Hi everyone!
Sorry for the wait for this chapter. You could have had it to read a week ago but I wasn't able to upload it to the website for some reason. Thankfully, someone in the help forum mentioned trying a different browser, which did work. Yay! I do have chapter 44 finished as well, but figured I should probably give it another read through since when I read this one through today there were a bunch of errors. Eeep. I am mostly writing this on my phone these days, so I'm blaming that lol and also not getting much sleep. I will post Chapter 44 sometime probably within the next 24 hours...possibly sooner. Annnnnyway, sorry as well if this chapter seems very wordy. It's the result of me trying to speed the plot along a little as I don't want to take another year to finish this.
I want to thank you all so much for your continued support of this story through reading and reviewing. I appreciate all your comments so much. You are all so awesome. This series would have died a long time ago without you ^^
General Content Warning: Chapters in this story may contain upsetting or triggering content including but possibly not limited to violence, consensual and non-consensual sexual references and descriptions, drug and alcohol use and abuse, references to or descriptions of mental illness, self-harm or self-injurious behaviour, and references to or discussions of suicide.
~Forty-Three~
Cloud listened absentmindedly to the sound of rain pouring outside the window next to the bed where he lay. It had been raining for what had to be three days straight and he swore he could feel it through the walls, like the dampness was getting absorbed by all the timber the house was built with. It made it feel colder. He was sure the chill in his bones was becoming permanent. The only time he felt fully warm was in the hot shower.
Other than feeling cold all the time, he was also tired and achy. His whole body, down to his bones felt sore. He supposed it was from being tensed up most of the time he was awake but he knew some of what he was feeling had to be related to the withdrawal symptoms he had begun to experience with the reduction in his medications. He didn't know how much thought Rand had actually given to his plea to help him get more of his medications. Likely no thought at all, because over the weeks he'd been held there, the man had implemented what he'd called a program to "get him back to baseline."
It hadn't mattered how pissed off he was about it. Trying to reason with Rand about it made no difference. Begging and threatening made no difference. Crying made no difference—and he had cried whether he wanted to or not…his doses had been reduced.
The medications he was prescribed could not be filled in amounts greater than a month's worth. He'd done the math in his head and based on Rand's "program," what he'd had on him when he was abducted wouldn't stretch past another couple weeks, even at the reduced dosages. He hadn't expected to feel the physical effects as quickly as he did.
He guessed the stressful situation he found himself in had been playing a part in that. He wasn't able to sleep much at all at night. He felt sick to his stomach. His head ached and his body was jittery. He didn't know how but there were moments when it felt like his brain was shivering or shuddering. It wasn't surprising either that psychologically he was taking a dive.
During the first few days in that remote home in the woods with Rand, his anxiety had been fueled by real and constant fear that made it feel like he was always on the verge of a panic attack. After those first few days, the disruption of his medication started to become apparent to him and he found himself recognizing the first side effects of the withdrawal. They weren't terrible. He just felt…off.
Now, a couple of weeks later, he was feeling what seemed like the opposite of the fear that had had him waiting for a panic attack to take him out. He didn't think his mind could manage the energy it would take to conjure up a panic attack at that point. He felt a bit numb outside of the increasingly noticeable physical symptoms of withdrawal.
Rand seemed sympathetic towards him for the side effects he was experiencing, which meant exactly nothing to him, for obvious good reason. However, the man had been giving him a certain amount of space and privacy, which did actually mean something to him.
He stared through the near darkness of the early evening at the wall that separated his designated room from Rand's. He could hear the man coming up the stairs to tell him that dinner was ready. He glanced at the clock on the side table but only to confirm what he already knew. It was six o'clock. Every day had been basically the same routine or schedule. Every morning Rand was awake at six. It would be anywhere from fifteen minutes to a half hour before he'd unlock the door to his room he'd been confined to at nighttime. He was given the opportunity to use the bathroom and was brought downstairs for breakfast that he could only make himself consume enough of to be deemed acceptable by Rand. He would force himself to participate in some agonizing small-talk all in the interest of getting his medication.
After breakfast, they went outside for a short walk on the property, through some of the trails around the house or near the lake he could see from the bedroom window. Rand took that time as well while outside to use his phone either for making quiet calls or sending what he assumed were texts or emails. He thought it was a weird risk to take, using a device that could probably be tracked but he assumed it would be some kind of burner. He had watched him take the card and battery out of it at least twice when they were back at the house. He figured it was so that if by some chance he got his hands on the phone it would be useless to him.
After what felt like designated yard time that inmates get in prison, they were back at the house for an hour or so of cards, board games, or reading, followed by lunch, followed by what had then become Cloud's alone time. He spent it in what he'd come to call his room, usually just lying in the bed. The afternoons seemed to be the only few hours he was able to get some sleep, though it didn't feel restful.
He would be brought back downstairs for dinner at around six and afterward was a few hours of sitting in the living room watching a television which only received three channels from an old antenna on the roof. One was 24/7 infomercials. One was weather and the third was a station that played almost exclusively movies from before he was born. Generally, that was the station the television was kept on. Cloud hardly paid attention to what was going on when he stared at it. He was mostly waiting for his evening meds so he could go to bed and put another torturous and pointless day behind him.
That was the routine that had befallen him. It was boring and the days felt agonizingly long. His own routine back in Midgar had kept him sane. The one constructed by Rand made him feel the opposite. He felt like he was back in Gongaga. He'd survived it and so he knew he could again but that didn't make it easier to endure. Even though Rand was giving him things to do to pass the time, it didn't feel like it helped.
Rand had assured him back in Junon that he would tell him what he wanted to know about how he'd taken custody of his child, including how he'd found out Koda existed in the first place. He'd finally gotten that information after several days of pushing the man to tell him. He'd gotten small bits of information at a time but he now knew what he'd wanted to. How truthful Rand had been with the details…he couldn't know for sure.
The man told him he initially didn't know about Hojo's projects involving the fertilization of female subjects or 'participants' using samples taken from lab specimens like him. He'd had his suspicions after being tasked with making sure Cloud provided a sample but he didn't catch wind of the truth until they were together in Midgar after the implant procedure had been done on him. He'd seen an email open on Hojo's computer from the clinic. There had been nothing in the content of the email that revealed anything about the project but he'd had a gut feeling about it.
He chose not to look into it any further at that time because he was worried Hojo would find out and he didn't want to jeopardize his position and job which might find him separated from Cloud. It was after he'd been fired and Cloud had gone to Costa del Sol and had the surgery to remove the implant from his head that he approached the clinic. He was able to obtain the information he'd been wanting to have for some time. He learned of the in vitro fertilizations done with his sample, and the implantation into multiple females, and that only one had been successful.
He commenced tracking down Annalena and once he'd found her, he introduced himself to her as an attorney. He said he represented the biological father of her child, who had retained him when he found out his sample that he'd given under belief it would only be used in a research study, had been used for fertilization.
Anna had been shocked. She had explained to Rand how she came to be involved. Nearly a year earlier she had been at a blood drive. The private hospital that had organized the drive to encourage donations was paying donors for their blood. At the event, representatives from a separate department of the hospital were also giving out pamphlets regarding ova and sperm donations to be used for research purposes as well as in vitro fertilizations. She was told that many donors, depending on meeting certain screening criteria, were paid for their donations.
Needing money and incentivized by the prospect of getting paid, Anna gave them her contact information, which was passed on to the clinic responsible for doing the screening and collections. When she visited the clinic for the screening exam, she spoke with a doctor who asked if she might be willing to do more than donate her eggs. He inquired if she might be interested in being a surrogate for an agency the clinic worked with and, if so, would she be willing to have her eggs fertilized by a male donor which would be implanted in her. If things went well, she would carry a baby to term, which would then be given to a couple who had been trying to have children.
Anna was reluctant but was told she'd be able to meet with the couple first and that she would be compensated during the pregnancy and after delivery. She agreed to meet the couple, which ultimately convinced her to carry a baby for them. It was during her second trimester that Rand found her where she was working. He told her that the biological father had not consented to his sample being used to produce a child.
Rand told her that she couldn't trust the people who had convinced her to be a surrogate and that the child might not actually be going to the couple she met or that they may not be who she thought. He didn't mention anything about Hojo's involvement or knowing that most certainly her baby was going to end up in the Shinra scientist's hands. He did, however, indicate to her that his legal firm had reason to believe the agency was a front for a company only interested in genetic research and experimentation. Although shocked and upset by what he revealed to her, she told him that she would still have to give the baby up because she needed the money and wasn't ready for children of her own.
Rand told her that the father did want the baby and that legally he should have him. He promised her that if she allowed him to put her into hiding, he would provide for her and protect her from the agency responsible for arranging the surrogacy. He told her that once she had delivered the baby, he would make sure the father got it and he'd compensate her for that. He also told her that when his firm brought the case against the clinic and agency and won at trial, she would have more money than they were going to give her to sell her child to them.
Ultimately, she agreed to go into hiding with him. Rand cared for her, as he said he would during the remaining months of her pregnancy. Koda was born in the safehouse where she'd been living with the help of a doctor hired by Rand.
After the delivery, Anna conveyed to Rand that she wanted to keep Koda. The details Rand gave surrounding her decision and what happened after were very vague. Cloud knew the man had to be leaving out details. Despite many questions, all Rand told him was that he knew she couldn't be trusted and that he knew the only way to ensure Koda was safe and kept away from Hojo was to get him away from her as well.
The opportunity to do so presented itself when Koda became sick. Since Anna was still in hiding, Rand told her he would take Koda to a hospital and register him under a false name. He didn't. He had the same doctor who had delivered him assess and treat him. A simple prescription was all it took, but he told Anna that there had been complications and Koda was being kept in the hospital. She wanted to go there but he urged her not to, promising he wasn't leaving Koda's side and he would keep her updated. Instead, he drove all night to bring Koda to a person he trusted with him. Then he drove back to meet Anna and tell her that he had passed away.
When she asked about his remains, he told her that they had been asking too many questions at the hospital and had called the police. He had left to avoid arrest and had no choice but to abandon Koda. She had wanted to turn herself in to the police and tell them the truth but he convinced her not to, telling her that she needed to stay under the radar until his law firm was able to go to trial and fight against those who had ultimately created the grief she was enduring.
He helped her plan a memorial for Koda without the remains, after which he left her, telling her he needed to fly out to see the father, his client, and visit with the firm to discuss the case. He left her money and contact information for him and told her once more that he would make sure she is compensated in the lawsuit against those who had misrepresented themselves and duped her into having a child for them.
So, Rand had manipulated her with lies, some which were peppered with bits of truth. He'd given her hope of a future where she'd be taken care of and then stole her child from her. Rand believed he had saved Koda because he believed she would have given him up to the agency that was paying her, even though she knew at the very least they'd breached ethical boundaries in using samples for fertilization without proper consent.
Cloud didn't believe what he did. He felt that after Koda was born it must have changed her. Rand had admitted that she'd wanted to keep him, which to him meant she must have loved him the moment she saw him and would have protected him. She was out there now grieving the loss of her baby that in her mind she hadn't even been allowed to bury.
The weight of that added to the despair he felt. The sadness. He felt responsible for the fact she was going through such loss. It didn't matter to him the actions she had made or plans she'd had prior to Koda's birth. She'd wanted to be part of his life after he was born and that chance should never have been taken away from her or Koda.
While he'd finally managed to pry out those details from Rand regarding how he ended up with Koda, what he still didn't know was his son's location and who he was with. Rand wasn't budging on giving up any of that information yet. Truly he didn't even know how he was going to convince him to give up anything more about where Koda was because he clearly seemed to be trying to protect the identity of the people who had him. All he'd gotten out of him was that it was a "couple" who had raised children and that he trusted them.
With Rand refusing to provide information on Koda's whereabouts, Cloud knew he couldn't attempt any kind of escape from the man, not until he did have that information. Even then, just knowing where Koda was didn't mean much if he couldn't protect him. The plan he had formulated then was simple. He needed to get Rand to let his guard down. He needed to convince him to take him to his son. The only way he imagined he'd do that is if the man trusted him. He wasn't going to get him to do that by acting like a captive who was there against his will. He had to act as natural as he could around him, and he tried to.
He wanted to stay fully focused on his goal of getting to Koda, but he had the problem of contending with his own declining mental and physical state. It was so hard not to listen to the voices in his head that told him the situation was hopeless and that he was powerless to do anything about it. In order to save his son and himself he had to have the energy. If finding the energy to get himself up from bed was difficult, summoning the will to not give up fighting was a mountain to climb with no view of the top.
Over the past few days, he'd found it nearly impossible to converse with Rand. The constant rain had interrupted their routine slightly and they hadn't been able to take their morning walks outside. Confined in the house with the near continuous sounds of the precipitation battering the roof and running through the drainage pipes on the sides of the building, Cloud found it even harder to keep himself focused and not let himself sink into a deep and hollow low where nothing mattered anymore.
Rand was clearly concerned about him and wanted to talk to him about what he was feeling and the side-effects he was experiencing as he was coming off his medications. He was worried about him becoming apathetic or hopeless. Cloud had tried to point out to him that it could be fixed by allowing him to get more prescriptions filled, but Rand argued that the medications were just a flimsy bandage for open wounds he was obviously trying to make himself live with because even medicated he'd seen him struggling mentally back in Junon.
The man brought up his past and what had been a very painful time for him in Gongaga, when he had attempted to take his own life. He couldn't remember it entirely clearly. His memory of those days was a little hazy and fragmented because shortly after what had occurred, he'd been forced to undergo shock therapy.
What he knew was that he'd been serious about wanting to end his own life. Even if his memory of it was hazy, he knew that he had been committed to that decision. He'd wanted out of his imprisonment no matter the cost. He didn't want to wake up to one more day there. He must have thought about the people he loved and accepted he'd never see them again. He'd decided on what he was going to do and part of his heart had to have actually been in it. To think back on it actually felt like that part of his heart was being squeezed. He knew he'd never felt so desperate, and given all he'd experienced to that point, it was saying a lot.
What he'd never taken time to consider, purely because it was absurd to him, was how that had felt for the people who found him. Who treated and saved him. His captors. His torturers, specifically Rand. He couldn't remember his reaction and even if he could there was no way to know how he felt. Until now. Rand told him.
He had been hurt. He had felt betrayed in a way. The items Cloud had used to try and end his life had come from Rand's suite, a part of the facility Cloud only knew of because the man had brought him there once, wanting to give him a small break from his prison-like surroundings. Rand had been scared by Cloud's nearly successful attempt to take his own life. Scared that he had come so close to losing something that had become important to him.
He'd been angry, but not because of how it would affect the company and the project. He was angry that Cloud believed dying could be better than submitting himself to a destiny he'd set himself on a path to when he was young but was refusing to accept because of how it was handed to him in the present. The company wanted to make him the best he could be and his principles wouldn't let him do it. It was self-sabotage in his mind.
It was that discussion on the attempt to take his own life in Gongaga and how the man worried about him letting himself get to such a low again, as evidenced by what he'd seen back in Junon from him as well as his growing despondency in the cabin, that led into questions about whether Cloud might actually regret getting Galen's reversal treatment in Costa del Sol.
Cloud hadn't given him any answers as to his feelings about it. He didn't regret it. He also hadn't really had a choice at the time, at least not about the implant being taken out. Tseng had said that he and Rufus felt he was too dangerous with the implant in to be allowed to be free. His only option was to have it taken out. They worried too about him being targeted by an enemy who would want to use him as a weapon.
As far as the rest went. Did he regret getting the treatment that had left him feeling both physically and mentally weak? He really didn't want to explore those feelings so he refused to answer, but Rand certainly tried to get him too. He felt like Rand was trying to convince him that he was happier or more content when he had the power of Jenova and Seraph behind him. It was during one of their board games that the man asked him, if the circumstances were different, if it were purely his choice, if he'd ever consider undergoing an enhancement program to get back to that point?
It was just another of the many questions he refused to answer, yet just having the question floating around in his consciousness felt like it added weight to the stress he was already getting crushed under.
Having to endure the torture of not knowing where his son was or if he'd be kept safe, while enduring the separate tortures of being captive and alone with Rand and also worrying what was happening with Zack and his friends was more than enough stress to take a toll on him mentally. Enduring those things while also going through drug withdrawal took things to another level. That level was reaching a realm of either total break-down or total disassociation.
Perhaps what also helped catalyze his decline mentally in that house, was the realization that Chip, Rand's cousin, had done as Rand promised he would when he'd surprised both of them by appearing the one morning suddenly. He'd kept quiet. At least, that's what Cloud assumed because since that day he hadn't seen him. No police showed up at the door ready to burst in and help him. Nothing had happened. It had solidified for him that he was really truly stuck.
For the moment he didn't feel like he could do anything physically or mentally, other than give in to the routine Rand set in place for them. Not fighting was so much easier than the opposite. Rand seemed cautiously at ease. They were alone. In the man's mind, he was struggling and in need of Rand's help. He had a propose. A job. He only had Cloud and their fragmented relationship to repair and focus on. He was content.
It wouldn't last.
After dinner, they were spending the last few hours of the evening in the living room together. There was another old movie on the television. A fire was going, slowly burning to glowing coals. Rand was reading rather than watching the movie that Cloud stared at silently as he sat slouched heavily into the couch.
What happened then made them both startle.
It was the sound of someone attempting to open the locked front door. The deadbolt kept it firmly closed. The sound of a key being shoved into the lock had Rand getting up fast and heading over to the door. As the deadbolt was released the person on the other side tried again to open the door and it was stopped again, this time by a padlock Rand had installed on the inside of the door. There was no getting in or out through that door without the key.
"What the fuck," a voice exclaimed.
By then they both knew it was Chip that was at the door.
"Wait!" Rand told him through the small gap between the door and the wall.
"Let me in," Chip ordered.
"I need to shut the door first," Rand told him.
Chip must have let go of the door. Rand closed it and used his key he kept on him to unlock the padlock. He shot Cloud a quick glace before opening the door. Cloud thought he looked worried.
As Chip stepped inside the house, the sound of the rain he was soaked with could be heard dripping from his coat and hitting the wood floor.
"Everything alright?" Rand questioned him. There was a different question behind his words though, one asking why he was there at all. Chip picked up on it.
"The bunkhouse is flooded," he said as he unzipped his coat. He slipped it off and shook it aggressively, the water on it hitting not only the floor, but Rand as well. "Gonna need to shack up in here for a couple nights," he said, not making it a question.
Rand was staring at him. Cloud could feel the shift in him. The instant anxiety.
"There's still a free room right?" Chip said, his tone indicating he already knew the answer.
Cloud assumed he was referring to the room at the end of the hall upstairs, next to his own. He hadn't seen inside of it, the door was always kept closed.
Rand was visibly tense. Cloud barely heard his response from where he was sitting, observing them.
"Samuel's."
Chip nodded at that. He glanced over at Cloud who looked away immediately, refocusing on the television screen.
"You won't know I'm here," Chip said. "Gonna grab a shower before bed," was the last thing Chip said.
Cloud listened as Rand shut the door and Chip took off his boots. He only looked over briefly at the stairs when he heard footsteps ascending, seeing that Chip was headed up to the bathroom.
Cloud's pulse was racing a little. He wasn't really thinking of anything, but the air in the room had gotten so heavy. The tension was palpable. He waited to hear the sound of Rand locking up the door again. He was waiting for him to approach him at the couch to warn him to keep his mouth shut or to usher him off upstairs to lock him in his room. The man did neither. As the sound of the water in the shower upstairs could be heard, Rand jogged his way up the stairs, disappearing into his own room. He was only out of sight maybe thirty seconds before coming back down the stairs to the main living area. He had what looked like a small black bag or pouch in his hand.
As the man walked past him and in the direction of the front door, Cloud turned his eyes back on the television. He assumed Rand must just be annoyed with the sudden intrusion of his cousin but after hearing a rustling sound near the door, his bike jacket was suddenly landing in his lap.
"Get your boots on," Rand instructed then in a tone he hardly ever heard from him.
It was the same tone he'd had back in his apartment in Junon. He sounded intense. cold. Detached. Mission-driven.
"What?" he asked, not understanding what was going on.
Rand didn't answer him. Instead, he was getting his own coat and boots on. Cloud watched as he seemed to frantically move around the living area, picking up a few things, his laptop and his tablet. Charging cables. He shoved them all into his laptop bag that was hung over a dining chair.
"Now," Rand said.
Cloud stood himself up then and put on his jacket before approaching the door where his boots sat. He put them on but didn't bother to tie the laces. He watched Rand instead. The man unlocked the cabinet in the kitchen where he'd been keeping his medications and put them into the bag as well. That's when Cloud realized what was going on. Rand was frantic because he was preparing them to run.
The shower was still going upstairs when Rand pushed him out the front door, so swiftly he actually missed the last step on the stairs leading from the porch to the driveway and nearly fell forward.
The rain was pouring heavily outside. Large puddles filled in the ruts in the gravel driveway. The rain was cold. The jacket Cloud had did nothing to protect him from the temperature. He reached back to grab for the hood on his sweatshirt to cover his head as Rand pushed him toward his car that was parked near the side of the house. The man used his key fob to unlock it as they were near. He left Cloud at the passenger side as he approached the driver's side. Cloud didn't wait to be told to get in the car. He wanted out of the punishing rain. It was heavy and felt sharp somehow.
Once inside the car, Rand started the engine but before Cloud could ask him where they were going, before the man had shifted the gear into drive, he slammed his hand against the dashboard angrily three or four times. It was fast and loud and it startled Cloud.
He said nothing to the man at first when they were out on the road. He wasn't sure he'd call what he felt scared, but he was concerned. He hoped what it seemed like Rand was doing wasn't what it looked like. He wasn't about to attempt to flee in the middle of a torrential downpour in the darkness. He still thought maybe he was only angry at Chip's intrusion and that the man wanted to bring him somewhere so he could warn him about not saying anything to his cousin.
However, after the first moments out on the slick gravel road, he knew it was exactly what it looked like. Rand was panicking. He was driving fast and only accelerating. He was staring through the windshield with a hardened expression but it was like he was seeing nothing.
Cloud was scared then, but his fear was that at the speed they were travelling down the long narrow backcountry road in the dark and in the kind of weather they were in that they were going to crash. He hoped if they did that it wasn't because Rand decided to just try and kill the both of them because the expression he had on his face made that seem like a possibility.
Cloud tried to get his attention then.
"Rand," he said his name but the man didn't respond. "Rand!" he tried a little louder and he saw him blink at that. "Will you slow down?" he requested.
Cloud found himself gripping the armrest in the centre console and bracing his right arm against the door next to him. Even with the headlights on and the windshield wipers swiping over the glass at their maximum speed, only about a couple dozen feet of the road ahead seemed visible.
Rand shook his head slowly. He wasn't slowing down the car. Cloud couldn't see the speedometer to know how fast they were travelling but he guessed it was easily twice the speed limit.
"Are you trying to kill us?!" Cloud shouted at him then. It seemed to break him out of whatever thought he was wrapped up in and he did ease up off the accelerator slightly.
"What are you doing?" Cloud asked him, his voice shaking a little.
"We can't go back there," the man finally responded. His voice was too calm for how he was behaving.
"What?" Cloud asked.
They drove through a rut in the road then that bounced them, jostling them in the car.
"Will you stop?" he pleaded.
The man was staring ahead again but there was something in his expression now. His brow was tightly knit. Cloud could tell that what Rand was feeling was like he was in a building with walls about to come down all around him. He knew because he'd felt it so many times.
"Rand, pull the fucking car over and stop!" Cloud ordered sharply.
The man glanced at him. He exhaled shakily. Cloud worried for a moment that he would ignore him and continue on at the reckless pace he was going. To his relief, Rand took his foot of the accelerator and began to slow the car down. He pulled the vehicle as far into the shoulder of the narrow road as he could. Finally at a stop, he shifted the gear into park and sat back in the seat, his hands on his knees. It was Cloud that pressed the button on the dashboard to turn the hazard lights on so that if anyone else was driving down the road they might have a chance to see them. He figured though that the chance of another car passing was low.
"He's going to know," Rand spoke before he could ask him anything else.
Cloud assumed he was taking about Chip.
"You already talked to him though," Cloud replied slowly, a little confused.
Last he'd been told, the explanation Rand had given to Chip about why he had Cloud at the cabin and why he had been cuffed to the table at the time was because he was being treated for some kind of addiction. Rand had explained it as radical type treatment. He said there was no reason it would be questioned. Besides, Chip was an escapee from prison. That's also what Rand had told him, so he wasn't looking to get authorities involved in anything or in having them come out to the house even if he suspected something was off.
"He'll know it's a lie if he's staying in the house," Rand claimed. "We can't go back," he stated firmly.
"What else are we supposed to do?" Cloud asked, making it clear in his tone it shouldn't be an option.
"We'll go to a hotel and I'll figure it out from there," he decided, about to try and put the gear back into drive.
"Wait!" Cloud demanded, putting his hand on the gear shift at the same time. "We can't just go to some hotel. Our stuff is all back there," he pointed out.
"It isn't important," Rand said back to him more sharply.
Cloud shook his head. For the first time in days, he actually felt like he could have an anxiety attack. As horrible as it was being confined with Rand in the house out there, he didn't want to be moved, especially not when Rand was emotional and possibly not thinking clearly. The place where they had been staying was a place that Rand owned. It was connected to him and if there was a connection to him then it meant a better chance of someone finding him if they did suspect Rand was alive and had something to do with his disappearance. He wouldn't have that advantage anywhere else.
"You said he wouldn't call the police or anything anyway," Cloud reminded him. "What does it matter?"
"I don't know that for sure. There's nothing stopping him from going into town and making a call from a gas station anonymously," Rand said. "We can't take the risk."
He said 'we' as if Cloud wasn't his captive. As if he really was willingly there with him. That was something he definitely knew the difference between, willing and compliant. Rand had lectured him on the difference in Gongaga. He was certainly compliant for Koda's sake but he'd never be completely willing.
"I'm not going to tell him anything different, Rand," he assured the man in the most convincing voice he could. "I could actually be that messed up that I want you to keep us padlocked inside the house so I don't end up on the street doped up somewhere," he argued. "And you're willing to do it because you care what happens to me."
Rand looked at him as he was speaking. He seemed surprised by what he was telling him, that he was assuring him things would be fine. He didn't verbally agree with him though and nothing in his body language at the moment suggested he was going to give in and turn the car around.
Cloud exhaled heavily. He let his hand fall from the gear shift and sat back in the seat.
"I…I like that house. I don't want to go anywhere else right now. I think the thing that would look weird or suspicious is running," he explained. "Can we please just go back?" he pressed him. "I'm tired," he added. "I just want to go to sleep."
For whatever reason, the conveyance that he was tired and his only current concern was to go to bed seemed to be the thing to work on him. The thing to convince him to abandon his plan to flee. He switched off the hazard lights, put the car in drive and proceeded to turn the vehicle around to head back in the direction of the house.
"Can you please drive slower going back?" Cloud asked a little tentatively.
Rand gave a slight nod to his request. He looked at Cloud and gave him what seemed like a weak smile. "I'm sorry I frightened you," he said.
The man's left hand stayed on the steering wheel while the other reached over to clasp his left knee and squeeze it with gentle reassurance. It took all the self-control he was capable of for Cloud not to jerk his leg away from the touch.
In his gut he felt that letting Rand take him somewhere else that night would have been disastrous for him somehow. But driving back he couldn't help feeling like he was being driven back to certain doom.