Written for Nautilusopus on tumblr.
Cloud paused in his trek through Sector Seven to get a better grip on the stack of pizza boxes. Long way for a delivery; Undyne rarely got an order quite this far from the shop. Aeris ordering from Sector Five had been unusual enough, but now a request from two sectors over? There had to be some other pizzeria in this sector, right? Or maybe they were and none of them measured up to Undyne's?
He shook his head; that was company loyalty talking; his boss had gotten to him. Needed to remember how unfair she was with her promises when people placed orders. Undyne's quoted delivery time for this particular order had already forced him to jog most of the way to at least try and ensure the pizzas were not stone cold on arrival. And all she seemed to care about was the business; when he protested the address all she did was shrug and push him out the door. To Undyne's credit she at least told him he was good to head home right after. Two sectors to trek across instead of three on his way back to Sector Four. Not great but at least a little better.
Sector Seven felt somehow different. At least contrasted to Sectors Four and Five, this section of Midgar had resisted the influence of Shinra to a greater degree. Not filled to capacity with night-clubs and takeout places like Sector Four. Not piled high with the trash from seven sectors above and below the plate like Sector Five. And not half-wrecked or boasting a seedy locale like Wall Market as was the case with Sector Six. Okay, so a portion of Sector Seven was unusable thanks to the gigantic slope of dirt reaching close to the upper plate, but it still seemed like there were more people with time for each other than almost anywhere else in the city.
Cloud asked the next person he saw for directions to the Seventh Heaven. Not far into the sector and stood apart from the buildings clustered around it. The establishment looked a little run-down as expected for the slums. More unusual was the three-storey weaponry shop dead opposite the place. Wait. Was the Seventh Heaven a bar? A bar right next to a weapon shop? Cloud shook his head. Despite an unwise mixing of services, somehow the sector had not erupted into wanton violence.
The Seventh Heaven was quiet as he approached. Correction; the place was dead. Lights on, but no music, no buzz of conversation. Was this some prank? Balancing the boxes on one hand he checked his watch; a little before nine in the evening. Well within the quoted time-frame. He was not at risk of the pizzas coming out of his pay-check. And he was at the right place. A glance in the door confirmed the place near deserted; there was only one woman inside with her back to him. Was this all for her? "Hi, er-"
The woman did not turn around as she replied. "We're not serving tonight." She sounded familiar. Too familiar. "Come back tomorrow."
"Wasn't here for a drink; someone ordered pizza to here and-" He tried to puzzle the girl out; she glanced over her shoulder and- "Tifa?"
Tifa Lockhart blinked at him in confusion, her whole posture changing as she turned to face him. Her gaze swept to the pile of pizza boses he held and back to him. "Uh. Yeah, we did but-" A burst of anger in her eyes. "I never mentioned my first name."
"Tifa? Seriously, don't you recognise me?" He sighed. It had been a while and that promise must not have been unique to him after all. No matter. "It's me; Cloud. Cloud Strife? From Nibelheim?" Cloud took a tentative step forward. Tifa blinked for a moment and then her eyes widened.
"Cloud?" He nodded. "Oh my god. It is you!" She rushed from behind the bar and stopped a pace away. For some reason she looked right at the pinball machine against the wall.
"So, I guess you ordered these?" Cloud asked, shifting the stack of still hot boxes to his other hand.
"Uh, yeah. Just-" She waved at the nearest table. "Put them there." Tifa never took her eyes off him as he put the pizzas down. No stairs in here. Nowhere else for other people to be or come from. Maybe they would arrive now the pizza was here? "How much is it?"
"Forty-nine, ninety-nine," Cloud replied.
Tifa slapped at her hips, confused that her skirt seemed to lack pockets. With a grimace she darted behind the bar and pulled some money from the till. "Thanks-" She was staring at him again as she handed him five ten-gil notes. "Keep the change-" How generous. "Look, can we catch up? I mean, not now- Not today, sorry. But can you come back tomorrow maybe?" She frowned. "I mean, things changed after you left. I mean, when I left too." She shivered. Strange.
"Sure, I'll come by tomorrow." He grinned. "This is still a shock though. Never expected to run into you here." Tifa did not smile back. Must have missed something somewhere, or said the wrong thing.
"Please just come back tomorrow. Same time okay?" She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Or not? She still wanted him to come back.
Cloud frowned. "Sure. I'll see you then?"
Aeris was in her pajamas and curled under a blanket on the sofa when he got back. Elmyra was in bed, ready for another early shift in the early hours of the morning. Cloud switched the lights off, leaving the TV to illuminate the room. Aeris smiled from the sofa and asked how his day had been. He related the unexpected meeting and terrible tip as he kicked his shoes off. They had about another hour to cuddle up and watch the TV with the sound down low before turning in the for the night. "Amazing you ran into an old friend like that," Aeris said.
"Yeah." Cloud frowned as he slipped under the blanket beside her. "Never thought she'd come to Midgar. She loved Nibelheim and-" He winced. "Oh, I have to remember to write to Mom!"
"You say that like once a month." Aeris sighed and nudged him with her elbow. "How long since the last letter?"
"Too long." Cloud closed his eyes. "Years I think."
Aeris shot him a judging look. "Well, hopefully Tifa will encourage you to put pen to paper." She turned her attention back to the screen as the adverts ended.
"Yeah." Cloud leant towards her and put his arm around her waist. She relaxed against him, her head on his shoulder and wriggled closer as a re-run of a drama about cloning resumed. "She asked it we could catch-up tomorrow. So..."
"You won't need dinner?" Aeris stifled a yawn and nuzzled his shoulder.
"Sorry." Tomorrow was his early finish which tended to mean a family dinner for the three of them.
Aeris shook her head. "It's okay. I'll let mom know it's just the two of us. Try not to be too late though."
"Promise I'll be back before bed." He reached for her hand and entwined their fingers. "Anyway, enough about me. How was your day though? Sell many flowers?"
"Oh!" She sat up with a grin. "It was pretty good. I sold more than half and made just over seventy-five gil..."
The next night the Seventh Heaven was noisy and crowded with drinking strangers. More staff too, including a huge, hulking guy stood beside the door and eyed Cloud with suspicion as he approached. A tense moment of scrutiny and the man lost interest in him, preferring to stare out into Sector Seven. Inside Tifa raced back and forth in tandem with another woman as they filled orders. Tifa noticed Cloud as he made his way to the bar and murmured something to the other woman. An exchange of smiles, a mouthing of something like 'be careful' from her friend and Tifa pulled on a coat. "Hi," Cloud said with a wave as she came out from behind the bar.
"Hey." Tifa glanced around. "Might be an idea to go some place else. Hard to talk in here." She pointed to her ears. Cloud nodded and followed her to the door. "I won't be too long Barret. Keep an eye on things for me?"
The man at the door nodded. "Always do." He eyed Cloud again. Cloud nodded and with seeming hesitance Barret returned the gesture.
Tifa folded her arms and remained quiet as the noise of the Seventh Heaven fell away behind them. "Are you okay?" Cloud blurted after a few attempts at small talk got nowhere as they wandered the streets.
"Not... really?" Tifa smiled without humour. "I don't- I'm not sure where to even start." She stopped and clenched her firsts. "I have so much I need to tell you, but I don't want to think-" She swallowed, her eyes hard. "You need to know so-" She took a deep breath. "I'm just going to say it. Nibelheim is gone."
Cloud blinked at her, a sudden tension in his chest. "Gone? What does-"
"Burned." Tifa's shoulders slumped, all the tension gone from her body, her gaze dropping to the ground as she shivered. "Everyone is... gone. Dead. Except me. And you." She looked up at him, her eyes watering. "I can't tell you why or-"
"Tifa." Cloud fought through a hundred questions he wanted to ask in the same moment as his legs felt shaky. "My M-" He could not finish the sentence, could not ask that question. But Tifa nodded all the same and the world span around him, tears threatening to flood his eyes. Cloud sank to the ground and Tifa crouched beside him murmuring apologies as she told him everything.
The enormity of the events was hard to even contemplate. The story was strange and horrible; the star of SOLDIER had destroyed his home? "I don't know how or why it happened, and I don't think I could begin to guess. Maybe there was something in the mansion? Or that reactor? He was weird after-" Tifa sighed. "Never got to see inside and no one talked about it either. All classified. No one was allowed into the mansion either. Sephiroth was cold when he arrived but I thought that was just him being him. I know he's been trained to fight and kill, but to murder civilians like that?" She shook her head. "Maybe he's always been capable of something like that." Tifa swallowed. "Dad, he-" She shivered and pressed her head into his shoulder again.
"Sorry I wasn't there," Cloud murmured. Difficult not to think about the fire, the people caught in flames or cut by Sephiroth's sword. People like-
"How can you be sorry?" Tifa tensed. "It's not your fault. And could anyone have done anything?"
"But I made you that promise, right?" Tifa trembled against his arm. "You asked me to help you if you were in a bind."
"But you also promised you'd do that if you made it into SOLDIER." Tifa stared up at him. "Probably just as well you didn't. Don't think I'd want to see you with their eyes. And if you had been there-" She shuddered and lowered her voice. "I dream about his eyes at night sometimes. I hate it. I don't want to see SOLDIER eyes ever again." Another deep breath and her voice grew firmer. "So don't worry about the promise." She smirked. "Can't believe I said that anyway; I was thirteen and had a head full of historical romance. What an absurd thing to ask you."
But what if Tifa was wrong? He could have made it back, and if he had, maybe he could have done something - anything. Maybe if he had saved more money, lived a little cheaper- If he had made it into SOLDIER, if he had been there, then he could have tried to stop Sephiroth- But then how different would his life be now? He might never have met Aeris, never fallen in love with Aeris, never moved in with Aeris. "But-"
"No." Tifa shook her head. "You'd be a goner like the others. I don't think you could've stopped him and you couldn't have known what he would do. I doubt anyone could. And you know what the worst thing is?" Cloud shook his head. "No one knows any of it happened. People hardly even know the town exists- existed, let alone it got burned to the ground. It's been covered up."
"Wouldn't have been able to miss that," he said, nodding. The news had been full of epitaphs for Sephiroth; of Cloud's home town there had been nothing.
"Not like this is the first either. No one mentions North Corel or-" A mirthless smile at his blank look. "There's others they've hidden what happened to them, other places they wiped off the map without a second thought. But Shinra owns all the big papers and seems like they can make the news whatever they want it to be. Probably never wanted to say Sephiroth was dead, but they couldn't hide that for long." She glanced around and crossed her arms over her stomach, clutching her shoulders.
"You okay?"
Tifa nodded. "I think I need to be some place else. Anywhere." She blinked at him. "Hey; will your pizza shop still be open?"
Undyne did a double-take as Cloud pushed open Pizza Pi's door. "Thought this was-" Her eyes narrowed as she stared past him. "Hope Aeris knows you're here with someone else." She shook her head as she leant on the counter and glared at Cloud. "We have an agreement remember? I tell her all your secrets and she-" Undyne blinked. "What in the hell did you do? Poor thing's been crying-"
"It's not like that," Cloud interrupted as he hurried to the counter and Tifa trailed after him.
"I think your friend can speak for herself." Undyne turned to Tifa. "You okay?"
"Yeah." She smiled. "Nothing Cloud did."
Undyne grunted and turned back to Cloud. "Undyne this is Tifa, my friend from back home. Tifa this is Undyne, my boss." He cleared his throat. "Tifa-" She met his gaze. "-came to give me some bad news. You know; family stuff."
Undyne's posture relaxed. "Oh. Hey, I'm sorry. Cloud, you know I was just-"
"I know," Cloud said. "I know. Tifa just wanted to get something to eat and we wound up here..." Cloud and Tifa retreated to a table in the window with a pizza a few minutes later. What more was there to say now? His mother was gone. Tifa recounted both her inexplicable awakening in Midgar and acquisition of the Seventh Heaven. She had friends too; Barret, Jessie - the other woman in the bar and two others Cloud forgot the names of.
Tifa swallowed a mouthful of pizza and broke the silence. "Your boss has dropped you in it now." Cloud blinked at her. What did she mean? "You are going to have to tell me about this Aeris." Oh.
His cheeks flared up and he ducked his head away from her inquisitive stare. "Aeris is, ah-" He coughed. "We've been going out for about two years now."
"So. She's your girlfriend?" Tifa cocked her head to one side as she raised an eyebrow.
"Yeah." A thrill of warmth in his belly with the acknowledgement. "Yeah she is."
"So?" Tifa elongated the vowel.
"So?"
"Tell me about her!"
How to even begin describing her? "Oh, well- Um. Well, she's a flower girl-"
"Oh, I've seen them around." Tifa frowned. "Kinda depressing the kinds of flowers they're hawking. Especially considering the ones back-" She cut herself off as she blanched and her face flushed a moment later. "Not to impugn your girlfriend's career. I mean-"
Cloud could not help the smile. "It's okay. Her flowers are a bit different to the others. I'm pretty sure no one else grows them themselves."
"Thought that wasn't possible? Something about light-levels in the slums. If you believe the official story; Shinra aren't about to admit-" She shook her head. "Sorry." Tifa took another huge bite of pizza. "So. Must be growing them somewhere on the Upper Plate? That has to cost a fair bit."
"Nope. She grows them below the plate in Sector Five." He shrugged at her incredulous look. "As far as we know, it's just her who can for some reason." Aeris still held a secret there; an earlier question as to how she could grow flowers left her tense. Not something Tifa needed to know about right now; Cloud sat back in his chair. "And because she's so good at growing them, she can even sell them on the Upper Plate. It's not great money admittedly, but we're getting by."
"That's some skill. How'd you meet her?"
"Same way I met you again." Cloud shrugged. "More or less. She was covered in mud though."
Tifa giggled and swatted at him. "Mud? You're not romantic at all. You're supposed to tell me she was the most beautiful person you'd ever seen in your life." He must have looked concerned; she made an exaggerated sigh. "I'm kidding."
"I know," he said too fast. "But. She really was the most beautiful person I'd seen. Even with all the mud." He grinned at her. "She was a mess, but I couldn't stop thinking about her after."
"Love at first sight. Now that is romantic." Tifa sighed and leant her chin on her hand. "Guess it really can happen. Good for you."
"Maybe. But we didn't shack up together right away or anything-"
Tifa pointed at him. "That sounds like an admission. So you might not have immediately, but you are now shacked up?"
Think before speaking; he seemed unable to hide anything from her. "At her mom's house, but yeah."
She shot him a concerned look. "Poor Cloud. Separate rooms and nothing adult-y?"
"Um. No. We share a room there. And, ah-" He clasped his hands together.
"Woah." Tifa held her hands up. "No, no. Don't need to know anything more relating to that." She grinned. "Well. As long as you two kids are taking precautions and being careful about everything." She plowed on before he could respond. "I'm impressed though; you were such a loner back home, and now- Wait." She studied him for a moment. "She makes all the first moves, doesn't she?"
"Yeah." His cheeks warmed. "How'd you know?"
She laughed. "Cloud Strife. I may not have spent a huge amount of time with you back in the day, but I know there is no way you would ask someone out like that. She must have taken a liking to you."
Cloud opened his mouth to reply, but Undyne got there first. "She did." The Pizza Pi's owner was grinning from her vantage behind the counter. "She asked for him personally on subsequent deliveries after she met him." Her smile widened. "Now, what did she put on the request again?" She stared at the ceiling.
"Undyne-" He had to stop her.
Undyne snapped her fingers. "Oh yeah; send the cute-"
"Undyne!"
The Pizza Pi owner held up her hands in defeat. "Just telling the truth."
Tifa roared with laughed. "Oh she sounds fun. And now I can see why she made the first move."
"She is fun," Cloud said ignoring her amusement. "I think you'd like her too."
Cloud and Tifa left Pizza Pi a little after ten. "You heading back to Sector Seven now?" Cloud asked.
Tifa nodded. "Yeah. Should really be there to help with the clean-up." She eyed him with suspicion. "I don't need you to walk me back or anything though. I can take care of myself remember?" She held up a clenched fist.
"I remember and I wasn't offering!" Cloud held up his hands. "Well, I would, if you wanted me too." He shook his head. "But you don't, so doesn't matter. I need to get back to Sector Five, so I'm heading the same way in any case. Unless you want rid of me." He could sit in Pizza Pi for about ten minutes and try not to think about everything Tifa had told him.
She made a show of scrutinizing him and lowered her arm. "Relax. You haven't offended me or anything, so I guess you can come with me for a bit. Shall we?" They walked in silence for a few moments, Cloud unsure what to say now. "Cloud?" Thank you, Tifa.
"Yeah?"
"What do you think of Shinra?"
Cloud blinked. Unexpected topic after their earlier conversation. "Same as everyone else who lives down here I guess. Hate 'em." Tifa nodded. "I know I used to say I wanted to be in SOLDIER, but now-" He gestured to their surroundings. "Not after living here, and not after what they did to Nibelheim." Tears pricked his eyes again and Cloud forced himself to swallow back his sorrow. "But what can we do about it?"
"Nothing. At least not yet." Tifa shot him a serious look. "Please keep this quiet, but if you really do want to change things - really change things - I have some friends who feel the same way."
"What do you mean?" An anti-Shinra group?
"Can't say anything too much yet, and it's too early for anything definitive. But they- we feel Shinra has to be stopped." She shook her head. "This isn't just about revenge for Nibelheim. We have good reason to think they're killing the Planet."
Cloud nodded. The claim was familiar and there had been many similar accusations over the years. All protests and assertions were always dismissed by the company in a manner that left many uncertain. Despite all their excuses, somehow the claim would come up all over again from another group. "I've heard that before." He could stay on doing what he was doing, carting pizza around, living out his days with Aeris. Or he could try to do something about the company who hid the death of his mother from him. "I think I would like to help - if I can."
Tifa smiled. "It'll be good to have you. Someone else whose life they swept under the rug." She sighed. "Anyway, We need all the help we can get. We can talk it over if you come to visit. You and Aeris."