Chapter 55: Tight Places
The entrance was where Cissnei had said it was, a mere slit in the rock behind one of the giant statue's ears that had, until they checked around it, looked like it was carved directly into the rock. Zack and Cloud crouched in front of it and Tifa was glad for their mako-enhanced vision because beyond the sun outside, the hole leading down and back into the mountain looked blacker than a starless night to her. Aerith stood next to her, a bit back from the guys, hands on her knees as she caught her breath.
"I feel so out of shape next to you three," she confided to Tifa and Tifa just smiled at her best friend.
"We've been walking everywhere. You get used to it after a while."
Cloud turned away from the slit in the rock and came over to join them. He held out his hand and Tifa saw he had a PHS in it.
Apparently great – or just paranoid minds – thought alike.
"Call Barrett. Tell him to take Marlene and Denzel and go somewhere other than the capital."
Tifa took the phone from him without thinking about it.
"You think Shinra knows about them?"
Cloud shook his head, the familiar barely there move of his chin.
"I don't know. Probably not before but who knows how long Cissnei watched us or what kind of information someone might let slip without realizing it. I didn't want to ask her because I didn't want her to figure it out if she hadn't already. That's why we needed to wait before we called Barrett too. If she was watching and he left the house right after we left her, she might figure it out. Call him and tell him to move the kids somewhere safe. We'll pick them up after this."
Tifa, suddenly worried for her family, nodded and opened the phone. Shinra had no idea about most of the people that had lived in the slums under their city and Tifa hadn't been worried about the corporation coming after her family to get to her. Shinra had no idea if she even had family. Except… they might now. Whether Cloud was in love with that other woman or not, if she caused any danger to Tifa's sister and brother, Tifa would personally beat the living daylights out of her.
"Barrett. No, everyone's fine." Tifa cradled the phone against her ear as Cloud moved over to begin handing Aerith materia. "But I need you to take the kids and sneak out of the city. Go somewhere you can disappear for a while. No, everyone's fine but Shinra is looking for us in the capital. I don't want the kids – yeah. Just like that. Look, don't make it obvious in case anyone's watching the building. No. Everyone's fine. I'm fine. We're almost where we need to be. I'll call you when we get done. Yeah, I know." She actually smiled. "You too."
She hung up – and then thought better of it and flipped open the phone again to program in her new cell phone number as well as a couple others she thought might be important. Next she looked up Cloud's and memorized it, brows down in concentration. A choked sound next to her had her looking up and into blue eyes that went forever deep. For a moment – just a moment – she forgot everything else. His hand closed over hers and she remembered.
"Changing my ring tones?" Cloud asked and there was just the hint of a smile at the edges of his lips. It made her smile in response.
"What's wrong with 'Staying Alive'?" she teased and his lips shifted upward just a little more as the laughter moved into his eyes. He exhaled a silent laugh and it moved the hair hanging across her eyes.
"I was putting in my own number," she told him before realizing what a 'girlfriend' kind of thing that sounded like and quickly adding: "And Aerith's and Barrett's. So we don't lose each other again."
He made a soft noise, dipping his chin in a slight nod. The tip of his nose brushed the hair over her forehead with the move.
Tifa decided she was going to kick Cissnei's butt anyway. Just because…
"That way, even if one of us loses our phone and the other one breaks theirs, we've still got one to call Barrett with."
She was just talking to buy a second or two more to be this close to him and he made a low, agreeing noise in his throat and didn't move away.
He smelled good. That familiar, clean, just before a storm smell…
"Which is when I said 'marry her and make an honest woman out of her'."
Tifa had been aware of Zack talking in the background but hadn't been paying attention until those words registered. Then she jerked her head around and stared at him in horror. The dark haired man had a foot resting on a rock and both arms loose over that knee as he told Aerith his story which, from her appearance, hands behind her back and a little leaned forward, had her full attention.
"Zack," Tifa hissed it at him and he looked over at her, face entirely boyish innocence.
"What?" he asked cheerfully. "I'm just telling Aerith here about the time we all slept together at that old man's. You know," he turned his attention back on a gleeful looking Aerith. "As opposed to those times we all slept together out on the trail or in the cottage in Costa del Sol."
"Don't -" Tifa pressed her fingertips to her forehead and then dropped them to look at Zack. "Don't believe a word he says," she informed her friend. Aerith looked over at her with a smile and mischief in her eyes.
"But he's telling me the most interesting things you apparently forgot to tell me."
"Don't we have a cave to get lost in?" Tifa asked and Cloud grunted a laugh as he moved past her, his arm brushing lightly against hers.
"Gast," he reminded, voice its usual soft, yet rough, tone and Zack straightened up, growing serious. For a moment. Then Zack punched his fist into his other hand and fell into step behind Cloud.
"Come and get it," he muttered cheerfully, reaching behind him to unsling his sword.
Cloud took the lead and Tifa took up the last spot, following behind Aerith and trying to keep an ear behind her. Somehow – she thought Cissnei would keep her word and wait those two hours but she wasn't about to count on it and get caught. Tifa figured it had already taken them too much time to get this far.
The tunnel was a tight fit and she had to duck down and walk bent over to move through it. If it was tight for her she could only imagine how it must be for the guys. Especially since she couldn't see anything in the dark and had to move along with her hand on the ceiling above her – glad it was dirt and stone and not slime or cobwebs. She'd slipped her fighting gloves back on somewhere along the trail for their familiar reassurance and the materia in them glowed faintly. She heard a murmur in front of her and then Aerith's voice directly in front of her.
"Left turn."
Tifa slid her hand down the wall and felt where it started so she could follow it around. It was a pretty tight turn and she came around it to find sudden light and standing room. Everyone else was already in the open space and Zack was running a hand over his face.
"Hate tight places, man," he muttered and Cloud didn't look too relaxed or steady either. Both of their faces looked tight and pale and Cloud's had a thin sheen of sweat over it. Tifa moved over automatically to ruffle Zack's hair and bump her shoulder up against Cloud's. Two claustrophobics? Though she already knew the explanation for Cloud's.
She couldn't imagine being in a test tube and not coming out of it determined to never be that confined again.
Cloud turned his head when she bumped against him and the tip of his nose brushed against her hair again. She heard him inhale deeply.
"So – where are we?" she asked to give the guys something else to focus on. Not oblivious to the way Aerith was watching Zack in puzzlement. Had he not been claustrophobic when Aerith had known him or had it just never come up? Zack gave a nod, brows coming down as he pushed away the phobia and looked around the room.
The open place they found themselves in was a long cave of sorts with a pool of water at one end. Several tunnels led off of it and - the first sign of human habitation - there were tubes of lights flickering unreliably on the sanded down ceiling.
"She wouldn't," Cloud answered low before Tifa could finish wondering if Cissnei had just sent them into a trap. She gave him a look and the very edge of his mouth lifted on one side. "Because I thought the same thing," he answered the question she hadn't asked again.
"I'm thinking of a number between one and seventy," Tifa warned him softly and he exhaled a silent laugh.
Zack had moved over to examine the tunnel entrances.
"Sixteen?" he guessed in a quiet murmur so his voice wouldn't carry far.
"Two," Aerith murmured. "She always thinks two. I think it's Denzel and Marlene showing up unconsciously in her head."
"This one," Zack gestured them all over to the middle tunnel. "I hear engines running in that one," he pointed to the first tunnel where Tifa heard absolutely nothing. "So I'm thinking that's the generator. And the other one is too close to the water."
"Which means too cold during the winter," Cloud agreed. Zack nodded and grinned before he gestured with his head down the tunnel they were in front of. Cloud gave a nod of his own and Zack moved aside so the blond could go down the tunnel first. The dark haired warrior followed close behind with a wink for the girls and again, Tifa took up the last spot.
The tunnel took a few winding turns and then settled down into a straight shot and it never narrowed down the way the entrance had. The same tubed lighting glowed on the ceiling here as well and Tifa saw when the tunnel took a sharp turn and her friends disappeared around it. Directly around the curve, the tunnel came to an end in front of a large metal door with a keypad next to it.
"I got this." Zack gestured everyone else back and Cloud moved to stand in front of the girls. Zack gave an almost soundless grunt and then his sword was suddenly flashing through the air and, to Tifa's shock, tearing right through the door. Cloud made a quietly pleased sound low in his throat and Aerith gasped. Zack stepped back and applied his boot to the remains of the door and it fell inward.
"Subtle but effective," Tifa admitted as a surprised yell came from the interior of the room. Cloud and Zack bolted through the ruined doorway.
Tifa and Aerith weren't far behind and as she went through things registered in quick glimpses to Tifa. They were in a sparsely furnished little apartment of sorts. It was cooler in here than it was outside. And Zack and Cloud were blocking a tall, thin man in glasses from what looked like a door and another tunnel. So far the man was keeping a table between him and them but he wasn't going anywhere from the look of things.
"Please," Tifa stepped forward. "We just want to talk."
"Knocking might have made me believe you," the thin man answered, still dodging around the table but with a surprisingly cognizant response for someone that had two mako-enhanced men working on cornering him. Tifa thought, if he'd had a weapon he would have used it already.
"We didn't want you leaving," Tifa held up her hands to show she didn't have anything either and Cloud settled in front of the escape tunnel. Zack stayed on the other side of the table but kept himself between the other man and the second door.
"Well, I'd say you were doing a pretty good job of it," the man replied, eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he suspiciously watched Zack.
"You're Professor Gast?" At his nod, Tifa took a breath and stated: "We have some questions about Jenova."
The dead silence that fell at her words seemed like the pause of the world and the thin man turned with huge eyes and a pale face.
"So Sephiroth did come back…"
"Please," Aerith stepped forward with her best 'innocent, harmless, trusting' personality on. "We just want to ask a few questions."
If anything though the thin man went even paler and he staggered back against the table. Tifa actually moved forward a little because he looked like he was having a heart attack. He was even clutching at his chest with his hand. And –
staring at Aerith.
"Ifalna?"
