Happy New Year, my friends! After 8 glorious chapters, I'm finally getting into the "romance" part of this slow burn, albeit still a bit slow. Not to worry, Clerith fans, your time will come soon! As always, I thank my lovely beta and best friend Rand0mSmil3z for keeping this story grounded and keeping me motivated. I hope your 2021 is full of hope, determination, and only good things, my friends!
Aerith
On the other side of the back door Aerith had tugged Cloud behind stood a man that she recognized instantly: Andrea Rhodea, owner of the Honeybee Inn and her new acquaintance. The moment he noticed them, he gave them both a curt nod and opened the door a crack, just enough for him to evaluate the situation. Searching around herself, Aerith saw that they were standing in a dim hallway teeming with costumed workers, all looking a bit frazzled at the situation happening on the other side of the door. The very atmosphere in the room was abuzz with rumors, and through bits and pieces she realized that the lackeys had told the crowd that Don Corneo had been incapacitated.
Cloud was the first to react. "Wait – somebody stopped Corneo? He's not in charge anymore?" He asked in a startled voice next to her. "How?"
Aerith smiled sheepishly. "Well… Our new friend took care of him," she whispered back.
Andrea turned back to face them, his expression caught somewhere between a grin and a grimace. "I'll be right back," he said smoothly, gaze flicking over to Cloud's face for a brief moment before meeting her eyes. She nodded back, and then he was gone and the door clicked shut behind him.
Cloud turned to Aerith, brow drawn in confusion. "That's…"
"Andrea Rhodea," Aerith finished. "He owns the place. He also helped me get into Corneo's mansion in the first place. On top of that…" She giggled a little. "I think he's fascinated with you, Cloud."
"With me?" Cloud frowned in the darkness. "What's there to be fascinated about?"
"No idea," she answered with a smile. He looked a bit flustered, but that could have just been the red ambience.
Aerith leaned against the opposite wall, yawning a bit as she folded her hands in front of her. Back here the temperature was pleasantly warm, which she chalked up to the manner of dress the inn workers wore. Still, the constant exposure of her shoulders to the world felt a bit overdone now, and she was looking forward to changing back into more comfortable clothing.
Cloud silently joined her, crossing his arms and bowing his head. She peeked through her hair curiously to glimpse his face. He had just closed his luminescent blue-green eyes. His brows pinched together slightly, creating small lines on his forehead, and his lips were pressed together in a thin line.
"What're you thinking about?" she murmured after quickly scanning the area around them. A few of the workers were giving them confused looks, but nobody was bothering them yet, something she was happy with.
Cloud sighed as she returned to watching his face. "Just have a headache," he answered lowly. He opened his eyes and glanced over to her. She ducked her head back down towards her hands, blushing a little as he caught her staring. "What about you?"
"I just want to get out of here and change into something a bit more comfortable," she admitted with a quick gesture towards her dress. "I have worn enough ridiculous outfits for a lifetime, you know?"
"I think you look nice," Cloud blurted out, which caused Aerith to look back at him again. It was his turn to duck his head and hide a blush. "Uh, I mean…"
Feeling a bit bold again, she reached out a hand and placed it on his arm, just above his glove. His skin was nice and warm. "Thank you, Cloud," she told him with a big smile. Hearing him say those words left a happy buzzing in her chest. Cloud opened his mouth, closed it again, and resorted to just staring at her with confusion and embarrassment.
He was saved from having to reply by Andrea's return through the door. The taller man made sure the door was secure behind him – turning a lock, Aerith noticed nervously – and, after a pause, faced them again.
"Well, it seems you've stirred up some trouble down here," he said matter-of-factly to Aerith. His tone wasn't unkind; in fact, he seemed a bit relieved. "Wall Market is going to be tumultuous for awhile. It's best you two leave out the back door and disappear for a few days."
Aerith nodded. "Thank you for your help," she replied gratefully. "If there's ever anything we can do for you, please let me know."
Andrea's gaze wandered back over to Cloud again, whose arms were still crossed as he silently watched the exchange. The older man stared for a few moments, and Aerith caught a small blush once more creeping its way up Cloud's neck as he looked down. "If you would ever be back in Wall Market, I would be delighted to have you stop by and perform with me," he practically purred, reaching a hand out and lifting Cloud's chin up, much to the other man's surprise. Cloud dropped his arms and took a quick step back.
"What?" he asked apprehensively. "Me?"
Andrea smiled and removed his hand from Cloud's personal space. He didn't answer, but rather gestured down the hallway through the performers and towards a door that Aerith could make out in the back. She fought down a giggle that threatened to escape from her mouth. Oh yes, Andrea Rhodea is indeed fascinated with Cloud, she thought smugly to herself. Seeing him uncomfortable was a little…endearing.
Cloud, having noticed the performers as well and had drawn the same conclusion Aerith had, huffed a sigh and began to stalk away without a word. Aerith turned to follow, but not before tossing Andrea one quick final "Thank you!" over her shoulder. People parted as she hurried to catch up with the flustered man doing everything he could to leave the venue.
When they made it out the back door and into a secluded, empty alley next to the building, Aerith let her giggle burst forth from her attempts to conceal it.
"That was not funny," Cloud insisted hotly as he turned back to her and crossed his arms again. She lifted a hand to her mouth to try and stifle her laughter; after all, they needed to sneak out of Wall Market, and the noises coming from the back of her throat were ridiculous, but she just found the situation so funny.
"I'm sorry," she gasped breathlessly as her laughter finally died down. "Your reaction was just so cute, Cloud!"
Cloud's eyes flew open. "I am not cute," he hissed heatedly. This led Aerith into another quick fit of giggles, and Cloud rolled his eyes and turned his back to her.
It took another few moments for her to calm herself again, but her mood was significantly lifted for the time being. She watched as he crouched and peered out of the alley towards the front of the inn, his sword glinting in the yellowing light. His defined muscles left small shadows along his arms, and his pale blond hair veiled his face.
"It looks like we're in the clear," he told her as he glanced back, his face in complete shadow. His eyes were glowing in the darkness as he met her gaze. Goosebumps slipped down her arms and creeped down her back, but for once it had nothing to do with the chilly evening and her bare skin. He was almost ethereal, inhuman. She found herself drawing forward to join him, fighting a strange feeling caught between fear and awe. Cloud Strife was something else.
"Do you know the way out of town?" Cloud's voice cut through her haze and Aerith nodded quickly. He maneuvered under the opening in the fence and held out his hand to help her through too. Bending in this dress was not pleasant, and she was grateful for the help as she wheezed and stood back up on the other side.
Aerith took a deep breath in, calming her suddenly nervous heart. Her reaction was ridiculous, at this point her and Cloud were friends, people helping each other to achieve a goal. And her goal…well, she supposed now that her goal had been achieved.
She quietly began moving, leading the way up the stairs and back towards Madam M's parlor where her regular clothes were. Deep in thought, she reminisced on the information she had just learned. Pieces slid into place in the holes of the story as she remembered that horrible, twisted feeling in her gut when Zack's soul had come to bid goodbye. She recalled Tseng's apologetic face as he insisted that he had tried to reach Zack first, but the army beat him. Now this man Fletcher, who had helped Zack and his unknown friend in their journey back to Midgar after five long years, claimed that Zack had tried to take on the entire army himself. He had, of course, failed, but not without putting up a heroic fight.
There were a few pieces to the puzzle that weren't entirely clear to Aerith yet, and those were why Zack was targeted for death and what happened in the five years leading up to his murder – she wasn't going to view his passing as anything less than cold-blooded homicide at this point. The answer to the first was fairly simple in her mind; after all, President Shinra had been so angry when he discovered their romantic interaction. It was all she could do to beg for her guardian to not reprimand Zack in a way she knew he wanted to do. To find out, then, that it was Shinra's army that had been the cause of his death…she was horrifically, sadly not surprised. In fact, Aerith was bitter. Angry.
Her eyes threatened to well up with tears – but she couldn't cry, not yet. First, she had to finish her mission: she needed to get out of Wall Market, and then she needed to regroup with Kunsel. She also needed to figure out what happened to Zack those five long years, and a clue from drunk Fletcher weighed on her mind as she tried to calm her emotions once more.
"Are you okay?"
The soft, uncertain voice of her companion broke through her thoughts and Aerith started, wiping away the wet tracks of tears that had snuck from her eyes onto her cheeks. Under the dull lights of the back alleys they crept through, his eyes were still glowing beacons of green.
"Of course," she lied, clasping her hands in front of her as she looked forward again to gain her bearings. They would need to sneak out of the alley momentarily and rejoin the main road. She paused for a moment, Cloud slowing to a stop beside her. "I just…can't believe I'm starting to figure out answers. It's a bit to process." She laughed as a sob escaped her mouth. She brought a hand up, clenching her eyes shut and willing herself to not cry.
After a moment, a tentative hand gently landed on her arm, a mirror of the gesture she had done for him earlier. "Was he…your friend?" Cloud asked.
"Yeah…friend…" she trailed off. Friend barely began to scratch the surface of the first real relationship she'd had since losing her mother all those years ago. Zack had been kind, funny, compassionate, and caring. He had put her and her feelings first, and he always made sure to brighten her day with flowers and stories of his missions and friends. He had been her first and only kiss, too. Losing him…well, it was like losing a piece of herself.
Cloud seemed to guess the implications of her statement, and he didn't remove his arm. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I know what it's like…to lose someone." A kind of brokenness in his voice hinted at a much bigger story, but Aerith wasn't sure if he was ready to share just yet, if his somewhat guarded expression hinted at anything.
Instead, she decided to pursue the newest information gifted to her. "So my friend died fighting against the Shinra army," she mused softly, looking up through her lashes at him. "And Fletcher seems to think you, Rufus Shinra –" Cloud immediately rolled his eyes and sighed his annoyance, and she broke off to giggle at the defusing tension – "bore some resemblance to another person who travelled with him. But it sounds like he was injured or something."
"Who knows?" Cloud responded as he ran a hand through his spiky hair. "That guy was pretty drunk to get me confused with a Shinra."
Aerith smiled at him. "You have a heart, you can't be a Shinra," she told him plainly, feeling a slight heat creep up her neck as she looked down again. "You don't have any ulterior motives for your actions." Had she studied his expression as she spoke, she may have caught the slightly pinched look his face took on. Instead, she brought her free hand up to cover his. "Thank you, Cloud," she said genuinely. "It's nice to know I have people who care."
His cheeks stained pink once more, and Aerith removed her arm from his grip before he could drop his hand on his own accord. Saving him from another teasing session, she peeked out of the alley and confirmed it to be clear before gesturing him to follow. The loud, obnoxious noises of the nightly crowd of Wall Market were stifled into a distant roar now, and the growing silence of the world outside the busy town was a welcome change after an entire afternoon and evening spent amongst its excitement. She was feeling a bit weary from all the events of the day, but there was a part of her that didn't want the night to end. As she walked next to Cloud, who kept shooting wordless glances towards her, she wondered to herself if the excitement of knowing somebody outside her guardian's control was getting to her. After all, he was involved with the eco-terrorists and if anybody in all of Gaia was against Shinra, it was Avalanche. The idea of Cloud alone could be interpreted as an alluring escape plan for herself, so maybe that's why she felt so drawn to his presence. She couldn't be sure.
"So…the next step is to figure out who the mysterious sick man was," Aerith thought out loud. "Any ideas on where to start?"
Cloud nodded and crossed his arms. "Hospitals," he answered simply.
"Good point!" Aerith looked up at the massive, looming steel sky above them. Wall Market was still protected from the elements here, but farther west the unfinished, abandoned sector six plate let in copious amounts of silvery moonlight. "There are two on the plates, one in sector eight and one in sector four. Are there any down here?"
"I doubt it." Cloud looked around them and gestured at the crudely made buildings and leftover unwanted materials from the plates' construction. "Not much is clean enough for one in the slums."
Aerith studied Madam M's massage parlor in the distance, easily one of the nicer buildings out of all the slums she'd seen (which wasn't much, considering she had been to exactly two of the undercities now). The screeching sense of finality was fast approaching as they approached their destination, and that was made more sure by the waiting dark figures of their friends beyond the town limits. If she looked hard enough, she could faintly make out a motorbike also partially blending into the dark canvas of strewn rock and industrial debris beyond the town's limits. Aerith felt a pang of regret knowing that their time together would be coming to an end once more.
"So –" Aerith started just as Cloud began with the same word, "So…"
They both cut off and chuckled. Aerith looked down. "You first," she insisted.
"Uh, well – I was just going to say…thank you for coming to help Tifa and me," Cloud said. He shrugged and lifted a hand to the back of his neck in sheepishness. "What about you?"
Aerith blushed and studied her hands, admitting, "I wanted to thank you too. Without your help, I couldn't have gotten this far. And…" she sighed. "I wouldn't have hoped to get out of my current predicament. Thank you so much, Cloud."
It was taking Cloud longer to respond than she was comfortable with for once, and she looked up through a curtain of her hair to meet his eyes. The dim glow from them revealed his conflicted expression. "I…" he started as he swallowed and looked down. "You're welcome."
The way he answered made her curious, but she thought best not to dwell on it. Instead, something that had been on her mind all afternoon and evening now felt relevant enough to voice out loud. "You know," she said thoughtfully as she tilted her head, "maybe it's time."
"Time?"
At the hesitancy and confusion in his voice, she continued softly, "Time to take you up on your offer to help me leave Shinra for good."
Saying those words out loud sent a thrill of fear through her heart. Living in the Shinra building and dutifully obeying her guardian's commands had been her life for almost as long as she could remember. The idea that she was this close to an endless, scary new life seemed both too good to be true and absolutely daunting. Before she could let her frayed nerves change her mind, she studied his expression, searching for his answer.
Cloud wasn't replying. Instead, his eyes had traveled over her head at the way they had come, and then they narrowed. Suddenly he grabbed her hand – Aerith gasped, startled – and pulled her over to the shadows of a nearby building. Aerith, clutching her dress, stumbled in her heels and began to fall. He caught her, pulling her back up and pushing her against the building, his leg pinning her there.
Aerith's eyes were wide with alarm as she began to ask what the hell he thought he was doing, but Cloud – with surprisingly soft eyes – put a hand to her mouth and gestured with his head down the road, blond spikes bobbing with the motion. She followed his wary gaze to the way they had just came from, and when she saw the mob of prowling, angry figures approaching, she held very still.
"Corneo's men," Cloud breathed next to her ear. She nodded stiffly, wishing she could disappear into the building behind her back. Sure, they could probably take on the five men in front of them, but now was not the time, not when they were so close to getting out of Wall Market altogether, and definitely not when she could clearly see the distant forms of Kunsel and Tifa waiting for them up ahead. Besides, were they even Corneo's men anymore? She wasn't sure what had happened with Leslie back in the mansion.
It was then that Aerith noticed in a quick heartbeat that while she was hidden fully, the obvious blond spikes on Cloud's head were still illuminated by the light and he was in danger of being spotted at any moment. She latched onto his arm and pulled him into the shadowed space next to her. He made the smallest noise in his confusion as she did so but allowed himself to be tugged into the safety of the shadows. His eyes glowed nervously in the darkness.
"Close your eyes," she ordered in a hushed whisper.
"What? Wh-"
"Close them," she repeated sternly. Cloud finally listened, closing his eyelids and cutting off the otherworldly glow. Taking a quick, nervous glance back behind her, Aerith realized the men were practically on top of them and one had started walking in their direction as if he had seen them. Panicking, she whirled her head back around to look at Cloud, making sure he was as unassuming as he could be. He obediently kept his eyes closed, although his brow was still furrowed with confusion. Taking an idea from a play she had once seen, she adjusted her head carefully until she was next to his cheek and held her breath in her anxiety, hoping that they would be passed over as unassuming lovers in the nighttime.
A few terrifying, long seconds later she hazarded a quick glance towards the approaching men, only to see that they were…retreating? Body language along with a few darting eyes back towards the road suggested that they were being forced from the scene by something they did not want to deal with.
Aerith tugged on Cloud's arm, and his eyes flew open at once, warily studying her close face and then retreating men. "What did you do?" he asked in confusion.
She shrugged, replying, "I looked and they were leaving."
Their eyes met and Aerith studied the studious glow that reflected back to her. Their faces were still very close, and she found that she couldn't look away. A growing heat was blossoming in her chest, one that warmed even her skin in the chilled air.
"Why did I need to close my eyes?" Cloud questioned then as he crossed his arms and leaned against the building, effectively breaking the moment.
Aerith blinked. "You mean you don't know?" she asked with a frown. "Your eyes glow in the dark, Cloud."
Cloud looked surprised, but he quickly masked it by turning away from her and shifting the conversation. "Come on, we should meet up with the others," he merely said, and once he was satisfied that it was safe, he left the safety of the building's dark shadows in favor of the dimly lit street.
Aerith tentatively followed, smiling up at him. "So, what do you say?" she asked conversationally. "Do you think it's time?"
Cloud looked like he was about to answer her return to the question at hand, but before he could say anything, a new voice cut through the night as if answering on his behalf.
"It's time to come home now, Aerith."
The familiar voice slithered into Aerith's ear and struck a single, solitary blow to her sinking heart as she realized she'd finally been discovered. It had been naïve of her to think she could get away with being gone from the Shinra building for so long, especially when she'd left Reno alone – and she had exposed her identity to a few important people in Wall Market. She looked up in dread at the source of the voice – the same voice that had scared off Corneo's men, and one that she deeply recognized. Tseng stood in the middle of the road, arms comfortably at his sides as he offered a signature small smirk towards them. As she watched, two other figures melted from the shadows and joined him – Reno and Rude, the former with his mag rod draped across his shoulder and the latter with his arms crossed and eyes unreadable behind sunglasses. The expressions on their collective faces revealed that there was no playing around this time, that they truly meant business. In all senses of the term, they were the Turks and no wouldn't be taken for an answer.
Several heavy moments passed as they watched each other, their fingertips brushing their weapons, neither side wanting to make the first move… and then Cloud side-stepped to stand in front of her, hand reaching over his shoulder to grip the hilt of his signature sword, and effectively cut her off from the Turks' line of sight. Aerith peeked around his shoulders, lips parted in surprise.
The Turks were not impressed.
"Stand down, boy," Tseng said in annoyance as he tilted his head. "Or are you so caught up in your fantasy that you think you can take on the three of us now?"
Cloud did not respond to them, but instead pushed a hand out to keep Aerith where she was. "Stay behind me," he ordered in a deadly serious tone.
"Aw, pretty boy thinks he has a chance," Reno teased with a grin on his face. "Come on Tseng, let's have some fun."
Tseng sighed. "We don't have the time, Reno," he reminded curtly. The excitement in Reno's eyes dulled a bit as he glanced upwards towards some unseen object.
Aerith had finally had enough. "I'm not going back with you," she said with crossed arms and a cross mood. "I'm not some princess who needs coddling, I can handle myself. I'm making my own decisions now, and my decision is to stay with Cloud." As if to emphasize this matter, she stepped up next to Cloud and summoned her staff.
She didn't know if she liked the look on Tseng's face. "Oh, I heard about your handling yourself," he replied with a knowing look towards Reno.
The younger man pouted. "I wasn't allowed to touch her, boss's orders," he sulked. "I let her get the upper-"
"That is neither here nor there," Tseng interrupted. "Are you really so naïve, Aerith, as to think you'll be safe with the man that you're with? Do you even know who he is?"
Aerith brandished her staff, eyeing the fire materia that gently pulsed within its slot in her staff, begging to be used. She could feel Cloud's eyes on her, but she didn't meet his gaze, opting instead to finally take a stand against the person who had kept an eye on her since she was little. "He's Avalanche," she replied with a surge of determination expressing itself in her raised voice. "And he's going to help me leave the Shinras behind. He's helping me."
The leader of the Turks shook his head, smirk growing more pronounced. "First of all, yes, he is Avalanche. He is part of the same cell that tried to kidnap you a few months ago. The same cell that we –" he gestured at the three of them, "protected you from."
"I…" Aerith looked uncertainly at Cloud, who broke his concentration on the Turks to meet her eyes for a moment. "Is that true, Cloud?"
The expression on Cloud's face said enough. "Well... The others wanted to…" The words were coming out slowly, and he sounded so unsure of himself. It made Aerith nervous. "They wanted to use you for leverage. Against the president. They wanted him to power off the reactors."
Her sneaking suspicions voiced aloud, Aerith took the smallest of steps away and clutched her staff in both hands. "And…and what about you?" she asked in a small voice, feeling fear towards him for the first time since their meeting on the balcony, back before the first reactor had exploded.
"I wanted to help you," Cloud said firmly, a new fire blazing in his eyes.
"That's not all though, is it?" Tseng interjected smoothly, small smirk never leaving his face. "You infiltrated the party to kidnap her? We found evidence of drugs amongst the remains of a champagne flute on the balcony where you were discovered by Reno."
The blood in Aerith's veins ran cold as this new information washed over her. She remembered their first encounter, of course: he'd reached out for the champagne glass at the same time as her and knocked it over. She had bandaged his wound…
Looking from Tseng to Cloud, Aerith tried to find words to speak. "He's helping me," she reiterated in a hoarse voice. "He's helping me find out what happened to Zack that ended up with him dead against the entire army."
Tseng took a few steps forward, edging closer to her with the other Turks circling around. They were quickly being surrounded, and she looked urgently towards Cloud – only to see him falter, squinting his eyes shut tight and pressing a palm against his forehead. The tip of his – of Zack's – sword hit the ground.
"Why don't you ask your new acquaintance," Tseng suggested lightly from in front of her, as he held up three fingers before pointing them Cloud's way. Was he counting? "If anybody were to know Zack Fair's story, it would be him."
Aerith whirled to face him again when she heard Cloud's sword clatter to the ground. Cloud himself fell to his knees in some kind of invisible pain. He grunted from the strain, his eyes flying open to meet hers. That green mako glow pulsing through them looked sickly and angry as he stared unseeingly at her. Caught momentarily unawares, Aerith felt a hand wrap around her arm and tug her away from him.
Her thoughts were loud and pitted against each other, half of her insisting that he had never hurt her, not once since they'd met, while the other shot accusations of withheld knowledge and betrayal. Her breaths came in fast and shallow as her mind forced her to see the too-obvious parallels. Fletcher had said Cloud was with Zack when he died, after all – sure, he had gotten the name wrong, but in his drunken state, could he have really made up something so ludicrous?
"Don't you see, Aerith?" Tseng said calmly next to her. "He's been the problem all along."
Locked in a stare with a pained Cloud, Aerith could have sworn for the slightest moment that a purple hue flashed beneath the waves of green that simultaneously said everything and nothing. There was pleading, confusion, anger, pain, and many more emotions that flitted through his normally guarded expression.
Then his eyes fluttered closed and he fell onto the ground, unconscious.
It was as if everything else that had just been discussed melted away. Forgetting the utter confusion and fear that panged inside her for a moment, Aerith wrenched her arm away from Tseng's grip and quickly knelt next to Cloud. "Cloud? Are you okay?" she asked urgently, feeling for a pulse on his cold, clammy neck. There was one, and he blearily opened his eyes again to look up at her. "What happened, Cloud?"
Tseng's fingers wrapped around her arm and tugged her away again. This time, she rounded on him. "What did you do to him?" she demanded angrily, brandishing her staff. Tseng removed his arm and put his hands up slowly, looking much too at ease for the position he was in.
"I did nothing," Tseng replied coolly. "I didn't even know he had survived."
Aerith stared at him with new eyes as she digested his choice of words. It took far too long for her to piece together that Tseng knew about Zack and the army, which meant he knew about Cloud. She realized with a sickening lurch that Tseng had known everything all along. He had always had the answers she was looking for. Cloud wasn't working against her…Tseng was.
"You knew what happened to Zack all along, didn't you?" she demanded angrily. The staff throbbed against her palm like a second heartbeat. "You knew what happened to him and Cloud?"
Tseng didn't smile, but he didn't deny her line of questioning either. "Some things are better left in the past," he said simply.
"Weird." Reno, who had crept around them and was now standing behind Cloud, gave the ex-SOLDIER a curious kick. Cloud grunted and curled in on himself, his fingers outstretching for the just-out-of-reach sword. The Turk smirked and leapt over him to join the rest. "No biggie, let's get the princess to her punishment."
"…Punishment?" Aerith demanded, looking frantically back at Tseng.
Hard eyes met hers. "The president knows everything you've done, Aerith," Tseng said. "Everything."
Her heart began racing and her hands went slack on her staff. Eyes darting over to the now-hidden figures in the distance, she wondered if Kunsel could hear with his SOLDIER hearing what exactly was happening. Would he step in? No, he couldn't, not without endangering himself or Tifa. She looked back down towards Cloud, whose eyes were squeezed shut as he fought off some unknown demon. Finally, she focused again on the Turks just as Reno gleefully plucked her weapon from her hands.
It was over.
Tears began to betray her thoughts, and she angrily fought them down. She was aware that she could try and bottle her outward feelings as she had always done, but it was if a dam had burst. She was no longer able to contain the emotions that had been hidden, the feelings that had been trembling inside her for so long, and something within her snapped. She had reached the point of no return now, she knew. If President Shinra knew all about her exploits… She would lose everything, even the minuscule happiness that she'd found in friends and in her fake life with Shinra. She felt anger, she felt anguish, and she felt terror. The creepy, slimy grin of Professor Hojo forced its way to the forefront of her mind, arms out as if beckoning her back to his labs for eternity. Goosebumps rose on her bare arms.
"Come," Tseng muttered as he, for the third time, clamped a vice grip onto her bare arm. "The helicopter is waiting. And so is your guardian. We have other places we need to be presently."
Now weaponless, Aerith tried one final time to pull away and return to Cloud, feeling that if she were to leave him now, it would probably be the last time she'd ever see him. She couldn't break free, and this terrified her. She really was stuck. No amount of promises to get away or dreams of leaving Shinra would save her from her fate now.
"You live in sector seven, right? I would recommend avoiding your home tonight," Tseng told the half-conscious Cloud on the ground, who was still fighting to get back up against some unseen foe. Sweat beaded on his brow as he met her eyes again. What's happening to him? Is he sick?
"Things in that part of the city may get…unpleasant," Tseng finished in a voice slightly raised more than his usual levels. With that, he steered Aerith away from the man who had promised her freedom and towards the rest of her miserable life.
Cloud
AngerpainpainangerFOCUS. Squealing and moaning and thrashing as puzzle pieces tore apart and landed in a heap of disjointed memory at Cloud's feet. Somewhere, there was screaming. Nothing made sense and everything was a lie. Who was the SOLDIER? Why was everything green? What sounds did gurgling, drowning victims make in constricting cylindrical prisons?
Through sheer willpower alone, his eyes forced themselves open. That calming emerald green sparkled back and tried to pull him back to the surface, but something ugly and angry and liquid fear was snaking along his leg and yanking his shuddered breaths back under the surface, submerging him in misery and determination and madness and –
- And everything changed, solidified, morphed into a beautiful space encircled by ghostly white, spindly trees. Below him lay the most reflective, still pool of water he'd ever seen. A bright, full moon above shone silvery light through flittering branches, remaining unbroken on the glass of the water's surface. In his arms, an all-too-familiar person with skin that was much too cold, closed eyes shuttering him from the emerald that saved him. She was wearing a soft pink dress, black boots, and a red jacket, which matched the blossoming dark red that was drying and caking on her chest. He should have been shocked, but he wasn't. Stony silence was broken only by his first few hesitant steps into the pond. Blossoms of watery ripples echoed as he took each painstaking step. This was a goodbye he never wanted to see.
And then…
Darkness. Silence.
Cloud felt warm and feverish. He could feel individual droplets of sweat on his brow as they slowly marched their way down his tilted forehead and towards their earthly destination below, joined by a few betraying tears that sought refuge from his tightly-shut eyes. The gravel beneath him was sharp and jagged and loud – every shift he tried to make reverberated clicking sounds of shifting rock through his mind and flared up his headaches again. He winced, shrinking back as if he could avoid the lick of anger that reared its head, demanding he put the puzzle together again. Names and faces and memories flashed one by one across his shuttered eyelids, and his mind began discarding those he couldn't identify and naming those he could.
There was a fuzzy memory of a sky threatening to storm, of a hand reaching out weakly towards a retreating figure. Green surrounded the view and eyes slid shut against overwhelming determination to stay awake and alert. No name sought purchase in his head here. The memory was shoved aside.
There was the princess in her bright red dress, her big green eyes filled with tears of laughter as she giggled at him. Her smile warmed his heart and broke his feverish state. She was alive. She was okay.
Aerith.
Then there was a familiar kitchen with suds in the sink, bottles hanging on the walls, a melody from an old radio bouncing against them. There was a woman standing there; she had a gentle smile, and watched him with wine-colored eyes and arms crossed over her chest.
Tifa.
"Cloud?" Her head tilted slightly, eyebrows narrowing in concern. "Everything okay?"
Then the image changed, and then Aerith was sitting across from him in the same coffee shop they had met at a lifetime ago. Her hands cupped a half-full mug of mocha, and her expression was both contemplative and confused as she watched him. "Not even when in SOLDIER?" she asked.
Recent memories flashed in his mind, some normal, some he'd forgotten about already – sparkling familiar green, Tifa's concern, a hard bed, Seventh Heaven, sneaking into Rufus Shinra's party, green again, shattered glass, disgusting coffee, falling, pain, the tournament, rescue, the sound of Aerith's sniffling. Warm, floral-scented memories of a face too close to his brought him back.
"Cloud?" Tifa called again. "Are you okay?"
"…to me, Cloud!"
Oh, that isn't a dream, Cloud told himself. He opened his eyes slowly, if only to let the world stop spinning for a moment, and focused on what was right in front of him: a nondescript brown-haired SOLDIER with shock in his mako eyes. He was kneeling, which meant Cloud was indeed on the ground. He groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position.
"Be careful, Cloud," Tifa warned from somewhere behind him, and while he would prefer to turn toward her familiar face, something about the SOLDIER in front of him wouldn't let him tear his eyes away.
The SOLDIER, shock finally registering, opened his mouth. "You're…Cloud?"
"What's it to you," Cloud sighed as he flexed his arms in front of him. He spotted the buster sword laying on the ground near him, and he reached forward to grab it.
"I…" The SOLDIER trailed off, at a temporary loss for words. "You're Cloud Strife, right?"
The fact that this SOLDIER knew his full name had Cloud instantly on edge, even while gripping the familiar hilt of his sword. "Why?" he asked warily.
Shock morphed into excitement, resolution, and finally confusion as the SOLDIER held his arm out for Cloud to grab. Taking the extended hand, he returned to his feet, looking back at a very concerned Tifa who had her arms out as if to catch him. Of course she'd seen him like this before, something that he very much was getting tired of. He didn't need a babysitter, even if it was a friend as kind as Tifa. "I'm fine," he reassured her.
"You don't look fine," she said, biting her lower lip. Her eyes flashed from his face to the SOLDIER behind him, which reminded Cloud to be wary.
"We never got the chance to meet in person, but we have a mutual friend," the other held his hand out. "I'm Kunsel. I've heard a lot about you from Zack."
There was that name again, and along with it, came a flurry of activity in the back of his brain. Cloud saw green for a moment and squeezed his eyes shut, as if the action could force the headache back down. A slow lick of purple trickled down the sides of his vision.
"He's been having some memory issues," Tifa filled in behind him. "He usually gets like this when he tries to remember too much."
Cloud gritted his teeth. "It's the mako," he supplied lowly, although that reason was beginning to feel more like an excuse instead of the truth. What was wrong with him?
"Yeah, that reminds me – how did you get mako enhancements, anyway?" Kunsel's voice echoed down a long tunnel towards him, and that sentence sent him almost careening over again in pain. A soothing gloved hand kept him steady.
"Maybe another time," Tifa said gently. "We have more important matters right now."
Her careful voice stirred the most recent memories back to the forefront of his mind, and in an instant Cloud whirled around to see if he could see a sign of Aerith or her captors. "Which way did they go?" he demanded instantly. "We have to go after them!"
As if answering from afar, the gentle sound of whirring helicopter blades in the distance led their collective eyes to watch as the answer to Cloud's question lifted towards the plate. The helicopter was much too far away for him to make out figures inside, but something inside of him screamed that Aerith was inside and being taken further away with each moment to what he could only imagine wouldn't be a happy life. He clenched his fist and settled his sword on his back. "Let's go," he ordered, but before he could take a step, an unfamiliar hand curled around his bicep. Cloud leapt back from Kunsel's grasp, hand on his sword once again.
Kunsel put his hands up in a sign of peace. "I think you may have more to worry about than just Aerith right now," he explained as his gaze darted back to the helicopter. "I think Tseng was trying to give you a warning."
"A warning?" Tifa echoed, her voice pitching slightly in worry, "What do you mean?"
The other SOLDIER swallowed. "I would recommend avoiding your home tonight. Things in that section of the city may get…unpleasant. That's what Tseng said. There was something in his voice…" He trailed off. "It was a warning, I'm sure of it. Is your home in sector seven? He mentioned something about there."
Cloud realized the question was being directed towards him, and slowly he released the grip on the hilt of his sword and dropped his hand, looking to Tifa as he did so. "…Yes," he finally answered, inwardly wondering if that's what the slums had become to him after the past few months. The only home he'd ever truly known was Nibelheim, and…well, that wasn't an option anymore, he knew. Not since five years prior. The back of his head twinged painfully and he thought he felt familiar amused eyes watching him. He ignored it yet again – he was not dealing with hallucinations on top of whatever was going on in the present world.
"We should go back and make sure everybody is okay," Tifa suggested with a nervous glance in the direction of their home. Cloud was caught between two wants – he watched as the helicopter disappeared from view as it snaked its way back above the plate. When it disappeared from view, he felt an odd twinge in his chest at the same time. He had been aware enough to know that Aerith was in actual danger now. Words from a previous conversation echoed in his head:
"President Shinra brought me in as his ward, and it's by his decision I don't have to deal with more than simple, non-invasive tests by Hojo. I have him to thank for that, really."
Professor Hojo.
The name sent shudders down Cloud's spine, although he couldn't pinpoint an exact reason why. He'd heard the rumors about the man, of course – he made SOLDIERS and he liked to experiment, with little regard for ethics. The idea of somebody as kind as Aerith being put in his grasp… it made him angry. "What about Aerith?" he asked hotly as he rounded back on Kunsel. "Aren't you supposed to be her friend or something?"
Kunsel's gaze drifted to where the helicopter had disappeared too. "I know, I know," he said in frustration. "I'm not going to lie, this looks bad on both angles. For one, I can almost guarantee the Turks knew I was here. For another, you're not exactly unrecognizable now." He gestured to Cloud's hair. "You stand out like a sore chocobo, Cloud."
Cloud's annoyed response died on his lips as their conversation was interrupted by the opening of a door. A narrow strip of light shone at Cloud's feet, and he followed it to an open door and the peculiar woman who stood there, one hand on a hip and the other daintily waving a fan in their direction.
"Well, if it isn't 'The Merc,'" she called.
Cloud eyed her uncertainly. "What's it to you?" he asked, echoing a similar statement he'd made towards Kunsel not five minutes prior.
"I have no desire to get involved in personal business. I find that boring," the woman said with a roll of her eyes. "But I have some items here for your friend, and seeing as she is now indisposed, perhaps you could remove them from my hands."
She held out something that had been hidden in her posed hand, and Cloud stared at it, taking a few curious steps forward. It was a cap – the same cap Aerith had when she'd tried to help him escape the first time that day.
"Cloud?" Tifa asked anxiously. "Is everything all right?"
The woman handed the hat to Cloud, who showed it to her. "It's Aerith's," he replied, just as recognition flashed across both their faces. Kunsel took a few steps forward to join them, hand reaching out uncertainly. Cloud's fingers curled possessively around the hat. Kunsel's hand dropped and he tilted his head, thinking for a moment.
"Cloud, I…" he trailed off, deep in thought. "I think you should go get Aerith, and then I can go to sector seven. I'm concerned about what Tseng had said… and I can make sure Tifa gets back safely, too."
Cloud's eyes darted over to Tifa. "Are you sure?" he asked. "I don't know much about the Shinra building."
This seemed to give the other man an idea, and he quickly pulled out his PHS – the damn device and its owner being the source of another kind of headache for Cloud the past week – and fiddled with it for a few seconds. Cloud felt the PHS in his pocket buzz a moment later. "There," Kunsel finished. "I gave you some basic instructions. I have a feeling I know where Aerith will be now."
"With Hojo." Cloud nodded with hard eyes.
Kunsel's gaze flicked to him and he nodded once in agreement, then fished around in his pocket for a moment before tossing him something. Cloud caught a set of keys. "And here," said he continued. "Take my bike. I'll stay down here tonight and take the first train up in the morning."
Cloud remembered something then and pulled out the keycard to the ridiculous room at the Honeybee Inn. He handed it over. "This is for a room at the Honeybee Inn," he said. "It's under Aerith's name, I think."
As Kunsel accepted the card, there was an annoyed sigh from behind them. Cloud turned back to face the woman who had Aerith's clothes. "If you're quite done, I would like to get on with my life," she pressed. Cloud nodded and turned, paused, and looked back at Tifa.
"Go," Tifa said softly, kind eyes barely concealing concern. "I'll keep in touch."
Cloud followed the woman back into the building while feeling all-too-familiar hallucinatory eyes smirking at his back. He hoped beyond hope that he'd made the right decision and that he could make good on his word to Aerith now. He had a loyalty to prove, and a new mission to fulfill.
The angry presence in the back of his mind twisted in temporary satisfaction.
