Nibelheim in the summer is a dusty, ramshackle place. Bootstrap country. Black lung country. Smoke-stacks protruding from the craggy mountain country.

It's the sort of place where a kid can grow up alone. Not metaphorically alone like the kids in the city who ride cramped commuter trains and hide behind reflective smiles, but really, truly, alone.

Zack hunches in the window of Cloud's childhood bedroom looking out over the town square with its rickety, solitary water tower and wonders what he ought to do with that information.

He often has strange dreams these days. It's a known side effect of mako enhancement, but he had those dreams before. They were all mist and shadow and dead people babbling.

This is real, or as real as memories get. There are rumpled clothes and the floor and titles on the spines of the books. There are kids playing tag in the street whose names rise up in his mind without him trying.

It is steeped in the yellow, grainy texture of an old newspaper and it hurts deep inside like an old, unhealable wound, and Cloud doesn't remember it. He doesn't realize that his mind cottage is his childhood home.

Zack has this dream every few nights and he is sure he wants to know why.

If Cloud has no recollection of this time or this place, if he's moved on and grown into a person living without it, then is it even his memory anymore? Maybe it belongs to Zack now, like the other pieces of the old Cloud that he holds in his heart.

He tips his head toward the bedroom door and listens to the clatter of dishes downstairs. Cloud never talks about his family. Zack only has a vague notion of why.

'Going home is a bit uncomfortable,' he wrote in his text that night. 'I was hoping you could join me. You'll love my mom's cooking.'

And that other time, a few weeks earlier…

'I wish my mom could meet you. She doesn't want me to be SOLDIER, but if she met you I just know she'd change her mind. You're everything that a SOLDIER's supposed to be.'

Zack hadn't felt very much like a role model with Angeal's death and the Banora Massacre still fresh on his mind, but he'd wanted to do something nice for Cloud, to give him a little more confidence in himself. He'd gotten them added to the roster for the Nibelheim mission.

Did Cloud remember? That is was Zack's fault they were there in the first place?

If he hadn't stuck his nose in and used his authority as a First who knows where they'd both be right now. Not running for their lives with their minds spliced together, that's for sure. He can't help but see that as a better outcome, even if it did leave them both working for Shinra.

The door to Tifa's house swings open. The fragment of Cloud that originally dreamed this perks up inside of Zack's consciousness. He hugs his knees to his chest and watches the girl in the blue dress join the other kids.

Cloud has always been afraid of his feelings. He wants to reach out to Tifa but he also wants to hide in his room and the tension between those two forces leaves him paralyzed somewhere in the middle.

Zack wants to hug that piece of Cloud like he's hugging the bend of his knees.

He wants to tell him, "It's okay to be needy. It's okay to want love. It's okay to be afraid of how much you want to feel it."

If he walks to the door he'll wake up. In reality, he doesn't think Cloud went outside. He thinks the younger version of his lover was too scared to open himself up.

Zack was never personally satisfied with that. Life isn't meant to be lived behind a window. Setting his socked feet on the warm wood floor, he throws open the door and charges downstairs like a stampede.

"Hey mom, can I play until dinner time?" he yells. His vision dips to black as he thunders down the stairs.

A sliver of a woman lifts her head to look over her shoulder. She's wearing a white apron and a blue dress. He almost hears something—the wispy flutter of an inhale preceding speech—but instead of words he awakens to a feeling.

A steady exhale grazes the back of his ear, tickling his skin with humid air. The small hairs on his neck quiver and wave.

He doesn't open his eyes. If he does, the moment might break. Solid, heavy warmth lines his back and he leans into it. Cloud's arm is slung snugly across his waist.

Half-asleep feelings rippled on the periphery of his attention, which means Cloud's also awake. He breathes again, and the touch of his nose to the back of Zack's neck makes him shiver.

"Your feet are cold," he mumbles. Cloud's presence spreads along the border between their minds like a puddle, like fingers dipping under a waistband and spreading out across his belly although Cloud obviously hasn't moved.

He thinks of flowers and cake walks—of blooming and the way water bulges around fingers when you spread them open just over the surface. He parts his waters and drags Cloud down, wanting him.

Cloud's right leg is jammed between Zack's thighs, just high enough to avoid their knees knocking. They must have moved around in this sleep. He can pick out all five of his lover's toes by the cold spots dotting the top of his foot. Clamping his legs closer together, he tries to pass warmth between them.

With a gruff sigh, Cloud starts sucking his favorite spot under Zack's ear. Tingles of pleasure trickled down his spine. It's nice to connect with him and feel no pain. The sleep must have done a lot for their wounds.

"You were dreaming," Cloud says. Despite being inside him, his voice sounds muffled from drowsiness.

Zack's stomach does a squirmy, hungry flip when Cloud's lips part and his tongue swirls wet and hot over his skin. He arches back and Cloud falters, gasps. A heady, molten feeling passes between them.

"Good morning to you too, soldier." Zack grins. The kiss comes back with teeth.

He snorts and kicks Cloud's shins even as the drag and pinch make his blood rush south. Cloud's spirit preens and flares behind him.

Ka-chirrk! The sound of a PHS camera clicks.

Both of them freeze like they've run into a wall.

Ka-chirrk! The camera clicks again.

Zack scrambles to sit up in bed. Reno scowls at his sideways PHS.

"Ah hell, when did I take this off silent?"

"Reno? What in the—"

Ka-chirrk! The Turk snaps another photo. Blue eyes flick up, and he flashes a lascivious smile. "Keep going, what gives? We were just gettin' to the good part."

"How long have you been watching?" Zack makes a pass at the phone and Reno pulls it out of reach easily.

"I'm not the one gettin' frisky in a shared room."

"That doesn't mean you had permission to record us."

"It was hot!"

Cloud's face is as red as the hotel comforter. Zack struggles to untangle himself from the sheets as he climbs over Cloud to make a bid for Reno's neck. The red-headed asshole stumbles off the otherside of his bed.

"You're a rotten scumbag, Reno. A real piece of work. What the actual—"

"Uh—"

"—is wrong with you. Did you sleep through your workplace sexual harassment seminars?"

"Zack, buddy—" Reno's grin takes on a school boy quality and his eyes pivot sideways. Zack stomps over piles of clothes and spilled-over luggage. He keeps ranting until Reno bursts out laughing and covers his eyes.,

"Dude, you're freeballing! Put some pants on, there's a chick in here."

Zack stops in his tracks. When he got out of the shower last night he hadn't wanted to get dirty all over again by putting on his filthy clothes. He tended to rise with the sun anyway, and so he figured he'd have time to get dressed before anybody noticed.

In the shock of his rude awakening, he completely forgot that he slept naked.

Lifting one side of a silk sleep mask, Shotgun blinks blandly up from the nest she's made on the couch.

"Ah—" Zack fumbles to grab the edge of the comforter and cover himself. Shotgun drops the mask and rolls over.

"Nothing I haven't already seen. Wake me up when the copter's refueled."

Reno's cackling eyes slide over to Zack. "Wait—"

"It was one time!"

"A few times," Shotgun yawns.

"You sly dog, her and Cissnei?"

"Cissnei was just a friend!" Zack yells, snapping up his blue jeans from his bag and shoving his feet into them as fast as he can. "Cloud, don't listen to him, he's just fucking with me because he's a no-good, dirty, stinking—"

A sharp rapping comes from the hotel door.

Reno looks at him like he thinks Zack set this up.

"Did you?" Zack asks.

Reno balks, waving his hands at the general mess and clutter in the room. "I'm a goddamn spy, why the fuck would I order room service?"

Zack fumbles to do up his fly before Reno reaches the door and swings it open with no regard for his own lack of shirt and wild bedhead.

A rather tall and broad bellhop stands with his hand poised to knock again.

"Excuse me, sirs," he says after a moment of hesitation at Reno's confused glare. "I have a visitor requesting to deliver a message. Might you be—"

"Oh screw formalities, Andy, let me through," a woman hidden by the doorframe says. A strong arm pushes the bellhop aside, giving a short, stocky woman with brown skin a view of the inside. Zack straightens up in surprise when he recognises her.

"Gloria?"

"Sweet Gaia, it's true. Is Cloud with you?"

"Uh…" Zack rubs the back of his neck.

"I'm here," Cloud says, rolling over with some effort. Reno looks Zack in the eye and lifts a brow.

"She's a friend. Just… give me a sec, I'll take care of it." He snatches the first shirt he sees and pushes his way a little forcefully into the corridor.

His heel still hurts, but he can put weight on it today. Gloria's chestnut eyes widen at the stitched up gash on his chest.

"It's fine. I'm a SOLDIER, remember?" He pulls the shirt over his head and works his arms into the sleeves, only then realizing that it's Reno's and so it's outrageously tight. Tugging self-consciously at the hem, he puts an arm over Gloria's back like a close friend and walks her away from the Turk's blatant eavesdropping.

"More importantly," he whispers, "what are you doing here, Gloria?"

"What am I doing?" she says, her head bobbing in affront. "What am I doing? I'm looking for your dumb ass after you disappeared in the middle of the night."

She glares up at him through the fall of her short braids and he winces. He honestly hasn't thought about her since they left the camp. He figured she would just take the loot and go home.

Before he can come up with any kind of excuse she shakes her bangs out of her eyes and heaves an aggrieved sigh.

"I woke up to the sound of that damn helicopter shaking the mountain and found you two gone. Now I don't know what kind of trouble you're in, but I know a good sort when I see one. I saw them land and take off again and I knew I had to high-tail it down here if I ever wanted to see you again. Sure enough, I get down here and the whole town's talking about a helicopter waking them up at midnight."

Looking up at him with grim worry, Gloria purses her chapped lips and sets one hand on her hip.

"What I can't figure out is why you didn't let me help. You've seen my skills, you know I'm good for a fight."

"We didn't want to get you involved," Zack says honestly. Checking over his shoulder, he sees Reno still watching, his fingers tapping restlessly on the door jam.

He's more tense than Zack's ever seen him, his normally easy-going demeanor crystalized into something brittle and dangerous. Reno was always a loose cannon, but in his current state there's no telling what he'll do if he decides Gloria knows too much.

He leans closer and lets his worry show on his face. "Listen, that was really nice of you to come looking for us, but that red-haired guy over there isn't someone you want to mess with. He's a—"

"A Turk, right?" Gloria says.

"Right, so—" Zack trails off.

Reno isn't in his uniform. He's not even in real clothes, just a gold chain and pajama pants. Neither he nor Shotgun have been in uniform this whole time. As far as the locals are concerned, the Shinra copter is just some corporate executive sightseeing.

"Hold up, how do you know he's a Turk?"

Gloria juts out her jaw and crosses her big arms over her chest. "If it looks like a pig and oinks like a pig, chances are it's a pig."

"Right…" Zack sighs. "Then you know how dangerous it is for you to be talking to me. This is really good of you, but we'll be fine. I'm sure you've got family waiting for you at home."

Brown eyes look him over, shrewd but surprisingly kind.

Gloria looks different in street clothes, her broad shoulders softened by an oversized bomber jacket and her round face ornamented by dangling earrings. Where before she'd been indistinguishable from the mass of tourists and guides in Icicle, her clothes put her personality on display just like the souvenir patches on the back of her jacket show off all the places she's traveled.

'Mt. Nibel Summit, 7,548 meters,' one brags over an embroidered vista of a spiraling gray peak. 'Mideel Reef, Natural Wonder of the South,' says another.

Zack works his jaw as she mirrors his touch, reaching a hand up to squeeze his shoulder.

"Family is the reason I have to stick my neck out," she says. "We outcasts, we have to look out for each other. I know you feel powerless and alone, but that's just what Shinra wants you to think. There are lots of people like you, Zack. People who are fed up and don't wanna take it anymore. I'm one of them and my wife is too. She's a recruiter for a major anti-Shinra group."

Zack's brain does the equivalent of a PHS losing signal. A long moment of stunned incomprehension passes, long enough that she tips her head and shakes him.

"Zack? Did you hear me, son? I'm saying you're gonna be alright. I'm gonna get you boys outta here and my friends will make sure that Shinra never touches either of you again. You get me?"

"Anti-Shinra," Zack repeats numbly. "You mean… Avalanche ?"

"Shhh!" This time Gloria looks back at Reno's bored figure, waving her free hand in a 'pipe down' gesture. "Don't go screaming it in front of the Suits! Of course I mean Avalanche."

"You can't be serious."

Gloria misreads his shock for hopeful disbelief and pats his chest with a sad, motherly smile.

"You signed up for SOLDIER, right? Right?"

Zack shakes himself, nodding. "Yeah."

"Now you could of been a guardsman or you could of been a butcher or a baker or a shrink, but you went for SOLDIER didn't you? Why is that?"

"I… wanted to be a hero. I wanted to help people who couldn't fight for themselves."

"That's what I thought," Gloria says softly. "And don't you still want to do that, don't you feel that fire still sparking in your heart?"

More than his heart it's Zack's brain that feels on fire. What are the odds that of all the guides in Icicle, he happened to hire the one who happened to be married to a recruiter with Avalanche? With this stroke of luck he could find Veld in no time.

He could walk right in to Avalanche's headquarters and serve him up for the Turks on a plate.

Tseng would be indebted to him and Cloud. Aerith would be safe. They could finally settle down and move on with their lives.

And yet, the passion in Gloria's words makes his chest feel tight and hollow. He did want to be a hero. He does care about the people being harmed by Shinra.

Cloud wouldn't hesitate. That much he knows without even asking. Cloud would want to join and put his all into the fight. Maybe Hojo broke him more than he thought, because when he imagines doing anything with that much energy and zeal he just feels tired. He just wants to bury his sword in the ground and pretend he was never anything but a normal person.

"That's how they win, Zack. They win when they break your will to fight back."

"I don't know if I can do that," he says, searching her eyes. He feels like a liar even though he's speaking from his heart. She's earnestly trying to help someone she thinks is a helpless victim when he's actually a snake hiding in the grass.

She squeezes his shoulder again and lets her hand fall.

"If you let me help, you'll have lots of time to figure it out."

Zack chews his lip, torn even as he nods his agreement. "What do you need me to do?"

Reno slaps the door closed the moment Zack steps back inside. His fidgeting and finger tapping has completed its natural progression to him sucking the life out of his e-cig.

Shotgun has gotten dressed in the time he was talking to Gloria, probably sensing from Reno's anxiety that it was time to get back to work.

Cloud watches from the bed, the bond unusually dormant between them. When he reaches out, all he feels is a simmering, quiet discomfort.

"The hell was that?" Reno says.

Zack wanders to the TV stand and finds his ratty handkerchief lying there near the room keys. He folds it into a band and ties it around his head to keep his hair back. Shrugging, he sets his hand on his hip and gives the Turks a bewildered smile.

"I hope you brought a spare PHS," he says, "because Cloud and I just got recruited to Avalanche."