Hi all, thank you so much if you reviewed the last chapter and thank you so much as always for reading. Sorry if there's a bunch of errors I missed in this chapter. It's longer and I didn't have a lot of time to edit. Happy reading :)
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.
~Twenty-Six~
Inside Rand's condo apartment, Cloud stood in the doorway of the man's spare bedroom, watching him a little awkwardly as he searched through some stacked boxes in the closet. Rand was looking for the scanner he apparently had packed away somewhere which could be used to locate the tracking device implanted in him.
"Do you intend to speak to my lawyer soon about the shares?" Rand asked while he was unstacking some of the boxes.
"That was the plan. As soon as your lawyer is back from vacation," Cloud replied.
He felt strange just standing where he was. In a normal circumstance he would offer to help look for the thing being searched out but this wasn't a normal circumstance. He also didn't want to fully enter the bedroom space but was apprehensive about not being able to see what Rand was doing.
"Vacation?" Rand echoed, glancing back at him in question. He seemed genuinely surprised to hear that his lawyer wasn't available. At Cloud's curt nod the man sighed a little. "That's unfortunate timing," he muttered as he went back to rummaging.
"How much did they cost?" Cloud found himself questioning in curiosity. "The shares?" Rand remained with his back to him and didn't offer a response. "A lot?" he pressed. The man tilted his head a little and shrugged.
"It wasn't an insignificant sum," was his answer that Cloud took to mean he must have paid a substantial amount.
"And you're fine just giving them away for free now?" Cloud asked back.
"I don't need the money," Rand said, making Cloud scoff and cross his arms a little tighter in front of him.
"Spoken like someone who has it," he remarked bitterly.
"You must be doing alright financially," Rand noted as he turned around with a box in his hands that he set on the nearby bed. He took the lid off so he could check inside. "Surely Shinra was willing to offer something in restitution," he guessed.
"So what if they are?" Cloud said back sharply. "Doesn't mean I want it. They can pay for my therapy but I'm not letting them buy me." He could see something of a half smirk on the man's face a second as he shook his head.
"You should probably take whatever you can get," he suggested with his head down, lifting a few things in the box before replacing the lid. "Pride gets you nowhere," he remarked.
"Well if I want your advice I'll ask for it," Cloud fired back in irritation, his response earning another smirk, wider that time. "What?" he questioned fast, annoyed that the man might disagree or find his response laughable.
"Nothing," Rand said. He looked up at him, smiling a little. "I forgot how—" He stopped and his expression neutralized again before he shook his head. "Nothing," he said as he turned his back again and went for another box in the closet. After lifting the lid and moving his hand around inside it a moment he said. "Here it is."
Cloud couldn't see it very clearly from where he was standing when the device was in the man's hand. It was relatively small, about the size of a cellphone with a handle and what looked like kind of a circular shaped end.
"Batteries are probably dead," Rand said after pressing down on a button on the handle of the device. "There's more in the kitchen," he told Cloud who turned himself around to head back out to the main living area of the apartment.
Cloud watched in silence as the man was changing out the batteries in the scanner. When the new batteries were inserted Rand was able to turn the device on. It started up with a dull 'beep.'
"We're in business," the man said casually. He looked over at Cloud then. "Do you want to have a seat?" he asked while gesturing to a small dining table nearby.
Cloud felt doubly nervous then as he headed over to the table. He pulled out one of the chairs and turned it around so that he could sit on it backwards, leaving his back accessible. Before sitting down he took off his coat and put it over the back of the chair.
"My shirt doesn't have to come off yet does it?" he asked, not having thought about it really until that moment.
"Not yet," Rand told him. "Should be able to scan through it," he added.
Cloud just nodded, finally sitting himself down and resting his forearms on the back of the chair. Rand stood behind him then and proceeded to begin scanning over his back slowly, starting near his neck.
"So, what's next when you've taken ownership of the shares?" the man asked him, breaking what felt like a tense silence.
"The rest of my life I guess," was all Cloud said, not willing to talk about it with him. "Is this all the stuff you own in this place?" he asked as he looked around and really allowed himself to take in the contents of the apartment. It looked so bare. There were a few things out. Some books. A set of keys on a hook near the door. Some dishes. He hadn't seen the man's bedroom but the rest of the place that he had seen barely looked lived in.
"Mostly. I've sold off almost everything I owned the past year," he said in confirmation.
"Why?" Cloud questioned.
"Dead men don't need possessions," he reasoned. "Really live ones don't either."
"What about your kid?" Cloud asked next.
"What about him?" Rand replied.
"Are you alive or dead to him?"
"I think I've been dead to him for some time," the man stated without emotion.
There was the sound of three beeps from the scanner then when it was being held over Cloud's mid-back toward his right side. Rand moved the scanner away slightly and back again. There were another three beeps.
"That's it," he said. "It's here." He picked up a marker off the table next to them. "Lift up your shirt," he instructed Cloud, who did so through a long exhale. "I've got to feel for it," Rand told him.
"Fine," he said, trying not to think about it.
For a few seconds, Rand pressed around firmly on his skin until he must have been able to feel the tracker.
"It didn't move very far," he noted before making a few dots on his skin with the marker.
"That's…good, I guess," Cloud said as he shook his head slowly. "Can you get it the hell out now?" he questioned with his eyes shut. He suddenly felt like he was getting hot. The reality of the situation was hitting him really hard suddenly. He really did have a tracker there inside him. He hadn't really doubted it, but the evidence of its presence still shocked him in a way, making him instantly sick in his stomach.
"Well I…" Rand started to reply slowly and he sounded hesitant. Reluctant.
"What?" Cloud asked when the man didn't finish his thought. He opened his eyes to look up at him now standing in front of him.
"I marked its location for you, so if you want to have someone else remove it—" he said in a quiet tone. Cloud was instantly angry.
"What?" he repeated, having a hard time pulling together his words.
The man lowered his head a little, looking at the floor. "Wouldn't it be more appropriate to have someone else take it out? At a clinic perhaps," he suggested.
For a second Cloud looked back at him, slack-jawed and shocked before responding in irritation. "Sure, I'll walk into a clinic and tell them I have a piece of tracking technology in my body that I need removed and they're going to help me out no problem. That or send me to a mental ward because that sounds insane."
"I see your point," Rand replied. "What about someone else though? Just someone who isn't me. I can't imagine you're comfortable with this." Cloud scoffed at the note of consideration, not believing it.
"Like you care. There's only one person I would trust and he can't be here," Cloud said. "And I'm not comfortable. Ever. With doctors, procedures...people in general, whatever. People always have questions. It's too hard."
"I understand," the man said.
"Right, because your job and the places you've worked I'm sure have been so traumatic for you," Cloud spoke sarcastically. "That's why you're so good at what you do."
"Being good at something doesn't mean you enjoy it," Rand argued flatly.
Cloud rolled his eyes to that. "Whatever, man."
"I didn't enjoy putting you through the conditioning program in Gongaga. It was necessary," "For what Hojo was trying to achieve," Rand defended.
"You really want me to believe you didn't enjoy any of it?" Cloud asked mostly rhetorically.
"I enjoyed spending time with you. I enjoyed talking to you. Passing time. Learning about you," Rand claimed. Cloud looked back at him with disdain.
"You enjoyed a lot more later though right? In Midgar," he said, clearly referencing their sexual interactions. Rand knew he was. He could see it in the man's expression and his body language as his shoulders sank a little.
"I know how it seems," he said as he turned to wander a few steps to the nearby kitchen island. He turned his back to it and leaned against it a little. "I've accepted the reality I didn't want to face. At the time I talked myself into believing I was helping you with your own biological and psychological needs but I know there were times when I put my own needs first," he admitted. "My own wants. It was hard to fight the feelings I had. I'd never felt like that before, certainly not so strongly. I actively neglected the signs I knew were indicating you weren't ready for the depth of our kind of relationship, or that you weren't a willing participant even though at times I could convince myself you were."
"Our relationship?" Cloud said with narrowed eyes. The word tasted bitter in his mouth.
"Yes," Rand confirmed.
"What's your definition of a relationship exactly?" Cloud challenged and the man answered as he looked upwards, like he was thinking.
"The connection between two subjects, people or things…how they relate to one another," he said.
Cloud took in his words, letting them sink in and waited for him to look at him again. He felt a lot of things in that moment. Rage. Sadness. Hurt.
"Do you have any real idea of what our 'relationship' did to me?" he finally was able to respond.
"Tell me," Rand said. It sort of surprised Cloud and for a moment he was just looking at the floor next to the chair he was still seated on.
"It messed me up, Rand," he finally began his revelation, forcing himself to meet his former Keeper's eyes again. He wanted him to see the emotion building there and he wanted to see what his reaction, if any, would be. "In ways that even the things Hojo subjected me to before hadn't done." He thought about Mailer and Sephiroth for a split second. About what their attacks on him at done to him. "I mean, I know I was already damaged from some past shit, but...you," "man you just bulldozed through what was left," he said and his tears were quickly building.
"I have no idea know who I am," he went on in a slightly shaky voice. "I don't trust myself or my thoughts. I don't understand my own reasons for doing something half the time, or I'm always second-guessing myself." He thought about all the people he'd been engaging with sexually over all the months before, which then led to him thinking of Marco and the way he'd treated him simply for wanting to know more about him and get closer to him.
"I can't be with other people and have a real relationship that makes sense or isn't screwed up," he told Rand, though it really just felt like a confession to himself. "I have to look back every single day and wonder why I did things with you that I feel like I would never have done. I hate who I am because of those things. Every single day feels like I'm drowning in guilt."
"Guilt?" Rand echoed in question.
"For letting you do what you did," Cloud shot back at him heatedly then, wiping at his tears before they were falling. "For playing along and making you think it was okay when it wasn't fucking okay!" He was on the verge of actually crying then and it physically hurt to hold back. "I didn't want our relationship, I didn't want you touching me, I never wanted to know you at all!" he declared loudly. He was travelling back in his memory then to when what seemed like a simple innocent dream had him leaving Nibelheim and initiating a terrible series of events that would seal his fate.
"I just wanted to join SOLDIER," he said, looking down again. "I just wanted to be better, something to look up to, and to provide for myself and my mom. You took all that was left of me after everything Hojo and Shinra destroyed...and I just fucking let you," he said.
"That's not true," Rand argued as he left his place at the island, moving toward him again. He pulled out another chair from the table and sat down to face him.
"What isn't true?" Cloud asked.
"You never had control, Cloud. Not really," the man told him. "You have to know that by now. I did," he stated plainly. "You were in my care. You were my responsibility. I crossed a boundary in Midgar that I didn't have a right to. Or that I wasn't required to as part of the job, which yes, I also had no right accepting because the job in itself was not…ethical. I took advantage of your vulnerability and your mental state. And the fact that you looked to me for guidance. The implant surgery and your conditioning made you reliant on me and I knew that but I took your compliance and participation during our…interactions as proof of your consent, not what it was really was," he concluded.
Cloud was shocked by the confession and how matter of fact it was relayed to him. "So then you knew I wasn't okay with what we were doing?" he asked as he barely managed to find his voice.
"I didn't try to think of it, but…" Rand began to answer slowly and nodded a little, "in the back of my mind, I knew you didn't have the capability to choose or decide it was what you wanted, or to understand the gravity of it."
"Why then, if you knew?" Cloud needed to know.
"I don't know. Because I could," Rand told him without looking at him, leaning forward slightly with his forearms resting on his knees. "Honestly, I expected a future where you would never come back from or recover from what was done to you in Gongaga," he said.
It was a sickening and shocking explanation. "Well," Cloud responded after a moment. "You're right about that and one other thing," he said as he stood himself up quickly then, taking his coat from the chair in one swift movement. "I'd rather literally anyone, including Hojo himself, cut this thing out of me right now," he spoke of the tracker.
He was headed for the apartment door quickly then. Rand didn't say anything, didn't try to call him back, didn't try to follow. Cloud scolded himself for going there as he was rushing his way back out to the street again. He couldn't believe what had come from Rand's mouth. How cold it had seemed. How emotionless.
He supposed he should be grateful. He'd been blaming himself for the last year, making excuses in his head for Rand, thinking that he must have done something to influence the man's actions. That he had to be partially responsible for how and why Rand had abused him so frequently. He'd been told by everyone who knew about what happened between them that none of it was his fault and he hadn't believed it. Now he'd heard it from Rand himself. He didn't feel relieved though. He just felt sick.
000
It was raining up on the plate in Midgar and Zack had to wonder if it was some of what had been hitting Junon before. He sort of liked thinking about it. It made the distance between him and Cloud seem a little smaller somehow. He hoped his friend was alright. He'd been texting back and forth with him through the day and he seemed off. He said he wasn't feeling great because he hadn't gotten much sleep the night before. Zack was worried though. Something didn't feel right about the whole transfer of shares thing Rand had supposedly set up.
He had to put it out of his mind as he was heading over to Johnny's place where Kunsel had been staying. Johnny had called him a short time earlier to let him know Kunsel had decided to pack up what little things he had there and move out on his own into a motel. Zack knew he'd been apartment hunting but as far as he knew nothing had caught his interest. He didn't think Kunsel's alternate plan was to move into a motel, just so he could be alone. He suspected his friend was tired of feeling like he was being supervised.
When he got to Johnny's place, he could see the light on in the shop space on the ground floor and thought he could hear music playing. He opened the door to check to see if someone was in there and saw that Johnny was there doing some maintenance on a cargo van he had. He guessed it was him, anyway. All he could see were his legs as he lay on a creeper with the rest of his body under the vehicle. He kicked at the bottom of his one boot lightly to let him know he was there. Slowly, Johnny wheeled himself back out from under the vehicle.
"Should you be lying under that thing with no one else around to help if something happens?" Zack questioned when he was sitting himself up.
"Well if it falls on me I doubt anyone would be able to do anything about it quick enough for it to matter," Johnny replied while wiping his dirty hands with a shop towel.
Zack supposed he couldn't argue with that. "Kunsel upstairs?" he asked and Johnny nodded.
"I think so," he said. "It's been pretty quiet up there though so maybe he left already."
"Well if he's up there I'm sure it won't be quiet for long when I tell him what I have to say," Zack replied as he picked up a wrench from a nearby tool bench to look at absentmindedly, putting off the inevitable.
"You're not looking for something to beat him with are you?" Johnny asked him jokingly and Zack smiled.
"Hmm…beating the sense back into him. I didn't really think of that," he said before dropping the wrench back to the bench top.
"He'll be fine," Johnny told him.
"What if he's not?" Zack said back. "What if he just wants out on his own again so he can drink himself to oblivion?"
Johnny shrugged a little in response.
"Not my choice or problem?" Zack questioned rhetorically, knowing that's what Johnny was probably thinking. "Yeah, well, seems like I can't do anything for anyone at all anymore. Just have to sit back and watch for the fallout," he muttered.
"Something more specific on your mind?" Johnny asked to that. Zack shook his head at first. "How's Strife doing out on the road?" the guy questioned when he said nothing.
"You haven't talked at all?" Zack inquired.
"A little. Some texts," Johnny told him.
"He's alright. He says he is anyway. He's going to be in Junon for a few days," he explained.
"Not a bad city to explore," Johnny said casually and Zack snorted a little.
"I don't think he's there to explore at all," he argued and at Johnny's silence that seemed to indicate he was waiting for the following reasoning he went on. "Rand's lawyer is in Junon. The asshole apparently thought the shares of Hojo's project that Shinra sold off to be able to afford to continuously torture Cloud would be a nice parting gift."
"Oh," was all Johnny said to that. His tone was flat but he did seem a little surprised.
"I don't like it," Zack said. "I don't trust that guy alive or dead," he added. "And it's making me crazy thinking about Cloud meeting with an associate of his on his own. Wish there could be someone there to keep an eye on things."
"An eye on Strife? Like a spy," Johnny said critically and Zack shrugged.
"Yeah, I guess," he agreed and Johnny shook his head a little.
Zack took it to mean disagreement or disapproval and he couldn't blame him.
"I really do trust him," Zack explained himself slowly. "That's not the problem. I just get this feeling like he's trying to force some kind of solitude on himself because he thinks it equates to independence…if that even makes sense…at all? Or because he thinks he's unburdening other people…" He sighed deeply then. "I dunno. What do I know?" he said before starting to head back to the door so he could go upstairs and see if Kunsel was up there.
"You could ask Reno," Johnny said to him when he was at the door. He turned back to see if he'd heard right.
"Reno?"
Johnny shrugged once more. "He's still friends with his old partner, isn't he?"
"Rude? Yeah, I guess," Zack said back, not really getting the significance.
"Thought he was working out there," Johnny said. "Maybe they'd want to catch up," he suggested and finally Zack caught on. If Reno was out that way to see Rude, what would be the harm in him checking in on Cloud?
"He'd see through that," Zack said of Cloud and Johnny smirked a little before lowering himself to his back again so he could resume what he was working on. "Be careful under there," Zack called back to him before leaving the shop.
Upstairs he did run into Kunsel just as it looked like he was ready to leave. He had his duffle in hand as he was coming out of the room he'd been using while there. He rolled his eyes when he saw Zack coming through the door to the main living space.
"Great," he spoke under his breath.
"Hey to you too," Zack said.
"You look tired," Kunsel commented then as he started walking toward him.
"I am," Zack confirmed.
"Well then probably save the energy you're going to use in trying to make me stay here," his friend suggested.
"It's your decision," Zack replied. "I guess I was just hoping to get an explanation of why."
"Why?" Kunsel said back as he set his bag down near the one couch.
"Yeah, why some motel? Six has no problem with you staying here until you're on your feet again," Zack explained and Kunsel gave a dry laugh to that.
"On my feet again?" he echoed. "And just what does that look like, Zack?" he asked. "Like you? Are you on your feet again?" Zack wasn't sure what to say to that.
"I just don't see what the hurry is to get away from everyone back on your own again?" he said instead as he watched Kunsel go toward the refrigerator to get a bottle of water. "Thought Aerith was still helping you look at apartments," he added.
"Yeah well that's kind of a lost cause. Landlords kind of like to know all your personal details and want you to have things like a bank account and a legal income source that can be verified," Kunsel said without looking at him.
"So then talk to Six, I'm sure he's probably got some other place he can probably hook you up with, like he did for Rayna," Zack suggested. "Or, like I said before, Aerith and I can move into another place, a bigger place. You could stay with us," he said.
Kunsel faced him then. "You should be getting a bigger place, or at least a better one, Zack, but not for me."
"What?" Zack said with confusion.
"You think Aerith wants to live in that slum shoebox forever? Bring kids up in that kind of place?" Kunsel asked him.
Zack laughed a little then. "It's not that bad and no, when kids are on the table then we'd look into a bigger place for sure," he explained.
"On the table? Yeah, that's about the only place you'd have to put them right now," Kunsel commented dryly.
"What's with the kid issue, dude?" Zack asked and almost at the same time he said it the suspicion was hitting him. "You, uh, know something I don't?" he questioned then and Kunsel smiled.
"A lot of things actually," his friend said as he put his hand on his shoulder.
"Okay," Zack said, pushing his hand away and ignoring the joking insult. "You'd tell me if you knew something that was that big of a deal right?" he asked and they both knew what he was talking about. Aerith being pregnant. She couldn't be, could she? Obviously, it was a possibility, it was generally always a possibility, but he assumed if she knew she would tell him. Would she tell Kunsel and not him? No. Why?
"Probably ask why I would need to," Kunsel retorted.
Zack was, in fact, asking himself that.
"Well why would Aerith tell you and not me?" he asked and Kunsel shook his head.
"If it's yours, you'd think she'd tell you," Kunsel said and the insinuation that he was making, even if it was an offhand comment or he wasn't meaning it seriously, that she had been sleeping with someone else, instantly upset him.
"She wouldn't go behind my back like that," he spoke surely.
"Well if she did, could you really blame her?" was Kunsel's following question that he said so casually but with what seemed like a clear accusation behind it.
Zack opened his mouth a little wider to reply with something angrily, only…no words came out. He sat himself down slowly on the couch closest to him. He found himself actually considering the possibility of Aerith sleeping with someone else. Wondering if she really would. Questioning why. Questioning how he would have missed the signs, or if he'd in fact missed them. She hadn't seemed happy, not like she had been in the past. She's seemed unsettled over the few previous months. She'd seemed quieter. Still, he couldn't imagine her being so unhappy that she'd get intimately close with another person.
"Kunsel, if you know something, if she's said something to you—" he said as he looked up at his friend.
"You know what I do know?" Kunsel interrupted him. He sat down on the arm of the couch and looked down at him. "You have to fix your priorities, Zack. If you really love her like you say you do, you have to put her first. Not anyone else. You shouldn't even be here right now, worrying about me moving out to some motel. Who cares? Stop spending every second of the day concerned with what I'm doing and what Cloud's doing, you're not going to fix him and his problems and you're not going to fix me or mine. Either we'll fix ourselves or we won't. Go fix yourself and your life before Aerith becomes another broken part of it."
With his advice delivered, Kunsel stood himself back up and went to pick up his bag. Zack kept his eyes down as Kunsel was leaving. He didn't try to stop him. He was so wrapped up in what his friend had said to him that he didn't try to ask him any details about which motel he was going to. He just sat there silently alone until he was ready to go home and talk to Aerith.
000
By around 9 p.m. Cloud had resolved to call Zack and tell him what was going on. Everything. He was going to tell him about the full reasoning for taking that road trip, which meant telling him about how he wanted to search for Angeal because he couldn't let it go in his own head until he'd searched himself. He was going to tell him Rand was alive and that he'd seen him. He almost didn't care if that would have an impact on Rand's decision to transfer the shares to him. He needed to talk about what was going on so he called Zack from his hotel room.
At home in Midgar, Zack could feel and hear his phone vibrating in his pocket but he ignored it.
"Are you going to answer that?" Aerith asked him from where she was sitting on the sofa, looking nervous.
"No," he said. He wasn't thinking of who could be calling in that tense moment. When he'd gotten home after seeing Kunsel, the calm discussion he'd planned on having with Aerith had gotten pretty heated, focused more on how much time she'd been spending with Kunsel than on what he really wanted to know, which was whether she might be pregnant or not.
"I promise you, there's nothing going on between us, other than friendship, if that's what you're worried about," she told him. "We're just friends," she claimed. "I guess we've spent a lot of time together, I don't know. We mostly just talk."
"Well what are you talking about with him that you can't talk about with me?" Zack said in annoyance to that.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean, like…" he started to answer but paused a moment and took a breath. Looking her straight in the eyes he asked, "Aerith, you'd tell me if you were pregnant, wouldn't you?"
"What? Did he say that to you?" she responded fast.
"Are you?" he only asked again.
"No," she denied and at first it seemed as though the insinuation was absurd. But then…"For a while I thought maybe," she added softly.
"For how long?" Zack questioned her uneasily.
"A few weeks," she admitted.
"And?" he said. "You're not?" She shook her head. "Well, did you tell Kunsel you thought you were?" was his following question. She sighed to that.
"The one night he was over, he saw a test kit I had bought and he asked about it," she explained. "I hadn't used it yet. I told him I didn't want to talk about it with anyone until I knew if it was for sure, but that I thought there was a chance. Just a chance. He told me he'd keep it to himself and not say anything."
Zack listened and nodded slowly. It wasn't so bad, though he wished he'd known sooner. "So, you took the test?" he asked, though it seemed pretty clear she had.
"It was negative but something didn't seem right so I went to the doctor. No one knows, including Kunsel," she told him. She seemed reluctant to go on but forced herself to do so, "Turns out that I probably can't have children. At all."
The information almost took Zack's breath away. It felt like a hit to the gut. Needing to sit down, he headed over to where she was and sat next to her on the sofa.
"Aerith," he said, unsure if he was even making sound at first. It almost felt like he was deep under water, feeling the pressure squeezing him. "Are you sure? I mean what did the doctor say? Is there nothing we can do?"
"Pretty sure, for now anyway, without more testing," she told him simply but she looked at him with tears in her eyes. "I'm so sorry."
"Why?" he replied.
"Why? This means we probably can't have a family, Zack," she pointed out.
"No, there's...there's other ways—" he tried to tell her, just trying to be supportive and not really letting himself think on the negative side or let what she was telling him sink in too deeply.
"But I wouldn't be able to carry a child, your child," she said sadly, one of her tears running down her left check slowly.
"I don't care about that," he tried to claim and she looked at him doubtfully.
"Maybe not right now, but it's a big deal."
"It doesn't have to be," he argued and she looked frustrated then as she shook her head and looked away from him. There seemed to be something even more pressing on her mind. "What's…going on?" he questioned and it took her a moment to respond.
"Things have been really hard, Zack," she uttered to him, still not looking at him. "And you know when I thought maybe I was pregnant...I was worried."
"Worried, wh—" he began to question and she interrupted.
"I don't think, how things are right now, that having a child involved would have been a good idea," she explained. "I was actually relieved about the negative test until I got the other news."
"You were relieved?" he said, not sure how he was supposed to feel about that.
"I don't want to lie to you," she said. She finally met his eyes again. "Zack, I'm..." she started to say and hesitated.
"What is it?" he asked. He could see the words on the tip of her tongue. "You can tell me."
His phone started vibrating again but he hardly noticed it. He was focused intensely on her.
"Your phone..." she pointed out to him through what almost seemed like an exasperated sigh and he shook his head.
"It doesn't matter," he told her firmly as he reached to silence the phone without removing it from his pocket. In fact, with what she'd told him and how upset and distant she seemed suddenly he wanted to take the phone and throw it out the window.
"You've been through a lot," she acknowledged. "This year has been hard. I think it's been harder for you, for both of us, than we've been willing to admit."
"I guess, yeah, it hasn't been easy," he agreed nervously, waiting to see where she was going with what she was saying. It didn't seem good.
"We were so young when we met, we didn't even have that much time together before you went on the mission to Nibelheim—"
He knew then exactly where she was heading and he wasn't having it.
"Aerith, I love you," he told her then, cutting her off and taking her one hand in his.
"I know," she said. "I know, I love you too," she told him.
"Then what's the problem?" he asked.
"Maybe that's just not...enough right now," she suggested uneasily. "I've been trying to imagine what our marriage would be like and I feel like I can't see it at all right now."
"It would be like it is. Us together," he reasoned and it was supposed to be reassuring but she wasn't reassured.
"I don't want it to be like now," she argued. "That's the problem."
"It'll be better. I swear to you," he assured.
She shook her head at his words. "You can't promise that. You're wearing yourself thin, Zack, I can see it. It's too much. The others haven't seen what I have. How much you really struggle with recovering from everything. I think you're scared to admit it and I don't blame you, but you can only distract yourself with everything and everyone around you for so long before you're going to have to really face down the things you're still afraid to accept."
"You think that's what I'm doing?" he asked. "I'm just trying to live, Aerith. I've done everything the damn head doctors and my parole officer and you have told me to. There's nothing else to do," he argued. "So what if I'm distracting myself? I don't want to keep trying to understand all my feelings about the past. I don't want to keep trying to see the shit that happened from a different perspective. I don't want to think of who I am and what all that shit did because it'll make you hate me, Aerith. I know it will. It'll make me into someone else. What matters to me is that you and Cloud and everyone else is okay."
Aerith was quiet a moment when he finished talking. She looked at him with sympathy. "You already are someone else, Zack," she told him. It killed him to hear the words from her mouth. "It's already happened."
He shook his head despite what she said. "Whatever we need to work through, however you want me to do it, I'll do it," he promised. "You're the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. I want to build a future with you. That's what I want," he told her as he felt himself beginning to panic. His own tears were building then.
"You've got so much more to worry about than us, Zack," she spoke sadly to that. "You're not ready to focus on this and settle down and if I'm being honest, I don't even know if I am either. All I've thought about for the last year is getting married and starting a family and lately it's like I've been seeing that dream getting further and further away. Now with finding out from the doctor that I may never be able to have a baby…" She stopped to think a second.
"I just wonder if maybe I need to work on myself too. If I need to do more with my life than what I'm doing now," she concluded.
"Like what?" Zack asked softly.
"Like, maybe I need to go away for a while," she said and it felt like a bomb falling on him.
"What?" he replied.
"I was given an offer through work a little while ago to go south on a spiritual retreat and participate in a health and wellness workshop. I turned it down at the time, but after seeing my doctor, I…I decided to accept the offer to go," she said.
"H—when?" he asked, confused.
"Soon. Days from now," she told him.
"For how long?"
"Until spring," she said.
He was mad then. "When were you going to mention this?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said.
"So you're just leaving?" he fired at her.
"We can use a break for a while," she said softly.
"I don't need a break," he shot back.
"I think I do," was her reply that found him looking away from her then.
"God..." he muttered to himself as he rested his chin in his one palm and ran his other hand through his hair.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"No, fine, great, leave Midgar," he said as if he could care less then. "First Cloud, now you," he added. "Go off and do what you gotta do and I'll just stay stuck here." He stood up then and made like he was headed for the door to leave.
"I think this could be the best thing for us," she said to his back.
"Perfect. So long as it's what you think is best," he threw back, not turning himself around. His own tears were leaving him then.
"I'm sorry," she repeated. Still not turning back to look at her, he opened the apartment door, his moves sharp.
"I gotta go to work," was all he said. He heard her saying she loved him but he didn't respond.
He shed some more tears during his walk over to Tifa's and wondered what he was going to do to fix things. He'd forgotten all about the fact his phone had been vibrating, someone trying to call him until he'd already been working. By then it was just after ten. When he checked his phone finally he saw that the two missed calls were from Cloud with a text message left after asking if he could call him. He called back immediately but it was his own calls that went unanswered then.
He texted Cloud back, telling him he was sorry he'd missed the calls and asked if everything was alright. He went back to his duties in the bar and checked his phone every ten minutes or so, hoping to see a response from Cloud. By midnight he still hadn't gotten one it was just one more thing he had to worry about then.
Cloud didn't have his phone on him. He'd left it in his hotel room and hadn't realized until he was already out and headed to the waterfront. He decided maybe it was better that way. When he'd left the hotel, the intention was to take a walk to clear his head. He supposed it worked in a way. His reality seemed in better focus down by the water. The air was colder down there. His head felt lighter. It felt easier to breathe.
He felt calm as he was walking the boardwalk in the dark and out on a long pier that stretched out from the beach. The water level still looked a little high after the recent storms. The liquid looked black as it was lapping against the wood of the pier. There were a few people on the pier and the boardwalk as well as the beach but it was still so quiet. It still felt like he was out there on his own.
There were a few benches situated at the end of the pier. Taking a seat on one, he thought he'd spend a few minutes watching the water and horizon before making his way back to the beach. A few minutes turned into an hour and over that hour his thoughts took a turn. He found himself thinking about the opportunity he had in front of him, if opportunity could be considered the right word. He was on his own in Junon. It wasn't home. No one he knew was there, other than Rand. If something happened to him out there, if say, he ended up in the water, there was no risk of anyone he cared about finding him. Maybe his body would be carried out to sea…
He had drowned before and he remembered the fear and pain he felt at the time. Perhaps it would be different if he weren't trying to fight it. If he weren't actually afraid of what would happen. He would go to sleep and he'd sleep forever. Nothing to worry about ever again. Sure it would be hard for Zack to lose him, but he wouldn't have to worry about him anymore. Tifa would probably be angry. She might not forgive him but hopefully wouldn't hate him forever. Marlene though…
"Hey man," he heard someone say from behind him and it startled him.
He hadn't heard any footsteps coming down the pier. He turned back to see a younger guy, maybe even younger than he was or about the same age standing by with his hands in the pocket of an oversized hoodie. He had a backpack and backwards baseball cap on and although it was pretty dark where they were he thought it seemed like his clothes were pretty worn and faded.
"You got any spare change or cash or anything?" he asked. Something about the way he kept a bit of distance put Cloud a little more at ease.
"Uh, maybe," Cloud told him. He'd couldn't quite remember right then what he had on him after being taken off guard. He shifted himself on the bench to check his pockets. He couldn't locate any coins but he did find some small bills folded up in the one inside pocket of his jacket. "Here," he said as he handed to the guy what probably amounted to five dollars.
"Thanks, man," the guy said as he reached out to take the money. "Hey, you ain't thinkin' of cashin' out or anythin' are you?" he asked then with a nervous sounding chuckle.
"Huh?" Cloud replied with confusion.
"You know, like takin' the final dive," he said, gesturing to the water.
He got what the guy was getting at then. "I'm just sitting here," he told him simply.
"You sure? 'Cause it happens a lot," he pressed on. "You got that look kinda," he added.
"Don't know what you're talking about," Cloud said without looking at him.
"Well if yer gonna do it, you think you gonna need that jacket?" the guy questioned him and it made him smirk a little.
"I'm not jumping," he told him as he put his hands in his jacket pockets to warm them.
"You wanna smoke some bud then?" the guy offered. When Cloud looked at him he saw that he had a joint in his hand that must have been in his pocket. "You look like you need it," he said.
"No, I," Cloud started to refuse but suddenly he couldn't be bothered. "Sure," he said instead. Moments earlier he'd been contemplating doing much worse so he couldn't see how it really mattered.
The guy said his name was TJ. He didn't ask what the initials were for. He didn't really ask him anything but TJ didn't seem to mind sharing regardless. He didn't have a home but didn't consider himself homeless. He was from Midgar originally. He ended up in Junon with his mom when his parents divorced and a couple of her abusive boyfriends later, he was couch surfing, shelter hopping, and dealing dope. Cloud supposed it was a sad enough story, one he tried not to compare to his own. The guy seemed innocent enough. Cloud didn't trust anyone, but as far as randoms went, he figured TJ was pretty low on the threat scale. Still, he must have been pretty high to ask him back to his hotel room.
It wasn't a hookup he was after. In fact, he'd been having a hard time even considering it with someone he didn't know after what happened with Marco. He just didn't want to anymore he supposed. The impulse just didn't seem to be there anymore. There was something he did want though and at the promise of payment and some free pain meds, TJ seemed on board.
The pain meds he promised to TJ were the ones he had left over from what he was prescribed after his fight with Kell. They both took some when they were in the room, TJ for the nerve to do what Cloud asked, and Cloud because he didn't want to feel what was going to happen. He had the marks on his skin that Rand had made earlier to indicate where the tracker was implanted in his back. TJ thought he was out of his mind when he handed him a small folding pocket knife and told him he needed to cut the thing out. He had no idea how big it was. Turns out though, it wasn't very big and probably half the size of the incision TJ gave him.
He was sure taking the pain killers had been the wise move, even if he still did feel what was happening for the most part. The pain meds and stuff he smoked earlier really just made him not care about what he did feel. When the tracker, a little grey chip no bigger than a centimetre in length was sitting bloody on the countertop in the bathroom in front of him though, he thought he was going to either pass out or throw up. He was too preoccupied by the nausea and light-headedness then to notice someone was knocking at the room door. TJ had stepped outside the bathroom to answer it.
The bathroom was immediately to the right inside the room so although technically in a separate space, he was just paces away from the door leading out to the hall. Though the room door when opened blocked his view, he could hear the exchange between TJ and the person who'd knocked.
"Who are you?" the person asked.
"Who am I? Who are you?" was TJ's sharp reply.
"What the hell did you do?" was the question that followed.
"Whoa man!" was all TJ said before he was being pushed back from the doorway. When the door shut, Cloud could see then who it was that was interrupting them. It was Rand.
"What did you do?" Rand repeated. He sounded upset, like he was about to get aggressive with TJ.
"It's fine, man, he asked me to," was TJ's quick reply.
Cloud struggled to find his voice, wanting to tell Rand to get the hell out. He couldn't. He continued to lean over the sink, breathing shakily. His body was covered in sweat. It felt like an oven in there and he was sure he was going to vomit any second.
"Said there was some chip or something under his skin, like some kind of alien shit," he heard TJ explain. "Thought you was crazy," he remarked as Cloud looked at him.
"You used this?" Rand asked as he took the small and bloody knife out of TJ's hand. Before the guy could respond Rand was pushing him to get him out of the room. "Get out," he ordered.
"Wait man," TJ tried to protest.
"This yours?" Rand said. Cloud couldn't be sure what was going on. He shut his eyes then and tried to breathe slowly to will the feeling of sickness to pass. He heard the room door being opened again.
"He still owes me," TJ said and Rand asked him how much. "What you got?" TJ replied.
Though he couldn't see it, Cloud wondered if what he heard then was Rand retrieving his wallet to pay him.
"Here," he heard Rand say. "Go."
Cloud's feeling of nausea was finally subsiding then as he looked over to see Rand shutting the hotel door. Able to move himself again without fear of throwing up, Cloud grabbed one of the hotel hand towels from the counter top next to his one hand and turned on the water to wet it. He couldn't feel it exactly but knew there was blood seeping from his small wound and running down his back. Rand entered the bathroom then and attempted to take the towel out of his hand.
"That's not sterile," the man spoke in a scolding tone.
"Get away from me," Cloud fired at him as he held fast to the towel and stood up straight to face him in confrontation. "You track me here?" he questioned rhetorically before picking up the small chip from the counter and throwing it into the toilet bowl nearby. "Won't be able to do that anymore," he said as he flushed the toilet, sending the chip down into the pipes.
Rand watched it disappear before asking, "Are you out of your mind, letting someone like that cut into you?" he didn't try to stop Cloud a second time as he was reaching with the wet towel around his body to wipe at some of the trailing blood. "He looked high out of his mind. So do you," he noted.
"Let him? I was going to pay him," Cloud snapped, facing him daringly.
"I paid him," Rand said back to that.
"With what? More of that money you don't need? I probably could have just blew him and it wouldn't have cost anything," Cloud told him, not even thinking as he was talking.
Rand didn't respond to the comment, asking him in a softer tone to "Turn around."
"Why? You wanna try and fuck me in his place?" Cloud replied to that bitterly. Rand looked away from him uncomfortably.
He wasn't really thinking clearly at all. He was feeling a lot of emotions but seeing that reaction of discomfort from the man fueled a sudden desire he had to see him looking just as he was. Uncomfortable. Uneasy. Apprehensive. Unsure of what was coming. It made him feel powerful in the moment. He dropped the towel to the floor so he could have both his hands free to undo his own pants then.
"I'm all drugged up the way you like right?" he said as he then closed the already small distance between them in the bathroom and took hold of the man's belt so he could unfasten it.
"That's enough," Rand said, his tone suggesting he knew already the point Cloud was trying to make. At Cloud's continued attempt to undo the belt, the man tried to stop him with his own hands. He took some steps backward out of the bathroom as Cloud was walking forward. "You don't need to do this," the man told him.
"What?" Cloud said as he halted where he was just outside the bathroom. "What you trained me to do? You don't like it so much when you're not calling the shots?" he spoke challengingly into the man's face, as close as he could get without actually making contact with him. Rand turned his head to the side slightly to avoid having to look at him.
With the man not letting him unfasten is belt successfully, he grasped hold of the zipper pull of his fly and pulled it downward swiftly. He was attempting to reach his hand through the opened zipper when Rand took hold of his wrist firmly.
"Stop," he said, gently at first but as Cloud persisted he became suddenly authoritative. "Cloud," he said his name as the man latched his other hand onto his jaw. "That's enough!" he repeated firmly. Cloud was frozen then in place with the man's eyes locked on his. "Sit down," Rand ordered him. He said it in a quiet voice but it was a stern directive.
They were standing right next to the one bed. With the man's hand still holding onto his jaw and part of his neck loosely he turned him a little and slowly Cloud sank down onto the edge of the bed. Rand let go of him as he was lowering himself to sit. The moment Cloud sat down was the same moment he started breaking down. He questioned himself over what the hell he'd been thinking then as he held his head in his hands and leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees. About how stupid he was thinking he could have any kind of control over any situation with Rand.
After a moment of him shedding some tears, Rand said something. It sounded like 'Here.' He opened his eyes with his head still lowered and could see the man was trying to offer him a tissue from a box. Angrily he knocked the box from the man's hand and to the floor.
"Look at me," Rand said to him and but he refused to look up. He felt the man's hand on the back of his head, his fingers in his hair. "I know that this is my fault. I'm sorry," he said.
Cloud did raise his head then and was going to make a move to swat at the man's hand to get it away from him but Rand stepped back on his own as he was sitting himself up again to look at him. "That doesn't mean anything," Cloud told him through his tears. "You're a piece of shit."
"Yes," Rand said in agreement. "But, you're better than this," he went on, making Cloud scoff. "You can't put yourself in dangerous situations and act like you don't care about yourself because of what was taken from you. Because of me, because of anyone else."
"Why? I'm nothing!" Cloud argued back loudly. "You told me that! That's what you wanted me to believe! I'm not a human being. I don't even exist, not without Hojo or Shinra. My life isn't my own, it's theirs," he reminded him of the things he'd been told by the man in Gongaga.
"Forget what I said," Rand replied, shaking his head.
"You don't think I've tried?!" Cloud threw back at him angrily.
"Try harder," was Rand's quick retort.
"Screw you," Cloud said.
"Look, it doesn't matter what you are right now. All that matters is what you want to be. Who you want to be now, alright?" the man tried to tell him. "I was hired to get results from you because Hojo and Shinra knew you were that resistant. More than they could handle. More resilient. They needed the best."
"What? That's you?" Cloud questioned in almost a mocking tone.
"Some might say," Rand confirmed plainly. "But you know you aren't really what I said you were. You know you're more," he said and Cloud shook his head to that. "You do. You know you don't belong to them or anyone," he said.
"What are you even doing here?" Cloud asked him, not trying to respond to his statement.
"I shouldn't have let you walk out earlier," Rand said.
"Let me?"
The man quickly corrected himself. "I mean, I know that what I said earlier was hurtful. I didn't need to say it how I said it, or at all. I was also confused by your request that I remove the tracker and I suppose I also didn't really want to take it out either," he admitted.
"No shit," Cloud replied. That much had been obvious. The man nodded.
"But it's my responsibility. The safest thing would have been for me to take care of it. It's the right thing to do," he said.
Cloud scoffed at Rand's realization. "Great. You're too late, asshole. Can you leave now," he said, not meaning it as a question.
"You can't be left like this," Rand told him. "You're a mess."
The observation had Cloud looking up at him hard. "That's real perceptive, genius," he retorted.
Rand smiled a little. He was looking down as he said, "That sarcasm was missed after the implant surgery. A lot of things were missed," he confessed, though he didn't specify the things were missed by him. Still, Cloud assumed that's what he meant.
"I didn't miss anything about you," Cloud responded bluntly.
"Past tense?" the man asked.
"Don't miss anything," Cloud corrected.
Rand nodded to that. He returned to the more important topic at hand. "I brought some things with me on the chance you would allow me to take the tracker out when I got here. Would you let me take care of you now?" he asked and then, perhaps knowing what that sounded like, he specified. "Your wound?"
Cloud considered the request and without knowing why he found himself laughing at it, putting his face into his hands.
"What?" Rand asked. "What's funny?"
"I don't know," Cloud said without moving. "I'm tired," he spoke more to himself then. He felt like he could start crying again. "I'm so..."
"Lay down," Rand instructed him softly.
Cloud felt a hand on his shoulder. He lifted his head so he could look at it. He felt like he was losing all his resolve. Suddenly, he really didn't care at all about what could happen right then. It felt like some invisible force had taken over and decided for him that he was going to give in. He really was tired.
The things Rand had brought with him included medical supplies, complete with suture kit. Though he could have handled the pain, Rand applied some numbing gel to the area around the wound so he barely felt the stitches being applied. It didn't take long and the man was bandaging him.
"You should visit a clinic tomorrow for an antibiotic prescription," Rand told him though he hardly heard it. He was falling asleep at that point and was out by the time the man had packed his things back up.
Rand watched him rest for a moment. He resisted the temptation to get him more comfortable by removing anything other than his footwear. He pulled a blanket over him and put a glass of water next to the bed. He was headed for the door when he heard a vibration sound from somewhere across the room. He followed the sound to a chair with some clothing thrown upon it and picked up a sweatshirt. Underneath it, he recognized the edge of a phone peeking out from the back pocket of a pair of jeans. He slid the vibrating phone from the article of clothing and hit the volume button to silence the sound. He read the name of the person calling, then glanced over at Cloud and finally back at the phone. It was Zack.
For a moment he was holding his thumb over the screen and the answer icon. The call timed out then. Anticipating another attempted call to follow, he redirected his thumb to the power button and held it down, accepting the option that came up on the home screen to power the phone off. When the screen was blackened, he put the phone back where he'd found it and left the room quietly.