Anyone Plain Can Be Lovely

By Destiny

Cid Highwind stood at the entrance to Rocket Town. Most of the homes were dark, and the streets were black. The only source of light was the cigarette hanging from his lips.

He strode into the town, looking all over the place nostalgically. Damn, I didn’t realize until now how much I missed this place while I was chasing Sephiroth around with everyone. I haven’t been here since we came back to get the Huge Materia.

That was when he realized that he was standing in front of his own home. Some lights were on, so he didn’t have to wake up Shera, at least. Cid rapped on the door, not wanting to surprise Shera by walking right in. Then he heard her voice: "Come right in. The door’s open." Cid opened the thick door and stepped in.

Shera was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, with a pad of paper on her lap and a pencil in her hand. Her cheeks were grime streaked, and her brown hair was in disarray around her face. Cid noticed that the furniture that was usually in this room was gone, which explained why Shera was sitting on the ground. She made a few more scratches on the paper with the pencil, then she looked up as Cid closed the door behind him.

Her eyes grew wide. "Captain?" Shera stood, throwing the paper and pencil off her lap. She walked over to Cid slowly, looking him over, as if she expected to find horrible wounds or something on him. Then she jumped at him. "Captain!" Shera cried out in joy. Cid barely had time to brace himself before she was there, with her arms around his neck. She buried her head in his shoulder. Awkwardly, Cid returned the hug, putting his arms around her gingerly.

Shera raised her head to look at him, and seemed to realize where she was. She quickly dropped her arms, and he did the same. Cid threw a glance at the clock on the wall. It was 10:00 P.M. He didn’t have to go back to the Highwind until tomorrow night.

"Captain, what are you doing home? Did you beat Sephiroth? Where are the others?" Shera burst out in a flurry of questions.

"Slow down, Shera," Cid said, raising his hands against the onslaught, "I can only answer one at a time, and I will."

"Oh, I’m forgetting my manners. Would you like some tea, Captain?" Shera said.

"You called me by my real name on the rocket, so can you do it now?"

"All right, Cid," Shera said a little shyly.

"And, yeah, some tea’d be nice," Cid answered her earlier question. Then he remembered what he had promised himself before leaving Cloud and Tifa on the Highwind.

I won’t ever treat Shera like that again, or act like she’s my servant.

"It’d be nice, but I’ll get it," Cid finished. Shera stared at him. "Do you want any?"

Still staring, Shera nodded.

"Then I’ll tell you what happened and why I’m here. I’ve seen you make tea enough times. I can figure it out." He went off to the kitchen, leaving Shera in her spot, staring mutely. Then Cid noticed that something was different. There was a wall between the room with the table and the kitchen.

"There wasn’t a wall here before, was there?" Cid asked, turning to look at Shera.

"No, Cap…Cid, there wasn’t. The roof was going to collapse unless another wall was put up to help support it. A crew helped me put it up yesterday. I would have asked you, but I didn’t know how to get in touch," Shera exploded, looking like she thought she was going to get yelled at. "And we had to move all of the furniture out, so that it wouldn’t get in the way."

"Shera, I’m not going to yell at you," Cid said gently.

"You’re not?" Shera asked.

"No. Never again. I’m really sorry about all the stuff I’ve said and done to you, and I don’t want to start that again. Anyway, there’s no reason for me to yell at you. You did everything you could without me here. It looks like a good job." He thumped the wall with the hand to prove his last point. Then he continued to the kitchen.

As he put the kettle on and began to boil water, Cid used the mirror that was hanging above his head to watch Shera in the other room. She stood staring after him in amazement and delight for a few more moments, then a smile spread slowly across her face. She returned to her seat against the wall. Cid appeared with the tea shortly, and handed Shera a cup before sitting down next to her with his back to the wall.

"You still want to know what happened?" he asked.

Shera nodded eagerly.

"All right. The last time I was here, I told you everything that had happened up to that point. Here’s what’s happened since then." He began with the discovery that Aeris had already prayed for Holy when she died, and that Sephiroth was blocking it, and ended with Cloud telling them all to find the reason that they were fighting. Barret had gone off to Marlene in Kalm; Yuffie had gone home to Wutai; Vincent had probably gone to Lucrecia’s Cave; Red XIII had gone to Cosmo Canyon; and Reeve had had Cait Sith move to the back of the Highwind and shut down while he himself had gone to walk the streets of Midgar. Cloud and Tifa had stayed aboard, with no where to go. "And I came here," Cid finished.

"I’m glad you did," Shera blurted out, then looking embarrassed.

"Having a hard time controlling that mouth?" Cid asked, a teasing note in his voice. Shera, not realizing Cid was joking, nodded. "And I’m here until tomorrow night," Cid added.

Cid shifted around for a moment. Sitting on the floor was making him stiff. He touched something. Cid looked down to the pad of paper that Shera had been writing on, and picked it up. "What’s this?" he asked, studying the drawing. It looked like a blueprint of some kind. The ship that was drawn on it was small and compact. The drawing was very detailed, including the inside and the outside of the ship.

Shera blushed. "Oh, it’s just something I’ve been working on in my spare time. Nothing important." She made a grab for the sketch, but Cid held it out of her reach.

"Nothing important? Shera, this is really good!"

"Really?" Shera asked, looking flattered.

"Yeah, really. What’s it called?"

"Well, I called it the Stargazer. I never really thought it would be built, but I designed it to sort of skim over the land, or water," Shera said, demonstrating how she meant for it to skim with her hand and getting more enthusiastic and less shy as she spoke. "It also has hovering capabilities, and can go higher if needed. It can get up higher than the Highwind, and then hover there, so that the people on board can observe the stars."

"That’s great, Shera. I’ll bet we could build it, too," Cid said, awed by the engineer’s vision.

Hope sparkled in Shera’s brown eyes. "You would build it?"

"Yeah, it’s a really great idea. We could probably put some extra stuff in too, like here, probably a solar engine would work nicely…" Cid was beginning to grow as enthusiastic about the idea as Shera.

The two of them stayed up for hours more, making improvements and Shera even argued with Cid at one point over where the observation chairs should go. Shera couldn’t believe this was real. Her Captain was acting like the man she had always wanted him to be. Interested in her ideas, not screaming curses at her, and willing to help her out.

In the morning, Cid awoke to find that he was still seated on the floor. He winced and cursed softly as he felt the stiffness. He began to get up when he realized that Shera was leaning on him, fast asleep. The corners of Cid’s mouth curved up in a fond smile. He watched to make sure she was fast asleep, then stroked her dark head gently. She was so beautiful…

He carefully eased himself out from under her, and she started, her hair slipping into her face.

Shera yawned softly, then looked up into his face. She jumped. "Wha…! Oh, I must have fallen asleep on you! I’m sorry Cap-Cid."

"Stop apologizin’ all the time, Shera. It’s fine."

Shera sat up all of the way, running a hand back through her cascades of thick hair. "Do you want some breakfast?" Shera asked, standing up and looking like she wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

"Now that’s something I think I’m going to leave to you," Cid said wryly.

Shera laughed. Cid could never remember hearing her laugh in his life. It was a high, merry, twinkling sound that permeated to his very bones. Cid decided that he would have to hear it more often.

As Shera made breakfast, Cid talked to her through the open doorway to the kitchen. "What have you been doing lately?"

"Not much," she called back. "Mostly just designing the Stargazer. We had all decided to wait until you got back before starting work on a new rocket, but we have started work on fixing the Tiny Bronco, though."

"We?"

"You know, the old rocket crew."

"Yeah, we’ll hafta start a new rocket soon, won’t we? Along with the Stargazer, of course."

Shera smiled. "Of course. Food’s ready!"

After breakfast, Shera took Cid to see how the repairs were coming on the Tiny Bronco. The townspeople called out to the pilot; swarming around him and asking questions. Cid spent much of the morning talking to his old friends, then he and Shera went to work on the Tiny Bronco. The badly beaten up little plane sat in the backyard, as it had before Cloud and his friends had hijacked it.

"How did you get it back here?" Cid asked curiously.

"Paid a truck driver to haul it here, and we broke down part of the fence to roll it into the yard. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you!" Shera laughed at the memory.

Cid grinned. "Damn, I wish I had been here for that."

The two happily did mechanical work all afternoon, laughing and teasing each other as if they were the best of friends.

Cid eyed the sky as it grew dark. "It’s almost time for me to go." I’ve gotta do it now, dammit! Coward.

Shera’s face showed distress. "Oh, do you have to?"

"I have to keep the Planet safe, don’t I?" Cid grinned. Just spit it out!

Shera looked unhappy. "Of course. Promise you’ll come back?"

Cid stepped closer to her. "As long as you promise me something in return."

"And what would that be?" Shera asked.

Cid went down on one knee. "That you’ll marry me when I get back." He held open the small, velvet jewelry box that he had fished from his pocket. Inside, the diamond ring sparkled in the fading sunlight.

Shera gasped.

"I love you Shera, and I was just too damn stupid to see it before."

Shera smiled beatifically, happy tears beginning to collect in her eyes. "Of course I’ll marry you, Cid!"

Cid jumped to his feet, and slid the ring onto her slim finger. Shera looked up at him for a moment, then threw her arms around him. Cid held her close to his chest, not wanting to let go. Shera buried her head in his shoulder.

"I love you too," she said.

Cid grinned from ear to ear.

"Now you really have to come back." His shoulder muffled Shera’s voice.

"You think I wouldn’t? … I have to go now, Shera. I’ll have to travel all night to get back to the Highwind on time."

Shera released him and kissed him on a leathery cheek. "Come back soon."

"I promise I will. I love you Shera."

Aww… How sappy can u get? Um, I wrote this as a request piece for my bud Huntress Li. Hope you liked it Li! And I hope all of you people out there liked it too! Review!

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