Chapter Text
21 Days After Meteorfall
The woman with the curly mess of black hair glanced up at the ceiling of the church through tinted shades. "Roof looks like it might come down," she noted.
"Better do your job and keep me safe then," the other fired back, on her knees amidst the flowers, gathering them up one by one.
The woman shifted back and forth underneath the door frame – as impatient she always was when her lover was risking something. "I know you like watching pretty girls squirm, but you could always go a little faster."
"I could," she said. And she continued her steady pace. "You know," her tone was almost conversational, "flowers are very special little things. They soak up the residual mako in the soil and use it to grow, and then return it to the air. And sometimes, when the planet's veins beneath them are disturbed, they'll change along with it." She sighed. "Those ones never last that long, though. They're unique, and gorgeous, and gone in a flash." The woman held up a small half-wilted lily, crimson leaking into its pale petals from its unnaturally red center. "I guess we should have known that. Even something perfect can't last, not the way it is."
A pause between them, an elliptical silence that stretched until distant birdsong eclipsed the deafening void. "We lasted," she said.
The gardener giggled, and stood up, wiping the dirt from her dress. "We did. But we're not quite the same as we were."
90 Days Until Meteorfall
It was snowing outside. She hadn't seen snow in years, not since her first home was turned to cinders; her second home had never been graced by the phenomena. Here though, it was said to snow every single day. If they'd come a week earlier, she would have adored this place. Under any other circumstances, she'd be in chilly heaven. But the cold here now was a frigid reminder, a danger that permeated even the apparent safety of the inn. Every shiver through the unconscious body in the bed next to her sent a spiraling fear deep into her gut.
The fireplace was raging nearby – her lover made sure it would never go out – and the woman herself had replaced bandages, applied ointment to keep the burns from festering, used up her stamina eight times over channeling healing magic anytime that she spotted even a single fleck of red against that white gauze. The only advice from the town doctor she hadn't taken was sleep. Not that either of them could. Only the injured had time to slumber, the healthy couldn’t relax enough to do so.
Even the two of them, when they lay in their room's other bed, were acutely aware of the prominent absence between. Three had always felt somewhat cramped; but neither took the time to accept their newfound convenience with anything more than fear and fury. When she held her, she felt far too weak to even cry.
540 Days Until Meteorfall
The fire between them didn't cast light far, but he could watch his companion train well enough from where he was sitting. Each swing of the blade was an effort, an exercise in control. The young man's first attempts had been clumsy, rough, and frustrated. Now, the hunk of metal seemed so much more of a fit to his hands, even more natural there than in the blade's technical owner. He was clearly still weak, still healing – even after the months spent far away from sharp eyes and prying needles – but he was stronger. Fuck, he was stronger in every way. Stronger than the ex-SOLDIER himself, than that failed excuse for a hero. And he'd be stronger still, in time.
The young man glanced his way, slowly letting the tip of the sword drop down into the dust. "Doing okay?"
He could have laughed. "Yeah, you're doing great. Told you, you're a natural."
His companion shook his head, messy blond hair swinging back and forth. "No," he said, quietly, "I mean...you. Are you?"
"Ah." The young man looked away, ignored the way his ribs ached and the muscles of his leg spasmed. "I'm just tired, is all." Another fib for the pile. He was a good liar at this point, had plenty of practice; his mother would have been proud, if she hadn't kicked him out with a death threat and a slur still ringing in his ears.
"You should sleep." The young man approached – the ex-SOLDIER tried not to pay attention to the slight limp in his stride – and handed the sword back to its improper owner. "Here."
"You can keep training," he offered. "I mean, if you want to."
He shrugged, and sat down on the other side of the fire. Only something like five feet of space between them, but it might as well have been a mile-long yawning abyss. An impossible distance for even the desperate to close. "Tired too."
"Aren't we always?" he quipped. And for a breath between them, it wasn't quite a joke.
180 Days Until Meteorfall
Cloud's buster sword felt heavy on his back as he stared at the entrance to Seventh Heaven. It was late, and the bar was closed, but the lights were still bright inside – probably Avalanche planning out their next move. Or they could be celebrating a job well done, but Tifa wouldn't have allowed them to do so with Cloud still missing as far as they knew. Wouldn't she?
"Are you waiting for a written invitation?" Aerith asked, leaning over and tilting her head so he'd have to see her big, goofy smile. "Go on inside, dummy. They're probably worried about you."
Cloud shrugged. "It's late. They're closed."
Aerith snorted out a laugh. "Too late for customers. Not too late for good news." She grabbed his arm and tugged him towards the bar. "It's never too late for good news."
"Alright, alright." He gently wrestled his arm out of her grasp, massaging his wrist on instinct. Aerith was a lot stronger than she looked, and that realization came with a little spark of shame. Why had he assumed that she would have been otherwise?
She rolled her eyes with an exaggerated huff. "Big tough bodyguard having to be dragged around by his helpless ward? Looks like you're not getting a recommendation, buster."
"Never asked for one," he fired back, quick wit covering up the lurch in his gut from Aerith's apparent habit of reaching into his mind to pull out whatever he happened to be thinking. If it was anyone else, he might have suspected...but it wasn't. He didn't have any reasons to distrust Aerith, and a few very good reasons to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Besides, I've seen what you can do with that staff of yours. You're not helpless."
"Aww, you're such a flatterer." Aerith swayed back and forth as if in an invisible breeze. "And you're stalling." Her tone was almost sing-song. With that, she gestured towards the door with her head.
"Fine," Cloud said. He was halfway up the steps before the thought crossed his mind that the distance had seemed so monumental before Aerith's goading. Had she seen that fact in him too, had she only teased him to make him move the way she wanted?
No, no, stop it. Not her. Not Aerith.
"I'm sorry," came the voice from behind the counter that he'd been dreading to hear, "we're–" And the words fell back into Tifa's throat. She stared at Cloud from across the room, as if looking away for an instant would make him evaporate. There wasn't anyone else in the bar, no patrons and no Avalanche.
"Where's the kid?" Cloud asked, trying to keep his tone light, conversational. As if he'd just walked back in after a long day of slaying fiends, and not after nearly falling to his death.
"Marlene's asleep, it's..." Tifa shook her head, the surprised tone dropping back into wordless shock. "Cloud, you...I saw you fall, I thought–"
"I'm fine," he said, before she could linger, walking farther into the bar. "Falls like that aren't too dangerous for me, you can thank the SOLDIER program. And I got lucky, landed somewhere soft."
"You're welcome for that, by the way." Aerith's voice over Cloud's shoulder nearly made him jump out of his skin.
Tifa's gaze wandered right, blinking at the odd woman. "I'm sorry, who...?"
"Oh!" Aerith nearly pranced up to the counter, extending a hand. "Aerith Gainsborough, local florist. Cloud here is my bodyguard."
"Bodyguard," Tifa repeated, sounding out the word as if it were utterly alien to her.
"She's a Sector 5 local, showed me the way back here," Cloud explained, willing Aerith to make herself sparse and not complicate things further. If she really was psychic, she was definitely ignoring that mental plea. "In exchange for protecting her from some Turks."
Tifa nodded, as if the explanation made perfect sense. She gingerly took Aerith's hand, giving an awkward smile. "I'm Tifa Lockheart. Uh, thank you, for helping my friend."
"It was my pleasure!" Aerith tilted her head away, as if from preening from praise, and then she froze. Cloud wasn't exactly sure what she was looking at, until his own gaze fell on the yellow flower in its little makeshift cup-vase on the shelf behind the counter. He felt the blood drain from his cheeks. Aerith let go of Tifa's hand and whirled towards him, grinning with her eyes. "You casanova! You never told me–"
"Don't–" he warned, uselessly.
"–you gave my flower to a beautiful girl!" Aerith finished.
"Your flower?" Tifa spluttered; Cloud was momentarily thankful she fixated on that part of Aerith's incredibly loaded statement.
"Mhm!" Aerith turned back to beam at Tifa. "I told you, I'm a florist. Cloud and I met in Sector 1 the other night, that's when I sold him the flower." Cloud resisted the urge to remind her that 'sold' was putting it rather optimistically; she'd slipped it onto his shirt before he could as much as protest.
"Oh." Was that...relief in Tifa's tone? He didn't have a clue what she had to be relieved for, but it was nicer than the alternative. "And you both ran into each other in Sector 5 after he fell?"
"Small Midgar?" he offered. Serendipity was just about as likely as anything else. Tifa was probably suggesting Aerith had planned their second meeting, but that wasn't worth much consideration. Aerith wasn't the type to scheme, she was too honest for that, too open.
"Very small," Aerith agreed.
Cloud's held breath escaped from him in one long exhalation. Okay. Tifa didn't seem much more than a little perplexed by the sudden news and the more sudden intrusion, Aerith was definitely her normal friendly self, there was no Barret to glare down his neck, and none of the disaster trio to try to rope him into any of their inane antics. Everything was fine. Nothing to fix, no angles to play. And Cloud wasn't the type to push his luck. "Alright. I'll see you tomorrow, Tifa." And he turned to leave.
"Oh! Cloud, wait." Tifa hurried around the counter, through the swinging double-doored gap that served as entrance and exit. "You...well, everyone was really worried about you, and I think..." She breathed out a frustrated sigh, as if her words weren't cooperating with you. "The switch is underneath the pinball machine, left side. You have to reach for it, but you've got long arms, so it shouldn't–"
"Good to know," he said, slowly, "but I thought Barret was clear I'm not invited down there." He saw Aerith hop up on a barstool out of the corner of his eye, watching the scene with what might have been amusement.
Tifa glared at him. An honest, irritated look right at him, right through his eyes and into his chest. "I'm inviting you," she said, firm and clear. And her expression softened. "Trust me, Cloud. Please."
Fuck. Cloud couldn't stop the grumble that roiled up in his throat. "Okay," he said, and it sounded like a surrender. His gaze flicked towards Aerith for a moment, and she was beaming at him. Maybe she just hadn't stopped.
*******
Cloud could hear Avalanche arguing as the platform slowly crunched its way down to their secret room. For an instant, he was a kid again, necessity or hunger or worry pulling him closer and closer towards his arguing parents, towards his mother's bitter vitriol and his father's open fury–
No. No, wait; Cloud shook his head. Fuck. He was getting mixed up again.
"–could still be out there, fighting on his own. We've gotta go help him." Jessie's voice, Cloud wasn't surprised she'd be the one advocating for him. "I'm not saying we go full search and rescue, but we can't just – holy shit!" Her shocked shriek was permeated immediately by a resounding clatter and surprised, pained grunt.
Artificial light smacked Cloud in the back of the head. Oh. Oh the elevator opened that way. He tried to keep the sheepishness off his face as he turned to face the quartet. "Hey," he mumbled.
The underground room was larger than Cloud had expected, and still more cramped than he would have liked. A punching bag, a TV, a whiteboard, a computer and something like a dozen boxes were nestled up against the walls, surrounding a table covered in schematics. No other exits, just the slow elevator ride back up. And four pairs of eyes locked on him. Barret was at the apparent head of that table, Jessie on the slightly farther side from the elevator and Wedge was closer to him and next to Biggs, who had apparently fallen off his chair at either Cloud's arrival or Jessie's exclamation.
No one said a word for what felt like hours. Cloud was tempted just to smack the elevator button back up and let them stew in their surprise.
"What took you so long?" Jessie asked, though her voice wavered a little. "We'd almost given up on you."
"Heard someone was talking about search and rescue," he replied. "Wouldn't want you guys to one-up on me like that." Keep it light, easy. Nothing to worry about. Gentleman heroes don't make nice girls cry.
Jessie choked out a laugh, and she was probably trying to glare at him but it just came off like admiration.
"Good to see you in one piece," Biggs added, sliding back onto his chair. "Barret said you took a hell of a tumble."
"SOLDIER perks, soft landing," he summarized. "Ended up in Sector 5 slums, found my way back here."
Wedge whistled. "Bro–"
"Not your bro."
"–that's incredible! You're incredible!" Wedge's eyes shone, and he smacked the table with barely any force, but indescribable excitement. "I was really worried about you too, and you just show back up like nothing happened!? Totally wicked."
"Told you he's a keeper," Jessie smirked across the table at Biggs, who just rolled his eyes.
Barret stood without a sound, but the motion quieted the room. Jessie immediately scooted off her chair – trying not to put weight on her injured leg – as he rounded the table, staring at Cloud from behind those sunglasses. It was almost nicer to have to deal with a big guy who might throttle him than people whose feelings he couldn't afford to hurt. "You damn near got yourself killed," he began. "Could'a cost us the whole operation too. If we ran into more Sweepers or any other Shinra nonsense, we'd have been screwed six ways from Sunday without you backing us up."
"Good thing you didn't, then," Cloud fired back.
"And," Barret continued, putting as much emphasis behind the word as he could, "if you got hurt in that fall? We'd all be screwed. So..." He trailed off, shifting in place. "I'm glad ya didn't."
Cloud blinked. Okay. Was this...what was this, exactly?
"You put yourself at risk for Avalanche." Barret scratched at his eyes beneath his sunglasses. "More than that, you put yourself at risk for Jessie, and Tifa, and me. So, er..." He took a quick, forced breath. "I'm thankful. You did good, ex-SOLDIER boy."
Ex-SOLDIER boy? Wait, holy shit, what!? Where was this coming from!? Cloud found himself glancing desperately past the man towards the other three Avalanche members, trying to search for some missed context in their grinning faces.
Barret cleared his throat, and turned back towards the table. "Now then. Before we were interrupted," his usual gruff tone sliding perfectly back into place, "we were in the middle of important Avalanche business. Not much time to debrief."
Cloud sighed. Inexplicable change of heart over, he supposed. His hand lingered on the elevator button.
"Tonight."
"Pardon?" Cloud said, before he could stop himself.
"Not much time to debrief tonight." Barret sat back down at the table. "But I'm sure I can fit you in." He scratched at the back of his neck. "I get that you don't do this whole...saving the planet business. Not your style, that's fine. But if you plan on sticking around Sector 7..." He shrugged, as if it were nothing. "Might consider putting you on retainer."
Cloud raised an eyebrow. Retainer. Okay, that didn't seem that bad. Inconsistent pay and life threatening assignments aside, Avalanche was hardly a sub-optimal employer. They liked him well enough, and he could probably use a bit of extra muscle if things went pear-shaped for him. It'd give him an excuse to spend more time with Tifa too, that was a definite perk. Still, he shouldn't come off too desperate. "Uh huh," he said, threading his voice through with disinterest.
"Come on br–" Wedge caught himself. "Cloud, you're like...the best merc we could ask for."
"Worth every gil," Biggs added. "Plus, the job perks are pretty solid." He leaned over to nudge Wedge. "Wedge here makes some killer cookies after every mission; his mom's recipe. Trust me, it's worth dodging bullets out there for one of those."
Wedge's cheeks flushed, and he nudged Biggs back. "Come on," he muttered, distinctly embarrassed.
"Don't forget the job security." Jessie waggled a finger in midair. "Think about it: so long as Shinra's still around, we're gonna be in dire need of a dashing mercenary like you." She batted her eyelashes at him in a gesture that might have been flirtatious if it wasn't so exaggerated.
"Hm," Cloud said, stifling the smile that threatened to quirk his lips. He took the time to articulate his response, miming at considering the offer. "I've got an apartment here, and no job offers outside of Sector 7 yet. So I'll probably be sticking around for a while anyway. Might as well help out from time to time." He met Barret's eyes as best he could through the tinted lenses. "Consider me retained."
And Barret's grin could have lit up half of Midgar.
*******
"How'd it go?" Tifa asked as soon as the elevator lurched to a stop. The bar was empty again, Aerith had probably headed back home.
Cloud stepped farther into the bar before answering – a little safer, closer to the entrance; always better to know his outs, if the need arose. "Barret put me on retainer. Debrief tomorrow, and I'll probably join the next assignment – whenever that is."
She smiled, lips parted, a little breath escaping her. "Cloud, that's wonderful! I knew he'd come around eventually, he just needed some time to see how good of a guy you are." And something faded in her expression. She was still smiling, but it seemed a little forced. "I guess we'll be working together a lot more, now. Since you're working with Avalanche."
"I guess so." He shrugged. Was it working together that upset her? Or working with Avalanche? "I'll probably still need your help getting jobs in the meantime. I'm pretty sure the locals don't quite trust me yet. And if you've ever got some time, we could always just go kill some fiends, let off some steam."
Her smile warmed; okay, latter issue, not former, thank fuck. "That sounds really nice. I don't know if I'll have that much time, but I'll do my best to help you out." Tifa chuckled. "What else are friends for?"
"Wouldn't know," Cloud replied. It was supposed to be a joke, but he caught a glint of a frown at the edge of her lips, and he looked away. "Uh. Tomorrow, then?"
"Tomorrow," she said.
"Okay." Cloud dared one last look at Tifa – smiling again, like nothing was wrong – before heading out the bar. The moment the cold air hit his face, he found his brow furrowed and his eyes closing. "Okay," he muttered. "Okay."
"Just okay?" Cloud flinched, opened his eyes to see Aerith at the bottom of the stairs, grinning in that mischievous way she did.
"What are you still doing here?" he asked. "I assumed you went back home."
"Thought about it," Aerith said. "But I got talking to Tifa, and she said that she could use an extra set of hands around the bar. And I've got those!" She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers for emphasis. "Pretty nice hands, too. So, you'll be seeing a lot more of them; and me."
"Oh," Cloud said; and, because he couldn't think of anything that didn't sound as braindead as he felt, "cool."
176 Days Until Meteorfall
Slipping back into mercenary work had been a synch. Trying to keep things 'normal' with Tifa, and now Aerith? Just about the farthest thing from simple. On their own, he knew how they worked, how they were likely to react. He had scripts for each of them now, and his lines were all memorized; but the both of them together were throwing him into frantic improv at every turn.
Aerith was a gravity well of focus, drawing idle eyes to her, with her bright personality and tendency towards poking at things better left unsaid. She splashed in the shallows of conversation, while Tifa had her feet firmly planted in the depths. While Aerith prodded and danced around issues, Tifa stared right into them, pulled at loose threads and sought more truth than Cloud was ever comfortable divulging. They were a dangerous mix, like a riptide that would pull your head under the waves if you so much as smiled at the wrong joke, quipped something a little too revealing, or refused to play along. Aerith would pull out an issue, and Tifa would tear into it. It was like dancing with wolves every night, and Cloud had never been a good dancer.
Avalanche should have been easier, but they insisted on spending their time in a cramped room, playing chicken with claustrophobia as they argued about questions with no answers and yet utterly simple solutions. How do they ensure Shinra doesn't target Sector 7 to get at them? Do they lay low until public opinion has changed, or make a counter-statement with their next mission? What can be done to avoid playing into Shinra's next trap? Cloud had his answers to all of those, but they were thrown in the pile with the rest and shuffled around and debated until words had lost all meaning. They might as well have polled him on the way in and then done their meeting without him, for all the input he could give.
Killing fiends was still mindless, and he was thankful for that. Finding lost objects of sentimental importance, acting as a glorified one-man moving service, chasing the same cat halfway across the slums; it was grunt work, and it would have been tedious if it didn't do such a good job keeping his mind off everything else. Each job kept him focused, almost meditative, he couldn't spend too much time drifting in doubt. There was always something to find, something to solve, someone to talk to. New puzzles with fresh solutions. He could understand why it had appealed so much to–
No, stop it. Fuck off with that. Cloud shook his head. Focus. Disturbance in the junkyard at the outskirts of Sector 7. Concerned citizens fleeing the scene, a handful of public security sweeping in. Likely a fiend wandering a little too close, or some sort of minor criminal bust. Either way, he probably didn't need to interfere, but better to be sure than let some poor sap get mauled. Or, if they were mobilizing against Avalanche? His hand rested comfortably on the hilt of his buster sword.
Cloud turned the corner and stopped in place. Okay. That was definitely a very prone Shinra pub-sec troop, his feet halfway out of an artificial clearing amidst the detritus. Cloud crept closer, one hand still snug on his sword's hilt, peeking into the clearing with as much caution as he could manage.
He mentally corrected his earlier body count. That was easily twelve soldiers, two officers and what looked to be a heavy weapons unit all lying motionless in the dirt. And on the far side, the only one not wearing a Shinra uniform, was a woman. Her hair was dark, curls shining in the late afternoon sun, and she wore a sleeveless skin-tight red top and a black vest, along with baggy pants of a similar sable hue. There were a pair of materia bands around her wrists, a choker on her neck and sunglasses perched across her eyes. She was reclining against the side of a large hill, either relaxed or exhausted. Probably the latter, considering she was bleeding. Cloud could stains of darker crimson across her top, not to mention the rivulets running down her limp left arm.
The scene painted one of two scenarios: Shinra had sent public security to escort or guard this woman and they had all been attacked by something that was now gone, or this woman had singlehandedly dispatched a platoon and suffered injuries in the process. He wasn't sure which one was more likely. Either way, he couldn't exactly just turn and walk. Heroes don't run when someone needs help.
"Hey," he said, stepping out into the clearing.
The woman's lowered head snapped up, and she immediately moved to stand, letting out a pained hiss.
"Easy," Cloud warned. "Not here to fight. You're injured."
"No shit," she slurred back, her breath somewhat labored. "What tipped you off?"
"You're bleeding everywhere," he said, simply. It was probably a rhetorical question, but there wasn't much harm in answering it.
"Am I now?" The woman slowly raised her left arm, obviously struggling, and sent a flick of blood across the dust. "Shit, so I am. Crazy world." She wheezed out a laugh, and then coughed. "Ow."
"Get those fighting these guys?" He gestured with his head to the troops scattered across the clearing.
"What, those chumps?" Another awful, grating laugh that was probably filled with blood. "I mean, yeah; but don't get me wrong, the last bunch softened me up plenty."
Cloud nodded, reaching into his pocket for a healing materia. "Price on your head?"
"Something like that," she muttered.
"Hold still." He bent down, materia in one hand, lifting the woman's left arm with the other. "This'll feel kinda weird."
"Not my first rodeo," she said, hissing out another breath. She glanced down at him, and he caught a flash of red behind her shades. "I don't mean to be ungrateful or anything, but if you don't mind me asking? Who the fuck are you?"
"Cloud Strife," he replied, trying to focus on channeling the spell. He didn't want to burn too much of his stamina – training said to ration it out, always save some in reserve in case you need to heal yourself. So he went slow, steady healing rather than trying to get it done quick. "Local mercenary."
She went stiff. "Merc, huh? Are you the guy everyone's talking about? The SOLDIER?"
"Ex-SOLDIER," he clarified.
The woman barked out a laugh, and wrenched her arm out of his grasp. "Shoulda figured," she mumbled. "No wonder that outfit looked familiar." She paused, tilting her head down until she could stare at him over the top of her shades.
Two brilliantly red eyes met his. Lighter than blood, like the carmine at the tips of flame, her pupils vertically elongated, and the sight chilled him. They were the eyes of a fiend, hungry and furious. The eyes of...no, his were – had been – green, obviously.
"There's no 'ex' in those eyes." She stood, and Cloud stepped back, one hand back to the hilt of his sword; and she laughed. "Good instinct! Probably saved your life." She raised her right hand, palm up and out towards him.
"Don't–" A flash of heat against his face, and Cloud whipped the sword off his back and between him and the fire that threatened to engulf it. Cold metal kept the damage from his skin, but he could barely breathe in the heat. He slashed blindly through, parting the igneous gale enough to see that the woman was gone – but a flash of movement to his left dragged his attention over, just in time to parry a blade's stumbling swing towards his neck.
He had no idea where she'd pulled the thing out of, but it looked almost molten, black metal – or stone? – lined with veins of pulsing fire. The woman breathed out a growl, and swung again. And again. And again. "Coward!" she snarled. "Come on! All that blood on your hands, the least you could do is kill me standing!"
He couldn't find the words, couldn't drown out the screaming instinct in his ears. His eyes were locked on her hands, on every move, waiting for another spell or the next swing of that blade. She went high, and Cloud ducked under and past, slamming the flat of his buster sword against her back. The woman let out a pained gasp, and whirled another slash against his guard. Over and over and over, each more desperate, each slower and clumsier. His eyes traced every opening, every sloppy absence in attention or twitch in her stance. He could have killed her twenty times over. Maybe that was why his heart beat steady and comfortable in his chest.
It didn't take long for blood loss to catch up. She must have known that too, no longer forcing herself on the offensive, standing there with her sword loose in one hand, gasping at breaths. It slipped. She didn't so much drop the blade as dismiss it, the object dissolving into thin air with nothing more than a puff of embers. The woman sank to her knees, those red eyes staring from behind her sunglasses. "Just...fucking...end it..." she wheezed out.
He reached back and snapped the buster sword onto his back again, the magnetic pseudo-sheath holding it in place there. "No thanks," he said. "I don't plan on killing anyone today." And he leaned down, and fished out the healing materia again.
If she wanted to stop him, she must not have had the energy to do so. She hadn't dropped her guard, that was much clear, but she didn't resist his approach. Just sat there on her knees, watching him, waiting.
Once more, he held her left arm just above the wrist and pressed the materia to her skin. "I don't know why you hate SOLDIERs," he said, his eyes locked on the whirling pattern within the crystalized mako sphere, "but you probably have a good reason. I think I'm lucky that I joined young, didn't see too much of the battlefield. Too late to for the war, and I left right after..." It should have been easy to say, but it wasn't. The name still stuck in his throat like static on velcro.
"They owe me a debt," she said. Cloud glanced up to meet her eyes, but her gaze was distant, towards what must have been the sun setting over the far hill. "Turks are the bastards who took us, but SOLDIERs kept the peace when we resisted." She said the word like a curse. "It's all Shinra. Their labs–" Cloud couldn't stop from tensing, "–their soldiers, their fucking scientists. All in the name of progress." She turned her head and spat blood onto the dirt. "No one gives a shit about the empty homes when they're paved over; they're dirt now, and ash. Same as the people who lived in them."
Rumors of entire villages vanishing overnight had been more commonplace than they ever should have been, back then when he was around to hear them. Trading stories in uniform, stuffed in the back of trucks on the way to their next mission, whispering like schoolboys. Everyone knew they had been made to vanish, pulled away by someone or something – back then, it was always Wutai in the stories, the enemy. Just another reason to justify the war everyone said was already over. But it had never been Wutai. It was always just Shinra, and no one knew that better than Cloud.
He let go of her arm – the cuts were already starting to scab over, so they probably weren't that deep. No need to worry about internal damage, then. Cloud hesitated. Unless this woman got very comfortable very quickly with the idea of him laying a hand anywhere close to her chest, he'd probably have to burn a bit more stamina to heal the rest of her wounds. Fine, it was late in the day anyway. He pulled deep, invoked the spell, and waved a hand to pull it towards her torso. "Cura." The green glow swept across the red fabric. It was hard to tell through the top, but it should have been enough. "For what it's worth," he said, "they owe me too."
She raised an eyebrow. "Backpay?" she asked, deadpan. "Lose your last check in the mail when you ditched?"
"Tortured me for four years and tried to kill me for one." As long as they were trading trauma. Not like she'd spill his while he held hers.
"Huh." She didn't say anything for a time. Then she slowly slid one foot under her, rising back up to an unsteady standing. Hands on her abdomen, down her arms, across her chest – patting herself down, checking her injuries. "You work quick, blondie."
He pocketed the materia, standing as well. "Red meat, citrus and hydrate. You'll be anemic for a little while, so don't do anything stupid."
"Your bedside manner's impeccable," she deadpanned.
Cloud rolled his eyes and turned back towards the path to the junkyard entrance, careful not to step on any of the unconscious pub-sec – not that they didn't deserve a lot worse than waking up to a footprint in the side of the face.
Footsteps in the dust behind him. "Hey, uh, Cloud?" He wasn't sure if the lilt was to get his attention, or because she wasn't confident she remembered his name. "So, funny story, I'm kind of light on gil at the moment. Do you think you could spot me for tonight?"
Cloud sighed out an inarticulate confirmation. And he walked into the rolling darkness as the sun dipped below the far horizon.
*******
Apparently, the rush-hour-prone Sector 7 ramen stand was practically dead after sunset. Cloud supposed that was useful information to file away if he ever got sick of Seventh Heaven's bar food; though he doubted that would be the case anytime soon.
"Your reputation precedes you, blondie," the woman said, in between slurps of noodles. "People round here won't shut up about how great you are. I've only been here since yesterday and I've already had no less than seven people sing your praises at me. Might as well be a local celebrity at this point."
"You're passing through?" Cloud asked.
She laughed. "Oh, eternally. I haven't stopped passing through places since...fuck, what, four years?" The woman whistled. "Sounds ‘bout right, at least. Pretty easy to lose track of time when you're not anchored."
"Yeah," he muttered. Flashes of campfire, the starry sky, panicked footprints in dust.
"I guess it helps when I can't walk ten feet without smacking right into trouble," she continued.
Cloud raised an eyebrow. "You tango with public security often then?"
"Whenever I can manage." She laughed. "Gotta say though, they're usually a lot less persistent. Normally, hopping Sectors throws them, but I guess I really pissed these ones off." She smirked at Cloud. "I'd expect you to be clutching your pearls by now, you law-abiding merc."
He couldn't stop from smiling, just a little. "I fought a Turk last week. Pub-sec's nothing."
An odd tension seemed to thread its way through the woman, but she still let out a whistle through her grin and reached out to sock him in the shoulder. "Look at you, little show-off!"
"Yeah, yeah." He rolled his shoulder, not that the blow had actually hurt.
Her gaze lingered on him, an odd tilt to the corner of her lips, like watching something distant and so very amusing.
"What?" he asked.
She shrugged with her entire right side. "Oh, nothing." Her tone light and lying. "Just find it a little curious. Taking a while for you to ask." The woman reached up and tapped the side of her shades, bringing them down just a hair. Even in the dim artificial light of the ramen stand, he could see her eyes as vivid as before, that stark shade against her pale skin.
Cloud let out a breath through his nose. "It's not any of my business," he said.
She gave a sharp laugh. "Oh, like that's ever stopped anyone." She turned back to her bowl and lifted it to her lips with one hand. "I see you staring. You can't hide that you're curious."
"Fine," he sighed. "What's up with your eyes, then?"
For all her pushing him to ask, she seemed to stall out her response, taking a leisurely sip of broth before lowering the bowl back to the counter. "I guess you can say they're parting gifts. A pair of little mementos from an old friend," her light tone clipped the edge of fury, "who had a bad habit of smirking more than breathing."
Lips pulled tight over yellowed teeth in the back of his mind. Cloud stifled a shudder. "I think I know the type."
"It's among the less-easily concealed of what he left me with," she continued. One hand up, fingertips light against her collarbone – he couldn't tell if it was instinct, or an indication. "One of these days, I'll probably return the favor."
"He owes you too," he said, and it wasn't quite a question.
She nodded. "More than anybody."
And they were quiet, for a time.
"Sorry, by the way."
Cloud's eyebrow quirked. "What?"
"I lost control back there," she said, not looking towards him as she talked. "Wouldn't have blamed you for cutting me down, you had every right to."
"It's not my style," he fired back. "But if you really insist–"
She cut him off with a laugh. "I'm not pressing my luck. Besides, from what you've said?" A flicker of a gaze towards him. "I think you might have more in common with me than the guys who stuffed me in a cell."
"I might," Cloud agreed. The wriggling fear in the back of his head said otherwise. But it would have been nice if she were right.
"I owe you one for not killing me, and another one for saving my life." She pushed her now empty bowl farther across the counter. "So, thanks, Cloud."
"Sure." He nodded towards the bowl. "Don't you owe me a third for dinner?"
She just laughed and dropped a handful of gil on the counter. "I'll leave it at two for now."
Cloud blinked. "Thought you were light on gil."
The woman gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry. I just needed an excuse to keep you from running off." She shifted around on her stool, facing away from the stand. "So, look. I don't know how much you care about debts–"
"I don't."
"–but I'm not a fan of leaving a place without paying back what I owe. Call it a creed. Or, I'm just a gentlewoman like that." She smirked for no more than an instant before her expression melted back into honesty, almost humility. "Like I said, I owe you. And besides, we've both got debts to call in with Shinra. When the time comes for that...I think it'd be nice to have someone like you on my side. And I bet you could use someone like me." She lifted a hand, palm-up towards the dark sky. A flicker of sparks across her fingers without so much as an incantation, shifting embers that burst into a steady fire suspended above her palm. "So, I guess what I'm trying to say?" She closed her hand, extinguishing the flame. "Ever think about doubling up, blondie?"
"I don't do partnerships." Cloud scooted off his stool. He couldn't play too easy to get, after all. "But...if you stick around? I'll find something for you to do." And he extended a hand to the woman.
"Sounds like a plan." She smirked into a grin, and took his hand in hers. Cloud could almost feel her callouses through his gloves. "Don't think I mentioned before. The name's Vee." She tilted her sunglasses down, smiling with her crimson eyes. "I look forward to working together."