What You Wish For

Disclaimer: Well it's not mine, lah dee dah.

A/N: The idea of a darker Zack has really stuck for some reason. I like him better too. He's more...real in a way. Hey Silver Pard, your 'oneshot' Eidolon was what finally gave me the motivation to write this, thanks! Enjoy.

I did it because I cared.

Zack will say he loves the boy. Will, has, pulled out all the stops for him.

Most believe him. Cloud believes him – and that's what matters. After all, Zack did haul his comatose body out of the labs, drag it almost to Midgar, and die protecting it. Lets Cloud take whatever he needs from himself – even in death.

What more could I've done?

Now if Zack were an idea, a personification of goodness it might be so. If Zack were above human.

But he isn't. He has his own needs, insecurities, wants, and fears. His own desire to live. First-Class SOLDIER before he's out of his teens, Zack is not innocent.

First-Class SOLDIER meant hero to the guys back home. I've killed, lied stolen, and turned a blind eye to so much to get it. It's how ShinRa works.

Don't look at me like that. You'd've done the same.

Some might say Zack's 'adoption' of a green recruit, a grunt, was a deed done solely out of the goodness of Zack's heart.

Most would not agree. Many looked with quiet pity at the slim, unassuming blond boy. Zack didn't adopt him simply because the boy needed adoption but because Zack also needed someone to adopt. Someone lesser than himself. Weaker.

Or is it someone lesser to make himself feel big and strong, secure and needed?

It felt so good to know I meant so much to someone, you know?

Most wouldn't know it since Zack himself is cocky, arrogant, and secure in his abilities. First-Class. What does he need to be insecure about?

Sephiroth. The man's unreal. I'll never be that good no matter how hard I train…

What does one need even a First-Class SOLDIER when Sephiroth is leagues above even that vaunted level? How can one be secure in one's own abilities when even at the top of his game Zack is only a fraction of what Sephiroth is?

Maybe if the Great Man himself wasn't right there every day reminding him of how little he was it might not have been necessary. If life had let him forget. But he can't. The level he can't reach is always right there in front of him, wearing down his bravado.

He's the guy whose shadow everyone's in, no matter how good they are. I'll always be second-best compared to him…

So he finds someone weaker. To remind himself that while he is a mere mortal compared to Sephiroth, he is still a God compared to men. A hero. Strong.

It's not like I didn't want the kid to succeed, but I needed to be able to know I was still good, still one of the best. Someone to look up to.

What he's doing is trying to be that unreachable ideal for someone else.

Cloud is the perfect pick. Too young to be strong and fit enough for SOLDIER but ShinRa will never turn the willing away, it will be years before he enters SOLDIER. Years Zack can use to his own betterment. He'll help the boy along, secure in the knowledge he will always be more than the younger one.

He's a nice kid. Quiet, but there's this way to him. I can make him something.

In his own way Zack does love the kid, like a little brother or a pet project. Not like a person. Not yet, maybe.

When little nobody Cloud Strife makes the first fatal blow against Sephiroth the Great, Zack Fair's world has shattered.

How…?

The carefully crafted hierarchy has been upset, suddenly Zack is just another fallen SOLDIER and Sephiroth the Great, the Demon of Wutai can break and bleed like any other man.

I've fought a war with him and never seen him that injured…how?

To Zack Fair it's Cloud's fault. Rationally he knows it's not the boy's fault his own view of life is flawed, rationally he knows Sephiroth was always really just a man, but humans are not rational and in the end neither is Zack.

Cloud is the final factor that upset the balance.

Sephiroth is so far above Zack if the man goes crazy it's simply the end of the world and maybe Zack wanted it to be that way – go out in a blaze of glory, erasing all the corruption.

SOLDIER thought he was practically a God, I did too. If he goes nuts, isn't that what great men do in this crazy world?

His own defeat does not surprise him – Sephiroth is his unreachable ideal. How can he defeat that?

Always second best…

But then a nobody grunt who is younger than Zack when he made First-Class has done the impossible and Zack's world spinning. How can someone below him do what he cannot? How can the lowest do what hundreds before him have tried and failed at?

How could Cloud of all people…?

Zack is angry, jealous, confused, and afraid. He had told the boy to kill Sephiroth to make the cycle complete – the apprentice must fall with the master. If he must hurt then every one else will know his pain too.

Come die with me kid, I don't want to go alone…

Jealous since it was not his hand and he wants it to be so very badly. This boy is nothing special. Nothing at all. Zack is a prodigy. The injustice is galling.

Why not me? I was the hero…

Like many humans before him Zack gets angry at life, at Sephiroth for being something he wasn't supposed to – fallible, for luck at favoring another.

Anger will find the nearest outlet and Zack's outlet is Cloud.

I hate you Cloud…you took what I wanted and you didn't even want it…

Later he'll claim it's devotion that makes him rescue the boy, die for him, cling to him in death.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I didn't meant it, oh god kid, please…you've got to live…

Few realize it's not.

'Liar' Her green eyes flash, his lies about caring driving her away when his humanity had not.

Aeris does. Even in the afterlife she keeps her distance, supports a man Zack wishes he was.

Sephiroth does, and perhaps that's the thing Zack is most jealous of. He'd rather have any of Sephiroth's attention than to be worth none at all. He is still Zack's unreachable ideal, even flawed. It galls Zack still to see the man obsessed with a nobody. With Cloud.

The disgusted look in Sephiroth's strange eyes when Zack tells him this is enough to make Zack wish he had died a second time…

It's guilt and selfishness that bind him to Cloud Strife.

Guilt over the betrayal of his own heroic pretensions. Over his own human feelings. Twenty three's a young age to die no matter who you ask. Zack doesn't want to die at twenty-three.

I've got so much to live for! I had a life ahead of me! He had nothing, not even a home to go back to!

But he can't leave a boy he's hated - so badly and without cause he knows this – a boy he's wronged.

Should've sent the kid away, told him to run, to help me out of there but never to go kill Sephiroth, never that. God, Cloud I didn't meant it!

He'd sent the boy knowingly to his death and Zack can't live with the knowledge and leave the kid. Can't do it and sleep at night. The screams would stay with him forever then.

They're with me now but at least I don't have to know there will be more…

But he doesn't want to die young, with so much life ahead of him and so much to live for. There's room in Cloud's head for one more, isn't there? He's not really there, not using it…not worth the bullet to kill him…

I wanted to live, is that so wrong? You'd want the same.

It means he'll never find rest, part of him is part of Cloud Strife's soul. He's as bound as Sephiroth, both tied willingly but without realizing the consequences of their actions. Only later will they realize they have signed away their freedom.

I can't leave you now. Who the hell are you to hold me here? Why can't I let go either?

What Cloud really is to Sephiroth Zack doesn't know. He isn't sure he wants to. He knows what Cloud is to him though and that's complicated enough – friend and unknown rival, student and teacher. A contradiction. Just like his feelings. It's fitting.

But as much as I hate him, I still love him. That's my boy who did that and I'm proud of him.

To Cloud Zack is a hero, a mentor, an unreachable ideal. Nothing sickens Zack more than the irony of it all. If only the boy knew…

If he'd realized the cost of being a hero….

Be careful what you wish for…you might get it…If I had a stomach I'd vomit now...

Review. Please.