so its that time again, gentle readers. Most of you I should call 'gentle readers' but I'm going to go with Rudyard Kipling's 'best beloved' for my reviewers. You guys are awesome! Cloti22 - woot! off to go blow things up! I love your enthusiasm! And - you're right - Cloud's got the cheat codes for the video game - lol! I love that call. Stay with me, best beloved, because its going to get to be a bouncy ride from here on out for a while and I'm partially blaming that on you and how hyper you make me with your reviews. Faceless, nameless reviewer - yep, I can't help the Cloud/Denzel thing - they seem made to buddy around. And I've got lots of surprises in store - welcome back! And ah, best beloved Peeka-chan you are the 'e' key on my keyboard. You make everything so much easier. Awesome call about Cloud's 'I'm warm' being a line!! Oh, you are so right! He was so using a line and knowing Tifa wouldn't get it. LOL! I'm so thrilled you called him on it! I'd love to have someone write this entire thing from his point of view because he's definitely not as clueless as Tifa likes to think. And yep, siblings are the best! I'll admit to comma problems, they're like small dogs - I'm never quite sure what to do with them. I should ask you to proof my chapters before I post them. A-dork-able is a new word I'm swiping off of you. And, Peeka-chan, best beloved... chapter 29 is entirely for you. Warm fuzzies all around, yo!

Chapter 26: Prepping

Going up to bed that night, Tifa woke up her siblings and Aerith. Yuffie, on the mattress on the floor, slept through it all. Tifa had learned the girl was a hard sleeper the one time she'd tried to wake her up before noon. Sitting on the bed with Denzel and Marlene snuggled in on either side of her and groggy, she told them about what she'd volunteered for downstairs. It was her decision but the consequences were theirs. Marlene and Denzel's mostly but also Aerith's because as protective and solid as Barrett was – Tifa would want her siblings in Aerith's care if anything happened to her. Silent, they listened to her. And it stayed silent for several minutes afterward as well as they thought over what she'd decided. Finally Marlene asked in a small voice:

"Are people going to die?"

It was Tifa's own concern as well and she exhaled and held her little sister tightly against her side.

"Yes." They would. There was no way to avoid that. Blowing up a reactor meant – blowing it up. Which meant the people inside could – no, would get killed. Tifa didn't want to kill people but it was impossible to blow up the reactor without doing it. It would be nice to pretend that everyone working for Shinra was evil but – people were people. She doubted most of the people working in the reactor were sucking the planet's life dry because they wanted to see everything barren and destroyed. They were working there because it paid the bills or for the prestige. That it happened to destroy the planet for future generations was probably something they avoided thinking about when they could. Where was the line, where was the balance between stopping what was going on and stopping causing death and sorrow? It bothered Tifa that she didn't know.

"What will we do when there's no more power from Shinra?" Denzel asked from her other side and she shook her head as she looked down at him.

"I'm not sure. There are other forms of power. There are lots of little villages and places that don't have a mako reactor. They get their power from different sources. We'd have to learn to do that too."

"And when we stop the reactors," Aerith stated quietly. "The planet will stop screaming."

Tifa reached out and gently touched Aerith's arm. Her friend had a – strange relationship with the planet. Only Aerith could coax flowers to grow in the sterile soil of Midgar. Only Aerith could feel the conduits hidden behind buildings and under streets that carried the Shinra energy on its course. Only Aerith could heal with a touch and only Aerith could hear the planet's whispers. Her friend said it sounded more like listening to the rain outside a window, faint and hard to distinguish drop from drop but there in the back of your ears, constant and soothing.

Except when it was screaming.

"Is Cloud going with you?" Denzel asked and Tifa looked down at him in surprise. His eyes were very determined over the concern and fear in them. Again, she nodded. And watched her little brother relax, just a little.

"Good" he stated clearly. "He said he'd watch over you."

That surprised Tifa and she dipped her head to look at her brother closely.

"He did? When did he say that?"

Denzel looked embarrassed and ducked his head so that his shaggy hair fell in the way.

"When I asked him to," he mumbled.

Tifa didn't know whether to be touched or mortified.

"You did?" she asked and he looked up at her suddenly, eyes fierce.

"Cause you're always protecting us and making sure we're safe in case anything bad happens. But there's no one to protect you and make sure you're safe. And Cloud's fast and strong. He's faster than anyone else."

"So you asked him to protect me?"

Denzel nodded and Marlene peered around Tifa to watch him.

"What did he say?" it popped out before Tifa could stop herself and as soon as she asked it she wished she could take it back.

"He said he always would," Denzel answered simply.

As they all crawled in bed together and settled down for the night, Tifa told herself that Cloud's promise to Denzel was just something an adult would say to a child to sooth them. Not anything to be taken seriously. And yet, lying there with her brother and sister draped over her and Aerith on the other side of Marlene… Tifa remembered Cloud's eyes when he made his own promise to her – and the way he took all of Denzel's questions so seriously. The way there was a strange touch of child in his own eyes…

And she couldn't imagine Cloud making a promise to a child unless he intended to keep it.

Her 'training' started the next day. Tifa hadn't been sure what to expect but apparently – to her surprise and delight – it was demolitions. It wasn't every day you got to work with explosives. Granted, since she and Cid were doing it in her basement, bundled up against the cold in the hidden room Barrett had built, Cid feeling free to curse to his heart's content since the kids weren't within hearing range, they weren't real explosives. But the wires and the principles he was teaching her didn't need real explosives to work. Apparently laying a bomb was more than just shoving it in a corner and setting a timer – though Cid showed her how to do that too. It was knowing how to hide it, how to fix it if something went wrong, how to stop and start it, how to disarm it if they got trapped inside with it… a dozen little things that Tifa memorized carefully. The 'where' of laying it was what Leon came down the stairs to teach her. He had maps of the reactors and he went over, point by point with her, where their weak spots were, where their construction carried the most strain, where the most highly unstable chemicals were… wherever an explosion would do the most damage. Tifa went over and over the floor plans with him until she had a clear picture in her head.

The idea was to move together as a team to three points and set the explosives as a group and then get out. But things didn't always go as planned and so each of them would carry an explosive and each of them had an assigned spot to deliver theirs to if they got separated. Tifa worried about that part. How could you set an explosion on a timer not knowing if your companions would get out in time?

Protecting herself while she was setting the bomb was another thing she was worried about. She was a part of a team and that meant not being a burden. If they worried about her, that meant they wouldn't be able to do their own jobs well. Tifa supposed she could carry a gun, since she had no clue on how to use a bladed weapon. But she'd never used a gun before – there wasn't even one in the house. There was a bat behind the bar she had never actually even come close to needing to use and that had been the extent of 'weapons' until her guests had started moving in. On the whole, it was generally about looking like you were going to be too much trouble to bother with. Yes, she ran a bar and yes, she had a defenseless father and two siblings relying on her for protection. And yes – she invited strange people into her house to get drunk on a regular basis. But her regular patrons were very protective of the bar itself and Tifa in particular and the very rare times she'd actually had to resort to violence her training with Master Zangan had come in handy and she'd dropped her opponents with a few well aimed blows to strategic pressure points. It was next to impossible for a guy to be violent when his knees had suddenly stopped working or his arms were hanging limp below the elbows.

Those were close combat attacks however and weren't going to do her any good long distance if they were being chased or attacked. She supposed she'd have to ask Leon for a gun – but she didn't like it.

Sitting on a pew in the empty church Aerith had adopted as her own and grew her flowers in, Tifa mentioned it to her best friend. The children were playing hide and seek inside the ruined church and Aerith was kneeling on the wooden floor near Tifa fussing over her flowers. At Tifa's comment however, Aerith sat back on her heels and started fussing with her bracelets.

"Here" she handed something to Tifa and Tifa took it in her hand automatically. 'It' was three little hard balls that for all the world looked like marbles. Except Tifa knew better.

"Materia?" she asked in shock, shifting the glowing globes of light in the palm of her hand. In such concentrated form, even Tifa could feel the tingle from them in her palms. Holding enough with those three little balls to buy half of Sector Seven – or at least a good portion of it. Aerith nodded with a smile.

"I find them. I can feel them when they're nearby. That's an ice and two fires. The ice isn't very old though. We can put them in the knuckles of your gloves. That way they'll hurt when you hit someone and they'll be right there when you want to use them."

Tifa looked at them, blinking and then looked at her friend.

"Aerith – "

Aerith waved a hand.

"What am I going to do with ice and fire materia? Its not like they help the flowers grow. And I wouldn't sell them because I don't trust anyone that could afford to buy them. So I've just been carrying them around because they sound nice." Aerith's green eyes met Tifa's brown ones and they were serious as her voice softened and she reached out to close Tifa's hand over the globes. "I can't think of anything I'd rather do with them than keep you safe, Teef."

Tifa swallowed past the sudden lump in her throat and just managed to nod. Aerith burst into a grin and hugged her tightly. A hug Tifa returned just as fiercely.

"You'll take ours too?"

Tifa wiped at her eyes and turned to see Denzel standing behind the pew. Marlene was standing next to him, holding his hand and looking serious.

"Yours?" she asked and Denzel, the spokesman for a change, nodded.

"Our healing materia. That you keep hidden behind the dresser." Tifa had told them where it was when she'd gotten it so long ago. Just in case. Before Tifa could protest, Marlene spoke up, looking angry.

"Cause they're no good to us if you die and we never needed them anyway. So you should take them and use them if you need to. So you can come back to us."

Perhaps she should have argued but Tifa couldn't. Not with that logic. Instead she just nodded and watched their faces relax into smiles.

"All right" she agreed. "We'll sew those into my gloves too when we get home."

At this rate, Tifa figured she was going to be a walking materia warehouse. But it was more than materia – it was the love of her family and friends that she was really carrying with her. And suddenly going into battle – or a covert bombing run – didn't seem as… alone as it had before.