The Conscience of the King
			Chapter 15: Seven Year Ache

"You acted like you were just born tonight 
Face down in a memory but feeling all right 
So who does your past belong to today 
Baby, you don't say nothing when you're feeling this way 
Girls in the bars thinking 'Who is this guy'
But they don't think nothing when they're telling you lies 
You look so careless when they're shooting that bull 
Don't you know heartaches are heros when their pockets are full 
Tell me you're trying to cure a seven year ache 
See what else your old heart can take 
Boys say 'When is he gonna give us some room'
The girls say 'God I hope he comes back soon'..."
	-- Roxanne Cash



Date: Fri, 13 Mar 985, 08:04:38 -0000 (MST)
From: jtaylor@shinra.com (via UUCP)
To: hojo@shinra.com
Subject: Experimental Animals

Dear Professor Hojo,

There's been an accident out here in Nibelheim, and two of the
experimental animals have escaped. Please advise at your earliest
convenience.

--JT


			-- * --


	On one hand, planning and executing a revolution was a lot of
hard work. On the other hand, Tifa had at least gotten a hell of a lot
of extra hired help out of it.

	Out of everyone who'd signed on -- as members of Avalanche and
as random bar help; the two were often one and the same -- the one who
was the most help, oddly enough, was the one member she'd never
expected. Jessalyn "Oh, God, the first name is ridiculous, call me
Jessie" Naverre had simply shown up at the bar one morning over a year
ago, with what appeared to be a Shinra-issue corporate laptop under one
arm, and declared that she would be joining.

	"Joining what?" Tifa had asked, blinking in surprise.

	"The cause. I'm the best friend you never knew you had; I'm the
one who just wiped out six years' worth of Shinra-controlled data on the
slum rebel groups, which is what led /me/ to /you/ -- and which is why
you won't have anyone breathing down your backs anymore. While I was
working for Shinra, I was working for ExSec. I'm not working for Shinra
anymore, and ExSec is going to have a vested interest in getting me
/back/. Particularly considering that the only copy of their precious
data is sitting in this bar right now." Jessie had jerked a thumb at the
laptop, and then grinned back at Tifa brightly. "You got a beer? I'm
thirsty as hell. Running for your life will do that to you."

	They hadn't trusted her, of course. Not at first. But Tifa had
passed along a quiet word to a few of her more discreet friends, and
Jessie -- if that was her name -- had disappeared one day and come back
a week later looking nothing at all like the woman whose picture was on
the evening news as wanted for industrial espionage. And Jessie had
picked up an apron without even waiting to be asked.

	It was a very good thing, Tifa mused as she pulled her legs up
underneath her, sitting at the bar and watching Jessie's fingers fly
across the laptop's keyboard. They certainly could have done things
without Jessie, but she made certain things a hell of a lot easier.
Jessie had been the one to first hand Tifa the cell phone, precisely
identical to the thousands of phones that were present even in the slums
-- cheap, mass-manufactured, plastic, with hours paid for in advance at
exorbitant rates. "Don't lose that one," Jessie had said with a devilish
grin, "and don't toss it out when it runs out of time, either. Bring it
back to me."

	"Why's that?" Tifa had asked, eyeing the phone, which was a
particularly garish shade of pink.

	"Untracable, untappable, and being paid for out of the boundless
pockets of Ma Shinra. They can listen in on cell conversations, and
they've got all sorts of stuff set up to monitor things. They'll be
listening in half a heartbeat if someone says any of the important
keywords, like 'bomb', or 'reactor', or 'Shinra', or 'Mako', or anything
like that. But not on this one." Jessie had waved a hand. "Just make
sure that you don't talk about anything important with someone /else/ on
a cell phone, because I can't encrypt /both/ ends of the conversation.
Just the one."

	And now, Jessie was sitting cross-legged on one of the bar
stools, her laptop (with the Shinra decals and stickers filed off, of
course, and repainted to look like an explosion in a hippie store) in
front of her. "Almost got it re-indexed," she chimed, cheerfully. "Gosh,
I sure do wish I'd lifted the database index, instead of just getting
the data and wiping the schema. This would have been a lot less annoying
if I had."

	"I'm certain it would have been," Tifa agreed, dryly.

	"I just lost you again, didn't I, Tif'." Jessie was generally
good at trying to remember that her fellow members of Avalanche had
never even touched computers before, much less programmed them. 

	"Yeah, you did. And before you start going on about how your
laptop is like my attic and you lose things on your hard drive with as
much frequency as I lose things in my attic, I think I'll just head the
lecture off at the pass and ask whether or not you're sure you have the
data." Tifa leaned backwards over the bar, snagging the handle of the
coffee carafe with one hand and refilling both cups of coffee.

	"I think so. I'm pretty sure, at least. I know I snagged
everything I could before I left, and I'm pretty sure that was in there
somewhere. I just have no idea where it might have been saved. But I
know I had the data on the reactors. That was what made me jump ship
down to here." 

	The information that Jessie brought them had been what changed
the focus of the fledgeling group. She had unveiled, one by one, a
number of documents that had made all of their veins run cold. Barret
had been the most heavily affected. "I knew they lied to us," he'd said,
slowly turning one page of long-term studies over to read the chilling
numbers on the other side. "I didn't know they lied this bad. I didn't
know they were rapin' the planet this bad in order to rape us."

	That had summed it up for all of them. That had also decided
them on their plan of attack. It had taken nearly two years to pull a
plan together, all the while doing little things to disrupt the running
of Shinra's little empire. Nothing serious, nothing major; some graffiti
here, some minor sabotage there. Nothing that would get noticed. 

	Nothing that killed people.

	Tifa thrust thoughts of Johnny and his group out of her mind as
she made another circuit around the bar, collecting empty glasses and
leaving them by the sink for Biggs or Wedge or Barret to handle when
they got back from running their errands. Another benefit of the way
matters stood was that she didn't have to do dishes very often anymore.
She wasn't about to argue with this fact, either. "Well, once you manage
to find it, let me know. We should start actually working up plans for
the job soon."

	Jessie nodded. "You got it, boss!" she agreed, and then clicked
her tongue. "I should pack up and put on my Cheerful Barmaid face soon,
shouldn't I? What time were you planning on opening tonight? And are you
doing dinner, or should I go out and pick up takeout?"

	Tifa glanced at the clock over the bar and frowned thoughtfully.
"I should have time to put something together, yeah. Do you know what
time the usual crew of idiots should be back?"

	Jessie shook her head. "Sometime soon. They wouldn't leave you
hanging for a Friday night, but I don't know what time they'll be back."

	"Well, we'll find out when they get here, now won't we?" Tifa
picked up an apron and tied it around her waist. "And you know what that
means?"

	"What's that, boss?"

	Tifa grinned. "/You/ get to do the dishes."

			-- * --

	(maybe you're going somewhere)

	(maybe you're here for a reason)

	He could remember coming to Midgar -- looking for a job, wanting
to join SOLDIER, to be like --

	(but you never were a SOLDIER)

	(but you don't want to be anything like him after all)

	--but no, that had been Before, and this was Now, and he wasn't
a SOLDIER anymore. He had been. He remembered being a SOLDIER. He
remembered being 

	(dead)

	He shook his head to clear it. Where /was/ he?

	Midgar. Right. Gone for a SOLDIER. No. He'd been in SOLDIER. He
wasn't in SOLDIER anymore. No. He didn't remember being discharged, but
he wasn't a SOLDIER anymore. He had been. He wasn't anymore. Maybe there
wasn't any more war. This idea occurred to him, and he studied it for a
moment, before deciding that had to be it. No more war. No more SOLDIER.
Which made him a free agent.

	("Listen, I'm gonna become a mercenary and that's that. Boring
stuff, dangerous stuff, anything for money. I'm gonna be rich!")

	He needed to look for work. He'd thought about going back home.
Maybe there'd be something for him there

	(remember the fire remember the blood remember /her/ dying)

	-- no. On second thought, he'd left home because there wasn't
anything there for him. Midgar was where everything was happening.
There'd be something for him here.

	He just wished he could /remember/. 

	(what's your name? /who do you think you are?/)

	(Wet. Bright. Can't move, can't breathe. Someone talking, dry
and sandy, scraping against itself to try and break the silence. "Faith,
here's an equivocator, that could swear in both the scales against
either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not
equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator..." He tries to speak.
Can't. Choking, he's choking and all he can see is blue.)

	There was something he needed to do, there was some reason he
was here. He couldn't remember. He had been sent for -- no, he had been
sent -- no, he had come to Midgar, and he didn't remember it being this
dirty, this cramped. Everything had a layer of thin grey grime over it.
Like the city had been dipped in filth and left out to dry. Or maybe
that was just his eyes. He was having trouble seeing again. Still.
Everything seemed washed-out to him, unnatural. Or maybe that was how it
was supposed to look. He couldn't remember.

	Couldn't remember.

	Questions, all he had was questions.

	Was Midgar his prison? Had he come here to die? He could feel it
sleeping inside of him. Something wrapped up in chains and waiting for
the proper moment to be released. It had brought him here, he thought,
somehow. That part of him that dreamed in silence and bore another name.

	Maybe he was going mad. Maybe he had already. Strangely, the
thought comforted him. If he were mad, at least he would have a reason
for not being able to remember. 

	His head hurt. Was his head supposed to hurt? He couldn't
remember the last time it hadn't. Was that part of being a SOLDIER? 

	(but you weren't a SOLDIER)

	/sir I'm going to have to ask you to leave we're closing/

	maybe if he found where he was going there'd be answers there

	/there's a shelter over in sector seven if you need a place to
stay for the night/

	Dimly, he remembered: he had slept once, once upon a time. Slept
for many years, rocked to sleep in the warmth and wet of the womb. But
it hadn't been a womb. It had been a -- 

	/sir I'm going to have to ask you to leave/

	Leave. Yes. Leave. Couldn't stay too long in one place. He
remembered that from when he was younger. If you stayed too long in one
place, the monsters would come. He was a SOLDIER now. He killed
monsters. He didn't have to worry. But he had to leave. 

	Maybe he'd go and find the train. Trains would take you places.
He didn't know where he was going, but the train would take him there.
And maybe once it got him there, his head would stop hurting.

			-- * --

	"/Sir/." The emphasis in Beatrice's voice penetrated Rufus's
concentration, and he looked up from the screen of his laptop to blink
at her. She had the look on her face that meant she'd been standing
there for a while, and dimly, he wondered how long it had been.

	His head hurt; he picked up one hand to rub at his temples,
thumb and middle finger spanning his forehead. "Sorry, Beatrice. What do
you need?"

	Sharp click of high heels sounded across the floor. He hated the
floor in this office. He hated the office. He hated fucking Junon, but
that was a given. "It's not what I need. It's what you need." She
reached over and pushed the laptop shut, firmly. "You need to stop doing
whatever you're doing, put the work down, and go and take a walk. You
haven't seen the sunlight in days; your skin is turning the color of a
bag of flour."

	Rufus shook his head. "I can't," he muttered, and reached for
his pack of cigarettes, lighting one automatically, going to put it down
on the side of the ashtray, and discovering that there was already one
there. He didn't remember having lit it. "I /can't/. Beatrice, have you
ever gotten the sense that something you're working on is big, so big
that if you don't break it in time, the /shit/ is going to /hit the
fan/? And you don't know what it is, or why it's nagging you so hard,
you just know that all of a sudden you've got this sense that there's
/no time left/?" Dimly, he was aware of how insane he sounded.

	Beatrice, however, had been Rufus's private secretary for four
years, and by then, she'd seen it all. Firmly, she pointed at the door.
"You can still think about it outside, whatever 'it' is. If you stay in
/here/ much longer, you're going to be absolutely useless, and then
you'll get nothing at all done."

	She was probably right. Hell, she was usually right.
Reluctantly, Rufus stood up, and then reached out a hand on impulse to
catch one of Beatrice's wrists. She looked up at him, startled; he
almost never touched her, and certainly not when working. "Come with
me," he blurted. "I've been working on this so long I'm just going
around in mental circles, and I don't know how to kick myself out of
them. Maybe if I talk it out with someone else, something will occur to
me." 

	Beatrice raised an eyebrow. "I'm certain that whatever it is,
you're not supposed to be talking about it with anyone. But as I'm
perfectly aware that you don't bother paying a single bit of attention
to what you're supposed to be doing, you're going to do it anyway." She
gave him a little smile. "What's bothering you, sir?"

	Rufus let go of her wrist and stood up, running a hand through
his hair and pacing over to look out the window over the streets of
Junon. "I've got this sense of doom hanging over my head. It's like I
can see the numbers ticking down. It's all -- everything is about to
explode. And I don't like it." He turned around to look at her; she
watched him carefully, but said nothing. "Come on. Let's go take a walk.
It'll get me outside --" /and out of this office, which is probably
bugged/, he didn't need to add -- "and maybe shake a few details loose
in my head."

	He took the time while he and Beatrice were walking out to the
beach to gather his thoughts; it wasn't until they'd gotten halfway down
the beach that he spoke again. "You know that I've been working on
trying to figure out what happened in Nibelheim five years ago, right?"

	"Of course." It might have been beneath Beatrice's dignity to
take off her shoes and walk on the beach, but she had done it anyway.
"You haven't asked for my help in researching anything, but I've
certainly been aware of it."

	The fresh air did help; Rufus ran a hand through his hair and
stopped at the edge of the ocean, just before the sand turned damp. "I
don't like what happened there, Beatrice. I don't like what happened,
and I don't like what they told us about what happened. It doesn't make
sense; it doesn't add up. There's pieces missing."

	She nodded, taking that statement at face value; if Rufus said
that there were pieces missing, she would believe him. "Tell me what you
know," she said. "If I can't help, at least the act of telling it might
help."

	Rufus nodded, sighed, and looked out over the ocean. "All right.
Sephiroth went to Nibelheim. He said that Heidegger was sending him out
there to check on reports of unusual monster activity around the
reactor. That was the last thing that I heard from him, unless you count
one radio contact where neither of us could hear more than two words in
a row." He held out one hand to tick off points on his fingers. "One: It
was supposed to be a routine monster check; they sent two SOLDIERS and
two guards from the regular army, and none of them came back. Two:
Nibelheim was destroyed five days later, and the company, by which I
mean my father, spent millions of gil to cover that fact up. Three: When
Seph called me, before he died, he mentioned Hojo, and Nibelheim, and
something called the Jenova Project."

	Beatrice turned her head sharply to look at Rufus. "The what?"

	Rufus broke off his recitation of facts and blinked. "The Jenova
Project. Apparently it was some kind of top-secret project that was
running about thirty years ago --"

	"In Nibelheim." Beatrice blinked a few times, and then held up a
hand. "Hold on." She closed her eyes, and her brow furrowed in
concentration.

	Rufus knew what that signal meant. Beatrice, among her other
talents, had a phenomenal memory; something Rufus had said had tickled
something in her encyclopediac recall, and she was trying to chase it
down in the tunnels of her thoughts. He wondered why he hadn't thought
to ask her sooner; he should have realized that if anyone would know, it
would be Beatrice.

	She finally frowned and opened her eyes again, shaking her head.
"I can't remember. I know I've heard the name before, from back when I
was just starting out in the secretarial pool. I used to sub for the
science department a lot. I think it might have been one of their
projects." She frowned further. "I'm sorry, I just don't remember."

	Rufus shook his head. "No, it's all right. I know it was a
science department project, since Hojo was involved with it. I just
haven't been able to find any information on it, beyond the fact that it
existed." He looked back over the ocean, wishing that it were Midgar
instead. He hated the ocean. "You know how this company works when it
comes to information, Beatrice."

	Beatrice nodded. "Nothing ever disappears, no matter how much
you might want it to. Someone always knows."

	"Except nobody knows about this." Rufus took a deep breath and
let it out on a sigh. "I've spent the last five years trying to find
something. And I can't. It was the last thing that Seph ever asked me to
do, and at first -- afterward -- I was looking because I wanted to know
what he'd been getting into -- because it might have been what killed
him. But now I'm looking because /no one/ should be able to bury
information that deeply in this company, and that scares the hell out of
me."

	"And you think that whatever this is, it goes beyond just what
happened to General Sephiroth." It wasn't a question; Beatrice knew
Rufus too well.

	"I'd bet my life on it." Rufus pulled out his pack of cigarettes
and lit one, sheltering the lighter's flame from the wind with his body.
"Nobody's ever been able to satisfactorially explain to me just what it
was that made Seph snap and go mad. Look, I know -- /knew/ -- Seph. For
Ramuh's sake, Beatrice, he was a fucking /vegetarian/ because he didn't
think that animals should have to die for his dinner. Every single
person he killed, during that war, came back to haunt him. I can't think
of any situation that would make him level a town." He gestured a little
with the hand holding the cigarette. "And you know what? /Hojo/ freaked
out when he found out that Seph had been sent to Nibelheim. Oh, not a
lot, but just enough. Just enough to notice."

	"Well, he probably just has bad memories of Nibelheim," Beatrice
said, her tone reasonable. "After all, his wife died there."

	"His -- /what/?" Rufus whipped his head around to look at
Beatrice, and he could feel his eyes going wide. "His /wife/?"

	Beatrice blinked. "You didn't know that Doctor Hojo was a
widower?"

	"I most certainly did not." Rufus frowned. "Who was she?"

	"Her name was ... oh, I remember this, I do. Lucy? Lucinda?
/Lucrecia/. Lucrecia Fallon. She was another scientist on that project,
and the two of them got married out there. I remember, because I was in
the science department that month, and we all took up a collection for a
wedding present." Beatrice frowned again, her eyes going distant. "She
died ... oh, about a year later. She was so young, and from what I'd
seen he loved her so much. He was devastated."

	That sense of impending trainwreck was getting stronger in the
back of Rufus's mind. "How did she die?"

	Startled, Beatrice met Rufus's eyes. "Childbirth." 

	The promised trainwreck materialized behind Rufus's eyes as a
sudden explosion of intuition. "What happened to the baby?"

	Beatrice shook her head. "I don't remember, sir. I don't think
we ever knew." 

	"Seph never knew who his parents were," Rufus breathed. "I --
oh, Ramuh, it's insane, but what if --"

	"Doctor Hojo was his father?" Beatrice frowned dubiously. "I
suppose it's possible. I don't know how /likely/ it is, but it's
certainly possible. After all, General Sephiroth was the right age, or
thereabouts."

	Rufus held up a hand, his mind racing. "That explains it. That
explains why Hojo always seemed to have some weird kind of interest in
Seph, and why -- but why Nibelheim? Why would Hojo be worried about
sending his son -- if Seph was his son -- to Nibelheim?"

	Beatrice chewed on her lower lip. "I don't know. Maybe something
happened in Nibelheim. Maybe that had something to do with why the
project was buried, and why no one knows about it now."

	Rufus scrubbed his hand over his face. "More questions. More
fucking /questions/." He turned away from Beatrice and from the ocean to
pace, irritably, back and forth on the beach. "All right. Let's assume
for the moment that Seph was Hojo's son. God, I can't even think too
hard about that fact without getting creeped out by it, but let's assume
it. So. Hojo finds out that Heidegger assigned Seph to Nibelheim. Hojo
freaks out. Why? -- Because he knew that there was something in
Nibelheim that would make Seph go nuts?"

	Used to Rufus's pacing, all Beatrice did was track him with her
eyes. "Because he knew that there was information left over from the
project, perhaps? Because he knew that whatever it was that was out
there, Sephiroth shouldn't know about it?"

	"Dammit." Rufus rubbed at one of his temples. "I don't trust
him. I don't like him one bit, and I don't trust him. He's got ten tons
of projects that he's working on, and he never tells us one thing about
any of them." He looked out over the ocean, and scowled a little bit
more. "I feel like he's using /all/ of us as experimental animals or
something, and I don't even know what the experiment /is/. I need to go
out to Nibelheim. I've needed to go out to Nibelheim for five years now,
and I never get the damn time, but whatever the hell is going on out
there, I'm going to need to /see/ it. For myself. What's /left/ of it,
anyway. Tseng said that there was really nothing left of the place." 

	Beatrice nodded. "That sounds like an excellent idea, sir.
Should I add it into your schedule for this weekend?"

	Rufus frowned. "Well, we don't have a helicopter out here, do
we. Dammit. I'll have to take the troopship over, and the next ship
doesn't leave for another three weeks." He shook his head. "I'll email
Tseng and see if I can get him to whip up some sort of an excuse to get
out here with a chopper. I'll let you know."

	Beatrice nodded. "Very well, sir." She paused. "...I don't
suppose I can go inside now? The sand is getting into my stockings."

			-- * --

	Train. The rumble of the tracks ran through his head, making it
pound even worse. God. Was this what his head was supposed to feel like?
Was his head supposed to hurt

	(she's hurt she's hurt you have to go and help her she's /hurt/)

	so damn much? He couldn't remember the last time he hadn't had
that ice-pick stabbing behind his left eyeball. Pain. God, it /hurt/.

	Train. He was going somewhere. He was going to Midgar. He had to
put on the uniform and go to Midgar. No. He was in Midgar. He'd gotten
to Midgar. He'd gone to Midgar. Looking for a job. No. Looking to join
SOLDIER. No. He was a SOLDIER. He'd been a SOLDIER. He wasn't a SOLDIER
anymore.

	No more war. Right. The war was over, and he could go home.
Except he couldn't go home. Something had happened to home. He'd just
left home. He'd come to Midgar.

	Midgar had come for him.

	("You know why they named it Midgar, right? World of men. That's
what it means. Guess they wanted a name that would say something about
the stinkin', teeming mass of humanity they've got trapped in here,
right? Hey, buddy, guess that means you come from the land of the dead.
I'd be careful about going home if I were you, huh?")

	Who had said that? A friend, with large blue eyes and sharp
black hair. But the image was gone as soon as it occurred to him.

	 /Cold/. He was so cold. Couldn't feel his hands, they were so
cold. Maybe they weren't there anymore. He couldn't remember the last
time they'd checked in. Maybe his hands had gone MIA. He was MIA. He was
supposed to be reporting back to the army. Except he wasn't in the Army.
He was in SOLDIER. Had been in SOLDIER. Had never been in SOLDIER.

	Maybe if he could get warm he'd be able to think again. Maybe if
he could get warm his head would stop hurting. That sounded like a good
plan. Where was he? Right. Midgar. On a train. He should get off the
train and figure out if there was someplace he could get warm. 

	The buzzing in the back of his head was getting worse. Much
worse. Maybe he was dead and full of worms and that was what was making
all the noise. Compounded it with dust, whereto 'tis kin. Maybe that was
why he couldn't feel his toes. The worms had taken them for supper. Not
where they eat, but where they are eaten. He could remember hearing
someone quote that play for him. Couldn't remember where, or when.
Couldn't remember.

	(/so cold/)

	Somehow he managed to walk. Even without his toes. Or his legs.
Or his feet. Just him and the sword and the buzzing and the noise and
the headache. Yeah. Walk. He had someplace to be. He just didn't know
where it was yet.

			-- * --

	Tifa loved her job. Tifa loved her job. Tifa /loved her job/. 

	Some nights she had to remind herself of this fact more
strenuously than others.

	She took a deep breath and rubbed at the back of her neck, where
the tension headache had been living for the past few hours. It had been
one of /those/ nights. There had been an attempted robbery around nine
PM, which oddly enough had been the only high point of her evening. The
property damage tally -- most of it accidental, some of it incurred in
the course of removing said attempted robber -- had been astronomical. A
table of Midgar U students had come in at around ten, and had been
drinking all night, getting steadily less and less mature -- they were
all younger than Tifa was, and she had to grit her teeth and remind
herself that she was at heart an egalitarian, dammit, and not /all/
Midgar U students were a bunch of spoiled rich brats who were only out
to make trouble. Not even /most/ of them were. Just the ones that
wandered down to the slums on a Saturday night for some cheap booze and
some cheaper thrills. 

	The bar had been standing room only for most of the night, and
all of the customers had wanted dinner or snacks in addition to alcohol,
which meant that she'd had to leave Jessie behind the bar, with Barret
and Wedge and Biggs all running drinks, and they /still/ hadn't had
enough hands. She hadn't gotten a chance to sit down in four hours.
Someone had poured /beer/ on her /hair/. 

	She /loved/ her damn fucking /job/, god damn it, and she was
going to keep smiling if it /killed/ her.

	"Tifa," called Jessie from the doorway, and Tifa looked up
somewhat guiltily; she'd been hiding in the backroom for longer than she
really had to, she knew, and the troops were facing the war alone. "I'll
be out in a sec, Jessie," she called, and scrubbed a hand over her face.

	Jessie leaned into the back room. "Actually, I was coming back
here to tell you to take a damn walk. We've got the situation under
control out here, everybody who wants to be fed has gotten fed,
everybody who's being an asshole has been politely encouraged to get the
fuck out, and we're actually calm enough that Wedge is sitting down and
Barret's finally stopped grumbling. You've been up since six this
morning, and don't think I don't know about that. Take half an hour,
head on out, get some air, clear your head, and by the time you come
back, the zoo should have calmed down to the point where we can kick
everyone out, clean up, and get some sleep." Tifa must have looked
uncertain, because Jessie made a little shooing motion. "Go. I mean it.
Go take a walk. I'll tell Barret you're upstairs lying down so that he
doesn't freak out about you being out after dark again."

	That made Tifa laugh. "I don't know what he thinks is going to
/happen/ to me out there. I've already /been/ mugged ... several times
..."

	"...once by him..." Jessie chimed in, and laughed. "Go. Take
your time. If you're not back by the time that the rest of us are ready
to close it down, I'll wait up for you. I could use the time to get some
work done, anyway. Go."

	It didn't take much convincing; Tifa loved the feel of the city
well after midnight, the sense of energy winding down and turning to
sleep. Midgar never really slept, not truly. But it did a damn good job
of pretending that it did sometimes, and the sort of people who were
awake at two-thirty on a Saturday night -- Sunday morning -- were the
type who understood, for the most part, that sometimes a girl simply
needed to go for a walk.

	She waved to one of the rentboys on the corner -- barely
eighteen, beautiful beyond compare, and cheerfully working the streets
at night to finance a college education by day -- and he grinned and
waved back, blowing her a kiss. "Hey, babe," he called. "Closed up
already?"

	Tifa detoured her course -- though it couldn't really be called
a detour when you didn't have a final destination -- to come close
enough so she didn't have to shout. "They kicked me out of my own bar,"
she said, with a laugh. "I think Jessie got tired of me growling at her.
Anything interesting going down out here tonight? I'm going for a walk.
Anywhere I should avoid?"

	Jared pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Well, rumor has it that Don
Corneo is recruiting again, so you might want to stay away from Wall
Market. Other than that, no, I haven't heard of anything. Quiet night,
really."

	"For /you/, maybe," Tifa said, with a little laugh. "Good luck,
Jared."

	Jared blew her another kiss. "Happy walking, babe," he shot back
at her, and went back to watching the crowds.

	Say what you would about the people who ran the damn city, some
of the people who /lived/ in it were pretty darn decent human beings.

	And you know, when it all came down to it, she reflected, she
really did love this city. She would never have chosen to make her home
there, but when she'd gotten dumped by circumstances in a really bad
situation, she'd somehow managed to wind up with a pretty decent damn
life. And sometimes on evenings like these, when night and morning all
wrapped up into each other and bled out the heartbeat of the city into
the streets and alleyways, it almost seemed like she was happy here.

	There's a certain sense of invulnerability and mysticism that
comes from walking through the streets of a large city in the middle of
the night. There's a sense that if you just close your eyes a little,
tilt your head to the side /just/ far enough, you'll slip into the world
where the city rules its people, instead of the one where the people
rule the city. Five years ago, Tifa, further from home than she'd ever
wanted to be in her entire life, had been terrified of that feeling.
Five years later, she had learned to revel in it.

	She didn't know how long she walked through the city, her hands
in her pockets and her mind a thousand miles away -- on matters of
logistics and planning half the time, idle philosophy the other half --
but what finally brought her back to herself was the first few raindrops
against her skin, wet and dirty as they slipped through the cracks and
rivets of the plate above her head. She was half a block away from the
Sector Seven train station, and the last train of the night was pulling
into the station. Must be nearly three, she judged, casting over the
train schedules in her head and mentally adding the usual delays and
hassles. She should probably get back to the Heaven soon; she /was/
beginning to get tired.

	She had just stopped to look around and ponder whether it was
indeed time for her to go home when she saw the man stumble out of the
last car of the train, slumping to the ground just to one side of the
platform. She quickened her step; people who needed help in the slums
needed help quickly, before someone else with less humanitarian motives
reached them. He looked like he might be hurt, in need of help.

	And then she stopped dead in her tracks as she got within five
feet of him, because she /knew/ him. He picked up his head as her
footfalls stopped; his face was pale and drawn, slick with sweat and the
growing rain, and his eyes were unnaturally luminous. He blinked at her
as though trying to make his eyes focus, squinting against even the pale
glow of the streetlamps, and his lips moved as though he were trying to
say something.

	No, not something. /Tifa/. Her name.

	She dropped to her knees beside him, reaching out to support his
shoulders, as he croaked, again, "Ti-- /Tifa/." 

	Her mind was racing. It couldn't be -- but it was -- but it
couldn't -- 

	He struggled to his feet. "Tifa," he tried again, as though he
were trying out the syllables to see how they fit in his mouth. 

	She reached out a hand to brush the side of his face, where the
rain was beginning to plaster his hair against his skin. "Cloud," she
whispered. He jumped at the touch, and raised the sword he was carrying
as though he was ready to strike her, before relaxing again.

	"Cloud," he repeated, and she frowned; he sounded as though she
had just given him an answer. "That's right." A pause; he scowled. "I'm
Cloud." And /that/ sounded like a correction.

	She took another half-step back, suddenly frightened -- by the
look in those glowing eyes, by the blank expression on his face, she
didn't know. "Is it -- is that really you, Cloud?" She bit her lip. "I
-- I didn't think that you were -- I didn't expect that I'd ever find
you here." ~I didn't think that there was anyone left.~

	"Yeah." He picked up one hand and ran it through his hair, which
served only to make it drip down his back. "Yeah. It's me. I'm Cloud."
He squared his shoulders, and for half an instant looked normal again,
but she still didn't like the look in his eyes.

	"Are you all right, Cloud?" she ventured, hesitantly. "You look
-- sick." He looked more than sick; he looked strung-out, like a junkie
deep in the throes of withdrawal. His clothing was sleeveless; she caught
herself looking for needle tracks, and found none.

	"Yeah. It's okay. I'm fine." Cloud ran a hand through his hair
again, then looked over at her, and if she didn't know better she'd
swear he'd never looked sick at all. He gave her a little smile. "Five
years. Been a long time, hasn't it?"

	She laughed, the sound a little shaky. She didn't want to think
about it. "Sure has. It's been --"

	(five years)

	(/seven years/)

	"-- a very long time," she finished weakly, and tried to force a
smile.

	~He wasn't there. He said that he'd be there if I needed him,
and he wasn't there.~

	~He /was there/. He was there in the end. When it really
counted.~

	~No, he /wasn't/. I waited and waited for him, and he never
came.~

	~But I can remember -- I can remember the flames, and his face,
and the way it felt when I breathed in and could feel my ribs --~

	~I /don't want to think about this/.~

	"Come on," she said, firmly, surprised at how decisive her voice
sounded in her own ears when all she wanted to do was curl up in a
little ball until the fire and the screaming went away. "Let's go get
inside. I've got a place -- I can get you something dry to wear, and
some hot coffee, and --" 

	She broke off; he was looking at her as though she were some
sort of crawling eldritch horror, shambling out from the deep to pull
him back under with her. He reached out and grabbed her wrist in a grip
that was surprisingly strong for how emaciated he looked; she winced as
she felt bone grate against bone. "You're dead," he said, urgently. "I
remember. You died. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. I tried. Are you the
one who came to take me back to Niflheim?"

	She could feel the shivers running down her back -- /ghost
walking over my grave/, they used to call that feeling, back home. Back
-- no, dammit, she wasn't going to think about it. "I'm not dead,
Cloud," she said, briskly, trying to ignore the little gibbering voice
of the scared fifteen-year-old in the back of her head. That had been a
long time ago. It was over now.

	Cloud released her wrist. He looked at her, sharply, and she
could imagine the wheels turning in his head -- like he was trying to
figure something out, fit something into his mental map of the world.
And then that haunted look was back again. "Then I guess I am," he said,
and that was the last bit of lucidity she got from him for a very long
time.

	Jessie was, true to her word, still awake when Tifa -- Cloud
across her shoulder in a fireman's carry by then; he'd descended from
awareness to incoherent mumbling after that last pronouncement, and from
there had finally slumped over into semi-consciousness about half a mile
from the bar at just about the same time that the heavens had truly
opened -- managed to wrestle her burden up the steps to the deck,
swearing profusely in two languages the entire way. Jessie heard the
noise, and poked her head out the door just as Tifa got limp body and
overly large (but thankfully sheathed) sword up the last step. "Shiva's
/tits/, Tif'," she exclaimed. "What the /hell/?"

	"Don't just /stand/ there, you idiot," Tifa panted grimly. "Get
this goddamn hunk of metal the fuck out of my left hip before it wears a
hole there."

	Jessie blinked a few more times, but lept to help, unhooking the
scabbard and harness from around Cloud's shoulders as Tifa hitched the
soaking wet dead weight -- ~/don't think that don't ever think that oh
/Holy/ don't think that/~ -- back up into a better position on her
shoulder and through the door to the bar. She looked around, thought
better of trying to wrestle Cloud up the fifteen impossibly far steps to
the second floor, and instead chose to dump him on the surface of the
bar, dropping down onto a bar-stool next to him and letting her head
down to rest against the surface of the bar. Her hair dripped down her
neck, but she couldn't bring herself to care.

	"He's, uh, not dead, is he?" Jessie asked uncertainly from where
she was hovering at Tifa's elbow. 

	"No, he's /not/," Tifa snapped, sharply, "and don't you even
/think/ that." She could feel her nerves stretching even more thinly,
and she closed her eyes tightly enough to see the starbursts behind her
eyelids. "He's going to be fine, okay? I don't know what's wrong with
him, but he's going to be okay, he's going to be fucking /fine/, and I
don't want a single one of you guys to even so much as /hint/ that he
won't be, do you damn well /understand/ me?"

	"Hey." One of Jessie's hands fell on Tifa's shoulder, and Tifa
jerked, instinctively, at the touch. "Tif'. What's wrong? Who is this
guy?"

	"His name is Cloud," Tifa said, and was horrified to find that
her voice was shaking. "He and I grew up together. I thought he was
dead, and there he was -- he knew me -- oh, gods, Jessie, I don't know
what the hell is going on --" She stopped as the shaking threatened to
become an earthquake and take the rest of her defenses down with it. 

	"We should get him to a doctor," Jessie said, quietly. "He looks
like he's badly hurt."

	"No doctor," Cloud said, without warning, without having even
given the indication that he had been listening, and Tifa practically
jumped out of her skin. "I don't want to go back to the doctor." 

	Tifa's eyes raced over his face, looking for some sort of clue
as to what he'd meant, but he had stilled again. "What do you mean,
Cloud?" she tried, but all the response she got from him was a low,
tuneless hum, like a radio set to the wrong station. 

	She could suddenly feel every last second of the twenty-two
hours she'd been awake for leaning against her shoulders and pushing at
her. Apparently Jessie could, too, because Jessie touched her shoulder
again. "Go on upstairs, Tif'." 

	Tifa somehow found the energy to protest. "I can't. I should
stay up, and help him --"

	"/Go/, Tif'. I'll go upstairs, wake up Barret. We'll get him
dried off and in the spare bedroom. You need to /sleep/." Jessie pointed
at the stairs. "/Go/. You can trust me to take care of him."

	 She tried to keep up the protest, but simple pragmatism wore
out, and she stood, wavering a little on her feet. "All right," she
agreed, uncertainly, her eyes still on Cloud's face. "Wake me if
anything -- if anything changes, all right?"

	"I promise." Jessie put her hands on Tifa's shoulders and gave
her a gentle shove in the direction of the stairs. "Go on. Before you
fall over. You can't take care of anyone unless you're all right
yourself."

	She barely made it up the stairs; she certainly wasn't
concentrating on where she was going, and wound up tripping over one of
Marlene's three-year-old's toys that littered the upper floor. 

	He hadn't been there, she told herself, firmly. She remembered.
He hadn't been there. She'd been fifteen years old, standing at the well
at the edge of the town, waiting to see the boy she barely remembered,
and he hadn't come back. 

	Except he /had/. She remembered that he'd been there. She
remembered that he hadn't been there at all. He couldn't have been
there. If he'd been there, he would be /dead/ right now, not lying
downstairs on her bar.

	~Who says he isn't dead?~ the little voice in the back of her
head suggested, and she bit down on a near-hysterical laugh as she
stumbled into her bedroom, starting to finally feel the effects of the
cold and the rain. She stripped out of her damp clothes, pulled on a dry
t-shirt, and fell into bed without even bothering to give her hair more
than a cursory rub-down, pulling the comforter around her to still her
shivering. It wasn't entirely a physical shivering, though, and it took
her longer than she'd care to admit before she could calm down enough to
sleep.

	When she finally did, it was only to fall into a restless,
haunted sleep. It took a few moments for her mind, mazed with
exhaustion, to even realize she was dreaming, because it started out not
seeming like a dream at all.

	/Jessie stands in the center of the bar with her hands on her
hips. "If Tifa says he stays, he stays. Come on, Barret, the kid's in
some kind of trouble. You know how Tifa gets when it comes to people
needing her help, and it's even worse when we're talking about someone
she knows from back home. She'll put up with a lot for the sake of
family."/

	/Barret turns around from where he's pacing, to look at Jessie.
"That don't mean we gotta let someone wearin' a Shinra uniform into our
places, 'specially not with what we got goin' down. Bad enough we got
the Turks in here every Friday night an' we gotta watch what we say, now
she's gonna bring in some SOLDIER to spy on us? What's she gonna do
next, invite old man Shinra to our meetin's?"/

	/Before Jessie can reply, in the way of dreams, it shifts and
alters, and she's back somewhere she thought she'd never be again; her
eyes open (in the dream, or in the waking?) and she can see the crack in
her ceiling over her bed, the crack that when she was six years old used
to look like a monster ready to leap down off the ceiling and eat her.
She sits up in a single motion (and it can't be a dream, because she can
feel her heart racing, and you can't feel that in dreams, can you?) and
rushes to the bedroom window to throw the shutters open, and Cloud is
looking back at her from the well near the edge of the town. He's
fourteen again. She remembers that night. Almost. He lifts a hand to
beckon her down, and she rushes down the stairs so quickly that she
almost trips over her feet on the rug in the hallway, the rug her
grandmother knit./

	/"Tifa," he says, his voice still reedy with adolescence, and
she opens her mouth to respond./

	/Then she blinks her eyes again and it's raining, but not the
clean and clear mountain rain she remembers from her childhood. It's the
dark and gritty rain of the Midgar slums, the kind that's already fallen
and is now nothing more than ditch drain-water running down from above.
Cloud turns his head to look at her and his eyes are blue and glowing
now, like a SOLDIER's, like a madman's. "Don't slip in it," he says to
her, offhandedly, and she looks down out of reflex./

	/She's not standing in a puddle of water at all. It's a puddle
of blood, and it's curling around her ankles and threatening to pull her
under and into its embrace. She lifts a hand to her chest reflexively,
and it comes away slick and hot and red./

	/"You were close enough to touch Her, but you didn't," Cloud
says, idly. Without seeming to notice that he's doing it, he digs his
own fingernails into the flesh of his left wrist, hooking them sharply
and pulling, and the blood that oozes over his porcelain skin is a
sluggish purple. "But if you keep this up, She's going to want to touch
you."/

	/The drops of his blood fall to the ground and mingle with the
river of her own. She looks down and she can see the flames reflected
there, though the town isn't burning at all when she looks up. Or maybe
it is, and she just can't see it./

	/She stumbles backwards a step, and then another, and then she's
running, running impossibly fast through the blood that's trailing
behind her, feeling the bite of her shattered ribs and the low, wheezing
rattle as her lungs fill with fluid. But she's still running, up the
mountain, tears mixing with rain and blood as she tries to remember
where she is going./

	/Her feet know the way, and she tears through the doors of the
reactor at full speed, half-expecting to see her father lying there.
He's not. But the door to the inner chamber is open, and she catches the
trailing edge of a trenchcoat flying loose behind the figure that's just
--/

	"Auntie Tifa."

	/-- gone through the door, the faintest hint of that impossibly
silver hair trailing behind him, and she knows that she's going to go
charging after him even though it's hopeless --/

	"Auntie Tifa."

	/but this has happened already, it has to have, because she's
already bleeding, he's already cut her, and sure enough when he turns
around to look at her and strike the only thing there is a white and
grinning skull --/

	"Auntie /Tifa/."

	She sat bolt upright, let out a little squeak that turned into a
half-choked scream, and could tell by the way that her throat hurt that
she'd been crying out in her sleep. There probably were more reassuring
ways of being awoken from a nightmare than by finding your bed suddenly
full of three-and-a-half year old peering down at you with a look of
concern far more adult than her years, but at that moment Tifa couldn't
think of a single one of them. 

	"Did you have a bad dream, Auntie Tifa?" Marlene asked, biting
her lip. "You were crying. Like the way I do when I have a bad dream and
you come in to help me."

	It took a few seconds for Tifa to find her voice; she gathered
the girl up in her arms and held tightly, burying her face in Marlene's
hair and inhaling the clean soft scent of it. "It's all right, Marlene,
honey," she finally managed. "I'm sorry I woke you up. It was just a bad
dream. It's all right. I'm fine." 

	Marlene wasn't fooled for a minute. "I brought you Nico," she
said, her voice muffled against Tifa's shoulder, and produced the
implausibly colored teddy bear that Wedge had somehow procured for her
for Yule last year. "He helps me when I have a bad dream."

	Tifa laughed a little, and the sound turned into a half-hiccup,
half-sob. "Thank you, honey," she said, trying desperately to shake
loose the lingering feeling that it had been more than just a dream.
"But you don't need to give me Nico. He has to stay and protect /you/
from the bad dreams."

	Marlene seemed to consider this for a minute, and then wiggled
loose of Tifa's grasp and squirmed under the covers. "Then Nico and I'll
stay here," she declared.

	For some reason, Tifa couldn't think of a good reason to
protest. She took another few deep breaths, sent up a wordless prayer to
/whomever/ it was who watched over fools, children, and purple stuffed
bears, and put her head back down on the pillow.

	Perhaps Nico the bear really was magic, because the next thing
she was conscious of was the sunlight in her eyes. She blinked a few
times, feeling uncharacteristically groggy, and sat up in a rush when
she realized that the sun didn't shine on her bedroom until at least ten
in the morning.

	~How long did I sleep? Why didn't someone wake me up?~

	By the time she'd pulled on clothing and finished re-braiding
her hair, she'd mostly woken up, but Barret took one look at her when
she finally made her way downstairs and left off his dishwashing to pour
a cup of coffee and push it into her hands. "Drink it," he ordered her,
gruffly.

	She looked around before complying. Cloud was sitting at one of
the tables, at what looked to be a calculated distance away from Barret,
a cup of coffee untouched at his elbow; his hands were folded together
on the table, and he appeared to be watching them intently, as he tapped
his index fingers together. He seemed far more lucid than he had last
night -- though privately she admitted that just about /anything/ would
have qualified him as more lucid than he'd been last night. 

	Nobody else was in sight. Tifa looked back at Barret and leaned
against the bar. "You didn't make the coffee, did you?" she asked
dubiously, eyeing the liquid. "I'm not touching it if you made it."

	Barret scowled a little more. "Wedge made it before he left this
morning. Drink. You look like shit."

	She rolled her eyes at him, but obediently took a sip of the
coffee. Barret was a lot easier to deal with when he thought that he was
ordering you around. The coffee wasn't horrible, and she had to admit
that the warmth did a lot to banishing the last dregs of last night's
chill.

	She glanced over to Cloud, who hadn't seemed to notice her, and
then looked back at Barret. "Can you go over to the market for me and
pick up stuff for tonight?" she asked. She wanted a chance to talk with
Cloud without anyone else listening in.

	Barret knew exactly what she was trying to do, and as usual he
wasn't having any part of it. "Biggs and Wedge already went," he said.
"An' Jessie's off arguin' with the beer distributer for you. So I'm
doin' the dishes." His tone indicated that this fact was not up for
negotiation.

	Tifa rolled her eyes a little. "All right," she said, and picked
up the coffeemug. She took it and herself over to stand next to Cloud,
clearing her throat a little to avoid startling him. He looked up,
startled anyway, and his eyes narrowed a little before easing.

	"Mind if I join you?" she asked, indicating the other chair at
the table."

	"It's your bar," he said as he looked back down at his hands,
but his tone didn't seem to indicate that he was trying to be a jerk; it
was just a statement of fact. She hesitated for a second, then sat down,
the legs of the chair scraping against the battered floor. 

	"How are you feeling?" Tifa tried, feeling awkward talking to
the top of his head.

	"Okay. I guess," he said, to his hands. "Better. Sorry about
making you drag me back here last night. You didn't have to do that." 

	He sounded perfectly normal. Tifa caught herself studying the
insides of his wrists, looking for some sign of the wounds she
remembered from last night, until she caught herself and realized that
had been in the dream, not in reality. "I couldn't just leave you
there," she said, softly. "You needed help."

	Cloud picked up his head at that and looked at her, giving her a
faint smile. "Yeah, I suppose I did." Pause. "Thank you."

	That smile, painfully and achingly /normal/, brought a rush of
relief; she caught herself grinning like an idiot back at him. "I
couldn't just leave you," she repeated, and looked down at her coffee.
"You can stay for a while. If you need help. We've got plenty of room."

	"Yeah," he said, again, and his voice rang false for half a
second; she glanced up again to see him looking at her, the smile gone,
his face blank. "I guess I do need help." She blinked and it was gone
and he was giving her that faint smile again, like the last second and a
half had been nothing more than a blip in the film and the director had
corrected it. "Guess I'll find a job somewhere, look for a place to
stay."

	She reached out and put her hand over his; his skin was cool and
dry beneath her touch. He jumped a little bit again, as though her touch
surprised him, or hurt him. "Stay as long as you need to. I don't mind.
Hey, what are -- old friends for?" She tripped over her words as her
brain took the opportunity to throw an image at her. /Dying, dying, and
Cloud was leaning over her in a Shinra uniform, seemingly unaware of the
tears pooling at the corners of his eyes, saying her name over and over
again with a growing hysteria in his voice, and --/ 

	Tifa shook her head to clear it as Cloud slid his hands out from
under hers. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks." 

	He fell silent again, and she kept looking at him for a long
minute, waiting to see if he was going to say anything else. When he
didn't, she pushed the chair back and picked up her coffee. "You can
keep staying in the spare room," she said, briskly. "I'll get you a key
to the building later on, in case you want to come or go when we're not
around. You've probably met everyone by now -- if you don't bug them,
they won't bug you. Bar's open for lunch from around noon to three, and
when we're open at night, you can usually get dinner unless we're
swamped. Don't worry about how late the place is open; upstairs is
soundproofed." She stood up, and looked at him for another half-second,
still waiting for a response.

	He startled her by providing one; he caught her wrist in one of
his hands and held on, tightly. He looked up at her, and the expression
on his face made her catch her breath; it was taut and urgent, as though
he was worried that if he let go, she might not be there. "Tifa," he
said, and then stopped, as though he wasn't sure what he was trying to
say.

	"...What?"

	Cloud shook his head and let her go. "...nevermind." He looked
back down at his hands, and laced his fingers together deliberately.
Without looking back up, he added, "I might not stay long. I heard
they're looking for guards out in Cosmo Canyon."

	Tifa caught her breath, not even wanting to think about losing
him again so quickly. She didn't stop to think about how odd it was to
equate leaving with losing. The thought crossed her mind, quickly --
~how does he know that? He was barely conscious last night.~ "Stay for a
while," she heard herself asking, and didn't like the note of pleading
she could hear in her own voice. "Just a little while." 

	She turned around and rushed off into the back room before he
could respond, telling herself that she was late getting lunch started. 

	They'd named their group 'Avalanche' mostly as a joke. Coming
down on Shinra's head like an avalanche of wet bricks. But she had the
sick sense of dread, way down in the pit of her stomach, that maybe the
avalanche was coming after all, and maybe there was nothing they could
do to stop it.

	She could only hope that they'd all be left able to breathe
after the snow fell.