Chapter Text
After all of the hardships he’s been through, peace seems to be a novel concept. Could a world like theirs ever truly be at peace? Could someone so visibly cracked and broken relax into the monotony of life? The more the days went by, pushing the geostigma crisis farther and farther into the past, the more Cloud could believe it.
Yet although he had made peace with his ghosts, it did not magically make him okay. The cracks running through his person were still wide and yawning. Some days, he felt as though even getting out of bed would shatter him completely.
Tifa was there for him on those days. She seemed to know exactly what he needed without him vocalizing it. He wanted to repay her someday, even if he knew how she’d react. She’d never accept payment. Not for this.
Still, there were some days where even Tifa couldn’t penetrate the dark storm hanging around Cloud. On those days, the only thing he could do was get out of everyone’s way and find a nice quiet place to sit and think. Tifa would sigh, hands on her hips, and remind him to try and come home in time for dinner. He always tried.
He knew it hurt her, being unable to help him in these moments. He wished he could make it easier on her. He wished he wasn’t so fucked in the head.
Before geostigma, he’d find himself cooped up in the church, licking the wounds of his grief and weakness. Now, he’d take Fenrir and just drive in whatever direction he fancied. He could almost imagine that he was outrunning his turbulent emotions; that if he drove fast enough, they’d never catch up and consume him. Sometimes, it worked.
This time, there was something else calling for his attention. Currently in the middle of nowhere, Gaia knows how many miles from Edge, Cloud straddled the idle Fenrir. Lush greenery surrounded the dirt path he had been traveling, threatening to swallow it whole. He had a feeling that it’d soon be impossible to navigate on his bike; if he wanted to continue, it would need to be on foot.
This wasn’t what stopped him, however. To the right of the path, the ground sloped up into a gentle hill, stopping right in front of a large waterfall. At the edge of the hill, a moss covered railing guarded against what was no doubt a steep drop off. From his current vantage under the trees, he couldn’t see the top, let alone the bottom.
Honestly, he wasn’t really sure what it was about it that had caught his attention. Perhaps it was the feeling of tranquility that smoothed over his frayed senses, rushing the negativity away down the waterfall. Perhaps it was the desire to find something - anything - to distract him from the solemn feelings of loneliness lurking at the corners of his mind. Either way, he found himself kicking the kickstand of Fenrir up and dismounting, curiously drifting towards the railing.
He had only made it halfway there before making a critical misstep.
Instincts honed from memories both real and fabricated tensed his muscles as he ascended the hill. Yet Cloud went oblivious, his mind eons away. Had he been paying attention, he would have noticed the ground under his feet growing firmer as he went along. The foliage wasn't hiding grass and dirt under his boots, not really.
It's only when an ominous metallic creek sounded under his feet that Cloud finally tuned in to what his body had been trying to warn him about. He glanced down, halfway through his next step, and realized too late his mistake.
It happened too quickly for his mind to process. One moment, he’s walking through a dense, peaceful forest. The next, he’s being plunged into a dizzying freefall as the ground gave way with a deafening snap. Fingertips grazed the edge of the newly formed hole, hoping to stop his sudden descent, yet as usual Cloud’s skills fell too short.
All he could do was squeeze his eyes shut, brace himself, and hope to Gaia that he didn't break his neck on impact. Tifa would never forgive him, nor would Aerith when he met her in the Lifestream.
Luckily, he didn't break his neck. In fact, he didn't break anything at all. Though he did hear something break as he crashed into the ground with a cacophony of noise, a cautious flexing of his limbs proved that everything was where it was supposed to be. He blinked the stars from his eyes, squinting up at where the sunlight peeked through the hole. How far had he fallen?
Far enough that he couldn't easily climb back out again, that was for sure. Cloud sat up with a groan, rubbing the back of his head, and glared moodily at the hole. Great. This is what you get for going off the beaten path. He should have turned back when the path became unnavigable.
Though it was tempting to sit and stew in his self pity, doing so would not get him out of here any faster. With great reluctance, he shoved his moodier thoughts to the back of his mind and allowed his cadet training to kick in. First thing’s first: assess the situation. Where was he?
As his gaze lowered to survey his surroundings, his blood ran cold. Nowhere good.
Green bubbles blinding his senses, seeping into every pore, choking him, drowning him, burning him from the inside out.
No, he wasn’t - he wasn’t there. Cloud steadied his breathing, unclenched his muscles, and looked again upon the clear tanks lining the back wall. Cased in mako, each tank held a monster of some kind, none of which resembled those that roamed the ground above them. They thankfully remained still, seemingly dormant. Cloud would not need his sword just yet.
Under him, papers were strewn in a disorganized mess on the now broken table he seemed to have landed on, some having escaped to lay on the hard floor below. In the dim light, Cloud couldn’t make out the contents - not that he really had any desire to anyways - but he noticed the words “FAILED” stamped on several in angry red letters. He jerked his gaze away, resting on a bookshelf that stood against the opposite wall. It was easily the neatest thing in this mess of a Shinra lab.
An abandoned Shinra lab, Cloud reminded himself. If not for Shinra ceasing to exist, the heavy dust particles drifting through the air proved that no one had stepped foot in this place in what was likely years. There would be no guards pointing guns at his head, nor any scientists waving syringes in his face. Cloud was safe. Cloud was free.
Breathe in, breathe out.
This lab would need to be dealt with at the appropriate time. For now, Cloud needed to find his way out of here. There must be a way back to the surface somewhere; an elevator, a ladder, something. The sooner he found it, the sooner he could leave this unpleasantness behind.
Cloud picked himself up off of the broken table, checking to make sure his sword was still strapped to his back. After all, though the monsters in this room didn’t look like they’d be causing any problems, their presence alone meant this area was dangerous.
Once satisfied, he moved on to the next order of business; pulling out a battered flashlight that he had salvaged from the slums. A decommissioned Shinra lab was unlikely to still have running power, and it’s not like he could count on more person-shaped holes filtering in natural sunlight. He clicked it on, waiting patiently as it sputtered to life. Hopefully the battery will hold.
Settled, he ran a rough hand through his hair and expelled a forceful breath. There was no time like the present to get a mosey on.
Whatever was out there, Cloud was as ready as he’d ever be for it.
As it turned out, this particular lab was a labyrinth of dusty corridors and rusty catwalks. The more Cloud wandered, the less clear it got where an exit would even be. How did the scientists get around without getting lost?
Though any monster he encountered was safely locked behind mako tanks, Cloud wished there was something to fight to break up the quiet, dilapidated setting. It would be a welcome reprieve to meandering through a waking nightmare. Instead, he found his eyes drifting across each tank’s panel as he passed, unable to help reading.
Project Z-BLHD452 - FAILED
Project Z-SAH719 - FAILED
Project Z-DTHCLW400 - FAILED
Not one panel with an occupied tank was free from the “FAILED” marking. That must have been why the lab was abandoned: whatever this Project Z was, it clearly wasn’t a viable use of Shinra’s resources. Still, why leave them here? Why not neutralize them? Cloud himself was living proof that escaping a lab was possible. Abandoning this lab with their specimens unguarded was like burying a ticking time bomb.
Exactly the kind of stupid, reckless mistake that Shinra would make. That was why the Turks had existed; to clean up this kind of stupid mistake. Cloud huffed out a harsh sigh and pushed it from his mind. Shinra was gone. Their mistakes weren’t his weight to carry anymore.
A heavy, metal door at the end of the hallway caught his attention. This was much more secure than the other doors he had passed through. It seemed like a good candidate for “exit” to him. Rolling his shoulders, he braced himself and slowly heaved the door open inch by agonizing inch.
Sunlight filtered through the broken wall of the room beyond the door, the foliage from the outside having creeped in and made its home among the various instruments. Much like the first room he had landed in, this one had a desk with various papers covering its surface. A large closet was also tucked against the wall opposite of the hole, vines having crawled up its side.
However, the centrepiece of the room was easily the large mako tank near the back centre wall. Though it had nearly been overtaken by the moss that covered 80% of its surface, he could tell that the glass peeking through it was thicker than the other tanks in the other rooms. The base of the tank seemed to have escaped the moss, and Cloud’s heart dropped into the soles of his feet as he caught sight of the specimen within.
From under the moss, tanned human legs floated in mako, visible from the knee down. Its bare feet were manacled together at the ankles by thick, metal chains. Pieces of something floated alongside them, too small to discern. Much like the monsters in the other tank, it seemed like the person locked inside was dormant; asleep or dead remained to be seen.
Another human experiment. Of course, why would Cloud think he was the last one?
How long had this person been down here, rotting away while their friends and family mourned them? Were they a civilian caught in the crossfire? A prisoner of war? Another poor Shinra employee who saw too much? The possibilities were endless, considering who he was dealing with.
He clenched his shaking hand into a fist, willing his anger to stagnate. No, he wouldn’t allow the cycle to perpetuate after Shinra’s death. He would free this person himself, if nothing more than to give them the decency of a proper burial. He would not let them be left to the whims of the inevitable recovery crew, who would no doubt dump them into a ditch like trash to be forgotten.
Cloud set to work tearing at the moss with his bare hands, discarding clumps of it at his feet. He worked from the base up, little by little uncovering the person. Eventually, he could see the person’s thighs, hips, and arms.
As he worked, he kept a running tally of what he could observe, attempting in some way to humanize what was most likely a dead test subject. It was more than the scientists would have done. It was more than what was done for him.
The person was a man; tall and muscled. His hands were hidden behind his back. Cloud would guess that they were manacled in a similar fashion as his ankles were. His tan spoke of someone who lived down south, maybe in Costa del Sol. A few scars - not surgical in nature, thankfully - marred the man’s skin and spoke of a hard life.
Yet as Cloud got to his torso, those scars became more numerous, leaving precious few inches of skin untouched. He felt his hands beginning to shake once more.
The scars were bullet holes.
In hindsight, he couldn’t say what went through his head at that moment. His mind had gone blank as he stared at the man’s chest, feeling the phantom memory of rain pelting his back. He felt dizzy. His ears rang. Nausea bubbled in his stomach.
Cloud reached up and tore off the moss covering the man’s face.
Wild, spiky hair spread out like a halo through the mako, framing attractive features that had gained the attention of men and women alike. Though his eyes were closed and his face was slack, Cloud could still vividly recall how his bright smile shifted the cross shaped scar cut into his cheek.
He staggered back, legs giving out on him and sending him down onto his backside. What he saw wasn’t real, it couldn’t have been. He rubbed his eyes as harsh as he dared, blinked several times, and even dug his nails into the flesh of his cheeks, yet the vision before him remained. He repeated the process, just to be sure.
His best friend in spite of all odds, the man who had carried him across the continent to his own detriment, the one who had died for him…
He was Project Z: First Class SOLDIER Zack Fair.