Penance

©®™ Lt. Commander Richie

((Disclaimer: OBJECTION! I mean, uh... Hail Weiss! Nope, already used it. Watch new episodes of Family Guy every Friday on Fox. That's right, we even advertise in fanfiction now. And that was blatantly stolen from the Simpsons Movie. WATCH CRISIS CORE VIDS NOW!))

THANKS TO AN ODDLY-SCHEDULED SCHOOL TRIP, YOU GET THIS A DAY EARLY. ENJOY, MAH PEEPZ.

((Dedicated to: ONiONLADi777. Because Hojo is an evil squeaky bastard and we'll leave it at that.))

Chapter 14

"C'mon, kid, come on out." Cid wiped a thumb across his nose, his spear over his shoulder. In his opposite hand he held Yuffie's shuriken by its center. The pilot's plea was met by darkness and silence, none of the light from the campfire by the mansion filtering through the trees. With a sigh, he continued onward, knocking aside a bush with his Venus Gospel. "I ain't meant t'go traipsin' through forests at some Planet-forsaken hour'o the night!" The pilot grumbled, kicking aside a vine and making his way into a clearing about the size of a car.

"You'd better be out here, kid!" Cid yelled, raising his fist with the shuriken in it. Expecting weight to be in it, he used more strength than necessary; his hand flew up and he hit himself in the chest. "Great. Now I've gone and lost 'er stupid throwing star!"

"No, you didn't. Thanks for bringing it, though." The voice came from above him, in one of the trees. Cid swore, looking up into the Cedar branches he stood under. Yuffie sat on a branch towards the middle of the tree, her Conformer in one hand. Her left knee was tucked to her chest, her right leg dangling over the side of her branch. Her left arm rested on top of her knee, her other arm, with the shuriken, falling to her side. Both of her eyes were heavily lidded.

"I hope yer not plannin' on sleepin' in that tree, kid." The pilot said, laying his spear over his shoulders again.

"I may as well." The Kunoichi muttered, clenching and unclenching her left hand.

"All's you need is the cape." Cid said, pulling his spear from his shoulders and leaning on it. Yuffie blinked, looking down at the pilot with wide eyes.

"What?" She asked, pulling her arm from her knee and leaning over to get a better view of the ground.

"I said that all's you need is the cape, and then you'd be that vampire to a T. 'Cause right now you're bein' quiet enough to hear a mouse pissin' on a cottonball." Cid said, swiping a thumb across his nose again and grinning. His attempts at cheering Yuffie up only had an adverse effect. With a grit of her teeth, the Kunoichi used all her strength to slam her shuriken into the tree next to her. Bits of wood flew everywhere as she gathered her legs to her chest and hugged them tight.

"It's my fault, you know." She said, the pilot below her barely hearing. "It's my fault he left."

"Now tha's not true." Cid said, his grin faltering. "We all know yeh can be annoyin', but he was tha most toleratin' outta all of us." Once again, his words had the adverse effect he wanted, and instead of cheering the Ninja above him all the pilot managed to do was to get her to let out a choked sob.

"He was being nice to me. I stole a piece of his Materia a while back and mastered it, and then he took it back. But when I stole it back I did something I shouldn't have." Yuffie paused for a moment, sniffling a bit before continuing. "Leviathan, Watchers, how could I have been so stupid? I know he has issues with relationships, why did I do it?"

Cid mulled what she had said over in his mind, and the conclusion he came to nearly made him drop his spear and fall to the forest floor. "You ain't sayin' that you like Vincent as more than a friend, are yeh?" He asked.

"No!" The answer came too quick, and was loaded with too much vehemence for the pilot to really believe her.

"Where do you think he went?" He asked, pulling the end of his spear from the ground and throwing it over his shoulder again. In the corners of his eyes, he looked for the path that he had carved to get there.

"He could be anywhere in the Nibel Mountains, but I would try the cave he got Mira out of." Yuffie sighed, sniffling again.

"Why?" Cid asked, perplexed. "It was just a sinkhole with a way out."

"No, it was hers." The Ninja snapped, her lips curving up into a sneer. "Lucrecia's. He'll be there, and if he ever comes back it'll be tomorrow."

"You plannin' on comin' back tonight?" Yuffie shook her head, resting one hand on an arm of her shuriken. "Suit yerself then, kid." With that, the pilot trundled off into the underbrush, following the path he had originally cut.

The white expanse was nearly blinding, contrasting sharply with the field of flowers it framed. With a light grunt, Cloud pulled himself to his feet and looked around. He could see nobody, but as he looked down he could see a black and red lily intermixed with the pink and white and yellow.

"Aerith?" He suddenly asked, becoming aware of a person standing behind him.

"I'm surprised. You can't tell your dead friend from your dead girlfriend?" The voice was teasing, even tough the subject was so grim.

"Zack."

"The one and only, man. Nice shiner, by the way."Both men chuckled lightly, and Cloud went to turn around to greet his friend. "Woah, can't do that. I'll disappear."

"Mira saw Aerith; I saw you both that day at the church. How is this any different?" The blond asked, and behind him he could feel his friend shrug.

"I'm guessing it's that we were in the human world. Only the untainted, like children, can see people in the Promised Land." Zack said, and Cloud could almost hear the frown he had on his face.

"Why am I here?"

"'Cause Aerith likes the girl the Turk found." The First Class said, pulling up one arm and resting it on his friend's shoulder. It was almost like the good old days, with everyone in Squad 7 under Sephiroth piled in the back of a truck headed to wherever they were stationed next. But they couldn't see each other, and Cloud wasn't throwing his guts up over the tailgate.

"What does that have to do with me? Why not pull Vincent in here, tell him to come back? Mira misses him." The blond asked, and Zack's shoulders slumped.

"Even though I told you to live for me, you don't have do everything. Give some responsibility to someone else. What you're doing isn't living."

"No! You're my friend, nobody else knew you!" Cloud protested, and behind him Zack turned. The First Class whipped his friend around, but the world didn't disappear to be replaced by the walls and ceiling of the swordsman's tent.

"Listen to me, Cloud, because I don't have much time now. I'm probably breaking a million rules doing this." Zack began, blue Mako eyes filled with anger. "It doesn't matter who does it. Anyone who knew me; hell, anyone who met me could help you live for me. But right now, you're trying to take too many things onto your own shoulders. You are not the Cloud I used to know anymore."

"Things change."

"And I know that." The black-haired SOLDIER stepped back, his outline already a bit hazy. From a pocket he drew a single grayish-black crystal orb; a single piece of Materia. "Here, give this to the kid. What with the way most of you are leaving, she'll need all the help she can get." He tossed the Materia to Cloud, and stepped back even farther.

"I would say goodbye, but I know this isn't the last time I'll see you." The blond said, and Zack nodded.

"You kidding? Someone's gotta keep you in line." Cloud's eyes opened wide, and he started forward.

"Wait!" But his friend was already dissolving. "Aerith said she knew who Mira's father was. Who is he? Do you know?"

"Course I do, man!" Zack's outline was weak, his body completely translucent.

"Who?"

"Can't tell ya." With the final gust of a nonexistant wind, what was left of the First Class SOLDIER faded away.

"Zack!" Cloud suddenly sat up, arms flailing about. A small dark orb flew from his hand, hitting the tent wall and rolling to the foot of his sleeping bag. Silently, the blond reached forward and picked up the small orb. Like the darker outline making a long dragon in Yuffie's Leviathan summon, or the outline of a Chocobo and Moogle in a ChocoMog summon, the Materia Zack had given him also had a summon outline in it. But the outline was shaped like a skull, not like any other summon he had seen.

"Are you alright?" Tifa sat up next to him, groggily wiping sleep from her eyes.

"Yeah." Cloud answered, running a thumb over the summon Materia that he wasn't quite sure what it was for.

"Where'd you get that?" The martial artist asked, and Cloud turned to her. She had sat up as well, and was peering at the lightly glowing orb in his hands.

"Zack gave it to me. He told me it was for Mira." Tifa gently took the Materia from him, running her ungloved hands over it.

"Why did he give it to you? Why not give it directly to her?" She asked, giving the mystery summon Materia back to Cloud.

"Because he wanted to tell me that I wasn't myself." He answered, looking at the martial artist with his blue Mako eyes.

"But-"

"And he was right. Recently I've been caring about myself more than others, and I'm sorry. I shouldn't have left and made you all worry." The swordsman placed the Materia to the side, to give to its rightful owner in the morning. He turned, preparing to go back to sleep. Tifa laid a hand on his shoulder, and he turned back. She leaned forward, placing a tender kiss on his lips.

"All's forgiven." She said, smiling warmly. "Do you still want to keep that bruise, or can I heal it now?"

"I want to keep it." A light smile graced the blond's features as he laid back down, this time wrapping one arm around Tifa's body in an embrace. She laid down next to him, smiling as well.

"Alright. Goodnight, Cloud." She gave him one last light kiss before closing her eyes, laying her head next to his shoulder.

Ah, the wonders of CloTi mush. You know, I'm kind of worrying myself that this story is moving farther away from Mira, its main plot point, and moving farther into Yuffentine and CloTi.

I plan on fixing that.

... Eventually.