Chapter 83: Mako Green
Once they were all ready to go again, all three of the girls headed up to the bridge. Most of the party was already there except for Shera and Yuffie. Tifa wasn't sure where Shera had gotten off to but Yuffie was probably in her usual spot in the bathroom. Both of the Turks were there as well and Reno was just in the process of commenting:
"So this is what it looks like, yo. Never even got a chance to be on the president's new boat before you guys hijacked it."
"She's too good for the likes of you shit ass monkeys anyway," Cid fired back. "She couldn't wait to leave you losers."
Tifa was only half paying attention however. Cloud was standing at the front of the ship with his sword slung across his back.
And Cissnei was standing next to him.
It made Tifa draw back instinctively and then she told herself to grow a backbone. He'd sided with her over the female Turk at the dinner, hadn't he? That meant something. Didn't it?
Who was it who'd said that hatred and love were almost the same?
And why was she thinking about that now?
She moved over to stand next to Zack, who had his arms folded loosely over his chest and his legs braced apart. She'd swear he was posing except he was always in a noble position of one kind or another. He looked down as she joined him and then reached out to ruffle Marlene's hair with a smile. Denzel was standing over near the ship's pilot watching in fascination and Zack gestured.
"He's going to be driving this thing in no time."
It made Tifa smile and then she noticed her friend drifting over to stand near the pilot. Aerith said something softly to him and he glanced over at Cid. Taking his cue, Cid left off his berating of Reno and walked over to join them. Tifa watched as he nodded and the pilot turned back to listen to Aerith's instructions. Zack frowned.
"It's the middle of the night. She doesn't need to be doing that right away. We can wait until tomorrow to go treasure hunting," he muttered and, after a minute more, strode over to join the growing group at the wheel. Tifa watched him go and agreed with him. They needed to find the temple but it didn't make sense draining themselves before they even got there if they didn't have to. They could take one night's worth of sleep.
It would also buy their Hopes and Dreams a bit more time to get to Midgar.
"So, your blond dishwasher is an escaped lab sample too, huh?"
She turned her head to see Reno had wandered over to join her and was also watching Cissnei and Cloud. She frowned at him and laid a hand on Marlene's shoulder. He pretended not to notice. After a minute, he commented softly:
"You know, Teef – you can hate me if you want. Just as long as it's okay for everyone that had family in that reactor you blew up to hate you too."
His light colored eyes turned on her and, instead of being mocking or derisive, they were sad.
She gave him a sharp look and he shrugged.
"At the end of the day, dead is dead. You figure that out pretty fast in my line of work. Why they're dead doesn't matter to them."
He paused.
"You ever want someone to get drunk with so it doesn't bother you for a few hours, you know where to find me."
He left her like that and she turned her head to watch him wander out the door. Feeling the barb in her heart rattling at the reminder. Fingers slid down her arm, surprising her and she jumped a little as she turned.
To see Cloud watching her with tight skin around the edges of his eyes.
"I'm okay," she said it automatically and noticed Cissnei was standing at his shoulder. Suddenly she couldn't dredge up enough emotion to be angry at the other woman. Instead she just felt a little bit hopeless and she knew it was just her being weak. She didn't know what Cloud saw in her eyes but he suddenly scooped her up in his arms. When she made a noise and looked up at him in surprise he just shook his head, looking tired himself.
"It's bedtime," he simply stated. He turned his head a little. "Come on, Marlene. Denzel," he called over his shoulder and the boy pulled himself away from the ship's pilot to hurry over. Zack followed him and Tifa saw he was carrying Aerith in his arms and that her friend looked – puzzled.
"Bedtime?" Zack asked and Cloud made a soft noise that might just have been a chuckle before giving one of his single, barely there nods. Without another comment, Cloud turned and strode off the bridge and down toward the crew quarters.
Cissnei stayed behind.
"I can walk," it came out softer than Tifa had meant it to. Because – she really didn't want to. Cloud ignored it and she was glad. Because she wanted to be safe, tucked in Cloud's arms, surrounded by his warmth and smell where she didn't have to think about some other woman being there instead.
Did he still love Cissnei?
Did it matter if he did if she was the one he was with and not the red-headed Turk?
And if the answer was 'yes' to both of those questions… what was she supposed to do…?
Cloud carried her into the 'guy's' room' and she didn't lift her head from his shoulder as she looked around it in curiosity. Zack was right behind them and he firmly set Aerith down on one of the bunks.
"Stay," he told her and she looked up at him as if he'd just sprouted an extra head. He made a face and shrugged.
"They want the Ancient, they can come and try to get you. You stay with us so we can keep you safe." He paused and rubbed the back of his head and his voice went young. "Okay?"
It made Aerith smile and she nodded.
"Okay. But can I borrow Marlene and Denzel to sleep with me?"
Tifa's eyes went a bit wider and shot up to find Cloud's impossible blue watching her. The look in his eyes made her throat go a little tight. It was an effort to tear her eyes away from that bottomless blue and she looked down at her sister and brother who were grinning up at her. Cloud still hadn't set her on her feet.
"So we're family," Marlene emphasized the last word and Tifa's cheeks flushed pink at the memory of Marlene's innocent thought process and the unintended connotations. Still, they were going to be in a room full of friends. There wasn't a lot anyone could accuse them of doing just because they were sleeping in a separate bed than her siblings.
"Uh – okay?" Tifa managed as her heart tripped over in her chest. Yes, she'd slept with Cloud alone – or at least partially alone before. It was just… they hadn't been – they hadn't been together when they had. Now they were and it made things different somehow.
"Good!" Zack clarified. "That means I get top bunk because I'm not having any of you bed stuffers sleeping over me and threatening to break the bed and fall on me all night long."
"Bed stuffers?" Aerith laughed at him as Marlene and Denzel climbed into the bed with her and they all started to drop their shoes on the floor and shift around. Zack braced his arms and pulled himself up on the bunk above them, flipping over to lay on his back with his arms behind his head with a loud exhale. And Cloud looked down at Tifa, still in his arms, and something about the concentrated blue of his eyes made her stomach turn over wonderfully in her. With an elbow he reached over and hit the panel that turned off the light and turned on the fan. Then he settled down onto one of the lower bunks. Without asking, he set Tifa down on the side closest to the wall and took up position between her and the door. The sheets already smelled vaguely of him and it made her heart feel better in her chest.
She was glad that they'd just changed and cleaned up before they'd gone to the bridge because all she really had to do was wiggle out of her shoes and she was good for the night. She reached back as she shifted a little on the bed to take the clip out of her hair where it had fallen toward the bottom of what had once been a decent pony tail but, in the pitch black, Cloud beat her to it and she felt his arm snake around her as he reached back to unclip it. Then he wound a fist into her hair and gently tugged her head backward. His mouth covered hers before she'd even fully realized what was going on and his kiss wasn't sweet and polite. He poured liquid fire down into her with that kiss and her eyes went wide in the dark at the intensity. She barely remembered to swallow the sound she would have made and his hands were suddenly on her and their arms and legs were tangled together and she was holding him so desperately tightly that she was even using her nails to keep him close. Except he wasn't going anywhere and he was holding her just as impossibly tightly and unbreakably against himself as well. She had a brief flash, a picture from a movie she'd once seen and couldn't remember of a band of gold that had fallen into lava. It had burst into flames at its edges and then simply dissolved into the magma around it, spreading and joining the darker red liquid.
That was the way she felt as Cloud leaned over her and kissed her. As if she were the gold and he was the liquid fire she'd fallen into.
She didn't know how long Cloud kissed her – how long she kissed him. It wasn't long enough. Wasn't anywhere near long enough and yet it was long enough to have her nerves starting to vibrate almost painfully and have things waking up inside her that – that she couldn't even think of because she didn't dare give them a name and any more strength than they already had. It was confusing and scary and wonderful and when his mouth left hers so they could both suck lungfuls of air in, she couldn't tell whether to be relived or to scream in frustration. His mouth, parted so she could feel his breathing, rested against her forehead and his arms and hands stayed locked around her. She was pressed between the mattress and his body and it felt – necessary. Impossibly necessary. Slow, very slow because her head didn't seem to want to function at all, she stretched out the fingers of one of her hands and started to lightly scratch through the golden hair at the back of his head. She felt his exhale and the way his entire body seemed to relax into hers and it made her smile a little bit sadly and yet happily too. What was wrong with her? Her heart was going a hundred miles an hour, her skin felt too tight and yet she'd never felt happier or more full and 'just where she belonged' in all her life. He exhaled her name, so quiet she felt it more than heard it and just as softly she hummed to show him that she was still there. Still with him. He shifted against her and lowered his face to press it into her shoulder and she felt herself soften and then start to smile as he nudged gently so that she'd keep scratching. Her hold on him lost some of its desperation but she didn't loosen her grip.
She didn't know why he'd kissed her that way. She knew it was because he'd needed to. She'd felt that much.
She'd needed it too though.
One of his hands had found its way under the hem of her shirt and was spread hot and tight against the skin of her waist and ribs. His other was still tangled in her hair and pinned under her. She felt both of them tighten briefly as his body tensed and then – he didn't relax but they did soften. Just a little.
"Cloud?" she whispered it softly, lowering her head to do it against his ear and after a minute he exhaled as her fingers continued to move gently through his hair.
"It was – all I saw was green. For weeks…" his voice was almost impossible to hear and tight. Painfully tight. "Sick neon green. Even when the world started to haze into view – it was covered by that sick green for weeks. It made me want to vomit. Every time I opened my eyes and saw that green."
Tifa's lips parted in shock and she froze in her gentle scratching of his head until she remembered and started again, fingers moving tenderly through his hair as he spoke of –
- of –
"I thought I was still in the tube half the time. Nothing made sense. I had – so many memories and none of them made sense. Midgar existed, Midgar didn't. The world was one village, one continent, one world and it was flat and round and hollow. I was a fisherman, a rapist, a side show freak, a miner, a soldier, a mother. So many voices… so many voices I never knew which ones were inside my head and which ones were outside. I had too many names to say – and I couldn't remember any of them. But it was worse – so much worse when the memories started to fade – because I didn't have anything to replace them with. Just – blank. Dark. Nothing of me left when the tide went out…"
It was a nightmare. It was his life. And he was telling it to her in the ink black darkness of the small room while he held her and was held by her and their friends and family kept silent guard against being nothing and nobody with their peaceful sleep. Cloud burrowed his face deeper into Tifa's shoulder and throat and she had to strain her ears to hear him now.
"Zack was there. The first Zack. He's the one that got me out of the tube. He – carried me. Never left me. Talking – all the time." Even in nightmares she felt his lips shift upward in a weak smile at that and her own lips did too. Apparently their Zacks weren't that different in that respect. Cloud's arms around her tightened but it was just to get more comfortable. "He's the one that called me by my name. Every time he talked to me. Cloud… Cloud." He exhaled and turned his face to rest against her throat. "Like you do. He made me real the first time. And then he – he died." He inhaled and his fingers on her skin and in her hair tightened. "He died and – I hardly remember it. I was so – so full of green at the time – and its no excuse – to forget – to confuse my details. I – left his body there. How could I just leave his body there? How could I - ? But I did. He gave me his sword and I – I just left. We were – somewhere. Outside of Midgar I realized later. Cissnei – " his hands tightened on her again and she realized belatedly it was because she'd tensed. She regretted it immediately but he was already shifting, moving onto his side and drawing her up against him that way. For a minute she thought she'd interrupted him and that he wouldn't continue but when she whispered his name he pulled her close and lowered his mouth, lips brushing over hers.
"You taste like salt now – not sugar." His voice was just as quiet against her mouth. He rubbed his thumb over her cheek and she realized it was wet. She'd been crying for him. He kissed her again and it was slow and tender.
"Cissnei found me, wandering around in the desert outside of Midgar. She told me to go to Wutai. That's where Yuffie found me – or what she thought was me. They said I was their lost adopted son who'd saved her and I never told them I might not be… I never told them I must just have that boy's memories and not be real at all."
