fandomtownies | Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

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Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

So, apparently, even if you were taking care of administrative stuff from another reality and you had a proxy looking after the hands-on stuff while you were away, there was still a lot of work to be done when coming back from an extended, uh, three and a half month... vacation?

Granted, it mostly meant Zack was going around and personally introducing himself to all of the new animals, because he had no intentions of leaving a single puppy without the traditional Zack Fair greeting to Furnado.

You know. So, so many cuddles. The kittens, too. And the bunnies. Any birds that enjoyed being handled. Even a snake that really just wanted to chill out around a warm set of shoulders.

Entirely for the good of the animals, of course. Not at all because Zack was in the market for ten million cuddles today while Girl sprawled out across his feet, what an absurd notion.

... Okay, not too absurd.

It was nice to be home.

[OOC: Open!]

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And somewhere in the middle of that, have a spider in the mix.

"Zack!" Miguel barreled in. "I heard you were back. You ran off, you ass - is everything okay? Where's Iris?"

Aaand that would be Zack with the claws of a tiny kitten now lodged right in his shoulder.

He blinked up at Miguel.

"I- yeah, things are fine."

... He'd say this if his face was actively on fire.

"I was offered a way to get there, I had to take it."

Miguel blew out a breath as he looked Zack over. "I guess I get that. But you're back now - no major catastrophes? And Iris?"

"Safe," Zack replied. "She's back in Midgar, I think. Settling some business before she comes back to the island."

... He was pretty sure.

Thursday had been... weird.

"Okay." Miguel nodded. "And everything ended up okay, no need to call in the troops?"

Zack was quiet for a few long moments, and then, slowly, uncertainly, he nodded.

"Nothing left to call the troops in for," he murmured.

"...You know that's not exactly reassuring, right?" Miguel asked.

Zack sighed.

"I mean, everything is fixed," he amended. "... Everything."

"Okay, good." Miguel eyed Zack. "Right?"

Zack was quiet for a long, long while.

"... Right."

He chewed his bottom lip.

"I mean. Right. It is good. What they did might have stopped a snowball effect that would have ended in entire cities being laid to waste. It's really good."

"So why don't you sound too happy about it?" Miguel asked.

Zack was quiet for a few long moments. And then he pulled out his phone and flipped it open. Pulled up an e-mail. An ivitation to the birthday party of one of his fellow SOLDIERs.

Handed it to Miguel.

"A few years ago, when I was on the run, this guy urged me to turn myself over to him, so that he could turn me in to ShinRa and collect the bounty and the glory for himself."

A moment to let that settle.

"Keep flipping through, there's my work schedule. Company newsletters. Recruits in infantry asking for training. Members of the Turks inviting me along for drinks."

Miguel flipped through one or two obediently, then shook his head. "They didn't fix your world, they changed it. Changed your history."

Zack just nodded quietly, holding out his hand to take back his phone.

"Everything's... fine. It's fine. But I can't... I can't go back there. I can't live whatever life that is, knowing what those people could have been. How little it would have taken any one of them to do monstrous things. A little nudge here or there, and those infantrymen would have been coming after me in numbers. Those Turks..."

He fell silent, and then just shook his head.

"Everything's fine. It's me who isn't."

Miguel nodded and handed the phone back. "So they fixed it for everyone but you." He offered a smile with no real humor in it.

Zack took the phone back and just quietly stared at it.

"I don't know why it didn't change for me too," he murmured. "Maybe because so much of my life has been here, I'm... not really... that world's anymore. I care about what happens there. Of course I do. But it's... it's not home."

Deep breath.

And breathe out.

"And I think I'm glad I didn't change. Is that bad? I mean, a half a decade of happy memories shouldn't seem so bad. Should it?"

"Maybe not," Miguel said, "but those memories aren't you. You wouldn't be who you were without them. There's nothing wrong with liking the person you are."

Zack was quiet for a few moments, just nodding a little.

"I've... I've fought hard to be where I'm at right now," he replied. "If it just goes away, that's... I'd feel robbed. If I even knew, I guess."

"All that work, wiped out. Everything you learned, not true anymore." Miguel shrugged. "It stands to reason you wouldn't want that."

"And then just... going back," Zack murmured. "To go be happy alongside people who tried to have me killed or worse."

"Yeah." Miguel nodded. "So you plan on staying here now? I mean," he smiled wryly, "not that this place doesn't try to kill us regularly."

"I mean, it's less personal when Fandom does it," Zack pointed out. And then he sighed. "I was staying here before. I've got the shelter, and Girl, and a place to stay, and I don't have to do the dirty work of a company that was perfectly happy to use me and a friend as lab rats for years."

"And some parts of here are pretty glad to have you," Miguel said, offering a smile.

"Oh, yeah?" Zack smiled crookedly. "Any parts I should know about?"

"I don't know," Miguel said. "Maybe the bar; want to check it out?"

Zack considered for a few moments.

"Sure," he replied. "You pick the day and the bar, and I'll be happy to join you."

"You have a schedule going on yet?" Miguel asked.

"... I come here and do stuff with puppies on Tuesdays."

A long pause.

"That's the list."

"...Okay, you get out even less than I do. What about Monday night? We can hit up a bar here or on the mainland."

"I could probably do something on Monday night," Zack replied, nodding a little. "I'll, uh, I'll put on civilian clothes and leave the sword at home that night, if we're hitting up the mainland."

They tended to not take swords well there, for some reason? Weirdoes.

"Yeah, probably a good idea," Miguel agreed. People did get kind of weird about that. "You want food, too, or music, or just a place to drink? I'll go searching."

Zack hesitated for a moment, before saying, "Probably should have either food or music too, otherwise I'm going to just sit there slamming back beer until I actually feel it."

Which would take a bit of doing, but Zack was nothing if not driven when he set his mind to basically anything.

Maybe they could find a good drinking contest, get other people to pay for their drinks.

"Okay, food and/or music it is."

"Great," Zack replied, smiling. Even if that particular smile fell short of his usual. "I'm looking forward to it."

He was so tired.

"Me too." Miguel nudged Zack. "We'll have fun."

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Furnado Animal Shelter, Tuesday

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