Clouds

24Oct06

“Looks really nice,” a little girl whispered from the stairway. “You made it very pretty, Tifa.”

A woman with long, black hair turned from her task of drying a polished wooden table and looked at the child, a smile on her gentle, tanned face. She stood up straight, stretching out the kinks in her back and let her rag fall onto the table in a heap. Wide brown eyes seemed to be laughing in the early morning light.

“You’re up early,” she said to the girl, glancing around the large bar critically.

Marlene smiled and showed off the large white bow in her hair. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Then let’s get you some breakfast and wake up your brother!” Tifa replied, looking at the brown-haired child before her. “Your dad’s coming back this evening.”

“I know,” the girl answered running back upstairs. “I’ll go get Denzel.”

This left Tifa standing on the main bar floor, staring past the bar counter at the stairs and wondering what kept Marlene from falling asleep this early in the day. According to the large clock that hung above the cash register, it was only six in the morning, and daylight was barely peaking in through the open windows. A cool breeze fluttered through, pleasantly chilling the woman’s warm skin.

She picked up the rag again and finished up with the table she was working on before heading upstairs to cook breakfast for the children. Because having many kids in a household meant a lot of noise, the stars didn’t creak, and she was able to get into Cloud’s office without rousing any of the youngsters. She picked up the phone on the small, wooden desk and dialed a number from memory.

A voicemail message came on at the other end. When it was finished, the woman said, “Hey, just thought I’d call and remind you of the party tonight. Also, there’s a delivery waiting here for you…

***

“…from Rufus.  Sounds like it might be fun, but please be careful. Rufus sounded really strange on the phone. Anyway, see you.” said a female voice on the cell phone.

The blond man holding the phone gently closed the lid and slipped it back into the pocket of his black cargo pants. He looked around the deserted hill for a long moment before getting back onto his motorcycle, a black machine that looked like it was well used and well cared for. Slowly, he pulled a pair of goggles over his eyes and revved up the cycle.  Then he was off, leaving behind a cloud of dust and trail marks.

From a distance, the man looked fairly ordinary. He wore a pair black cargo pants, back boots, and a short-sleeved black shirt with a red design on the back. Muscles were clearly visible on his forearms, but he didn’t look like a body builder. Lithe and graceful, this particular being was fast and agile but not aggressive. Underneath the goggles, his eyes were aquamarine and often fluctuated between shades of blue and green.

The desert stretched before him for miles and miles, but he took the road easily and in stride, knowing that he was going home. He didn’t like parties much, but he had made a promise to come, and he was known for keeping those to the death. Blond spiky hair stood out all over the place, defying gravity while just barely managing to stay out of his face. When it did get in the way, he came to Tifa and received much needed haircuts.

By the time he met up with opposition, he could see the walls of the ruined city and could almost smell concrete and pollution. There were two of them, men in trench coats, standing in the middle of his path. Used to be that he would instantly pull out his large sword and attack, but now he slowed instead, still unarmed though far from harmless.

One wore red. That was the only way to explain it; everything about the stranger on the left, from his hair to the color of his shoes was a bright, nearly neon shade of red. He wore leather pants that almost glistened in the sun. The blonde had a moment to wonder if he had been spray painted that color, for even his eyes reflected reddish hues. His companion was noticeably white and black, divided in half vertically. One half, including the skin was pitch-black in color, the other deathly white. His white face was smiling.

“Hello,” said the red one.

The blond man nodded, but said nothing.

“You must be Cloud,” said the dual faced man, giggling. “A pleasure to meet you, a real pleasure, if you must know.”

His red companion gave a singe, defined nod. “Come with us.”

Blond hair moved a little as the man on the large motorcycle shook his head.

“But you must. Can’t have a party without the guest of honor, right?” The taller of the two men standing in his way raised his right hand into the air.

 The sand and dust on either side of Cloud rose into the air, and then just as carelessly dropped on top of him. Only quick reflexes and a powerful bike kept him from becoming instantly buried. He didn’t want to ask questions, to involve himself in any of this, and so, with a turn of his wheels drove straight past the two. Vaguely he wondered how they’d gotten into this middle of nowhere without any sort of transportation, but the thought didn’t last long.

He knew that they turned to watch his passing, could feel their gazes burrow into his neck, but didn’t care. They weren’t important enough to him, and he still wasn’t a party person, especially when the invitation tried to kill him. The city loomed ahead, large and gray in all its concrete glory.

The remains of the single greatest feat in the last two thousand years, thought Cloud to himself as he drove closer down a broken up highway. Doesn’t really look like much. His speed slowed down from insane to manageably fast, partly because he didn’t want to hit anyone.

The streets in this part of town were falling apart. As part of the district yet to be rebuilt, they didn’t look like much, dusty remains of life, dolls, newspapers, and much more lay on the ground. Most of this area was now abandoned as people moved to Edge, the city at the end of what was once Mitgar. Humans had a tendency of huddling together.

He approached the center square and stopped, looking about at the movement of society, the flow of people from place to place. It was a drab world to live in, and the blond man knew it. At some point when the restoration had just begun, Cloud had tried to voice an opinion about how it might look some day, but apparently large skyscrapers had won the battle.

“We’re looking ahead to the future of Edge, and eventually all of Mitgar,” the councilman had proclaimed back then.

He drove into Edge, got off his bike, and walked the relatively short distance to the bar where he and Tifa lived. The three story place lay on a non-descript street near the center square, away from most of the noise. It was a three story house, where the first floor doubled as bar, while the top two contained offices and plenty of living space. Any number of orphans occupied most of the rooms on any given day.

He parked the bike in the back, away from prying eyes that might see some value in the Fenrir, and then walked in through the front door. Most of the lights were off, since it was only late morning and the bar wasn’t open yet. Tifa usually opened her doors around noon, after the children had their breakfast and lessons, so he wasn’t surprised to find it in this state. For a moment he just stood there, the sound of his boots still echoing in the empty room.

From the stairwell a voice called out, “Hey!”

Tifa grinned and nearly skipped over and wrapped her arms around his waist. “I didn’t think you’d be back so early.”

The dark-haired woman looked stunning no matter how Cloud looked at her, and he sometimes wished he could know more of what it meant to be adult and have the same urges as most other people. He didn’t, however, and that seemed very realistically final. So he hugged back for a moment and stepped back once the dark-haired woman finally let go. Raven hair, suggested his brain for no good reason.

“Here’s the package Rufus brought this morning,” Tifa said, all business now. “I told him you wouldn’t be able to deliver it to his contact until tomorrow, but he was very insistent that it happen today.”

“He called,” the blond man said after taking the package gingerly with both hands.

 The woman seemed genuinely surprised. “I wonder how he got your number, or why he’d call. Usually he just goes through me.”

 Just as carefully, Cloud placed the small metal box back down onto the counter and looked at the stairs. A hot shower sounded very preferable, and he knew that Tifa disliked being disturbed when she did her opening thing. Afterwards, though, he knew that he’d either pick up an apron and help out, or read to the children, or something. Packages from enemies weren’t usually given high priority.

“I’m going to shower,” he said simply and headed up the stairs.

 “What did Rufus want?”

 The blonde turned around and shrugged. He wasn’t the type of person to share his problems with anyone, not eve his friends. For a time, he hadn’t been able to at all, but now he felt somewhat different about the situation. For a fact, he knew that Tifa would want to know what Rufus had said and about the two men in the desert. She wasn’t a nosy person, but she still found room in her heart to worry and for indefinable reasons, the blonde didn’t want that.

He came back and took a seat on a bar stool by where the woman was arranging ale mugs. “He called about the package. The phone call cut off midway, but he mentioned something about experimentation and alien, viral cells.”

“That sounds really strange. I thought She was gone for good.” The woman frowned, but seemed somehow satisfied.

“I met up with two men on my way back here,” Cloud said quietly, forging onwards. “They invited me to a party.”

 That made even Tifa raise an eyebrow. She could fight her way through any number of enemies, punch walls with her bare hands, and stop oncoming trains. Protecting the blond man was apparently the only thing she wasn’t capable of. She tried to, sometimes, but he always ended up the winner anyway.

“That’s weird. Maybe you should lay low for a few days, just to make sure trouble doesn’t come barging in,” she suggested.

 He stood up and headed up the stairs. “Shower.”

 “Yeah, you go do that while I open up and get the ball rolling,” the dark-haired woman replied, apparently content to go about her own business.

I wonder what goes on in his head sometimes, she thought to herself as she finished her stacking and pulled her hair back, letting it fall across her shoulders. How does Cloud see this world? She wondered about that quite often. He wasn’t a cold person, or a calculating one, at that. He just seemed empty, if anything, as if emotions were completely beyond his ability to comprehend.

 She walked over to the doors and leaned against them for a moment before flipping over the sign and letting the regular customers inside. In Edge, where most places were still trying to get situated, many people came to her for lunch. The meals were decent, and apparently many citizens left over from the destruction of Mitgar couldn’t make it through the day without tuning out the world. Sometimes, Tifa wondered if she was doing everyone a disservice by running the Lonely Dove, but most days she felt something was better than nothing. Slipping past the people behind the counter, she began her usual routine.

 “Hey,” she called out to Yuffie. “I didn’t know you’d be by.”

 “Well, a ninja can’t train all the time, you know!” The girl smiled and ran a hand through her short, black curls.

 “I didn’t think you were doing much training,” Tifa commented.

 Already half way up the stairs, the younger woman grinned. “You know me too well. I’m off to use Cloud’s office for some paperwork. Is he in?”

 “Yeah, but he probably won’t be needing his office any time soon.”

 And vaguely, Tifa heard her friend call out, “Kay!”

 She was about to ask the first person what they wanted for lunch when a man dressed in red stepped inside. As if by some spell, the room hushed. Conversations were cut off mid word, and people simply turned to stare. Maybe it was the stranger’s overwhelming height, or possibly the attitude-ridden look on his face, but something about him stood out. Casually, the man walked over and took a seat by the bar as if he was a normal customer.

 Conversation picked up again as Tifa went down the line, asking customers what they wanted. Several of the older children helped out in getting orders or mucking around in the kitchen, alongside two actual cooks. Eventually, in her own time, she approached the tall, red man.

 “What can I get for you?” she asked, pen in hand.

 He smiled lazily. “I came to talk to Cloud Strife.”

 “Do you have an appointment?” the dark-haired woman inquired.

 
“No, but I’m sure he’ll want to hear this,” the man replied evenly. “A lot rests on his decision in regards to that package from ShinRa.”

 
“Marlene, go find Cloud and tell him that there’s a gentleman waiting down here for him. Tell him it’s about Rufus.” Tifa smiled at the girl. “If you can’t find him, don’t worry.”

 “Okay,” said the child happily and skipped up the stairs.

Tifa closed her eyes for a moment, then smiled at the man before her and asked again, “What can I get you?”

 ***

 Marlene came upstairs and headed straight for the room that Cloud normally shared with Tifa. She walked down the narrow hall to the end and knocked on the door a few times. When nothing happened, she tried again. Wide green eyes regarded the door for a moment longer, but it remained stubbornly shut. Either the blond man was inside, the girl reasoned, or he was busy and didn’t want to be disturbed.

She was about to knock again when she heard footsteps behind her; turning the girl grinned at the sight before her. It was very definitely the person she was looking for, but his normally spiky hair was taking a moment to curl at the edges from the shower. Without sun glasses or goggles to hide his eyes, they were currently a deep shade of blue. He was wearing his normal black pants, no shoes, and a light-blue t-shirt.

“Good afternoon, Cloud,” the girl said, a wide smile on her face and laughter in her voice.

 The blonde nodded, regarding the girl evenly. She had her hair tied in a large pony tail with a giant, white bow. Her gray dress looked so drab in comparison to those curious, green eyes. Again, the man wondered what exactly awaited these children in the future, if they even had one, really.

“Tifa says you have a visitor,” said Marlene, twirling about. “He’s red. She also says it’s about Rufus.”

 The man simply nodded. “Please tell Tifa that I’ll be right down.”

 “Will do,” said the child, skipping away.

Shrugging, the blonde walked into the room at the end of the hall and closed the door behind him, careful not to let it slam. The back of the door housed a large mirror, and without meaning to, Cloud ended up staring into its depths. A fully grown man looked back at him, a stranger wearing a nearly blank expression on his face. I don’t feel like an adult, he thought as he finished dressing. Probably because I wasn’t myself for so long.

His cell phone vibrated across his small nightstand and fell onto the floor with a quiet thump. Reaching over, the blonde picked it up and flipped open the display, surprised to find that this missed call was from Rufus. Idly he wondered what the leader of a now-dead organization was thinking to keep calling him.

If phone calls are an indication of urgency, then he has a real emergency on his hands, the blonde figured as he tucked the phone back into his pant pocket and headed out the door. Gracefully and with an even pace, he made his way down the stairs and into the bar area. His thoughts were focused on making sure that Tifa was safe and speaking to this stranger before he caused any trouble.

Quite a few people were in on this chilly, Friday afternoon. With fall already in the air, the temperatures all over Mitgar were dropping, and it was very noticeable in the people’s clothing. Even Cloud wore a long-sleeved, black turtleneck for extra warmth. He didn’t grow cold easily, but it helped him fit in a little.

“How’re you, today?” asked one of the cooks, a woman named Rowan.

Nodding at her politely, he walked over to Tifa and this red stranger, who stood out like a sore thumb in the gray atmosphere of construction workers, shop keepers, and just people off the street. Here, no one was turned down, not even psychopaths in bright red outfits. This specific one was currently drinking a small shot glass of something that stank of alcohol.

Tifa caught his eyes, and the blonde offered her a singe shrug as if to say that he had no clue. The seats on either side of the red man were empty, and people obviously didn’t want them, possibly because the guy carried a giant sword and looked like he was a violent axe murderer out to kill someone. Cloud took a seat next to him and ran a hand through his damp hair.

“So, you came after all,” said the man slowly, drawing out the words.

The blonde nodded. “What do you want?”

 “To invite you to a reunion, so to speak,” replied the man. “Remember the Lab?”

“Yes.”

 The man grinned. “The survivors are gathering, and we’d like to extend you an invitation.”

 “Why?” Cloud was puzzled.

“To take revenge on ShinRa for what they helped accomplish. Sephiroth was just one of many of their creations. Wouldn’t you like to meet your brethren?” The red man grinned, and there was a maniacal glint in his eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to see Rufus suffer the way you have.”

“It wasn’t his fault,” Cloud said after a time. “Those truly responsible are dead.”

 At no point in his life, before or after the Lab, did Cloud blame the leader of ShinRa for what happened to him and all the other experiments, including Sephiroth. They had sponsored the project, but the blonde knew for a fact that Rufus had no idea what was going on behind those white walls. No use blaming him for any of it.

“How long will you continue to live in a world of illusion, pretending you’re human, Cloud Strife? How long will you close your eyes to the truth?”

The blonde blinked once, the question striking deeply into his own thoughts. For a few minutes, he was silent, contemplating what this man was saying, but in the end, he was pretty sure of his answers. It had taken time and a fair amount of friendship to show him what living was all about, but now he could see through the terrors of the lab to the life he had ahead of him, however long or short it may be.

“I think I’ll pass on the invitation,” he said carefully. “The past is better left in our memories and the future is yet to be written. Calling for revenge and reminiscing about the days gone by is a waste of my time.”

 “I’ve heard you say differently, Cloud.”

The blonde chuckled. “I’m sure I did, back when I thought I was my best friend.”

 “It was their fault you’re missing four years of your life. You’re still a fourteen-year-old boy at heart! I’m surprised you can stand by idly and do nothing against them!” Anger flared in his voice.

The blond man sitting beside him blinked a few times and said, “Your anger is towards the dead.”

“The dead? ShinRa is very much alive, if you haven’t noticed. Just because they don’t have the reactors doesn’t mean they’re down! Stubborn assholes!”

“He is dead.” The blonde looked at Tifa, saw the curiosity in her eyes, and wished this conversation had taken place somewhere else.

His companion growled, but it was a moot point now. Cloud would not argue semantics, so the red man rose and stormed out through the open door, leaving his drink behind. His chair clattered to the floor in a seemingly belated gesture of contempt, and the man in the black turtleneck picked up, carefully setting it up right. He stared at the black barstool for a while, as if contemplating his options amidst the stares, and then finally sighed. It was a little surrender to the inevitable.

Tifa smiled at him and handed him a glass of some kind of bubbly soda. “You could’ve used your office.”

He blinked then. “Yuffie’s in there.”

“Our ninja decided to take a break from her rigorous training to come and party this evening,” the woman behind the bar explained with a wide grin. “Hopefully the children don’t find her too soon.”

The blond man shrugged and took a seat on the stood he had just returned to its rightful location. Carefully, he stirred the bubbly water, watching it, while he waited for the black-haired woman to finish up her latest set of orders. She seemed busy right then, completely in her element as a bar tender and keeper of peace. He waited patiently for her finish her latest round and come back while sipping on the sweet, bubbly drink.

When she returned, the dark-haired woman offered a smile. “Want to talk?”

The blonde shook his head a little, although he knew the conversation was inevitable. Eventually, Tifa would want to know all about the Lab and his age, and Zack. Just because she wasn’t pressing the matter didn’t mean she didn’t want to know. Sighing, he drank some of the overly sweet soda.

“Going to track down Rufus now?”

Cloud shook his head. “Tomorrow. I wouldn’t make it before nightfall anyway.”

The woman nodded. “Make sense. You want to round up the children for lunch?”

He was about to nod when he everything began to rock to the sounds of explosions somewhere outside. Everyone turned to look at the doors as if they held all the answers somehow. As expected by laws of nature, they didn’t. Getting up, the blue-eyed man made his way to the door and looked down the street to the city center, the square that represented the end of ShinRa and all it had stood for.

It was on fire. Flames shot up into the sky, and even from his poor vantage point, he could easily tell that whatever was going on was bad, very bad. Turning around, he gestured silently to Tifa, and she joined him outside. The chaos alone was enough to make her shiver. People were running through the gushing flames in an attempt to get away.

“We need to get people out of here,” Tifa said with some certainty in her voice. “The fires look like they could spread at any moment.”

From the second story window, Marlene pointed at the sky. “What’s that?”

“Our worst nightmares come to life,” Tifa whispered as she began ushering people out of the bar and down the street, away from the flames. “Cloud, get the children out of here.”

 ***

Marlene watched the dragon up above with a sense of dread, somehow aware that this would not end well. Picking up her favorite stuffed animal, she followed her older brother Denzel out the door of their bedroom. The small halls felt cramped and crowded to the girl, especially now with about eight others mulling about. Sighing, she watched the stairs, what little she could see of them, and listened for the sounds of Cloud’s boots.

“Come on,” said the blond man, gesturing for everyone to follow him.

“I’m scared,” the girl whispered softly holding her brother’s hand.

The brown-haired boy looked at her for a moment and ruffled her hair. “Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”

“But why now? I thought… Daddy keeps saying that it’s peaceful times. So why is there more fighting?”

 Denzel shook his head. “I don’t know, Marlene. I really don’t.”

“I wish Daddy was here.”

 “He’ll find us. Barrett had never abandoned us before, and he won’t start now.”

As one singe line, they got outside through the back entrance, little footsteps echoing in the now-empty bar. Tifa met them by the blonde’s motorcycle and pointed in the general direction of the Wall, where Yuffie lived in one of the many abandoned buildings. The general consensus seemed to be that the children would be safer there.

At least that’s how Marlene understood it. “Yuffie!”

“See, Kiddo, I came,” she said, wrapping her arms around the brown-haired girl and picking her up. “Ready for an adventure?”

“Yeah,” Marlene said happily.

“Come on then,” said the ninja with a grin. “We’ll make it a real adventure, won’t we?”

Denzel nodded, feeling his own fears melting away. “Let’s go!”

Tifa watched the children’s passing for a moment before hopping onto the Fenrir and wrapping her arms around Cloud. “Ready?”

He nodded. “Let’s go.”

And they all waved goodbye, not sure if they would all see each other again.

***

The bike came to a halt with dust rising all over the place and the screech of tires to mark its arrival. Looking up at the sky,

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