I.
Shera didn't know what to think of the red beast sitting in the middle of the living room. She was aware that he was one of Cid's associates, but that was as far as her knowledge of him went. Hazel eyes scanned with minor suspicion. A creature was lurking town, and Nanaki just-so-happened to appear. Like her housemate, she was curious to know why he traveled thousands of miles, out of his way, to visit Rocket Town.
"I hope you've had some time to recover." He began. Nanaki's long tail lazily flicked back and forth; flame carefully held above the hardwood and away from stray fabric. His bright, intelligent eyes looked between Cid and Shera seated on the scratchy living room sofa before him.
"Yeah, I'm doin' alright. You came all the way from Cosmo Canyon? What's the deal?" Cid didn't want to admit that he was still recuperating, so he hopped straight to the point.
"I didn't." Nanaki briefly shook his head and sank down to fully rest on his belly. "I came from North Corel."
"Why were you all the way up in North Corel? Ain't nothing there. Nothin' here either." Cid tugged a fresh cigarette from the box behind the strap of his goggles, and scraped around in his jacket pockets for a lighter. Shera had yet to say anything. She hoped that listening would help her make sense of things.
"I was looking for Barret. Luckily, I found him there instead of Midgar. He's probably in Midgar by now, but I was asked to travel here to speak with you as well. I would have contacted ahead of time if I were able." Nanaki sighed. He responded to the bulk of Cid's questions while managing to avoid fully answering why he was there.
"Why?" Shera's brows furrowed. She fanned the air around her to clear the fresh smoke Cid puffed out from the corners of his mouth.
"There's a problem." Nanaki continued to be vague.
"When ain't there a problem?" Cid bit the cigarette filter. He could practically feel all the unnecessary amounts of travel he was going to be getting into again. "Didn't we just fix somethin'?!"
"It's a little irritating. I understand." Nanaki lowered his head to his paws. He licked a long, relatively fresh cut along the side of his muzzle. "If you're well enough to join the party again, I think everyone would appreciate it. Cloud can better explain. You should contact him if you're interested." He leapt up not a second after finishing his sentence. The beads in Nanaki's mane clicked with the short movements of his head. His ears swiveled back behind him; listening for something.
Shera didn't know Nanaki, and even she considered his behavior odd. She pushed her glasses back up the bridge of her nose and shot Cid a side glance. He had the very same expression.
II.
"So?" Shera spoke with a partly full mouth. She crept from behind the corner leading to the house phone while Cid ended his conversation.
"Clean up duty is what it sounds like." The Captain pushed the phone back into the hook and unclipped the leather bands around his working gloves. He removed, and then tossed them off to the side on the counter. His empty dinner bowl was chucked in tepid dishwater. "Pretty boy was talkin' about getting rid of some loose experiments. All the monsters we ain't have a chance to get to are poppn' up again. Cain't get a fuckin' break these days."
"Experiments?" Shera absently picked through her food and stood at attention a pace or two ahead of her housemate. She could see that he was going to leave the bowl and spoon in the sink unwashed.
"Yah, that's right. I ain't tell you about the psycho we ran in to, did I? He was pretty much the whole reason why the Planet was almost six feet under. Y'know, aside from those Mako reactors." Cid stepped off to the right, and Shera made the same movement. He moved a step to the left. Shera did the same again.
"No, you didn't. You can wash that bowl in the sink while you tell me about it." She granted Cid a very polite smile.
The Captain muttered a few curses under his breath, turned, and bitterly acted upon Shera's suggestion. His hand sloshed around the murky water in search of the sponge. "Professor Hojo. Did some pretty disgusting shit to folks." Cid kicked open the sink cabinet with his foot and took out a new bottle of dish soap. As childish as he was for thinking so, he hated having to be held accountable for house chores. A promise is a promise, right?
"I might have heard something from a radio report. You know they're slowly scooping out ShinRa's dirt." They had enough to cover three landfills. "He conducted inhumane experiments on unwilling participants?"
"Sure did. I almost got in a pretty bad scrap with Hojo when it came down to the wire. Old hack had one hell of a fight in em'. An fuckin' ugly one, too." Cid handed her the bowl he'd just washed and switched it out with the now empty, used bowl in her other hand. He was sucked into his own thoughts. He was thinking of some of his past conversations with Vince. Good ol' Vince. Red had been a victim at some point. Cloud. Aerith, too. Thinking about that poor girl made him sick to his stomach.
"Sounds horrible. At least what mess he left behind can be cleaned up." Shera pulled the yellow band from her hair and wrapped it around her wrist. Her brown tresses fell to her back and around her shoulders. She reached up after drying the bowl she rinsed off, and placed it away in the proper kitchen cabinet.
"No guarantees, but we can damn well try. Who knows what kinda shit he was up to. We'll just have to see what we can do." Cid yanked out the stopper to drain the sink water.
"Are you going to meet up with them?" Shera bit the edge of her lip. If Cid was going, a strong part of her wanted to go with him. The other part of her argued that there would be no one to watch over the house. The probability that one of Hojo's creations was robbing the town of its peace of mind was high.
"Neh," Cid shrugged, dried his hands, and walked past Shera in the direction of the stairs "said I'd probably get to em' in a week er two. Not really feelin' at max capacity just yet."
"Taking your medicine would probably help, Captain." Shera quipped; turning out the light in the kitchen.
"Well, babe, ain't you fuckin' feisty this week?"
III.
Not quite a smile, not quite a grin tugged at the corners of her lips. Shera gazed down at her polished toes in fuzzy floor rug fibers. A sigh escaped her. Her eyes were dry and lids heavy with tiredness, but she felt well. Slow fingers maintained a constant, ginger motion over the warm buoyancy of her cheek. She could still feel where Cid's facial stubble had scuffed her. They had teeter-tottered on the issue of his current condition, and he ended the banter with gently gifting Shera a kiss goodnight.
It wasn't the first time they'd shared the sort of gesture. Even she was able to occasionally kiss Cid on his lips, or cheek. Shera bashfully remembered them sharing a bed (another story for another time) before Meteor had shrouded, and made the future unpredictable. Now that things were clearer, and old grudges set aside, they'd been able to chip away at the formality that fundamentally separated them. Shera quite liked it; actually being able to be Cid's close friend (that probably wasn't the correct term for the current mechanics of their relationship) and not his unlucky assistant.
Shera suppressed a deep yawn and reached over a small coffee table to her bedside lamp. She twisted the creaky knob; dousing her room in darkness. From what she could tell, Cid wasn't snoring just yet, but would be soon in his own room down the hall. She closed her eyes, drew the covers over her shoulders, and allowed the obnoxious refrains of crickets to lull her to sleep.
IV.
Eyes snapped open. She was out of bed before she could fully comprehend the sharp sound that roused her from sleep.
"Captain?" Shera rasped. She tied on a warm robe and trotted out to the hall only to find he wasn't there. The door to his room was left open with a note. She ripped it from the wooden surface and read it while slinking downstairs. Cid couldn't sleep and stepped out for a beer? Shera thought that was what it said. The handwriting was lazy; like Cid had been half asleep when he got the craving.
Suddenly, an indistinguishable figure moved beyond a window. The figure's intimidatingly large shadow swept past the hard brackets of moonlight cast on the hardwood floor. Thick silence was broken by the crunch of grass and heavy, humid breathing. Shera smothered the instinct she had to turn on a light, and very slowly, very quietly peeled open the closet door. She dismounted the sharpest spear up on the wall, and clutched it like the Captain had taught her years ago. Armed, and trying to remain calm, Shera crept up to the side she assumed the figure had prowled around to.
Several moments past with minimal sounds. Shera strained her ears to listen, and tried to focus her senses over the thumping of her heartbeat. Almost a quarter of an hour ticked away on a digital clock in the living room. She heard nothing. Nothing. Still Nothing. The coast was clear.
Thickly swallowing her pulse, Shera slowly unlocked the back door and poked her head out. She was met with damp air and the wail of unphased moon cicadas. Again, she decided against turning on any porch lights. Shera resettled her grip on the heavy weapon in her hands, looked to the left, looked ahead, and then looked to the right. Squinting, she could barely make out displacements of grass and scratches of sharp nails in the porch wood. Aside from that, there was nothing to see. She administered one last scan of the yard before she considered retreating inside.
STOP.
Shera's heart lodged itself in her windpipe and her head snapped back in the direction of the cause of her intense alarm. One, two, glowing orbs were unwavering and seemingly suspended not too far off in the dark distance. Her pulse raced when she realized that they were eyes. 'It', a quadruped, shifted and snarled at a volume that curdled her blood. Shera could finally separate it from the solid block of tree line, and tell just how big this creature was.
She blinked, and like a ghost, it was gone.