Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.

One foot at a time, Cloud trudged through the snow. Ahead of him was the vast expanse of the Great Glacier, and behind him was the rest of the group. AVALANCHE? Cloud didn't know if they were still calling themselves that. It wasn't a pressing question.

It seemed like they had been walking for hours, and maybe that was the case. No one was pointing out the small dead trees on the horizon, or talking about what they would do when they got to the Crater. Yuffie wasn't complaining about the cold while shivering in her shorts. She shivered silently now, and the only sound was the wind.

Cloud almost turned around to check on the rest of them, but caught himself in time. His nose was still sore from the punch the blond Turk had landed earlier, and every time the cold air lashed it he wanted to close his eyes in pain. It was the only part of him that wasn't numb.

He knew what he would see, anyway. The childhood friend, the grounded pilot, the jungle beast far out of his element, the Shinra operative with a robot cat for an avatar, the kleptomaniac ninja princess, the adoptive father and first terrorist among them, and the grim red figure with rusting metal boots.

Seven figures behind him, half-faded into the drifting snow. Cloud wished there were still eight of them. He couldn't stop wishing that.

Someone was crunching along beside Cloud now, almost in time with him. In the bottom corner of his eye he could see a pair of red boots alternately sinking into and forcing their way up from the snow. Cloud felt their owner looking at him and he looked back, managing to keep his eyes open as the wind stung the side of his face. Tifa's nose was red and so were her eyes.

She smiled at him as much as she could and then sniffled. Cloud felt like she could tell what he was thinking about and he felt guilty. Then he was angry about feeling guilty, and then just numb again. He smiled back at Tifa but even he knew it looked fake. She fell back a little but not before she placed her hand on his arm. It felt like a dead tree branch until she squeezed lightly, just once. Then Cloud was alone again.

Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.