The house was picturesque, neat and well-kept, with a path that led to a winding garden full of blooming flowers. It sat in complete contrast to the shadow of the slums, bright and inviting, serene. Tifa inhaled deeply the fragrance of the blooms, strangely comforted by its aroma and stumbled over an uneven segment of pavement. The muscled arm wrapped around her waist tightened, dragging her closer to the body beside her.
"This should be it," Cloud murmured as he guided her up the steps leading to the front door. "I can hear Marlene inside."
She nodded, mouth too dry to speak as he knocked on the heavy door, and grimaced against the pain of her knee. Glancing down at the ripped t-shirt they'd tied to staunch the blood flow, she thought dully how once again she'd been shot by the Turks.
They'd been walking for hours, hobbling really, with Luc guiding a disorientated Barret and Cloud carrying Tifa. She'd protested weakly, not wanting to be a burden but he'd refused, ignoring her. And so she'd drawn from the strength he'd offered instead, burrowing her face into his neck and breathing him in. Safety, security, protection, that's what he smelled of. Only as they'd taken the final few steps to what was Aerith's home had she asked to be released again and he'd complied.
She glanced behind her, troubled gaze running over Barret who had regained most of his strength but was still unsteady. He was favoring his right side where Reno had zapped him with the EMR.
Luc stood stoically beside him, unusually quiet and mostly unharmed but tired. He caught her worried eyes and she managed a grateful smile.
Throughout their journey, he and Cloud had taken turns dispatching the few creatures that had dared to attack, though it seemed that most beasts had taken to shelter, somehow sensing that too much death had already transpired.
"Yes, who is it?" a sharp voice asked after a drumming of footsteps, drawing her attention.
"We're friends of Aerith," Cloud replied.
The door cracked open the tiniest sliver and a dark eye appeared. "You are friends of Aerith?"
Cloud nodded. "And of Marlene and Yuffie too."
The dark eye blinked once, then the door swung wide, revealing an older woman with graying brown hair in a green dress and white apron. Beyond her shoulder stood Yuffie and Marlene, both clasping hands tightly and peering suspiciously from behind a potted plant.
"Tifa!" they exclaimed in unison, rushing forward.
Tifa closed her eyes as she felt herself engulfed in small arms and tight hugs.
Though it was late—or early, depending on how you looked at it—she was so glad to see their familiar faces. They were here. They were safe. Thank you, Aerith.
"I'm a mess," she murmured, taking comfort in their almost desperate grasps and returning it with a desperation of her own.
"You smell like dirt," Yuffie told her, voice muffled against Tifa's collarbone. "And sort of like bacon too."
Tifa gave a startled laugh. "Yeah," she agreed, and pressed her cheek against the teen's dark head.
"Daddy!" Marlene cried and wriggled free from where she was squashed between them both. She hopped the steps that would take her to her father and bounded into shaky arms.
"Hello, sweetie," Barret greeted her, his voice rough.
"You're dusty," Marlene announced, patting Barret's vest affectionately and then sneezing as the soot he was covered in sprayed her nose.
The four of them were covered in soot and dust, ash having erupted in a mushroom cloud when the plate collapsed. It had rained on them, on everything within a mile radius. Tifa smelled like smoke too, she knew, and battled the nausea that clawed at her throat.
Smoke was the smell of death.
Gaia, the stench was strong, so strong now that she wasn't next to someone. As Yuffie had released her and stepped back, she closed her eyes and swallowed, swaying.
She wanted Cloud, was too afraid to need him, to reach for him. She'd already leaned on him enough today.
But then he was beside her, as if he'd heard her calling, was lifting her back into his arms and she buried her face weakly into his throat once more.
"Oh my dears, please come in," the older lady said, had watched as the dark-haired girl had turned white as the ash she was covered in. She stepped aside and beckoned them indoors.
"That is Mrs. Elmyra Gainsborough," Marlene announced as they all crowded into the dining room, the safest place to be seated while they were covered in dust. "She is the Flower Lady's mom. This is my daddy, Barret Wallace, and that is my Tifa Lockhart. That is Luc and that is Cloud and I don't think they have last names." Eyes closed, Tifa could almost see little fingers pointing, nearly smiled.
Cloud shifted, settled her into a wingback chair and she dimly reopened her eyes. She instantly missed his warmth but didn't protest, curled her hands into fists so she wouldn't reach for him. He sat adjacent to her, close enough that their knees touched.
"You children must be thirsty, starving," Mrs. Gainsborough announced, and Tifa watched the older woman in the kitchen, fussing. She set a pitcher of water on the table with a set of glasses before returning to the stove. "I'll heat up this stew for you."
"It was really loud, Daddy," Marlene chimed, wiping Barret's face with her tiny fingers. "We hid in the bathroom until stuff stopped shaking."
"That's good, sweetie," Barret replied. "Yuffie and Mrs. Gainsborough took good care of you. Did you thank 'em?"
"Yes, and the Flower Lady also. I like her, she's pretty. I'm gonna make her a present too." Little hands squeezed dark cheeks. "Some people came to see her while we were picking flowers."
"Yeah, then they took Aerith," Yuffie added as she began to pour the water.
"Did you get names?" Luc asked, taking hold of two glasses and passing one to Barret, who was seated beside him.
"Uhhh, some skinny guy named Tseng with a girly pony tail," Yuffie replied. "There was a chick named Cissnei and a guy called Vegas or something, a bunch of overdressed wig wearers, if you ask me. I mean, come on, people! It was like the United Nations of hair: one with black hair, a bald guy, a blonde and two red heads? Who the hell has two red heads on their team? That's, like, a fire hazard."
"Did they say where they were taking her?"
"They didn't say outright but I ninja'd after them and heard something about headquarters and a lab, something blah blah blah," Yuffie replied. She sat abruptly in a stool, waving her hands excitedly. "I could've taken them but Mrs. Gainsborough said they wouldn't hurt Aertih."
Silence. Tifa lifted her head, eyes now wide open.
"That's not what it seemed like when we saw her," Luc slowly responded, holding his empty glass of water for a refill, and Tifa knew he was remembering the way Tseng had treated Aerith.
"They shouldn't," Mrs. Gainsborough chimed in, coming to stand behind Yuffie. "They've been after her for years."
"She told me Shinra watched her," Tifa managed, voice rusty from misuse. Cloud reached forward, pressed a full glass of water into her hands. She accepted and drank deep, letting the liquid cool her throat.
"It's true, they do. They have. She's the last of her kind, you see." Weathered hands folded into white apron pockets.
"Her kind?" Yuffie looked confused.
"Aerith is an Ancient, a Cetra, the sole survivor."
The last Ancient? Tifa's head spun at the woman's words.
Barret's bass deep voice thundered, voicing her first question. "But aren't you her mother?"
Mrs. Gainsborough smiled, a sad, haunting twist of her lips that made something inside of Tifa ache. "Not her real mother. Oh, it must've been…fifteen years ago now. I was at the train station waiting for my husband to return from the war and found Aerith with her real mother. Aerith was crying something terrible, her mother just…lying on the ground hurt, confused, disorientated…"
Tifa's heart clenched tight in her breast at the woman's words and she stiffened. She knew the kind of fear that instilled; that was how she'd found Cloud.
"…her last words were, 'Please take Aerith somewhere safe.' And so I brought her home with me, raised her as my own." Mrs. Gainsborough shook her head as if to clear her memories. "She was so lonely, my Aerith was. Still is. She would talk to me about everything, all things, sharing strange details about her mother returning to the Planet and how she escaped from a laboratory." Dark eyes blinked. "She told me not to cry and that my husband had returned to the Planet too. I didn't believe her until I received a wire notice that he had died."
"A Cetra…" Luc said softly, his icy blue eyes unfocused.
"Yes. Shinra found her years later, pleaded with her to join them and take them so some 'Promised Land.' But my Aerith refused, didn't want to go with them. They've never forced her when they could have so easily." Mrs. Gainsborough turned back to the stove as something sizzled. "That is, until today."
"Why now?" Tifa asked. "Why wait so long?"
Mrs. Gainsborough shook her head. "I don't know. But they need her. They won't hurt her. She is their ticket to wherever it is they want to go."
Tifa tried to digest it all, her mind churning. An Ancient…a descendant of the first and most beautiful people on the Planet. It was no wonder her eyes were so spirited, her smile so bright, how well she could heal. She was life embodied.
"She went with them only if they promised to leave me and Marlene alone," Yuffie shared, her brown eyes worried. "She was trying to keep us safe."
Tifa felt her heart clench again. "It's my fault…" she whispered, shut her eyes tight and wrapped her arms around herself. Guilt was her heaviest burden, a black weight in breast. "I was the one who involved Aerith in this."
The things she touched broke, even if she didn't mean for them to…
"Oh, honey." Mrs. Gainsborough came over, stilled her with a hand on her shoulder. "Don't say that. Aerith doesn't think that. I know my girl."
"I shouldn't have asked for her help. It was my responsibility, they are my girls," Tifa disagreed. "She may not think it's my fault but it doesn't make it any less true."
"She did what she did because she cares," Mrs. Gainsborough insisted, squeezed. "She doesn't have many friends and the ones she does have mean a lot to her. Whether or not you asked her to, she would have done what she could have to help. Would you have felt it was her fault had you been in her shoes?"
Tifa hesitated. No, she would never blame a friend for her own actions, her own choices.
"There, you see? The answer is in your eyes. No more talk of this now. Let's fill your stomachs, shall we?" The woman patted her shoulder comfortingly, walking back to the stove.
But Tifa wasn't hungry. She could still smell smoke and wanted to wash away the stench. Her knee was aching something fierce also, taut and throbbing. She looked down to see that the t-shirt had finally soaked through and blood was beginning to run down her calf once more.
"Mrs. Gainsborough, may we use the shower?" Cloud's voice came as if he'd read her thoughts. "We hate to keep trailing this dust everywhere."
"Oh, certainly," Mrs. Gainsborough answered, a speculative look in her gaze as they eyed him. "Cloud, wasn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am," he replied.
"She mentioned someone with pretty blue eyes," Mrs. Gainsborough nodded. "You must be Aerith's young man."
Tifa flinched at those words, her shoulders curling. Aerith's young man. Why that should hurt, she didn't know. He certainly didn't belong to her.
But Mrs. Gainsborough was continuing, waved a hand. "There's a shower just up the stairs behind us with towels in the linen closet. You can throw your clothes in the empty hamper and I'll put them in the wash."
"Would you have a First Aid Kit available also? We seem to have collected our share of cuts and bruises." His voice was wry, charming, and Mrs. Gainsborough smiled at him, pleased.
Tifa fought a frown, an odd sensation prickling.
Cloud's manners had always been impeccable—she could recall Mrs. Strife reprimanding him whenever he wasn't—but it was that charm that hit her as new, something just a little…off center. It certainly sounded perfectly natural, normal and casual, but it didn't fit the Cloud she was familiar with, the one with uncertain blue eyes whose smiles were tentative.
It's been a five years, she reminded herself. It seemed to be her mantra with Cloud. People change.
Except for you, a sly voice reminded her. Somehow the people you love always die too soon and that never changes.
She closed her eyes, a yawning emptiness inside of her, and felt her muscles start to quiver uncontrollably. Gods, she needed to be alone. She was too close to falling apart, didn't know what to do. Struggling to her feet, she stood awkwardly, knee burning.
"The kit is in the linen closet on the bottom shelf, dear," Mrs. Gainsborough was saying, smile gentle as she looked at Tifa. The girl looked ready to fall, eyes too large and haunted. "You go clean up and I'll have a meal waiting, Tifa. You can wear one of Aerith's gowns tonight."
"Thank you," Tifa answered, turning away as Cloud rose beside her. "I can go by myself," she told him, gingerly applying pressure to her injured leg. Pain shot up her thigh immediately, sharp and quick and she couldn't quite suppress a hiss of discomfort.
"Yes, but you don't have to," Cloud told her quietly. She felt his hand press against her lower back and she flinched.
"Don't," she cautioned sharply, pulling away. She used the table for support, managed one aching step as she gritted her teeth through the pain.
"Teefs, you're getting blood all over the floor," Yuffie announced bluntly. "You should let that spiky headed dude carry you upstairs before you leave a trail that would have made Hansel and Gretel proud."
She sighed heavily, trying not to glare at the youth. "Thanks, Yuffie."
"Let's go," Cloud said and reached for her.
But she couldn't. She couldn't be near him right now. She wanted it too much, wanted his strength and his comfort more than anything but she just couldn't.
Not yours, that sly voice reminded her. Keep it that way. Don't love him so he can live.
"No," she refused Cloud, stiffening. She could hear the desperation in her voice. "I don't want you. I want Luc." She twisted, caught icy blue eyes. "Please, Luc, will you help me?"
"Thank you," Tifa said softly as Luc finished bandaging her knee. She sent him a small smile. "And not just for this, but for everything."
His raven head nodded, tousled hair swinging. "No sweat, Beauty," he replied, patted the hand that lay in her lap.
They were in Aerith's room, where she would sleep with Yuffie for the night, and she'd showered and changed into one of Aerith's nightgowns after Luc had consented and carried her upstairs. She'd been grateful, had clung to him anxiously and avoided a pair of azure eyes. Luc had informed her he would wait but she'd sent him back downstairs, insistent. He'd agreed reluctantly, ice blue frowning.
That had been an hour ago. She'd showered hastily, scrubbing until her skin was red and raw. Finished, she'd bolted for Aerith's bedroom so the bathroom would remain free for someone else's use, a towel wrapped around herself and another around her knee. Tumbling awkwardly to the floor, the pain like fire in her leg, she had simply sat, breathing jaggedly until Marlene and Yuffie had come to check on her.
"Tifa, are you ok?" Marlene had asked as Yuffie had pulled a frilly white nightgown over her head. "You look like the wrong color."
She'd held out her arms. "I could use a hug," she'd answered, then clutched tightly as four arms engulfed her.
"Barret told us about Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge," Yuffie whispered, squeezing.
She'd nodded numbly. Her friends…
"I bet they're with Aerith's real mommy now," Marlene had added thoughtfully, and Tifa had pressed a kiss to her brow, forever amazed by the little girl's insight and intelligence.
"I bet they are too," she'd agreed.
"Maybe you should get some help with your bleeding so you won't be with the Planet too, Teefs," Yuffie had suggested, pulling away. "This towel isn't doing much but turning purple."
Tifa had glanced at the blue towel around her knee.
"Do you want me to get Cloud?" Marlene had leaned back, blinked at her.
Yes, please hurry.
"No," she'd denied vehemently, shaking her head.
Brown eyes had looked at her questioningly. "Oh. His eyes were sad when you wanted Luc. Is it 'cause he's 'Aerith's young man'?"
She'd swallowed, throat tight, unable to answer.
"I'll get Luc," Yuffie had said then, sensing her confusion, and two small figures had left.
"We'll grab a few potions before we retrieve Aerith tomorrow," Luc said now, still crouched by her legs where she was seated on Aerith's bed. His icy eyes were worried when they met hers. "I'm damned sorry I left my Restore materia at the bar. You should get some rest, Beauty. It's been a long day."
"Yeah," she mumbled, breaking eye contact to fuss with the hem of the knee-length nightgown Marlene had chosen.
Pause, then, "Do you want to talk about it?"
She shook her head. "No."
Another pause, then a warm hand cupped her cheek, thumb stroking softly. "I'm here when you're ready," he assured her quietly, and she could only nod in response.
"Elmyra sent up some food."
Icy blue eyes rose at the sound of the new voice but Tifa kept her head bent, carmine focused on frilly lace.
"Want something to eat, Beauty?" Luc asked gently with another stroke of his thumb.
No. She'd already thrown up twice.
She shook her head. "I just want to sleep now," she whispered, felt herself starting to tremble again.
Gods, would it stop? She'd shaken for so long earlier, everything quivering.
She tightened her muscles, wanted to be alone before she fell apart again. "Please go."
Luc hesitated, then rose to his feet. "I'll be downstairs if you need me."
She closed her eyes in response, wrapping her arms around herself. She listened to his footsteps, long strides moving, stopping, waiting with some sort of tensioned silence before disappearing down the stairs.
"I'm going to leave the food on the desk," Cloud said, and she squeezed her eyes tight, turning her face away because she wanted his blue eyes too much.
She was a terrible person. Everything she loved died. Mom. Dad. Nibelheim. Biggs and Wedge and Jessie. Was Marlene, Yuffie, Barret next? Oh, gods, she couldn't. She couldn't love him, too, couldn't couldn't couldn't. He would die and what would she do? She wouldn't love him, would not, refused. Get away, get away, she was poison get away. She couldn't lose one more person she loved.
She couldn't love one more person.
How she wished she could cry. Perhaps the pain in her heart would wash away.
Her friends…Biggs, Wedge, Jessie…she missed them. Their laughter, their teasing, their smiles and tears. Who would fix the phones she didn't mean to destroy? Who would fight to eat her last pancake? She wanted to tell them she loved them. Did they know?
The house she'd lived in, made into a home with their cheery faces. Her business, her years of blood and sweat and scraping every last gil so that she could somehow give a little girl a better life…it was all gone too. The neighbors she'd waved to, the regulars of the bar, the workers who came at lunch and shared with her their troubles. Were they safe? Had they survived? She had only their confidences now, might never share a new one with them. It had all had been destroyed, nearly her whole life again.
Just like Nibelheim.
Everything she loved, she broke. She didn't mean to. She promised to never love again, please don't let anyone else die. She was sorry, so sorry, so sorry, so sorry—
Bile rose in her throat, hard and swift, and she shot to her feet, crumpling as her leg gave out. She struggled to rise, hand pressed tightly over her mouth—
Comforting arms lifted her, comforting skin against her own, carrying her to the bathroom and holding her hair as she was sick into the toilet.
Minutes passed, long and silent. She was sick twice more, heaving only acid and air before she found the strength to push away.
She sat in a daze, eyes glazed and unseeing. She heard the faucet running, felt the touch of a damp cloth dabbing at her face. She was picked up, settled on the vanity beside the sink, her hands washed gently. Something liquid and minty appeared. Mouthwash. She obediently swished, spit, watched numbly as the green fluid spun and spun before disappearing down the drain. Arms picked her up again, carried her back to a cold bed and set her down, quickly withdrawing.
Blearily, her eyes met carefully blank azure.
"You should try to get some rest," Cloud said, crouched beside her. Then he stood abruptly and turned away, as if unable to bear looking at her another second.
Yes, of course. She flinched and ached for his arms. She wrapped her own around herself, pretending. She was used to that.
When she found the courage to look up, he was gone.
Yes, of course. Stay away. She was no good.
Something glimmered in the corner of her eye and she turned to see a window, leading out to a flat roof. A memory flickered, of joyous times shared with those she loved and she crawled awkwardly to the glass, jerking the pane open. Dragging her painful leg, she clambered onto the roof until she was settled on her back, laying flat.
She looked up at the blackness above her, noting the grainy lines of the ugly plate, the dim lights that flickered in certain areas and the jagged corners of others. It was different from the one she'd spent hours tracing with her eyes before, but yet so much the same, just as bleak and harsh, just as oppressive.
She laid unmoving, staring, good memories swirling with bad until horror was all she could see.
Biggs' lifeless eyes, staring and seeing nothing.
Wedge's determined face, frozen in surprise as he was thrust away.
Jessie's pale features, resigned and fading into darkness.
She wished again for tears, wondered if they could help cleanse her somehow. But tears remained elusive, a reprieve that she didn't deserve. She'd already cried her quota, it seemed.
Curling into a ball, she closed her eyes and ached for solace.
"Cloud," she whispered as she always had when the pain was too much, as if the name was some sort of talisman.
Except…somehow, for the first time, her plea was answered.
"I'm here," she heard as she was suddenly gathered in strong arms, settled into a lap and pressed into a strong chest. She whimpered, burrowing her face into the crook of his neck as her breaths became painful gasps. Then she was moving, hands clumsily seeking until she had them wrapped around him and was squeezing tight.
"I'm here," he repeated when his name echoed again, broken and ragged, and he stroked her hair.
"I'm here," he answered when she hiccupped his name and he rubbed her back.
Safe, secure, protected, her champion had finally come.
Weakly, like a child, she sagged against him, eyes closing. The memories swarmed again, but this time they stayed clear and bright, his strength beside her, around her, having battled the shadows.
"We used to sit on the roof of 7th Heaven, the four of us, and dream about one day sleeping under the stars there," she whispered before she knew she wanted to speak. "We would always try our best to describe the sky to one another. Blue to me was always…home, somehow, calling me home except I was too far away to reach it, too small it couldn't find me. I'd tell how I had once felt like the stars were so close the wishes I made were already certain in my future."
She paused, eyes open and distant as she remembered. "Jessie described the stars as the motherboard of a computer, connecting everything in the universe but not functional without the computer itself—the Planets. Biggs insisted that the sky's color was akin to a video game, always the same but as you could play it again and again and only your view of it changed, not the sky itself. Wedge had no such comparisons, believed that there was nothing ever created that was the equivalent of a sky that somehow touched everyone all the time." She shuddered, limbs quaking. "I wish I would have gotten to sleep under the stars with them, just once."
She turned, buried her face in her trembling hands and began shaking so hard her teeth chattered.
It was a long time before she stopped, this session harder, deeper than the last, but she felt cleansed this time, as if she wasn't alone as she fought the grief. She opened her eyes, turned her face into a welcoming shoulder and let out a worn sigh of exhaustion.
"Can we go to bed now?" she whispered. "I'm so tired."
Strong arms moved and she realized they'd stayed locked around her the entire time. She was lifted, tugged, maneuvered and was inside again, lying on Aerith's soft bed, never away from Cloud's warm chest. She let out another sigh, this one of satisfaction as her hand found a familiar heartbeat and her eyes closed.
She murmured a protest as she was shifted again, her hand slipping and she frowned, seeking. But then she was pulled back and tucked flush along his warmth, his front to her back, his body curving around her protectively.
"I'll watch yours now," he whispered against her ear as he laced her hand in his and pressed them against her heart.
She nodded, breathing in strength and comfort and safety, and fell into a dreamless sleep.