So, I made chapter two. Originally, this was going to be all Yuffie centered, but once again, I waffled. So, here's a Cid chapter, taking place about the same time as the first chapter. The plot will move along in chapter three. I got a little long-winded in this chappy. Sorry.
His hands hurt.
His hands.
Whole world suddenly went to Hell on them, and that was the first thing he noticed. Some of the fingers were broken for sure, burnt, bleeding, he was probably fit to lose part of one or two of them.
...That was no good.
He knew it was bad even before he'd taken his gloves off, caught the end of one finger in his teeth and jerked swiftly. He'd been holding onto the controls, desperately trying to make their descent even a little smoother, praying to his bikini goddess that they wouldn't just up and explode. The Highwind had hit the ground, flipping, rolling, skidding, and the last thing he remembered was the damned heavy weight of Cait Sith's robotic body smacking into him from the side, finally knocking him from the controls, though he hadn't wanted to be taken away.
There'd been a crunch, a snap, burst of hot pain as he fell back, seeing the panel sparking. He landed on his back, impact bouncing him up into the air, and then...
Then what?
He'd come to, slumped over what remained of the secondary navigation console, which had been ripped loose from where it had been secured on the deck. He had shifted his arms under him, moving to push himself up, but the pain had sent him spiraling back down, close to just passing right back out. He'd tried to figure out how bad it was. He'd never broken a bone before, so he wasn't sure, but the pain throbbing through his hands, his arms, probably meant they were.
Fuck. Couldn't even light a cigarette like this, let alone...
He glanced up, caustically surveying their prison, his lip curling back in a scowl. Fuckin' fancy that. They do their part to save the planet, and this is what it shits back out at them? They were sideways, almost upside down, really, and there was shattered glass and sheared off pieces of siding everywhere. He could probably crawl through part of the windshield; most of the safety glass was cracked to Hell anyway. A few good hits around the edge, and it'd eventually break away. He could climb out and...
And what? They were in the middle of nowhere from the looks of it. Who would know where they were? Hell, where was the rest of the group even? The deck was split in half by debris, blocking off about a ten by fifteen section toward the back. There was no way down to the inside of the ship from where he was, he'd remembered seeing Tifa rush back there, screaming for Yuffie, trying to give the younger girl some warning as everything went wrong.
They'd be stuck back there most likely, unless the landing had thrown them off balance, sent them toppling down into the cargo hold. Had the flooring over the turbines held? Or had that ripped loose too, leaving one of them all mashed up between the gears, blood slashed across the walls, oozing down in a nearly black smear...
Oh Jesus. Where did that come from?
No, no, no. This ship, his ship, was a masterpiece; well built. They were okay. They had to be. Come on, Tifa had pulled a Houdini at her own public execution. Something like this shouldn't be what finally succeeded in killing them off; not when everyone and everything else had failed.
But then again, that kind of thinking was taking a bad turn...
...Especially when Sephiroth had begun to think the same thing.
They were only human after all. Looked like Lady Luck had run off on him; left him for someone younger, more handsome...
He let out a growl of frustration, reaching clumsily for his cigarettes. He needed to calm down, get a second to think things through. It couldn't be as bad as it looked right now...
Right?
He winced, breath catching in his throat as the pain rolled in waves up his arms, hot, dizzying. But he managed to fumble the battered pack out of his jacket pocket, dropping it from his stiff, swollen fingers. The top was open, and they spilled out onto the deck, rolling lazily down the odd incline.
He shot his hand out, palm slapping down a few of them, keeping them there within reach. He brought one to his dry lips and wedged it into the corner of his mouth, exhaling sharply. No way he could use a lighter like this...
He stared down at the end of the cigarette, eyes crossing a little in the dimness, trying to focus. Not too much. Just a little spark, just enough to-
A burst of flame coiled through the air in front of him, causing him to jerk back reflexively, surprised. He sucked in a sharp breath, smoke flowing right to his lungs.
Shit.
He'd just needed a little burst. Just enough to light up, but he'd damn near sparked himself up too. Hard to focus like this though. His hands... his nerves were rattled.
One smoke. One quick smoke, and then he'd get down to business. First things first, he needed to get someone a fix on their location.
Who could he go to though? He'd left his PHS in his room down in the crew's quarters, there was no way he'd be able to get to it from where he was stuck. So that was out. Maybe somebody else had theirs still on them, if they were close enough to hear him, still aliv... no, still conscious, if they were still conscious, and it was working, they could make a call to...
Who?
Who could they try to contact that could get them out of this mess? They'd probably need machinery, man power, if the others were trapped somewhere in the rubble, medical attention if they were hurt too, and...
Who the Hell would be able to swing that for them on absolutely zero notice. AVALANCHE didn't exactly have many friends in high places. Hell, aside from Tifa and Barret's associates in the underground, they barely even had friends in low places.
Shera. Maybe he could get a hold of her. She had a ship, she could navigate...
Nah. Stupid, old man. Need to think. There was no way to give her coordinates if he didn't even know them himself. Not enough man power. They needed... They needed...
...Cait Sith.
He saw the robot slumped over there, against what was the bow of the main deck, part of a turbine from one of the engines punched through the hulking mess of the mog, foam rubber padding and cables spewing from the wound. How bad was the wreck, if part of an engine was all the way up here? It was gruesome, robot or not. Better Cait than him though. Better Cait than someone else.
And the robot was little more than a Shinra puppet. And on the other end of those strings was the head of Urban Development for Shinra. If he could string Cait back up, then maybe Reeve would dance for them.
Wasn't like he didn't owe them anyway...
He shook his head broodingly, some ash falling from the tip of his cigarette onto his pants. It would be hard to see anything with it this dark, the only light coming from the remnant of Lifestream still trickling through the air. There was still coppery red dust filtering through the air, blocking any sun, giving him no idea what time it was.
It would all be moot if the cat half of the robot was smashed to Hell, or gone completely. Since that half was arguably the 'brain', the more sensitive circuitry would be in there. Communication link, tracker so that Shinra would always have a bead on them. Video link, the whole nine yards really.
All he had to do was see if it was up and running, and if it wasn't, find a way to get-
"Muh... Marlene?"
He jumped, half turning in a crouch, cigarette nearly falling from his mouth out of surprise at the sudden, loud sound.
No, not sound, voice.
Oh. Christ.
That was... That was Barret.
Idiot. Idiot. Sitting there worrying over what had happened to the others, and there was Barret, practically right next to him.
He scuttled over to Barret, moving in a crouch, tentative plans for Cait Sith on hold. Kneeling by him, he looked him over for any visible injuries. His gun arm was messed up. He was no expert on the machinery that composed the weapon; Hell only Barret and Tifa even knew how to maintain it, let alone how it operated, but he could tell it was simply messed up. Might lose a few more inches of that arm at the stump, he didn't know. But it didn't look life threatening.
"Marlene? Baby, where-" That name again. Barret sounded desperate, voice shaky and delirious, but the fear was there. Sadness.
Marlene? Baby? Just what was going on in Barret's head, who was he...
He flinched a little, the name finally clicking. Barret's daughter. He'd seen a picture of her before, a crumpled, dog-eared, cheap mess, taken in one of those chintzy instant-photo booths. It was a strip of about three photos, parts of the print worn away from constant handling.
Sometimes when they'd set up camp, or when they had down-time aboard the Highwind, he'd seen the big guy just sitting alone, pensive, staring at that strip of cheap-ass photo paper, face unreadable.
He'd been sitting next to Barret one night, not long after he'd joined up with AVALANCHE. He was working in a somewhat companiable silence, striking a whet stone across his spear, sharpening the blade, when out of nowhere Barret had handed the picture to him, shoulders slumped. He seemed so proud, but he seemed faraway, voice longing as he explained that was his daughter.
Cute little girl. Fair skin, chestnut brown hair. Obviously not Barret's kid, but that didn't matter, not to him. From what he'd understood, it was really the daughter of Barret's best friend, who'd supposedly died in the Corel fire. He'd found her, looking for survivors, and had gone into hiding in Midgar, raising her as his own daughter. He had never offered too much, paranoid at the time over the possibility that someone in their group was a spy.
And the look that had crossed his face when Cloud and Aerith informed them that the Shinra had taken Marlene captive, it had been almost unbearable to look at. It had been silent in the hotel room, and all eyes had been on Barret and Tifa, waiting for some sort of reaction, knowing their relation to the girl.
He'd been expecting anger from Barret, the regular, raging bravado that seemed to define him. But he'd just blinked, features losing their hardened appearance, and all the size, all the strength, just seemed to have been ripped right out of him. He'd slumped down into a chair, left hand groping blindly, pulling Tifa in close, both of them silent, their faces showing nothing but fear; grief.
The looks on their faces then, perfect mirrors of one another, had unsettled him; unsettled them all. Even when they were being led to the gas chamber, they hadn't looked so defeated.
And right now, the look on Barret's face was exactly as it had been back then, in that hotel room.
His head rolled to the side, lips still moving, silent now, mouthing 'Marlene' over and over again, in some sort of delirious, half-mad chant. Cid could see something in Barret's ear, dark and liquid.
Blood.
He'd seen it once before, after a fight with the Turks. Tifa had been in the middle of a dodge, hopping out of Reno's reach, turning. However, Rude had seen the opening and turned away from Nanaki, and just blind-sided her. Tifa had gone down, head smacking the ground with a hollow kind of thud, and she'd jerked convulsively, once, before going still, everyone, even the Turks, going silent at the sight.
She was dead. He'd been almost certain of it. Everyone had been. And Aerith had been shrieking at the top of her lungs, wailing, wide-eyed and teary. After the fight, as they were retreating, Rude pointed out the blood coming from Tifa's ears. 'Bad concussion' was all he had offered, before dashing off after Reno.
And it was. They weren't doctors. There wasn't much they could do, save for trying to keep her awake, ask her inane questions, even though for a while she was too scrambled for her to even answer coherently.
Vincent and Aerith had been the ones keeping an eye on her, and he didn't remember exactly what they had done for her, but they'd tried to keep her awake, get her to answer questions, no matter how many times she pushed them away angrily, slurring for them to 'fuck off'.
"Hey." He started harshly, leaning in close. He wanted to shake Barret, try to rouse him, but the pain in his arms was bad enough as it was. And jostling the other man probably wasn't the best idea, what with him already having some head trauma. "Hey! Barret, you there, man?"
But Barret didn't reply, chest rising in a deep breath, before he let it out in a booming, delirious shout for his daughter. Cid jerked back, eyes wide, nearly losing his cigarette again as he scuttled back, still on his knees.
Fucking great. He nudged Barret with the toe of his boot, getting no response. Didn't look like he'd get anything from him. Not now, anyway.
"Hey!" Came a muted, muffled voice, from... somewhere. "He-ey! Is someone there? Barret? Can you hear me? Bar-ret!"
A heavy, rapid pounding came from the wall of rubble cutting him off from the back half of the deck, someone hitting at the other side of the debris, probably having heard Barret's shouting, and now trying to see if anyone else was over there.
He jumped up, making his way over to the source of the noise, looking.
"Hello!" The voice started again, and Cid leaned in close, seeing a small gap in the whole mess, which he put his mouth up to, spitting out the butt of his cigarette before he spoke.
"Tifa?" He asked, pitching his voice up a little bit, not yelling as loud as she was, but loud enough all the same "Tifa, that you, doll?"
"Cid?" She sounded surprised, hopeful. He pulled back from the gap a little, and found himself staring at one half-wild burgundy colored eye, which blinked at him, widening slightly. "Cid, are you okay?"
He nodded slightly, grimacing.
"I'll live." He shrugged. "Are you okay?"
The eye shifted around, rolling haphazardly for a second, before locking back onto him.
"...Yeah, I'm... fine. I'm fine."
Funny, didn't sound like it.
"Tifa are you l-"
"Vincent's dead." She cut in abruptly, voice anguished, cutting him off mid-sentence. On purpose, no doubt; misdirection. But still, the words were enough to stop him, and he stared at the eye once again, focused on it.
It looked scared, terrified, and there was a slick coating of blood across the skin all around it. He could only imagine what she looked like, how bad it could be stuck back there, curled in a confined little space along with Vincent's corpse.
"Anyone else back there?"
"Yuffie. But she's out cold. I don't know if she'll..." Her voice caught on itself, and she stopped, not allowing herself to admit to the rest of that sentence.
"Barret's here." Cid explained. "I don't know how bad he is either. Think it's a concussion, he's shouting for his daughter. Cait Sith is scrapped."
"Nanaki and Cloud?"
"No idea." he admitted, shaking his head, watching as the eye flinched shut. "Do you have your PHS on you?" It was a long shot, and the eye drooped a little, wagging side-to-side in a negative response.
"I have it, but it isn't working. I tried. We're probably too far out of range. Nobody to call to help us anyway, is there?"
"Can you pass it through to me? This hole big enough?" He asked, and the eye disappeared for a moment. He could hear her fumbling around slightly, before a hand, bloody and cut up, burnt a little, snaked through. The fighting glove had been taken off of it, and now, in the dim, green light it looked delicate and ghostly pale, like a dead person's arm reaching through the wall, like in some old, black and white horror movie. The PHS, still serviceable, was held flat in the fingers, and he cupped his palms under it, nudging it loose from the hand. The hand came up then, groping a little until the fingers grasped his cheek, and laid there for a moment, running across the few days-worth of stubble on his face.
The fingers were wet, trailing sticky streaks of blood along, and he felt a muscle twitch in his cheek. Was it Vincent's blood? Her blood?
"What do you need it for?" The hand pulled back, snaking through the hole, and then, the eye was back again, questioning. He looked it over, ignoring the eye for a moment, breathing out a relieved sigh. Despite the blood all over it, it was still in good condition. He'd figure out a way to hook it up to Cait Sith's wiring, he was sure of it. But putting it together would be a different story entirely. The eye and the hand probably wouldn't be able to help him. Tifa wouldn't be able to help him.
He finally glanced back towards the hole in the wall, seeing the eye still there, waiting for him.
"Listen, Tifa, just hold tight, okay? Hold tight. I'm going to see if I can't rig this up to what's left of Cait Sith, and patch in to Reeve. If I can get Cait Sith back up and running, Reeve can track the robot back to us, and we'll be able to get out of here."
"What should we do if you can't?" The question wasn't rude, and while he was certain he normally would have taken offense to someone doubting his abilities, in this case, he had to admit that her fears were entirely justified.
"I don't know. Clock's ticking, innit?" He paused, looking back at the eye, which regarded him with a resigned air, as if expecting that answer all along.
"Yeah. Yeah, it is."
"Tif..."
The eye widened a little, waiting.
"Just... gimme a yell every now and again, okay? Don't need either of us going stir crazy now."
Yeah. No pressure, right? No worries. One of them already dead, one out of commission, two out cold, two MIA, at the moment, it only left them.
So he had to do it. For Tifa at least. He knew he still had Tifa.
"Sure. Cid?"
"Yeah Tif?"
"I think I'm d... I'm going to check on Yuffie. Check on Barret for me, would you?"
"I'll keep an eye on the big guy."
He wanted to say more to her. But what was there to say? Neither of them had cracked as to how bad their injuries were, probably not wanting to rankle the other any more than they already were. No point in trying to say anything else.
He had work to do.
He spared one last glance at Barret, seeing his lips still moving, and made his way over to Cait's hulking remains, kicking at the debris, wanting to move his arms as little as humanly possible. He toed away a scrap of sheet metal, emblazoned with one of his bikini goddess's rather generous breasts, and there, beneath it, was the crushed remains of the cat, most of the fur burnt off, exposing the mechanical insides, along with a charred layer of foam rubber, which was half-melted, fusing it to the deck.
Crouching down, he used the heel of his left hand to prod at the remains of the head, feeling the padding give, sliding away easily, pliable and with a slightly greasy feel. The gleaming metal skull lay exposed, and Cid prodded it again, causing it to turn lazily, still mired in the goo that had once resembled a grinning, cheerful feline.
He knew there were mechanics in the megaphone that Cait Sith used, but it was all for getting the mog-body to react. The cat was the head; the brain.
The link to Reeve.
The metal was dull, giving off a slight gleam in the dim green illumination, but he could see the panel on the back. There weren't screws on the back, just a catch to release it.
Well, maybe Lady Luck was coming back to him; jilted by her erstwhile lover, and was crawling back, begging for forgiveness, for him to take her back.
And for a lady such as her alluring self, he was all too willing to take her back with open arms.
He thumbed the catch, grimacing a little as the twist of pain in the second knuckle, but he steeled himself, trying to keep from dwelling on it. It would do no good to start simpering now. He was the Captain. He had to bring them all home.
Barret howled briefly for Marlene again, his left arm flailing at some unseen assailant. Cid just shook his head, muttering under his breath at him, gaze focused on the wiring that was exposed.
He was a mechanic, sure; a pilot. But when he'd been interning with the Shinra, before he'd made a name for himself in the war as an ace pilot, he'd done some work with their budding attempts at AI, they'd been interested in using it for flying missions. AI was no match for real pilots, he had been certain, but he'd learned enough about the parts.
Two thick cords of wire connected to the wide eyes, and he used his thumbs to push them out of the way, breath catching a little.
Don't think about it, old man. It's not that bad. He could move them. All that mattered. His hands were turning an angry, bruised purple in some spots, and when he moved his middle finger, the last knuckle bulged from somewhere down in the middle of his hand. On his left hand, the fingers were almost jagged. If he tried to straighten them, they were crooked, far too thick with swelling. It was going to be hard to be precise. But all he had to do was rig it up slip-shod; long as it worked.
There was a mechanical voice-box, microphone in it to transmit Reeve's voice. He was probably going to need that. It attached to the mouth, the gleaming robotic jaw. It didn't look like it'd be so hard, once he sorted it all out.
Glancing up, he saw the eye there, spying out at him; scrutinizing. He threw it a small grin, and then dropped his eyes back to the wires in the skull, ignorant now that he had an idea of how to go about it.
He worked almost mechanically, focusing on keeping his breathing slow and measured, trying not to let the pain bother him. But it was still there, throbbing up his arms, bad enough to make his stomach roll, and cause him to stop a few times, head spinning as he tried to keep it together.
It might have been hours as he pulled the wires apart and pulled them up to where he could get at them easily. A myriad of colorful curses sprang to his mind as his clumsy fingers couldn't grab a segment on the first try. But eventually, he got what he needed, the necessary wires sticking up out of the back of the skull, like a frayed, scraggly Mohawk.
The eye had been an almost constant presence, and he'd toiled away under its watchful gaze.
Now all he had to do was get the PHS hooked up to it, and hopefully it would be enough to get a hold of Reeve.
He glanced over at Barret, who had been surprisingly quiet the whole time, seeing that he was still breathing, chest rising and falling slowly. At the gap in the wall, the eye wasn't there. Maybe Yuffie had come around. Given that there wasn't much that Tifa could do back there except for wait on his success, that was the only thing he could think of that would draw the eye away from that spot.
It was probably another hour or so until he managed to wire the skull up to Tifa's bloodied PHS, and by the time he'd managed to finish, most of the green luminescence from the Lifestream was gone, leaving them in almost pitch blackness. He had to finish up soon, before it was too dark to see.
He had to have this right in one go. There probably wouldn't be time to go back and dig around in the skull, trying to reroute wires. God only knew how much harm all this time was doing to their injured. Cloud and Nanaki could be slowly expiring somewhere, crushed, suffocating, or...
Ugh. Jesus.
It was worse, wondering about the two of them. At least he knew about Barret and Tifa. And Tifa told him about Vincent and Yuffie. And he himself was fine, but the fact that Cloud and Nanaki were... somewhere rankled him. Hopefully they had the luck of getting stuck somewhere, together, so that they were relatively alright and had a way to keep each other sane.
What he didn't know, though, was at that moment, the two of them were together, Nanaki's hind quarters pinned beneath some debris, Cloud sprawled next to him. The beast simpered with his eyes squeezed shut, not wanting to see Cloud's blank, dead eyes staring back at him.
Looking down at his work, he let out a tired sigh, before reaching out, thumbing the 'call' button. If it worked, it should patch right into Reeve's comm. link for Cait Sith. Assuming he still had it turned on, and that this set-up would even-
"Yeah-huh?" A voice crackled over the PHS, expectant. Cait's lower jaw snapped up and down, and some of the blackened padding that still clung to the metal shifted as well, futilely trying to create the proper facial expression.
Cid's pulse started pounding. It worked!
...But it didn't sound like Reeve. Granted, the first Cait Sith had had a completely altered voice. But after Reeve had been found out as the spy, and the first body had been crushed in getting them the Black Materia, a second one had come, and the voice was different, Reeve having given up on the façade, as they all knew who he was now.
"Reeve?" He asked tentatively into the mouthpiece, eyebrows crunched as he tried to place the voice. It sounded familiar somehow, but he couldn't place it. He knew it wasn't Reeve, but...
"Noooooo..." The voice drawled out lazily, light, joking tone in his voice. "May I ask who's calling?"
Trite, cheeky little...
"Cid Highwind!" He snapped angrily, hardly noticing the roll of pain through his hand as he clamped his hand down on the PHS. "Look, this is a matter of life or death, so if you-"
"Life or death?" The person on the other end interrupted "Well, if I have a choice, then I'm pretty sure that I'd most likely go with-"
"Give me that." Someone else on the other end interrupted, and there was a scuffling sound, and what sounded like a body hitting the floor, before the new voice came over the line "Highwind?"
"Yeah. Who's this?" He asked. The voice, much like the one that had answered, sounded familiar. But it still wasn't Reeve.
"Rude."
Cid bit back a growl, glaring down at the PHS.
"Hey, I think I have every right to..." He stopped, finally putting it together. It was the Turks. Motherfuckers had wanted them dead since day one. "Right, right. Rude. Is Reeve there?"
"Not at the moment."
"Well, look, I... we can't exactly wait for him to pick up. Is Cait's tracker working?"
"...Yes."
Cid breathed a sigh of relief, hoping that Rude wouldn't be a dick about this, like whoever had picked up.
"Give the coordinates to Reeve. We need help."
"What kind of help?"
"What kind of fucking help do you think! We fucking crashed, and at least one of us is dead already!" He shouted, rage starting to boil over. If he ever saw these idiots again-
"Alright, alright." He sounded bored with the whole thing."Looks like you're about thirty miles outside of Kalm. I'll fill Reeve in."
"Not even going to make them squirm a little, Rude? Wh-"
"Stop it, Reno." He sighed again, and the next statement was directed at Cid "Look, we- I'll take care of it. Reeve's been worrying about all of you since Cait Sith's feed cut out, so once he gets word of this, he'll jump at the news and get somebody out there."
"How long will it take?" He glanced up, and the eye was there this time, wide and waiting. He sighed and dropped his voice a little, hoping that Tifa wouldn't hear his next sentence "Some of us are banged up pretty bad. Tifa's the only other one that's conscious, but I don't know how bad she's hurt. Couple of us are missing. We need to get out of here as soon as we can."
"We'll do our best." He replied evenly. "I need to tell Reeve about this. Someone will be in touch." The line went dead abruptly, but Cid didn't care. He jumped to his feet, making his way back to the eye, seeing it waiting for him.
"I got through." He crowed, a smile splitting his lips. It seemed absurd; out of place given their situation, but he didn't care. However, the eye didn't seem to share his enthusiasm, and jingled up and down a little, accepting the news, half-shut and dull. "Rude said they'd be in touch, let us know when they'll get here."
Another nod, and the eye was focused downward, probably at something on its own side of the wall.
"Yuffie's okay. She came to, and we talked for a while, but she's asleep again. Her legs are pinned down, bones are broken. So tell them to be careful when they're moving the debris, in case it's worse than I could tell."
What did that mean, 'so tell them'? Why couldn't she do it herself? She was right there.
"Can't you tell them yo-"
"Cid, I'm hurt bad, alright?" She admitted finally, almost angrily, eye falling almost all the way shut.
"How bad?" He asked, leaning in close until they were eye-to-eye.
It was silent for a moment, and then she stepped back, and the hand came through again, palm up, blood coating it, shining sable in the dimness. But he didn't have time to dwell on the sight, as the hand retreated back in. He expected the eye to come back, and eventually it did, steeled, upset.
"That bad. I patched myself up, but... Just tell them, alright?" The eye dropped out of sight then, and Cid swore to himself, wondering what she was doing.
"Tifa?" He asked sharply, peering into the hole, trying to look in on her side. But it was darker over there, too dark now to see anything. "Tifa! Don't-"
"I think... I'm going to lie down for a bit."
"Don't." He repeated, gritting his teeth. "Don't do that. Tifa, Reeve's going to get here-"
"When? I've been bleeding the whole time, Cid."
He pounded his hand on the wall angrily, ignoring the pain.
"Why didn't you say anything!" He demanded, swallowing at the lump in his throat.
"Nothing would change. You'd just be gnawing on the thought the whole time; that I was over here slowly languishing."
"Tifa, please, hang on. For me. You can't just..." He trailed off, forehead resting against the debris, exhaling shakily. He couldn't even see her right now. He wanted to. If she was... if she was, he wanted to be able to see her one last time. He didn't want the eye and the hand to be the last he ever saw of her. "You can't."
"Don't worry about it. Get a little rest, okay?"
"You expect me to-"
But he didn't finish, trailing off as a purple glow erupted above him, soft and glimmering. He could see a green glow from the other side, and in that brief moment, he could see her, sitting there, hunched over, looking up at him, her face wan. There were messy, hasty bandages wound around her midsection, and on her left side, he could see that the leg of her pants was slicked to her skin with blood.
What was she...
He stared at her, shocked and a little betrayed that she'd do this to him. Did she really want to die like that? Or was it...
She didn't want him to have to see it?
The purple light filtered down around him, and he staggered back, staring at her wide-eyed, feeling suddenly very tired despite all the adrenaline, all the pent-up anger.He didn't want to be put to sleep. She needed help. They all needed-
"Tifa... Tifa why..."
But he never finished, toppling backwards onto the deck; asleep.
The next thing he knew, someone was jostling him, knocking him out of his magically-induced slumber. His eyes cracked open, and he stared blearily up at a blonde woman and a red-haired man, who were regarding him worriedly. The red-head broke into a bright grin, nudging at him with the toe of his boot.
"He-ey! Up and at 'em, Highwind. All that bitching, and yet here you are, asleep at the switch! Not very nice of you, now is-"
Everything came flooding back to him as he took in his surroundings. The crash, Barret, Cait Sith, Tifa, the call trying to reach Reeve, and Reno on the other end of the line, making a joke about-
With a shout of rage he reared up, swollen hand clenching into the best fist he could muster, and swung, fist connecting solidly with Reno's jaw, the end of his sentence dissolving into a surprised yelp of pain. Elena squealed and jumped back in surprise, watching as Reno lost his footing on the uneven deck and went down. Hard.
His hands hurt.
But right now, that was the least of his worries.
About the hand and eye thing when Cid and Tifa are talking, I had Cid thinking about her as 'the hand' and 'the eye' because that was all he could see of her. So I wrote it almost like he was viewing them as separate singular entities or something.