Chapter 2: New Developments

Regardless of what he said about being fine earlier, Yuffie could tell Cloud was still a bit shaken from whatever he'd just remembered, so she figured it would be best to tell them just the action-based parts of what had happened. He wasn't ever actually in SOLDIER, so he probably wouldn't know the guy, but…his physical description might set something off again.

"So I called Reeve, and he told me that it would be pretty stupid to not conclude that my mystery-man is the same person as your mystery-man," Yuffie concluded after relating the gist of her story. "...I don't know about you guys, but I'm getting a really bad vibe about his little operation."

Tifa snorted, and the younger woman's brown eyes narrowed into a glare. "What is funny about this?!" she asked.

The barmaid waved off Yuffie's stink-eye and cleared her throat. "It's just…let's call him something other 'mystery-man.' I'm gonna have a hard time taking a new threat seriously if his nickname sounds like something out of one of Denzel's comic books."

"We could call him the winter SOLDIER," Cloud offered, in the simple manner one would debate dinner options.

Everyone at the table shot him an amused and exasperated look.

"What? It's winter in Wutai right now, and the guy probably had something to do with SOLDIER," Cloud explained. In a smaller voice, he added, "It makes sense."

Tifa poked him in the ribs, making him jump. "It still sounds like the name of a comic book character…" she said teasingly, "but it does makes sense, and it sounds a lot cooler than 'mystery-man.'"

Yuffie raised her hands in a gesture of defeat, and Reeve chuckled. "The Winter SOLDIER it is, then," he said. "But back to business. Our man of interest attempted to steal the ashes of a Wutai royal. I don't understand…what's he trying to do? What's the purpose of the list?"

"It's a list of targets," Cloud said unceremoniously. "Yuffie's mom was the first on this list, right? So he's gonna go down the list, and attempt to do…something with each target."

Yuffie momentarily admired how positively unfazed Cloud and Tifa seemed, before remembering that they probably should be, after all they'd been through together. It's not like they'd gotten a notice in the mail before their hometown was burned down, or for anything that had happened since then. This probably seemed like nothing to them.

"So the Winter SOLDIER will go after Vincent next, then, assuming the order means anything," Cloud said. "Has anyone seen him recently?"

No one had.

"Let's take a quick break and call Barret, Cid, and Nanaki," Yuffie suggested, refusing to give up on contacting their missing friend just yet. "Maybe one of them has seen him."

It only took a few minutes to find that none of them had, either. The four of them sat in near silence for a few minutes after putting down the phone, the only sounds being Reeve's fingers tapping on the table and Tifa cracking her knuckles.

"Hold on a minute," Tifa said, with a thoughtful look on her face. "Vincent asked me about buying a cell phone about a year ago. Yuffie, did he ever actually get one?"

"Not that I'm aware of."

"Well…crap."

"I'm not too worried about Vincent," Cloud said, leaning back in the booth. "He can handle himself, not to mention that he's kind of…immortal. And Yuffie, the Winter SOLDIER threw that urn back at you when you tried to fight, right?"

"Yeah…" she confirmed. "So…?"

"…so he's probably aiming to collect his targets, not eliminate them," Cloud finished, shrugging the same way he used to back in their ShinRa-fighting days. "He would have fought you by the statue if he didn't care about that urn staying intact. Hell, if he wanted it destroyed, he could have just dropped it down the side of the cliff."

Sometimes I forget how smart he really is, Yuffie thought. It's a crime he lost so many years to ShinRa.

"Let me get this straight," Tifa said, folding her hands on the table. "So the Winter SOLDIER is going to attempt to…capture, I guess, everyone on this list? Vincent will be next, and then Rufus. Who was after that?"

Reeve took a look at the list again and furrowed his brows before answering. "Aerith, then Ifalna, then Genesis," he answered. "The obvious problem is…none of them have bodily remains, at least not in any known location."

Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, in the same way that always prickled at the back of Yuffie's memory. "Well…if I were him…I would probably skip those targets," he said. "Assuming he knows anything about how the three of them died, he'd know that there's nothing left of them. So he'll probably come for me after Rufus."

He still looked unfazed, but she noticed Tifa squeeze his hand from under the table.

"What should we do?" the older woman asked. "I don't want you to have to fight him, Cloud. There's gotta be a less confrontational way to go about this."

Yuffie sat up a little straighter. "If we have to fight him, we'll do it together," she said firmly. "We're here for you, Cloud."

The blond gave them a small smile. "Thanks, guys," he said, "but I don't think I'll need to fight him. Remember what I said last week, Teef?"

"Yeah," she said, pausing for a moment. "Reeve, I think you should fill in Rufus…since he's probably the next target. See if the Turks can take him down, since they definitely owe us."

Reeve nodded. "I was about to suggest that myself," he said. "I'll call him tomorrow morning and get the Turks in the loop, and we'll see where this leads."

In the dead of night, Cloud lay awake in bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to keep himself from thinking about the Winter SOLDIER. He stretched his legs out, but they poked out from under the sheets and his feet met cool air. The bed really was too small for him, but their room wasn't big enough for more than two twins.

Why don't you two just share a bed? Their friends (mostly Cid) had asked them this on occasion, which always made Cloud stutter and turn an embarrassing shade of pink. Eventually, Tifa had needed to explain that they weren't as involved as the rest of AVALANCHE seemed to think they were. They'd told the kids a slightly abridged version of the story, too, even though they seemed to understand without being told.

It wasn't that Cloud didn't love Tifa. She was one of the most important people in the world to him, and he loved her with all his heart. He was grateful for the life they'd built together, even if it wasn't what he'd imagined as a kid. Things just hadn't worked out the way they thought they would.

Words aren't the only way to tell someone how you feel, Tifa had said that night under the Highwind. Cloud remembered how awkward and flustered they had been, especially with how complicated things had gotten. She'd fumbled through a confession of her feelings, and he…well, words had never been his strong suit. They hadn't had sex or anything—in fact, all they did was kiss for a bit and fall asleep next to each other. Waking up with Tifa's beautiful head on his shoulder had been a dream come true, and Cloud had realized with a pang of both regret and, strangely enough, relief that he didn't want anything more.

He'd told her as much after waking her. To his surprise, she felt the same way about him. They didn't click physically in the way that they thought couples were supposed to, and while Cloud hadn't had enough of his old memories back at the time to know if this was a unique scenario or not, Tifa did. She told him she was glad he didn't want to go farther, because she was asexual.

Cloud had never heard the term before, so she explained that it just meant she didn't feel sexual attraction towards other people. Cloud had processed this for a moment, lips pursed in concentration, and then asked her if maybe he was, too. Tifa had given him a knowing (and somewhat mysterious) grin and told him that he'd have to decide that for himself, and that with everything his mind had been through, maybe his body just wasn't ready for something like that yet.

Time had passed, and the romantic tension between them subsided as well. They decided sleeping in separate beds would be better (with Tifa's late schedule and Cloud's habit of tossing and turning), but they still presented themselves as a couple. And while he would still say he was in love with Tifa, it was a purely platonic love. And she felt the same way.

As far as his sexuality went, Cloud had stopped trying to define it a while ago. The first year or so after Meteor, he'd wake up in the morning expecting some magical return of his sex drive, and it just…hadn't happened. He'd found that he could get himself off if he tried, but he never felt the need, so he didn't really do it anymore. And romantic attraction hadn't made a reappearance either.

But it was all fine and good, because he had a family and friends who loved him and cared about him, and that's all he really needed.

The old memories that had resurfaced earlier that evening threw a bit of a wrench into that understanding of himself, though. Modeoheim…Cloud wondered how he hadn't remembered it until now.

He remembered being assigned to work with a SOLDIER, and upon meeting him, thinking immediately: Wow, he's good-looking. And he'd spent the rest of the mission trying to act natural and generally failing. Cloud felt a blush creep across his cheeks in the dark as he remembered lying on the ground after Angeal came through. Zack had offered to help him up, and he had refused in an effort to show off his super slick infantryman skills. Cloud had started to get up—and then fell right back on his butt again. Is it normal to feel secondhand embarrassment at a memory?

If his other memories of Zack were anything to go by, whatever sort of initial attraction Cloud experienced had faded over time, like with Tifa. Most of his other happy memories of Zack didn't have the same feeling of…whatever that was attached to them. But maybe those weren't even complete memories. Hell, his brain was a weird place. Tifa could testify, she'd been in it (which she reminded him of whenever he got too distant).

Maybe I just can't recognize romantic attraction when I'm feeling it…Aerith would be able to help. She'd always been better at that sort of thing than even Tifa. Gradually, his thoughts started going in circles, and he fell asleep, dreaming of friends.

Over the next few days, Tifa noticed that Cloud seemed even more contemplative than usual, which was saying something. He'd been late home from a delivery on Tuesday, two days after their meeting with Reeve and Yuffie, and when she'd inquired, he said he'd run out of fuel a few miles back and had to walk Fenrir the rest of the way. That had never happened before.

During their usual sparring match Wednesday morning, Tifa managed to literally kick Cloud's butt while he wasn't paying attention. He rubbed at the spot and gave her a hurt look.

He's really out of it. "I want to know what's got you all in a funk. Don't give me that look, you've clearly got something on your mind. Is it the winter SOLDIER? Cause I got a call from Reno last night while you were out, saying that they were on round-the-clock duty and that Rufus should be fine. There's nothing to worry about."

Cloud looked briefly surprised, and then rubbed the back of his neck with a sheepish expression. "It's…actually not that at all."

"Hmm?" Tifa raised her eyebrows expectantly.

"Well…I…it's about Zack."

What? That was not what she'd been expecting him to say, based on his behavior. He doesn't seem to be feeling sad or guilty, just…confused. "This is about what you remembered from Modeoheim, isn't it...do you wanna talk about it?"

Cloud looked conflicted for a moment, but then said "…Okay."

He's getting a lot better about these sorts of things. Tifa's face lit up as she took off her sparring gloves. "Well…you know my usual routine. If you want to talk about it, you're gonna help me tend to the flowers."

He just nodded and followed her to the garden.

The work took less time than usual, with Cloud helping. Despite being a warrior by occupation, he was surprisingly good with plants. And with kids. And with machines. Really, she didn't know why her best friend was usually so down on himself. A few minutes later, Tifa had brewed some tea (that Cid had sent them for her last birthday) and brought two barstools outside.

"So what's up?" she started.

Cloud sat there holding his tea for a solid minute, trying to put the words together. "…Modeoheim was where I met Zack for the first time, and I didn't even remember it until last weekend. And there was something…different about it from the other memories I have of him."

Tifa noticed the (embarrassed?) look on his face and waited for him to keep going.

The blond continued after a moment, his voice a few notes higher than usual. "I definitely remember trying to impress him…and feeling embarrassed about it. And…something else, too. But…none of my other memories of him are like this. I'm so confused, Tifa," he said, giving her a look that reminded her way too much of a lost puppy.

She couldn't help but grin, feeling like she knew exactly what sort of thing Cloud was remembering.

The blond wiped the pleading look off his face and scoffed at her. "What, does my confusion make you happy?"

Tifa laughed briefly, nut with enough enthusiasm that a little of her tea sloshed out of the cup and onto the dirt. "No…it's just, I think I know what you're trying to get at," she said with a sly grin. "You liked him."

Cloud's jaw actually dropped, which told her she'd hit the nail right on its spiky head. "I did not!" he exclaimed. "…Okay, maybe I did," he added. "I don't know. That's why I'm trying to talk to you about it."

"Alright, then tell me about it, goofball," Tifa said, schooling her face into a more serious, or at least less amused expression.

"Um…well…I remember pretty clearly thinking 'damn, he's hot' or something like that as soon as I saw him," Cloud said quickly, blush deepening. "And I totally spent most of the mission trying to make him think I was cool. It was…ridiculously validating to hear him say 'good job' when I restrained Hollander…"

He sounded just like a teenager again. Tifa loved it.

"…and then I got really motion-sick on the way to Junon, and—oh Gaia," he stopped, his eyes widening like saucers. "I think Zack asked me out after that."

Her expression broke out into a grin again of its own accord. "He did?"

"Yeah…he asked me to go grab a bite to eat with him, and I said yes right away like an idiot," Cloud said, hiding his face in his hands. "It was probably so obvious, wasn't it?"

"That you totally had a crush on him?" I knew it!

Cloud looked up, his eyes full of mortification. He groaned and set his tea down on the ground before he could spill any more of it. "…I did, didn't I? Oh Gaia—"

Tifa put her hand on his shoulder before he could start rambling again. "Cloud, let me tell you something," she said, moving her chair so she was closer to him. "It's okay. It's completely, 100% okay that you had a crush on your best friend. It's normal. It happens to a lot of people. It happened to me. And if it makes you challenge your perceptions of yourself, that's okay too," she said. "And…I should say I haven't been completely honest with you about something."

The mortification in Cloud's eyes changed to surprise and curiosity. "…what?" he asked. "I thought…"

"It's nothing major," the brunette clarified. "It hasn't really come up in conversation for years, and I didn't want to bring it up before because it was right after you started getting your old memories back."

Cloud looked back up from his hands, ready to listen. Tifa continued.

"Aerith told me some stuff about Zack after we met his parents in Gongaga," she started. "She made him sound like the type of person who wasn't very good at subtlety…I think you would have had to be incredibly forward about your feelings in order for him to catch on." She snickered and poked his arm. "And verbal," she added, causing his blush to deepen further. "Cloud, he was probably completely oblivious to whatever attraction you had to him, so you can go ahead and stop feeling so embarrassed about it."

Dilly-dally, shilly-shally. Get to the point, Tifa. She took a deep breath before continuing. "You know…I knew Zack too. Briefly. I saw you two together on the Nibelheim mission, remember? Cloud…you and him had a connection that was special. Whether it was romantic or not, I don't know, and it doesn't even really matter, to be honest. You cared about each other a lot—you had to, in order to get through what you did. What I'm trying to say is—"

Cloud startled her by pulling her right out of her chair and into a tight hug. Tifa reciprocated, wrapping her arms around his waist and rubbing small circles on his back.

A minute or so later, Cloud spoke into her hair. "I…think I understand now, Tifa. Whatever feelings I had for Zack turned from a crush…into something more like what I feel for you now, and—" she felt his arms shiver around her "—it broke me when he died, because…I loved him. I knew that before…but it feels different now, if that makes sense. I love you so much, Tifa."

Tifa could feel moisture on her scalp, and knew Cloud must be crying. She would too, if she'd just remembered something of that much importance. Tifa pulled away a little bit and wiped the tears off his face before she started tearing up as well.

"I love you too," she said softly, lifting her brown eyes to meet his blue ones. "And you're going to be alright, Cloud."

"…I think I need to change the way I've been thinking about some things," he said, looking back towards the bar. "I've been going around for the past three years making myself feel guilty for my failures, but…that doesn't fix anything, does it? There's so much here and now…you've been there for me through everything, Tifa. And I want to be there for you too. More than I have been."

Cloud took a few shaky breaths before continuing. "And Denzel, and Marlene, and all of our friends. I've been relying on you all to keep me sane for years…and I've never even really tried to return the favor, except to beat things up. I want to change that, Tifa," he said resolutely.

I can't believe how oblivious he is sometimes. She stepped back from the hug and ruffled his hair, making him jump back in surprise. "…why'd you do that?" Cloud asked.

Tifa just shook her head, beaming. "Cloud, you've already been doing all those things. You've been trying so hard to be a good friend to everyone these past months, and you've been doing a great job of it. You're just the only one who's too thick-skulled to see it."

Cloud's face went a little pink again. "…Really?"

"Yes, really!" Tifa confirmed. "You've been like that your whole life, Cloud. We all think you're a wonderful person, even if you get a little broody sometimes. All you need to do is see that for yourself."

They hugged again, and Cloud left to make his deliveries before too much of the day went by.

Reno had been having one hell of a week.

Rufus had called the four of them in for a mandatory meeting on Monday morning. He'd even called Reno specifically, threatening to dock his pay if he decided to skip. Whatever it is, it better be fuckin' important, he'd thought.

And important it was. Rufus had scheduled a call to Reeve Tuesti himself, and it wasn't about money. It was about a hit list.

It wasn't technically a hit list, as the WRO leader clarified several times for whatever reason, but any list of targets might as well have been a hit list in the redhead's mind. Blame the Turk training. Either way, Rufus was a target of some apparently-random mako-enhanced dude. Who Reeve didn't seem to know anything about.

Well, Reno took issue with that statement. He knew from experience and intuition that the chances of this fucker actually being random were very small, and that the last time some lone wolf ex-SOLDIER went around wrecking things, it had resulted in the biggest shitstorm Gaia had ever seen. So help me, if this has anything to do with gaiadamn Jenova, I am out, yo.

Reeve hadn't given them a physical description of the guy beyond "tall" and "wears dark colors," which was true of pretty much every SOLDIER ever, so it was a decidedly unhelpful piece of information.

Anyhow, Rufus had decided to do his usual dance with danger and not leave Healin. For whatever reason. So Tseng had put the four of them on extra shifts, with three of them guarding their boss at all times. It resulted in some gaiadamn grumpy Turks, since now none of them had gotten a break from work to do anything besides nap in four days.

And worse, while Reno was cast away from his usually carefree existence into a world of boring, incessant guard duty, certain other people seemed to be having a grand old time.

Strife, for instance. The fucker dropped by Thursday morning for his usual deliveries, looking positively chipper. Cloud Strife was never chipper, at least not in the several years Reno had known him. "What's making you so happy, yo?" Reno asked. "Get lucky?"

Cloud gave him a predictable glare, but there wasn't any fight behind it. He'd never appreciated having dirty jokes (or any sexual references, actually) made around him, especially at his expense. Which was why Reno made them so often. It was a thing now.

But to his surprise, Cloud actually dropped the glare after a second and laughed. An actual laugh. From the moodiest man in no-longer-Midgar.

His eyebrows shot up to what felt like right under his goggles. "Seriously though, why're you in such a cheery mood?"

"…I'm just feeling better than usual," Cloud said plainly.

If I didn't know better, I'd be convinced he's gotten laid, Reno thought. "It's cause Gaia took your grumpy-ass aura and gave it to me, yo," he replied. "I haven't had a break since Monday morning."

"Guard duty, huh?"

Reno groaned. "I'm bored and exhausted, yo," he said. "Tseng is being real strict about this guard rotation."

"If it makes you feel any less cranky," the blond said, "Tifa's offering free drinks to you four once this mess is cleared up. We…really appreciate your help."

"It's just our jobs, yo. No need to get so sentimental. But I'll take up the offer for drinks once our little Winter SOLDIER shows up," Reno said with a wink. "See you whenever."

"Bye, Reno."

The rest of Thursday and Friday went by without anything eventful occurring. Reno worked, slept. Worked. Took a nap standing up. Was chewed out by Elena (Tseng was off-duty at the time). Worked some more.

Friday night came around. The redhead Turk had on a pair of Rude's sunglasses to help his caffeine headache—he'd had more cups of coffee that day than was probably advisable. He was guarding the lower level of the lodge with Elena, while Tseng was keeping watch over Rufus upstairs.

"You look ridiculous with both the goggles and the sunglasses," Elena observed, with that classic combination of annoyingness and professionalism that irked the redhead to no end.

Reno scoffed. "I can't take off the goggles! They're a part of my aesthetic."

"Then take off the sunglasses!"

"But I have a headache, yo!"

They went on teasing each other for another few seconds, until Elena promptly put her hand over his mouth mid-sentence. "Stop," she whispered, "I think he's here."

Reno took off the sunglasses and looked out the window. Sure enough, some sketchy dude was making his way towards the lodge, avoiding the moonlight by sticking to tree cover. He definitely had a SOLDIER's build, and was wearing some sort of black combat uniform. He had a hood up to cover his hair, and a mask and goggles obscured his face.

"Well he's doing a damn good job of keeping himself anonymous, yo," Reno said. "I take back what I said about Reeve's description. I can't come up with anything better."

Elena swore under her breath. "I think he heard you," she whispered. "He just took out some…katanas? What kind of weapons are those?"

Their target had taken two blades out of his belt and was looking, it seemed, directly at them. "Take out your gun, Elena," Reno growled, getting his EMR ready. "He might be looking for a fight."

The man in question approached the wall and tilted his head to one side, as if thinking how to approach. Without warning, he took one of the blades…and drove it square into the side of the building.

"Not really what I was expectin' him to do, yo," Reno whispered. "Oh, fuck…Elena, go upstairs and warn Tseng. He's gonna scale the wall with those things."

The blonde woman nodded and darted upstairs while Reno opened the front door and stepped out into the crisp night air. The man was halfway up the building when the upstairs window opened and Tseng started shooting.

As Reeve had predicted, the man in black chose not to fight. He drew his knees to his chest, gripped his swords, and did a backflip off of the wall, landing in a deep stance. Shows off as much as any one of those old SOLDIERs, Reno thought.

He made a dash for the front door, which Reno was rather conveniently still standing in front of. Ha…it's stuff like this that makes the job worthwhile, yo.

The Turk cocked his EMR over his shoulder. "I'm afraid you won't be leaving with Rufus today, or any other day yo," he said with a healthy amount of dramatic flair. "You're in Turks' jurisdiction, slick."

At the word "slick," the mysterious ex-SOLDIER dropped his blades and started…shaking? The hell? Whatever he was doing, it didn't matter, because Elena had joined him at the door.

The blonde Turk held up her gun and pointed it right at Rufus's would-be kidnapper, taking advantage of the moment of weakness. Just as her finger honed in on the trigger, however, their target shot out an arm, grabbed her wrist, and disarmed her, all in in the blink of an eye.

Reno aimed his EMR right at the probably-ex-SOLDIER's neck and struck gold. He let out a pained yell and dropped Elena, who immediately retaliated with an elbow to the mask.

The redhead was back to fighting too, though he couldn't help but be distracted by the man's voice. I've heard that voice before, he thought, as he aimed blow after blow. Some hit, but the man was doing a good job of protecting his neck, and the armor he was wearing on the rest of his body seemed to be shockproof.

Eventually, Reno stopped trying to electrocute the man and started going for one of his blades. The EMR might be ineffective for this fight, but he could work a katana well enough to gain the upper hand.

Elena had backed off a bit and was aiming gunshot after gunshot at the winter SOLDIER. She landed a lot of solid hits, but Reno knew anyone as enhanced as this guy couldn't be taken down by bullets unless there were a hell of a lot more of them—any damage she caused would just get healed by the mako. That reminded him—the former First Class, Fair, who was on the run with Strife all those years ago—it had taken an entire platoon of men with guns to take him down. And this was after he'd already been weakened from being on the run. Better grab that katana quick, yo.

The man attacking him now was probably much stronger than Fair had been, and fought more fiercely than anyone the Turk had ever been up against, besides Strife. Reno had managed to avoid taking too much damage so far, but he was starting to lose energy, and Tseng hadn't shown up to help yet.

In a brief moment of victory, Reno wrenched the man's left blade out of his hand. This is too heavy to be a katana. It's more like a…oh no.

At the loss of one of his weapons, their attacker cocked his head to the side for a moment, and Reno would bet all the liquor in Edge that he was going through the same thought process. Elena landed a shot to the attacker's back, and he suddenly leapt back into the action.

Putting both hands on the hilt of the blade as if it was more like a broadsword than a katana, the winter SOLDIER spun away from Reno and struck Elena in the temple with the flat of the blade before the other Turk had any time to react. She crumpled to the ground, whether dead or concussed Reno didn't know and didn't have time to find out.

"TSENG!" he shouted as their attacker turned back around to face him. Reno wouldn't be able to hold off the man for very long like this. He knew how to fight with a katana…but these blades definitely weren't katanas, and the ex-SOLDIER's brute strength and superhuman speed would overcome his own agility very soon.

He had to appreciate Tseng's timing, as ironic as it was, because it was just as the Wutaian was within sight that their attacker struck the flat of his blade to Reno's skull, and everything went black.

Sunday morning, Tifa was making brunch with Marlene. Barret was coming to visit today, and his daughter wanted to help with the cooking.

"Can you get a stick of butter from the fridge?" Tifa asked, breaking eggs over a bowl. They weren't going to make anything fancy. Just a lot of pancakes, and all the spare toppings they could find before Barret arrived in—she glanced at the clock on the opposite wall—twenty minutes.

Marlene set the butter on the counter just as Cloud meandered downstairs, yawning. He was wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants, in sharp contrast to his usual outfit.

"Cloud, you look…well, not fancy," Marlene said with a giggle. "But nice."

Both adults giggled as well (although Cloud's was more of an undignified snort), and he pulled up a chair to the bar. "Anything I can do to help?" he asked.

"Wake up Denzel, if you don't mind," Tifa offered. "Barret's due to arrive in less than a half hour, and I want him at least as dressed as you are," she added with a smirk.

"I'll make sure he's wearing the nicest sweatpants he has," Cloud said teasingly before retreating upstairs.

The brunette was in the middle of flipping pancakes a few minutes later when her phone rang from across the room. "Marle, can you get that? It's probably your father."

The girl happily skipped over to the table that was set for their brunch and picked up the phone. She didn't say hello when picking up, though, and her cheerful expression vanished so quickly that Tifa knew whatever it was, it wasn't good.

After a moment, Marlene walked back over and handed the phone to Tifa, expression blank. "Here she is."

"Tifa, something very alarming has happened," said a grave voice. Tseng's voice. They never got calls from Tseng. "I need to get you and Cloud on the phone as soon as possible."

"I'll get him," Tifa said, trying not to sound too worried with one of the kids right there. "Marlene, I'm gonna need you to finish the pancakes, but don't touch the stove with your bare hands, alright?"

She bumped into the boys on the stairs, and the look on her face must have given something away because Cloud grabbed her free hand, told Denzel to go help Marlene, and led her upstairs.

Once safely in their joint office, Tifa put the phone on speaker. "We're here, Tseng," she said. Cloud's eyes widened, his initial reaction mirroring hers.

"The man you dubbed as the winter SOLDIER showed up at Healin Friday night," the Turk started, never one for small talk or pleasantries. "And he's much more dangerous than Reeve had told us he would be. He managed to incapacitate Elena, Reno, and myself in a matter of a few minutes and escaped with Rufus."

Tifa winced involuntarily. This was bad. If he was really that powerful, and it came to a battle with Cloud, it wasn't a sure win. One look at her best friend told her he was thinking somewhere along the same lines.

"What kept you from calling us sooner?" Tifa asked.

"By 'incapacitate,' I meant we were unconscious for more than 24 hours until Rude could revive us, and even then we weren't clear-headed enough to call until just now."

"…Damn," Cloud said. An understatement. "Can you give us details?"

Tseng put Reno on the line, who relayed the story as best as he could—their winter SOLDIER was definitely formerly of ShinRa, and was very competent with two blades that he described as a hybrid between a katana and a broadsword. He wasn't aiming to kill any of the Turks, or they'd all probably be dead, but he did put them out long enough that they had zero clue where he went. To top it off, thanks to the mask, goggles, and hood, their idea of his physical appearance was even less detailed than they had expected.

"…Damn," Tifa said once Tseng was back on, echoing the blond's earlier statement. "I take it you want us to handle it from here."

"If you would be so kind," he confirmed, with a tone more bitter than they were used to hearing from the professional Wutaian. "If Reeve told us correctly, the winter SOLDIER is going to go after you all next anyway. So I would suggest—"

"—beating him to the punch," Cloud finished.

"I'll leave you to it then," Tseng said coldly before hanging up. Tifa would ordinarily be a bit miffed at the Turk's harshness, but she'd be equally unhappy in his situation.

She looked to Cloud, gauging his reaction. He met her gaze and clasped their hands together.

"Teef, I'm fine," he said reassuringly. "We'll call up Cid when Barret gets here, pick up everyone else, and go look for Vincent and Rufus."

"What makes you so confident that this is going to end well?" Tifa felt she was rightfully concerned, if their target was as powerful as Reno and Tseng had made him seem. I don't want you getting hurt again.

"We've been in so much more dangerous situations than this," he answered patiently. "This guy isn't aiming to kill—he's aiming to capture. And," he added with a smirk, "the eight of us are better warriors than the Turks anyway. Especially since we're familiar with a SOLDIER's combat style."

She couldn't help but acknowledge the truth of that. "I'll call Cid now and get arrangements for a Highwind trip going," she said pragmatically. "You go downstairs and fill Barret in once he gets here."

Getting to work, Tifa couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia along with the expected anxiety. Yes, they were going off to find (and possibly fight) some unknown man who had unknown motives and more power than they'd dealt with in a while—but they were doing it together.

Author's notes:

So that was a trip-for me, at least. I gotta say, Cloud and Tifa's conversation during that second part was a joy to write. I couldn't resist using the Winter Soldier idea, which I believe originated with an anon on holyshit-clack's Tumblr (and I know TheLonelySheWolf is writing a fic on a similar concept, but this is gonna diverge from that very, very soon-I just wanted to borrow the name until the "big reveal").

I changed the title to "A Space to Grow," because song titles are always fair game, right? And I figured it's probably more fitting for the story I want to tell anyway.

Chapter 3 might be a bit longer to upload, because I'm not happy with it yet, and the weekend is over anyway. But it's going to go through the confrontation with the mysterious ex-SOLDIER (whose identity should be super obvious).