Two months later...
The Seventh Heaven bar was closed again. Tifa used to have pride in the fact that her bar was open far more than all the others, but as time passed, it got harder and harder to have the bar open during the day. Evenings were the most she could do now. She sighed and cleaned another glass. Tifa looked somewhat thinner and sadder these days...but then again, so did everyone else.
A shrill ringing interrupted her concentration on the glass she was cleaning. She looked up from it for a moment but then sighed loudly and returned to cleaning. When will they learn to just call his cell? she wondered, shaking her head slightly. The ringing didn't stop.
"He's not here anymore..." she mumbled, feeling annoyed that the phone continued to remind her of the fact.
When the phone didn't stop, she sighed yet again and wiped her hands dry on a towel. Slowly she ascended the stairs. She walked towards the room Cloud used to use, but stopped a minute and took a few steps back to check in the room to the left of it. Denzel was in the bed and Marlene hovered worriedly around him. Tifa felt a painful lurch in her stomach as she viewed the two of them. The Geostigma was getting worse. Everyone was beginning to lose hope.
"Cloud?" Denzel muttered, his voice sounding feverish and confused. "Where is Cloud?"
Marlene looked up to see Tifa in the doorway and they exchanged a worried and painful glance. They looked away from each other quickly as the phone gave another shrill ring. Tifa walked away quickly and turned into Cloud's old room. She hesitated slightly in the doorway, but then confidently strided over and picked up the phone, being careful not to look at the photograph sitting on the desk.
"Hello?" she asked, fighting to keep the annoyance and sadness out of her voice.
"Yea, hi. Took you long enough."
Even with all the static, Tifa had no trouble recognizing the voice.
"Reno?" she said, now not even trying to sound like she wasn't annoyed. "How many times have I told you to call his cell?"
Reno laughed. "And how many times have I told you, I'm sick of getting his stupid voice mail. And I'm even sicker of him not calling back."
Tifa sighed and sat down on the bed.
"Well what do you want me to do about it?" she asked wearily.
"I thought you could call him for me." he said somewhat slyly. "If you called him maybe he'd finally listen."
Tifa gave a half-hearted snort. "I doubt it'd really make a difference."
Reno made a frusterated noise into the phone. For a few moments, there was silence on both ends of the phone line. When Reno started talking again his voice wasn't as cocky and care-free as it normally was when he called, for once he was pleading.
"Please, Tifa." he said quietly. "We've tried everything else. Just call and leave a message, that's all I'm asking."
Tifa sighed. Why'd he have to ask nicely? she wondered helplessly.
"Ok Reno...What do you need me to ask him?"
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Cloud stood beside his motorcycle outside the ruins of the old Midgar. For two months Aeris's church had been his home. At first, it was painfully hard. Memories haunted him day and night, of Tifa, Marlene, and Denzel, of much happier times. But slowly those memories faded, and new ones replaced them. Memories of bullets entering the body of his best friend as he was left to live. Memories of children weak and in pain from Geostigma.Memories of two green eyes and a smile as a sword cut through a pink midriff. Memories of a hurt face and two children crying as he walked out a door. In other words, memories of his failures. Memories of things he couldn't change.That's why he stayed in the church. So that he could never forget what he shouldn't be allowed to forget. So whenever he wasn't traveling, he slept in the church. And he remembered Aeris and all the other faces of people who he had failed.
A flash of pain interrupted his guilt-ridden thoughts. With a grimace, he gripped his throbbing arm, fighting to hold on to consciousness. The pain had worsened in the past two months. The episodes lasted longer and hurt more, and even when he wasn't having one, the ache never stopped. Breathing heavily he leaned against his motorcycle.Through his pain, he heard his cell ringing. Cloud turned his head towards the cell and began to reach out to it, but stopped pain shot through his arm again.
"I'll let the voice mail get it..." he panted, letting his arm drop to his side.
After several more rings, the phone was silent, and slowly, the pain in his arm subsided too. Gingerly, he reached towards the phone and activated his voicemail.
"One new message." the phone said into his ear.
"Better not be Reno again..." Cloud muttered.
The message started up.
"Hi Cloud." Tifa's voice said softly into the phone. "Umm...Reno keeps calling you. I mean...he keeps calling the phone in your room. Your uhh, old room. He needs you to go to Healin Lodge...he said it was important."
There was a brief silence.
"I hope you're doing alright." Tifa's voice said quickly right before the call cut off.
Cloud held the phone to his ear a minute before lowering it slowly. Feeling weary beyond his age, he threw one leg over the side of his motorcycle and headed towards the Healin Lodge. He tried to concentrate on the road, but the lingering pain in his arm, and the unexpected shock of hearing Tifa's voice made his insides squirm unpleasently. He forced himself to forget about it, as the sound of two other motorcycles caught his attention.
Two people were gaining on him, from both sides. Cloud narrowed his eyes slightly as the figures ontop the motorcycles came into view. They were dressed in black leather, but that wasn't what disturbed him. It was their hair...their silver hair. Their resemblance to Sephiroth.
Shaking his head to rid himself of these thoughts, Cloud leaned forwards and sped up. The two men did likewise, pulling up beside him.
"Where's mother?" the one to his left asked him.
At these words Clouds head twisted around. The man was bulky and his silver hair was short. He grinned at Cloud.
The other slimmer, longer haired man pulled Cloud's attention away from his companion. "You've hidden her from us, haven't you brother?"
Brother? Cloud thought, bewildered.
But he had no time to wonder their meaning, because the long haired man pulled out a gun and proceeded to aim it at him. Cloud evaded the attack, and this time when he sped out into the distance, the two men did not follow him.
What was that all about? Cloud wondered, as the word mother hung ominously in his mind.