ps - we really need someone to make us all Cloud plushies to snuggle. Cloti22 - Cloud being mysterious indeed. And verb tense is important, isn't it, Peeka-chan?
Chapter 27: Secrets
The first part of the plan was easy. Tifa dropped hints about her father being sick the night before and that night, she left the bar closed. Then, Tifa and Leon climbed out through the back window. Cid, Cloud, and Yuffie had already gone earlier in the day. Leon still didn't trust Cloud and Tifa knew he was looking for the slightest reason to call tonight off. But he had to move soon before they repaired the other reactor. One reactor down was inconvenient. Two was bordering on crippling. Barrett, grumbling, stayed behind to guard Aerith and the kids. A quick stop before they boarded the trains for horrible disguises that Leon assured Tifa were simply to keep the cameras from recording who they really were, not to fool anyone into anything else and they rode the train to the upper levels. There they ditched the disguises and Tifa linked her arm through Leon's and they pretended to be on a date. Tifa had her gloves in her jacket pocket but under the jacket she'd worn 'Rita's' outfit. Well, not really. The mini-skirt was replaced with a pair of black stretch shorts for mobility – who really fought in a mini-skirt anyway? Wouldn't you worry about flashing people? The shorts left her legs bare to the cold but she thought she'd be moving fast enough soon enough that she'd warm up. She wore the white top and the shoes too. It gave her a little bit of extra courage to 'borrow' a bit of 'Rita's' spirit and the clothes were comfortable and easy to move in. She also couldn't bring herself to leave the earrings Aerith had given her behind. They were a little bit of borrowed courage too and she was aware of them swaying against her throat as she moved.
Leon chatted like a guy trying to impress a new date and walked them around in circles for Tifa didn't know how long, just that she was thoroughly lost by the time they slipped into the side door of an empty dress shop. Cid was there with two brown shopping bags and he pulled the explosives out of them and handed them around with last minute instructions. Tifa took hers and felt as if it were a strange old friend for some inexplicable reason. A strange, old friend that could blow up and kill her. It all seemed just a bit surreal and Tifa wasn't sure if she wanted that to change or not. Leon also gave Tifa a gun and she took it reluctantly. He'd showed her the basics already and she listened as he went over them again, holding the gun in her hand and trying to will it to feel as familiar as the bomb did. It didn't work and she put it in her coat pocket and tried to forget about it. Prayed silently that she wouldn't need it.
Then they went out again but this time they took back ways and moved in the dark places. Tifa made it a point to memorize the route. If she got separated from everyone she'd need to find her way back alone – not an encouraging thought but she'd promised Denzel and Marlene that she'd do everything in her power to come back to them. Alive.
The reactor was fenced in and guarded with a wide space of open area between it and the rest of the surrounding buildings. Tifa saw Shinra guards on patrol as well and pressed her lips together as the team stopped in the shadows. Waiting for Cloud. This was the sticking point. If he wanted to turn them over all he had to do was have told the Shinra guards where and when to expect them. Leon was tense, muscle in his jaw twitching, fresh half healed scar between his brows red and wrinkled. He wore a strange sword/gun Tifa hadn't seen before and she wondered how far away from pulling it he was. Intentional she exhaled a long, slow breath and forced her shoulders down.
"He'll come," she stated softly, putting absolute confidence into her voice. Leon gave her a look, questioning how she could be so sure. And she couldn't . Not with her head. Cloud seemed to care about her, though for all she knew it could be as just another sister. Her head told her that could all be a show and not true. Her heart however knew he would come.
And just as Leon was starting to narrow his eyes, Cloud did.
"Sorry, I'm late. I had to find something to keep Yuffie busy." His voice was as mild and calm as ever as he materialize out of the shadows. He was dressed as a SOLDIER tonight, complete with the wide belt and the shoulder guards. His giant sword was resting across his back as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Tifa didn't doubt it was. Leon's eyes narrowed at the uniform but Cid didn't look surprised.
"Helped him get it" he drawled around the cigarette in his mouth he couldn't light. "Along with a coupla other shit."
Cloud went to a knee and opened the backpack he'd had tossed across a shoulder. Pulled out white lab coats with official looking badges.
"They're not" he stated at Tifa's glance and when she raised her eyebrows at him, he added: "Official. They won't hold up to any kind of scrutiny. But the grunts are taught to steer clear of SOLDIERs and a lot of them are new, just brought in since the last bombing so they don't know the people that work here. We're bluffing our way through."
"Do you make it a habit of reading my mind?" she asked, only half joking and for just a second the professional military demeanor dropped from his face and he was quietly smiling at her, looking young behind the cover of his blond hair.
"It's what I would think, if I were in your spot," he told her softly. "Your eyes yell what you're thinking."
"Enough with the lip flappin'. Put on yer jackets an' let's get this the fuck over with." Cid, apparently, wasn't the most patient man and Tifa wondered how that worked out for a bomb maker. She did slip on the lab coat however, helping Cloud stuff her jacket in the backpack. The gun and the gloves went in the coat pockets of the lab coat. The bombs were another matter however and they ended up all being inside Cloud's backpack. Leon's gun sword ended up across Cloud's back as well. Again, Tifa could tell Leon didn't like that and she could understand why. But there wasn't much alternative.
Cid had even thought to bring extra props and so Leon got a pair of glasses that made him look overly educated and Tifa got a clipboard. She pulled her hair up into a bun and borrowed a pencil to slip through it and keep it in place. Turning around, one hand still up to tuck away the last strands of her dark hair she caught both Leon and Cloud watching her and gave them a curious look. Leon just cleared his throat and looked back at their gear. Cloud gave her a smile that was so softly pleased it made her cheeks flush and she didn't even know why. Instead she looked down and concentrated on tucking the last strands of hair in place, knowing that half of them would fall out again anyway but hoping that would make her looking like an absent minded professor and not a barmaid that was used to putting her hair up with anything at hand when it got hot working.
"How'd you get in last time?" she asked and Cid shrugged.
"Janitors. 'Cept they're screening everyone now, even the shit shovelers."
"Colorful, Cid" she commented and he grinned.
"All in a day's work."
"Let's go" Leon announced and they all faded back into the shadows to walk around to the side entrance that was the least guarded according to Leon's inside information. Tifa took a deep breath before they left their cover and strolled along next to Leon, hands in the pockets of her lab coat, clipboard under her arm. If she could pretend to be 'Rita' she could pretend to be a high paid, over worked, brainy scientist who didn't know the meaning of going home for the night. She wrinkled her nose and then pulled out the clipboard to glance down at it as they entered the gates. Gestured to Leon, walking next to her, with it.
"Mixing hydrogen with it would lighten the compound. You might want to think about adding a Felix agent to the mix. The matrix would alter a little but it might get the results you're looking for." The words she mashed together made no sense at all to her but they did sound professional and vaguely sciencey. Hopefully it would sound that way to the guards they were approaching and then passing as Cloud led the way to the side door. Leon looked at her over the top of his glasses and then down at the year old phone log they'd pulled out of a bin somewhere to have something to put on the clipboard to make things look more professional.
"Felix agent, huh" he said, voice thoughtful as they walked. "That might work. As long as it didn't alter the matrix too much. I don't want to destabilize the compound."
In front of them Cloud strode up to the guards in front of the building and whatever kind of look he gave them had them hastily stepping to the side. He punched numbers into the keypad next to the door. Tifa had to admit, as she stole glances at him, Cloud looked suddenly intimidating and she couldn't even tell what was different.
"You should anchor it was a saline solution" Tifa told Leon factually. Wishing she'd gotten to wear glasses. Everything sounded smarter when you were wearing glasses and she was running out of technical terms. In a second she was going to have to resort to talking about tachyon beams. "Otherwise it will fritz your culture."
The door in front of them slid open and Cloud strode in, for all the world looking like he just wanted to get rid of the people following him as soon as possible. Leon took a pen out from behind his ear to make a notation on the ancient phone log as he walked through the door next to her.
"Saline solution" he repeated as he doodled a little stick cat with a smiley face. Ahead of them, Cloud calmly added:
"Fritz your culture?"
Tifa couldn't help it, so relived to be inside that she actually gave in and stuck her tongue out at his broad back.
"You come up with smart sounding jargon on the fly and I'll let you laugh at my 'fritzy culture', Cloud Strife."
The soft sound in front of her was his version of a laugh.
"I thought it sounded smart" Cid offered and earned one of Tifa's dazzling smiles.
"See?"
"Come on" Leon took over the lead and pushed open the door that led out of the narrow hallway. Tifa followed him through – and then jerked to a stop just like he had. Cid all but piled into her.
"By all that's Holy…" Tifa had to raise both hands to her mouth, eyes huge over them as she looked at the room they'd walked into. Cloud stood next to her, still and silent.
It was a science lab. There was no doubt about that. The walls were lined with computer terminals and textbooks of various sizes and ages. Carefully labeled bottles full of odd colored liquids lined the walls and rested in rows on the large table in the middle of the room next to beakers and small burners and test tubes. The air smelled like foreign chemicals… and old blood. And lightening. And it was that familiar smell that had struck Tifa even before she saw –
The large tubes, clear and the height and distance across of coffins, full of green liquid against the far wall. Others, opaque, lay flat in a neat row on the floor against the opposite wall. Against her better judgment, Tifa started toward them, drawn. Cloud's hand closed over her shoulder and when she looked up at him, he shook his head.
"Go on" he spoke to Leon but his eyes were on Tifa and she'd never seen them so still and waiting before. "I've got business to take care of here."
Leon wasn't having it.
"What the hell is this?" he asked. "This room isn't on the blue prints. Those are human sized." The anger was in his voice as he gestured toward the empty tubes on the wall and their green liquid but the anger wasn't for Cloud. Looking a second time, Tifa could see coils of small tubing and wires on the floor of each of the tubes. The kind that had needles on the ends of them and that you stuck in the arms of men trapped inside the glass confinements. Cloud's hand hadn't left Tifa's shoulder and she raised her own hand to lay it over his, twining their fingers. Cloud's eyes found hers and the surprised look in them made her want to hold him in her arms for his comfort and yet also made her want to have him hold her for her own comfort.
"The – scientist – I got the codes off of. He had rooms like this in almost every reactor." Cloud's level, expressionless eyes, nothing but ice and mirrors, looked at Leon. "He was trying to make the perfect creature."
"With people?" Leon was obviously adding another sin to Shinra's list. Cloud's head barely moved but Tifa caught it. Toward the pods on the floor.
"Sometimes."
Gently tugging her hand away she moved over to the pods and this time Cloud didn't stop her. Instead he followed her.
"Sometimes?" she asked, feeling her heart breaking. Remembering words Cloud had used in the past. 'mako for uses other than SOLDIER' 'normal people' as if he wasn't one.
There were glass windows set into the pods and Tifa rubbed a hand over the condensation. Clearing it away to see –
"Sweet Gaia!" she jumped back so hard she jarred into Cloud and his hands closed over both of her shoulders to hold her steady. He softly said the word that had jumped into her mind.
"Monsters."
It brought Cid and Leon over and they too leaned over the glass to look at the horror in the pod.
"Concentrated mako makes materia" Cloud's voice was steady. Flat and expressionless. "It also makes monsters. Its why there are so many around Midgar. Some people think it's the planet's defense against the Lifestream being pulled out of it. A natural 'immune' system response to a sickness. Hojo figured out how to create the monsters in a controlled environment."
Looking again, Tifa saw that the monsters had tubes and wires attached to them too. Leaving burrowing scars on their arms as well…
Wide eyed she looked up at Cloud again and saw he was still looking at the glass. And the closed look in his eyes, what was written so obviously to her on his blank face, broke her heart.
"Shit" Cid picked up on things slower than Tifa and Leon. "Good thing all the freaks are on the other side of those lids."
