Kingdom Hearts 1. Prologue: Arrival

  
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!   


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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.   


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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!   



	2. Chapter One: Flight

  
DISCLAIMER: Me no own. Me no likey.   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This. Thing. Is. HUGE. O.O   
Seriously, this chapter here is _the_ longest thing I have ever written for fanfiction. I've written one short story longer than this, but only one, and one paper, which doesn't at all count. This thing is eighteen pages long; before this, my record was sixteen. Damn...   
Okay, here's my question: where is everyone getting the ages from? They're not in the game manual, nor on any of the sites I can find. Are the in-game ages on some site that's now defunct or what? I'm just really, really curious.   
All right, here's a question. When ff.n says "For whatever reason, some writers feel it's okay to copy-n-paste musical lyrics they have not written into their fiction. If you did not write it, do not post it. This has always been our policy. Please remove these entries immediately to avoid account closure," do they mean people posting nothing but song lyrics as a chapter (which I've seen and made me wonder), or songfics entirely?   
Rating change because of language (mine, Cid's, and future) and many, many deaths. Review replies at the bottom so I don't take up any more space up here ;;   


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It had been hell.   
Life at Hollow Bastion had been nearly idyllic. Ansem was a wise and good ruler whose intelligence and sense of justice had made his people proud to say they were under his protection. The military arts were kept up really only out of tradition, for the sake of the exercise and the strength and grace that most of them gave the practitioner. The castle guards hadn't been needed in anything beyond ceremonies for decades and kept their weapons and uniforms in good order, but they themselves weren't so in shape. Life treated the people well, with mild weather and a short winter, plenty of food, and the skills that craftspeople and artisans had developed over the centuries. The lifts in the castle were almost a century old and still in perfect order, while the castle itself was beautiful, shining like mother of pearl as it stretched away into the sky. When gummi technology first became known to them three years before, it had been adopted and mastered as quickly as anything, though the number of ships was kept small and used for either intraworld trips that would take a long time or brief cruises out in space, where both child and adult would press their faces to the windows to stare around them in wonder. No one ever thought about other worlds, though gradually they were realizing they existed. The meaning of the stars' light gradually disappearing filtered to them, but life seemed too good for it to worry them. They had all they wanted right there.   
Which is what made it so easy for the Heartless to take over.   
No one knew where they had come from, or what their purpose was. Workers for the castle had gone up the lifts that morning just as usual, leaving the towns around it near dawn as the rest of the world began to wake as well. It was a pleasant morning, with a few fluffy white clouds in the sky and the birds singing lazily in the trees, the sound of the Rising Falls not too far away a constant background to the daily routines.   
An hour later, the panicked yelling began as only slightly more than half the men and women returned at a dead run, panicked, shrieking, looking constantly back over their shoulders so much that some of them stumbled, fell, and were trampled under the feet of the people following without the runners even realizing it. The people who had dashed outside at the sounds stared back in horror as they could see the men and women of the castle guards, about the only fighting force the Bastion had, running after the townspeople, one or two or three occasionally turning around to attack groups of monsters that were outdistancing the rest of the wall of _things_ rushing after people: things like shadows, giant pink things that flew, slow, clanking things that seemed to be made of metal, small things that whirled like tops in the air and seemed to call down destruction with magic, larger things with big hats that attacked with even stronger magic, and the most terrifying looking, the gigantic balls that seemed to burn with black flame and flew after anything and everything as if going insane with the want to eat something. A flood of these things was coming, spreading in all directions, racing after people and bowling them over, throwing spells and setting them on fire, or…   
…plunging enormous claws into a person's chest and dragging out their heart, breaking it into shards that disappeared on the wind as the person disappeared while writhing in pain, as the man in Squall Leonheart's vision was doing right now.   
The boy, though tall for his eleven years, and strong, had been shoved back into his house by his mother the moment she saw the coming attack. Raine Leonheart was a good woman to have on your side in an emergency, but this was beyond an emergency – this was a slaughter, a catastrophe. Instead of rushing to pack blankets and cold compresses as she had in the past, she'd yelled in terror, dragged her son back inside, and slammed the door – "_Stay inside, Squall!_" – guarding it with her own body while yelling out offensive spells at anything stupid enough to come at her. It was effective, too – though only because there were so many people around who were easier targets. Raine stood there, gripping the doorknob behind her with both hands and leaning forward so the whole weight of her body was holding it shut, draining her energy and guarding her son who stood watching her in shock out the window set in the door.   
"Dad…" he said under his breath. His father Laguna was out there somewhere, somewhere with the rest of the guards, fighting. He knew his father hadn't taken his best weapon today – and he knew his father was going to need it. Squall turned and sprinted upstairs to his room to find his own sword, then into parents' room, grabbing the hard black case that held his father's most prized possession before hauling it downstairs. Taking one more glance out the front window, and seeing his mother doing brilliantly, he dashed for the back door, the slam as he yanked it shut going unnoticed in the now unoccupied house.   


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Eight-year-old Yuffie Kisaragi was awakened much earlier than she liked to be by what sounded like a bird or cat fight of some sort far off in the distance. She turned over, lumped herself under the covers on her bed, intent on ignoring the noise until it stopped or going back to sleep in spite of it. But not getting softer, or ending, like she wanted it to, the noise grew louder, closer, and more distinct. First she realized it was more than just a couple of birds or cats; it sounded like tens, hundreds even- hundreds of people, that was, as one shrill shriek of terror rose high enough above the rest to stand the hairs on the back of her neck on end and snap her eyes open with fear. She rolled out of bed, getting tangled in the covers and viciously kicking her way free to jump to the window, pressing her face against it and craning her neck to try and see what was going on.   
Not even two blocks away, the flood of fleeing humanity ran down her street, and her already large eyes widened like saucers as she saw what they were fleeing from – or enough of it to give her nightmares for all her life. Not even remembering that she was still dressed in her pajamas, or that her father was still snoring loudly in his room, Yuffie practically flew down the stairs, running out the door as fast as her little legs could carry her and next door, bursting through that door and not bothering to close it as she started yelling at the top of her lungs. "_CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD CLOUD!_" She ran into her surrogate brother's bedroom and felt an immense flood of relief that even though nightmares ran behind her, he was still there and just waking up, sitting up with an irate expression on his face.   
"Yuffie, you-" was as far as he got before she dove into his bed and yanked his covers over her head, huddling close to him and trembling in sheer terror. Cloud was immediately worried; she'd never been like this before. "Yuffie, what is it?"   
"_MONSTERS!_"   
Knowing she wasn't one to panic out of hand, Cloud flung aside his portion of the blankets and went immediately to his window, flinging it open and leaning out – and immediately seeing what was wrong. His blue eyes widened in shock at the sheer _impossibility_ of the scene before him, before he started cursing a mile a minute and yanking himself back inside before he fell out. Still cursing the worst that Yuffie had ever heard anyone curse before, and not caring if she watched, he practically ripped off the old sweatpants he slept in and yanked on his training gear the fastest he'd ever done it, grabbing his sword out of the corner of the room. "Yuffie, let's go!" he yelled, and she complied, rocketing out from under the covers and into his hold as he ran down the stairs, only adrenaline and speed keeping him from falling headlong under the weight of his sword and the girl held in one arm, hoping to whatever god existed that he'd trained enough in his sixteen years to be able to protect her.   


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Cid Highwind was, as usual, face-up under the belly of a gummi ship high in the castle, trying to ratchet in place a part that had come loose, the cigarette hanging from his teeth getting chewed to pieces in frustration with the stupid part. It had just _broken_, which was highly unusual in and of itself, but it was essential as it was part of the control system for the ship's engines. Without it, the ship couldn't turn, leaving it completely unable to swerve, dodge, or even return to where it came from. A ship was unflyable with that part missing, and he'd noticed it dangling under the belly of the gummi when he'd come up for work early that morning. His internal time was severely messed up: he was awake every day either long before or long after every other person he knew, but he was lucky in that his job didn't need him to stay on a regular schedule. He could work whenever he wanted, and he kept a bag in the garage with a change of clothes, a razor, and some soap (and cigarettes) in case he wanted to just sleep there, which he sometimes did. He was a brilliant mechanic and pilot, one of the main minds behind the learning of gummi technology, and as long as he got to work with them everything was fine with him. His crew would have looked up to him with reverence if he hadn't been so… Cid. As it was, they were his closest friends and favorite companions, a sort of wacky brotherhood. And…   
_Where were they!_   
They were never this late. Cid glanced at his watch and growled under his breath, planning the chewing out he was gonna give them when they _did_ show up, knowing full well that _all_ of them missing probably meant they were planning something unhappy for him. With one last twist of the ratchet, he gave a triumphant cry as the broken gummi part was snapped back into place, pushing himself out from under the ship to get some glue to seal it off.   
He was starting to get back under the ship when something caught his eye: a strange shadow under the belly of the next gummi ship over. Feeling his blood start to chill, he slowly approached it and knelt down to peer under. His gut feeling was correct: the exact same piece that he had just fixed on the first ship was snapped off here, too. He stood and went to the next one, then the next one even quicker, then the last almost at a run.   
They were all broken. In exactly the same way.   
Mumbling a curse around his mutilated cigarette, Cid began to stride back towards the only working ship in the garage – the one he'd just fixed. Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong; that type of damage could only be deliberate. Cid tossed the container of glue aside as he headed for the door to take the lift down and find Ansem. But the sound of the lift whirring once he actually reached the door was enough to make him back up and take cover behind the ships, reaching for… something. Anything. His hand met a long pole, a broom, and he wrenched the straw head off, grabbing a knife from nearby and lashing it to the end with a thin rope. The utter sense of wrongness that had come over him at the sight of the damage had filled him up entirely, making his knuckles white on the pole as he gripped the makeshift weapon, made even his deliberately quiet breathing sound like a gale wind in his ears.   
He heard running footsteps down the short hall that led to the lift and he clenched his hands so hard he nearly broke the pole. "CID!" He relaxed, or started to, until he realized that that voice was panicked, frightened, and altogether _nothing_ like he knew it to be, and he stayed hidden as Shera, his mechanic, sprinted into the room. "CID! CAPTAIN! CID!" Her use of his name was also nothing like her. When he realized nothing was following her, he stepped out of his hiding place, and as she spotted him she ran over as fast as she could. "WE'RE UNDER ATTACK!"   
"Whoa!" he commanded, grabbing one of her wrists to still it so she wouldn't flail herself to death, not letting go of his makeshift spear. "What happenin'!"   
"There's monsters and people dead and panicking and running and _they take your heart!_"   
"WHAT!"   
"THEY TAKE YOUR H-" Her last word was cut off with a choking gurgle that should have been a shriek as a clawed hand was thrust right through the center of her chest towards Cid's face, taking her heart with it and displaying it as if it were some form of trophy. Cid jumped back, eyes as wide as they'd ever been and cigarette falling to the floor as his jaw dropped, as that hand casually crushed Shera's heart in its iron grip, the pieces slowly dissipating into nothing… along with Shera's body. It was dissolving, vanishing, right in front of him, and behind her was a small black form with yellow eyes, almost harmless-looking.   
"Sher…" Cid trailed off quietly in disbelief – until the shadow-thing in front of him pulled back its arm, as if it was going to go after _him_ next. He growled, deep in his throat, and swept his spear around quickly. "Oh _no_ YOU _DON'T!_" On every word he hit it again, until finally it dissipated itself, in a cloud of smoke though instead of the nothing that Shera had gone into. Teeth clenched in rage, he swung around, looking for any more of those, when he spotted a shadow, a real one, in the hall to the lift. He paused, waiting, every nerve on edge… and in glided the strangest person he had ever seen.   
She – he was fairly sure it was a she – was wearing something that looked like a black robe that clung to her like skin, made little horns on her head, and gave her the impression that she had bat wings. Her skin seemed tinged green, and in one hand she held a tall staff with a green sphere at the top. But she was no laughing matter. He could feel the evil radiating off her, the pleasure in malice and suffering that seeped from her very skin.   
She spotted him almost immediately and her mouth stretched in a close-lipped smile. "Well, what have we here? Another puny mortal come to play?" She laughed as she noticed his weapon. "Is that all you have to save yourself? You and your people really are weak."   
A plan was forming in his head, but he needed the right time. If he moved at the exact wrong instant… "What's goin' on?"   
Pursing her lips a little, she shook her head. "Manners, mortal, manners. What's happening is the final claiming of your pathetic little world by the darkness. And soon… that won't matter to you. Heartless!" Flinging her arms wide, she called out something he couldn't understand, and immediately the room began to fill with creatures much more terrifying than that small thing that had stolen Shera's life, and much more deadly.   
But Cid wasn't watching. The moment she had lifted her head he dove to the door of the gummi ship he'd just finished fixing, smacking the doorplate open and vaulting inside with his spear. He shoved the door closed just before something awfully _big_ came at him, and the ship rocked as the mass slammed into it. He raced to the control center and started pushing buttons faster than he ever had before, then reached over and pulled a lever. Instantly the room was filled with fire and smoke as he opened the engines up to full, hoping to toast any of the monsters out there and maybe that devil woman herself. He heard a shriek through the glass canopy, and he thought he heard her cry "You shall regret this! Maleficent never forgets!" as he disengaged the parking locks and shot out of the garage at a breakneck speed that he would have killed one of the rookies for trying.   


* * *

  
Yuffie was terrified, but still cognizant, clutched in Cloud's arm and feeling perfectly safe. He'd already cut down several of the monsters as he raced past them, defending both of them with ease. She wasn't looking closely enough to see a heart get torn out of a person, or the number of corpses around them, and though she heard the screams as well she convinced herself they were the screams of the monsters and not of the people she had known all her life.   
The teenager holding her, however, wasn't fooled for a moment – he knew they were having it too easy, he _knew_ there was something coming. He just didn't know what, and it terrified him down to the bottom of his soul. He slashed at another group of the shadow things, knocking them back into a wall and tearing by them in an effort to conserve his energy for the flight, having no idea where to run to. Yuffie's weight was also slowing him down, and he knew that even his fear-driven adrenaline rush wouldn't carry him much farther. He couldn't fight as well with her in his arm; he was strong, but not strong enough to handle both her and the sword. And the sword really required two hands, one of which he didn't have right now. But he knew that if he tried to tell her to get down she would only latch on closer, and her short legs could never match his stride, nor could her energy hold out like his. So he ran on, girl and sword in hand, beating back enemies that got in the way and just continuing to move in the direction his feet were taking him.   
One of the flying ones with the big hat and the staff glided towards them and he smacked it with the flat of the sword, driving it into the wall as he had the shadows before it. He didn't know how much longer he could do this; he could feel his feet start to give out as he slipped on something – he refused to think what – spilled over the road and his energy start to wane as he continued running mindlessly, until Yuffie's tugging at his hair intruded into his brain. "What!" he had to yell above the noise that was still too close for comfort.   
"Aerith! Aerith! Look!" Yuffie was gesturing wildly across the roads, pointing to a recognizable pink and brown shape in the next one over, with two larger shapes beside her that were definitely not monsters. Yuffie's yelling attracted her attention and she turned to look at them, eyes widening as she spotted them – and what was chasing them. "CLOUD! YUFFIE! BEHIND YOU!"   
Cloud instantly dived into a sideways roll, shielding Yuffie with his own body and fetching up against a house as a large… very large foot slammed down into the area they'd been in just before. It was made of some sort of purple metal and created a dust cloud every time it moved at all, let alone stomped, and as Cloud struggled to his feet, still holding Yuffie, he looked up, and up, and up, because the thing had to stand at least twenty feet tall. It was enormous. It had tremendous armor. It could squash them like bugs just by stepping on them.   
They were so, so dead.   
He vaguely registered a yell and didn't realize its significance until two shapes imposed themselves between him and Yuffie and the massive metal thing: Aerith's parents, joining the fight. The Gainsboroughs and the Kisaragis had always been friends, and Aerith frequently babysat for Yuffie – which was how she and Cloud had met in the first place. But thoughts of their unspoken mutual understanding were _not_ for this time, as the thirteen-year-old Aerith quickly took Yuffie away from Cloud, knowing what he needed with that strange sense that was almost psychic and proved she knew him inside out. He nodded his thanks, quickly shifted his sword to two hands, and ran at the attacker at full tilt, swinging his sword up to collide with the metal, producing a great deal of sparks and the most painful squeal he'd ever heard in a fight from the metal. Briefly he wondered where Aerith's parents were, until he realized that other, smaller monsters had been following this one, and they were doing their damnedest to take care of those so he and the girls wouldn't be overwhelmed. He heard Aerith's voice raise behind him, calling down thunder on something that he realized had been about to leap for his back, and yelled back a wordless thanks while still swinging as hard as he could at the metal in front of him, until a sickening splat made everything around him seemed to stop.   
The first thing he saw was Aerith and Yuffie, staring at the ground with their eyes wide, Aerith's free hand clamped over her mouth and Yuffie's hanging open in shock and fear. Cloud quickly deflected another blow from one of the thing's gauntlets before getting the opportunity to look. There, on the road, was Aerith's mother, lying limp as a rag doll and twisted into an unnatural position, blood everywhere, eyes wide in now eternal shock, even her head crushed under the metal weight that had come crashing down on her. Unconsciously Cloud parried yet another swipe as he ran over to the woman, knowing she was dead and refusing to believe it at the same time. Just then Aerith's hand dropped as she let out a blood-curdling scream, falling to the ground and squeezing her eyes shut, Yuffie almost instantly copying her in screaming her little lungs out and clinging to the older girl.   
Mr. Gainsborough stood stock still, staring at the limp body of his wife for several moments, before an expression of absolute controlled rage overtook him and he spun around, catching yet another attack on his iron staff and looking as if he were quite capable of killing that thing all on his own. "CLOUD! TAKE THE GIRLS AND RUN!"   
"NO! I can help you!"   
"HELP THEM!" Mr. Gainsborough yelled again, twisting the staff around and shoving the gauntlet back with an unnatural strength. "DO IT! NOW!"   
Cloud wasted no more time trying to argue; the shrieks had died as he hauled Aerith to her feet, Yuffie still clinging to her, and they began flat out running in the direction Cloud and Yuffie had originally been going, not knowing where that was. Aerith sobbed as she ran, as did Yuffie, and only Cloud's self-control and determination to not let these two down stopped him from doing the same.   


* * *

  
Squall stuck to running behind the houses, the case bumping along the ground behind him, his own sword unneeded in his hand for the moment. Every chance he got he stopped and looked, searching for his father in the chaos and battle, each time staring with more and more horror at the carnage he saw. He wasn't prepared for this – _no one_ was, as the actual fighters kept getting cut down as if they were blades of grass. He heard a growl behind him and spun, dropping the handle of the case and sinking automatically into a defensive posture. He'd been praised, moved to the head of the class, all those sorts of things when he'd begun training over a year before, but was he good _enough_? It was just one of them, one of the ones that looked almost like a bad parody of the soldiers he'd seen in books, that walked like it was drunk. Well, drunk was good for him. He waited, as he'd been taught, getting a sense of the thing's movement, studying, when all of a sudden it leapt for him, spinning for what was sure to be a very, very painful kick right at his head. He just dropped to the ground and let it sail over, then surged up and began beating the hell out of it, not knowing or caring if he was doing it right or not. But either he'd caught it off-guard or the thing really _was_ drunk, because after a few solid hits it vanished into black smoke.   
Too anxious now to revel in his victory like he normally would have done, Squall just grabbed the case and kept running. His father would be here, his father was here somewhere…_there!_   
He skidded to a halt as he spotted Laguna crossing blows with something like a giant cylinder with enormous white wings, beating it back and being beaten back by it but not defeated. His father was sooty, mud-streaked, grimy, and even a little bloody and he looked fiercer than Squall had ever seen him. Normally a happy man, Laguna took training seriously, unlike most of the others, and had earned one of the top jobs in the guard because of his skill – a skill which was paying off now as he was still alive, and the scattered corpses of people, people Squall knew and tried not to think about as dead, were just lying there.   
What happened next would haunt him for the rest of his life. Without thinking, he yelled "DAD!" and started running up the alley towards the fight, still with the case, so intent on bringing his father his favorite weapon that he didn't notice the large metal thing looming in the shadows only a few feet in front of him.   
At his son's voice, Laguna spun, horrified, forgetting his current fight for the moment. An expression of pure fear came across his face as he saw the hulking metal shield start out of the shadows, and he began running, sure he wouldn't get there in time. "SQUALL! GET DOWN!" As his son slowed, confused as to why his father was yelling, Laguna jumped and threw himself over his son, bowling him over and sending them both tumbling over the weapon case Squall had dropped. The unexpected fire blast tore over both their heads, singing Laguna's long hair slightly but not doing them any real damage, and the clanking sound that followed seemed to tell them that the metal monster was probably the stupidest of the lot and was actually walking away from them, towards the main road, and leaving them alone and unharmed.   
Laguna immediately began tearing into his son. "_What are you doing! It's dangerous out here and you could've been killed!_"   
Still pressed to the ground under his father, Squall couldn't look back to see him, and so couldn't see the fear that was still there and was the main cause of the yelling. "Dad, I'm sorry, I just thought you'd-"   
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGGGGHHH!" Laguna's entire body convulsed and Squall, too, yelled out in pain as a searing energy suddenly seemed to pierce both of them, Laguna taking the brunt of it but enough reaching Squall to still cause harm. The smell of burned cloth and meat started rising as the energy beam stopped, and Laguna grunted as he pushed himself to his feet, slowly, using his blade for support and turning to face the winged cylinder he'd been fighting before, glaring at it with a look more ferocious than anything Squall had seen on him, ever. As the boy rolled over, aching all over but otherwise all right, he could see the vicious wound now on his father's back, a thick line of charred, bleeding flesh showing through his ripped clothing. "Squall," he grunted, not moving his eyes off his opponent, "go back home. Take care of your mother."   
"No! Dad, I can fight, I want to-"   
"GO!" Laguna roared, launching himself forward once again to battle as the thing rushed at him, apparently having regained some energy with his roaring. Squall stared at them for a few eternal moments, then turned and began running down the alley – only to stop and whirl back when he heard his father yell out in pain again. He was just in time to see his father's body hit the ground, another searing line burned across it, his blade clattering out of his fingers to lie forgotten on the ground as the winged demon turned and began drifting slowly towards Squall.   
Eyes wide, not able to process the horrible image, his body reacted automatically. Still holding his own sword in his right hand, Squall grabbed for the black case that had come with him from the house, then dove into the open doorway of the house next to him right as another energy beam shot through the space his stomach had been moments before. Yanking the case in after himself, he slammed the door shut and then scrambled to his feet, racing as fast as he could through the house and out the other side before that thing could figure out how to deal with a door.   
He slid into the back ways again and just ran, the terror of his father's death just starting to catch up to him, making him shake as he ran full tilt down the narrow path, not even realizing where he was going. No tears came; the whole thing had been too sudden, and too recent, for sadness and grief to overcome him yet. It wasn't until he was racing up the space between his house and his neighbor's that he realized he was following his father's instructions and going to his mother. He burst out of the passage, only to see nothing – no monsters, only corpses of those who had been outright killed and not had their hearts shattered. His mother was gone. His mother's heart was no more.   
He stared at the last place he'd seen her, clinging to the door and trying to protect _him_, and the tears started to come. Hot and sharp, they stung his cheeks and washed away the layer of dust that was forming over him as he spun and ran off, strength starting to ebb, in the one direction he had left open to him: Rising Falls.   


* * *

  
Cloud realized before the girls they were heading towards the Falls, but he figured the girls wouldn't care anyway. He couldn't get those pictures out of his mind: that kind woman, so much like her daughter, lying there like a broken doll, and that normally gentle man possessed by absolute fury at the death of his wife. His ears had followed the sound of that fight for as long as they could, but the closer they came to the Falls the more their roar overwhelmed his hearing, though he was certain he could still hear it, somehow.   
He knew Aerith's father was in danger. He had to go back.   
He could tell the girls were exhausted, both from the sheer emotion and the running Aerith had done. By now he wasn't feeling all that great himself, but he knew he could continue long after this. So, pulling to a stop, he grabbed Aerith's arm to halt her headlong dash, pulling her around so he could see her eyes, wide and green and panicked. "Aerith, take Yuffie and get to the Falls. Go as fast as you can. Don't look back. Hide if anything else comes. I'll be back." And he turned and began to run back.   
"Wait Cloud! CLOUD!" she shrieked after him in panic, only causing him to step up his pace so he could be there and back all the faster.   


* * *

  
Aerith had absolutely no idea what to do, so she began blindly running after Cloud, still cradling Yuffie, until her mind caught up with her body. Cloud would be back. He'd said he'd be back. He'd never broken a promise to her yet and he wouldn't break this one. And she had another responsibility, she remembered, as she looked down at the too-small-for-her-age child she still held.   
As if sensing Aerith's scrutiny, even though Yuffie had buried her head in her neck, the small girl whimpered, "Aery, I'm frightened." She'd never been more terrified in her life. Her own mother had died, but she'd been two at the time and could remember hardly anything about it or about her mother at all. Aerith's parents had always seemed more like _parents_ to her than her father, Godo, who loved his daughter but didn't know what to do with her. And to see her "mother" just… Yuffie's eyes widened and she raised her head to look Aerith in the face, plainly scared out of her mined. "I left Dad alone in the house…" she whispered, just now remembering that.   
All Aerith could do was hug her tightly, fighting to get her own tears under control so the younger girl wouldn't panic and she wouldn't be tempted to follow that lead. That could get them both killed, which would destroy everything her parents and Cloud had worked so hard for this morning. "Your father's strong, Yuffie," she whispered, stroking the girl's hair as well. "He'll be fine. He's a ninja, remember?" Godo was the only one in the village – though Yuffie had recently taken to the training like a duck to water and nowadays only wanted to follow in her father's (fighting) footsteps.   
Yuffie nodded at last, face still worried, but she remembered how Cloud had fought back those monsters before they'd seen the Gainsboroughs, and he was only sixteen and was carrying an eight-year-old. Her father was much older, and more practiced – he'd be fine, he would, if Cloud could be fine after all of that. She hiccupped and started to settle in to Aerith's shoulder again, only to catch sight of a blotch coming over the hill between the field they were in and the village. She squeaked on an inhale right into Aerith's ear, causing the brunette to swing around and spot the approaching… thing. She couldn't tell what it was. Without thinking, she quickly dove behind a nearby tree, trying to conceal both herself and Yuffie while still being able to look out and see what it was. If it was a person, they had a companion, but if it was a monster…   
Yuffie stuck her head beneath Aerith's so she could see out as well, staring just as intently at the approaching shape as Aerith, squinting to see because that was the east and the sun was still fairly low. It was approaching too quickly to be a person at a walk, yet too slowly for someone running, and there was something behind it – a tail, maybe? – that dragged along the ground. The sun blinded them so that the figure was nearly on top of them before Yuffie realized it was not only a person, it was a person she knew.   
"SQUALL!" she yelled, running out from behind the tree to Aerith's surprise and trying to latch on to him as well, heavily relieved that he was still alive. But Squall shook her off as she tried to cling without tripping over the case or getting sliced by his sword, and when she looked up she saw he had his teeth clenched and was crying, though he seemed to not be aware of it as he neither made sounds nor wiped the tears away. "Squall, Squall, lookit me," she pleaded, not liking seeing him this way.   
"Squall?" Aerith was less familiar with him than Yuffie was, though she still had some knowledge of him. She herself still looked a mess, still crying much as he was, though Yuffie had stopped for now. "Squall, what happened?"   
He didn't answer when he looked at her, only asked, "Where's Cloud?" Everyone knew that it was only a matter of time before the two of them became something more, even despite the age difference – they just had that _something_, even at this age. Because of that, Squall fully expected her to know, and so he was a little surprised when she bit her lip and looked down at the ground. "He… said he'd be back. He went to look for my… my father." Even though he hadn't said that, she knew it was true.   
Squall was smart enough to understand why she'd hesitated before saying "father," and his grip tightened convulsively on both case and sword hilt, looking at Yuffie to see if his intuition was true. One look at her face convinced him it was. He was desperately looking for something to distract him, something to drive the picture of his father falling dead, his picture of his mother disappearing as her heart was ripped out, out of his head, and these two girls provided that right now. They'd lost Cloud, their protector, so he'd protect them for Cloud until he got back. "Come on," he said abruptly, starting for the falls at his much-reduced trot again, and hearing both of them start to scramble after him.   


* * *

  
The Rising Falls were perhaps _too_ quiet. It was a risky gamble, since it was close to the castle, but Cloud and now Squall had surmised that since the monsters had been chasing everyone towards the village, many probably weren't left there. While terrifying, they didn't seem too smart. It was also an easy place to check that theory in, because one could look over the edge and see if there was anything there with just a careful cursory sweep of the head. Squall did this, breath catching at the height he was staring down and not liking the idea of falling before pulling himself back into the clump of bushes they'd found. "Nothing. Aerith, you're gonna have to help Yuffie." Though he wasn't the oldest, Squall had somehow found himself leader of the group and Aerith simply nodded at his statement. Squall didn't mention it, but he would need help himself – especially in getting back up – as the case was enormous and he didn't know how he was going to jump from ice float to ice float with the thing battering behind him. The thought of abandoning it had barely even gotten started in his mind before he swiftly crushed it; it had been his father's, and he was going to protect it. He was going to learn to use it. It would be his way of asking his father's forgiveness for being the cause of his death, because he knew that if he hadn't distracted Laguna, he would still be alive.   
They managed all right getting down to the bottom, with Aerith carefully guiding Yuffie and Squall lowering the case as far over the edge of each floe as it would go before dropping it the last two or three feet to the surface. His biggest fear, that the ice would break beneath the heavy case, proved completely absurd as the ice wasn't even dented. Leaping the last way to the final point, which was at the very bottom and was larger than most, a good place to stop, he realized he had absolutely no idea what to do next. And it didn't help when Yuffie turned to look at him with her big eyes and asked "Squall? What now?"   
"Now… we wait." He said the first thing that came into his mind, taking a seat on the case, just then realizing how exhausted he was. Aerith and Yuffie settled down as well, Yuffie crawling up against him as well as she could. He didn't push her away, but he didn't acknowledge her as the scenes of his parents' deaths kept playing over and over in his mind. He closed his eyes, put his face in his hands, and still he could see them, over, and over, and over, and over-   
"_Squall!_"   
Aerith's voice snapped him out of his torment and he looked up to see something moving… something _inside_ the ice moving. That was no person. He stood up, sending Yuffie scrambling back so as to not be hit by his sword, and stood there and waited, waiting to see what it was. What felt like an eternity later, a black form rose out of the blotch on the ice, forming one of the smallest monsters they'd seen – but one of the kind that Squall had watched pull the man's heart from his chest in front of his house. His grip tightened on the hilt, waiting, when all of a sudden two more of them sprouted up as well and he began to feel the first traces of panic.   
He pushed them down and quickly stepped forward, swinging, slashing the first one right across its nose, if it had a nose. It hissed and jumped back, and its two companions took its place, and Squall fell back into defense, blocking and parrying and occasionally getting in an attack. Aerith yelled behind him and suddenly a spray of freezing water shot over his shoulder to hit the first one smack in the face, knocking it backwards, and Squall took the opportunity to jump over the other two and finish that one off with a vicious swing. Yuffie's squeal brought him back to the girls where he fell in before them, going back to blocking and occasionally attacking, Aerith helping as much as she could. But when they killed the second one, Squall saw to his complete horror an entire troop of those drunken soldiers materialize _out of thin air_ directly in front of them.   
They were dead.   
That one moment of distraction was all the shadow-thing in front of him needed. Its hand shot straight for his heart and he dodged and turned instinctively, but his boots lost their grip on the now-slippery ice and he fell. One of the thing's claws drew a mighty gash between his eyes, causing him to cry out in pain and his sword to go flying, landing in the falls and being carried upwards by the current. But before he could even register the loss of his weapon, his head hit the ice with a sickening crack and he blacked out entirely.   
Aerith and Yuffie both screamed when he fell and didn't rise again, and Aerith instinctively shoved the younger girl behind her to protect her. She yelled something and threw a handful of fire at the shadow that had defeated Squall, causing the thing to burst into black smoke, then something seemed to snap inside her and she just kept throwing handfuls of fire at the soldier things that were now advancing on her and Yuffie. Yuffie, getting the idea quickly, started copying her; she wasn't nearly as good as Aerith, but she kept doing it anyway with typical Yuffie determination. But there was no way they could hold them off, and while the advance was slowed there was no way to stop it. They'd run too far that day; there were no other places to go. It was over.   


* * *

  
"Damn friggen'…" Cid let loose yet another stream of obscenities as he threw the ship into yet another barrel roll that tied his stomach into knots. He wasn't sure how much more of those the ship could take; those things weren't designed very aerodynamically, being meant for the airless depths of space, but he had to keep doing it. The cloud of giant featherless, clawed birds chasing him wasn't quite as agile as him, and if he was lucky he would be able to turn the ship and blast a few of them to dust with the ship's laser cannons before they would regroup from his sudden maneuver and begin the chase again. He knew he was slowly losing his armor from their dive bombing attacks on the ship as well as _his_ dive bombing attacks on _them_, but they were trying to rip the ship apart. He smashed and held down the button to fire the lasers, then decided it was time for emergency measures. "You wanna fly? Let's fly." Expertly, he spun the ship around, punching another button as he did so. A canister was ejected from just above the rear engines, and it held in the air exactly one second before it exploded, taking the last of the creatures with it in an eardrum-splitting death keen.   
He desperately wanted a cigarette. There would be more; he'd seen more appear from nowhere when he'd done that stunt once before, and he only had one more explosive left. He had to leave before his daring plan failed and he died either in a ship crash or an explosion. But he couldn't just leave everyone; he had no idea what had started this, who that Maleficent person had been what these "heartless" she spoke of were, or what was going on anywhere else, but his gut told him it wasn't good. Before more of those things could appear, he swung the ship around and headed for the villages at top speed.   
He looked down in shock from the cockpit, only able to stare at the carnage. Houses and stores were burning now, there were few things moving in there. What few there were were monsters, some of which he recognized as being the types that Maleficent had called to herself. He shuddered as he sped over one of the worst scenes, where a gigantic pile of metal that he would swear had once been moving had collapsed in the street, pulling down buildings as well. There were three bodies near it, one of them half trapped underneath, bodies he didn't want to get close enough to identify. He couldn't see anyone still alive in that mess, so he just blasted what monsters he could with the ship's lasers, vindictively, then turned and began to speed towards Rising Falls.   
For some reason, it was easiest to get through the world barrier at that point. The barriers weren't quite _gone_: they were passable, in some places more easily than others. Cid was fairly sure these monsters couldn't survive in space – did they need to breathe like people did? – so he'd take his chances with the longer in-air flight but easier breakthrough in case anything else showed up.   
His luck held out to his astonishment, and he spotted nothing until he reached the Falls. He was starting to prepare the ship for passage into space when he looked down and spotted a group of those monsters – and, opposing them, something that kept shooting fire. _People_, was his instant reaction, and he quickly pulled the ship into a dive for the bottom of the Falls that sent the engines screaming in protest. He got close enough to recognize that it was a bunch of kids before yanking the ship out of the dive and hitting the lasers at once, sweeping them over the monsters and blasting more than half of them into nothing in one go. One quick, tight circle and another sweep of the lasers and half the ice was chewed to bits in that area while there were no more monsters left.   
Bringing the ship around and setting it to hover, he sprinted down to the door and opened it as fast as he could. The little girl – _Yuffie_, his mind told him – was trying to drag an enormous black case towards the ship, and she was visibly shaking. An older girl who he at last identified as Aerith was trying to drag the body of a boy he knew fairly well, a boy bleeding freely from the head, to the door. Cid raced over and tried to pick her up, tried to get her away from the corpse, but she shrieked loudly in protest and Cid quickly reversed his idea that the boy was dead. He put her down and lifted Squall in his arms, noting a strong breathing pattern and the ugly gash across the bridge of the boy's nose, very fresh by the looks of it. Running inside, he set the boy in a chair in the cockpit, briefly wishing there were beds, while Aerith tried to find a towel or something to use as one. She yanked out the first aid kit located under one of the seats and finally tore a strip off her shirt before she realized they were still missing someone. "YUFFIE!"   
Cid, about to send them into space, realized immediately what the problem was. Dashing back outside, he scooped the small girl into one arm and grabbed a handle of the case she was dragging, something much more manageable for him than all the rest of them, and was back inside almost immediately as she latched her arms around his neck. He slammed the door shut, dropped the case in the hall, and ran back to the cockpit, where he quickly found out that she wasn't going to let go of him under any circumstances. Growling a bit in his throat, he set up the procedures one-handed and sent them climbing back into the sky, looping around the castle to build up speed, ejecting the last exploding canister into the group of featherless birds that had just appeared, and made their escape in the confusion.   


* * *

  
It took them all a long while to move. Cid robotically set the ship on auto-pilot, adding in the feature for diverting some power towards the shields and away from the engines. As much as he wanted to get away from there as soon as possible, the bird things had done so much damage to the ship that one or two direct hits from a meteorite would finish them. What good was escaping only to be smashed to smithereens by a big damn brainless _rock_?   
As the auto-pilot engaged, Cid let out a long breath he didn't know he'd been holding and turned to look behind him. "Everyone all right back there?" Aerith and Yuffie both nodded, staying silent. Squall said nothing, still passed out in his seat. That was probably a better thing than not, for Cid was sure the boy wouldn't like what they were going to have to do.   
He looked down at Yuffie, who just watched him with those eyes, almost trembling slightly. "Will ya let go of me?" he asked, most of his usual gruffness absent.   
"No," she replied, far too solemnly.   
With a sigh, he prepared to do this job as best he could with the awful circumstances. "Aerith, I need ya t'get 'im loose, set 'im on th'floor. Try an' get 'im as comfortable as ya can. I'll be right back." Though tears still streamed over her face, Aerith nodded once again and began to unbuckle Squall's safety straps as Cid stood and went a little further into the ship to find a towel and something to use as a pillow. Finding two towels, he took them back to the cockpit, where there was the best light, and gave one to Aerith to make into a pad for Squall's head. She silently complied as he began wiping the blood away from the boy's wound, noting that his breathing was still even. That was a relief; he hadn't lost a threatening amount of blood yet, though with every moment there was a better chance that that would happen. He opened the medical kit that Aerith had pulled out and found the sterile needle and thread, wincing just a tad as he saw them. Turning his head to face hers, he pushed them gently at Yuffie's hands. "Thread that for me, will ya?" He didn't have the muscle coordination to do it one-handed. The small girl nodded and began, doing it mostly by feel since his head was in the way. "Cut me a pad from that, Aerith." Cid motioned to the thick gauze that was included with the kit and the small scissors as well, and she too fell silently to her task, looking up every once in awhile to make sure that what she was cutting would fit on Squall's face without obstructing his vision as Cid continued to clean away the blood. They needed water, which they didn't have… damnit.   
A needle and thread dangled in front of his eyes, and he took it with a "thanks" to Yuffie before turning to look at her again. "I'm gonna need both hands, kid. Ya cin get on m'back if ya want, but ya can't stay there."   
After a moment's consideration she nodded, and he helped boost her onto his back, where she continued her stranglehold on his neck and peered over his shoulder with worry, but almost with interest as well. Feeling her adjust her seat, he remembered a question he'd had but not registered at the time he pulled her off the ice. "Why'd ya bring that?" He gestured with one hand at the case still propped in the back despite the erratic flight patterns they'd had to take.   
Pointing at Squall, she simply said "He wanted it."   
Cid sighed internally and hoped he didn't have a case of puppy-love crush on his hands here, as that was just the absolute last thing they needed. But right now they had more important things to worry about, as he didn't know how soon Squall was going to wake up. "Let's hope he's got a high pain tolerance…" he muttered through clenched teeth as he bent over the boy and began to sew.   
He'd never been very good at this kind of precision field medicine; he could split a leg or arm, set a broken head (which he was debating doing with Squall), treat a burn or a sting, but surgery had never sat well with him, which struck him as ironic considering he worked with much smaller bits and pieces of his machinery every day with no problem. The stitches he produced were of uneven lengths and spacing, but serviceable enough and about all one could ask for when in a cramped ship hurtling through the reaches of space. Yuffie watched over his shoulder with a kind of horrified fascination, while Aerith helped by holding the wound shut with her long-fingered hands. Cid noticed, in the way of someone not having time to concentrate on the discovery right at that moment, that Squall didn't move or protest when Aerith was touching him, but whenever she took her hands away he looked closer and closer to waking up. _Well she is from that 'magic' branch of all of us_, he remarked to himself, forgetting that "all of us" was probably reduced to just them four now. If she had the healing gift, he wasn't protesting – it made his work now much easier.   
Cid finished, cut the thread, and sat back with a sigh that was cut off in the middle in a choke as Yuffie tightened her arms to not fall off his back. He quickly leaned forward again, letting the girl resume her precarious balance on his back as he realized he still needed to put the gauze pad on anyway. That was a job of only a few seconds, most of them spent in making sure it didn't obstruct the boy's eyes, and when he sat back again he felt dubiously good about it. No new blood was immediately welling up to come out of the wood, and the wound had been over a place that was mostly bone. As long as the bone itself wasn't damaged, and it didn't seem as if it was, the boy would have a pretty conspicuous scar from all of that but nothing worse. And while all the rest of them were shaken, grimy, beaten, and probably bruised, there didn't seem to be any other problems. It seemed like these monsters went for all or nothing…   
"He hit his head," a small voice said in his ear.   
"Where?" Yuffie pointed out the place to him as he carefully lifted Squall, and a quick exploration showed the boy had nothing more than a knot on the back of his head, not the broken skull he'd almost started to fear. There'd be one hell of a headache, but not a concussion. All to the better. Then his mind caught up with his instincts and he looked up, wondering how he could consider _any_ of this situation "better."   
"Mr. Cid…" a tentative voice broke into his thinking, and he focused on Aerith. "What happened?"   
There it was: the one question he had no answer to. Cid sighed, a heavy sound, and sat back, only dimly registering that Yuffie clambered around to sit in his lap. Perhaps he was just getting used to her doing that. "I don't know, kid. I just don't know." When he'd woken up that morning, he'd had no clue that in less than three hours he would have fled from his home of thirty-four years in a barely stable ship with three kids he'd rarely ever spoken to. Yes, he knew Squall, but that was because of Squall's father; Cid sometimes trained with Laguna and the other guards, and Squall had been a frequent visitor there until he'd begun his own training. Yuffie was similar, though because she was younger (and a girl, which her father apparently thought counted for something) Godo hadn't brought her around nearly as much. He recognized Aerith from seeing her, but he'd had to dig for her name and finally compare her to the adults he knew to pick out her parents. But – his breathing contracted as the thought emerged – he was all these kids had now. They would've died down there if he hadn't come, completely by accident, and he knew in his gut that their home was lost. Whatever had done this to them had completely overrun their world, and there was every possibility that they were the only survivors. Why else would these kids have been at the bottom of the Falls, one unconscious, about ready to give in, if they hadn't lost every other protector they had?   
A soft whimper and a sniffle drew his attention to his shoulder, where Yuffie had buried her face in his shoulder and began to softly cry. Aerith was struggling to control it, but when she heard Yuffie she couldn't hold it back any longer and began to sob quietly as well. Cid still felt too dead inside at the thought of all his friends, and the very vivid memory of Shera's death in front of his eyes, to even think of crying, but he raised the arm that Yuffie hadn't taken and Aerith gladly scrambled over to him, attaching herself to his side and crying into his shirt as he leaned back against the pilot's chair.   


* * *

  
Both of the girls had dozed off, either out of sheer exhaustion or their minds just not wanting to cope with the reality of the situation anymore, when Cid noticed Squall stirring on the floor in front of them. The boy slowly raised an arm and blinked, mouth opening as if he was trying to talk, when he clapped both hands to his head and groaned in pain.   
"There's some painkillers there if ya want 'em," Cid muttered in his usual gruff matter, but more quietly than normal as he didn't want to wake the girls up. "Ya gotta take 'em dry, but that's th'best we've got."   
Squall slowly sat up, still holding his head very carefully. "Everythin's blurry…"   
"That's t'be expected, ya got a head wound and took a knock on it as well. Just give it a few minutes, it'll straighten itself out."   
The boy carefully shook his head and reached blindly to the side where the little packet of pills was sitting in the medical kit. He ripped it open and forced the first unsavory thing down his throat, grimacing, then the second before he could think about it. Making a face at the taste of it, he tossed the packet aside negligently before he started asking questions. "What happened?"   
Somehow that "what happened" was different from Aerith's, and Cid knew it – perhaps it was the boy's tone, almost business-like, or the way he didn't sound as if he was going to cry. Little did Cid know that he had begun building the armor around him that would lock him away from everyone and completely change who he'd been before into someone new – someone they wouldn't be sure at times that they liked. "I found ya three down on th'Falls, with yerself on th'ground an' th'two girls throwin' fire at those things. Blasted 'em t'smoke, picked y'all up, and here we are."   
Squall glanced out the cockpit window to see something he'd only seen once before: the multi-colored swirling reaches of nothing that stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, every now and then peppered with stray rocks or other debris. "Space…" he murmured to himself, then turned to look at Cid. "Where's the Bastion?"   
Cid jerked his head as well as he could in that direction: behind them. "Left it as fast as we could, kid. There was no way t'stay there." Changing the subject slightly, he nodded again, this time in the direction of the case. "Yuffie here brought that fer ya."   
Squall looked behind him to see the case he'd been dragging around the entire morning propped against the wall behind him, quite probably the only luggage any of them had. He didn't forget his vow of earlier, but now that he saw it again, he was almost resentful. He was who knew how far from his home, with three people he barely knew, going somewhere it was impossible to imagine, if they were actually going anywhere at all and not just drifting aimlessly. Just before he'd been knocked out he'd felt sure he was going to die, his own life being taken in repentance for killing his parents, and the thought wasn't frightening – it was almost welcoming. But here he'd woken up in the ship, with his parents, friends, enemies, everyone he could think of probably dead on the planet behind them, and he, Squall, was unfairly still alive.   
The expressions that passed over Squall's face told Cid that it was better not to ask, and as the boy moved to the back, setting the case on its side against the wall, Cid let him go. You couldn't force someone to talk, and in a space this size, and after such horrific events, things could happen that you'd regret forever.   
As Squall settled down with his back against the case, knees up and supporting his elbows, with his head leaning on his clenched fists, a shrill beeping began at the control console that Cid knew he had to look at. Disentangling Aerith from him as carefully as he could, he stood and moved to sit down in the pilot's chair, trying not to wake Yuffie. He shouldn't have even bothered; the beeping was too annoying to be ignored with sleep, and as he shut it off he could feel Yuffie lifting her head from his shoulder and looking around tiredly. Shuffling behind him proved that Aerith had woken up as well, and he heard her sit in the chair, not saying anything. As he concentrated on flying through a particularly erratic clump of asteroids, each of the others could only sit there with their own thoughts running around and around in their heads until they couldn't throw them out even if they tried.   
_I was helpless,_ Aerith knew, _I couldn't help Cloud or Mother or Father and Mother needed help so much, so badly, maybe she'd be_ alive _right now if I knew what I was doing, but I don't know anything worthwhile.   
I left Dad alone,_ Yuffie's mind whispered silently. _I left Dad in the house and ran to Cloud, and then Aerith and Squall and Cid. I just_ ran, _like a baby, like a little frightened_ baby _and I _left my daddy alone. _I'm a horrible, horrible person and I left him alone like I promised Mama I wouldn't and I did it anyway.   
I failed them. I didn't listen to Mom. I distracted Dad. And they're dead, they're dead, they're dead… and I'm the reason they're dead. If I hadn't distracted Dad he wouldn't have been wounded, and if I hadn't run from the house Mom wouldn't have died worthlessly. I'm to blame for all of it,_ Squall thought with clear certainty. _  
I didn't know the right spells.   
I just distracted everyone else.   
I could have taken Mom with me.   
I let Cloud go back.   
I didn't even see if he was awake.   
I couldn't even protect Aerith and Yuffie._   
And, unknowingly, they all reached the same conclusion.   
_NEVER AGAIN!_   


* * *

  
Three days later, after the last of his vision problems were completely cleared, Squall pulled the long black case onto the broken-down table in the hotel room he and Aerith shared until Yuffie would stop clinging to Cid. He didn't know where the other three were and didn't particularly care; this was his choice and his alone. He snapped open the silver locks and pushed back the heavy top, revealing an interior fitted with custom-designed foam padding. His father's favorite and best gunblade was nestled in the sponge-like stuff, definitely needing a polishing but still looking proud and incredibly deadly even in the weak light of the room. The lion's head keychain still dangled from the end of the gun butt, and the engraved lion's head on the blade itself almost seemed to roar as he traced it silently with his thumb, thinking. A lion was strong, and capable, protective… and solitary. A lion was everything that he himself did not feel capable of being for anyone ever again. A lion would have saved his parents.   
The lion had never fit his father's personality, but he knew Laguna had loved that weapon as much as any man could love a length of metal. He always kept the bullets fully stocked and polished it at least once a week when he had the time, but preferred to use a less precious one for everyday activity – which was what he'd expected when he'd gone to the castle that day. Squall had once as a very young child asked what the lion on the blade was named, to which Laguna had replied that the lion didn't need a name. But now, he couldn't help thinking that it did, and it was ironically appropriate that he'd picked his own new name before realizing that it fit so well with the weapon in front of him. _We have to be called "Leonheart" for something,_ he told himself, _so why not for this?_   
He wrapped both hands around the butt and pulled it out, struggling a little with the weight of a weapon meant for a full-grown man and not a boy who hadn't had his early teenage growth spurt yet. But he found his balance, one hand on the butt while the other carefully held the blade, and looked it up and down as a flash of light ran down the blade. "It's just you and me now, Griever," Leon whispered.   


* * *

  
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Tolja that was long. Oi, I still can't believe I _wrote_ that in less than three days. Compared to a lot of people, I'm an amazingly slow writer - I can't put out a chapter a day, or a chapter in three days, and in the past have barely managed one a week. I'm actually not posting these chapters until I finish the next one, and I'm getting a lot done on this pretty fast for me. Hey, if it works, do it!   
AngelKairi: Thank you! Actually the name-changing stuff happens more in this one and in the next one, but as you probably figured out, it _wasn't_ because of Rinoa. I've seen so many stories where her death was what prompted him to change, and I just figured I'd do something different. As for the ages, I actually have no problem with the nine-year age gap; it gives things an interesting dynamic. But when I played the game I just never thought he was that much older than her, and it wasn't until I started reading KH fanfic that I went "What! That much?" So with this first story, started before I started reading, I just stuck with my initial impressions.   
Gining, thanks for adding this story! Actually, the first three chapters (including the prologue) are sort of one small, linear story, but I realized that I couldn't tell something that monumental and catalystic in one chapter - hell, this chapter is eighteen pages and it's only half the story (oi...). After they get settled in Traverse it'll go into much more of a one-shot format, some of which I'm _really_ looking forward to. Oooh yes, I'm wearing a face-splitting grin now.   
xTheJackOfSpadesx, this is original? O.o I thought for sure someone had done this already. I normally hate writing overdone plots, which I thought this was, but this grabbed me and shook me and rifled my pockets for change and wouldn't let me go until I wrote it, so it got written. But if it's original, that's good! I love original (and yes, I get some very, VERY weird ideas that I just can't resist). Thank you!   
Thank you for reading, everyone! And please please PLEASE tell me about any typos you see! 


	3. Chapter Two: Survival

  
DISCLAIMER: Nope. Not mine. Wish it was mine, sure. Actually own it, I wish.   
AUTHOR'S NOTES: First off, check out my author's page for two things: a much-expanded quote-unquote "biography," mostly with new sections regarding story progress and the irony for me in finally playing FFVII (not done yet - Demon Gate at the Temple of the Ancients is kicking my ass. But I _have_ played 23 hours of it!)   
Also on my author's page is a link to my new LiveJournal - user name "tairako." I started it because of the ff.n crackdown on "reader responses" in author's notes, to have a place to post things that ff.n won't let me post (I've got a two-part hopefully atypical Squiffie songfic that I just have to finish the last two pages on for it to be ready to post) and a place to answer reviewer questions about my stories and just talk to readers and other authors in general. Because I really like doing that, and want to keep doing it. And at least over there I won't feel guilty about "delaying" the chapter for that (I have in the past, occasionally).   
Two, I am _so, so sorry_ that it's taken me until September to update this. I have reasons, but no excuse, and please don't try to kill me because of it. If it makes you feel better, the fourth segment is already in the works, and it focuses on everyone's favorite little ninja. Please don't kill me!   
  


o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

  
  
Cid growled. A lot. There was absolutely no way around it: their gummi ship was in absolutely shitty condition. What with the attacks of those monsters, his own firing of the engines in incredibly close quarters, the space debris they'd hit even though he'd been trying to avoid it all, and the fact that it hadn't been in perfect condition to start with, the ship had gotten trashed in their flight from the Bastion two days before.   
Once reaching the hotel, all four of them had collapsed on the beds and passed out for fully twenty hours at a time, suffering the after effects of sleeplessness, exhaustion, and intense and sudden grief. Because their bodies had taken matters into their own hands, it wasn't until two days after their arrival that Cid had a chance to look at the damage to the ship, and perhaps see what their chances were of leaving.   
It wasn't good. The armor and shields were down to the danger levels, one of the wings had a hole in it while the other was scorched, the engines wouldn't all respond to his careful manipulation (which perhaps explained why he hadn't been able to dodge all the obstacles as well as normal), and at one point he'd pulled a plate off to check some wiring and an eruption of fire was his welcome. If he'd had a full crew and a full garage, it would take them perhaps a week to fix everything. On his own, and with the lack of parts available in Traverse Town's garage, he estimated half a year. Maybe more.   
He was starting to get over the surprise of arriving at this world, but it was being replaced with surprise that they'd arrived in one piece.   
"Looks like we're stuck here," he muttered to himself around his cigarette. That had been his first action when arriving at the ship: find his small bag and the wonderful nicotine within. He'd had vague ideas, or perhaps hopes, that they would be able to repair the ship quickly and go back to Hollow Bastion – though what they'd find there, he didn't know. He'd also been contemplating packing the four of them up and trying to find another world, one that wasn't so goddamn depressing, but now that was out of the question as well. Unless he was allowed to cannibalize the two gummi ships that were docked next to his, they'd all be settled down in this place before they even had a chance of moving. The one-way trip was proving even more one-way than he'd expected.   
Cid picked up his bag, slinging it over his shoulder, and sealed up the ship as he left it. No one in their right minds would try and take the ship, but someone desperate could always try and take its parts. Better not to take chances. Trying to force himself to look on the bright side, he did realize that since the ship was practically scrap anyway, there was nothing stopping him from redesigning it. He'd never liked the model that the other gummi mechanics had picked for the main portion of the Bastion ships, wanting it to be more versatile and hold up to such conditions as he'd put this one through the other day. Now was his chance to actually get down to some modification. And, he suspected, no one would mind him calling the ship his now. Ansem, the real owner, was dead, their world was overrun; it was as if he'd salvaged the ship instead of basically stealing it.   
Pulling out another cigarette and lighting it after he threw his first butt away, Cid made his way back to the second district and the hotel, hoping the kids would be awake at last. He'd left a note, which he knew all of them could read, but he also knew the girls at least wouldn't like being separated from him. But they needed to face the reality, especially as he now knew the extent of damage the ship had suffered: this town was going to be their home now. They had to start looking for somewhere to stay and the basic necessities of life, while he also needed to start looking for work.   
They had to accept the fact that their home was lost to them.   
Perhaps it wasn't such a bad thing that the only one awake when he arrived back was Aerith. While she'd needed his comfort two days before, and he knew she probably panicked when she woke to find him gone, she had a level head that wouldn't let her go crazy for long. He found her in the hotel's small kitchen after he checked both rooms, seeing Yuffie and Sq… Leon still sprawled on the beds, making tea. Normally tea wasn't his favorite drink, but right now anything sounded good. Out of a long habit of getting beaten for smoking in kitchens, he tossed his cigarette out the window and into a rain gutter before he took a seat at the table and accepted the cup Aerith silently handed him. After getting a cup for herself, she slid into one of the other chairs, hiding a small cough as the smell of smoke from Cid overwhelmed her a little. Not many people had smoked at Hollow Bastion.   
"Where did you go?" she asked quietly, as if there was someone sleeping in the room.   
"T' the ship," he replied. Her eyes asked her questions for her. "It's not goin' anywhere any time soon. Gonna need a lot of work t'even think about gettin' it out of th'garage, an' these people've let gummi maintenance go so long they don' even have enough armor fer one ship. Looks like we're stuck here." He knew he would never, _ever_ tell them about the block of ice that settled in his stomach whenever he thought about the condition of the ship, wondering how they hadn't died.   
Aerith sighed, but something about the sound told him she wasn't surprised at that. "Thought so," she said quietly to herself before looking back at him. "What do we do now?" She was handling this as well as he could hope for under the circumstances. He was immensely grateful, because there was no way he could go from dedicated bachelor (except for Shera…) to responsible caretaker of three kids overnight, no matter what was going on around them. Aerith was just becoming a teenager, but she could help him with Yuffie at the very least, and her calm and soothing demeanor would be a balm on fights and tempers that he was sure would flare up at times.   
"Now we go get those two up an' start lookin' fer… things. Clothes. A place t'stay." They might have to live there, but they both knew this place would never be home. "I'm gonna go find that woman again – she said somethin' about work that day, an' I'm gonna need it." It was more than just providing for them – Cid was one of those that always needed something to _do_. Even while they were talking, he was ceaselessly stirring his tea in a slow pattern as his foot tapped that same pattern beneath the desk. Perhaps it was a result of the smoking. "Can you think of anythin' else?"   
"We need food."   
"Yeah, food too. Speakin' of which…" A confused look crossed his face. "Does th'manager know yer doin' this?" He gestured to the tea to indicate the "this."   
Aerith nodded, standing and taking his now empty cup away from him and over to a sink on the wall. "He suggested it, actually. The people here seem nice, giving us all these things. But they don't have anything here I can cook and I don't know if he'd let me cook their food anyway…"   
He nodded, adding that to his mental checklist. "Maybe we can go back t'that place we ate at before. But first…" Looking at her, he had to shake his head. She, as well as everyone else, was still wearing the clothing she'd had on when they fled the Bastion. The large piece she'd torn out of her shirt to make a rag to use on Sq- Leon's wound was looking particularly conspicuous, and like the rest of them she'd been sleeping in them as well. In the couple of breaks they'd had in their marathon sleeping sessions, they'd all bathed as well as they could and Squ- _Leon_ had finally washed the blood from his wound off, but they all looked awful. Getting clothing, and soap, and some sort of hairbrushes was more important right now than finding a space of their own to stay, so that had to be number one priority. "I hate t'say this, but we need t'go shoppin'. Can you get Yuffie while I get Sq- Leon?" Everyone was having trouble adjusting to the name change.   
Aerith stood, nodding, and exited the room in the direction of the rooms they'd been given, Cid just a couple of steps behind her. She closed the door behind her as she went into the room where Yuffie still slept, but Cid didn't bother. The boy was sprawled face-down on the bed, the bump on the back of his head prominent through his brown hair and looking pretty nasty. Cid could just barely see the gauze pad taped between his eyes as he turned his head.   
"Leon."   
Nothing. The boy just lay there, one arm dangling off the edge of the bed, breathing steadily.   
"_Leon_."   
Again, nothing. Cid was becoming tempted to grab the boy by the back of his jeans and drag him off the bed.   
"SQUALL!"   
This time there was a response – though not at all the one he wanted. Leon grumbled something completely unintelligible and rolled over so he was facing the wall away from Cid. He just gave up. Let the kid sleep, he could stumble around lost later if he really wanted to that badly. Trying to ignore the wonderful images running through his head of dragging Leon out of bed or turning the mattress over without bothering to remove the boy first, he went to knock on the door of room two. "Can I come in?"   
"Yes," called Yuffie, still sounding sleepy.   
Apparently Aerith had had much less trouble with her than he had with Leon. Yuffie was sitting in front of the older girl, bleary-eyed but awake, and Aerith was finger-combing her short black hair gently. The older girl had pulled her own hair back into a messy braid as well, as though ashamed of the way it looked. Yuffie was perhaps the most out of place of all four of them, because while Cid, Sq-_Leon_, and Aerith had all been dressed for the day at the Bastion, she was still in pajamas. Well, they were going to fix that as soon as possible. "Ya ready?"   
  


o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

  
  
Shopping with the girls hadn't been nearly as bad as he thought it would be. After finding out earlier that morning, to his great relief, that Traverse Town used munny gems as currency as Hollow Bastion had done, he'd done a quick tabulation of all the money they had between themselves and come up with at least a decent figure. They could never afford a house, but simple clothing was well within their reach.   
It probably wasn't a coincidence that directly across the district, easily seen from the hotel, was a long line of clothing stores, a perfect tourist trap. Cid had dire misgivings about setting foot in a store that sold little girls' clothes, but when he wasn't jumped on by ten or twelve more girls when he walked in he cautiously decided not to flee for his life. Turning Yuffie and Aerith loose to look at what they wanted (Yuffie had only been holding his hand today, a distinct improvement), Cid talked with the female clerk behind the register about the town, trying to learn more about it. While it didn't seem quite as advanced as Hollow Bastion, they had electricity, running water, and almost all the same things as at the Bastion, save the crystals and the lifts. It was a relief, because that just made it more likely that a man of his skills would find work. He could be a menial laborer in an underdeveloped world, yes, but he'd go out of his freaking mind doing it.   
The girls chose their clothes as he talked (a simple pink dress for Aerith, and a red t-shirt, tan shorts, and sandals for Yuffie as she'd had no shoes), and after paying for them they quickly went a couple of stores down where he found himself a pair of comfortable pants that he could work in and a new shirt. They walked back to the hotel to clean up, and Cid found Leon finally awake, sitting in the kitchen and chewing on a piece of toast while he ran the pat of his thumb up and down the now uncovered wound between his eyes. The hotel manager had provided some disinfectant from somewhere after the first marathon sleep, allowing Cid to finally clean the wound properly, but the jagged line was still a somewhat ugly red between his eyes. _He's gonna have one helluva scar right there,_ Cid thought to himself. _Wonder if there's anyone in this town who cin take care of that…_   
"Sleep good, kid?" Leon gave him a shrug as he took another bite of toast. Cid began to scowl a little. "D'ya always sleep like a rock?"   
"Yeah."   
While the girls seemed to be settling down a little, Squa- damnit, _Leon_ was still withdrawn and unresponsive. This attitude didn't fit at all with the child Cid had known from the training sessions at the castle, watching them with wide-eyed fascination and eagerly (and vocally) looking forward to the day when he could join them. It had been common knowledge among that group that this boy was probably the best fighter around in his age group, or at least had the most potential, but Squall'd never seemed to know that nor have a big head. He would answer just about any question asked of him honestly, and generally seemed happy. It looked like the attack, and the flight, had affected him more than the others – because now he was Leon, and Cid was getting damn fed up with Leon.   
"Get yerself some clothes an' come back here t'shower. We're goin' t'find breakfast." Cid dropped some munny gems on the table in front of Leon and got out of the kitchen before he threw the boy out in his frustration. He walked down to room two, intending to follow the showering advice himself, but one of the girls squealed when he started to open the door. Quickly shutting his eyes, he immediately closed it again, and moved to room three. Leon wouldn't be back before he finished his own shower, and they'd waste less time; his stomach was starting to growl with hunger, having been denied food for nearly a day.   
By the time he'd finished his shower and dressed in the bathroom, Leon had returned from his own shopping trip and changed into his new things – which, Cid noted with some dismay, seemed to be entirely black. Was Squall really planning on turning into some reclusive rebel? "What in th'hell are you _wearin'_?"   
"Clothes." Somehow Leon was calm, tossing away his old t-shirt which still had some bloodstains on it from the wound. He looked back at Cid and his eyes looked exactly the same as on the day they arrived: pissed as hell, but quiet about it. Cid had never known Squall to lose his temper, but now he realized that he'd been one of those people to bottle things up inside. And unfortunately, the last few days had filled his bottle and about two dozen more, so that this new Squall, Leon, was shaking inside with anger at just about everything in the world, including his companions. Cid wondered again just what in the _hell_ had happened to Squall during the fight, knowing it was futile to ask as Leon would just narrow his eyes and stay silent as he had the last time he'd received that question. Perhaps it wouldn't be so hard after all for him to adjust to that new name, as it seemed that Leon was trying to completely take over Squall, and succeeding.   
Giving up a losing fight, Cid merely grunted and gestured at him to come along, which Leon did silently. Collecting the girls, Aerith looking much relieved that she'd been able to wash her hair, they made their way into the central square of the first district again, noticing things they hadn't had a chance to on their arrival. The town was more dilapidated than they had originally thought, as though no one had had the will to clean in a long time. The hotel was in shabby shape, but it seemed pristine compared to some areas they passed by. Plenty of the electric lights were faded, their bulbs dim, which no one had bothered to replace. Birds built nests in the gutters and eaves of roofs, while those buildings that still used chimneys had soot streaks climbing down their stacks. Windows were broken on some of the buildings, and nothing anywhere would be hurt by a fresh coat of paint. What was happening in this place?   
Arriving at the café, the group settled itself at the same table as before, waiting for anyone to show up to take their order. Luck was with them; only a few minutes later, Jill had come over, smiling at everyone. "You all must have been tired. You slept longer than anyone else has before you."   
All three children's eyes darkened, and Cid knew he had to change the subject fast before he blew up himself. "We need some food," he told her quickly, hoping to forestall any shouting matches. "And d'you think it'd be possible fer us t'talk? I thought you said somethin' 'bout work th'other day."   
Jill nodded, evidently realizing she'd made a wrong comment, and simply responded with "Of course." Quickly taking their orders, which most of them kept basic (Yuffie wanted pancakes with sprinkles, for some reason), she maneuvered through the growing crowd to the kitchens. None of them talked much in her absence, only Aerith and Yuffie quietly murmuring to each other, not wanting to disturb Leon or Cid's apparently bad moods. When Jill returned, she'd discarded her apron and brought their food with them, which all four set to with a will. Sitting down next to Leon with a cup of tea, she waited until they'd taken the edge off their hunger before asking. "You need work?"   
Cid quickly forced down the mouthful of sandwich he had and nodded. "Yeah… I looked at our ship, an' there's nothin' I can do fer it now. No parts to spare here, so I'm gonna have t'wait for somethin' t'fall from the sky." As odd as that sounded, it was true. Gummi parts were only available in space, or sometimes fell as meteorites to the surfaces of worlds. Since there were only two ships here, he highly doubted they had many showers. "Unless I can take one of th'ships out there an' go scoop 'em up myself, that's our only option. So we're not leavin'." He could see Yuffie's face sink and instantly regretted that phrase; the young girl had probably been heavily denying it to herself the entire time and hadn't wanted to hear it.   
"Hmm…" Jill set her tea down, watching him with a studying air. "You're a pilot, but it's true we don't do much flying. Do you have any other skills?"   
He shrugged and just began ticking them off on his fingers. "Electrician, mechanic, fightin', field medicine-" Jill flicked a skeptical look at Leon's scar "-though I'm not very good at it sometimes, basically anythin' t'do with m'hands."   
"You may want to try the Gizmo Shop. I think Parnel might be looking for help."   
Not even bothering to think about it, Cid immediately agreed. Whether it was at some place with a weird name like Gizmo Shop or not, a job was a job, and that meant food, clothes, and shelter. Jill cleared off their now empty plates and went to write down directions to the shop.   
  


o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

  
  
Entrusting Aerith to get Yuffie back to the hotel (Leon could look after his own self), Cid followed the easy directions Jill had given him to the shop at the back of the second district, under the old clock tower. Eyeing the stained glass doors with some suspicion, he shook his head, crammed the slip of paper into a pocket, and pushed open the doors.   
Inside was the biggest explosion of color he'd seen since spring at Hollow Bastion. The room looked as if several people had let their five-year-old children take buckets of paint and throw them wherever they wished, and the sight of all the uncontrolled color nearly gave him a seizure. Still, he had to admit that as he got used to it, it wasn't that bad – even pleasant. It was reassuring to know that color could still _exist_ in this brown town, where it didn't seem like anything ever happened except people living out their lives day to day. The reassuring whir of motors, thuds of machinery, and voices in the air only made him feel better, as he hadn't since the day before the attack in the garage. Quickly shoving aside the painful memories of friends now gone, Cid looked around for the first person who wasn't lifting something heavy.   
"Hey," he said, walking over to a short man with a very large stomach. "Is there a 'Parnel' 'round here?"   
"I'm him," Parnel replied, straightening from labeling a box that was sitting on the floor. He was a man in his late forties, with brown hair that was scarce on top and an open, friendly grin, the first Cid had seen since arriving here. "You must be Cid."   
"How'd ya know?"   
Parnel chuckled, moving over to another box. "Word of you and the three children has gotten around. Even here, with people showing up whenever something happens, your group is odder than most." Another box labeled, he straightened up. "I'm assuming, since you're here, you're looking for work?"   
Cid's pride, both personal and professional, wouldn't let him just _give_ him a job. Kids or no kids, he was going to be hired for his skills, not out of pity. "I was thinkin' 'bout it. But if you have doubts, I cin help 'round here for th'day an' you can decide if you want me or not."   
Jovial or not, the older man clearly wasn't stupid. He gave Cid a look that the younger returned evenly, a look that said he suspected far more about Cid's motives than he'd let on, and then turned and nodded to a machine in the corner. "Tell you what. That there thing's been busted for a week. I'll bring you a tool set, and if you fix it, you're hired. We got a deal?" He extended his hand.   
Cid took it in a firm grip and shook. "Deal."   
  


o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

  
  
Though Cid had told her to go back to the hotel, Aerith had other ideas. After Cid had disappeared back in the direction of the second district, she turned to look at Yuffie and Leon. "Do you want to look around?"   
The chair scraped along the stone floor as Leon stood, unconsciously tilting his head so his long brown bangs hung in front of his face. "No, I'm going back."   
"Oh, come on Squall, come!" Yuffie, thankfully, was getting over her need to be attached to Cid at every waking moment. She'd looked after the man with a little fright as he left, but once he was gone she seemed to shake herself and get over it. She wasn't nearly as perky as she'd been at Hollow Bastion, but that was only to be expected, and she definitely seemed interested in what their new home was like.   
"It's Leon. Not Squall." Shaking his head, the boy began to walk in the same direction Cid had gone, but was brought up short when something jerked on his arm. He looked back with a glare to find the petite eight-year-old attached to him with both of her arms wrapped around his. "Hey, let go!"   
"Why should I?"   
"Because I _said_ so and if you don't I'll-"   
"Oh, stop it you two," Aerith broke in, standing herself and pushing her chair in. "Leon, you don't have to come if you don't want to, but we'd like you to. Yuffie, hanging on his arm like that isn't going to make him want to." Yuffie guiltily detached herself from Leon, looking down at the ground with a pitiful expression that Aerith wasn't at all taken in by, having seen it too many times before. "We're going to go exploring. Leon, are you sure you don't want to?"   
Leon watched them both, gaze holding that small bit of a glare that was quickly becoming his norm, before giving in. "All right, all right, I'll come." Yuffie squealed and jumped on him, as he'd known would happen, but he jumped back out of the way before she could latch on to more than his arm again. "But _not if you do that_."   
"Okay, okay, okay."   
They made a strange group and turned many heads as they walked along, Yuffie holding Aerith's hand and Leon following a few paces behind, mostly watching the street. As they passed by the town's residents, more than a few of those people turned to their neighbors and whispered something in audible to the group. They all noticed, but none of them said anything, walking mostly in silence.   
The districts turned out to have a fairly unimaginative naming system – First District, Second District, and Third District. In fact, the entire town seemed to have a complete lack of originality, what with "Items," "Hotel," and "Boots and Shoes," and Yuffie privately wondered if she might go crazy here. First District seemed to be mostly residential, with houses tucked around its edges, but it also contained many of the basic stores such as the items shop. This district was perhaps the best-kept, where the lights were all mostly one shade and the old-fashioned cobblestones had been recently swept. There were some trees scattered about, and of course the café where they'd eaten. The giant doors led out to the gummi deck, while another set of doors proudly had a sign stretched above them with the words "Third District" inscribed on it. Since that was the one district they hadn't seen yet, they pushed open the doors and went through.   
The number of people standing around chatting in this district was lower, but there still were some. Third District seemed to consist mostly of a very large courtyard with balconies around it, equipped with ramps and stairs to help reach the balconies. While everything in this district seemed to have been in better condition when it was new than First District, whoever was in charge here had let the place go severely. Paint was peeling, concrete was broken in places, and many of the lights flickered. However, somehow, despite the dank atmosphere, the place managed to be almost welcoming. Looking around, Yuffie and Aerith decided it was probably more residential than anything else, noting the number of tall houses that stretched around the courtyard. The only thing they could see that wasn't a house was a restaurant that looked much posher than their little café. There was one door, next to a ramp, that wouldn't open, no matter how hard they pushed on it, and eventually they gave up trying and went instead to the door to Second District.   
What they were coming to think of as their "home" district was clearly the working center of the town. The large, long open space in the middle easily suggested parties and town-wide festivals – that is, if the town had that sort of life in it. The majority of the shops were there, including the clothing stores they had all visited, and they found the shop that Jill had sent Cid to, though they didn't go in. Second District was dirty with the accumulation of years of industry, of someone not cleaning because of the idea of the clean area just getting dirty the next day anyway, so why bother. What looked like apartments, something they hadn't had many of in Hollow Bastion, stretched away over most of the shops, perhaps for the people who worked there. After much pleading, Yuffie finally got Aerith and Leon to climb with her as high up the clock tower as they could go, and for awhile they all sat on the edge of the platform (very carefully), watching the view as the sun moved through the sky and the people moved through the district. It was calming; they hadn't seen anything like that since Hollow Bastion. While their bodies and minds fought the confines of the small town on the ground, used to the Bastion's grand buildings and sweeping fields, while viewed from up above it didn't seem that bad. Despite all the dirt, the low light, and the lack of color, that view felt… homey. It was too early to call Traverse Town "home," but perhaps they might be able to make it work in this new place.   
Perhaps…   
  


o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

  
  
Cid easily got the job in the Gizmo Shop, and in fact got a better one than he'd hoped for when Parnel saw how good he was with machines. With his reassurance of a large payday and an advance, within a week Cid was able to get them out of the hotel and into one of the apartments in the second district on yet another promise to the landlord that he'd pay the full bill at the end of the month. In their quiet way, the people of the town continued to help support the four as they found their feet, places like the café setting up a tab for them and the item store giving them discounts. With the knowledge that every fraction of the charity shown them would be repaid, Cid accepted the help and began keeping surprisingly meticulous accounts. Less than six months later, every cent had been repaid, despite the protests of store owners and managers, and Cid's bullheaded stubbornness had become famous.   
Leon's first action in settling in was to buy a sword. His parents' deaths still heavy on his mind, he was determined to master the gunblade he kept under lock and key in his room, but he was too rational to think he could wield Griever yet and there were no gunblades at all in the town. He worked out with the sword every day, disappearing to no one knew where and returning every night panting and disheveled, but a little more in control each time. Remembering his aborted training, he spent much of his time running to build up his endurance and did simple exercises instead of lifting weights so he didn't stunt his growth; his mother had remarked that he could be even taller than his father, which he thought might be helpful when he could fight. When he reached the end of the training he _did_ know, and a fencing expert was nowhere to be found in the town, he just went carefully and made it up on his own from there. He was rarely injured as he had no one to fight with, but the training seemed to bring the initial hostility he'd found when first arriving in the town under control, giving it a safe outlet. He still spoke rarely, but it was with at least a little more civility, and the explosive temper that had also come around was held in check by the ability he developed of letting things slide off his back. Unfortunately, in the time it took for that to happen, almost any good relation he'd had with Cid was fractured, and Aerith and Yuffie came very close to that same fate as well. He and Cid could still agree on most things, but Leon's aloofness was something the older man could never get completely used to and would always get under his skin. None of them could get him to open up any more, but Aerith was privately glad for the minor triumph that he would talk to them without yelling.   
Aerith discovered the small library in the second district and started spending much of her time in there, reading and learning. When she found the books on magic, she literally jumped for joy and squealed, leading the librarian to toss her out for the day. But she was back again and started swallowing book after book on the ancient art. Unfortunately, there was no one in Traverse to teach her how to harness and use her own power; whatever aptitude for magic there had been had been bred out of the inhabitants long ago. Not even with Cid's help could she find anyone, and so all she could do was continue her study of the books. She concentrated first on the offensive spells, and though each took her a long time to master and many headaches or scorched walls, she continued doggedly. When she finally got to the healing spells, she simply sat down and went to work, feeling them come more easily than anything she had ever tried. Along with magic, she also found books on cooking, correctly determining that if Cid was feeding everyone all the time they were going to die of food poisoning in short order. She quickly took over that duty in their house, as well as much of the cleaning and shopping as Cid spent much of his free time working on the redesigned, renamed _Highwind_. The town was safe for her and even Yuffie to wander in their shopping excursions, and eventually the townspeople and shopkeepers came to greet them with a smile, by name.   
And Yuffie, well… Yuffie tried to be everywhere at once.   
  


o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

  
AUTHOR'S NOTES II: I know someone's gonna go "You forgot about Cloud!" Someone did, last chapter, and it's true he's not mentioned. Check out my LJ (remember that thing?) for my reasons for not mentioning him here, and trust that he's gonna pop back up in thought very soon. Also on the LJ are notes about the town and why I decided to have it be so much more run down than in the game itself, and responses to some reviews that just made me want to respond.   
Other than that, once again my biggest apologies for the delay in posting this! I honestly didn't mean for it to be this long, but performances and finals happened and... well, life. Including a very, very, VERY boring job that sucked all my energy out of me. Blech. I was a customer service representative - you know, the people who answer the phones at those 1-800 numbers? Yeah, that was me. Never, ever doing that again. The people were fantastic, the job was horrible. At least it's over. 


End file.
