Chapter 25.

"CAPTAIN!" cried Phil. "Captain, it was impossible to keep the ship steady! That little dragon was pulling hundreds of knots on the ship! It was impossible! It really..."

"SHADDAP! Get yerself together. You're startin' ta sound like Cloud." Barret could hear Cid clearly on the PHS even though it was not to his own ear anymore. Cid really needed to use his "cell phone voice" and not his "outside voice".

"Yessir."

"Put the big guy on the horn."

"Yessir!" Phil immediately and unhesitatingly handed over the PHS back to Barret.

Cid continued. "Hey. Cloud's chocobo is here. Somehow she found *my* door. I thought that wasn't cool, since she's got something against me and all, so I decided to call the kids and there's no answer from either one of them. So I decided to call YOU people and you go and screw it up." Cid had second thoughts about the way the conversation was going. He paused for a minute. "Sorry. Well, is everyone OK?"

Barret's face grew more than a few shades angrier with every thoughtless word Cid said. But after hearing Cid apologize, he decided he didn't have to mess him up. Until he got home and relaxed a while. "Yeah, man. Gotta admit the control room's pretty well padded. Ship's pretty busted though."

"I can ride the bird there so I..." Cid had to temporarily cut himself off due to the deafening screeching made by the chocobo. Obviously the chocobo didn't care for Cid too much and objected to having him as a passenger at all. Cid continued where he left off, but the squawking continued. "...uh...so I can...sheesh, I'm SORRY!...What the hell else can I do?" The squawking temporarily stopped. "...so I can look it all over myself when I get there."

"Do we really have the time to sit aroun' here and wait fo' YOU?" Barret asked impatiently.

"I can home in on ya from at the house, 'cuz I got plenty of tracking equipment for my baby here. Yanno, if youz all end up going to Wutai, I'd like to be there. I know there's some pretty strong bad karma left in Wutai, so it's better if we go together." He paused sadly, and and then added quietly, almost crying, "...and..I...I really wanna see how bad she is."

Barret let out a sigh. "Whatever, man. See ya in a few. Bring ya marshmallow toaster with ya. I got no doubt we can take on Wutai's entire army ourselves, when we're all together."

Both men clicked off their respective ends. Cid turned towards the bird. Sunrise never liked Cid, but as she knew where he lived from CLoud's journeys with her, and she grudgingly went to him anyway when there was no where else to go. If looks could kill, Sunrise would have blown Cid away, mustering up the angriest look her beak and big blue eyes could accomodate.

"OK, look...I know you don't like me, but you're the fastest transportation I got to Wutai right now. Can't we discuss this? Man to...uh...man?"

The pretty bird cocked her head to the side, and made a half interested murmur of a whistle.

Yuffie sat cross-armed and cross-legged in Godo's room, staring out the window at nothing in particular. "Don't disappoint me, Dad," she said, "you're stronger than that."

"Dear." Godo didn't want to agree, and therefore lie to her; and he didn't want to contradict, upsetting her further either. Through many layers of bloody bandages, he leaned back, reclining on the soft pad on the floor and smiled. "The flowers are so lovely in the garden, aren't they?"

"..."

"The manicured gardens aren't the only thing that make Wutai beautiful, Yuffie."

Her voice lowered. "Don't get sentimental on me...father."

"You do, too."

"..."

"You're everything you were meant to be, Yuffie. Just as you are. You're a beautiful girl."

"I'm a thief. We're all thieves. We're all a cheap thrill for the tourists. Even worse than Costa del Sol. We're all incompetent, undisciplined, desperate materia hoarders."

Godo chuckled to himself. She sounded just like her mother now. "Sometimes that's just what you have to be, dear."

Yuffie was intrigued. She slowly brought her head around to look at her father for the first time since he woke up.

Godo leaned back again with a grunt. He was saying what he always wanted to say. He acted the fool for so many years, mostly because he found his daughter's fiery personality and the antics of his staff so amusing. Now was not the time to do so. And being prim and proper would never have accomplished much for anyone, anyway. He knew that a long time ago. "Sometimes one has to be one doesn't like before one is what they'd like to be. If we weren't, we'd never have a concept of forgiveness. We would never have goals. We'd never make progress. We'd never be able to save ourselves. We'd never even be able to recognize what we want and don't want to be."

Yuffie turned back toward the window. Her brow was almost constantly furrowed now. "Mother always beat it into my head about being right, " Yuffie now halfway thought out loud to herself, and halfway spoke to her father. This was a conversation they both put off for a long time. Even to her, deep down, saving the Planet was a priority. Because her town, the people in it, sat on it.. And her town...mattered. "And fair. And honest. Why did you not ever support her? Why would you want a thief for a daughter?"

"Yuffie, because I knew beforehand through the fortunetellers around here, that you would rescue this village through thievery and deception. And just think about it. You have. You've met the people who made that possible through it. Of course, I never imagined such a horrible thing could happen as the Meteor spell...but you did in fact rescue the town from destruction."

Yuffie realized that she did, in fact, meet Cloud's crew through thievery. If she hadn't been scoping out booty in the forests around Cosmo Canyon that day, she was sure she'd never have met up with them any other way. But still. Her desire to do something truly good was blinding her ability to accept her own past. And she realized how much she really couldn't have done anything differently, and bring security to her town sooner, and more honestly. "I didn't want to just rescue it. I wanted to make it better than it ever was. I wanted to make it better than before Grandfather ruled it."

"You will." Godo started a horrendous choking. Yuffie rushed over to him and grabbed him by the gi lapels. "Don't you dare, Father! Don't you dare leave me here with all this work undone!"

Still choking, Godo gently held Yuffie's tiny wrist with a weak hand. "Yuffie, your people love you now because of your work with those kids. Take advantage of it."

Tears welling up in her eyes, she continued to look down at her father and hope for the best.

"And...Yuffie?"

"Yeah?"

Yuffie could barely hear him. Godo smiled. "Don't...screw it up."

That was the first time Godo had said anything to scare her. No, the word "scare" wasn't right. Order? Expect? No. Maybe it was simply Godo revealing what he wanted, so obviously and unmistakeably. Until now Godo was a man happy to be in the background, and though had to accept a few things he didn't appreciate, did it all for everyone's welfare.

Yuffie smiled at him, ever so slightly, and Godo closed his eyes. With wet cheeks, Yuffie wanted to laugh, and she wanted to say more, and hear more, but it was too late.

"I won't screw it up, father. Now that I know who i am, I can be who I want to be. Wutai can be what it wants. The greatest. And proud."

Tifa was the first to fully awaken. She was surprised to find herself sleeping on Cloud's shoulder. How was it that she fell asleep? Oh, yeah. Side by side, just sitting down. So how did this happen? She could only guess it was because they missed being home.

The first thing Tifa noticed was tht the ship seemed utterly still. Too still. It had definitely been predictably rocking side-to-side, but the feeling of going forward was noticeably missing. She pulled away from Cloud, as difficult as it was, and skooched over to the door to try and listen for anyone outside to get a clue of what's happening. She couldn't hear anyone, and while it was frustrating to not know what was going on, the positive side was maybe they could discuss how to get off the ship once it docked.

Cloud was snoring softly. Tifa poked him lightly in the ribs with an elbow, trying to get him up as quietly and quickly as possible. "Hey," she whispered closely to his head.

Not any good. Tifa had a cutely miffed experssion on her face. Once Cloud was out, he was usually out. Particularly after time of stress.

She tried poking him again, a little harder. Her whisper became a little more intense. "...HEY!..."

Cloud stirred a bit, but nonetheless remained out of commission.

Tifa rolled her eyes. She really hated waking Cloud up. Not because it was difficult to rouse him in times like this, but she'd just really rather let the boy sleep. But naptime was over, and they had to be ready for the unpridectable.

To wake him up, of course she had to get a little creative. She took hold of the lock of hair that bordered the side of his face...and started playing with it. A nice braid should do it.

As soon as she started fiddling around, Cloud started weakly batting away at her hand. He could feel her gently pulling on the hair as she braided it. His eyes finally fully opened. He was hungry, and was starting to get a headache. "W...what are you doing?"

"Waking you up." She quickly undid the braid and returned the lock of hair to its natural state. Cloud couldn't stand his hair braided. It tended to unravel too easily, and in a matter of hours pop out all over the place, no matter how much he took care of it. His hair lent itself to more non-traditional styles like...well, spikes. "The ship's stopped. I wonder why."

"Ship..." Cloud parroted, half awake. The two of them suddenly noticed the ship's slight, rhythmed side-to-side rock was becoming more pronounced. It was becoming rather violent.

There was a pause again in the ship's motion, made all the more obvious by how much it was moving a second before. Again, it was way too still and quiet before a thunderous noise and a terrible tremor almost caused the both of them to roll on their sides. Cloud had to support himself with an arm, Tifa with both arms, to keep their sitting positions.

"Crap, we've hit something! Or something's hit us!" Cloud angrily said.

"We're gonna have to get out of this room! But we'll be discovered!"

Cloud tried to think of something useful to say. "We'll have to sit tight for now until we know how bad the damage to the ship is. Maybe we can ride this out." Tifa thought this was the best thing to do, considering the fact they were stowaways who shouldn't have been there in the first place. Maybe the ship was reinforced...or maybe the loud sound and shaking was cargo being slung back and forth within the ship.

Moments passed, and they finally heard a commotion in the hall. Sure enough, a few men who had been working deeper within the ship were running toward the deck. And Cloud and Tifa were noticing a sudden puddle forming as water dripped in in a steady stream in the opening at the bottom of the door. At this point, they could only guess how fast the water was rushing into the ship. They both realized they needed to risk being discovered, and go up to the deck, or drown.