Chapter 40: Goodbye
Tifa waited until nightfall before she went upstairs and found her jacket and boots. Elmyra had washed all of her clothes and Tifa found her fighting gloves in the pocket of the jacket. Funny – she'd only used those gloves randomly before this had all begun, just to protect her knuckles when she practiced her fighting moves to keep herself in condition. Now? Now she felt as if they were a part of her and she felt more comfortable with them on than off.
What did that say about what she was becoming?
She hadn't mentioned what she was doing to anyone but when she came silently down the stairs Cloud and Zack were by the door, their swords slung over their backs, waiting patiently. She opened her mouth to tell them they didn't have to come with her – and then shut it. It seemed more insulting than anything else to say something like that to them. Instead she just nodded and led the way out the door. Just before Zack shut it however Elmyra came rushing down the stairs and out onto the steps.
"Here!" She held out something in her hands to Tifa. "I want you to have this. I think – I think it's the way things should be."
Startled, Tifa took it automatically and in the dim light saw –
Her eyes flew back to the older woman's and Elmyra nodded with a sad smile on her lips. Stunned, Tifa looked down at one of Aerith's favorite bracelets.
"She would want you to have it," Elmyra stated in a tight voice. "She loved you very much."
Tifa knew she should refuse – but her fingers closed over the cold metal of the bracelet despite herself and she nodded, a lump suddenly in her throat. Elmyra threw her arms around Tifa in a hug and then quickly disappeared back into the house. Tifa stood on the stairs for a long time after the door had shut staring at the bracelet. Then she took a deep breath and slipped it into her wrist. It felt strange - and looked odd against the fighting glove - but Tifa thought that was all right somehow.
They went on foot and it was even darker than usual on the streets. Power was being rationed to the slums. It was a way to prove where the power was – a way to make the point of who was stronger and in charge. A reminder that Shinra controlled their lives.
Tifa felt anger growing steadily in her chest as they walked through the fog-choked streets.
She took an angled way to get to Sector Seven and both of the warriors behind her were ghosts in the night, silent and all but invisible. It reassured Tifa. It would have made her feel braver but there was a cold sharpness growing in her chest and it didn't leave room for fear. Her footsteps were firm and determined but unhurried in the moving night. No one bothered her. The streets were unusually empty but Tifa understood why.
The damage of Sector Seven began before they were even clear of Sector Six and Tifa ignored the half-hearted signs and fencing that Shinra had tried to put up to keep people out of the site. Eyes fixed and hard, she picked her way through the rubble and when that became impossible, she climbed.
It was impossible to recognize anything. Everywhere was twisted metal and concrete with the wooden bones of the slums pushing upward through the ruins of the upper plate. Her footsteps crunched on broken glass and shattered furniture. The smell – the smell was concrete dust and oily smoke – and blood and rot.
Tifa wondered how many bodies she walked over, buried and lost forever below her in the dirt and rubble of hundreds of destroyed homes.
Nothing was recognizable. There were no streets or blocks or familiar landmarks – but Tifa knew her way by heart and would have found it blind and senseless.
Home.
Her home…
When she came to it, she stopped. The rubble she stood on was unrecognizable. Ruins from 'above'. But somewhere – under all of that – was what was hers. Slow, she went to her knees and buried her hands in the broken chunks of concrete and glass and steel. Somewhere below all of that…
Had Aerith gotten to them? Was her friend under here as well or somewhere behind her, still inside the cab of an unrecognizable truck? Tifa wanted to think of her here. Wanted to think of her friend gathering Denzel and Marlene against her side in those last moments. Wanted to think that – even if they'd been afraid at least they'd been together.
She felt Cloud materialize behind her and she lifted one of her dust-covered hands. His glove closed around hers. Slow, voice steady, she named them all, feeling a great fire rising in her chest.
"Cid. Shera. Leon. Barrett. Dad. Aerith. Denzel. Marlene." Cloud's fingers mixed with hers in the dark and ruin and nearby she felt Zack listening in the night. Her other hand stayed buried in the wreckage. She wished she'd stopped by Aerith's church after all and brought Marlene her flowers.
"Shinra." The word came out emotionless and her fingers closed where they were buried in the ruin. "They did this to us." Raising her face to see the distant lights of the remaining Plates far above and away, Tifa quietly promised: "We'll do the same to them before the end."
Cloud didn't say anything but his fingers tightened on hers and she knew it was his promise too. He'd promised to teach Denzel to use a sword. He'd promised to bring Marlene flowers. He'd promised to protect her siblings for her…
For a long time, Tifa stayed where she was and the cold seeped into her bones. There were no tears. No raging screams. Nothing inside her but that single emotionless, steel promise. Finally, eyes still dry, she rose to her feet. She couldn't even take anything away with her to remember by, to hold on to. All of it was buried too deep under the wreckage of other lives and hopes and dreams. Cloud's hand stayed wound with hers for a moment more and she gave it a gentle squeeze before letting go. He was there and she knew it. She just needed to walk this part alone.
Again she set off and her two sword carrying shadows followed her. Over the rubble and the dead. They weren't the only ones moving in the ruins in the night. Scavengers and mourners were ghosts in the fog. Tifa ignored them and they returned the favor.
The playground was still standing on the other side of the ruins and Tifa moved through it. Touching. Here a swing, there the slide, there the little pink dome with the ears whose species they'd never agreed on. Her fingertips touched surfaces reverently as she heard the memories in her mind. How many times had she brought the children here? How many games had they played, how many secrets had they shared?
How many promises had she made here…?
Cloud was standing in the middle of the playground near the rusty swings, head down, hands loose at his sides and his eyes were blank and empty. A thousand miles away. The playground had been here forever. It would have been here when he was a child growing up in the slums. How many memories did he have? Tifa moved over to slip her hand into one of his loose ones and wound the fingers of her other hand around his wrist above it. His fingers closed over hers but he didn't look up and she stood that way next to him and let her own mind slip backward again as well. Finally, Cloud raised his head.
"We should go," his low voice was soft and Tifa nodded next to him. His eyes shifted to her and in the dim light they glowed blue.
"Somewhere else," he clarified and her eyes rose to look at him. Realizing he didn't mean somewhere else in Midgar. Suddenly, Elmyra giving her Aerith's bracelet as she walked out the door made sense to Tifa. Cloud had already told the woman they wouldn't be coming back.
"They'll be looking for us," Zack stepped out of the shadows where he'd been giving them their privacy, arms crossed loosely over his chest. "Midgar's not safe anymore."
When Tifa was silent, Zack added:
"They've lost Sector Seven's reactor now too. And there are other reactors and other places to hurt them that won't be as well protected right now."
Tifa looked at Cloud and saw what was already in his eyes.
"I have to-" she wet her lips. "I have to visit Aerith's church."
He nodded.
They picked their way back across Sector Seven's ruins and then moved back through Sector Six's gaudy, now colorless streets. As they approached the ruined church in Sector Five however, Cloud's hand on Tifa's arm stopped her. In the dark, his eyes were glints of blue.
"Cissnei knew we'd be here last time."
"Cissnei?" Zack stepped forward, harder to spot in the gloom than Cloud with his darker hair. Cloud's head turned and he looked at the other man.
"The Turk with the red hair," Zack supplied and Cloud nodded. Tifa didn't think he was watching Zack because he hadn't been sure who Zack was talking about though. There was something… waiting about the way Cloud was watching the ex-SOLDIER.
"She's helped me out a couple of times," Zack supplied.
"Yeah," Cloud sounded as if he'd already known and Zack gave him a curious look.
"You know her?"
Again Cloud voiced the single:
"Yeah," and there was a roll of different emotions in his voice. Zack stepped forward and his eyes were narrow as his chin angled a little to the side. His own eyes were a green glow in the darkness.
"Dated her?" he wanted to know. Tifa stayed very quiet and tried not to do anything that would distract the two men from going on with their conversation.
"No." Cloud's voice was flat and didn't offer any opening for argument. "I wasn't you."
Zack blinked in surprise.
"What?"
"She wanted you and I wouldn't pretend."
Clearly confused, Zack still reacted to Cloud's toothed statement and shifted into a defensive stance. His hand didn't reach for his sword though. Not yet.
"I'm missing something," Zack's voice was low. Cloud glared at him.
"Yeah."
"About Cissnei."
Cloud made a sound low in his throat. A torn, frustrated, angry sound and he turned his head away. His voice was emotionless.
"No." He turned to the church. "Stay here with Tifa. If it's safe I'll let you know."
Zack stepped forward but Cloud had already turned and gone. The dark haired man looked at the woman next to him and she shrugged and gave him a weak smile.
"Cloud is Cloud," was her only explanation.
"I swear he pulls that mysterious crap on purpose," Zack grumbled and surprised a choked laugh out of Tifa.
"He swears he doesn't."
Zack looked over at her with a crooked smile.
"You too?" he commiserated and she nodded.
"Oh, yeah. Almost from the first day."
Zack exhaled and folded his arms across his chest, tilting his head to look down at the dark haired woman in the dim light.
"So you two are a couple?"
Tifa choked a sound and jerked a look at Zack, who was watching curiously.
"No!" she shook her head. Why was everyone always asking her that? "It's just – we're just – " she waved a hand. Finished helplessly with a: "It's complicated."
Zack laughed quietly.
"Yeah. I can kinda see that."
End of Disc One
