Chapter 28: Heating Up
They left Cloud in the room. Tifa didn't want to and Leon, surprisingly for reasons that didn't involve suspicion, wasn't too fond of the idea either. But it was impossible to argue with the blond warrior when everything about him was so set and emotionless. Especially when their time here was on a limit and the team hadn't even started their own mission yet. Leon gave Cloud one of their bombs however.
"End it" was all he said but Cloud met his eyes and nodded as he accepted the explosive. Then Cid and Leon were headed for the door and Cloud turned away to face the pods. He wouldn't look at Tifa.
There was so much she wanted to say – and yet nothing to say at all. Too many emotions all crying too loudly to pick one or two. But, looking at the set of Cloud's shoulders as he stared at the pods full of monsters –
"Come back." Tifa was surprised by how fierce it came out and she moved around to stand in front of him, not caring if he refused to lower his eyes to look at her. Panic. Panic was the emotion that rose to the surface of her confusion. Rough, she wound her fingers in the fabric of his shirt and when he didn't respond right away, she jerked them and growled.
"I said – you come back."
His eyes did flicker down to her then, in surprise, and she looked up at him, desperate and for once, too caught up in what she suspected was behind his eyes to hide it.
"Cloud…" it came out soft. "When you're done here, come back to me…"
For just a moment, the blank mirror that covered his eyes disappeared and the depths of them, and all the broken bits of his soul she saw inside that impossible blue, was bottomless. She had the insane urge to kiss him – and never stop.
"Come back to me" she repeated in a whisper. His eyes clung to her the way his hands, kept stiffly at his sides, wouldn't. Without meaning too, he nodded. Just once. Tifa nodded in return. Reached up to touch his cheek lightly. Held his eyes with hers as her name was hissed at her from the doorway.
"To me" she repeated, voice barely there. As if she were more of a binding thread to him than his sister… but she wasn't really thinking. This was instinctive. Then she let him go and hurried out of the room.
Even Cid was silent as the three left moved down the hallway and Tifa thought, as much as they needed to be secretive, their silence was more than that right now. She'd left her lab coat on but she'd also slipped on her gloves. They felt worn and familiar and – bracing. From the corner of her eye from time to time, like the sway of her earrings, she caught glints of light and color in the knuckles of them and maybe she just imagined it for her own comfort but she thought she could feel the warmth of them too. Aerith and her family – sending their love along with her for this.
Leon was at the head of the small group, gunblade in hand, lab coat gone because it would have been incongruous anyway to try to explain why a Shinra scientist was armed with something like that. The reactor was quiet at this time of the night but the metallic clank of footsteps or the low murmur of voice could be heard from time to time and the small group infiltrating the building kept to the shadows and low. Leon led them through maintenance ducts and Tifa was doubly glad of the choice of shorts over a mini-skirt because Cid was crawling behind her.
The first bomb was planted and set and they moved on to their second destination. Avoiding security cameras and guard patrols. Whoever had given Leon his information was – very knowledgeable and Tifa couldn't help but wonder what that meant.
The second bomb was 'hers' and needed to be set in the middle of a pipe structure. She and Cid walked across the open space while Leon covered them from the shadows and Tifa quickly knelt down to set it where she'd been told too and activate it while Cid stood casually in front of her, blocking anyone's view.
My hands should be shaking, Tifa thought incongruously. Shouldn't my hands be shaking? My heart's going a mile a minute and my chest feels like I've got iron bands around it – but my hands aren't shaking. My hands should be shaking…
The lights on the bomb lit and the timer started counting down. Tifa's bare fingertips touched the device one last time – a prayer? A claiming responsibility for the sin? – and then she straightened up and nodded to Cid. He wasn't going to be able to smoke that cigarette he still had unlit in his mouth. Not with the abuse it was taking from his tense jaw movements.
As a team they moved out of the room and started down the hallway. They wouldn't be able to go out the way they'd come in but luckily no one was watching the people exiting as carefully as they were watching those coming in. The motor pool was down the hall and two rooms over. They'd ride out of here.
Except as they came around the corner, they ran into a squad of Shinra troopers. For a minute everyone was just as surprised as the others. But Leon with his giant sword was too hard to mistake for a late night scientist and that's when the yelled orders and firing started. Cid pushed Tifa through a nearby door into an adjoining room and she rolled with the momentum as Leon followed them through. Tifa had always had fast reflexes as a child and her training with Master Zangan – not to mention growing up in a house full of kids – had heightened them. So she was the first one on her feet and sprinting for the opposite door in an instant.
The bombs were counting down and now it was less getting out of here secretly and more just getting out as far as Tifa could tell. Alarms started to blare as she jerked the door open. Would the blaring alarms warn people to get out – or would they lure more people in?
"Come on!" she yelled and Cid barreled through followed closely by Leon. Shinra troopers poured into the room they'd just left. And Tifa lit off the Fire materia in her left glove.
It was true – she understood the concept of using materia. It was concentrated life energy and responsive to supposedly everyone. It was a second of focus on the glowing orb and a strange mental selection, a 'this one' in her mind. That and a prayer that it actually worked, though Tifa didn't think that last one was necessary. What she hadn't been prepared for was the way it felt. The sheer – heat of it. The way it swept through her entire body, not just her hand. Boiled her blood and yet it was such a – thrill. The best feeling in the world. A split second of knowing the pure, unadulterated joy of being fire and nothing else. And then it shot from her fist and she realized she'd almost forgotten to even point it in the right direction, so – impossibly full – of the feeling.
The burst of fire went wild into the room but it was a small room and it controlled the damage. And concentrated it. Yells of anger turned into less organized yells of panic as the flames latched on to anything edible. Tifa had a moment to feel relieved that her fire burst didn't seem strong enough to kill anyone – and then Leon was jerked her back and they were running again. Running and luckily all Tifa had to do was follow blindly because her head was still dealing with being half fire.
"Hot shit!" Cid's triumphant yell summed everything up as he tore down the corridor ahead of them and Leon took the time to spare Tifa a glance as they ran. Eyes wide and promising there were going to be questions after they were safe again.
Materia… Tifa's head swam a little but she found she was grinning like a loon as she ran. No, it certainly wouldn't help Aerith's flowers grow but – wow!
They were darting over a walkway, boots clanking hollow over the abyss it was suspended over, when the Shinra guards found them. The guns opened fire again and Leon returned the favor.
"Come on!" Cid was in the lead, still angling them toward the carpool and Tifa followed close on his heels. Except their time was done and far away at first and then growing closer, Tifa could hear explosions.
Her first thought was of Cloud. Then it occurred to her that she needed to worry about herself.
Halfway across the long walk, the bridge they were moving over shuddered. Tifa heard Cid curse and the way it was cut short. Her own boots lost traction on the metal surface. It lurched treacherously under her again just as she was grabbing for one of the rails and the cold metal shuddered just enough to slip an inch to the side. Her fingers brushed it on their way past. Tifa's mind had a second to find the proper expletive – all it offered was 'crap!' – and then she felt solid metal traded for thin air under her. Brows coming down in angry determination, she thrust out with her hands.
She'd promised Marlene and Denzel –
Fingers closed around her wrist and jerked her to a painful stop. She had a brief glimpse of the empty world below her shoes and then tipped her head back to look up.
Sunshine…
Cloud's hair.
And, again, for no understandable reason it made her smile.
"Sorry, I'm late," he offered, lying on his stomach, body half over the edge. His other hand was braced against the bar of the railing and it was almost all that kept him from falling over with her. Tifa managed to shake her head and her own fingers closed over his wrist. For a second – it was the entire world.
"Not late. Just on time."
And then another explosion shook everything and Cloud slipped forward just a little more, muscles in his arms straining visibly. Tifa had a second to realize that anyone else would have dropped her already and apparently 'ridiculously fast' wasn't the only thing Cloud was. Strong helped too. Gunfire filled the air around her and she realized that her friends had stopped their retreat and were staying to cover her and Cloud. And the sound of those explosions wasn't fading away any either. Quick she took another look below her –
Returning to her siblings didn't mean getting everyone else killed…
"Tifa – "
She looked up and met Cloud's eyes. And in them she saw –
"Stop reading my mind." A stupid time to scold him. Instead she focused. "Can you swing me, Cloud?" His blink and she noticed the details. His eyelashes were much darker than she'd thought…
"Tifa?"
"Walkway." The walkway above them was starting to shake and she heard Cid curse. "Below this one. Swing me, Cloud. So I can drop onto it."
His eyes narrowed and another rattle shook the bridge he was barely holding on to. She gave him a soft smile and then cocked an eyebrow at him.
"What's wrong, chocobo head? Can't you aim?"
His blue eyes narrowed again but this time there was a definite glint in them. Twisting his neck, he looked and spotted the walkway below that Tifa had mentioned. It was – further away than she'd made it sound and further down. Another explosion shook the bridge and its metal groaned. Not as far away as she would have liked, Tifa could see rushing fire coming toward them. Her eyes found Cloud's face.
"Quickly" was all she said. And then her body was sweeping forward, backward, forward again with a speed and strength that scared her –
almost as much as it scared her when she felt Cloud's fingers let go.
