Chapter XXIV

The Final Power of Fruit
"Reno fell off his bar stool. Someone put a worm in his martini" - Bugenhagen

Tifa gazed at The Eternal Flame in Cosmo Canyon as it bloomed in the desert night, casting a chiaroscuro on the cliff walls, warming the souls of all who bathed in its light. Tifa had missed the revelry the first time around but this made up for the loss. Hiro held court over his ancestral cooking pot, stirring its rice laden contents, flanked by his dancers who again wore little more than flowers and fruit. Six full length mirrors ringed the patients, though right now Larry, Darryl, and Darryl used the mirrors to primp as if they had morphed into high school girls. And they brought along their entire hillbilly clan: coffee growing, pear juice swilling rednecks and, according to Aeris, all protectors of the Planet. One of them leaped up from his bench, hurled his wide brim hat into the air, and shouted "Yee-haw!" before blasting it with three pistol shots. With protectors like these, no wonder the Planet spent so much time screaming in Bugenhagen's observatory.

Elena the blonde Turk sat nearby, looking both groggy and polite as always. Aunt Pamela's goat-stop juice might have hit the woman like Palmer's truck but she had pledged to stay awake for the party. Reno and Rude had showed up to arrest Juria for her role in the Wutai restaurant bombing. Bugenhagen pointed out Shinra had no jurisdiction in Cosmo Canyon and he had granted Juria asylum, and in any case Juria hadn't set off any bombs (in the restaurant, at least). Reno argued that Xee had jurisdiction everywhere but if Juria left town with them by the following evening they would drop the issue. Juria twirled her newly restored staff, saying if he and Rude left both the town and her presence, they could leave with their gonads intact. Reno winced and declared himself off duty, at least until the liquor ran out.

"Wutai nuns," he mumbled to Rude. "Let's try that power pear juice."

Yuffie and Barret sat amidst a cluster of young children, regaling about their adventures in Wutai, knocking down those Shinra bastards and even dueling the elusive Carmine.

"I just hope she and Scarlet don't have another cousin," Cid said, examining an order of engine parts. "The poor Highwind can't take much more of this."

Vincent, Cait Sith, and Nanaki huddled together talking shop. Tifa ignored them. No more wild plans tonight. She spotted Aeris walking toward the central tents and followed, ducking mirrors, candles, and thrown bananas.

"Ho-ho-hoo," said Bugenhagen, twirling a three-sixty in midair. "I feel young as a chicken. Don't you just love a double party?"

Tifa looked at the contestants: Zinnia in Raine's body, who dozed as if taking a siesta; and John, who lay half propped up on a beanbag, looking as he always did, resigned to live through some horrible fate. Probably why so many underestimated him.

"So tomorrow they're good as new?"

"Ho-ho-hoo, that's the theory. We've never done a double before. In fact, we'd never done a single until recently."

"No donating your life force this time, okay? Otherwise the party will never end."

"Fear not, child of darkness. The Flame and the Planet will provide."

"Child of what?"

Outside, a drunken scream and a crash of glass. Bugenhagen buzzed over to look.

"Reno fell off his bar stool," he said on returning. "Ho-ho-hoo, someone put a worm in his martini."

"Yuffie," Tifa said. Hmm. How did she know that? Logical guess. Except the thought had just popped into her mind. Huh.

Cloud. Where had he - there. Near Aeris. But no spike of jealousy. Huh. Well then. In higher spirits she trotted over to the pair.

"Hey sword twirler. How are you holding out?"

Aeris leaped up to wrap Tifa in her arms. "Oh Tifa." the Cetra began to sob. "I really thought we had lost you back there."

"Whoa." Tifa returned the embrace. "Don't worry. I don't intend to go anywhere. Then again, I fell to pieces when Sephiroth - Oh God, Aeris."

"Neither of you had better even think of dying again." Cloud wrapped his arms around both women. "At least, not until I'm fully in the ground."

"He wishes to remind you," John said from his beanbag, "that he remembered his promise."

Tifa smiled at Cloud. "You did come for me. I was in trouble, and you came."

"Yes I did," John said, "but I couldn't have done it without him." He winked at her.

"John, you jerk," Aeris said, trying to suppress a smile.

Cloud tried to shift positions but both women held on. Tifa adjusted her head until it rested on his shoulder, her hair flowing free over his back.

"Now that would wake me up," John said. "Be careful not to injure yourself on that spiky hair."

Tifa ignored him. They remained entwined for several minutes until Bugenhagen bobbed along, complete with swishing noises. They broke formation and sat on the rim of the fire pit, Tifa between the other two.

"Bugenhagen?"

"Relaxing for the party, I see?"

"I have a question. Regarding what happened. With me. I've heard, okay. Donating life force I can understand, but choosing a reality? What's that about?"

"Ho-ho-hoo! As the theory goes, there are multiple paths of existence, multiple worlds that exist all at one time, or at least, the possibilities of them exist. In one world, Carmine killed you. In another, here you are. What John did, in theory, was choose - or create - the reality we now live in."

"What happened to the other reality?"

"It still exists in possibility but it is no longer active."

"How can that be? What happened to the people there?"

"They still exist. You could, for instance, die next week, the Planet forbid, in which that case the two realities would merge back into one and life would carry on, albeit without you."

"So when I die - "

"Depends on how much of an impact you have on this world. If your impact is great, the two realities may never merge."

"So I have my work cut out for me."

"We all do. Consider the many worlds where Aeris died and stayed dead. Worlds where your group failed to stop Sephiroth from summoning Meteor. And sadly, worlds where Meteor destroys the Planet. All possibilities exist in the mix. Thankfully most are highly improbable."

"What if," Tifa said, stroking Cloud's face, "What if some other Jenova with this reality bending power decides they don't like me and, wishes me dead again? Could that happen?"

"In that case, dear Tifa, they might reactivate your old reality. But, ho-ho-hoo, you wouldn't care, because you aren't in it. You see? The other Jenova would be there, and you would still be here."

Aeris pointed at the two guests of honor. "Look at how much effort it takes to alter reality. If someone truly had it out for you, it would be easier - though not by much - to try to kill you directly."

"She's right. The young one here probably goes around altering reality all the time in small ways, maybe changing the price of his favorite rock shrimp cocktail if he's a bit short on gil or, more likely, finding more money in his pocket. Major changes only happen when there is no simple alternative. Raising the dead, for instance."

Tifa shuddered.

"Don't let it worry you," Aeris said. "The whole concept makes my brain hurt too."

"One theory." Bugenhagen said. "The Cetra plague? The virus that so brutally destroyed the Cetra? It was not engineered in a lab with scientific controls. The original Jenova might have pulled it from its own tailored reality. That's why the virus became so specific and so lethal."

Aeris shuddered so hard she grasped Tifa.

"The stuff of nightmares," Zinnia said, shifting in her siesta.

"I hope John never turns against us." Cloud mumbled. "We'd be up the Cid creek."

"If I did," John said, "You could just choose the reality where I didn't." John closed his eyes with a smirk.

"John, can you stop feeling guilty now?" Aeris said. "For the Cetra plague?"

"No."

"Oh well. A journey of a thousand miles - "

"Begins with a single stagger."

"Cloud?" Zinnia spoke. Tifa could see the effort it took to stay awake. "Even though I have her body, I know I'm not your mother. But I feel, a trace of her at least. I can put her soul to rest and perhaps yours too by assuring you that your mother loved you very, very much. She was also very proud of you."

Tifa felt Cloud tremble by her side. Her own eyes teared up again.

"Thank you Zinnia," she said. "And rest in peace, Raine. I'll always remember your peach pie." She reached in her pocket for a tissue.

One mirror nearly toppled. "Hey everybody!" Cait Sith bounced like a living beach ball. "Why all the long faces? Here. Let me tell your fortunes."

"No," Tifa said but Cait Sith wobbled backward and forward in his maddening way.

"Here it is. Not bad." He handed her the slip.

"Your world is what you make it," Tifa read.

"See? Didn't hurt a bit. Now for Cloud." Wibble wobble wibble wobble. "Here."

Tifa looked at the slip. "Happiness will fall into your lap."

"Oops? Sorry, that was yours too, Tifa. Let me try again."

Cid burst in, bumping Cait mid-wobble. Cid swore.

"You spoiled it," Cait Sith said. "Now the fortune is yours."

Cid snatched the slip with a grunt. "'You will find a wrench that will never break.' Cute. I just came to warn you guys never to try the power pear juice, unless you like the taste of jet fuel. Oh, and check out Barret."

They gasped as both Barret and Yuffie made an entrance.

"Ah, Barret," Aeris said. "You wore your sailor suit."

"Yuffie!" Cid said. "You're wearing fruit!"

"Barret made me," she mumbled.

"Hey brat, I gave you a choice." Barret's restored artificial hand gleamed in the firelight.

"You said I had to wear fruit or a dress. Aeris, do you see what I have to do to get him into his sailor suit?"

"I didn't think she'd actually do it," Barret said.

"Ahem," said Juria, joining the group. "Well on your path to becoming a nun, Yuffie?"

"Vincent," Cait said to the next arrival. "I have your fortune."

"Don't want it." He did a double take when he saw Yuffie. "Fruit?"

Yuffie took his fortune and read aloud. "'Seek the darkest cave for the darkest caverns of your heart.' Huh." She flicked the paper to the wind. Vincent said nothing.

Nanaki, the last to prowl in, said, "Now that the main ceremony is about to begin, wow. I've never seen so much fruit outside a supermarket."

"If anyone as much as touches a single grape, I'm going to take this banana and - "

"Yuffie," Juria said. "That's not the way a nun talks."

"Or dresses," Cid said. "Come on. Put on a flight suit and start talking like a sailor."

"Flight? Like, up in the sky? After wearing those demon wings you made, I won't even put on high heeled shoes, much less fly in an airplane."

"Could be worse. It could be John flying you," Aeris said.

John snorted. "If I were stronger I'd create a reality where I fly five combat missions and bring my entire team back home."

"In your dreams," Barret said. "Me, I'd take the reality where my Myrna . . ."

"I know," John said softly. "But if I tried a trick like that, not only would my brain leak all over the floor but, instead of Myrna, you would end up with another revenant like Raine."

Barret hung his head.

"I might, be able to let you talk with her sometime. Maybe. If you want to risk it. Remember, you are relying on John Philip Sorea, guilt-crazed, pale Jenova."

"Ho-ho-hoo!" Bugenhagen rapped on Hiro's pot with a spoon. "The latest ceremony of Yuube yasui shokudo de ebi no tempura o tabemashita ga, ebi wa intanda datta kara, byooki ni narimashita yo is about to begin. In honor of our heroes who helped save Cosmo Canyon from destruction at the hands of Shinra and who gave a little of themselves to return a fallen comrade to us, we have a party in progress."

Bugenhagen spun about several times. Tifa had to look away or become dizzy.

"Did someone spike his mineral water with speed?" Yuffie whispered.

Little Marlene slid to a halt. Fluffy the cat leaped from her arms and raced to John where she swatted his cheek. The boy sneezed.

"Just shoot me," he said.

"What better way to kick off the final round than a traditional Cosmo Canyon serenade?

Tifa felt uneasy. John threw his arms around his head, whisking off an annoyed Fluffy.

Bugenhagen began to sing, voice dripping with vibrato. "Dead guppies . . .

"Dead guppies . . .

"Dead guppies, dead guppies aren't much fun . . ."

Yuffie slapped her forehead, jostling a strategic pineapple.

John moaned. "You got the song wrong. Plus you need a chorus. Or an orchestra."

"They just float there, food for flies

"Never blink their yellow eyes

"Dead guppies, aren't much fun at all - "

The song cut out when Yuffie shoved a banana into Bugenhagen's mouth.

The crowd cheered, though Tifa suspected they just hoped to see her shed more fruit.