Cid is mid-air when the air abruptly shifts. Not a change in wind direction, no, no, this is a very pointed change in the charge of the air itself, the pressure, the atmosphere, the energy. He doesn't have any time to get out of the Jump, so he braces himself for a damaging impact, and crashes into WEAPON, spear jamming nice and snug between plates of its armour. A shudder from the monster, and he's thrown, spear still tight in his grip, some two-dozen feet across the ground. Hitting it and thankfully landing in the sand, he skids on his back another few feet, rolling to his feet ankle deep in the lapping surf.

'Cid!' Tifa yells, and he throws his hand up, spear waving as a sign he's alright.

Nothing a Cure won't fix, anyway, but he's more worried about the pressure behind his ears.

'Guys, something's coming!' he hollers, and his ankles ache as he jogs back into the battle, narrowly dodging a wayward shuriken Yuffie throws before skidding back into range to throw a Barrier up against a spitball the WEAPON throws in Red's direction. Fucking magic.

Cloud throws a hand up at the monster, before dodging a stomp of its foot. 'No shit!'

'No,' Vincent agrees, appearing out of nowhere, cloak a flutter of red against Cid's periphery, 'something in the air.'

Cid huffs out a thank you, obligingly planting his feet and bending his knees to let Tifa use his spear as a springboard for an attack.

The WEAPON, as abruptly as it had started to attack, stops. Tifa's flurry of punches and kicks, and Red's timely use of Fire3, seem to go unnoticed. It stomps in a circle, turns to face away from them.

Cid's boots squelch with the seawater trapped in them as they back away to watch it open up its chest, drawing energy in a golden, glittering shadow against the sun.

'The fuck is it doing?' Barret asks, and Cid shakes his head.

'Fuck knows, but I'm not going to be on the ground to find out! Back to the ship!'

'It's designed to protect the Planet, right?' Cloud asks as they scramble up the rope ladder onto the deck. 'Maybe it senses something.'

They look at him, and then the ship jerks, takes off.

'Fucking amateurs,' Cid scoffs, but they're airborne, and getting out of range, and that's all that matters.

At a safe distance, they watch as WEAPON unleashes an attack that would easily have reduced them to ash, had it aimed at them. But, Cid supposes, they're just ants to it, an itch to scratch, and not a real threat.

The real threat is in the other direction.

'Midgar!' Barret exclaims, 'fuck, Marlene!'

'Safe in Kalm,' Cait – Reeve – assures him, but the robot is nodding. 'There's – the cannon's there.'

As if spoken into existence, a ray of light, so bright it blinds them, rushes past, fast enough to rock the ship, and Cid instinctively grabs onto Yuffie's belt to hold her aboard, knowing full well she'll be the first to go flying.

'The fuck is happening?' Barret demands, and they look, terrified, as the WEAPON is knocked back towards the ocean, hit straight off its feet and crashing to the ground.

'The ray went straight through it,' Vincent says, as though observing the weather, because that's just the way Vincent is, and it's oddly calming, if not for the terror in his eyes.

'They're going after Sephiroth,' Cloud nods, because the ray is still travelling, north, north, north.

They're staring at the ray travelling towards the Northern Cave and so miss the WEAPON's attack hitting Midgar. Not that it would matter, the rumble that comes when the ray connects to the barrier is enough to make their ears pop, the Highwind shuddering against the disturbance.

'Fucking hell,' Cid breathes.

'Let's get in,' Cloud says, 'we need to go and see it.'

They follow him inside, all of them still looking at the smoke coming from the horizon.

The barrier is gone.

'Then,' Tifa says, slowly, 'we can – we can go after Sephiroth, now, right?'

Cloud nods, and looks at Cid, hovering at the console.

'Can we get down there, in the airship?'

Cid snorts, claps the trainee pilot on the back.

'Course we can,' he scoffs, 'this is my star student. He can go anywhere I can, and he's stupid enough to go places I wouldn't fuckin' dare!'

'Uh,' the trainee says, 'thanks, Captain.'

Cid laughs, claps him on the back again, and then turns at Barret's muttering.

'What now?' he asks, and Barret nods at Cait, doing some odd little jig atop the Moogle.

'Uh,' Cait says, 'um. Two things, guys. Rufus is – gone.'

'Thank fuck for that,' Barret mutters, and Tifa clips his arm.

'And the Sister Ray is – it's being overpowered. There's too much energy going to it from the Reactors. I can't turn it off. It's – it's been redirected to the mainframe.'

'By who?' Cid asks.

'Hojo.'

'Then do something!' Barret yells, you're one of their rats, ain't ya? Turn the fucking thing off!'

The cat doesn't reply.

Cid admits that he didn't have the best first impression of Reeve, when they met all those years ago, and he doesn't have the best impression of him now, given all that's happened.

'Listen, motherfucker,' he says, and gets into the cat's face, assumes that the eyes are cameras, seeing everything through a live feed. 'We've been busting our fucking asses to get this far, you double cross us now and I will fucking kill you myself.'

Behind him, he feels Tifa reeling, eyes rolling and her breath huffing in a heavy, disappointed sigh.

The cat does not show any emotion, but he hears Reeve draw a breath.

'I can't make you trust me,' he says, 'but when I say I can't do it – '

'Don't you get it!' Cid snaps, and yanks the cat off its ride. 'I don't give a fuck about Rufus, or ShinRa, or you. If you're a decent fucking man – a fucking human being – motherfucker, you save the Planet! Or do you not care?'

The cat tries to pry his fingers off his collar, but it does little.

'No, I can't! If I try to stop the reactors from this end, all hell will break loose!'

'Just turn it off,' Cid says, 'shut the valve.'

'Yeah,' Cait replies, and he would never have expected a robot to be able to sound sarcastic. 'Just turn it off. And do what, Captain? The Mako has to go somewhere, and if we shut the valves to stop it going to the cannon, it only has one escape route, and we can't shut that off until it's all burst out.'

'Where is the escape route?' Tifa asks.

'Under Midgar,' Cait replies.

Yuffie looks between them.

'Then, if the Mako is going under Midgar – it's going to – explode?'

'Bigger than when the Number One exploded,' Cait nods.

Cid dumps the cat back on the Moogle and rakes his hands through his hair.

'We have to stop the cannon,' Cait says.

'Then we have to stop Hojo,' Cloud reasons.

Vincent, silent until now, watching them with the same impassiveness that he always does, opens his mouth. 'I will come with you. I have – unfinished business – with Hojo. I would see him one final time.'

'No skin off my nose,' Cloud snorts. 'Cid, we gotta get back to Midgar.'

Cid nods, and jerks his chin to the trainee, who has been gaping at them the entire time. He pulls the yoke, and turns the ship about, and not for the first time, Cid thanks the Planet that Shera came back to work with him, that she was able to have an input on the things he did, that she helped him design and build this beauty.

'We need a plan,' Cloud says.

'Operations room,' Cid replies, jerking his head in the direction of the gangway.

So, out they file, one behind the other, heading to Operations to work out how exactly they're going to approach this situation, the whos and whats and hows.

'We'll parachute,' Cloud says, when Cid reminds him that even if Midgar is under martial law as Barret says, and the ground route in has been closed off according to Reeve, the air remains open, and there isn't exactly a ceiling on the city.

'We'll parachute,' Yuffie agrees, and Cid looks at her. She's staring, bright-eyed, but clearly very deliberately putting herself in a different mental place, bracing herself for a re-run of the last time they jumped out of the Highwind.

'I'll jump with you,' Cid says, 'you'll be alright.'

Yuffie snorts, but she looks grateful.

They're deliberating – arguing, really – about who's going to go after Hojo, when the intercom goes to announce that they're over Midgar.

'Right,' Cloud says, getting to his feet, 'if anybody wants to stay aboard, they're welcome to.'

Everyone looks at him like he's gone mad.

Except for maybe Red, who's last experience with a 'chute had been even worse than Yuffie's, and isn't eager to repeat it. Cid can't blame him for that, but the cat clearly doesn't want to stay behind, so he obligingly lets Vincent strap him into his harness with him again.

'On a count of three,' Cloud yells, over the whistling of the wind.

The energy of the air around them, pulsing with the Mako being pumped too fast and too hard around the city, funnelled into the ray, it's enough to make Cid's hair stand on end, his teeth grit. Could just be Yuffie, clinging to him like a limpet, already green in the cheeks.

'Three!' Cloud yells, and they jump.

Getting underground is the easy part, and battling through the sewers isn't too difficult. Hell, they manage to sneak back into the ShinRa building, for what seems like shits and giggles, without any trouble, even though Yuffie comes back to them with some pretty useful stuff that she kicked out of a vending machine. Cloud's ears go a little pink at that, and when pressed, he admits that he'd kicked the same vending machines months earlier for stealing his Gil. Aerith, Tifa muses some time later, as they pick their way through the sewers once more, would have found that hilarious, and would claim that Cloud deserved it.

Cait reminds them that Heidegger and Scarlet are out to get them, which just makes Cloud laugh.

'Like to see them try,' he says, which is the cockiest thing any of them have heard in years.

They're back on the surface, having run through the closed tracks for fuck-knows how many miles, when the ground shakes beneath them, and the clanking, crunching echo of metal grinding on metal rattles down the street towards them.

'What the?' Cid asks, whirling back to look. 'Oh, for fuck sake.'

'The fuck is that?' Barret asks, looking at the – the – thing.

'Are you kidding me?' Yuffie asks, 'that's like, not even half the size of the WEAPON. Piece of cake.'

Cloud takes his sword off his back, expression perfectly neutral, and gets into a ready stance. The others follow suit, but each of them are tinged with mirth.

'What a joke,' Yuffie says, as the mech reaches up towards its cockpit and Heidegger and Scarlet step out onto its palm.

'Is this the best they've got?' Tifa asks, adjusting her gloves and looking for all the world like she's examining her nails.

'You've treated us like dogs!' Heidegger yells, and Cloud raises his eyebrows. 'You think you're so strong, well, let's see how you cope against this! Anti-WEAPON artillery! The strongest thing you've ever faced!'

Without looking at each other, the gang look around themselves, looking at the scenery, their shoes, their weapons, bored.

'Worthless!' Scarlet exclaims, 'worthless brats! This is my proudest creation! The surest thing I have ever made!'

Tifa's glove creaks. 'I will slap her again, I swear I will.'

'I'll show you!' Scarlet shrieks, and gestures.

The mech pulls them back into the cockpit, and on the ground, the party spread out a little, give themselves room.

Cloud gestures at it.

'By all means, Tifa,' he says, and she rolls her shoulders.

It's a sorry state of affairs, an embarrassing battle. For the four arms the mech has, for the guns it carries, it takes little more than five minutes to put it down. Tifa manages to rip one of its arms off with only small assistance from Barret and Cid loosening the joint through a combination of spear-leverage and well-aimed gunfire. Yuffie short-circuits one of the other arms by getting her fingers under the plating and ripping at the wires. Cloud cuts through one of its legs. It's just. It's embarrassing for Heidegger and Scarlet.

They're already making their way along the path towards the mainframe when the mech explodes behind them. Fuck it, Cid thinks, and wonders what Shera would think of it. She wasn't really into the weaponry, as it went, but she enjoyed the mechanics, the engineering, that went into them. Would she feel it a waste of perfectly good work, to destroy it?

Ultimately, he knows she would think he was doing the right thing, that weapons, whether designed by the planet or not, had no place in society, in their world, and the less of them there were around, the better. But it would still be a shame.

He wonders if she'd ever been approached to join the R&D department, whether Scarlet had tried to poach her, or if Palmer got there first, convincing her to join the rocket.

Fuck sake, he owes Palmer so much, and the little fucker nearly got them all killed. Prick.

'I intend to go to the top,' Vincent says, 'to confront Hojo.'

'Sure,' Cloud says, 'who else is coming?'

Everyone, by the looks of it.

Fuck it, why not?

Hojo is – well. Hojo is madder than usual. It seems like a difficult thing for the bastard to achieve, but the way he hunches over the console, laughing and muttering and crowing to himself – well. He looks sickly, greenish and pale, sweaty and shaking, but his eyes are manic, his body tense with what could be adrenaline.

'Hojo!' Cloud yells over the wind, 'stop right there!'

'Wha'?' Hojo slurs, and then turns, his eyes narrowing, disappointed. 'Oh. It's the failure.' His gaze slides across to Vincent. 'Failures.'

'I have a name!' Cloud protests, and Cid abruptly remembers that he is a child. 'It's Cloud! At least remember it.'

Hojo turns back to the console. 'Every time I look at you, I am astounded that I was so ignorant. So lacking in scientific sense. What a waste of time you were.'

It isn't clear who he's speaking to. Vincent's fingers curl, squeeze tight into a fist, but he doesn't draw his gun, not yet.

'And yet!' Hojo crows. 'And yet, here you are! The only success as one of Sephiroth's clones! I hate myself for my blindness.'

Vincent's face is cycling through emotions, and though Cid stands ready, knees bent, spear tip angled, he finds it fascinating, completely absorbed in the expressions crossing the other man's features. Disgust, loathing, pity, fear, loss.

'Oh, who gives a shit!' Cloud shouts, and flails his hands about. 'Just stop it, Hojo!'

'Stop?' Hojo repeats. 'Stop what? This? Planet below, I couldn't! My son needs the power, and I am going to give it to him!'

'Your son?' Yuffie asks.

'Sephiroth,' Vincent replies, voice calm, though it looks like he wants to be sick.

'Son?' Yuffie screeches, 'that's Sephiroth's – that thing bred?'

Hojo laughs, and it sounds like a cat coughing up a hairball. He steps up into Yuffie's space, and there's barely an inch of height between them, his nose close enough to hers that it looks like they're touching. His breath is putrid, rotten, and Yuffie recoils as much as she can. 'You are so young. Fresh.'

'Don't talk to her,' Cid snaps, but he's the other side of the grate and can't get into his space.

Hojo's gaze flicks to him, scans him, and then dismisses him. He turns back to the console, steps deceptively doddering.

'I offered the woman with my child to Professor Gast's Jenova project,' Hojo explains, fiddles with the controls. 'While Sephiroth was in the womb, we implanted the foetus with Jenova cells.'

'Lucrecia,' Vincent barks. 'Her name was Lucrecia Crescent.'

Cid doesn't know why he only realises it now. He'd heard the name before, of course, because everyone had heard about the tragedy that was Dr Crescent, and Shera had talked, a bit, about the sister she'd never known, but he'd never thought to connect it. But it makes so much sense.

'Fuck,' Cid says, and Vincent looks at him, but Hojo starts laughing, and that distracts them both.

'You see!' Hojo laughs, crowing like a rooster, 'it was my desire as a scientist! To be the – to be the best! To achieve what no other had achieved! And my son, he – I will not be defeated!'

Cid glances at the others; they look as baffled by the shit coming out of his mouth as he is.

'I should never have slept,' Vincent says, which comes out of nowhere, but it's supported by the gun he unholsters and levels between Hojo's eyes, 'it should have been you!'

Hojo presses his forehead into the barrel. 'Oh, but you see, Mr Valentine, she isn't here to save you this time! Oh no, because you see, you see, I have injected Jenova cells into my body! Do you – let's see the results!'

Vincent fires at the same time as Hojo pushes, and the shot misses, Vincent sent flying across the grate. Yuffie cries out, but Vincent's already upright and darting back to his gun.

For a sickly old man, Hojo is pretty adept at dodging a vast majority of their attacks, and it's a minute before Tifa manages to skid across the floor, sweeping Hojo's legs out from under him that allows Vincent to get a shot off that connects. Hitting Hojo square in his fucking face, the scientist careens back, clutching at the hole in his cheek. Tifa rights herself, bounces back into line with the others, and they watch as Hojo whirls about the place, a dazed, screeching mess of blood and pus, and then he lurches, heaving and vomiting.

'But,' Yuffie says, 'you shot him in the face.'

'He has Jenova cells,' Red says from by her feet, back arched. 'This is not the end of the battle.'

And it isn't; with a rip and a tear and an ugly screeching noise, Hojo's skin tears off his body, coat and hair and bone, and the thing that he becomes is – is –

It's like the thing they thought after Aerith – after she – after Sephiroth –

It's no time to think about it now, Cid reasons. There's a lot already bouncing around his head, and as he ducks and dives underneath Yuffie's errant spell-casting, and this thing's attempts to put him to sleep, he finds he doesn't have room for anything else. He owes Aerith dedicated time to think about her, and in the middle of a battle is not one of them. He hops onto the railing, pushes himself up and off, Jumping up as high as he dare with the crackling of the Mako around them, the electricity pulsing with too much power running through the wires, and he comes down as hard as he can, feet and spear both.

The battle rages, and when they think they've got it beat, something slithers out from inside the rotting, stinking mass of writhing flesh that had torn its way out of Hojo's body, and lingers for a moment. It's sleek, and smooth, and peculiarly perfect, in some alien, horrible way.

Vincent shoots it point-blank, and it goes down.

A moment passes as it writhes on the floor, and then it goes still, and silence falls. They're all panting, clutching at ribs and cuts and scrapes and Yuffie leans over the railing to throw up, but they're intact, conscious.

'Well,' Cid says, and kicks the thing on the floor. 'That's that, then.'

'Rest in fucking piss,' Yuffie spits, wiping her mouth.

Cid doesn't tell her off about her language.

Cait bounces over to the mainframe. 'Captain, help me with this, please, you have bigger hands.'

Some quip is halfway to his mouth before he remembers that he's talking to a robot controlled by a ShinRa executive and not one of his makeshift family back home at Rocket Town, so he swallows it, and follows Reeve's instructions to power down the cannon.

'And that's the end of the cannon,' Barret says, when the electricity has stopped whirring, and the Mako has begun to wind back down.

'We'd – what's next, Cloud?' Tifa asks.

'Back to the ship,' Cloud shrugs. 'I suppose. We – there's nothing left for us here.'

They leave through Sector Five, because that's a quick way out. There are no troops to stop them, and people are scared, quiet, scurrying past and avoiding their gazes.

'They need help,' Red says, as they descend the tower into the slums. 'Midgar is – '

'ShinRa is finished,' Cait offers, 'with Rufus gone, and Heidegger and Scarlet out of action, there's nobody left.'

'There's you,' Barret says, which is as much of a compliment as if he'd told him he trusted him.

'I'm urban development,' Cait says, well – Reeve says. 'I'm not management, I'm not a president, a leader.'

'Then learn to be one,' Cloud says.

Cait goes quiet for a few minutes, bobbing along beside them as they walk through the slums.

They stop at the Church. For a moment, Tifa pauses, and her breath catches.

'What is it?' Yuffie asks.

'I thought I saw – never mind, it doesn't matter.'

But Cid knows, because he's seen it too. The flash of pink on your periphery, the soft hum of her voice behind your ear, underneath something else you're listening to, the warmth of her against your arm. He's seen it too, but he's never been in the Church before.

'This is where we met,' Cloud explains, 'Aerith and I, I mean. I crashed through the roof.'

The place is filled with flowers, and it's beautiful, in a sad sort of way. There are two children sitting by the flowers, fingertips skimming them as they check for any signs of dying or disease, de-heading the ones that need it.

'She asked us to look after them,' the girl offers, when Tifa approaches. 'For when she comes back.'

Tifa's lip wobbles, but she manages to smile, and smooth a hand over the girl's crown.

'That's very kind of you,' she says, and the girl smiles back, plucks a pink flower from the plot and hands it to Tifa.

Tifa, Cid thinks, as she gets to her feet and turns away from the children to return to them, should go into theatre, because she's holding her composure, acting the calm and level-headed girl he's mostly seen her to be, and she's doing it fantastically, far better than he ever could hope to.

She'll start crying as soon as they're out of the Church, but for now, she's keeping it together.

'I hope we're doing you proud,' Cloud says, to the Church at large, and they all feel the smile coming back to them.

'We're not going down without a fight,' Red says, with a nod. 'She would be proud of that.'

'True enough,' Cloud agrees, and glances at Tifa, his brow furrowed. 'Come on, we'd better get moving.'

Back on the airship, hovering listlessly above Midgar, they say nothing for several minutes.

'Grandfather said we have seven days,' Red says. 'Until Meteor falls.'

Cloud looks out of the window and then looks back at them.

'You want to see him,' he says, and it's not a question.

Red nods, and Cloud turns to Barret.

'You want to see Marlene?'

'What a stupid fucking question.'

Cloud heaves a breath, and looks at the rest of them.

'Listen,' he says, 'we – let's say we fight Sephiroth, and we win – if we don't find a way to stop Meteor, to summon Holy, it's – and if we don't win, then – well, I guess we die a few days before everyone else.'

'Don't talk like that,' Tifa says, quietly, her eyes red.

'I'm being honest, Tifa,' Cloud says, and he bites his lip, wrings his hands. 'Listen, if we're doing this, I want us all to be sure of why we're fighting.'

'We're saving the Planet,' Barret says.

'Saving the Planet, or saving Marlene?' Cloud asks, and it's possibly the most astute, wise, most philosophically sensible thing that he has ever said in all the time Cid's known him.

Barret scratches the back of his head.

'It doesn't matter which it is,' Cloud shrugs, 'if it's neither of those things, both, whatever. I don't really care. I just – if we're going to fight, we need to know why. We need to know what we're fighting for, so that we – so that we do it properly.'

'Properly?' Yuffie echoes.

'For me,' Cloud says, touching his heart, looking contrite for a moment, like he's going to admit to stealing the last tea bags. 'For me it's personal. This is a personal feud with Sephiroth so that I can – I can make good on my past. So that I can put it to bed and move on. Move past what happened to me because of him. It's just that saving the planet comes along with it. And, deep down, I think we're all – we're all doing it for ourselves.'

'Fuck you on about?' Cid asks, 'I couldn't give a shit.'

Cloud gives him a look. 'It doesn't have to be a selfish thing,' he says, 'it can be for you, but through doing it for someone that's important to you. Or something. Whatever.'

'Someone important?' Cid repeats, eyebrow raising.

'Barret's fighting for Marlene, right? He's fighting for himself through her. Her happiness, her life, her future, that's important to him, and he wants to give that to her, and be there to see it. Right?'

'Fuckin' right,' Barret agrees, though he doesn't really look like he's following.

'So it's for himself. But through her. I think we're all doing that. One way or another. Saving the planet is personal for each of us. But we need to – we need to know what that is.'

'You're talking shit,' Cid says.

'No,' Tifa disagrees, gentle, shaking her head, 'no, he's – he's got a point.'

'So what?' Cid asks, 'you're asking us to do some soul searching? Find what's important to us?'

'That's exactly what I'm asking,' Cloud says. 'As Nanaki said, we've got about seven days before Meteor hits. We can spare a night. I want everyone to get off the ship and go to where their – their whatever it is, their someone, or something, or somewhere – go to that reason, and make sure it is the reason they're fighting, and then. Then come back, if you want. Or don't. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. I'd want to spend the maybe last days of my life with those that mattered most.'

Tifa looks at him, and Cid kind of wants to throw up a little bit. It's too saccharine. But his words ring a heavy note in the back of his heart.

Shera. He owes her – an apology, a proper one. An explanation. The truth.

He should tell her that he loves her, and that he's – that he's – if the planet ends without saying that to her, he'd never forgive himself, would spend an eternity in the lifestream hating himself for not telling her the truth, after all these fucking years. He's loved her, in one way or another, since the first time he fucking saw her, and he should have told her years ago, and he could have had – he could have – they could have had so much.

He's wasted so much fucking time pissing about pretending like he didn't love her, lying to himself, to her, to everyone around them. He's done so much shit to her, for her, because of her, and she hasn't deserved large swathes of it. Fuck sake.

'I suppose you've got a point,' he admits, grudgingly, because the metal beneath his feet feels like sand being pulled by the tide.

The others look like they've been shaken by this, too, frowning at their toecaps and at the walls, and each other.

'I suppose, then,' Cid says, after a minute has passed in silence, dragged out by their harrowed expressions, 'that I'd better drop you all off where you want to be, eh.'

Barret wants to go to Marlene, so he's the first to be dropped off in Kalm, with a promise to get in touch if he wants to stay or go. Red goes back to Cosmo, and Yuffie to Wutai, her expression resolute. Before she disembarks, she stands toe-to-toe with Cid, her fingers reaching out to curl about his, holding on tight, the way she had in the Forgotten City.

'Cid,' she says, and Cid nods.

'I'll be here,' he says, and doesn't kiss her forehead, even though it feels very much like the thing he should do. 'Tell him straight.'

She sets her jaw, her eyes, and nods once, hard.

'I'll show him how strong I am,' she says, and gives his fingers a squeeze before bouncing off the ship and nearly giving him a heart attack.

Fucking kids.

Vincent doesn't know what to do, but Cid reminds him of that cave they'd sailed past, all that time ago, the one that had been calling him, or so Aerith had said.

'Perhaps that's where you need to be,' he says, 'maybe there's some answers or something.'

Vincent doesn't look convinced, and Cid wonders whether, if they all survive this, if they make it out the other side and by some miracle stop Meteor, whether he should reintroduce Shera to him with her full name, or whether that would be too painful. Cid has no idea whether Shera looks like her sister, or enough like her to make the connection, but by all accounts they have very different personalities, so it's not like it would be meeting a carbon copy. But it would hurt, and he doesn't know whether to say anything, so in the end he says nothing.

After some thought, Vincent disembarks at the cave, and Cait admits that he'll just power down, because Reeve is already where he wants to be, after a fashion. Which just leaves Cloud and Tifa.

'Where am I taking you two, then?' Cid asks, and looks out towards the setting sun.

'We don't have anywhere to go,' Cloud admits, in the kind of tone that suggests that they'd talked about it. 'Nibelheim isn't home any more, and we only really have each other left.'

'Where are you going?' Tifa asks.

'Home,' Cid says, and looks at her. Her eyes twitch, and then widen.

'If you – if you set the Highwind down a good distance away,' she suggests, 'we can stay with the ship.'

'Just fucking stay in the inn,' Cid snorts, 'Reine won't mind, she won't even charge.'

Tifa shakes her head, and looks out over the vista as Cid turns the ship around to head to Rocket Town. He's booted most of the crew, kicking them back to their families and their homes, and the skeleton crew that remain are all from Rocket Town, so it isn't like they're being forced to stay.

'No, I'd like to see the stars, it'll be alright. We're more than strong enough for anything in the plains.'

Cid shakes his head.

'You're a fucking lunatic,' he says, but doesn't argue further.

When he sets the ship down, he tells them that he'll be in touch first thing, so that they can round everyone else up, if they decide to come back, and Cloud nods, and Cid hesitates before disembarking, plodding off the mile or so back to town.

It feels very, very strange being back here, and being back under such – such – under the circumstances that he is.

Knowing that he's going to talk to Shera, that he's going to tell her everything, it feels heavy and light all at once. Strange, uncomfortable. New. He isn't rehearsing what he wants to say, because he never remembers it when he does rehearse, so it's just a waste of time and energy to pretend like he can.

The town is quiet; no surprise, it's late, past dinner and approaching bed. The streets are lit more by the light of Meteor than they are anything else, and it gives everything a dull, red gleam, sad and angry at once.

There are lights on across the town, but nobody out in their gardens, nobody on the streets. It's very unlike Rocket Town; he's never known anybody to be in their house unless they're sleeping or sick, and he supposes that this is the effect that Meteor has had on them. Scared them into their houses. With everything that's been going on, he can't say he blames them. First ShinRa, and then the launch, and then WEAPON and Meteor and the end of the world. Well, he can't say he doesn't want the comfort of his house, too.

Walking up the singular step onto the porch, standing under the eaves for a moment, letting the warm smell of his house wash over him, he wonders how Shera will take this conversation, these revelations, these admissions. She'd shushed him, dismissed the apologies last time. But he doesn't feel that they were heard, accepted. He needs to tell her, properly.

Fuck it.

The door is unlocked, which is usual enough, he supposes, because they still, after all these years, rarely lock their doors, but the bathroom door is shut, and he can hear her humming to herself. She's in the bath, then, and he shudders a little, thinks of all the times he'd walked in on her, mostly by accident, saw the length of her legs, the dip of her collar, the pruned fingertips and steam-curled hair. Shit.

He loves her, and everything she is, and fuck him sideways, if he loses her, if he loses his chance at making up for all the time they've lost. Fuck!

Very carefully, so as to not make a sound, he closes the door behind him, toes off his boots, hangs up his jacket. He'd left the spear aboard the Highwind, because he won't need it in town, so he only has his gloves and armlet to remove, the scarf from around his neck. He wonders if maybe he should have been noisy, but he supposes it's too late for that now, he's just going to have to startle her. He wanted to surprise her, to just – be here, when she left the bathroom, but knowing how clumsy she can be, knowing how much she's been through lately, it's probably a cruel thing to do.

'Shera!' he calls, 'I'm home!'

There's a gasp, a soft faux-curse, the splash of water.

'Oh, Captain!' she exclaims, 'uh, I'll be out in a minute, um. Hang on!'

He laughs, pads to the door and raps his knuckles. 'Stay in there, I can make my own tea. You want one?'

For a moment there's silence; he imagines she's scrambled out of the bath, stood dripping on the floor and clutching a towel, not sure whether to wrap it around herself or dry off as quickly as she can. He's only seen her naked by accident, under circumstances that were very decidedly not romantic nor particularly sexy, but he can't help but imagine the droplets of water catching on the rise and fall of her creases and joints and curves, little though they are. A rake of a girl, really, but one he loves. Fuck sake.

'Uh,' she says, 'okay. Um. The – the door's not locked.'

And then he hears the soft slosh of water as she gets back into the bath. As he turns to put the kettle on, he hears her humming to herself again, and for the first time in a really fucking long time, he feels like he's home.