Hey all *waves*, sorry for the long absence. Things got crazy. If you're reading this, I really appreciate you being here and still being interested in this story. Means a lot. Where were we? Oh yeah, I guess Cloud's been in a trunk for a year. Sorry buddy, really not my intention….
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.
~Thirty-Seven~
Rand must have popped the trunk open from inside the vehicle when they were finally parked because the man wasn't standing at the back of the car when the compartment opened. Cloud pushed the hatch door upwards quickly, heaving in a large breath as he did so. Cold, wet-feeling air hit his already sweat dampened skin. Rand had made it to the back of the vehicle as he was climbing out. The man took hold of his left arm, helping him out of the trunk, though he didn't need the assistance. He yanked his arm away from him when he had his feet on the gravel-covered ground.
For a moment all he could do was lean against the vehicle with his head down and his hands braced on his knees as he tried to breathe back in the oxygen his mind was convinced he'd been starved of. He listened to the sounds of Rand emptying a few bags from the car and finally looked up to see where they'd ended up.
He looked first in the direction they'd come from, at what he could see anyway. There was thick fog hanging in the air and the sun must have been just peeking up on the horizon. There was what seemed like a wall of trees around the clearing they were parked in and a gravel laneway curving upward through the dense wooded landscape.
He turned himself around and set his eyes on what he supposed might be called a cabin by some. It was larger than any cabin he'd ever seen personally but it had the purposeful rustic style of one. It was built of logs and two stories high with a covered porch on the ground level and a balcony above that looked to span around the whole perimeter of the home.
"What is this place?" he asked Rand while the man was still emptying the car of what was packed in it.
"One of the properties my family owned," Rand replied without looking at him.
"Your family?" Cloud questioned. It seemed pretty risky that the man would take him to a place his family was familiar with.
"I inherited it," Rand said.
"No one lives here?" was Cloud's next question. The windows were all darkened, there was no smoke coming from either of the two chimneys he could see at the roof. It didn't seem likely Rand would bring him somewhere other people would see him but it also seemed strange to have a big place like that sit empty.
"I rent it out, for short periods of time, mainly in the summer. There's no one using it right now," Rand explained. "Wait until you see it in daylight," he added then with a light smile. "The back has a nice view."
A nice view? Cloud repeated in his own head. As if he cared. As if anything was going to distract him from the fact that he was there against his will.
"Let's get the stuff inside," Rand instructed him, gesturing towards some of the bags of belongings they'd made the trip with.
Sighing, Cloud picked up two of the bags to carry into the house. He followed after the man up the few steps outside to the creaky screen door that led into the covered porch. He awkwardly waited, watching as Rand fiddled with his keys for the one that unlocked the front door.
You should just run, he told himself. He kept telling himself that but no matter how many times he said it, the response to himself was always the same.
You can't.
Setting aside the fact he had no idea where they were or how far they were from a place that could lend him help, he had his child to worry about. That's all that mattered.
You've gotta play along. For now.
That's what he told himself.
He followed Rand inside the house and upon setting foot inside was met with the smell of a few types of timber. It was dark and hard to see around the space they entered into but it felt large and open. What Cloud thought he could make out was a high ceiling, at least twenty feet above their heads. Rand said something about needing to access the electrical panel to turn the power on and said he'd do so when everything was brought in from the car.
It took another trip to get everything inside. As Rand was locking the car up, Cloud tried to look past the trees encircling the property to see where the road was but he could see nothing. He couldn't hear the sound of any vehicles driving by either. He wondered how close the next property was, if there were other homes, if they were within the so-called screaming distance…
Back inside the house, Rand set down the things in his hands and locked the door. He reached inside his coat to an inner chest pocket and Cloud recognized the sound of what he retrieved from it. It was a set of handcuffs, perhaps the same ones he'd used on him earlier.
"Give me your hand," the man directed him and he didn't bother to try and refuse or resist. He reached out his left hand toward him. "Give me the other, it'll be less sore," Rand said then and he complied though he couldn't see it making a difference. He assumed both his hands would be cuffed. The other cuff, however, Rand closed onto the metal handle of the front door.
"I'll only be a few minutes," the man told him before departing across the room towards the back of the house, using his phone as a flashlight.
Cloud sighed a little with both exhaustion and concern as he waited alone at the door. He looked at the door and shook the cuffs a little, testing out to see if they really were locked securely. They were. Even if he could somehow get the door off its hinges, he'd be taking it with him if he tried to run away.
Despite the lights being off, he was able to make out the shapes around him in the large open room. To his left was a living area. There were couches and a few arm chairs and a large fireplace. To the right, a bench and some hooks and racks for coats and shoes. Beyond that was the kitchen and dining areas. There was a u-shaped half-pace staircase ahead to the left after the living area that led up to a second floor. When he looked upward he could see what looked like a large balcony. He couldn't make out anything up there though but assumed it was probably where any bedrooms were.
Toward the back of the house a light came on and he could fully see the large open kitchen and dining area. Everything seemed to be made of some kind of wood. Floors, walls, ceiling, most of the furniture. He supposed it fit his own idea of what a cabin looked like, even if it was many times larger than what he considered to be a cabin. The couches to his left had a reddish plaid patterned fabric on the cushions that was similar to the curtains hanging over the windows. The fireplace was stone.
Cloud found his eyes drawn to where two rifles and a shotgun were affixed to the wall next to the fireplace. He highly doubted any of them were loaded but he had to wonder if there was any ammunition in the house for them. They looked older though. Nothing like what he'd used while in the army.
He took a moment then to use his free hand to check his pockets. He hadn't wanted to before in front of Rand. He'd been too nervous. He still had his coat on, it had never left his body, but everything in his pockets had been emptied out, including his wallet and his medications. He knew Rand had already taken his phone. The thing he cared most about though was his meds. He felt panicked not having them on him. He cast his gaze downward then at the sound of approaching footsteps.
"It's going to be cold tonight," Rand announced as he neared the front of the house again. "It's an old furnace. No advantage of mako energy in these parts. The fuel is low in the furnace tank. I'll have to have some delivered," he explained. "Luckily we have running water."
Right, Cloud thought to himself. There's nothing lucky about this situation.
"Are you hungry?" Rand asked him as he approached to unlock the handcuffs securing him to the door. Cloud shook his head as he stared down at the floor. "You must be tired," the man commented. "I am. Let's just sleep for a few hours," he suggested as he bent down to pick up one of the duffle bags off the floor. "Do you need to use the washroom?" he asked and Cloud shook his head. He felt like his body had shut down below his head. He leaned down to pick up a few of the bags on the floor.
"It's alright, just leave the rest for now," Rand told him and he did as he was told.
He followed the man to the stairs and went ahead of him to ascend first when Rand stood aside, indicating with the gesture he wanted him to be in front of him. Cloud rolled his eyes a little. Although he'd thought about running almost non-stop, he wasn't going to. Not unless he could get what information he wanted from Rand first. As soon as he was sure he knew where his son was he would think more seriously about making a move to escape.
The stairs creaked as they ascended and as they neared the top, Cloud could see to the left three closed wooden doors.
"The closest one," Rand told him, indicating which door to go to.
When they were stopped in front of it, Rand opened the door to reveal a bedroom. He nodded at Cloud to tell him to go ahead so he stepped inside, but just barely. Rand walked past him into the room and set the duffle down on a chair next to the door.
Cloud stood in place just inside the doorway and looked around. The room wasn't large but it had a large bed, maybe a king size. There was some oversized wooden furniture that looked older, antique even, maybe handcrafted. It reminded him of some of the furniture that had been in his own home in Nibelheim when he was growing up. His mother had told him once that almost everything that was in their house had been there when they moved in. He'd often wondered about the history of some of those pieces. He'd looked at the notches and markings in them and wondered about how those blemishes had been incurred, like scars in skin.
The bed was directly across from the door in the room where he and Rand stood. There was a wooden chest at the foot of the bed, and a side table on either side of the head of the bed. There was a large wardrobe and dresser against the wall to the left and a set of doors to the right that he assumed was a closet. There were windows on either side of the bed, covered by curtains that matched the bedding. The bedding was a similar style of plaid as that of the fabric downstairs but it was blue and green.
Curious about what the view looked like out the back of the house, Cloud approached the window on the left, and pulled the one curtain back. It was difficult to see through the fog which had gotten thicker since they'd arrived at the house.
"Which side?" Rand asked him.
"Side of what?" he asked back as he let go of the curtain and turned to look at him. The man just nodded in a gesture toward the bed. "What?" Cloud said with some shock. "Neither. I'm not sharing a bed with you, Rand," he fired at him sharply.
"For the next few hours you are," Rand responded in a flat tone while moving the few decorative pillows from the bed onto the chest at the foot of the bed. "You favor sleeping on your right side, you should take that side of the bed, you can look at the wall, which I'm guessing is preferrable to you right now."
"I'll take the floor," Cloud said, taking a step back away from the bed and crossing his arms. Even if he'd already concluded he was going to have to go along with whatever Rand had planned, laying down next to Rand willingly after everything was too hard to talk himself into.
"I can't handcuff you to anything near the floor," Rand told him with what sounded like growing impatience.
Cloud shook his head and found himself looking at the door, thinking again about just running and telling himself once more he couldn't.
"We'll figure out something else tomorrow, or later today I mean," Rand said. "For now, it is what it is. Take your boots off and get comfortable," he directly firmly.
Cloud felt himself getting panicked again then. He felt especially trapped in that moment, somehow even more than he had in the trunk of the car. He felt sick, his body feeling shaky, things around him seemed to look more out of focus. He shut his eyes tightly, trying to imagine away everything. The bed, the room, himself…
He'd been moving himself backward, away from the bed, though he didn't realize it until his back hit the wardrobe behind him. Rand moved around to where he was standing, on the verge of what actually felt more like he was about to pass out than succumb to a panic attack.
"Cloud," Rand said his name and he opened his eyes fast at hearing how close he sounded. The man was right in front of him.
"Don't," he responded quickly, his hands going up in front of him without him even thinking about it. He couldn't look Rand in the eyes but he wished he could so he would see what he was saying as a warning and not just some pitiful request. "Don't…just…don't touch me," he said, crossing his arms again tightly, protectively.
"Cloud, I'm not going to," Rand spoke in a softer tone. "I promise you."
"That means a lot coming from a liar," Cloud shot back with his head turned away from the man. He stared at the covered window he'd peered through moments earlier, focused on the plaid pattern. What he was sure was going to happen if he got into bed with his former Keeper was already fully playing out in his brain. Just like it had happened in Midgar.
His voice was shaking then as he started to tell Rand, "If getting me in a bed again with you is all you want, if this is what you expect out of me by bringing me here—"
"It's not," Rand interrupted him. With Cloud still looking away from him, he said with assurance, "I know you don't trust me yet, but I'm not trying to hurt you, I-I don't want to hurt you, I just want you to sleep. Don't worry. Just sleep."
As exhausted as he felt both physically and mentally, Cloud had a hard time imagining he'd be able to sleep. The bed itself wasn't uncomfortable but the situation clearly was and it wasn't the most comfortable lying with his right wrist held in the grip of a handcuff. The other cuff was locked to the headboard which meant he couldn't really lower his arm on the mattress to where it didn't feel like his hand was somewhat going numb.
Rand had offered his prescribed sleeping medication to him, which he did take. He actually wanted to fall asleep. He wanted to escape for a few hours out of his head and hopefully when he woke up he'd feel like he could think more rationally and more logically about how he was going to get out of his situation. How he was going to ensure his little boy was safe.
During the first half hour of lying in bed next to Rand, his heart was pounding hard and he felt like he wasn't able to breathe normally. He was almost scared to. He was scared to move, more scared of Rand's movements. He kept waiting for the worst until he could hear that the man was sleeping. He felt a rush of relief that made him feel like he was being dragged into the very fabric of the mattress. He was so tired…
His last waking thoughts were a swirl of anxious worry and concern for everyone aside from his apparent child. He worried about what they were going to think when they hadn't heard from him. He'd been so distant. He felt bad about Marco, felt bad about the way he'd spoken to Reno in Junon. He felt bad about Zack being alone out in Costa Del Sol. Felt bad about the way he'd tried to abandon his entire life and everyone in it. Why hadn't he been able to just be happy with what he had? Had he just done this to himself because for some screwed up reason he couldn't live without peril?
He never knew when he was taking his sleeping medication if the sleep would be a restful one or one fraught with tense dreams and agonizing nightmares. Usually the more tired he was when he laid down and the more physical activity he'd gotten through the day the better. He'd certainly had his share of physical activity the day before and he'd been so tense during the car ride from Junon that perhaps unsurprisingly he had what he thought was a dreamless sleep until...
"Sit up," a voice said.
He heard the sound but there was no image in his mind attached to it.
"Sit up, Cloud."
He couldn't recognize the voice…it felt like his own brain's construction.
"I need you to sit up. You have to get up, okay?"
There was something more material about the sound than something from a dream…
"What?" he asked with what felt like so much effort.
He wasn't sleeping anymore. The voice wasn't part of a dream. It was Rand's voice. He recognized it finally. He felt so tired. His body was heavy. His mouth was dry and his head was aching.
"Open your eyes," Rand told him.
My eyes? They were closed still and it felt impossible to pry them open. He just wanted to sleep. He thought that's what Rand had wanted him to do. Sleep. It's why he'd given him the dose of his own sleeping medication.
The sleeping meds…How much had he taken again? Not that much. Not from what he remembered.
The feeling of cold hands on his face had him exerting the extreme force it seemed to take to lift his eye lids. They felt stuck together. With his eyes barely open he realized he was already sitting up on the edge of the bed, although barely holding his own weight. The room was brightly lit in sunlight and it seemed like it was tilting, falling on its side. Or he was. It immediately brought attention to what he felt in his stomach. Nausea. It was such a common thing he'd felt on a nearly daily basis for years. Every day in the mansion he'd felt sick to his stomach at least a few hours of the day. Most days in Gongaga. Even being free in Midgar, the meds he was on had him feeling queasy every other day.
The feeling, as often as he felt it, was never easy to bear. He hated feeling like he was teetering towards vomiting but never just getting there. It was different that day though as he sat on the bed in the house Rand had brought him to. He knew he was going to throw up, if there was even anything to expel. He was breaking into a sweat and his mouth began watering suddenly. He pushed Rand back from him as he leaned forward and started to heave. There was no time for him to try to get up and to the bathroom. He'd had his eyes shut and while at first his retching produced nothing, he did get up some liquid and what he assumed was bile. It burned his throat and stung painfully. The sound it made when it hit the surface between his feet suggested it landed on something other than the wooden floorboards.
When he opened his eyes, he saw a bucket on the floor next to the bed. It was well placed. Obviously Rand had expected him to be sick or thought there was a good chance he might be. He didn't know why he was feeling so sick. He'd never felt that awful after taking a sleeping med, but he'd felt that sick the day before, when Rand had injected him with something at his apartment to sedate him.
He lifted his pounding head slightly and looked at the nightstand next to him at the old-fashioned alarm clock ticking away and read the time. Three-forty. It had to be afternoon. He'd been out for about nine hours. Maybe a little more. It felt like half an hour at most. There was no way his own medication kept him out that long and left him feeling how he was feeling, unless he'd been overdosed, or unless something else had been given to him.
"Did you inject me again?" he asked with his eyes still on the clock, his words coming out mumbled.
"This morning, yes," Rand confirmed and it had him instantly angered. He forced his heavy eyes up to meet the man's.
"While I was sleeping?" he questioned with a little more force, able to sound his words out a little better. Rand nodded. "Why? I was asleep already," he pointed out sharply.
"I needed you to stay that way," Rand told him. "I had to take a trip into town for some things, some food," he explained. "I'm sorry," he added. "Here," he said as he picked up a glass of water that was on the nightstand next to the clock. "You're dehydrated. You're going to have to drink a lot of water today and you need to eat."
Cloud glanced at the glass being held out to him and scoffed at it.
"It's just water," Rand told him, knowing what he was thinking.
"I'm supposed to just take your word for it?" Cloud questioned skeptically.
The man sighed a little before lifting the glass to his mouth to drink a bit out of it.
"You think that sip proves anything? That amount wouldn't do much to you even if there was something in it," Cloud pointed out.
With a bit of a frustrated exhale the man said, "Then I suppose, yes, you will have to take my word for it. There are other ways to hydrate you that don't require you to drink the liquid," he informed Cloud.
Cloud lifted his one hand to take the glass from him, supposing he was thirsty enough to drink poison if that's what it was. He also wanted to alleviate the burning sensation at the back of his throat. When Rand let go of the glass he nearly dropped it, the weight of it focusing his thoughts to how weak he felt.
He drank slowly a few small mouthfuls at a time. When the liquid hit his stomach it felt like it almost hurt. That pain though was nothing compared to the pounding headache he had.
"I need something," he said through shut eyes. "For my head," he added. He didn't feel like he could keep himself upright. It felt like having the worst hangover of his life, even worse than how he'd felt waking up after overdosing himself in his apartment.
"I can't give you anything else right now," Rand told him. "Water and food will help," he said. "Come on, downstairs," the man urged him, taking his free arm and pulling on it to get him to stand. Cloud resisted, pulling his arm back into himself.
"I need the bathroom," he said.
"Okay," Rand agreed. "Come on," he said as he reached to take his arm a second time to help him to his feet.
He let Rand lead him down to the door at the end of the balcony-like hall outside the bedroom. Beyond the door was a small bathroom, only the length of a standard bathtub. There was in fact a bathtub against the left wall, a toilet next to it across from the door and a small sink against the right wall. He pulled his arm out of Rand's hold once more and proceeded to shut the door behind him. The man holding it open had him looking back at him quickly in anger.
"Do you really think you have to watch me every time?" he questioned sharply. The man looked about ready to tell him he did. Cloud cut him off. "Let go of the fucking door," he said. His tone was not as serious as he wanted it to be but for whatever reason then Rand did as he demanded and took his hand off the door. He stepped back a little into the hall but it was clear he meant to wait out there for him. Cloud accepted as much and took what he could get.
With the door shut, Cloud looked at the kind of lock that was affixed to it. A weak little hook that latched into a metal loop on the doorframe. Enough to stop someone from opening the door on someone by accident but not enough to withstand being forced open. He didn't bother to lock it. He was content with the few moments he had of minimal privacy. He sat for a minute with his aching head in his hands before finally standing back up to relieve himself.
As he was washing his hands, he looked at himself in the mirror and shook his head at his miserable reflection. He had tears building suddenly that he nearly lost control of before forcing himself to breathe through the onset of emotion and ever-present fear and hopelessness. He was trying hard not to let his mind imagine the worst or accept he was doomed because that's what it felt like. He knew he needed to keep calm and do whatever he had to to find a way out of his situation. It was hard to be logical and calm when he felt so sick and dizzy.
He noticed that the mirror was part of a cabinet then. He quickly pulled at the mirror to open the cabinet hoping to god there was a bottle of aspirin inside. Even if it were 20 years old he'd take it. There was nothing though. The cabinet was empty.
"Are you finished?" Rand called in past the door. Slowly he shut the cabinet again and turned to the bathroom door. He forced himself to take long deep breath before opening the door. "Everything alright?" the man asked him and he couldn't help but snort.
"Really?" he shot back. Rand did seem to know how stupid he sounded. His expression seemed apologetic but it hardly mattered.
"Let's go downstairs," the man said, leading the way. He looked back a few times to make sure Cloud was managing to make it down the stairs alright without assistance.
"Where are my meds?" Cloud asked when they were at the bottom of the stairs.
"It's too late in the day, I'll give them to you later tonight. You'll be fine," the man assured. He led the way into the kitchen area, holding Cloud's left upper arm loosely.
Cloud followed along, dragging his feet slightly, still feeling weighed down. Rand let him go in front of a barstool at a large island in the center of the kitchen. Without being told to do so, he sat himself down slowly. He was too tired and felt too queasy to make himself stand longer than he had too. The pounding in his head seemed to lessen in intensity a little as he sat. Still, he dropped his heavy head into his hands with his elbows propping him up at the island and shut his eyes.
He listened a little to Rand doing something in the kitchen. A moment later he was aware of something being set down on the island surface in front of him. He opened his eyes again to see a bowl of what looked to be oatmeal. With his head still held in his one hand he slid the bowl back away from him with his other one.
"Hungry or not, you do need to eat," Rand told him as he pushed the bowl back toward him. "It will make you feel better," he added.
Cloud shook his head at the substance below him and the bit of steam coming up from it. He could smell it and it only made his stomach turn.
"I'll throw it up," he stated firmly and slid it away from himself a second time.
"You won't," Rand argued gently. "Come on," he said through a sigh then as he picked the bowl up. "Let's go outside. The fresh air will help," he spoke in a reassuring way that Cloud couldn't stand but didn't have the energy to express.
He didn't want to get up again and make himself move, but he did want to get outside, out of the air that felt stale and dusty and with the overwhelming smell of timber. Again, Rand held his arm while walking him to the sliding back door of the home. He was led out into a screened-in porch that had what he assumed was furniture draped in sheets. That's apparently where the man had meant by outside. He began to lift one of the sheets from a chair while Cloud looked out into the property behind the house. There was a deck outside with some more covered furniture.
"Why not out there?" he asked the man who paused and looked out through the screening. He seemed to hesitate and try to decide if he should allow it.
"Won't you be cold?" Rand asked and he just shrugged.
"Alright," Rand finally agreed. "Just wait a minute," he instructed. He walked back into the house and a moment later was back with a folded blanket that he held out to Cloud. Reluctantly, Cloud took it from him. He watched the man unlatch the screen door and he stepped out onto the deck when Rand held the door open.
Although he could feel the breeze in the covered porch, it wasn't the same as being out in the open air. It was a little cool, but he felt some relief in his aching head immediately. Rand pulled the weather-proof cover off a chair that he sat in slowly. He set the folded blanket Rand gave him over the one arm of the chair. The moment he was seated Rand was setting down the bowl of oatmeal on the other wide arm of the chair. He was tempted to swat it to the ground but ignored it instead, choosing to look around their surroundings.
It was a large property. There were gardens, though nothing really alive at that point. In the distance he could see the property looked to slope downward into either a large pond or a lake. It was difficult to tell from where he was. There were trees surrounding most of the property about an acre or so out. Past the body of water, more trees, and in the far distance, what looked like an escarpment.
"Where are we?" he found himself asking with his eyes fixed on the sort of mountainous range ahead. "Geographically," he specified.
"I can't tell you that," Rand said as he uncovered another chair to sit down across from him. Between them was a table that looked to have a fireplace built into the top. The man lifted the grated cover to look under at the remains of coals within.
"I can't know where we are?" Cloud said back sharply. He didn't know why it mattered. He'd agreed to go with Rand without putting up a fight. It wasn't like he could go anywhere, not when he needed to know where his son was being kept.
"Did you think I put you in the trunk for fun?" Rand replied with something of a smirk.
"I thought you might bring me to that camp you mentioned, after you were talking about resetting things," Cloud told him. He was partly shocked by the fact the man had brought him to just a regular house and not some sort of torture chamber to resume 'conditioning' him. Then again, he hadn't seen the whole property yet.
"I would never take you to such a place," Rand told him first. He set the firepit cover back down in place on the table. "Also it burned down some years back."
"By accident?" Cloud questioned, looking at him directly.
"It looked like one," was the man's answer, spoken with a shrug.
Cloud studied his face a little, wondering if he was joking. He's not the joking type, he reminded himself. Feeling unnerved then he fixed his gaze back out at the escarpment. He supposed it really was more of a mountain, though nothing like the ones he'd grown up around in Nibelheim. Something stood out to him a little as he stared at the face. What looked like cuts in the vegetation. Large swathes out of it.
"Is that a ski hill?" he found himself asking. It seemed sort of like one but he couldn't see lifts he didn't think.
"It was at one point," Rand confirmed, turning in his chair slightly to glance back. He went on to explain. "There was a resort in the area at one point. It closed because that area over there isn't stable. There are old mines all over. The nearest town used to be rich from the natural resources around here. There were mines and mills just about everywhere. There's an old saw mill on the property, just down the trails there."
Cloud looked to where he pointed out towards the treeline on the left edge of the property.
"What happened?" he asked, finding himself a little curious. He thought any detail he could get about the area might help him figure out where he actually was.
"The mines gave out. The desirable lumber gave out. Now it's just…nature and the remains of what once was, frozen in time," Rand said.
"Why would anyone want to rent up here then?" Cloud questioned, remembering that the man had said he rented out the property at times.
"For the hunting and fishing. For the trails. They wind all through here. Miles and miles of trails."
There was a short silence that Cloud broke. He had so far been doing his best to keep himself together. He'd stayed restrained. He'd stayed calm, spent hours in a bed with his former Keeper. He'd done so on the promise he would get information about his child. It was time for Rand to answer his questions.
"Did you know from the beginning?" he asked first. "About Hojo's side project?"
Cloud was clearly referencing the project of procuring a child with his DNA. Rand reached down to pick up a twig that was lying on the deck next to the chair he was seated in. He held it in his hand and picked at the bark on it.
"I think if we're going to have such a discussion that you need to do something for me," he replied. When Cloud just looked back at him puzzled he nodded his head slightly while looking at the bowl of food he'd set down next to him.
Cloud exhaled forcefully. "I—" he started to say that he would eat it but shook his head then. He wasn't hungry. Besides feeling sick and anxious about his situation, he was frustrated and getting angry. "Look, you told me you'd give me answers," he fired at the man then instead. "You said you'd tell me what I want to know but not in Junon and we aren't in fucking Junon anymore."
"I did tell you that," he agreed as he stared back at him but he didn't offer anything more.
"So what? Were you lying?" Cloud questioned sharply and the man shook his head.
"No," he denied. "I don't have any intention of keeping what you want to know from you," he conveyed calmly.
Again Cloud waited for him to start explaining what he obviously wanted to know but the man was only looking at him. He found himself shrugging with irritation.
"Well? Where is he?" he asked, speaking of his son. It was really the only thing he cared about even if he had a hundred other questions.
"I told you that he's safe," Rand replied with a light shrug of his own.
"That's not answering my question," Cloud argued. "Is he close by?"
"No," was Rand's short response.
"On the same continent?" Cloud tried to narrow down the possibilities.
"Yes," Rand confirmed.
"Who's taking care of him?"
"Someone I trust," was the man's vague response.
"Be more specific," Cloud demanded. "Is it someone you worked with? A relative? Why do you trust them? How do you know you can trust them?"
Rand sighed and briefly looked like he was considering explaining before saying, "You need to eat. It's not just a suggestion."
In an instant Cloud's frustration was boiling into full on anger and he did what he'd wanted to from the moment he was handed the bowl of food next to him. He picked it up and threw it with the force he could manage off the deck somewhere into the ground next to it.
"This is bullshit!" he shouted at the man, leaning forward in the chair and thinking that he wanted to get to his feet, if only to pace angrily but he knew he didn't have the strength to do it. He put his head in his hands and gripped his hair hard as he shut his eyes tightly. His head was pounding hard again.
"You accomplished nothing by doing that," Rand told him and it only stoked his anger and his desperation. Rand stood up slowly and went in the direction of the tossed bowl. "You want something and so do I," he spoke down to him when he'd retrieved the bowl and was stepping back up onto the deck. "If I've taught you anything, it's about give and take."
Cloud scoffed loudly to that. "Go screw yourself," he muttered, not looking at him.
It felt like a long tense moment of silence then when Rand was just standing next to him.
"Get up," the man spoke finally. "We're going back inside."
He wanted to refuse. He wanted to demand the answers he was owed, or to scream at the top of his lungs, but after another moment, Cloud complied. He got up and walked ahead of Rand back toward the screen door to the covered porch. He resisted the urge to try and swing at him or lay a hit on him. The man reached past him to open the door and as Cloud stepped back into the porch Rand had one more thing to say.
"All you had to do was eat," he said.
The words only pissed him more but he didn't respond. When he was alone upstairs left sitting on the bed with his one hand cuffed again to the headboard, he did regret his choice to lash out instead of just giving in. He didn't have control and he had someone other than himself to think about. He was going to have to accept that not only was he going to have to 'play along' until he got what he needed but that the game may be a hell of a lot longer than he'd already considered.
He looked over at the wall to his left. He could hear what sounded like a power drill being used in the next room over, what he assumed was another bedroom. Rand had said to him before leaving him alone that he'd be getting his room ready for him. He hadn't elaborated but Cloud drew some quick conclusions. Most likely his room was being given a lock and any windows being modified to prevent them from opening. Or perhaps they were being boarded up completely.
The thought had him leaning forward where he was sitting on the edge of the bed and trying to see as much as he could out of the window nearby. The sun was getting low in the horizon, sitting just above the treeline. The sky was turning pink and orange. It was a pretty and for a few minutes that's all he focused on.
000
"Another stellar sunset," Zack muttered aloud as he stared out at the glittering water, squinting to look at the farthest place on the horizon he could. "You tryin' to prove something or what?" he said to the sky after another moment.
It bothered him a little that night after night the beach in Costa del Sol witnessed what felt like a perfect setting sun performance. It could be cloudy all day and somehow in the last hour of daylight the sky became a spectacular painting of both soft and vibrant hues of reds and golds. He'd never thought about it much during his past visits but being alone there for a few days had him noticing everything.
He drank down the little bit of coffee that was still in the mug in front of him on the picnic table he was seated at before pulling down the sleeves of his sweater where they'd been bunched near his elbows. He could feel the air getting colder with the sun dipping. He was just about ready to head off to his room, feeling tired enough that he may actually be able to sleep longer than three hours.
"Zack," a voice spoke from behind him. It wasn't loudly spoken but it still startled him a little. He looked back to see a familiar face. It was the therapist he'd had the last time he'd been there for treatment which felt like a lifetime ago. Sharlee.
"Hey, doc," he greeted her with a friendly smile. "Working late?"
"It's not really a shift work kind of job," she said and he nodded in understanding before looking back out at the water. "How is it?" she asked making him look at her again. She indicated toward a novel that was sitting in the middle of the table top.
"Oh," Zack said, realizing what she was talking about. "I don't know. It was on the table when I sat down," he informed her with a shrug. "I'm not much of a reader."
She chuckled a little before asking, "Can I sit?"
"Sure," he said. She took a seat across from him but turned a little so she could still sort of see the water.
"So," she said after a brief quiet moment. "You're back," she pointed out, "Turning her attention fully his way.
"Yeah," he confirmed the obvious. "It's, uh, it's just for a few days. Just wanted a break from the city. A chance to clear my head I guess."
She nodded in acknowledgment. "Is it clear?" she asked and he snorted at first in response.
"No, it, uh…still feels pretty full," he replied as he looked down at the empty coffee cup in front of him.
"You haven't booked any counselling sessions," she pointed out. "You don't think that might help with the whole head-clearing thing?"
He looked briefly back up at her. "Did you get told I was here?" he asked. She nodded and he mirrored the action before turning his gaze back on the water ahead.
"Well, maybe I just didn't book any sessions with you," he suggested. "Maybe I didn't like you," he joked.
"Well if that's true, I'm sorry," she said with her tone indicating she knew he was joking. "But I can see in our system you don't have any sessions booked with anyone." He nodded a little. "Want me to recommend someone else?" she asked and he laughed lightly.
"No, I'm kidding. You were fine. I'm just not sure I have much to say," he explained.
"It's normal to feel that way," she said. "How's Cloud?" she asked then after a pause. "He's not here with you?"
Zack shook his head. "No. He's okay," he said simply. He'd actually been trying really hard not to think about him because that's all his mind seemed to want to focus on and it hadn't been helping him relax at all, which is what he'd hoped he'd get out of being away from the city.
"How have things been back in Midgar?" Sharlee asked and he gave a slight shrug.
"Uh, well, hard I guess. It's been difficult for Cloud," he started to explain solemnly. "He's been having pretty frequent panic attacks. He's had problems with sleeping, sometimes for days at a time. And he's been on a lot of medication."
"How about you?"
"I guess I take my fair share of meds," he replied. "Not that much though. Sleep? Well…I work nights so sleep is whenever."
"Has Cloud been working too?" she asked him and he nodded.
"For a while he was," he said at first and allowed himself to think back on what was hard to remember without wanting to break something. "Something happened though where he was working," he finally told her.
"Something?" she echoed, shaking her head slowly.
Zack sighed before trying to explain. "Someone from Shinra—or who worked for Shinra—or with Shinra—or was hired by Shinra—" he stopped and huffed a little at his own struggled response. "Randon Cane," he said instead. "He showed up there," he concluded.
Sharlee recognized the name, of course. She was well aware of who Rand was, the victim of the assault he'd been incarcerated for. She also did have a basic knowledge of what Cane had done to Cloud as well.
"I see," she spoke in a low tone. "Have you had any contact with him?" she asked and he smirked.
"No," he denied quickly. "Ha," he said as he looked at the water again. "I'd have killed him." He shifted his gaze back to the doctor who appeared serious. "I'm semi-joking," he told her. "I've followed all my rules given to me by the court," he added.
"How's that been?" she asked and he thought about it a little before answering truthfully.
"Honestly? Hard. Like being under a microscope all the time, and I've been a literal specimen. This is different."
"So then, this appearance of one of his abusers, it had an impact on Cloud, I'm assuming," Sharlee remarked.
"Yeah, you could say that," Zack agreed uneasily. "Cane…he apparently, according to some evidence, committed suicide, that night actually, after seeing Cloud. And it should be a relief. I mean, to me, I couldn't be happier with the thought. Cloud though…"
He didn't finish the thought. He rested his forearms on the top of the table and lowered his head, having a hard time even thinking about what had happened and how everything had seemed to affect Cloud.
"Has he had a hard time processing his feelings about it?" Sharlee asked and he scoffed.
"You could say that," he repeated. "I think he feels partly responsible," he declared, thinking about the things Cloud had said about it.
"Why?" she inquired.
"Well…he apologised apparently. Rand. For what he did to Cloud. I don't know exactly everything Cloud had to say back to him but I don't think it was forgiving. So, given the guy maybe offed himself right after that, Cloud's had a hard time feeling like he may have been part of the reason."
Zack took a deep breath then. Sharlee was quiet so he felt like he needed to go on.
"I guess I can see his point but it pisses me off," he said. "Anytime he says something that sounds like he's sympathizing with that son of a bitch or excusing the shit he did I just feel like I'm going to explode, you know."
Sharlee nodded in understanding. "Does it make you angry at just Rand, or Cloud too?" she asked after a moment.
Zack found himself looking down and shaking his head as he thought about it. "Both of them," he admitted quietly. "I just don't get it. I don't get how he could feel anything but disgust and hatred for someone who did what he did to him. It's like he wants to blame himself."
"Has this affected your friendship?" she asked and he was quick to respond.
"No, but…"
He couldn't finish because the truth was that it had affected their friendship. He really hated to acknowledge that. He didn't know what to say then and the doctor sensed it quickly.
"Does Cloud know you're here now?" she questioned and he found himself wincing a little for some reason.
"No. I mean, he might have been told by now by one of our friends but I didn't tell him. We, uh…"
Again, he didn't know how to finish his thought and this time it actually had him tearing up suddenly.
"What is it?" Sharlee asked him gently.
He cleared his throat and reined in his emotions the best he could. "He, uh, decided he wanted to be on his own for a while. He wanted to leave Midgar to clear his head, that's what he said anyway, he had another reason."
"What reason?"
"It…It had to do with Rand," was all he said, not wanting to talk about the shares. "It doesn't matter," he said. "He made it to Junon. He was somewhere around there when he found out that he, um, actually…" He thought about how he should explain what he was going to reveal. It seemed impossible to give the straight truth. "He had a kid, a child that he didn't know about, and it had passed away by the time he found out. It was just a baby."
"Wow," the therapist said when he was quiet then. He nodded slowly. "That must have been difficult to learn," she commented sympathetically. He nodded again.
"Yeah. It's uh…it's devastated him," he concluded with renewed building tears he held back the best he could. "I wanted him to come home," he started to explain then slowly. "To be with his family, you know, the ones of us I thought he thought of as family, but I guess that's not what he wants."
"He doesn't want to return to Midgar?" she asked and he shook his head.
"No. He's done I guess," he said as he looked at the table top. "Last straw."
"What does that mean?" she asked and he shrugged.
"He said Midgar's not home. He doesn't have family. He doesn't want to come back. That's it," he stated.
"How did that make you feel?" she asked him and it had him suddenly angry. It felt like such a typical shrink question to ask.
"How did it make me feel?" he repeated sharply, looking up at her quickly. "Like I wanted to break every goddamn thing around me, and set fire to it afterward. Like I should strap a fucking bomb to my chest and march into Shinra Headquarters with it. Or like I should jump on a bus, courts be damned, and go down to Junon to beat the shit out of him."
"Cloud?" she asked.
"Yeah," he confirmed. He had a few tears pushing out of his eyes that he swiped away angrily. "Who thinks like that?" he said then.
"Your reaction is normal, Zack," she tried to assure him and he laughed dryly.
"Yeah? Well, I called him selfish when he told me he wasn't coming back home," he revealed to her and the tears seemed to multiply instantly in his eyes. "After everything he's gone through, finding out about his baby son, and knowing everything he's been struggling with. I yelled at him, threw in his face that everyone who cared about him had made sacrifices for him. I called his decision bullshit."
He wasn't sobbing but his tears were flowing freely then. He put his face in his hands as he cried, his elbows pressing into the table top.
"It's alright," he heard her say and he shook his head.
"No it's not," he argued. "I accused him of abandoning me and everyone else but what the hell was it when I lost it on him? He could say the same about me."
"You said what you felt," she told him. "You were upset and hurt. I'm sure he knows that." He shook his head to that and inhaled back in his emotions as he sat back up again and wiped at his eyes and face at the same time. "Have you tried talking to him since then?" she asked.
"Yeah, he wouldn't answer his phone," he replied sullenly. "So, I guess I really screwed things up with him. Just like I screwed up with Aerith, and with Kunsel."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I was a crappy fiancé apparently because Aerith left, and just like with Cloud I laced into Kunsel about some shit and he took off too," he responded slowly.
"Kunsel, your friend from SOLDIER?" she asked him and he nodded.
"I basically accused Aerith of cheating on me with him," he revealed.
"How did that come about?" the therapist asked.
"They kissed apparently," he told her with a slight shrug.
"Sounds a little in the realm of cheating, to be honest," she remarked and he gave a bit of a grim smile.
"Yeah, I think he just kissed her. That's what he said anyway, that and that he's in love with her."
"And Aerith?" Sharlee inquired.
"She says she only cares about him as a friend," he replied.
"You don't believe that?"
"Truthfully?" he said. "I do believe her. But, Kunsel aside, she doesn't want to be around me anymore, and I really can't blame her."
"Why do you say that?" was Sharlee's next question.
"Well what woman doesn't want to hitch a ride on an emotional dump truck that exists just to drive a destructive path straight through even the best of times? All I have to offer are random bouts of crying, night sweats, and a felony conviction. I'm not a catch, doc," he told her dryly.
She smiled at his explanation. "You're selling yourself short," she commented.
"I don't think so," he argued. "Like I said, I don't even read."
Sharlee chuckled at his comment. "You've got a really big heart, Zack," she told him seriously then. "And you've been through far too much trauma of your own to be so hard on yourself. You have to know that whatever the reasons those closest to you needed to take some time for themselves away, that it's not your fault."
"I dunno," he said quietly, looking out at the water again.
"What?" she asked him and he shook his head a little.
"I've been thinking about that dream I had a lot when I was last here," he started to explain. She seemed to know exactly what he was talking about.
"The one about the three graves with no names?" she questioned and he nodded. "Any new interpretations since you were last here?"
He thought about it a few seconds before answering. "Well, I used to feel like they had to be for three people I hate the most, you know, people who hurt Cloud and I, who stole our freedom…"
"You don't feel that way now?"
He shrugged again. "I guess I just find it kind of funny that three people I care about the most are gone now…"
"Gone?" she echoed in question.
"Well not gone, just…yeah actually, gone. They all left and haven't come back so that sort of makes them gone," he reasoned.
"So, the graves then? You think they're for the ones you love, not hate? The ones you feel you've lost?"
"Guess that fits as well as any interpretation," he agreed.
"You were digging those graves in your dream, weren't you?" she inquired after a moment and he confirmed with a nod
"Maybe I knew, even then, that I would do something to ruin all those relationships," he spoke sadly. He felt like he could cry again if he let himself but he contained it.
It was another few moments of silence while they both looked at the water again. Then Sharlee spoke up once more.
"They were always just open though, weren't they?"
"What?" he asked back.
"The graves," she clarified. "Did you ever have the dream where the graves weren't just open? Where you weren't just digging them? Were you ever burying anything?"
He thought about it and shook his head. "No." Sharlee nodded and he watched as she stood herself up from the table. She fastened a few buttons on her sweater and adjusted the strap of her purse as she looked like she was preparing to head out for the night. "What does that mean?" he asked her, drawing her attention back to him.
Sharlee smiled and gave a small shrug of her own. "I don't know. Unlike you, I do like reading, but I've never been one for giving weight to dream interpretation," she joked with him a little. "Maybe one night try tipping that emotional dump truck of yours into those empty graves and accepting not everything needs to rest on your shoulders alone."
He couldn't help smiling at the suggestion.
"Your advice does not suck," he said. "Thanks."
"No problem," she replied. "Are you okay, Zack?" she asked.
"Yeah," he said, perhaps not very convincingly because she seemed to be studying his expression. "I'm fine, doc," he told her.
"Okay," she said with acceptance. "You know where you can find me if you want to book some time to not have much to say again," she teased him.
"Sure," he said. "Have a good night, doc," he told her.
"You too," she said back before departing.
Alone again at the picnic table, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He did know he wasn't fully responsible for the way the relationships he cared the most about seemed to be falling apart, but in itself that fact was hard to accept because if true that meant no amount of fixing himself and his own issues was going to bring back those he loved and put things right.
