"You all right?" I opened my eyes to see Cloud leaning over me, concern in
his eyes. All I could concentrate on was the pain in my head which hadn't
fully recovered from my encounter with the guy from the bar. I could feel
water underneath me. Yuck! Where was I? What was I doing here? Oh I
remember... the Don... the plate... sector seven.... all I could manage to
say to Cloud was
"Man! This is terrible." But inside I was screaming. He gently helped me up.
I looked around me and I suddenly knew where I was. The sewer. I had been
down here before on another avalanche mission, we were planting an
underground bomb and had to go through the sewer. I looked at Cloud, he
looked uncomfortable like he didn't know what to say. Neither did I to be
honest this whole thing felt like some sort of bad dream... but it was real.
I looked away from Cloud and over his shoulder. Aeris was still on the
floor. I nudged my head in her direction. Cloud looked round, he turned back
to me rolled his eyes and made his way towards her.
"You all right?" He asked. I watched her stand up.
"Yeah: Well, the worst is over..." as soon as the words came out of her
mouth we heard a noise... not a very pleasant one, god talk about the voice
of doom!
"Maybe not..." Aeris said. I readied myself and sure enough out came a
monster. Fantastic, just great I thought as I looked at the ugly thing
staring back at me. I really don't feel like fighting right now but no! A
horrible ugly sewer monster has to come out and attack us! It was a wuss
really, we had defeated it in no time, but it wasn't until then that I
realised just how weak Aeris was, damn we didn't just have to look out for
her, we had to protect her!
I stood there at the end of the battle, the others were quiet, I could feel
a lump in my throat... the Shinra were going to take away the closest thing
I had to a family. First Sephiroth did, now they will... is it fate for me
to be eternally unhappy.... unhappy and alone. I felt Cloud put his hand on
my shoulder, but I was cold.
"It's too late... Marlene... Barret... the people of the slums." I could
hear my voice cracking with every word bringing me closer to tears. All my
hard work to get the bar going, my friends, they were all I had left...
"Don't give up. Never give up hope." I heard Aeris say. Her words were sweet
but they were of little comfort. I don't think she understood that I had
been following the policy of never give up all my life, and every time a
window would open but just as I was about to go through it would close,
right in my face! "It's not that easy to destroy the pillar, right?" She
continued. Maybe not but they would find a way. I remembered how Barret had
saved me from that guy... how he had let me join Avalanche and given me a
home. How Biggs, Wedge, Jessie and Marlene had all taken care of me when
Cloud was gone... Cloud.... his hand was still on my shoulder, his thumb
gently rubbing up and down... I'm up against so much, but I have to try...
they have done so much for me, maybe I can save them.
"...Yeah... you're right! We still have time." I said. Cloud and Aeris
smiled.
We started to walk through the sewer. I said it before and I'll say it again
; YUCK! The floor was wet and horrible. We eventually found a chute and I
peered down it. "Are we going down? I asked Cloud, I suddenly realised how
bad that sounded and put my head down blushing. He laughed and brushed a
strand of hair away from across my face, he brought his face close to mine
and whispered,
"Only if you want to," I looked into his eyes, I wasn't in the mood for this
right now but he just does something to me which makes me forget everything
else.
"What are you two whispering about?" Aeris asked. I turned to face her,
"We're climbing down the chute." I said.
"It looks a little dangerous" Aeris warned.
"Don't worry, Tifa and I will use protection." Cloud said grinning.
"What was that?" Aeris asked.
"Nothing" Cloud and I said together. We looked at each other and smiled.
"Great minds" Cloud said. I smiled at him... but we had to hurry,
"Will you go first or shall I?" I asked.
"I'll go." He said. "You follow then Aeris can follow you." We made our way
down the chute, it was narrow and it stank! We finally dropped down... in
another sewer. Terrific! We saw a ladder which appeared to be going up, we
might have more luck with that. We made our way up. I took a deep breath. It
was horrible down there. Mind you Midgar's air isn't that much better. We
stood there for a minute.
"Aeris, I got you mixed up in all of this..." Cloud began. I looked to Aeris
who was shaking her head.
"Don't tell me to go home." She said stubbornly. Cloud sighed and turned to
face me, I looked at him for a minute then turned to see where we were. The
train graveyard! Perfect. You can't get much closer than this.
"Let's see..." I said "If we can just get past the trains that are lit up,
we should be able to get out of here. We started on our walk. Aeris started
going on about flowers or something but my mind started to wander and I
couldn't help being scared... I wasn't scared for myself, I was scared for
my friends... Stop it Tifa, stop thinking this way! It's all going to be ok.
It will work out. How much bad luck can you have? But I couldn't help
worrying, I even felt sick.
Cloud was walking extremely close to me, we both had out hands by our sides
and they kept brushing against each other. I didn't look at him, I just kept
my eyes fixed to the floor. Our hands were right next to each other now, he
then very slowly took hold of my hand, loosely at first but when he saw I
didn't pull away his fingers tightened around mine. Now I looked up at him,
he was looking ahead... having him hold my hand might seem insignificant,
but it was such a big comfort. He looked down at me.
"You ok?" He asked. I was silent for a minute.
"Yeah." I said quietly. I was just going to pretend even to myself that
everything was ok and there was no danger of my friends being killed and an
entire village being killed just to get at me and my friends. We were going
to get in there in time and stop them and it would be fine. I tightened my
grip around Clouds hand,
"I'll take that as a no then." He said quietly. "We might make it in time."
He said gently, while stroking the palm of my hand with his index finger. I
wanted to believe him. I just kept getting flash backs of what happened at
Nibelheim, I couldn't bear the same thing happening again I just couldn't!
"Cloud" I said quietly trying to blink back the tears. I put my other hand
to my face, I wasn't going to cry I wasn't. He stopped.
"Hey, that's not the Tifa I know..." He said, shocked.
"It's too much, Cloud." I said as I felt a tear fall.
"What is?" He asked looking down at me concern and confusion in his eyes.
"What is Tifa..."
"They're going to take it all away." I said, another teardrop fell and Cloud
wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me in close. "The bar...
Avalanche... it's all I have left Cloud. I lost everything when Nibelheim
was burnt down. Even you." I said. He held me tighter.
"I'm here now." He said. "I won't leave you again... I... I promise." He
said quietly I looked up at him and he brought his hand to my face and wiped
the tears from my cheeks. "I promise" He repeated.
"But the others?" I said.
"Don't worry, if they want to break the support they will have to get
through Barret first." Cloud said.
"You're right" I said.
"So we still have time. Ok?" He said smiling at me. I nodded. This time I
did feel slightly better. Cloud took hold of my hand again and we started to
walk. I looked over to see where Aeris was, she had just been stood in
silence all this time. She was walking slightly behind looking at Cloud's
hands and mine like she wanted to chop them off. I decided it best not to
look at her.
"You do realise that's two promises you owe me now Cloud Strife." I said
teasing him.
"Oh poor me having to never lose contact with a beautiful woman!" Cloud
said. We both laughed and I could feel myself blush.
I still didn't feel very comfortable, it had lessened but I still had that
sick feeling in my stomach. We continued our journey mostly in silence,
every now and again Cloud would stop to pick up something, and every now and
again a monster would attack us. No problem, they were easy to fight but it
did worry me the way we were being slowed down by them.
We then came to a dead end. Misery filled me. We were so close…
"Cloud..." I said turning to look at him, urgency filling my voice.
"There must be a way..." he murmured quietly. I watched him enter the first
train and drive it so it pushed another train, I could now see what he was
doing.
"Good idea Cloud." I said smiling. He then got into the other train and
drove it so creating a path for us. We climbed onto the first train, jumped
onto the next and walked right out of the train graveyard! That's another
place I wasn't sad to see the back off. We then broke into a run.
"We made it! The pillar's still standing!" I was so relieved to see it. We
had a chance. We could save the sector. Cloud walked towards me and put his
hand on my back.
"Wait!" He said, I didn't like the tone of his voice, it worried me. "You
hear something...above us?" Aeris ran towards us both.
"... Gunfire?" she asked. I turned to face Cloud, was it Barret up there?
Then we heard a thud! I slowly looked round to see Wedge on the floor...
no…he hadn't just fallen from the plate! He could die! I ran towards him,
the others following me. Cloud knelt down next to Wedge.
"Wedge!!" Cloud said shock in his voice. "You all right!?" I thought it was
pretty obvious he was NOT all right but I guess Cloud was in shock.
"...Cloud..." He could hardly speak, it scared me. He looked like he really
was about to die. "You remembered... my name. Barret's up top... help
him..." Cloud nodded. I could feel myself shaking. It had already started.
"And Cloud...Sorry, I wasn't any help." I looked at Cloud who just shook his
head and stood up. He turned to face me.
"I'm going up!" He told me. "Aeris! You look after Wedge." Aeris nodded.
Cloud's voice had become commanding, like a leader's. Cloud took hold of my
hand and started to walk to the plate when I stopped him. I suddenly
remembered... Marlene! What if we couldn't stop the plate from falling! I
turned to Aeris.
"Aeris, do me a favour. I have a bar called '7th Heaven' in this
neighbourhood. There's a little girl called Marlene there..." Aeris nodded.
"Don't worry. I'll put her somewhere safe." She promised. I smiled
gratefully. It suddenly dawned on me that there was a huge crowd around us.
So many people could die... I turned to them and raised my voice.
"It's dangerous here! Everyone get away from the pillar, quickly! Everyone
get away from sector 7!" I must have had some command in my voice as they
scattered. I just prayed they would listen to me. Cloud then took hold of my
hand and we started to make our way up the stairs to the top of the plate.