Barret stared at the emaciated man sleeping in the cot.

"Dammit, Tifa." He muttered, before closing the door and locking it from the outside. If her friend really was SOLDIER then the flimsy wood would do little to stop him if he decided he wanted to leave. At the very least, it might delay him for a bit.

He drummed his fingers on his gun as the jukebox took him back up to the bar proper. It was only noon, and Tifa didn't like opening until five, so the place was empty.

The woman herself was staring pensively at the scuffed wood countertop, cleaning a glass with a rag.

"Tifa." Barret's voice snapped her out of her thoughts.

"Hey, Barret." Tifa feigned a smile. "What's your read?"

Barret shrugged. "Guy was unconscious. I don't like it, Tifa. He's Shinra."

"Right, but," Tifa looked down, "he's not with them. Not anymore."

"That what he told you?"

"Well, yeah, but." Tifa sighed. She looked truly miserable, emotion flickering across her face too quickly for Barret to read. "Barret, I think something bad happened to him. More like: I think the Shinra did something bad to him."

Barret settled down onto one of the stools, resting his arm on the bar. He let his gun dangle by his side. "Bad like what?"

Tifa shook her head. "I don't know, but bad. Maybe they," she fluttered her hand, grasping for ideas, "lead him into an ambush or turned on him or something. Or he left them and they retaliated."

"I'm hearin' a whole lotta 'maybes', Tifa. Just 'cause the Shinra don't like him, don't mean he's a good person."

"I know, Barret. Give me some time, please. Lemme ask some more questions, at least. He was barely conscious when I found him."

"He got a fever?"

Tifa shrugged. "Maybe. I think he's just exhausted. He must weigh less than me. Barret, he's so skinny."

That he was. The mako, or whatever toxic junk the Shinra pumped their elites full of, kept his muscles intact, but there was no fat on his body. Bone, bicep, loose skin. It was unpleasant to look at.

"Keep your head, Tifa."

"I know, Barret."

"And don't let Marlene down near him. If he's sick, I don't want her gettin' it."

"Right. I'll tell Jesse to take her when she goes shopping."

Barret grunted and stepped outside. Unconscious stranger or not, he had things to do today. AVALANCHE didn't have a presence in the slums—they were too notorious to risk that, but Barret did. Not too much of a presence, but enough general awareness that one of the dozen mobs vying for power didn't get too ambitious and try and nudge Tifa for money.

He was a big guy with a short temper and a loaded gun. People kept wary.

Barret made curt conversation as he made his rounds, checking in with his contacts and glaring down whichever gangster was trying to take Sector Seven this week. Some small time pimp named Hodde, if his memory was working.

The one before him was better: at least he exclusively dealt in drugs and weapons. Hodde was trying to shift Sector Seven into a second Wall Market, brothels and tired-eyed women on street corners and all.

AVALANCHE would back whichever sorry banger that took him out, at least until they proved worse.

He paused outside of a small shack, crossing his arms. He didn't lean back against the cardboard door, because his weight would probably sent the entire structure crashing to the ground. After a few seconds, an emaciated hand slipped out of the shack and pressed a pair of keycards into his pocket. Barret knew that when it slipped back into the hovel, it'd be five hundred Gil richer.

He waited for a few more minutes, then continued on his route.

"Hey, boss," Jesse caught up with him. She was carrying her own weight in scrapped electronics and wiring—little metal bits and pieces they'd sort out once Seventh Heaven sent home the late drinkers with a bottle for the road.

"Hey," Barret took a bag from her.

"Biggs got a day job on a Shinra tunnel cleanup—we figure they're gonna seal it off later today."

"Good." Biggs would have the wile to grab a set of keys and cut a spare before anyone knew they were missing. He was their best bet. "Hey, heads up. Tifa found someone and brought 'em back to the bar. He's downstairs. Don't talk to 'em before I get the chance."

"What, really?" Jesse sped up to get in front of him and turned back, facing him. "Who is he? A boyfriend?"

Barret shrugged. "She didn't say. When you go out to restock, can you take Marlene?"

"Don't want her around the big bad nobody?"

"Yeah." Didn't want her around if Tifa's gut feeling proven incorrect and they had to take a bullet to the guy.

"Sure thing. Hey, maybe I should take her to that little playground in Sector Five?"

"Sounds good." Barret gave her a grin, but it obviously wasn't a very good one from how her face fell. Even the idea of Marlene going wild on a swing wasn't enough to pull him from his darker thoughts. How did one kill a soldier? Shinra's elites were purported to be functionally immortal. The official word on their golden boy was that Sephiroth had been killed in a failed Mako reactor bombing—that he jumped right in the green stuff to stop it (it was always fuzzy; the official investigation said a dissident bomb, but Barret had blown up enough reactors in his day to know that wasn't how one took out an arm of Shinra) and sizzled up in the Mako. Tifa was unconscious before Sephiroth died, so while she cleared up most of what really happened in Nibelheim, she didn't know what took him out.

They could very well drop Tifa's stray in a reactor, but Barret doubted it would work. SOLDIERS took baths in the stuff according to rumor, a little more might send them into an overdose, but it wouldn't be the instant, brain-frying death that it would be for a normal person.

Barret shook off the thought.

"You back?" Jesse eyed him.

"Ah," Barret waved her off. They arrived at Seventh Heaven and knocked until Tifa let them in.

"Hey, Tifa!" Jesse said, dumping her bag on one of the tables. "I found some decent stuff. I got some wire to repair that light and some parts for the side job."

Barret peered in the bag. A timer, a set of leads, some packed plasticine. Good stuff. Maybe another small time bioterrorist was jumping ship.

"Great," Tifa called up from the basement. The pinball machine made it's slow ascent to the surface. "I'll bring it down."

Jesse glanced at Barret. He nodded, slowly; just a jut of the chin. "Right. Hey, I was gonna take Marlene to that playground. I'll just drag her along for restocking. Do we need anything special, or just the usual?"

"Ah," Tifa looked caught out. Probably planned a little 'take Marlene out' speech herself. "Just the usual, I think. Oh, and a bottle of Junon brandy. Get it from Jett, over on Market street."

She pulled a few weightier gil coins from the til and pressed then into Jesse's hand. She smiled.

"Thanks, Jesse."

"No problem." Jesse winked.

The door opened.

"Perfect timing!" Jesse strode over and grabbed Marlene's hand. "How were lessons?"

"Good." Marlene blinked. "Miss Loree gave me a book to practice."

"Aw, cute." Jesse took the book and put it on a nearby table without looking at it. "Hey, do you wanna help me shop? We can go to the Sector Five playground."

Marlene burst into a grin. "Yes!"

"Alright!" Jesse helped Marlene change into an older pair of shoes. "We'll see you in a bit. So, what do you want to play on first, hm?"

"Well, first I want to go on the slide, then—"

Marlene's voice cut off as the door slammed shut, leaving Barret and Tifa in silence.

"He woke up." She said.

"Yeah?" Barret stepped onto the platform. Tifa bit her lip, but joined him, absently holding an empty bowl. Probably soup, if the pot bubbling away on the stove was anything to go by.

"He's still out of it. I think the fever is confusing him."

"Can he talk?"

"Yeah." Tifa looked away. "He's confused. He's talking like his mother is still alive."

"His mother?"

"He's from my village, Nibelheim. We were neighbors. My weird neighbor Cloud. His mom tutored us at the inn." Tifa shook herself out of her memories. "Anyways, I saw their house burn."

"She could've made it out?" Barret paused outside the spare room.

Tifa shook her head. "I was the only survivor. Not even the other SOLDIER survived. Sephiroth killed him, I think."

"You think he's amnesiac?"

"Frankly, I think he's sick. Fever makes you say weird things."

"Hm. Your friend got into SOLDIER and you didn't know?"

"We…" Tifa considered her words. "We weren't really friends. My dad didn't like me hanging around him. His mom wasn't married, and all. He always said he'd become a SOLDIER. I guess so much has happened since then."

"Alright." Barret knocked once and opened the door. "Lemme get a measure of him."

Tifa's stranger—this Cloud—looked less skeletal when he was upright. He'd found an oversized undershirt, and it helped that you couldn't count his ribs from a wayward glance. He looked over at Barret, a permanent sneer ground onto his fine face.

His eyes glowed. Barret bit down the reflexive bite of fear.

"So."

"So." Cloud responded, voice cracked from disuse.

Barret pulled up a chair and straddled it backwards. "Let's cut the crap. You with the Shinra?"

"No." Cloud narrowed his eyes. "You?"

"Don't fuckin' insult me, kid." Barret considered. "You're SOLDIER."

"Ex-SOLDIER." Cloud snapped. "I don't work for them anymore."

"You gotta reason for that?" Barret leaned forwards, resting his elbows on the back of the chair.

"Yeah. It's not your business."

"Wrong. It is my business if Tifa's hiding a Mako addict in the basement." One of the few things Shinra couldn't cover up, probably because it was an individual problem, not the company's. "Why'd you leave the Shinra?"

Cloud snorted and glared and didn't answer. Barret stared at him. It was like dealing with one of Marlene's tantrums—you rode out the silence and they'd crack eventually. The only problem with this guy was keeping his own temper under check.

"Talk!" Barret slammed his hand on the chair.

Cloud rolled his eyes. "Big and scary, aren't you?"

"I'll be the scariest damn thing you ever seen if you don't jab."

"You're not that tough." Cloud unconsciously palmed over his chest. Ah. One of his scars? He carried quite the collection. He noticed Barret looking and pulled his hand away, spreading his palm flat over the bedspread.

"See something you like?" Cloud's lip curled into something that could technically be called a smile if it wasn't so mean.

"No." Barret leaned back. "They betray you or somethin'?"

Cloud exhaled in a huff. He visibly weighed his options and went with whatever one had the better chance of Barret not hauling him out back and putting a bullet between his eyes.

"Or somethin'. I don't wanna talk about it."

"Tough shit. Tifa says we can trust you, but she ain't convinced the little voice in my head that's tellin' me to shoot you."

"Tifa sure can pick 'em." Cloud drawled.

"Shut up. It's thanks to her that you ain't decorating the train tracks."

"Shinra tried to kill me. There, that enough for you?"

"Details. They try to kill you cause you leaked a secret or because you went guns blazin' on a Wutai village?"

"SOLDIERs use swords."

Barret smacked him. Cloud's hand snapped up and caught his wrist before he could make contact.

"Don't try it." Cloud hissed, eyes glowing. He squeezed Barret's wrist, not hard enough to break it but hard enough to show that he could, then let go.

Barret pulled back and resisted the urge to rub his wrist.

"You're the real deal, ain't you?"

"SOLDIER, First class." Cloud smirked. "The best."

"After Sephiroth." Barret egged. The picture was fading into view.

A quiver of emotion rippled across Cloud's face—anger, hate, and deep down, very real fear.

"Whatever." Cloud looked away, crossing his arms.

"You were at Nibelheim." Guy was injured, real badly, betrayed by Shinra enough to drive him from their arms. He flinched at the mention of Sephiroth, and Sephiroth's last known location was Nibelheim, Cloud's childhood home, which was destroyed by Shinra.

Cloud's head snapped back to him. "Tifa told you?"

"No. Don't judge by appearances." Barret tapped the side of his head. "Like a steel trap."

"Pft. Right. They replace that when they replaced your arm?"

"Sure, and I'm gonna beat you with both if you don't lay out the story."

Cloud's face went nasty before what little remained of his civility quashed it out.

"I was at Nibelheim, Se-Shinra tried to kill me, didn't work, now I'm here."

Barret didn't mention the slip. "Lotta time between the reactor explosion and now."

Cloud shrugged. "I did merc work, odd jobs."

"The kinda stuff people hire an ex-SOLDIER for." Barret left the implication hanging: see what Cloud decided to fill it with.

Cloud's eyes narrowed. "No wetwork. I killed monsters, not people."

Barret settled back. He was obviously hiding something, but it wasn't some sort of Shinra affiliation. Unless the guy was an amazing actor, Cloud hated the Shinra in every way a man could hate. That was good. People who hated Shinra didn't sell out people trying to destroy Shinra. But beyond that… kid was working through something, and that something might make him dangerous.

Barret stood up.

"Well?" Cloud snapped out of his sullen offense and was back to that sarcastic drawl. "Do I pass your test?"

"Yeah," Barret turned back as he was leaving, "you get a big damn gold star."

"I don't suppose 'gold star' is your nickname for righty?"

Barret hefted his gun-arm, eyeing it. "You don't get so lucky. I save that for the second date."

Cloud snorted, crossing his arms behind his head and leaning back. "Looking forward to it, asshole."

Barret slammed the door shut, then punched the wall. He removed his fist, shaking plaster dust off his fingers.

Tifa was at the bar, cleaning glasses and chewing on her lower lip.

"Didn't go well?" She said when she saw him bleeding hand. "Did you hurt him?"

"I hurt the wall. Your friend is a real charmer."

Tifa tossed the first aid kit they kept behind the bar. "He's hurting. I know he wouldn't let you see, but he's injured, and he's still recovering from fever."

"Don't make excuses for the guy, Tifa. He's a jackass. Just 'cause he's a jackass in pain doesn't make him less of one."

"I know, but…" Tifa trailed off. Barret waited for her to continue and busied himself with bandaging up his hand.

"When we were little, I got hurt on some dumb dare. Cloud got in trouble for it, and he started mouthing off to my dad. He, he hasn't changed since he was a kid, Barret. Something is terrifying him. I don't even know if he knows, or if he—"

Tifa cut herself off.

"Tifa?"

"I can't say, Barret, not until I'm sure. But take my word for it, you can trust him."

"You can. I can't." Barret shook his head and handed the first aid kit back to Tifa. "This is delicate, Tifa. We can't afford to have someone jeopardize us."

"Then take him with you." Tifa blurted out.

"What?"

"Take him with you when you go to the reactor—he's SOLDIER, right? He'll be the perfect backup, and if he's with you, you can keep an eye on him."

Barret blinked, then rubbed his forehead. "I can't think of a worse idea. So we take him, and he's Shinra, and now they have a full blown SOLDIER to deal with, and they know our names, faces, and locations. Unless you want me to blindfold the guy and haul him on the train before convincing him to help us, it ain't gonna work."

"Barret." Tifa's voice was more serious than he'd ever heard it. "Take my word on it. You can trust him."

Barret groaned, then stood up and stared at the ceiling. He rubbed his hand back through his hair and eventually settled it behind his neck, drumming at the skin there.

"Tifa…"

"I know I'm asking a lot, Barret." Tifa came out from behind the bar and took his hand. "Please trust me on this."

Barret engulfed both of her scarred hands in his own and exhaled.

"Okay. Fine. But he gets one chance, Tifa." Barret tapped his index finger against her hands for emphasis. "One chance, Tifa. You gotta know what you could be sendin' him into."

"I trust him. And I trust you not to do anything rash."

The elevator rose up with a creak. Cloud was leaning heavily on the pinball machine and trying to pretend he wasn't. He was dressed in that ratty old uniform he was wearing when Tifa dragged him in.

He noticed their entwined hands and raised an eyebrow.

"Am I interrupting something?" He said wryly.

"Cloud!" Tifa snapped.

"One chance." Barret repeated.

"Whatever." Cloud glanced to the side and a flash of something like guilt slid across his face. "Sorry, Tifa. I, ah. I. Yeah." He finished lamely. "Do you have anything to eat?"

"Just more soup." Tifa shrugged. "Nothing appetizing."

"Your cooking's amazing, Tifa." Cloud patted his stomach. "I feel like I haven't eaten in days, but I had…" he trailed off and his brow wrinkled in thought. "Whatever. Soup's great."

No wonder he was so skinny. Barret shared a glance with Tifa.

"You got any plans for tomorrow?" Barret asked, handing Tifa a clean bowl and leaning his hip against the bar.

"Not interested, man." Cloud settled back in one of the bar chairs. "I'm gonna," he paused, noticeably, then finished his thought, "kill some monsters. Sell the parts."

Tifa handed him the soup and a spoon. He dug in with exaggerated slowness, clearly trying not to just shovel the stuff down his throat.

"How about you cut off one of the heads of a bigger beast?"

"Huh?" Cloud looked up from his food.

Barret strode across the bar and checked the door, then pulled the shutters tighter.

"You ever hear of AVALANCHE?"

Cloud squinted. "Some small time insurgents, right? Letter campaigns and graffiti? They," he was quite again, staring off into the middle distance, "they were in a failed plot against the president—planted a bomb under the street and blew up his car and his body double."

Jesse's amatuer work, back before AVALANCHE had anything like a base, and they took turns bouncing Marlene to keep quiet while they sketched up street maps. That was five years ago. Guy really must have fallen off the map to miss all the shit they'd done since then.

"Yeah. You got grudges against the Shinra, right? Ever consider doin' somethin' about it?"

"I'm gonna go out on a limb and say those two things are connected." Cloud said slowly. He'd finished the bowl and was staring distractedly at the pot on the stove. "And that both of them are connected to you."

"Say whatever you like. So?"

"I got things to do, monsters to kill. Pass."

"We could pay you." Tifa offered. Barret's head swung back to face her.

"Tifa!"

"How much?" Cloud asked.

"How much would you make killing monsters?"

Cloud shrugged. "Depends on the monster. I get an ether and that's fifteen-hundred."

Tifa cringed, but steadied through. "Alright. We'll pay you fifteen-hundred gil."

"You still haven't told me what you want to hire me for. I mean," Cloud rolled his hand through the air, "I got the idea, but I want to hear it straight."

"Tifa," Barret's jaw worked, "that's—"

"Barret, please."

He winced. "We don't even know what this guy can do. Who's to say he ain't just lyin' about bein' a SOLDIER."

Cloud pulled down his lower eyelid. "Yeah, I'm a filthy liar. You think they give these to just anyone?"

"So you got a pair of light up eyes. What else?"

Cloud leaned back. "Materia, munitions, guns, motorbikes. I can drive. I got into enough trouble as a recruit that they sent me down to clean out the reactor exhausts. I—" he cut off and his face went pale. Barret stood up to catch him, but he just grabbed at the air over his shoulder.

"Where's my sword?" He rounded on Tifa, real panic flooding his face.

"Sword?" Barret said, looking at Tifa for confirmation.

"Yes, sword!" Cloud pushed a hand back through his hair. "I need it. It was—my—I." He shook his head, violently, then took a breath. "It's important."

"Calm down, Cloud." Tifa rested a hand on his shoulder. "You had it at the train station. It was too heavy for me to carry back here. I hid it."

"We need to get it, now." He pushed himself up and wobbled dangerously.

"Cloud, you can barely walk."

Barret shook his head. "I'll get it."

Tifa and Cloud both looked at him. Damn but Cloud was haggard. Guy looked thirty seconds from death, not fit for a bombing run.

"Train station, right?" He said when nothing was forthcoming.

"Uh, yeah. The Sector seven train station. It's right next to the station. I propped it up against the platform and covered it with garbage. Here." Tifa handed him a bundle of canvas from behind the bar. "You'll need to cover it up—it'll attract a lot of attention."

Barret tucked the canvas—it looked like the bags their flour came in—under his arm. "Thanks, Tifa. Be back soon."

The big guy—Barret, or something—left, catching the door behind him before it slammed shut and easing it closed.

Cloud's stomach hurt.

Actually, all of him was pretty sore, now that he considered it. He felt like one giant bruise—sore skin, straight down to the bone. His head pulsed, low grade, not like those monstrous headaches he got when his memory started slipping away from him.

Or whatever that was. Tifa said he was running a fever. Maybe it was making his head fuzzy. Moving felt like he was fighting his way through cotton, why shouldn't thinking?

"You want more to eat, Cloud?" Tifa asked.

"Ah, yeah." He remembered himself. "Please."

Tifa didn't deserve to get snapped at, even if he was making a bad habit of it.

Tifa. She was a beacon of familiarity in a sea of confusing otherness. His hearing was sharp enough to overhear snatches of conversation, and he was inclined to agree that he was suffering from some degree of amnesia. Everything was fuzzy except her. Frankly, he was shocked she was even alive, let alone running a bar in Midgar. The Masamune killed everything. That Tifa got off with a few scars was a miracle.

Cloud shook his head. For an instant, he smelled stinking smoke, and the slickness of heady copper. It disappeared the next second.

"Do you know when that man will be back?" Cloud said between spoonfuls.

"Barret?" Tifa looked up from the bar. "Probably twenty minutes. Why?"

Cloud took a few more bites of soup before answering. "I need my sword. It's important. I got it from…" Where? A friend? Someone… important, right? "I got it 'cause I was a SOLDIER." Cloud said instead.

"Right. SOLDIER." Tifa seemed pensive. "Cloud, you never wrote or anything."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry," Cloud scratched his cheek. He needed to shave. "I guess I got so busy, and then. Yeah. I made SOLDIER—"

When did he make SOLDIER? It was his first round of testing, right? The proctors were impressed with his sword play? But he was terrible with swords. Cloud squinted. No, no he wasn't. He was a natural. He could use materia, too, which they liked. There was something, something just beyond the grasp of his memory. Maybe… some fuzzy sense of disappointment? He hadn't done well on something.

If he was in SOLDIER, First Class, he had to have made it his first try, right? They only let the best of the best into First Class, and they only let the truly talented work with the former General.

"I made SOLDIER when I got here." Cloud concluded. "First try."

Tifa's eyes widened. "That's amazing, Cloud."

Cloud shrugged. "SOLDIER is a den of monsters."

His head pulsed.

Tifa opened her mouth to say something, but snapped it shut when the bell jingled. They both looked up at the door.

"Got it." Barret said, ducking to step inside. He looked sweaty. "This thing is damn heavy."

"My sword!" Cloud jumped up, stumbled only a bit when his vision went white, and grabbed the sword off Barret's back.

"Don't thank me or anything, jackass." Barret scowled down at him.

Cloud was about to snap back at him, but a glance towards Tifa had him change his tune. "Thanks." He grit out.

He tugged the cloth sack off the buster sword and held it aloft, watching the dim bar lights glint off the metal.

"I could barely lift the thing, and here you are swinging it around like nothin'. Guess you really are SOLDIER."

"Former SOLDIER," Cloud corrected, then grinned. "Want a hand-on demonstration?"

"Funny." Barret said flatly.

"Will you join us, Cloud?" Tifa said earnestly.

Cloud let his sword fall back against his back, clipping onto the magnetic holster he wore. "I…"

If he stayed then… then what? Why was he even here? There was some sense of urgency thrumming under his skin, some need to… do something. See someone? A girl?

But… there wasn't any girl, was there?

Was there?

He looked up at Tifa. If he stayed with AVALANCHE, he'd get to stay with Tifa, the only familiar thing in a world that was making less and less sense the more he thought about it.

"Lemme give you a demo out back." He said instead. "I'm honest and you're gonna get what you pay for—SOLDIER, First Class. I'm worth every gil."

Right?

Title comes from the Men at Work song, Down Under.

Please leave a review if you liked it!