Warrior, I Am

Chapter 8: Drown in Ignorance

Disclaimer: Mrh-herr

0-0

"Squall!"

The man cried in abundant happiness as he threw his arms around his son. Laguna shifted his body from side to side as if he was twirling around a rag doll. His son, in turn, looked pale.

"It's Leon." The commander said with a slight trace of venom. And then, if he had suddenly remembered his manners, Squall added a curt, "Father."

Laguna sighed and gave his son a hefty slap on the back. Squall took it with narrowed eyes but did not say anything. "Yes, yes. Leon. You know that people are going to say your first and last name are nearly identical."

"Yes," Squall said tiredly. "But no one knows my first name, so that's not a problem."

Laguna laughed. "But Vinnie knows it, eh, eh?" He elbowed the tall, silent man, whose expression was unreadable. His mouth was blocked out and his red eyes were hard to see behind his bangs. Squall knew him well enough though to know that calling him "Vinnie" wasn't a way to get on his good side.

"Well, I see you've been keeping the camp quite tidy," Laguna started once he had released his son. He glanced back at Squall and Vincent, who were standing there mutely and not giving any sort of response. "You know, you two could have a mime act-you're so quiet. You make this place look like a morgue-"

"The training schedule is on the desk," Squall said icily. "They have twenty minutes to get ready in the morning, thirty minutes for lunch, and-do not touch my lamp, Laguna-forty minutes to eat and wash."

Laguna, who had been standing over one of Squall's desk lamps and tugging curiously at the ruffles, put his hand over his mouth in shock.

"Twenty minutes?" Laguna quipped, seeming appalled. "That gives them enough time to slip into their underwear! I'm surprised they haven't all dropped dead by now. Vincent," he nodded to the silent man. "Go tell Auron to give them all an hour."

"An hour-"

"And you!" Laguna smiled at his son and gave him a pat on the head. Squall spent no time in pushing his hand away and fixing him with a glare. "Get changed, Leon. I am going to adjust things a bit and you're part of it."

Squall sneered.

"I'm sure I am."

0-0

There were always things in life that were a given. Dying, for one thing. Having parents, for another. Those were things you couldn't change no matter how hard you tried or fought against it. People said immortality existed and that orphans technically had no parents, but those were either untrue or too practical.

It was a given that Yuffie Kisaragi was not very good at many things. She was lazy, for one thing. She never practiced her martial arts so therefore failed miserably at it. She did not particularly excel at anything extraordinary, like singing, chess playing, or even doing laundry. She was spoiled at home and did nothing important-except for the occasional cat rescuing from the trees.

All in all, Yuffie wasn't much (looks and otherwise).

Aside from all that though…it was widely known that the young Kisaragi daughter did poorly under certain conditions. She became a hellion during that "time of the month" and she was very, very hard to work with when she got less than eight hours of sleep. (It went against her Laziness Code). Plus-referring to the last thought-she also had a tendency to have an uncontrollable mouth when she was tired.

Being tired equated to being drunk for Yuffie Kisaragi. Get her down and tired on any given day and the field is wide open, honey. She unquestionably took Truth or Dare to the next level.

So when Yuffie woke up on the morning of the twenty-first of October, feeling like she had been blindsided by a truck, she was pretty sure she knew what had happened.

"Oh…my head…like a fried egg…"

And it did feel like somebody had gone inside her brain and scrambled everything up horribly. She felt like somebody who had too much to drink and couldn't quite remember the events of the night before.

Yuffie groggily felt for her clothes, her hand wrapping instantly around her drab white shirt. She held it in front of her, nearly falling face forward in the process. What had happened last night? Why did she feel so tired?

And then the stench.

No. The smell.

The smell of soap.

"Soap..?" Yuffie pulled her shirt closer, sniffing it experimentally. Sure enough, her nose hadn't been deceiving her. The article no longer smelled like rotten mushrooms. Apparently it had been cleaned and scrubbed (but it was still a little damp). All of the dirt stains were gone and it looked relatively new.

Yuffie frowned, the gears in her head finally cranking into action. To help move along her thought processes, the young girl began sniffing herself. Her armpits, her hair, and other unmentionable places that go far beyond this story's rating. It was by doing this that Yuffie quickly figured out that she, too, was as spotless and dirt free as her shirt.

But how?

Yuffie smacked the palm of her hand against her forehead. "Dumb me…" Of course she knew how she had gotten clean. That was like asking where babies came from. The right question to ask was how-and in her situation, when.

Not to mention, with who.

Yuffie sighed, realizing that before she answered all the cleaning questions she'd first have to put on some clothes. Discarding the damp shirt, Yuffie fished out an extra bra (black in color, because for some reason her white one was missing) and another shirt. It wasn't the standard white that she was issued, but every one else was breaking the dress code so she figured she was pretty safe. Her other white shirt was damp anyways.

"Ok now…what the hell…where's my pants?"

Her pants were missing. Both of them.

"Fer gawd's sakes," Yuffie muttered, wrapping her blanket securely around her waist. "There's a pants bandit roaming these lands…"

Yuffie crawled haphazardly out of her tent, donned in a baggy black shirt and a large blanket that trailed behind her like a majestic dress. She made a crooked u-turn toward her partner's tent, picking up rocks and dirt in her blanket as she did so.

She really didn't have much of a plan beyond asking for an extra pair of pants. Cloud was tall, but he wasn't unnaturally obese, so Yuffie was sure that his pants would be decent enough. She didn't consider how he would think about her barging into his tent and stealing his pants. He usually was asleep at this time so she figured she wasn't invading his privacy at all.

When she pushed the tent flap open, on her knees and still a little disoriented, she was met was a blank stare. A blank, deep-bags-under-eyes stare.

"C-Cloud? You're awake?"

But Yuffie didn't wait for an answer. She couldn't because her mind was instantly filled with something else.

She glanced around Cloud's tent, at his blanket, at his bags, and especially at his tent floor. Her mouth hung so far down that she was sure somebody could use her orifice as a basketball hoop.

Her pants. Her clean, black training pants were in Cloud's tent, sitting on one of his bags. It was spread out neatly for drying and looked a lot cleaner than it used to be. She also noted that her other pair was on the opposite side of the tent, strewn out in the same fashion.

That wasn't even the worst of it. (Finding out that Cloud was the Pants Bandit didn't even take the cake). The worst of it was lying in his blanket, barely noticeable because it looked as if it had been tossed around during the night. It lay inconspicuously in the folds of his blanket, half of it barely peeking out. A normal man would pass by it and barely register what it was.

But Yuffie was a woman, and she certainly knew what the hell it was.

Her bra was sitting in Cloud's blanket. Sitting there as if it fucking lived there.

Cloud's eyes followed hers. Locked onto the bra. Looked back at her. "Oh shit," he said. He fell back into his pillow, draping his arm over his eyes. "Oh fucking shit…"

Yuffie's mouth worked open and closed for a full two minutes. Then her senses came to her and she scrambled out of the tent, utterly terrified. That's what she was, wasn't she? Terrified, unsure. Completely and downright confused.

"Oh gawd," she whispered, her hands over her eyes, back in her own tent. "Oh gawd, oh gawd, oh gawd…" Her face went deeper into her hands and she flung her blanket over her form, huddling safely underneath it.

'What did we do? Why is my BRA sitting in his tent? And my pants? And-ohmigod!-do I still have-ack! Do I still have my cherry? Am I a prostitute now? WhatamIgoingtodo? What-'

Yuffie's thoughts ran five miles a minute. Underneath the darkness of her blanket she was frantically pulling at her hair and in near tears. was all coming back to her now. How they had fought all day. That weird boy named Ebon. The time at the lake. The boob-fondling.

The secret-telling.

Cloud knew. Cloud Strife knew of her secret. An outsider. A somebody who now held her fate in his big, handsome hands. A man who could, with one whisper to the ear, cause her to be killed on the spot.

Why had she been so careless and dumb?

And why the HELL was her bra sleeping with Cloud?

"Yu?"

Ack! Poo! Shit! Poo Smoothie!

"Go away!" Yuffie moaned, clutching her pillow to her chest. She was driving herself into such a frenzy that she was sure her heart was going to explode. At that very moment her chest felt like it was trying to contain a hot air balloon.

"Yu," Cloud tried again, sounding tired and even a little desperate. "We need to talk." She heard him inhale deeply as he added, "Please. I haven't slept all night."

"Am I still a virgin?" Yuffie cried out hysterically. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?"

"Shh!" She heard her tent flap open and she curled instinctively into the tightest ball she could manage. "I didn't do anything to you." She felt his body warmth close to her, and his voice sounded even closer. Slowly a hand was placed on her pillow, directly on her butt.

"Ahh!" Yuffie shot out from under her blanket. She glared at him. "Keep your hands off of my butt! You perv-"

"I'm sorry," he interrupted with his hands in the air. "You were under…and I couldn't see…"

Yuffie gasped and pointed an accusatory finger at him. "You touched my breast!"

Cloud's expression became morbid. "I know…"

"And you…you know!"

"I know…"

She glared at him. "Is that all you can say?" Cloud just sent her an empty look. He really did look like he hadn't slept all night. Yuffie shook her finger at him. "If you tell-if you tell-!"

"I won't."

"But if you do-!" She gave him her most wretched look. "I will haunt you. I will emasculate you. I will put your lawn gnomes into dirty, socially horrific positions."

Cloud exhaled softly. "Anything but that."

The blonde man didn't speak for a while. Even as he attempted to keep up airs with her, he was slowly tilting off to sleep. His eyes would close for two seconds at a time and then blearily blink open. Also-and Yuffie wasn't sure he was aware of this-but he was leaning so far to the left that he looked ready to fall over.

'Maybe I should end this before he starts snoozing…'

Yuffie's finger, little by little, fell down, down, down. She laid it down with a defeated sigh, looking off to the side. "You know…"

"I know."

Cloud had slurred his words a little, a sign that he was nearly into Sleepsville. As she watched him waver from side to side, completely unaware that he looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, Yuffie began to feel depressed-resentful, even. She was trying to comprehend what could be a life-altering situation for her and here he was, trying to catch up on some snooze time. Yuffie would be lying if she said she wasn't jealous of Cloud's blasé attitude toward it all. It was as if he was saying, "Been there, done that."

In some ways she hated him for not caring more.

She slowly looked up at him. They were both sitting in the cramped space of her tent, in what people would probably say was an intimate position. Yuffie sat with her legs folded beneath her, and Cloud leaned toward her, his legs going off to the side, barely missing hers.

"Yu," Cloud tried, reaching toward her. He had miraculously (but temporarily) shaken himself out of his sleepy stupor. He pressed his thumb against her cheek, and she wondered why his thumb felt wet. "I won't-don't cry, Yu-I won't say anything. I promise."

Yuffie's mouth was parted slightly and her chest was heaving. She hadn't even realized she was crying. Now that Cloud pointed it out to her she felt like an idiot. Her hand came up to cover her face, and Cloud quickly removed his hand. She pulled her knees up to her chest and cried quietly. Her shoulders shook like minute earthquakes.

Cloud watched her with a pained expression. He was inexperienced at comforting people and this situation felt like it was way over his head. What was he supposed to do? Hold her? He was sure that intimate contact was the last thing she wanted. He wasn't exactly a pro at words either.

"Yu, please…just stop…"

"H-how long?"

Yuffie was trying her best to stutter out words. She managed to get out 'how', but 'long' ended up sounding like a howl.

"What?"

"When d-did yoo-" Yuffie lost herself to sobbing. Cloud got the point.

"Your voice," Cloud began. "You sounded like-" he stopped and watched her cry for a moment. Maybe insulting her wasn't the best thing at the moment. "You just didn't sound like a real guy."

"T-that's it?"

"There's other things…" He inched a little closer. Yuffie didn't begin to break out hysterically, so he figured she was ok with it. "Like how you look. You're…" Yuffie's head crept up until she was staring at him through puffy red eyes. She looked heartbroken.

Cloud's warm hand came over her hand, even though the action was a little hesitant and awkward on his part. The heat seared all the way down to her toes. "You're…" He bit his lip. "Ver prity."

"P-pretty?"

He nodded. It was the first time she didn't give him a vacant stare and have to ask, "Huh?"

She frowned. "I'm a bad actor, aren't I?"

"Only a little."

Yuffie found her pillow and wedged it between her chest and her knees. "Doesn't it bother you? That I'm a girl?"

Cloud ran this hands through his long blonde locks. "It does." He sunk back into thought and Yuffie had to nod her head and wave her arm expectantly in the air to bring him back. "When I finally figured it out, I wasn't really sure what to do. I don't even know what to do now. I felt like if I pretended it wasn't there I wouldn't have to do anything. That I wouldn't have to…protect you."

"I can defend myself," Yuffie sniffed.

"Adequately?"

Yuffie bit her lip. "Good point."

Cloud continued undeterred. "Even though we have this…agreement now, I can't protect you completely, Yu." He regarded her seriously. "My abilities are limited, and if anything…major happened, I won't be able to do much."

He couldn't bring himself to say 'execution'. That if Yuffie was forced to the ground under a blade that he wouldn't know how much he'd be able to do to save her. He wasn't a superhero. He wasn't any where near capable of fending off a whole army.

"I don't really need to be protected," Yuffie insisted, clutching her pillow tighter. "Just teach me how to talk better. And act better. And how to walk. It'll be ok then." She bit her lip. "I think."

They were silent then. Yuffie chewed savagely on her bottom lip and Cloud endlessly ran his hand through his hair. They both avoided each other's eyes now. The comfortable atmosphere that she had known for the past few days was gone. They weren't male and male partners anymore. They were a man and a woman sitting in a tent with no supervision. Yuffie felt like her parents were going to barge in on her on any moment. Or more likely, her commander.

Yuffie screeched. "Oh fuzz!" She looked at Cloud with saucer eyes. "What time is it?"

"Huh?"

"Snap out of it! And wake up!" She threw her blanket off her body, scrambling around in her baggy shirt and her green underwear. Cloud, despite all of his noblest attempts, couldn't help but draw his eyes toward said article.

"Cloud, we're going to be late!" She looked over her shoulder quickly, noticing how his eyes weren't quite on her face. "Cloud!" She hollered, wanting to slap him a good one. "Go get my b-" She stuttered. Was he looking at…? "CLOUD! You pervert! I'll get it myself! Gawd!"

Yuffie crawled out of her tent on her knees, again wrapped in her blanket. The air was cold and all of her hairs seemed to stand on end. Even her blanket couldn't sustain her for much longer.

"Should've asked why my pants were there," she muttered, just as she hobbled over two large lumps in the ground. Very lumpy, indeed. The "lumps" happened to be covered in study leather boots.

Yuffie stopped, her feet perching comfortably on said lumps. She let her brown eyes wander from the shoes up to the long red coat. A large belt held what appeared to be an even large bottle of…alcohol? One arm hung in a sling and sat above the bottle listlessly. (Yuffie wondered if it really was useless.) Above that there was a sturdy man whose mouth she couldn't see. Even though it wasn't Vincent, she was having a hard time believing this wasn't his twin. The man seemed to be frowning at her, because his eyes were crinkled behind his small, round sunglasses.

"Having fun?"

"A plethora of it," Yuffie said quite smartly. She always had a problem with respect. Being in the military didn't seem to deter that.

The man arched his brow at her. It was then that she noticed the man only possessed one eye. The other was sealed shut by a large scar running down his face. He also had graying hair, she noted. Was he as old as her father?

"Wonderful," he said flatly. "Training starts in half an hour."

"Half an hour?"

"Yes; the other half you have spent on your 'plethora' of fun."

"I have, haven't I?" She continued to crawl into Cloud's tent. The man didn't kick her or yell at her so she assumed he was used to dealing with kids like her. She heard him wander away to tell the rest of the men about the schedule change. She would have to remember to avoid him in the future-just like Vincent the Night Wanderer.

He could be the One-Armed, One-Eyed Alcohol Man.

"OAOEAM," Yuffie muttered to herself as she slipped on her bra and pants inside of Cloud's tent. He hadn't come by to ogle at her so her next guess was that he had fallen asleep. It didn't bother her as much now though because she had a thirty whole minutes to shake him awake. She was pretty positive I wouldn't be this hard this time around.

"Why do we have a whole hour anyways?"

0-0

"YOU WILL MARRY A WOMAN!"

"Ah. So I see you got my message."

Squall closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. 'Any time, painkillers. You can kick in at any time..' "Yes, I did."

Squall's elder sat himself comfortably at Squall's former desk. Laguna would be occupying its space now. Squall was to move out to a smaller tent, but not minute size that Yuffie and company had to fit into. Because he was of higher rank he still received a decent sized tent.

Laguna had already made himself at home. The papers, which Squall habitually skewed around the room, were all set into neat piles with their own dividers and paperweights. There were many more lamps to brighten the room and a comely picture of his favorite Songstress Yuna to rest on his table. A little charm guarding against demons was hung at the tent's peak and hung down exasperatingly between Squall's eyes.

"What are you up to?"

Laguna blinked a lot when he lied. At that very moment his eyes were opening and closing as fast as automatic shutters. "Can't I just wish for the best of my son?"

"You can wish," Squall said monotonously. "That's all it will ever be."

The older man took a spin around in his swivel chair (which he had hauled out just so he could sit in it and twirl around for Squall's annoyance) and avoided answering. The face of Yuna the singer spun by him nine, ten, eleven times.

"Will you stop that."

Laguna brought him chair to a jolting stop. His eyes swam a little but Squall looked sicklier than he did. His son appeared to be on the limits of barfing. He smiled secretly. He was the only one, aside from Squall's mother, that knew that Squall could not take a lot of motion of any kind. As a child, he couldn't even go on the Ferris wheel without yawning in Technicolor. Even watching his father spin had sent him into a tizzy. He had been enslaved to go onto a roller coaster once, and it didn't have the happiest ending.

"So." Laguna watched him carefully. Squall was now dizzy and unable to properly shoot comebacks at his father. Cruel, he admitted, but it always worked in deterring his stubborn son-which was why every chair in the house conveniently swiveled. "I have some plans for you."

"Of course you do." Squall's brain felt like a ping-pong ball. Oh, how he hated his father for preying on his weakness. He was just lucky that the old badger was kind enough to not spew his secret to everyone. He had a feeling that he'd have plenty less respect if his soldiers knew he couldn't go on a roller coaster without going comatose.

"As my lovely note has stated, you are required-my boy, if you need to throw up I have an airline bag for you-" He shook a tiny white and blue-tinted bag at Squall. Squall just shook his hand and tried to calm his screaming headache. "As I was saying, you are required to marry. You have to."

"Why the hell-" Squall stopped and put a hand briefly over his mouth, unable to complete the sentence. Laguna wanted to chuckle but found that often angered his son badly, which only ended up with him throwing up all the faster.

"It's required because you need to carry on the Leonhart line. This isn't just about continued existence for us, Squall."

"Leon."

"There's other things that play into it too. Government, for example. They trust our family. To help maintain order and to give them a suitable military heir you need to-"

"Screw some girl's brains out," Squall said flatly, his hand still perched precariously beneath his chin in case his bile started to rise. His father sighed and shook his head. Squall always had a knack for saying the most blunt, terrible things.

"That's not it, Leon. We're the upper class, don't you get it? We marry to show that we're still powerful. We marry because it means that we are capable of surviving for thousands of years."

"Even if the marriage is loveless? Is it still powerful then? Does it count even through a divorce?"

Laguna threw himself in a circle one more time. When he came back around Squall looked ready to murder him. "Well, I'm hoping that it won't come to a divorce."

"It will."

"Just listen." His son was giving him little leeway. Laguna fiddled idly with a cube paperweight. Blue and green oil lolled back and forth on the inside of it. "I'm giving you a choice. You can choose any woman that suits you. I will not object, even if she is a prostitute or has a disgusting harelip. Whoever you want, go for it."

"What's the catch?"

"You have a month."

Squall nearly lost his stomach. "One fucking month?"

"If you choose the right woman, she could be courted in a day."

"I'm not going to marry a whore!" Squall snarled. He turned around, his hair whipping around his face like an angry snake. "This is ridiculous. I'm not listening to this." He stormed out of the tent, his father hot on his heels.

"If you don't comply, I'll choose for you!" Squall picked up speed. Laguna stopped dogging Squall's heels and crossed his arms over his chest. "If I were you I'd choose the less of two evils!" He yelled to the retreating back of his son. His stubborn, hardheaded ass of a son.

0-0

Yuffie had gone to get Cloud some breakfast because apparently he was sleeping like a statue. She knew that she would have to wake him eventually, but with bags under his eyes that rivaled the size of hiking gear, she didn't have the heart to do it. He was still in her tent; lying in what looked to be a very uncomfortable position, probably face down in all of her womanly apparel. If he woke up with his mouth on her panties then hey, that was all his fault.

The young girl filed in line for the meal, running her hand idly through her brown tresses. She had forgotten to put it up and now played with it listlessly. She would've been worried about it if she hadn't seen people like Vincent and Riku prancing around with mermaid hair. Even at that moment she regretted ever cutting all of it off.

The line moved faster than usual. The cooks were grumpy today, something that didn't bode well for Yuffie. It was another standard that cooks never liked Yuffie Kisaragi. Well, Yuffie Kisaragi didn't appreciate cooks all that much either. A disturbing behind-the-counter documentary could be credited for that. For giving the cooks dirty looks, Yuffie was rewarded with what always seemed to be the nastiest of their generic foods.

"Made 'specially for yous," the first man said, shoving a plate of nearly green eggs into. Heh, green eggs. The most astonishing part of this was that it was actual food. Not processed fruits in a can; actual, edible food.

The rest of her food was given to her in a similar manner. A nice "here, bitch" and impact with her plate sent the rest of her food doing flips in the air. By the time she got back to Cloud, almost covered in orange juice and bacon, she was completely flabbergasted.

"Cloud!" She sung, crawling into her tent. "Strife, wake up! They cooked." He had shifted while she was gone and was lying on his stomach in his usual position. She placed her food on the small of his back and began nibbling at it. "Can't say it tastes that fantastic though…"

Cloud woke up after Yuffie spaced out and accidentally sent her fork into his spine. After that they had to eat the eggs from her blanket because he had sent the plate flying and the eggs were cannoned everywhere. There exchanged meaningless chatter, like, "What's this?" and "I think it's a sausage," "Can I have the juice?", and such.

Yuffie didn't mean to get so nostalgic, but eating with Cloud like this almost made it feel like she was back at home. She thought back to when she would eat breakfast in the comfort of her muggy room because her parents were fighting. She thought of how she'd sit in the treetops with little boys and play with action figures together.

"Cloud?"

"Hm?"

"What's your family like?"

Cloud stopped picking eggs from her blanket. His hand stilled and he looked away. Blonde bangs covered his eyes. "They're…fine."

"What're they-"

"They're fine."

Yuffie didn't press any more. She knew him well enough to know when he was saying a white lie. Was he doing it because it would mess up the atmosphere they were creating? Or did he really not want to talk about his past?

After they nibbled her blanket clean (nearly literally), they made their way down to High Noon, Yuffie's all-time favorite hang out. There was something about the big ugly toothpick that seemed to brighten her day up by a thousand watts.

They squeezed themselves into the hubbub of the crowd, surrounded by hair and smell everywhere. Cloud somehow found his way in front of her and she clung inconspicuously to the back of his shirt as he led her along quietly. She feared that if she let him go for a second she'd be suffocated by a gang of burly, strange men.

"Why do we always have to go up front?" Yuffie asked as Cloud led her.

"Because you're short."

It was nice how Cloud could make a trivial thing sound so insulting. "Thanks…" she muttered, not positive that she meant that at all. She supposed that he was trying to be considerate on some level, but did he have to say it so brusquely?

A new man stood at the forefront now. He was rather handsome, if not a little silly looking. His hair was styled much like Squall's, but longer. He was wearing thick brown pants, black boots, and a furry tan parka. He held a large stack of papers in his hands and was looking through them, appearing very preoccupied. Aside from the Adam's Family (Auron and Vincent), there were also other new males that she didn't recognize. Some looked friendlier than others, to say the most.

"Hello, everyone." The man waved at the crowd. A slim man to his left handed him a megaphone. "I am your new commanding officer, Laguna. I will be taking over my son's position."

Yuffie tilted her head to speak to Cloud. "Is he really Leonhart's daddy? He's really nice."

Cloud's eyes were narrowed at something in the distance. "Yeah. Hard for me to believe too."

"I've noticed that there is a perceptible lack of unity among the soldiers," Laguna continued. "To me, this deters this army as a whole. You cannot fight together if you do not wholly trust each other. To compensate for that, I will be rearranging the partners a little."

"Rearranging?" Yuffie's Nervous Meter rose to a definite ten. She couldn't switch partners! Not after all she had gone through just to get Cloud to keep her secret. She didn't she could handle being separated from him and thrown into the arms of some other strange man. "Cloud, I don't want to be rearranged."

He looked down at her and smiled minutely, but something was troubling his eyes. Somehow she wanted more than that, but knew that there was no way he could grant her that wish. She hated herself for hating him for not doing more. In their situation, a smile was all he could do.

"It will be fine."

Laguna's voice boomed over them all. "You will no longer be with a single partner, but in a team of three. The three of you will become brothers; you will become each other's conscience. By the end of this week, there will not be one shrapnel of information that you do not know about either of them. I want all of you to be so close that you can identify each other's toes in a sea of a million toes."

Somewhere behind Laguna, Yuffie was able to pick out Squall. He was rolling his eyes. He also looked like he'd just been on a roller coaster one too many times. Yuffie knew that was impossible; albeit, she still wondered why he looked so pale.

"You have one day to say goodbye to your old partner. If you were great friends, pray that you have each other again. If you hated each other's guts, then plead that you don't get stuck within a hundred mile radius of them."

"A hundred miles?" Yuffie covered her mouth. "You think they'll actually separate us that far?" Yuffie didn't even know what a hundred miles looked like, but she was positive that it was a very long way off. One hundred miles was absolutely not a walking distance.

"No; a hundred miles and you'd be floating in the middle of the ocean," Cloud soothed her.

"Tomorrow morning you will come back and be assigned your teammates. That is all. You have the rest of the day to do as you please." Laguna switched off his megaphone and did a short salute. Then he disappeared behind a row of tents with the new bunch of men.

"Cloud?" Yuffie tugged at the sleeve of his shirt.

He looked down at his tiny partner. Her eyes were lost in a sea of a million different emotions. He sighed and let his hand fall on her shoulder. To any bystander it would look like a friendly gesture, but both of them knew it was meant to comfort. He quietly pulled her away and she let herself be taken to wherever he wanted. She knew that somehow she would always be the dominated one, but at that moment it didn't seem to matter much.

"Cloud?"

"Yes Yu?"

"I don't want to be apart from you."

Cloud swallowed and closed his eyes. What to do? Tell her that he wished the same? Or lie to her? Lying to her would be more beneficial to her, he knew. He had to teach her how to swim. He knew, deep down, that there was no way they'd be lucky enough to be together again. He knew that she was going to be on thin ice with two new men and she'd definitely be terrified. He knew that rejection was the only way to make her stronger.

The only problem was that he was the weak one. He couldn't turn her away, no matter how much he knew he should.

So he let her drown. Drown her in sweet, sweet ignorance.

"Me neither, Yu. Me neither."

0-0

A/N: Yes; I think that's a good place to end it. Next chapter, Yuffie and Cloud have some sharing time before they are separated. Also, Squall's search for a lady begins!