InsaneJournal

“Since when do you read the paper?” he asked, amused.

“Uh?” Tifa lifted her eyes from the paper, confused. “What do you mean?”

“The paper,” he repeated. “I’ve never seen you reading it before.”

She stared at him for a little longer, then raised an eyebrow.

“Papa,” her voice was nonplussed. “I’ve been reading them since April. It’s March.”

He was surprised, to say the least. He’d always thought of himself as an attentive father, and missing that detail hurt his parental pride.

“You didn’t have to be secretive about it, you know,” he frowned.

“I wasn’t!” Tifa frowned back. “Seriously, papa, you need to take a break from work if you won’t even notice what I do every morning before you’re even out.”

He frowned more, turning back to the sports section. It was true that he’d been working more for the last year or so – the mako prices had hiked again, not much but enough to put a wrench on the finances, and, though he refrained from spoiling his daughter, he still wanted to provide her with extra comforts when she proved deserving of them. Like the martial arts classes, for example; Zangan had foregone payment, (and would wrestle wolves for bounty instead), but there was a great deal of equipment needed, and Tifa went through gloves like most other girls her age went through clothes. And, true to her age, she went through a lot of clothes as well.

Not that she was vain, he added to himself, but she’d grown at a fast rate and was quickly taking the shape of a grown woman. And all that training ruined a lot of clothes, too…

He couldn’t complain; normally he wouldn’t approve of women taking part in violent activities, but Tifa was a beautiful girl and he couldn’t bring himself to trust the male population of the town, principally those rowdy teenagers. Like Strife’s son, that devil in child’s form – he’d been laying low for the past months, but Mr. Lockheart didn’t believe for a second that he had developed a conscience. Soon he’d resurface and cause some other disgrace. Yes, it was better if his little girl knew how to defend herself.

But – while he took extra hours to cover all those expanses, what else had his daughter been up to? Was there anything else he had overlooked in his stress? Maybe he should take a vacation. Keep a closer eye on his daughter in the summer. Make sure she didn’t take to undesirable people, or find a disreputable boyfriend—

A baseball smashed through the window, interrupting his thoughts as it crashed in his teacup, splashing tea all over his newspaper; he jumped up from his chair.

“Why, that little—!!” he hurried towards the broken window, looking around for the perpetrator. “I was just thinking about him— I knew he’d spring back up sooner or later— I can’t see him anywhere!!” he puffed, ignoring his daughter as she laughed. “That wretch!”

Tifa just brushed tea from her shirt and shook her paper for droplets, her shoulders still shaking from mirth. “I feel like I’m in one of those silly TV series,” she said, shaking her head. “The ball falls right in front of me, then I’ll find out it was thrown by somebody’s cute cousin from who knows where.”

“Oh, but I know who it was,” her father grumbled. “I’d love to see him pay for this window!”

“It was probably Johnny,” Tifa said lightly, going back to her newspaper. “He’s bad at sports like that. Don’t be harsh on him, it was an accident.”

“I bet it wasn’t an accident,” the man said, angrily shaking his newspaper, “and I bet it was him!”

“Him who?” asked his daughter, pointedly.

“Strife!!” Mr. Lockheart vociferated, pointing towards the small, dilapidated house in view from the broken window. “Who else?”

Tifa lowered the newspaper, staring at him openmouthed. He puffed.

“Who else keeps destroying other people’s property? Didn’t he smash our back fence last month? And he hates me! I know he does! Why else would—”

And he harshly interrupted himself, willing his heart to stop racing from the anger; that boy would give him a heart attack someday. He glanced back at his daughter, hoping she hadn’t noticed the interrupted sentence, but she still had that stricken look on her face.

“Papa,” she said, and her voice was very, very careful.

“Sorry,” he hastened to say, “I got carried away, that boy…”

“Cloud’s in Midgar,” she said, and it was his turn to stare openmouthed. She stared hard at him, her own mouth closed and her eyes fierce.

“Cloud’s in Midgar,” she repeated. “He left in April. It’s March.”

Mr. Lockheart was still reeling as he sat at his desk. But- what about the broken fence, the several minor thefts, ruined lawns, broken windows throughout the year? Tifa couldn’t be right. The boy was certainly around, causing trouble, and probably lied to his daughter to justify— to give himself alibis, to…

He was eventually forced to admit to himself, later, that he really hadn’t seen the boy for more months than he could count, that his mother had been working at the garden alone for so long he’d gotten used to the sight of it; the boy really had left, left his own widowed mother to fend for herself. He couldn’t really blame her, though – a frail, small woman raising a bad seed alone, she really didn’t have a chance… she didn’t even look too bad nowadays; she was putting on some sorely needed weight, had been seen sporting new clothes, and the other day she had arrived from the post office with a box labeled as a DVD player nested carefully in her arms.

Apparently, leaving his mother had been the only good that boy had ever done her.

Someone else had been causing problems in his stead, though. Some foreigner, maybe? Many people had been coming and going to tend to the old reactor. Certainly no neighbor of his would be responsible for those things. Maybe he should keep a closer eye on old Zangan…?

As for Tifa, she was still reeling as she sat at her school desk. How could someone just… miss the fact that a neighbor hadn’t been around for a year? Maybe if they lived at a hugely populated city, where they said you could barely hope to say hi and bye to people you passed by, but—

Looking around herself, she took notice of the fifteen students in her class; Johnny’s smile as their eyes crossed turned sheepish enough to confirm her suspicions about the baseball’s origins. Will’s class was even smaller than that, and smaller still after Cloud left – and probably would be yet smaller when Will himself went away in May.

Granted, her father didn’t frequent the school to notice the huge vacuum that Cloud’s absence had caused, but what about the water tower? Cloud would always sit by the tower, perch on the top beams and look beyond the southern plains, or the mountains to the north. And he would always pick fights, take offense on the slightest comments and swing his fists liberally – how could his father not notice the lack of that, when he always used his frequent scuffles as an excuse to badmouth him, whether Cloud was the one to start the fight or not?

Then again, maybe she had been expecting everyone to see things her way. The truth was that very little had changed after his departure – walls were still climbed, fruit trees were still picked clean, knick-knacks still disappeared from the stores’ shelves; in the absence of Cloud, her male friends had taken to directing their aggressions at each other, often demanding she took a side. And even back when Cloud still swung his legs languidly from his seat on the tower, people’s eyes still tended to slide past him…

No, maybe it really was only her who felt his absence like that. She just kept wondering about him – what is he doing now? What would he think of this? Is he still short-tempered? Was he truly ever that short-tempered, or had that been just what everybody repeated to each other, over and over, till she was convinced?

Whenever she thought about him, all she could picture was his slumped shoulders and the heels that would knock against the tower’s wooden beams, and the eyes that were always avoiding hers. He’d be quiet, and from quiet he’d go to action to then go back to quiet; stillness seemed to be his natural state.

Why hadn’t she thought to ask him about all that in the fourteen years he’d been around? But her father would go ballistic at the mere suggestion of hanging out with him. Should she feel guilty? Was there really nothing she could have done about it? She had had to sneak away to talk to him that night, but it had been doable… couldn’t they have stricken a friendship that way?

It was no use thinking about what she could have done back then; if Cloud actually felt compelled to honor a promise made to a girl who barely talked to him… he’d show up again someday, whether as a SOLDIER or not, and then, maybe, they could get to know each other as they should have.

Mr. Lockheart had already forgotten that particular incident by the next Saturday, when things finally exploded.

It was the afternoon snack; Johnny, Will and Maddy were eating with them, after having graciously fixed the window they had probably been involved in the crash of anyway. Tifa hid a grin behind her cup; they were such dorks.

Her father grunted at some magazine he’d bought on the way back from his office. “Terrorists again,” he explained, at her curious expression. “They tried to attack a reactor in Midgar, but were completely crushed by SOLDIERs.”

Tifa almost spilled her milk as she leaned forward. “Lemmie see!”

Her father chuckled as he passed her the magazine, and Johnny stretched his neck to read over her shoulder.

“You like SOLDIERs, Tifa?” he asked. “They’re, like, the coolest thing ever!”

“Well, yeah,” Tifa smiled, sheepishly. “But I’m mostly hoping to find Cloud’s name in here.”

“I’d love to be one,” Johnny grinned, then blinked. “Wait, what?”

“Cloud,” said Tifa, aware that her father had just set his coffee cup down, slowly and ominously, and suddenly felt an angry urge to provoke him. “He met me at the tower before going to Midgar,” she widened her grin, studiously not looking at her father. “He told me he was enlisting in the SOLDIER program.”

“So he’s a SOLDIER?” asked Johnny.

“He’s in Midgar?!” Will’s voice cracked up badly as he said.

“Yes,” her eyes narrowed at the latter. “Why the disbelief?”

“Since when’s he been gone?” he asked, slack-jawed.

“Dude,” Johnny raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were in the same class.”

“Uhh…”

Maddy just laughed, shaking his head at Tifa and Johnny’s disbelieving faces.

“Since last year’s April,” said Tifa, and then she turned to Johnny. “I’m glad you noticed, too.”

“Actually, I didn’t,” Johnny said, shrugging. “But I don’t usually notice a lot of obvious stuff… I’m just surprised Will didn’t. There’s, like, ten people in his class…”

“Well, I’m surprised you’d think Cloud’d ever show up in a magazine, Tifa,” said Maddy, grinning lopsided. “If he ever even got to Midgar, he’s probably turned into a hobo…”

“You’re wrong,” said Mr. Lockheard, coldly. “Someone like him could only turn into a terrorist.”

That was the opportunity Tifa had been hoping for. She turned to her father, slapping the magazine against the table.

“What is your problem with Cloud, anyway?” she asked, looking straight into her eyes. “All I ever saw in him was an introverted guy, sitting on his corner.”

Maddy raised both eyebrows, derisively. “Tifa, he was always trying to kick our asses.”

“That’s because you were always provoking him,” she retorted, raising her own brows, while Maddy’s own lowered to a carefully neutral position. “Also, I bet most of the things he was blamed for were actually done by you guys. And,” she turned to her father, “you always blamed him for anything bad that happened, and had a fit whenever I defended him. What is your defense?”

Her father’s face was dark and drawn in as he lowered his head, not in guilt but in careful deliberation; Johnny had shrunk his neck into his shoulders, Will was apprehensively glancing back and forth, and Maddy looked downright alarmed as he turned to her father.

“Mr. Lockheart,” he started. “I don’t think…”

“She’s fourteen,” the older man said. “She’d have to know sooner or later…”

“But—” he glanced anxiously back at her, “but…”

He turned to Will, who immediately jumped to his aid: “Yeah, Mr. Lockheart, I mean… it was the day her mom died and all—”

Maddy slapped the back of his head with way more force than the comment warranted; Tifa winced at the sight of it. Almost in despair, the boy turned to Johnny, who was still shrunk into his neck like a turtle.

“I…” he started. “I… I think… the truth…” he looked into Maddy’s eyes with tremulous ones, and Tifa felt herself growing more alarmed by how upset he seemed to be. “Please…”

“Yes,” said Mr. Lockheart, turning to Tifa with burning eyes. “The truth. That wretch almost killed you, my dear. On the day your mother died.”

“What—how?” she could only furrow her brows in confusion; that had been far from what she expected to hear. “What are you talking about? I… I don’t remember any of that!”

“Of course you don’t,” he lowered his eyes, his voice growing thick. “You were in a coma for a whole week… after the trauma of it all… it’s amazing you even lived.” His eyes narrowed sharply. “And it was all his fault—”

“How?!” Tifa insisted. “That’s what I want to know, how did he almost kill me? By what means!? How would he even have the opportunity!?”

“He took you to the mountains,” continued the man, pinching the bridge of his nose; Tifa’s jaw dropped, and her eyes widened; she moved her mouth, but the older man interrupted her. “By the time we found you, you were on the bottom of a ravine, and he was right by you— right there, completely unharmed, while you bled from your head… some people said it might have been an accident, but how would it explain the fact that you were dying and he was not?”

Tifa could only sit there, slack-jawed, staring at her father in disbelief. Slowly, she turned to Will. He was gazing sideways at the wall. She turned to Maddy; he stared hard and unmoving at her face. She finally turned to Johnny, and he was biting his lip, his eyes wet, as he slowly shook his head.

She stood up, breathing harshly, and punched the table with all the strength she had.

It snapped in two, its legs spreading apart while bread, jam pots, cups and silverware flew every other way with the impact. The kitchen was filled with the clinks and crashes of shattered glass and falling metal; the other four stood up and stepped back in surprise, and Johnny tripped on his chair, falling back and cutting the palms of his hands in the shards that now littered the floor.

“Tifa!” her father called, gripping the back of his chair as if ready to shield himself with it. “Tifa, calm down—”

“CALM DOWN!?” she screamed, stepping back from them and glaring back and forth, her face streamed with tears. “How could you— why did you never— how could you!?”

Johnny stared up at her, frozen on the spot, Maddy’s eyes were wide, and Will’s hands shook. The older man was the only one who made an effort to talk; he doubled up onto his chair, and tears escaped from his eyes as he did. “You were so small—you were— you were in a coma… and afterwards…”

“Why didn’t you ask me?” she asked, slowly.

“You were so happy—” he choked, pathetically. “You were happier not knowing…”

Tifa stared hard at the man, and then turned her eyes to glance at the boys; Will couldn’t seem to be able to look at her, Johnny whimpered, and Maddy looked almost defiantly calm.

“He wasn’t there,” she said, and everything changed: Mr. Lockheart raised his head sharply, wide-eyed, Johnny started sobbing, covering his eyes, Will hanged his head, and all color washed out of Maddy’s face.

“He wasn’t there,” she repeated, “I went to the mountains under my own will—” and then she raised her arm, pointing at the cowering boys. “And if anyone should of been there with me— where were you!?”

Mr. Lockheart stared openmouthed at them, but the only sound they made came from Johnny’s sobs. “You told me he had taken her,” he whispered.

“I NEVER EVEN SAW HIM!” she screamed shrilly. “I WENT ON MY OWN!”

“But you were—” her father tried to reason.

“A wooden plank broke,” Tifa continued, forcing herself to calm down. “I fell through and knocked my head on the way down. Cloud had nothing to do with it.”

And she walked forwards, standing among the boys; Johnny swung back and forward. “I’m sorry,” he choked out. “I’m sorry…”

“Why did you lie?” she whispered.

Maddy bared his teeth in irritation. “Come on, think about it!” he exclaimed, as if Tifa were being unreasonable on purpose. “We were supposed to make you company while your dad took care of stuff, if we didn’t blame him they’d blame us! You saw how everyone treated him afterwards; did you want to have that happen with us?”

Tifa’s fist was flying towards his face without any conscious command from her part; as it impacted against his cheekbone, though, she found she didn’t care.

He flew back and impacted against the wall with a thud; she glanced at the window by him and saw that a small group of curious passersby had gathered, and glared at them, stepping out of their view towards her father.

“It, it can’t be true…” he was muttering, his eyes lost.

“Why didn’t you ever ask him?” she muttered back.

“He, he was there,” the older man stuttered, “you were bleeding and… he was staring… it, it seemed obvious, because, because he was—”

“Poor?” asked Tifa, and he went quiet.

She took a step back, then another, looking at them like she was seeing who they were for the first time. Will had lowered his head down to the back of the chair, and Maddy seemed fainted; Johnny still cried.

It was all so surreal; a boy like Johnny was crying like a little girl, and a girl like her was throwing her fists around like a boy, like Cloud. Oh, Cloud.

She turned back and climbed the stairs to her room, locking herself in. Only then she let herself cry.

How? How could they have let that happen, how could they hide such a thing and let an innocent boy take the blame?

After a week in coma, she was in the hospital for two weeks, then kept at home for a month. For long afterwards, her father would only let her out for a small amount of time, never letting her out of sight. She never begrudged the lack of liberties; she knew she had caused him undue worry, and that discomfort was a minor price she was willing to pay to make it better. He never mentioned those happenings, never blamed her; he’d say “you were very sick”, and she would smile and nod.

She thought she was sparing him, and he thought he was sparing her.

Nobody thought to spare Cloud.

Was that really it? Because he was poor and orphaned? Had no one asked for his version of things? What if he had justified himself, and no one believed, because he was just so much easier to blame than the other three kids, who had both parents and money to back them up, or she herself, because she was such a rich, sweet, naïve little girl that couldn’t scrap her knees without it being part of a dastardly plot against her father?

She looked out of the window through the curtains, and felt bile rising up her throat at the sight of the bustling bar, the swishing skirts and the excited mutters as men discussed and women ran around spreading the juicy gossip about Cloud’s newfound innocence. Did any of them feel the slightest bit of shame, of regret? Or were they all claiming to have known it all along?

She felt a pang as she saw an excited group of neighbors knock on Mrs. Strife’s door. That had to be the first time anyone went out of their way to visit the poor woman, but she refused to answer, and Tifa couldn’t blame her for it. Was she feeling vindicated, or just horrible?

No wonder Cloud was always quiet. What did he even have to say to such people? No wonder he was so quick to anger – surrounded by selfish, self-serving, snot-nosed children who knew he had done nothing wrong, and never offered a single word of support or apology. No wonder he was always avoiding her—

She started crying again, even as she went back to filling her backpack. She felt so much disgust – disgust at the village, at her friends, at her father, at herself. When Cloud called her to the tower to say goodbye, what was he thinking? Did he hate her? He had every reason to wish a thousand fiery deaths upon all of them.

She looked out of the window again. Why did her window have to face the street? She felt stupid for storming into her room, instead of out of the house. Eventually, she risked walking out of her room, as slowly as possible, but she needn’t have worried; peeking downstairs she could see her father in the living-room’s sofa, nursing a couple of green bottles. She hurried by, and eventually found a well-placed window with a convenient tree nearby. She climbed down, and stealthily made her way towards the back of the inn.

The window she was looking for was open; she stepped back, then ran towards and up the wall, grasping the window’s ledge and hoisting herself inside. Her master was sitting cross-legged on the floor, right in front of her.

“Master,” she greeted him.

“I thought you’d come,” he said, simply.

She sat down in front of him and started talking, trying to expose the facts as dispassionately as possible, but couldn’t seem to tell if she was making sense or not; the words seemed to slip out of her grasp as soon as they left her mouth, and by the time Zangan raised his hand to stop her, she didn’t know what she was talking about anymore.

“I know enough,” he said. “Johnny came to talk to me.”

She burst into tears again, but calmed down quickly, wiping her face.

“He didn’t see Cloud that day either,” the old man continued, “but, when the other kids blamed him, he went along out of fear. He seemed to regret it as he talked.”

“He asked them to tell me the truth,” Tifa remembered, her voice shaking.

“He’s a good boy, if completely spineless,” said her master, who then smiled. “Now, why did you bring a backpack along?”

“I don’t want to go back home,” she whispered, glancing down. “I… I don’t want to see pa—my father… not now, not anytime soon.”

“So, are you going to camp out in my room? I don’t think you father is going to like it.”

“I want to go to Midgar.”

“And find the boy?”

She lowered her head, steeling herself when she heard her master chuckle.

“I don’t think you father is going to like that either…” and, in a more serious tone of voice, he added: “Are you sure about that, though? Acting in anger will only bring you regrets later.”

“It’s not about anger,” she said, her teary eyes darting around as she tried to find the best words to describe her feelings. “If I stay… I’ll forgive them. I’ll understand exactly what drove them to think and act the way they did. I’ll understand the origins of my father’s prejudices, and my friends’ childhood cruelty, and that they might justify themselves, but they also regret and try to forget… but—” she raised her eyes, “what about Cloud? He was always alone, he always suffered, because of so many people’s actions and omissions. What about his pain? Where does forgiving put him and his feelings?”

Zangan opened his mouth, but she shook her head before he spoke; she still had more to say. “I want to feel what he must of felt – I want to be repulsed and indignant for his sake… there isn’t anything else I can do after so long. And…” she lowered her eyes again. “I don’t think I could ever trust these people again. Not after this.”

Her master set his hand on her head, lightly. “The injustice that was done to this boy is revolting,” he said. “But I don’t think he ever truly thought and felt the same you say you do…”

“I’m feeling for his sake,” she said. “Not in his stead. My feelings are my own. And I feel that Nibelheim is not a place that can be lived in anymore.”

The old man sighed. “I guess I have no choice than to go with you.”

She raised her head sharply, and he chuckled again. “What? This place is boring. Also, your training is not complete; there’s a lot to learn still. And the lands between here and there are very, very dangerous.”

“Then Cloud might not have even gotten there,” she said, hopelessness starting to creep up into her, but her master dispelled her worries with another chuckle.

“Oh, I think he’s fine,” he said. “He’s well enough off to send his mother money and electronics. He might not be a famous SOLDIER, but seems to have a secure job at the very least,” he smiled. “What are you going to do when you find him, anyway?”

“I, I don’t know,” she stuttered, her breath starting to quicken as panic set in. What could she tell him? All she really wanted to do was apologize – tell him that if she had know… but those were such cheap words. She didn’t know what else to do; toward him was the only place she knew to go. “I… I just want to see him…”

“You’ll know when the time comes, I guess,” her master finally stood up, and produced pen and paper from the room’s table. “While I get ready, I suggest you write your father something that won’t make him think I kidnapped you. You’ve seen how he tends to jump to conclusions.”

She finally found it in herself to smile, even as she bent down to support the sheet on the floor. She was much calmer after receiving some support and a direction to walk to; finding Cloud, talking to him, felt like the right thing to do.

She would only forgive – herself and Nibelheim – after learning from Cloud that he did as well.