One Degree

They say everyone in the world is connected through six degrees of separation.

For AVALANCHE and the Turks, it's one.

Barret and Yuffie

Breaking

He remembers that night because that was the first time Barret had discovered exactly what was left of the old AVALANCHE. It had also been the first night he'd met Tifa. Tifa knew who he was, but he'd managed to avoid an introduction. He'd been coming here for a week, and realized that this was a hangout for the remnants of the old AVALANCHE. He'd been watching them for a week now, looking for the regulars, who they hung out with. As for the regulars, he'd discovered all of their names. Biggs, Wedge, Karr, Ame, and Arn. He couldn't yet figure out if they were all members, since the only reason he knew was he'd overheard them on his first night here talking about the strike on Corel. This was also the night the second reincarnation of AVALANCHE came to be. Barret had been planning, and there were two hotheaded siblings in the bar that often got into debates about Shinra, and he hoped to recruit all five of the previous members, both the siblings, and oddly enough, the bartender. She was obviously a fighter, and it would prove an excellent base. Along with him, that would make nine.

Nine. It was an odd foreshadowing, this AVALANCHE, numbered exactly the same as the world heroes AVALANCHE would be in the future.

Well, at least for a while.

That was not the only foreshadowing that night.

Jesse and James were bickering about one thing or another, and the ever cool, ever laid bag Karr was leaning back, his chair only gripping the floor with the back legs as he lazily held his cards up. Ame, the Wutain girl who he had just started teaching the game to eyed him suspiciously. Arn sat at the bar, occasionally making the bartender laugh as he drank a beer and rhythmically tapped his pen against the wood. The other customers lounged about in various places, too early for the drunks and bums to spoil the good mood. All of the regulars had fallen into a rhythm with each other, Jesse and James bickering blending in smoothly with Arn's tapping and Barret's occasional curse as he watched the news. They were all used to each other.

He remembered the door opening because Arn's tapping stopped, and it was odd, the blend of the bickering and the news without the rhythm. So he looked up at the door, to find an empty frame.

Well. Until he looked down.

You would never know she was lost, walking with all the confidence little kids have when their parents are their tired shadow. But no adult came. She strode in, beaming, and when no one followed, Barret immediately tensed. His ranting at the news stopped and his eyes followed the little girl as she strode through the bar like she owned it. Just because it was early didn't mean there wasn't scum. Some eyed her clothes, to see if she was a rich little girl with a rich little trinket or a rich little parent nearby, or even possibly worth kidnapping for ransom. Others eyed the girl with a gleam in their eyes, the one or two perverts in the bar watching her bright little eyes and silky black hair, tied back into a ponytail that bobbed up and down, a bright orange ribbon tied into a bow. The ponytail swished back and forth as she walked, bangs falling across her grinning face.

He lost sight of her for a moment, so he stood. He remembered faintly the little girl of his best friend, Dyne, who'd he'd asked a childless mother in Corel to take care of. Guilt fell over him, remembering the little infant, not even a year old, freshly weaned onto the bottle. She knew him though, from hearing his gruff voice so often in the womb, from seeing him so often, even if she'd only been months old when she'd seen him. He felt an odd protectiveness over this child, even though she seemed so confident. She swung herself up onto a bar stool, and he realized she wasn't as young as he originally thought, just small for her age. She was probably around nine years old, and the bartender's eyes had been following her sharply.

The little girl cluelessly chatted with the bartender, grinning. Seeing one too many people staring at the little girl, Barret walked over to the girl and sat at the stool next to her. The bartender frowned. She didn't trust this menacing black man, who'd avoided her (which couldn't mean anything good) and always kept his right hand covered. Sitting on a stool, Barret could tell the bartender was feeling just as protective as Barret.

"I have a girl back home," he announced, both to the bartender and the little girl.

The little girl brightened. She was a Wutain child, and it didn't surprise him when she said, "Fryd'c- I mean, what's her name?"

"Marlene." He said, softening. The bartender eyed him.

"I'm Tifa." The bartender said, slapping down a beer which he waved away.

"Barret Wallace." He said, and held out his left hand, which dwarfed Tifa's. She awkwardly shook his hand with her left.

The girl didn't like being put aside. Frowning, she poked the man. "Hey mister." She said, commanding his attention.

He looked down.

"Where's your little girl?" she asked, all innocent. "Why isn't she here?"

Barret's heart broke.

"'Cause Midgar ain't no place for a lil girl." Barret said, looking down at her pointedly.

She either ignored or didn't catch the hint. She frowned. "Well you love her, right?" she asked.

The broken heart shattered.

"If only ye knew." Barret shook his head.

The bartender, Tifa, had stopped mid polish and was looking at him with all the empathy in the world, and her chocolate eyes were filled with understanding and heartbreak, her heart flowing through her eyes out to meet him.

"Well then." The Wutain child reasoned, tilting her head. "Then she belongs with you."

Barret's heartbreak was as raw and bleeding as a new wound, and it was spilled over his skin, and the girl was challenging it, rubbing up against it. "But-" he made to say.

She reached up with her little hand and pressed her fingers over his mouth, smiling up at him kindly. "No 'buts.'" She reprimanded, smile still present. "You should be with her. Simple as that."

Barret looked down at this little girl, heart open wide and dispensing his woe and hurt onto the surface for all to see, a little girl who had once been as old as Marlene, had once been a baby all curled up and defenseless. And now, nine years after her birth, she was in a bar telling a stranger - an intimidating one, at that - what he should do. And somewhere this girl had parents, dead or alive, and somewhere that parent was having his or her heart broken as they searched for this little girl, not knowing what had become of her.

"Yuffie!" A relieved call, a grateful breath escaping the lips of the man who stood in the door, thirty or forty-something.

Yuffie, as she was apparently called, looked over at the man in the doorway and hopped off the barstool, laughing and giggling as the man swooped her up, so relieved. Barret could feel the previous panic, feel the man's heart pounding in his chest. He looked at Barret suspiciously, but saw something, maybe saw the wound and raw emotion this girl had opened up.

And as the news flicked to a different story above, Barret nearly choked as he realized who this man was.

Godo Kisaragi was holding his daughter tight, squeezing her as he muttered in her ear a reprimand that he couldn't find the heart to make serious. He put her down and Barret gaped with Tifa, this world leader in the slums, hugging the little girl - a princess - to his chest.

He put her down when she started to squirm. "Rufus is waiting outside."

Tifa dropped the glass which shattered as she realized that the Wutain ruler was in her bar, and the Unofficial Vice President of ShinRa (the boy Rufus was only 15, still, though exceedingly mature) was right outside. She looked embarrassed and swept the pieces into a trash can. Godo walked over, and he'd seen something in Barret that was inexpliable, a connection.

He approached Barret, a menacing man with a gun arm, huge muscles and dark skin, and he took Barret's good hand. "Thank you." Godo said, and Barret was touching a world leader. "I could tell…I can tell you were keeping her safe." He nodded at Tifa at well.

Then he looked as the door swung open and Rufus was trying to coax Yuffie down from the railing as she balanced precariously. And in him, Barret saw that bleeding, that raw hurt and pain.

"No matter what you do," Godo sighed, looking at Barret because he could tell Barret was a father of sorts, though he knew nothing else, "No matter how hard you try you can't keep them safe."

Yuffie jumped off the railing with a gleeful shriek and Rufus caught her just before she hit the ground and broke a leg or arm, looking frazzled and worn out.

"And from the moment they're born you're afraid because somehow you know this." Godo said, and Barret could see the emotion in his eyes, the love and fear.

"And no matter what you do," Godo continued, shaking his head. "They break your heart, over and over again."

He smiled at Barret, both sadness and gratefulness and he nodded to Tifa and he walked out the stunned bar, starting to scold Yuffie as she smeared mud on the Unofficial Vice President's clothes.

And as Barret watched the news switch to a commercial about lead paint awareness, showing sad children, Barret knew.

What he knew, was that Godo was right, because after that day he would go back to Corel and he would get little Marlene, and from the moment he held the little girl in his large arms, he knew Godo was right.

Because from the moment he held her for the first time after Dyne died, she was breaking his heart.

And because he couldn't keep her safe, and because she broke his heart with her innocence and her naiveity and the promise that something bad would happen to her, he would set out to save the Planet. And the whole time he was gone from her after embarking on a journey, she was breaking his heart with her absence.

And the moment he got back, she was breaking his heart with her smile.

--

Kat's Scratches: Yes, this is the A/N. I'm just a dork. Anyway, I like this one, for the first time in a long time.

After this, it may not all be up and front confrontational. Or it may. I'm not sure.

I love Rufus and Yuffie. I think it's pretty adorable. Or that part in Cid and Yuffie was. Anyway, don't take this as 'oh. emm. Gee. Barret doesn't love Marlene and Godo doesn't love Yuffie. It's pretty much the opposite. It's because they love them that they break their hearts. If you don't get it then...I'm not explaining.

This was actually orginally intended to go in a different direction, having to do with Arn being a traitor. But then it didn't. I got stuck, and today I just started typing again, and this happened. lalala. I'm sick still. Layringitis. Or something icky. I kept going to school and coming home (it was real bad yesterday) but I couldn't even get up this morning. I still can't talk, but I'm a little better. So leave a review, tell me what you thought of it. And yes, I am aware I've been doing a lot of these with Yuffie, but she is my favorite character.

By the way, I'm thinking of another name change, but this one would be permanent. Cause this current one is kinda...I don't know. The new name would just be one of my nick names, and end up soemthing dumb as always ; like Kit Kat or something.

Leave one!

K.i.t.K.a.t.