2. The Guilty, the Caring and the Responsible
Tifa threw things into a backpack. She wasn't sure what she'd need – hadn't really had time to plan. This was the very definition of 'making it up as you go along'.
She wasn't letting Cloud go again.
She couldn't stop him. She knew that. Cloud was way stronger than her now, and held himself the way his gentle nature had never allowed while they were cadets. It was in the slant of his shoulders, the looseness of his knees, and the way he always made sure his back was facing the wall: Cloud stood like a warrior now.
Tifa used to stand like that, before tragedy and despair made her stoop and hold herself like a victim instead. She'd always been better at hand-to-hand combat than him thanks to her self-defence training with Master Zangan in Nibelheim. It was actually on her sensei's recommendation that she'd left the village to go to Radiant Garden in the first place.
"You have talent, Tifa," he'd said. "You shouldn't waste it here, hidden away where it does nobody any good. You're far beyond the level of just defending yourself against muggers and things."
"But what would I do there? What could I do?"
"What couldn't you?"
"I don't understand what you mean, sir."
"Think about it a while. Sleep on it. You'll figure it out."
She'd thought and slept and cogitated until she was blue in the face, and still couldn't figure out what she'd be going to Radiant Garden for, other than to please Master Zangan. She agreed to go when he insisted it would be good for her, but fretted about making the right choice once she got there.
Cloud had followed her, or so she'd thought. As it turned out, he'd been marching to the beat of his own drum and it just happened to sound a lot like hers.
It was weird to think she'd never really spoken to him until then, though they'd counted each other as friends in that distant, childish way that meant they actually only knew of each other and had waved hello once or twice. Only when Cloud announced he was going to Radiant Garden to join the Royal Guard cadets did Tifa realise he wasn't actually following her at all. Her leaving had just given him the opportunity to act on feelings he'd had for a long time: that there was more to life than Nibelheim, where his absent father and his mother's shady past had always made his life difficult. Cloud was striking out on his own to prove he was worth something.
"I want to be able to protect people," he said when Tifa asked him why he'd chosen the Royal Guards.
"Then wouldn't you be better off training as a law enforcer?"
"Maybe," he'd conceded. "But I really want to be a Royal Guard."
"Why?"
"They're the best of the best. Only the most excellent candidates get in, and only the crème de la crème graduate at the end. I want to be that good. Then nobody can say anything about me." His chin had stuck out with stubborn resolve. "I won't be coming back to Nibelheim until I've graduated. That's a promise."
"Not even to visit your mom?"
"She understands."
Tifa had leaned forward, sitting on the well on the outskirts of town, and wrapped her arms around her shins. She had wished her own father was an understanding as Cloud's mom, or even as Cloud himself. You could be who you were meant to be around Cloud. He wouldn't judge you or call you stupid. You could be a girl who punched harder than any boy, and he wouldn't get scared, because he looked at the person you were beyond that. There were worse things in life than being friends with Cloud Strife. She'd never realised until that moment, and suddenly she understood what Master Zangan had been getting at. The decision about where her life was headed was entirely hers. Not even he could make it for her.
"I think I'd like to be a Royal Guard too."
"Really?"
"Uh-huh."
Cloud had nodded vigorously. "You'd make it, easily. You're the best of the best already."
"No I'm not," she'd protested, but blushed at the compliment.
The Cloud of today wouldn't pay her any compliments. It was as if all the softness had been burned out of him, leaving him traumatised and barren of any emotions except bad ones. Still, Tifa couldn't help but think the old Cloud was still in there somewhere – the boy who had sat for hours with her on that well, and supported her every step of the way in training. You couldn't just remake a person into someone else without even a little of the real them remaining.
Right?
She wouldn't let herself believe otherwise. She couldn't.
She couldn't lose him again. She couldn't let him go off to face … whatever it was he'd gone off to face. Not alone. Not this time.
But Cloud was far stronger than her now. What could she possibly do to help him? She already knew he wouldn't allow himself to be dragged back to Traverse Town while Sephiroth was still out there, which meant if she was to do anything, it had to be on Cloud's terms. Cloud was a warrior now. His terms relied on strength and fighting, which had been her forte until he got so much stronger than her and didn't need her anymore.
Well if Cloud had gotten stronger, then she'd just have to get stronger too.
Merlin's house always smelled of damp and old incense, plus whatever magic he'd recently cast. Tonight it reeked of lemons. Tifa wondered what kind of magic could be called 'citrus fresh'. Probably nothing she could possibly predict. A spell to bring about the apocalypse probably smelled like fresh-baked cookies. One thing she'd learned in the last few years was that magic rarely followed the rules you thought it should, and liked to be as inappropriate as possible. Sort of like life, really.
Merlin wasn't in. Well, fine; that actually worked to her advantage. She doubted he would've given his permission for this anyway, and she would've hated to hurt him if she didn't have to. His absence was especially fortunate, since he trusted in his own reputation and the underground location of his house to deter thieves, instead of setting up elaborate security measures. That meant she could get this over with fast. Maybe she could still catch up to Cloud if she hurried.
Now, if only Merlin had been as helpful labelling his potions as he was bragging about them and leaving his doors unlatched –
"Tifa? What are you doing?"
Tifa froze. I guess it's not going to be as easy to follow Cloud as I thought.
She tightened her stomach muscles and dropped into a ready stance. Her body knew what to do, even if she'd been neglecting her training while piecing her mind and emotions back together. It was a thin comfort.
She clenched her fists.
Whirled.
Ran headlong.
Then again, since when was anything ever easy for us?
Aerith didn't know Cloud Strife all that well while they were living in Radiant Garden. She'd barely known Leon, either, and some days wondered whether she knew him any better now.
In truth, there were days when she wondered whether it would have been easier if she'd been taken by the Heartless like all the other healers. They didn't have anything to worry anymore; their suffering was over. Then she realised what she was thinking and gave herself a good talking-to about being so negative. She was alive, and so were the people who, whether she'd known them before or not before, were precious to her now. That was all that really mattered.
Wasn't it?
Yes. The past is done and the future isn't written yet. The present is the important bit.
Everybody had scars. It was how you dealt with them, and how well you carried on afterwards that counted.
Cloud had more scars on his mind than Aerith had ever come across. Not even Leon had so many. Not even Cid, with his memories of the war to add to those they all carried about the end of the Garden. Cloud's mind was lumpy with old wounds, some repaired, but most not. Aerith couldn't tell how they'd been inflicted, but the agony must have been immense. A few seemed extra alien, out of synch with his biorhythms and the cadence of his mind when she touched it. The healing of the body was inextricably linked with the mind, which meant all healers had a degree of empathy. It was stronger in some than others. Aerith wasn't a true telepath or clairvoyant, but she knew when something felt wrong. The wounds on Cloud's mind had felt as if they should have belonged to other people, but there hadn't been time to figure out the details before he took off.
Whenever she healed someone, Aerith made a connection with their thoughts, memories and emotions. From that day onwards a fine psychic thread connected her to whoever she's worked on. It didn't serve much of a purpose unless they needed healing again, whereupon it was much easier for her to find their injuries and stimulate their body's natural healing processes to work faster than normal. Healing was a blend of magic and extrasensory perception that only those with the right kind of mind could learn. You could train to be a Royal Guard, or a law enforcer, or a pilot. You were born a healer.
She stood in the little bedroom Cloud had occupied until this evening. It still smelled of him. The bandages she'd used to bind the gashes on his belly were gone, but the roll they'd come off was still on the bedside table. She picked it up, turning it over in her hands like it might offer some sort of explanation.
"You were so badly hurt," she murmured. "But you healed up. You would've healed whether I helped you or not. Maybe not as fast, but you would've done it, if the shock and blood loss hadn't killed you first."
His ribs had been exposed. Just a couple, but she'd seen the gleam of bone when Leon dragged her to the abandoned church in town, where Cloud had unexpectedly crashed through the roof out of a clear night sky. What kind of person could sustain that kind of damage and still be alive? The fall alone would have killed a normal person, and then there were those awful, awful wounds. What kind of person could inflict those? There had been finger-marks around the edges, as if after cutting him open someone had attempted to gut him with their bare hands; peeling back Cloud's flesh and cracking open his ribcage to get at the heart within.
She had sat here, in this tiny room at the very top of their house, for most of the past three days. Since she'd never completed her healer training, Aerith's abilities were unrefined. It took her a long time to complete more than simple tasks – sprains, cuts, minor broken bones and the like. She tried her best, but got tired quickly. Cloud's injuries had demanded even more of her power than usual, and after each session she had all but collapsed into sleep to recuperate herself.
And then, at the end of the second day, she'd opened her eyes to find his were already open. He stared down at her from the bed.
"Why are you on the floor?"
As far as first questions went, it wasn't what she'd expected.
"You have the only bed."
"You don't even have a mattress."
"You're the patient. You've got it. Besides, hard surfaces are supposed to be good for the spine."
He'd turned his face to the ceiling, blinked at it, and then at last muttered, "Where am I?"
"Traverse Town."
"Where's that?"
"I'm not sure what you mean."
"I shouldn't be here."
"You were badly hurt."
"I shouldn't be here."
Aerith had pushed herself onto her knees and leaned up to him. His bandages had been pulled aside, presumably by Cloud himself. She was already able to see the pink flesh of new skin that should have taken weeks to even scab over. The contusions on his arms were almost completely gone, and his black eye had faded to a queasy yellow. Even the clumps of missing scalp were already growing new hair.
"Where should you be?" she'd asked softly, trying to calm him. Rapid self-healer or not, he was still her patient, and one of the first things you learned as a trainee was that your patient was your responsibility no matter what.
"Where the greatest darkness lurks."
For a second Aerith had flashed back to Radiant Garden as she'd last seen it. Her entire body stiffened.
Cloud had turned his head to look at her. Then he'd sat up, wincing, and tried to pull himself back to the headboard. He'd let out a pained noise and flopped back. Milliseconds later, giving no indication anything was wrong, he'd said, "You need to rest."
She'd almost laughed out loud. "So do you. We can talk later."
"There's no time for talk."
"Is that a cryptic message of some sort? Because I warn you, I'm really not in the right frame of mind to be decoding those. Good for me or not, my back aches from those floorboards, I still feel bad from using too much energy earlier, Leon is going to be along any minute to ask me about your progress and not-so-subtly push me to speed up your recovery, and even though food might make me throw up, my stomach thinks my throat has been cut and is doing impressions of a growling dog. So if you can be clearer, I'd much prefer it."
Cloud had blinked at her. Then he had shifted over a few inches. "Lie down. Get some rest. I'll speak to … Leon." He'd sounded out the name as two separate and distinct syllables. Then he'd shaken his head, muttered something under his breath, and rolled over to face away from her.
Aerith, exhausted and in no mood to sleep on the floor a second longer, had nonetheless hesitated. Cloud's back was narrower than Leon's, but he had a wiry strength that was clear to the naked eye. He was short and blond, but his body was almost pure muscle, and he wasn't in the least bit fey – nothing at all like the polite, overly apologetic boy she'd seen a handful of times before, in their other life The idea of lying down next to this grown-up version sparked off things inside that hadn't surfaced once in all the times she'd shared a bed with Leon, Tifa and Yuffie. It had scared her a little.
But her exhaustion had been crushing. Warily, and keeping her back to his, she'd eased herself onto the bed and fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep. When she'd awoken, Leon had been and gone, and Cloud had been sitting up as though there had never been any problem with his abdominal muscles – the ones she had seen hacked to little more than strips of red meat by whatever had tried to turn his organs into cutlets.
"You're awake."
"How could you tell?"
"Your breathing changed."
"And the facts my eyes are open and I'm talking to you weren't clues?" Her impudence had surprised her. She wasn't usually so cheeky. That was Yuffie's forte.
Cloud had stared impassively at her. "You're Aerith."
"Yes."
"Leon told me about you."
"He did? Nice things, I hope."
He'd grunted, as if this wasn't for him to judge. The Cloud she first met would have blushed, but not now. Now his blood ran too cool to show embarrassment. Aerith had wondered why that made her so sad. It wasn't as if she had a history with him, the way Leon and Tifa did. There was no real reason why she wanted him to think nice things about her, or even to think about her at all.
The door banged open. She startled, dropping the roll of bandages and snapping abruptly back into present.
"Aerith! Tifa beat up Squall, an' stole Cid's Gummi Ship, an' robbed Merlin's house, an' went off in the rain after Cloud, an' -" Yuffie ran out of air and sucked in a new lungful.
Aerith took the opportunity to butt in. "Tifa did what?"
"She punched Leon. Like, really hard. He's not crying or nuthin', but I think she might've broken his jaw. He was asleep for a while. Knocked out. But I didn't think he was dead or nuthin', because I'm not stupid, and I so didn't cry like a baby when I found him on the floor looking all … not-dead."
Aerith shook her head. Unlike the boys or Yuffie, Tifa had been her friend before the Garden's destruction. She couldn't imagine Tifa doing the things Yuffie was saying. Tifa was scarily good at what she'd been trained to do, both by her original martial arts teacher, Master Zangan, and as a cadet. She was also very principled about how she used her skills. She had never bullied anyone even though she could kick their butts all the way to Resplendia and back without breaking a sweat, and sometimes seemed almost embarrassed when she did run across bullying and had to put a top to it. Tifa had what a lot of people wished for and had to make up in hard slog: talent. Leon did too, but Aerith had felt much better thinking Tifa was out there with him tonight.
And out with Cloud.
Once again, his pale face and bluer-than-blue eyes popped into her mind. She shook the picture away, but the faintly disturbing fizzle in her tummy kept fizzling.
Aerith knew she was no fighter. She could do a few defensive moves that Tifa and Leon had taught her, but her gift was healing. It was difficult to reconcile that with the kind of aggression you needed to punch someone in the face. There was a superstition that any healer who killed someone in combat instantly lost their ability to heal. Aerith didn't know if that was true or just hokum spread amongst gullible trainees, but it didn't change the fact she was no good at fighting.
Traditionally, each healer corps was assigned a bodyguard, and those who struck out alone to become itinerant medics had one all to themselves. Healers were neutral. Nobody was supposed to attack them, but it never paid to assume too much when you were out in the big wide world beyond Radiant Garden.
Or at least that was how it had been before. Briefly, Aerith wondered whether Resplendia, Wutai and the Dazzle Islands even existed anymore. Then she decided she was better off not knowing – especially since the former Crown Princess of Wutai was standing in front of her in threadbare shorts and tee-shirt donated by sympathetic Traverse Towners.
"I thought you went to fetch her so Leon wasn't out on the cliff all alone."
Yuffie looked contrite. Or as much as she ever did. "Um, well, I couldn't find her, so …"
"You went after him yourself," Aerith finished. "So how did you know she punched him?"
"That came after. Cloud's gone, and Tifa's taken the Highwind to follow him. She was, like, stealing stuff from Merlin's, but Leon caught her and she WHOPPED him good." Yuffie threw a shadow punch so violent it spun her around on one foot and made her stagger. "I found him on the floor, because he's mean and ran ahead of me on his stupid long legs."
Aerith pressed her fingers to her temple. This was all too much. "Have you spoken to Cid?"
"Uh, no …"
"Then fetch him. I'll tend to Leon. You bring Cid to Merlin's. He'll know what to do."
Yuffie looked dubious, but Aerith stayed firm. Cid had been a fixture since he rescued them from the crumbling Garden. He was foul-mouthed and worse-tempered, but he was a constant, and for the longest time now he'd been the authority figure in their lives. Aerith didn't like to question how suitable he was as role model for an impressionable little girl like Yuffie, but at least they knew Cid would never abandon or neglect them. He was a tough guy who'd survived more than his fair share of conflicts. He had drawn on his wartime experiences to help deal with losing everything except a handful of kids he was suddenly solely responsible for. For the most part, he'd done a pretty good job. They were alive, in a relatively safe place, had a roof over their heads, and knew where their next meal was coming from.
Yes, Aerith was certain, Cid would know what to do.
There were some days Cid considered just locking his door and drinking until alcoholic poisoning kicked in. As far as ways to die went, he could think of worse.
She had taken his ship.
She had taken his damn ship.
He suppressed the urge to groan, hit, or throw something. He'd given up kicking long ago. The strain it put on his bad knee wasn't worth the visceral satisfaction. Besides, not even kicking the crap out of that bloody wizard was going to bring his ship back.
His Highwind. His baby. The Gummi Ship he had built since King Mickey, thinking the neutrality of the place would help them recover from their ordeal, dropped them off in Traverse Town three years ago. The product of sleepless nights, long hours of going around in circles in his mind, wondering what the hell he was doing and working out his aggression on something that could take it. The Highwind had heard him rage, witnessed him with his head in his hands as he worried over those fucking kids, seen him finally settle to the life he'd built for them all, and not said a word to anyone. He had cared for that ship like it was a person.
And Tifa had stolen it.
The Highwind had been one of the reasons Cid hadn't gone stark raving bonkers in the face of all his grief, frustration and anger after Lord Ansem sold his people down the river. And, of course, there was the unexpectedness of Cid suddenly becoming some sort of freaking father figure to a bunch of mealy-mouthed brats with enough emotional traumas between them to keep a newly qualified shrink happy until retirement. Some days Cid had spent sunup to sundown in his workshop, pottering about with blueprints and tools because they were easier to understand than innocent minors who'd witnessed murders close-up.
He could have just left them in someone else's care. Right back at the beginning, the king had offered to find someone else for the job.
"We have plenty of people willing to take care of them," he'd said in that weirdly high-pitched voice of his. "Disneyland is at the forefront of containing this current outbreak of Heartless, so it's not safe for them to stay here in their current condition, but there are worlds where they can go to convalesce. You too, of course."
Cid hadn't been able to argue that point. He'd been beaten pretty badly in his fight against Braig. Damn, that man had been a dirty fighter. Still, he'd gotten what he deserved in the end. What was it called – karma? Braig had gotten his just desserts, and then some. Cid had seen the Heartless yank out the guy's heart and turn him into one of them, just like they'd done to all Lord Ansem's acolytes.
He had also seen Cloud Strife and General Sephiroth being absorbed by the darkness. He'd thought them both irretrievable and pulled Leon – still Squall then – out of there to save his life. Now it turned out Cid had called it wrong. Badly wrong.
Strife was alive but majorly fucked up, Leon was doing his guilt trip thing again, and Tifa had fucked off to parts unknown to try and make up for not saving her friend the last time. Cid hated what guilt did to good people. He'd seen it before, after the civil war. Guilt was like cancer – survivor guilt in particular.
Why did I survive when my friend didn't? Why couldn't I save everyone? Why did innocents have to die so meaninglessly? Why, why, why?
No kid should ever have to ask those questions. Cid would despise Ansem until the end of his days for putting these brats through that kind of crap so young. Some of them may have signed up to be warriors, but this … nothing like this. Yuffie had been five for fuck's sake! Five years old and literally swimming in blood when she fetched up against Quistis Trepe's corpse. Cid wasn't sure who he hated more, Ansem or Braig. He couldn't do comfort for five year olds. The very thought petrified him.
And despite this, and his awkwardness at any kind of touchy-feely-connect-with-your-emotions crap, Cid still couldn't bear to leave the kids when King Mickey offered him an escape route. Something about these stupid brats had cried out to him, and he'd found himself assuring the king he could handle looking after them even though he'd never even kept a girlfriend long-term. Fatherhood was so off his radar it existed on an entirely different magnetic spectrum. Yet he'd ignore that, instead pointing out to King Mickey that he'd overseen a lot more than four kids when he managed the training programme for the Radiant Garden Air Force Cadets.
"Are you sure?" the king had asked.
"Sure as shit stinks. Uh, your majesty."
King Mickey had winced, but nodded. "They've been through a lot. They'll need time and space to recover. I have just the place – a hub world rather like the one you left in appearance, so acclimatisation shouldn't be too difficult …"
Nonetheless, despite Cid's assurances, King Mickey had placed Merlin with them as a sort of backup and hotline to Disney Castle. It was supposedly for help with major end-of-the-world crises, but Cid knew Mickey actually meant for him to go to Merlin if he ever needed help with the mundane crises of raising children and teenagers – although Cid reckoned Merlin was even worse at childcare than himself. The stupid wizard had no sense priority.
Case in point: the bearded twit was whinging about some missing bits of pottery while Cid's entire fucking Gummi Ship had been stolen!
"Just because the items taken from my home were smaller," he bristled when Cid told him he was overreacting, "does not mean they are in any way less significant than your flying death-trap."
Cid ground his teeth. "Watch it, windbag."
"She took my experimental extra-strength potion, you fool! It was only in the beta stage of testing! Do you know how dangerous that is? If she swallows it, anything could happen to her."
"If she can't handle the controls of the Highwind I know exactly what'll happen to her," Cid muttered. She'll end up buried in the side of a mountain, or lost in the spaces between worlds, or with an empty fuel-tank in the middle of a meteor storm, or – He shook his head to dislodge some of the more gruesome images. "You called through to Disney Castle yet?"
"Of course. The king is, unfortunately, not in residence at the moment. Some sort of quest that demanded his utmost attention. Those arise from time to time, you understand, and they really are most unavoidable. However, the queen assures me they'll have someone address this problem forthwith. Two children can't have gotten far. It should be easy to retrieve them."
"Says you." Neither Tifa nor Cloud were just children. Cid remembered the look in Strife's eyes. That kid took 'fucked up' to a whole new level. And as for Tifa …
She had nearly broken completely once before. It chilled Cid to recall it. Losing Strife had been part of what drove her to the edge. She held herself responsible for what had happened to him, and to the rest of Radiant Garden – as if she could have known or prevented what Ansem, Braig and that bunch of snake-tongued loonies were plotting. Still, trying to tell that to a teenaged girl who'd seen her mentor decapitated and then been chased out of her world – not just her home, not just her town, but entire freaking world – by monsters worse than any nightmare ... let's just say Cid would rather have strapped raw meat to himself and gone jogging through the dragon stables with all the doors open.
Tifa was strong. It had taken her a long time to crack after they first landed, but when she did she nearly hadn't been able to put herself back together again. On her own, she wouldn't have managed it. She would've just stayed in the dark place she'd fallen into, crying for the family she'd lost and all the hopes for the future she'd had dashed. Cid knew it was only thanks to her friends that she'd clawed her way back to the surface so she could breathe clean air again. Leon, Aerith, even little Yuffie; they had reached out to Tifa, grabbed handfuls of whatever they could, and hadn't let go until she was back with them.
Cid would never be able to explain how vulnerable watching these kids grow up made him feel. Only three years together and already the changes were obvious. It had come as a huge shock to him, to discover that something as simple as his budding affection for them ensured he was a far easier target for worry than he used to be. There was a time he couldn't have given a rat's nadgers whether his recruits were 'emotionally secure', and would have dismissed all psychobabble as hogwash, as long as they could fly without crashing. Yet if surviving the betrayal of Radiant Garden had made him realise how fleeting the nature of life was, looking after these kids had honed that knowledge to a lethal sharpness.
"She won't come back."
Merlin looked up. "Excuse me?"
"Lockhart. She won't come back, even if they catch her. They probably won't be able to catch the Highwind, but even if by some miracle they do, she won't come back without Strife. If they bring her back to Traverse Town she'll just find some other way to go after him. As we've discovered, she's a resourceful brat, and an intelligent one, which is worse. Never could stand a smart-ass with a purpose."
Merlin watched him carefully for a moment. "You think she stole my potion so she could bring him back with her?"
"Maybe. Maybe she just got it into her head to help Strife fight Sephiroth so he'll come back willingly and won't bugger off again. I ain't a teenager, and I ain't a girl, so I couldn't say for certain what goes on in the head of one, but from what I know of Lockheart …" He left the sentence hanging. "These kids, all they think they've got is each other."
"That's not true –"
"You and I know that, fucktard, but to them it's a big scary universe, and the only ones they can really rely on and trust are each other. They're connected. You think Strife doesn't come into that, you're making an even bigger mistake than …" Cid shook off the unpleasant thoughts and memories. "Point is, Lockheart was willing to break all the taboos on this one – she hurt, stole and deserted her friends. She busted up Leonhart's gunblade so bad that even if I fix it, that thing will probably never fire shells again without exploding in his fucking face." Personally, Cid would have loved to think this would force Leon to give up the bloody thing, but he knew the kid never would. The best he could hope for was to rejig the firing mechanism so it aided instead of hindered him when he fought. "I'll bet she knew she was gonna be hurting the others, too, but she did it anyway. Strikes me the only reason she'd do that is to bring one lost lamb back into the fold." He jammed his hands in his pockets. "Bad actions to justify a good outcome. She knew they'd understand. She knew she'd be forgiven."
Merlin snorted softly into his moustache. "I would never have believed anyone could term that boy a 'lamb'."
Cid shrugged. "Stranger things have happened." Him getting this gig, for one. Him being any good at it, for another, although the jury was still so far out on that one they might never come back into the courtroom.
Damn it. Kids sure did test you. Good thing he'd never spawned any of his own.
Cid took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out. Hoped it cooled the hot coals of his anger enough that he sounded sincere. "If she's gonna be out there where the danger is … I guess I'd rather she was in the Highwind than in some crapped out, pansy-ass ship built by someone who doesn't know a wrench from a carburettor."
Merlin watched him. Cid held his jaw absolutely straight. A muscle in his cheek jumped.
"I wonder," Merlin said thoughtfully, "why is it you keep yourself distant and call these children by their surnames, when you're obviously so attached to them?"
"Go die in the corner, bastard."
To himself, and to the open sky outside his now-empty workshop, Cid murmured: Stay safe, kid. Do what you gotta do, and then come the hell home, okay?
To Be Continued …
