It'll Be Great

A/N: Sorry for the delay on this one. I originally had Chapters 6 and 7 in one, but that was way too long. So I'll post up Chapter 6 now, make some revisions to Chapter 7, and post that one tomorrow. Thanks for your patience, and your reviews! For this being my first-ever fanfic, I'm really excited about the comments I'm receiving.

The next day, Airica prepared herself for work with a kind of girlish impatience she hadn’t experienced in a long time. She changed her dress at least three times, ultimately settling on the first one she’d tried. She brushed her hair for twice as long as usual, until it floated like a golden-red cloud around her face. She splashed cold water on the skin around her face and neck until it flushed prettily. She chided herself often as she did all these things, but she still did them.

As she walked to the tavern, her quick steps matched her heartbeat, and she felt like she would go crazy if she didn’t see Cid soon. Again, she tried to convince herself that this girlish behavior was far too immature for someone her age…and it was certainly nothing Cid would take too well to. Imagine…a grown woman batting her eyelashes like a schoolgirl at a more than grown man. She stopped herself firmly, gathering her cloak against the light breeze that sailed through the town. A look of disgust crossed her face as she realized that this was certainly not going to get her anywhere. The best thing to do would be to act perfectly, totally, and completely normal. She nodded smartly and continued walking. However, she still couldn’t suppress her excited smile as she hastily entered the tavern.

Looking around, it took her a moment to realize what was going on. The tavern was empty. Not a soul. Not even a Cid. She stood there blinking for a moment, her face blank, as Arnie stepped behind the bar from the front.

“Ah, Airica!” he said with a chuckle. “I’m glad you’re here. As you can see, not even our illustrious pilot friend has decided to grace us with his presence tonight, so we have the entire evening to plan our renovations!”

Airica’s mouth dropped a tiny bit as she continued to stare at the empty space where Cid usually sat. It wasn’t that she was disappointed not to see him tonight…she had gotten over that in the first second. Cid was always at the bar. Every night. All the time. No fail. He’d come in sick, injured, and when there were other pressing matters in his life. He came every night. Her eyes widened. And the Turks had just left town…maybe they hadn’t left. Maybe they hurt him again, or took him away, or…

“Airica?” Arnie’s voice came much closer to her now, and she jumped. The look of worry on her face caused a similar expression to cross his own. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder and peered at her. “What’s the problem, dear? As shocked as I was to see our precious tavern so bare?”

She made a rather lame attempt at a smile, trying to reassure him that she was absolutely fine, but the disapproving look on his face told her that he did not buy it.

“Maybe it’s something else, eh? Your new best friend isn’t here to keep you company. Is that it?”

Her face fell and she looked at him sheepishly. He chuckled.

“Well, it is a tad strange that he hasn’t shown up, but I imagine that if Cid is choosing to skip his nightly ‘meal,’ then he must have a damn good reason.”

‘That’s what I’m worried about,’ Airica thought grimly as she removed her cloak and sat down at one of the tables.

“You’re probably right,” she said, false confidence creeping into her voice. She smiled at him more genuinely now, and said, “Okay, let’s take a look at what you’ve got here, Arnie.”

For the rest of the evening, the two sat hunched over the plans Arnie had drawn up, writing down figures, and lists of potential workers. Late in the night, as Airica brought out a second pot of coffee, she was suddenly struck with a question.

“Arnie, how can you stay here so late? Won’t your wife worry about you?”

Arnie shook his head, gratefully accepting the coffee with a smirk. “Nope, she’s dead asleep. She was busy all day with the other women preparing all our clothes and weapons for the monster hunt.”

Airica furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. She stifled a yawn and poured herself a cup.

“What’s a monster hunt?”

“It’s a quarterly thing…around once every season, the men of Rocket Town go out into the surrounding areas and flush out monster dens. We kill them, destroy their dens and nests, and it leaves us relatively safe for a few months. It’s a big three-day thing…the men get to go and camp out under the stars, do the whole male-bonding thing. The women…fuck, I don’t know what the women do, and frankly, I don’t care. All I know is when we come back, there’s a nice big feast prepared for us, and we all get to kick back and have a big party.”

Airica looked surprised, but unimpressed. “Sounds like a blast.” She sipped her coffee and scowled. The prospect of spending three days with all the women of Rocket Town was unattractive at best, and downright loathsome at worst. In fact, she was pretty sure she’d be ready to kill herself by the end of the first day. She momentarily considered sneaking away with the men to kill monsters for three days, but shuddered involuntarily at the thought of being around sweaty, over-masculinized men for three days. She sighed resignedly. A dreamy smile crossed her face as various methods of suicide ran through her head. She didn’t notice when Arnie stood and began to shrug into his jacket.

“Well, I’m off to get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

Airica snapped out of her reverie and smiled at him.

“Hey,” she called as he headed for the door. “When does this thing start, anyway?”

Arnie looked at her incredulously. “We leave tomorrow at noon. Woman, you need to get out and talk to more people. You’re becoming obsolete.”

Airica laughed and waved as Arnie left. She sat for a few minutes, wondering vaguely if Cid would be going with the other men, before ultimately deciding that he probably would, if it meant getting away from the prying eyes and flapping gums of the townswomen. She sighed and stood up, taking the coffee mugs back to the washbin. After a brief cleanup, she locked the tavern door tightly and headed back home.


Airica arose early the following morning. As she drearily prepared her meager breakfast and sleepily bathed herself, she began to dread the day to come. She’d correctly assumed there would be a sort of sappy sending-off of the town’s men, one of those weepy, women-waving-handkerchiefs scenes as the men march off into the hills, singing a hunting song with hearts of ambition. She grimaced as she predicted the scene.

Looking at her reflection in her bathroom mirror, she sighed. “Of course I’m going,” she said aloud, a disgusted look on her face. “Of course I’m going to see Cid off. Because I’m completely stupid like that.”

As it happens, she wasn’t entirely wrong about how the sending-off would go. There were speeches by the mayor, speeches by the mayor’s wife, scientific predictions regarding how many monsters they were likely to find, and the presentation of the prizes that would be given at the end of the hunt. Airica stifled several yawns throughout the proceedings, rolling her eyes at the massive applause every speech received, and occasionally casting her eyes around the crowd.

Specifically, she’d been looking for Cid, but her searching gaze often fell upon the various disapproving glares of other women. One woman in particular, a large, strong-looking woman with severe blue eyes and a sharp nose gave her such a look as to make her turn her head away in panic. ‘Damn…’ she thought bitterly. “This is going to be a bad three days.”

Much to her dismay, she didn’t see Cid at all throughout the departure ceremony. Even when she followed the men to the gate, trying to avoid being crushed by the women who rushed by teary-eyed and waving frantically at their husbands and lovers, she caught no sight of him.

She hung back from the crowd, quickly finding herself alone on the cobblestone square at the head of town. She shook her head slowly and tried to catch her breath. She was just about to turn around and lock herself in her house when she heard a very familiar gruff voice off to the side.

“Dammit, Shera, I said it was gonna be fine, and I expect you of all people to fuckin’ listen to me!”

Airica’s head turned sharply in the direction of his voice, and laid her eyes on him just in time to see him sigh deeply, one hand scratching the back of his neck, and a cigarette dangle dangerously from his lips. She watched as he rolled his eyes a little and opened his arms to allow entrance of a young, dark-haired woman in a lab coat, who clung to him as if her very life depended on it. As he gently held her, his eyes wandered upwards from the ground and settled directly onto Airica.

She almost jumped when he looked at her, but she held his gaze, asking a million silent questions, all of which went unanswered in his empty stare. Just before removing himself from the young woman’s clutches, his eyes softened just a bit, making Airica simultaneously weak and enraged.

She turned and walked away slowly before she got a chance to either see the woman’s face, or to see Cid follow the men out for the hunt. She just didn’t think she could watch.

As she headed back to her house, she admonished herself bitterly for ever letting herself get so close. ‘Dammit!’ she thought angrily. ‘I’m so fucking sick and tired of always getting involved with men who are going to hurt me. Are there any men out there who won’t? Even when I got away from Midgar, I didn’t leave the liars behind.’ These and various other thoughts slashed their way through her mind as she made her way to her front door. She opened it roughly and slammed it behind her.

She went immediately to her kitchen cupboard and pulled out a bottle of wine. Popping the cork out, she muttered a single, final curse before lifting the bottle to her lips and drinking deeply of its contents.

Airica was quite drunk by the time she heard the timid knock upon her door. She didn’t know what time it was…by the looks of the shadows in her living room, it was probably nearing late afternoon. She sat on the floor, pondering the dust particles that floated in the harsh orange light, when the knock came again, if possible even more timidly than before. She rolled her eyes and stood shakily. She made her way slowly, carefully to the door, the bottle never leaving her hand despite the fact that it made keeping her balance more difficult. She cracked the door open just enough to stick out her head and glare at the woman on her porch.

She said nothing, awaiting the reason for the girl’s appearance, looking her up and down and wondering why she should recognize her. After a very awkward moment, the girl twiddled her fingers and spoke softly.

“Um, uh…are you miss Airica?” she stammered. Airica snorted in a very un-ladylike fashion.

“There’s no ‘miss’ here, girly. Just Airica.”
The girl smiled in spite of her half-hearted insult.

“Well, I um…I came to invite you to the first-night party. The women have it every hunt, and it’s…well, its sort of a sleepover.”

Airica’s eyes narrowed and she got her face very close to the girl’s, who shrank back slightly. She glared at her for a long moment before speaking.

“Are you telling me…that the women of this town…want to invite me…to a sleepover?”

The girl spoke quickly, and with a little more confidence.

“Well, actually, no. What I mean is, most of them didn’t want to invite you at all. But I insisted.”

Airica snorted again, again looking the girl up and down. She didn’t expect that this shy young woman had ever insisted upon anything in her life. She said nothing for several seconds as she tried to ponder the situation.

“Would you like me to come in and make you some coffee?” the girl asked suddenly. Without waiting for an answer, she brushed by Airica and headed straight for her kitchen, immediately rummaging around for a coffee pot.

“Hey!” Airica protested weakly, swinging around and promptly losing her balance, falling conveniently into a nearby chair.

“You just stay there, I’ll bring it to you,” the girl called from the kitchen.

“Who the hell is this woman?” Airica muttered as she squirmed her way into a more comfortable position on the chair. A few minutes later, she was presented with a steaming mug of what appeared to be very strong coffee. The girl looked at her with an expectant smile on her face.

Airica took the coffee, eyeing her unexpected guest suspiciously. One sip confirmed her prediction. This coffee could have drunk her if she’d let it. No words were exchanged between the young women as Airica finished her coffee slowly. There was a cool breeze coming in from the open window, and this combined with the strength of the coffee caused Airica to sober up a bit. By the time the mug was empty, she was only seeing one of the girl before her, and she felt like she might be able to walk more than a few steps by herself.

She looked the girl up and down slowly, this time with a far less judgmental gleam in her eye. Once she absorbed all that she was seeing, the dark mousy hair, the glasses, the lab coat, something clicked in her mind.

“You were the girl I saw Cid with,” she said without thinking. She immediately regretted saying it. For all she knew, this girl was Cid’s wife, and she had no right to be upset with her. “Sorry,” she murmured, looking down into her empty cup.

“Don’t be,” the girl said quickly, offering her a friendly smile. “Cid and I…we live together, but…”

Airica’s heart sank when she heard those words. ‘Of course,’ she thought to herself sadly. ‘Of course they live together.’

“But it doesn’t mean anything. Not to him anyway,” the girl added with a sad smile. “I just take care of him, make sure he gets his breakfast, gets enough sleep, that sort of thing. See, it’s my fault that his great rocket project failed, and I-“

She was cut off by Airica’s surprised cough. “You mean you’re…?” She let her question dangle, unsure of how to phrase it without sounding cruel.

“Yeah, that’s me,” the girl said, hanging her head a bit. “I’m Shera.”

She held her hand out towards Airica hopefully. Airica looked at it for a moment, wondering what this woman’s intentions were, before tentatively taking it and giving it a quick shake.

“So will you come?” Shera asked, a hint of excitement creeping into her voice.

Airica shook her head and smiled ironically. She picked up her cup and headed towards the kitchen, placing it in the sink. “I don’t feel like getting lynched tonight, thanks.”

“No, you won’t!” Shera exclaimed, approaching Airica with a look nearing desperation on her face. “Please come. If you think about it, it’s kind of your only chance to make things right between you and those other women. I know what they say about you, and I know those things aren’t true.”

“Oh?” Airica laughed. “And how do you know that?”

“Because Cid says so,” Shera said, her voice falling towards the end of her statement. She lowered her eyes until they were focused on the ground. “He talks about you a lot. It really makes him mad that they all talk about you like that.”

Airica’s eyebrows raised a bit and her heart sped up slightly, but she made no other outward indication that she had any reaction to that.

“Does he?” she asked calmly.

“Oh, yes…” Shera said softly. “He really likes you, Airica. That’s one of the reasons I want to get to know you. I’d like to know what kind of woman can make Cid act like he used to.”

Airica’s gaze softened as she smiled at Shera. “Thanks,” she said simply. “I’ll go tonight. But the second anything starts to go wrong, if I see rope and tar and feathers, I’m taking off, clear?” she asked sternly.

Shera smiled radiantly and grabbed Airica’s arm, leading her out the door and towards the location of the women’s first-night party.

‘Fuck, I hope I know what I’m getting into,’ Airica thought with a grim smile as she let herself be dragged along by her new friend.