This chapter has now been looked over by a beta and some minor edits and re-phrases have been made. Thank you Circle of Phoenix!
Chapter 37 Lost and Found
After his foray into space failed, Cid joined hands with a businessman and built the Highwind. Their business plan centered around adventure tours for high paying customers. Thus it was built with a wide observation deck both outside and in the flight deck for curious tourists. They even included chocobo stables for ground tours. Unfortunately, when only the bare bones of the ship were completed, Cid's partner in the venture vanished leaving Cid with the extra debt the partner had accumulated from an undisclosed gambling habit. The former president of Shinra had used this as an excuse to seize the Highwind from Cid even though he hadn't signed on to his shady partner's extra debts. Despite all this, Cid considered the cost Shinra incurred by "renting" his ship had been paid by them forking over the funds to finish furnishing the ship.
However, not all of the ship's cabins were granted the same attention. While the bunk space was barely above the standard of general military barracks, the operations room featured a room-sized crimson rug edged with gold and black designs and a massive oak conference table. The party sat around this table trying to relax after the nearly disastrous rescue operation in Junon.
Tifa huddled under a scratchy, warm gray blanket and sipped the curiously delicious cup of tea Cid thrust into her hands. Aerith sat in the conference chair beside her, the Ancient's magic soothing the remnant aches from her enforced coma and the trauma of her escape.
"I still can't believe Scarlet is on our side," Cait Sith repeated for the third time after Tifa related what happened on the barrel of the Mako Cannon.
Red XIII huffed and scratched behind one ear with a hind-foot and rumbled, "It does explain why she left the Titan materia in the Gongaga reactor though." He jerked his jaw to the summon on his Diamond Bangle.
"Oooh, I had almost forgotten that," Yuffie moaned, lifting her head slightly and then thumping it down onto her folded arms. "I kind of thought it was stupid that a weapons expert wouldn't understand how valuable a summon materia was."
"You may all be hot to forgive her," Barret snarled and shook his gun arm, "But I ain't gonna forget that she's the one who shot off my arm!"
Tifa winced but in the awkward silence, Cait Sith spoke up in the unaccented voice that sometimes slipped through, "That may be true, but it is quite easy to serve horrible people or do horrible things and then regret them later. Also, if you didn't know, the more murderous incarnation of Avalanche based itself in your town back then. Dozens of innocent people died in Shinra's efforts to eliminate the terrorists."
The tuxedo cat folded his arms and grimly went on, "The Turks made every effort to covertly evacuate Sector Seven and the plate above, however, not everyone listened or was willing to leave resulting in hundreds of preventable deaths."
Barret opened his mouth to retort but Cait Sith's controller continued sharply, "Certainly you planned your attacks on the mako reactors outside of business hours, but vital city utilities like water and power are never left entirely unattended. At least two dozen men and women died inside of each of the reactors you destroyed," Barret flinched but Cait Sith wasn't finished. "I work in urban development, do you want me to list how many people died due to the loss of power? With that many deaths at the hands of your activism do you really have any place to remark on another person's change of heart?" Cait Sith spat.
Only the ever present rumble of the Highwind's engines filled the cabin for several tense seconds. Finally Vincent broke the tension, his quiet but carrying tones somehow managing to avoid being jarring in the atmosphere, "I myself had no interest in your quest at first, preferring to remain isolated from the outside world. It wouldn't be entirely inaccurate to lay a portion of the blame at my feet since I allowed Hojo to perform his horrific experiments on Lucretia and her child in the first place. I changed my mind on your quest and if Scarlet is genuine we should allow her the same opportunity."
Like an angry cat's fur slowly settling from poofing up, Barret reluctantly lowered his arms and slumped in his seat. "I ain't promisin' I'm gonna like her, but I'll drop it for now," he conceded, not looking up but instead staring darkly at his remaining hand.
Cait Sith nodded and settled on his mog's head, giving the floor to the rest of the party. Cid rolled his eyes and huffed, "That's depressin' and I'll shelve my feelins' on that for later, but what we oughtta be talkin' about is what we're gonna do next."
Tifa ran her finger around the rim of her cup and Cid chewed the unlit cigar in his mouth while he fiddled with the tea set. For a few painful seconds they each avoided each other's gazes.
"I agree," Vincent finally said, once again breaking the tense and uncomfortable silence. "Now that Barret and Tifa are out of immediate danger we must consider our next step." Most of the party nodded in agreement, but no one spoke. Vincent's crimson eyes flicked from person to person, silently asking for an answer that none of them felt they even knew the entirety of the question.
Tifa and Aerith exchanged pained glances. This was when Zack would do something silly to lighten the mood or Cloud would inexplicably know where they should go or what they should do.
"I don't suppose you guys went looking for Zack and Cloud back at the Northern Crater?" Tifa ventured weakly.
Aerith winced and Cid sighed, scrubbing his fingers through his graying blond hair. "Once we gave Shinra the slip, we tried goin' back," he admitted, his eyes refusing to rise from the battered silver teakettle between his hands. "Some kinda' barrier kept us from the only viable landin' spot left from the wreck the Weapons made. Considerin' the damage the barrier caused on the electrical systems, I decided not to try again."
"According to what I've heard," Cait Sith interjected, "Even ground excursions have failed to penetrate the barrier. I even had one of the Turks ask Marcus Holzhof at the base of the cliff and Valerie Holzhof back in Icicle if they'd seen anyone from the crater or cross the glacier. Neither one had seen any sign of anyone." He shook his head sadly.
"You explained that you're here at the Turks' discretion," Aerith spoke up, her tone dubious, "but why would they run an errand like that for you?"
Cait Sith scratched the back of his head and shifted from boot to boot on his Mog's head. "Well ya' see, there's two main reasons. One is that some of the Turks were friends with Zack and the other…" he trailed off, rubbing the back of one ear nervously and shot a sideways look at Vincent.
From her seat where she melted across the table in a pile of misery, Yuffie laughed weakly. "Oh yeah… I forgot to tell you guys about that in all the crazy we've been through lately."
Tifa's eyes widened and in a slightly horrified voice asked, "Tell us what? What… What have the clubs done now? And what does it have to do with the Turks?"
Yuffie cackled, the laughter bringing some color back into her cheeks and rejuvenated her. "Ah, so much fun. So they made another club recently," she paused to giggle into her hands. "I actually found out about it back in Icicle but with how fast things went I couldn't share the news."
"Lord help us," Cid muttered. "Who is the poor sap and please tell me it isn't me?"
Before Yuffie even replied, Vincent narrowed his eyes, his eyes flicking quickly back and forth as he sorted through his observations for clues. "I'm the focus of the club and the Turks are members," he postulated. He folded his arms and his mouth twisted down.
"Ding ding ding!" Yuffie chirped, grinning madly.
"I suppose something Tseng said at the temple tipped you off?" Vincent prompted, coolly ignoring Barret and Cid's guffaws.
In between giggles, Yuffie nodded and gasped, "Yeppers! Wait until you hear the name of your club: Turkish Delight!"
For one unguarded moment, his eyes flew open and his jaw lowered when he gaped at the young woman. Then he slapped his palm to his forehead loud enough to make the others wince at the impact.
"Aw man, if you try'n tell me Reno wasn't behind that name, I'm gonna have ta' call ya' a dirty liar," Barret hummed in between chuckles.
Vincent dragged his hand down his face and sucked a deep breath in through his nose and slowly released it. It looked like he was counting backwards from one hundred… in Wutaian for the challenge.
Giving the man a chance to recover his composure and dignity, Red XIII changed the subject, "I know it is a stretch, but considering how the crater collapsed and the fountains of mako already prevalent in the crater…" He trailed off, waiting to see if anyone would follow his line of thinking to its conclusion.
"Are you suggesting they're… they're in the Lifestream?" Aerith asked with a faint tremble in her voice. Tifa clasped the other woman's shaking hands in her own.
Red XIII nodded his head, "Indeed that is my hypothesis. I suspect Cloud and Zack were pulled into the Lifestream when the crater collapsed."
Cid stood and poured more tea in Tifa and Aerith's cups. "Damn man, have a little heart! Can't ya' see you're distressin' the poor girls by sayin' their men are dead?" he snarled at the lionbeast before adding hefty dollops of honey to each cup. In as soothing a voice as he could manage he grumbled, "Drink your damn tea, you're makin' the puke factory look healthy."
Their eyes flickered to Yuffie who was once more sprawled in a green-faced pile after the humor of revealing Vincent's club faded. "Thank you Cid," Tifa whispered. She gazed into the steaming liquid but didn't move to drink.
Red XIII shook his head. "You misunderstand, I don't hypothesize that they are dead."
"But ye said they were in the Lifestream," Cait Sith protested, "Bugenhagen said we enter the Lifestream when we die."
The crimson feline nodded. "Indeed, but I think you all are forgetting something, one does not have to be dead to enter the Lifestream and entering the Lifestream does not mean one will die."
Cid clutched the sides of his head and slumped into his seat, "The hell you talking in circles about?" He lowered his head to the table with a dull thunk.
Other than Yuffie, they silently traded glances, trying to decipher the enigmatic words and once again Barret came through. The large man's eyes widened in shocked and horrified realization. "God. Damn. He's right!" He slammed his fist on the table making the various teacups rattle and slop over their rims. "God damn it there's gotta be a chance!"
"Mind sharin' with the rest of the class?" Cid drawled sarcastically while he blotted at spatters of tea with a grease stained rag he pulled from his pocket.
"Sephiroth," Barret said triumphantly.
One by one, comprehension bloomed on the faces of the diminished party and the frowns and stoic expressions gave way to small smiles of hope. "Of course," Aerith laughed wetly, tears streaking down her cheeks. "If Sephiroth could survive in the Lifestream, a pair as stubborn and block-headed as Cloud and Zack just have to be okay!"
Riding the swell of enthusiasm, Red XIII bobbed his head and added, "I heard there's a place in the southern islands where the Lifestream rises to the surface. Neither of them was mortally wounded like Sephiroth so perhaps they are on this island, waiting for us to come get them."
Finally recovered from his mortification, Vincent tilted his chin up slightly and interjected, "Not to be cruel, but how would we find them if they have emerged?" The words hung in the air like a smothering blanket only to be pierced by the heavy pulse of electronic beats and a powerful guitar riff of the Midgar hit "Ain't no one can hit 'em better" chiming from Vincent's waist.
Not having witnessed the first time of this happening, Barret and Tifa gaped in slack-jawed surprise while the scowling former Turk answered his phone, "This is Valentine."
"Hello again Valentine," Kunsel's voice sounded from the headset. "I suspect you're all ready for the next step?"
He listened and nodded, "Indeed Kunsel, I would be branded a liar if I were to claim I wasn't expecting to hear from you soon." Tifa perked up at the revelation of who had called. If Kunsel was on the case then their chances of finding Cloud and Zack just skyrocketed.
Kunsel laughed and Vincent could hear the smirk in his voice when he replied, "Ah sorry friend, this fish refuses to nibble on that bait. If you want any kind of admission or confirmation, you'll have to get it from Cloud."
Vincent's expression twisted like he was torn between triumph, and disappointment. He didn't get his answer, but Kunsel all but admitted Cloud was alright. Not waiting for the former Turk to formulate a rebuttal, Kunsel continued, "Anyway, my network has been hard at work and I've got a lead for you. Mideel."
"Cloud and Zack are in Mideel?" Vincent replied, digging for a better confirmation while also passing the information to the rest of the group. Cid shuffled his tea set aside and pulled a map from one of the narrow cabinets lining the Operations room. He and Barret hovered over the parchment, searching the southern islands for some hint of the place Kunsel mentioned.
"I didn't say that," Kunsel chided gently before his tone turned serious, "Good luck, and be ready, sometimes the only way to survive is to divide and conquer." The line disconnected and Vincent pulled the PHS from his ear, his eyes narrowed in thought.
He looked up to see Tifa's expression matching his own. "He ended with something cryptic, didn't he?" she asked with a rueful shake of her head. She shrugged, and reasoned, "As annoying as it is, at least it is something to go on. Can you imagine how long it would take us to find them without some kind of guidance?"
"Found it!" Cait Sith chirped, hopping from his mog's head and scampering across the map. He pointed at a small island shockingly close to the former location of the temple of the Ancients. "I found it in a database of likely reactor locations. Since the mako is so prevalent there it gained a lot of attention from the company. Unfortunately, there aren't enough people there to justify the cost of construction and the natives get their power from geothermal energy they harvest from the prevalent hot springs."
Vincent nodded, while Aerith gazed worriedly at the island's proximity to the vanished Temple of the Ancients, could there have been a connection between the temple and the thin barrier between the surface and the Lifestream?
Yuffie's weak voice interrupted her thoughts when she asked a question most of them were too embarrassed to pose, "I gotta ask Cait, why is it when you give us info like that, you lose the accent and your voice changes?"
"We won't be fooled by your claim not to have to speak that way all the time either," Vincent followed her question with narrowed eyes. His partially successful verbal spar with Kunsel pushed him to work on another mystery that tugged at his interest.
Cait Sith shifted nervously under the curious eyes of his companions and shuffled one booted foot on the map before hopping back on his mog. "Hm," he replied quietly. He lowered his gaze and rubbed his ear nervously.
"Do you even know the reason?" Aerith asked the obviously uncomfortable feline.
Cait stiffened and then sighed, his tiny shoulders slumping, "Aye, I know the reason. It isn't somethin' I'm particularly fond of sharin' so perhaps we might wait until we have Zack and Cloud back before I explain?"
Tifa and Aerith winced at the reminder of what they had forgotten and then nodded. "He's right," Tifa stated, "Worrying about finding Cloud and Zack is more important than delving into his secrets." She turned to Cid and asked, "How long will it take you to get us to Mideel?"
"Me?" Cid huffed, "I could probably get ya' there in a day. I ain't flyin' though. I got one of the kids aboard here trainin' to fly for us."
"Noooo," Yuffie moaned despairingly. "Why would you do that to me, you cruel, cruel man?"
"Sorry princess," Cid smirked down at the human puddle of misery. "Savin' Teef here from that cannon was my last grand hurrah on this ship. Not ta' mention I'm on this journey to help with the cause, not ta' be your taxi driver. If I'm in this, I'm in all the way, and that means someone else's gotta fly this ship while we look for the spike brothers and have meetin's like this."
"A fair assessment," Red XIII agreed. "Shall we set a course for Mideel then?"
Cid scooped the map off the table and chuckled, "Yeah, let's do this. Time to let my greenie figure out how to plot a course and plan for cross-winds. If I'da known teachin' was this fun, I would'a done it years ago!" He strutted out of the room, with a booming laugh. One by one the party trickled out.
"Man, I already feel for the poor kid," Barret chuckled, shaking his head as he followed the pilot.
At his side Red XIII murmured, "Just as well that you missed the initial assessment. Strangely enough he didn't pick the most eager student, but one of the most hesitant."
"What?" Barret cried, looking down at his friend. "Ya' mean he picked the kid who said he didn't wanna learn how to fly? How's that gonna' work out?"
Red flipped his flaming tail and gave a feline shrug, "I suspect he hoped to avoid hotshot antics." Barret rubbed his chin thoughtfully and the doors closed behind the pair.
"I guess that does make some sense," Tifa sighed. "Shall we follow?"
"Sure, help me get Yuffie to a bunk and then I'll take you to the bridge," Aerith said, slinging one of Yuffie's limp arms over her shoulders.
Cait Sith was about to follow when Vincent's quiet words reached him, "I must say, that was artfully dodged. I will hold you to your promise of an explanation. I intend to understand your secrets just as with Cloud."
Cait Sith tilted his head to the side, pondering, "Hmmm, you have a valid point. I wonder which of us will come off the weirdest when all comes to light."
Tifa braced her elbows on the railing of the Highwind's deck watching the jagged coastline pass below. She was vaguely aware of the wind tugging at her hair and clothing, but made no move to abandon her vigil. Only a slight twitch of her right hand betrayed her reaction to Aerith leaning on the rail to her right. The pair stood silently while the waning light painted the land a deepening crimson.
After a prolonged silence, Aerith finally murmured, "I can't decide which of us has it the worst."
Tifa tilted her head silently in question, momentarily flicking her gaze from the landscape to the other woman.
Aerith stood upright and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. "Is it worse to spend a week worrying and feeling guilty about them? Or to wake after a week to learn they've been missing just as long?"
Tifa sighed and her shoulders slumped with the breath. "Both sound awful," she admitted.
They allowed the silence to fall and stretch, the setting sun painting pathways of light where the rays broke through the scattered clouds on the horizon.
"Do you think we'll find anything in Mideel?" Tifa asked, her voice light and airy as if she were torn between hope and tears.
Aerith clasped her hands and held them to her sternum as if in prayer and shook her head once. "I don't know. I hope… I hope we'll learn something. I hope Kunsel isn't leading us around…. I'm not going to sit around for five years waiting for news this time. Even if," her voice caught in her throat, "even if the news is bad, or there's nothing to learn, it's better than being stuck wondering."
The last fragment of the sun vanished below the horizon.
Cid's trainee Todd, was an extremely high-strung young man with doe-like brown eyes and the short wisps of brown hair remaining after his military buzz curled from beneath his cap. Emotional and earnest he punctuated his steering with yelps and cried out in shock when interrupted, all of this paired with visibly shaking limbs. If he hadn't been wearing gloves, they would have seen his white knuckled grip on the steering wheel.
True to Cid's prediction, Todd brought them over the island of Mideel early the next day. Aerith and Cait Sith grew quiet when they passed over the rectangular crater that once was the Temple of the Ancients and only Cid's announcement that they were near their destination perked the pair up.
Much like the island bearing the Temple of the Ancients, the narrow strip of land was covered in lush forests. At the center of the island, the regular shapes of man-made buildings peeked at random through the greenery.
"That looks like the place," Cid huffed then clapped Todd on the back, "Alright kid, see that grassy area over there, go ahead and take us down." The young man whimpered and with trembling hands took a sheaf of notes from his pocket. He pinned them to the wheel between his hands as he steered for the landing site.
"Good kid," Cid confided to Tifa when he returned to the windows to watch their descent. "He'll be an ace in no time." The ship swung wildly, caught by a cross-wind and the young man's wail filled the bridge before he wrenched control back. Cid braced himself and laughed at Tifa's horrified and disbelieving look. "Trust me," he laughed, snickering at the young man's vocal antics.
"Eh, why're you bein' so whiny?" Cid asked the green faced Yuffie as they crossed the field after the bumpy landing. "He did fine! Any landin' you can walk away from is a good landin'!"
With wet hair from a hasty shower already curling in the humid air, the young princess snarled, "It was so bad I not only puked, but then he made me fall in the puke! How is that 'not bad'?"
The older pilot shrugged, "Went better than my first landin'. Like I say, the kid may be high strung, but he's meticulous. He might even be better'n me some day!"
"What was so bad about your first landing? There's no way it could have been worse than that," Yuffie protested.
"First of all, my first landin' was in a lot smaller ship than the Highwind, much less people to worry about." Cid gave her a strange smile and patted her on the back as he pushed to the front of the group. "Second of all, I didn't walk away," he finished over his shoulder. Yuffie's eyes widened and her jaw dropped.
In between monster encounters, they worked their way along the shoreline until they reached the small array of docks that served the small village. A few small fishing boats bobbed in the distance and an old man sat repairing a net. He noted their approach quietly, with only a graying brow raised at the sight of Red XIII and Cait Sith. "Greetings travelers, what has brought you to our humble home?"
They paused, momentarily uncertain. Without Cloud or Zack, who would be the spokesperson of the party? Tifa rolled her shoulders back and stepped forward. "Two of our friends had… an accident with mako. They…"
"Fell in did they?" he asked calmly, pulling his fishing net needle through the tangle of netting. "I suppose someone mentioned the Lifestream rises to the surface around here then?"
"Indeed," Red XIII murmured, stepping forward. "My people told tales of a land to the south where the Lifestream rose close to the surface."
The old man looked at Red with some curiosity in his deep blue eyes and then chuckled, "I do believe that. As a matter of fact, we did have someone wash ashore earlier this week."
Tifa and Aerith perked up but tensed. "Just one?" Aerith asked weakly.
"Yep, only one washed ashore. Some folks carried him to the doctor in town, I was out to sea when it happened and I don't feel interested in spying on some other folk's trouble so I can't tell you more than that."
Tifa and Aerith traded glances and then sprinted up the path through the jungle's border to the town of Mideel. Cait Sith waddled as fast as he could manage after the pair. Cid shook his head at them and then asked, "Why're ya' busy messin' with the nets when that big rock's about to kill everyone?"
Cid waved his hand to the looming meteor in the sky. The old man didn't look up from his work and merely hummed. "It may kill us, it may not. Yet even if it does, I would rather die on a full belly than an empty one."
"Can't fight that logic," Yuffie agreed, stroking her chin thoughtfully.
Vincent nodded to the old man and turned toward town at a much more sedate pace. "We'd better get after those two," Barret sighed to Cid, "fore' they give that poor doctor a neck wringin'."
Following the path of shocked villagers the rest of the party met up with Tifa, Aerith, and Cait Sith in the small clinic. A young doctor with a small ash blond mustache and thinning hair tried to placate the anxious pair. His wide green eyes peered myopically at them through his thick lenses while he tried to understand the pair speaking over each other. "Ladies, ladies please, one at a time!"
"Please," Aerith pleaded, tears oozing down her cheeks. "We think you might be helping one of our friends here. Can we please see if it is him?"
The man shuffled nervously and ran a hand over his hair, "Well… alright once my nurse finishes giving him his meal you can see him but... I have to warn you though, his condition isn't good."
The words were hardly out of his mouth before Tifa and Aerith rushed past him to the next room. The startled young nurse in white stepped aside just in time to avoid Tifa and Aerith's stampede. Seated in a wheelchair, his head hung down between his shoulders was Zack.
"Zack!" Aerith sobbed, dashing forward to hug him. "I'm so glad you're okay!" She sobbed into his hair. He didn't say anything and his arms didn't rise to return her embrace. Eventually Aerith backed up and in a choked voice whispered, "Zack?"
Zack slowly tilted his head up. He tilted it so far up, it jerked painfully backwards. He moaned, hunching forward and his limp neck flopped his head forward again. In the midst of the movement, he revealed his eyes. They gazed sightlessly around the room, never focusing on anyone or anything. The familiar glowing violet was replaced with a luminous, sickly green.
"I've never seen such a severe case of mako poisoning before," the doctor confided to the rest of the group crowded into the small clinic. "To get that much mako in his blood would require hours of extended mako exposure. The poor fellow can't form comprehensible sentences. His mind is so lost from the exposure he's miles away from reality."
Aerith dropped to her knees in front of Zack, clasping one of his hands in her own as tears freely ran down her face. Tifa squeezed the young woman's shoulder once in support, but her face was torn. Was it better or worse that it wasn't Cloud?
"Let's give them a moment," the doctor said soothingly, ushering all but Aerith and the stubborn Cait Sith from the small clinic.
Once outside, Tifa asked, "Doctor, is there any hope for him?"
The man pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed, "If you had asked me earlier this week if there was any hope, I would have said he's lucky to have survived such a high dose of mako and that you shouldn't lose hope for your friend's sake. As of yesterday though…"
"What happened? Did he get worse? Better?" Tifa asked rapid fire, worried for both of her friends.
He raised his hands, palm out. "Now calm down, nothing really changed in his condition. I just had a visitor with a second opinion. He seemed to think recovery was possible with time and care."
Tifa's eyes widened and she asked, "Who? Who was this visitor?"
"It was me," an achingly familiar voice replied from the back of the group. Cloud stood behind them, his arms folded and a serious but relieved expression on his face when he saw Tifa and Barret. "I'm glad Kunsel managed to get you two out. It took me too long to get from here to Junon to do more than see you leave."
"Cloud!" Tifa sobbed. She ducked between their friends and threw herself into his arms. She sobbed into his chest and he slowly wrapped his arms around her then wearily dropped his forehead to rest on her shoulder.
On second glance, it was clear that though Cloud was alive, he'd been through some difficult times. His boots were severely worn, stains riddled his clothing, his hair was in a worse state than usual and a stained bandage ran the length of his right forearm. Other small nicks and cuts riddled his body, he seemed to collapse in Tifa's arms and for a moment, he allowed himself to be weak.
Several minutes passed before she reluctantly pulled back to ask, "What happened? Why is Zack like that and you aren't?"
Cloud grimaced and scratched the back of his head. "It's...complicated. I'm guessing Cait Sith and Aerith are with Zack?"
"They are," Vincent replied. He tilted his head slightly, appraising Cloud quietly. "Did you know why Cait Sith joined our party?"
Cloud blinked at the odd question, shifting Tifa to his side and scratching a dry scab in his eyebrow. "Well, yeah. He joined us to spy for Shinra and to keep an eye on Aerith for Tseng," he replied with a one-shouldered shrug.
"You knew?" Tifa yelped, looking up at Cloud in slight betrayal.
Cloud squeezed her shoulder gently and soothed, "I suspected some kind of obsession with Aerith after the second or third time he made sure he was near her when Zack and I were away. I only made the connection to Tseng after he gave away the Keystone."
"An ya' didn' think ta' tell anyone?" Cid drawled, leaning heavily on his Dragoon Lance.
"No," Cloud shrugged. "Why? He was protecting her as best he could, I hardly see that as something sinister."
Tifa's annoyance on Aerith's behalf faded and she huffed quietly. "So… are you planning to tell us what happened?"
He nodded curtly. "Aerith deserves to hear the story too."
They crowded back into the clinic and the blond stoically bore Aerith's tears and unvoiced look of accusation. Crowded around the small treatment room, they anxiously looked to their leader for an explanation of what happened to Cloud and Zack over the last week.
"It started after I sent Barret and Tifa back to the Highwind…" Cloud began, his expression going distant.
AN: I may not be the best at quick updating, but I stick to my promise that I will not abandon this story. I have some fun stuff in future chapters and reviews *do* motivate me to work on editing when adulting is kicking me in the behind. Thank you for reading and your patience!