Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII is property of Square-Enix. I write this for my own enjoyment, and intend no infrigement or profit.
"'Scuse me while I tend to how I feel
These things return to me that still seem real."
Metallica, "Hero of the Day"
Part II
Cid couldn't help but smile back as he watched her all but leap down the rubble to the ground below. That quaint grin vanished as he held up the bloodied palm of his coarse leather glove, crimson oozing slowly down the sides of his fingers. He sneered at the sight; he hated blood. It always made his stomach turn. Unfortunately, he had seen more than his share in the past hour, as he witnessed seven members of his crew die from the numerous wounds inflicted upon them.
When the ship crashed to the ground, he held fast where he was. He knew from physics class that Newton's first - or was it second? - law of physics basically stated that an object in motion stayed in motion until something else stopped it. Had he jumped for cover, as his instincts were telling him to, he would have remained going at the speed the ship was plummeting, regardless of the fact that the rest of the ship had stopped. Which, needless to say, would have been remarkably painful and ultimately fatal had he given in to those guttural urges.
He frowned. They should have stayed at their posts. He thought he had taught them better than to freak when it counted. But, he couldn't have blamed them, they didn't know. It was a high price to pay for that lesson, though. On everyone, and everything, including his twisting stomach. Identifying the mangled remains of his crew was never part of the job description when he signed up for the military.
Part of the reason why he became a pilot, other than his absolute love for flying, was because of no close combat. Oh, he had learned hand to hand survival combat, like all the soldiers in Shinra did, but he could never really get past the blood. The stench of it after sitting on any person or thing was overwhelming. The sight of it splattered upon walls, floors, weapons, and faces, made him want to vomit. Worst yet, was the look the other person gave when they knew that they weren't going to be able to duck that punch or dodge that bullet in time.
That was the most haunting of all. Blood could always be washed away, the smell covered up, but their eyes…they never disappeared. They lingered in the darkness, staring wide-eyed at him, begging him to not pull the trigger. They didn't respect his privacy, they didn't leave when he asked. They remained, hovering beneath his eyelids, waiting for the moment when they could pounce. Unrelenting, they were always there, pleading in their ethereal form for rest; for peace.
Frankly, it pissed him off.
After all, what right did they have to beg him for peace? He was the one that was ordered to eliminate them. He was the one that had to live with his actions, seeing that they obviously couldn't. Why the hell did they have to keep tormenting him? He was under orders, what could he have done? Nothing, that's what. If he hadn't done what he was told, he would've ended up just like them, and floating translucent eyeballs was not what he envisioned the afterlife to be.
Cid blinked. He was losing more blood than he thought.
For all of the kid's ranting and raving, she had a point. He was on his way home, dammit. They won; why the hell did Life have to pull this kind of bullshit?
He harrumphed in displeasure. So much for "happily ever after".
Cid grimaced as he began descending the steep hill. However, he, while lean and muscular, was neither as nimble nor as young as his ninja ally. His battered combat boot landed awkwardly on a smooth outcrop of steel, sliding the instant the old leather and the misshaped metal met. Unable to catch his balance, the pilot spun about, wildly grasping for anything within reach. His hand found only air.
As he plummeted from the crest into the almost palpable darkness below, he could have sworn he saw a pair of wide, terrified, bloodshot eyes gazing at him.
The first thought that ran through his mind was that he was drowning.
Then, as his awareness of the comings and goings around him became more acute, he realized it wasn't water pouring into his lungs. It was air. His mind reeled, trying feebly to figure out what the hell was going on.
"C'mon, Cid, wake ya ass up!" a deep voice growled. He recognized the voice. It belonged to Barret. "The fall wasn't that far!"
He felt a large object nudge him in the side, causing him to groan in pain. He opened his dark blue eyes, focusing on the towering silhouette as much as he could with stars floating in front of him. For all he knew, the shadow could've been the Easter Bunny doing a tap dance and he wouldn't have known any better. Lethargically, he rolled onto his knees, trying to remember what had happened between stepping down the debris hill to getting turned into a soccer ball by Barret. Which, when he thought about it rationally, wasn't true. Barret only tapped him lightly. But, every other part of him was completely and utterly livid.
He glared up at Barret's frowning face. "Ow, man," Cid croaked, clearing his throat. "The hell was that for? Ya didn't hafta kick me, ya know."
The shadow scoffed. "Gimme a break, ol' man, I was jes wakin' ya sorry ass up."
"'Old man'? You're older than me, dipshit," he hissed.
"Yeah, but I don't look it," he replied non-chalantly.
"Yeah, right," he replied in a clipped tone.
The massive outline shook his head, clambering up clumsily to a higher level. "Jes…try not ta kill yaself next time, aight?"
He harrumphed. "I'll keep that in mind." Yanking his arms backward, he got to his feet shakily. He wiped his brow and winced. Damn, he'd cut his head. Oh well. It wasn't any worse than what he'd already had. Blotting at the wound, he again started down the pile, content to move as slowly as possible. Stepping down to a lower level, he spied that he had fallen near to the bottom of the sloping shrapnel cliff.
"Damn well better be…" he huffed quietly to himself, hopping to the ground, the soft earth giving weigh under his brown leather, steel-toed combat boots. The impact sent a jolt through him, most of the pain heading directly for his side and his forehead. Lucky him. He scanned the area. Yuffie was sitting next to a smoldering fire down at the base of the debris hill, poking at it with a small stick, while the other three remaining members of his crew curled around it. He flinched. He may not have been in the best shape, but he was far better than what could have happened.
Glancing back, he noticed Barret hauling Red down from the wreckage that once was his ship. He hadn't been with the happy psychos from the beginning, and he never learned how he got his gun-arm (and never really asked; pissing off a guy who could blow his head off at long range wasn't exactly on the top of his to-do list), but he learned quickly when he joined up that Barret wasn't the type of man to leave a friend hanging. Cid figured he'd sooner die than allow his friends to come to harm.
Tifa and Cloud were probably still up in the ship. He shook his head. That girl could be stubborn when she chose to be, and he knew that she wouldn't want to move away from him. She too would've laid down her life to save him or any of the others, and no doubt would have attempted during the crash, if she had been capable. The blond snorted, pondering exactly how in the hell he wound up hooking up with these lunatics.
He languidly strolled away from the crash site, lost in thought. What a stroke of blind luck, he thought. That a group of crazies like them all get together at the same time. His lip twitched upward. He joined them, though, so he couldn't really talk about how insane they were. Then again, thinking back to the final battle with Sephiroth, he realized that he too would've gladly ('gladly' being used loosely) died if it meant the others, and the rest of the planet, could live out their days in relative peace.
He scoffed to himself. 'Relative peace'. Yeah, right. He frowned, a bitter taste coating his tongue. The pilot doubted anyone would really get the message of this close shave. He hoped so, but…somehow, he suspected they wouldn't. Perhaps, for a short period of time, the normal Joe's and Mary's would be willing to look on the brighter side of things, but sooner or later, they'd slip back into the old routine.
Turning on his heel suddenly, he brought his smoky blue eyes up to lay upon the smoldering ruins of his beloved ship, the stern jutting into the air like so much scrap metal. The heavy clouds slowly pulled away, a slit of the white moon giving the gutted and battered ship an eerie blue glow at his vantage point, yards away. The bow was no more than folds of steel, smoking and crackling with fires unseen. The stench of death and ash was all too thick in the blustering April winds. He frowned. His pride and joy, reduced to a measly hunk of junk.
He flinched. His pride and joy, reduced to an unmarked, shimmering steel graveyard.
Cid gingerly touched the oozing wound in his side. They died serving him. They risked life and limb to help him when he asked. In some ways, he owed them his life. The whole planet owed them their lives. He would not forget that.
Solemnly, he snapped to attention, his hand pressed against his forehead in a salute. He would never forget their sacrifice. For what seemed like hours to him, he stood stiff, his eyes focused at a point far beyond the wreckage, his arm raised in a somber 'thank you' to his fallen comrades.
It wasn't until a silhouette that seemed to materialize in front of him woke him from his semi-dreaming state. The shadow cocked its head to the side, asking, "What are you doing, Cid?"
Worming his way back to reality, he dropped his hand to his side, smiling grimly. "Just sayin' 'thanks'," the lean blond replied enigmatically, starting off toward the campfire.
The shadow, now identifiable as the ninja girl Yuffie, knitted her brows. "'Saying thanks'? What's that mean?"
Cid remained silent, ignoring her question. "How're the others doin'?"
He could hear the frown in her voice. "As good as can be expected. And don't change the subject," she added sternly. "What's that mean?"
He bit back a growl of annoyance. The curiosity of children…damn, he was old. "None ya goddamn business," he snapped. "Ya ever heard of privacy?" She snorted. He rolled his eyes, nearing the warmth of the flickering light. "No, of course ya haven't," he muttered, more to himself than to her. "You're a ninja."
The waif of a girl passed him, plopping down upon the ground gracelessly. "Seriously, though," she started, "what were you doing?"
He didn't bother holding back the sigh as he rested upon a nearby piece of metal. "You ain't gonna let this go, are ya?" She shook her head, a smile lighting her face. Her grin only worsened his mood, and fueled his swiftly heating temper. "Look kid, I really don't feel like talkin' 'bout it."
Yuffie shrugged. "Why not?"
He glared at her, his dark blue eyes flaring. "'Cause I don't."
She nudged him with her good hand conspiratorially. "C'mon…confession's good for the soul."
"And what would you know about a soul?" he growled dangerously, his rough voice reminding him of sandpaper. Yuffie blinked, her expression stunned, as if she hadn't been expecting his outburst - the stupid little brat. Mentally, he winced at his statement. He knew her weak points, and when he was angry, he wasn't afraid to exploit them. He knew it was wrong, and he berated himself every time he wound up using them to his advantage, but he also knew that she did the same damn thing. Only rarely had the others attempted to intervene, and they as well quickly learned how cut-throat the two could be when pushed to their limits.
The blond held his breath, waiting for the retort that was bound to come.
Yuffie quickly recovered from her stupor, her jaw setting in defiance. "And I guess you're the expert on souls, huh? After all," she spoke, "you're probably haunted by so many of them that you have to actually thank them when they go away."
Cid's muscles stiffened, a flurry of obscenities on the tip of his tongue, waiting to be spoken. The remaining crew of the Highwind all woke from their slumbers and glanced at eachother before scattering like roaches in a basement. A cold wind blew through the wreckage, shaking its inhabitants to the core, and without a word ever being spoken, everyone knew Cid Highwind was pissed off.
"First off," he began slowly, "you ain't got a goddamn clue what you're sayin'. I wasn't thankin' the souls for goin' away, or whatever the hell you're claimin'. I was thankin' the crew that died for savin' our asses." He paused, allowing her a moment as ask what he was talking about. When she didn't, he continued. "Those men didn't hafta help us, but they did anyway. I couldn't have been able to run that ship on my own, and the Highwind was the only way we coulda gotten into the Northern Crater. If it wasn't for them, we all woulda been dead 'n gone by now," he explained, his voice filled with venom. "Never thought've that, did ya?"
The thief blinked, her eyes staring off to a far off point. "No, you didn't," he answered for her. "So before ya start spoutin' shit, get yer fuckin' facts straight first." He harrumphed and turned his head away. "Not like you ever thanked anybody in yer life for anything, anyway," he muttered indignantly.
"What do I have to be thankful for?" she squawked. "My homeland was humiliated by that stupid damn city you all wanted to save. My old man doesn't give a damn about me; says I'm a disgrace to the name Kisaragi. Says I should've never been born. I should be thankful for that?"
His chiseled lips thinned into a frown, his eyes still averted to the firelight. "Yeah, ya should be. Could be a helluva lot worse, y'know."
"Is that a fact?" she quipped mockingly.
"Yeah, it is," he snapped. "You ever been disowned?"
"Might as well have been," she snorted.
"Yes or no?" Cid snapped.
"No."
"How 'bout abandoned?"
"Well, no -"
"Beaten and ridiculed?"
"Of course not -"
"Left for dead?"
His silence answered his question for her.
He sighed. "Thought so. Well, remember, kid, there are always people worse off than you."
Silence. "Like you?"
His eyes darted over to hers, holding them there. That was not the type of question he was expecting to come from her. In fact, he was assuming she'd give another retort on how crappy her life had been. The last thing that ever came to mind when pondering the scrawny thief in front of him was her thinking of others. Blinking, he slowly turned his head back towards the warm waves of the fire, losing himself in the various reds and yellows. "Not now, kid," he found himself murmuring. "Let's worry 'bout surviving tomorrow first, okay?"
Again shocking him, he heard her whisper, "Alright." Glimpsing her way, he spied the lithe ninja curling up near the fire, her back turned to him. His mind reeled from the conversation that had just passed. Was he dreaming, or had she actually respected his wishes for once? He rubbed the weight from his eyes. He needed rest.
He slipped his thick coat off of his shoulders and wadded it up, placing it under his head to use as a pillow. Yawning quietly, he noticed Yuffie shiver as her small body curled up even tighter. "Kid, you're gonna freeze to death," he muttered, oddly enough, considering he was clad only in pants and a black sleeveless undershirt. Standing up painfully, Cid picked his heavy jacket up off the ground and crossed over to the lightly snoring Yuffie. He carefully placed the heavy jacket over her shoulders, watching her clutch it to her absent-mindedly as her legs disappeared underneath the material. A part of him wondered if curling up like that would aggravate her hip any. Feeling suddenly awkward, he returned to his spot and laid on his good side, tentative to keep any dust or ash out of his wound. He unwrapped his scarf, placing it firmly over the blood-covered gash and held it there with his left arm.
Against his will, her words reverberated in his head. 'You're the expert on souls, huh?' What a cold-hearted thing to say to another person. Then again, he'd alluded that she had no soul, so he was just as guilty as her. "Hmph, we must be a quack's dream," he huffed to himself. Shaking his head, he ignored the piercing eyes glowering at the back of his head, and fell into an uneasy sleep.
To be continued…