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“It was true that every time they ran into each other’s roadblocks, they would catch a look, exchange a word or two, and start back into motion.”
“You gotta talk to her,” Barret says, nudging him on the shoulder. “Tifa’s not the type to probe, y’know." His eyes shift around their surroundings, but Cloud can only see the tops of them--dark half-moons on the horizon of his sunglasses.
“I know,” Cloud says, matching his friend’s surveilling eyes.
It’s fine.
Right?
He retraces the mental steps. Tifa didn’t look mad. Sure, the morning after was awkward, but she opened up in her own conscious way, mentioning the tower and coaxing him to do the same. “The place I made that promise to you,” he said, white flag waving from where he stood. Cloud felt in that moment he read her exactly right. I trust you, he thought and when she smiled he felt that she could trust him, even if just a little.
Barret continues from the side, voice dropping, “She gets a little heated, puts you in your place, but that’s it.”
Cloud rolls his eyes. Barret is a terrible whisperer. He’s about to tell him as much when a smirk breaks his scowl along with an image: Tifa giving Barret grief in the past, lecturing him about something he was doing wrong and then teaching him how to do it right. It’s an image that develops instantly. He sees her in the slums, telling him to be nice and how to get free gear; lugging him around the corridors of her home like she just won the lottery. Maybe it was strange to think that way, but he loved it. It made him feel good.
“We gotta have each other’s backs,” Barret says. "Long journey ahead of us. You and Tifa--”
“I get it,” Cloud snaps, stopping in his tracks. “I’ll talk to her later. I promise.”
Barret raises his eyebrows and lifts a gunned arm. Maybe he doesn’t really believe him. Cloud doesn’t really care. He’s too tired from walking aimlessly under the burning sun to give it more thought. With Shinra on their tails and hunger and thirst clawing at their ankles, the last thing they need is conversation. His own wandering thoughts are too distracting, like wet stones he’ll lose his footing over if he’s not careful. The slums don’t matter. Midgar doesn’t matter. They need to make it to safety first.
“All right, I believe you,” Barret says.
Without an audience, Cloud observes the scene in front of him: the girls side-by-side, engaged in conversation. Instinct tells him to speak up. They should pay attention. For monsters. Shinra. The ranch Broden urged them to. The list is long, but then the wind carries a few words and his attention is diverted. Did he hear something about school? Tea parties? Was she talking about Nibelheim?
He frowns. Was something wrong?
He could barely seem to remember what happened or what he said. Was it that bad? Why couldn’t he remember? Right--her scar. Her tears. Stabs of guilt up and down his spine, because he made her cry and somehow stood there unmoved by it. But she had to understand, that wasn’t what he felt. That wasn’t what he meant. Cloud doesn’t realize he slows his gait until Barret turns around several feet ahead.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Fine,” Cloud replies, quick to recover and close their distance. Like his boots on the ground, he stamps out his thoughts. Shelter, safety, food. That’s what matters right now. Tifa glances back. Their eyes meet, and then her face is gone–-long black hair once again the center of his point of view.
Later.
Later.
Everything is fine.