((Nobody panic, I has a chapter for readers - I am back on track. Mostly. :D ))
Heart Less Love
"I will never be... a memory..."
Chapter Twelve: Cracks
She didn't want to raise her eyes and look up at the single, perfect teardrop hung suspended from the girder above her. She didn't want to, but as if drawn by a power far greater than any she could hope to possess, her dark claret eyes lifted and she saw it. It was beautiful, the diamond struck against the steel grey sky, twinkling down at her, acknowledging her. She thought her heart would break, she thought she would cry, but none of that came to pass.
She stared upon it in trepidation but a hidden sweet joy, before parting her lips to the thrum of rain outside, the soft rain and the sunlight gently glowing through the tear of water. She whispered softly to no-one at all, to someone who was not there with her now, to someone she loved beyond all others and things in this world.
Tifa said softly, "You were here, all along. I could feel you. Thank you."
The droplet of water shimmered and she nearly trembled on the brink of disaster, the brink of letting go of all her pent up grief. Instead, she looked out to the rain and the world, the sky rise of a city in the new day and she smiled sadly... smiled, lonely...
Her hands reflexively closed about the waist of the woman who slept so serenely at her side, her dark eyes unfathomable with hidden thoughts. A soft brush of golden hair curled over those shoulders that rose and fell with soft breaths. Softness, so much softness wrapped about that inner core of steel.
"Aerith," she murmured to herself, affirming the name.
She had told Vincent that she would be there for the Cetra for as long as was needed. But, even so, the bitter memories of loss were stuck still in her dreams, dark dreams that she had thought banished long ago, when her beautiful flower had returned to her. Only the sounds of sleep told Tifa that she was not alone, only those kept her from crumbling away.
A noise in the corridor made her sit upright just as she was about to try curling back up against Aerith's back. The sound was that of something being knocked over and rolling away. Frowning to herself in the dimness of their shared room, Tifa slowly unfurled herself from her other half and tugged her nightclothes into an abeyance of looking unruffled. Not bothering with the soft down filled slippers, she moved to the door and carefully touching the handle, opened it enough that she could peer into the corridor outside. There was a dark shape moving about in the darkness, but jerkily almost.
The frown deepened on Tifa's beautiful face. If there was an intruder then the last thing she wanted to do was to go hand-to-hand in such an enclosed space, but then... her dark eyes glanced over her shoulder at the sleeping Aerith. There was absolutely no call to wake her up and bother her restful dreams with this. Aerith hardly seemed to sleep right ever since she had returned to them. Knitting her brows again, claret eyes checked the corridor and the dark figure as she slipped soundlessly out.
The dark figure lurched with the gentle buffeting of the ship: they were on their way north, far to the north and the only comfortable way to traverse the sheer cliffs was travelling on Cid's airship. A strange little hiccup of noise broke the night, and Tifa drew breath softly.
It happened so fast that she was unsure if her eyes had betrayed her. One moment the figure was swaying on uncertain footing along the corridor, and then next there was a hand, planted firmly into her abdomen and the air whooshing from her lungs. On natural instinct alone did she act, and that was to lash out in retaliation with her foot. It drove up and into the chin of the figure, sending it flying down the corridor with a metallic, hollow clang. The collection of chairs that were lined outside the sickbay got knocked over by the figure in a horrendous clamour.
"Urgh," groaned the figure, sitting up slowly and hands cupped to the chin. "God, wha... where am I?"
"Yuffie!?" Tifa said in surprise. Her own foot smarted slightly: she was far more used to having a good inch of steel covering her toes when she went about kicking things. "What are you doing out here?"
"Out here?" Yuffie repeated blankly, still sat on the floor.
"You're in the corridor, and you tried to hit me!"
"I did?" There was a hitch in her voice, of panic, but in the darkness Tifa couldn't read what emotions were filling the girl's face no doubt, for Yuffie had never been good at hiding her emotions. "I don't remember leaving my room at all. I was having a dream..."
"You sleepwalked outside and smacked me in the stomach?" Tifa wished she didn't sound like she had a hard time believing it. After everything that had happened, it really wasn't such a massive stretch to say someone had sleepwalked.
"I guess, wow... sorry if I hurt you... my chin is killing me."
"Yes well, I sort of... hit you back."
"You didn't have to hit so hard," Yuffie's tone hit that of faintly injured. "I'm gonna get a glass of milk and then go back to bed. Jeez, that really hurts Teef..." Still muttering to herself, the ninja got off the floor and sleepily, unsteadily, started down the right corridor to the galley.
Tifa watched the dark figure go, and then looked down at the shadowy shapes of her hands, clenching them into fists. For a split second, when she had caught the gleam in Yuffie's eyes she had been starkly afraid, the terror quivering in the back of her heart. Something in the eyes had been feral; something had been not quite how she had always known the Wutai ninja to be.
Filled with these dark thoughts, Tifa turned and stepped back into the room she shared with Aerith and closed the door with a soft click, her eyes adjusting to the fainter light that permeated their room, given off by the undulating glow of the materia that Aerith had chosen from the surprisingly vast stock which Yuffie had brought along with her. She stayed there by the door, unsettled deeply by the events outside their room and unable to voice exactly why she felt so sick to her stomach.
"Is she okay?" said the soft voice from the bed.
Tifa gave a guilty start; not only had she not bothered to check Yuffie's wounds, but Aerith had been awake the whole time! Sheepishly she laughed, "Uh, yeah, she's just a bit shaken up. So am I..."
"Yuffie has never been a sleep walker before," Aerith said, muffled slightly by the pillow she rested her head on. There was a rustling noise and slowly she sat up in bed, limned in the vague materia glow, her eyes half closed with deep thought. "Keep an eye on her, Tifa."
"Oh, why?"
Those eyes never widened but they flicked to look at her, flatly almost, weighing. Tifa shivered. "One of the things I learned in the chambers at the forgotten city was that Yuffie could be in terrible danger. Just one of the many things..."
"Danger? What kind of danger?"
"It's nothing you could do anything about, so there is no point to worrying over it." The eyes slid away, "Don't worry about it, Tifa."
Crossing the room, she crawled across the bed and took Aerith by the shoulders, forcing her to look at her. A dark fury was welling up inside her, motivated by stark terror. "Aerith, if there is anything I should know, then don't you think you should tell me instead of leaving me with the option of only discovering what you intended days, weeks or even months after it happens?! Am I not important enough to you to tell me what is going on?"
"Tifa, don't!" The ancient shrugged herself clear, tears in her eyes, "I can't quite explain it yet, okay!?"
"No," she said soberly, "No, it's not okay."
"...why can't you trust me?"
"Why can't you?"
Green eyes slid back towards claret ones again, locking there in the darkness. Unspoken words floated there between them, hidden in the slickness of tears that trickled slowly down perfectly smooth cheeks. This time, Tifa stood strong, this time she refused to let it go at just that.
She went on; "If you loved me, like you say you do, you would share your hardships with me, instead of excluding me. If you wanted me in your life, like you say you do, you would let me know what we might face, together. If you cared, like you say you do, you would care enough to know how much it kills me, knowing there are things I cannot help you with no matter what I do. If you knew at all how terribly frightened I am every day, knowing that you could slip through my hands and I could do nothing about it all. Just think on that Aerith; just think seriously on what you have said to me, today and before. You are everything to me."
"Tifa..." Aerith said in anguish.
"Goodnight." The fighter said, unceremoniously turning into the covers and planting her head facedown into the pillows, arms overhead and partially blocking out sound.
Partially cutting out the sound of Aerith's crying.
The next day was warm and bright, insofar as it could be, as far north as they had travelled in Cid's airship. Tifa had left long before Aerith had woken up, and dressing herself slowly, she tried to digest the words Tifa had spoken in a cold temper the past night. It was right in a sense at least, she had tried to shut out the girl, tried to burden only herself with the terrible knowledge of what she might be facing. The news of Yuffie and her sleepwalking escapade had not surprised Aerith as much as she had supposed.
But even with all those things, something else occupied her mind strongly.
"It won't be long now," she crooned to Tifa, holding her in arms cold from the water.
Holes in her mind were slowly being filled up with memories, with emotions and with feelings. It wasn't a sudden process, somewhat to her disappointment. The memories taken from her to protect her against the cruel realities of the world were returning, those memories the Planet had suppressed in order to give her the kind of perfect joy she had subconsciously wanted when she floated, bodiless in the lifestream. Many times, so many she could not count them, her spirit had considered floating free, drifting away into the pulse of life that was the world. Hopeful that someday, somewhere, they would all be together again.
"I'm not an Ancient, I'm not!"
"But Aerith, when you're alone, don't you hear voices...?"
She could almost picture the faces of people she had little to no contact with now, she could almost pin their voices against their personalities. Almost. The memories that made their way back to her in the week that had passed since the chambers were all jumbled in together, finding their places with an aching slowness that almost killed her, wanting to know not only those around her, but herself.
"No, not my daughter, not her! Leave Aerith alone, leave her alone! Noooo!"
Her hands clutched her head with a ripple of pain, a headache. Mother. That was who it had been, not her foster mother Elmyra who lived peacefully in Kalm now, but Ifalna. She had always thought that she would stop hearing her quiet and sure voice as she grew up but... that hadn't been the case at all. In fact as she had grown up, if anything, that voice in her heart had grown stronger.
Tears stung her eyes; the voice haunted her mind long after the scream had cut off. It shivered there, soundless and dripping agony.
"Mom..." she whimpered.
"Aerith?"
Snatching hands from her head, one scrubbing quickly across her eyes, she looked towards the door and Cid, who was stood there. No cigarette hung from his lips today, his blue eyes were focused and thoughtful, stubble crossing his jaw line. He still wore those pilot clothes of his, only he had discarded the bomber jacket and scarf, wearing a simple white undershirt and dungaree straps clearly visible, the pockets of the dungarees stuffed with plans and a wrench on the very verge of dropping out.
"Cid, hey... what's up?"
"Hmm, you need a moment t'get your head round yourself or can we talk serious business for the moment?"
"No it's fine, I was just thinking," Aerith sat up straighter. She hadn't really paid attention to where she had gone, but somehow her steps had brought her around to the San of the ship, the neatly packed away utensils, the starched linen on the beds, the waving white curtains to cut each bed from the next and the wide window where she sat, blinds shuttering out half the light of the pale and cool north. "I came here to think, it's a calm kind of place. No one's sick right now so, I thought I'd at least get a bit of peace and quiet, you know?"
"No, I understand, so anyway, I wanted to talk about our destination," he came across to where she was, settling down onto a stool by her with a heartfelt groan. As she moved automatically to try helping him, he waved her advances off. "Don't fuss, I'm old not sick."
"The smoking doesn't help you know..." her voice withered away under the flat stare her gave her, then an impish little smile caught and tugged the corners of her mouth. This was much like old times, she mused, this was how it should be.
"I was thinking, about where we'd be going. The Knowlespole is a given, that's where the lifestream is the strongest after all, and where that black materia fell."
"True but," Aerith hesitated; she had other things that crowded at her mind, things she wanted to be sure of before taking more steps forward. "Can we go to Wutai after we head north? There are matters there that need to be dealt with."
"Mmm whats our crazy ninja got into this time?"
"Y-yuffie?" Aerith laughed, "Nothing!"
"I'm old, not dumb." He made a pass at his mouth, and then shrugged as his fingers brushed air, so used to having the cigarette hung there. His attempt at being nonchalant made the little smile quiver on the verge of a full blown grin. "Alright, well, y'got your reasons and you'll tell us when you're ready, like you always do. We ain't gonna be hitting the Knowlespole right away. The vampire made noise about his paperwork and little miss exuberance backed her boss to the hilt. So we're gonna swing by Nibelheim and pick up their paperwork, it won't take too long to do."
"Oh Nibelheim... Isn't that near to the Rocket Town right? Are you going to pass by and see Shera?"
Cid choked on his own spittle, "Why the hell would I go and do that for!?"
"Well, don't you miss her?"
"What's there to fucking miss? Cold dinners, complaining and nagging, slow as the glaciers when doin' anything? Hell girly, ain't shit to miss!"
Aerith bit her lip, the smile was nearly a big grin – Cid swearing meant only one thing: she had put her finger into the hornets' nest of complex emotions that came about his feelings for the ditzy scientist who worshipped the very ground he chain-smoked on. "Sorry I brought it up!"
"Yeah we-"
Her eyes glazed a little, his voice dimmed. There was something that he had said that had triggered a memory, a vague brush of colours and voices, of sensations in her head and heart. It was there, pulsing into life slowly, growing gently into the new day. There was a tiny kitchen dominated by a large table, the floor oddly clean despite the oily boot marks that made their way into the house from the back door. A woman in a white lab coat made tea in cups of odd patterns, no single one matching, several chipped, bustling with the hot water in the kettle from the stove, wisps of brown hair and massive glasses she seemed to hide behind.
"She made us tea," she whispered, Cid's voice stopping dead, "She wore a white lab coat, she smiled nervously and her hands have... long clever fingers. She asked me if I took sugar, or milk... I don't like tea with sugar... I laughed, Tifa said, I was sweet enough. She was quiet, polite, her tea was good... and the in you came, tracking dirt and oil... feet on the table..." Her vision sharpened and she looked at Cid's face. It had grown pale with wonder.
"You remember that," he said, sounding strangled and relieved.
"I do remember that."
"How?"
"I... It just came back to me, when we spoke about Shera... I can even remember those goggles you wore, the flowers in the vase, the strange sound of all the engines running." Aerith touched her cold face, feeling tears, happy tears she decided. "I really did remember."
"Aerith, that's wonderful!"
She smiled, and then frowned a little, "Cid, when I was in those chambers..."
As she was speaking, a voice on the tannoy blared, making them both jump. Unsettled, she clenched fists into her skirts and blushed. Cid just grumbled about turning down the volume on the system and finding an operator that didn't sound like he was choking on porridge. "Sorry, hey, don't look so frightened," he soothed, "You were saying?"
"N-no, it's nothing, silly ramblings, forget it!" She laughed nervously.
Cid regarded her with sceptical blue eyes, then shrugged, "Well alright, so, Knowlespole after Nibelheim, nothing else you wanna do, nowhere you wanna go?"
"Nowhere else."
"Say ah, it's none of my business mind you, but did you and Tifa have a fight," he stood up, picking up the wrench that had fallen out.
Aerith looked out of the window, the light hiding her own eyes from him, burning away her sadness, "Yeah, we did."
"Well, hey, if there's one thing I've learned, never go to bed angry with each other. If ya'all are gonna fight more than one day, sleep separately. It'll cut down on the screaming that the rest of us can hear, and saves me gil-loads in pottery."
"I'll remember that, Cid."
She didn't see him go, she was watching the light
She raised her eyes from pressing a hand around the cut on her arm, slivers of red blood trickling over trembling fingers, her glance looking around for the source of the voice. The control panel for the plate blinked on and off, changing numbers as it slowly counted down to the destruction of the support pillar that kept the slice of metal from crushing the residents beneath it. Cloud was groggily shaking off the effects of some memory or the other, Barrett looked a shell shocked as she did. But her dark eyes slowly found them drawn to the one noise that had not been there seconds before: the clicking and whirring of the helicopter blades in the air, slicing and stabbing through viciously.
The man stood on the ledge was calm and collected in a dark suit, long hair held back from his face with a simple band and smoothed into place so firmly that not even the whirring blades whipped strands of hair free. The dot in the centre of his forehead, between his brows, was dark, as dark as his distant eyes.
Words, all kinds of words, he spilled them back and forth and when something at his side stirred and raised its head, her heart clenched in cold agony. The gripping, eating fear chewing away at her from the inside, Aerith looking down at them, surging half upright to cry out; "She's alright, she's safe!"
Marlene, the thoughts of safety, of the little girl, in her dangerous situation. The green eyes of life, of love and hope, locked firmly to her face, knowing they would understand.
The hand that came out of nowhere was more a fist than a slap, hard, brutal, bruising her pale cheek and knocking Aerith to the floor of the helicopter.
Tifa saw red, Tifa saw flames...
...and jump, jump to the stories shared between them and the frail, tired looking foster mother, Elmyra. Stories of a childhood spent in abject terror, for such a young girl to endure horror after horror, and then be hunted relentlessly when she was finally out of the ShinRa labs...
...and oddly, she found herself thinking of Zack. Zack Fair, that brash and bright young Soldier who had come to their sleepy little town, with brilliant blue eyes and a cocky little grin. To Aerith, Zack had been the first to reach his hand out, the first to genuinely try and look behind those soft green eyes. He had given her the gift of the sky, she said, the gift of freedom.
Tifa had evolved beyond jealousy, even in her dreams, for the memories of the Zack who cajoled her each step of the way up the Nibelheim mountains, and the stories Aerith told with shy little laughs about their time together, they formed the image of a man who was kind, gentle and fun loving. She knew, without sadness, that if she had not turned up, if Zack had not passed away protecting Cloud, then he would have been a good match for Aerith.
But, Zack was gone, and Fate had other plans in store for two souls seeking deep comfort, with unspoken need that would flourish into stormy, helpless love against all odds. In a way, for the Aerith that was so resilient, she loved Zack too. For Cloud, for herself, for the memories of her village, she loved him well too.
And Aerith... her bitter words hung there between them.
A slap to the face that was more like a fist.
A slap to the face.
A slap.
The hand, going up, raising, for the slap and then...
...the sound of flesh hitting leather was loud, shockingly loud even against all the noise and she said softly, holding his wrist in a death grip, "No one hurts my flower."
...not even me...
They made good time to Nibelheim, time enough that Tifa was still wrangling over her dreams and apology to Aerith. Time enough that Aerith had space to think and reason with herself. Time enough that Cloud after watching both girls struggle, had finally took to actually cooking by his self: something that he turned out to be surprisingly better at than he had been all those years back.
It was not long after the mid-afternoon snack, which had left everyone to wander around the town, which had benefited from the business that Vincent and Reeve's company had brought in, bustling through shops and new exotic trends. Vincent and Yuffie however, went to the mansion, where his office was located. She had been fearful of crossing that threshold, the memory of blood on the walls burned into her mind, burned strongly there. But inside, clean-up crews had been sent around at Vincent's order, the place clean, free of the smell of blood and death, clear.
Vincent, still a man of spare words, huddled at his desk with a kind of possessive behaviour she found herself curiously drawn to, looking at him as he shuffled papers together, watching how his clever hands ticked over the figures on a calculator, the lurid glow of the flip-lid computer painting him, and to some extent, her in soft light green.
She hated admitting it, but she was sort of jealous.
Her chin throbbed, a memory of that mocking blow Tifa had given her, and the plaster on the cut that she had refused to have healed was a reminder to lock her door at night. When she had been a child, sleepwalking had been a very bad issue, once she had gone halfway up the Da Chao before an attendant found her. Tales she had been told of her almost falling into the village pond, catching colds from nights roaming, nearly setting her robes on fire. It had been so bad, not that long after her mother's death that her father had taken to locking her room at night.
She had resented it. Perhaps that why she still wanted her own freedom in a way... the sleepwalking she had at least grown out of as time had gone by.
He tapped at the keys, pausing only once to look at her. Yuffie jumped, feeling those eyes on her, she had been staring too long at the painting on the wall. Just as soon as they slid away, she relaxed and looked down, blinking at the scratch in the floorboards that varnish had not quite lacquered over. To her eyes, though, the words were bright in the dimness.
...down the stairs... down there, he is the demon... paying penance...
"Penance?" Vincent rumbled.
"Ah oh, I was j-just thinking," she turned around, burying a hand into her black locks of hair, "You know, I was reading this manga... it's a type of art book that Shake made kind of popular with the kids back home and it was about penance and er, stuff."
"Stuff..."
"Yeah, you know, never mind, boring, right?"
That look was considering and she wondered if she was sweating – her tongue felt as though it was stuck to the roof of her mouth. "You know what else, now is a good time to try and look busy and make tea?"
"Mmhmm," the tall dark man agreed, looking back to his work.
"You want one?"
He didn't reply, that was his version of 'no'. Yuffie had spent too long being employed by him to not know the little signs that passed around him. Making a sort of little bend at the waist – okay, so she wasn't in Wutai but some habits never broke – and stepped out, shutting the door behind her. The tense atmosphere was still there though, even despite the fact she was outside now, sweat cooling on the bare parts of her skin.
...in the third bedroom, there is a staircase... there is the dark way down, down into the depths, the abyss of where dreams were made... I know you can hear me, come to me... come to me...
Yuffie tilted her head, it felt heavy, and she felt weary. But the curiosity in her was almost blinding, and slowly, jerkily, she started making her way up the twin staircase, towards the third bedroom, or more accurately, the first room to the right of the stairs. She stood there, swaying in the doorway. What was this voice? It was so strange... it was so familiar...
...open the door...
She moved to a solid section of the wall and pressed her hands to the stones there, weights shifting under her sure touch and it slid away, revealing the spiral down.
"What... who's there?"
Yuffie blinked, there were voices down there. Moving on careful feet, unaware that shadows slipped along around her, encouragingly, she started down the spiral, hands held cautiously and ready. She had materia equipped should worse come to worst. The spiral fluted downward into an open area, a corridor hewn from stone, blocky and rough still. In brackets on the wall were dead lights, that sometimes sparked with attempts at life.
The voices were so loud. She came to the door and looked down.
The doorjamb rattled. It shook the handle, some of the door, rattling frantically.
"...Hello?"
Yuffie reached for the door handle.
It flung open just as she touched it, then she screamed, looking into the blackness within.
Hands, inky as night, reached through and grabbed her, tore her clothes, her skin and dragged her, screaming, into that blackness.
It slammed shut onto sudden silence.
Her dreams were not her own, her nightmares rather. They killed her senses, she screamed soundlessly.
She saw flames, burning flames as high and as hot as she could ever dream of them being. She drowned in green liquid, choking her. She felt the blade, sharp and swift. She felt the pain of it all... the pain of people she loved, she cared for...
"...take it all away," a voice was saying softly.
"What?" Yuffie opened her eyes, looking around, it was a lake of black water, a February moon rising high and blue into the midnight sky, so it glowed unearthly. The reflection rippled in the water she stood upon, as she turned around.
A woman, adorned in black, hooded and with a pointed chin. But what caught her attention were amber eyes, green eyes, shifting between those colours, reptilian almost. Yet, the voice she spoke with was soft, gentle and loving. It was her mother's voice.
"Mother?" she whispered.
"My child, you have grown so strong... shall I tell you, who killed me?"
Thoughts fled.
Her mother, dead outside the clinic she had run as the town's healer and doctor... Her mother with the bandana of the Kisaragi family torn from her head to lie in the bloody puddle by her... Her mother, gentle hands, gentle smiles and gentle hearted... Her mother, the woman she had wished she would be, the woman she had failed to be.
"Who... who?!"
The eyes glinted, "Cetra. They killed me. I was a traitor."
Yuffie's hands clenched hard, "Cetra!"
"One left... take revenge for me... take that revenge for me, my child, my lovely child!"
She was fading. Yuffie shrieked and tried running to her, legs bogging down into the dark water. "Mother! MOTHER!"
"Revenge, honour, the Wutai way..."
She sank into the dark water quicker now, filling her heart with it... losing her heart... there was love there, there was... Vengeance. She reached for the fuuma shuriken she always kept with her, and with a scream of rage, lifted it.
-Aerith thinks she's such a goddamn martyr... then I will too, my vengeance, your second death Cetra... I will martyr myself too!
...and struck...
"...You're sure you heard screaming? Well, the door is open. God, I thought we'd sealed this place."
"I must have forgotten to get around to it."
"Nicely done, Vincent! We were planning on checking it out down here though; I remember Reeve said something about scientific research that wasn't entirely bad."
"Reeve does that."
"You know, this place, it's not turned out too bad. I remember when you came out of here... you looked a real mess."
"Thanks."
"It's okay; I have a great talent with words sometimes."
Their voices slurred, she could feel the metal, her hands felt dead on the ground. She was slumped facedown just before the door, and with her dim gaze, she saw their feet finally. She clenched herself for it, the Wutai way.
"Yuffie! Oh my god, she's been stabbed with her own weapon... and there's more bloody writing on the walls! 'Die, Cetra, Die all of you'?! Vincent, run, get help! Yuffie, Yuffie can you hear me? Yuffie?"
...she heard her, but it was dim... and the shadows in her vision made the shape of her mother at the end of the corridor, watching... with glittering serpent eyes...
"Yuffie, say something!?"
She exhaled, bloody lipped, "Mother..."