Revive

Recover

Three days have gone by.

Three days since the freak accident was reported on the radio. Since the bizarre storm. And since they've seen Chase.

Cloud has spent these days lying in bed all day because of the lack of sleep during the night. Tifa leaves the bar for the day and helps clear up the city, coming home in time to have a quick shower and work night long. Marlene and Denzel stayed isolated in their room, until they get comfortable talking about that night.

The 7th Heaven has never been quieter.

Now it was the fourth morning. Cloud had been wide awake well before the sun had peaked over the horizon. When the light shone into the room, Cloud turned, surprised to see Tifa sleeping in. She must have withdrawn from voluntary work now.

"Tifa," Cloud whispered, but she groaned and rolled over to the other side. She was exhausted after spending the day caring for the kids, trying to get them to talk, and trying to stop drink induced fights before they started.

Cloud gave up on her and got out of bed. He felt strain in his right shoulder and, after his violent disagreement with Tifa, some of his wounds in his torso had been troubling him.

As he walked into the bathroom, random pangs and stings shot through Cloud's side and back. So after he had his shower, he applied Reeve's medicine to the areas, soothing the warm rush of pain. He played with his damp hair, fixing it so certain spikes were where they were meant to be, and he walked down to the bar.

Once Cloud reached the bottom of the stairs, he was surprised to see Denzel sitting patiently in the bar. As was Marlene. She was on the stool closest to the exit and when she saw Cloud, she stopped playing a hand game with Denzel, who turned around too. They both hold grave expressions in their innocent eyes.

They're ready to talk, Cloud sighed and went towards the stool furthest to the right.

Marlene skipped to Cloud and a sad smile crept across her face. "Where's Tifa?"

"She's in bed, Marlene," Cloud replied. "Don't wake her up. She'll be down in a while,"

She nodded and ran back to her seat and continued playing with Denzel.

Cloud sat down and poured himself a cold cup of coffee. He spent most of the morning listening to some depressing stuff on the radio and trying to listen in on what Marlene and Denzel were whispering to each other about, but when he was caught, they giggled and ran to the corner of the room.

It was noon and Tifa was still not here. The kids started to grow bored and ended up creating paper planes out of Cloud's spare papers in his office. Cloud kept on returning from outside after repetitively checking, and sighing, over the damage done to Fenrir when it ran into the tree. The damage would take a lot of time to fix and though Cloud has had that, he doesn't have anything to fix it with. And the only guy he trusts with Fenrir, is out of town for a while.

Cloud sat on top of the bench, staring at planes flying across the bar. Tifa was still not down here. There wasn't even the sound of running water from the bathroom. He grew impatient and started tapping his foot on the stool as an annoying habit. Denzel started groaning and kept asking when Tifa would come down every second.

When Cloud had had enough, he rose and started climbing the stairs. When he reached the middle, Tifa's long hair rushed past as she entered the landing.

"Took you long enough," Cloud muttered.

Tifa frowned. "So sorry, my liege. I forgot to ask permission before I slept in," Cloud rolled his eyes while she laughed at him.

"But seriously," she said. "What's the occasion?"

"They're ready to talk,"

Tifa eyes steadied onto Cloud's. Without a word, she followed him to the bar. She was greeted with a hug by Marlene and took a seat by the bench. Cloud leaned on a close by table. After everyone was comfortable, Denzel cleared his throat.

"We're going to tell you about that night," he said. When Tifa and Cloud didn't react, he continued. "Well first, we went around town early in the day, but Chase told us that they were working on construction for the day, so we left town by bus."

Cloud thought about this and wondered why Chase took them out of town. It would've just been easier to bring them back to the bar and call it a day.

"We stopped in the middle of the highway and walked to this old gross building,"

"There was mould everywhere and it looked like ghosts lived in there," Marlene adds.

"He told us that he needed to go get something and told us to wait outside."

"What did he get?" Tifa wondered.

"We don't know," Denzel ran his hand through his hair, mimicking Cloud when he's trying to think. "He was in there forever though."

Marlene got off the stool and addressed Tifa and Cloud standing up. "And when he came back he had the saddest look on his face. Without saying anything, we followed him to the highway and we waited for another bus,"

What did he see? Cloud asked himself.

"Throughout the entire trip, we asked about where we were going, but he kept looking spaced out."

"Then we stopped at the Forest." Denzel brought his voice to whisper. "We walked in, but he never explained himself."

"The sky was dark and scary when we got to the centre." Marlene whispered also. "It started to rain when, all of a sudden, Chase burst into tears."

Cloud gave Tifa a knowing look. That would explain why he was so distressed over the phone.

"He looked crazy," she continued. "He started grabbing sticks and stuff and throwing them around, hitting us."

"The thunder came in, the rain fell harder," Denzel comments. "It was a while before you guys showed up,"

The kids stay silent and leave Tifa and Cloud in their daze. Questions buzzed through their heads, some that could be easily answered if they have seen Chase at all.

But after considering the tragic events they all went through, Tifa pulled Denzel and Marlene into a tight hug. "You guys have been through enough," she whispered. "And it means a lot for you to tell us. Such brave, little soldiers,"

Tifa let go and quietly told the kids a joke to lighten the mood. As they laughed, Cloud pulled out his new phone and walked into the hallway, dialling Chase's number.

He leans against the door frame, watching kids play and listening to the repetitive rings to his ear. When it finally went to voice mail, Cloud practically growled, then sneered in a short message.

"Chase, it's Cloud. You better have a good reason for almost frying my kids that day. I don't care if some dog you owned fell over and died, but next time you involve Denzel and Marlene in your personal problems, you'll be sorry."