Chapter 11
Tifa calls me a few days later at almost three in the morning. True to her word she did crash just after the race. Apparently she slept eight hours a night for five or six days then stopped again. She took me to my word and calls me any night she can't sleep. We keep it to phone calls, no more late night rides. I feel bad telling her I can't leave the house but it's a hell of a lot easier to talk to her over the phone. There are less awkward silences.
I'm laying on my bed reading a book when the phone goes off. I look at the caller ID then pick it up.
"Hey,"
"Hey," She says quietly.
"Couldn't sleep?" I ask
"Yeah," She sighs. "I haven't gotten to the fidgety stage yet though. I've just been tossing and turning for the last hour."
"That sucks." I say and put my book down.
"Meh... it does but sometimes it's kinda nice. It's like the only time where I just get to think and not do anything else."
"Then why are you calling?" I ask
"Thought too much."
"You thought too much?"
I can hear rustling over the phone. "Sometimes when I think I just start to worry about random things. Like what I have to do tomorrow or how busy I'm going to be. It makes me anxious so I need to be distracted. You know what I mean?"
"Yeah." I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. "What are you worried about?"
"I don't know." She sigs again. "Mostly everyday bullshit. Barret's going out to Corel tomorrow and I'm going to be watching Marlene for a few days."
"How long is he going to be gone?"
"About a week. He should be getting back on Tuesday."
I whistle. That's a pretty long trip. "Why?"
"Shinra hired him as a consultant for the oil wells up there."
I frown. "Oil wells?" I know he's a roughneck but I can't imagine him working the rigs with only one arm.
"It's what he did before he lost his hand." She giggles a little. I swear she can read my mind sometimes. "I hear that he was one of the best until his accident."
"I guess I can see that." I admit. He's that kind of person. He's always cussing and using street slang.
"I don't know, they're offering him a lot of money for it." She sounds subdued.
"Is that bad?"
She's silent for a moment. "I'm just kinda worried about it."
"Why?" I ask.
"What if he doesn't need the bar anymore?" Her voice is small.
"Tifa," I sigh, "he's not going to shut down the bar. From what you say it's raking in money."
"But this is paying a lot more."
"Would it really be so bad?" I ask.
She doesn't say anything.
"With your references you could get a job anywhere and you've got lots of friends here." I remind her.
"Yeah," She sighs. "I guess... The thing is this is the first time I've felt at home since my dad died."
I don't answer that. She's lucky, I don't think I've ever felt at home. We're both silent for a minute.
"Listen," I finally say. "Barret cares about you. He wouldn't do anything without making sure you were taken care of first."
"You're right." She admits after a second. "I don't know, I guess I'm just being paranoid."
I smile to myself. If this is what happens when she gets paranoid then she'll be fine.
"Tell me a story." She demands.
"A story?" I ask doubtfully.
"Yeah, something to take my mind off of it."
"I don't know any stories." I tell her.
"Tell me... tell me about Zack's plans going wrong."
I groan, "Why?"
"I figure if I'm going to be a part of one then I should be prepared."
"I don't think that this one is going to be that much of a disaster." I say.
"Come on." She pleads. "I've been dying of curiosity. Start with the P.O.W. cells."
"Fine," I sigh. "Zack and I had just gotten back from a patrol where we didn't get a chance to sleep for almost a week. We were like zombies, totally out of it. So Zack talked me into skipping inspection so we could go take a nap. THe only place that we could actually sneak away to was the P.O.W. cells. There weren't any prisoners so no one was on duty down there. Zack, being the dumbass that he is shut the door behind us and it auto-locked. He thought it was the perfect excuse for missing inspection. So we slept for something like twelve hours but no one found us. It was another 24 hours before someone decided to check down there."
She laughs. "Okay, so how about traveling on foot."
I pause for a minute. That was when we were escorting Godo and Yuffie so it's not really mine to tell. I'll just have to leave them out of it. "We were traveling undercover from Rocket Town to the military base outside of Edge. We only had a little money so Zack thought it would be a good idea to hitchhike. Problem was no one want's to pick up two scruffy looking guys with weapons." The other problem was we were traveling with two obviously Wutaian people and everyone was paranoid of them during the war. "So we ended up walking almost the whole way to Junon."
"Isn't that dangerous?" She asks.
"Not as much as it is now. There were still Monster Patrols going around then." I sigh. "You're going to ask about me getting kicked out of Zack's company building aren't you."
"Yep." She sounds happy about that one.
"That one wasn't entirely his fault." I admit. It's kind of embarrassing. "He got me an interview and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try so I went in for it. I show up and answer all these questions about fighting, security protocol and weapons use. Then suddenly I'm getting escorted out by security. It turns out that some secretary screwed up and I was getting interviewed for a place in their daycare."
"Seriously?" She's laughing now.
"Yeah, I was giving answers like I never go anywhere without my sword and how you can't be sympathetic in a job like this. Apparently the guy interviewing me thought I was psychotic."
"That's hilarious." She's still laughing.
I smile to myself, I was livid when it happened but it's funny now. Eventually the whole thing got straitened out and the interviewer apologized to me. Still the situation was weird. "Yeah, it was pretty bad."
"You have no luck do you?" She asks.
"None at all." She has no idea how unlucky I really am.
"That's too bad. Everyone should have luck." She sighs.
"Meh..." I shift the phone to my other shoulder. "Do you have good luck?"
She giggles again. "It depends. I have amazing luck but only in really bad situations."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well, if the truck breaks down or I get stranded somewhere I'll always just randomly stumble on an easy solution but I can't win a game for anything in the world."
"A game?"
"I loose to Marlene all the time." She sighs. "I could roll a pair of dice five times in a row and get snake eyes each time."
I give a little half laugh. "No one is that bad, it's almost impossible."
"I assure you it's true. I think I've beat Mar a total of twice this year and she loves board games. We play them all the time. Barret says the way to win at gambling is to do the opposite of what I say." She laughs and I actually join her.
Man, how long has it been since I laughed with someone. Too long. Zack and I get kicks by insulting each other but I rarely laugh when I'm out with him. This is why I like Tifa. She's almost always cheerful and even when she isn't it doesn't take much to get her to laugh again. I just wish we could talk like this in person.
We talk for a while, the kind of mindless random talk that you can only do with someone you're comfortable with. Before I know it dawn is lighting the sky, and my alarm is going off. It blares menacingly around the room and I make a dash to turn it off.
"What the hell is that?" She sounds farther away from the phone. She must be holding it away from her ear.
"Sorry," I say while franticly trying to find the off button. I don't know why but it's always hard to find. "It's my alarm." I finally find the button and jam it down.
She laughs. "That's pretty loud for an alarm. Heavy sleeper?"
"Not really," I sigh, "it doesn't go any quieter." I have it because it's one of the only alarms I could find that doesn't remind me of air raid sirens and alerts from Wutai. "I have to go."
She sighs. "Yeah, I figured. Thanks for talking to me."
"Sure," I really wish I didn't have to go to work right now. "Talk to you later."
"Bye." She hangs up.
Damn, stupid job. Stupid need for money. I was having a good time talking to her. I usually do. I sigh and run a hand through my hair. Another day of work with no sleep, it's going to be interesting.
I take a shower and eat a granola bar on my way to the garage. I don't want to go to work, I didn't want to get off the phone with Tifa. I'm always doing things I don't want to. Damn.
I make it to work right on time and walk through the door. Everyone is rushing around in a panic. The front desk is littered with delivery slips.
"Where the hell have you been!" Biggs rushes up to me almost frantic.
I give him a blank stare, what the hell is going on?
He grabs my arm and rushes me towards the office. "The boss has been trying to call you for the last two hours. The Shinra Electric Corporation called us late last night with a gigantic last minute order."
We pass through the hallway and into the storage room. Things are even worse in here. Packages are stacked against every wall. I can see Wedge completely surrounded by stacks of the small boxes. He's hurriedly sticking delivery slips to each box and working his way back. Effectively trapping him in the piles. My boss is standing in the middle of the floor shouting at everyone and no one at once. He turns and spots me.
"Cloud," He bellows and his face goes red in anger. "Where in the work manual does it say you can get away with not answering your phone!"
I just stand and give him my blank stare. He'll scream at me for twenty minutes then be pissed that I haven't spent that time working. It's not generally worth it to talk back to him but today I'll chance it.
"I couldn't hear it." I shrug.
His eyes narrow. "I don't pay you to ignore your phone."
I just cross my arms and stare at him. He hates this.
"I should just fire your ass on the spot." He glares back.
I don't say anything. He won't fire me; not with this big delivery going on.
"Mr. Coates." A cool voice calls from the office. "I'm sure that I can take my business elsewhere if your employees can't handle it."
A look of panic crosses his face for a second, then his plastic customer smile takes it's place. He turns to the office and opens his hands ingratiatingly. "Mr. Shinra, I assure you that my staff is more than capable of taking care of this order."
Wow, President Shinra is here? That's impressive, I can't understand why he would be taking care of something this trivial.
Mr. Shinra steps out of the office and my muscles tense in a instant. It's not President Shinra, it's his kid Rufus. The bloody fucking Playboy. His eyes meet mine. Damn, I've met the guy once and I already hate him.
"Mr. Shinra this is Cloud Strife," My boss steps forward and puts a hand on my shoulder. "He's one of my most reliable delivery boys."
Hell, I really wish this wasn't happening. I can see the delight in the victory stealing bastard's eyes; he's going to have fun with this. Yes I'm a god dammed delivery boy. Give me shit for it and I'll punch you in the face.
"Cloud's a Veteran, he has no problem going to monster infested areas." Coates continues as if he cant see us eyeing each other. I have no problem? What the hell, of course I have a problem. It's not like I enjoy getting ambushed by monsters.
I just give my bland look. I should have just stayed at home today. I never should have gotten off the phone with Tifa. It's going to be a bad day, I can see it already.
Rufus smirks, "The Wolf of War?" Everyone in sight stops working and looks at the three of us. Rufus smiling confidently, me glaring with my best bland face on and my boss looking bewildered between us.
"Playboy," I say after a second and nod my head.
I can hear whispers float around as all my co-workers take in what they just heard. Rufus and I glare for a few moments then he turns away from me as if he's brushing me off.
"Mr. Coates, I seem to remember something about papers that I need to sign?" He says with a smile.
"Oh yes," Coates nods and goes back into the office. The smarmy bastard gives me a satisfied look over his shoulder but follows.
The storage room is quiet for a minute as I stare at the door. Something about that guy just makes my blood boil.
"Alright everybody, back to work." Biggs finally breaks the silence.
I shake myself and go over to him. "What do I have?"
He sighs then holds a up stack of papers. "Hell, I don't even know yet. There are so many packages."
"What are these anyway?" I ask him trying to sound casual. I will not be angry just because Rufus is here.
"Gifts for the employees of Shinra." He sighs. "They go all over the city. It's gonna take more than one trip no matter where you go."
I shrug. "Just give me what you can."
He hands me a bunch of pages and points to a stack of boxes near the door. "Those ones go to the east district. I don't know how we're going to get this done today. The boss has put all other deliveries on hold."
I nod and go over the papers in my hand. It looks like I'm going to be making a lot of stops today. At least I'll make some decent money.
Okay part eleven. Short chapter I know but the last three have been over 5000 words so I figure I've already made up for it. I know that this chapter may seem frivolous but I have a reason for it, really I do.
I've had a request or two for more Cloti fluff. I understand that you guys want to see it and trust me I have quite a bit planned but it's going to be a little while coming. This is a long, long story so I'm trying really hard to pace myself correctly. Just to give you an idea this is probably about a sixth of what I have planned, maybe less.
A big thank you and welcome to EpicPopcorn and DynastyWARRIORS. Epic I'm really glad you liked it and totally ecstatic that someone finally commented on the songs. Dynasty I'm glad you figured out you're password and I promise Aerith will be in the next chapter.
Super Duper thanks to all my regular reviewers, you know who you are. I love you guys.
Song for this bit - Peace Beneath the City by Iron & Wine
Thanks all. Reviews make me squeal.