"This is where I slept my first night in AVALANCHE," Cloud says, pointing to a dusty corner in the secret basement below the bar, "If you really want to describe the situation accurately, I suggest you sleep there."
"It's tempting," I say, nodding thoughtfully at the corner, "but I think I'll take one of the spare rooms upstairs." Cloud thinks this over for a moment before nodding curtly. Even though Cloud isn't smiling at all, I think he might be joking. A little while after Cloud and Tifa's talk, we all sat down for coffee (except Tifa 'cause she's preg) and I was able to get a lot of information from the two about their time in Midgar and the events that led to them leaving in search of Sephiroth. I figured it would be good to interview them together because it was probably going to be hell getting the information exclusively from Captain Sourpuss. It turned out I was right. Tifa gave a lot of the detail about events, things people said, even what time of day it was. Cloud was more like, "We were here, then we went here. This happened. I won. Then I went to Sector 6...". This information was gathered over a series of one-word answers to my questions.
"And what was it like," I said, "when you stayed to fight Rufus Shinra alone?"
"Fine," Cloud replied. Tifa put her arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. I was able to subtly avoid asking Cloud anything specifically about meeting Aerith and his time alone in Sector 5 with her, and I think they both appreciated that.
"Listen," Cloud says, hitting the switch to bring down the makeshift elevator, "Tifa's going to be having our baby in six months. So I want to do this trip in five. We can sleep in a bit tomorrow, but after that we're going to be getting up very early every day. Be ready for that." I nod as Cloud rises slowly upward. When the bottom of the elevator closes into the ceiling, I flick the switch. Nothing happens. The lights in the basement shut off.
"Ha, ha," I call up, "very funny." I flick the switch a few more times, increasingly furious before I give up and kick at the wall. I go to rest in the same corner Cloud pointed at, the dust floating up around me as I set down. This actually does inform how I'm going to write that part of his story. I think I'm going to add in some things of my own though. Like how Cloud insisted on wearing a dress to rescue Aerith from Don Corneo's mansion, and in fact wanted to wear it for several missions after that. Why not? He's never going to read it, he won't know.
In the morning, there's a crick in my neck. "Wug," I groan, pulling my head off the back wall. I check my watch. 8:37 AM. So much for sleeping in. I get up and slump over to the elevator. "Please," I say, and when I flip the switch the ground shudders and brings me up to the bar. I look around. It is quiet, empty. The door to Cloud and Tifa's room, in the back, is closed, but I can see the light on inside and hear them talking quietly. When did he put the elevator back on? I can't see him getting up early for me. Maybe he turned it on just a few minutes after he turned it off? Whatever, I'm kinda pissed. I'm going to have to figure out some way to get him back.
I walk down the back hallway and up the stairs and go to the guest room Tifa showed me last night. There's a room right next to the guest room. The door closed, the light on. Who...? I guess we're all early risers. I shut the door behind me and drop into the bed, setting my watch alarm for 10 AM before I fall asleep. I awake feeling a lot better, and when I open the door to my bedroom the smell of bacon, eggs, and home fries meets my nose. Nice. Maybe I'll get to see Tifa cooking in her pajamas. I take a quick shower, throw on a white collared shirt over a T-shirt and my khakis and scamper down the stairs. But I'm out of luck. Tifa is in a pair of fluffy pajamas checkered with light and dark blue and another black top and bare feet, looking crazy hot, but she's sitting at the bar drinking water out of a coffee mug. Cloud is at the stove, wearing a black wifebeater, dark blue jeans, and a small sun pendant on a chain around his neck. His blonde hair shakes as he pushes the food around the pan with a spatula. I walk over, sidle up right next to him behind the bar, and shut off the stove. The hiss of the food and grease dies to a soft sizzle. Cloud looks at me and I narrow my eyes.
"Cloud is sorry about leaving you in the basement last night," Tifa says, "he said he forgot you were here."
"I made you some breakfast to make up for it," Cloud says, pushing some of the food onto a plate and handing it to me, "try not to get it stuck in your face." I take the plate.
"Is this about the article?" I ask. Cloud's eyes flick downward. "I tried to honor your friends. It's not easy to do things the right way all the time when you work for Shinra. I thought you would have some understanding of that," I say.
"I do," Cloud says, looking back at me, "So I quit. Why don't you quit and write your articles the way you want?"
"I don't know," I shrug, "but if you do something like that to me again you can bet I'll quit this job and tell my boss to pull the funding for your trip."
"Really. How do you think you'll get to The Forgotten City without me?" asks Cloud.
"I'm surprised you're concerned. You didn't seem to care about that before now," I say. Tifa sets her mug down and folds her hands together. Cloud looks to her. She just shrugs and raises her eyebrows.
"I'm sorry," Cloud says, "You have a point. We need this too."
"We do appreciate what you put in that article," Tifa nods, "about them."
"It wouldn't still be on the wall if we didn't," Cloud agrees, and he holds out his hand for a shake. The smell of the food beneath my nose helps me forgive, so I shake hands. I take a knife and fork from a small pile of silverware off the counter and walk over to the table on the other side of the bar. "I'll make you two some coffee," Tifa says, getting up from her stool.
"I've got it," Cloud says to her, "sit down, it's okay." Tifa slides back onto the stool and Cloud serves her up a plate of the food. He turns on the coffee maker and dishes up two more plates of breakfast.
"So who lives upstairs?" I ask. Just then a girl comes bursting into the bar from outside. The girl is tall with big brown eyes and dark brown hair cut at the shoulders, almost the same color as Tifa's. She's wearing jeans, a pink blouse, and a bright smile. Fifth woman I've seen in over a year, not including train passengers.
"I've got it! I've got a letter from Denzel!" she cries out.
"Ohh!" says Tifa, widening her eyes at me as the new girl scurries over to the bar, "seems to be a good one."
"Every letter from Denzel is a good one- but yeah, this is a good one!" the girl says, "He just got his first assignment from SOLDIER!"
"Woooow, sounds like a big day," says Tifa, turning to Cloud, who blatantly ignores the cue to say something as he pours coffee. "Where's he headed?" Tifa asks.
"He's going to be doing some work in Gold City, that giant casino!" the girl says, "How fun! Oooohh, I wonder if he'll run into Daddy on the way there?"
"Let's hope not," Cloud mutters under his breath. Cloud passes a mug to Tifa, who passes it to me.
"Look at that," Tifa says to Cloud, "she meets her soulmate at 6 years old, they start dating at 13, and just when they're old enough to do some real damage he goes into the military, and she waits for him." Tifa places a hand on her belly, "I can only hope we get so lucky."
"I just hope he's healthy," Cloud says.
"He?" Tifa presses.
"Real damage, huh?" I ask, after a slurp from my coffee cup, "So, you're 18?" The girl looks at me for the first time, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. Tifa sucks air through her teeth, eyes wide.
"I... should write him back!" the girl says, turning brightly back to Tifa, "where do we keep our stationary and postage stamps?"
"I don't know," Tifa says, tilting her head as she gets up, "let's go look." The girl disappears, but Tifa stops next to Cloud and holds his face in her hands, pressing her forehead against his. I look away and try to drown out their goodbyes with forkfuls of bacon and eggs. Hey, I'm a reporter, but even I'm not that nosy.
"Good luck," I hear Tifa call, and only when I look up to see her turning up the stairs do I realize she was saying it to me.
"Hey Ladykiller," Cloud says, lifting his mug off the counter and walking around the bar, "grab your coffee. Let's go outside." I take my mug and walk out onto the porch. I expect us to sit down and him to have a discussion with me on proper guest decorum, but he just jogs down the porch steps and walks around the corner of Seventh Heaven. I follow him into a large shed with big open barn doors and see Cloud standing next to a huge, slick motorcycle. On the other side of the motorcycle is my rucksack and his leather bag from yesterday.
"Am I supposed to ride behind you on that thing?" I ask.
"Actually," Cloud says, pulling a tarp off an older motorcycle, "I was thinking you'd ride this."
"Whooaaaa," I walk over to it, glancing at Cloud, "really?"
"These are just until we get to my ranch near the marshes. It's a little while outside Midgar," Cloud says, "we're going to stop in Kalm, for your story, and then we'll go by Chocobo over the mountains. It's not the exact route I took the first time, but it will be faster and safer." I sip my coffee and look over the bike. Cloud walks back to his bike, tossing my rucksack over to my feet.
"I talked to Red and Reeve," Cloud says as he straps his leather bag to the back of his bike, "they say you're alright." Red and Reeve became my best friends when I lived in Cosmo Canyon. I am confident that they said that I was more than alright. Then I remember the motor bike I used to get around back then and realized Cloud was just talking about my riding skills. This guy really doesn't care who I am. I sling my rucksack onto the back of my new bike and get on. Cloud sets his mug down on the ground and throttles the engine. I do the the same. The bike comes to life underneath me, and I feel the thrill of a brand new adventure. Cloud is just sitting there for a minute, staring out at the rising sun.
"Dude," I say, and Cloud looks over his shoulder at me. "This is really cool," I tell him. Cloud pulls a pair of sweet sunglasses from a compartment on his bike and pushes them over his eyes.
"Yes it is," Cloud says, and he leans over the bars. We gun the engines and motor out of the shed across the worn, hard-packed dirt of Sector 7, a stray shard of The Midgar Times flapping in our wake.