![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Country
Author: GW Katrina aka![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-userinfo.gif)
icedark_elf
Beta:skeren
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Claim: Zack Fair
Themeset/Prompt: Ten Set 04, 05-Country for![[insanejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/ij-community.gif)
story_arc
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,251
Link to Archive Post: Interconnected
It had been a long day, and she had spent a lot of time working on trying to get things resettled after the latest bout of traveling. While she and Nick didn’t leave the town often anymore, they still had to do some traveling back and forth to keep things going, business-wise. Everything had been unloaded and put away, but it still took a bit to get things organized in the house itself when they got back home.
Absently, she heard the sound of chocobos, but paid no real mind to it. Nick was out putting their birds in the stable, and she knew he’d spend a bit of time fussing over them. They were no spring hens, just like her and her husband. Actually, if it wasn’t for the fact that not traveling would drive both of them insane, she and her husband should probably be happily set. Between what they had earned over the years as traders and what Zack....
She took a deep breath. In any case, her attention was caught after a bit when the sounds of people gathering also caught her attention. Who would be outside of her house at this time of day? Most times, she saw everyone at the shop, not here.
Tucking the last of the clothing to be washed into the washer, she started it, and then headed outside.
Well, that explained why there were people outside of her house. The first thing she saw was gold feathers, and for a moment, her mind caught on that. Golds were...rare. She’d never seen three of them together. Actually, she only had seen one gold before, being ridden by a man during a race in the Gold Saucer. Nor was she the only one who had their attention caught by the idea of such rare birds in a group like that.
Then she registered who was on them.
“Zack...?”
A thin whisper, and she looked at the man, eyes wide. It -was- her son, sitting there thin and pale, hair just as wild as ever, if longer than she had ever seen him wear it. There was stiffness in his actions as he carefully slid off, and then he smiled at her.
“Hi, Mom. I’m home.”
With something that might have resembled a shriek, Jerusha launched herself forward and clung to her son, eyes burning. Too, too thin, she could feel his ribs as she wrapped herself around him, and she didn’t care at the moment. All that mattered was that he hugged her back, his heartbeat solid and there under her cheek as she hugged him.
“Rusha?!” Nick’s voice made it out before him as he looped around the side of the house, and there was a cut off curse from that side. Then, after a long moment of quiet, she heard him rasp out Zack’s name. A shift of the man she was hugging, and Zack’s voice rumbled under her ear. When had his voice gotten so deep?
“Dad. It’s me.”
Then Nick was hugging Zack as well, along with Jerusha, his arms around both of them, and Jerusha just let herself cling for a long, long moment, Zack’s voice soft as he tried to soothe them. It wasn’t working, but she didn’t care. Let him say anything he wanted. It was her baby, and he had come home.
Finally, something he said penetrated, and she shifted a bit to look at him. “What?”
He grinned down at her, and she was vaguely sure that he might be taller than his father. “I said, I found what I joined Shin-Ra to find.”
Well, that just didn’t make any sense, and she frowned faintly at him. Why had he joined Shin-Ra to find anything?
Her look got a slightly sheepish smile back. “Sorry. Forgot I never mentioned just -why- I joined. I found him, Mom.”
“Hello, Rusha.”
The voice, older than she remembered, soft, and she glanced at the source. Then she blinked, trying to process.
Black leather and a tattered red cloak. Long dark hair. If not for the eyes, as red as the cloak and calm, she would never have recognized him. The blond sitting on the other bird, oh, -him- she knew. And would be having words with later on about ripping out a poor woman’s heart with lies. That would be later. After she decided if she wanted to laugh, cry, or scream her throat raw at this random appearance of relatives she thought dead. What next? Mara popping up and saying she’d never died?
Not that that was likely. She had felt her twin die.
One last hug of her son, and she settled upright. “Well, we might as well take this inside.”
“I’ll take the birds into the stables, if that’s all right.” That was the blond...Cloud, if she recalled his name correctly.
“That would be fine,” Nick said, not really taking his hand off Zack’s shoulder, and Rusha knew it was because he was afraid that if he did, Zack would either fall over, or he would vanish, a figment of imagination because they had been told their son was -dead-, and this thin, pale man looked as if he had come back from being that way. Sun would do him good. Later.
Jerusha eyed him a moment, then nodded. “Join us when you are done.” Had not intention of letting him hide when she wanted to talk to him.
Vincent looked a bit betrayed by the blond taking the birds and walking off with them, but he didn’t fight when Rusha snagged his arm and tugged him along as they got Zack inside as well. It didn’t take long to get the pair into the house, and she glared Vincent into sitting down, something which definitely seemed to make him uncomfortable. Good. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair from him in over thirty years. He -deserved- to feel uncomfortable.
Zack got a bit more consideration, and she went to grab everyone juice before returning to the room, settling beside her son. He was -alive-, and she was too happy at that to stay mad for long. Oh, he had -called-, but after what she had been told, the hope that it was real, not some twisted dream of false hope, was just that, hope. It never really got past the cold acceptance of her son being dead. When Cloud had come, carrying the tale of how her son had died saving his life, Rusha had known it was true. It had just been too long with no news from him.
Finally, Cloud joined them, and she gave him a -look-. “You told us he was dead.”
The boy flinched. Not much, and he hid it well, but she was a mother, and she knew a guilty flinch when she saw it. Opening her mouth to go on, Zack wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “It’s not his fault, Mom. I really was dead for a bit.”
A shiver ran through her, cold creeping along her spine. “You aren’t dead.”
“I was. But not so long that Hojo,” a bitter tone there,” couldn’t bring me back. Seems that Jenova cells don’t die easily.” His voice was tired, and she shifted, looking at her son. He looked...worn, exhausted.
He didn’t want her to blame Cloud. For him, she’d let go of that anger at being lied to, given it wasn’t an intentional lie, and just nodded faintly. Zack smiled at her, probably aware of what she was thinking. They had always been more alike than not, and he just got her better than he did his father at times, even if he did look like Nick.
“Though, you, I’m still mad at.” She looked at Vincent. “I thought you were dead as well. You joined those Turks, and then you were gone. Nobody knew what had happened, and when the war really started to heat up, I stopped getting answered at all. You were gone, Mother died not long after the war started for real. Mara died towards the end. And then I heard that Zack was gone....”
She blinked past the tears. Zack wasn’t dead. Nor was her brother. But she was allowed to be angry at him.
“I’m sorry, Rusha.” His voice was quiet, and she looked at her brother. “I.... It occurred to me, but I didn’t know here you had gone. Neither you nor Mara. Not even an idea of where to start.”
It was a feeble excuse, and it was clear he was aware of it.
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. She had her son, and her brother. Both of who she had never expected to see again. They were here now, though, and she could accept that and move on. Things were good again.
“Well, I assume you are staying here for a while. It’s obvious that Zack needs more time to recover from whatever had happened to him,” and she wasn’t going to let him go when he looked as thin as he did. “So we’ll have to do some rearranging of rooms, but we can fit you all.” She smiled faintly. “It’s been a while since we had this many people in this house. It’ll be nice.”
///
“You are just loving this too much.”
With a faint smile, Cloud continued to groom his bird, the hen leaning into his hands as he worked on straightening her feathers. Not that they really needed it. This was the third time he had been out here, checking on the birds, grooming them, making sure they were all good. Not that he thought that Nick was anything short of adoring of the birds, but it just....
“I thought I would find you out here.”
Starting slightly, wondering where the woman had learned to move so quietly, Cloud looked at Zack’s mom. She was small, maybe the height Aeris had been, with wide greenish eyes that reflected gold at times. And she was fast and sneaky. Obviously where Zack had gotten it when he chose to be sneaky. Which wasn’t often.
Right now, she was studying him, and he felt the urge to squirm away. Just being here made him feel guilty, because it was his fault that she thought Zack was dead. Never mind that he had through the same thing, and he thought it would be better for her to know than to never have an answer, but still. He had lied to her, and made her mourn for someone who wasn’t dead. At least he wasn’t the focus of her attention. And she seemed more irked at Vincent for not being there than she was irked at him for telling her her kid was dead.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Cloud flinched a tiny bit, and was distracted when Glaus decided he needed groomed back and got a beakfull of his hair. After convincing her that, no, he didn’t need said grooming, he looked back at the woman who was in the stable with him. “I....” He gave her a small, helpless look.
Moving, she reached up and brushed her fingers along gold feathers. “Zack worries about you, when you vanish like you have been. Vincent as well, though he doesn’t say anything, just frowns. My brother has never been the most demonstrative of people. None of us were, really. That, Zack got from his father.” She glanced at him. “Might I ask why you have been avoiding us except the times when you can’t do anything about it?”
Glancing down and to the side, Cloud wasn’t sure how to answer her, and then finally looked up at her. “I don’t want to be in the way. Zack’s your son, and Vincent is your brother.” And he wasn’t related to her in any way. Not that he had any family left. As far as Cloud was aware, the closest thing was Tifa, and that was only because -everyone- was related to everyone in Nibelheim, at least a little bit.
Jerusha pished at him, just giving him a -look-. “And my son thought enough of you to nearly die saving your life. Not to mention that Vincent told us about the fact that if you hadn’t woken him up, he’d still be asleep in some lab somewhere. As far as I’m concerned, you are family.”
That horrified Cloud slightly. He wasn’t good for people, honestly. Look at how easily he got people killed. Even if Zack had come back later, he had still died, almost died, whatever, for Cloud. Aeris did die. Not for Cloud, but it was his fault she was involved.
“You are thinking stupid thoughts, Spike,” was his warning before he got a thump upside the head. There was Zack, who was just giving Cloud a look. Then he smiled.
“Looks like you are stuck with us, Cloud. If Mom has decided she needs to adopt you, you might as well just get it through your fluffy skull that you are adopted.” He draped his arm over Cloud’s shoulder and gave a wry smile. “Looks like we’re siblings. That’ll make flirting with you so much stranger.”
Not that he would stop. As far as Cloud knew, Zack flirted with everyone at some point or another. It was just part of Zack.
Family.
He didn’t know if he trusted this, or if he wanted to, but if it made Zack happy, he’d be willing to try.
Author: GW Katrina aka
icedark_elfBeta:
skerenFandom: Final Fantasy VII
Claim: Zack Fair
Themeset/Prompt: Ten Set 04, 05-Country for
story_arcRating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,251
Link to Archive Post: Interconnected
It had been a long day, and she had spent a lot of time working on trying to get things resettled after the latest bout of traveling. While she and Nick didn’t leave the town often anymore, they still had to do some traveling back and forth to keep things going, business-wise. Everything had been unloaded and put away, but it still took a bit to get things organized in the house itself when they got back home.
Absently, she heard the sound of chocobos, but paid no real mind to it. Nick was out putting their birds in the stable, and she knew he’d spend a bit of time fussing over them. They were no spring hens, just like her and her husband. Actually, if it wasn’t for the fact that not traveling would drive both of them insane, she and her husband should probably be happily set. Between what they had earned over the years as traders and what Zack....
She took a deep breath. In any case, her attention was caught after a bit when the sounds of people gathering also caught her attention. Who would be outside of her house at this time of day? Most times, she saw everyone at the shop, not here.
Tucking the last of the clothing to be washed into the washer, she started it, and then headed outside.
Well, that explained why there were people outside of her house. The first thing she saw was gold feathers, and for a moment, her mind caught on that. Golds were...rare. She’d never seen three of them together. Actually, she only had seen one gold before, being ridden by a man during a race in the Gold Saucer. Nor was she the only one who had their attention caught by the idea of such rare birds in a group like that.
Then she registered who was on them.
“Zack...?”
A thin whisper, and she looked at the man, eyes wide. It -was- her son, sitting there thin and pale, hair just as wild as ever, if longer than she had ever seen him wear it. There was stiffness in his actions as he carefully slid off, and then he smiled at her.
“Hi, Mom. I’m home.”
With something that might have resembled a shriek, Jerusha launched herself forward and clung to her son, eyes burning. Too, too thin, she could feel his ribs as she wrapped herself around him, and she didn’t care at the moment. All that mattered was that he hugged her back, his heartbeat solid and there under her cheek as she hugged him.
“Rusha?!” Nick’s voice made it out before him as he looped around the side of the house, and there was a cut off curse from that side. Then, after a long moment of quiet, she heard him rasp out Zack’s name. A shift of the man she was hugging, and Zack’s voice rumbled under her ear. When had his voice gotten so deep?
“Dad. It’s me.”
Then Nick was hugging Zack as well, along with Jerusha, his arms around both of them, and Jerusha just let herself cling for a long, long moment, Zack’s voice soft as he tried to soothe them. It wasn’t working, but she didn’t care. Let him say anything he wanted. It was her baby, and he had come home.
Finally, something he said penetrated, and she shifted a bit to look at him. “What?”
He grinned down at her, and she was vaguely sure that he might be taller than his father. “I said, I found what I joined Shin-Ra to find.”
Well, that just didn’t make any sense, and she frowned faintly at him. Why had he joined Shin-Ra to find anything?
Her look got a slightly sheepish smile back. “Sorry. Forgot I never mentioned just -why- I joined. I found him, Mom.”
“Hello, Rusha.”
The voice, older than she remembered, soft, and she glanced at the source. Then she blinked, trying to process.
Black leather and a tattered red cloak. Long dark hair. If not for the eyes, as red as the cloak and calm, she would never have recognized him. The blond sitting on the other bird, oh, -him- she knew. And would be having words with later on about ripping out a poor woman’s heart with lies. That would be later. After she decided if she wanted to laugh, cry, or scream her throat raw at this random appearance of relatives she thought dead. What next? Mara popping up and saying she’d never died?
Not that that was likely. She had felt her twin die.
One last hug of her son, and she settled upright. “Well, we might as well take this inside.”
“I’ll take the birds into the stables, if that’s all right.” That was the blond...Cloud, if she recalled his name correctly.
“That would be fine,” Nick said, not really taking his hand off Zack’s shoulder, and Rusha knew it was because he was afraid that if he did, Zack would either fall over, or he would vanish, a figment of imagination because they had been told their son was -dead-, and this thin, pale man looked as if he had come back from being that way. Sun would do him good. Later.
Jerusha eyed him a moment, then nodded. “Join us when you are done.” Had not intention of letting him hide when she wanted to talk to him.
Vincent looked a bit betrayed by the blond taking the birds and walking off with them, but he didn’t fight when Rusha snagged his arm and tugged him along as they got Zack inside as well. It didn’t take long to get the pair into the house, and she glared Vincent into sitting down, something which definitely seemed to make him uncomfortable. Good. She hadn’t seen hide nor hair from him in over thirty years. He -deserved- to feel uncomfortable.
Zack got a bit more consideration, and she went to grab everyone juice before returning to the room, settling beside her son. He was -alive-, and she was too happy at that to stay mad for long. Oh, he had -called-, but after what she had been told, the hope that it was real, not some twisted dream of false hope, was just that, hope. It never really got past the cold acceptance of her son being dead. When Cloud had come, carrying the tale of how her son had died saving his life, Rusha had known it was true. It had just been too long with no news from him.
Finally, Cloud joined them, and she gave him a -look-. “You told us he was dead.”
The boy flinched. Not much, and he hid it well, but she was a mother, and she knew a guilty flinch when she saw it. Opening her mouth to go on, Zack wrapped an arm around her shoulders and hugged her. “It’s not his fault, Mom. I really was dead for a bit.”
A shiver ran through her, cold creeping along her spine. “You aren’t dead.”
“I was. But not so long that Hojo,” a bitter tone there,” couldn’t bring me back. Seems that Jenova cells don’t die easily.” His voice was tired, and she shifted, looking at her son. He looked...worn, exhausted.
He didn’t want her to blame Cloud. For him, she’d let go of that anger at being lied to, given it wasn’t an intentional lie, and just nodded faintly. Zack smiled at her, probably aware of what she was thinking. They had always been more alike than not, and he just got her better than he did his father at times, even if he did look like Nick.
“Though, you, I’m still mad at.” She looked at Vincent. “I thought you were dead as well. You joined those Turks, and then you were gone. Nobody knew what had happened, and when the war really started to heat up, I stopped getting answered at all. You were gone, Mother died not long after the war started for real. Mara died towards the end. And then I heard that Zack was gone....”
She blinked past the tears. Zack wasn’t dead. Nor was her brother. But she was allowed to be angry at him.
“I’m sorry, Rusha.” His voice was quiet, and she looked at her brother. “I.... It occurred to me, but I didn’t know here you had gone. Neither you nor Mara. Not even an idea of where to start.”
It was a feeble excuse, and it was clear he was aware of it.
Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. She had her son, and her brother. Both of who she had never expected to see again. They were here now, though, and she could accept that and move on. Things were good again.
“Well, I assume you are staying here for a while. It’s obvious that Zack needs more time to recover from whatever had happened to him,” and she wasn’t going to let him go when he looked as thin as he did. “So we’ll have to do some rearranging of rooms, but we can fit you all.” She smiled faintly. “It’s been a while since we had this many people in this house. It’ll be nice.”
“You are just loving this too much.”
With a faint smile, Cloud continued to groom his bird, the hen leaning into his hands as he worked on straightening her feathers. Not that they really needed it. This was the third time he had been out here, checking on the birds, grooming them, making sure they were all good. Not that he thought that Nick was anything short of adoring of the birds, but it just....
“I thought I would find you out here.”
Starting slightly, wondering where the woman had learned to move so quietly, Cloud looked at Zack’s mom. She was small, maybe the height Aeris had been, with wide greenish eyes that reflected gold at times. And she was fast and sneaky. Obviously where Zack had gotten it when he chose to be sneaky. Which wasn’t often.
Right now, she was studying him, and he felt the urge to squirm away. Just being here made him feel guilty, because it was his fault that she thought Zack was dead. Never mind that he had through the same thing, and he thought it would be better for her to know than to never have an answer, but still. He had lied to her, and made her mourn for someone who wasn’t dead. At least he wasn’t the focus of her attention. And she seemed more irked at Vincent for not being there than she was irked at him for telling her her kid was dead.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Cloud flinched a tiny bit, and was distracted when Glaus decided he needed groomed back and got a beakfull of his hair. After convincing her that, no, he didn’t need said grooming, he looked back at the woman who was in the stable with him. “I....” He gave her a small, helpless look.
Moving, she reached up and brushed her fingers along gold feathers. “Zack worries about you, when you vanish like you have been. Vincent as well, though he doesn’t say anything, just frowns. My brother has never been the most demonstrative of people. None of us were, really. That, Zack got from his father.” She glanced at him. “Might I ask why you have been avoiding us except the times when you can’t do anything about it?”
Glancing down and to the side, Cloud wasn’t sure how to answer her, and then finally looked up at her. “I don’t want to be in the way. Zack’s your son, and Vincent is your brother.” And he wasn’t related to her in any way. Not that he had any family left. As far as Cloud was aware, the closest thing was Tifa, and that was only because -everyone- was related to everyone in Nibelheim, at least a little bit.
Jerusha pished at him, just giving him a -look-. “And my son thought enough of you to nearly die saving your life. Not to mention that Vincent told us about the fact that if you hadn’t woken him up, he’d still be asleep in some lab somewhere. As far as I’m concerned, you are family.”
That horrified Cloud slightly. He wasn’t good for people, honestly. Look at how easily he got people killed. Even if Zack had come back later, he had still died, almost died, whatever, for Cloud. Aeris did die. Not for Cloud, but it was his fault she was involved.
“You are thinking stupid thoughts, Spike,” was his warning before he got a thump upside the head. There was Zack, who was just giving Cloud a look. Then he smiled.
“Looks like you are stuck with us, Cloud. If Mom has decided she needs to adopt you, you might as well just get it through your fluffy skull that you are adopted.” He draped his arm over Cloud’s shoulder and gave a wry smile. “Looks like we’re siblings. That’ll make flirting with you so much stranger.”
Not that he would stop. As far as Cloud knew, Zack flirted with everyone at some point or another. It was just part of Zack.
Family.
He didn’t know if he trusted this, or if he wanted to, but if it made Zack happy, he’d be willing to try.