Felt like writing something else. There's always the stories where AVALANCHE saves the world, and everything is immediately okay. No personal repercussions, all they do is go off, party and make babies with each other. And maybe Tifa angst longingly after Cloud. So sure, they saved the world, but maybe everything's not going to be 'okay'. And away we go, with Yuffie at the helm. Yay Yuffie.
It's all property of Square-Enix. You know the drill.
It hurt.
Everything hurt.
She was all too aware of that. But even more, she was aware of the hands on her neck, checking fumblingly, unprofessionally for a pulse.
Just what had happened? The last thing she remembered was Tifa running into the cargo hold, her face white, cramped up in anxiety, gripping onto the doorframe as her feet began to skid out from under her uselessly, screaming that they had to hold on to something, that they were about to-
Her whole world had tilted violently under her then, Tifa's words cut off in a mess of mechanical screeching and bleating, too loud, much too loud, before... before...
Oh God.
"Tifa?" She tried, finding her voice a barely inaudible croak, her mouth and throat thick with grit, the unmistakable biting taste of blood, and... something.
Cool breath gusted against her cheek, and the hands swept upward, pawing sloppily across her cheeks and mouth, something sliding off of her skin, being wiped away.
"I'm here."
She couldn't hear so well, head spinning, ears ringing, but that was definitely Tifa, her voice equally broken and gravelly, sounding resigned; hurt.
She cracked her eyes open, wanting to see what had happened, see what was so wrong that it made Tifa sound so defeated. She was tired, wanted to go back to sleep. But this was important.
It was dark. Still night time, but everything had a sickly green wash to it, allowing her to see just a sliver of the night sky through the twisted mess of metal and shattered glass.
Tifa shifted above her, drawing her gaze. The martial artist's face was a smeared mess of black and red, blood running from a mess of cuts above her left eye, creating a stripe that ran across her cheek, down her neck before disappearing into a red splotch on her shirt. There were small crystals in her hair that caught the light, twinkling, reflecting.
...She looked like a monster. All the blood, all the grit, all the glass in her hair...
It had to be bad, whatever happened to them.
She turned her gaze away, head lolling to the left, though Tifa's hand caught her cheek, fingers pressing tightly, trying to turn her head away.
"Don't look over there." She murmured quietly, though she could already make out something, somebody over there, black hair pooled out from under the torn hem of a red cloak. His legs were poking out from the other end, pointed brass boots glinting in the light, one leg twisted at an obscenely wrong angle, and- "Don't look over there."
"Vincent?" She croaked, knowing she wouldn't get an answer. The way his cloak had been removed, laid over him, it was obvious. He was already gone.
And the way it looked, the way his leg looked, it had to be bad.
And... Jesus. He was gone just like that. She had never really talked to him that much, normally getting the cold shoulder if she tried. Figured that maybe he'd lighten up once everything was over, and they'd all have a chance to calm down; chat once they were no longer being hunted down like dogs. But there he was, dead, hastily covered up in a makeshift funeral shroud, not even ten feet from them.
Vincent had mostly kept to himself. He had that melancholy brooding thing down to a science and all, but still. He had to have had hopes, dreams, likes, dislikes, all that stuff. What kind of music did he like? What kind of movies? Food? Had he ever idly wondered what made Cloud think his hairstyle was so cool, like she had always done? She didn't know. And now, she'd never know.
But God damn if she didn't want to.
All these questions now, but... but...
Tifa.
Tifa was here, Tifa was alive.
She could focus on the other woman. Needed to focus on her, otherwise she'd probably go crazy, wondering about Vincent like that.
"I couldn't do anything for him." She sighed, and Yuffie turned her head back towards her voice, staring up at her hunched form, reclining stiffly against a piece of the hull that had torn off and was jutting out of the wreckage. "He was already gone when I found him. I was... I was scared that you were gone too. You've been out for hours and I was worried." She stopped herself from going on, holding her tongue.
The way the word 'hours' slipped from her mouth, she must have just been sitting there the whole time, wondering, waiting, waiting for her to wake up, so that she wouldn't be stuck alone in the wreckage with two dead teammates.
Two dead friends.
"Hours?" She asked, and Tifa nodded, running the knuckle of her thumb beneath her eyes quickly, staring straight ahead, eyes guarded. "What about-"
"I don't know." She replied immediately, shaking her head. "I was yelling for a while, see if anybody would answer. Cid's... somewhere on the other side of all this scrap, trying to rig up what's left of Cait Sith, see if he can get it running again, give Reeve a track on where we are. Barret's over there too, but he's hurt, delirious. I could hear him calling for Marlene about an hour or so ago. No idea where Cloud and Nanaki are."
"Can we get over to Cid?" She almost didn't have to ask. The look on Tifa's face said it all.
"There's too much in the way. I'm in no shape for any climbing, neither are you. We just need to wait, hope Cid can make some headway."
What did that mean, 'neither are you'? She looked away from Tifa's shape, looked down the length of her own body. Her legs disappeared beneath the huge wall of debris, the bottom edge red with blood.
Her stomach rolled, and she reflexively pulled, not feeling any give to it.
"My legs!" She immediately squalled, jerking frantically, trying to drag herself out from under it, make sure they were still attached. "Oh my God, no. No no no no no. Oh G-"
She pressed the heel of her hand to her mouth, biting down on the leather of her glove attempting to stifle her cries. She couldn't feel them. They were gone. They had to be. They were probably sheared off and in the dirt some three miles from here, and-
Tifa moved slowly, turning and flattening out, her right arm snaking just below the metal, next to her right leg. There was an uncomfortable tickle, then a brief pinch, and the sudden burst of pain seemed to intensify the throbbing feeling through her whole body.
"Feel that?" Tifa asked, sliding her hand back out and resuming her hunched seat, hand resting on her hip, patting her in an idle attempt at comfort. "They're still there. Bone's sticking out of the left one, but they're still there. I can't pull you out myself. We just need to wait, hope somebody finds us."
"You checked?" Yuffie asked, swallowing hard, trying to calm herself down.
"Yeah. Yeah, I did. Soon as I saw Vincent, I went to you. I couldn't move you, so I wedged my hand under there to check, see how bad it was. You're just pinned. Just try to relax, okay?"
Relax? She was pinned in a bunch of rubble, and Vincent was dead, and they were trapped, and Tifa wanted her to relax?
"Easy for you to say." She muttered, letting her head fall back with a dull thump.
"Sorry." Tifa muttered, shaking her head again, as if trying to apologize for the whole situation, even though she wasn't responsible for any of it. "We can't do anything, I can't do anything. I'd get you out of there if I were strong enough. I'd go get help, go see-"
Go?
She seized Tifa's hand that was on her hip, gripping it fiercely, with a sudden burst of strength she didn't realize she still had in her battered body.
"Don't go. I don't- I don't want you leave me alone in here. Please. I'm sorry, just don't go anywhere."
Tifa's lips twisted wryly and she sighed, nodding, the glass twinkling in her hair again, like diamonds.
"No, no. 'M not going anywhere. I'm going to stay right here with you until help comes. I'll sit right here, no matter how long it takes, okay? I promise."
"How bad are you hurt?"
There was a long, quiet hiss of air before Tifa answered, shrugging.
"...Not so bad." She replied lowly.
Somewhere on the other side of all the wreckage, they heard Barret, voice booming in a powerful, mournful cry for Marlene, before it was silent again. Tifa shuddered, her fingers gripping tightly against Yuffie's; too tight for comfort. But she didn't say anything. Tifa was just as scared as she was, maybe even moreso. Her best friend was there, suffering, maybe not even twenty feet away. But it may as well have been miles.
Maybe if they talked, maybe if they found some way to pass the time, they'd both calm down a little. And now that they had this chance, they could get to know each other a little. She couldn't have that chance with Vincent now, maybe didn't have that chance with any of them now, but she had Tifa with her, and right now, that was all that mattered.
Right now, each other was all they had.
"How long have you known Barret for?" She tried slowly, not sure if, after hearing him shouting like that, it was the best question to open with, but still. It was obvious that those two had a special bond, something none of the others had. She knew they had been a team long before any of the rest of them were caught up in this mess, but didn't know any specifics.
"Three years. Met him in Midgar, when Marlene was just a baby. He had found her when Corel burned, they wandered until they came to Midgar. The Slums were a good place to hide; good place to disappear. I'd been down there for two years then. We were both hurt, bitter. Shinra was killing the Planet, killing people with their Mako Reactors. We figured, if you stop the Reactors, you stop converting Lifestream into Mako, and therefore, stop killing the Planet. We were idealists then. Save the Planet, and get back at Shinra at the same time.
"That's really all we wanted. Casualties in our fight would just be like... like flies on a windshield or something. We were going to save the Planet, and they worked for the bad guys. Like I said, idealists. We were the good guys, right? Heh. Like it would be that easy. Shinra retaliated. They dropped out the Plate. Our friends died. So many people died. And I started to think. Finally think. Maybe we weren't the good guys. Maybe nobody's the good guys. We wanted to save the Planet, but at the same time, we all had our own selfish vendettas..."
She trailed off, deep in thought.
"I thought you guys were doing the right thing." She tried, wanting to turn Tifa's thoughts away from such a morbid track. "I mean, at first I just wanted to play along for a while, then rob you idiots blind at the first chance I got. But after I did, y'know, after that thing in Wutai, when you rescued me, a-and forgave me, you guys were obviously after a way bigger picture, y'know? I was just a little gnat, looking out for my own butt, wanting to make Wutai great again. There were bigger things. Way bigger. Like when they wanted to execute you and Barret, I had to help get you guys out of there. Because we were a team now, and- and I didn't want anything to happen to you. Hell when you dove for that rope, I nearly lost my lunch I was so scared.
"I know I was a jerk from day one, but I started liking you guys, liked what you stood for. Sure, I probably didn't show it, but I thought it was cool, saving the world and all. Like something out of a book, like Lord of The Rings or something."
Tifa looked down at her, a little bit of surprise evident in her eyes.
"You liked Lord of The Rings?"
Yes! Good, healthy, normal turn to the conversation. Books? She could talk about them all day. No more grousing about death and destruction. No more talking like they were trying to clear their consciences while they still had the chance.
"Yeah. You read them?"
"When I was little younger than you, yeah. My dad used to read me The Hobbit at bedtime. When I got a little older, I started reading through them. Never had the chance to finished Return of the King though. Ha. Barret used to make me think of Gimli, he'd been a miner, back in Corel. Gruff like him too."
"Then that'd make you, like Legolas or something, wouldn't it? I mean, you're graceful, pretty, long hair, like Barret's total opposite. And you're best friends, like they were in the book."
Tifa snorted lightly, lips twisting a little.
"Just about hunting Orcs too. And would that make you Pippin or something?"
"Sure, make me the 'fool of a Took'." She shot back smiling wanly up at her. It was then that she noticed the strap of red cloth wound tightly around her midsection, blackish splotch near where it had been tied off. "How bad is it?"
"What, being Pippin? I wouldn't say-"
"No. Your side. Is it bad?" She suddenly felt very selfish. All her sniveling, and there Tifa was, suffering silently with her own injuries.
"I've patched it up. I'm alright for now, but I'll need a real doctor to take care of it once help gets here." She patted at her bandage self-consciously with her free hand, brushing her fingertips off on her pants right afterward. "Besides, Legolas was immortal, right?"
Yuffie nodded, mollified for the moment. Tifa wasn't going anywhere. Long as they kept talking, everything would be fine.
"Right. You know, I heard they're planning to make a movie about it."
"They've been talking about that for years. I'm not much for epics though. I was always more of a fan of the animated ones out of Wutai. Palace of the Sea God... I can never remember what the real title was. You know which one I'm talking about?"
"Yeah, the one where the little girl meets Leviathan? That was my favorite one. After I first saw it, I used to spend hours every day running up and down the coast hoping I'd get to meet him too. Pretty silly, huh?"
"No, not at all. When I was little, I was convinced I'd be able to find flower fairies and spirits up in the Nibel Mountains. I can't remember the name of the movie for the life of me, but it was the one where the spirits of dead people crossed over the mountain, and it had that meadow full of flower fairies in all those colors. I wanted so bad to find a yellow one. When I was done with my training, I'd wander around the mountains trying to find every yellow flower I could, just to see if I could get a fairy to come out and talk to me. The mountains looked so pretty then-" She paused as Yuffie stifled a yawn, looking up at her sheepishly to continue "There were flowers and birds everywhere before Shinra came in and established a Mako Reactor. That sucked all the life out of the mountain. The flowers shriveled up, the birds flew away, and everything was so ugly and dead. But before that, it was beautiful. Especially in the spring and summer..."
It was soothing to hear Tifa talk about that; almost therapeutic, really. Funny. They liked the same movies, the same books, and though they'd been comrades for almost a year, she'd never known. Maybe if they had known earlier, they would have been better friends in the course of things.
But now that could change. Once they got out of this, they had time. Time to get better, time to talk, time to become real friends.
Tifa's voice was soothing, calming; a balm to keep her frantic thoughts at bay. They'd get out, and then, once they were all recovered, they could get onto their new lives. Good lives.
A fresh start, despite how ugly this had ended.
Yeah, that sounded like just what they needed, she though dimly to herself, as she let her eyes slide shut, Tifa's low, soft voice pushing her exhausted body toward the realm of sleep. She didn't want to go to sleep, leave Tifa with her own thoughts for so long, but she was exhausted; her body, mind, everything. And they could talk more when she woke up, and who knew, maybe Tifa was just as tired as she was.
Yeah, a little sleep, and everything would be better.
Yeah...
It hurt.
All over again, the pain started, sluggishly pulling her back into consciousness.
"Got a live one over here!"
Her eyes snapped open, and she found herself staring up at that blonde from the Turks, who looked as surprised as she currently felt. What the Hell were the Turks doing here? Where was-
Her right hand scrabbled at air for a moment, not finding the other woman's hand.
Where was Tifa?
The redhead Turk came over, giving her a cursory once over, before he lifted her up, the debris having been moved off of her legs at some point.
She glanced down at her legs, seeing them still in-tact as Tifa had said, though they were obviously broken, bone sticking out through the skin on her left shin. But that didn't bother her.
What bothered her was that Tifa wasn't there.
Where had she gone? Maybe she had been moved away, maybe the rescue team had found them, and moved her first.
"Tifa?" She asked, glancing up at the Turks, who exchanged a glance before looking back down at her, grim.
Wait. What was that supposed to mean?
"Tifa, s-she's okay, right? I want to see her!" She demanded frantically, grabbing onto Reno's shoulders, trying to pull herself up and get a better vantage point on their surroundings. She looked around, trying to glance over his shoulder at where they had been sitting the night before.
"Don't look over there." Reno muttered tiredly, shaking his head. But she paid him no mind, still twisting in his grip, eyes searching for any sign of her.
Tifa was laid out on the ground, Rude kneeling over her, checking her pulse, lips drawn in a grim line, two medics leaning in on either side of him, a stretcher behind them. He nodded once, and his hands went to the makeshift bandage, fumbling to undo the knot.
The red cloth fell away and almost immediately, she saw the sickly gray curl of intestines surge forward from the wound, spilling free now that there was nothing forcing them back in place.
The sight made her scream, twisting even more against Reno's grip, reaching around him with one arm, uselessly reaching towards Tifa, breath catching in her throat at how bad it looked.
They all loaded her onto the stretcher, the medics quickly wheeling her past them shouting to each other as they neared one of the helicopters that had set down, come to rescue them at some point.
"Tifa! Tifa, no! I'm sorry I fell asleep! I'm sorry!" She shrieked, squirming to try and get Reno to let her go. She wanted to get over there, make sure she was okay. Didn't matter her legs were currently smashed and useless. She had to get over there and make sure Tifa was okay. "Please, wake up! You gotta wake up! Tifa..." She dissolved into sobs, face curling in against Reno's shoulder.
She should have noticed something. Should have noticed that Tifa was worse hurt than she let on. She should have stayed awake with her, should have kept talking.
She shouldn't have left Tifa alone.
If she... if she died...
She was deposited on a stretcher and moved toward the group of helicopters as well, near two covered stretchers. She knew that the one was obviously Vincent, but the other...
"Cloud." Reno muttered dryly from his spot at the head of her stretcher, answering her unasked question. "Guess he finally made it back to that flower girl of his."
The poignant comment was lost on her though, as Reeve made his way over, face grim. The privilege of finally meeting the man behind Cait Sith was also lost on her, as she was craning her neck, peering past them, trying to see Tifa through the mass of medics swarming around her.
"Yuffie, we're going to get you to a hospital, but the doctors first need to-"
"No!" She screeched, bolting upright as they started moving Tifa's stretcher towards the ones Cloud and Vincent were laid out on "Don't put her over there! Don't put her over there! You can't-"
"They're loading her into the helicopter. They need to get her back right away." Reeve explained calmly, hand on her shoulder, and Yuffie watched as they wheeled her right past their fallen teammates, and proceeded to load her up, the rotor already spinning, kicking up a wind as it lifted off, dislodging the sheets from both Cloud and Vincent.
She stared at their bodies, dumbfounded, not watching as the helicopter took off, heading in the direction of the setting sun, everything bathed in a brassy orange, unlike the sickly green from the night before.
Cloud looked relatively... okay. As far as dead bodies went. Save for the gross discoloration around his throat, purple and black with bruises, head turned at an odd angle. Vincent, on the other hand, was a mess. The twisted leg she had seen had been completely taken off below the knee, hanging by only a few strips of muscle. The claw arm was completely gone, twisted wires hanging from the stump. And his stomach was gouged open, some viscera pushing through.
Guts pushing out.
Just like Tifa.
"She's going to be okay, right? I-I mean they're going to get her to the hospital, a-and she'll be fine." She jabbered, half-hysterical, head whipping around to look at Reeve, get some kind of confirmation. Some kind of reassurance.
The look he gave her was anything but reassuring.
"They don't know." He answered truthfully, shaking his head. "She's lost a lot of blood. They'll give her a transfusion on the way, but they don't know if she'll make it."
He reached out again to try and comfort her, but she slapped his hands away, shaking her head, squeaking a little as the tears started again.
They couldn't do this to her. Not now. Not now. They were friends now. Tifa had to make it. That couldn't have been the last time they ever talked to one another. All that time together, and now they were finally getting to know each other. They couldn't take Tifa away now.
She didn't react when she felt the cool swab rubbed over her shoulder, didn't even flinch when the needle went in. They were doping her up. But she didn't want to go back to sleep. Not this time. Not after what happened the last time she went to sleep. She didn't want to wake up and find out that Tifa was dead.
They saved the world. They were heroes.
This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen to heroes.
This sort of thing wasn't supposed to happen.
Originally, this was going to be a one-shot. It was going to have a little more heart-to-heart dialogue, and was going to end with Yuffie waking up and finding Tifa dead. But I waffled. Wanted some more Yuffie-Tifa interaction, dealing with the idealism thing that Tifa brought up. So, there may be more, I don't know.