Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as are McCallister and Eddy.
If you've read any of my stories before, you've probably noticed that in a lot of them, things get complicated and confusing for a while, before everything starts clicking together in the end. Well, I try to click as much together as possible and leave as few loopholes as I can. Anyway, we're reaching the point in this collection where it starts getting confusing. Don't get frustrated; it's supposed to be a little confusing. It will all make sense in the end, trust me. Enjoy!
..:-X-:..
070 – Dangerous Ground
As the gust of wind snapped outward from…whatever the Hell he had just witnessed, the force of it knocked the unsuspecting cigarette out of Cid's mouth. He paused, blinked, and stomped it out with his boot, already tapping out a new one.
Aerith dropped her hands from where she had been holding them outward, straightening and slightly out of breath. She swallowed and looked to him, self consciously, standing in the middle of the field of white flowers…that Cid knew had not been there fifteen minutes ago.
A long minute passed.
Cid merely lit his cigarette, slid one end of it between his lips, and took a few successive drags from it, exhaling smoke. Aerith continued to watch him warily for his reaction. The…magic or spell or whatever she had just done…had split through the rocky surface of the Great Maw, carving a jagged groove at least twenty feet from the flower field to the Ravine Trail. It looked like it went pretty deep.
"Well?" Aerith asked, finally growing impatient.
Cid tapped ash off the end of his cigarette. "That was different."
Her shoulders deflated. "Different? That's it?"
"What do you want me to say? Looked like a weirdass thunder spell to me." He shrugged.
Aerith scoffed, "Oh, I don't know. I only just rendered the pure energy of the Heart of Radiant Garden to my will and created something from nothing!" She gestured to the flowers around her.
"Sorry." Cid said. "It's impressive, Aerith. Really, I definitely ain't never seen anything like it before." He rubbed the side of his neck. "But the way you been carrying on about it and all the hours you been spending out here…You'd think you'd'a split the atom."
"But I have!" Aerith bounced on her heels. "This is raw energy, Cid. It's not like regular magic…It's not even magic to begin with! It's life energy, the soul of this world! It's volatile and dangerous and—"
"And you been poking it with a stick for the last few months." Cid said flatly.
Aerith started to snap back, paused, and sighed, "Basically."
"Why?"
His question seemed to catch her off guard. Cid had seen all kinds of magic. Fire, ice, wind, water, thunder…Sleep spells, paralysis spells, memory-eraser spells, laughing spells, transfiguration spells…Nearly fifteen years of war would grant you that exposure. And throughout all of that, he could honestly confess that he had never seen any 'magic' like this before. It was different, strange…dangerous. He liked different, strange, and dangerous. He just wasn't sure he liked it being handled by someone who wasn't Merlin or Yen Sid or someone who had trained for years in the craft.
"Can you think of the possibilities?" Aerith spread her hands at her sides. "This discovery could revolutionize the way we live."
"What's wrong with the way we live?" Cid lifted an eyebrow.
"I could use this undercurrent to create aqueducts, to transport water to all corners of our world." Aerith explained enthusiastically. "Bring life and trees and grass and flowers back to the barren wasteland outside the town perimeter." She gestured to the infertile purple rocks surrounding them. "Radiant Garden: fully restored to its former glory."
Cid grimaced slightly. "That'll require a lotta control." He gestured to the deep crack running through the ground. "This always happen when you lose control?"
Aerith smoothed her dress. "I'm working on it."
"Hey, I'm all for experimentin', but you better get a good idea of what you're dealin' with here." Cid pointed his cigarette at her. "Like you said, this stuff is being fueled by the heart of Radiant Garden. It's powerful, untamed, wild. Just because it's light, doesn't mean it'll be all warm and fuzzy when you can't handle it."
Aerith kept a stiff upper lip, her eyes flashing. "I can handle it." She folded her arms. "Some support from SOMEONE would be nice."
Cid knew that tone. That tone meant that ol' Cloud still wasn't on-board with this venture of Aerith's. Cid had seen Aerith tackle some pretty deep shit. If she said she could handle this new magic stuff, he trusted that she could. But then again…playing with matches was one thing. Playing with the heart of an entire world…
"Do you know what you're doin'?" He prompted.
She looked defensive, but sensed that it was a real question. "I have to." She cleared her throat. "Everybody else is contributing to the war effort. I think it's about time I did."
Her expression was both angry and self conscious. Cid put out his cigarette.
"Where is this comin' from all of a sudden?"
Aerith swallowed and reached into her pocket, taking out a creased up piece of paper. "A few weeks ago…before the Halloween Party…I didn't dump the party on Yuffie because I was busy." She looked to Cid. "I was in Agrabah. This letter came from the Jinx facility."
Cid stared at the letter and soaked in her words. He lifted his eyes to her. "He lies." He said stonily. "Don't play his games, Aerith. Whatever he told you…you remember what he did."
"That's just the point." She looked exasperated. "I don't think he's lying."
..:-X-:..
071 – Pairing Up
"Aerith's cat hates me." Rinoa lamented.
Beside her, Private McCallister finished dismantling her standard issue Glock pistol on the desk, not looking up as she started cleaning it. "That cat hates everybody."
"Not Cloud." Rinoa slumped in the chair behind Eddy Lake's desk in the IT Department of the Alliance building. Eddy was out of the office all day, and Rinoa had volunteered to hold down the fort…which meant she was delegating work to everybody else while the rest of IT demanded that she not touch any computers…ANY of the computers. "This cat loves Cloud and hates everybody else."
She watched the soldier peer down the nose of the weapon, "And you have no idea how ironic that is." McCallister said dryly.
"Speaking of…I don't think Cloud likes me either." Rinoa fidgeted.
"I have literally never seen you two in the same room." The private remarked.
"We've talked…elevator conversation anyway…He mostly just…nods or grunts and doesn't really make eye contact or smile."
McCallister nodded with a grunt, still not looking up from her task.
Rinoa dropped her palm to the desk surface. "Are you listening to me?"
McCallister looked up with a deadpan expression. "He's not a very emotional person. He doesn't show it anyway. The same goes for Commander Leonhart, and most of the soldiers that serve under those two. It just…comes with the turf." She shrugged and went back to cleaning her gun.
Rinoa narrowed one eye. "Why do you do that?"
"So the trigger won't jam during a battle."
"No, no." Rinoa waved a hand, "I mean…You never refer to anybody by their first names. It's always 'Commander Leonhart' or 'Lieutenant Lockhart.' You've known these people for, like, five years. Aren't you past the formalities?"
"They're my superiors." The soldier said absently. "The first name basis is reserved for equals or friends."
"So you don't see Leon as your…equal?" Rinoa lifted an eyebrow.
McCallister looked up again. "Of course not. He is my commanding officer."
"As your friend?" Rinoa pressed, utterly perplexed by the soldier.
McCallister eyed her steadily. "Comrade."
"You refer to Jake Alms by his first name." Rinoa smirked, knowing that she was pushing McCallister's buttons.
"Jake is a civilian." The private's face was reddening as the conversation topic turned. "And…and my relationship with him is far less…" She gave a vague gesture. "than with Commander Leonhart."
Rinoa sat back, "So all these years, you've never developed any…feelings…for Leon?"
McCallister glared. "Don't be ridiculous."
Rinoa smirked. Ruffling the woman's feathers was too fun. "You're weird."
McCallister snorted, but neither accepted nor denied the accusation. She finished cleaning her gun and began reassembling it.
"Are you and Jake dating now or what?" Rinoa asked after a long moment of silence.
McCallister stood and holstered her gun. "What is with all these questions?"
"It just seems like everybody has somebody on this world except me." Rinoa folded her arms, remaining seated. "Leon and Tifa. Aerith and Cloud. Cid and that bartender chick. You and Jake. Yuffie and Trevor."
"They're dating?" McCallister lifted an eyebrow. "Seriously dating?"
"Three times over the past two weeks." Rinoa shrugged. "Sounds like dating to me."
"Kingdom Hearts have mercy on that man's soul." McCallister sighed.
The office door opened and Eddy sauntered in.
"Hi, Rinoa." He greeted. "Sorry that took so long. I got caught up in—"
His eyes drifted to Private McCallister, more specifically to the emblem on the collar of her fatigues denoting her as a soldier in the Weapons Specialist Department. His eyes widened. Rinoa blinked at his reaction: Leon's department seemed to carry a lot of clout around here.
"What's the problem? Do you need something?" He said, looking panicky. "I told my interns to take care of the elevator to Leonhart's department, but if they haven't gotten—"
"Whoa." McCallister raised her hands placatingly. "At ease. I was just leaving."
With that, the private sent an absent wave of goodbye to Rinoa and left the office.
Eddy muttered goodbye to her as she passed and closed the door after her. He immediately looked to Rinoa. "What did she want?"
"We were just talking." Rinoa stood from behind the desk. "Nothing important."
Eddy looked confused. "I didn't know Leonhart's interns had social lives."
Rinoa laughed and straightened her jacket. "You don't know the half of it."
..:-X-:..
072 – Decisions, Decisions
Tifa felt like they had been painting for hours. The nursery in the house was bright with sunlight coming in through the open windows, but the refraction of light was becoming less glaring as she and Leon covered the white walls with the pastel green paint. She had been working on the same space for fifteen minutes, but her mind had been rolling all over the place. Her thoughts always darted in all directions when she was in this room.
"I think," She started, giving her wrist a break from pushing the paint roller up and down the wall. "I want to have her at home."
"What do you mean?" Leon asked, working on the opposite wall.
Tifa turned around to look at him, "I mean, not at a hosp—whoa."
While she had been working on the same wall of the nursery for the past hour, Leon had managed to canvas the other three walls with the first coat of paint, and he looked to be halfway through the second coat. He set his own paint roller down.
"You mean give birth to her…here?" He pointed to the floor.
"How did you paint all of this so fast?" She gawked at the walls.
"No, wait, go back to what you just said—" Leon made a re-wind motion with his hands. "Where there're no doctors or equipment or medical attention?"
"Seriously, who taught you how to paint?" She looked from his handiwork to hers.
"Tifa." Leon sounded suddenly exasperated.
She looked at him and the sheer terror that danced across Leon's face sombered her.
"Yes." She answered. "What do you think?"
He paused, "I think it worries me."
Tifa walked over to him. "I don't need doctors or equipment or any of that. Childbirth is a natural human event. It's not an injury or a sickness that needs healing. I think THAT's what hospitals are for."
"You say that now." He made sure he wasn't wearing any of the paint before he sat back into the cushioned recliner that they'd moved into the nursery: the only piece of furniture aside from the crib. "But what if something happens?"
Tifa slid over and sat across his lap on the recliner. "The only thing that is going to happen is that we are going to have a bouncing baby girl in a few months."
Leon wrapped his arms around her securely, not looking placated. "I'm just…concerned…I want you and the baby to have the best care as possible when the day comes. So that if there are complications—"
She silenced him with a kiss, cupping the side of his face with one hand. After the kiss, she bopped her nose against his nose once and sat back. "We can take all of the necessary precautions and get all the information before then. The doctor says I'm healthy, the baby's healthy; there haven't been any problems or any reason to think that there would be a problem." She twirled a few fingers through his hair in a soothing motion. "And I know what you're thinking."
He huffed, "What am I thinking?"
"You're thinking about your mother." She said gently. "I understand why this worries you…I really do, but I feel really strongly about this."
His expression tightened and he averted his eyes to her stomach. Without responding, he shifted one hand from her side to stroke the growing bump. Tifa let the silence linger. Neither of them had a pleasant feeling about hospitals. They and the others on the Restoration Committee had been in and out of the hospitals in one bloody mess or another so often throughout the war, that it had left a sour taste in their mouths. Add to that the fact that Leon's stress levels had been increasing as they got closer to the due date. He tried to hide it, but he had never been good at lying. She knew the circumstances of his biological mother's death weighed heavy on him. The words 'cursed' and 'responsible' had been tossed around on occasion when he actually talked about it.
"You…" She started, paused, and started again. "What do you think?"
He looked like he'd swallowed a lemon. "I can't say that I love the idea, but—"
"We don't have to make a decision right at this moment." She touched his knee. "I mean, this is the lead-in to a long conversation."
Some relief graced his features at that and he relaxed a little. "Right, yeah."
"But first, I have one burning question." She lifted a finger.
He shifted a little, arms still around her. "And what would that be?"
"Where did you learn to paint that fast?" She glanced around the nursery again.
Leon snorted and pulled her close. Tifa came forward with the nudge and he kissed her. She smiled as she returned it. After the kiss, she got more comfortable, deciding that it was officially break time from painting for a while. She tilted her head against the top of the chair above his head.
"I love you." Leon murmured. "Both of you."
Tifa paused. His protective tone sounded like he was making a promise. "And we love you." She said. "You want to head downstairs?"
"Maybe in a little while." He replied slowly.
She nodded in agreement, and they remained where they were, sitting in each other's arms in the nursery for a while.
..:-X-:..
A/N: I apologize for any cavities that that last one might have caused. It couldn't be helped.
Preview for next week: "Aren't time travelers supposed to be all secretive and withhold information?"