Princess of the White Rose
Title: Princess of the White Rose [2/5]
Rating: Pg-13
Warning:Nothing but a little language and minor character death.
Summary: Moments that build a ninja. Yuffie's headcanon according to Shelly. Some deleted canon mixed with real canon and things I tried to put together.
Note: OOPS. The html got borked copying from ff.net. I will fix in the morning. Also, this chapter has One-sided Cloud/Yuffie. Golden Saucer guys. :3
Four weeks after, she finds herself screaming.
Not for any good reason mind you, but just to have the noise.
-
Three months after, she takes her first steps into Junon.
She didn’t like resupplying in smaller cities, it always felt like people were looking right at her, all the time. What, had they never seen anyone Wutanese before? ...Okay, so most of them probably hadn’t.
But still. Staring. It was getting old. Had gotten old.
But in Junon? It was huge. It was loud. And no one looked at her more then to try and call her into their stores. It was…Well, it was interesting, and at least no one was staring at her like a sideshow freak.
-
The monsters had been getting worse. Yuffie had known she would be fighting creatures and things when she left. However, she hadn’t ever thought she’d be completely near defeated by them. In her defense, it was a pack, and she was alone.
Two months after that, she's trying to use the Cure she’d gotten off a passing regiment in one of her Junon trips. The gash in her side hurts. GAIA, it hurts and she’s positive she’s starting to pass what is safe for blood loss, her head getting dizzy even as she tries her hardest to focus.
She’s not going to let this continue, she can fix this. She can-
The wash of green that floods over her cools and repairs the ache, and suddenly it’s easier to breathe.
-
She’s sixteen and officially has been beaten.
“YOU SPIKEY HEADED JERK! ONE MORE TIME! LET’S GO ONE MORE TIME!”
-
It’s two days after this…group…thing…. brought her along.
They’re strong, they’re very strong. And most importantly they have materia. Very good materia. Amazing materia. They even have summons.
She sits on the outside of the campsite they’ve set up, it’s big cause there are five of them. Six with her. Yuffie thought initially the one to worry about was the big one with the arm (Barrett. She remembers. Ninjas remember everything. She has to remember.), but really, the one to worry about might be the girl with the black hair. Tifa.
Tifa keeps looking at her funny. Tifa keeps looking at her funny and she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it at all.
She’s still musing about how Tifa is looking at her when Tifa suddenly really IS looking at her, standing above her. Yuffie jumps, not expecting someone to sneak up on her, and looks up only to find the woman staring down at her.
About to snap out a reply, Yuffie is silenced by what the woman does.
“Yuffie? Why don’t you come sit with us? It’s warmer by the fire, and you should eat something.”
Yuffie blinks a few times, not quite understanding, before a smile spreads across her face and following her to the group. She’s out of practice with people, so it feels almost awkward to sit with all of them, hearing jokes, talking, but she finds it’s a lot easier to continue it once she’s started it.
She starts to realize that the weird way Tifa was looking at her is the way she looks at everyone, and starts to piece it together as protective. She’s not used to the look…And would almost be offended if Barrett wasn’t getting it too.
But as things are? She thinks she’s kinda okay with it. Just a little bit.
-
It’s been a week, and she’s already feeling too comfortable.
She’s supposed to steal from these people, she’s supposed to take their materia and run. Go home. Fix things.
That’s supposed to be her goal in life. What she’s supposed to do. It’s her mission.
She has to restore Wutai’s honor. So she can’t get too comfortable. Even with Aerith, who smells like flowers and who’s smile reminds her of her mother’s. She doesn’t like to look at her very long for that reason. It makes her nervous, almost. She thinks Aerith’s going to break at first. She’s thin and small and has a feel of almost dancing as she walks. It makes Yuffie jealous and curious at the same time. She wonders how the hell a woman like her got with a group like this, because it’s obvious to her that something is…Off isn’t the word. But it’s close enough.
All reservations leave her the second she sees Aerith fight. She’s smiling as she monster goes down, all loose brown hair and dancing green eyes as she and Yuffie and Red protect the camp while the others resupply. As the monster disappears into nothing, she feels a wash of magic flood over her and grins in Aerith’s direction, sensing where the cure had come from.
She wondered to herself how she ever let herself judge someone by how they appeared. She should know by now, that’s never a smart idea.
-
Two and a half weeks in, she thinks she might really be in trouble.
They’ve stopped in a house for the night, just at the outskirts of Junon, and Tifa’s making dinner like it’s nothing at all but it smells amazing and will probably taste as good. Barrett’s so loud and talking constantly, he’s swapping stories with Tifa and Aerith, all three of them equally engaged and animated as they talk, talking with their hands and faces, showing so much that it’s jarring.
She stops petting Nanaki suddenly and hears a quiet little annoyed sound as the large….cat….thing…settles into the idea of no longer having his neck scratched.
It’s just so loud and lively and happy and…It’s stupid, but it looks like how friends should look. How a family should look.
It makes her almost sick to think she’s going to betray them. She excuses herself for air, being told that if she’s going to leave to collect their leader as she walks out the door….before walking outside and slumping against the brick of the wall outside the front door.
She closes her eyes and tries to think this all through, how she’s going to hurt them, betray them. So what? It’s not like they can’t get other materia. And theirs is GOOD. Fantastic even. Amazing. And they keep getting more.
The longer she’s with them the more materia they collect, the stronger they get, the stronger she gets….
She opens her eyes.
She can do this. Wutai needs this. Needs to be strong again.
What’s a bunch of misfit freaks and ex-Shinra experiments and employees when all of Wutai is at stake? She shouldn’t care.
So she won’t.
…. But even her new found resolve doesn’t stop her from walking to the beach to tell Cloud it’s time for dinner, and dragging him back with her when he doesn’t respond immediately.
-
She hates boats.
So when she’s stuck on one for two days between Junon and Costa she thinks she’s going to have a damned fit.
She feels sick and useless and it’s crazy, but she would rather be back home in Wutai at this moment then on this monstrosity crowded with Shinra soldiers and DRESSED as one. Yuffie’s ready to throw up and practically feels like she could cry, her head hurts so bad…
So she’s distracted when a hand sits on her shoulder and something is put in front of her.
“Take this, you’ll feel better. We’ll come wake you up before anything happens, okay?”
She could practically kiss Cloud Strife at that very moment.
But she takes the tranquilizer instead.
-
It’s a month in when she has her first real scare.
She doesn’t even know what hit her, only that the next moment suddenly everything’s white hot and she feels wet drip down her stomach and the force of whatever it is has her dizzy and spinning and on the ground far away from where she had been standing.
She doesn’t even register it hurting until the world stops spinning and she can hear voices all shouting her name and the thing they were fighting is so loud and…And…
-
Two days later, she wakes up.
She blinks, once, twice…And nearly jumps out of her skin to feel a hand on her forehead and see a smiling face in her vision.
“I knew you would be alright Yuffie. You had everyone worried, though”
She smiles up at Aerith and asks how well they did without her to look after everyone.
-
She can’t help herself when the urge strikes her to poke it.
It’s fuzzy, and cartoonish, and ridiculous and she thinks it looks something like a stuffed animal she saw in a Junon window, when she was still traveling on her own.
Of course, poking it and calling it, an it makes Cait angry and picking it up off the moogle to tell it off for calling her any number of things is surprisingly harder then it should be considering it’s VERY heavy for a stuffed animal.
Not too heavy, but still heavier then expected.
And shaking it only gets her bopped on the head with its megaphone and Tifa pulling it out of her hands with a look that’s something between a smile and chastising.
-
The name strikes her as odd as the looks of the people talking to them. They look a little too familiar, like she’s seen them somewhere.
For once, she can tell exactly what everyone else in the room is thinking as they talk to the couple in Gongaga. Aerith looks so tired, just…Tired. And Yuffie doesn’t let herself resist the urge to use her to lean against; acting tired herself, like she’s going to fall asleep on Aerith in the middle of the odd conversation. But really, as much as she likes to pretend it’s just to take a nap, it’s more to distract her enough that the distant look will leave her eyes.
Tifa and Cloud look just as uncomfortable, but Tifa’s is more obvious while Cloud just looks more…Confused? By his discomfort. It’s odd and weird and she wishes she could do more to make them feel better, but they’re on the other side of the table. And so she settles herself into the idea that she can’t help all of them, ignores the weird sense of recognition that makes her feel as strange as the conversation, and focuses on pretending to be tired.
-
Yuffie’s mother used to say she got hunches. Feelings.
She’d use them to go off of, make decisions. She’d never understood what her mother meant until she left Wutai, and now runs on them like breathing.
And now she has one and all it tells her to do is get away.
Nibelheim is so many kinds of creepy she can’t stand it. And the vacant look Cloud keeps getting makes Yuffie nervous. Very nervous. But only cause if the leader’s nervous that means she should be. Only… But…
All she knows is there is a small, tiny moment where she is so deathly afraid of him she wants to run and scream and get away….And she has no idea why. His eyes have always glowed. There’s nothing in them to scare her. And Cloud isn’t the type to hurt her or any of them…
So, she has to honestly stop and wonder what it was she saw, just for that split second, that made every instinct she had scream danger.
-
The new guy is creepy.
But that’s expected in a creepy rebuilt town, with creepy people and creepy feelings coming off even her fri-….Temporary allies.
But he speaks evenly and calm, but strong. Very strong. He’s mysterious and strange and Yuffie thinks he’s probably the coolest thing she’s ever seen. If he was less with the dark and moody she might be inclined to have a crush. Maybe.
But, she’s got to admit, the tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious thing sure is working for him. REALLY working for him.
…And the entertainment value of watching Tifa try to explain how the PHS works to him after thirty years is hilarious.
-
He’s the newest member after Vincent, and she does not like him at all.
Cid is mean and coarse and so many kinds of not helpful. She has no idea what any of them are thinking when they collect him.
But then again, Cid is sincere and smart and has a chip on his shoulder at Shinra as much as any of them so really he’s good choice. And he’s probably not going to betray everybody either. So, in a way, he’s a better choice then she is.
And that makes her more upset than it should.
-
She managed to get all the way to her hiding spot, all the way there before it hit her what she’d done. The looks on their faces. Cloud’s eyes had gone wide and he’d almost gained the look of being fucking five, and Tifa’s yells, and Aerith calling her name, and…and Red chasing her…and….and everyone.
It was all such a joke.
She’d always been on their side only long enough to get here. She had everything. Everything she’d gone to get.
Turns out she’s just as greedy as they’d always called her.
She wants to keep them too.
-
It’s two days after the stupid stealing thing, and she’s sitting in a cell.
With a Turk.
This must be some kind of punishment by the gods or something, it’s all she can come up with. Elena (The Turk. She corrects herself) looks a little sick, like she wants to throw up or hit the walls till her fists break for failing when it counts.
Yuffie can relate.
-
It’s the next morning when she’s rubbing her wrists and Aerith’s cool fingers are looking at the rope burns with heavy disapproval and she can’t tell if it’s aimed at her or at the man who tied her up in the first place.
She begins to wonder if it’s the second when she feels Aerith’s hand wrap around her wrist with a smile, saying it will be better in a day or two.
It doesn’t even cross her mind to ask, she’s too busy not screaming out an apology, and Cloud seems to take pity on her, telling her to simply return everything and come along.
If she didn’t already have that weird fluttering in her stomach when he talked she was sure she’d have it now when he smirks at her, and ruffles her hair like they’ve all come to do even though it makes her feel like a kid.
It doesn’t even occur to her to tell him to knock it off either.
-
A week later she sits in a cable car, it’s been a very very good night in her opinion, and she’s even managed to get Cloud to laugh at her tirade over the stupid dragon suit and how bad it had smelled.
“Did anybody go get that knight guy anyway? I think he was kinda stuck.” She says almost offhandedly, not really expecting an answer but filling the air space because if Cloud wasn’t gonna, she would.
When the car starts it surprises her by not making her sick, though she was prepared for it, and she leans out the window, hooking her ankles under the seat so she wont fall. It’s beautiful. Not beautiful like Wutai, serene and historic, and not beautiful like the sun over the Nibel mountains, so close she could almost touch the sun. But it’s something like awe, people made this. Put it together, keep it running. The lights, the sounds, the fireworks…They’re all made by people, for other people to enjoy, weather or not that was the reason for it in the first place. It seems like the prettiest thing this side of the world and it’s the best place she can think of to try what she’s meant to.
So, she denies what little fear she has, and turns around, stands up, and crosses to her friend who makes butterflies beat against the inside of her ribs every time he looks at her, and kisses him. It’s quick, simple, and she’s back across the car in moments after it happens. Somehow, she thought getting up the courage to do that would mean something, like in those little novels she and Tifa and Aerith laugh at on shelves as they’re re-supplying, like there’d be something. Like a spark that would make everything great, and he’d notice her for real instead of Aerith or Tifa, who are both amazing, and beautiful, and make her feel awkward in comparison, even though she knows she’s fantastic and it should be obvious even without some big epiphany.
But there’s no change, and he looks more confused then anything, and maybe even Great Ninjas can’t get everything they want.
“I just felt like doing that...”
-
She’s still resigning herself to being the odd girl out when she and Cloud stumble into the cat leaving the hotel…With the Keystone! She almost wants to call Barrett and yell at him because she’s SURE Cait was bunking in his room.
Yuffie doesn’t know why his betrayal makes her blood boil the way it does, or makes her snarl like someone’s personally offended her, but she and Cloud are running after him moments later. She jumps on and over a table, scattering someone’s cards and chips in the process and Cloud’s stuck somewhere in the evening traffic ahead of her, but she knows that they have to catch that little-
Finally she can see him and he’s throwing the keystone to that traitor like it’s nothing, and she can barely see straight she’s so angry. She barely hears what he’s saying as he tries to justify, instead screaming at him and lunging forward to grab the fucking cat and shake him, only to have Cloud grab her shoulder to hold her back, though it looks like he’s close to as angry as she is, maybe angrier.
“Part of Shinra? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!”
She watches the rest of the conversation, tossing in her opinions until a kid’s voice comes through. The way Cloud’s face pales suddenly and twists back into anger but sharper, more vicious, and the name she hears is enough to guess who the kid is. Barrett’s girl he won’t stop talking about.
Cloud’s right when he calls Cait and whoever’s behind him the lowest.
-
A week later, they’re finally at the temple and Cloud looks as unnerved as she feels. Holding the keystone in one hand and waiting for Aerith and Cloud to follow her, she tries not to even look at the traitor bleeding out on the floor. He’s not worth her time. He’s not. Even if her stomach twists in knots, that’s just all the crazy energy from the temple. Not feeling sorry for the bastard. It’s not. He’s a fucking Wutanese man in Shinra, he’s the lowest of the low. She’s holds Cait higher in her regard, and that’s hard to do these days.
Instead, she waits, patient for once, and wonders absently about Aerith’s list and if any of them are on it.
-
She tries to tell herself the next morning that she should always listen to her instincts.
And as she watches Cloud lose himself she thinks exactly how awful it is to have to tell yourself ‘I told you so’.
Rating: Pg-13
Warning:Nothing but a little language and minor character death.
Summary: Moments that build a ninja. Yuffie's headcanon according to Shelly. Some deleted canon mixed with real canon and things I tried to put together.
Note: OOPS. The html got borked copying from ff.net. I will fix in the morning. Also, this chapter has One-sided Cloud/Yuffie. Golden Saucer guys. :3
Four weeks after, she finds herself screaming.
Not for any good reason mind you, but just to have the noise.
-
Three months after, she takes her first steps into Junon.
She didn’t like resupplying in smaller cities, it always felt like people were looking right at her, all the time. What, had they never seen anyone Wutanese before? ...Okay, so most of them probably hadn’t.
But still. Staring. It was getting old. Had gotten old.
But in Junon? It was huge. It was loud. And no one looked at her more then to try and call her into their stores. It was…Well, it was interesting, and at least no one was staring at her like a sideshow freak.
-
The monsters had been getting worse. Yuffie had known she would be fighting creatures and things when she left. However, she hadn’t ever thought she’d be completely near defeated by them. In her defense, it was a pack, and she was alone.
Two months after that, she's trying to use the Cure she’d gotten off a passing regiment in one of her Junon trips. The gash in her side hurts. GAIA, it hurts and she’s positive she’s starting to pass what is safe for blood loss, her head getting dizzy even as she tries her hardest to focus.
She’s not going to let this continue, she can fix this. She can-
The wash of green that floods over her cools and repairs the ache, and suddenly it’s easier to breathe.
-
She’s sixteen and officially has been beaten.
“YOU SPIKEY HEADED JERK! ONE MORE TIME! LET’S GO ONE MORE TIME!”
-
It’s two days after this…group…thing…. brought her along.
They’re strong, they’re very strong. And most importantly they have materia. Very good materia. Amazing materia. They even have summons.
She sits on the outside of the campsite they’ve set up, it’s big cause there are five of them. Six with her. Yuffie thought initially the one to worry about was the big one with the arm (Barrett. She remembers. Ninjas remember everything. She has to remember.), but really, the one to worry about might be the girl with the black hair. Tifa.
Tifa keeps looking at her funny. Tifa keeps looking at her funny and she doesn’t like it. She doesn’t like it at all.
She’s still musing about how Tifa is looking at her when Tifa suddenly really IS looking at her, standing above her. Yuffie jumps, not expecting someone to sneak up on her, and looks up only to find the woman staring down at her.
About to snap out a reply, Yuffie is silenced by what the woman does.
“Yuffie? Why don’t you come sit with us? It’s warmer by the fire, and you should eat something.”
Yuffie blinks a few times, not quite understanding, before a smile spreads across her face and following her to the group. She’s out of practice with people, so it feels almost awkward to sit with all of them, hearing jokes, talking, but she finds it’s a lot easier to continue it once she’s started it.
She starts to realize that the weird way Tifa was looking at her is the way she looks at everyone, and starts to piece it together as protective. She’s not used to the look…And would almost be offended if Barrett wasn’t getting it too.
But as things are? She thinks she’s kinda okay with it. Just a little bit.
-
It’s been a week, and she’s already feeling too comfortable.
She’s supposed to steal from these people, she’s supposed to take their materia and run. Go home. Fix things.
That’s supposed to be her goal in life. What she’s supposed to do. It’s her mission.
She has to restore Wutai’s honor. So she can’t get too comfortable. Even with Aerith, who smells like flowers and who’s smile reminds her of her mother’s. She doesn’t like to look at her very long for that reason. It makes her nervous, almost. She thinks Aerith’s going to break at first. She’s thin and small and has a feel of almost dancing as she walks. It makes Yuffie jealous and curious at the same time. She wonders how the hell a woman like her got with a group like this, because it’s obvious to her that something is…Off isn’t the word. But it’s close enough.
All reservations leave her the second she sees Aerith fight. She’s smiling as she monster goes down, all loose brown hair and dancing green eyes as she and Yuffie and Red protect the camp while the others resupply. As the monster disappears into nothing, she feels a wash of magic flood over her and grins in Aerith’s direction, sensing where the cure had come from.
She wondered to herself how she ever let herself judge someone by how they appeared. She should know by now, that’s never a smart idea.
-
Two and a half weeks in, she thinks she might really be in trouble.
They’ve stopped in a house for the night, just at the outskirts of Junon, and Tifa’s making dinner like it’s nothing at all but it smells amazing and will probably taste as good. Barrett’s so loud and talking constantly, he’s swapping stories with Tifa and Aerith, all three of them equally engaged and animated as they talk, talking with their hands and faces, showing so much that it’s jarring.
She stops petting Nanaki suddenly and hears a quiet little annoyed sound as the large….cat….thing…settles into the idea of no longer having his neck scratched.
It’s just so loud and lively and happy and…It’s stupid, but it looks like how friends should look. How a family should look.
It makes her almost sick to think she’s going to betray them. She excuses herself for air, being told that if she’s going to leave to collect their leader as she walks out the door….before walking outside and slumping against the brick of the wall outside the front door.
She closes her eyes and tries to think this all through, how she’s going to hurt them, betray them. So what? It’s not like they can’t get other materia. And theirs is GOOD. Fantastic even. Amazing. And they keep getting more.
The longer she’s with them the more materia they collect, the stronger they get, the stronger she gets….
She opens her eyes.
She can do this. Wutai needs this. Needs to be strong again.
What’s a bunch of misfit freaks and ex-Shinra experiments and employees when all of Wutai is at stake? She shouldn’t care.
So she won’t.
…. But even her new found resolve doesn’t stop her from walking to the beach to tell Cloud it’s time for dinner, and dragging him back with her when he doesn’t respond immediately.
-
She hates boats.
So when she’s stuck on one for two days between Junon and Costa she thinks she’s going to have a damned fit.
She feels sick and useless and it’s crazy, but she would rather be back home in Wutai at this moment then on this monstrosity crowded with Shinra soldiers and DRESSED as one. Yuffie’s ready to throw up and practically feels like she could cry, her head hurts so bad…
So she’s distracted when a hand sits on her shoulder and something is put in front of her.
“Take this, you’ll feel better. We’ll come wake you up before anything happens, okay?”
She could practically kiss Cloud Strife at that very moment.
But she takes the tranquilizer instead.
-
It’s a month in when she has her first real scare.
She doesn’t even know what hit her, only that the next moment suddenly everything’s white hot and she feels wet drip down her stomach and the force of whatever it is has her dizzy and spinning and on the ground far away from where she had been standing.
She doesn’t even register it hurting until the world stops spinning and she can hear voices all shouting her name and the thing they were fighting is so loud and…And…
-
Two days later, she wakes up.
She blinks, once, twice…And nearly jumps out of her skin to feel a hand on her forehead and see a smiling face in her vision.
“I knew you would be alright Yuffie. You had everyone worried, though”
She smiles up at Aerith and asks how well they did without her to look after everyone.
-
She can’t help herself when the urge strikes her to poke it.
It’s fuzzy, and cartoonish, and ridiculous and she thinks it looks something like a stuffed animal she saw in a Junon window, when she was still traveling on her own.
Of course, poking it and calling it, an it makes Cait angry and picking it up off the moogle to tell it off for calling her any number of things is surprisingly harder then it should be considering it’s VERY heavy for a stuffed animal.
Not too heavy, but still heavier then expected.
And shaking it only gets her bopped on the head with its megaphone and Tifa pulling it out of her hands with a look that’s something between a smile and chastising.
-
The name strikes her as odd as the looks of the people talking to them. They look a little too familiar, like she’s seen them somewhere.
For once, she can tell exactly what everyone else in the room is thinking as they talk to the couple in Gongaga. Aerith looks so tired, just…Tired. And Yuffie doesn’t let herself resist the urge to use her to lean against; acting tired herself, like she’s going to fall asleep on Aerith in the middle of the odd conversation. But really, as much as she likes to pretend it’s just to take a nap, it’s more to distract her enough that the distant look will leave her eyes.
Tifa and Cloud look just as uncomfortable, but Tifa’s is more obvious while Cloud just looks more…Confused? By his discomfort. It’s odd and weird and she wishes she could do more to make them feel better, but they’re on the other side of the table. And so she settles herself into the idea that she can’t help all of them, ignores the weird sense of recognition that makes her feel as strange as the conversation, and focuses on pretending to be tired.
-
Yuffie’s mother used to say she got hunches. Feelings.
She’d use them to go off of, make decisions. She’d never understood what her mother meant until she left Wutai, and now runs on them like breathing.
And now she has one and all it tells her to do is get away.
Nibelheim is so many kinds of creepy she can’t stand it. And the vacant look Cloud keeps getting makes Yuffie nervous. Very nervous. But only cause if the leader’s nervous that means she should be. Only… But…
All she knows is there is a small, tiny moment where she is so deathly afraid of him she wants to run and scream and get away….And she has no idea why. His eyes have always glowed. There’s nothing in them to scare her. And Cloud isn’t the type to hurt her or any of them…
So, she has to honestly stop and wonder what it was she saw, just for that split second, that made every instinct she had scream danger.
-
The new guy is creepy.
But that’s expected in a creepy rebuilt town, with creepy people and creepy feelings coming off even her fri-….Temporary allies.
But he speaks evenly and calm, but strong. Very strong. He’s mysterious and strange and Yuffie thinks he’s probably the coolest thing she’s ever seen. If he was less with the dark and moody she might be inclined to have a crush. Maybe.
But, she’s got to admit, the tall, dark, handsome, and mysterious thing sure is working for him. REALLY working for him.
…And the entertainment value of watching Tifa try to explain how the PHS works to him after thirty years is hilarious.
-
He’s the newest member after Vincent, and she does not like him at all.
Cid is mean and coarse and so many kinds of not helpful. She has no idea what any of them are thinking when they collect him.
But then again, Cid is sincere and smart and has a chip on his shoulder at Shinra as much as any of them so really he’s good choice. And he’s probably not going to betray everybody either. So, in a way, he’s a better choice then she is.
And that makes her more upset than it should.
-
She managed to get all the way to her hiding spot, all the way there before it hit her what she’d done. The looks on their faces. Cloud’s eyes had gone wide and he’d almost gained the look of being fucking five, and Tifa’s yells, and Aerith calling her name, and…and Red chasing her…and….and everyone.
It was all such a joke.
She’d always been on their side only long enough to get here. She had everything. Everything she’d gone to get.
Turns out she’s just as greedy as they’d always called her.
She wants to keep them too.
-
It’s two days after the stupid stealing thing, and she’s sitting in a cell.
With a Turk.
This must be some kind of punishment by the gods or something, it’s all she can come up with. Elena (The Turk. She corrects herself) looks a little sick, like she wants to throw up or hit the walls till her fists break for failing when it counts.
Yuffie can relate.
-
It’s the next morning when she’s rubbing her wrists and Aerith’s cool fingers are looking at the rope burns with heavy disapproval and she can’t tell if it’s aimed at her or at the man who tied her up in the first place.
She begins to wonder if it’s the second when she feels Aerith’s hand wrap around her wrist with a smile, saying it will be better in a day or two.
It doesn’t even cross her mind to ask, she’s too busy not screaming out an apology, and Cloud seems to take pity on her, telling her to simply return everything and come along.
If she didn’t already have that weird fluttering in her stomach when he talked she was sure she’d have it now when he smirks at her, and ruffles her hair like they’ve all come to do even though it makes her feel like a kid.
It doesn’t even occur to her to tell him to knock it off either.
-
A week later she sits in a cable car, it’s been a very very good night in her opinion, and she’s even managed to get Cloud to laugh at her tirade over the stupid dragon suit and how bad it had smelled.
“Did anybody go get that knight guy anyway? I think he was kinda stuck.” She says almost offhandedly, not really expecting an answer but filling the air space because if Cloud wasn’t gonna, she would.
When the car starts it surprises her by not making her sick, though she was prepared for it, and she leans out the window, hooking her ankles under the seat so she wont fall. It’s beautiful. Not beautiful like Wutai, serene and historic, and not beautiful like the sun over the Nibel mountains, so close she could almost touch the sun. But it’s something like awe, people made this. Put it together, keep it running. The lights, the sounds, the fireworks…They’re all made by people, for other people to enjoy, weather or not that was the reason for it in the first place. It seems like the prettiest thing this side of the world and it’s the best place she can think of to try what she’s meant to.
So, she denies what little fear she has, and turns around, stands up, and crosses to her friend who makes butterflies beat against the inside of her ribs every time he looks at her, and kisses him. It’s quick, simple, and she’s back across the car in moments after it happens. Somehow, she thought getting up the courage to do that would mean something, like in those little novels she and Tifa and Aerith laugh at on shelves as they’re re-supplying, like there’d be something. Like a spark that would make everything great, and he’d notice her for real instead of Aerith or Tifa, who are both amazing, and beautiful, and make her feel awkward in comparison, even though she knows she’s fantastic and it should be obvious even without some big epiphany.
But there’s no change, and he looks more confused then anything, and maybe even Great Ninjas can’t get everything they want.
“I just felt like doing that...”
-
She’s still resigning herself to being the odd girl out when she and Cloud stumble into the cat leaving the hotel…With the Keystone! She almost wants to call Barrett and yell at him because she’s SURE Cait was bunking in his room.
Yuffie doesn’t know why his betrayal makes her blood boil the way it does, or makes her snarl like someone’s personally offended her, but she and Cloud are running after him moments later. She jumps on and over a table, scattering someone’s cards and chips in the process and Cloud’s stuck somewhere in the evening traffic ahead of her, but she knows that they have to catch that little-
Finally she can see him and he’s throwing the keystone to that traitor like it’s nothing, and she can barely see straight she’s so angry. She barely hears what he’s saying as he tries to justify, instead screaming at him and lunging forward to grab the fucking cat and shake him, only to have Cloud grab her shoulder to hold her back, though it looks like he’s close to as angry as she is, maybe angrier.
“Part of Shinra? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU!”
She watches the rest of the conversation, tossing in her opinions until a kid’s voice comes through. The way Cloud’s face pales suddenly and twists back into anger but sharper, more vicious, and the name she hears is enough to guess who the kid is. Barrett’s girl he won’t stop talking about.
Cloud’s right when he calls Cait and whoever’s behind him the lowest.
-
A week later, they’re finally at the temple and Cloud looks as unnerved as she feels. Holding the keystone in one hand and waiting for Aerith and Cloud to follow her, she tries not to even look at the traitor bleeding out on the floor. He’s not worth her time. He’s not. Even if her stomach twists in knots, that’s just all the crazy energy from the temple. Not feeling sorry for the bastard. It’s not. He’s a fucking Wutanese man in Shinra, he’s the lowest of the low. She’s holds Cait higher in her regard, and that’s hard to do these days.
Instead, she waits, patient for once, and wonders absently about Aerith’s list and if any of them are on it.
-
She tries to tell herself the next morning that she should always listen to her instincts.
And as she watches Cloud lose himself she thinks exactly how awful it is to have to tell yourself ‘I told you so’.