The position of Remake Technical Advisor was handled by Final Heaven Discord Member Obsidian Elder Raine. Raine, you were wondering why I asked for your favorite OG scenes? This is why.
Chapter 25. December 10, εуλ0007
Late nights made for late mornings. Even for a SOLDIER. And as it turned out, blowing up a reactor was tiring work. He slept far later than he was accustomed to – until eight, eight-thirty? Less than half a night's sleep for anyone else but for him, more than enough.
The other side of the pallet was empty. Pulling on clothes, he fumbled downstairs, trained alertness rushing back. Fully awake and ready to go by the time he got to the bottom, he found Tifa even more refreshed than he himself, peacefully doing prep work behind her bar.
"Morning!" she announced brightly, pleased to see him. Every morning, he'd hoped, half-hearted, that she'd ask him again how he'd slept, so he'd have the pleasure of inciting a response. No luck. She was onto him. He was actually rather disappointed. And embarrassed, that he'd, well, embarrassed her.
"What are you so cheerful about?" he mock-grumbled.
"We did well last night," she said. Her words were upbeat, but her eyes didn't bear the same enthusiasm. "I wasn't sure we could really do it."
"Course we did," he replied. "Because I went along." He'd gone on her request… for her sake… why did she seem so… let down, now?
He was just about to ask her when she cleared her throat, awkwardly changing the subject. "That may be so… but we gotta keep it up while we're on a roll. That's why I'm going too this time."
Cloud froze, shocked surprise competing with abject fear of Tifa in danger. Putting herself in danger, no less. He could hardly protect her from everything, but this – this –
"No, you're NOT!" he burst out, more vehemently than he'd intended.
Tifa tensed, straightened; he could have handled it if she'd gotten angry, but not… whatever he saw now. Disappointment. In him. Abashed, he wished he could take back his harsh tone, but she only looked at him, holding the question in her eyes.
"And why?" she stubbornly pouted, now placing a hand on her hip for emphasis.
"Because…" Because I'm not sure I can protect you. Then again, was even Seventh Heaven safe? Probably not, as long as she was involved with this group.
So eager to throw her life away? Cloud couldn't allow it. But when she was just standing there, staring at him, vulnerable glare boring into him, both letting him know in no uncertain terms he wasn't going to make the decision for her – at the same time, it was obvious she doubted her decision herself.
It was too much, her own mixed emotions, asking him for an answer he didn't even have for himself. He crumbled under the intensity, overwhelmed, wanting ever more to do the only thing he could think of.
He ran.
"Because if you're going, I'm not. Your need for me is done." The threat came from his own long deepened fear - of something he couldn't stand to see happen before him. He wheeled in the direction of the door, not sure where he planned to go, only knowing that he had to get OUT, OUT of what he was feeling and thinking, away from all the memories wrapped up in her...
I failed you…
In so many ways that was true.
At the last second, he remembered something, and stopped. "I'm only still here because I'm waiting for my pay."
He only truly realized how cruel that sounded when shock and fear crossed her face; no slap or punch from her could have possibly hurt as much. She swallowed, shaken, that hurt, hurt look across her face. "You'd really leave?" she asked, saddened and incredulous all in one. Cloud wished he could swallow back his words. "You'd just walk out that door and leave your childhood friend behind?"
Never, he wanted to say. Never did he want to leave her alone in danger, never, in anything that might cause her pain. But it looked like her was screwed either way.
His shoulders slumped; he couldn't meet her eyes. "It's better this way." How had he dreamed he was anyone she could count on?
"Why?" she asked with pained calm. '"Better than what? Did you forget you made a promise?"
The word hung between them, the memory she had been too scared to speak – but what if he left for good? What if this was her last chance to remind him?"
"You did forget," she accused, taking a careful step forward. He hung his head. Then again, could forgetting really be considered his fault? So many questions. "You asked me to come out to the well. It was a starry night – "
"- and I was beginning to get cold. I thought you weren't coming." He sighed, wanting so much to take her face in his hands, look her in the eyes and tell her everything that promise meant to him – but something stopped him. His own doubt in himself. "How could you even THINK I'd forget that? That's not it, Tifa. I can't keep the promise. I can't be a hero." YOUR hero.
Yours.
"Why?" she melted, questioning. Cloud, don't you understand there's more than one way to be a hero? Didn't he understand it wasn't WHAT he promised her, a fantasy too juvenile and unrealistic to hold him to literal – but it was his willingness to make the promise, some level of commitment, a tie to the future?
Tifa…. "I'm not the boy who made that promise."Boyhood lost in the fire and ashes of Nibelheim, idealizations of what meant to be a hero burned out of innocence. Sephiroth, once my friend. And Tifa injured, he too late. "And I didn't become the man that boy was supposed to become. I'm not a hero, not famous… Just a lone wolf mercenary, out for money and blood. A big stick and a thirst for vengeance – that's all I have to offer." Far less than she deserved. Truths he hadn't wanted to reveal. How could he risk her safety on the maybe that was him?
"But you did the most important part. You got your dream – you made it into SOLDIER." Firelit eyes fought with mako glinted proof of that. "There's more than one way to be a hero, Cloud. You could still have your chance. Stay with us," she pleaded.
With me.
She wanted - needed - him near; he was safety, strength. It was just that much easier moving forward, knowing he'd be there, her will to fight renewed with their reunion. But then again… He'd promised to save her, but she wondered if he didn't need it himself oh so much more…
A hero. Famous. Infamous, maybe, if he followed down this path with her. But there were two sides to the promise; only one was to be her hero. The other was far more simple, just to save her when she was in trouble, and it was that part that most mattered. Only one way he could do it – by being there.
Just one more mission.
Then he'd talk her out of this foolish nonsense before it got her killed.
"Okay," he told her, even though it wasn't, none of this was.
She smiled; it half-broke his heart, letting calm reign. He'd know she'd be by his side. Safe. She'd be there.
The same train, only hours later but worlds apart. Cloud, ever conscious of Tifa's presence, nearby, took in every detail of their surroundings with that much more finely honed attention. The train was nearly empty, but to the few passengers there, they might as well have been invisible. He was truly surprised how little attention they paid to a mismatched, highly armed trio in their midst. Did they have that much faith in Shinra's security? Or maybe just that the three of them looked like business no one else would want to be involved in.
Cloud could hardly blame them.
Barret swaggered into the next car; Tifa scrunched closer to him, nerves apparent. She'd been subdued since they'd kicked into action, her reluctance to participate now showing its truth; he wished he'd pushed harder for her to stay back. He still had trouble wrapping his mind around her simply being INVOLVED in all of this – so kind at heart, no matter she might have convinced herself it was for some great moral imperative. What would it take to get her out of this before it was too late?
The ID scan passed over the train and she visibly shivered; he half-reached a hand to her shoulder in comfort. She gave him the barest of smiles in return; strained and forced.
Smooth sailing. The worst was over, in his opinion. Trapped in these cars, immobile, unable to do anything but wait when he'd much rather be out there fighting something, anything. This made his skin positively crawl.
The blare of sirens jolted him out of his complacency, realizing even before the announcement came on what had happened. Throwing himself in front of Tifa, he was poised and ready when drones came smashing through the windows, barely noticing Barret taking up his rear.
Walled off from the fighting by the others, Tifa wheeled, shoving frantic passengers away, away, slamming the carriage door behind them and hustling to join the men - the three rapidly dispatching the Shinra bugs, now without distractions gone. Still, the loudspeakers sounded lockdown, screaming no way out, and she frantically considered the options, seeing none.
"We'll have to jump!" Barret roared, blasting the door off its sockets; and Tifa's stomach twisted. She smashed the button for the emergency brakes, squeals and sparks signifying success even as the three of them lurched forward. Regaining his feet, Barret leaped out of the jagged opening with a yell of defiance, disappearing somewhere into the blackened tunnel beyond.
Tifa hung partway out the missing door, tracks below still careening by far too fast for her liking. Cloud came behind her, placing one hand in the small of her back. She opened her mouth to tell him how afraid she was, but all he gave her in warning was a nod before his grip tightened around her –
- she barely had time to realize she was airborne before she hit the ground, knocking air out of her lungs, flailing limbs whacking concrete over and over until momentum collapsed, and she realized the limbs were not all her own., finding herself in a somewhat… suggestive… position with Cloud as her warm firm cushion against the cold concrete below.
Not…. entirely… uncomfortable, actually.
His hand barely grazed her back, his tensed strength holding her locked in place, as reality caught up to her. His look, all concern. "You okay?" he asked gently, looking into her eyes with the same softness as his voice, and she could only nod back, surprised.
She might have wished to extend the moment, but now was not the time. They fumbled awkwardly apart, crouching en route to a stand, their eyes not wanting to break away.
"We'd better go," he said; and she knew he was right.
And though she tried to get her focus back, she couldn't help but feel the warmth of his fingers through her shirt still.
What just happened here?
Hesitant.
It had been one thing to have Barret staring him down, another to feel Tifa's doe-trusting eyes upon him…
Especially considering what he was about to do.
He couldn't have cared less about setting that first bomb at Reactor One. What the hell did he care about Shinra's employees? Or Midgar's citizens? Tifa was the only person who mattered in this rotten city, and she was right there with him.
Tifa…
Distracting thoughts that had been brought up that moment in the tunnel, his taking control turning into… something else entirely. Sensations swimming back unbidden, even as he tried to focus on the task at hand.
Timer set, he rose to go, when blinding stabs of pain racked his mind. The strange dissociation of vertigo and doubled images that had come over him in the first reactor… only magnified now by a hundred….
Tifa, grabbing a sword, not his…
…his mind flowed, following her forward…
- and he was looking up at Barret's and Tifa's faces –
"Damn, man, get a hold of yourself! " Barret was shaking him. "I'm not carrying your ass outta here!"
The ceiling swam; Tifa's beautiful face, doubled before him. "What… happened?" he asked, disoriented.
"You set the bomb," Tifa told him, ashen-faced. "Then you called my name and you just kind of… seized." She swallowed, stalling. I was so afraid it was one of those episodes like you were having when I first found you… "I was worried. Ne… Nevermind. Doesn't matter. We gotta go, Cloud. Seconds are already gone."
"Ok. I got this." A nod, and his SOLDIER self was back. Guiding the other two back up level on level of corridors, feeling the air growing steadily cooler the further they got from the steaming mako core below. Every moment counted but focused, the minimal security that there was quickly dispatched on their urgent, efficient journey forward.
He was beginning to breathe just a touch easier as they drew closer to the exit, and along with it, nearer Tifa's safety.
As if Shinra would ever let them off that simply.
Their exit, closed off, and he looked around, already seeking another avenue of escape as the timer below ticked steadily on; when before them, a hundred times larger than life, the image of President Shinra hovering over them.
Imperious. Taunting. Just the sort of thing they'd expect from that wind-filled sack of shit. The ending of his self-indulgent speech punctuated by the slamming of metal on metal, as the same gigantic robot they'd seen in storage below smashed onto the bridge, now brought fully to life, electronic brain ready and angry.
It filled walkway, splitting him off from Barret and Tifa; unable to squeeze past, Cloud could only trust Tifa's safety to the other man. She can take care of herself, he tried to remind himself, but it wasn't helping; against something like this – that was on him. He hoped Barret was pulling his weight, prayed Tifa'd get out of here... and fought on.
Echoing shouts the only reassurance the other front was holding steady, he slipped into an unthinking void, dancing from stance to stance. Metal crushed beneath his sword, uncaring, as easily through machine as through man, nothing but another obstacle to be overcome. Idly, he wondered how much time was left on the bomb but it was a distant thought, automatically prioritized by the fight that dragged on. Slowly, by infinitesimal steps, they wore the mech down, until the lightnings of shorted electric circuits heralded its end.
He twirled his heavy weapon, nonchalant, looking over the latest pile of metal scrap. Newest technology of Shinra's, indeed.
"Cloud…." came Tifa's concerned voice from behind the junk. Sparks sizzled enticingly.
He opened his mouth, but before a sound came out….
The roar was deafening – he heard before he felt, felt before he saw… grabbing for a bridge that was no longer there, barely catching a handhold on the decimated edge, all he could see was her frantic face as she bent forward to reach desperately across a gap far too wide.
"Hey, buddy," Barret called, words he had to get out, just in case. "I, uh, was wrong aboutchya – "
"Cloud!" Tifa screamed now, and he could hear the joints above creaking, metallic shivers traveling down his arms as beams began to shear away.
"Take Tifa," Cloud shouted back, dangling. "Get out of here, Take care of her for me, alright?"
"Well, duh," Barret replied. "Would've done that anyway." He laughed despite himself.
Tifa stretched to her furthest extent, trying cross the divide, knowing it wouldn't be enough. "Please!" she shrieked, uselessly praying. "Please, Cloud, I can't lose you… Not when I've only just found you again… please don't die! You can't die!" No time for tears, only panic. "I didn't tell you…"
Hey there, buddy.
A voice was speaking to him. Calming. Encouraging. Peace washed over Cloud; and he knew one thing for certain, because the voice told him it would be so.
"I know, Tifa," he said. "Don't worry, we'll see each other again." Cloud smiled then, a small, warm smile, not the cocky grin he had so recently been wearing. A genuine expression that filled her with ever more fear and regret.
Barret's bulky arms pulled her back; she hadn't realized she'd been fighting him until he slung her over his shoulder, barreling away from the gap with her in tow. She pounded both fists against his back in frustration, and over the din, she could still hear herself yelling….
Cloud wanted to pull himself back up, back to her… but something stopped him.
Don't be afraid to fall.
The sword sang seductive words to him it seemed, a somehow familiar tune.
Cloud, take care of her for me…