Work Text:
Cloud collapsed at the end of the hall with a whisper. The four of them had no time to run to catch him or hear him. Barret was the first to reach him, quick to hold fingers to his neck. When he sighed, it was with relief, though it did little to cut through the tension in the air. Tifa took the sword from his back without a word as Barret laid him out, Aerith's hand held to Cloud's head with a spell. While there was a question to be asked - or questions - no one knew where to start. Aerith took charge with a single sentence. "I know a safe place."
Red was the first to scoff. "In this place, I doubt that."
"It's safer than waiting out here," Aerith answered. "Or do you feel like making friends with the next guards to wander out of that elevator? I know I love making friends, but you seemed a little more shy."
Tifa made herself step up and put in the deciding vote. "Let's just go along with this. It's a better plan than what any of us have, and I'd rather not have Cloud be stuck on the floor any longer."
Both women looked over to Barret, expectant, but he held up his hands. "Don't think he'd be too happy about me manhandling him just 'cause he passed out."
"Oh, come on, Barret," Aerith said. "Cloud's helped carry us plenty of times before. I'm sure he'd appreciate it!"
"Yeah, and I'm sure he'd appreciate me giving him a buzzcut, or teaching him cursive," Barret snorted.
"I'll carry him," Red interrupted. "Anything to end this conversation."
It was uncomfortable to see how little the room had changed since Aerith was a child. They had left the art she and her mother had made on the walls, swirls of color based on the stories of the Cetra her mother had told her each night. At the time, it had been the only way to bring a smidgen of light into their lives. Now, it felt voyeuristic to know Hojo had left it in this state. Like he always expected her to return, happy and willing. It made her stomach churn. She stood outside until the rest of the party had entered the room, Cloud awkwardly draped over Red's back. It is not until Tifa glances back at her with an inquisitive tilt of the head that Aerith can steel herself to go in. Barret, however awkward he felt about carrying Cloud, is still the first to step up to ensure Cloud was set properly on the bed. Though he wouldn't admit to it, Aerith could tell Barret had studied emergency care with the manner in which he ensured Cloud's head was tilted properly, making sure there was no risk of seizure, no obvious physical damage that the four of them had missed, because - of course Cloud would be the first to hide injury in the face of danger. But though he looked, Barret could find nothing, shaking his head in defeat at whatever invisible danger had stricken Cloud.
Waiting was nerve-wracking. Aerith expected Hojo's experiments to burst in after them, regardless of her promise of safety, but with each minute, nothing came. The trade-off was that Cloud didn't wake up.
"Is this common for your compatriot," Red said, more than asking. Breaking the uncomfortable silence between them all.
Aerith, more than slightly grateful for not needing to be the first, responded, "I don't think so!" Her voice felt alien to her ears, too chipper. "I mean. Cloud's really quiet, and I know I haven't known him long, but he hasn't collapsed before." Despite her reassurance, Aerith could not help but remember the way he froze up as she tried to return him to Sector 7. It paired as an uncomfortable reminder of the way he held his hand to his head when he had stumbled down the hall, single-minded. But maybe it had just been him thinking. But maybe -
"Is there something else?" Red asked. "You appear troubled."
"No," Aerith lied. "No, I was just trying to remember if I'd seen any signs. Sometimes people with low blood sugar can ..."
When she trailed off, Barret shook his head. "We both know this ain't hypoglycemia. And I think we all know SOLDIERs aren't the kinds made to collapse over nothing! There's something seriously wrong here, and I think he's been keeping it from us."
"Barret, you can't say something like that!" Tifa said. "This is a stressful experience for all of us. For all we know, Shinra did this. We still don't completely understand how they make SOLDIERs. I doubt they told Cloud everything they did to him."
"That's not-" Barret stopped and pulled back. "I'm not tryin' to say Cloud's doing something wrong, here. But listen, the kid's real repressed. I'm just worried he's been holding back on something because he wants to seem." For a moment, Barret seems to wilt, like the thought hits him too. "Kid wants to seem strong, Tifa. 'Cause we depend on him. Maybe he does know. Like when that hologram bastard told us SOLDIERs get their lives cut short by the mako. Cloud said it was true, 'cause he knew it all along. But if we knew that, we woulda worried, or you woulda tried to convince him to quit the merc business. And you can't tell me you wouldn't have done it, because I know you wouldn't let an old friend destroy himself like that."
"Wait," Red murmured. "Tifa. You've known this Cloud for longer than these other two?"
His comment brought it to stark attention - her silence in the face of Aerith and Barret's musing concern. The spotlight of the room turned on Tifa, who stood with her arms sharply behind her back.
"Yeah," Tifa said.
"Then you would know best. Has he ever shown signs of this before?"
Aerith watched Tifa's eyes float around the room to Cloud, his sword, and then, to her feet. "Not when we were children, no."
"Then you've seen it more recently, have you?" Red pressed.
"I don't know," Tifa muttered.
"How can you not be sure," he asked, but Barret stepped between the two before he could keep on.
"Tifa says she doesn't know? Then she doesn't know," Barret said. "We got no reason to keep pushing when we're still looking to escape. The more important question is, how are we gonna get out of here together if Cloud doesn't wake up." He looked to the three of them. "We have to consider worst case scenario. I'm not gonna leave him, but hell if it's not gonna be harder without his help."
"Can't we wait until he wakes up? It could be temporary," Tifa said.
Aerith's ears perked at the way she spoke. There was hardly a question in her voice, hardly a plea. Though there was blatant concern in the way her eyes wrinkled, that could sounded almost assured he'd wake up.
"We can wait a few more minutes, but we'd better start drafting a plan in the next 10 minutes, you get me?" Barret gave her a hard stare from behind his sunglasses and waited for Tifa's nod. "Good." Despite the almost harshness of his voice, he took Tifa's hand into his. "I promise it'll be okay. I'm not gonna let anyone else get hurt over this."
Aerith waited for Barret and Red to sit down before she started pacing the room, pointed and precise. It wasn't long before Tifa joined her, too anxious at the lack of movement in the room to stand still. Aerith smiled to herself. She was too good.
"You know," Aerith started, at a whisper. "Have you ever seen Cloud kinda zone out before? Like he's not listening, but not because he's pretending not to listen."
"I'm not sure what you mean," Tifa answered - though in just as much of a whisper. Like there was something to hide in those words.
"Well, you know. People in the military get PTSD sometimes, right? My mom ... my mom that's alive, that is. She's worked with survivors of war, civilians and military people, ever since her husband died. It's not like everyone deals with it, but I thought Cloud might have had a hard time when he was still working for Shinra, right?" Aerith paused for dramatic effect, gauging Tifa's silence. "It really seems like he dislikes them, too."
"I don't know," Tifa said, again. But at that, she muttered, "People can change a lot in seven years."
"Seven?" Aerith asked. "Is that important?"
"No." The word jumped out, a little too loud. Tifa pressed her lips together and then forced out a laugh. "I don't really know if he's all that different now or not. If he changed because he grew up or if he seems different because I didn't really know him. We weren't that close when we were kids."
"Oh, really. So why'd he give you that flower?" Aerith asked, a little too smug.
"Probably because I talked him into it," Tifa murmured. "I'm just ... I was so surprised he had a positive interaction out in the field. When he got here, he was." Tifa clammed up again. "He wasn't very keen on anything or anyone." At that, Tifa's eyes met Aerith's. Pretty and a little sadder than she let on, dark and edged with red from a lack of sleep. Aerith wondered how much the three of them had rested in the last few days. For such a short time, it felt like she knew them so much better than she did. "That was your flower, wasn't it? No one can grow flowers here, but your mother's house was filled with lilies that looked just like the one he gave me."
Aerith drew herself in, almost expecting Tifa to draw away, knowing that it had been a flower from another girl that Cloud had given her, because girls weren't supposed to be kind to each other, but -
"They were beautiful," Tifa said. "I never realized a flower could make me so happy before."
"Oh," Aerith said.
"What's that mean?" Tifa asked, playful. "You're the florist, right? You must know how much it helps people here, when we can't grow anything."
"O-oh, yeah!" Aerith flexed an arm and patted her muscle with a hand. "It's hard work, but someone's gotta do it!"
Though the discussion made the sadness leave Tifa's smile for a moment, it quickly returned as she looked at Cloud again.
"...I do understand what you mean," Tifa said. "I've seen it before, too. When he withdraws from the world. I just don't know how to help him. He isn't going to listen to me. I doubt he even wants to know we're this worried about him when he wakes up." Her eyes glistened and she looked away from Cloud and Aerith, hiding her face.
"He'll wake up," Aerith reassured her, the question of if lingering in the air. "He's still on the clock, after all." If Aerith's words helped at all, it wasn't obvious on Tifa's face. Aerith took her hand as Barret had done, too nervous to reach far enough to hug her. "And if he doesn't, he'll get a butt-kicking from me for making you worry. Now let yourself sit down for a moment and relax! It's no good if our strongest and most fearless warrior is so nervous. I'm just a florist, so I'll be the nervous one for you!"
That made Tifa smile more genuinely, if only a little. Aerith let herself stand back in her original post in the back of the room and let her mind wander back to Cloud. When he was asleep - or not asleep, but close enough - he looked soft. So much younger than the 20-something she knew he had to be. When he was awake, he always held his face and brow so angrily, so tense, to the point that it was hard to see his expression as little but a funny looking angry T. And it was funny, when he was awake. It was funny when it was just Cloud being silly for how serious he was. It was less funny when it was clear how much of an act it was. Seeing him collapse like the old paper-mache bird house she had made as a child, melted by the humidity until it could no longer hold its form - that was scary. That was the kind of thing she never wanted to see, for how much it reminded her of seeing her mother collapse on train tracks to never get up again. Cloud, at least, was breathing.
She hated how much he reminded her of Zack - of the fact that Zack probably was dead, and that was the reason he never answered her letters, and -
Cloud was smart to leave Shinra before it destroyed him the same way.
But he was back, because of her. Because they were both old Shinra experiments. And maybe it was her fault he collapsed. And for that, when he woke up, finally. Aerith could not bring herself to ask questions.