DISCLAIMER: Nope. Not mine. Wish it was mine, sure. Actually own it, I wish.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: First off, check out my author's page for two things: a much-expanded quote-unquote "biography," mostly with new sections regarding story progress and the irony for me in finally playing FFVII (not done yet - Demon Gate at the Temple of the Ancients is kicking my ass. But I have played 23 hours of it!)
Also on my author's page is a link to my new LiveJournal - user name "tairako." I started it because of the ff.n crackdown on "reader responses" in author's notes, to have a place to post things that ff.n won't let me post (I've got a two-part hopefully atypical Squiffie songfic that I just have to finish the last two pages on for it to be ready to post) and a place to answer reviewer questions about my stories and just talk to readers and other authors in general. Because I really like doing that, and want to keep doing it. And at least over there I won't feel guilty about "delaying" the chapter for that (I have in the past, occasionally).
Two, I am so, so sorry that it's taken me until September to update this. I have reasons, but no excuse, and please don't try to kill me because of it. If it makes you feel better, the fourth segment is already in the works, and it focuses on everyone's favorite little ninja. Please don't kill me!
Cid growled. A lot. There was absolutely no way around it: their gummi ship was in absolutely shitty condition. What with the attacks of those monsters, his own firing of the engines in incredibly close quarters, the space debris they'd hit even though he'd been trying to avoid it all, and the fact that it hadn't been in perfect condition to start with, the ship had gotten trashed in their flight from the Bastion two days before.
Once reaching the hotel, all four of them had collapsed on the beds and passed out for fully twenty hours at a time, suffering the after effects of sleeplessness, exhaustion, and intense and sudden grief. Because their bodies had taken matters into their own hands, it wasn't until two days after their arrival that Cid had a chance to look at the damage to the ship, and perhaps see what their chances were of leaving.
It wasn't good. The armor and shields were down to the danger levels, one of the wings had a hole in it while the other was scorched, the engines wouldn't all respond to his careful manipulation (which perhaps explained why he hadn't been able to dodge all the obstacles as well as normal), and at one point he'd pulled a plate off to check some wiring and an eruption of fire was his welcome. If he'd had a full crew and a full garage, it would take them perhaps a week to fix everything. On his own, and with the lack of parts available in Traverse Town's garage, he estimated half a year. Maybe more.
He was starting to get over the surprise of arriving at this world, but it was being replaced with surprise that they'd arrived in one piece.
"Looks like we're stuck here," he muttered to himself around his cigarette. That had been his first action when arriving at the ship: find his small bag and the wonderful nicotine within. He'd had vague ideas, or perhaps hopes, that they would be able to repair the ship quickly and go back to Hollow Bastion – though what they'd find there, he didn't know. He'd also been contemplating packing the four of them up and trying to find another world, one that wasn't so goddamn depressing, but now that was out of the question as well. Unless he was allowed to cannibalize the two gummi ships that were docked next to his, they'd all be settled down in this place before they even had a chance of moving. The one-way trip was proving even more one-way than he'd expected.
Cid picked up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and sealed up the ship as he left it. No one in their right minds would try and take the ship, but someone desperate could always try and take its parts. Better not to take chances. Trying to force himself to look on the bright side, he did realize that since the ship was practically scrap anyway, there was nothing stopping him from redesigning it. He'd never liked the model that the other gummi mechanics had picked for the main portion of the Bastion ships, wanting it to be more versatile and hold up to such conditions as he'd put this one through the other day. Now was his chance to actually get down to some modification. And, he suspected, no one would mind him calling the ship his now. Ansem, the real owner, was dead, their world was overrun; it was as if he'd salvaged the ship instead of basically stealing it.
Pulling out another cigarette and lighting it after he threw his first butt away, Cid made his way back to the second district and the hotel, hoping the kids would be awake at last. He'd left a note, which he knew all of them could read, but he also knew the girls at least wouldn't like being separated from him. But they needed to face the reality, especially as he now knew the extent of damage the ship had suffered: this town was going to be their home now. They had to start looking for somewhere to stay and the basic necessities of life, while he also needed to start looking for work.
They had to accept the fact that their home was lost to them.
Perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing that the only one awake when he arrived back was Aerith. While she'd needed his comfort two days before, and he knew she probably panicked when she woke to find him gone, she had a level head that wouldn't let her go crazy for long. He found her in the hotel's small kitchen after he checked both rooms, seeing Yuffie and Sq… Leon still sprawled on the beds, making tea. Normally tea wasn't his favorite drink, but right now anything sounded good. Out of a long habit of getting beaten for smoking in kitchens, he tossed his cigarette out the window and into a rain gutter before he took a seat at the table and accepted the cup Aerith silently handed him. After getting a cup for herself, she slid into one of the other chairs, hiding a small cough as the smell of smoke from Cid overwhelmed her a little. Not many people had smoked at Hollow Bastion.
"Where did you go?" she asked quietly, as if there was someone sleeping in the room.
"T' the ship," he replied. Her eyes asked her questions for her. "It's not goin' anywhere any time soon. Gonna need a lot of work t'even think about gettin' it out of th'garage, an' these people've let gummi maintenance go so long they don' even have enough armor fer one ship. Looks like we're stuck here." He knew he would never, ever tell them about the block of ice that settled in his stomach whenever he thought about the condition of the ship, wondering how they hadn't died.
Aerith sighed, but something about the sound told him she wasn't surprised at that. "Thought so," she said quietly to herself before looking back at him. "What do we do now?" She was handling this as well as he could hope for under the circumstances. He was immensely grateful, because there was no way he could go from dedicated bachelor (except for Shera…) to responsible caretaker of three kids overnight, no matter what was going on around them. Aerith was just becoming a teenager, but she could help him with Yuffie at the very least, and her calm and soothing demeanor would be a balm on fights and tempers that he was sure would flare up at times.
"Now we go get those two up an' start lookin' fer… things. Clothes. A place t'stay." They might have to live there, but they both knew this place would never be home. "I'm gonna go find that woman again – she said somethin' about work that day, an' I'm gonna need it." It was more than just providing for them – Cid was one of those that always needed something to do. Even while they were talking, he was ceaselessly stirring his tea in a slow pattern as his foot tapped that same pattern beneath the desk. Perhaps it was a result of the smoking. "Can you think of anythin' else?"
"We need food."
"Yeah, food too. Speakin' of which…" A confused look crossed his face. "Does th'manager know yer doin' this?" He gestured to the tea to indicate the "this."
Aerith nodded, standing and taking his now empty cup away from him and over to a sink on the wall. "He suggested it, actually. The people here seem nice, giving us all these things. But they don't have anything here I can cook and I don't know if he'd let me cook their food anyway…"
He nodded, adding that to his mental checklist. "Maybe we can go back t'that place we ate at before. But first…" Looking at her, he had to shake his head. She, as well as everyone else, was still wearing the clothing she'd had on when they fled the Bastion. The large piece she'd torn out of her shirt to make a rag to use on Sq- Leon's wound was looking particularly conspicuous, and like the rest of them she'd been sleeping in them as well. In the couple of breaks they'd had in their marathon sleeping sessions, they'd all bathed as well as they could and Squ- Leon had finally washed the blood from his wound off, but they all looked awful. Getting clothing, and soap, and some sort of hairbrushes was more important right now than finding a space of their own to stay, so that had to be number one priority. "I hate t'say this, but we need t'go shoppin'. Can you get Yuffie while I get Sq- Leon?" Everyone was having trouble adjusting to the name change.
Aerith stood, nodding, and exited the room in the direction of the rooms they'd been given, Cid just a couple of steps behind her. She closed the door behind her as she went into the room where Yuffie still slept, but Cid didn't bother. The boy was sprawled face-down on the bed, the bump on the back of his head prominent through his brown hair and looking pretty nasty. Cid could just barely see the gauze pad taped between his eyes as he turned his head.
"Leon."
Nothing. The boy just lay there, one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, breathing steadily.
"Leon."
Again, nothing. Cid was becoming tempted to grab the boy by the back of his jeans and drag him off the bed.
"SQUALL!"
This time there was a response – though not at all the one he wanted. Leon grumbled something completely unintelligible and rolled over so he was facing the wall away from Cid. He just gave up. Let the kid sleep, he could stumble around lost later if he really wanted to that badly. Trying to ignore the wonderful images running through his head of dragging Leon out of bed or turning the mattress over without bothering to remove the boy first, he went to knock on the door of room two. "Can I come in?"
"Yes," called Yuffie, still sounding sleepy.
Apparently Aerith had had much less trouble with her than he had with Leon. Yuffie was sitting in front of the older girl, bleary-eyed but awake, and Aerith was finger-combing her short black hair gently. The older girl had pulled her own hair back into a messy braid as well, as though ashamed of the way it looked. Yuffie was perhaps the most out of place of all four of them, because while Cid, Sq-Leon, and Aerith had all been dressed for the day at the Bastion, she was still in pajamas. Well, they were going to fix that as soon as possible. "Ya ready?"
Shopping with the girls hadn't been nearly as bad as he thought it would be. After finding out earlier that morning, to his great relief, that Traverse Town used munny gems as currency as Hollow Bastion had done, he'd done a quick tabulation of all the money they had between themselves and come up with at least a decent figure. They could never afford a house, but simple clothing was well within their reach.
It probably wasn't a coincidence that directly across the district, easily seen from the hotel, was a long line of clothing stores, a perfect tourist trap. Cid had dire misgivings about setting foot in a store that sold little girls' clothes, but when he wasn't jumped on by ten or twelve more girls when he walked in he cautiously decided not to flee for his life. Turning Yuffie and Aerith loose to look at what they wanted (Yuffie had only been holding his hand today, a distinct improvement), Cid talked with the female clerk behind the register about the town, trying to learn more about it. While it didn't seem quite as advanced as Hollow Bastion, they had electricity, running water, and almost all the same things as at the Bastion, save the crystals and the lifts. It was a relief, because that just made it more likely that a man of his skills would find work. He could be a menial laborer in an underdeveloped world, yes, but he'd go out of his freaking mind doing it.
The girls chose their clothes as he talked (a simple pink dress for Aerith, and a red t-shirt, tan shorts, and sandals for Yuffie as she'd had no shoes), and after paying for them they quickly went a couple of stores down where he found himself a pair of comfortable pants that he could work in and a new shirt. They walked back to the hotel to clean up, and Cid found Leon finally awake, sitting in the kitchen and chewing on a piece of toast while he ran the pat of his thumb up and down the now uncovered wound between his eyes. The hotel manager had provided some disinfectant from somewhere after the first marathon sleep, allowing Cid to finally clean the wound properly, but the jagged line was still a somewhat ugly red between his eyes. He's gonna have one helluva scar right there, Cid thought to himself. Wonder if there's anyone in this town who cin take care of that…
"Sleep good, kid?" Leon gave him a shrug as he took another bite of toast. Cid began to scowl a little. "D'ya always sleep like a rock?"
"Yeah."
While the girls seemed to be settling down a little, Squa- damnit, Leon was still withdrawn and unresponsive. This attitude didn't fit at all with the child Cid had known from the training sessions at the castle, watching them with wide-eyed fascination and eagerly (and vocally) looking forward to the day when he could join them. It had been common knowledge among that group that this boy was probably the best fighter around in his age group, or at least had the most potential, but Squall'd never seemed to know that nor have a big head. He would answer just about any question asked of him honestly, and generally seemed happy. It looked like the attack, and the flight, had affected him more than the others – because now he was Leon, and Cid was getting damn fed up with Leon.
"Get yerself some clothes an' come back here t'shower. We're goin' t'find breakfast." Cid dropped some munny gems on the table in front of Leon and got out of the kitchen before he threw the boy out in his frustration. He walked down to room two, intending to follow the showering advice himself, but one of the girls squealed when he started to open the door. Quickly shutting his eyes, he immediately closed it again, and moved to room three. Leon wouldn't be back before he finished his own shower, and they'd waste less time; his stomach was starting to growl with hunger, having been denied food for nearly a day.
By the time he'd finished his shower and dressed in the bathroom, Leon had returned from his own shopping trip and changed into his new things – which, Cid noted with some dismay, seemed to be entirely black. Was Squall really planning on turning into some reclusive rebel? "What in th'hell are you wearin'?"
"Clothes." Somehow Leon was calm, tossing away his old t-shirt which still had some bloodstains on it from the wound. He looked back at Cid and his eyes looked exactly the same as on the day they arrived: pissed as hell, but quiet about it. Cid had never known Squall to lose his temper, but now he realized that he'd been one of those people to bottle things up inside. And unfortunately, the last few days had filled his bottle and about two dozen more, so that this new Squall, Leon, was shaking inside with anger at just about everything in the world, including his companions. Cid wondered again just what in the hell had happened to Squall during the fight, knowing it was futile to ask as Leon would just narrow his eyes and stay silent as he had the last time he'd received that question. Perhaps it wouldn't be so hard after all for him to adjust to that new name, as it seemed that Leon was trying to completely take over Squall, and succeeding.
Giving up a losing fight, Cid merely grunted and gestured at him to come along, which Leon did silently. Collecting the girls, Aerith looking much relieved that she'd been able to wash her hair, they made their way into the central square of the first district again, noticing things they hadn't had a chance to on their arrival. The town was more dilapidated than they had originally thought, as though no one had had the will to clean in a long time. The hotel was in shabby shape, but it seemed pristine compared to some areas they passed by. Plenty of the electric lights were faded, their bulbs dim, which no one had bothered to replace. Birds built nests in the gutters and eaves of roofs, while those buildings that still used chimneys had soot streaks climbing down their stacks. Windows were broken on some of the buildings, and nothing anywhere would be hurt by a fresh coat of paint. What was happening in this place?
Arriving at the café, the group settled itself at the same table as before, waiting for anyone to show up to take their order. Luck was with them; only a few minutes later, Jill had come over, smiling at everyone. "You all must have been tired. You slept longer than anyone else has before you."
All three children's eyes darkened, and Cid knew he had to change the subject fast before he blew up himself. "We need some food," he told her quickly, hoping to forestall any shouting matches. "And d'you think it'd be possible fer us t'talk? I thought you said somethin' 'bout work th'other day."
Jill nodded, evidently realizing she'd made a wrong comment, and simply responded with "Of course." Quickly taking their orders, which most of them kept basic (Yuffie wanted pancakes with sprinkles, for some reason), she maneuvered through the growing crowd to the kitchens. None of them talked much in her absence, only Aerith and Yuffie quietly murmuring to each other, not wanting to disturb Leon or Cid's apparently bad moods. When Jill returned, she'd discarded her apron and brought their food with them, which all four set to with a will. Sitting down next to Leon with a cup of tea, she waited until they'd taken the edge off their hunger before asking. "You need work?"
Cid quickly forced down the mouthful of sandwich he had and nodded. "Yeah… I looked at our ship, an' there's nothin' I can do fer it now. No parts to spare here, so I'm gonna have t'wait for somethin' t'fall from the sky." As odd as that sounded, it was true. Gummi parts were only available in space, or sometimes fell as meteorites to the surfaces of worlds. Since there were only two ships here, he highly doubted they had many showers. "Unless I can take one of th'ships out there an' go scoop 'em up myself, that's our only option. So we're not leavin'." He could see Yuffie's face sink and instantly regretted that phrase; the young girl had probably been heavily denying it to herself the entire time and hadn't wanted to hear it.
"Hmm…" Jill set her tea down, watching him with a studying air. "You're a pilot, but it's true we don't do much flying. Do you have any other skills?"
He shrugged and just began ticking them off on his fingers. "Electrician, mechanic, fightin', field medicine-" Jill flicked a skeptical look at Leon's scar "-though I'm not very good at it sometimes, basically anythin' t'do with m'hands."
"You may want to try the Gizmo Shop. I think Parnel might be looking for help."
Not even bothering to think about it, Cid immediately agreed. Whether it was at some place with a weird name like Gizmo Shop or not, a job was a job, and that meant food, clothes, and shelter. Jill cleared off their now empty plates and went to write down directions to the shop.
Entrusting Aerith to get Yuffie back to the hotel (Leon could look after his own self), Cid followed the easy directions Jill had given him to the shop at the back of the second district, under the old clock tower. Eyeing the stained glass doors with some suspicion, he shook his head, crammed the slip of paper into a pocket, and pushed open the doors.
Inside was the biggest explosion of color he'd seen since spring at Hollow Bastion. The room looked as if several people had let their five-year-old children take buckets of paint and throw them wherever they wished, and the sight of all the uncontrolled color nearly gave him a seizure. Still, he had to admit that as he got used to it, it wasn't that bad – even pleasant. It was reassuring to know that color could still exist in this brown town, where it didn't seem like anything ever happened except people living out their lives day to day. The reassuring whir of motors, thuds of machinery, and voices in the air only made him feel better, as he hadn't since the day before the attack in the garage. Quickly shoving aside the painful memories of friends now gone, Cid looked around for the first person who wasn't lifting something heavy.
"Hey," he said, walking over to a short man with a very large stomach. "Is there a 'Parnel' 'round here?"
"I'm him," Parnel replied, straightening from labeling a box that was sitting on the floor. He was a man in his late forties, with brown hair that was scarce on top and an open, friendly grin, the first Cid had seen since arriving here. "You must be Cid."
"How'd ya know?"
Parnel chuckled, moving over to another box. "Word of you and the three children has gotten around. Even here, with people showing up whenever something happens, your group is odder than most." Another box labeled, he straightened up. "I'm assuming, since you're here, you're looking for work?"
Cid's pride, both personal and professional, wouldn't let him just give him a job. Kids or no kids, he was going to be hired for his skills, not out of pity. "I was thinkin' 'bout it. But if you have doubts, I cin help 'round here for th'day an' you can decide if you want me or not."
Jovial or not, the older man clearly wasn't stupid. He gave Cid a look that the younger returned evenly, a look that said he suspected far more about Cid's motives than he'd let on, and then turned and nodded to a machine in the corner. "Tell you what. That there thing's been busted for a week. I'll bring you a tool set, and if you fix it, you're hired. We got a deal?" He extended his hand.
Cid took it in a firm grip and shook. "Deal."
Though Cid had told her to go back to the hotel, Aerith had other ideas. After Cid had disappeared back in the direction of the second district, she turned to look at Yuffie and Leon. "Do you want to look around?"
The chair scraped along the stone floor as Leon stood, unconsciously tilting his head so his long brown bangs hung in front of his face. "No, I'm going back."
"Oh, come on Squall, come!" Yuffie, thankfully, was getting over her need to be attached to Cid at every waking moment. She'd looked after the man with a little fright as he left, but once he was gone she seemed to shake herself and get over it. She wasn't nearly as perky as she'd been at Hollow Bastion, but that was only to be expected, and she definitely seemed interested in what their new home was like.
"It's Leon. Not Squall." Shaking his head, the boy began to walk in the same direction Cid had gone, but was brought up short when something jerked on his arm. He looked back with a glare to find the petite eight-year-old attached to him with both of her arms wrapped around his. "Hey, let go!"
"Why should I?"
"Because I said so and if you don't I'll-"
"Oh, stop it you two," Aerith broke in, standing herself and pushing her chair in. "Leon, you don't have to come if you don't want to, but we'd like you to. Yuffie, hanging on his arm like that isn't going to make him want to." Yuffie guiltily detached herself from Leon, looking down at the ground with a pitiful expression that Aerith wasn't at all taken in by, having seen it too many times before. "We're going to go exploring. Leon, are you sure you don't want to?"
Leon watched them both, gaze holding that small bit of a glare that was quickly becoming his norm, before giving in. "All right, all right, I'll come." Yuffie squealed and jumped on him, as he'd known would happen, but he jumped back out of the way before she could latch on to more than his arm again. "But not if you do that."
"Okay, okay, okay."
They made a strange group and turned many heads as they walked along, Yuffie holding Aerith's hand and Leon following a few paces behind, mostly watching the street. As they passed by the town's residents, more than a few of those people turned to their neighbors and whispered something in audible to the group. They all noticed, but none of them said anything, walking mostly in silence.
The districts turned out to have a fairly unimaginative naming system – First District, Second District, and Third District. In fact, the entire town seemed to have a complete lack of originality, what with "Items," "Hotel," and "Boots and Shoes," and Yuffie privately wondered if she might go crazy here. First District seemed to be mostly residential, with houses tucked around its edges, but it also contained many of the basic stores such as the items shop. This district was perhaps the best-kept, where the lights were all mostly one shade and the old-fashioned cobblestones had been recently swept. There were some trees scattered about, and of course the café where they'd eaten. The giant doors led out to the gummi deck, while another set of doors proudly had a sign stretched above them with the words "Third District" inscribed on it. Since that was the one district they hadn't seen yet, they pushed open the doors and went through.
The number of people standing around chatting in this district was lower, but there still were some. Third District seemed to consist mostly of a very large courtyard with balconies around it, equipped with ramps and stairs to help reach the balconies. While everything in this district seemed to have been in better condition when it was new than First District, whoever was in charge here had let the place go severely. Paint was peeling, concrete was broken in places, and many of the lights flickered. However, somehow, despite the dank atmosphere, the place managed to be almost welcoming. Looking around, Yuffie and Aerith decided it was probably more residential than anything else, noting the number of tall houses that stretched around the courtyard. The only thing they could see that wasn't a house was a restaurant that looked much posher than their little café. There was one door, next to a ramp, that wouldn't open, no matter how hard they pushed on it, and eventually they gave up trying and went instead to the door to Second District.
What they were coming to think of as their "home" district was clearly the working center of the town. The large, long open space in the middle easily suggested parties and town-wide festivals – that is, if the town had that sort of life in it. The majority of the shops were there, including the clothing stores they had all visited, and they found the shop that Jill had sent Cid to, though they didn't go in. Second District was dirty with the accumulation of years of industry, of someone not cleaning because of the idea of the clean area just getting dirty the next day anyway, so why bother. What looked like apartments, something they hadn't had many of in Hollow Bastion, stretched away over most of the shops, perhaps for the people who worked there. After much pleading, Yuffie finally got Aerith and Leon to climb with her as high up the clock tower as they could go, and for awhile they all sat on the edge of the platform (very carefully), watching the view as the sun moved through the sky and the people moved through the district. It was calming; they hadn't seen anything like that since Hollow Bastion. While their bodies and minds fought the confines of the small town on the ground, used to the Bastion's grand buildings and sweeping fields, while viewed from up above it didn't seem that bad. Despite all the dirt, the low light, and the lack of color, that view felt… homey. It was too early to call Traverse Town "home," but perhaps they might be able to make it work in this new place.
Perhaps…
Cid easily got the job in the Gizmo Shop, and in fact got a better one than he'd hoped for when Parnel saw how good he was with machines. With his reassurance of a large payday and an advance, within a week Cid was able to get them out of the hotel and into one of the apartments in the second district on yet another promise to the landlord that he'd pay the full bill at the end of the month. In their quiet way, the people of the town continued to help support the four as they found their feet, places like the café setting up a tab for them and the item store giving them discounts. With the knowledge that every fraction of the charity shown them would be repaid, Cid accepted the help and began keeping surprisingly meticulous accounts. Less than six months later, every cent had been repaid, despite the protests of store owners and managers, and Cid's bullheaded stubbornness had become famous.
Leon's first action in settling in was to buy a sword. His parents' deaths still heavy on his mind, he was determined to master the gunblade he kept under lock and key in his room, but he was too rational to think he could wield Griever yet and there were no gunblades at all in the town. He worked out with the sword every day, disappearing to no one knew where and returning every night panting and disheveled, but a little more in control each time. Remembering his aborted training, he spent much of his time running to build up his endurance and did simple exercises instead of lifting weights so he didn't stunt his growth; his mother had remarked that he could be even taller than his father, which he thought might be helpful when he could fight. When he reached the end of the training he did know, and a fencing expert was nowhere to be found in the town, he just went carefully and made it up on his own from there. He was rarely injured as he had no one to fight with, but the training seemed to bring the initial hostility he'd found when first arriving in the town under control, giving it a safe outlet. He still spoke rarely, but it was with at least a little more civility, and the explosive temper that had also come around was held in check by the ability he developed of letting things slide off his back. Unfortunately, in the time it took for that to happen, almost any good relation he'd had with Cid was fractured, and Aerith and Yuffie came very close to that same fate as well. He and Cid could still agree on most things, but Leon's aloofness was something the older man could never get completely used to and would always get under his skin. None of them could get him to open up any more, but Aerith was privately glad for the minor triumph that he would talk to them without yelling.
Aerith discovered the small library in the second district and started spending much of her time in there, reading and learning. When she found the books on magic, she literally jumped for joy and squealed, leading the librarian to toss her out for the day. But she was back again and started swallowing book after book on the ancient art. Unfortunately, there was no one in Traverse to teach her how to harness and use her own power; whatever aptitude for magic there had been had been bred out of the inhabitants long ago. Not even with Cid's help could she find anyone, and so all she could do was continue her study of the books. She concentrated first on the offensive spells, and though each took her a long time to master and many headaches or scorched walls, she continued doggedly. When she finally got to the healing spells, she simply sat down and went to work, feeling them come more easily than anything she had ever tried. Along with magic, she also found books on cooking, correctly determining that if Cid was feeding everyone all the time they were going to die of food poisoning in short order. She quickly took over that duty in their house, as well as much of the cleaning and shopping as Cid spent much of his free time working on the redesigned, renamed Highwind. The town was safe for her and even Yuffie to wander in their shopping excursions, and eventually the townspeople and shopkeepers came to greet them with a smile, by name.
And Yuffie, well… Yuffie tried to be everywhere at once.
AUTHOR'S NOTES II: I know someone's gonna go "You forgot about Cloud!" Someone did, last chapter, and it's true he's not mentioned. Check out my LJ (remember that thing?) for my reasons for not mentioning him here, and trust that he's gonna pop back up in thought very soon. Also on the LJ are notes about the town and why I decided to have it be so much more run down than in the game itself, and responses to some reviews that just made me want to respond.
Other than that, once again my biggest apologies for the delay in posting this! I honestly didn't mean for it to be this long, but performances and finals happened and... well, life. Including a very, very, VERY boring job that sucked all my energy out of me. Blech. I was a customer service representative - you know, the people who answer the phones at those 1-800 numbers? Yeah, that was me. Never, ever doing that again. The people were fantastic, the job was horrible. At least it's over.