A/N: Been replaying FFVII, and Cid/Yuffie has kind of latched onto my brain and won't let go. I haven't been this excited about a fic in a good long while, so I hope you all like it too! Obviously, this is just the first chapter of many, so no worries! :)

Also, yes, this fic goes on like Dirge of Cerberus never happened. Sorry if that's a problem for some people. :\

As always, I own nothing, it all belongs to Square.

Chapter One
Crash Landing

It was nearly sunset, but Yuffie Kisaragi was in no hurry to climb back down the mountain and resume her "normal life". It had been five years since they'd all beaten Sephiroth, and three years since she'd seen or talked to any of her old comrades. Oh, Tifa called occasionally, sure, but it was usually just to check up on her.

At least, that's how it always felt to Yuffie. And it was hard to talk to Tifa -- or to anyone, really. They wouldn't understand what her life had become now, anyway. Wutai had been restored to its former glory -- the goal Yuffie had worked so hard for. But Yuffie was quickly learning that sometimes the fantasy far outweighed the reality.

The place was full of tradition now, which wouldn't be a bad thing, normally. Yuffie loved her culture and the Wutanese people. But she was their princess, and even though that fact never really had changed, now it carried more weight, and she was expected to be … well. Everything she wasn't. She wasn't good at being prim and proper and subservient to the men of the village. It grated, if she was being honest, to never be allowed to look a man in the face.

Godo kept saying things like, "Yuffie, I won't be around forever, and this will be yours someday", but Yuffie didn't know if she wanted it any more. It wasn't that she was afraid of the responsibility -- not really, anyway.

It was just so … permanent. So constricting, so binding. Kinda suffocating. And for the World's Greatest Ninja, that was almost a fate worse than death.

She sighed as she looked out over the rooftops of the village and all the way out to the ocean. Beyond that was the Western Continent -- Nibelheim and Rocket Town, Costa del Sol and Gongaga, and beyond that was another ocean and the Eastern Continent -- all places she didn't know if she'd get a chance to see again. Godo wasn't getting any younger.

She had resigned herself to climbing back down Da Chao and heading home for the night, when the unmistakable sound of an airship's engine reached her ears. Brow furrowing, she scanned the horizon for a sign of it, and felt her heart speed up when she saw the faint outline of the Shera heading toward the small strip of land southwest of the village. Moving faster than she thought possible on the steep and rocky terrain, she hurried back into the village and quickly saddled up her black chocobo. Her heart was pounding -- someone had come to Wutai! That -- couldn't be a good sign. Not at all.

It was quite dark by the time she reached the spot the airship had landed, but the outline of it was clear enough, and it was -- well, honestly, it looked like someone had crashed the thing. Half of it was on the beach, while the back half was practically in the ocean. There was a small fire on one of the wings and electrical sparks shooting out of … something. Yuffie had no idea about any of this technical nonsense. Who was piloting this thing? Cid would never let anyone handle his baby so carelessly.

Worry consumed her at that thought, and she spurred her chocobo on faster. She dismounted and fed the bird some greens from her bag -- hopefully it would be enough to keep him occupied while she investigated. She walked around the front of the airship and tried to look in the enormous window at the deck, but she couldn't see anyone in there. It was too dark. "Damn it, what the hell happened here?" she muttered. She hurried over to the side and tried to pull open the hatch, even though she knew it was futile effort -- that thing only opened from the inside, unless you had a key, which she most certainly did not.

She backed up and started scanning the ground around her, considering finding a rock to break a window or something -- for all she knew one -- or all -- of her old friends was stuck inside this heap, either busted up badly or dead. Luckily the hatch opened before she really had to implement any kind of drastic measures.

She walked forward to greet whoever it was and also lecture the shit out of them for giving her a heart attack, but bit her tongue when she saw Cid Highwind emerge, bleary-eyed and wobbly, looking like absolute death.

"Holy crap, Cid, is that you?" she cried out in shock, and he looked at her (well, he looked in her direction), blinking his eyes rapidly as if he was trying to focus. There was a deep gash above his forehead, and it looked like his face and arms were slightly bruised. His goggles were askew on his head.

"Shit, who turned out the goddamn lights?" he slurred out, stumbling forward a little bit, and it was then that the wave of reek poured off of him and reached Yuffie's nose. "Shera, fuck, woman, turn on a goddamn lamp!"

She gagged a little bit, realizing that the way he smelled was the very least of the issues here. He was completely drunk, and beyond disoriented, and he looked hurt. And he'd been flying the Shera around? What the hell had happened? "Cid?" she said carefully, hoping not to invoke some sort of drunken wrath -- he was bad enough sober, she couldn't imagine what he'd do while blitzed outta his mind.

"Fuck yeah, it's Cid!" he said, almost proudly, and Yuffie just shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. "Who else'd it be? I swear, Shera sometimes you are dumber than rocks."

"Cid. Shera's not here," Yuffie said gently.

That gave the older man pause, and he wobbled a little bit as he tried to get a good look at her. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder for balance. "Where the hell'd she go?"

"Uh, you tell me," Yuffie said.

He blinked rapidly then, and shook his head as if trying to clear it. "Where the hell am I?" he asked, and he sounded slightly more coherent. He squinted at her. "Is that the brat?"

Yuffie wrinkled her nose at the old nickname coming into play. "You got it, old man," she told him good-naturedly, putting her hands on her hips and looking at him sternly. "Now you wanna tell me why you crashed your airship in my ocean?"

"I didn't crash shit," he spat out before he lurched forward. Yuffie managed to catch him, heavy though he was, before he hit the ground.

She was thankful for all her training then, because he was heavy. Solid as a rock, too, she noticed, but that was neither here nor there. Right now, she had to figure out what the hell she was going to do with him. She couldn't very well just leave him out here. He didn't even know where he was.

With a sigh, she half-carried, half-dragged him over to her chocobo and, with no little amount of effort, managed to get him slung across the bird's back. She walked ahead of the chocobo, leading it back to the village by the reins.

It took close to an hour, but they made it into town with no incidents. Cid woke up as Yuffie was trying to get him off the chocobo's back, and Yuffie was grateful that she wasn't going to have to drag him inside her house. Her gratefulness was short-lived, however, because he immediately started ranting.

"How the fuck did I get to Wutai?" he shouted as he looked around at his surroundings.

"Shhh!" Yuffie shushed him, putting her hand over his mouth. She ignored his glare. "If my father hears you, you're going to be a dead man." She motioned her head in the direction of her modest-sized house. "In here," she told him. "Don't mind the cats," she said as they entered. Her many house pets greeted them by scattering and running off to every corner of the house. She laughed a little.

She started to wave her hands in the direction of the couch, but thought better of it. She led him up the stairs to her bedroom. "You can crash in my bed tonight," she told him with a sigh. "I'll take the couch. You look like you could use a good night's sleep."

He flopped down on the bed without a word, his boots leaving mud all over her nice white sheets. "Ew, holy gawd, Cid, that's gross, even if you are drunk!" she cried. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she quickly unlaced the offending boots and put them on the floor. Then she tried in vain to wipe some of the mud off the sheets before giving up and heading back downstairs.

She went into the bathroom and gathered up some gauze and rubbing alcohol, and then went back to attend to the cut on his forehead. He was passed out, so cleaning it was easy, and she was relieved to see that the wound wasn't severe -- it didn't even need stitches. She finished cleaning it and applying gauze to it, and then she grabbed one of her materia bracelets from her nightstand. She cast a heavy-duty cure spell on him, and hoped for the best. He wasn't going to feel good in the morning, but he'd be better than he should be, all things considered.

She sat down on the couch with a heavy sigh, and considered her options. She supposed that she could call Tifa or Vincent, and see if they knew why Cid was acting so strange. But then … he might not want to see them. Maybe one of them was the reason for his behavior. She lay back against the cushions on her couch, and the exertion of her evening started to take its toll on her, and before long, her eyes had closed, before she had made a decision about what to do about Cid.

She woke up the next morning to the sound of shouting. "What in the blue fuck? Where did all these goddamn cats come from?" She jumped off the couch immediately, years of training putting her into an immediate defensive stance. A few seconds later, thundering footsteps were coming down the stairs. She straightened herself when she realized it was just Cid -- and he was confused as all hell.

"Morning!" she said cheerfully when he reached the bottom of the stairs.

He looked at her, and she knew that he was really seeing her this time, not like last night. "Shit," he muttered, reaching up to his goggles to where he kept his pack of cigarettes.

"I'm so happy to see you again, too," Yuffie went on, pointedly ignoring his reaction. "And also, you cannot smoke that in here." He had just put the cigarette in his mouth and was reaching for his lighter.

"The hell?" he snapped, but he put the cigarette away. He rubbed his hands over his face rapidly. "Where the fuck is here, kid?"

Yuffie just smiled. "You're in my house!" she said brightly.

"What the fuck?" he muttered, more to himself than to her. "How'd I get here, anyhow?"

"Well, that's where it gets interesting," she said, and she headed back toward her kitchen. "You want some coffee?"

"Please," he said, following her like a puppy, and she laughed a little. "Interesting how?" he asked as he watched her move around her little kitchen, getting the items she needed to make the coffee.

"Last night, I was up on Da Chao --"

"You were up on who now?" he asked, and she stuck her tongue out at him.

"Ew. The mountain, you old coot," she retorted. "Do you want to hear this or not? Because I'm perfectly content to make you sit and wonder. I mean, you are in my town now."

"Shit," he cursed again. "All right, continue."

"Anyway. Like I was saying. I was up on Da -- the mountain -- and I heard an airship coming. That's not normal for around here, so I started looking for it, and that's when I saw the Shera heading this way. So I got on my bird and headed out to the landing area, but by the time I got there, you had already landed. And I'll use that term loosely." She looked at him pointedly as she pushed the button to start the coffeepot.

"I wrecked her? Sonofabitch!" he cursed.

"It's not so bad," Yuffie said. "I mean, it was dark, but I don't think that you did too much damage to her. I was more concerned that whoever was in the ship was dead. I mean, I knew you'd never let anyone be so reckless with her. Kinda surprised me when I saw you stumble outta there."

"I was in pretty bad shape then?" he asked, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Bad as I've ever seen you," she told him honestly. "So you want to tell me what happened?"

"Nope."

"Then do you want me to call Tifa or Vincent or Reeve or someone? I'm sure they could get on a boat or something."

"Fuck no, I don't want you calling those assholes."

Yuffie backed up just a step. "Ooookay, then," she said slowly. "Well, Cid, what can I do for you? I mean, never mind the fact that I carried you back here last night -- and you are heavy, let me tell you what. And no, really, thanks aren't necessary, I actually live for dragging drunk old farts back to my house late at night. Especially when they start screaming out obscenities and waking up the whole village."

He ignored her outburst. "I need a cup of that fucking coffee," he pointed at the machine, "and I need to see my goddamn airship," he said bluntly.

"Whatever you say, Captain," Yuffie said sarcastically, snapping off a mock-salute. She got a mug down out of her cabinet and slammed it on the table in front of him. "Knock yourself out." She turned to head out of the kitchen to go and get herself ready for the day, which was sure to be just lovely.

"Wait just a damn minute!" Cid barked. "You ain't gonna pour me a cup?"

Yuffie whirled on him, hands on her hips. She remembered the time they'd visited Cid's home in Rocket Town, how dutifully his girlfriend/wife/whatever she was had done whatever he'd asked her to do. That so wasn't going to fly with Yuffie, though. "Do I look like your maid? No, I don't think so. You want coffee, you can get it yourself. You have arms!"

She stomped out of the kitchen then, leaving a dumbfounded Cid sitting at her table. She showered quickly and dressed even faster, hoping that Cid would still be sitting in her kitchen. Because the alternative was that he was wandering around Wutai, making an ass of himself, and that just was … not good.

She walked back to where she had left him and breathed a sigh of relief to see him sitting there, drinking his coffee. He had a look of remorse on his face, but that disappeared and was replaced by one of disdain when she entered the room.

"Is there a problem?" she asked as she sat down to lace up her knee-high boots.

"Thought maybe you'd have outgrown wearing those damn skimpy shorts by now, is all," he muttered darkly.

Yuffie looked at him in utter disbelief. "Oh, I'm sorry, Dad," she snarked. "I didn't realize it was any of your business what I wore." He didn't say anything further, just swallowed the last drink of coffee out of his mug and held it out across the table to her. She just looked at it. "The sink's behind you," she told him, standing up and straightening her clothes.

He cursed under his breath, but he turned and put the cup in the sink, and he even rinsed it out beforehand. She smiled to herself in amusement. "Thank you," she said pointedly. He glared at her, and she giggled.

"Smart-ass," he said. "Take me to my airship, now."

"Well, since you asked so nicely," Yuffie retorted dryly.

"Dammit, kid, you're going to give me a fucking migraine."

"Nah, the hangover's going to take care of that," she said, keeping her tone bright. "You oughta consider yourself lucky that I found you. You know how many men out there would kill for the chance to spend the night in the home of the Yuffie Kisaragi?"

Cid snorted. "I just bet," he said sarcastically, but Yuffie noticed that his eyes raked over her body appraisingly, and she might've been imagining it, but she swore his eyebrow cocked upward slightly in an appreciative manner. She tugged the hem of her shirt down just a little, suddenly feeling slightly uncomfortable -- and slightly excited. But that was all just a little bit too weird for her. It was probably just because she wasn't used to male attention, was all.

"Let's go," she said quickly, stepping out of her house and checking that there were no villagers milling about. The last thing she needed was word getting back to her father that a tall, scruffy-looking older man was seen exiting her house in the wee hours of the morning. "D'you wanna take the bird?" she asked, motioning in the direction of the chocobo stables.

"Fuck no, I hate those damn chickens," he retorted. He had already pulled a cigarette out of his goggles and was lighting it up. "We're outside," he said when he noticed her disapproving look.

"So we are," Yuffie said. "All right, well, then, we'll hike it." She waved the smoke from his cigarette away from her face with her hand. "Hopefully your lungs can take it."

"Fuck off, brat," he snapped.

"Charming as ever," Yuffie replied as they headed south out of the village. "How I've missed the gentle, soothing sound of your voice, Cid." She sighed affectedly, as if she just found him soo irresistible.

"Yuffie, shut the hell up," Cid said impatiently.

"Fine, whatever, it's your loss, old man," she said, shrugging off his surly tone easily. "I mean, you get the chance to spend the whole morning with the White Rose of Wutai, which, I'll have you know, is an opportunity people have killed for …"

Cid's hand clamping over her mouth cut her off in mid-sentence. "I understand that you fucking love the sound of your goddamn voice, but right now, I have the mother of all headaches, and you just need to shut the fuck up."

Yuffie bit his hand.

"Sonofabitch!" he yelped, yanking his hand away from her face and shaking it. He looked at her in absolute disbelief.

"Don't ever do that again," she said, ice in her voice now. "You haven't shown me one ounce of appreciation after all I did for you last night. I haven't pushed or prodded or asked you anything really about why the hell you showed up here so unexpectedly, so if I were you, old man, I'd just back off. I am not your meek and mild Shera, so don't start thinking that the shit you get away with at home is going to fly with me." She pushed him back slightly, as if to prove her point.

To her surprise, he didn't fire back a foul-mouthed retort. He just stumbled backwards a little bit until he was sitting on a large boulder. "Shit," he muttered, and Yuffie immediately felt bad for going off on him like that. Something was seriously wrong with him, she was sure of that now.

"Hey, Cid?" she asked, kneeling down in front of him. "What happened to you?"

He was lighting up another cigarette, but Yuffie didn't bother to make a comment about it this time. She just looked at him earnestly.

"Shit, kid, nothing happened to me," he said, and she swore she heard his voice crack just a little bit. "It's just … fucking Shera. She's fucking dead."

Yuffie's mouth dropped open in shock. "Oh, my gawd, Cid, why didn't you say something before? Oh, my gawd, when did this happen?"

"A month -- no, three months -- three months ago," Cid said. His hands were shaking, and Yuffie held hers out to steady them. "I think, shit, I don't know. I've been drunk ever since. What is it now?"

"It's, uh, April. April 18th," Yuffie told him quietly.

"April," he said quietly. "Then it's been … five months. Five fucking months."

"Five months? Cid, what have you been doing with yourself?" Yuffie asked, and she could feel the emotion welling up inside of her. Regardless of what she thought about this man and his personality and habits, he'd always been a friend, and this friend was hurting, seriously hurting right now.

"I fucking told you already, kid, I been drunk the whole damn time. I must've gotten tired of staying in that goddamn house … must've decided to take the Shera out for a spin. Brilliant fucking idea."

Several horrifying scenarios flashed through Yuffie's mind then, and she was suddenly grateful that he'd crashed down on the Wutanese beach. If he'd gotten any further than Wutai, he could have crashed into the ocean, and then he'd have been lost at sea, and no one would have known at all. She blinked away tears at the thought. "Oh, Cid, you are a stupid, stupid man," she breathed then. "Gawd, don't you know that you could've just died out there, and no one would have ever known it?" She impulsively threw her arms around him.

She felt his hesitation, but soon enough, he had his arms around her, and she could feel his shoulders shaking with silent sobs. She murmured soothing nonsense to him, the way that she remembered her mother doing long, long ago, before she'd died.

It was so strange -- she was such a small person, and yet, she was holding all the weight of this man without any trouble at all. She could feel him crumbling in her arms, and she wondered just how broken he really was. Was this a crack that was going to break him, all the way down to his core? Or could he be fixed, someday, maybe? She didn't really know why she cared so much, aside from the fact that he was a friend. And she hated to see friends in pain.

It seemed like they sat there on that rock just outside of Wutai proper for hours, but it was really only minutes. Cid finally stopped crying, and Yuffie finally stopped feeling like she was going to cry. "I swear, brat, if you tell fucking anyone about this …"

Yuffie just shook her head at him. "I wouldn't," she said honestly. "I might be a lot of un-good things, but dammit, I know when to keep my mouth shut. I'm not Reeve for crying out loud."

That earned her a small smile from Cid, and she managed to smile back. It was a strange moment, Yuffie thought. Something had changed here -- simply because he'd let her see him at his very lowest. It felt almost like -- trust. Like the kind of trust she'd never had with anybody ever.

"Let's continue, shall we?" she said quickly. She felt like she was going to come apart at the seams if they just kept sitting here.

It took them close to an hour to reach the Shera, and she stood back and let him take stock of the damage. By the way he was cussing and ranting, she could tell that the prognosis was not good.

"The electrical system's completely fucked," he said as he came back around, shaking his head. "It's gonna have to be completely replaced. Fuck me if I know how that's gonna happen in this backwoods shithole."

"Hey," Yuffie said defensively. "This 'backwoods shithole' is my home. Look. I'm sure if we just call Tifa, Cloud or Barret can get hold of whatever you need in Midgar, and get it shipped over."

Cid seemed to consider this. "How long you think it'd take 'em?" he asked.

"Oh, it'd be at least a week," Yuffie said. "Wutai's really remote, if you hadn't noticed."

"So what am I supposed to do for a week?"

Yuffie shrugged. "Stay here?" she suggested.

Cid snorted. "With you and your fucking cats?"

"I mean … you could stay at the inn, obviously," Yuffie said, waving her hand dismissively. "I didn't mean you had to move in with me or anything, gawd, Cid."

"Shit," Cid muttered, reaching for another cigarette.

"Well, what else are you going to do? Swim back to Rocket Town?"

"Always the possibility of drowning if I do that," Cid mused, and Yuffie really didn't think he was kidding.

"Cid," she said, as she felt worry creeping up on her. There was another reason for suggesting he stay in Wutai -- she could keep an eye on him better that way. Cid Highwind's very own, personal suicide watch. "Let's go back into town and call Tifa, okay? We can figure out what to do next after that."

"Guess there ain't no other choice right now," Cid said darkly, marching off in the direction of the village, not even bothering to look back and see if she was following him or not.

"That's the spirit," Yuffie muttered sarcastically as she trailed him. She wondered just briefly what she had gotten herself into now.