Lean On Me (FF7)

25

"What about the Edge?" Barret frowns.

"I think there's a way to..."

"There's no way to save it," I shake my head. There was no one that I saw around and literally every building was up in a flames. Forget Tifa and her optimistic attitude, I'm a realistic person.

"Sucks, they just finished building that last year too," Barret shakes his head.

"I know," she frowns, looking in the direction of the newish addition to Midgar to make up for Sector Seven.

"We can always build you a new bar. And a new Edge. And a new... Midgar?" I offer awkwardly.

"I'm good," she shakes her head. "But where are the kids gonna stay?"

"On board, I guess," Barret shrugs.

"But..." Tifa protests.

"Do you have any better ideas?" I interrupt. "Aeris's mother disappeared when she heard about her daughter's death, I don't trust anyone here, I highly doubt anyone in Coral could handle Denzel, and he's always wanted to learn to fight with Cloud, plus, you can't hide them from the real world forever." I list.

"I know, I just don't want either of them getting hurt."

"The most that'll happen is somehow Denzel will catch the legendary Strife Airsickness." Barret scoffs.

"They're not even blood related," I shake my head.

"But Cloud found him and rescued him, correct?" Barret raises an eyebrow.

"Yes, but he did not give birth to the kid," Tugs laughs.

"I would hope not," Barret looks horrified. "Can we stop talking about this?"

"You're the one who brought it up," I point out.

"And I want to be the one who end it."

"That's nice," I yawn.

"Aw, you stayed up to late," Tifa pokes my cheek. I groan weakly and hit her hand away softly. "Fine, Grumpy" she pushes my arm playfully and turns back to Barret.

"So what are we gonna do about the crazies?" He motions to the people that walk slowly everywhere, armed and dangerous.

"We should probably just leave if we've done all we need to do," I say. "No need to kill anyone else."

"Right," Then he turns to the others and yells, "We're goin' back, we've done all that we can!"

Yuffie grumbles something about asylums under her breath before following Cait Sith and Cid back to the ship. Barret pushes past me and then leads us to the Highwind, even though we know perfectly well where it is. I guess he just likes being in charge.

"All aboard!" Cid yells playfully as we climb in and Yuffie laughs, still acting like she has 1,000,000 pounds of sugar running through her system.

"Hey Tifa! Again!" Denzel calls from across the room.

"Hey Denzel," she smiles back, accepting his hug before he runs around, making sure to talk to everyone. But me, of course. Cuz I'm so creepy and all that.

"Hey Vinnie. Again," Marlene smiles up at me.

"Hey Marlene."

"Any idea where Cloud is?" Yuffie looks around the room.

"No idea," I shake my head.

"Hmm," she frowns. "Red's gone too."

"I don't think there's anything to worry about," I shake my head even though she wouldn't worry if he fell in the Lifestream again.