Chapter 85: Claims and Responsibilities

The sun was working its way down the horizon as Tifa felt the Highwind start to dip slowly downward. It was subtle but she'd gotten used to the way the ship felt under her feet and so she looked up from where she was trying to maintain some semblance of schooling with her siblings. They immediately took the opportunity to silently shift ahead several pages in the books she was making them read. Stifling her smile, she stood up.

"Okay, mark where you were – where you really were – and we'll call it a day." She really felt a little overwhelmed by the idea of being their main source of knowledge considering her own schooling once they'd moved below the Plate had been spotty at best and as her father had declined it had gotten to be less and less. She didn't consider herself stupid by any means – it was just that the principles, or point for that matter, behind things like Algebra and Chemistry left her absolutely mystified. Luckily for all the Lockhart siblings, Algebra and Chemistry were not on the list of things to learn today.

History just might be however.

Denzel and Marlene tucked away their books and bounced along next to her as if she'd just let them out of cramped cages and Tifa rolled her eyes at them and grinned. They'd only been at it for an hour. The rest of the day they'd been running amuck all over the ship and, Tifa had to admit, she had too. Though… there had been that time when she'd stumbled across Cloud getting something from the storage locker for Cid and she'd made the mistake of actually smiling at the man and… well, Cid had just had to wait a while longer for whatever it was he'd asked for. Thinking about it made her cheeks pink and her grin bright and she was still smiling as she walked onto the bridge.

The smile faded, just a little, when she saw Cissnei.

'Stop it,' she chided herself mentally as Denzel immediately diverted to the steering wheel. 'Cloud's obviously with you now. You haven't even asked him about Cissnei. You're just jumping to conclusions the way he did with you and Leon.' With an inhale she went over to where Aerith and Cid were standing near the glass looking down.

"It's – here." Her friend sounded frustrated. "I can feel it." Her braid was over her shoulder and she had her hand wrapped around the end of it where Tifa knew the 'key' was.

"Well, I sure as shit can't see it," Cid griped. "And I can't set the Highwind down in that mess of trees anyway. Looks hokey to me anyway. Creepy."

"It's okay. If you can get us close to a clearing we can use the ladder," Tifa interjected as Marlene suddenly peeled away from her to go darting over to Cloud who had just come in the door. "We can walk anywhere we need to go from there."

Cid gave her a scowl.

"Yeah, I remember the last time you 'walked' somewhere, woman. We ended up dropping that same ladder into a pool of fucking fire and mako." He gave her a glare. "I don't like not being able to be air support."

"Aw, Cid, you really do care," Tifa teased with a laugh and he gave her a narrowed eyed look and went stomping over to the wheel to talk to the helmsman. Aerith chuckled.

"You're mean. I love it! Hey, Cloud," she greeted the blond man as he came over, Marlene over one shoulder. Marlene giggled as he silently threatened to drop her on her head and wrapped her arms around his chest. His eyes softened as they met Tifa's, and he gave Aerith a quiet smile and a nod of greeting.

"We're there?" he asked in his low, calm voice and it had a visible effect on Aerith as she stopped clenching her hands so tightly around her braid. The look she gave him was grateful but Tifa, who knew her so well, though it look a little sad at its edges too.

"I can feel it. I've had Cid flying around in circles for about an hour now. I know it's 'below' but we can't see anything from here and I can't seem to make it any more specific."

"If it was easy to find, someone would have already," Cloud simply answered as he lowered Marlene gently to the ground before the blood rushing to her head could make her pass out. Without seeming to realize it, he slipped that same arm around Tifa's waist and tugged her closer. Aerith smiled at him. Tifa knew. There was so much resting on her friend right now and she knew Aerith felt the pressure of it. Of not wanting to fail her friends. Tifa felt the same way too herself but she wasn't the one that had a great ancient mystery riding around in her hair so the pressure was understandably less.

"Right," she reached out as she leaned into Cloud's side and lightly tugged Aerith's braid with a bolstering smile. "But we've got an Ancient with us. You'll find it, Aerith. You've gotten us this far already, haven't you?"

"Is this another group hug? Am I missing it?" Zack was suddenly on the bridge and striding over with a grin. Cloud automatically held up a hand in defense as if he expected the dark haired man to try to hug him and Zack made a face and a dismissive noise.

"You'll hug me, right Marlene? Since Cloudy's got your sister all tangled up already and you wouldn't want me to feel left out?" He turned the most impressive set of puppy dog eyes on the little girl. It was absolutely unnecessary as she all but tackled him in response. Laughing Zack let her bowl him over onto the floor. The laughter died abruptly as Cissnei came over and Zack got to his feet, one arm draped protectively over Marlene and his eyes unfriendly. Apparently, Zack might have puppy dog features but he didn't forgive quite as easily. Cissnei pretended not to notice. Tifa thought – she probably had to do that a lot. Zack wasn't the only man in the group with a guarded expression and his arm around someone he wanted to protect from Turk attention. As much as she was threatened by the other woman, Tifa still felt empathy for her. Not so long ago, she'd been trying to mentally prepare herself for seeing Cloud and the other woman together the way she and Cloud were now. Cissnei was a professional however and so she kept her face expressionless.

"I take it that we're close to something?"

As spokemen went, Cloud was their apparent choice despite the fact that all he did in answer to her question was nod. She exhaled.

"And what would that be?"

For the first time in possibly the entire time she'd known him, Tifa was actually grateful for Cloud's stoic nature as he answered:

"Where we need to go."

Cissnei crossed her arms and frowned at him.

"I want a real answer, Strife."

"No." He said it simply, calmly, and there was nothing malicious about it. Cissnei looked hard at him, as if she was just realizing he might not be who she thought he was. Her head tipped a little to the side and instead of being demanding, she softly asked:

"Why?"

"You're trying to outmaneuver us," he responded flatly. "The less you know about what we're doing the harder it will be for you to guess three steps ahead. That's why I asked Cid to find a way to jam the transmitters in your cufflinks for instance. So we don't end up with surprise visitors." It was a credit to her training that Cissnei's wrists only jerked a little. Cloud looked at her without expression. "I said you could tag along. I didn't say you got to be a part of things or that you got to bring friends."

"Cloud," her voice was soft. "We only want the same thing you do."

"No." His voice was sure and to emphasis his point, he lowered his lips to brush Tifa's temple, eyes never leaving Cissnei's. "You don't."

The red head's jaw firmed under her smooth skin and Tifa noticed when her hands fisted.

"We're not the enemy, Strife."

And then Cloud answered with one simple sentence and suddenly, to Tifa, who had been wondering about his change in attitude to the Turks and Cissnei in particular, he explained everything as he flatly stated:

"You're threatening what's mine, Cissnei."

The other woman's eyes flicked to Tifa, standing there with Cloud's arm around her but Tifa - she realized Cloud was talking about more than that. Somewhere between Wutai and now, Cloud had adopted the entire group as his. And Tifa understood how fiercely protective that made someone. She had her own adopted family that she would defend with tooth and nail if it came down to it. He'd said as much when he'd called Denzel and Marlene 'ours'. They weren't 'his' because he was in love with her. They were 'his' because he was in love with them. No matter what happened between him and Tifa, she knew he would still always feel protective of the children. Just like he felt protective of their small group. They were his team now and while the Turks threatening him was hardly worth holding a memory of… threatening his team was something else entirely to him.

"We don't have to," Cissnei took a step toward him despite herself and the look in her eyes made Tifa's heart hurt in sympathy. "We could be allies. We used to be allies. You used to trust me. We both want the same goal."

Cloud's eyes narrowed and for just a moment, they flickered with electric blue fire and Tifa was surprised to feel the subdued blaze of fury in him. It reminded her of the first time he'd seen their Zack in the storage closet in the Shinra building.

"Don't lie to me." His voice was low and dangerously calm. Tifa's hand slipped down to rest over his where it rested at her waist, as if she could hold him back that way even though he hadn't moved and other than his eyes, his face was utterly calm. Cissnei's eyes went wide in surprise and if she was faking it, she was really, really good, Tifa thought.

"Strife – "

"You're not here to kill Sephiroth," Cloud's eyes were hard. "You're here to collect him as a sample for your mad scientists."