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However, with everything and everyone at his disposal, two months was all it took for the tower to be built. Two months to build the tower just so I can build a fricking playground. Cloud groaned to himself the morning everything was supposed to power up. Why did I think this was a good idea?
Thus early morning arrived and Cloud stood near the base of the tower praying everything worked. They had tested each set of fans that were responsible for pulling down air from the surface individually, but this would be the first time they turned everything on all together.
Cloud really hoped everything worked. He had planned for everything he could think of. Cloud planned for motor fatigue and set the things on timed relays so the motors would have time to cool off. Each set of fans ran a bit faster so that by the end the air came out fairly compressed and, theoretically, cooler. The top of the tower was triple layered- the first thirty feet in ten foot increments not including the top- with grates that would hopefully keep any humans, animals or monsters out of the death trap. The bottom was the same. Cloud had checked, double checked, then triple checked all the seams and then done the same with the brackets that held the tower in place. Even though Midgar had not seen a significant amount rain in over a decade Cloud had even planned for heavy rains, ensuring that all the wiring was thoroughly insulated and-
"Calm the fuck down Cloud, it'll be fine." Cid muttered as the elder man walked up, his usual scarf wrapped around his neck. The man, predictably, lit up a cigarette. "They should be going any minute, right?"
"Oh-six-hundred." Cloud murmured as Tifa and Aerith came bouncing into view.
"Oh, good, we're not late!" Aerith cheered excitedly, throwing her arms around Cloud and giving him a sloppy kiss on the cheek, Tifa laughing at Cloud's look of longsuffering.
"Well-" Cloud began only to be cut off by the hum of machinery whirring to life. His heart in his throat Cloud watched as the indicator lights for the first motor housing went yellow and then green before the next section began to whirr to life and the process repeated itself. By the time the sixth set went green Aerith had needed to poke Cloud in the ribs so he would remember to breathe.
Then air began to flow out of the tapered bottom of the tower and it felt so good.
"Hot damn!" Cid whooped excitedly, throwing a friendly arm around the grinning Tifa's shoulders. "Lookit that! It's workin'!"
Aerith gave Cloud another sloppy kiss on the cheek and Cloud broke out into a wide, pleased grin as the airflow picked up and the heaviness that was always present in the air of the Slums lightened. It would take days for the true impact of their system to really be seen, naturally, but even now the new introduction of slightly cooled air brought a reprieve from the relentless oppressive aura that the inhabitants of the Slums had long grown used to.
After a few minutes of celebration- and one heart-stopping moment when Cloud thought that the second-to-last housing wasn't going to light up- Aerith turned and grinned brightly at the two men. "Now we just need to plant some flowers here!"
Both men groaned tiredly but they were grinning at her. Tifa huffed and smacked them both 'round the back of the head. "C'mon guys, get a move on! Our resident Flower Fairy demands it!"
Cloud squawked in embarrassed outrage and flushed crimson. "Aerith!"
"Sorry, not sorry, Cloudy!" His brown haired best friend giggled unrepentantly as she linked arms with Tifa and took off in the direction of the church.
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The days blurred together, but in a good way.
The playground came together rather quickly, all things considered. The longest portion of the playground's construction was the enclosed fence they had installed around what would be Aerith's garden area. It wasn't that they were planning on keeping all the vegetables she grew in that patch to themselves, but rather they did not want the spot to be trampled by looters. The boxes on top of the equipment covers- to keep the pale children from getting too much sun- were left open as they all held flowers.
Water from a nearby underground stream was being used to water the flowers via a rigged sprinkler system. The water source had been left untapped by the Slums because it doubled back after about a hundred feet and went even deeper into the rock. It had therefore been deemed not 'cost efficient' enough to be utilized, so the hole had been covered be a sheet of metal and a sign had been posted. Prior to the air tower the area had been far too stuffy for anyone to deem it worth the hassle.
Cloud and Cid had managed to not only get a decent pump going, but one of the men who worked for Cloud had been in part of the squad that handled getting the troops in Wutai fresh, clean water to use. With his knowledge and Cloud and Cid's knack for designing and building things the water source also boasted a crude but effective purification system.
The day the workers deemed the playground safe had been full of laughter. Kids from all over came to play and the caretakers- not all of the children possessed such a person, sadly- enjoyed sitting in the shade near the air tower.
Despite Cloud's pessimism the air tower worked flawlessly. As an added bonus no one from Shinra had shown up to tear it down, either. As the days passed the ambient temperature of the general area steadily declined. When combined with the scent of Aerith's carefully tended flowers, the whole are began to take on a pleasant aroma as well.
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"You're both slave drivers." Cloud muttered with a small grin as he carefully checked the holes he had made in the formerly discarded trash plastic bucket.
"You love it, Cloudy~!" Aerith sang brightly, brushing a sloppy kiss on the blond's cheek as she moved past him to rejoin Tifa by the countless containers of seedlings. The church's stage steps were littered with re-appropriated containers filled with water or soil for the seeds to mature inside.
"Sure." Cloud agreed easily, a smirk settling to rest on his lips as he returned to his task. "But you two have nearly taken up the entire sixteenth district with your flower-power."
"All the more reason to celebrate!" Aerith chirped cheerfully as she bounced back over towards Cloud, an amused Tifa trailing in her wake. "We're that much closer to corrupting all of Midgar with flowers!" Aerith paused and blinked up at Cloud's quirked eyebrow innocently. "Well, flowers and plants. Maybe even a few trees." She amended with a pout.
"We had to put in a guard rotation for the playground area." Tifa mentioned as she settled down across from Aerith and Cloud, laying out her many containers in front of the elder girl with the ease of long practice. "The gardens are doing well, though. Lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, okra, eggplant-"
"Now you're just making me hungry." Cloud grumbled as he passed the finished repurposed container to the impatient Aerith and reached for another former-piece-of-trash-come-garden-implement.
"It's so exciting!" Aerith bounced a little as she began to expertly fill the rigged container with soil and seedlings. "In the last four months we've filled almost all of the sunlight-touched area near the playground with flowers or plants. The rigged containers mean we can hang strings of containers to triple our growing space too! And they're doing so well! I mean, I've never had trouble growing things here at the church, but I never thought-" Aerith trailed off as she looked up and caught her friends' amused expressions.
"We know, Aer." Tifa informed the outrageously pouting Aerith with a grin. "We were there."
"Are there." Cloud corrected with a grunt as he concentrated on drilling through the tough plastic of the container. "Every day."
"You two-" Aerith pronounced solemnly as she returned to a self-appointed task. "-are no fun."
"So, no nap today?" Cloud teased her gently.
Both young women glowered at him.
Cloud looked up and blinked owlishly. "Huh?"
"You never joke about taking away nap time." Tifa informed Cloud with a superior look, having abandoned her task to clutch at her chest theatrically.
"It's integral to our success." Aerith agreed just as earnestly, folding her hands together and gazing up at Cloud imploringly. "Nap time is important."
"Er, ok?" Cloud ventured rather bemusedly as he flicked his gaze between the two women uncertainly.
"Good." Tifa pronounced with a satisfied smile as she returned to her task. "So, you won't mind when we double naptime today. Even if you don't actually fall asleep you'll just have to suck it up and be our cuddly Cloudy-bear."
"Right. Ok." Cloud muttered as he went back to his task, his blond hair falling forward to shield his shyly pleased expression.
"Is he a bear though?" Aerith pondered thoughtfully as she worked the soil. "Or a wolf?"
"Cloud did nurse that wolf cub back to full health back home. I think he was about five or so. It hung around him until it found a pack to call its own, but it would occasionally bring him dead rabbits and such for a while."
"Tifa!"
"Then it's settled!" Aerith grinned mischievously as her soil-covered hand darted out to tug on the earring in Cloud's ear. "He's our fierce, cuddly Cloudy-wolf!"
"Agreed!" Tifa chimed in over Cloud's embarrassed splutters, the two girls exchanging a victory fist-bump to seal the deal.
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Feel free to leave me a note on your way out~!
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