Penance

©®™ Lt. Commander Richie

((Disclaimer:As I write this, a crazy classmate is air-guitaring on top of a table in front of me. He is obviously made of win and god, because he is managing to do so, look cool, and wear a sweater-vest with a pink and blue diamond print on it at the same time.))

Chapter 25

"Sir, I don't see why you're changing the search criteria now. Are you telling me that we've been searching the wrong person all along?" Reeve looked out at the group situated about the single room in Nibelheim's Inn, the unsecured and easily tappable landline phone held at his ear. He was trying hard not to smile, watching as Mira bothered Yuffie incessantly as Vincent attempted to cast her broken arm. Marlene sat in the corner with a pair of wire clippers in one hand and the innards of a PHS in the other, Cait Sith's innards open to the world in front of her as she delicately removed the closed circuit that Tarren Mordukai had repaired.

"Just do it. We haven't been searching for the wrong person, we've been searching the wrong name for the right person." Muffled swearing came over the line as the WRO operative on the other end of the line dropped a coffee mug on her lap. "Are you alright?"

"Yes Sir. Just coffee. I'm putting in the new criteria now."A few moments of silence passed, and Tifa pulled Mira away from Yuffie and Vincent and brought her over to Cloud. The three had a light conversation, Cid nodding a few times from his place next to the blond swordsman. "... Sir?"

"Yes?" Reeve brought the receiver back to his mouth, turning away from all of the action.

"You were right, sir. Ariana Leirbach requested that her daughter not assume her mother's surname, instead insisting that her she have her father's name on the official record. She was later registered for a small daycare in Sector Three as Mira Leirbach, however, although her birth certificate says otherwise."

"And there was no record of this anywhere at all? Nobody stopped and logged this in as an anomaly?" Reeve asked, narrowing his eyes at the receiver in his hand. If it had been human, the small piece of plastic would have been killed by the glare in the worst way.

"No sir. But I've just called up Mira's birth certificate, and it's the correct kid. Born November 29th, Era 0008 007 to Ariana Leirbach and undisclosed father. At her birth, the child exhibited signs of Mako poisoning, but the symptoms died off after a week of intensive care and the Mako was incorporated into her genetics."The woman on the other end paused for a moment, wiping at the coffee stagnating on her lap. "Her name was requested to be Mira Erika Fair, sir. Does this mean that her undisclosed father is..."The woman trailed off, her words growing quieter as she realized that the implications were true.

"Yes. Mira Leirbach's father is Lt. General Zackary Fair, SOLDIER First Class." Reeve nodded, turning to watch as Mira emptied her pockets for the people surrounding her and scrabbled after the Materia that fell from her pocket with a bounce. "Although, sometimes you can't guess by looking at her."

"I suppose I should change her birth certificate then, sir."Reeve shook his head, then realized that the woman couldn't see him.

"No. It would be much easier on her if she didn't constantly have people breathing down her neck for her genetics." A brilliant flash of light filled the room, along with the scent of flowers, and Cloud and Zack shook hands and pounded each other's backs like the old friends that they were. A sound of affirmation was made on the other end of the line, and it went dead. The scene was all-together happy, Yuffie leaning on Vincent's shoulder so as to not buckle her shaky legs from being thrown into several trash bins and a wall as she shook Zack's hand with her good one. Marlene tugged incessantly at Reeve's coat, and he knelt down in front of her.

"I finished taking out the old circuit, just like you asked." She said, holding out the limp form of Cait Sith. The former Head of Urban Development nodded, taking the proffered cat and looking at the wires inside. They were twisted together in a shoddy fix, the circuit board of Cait's PHS clicking lightly against the other circuits in his body. The older man smiled, pulling a small soldering iron from his pocket and touching it to the connected wires. They melted together, and then sparked once. Cait jumped to his feet, punching a mittened claw into the air.

"I be feelin' a loight breeze..." He suddenly muttered, looking down and letting out a startled yowl as he realized that his front zipper was open for the world to see his electric innards. Everyone laughed as the embarrassed AI flipped his cape over himself and huddled on the ground as a small ball of fake fur and cloth. The little ball of fluff managed to inch his way towards Nanaki, huddling under the large red lion's mane and blending in quite well. Inside the Inn, everything was happy as Mira clung to her father's hand with one hand and her Materia with the other. Outside, the rain poured down in an unending deluge.

The sky poured its worth time and time over, turning the streets of Nibelheim to muddy rivers that flowed with white-water rapids over misplaced stones and piles of leaves, trickling down clogged storm drains at a snail's pace. It was nearly ten at night, the only light in the whole room of the Inn the singular grayish black glow of the Materia in Mira's pocket. The little girl was wrapped in several blankets on the cushioned window seat, a mighty fleece and the red cloak she so loved tucked in around her.

"Mira!" A girl in pink raced across fields of flowers, smiling all her worth and holding her large and faded skirt away from the ground. "You came!"

"Aerith?" Mira turned, getting to her feet in the never-ending field of flowers. The older girl's apron swished about her feet, tugging at the stems of the lilies she jumped over in her haste to reach her friend. Standing in front of the younger girl, the brunette bowed and heaved for breath. Bushy brown hair falling everywhere, the girl smiled widely and dug around in one of her pockets.

"Here. Sorry I couldn't go to your birthday." From the deep pocket on her apron, Aerith Zeit drew the remains of her old baseball in its two pieces. Mira smiled and took the skin and the innards of the ball, rooting in her own pocket for the Heal Bell.

"This is yours, right?" The seven-year-old asked, the bell tinkling its echoing chime. The pink-clad brunette shook her head, gathering the chain up into the littler girl's hand and closing it.

"You keep it. You need it more than I do." She said, smiling. Mira looked up at the blank sky, putting the Heal Bell back into her pocket absentmindedly. She paused and thought for a moment, not taking her gaze from the white expanse.

"How are you here?" Aerith giggled, but it wasn't the same small laugh of a ten-year-old girl that the younger knew so well.

"I'm always here." A delicate pink-nailed hand was laid on her shoulder, and she craned her neck back farther to look over her head. The smiling face of Aerith Gainsborough was above her, tilted slightly to the side and upside-down. Mira turned around and straightened her neck, smiling as well. Aerith looked down at her, and she looked up, and the two laughed.

"I know." The seven-year-old blinked, and Aerith Zeit stood next to her smiling with her hands clasped in front of her and her bushy hair held back with a yellow ribbon. The girl giggled, and the younger one blinked again for the image to be replaced by the older woman. "You were watching over me?"

"Of course." Aerith leaned down and tapped Mira lightly on the nose with one pink-nailed finger, her face still smiling. "Zack can't leave the Promised Land, after all." Her hand went from the girl's face to smoothing back her spiky hair, even though her efforts were futile and all they did was compact the stiff spikes even more. She shook the hand away with her her head, rummaging through her pocket and pulling out her Summon the Dead Materia.

"He's right here!" She held it close, getting ready to call upon the spirit of her father, but Aerith pulled her hands away from her chest and uncurled her fingers.

"Don't Summon him here." She said, a small frown on her face. "He'll never be able to leave." Mira sighed and gently placed the orb back in her pocket, sitting down on the ground and then laying back on the ground. Aerith sat next to her, her hands folded demurely in her lap and her golden bracelets clinking together merrily. The two sat like that for a while, wistful silence falling over the both of them.

"It's because of the Mako, you know." Aerith was the first to speak, taking one hand and smoothing Mira's hair back down. If fluffed back again, stubborn and arrogant just like her father's.

"What is?" The little girl asked, rolling onto her stomach and holding her chin in her hands as her elbows dug into the white earth.

"Why the Remnants call you Sister." Pink-nailed hands untied the red ribbon in Mira's hair, gently pulling messy and chopped strands of hair into a small ponytail. She tied the ribbon securely, and for once it stayed where it was supposed to. "It was because you were born with Mako in your system that they say you are their Sister. They were created with Mako in their systems."

"I know." The seven-year-old replied noncommittally, turning over again and reaching into her pocket. From it she drew the rubber innards of the old baseball Aerith had given her, and she began to toss it in the air and catch it. "Mumma always said she'd never give me no more brothers or sisters. She said... She said that I was already too strong for her."

"You'll always have a big family. All your friends, everyone in AVALANCHE, they'll always look after you."

"I know." She said again, throwing the rubber lump of plastic mesh into the air with one hand and catching it with the other. "'Cause you're always here, I'll never not have someone to talk to." Aerith smiled, the hand that had redone Mira's hair retreating back to her lap.

"That's right." Mira closed her eyes as she caught her ball one last time, tucking it into her pocket with one blind hand. The older woman finally leaned over and scooped the seven-year-old up, hugging her tightly. The little girl gargled in surprise, barely putting up a struggle. "Oh, you're just like the little kid I never had! I'm definitely not leaving you alone. Even if everyone's gone, I'll always be there to help you." She was like a doting mother, albeit a young and understanding one that was still so much like a child when she wanted to be that she understood everything a child's world could ever produce.

Mira smiled lightly in her sleep, curling tighter around the stuffed and deactivated form of Cait Sith and hugging him tighter to her chest. The puppet flopped limply this way and that as she moved, finally finding a comfortable spot that wasn't on top of the bulge in her nearly-overflowing pocket. She clenched her fist slightly in annoyance at something, drawing the hapless doll even closer, but relaxed finally and let go. In the corner of the room, Nanaki opened his one eye and gave the little girl a soft look. It wasn't her in particular that he smelled, so much as the wafting scent of lilies that he remembered so well. The lion smiled as well as he could, a slight upturning of his lips, before twitching into a tighter ball in his space on the softest rug in the room and curling his tail in closer to his stomach. It wouldn't to very well to set the Inn on fire, after all, since it was raining too hard to make it back up the hill to the ShinRa Mansion. There wasn't a real need for warmth, what with twelve people all shoved into the one room and taking up every bit of floor, bed and window seat space available. Rain pattered on the roof in an almost cheery fashion, as though it was overjoyed that it could be raining on that one little town.

"If you do not let her figure things out on her own, she will be severely spoiled." Nanaki stated to the thin air, and it was if on the edge of his imagination that he could hear a light giggle and feel a hand finger-combing his mane.

"But she's just so cute." Came the barely-there reply, and for a while the lion wondered if he was only imagining it. But then the same apparition was next to Cloud, his mouth open and snoring to rival Cid and Barret's cacophonous symphony of nighttime snorts and grunts. His mouth was gently closed and he and Tifa's blanket drawn higher up the bed from where it had been kicked by restless legs. That done, the same was above Vincent and Yuffie. The former cradled the latter as though she was made of glass and easily breakable, his metal claw keeping a firm grip on her side so as to keep her from rolling over onto her newly-casted arm. A dozen signatures already decorated the white surface in a myriad of colors, and with a slight scrawl a well-wishing note was written in pink pen on some of the open space left. Like the last bed she drew the covers up farther, tucking the two in and smiling all the while.

"They'll know you were here." Nanaki murmured, his tail flicking back and forth and casting a light glow.

"That's the point, isn't it? That I'll always be with you?" A pillow was shoved unmercifully over Cid's mouth, stifling his snores. His blanket was also drawn up, his cigarettes taken from his coat pocket and dropped unceremoniously in the nearest rubbish bin. Barret, sleeping on the floor with Marlene leaning on his side and Denzel at the girl's feet, was carefully walked around and an extra blanket was laid over him to compensate for the fact that the man refused to wear anything more than a net shirt and an insulated vest. Another extra blanket was laid over Reeve, his PHS first removed carefully from his pocket where it had a danger of being crushed and then put on the bedside table.

"I suppose. However, Cloud will be rather put out that you didn't wake him." The giant cat was perfectly careful with where he finally sat his tail, the flames licking at his fur without burning or even so much as singeing. "But of course, you have a reason for this I suppose." Cracking his one eye back open from where it had fallen shut from fatigue, Nanaki heaved a growling sigh. "I'm talking to myself." He muttered, before curling tighter about his tail and closing his eye once more.

The rain had let up, collecting in clogged drains and in divots in the cobblestone streets. The sky was blue in places, but what clouds there were were dark and foreboding. With a roar the engines of the newer version of the Tiny Bronco that Cid and Reeve had flown to Nibelheim came to life, water flying everywhere in the backlash. Cid was at the wheel in the small cockpit, an unlit cigarette in his teeth as he fiddled with the radio.

"Are you sure you want to go?" Zachariah Mordukai stood next to Cloud, his long sleeves exchanged for shorter ones with frayed edges and a fresh bandage. His sisters both stood by their mother, Tarren with her hip slung to one side and her matching hand resting on it. Abvalia was glaring at Cait Sith, and the stuffed toy back as well as it could with glass eyes. His mother, her pink and fraying apron absent but her clothes no less worn than the ancient and discarded garment, stood between them.

"If they have the Geostigma Syndrome's cure, I want to go." Zack insisted, running his right hand through his messy hair. "I'll be back, I promise." Abby broke her glaring contest with Cait, rushing forward and hugging her brother about his knees in a move that nearly brought him to the sludgy ground.

"Don't leave, Zackie! Don' leave!" The little girl cried, and with a groan of annoyance Tarren walked forward and grabbed her sister around her stomach and pulled her away from their sibling. Holding Abvalia under one arm like a kicking and screaming sack of Gysahl Greens, the oldest of the three mercilessly hit her brother on his upper left arm with an open palm. He winced, but nothing more, smiling and pulling his sisters into a one-armed hug.

"I'll either miss you or jump off the Nibel Mountains, dipstick. Which one'll it be?" Tarren asked, mussing her brother's hair with the one hand she had on his head with her arm around his neck.

"Nibel Mountains, now let go." The teen squirmed from his sister's grasp, pulling himself up into the Tiny Bronco and taking a seat behind Cid. The pilot had finally decided on a station, and now Country music came from the small speakers that were nearly drowned out by the roaring of the plane's engines. Reeve shook hands with the sibling's graying mother, a smile on both their faces as he assured her that her son would come home safe.

"He'll be home by noon tomorrow." He nodded, and Caterina Mordukai freed her hand from his so as to brush all of the silver hair that had fallen in her face back into the bun on the back of her head.

"He'd better not have any fun, you hear?" She said jokingly, loud enough for Cloud to hear her as he climbed into the last seat in the plane. "That boy's grounded." The swordsman saluted, winking silently at the boy in the seat in front of him. Zack gave a thumbs-up to the group gathered at the landing strip, and the Tiny Bronco began to move forward. Everyone waved as they backed away from the roaring plane, Tifa leaning down and picking Mira up off of Nanaki's back and placing the little girl on her own shoulders. With a final roar the plane shot off into the air, circling towards the mountains and gaining altitude. Tarren dropped her sister on her feet, running down the airstrip before stopping and cupping her hands to her mouth.

"Do a barrel roll!" She screamed, but Cid couldn't hear her. She shrugged, kicking at a few rocks as everyone behind her laughed. The teen walked back to the group, smiling at everyone as she put her hands in her pockets and began to head home. Her mother put her hand on her shoulder, steering her back to the group.

"I've got to make lunch for you all, really. It's the least I can do." The woman offered, her smile still there. Tarren sulked under her steady gaze, and Nanaki shook his head.

"I'm afraid that you wouldn't be able to make enough food. I do not doubt your cooking skills, only the size of your kitchen." The lion paused, flicking a spattering of mud from his fur. "There are too many of us, and most of our number eat as much as two people." Caterina nodded mutely, taking her youngest by the hand and steering her oldest back towards Nibelheim.

"Just remember, the offer still stands." She said cheerfully. The two groups said their goodbyes, Marlene smiling and waving the hardest.

Even without AN, this thing is still pretty long. The last chapter is next, possibly along with a trailer for the sequel. Hells, you never know. Anyone else have problems with FF's login area Wednesday? It wouldn't let me long in for most of the day.

200th review gets a cameo in the sequel.