Hello!

I'm so terribly sorry this took so long to write, but work and writer's block were taking a toll on my time and motivation working on this chapter. But it is finally done! I hope it's not too bad, but I apologize if it isn't that great.

Hope you guys enjoy it.
And a special thank to everyone who has either liked or followed this fic.

Happy reading!

Chapter 3

Tifa

The doors shut as I stood there and shook my head, hands on my hips. "Oh, Jessie…"

"What?" she asked with a shrug. "I'm just being friendly."

"Maybe a little too friendly," I teased as I continued taking glassware out of the dishwasher and drying them.

Jessie sighed. "I can't help it, though. He's so cute. And besides," she continued, leaning back against the bar, "he knows I'm not all that serious."

"Still, he's not really a people-person," I said. Cloud had been pretty antisocial when we were kids, always off by himself, not interested in playing with anyone. "Never has been."

"How's he with someone like Zack, then?" Jessie asked, and honestly I was stumped on that one as well. Zack was very much Cloud's opposite: friendly, energetic, a bit flirty. However Zack had won him over, his method had turned out to be quite effective.

I shrugged, and tried to steer the conversation to work. "Not sure, but one thing I am sure about is that those pizzas aren't going to make themselves."

"And no one else is going to make them quite like me!" Jessie cheered, putting her Seventh Heaven ball cap on as she went to go make the dough. Jessie's pizzas were one of the few things Seventh Heaven was known for, especially the Midgar Special—a large pizza sliced into eight cuts, each large slice given a different topping. Just like the big pizza in the sky itself.

Jessie and I had both started working at Seventh Heaven at around the same time not too long after the place had opened, her strictly working with the food while I did a little of that, too, but mostly stuck to bartending. It was owned by a friend of Barret's, who was also leasing out the upstairs apartment and the basement to him.

We weren't the only ones with second jobs; we all had them: Barret also worked as a sales rep for a water filtration system manufacturer, Biggs ran some after school programs for underprivileged kids in Sector 5, and Wedge, being the animal lover he was, worked at the local animal shelter. We only made so much gil from the investigations, when we were contacted, so working at the bar definitely paid the bills a lot more often.

I was in the middle of doing inventory and Jessie was tossing dough as Barret rode back up on the lift. He clomped over in his heavy boots and let out an exhausted sigh. It sounded like he'd had a long day.

"What can I get you, Barret?" I asked.

Barret fished around in his pocket for some gil and tossed it on the counter. "Nothing for me, but could you make some dinner for Marlene? I still got some footage to go over."

"Yeah, sure."

Marlene bounced up and down in her seat. "Eggs and chips!" she chirped.

"Coming right up!" Jessie saluted and got to work making it.

Barret ruffled Marlene's hair and peered down at her picture. "That's a very nice house. And is that Daddy?" he asked and pointed at the brown-skinned figure who certainly resembled Barret. Marlene gave a nod, and Barret gave her a kiss on the crown of her head. "You keep being good for the girls, okay? Daddy will be up later."

Then Barret headed back down to the basement and it was just Jessie, Marlene, and I. The next few hours went by steadily with waiting on customers and taking orders for the dinner rush, which wasn't too bad since it was a weeknight.

Eventually, Marlene fell asleep, a crayon still loosely held in her hand. Trying my best not to disturb her, I gently took the crayon from her and placed it back in the box. My eyes wandered to the drawing Marlene had done, and I tried to see if I recognized anything in it.

Obviously there was Barret and the house, but there were a bunch of other people she had drawn too. I spotted Cloud and Zack right away, their hair making them stand out. Then I Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie. And myself.

There were two other people she'd drawn, however, that I couldn't identify. One was a girl in white with short brown hair and a halo above her head. She could've been an older Marlene, but I wasn't too sure.

The other was a girl with a long brown ponytail and a pink dress. I almost thought she'd drawn Jessie twice, but Jessie never wore pink. I racked my brain for anyone that I knew who it could possibly be. Maybe the girl was her friend Betty, but she usually wore her hair in a bun.

I had just given up when Barret came back up from the basement. Seeing Marlene asleep at the counter, he scooped her up in his arms. "I'll be back down once I put her to bed," he whispered and disappeared up the stairs to his apartment.

I cleared off the counter, swiping the crayons into a drawer behind the bar and sticking the drawing to the fridge with some magnets. The place was empty, so I took the opportunity to wipe down the bar as I waited for Barret. He was back before too long, locking the door to the upstairs and wearily seating himself at the bar.

"What can I get for you? The usual?" I asked.

He sighed. "Give me the hardest drink you got."

"Oof. It went that bad, huh?"

"Yeah," he answered and rested his temple in his open palm.

I fixed Barret's drink and set it on the counter. He took a long swig before he spoke. "That friend of yours is really getting on my nerves."

"Cloud?" When he nodded in affirmation, I let out a sigh. "What's he been doing?"

"He's just being a disrespectful little shit." Barret drained the rest of his glass and I fixed him another drink as he continued. "Rolling his eyes, saying everything we're doing is chocobo shit. No respect from that one."

I glanced over at Jessie for confirmation, and she nodded. I sighed in dismay. "I'm sorry, Barret. I swear he was never like this before." Granted, that had been several years ago, and even then the subject of paranormal activity had never come up. Of course, I'd recommended a total skeptic for a job with a group of paranormal investigators. But I really wasn't one to say anything about that since I doubted the validity of any of our supposed findings, too.

"Well," Barret said as he took a sip of his new drink, "I had a meeting with Zack about it earlier, so hopefully he can talk some sense into that kid."

"You try talking to him yourself?" I asked.

"Do you really think he'd listen to me? At least his boyfriend might give him a reason to clean up his act." I couldn't argue with that. "But if that doesn't work…I'm sorry, Tifa," Barret said, shaking his head. "I know he's your friend, but I'll have to let him go."

"I know. It's okay," I answered, trying to keep the disappointment of the whole situation out of my voice. "I'm sure he'll be able to find work somewhere else in the city."

The film industry in Midgar was pretty big, so he could find work elsewhere. The only real issue Cloud had, aside from his apparent attitude, was his lack of connections. Zack knew people though, so maybe it wouldn't be quite as difficult as I imagined it would.

"So, aside from that, how did the rest of today's shooting go?" I asked, changing the subject in the hopes that not everything had gone poorly that day.

"Footage all looks good," Barret said, his tone a little lighter. "We should have enough that hopefully the only B-roll we have to film the day of the investigation is just of the inside."

"That's great! And it sounds like Zack's friend might be interested in helping. Did he say who she is?" I asked.

"No. Apparently, she doesn't do this sort of thing as a day job, and he wouldn't give me her name-for privacy reasons, of course-so I haven't been able to find out anything about her, either."

"Really?" Jessie interjected warily from the other end of the bar. "So we don't have any idea of what she's like? Or if she's actually legit?"

"Zack's pretty adamant that she's the real deal," Barret responded, "so all we can do is wait and see. And hey, if all goes well and we can capture something on film or audio, hopefully AVALANCHE will give us the greenlight for a series."

"Yeah, maybe…" I said, focusing on cleaning a glass. It was a nice thought, the idea that we could all quit our day jobs, focus on ghost hunting, and travel the world going from location to location. I didn't think it was likely to happen, though.

We were filming this particular investigation in the hopes of it working as a pilot episode for a television network or streaming service series. We had already garnered a bit of a following online by posting our investigations on the internet with permission from our clients, so it wasn't as if we were total unknowns. Barret had an in at AVALANCHE, an up and coming streaming platform, so we were hoping they'd pick it up if they liked it enough and thought it could get views. So while it'd be the first show of that kind that would air on the platform, there would be a lot of competition from pilots of shows from other more popular genres to secure funds for producing more episodes.

In my mind, we stood no chance of making it.

Barret finished his drink and stretched, letting out a big yawn. "Well," he said, "I'mma hit the hay. I'll see you two tomorrow. Good night!"

"Night," Jessie and I called after Barret as he locked himself in for the night.

The rest of the night passed without incident. Pizzas were selling, drinks were being ordered, and thankfully there weren't any fights to break up tonight. At closing, we herded the stragglers out, flicked the open sign off, and gave the place a good cleaning before heading out.

"See you tomorrow," Jessie said as she headed out the double doors into the night.

"Bye!" Switching off the lights, I locked the door behind me. "Stay safe!"

"You, too!"

I checked real quick to make sure I had my phone and everything before I headed off in the direction of my apartment. The lanes were empty aside from a few meandering drunks on their ways back home from the bars and the occasional shady character hiding in the shadows. They knew better than to approach me; literally kicking people's asses out of Seventh Heaven had earned me a bit of a reputation as someone not to mess with.

I got back to my studio apartment and took a quick shower to try and rid myself of the smell of pizza and fryer grease that tended to cling to my hair after a shift. The warm water felt good on my back after a long day. Once I was dry, I pulled on an old Nibelheim Tourism t-shirt and a pair of shorts and finished getting ready for bed.

Crawling into bed, I settled myself under the covers and turned out the light. I rolled over, trying to get comfortable and found myself staring at the wall my bed was pushed up against.

Cloud and Zack's apartment was on the other side of that wall, and my thoughts drifted back to what Barret and I had talked about earlier. I wondered how that conversation had gone, if it had happened at all. Had it gone well? Had it not? Had there been a fight? Was Cloud already looking for another job?

I stopped that train of thought because I wouldn't be able to fall asleep if I kept thinking about it. Turning over onto my other side, I reached for my phone and threw on a podcast. I shut my eyes and let the sound of the host's voice lull me to sleep.

It wasn't until about an hour later that I ripped from my peaceful sleep by a scream.

Okay, one more setup chapter to go, and its Cloud's. I know it's taking a bit to get into the plot of this, but once this next chapter is done with establishing a few more important details, we'll be moving forward with the story.

Thanks for reading!