Somehow, he muddled through, manhandling the kid out of the Cadet-sized shirt he'd stuffed him into back in Midgar, washing his legs, drying them, and manhandling him back into one of Zack's own turtleneck tops, which fell way past the poor kid's knees. He even managed to convince him to drink from the bottle and not choke, which was an unexpected success considering how responsive the kid was.

And then, oh, hell, it was warm so far south, and there was no one around to say anything about him driving in his underpants anyway. The soiled clothes went in a plastic bag. The kid went in the passenger seat. Zack buckled him in, chattering about he didn't even know what, and started the buggy again. He remembered a little creek, a slow, sun-warmed one, a few miles thataway. He was gonna need it. Guarantee he'd have to wash the rest of the brood too.

What he really needed was to stop thinking of him as Kegarr's kid. (or Sephiroth's kid, somewhere deep inside.) Because he wasn't. And he wasn't Doctor Kanzaki's Experiment number SX-what-the-fuck-ever, either. He was Zack's now.

"River's too girly. Also hello, the naming story -- yeah, so you peed on me and I had to wash you so I named you after the first body of water we came across."

The kid was staring at him again. Zack grinned.

"Rain's even more girly, and also cliché. Rune? Rune Fair. Hm. Naw. You don't strike me as a mystical sort of guy. Mikael? Danny? Gabriel?"

"Nrrr. Nh. Ah."

Zack blinked, slowing down the car so he could take a longer look than just a quick side glance. The expressionless little face had gone tense, expectant. Zack knew it was more likely to be due to the unexpected difficulty of making sounds, or perhaps a bowel movement, but... heh.

He rested his hand on silver curls, comforting, and said, "Alright. Gabe it is."