DISCLAIMER: Y'know, I've been coming up with different ways to say this for years, but it always boils down to the same thing - "I don't own this."
AUTHOR'S NOTES: My first fic in a long time outside my primary section. Hell, my first fic in a long time, and my first fic on this name (that makes, what, three names for me now? Yeowch). It sucks, don't it, when your muse runs away on you? Especially for over a year. Yeah, I'm talkin' t'you, muse. Anyway... Please don't think I'm crazy, I'm just mad at my muse for abandoning me.
Please note that I'm aware that I'm not using the "traditional" ages here. I simply couldn't find a site to tell me how old these characters are in this game, so if anyone knows of one (preferably a big, trustworthy source), please tell me. I won't change it for this story (some things in this story depend on Squall especially being the age I made him), but in future ones I'll go by what the source material says. The place I got the ages from is actually the KH manga (yep, manga!), which I found really good scanslations of. Not that they have the ages stated either, but one of the drawings in the manga shows Aerith, Squall, and Yuffie at the time of the fall of the Bastion. Aerith actually appears to be the eldest, and I'd say I'm even pushing it in this story making Squall eleven with that picture. I went off that and various in-game clues (like Yuffie saying she didn't remember much of the Bastion because they left when she was just a child) to try and cobble everything together, and I like what I came up with.
This story follows Cid, Squall, Yuffie, and Aerith as they try to make a new home in Traverse Town, spanning several years. Just as a warning, while FFVIII was the first game I ever played, I haven't played FFVII (it's on my to-do list, I swear!). So I'm getting my information on the girls and Cid from KH and various KH fanfics, mostly Squffies (yes, I am an unapologetic Squffie-nut). There are some things I know about them (like the name of Yuffie's father) and several I don't, so please forgive me if I try to hedge around something, like I know I do at least once in the next chapter. It's only done through ignorance which I'm trying hard to correct. Sorry!
The large, thick wooden doors had stood in the first district of Traverse Town for as long as anyone living there could remember, but they were seldom opened. That way led to the gummi deck, where the two ships docked outside the crowded areas of the town itself, ready for a fast flight – or a quick getaway. Unusually, in this town it was far more common to see people appear out of nowhere, or fall from the sky: survivors of the destruction of their world, swept up and out of it before the final crumbling of earth, sea, and sky could crush them or the cold claws of the Heartless could find their warmth. At least one of those people appeared every week, and while the people of Traverse Town weren't necessarily the friendliest or most open, they would silently try to make it as easy on the stranger as possible. Few of them were natives to the town that had been so small before the reign of the Heartless began; most of them had arrived in the same way. Most of them had arrived alone. The number of pairs or groups that arrived was far outnumbered by the coming of the solitaries. It wasn't known whether many people survived their world's destruction or not; it wasn't known if the people missed were simply not there - or dead. Most people of Traverse Town had learned to give up on finding lost friends and family, and a slight air of gloom surrounded the entire town as it tried to go on living and making the best of it. The people of the town showed the scars even worse than the town itself. But the doors stayed shut as the people there were put there not of their own choosing and had nowhere else to go.
Traverse Town wasn't an option. It was a last resort.
So when the bass creak of the oversized doors darted through the air on that overcast morning, every moving thing in First District froze and turned in that direction. Was this the start of the Heartless invasion the residents had feared for so long? Had they really learned to build and fly gummi ships as rumors were leading them to believe? Had they escaped the destruction of their own worlds only to see this place, where they were struggling to make new lives, fall before the shadows as well? Many people, remembering the last moments of their world, had begun to take backwards steps, preparing to run, when the door swung open enough to reveal people. A large blonde man with disheveled hair, perhaps in his early thirties, trudged slowly in, a dark-haired girl who appeared too old to be carried in his arms, her small ones twisted tightly around his neck and her head buried in his shoulder. Next to the man was another girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen, her pink shirt torn and her eyes so tired and sad, while the slightly younger boy on her other side refused to look up, dragging an oversized case behind him on which he could have lain comfortably. The doors closed behind them, and the residents of Traverse Town silently let out a collective sigh of relief before slowly starting to resume their daily tasks.
Unaware that they'd been the objects of so much scrutiny for a few moments, the man reached behind his neck to disengage the stranglehold the small girl had on him. Though trying to do it gently, the girl whimpered and clung to him even tighter, her bony elbow sticking in his neck and starting to block his air passages. "I'm hungry, Cid," she murmured, just loud enough to be heard by him.
He sighed, giving up on the idea of setting her down and dragged the hand he'd been attempting that with through his hair, making it stick up even more than it had before. "I know, kid. I know." He did know – none of them had eaten anything in nearly a day, since before they'd had to blast out of their home. He just didn't know what to do about it. He had no idea where they were, though it was at least a habitable place, any more than he knew what kind of currency this world used. With their luck, these people would be using something like iron bars or stuffed slippers.
The brunette girl looked up at him, eyes still fogged over with sadness. "Cid… What are we going to do?"
"…I don't know, kid." He looked up and around again before looking back down at her. "But lemme tell ya, I ain't leavin' ya." The girl nodded and silently reached for his free hand, clinging to it with more dignity than the eight-year-old about his neck. He didn't object; right now, it even gave him some comfort.
He looked up again, adjusting the smaller girl slightly so he could breathe better, as the sound of cautious footsteps approached their small group. A woman stood a few feet away, having stopped when he looked at her, hands clasped behind her back. She looked to be in her late twenties, with long blonde hair she wore pulled back in a simple style, and green eyes that looked all of them over in concern and a little sadness.
"Whaddya want?" Cid asked, somewhat gruffly. Unconsciously his grip on the brunette's hand tightened, as if he were afraid this woman was going to try and take her away, as the girl did the same.
She looked up at him again, apparently not annoyed or startled at his tone. "Another world…?" She left the question open-ended, not wanting to say it in front of the children. The man shook his head, knowing what her next word would have been. They knew what the stars going out for almost a year meant. "Overrun," he said in almost a mutter, as if trying to spare the children with him. "It's there – we can't be." And who knows when it'll go out, too, he finished bitterly in his head.
The woman's eyes had widened a little at the pronouncement that they'd left their world when it wasn't dead, but nodded in understanding as he explained. "Come over here, then, and have something to eat." Cid felt the girl in his arm twitch and almost look up at the mention of food as the woman motioned to what looked like an outdoor eating area across the main square. "You all look exhausted."
Cid's pride started to rail against the idea of accepting charity from a stranger, but a tug on his hand pulled his attention downward and the look on the brunette girl's face was enough to make him nod his acceptance of the offer without question. The woman led the way over to the group of tables and chairs in what was essentially a room with the front wall taken out of it. She led them to a table with five chairs grouped around it, and Cid briefly thought about refusing to let her join them as it looked like she was planning to do. But he quickly dismissed the idea as he figured that if she wanted to help, he might as well let her, because they definitely needed it.
There was a scraping sound behind him, and he turned to look. The boy was walking more slowly than the others, gaze still trained at the ground, the extra large case dragging over the cobblestones behind him and emitting an almost plaintive sound. "Hurry up," he called back, but the boy's pace didn't increase at all. The man finally got the girl to let go of his neck as he deposited her in a chair, then sat down next to her and let her cling to his arm as he knew she wanted to, rubbing his neck with his other hand. She'd been latched on to him for the entire journey through space, and he would swear the muscles there would never be the same. The brunette girl sat down on his other side, while the boy finally arrived and pushed the case under the chair on the side of the smaller girl, then sat down as well, keeping it between his feet.
The blonde woman came over to their table, holding a tray with a large bowl and several smaller bowls on it. "Here, this'll make you feel better." She set it down in the middle of the table, passing out bowls and spoons to all four of them, and ladling the thick soup out for them as well. They tentatively began eating, their slowness out of a lack of energy rather than dislike of the food, which was surprisingly good and filling, as the woman went to get them all some water and then sat down, folding her arms and waiting for them to finish. The younger girl turned enormous brown eyes at her in a silent plea for more when she was done with her first helping, which she was given, while Cid concentrated on eating left-handed as the girl was still clinging to his right with one arm.
Once they'd eaten their fill, and the woman had cleared away the bowls efficiently and sat down again, Cid felt more like talking. "Thanks." He couldn't get rid of his characteristic gruffness, though. "We… kinda needed that."
She nodded. "You're not the first. We try to help people… Just most of the time the first thing they need help with is something else." She smiled humorlessly. "I'm Jill, and this is Traverse Town." Everyone had learned to add that on if they were the first one to find someone new; it was always the first question people asked. "What are your names?"
None of the children answered. The boy hadn't even looked up once, hiding very effectively behind his long brown bangs. "I'm Cid," the man began when he saw that none of them would, "an' that's Yuffie" – he somehow indicated the girl clinging to his arm – "an' Aerith" – a gesture at the brunette girl – "an' the one over there's Squall." The boy stirred, but didn't say anything or raise his head. "We're from Hollow Bastion," he added, thinking he knew what she would ask next.
"I've never heard of it," she replied, unconsciously blasting the slim hopes they'd had of finding any of their friends in this town to dust. "What do you need? Food, shelter, work?"
"All of th'above," Cid muttered, pride still hurting somewhat from having to accept help. He would never have done it if he'd been on his own, but he'd made those three his responsibility and he was going to live up to it if it killed him. "I guess somewhere t'sleep, first." He grabbed his glass of water and started drinking in order to hide his complete reluctance for help.
"You can stay at the hotel for now, if you'd like. They're never full, and they wouldn't deny you and your family room after what you've been through."
Cid choked and sputtered, nearly dropping the glass as he coughed while Aerith, Yuffie, and Jill stared at him with wide eyes, Yuffie clinging tighter to his arm as if to be sure he didn't die. When he got his breath back, he shook his head vigorously at refusal of Jill's offer of something else to drink, and waved a hand to keep her sitting and not mother-henning him to death. "No, no, we're not family. We just got out t'gether." Feeling Aerith's eyes on him, he said what he knew she wanted him to say and what was true anyway. "But I'm not leavin' 'em alone."
Jill nodded again, hands once again folding themselves together on the table. "Of course not. Would you like to go to the hotel now?" This time both the girls nodded. It was morning, but the children had only been able to sleep in spurts, restlessly at that, while Cid hadn't been able to sleep at all on the flight through space. They were all exhausted. Jill seemed to take Squall's silence as agreement, and stood, waiting for them all to gather themselves together as well. Yuffie silently agreed to walk by only taking hold of Cid's hand, not trying to drag herself up his body, while Squall tiredly wrestled the case out from underneath the chair. Cid didn't try to help him; he'd already learned that lesson.
"Do you have anything you need to take with you?" Jill asked, eying the boy out of the corner of her eye.
"Just one bag, but that can wait on the ship."
Jill seemed ready to say something to Squall, then glanced at Cid and apparently decided not to. "Come on, then. The hotel is right inside the second district."
"Are the monsters here?" a small voice whispered fearfully.
Jill looked down to see the younger girl, Yuffie, still holding on to Cid's arm and watching her with big eyes. She knelt in front of the girl, so they were eye to eye, and said firmly, "No, they aren't. They're far, far away from here." Yuffie nodded, eyes going slightly back to normal, and released Cid a little from her death grip. Jill stood and began walking towards the steps leading up into the district, going slower than normal in order to allow the tired group plenty of time. As it was, they had to slow down again for Squall, still dragging the case and still stubbornly refusing to put it down. No one even tried suggesting that Cid take it, as they could all tell that they would just receive a death glare in return. His strength was plainly going out, but he kept walking, the case scraping along behind him as he trudged at the back of the group, head still down.
The proprietor of the hotel didn't seem at all surprised to see them; Cid didn't know then that Traverse Town had a gossip chain that could rival any system of mass communication on any world. Jill spoke briefly with the man, who produced two keys and handed them to Cid without requesting any form of payment. The keys were labeled with a two and a three, and the group trudged down to the doors with those numbers. The rooms inside were unspectacular, but comfortable enough, and there were beds, which was all any of them wanted right then. Cid turned to Jill, rubbing the back of his head. "Thanks," he said almost reluctantly.
She shook her head. "You don't have to thank me. Someone did the same for me and my daughter when we first arrived. I'm just returning the favor." Looking down at the children, she smiled a little and said "Goodbye," before turning and leaving the building.
As the door closed behind her, Cid looked down at the three of them as well. "All right," he said, feeling desperately ready for some sleep, which he could tell would be (thankfully) dreamless, "Aerith, you an' Yuffie'll have room two-" He was cut off by Yuffie whimpering and renewing her death grip on his arm with both arms, tighter than ever. "Okay, scratch that. Yuffie an'I'll be in two, Squall, you'n Aerith'll be in three. All right?"
Yuffie nodded against his arm, and Aerith nodded once before just turning and walking into room three and collapsing on the bed right then and there. Cid was glad there hadn't been any protests of boys or girls being icky and refusing to share a room, as he wasn't sure he could take that on top of everything else right now, when he realized Squall was still standing there, not moving. "Got somethin' t'say, Squall?"
"It's Leon."
"Huh?"
The boy looked up, revealing a white gauze pad taped securely over the bridge of his nose, and the most quietly angry blue eyes Cid had ever seen. "It's Leon. Squall is dead." He picked up the end of his case and dragged it behind him into the room, shutting the door as Cid tried to figure out what to say to that.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I don't know how long this will be. It's existing more as a series of images and ideas in my head right now than a definable plot, though I know I want to carry it at least through Cloud's return to Hollow Bastion. I guess it's kind of like a series of one-shots that all come from the same background and so might as well be grouped as one story. But I can tell you already that the next chapter has eighteen pages (holy god). Hopefully, the other chapters won't be that long - it's tiring, carrying that much around in your head! But who knows. See ya next time!