FIVE

"So, which way?" I asked.

Barret and I stood with Wedge, Lena, and Marissa a short distance down the trail where it split in two. On our earlier trips, we had always taken the longer route. But with time being of the essence, I felt we had to risk going through the collapsed expressway. Cloud had left not too long ago, speeding away with Jessie on the Gust down this same road. I was sure he had taken the long way—the bike couldn't make it through the underground ruins he and Aerith had traveled through earlier. But we could. And I was more than ready.

Barret scratched his chin. "That highway you told me 'bout seems like the best bet, Tif. Could save us some time."

"My thoughts exactly," I agreed.

"Awright, people," he announced, looking at all of us. "Check your gear. We gonna take the short path back to Sector 5. Ain't as safe as the long way, but we need to get back soon as we can. So stay close an' keep your eyes peeled. Understand?"

After the rest of us had all acknowledged him, we got moving. I fell into step next to Marissa while Wedge and Lena followed behind us as Barret took the lead. The entrance to the collapsed expressway was just ahead of us, and from what Cloud had told me, the place was home to all kinds of monsters and thugs. He and Aerith had encountered a few, and I was sure that we would as well.

I glanced at Marissa as we walked. "Can you fight?"

"No, sorry," she shook her head. "I'm a computer tech and a medic. I'm afraid I don't know much about that sort of thing. I've lived on the plate all my life. Guess I'm a bit sheltered, huh?"

I smiled. "No, Marissa, you're not. You just didn't know. And when it really mattered, you still came here to help."

Marissa smiled back. "That's kind of you to say, Tifa. Jessie's a very dear friend. She's been there for me more than once over the years, and I just wanted to do the same for her."

"Same here. And I'm sure she'll be glad to see you when she wakes up. In the meantime, try to stay close to me if you can. I'll look out for you. Sound like a plan?"

"Yes, thank you," she nodded as we entered the highway. "I've been in dangerous situations before, just… nothing like this. I don't want to be a liability to you guys."

I patted her arm. "You won't. What sort of danger?"

"Well, you know Jessie's really Heidegger's daughter," Marissa said. "What you heard on the platform was true."

I did, and while I was still surprised at the revelation, it didn't for a moment change how I felt about her. Jessie was still my friend. During our journey back to Sector 7, Cloud, Barret, and I had told Marissa and the others everything that had happened on the platform, from battles with the Turks and Jessie disabling the console to the revelations Tseng and Heidegger had sprung on us. We had also talked about how Aerith had been captured and how Shinra's hidden backup system had set off the detonator in spite of Jessie's attempts to stop it.

We had finished our story with how Heidegger's trap had so badly hurt Jessie before the falling debris from the plate had ripped her away from us before our escape on the zip line. But now, even as wounded as she was, Jessie was back with us. Where she belonged. And I was going to make sure it stayed that way.

"No wonder she kept quiet about her past," I replied.

Marissa didn't argue. "Yeah, she's always been like that. She worries about endangering her friends because of it. Anyway, back when Jessie was still acting, she looked a lot different. More like I do now. There's a good reason for that, you see."

I thought I understood. "You've been pretending to be her, haven't you? Ever since she left."

"Yeah. Heidegger's men aren't the brightest bunch, and as long as I never got too close, it was easy enough to fool them into thinking I was Jessie. And I've kept them guessing and chasing after me from one end of the plate to the other for the past two years."

"Which prevented them from looking for her in the slums," I said, smiling. "You're braver than you think. Jessie's been our friend for most of that time, and I can tell you we're grateful for all you've done for her. I know it couldn't have been easy."

Marissa sighed. "No, it hasn't. But I had help, too. Kunsel was there with me a lot of the time. He and Jessie… they were involved once, you see. They were gonna get married, but then…"

I blinked. "Really? Oh, that's right. I remember now, it was all over the news back then. Jessie Jae's engagement. She was so heartbroken at the time I first met her—that probably wasn't long after she came down to the slums. She told me a little about it, but never who her man was. I only knew that she'd had to leave him."

"Is she… still in love with him?" Marissa wondered.

At first, I didn't know why it mattered to her. But after a moment's thought, I understood. "No. It took her a long time, but she eventually let him go. I think it's been about six months now since she told me she had finally put it behind her, that she had to keep moving forward. She felt he would have wanted her to do that."

Marissa nodded. "He would. As much as he loved Jessie, he'd want her to be happy. Not clinging endlessly to the faint hope that she might be with him again someday. Still, what you said, Tifa… it surprised me. I wasn't expecting to actually hear it."

"You like him, don't you?" I said. It wasn't a question.

"Yeah… I really do," she blushed.

I smiled. "Does he know?"

She shook her head. "No. I haven't wanted to say anything about it in case he's still interested in her. I've been too scared to ask him. And I don't know which answer I'd want if I did."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If he is, then I can't tell him how I feel," she replied. "But if he isn't, it leaves me with a tough choice. Even knowing Jessie's moved on, I still don't want to share my feelings with Kunsel without talking to her first. He was very special to her, you know."

I did. "I think I understand. She was in a similar situation with me not too long ago. You see, Cloud and I have known each other since we were kids, and I always liked him. But when he and Jessie met a couple months ago, she totally fell for him."

"Oh, Jessie and Cloud are…?" Marissa giggled.

"Yep!" I answered. "Jessie came to me first before she actually tried to move things along, although she'd been flirting with him relentlessly ever since they met. It was pretty cute, actually."

She laughed. "I'm not surprised. Kunsel's a SOLDIER, too."

"Anyway, I gave Jessie the green light and encouraged her to go for it and be with Cloud. And I'm sure once you talk with her, she'll do the same for you and Kunsel. Don't you think?"

"I guess we'll find out," Marissa chuckled.

Suddenly, Barret lifted his hand, motioning for us to stop. We were about a third of the way down the highway, near the first of what were probably several sunken sections of the ruined road. I immediately felt the stillness in the air and brought up my fists, eying the shadows. The drop to the bottom of the ravine was at least thirty feet, and I kept well away from the edge. So did the others.

"Careful, guys," Barret said. "Company's comin'."

Wedge hefted his rifle and listened. "Sounds like eaters…"

"Could be," I agreed.

It was. They suddenly swarmed into view from behind mounds of rubble laying on either side of the ruined expressway. There were over two dozen of them scuttling toward us, their round maws gaping wide. Barret and Wedge opened fire a moment later, tearing into the bugs as Lena and I sprang into action, fists and feet flying. Marissa froze in the midst of it all, her eyes wide.

I backhanded an eater that got too close to her, knocking it away in a single swift punch before sending another one flying with a spinning roundhouse kick. Barret shot eaters apart one after another while Lena pummeled two more and Wedge scorched a swarm of them with a shot of his flamethrower. They squealed and screeched but kept on coming, another wave following the first.

"Gotta be a nest around here!" Wedge yelled.

Barret grunted. "An' we walked right the hell into it. Knew it wasn't gonna be an easy trip back."

I crushed another eater. "Can you take it out?"

"Shit! Who ya think you're talkin' to, girl?" he grinned.

"Right…" I rolled my eyes and laughed.

Wedge shot down another eater, took a few grenades from his belt, and tossed them over to Lena. "Here! Go with Barret, I'll stay with Tifa and Marissa and keep these guys busy."

Lena caught them easily. "I'm on it! Be careful!"

Then she sprinted after Barret, racing with him toward the nearest pile of rubble and disappearing out of sight behind it while Wedge and I fought the eaters out here. Marissa tried to stay close like I'd told her, but the bugs quickly swept in between us, cutting her off from me. She shrieked as two of them closed in on her.

With a growl, I knocked aside the eaters in my way, then jumped. I came down hard, slamming my feet into one of the bugs assaulting her. The diving kicks crushed its back as I grabbed the other one, leaped up again, and drove it headfirst into the concrete. But by then, a third bug was already springing at her, its whiplike tail slashing across her arm as she frantically stumbled away from it.

Just then, I heard gunfire from behind the rubble. Barret and Lena had found the nest. Wedge was spraying eaters with wide sweeps of fire as I fought to reach Marissa. More eaters sprang at me, but as soon as I beat them down and knocked them away, others took their place. And then Lena came running back out a moment later, Barret right behind her with his gun-arm blasting bugs left and right.

"Hit the deck!" Lena yelled.

She, Barret, and Wedge all dove to the ground, but I sprang toward Marissa, who was still beset by that eater. She had her arms up in front of her, trying to ward off its blows, and hadn't heard Lena's warning. As I punched another bug away, there was suddenly an eruption of sound and thunder as the grenades exploded behind the rubble.

The blast shook the whole area as flames shot up to the ceiling and onto the road. It incinerated the nearest cluster of eaters, and the force of it threw me to the ground. Both Marissa and the eater attacking her were hurled backward to the road's edge. I looked up just in time to see them tumbling helplessly over it.

I sprang to my feet in an instant. "Marissa!"

As the dust settled, I ran over to the edge, my heart pounding. She was hanging precariously over the drop, barely holding onto the jagged concrete with one hand. The eater hadn't been so lucky, and it lay dead in a broken mess at the bottom of the ravine.

"Gimme your hand!" I told her.

Marissa did as I told her, reaching up with her other hand. I took it in both of mine and pulled her safely back onto the road as Barret and the others cleared out the few eaters that were left before hurrying over to join us. Marissa and I just sat there together for a moment, catching our breath. Aside from the scratches on her arms, she seemed more or less alright. Still, it had been a close call.

"You okay?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. You saved my life, Tifa. Thank you."

I smiled as I wrapped my arm around her. "I promised I'd look out for you, remember? Besides, you know Jessie would kill me if I ever let anything happen to one of her best friends."

"Oh, I know she would!" Marissa grinned.

We laughed, sitting there on the broken asphalt, and it felt good to do it. That even with all that had happened with Sector 7's collapse and so much pain and loss, we could still go on. We had to, for ourselves as well as for Jessie, Aerith, and everyone else.

After we got back to our feet, Marissa and I set about tending to all the minor injuries everyone had gotten, herself included. Between her first aid kit, potions, and my materia, we got us all patched up in only a few minutes. After returning her things to her backpack and slipping it on, Marissa rubbed her arm for a moment where her cuts were already healing. Then she sighed and looked at us.

"Where I come from, people think they have it rough if they're late for a meeting or their coffee's cold," she said. "I used to be that way, too. A long time ago. Being a decoy for Jessie helped open my eyes a bit, but even so… this was different."

"Are you alright?" Wedge asked.

Marissa nodded. "Yeah. It's just my first time in the slums. I'm still getting used to it, I guess."

Barret patted her shoulder. "You doin' fine."

"Thanks," she said. "The people up there, on the plate… they don't know what rough is. They really don't."

"Not a clue," he agreed.

Once we were ready, we got underway again. We found a red metal ladder nearby that went all the way to the bottom of the ravine. Aerith and Cloud must've gotten it unlocked and extended while on their way to Wall Market earlier. Two huge robotic arms stood abandoned off to one side of the ravine, and another ladder rose up the far wall to where the next stretch of highway began.

Using the ladders, we carefully made our way down the old ruined expressway, our eyes and ears alert for trouble. We ran into a few more groups of monsters on the way, but none as large or troublesome as the pack of eaters that had greeted us on our arrival. Marissa relaxed as we went on, staying near me and taking care of any minor injuries we got, and I felt like she was starting to fit in. She might not have been able to fight, but she was still able to help out.

As we continued on, I thought of Cloud and his own journey back to Sector 5. He was taking the longer and presumably safer route, but if our experience with the eaters had shown me anything, it was that here in the slums, nothing was certain. I hoped his and Jessie's trip would be quiet and uneventful, and with them riding on the motorcycle, I knew it should've been. But I still worried for them, especially with how hurt and vulnerable Jessie still was. Cloud would do everything he could to protect her. I just hoped it would be enough.

"How are you holding up?" I asked.

Jessie didn't respond. I knew she wouldn't, though. As I drove, her head still drooped down like a wilting flower, her jaw almost touching her chest. I didn't know why, but I had started to talk to her, just a little here and there. Could she hear me? I wasn't sure. But something in the back of my mind told me that, whether she could or not, she might still know. That I might've been in that situation myself before. But I hadn't, at least not that I could remember.

Suddenly, pain flared up in the side of my head again. I winced but didn't lose control of the Gust. Images flew through my mind in a blur, vague impressions of laying somewhere in a barren, rocky canyon. Left there, maybe? Or hidden? Reaching out toward something or someone moving away from me, dark against the afternoon sky. I couldn't make out who or what it was, but I did feel it wasn't dangerous. Not to me, at least. It was strong but friendly, even protective.

And then, as quickly as they'd come, both the pain and the images were gone, and I was in the world again. The acrid mako smell hung in the air and stung my nose as I kept driving, my left hand over Jessie's as I held her securely in front of me. My right was on the handlebar, and I kept my eyes on the dirt road, unsure of what the images I'd seen were or what they meant. I decided I'd worry about them later. Jessie was my priority, and I shifted my attention back to her.

I smirked. "You know, when I promised you a bike ride, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind. We'll take a real one after you've recovered, though. A nice long drive, just you and me."

When Jessie and I had recovered the bomb that we'd hidden in the Sector 4 underplate just before the Reactor 5 mission, we had shared a quiet, tender moment together, making plans to go out after returning home. But thanks to Shinra and the plate collapse, our little outing had been postponed. I hadn't forgotten it, though.

"So, any idea where you wanna go?" I asked. The light breeze from the bike's acceleration tossed our hair a little. "That's okay. I'm not sure, either. Maybe we'll just see what's out there."

Our old secret place was gone, lost when the plate had fallen, but I thought we could find a new one. If we did, another picnic like the one we'd shared the day we had finished the Hardy wouldn't be a bad idea. I just wanted to spend some time with her and hear her voice again. And I missed her smile, her laughter.

"Jessie…" I murmured, pressing her lightly against me, "you're part of my world now. A really important part. I'm not sure how or when it happened, but… I'm glad it did. So you'd better come back to me. And no matter what, we're in this together, right?"

She kept silent, her breath just the faintest ghost of a whisper, but I knew she'd agree with me. Somehow, she'd find her way back. She was a survivor—had to have been in order to have stayed ahead of her father for so long—and I knew she'd make it. We had overcome fate itself, and even after she'd been torn from me in the pillar, I had found her again. I wasn't going to lose her. Not now. Not ever.

Just then, I spotted five motorcycles driving down the road toward me. Shinra troops. What the hell were they doing here? I narrowed my eyes as they caught sight of me and sped up, rifles ready in their hands. I couldn't fight, not right now—Jessie would fall off the Gust if I didn't hold onto her. So I raced right at them instead, gunning the engine as I kept her close with my other arm.

"Hang on, Jessie," I told her. "It's about to get bumpy."

The leader aimed his gun at me. "Surrender now! We know you're one of those Avalanche terrorists!"

"Go to hell!" I snarled.

"You first!" he yelled. "We've got orders to take you all down!"

I sneered. "Try it, asshole."

Looked like Shinra wasn't taking any chances. They must've at least suspected that we'd survive the plate collapse. And these guys had been sent down here to finish the job. I intended to see that they didn't. And that they never reported back in. It would make rescuing Aerith harder if Shinra knew we were still alive.

I hit the boosters, and we shot right through the group of soldiers, closing the gap before they could fire. As I sped past them, I saw in the rearview mirrors that they were swearing and turning around to chase after me. Good. We weren't far from the scrapyard now, the one Aerith and I had run through earlier on the way to her house, and I found the beginnings of a plan forming in my mind.

The air suddenly erupted with the sound of gunfire as the soldiers started shooting, but I held Jessie tight and kept our heads down as we stayed well ahead of them, and none of their shots hit. We went around one curve after another as the road twisted and wound its way through the slums. The troops kept up nicely.

Less than five minutes later, the scrapyard came into view. It was a large, enclosed area full of junk and abandoned construction materials and equipment. One was a large yellow crane with a thick arm that was a lot longer than the cab itself and was raised up at a steep angle. Just as I remembered. I also saw a wide trench cutting across the ground right in my path as we got closer to the scrapyard, and the crane was parked on the far side near the edge.

"Now it gets interesting," I told Jessie. "Hold on!"

Hitting the boosters again, I drove the Gust straight for the trench, and just a moment later, we flew over the gap in one breathless instant before thumping down on the other side. I spun the bike around just in time to see the five Shinra soldiers all pull up side by side at the edge of the scrapyard, engines revving.

"Wait a minute…" the captain said. "That girl…"

"What about her?" I demanded.

He flashed me an icy smile. "That's the general's daughter, isn't it? I bet he'll be surprised to find out she survived."

I frowned. "Not happening."

As we stared each other down, I touched my feet to the ground on either side of the Gust and slowly let go of the handlebar, my eyes fixed on the Shinra captain. It seemed Heidegger had briefed at least some of his officers about Jessie and who she was once he'd discovered that she was in Avalanche. But for now, anyway, he didn't seem to know she was still alive. And I intended to keep it that way.

"Hand her over!" the captain snarled.

I glared at him. "You want her? Come and get her!"

Just as I'd expected, the captain and his men sped toward me. And as they did, I lifted my arm and focused on my materia. Just as they all started to jump across the trench, I let loose with a sizzling blue bolt of lightning. But at the crane, not at the soldiers. Electricity shot into it in an instant, blowing apart the supports under the arm and causing it to swing and fall right across the soldiers' path.

They all screamed and crashed into it in midair as I spun the Gust away from the resulting explosion. I wrapped my arms around Jessie to shield her as thunder erupted in my ears and debris flew everywhere in a haze of fire and smoke. There was a crunching of metal as the wrecks of the Shinra bikes and their riders fell into the trench, and I glanced at the burning crane arm for a moment.

"We got 'em, Jessie," I said. "Nailed the bastards."

She sat limply in front of me, still cool to the touch, and I sighed as I checked her pulse for a moment. It was faint and weak, fluttering like a wounded butterfly. Jessie was still with me, but she was falling farther and farther away by the second. All that current pouring into her from Heidegger's trap must've torn her apart inside.

Not to mention the damage she'd sustained from the blast and the fall. It was a miracle she was still alive. And I was going to see to it that she stayed that way. As I held her, I gripped the Gust's handlebar again and got us moving. We weren't far from Aerith's house now, but I knew as we sped toward the Sector 5 undercity that time was short. And that Jessie's was running out. I leaned close to her.

"Don't you even think about giving up on me," I said. "We've come too far together. So you're gonna make it, you hear? You're gonna live. I won't let you die. I'm gonna save you."

Gunning the engine, I raced back to Aerith's house.