have to offer her anymore? She'd found him in a large pipe, lying next to a dead body, eating a dead Kalm fang and playing with a mouse.

Remembering back to when he'd first seen her, her eyes glimmered with mako, but he'd not thought anything about it because most of the people and creatures he'd come into contact with in the labs had glowing eyes. While he wasn't knowledgeable of his relationship with her at the time, he still felt a drawing need to be near her, and that was what interested him in her. It became clear that was the reason he felt so close to her, but did she feel the same about him?

"Don't be so nervous! You're making me nervous." Cloud's smile disarmed him a little, she added a fact that he'd already mulled over, "You've already met, she's the one that found you. Remember?"

"Yeah, I know, but…" He didn't know how to voice his concerns, and he didn't want to let Cloud into his inner thoughts, but she had to know. He loved Cloud with every ounce of his entirety and if he was going to try and make this work with her so that he could have the dream family he'd always wanted, then he had to try, "I don't like that she saw me so… you know…"

"Nonsense." The single word brought his attention to her face, and she waited a moment before she continued, "You'll see. She doesn't see the world like other people do."

Furrowing his eyebrows, he contemplated what he'd seen Hojo do to Cloud before and after becoming pregnant. Was Charlotte even considered human? Was he? After what he'd been through before her conception, there was no telling what his own contribution had done to her, making a monster. That was, however, what Hojo was after. It always ended up happening, he made monsters and when the monster turned out to be a failure, he had them destroyed if they no longer were useful, or entertaining in a sick-mad-scientist way.

Was his daughter a monster? He'd never thought of it that way, but it made sense to him in some respects: monsters beget monsters. He refused to think of her that way though. Although he didn't feel human any more, it didn't mean his daughter should be treated differently. Charlotte was his daughter, he delivered her when she was born and protected both her and Cloud from Hojo's experiments for years.

Hearing a dog barking outside the back door made him remember the puppy he'd run into after escaping from Hojo's labs. Then his thoughts went to the voice that spoke to him after he'd knocked the scientist unconscious. Who had helped him that time? Was the voice real, or was it all in his mind? Harding deserved a proper burial and his memories played again, the makeshift funeral he'd had for him.

"Zack, you're zoning out again."

"Oh, I… um, was thinking of Jacob."

With a tiny scoff, little but dynamic, she asked, "Why?"

"I-" Not knowing why his thoughts jumped from meeting his daughter to the physician's assistant, he shrugged, "It's just that he needs a proper burial."

"He escaped with you before you killed him?"

Rubbing the back of his neck, he cleared his throat, "Not exactly?"

Crossing the room, she took him by his hands, "Let's just concentrate on this first and we will get Harding's remains taken care of later." Smiling a smile that looked forced, she added, "Okay?"

Nodding, he confirmed, "Okay."

Hearing the door open finally, a newly washed and collared dog ran into the house and stopped to sit at Zack's feet. Raising his eyes, he saw the tiny girl in a beautiful light green dress and sneakers caked in old mud. Hair the color of his own was in a braid laying across her shoulder and the smile she wore was one he'd seen in the mirror.

She didn't say anything, just stared with the glowing eyes and haunting smile. She fidgeted in place and seemed to just be ready to leave the room, like she had a tickling feeling to get away from him. It was as he expected, he was nothing but a thing to her, but at least he was something to her. He would rather be her pet, than not have her in his life at all.

Lowering himself to the floor, he inched closer and reached out to her but unexpectedly she giggled and jumped into his arms, "Daddy!"


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."

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