As the Sun Sets on Mushroom Clouds
By Rhino7
Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This story is mine, as are Duke and Private Tabaeus McCallister.
Hark! I have finally written the first chapter and posted it! This first chapter may start out slow, but the ball starts rolling hard and fast soon! Also, there be mild spoilers for the Mercy Trilogy. Technically this story is set after that trilogy, but you don't have to have read it to understand this. If you haven't read that aforementioned Trilogy, the 'Project Stasis' references won't make sense, but it will be explained in later chapters.
Also, I'm presuming that most of you reading this have read Good Enough for Me and/or These Lines of Lightning. Again, not required to have read these, but you'll get the little jokes in here if you have. Enjoy!
..:-X-:..
Chapter One: Unresolved
3:14 a.m.
Black knight to B4, takes white pawn.
6:47 p.m.
White rook to F4, takes black bishop.
1:19 a.m.
Black pawn to A4.
8:32 p.m.
White knight to E5, takes black pawn.
2.25 a.m.
Leon finished his coffee and set the mug in the sink. "I know, I know, I'm coming."
She looked impatiently at him and huffed.
Leon rolled his eyes and stepped out of the kitchen, "You realize it's 2:30 in the morning?"
She just turned around and headed to the door, not responding.
He turned off the sparing lights that he'd turned on when he got up and almost bumped into the couch as he walked past. He swallowed a curse. Stupid couch. He didn't bother telling her that he hated that couch. She knew already.
"Don't look at me like that." He said, taking the gunblade from its spot against the wall.
He had almost reached the door when he paused, back tracked a few steps, and leaned over the coffee table, narrowing his eyes at the brass chess board. Frowning for a brief moment, he reached down and moved the black queen to H5, taking the white bishop. He set the taken piece aside and straightened.
Satisfied with the move, he crossed back over to her and opened the door. "Can you at least try not to jump on every single person you see today?"
She gave him a look that said 'what fun is that?' and stepped outside first, leaving him to follow. Females. He grunted, stepping out into the hallway after her. The golden retriever was already halfway down the hall by the time he turned around.
"Duke." He called.
She stopped and looked back at him. Her tail swished once and her tongue lolled. Hurry up, slowpoke, I want to walk! She was practically screaming at him.
Shaking his head, Leon closed the door and locked it, walking after her.
"You were much more well behaved in Stasis." He grunted, catching up to her.
She yipped at him.
"Yeah, you're right. You weren't much better there." He ruffled the fur behind her ears and she licked his hand in return.
"Just…promise you'll behave today, okay?" They left the apartment complex of downtown Radiant Garden. "Or eventually Nestor WILL make this place a no-pet zone."
Duke bolted from his side, chasing after a group of children who had just left the bookstore.
Leon let her go. This was how he walked the dog. She ran, he watched, she terrorized, he shrugged off the terrorized, she ran, he caught up to her, and they went home. It was a good system.
The New Residential District of Radiant Garden was two weeks away from completion, and just a month away from being one hundred percent open to residence. The first block of houses had already been sold or bid on, and that first handful of families was in the process of moving in to their new homes. The first house to be purchased still stood empty, however.
It had been a slow process of moving out of the apartment and into the house. It seemed that Leon had barely gotten the notice that he and Tifa were now the owners of the house before business in Radiant Garden boomed. The prospect of a new residential district had spurred the development of a new industrial sect, as well as expanding current businesses to kick-start the world's economy after the long and drawn out war.
Honestly, he was still getting used to the fact. Sharing rent on a cramped apartment was one thing, but living together in a real house…Well, they weren't living there yet. They had barely started packing. In fact, he hadn't even seen Tifa properly in three days.
Hence the chess match.
It had been going for a while now, since demolition on the old Residential District started. The chess set was an old brass collection, and after cleaning up the pieces, he had absently left it out on the coffee table at their apartment. The next thing he knew, a piece had been moved. Tifa's opening move.
Leon hadn't thought anything of it and just moved one of the opposite pieces to counter her move. Sure enough, the next time he looked at it, another of her pieces had been moved. So the game went on. It was the only communication they had for the past two weeks, since missions had been piling up in Radiant Garden.
Speaking of, the sudden ringing of his phone indicated a possible new problem had cropped up. He sighed and pulled the phone out of his pocket, frowning at the number and then answering.
"What is it?" He greeted gruffly.
The static on the phone nearly made him recoil, and then Cid's voice came over, "Them damn Heartless broke through into Ansem's Study again."
Leon groaned and glanced over to where Duke was romping around the sidewalk. "How bad?"
"Bad enough. Tron did something fancy and amped up the Security System to drive 'em out, but it's still pretty sketchy down there." Cid said. "I need you to get over there and hold down the fort."
"Was Aerith over there when it happened?" He asked, snapping his fingers three times.
Duke straightened up at the sound, ears lifted, and then trotted over to him. Leon turned toward the old study. He picked up his pace slightly. Aerith could hold her own in a tight spot, but the way the Heartless gang-attacked that study…
"No. She's here at Merlin's with me. Are you close?"
"I'm heading to the study now." Leon said, keeping a hastened pace anyway.
With Yuffie and Tifa off-world on a mission and Cloud…wherever it was that Cloud went…it was up to Leon to investigate this.
"Just a second, woman, I'm on the phone!" Cid grumbled.
"Who's that?" Leon asked, crossing the Postern and taking the steps down two at a time.
"Sorry, just some uppity woman come in lookin' for somebody." Cid said, annoyed.
Leon rolled his eyes, "I'll call when I've got it under control."
He hung up and pocketed the phone, ducking into the dimly lit corridors that led to Ansem's office. Duke barked and then keened, staying outside. She had never liked this part of town, and he didn't have time to force her to follow. So he just continued on.
If those Heartless roasted that computer after all the work he and Aerith had put into getting it online…
The sound of screeching Heartless and small explosions greeted him as he reached the old study. The purple smoke of dissolved Heartless faded out of the catwalk corridor that led to the computer room and he gripped the gunblade, jaw flexing. He crossed the study and stepped onto the catwalk just as Cloud finished off the last Heartless in the computer room.
For once, Leon felt relieved to see the man. He gave the chamber a quick scan and, affirming that all of the Heartless had been effectively wiped out, straightened, lowering the gunblade.
"Nice timing." Cloud mumbled when he saw him, sweeping his sword back into the sheath across his back.
"How'd they get in?" Leon responded, looking down in the massive electronic storage chamber below.
"Beats me." Cloud shrugged. "They were about to torch the paper files in the study when I came in. They didn't reach the computer. I made sure of that."
Leon grunted at that, going to inspect the computer for himself. "Aerith said you were gone to Land of Dragons."
"Well, lucky for you I wasn't." Cloud walked past him toward the study.
Leon frowned at that and found the computer untampered with and undamaged. Exhaling with relief, he turned as Cloud was trying to make a getaway.
"So you lied to her?" He said flatly, careful to keep any accusation out of his voice.
He and Cloud had kept up a truce of not being so hostile toward each other lately. Leon had stayed off his case, and in exchange, Cloud had been a little more present around Radiant Garden. That was more for Aerith's sake than anything else, but if he was starting to lie to her, Leon wasn't sure he could stay out of it. He had watched Cloud ruin his friendship with Tifa already.
"No." Cloud sounded mildly insulted. "I just got back, for your information."
Leon lifted his hands and backed off, "Then why the lurking?"
Cloud shot him a look that said 'none of your business', but just turned and left without another word. Leon watched him go, deadpanned, and made sure the Heartless hadn't ransacked the paper files. It was hard to tell, the place was such a mess anyway. He had just decided that nothing had been destroyed, when he heard Duke barking.
He smirked despite himself. Duke had never really taken a liking to Cloud.
Ever since the events of three months ago, the Restoration Committee had thrown itself into overdrive with restoring Radiant Garden. Construction, development, industry, business, inter-world dealing, and the continuing assimilation with the Alliance of Kingdom Hearts: all serious matters that needed tending to, but their group was using it as a distraction now.
Neither Leon nor Tifa had spoken much on the matter of Project Stasis. There was too much to explain and there was no way to make the others understand what had happened. Sure, Dr. Leng and Dr. Urley of the Radiant Garden Hospital had given the bare facts and information about the 'incident', but only Leon, Tifa, and the other three who had been involved in it could really know what had happened…and none of them were very talkative on the matter.
But, he pondered, mechanically working with Tron to reinstate the Security System default settings, at least they weren't walking on eggshells anymore. Cid, Aerith, Cloud, Yuffie, and Merlin had been confused and bewildered at first, Leon had to give them that, but they had been tolerant as far as it all went.
However, now that he and Tifa were…somewhere between more than friends and a couple—he couldn't quite put a name on it yet—the others were starting to get curious again. Pretty soon, Leon knew he or Tifa would have to tell them what had happened in Stasis. He wasn't looking forward to it, but they deserved to know. It had been three months…
Duke was looking aggravated when he found her out in the Postern. Cloud was nowhere in sight at this point, but Leon hadn't expected him to linger.
Drawing a slow breath, Leon snapped his fingers to summon the dog and started walking back toward town. He'd talk it over with Tifa when she got back…and probably Private McCallister too, since she had been through just as much with Project Stasis as they had.
He called Cid back to inform him that the problem had been handled, but nobody at Merlin's house picked up the phone. That was disconcerting, but not concerning. Half the time, nobody was there to answer the phone anymore. He left a brief message on the answering machine and hung up, taking Duke back to the apartment.
The chess set was unchanged when he returned, but Tifa was still out of town, so of course she hadn't made a new move yet. He grunted and fed Duke before leaving to return to town for patrols. On the way, he called McCallister, and was unsurprised when she didn't answer. If he were her, he wouldn't have answered either.
..:-X-:..
"Because I'm such a swell guy, I'll give you a five second head start." Hades said, holding up one hand, five spindly blue fingers spread wide in the air.
"What?" Yuffie caught her oversized shuriken in one hand, winded from the seemingly endless battle that she and Tifa had waged against him.
"One." Hades dropped a finger.
Tifa pushed her hair out of her eyes, "Come on, Yuffie. This is his turf. He makes the rules."
"Damn straight, sweetheart. Two." Hades lowered another finger.
"Are you high?" Yuffie gawked at her. "But he's—and we're—This is—"
"Lord of the DEAD." Tifa said. "We're beating a dead horse here."
"Hey, I resent that. Three." Hades sneered.
"So you wanna leave? He just prematurely reaped three people!" Yuffie barked.
"For breaking contract." Hades chuckled, looking to Tifa, "Consider it a warning shot, baby face." He winked.
Yuffie looked sideways at Tifa with a quirked eyebrow, but Tifa squared her shoulders.
"Let's go, Yuffie." She turned to leave.
"We can't just leave!" The younger woman argued.
"Sure you can." Hades looked smug, "Just turn around and trot on. I won't stop you."
Tifa grimaced as Yuffie asked. "Oh yeah? Why not? Scared?"
"Hardly, honeybun." Hades remarked. "Your little amiga here owes me a little notes payable, and I'm just letting her earn interest before I reel her in."
"We're done." Tifa snapped, "Come on, Yuffie."
Before the girl could respond, Tifa marched toward the exit of the Underworld. Her insides were churning as she put as much distance between the Lord of the dead and herself as possible. Yuffie's echoing boot falls behind her revealed that she was following her.
The hot sunlight and reflecting sands of Olympus were breaths of fresh air compared to the murky, dank Underworld. Tifa exhaled in relief, blinking in the contrasting light and keeping her stride long as she walked to the Gummi parked by the Coliseum.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa." Yuffie jogged out after her. "What was that all about?"
Tifa didn't respond, tugging off her fighting gloves and shoving them into her back pocket as she walked. She closed her eyes briefly, praying for Yuffie to let it go.
Yuffie, of course, did no such thing.
"You just backed off. You've NEVER backed off. And Hades is the king of the dicks, Lord of jerks, highest and mightiest of assholes." Yuffie said extravagantly. "And you ran away?"
"I didn't 'run away' from anything." Tifa said over her shoulder, opening the hatch on the Gummi and climbing inside. "The mission was to figure out why those people died. Now we know, mission complete."
"No, not mission complete." Yuffie climbed in after her while Tifa contemplated the duct tape in the back of the ship. "The mission was to figure out why those people died and do something about it."
"Like what? It's Hades, there's no dealing with him."
Ironic choice of words, Tifa, she inwardly scolded herself.
"Like justice! He can't keep getting away with stuff just because he's Dr. Doom." Yuffie slapped a hand on the armrest of the co-pilot's seat.
"He reaped them." Tifa revved the engine to life. "There's no bringing the dead back to life."
Yuffie groaned and rolled her eyes dramatically, slumping in her seat. "Whatever."
Tifa found the pouting silence alleviating as she guided the Gummi out of the Olympus atmosphere. She was nowhere in the mood to answer Yuffie's questions right now, because they all led to the same objective: Project Stasis.
"What did he mean?" Yuffie asked, not thirty seconds later.
"About what?" Tifa said mildly, keeping her eyes at the windshield.
"The whole 'notes payable' thing…It sounded like—"
"Like what?" Tifa's knuckles were taut around the steering wheel.
"Are you earning interest?" Yuffie twiddled her thumbs.
Tifa exhaled sharply through her nose. "No, of course not, that's stupid."
So stupid it was true. She grimaced. This conversation was going somewhere worse than Project Stasis…Hades.
Not a month after coming out of Stasis, Tifa had gone down to the Underworld. God only knew why…She had still been disoriented, confused, desperate for something that made sense after the emotional rollercoaster…She should have known better, known that anything involving Hades would make it worse.
Had made it worse.
But, spilled milk and all…
"Good," Yuffie chirped. "Cloud pimped himself out to Hades and look how much good that's done him. Seeing him deal with that at least gave you the sense not to—" She cut herself off and sat up in her seat. "You DID, didn't you?"
Sure, Yuffie doesn't pick up on when Aerith lies about eating the rest of the ice cream, but she picks up on Tifa's mild discomfort. Then again, the Restoration Committee had been watching both she and Leon like hawks since what happened…What had been Dr. Leng's words? Instability may lead to total mental and emotional collapse? It sounded more professional than what the doctor had meant: don't ask questions or they'll snap.
"What were you THINKING?" Yuffie threw her hands up. "Cloud's little romp with Hades nearly booked him a one way ticket to Hell and then, what, you say 'sign me up'?"
"It wasn't like that." Tifa caught herself. "Can we just drop it?"
"No! You're a walking liability!"
"You sound like Cid." She forced herself to keep her eyes on flying. "It's none of your business, Yuffie. It doesn't concern you. Please, just drop it."
"Tifa." Yuffie sounded deflated. "Please tell me you didn't…after everything last year—"
"Everything—Stasis? There, I said it out loud." Tifa said, suddenly frustrated. "I'm not going to turn into a drooling vegetable if you mention it. Neither will Leon."
"Does Leon know you made a deal with Hades?" Yuffie pressed.
At least she wasn't doing that uncomfortable squirm around the subject that Aerith had taken up. Tifa hesitated a beat, and immediately knew that beat had incriminated her.
"The deal…is about Leon?" Yuffie sat up with renewed interest.
Tifa did not like where this was going. "It doesn't matter."
"Yes it does." Yuffie snapped, "Hades always collects on his deals. Did you do this before or after…Stasis?"
Tifa didn't dignify the question with a response. Nothing except silence was going to make this line of conversation go away. No talking was going to make this deal go away anyway. She just had to…to what?
She had effectively 'pimped' herself out, in Yuffie's words, for nothing but more worry and insecurity. She didn't know what would happen if she broke the contract, but it wouldn't be anything good. Besides, what were the odds that the topic would ever come up?
Leon thought Rinoa was dead. It had been almost thirteen years since the Heartless invaded Radiant Garden. He wasn't okay, but he was getting better. No more chasing ghosts, no more wild goose chases, and a lot less broody moods.
They were fine.
And then Hades told her that Rinoa wasn't dead. What had compelled Tifa to agree to never tell Leon in exchange for Hades telling her the truth…It could only be temporary insanity. Or maybe she was just so disoriented from Stasis that she was afraid of losing Leon like she lost Cloud, of being left behind, of being lost in the whirl of a new reality.
And, after 'everything' over the past year, she couldn't bear the thought of losing the only person who could truly understand her. Then again, if her trip down Moron Street ended up…He wouldn't forgive her for knowing what she knew.
"Tifa." Yuffie said slowly, "What did you do?"
Radiant Garden came into view and Tifa narrowed her eyes, shifting the gears on the control panel to initiate the landing sequence. She again didn't reply and continued to move the ship toward the hangar in downtown Radiant Garden.
The new residential district still looked bright orange and blue from all of the paint and fresh wood from construction. She could see it as the ship descended through the atmosphere. The sight of it made her feel both better and worse. Better because she could see the house that she and Leon were in the process of moving into. Worse because she was lying to him, at least by omission.
Did that make her a horrible person? Did wanting to be happy make her evil?
As soon as the Gummi was parked, she killed the engine and climbed down out of the cockpit. Yuffie followed, stomping unnecessarily after her.
"We didn't finish the mission." She finally grunted at Tifa.
"We did what we were supposed to do." Tifa finally said as they crossed the hangar.
"No, we were in the process of doing what we were supposed to do and then you chickened out because he's got you on the chopping block." Yuffie said, stomping after her.
"I'm not on Hades' chopping block." Tifa hissed.
"Well, you're certainly not on his hit list…yet." Yuffie folded her arms. "What are you hiding?"
"Why do you assume I'm hiding anything?" Tifa rounded on her.
"I think there's been a lot of hush hush since Stasis—"
"Yuffie!" Tifa groaned in exasperation. "Please, drop it. I am not emotionally compromised. I am not unstable. I am not hiding anything."
Yuffie glared at her, hard, but Tifa had endured plenty of Cloud's and Leon's glares to be immune to Yuffie's. She stared back, utterly exhausted by the second degree interrogation and the awkward eye contact and the general behavior of everyone over the past year.
"Fine." Yuffie said tonelessly as they stepped out of the hangar and into the chilly air of Radiant Garden. "But sooner or later, you know how that whole 'hiding' thing ends."
Tifa let the girl march off in a huff. She rubbed her forehead and walked in the opposite direction, toward the apartment complex close to the Allied Headquarter building…the sight of the skyscraper still gave her pause sometimes.
Her feet followed the sidewalk automatically and she let her thoughts drift. Project Stasis may be over, but it was far from behind any of them. The Restoration Committee was divided, Private McCallister had had nothing short of a psychotic break, both Tifa and Leon were required to attend therapy every other week to 'adjust', and to top it all off, Hades had brought up her deal with him in front of Yuffie, the nosiest but fortunately most easily distracted of the Committee members.
Leon would be on patrol by the time she got back to the apartment. It was just as well, she was about to lose her head; it wouldn't do any good to go into a rant and end up blurting about it to him. God, what was wrong with her?
Of course she was emotionally compromised. And she was hiding everything.