This is set between Chapter 19 and the Epilogue. It's basically the 'day' that Cid mentioned they needed to take to get everyone recovered.

This is not the sequel.

The Highwind was mostly quiet, even with Cid going around and getting work shifts organized. One of the Highwind's conference rooms had been converted into a lounge, which is where most everyone had decided to camp out and just relax until they fell asleep or felt like moving to another room.

The exception being Zack, who must have either taken a hyper near the end of the battle, or had someone accidentally give him one instead of a healing potion. The jury was still out on that.

"Puppy, if you're going to-" Genesis paused, frowning at Zack who had stopped trying to do squats and was waiting for Genesis to finish. "What's on your face?"

"Huh? Where?"

"That 'X' on your cheek." He probably should have been paying more attention to the Puppy when they picked him up, but Genesis had been distracted by the fact that Angeal had two wings.

"We don't know, Genesis, It's something Hojo did."

"It means that whatever Hojo did to Zack was successful." Cloud looked up- his mother had finally stopped fussing over everyone, and was letting him use her lap as a pillow, Yuffie had finally crashed on top of him (after failing to get comfortable on the floor with Nanaki) and was pretty much dead to the world.

"How do you know that?"

"Vincent." Cloud closed his eyes, trying to shut out one of his nightmare moments. He'd thought he'd gotten over that.

"It's not a letter, it's a number." Vincent explained from where he was leaning against the wall, next to the couch where Lucrecia and Sephiroth were in almost an exact mirror of the Strife's. "Hojo only numbers the ones he thinks are successful."

"So . . . it's a bad thing?" Zack tilted his head, and Angeal looked up in concern.

"Sometimes. It's hard to tell. I was considered as a failure, and Sephiroth was a success." Vincent shrugged. "Hojo also considered Angeal and Genesis to be failures, but that could just be jealousy."

"And the bastard said he mislabeled me as a failure . . ." Lucrecia added, idly combing and braiding Sephiroth's hair. "And it's impossible to say what he thought of Cloud."

If he was a cat, he'd probably be purring right about now. Genesis desperately wanted a camera. But there was a more important conversation happening. "Don't we have his notes to go through?"

"Aye, laddie, but it takes a while to sort them out." Cait Sith pulled the Mini Cait with him over to where Nanaki was curled up. "Both lads are stable, though Cloudy's going to be in and out of it for a bit."

Cloud muttered something at that, but he was mostly asleep at that point so no one was able to make it out.

"Huh . . ." Zack absently rubbed at the mark on his face.

"It actually looks a bit like a scar from a distance." Aerith smiled, waving Zack over to where she was sitting. "I think it makes him look a bit more . . . rugged."

"Spare me." Genesis rolled his eyes, then got hit by a pillow.

Yeah, this might actually turn out to be a couple chapters of short drabbles, actually.

In Crisis Core, Zack gets a scar in the shape of an X on his cheek from the battle with Angeal. However, I've seen fan art and read (at least) one story where the X is actually described as a tattoo.

Then I realized that 'X' is the roman numeral for ten, which comes before XIII (thirteen).

Cue plot bunny.

(Also, remember when Aerith rescues Zack, Zack remembers that the last time he saw Hojo, the guy was happy about something?) More on this in future oneshots.