Cloud crawls across the unforgiving stone, searching Zack's eyes for a flicker of consciousness. Transformation left him weak and bleeding, but it's nothing compared to the pool spreading under Zack.

Close, too close, the helicopter lands. The Crater vibrates with wind and noise.

He calls out to Zack with his soul and gets no response. He calls out with his voice although he knows it won't be heard.

A figure in black steps out of the copter with an automatic shotgun outstretched.

"Stay back," Cloud shouts.

"Hands up, there's nowhere left to run," she yells. Her feet advance in a military criss-cross, her arm steady despite the turbulence. Gritting his teeth, Cloud forces himself up, kneeling between her and Zack.

"We don't want to hurt you, Director," a smarmy voice says from the aircraft's speakers. Male, youthful. "So make this easy for us and hand over the girl."

"Hold on…" The Turk on the ground lowers her weapon.

It's just two. He could handle two, right? If his stupid body could hurt Zack this much, then surely he can bully it into killing two more Turks.

The woman whips her sunglasses off and blinks at them with hazel eyes. "Reno, I think you better come see this."

"What?" the voice in the helicopter barks. "They're already wounded, how damn hard is it to—"

The speaker cuts out and the chopper's engine cuts. A second lanky figure struts out of the bay door.

"Lady, I swear on Tseng's left tit, if this is another fuckin'…" The man trails off.

Cloud snarls and reaches into his coat pocket where the Shinra service pistol still sits, loaded and ready. The red haired Turk laughs hysterically.

"What should we do?" the girl asks.

"This is too fucking good." The man who must be Reno cackles, stalking closer with his gun swinging wildly in his hand. "A week in the ass-end of nowhere following a cold trail to the goddamn ice cap and it turns out we've been chasing the wrong damn mark." He breaks off, pointing his gun between Cloud and Zack with a crazed look.

"The wrong black haired, ex-Shinra fugitive with a blonde companion and a scar on his left cheek. Rude's never gonna let me hear the end of this."

"I'm a little more concerned about the blood, boss," the woman says. "Cloud, what the hell are you doing here?"

She knows him? She steps closer and he pulls the gun from his pocket.

"I said stay back."

Her face falls. Reno laughs even harder.

With deliberate slowness, she loops the shotgun strap over her head and puts the weapon on her back. She raises her hands.

"Cloud, it's me. We met in Junon on the Rayleigh mission. You saved my life, don't you remember?"

"You're lying. You want to take us back there," Cloud says, but his aim waivers. The woman pleads with her eyes.

"Our mark is Veld," she says. "Cissnei—"

"Is a deserter now," Reno interrupts. "And in case you forgot, Shotgun, these two killed Legeno in cold blood. Not to mention…" Reno cocks his pistol and Cloud pivots to aim at him. The Turk spits on the ground and walks closer, seemingly unbothered by the standoff, his eyes enraged. "Four years ago, they killed Teagan in their botched little prison break. I've been itching to put a bullet in their heads ever since."

Shotgun side steps, putting herself in the line of fire. "Those aren't our orders."

"Screw the orders, we're gonna be dead in a week anyway. At least this way I get to tie up some unfinished business."

"But Tseng—"

"Is in over his head, and you know it. Damn it, Shotgun, look at 'em. A fuckin' mercy killing is what it is."

"So cold…"

His heart leaps at the sound of Zack's voice. The others seem startled too, Shotgun out of concern and Reno out of a strange, visible apprehension.

Cloud switches the gun to his right hand and turns to see his lover clutching his wound. A dazed, unhappy smile crooks his mouth.

"I thought we were friends, Reno. What gives?"

"Lab rats ain't got no friends, Fair. You know that."

"Zack—" Shotgun runs to kneel beside him, and Cloud doesn't know what to think.

He wants to cover Zack with his body, and snarl like an animal, and shoot them both in the head, and beg them for a healing spell. The result is paralysis, a complete inability to move as this stranger tears off her scarf and balls it up under Zack's back.

"We can't trust them," he whispers. His partner ignores him, eyes trained on Reno and his shaking gun arm.

"What's got you so rattled, huh? You think killin' me will fix anything?" Zack rasps wetly. He coughs. Blood flecks his lip and gushes from the wound. Cloud's heart makes a lurching, horrified skip. He drops the gun and presses on the wound.

"Zack, what are you doing? We gotta get out of here."

Mako eyes flick to Cloud's and his sharp smile bleeds genuine for a second. "No."

"You're bleeding out, we—"

"I know them. Trust."

"Hey cutie, you still got that mastered Curaga?" Zack asks the woman.

"You think I'd take Reno anywhere without it?"

Zack laughs, and winces. Blood drips from the corner of his mouth to his chin. "Could really use one right about now."

Cloud knows his jealousy is misplaced, but that doesn't stop him feeling it. He watches her every move like a hawk as she shakes a bangle loose from the layers of clothing around her wrist. He checks the color of each one, senses primed for the energetic push-pull of a materia being activated. If she charges anything but a green one, she'll be dead before it casts.

Zack doesn't share his suspicion. He looks past her rummaging and muttering to regard Reno and his still-pointed gun.

"I get it, you're in a bind and you don't have time for sympathy. In that case, how about a deal? You need Veld. I can get you Veld. Just don't pull that trigger yet."

"You'll what?!" Cloud yells silently

"Trust."

"You're playin' me," Reno accuses.

"What else have I got?" Zack coughs again, and Cloud feels it in his chest. Warm blood coats his glove and he presses hard.

Energy contracts around Shotgun's hand, and green orbs of light delve into the wound. Zack's body slacks in relief.

"Better?" Shotgun asks. She breathes heavily from the power of the spell.

Cloud pulls his hand from Zack's chest to see a deep gash but nothing more. The insides have been repaired, and the bleeding is no longer life threatening. Zack rolls onto his side and spits red, groaning.

"Don't miss this part of the job," he says roughly.

Shotgun cocks her head and huffs. "I think you mean 'thank you.'"

"Thank you," Zack echoes.

Reno itches his hairline with the muzzle of his pistol and wrinkles his nose in disgust. "We've got our best and brightest tracking that fucker down, what makes you think I need your sorry ass?"

"You're here, aren't you?" Cloud growls.

He'd rather shoot them both than hear another word out of that man's mouth, but Zack told him no. He restrains the impulse as Reno rolls his eyes.

Zack pushes himself up and rubs the tension from his face. Looking through bloody fingers, he gives the Turk an assessing gaze.

"Cissnei deserted, and I'm assuming from the manhunt that Veld did too. That means Tseng's in charge now, and Rude's probably getting a tan in La Costa with orders to kill me. Recruitment's a no-go after the Crisis, so the only elite Turks left are you two.

You thought we were Veld, which means you lost his trail at least a week ago, and by your own word Shinra's gonna kill you if you don't find him soon. So yeah, I think you need me," Zack says.

"And why should I trust a single thing that a guy like you has to say when he's bargaining for his life?"

"The same reason I have to trust you." Zack melts a fistful of snow in his hand and swishes it to clean out his mouth, spitting again. "Cause unless you're exaggerating, then we're all dead men walking. Working together is our only option."

"Other than shooting them," Cloud mutters.

"That's not an option."

"Why not?"

Their connection snaps shut suddenly, and Cloud starts. Zack doesn't look at him, won't meet his searching gaze.

"Look," he says wearily to Reno, "you can still kill us later. It's not like that option is going away. But first give us a chance to—"

"Fly the nest and never be seen again?" Reno sets his hands on his hips and leans forward with a condescending glare. "Honestly, Fair, it's like you think I was born yesterday."

"And what else are we going to do?" Shotgun asks. "He's right, we don't have a lot of options, and if they do find Veld…"

"Then we still have to figure out what the hell to do with him," Reno groans, flinging his head back and rubbing his eyes. "This whole situation is fucked."

"Didn't you hear? Fucked up beyond all reason is my professional specialty," Zack says dryly.

Shotgun looks hopefully at her superior while Cloud's guts churn.

The thought of helping Shinra, let alone committing corporate espionage on their behalf, makes him want to throw up in his mouth, but Zack doesn't seem to care what he thinks. He's looking at Reno too, like he's the last, best hope for humanity.

In a dose of cold comfort, Reno looks similarly unenthused. He grinds his teeth and taps the barrel of his gun against his leg.

A frigid wind blows through their layers and makes them all shiver at once. Unity, if only in their common human struggle against death, disease, and mother nature.

With a savage sneer, he flicks the safety on his gun and holsters it.

"Fine, but if you bleed in my chopper I'll throw you out of it. I just had the seats cleaned."

Gravity pushes and pulls on their bodies as the helicopter takes to the air, but Zack only feels it distantly. He and Cloud both passed out almost as soon as they were strapped into the seats.

The panorama of Cloud's mind shows a gloomy scene around them. Ash covers the house, kicked up by a dry wind that makes the dead, burnt stalks of wheat rattle.

Trapped behind Cloud's closed eyes, the sky is a murky, endless black. It reminds him of the tank, of the years and years of Nothing, and so Zack tries not to look up.

Looking down isn't much better though, because the holes are still there. The black sludge remains in toxic puddles that have to be minded and stepped around.

The once beautiful garden is trampled and muddy, the fence left in shambles. But that's not even the biggest concern, because Cloud's mood is even darker than the holes, and even harder to step around. Zack would go back to his own mind if he knew how.

Instead, he trudges to the mud-flecked Buster Sword and wipes it off on his pant leg.

Cloud scrubs the ash from the face of his mental image, but it really just smears it around because his shirt is just as dirty. Zack watches him in the reflection of the blade.

"Do we need to talk about this?" he asks.

Thunder rolls threateningly over the horizon, and Zack slings the sword onto his back.

"Cloud—"

His partner kicks a broken fence post into the field.

"I'm not doing shit for the Turks," he says.

"Really, that's how it's gonna be?" Zack crosses his arms.

"They're gonna use you and then they're gonna betray you. Don't get mad when I say I told you so."

"Not Tseng." Zack shakes his head. "I get it, Cloud, but you don't know them. They're good people."

They share a tense stare, and Cloud turns his back to set a scorched training dummy upright. Squinting at it, he removes the dust and refreshes the red painted targets on its head and torso. Zack taps his fingers on his bicep, watching.

"You don't believe me."

"I believe that you always want to think the best of people, but sometimes people are just bad, Zack. Sometimes they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt."

"You don't even know him."

"Are you sure that you do?" Cloud looks over his shoulder doubtfully. "We were in the lab a long time. People change."

"Not him. And not Shotgun either. She was there when Sebastian and Essai died, she was… kind."

"Because you were one of them. We're the enemy now. Reno didn't seem to care about your history when he was pointing a gun at you."

"That's just Reno," Zack waves his hand. "He's… prickly."

"Wow, you really were friends with these assholes," Cloud says under his breath, and Zack's surprised by his own offense. If they weren't together, if he'd somehow managed to fall on the other side, would Cloud be saying these things about him?

He reaches for an explanation, something beyond the shallow and unsatisfying truth that he had enjoyed good relationships with almost everyone he worked with at Shinra, and that he'd been more or less happy working there until the Crisis forced him to think critically about his life.

The other man tries to pull a snapped-off fence post out of the ground, but it refuses to budge. He pulls and pulls, getting frustrated, and so Zack walks to the other side.

He looks at Cloud and his partner stares back. He grabs the base and Cloud doesn't stop him. Together they get it loose.

Cloud starts a pile by throwing the post onto the other one that he kicked, and Zack figures it's now or never. He steps up beside him and shoves his hands in the deep pockets of his jeans.

"If I told you there were other reasons that I trust the Turks, would that make it better or worse?" he asks.

'Worse' looks to be the immediate answer, judging by Cloud's face, but what he actually says is, "Depends."

"Right," Zack sighs. Kicking the dirt, he draws wide, muddy lines with his boot. "For starters, they're really not that different from us. If the stereotypical SOLDIER is a big-dreaming country boy, then the average Turk is a slum kid who's parents sold them to the company. They raise them in these so-called vocational academies, and tell everyone it's a good way to make sure that abandoned kids grow up to have good, stable careers."

"Let me guess, it's secretly really bad because it's Shinra," Cloud says.

Zack sighs at his tone, but nods. "The academies filter into low level positions in the company, but since the company also owns the academy, that means they can't really say no to anything without risking everything.

That was Cissnei's story, and Reno's too; sold to pay off their parent's debts. Cissnei was smart so she got onto the officer track, but Reno became a test subject for commercial products. Energy drinks, baby oil, hair dye—that stuff has to be tested on someone before it gets sold. If you have a bad attitude or bad grades, then you end up being that someone.

That's why his hair looks like that, by the way. Bad batch when he was eleven, the dye permanently changed it, or something like that."

"So they have sad stories. That doesn't make it okay for them to kill people."

"We did that too, Cloud," Zack says. "Not you so much, you were Search and Rescue, but I…"

"You're different."

"Because you know me."

Zack forgets not to look up, and winds up staring into the Nothing. He shivers, and has to walk around, shaking out his body to get rid of the cold.

"More importantly, ever since she was a little girl, Tseng has been the only person standing between Aerith and Hojo. Since Veld defected, he'll be expected to kill him as a show of loyalty to the company. If he fails, well, it was nice knowing Tseng."

"And if they kill Tseng then Aerith…"

"Exactly."

"I see." Cloud chews his cheek, his blue eyes scanning the grim horizon.

Zack stares at the tracks his feet left in the mud, anxious of what Cloud will think.

To his surprise, he finds little green plants sprouting in the muck, reaching up for sunlight that isn't there. Squatting, he peers down at them and pinches one of the tiny leaves between his fingers.

His partner shoves his hands in his pockets, surly but not as cold as he was. He plucks a snapped, dead husk out of the ground and nudges the dirt until a new plant creeps out.

"And Tseng, what's his deal?"

Pushing up on his knees, he dusts his hands on the side of his pants and leads the way to the small porch on the front of the cottage.

They hung a wooden swing there around the time that they finished the garden. Cloud had wanted a shady spot to watch him train. It became a favorite place, peaceful and calming.

He rests the Buster on the porch railing and flops onto the right side of the bench.

Grudgingly, Cloud sits and together they push the swing into motion. The chain links creak like an old porch swing should and Zack spreads his arms over the back of the bench, glad that the overhanging roof obscures all but a thin sliver of the empty sky.

Slowly in the distance, the holes in the field fill up with dirt. He gathers his thoughts.

"I probably shouldn't tell you this cause it's kind of an open secret, but Tseng was the son of a Wutaian noble, some hotshot in their Council of Elders with a lot of sway. When he was a kid, he got taken as a political prisoner and put in an internment camp outside Midgar."

He looks to Cloud, wondering if he needs to explain further, but his partner nods his understanding.

"There were some history books upstairs when I got here," he says.

"Yeah, you really liked that stuff," Zack says. "You were also going on little lectures when you found out I didn't know something. You'd get so excited, I thought it was cute."

"I wish I remembered actually useful things." Cloud slumps, and Zack plucks at his messy hair with a grin.

"You'll get there. And if you don't, I'll keep the memories for you. This thing's a steel trap." He points to his temple, and Cloud elbows him.

"Steel traps have tons of holes in them," he grumbles.

"Anyway…" Zack shakes his head, trying to recall where he left off. "So kid Tseng was in a camp when the first bombs dropped on Wutai. They put the prisoners to work making weapons, and when they'd get parts shipped in, the crates would be packed with torn up newspaper. He learned how to read from those, and then he learned that his homeland was getting bombed by Shinra."

"Rough," Cloud says.

"He made it sound better," Zack shrugs. "Tseng's got this weird way of talking. Like, he says something that should sound bad, but he makes it sound good. Or he says something really official, but if you read between the lines he's actually saying he'll look out for you. Does that make any sense?"

Cloud tenses under his arm. His eyes go wide and he sits up straighter.

"Would Sephiroth have known him? Not as an adult, but sooner, like when he was twelve or thirteen?"

"I… guess so? He certainly knew Aerith that early. And they were both elite officers in the second Wutai conflict."

"Does he have a ponytail? And a dot right here?" Cloud touches his forehead, and Zack sits up too.

"That's him! Wait, Sephiroth showed you that?"

"It's more like I wandered into it. I was out there in the Void after he took over. I didn't know where I was and I couldn't feel you. But then I felt something, and then I think I connected with him. I saw some memories, but they were all jumbled up and then this crow led me back here."

"Like the one you saw earlier."

"Yeah, just like that."

"But I was talking to him at the same time," Zack says. "You can't do that, can you?"

"I didn't know to try." Cloud shrugs.

"Maybe it's a dead person thing."

Cloud slumps back onto the swing and rests his head on Zack's arm. He looks up at him with naked worry and apprehension. "Honestly, right now I don't ever want to use my powers again. I'm scared that she'll come back."

"She won't. I won't let her."

Cloud doesn't believe him, it's clear on his face. Tugging down the sleeve of his flannel shirt, he has another go at cleaning off Cloud's face.

The ash comes away this time, a wide stripe of pale skin peeking through the gray. It's odd seeing his older face here, but not in a bad way. It feels more real, more like the Cloud that he fell in love with in the real world. He finishes cleaning his face with a gentle swipe across his jaw, and then leans close to lay a soft, short kiss on his lips.

Cloud sighs and rests their foreheads together. "I hate empty promises, so why are they so comforting coming from you?"

"Because they're not empty," he says. "I mean it, Cloud. I won't let her hurt you again."

Cloud pulls back, a rush of flushed flutters pounding through the bond like a heartbeat even as he tries to hide them behind a stoic face. Zack doesn't call him on it. He lets his arm fall over Cloud's shoulder and goes back to rocking, pushing absently with one foot on the porch.

He clears his throat theatrically, downplaying his own soft feelings with a casual smirk.

"You still want to hear about Tseng, or would that ruin the moment?"

"I think I got the idea." Cloud picks at the dirt under his nails. "War would have meant a stop in diplomacy, which meant Tseng wasn't going home any time soon, so he signed a deal with Shinra."

Zack nods. "They put him in black ops training, gave him an instant promotion to Turk elite, and sent him to Wutai to spy on his motherland before he had time to grow chin hair."

"And that's the guy you trust our lives to. A double agent?"

"Double agent implies he was working for both sides."

"Wasn't he? Shinra ruined his life."

"No, that's what makes Tseng interesting. The only side he's on is his own. He hates Shinra, but he doesn't have much love for Wutai either. They had years to negotiate his return before the war broke out, and they never did. His take away from all that was—"

He sits up and schools his face in a serene stare, imitating Tseng's carefully neutral accent.

"There are no angels in this world, Zack. There are winners and losers. Be sure to pick the winning side."

"The 'winning side' being Shinra."

Zack shrugs, his fingers playing with the soft fabric of Cloud's shirt sleeve. "Nobody's perfect. The point is that Tseng follows his own moral code. He likes being a Turk because Turks act outside the law. He'll never break a rule, but he will bend it into a corkscrew if he thinks it's the right thing to do."

"Which is why he stood between Hojo and Se—" Cloud stutters, self-correcting. "I mean, between Hojo and Aerith."

"What exactly did you see in that guy's head?" Zack squints curiously, but Cloud crosses his arms and looks away. He lets it go, not wanting to pick another fight so soon. "Well anyway, that's what I know for sure. But there's also the stuff that Roche told me that last day in the lab. Do you remember that?"

Cloud stares into the distance, watching the charred field slowly turn green.

"It's fuzzy at that part," he admits.

"Well, he mentioned some upheaval in the upper ranks. An anti-Shinra group called Avalanche had been getting a ton of funding from an unknown source. Roche seemed to think that it was an inside job."

"And you think it's Tseng?" Cloud furrows his brows.

"Means, motive, opportunity," Zack says. "With a Turk's salary and security clearance, plus potentially a lot of blood money from his family in Wutai… I don't know, it's just a theory. But it makes sense, doesn't it? The Turks have always been a wild card in the organization. They make the brass nervous because they can't control them, but they also can't get rid of them when they get such good results."

"But now the Turks' reputation is smeared," Cloud nods, copying Zack with a daring quirk of his lip, "Means, motive, opportunity."

"I'll never claim the Turks are innocent," Zack says, tapping the back of the bench with his free hand. "They're fucked up people who do fucked up work. But they're also the only thing keeping Aerith out of Hojo's grimy hands, and if we play a part in saving them, then they'll have an obligation to protect us too."

Cloud bites his lip, his brows low and severe. "I still don't like it."

"Me neither," Zack admits. "But if it works, we could stop running and hiding. "We could start over and have an actual life."

"If it works," Cloud says doubtfully.

A rumble like an earthquake makes them both sit up straight. Zack grabs his sword and trots down the steps in a fighting stance, ready for anything after all the crazy shit they'd seen that day. Instead, he just sees the sky open up.

"Wakey wakey, you two! We're here," Shotgun smiles nervously, her blonde bangs scattering over her forehead in the dust and hubbub of the open helicopter door. Cloud's body blinks slowly, and his spirit joins Zack on the step.

"Time to go, I guess," Cloud says.

Reaching forward, the faint blue tether brightens from the dim thread that it becomes when Cloud isn't tuned into the outside world. He grasps it, and his spectral body starts to fade.

"One for the road," Zack says, and kisses him deeply as the tether pulls their feet off the ground and drags them back to the physical world. "No telling how long it will be before they leave us alone."

"Don't even joke," Cloud groans.