...this is totally a shorter amount of time than three weeks, right?

Further notes at the bottom.

Cloud kept blinking. Maybe the blood was a trick of the light. He couldn't possibly have hit the guard that hard. Not when his legs had given out on him within a few seconds of standing. He stared stupidly at the sprawled body in front of him, the baton clenched in both hands, and waited for the man to react; sit up, yell for help. Maybe hit him.

Get up.

He shifted carefully on the wet floor and leaned over the guard, arms trembling under his weight. The man's face was spattered with blood; crimson soaking the hair and pooling on the ground beneath. Still breathing. Not moving.

Get up.

He thought he should maybe check, make sure the guard wasn't going to die—he'd been nice enough, hadn't he? Called him kiddo. Just doing his job. Not his fault. Cloud's arm stretched out and hovered uncertainly over the man's shoulder, wondering whether to turn him over, get him off the floor, do something to make him comfortable—and his fingers fisted instead in the collar of the guard's white orderly uniform, yanking it open with careless force and sending buttons bouncing and rolling across the tiles.

The shirt was too big for him, but that was hardly new. Cloud stripped the guard of the rest of his uniform, taking more care with the trousers, and dressed as fast as he could, belting the loose waist tightly with shaking fingers. He didn't bother with the shoes—too huge, he'd run faster without—and he slung the baton back into its holster with a comforting sense of familiarity. He knew how to use it, and he was so much stronger than he had been, than he should be, and maybe if the rest of him would stop feeling like jelly he'd have a chance of running. Escape from...wherever this was. He had no idea, but it didn't matter. All Cloud wanted was to get out.

It took him two tries to stand up straight. The heaviness that had persisted through the shower was still with him. Drugs, loosening their hold. Cloud hauled himself up using the edge of the sink and then supported his weight on the tiles instead—and caught sight of his reflection for the first time in weeks. Gaunt. Ghost white. His hair had grown out; wet and tangled, it clung to hollowed cheeks and the curve of his neck, ending past his shoulders. How long had he been here? He pushed the tangles away from his face with shaking hands—and then froze.

His face was a mess. Raised welts like claw marks down both cheeks, and he remembered the hot sting of the water. Enough to rouse him from drowsiness. Cloud touched fingers to his face, traced along the cuts. Perfectly matched. He'd done it to himself.

You don't want an infection-

He laughed before he could stop himself, high-pitched and hysterical, and slapped a hand over his mouth at the sound, shoulders shaking. He sounded crazy. He thought of Tifa and Zack, dead and gone, and metal doors swinging open—

What are they doing to me?

Didn't matter. He turned his gaze away and splashed water in his face, flinching at the icy cold. But it did the job. Still hazy, more alert. Improving all the time. He only stumbled a little on his way to the door, toes catching on the guard's arm. But he'd be okay. He'd be okay.

The corridor was brightly lit, disinfected and deserted. He stared at it for a long moment, paralysed with indecision, until his hearing picked up the low buzz of machinery and the soft laughter of a woman, a long way off, somewhere from the left.

Cloud went right. Down the hall, away from laughter, whoever was laughing at him—no, that wasn't right; they didn't know he was awake yet, did they? Focus—and ducked through a narrow opening into a darker area with two beds covered in plastic and a television flickering on the far wall. The volume was down and there was nothing but static, but it was still enough for him to reel out, shading his eyes from the glow. Not a way out. Further down—

"Hey!"

He jumped, hands going to his ears at the sharp yell, flinching away from the sound, but there was nobody in the corridor. He ran away from them anyway, putting distance between himself and the bathroom, all the way down until tiles gave way to uneven rock under his feet with a suddenness that made him fall, knees stinging as they were grazed through the thin fabric.

"Idiot—"

He flinched again.

"What happened to him?"

"Could be a skull fracture—"

"Where's the kid?"

"Hojo—"

Hojo. He looked around wildly, staggering upright. The words were close by, right there, snatch them out of the air, but he was alone. Hallucinating. Maybe? The words echoed across tile, and he heard the sound of someone being dragged, a slap being delivered.

"Don't do that idiot, you'll make it—"

They're not here.

It was the guard. Discovered. He hadn't run far enough if he could still hear the voices, cutting over each other urgently now, and he heard his name Code C Code C is missing no he wasn't Code C, he was Cloud, he wasn't some experiment, and now they knew he was gone and Cloud's breath caught. He staggered drunkenly, looking for an exit. He'd found rock, not tile—a corridor that seemed vaguely familiar, been here before—

Nibelheim—

He picked the right direction this time. Ran. There were stairs, he could tear right up them, get back into the village. The villagers knew him, it would be fine—

"Hey!" Again, but this time it was behind him, and he turned. There were two soldiers sprinting down the stone corridor behind him, one muttering into a radio—quiet, but he could still hear every word, alerting soldiers. It didn't matter. They couldn't catch him. Too much of a head start, and he was faster to begin with. He hit the stairs, started sprinting up them two at a time.

"Code C, stop!"

The crack of a bullet in the stairwell nearly made him fall; he could hear it whine past his ear and a ringing that continued long past it, and his stomach turned over. There was swearing below now, and the crack of one wooden stair giving way, but he didn't look down to see what had happened. He had the strong suspicion they weren't meant to be firing at him, but that wouldn't mean a thing if they actually hit him.

His knees had stopped hurting. Cloud bunched his legs on instinct and jumped up through the spiral of the stairs, launched up a good fifteen feet to land precariously on the edge of a step, curl his balance forward and keep sprinting, taking a faintly hysterical satisfaction that the swearing below had broken into gasps and panic. They couldn't catch him on foot. He was too fast, too hard to hit now with the gap widening between them, and freedom was so close, and if he'd never been able to jump that distance before in his life now was definitely not the time to do anything but use it.

The door to the open sky wasn't even locked, and he burst through it so fast he thought he might have broken it, but he didn't stop, hurtling straight forward and past the first two startled people without registering who they were, lungs filling to yell for help, cry a warning, whatever came first, didn't matter—

-and staggered to a stop, the words dying in his throat, as he took in the village.

He remembered charcoaled timber and stone structures, blackened, fallen apart, destroyed. The village was at least halfway through being rebuilt, exactly the same—he could still see the scarring on the ground where the fire had torn through, but nothing more. And maybe, maybe that would have been a relief, if he didn't remember how thoroughly destroyed it had been, not so long ago. (Was it? How long? How long?) There were construction workers balanced on ladders, carrying tools and hammers and ducking underneath heavier plant equipment, who glanced at him once and then went straight back to what they were doing. It wasn't just workers. There were Shinra soldiers here, blue uniforms so familiar, not like the men below. He searched their faces looking for anyone he recognised.

Not a familiar face among them. He thought maybe they'd recognise him anyway. Instead, blank-eyed, they raised their guns and pointed them at his chest.

Cloud stumbled back a step, trying to keep balance as dizziness swept over him, the village blurring. No. It's wrong. His hands were back in his hair again, fisting huge tangles of it as he tried to fight down the panic. He knew already nobody here would help him. He tried anyway.

"Please." His voice was a croak. "I've done nothing wrong. I'm not meant to be—"

Hojo's guards finally tumbled through the door behind him and he was hit from behind, strong arms wrapping around his throat and arm as he was tackled to the ground. His chin hit the dirt and he tasted blood, and he fought them anyway, managing to throw one off and flail a fist into another's face, the man's nose breaking under the force of it, and Cloud shrieked. "Tell Zack! Please!"

He barely felt or cared about the rain of blows that followed, gave as good as he got for a while. Or tried. It was only when one managed to jam a needle into his neck that Cloud stopped fighting and lay on the ground as all his adrenalin finally fled, leaving him fighting off hazy tears on the ground. Frustration. Panic. No strength.

The last thing he heard before he faded out was hammering.

The workers had a deadline to meet.

"Sephiroth."

"No kidding." Zack gave a snort, leaning against the filing cabinet with his arms folded. "Obsessed much? What about the reactor?"

Tseng met his eyes with a level gaze. "What about it?"

Monsters in the reactor, Tseng. He didn't say it—the warning was clear enough. "So what did he want with Cloud?"

"I couldn't say."

"Sure you can," Zack retorted. "You were there, Tseng. And I heard him."

"Then you know as much as I do." Tseng shook his head, moving away from the door. "Zack, Hojo being there doesn't change anything."

"It does. He took Cloud away. Where is he?"

"Dead."

"Bullshit."

Tseng narrowed his eyes. "You don't want to hear about this, Zack."

"Try me."

The Turk watched him for a long moment, silent. Zack bit down on his impatience. He knew Tseng well enough to know the man was just measuring what to say. In fact, his silence was encouraging, because it meant Zack was definitely on to something, and he was pretty sure Tseng was just trying to work out how to cover his own ass. He could be angry when he heard the whole story. For now, he held his breath and tried not to look too hopeful.

Eventually, Tseng sighed. "You're correct. Hojo took Strife away."

Zack leaned forward, eyes gleaming. "And you lied about this why?" His tone was as pleasant as he could make it. Really, it wasn't Tseng's fault; rock and a hard place, all that. It didn't change his desire to punch the man in the face.

"Because it wouldn't change anything." Tseng met his gaze, unflinching. "Strife wasn't dead yet, that's true. Hojo was impressed by the outcome of his battle with Sephiroth. You weren't in critical condition; Strife was. He was taken away with intent to save his life, if we could.

"Against protocol, Hojo tried using materials from the reactor to speed the healing process. The results were disastrous."

The hope that had flickered to life froze within, started dying. Monsters. In the reactor. Oh, Gaia. It wasn't too late for Tseng to say something to fix this, was it? But he'd said yet. Wasn't dead yet. That meant—

"In his already weakened state, the boy had an adverse reaction." Tseng's words were very soft. "It could have been worse, Zack. Strife died on the operating table. All evidence of the attempt was removed to avoid scandal, though Hojo was trying to save the boy's life, in his own way."

"You're lying." His voice was rough.

"You can ask Hojo when he returns, though I strongly advise against it." Zack swallowed. He didn't need to ask why. "You're here because you were looking for Strife's file. Given the boy had no next of kin, it's been destroyed. Strife was just one of their infantrymen. Shinra has chosen to look the other way." Tseng's mouth twisted in distaste. But his eyes on Zack were steady, words less flat now, more gentle. "Let it go, Zack."

Why didn't you tell me this before?

But he already knew the answer to that. What was Tseng going to say? In the end, Cloud was still dead – only now, the picture painted in his mind was so much more horrifying.

Strife died on the operating table.

It could have been worse.

He wanted to punch Tseng anyway. Send him into the cabinets, really make some noise. Maybe that would change the answer, somehow. His fingers curled into fists, fingers digging into his palms hard enough he'd feel it much later. Zack took a breath.

He wanted, very desperately, for Tseng to have told him anything else. But Zack had pushed. His own fault for not leaving well enough alone. And Tseng was still watching him as if waiting for an answer, so eventually he took a shaky breath and straightened, pushing away from the cabinet.

"Okay. I got it. Anything else I should know and pretend I don't?"

He meant it to be flippant, but from the look Tseng gave him, it hadn't been taken that way. And really, Zack decided, that was perfectly damn fine. He was so tired of Shinra's secrets.

He also wasn't expecting an answer, but Tseng gave him one anyway, uncertain and wary.

"...just be careful around Hojo."

Zack snorted. "That part, I already knew."

"Good." And apparently they were done. Tseng thumbed the button for the entrance again, reaching out to flip the lights off, muttering on the way out. "Now go back to bed."

Then he was gone, leaving Zack alone in the faint glow still coming from the terminals.

After a moment, he sighed, resting his head against the cabinet, and tried to shove down the desire to grieve all over again.

He really should go back to bed. Or back to his room, at least; he very much doubted he had any more sleep left in him after this. It didn't feel right. All this, the feeling that something was off, only to get fed this horror story. But then again, maybe he just desperately wanted a better outcome. He didn't live in a fairytale. Things never ended up happily for people in this company, did they? It was entirely in keeping with Hojo's character to have done exactly what Tseng had reported.

...he'd been warned about Hojo. Twice.

Zack tapped his fingers against the cabinet, and then crossed the room to sit at one of the terminals. Even if he couldn't save Cloud, he wasn't done yet.

Fuck Tseng.

So yes. I'm sorry, I vanished for ten years. I can't guarantee I'll be back, either: chronic depression is a shitty thing and I just can't make the stars align to make my brain work, most of the time. But I'm trying. So long as anyone is still reading, I'll keep opening that Word document and staring at it blankly until one day things click and the words come.

The start of this chapter is rough, I know- it's very old writing (I did start writing this back in 2009) and I've made several attempts to smooth it out, but I just make it look worse. It may be subject to edits later. Many thanks to Pretty Arbitrary for surfacing out of the depths and continuing to be my beta; without her assurance, I probably would never have got around to putting this up at all.

In the meantime, I continue to swear at ff dot net's poor editing choices and am also cross-posting this at AO3.

Take care, y'all.

- Nekotsuki