Chapter 20. εуλ0005-εуλ0007
Seventh Heaven was hers.
The owner had died peacefully in the night. There was no will. Inquiries turned up no living relatives, and few even dead. Land meant little in the slums; it belonged to those willing to build on it, and maintain whatever shacks they elected to raise.
Seventh Heaven was much more than a shack.
Of course, gaining the building did not mean she inherited the business; there wasn't revenue left for her to keep going. She was grateful now for the savings she had been squirreling away in tins and jars, no more trusting than any other slum resident of Shinra's banks.
And she truly was a slum resident now, something she'd certainly never expected to be, in a Nibelheim that seemed worlds and lifetimes away. One amongst many in a city without a sky. She still missed that part, though – not so much during the day, when sun flowed in from the sides of the city, accompanied by the gigantic Shinra sun lamps above, two together forming an adequate substitute. No, it was the night, the moon, the twinkling of a wide expanse of stars through a navy-brushed sky, reminding her of a long-ago promise between a boy and a girl – children who were now a woman belonging to a different world, and a man out there somewhere in the unknown.
She still looked for Cloud's name sometimes, but it was a fruitless search borne more out of habit than any real expectation of results. Was he still with Shinra – had he ever been with them at all? He could be lost amongst the throngs in Midgar; he could be halfway around the world. Sometimes, she realized with a shudder that she didn't know if he was alive at all.
Constructed images of his look as a man grew hazy in her deepest, most intimate fantasies, where a perfect Cloud touched her in every way she wanted. But those were only dreams. A strange itch that now lived only in fantasy, her built-up image of him in her head, increasingly divorced from any knowledge of reality. Their promise, taken at face value, now seemed so… silly. Why had his leaving bothered her so much?
And above all… in the end, he'd failed her, hadn't he? In her direst hour of need, he hadn't been there. A flickering mage of seeing him in the reactor that day – but she knew it wasn't real, a pain-induced hallucination of a wish that wouldn't come true. Sometimes, with regards to Cloud, she thought fuck you - ashamed to admit that once she'd wanted to do exactly that.
Age eighteen, and she was disillusioned, world-weary, trying hard to hold onto her anger only to keep sadness at bay. It hadn't taken her long to find out that the rest of the world knew nothing of what had happened in Nibelheim. (Zack, she wondered. What had ever happened to him? Could Shinra make a First Class SOLDIER just disappear?) From then on, she hid the secret of her hometown from everyone, tucked away with the nagging suspicion she was the only survivor.
Nibelheim was nothing more, lost in the ashes with the last of her childhood. The girl belonged to Nibelheim; the woman, to Midgar.
She had a woman's responsibilities, a business to run, and she found simple joy in that achievement. Outside of supplies; there wasn't much she bought; she needed little for herself. Her cooking got better as she learned to improvise with the limited options available; she actively daydreamed of vegetables. Eggs aplenty, the protein of choice in the slums, while those on the plate had chicken; cheap, nutritious, versatile. Tifa learned fifty ways to cook an egg, forty-three more than she had known at home.
She trained. Daily, vigorously. It made her a familiar sight around the neighborhood. Her body continued to strengthen, tone, from gangly girl to stripped-down fighter, no delicate flower blooming in the slums. She pared down her outfit for movement, added rough steel-toe boots, fire-red, the color of courage. Fighting gloves, leather and metal extensions of her own hands, and she could feel her energy joining with them like her own skin. Hardened and humble. Her new identity.
Tseng lived with his regrets. Once, he'd worried he was running out of time; now it seemed he had nothing but time, to bide, waiting, for the chance that hadn't been there, that day in Nibelheim.
In the meantime, all he could do was resign himself to waiting and watching over Aerith. Slowly, over time, he felt it was safe to allow the other Turks back on her surveillance detail, as her secret receded further and further into the past. But it was only to Tseng that she would give her letters, even now at least one nearly every time she saw him; and his heart sank.
The gentle, stubborn girl, whose guardian he was. He couldn't even comprehend the way she lived, and yet… he was jealous in many ways. Glimpses of a life he had left behind for the electric Towers of Shinra and an existence in the shadows. Doing the dirty work so others would not have it on their consciences, trying to keep a grasp on their own humanity despite it all.
At least they were not mindless machines like Shinra trained its troops to be. But Zack had never succumbed, had he? Even as Genesis, Angeal, Sephiroth were lost, he always maintained his humanity, the honor that Angeal spoke of finding its home burrowed deep in his own flesh, the living embodiment of his mentor's teachings, actions proving what words could not.
In the quiet of his mind, he cursed Shinra for wasting a man like that; the start of Shinra spelling its own doom. That trooper, Cloud Strife, as well. Everything they should be looking for in their people, and for what end? Kowtowing to the demands of that sick fuck Hojo, feeding his inhuman greed for – what, exactly, Tseng didn't know, Hojo's motivations too twisted for life. Wasting without restraint some of its most valuable assets.
It hurt to see Aerith waving another letter before him, her bright green eyes searching his for some hint of the truth. But he took the coward's way out, hoping to spare her the pain of knowing of a fate he didn't want to think of himself. Was he really making the right choice, denying her closure? Instead, he took the pink envelopes, scented with a perfume Zack had once bought her, with a vague promise that they would be delivered.
He made sure he never told her when.
The letters were the most burning contraband he owned. Too many questions, too many secrets it might lead to, even as Aerith's words taken at face value told nothing important - just sentimental thoughts of a broken-hearted girl. But still he kept them, biding his time until opportunity came, covered in guilt and shame, hoping she would find it in her heart to forgive him one day. He still wanted her to come to Shinra willingly, not a prisoner; and every day she lived safe and free was another small victory to him.
All he could do was what the Turks did best. Wait, and watch.
Barret really hadn't planned to come back to Midgar. Ever. But a child changed lots of things.
He was discovering every day how many.
His life had been reduced to rubble that day, but Marlene opened up a small ray of light. Wound cauterized free of pain, he'd kept forgetting he was missing a hand, reaching with the burned-out stump as he fumbled through the wreckage of Corel, Calling for Myrna, for Eleanor. His wife and his best friend's, both women entombed under blasted rocks and boulders.
All he found was the baby.
Marlene might have cried for her mother if words weren't still months away. He'd never actually picked her up before – but carefully, with a grace he didn't know he possessed, he nested her in the crook of his right elbow, finding that he could brace overdeveloped coal-miner's muscle enough to hold her firm.
He followed a trail of villages, stopping only to get his wound bandaged, aiming to steer away the looks of question and disgust, avoiding any mention of Corel even as he saw other lives destroyed far and wide. Shinra's bloodied hand spread far, and he wondered if anywhere was safe from their influence. Made him feel like a monster, that, but he had the little girl – his little girl now, for better or worse – to keep him human. Even with one hand, his brute strength let him find work for a day, a week; while cooing wives watched and fussed over baby Marlene.
He'd managed to save up so money when he first heard of a woman specializing in prosthetic limbs and unexpected attachments. She was a sight herself when he met her; one arm fully prosthetic, as was one eye; and it left Barret feeling somehow less… alone? Strange. She'd looked him over, poked, prodded.
"What kind of attachment did you want?" she asked. "Just to replace what you had, or improve it? I have all kinds of advanced prosthetic hands – "
"No," Barret replied, grim. "Make it a gun."
He looked down at the steel and oil that now was part of his body, his spliced-in nerves able to feel concretely the bullets, the anger. Emblazoned on his form, his hatred and pride. The scars of suffering that everyone bears, whether on their body or in their head, marks of lives and selves changed forever.
His daughter barely reacted to the change, he having to teach her that arm was something Bad To Touch. Amazing what kids could grow up with to think of as natural. Marlene walked. And talked. Her first word, "Papa", melted his heart; he'd been so afraid she would burst out with a curse or, worse yet, "Shinra" – but she didn't, and that moment proved to him more than anything that he was her father. And she, the light of his life. His reminder and reason to keep going.
It was for the sake of opportunity alone that he was driven to the wealth of Midgar. It was the best place to find the things he needed for Marlene; everything was available, it was just a matter of hunting down the source. Once there, however, he found another advantage – it was incredibly easy to just disappear, even distinct as he was. Shinra didn't give a shit about what happened in the slums.
He could find work. Better paying than he'd had before. Labor, sometimes. Security, often, his qualifications a given; he didn't need to do much more than look at some young punk to get him to back off.
Not enough to move up to the plate, though; the monetary divide was far too great. Still, Marlene grew and thrived. He couldn't wait to get home every night, to play with the little baby that brought meaning to his life; when he couldn't find someone to watch her, he'd even bring her on the job, one eye always attuned to the stroller where she slept. Soon enough she was running, speaking whole sentences, and laughing with joy like any other little girl.
He moved around. Tried Sector 2, Sector 8. Sector 5 was supposed to be the best for kids, but even that was out of his price range. Steered well away from Sector 6. Then someone suggested Sector 7 as a possible alternative.
Taking his little girl by the hand, they rode the train to the end of the line to find out.
Marlene was a conversation piece; people might have run from the big guy with the gun grafted to his arm if it wasn't for the little girl, adorable in her best pinafore dress, smiling and protected by his side. Inquiries soon directed him to the neighborhood watch; a couple guys named Biggs and Wedge, sent him to those who could help him out, find some work, get settled.
He asked around all day; it was hungry work. Eventually it was time to look for a bite to eat. They had a suggestion for that as well…
Tifa thought the slums had made her worldly. Nothing much surprised her, now.
But she still did a double take when a large man - with a gun, of all things, attached to his arm - entered Seventh Heaven one day. She might have been afraid, but despite his size and armament, she felt no menace.
And that was even before she saw the small girl at his side.
He lifted the toddler up to one of her barstools with the greatest of care, and Tifa felt herself warmed inside. The little girl – barley out of diapers, it seemed – chattered on the way all small children do.
"How sweet!" Tifa said brightly. "Welcome to Seventh Heaven, both of you. I'm Tifa, the owner here." She motioned to her small array of bottles, the kitchen off to the side. "What can I get you? Food? A cocktail? A juice?"
"Juice!" shouted the little girl.
"Yeah, honey, Papa will get you some juice," he said, his voice honey-sweet, marking him her father. Some orphan, then, Tifa noted. That happened so often in the slums; she was glad this little girl had someone to take care of her. Sparkling brown eyes, full of innocence and love. Reaching a part of her heart that Tifa hadn't felt beating in a while.
"I'm Barret," the man introduced himself. "This here's my daughter, Marlene."
"What a beautiful girl," Tifa cooed, and Marlene giggled.
Marlene ordered pizza and "juice!" was her only other exclamation; Tifa mixed her a fruit punch with what was available, the kid sucking down the sweetness before her dad gently took the cup away from her. "Now, now, sweetheart, you want some with your dinner, too, don't you?"
"What would you like, Barret?" she asked politely.
"Pizza's fine too. No need to make a fuss. I'll just have a beer or something. Don't wantcha working too hard."
"It's really no trouble," Tifa assured him. "Don't you want me to mix something up? It's kind of my hobby."
Barret looked at her. "All right, girl," he told her. "Surprise me."
Tifa smiled, and started filling the shaker.
The evening rush came in and Tifa's attention was split, but Barret and Marlene stayed, she returning to their company whenever she had a spare moment. In between, they took advantage of Seventh Heaven's other distractions. Barret threw a couple games of darts; Marlene was captivated by the flashing lights of the pinball machine across the room. Tifa got the rudiments of their story, their arrival in Sector 7, looking for work and shelter.
"My hobby is studying planetology," he told her. "The science started way over in Cosmo Canyon. All kinds of interesting stuff. 'Bout mako, and how it's sucking the Planet dry."
Tifa thought of the hard dead soil of Midgar, then back to the lush mountains above Nibelheim. The mako spring, so long ago, before… No point in bringing that up now.
Eventually, the night slowed, and right on time, Tifa felt her eyes drooping, as she cleared tables and lowered the lights. Being a one-woman business was wearing; for that reason as much as any other nowadays, it helped to keep in shape. Marlene's eyes mirrored her own, and Barret waved her over.
"Take a seat," he told her. "You've worked hard enough tonight."
"All part of making your way in the slums," she told him; but, pouring herself a drink first, she sank gratefully onto one of her own seats, enjoying her moment of playing customer.
Impulsively, she reached out her arms to Marlene, and the girl wiggled over into her lap, reaching a strand of Tifa's dark hair. She reminded herself she still hadn't cut it since coming to Midgar; for reasons unknown, she kept always putting it off. Gently removing the girl's hand, Marlene instead curled up and went to sleep in an instant. Tifa folded her warm arms around her, the closeness feeling so natural and right… and an old ache deep in her heart flared up. For all she had made her life here, she knew what she wanted in the end. A home, a family. That dream never went away.
Barret looked at her in approval. "I try, but there ain't no substitute for a woman's touch."
Tifa stroked Marlene's silky fine hair, soft skin of her face; the only response was a slight shift in her position, no interruption to the child's even breathing. "You said you needed a place to stay," she started.
"Yeah, if you can just point me towards an inn or something, we'll get out of your hair," Barret told her.
"Well, the thing is… there isn't actually an inn here," Tifa replied. There really wasn't. Visitors stayed at the homes of whoever they came to see, and it wasn't like there was exactly a lot of tourism. Even Seventh Heaven, popular as it was locally, wasn't enough to draw out-of-sector business. "I mean… I have a couple rooms upstairs that I rent out, sometimes." Unofficially. She only rented to people she trusted, but she felt okay with these two. "You can stay for a few days."
"I got some money," Barret told her, reaching for his pouch.
"We'll worry about payment later," she told him. Right now… I think we should probably get her to bed."
Barret nodded, and Tifa rose in the empty bar, taking the girl upstairs to make up the bed and lay her down to sleep.
Days turned into weeks, then months. Barret found odd jobs, helped out the watch when he could. Biggs, Wedge and Jessie soon grew friendly with the big man as well, and they all started to form a tight-knit group, often talking late into the night after close, Marlene finding her sleepy home in someone's lap. More often than not, that lap was Tifa's, as she found herself bonding as naturally with the child as if she'd been there all along. Marlene's presence brought a smile to her face in the mornings, ands kept her company all day while Tifa worked; Seventh Heaven guests found themselves charmed by the little girl pretending to be their waitress, even wandering behind the bar and shaking empty glasses in imitation of Tifa.
Barret's favorite topic of conversation was the Planet. More specifically, how Shinra was "destroying all this shit," as he put it. His energy infected Jessie, Biggs and Wedge, even Tifa herself.
"First my home in Corel, destroyed," Barret fumed. "Then Gongaga. Malfunction, my ass. I see Shinra's dirty hands all over it." The latter, just the year before, was still being talked about, undercity residents looking worriedly up at Midgar's eight. Tifa did the same every time she spied those steel smokestacks.
"Only those two?" Tifa asked, waiting to hear the word of Nibelheim, but it never came. Despite what happened… that day… the reactor seemed to be humming along, even with the town itself gone.
His speeches on the Planet inspired her, but it was his rants against Shinra that really incited Tifa. Hidden rivers of anger, surging deep below her surface. Absent-minded, she traced down her chest, mako-healed skin hiding a brush with death; but Tifa could still feel the sensation of razor-sharp blade slicing through. She shivered, and pulled Marlene closer.
*Over time, Barret's rants grew into something more definite, more... dangerous. But it gave Tifa a shiver of excitement, anyway. The possibility of doing something, anything, that she had been wanting for four years. And when Barret started talking about "thinking big" to save the planet, sweeping the others away with his passion, Tifa couldn't help but feel herself be pulled in as well.
Even so, there was a divide. Barret might talk of big dreams to save the Planet. Tifa's interests were… smaller. Closer to her heart. She'd thought she'd become indifferent to love, jaded; but that wasn't it. She just hadn't been looking in the right place. Marlene filled the void, the pure innocence of a child something untouchable any other way; and slowly, Tifa felt herself being healed. Her friends brought over other friends, dates – Biggs might be the looker, but Wedge's big heart made him equally popular with the ladies, and Jessie was, just, well, popular all around. She'd curtailed severely her own dating life, as she found contentment in the everyday and the small recreation of family she had formed. New life, new courage. Learned the lessons of loneliness. She was a survivor, her own hero. Forging her own path, all on her own, and that made her proud.
She'd been so spoiled not to realize what she had back in Nibelheim, but over time, the undercity began to feel less like an act of desperation, and she learned an important lesson.
The slums could be a home after all.
Zangan hadn't returned to Midgar in years. It wasn't that he didn't want to see Tifa; he would have loved to go check up on her. Eventually, he supposed he would. For the meantime, he felt confident she would find her way. She'd be swallowed up in the slums somewhere, living her life free, and that was he most wanted for her.
He hadn't ever expected to be climbing up this hill again, but rumors had been dogging him, rumors that didn't match his remembrance and, both intrigued and even a little frightened, he couldn't pass up the chance to look.
So here he was, standing in the square of Nibelheim, staring at a town that looked so like the one he had lived for over a year… but it couldn't be. He knew that. There was no one he remembered – strangers, all, he making discreet inquiries to hide the fact that he'd been there when. No sense courting trouble until he figured this out.
Shinra. It had to be. Despite his knowing the lengths they would go to protect themselves, this shocked all sense of reason. Then again – there was no word of survivors, no one who could tell the truth. It made him ever more grateful that he had gotten Tifa out that day. Those boys in the reactor – his heart went out to them, helpless to discover their fate. Something told him it was better he didn't know. Nothing good could come where Hojo was involved.
The first place he went was Tifa's house; the woman who answered the door, no one who had ever lived there. Beyond her, the interior similar but slightly different, giving away the lie that her practiced blank face did not. Zangan made his apologies, and departed.
But he bided his time until he was sure the house was empty.
A few scrawled notes, dangerous words both to him and its intended recipient. He had no way of knowing if she would ever find it, but somehow he felt he should leave her a warning. He made his way upstairs, and then he spied the obvious place – the piano.
It clearly wasn't in actual use – the thick layer of dust on the cover attested to that. Carefully, without disturbing the grime, Zangan raised the lid, neatly slipping the letter under certain keys - a favored chord of hers, one he could see her reaching to hear again, if she ever found her way to this sham replica of the town.
Stealthy as he came, he departed, resolving never to return to Nibelheim, that scrawled piece of paper the only proof of his momentary presence, a few words reaching across time and space to another furtive survivor.
Tifa, what's happened to our town?
It was only a routine check of reports.
They were getting near, closing in on AVALANCHE proper; but a bigger worry was the splinter groups that it had inspired. Growing up like weeds, near impossible to get rid of; one pushed down, three more appeared. She was wondering if this was going to be nothing but an uphill battle after all.
They'd put eyes and ears everywhere they feasibly could; but there were so many people and places to watch just in Midgar alone. Special care was given to those of Wutaian descent; Cissnei felt a bizarre pang of homesickness for a country in which she was born, but had no memory of. Now, she belonged to the Turks more than any country.
She checked in with one sector every day a week, except for Sector 6, where the Don faithfully sent in reports on his own. Troubles overcast her work. If they didn't get this under control, Would Shinra give up and pull Aerith in? For a while… after… she and Tseng had been the only ones the man had permitted to survey Aerith; empathy for another woman made Cissnei's job ever more difficult. It came as a relief to her when she was switched to other tasks, unable to handle any longer Aerith's moping, bereft without knowledge of her love.
Mind traveling down darker passageways, she mindlessly flipped through the pages before her, the ennui of the work allowing her the separate train of thought.
Sector 7; Rude's detail. He watched it so avidly, she wondered if he had a girlfriend there. You could never know with Turks and their personal lives, unless they chose to tell you. Suspicions of unrest in the Sector 7 Neighborhood Watch. Huh. No surprises there. The local militia would be the first ones to think they had a chance against Shinra, with their smattering of weapons and log of a few dozen monster kills like it was some major accomplishment. Cissnei could do all of that in the morning and still have time for a leisurely lunch, before an assassination or two in the afternoon.
Photos, mostly men, but a handful of women, too. That was usually the way it went. The Turks were much the same. But also following the Turk pattern, it would be the women who would be harder to track down, more sneaky and squirrely.
Suspected sympathizer. Barret Wallace. Point in question. Did that man actually have a GUN attached to his arm? Might as well put on a big sign saying "shit-stirrer". Hometown: Corel. That would explain his grudge. She made a mental note to flag this guy for further surveillance.
A pretty redhead, the photo what looked like an actress's headshot. Suspected sympathizer. Jessie Rasberry. She didn't look like the sort to get in with that crowd, but Cissnei knew full well that appearances could be deceiving, not the least of it her own. Parents lived in Sector 7 Employee Housing; father former reactor supervisor, permanently disabled after on-the-job accident. So Shinra supports the family; they'd be giving them the man's full salary as before, plus whatever medical care was needed. Way to bite the hand that feeds you.
She skimmed casually, already road-mapping the patterns of surveillance, who to assign where, when she flipped to the next image and stopped dead in her mental tracks.
There was no mistaking it. The face was older, more matured, but there was no mistaking who it was.
Suspected sympathizer. Tifa Lockhart.