BENEATH THE HIDDEN STARS
The television whispered conspiracies in austere voices and she knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Barret's AVALANCHE cell had succeeded in their destruction of Reactor #1. She turned away from the screen and its hissing images, focusing intently on the well-worn counter of the bar before her, focusing as if, for all purposes and intents, the heavy, alcohol stained vanished wood was the most important thing in her life.
The situation had been painful for her when it had been just the four of them, now with Cloud returned from the ruins of Nibelheim and working as a mercenary in Barret's employee, it was worse. And yet it had been her that had encouraged both Barret to employ him and Cloud to take on the job; a last desperate measure to keep the past close to her.
She looked up from the bar, the television gurgling static as the image dissolved into clouds of poor reception before resolving again. It hadn't been easy before Cloud's return but she couldn't deny that it had been easier. Her relationship with Barret had settled into a pattern of almost domesticity; Barret fought his war against Shin-Ra and Tifa cared for Marlene. In the long spaces in-between she wept for all her losses and he held her in his arms as they kissed awkwardly. She had learnt not to quantify her feelings in terms of comfort but rather in terms of comfort instead.
Whilst Barret was away, bartering for ammunition or arms, she crept into the cramped confines of Jessie's sleeping quarters, crawling beneath coarse sheets and holding onto the younger woman in fear of her own loneliness. If the other woman had had any objects she never showed them, remaining the silent recipient of Tifa's tumultuous emotion.
Cloud's return had changed all of this; suddenly the past she had cried so hard over was tangible once more and, instead of trying to bury it beneath domesticity, anxiety and a brave face, she found herself actively reaching out for him, anything to take hold once more of that which had been so special in her life before Sephiroth.
He was like a ghost amongst them, his curiously bright eyes distant and his clothes so similar to those that Zack had worn five years ago in Nibelheim that she could have sworn they were the same. She shook her head, dispersing the connection...there was nothing of Zack in Cloud...and yet...if she truly believed that then why did he seem so much like the young SOLDIER she had first met in the company of Sephiroth rather than the young man who had returned in the boy's place.
She turned and looked up at the flashing neon of the clock above the bar, its hands gently swaying in time with the passing of moments. They were late, she reflected hesitantly. Barret had insisted on the timing of the route from Reactor #1 to 7th Heaven over and over again, insistent that whatever happened tonight, the timing had to be precise.
Her eyes fixed on the worn metal of the door, drifting past the wooden boards of the floor and the faded posters peeling from the damp walls. Something must have happened...
Her heart thundered in her chest, all the anxiety of the past five years rising up to choke her with imaginary tendrils of possibility. She couldn't imagine a life without him now, not after he had been away for so long.
Instantly she realised she had instinctively placed Cloud above everyone else. She felt sickened, her heart thundering and her head throbbing as she tried to fill herself with hollow regret over what she had felt. Turning she faced the neon clock once more and prayed the door would open soon.
Without him, without them, she corrected herself, she would be alone again. Barret and AVALANCHE had given her a cause, something to fight for, something to use the skills Zangan had taught her...without them...without him...
The sudden sound of bullets thudding into the ground and scattering the crowds that gathered in the streets echoed from outside and Tifa's head whirled around to the door once more. For a terrible moment she feared that Shin-Ra had finally uncovered their location...but the shots were too erratic for Shin-Ra marines, too full of emotion.
The door behind her flew open and Marlene rushed past, scrabbling up the bar and looking towards the doorway.
"Papa!" She cried out in excitement.
The door was flung open to reveal the shape of Barret, his eyes haunted by worry and the rush of adrenaline.
He's scared, she realised with alarming suddenness. This is the most important event in his whole life and he's terrified of the meaning of what he's really done.
Behind his massive frame she could make out the shapes of Jessie, Biggs, Wedge...and Cloud, solemn and quiet at the back, his hands deep in his pockets and his eyes glowing with the contamination of Mako energy.
In that moment she understood fully the terrible and private horrors that each of them carried upon their shoulders. None of them had asked for this life, certainly none of them had wanted to be a part of AVALANCHE nor for such an organisation to have a need to exist and yet here they all were, in the shadow of the great Plate and the towers of the Shin-Ra Electric Power Company, desperate for a glimpse of the stars.
She closed her eyes and felt the warmth of a burning, unforgotten fire on her face. Her heart broke inside her chest and her fists tightened beneath the leather of her gloves. She opened her eyes again and smiled calmly, burying everything inside of herself.
"Papa!!" Cried Marlene again.
Tifa's eyes looked right over Barret's shoulders and focused on Cloud, dressed in the purple uniform of a first class SOLDIER. She smiled and stepped forwards.
Behind her the television gasped once more, the garbled news whispering beneath the excitement of Barret's revolution.