Hey.
Who are you?
You remember what happened, right?
Remember what...? Nibelheim? Yeah.
Do you? You don't seem like you do.
...What are you talking about? I remember. I remember the heat of the flames, the screams...
That's not at all what I'm talking about.
"Let's play this game!"
He cringed as he was jolted out of his light nap. He sat up in bed with a tired sniffle, the springs of the mattress protesting loudly beneath him.
"Shh, Marlene. Our guest is sleeping."
"Sorry."
Cloud rubbed his forehead with the tips of his fingers. A fog of some sort clouded the back of his mind, and despite the abundant bowl of jūk and fruity dessert he had been given, his body craved more food. Tifa had made that for him, he thought in his mind. He supposed he might look like a trainwreck, but he couldn't help it.
"Damn troopers," he mumbled to himself.
The memory was hazy, and he didn't even remember who his employer was—no, it was a trap. That's right. His former employer put him into a trap. Cloud snorted in disgust at the thought. Once he remembered who it was, he would teach him a lesson. There was a strange sense of loss tugging at his heart that he couldn't explain, making him press into his foggy memory. Why was everything so hard to remember? He could remember the Nibelheim incident like it happened yesterday, but everything after that was a murky blur.
He thought that perhaps he hit his head a bit too hard at some point.
Cloud ventured out of his brooding, and heard voices from somewhere nearby. That of a young girl, and that Jessie woman that looked at him with a glimmer in her eye. He frowned; could he always hear this well? Yes...Yes, he could. He was ex-Soldier after all. A superhuman. A former elite of Shinra's army. Everything was enhanced on him.
The bed creaked as he shuffled off of it. He felt a little restless after his nap. What should he do? Maybe some squats. He felt healthy enough to do a few sets. Cloud set about bending and moving his knees and elbows, awkwardly at first and then a bit smoother as he went on. It stretched and warmed up his muscles; he felt like he hadn't given them a proper workout in ages.
Cloud took a look at his arms when he was finished, and pinched the skin. It was a little loose on his flesh, like he had lost quite a bit of weight. What the hell happened? He shouldn't be this soft. He had been eating right, hadn't he? He wasn't sure.
Why did he feel so exhausted? He had taken two naps already! Cloud fell back onto the old mattress, the springs groaning in protest. He thought better of wandering out and seeing that Jessie woman and the child, and put an arm over his eyes. His mind wandered to Tifa; if he slept more, he would see her sooner, he reasoned. She was someone he wanted to see. A familiar face in a sea of strangers.
Still confused?
...About what?
Everything. How did you end up in the slums?
I walked, of course.
From where?
I...don't remember. Who are you?
Don't you think you should be trying to piece together your recent past?
"Ugh." Cloud's eyes peeked open again. He was unsure how long he had been out this time, but there were far fewer footsteps issuing from the ceiling. He blinked quickly, clearing his vision. A gruff looking man was watching him from the doorway with his arms crossed, a disapproving glare in his eyes. His skin was pale and he wore a red bandana that kept his long brown bangs out of his face.
Cloud sat up in bed and rubbed his stubble speckled cheek with a sniffle. He lowered his brows and gave a frown to the stranger, displeased that his privacy was once again violated. "What?"
The man seemed taken aback, momentarily dropping his act before quickly glaring at him again. "Nice to meet you too, Sunshine."
The ex-Soldier continued to blandly look up at the man, waiting for him to explain his intrusion into the guest room. He could tell he was intimidating the man, but he wasn't sure how in his current state. This fellow looked like he could take him on in a fight.
But, he remembered; he was Soldier, and this stranger most assuredly was not enhanced like he was.
"Uh, I'm just here to make sure ya don't get up to somethin'," the brunet mumbled.
Cloud gave him a withering look. "I'm sure you'll foil my plans or whatever."
The stranger sneered at him, then looked away from Cloud quickly. "Asshole."
The blond scoffed; he wasn't the one staring at people as they slept. Maybe he was an asshole, but at least he gave people their space, he thought. "Where's Tifa?"
The man didn't look back at him. "She's cleanin' up the bar," he replied curtly.
Cloud rubbed his face. He figured Tifa would be finished soon, and he was done lying in bed for now. He dragged himself out of bed, then stretched. The stranger looked at him and took a step back as he began to walk towards him. "Outta my way," Cloud demanded. "I'm going to the bathroom."
The stranger moved backwards to open up the hall that led to the bathroom, still blocking the path to the living area. Cloud shot him a glance, then continued on his way towards the bathroom. The floors were clean if a little rough on his bare feet, and the passage was a little narrow. Nothing that would be out of place in the slums.
The bathroom was larger than the guest room, with an old cream colored tub with a showerhead sticking out of the wall above it. The shower curtains were a mint green in the dingy white light that came from a bulb on the ceiling. The walls were white tile, cracked here and there and most assuredly scavenged like the rest of the materials for the bar.
He shut the door and went up to the white ceramic sink and turned on the cold tap. After he let it run a few seconds he cupped his hands and put them under the running water, then splashed it on his face as he hovered his head above the basin. He sniffled as he rubbed it into his skin, waking him up and making him feel refreshed.
After grabbing a small towel from the flimsy looking metal rack between the sink and the tub, he dried himself off, hands first. Cloud took a glance at himself as he patted away the moisture from his skin and bangs, then blinked a few times in surprise.
He leaned in, and pulled gently at the skin near his lower eyelid to get a better look. His eyes were glowing softly in the low light, and streams of green flowed from his pupil and towards his outer iris. He licked his lips in apprehension.
His eyes never looked like this. Did they?
Cloud looked down, holding the sides of the sink as he thought. No, no...He was Soldier. Soldiers have glowing eyes; it was the telltale mark of the elite Shinra troops, he remembered. Yes, this was his new normal. He had to have seen them before. He had been like this for years!
He figured he had bumped his head out there in the wastes, and he was just having trouble remembering some things. He looked back up to study his eyes again. No wonder he was getting looks from everyone, including Tifa. They were hard to get used to. It was like they had a life of their own, or like he was staring into his own soul.
Crunch
The ex-Soldier jumped a little from the noise, and he looked down. The ceramic of the sink had cracked and popped a little where his hands had been. Cloud took a look at one of his palms, and found a little white rubble embedded in the skin.
He was strong.
Anxiously he flexed his hands, then ran them through the tap to get rid of anything sticking to his skin. With a nervous huff he took a few paces to the toilet and relieved himself as he stared blankly at the wall while leaning a hand into it. He felt something was wrong, but he wasn't sure what. Something in his memory wasn't adding up. It felt like a piece of paper covered in shotgun splatter.
He tried to take stock of what he did know.
He knew Tifa. Tifa was his neighbor in Nibelheim. He remembered something had happened, something to do with the water tower in the middle of town, on a cold evening. He raked his memories, but it was still within the proverbial fog. Why did he have a fondness for her? They must have been close. Yes, maybe. Cloud went to other subjects that were easy to pick out, leaving Tifa's mystery for another time. She could probably help him sort it out.
Nibelheim was something he remembered, as if it had happened yesterday. Fire and smoke flashed in and out of his vision, the flames exploding from Sephiroth's hand—
No. No, he had not been in the town proper when that happened. He had been in the mansion, checking on Sephiroth, before following him out. After all, they had been friends at one point. The madman had accused him, Cloud, of being a traitor. His hand curled as it rested on the wall. Sephiroth had the audacity to call him a traitor, when he turned against humanity itself? They were supposed to be friends, and he burned his hometown to ash!
Everything was lost. The watertower, the old cornerstore and the inn, his mother...His mother! Cloud pushed away from the toilet and went to clean his hands again, needing to do something as he thought. He tried to get into her house and save her, but the flames licked at his face and—had he heard her screams? Why did the loss hurt so much, even with five years passed? He felt like he had never mourned her, and with that memory fresh in his mind he wanted to.
He willed it away. He was a Soldier. He couldn't show weakness, not with those strangers so close. Cloud heard footsteps coming closer; it was probably that gruff slum dweller checking to make sure he wasn't up to something. He let out a sigh, agitated that he didn't have the privacy he craved to think over everything and properly mourn the things he should have a long time ago. Perhaps, he thought, he had been too busy.
Been too busy to mourn?
No, too busy avoiding Shinra. They would be after him for questioning, maybe. That was why he was in such bad shape. They had been tailing him for a while, and finally cornered him in the wastes. But he got away, finally. It had been a stroke of luck Tifa had found him. All this time, he thought she had died, but somehow she survived. For some reason it made him feel a sense of pride, but why? He couldn't remember what happened after he confronted Sephiroth in the core of the reactor.
He looked down at the scar on his chest. What happened here?
He jolted as the rickety door to the bathroom was knocked on, hard. Cloud narrowed his eyes, then stomped over to open it a little. A big, dark skinned man was glowering down at him, completely unphased by his mako eyes. "Can't a guy freshen up in peace?" he greeted.
"Not when you a damn Shinra goon you can't," the man replied. "Tifa's waitin' on your scrawny ass."
Cloud's eyes widened just a little, and he opened the door more and shoved past the larger man without saying anything more. The man said some insult to him, but he was again wrapped up in his thoughts. What would he say to Tifa? What would she want to talk to him about, now that she wasn't working? Maybe they could catch up on some things, and patch up some of his memories. That would be good, he decided.
He found her sitting by his bed, holding another bowl of jūk. Cloud wanted to say he remembered eating this in Wutai, but he was pretty sure he became Soldier after the Wutai war was over. He had been wondering about that since Jessie gave him the first bowl.
Tifa gave him a thin smile, forcing herself to look him in the eye; he noticed how deliberate the action was. He nodded back to her as he slowly returned to the bed. "Hey."
"Hey." She handed him the bowl, wrapped in a small towel. He gently took it from her, then stirred it around a little. He could smell chicken coming from it.
"Thanks, Tifa." He started blowing on a spoonful of the porridge, feeling ravenous again with food so close by.
She nodded. "So, are you feeling a little better?"
"Mhm," he mumbled after eating a spoonful.
"That's good. Listen, Cloud..." Tifa looked down into her lap for a few moments, then let out a big, quiet sigh before looking back at him. "I, um...I don't know if I should bring...it...up..."
He raised a brow after swallowing another mouthful. "It?"
She licked her lips. "Nibelheim," she barely whispered.
Cloud's eyes twitched, but soon softened. Not his favorite subject, and he wasn't sure how far he wanted to wade considering his choppy memories. Not that he was going to tell her. They were slowly falling into place, anyway. What would be wrong with a little one-on-one group therapy? "That day has been burned into my memory forever," he said morosely.
Tifa stared at him, willing him to continue on without using words. He quietly ate some more jūk before continuing on. "I wasn't really close to anyone in town besides you and Mom. But...No one deserved that. No one."
She nodded, slowly. "...How much do you remember?"
He scratched the side of his head and shrugged. "I've been trying to keep track of the little details that were slipping out of my memory. I've been runnin' from Shinra for a long time." Cloud picked up the spoon to continue eating.
Tifa's deep ruby eyes brightened at the news. "Shinra's been chasing after you?"
"Yeah." Or that was what he had deduced. "I guess they don't like it when their Soldiers go AWOL."
He noticed a genuine smile growing on her face. He frowned as he sucked off the porridge from the spoon. "What?"
Tifa blushed, bringing a hand to her mouth in embarrassment. It wasn't that he didn't like her smile—it reminded him of the days before Sephiroth went insane. She had readily smiled at him in Nibelheim, whether he had been patrolling during the early evening or striking up a chat with her during their journey up Mount Nibel. No, it was that she was smiling at news that he had been on the run from his former employers.
"Well, I mean...Barret was worried you were still working for them."
Cloud scoffed, disgust rising in his gut. "He sounds like a real comedian. Is he that guy wearing the bandana?"
Tifa cocked her head a little. "No, that was either Biggs or Wedge. Barret was the one who checked on you in the bathroom."
He grunted, bringing the spoon away from his lips. Why should he care about their names? Well, he could forget those when they weren't in his immediate vicinity anymore. After all, a mercenary should have a good short term memory to keep track of who was who if he had to escort a customer. There was no harm in it at all, he thought.
It was his turn for a question. "How did you survive?" he asked gently. Every time he had glanced her way as she guided them to the bar, that question rang like a bell in his brain. Why wasn't she dead? Not that he hadn't been elated that she had survived. For five years he thought she was dead, but he had been delightfully incorrect.
She seemed a little uncomfortable, and shifted in her seat, making the wood sockets squeak. "I...My memory is a little fuzzy, if I'm being honest here. But, I think maybe Zangan found me, or maybe you gave me to him. I fell into a coma, so I don't really know." A finger came to curl a long strand of nearly black hair.
He nodded a few times in understanding. His dinner was making him feel better. "I can't remember everything that happened in the reactor," he admitted. "It...must've been intense."
"Yeah. Oh, Cloud. I'm sorry about what happened to your mother...When Dad and me ran out of our burning house, I thought I saw someone go in. I didn't have time to check..." She looked down, blinking quickly.
He pursed his lips. "The fires were so intense, it would have been suicide to go inside." But he had done so. He just couldn't remember everything. Why? He shoved it away. "I'm sorry about your father," he mumbled.
She looked up with both brows raised. "Despite your bad history with him?"
Cloud nodded with conviction. "He was your father, Tifa. I don't think he deserved to be cut down."
"Thank you, Cloud." She rubbed at one of her eyes.
He brought the ceramic tip of the bowl to his lips, attempting to get the last mouthfuls of jūk from the bottom. Tifa made it for him, after all. It gave him a strange sense of satisfaction he didn't understand. As he lowered the bowl and opened his mouth to ask about their more distant past, Cloud heard the door open, and he looked to his side and narrowed his eyes. Barret.
"Do you just like lookin' at me, or what?"
Barret scowled at him. "You goddamn spiky headed jerk!" He looked at Tifa. "Marlene been askin' for you," he said in a softer tone.
"Oh." Tifa looked at Cloud and gave him an apologetic look. "I have to take care of her. I'll be back in a little while, okay?"
"Alright." He watched as Tifa stood up and took the few steps needed to get to the hallway. His heart skipped a beat. "And Tifa?"
She leaned her head back into the room, giving him a questioning look.
"Thank you for dinner."
A smile crossed her face. "You're welcome, Cloud." She lingered a moment more, then disappeared down the hall. He put the empty bowl on the nightstand and laid down again, putting a hand over his abdomen.
He blinked up at the ceiling, trying to get everything in order. Tifa almost died in the reactor, but she didn't. Did he have a Restore materia on him? He remembered Zangan—he had been relatively uninjured during the Incident.
How did he survive?
Cloud intuitively knew he had challenged Sephiroth. He had to have. But he also knew the raw power of Sephiroth, so how come he wasn't mincemeat? He let out a growl of frustration; it was all so tiresome, picking through his brain for something, anything, to latch onto.
He moved his head to look at the doorway as a creak came from a floorboard, and he glared at Barret as he stood there, arms crossed. "What?" he said, exasperated.
"Don't think for a second that we ain't keepin' an eye on you, Soldier boy!"
Cloud rolled his eyes before plopping his head back down on the pillow and putting his arm over them. He let out an angry sigh. "You know what? I don't give a shit. Just let me rest in peace."
He heard the man grumble, but he said no more to Cloud's relief. The ex-Soldier let out a little sniffle and relaxed into the mattress, his belly warm and full and his mind going inward yet again. He could hear Barret's slow breathing and further away the murmurs of that little girl talking to Tifa, and Jessie talking to two men. They were whispering. Cloud figured they heard his agitated plea to the burly man that stood guard over his room.
Slowly he fell back asleep, and that voice returned. He wasn't sure whether to be happy or unnerved by it.
Find anything out?
...Yeah. But...
Every answer had more questions attached to it.
Yeah.
Maybe you should ask Tifa—
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