Pieces of a Dream Dreams are answers to questions we haven't yet figured out how to ask – The X-Files ----------------------------------------------------------------------- And with the arms to hold me, your smile to keep me, all that was ill was chased away. But I don't remember much of it, if any of it. There was darkness, there was sunshine and sometime into the dream, there was you, putting it all back into perspective for me. Like a guardian standing watch over the charge she didn't know she had been given. You don't have to hold my hand, but you clasp it willingly. You don't have to stand over me when my legs do not remember how to stay upright and locked, but you shelter me anyway. You don't have to watch over me when I sleep and dream of things that are and aren't, but your arms around me, stilling the nightmares, tell me that you'd do it without a second thought. So it was, when we found Hojo on the beach I saw your face crumple. It was like you hadn't expected them to be here and bathing, as if no ill had occurred, as if we hadn't fought so hard just to get where we are and they, like indolent teenagers, just lazed about. The world could fall down around them and they'd sip sangria and pretend they'd pull through it all. I, in all honesty, didn't know how I felt about it. You looked horrified as he and I conversed. You can't shield me forever, you can't put a breaker between me and the realities of my tangled past. I don't know what to tell you, I don't know how I could ever fully tell you everything that was going on without you turning around and leaving me. So because I don't speak of it, I'll look to the future instead of the past, the future where we are together still and friends alike gather under skies that know rainbows and stars and the sweetness of summer winds. We left him there, pallid and cold. But I needed some space to think, so just let me have it. Let me alone for a while, so I can figure out how to put a foot in front of the other, to sort through all the confusing sounds! And that's the problem, isn't it? Only I hear the Planet and how it speaks softly to me, the dreams that come... they are half real, like I should know them, should interpret them but at the same time, so unreal that I don't think that they mean anything else at all. You seem surprised that I don't want to spend time at the beach... but looking over the sand... ...looking there... I am reminded of -that- dream. There is water, in that dream, always water. Please don't misunderstand; I don't shun your company... I just... feel so confused right now…who I am…where I'm going. What I'm doing. It never was such a tangled mess of confusion. Before I left Midgar, I knew in my soul this was the right choice, I knew exactly that you were my best friend. I knew. But out here, I am not sure any longer and that indecision of my life, it burns me so. So even if you try to hold on, I hope in some small part of me, that you never let go, Tifa. Don't let me go, never near the water... ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The weather was cooler beyond the warm shores of the Costa, the mountains higher and the trail somewhat uncertain. An old man they had passed sometime back had commented that it was heading towards autumn and the chill in the air was to be expected when it lost the sun from the overhead sky. He'd also offered friendly advice and given poor Tifa a blanket in which to wrap herself, shivering because of her poor choice in clothes. So it was that every evening they camped out together, building the tents close to one another and the fire as close as any dared to the waterproof fabric, despite fears that they may go up in flames. They cooked hearty food, with plenty of roots and other vegetables that Aerith, Red and Yuffie could find along with animals dragged down in the hunt by the latter two. It was, as they ate each meal and shivered helplessly until their lips seemed to turn somewhat blue, that Tifa noticed how much Aerith was really starting to eat. Naturally stick slender, the Ancient was now putting away enough food at every meal time for two people. She didn't think anyone was as concerned as she about this sudden uplift in the girls eating habits, but when pressured about it, Aerith could only say with a weak shrug, that she assumed it was simply the effects of the Planet on her system, the magic that run through her seemed to be increasing everyday. Tifa was frightened, if she didn't care to admit it. Frightened because Cloud had started to become less distant and the time would grow close when she would have to tell him about all of his past and her past and about Zack and the village... frightened because she knew Cloud loved Aerith... and that even if she didn't admit it either or so openly, she cared just as deeply for the Ancient, if not more sometimes... she was frightened because Aerith showed no signs of noticing the affection from either herself or Cloud and that she was once again running headlong against the brick wall she had seemingly faced her entire life when it came to such matters... and frightened, most of all, because Aerith was getting distant. Not in the way of Cloud, but the magic of the world... She had never been into magic or materia, she had never been adept at casting magic or interacting with the knowledge of Ancient powers, as Sephiroth had once put it. It was alien to her nature - she was so firmly rooted in the current and her own past that the clear sight needed to use magic and the mental fortitude often escaped her. Magic, a force she didn't understand. It was through the wonders of magic and science that Nibelheim had been destroyed, why Cloud remembered nothing and why... now Aerith was being pulled along with a strange and almighty power that Tifa didn't understand. Each night as they slept, she made sure she slept facing the Ancient. Sometimes the smooth face would pinch with worry and anxiety, and then just as quickly, even out into peaceful expressions. It was when the soft whimpers of nightmares woke her up, that despite the gritty feeling in her eyes, she succumbed to the protective warmth in her heart and she would move the distance needed to smooth down the golden hair with soft strokes and whisper words of encouragement and calm. It was on the sixth day of fighting across the mountains that they came upon the industrial sprawl of another reactor, tucked away into the folds of the mountains where the purple skyline drew darkly down with only faint speckles of the stars. Like many places where a Reactor stood, Tifa had noticed that the sky was always dark, scowling at the abomination on nature. Beside her, Aerith stared off towards the east instead with an unfocused look in her green, green eyes and her lips slightly parted. Confirming their route, she heard Barrett say something about Corel and frowned. Corel. She knew that Barrett had once been a miner for irons and metals, even coal in the mining town of Corel. It had been prosperous until about four or so years ago, when a mako reactor had failed, blowing itself up in a rage of fire and blazing guns from the ShinRa squads sent to quiet the populace from their frightened rioting. He never mentioned it directly, but she knew Marlene wasn't his daughter, but the child of someone close to him whom he'd found in the wreckage of destruction and in a kind act, double edged to try and shake off his own sin of sorts, he brought her up as best he could. Oh, he might not be Marlene's real father but watching them together, she knew that they were as close as other biological families could be. She supposed it felt this way for Aerith and Elmyra too. As they trudged in that silence towards the town of North Corel, dodging the broken tracks and hunting for hidden treasures that may have been unearthed by the mining left half done, that she pondered her own relationships with her family. Her mother had died when she was so young, not much older than eight that she was unsure if the memories she had of her were as correct as she thought them to be, or warped by the passing of time and the pressing matters of the present. She knew she had her mothers dark eyes, it was suggested that because of her dark colouring, that her mother had been born from Wutaian stock. But glancing over at Yuffie who jumped from rock to broken spar to scouting their position like a hyperactive squirrel, she could see nothing of the warm brown in the cool dark grey of the girl's eyes. Her father had become distant with her as time passed. He doted on her of course, bought her the best money could buy - nothing was too good for his popular little princess. He encouraged her hard working, practical talents and spirit, praised her for staying so rooted firmly in what was necessary, that she glowed with his pride. She wondered, if given enough time, if her father would have stopped seeing the ghost of the woman he loved in the eyes of his child. But that time was past. He lay under the ground, sleeping the final sleep with his body, his life scattered and only the fragments of her memories giving him ghost like life any longer. She said nothing of these dark and dismal thoughts as together they trekked onwards and into the mining village, Yuffie twenty steps and running ahead of them until she managed to trip over her sock which crept down every ten minutes seemingly, headlong into a tent with a crash echoing from inside it and the surprised shouts of miners. Red shook his head and followed with his usual waddling gait to extricate the ninja girl, who was spouting apologies as best she could. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to face plant in your food, I am so sorry!" There were globs of some food stuck in her hair and on her cheeks, burning red with shame as the four legged beast fought hard to contain himself. Several miners followed her out of the makeshit home, looking amused and angry all at once, a curious micture of ambiguousness if ever there was. Tifa smiled and glanced across at Aerith, hoping to share her sweet mirth again, but the Ancient was instead watching Barrett, not a hint of a smile on those pink lips. "Perhaps you should watch where you're... ...going..." The foreman trailed off, eyes skipping across them all until they rested with guilty, burning pleasure on the hateful form of Barrett - hate swam in his frosty eyes and his jaw tightened, Tifa could see the muscles ripple and dance with a thousand emotions and she clenched her fists, ready for a fight if one should erupt. "You!" "..." Barrett Wallace, the hard man, the tough guy, the extreme terrorist... said nothing and looked down, eyes cast away. "How dare you show your faces in this town after what happened... how... how DARE YOU!" The foreman hissed and within steps he was up close and had thrown a heavy punch across the unresisting jaw of the terrorist, knocking him back two steps and leaving livid marks of his knuckles even on the dark skin. "Well... looky here, never thought I'd see your face again. Those people over there, they with you? I feel sorry for 'em, hanging round with a walking death sentence like Barrett!" The other miners behind him had caught on finally and the looks of displeasure began to mirror themselves on each face, coupled with sadness, anger and often bitterness. Tifa shook her head. She knew Barrett had been here at the time of the accident but why this kind of reception? He wasn't ShinRa after all! "You got a lot of balls coming back here," another hollered, "Look at this place; it's your fault that North Corel turned into a garbage heap!" "Well, why doncha say something, or did you forget what you done here already?" "I'm sorry," the big man choked into the silence of disapproval. "Fu... you ain't even worth the effort," the second speaker said. The miners, one by one, turned away and left them standing there by the half upset tent and broken well. Finally the Foreman turned and left with a harsh mutter of, "Don't any of you waste time talking to that techno freak..." "Barrett," she breathed as Aerith moved the distance between the two, clasping Barrett by his head and murmuring. This time the magic was stronger and far more visible, a shifting weave of the wind with an echo of a harmony, striking and soothing into the muscles and healing it. Tifa marvelled at the ease, to her untrained eye, the magic looked like weaving seven carpets in the dark, blindfold, deaf and without sensation of touch or memory of pattern or ability. Amazing. "Its nuthin'," he grunted. "You heard them, it's my fault this town was destroyed!" So saying, he walked off ahead of them with his back held stiff and iron straight, head high but his expression grim. Tifa went to Aerith's side as she followed him with her emerald gaze, hand still half outstretched to where she'd healed the bruising and welt left from the extreme force applied to the cheek of Barrett. Her hands found the cold one of Aerith's, bringing it down from the air where it was suspended and into the warmth of her double-handed grasp. "Aerith," she said softly, to break the spell. "Come on." "I'm sorry, Teef," she said, a small fragile smile on those pink lips, for just her, but the eyes were so tired and sad - they had been so sad since the incident on the boat, "I'm just a little unsure right now. This place, it's feeding from itself." Her lovely hand slipped away as Cloud called for the group to pull together - Red had been level headed and directly stocked their inventory and distributed potions and the like between them all evenly as Yuffie hung a bit too close to the materia stall for Tifa's comfort. Aerith walked after Barrett like she was a dream, ephemeral and fading fast, leaving Tifa to walk close by Cloud's shoulder. "Cloud," she said quietly. The blond looked up at her, brow crinkling at her tone of voice. "Tifa, what's wrong?" "Barrett... he said he destroyed this town. I wonder if coming back here was really such a good thing for him. If we weren't following Sephiroth..." "Tifa, he'll pull through. Don't worry too much over it." "But I do worry. I worry so much." The Soldier shook his head, smile almost there, hauntingly touching his face briefly before flittering away. "Maybe you should worry a bit more about Aerith, she hasn't been well since we got to this continent. I thought it was getting better after she started eating instead of picking at her food, but..." "I know." They all came to the platform of what looked to be a sky train, a small carriage suspended on two heavy wires that floated into the sky and clouds, propellers at the front and back to help push it along those slender suspension cables. It was blue in colour, brilliant against the shattered surroundings North Corel wallowed in. In front of the carriage, Yuffie was busy tossing a suspiciously new materia from hand to hand whilst Red silently watched Aerith, who in turn, silently watched Barrett. Tifa mused faintly on Red and Aerith's relationship. Both strange creatures in some fashion, Aerith because she was an Ancient and Red a remnant of a glory filled time of the world, where magic was the rising power and not science, not technology. Red followed Aerith about like it was almost a second nature, a secondary instinct that he was hardly aware of. Tifa wondered if that meant that at some point, the race of fiery tailed creatures had been close companions of the Ancients, aiding them in their wisdom and shaping the creative energy, the living force of the world. Red was sensitive to nature, much in the same was as the delicate flower girl wilted and thrived depending on the situation at hand. It would suggest close kinship in a fashion between their spirits if nothing else. Cloud paused by the booth and enquired about how much a ticket would cost for them to get to the Gold Saucer and she blinked, wondering if she'd heard right. The Gold Saucer, her father had promised her that for her eighteenth birthday they would go to the pleasure park and ride on all the rides and play on all the games, they'd watch the battles in the Arena and bet on the races. That day had never come, a door closed on the possibilities of her life by ShinRa. How strange that chasing someone from ShinRa that sought only to destroy the world would open that door again, in such an unusual fashion. Apparently the ride up was free, so she went ahead of him and towards the small knot of people who had fallen silent. It was then she realised Barrett had been watching her, and she was his link in the chain to all these other people. Barrett owed Aerith the life and safety of Marlene, but he also owed her in a small sense, his ability to understand and cope with his past. She smiled as bravely as she could manage, putting the best face on it as she could. It had always been like this, smiling when everything felt frozen inside of her, molten ice with the drama and grief of her sorrows. "Barrett, what happened?" Aerith asked again, her beautiful voice echoing. "Sorry," the burly man apologised, again and again to everyone. She shook her head to indicate he didn't have to apologise to her at all, she knew he was sorry in her heart even if some things in life were completely unavoidable. Beside her, Cloud had caught up and was standing next to Aerith again. Tifa grit her teeth and pretended she hadn't noticed, looking away from the pair as the mercenary asked, "What happened?" "My hometown used to be around here." "What do you mean, used to?" Red inquired softly. "It ain't here no more. Heard it got buried... in... just four years..." Aerith bit her lip then blurted, "But... but how could those people say such awful things?" "...an... it's my fault," He turned apologetically to the Ancient, hands outstretched, "It's all my fault. Corel was burned down by ShinRa troops." There was palpable silence, Barrett was clearly envisaging something but it took all of Tifa's willpower not to rush to his side and demand answers, not to hurry to hold Aerith upright when her face went white and her lips drained of precious little colour, not to hit something, someone... "ShinRa troops? What for?" Cloud demanded. Barrett jerked his eyes up and then glanced away, "There was an explosion at a reactor. ShinRa blamed the incident on the people. Said it was done by a rebel faction." "That terrible," Tifa snapped finally, hands clenching. ShinRa and their depravity, was there no end? "Well, I guess that's true, but... more than ShinRa, I couldn't forgive myself. Never should’ve gone along with the building of another reactor." "No," she said, moving to him and putting her hands out in an expressive gesture, a welcoming one, comforting. He wasn't alone! "No... Don’t blame yourself; we were... all fooled by the promises of ShinRa back then." "Tifa, but... that's why I get so pissed off! Not only did they take advantage of me but they took my wife Myrna too!" She stared at him, trying hard to keep her tears inside where they could freeze and shatter. No one spoke; there wasn't even the sensation of anyone breathing softly into the terrible gap of a moment where all thoughts were suspended. "Hey, get on, it's going to go," the man at the booth called helpfully. The spell was broken and she stepped back, tilting her head so the fringe could cover her eyes. "Dyne was my best friend, we was close ever since we were kids..." Barrett murmured and fled inside the carriage with a stamping of his enormous feet, clanking on the metal grates and the padded seat groaning as he sat. Yuffie scowled, "I'm not going to sympathise with him." Everyone looked at her in surprise and she flushed hotly, "He never should have trusted ShinRa Inc!" But she did follow him inside, Red at her heels, silent and thoughtful as ever, watching quietly and keeping those wise opinions to himself. "I never knew," she said softly, Aerith coming to her side and Cloud wandering inside, "He never said a thing." "Tifa," the Ancient murmured sympathetically. "...we'd better get on." Far below, once the engines started and they were all inside, the world dropped away. Aerith and Cloud sat together, laughing over some joke and Yuffie was glued to Red's side as he told her some story or the other. Barrett stayed away, a black cloud hung over his mood so no one dared to approach him or offer any words. She stayed alone too. Sometimes she would cast a green eyed look towards Cloud and Aerith, glaring at the back of Cloud's head, but then she'd look away and towards the vanishing prism of her world and wondered at the clouds falling back with it, at just how high they had yet to go. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- "So PLAY! ...messing 'round... shi't! Don't forget we're after Sephiroth!" So saying, the burly giant fled away from them and into the tubes, a tangled mess of chutes to deliver a person to any place within the Gold Saucer almost immediately upon entering, with ease and delight. At least it cut down on the cheesy lift music she supposed. But she sighed and shook her head as Tifa looked pained. "I think he's mad..." she sighed again. "Oh. Don't worry; I think he's doing a little better now." They stood around and for a moment, she was certain they were going to split into groups and look around the Gold Saucer, hunting out information about the black cape clad general. So it was she curled her hair about a finger and started towards Tifa, trying on her shyest smile as colour crept into her cheeks: she'd really been spending far too much time with Cloud and knew that in a place filled with laughter and fun, she wanted to spend that time with no one else other than the wine-eyed fighter. But as she approached, the blond haired fighter already had the arm of Tifa and they were laughing, moving towards a chute already and her heart was suddenly made from lead, dropping to the pit of her stomach. The two vanished after Tifa glanced back once, desperately, completely unseen by the flower girl who was busy rubbing her stomach and studying her own feet in embarrassment and rejection. "...I guess, I'll look around with..." She looked up and blinked. Red and Yuffie were also gone. "...myself." Tears threatened. A strange place and everyone just upped and abandoned her. Well, typical! Hurt feelings quickly turned into stubborn resolve and she brightened up forcibly, smile pushed onto her lips. She needed a bit of time to herself anyway and after all, what better place to spend some time thinking than around a golden play park where everyone else was occupied with themselves? So she tucked her hands behind her back and ignoring how sad she felt and that cold feeling in her heart, Aerith began towards the chute for the speed square. Behind her the black shadow followed silently. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- There was an awful silence. So much sorrow had happened at this place that as Tifa listened to Barrett talk she was glad to see the others were unharmed. Aerith looked a little tousled but no worse for wear, and the fake cheerful smiles they exchanged were brittle, she felt. Was Aerith annoyed that she had walked off with Cloud? Great, that was all she needed, her best friend angry at her for something that existed only in her mind. Inwardly the fighter groaned and covered her face with a hand, looking away as Barrett spoke on. It had been one of the most trying days of her life. Cloud had snatched her arm up before she could say a word and together they'd gone to explore the Gold Saucer. A backward look had given Tifa the impression that Aerith was far less than impressed with her and Cloud wandering off, but she'd had not a single opportunity to speak with the flower girl since they'd all suddenly burst into the house where Barrett had been angsting. Upon stealing her away from Aerith, they'd bumped into a burly man who looked like his brains were his muscles. It had come as some surprise to her to learn that this was Dio, the owner of the Pleasure Park and consummate business man. He'd vaguely remembered her as the daughter of Shale Lockhart, the businessman of Nibelheim. He'd heaped condolences on her then spoken to Cloud in a one sided exchange about Sephiroth and some strange thing called the black materia. Tifa had paid special notice to this, just in case Aerith happened to know something about it, or if it stirred any recollection in the vast catalogue of knowledge that was Red's memory. Then they'd hurried on towards the Wonder square, one stop away from where Dio had told them his collection of trinkets was, and there they'd met the strangest contraption in all existence, a stuffed mog with a tiny cat riding atop it's head, holding a microphone through which it tended to sometimes squeak in a somewhat off putting accent that put her in mind of the frozen northern wastes. It had proceeded to offer two psychic readings that were completely silly, but the third had chilled her to the very marrow in her bones, even when Cloud had dismissed it out of hand. "What you pursue will be yours, but you will lose something dear." Professing his own confusion, the mog introduced himself as Cait Sith and joined them to find the truth of his own reading in their journeys into the unknown. But the discarded strip of paper, she'd kept it, feeling the horrors of some unformed malice folded into it. It rested still inside her glove, slipped there for safekeeping. Nothing would be lost, as long as she remembered it was there. Then they'd come into a scene of horror in the battle arena, blood and bullet spray everywhere. Dio had come in too and caught them staring in unabashed terror at this macabre display. Thinking them accomplices of a man known only as the man with a gun arm, they'd been thrown into the desert prison that was once Corel proper. But, the only man with a gun arm they knew was Barrett. Sure, he'd been angry, but to kill people and destroy? That wasn't like him at all. So they'd found him after avoiding some of the really creepy lowlifes, inside a ramshackle house, bearing his own sorrows and figuring out the truth behind this twisted story. The others had joined them, each and every single one making their introductions to the stuffed mog who took it all in his stride most calmly; and then they'd settled to listen to Barrett explain it. Years back, Corel had been a successful coal mining town; it was the livelihood of the people. But Mako was the new energy source; mako was the future and the way forward. To keep up, the town agreed to have a reactor built. Everyone but a man called Dyne, the only man to oppose it. It was on Barrett's advice that they believed Scarlett and her lies and gone on to build the reactor - but one day... one day there was a malfunction in the reactor to do with the ShinRa, so to cover it up, the destroyed the town. Barrett and his best friend were out of the town at the time, at the reactor, so they weren't killed but the troops soon caught up. They tried to escape but Dyne slipped. In a blind panic, Barrett reached down to try and save him and both ended up getting irrevocably ruined arms - Barrett's grip slipped with the blood dripping down his arm and then... he assumed Dyne was gone and everything taken from him. But in the village, Dyne's daughter Marlene had lived. So in an act of penance that would be his drive in life, the ex miner swore to look after the young girl and make sure she wanted for nothing, so Dyne and everyone could rest in peace. He got a gun grafted to his ruined arm... ...but Dyne had lived and had the operation too, on the other arm. So the man responsible for all this had been Dyne, trapped in the sinkhole that was the desert prison since gods only know when, seething with revenge and turning sourer by the day. Tifa honestly sympathised with him and his situation. "Barrett," Aerith said softly once the large man was done, choking on his own words, "This isn't the end." "Weren't you going to save the Planet?" She added a small smile for the Ancient to show her support for those words. But the green eyes were filled with confusion as they stared back. "Shit Tifa, you oughta know by now." She didn't take her eyes from Aerith for a moment, then looked down sadly, "...that's alright, Barrett. I'm not so different, from you." "Alright," said Cloud, "Tifa and Barrett and myself will go look for Dyne. You others find out who to speak to, cause we have to get out of here." There was a general mutter of assent and they all filed out. Tifa felt Aerith brush past her shoulder and could have sworn that fingers ghosting touched her elbow, but couldn't had said for certain if it was her own imagination or just the press of the jacket against her. She kept watching the floor, a lump in her throat until everyone but Cloud and Barrett had left. "Tifa?" Barrett said again. "I'm sorry, I was thinking." "You don't have to come if you don't want to." "I want to. Like I said, I'm not so different from you." Barrett's voice was pained, "I don' want you to suffer." "A bit late for that, isn't it?" ----------------------------------------------------------------------- She wanted to cry. Barrett was a bloody mess, Dyne no better as he backed off, bleeding heavily and breathing laboured, pained. His face, once handsome, was scarred and marked with hate, debauched in it. His home was a graveyard to machines, cards and a broken home where a single bed stood in a lone vigil over a cliff, over three graves marked 'Myrna', 'Eleanor' and 'Marlene'. Three graves, crossed and swinging with a pendant that glittered in the light of the sunset, dying down. The dust was livid with the scuff marks of battle and the two faced off across a gorge that was marked 'past'. The eyes of each man, they had seen too much to go back, too much pain to know wrong from right in this moment of lucid sanity, they only knew the other. Then Dyne buckled to his knees and sobbed, a cracked sob in his chest with tears running down those scarred cheeks. Each grave, marked. Myrna had been Barrett's beloved wife; Eleanor, the kind wife of what had been a proud but kind man... and Marlene. The daughter Dyne had always thought dead, the hole in his heart that had stopped beating four or so years ago. She was torn with her own sorrow and her compassion. She wanted to weep. Crying would not do. Barrett took several steps towards Dyne, arms lifted but the man struggled a few feet back from him; "Back!" he snapped and the burly terrorist obliged. "...it wasn't... just my arm back then. I... lost... something irreplaceable. I don't know where I went wrong." "Dyne, I don't know either man. Is this... the only way we can resolve this?" Why weren't they screaming? Why wasn't the world on fire? She gripped herself about the middle, chilled despite the lack of wind. "I told you... I want to destroy everything... Everything... you, this crazy world... even me..." Dyne stood, hand to his chest with blood seeping from between his fingers down his front, spattering on the dirt floor. "An' what about Marlene, what's gonna happen to her!" "Think about it Barrett," suddenly there was a fractured smile, the first real smile Tifa had seen on his face, "How old was Marlene back then? Even if I did go to her now, she wouldn't even know me, and what's more... Barrett... these hands are a little too stained to carry Marlene any more..." "..." Dyne reached behind himself suddenly and took the swinging pendant from the cross then through the air it sailed until it was clasped in the free and only hand of Barrett. He paused to look at it as Dyne continued to speak softly and slowly. "Give that to Marlene... it was Eleanor's... it's my wife's memento." "...all right." The slender man paused and looked full into the sunset and she could have sworn he was really smiling finally. She swallowed. "Wow... Marlene's already... 4... Barrett?" His voice was so pained, blood was likely bubbling into his lungs by now, "...don't... ever make... Marlene... cry…" "Dyne? Dyne!" Barrett's head snapped up. ...but it was too late. Tifa gave a strangled cry and without any resistance or hand to prevent him, Dyne seemed to fall slowly from the lip of the cliff where the grave markers were, forward into the darkness and with only the softest of smiles on the most scarred of faces. She heard no crack or crunch, only deep silence as Barrett charged headlong to the edge of the cliff and looked about wildly, screaming his name until he was unconscious and they had to carry him back to the village, between herself and Cloud. In the village, others were waiting and she kept her stony mask in place, staring out over the desert as their illustrious leader went to go and sign him self up for the races. When he finally left, she felt someone stand at her shoulder and look through the window over the desert. Tifa didn't look, her heart told her it was Aerith, quiet as a shadow but always there, unasked for but always comfortingly there, unfailingly so. The Ancient opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, the fighter was talking ahead of her so the words Aerith would have said, faded into listening. "He just committed suicide," she said in a strangled tone, "Because he couldn't bear his past anymore. He said... he said..." Tifa lifted her hands and curled them, strong hands, filled with vicious temper and her training, hours of dedicated work, "...his hands were too stained. He said his life was over, that... revenge filled him so much, that he could think of nothing else." "Tifa?" "I couldn't do a thing... Not a damned thing. But I sympathised with him... all that hate? All that anger? Aerith... I... I could have ended up like him... I could have drowned in that... I could... I..." And she was finally crying. The arms about her were swift and warm and into their embrace she wept softly, broken hearted. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- I wouldn't like to go back to that place. I've never seen you cry before, like that. Tears in your eyes, the scar you take pains to conceal - I've seen them. But I’ve not seen you like that. It was so vulnerable and so alone. But no one else reaches out to you like I do, why? Why? ...But it's alright, because I'll be here for you, when you need someone to be. I swear it. I swear it all my life. So we left you and Barrett sleeping softly and fitfully in the back. I was squashed in next to you, but I didn't mind. You were warm and when you moved in your sleep, I took care that you didn't bash your head on the sharp edges of the car seat. And softly you murmured my name. Softly, always softly. A week later, we came to a town I'd heard about before only in stories. To Gongaga. ...Zack's hometown.
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