Chapter 9

A/N: Please review! You guys are my fans and friends, and I love you, but I do work hard on this fic. Whether you believe that or not is beside the point. When two chapters go by and I can't even drudge up one review, it doesn't make the effort even come close to feeling worthwhile.

Okay, the begging's over. Now, since she wasn't in the last chapter, Tessa will be in this one. The fic seems to be more likable when she's in it anyway.

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It was cold. For an unknown reason, the Garden was no longer drifting the seas aimlessly. The mobile academy had left behind the comforting warmth of the southern seas for the frozen Trabian Tundra. Worse, the internal heating system was not being activated in an attempt to preserve fuel. The answer for that was everyone dressing rather warmly after waking up.

Many of the residents of Trabia Garden gathered at the windows to watch the familiar landscape roll by. This part of the world was still unspoiled, untouched by the events ravaging the rest of the world. It was beautiful.

"Hey!" Tessa shouted, not angrily for once, as she ran down the halls of the dormitory, pushing people out of her way rather roughly. "Would you wait up?"

The person she was calling for stopped and turned around. He regarded the young woman thoughtfully.

She smiled briefly as the recollections of the events of the night before drifted in and out of her thoughts. "I want to ask you a favour."

"Ask? Not demand? It seems you have finally learned the value of self control," he laughed rather uncharacteristically.

"Don't push your luck," she warned Vincent with a hint of a scowl. "Anyway, the incident in the Training Centre showed me that my martial arts training hasn't suited me for all forms of combat. I want you to teach me how to properly use a gun. There's no point in asking an Instructor to do it, since you're the best shot I know and they're all a shitload of dumbasses that don't like me anyway."

He inquired as to why she needed teaching. Hadn't she used firearms in her escapes from both Galbadia City and Junon?

"Thing is, my aim is hell and the rest of it is shit to me. The only reason I managed to hit anything was because my targets were close."

He unconsciously rubbed his gun of choice, a three-barrelled handgun that he had coined "Cerberus."

"If I refuse?"

Tessa grabbed Vincent by the shoulders, catching the former Turk off guard before slamming him into a nearby wall. Those who were still around looked upon the scene with mild shock. She held her hand in the air, the fingers flexing before forming a fist. "I will mangle you worse than you already are," she growled, a sudden change in mood.

Vincent's expression never changed. He wasn't one to be easily intimidated.

"Stop!" Tifa cried, suddenly appearing. The apparition looked from Tessa to the ever-growing crowd. "What are you doing? Do you know who that is?"

"Shut the fuck up!" the teenager yelled back as she began to go into a rage. This time, there was no mistaken case of identity as to who or what her words were aimed at, as none of the assembled had dared to whisper a word. "Just shut the fuck up! Do I look like I want you damned advice? Quit constantly judging me already. This is between me and the freak in red. Now go haunt somebody else. Stupid bitches annoy me. Even dead ones."

"Whom are you talking to?" Vincent asked, his eyes concentrated on the general area Tifa was in habituating.

Angry, Tessa whipped her head back around and pointed at gunman. "You do not speak unless I say you can! This is between me and her!"

"They're looking at you as though you've lost it. Can't say as I blame them, really…" Tifa informed the other girl as the gestured at the people watching the seemingly one-on-nothing argument. "It might be a good idea to stop now."

Tessa let Vincent go and stormed over to the ghost. A flurry of curses was unleashed, but Tifa didn't even bat an eye at the many colourful insults and threats.

"Listen to me, you little holier-than-thou bitch. For weeks, I've put up with your shit. All I ever hear from you is 'tell Cloud this, tell Cloud that.' Why not leave me out of it and go tell the stupid bastard yourself? If you give me that damn 'rules' speech again, I'm going to scream. Just go away. I do not like you."

A hand on her shoulder interrupted her tirade. Tessa grabbed the arm attached to it and flipped the owner over her shoulder. Having been out of practice, it was a rather difficult manoeuvre that left her breathing heavily.

"Ow," Nida muttered as he sat up. "Have you lost it? You're pregnant. You can't be doing stuff like this. Come on; let's go see Dr. Welsh. She might able to help…"

Tessa responded by kicking him in the jaw. When he was on the ground, her foot began to make repeated contact with his ribs. All the while, she continued to shout. "Don't touch me! Don't talk to me! Just because you knocked me up, that doesn't mean that you are anything to me. How many times do I have to tell you that?" she shrieked with bloodlust before catching Tifa's eye. A long. Evil laugh preceded her next statement. "Besides, you're not even that good at it. I don't recall getting off once with you. Last night, a girl named Renea gave me an orgasm that you never could. How does that feel? Knowing that someone else, someone without a dick, is getting off the crazy bitch that you got pregnant? Huh? Does it feel good?"

He coughed and grabbed his stomach with a groan. Tessa turned her back on him and crossed her arms over her chest before addressing the crowd. "Does anyone else want to fuck with me? DO YOU? I will kick each every ass here just like I did his. You're all just as worthless as this piece of shit, if not more so. So don't you go thinking that you can talk to me either."

"You've lost it," Tifa muttered before looking down at Nida pitifully. "Was that really necessary?"

"Yes. It was necess…"

The sentence was never finished, because something cold and metallic made contact with the back of Tessa's head. Vincent put Cerberus away and slung the unconscious girl over his shoulder. He looked at Nida momentarily before striding off. The crowd just wondered what in Hyne's name they'd just seen.

---

"Have you heard the latest?" One of Satis's friends sat beside the green-haired girl and laughed. "Apparently Renea got it on with that bald chick. I can't believe you'd let her get away with that. That girl is so disgusting."

"Which one?" the distracted girl asked calmly as she looked over a study planner. She really hated that she still had classes in addition to all of the other crap going on.

"Are you even listening to me?" the girl cried. One of the library staff shushed her.

"Laen, I know what she did. You don't have to tell me about everything that psycho does. Sometimes I can figure it out on my own. The bitch didn't even have the decency to leave. I actually woke up with Tessa, and we were both naked. Kind of a clue there. Sharing a body with the biggest dike in existence can be such a pain."

Satis's friend smiled evilly. "Well, maybe that's why Matron put you two together. She could be trying to play matchmaker. If there's anyone that could get along with that bitch, it's your bitch."

"So understanding." Satis flipped a page in her textbook and glanced at the pages, but nothing was actually reaching her brain. Her thoughts were too wrapped up in just what Renea could have been doing with her body. And why would her roommate even go along with the slut? She didn't seem the type to like anyone, gay or not. Just like everyone else, she knew that Tessa was pregnant. She knew before everyone else, actually. The only thing she didn't know was why the self-proclaimed lesbian had ever climbed into bed with the pilot.

"Quit being so moody. Anyway, that's not all. Apparently, the bald girl flipped out. They say she's crazy. She was yelling at air and beating people up. Well, Nida, but he doesn't count. He doesn't seem the type to hit a pregnant girl. Especially not one that he had gotten pregnant. That didn't seem to bother Vincent Valentine. He is so cool. She went all nuts and attacked him, but that was before she beat up Nida. Anyway, after that, he whacked her in the back of the head with his gun. She totally passed out and he just picked her up and walked away. I'd say the bitch totally had it coming. Maybe we got lucky and he threw her overboard. She's totally deserved that."

Frustrated, Satis slammed her book shut and stood up. She walked away from her friend angrily and left the library entirely. Why didn't anyone understand that she was tired of hearing about Tessa? Tired of hearing about Renea? She was more than the roommate of two of the biggest bitches in existence. Literally and figuratively. Despite the fact that she shared a dorm with Tessa, the two never saw or spoke to each other. Satis had given up on any type of friendship with the girl after the first time they had met. As for Renea… Renea had been around for so long that nobody knew which one of the girls was the real one and which was the disease. Officially, "they'd" been diagnosed after her parents had noticed the rapid change in mood and personality their daughter was having. They'd tried to put a positive spin on it, saying that they were blessed with two daughters, but Renea had rebelled constantly and all Satis wanted was to be thought of as her own person.

She reached her room before she knew it. After entering, the door was locked behind her. The couch called her name comfortingly. Her books clattered to the floor, but she didn't care. She curled up on the mass of wood, foam, and fabric. Tears rolled down her face but she didn't sob. She didn't want to cry.

---

Renea sat up and stretched. She vaguely wondered for a moment how she had gone from that angry girl's bed to the couch, but quickly dismissed it as Satis's doing. That girl just did not know how to loosen up.

---

She groaned before she was actually awake. When Tessa's eyes did open, everything was fuzzy. After blinking a few times, her vision cleared up but she did not want to believe what she was seeing.

Being in the Infirmary wasn't too much of a surprise. Nor was seeing Cloud Strife in the bed next to her. His chest went up and down with his breathing, but hers stayed flat. Tessa couldn't breathe. Sitting in the chair beside her bed was the one that had haunted so many of her dreams.

"What the fuck are you doing here? You're dead," the former medic whispered fearfully.

"Nice to see that I've been missed. I can't believe it was you and the spiky dumbass over there who took me out," Elena said lowly. Her teeth were still yellow. Tessa couldn't understand why she had noticed that particular feature of the spirit, but quickly began crying out for the other dead woman haunting her.

"Tifa? Tifa! Would you get your dead ass out here now?"

Appearing too fast to blink, the brawler showed up at Elena's side. "What do you want? I thought you didn't like me. Unless you're going to apologize."

"It's not that…" Tessa looked from one spectre to the other. "Don't you see her? Can't you feel her with your freaky ghost powers?"

"Who?" Tifa looked genuinely concerned for Tessa. Was her charge finally cracking? "There's nobody here but us. Us and Cloud."

Snorting at the emphasis on the swordsman name, Tessa went to point out that Elena was sitting right beside her, but the blonde was gone. Afraid that she really was losing her mind, Tessa rolled over and found herself looking directly into the eyes of Vincent Valentine.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" she cried in shock and anger. "I don't like stalkers. In fact, I tend to hurt them. So you'd better remove any ideas you may have about fucking me, because it'll never happen."

Vincent didn't respond sarcastically like so many others would have. Instead, what he said scared her much more than any death threat could have. "Whom were you talking to?"

Her mind searched for an answer, and she looked to Tifa. The fighter just told her to tell him and Cloud. Tessa was a little ticked about the repeated mentioning of the swordsman but didn't say anything in return.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"Hello, Tifa…" Vincent said as he waved in the general direction Tessa had been looking.

"You can see me?" the brunette gasped.

"You can see her?" Tessa echoed. "You fucker. If you could see the damn bitch, then why the fuck didn't you say so? She's been driving me crazy for weeks."

"The insanity is mutual."

The red-clad marksman told Tessa that he could see Tifa, but that he could feel her presence. "Being as close to dead as I am, it's not much of a surprise. I could always feel Aerith (A/N: I'm going to the proper spelling from this point on. Just thought you should know) around Cloud. She must want something from you, though. Since you two never met."

Neither woman wanted to mention the events of Galbadia City. Tessa was the first to speak, though. "She wants me to tell Sir Fuck-Me over there that she's dead so he'll 'let her go.'"

"So why haven't you? You said it's been weeks," the man asked. "If she bothers you so much, then why not do what you can to remove your source of annoyance?"

Tessa sat up and grab a glass of water that had been left on her nightstand. She threw it at Cloud, the glass and liquid passing through Tifa. When it hit him, Cloud woke up with a curse. Then he noticed who the offender had been.

"Welcome back. I was hoping to never see you again," he told her angrily as he attempted to wring the water out of his clothes. He also noticed who was sitting with her. "Vincent?"

After a nudge from the gun-toting hero, Tessa glared at Tifa. "I'm supposed to tell you that Tifa Lockhart is dead and to get over it. Now would you people leave me the fuck alone?"

Cloud looked at his mysterious friend, and all he received as a nod. Unsure of how to react, Cloud just pulled the wet sheets back over his body and turned his back on the one invisible and two visible people in the room. Tifa walked over to him and reached to touch him. Then a sudden change in her demeanour led her to turn back to Tessa.

"I never expected this, but… thank you." With a smile, Tifa disappeared. Tessa never saw her again for as long as she lived.

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A/N: Well, that was confusing. I am going to miss Tifa. It was just her time, though. I did want her to rest in peace. Still, I hope everyone enjoyed the closing of the Tifa arc. This just leaves so many more places for it to go. Next chapter, if I do it right, will feature Quistis's departure. The thing is, will Hunter be willing to go with her now that he has Eisis?