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: If I didn't respond to your reviews, I am sorry, I had midterms this last week so I have been busy with studying.

Thanks to my after-post beta SubZeroChimera and my before-post beta Queen of Jokers!

"I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be." -Douglas Adams

Nexus

Chapter 13

Sitting at the desk in his room on the third floor of the mansion, Harding picked his phone up on the second ring, "Harding here… Oh, Professor… Yes sir, I'll be right there." Harding sighed in frustration after he hung up the phone. The resistance leader was being impatient and wanted some information as soon as possible. However the information that he was able to get was nothing really earth-shattering or anything that they could use, 'What do they want me to do?'

Straightening up the papers that he was able to get, he shoved them in his desk. The real information was still out of his reach. It was a "need to know basis" and his current job that he held in the labs, he didn't need to know. Hojo had his secret lab and office that had a different key code and a card reader. There was just no way for him to get in there. He stood up and leaned on his desk and hung his head, "I guess I gotta go see the weird freak." He sighed loudly and walked toward Hojo's upstairs office in the next hall over.

Harding stood outside the office door, let out a sigh and looked up to get himself calmer. Sometimes he was just too nervous at the wrong times. He looked up at the ceiling above the door and noticed a long crack in the paint. He thought to himself that it could be used to describe how Hojo was cracked too. He straightened his lab coat and knocked firmly.

"Come in, come in," Hojo called him on in. Harding was immediately creeped out, but was able to keep himself calm.

"You wanted to see me sir?" Harding inched his way into the office. He wanted to put something in the door to keep it from shutting, but figured, however, that Hojo would notice his sudden hunt for something to chalk it open. Finally letting the door go, he heard it click shut and his stomach tightened.

"Yes. I have been looking over your records and work history," Hojo looked at him from over the thin rim of his glasses, "There is something very important I need to speak with you about. Please have a seat," He motioned with his hand to the chair in front of him. Harding broke out in a sweat and swallowed hard as he took the seat. "As you know we have been conducting some top secret programs and experiments." Harding nodded slowly and rubbed his sweaty palms on his pant legs as Hojo continued, "The current project involving Z, C, and S, still needs to be maintained. In fact we will be increasing the timeline slightly." Harding sighed quietly and tried to make himself relax a little, but not too much, no one ever knew what Hojo would do. "I have begun an extra project on the side and I would like to invite you to be a part of that." Hojo paused and picked up a file folder and opened it, "According to your records, you are a certified physician's assistant. You're services would be an additional asset." Harding tensed up again. Hojo continued, "Of course you will have to sign another set of employment contracts, but that is just a formality."

Harding's mind raced, he could get more information with a much higher security clearance. Without thinking to long about it, "Sir, I would love to assist you in your new project." The smile covered Harding's face.

Hojo leaned forward and picked up a packet of papers, "Here is a pen." Harding signed them quickly before Hojo changed his mind, "Very well then, this is the code to Lab 4. Here is your new security clearance card. You will be in Lab 4 at six in the morning. We have much to do."

At 5:50 the next morning, Harding made his way down the hall, past the cells and right next to the infirmary. He keyed in his security code and then swiped his card. The door beeped and a little green light came on next to the key pad. He exhaled slowly and opened the door. He was not prepared at all for what he saw.

Bonnie was strapped to a metal table and she had an IV. The monitors to the side of the table showed all the vitals that were being picked up from the leads attached to her. From under the sheet he could see her short, shallow breaths rising and falling. There was a small incubator and the tank that was originally in Lab 3. Along one wall was a long counter covered in a wide array of equipment.

Harding glanced over his shoulder at Hojo's lush looking secret office on the other side of the room. He obviously spent a lot of time in here. Hojo wasn't there yet, so he took the opportunity to snoop a little. However, looking over at Bonnie, he got lost in his thoughts. The little glances, a small smile, the way she touched his arm when he made a joke. He was going to ask her to dinner, but she stopped coming to work. Now he knew why. "I'm sorry Bonnie," Hearing a beeping at the door, he straightened himself up and adjusted his lab coat.

"Ahh, Mr. Harding. Glad to see you're already here. Doctors Chase and Medlock don't know about this, so most of the medical procedures, I will do. Let's get started."

They got to work and the first order of business was taking the DNA samples from Z, C, and S and preparing them for Hojo. Harding began by storing the samples of hair, saliva, and skin. Then got to work with the blood samples to create the individual DNA profiles of each specimen. Hojo began with the semen samples from C, and splicing it with Z, and S, creating a single, complex DNA sample. He didn't know for sure how that was going to work, but Hojo was a nut case anyway. That process was going to take a while. Hojo hadn't divulged any real information as to what the project entailed.

As they were leaving for the day, Hojo had a soldier put in front of the door, "No one comes into this room until tomorrow morning at 6, understood?"

"Yes sir!" The soldier snapped to attention. Harding got the feeling that Hojo didn't trust him. That thought made him chuckle a bit to himself.

Harding got there about 20 minutes before Hojo and that stupid soldier was still there. All night he stood guard. He would not let Harding pass until Hojo got there. If he knew how to fight, he would have punched him out. Instead, he stood there impatiently waiting, while he tapped his fingers in rhythm on the wall. When Hojo did finally show, they went in and he told him what the next task would be.

"For the last couple of weeks, I have been giving specimen B hormones to increase egg development. We are going to harvest the eggs." He said with a slight lilt in his voice.

He so wanted to punch him, 'specimen B?' He didn't even think of her as human any more. While Hojo got ready for the procedure, he prepped Bonnie. Returning with his instruments, he began harvesting her eggs, and putting them in the dish. He took the dish over to the microscope and began extracting Bonnie's DNA from the eggs.

Harding remained at Bonnie's side and cleaned the iodine from her abdomen, and covered her back up.

"Mr. Harding?" Hojo said without removing his eyes from the microscope, "Bring me the complex DNA from the male subjects."

Harding got the sample out and brought it to him. He injected the spliced DNA and the DNA he extracted from the Jenova cells into the egg. He sat back and stretched, "Prep specimen B for implantation."

'Are you serious?' Harding thought to himself. "Uh, sir… Are you sure?"

"Do you have a problem with my order?" Hojo started to get angry.

"No, I suppose I don't," Harding dropped his head a little and turned around. Going to the table, he broke it down and brought up the stirrups from below the table. Positioning Bonnie into place, "She's ready sir."

"Excellent," Hojo finished his current activity and scrubbed his hands at the sink. Pulling out the sterile pipette, he got the cells ready. Harding didn't like being his assistant, he just wanted to run and maybe take Bonnie with him. However, he was and always had been a coward. He accepted that a long time ago. He just was not a fighter; sure he lost his temper, but who doesn't? Rolling across the floor to Bonnie on his little rolling seat, he held the pipette gingerly in his gloved hands.

Handing Hojo the materials as needed, the procedure was done in just a few short minutes, "Go ahead and return specimen B to her previous state. We should know soon if the implantation was successful."

After all the samples had been gathered, the techs got them to Hojo as requested. Sephiroth was escorted back to his cell and Zack and Cloud were left in theirs. They each sat on their own beds and looked at each other from across the room.

"So, you want to tell me what happened?" Zack crossed his arms with deep irritation. Cloud internally flinched at the angry eyebrows that covered Zack's even angrier eyes.

"What?" Cloud dropped his eyes.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about," Cloud's courage shriveled from Zack's gaze peering at him from his resting spot across from him.

"Nothing…" Cloud got up and went into the bathroom. Cloud couldn't continue to have the ferocious scrutiny of the burning eyes pierce him any longer. Turning on the water to the shower and as soon as the water got hot enough, he stepped in. The hotter the better, he felt violated. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the foreign hands groping at him. He scrubbed his face and body to get the dried blood and reminders of Davis' saliva from him. His skin was a rosy red from the hot water and the intense cleansing that he put himself through. As soon as the water went off, Cloud heard Zack pick up where he had left off. Zack's tone was starting to scratch at Cloud's already raw nerves. The blond trudged through the doorway.

"That's bullshit and you know it," Zack still sat in the same spot with his arms crossed. Cloud wondered if Zack had stared at the doorway to the bathroom waiting for him to finish with his shower the entire time.

Cloud stopped walking and turned on Zack with fear and anger in his eyes, "Just drop it, okay." Cloud plopped himself on his stomach on to his bed. "Everything is fine." Everything wasn't fine though. Cloud's sigh, littered with worry, and being unsure of what was going to happen to him or Zack, didn't help.

"Spike, why won't you talk to me? What are you having nightmares about? You freak out screaming in your sleep and you tell me it's nothing," Zack's eyes began to glow with a turbulent aqua as his frustration and his volume rose.

Cloud dropped his gaze again, "I'm tired." He covered himself and turned to face the wall.

"Goodnight Cloud."

Cloud's ears picked up the strain in Zack's voice. The tone of voice concerned him. Even if he did tell Zack, he wouldn't be able to do anything. If Zack did do something, he would just end up getting himself hurt at the hands of Hojo. Cloud closed his eyes. He wanted to tell him, Gaia knows he did. He just didn't know how to tell him or even what to tell him. He didn't know what his dreams meant, he didn't even know if they were real dreams or not. The whole thing with Davis harassing him just added to Cloud's stress level. Zack had noticed a few things periodically, but he didn't know the horrible things Davis said to him. Cloud squeezed his eyes shut and fought the urge to scream out in infuriating outrage.

The next morning, Charles and Davis came in the shared cell, "Alright, love birds, ya'll are getting physicals today." They began to shackle them. Zack made eye contact with Davis.

Zack moved a grin across his face, but his eyes shot an arsenal of munitions in his direction. The tone that came from Zack was eerie in that his usual upbeat demeanor ceased to exist for just that moment, "When was the last time you had a physical Davis?" His eyes never left Davis's face. For a short moment, Davis looked ruffled by the words but then he just smirked devilishly.

They left their cell and saw Sephiroth coming down the hall in his shackles, escorted by Drake. By the time they reached the infirmary, Zack's mood lifted a little. They lined up and they noticed that the doctor had set up a privacy curtain, "At least someone around here doesn't mind giving us some privacy," Zack commented.

The doctor pointed to Zack and Charles brought him around the curtain. Zack resisted walking forward a little and Charles pushed him harder, "Why do I get picked first all the time?" His shackles were not removed. He had had many physicals as a member of SOLDIER, but never while he was restrained. From beside him he heard that familiar snap of the rubber glove, he flinched, "Well this is awkward."

Cloud and Sephiroth were standing, waiting their turn for their physicals and Charles stood right on the outside of the privacy curtain, looking at them.

"HEY! Can't you warm your hands first? Geez!" They heard Zack's protest. Cloud giggled quietly, he wasn't sure if it was nervousness or humor, maybe both. He looked at Sephiroth and he had a stoic look. Clearing his throat, Cloud straightened up, trying to be like the unflappable silver-haired man standing next to him.

Cloud looked up at Sephiroth's profile and the statuesque way he stood. Even in this situation Sephiroth still remained the ever impressive presence. Thinking that it really wasn't him in control during the rampage of his village kind of relieved Cloud of some of the apprehension he felt. However, he thought about the possibility of not being in control and only able to watch as your own hands did what you couldn't or wouldn't. He had thought a lot about what Sephiroth had said in the gym and the pain was still there and always would be. Cloud took a deep breath, "Excuse me, Sephiroth, can I ask you a question?" Cloud asked quietly.

"Yes?" Sephiroth's face held a patient yet intimidating force, like unpredictable nature.

Cloud almost lost the nerve to ask what he wanted. He pushed through since Sephiroth had already been through it with Jenova. He just had to know, "Have you had…bad or weird dreams or hallucinations?"

"Recently? Yes," Sephiroth narrowed his eyes at him, "Why do you ask?" Cloud noticed certain briskness in his voice.

Cloud choked back his reluctance, "Well I've had really bad… I mean weird dreams." Whispering lower, he leaned in, "About... Jenova."

Sephiroth stood straight, thought for a minute and returned to his previous stance. Without looking at Cloud, he said quietly, "Me too."

Finished with his physical, Zack came back out from behind the curtain, "Specimen S," The doctor called.

Drake took Sephiroth to the doctor and came back out and waited. Zack looked at Cloud as Charles and Zack walked past him. The younger boy lowered his eyes away from his raven-haired friend. Davis stood, with a certain amount of pride, right next to Cloud.

Zack got to the door just to stand and wait again. Standing half way across the room looking at their backs, they were partially hidden behind one of the tables and part of a desk. Zack watched very closely craning his neck a little to get a better look. He was going to see exactly what was going on. He hoped it wasn't as bad as he thought.

He didn't have to wait long when Davis leaned very close to Cloud's ear and whispered something. Cloud looked at the large guard, shook his head, and had a look of disgust and anger on his face. Davis chuckled a little, then his hand went to the boy's rear end. Cloud jerked away, but didn't say anything. Davis grinned and adjusted himself. Zack filled with fury, he was going to explode, and he wanted to let loose on Davis right then. Charles put his hand on Zack's shoulder, "Calm it down Fair."

Incensed, he spat out to Charles, "Do you see what's going on?! I'm going to kill that fucker after I break every bone in his body!"

Hearing something from behind them, Davis turned and looked. Seeing Zack furious, clenching his jaw staring him down, he just smiled and stepped closer to the object of his desire. Cloud kept his head down.

"He's just a kid! Do something you son of a bitch," He said quieter to Charles.

"It is none of my business," He said very matter-of-fact.

Zack looked at Charles and could not believe what he had just heard. Sephiroth came around the curtain. "Specimen C," came the disembodied voice of the doctor. Drake brought Sephiroth over to the door next to Zack. Davis pulled Cloud behind the curtain and moved out to the outside of the curtain and waited.

Leaning in close to his former General's ear, Zack whispered, "Do you know what I just saw?"

"What?" Sephiroth shuffled as quickly as his chain would allow.

"Davis putting his hands all over Spike, that's what!" Zack whispered loudly. Sephiroth whipped around to look at Davis. The guard in question was looking down at his nails and biting at them. His large frame leaned against part of the wall. His slightly bulging stomach hung a little over his belt. He reached down and scratched an offending itch on his belly quickly.

"I wonder how long this has been going on," Sephiroth asked without taking his eyes off of Davis.

"I had a feeling about this when we first got here. I hadn't seen much of anything until the other day when he brought him in after beating the shit out of him!" Zack was thinking that if Sephiroth could feel Cloud's feelings, maybe he could let Zack in on some information.

"Has Cloud said anything?" Sephiroth was still looking at Davis as he spoke.

"You two need to calm down," Charles stood there looking at Zack then Sephiroth.

"Oh, yeah? What are you going to do?" Zack eyed his large bulging belly and then brought his eyes up to meet Charles's eyes. Zack's intimidating stare down concluded, "You gonna beat up a couple of 'specimens' who're chained up and can't defend themselves?"

"Don't temp me," Charles glared back at him.

Zack returned his conversation back to Sephiroth with a loud huff, "As I was saying before we were rudely interrupted," Zack's eyes cut to Charles and then returned to Sephiroth, "For some reason he won't talk to me about anything anymore," He dropped his gaze.

Sephiroth turned to look at Zack, "He is still very young and he may not even know how to tell you. Maybe he will if you let him know that you know what is going on."

Zack raised his head, "I'll try that."

Cloud came from behind the curtain and they all headed for the gym. They did their exercises and conditioning in strained silence. After the gym they headed back to the lab for their injections of mako, steroids, and the black stuff. Once they were back in their cells, they collapsed on their beds, exhausted. Cloud closed his eyes as he wrapped the thin pillow under his head.

"Hey Spike, I need to talk to you."

Cloud's eyes remained closed, "What Zack?" Cloud didn't try to hide his annoyance.

"I just want… I saw what happened in the infirmary."

Cloud snapped open his eyes and looked at Zack and tried to sound oblivious to what he was talking about, "What?"

"I said that I saw what happened in the infirmary. Davis saying something to you and then he touched you."

"Enough!" Cloud got up and went to the bathroom and washed his face.

Getting up, Zack came to the bathroom and peeked around the corner, "I just wanted to tell you, I know what's going on."

Zack's reassuring eyebrow raise and a little puppy dog face mixed in got him thinking. Cloud looked at him, he felt like he could either cry, or jump up and beat the shit out of Zack. Lowering his eyes, "I didn't …"

"It's okay to talk to me," Cloud walked past his friend, back to his bed and Zack followed, sitting next to him, "Spike let me at least try to help you. Please?" Cloud said nothing. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zack struggling to find the right thing to say, but he didn't want Zack to say anything else.

A/N: 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*