Chapter Text
Tifa Lockhart held tightly onto the railing as she fought to catch her breath, her hair flying wildly in the wind. Barret and Cait Sith were cautiously standing by, their expressions full of concern and relief at the sight of seeing Tifa alive and well after the ordeal in Junon.
Looking over the side of the airship, the Sister Ray was shrinking smaller and smaller as the Highwind ascended. Tifa could just barely make out a few little blue dots surrounding one red one at the end of the canon. She smiled to herself, pleased at the outcome of her little scuffle with Scarlet.
“Tifa!” Barret stepped forward. “You ok?”
“Yeah,” Tifa panted, then sheepishly touched her face. “My cheeks sting a bit, though.”
Barret laughed heartily, then enveloped her in a crushing bear hug. His hand wrapped around her head and she could feel his fingers shaking. He sighed deeply.
“Thank god,” he whispered into her hair, voice quivering with emotion. Tifa hugged him back.
“Aww,” Cait Sith sweetly hummed as he watched them, his paws over his heart, only for his ears to fly back in fear when Barret separated from Tifa and started stomping towards him.
“And you, Cat!” He pointed, “Why didn’t you tell me you had an airship, dammit?!”
Cait frantically put his paws up in surrender. “I-I had to do something to trick the enemy! There was no safe time I could hae told ya!”
Barret grumbled and turned away, his anger fading, “I thought Tifa was gone…” he said quietly.
“Come now, cheer up! It all worked out, didnae it? Tifa’s safe, you’re safe, and everyone is back!”
“...Not everyone,” Tifa murmured.
The mood soured. Barret and Cait exchanged grim glances.
Tifa sadly let her gaze drift back to the sky. The city of Junon was now little more than a bright speck along the coastline, the sun reflecting harshly off its metal exterior. Now that she had a moment to breathe, she noticed just how spectacular the sunset was. Reds and oranges lit the atmosphere on fire, making the ocean glitter like embers and throwing large shadows behind mountaintops. And between Tifa and the ground, glowing like heavenly wings, were wispy, billowing, beautiful…
…clouds.
Tifa’s arms hung lifelessly at her side, her face fallen.
Barret cleared his throat. “How about…we go have a talk with the group.”
With Cait Sith’s encouragement, Tifa followed behind Barret to the airship’s interior door.
–
Inside, the Highwind boasted tall, grand walls and finely decorated ceilings. The atmosphere reminded Tifa a lot of the inside of the Shinra building, with its sparse decor, neon strips of pale light, and floors so spotless you could see your reflection in them. It was a bit daunting to take in all at once. It certainly showed that the president had frequented the ship.
The group made their way through the corridors and into the open expanse of the observation deck, where pleasant, natural light flooded in through the infinite windowpane.
At the center of the room was a giant spinning globe, holographic symbols adorned on it representing cities and towns throughout the world. Crewmembers sat at various control boards all chattering to each other in numbers and commands. While their uniforms sported the Shinra logo, the coloration of their outfits uniquely matched that of Cid’s clothing. The man himself stood at the helm, heroically positioned at the wheel, chest out and smiling wide. “Keep ‘er climbing!” he shouted, “Use the clouds for cover! Let’s disappear!”
“Yes sir!” The crewmates all cheered, each of them eager to follow Cid’s every action. The ship lurched slightly as it picked up speed, overhead bangs and clangs lost amongst a constant whirring of the propellers. Cid nodded, clearly pleased, then spotted Tifa.
“Ahh, and there she is, the girl of the hour!” he grinned. “That was one hell of an escape! Straight out of an action movie!”
“I’m alive too, by the way,” said Barret.
“Yeah, yeah, congrats to you.”
“We’re glad you’re both alright,” said Nanaki, tail wagging by the windows. Vincent stood against a nearby wall, giving a slight nod of agreement.
”Ughhhh, welcome back,” whined Yuffie, laying face up in a heap on the floor. Tifa was reminded of her intense motion sickness.
“Welcome aboard my airship, the Highwind!” Cid flaunted, arms out. “Took a little mutiny, but we successfully wrestled my baby back from Shinra and now she’s back where she belongs. She’ll take us anywhere we wanna go, lickety split! Whaddya think?”
Tifa slowly approached the bridge, looking left then right, unblinking.
“What’s wrong?” Cid asked, clearly disappointed. “You should be excited!”
“Cid!” Nanaki chided.
“What?!” Cid exclaimed, meeting the serious and demanding eyes of all of his companions. Their captain seemed to understand, sheepishly scratching the back of his neck. “Right…”
“...Not enough crew,” Tifa murmured.
The previously noisy room now fell silent. Too silent. As though they were respectfully giving hush for a funeral rite. Everyone’s shoulders sank and their heads bowed. Yuffie sniffled to herself, and one of the crewmembers distastefully commented, “So sad…”
Tifa hated it. Oh, she hated it. With a horrified gasp, she looked around the room at everyone, saying sharply, “What are you doing?”
Their gazes stubbornly stayed glued to the ground. Tifa couldn’t believe it, her heart beating faster.
“Why are you all acting like this? Like he’s-” she swallowed the word.
Barret shook his head. Tifa felt fury rise in her, marching to face him. “He’s not!”
He refused to meet her. She pivoted to Cid, her desperation growing, “He’s not!”
“Tifa…” Nanaki started.
“He’s not,” her voice cracked. “He can’t be.”
“Tifa. We all were there…,” said Barret. “The collapse at the cave, with all of those falling rocks around him and the ground splitting open, I don’t think that…” he trailed off.
No. No no no no. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t. Tifa’s mind launched like a rocket, shooting this way and that, searching high and low, jumping through hoops to try to find some way where Barret was lying. Some way where he could have made it out. He was alive. He had to be. He had to. She just lost Aerith, she just-
“Mmh,” Tifa squeaked, high-pitched and involuntary as all of her grief crashed like a tidal wave at the thought of Aerith. Her palm slapped over her quivering lips, eyes burning and throat locked shut.
Images of Aerith flashed in front of her. Her smile. Her clothes. Her voice. Her gentle reassurances to Tifa that everything would be ok. Then she thought of Cloud. His face. His walk. His pout. His confident reassurances to Tifa that everything would be ok.
She saw Aerith bleeding out on a marble altar, Cloud disappearing under an avalanche of rock.
Everything was not ok. She wanted to cry.
“I don’t…I don’t know what to do,” she confessed, broken and small, the words barely getting past the lump caught in her throat. “Meteor is coming…the weapons are rampaging…I don’t know what to do.”
“We fight, that’s what," Barret stepping forward and crouched to meet her eyeline. “The world still needs saving, Tifa. We’re the only ones who can do it. We just have to be strong.”
Tifa could hardly hear him, still lost in the vastness of her heartache.
“If only Cloud were here…”, she continued numbly. “Then everything would be alright.”
She walked past Barret, eyes trained on the sky past the window.
“Cloud would…stand that cocky little way he did, shrug his shoulders and tell me, ‘It’s alright, Tifa.’ He would stand here in the middle of this room and rally us as our leader. Or well… he’d try. Honestly, he might just sound awkward and kind of strange… and Cid,” Tifa turned to face him, wearing a thin smile. “...you’d probably tease him for it. Yuffie, you too. And he’d look away all embarrassed.
“Barret, you would pick up his slack, trying to give us a better, more proper motivational speech, in which Nanaki would have your back but Cloud would roll his eyes at you. Everyone else would probably laugh. Cait Sith would make some joke, and we’d all laugh harder, or maybe it would really be quite terrible and we’d all sigh. Vincent, you would get so sick of all of it that you would just straight up leave the room, and the rest of us would have to scramble to follow after you to finally get on with our mission.”
As Tifa went on and on, the others looked at each other, some with sadness, some with hints of a smile, some with concern. Tifa touched the glass of the window.
“And Aerith would…she would…,” Tifa’s throat squeezed tighter, tears pooling in her eyes, making the shapes of the clouds blurry and distorted. She heard sniffles behind her at the mention of their beloved friend, some of her companions breaking at the name.
She sighed, feeling as though perhaps she had gone too far. Swallowing her grief, she sighed.
“I’m sorry everyone. I don’t know what's wrong with me.”
Tifa felt soft fur brush against her leg. Nanaki had nuzzled under her palm, gazing up at her sadly.
Tifa rubbed her eyes, letting out a puff of pitiful laughter. “Thanks.”
“We all miss Aerith,” he said. “And we all miss Cloud.”
No. It’s not the same. Cloud isn’t dead.
“You’re not alone, Tifa. We’re here for you.”
The atmosphere changed from mournful to comforting, and Tifa let the tension in her fade out with a long exhale. Everyone behind her was smiling and nodding along with Nanaki’s words, some with tears in their eyes at the bittersweet moment.
Yuffie especially seemed to be on the verge of crying, but she was trying her hardest to fight it. Her face quivered until at a certain point, she furiously rubbed her face into her sleeve, and stood up, exclaiming, “What if Cloud’s alive somewhere?!”
Huh?! Everyone gaped at her, glaring as though she had just ruined the progress they’d made with Tifa.
It was too late, Tifa’s eyes went wide and she left Nanaki’s side.
“Yuffie!” Barret scolded.
“I mean what if he is?! We didn’t actually see what happened to him! He could still be out there!”
“The odds of that, Missy, are damn near impossible!” said Cid. “Even if the rocks didn’t squish him, he’d have fallen into the lifestream, and there’s no surviving a trip into mako!”
Tifa flinched at Cid’s disturbing choice of worlds, but found the courage inside of her to speak up.
“No! That’s not true, I fell into the lifestream and I survived!”
“That was different,” said Barret.
“You were only in there for a wee moment. It’s been well over a week since we lost Cloud,” added Cait.
“But we have to try! Cloud’s our leader! He’d do the same for us! Ask yourself, truly ask yourself, would Cloud give up if it were any of us instead?”
The others went quiet. Even Yuffie, who had impulsively jumped to Tifa’s side, now shrinked at Cid’s logic. Regardless, none of them could prove Tifa wrong.
Because she was right. Cloud would take the chance to rescue any one of them, even if it seemed ‘damn near impossible’ as Cid had said. It seemed funny with perspective, and a little humbling. Even though Cloud was aloof, antisocial, and prickly at times, each one of them realized in that moment that perhaps he was the most selfless and caring of them all.
Nanaki seemed to understand this. He hesitantly spoke up, “I mean…you said he fell into the lifestream, right? Well there’s this place I’ve heard of…where the lifestream gushes out to the surface.”
“Huh?”
Nanaki faced the others with a little more confidence, “The lifestream runs in a current under the ocean, but there are cracks where it seeps out. Maybe…maybe that’s where Cloud is!”
Her companions shifted, unsure and considering. Even Tifa felt a twinge of disbelief at the legitimacy or possibility of what Nanaki was saying, but none of that mattered. She could worry about what was possible later. She had found her resolve, and whether it was fueled by genuine hope or foolish denial, she met their uncertainty with steel.
“Yes! Nanaki is right. If Cloud is there, everything will be worth it and we will have our leader back. If not, then…” Tifa ignored her feelings, pushing straight ahead instead to convincing the others. “...then no problem! We won’t have lost anything by trying, and then we can focus on saving the planet!”
Barret eyed her with suspicion, seeing right through her. He scratching the back of his head, sighing.
“Tifa, listen…” he began, his voice low and serious. “It’s…it’s not that I don’t want to. Or that I wouldn’t. But…the man we would be looking for, the man we might find…he wouldn’t really be Cloud. Remember what Hojo said?”
“Do not ever trust a word that comes out of that man’s mouth,” Vincent snapped.
Tifa paled. She had forgotten all about that. But Hojo had said those things about Cloud. About him just being one of his experiments in the mission to recreate Sephiroth. And while Vincent could be right about Hojo lying…
Sephiroth too, had confirmed the same things.
After their fight against Jenova in the Northern Crater, Sephiroth had used the whispers to whisk Cloud and Tifa away into an illusory world of his own making. It was there that Cloud’s mind was shattered, assaulted by Sephiroth’s words about him not having any feelings, a name, or even not being real. Tifa had begged Cloud to cover his ears and when that didn’t work, she begged Sephiroth to stop. But the damage had been done. Not just to Cloud, but to her.
She had promised Cloud that she would save him, just like he had done for her. Becoming his anchor had been a concrete reason for her to stow her doubts and ignore his inconsistencies. So when her resolve had faltered, and she wondered for a brief moment if Sephiroth really was telling the truth, well…that was when Cloud truly fell from grace.
It was all her fault. She had betrayed him. If only she had held true, Cloud wouldn't have followed her in her doubt, leading to his breakdown.
“Tifa…” said Barret. “We only thought it was Cloud because…”
“I know.”
“He didn’t even recognize that Aerith was de-”
“I know!”
That was unfair, Barret.
“I know…,” Tifa said, softer. “But that’s why I have to find out for sure. I have to see him again.” She looked at Nanaki, imploringly. “Where is this place?”
Nanaki’s ears went back, afraid he might have caused more harm than good. “...Mideel.”
“Mideel…,” Tifa echoed. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Cid sighed, shaking his head, before facing his subordinates. “You heard the lady!”
“Sir!” They shouted. The Highwind tilted as it changed course, making a clean break to the south. The others dispersed as the sun set below the horizon, the first twinkling stars shining in the dusk.
Even as the orange sky faded to black, she watched out the window with a wide smile on her face. She found that if she pushed aside all reason, logic, truth, facts, likelihood, and reality itself, she could feel in that moment, the slightest sliver of hope.