Hello readers! I must be crazy because I've started another installment to this fic series. Below is just an excerpt of the first chapter. If you're interested in continuing with this series, go on over to the story on my profile. It's called "Digging Upward."

Chapter 1 Excerpt

~One~

Zack.

He looked different. His hair was getting longer. His face looked…fuller perhaps. His skin was definitely darker, tanned. How long had he been asleep? It didn't feel like he'd been out for more than a few hours.

Zack.

He needed to speak to him. He couldn't. His eyes felt so heavy…so dry. His chest hurt. His whole body hurt. Zack was smiling at him. He kissed him on the top of his head. He was leaving again.

Zack!

He tried to raise his hand out to him but he couldn't. He could barely move his hand. It was like being paralyzed by the drugs Hojo had used on him and Zack so many times before. He was panicking. Panicking for days.

Angeal. Zack needed to know. He'd brought Angeal back from the Lifestream. He'd left him with Genesis and Sephiroth. They'd had the Jenova remains with them. Shinra had blown up the helicopter but no bodies had been recovered from the site of explosion. What if Angeal was out there now somewhere, still alive?

Angeal. Angeal. Angeal. He said the name but nothing was coming out. He was trapped…he had to keep trying to get Zack to hear him. Day after day, until finally…

"I'm here, buddy," Zack said to him, his tone comforting and warm.

"Zack, there's something I..." he tried to say to him.

He couldn't get all the words out before he seemed to run out of the oxygen in his lungs to do so. He had to heave in another breath that he could almost feel failing to fully expand his lung tissue the way it was supposed to.

"It's okay, take it slow, Spike," Zack encouraged him.

"Angeal," he managed to get out hoarsely, barely audibly.

Zack's face took on an expression like exasperation. "Why do you keep saying his name?" he asked then.

Had he actually been managing to say Angeal's name? He must have been.

"He was alive," he told him.

"Angeal's..." Zack started to say, shaking his head slowly. "You know he's not," he said softly.

"Hojo had his body," he began to explain painfully, his breathing becoming harder the more he tried to say. "I pulled him back from the Lifestream."

"Cloud—" Zack said his name through a sigh. He sounded disappointed.

"He was alive…with Genesis and Sephiroth—" he tried to explain, to make Zack see, he wasn't just rambling in the midst of some post-coma haze or delusion.

"Spike, just—" Zack spoke sadly, shutting his eyes and shaking his head again.

"You need to listen—" he told Zack more urgently.

"Stop!" Zack demanded, silencing him. He had tears building in his eyes. "Just stop," Zack said more softly. "You need to just...just stop," he practically pleaded.

"You have to believe me, Zack," he said in return, his weak and strained voice starting to fail him. His body was telling him he had to stop. He was exerting too much energy too fast. "I brought him back f-from the Lifestream, like Johnny. Angeal…he found me there once. He said I felt like you. He was looking for you. I—I brought him back to his body. Zack, you have to believe me."

Zack looked sad. He just kept shaking his head at him. He wouldn't look at him.

"Zack," he said. "I forgot about it before, I wasn't trying to keep it from you. I'm sorry. I'm—"

"Just stop talking," Zack ordered him. His voice was soft but his command was firm. "You need to rest okay? Please."

"I'm sorry," he repeated, feeling his dry and itchy eyes filling with tears that only seemed to burn, not give relief. "If he died on the helicopter, it was my fault," he said.

Zack groaned with frustration. He leaned forward, resting his weight on the guardrail of the bed. "It's not, it's—just listen to me—" he begged.

He tried to catch his breath as he watched Zack, his friend avoiding his eyes.

"You don't believe me," he whispered in acceptance. Zack shook his head again slowly and wiped at his eyes.

"Angeal's gone. I did that. I took his life, Spike. I know he's gone. I made sure." Zack looked at him straight. "I don't know what you think you saw or did...It just...It didn't happen. Angeal's gone. You've been having nightmares and with waking up from a coma...You're confused. That's all. It's just something you imagined, okay?"

He didn't believe him. Zack didn't believe him.

He was panicking.

End of Chapter 1 Except - See "Digging Upward" on profile to continue.