Chapter 24: Running Into a Promise
Cloud had become a full-fledged mercenary within the month that he had told me he wanted to do it. Sometimes I would hear his clients talk about him, calling him a "selfish and greedy bastard" or a "self-serving pain in the ass" but never once did I hear that he didn't get the job done. Because Cloud any job that he could get he was constantly out of the house, sometimes not coming back for days, and once he got back he would be gone by the end of that week, or sooner. Sometimes I debated on whether or not I wanted to go with him, but he said that he'd rather me stay at home.
Once I'd asked him about why people would say those rude comments about him because he seemed completely the same to me when he came home. He just smiled at me like he always did and replied, "If I'm nice to them then they'll think I can't get the job done. Mercenaries aren't really supposed to come off as nice people." After hearing that I dropped the subject and began ignoring the comments of the clients, knowing that it was all just a façade that Cloud had created.
Cloud and Tifa seemed to be in contact more often than not, which I couldn't complain about since they were childhood friend. They hadn't seen each other in years so I had no right to ask him to stop seeing her, though I did feel a little worried about them. It almost felt like he saw her more than he saw me and it was a little unnerving.
I continued to run errands at the little house in the slums, sometimes joined by Aurale or anyone who felt like they needed to get out of the house. But with Rael came Serae, and with Varst came Merule, etc. Somehow it felt like each of them had slowly begun to pair up with each other. I didn't have a problem with any of them falling in love, in fact I had a bit of that in my lifetime as well, but it felt like when they paired up they would slowly start drifting away from the others in the group.
Today was just like any other day; I woke up and headed out to run some errands for my friends, who had really become more like family to me. Cloud was right, the least I could do for them was run errands. I went to the shops in the slums and bought groceries, reading off the list of things that they needed for that day. Feeding a group of ten people wasn't an easy task after all especially with not a lot of money and five males that liked to eat as much as they could. The money that Cloud brought in constantly helped a lot, but it was still not enough for that many people. "Maybe I should get a job," I murmured to myself, staring at the long list of groceries. "It would help a bit." I began to wish that I still had the money I'd earned from SOLDIER to help pay for costs, but I'd left it in my SOLDIER room, thinking that I wouldn't need it for a mission.
Suddenly I bumped in to a man because I hadn't been paying attention to where I was walking. I had been reading the list and forgot to look forward. "Sorry," I apologized, then immediately realized that he could pick-pocket me if I didn't get away. On instinct I leapt backwards and checked my pockets. My wallet was still intact so I looked up to see who I had bumped in to. Zack stood in front of me on the verge of tears from holding in his laughter. "Zack!" I cried, "I thought that you…"
"You thought that I was going to pick-pocket you?" He scoffed, wiping away tears after finally keeping his laughter down to a minimum. "It seems that you've gotten used to living in the slums easily."
"You do remember that I was born in these slums, right?" I told him, folding my arms. "I know this place better than anybody."
"I just thought you might've forgotten after living on the plate for so long," he shrugged. "You never did come off as the kind of person who came from the slums. You always kind of seemed like a girl that was born and raised on the plate."
"Girls born and raised on the plate don't aspire to join SOLDIER," I informed him. "They want to be business women, or reporters."
"You never know," he shrugged again. "There's always at least one, right?"
Then it hit me, this was the first normal conversation that I'd shared with Zack in months. Nothing compared to the four years he'd spent missing, but it still surprised me. It was obvious that we weren't close anymore, but I still treasured the times we'd spent as friends even though they were all in the past. "Yeah," I finally replied after pondering the thought for a little while. "So where have you been living all of this time?" I asked, realizing that I had never found out where he lived.
"With Aerith and her family, your family too," he said with a smile. "They're nice people; you should pay them a visit sometime."
"Yeah, maybe I will some other day. I have groceries to buy right now, so my hands are a little full." I laughed, holding up the long list that I had been given. "There are lots of people where I live so we eat a lot."
"I'll help out," Zack generously volunteered. "It'll be easier to hold all of those groceries with another pair of hands there. What do you say?"
I thought about it for a moment, and then smiled. "Yeah, I would like that."
Zack and I entered the slum markets and began to find the things on the list. Zack called it a scavenger hunt so that it would seem a little more entertaining, and so I played along. By the time we found as many of the items as we could we were both laughing like a pair of idiots, so much that we were shot many questionable looks by the other shoppers in the market. "We couldn't find the stupid cabbage!" I complained. "Of course the cabbage would be the only thing we wouldn't be able to find!"
"You should be thankful we couldn't find it, you hate cabbage!" Zack choked out, trying to catch his breath from laughing so hard. "But I definitely found more than you. You were like a lost puppy!"
"You're the lost puppy! Isn't that your nickname? Zack the puppy?" I crooned. "Aw, you're just a little puppy."
"I'll bite you," he threatened as we walked over to the cashier to buy our items.
"That will be 2000 gil," the cashier said, handing us our items. I dug out my wallet from my pocket, but Zack had already brought his out.
"What are you doing Zack?" I asked, but he put his hand out.
"I'll pay, don't worry."
"But-!" I protested, but he stopped me again.
"It's fine, Felicis." He smiled, "I have some extra cash anyways. It's nothing to sweat over." After paying he handed me half of the grocery bags and held the other half himself, then we began to head back to my house. "Get a job already. I know you're running low on money."
"Thank you." I told him. "You have a job?"
"You know, I do little things around here that'll earn me some money. You know, small errands, deliveries, and sometimes fighting off some monsters. As long as it earns me some money it's fine, I want to be able to pay back Elmyra for letting me stay with her and Aerith. Aerith earns some money from selling flowers too, so it's all good."
"Maybe I should do that too. It seems better than wasting my time indoors." I sighed.
"Oh, I forgot to ask. How is Cloud doing? Any luck with his memory?" Zack asked, somewhat hopefully.
I shook my head, "still nothing. I don't know if he'll ever remember at this point. He still doesn't remember that you existed at all."
Zack let out a long sigh, "I guess it can't be helped."
"Yeah, but he's a mercenary now. He doesn't come home too much anymore because of his job, but I guess it's alright. Running around suits him better anyways," I said.
"A mercenary, huh?" Zack said to himself. "That's funny."
"Why is it funny?" I asked confused.
"Because on our way back to Midgar I suggested that the two of us become mercenaries in Midgar. We wouldn't be working in Shinra anymore after all." Zack told me. "At least I know that he could still hear me when he was unconscious. Thank goodness I didn't say anything mean to him." He laughed.
"So he remembers little things that you said to him, but he doesn't remember you. Those Sephiroth cells sure are weird."
"Yeah, but as weird as Cloud has become with those Sephiroth cells in him, he's still a hero. More of a hero than I was at least. He really was the one who killed Sephiroth you know. I got knocked out by Sephiroth, but Cloud picked up my sword and just went at him. He was probably furious about his mom and Tifa."
"You know Tifa?" I asked surprised.
Zack looked back at me with his 'of course' face. "I met her when I arrived in Nibelheim. She's a pretty one that Tifa, but Cloud was scared to see her face to face for some reason so he kept his helmet on the whole time. She got hurt when she went after Sephiroth for killing her father. Cloud looked like he was going to throw the sky at Sephiroth's face when he found Tifa." Suddenly Zack realized how much he was praising Cloud and Tifa's relationship and stopped. "You know her?" He asked changing the subject.
"Yeah, I met her about a month ago. She works in a bar up on the plate. Cloud goes up there a lot to talk to her." I explained.
"Oh, I see…" Zack said trailing off. "Well don't feel discouraged or anything. It's obvious that Cloud really likes you so he wouldn't do anything with her…" He tried to pat the back of my head, but instead hit me on the back with the bag of groceries he was holding.
"Ow!" I groaned. "What the hell!"
"I am so sorry, I meant to comfort you, but I ended up hitting you." Zack apologized, looking like he was holding back laughter again.
"What are you an idiot! You're horrible at comforting people!" I laughed, unable to rub my sore back because of the grocery bags. Then I playfully swung my bag of groceries, hitting him in the gut, "Revenge." I told him bluntly.
"I guess I deserved that…" Zack laughed arriving at the front door of my home. "Well we're here. Do you need help with bringing the groceries in?"
"Yeah, that would be helpful." I replied, thanking him. We entered the house and everyone looked somewhat surprised to see Zack inside of our home. Zack seemed to notice, but he continued to greet everyone as his usual friendly self.
"Ah, Felicis, you're back." Aurale seemed to say with an uneasy tone as she stared at Zack. She outstretched her hand towards Zack and he shook it. "You must be Zack, right? It's very nice to meet you. I'm Aurale."
"Nice to meet you Aurale," he smiled.
Then Aurale walked next to me and whispered in my ear, "maybe it's not the best time for him to be here." I could sense the worry in her voice.
"Why?" I whispered back, but then I heard my voice being called from my room and the heavy footsteps of combat boots clunking against the floor.
"Hey, Felicis, you're back," Cloud said coming in to the dining room to where Aurale, Zack, and I stood.
"Cloud!" I cried with obvious surprise. "Welcome home!"
"Ah, yeah," he said replying to me but staring at Zack instead. "Zack, right?" he pointed.
"Yeah, hey Cloud," Zack waved sensing the tension that had formed in the room suddenly by Cloud. I felt it too, and it made me feel completely uncomfortable.
"Zack helped me with my errands. I sort of bumped in to him on my way there and he offered to help." I tried to explain, suddenly remembering my promise to Cloud that I wouldn't speak with Zack anymore because it made him feel uneasy. "It was a lot of groceries to hold, and he helped a lot. He even paid for it, didn't you Zack?"
"Oh, yeah… it was no problem." Zack tried to help me out by replying.
"Oh, how nice of him, thanks Zack," Cloud said.
"No problem. I actually have to go back home. I realized that I promised Aerith that I would help her with a new wagon for her flowers so I have to get on that right away." Zack lied, though I knew that it was probably only obvious to me.
"You should hurry then, thank you for the help Zack!" I called out to him as I watched him go.
"Any time!" he replied as he walked out the door.
Immediately when he left I walked over to Cloud's side a brushed some of his hair out of his eyes. "Hey, I didn't know that you were coming home today. I'm happy that you're back, I missed you."
"Yeah," Cloud replied without much emotion in his voice. I instantly knew that I was in trouble. "Can you come with me? I need to talk to you." Cloud grabbed my hand and pulled me in to our bedroom, and I looked back once begging for help from someone, but everyone just watched sympathetically as I disappeared behind the door.
When he shut the door he let go of my hand and spun around to face me. "You promised me that you wouldn't talk to him anymore. You know that it makes me uncomfortable when you guys are together."
"It was one time, I bumped in to him and he offered to help! I completely forgot, I'm sorry!" I tried to explain.
"I promised you that I wouldn't talk to Aerith because you didn't want me to and I haven't spoken to her once!" Cloud told me.
"He's a friend, we just had a friendly conversation and he helped me with carrying the bags! It was fun."
` "Oh, I'm sure you had a lot of fun didn't you? You don't think that I know that he was the one that wrote you that letter back then! The one where he said he wanted to see you, and he was obviously in love with you!" Cloud scoffed.
"It's different now! We're just friends, he's in love with my older sister! He's always been in love with my older sister! There shouldn't be a problem there! And that day I came back to you and told you that I was in love with you!" I argued.
"How would you know that he's not in love with you anymore! Just because he sells flowers with Aerith and hangs around her all the time doesn't mean he's in love with her! He wouldn't have been so generous as to help you carry your bags and even pay for you if he didn't care for you in some way! You're so stupid when it comes to these kind of things, Felicis!" Cloud shouted at me.
"Why are you being so hostile towards me!" I cried stomping my foot.
"Because I'm never here with you anymore so I don't know what you're doing whenever I'm gone! You don't think that that's at least a little unnerving for me! And then I see you coming home with Zack, how do I know that it hasn't happened before or if it's not going to happen again!" Cloud snapped.
"Then have a little more faith in me! I'm in love with you, I tell you this all the time! I don't understand why you can't trust me to even walk home with one of my friends! Go talk to Aerith, or Tifa, or any girl that you want to! I don't care, because I trust that you're not going to do anything with them! Why can't you put that same trust in me!" I finally screamed.
Cloud seemed surprised at this remark. He must've never thought about it that way, that I'd been letting him talk to anyone he wanted to without getting jealous except for Aerith who was the person who I felt took Zack from me in the first place. Immediately the yelling and screaming ceased to continue and the two of us just stared at each other. Tears began to stream down my eyes and then I crouched down on to the floor in to fetal position.
"Are we going to be okay Cloud?" I asked in the middle sobs. "Are we going to be able to continue us being together like this? Please tell me that we're going to be okay."
Cloud stared at me on the ground, and suddenly I realized that it looked like he was on the brink of tears also. He crouched on to the ground and held me tightly in his arms. "I'm sorry Felicis. Sorry, don't leave me. We're going to be okay, so don't leave me. I'll trust you more from now on, I promise. I'll come home more so we'll be fine."
"Okay," I sobbed holding him back. "We're going to be okay. No more running in to promises. I'll keep my promises from now on."
"You can talk to Zack if you want now," Cloud said burying his head in my shoulder almost like it pained him to say it. "I have to learn to trust you from now on. It'll be fine, I'll be fine, and we'll be fine."
"Okay," I replied believing him.