5

"Good," he said.

I went back to cleaning the floor, getting up as much of the salt as I could. My head had been swimming before; now it was spinning. I just said yes to him walking me home and I wasn't even sure who he was...or who he wasn't. I didn't see people in Quintz who resembled a certain unmentionable bastard every day. Cloud's mind-over-matter suggestion grew more and more faint in my head until I could hardly hear it. Whatever was going on, I knew I couldn't try wishing it away anymore.

When I finished sweeping the floor, I shot a dizzy glance at the bar. Gigi was gone. I guessed she was in the break room, so I went back there. Sure enough, there she was, grabbing her coat and things.

"Did you wash the glasses?" I asked her.

She nodded. "Yup. There was only two..." She trailed off, then gave me a funny look.

"What?"

She walked over to me and started whispering. "I saw you talking to him. What'd you say?"

"What's THAT supposed to mean? I didn't say anything---"

"Well you must've said SOMETHING! I don't think he was talking to himself!"

"If you're accusing me of flirting with this guy, you're way off the beaten trail---"

"What'd he say to you, then?"

I told her everything. I had nothing to hide, aside from that growing unsettling feeling again, which I hoped wouldn't turn into nausea anytime soon. "All he said was that he'd been trying to run into me for a couple of days, and he found me here, and he wants me to let him walk me home, because he has a few things he wants to ask me. That's it. No date invite, no phone number exchanging, no sweet nothings in his ear..."

"Hmmm. The walking home thing sounds like a..."

"A what? It sounds downright scary to me!"

"Well...actually, he sounds like a cop. You know, the whole 'I'm following you so I can ask you things' deal."

I paused. Oh God, she could be right, couldn't she? He could be an undercover cop! Damn, I should've known by the outfit. Either that or the alcohol was doing the reasoning for me. "Hey, you know, you might be right..."

And that was when Gigi gasped loudly. "Oh my God! Maybe I am! What if he's here to arrest us? What if he's here to make sure we closed on time? What if he hauls us in for throwing condiments at each other? ...That'd be damn embarrassing," she added calmly. "Arrested in April for salt abuse..." Then she laughed.

I took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shaking. "Be serious! You don't know what that means! We gotta act normal now! C'mon." I grabbed her coat and stuffed it into her arms. "Act sober and maybe we won't get in that much trouble."

"Tifa, you want me to waste a perfectly good buzz acting sober? What PLANET are you from?" Gigi slurred, putting her coat on. Then she narrowed her eyes at me and got silly again. "You hail from Pluto, don't you?"

"You're not buzzed," I told her. "You're trashed. C'mon, let's go."

I got my coat, threw it on, grabbed her by the arm, and left the break room. Back in front, Sef was standing by his table. He tucked his newspaper into his coat. Our eyes met again, but this time there didn't seem to be anything scary attached to it. We just looked at each other for a second or two. He might have smiled at me; I wasn't too sure. It wasn't something I saw him do before, so it might've been imagined or just very subtle. Whatever it was, I liked it.

I felt less irritated and worried. Vaguely remembering that Gigi and I hadn't paid for our last several shots, I walked over to the register to see how much was in there. "Gigi?"

No answer.

"Gigi?" I called again, getting frustrated.

"Huh?"

She'd gravitated over to Sef I saw, and it was there that she spun around to face me. Poor girl, she really had something against defeat, didn't she?

Sef didn't seem so bothered by her now.

"We didn't pay for the last couple of shots," I told her.

"Well, how much short are we?"

"I dunno, probably a lot. When did we stop paying?"

"No idea..."

"Gigi!"

"What? It wasn't just me!"

Ah, she was right, but that didn't change things. I tried to go back over how much we'd drunk. I'd say that after Gigi's third shot, she probably had eight more, and I probably had the same amount after dropping twenty gil in the register. Eight, that was good. Eight was a lucky number. Times two meant sixteen, with two gil per shot bringing the grand total to thirty-two gil. Counting the twenty already in there from me, that meant we needed twelve gil. Yes, that had to be right. I couldn't be too far off. "Gigi, we need twelve more gil in here."

"Are you sure?"

Um, kind of? I guess? "Yeah."

"Well I don't have any more money; I TOLD you that..."

"Twelve gil?"

Sef's voice. He spoke up so plainly it startled me. "Yeah," I said, slowly.

I watched him walk over until he was across from me, on the other side of the bar. He reached into his pants pocket and took out something---a wallet, I think---and opened it up. He counted out a few gil pieces, then reached over to give them to me. I was a bit confused...and surprised. When I didn't take his money right away, he said "here" and I was animated again. I held out my hand and he dropped the gil into my palm. The coins were still warm from his touch.

I looked down at them, counted them quickly, and then looked back up at him. "What for?" I managed, following that up with a hasty why, since I already knew the answer to the first question. Damn it, I was too drunk for my own liking.

"Because I owe you," he answered me. He studied me for a moment before adding, "More than you realize."

Instincts told me to ask what he thought he owed me for, but I ignored them. There was something so sad about the way he spoke and it touched me. I was still again. One way or another, I knew that his sadness ran very deep, meaning I had blundered upon a scar...or actually, he had revealed it to me indirectly. An idea hit me then, that maybe I should give it a really good look and see if I couldn't do something about it. Problem was, it hurt me to even think about it. His pain was contagious.

I realized why then: I was looking into his eyes. Why did that keep happening? It was almost as if I had no control over doing it. I wondered briefly if he felt the same way. Then Gigi whined about leaving and I kissed and made up with reality. "Oh... Wow... Thanks." I just said wow, didn't I? Oh, I was such an idiot. "Sorry, I don't know what I'm going on about," I explained. "Gotta quit drinking..." For some reason that last statement struck me as funny, probably because it made me sound like an alcoholic---how often did I drink, anyway?---so I burst out laughing.

I heard Gigi stamp her foot impatiently. "Can we LEAVE?"

"Yup, we can now." I dropped the money into the register and walked around the bar. Sef started taking charge at this point, which I found a little strange until I remembered how drunk Gigi and I were. It made sense that someone sober walked me home...though what about her? "Hey Gigi, are you okay walking by yourself?"

"Eh?"

"Oh, never mind." I turned to Sef; I had a little idea. "Can you do me a little favor?"

He raised a brow. "Depends."

"Gigi doesn't live far from here, only a few minutes' walk... Could we swing by her place before we go to mine? I don't want her to walk by herself when she's so drunk..."

"Yeah! Clearly I'm too drunk to stand!" She made a big show out of staggering over to Sef's side, where she clung to his left arm. "Damn, you're strong," she observed, poking his bicep. Sef regarded her benignly, the kind of look you'd use with a fly that was buzzing around.

"If it's more than a few minutes' walk," he started, "I'll have to turn around and leave you halfway."

Gigi and I got upset at the same time. "Hey!"

"'Hey' nothing. Do the both of you have all your things?"

We nodded.

"Then we move out." Sef turned and headed for the door.

"'Move out'... Oh, he's such a cop," Gigi whispered to me after he passed.

"Mmm" was all I said. "Move out" didn't remind me of a cop. It reminded me of an army, a soldier's term.

"Wonder what he wants you for?" Gigi continued. She looked at me suspiciously, her eyes all glittery mischief. "Wonder what you did that he wants to talk about? You got a criminal record I don't know about?"

"Oh, be quiet," I retorted, nudging her in the ribs.

We shut the lights and made sure everything was generally okay---as best we could anyway, given our present lack of sobriety---and then we left, locking the door once we got outside. Then we crossed the street, Sef walking ahead of us. He was really long-legged, so it was hard to keep up with his strides. Gigi got him to slow down eventually, and he resigned to walking behind us for the trip so he wouldn't end up speeding ahead again.

Gigi and I could barely walk in a straight line. We passed the time with pointless gossipy stories and silly jokes. The three of us had been walking for maybe two or three minutes when Sef asked how much further Gigi's home was.

"Not long," she replied, unusually cheery. "Justa few more minutes... Shit, I said it was gonna be five minutes! ...Didn't I?"

"A few minutes," I clarified.

"Oh, well, 'few' is like five anyway. Say, what did you want to ask Tifa about, anyway?"

I was walking up ahead; Gigi had moved behind me to be beside Sef. I looked over my shoulder at her, hoping to catch her eye and warn her without saying anything that she probably shouldn't ask things like that. She didn't look my way, so I turned around and pulled her toward me.

"Don't ask him stuff like that!" I whispered harshly. "It's probably top-secret!" Or something. Heck, we already established the possible cop thing.

Gigi brushed me off. "Pfft. So what? Inquiring minds want to know!" She went back to Sef. "You don't mind spilling a little, do you?" she asked brightly. "Come on!"

"It's not for your ears," Sef came back at her smoothly.

I got a bit unnerved again, but I said nothing. I shivered inside my jacket.

Behind me, Gigi snorted. "Okay! Fine!" She paused a little, then added obnoxiously, "Yes sir, officer, sir!"

Sef sounded confused. "What?"

"You heard me! Don't try to hide it! I know what you're here for!" I looked back again and found Gigi poking at Sef accusingly. "Did anyone ever tell you how cute you are?" she added as an afterthought. "I'd recognize those eyes anywhere... Mako eyes!" The way she said that, you would've thought she'd made a major discovery. "All glowy and stuff... I think I saw those once, on a guy I dated..."

Mako eyes? Come to think of it, I saw a few of those myself, when I was traveling with Cloud and Barret and Marlene. A few wayward SOLDIERs, with no place to go and nothing to do, no ShinRa to keep them in line. "Move out"... Then I was right; Sef had been in an army. ShinRa's army. He had been a SOLDIER.

Like Cloud.

Maybe, then, he was someone I met a while ago? An acquaintance? A passerby?

Gigi was getting carried away. "So then, officer, if I told you I was a bad girl... Would you arrest me then? Would you read me my rights?" She drew herself closer to him. "I'm hoping you can and will hold it against me." She leaned against his arm as she walked, wrapping one hand around it and stroking it idly with the other.

"I'm not with the police," Sef spoke flatly.

"Yeah, sure you aren't! That's what you want us to think!"

"No, that's the truth... What are you doing?"

"I'm trying to find your handcuffs...!"

The footsteps behind me came to an abrupt stop. I turned around fully and found Sef with his hands on Gigi's arms, holding her back. She was looking up at him, terrified.

"Hands down, arms at your sides," he ordered.

"Yes, sir," Gigi squeaked.

Sef stared her down for a time, then said, "Now, march."

I stifled a giggle. This was too good not to laugh at, seeing someone boss Gigi around.

"March?" she repeated.

"Yes. Go!"

"Eeeee! Okay! ---Er, yes, sir!" Gigi was off in the blink of an eye and Sef and I started walking again. When Gigi's apartment building came into view, she let Sef know, and he told her to march double-time.

"What's double-time mean?" she asked. "I never knew what that meant..."

"It means run," said Sef.

"Oh. Okay! Yes sir!" And she was off, with me laughing at her expense.

Inside the apartment building, we took an elevator up to the fourth floor where Gigi lived. I'd been to her place a few times, but I still didn't know my way around very well. Normally Gigi came to visit me rather than vice-versa. When we got out, we went down the hall to her door, where she unlocked it and we all went inside. She turned on the lights so we could see.

I was really tired, so I sought out her couch and flopped down on it. In front of me was a little coffee table with a few magazines and things scattered over its surface. Most of them were the usual girly-glamour stuff I could expect from her, but one or two of them were newspapers. And surprise, surprise, I saw Sef walking over to browse them soon enough, interest in his eyes.

Funny, but for someone so quiet and stoic, he had a great presence. It filled the whole apartment. In fact, the room actually made him seem physically bigger.

Gigi was at his side in seconds. I put my feet up on her coffee table subconsciously and she bitched at me. "Hey, hey! Feet down, Tif!"

I stuck my tongue out at her, then laughed.

"I oughta go do that at your house," she threatened, until Sef cut her off.

"May I?" he asked Gigi, indicating the newspapers.

"Wha? Oh, yeah, sure, whatever. 'Swhat they're there for."

Sef knelt before the table and opened one. The way he paged through it, it seemed like he knew what he was looking for. He stopped eventually and pointed to one of the articles. For the first time I noticed that he wore gloves, black ones. "That's the one." He looked up at me for a second, then at Gigi, who was leaning against him again, smiling drunkenly. "Here. Look." He tapped the article twice.

I sat up on the couch to get a better look. Everything was upside-down from where I was. Since I was too tired to get up and look at it from the other side, I just sat back again.

"Huh? At what?" Gigi left his shoulder and leaned over the newspaper. Her eyes landed on the article. "Whuzzat?" She squinted at it.

"Look at it," said Sef.

That she did, and her eyes widened a bit. "Hey! That's YOUR name!" She pointed to a spot on the page. "'Sef'," she read. "It's in quotes though. Why's that?"

"Because that's the only name the staff knows me by. I don't give them my full name."

"Why not?"

"It's a very long story. Which," he said, rising to his feet, "is one I don't wish to tell." A pause. "You should read that; you may find it interesting." He smiled there, a little bit.

Gigi smiled back at him. "Ah, yeah, okay... Never knew you wrote..." She situated herself before the newspaper and pretended to read. Faking anything wasn't Gigi's strong suit; it was so obvious whenever she tried.

Sef's eyes went from Gigi to me. "We should get going, if you want to get home before one."

Gigi griped at that. "Aw, don't leave! I'm lonely...and drunk! Drunk and lonely..."

I was on cloud nine, or maybe one of the lower-level clouds. It felt like a cloud, at least---the couch. Very comfy. "Hmmm? Oh, yeah, right, we should..." Cloud, hmmm. Cloud. I wondered how Cloud was doing, but then I remembered that he was probably asleep by now.

I tried to get to my feet, but for some reason the force of gravity was set against me. Sef was standing before me, separated by the coffee table, watching me struggle, expressionless. I didn't remember actually saying something, but I must have, because he suddenly reached for me. I reached out to him.

My hand ended up in his. Normally, I wouldn't have given that kind of thing a second thought. Who would? No big deal, just someone helping you up.

But this was a big deal. A thousand things just shot through me the moment we touched. His hand was warm, warm and hard beneath the glove. It said a lot about how strong he was, and that was just a small part of him, for heaven's sake. He was probably strong enough to pick me up by my hand, toss me over his shoulder like a tiny doll, and carry me home that way. And judging by how broad his shoulders looked, that might not have been a bad thing.

I got to my feet after what felt like an eternity of just thinking about us touching, and he let me go then. I looked at him for the millionth time, and he looked back at me.

There was a flash of something else now, but this time it was pain again. His pain, that emotional ache that he was bottling up inside. I felt weak in the knees almost, it surprised me that much. But I stood standing. Did he know how much he was showing me, just by looking back at me? Just by looking into my own eyes?

Oh, it was the alcohol. It had to have been. I looked away, regretful of having to break the moment, but at the same time knowing that I couldn't just stand there like a dope. That wouldn't get me home, back into my bed. God was I tired.

I noticed Gigi had been staring at us suspiciously. How long had Sef and I been looking at each other? Even being drunk didn't curb that girl's suspicion. In spite of her look though, she begged me to stay over---she lived by herself, and being as drunk as she was, she wanted some company then. I had to turn her down, though. Sef shot me a look that read that he wouldn't leave until he got to talk to me, and I wanted to be back under my own roof.

I bid Gigi goodnight. "Stop by tomorrow, around noon," I reminded her. "Remember? We have to pick up our pay."

I was pretty sure she heard me. Sef and I left, and that began our walk back to my place, in Uptown Quintz.

I was still slaphappy, only now there was nervousness to go with it. Gigi wasn't around, so I was alone with this stranger that I'd been making an unusual amount of eye contact with. When I wasn't acting so silly, he slipped in his questions. They seemed harmless enough, so I answered them without hesitation.

The first question he asked me came when we passed The Cafe again, on our way north. "So then you do live in this city?"

"Yeah. The walk's only twenty minutes from here." Twenty minutes... I'd probably fall asleep on the way.

"You didn't always live here, did you?"

That question took me by surprise. "No, I've only been living here for a few months... Why, do I look foreign?"

There was a moment's pause before he answered. "Yes," he said.

"Ah." I nodded, and then we were quiet again for a few minutes.

We crossed the bridge flanked by the narrow walkways. I was too drunk to be nervous of getting hit by a car now. Besides, look what I had by my side: a guy who looked like he could lift a car over his head. I chuckled at that thought, and he heard me.

"What are you laughing at?"

"Oh, nothing. Just thinking." I looked up at him. He must've been timing his strides so that he could walk beside me the whole time. His movements were very quiet. Here was grace I couldn't hope to match. It was alien, but beautiful to watch.

More quiet, then the next question. "Do you live here alone?"

"Oh, no, I live with a friend of mine."

A little pause, then, "Would that friend go by the name of Cloud Strife?"

I stopped walking. My eyes grew wide. "How'd you know that?"

Sef stopped accordingly and held me with those unusual eyes of his. He opened his mouth to say something, then reconsidered, then finally said, "Let's just say that I know him from somewhere."

"Where?"

"Let's not get into that. Are we almost there yet?"

"Oh...yeah, just a little ways more."

We were coming up on residences now, but not yet near my own. I started complaining about being too tired to move on. Things got kind of fuzzy for me; I thought I was going to collapse right there on the sidewalk. Sef didn't seem too pleased about this, but when it became pretty clear that I didn't have the strength to move my own legs, he offered to carry me. His mannerisms said that he really didn't want to be bothered, but his eyes said that he didn't mind that much. If it would speed me on my way home, it couldn't be a bad thing, right? He offered me his hand and I took it, and from there he drew me up and off the ground. The whole world just spun, then pretty soon I realized that I was far above the sidewalk. I was floating, there in his arms. The sky was right before me, or so it looked, and I imagined I could pick off one of the stars, like petals off a flower. Pretty... And there was Sef, looking down at me. All I could see were his eyes, Mako green, shining like stars themselves.

Something hit me then. "I know you," I blurted out. I could hardly recognize my own voice.

Sef stopped walking suddenly. I saw fear in his eyes, but more importantly, I saw vertical pupils too. For the first time since I ran into him on Monday, I noticed them. He had eyes like a cat.

He looked like he was about to say something to me, but I cut him off again. The words were just flowing out of me, like the tide at dusk. "I do. I know you. You look so familiar..."

"No," he said at last. "You only think I do."

"No, I'm sure of it..." I reached up for something---I wasn't quite sure what---and I was rewarded with a lock of his hair, one of the shorter ends that had come loose from his tail. It was just like I thought it was, silvery, and in the starlight it was shining. There was something awful, terrible, about its beauty. "I do know you. You're..."

His eyes were locked on me. He was waiting for me to say something.

But I couldn't say it. I wouldn't. Because Sephiroth was dead, and if I said his name, he might come back to life. No, I was imagining things. Lots of things in life were coincidental; this was just one of them. It had to be a coincidence. Dead people didn't come back to life.

Yes. Coincidences, all of them. The eyes, the hair, the body...coincidences.

He walked onward, still holding me. Apparently he'd grown impatient of waiting for me to speak. I was glad; I didn't want to say what I thought. He might've been insulted if I had.

I guided him all the way up to the home Cloud and I shared. Along the way, I noticed that I wasn't cold, never mind how the weather had been when I first came to work earlier. That whole walk home was dreamlike; I couldn't remember where it began or where it would end or if I wanted it to end. I was half-asleep when Sef asked me another question.

"Just one more thing. How did you get here?"

"Hmmm?"

"You said you're not from here. So how did you find this place?"

"Oh... Well, me and Cloud and Barret and Marlene, we were traveling around... We didn't know what to do with ourselves after it was all over... You know, Meteor and Holy and Sephiroth and all... Oh, we're almost there..." I lazily pointed ahead to my house, which I thankfully raised my head in time to recognize.

Sef carried me as far as the walkway that led to the porch. There he put me on my feet, gently. I slid out of his arms like water. I felt like water, or like air actually, like I could've just floated away if I wanted to.

"Will you be all right, walking all the way back to Reine?" He lived there, right? I remembered that.

He nodded. "I'll probably be more tired than usual once I get back, but yes, I'll be fine." He turned and made to leave.

I was spellbound, for one reason or another. It was only when his coat fluttered by me that I felt compelled to call after him. "Wait!"

He stopped, and turned around. "Yes?"

"Thank you. For walking me home."

"You're welcome." He made to go again.

"Wait, you said you knew Cloud, right?"

This time, Sef looked a little cross. He didn't reply right away, but his expression gradually softened. Then at least he spoke. "No, I don't know anyone by that name."

Now that wasn't the confirmation I wanted to hear. I could've sworn he said he knew a Cloud Strife while he was walking me home. I couldn't have imagined that. "But you said---I thought you said---"

Sef shook his head. "No, you must have imagined it. I never said anything like that. I don't know any Cloud."

"No..."

"Yes. Look, you're drunk; I probably said something that sounded like that name and you misinterpreted..."

"But I swear---"

He shook his head again, and the argument was over. "No, Tifa. I said nothing like that." He looked ready to leave again, before he stopped himself. "Oh, that's right---do you have work tomorrow? I might drop in again..."

"You would?" I gaped at him. "Oh... Um, well, not tomorrow, but I'll be up at The Cafe around noon to get my pay. And my schedule for next week."

"I see" was all he said. Then at last he began to walk away. I felt no need to hold him back; I had nothing more to ask. He wasn't a cop; he wasn't just some weirdo stalking me. He certainly wasn't who I thought he was either; I'd already convinced myself that the resemblance was a coincidence. Dead people didn't come back to life. That made sense. Yes, he was just someone who waltzed into my life for one reason or another. And he wrote for a newspaper. And he was nosy and asked a lot of questions.

"Goodnight," I said. I didn't think he heard me, but I didn't know who I was saying goodnight to at the time.

I turned and made my way up to the porch and my doorstep. The porch was raised about two or three steps off the ground, so by standing on it I could watch Sef go a little further before I finally turned in. And that was exactly what I did. I watched him while he walked, swiftly and silently like a cougar, his long tail of silver hair like a shimmering stripe down his back.

So much pain, so much pain in him... I could feel it. And I wanted to heal it. I wanted to embrace it, or him rather, and make it go away. His hurting was calling out to me. It called out whenever our eyes met. For a moment I wondered if anything was a coincidence.

I can heal it, I thought after him. I can make the pain disappear.

It started to drizzle then, but I didn't notice.