Since the Fall of Man: The Greatest Threat

Author's Note: Thanks to the friends I showed this to who gave me the confidence to actually take it seriously. Thanks to Akiko, the wonderful person who is beta'ing this and making it better in all kinds of ways, gives me advice even when I don't take it, boosts my ego and is probably very exasperated at the fact that I have no idea what I'm doing.

As carefully as she could, Aerith shifted Yuffie to her other knee. The seven-year old remained soundly asleep, merely rearranging her head to fit the new position on Aerith's shoulder. The girl in pink sighed with relief and leaned back against the bulkhead. It was only the third time Aerith had ever managed to move Yuffie without waking her up; she'd been sleeping so lightly. Yuffie's lack of sleep showed itself everyday in fits of prepubescent fury and raging tantrums which were so frustrating it was tempting to just lock the girl in a cabin all day.

It was useless to pretend they weren't changing. Cid had started drinking again, to say nothing of his smoking, and Aerith was learning how to cuss, and while she was merely tempted to lock Yuffie in her cabin, Leon had actually done it. After fifteen minutes, her terrified screams tore him enough to let her out and hold her until she believed that they weren't going to leave her ever again.

"God, Aerith, she's irritating you, too! She needs to learn to calm down!"

"Squall - "

"Leon!"

"Leon, I don't think this is the way to - "

"To what? Be a good parent? No shit, Aerith, I've kind of noticed we don't know what the hell we're doing!"

"Leon, please, just think about this for one damned second!"

"No! God! She's going in there until she shuts the hell up!"

...

"Oh, Yuffie... I'm so, so sorry. I'll never leave you... Never..."

Aerith had used the guilt from that incident to get two weeks worth of chores around the ship out of him. She sighed once more, this time laced with sadness. Yuffie shivered in her sleep, and recognizing the signs, Aerith started shaking her gently. "Yuffie, wake up."

The girl opened her eyes blearily, and scrunched up her nose as she considered where she was and what was going on. It took a few seconds.

"Where's Squall?" asked Yuffie, twisting so she could look up at Aerith easier. Yuffie had become exceptionally talented at shoving the terrors in her sleep away; Aerith felt so tired as she smoothed the girl's hair down.

"He's up helping Cid in the cockpit." She didn't mention the world Cid thought he had seen. If it ended up to be some meteor, Aerith didn't want to be the one to see the hope in Yuffie's face die. Again.

"Is something broken?" asked Yuffie, squirming until Aerith let her stand on her own.

"Nope," said Aerith. The fourteen-year old tucked the loose strands of her hair behind her ear, and with the same hand rubbed the bags beneath her eyes. "Cid just gets tired sometimes, so Leon pilots to help him out." There. That wasn't a lie.

"Oh, okay," said Yuffie. "Can I go see them?" She walked to the door, already assuming the answer of 'yes'.

"Er, not right now," said Aerith, stretching out a hand to stop her. "I think they might be pretty busy; we should wait until one of them comes back."

Yuffie frowned, but this made sense to her. "Okay." The girl turned back, and considered Aerith with the same frown on her face. "I'm bored."

"Well," said Aerith. "Do you want to read a book? We've got some books."

"They're too hard," whined Yuffie. "And they're boring. They're all about the stupid ship and naked people and - and - other things."

Aerith sighed, and re-considered the idea. Cid's how-to manuals, Shera's harlequin novels and old textbooks were fine to keep herself from boredom, but nothing quite on Yuffie's level. "Well," she said, trying to salvage the idea. "Let's just go make sure we don't have more books. Maybe we'll find something else."

Yuffie looked mutinous, but reluctantly agreed. Denied of seeing Leon and Cid, there was nothing really else to do. (Except maybe eat, but even Yuffie understood they couldn't go raid the pantry whenever they wanted.) The two spent the next few hours exploring the nooks and crannies in the ship they'd already seen a dozen times already in search of reading material. A miracle occurred, and they came across Cid's old copies of a children's fantasy series in one of 'closets' near the kitchen.

"I wonder how Cid came by these," mused Aerith, flipping through the worn pages. "They look used."

"Maybe Cid got them when he was a kid," said Yuffie. She plopped down on the deck and start looking through the pages eagerly for the pictures. Aerith gathered the other books together and put them at her side while she looked over Yuffie's shoulder.

"Do you want me to read to you?" asked Aerith.

Yuffie shook her head adamantly, scowling. "I can read!"

"I wasn't saying you can't read," said Aerith calmly, trying to defuse Yuffie's temper as quickly as possible. "But I liked my mom reading to..." Aerith paused, painfully aware of the awkward reference to their obliterated lives. "My mom read to me," she continued stiffly, "and I didn't mind."

Yuffie's face was turned down as she stopped turning pages. She fidgeted with the corner roughly for a few minutes, not saying anything. Selfishly, Aerith was glad she couldn't see Yuffie's expression. If she saw it, it meant she would have to deal with it, or cry, or - or - shit.

It was hard for her to even think the swear word.

"You can read," said Yuffie, and she handed the book to the older girl. Aerith took it and gently flipped to the first page. As she read, Yuffie leaned in against her; Aerith put an arm around her shoulders and kept the book open with one hand.

It was a classic series, and Aerith felt tears flood her eyes as wave after wave of memories would envelop her whenever a familiar line or paragraph passed her lips. For Yuffie's sake, however, she managed to keep the sobs at bay and calmed herself. An hour later, when Aerith reached the one-third mark mark and her voice was starting to become hoarse, she felt Yuffie sink into her side even more. She turned to see Yuffie had fallen asleep.

Aerith put her into bed, and left the books on a nearby table. When she turned off the light and closed their door only halfway, she turned around and saw Sq - Leon hesitating in mid-step in the corridor. He still had a hand on the door to the cockpit.

"Hey," said Aerith, when Leon didn't say anything right away. "What's up?"

Leon avoided eye contact, and stared only at the floor. "I'm, um, not sure." His voice was quiet and scratchy, a testament to the long hours without sleep.

"Sq - Leon?" Aerith asked, then faltered. "What's - Leon, what's wrong?" Despite her panic, her voice never raised above a murmur; they had become experts in having quiet break-downs.

At the sound of her fear, Leon quickly looked up at her to reassure her. "No, no, nothing's wrong," he said, walking closer. "We just don't know..."

"Don't know what, Leon?" asked Aerith. She leaned over and picked up one of his hands between hers. "Leon, do we have to run again?"

Leon softly squeezed her hands. "No, we don't."

"Then what is it?" Hope, a withered hole in herself Aerith ignored more often than not, twinged right beside fear. "Is it - ?"

"A world?" Leon finished. He dropped her hands and leaned against the threshold to the girl's room, leaning his head against his arm as he squinted to see Yuffie in her bed. When he found her, the change in his body language was immense. His shoulders relaxed, the frown lines reduced, his eyes softened, the corners of his lips turned slightly upwards. "Yeah. It's a world."

Aerith stopped breathing for a moment. "Leon!"

He turned to her again, and his face was warm. The ugly redness of the healing scar was completely overshadowed. "We really think - it's - we'll be there in about three days."

She didn't know what to say. Leon seemed to understand, and though he didn't offer a hug or a hand to hold, Aerith felt on cloud nine already. Any more impossible things, and she knew she would be dreaming.

When the twenty-fourth hour of their cycle buzzed quietly on the console marking the middle of the night, Leon turned to Cid.

"Why don't you go ahead?" he said. "I'll close down here."

Cid smiled, somehow making the wrinkles and bags under his eyes smaller and less noticeable. He might never realize, but he looked years younger when he smiled. "You sure, Leon?"

Leon nodded. "Yeah, I got it. You go to bed, you need some sleep."

The older man patted Leon's shoulder heavily, laughing quietly. "We all need some sleep." As the doors hissed close behind Cid, Leon remained half-turned towards the door, a soft smile on his face. He was lost in thought, going over that last minute in his head with a look on his face Aerith would have called fondness. By himself in the cockpit, Leon didn't mind admitting it. That was the first time he'd heard Cid laugh for - well, a long time.

And how long had it been? With the different tilt to his thoughts, Leon's smile faded as he turned to consider the stars. How long...? He frowned as he realized he didn't even know exactly. Not that they'd been counting, either; they'd all been avoiding thinking about it.

And just like someone who's been told not to think of a pink striped chocobo, Leon was suddenly bombarded with images and voices he told himself to forget so many months ago.

Terror on her lovely and beautiful face, long dark hair tangled with blood and sweat. Her weeping, grief and fear blended into a human cry. 'You said you'd protect me...!'

The fire and blood of his face being destroyed, an excruciated scream ripping from his vocal chords without even recognizing his own voice. 'If you live, consider this a warning to stay out of other's fights, boy.'

'Squall, you bastard!' Bright blue eyes, normally friendly and welcoming, twisted in hate. 'How could you leave me here?'

With a grunt, Leon shoved himself out of the memories, trying to find something, anything else to think about. Frantically digging through memories, voices still chased him. Why didn't you protect me, Squall? Why did you leave? You traitor, you leaver, you deserter, you coward...

'No!' he screamed back at them. 'I'm - I'm not! I would have stayed, and, and fought! I would have...' He could only think the mantra over and over again: I would have stayed. I would have stayed.

And without further ado, another memory pushed it's way to the front of his mind. "Squall, what's wrong with your face?" Dark grey eyes peered up into his, inquisitively examining the wound that still bled days after. She reached up to touch but was quickly smacked away and the tantrum after that had lasted hours - And of all things, it was remembering Yuffie's insensitive and completely tactless probing that pulled him out.

Leon could focus on Yuffie. Memories of Aerith would be bitter for a long time; she always wanted to talk about things and discuss how they felt and wanting to deal with it when you couldn't 'deal' with things like this. But Yuffie didn't. He could almost believe she never remembered what happened, except for the crying and screaming at night he could hear through the walls. It had taken time, so much time, for the nightmares to begin to fade, but slowly Yuffie wasn't remembering every night.

He could still remember when he had gotten up one morning and realized that Yuffie hadn't woken them up at all through the night. He had privately gone to her and asked her if she had dreamed that night. Yuffie shook her head, beaming. "No bad dreams!" she had said, pleased as anything. And that had been the first milestone: she was the first one to have a nightmare-free sleep.

12:30. Leon blinked at the numbers and realized he'd been staring at the clock for the last ten minutes without even processing it. He'd been sitting here for far too long in his memories. He engaged the auto-pilot, triple-checked the coordinates, and shut down various manual controls, leaving only the emergency light on.

When he got to the room he and Cid shared, he lay in bed for a while. It took him a few tries to get to sleep, and when he finally did drift off, he dreamed of angry faces getting smaller and flashes of dark hair in the corner of his eye.

It took half a day of Yuffie's screaming to make Leon cave and let her come into the cockpit the next day. She was used to coming in everyday and looking at the stars with Cid and sometimes Leon; yesterday had pushed her patience to the limits.

"Cid, what's that?" Yuffie strained on tiptoes to point at the object out the window.

"What's what?" Cid played dumb, leaning over her head chewing on an unlit cigarette.

"That!" said Yuffie, standing even taller on her toes in an effort to point out what was perfectly obvious next to the stars.

"I don't see it."

"Cid!" exclaimed Yuffie, starting to show signs of losing her temper.

In an effort to avoid an explosion, Leon quickly stepped in. "What do you think it is, Yuffie?"

Eager to play, Yuffie scrunched up her face in thought. "A meteor?"

"Nope," said Leon. He leaned back against the console and smirked. That expression of his made Yuffie frown even deeper.

"An asteroid?"

"Nope."

"Wreckage?" Yuffie pronounced it carefully.

"Nope."

"Another ship?"

"Nope."

Yuffie was stumped and it showed. "Um..."

"Well," said Leon, "when you have another guess, I'll tell you if you're right or wrong."

"Squalllll!" Yuffie dragged his name out in frustration, but she had come back from the edge of losing it; the promise of a game had appeal.

"Only when you have another guess," said Leon with finality.

"Fine," said Yuffie and went to sit at the console proper so she could see the whole expanse of stars at once and think. Cid gave Leon a thankful look from the corner of his eye, and Leon shrugged in response. In the background, Aerith hid a smile. Leon was really becoming good at handling Yuffie... Learning what was fun for her, what calmed her down... Looking at these moments, Aerith would almost call him a natural with kids. Only if you ignored the bad times.

"Well, I'm going to go check the pantry," said Aerith.

"Thanks," said Leon. "See you in a few."

Aerith left the cockpit with the last image in her mind being Yuffie on Cid's lap, eagerly looking at the sky and Leon looking on with a smile. It carried her through the monotony of the task in the kitchen with more happiness than she could remember.

Leon watched Cid and Yuffie looking at the stars, unsure of how he felt. On one hand, he was happy in his own way that they could both play a game and smile; it made something light in his chest rise, something good. But on the other hand... Well, he wasn't an idiot. He could remember.

The memories still made him angry.

Back when life was... Back then, Cid was a friend of the family. (Their families had all been acquainted and friendly at the very least, so it wasn't exactly four strangers on a ship.) For most of his life, Leon knew Cid as the big gruff but friendly mechanic, happily married to his wife Shera. He and Mrs. Highwind would come over every so often for supper and sometimes Leon would go and get his bike fixed at his shop.

Squall never spent a lot of time deeply thinking about Cid, but as the years passed, sometimes he would hear a whisper here and there about how 'Cid was sleeping on the couch again' and 'Cid found himself lost in the bottle again'. A teenaged Squall asked his parents what this meant, curious why people would gossip about the popular (or so he thought) Cid. His parents had glanced at each other, completely uncomfortable; his mom snorted lightly and told his dad he could explain it.

His father had told him very strictly that he wasn't to speak of this to his friends ever and when Squall seriously nodded, he explained. "Cid gets in trouble sometimes... When I knew him when we were your age, he was really into the booze. You know, I'm sure you know people like that." His father tried a small grin, trying to lighten the mood and Squall had nodded, tentatively smiling. "But then Cid met Shera, and he really cleaned up. He made promises, made himself accountable, and he was clean for a really long time." His father hesitated. "But lately, Cid's... been having problems."

The talk went on, eventually ending with his father extracting a binding oath that he wouldn't drink unless with his parents or other supervision, but Squall looked at Cid differently after that. The issue fell under the radar for the next few years and Squall didn't think anything of it.

But when their lives were suddenly destroyed, scarred and crippled forever, something dark came back. The first few days in the gummi ship - the hardest days - Leon could barely remember. They were blurred and delirious with pain and tears. But Leon could remember one day he and Aerith, both fainting, just couldn't deal with Yuffie. And they didn't know where Cid was.

Aerith couldn't go on without lying down for a few minutes and Leon, exhausted and terrified, searched for Cid everywhere. (They locked Yuffie in his cabin temporarily.) Eventually, when he broke the rules and went into the engine room, he found Cid sitting slouched in a corner, drunk out of his mind. Empty and half-filled bottles lay there and it all stunk horribly even from where Leon stood.

"Cid," Leon bit out the name. He couldn't believe it. He just couldn't believe he was seeing this.

Cid seemed to just become aware of his presence, but didn't seem to recognize him. Not that it would have mattered, because Cid wasn't even in the same universe as Leon. "She's dead." Slurred and with his accent thicker than ever, Leon almost didn't understand him. "Shera's dead and goooooone." Cid lazily eyed the lip of his bottle but decided not to take another sip yet. "Thay took 'er. Wanna know whay thay took 'er?"

Mutely, Leon shook his head.

"'Cause she was beeyoodaful, thas' whay!" In a rage, Cid slammed his free hand into the wall. "She was tha purdies' thang ever lived! Thas' why that took 'er..."

Leon was shaking. "Cid, get up."

"Th'eartless - " Cid hiccuped. " - eat us. Thas' what thay do. Thay make us like them." He looked up and moaned. "Mah beyoodaful Shera's a 'eartless. She's dark. She's evil."

Still shaking, Leon couldn't quite place what that lightheaded buzzing feeling in his head was, but he was sure it was somehow related to this intense burning desire to hit Cid as hard as he could.

Cid suddenly came more awake with a jolt and he started talking louder and more anxiously, seeming to try and make Leon understand. "Thay came after tha dark uns first 'cuz thay were easy, and then tha light uns ta prove thay could! Now thay're gonna makum eat us!"

Unable to take any more, Leon swore and stormed out of the room. There was no way he was letting Aerith and Yuffie see Cid like this. Still furious, Leon realized the mood he was in and stopped himself before he went into either of the rooms. He swung around and stalked into the cockpit to compose himself. Throwing himself into the pilot's chair, he let his head fall into his heads and accidentally bumped the bandage on his still raw face, making his bad mood spike even lower.

He drew deep, shaky breaths, trying to kill the urge to beat Cid to as much mincemeat. The minutes passed and the urge didn't go away, but his heart rate slowed down and Leon didn't feel like screaming anymore. When Leon felt ready to stand up, he coolly wiped the beginnings of moisture from his eyes and went to go see Aerith. They were all going to have an early night.

"I bet you're totally lying," said Yuffie. "It looks like a dragon!" Her nose wrinkled, Yuffie had her hands on her hips, emphasizing how right she believed she was.

"Nope," said Cid, laughing. "That's a bear. That's totally a bear." He gently mocked her, reaching over to tweak her nose and she squealed.

Leon blinked at the scene, startled by the lightness in both of them after the memories he'd been dredging up. As if he wasn't there, both Yuffie and Cid eagerly pointed out shapes in the bright dots surrounding them. They looked younger than ever, Yuffie actually a little girl and Cid the young man of twenty-seven he really was.

Quietly, without them noticing, Leon excused himself to check out the engine room. When he was alone, he let himself smile widely. Maybe there was such thing as hope.