Chapter Four

"You're kidding me!"

Aerith blinked in shock as she tilted her head to the side in wonder. "What?" she asked, confused, bemused, and any other way of saying 'shocked and or uncomprehending'. What a strange reaction. She blinked at him a few times, before slowly the pieces began to fit together.

"Me?" she asked incredulously. Her. This… man was here for her? No way!

"You better be pretty now," he warned softly, "otherwise I might just have to punch myself for doing something so stupid."

Of course – of course! She huffed.

"Why do my looks keep getting brought into the conversation?" she asked irritably, before looking off to the side. "How do you even know who I am?" Stalker. The guy was a stalker. He said he had met her mother – maybe he had seen a picture of her and had started to… no… the way he went on it sounded like he didn't know what she looked like at all…

"I'm assuming you know Cloud? Cause if you don't then this awkward little situation that's happening," he gestured between the two of them with his right arm, "it's not my fault."

A smile bloomed on her face, but before she could inanely shout out what she wanted to say with the exuberance she wanted to say it with, she swallowed lightly. "You know Cloud?" she ducked her head so that the camera wouldn't be able to accurately see her face. So… being rescued by a prince wasn't really that bad. It felt… nice.

She would have definitely gotten out by herself, though. Of course it was pretty silly to not accept any and all help when offered.

Her face felt slightly flushed. Cloud is coming to rescue me. The thought brought along with it the urge to giggle girlishly, however she felt it didn't suit the situation at all, so don't do it Aerith. He would probably think she was insane – he probably already did.

"Blonde, spiky hair, right? Some SOLDIER 1st and all that?" he asked, his voice dulling, like he was getting tired. Which was a possibility, if he had been running on pure adrenaline for who knew how long and suddenly he was sitting, being taken care of, and felt safe.

"Yes," she nodded, before removing the cloth meant to stop the bleeding. She dug into the first aid kit and pulled out a roll of bandages. She frowned slightly, before urging his arm upwards with light brushes of her hand. Once he lifted it up a decent amount, she began to wrap the cloth around, holding the bandage until it was tight and secure. "So… what's the plan?"

The guy laughed, and it shook his body subtly in a way she had never before noticed in someone. Weird. "Their plan was to have a distraction – me," he clarified quickly, "and then go and break in without everyone noticing and then rescuing the damsel and the poor sucker who got distraction duties."

Aerith giggled lightly, though she felt like it shouldn't be something that she should giggle about. It was just the way he said it, she determined. "You must have been quite the distraction, if you actually made it here alive. I must say I am quite impressed."

"You better be."

She finished the bandage, holding it in place before searching in the first aid kit for something that could hold the bandage in place. "Do you want your sleeve?" she asked, glancing down at the soaked clump of fabric that bunched around his elbow before finally smoothing out into cloth along his forearm.

He was silent for a moment, before tilting his head to look at her, blinking harshly. "Probably not," he answered, before squinting. "You have… brown hair, right?"

Aerith didn't know why she felt shock, but in a moment it disappeared and she raised an eyebrow – one that probably needed plucking by now… "Um," she started blandly. "I do." What a strange topic change – at least hers was useful.

"That's great."

She couldn't tell whether he was being sarcastic or trying to be funny, but failing. She gave him a strange look. "Okay…"

"I'm starting to be able to see again."

"Oh," Aerith cooed in understanding. "Then I might just have to knock you out before you can see my face. Wouldn't want to ruin the surprise or anything." Her eyes caught on a safety pin inside the kit, and she pulled it out deftly.

Zack laughed. "You just might," he agreed, and once more Aerith found herself slightly envious of his ability to converse. "The suspense is just nerve wracking!"

"Living on the edge of your seat if a very nice way to live." What was she even saying? It didn't make any sense – neither did the conversation. Or how they arrived to the conversation. "So…" she attempted, "are we just supposed to stay put and wait for them to rescue us?"

"Yes, yes," he waved her off and she felt slightly insulted. It was an important topic! Their freedoms could very well depend on what they were supposed to do! "And I think I like standing more than sitting."

"If it's next to a cliff then I might push you off!" she snapped, irritated at his light viewpoint. Why wasn't he taking it seriously? Why was she following through with his ramblings? It wasn't like she would ever push someone off a cliff. She wouldn't be able to handle the noise… or the mess… or the fact that the person would inevitably die.

"You wouldn't," he declared, and she couldn't help the rise of irritation within her.

"And how would you know?"

"You just wouldn't. Call it intuition?" He shrugged his right shoulder, which made her wonder slightly whether or not he could move his left at all.

She didn't know how to respond. He was right, of course, but saying 'you're right' sounded like something that would just feed to his already large ego… or… it wasn't really an ego, was it? It was a solid defense so that she wouldn't ask any more about the plate. And sadly, she wasn't talented enough to break it away – she didn't even know where to start.

"There's a camera in the room, isn't there?" he whispered, and Aerith blinked out of her reverie. She nodded. "I still can't see that well," he reminded blandly, before sighing. "I have a restore materia on me; it would probably stop the bleeding."

Aerith paused in slight shock, before her brows crinkled and she was struck with confusion. "Why didn't you tell me before I put the bandage on?" she asked, half incredulous. Glancing nervously over at the camera, she shifted her body so that he could reach properly to wherever it was that he was hiding the materia.

"I thought you were some lab rat!"

"I'm not a rodent!"

Zack paused, Aerith paused, and she felt her face heat up before realizing that the context she thought he was using 'rat' in wasn't the one he was.

"Never mind. You thought I was Shinra?"

He nodded. "'Hojo can have him after we interrogate him again. If not, execute him.'" His voice was grim and mocking. "Does that explain anything for you?"

Aerith shuddered, the tingles of vile wretchedness that crawled along her skin at even the mention of the name made her feel sick. "Everything," Inarticulate; try again Aerith. "That explains everything. I mean, I know what you mean. Hojo… is slime."

"What lovely things to say." His voice was slightly panicked, and Aerith noted that he finally began to move his hand down to his boot. His fingers itched down underneath the dark fabric. "Makes me want to meet him all the more."

"I'm sure." The words came automatically as she watched his movements with mild fascination. "He is someone you definitely want to avoid."

"Ouch, you probably hurt his feelings there."

"I'd hurt a lot more of him, if I could." Aerith looked the boy in the eyes, and was somewhat surprised to see a beautiful blue hue there. She lightly licked her lips and began to gnaw on them softly. His eyes were nothing like the unnatural pair that Cloud sported, they were darker, softer, yet at the same time brighter than anything she had seen before. "You have nice eyes." she blurted, and as she did so the unfocused gaze of her companion darted back to her, his hand froze.

"Having a good look, are we?" he asked. He was cocky, but endearing. It was such a strange combination that all Aerith could do was blink at him stupidly. "Don't worry, many people do."

Such… audacity! Aerith's mouth opened in play, since she felt like her expression was far too over-exaggerated for any realism to come from it.

"Is that so." Say something witty: this was… flirting after all. He was flirting with her, and he would keep doing it if she didn't say something that made him realize that she was not someone who he could tease relentlessly. Habits and dynamic needed to be initialized upon first meeting.

Which was a paraphrase of a ridiculously long lecture Elmyra had given her after Aerith had run home crying after a boyfriend she had (it lasted a total of two weeks, so she wasn't sure it even constituted as a 'boyfriend', but at the time it did) dumped her. He had teased and flirted, and then wham, he was suddenly actually dating someone else and broke it off with her.

So… witty… "I do wonder though," she started slowly, because things didn't come like a drop of a hat to her as it seemingly did to him. "I've had plenty of people tell me I have the most striking eye colour. I bet mine garner more attention than yours do."

Um. Okay Aerith, where did that come from exactly? Her face turned a slight pink as she realized she had not only flirted back but also made it into a challenge! Oh, no…

Cloud, now would be a good time for you to come and rescue us. A crooked smile emerged on his face. It looked boyish and cocky and so infuriating all at the same time that she just wanted to hit him. However, his face was smashed, his left arm was mutilated, he needed his legs to run and the only good arm he had was currently trying to find a restore materia buried somewhere in his socks.

"Is that so," he mimicked. "We'll just have to see about that later then, won't we?"

"If you think you're turning this into a game, then I can tell you right-

"Come on, it'll be fun. Once we get out, we'll keep a tally of how many people compliment our eye colour."

Aerith sulked, and narrowed her eyes for a moment. "The number of compliments, not number of people, and you cannot buy, ask, or lead a person into complimenting your eyes in any way." Oh, great. What was she doing exactly? This was hardly the place to make childish bets as to whose eyes people liked better.

She would win, though. His eyes might be nice but you had to get close to see them. That, and Tifa already complimented her eyes, and Cloud couldn't stop looking at them. Already she had two votes. Well, unless they only counted from now onwards.

"Starting now."

"What I said doesn't count," she sounded stubborn, like some three year old pouting, but she knew she was smarter than that, so she shook away the imagery of herself in a diaper with a large pacifier in her mouth. It was an odd image anyway.

"Fine." He held his hand up, and in his fingers was a dimly glowing orb.

"Does that even work?" It looked almost to be stone. It looked like it worked less than her mother's materia, and that one actually didn't work.

"I said it would stop the bleeding, not heal the wound. Don't even try with the broken arm."

She pulled a face at how… useless it looked.

"Oh, wait, don't try at all if you don't think you can't not heal the arm… cause… it's not set and all."

She nodded, and he relaxed slightly. She could do it, however… she glanced nervously at his fragile form.

"It looks like it's about to break any second."

"I had better ones before…" he trailed off, and Aerith didn't need to hear the words to know the rest of the sentence. Before Sector Seven.

She sighed and plucked it out of his fingers quickly. Rolling around the materia in her palm, she tried to gain a feel for it. With slight disbelief she felt a very soft pulse accompany her heartbeat, meaning that yes, it worked, but no, it wasn't strong enough to produce the lulling, constant drone of warmth that most restorative materia gave off.

She didn't have any accessories on her to amplify the use of materia, as her bangles had been taken away upon the discovery that they were not just jewellery. So the archaic method it was.

Using materia without any help from accessories was a difficult task, something she found out when she tried to heal herself with a materia she got for her birthday – upon her request, of course. She rolled the materia around, warming it up with her own body heat, and then placed that hand, materia and all, against Zack's shoulder.

"This is probably going to hurt." The jerk deserved it, but she knew she was going to stop the moment he even so much as winced in pain. She could pretend to be heartless, at least in front of him.

"My arm is numb; go right ahead."

She breathed in deeply; shifting her body slightly and lifting herself higher so that more of her body would cover whatever light the materia gave off. Then, she pulled in the power that the materia had. It hurt. Muscles tensed as her arm threatened to spasm, but taking in pure magic without a conductor was dangerous as it was. She couldn't afford any movement during the transfer.

The effect might be beneficial, but the process certainly wasn't. She wasn't even going to try this method with a destructive materia. Something whose purpose was to harm would more than likely hurt more than any wound she had ever received.

Then, she pushed. The energy always came easily, and shoving it out of her arm and into his felt better than she thought it could. Probably because it hurt more than she was used to, most probably because the materia was defective to begin with.

The bright green glow illuminated the area, and she could only hope that no one was watching at the moment, because even a faulty materia was better than no materia at all.

Then, pulling her arm away, panting slightly, she looked up into Zack's eyes.

He was staring at her numbly, before an impressed smile grew on his face. "How did you do that?" he asked excitedly.

Aerith blinked, and lightly retracted her arm, materia enclosed in her palm. "I used my body as the conductor instead of an accessory."

Zack looked off to the side for a moment, most likely gauging the logic of her statement, before he nodded. "Wouldn't that hurt?"

"It does. I don't like doing it." She wasn't a masochist. She had no plans on becoming one either.

"Thank you," he answered sincerely, and Aerith merely nodded in response. She started to gnaw on her lip again, before clamping her mouth shut so that the temptation didn't arise. Instead, her hand went behind her back and pulled her braid to her front, before playing with it.

"We're just supposed to wait, right?"

"If worst comes to worst we could just slam ourselves into the wall and hope it breaks."

"It's concrete." She would not admit to trying that. Never. The camera was her only witness and that would be that.

Zack grimaced. "Way to crush a guy's dream."

"Of escape?" she frowned before shrugging; I suppose it's a good enough dream.

"Of freedom," he corrected. "People undervalue the cost of freedom too much."

Once again, Aerith didn't know what to say. She knew it probably had to do with the plate, his words, but...what could she say?

She didn't know where to begin, and even worse, she knew she wouldn't know when to stop. That was the real issue; knowing at what point getting any closer would only result in more pain.

Watching Cloud try and fiddle with a hulk of machinery that took up the expanse of the wall in the small room the three were currently crowded inside was rather fascinating.

No, Tifa, stop it. Aerith needed her help and Zack was in trouble. There was no time to be hyper aware of stupid things.

She took in a deep breath, and then let it out heavily. Cloud paused his hands as they hovered over numerous switches and keys, and glanced over at her with a quizzical expression. She quickly shook her head, shoving a smile on her face. Now is not the time.

What happened to you?

The words were burning on the tip of her tongue. She refused to say them, refused to utter the questions that seared inside her. They tore at her insides and ravaged her soul. She wanted to know, but knew that whatever was happening with Cloud, now was not the time for it.

What happened after the Nibelheim massacre?

Cloud reached up and turned a small silver key from its side to straight up, before crouching down in front of the small screen that gave the instructions for the manual override. There was a book somewhere, Cloud had said, though it had either been stolen or lost amongst miles of paper work in the 'Back-Log' (as he called it) department.

How did you go from being an infantryman to a SOLDIER 1st?

She fidgeted, and then placed a patient smile on her face when Cloud looked over. Barrett was grumbling in the corner, however Tifa had a feeling that he was thinking about it. Again. The plate falling. She herself couldn't stop thinking about it. Every time she looked at Barrett, she thought about it.

Every time she looked at Cloud, she thought about home – what happened, the questions.

It was all beyond infuriating. Guilt lay everywhere, scars and masks and wounds that never really healed were cut right back open or shoved right in her face. It was depressing, and she was sinking. Stop it, Tifa warned herself, self pity is only a distraction. It was useless, she was confident in herself, so instead of moping about what happened – stop if from happening again.

Take down Shinra.

Take down the guilt.

That made her even guiltier. She mentally cursed at her frailty. She needed to be strong, mind and body. If she allowed herself to be caught up in the past, then everyone who had died would be shamed. She couldn't do that to them. She needed to move forward. Live for those that were still alive. Protect them, make sure they were safe.

She couldn't do anything about the dead. Couldn't do anything about her father, or the mother she could barely remember.

Get Aerith, save Zack, get out. Maybe destroy Shinra if it was feasible – at least give that rotten president a good beating before leaving. Protect, protect, protect.

I don't seem all that good at it, do I?

Shut up, Tifa.

Cloud began to tap his fingers against his thigh, as he reached down to flick a small red switch up, and then over to his left to turn another key.

The screen lit up in a bright green acceptance as the override was completed, and Cloud leaned back and groaned.

"Let's get going, then." He worked his neck, rubbing it lightly. She sympathized with him; that screen was too low to the ground to look at comfortably and still reach the keys that were nearly out of his reach.

"Finally!" Barrett huffed, and Cloud, who seemed to be more shaken by the entire infiltration than both Barrett and her combined, was probably going to snap again – verbally.

"You do it next time." Or not, though the words still had that scathing undertone, which gave her a hunch that the two would be friends as enemies only. That was fine though; comradeship existed, and regardless if the two of them argued, she knew Cloud would be doing the same thing to…

No. He wouldn't treat Zack the same way as Barrett. Yes, Cloud would be just as high-strung, but she couldn't see him… snapping at Zack. She shook her head as Barrett exited into the hallway, followed by herself.

Zack was… special. She didn't know how, but she had caught it a few times.

You need to stop looking at Cloud so often, Tifa.

She blushed lightly, and when she realized that she had done so, she slapped her cheeks. The movement was purposefully light, so it looked like she was just psyching herself up rather than to hide any unexplained colour.

How Cloud used to look… before he left…

Those expressions… he only showed them to Zack.

Not to her.

She would understand it if he showed them to Barrett… but to Zack. She didn't want to feel jealous, but she did. She just did. Perhaps it was Zack's personality, perhaps it was the air around him; it was like, regardless of the fact that he would possibly never be able to beat Cloud…

Zack still acted like a leader.

It was the most peculiar thing.

"Come on," Cloud nodded down the hallway, and lead them on.

"What's ahead?" she asked, more for Barrett than herself. She would follow Cloud anywhere, she had admitted that to herself when she first heard of him again as the new SOLDIER 1st on television. The questions were her fuel… and l-

No. She didn't. Not yet. Cloud wasn't Cloud at the moment. But that was the problem, wasn't it? She, after all this time, had to figure out she was in love with the old Cloud. This new one was fine… but she couldn't stop looking at him to try to find the sweet boy who stole her heart without her even realizing it.

You're jealous of Zack because he brings out the person you love.

You're jealous of Aerith because she has Cloud's attention and accepts him for who he is.

You're a horrible person.

She sighed. Stop it.

Cloud was silent for a moment. "A stairwell."

"Hell no!" Barrett exclaimed, shaking his head and arms in complete refusal. "I ain't climbin' no more stairs, yo!" He stopped, standing firm.

Tifa discretely rolled her eyes but stopped and waited herself.

"The elevators are monitored. The stairwells run on a closed loop but no one watches those because of how ridiculously long the stairs take." Cloud halted, and turned, so that he faced the two of them.

"Barrett," she tried, as he seemed to have a soft spot for girls, "Cloud's right." How many times had she said that already? It seemed like it was turning into a catchphrase. You know you're going to be terrified when Cloud ends up wrong. "Zack has probably been caught by now and you know Shinra, they-" She didn't want to say it. She broke off and let Barrett fill it in himself. His shoulders relaxed and he huffed, before nodding.

Cloud turned, and continued, his pace twice as fast as it was before. Tifa felt an odd twist in her gut.

Cloud… if I were the one captured, would you walk or run to me?

Stupid question Tifa.

Zack had started to blink rapidly. At first she thought it strange, before remembering his 'temporary blindness' as she had assumed it was.

"What happened?" she asked. The two were sitting across from each other, and it took only a moment before realizing that she possibly only had ten or so minutes left with him before the guards would take him away.

Zack paused before tilting his head down. "I think Shinra was trying to imitate the sun, actually."

Why did he do that? He turned every question into a conversation. Well… she supposed it was a good skill to have, and it certainly made him easy to talk to. But I don't have time. She stood and sat down, Zack scooted over and let her have enough room between the corner of the wall and the bed.

He sighed. "They shoved me into a very bright room, and I was stuck in there for ten or so minutes. Happy?"

"Yes." She was pleased, but their time was almost up. "If they get caught, what do we do?" She had to ask, she really did, because after she sat down and thought about it, she just couldn't wait.

Zack grimaced as they thought about it, then, with his good right arm, he scratched the back of his head. "Uh… no idea?"

She lightly smacked him on his side, being careful to not touch any wounded area. With foresight, sitting on his left was probably a very silly idea. Well, too bad; she didn't feel like getting up. "What would you do if you found out you were stuck in here?"

He sighed heavily, before his eyes scanned the ceiling. "I would break the camera and start slamming the bed around. You know, make it sound violent. But… if they want me dead anyway they probably wouldn't care if it sounded like I was 'trying to kill myself'."

Aerith blinked in shock. What? "How… how did you come up with that?" So quickly? That was the main part. Sure, she had the idea to wait until they came in and fed her, and then… well… fighting dirty here was certainly allowed.

"I think I saw it on a TV show once…" He shrugged with his good arm. "Can't remember the name. Oh, but before you get too excited, the person got caught halfway through the building."

Aerith pondered on this. "Well, they have to feed us-"

"They have orders to kill me if I'm not what I said I was. Which I'm not," his voice was carefully a murmur here, and she could barely pick up on what he was saying.

"Oh." That was a dilemma. "Well…" Well then what? What could she possibly say? "We should do it right now then!" She turned her head deceptively to the side. "I'm in here, right? Well… what if you were a 'danger' to me?"

"Are you that important?"

She nodded to the question, thought she really didn't have the time to tell him why.

"There are two guards that patrol the cell block; or at least, only two that talk. If we can get past them…" Then what? She wasn't used to having to plan out such complex escape plans – which would probably be due to her inexperience. Hiding and not getting caught was easier than breaking out after being incarcerated.

"The vents."

"What?"

He looked to the ceiling, their murmurs barely had their lips moving, so it would be more or less impossible for the camera to catch anything that they were saying. "The vents are held up pretty strongly due to the concrete structure of the building."

"Why would they have to do that?"

He laughed slightly. "Can't you let me sound all-knowledgeable for a little while? I have no idea why the vents are reinforced but they are… uh… I think they are. They should at the very least hold your weight."

"That's not very reassuring at all." She wasn't going to leave him and go alone. She had taken care to manuallyheal him. And they had their bet.

And he was fun to talk with.

"If it breaks, you should survive the fall."

"What?" she hissed, and pushed herself off of the wall. She paused, taking in his grim expression, before sighing and glancing at the camera. "Let's do it."

"I'd rather wait for the alarm."

"What alarm?" Did he know something she didn't? She pulled away from the wall so she could look at his bruising face.

"Well, eventually someone's going to see a large guy with a gun arm and one of their SOLDIER's right?" He left Tifa out – was she not a part of the party or did she just not stand out as much as the other two, so he didn't mention her?

"I suppose so."

He cursed, and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Man, this headache is killing me."

"I don't think your materia is good enough to stop a headache."

"It'd probably make a growth in my head, knowing how cheap it is." He stretched his neck and started to blink heavily again. "Finally," he breathed, in utter satisfaction.

"Finally what?"

"You say 'what' a lot," he pointed out.

She raised a brow. "You say weird things a lot." It sounded rude, once she said it, but she shook it off. He probably didn't know what was and wasn't polite.

"I'm talking to myself."

"That would be the first sign of insanity." She didn't know if it was or if it wasn't, but she felt like saying so anyway. I'm getting better at this! She could respond without thinking, like he was doing. Of course, she supposed 'what' shouldn't count as a response.

"What was your first clue?" he asked sarcastically, but the way he said had her fighting a smile.

"You broke into Shinra without even knowing what I looked like," her tone turned dry. "Such a nice thing to do for such an ugly girl."

"You're not ugly."

Aerith's mouth snapped shut, and for some reason she felt her cheeks heat up. It's only because Cloud hasn't said that you're pretty yet. All he admitted was that she wasn't ugly, which really wasn't much.

She wasn't vain. She knew she wasn't, so why was such a… superficial sentence so pleasing to her? It made no sense. "Not pretty?"

"I don't know yet," he admitted, and then he pulled a smile that looked painful to his swollen features. "There's still this large blue circle that covers nearly half your face."

"I'll have you know that it's shallow to only talk about someone's physical features." She needed to say that, because she was dying to point it out, "and you are hardly the looker. You actually look like a foot."

"At the moment."

"I'm sorry?"

"I only look like a foot at the moment," he paused, "and how exactly does a face ever look like a foot anyway?"

"I don't know," she answered stupidly. "You just do."

"Thanks."

"Thank you for saying that I'm not ugly."

"You have a massive nose, don't you?"

"You look like that normally, don't you?" she shot back, and then, started to laugh. What was with this conversation? It had nothing to do with their predicament at all, and she would have never been able to guess that she could be so carefree in such a pressing situation…

He was doing it on purpose. He was getting her to relax, to calm down…

His… mask… really was flawless.

"Thank you," she had to whisper it.

The first four floors were simple to get by, the fifth was the problem, and their goal was the eighth. It was nerve-wracking, terrifying, but the adrenaline rush had become something that Tifa was used to and somewhat addicted to. It made every nerve tingle, every breath seem important.

They were going to get caught.

"How exactly are we going to stop the SOLDIERs from coming once we make a break for it?" she asked Cloud, who, like the rest of them, was pressed against the wall, waiting for the guards to walk by.

"We can't," he said simply. "It was by pure luck that we haven't been discovered so far."

"What'dya mean?" Barrett huffed, as he had already run out of breath. "I thought you said that the stairs were safe."

"The hallway and the override room weren't." He always said things simply. Blunt, to the point; it wasn't anything like the old Cloud at all. That Cloud would try to explain everything in a way that would sound the best to the one hearing it.

Stop it, stop it, stop it, Tifa! She really did need to get a grip on herself.

"Well, why are we jus' pressing ourselves against the door, then?" Barrett asked.

Cloud sighed with a patience that seemed very fake. "This is the last door to the extra emergency stairwell that doesn't require a code. We'll need to go up using the main staircase. Which means," he sounded so tired, like explaining all of this was a chore. Well, it probably was. "That we're going to have to cross the hallway till we can enter the stairwell, and we're going to have to run up 'til the sixty-eighth floor. Those stairs are monitored, and once they realize that the doors are opening without keycard access, then Shinra will be on high alert."

"Why?" she asked. She didn't know why she did; perhaps it was for Barrett's sake, perhaps it was for her own, perhaps it was because she just wanted Cloud to keep explaining things, hoping he would fall back into old habits.

Cloud clenched his fists and shifted, in evident irritation. "The only persons who know of the keycard override are high ranking Shinra employees; meaning that there would have to be a rat."

"But it's you."

"They think I'm dead." He placed a hand on the doorknob. "So their immediate assumption would be that it's either Angeal or Genesis that's attacking their building."

"The old SOLDIER 1st's," Tifa hummed.

Without saying anything else – or perhaps because he had decided that he was done with talking – Cloud opened the door and quickly disappeared. Barrett swore and followed him, Tifa at his heels.

Walking onto the bright floor, Tifa would have to say she was genuinely shocked.

There was no one.

"What is this floor?" she asked. Other than some rooms with wide hallways and industrial grey paint – there was nothing.

Cloud paused for a moment. "It's probably the development floor…"

"Then why is there no one here?" Barrett walked ahead. "Is developin' really borin'?"

"There isn't much to do. Midgar would need an outer ring to expand," Cloud shrugged. "Though honestly, I've never bothered with this floor before."

"So we're just lucky?" Tifa asked, her brows raised in disbelief. "Okay, something is going to have to go wrong, it really is, otherwise there is just something really messed up with all of this."

"The next floor has the board meetings," Cloud mused. "Most security is on the levels above."

Well… she spoke too soon, didn't she?

A/N: Thanks to all my reviewers! You guys are all lovely and I love you all to bits! And thanks a LOT to my beta, who pointed out some flaws in my writing that I will now make sure to correct. So, here's the new chapter! Read and Review please! (I'm about quarter way through the next chapter) I should have it written sometime next week, and then its back to my wonderful beta to edit so that it's nice and polished!