Haven
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Barret hated Midgar, hated just about everything about it. He didn't want to hate it, but he could barely seem to stop himself anyway.
He hated it because of the smell, a nasty stew of rotting metal, urine, blood and Planet only knew what else. He hated the sound the rain made when it rushed down the old pipes from the Plate, a constant gurgling that never failed to keep him awake at night. He hated the moans and wails of the poor bastards who'd slipped between the cracks, just like everyone in those forsaken slums, no one left to give a shit.
He hated the way it made him feel, the way he'd wake up with his mouth tasting like shit in an old sewer. He hated how the place made his arm itch constantly, and he couldn't scratch it; the damned thing wasn't even there anymore.
But he was there, sittin' at the bar in a quiet place in Sector 7, and he wasn't going anywhere. Midgar was the sick, rotten heart of Shinra, and Shinra was the parasite that was sucking the life out of the Planet. He knew what he had to do. He couldn't kill a parasite by cutting off its fingers; he had to go right for the heart and the guts and the brains, blow 'em up and keep the bastards from ever building them again.
He looked up as Tifa walked over to him, and muttered a thank-you as she handed him a bottle of beer. Good stuff, too - black-market booze from the Plate, the kind of stuff you didn't get in the slums without really paying for it. He wondered once in a while how Tifa managed to get it so easily.
She stuck around, pulling a rag out of her apron and wiping down the counter. "What's on your mind, Barret?" she asked.
He smiled grimly. "Jus' the usual. Thinkin' how nice it'll be when we bring this city down."
Tifa glanced around nervously - he thought she would trust him by now; he wouldn't say shit like that if anyone else was around. "Yeah," she said. Then, looking around more wistfully, "I'll miss this place, though. The rest of it can burn, but... I guess I like it here."
Barret quietly agreed. "Yeah, well, if we pull this off, we'll find somewhere else. Hell, I'll build th' place myself if I have to."
"Barret, please," she said, laughing at him.
"I ain't jokin'," he said. "I'll get out there and start layin' bricks if ya want." This's the only place I've been in years where I ain't feelin' like trash, he added mentally. It's the only place here worth savin', if I could do it.
Tifa shook her head and put her towel back in the apron. "Thanks, Barret." She smiled at him - a real smile, not her hey-buddy-do-you-want-a-drink? smile - and patted him on the shoulder before walking away.
Barret smiled back after she'd gone, when he knew she wasn't looking. "It's nothin'," he said to nobody. "Nothin' I wouldn't do."