No doctors, that was Cloud's only protest.
His mako sickness was back. Maybe it never left, and the strength he'd felt was Jenova drawing him in. Maybe it was all in his head and he was just too fucked up to keep his grip. Whatever the reason, he couldn't walk when the helicopter landed in Icicle.
He'd tolerated Shotgun's probing questions and Reno's cold taunts. He'd even allowed them carry him out when Zack was too weak to lift him. But when Shotgun suggested they get checked at the hospital, Cloud drew the line there. As long as they lived, no doctor would ever put their hands on him again.
When the Turks looked at him doubtfully, Zack echoed the sentiment. No doctors. No hospital. They took them to the Icicle Inn.
Apparently the Turks rented a room that morning but hadn't had time to use it. Cloud expected to be lashed to a chair and interrogated, but the only thing waiting for them in the room was a pair of battered travel bags.
Shotgun laid him on a bed face-first, and he's not had a chance to move since. The smallest movement pulls on the torn muscles of his shoulder, even as far down as his ankles or hands, and so all he can do is lay there and try not to whine.
The room has two queens, side by side with a bed table in the middle. The bathroom is a square box of walls crammed in beside the main door. A sliding glass door spills moonlight in from a tiny, useless balcony.
Every square inch of the tiny room is "decorated" in raw wood panels and yeti antlers. A big blur of tan and beige interrupted by abrupt bursts of color in the faux native woven rugs. The smell of lumber and hide is so strong it makes his eyes water.
Reno lounges on the other bed with his ankles crossed, holding out the TV remote and clicking incessantly.
Static and fragmented noise cuts in and out as he puffs on the e-cig dangling precariously from the corner of his mouth. It smells aggressively of artificial cherry and Cloud sincerely hopes he chokes on it. It would stop the channel surfing, which is giving him a headache.
Shotgun is annoyed too, if her tapping foot is anything to go by. She crosses her arms and regards Reno with a look caught between boredom and disdain.
Intermittent rattling echoes from the bathroom door, where Zack disappeared a few minutes ago in search of a first aid kit. Reno keeps clicking.
"We have to report," Shotgun says.
"Yeah?" Reno lifts an eyebrow. "And what are we gonna report, eh? Hey boss, we found the fugitives. No, no, not those fugitives, the other ones. The one you don't really care about and you just followed to get Hojo off your ass." He sucks in a long drag and turns his head to blow smoke into the headboard. "Yeah, that'll go down great."
"So we lie," Shotgun says.
Reno snorts, low at first and then louder, full of teeth. "Shit, I get it now. You're lookin' to die first. Hey—"
She rips the cig out of his mouth and throws it. Reno squawks and crawls over the bed looking for it.
"I'm serious."
"So 'm I—cripes, lady, look what you did." Bending off the edge of the bed, he paws at the floor and kicks his legs to keep from falling, just barely straightening with the black stick pinched between his fingers. "It's covered in hair and shit now."
"Good. You shouldn't smoke indoors anyway," Shotgun sniffs.
Reno groans. "Fine, I'll play you for it. Loser makes the call."
"And says what?"
"Says we lost the trail and we're goin' back to Junon. He's slammed, he won't ask for details."
"From you, maybe." She rolls her eyes but holds out her hand in a fist. "The Chief holds me to a higher standard."
"Better not lose then." Reno gives a shark's grin. They rock their fists in unison.
"Rock, paper—"
"Scissors! Jackpot," Zack yells.
Shotgun sighs while Reno lets out a victory cry. She pulls a slim flip phone out of her pocket and flicks it open with her wrist.
"Keep it down, it's the middle of the night," she warns Zack as he comes hobbling out of the bathroom.
"Ah… sorry." Zack grins.
She shakes her head, their shoulders bumping as they pass each other. Cloud checks the pile of junk in Zack's hands—tiny bottles and tweezers, a garment mending kit and a roll of toilet paper whose end flaps behind him like a streamer.
He hisses when his partner's weight jostles the mattress.
"That hurts—"
"I know," Zack says, dumping the stuff into a pile. "But Shotgun can't cast again until she rests so we have to make do."
"Can't you cast it?" Cloud aims for annoyance but it comes out more like a plea. The bond goes taut and Zack's face falls. He chews his cheek and shakes his head no.
"It's her materia, won't work for anyone else. Let's get your shirt off and see what we're dealing with."
Cloud would rather face Sephiroth again than strip half-naked in front of these Turks, but he doesn't have much of a choice. The blood has soaked through all three layers of his clothes and there's no telling if it will stop on its own.
The walk from the helicopter was one of the most painful things he's ever done and he doesn't want to do it again, not even for the privacy of the nearby bathroom, and so Zack works his hands carefully under him and peels the coat off with Cloud still laying on the bed.
He makes a worrying noise once he's set the soiled garment aside.
"Shit, it's stuck," Zack says.
"What do you mean?"
He touches the torn sweater carefully, but Cloud flinches anyway.
"It tore through. The middle is still bleeding, but the edges… the blood soaked your shirt and dried."
"Shit." Cloud rubs his face into the sheets, fully aware of what's ahead. He'd been through it in the lab, way back when his chest was first healing.
"One sec." Zack gets up and limps back to the bathroom, his own wounds still untended but ignored for the moment. Reno's eyes slide toward him and Cloud growls.
"Will you pick something already?"
"Nothing good on at night," Reno says. "Hell, you can't even see the TV, what do you care?"
"It's irritating."
Shotgun covers the mouthpiece of her PHS with her hand and shouts over her shoulder. "Keep it down, I can't hear. Just put on the news—y-yes, sir, apologies. Reno insisted on drinks after—yes—"
"Damn bossy bitch," Reno mumbles.
He navigates to a news station and throws the controller down. A woman's smooth, droning voice lilts out from the TV speakers.
"That's what I get for showin' her the ropes, huh? Reno button your shirt. Reno, quit slouching. Those aren't our orders, Reno—puh, no gratitude. That's what's wrong with the world these days. Ain't nobody got no gratitude for the people that built the shit they're shittin' on."
With a pinched expression the Turk picks carpet lint off of his e-cig and dips it in the silver bucket of quickly-melting ice that Shotgun had fetched for Zack's ankle. He shakes it off and dries it on the sleeve of his black turtleneck.
"And how old are you, twenty?" Cloud says.
"I'm ten years on the force and that's all that outta matter, punk," Reno says with a leer, only to shake his head and bat his hand dismissively. "The fuck am I saying? Your brain's a milkshake, you wouldn't know seniority if it bashed your teeth in."
"Kids, play nice." Zack clicks his tongue. Pain lances Cloud again as he climbs back onto the bed with a glass of tap water balanced in his hand.
"He started it." Reno clicks the end of the stick until he gets a spark and shoves the end back in his mouth. "I know you like 'em scrawny, Fair, but this one's shrimpy even for you. When's the last time you had a sandwich, kid?"
"Four years and six weeks."
Zack looks nervously between them like he's ready to jump in the way if Reno attacks, but the Turk just stares, smoke curling out of his lip like an afterthought.
Cloud glares at him, at his ridiculous hair and his stupid, arrogant face, and remembers what Zack had told him on the porch. About the guy's background, but mostly how important it is for them to keep the Turks on their side.
He forces a stiff, angry smile and adds, "But I'll take a ham and cheese if you're offering."
Reno's brows lower in what might be confusion, but then he throws his head back on a pillow and does another of his mad laughs.
"I take it back, Zack, this one's alright. Tell you what, kid, you get me Veld and I'll buy you a six foot long party sub. I'll get you three kinds of ham, half a gallon of mayo, some crisp-as-fuck lettuce and a truckload of cheese. Put it right outside your goddamn door and see how mad you look then."
Cloud doesn't know what to say to that, but Zack rolls his eyes so maybe this is normal for them.
He sets the glass on the side table and rummages through the sewing kit. Using a tiny pair of scissors from the mending kit, he cuts a line up the back of Cloud's ruined sweater with some difficulty.
"On the subject of Veld," Zack says, only glancing up briefly to make sure Reno's listening. "Where was his last known location?"
"I thought you were the expert."
"Well I gotta start somewhere."
"Hmm…" Reno takes the cig out and licks his lip, twiddling it between his fingers even though an e-cig doesn't need to ash. "Depends."
"Depends on what?"
"On where your trail crossed with his. Geez, dude, temper. How am I supposed to know where we got you two mixed up? I don't know where the hell you've been."
Maybe it's bad, but the wave of angry annoyance that ripples outward from Zack makes Cloud feel more at ease. If they're going to differ on their thinking about the plan, at least they can share the same feelings about Reno.
Calming himself with a breath, Zack takes the glass and lays a light touch to Cloud's nape. With a whispered warning, he pours water carefully around the tear, soaking the fabric and making Cloud's nerves flare. He lets out a pained hiss.
"Easy, let it soak."
Cloud looks up, but he can only catch a sliver of Zack's face, his hair. He shuts his eyes and reaches out with his spirit.
Zack's energy wraps around him like a blanket. Cloud's fingers curl into the starchy, white hotel sheets while Zack's curl into Cloud's hair. If Reno notices he doesn't say anything, thank the stars.
"Who hell fucked you up so bad, anyway? Weren't no monsters around when we landed."
Cloud sees thoughts flicker behind Zack's eyes. Sephiroth, the Crater, all the beasts he and Gloria fought that afternoon.
None of the native fauna could conceivably be a challenge for a 1st Class, and even if they were, all the wounds on Zack were obviously made by a blade.
A long minute passes with no noise but Shotgun's quiet whisper and the even, pleasant droll of the newscasters. His partner doesn't answer.
Zack's fingers prod at the wound every now and then, testing the give, and Cloud does his best not to embarrass himself by making noise.
"They won't know," Zack says privately, softly. "We were told in the past that only G-types could be cloned. I don't think Hojo would correct them, not if it meant the higher ups might want to be more involved with the project."
"They'll figure it out eventually."
"Maybe, but not yet. Relax."
Zack works his fingers under the cut edge of Cloud's sweater and presses up slowly, prying it from his skin in small movements that nevertheless pull and sting. Cloud muffles a quiet noise into the mattress.
"Not quite how I imagined taking this off when we kissed the other night," Zack whispers. Hidden by the covers, Cloud's face heats.
He wishes that were the case too, that they were doing what Zack had promised on the mountain and enjoying a relaxing weekend together after returning safe from the Crater.
He shares the image with Zack, and gets a sad, longing feeling in response. Warm and solid, his partner's hand covers his and winds their fingers into a knot.
"What happened with Veld?" Zack asks.
His hand makes slow progress up his back, and Cloud tries to distract himself by listening, by ignoring the steady, sharp pangs that come from the cloth pulling.
The Turk gives them an unreadable look.
"Ain't none of your business," Reno starts, but Shotgun interrupts him, slapping her phone shut with a decisive clap.
"Actually, I think it's in our best interests to be honest with each other," she says.
"Why hide this from Tseng in the first place? I thought you guys were pretty close back then," Zack says.
Reno groans again.
Shotgun slides her PHS into her pocket and shrugs out of her suit jacket, hanging it on the back of a shaggy yeti skin accent chair. Smoothly, she steps around and sits in it with a straight back.
"That requires a more elaborate explanation, but I suppose you'll need to know." She hesitates, looking at Cloud with an uncertain expression before forcing her eyes to Zack and pulling a mask of indifference over her features.
"I was a newly appointed rookie Turk when the first assassination attempt took place. The anti-Shinra group who would become Avalanche attacked the President to draw security forces away from the Junon military base.
In the chaos that followed, they hijacked the Sister Ray mako cannon and attempted to fire it at Midgar. It was only due to Reno and I's intervention that a huge catastrophe was avoided."
"They tried to fire at Midgar?" Zack stares with wide eyes.
"That's why Avalanche is considered a terrorist group," Shotgun says without a flicker of emotion, and the contrast chills Cloud's bones.
She'd been sympathetic on the mountain, her eyes wet and full of compassion at the sight of Zack bleeding out, but he can't see a shred of that person now. He only sees the Turk, the contract killer, and it makes him wonder if they can actually trust a word of this story.
"In the eyes of Avalanche, there is no such thing as an innocent civilian. If you consume mako energy, if you live in a city governed by Shinra and accept their authority to rule, then you are a collaborator who is equally guilty and deserving of retribution. Only supporters of their cause who take action against Shinra are deemed worthy of safety."
"But that's insane," Zack says. "Veld has a scary reputation, sure, but why would anybody defect to join a group like that?"
Reno and Shotgun's eyes meet momentarily, and Reno bats his hand in a 'go on' gesture. She tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear.
"The Turks weren't always an active security force. Before Veld's leadership, our role was to act as research aides to other divisions and to facilitate cooperation between departments. This was quite some time ago, when Shinra was undergoing a rapid transformation.
Mako technology was discovered in the early 1960s, and by the 1970s it was advancing at a rapid rate. There were internal disputes over whether Shinra would continue to uphold its coal infrastructure, or if it would abandon the old system and begin building mako reactors."
"Well we know who won that," Cloud mutters, and Reno clicks his tongue in approval.
"Bingo," he says with a careless flick of his e-cig. "The Prez ordered all the coal mines shut down, and that pissed people right the fuck off."
"Veld's predecessor led a corporate takeover attempt, pushing to have the President voted incompetent and removed from power," Shotgun continues, "but—"
Reno makes a cartoon guillotine noise and drags the butt of his cigarette across his throat.
"Why haven't I ever heard of this?" Zack carefully gets the last of the fabric loose from Cloud's back and peels it fully away. No matter how gentle Zack tries to be, it still hurts like hell. Cloud bites his lip, tensing at the cold of the open air ghosting his wet skin along with the eyes of the two Turks.
Zack squeezes his hand tight, but has to let go so he can start cleaning the wound. Shotgun's face softens, and it makes Cloud's stomach turn.
"That looks pretty bad. Are you sure you don't want to go to the hospital?"
Cloud grits his teeth. He doesn't need her pity and he doesn't want it. He wants to crawl into Zack's lap and bury his nose in his neck. He wants to be alone in a quiet room where Zack can do more than hold his hand.
He cranes his neck to look at her, a bitter, sharp expression that makes his feelings on her concern clear.
"This is nothing. Answer Zack's question."
She turns to Zack like she expects him to disagree, but his partner gives her an expectant look. Shotgun sits back in her chair and crosses her arms across her chest.
"Why doesn't anyone talk about the war anymore?" she asks with a shrug. "When a conflict is happening we do what we feel is necessary. After the fact our feelings change, and then it becomes uncomfortable to discuss. We pretend things were always as they are now."
"So Veld took over after the last guy got axed?" Zack rips a bit of toilet paper off of the roll and wads it up.
Cloud shuts his eyes in preparation, and manages to keep quiet when Zack starts cleaning the blood from his skin. Shotgun doesn't comment this time, her voice coming out smooth and flat like before.
"According to his telling of events, Veld was only a mid-level employee in Administrative Research at the time. But as a staunch loyalist, he approached the President with a proposal to reform the department into an internal police force, a body which would act outside of the company rules to enforce the President's vision and maintain ideological unity."
"I thought the President didn't like the Turks? I thought he was afraid of you." Zack furrows his brows.
"As he should be," Reno snorts, flinching when Shotgun throws a branded hotel pen at him.
"That is how things have become, but thirty years ago his hold on power wasn't so solid. Veld offered him a simple and direct route to unifying the company and he was eager to take it. The Turks as we are today were born. And so you see, Veld has always been a man who would use extreme measures to achieve his goals. It's not so surprising if you know his personality and history."
"Well that's a little misleading." Reno tips his head unhappily at her, his nose wrinkled. "You're leavin' out the most important part."
"I don't think it's our place to discuss his personal—"
"Better than makin' him sound like a psycho, cripes." Reno sits up suddenly, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and setting his elbows on his knees. "You want to know the real reason Veld's hangin' with the terrorists? It ain't politics and morals and crap, it's 'cause his daughter's the freakin' leader of Avalanche."
Zack's hand stills on Cloud's back, and Cloud blinks up at the Turk.
"You heard me." Reno rubs his nose with the back of his hand and snuffs his e-cig. With an annoyed grunt, he slides it into his pants pocket and takes out his PHS.
Thoughtlessly, he keys in a passcode and he turns the device for them to see.
A staged photo of men in suits fills the screen, men that feel familiar but who Cloud can't put names or identities to.
Reno taps a button twice and the screen zooms in on a tall man with grey-streaked brown hair.
A crooked shrapnel scar meanders up his left cheek, dotted on either side by the permanent indentations of field stitches, and a mild hitch in his nose hints at a break that hadn't healed back entirely straight.
He looked like a thug, or at least a bully. Cloud doesn't like him, immediately and instinctively. Zack leans over him to get a better look, his mouth pinched like it gets sometimes when he's trying hard to commit something to memory.
"That's the Director," Reno says, turning the phone around and scrolling through several screens before showing it again. "And this… is the person believed to be in charge of Avalanche's direct actions. Elfe."
The next photo isn't a corporate affair. It's grainy and dark, the edges of the face pixelated and jagged from being enlarged and lightened by an editing program.
Cloud squints at it, studying the bright eyes and soft features of a woman about his age. She stands in an alley of an unidentifiable street, her figure hidden by trash cans and pinned in by the skeletal ribs of a fire escape.
Auburn hair hangs low over her forehead, cropped and feathered to a fringe just under her chin. It's raining in the photo, and the water makes her skin shine pure white from the camera flash.
She has the same dour eyes as Veld, the same broad jaw and sloped cheeks. The only real difference is her sex and her small, modest nose—but maybe Veld's had been like that before the break.
"They do look alike," Zack says after a moment.
"There's no record of him having children," Shotgun says.
"And there's no record of me having parents, but that don't make it true," Reno says with a side-long glance. "Besides, the Director himself believes her."
"I'm sorry, I just can't." Shotgun shakes her head, leaning on one arm of the chair. "It's too convenient of a story. Even if Veld did have some kind of indiscretion and he did have a daughter who he decided to hide from scrutiny, the odds of her growing up to be an important figure in Avalanche—"
"Weird shit happens. Sometimes you gotta go with your instincts."
"And your instinct is that the theory is true?" Zack sits back onto his knees and Reno puts his phone back in his pocket with a shrug.
"There's a saying Veld used to say whenever we got stuck in an investigation—the stars only look like constellations if you know where to draw the lines."
Cloud watches Reno throw himself back on the bed and cross his arms under his neck, the picture of relaxation despite his aura buzzing unhappily around him like bees.
"It means we need more information." Reno snaps up the TV remote and hammers the channel change button like it's very existence offends him.
"And more time," Shotgun says.
"And if we find him… then what?" Cloud asks.
The flashing of the television stops, bathing the dim room in neon blue and the sounds of deep, bubbling water.
A pleasant, lyrical voice narrates facts about deep sea life over a soundtrack of singing violins.
All the attention snaps onto him suddenly, and his eyes flick nervously between them. It reminds him of the researchers, the way they always looked at him like a machine they couldn't wait to take apart. He shudders and looks down.
"Nevermind. Dumb question."
If they find him, Veld will die.
The Turks will be saved and everything will go back to the status quo, just with a new leader in charge. Shinra will go on squeezing profit out of human souls, and the Turks will go back to spying and eliminating whoever they're ordered to hunt. He and Zack will be free, but at what cost?
Their plan to fire the Sister Ray at Midgar was horrifying, but that doesn't mean Avalanche is wrong.
A company can't function without customers. A war can't be fought without soldiers. Even if he and Zack have good reasons to cooperate with the Turks, that doesn't change the fact that they're helping the very same people who were trying to kill them yesterday. They are collaborators, just as guilty as the Turks. It makes him sick thinking about it, makes him want to walk into Midgar and blow up the reactors himself.
"Cloud…" Zack says silently.
He'll have heard all that, or at least sensed Cloud's feelings on the matter.
He feels scrutinized but not ashamed. These thoughts are true even if they are troubling, and he wants Zack to hear them.
Shotgun stands with a rustle of fabric and a series of faint footsteps.
The quiet scritch of a zipper announces the opening of one of the bags.
"If Veld is captured then his fate will be in Tseng's hands," she says. "I have faith in the Chief. He won't allow anything unfortunate to happen."
Cloud watches her pad to the bathroom and flick on the switch. A yellow rectangle cuts into the rippling, swirling blue on the carpet floor.
"The sooner we rest, the sooner I can heal you to two fully. Let's table this for now and try to get some sleep."
Cloud's face tightens but Zack answers first, chirpy and bright. "Good idea!"
"I'm going to take a quick shower. If you need anything, Reno can get it."
"I ain't no errand boy," Reno says, but Shotgun shuts the door and the shower starts up a few seconds later.
"Damn bossy bitch," he repeats, channel surfing again.
"So loud," Cloud moans. Zack rubs and squeezes at his neck.
Reaching across the aisle, he snatches the remote from Reno and throws it in the ice bucket.
A battery of protests and complaints follows, but at least the TV's stuck on one station. It's some old comedy show, the kind with a stereotypical urban family and a repetitive, fake-sounding laugh track. A mother, a father, two children and the weird neighborhood kid.
Cloud's eyelids droop as the program draws him in, lulled into a trance by the dated furniture and familiar, well-worn jokes. He lets Zack lift him and move him, the pain dulled somewhat by the soft tone of his voice and the gentleness of his touch.
His partner cuts the clean parts of the ruined sweater into bandage strips and wraps them tight around his chest. The sitcom plot thickens as the kids' plan to bake a cake goes predictably awry.
"Enough, Marty! Go clean up before the Johnsons get here," the mother says.
"Awww, mom, they won't know the difference," the chocolate-covered child whines.
He shuts his eyes and sees young Zack grinning brightly with flour on his nose. He points at Cloud and giggles, swiping a finger through the batter on his cheek.
"Your mom's gonna be pissed," he crows, sucking the finger clean with a boyish grin.
"Why am I going to be—oh my word," Cloud's mom gapes at the chocolate-covered kitchen. "I was gone for five minutes!"
The audience howls. He and Zack exchange rueful smiles.
Cloud willfully decides not to interrogate the fact that his TV mother looks like Zack's. She bustles forward with her black hair and brown eyes and whips a kerchief out of her pocket, rubbing it over his cheek and then licking it like mothers do.
With an exaggerated nods towards the camera, she delivers the punchline of the scene:
"Oh my, that's actually pretty good."
"Too bad Cloud's wearing it!" Zack declares with the cheekiness of a child actor.
The laugh track roars.
"What's that look about," the real Zack whispers.
Arms creep cautiously around his waist. Good shivers ripple out from where he kisses the back of his neck.
Wrenching open his eyes, Cloud finds Reno passed out on the other bed with his mouth open. Water still runs in the nearby bathroom. They're alone.
"Nothing," Cloud murmurs. "I don't remember TV being so noisy."
"Yeah, it's messing with me too. I keep jumping."
"No TV then, on our vacation."
"Vacation?"
He sends the memory of their talk on the mountain, the plans that they made. "Don't know what else to call it."
Zack hums his understanding and a second kiss pricks Cloud's neck.
"Let's get you down," he says, his fingers leaving ghost trails on Cloud's bare stomach. He misses them the moment they're gone, even though Zack's right there, still touching him in other places.
It's so strange, missing him when he hasn't even left. If Cloud could move he'd lunge forward and kiss him senseless. He'd wrap his hands up in his short hair and press his chest flush against him. He was so scared earlier. So sure he'd lose him forever.
Some of his longing must leak into the bond because Zack's smile turns knowing and mischievous, one side shadowy black and the other flickering, electric blue.
"Will you be okay on your back?" he asks.
"Yeah." Cloud licks his lip. Zack wants it, he can tell.
Zack leans forward with intention, but then the water in the bathroom shuts off.
A little guilty, he laughs and looks that way. Reaching around behind him, he tugs the covers up and works them out from under Cloud's legs.
It hurts when he lowers him onto his back, but it's not his first merry-go-round. It dulls to a bearable baseline in the background of his thoughts after a few deep, calming breaths.
He remembers that night in the lab—Zack pressed against him for the first time, his body so warm and so close, his hand coming to rest on his chest and dispersing the fears that had rung too loud and too long in his head.
He's straight, you can't have him, you're not good enough. You lost your mind to the mako and now you're making this up to comfort yourself—all gone in the space of an instant when Zack's hand wrapped around his wrist and asserted itself as something solid, unwavering, and real.
The same hands pull the covers over him now, careful to leave one foot hanging out of the side because Cloud is, as Zack put it, 'one of those people.'
With a wary glance toward the bathroom he darts down and lays a soft, secret kiss onto his lips.
"Goodnight, Cloud."
An 'I love you' hovers on the tip of his tongue. He doesn't know why it's so hard to unstick it.
Feelings pass freely between them nearly all the time, and yet the words themselves are so heavy. Too weighty to throw out without warping the air around them with their gravity.
"Night," Cloud says instead.
The bathroom door opens, more startling from the abruptness than from the noise. Zack stands up and makes a show of getting undressed.
"Mind if I jump in after you?" he asks.
Shotgun ruffles a towel over her damp hair. "You should. They always run out of hot water in the mornings."
"Ahh, that would be awful. Yeah, I better."
"The free soap is terrible, just so you know."
"Better than a rag and a river." Zack exaggerates his laugh, tossing his mangled sweater and shirt into a corner. "Night, S.G. Sleep well."
Zack limps to the bathroom and shuts the door, plunging the room back into the otherworldly glow of TV Land.
Unaware of Cloud watching, she stares a long moment at the path that Zack had walked.
"S.G. I almost forgot that you used to call me that."
Running a brush through her long hair, she finds the power switch on the television and plunges the room fully into the dark.