Title: Sleeping Arrangments
Fandoms: Final Fantasy VII
Rating: SFW
Length: 2851 words
Characters: Aerith Gainsborough, Tifa Lockhart, Cloud Strife
Summary: Moments of sleeplessness for Cloud, Tifa and Aerith.
Notes: Title from and fic inspired by Sleeping Arrangments by Raaj - these moments all occur before the start of that fic.


Aeris lay beside her mother on the narrow bunk in their now shared cell. This was new, or at least this memory could now replace the hazy certainty that they slept like this before, when she was smaller. More vivid in memory is just how large the bunks seemed when she was on her own, kept away from her mother each day. And when it became dark she had little choice but to crawl onto the bunk and draw the thin sheets around her. She asked each day why she could not just stay in her mother's cell like before. And each day nothing changed. Until today at least, and Hojo, the one she fears the most in this place, told her mother they would share the same cell again. Her mother was by turns overjoyed and suspicious, unable to take Hojo at his word. But nothing more has come of it. At least not tonight. Neither mother nor daughter are privy to the notion that has lead to this change, and both are wary.

But it was hard to stay on edge when her mother's arms are around her, when the bunk does not feel huge and empty without her. Does Hojo know or even care that they have ignored the second bed, now piled high with Aeris's toys and books? Her mother's breath tickles her ear and Aeris realized she didnot care. It is easier to close her eyes like this, easier with her mother right beside her. Sleep was always so evasive in the old cell. The gloom was not deep enough to hide a fantastical monster but even if it had, she would not fear them. Those creatures paled in comparison to the one she met everyday and who was somewhere on the other side of the door. Imaginary monsters had nothing on the one she had met face to face. Life was hard, full of pain and demands that did not make sense. Aeris hoped that at least she will now have this comfortable embrace each night.

***

Aeris glanced around the darkened room again. This time she would make it through the night on her own. The first night she had come to live at Elmyra's house had seen her sleep beside her adoptive mother in her bed. It was late, she still sobbed after watching her mother lie still on the station platform. Elmyra was there when she dozed off, whenever a nightmare forced Aeris awake and still there when she woke. Nightmares were not new but now he mother was not there to comfort her. Elmyra did the best she could, but they were still strangers - they had known each other for a scant few hours now. The morning after was a little better, Aeris trying to push all the worries and guilt behind her and find out about where she was now. Elmyra was soft-spoken and patient, looking relieved when Aeris spoke without shyness. They started with breakfast, the actual choices astonishing to the young girl. Breakfast before had been the same uninspired nutrition bar day in, day out for as long as she could remember. But Elmyra had toast and marmalade and butter and cereal and milk and orange juice and bacon and eggs and sausages. Too much. Elmyra drank a curious scented drink that reminded Aeris of the stuff the lab techs gulped from plastic cups. Aeris did not know where to start, wanting, no, needing to sample everything. Breakfast it turned out was much messier here. Elmyra waited until she finished eating to clean up Aeris's messy face when her tummy full of the most wonderful food ever.

After breakfast Elmyra talked through a few things with her new ward. She would be able to spend the next two days with her, but would then need to return to her job. Aeris's concentration drifted all too soon. There was so much around her. Too much. After the dull sterile nature of the labs, Elmyra's home was a riot of detail and colour. Wooden beams, books, magazines, the rug, stone floors, windows. Once breakfast was out of the way Aeris wanted to know everything. But even that had to wait; Elmyra informed her they needed to go out first. Aeris could just about remember the outside from the night before, but there had been so many distractions at the time. This time she looked around with clearer eyes, revelling in the new vistas. She had almost expected to remain cooped up in the house, exchanging one prison for another - though at least a new and different one. The first exploration was a little frustrating, Elmyra worried by just how soon Aeris got tired. They had walked further than Aeris had in her life by the time they reached the market, the girl's feet aching and forcing a rest. There were people here. People who did not know her. All her life, everyone she encountered before Elmyra had known everything about her. Her name, her age. Her favorite colour and preferred meal from the somewhat limited selection provided. Her favorite book and toy. She suspected they knew lots more tedious detail and things that she could not quite grasp the meaning of. But here; no one knew her.

Everything and anything drew Aeris's attention. She was quite giddy with stimulation, greeting everyone with cheery hellos. Most were already moving past her as she spoke, but a few at least responded to her and it was amazing. She held a conversation that had nothing to do with what she was. No, no one seemed to care she was a Cetra or an Ancient here. Instead questions were about who she was. Elmyra seemed a little on edge during these moments. Acquaintances expressed surprise at the child now accompanying her and Elmyra lied. She recited a convoluted story of a distant relative needing somewhere for their daughter to stay. Out of the goodness of her heart, Elmyra was helping though this caused some problems as she did not have much in the way of furniture. Aeris stayed quiet, but wondered at how easy it had been for Elmyra to avoid the truth.

Today was about getting the house sorted for its new inhabitant. She needed a beside table, a bed, a chest of drawers. Clothing was important too. Elmyra sifted through racks of dresses as Aeris watched in awe at the range and quantity available. They wandered home, Aeris unable to stop talking in delight about everything she had seen. She wanted to go right back out, but Elmyra convinced her to wait until the next day. Aeris soon agreed once she was sat down again, her aching feet making her reluctant to move.

It took three days for the furniture to arrive and a further day to assemble it in the cramped room that would become Aeris's. It still looked spartan once everything was ready, but it was a start. Aeris would need to embellish and decorate as time moved on. It did not quite sink at first that this was now all hers. Her bed. Her drawers. Her clothes. She had never owned anything aside from her ribbon. Now she had so much more. Aeris was unable to sleep alone the first night and crawled into Elmyra's bed in the early hours of the morning. The same held true for the second and third nights. But now it was the fourth and a determined Aeris decided she had to be able to alone in her bed. She glanced at the ceiling once more, trying to think of what she could put in her room, what would make it hers. She closed her eyes, waiting for sleep.

***

Tifa opened her eyes again and stared at her ceiling. She avoided looking at the clock, not wanting to know how much time she had before it was time to get up in the morning. It was still dark outside, but that was not the best indicator for time of day. She sighed as she closed her eyes again and feigned sleep. It was not too hard to figure out why it was so evasive. It was not as if she had been doing anything all day. Or the day before that. Or even the week before. There was nothing to do in Nibelheim. Or at least there was nothing to do now. All her friends were gone, seduced by the bright lights and the chance at a better life; the glamour of Shinra had been irresistible. Almost all had asked if she wanted to go too and each time she was almost tempted. To leave the place she had lived in all her life, leave her father who still mourned his wife in secret. He was unwilling and unable to move on, even after ridding the house of almost everything that could remind him of her. Her earrings were one of the few objects Tifa had managed to hang onto when everything else wound up who knew where. It was uncomfortable to live in this house with the non-existent third person who still weighed on her family.


But she hung back, shaking her head and asking instead for her friend to write to her. She did not want to break off contact at least. Odd. On reflection the only one who had never invited her to go with them had been Cloud Strife. Though was he a friend? Tifa had never thought about him like that. He was part of the background of life in Nibelheim, a constant, almost reassuring presence that would always be there. Never coming closer than necessary and speaking only with the utmost reluctance. That he invited her to the well like the other boys had been something of a surprise. Tifa wondered if it was a prank by one of the others, though she had always been the exception to such behaviour; no one seemed to dare prank her. But then it was just as hard to imagine that Cloud Strife, the quiet loner had invited her to meet him. She almost did not go out that night, sneak out of her home in the night to yet again meet someone who wanted to say one last goodbye to her. And this time it was to meet Cloud, the boy her father took the greatest exception to. Funny, now she thought about it, she could not say with any certainty just what had lead to such a dislike. Though it had taken on a marked exaggeration after she fell from the mountainside while trying to reach the other side.


The mountain. It haunted her dreams some nights, her mother's voice carrying on the wind from the land beyond it. From beyond life itself. No, that was wrong. There was more to the world beyond the mountain, though at the moment it marked the limits of what she had seen. She knew there was something beyond, but without seeing it that land was always shifting in her mind's eye. She could try crossing the mountain again. That sent a pleasing thrill into her belly. She could see what lay beyond at long last and find her way across the treacherous terrain. It would be lonelier this time, though what she remembered of that day high on the cliffs indicated she had been alone then too. But she would be ready this time. She remembered the lay of the land as she followed that trail higher and higher onto the mountainside. This time she would cross it, even if she knew now her mother could not be waiting for her there.

A sense of peace settled onto her, and rolling over, Tifa felt sleep clutch at her. She let it overwhelm her, preparing her for a long day tomorrow.

***

Cloud fidgeted on the sleeping mat. Barret was a huge presence to his right, curled onto his side and protecting Marlene in his arms. To his left was Tifa. She too curled away from him, visible as only a faint outline in the dark. He had not anticipated that Avalanche's hideout within the bar would double up as living quarters. Cloud had been unsure of himself as Biggs, Wedge and Jessie said their goodbyes and departed, leaving him with Barret and Tifa. The two of them had started shifting things around, creating a wider space in the cramped basement. A spare sleeping mat provided for him along with a musty smelling sheet. There was little preamble or night-time routine; each settled onto the mats still dressed. When Cloud first saw the Seventh Heaven he had assumed that there would be some way up to the upper floors of the building from inside the bar. Upon finding the bar self-contained, he assumed that there must be some access around the back. Maybe there was, but Tifa and Barret made no use of it. Did other people live up there above the bar, or was it like so much of Sector Seven and had kludged together in the past? What kind of neighbours could Tifa and Barret have had all this time? Shinra spies? No. It would not do to lie here paranoid. His enhanced strength had served him and Avalanche well tonight, but he still needed rest. The resistance group had coped thus far and completed the mission without capture.

But how did they cope like this? The bar seemed to be successful enough, but there were no facilities here. He had asked about showers and Tifa told there was an informal arrangement with the weapon store opposite. The bar itself lacked much outside of one set of taps and a sink. Not a place to live. So why did they persevere like this, not seek out somewhere else to live and detach themselves from the job? Wait. He was thinking about this the wrong way. The bar must be little more than a front to give them a point to gather at, a place to work from. Hide amongst the masses, gather and prepare. The air down here smelt of explosives and for a moment he worried about how their storage. Was he more or less sleeping in a mine-field?

Cloud sighed, holding his breath a second later, waiting to see if he had awoken any of the others. He breathed after a moment; there was no change in any of the sleepers. Too much worry. Relax. It was cool down here; a refreshing change from the muggy heat of the slums. He still felt a little wired from the day, still a little anxious to keep moving. No; he had made that promise to Tifa and he was sticking with it. That at least gave him some comfort. He clung to the memory as he remembered meeting her at the station, the moments before seeing her blurred and indistinct. Cloud still needed to talk to her about Nibelheim at some point. He needed to know how she had survived those frenzied moments in the reactor as Sephiroth lost all trace of humanity. She had come to Midgar somehow, though not through his own actions. His career as a mercenary had left him here just in time to run into his childhood friend. It should have been a fleeting greeting, one of those indications of the scale of the world. Instead the look on Tifa's face made him reluctant to leave. When she found out he was a mercenary she offered him a job, glad to hear he opposed to Shinra now. Maybe after these jobs were complete they could take the time to catch up. There had been so little opportunity last time, and no time yet.

Tifa had looked so pleased when he handed her the flower earlier. That memory in turn reminded him of the flower girl with her green eyes in the aftermath of the explosion. She lingered in memory unlike most of the others he had seen on the upper plate. Maybe it was the vivid brightness of her dress in the gloom, or the almost impossible flowers she carried? Or far more simple; he had taken the moment to talk to her and buy the flower from her. A rare encounter, and cut short by the panicked crowd, his own role in the devastation and the need to meet with the others. She would, he thought as he felt tired, be a good addition to Avalanche; she had flowers. Real flowers. Then again should he be thinking about involving strangers in Avalanche's activities? No. No, better not to implicate anyone else.

Cloud yawned and rolled onto his side facing Tifa. One more job. Or one after that. Then he needed to get going. His mind was already drifting but something about that desire felt off somehow. Where was he trying to go to? It had all made sense when he tried to walk out the Seventh Heaven earlier. Now his destination eluded him. No matter, it would come back to him. He was just tired, and these jobs for Tifa were just small delays.