Time goes by.
Cloud prowls around the world, searching. For her. For a purpose. For a cure to save his new companion—a slip of a boy cursed with the "pandemic."
Tifa drinks and exists, a slow looping spiral that turns around the weights she can still feel—a dagger in her hand, a body in her arms.
Barret works to reconstruct his broken past, fixing up a better world for his daughter and worrying. Always worrying.
Vincent watches with keen eyes. Something is off, and he awaits the approaching storm.
Cid builds a life with Shera, pursuing his passions under the resourceful umbrella of the WRO. He spends most of his time in the sky, but he does his best to avoid looking at the scars gouged into the Planet.
Yuffie turns her talents to appropriate use at the WRO's discretion. She simmers down from a brash, erratic girl into the beginnings of a bold, brilliant woman, tempered by the things that she has seen.
Reeve takes the first few steps down a long, difficult path to atonement. It is all he can do.
Sephiroth watches all of them as he allows his blight to descend upon the world. He decides that now is as good a time as any to unleash his agents, and so they go. The Lifestream continues to pull at him, begging him to give in and dissociate into its current, but he holds firmly onto the anchor of his birthright.
It won't be long, now.
.O.O.O.O.O.
"Are you Barret?"
"Yeah. Uh…who are you?"
"…Denzel."
"Okay…is there something you need?"
"Cloud dropped me off here. He said I should stay with you for a while—he had to take care of something."
"…What?!"
.O.O.O.O.O.
"Listen, Strife, I don't know what the hell your deal is, but what the fuck were you thinking, dumping a random kid on my doorstep?! And one with Geostigma, at that?! Said you found him at the church a few months ago and took him in—that's great, I guess, but I already got my hands full with Marlene and these oil surveys! You're lucky I got a damn bleeding heart, you know? Pick up the phone next time I call, and don't take too damn long with whatever bullshit you're up to now."
.O.O.O.O.O.
Barret slams his phone down on the table, completely unfazed by the crackling of the glass screen as it breaks on impact. It won't be the first phone repair he has gotten, and it certainly won't be the last.
He drags his hand down the length of his face, feeling older than he is.
From his seat at the simple dining table in the small house he shares with Marlene, he looks out the window and spots her drawing with a piece of chalk on a flat plane of scrap metal. Denzel watches a few paces away, looking awkward as Marlene finishes her project and stands with a pleased grin. She tosses the chalk aside and with a few hurried words to Denzel, proceeds to demonstrate a hop-scotch skip. She reverses and repeats, and then Denzel attempts his own shaky run at it while she cheers.
Some of Barret's frustration melts away at the sight. He's still supremely annoyed with Cloud for dropping the kid off without warning or asking—or even showing his face—but it's good for Marlene to have someone else to interact with. There are other kids in Corel, to be sure, but the townsfolk have given Barret a frosty reception that entails prohibiting their children from being around him and thus, Marlene. Luckily, she hasn't seemed terribly lonely, but he knows that she misses the friends that she had in Kalm and, before that, Midgar. Barret still keeps in touch with a few of the folks who made it out of Sector 7 during the plate collapse—those who then subsequently fled Midgar when Meteor fell. The lucky ones. A few of them are parents with children that Marlene used to play with. The closest is Rick, father to an adorable girl named Betty, but their residence in Costa del Sol is still too far a trip for Barret to manage often. He knows that Marlene tries to hide her loneliness from him, but even his sorry excuse for fatherly instinct can see through her cheery grins.
Unfortunately, Barret's relative gladness for Denzel's companionship doesn't change the poor timing of the kid's arrival. He's set to leave in three days for a trip lasting a fortnight—an excavation for oil deposits in the southeast quadrant of the desert. It took an earnest request and a sum of gil to convince his reluctant neighbor to take care of Marlene in his absence, but he highly doubts that the single mother of two would be willing to watch after Denzel, as well.
Barret wanted Marlene to stay with Cid and Shera, a mere few hours away in Rocket Town, but she asked to stay in Corel. He suspects she's tired of moving around, and he can't blame her. Now, though, he may not have a choice, since there isn't another option—
Barret's thoughts screech to a halt for a beat before resuming their movement at a furious pace. He scowls pensively at Marlene and Denzel skipping about behind the modest house.
He can't tell if this idea is good or bad. Somehow, it's probably both.
Barret picks up the phone and scrolls through his contacts, grumbling a string of curses as he fingers brush over the lacerations in the glass that leave hairline cuts in their wake. The connection tone drones as he waits for Tifa's curt voicemail to ask him to leave a message, as it always does. Even so, there is some sort of feeling he has…it tells him that she will return this particular phone call.
He gruffly recounts the situation, makes his inquiry, and ends the call. Then, he turns his gaze back to the window and waits.
.O.O.O.O.O.
Fifteen minutes remain until closing, so Tifa groans softly when the bell over the front door chimes to announce the arrival of a customer. Her reserve of false cheer has long been depleted and that emptiness keeps her from turning with a superficial smile and deceptively welcoming greeting. Instead, she continues to dry the glass in her hand and tosses something noncommittal over her shoulder.
"Grab a seat. What can I get you?"
The approaching footsteps pause. There is a beat of silence and then, "Well, this is a surprise."
Tifa tenses at the familiar drawl and slowly turns, her fingers tight around the glass. Her face is kept carefully blank.
"I mean, I knew you were in Gongaga," Reno continues. "But I didn't think you'd go back to bartending."
Tifa manages to catch up to the situation and exchanges the dry glass for a damp one, methodically swiping away water droplets with a small towel. She rests her back against the counter behind her while Reno sinks into a barstool, looking exactly as she remembers him. Mischievous eyes the color of ocean shallows contrast starkly with his vibrant hair, though they complement the sharp edges of his smile. The only difference she can spot is that he seems a bit guarded. It's a trait that all the other Turks wear constantly, but one that Tifa has never found in Reno until today.
"Why is that?" she asks.
He shrugs. "People who run from their past tend to avoid anything that reminds them of it."
Straight shooter, then.
"You don't," she points out daringly, flitting a pointed look at the dark suit of the Turks.
His expression shifts into a display of acknowledgement that they're on the same playing field. The last bit of levity hanging onto him dissipates, leaving his light eyes somber.
"Yeah, well, I've got shit to make up for."
"So do I."
Tifa can tell that he disagrees, and she knows the reason why even though he leaves it unspoken.
You killed your best friend to save the world. You did the right thing.
She can see the burning wreckage of Sector 7 in the shadows and highlights of his face. But her kill count is not small, either, thanks to the reactor bombings and everything that they set into motion, and Aerith's blood still seems to slide along her skin. What a pair they make.
"Whiskey," he murmurs.
Tifa pours two glasses and locks the front door ten minutes early.
.O.O.O.O.O.
Cloud drives and drives and drives, stopping only when the ground starts to soften beneath his tires. His enhanced eyes trace over the marshy landscape the sprawls ahead, mapping every slumped tree and drooping plant. The night is silent save for the occasional ripple of an invisible creature under the surface of the swamp water. Cloud loads up the harness on his back with the various weapons in Fenrir's compartments and dismounts the bike to trek into the wild. Dark bands cross along the spread of water where it is shallow enough to barely cover Cloud's foot before he hits squishy ground.
He has only taken five steps when vibrations begin to thrum underneath him. A faint, wet rustling breaks the quiet and draws quickly closer, growing louder and louder until a behemoth of a zolom bursts from the marsh.
.O.O.O.O.O.
Reno is on his third glass and Tifa is finishing her second. She has put the whiskey bottle away even though she barely feels its effects—and she can see that he barely feels them, too—because this isn't her bar, and this isn't her whiskey. But she'll allow herself to drink enough to feel warm and just a bit loose.
She drifts a bit closer, leaning her forearms on the wooden surface as she and Reno talk about absolutely nothing of consequence. The weather in Junon, the best beach spots in Costa del Sol, the pros and cons of different martial arts styles. After draining her glass, Tifa pushes it away with too little care and too much force and it shatters on the floor beside Reno. That's when she remembers that despite their low drink count, her pours were quite heavy-handed.
He glances down at the mess and then turns a roguish smirk on her. "I ain't cleaning that up."
Tifa rolls her eyes at him and snatches up the broom propped up behind the gate segregating the back bar from the rest of the pub. Reno's sea glass gaze follows her over the rim of his tumbler as she approaches.
"I wouldn't trust you to," she snarks back, though the last word devolves into a yelp as she suddenly finds herself tossed up onto the bar, the broom falling from her hands to clatter onto the floorboards. Reno situates himself between her knees, his hands planted firmly on her hips, and Tifa is all too aware of the shards crackling beneath his boots when he steps closer to her.
His pretty eyes have darkened a touch, she notes, but they smolder with the same heat that skitters along her skin.
Tifa wonders when her reflexes dulled so terribly that she would be caught off guard. Then Reno's warm breath—a wonderful war of whiskey and mint—cascades over her lips and she thinks that maybe she allowed herself to be caught.
.O.O.O.O.O.
Cloud lands heavily on the ground and winces as his entire body protests. The zolom whips around, heaving itself impossibly fast, and the end of its tail sends Cloud flying. Despite the lacerations that wound its scaly length and the weakening of its efforts, the beast has managed to land more than a few hits on Cloud. He tumbles through a bank of mud and then stabs his sword into the ground to arrest his momentum. His wet gloves slip around the handle as he gracelessly hauls himself onto his feet.
About this time, Barret would be spitting curses and leveling a spray of bullets at the towering serpent. The dazzling flurry of Aerith's offensive magic would pause to allow the cooling spread of a healing spell to chase the bite from the pain of his wounds. And Tifa would turn a concerned umber gaze to him, darting to his side to clasp a potion into his hand before pushing him out of the way of the whipping tail he just barely manages to roll underneath, consumed by the vision as he is.
Cloud wonders when his reflexes grew so slow—sure, a zolom was no easy prey, but it shouldn't be nearly this challenging for him. Then he leaps, bolstered by a fresh dump of adrenaline into his veins, feeling all at once free and uncertain and uncaring, and he thinks that maybe he allowed himself to be hurt.
.O.O.O.O.O.
There is no affection, and not a lot of gentleness. There is only the mutual understanding of—
I need this and you need this.
Tifa loses herself in the sensations, the touches, the crisp scent of Reno's cologne. She allows him to pour brilliance into her and does her best to return the favor. His hands are pleasantly rough when they ghost over her skin and his hair is soft when her fingers get lost in the feathery locks. The world pauses around them—not gone, but lost to novel silence—and Tifa allows her mind to switch off all but its basest functions.
When it's over, his head drops onto her shoulder as his breathing stabilizes. His hands return to her hips and Tifa gets the distinct feeling that she is serving as an anchor.
Reality begins to seep through the cracks of their disintegrating bubble.
"Do you think there's any absolution out there for people like us?" she whispers as she drops her forehead onto his bare shoulder.
Reno takes a moment to answer. "Honestly, babe, no."
His hands give a brief squeeze before they lift off of her. He turns and retrieves their clothes, respectfully averting his eyes as they redress. Tifa doesn't bother combing through her mussed hair and Reno leaves the buttons of his shirt undone. Their eyes hesitantly collide once more and Tifa sees her own thoughts reflected back at her—the question of what happens now, the wondering if they should part ways like this never happened, and finally, the memory of how blissful it was to feel something other than the touches of ghosts.
They arrive at the same conclusion.
Reno scrambles around the room, hurriedly stacking the chairs onto the tables while Tifa follows behind with the broom. He then picks up the larger chunks of glass still strewn about the floor while Tifa sweeps up the finer fragments. His fist slams a wad of gil into the tip tin—entirely too much for what they drank. When the bar is passably clean for opening shift tomorrow, Tifa grabs Reno's hand and they dash out the door.
.O.O.O.O.O.
Cloud finally delivers the killing blow and the zolom flops to the ground with a resounding thud. The impact sends yet another spray of filthy marsh water falling upon Cloud's hunched form. He straightens up unsteadily, chest heaving from exertion, and jerks his head to whip the damp hair from his face.
A strange sense of disappointment mingles in with the throbbing pain of his various injuries.
It felt better than he imagined it would, fighting again. Sure, he encounters monsters on the road all the time, but it is a rare occasion for any of them to actually present a challenge. The aftershocks of the rush are still tingling in his muscles, asking to blaze into life once more. Out here, in the wilderness, far from any sort of town or city, Cloud feels like he is operating outside of time. The past, present, and future can't touch him here.
He isn't ready for it to end.
The green glow of a healing spell sets him right enough to climb back onto Fenrir and roar off into the night, in search of the next distraction.
.O.O.O.O.O.
When Tifa wakes in the morning, Reno is gone. She is just as glad for his departure as she was for his arrival.
.O.O.O.O.O.
Dawn is just beginning to break when Cloud drags himself into the drafty church. He doesn't even bother to spread out his modest sleeping bag—he merely collapses onto a pew and sleeps.
A/N: Hello, hope you're having a great day :)