Disclaimer: Final Fantasy belongs to Squaresoft and various other interested parties, not me. I'm not making any money from this, and no infringement of copyright is intended. This is a work of fandom, intended as appreciation of the original work.

Chapter 21

For an indeterminate amount of time Cloud drifted through blackness, conscious of the bright flare of pain at the fringes of his awareness but not really feeling it as long as he stayed safely in the darkness.

At some point, something from outside of him roused him enough to make him pay attention. It was the sound of a panicked male voice and a soothing female one, followed by the wash of cool green energy that meant somebody had used a Restore materia on him. The magic dulled the worst of the pain, dimming it enough that Cloud could make out what the voices were saying.

"...enough that you should be able to safely move him somewhere a bit less incriminating, if you're very careful. Don't jostle his head or his spine," the woman was saying.

"Can't you just fix him the rest of the way?" the man demanded, and Cloud was vaguely aware of hesitant fingers brushing through his bangs.

"No. I don't have the energy for something that major, for one thing. And don't you try it on your own! Because the second reason I won't do it is that spine injuries are very delicate. It's not like a wound or a normal broken bone; you can't just slap a Cure spell on it as a bandage and expect it to work. You could end up causing permanent damage by fusing the bone in the wrong position, and once that's done it can't be undone."

"Shit." Now the man sounded shaken as well as panicked. "Fucking Hades. Never thought I'd be glad I didn't think to bring a Restore with me! If I hadn't had to go get you, I would have..."

It occurred to Cloud that they were talking about him, and maybe he should let them know he was listening. Opening his eyes was too much effort, but he thought maybe he could speak. It took him a couple of tries before he finally managed to shape the barest whisper of a word. "Zack?"

There were startled exclamations from both of the speakers, and a delicate hand rested gently on his forehead. "Don't move," the woman cautioned him. "Goodness, Zack, he's even tougher than you said he was! I can't believe he's awake."

"Told you," Zack - it had to be Zack - replied with a faint trace of amusement. "You're sure it's safe to move him? I don't want to protect our careers at the cost of his spine!"

"As long as you're careful," the woman assured him. "I'll go with you to help. You might want to put him to sleep if you can, though, to keep him from moving." She stroked her hand from his forehead to his cheek in a caress. "And you, stop being so shy! I do want to meet you, preferably under circumstances where I can actually talk to you and see your face properly. I don't bite... unless you ask nicely."

She giggled, and the realization of who she must be struck Cloud all at once. Before he could say anything - a protest or an apology, he wasn't sure - when there was a soft 'pop' of an item casing being broken, and the sharp smell of magic-laced herbs drifted down over him. It wasn't an item he recognized by scent; not a healing item or a remedy, then.

"Sleep won't do any good, he'd just be knocked out of it every time we moved him enough to cause him pain," Zack was saying as Cloud started to fall away into the darkness again. "This'll paralyze him, keep him from moving..."

That was the last thing he was aware of for quite some time, floating once again in the pain-edged darkness.

At some point he slipped over the edge from unconsciousness to true sleep, and when he woke again he felt immeasurably better. Blinking, he stared up at an unfamiliar ceiling, trying to figure out where he was.

He wasn't at a hundred percent just yet, he quickly discovered when he tried to move and sharp spears of agony shot up from his spine. Not only that, but he'd been tied down so he couldn't move even if he was able to ignore the pain. He must have made a noise, because a moment later hurried footsteps approached and a man in a medic's uniform leaned over him.

"Ah, you're awake," the man said, and he sounded pleased. "Excellent. Don't try to move, as I'm sure you've already discovered. Can you speak?"

"Yeah," Cloud rasped, his voice breaking in his parched throat. "Water?"

"Yes, I'm sure you're thirsty," the medic agreed sympathetically. "Just a moment."

He helped Cloud sip water from a straw, and that helped a lot. "Where am I?" he asked, looking around. Almost immediately he realized it was a stupid question; the room might be unfamiliar, but he recognized a hospital when he saw one and the uniform the medic was wearing meant he must be in Shinra's infirmary. "Scratch that. Why am I tied down?"

"You cracked a couple of vertebrae in your back, as well as breaking some ribs and picking up a nasty concussion," the medic informed him. "We've healed most of the damage, but the healing of the spine injury can only be accelerated, not instantly fixed. Can you tell me your name, rank and company?"

"Cloud Strife, corporal, 8th..." he hesitated, uncertain, and the medic made a concerned noise.

"You can't remember your company? The concussion may have been more serious than we thought."

"No, it's just..." Cloud would have shaken his head, but thankfully the restraints stopped him before he managed to hurt himself. "I'd gotten transfer orders, and I was supposed to report in the next day, but... how long have I been unconscious?" Gods, if he lost his transfer to omega company because of this, he'd never get another chance.

"Ah, yes, I see the note in your file now," the medic agreed, checking the papers he had on a clipboard. "The captain of omega company left word that he was to be contacted as soon as you woke, so I'd say your transfer went through just fine. Congratulations - though next time you go out roughhousing with your SOLDIER friend to celebrate, I suggest not getting so carried away."

Almost, Cloud asked what he was talking about, but a hazy memory of a discussion about moving him stopped him just in time. Zack must have gotten him out of the hotel, and then claimed they'd just been play-fighting and gone a little too far. Smart.

"Is Zack here?" he asked, scanning the part of the room he could see even though he was sure the older boy would have said something by now if he was present. "Can I see him?"

"Talk to your captain first, then we'll see about calling your friend in," the medic said. "He was pretty worried about you, I'm sure he'll come running."

Impatiently Cloud waited as omega company was contacted and informed that he'd woken. As eager as he was to confirm that he really was part of omega company now, he was more anxious to talk to Zack. He just knew his friend was going to be blaming himself for what had happened, probably thinking that Cloud would be angry or upset with him.

The medic agreed to undo his restraints and shift his bed to a sitting position as long as Cloud promised to only move slowly. It was a promise that was easy to keep, since any movement faster than a snail's pace brought sharp stabbing pains to remind him. At least being able to sit up meant he could see more of the room, and he wouldn't feel quite so helpless when talking to his new CO.

Finally an unfamiliar man in a captain's uniform strode into the room and came to a stop beside the bed. To Cloud's intense relief, the man didn't look angry or upset with him at all.

"Congratulations," the man said wryly. "You may actually have avoided the traditional hazing of a new recruit by doing it to yourself. You've certainly broken the record for the fastest SOLDIER-induced injury. Before this it was twelve hours, but you've managed to put it into the negatives."

"SOLDIER-induced injury?" Cloud repeated, confused and a little lost. This wasn't at all what he'd been expecting.

To his surprise, the captain chuckled. "The bastards are forever forgetting their strength when they get worked up about something. Omega troops spend so much time working with them that sooner or later everyone winds up injured to one degree or another as a result. More than one person has requested a transfer back to less hazardous duties, as well. Do you want to be sent back to your old unit?"

"Sir, no sir!" Cloud exclaimed promptly, biting down on a hiss of pain when he automatically tried to straighten his back to come to attention. "It's not as if it's the first time it's ever happened. Za... I mean, Lieutenant Zack crushed my hand the first time I saw him after he got his mako injections, and he attacked me once under the influence of a Confuse spell." He started to shrug and aborted the gesture quickly. "It's just an incentive to work harder so I can be a SOLDIER too, then we won't have to worry about the fact that I'm more breakable than he is."

"Good!" the captain barked a laugh, and grinned at him. "If you've been hurt by one of them before and were still willing to roughhouse with a SOLDIER, you're not afraid of them. That's important for working in omega company. I wasn't sure about you, corporal. We've never taken anyone as young as you before, and that's assuming your official age is actually correct which I'm certain it's not. I should have known better than to question the general's judgement, though. The Turks are sometimes wrong, but Sephiroth never is."

So it really had been the general who had recommended Cloud for the transfer. Cloud still didn't really understand just what it was that he'd done that was so impressive, but he wasn't going to argue with the general. A flush of pride and accomplishment suffused him.

"The medics tell me you'll be fit for duty in another week," the captain continued. "I'm Captain Edmund. You won't see much of me except in the field, but I'll send some of the sergeants over to get you up to speed while you're recovering. Welcome to omega company."

"Sir!" Cloud would have saluted if he could, but the captain seemed to understand. He saluted Cloud just as if the boy had done it first, then turned and left.

"Can I see Zack now?" Cloud asked eagerly when the medic came back in to check on him.

"I've notified his unit that you're awake, but he hasn't responded," the medic replied. "He's probably on duty, it's the middle of the day."

Except Cloud knew Zack couldn't be on duty, because he was on leave. "How long was I unconscious?" Cloud asked as a terrible thought struck him. Zack's unit had only been stationed in Midgar for a week, and it was already the third day of that week when this had happened.

"Three days," the man informed him, and Cloud sighed with relief. He'd cut it close, but Zack still had one more day in Midgar before he was shipped out again. If he'd had to leave before Cloud woke up, Cloud was sure it would have eaten at his friend until he got a chance to see Cloud again.

So Cloud contented himself with that, and settled in to wait for Zack to get the message and come see him. Probably the older boy had gone out to do something to get his mind off it; he wasn't the kind of person to sit around in his room and brood.

Not being able to move much made waiting terribly boring. Cloud wasn't really interested in what was playing on the tiny television up in one corner of the room, and holding a book up hurt too much. He ended up dozing through the rest of the day, letting his body get the rest it needed to recover from the advanced healing that had been done on him.

Every so often the medics would wake him for another healing session, slowly and carefully repairing the damage done to his spine. Unlike most healing, each of these sessions was painful in the extreme because the whole reason they had to go slowly was to avoid doing too much damage to the extremely delicate nerves in the spine. Frankly Cloud was amazed he'd managed to remain unconscious through three days worth of these sessions.

Before he knew it night had fallen, and he woke from a nap to discover it was almost curfew. Bewildered, he looked around and wondered if Zack had come some time when Cloud was sleeping, and not wanted to wake him up. He couldn't think of any other explanation for why the older boy wasn't here yet. Surely Zack wouldn't have gone out into Midgar for the night, not when he knew Cloud could wake at any time.

Well, maybe... maybe... something. Cloud couldn't think of any good reason for the older boy's continued absence, but that didn't mean there wasn't one. He'd learned that lesson from their fight after Zack's two-month absence when he'd first made SOLDIER. The only thing jumping to bad conclusions got him was a fight he couldn't win, and he didn't particularly relish the idea of ending up right back in this hospital bed for fighting with Zack now.

So he continued to wait, allowing the medic to sedate him so he wouldn't move too much in his sleep. That got him through to the next morning, at least.

When there was still no sign of Zack by mid-morning, though, he started to panic. He had no idea when the older boy's unit was shipping out, just that it was today. Could they have been sent back into the field early? It was possible, and Zack might not have thought to leave a note.

"Are you sure he got the message?" Cloud asked when the shift changed and the same medic from the day before came on duty. "Could you find out if he's even still here? Please? He's supposed to be shipping out today."

"I'll try," the medic promised, and that was the best Cloud could hope for.

Finally, just before dinner, the medic returned with news. "Your friend's unit left an hour ago, by airship," he informed Cloud sympathetically. "He was probably so busy getting ready that he never had a chance to come by. Or maybe he was under disciplinary action, for hurting you in the first place."

Cloud was stunned, and the man's words weren't terribly comforting. He knew Zack, and he knew that if the older boy had been determined to see Cloud then nothing would have stopped him. Certainly if their positions had been reversed, Cloud would never have just gone off with his unit without so much as checking on Zack.

He spent the evening flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling and trying to make sense of it. He felt horribly abandoned, and it was a struggle not to let himself slide into the same kind of miserable brooding he'd done when he'd been certain that Zack had replaced him with that other SOLDIER.

The next day the promised sergeant from omega company arrived, bearing manuals for Cloud to read to familiarize himself with the procedures that his new unit used. They were different than for any other company in the army because of their unique status as a group of mixed specialists rather than a homogenous unit of basic footsoldiers.

"You look like somebody just shot your dog," the sergeant observed as he handed over the thick books. He was a young man in his early or mid-twenties, and he could have served as a poster boy for the army. He was the perfect image of a trooper; strong, clean-cut and square-jawed. His face was open and friendly, and he reminded Cloud a little of Zack.

"It's nothing," Cloud said hastily, easing himself up to a sitting position and reaching for the books. He had more mobility now, but he still had to move carefully. "A friend of mine was shipped out yesterday, and I was hoping he'd get a chance to come see me first."

"Yeah?" The sergeant gave him a shrewd look. "Same guy who put you in here in the first place?"

"Well, yes," Cloud admitted, biting his lip. "Which is why I was surprised he didn't at least come to check on me. But I'm sure he was just busy."

"SOLDIER's guilt," the sergeant informed him ruefully. "Happens all the time when they hurt someone badly by accident, especially if they know the person. He's afraid if he so much as looks at you he'll break you, and that you'll be angry with him. Or worse, afraid of him." He shook his head. "A lot of people get scared after the first time they really understand just what the SOLDIERs are capable of. Most of them hide it well, but you can see it in their eyes. Nothing worse for a SOLDIER than seeing that look in the eyes of someone they care about."

"That's stupid," Cloud objected. "It's not even the first time he's hurt me." Though it was, he realized, the first time it had happened when Zack was actually aware of what he'd done. The older boy had been too out of it to realize that he'd crushed Cloud's hand that one time, and the Confuse spell had left him with no real memory of the damage he'd done by attacking Cloud.

"So how do I get him to stop being stupid?" he wanted to know, and the sergeant laughed at him.

"You're gonna fit right in with us, kid," the man declared. "It ain't easy, but it's simple. You chase him down, and you refuse to go away or give up until he stops treating you like you're made of glass. He'll get over it eventually, as long as he can see you're not scared of him."

"I could never be scared of Zack," Cloud shook his head as much as he was able to. "It's not like he did it on purpose. But he's gone, I can't get to him now."

"He'll be back," the sergeant assured him. "You're omega company, now. We work with all the SOLDIERs sooner or later, and if you know this guy then chances are good you'll be assigned to him more often than not. He won't be able to avoid you even if he wants to."

Well, if there was one thing Cloud knew he was good at, it was being stubborn. There was no way he was letting Zack throw away their friendship for a stupid reason like that. He had enough time to recover fully and learn the ropes of his new unit before Zack got back; by the time the older boy returned, Cloud would be ready for him.

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