Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII or any of its characters.
Flashy Stuff
The air duct was almost completely dark. Although some light still entered the passage from the beams of the security checkpoint, that was growing ever dimmer as Jessie moved forwards. Apart from Wedge's grunts as he tried to move through the narrow passage and Biggs's occasional mutters, meant for his ears alone, there was no sound either. Even the sound of gunfire from what Jessie assumed to be Barrett, Cloud and Tifa fighting the Shinra troops unlucky enough to have a job patrolling a railway tunnel on the day of an AVALANCHE attack had ceased. Although… if she listened very carefully, she thought she could hear a train, far in the distance. With any luck, Barrett and the others would manage to find the air duct on the other side of the checkpoint before the train reached their section of the tunnel. If they didn't, it was only a matter of time before Shinra found Jessie, Biggs and Wedge in the reactor, waiting for their now dead allies.
Jessie reached out her right hand to continue crawling through the duct – and stopped abruptly when she felt only the air. Biggs immediately tensed behind her. "What is it?" he hissed.
"Nothing, Biggs. I think we've reached the end of the passage, that's all." Biggs had a tendency to overreact whenever the success of a mission was involved. While Jessie was impressed by his dedication, after the fourth time he pulled out his gun in front of a large crowd of slum dwellers because he heard the words 'AVALANCHE plot', she had decided it was a trait he needed to lose as quickly as possible.
"Well, how do we get out?" Wedge was obviously still worried they'd be trapped in the tunnel. Jessie sighed slightly. Between Wedge's constant worrying, Biggs's scarily single-minded dedication to the group, and Barrett's inability to solve any problem without using his gun-arm and a long stream of profanity, she sometimes wondered whether it was worth staying in AVALANCHE. Of course, the Shinra had to be overthrown for the good of the Planet and all its inhabitants, but Jessie didn't see their bombing campaign having much of an effect – besides turning the population of Midgar against them. And how could she blame them for being angry with AVALANCHE when the group's actions were causing the deaths of these people's loved ones? Much as she loved working out how to build weapons and get into reactors, she couldn't forget the human suffering she caused by doing this in the way the others seemed to be able to.
"There's a ladder down here. Assuming this reactor is constructed in the same way as Sector 1's, we should come out near the entrance above those huge pipes." Jessie felt that this was a fairly safe assumption to make, considering the designer of Midgar's apparent love of repetition.
Wedge considered this. "That's fairly near the reactor core. Do you think we need to split up to show the others which way to go? I mean, Cloud obviously knows his way around a reactor, they should be able to find their way in."
Jessie grimaced, thankful for the darkness which hid her face. She supposed it wasn't technically necessary, but she wanted to talk to Cloud without everyone else listening, to apologise about her mistake with the fake IDs – and perhaps to explain why it had happened, if she could find some courage within herself. She didn't know what it was about Cloud that drew her to him. Yes, he'd saved her in the Sector 1 reactor – but what choice did he have? She had the password which could get them out. She'd heard him say that he couldn't care less about AVALANCHE or the Planet or anyone but himself – he hadn't been trying to lower his voice last night when he argued with Tifa and Barrett. But she knew that he was lying. How could a promise made seven years ago still affect him if he didn't care about what happened to AVALANCHE – and therefore to Tifa? Why would he take on missions that Shinra would execute him for taking part if he was caught for a few thousand gil, when he could easily make more fighting monsters in the wasteland around Midgar, if the fate of the Planet meant nothing to him?
Biggs's voice shattered the silence of the tunnel. "I think we should still split up. We can watch for guards more effectively if we aren't all in the one spot. Even if Cloud knows as much about reactors as he says he does, he can't be in three places at once to fight guards - and if we split up, we can."
Still trying to focus after being snatched so suddenly away from her thoughts, Jessie thought about this from a moment before answering. "Biggs is right. However, we can't alert the guards to our presence, so no fighting, just watching."
"I suppose you're right." Wedge agreed, somewhat grudgingly.
"You scared, Wedge? You can stand next to the ladder, if you want. That way, you can leave first." Jessie couldn't tell if Biggs was taunting Wedge or honestly being kind - she suspected a bit of both. She knew that Biggs was frustrated by Wedge's disinclination for direct combat, but he rarely openly insulted him – he was too busy badmouthing those who wouldn't join AVALANCHE.
"You expect me to climb back up this air duct?" Wedge sounded incredulous.
"Well, if you'd rather walk straight through the reactor without the codes for the doors, meaning you'll be inside when it explodes - if by some miracle the soldiers don't tear you to pieces first - be my guest." Irritation was creeping into Biggs's voice. "The others will be in the reactor any minute – can we climb down that ladder now, Jessie?"
She sighed rather loudly upon hearing this. "Biggs, for once in your life, could you be patient? I have to check whether or not this ladder leads where I think it does."
"And we couldn't do that by climbing down?"
"Alright, but if we drop into the middle of a Shinra training exercise, you're taking the blame – and the bullets. You go first." Jessie didn't ordinarily like sending others into potential danger without backup, but some people, quite frankly, deserved it.
"You think I can't take on some Shinra troops by myself?" Biggs's pride had obviously been wounded.
"We both know you're more than the equal of anyone in Shinra, Biggs." Wedge said, trying to placate him. He knew as well as Jessie it was a bad idea for anyone but the Shinra to anger Biggs during a mission. Jessie was busy looking beyond the ladder - she was sure that there was light coming from beneath her, and she couldn't see or hear any Shinra troops. This did seem to be another entrance to the Sector 5 reactor. Meanwhile, Wedge continued speaking to Biggs. "But you can't defeat an army alone."
"You don't have to try to make me feel better, Wedge – I know that I have limits. I just resent you two thinking I'll definitely be killed if there are Shinra troops here."
Jessie interrupted him. "Biggs, Wedge, I'm as certain as I can be that this is the reactor. Do you want to go first, Biggs?" She was worried that he might consider her going down first as an indication that she didn't think he could deal with Shinra troops alone.
"Let's just go down in the order we're already in. It would take time to try and change in a space this narrow, and my ego isn't bruised enough to make Barrett and the others wait for." Jessie couldn't see Biggs's face, but she knew that he was smiling – without the slightest trace of happiness.
"Alright, here goes." Jessie climbed down the ladder as quickly as she could, trying not to see how far above the floor of the reactor she was. Since this entrance was near the base of the reactor, and their air duct was approximately level with the much higher main entrance, she was sure it was a good deal further than she wanted to think about.
Biggs emerged from the air duct soon after her, moving as quickly as possible. "Jessie, move a bit faster. I don't want to be on this ladder when Wedge starts climbing down. He'll probably fall and knock me off too."
"I heard that." Wedge's voice drifted from above them – it had already become somewhat muted. Jessie knew that the bottom of the ladder must be not far beneath her, but she still couldn't bring herself to look.
"Hey, we're almost at the bottom!" This came from Biggs, who followed up the exclamation by jumping off the ladder. Jessie was so shocked she risked taking a glance, just for a second – only to see the ground a few rungs beneath her, and Biggs looking at her with his eyebrows raised.
"You won't hurt yourself if you fall, don't worry. Wedge, on the other hand…" He raised his eyes to the top of the ladder, where Wedge was still trying to get out of the duct. "Hey! Wedge! You aren't that big – you made it through the tunnel, how difficult can it be to get out?" He seemed to have become much more cheerful now that it was apparent that the rest of AVALANCHE hadn't beaten them to the reactor.
From high above them, Jessie and Biggs could faintly hear Wedge. "When I finish this mission, I'm never getting in a space narrower than the headquarters again…" Grumbling to himself, he managed to reach the bottom of the ladder without too much difficulty, although he had to pause several times to steady himself.
"Good job, Wedge. Now, you stay here. Direct the others to the ladder – not the furthest away, the one that's closer." Wedge scowled slightly at Biggs's words. Biggs seemed to be unable to strike a balance between rude and patronising when talking to him. Wedge had the same problem with talking to Biggs, and usually went for both at the same time.
"I am capable of looking at a ladder myself, you know. You don't have to tell me how to do everything."
Biggs shrugged. "Alright, then." He began to stride towards the ladder, then turned back to say, "And you can probably lose the Shinra uniform now, they know we were disguised." Jessie did as he suggested, leaving the uniform in a pile on the ground – it wasn't exactly a great hiding place, but the only other alternative was to throw it off the edge of the platform, and the armour could easily kill someone if it fell the hundreds of metres to the slums without hitting anything.
There were two tunnels leading away from the room at the top of the ladder, one of which presumably led to the reactor core and the other back outside. Jessie guessed it connected with the third ladder she'd seen outside.
"You'd better stay here, to point them in the right direction." Biggs was looking almost longingly towards the reactor core.
"And where will you go? Closer to the core?" Biggs nodded distractedly, not saying anything. Jessie knew how much he'd wanted to set the bomb himself, but Cloud and Tifa had to gain some more experience. He couldn't have all the missions.
"Alright, then. I'll see you in a few minutes, if the others turn up when they should." Biggs didn't respond – he just crouched down and crawled through the tunnel. Jessie was beginning to worry about him. Biggs had never been the most sensible person she knew, but the longer he spent in AVALANCHE, the more reckless and bloodthirsty he seemed to become. It was only a matter of time until he went off on his own to try to blow up the entire Shinra building or something else equally stupid and impossible.
Her train of thought was interrupted by the arrival of Cloud, Tifa and, trying to reload his gun-arm without shooting off his other hand, their illustrious leader Barrett Wallace. They didn't appear to be hurt seriously, although Tifa was limping slightly and Cloud's right arm was bleeding rather badly – he'd attempt to bandage the wound with a strip of material torn from his shirt, but some blood was still dripping onto the floor.
"How did you go jumping from the train?" Jessie tried to address the question to the whole party, but it was Cloud she really wanted to hear from.
"Fairly well. Tifa landed slightly awkwardly – that's why she's limping – but Barrett and I were fine." In just a few days with AVALANCHE, Cloud had apparently become their spokesman. He was a natural leader, Jessie realised, and that would create problems with Barrett later. Barrett wasn't the sort of person who gave up power without a fight.
"Um… about the ID cards and the mess on the train. It was my fault." The other three looked at her curiously, seeming not to understand what she meant. Jessie took a deep breath and continued with her explanation. "I… tried really hard with these cards, tried to make them special."
"What do you mean by special?" Cloud had noticed that Jessie seemed to be looking at him when she was speaking, and wondered if he had had something to do with this. As far as he knew, he couldn't have done anything to the ID cards – he hadn't touched Jessie's computer, and he'd barely looked at the card this morning.
"If the cards had worked correctly, they would have identified you as high-ranking members of Shinra. You would have been able to get into the reactor just by flashing the IDs at the guards. I should have realised that there the sensor would have checked any card claiming you were in Shinra against the list of Shinra employees and been unable to find the names on the cards listed but… after everything that happened last night, I wanted to repay you somehow." Jessie had dropped the pretence of talking to the group by now.
Cloud, on the other hand, knew what Jessie was talking about. "Well… thank you. Better luck next time, I suppose." With that, he turned and led Tifa and Barrett into the reactor.
Jessie stood still, rooted to the spot for a moment. If she hadn't been scrutinising Cloud's face so intently, she might have been able to convince herself that he hadn't understood what she'd meant by making the ID card, but she saw the look on his face for maybe half a second before he spoke. He'd been embarrassed. Jessie mentally berated herself for doing this so soon. She'd only met him yesterday! How could she know how she felt about him, let alone expect him to feel the same? Yet she'd been an idiot and shown him. And Wedge said Biggs showed his emotions too much – if Wedge had witnessed this, he probably would have collapsed on the spot. But… this was better than nothing. For all that he'd tried to hide it behind that uncaring façade of his, he cared that she would be hurt by his rejection – he cared for the feelings of others. He wasn't the callous, emotionless being he painted himself as, and this gave Jessie hope. She might have to wait for a long time, but she knew that she had at least a chance of being loved by him eventually.
Biggs chose that moment to crawl through the tunnel connecting the two rooms. He looked surprised to see Jessie still there. "Hey, Jessie, you'd better get moving. Barrett and the rest have gone to plant the bomb. If you hang around here for much longer – well, you won't be able to, this place will be gone in ten minutes."
"You're right, Biggs. Wedge has probably left already. Let's head back to Sector 7."