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“You… really care about him, don’t you?”
Zack turned to look at Tifa, surprise in his expression. Zack wavered for a moment, but nodded. “I do.” He admitted. “Though I didn’t realize I was so obvious.”
“Probably not to most people.” Tifa said, shrugging a little. “But you know, the way you look at him. The fact that you’re still here… and the part where you sleep with him half the time.”
Zack felt his cheeks burn. That was, perhaps, the most damning bit, and also the least graceful way for anyone to learn such a thing.
“At first I was worried I was going to have to deal with it, when you inevitably hurt him. But so far… you’ve shown me you really mean well.”
“I don’t want to hurt him. But sometimes it feels like there’s something there that I don’t know about, and maybe… staying is going to do just that. But I don’t… It’s not just that I don’t know where else to go,” though that was part of it, and Zack knew it. “It’s that I don’t want to be somewhere else.”
And there was some conflict in his emotions there, of course, because in some sense it felt like a betrayal of Aerith. But, of course, he didn’t think she would see it that way. And even so, it didn’t change the way he felt about Cloud - about any of this.
Tifa’s expression was guarded for a moment, and Zack wondered what it was she was thinking about.
“I think that’s probably a conversation you should have with Cloud, not with me.” She said finally. “So, all I’ll say is that Cloud is fragile. Maybe more so than you realize. And if you hurt him intentionally, you will regret it. He’s got a lot of good friends, and none of us will stand aside and let it happen.”
“I’d expect nothing else.” Zack said. Fragile. It was a strange word to hear applied to Strife, and yet he couldn’t argue with its usage, exactly. Instead of reacting to that specifically, Zack raised his hands slightly. “I don’t want to hurt him.” He repeated. Zack was just uncomfortably aware of the reality that it might not matter, that sometimes the best of intentions still caused plenty of pain. “And it’s good to know that Cloud has good friends to help look after him.”
Tifa inclined her head, seeming to accept what Zack had said there. “Just keep that in mind.” She said, her attention shifting just slightly, and Zack could immediately feel the intensity in the space lessen. “Though I can’t promise all of them will be as easygoing about it.” She rubbed the back of her neck.
“It’s fine. I’ve got tough skin.” Zack said, feeling a little grin tugging at his lips.
They separated then, Tifa going towards the bar and leaving Zack alone in the kitchen area to consider what she had said. A glass of water, a few deep breaths. Cloud would be back from his deliveries soon.
The thought didn’t dispel the uneasy restlessness that had settled in Zack’s bones.
Maybe they could talk then. They needed to, Zack thought, whether it was about what Tifa had implied or not. Leaving jagged edges and words unsaid seemed… inappropriate. Maybe especially with the trip to Gongaga lingering in the not-so-distant future. And more than anything, Zack wanted to know how Cloud felt about all of this.
They’d talked about Aerith’s death. They’d talked about what Sephiroth had done, and the way the world fell apart and came back together. They hadn’t talked much about what happened between the cliff and where all of this had come to be. They hadn’t talked about what Cloud wanted out of all of this.
Zack sat down quietly at the small table and he waited. His patience was rewarded with Cloud’s presence only a few minutes later.
“Hey,” Cloud greeted, inclining his head slightly. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Zack said. “How was your day?”
“Fine.” Cloud said, shrugging. “Simple enough deliveries today. Straight forward. Reeve sends his regards, by the way.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“Nothing.” With a shake of his head. “He got the basic report from Shalua after we found you, since it was on a WRO mission, and when the medical team released you, he was told about that. But, that’s it.”
Zack nodded fractionally. “I appreciate that.”
“I figure anything you want him to know, you can tell him yourself when you’re ready. In the meantime, it’s bad enough he’s got access to the old Shinra records.”
“So… he can tell me what they did to me?”
“Mm. I mean, he’d probably have to look them up. I doubt he’s got them memorized. But yeah, probably.”
A breath out. Zack looked conflicted for a moment before shrugging it off. “Have you eaten yet?”
“Yeah, I got something while I was out earlier.”
Zack nodded.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, just a lot on my mind. Sorry.”
“You wanna talk about it?”
“Probably should. Not sure where to start.”
The silence stretched between them. It wasn’t surprising, Cloud had always been more willing to let the quiet linger than most people. And Zack… normally filled the silence easily enough. But finding what to say here was proving to be far more difficult than usual. He fidgeted, tapping one finger lightly against his thigh, occasionally stopping only to fiddle with the hem of his shirt. It was frustrating, exceedingly so. Because it shouldn’t be so hard to just say what he was thinking.
“Why don’t we go upstairs?” Cloud suggested, finally taking some pity on Zack. “It’ll be more private.”
Maybe that was part of the issue? Zack didn’t argue, instead he just nodded and followed the blond. This was kind of a delicate topic. Maybe he just didn’t want Tifa, or one of the kids wandering into the middle of it while he tried to figure out the best way to talk about it.
And even if not… well. Not being interrupted might be better.
Zack sat on the edge of the bed, facing one wall instead of looking straight at Cloud. Cloud sat down next to him, his presence comforting and grounding and there - Zack couldn’t ignore it. And he didn’t really want to.
“You’re not usually so hesitant.” Cloud acknowledged.
“It’s not usually so hard.” Zack said, grumbling slightly as he leaned forward, fingers pressing against his temples for a moment while he tried to pull together what he wanted to say.
Cloud sighed a little. “It’s okay, you know. Whatever it is. I’m not going to like, judge you for it.”
“It’s not that.” Zack said. He shook his head, stopping the torrent of words that wouldn’t have explained what the issue was in the first place. A slow breath. “I guess I’m a little conflicted about it all still. Because in my attempts to figure out what I want for a future, I realized I can barely imagine one that you aren’t a part of. And… that scares me because we haven’t talked at all about how you feel, or what you want, and I realized that I’ve just kind of slotted into a place that you might not really want me in. I don’t want to hurt you, Cloud.”
He paused there for a heartbeat. “And it feels like… there’s something there that I don’t know about, and sometimes it feels like I’m all too close to doing something that maybe I can never undo and I don’t really know… what to do about that. Or if there’s anything I can do.”
How he felt about Cloud didn’t change the way he’d always felt about Aerith, but in the end, those sorts of feelings never really did override one another. He’d always love and miss her. But it couldn’t stop him from living today. Whatever that meant.
“I see.” Cloud said finally into the silence that Zack’s words left behind.
Zack froze a little, but didn’t look over at him. There was another stretch of silence, of stillness.
Cloud’s hand slipped across the space between them, fingers lacing through Zack’s. “That’s kind of a dramatic thing to say,” Cloud said carefully. “But I kind of… I understand. I want you to remember that right now isn’t a great time for you to make any kind of sweeping decisions. I know I’m the only thing anchoring you between what you remember and now, and I don’t want you to look up and realize that you were wrong. Or at least,” He paused there as he tried to decide the way he wanted to phrase it. “I want you to know it’s okay to change your mind later.” That was probably a good place to start.
Another beat of quiet, and Cloud shifted a little on the bed so that their shoulders just touched, though he didn’t pull his hand away from Zack’s. “But I want to make it clear that it’s not that I don’t want you here. It’s just…” He looked down, looked away. His eyes landed on a picture that Yuffie had insisted on taking while they were all together in the wake of the fight with Kadaj, that had turned into a fight with Sephiroth.
“It’s just what?” Zack prompted. He watched Cloud as the silence stretched forward again. After a long stretch, he sighed quietly. “If you don’t want to talk about it, we don’t have to,” He said gently. “I can go and-” He stopped, as Cloud’s grip on his hand tightened. He saw the other shake his head slightly.
Zack frowned, but went quiet.
“I guess at the core of it all, some part of me is afraid of losing the carefully formed line between what is me, and what was you again.” Cloud said. “And it’s… it’s not anything you did. But the mako left my mind so damaged that for a long time I didn’t know where I ended and you began. And it resulted in me spending a lot of time believing that I was a Soldier First Class.”
A beat of silence hung between them. Zack frowned a little, eyes wide, as he really understood what that meant.
“The stories you told me, and what happened in Nibelheim blended together. And… eventually Tifa helped me find the right pieces and put together the truth. And from there I was able to… I was able to draw the lines between what was me, and what was you. It took a long time. At least partially because there wasn’t originally a lot of time for it, given we were still trying to stop Sephiroth.”
It was what it was.
“I want you here, too, by the way. It’s not like… I’m just letting it happen.” Cloud said, reiterating the point. “You mean a lot to me.” And sometimes that was scary. But that didn’t change where they were standing, either. “There’s just a lot between us that is hard to face, too. Nibelheim, Shinra, Sephiroth…” Cloud shrugged a little.
“Nothing worth having is easy.”
“Yeah, somethin like that.”
Cloud let out a breath, slowly. Some of the tension slid out of him now that he could relax.
It was over. He’d told Zack the truth about what had happened.
“The blurring was so bad that for a while I didn’t really recall you as a separate person. Which… I felt pretty terrible about when I finally did manage to remember it all.”
“You shouldn’t.” Zack said, evenly. “What happened wasn’t your fault. The damage Shinra did…” He shrugged. “There wasn’t much you could do about that. It’s kind of a miracle your mind came back together at all, really.”
They both knew that.
Cloud nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”
A sympathetic look from Zack. “You mentioned you still get headaches?”
“Sometimes.” Cloud said. “Worse when I’m stressed out. Or… obviously when I’m exposed to Mako. Even small amounts of it. Pushing too hard with Materia can cause headaches, too.”
A slight grimace from Zack, but he nodded. “Is there anything I should know other than that? If I’m going to stick around?”
Cloud hummed slightly, but shook his head. “I’m sure something will come up eventually, but I can’t think of anything right now.”
Zack nodded, accepting that.
Some of the tension seemed to have faded between them. Zack lightly squeezed Cloud’s hand and leaned into the touch a bit, resting against Cloud a little, and carefully rested his cheek against Cloud’s shoulder.
Cloud chuckled a bit. “Tired are you?”
“Not exactly. Just…” Zack trailed off.
“It’s alright.” He freed one hand and slid his arm around Zack’s waist instead. Zack made a soft, contented sound.
Zack frowned at the game board, but moved his piece thoughtfully. Denzel frowned at the board for a moment before making his own move. It was their third game of checkers. Zack thought maybe after this one, they’d take a break or pick a different game to play. It was working, of course, filling the void of time. But there really was only so long that Zack could stay focused on one thing before it started to drive him just a little mad.
Cloud had been gone for two days, which he’d warned that this delivery would take longer than most, so it wasn’t surprising, but Zack found he’d missed Cloud very soon after the other had left. Hopefully this evening, if nothing had gone wrong. He’d allow himself to worry if not this evening.
Another move, red disk sliding across the board.
The door opened. Denzel’s head jerked up. “Oh! Cloud’s home!”
Denzel bolted towards the door. Zack followed more slowly, though no less excitedly. By the time he’d reached the small entrance hall, Marlene and Denzel were hugging Cloud. Tifa made her appearance a moment later.
Cloud basked for a moment in the glow of everyone so happy to see him. Zack smiled a little to himself and then stepped back, returning to the room he’d been playing with Denzel in so that he could put away the game. And… could also give their small family a moment without him.
There wasn’t anywhere else Zack would rather be, but sometimes it did feel like maybe this wasn’t where he belonged.
“Oh, this is where you got to.”
“Yeah, I figured I’d get the game put away. Figure it’s just about dinner time, anyway. Didn’t want to be in the way.” A shrug as he turned around to face Cloud fully.
Cloud gave him a look that Zack could only read as exasperated, but fond.
“Come on, I’ve got a surprise for you before dinner.”
Zack felt his brow furrow slightly, but followed at Cloud’s insistence. “Had Reeve have someone drop it off for me,” Cloud explained as he led Zack outside towards where Fenrir was parked. “Right now it’s on loan, but if you end up liking it, Reeve said he’d sign it over, no problem.”
Zack was about to ask what Cloud was talking about when he saw it. It was a more standard bike than Fenrir, designed a lot like the ones SOLDIER were trained on.
“You serious?”
“Yep.”
“Cloud I couldn’t accept-”
“If nothing else, you’ll need transport for when we touch down on the west continent, hm? Unless plans change, we’ll be taking the ferry across to Costa Del Sol and road-tripping from there. It will be more comfortable on two bikes. Trust me.”
“Why would plans change?”
“Mm. If Cid is taking the Shera any closer, it’d be worth it to go with him is all. There’s some talk of him and a small team going to check a few of the reactors. Next stage of the lab shut down project.”
“Oh.” That made sense. “I guess you’re right. About needing transport, I just…”
“It’s fine.” Cloud said, tone making it a promise. “It’s not as fancy as Fenrir, but we can always mod it over time if you end up taking a liking to it.”
Zack nodded. “You’re really not going to let me argue about this are you?”
“Nope. You just focus on if she handles well for you. I promise everything will be taken care of if you do like the bike.”
“I just don’t want you to push yourself for me.”
“Oh, Zack…” A little bemused, perhaps a touch wistful. “It’s not like I’m selling my soul or anything. I’ll owe him a favor or two probably, but on the other hand he kind of owes me for agreeing to deal with the lab situation.”
“Would you be assisting with the reactors, if not for our trip?”
“Mm.” A shrug. “Probably. It’s hard on me. On all of us. But it needs to be done. If he’d asked before I already had plans, I would probably have said yes. On the other hand rumor has it the first set has Nibelheim’s reactor in it and I don’t think I could go back there.” So maybe it was for the best.
There would be other reactors. Maybe he’d still assist with one of the other sets.
A grimace at that. And then the two of them went back inside for dinner.
Dinner was an easy affair, after which they settled down to watch a movie. By the end of it, Denzel and Marlene had fallen asleep. It took Zack a second to realize that Cloud, who was rested against his side, was also asleep. He held still for a moment, smiling faintly to himself as he studied Cloud.
Tifa laughed, though in a quietly muffled sort of way, to avoid disturbing them. “I’m going to get the kids settled,” she said, mildly. “You got him?”
“Mm. Yeah,” Zack agreed. He waited for Tifa to finish with Marlene and Denzel, mostly because navigating the stairs solo would be easier.
Not that he expected Cloud to sleep through even Zack moving enough to think about picking him up.
As he’d predicted, as Zack stood up, Cloud woke up enough to blink at him blearily.
“Come on, s’get you to bed.” Zack said. Cloud made no objection, and Zack followed him up the stairs.
“Stay with me?” Cloud asked as they reached his door.
“Mm.” Zack nodded a little and followed him into the darkened room. It was the first time Cloud had initiated such a thing, and it lit a warm feeling in his chest as he settled down beside Cloud for the night.