Blah. A couple gaping plot holes that I didn’t fill in…let’s see if anyone complains about them. This title was originally called "How High Do the Winds Blow", but I was stuck on the visit to RT, so I cut out most of it. Part Five will, hopefully, be released at the same time as this, as I’m working on both of them…the usual disclaimer, blah, blah. Later.

Part Four--A Cry For Help

Upon knocking on Cid’s door, Tifa was greeted by a giant bear hug coming from Barret. Laughing, she exclaimed, "Barret, what are you doing here? Put me down! Put me down! Barret!"

Grinning, Barret replied, "I was droppin’ by ta visit Highwind, an’ he told me dat you was comin’. So I decided ta stick around. Hey, who do we have here?" he was looking at Kat and Lucas.

Tifa glanced at them. "Oh, those are my friends from town, Kathleen, or Kat, and Lucas. They’re just tagging along."

Snorting, he looked them over. "Kat, huh? I think that bastard Highwind told me ‘bout that argument y’all had. Gotta learn; never diss Cid’s cigs."

At that moment, Cid came to the door at Barret’s shoulder. "Hey, who ya callin’ a bastard, asshole?" Turning to the trio, he peered at each of them. "Well, if it ain’t Kat. Here to lecture me ‘bout my smokes again? Or are you just gonna diss my airship this time."

Looking somewhat embarrassed, she gestured towards Lucas. "Nah. If I said one bad thing ‘bout Cid Highwind’s planes my friend Lucas, here, would pound me."

Delighted (or at least as delighted Cid can get), he looked at Lucas. "So, ya like my stuff?"

Ecstatic, Lucas replied, "Oh, yeah! The Tiny Bronco, Shinra No. 26, ‘specially the Highwind, that stuff’s awesome. I was just wondering if the Highwind was capable of..."

Grabbing Lucas by the arm, Cid dragged him off to the hangar, the two of them engaged in a furious discussion.

Barret shrugged. "Never was into that kinda stuff myself." He led them into the kitchen, where Shera was making some snacks. Sitting down, they chatted and munched, catching up on the recent news. Remembering something, Kat turned to Tifa. "What did you have to pick up anyway?"

Tifa stammered out her answer. "Oh, nothing much. Just, um, just some computer stuff. Pretty high tech stuff that, uh, can’t, um, can’t be found in the Nibelheim area."

Kat prodded a little more. "Whatcha need that kinda stuff for?"

The reply was somewhat vague. "I need it to clear up some old files and junk. Nothing important." Turning to Barret, she continued. "You know, I’m still checking out some of that stuff from back then."

Barret looked surprised. "You mean ya ain’t done it yet? Thought we finished that up a long time ago."

Tifa looked kind of sheepish as she replied. "Well, it turns out we missed some stuff when we were clearing out the junk."

Kat looked thoughtful, blowing her bangs out of her face as she stared off into space and munched thoughtfully on a cookie. Snapping her out of her reverie, the door suddenly burst in, revealing Lucas and an extremely cheerful Cid. "Hey, Teef, I think I like this friend ‘a yours better ‘n the last one."

Tifa laughed, while Kat just looked grumpy. "Hey Barret. You wanna come with me? I could use a little help hauling all that crap back."

Shrugging, Barret rose. "Sure, hell, why not? Ain’t got anything better ta do."

Walking out the door, Tifa rolled her eyes. "Jeez, nice to know that helping me is so high on your list of priorities."

Upon returning, they found Kat in the kitchen with Shera, taking refuge from the howling laughter that was Lucas and Cid. Glancing at Tifa and Barret when they walked in the door, both Cid and Lucas’ jaws dropped. Cid was first to speak. "Holy mother ******! Where the hell didja get all that shit?!"

"Wh-what do you need that for? I mean, that’s just…gah!" Lucas was speechless.

"What’s all that for, Tifa?!"

Tifa wouldn’t meet their inquiring gazes. "Just call it technological spring cleaning."

"Ah." Lucas nodded wisely, clearly not understanding.

"Mm." Cid added, agreeing. "Let’s get outta here, man. I wanna show you just what my baby can do."

Dropping the subject entirely, Lucas and Cid strolled out the door, laughing. Kat shook her head and turned back to Tifa. "I swear that boy is so inconsistent."

Tifa laughed. "Yeah, right. Your best friend one minute, Cid Highwind groupie the next, right?"

Kat rolled her eyes. "God, don’t remind me."

Glancing at her watch, Tifa looked back up at Shera. "We have to leave soon, Shera."

"If we can peel Lucas away from Cid." Kat added.

Shera laughed. "Oh, all right. Just promise to visit me soon again, all right?"

Tifa grinned. "Pinky promise." she turned to Kat. "Now let’s see if we can pry Lucas away from Rocket Town."

Kat shuddered. "Maybe if we negotiate calmly?"

The two of them laughed and got up, each picking up a box. They waved to Shera clumsily and Tifa hugged Barret, then they were off.

****

Kat and Lucas helped Tifa lug all her equipment inside, then went back to Kat’s house. Upon arriving, Kat grabbed Lucas by his shoulders and shoved him down on to the couch. He yelped, and she hissed, "Shhh!" at him. She paced in front of the couch, snapping her fingers excitedly.

Lucas was befuddled, so he sat on the couch in silence until Kat suddenly stopped and turned around to face him. When she spoke, her voice was tense and she was speaking quickly, almost rushing to get the words out of her mouth. "I was thinking this morning…you know how I yelled, right? Anyway…you said that you needed someone who knew Shinra’s old security systems really well, right? I was talking to Tifa awhile ago, and she said that she did a bunch of the computer work for AVALANCHE, when they were starting out in Midgar, with an old friend of hers…one of the Sector 7 victims. I was wondering…do you think that maybe Tifa could help you? She’s bound to know something about their systems, right?"

He was shaking his head almost before the words came out of her mouth. "No way, I’m not telling her about what happened."

Kat whined. "Why not?"

Lucas sighed and rubbed his forehead. "I just…I don’t really want her to know about my past. You know I don’t like to talk about it. I mean, you’re my oldest friend and it took me this long before I could even tell you most of what happened.

"And, I don’t know, I feel like, maybe she’ll blame me for Zoey, tell me that I was a rotten brother or something. I don’t want anyone to think that about me because…well, I guess I’m just afraid about it being true. It’s so hard for me already; I don’t need anyone admonishing me about how to be a better older brother.

"Besides, what makes you think that she’ll know anything anyway? Wasn’t she mostly in charge of keeping their cover and supplying the money for their equipment?"

Kat blinked in surprise. "How did you know that?"

He shrugged. "I read it in an article. Anyway…I don’t want this to get around. I don’t know what happened to Lance and Dad, but I know that I definitely don’t want them looking me up after all this lovely time I’ve spent away from them."

Kat grinned. An argument. Her kinda thing. "First of all, Luke, Tifa is one of the nicest, kindest, insightful people I’ve ever known. She’s incredibly sensitive, even if she did go around killing people awhile ago, and besides, she was helping save the Planet. I severely doubt that she would blame you for anything that happened back then. Even if she does think that you were a rotten brother, which she won’t, she most certainly won’t call you one.

"And, while it’s true that she did handle a lot of the cover work, including running the 7^th Heaven, AVALANCHE didn’t exactly have a plethora of members, you know. They each had to pull their own weight. From what she’s told me, she did a fair amount of computer work as well. I think that she should know at least something about the security they used to have up at Shinra.

"Plus, as for it getting around, get real! The girl was a member of a guerilla band of rebels! They made secret plans to make Shinra’s property go boom-boom! Hellooooo! She’s not exactly the kind of person who leaks all her info, unlike a certain someone here." she coughed, discreetly mumbling Lucas’ name.

He looked almost insulted. "Hey, that only happens when I’m drunk! Besides, how was I supposed to know that the teacher was there? It’s not like I purposely told on you!"

Kat sighed. "That wasn’t my point. Although I am still kind of pissed about that."

Ignoring her last comment, Lucas asked, "Then what was your point?"

"ARE YOU MAD, MAN? MY POINT IS THAT YOU ARE OUT THAT DOOR RIGHT NOW AND MARCHING TO TIFA’S HOUSE AND ASKING HER FOR HELP BEFORE I DRAG YOU OVER THERE AND DO IT MYSELF!"

Wincing and holding his hands over his ears, Lucas turned to walk out the door, muttering, "All right, already, I’m going. No need to rip my arm off or anything…sheesh."

Grumbling, Kat plopped onto the couch and opened a book, settling in to wait until he got back.

****

Tifa bit her lip and grumbled, as the circuit board gave her a mild jolt of electricity. She sighed and pushed some hair out of her face as she sat back on her heels. She looked at the partially built control board, then turned to stare at the pile of components behind her. Groaning, she flopped over backwards and covered her face with her hand. Now why did I want to do this again? She asked herself. It’s not like it’s anything life-threatening or anything.

That was part of it, she supposed. After the whole Meteor incident, she wanted to do something that wasn’t big and important and crucial to the survival of mankind. Oh yeah, shocking myself to death while impaling my foot repeatedly on these stupid little metal thingies is just soooo much fun! I’m having the time of my life here! she thought to herself sarcastically.

"Why do I always get stuck with the grunt work?!" she whined out loud to herself as she flopped over onto her stomach and picked up the instruction manual. Staring at it, she let out another groan and rested her forehead against the cover. "This thing is thicker than half the books I’ve ever read!" she spoke to herself again. "Oh, great, now I’m talking to myself. Out loud. Again. Maybe I’m going nuts. Cloud and me would make a real cute couple then."

Oh great, she thought despairingly. Way to go. Cloud was still a very painful topic, and one that she preferred to avoid dealing with. She couldn’t get him out of her mind, or out of her heart, no matter what she did. It seemed that whenever she closed her eyes, her mind conjured up the image of his icy blue gaze, while his voice seemed to echo in her ears and she found herself thinking of his impossible hairstyle whenever she saw even a hint of a color similar to his blond.

Shaking her head, almost as if to rid herself of such thoughts, Tifa picked up her screwdriver and got back to work. Or, at least, she attempted to.

After a few minutes, she chucked the screwdriver across the room with a grumbled curse and plunked down, leaning against the couch. Dammit! she thought angrily. I can’t concentrate now. It figures. Cloud isn’t even here, and he’s screwing up my life! Sighing, some of the fire left her. It’s not really his fault that I-I’m in love with him.

At least it felt like love. He always made her feel so strange when he was around, awkward and somehow comfortable at the same time. She was never as wary around other people with what she said as she was with him, and no one could make her soar with happiness or drown in despair as he could.

Although lately a lot of those warm and fuzzy feelings were disappearing.

Whenever she’d thought of him recently, there had only mainly been pain, sadness, and regret, not to mention a whole bunch of jumbled up feelings she couldn’t seem to sort out.

Why am I even thinking of him anyway? she wondered. He’s long gone, probably settled down with someone. Good for him. I should do the same. She tried to cheer herself up, but she knew that lying to herself was stupid and completely pointless.

Heaving herself to her feet, she walked into the kitchen to get a soda. To her dismay, she found out that there were none left in the fridge. Moaning and rolling her eyes skyward, Tifa decided to drag herself down to the grocery store and get some more. Checking the clock to make sure they were still open, she grabbed a jacket off the floor and left, locking the door behind her.

****

Lucas took a deep breath and wiped his hands on his jeans. Christ, how was he going to get himself out of this one? Without getting his head bitten off by Kaz, preferably.

He sat on Kat’s front steps, with his forehead resting against his hands. He was so immersed in thought, he didn’t notice Tifa walking past him, nor did she notice him sitting there. Taking another deep breath, he got up and thought to himself, Well, might as well just see how it goes…

Arriving in front of Tifa’s house, he spent a good ten minutes trying to organize his thoughts and figuring out what he was going to say. Mustering all the courage he could manage-talking about his past was always hard-Lucas began to trudge up to the front door, stopping just in front of it. He raised his hand to knock…and dropped it. Trying again, he found that his hand had become mysteriously heavy. In a final attempt, he managed to lift his fist to knock, but he couldn’t bring himself to follow through.

Hanging his head, Lucas thought to himself miserably, God, I’m such a wimp. Kat’s going to kill me. Argh! Why can’t I just knock on the stupid door?! Well…no use hanging around if I can’t do it, right?

Turning to go, he found that his path was blocked, and looked slightly down to meet a friendly, brown, slightly inquiring gaze. "Is…there a particular reason you’re standing in front of my door, Lucas?" Tifa asked mildly.

To put it bluntly, he nearly passed out on the spot from nerves, but, holding himself together, he forced himself to talk. "Uh, yeah…I…uh, I kind of need to talk to you."

"You kind of need to talk to me, or you need to talk to me?" Tifa asked in a slightly teasing tone.

Lucas looked as if he just been asked to name every single type of materia in less than thirty seconds. In short, he was completely mortified. "I, uh, I mean, I…yes?" he stumbled over his words.

Tifa said, with an amused expression on her face, "Sorry. I couldn’t resist. Why don’t you come in? I just got back from the store."

A few minutes later, seated and with a soda in his hand, Lucas recovered a fraction of his former courage. However, Tifa spoke before he could open his mouth. "So, what did you need to talk to me about?"

He wiped his hands on his jeans again, despite the fact that there was nothing on them. Trying to summon all the courage he could, he took a deep breath to try and calm his nerves. Leaning forward slightly, he opened his mouth to speak. Nothing came out, so he shut it again. Taking a sip of the soda, he tried again. This time he found his voice, which sounded too nervous for his liking. "I…um, I’m not sure where to begin…I guess you could say I, uh, need your help with something. You see, when I was younger…"

****

Cloud spun the massive Ultima Weapon and drove it forward into the monster. Sliding it out from the gut it was currently imbedded in, he twisted the glistening weapon around to parry another attack from a creature behind him. He swung it around to sink it into the yielding flesh between the plates of armor that covered the mutated animal.

Turning sharply, the last of the monsters impaled itself on his sword. He kicked it off with his boot and wiped his bladed more or less clean, using the dead animals’ fur and the ground. Sheathing his sword before strapping it to his back, Cloud swung himself up onto his chocobo. Urging it into a gallop, he headed swiftly towards the Northern Crater.

Recently, there had been rumors circulating around saying that the monsters there had multiplied immensely, leaving the crater itself not much more than a giant hole swarming with monsters. Cloud was tired of hearing the whispered conversations about "the latest attack on the residents of Icicle Inn", so he’d decided to head up north to check it out.

Aaaaand maybe to do a little soul-searching…his mind muttered. Cloud grimaced, hating the fact that his subconscious mind sometimes had more of an impact on his life than his conscious decisions did.

Lately he’d found that his brown-eyed, friendly childhood acquaintance had been on his mind. He’d go to bed at night thinking of her, and when he woke up in the morning, his first thought was what she was doing right then. Whenever he had to eat his less-than-gourmet cooking, he always wished that she were there to tease him about it. Even when he was riding his chocobo, which they had both raised and raced on, he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts.

What’s worse, he just couldn’t seem to figure out how exactly he felt about her. The thought of her dying or even getting hurt drove him nuts, but…sometimes, she was so confusing. And, he realized, he didn’t want to burden her with his problems. She’d been through so much, she didn’t need to weighed down by his demons at night. Immersed in thought, Cloud nearly fell off the chocobo when it came to an abrupt stop. Carefully swinging himself down, he patted his chocobo absently as he gathered the reins and started to lead him into town.

****

Far from Icicle Inn and many miles from Nibelheim, a girl with strangely glittering purple eyes threw her speeding motorbike into a skid and stopped directly in front of the door. She got off, removing her helmet at the same time, shaking out her dark hair. Walking through the door, she took a file out of an inner pocket in her trench coat. She flipped through it slowly, making sure there were no errors in what was written.

Stepping into the elevator, she glared away the other passengers, causing them to draw back onto the opposite side. The elevator dinged, and its doors parted, leaving an exit for them to flee through. The elevator was on its way again, this time with a solitary occupant.

As soon as it stopped again, the girl walked out into a hallway and almost straight into an office without bothering to knock. Tossing the folder onto the glossy mahogany desk, she spoke her first words in hours.

"Here’s the observation report."