Disclaimer: I don’t own anything. *eyes twitch* I only own my computer heeheehee *twitch* your not getting it! *twitch* Stay back!!! *twitch* AGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Picking Up The Pieces [Chapter 3]
by Caroltrue
//…The time is now….//
/What?!? Who are you?/
//….How easily you forget…//
/………../
//Don’t play with me impudent child!!//
/It’s you!!!/
//….hahaha, indeed.//
/No! Get out of my head!/
//You never forced me to leave before, and certainly you idle threats won’t make me now.//
/Wha…..What do you want?/
//…You….//
/……….I’ll never help you Jenova!/
// Hmmm….we’ll see…//
/………Hey! What are you doing!!/
//Night night little Strife.//
/No-………/
//…….You are a puppet, nothing more. It would do you good to remember that….//
/………./
//Don’t worry child, I have many wonderful plans for you…….for us!//
/………/
//I will have my revenge, and you, pathetic fool, are the key to it all!!//
/?!?!?!/
//But I digress……… I must begin the preparations.//
/………/
//Goodbye puppet……..sweet dreams…..//
That night, Cloud Strife jerked awake to find himself shivering, and covered in a cold sweat, but try as he might, he couldn’t find any memory of the dream, that cause him to react in such a way. After he had managed to slow down his thundering heartbeat somewhat, he tried once more to fall back into the ignorant bliss of sleep, but it never returned, so he spent the rest of the night alone, awake, and although he was unaware of it, very much afraid.
~~~~~~~
Cid Highwind was not a happy man. Glaring up at the underside, of one of the Highwinds wing engines who wouldn’t be? The thing look like a mangled wreck!
Wiping a black oily hand across his brow, he let out a long breath and reached for the wrench that he knew lay somewhere towards his left. After a few seconds of fruitless searching he muttered a low curse and slid out from the underneath of the engine-
"Hiya Cid!"
-Only to glare up at the all too cheerful face of Yuffie Kisaragi.
"Go away brat." he muttered, pulling himself to his feet and scanning the ground for any sign of the rogue wrench.
Yuffie scrunched up her face in anger and without a word, abruptly spun on her heals, and marched straight out of the aeroplane hanger.
Rolling his eyes at the ninjas antics, Cid turned his back on her and went back to examining the engine.
"That was unnecessary."
Cid jumped and whirled on Vincent who was standing right behind him. Vincent was still wearing his trademark black clothes and red cape, and some small part of Cid vaguely wondered if Vincent had even changed clothes since they first met. Cid himself was attired in some old work jeans and a blue shirt, Shera had bought for him several years ago. Damn that woman for caring….
"Geeze Vince! Whacha tryin’ to do? Give me a stroke or something?!?"
Vincent merely shrugged. "I just thought the way you treated Yuffie, was a little unnecessary. That is all." he commented dryly.
"Yeah well…." Cid muttered, "after that shit she did yesterday, she deserves it!"
"She honestly didn’t mean to do that Cid."
Cid glared at the ex-Turk through silted eyes, then pointed at the engine that was suspended in the air with several cables behind him.
"She used demi2 on one of my Highwind’s engines!! How could she not mean it?!?", he growled, turning back to inspect the damage. "This could take weeks to repair!"
"But you’ll repair it eventually yes?"
Cid pause a moment, then nodded as much to himself as to the man behind him.
"Yeah I’ll fix it.", he replied, finally locating the missing wrench and taking it in his hand.
Then suddenly fury erupted within Cid like a river about to burst it’s banks, and in a moment of blind rage, he raised the wrench above his head and brought it down heavily upon the tattered metal remains of the engine.
"All the engine needs is a good-"
CLANG!!!
"Long-"
CLANG!!!
"Ass kicking-"
CLANG!!!
"Session!!!"
CLANG!!!
Finally Cid let the wrench slip from his quickly numbing fingers, but suddenly yelped as it landed right on top of his foot.
"GODDAMNIT!!"
Vincent actually looked mildly amused when the ‘Worlds Best Pilot’, began hopping around clenching one foot in his hands, and spewing rivers of abuse at an old rusted wrench. You certainly didn’t get to see entertainment like that everyday.
"Mutherfuckingsonofabitchpieceofrustedshittycrapyourgonnadiefuckingcrappypieceofmetal-"
No, Vincent decided, only every second day.
"I’LLKILLYOUpieceofuselessgobshitei’llmeltyoudownanduseyouasatoiletbrush!"
But that never stopped it from being amusing, especially where Cid was concerned.
Vincent smirked, but then sobered up when he saw-
"Cid watch out for the-"
CLASH!!!!!
"FUCKINGHELL!!!!!"
"…..toolbox.
~~~~~~~
Tucking a wandering strand of hair behind her ear, Tifa smiled, and took a deep breath of the cleansing Mideel air around her.
Mideel was beautiful at that time of year, especially after that incident concerning the lifestream several years ago. The old man in the village had been true to his word when he told them that the people were planing to rebuild the town, however as soon as it was finished, a vast majority of the townspeople left. Apparently the single event five years ago was enough to put most people off buying their retirement houses in the area after that. Which was lucky for them.
Walking home from the item shop, with a bag of groceries under each arm, she reflected fondly on how AVALANCHE, or most of them anyway, had settled down in the area after the final battle in the Northern Crater. Each, of course, for his or her own reasons.
Cid along with his soon to be wife Shera, had soon confessed after a few days in Rocket Town, that the town itself seemed a little lost without it’s trademark rocket. However Tifa suspected that the losing the rocket had depressed Cid more than anything, and when he joked that the town shouldn’t even be called that anymore without a rocket to display, it was mainly to cover up the nostalgic sense of loss he felt for the rusty thing. Unfortunately, and much to everyone’s chagrin he had finally decided the ‘unnamed town’ should be called ‘Cid Town’, after himself of course, and refused to let anyone call the town differently. So Cid Town it was.
Strangely enough, Vincent Valentine had also decided to stay on the small island, much to Tifa’s surprise. She had almost expected him to disappear after he had finally avenged the cruel death of his love, Lucrectia. True, he left the island from time to time, and Tifa suspected that this was to visit Lucrectia’s Cave over by Nibleheim, but within a few days or so he soon returned, without the faintest hint he had ever left. It almost seemed as if Vincent had finally got over the majority of his tortured past, and was finally permitting himself human contact after his thirty year atonement in a coffin. Nice.
Yuffie too had decided to stick with the team,…..well…, on occasion anyway, and her presence certainly wasn’t missed by Cid Highwind in the least, as they tended to bicker and fight like a pair of five year olds. Yuffie had claimed all rights to the ‘liberated’ Shinra submarine that had still been docked in Junon after Sephiroth’s defeat, and was quite happy to sail it from continent to continent searching for hidden materia. Tifa thought the arrangement was quite strange considering the girl had always complained of motion sickness, but obviously Yuffie’s greed for materia came first, and she was willing to make sacrifices. Tifa didn’t know whether to he amused, or concerned at the young ninjas craving for the magic orbs….
Then, of course, there was Tifa. She had moved to Mideel simply because there had been nowhere else for her to go. Her bar in Midgar, and the Nibelheim she remembered from her childhood, had both been destroyed at different times, and now only existed in her memories.
She let out a sad sigh when thinking upon her past. Every place she had ever called home had been torn away from her before she had a chance to react, but she felt lucky when compared to some of her friends as she knew they had much deadlier skeletons lurking in their closets.
Red XIII, or Nanaki as he now preferred to be called, had returned to his post as ‘Protector of Cosmo Canyon’ like everyone had expected, and had taken it upon himself to go through the studies of his late grandfather. From what Tifa heard, Nanaki had taken a keen interest in the workings of the lifestream, and also hoped to live up to the expectations of him left by his great father Seto.
Barret had returned to North Corel with Marlene and Elmrya. After hours of debating against himself, which had been quite amusing to watch, Barret had decided that it had been about time for Marlene to return to her hometown, and for him to help fix what he felt he caused. Luckily for him, the Inquisition had found no fault with his actions and had left him and Marlene alone. However, Tifa knew that if it had been anyone but a highly respected member of AVALANCHE, he would have been pumped for knowledge of the past Shinra executives, employees, and most importantly, the Turks, who had mysteriously vanished into thin air.
Reeve, unfortunately, had not been so lucky. Even though he too was a member of AVALANCHE, the Inquisition still felt that for many years beforehand he had committed crimes against the planet. As absurd as it seemed to Tifa, Reeve was a wanted man, and their were rumours spreading that he was wanted by the Inquisition. Dead or alive. Tifa told herself not to be worried about the ex-Shinra executive, who now acted as the groups main researcher, as at that very moment, he was somewhere in Midgar gathering more information on the recent disturbances there. He had become quite skilled in the short time the had grown to know him, and even though he was a wanted man, he still had connections, and was well able to use them to his advantage.
Finally, there was Cloud….
Her brow wrinkled as he frowned to herself when thinking of their blond leader, she had harboured strong feelings for the man during their travels across the world five years ago. Still did. But she often wondered if Cloud noticed any of the signals she was giving him, or if he did notice them, if he even cared.
Yuffie, strangely enough, had been the one to assure her that ‘Cloud wasn’t like that’, and that ‘It’s not you’, but if that wasn’t the problem……what was? Aeris?
Tifa’s heart ached at the thought. Aeris Gainbouragh, in her tragically short time with the group, had become to know Cloud better than anyone in the group. Maybe it was because they were, in some ways, kindred spirits, although neither knew so at the time. But Tifa had often suspected their relationship had been more than that of friends. After the Ancient had been viciously cut down by the blade of Sephiroth’s masamune, the small group took a long time to recover from such a loss, but no one more so than Cloud.
Had Cloud loved her? That, she was unsure of. There was no real evidence to allow such thoughts but Tifa couldn’t help the feel a jealous pang knot her stomach when she thought of the flower girl. Nor could she help feeling her heart was being crushed in her chest, when she realised she was competing with a ghost.
She shook herself angrily from her thoughts as she realised she had walked all the out of town, and halfway through the woods without taking one look around for danger. This fact didn’t bother her because she was afraid of the monsters in these woods. No, she was confident she could easily dispose of any unwanted creatures that wished to attack her, the problem was that she felt she was getting overconfident.
Zangan, her old mentor, had often told her that that being overconfident, was even worse than being weak in battle. The weak knew when to run.
Finally she could see the two storied house, that the small group now lived in, nestled in the clearing up ahead. Along side it stood the aircraft hanger, a building most of the boys were proud of, as they built it themselves. Men, go figure.
"Hey Tifa!"
She smiled brightly when a figure, which she assumed was that of Cloud Strife due to the large spikes of blond hair, waved at her in greeting from the front doorway, and started jogging down the dusty path towards her.
"Hey, your up earlier than usual." She observed when he finally reached her. "Sleep well?"
For a moment Cloud’s eyes sparked with something Tifa couldn’t recognise, but then he shook his head and said. "Yeah, I was fine, uh, how are you?"
Tifa lifted a thin eyebrow. "That well huh?"
Cloud grinned sheepishly but didn’t say anything.
Rolling her eyes, Tifa muttered something about the similarities between chocobos and men under her breath, then sighed in exasperation and looked at him pointedly.
"Well?" she asked him after a pause.
Scratching the back of his head, Cloud looked at her slightly confused. "Well….. what?"
"Well, are you going to just stand there while I lug all this stuff inside, or are you going to help me?"
Flashing her a five-hundred watt smile that almost made her knee caps turn to mush, and her permanently blind, he stretched out his two arms toward her to receive the baggage Tifa was all too willing to hand over, and almost toppled forward when she dumped the whole lot in his arms.
"Hey!" he protested, trying to balance out the sudden weight he had to cope with.
Tifa brushed her hands off one another, and looked quite satisfied with herself.
"Well I did bring it all the way here you know." she pointed out, placing her hands on her hips.
Chuckling Cloud nodded. "Yeah, but it made you look so cute!"
He froze as his thoughts suddenly ran straight into a mental brick wall, and shattered into tiny befuddling fragments.
Trying frantically to come up with any coherent thoughts, his mind finally spewed out a shocked and stupefied /Did I just say that?!?/ before disappearing once more into oblivion.
And across from him, Tifa looked to be in a similar state.
//Did he just say that?!?!?/
However both of them were spared from having to sort through that particular emotional mess, when a young hyper ninja suddenly called for them someway ahead, shouting something about tools attacking Cid, and needing a camcorder.
"We’d better get the uh….." Cloud started, quite aware of his face now being a deep shade of crimson.
Tifa nodded jerkily. "The uh, groceries."
"Yeah them…. to the house……now."
So with that the two began walking in an uncomfortable silence towards the house, both pondering over the exact same question.
//What the hell happened there?!?!?//
Author: What did happen there? I dunno. *shrugs* But if someone could please tell me it would be a great help! ^ -^;; Heeheehee……..wait a minute…..why did I bring back Jenova?!? *pulls out hair* How am I going to fit this into the story?!? Agggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!