Down at the workshop

by Womble619

She had never been any kind of a girly girl. Her love for bombs, gadgets, engines and video games had gotten her friend-zoned more times than she cared to count. Noone ever seeing the young woman beneath with a heart sometimes bigger than her head. Most say there was only a love triangle in FF7, perhaps they were right? Or perhaps there was a square. Lemon, possible fluff, feels.

2. First encounter

Afternoon from England my fellow FF7 and hopefully Jessie fans! (If not then my goal of this fic is to turn you into one :D)

Thanks for the positive feedback/compliments on the first chapter. Told you it would be lemony and I'm pleased to say it's not going to end anytime soon! I plan on having LOOOAADDSSS more fun with the beautiful tomboyish red-head while throwing in some lols, a splash of drama and letting Jessie's personality take glorious flight… hopefully :P.

Next chapter of fearing the 1st coming soon to a cinema near you. Enjoy!

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Chapter 2 Part 1- First encounter

With her legs wrapped viciously around his strong narrow waist and her weight being effortlessly supported by both his hands planted firmly on her backside, one thought popped into Jessie's mind.

This is weird.

Her mouth was moving fervently, tasting Cloud's lips aggressively, hungrily. Her hands were exploring wildly, desperately, greedily, still not brave enough to venture to that hard area she could feel pressing between her legs but Gaia, how she wanted to. She thought it was weird because this craving she was feeling, this level of hunger driving her actions, it seemed out of place being as she was a virgin and all. How could you be hungry for something that you've never experienced before?

She didn't contemplate the matter for long, Jessie didn't care anymore, all she knew was every part of her body was screaming for his attention and none of the touching, kissing or exploring between them could happen fast enough. Her entire body going into sensual overdrive shivered against his. She could still hardly believe this was happening, he had walked into the workshop out the back of seventh heaven and it had started so suddenly. In fact thinking on it now, she couldn't even remember how it had started in the first place but gods it didn't matter, she just needed to consume this man for her own.

Absently running her hands into his hair she took her frustration out on the soft golden peaks, pulling the strands hard, maybe too hard as their tongues lewdly entwined with one another. In response the ex-SOLDIER and new AVALANCHE recruit made a deep pleasurable rumbling noise in the back of his throat that was music to her ears and after that everything went just that little bit crazier. Carrying her in their intimate raunchy embrace, Cloud stumbled his way over to the back wall of the garage through the maze of machinery and clutter of negligently discarded tooling that was lying about until the back of Jessie's thighs hit the edge of a table. Awkwardly relinquishing one hand from her ass her newly acquired pleasure swept his arm across the workbench behind her in one forceful motion, throwing everything off the surface to replace her on it. The young red-head winced slightly as the sound of numerous heavy metal objects went crashing loudly to the floor but she giggled it off nervously. In return a look flashed across the blonde's prettyishly handsome face that was something so tantalisingly close to being a smile for her but not a smile.

Minerva would she ever see him smile?

That thought and her giggle had little time to occupy her brain however as suddenly the hot guy between her legs grabbed the material of her dark-green khaki tank top and tugged with inhuman strength. The material covered in patches of black engine grease ripped apart inelegantly, making her squeak as the entirety of her torso and plain black bra burst onto show. Unlike before Jessie didn't hide this time, she remained displayed on the table for him to see with cheeks now burning fiercely but not as fiercely as her body. The boisterous action of him literally tearing the clothes off her body sending Jessie to a new high of excitement which peaked ever higher when slightly calloused but surprisingly smooth hands ran over her chest and across her exposed midsection. The female engineer shuddered once more, her stomach muscles cramping giddily under his touch and a gasp laced with lust escaped her reddened lips as those same hands popped open the first of the three buttons on her tight-fitting jeans.

Skinny jeans? When the hell in the last two years had she ever worn skinny jeans?

"Clouuud" she hissed as he expertly conquered the last of her buttons and teasingly slipped his fingers in to the waistband to take a firm hold of her trousers.

It felt so strange using his name that way but her head had turned to mush and she couldn't help it. He still stared at her questioningly.

"Just hurry up already" was all Jessie could think to say.

There it was again, the smile that wasn't quite a smile.

Obeying her plea he pulled on her trousers and when she lifted her hips but an inch up from the crude heavy-duty work table, they came away in one go almost along with her underwear.

Skinny-jeans never came off that easily in real life.

Reduced to nothing but tattered rags, black bra and plain white panties, the eighteen year old tech-whizz was a mess of heavy breathing and anticipation waiting to explode, waiting for him to do whatever he was going to do to her next. Anything he wanted. Cloud saw this and adventurously picked up the only object that remained on the table to use it on her and it made Jessie's body react incredibly. Picking up a hefty metal K-sized bolt spanner he guided it between her opened legs and the woman watched owlishly as the heavy silver object moved towards her damp panties. When it made contact against her sweet spot she inhaled sharply and groaned. It was hard, slightly too hard and the metal was uncomfortably cold against such a delicate area, but the excitement of such a garish item she had an express tomboyish interest in being used in such a way, made what should have felt unenjoyable, intensely enjoyable.

Hand snapping forward she clutched onto Cloud's muscled forearm as he worked the flat of the tool in small circular motions against her heat. Not to push him away or make him stop, but for support and grounding as her entire being sunk into a misty haze of euphoria.

"H-h-holy shit… h-how does that feel so good?" she hummed, seizing up with delight.

Cloud licked his lips, approval shining in his mesmerizing baby-blue luminous orbs as he opened his mouth to speak…

Chapter 2 Part 2- First encounter

Jessie's eyes opened onto the familiar sight of her bedroom ceiling, always distinctly identifiable by the blackened scorched ring that tainted the white surface from a homemade rocket she had accidentally set off in her room once.

Of course she wouldn't remember what his voice sounded like, she hadn't heard him speak since… actually… when had she heard Cloud Strife speak?

Brushing a bleary hand across her face with a groan she sat up in bed and shook her head.

Why was she having sexual dreams about Cloud Strife? About that reclusive and downright anti-social pretty-boy who didn't even fit the profile of the type of guy she was typically attracted to? It was three days ago she had walked in on and shamefully masturbated to the thought of him after getting stupidly hot and flustered from what she had seen. Why was it cropping up again?

Because she had been fretting all day yesterday about getting Tifa to ask him to come down to the workshop later today so she could harvest his blood could be a likely reason.

Throwing her duvet back quite irately the tech fanatic swung her bare legs out from her single bed and hopped out with ease, feeling far from tired or groggy just like she did most mornings. It was ridiculous, she had only seen the guy shirtless, it wasn't exactly hard-core pornography and she was acting like a pathetic horny teenage school-girl about it.

"Get it together Jessie."

Crossing her room to find a long pair of pyjama bottoms to put over her small bed shorts, she mentally noted with dry amusement that technically she was still young enough to be a school girl. If she had been one of those privileged princess' that lived above the plate then staying on in school until she was eighteen might have been an option in life.

But she wasn't privileged and she most certainly wasn't a princess.

Putting on the longer concealing clothing Jessie left her small bedroom at the end of the hall above seventh heaven and begrudgingly made for the still broken shower on the landing as opposed to the one in the guest room. Even if Cloud Strife barely ever slept in there, because from what she had gathered from Tifa and seen herself he barely slept at all, Jessie was not voluntarily going to run the risk of running into the same embarrassing situation as before, ever. She also never usually felt the need to put more clothes on in the morning but since the ex-SOLDIER had started irregularly occupying the spare room she had started becoming a bit more self-conscious about her attire around the house. Which was silly really, it wasn't as if she could flash to him much more than she already had.

Sneaking quickly across the hall like a thief in her own home the red-head ducked into the unoccupied bathroom, closed the door behind her and locked it. Next she ran the shower, stripped bare and stared fearfully at the cascading jet of water. Gaia this was going to be horrible.

Oh well, a cold shower is exactly what you need, you weird pervert.

After she had endured the harshest, breath-constricting, freezing cold shower known to man and legged it back to her room in nothing but a wrapped towel, Jessie shut the door and slumped her back against it with immense relief. It was so dumb and she knew it. Why was she so intent on avoiding him? Also why was she judging him as being anti-social when she had not attempted to speak more than two-words to him either? It was hypocritical and he probably thought she was just as weird.

The weird stripper girl that sneaks around the house and asks if she can have your blood.

Jessie slid down the door and despaired. She had been constantly fretting about meeting Cloud Strife today down at the workshop, hence the dream, but now she was utterly dreading it. He was going to think she was a complete nutcase. Who asked to take someone's blood as their opening introduction? But she needed his blood, people were relying on her to create a bomb that would be strong enough to blow up an entire industrial reactor and unless they magically found a way to ferry and pack 2 tonnes of C-4 into the reactors core, they needed something that reacted with Mako. Something that could start a volatile chain reaction with the highly classified substance, that was the only way they could blow a place that big up with a bomb small enough to carry.

Bomb making was simple chemistry, she was always good at chemistry but to figure out what could cause such a reaction Jessie needed a sample to work with, she needed Mako. The original plan had been for Barret and Biggs to get their hands on some black market crap that gang members and low life's typically used for botch job mediocre enhancements. The appearance of a first class however presented a far less dangerous means to get what they needed, not to mention being a first class the Mako in Cloud's bloodstream would be of the finest quality. He agreed to do it but that still didn't change the fact she felt she was setting the worst possible first impression on their new team member and was going to be forced into a room with him to take his blood. What would they talk about? What was she going to say? Jessie had a tendency to become socially awkward when she got nervous.

Unhugging her knees the towel clad girl decided to quit moping about it, got up off the floor and threw open her wardrobe to get dressed. This wasn't like her at all. Her brief surge of resolve quickly dissolved again as the dilemma of what to wear and the sight of her selection of clothes overwhelmed her in a truly disheartening volume of dark greys, brown, blues and blacks. Baggy cargo trousers, bland three-quarter length trousers, un-shapely stiff nylon trousers. Rummaging through the hanging items, Jessie concluded that she could quite easily have been looking in Bigg's wardrobe except a good third of hers were also covered in permanent feint black petrol marks from where she was forever getting covered in crap. Her finger nails also bore a similar stain around the edges to, no matter how hard she scrubbed.

A long shaky sigh took to the sky. She'd like to say this was the first time her inability to act girly or look like Tifa had got her down but she would be lying. Over the last year she was finding more and more that she falling out of love with the tomboyish fashion, or maybe it wasn't so much the fashion but the growing want to be desired. To be recognised as a female.

Jessie rummaged faster. Surely she had to have something that at this moment in time didn't make her want to torch her entire wardrobe? Item after item flicked by depressingly until right at the end of the line, she came across her only pair of skinny jeans and couldn't help but smirk impishly. So they did exist, she hadn't worn them in years or realised she even still had them. Her brain had subliminally skipped over them all this time until making a dramatic reappearance in an erotic dream of all places. They were about the most feminine pair of trousers she owned and so in deciding to try them on for the hell of it, Jessie laid the jeans on her bed, dropped her towel, threw on an appropriate black thong and set to squeezing into the tight fitting number. The struggle in front of her cracked bedroom mirror was almost comical, a struggle which escalated into pure warfare the further they advanced up her thighs. Soon she was hopping and thrashing on the spot trying to conquer the last ten inches but gave up with a huff and stared helplessly at the most dominant obstructive curve on her body in the reflection.

At least her ass had grown since she was sixteen, that was kinda comforting. If only her chest had done the same.

Distracted Jessie handled her just-about-a-handful mounds and inspected her whole body in the mirror underwhelmed.

Why couldn't she be like Tifa? With never-ending long legs and a chest twice her size? The martial artist had a figure that Jessie idolised as being the perfect proportions.

Giving up and recognising there was no way in a golden Chocobo's chance she was getting into the jeans hanging halfway up her thighs, she squirmed them back of and glanced at her usual selection.

"Dark navy combats it is then."

She was going to die alone.

Chapter 2 Part 3- First encounter

In a chorus of unnerving juddering and rusted screeching sounds the uncomfortably dodgy elevator came to a stop on the fourth floor of what could be considered a pretty sweet apartment but a rather poor excuse of a penthouse. Using the newest addition to her keys she let herself in like always to the sound of intense gunfire, crossed into 'the den' and dumped herself into the ancient brown leather sofa next to Biggs while putting one thick boot up on the table in front.

"Yo you gotta get in here. Check it, fourty-two kill streak. I think schools must be on holiday or somethin' coz' these dingbats I'm farming have gotta be six year olds. HA! Fucking noobs."

She rolled her eyes as the virtual super-soldier absently lobbed her over a controller.

"Looks like it's time for me to show you a true reign of terror then."

Hearing her voice a cheery round pudgy face appeared at the kitchen door across the way and a floral oven mit waved sweetly in her direction.

Jessie grinned and sent a small amused wave back.

"You're later than normal Jess? I'm making Kalm puffs" Wedge twinkled proudly.

"Yeah what the hell gives? Do another all-nighter on my ride?"

Jessie shrugged at the screen as she got dropped into a battlefield and half-assedly began obliterating the opposition.

"Firstly, Fenrir is not your ride he's mine and you will have to be super nice to me if you even want to so much as sit on him when he's finished. Secondly… I uh... had a bit of an outfit crisis this morning."

Her best friend lounging in nothing but black shorts, commando-grey vest and identical to her red bandana, snorted a short explosive laugh until he realised she was being serious and spared her a very brief frowning glance.

"You look normal to me."

Jessie squinted at her fellow black-haired video-gamer and flicked him in the side of the head.

"Hey! You know what I mean. Normal as in your plain good old usual self" Biggs protested.

Jessie flicked him in the head harder.

"Hey! Can you stop that!? Oh by the way, when you go back can you take Teef's Walkman with you? And uh… if she asks, it totally had a crack on the front before she lent it to me-FUCK YOU CAMPER NOOB!"

"No it didn't" a soft voice sang from the kitchen.

"Wedge! The hell man!? Are you trying to get me punched in the head!?"

"You should be honest then, Tifa won't be angry with you if you're honest."

"Wait" Jessie interjected, "why can't you take it yourself? You're coming to the bar later right?"

"Nah, gotta work. Me an' the big guy are re-coning in sector one… AGAIN. I'm telling you, it's a dead cert that it's the best one for us to hit first but ya' know what B's like. Wants to check everything over fifty billion times. Does my sweed in sometimes."

Jessie internally withered and then she got shot, her attention span for gaming virtually non-existent.

"Woah, did you just get wrecked? Are you feeling alright? What's up?"

"Nothing" she lied. "I was just hoping you could stop by later is all."

"Why? I thought you had work later to? Going dracular mode on our boy Cloud."

Our boy?

Jessie frowned… and got shot.

"Yeah I am. That's why I wanted you to come. Hey Wedge, you're free later right?"

The Tifa-trained chef popped his head around the door with an apologetic face.

"Yeah but… it's blood. I'm not very good with blood. S-sorry Jessie."

Of course Wedge wasn't good with blood. When Jessie slashed her arm that time on the corner of a harnessing jig and he walked in on them while Tifa was patching her up, the man had vomited and passed out, simultaneously.

"Ugh! Well this is just bloody great guys."

"I don't get it, why do you want one of us to come along with you anyway?" Biggs asked confusedly.

"To be there."

"Eh?"

"To be there."

"To be there?"

"Yes to be there! I… don't wanna be alone with him…" Jessie petered off with embarrassment. "And besides, it's a chance for us all to get to talk to him. He's a part of AVALANCHE to you know and we've never even spoken to-"

"I have."

"-him. You have?" Jessie parroted dumbly.

"Yeah we've spoke, a couple times actually. We said some things ya' know, guy to guy like. I mean… sure HE didn't say much but… we was defo on a level. He's pretty chill."

"WHAT!? Why didn't you tell me!?" Jessie squawked, sitting bolt upright.

"Woah take it easy will ya'. What's the big deal? I bet Wedge didn't tell you either that he spoke with him."

"You've spoken to him too!?"

Leaning against the doorframe Wedge nodded happily.

"He said he liked my disguises and that I've got a bright future ahead of me."

Jessie flopped back against the couch. Great, now even Wedge was more sociable and outgoing than she was.

"I can't believe you guys!"

"Am I missing something? 'Cause I'm seriously not seeing what the big deal is here" Biggs remarked. "Where are you going?"

"Well if neither of you are coming then I'm gonna go and start setting up. By myself!" she snapped moodily.

"What? Why are you being like this Jess? You know you've been acting really weird lately. I don't get why you need one of us to be there, it ain't as if he's some sort of maniac or sex pest. If he was I'm pretty sure Teef would be the first one to find out about it."

Whirling around at the edge of the living room Jessie shot Biggs a seething glare.

"And what's that supposed to mean!?"

"Nothing! Geez, the hells wrong with you!?"

"I AM A GIRL TO YOU KNOW!"

"Yeah… yeah I know that! If we're being technical about it. That is why I said it!"

"IF WERE BEING TECH-?" Jessie advanced a number of steps towards Bigg's vehemently but stopped and snatched the music player off the living room table. "I'm telling Tifa you cracked her Walkman and I hope she does punch you in the head!"

"Woah woah! Why are you getting offended at that!? I'm saying he would be more likely to make a move on Teef first because you're more like one of the guys. IT'S A COMPLIMENT!"

"Screw you! You jerk!"

"Hey guys, l-let's not argue" Wedge teetered into the room with a steaming tray of pastries in his over mit.

"I'm not arguing! I'm leaving!"

"But… but my Kalm puffs are finished."

"Then wrap me up some for later!"

"But… but they're best eaten when there just cooked."

From halfway out the door Jessie stormed back into the apartment, snatched one of the condiments off the tray and thoughtlessly shoved it in her mouth.

"There! Happyhhhhhh!?"

"… you've burnt your mouth haven't you?" Wedge called after her as she resumed her enraged exit.

"Yesh! Yesh I hash!"

Chapter 2 Part 4- First encounter

Fingers laced together on the prepped and sanitised table in front of her, Jessie sat stiffly in her chair, twiddling her thumbs while scanning apprehensively around the room. She had tidied the workshop up a little but not much. With a stack of tools, gadgets and specialist handmade equipment piled on one side of the room and a large white dust sheet thrown over Fenrir's skeleton in the corner, it was as good as it was going to get.

She was nervous, not just about meeting the ex-SOLDIER face to face for the first time after their embarrassing run-in but also for the fact she was going to have to draw his blood. The syringe, needle, bag, tubing, antiseptic swabs and plasters in front of her becoming growingly more ominous by the second. She had studiously researched the correct and safe way to do this but that is all it was, research. Applying that knowledge was another matter entirely and now the longer she sat staring at the unpleasant items before her, the closer she got to feeling like she was going to pull a Wedge.

Distracted by her queasiness the metal pauldrons on Jessie's shoulders jolted skyward along with the rest of her body when the door of the workshop was un-expectantly opened after some time and in came tall blonde spikes. Her adrenaline surged.

"Cloud! Hi!"

Thankfully Jessie just about managed to restrain herself from animatedly jumping out of her seat or hiding under the table, she wasn't sure which.

"I mean uh… come in, take a seat… if you want to" she finished casually, trying to recover from the over-dramatic bombardment of a greeting she had given him.

The ex-SOLDIER standing stationary in the doorway cast his eyes cautionately over the place once before approaching the seat she had her hand held openly towards which she subsequently quickly withdrew into her lap.

"Sorry it's a bit of a mess right now… well actually it's usually worse… not that I'm a really messy person or anything but… um, never mind."

What are you going on about? Shut up Jessie!

She swallowed and restarted as Cloud mutely pulled out the seat in front of her.

"What I'm trying to say is, thanks for coming."

The darkly dressed first nodded and sat down, his leg accidentally coming straight into contact with hers beneath the table and this time Jessie really did jump up from her seat.

"SORRY!... I mean!… n-nothing never mind."

The red-faced red-head hastily sat back down and immediately busied herself with unpackaging the medal supplies from their protective wrappers while praying that the floor would swallow her up whole. Silently she cursed herself and told herself to relax and start again.

"You probably think I'm a bit weird asking Tifa to ask you to do this so out of the blue. Sorry. I know we haven't spoken much."

Ever

"But I promise I don't usually ask people for their blood the first time I meet them" she forced a tiny laugh, trying to make the situation light-hearted.

Jessie glanced up to gauge his reaction to see if it was working and straight away withdrew her stare back to the task at hand when she saw he was observing her intently with a neutral expression.

"So... Cloud… how are you settling into AVALANCHE? I know Barret gave you a bit of a hard time at first and I've not really taken the time to talk to you. You probably think I'm really anti-social so I'm sorry for that."

Jessie exhaled with frustration, unable to separate the thin fiddly plastic flap of the syringe packet to open it.

"Sorry I know I'm saying sorry a lot. I've just been kinda busy lately… not that I'm saying that's any excuse, it's not."

"I don't."

It was such a surprise to finally hear his calm, mid-tenor, easy-on-the-ears voice that the female engineer very nearly dropped the finally unwrapped plunger on the floor.

"That you're anti-social, I don't think that" Cloud clarified further.

A couple seconds passed in which Jessie took in the tired looking swordsman and his response, still amazed she had heard him speak. So he was capable of it.

"Oh… well I'm glad" she smiled genuinely across the table, already feeling slightly more at ease.

What exactly had she been expecting? Some terrible or demonic sounding monster?

Plunger and bag hooked up together with the half meter of tubing, safety capped needle plugged and antiseptic wipe ready to go, Jessie looked at Cloud's arm apologetically.

"Are you still happy to do this? Did Tifa explain everything enough about why we're doing this?"

"Yes."

Taking the hint he turned an arm over and placed it on the table. Jessie exhaled as her time to step up to the plate arrived.

"Ok, if you get uncomfortable with it and want to stop at any time, you just tell me Cloud" she insisted firmly looking him in the eye.

The light-skinned Nibel nodded.

Setting herself to the task at hand Jessie reached out and took a tentative, kind of awkward grip of Cloud's forearm, feeling the muscle beneath twitch and seeing his bicep tense. Quickly recognising that pulling his arm closer while being hunched forward herself was not going to work, Jessie closed the distance by shuffling her chair closer. Once more their legs came into contact beneath the table but the young engineer closed her eyes for a half-second and steeled herself to ignore it. Mouth dry and hands not nearly as steady as she would like she took a firmer grip on his arm, looked among the easy to spot veins in his distractingly defined arm to locate the best spot the Junon medical journal had recommended for this and set to wiping and cleaning the area in small gentle circular motions. It was soothing and at the same time unnerving to do. Something uncomfortably intimate to be doing with someone who had once been a SOLDIER, especially while their knees in light contact under the table was hovering constantly on the edge of her mind.

"Well Cloud, you're the best patient I've ever had so far" she quipped, an automatic coping mechanism to try and speak away the uneasy butterflies she was feeling. "I'm going to put it in now ok?"

"Sure" was his unbothered response as she uncapped the rather gruesomely long hypodermic spike.

Taking that as her green light Jessie very warily crept the needle closer to his arm, taking it slow more for own sake to keep her composure and focus on not freaking out which she was very much on the precipice of doing. She went in to make the insertion and was about an inch away from making it when to her alarm a startling shout of pain was released from Cloud and even though she knew she hadn't touched him, Jessie still recoiled dramatically while apologizing on reflex.

"Ah! Oh god! I'm Sorry!"

Pale brown eyes stretched wide, the red-head gaped at Cloud clutching the side of his head with his free arm, eyes squeezed shut with a hiss escaping through clenched teeth. He looked like he was having a severe migraine attack.

"H-hey are you alright!?"

"Yeah" the blonde powered through his pain to speak, quite clearly not alright.

"… a-are you sure? You don't seem…"

"I'm fine." It was sometime before he spoke again. "Carry on."

Hesitantly she did so, picking up on the edge in his voice and not wanting to question him on what that just was. One thing was for certain, it was very peculiar and it had shaken her up that much more than she already was. The girl figured being as he was once a SOLDIER he would be use to needles, being first class Cloud must have had hundreds in his time. Maybe that was it? Maybe her action had reminded him of something that was traumatic for him or triggered off something from his forgotten past? Jessie knew a bit about having something traumatising in your past and respected that it was not something you wanted people questioning you about so she proceeded without saying anything.

"Thankyou" came the surprising response after she had successfully managed to insert the needle into his arm without any drama this time.

Making a few positional adjustments to his heavy arm and with the see-through tubing beginning to fill with an unnaturally vivid crimson, Jessie bobbed her head.

"I understand... I think. Won't be too long now. I won't take much. I know you're a busy guy and you've probably got a million others things to be…"

"Not really."

"… oh."

"Why did you think that?"

Jessie bashfully observed Cloud tilting his head at her, feeling uncomfortably tiny under his close curious stare.

"I… guess it's because I don't see you around the bar often. You seem to be off doing your own thing most of the time. Wh-which is cool by the way."

"I thought that was best for everyone. I make you all uncomfortable because I was SOLDIER."

Though it was true, a pang of gilt churned in the eighteen year olds stomach regardless. Guilt that his elusiveness was attributed to him not being made to feel welcome and not because he was off on secret, personal missions as she had often speculated him to be.

"Ugh. Cloud I'm such a jerk. I don't want you to feel like that" she whispered sincerely. "I admit it I was pretty uncertain about you at first but Biggs, Wedge, Tifa, Barret, Marlene, AVALANCHE, they're all like family to me and you're a part of that now. I'd like us to get to know each other. I don't want you to feel like an outsider."

Jessie internally winced at her words.

Was that being a bit too forward?

"You're not uncomfortable?"

Her wince became a deep rooted cringe. How could she say no when she most likely had 'uncomfortable' written all over her face right now.

"Not about you being an ex-SOLDIER, no." About the leg touching business you don't even seem to be noticing, yes.

"… I see."

A time passed where neither of them spoke and Jessie busied herself with undoing a plaster for the donors arm while her head worked at a thousand thoughts a minute. Thinking of all the questions she wanted to ask him but there was one in particular that slipped out freely without her even meaning for it to.

"Cloud, do you think we're making a difference here? With AVALANCHE and blowing up the reactor I mean?"

"Not really."

Somehow it didn't surprise her to hear that as his response.

Brown eyes held blue and the longer they did and the deeper she delved to see if that was truly what he felt, the less Jessie believed him. There was something in there she could see it, a certainly well concealed but existent part of him that informed the engineer's instinct he cared more than he was letting on.

"So then why are you here?"

"The money."

That's right, they were paying him. Tifa had waited an entire week before dropping Barret that little detail.

"And is that the only reason?"

Jessie refused to take her gaze off his and let any hint of hidden thought or emotion escape her notice, not that she could even if she had wanted to. The way his face read an expressionless blank totally contradicting to eyes swimming in a complexity of emotions was captivating to observe. It didn't even clock in Jessie's mind until after he shrugged his shoulders that staring into a blokes eyes for nearly an entire minute straight was far from being a normal thing to do.

"I guess. How much more of my blood do you need?"

Being reminded of the see-through medical bag hanging from the table filling with blood and noticing she had taken nearly twice as much from him as she had intended, Jessie urgently jumped into action.

"Ah! I'm sorry! I didn't mean to take that much! Sorry sorry!"

She removed the needle from his arm with delicate haste, plastered the puncture wound up promptly and the second she had done so, the trained fighter made no delay in taking his freedom and heading for the door. Ten minutes ago Jessie would have been affronted by the abrupt action but now she simply smiled in deeper understanding. Before he left she called out to him, catching him at the door.

"Cloud. You're going to be alright."

The first stayed there, half-in half-out the door with his back turned.

"You're going to get your memories back. I promise."

Cloud's physicality shifted and half-turning his head to the side he acknowledged her from the corner of his eye.

"Thanks Jessie."

That was the first time he ever spoke her name.