Tifa grasps onto Cloud's shoulders as lightly as she can manage without being thrown off of Fenrir, still stuck in a state of encompassing shock. Her body continues to ache from the complete battering she received, though she's fairly sure that none of her injuries are particularly serious. They probably were, to begin with, but Cloud's healing spell has rightened her enough that she can push through the pain. The surprise that he even bothered to help her tastes bitter as she struggles to come to terms with the past half hour. She winces every time her nerve-damaged hands ripple against Cloud's shoulders, as if the slightest motion will burst this tenuous bubble of temporary cooperation. The fragile understanding, supported only by mutual silence and a common, indisputable goal, feels oppressive.
She can't believe that he is here, in front of her, under her palms.
She can't believe that he can bear to look at her, to touch her, to have her touch him.
She wants to cry so hard that the broken sobs score bloody rips into her throat. She wants to drink so much that she can't hear or see or feel. She wants to sleep until she wakes up to the kids safe and her friends happy and Aerith alive.
All of that can wait, though. If Cloud can push the world away and narrow his focus onto rescuing the children, so can Tifa.
Reno—who, despite all his brashness, blessedly refrained from making any reference to his and Tifa's night together, ages ago—and Rude proved to be lacking information. Apparently, the man who attacked Tifa was not Kadaj, as Cloud had assumed, but one of his two brothers. The trio is so concerned with Shinra's activities in the Northern Crater that they went so far as to take Rufus captive; but no one knows what Kadaj wants or what his motivations are—though Reno and Rude speculate that Rufus knows more than he deigned to share with them. All of this tumbled out of Tifa in an incoherent mess of a voicemail sent to Reeve in hopes that he has answers from Vincent's investigation.
With the inquiry sent off, the natural next step was to launch a search.
Reno proposed a joint effort to recover both Rufus and the children. The Turks are currently hunting around Edge and Midgar for any clues, while Tifa is accompanying Cloud to the WRO headquarters. With the resources and connections that Reeve has amassed, he will have a better pulse on any strange events happening in the world. And, Tifa hopes for the hundredth time, he will have news from Vincent.
Cloud is navigating Fenrir through the busy traffic of Edge when Tifa's PHS vibrates in her pocket. She pulls it out and flips it open to glance at the caller ID before patting Cloud on the back. He understands her unspoken request and pulls over, shutting off the engine so that Tifa can take the call.
"Reno?"
"We're on the east side of town—a witness says he saw a bunch of kids hopping into a truck driven by a man in dark clothes with silver hair and strange eyes. He was heading north, out of the city. We're borrowing a car to follow him."
"'Borrowing?'"
Reno snickers. "Yeah, babe, 'borrowing.' Though, the Turks may have a different definition than what you're used to."
Tifa has the ridiculous urge to roll her eyes, but Cloud shifts impatiently in front of her and the motion is sobering. "Alright. Let us know if you find anything."
"Yep."
She flips the phone closed and deposits it in her pocket, recounting the conversation as succinctly as she can. Cloud merely nods and starts off again without a word.
For the hundredth time, Tifa fights the urge to shrink away from his icy demeanor.
He's right here in front of her, but there is insurmountable space stretching between them; it yawns in every silence and diverting flicker of eyes.
The kids. She needs to focus on the kids. It's just impossible, though, to ignore the shards of her broken relationship with Cloud now that he's here and she feels like she's walking upon them with bare feet.
A sudden tide of anxious dismay washes over her. She hears Aerith's laugh in Cloud's silence and sees her mischievous smirk in his stoicism. There is accusation roiling in his eyes, and it matches what Tifa sees when she looks in the mirror. The rumble of Fenrir beneath her feels like the quaking of the ground as she caught Aerith—the shifts mean that her reality is changing once again, and she can't go back to the sorry excuse for an existence she settled into now that she has seen Cloud again. The same cold that threatened to still her breath after the battle sinks back into her now, casting frost over her insides with gleeful abandon.
The kids, Lockhart. Think about the kids.
Tifa wants to cry. To drink. To sleep.
And now that he is corporeal under her hands, the living, speaking, breathing reminder of her sin, the voice in her head is louder than ever.
It shouldn't have been her.
It should've been—
Reeve watches with concerned apprehension as Cloud Strife stalks through the door to his office, looking every bit as thunderous as his name suggests, with Tifa following an obvious distance behind. This is the first time that Reeve has seen Cloud since just after Meteorfall, when Cloud declined Reeve's offer to help with the formation of the WRO. Much time has passed since his last encounter with Tifa, as well, for whom he arranged transportation to Gongaga when she decided to move there. Having only seen both of these people with his own eyes just once each, anyone would think that Reeve should hardly know them. But he remembers how they used to be, via the experiences of Cait Sith, and so he can see the shrouds of darkness that encase both of them. Cloud is a strange combination of barely restrained fury and sorrow that wishes for apathy, clearly on edge and quietly volatile. Tifa is lacking all the vibrancy that once shone through her, like a star that has collapsed in on itself. Reeve recalls his utter disbelief as he watched from across the world, through the video feed from Cait Sith, as Aerith had fallen to Tifa. He remembers reluctantly rewinding and replaying the scene, enhancing the audio to hear Aerith's final words to both Cloud and Tifa, and feeling his heart break for all of them.
Reeve is shocked to see Cloud and Tifa together, but he hides his surprise. Now is not the time to ask—assuming there even is a right time.
In light of all of this, and the recent developments, he does his best to paint a neutral smile on his face and hopes that it doesn't come across as a grimace.
Cloud remains still and simply waits for him to speak. Tifa offers a small twitch of her lips and folds her arms as if to make herself smaller.
"It's good to see the both of you," Reeve says simply. "I just got your message—I was going to call, but I figured you would be arriving soon." Neither Cloud nor Tifa reply, so Reeve clears his throat. "I…guess I'll just get to the point.
"As you know, Rufus Shinra sent the Turks to the Northern Crater as the first step in an investigation into Sephiroth and Jenova. He contacted me to ask for resources from the WRO, which I denied him—I tried to persuade him to leave the matter alone, but he claimed that he was hoping to research a cure for Geostigma. After the expedition, he reached out once more to warn me of a troubling development. Two of his Turks were captured by three mysterious men, and the other two managed to escape with Jenova's head.
"Vincent found Tseng and Elena at the Forgotten City, where their three captors set up camp. He managed to get them out and patch them up, and he's been keeping an eye on the place ever since. He sent me a message hours ago saying that two of the men had left, and that's the last I've heard from him."
Tifa's eyes widen. "The Forgotten City? You think that's where he took the kids?"
Reeve purses his lips in thought. "That's where I would start. I tried to contact Vincent but to no avail, so we can't know for sure."
"How quickly can you get me there?" Cloud asks lowly—his wording has Tifa's gaze snapping to him.
Reeve can sense an altercation quickly approaching. He fiddles with his cufflinks. "Captain Highwind has been briefed and the Shera is waiting on the helipad."
Cloud simply nods and turns to leave.
Tifa swiftly steps into his path, her face suddenly hard with determination. "I'm coming, too."
Cloud is shaking his head before she finishes her sentence. "No. Stay here."
"Cloud. It's Marlene, and it's Denzel," she bites out in a trembling voice. "And I've fought one of these guys—you'll need back-up—"
"I won't—"
"There's no good reason for me not to go!"
"I don't—" Cloud breaks off, letting out a shaky exhale and running a hand through his hair in agitation.
Whatever he was going to say, Tifa still seems to hear it loud and clear. She flinches back, her face fading into practiced blankness. "Right now, the past doesn't matter," she mutters, sounding like she's trying to convince herself more than him. "Until the kids are safe, it doesn't matter."
Cloud looks away from her. His clenched jaw and fists are firmer than stone. "The past always matters." Despite those words, he tosses a begrudging assent over his shoulder as he pushes past her. "Let's just go."
Tifa's breath leaves her in an exhausted whoosh. She looks at Reeve, who is wishing he could walk through walls to escape this stifling room, and offers him a broken smile before she jogs after Cloud.
Cloud is not a pilot. During the hunt for Sephiroth, he and Cid used to talk about doing flying lessons someday. It was more a distraction than anything, conversation that made it seem like there would even be a future to plan for. Still, Cid showed Cloud many things on their flights around the world, and Cloud is confident that he could probably get by in an emergency, should something happen to Cid.
But, since Cloud is not actually a pilot, he does not get to assume control of the airship when he and Tifa board the Shera. And since Cloud is not piloting, his motion sickness hits him full force. And since he is struggling to figure out how to function with Tifa so close by, and trying to contain his worry for the children, anxiety rests twitchingly atop his nausea.
After a curt check-in with Cid, Cloud tries checking his gear to take his mind off of his treacherous body, but all he has is a single healing materia and his swords, which he sharpened yesterday, so that task occupies him for a grand total of three minutes. With too many more to go, he resigns himself to slumping into a chair in the operations room and rests his head on the polished table. Ghosts hang in the corners, whispering echoes of grand speeches about saving the world and recovered identities. He does his best to tune them out, to tune everything out. He wishes he could catch some sleep, but stress keeps it out of reach.
He only gets a few precious minutes of precious quiet before the door opens noisily. Cloud raises his head to impolitely request solitude, but the words lodge in his throat as he meets Tifa's wide, panicked eyes.
"S-sorry," she stutters. "I thought this room would be empty. I, um—I'll just—"
She whirls around and goes to leave. Flee, more like.
"Tifa," he calls without thinking.
Fuck. What the fuck did you do that for?
She turns back, apprehension clear on her face. Dust and scrapes still litter her arms—the cuts are sealed from his spell, but not cured. One of them must have reopened in the time since, for a single trail of dried blood meanders down to her elbow.
Tifa shifts and Cloud realizes that he has been staring.
He clears his throat. "When we get there, I want you to stay here with Cid."
Instead of immediately rejecting this order, like she did back in Reeve's office, Tifa merely sighs tightly. She shuts the door and takes a seat at the conference table, keeping a considerable distance between Cloud and herself. Her movements are slow and forced, like she might abort at any moment. She places her hands on the table; her wrist buckles in a delicate jerk punctuated by the spontaneous flexion of her middle two fingers. Damage from lightning magic. With a steadying breath, she appears to be arranging her thoughts into words.
He is not pleased by this. He was hoping to keep this altercation brief, heated though it might get, but now they're holed up in the same room and Tifa doesn't look prepared to leave anytime soon. The only—and completely negligible—upside is that his nausea is abating as he steels himself for whatever she could possibly have to say.
"I know that I haven't known Denzel for very long," she murmurs, dropping her eyes to stare at the wooden tabletop. "But I've come to care for him very much. And, of course, Marlene has always been like my own. How am I supposed to just sit here and wait while you go off to rescue them from three madmen?"
Her voice is not timid and entreating, to evoke pity, or boiling with righteous anger, but instead dull and halfheartedly indignant.
He decides to remain diplomatic and chooses what is probably his most effective point against her.
"You're injured. You would be a liability."
Her answering glare lacks any fire. "That's bullshit and you know it. I've fought in worse condition that this, and it would be the three of them versus me, you and Vincent."
Cloud leans back in his chair and folds his arms, unimpressed and hoping it shows. "What if we don't find Vincent? He may not have gotten Reeve's message, so he may not be expecting us."
"Then you'll definitely need help. Look, it's no secret that you're the best fighter of all of us. But if I can't take down one of these guys on my own—close as that fight was—then you probably can't handle three of them by yourself."
He wishes that she were wrong, but it's more likely that she's right. With that argument defeated, he decides to lay out the truth.
"How am I supposed to trust you?"
Tifa goes very, very still.
Her expression freezes, her eyes harden. The ensuing quiet is so, so loud. This is the first time that either of them has directly acknowledged the wreckage simmering between them.
He's taken the plunge.
Oh, well. Guess we're doing this.
His eyes flicker to the blood on her arm and he remembers another day that she had blood on her arms.
As if Tifa follows his line of thinking exactly, which is possible because of how well she knows him, she swallows and looks away.
"Fine," she concedes, her voice oh so soft. "I'll stay."
Tifa gets up and Cloud catches himself frowning in shock at how easily she surrenders. He was expecting yelling, or tears, or both—he was expecting something. Manipulation. Anger. Irrationality. Ammunition for him to turn against her, an excuse to release the torrential mess that has been piling up within him in preparation for seeing her again. A pass for him to finally, finally let it all out, whatever that looks like. This is supposed to be a war. He wants to use his words to paint her in the horror that has lived within his mind. He wants to volley the hurts she inflicted to the ground at her feet so that she has to look at them, so that he can see them reflected in her gaze and reconcile the woman in his head with Tifa, in front of him, still lovely and sad and Tifa.
For a strange, disorienting second, Cloud regrets tossing the gauntlet. Wishes to take it back. Feels none of the relief or triumph that he assumed he would experience at finally confronting her.
This isn't how it was supposed to go.
Give me something—anything. Prove me right, he almost requests of her, begs of her, demands of her. Prove to me that you're everything I've told myself that you are—that you're every bit terrible, unforgivable.
Because so far, things haven't been lining up.
Prove me right.
Prove me wrong.
She doesn't. No, she simply steps toward the door. He watches. And as if something cracks, cracks, breaks, he realizes what this fervent desire is within him, like he's wiped the steam off a mirror to throw a reflection into clarity. He suddenly knows that he wants—desperately wants—something more, wants her to give him a reason, an explanation that makes sense, a hidden truth that will soak up all the hurt and hate of the past two years. He wants the jagged pieces of her in his mind to not fit so that he can cast them away, wants the blood to wash off of her. The burning wish feels familiar and he wonders if it's one of several unnamable entities that he has been struggling to work through.
You're asking for the impossible, he tells this reckless part of himself scornfully. What could she possibly say that would be good enough?
Still, he finds himself asking.
"Tifa. Answer the question."
She turns halfway and looks at him across her shoulder, reluctance in the shine of her eyes. And, like she has always been able to, she reads between the lines of his words and knows what he means, what he doesn't say aloud. Her hand spasms gently by her side, and Cloud suspects that her growing distress is exacerbating the lingering damage in her nervous system.
Tifa shakes her head helplessly. "I can't. All I can tell you is that I did what I could for a person I loved. For the people I loved. That's all I've ever tried to do."
That's not enough, he growls internally.
Cloud senses that she has more to say, so he waits with bated breath while she seems to battle with herself. Her hair falls to obscure half of her profile as she drops her face to the floor and takes a wavering inhale in preparation.
"A few days before the fight—after everyone came back from getting their affairs in order—Aerith pulled me away for a private talk. She told me that she had been…feeling something, a premonition or urging from the Planet. It was strong back when the Whispers were still around, and while she said it faded a bit when we defeated them, it never went away.
"She felt like the Planet was restless, like it was drawing her to itself," Tifa continues after pausing to gather the words. "And she—she said that she had been scared to confront what it was asking of her, but she was starting to believe that she would have no choice."
Despite the cryptic nature of Tifa's account, Cloud knows where this is going. His nausea, which nearly disappeared during the brief debate between him and Tifa, starts to return.
"Aerith said that she could sense how unmatched Meteor and Holy were. And she could feel that the Planet had been weakened by Jenova's influence. She said that it was calling to her for help, pleading with her to return what it had given her so that it would be strong enough to fight against Meteor. But to do that, sh-she would have to—to join the Lifestream."
Tifa's tone grows watery and her voice hitches, snagging on the barbs surrounding the words as she forces them out.
"She...she gave me a dagger. I don't know where or when she got it. And she asked me to promise that I would…"
Cloud is glad that Tifa can't bring herself to finish the sentence. He doesn't want to hear it.
A short, hysterical laugh breaks upon her lips. "I tried to argue. To deny it. And even when I caved and promised her, I thought that there was no way I would ever need to bring myself to actually do it. But then…then I saw him. Felt the raw, unstoppable power. And Aerith—she looked at me, and—"
Tears finally spill over her cheeks as she looks at Cloud. Imploringly. Resigned.
"There was no other way."
A/N: Wow, this chapter was long. It was about 1,000 words shorter when I uploaded it to the doc manager, but I got a little carried away in the process of editing. Have a great day :)