Archive of Our Own ^beta

Battlefield

Meet me on the battlefield
Even on the darkest night
I will be your sword, your shield, your camouflage
And you will be mine

Echos and the shots ring out
We may be the first to fall
Everything can stay the same or we could change it all

“Don’t overdo it, Cid.”

Cid Highwind only laughed when Tifa sat his fourth whiskey down in front of him, offering her a yellow-toothed grin before he picked up the tumbler and brought it up to his lips.

“Don’t you worry about me, love,” Cid grubbed, tipping his forehead to her.  “I can drink everybody in this room under the table, including big guy over there.”  He gestured to Barret, who sat with Marlene in his lap at a nearby table, his voice thunderous in the background as he gestured wildly through a story he was entertaining Yuffie and Nanaki with.  

“I’d rather not see you try,” Tifa scolded, dropping her hands to her hips.

“Ah,” Cid admonished, waving her off.  “I’ll be fine.  Why don’t you go pay attention to your lover boy over there?  Haven’t heard more than two words come out of him since we left the church.”

He nodded in the direction of the bar, where Cloud sat alone, nursing a whiskey of his own.  He was leaned over the countertop, silent, staring down into the amber liquid.  

Tifa expelled a sigh, patting Cid on the shoulder gently.  It was several hours after Aerith’s healing rain had been unleashed on her old church in Midgar, several hours since the ugly black blemishes of Geostigma had been eradicated from the faces and bodies of the afflicted, including Cloud and Denzel.  In the hours since, they had ignored their exhaustion, returning to Seventh Heaven along with the rest of their friends for a reprieve. Tifa had gone straight to the bar’s kitchen, shooing Yuffie out of the way as she pulled together a meal of roasted chicken and potatoes for their troupe, trying to tamp down her excitement at the realization that things might suddenly be returning to normal.

From the moment that Cloud had turned to her with the first smile she had seen him wear in months, Tifa felt as if a weight had been pulled off of her, as if she was suddenly able to float untethered in an ether of peace.  The weeks prior had been cold and nightmarish if she was honest with herself.  

It was Cloud’s absence those last weeks that drove the deep anxiety that lived inside of her. The first morning that she realized he was gone - truly gone - she had sat up in their bed with her head in her hands, weeping bleakly until her palms were soaked.  It was only when Marlene came to her door, knocking and calling her name, that Tifa had been able to lift her head and wipe the wetness from her eyes and cheeks.  She remembered glancing up at her reflection in the mirror, unnerved and disturbed by the melancholic misery that stared back at her in her own crimson eyes.

She had known that there was something deeply wrong with him, had known it for months.  She could see it in the shadows behind his aquamarine eyes, could feel it in the coolness beneath his lips anytime that they brushed over her skin.  She knew it from the way that he would come home later and later from his deliveries at night, the way that he missed dinner and the way that he mumbled apologies when he fell into their bed beside her in the middle of the night.

When it started, Tifa had tried, as she always had, to seek out the source of the damage and repair it.  She waited up for him as late as she could by the bar, working on her ledgers and accounts, reviewing the inventory of her wine stocks.  Sometimes, he would walk through the door just after midnight, his gaze heavy and mournful when it met hers, his blue eyes glassy with despondency.  She would offer him her arms, cradling him close but unable to ask with words what was wrong.  He would hold her back before he would pull away, mumbling about needing a shower, and he would disappear up the stairs, leaving her alone in the dimness of the bar’s kerosene lighting.

But there were plenty of other nights where he was so late, Tifa found herself passing out into a deep slumber on the couch in front of the hearth in the small living room attached to the bar’s main dining area.  She could only keep her eyes open for so long, especially after a long day of getting the kids up and ready for school, of running the bar through the lunch and dinner rushes, of looking after Denzel’s progressively worsening case of Geostigma and ensuring the kids both ate and did their homework and every other domestic duty that needed to be tended to.

On those nights, Tifa would awaken in their bed the next morning, finding it already empty, realizing that when Cloud had finally come home, he had carried her upstairs and laid her in bed.  She realized, blushing when she woke up on those mornings, that he’d pulled her shoes off and disrobed her, leaving her in her tank and underwear.  Throughout this, she would sometimes wake slightly, but she wouldn’t open her eyes, especially when she realized that he was holding her against his body on those late, cool nights, his body filling hers with its warmth, until he would wake at the crack of dawn and disappear again.

She had been too exhausted from everything to even stir while any of this happened, to challenge him and ask him why he was coming home so late, why he was filled with such silence, why things seemed to be cracking and falling apart between them.

The morning when she realized he was gone - it was clear from the message he left her on her PHS, a vague, simple text - Tifa finally admitted to herself that everything in life had been cruel and unfair.  She was twenty-two years old and raising two children, running a bar that had huge overhead but meager profitability.  There was illness and desperation everywhere around her.  Half of the time, she found herself giving away meals for free, unable to turn away the poor and the homeless that still drifted through Edge following the near-total collapse of Midgar.

It put a strain on both her and Cloud.  As much as she knew that he loved the kids and tried to be there for them, she knew that he was not prepared for the sacrifice and the investment and effort that raising children required.  He struggled in his conversations, especially with Marlene, who was bright and bubbly and vivacious and asked way too many questions, and Tifa never missed the way that Cloud would flinch when she would poke and prod and needle at him incessantly.

But Cloud was all about his valor, could only do and say what he thought was virtuous.  He rarely lost his temper, pulling back the words that Tifa knew were ugly phantasms hovering above his tongue.  It was the reason that he had brought Denzel home in the first place.

Tifa at first had wanted to ask him why he thought taking in another child was a wise decision, but she bit the inclination back, instantly feeling guilty for thinking it. 

But she began to wonder if her constant silence, her predisposition for letting things transpire unchallenged was the reason so many things were so difficult.  She had been annoyed with Barret when he declared that he needed time away from Marlene to take care of his own ghosts, but Tifa had not said a word, nodding in agreement to take Marlene in.  Marlene was already like a daughter to her, so why would she refuse?

She didn’t realize the strain these decisions were having on her until much later, when the exhaustion became so heavy and deep she could feel it in her bones.

Cloud leaving only seemed like a probable conclusion to everything that was already happening, and Tifa found herself mired in guilt again, realizing that the stars had turned their backs on her for her sins, shining in a different direction and robbing her of any chance of happiness.

She glanced at Cloud, unsurprised by his silence and his separation while the rest of their group drank and ate and celebrated.  He was holding his left arm, squeezing his bicep gently before he dropped his hand to pick up his drink and bring it to his lips again.

It made Tifa wince.  How had she missed that he had been sick?  She had blamed his aloof and distant behavior on an exacerbation of personality flaws, never considering that he might be ill.  Terminally ill.  She let her judgment become clouded by her anger, anger that hovered beneath the surface of her smiles on the rare occasion she found herself sharing one with him.  She realized that in the month before he left, she’d spend less than ten minutes a day with him, usually in the mornings if she was lucky enough to wake up before he was out of the door.

But like always, she never said anything, kept her feelings locked in and tucked away somewhere deep, ignoring the way that they stabbed and stung, the way they burrowed deep and infected her brain with poisonous, ugly thoughts that had her crying behind the bar whenever she found herself alone.

But he was home now.  He was home, and it was the first night in almost three weeks.  Tifa had been wondering how this would play out, and she was dreading the hours counting down, knowing that as it grew later, their friends would begin to filter out, the kids would need to be sent to bed, and then it would just be the two of them and the demons that haunted them both.

She wasn’t sure if she could handle it.

She thought about walking up to the bar and talking to him, but she found herself rooted in place, even as Cid smirked a knowing, fatherly grin up at her.  She had exchanged less than a dozen words with him in the hours since they had met eyes in the church, the moment that she realized he was healed and that he was free of the chains of the past that had bound him.

They both were terrible with communication.

“Ain’t nothing gonna change if you don’t open your goddamn mouth, Teef,” Cid was saying, reading her mind.  He set his tumbler down with a thud, leaning back and pulling his cigarettes out from under his goggles.  He began to pack the box against his palm, and Tifa ignored his comment when she realized he was pulling one out of the carton.

“Please don’t smoke in here, Cid,” she told him.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” He immediately woofed back.  “Strife is a good guy, but he doesn’t have a whole lot of sense.  You might have to do some encouraging with him.”

“Noted.”

“Want me to kick some sense into him?” Cid asked, rising to his feet.  

Tifa shook her head, thinking that would be the least helpful thing that could happen. “No, I think I can handle him.”

“You know him better than any of us,” Cid conceded, perching the cigarette between his lips and dropping his hands into his pockets before he turned and made his way out to the front stoop to smoke.

That thought lingered with Tifa for the rest of the night, and she found herself stuck in memories that were bordered by green, memories of the Lifestream and those moments when she had felt closer to Cloud than she ever had in her life.  

She had thought that those moments were defining, that they had changed the course of their relationship, whether or not the world would come to an end in the days that followed.  They were cherished to her; she held them more deeply in her heart than any other memory she could summon.

But now, two years later, she wondered if they truly meant as much as they once had.

The night went on, and Tifa found herself still too afraid to approach him.  She watched as their friends began to filter out, exchanging hugs with her, slapping Cloud on the back and squeezing his shoulders.  Barret and Cid were the last to leave, and Tifa had been wiping down a table when Barret came up to her, gently turning her away toward a corner.  Cloud still sat at the bar; he hadn’t moved in almost two hours.

 “Hey, Teef,” he began softly, scratching the top of his head.  “Me an’ Cid had a little talk.  I know it’s the first night since everything went down, but we think you and Spike over there need a little time to yourselves.  He might be healed, but he ain’t fixed, if you get my drift.”

Tifa shook her head.  “Barret, what are you - “

Barret held up his good hand.  “I’m taking the kids tonight, Tifa.  Just sent them upstairs to pack and get ready.  Cid, Shera, and me are thinkin’ about taking them to the Gold Saucer. After everything they’ve been through, they oughta have some fun and just be kids for a chance. Same goes for you two.”

Tifa opened her mouth to protest, but Barret was shaking his head.

“Not taking no for an answer, Tifa,” he growled.  “You and Cloud been through a lot, too.  You’re too young for all this stress.  Maybe I wasn’t right asking you to take on Marlene.”

“Barret,” Tifa finally interjected.  “Please don’t say that.  You know how much I love taking care of Marlene.  She’s always been like a daughter to me.”

“No matter,” Barret said with a shrug.  “You deserve a break.  And you gotta talk some sense into our boy here.  I think you know what to do.”

 Tifa was about to respond when both Marlene and Denzel reappeared in the doorway with their backpacks.  Cid was standing by the front door, his arms crossed over his chest, an unlit cigarette dangling from his lips.  At their appearance, Cloud turned on his barstool, speaking for the first time in hours when he realized they were carrying their bags.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, his eyebrow raised, and Tifa felt her heart begin to rise at the fatherly concern in his voice.

“I’m takin’ em,” Barret immediately answered.  “Going to see some sights out West, ain’t that right kids?”

“Yeah!” Marlene shouted, while Denzel just nodded shyly at her side.  “Papa says he’s gonna take us to the Gold Saucer.  I’ve never been, Cloud.”

Cloud nodded, rubbing the back of his neck, and Tifa realized that, for whatever reason, he had a particularly nervous look on his face.

They exchanged hugs with the kids and Cid and Barret, and before they left, as Barret was rounding the kids up and guiding them out of the door, Tifa watched Cid rope his arm around Cloud’s neck, pulling him through the front door behind Barret and the children.

“Wanna have a word with you,” Cid grumbled.  He looked back at Tifa with a nod of his head.  “I’ll send him back in one piece.”

“Sure,” Tifa responded, and she watched Cid push Cloud out the door, and then, the bar was filled with a thick silence.

Sighing, Tifa turned to begin cleaning up the bar, picking up mugs and glasses, wiping tables down, bringing everything to the sink to begin rinsing it all off.  She realized that her hands were shaking, trembling as she worked, and she found it supremely difficult to ignore the racing thoughts in her mind, even as she tried to distract herself with cleaning up and clearing everything away.

The sink filled with water and suds, and Tifa was wiping a plate down under the hot flow of the faucet when her eyes drifted back to the front door where Cloud had disappeared only moments ago, his eyes downcast and sheepish under the press of Cid’s palm against his shoulder.  She could only imagine the conversation that was transpiring outside on the other side of that door, knowing that Cloud did not appreciate being lectured to, that he hated having his feelings unearthed and put on display and poked and prodded at.  She knew that, while Cid and the others meant well, it would probably have the opposite effect, would probably only end up making him retreat further, and as it stood, she wasn’t sure how she was going to get him to open up and come back to her - emotionally and physically - after the events of the past few weeks, after the devastation of illness and the decay of grief and guilt had become so deeply embedded in their relationship and in their lives.

She was sighing her way through this thought when the plate she was washing slipped between her fingers in her distraction, and she was silently cursing herself, hearing the crack as the porcelain fell against the stainless steel of the sink and clinked into the other dishes soaking there.  Blinking, she carefully dipped her fingers into the water, pushing aside the thick suds as she fished for the broken pieces.

She winced and let out a sudden cry of pain at the sensation of a sharp edge slicing across her palm, and she pulled her hand back to find that she had indeed cut her hand wide open against the edge of the broken plate, right in the center of her palm, a wide split that was already bleeding profusely, a thick river of red leaking from the wound down to her wrist.  Glancing into the sink, she could see that the water had already taken on a slight pink tone from the drip of her blood into the water.

She closed her eyes in annoyance, holding her hand upright in her other hand while the faint scent of iron suddenly clouded her senses.  With everything else going on, it would be just her luck that she would cut herself so viciously on a broken plate, an unnecessary, minor inconvenience that, on top of all of the current unease and stress floating throughout her mind, felt like a suddenly monumental burden.  She turned the faucet off with an angry snap of her wrist, then reached for a clean dishtowel, pressing it to her palm to staunch the bleeding while she searched for the first aid kit that she kept stored beneath the bar.

It seemed that no matter how hard she tried to avoid circumstances that were laced through with setbacks and misfortunes, if anything could find a way to go wrong, it would.

The air outside of Seventh Heaven held a deep chill, the late March winds blowing by with a wintery gust that grew bolder and brighter during the evening hours.  They were pulled in from the ocean that lay in the miles beyond Edge, dragging in the cold fronts that originated in the Northern Continent.

Cloud felt the sting of the air as he stepped onto the porch, contrasted by the warmth of Cid’s gloved palm against his shoulder.  He was fighting the urge to fling his hand away, already suspecting the nature of the older man’s conversation and not really in the mood to entertain it.  He was still trying to process the events of the day, and he hadn’t been able to get a moment of peace alone to himself since the moment they had left the church in Sector5.

Watching as Barret led Marlene and Denzel to his truck that was parked on the curb, Marlene turning once again to offer him a wave, Cloud closed his eyes as he thought about the events of the past two days, and even more importantly, the events of the past few weeks.  Even though the moment in the church, when his body had been healed and he felt the spirits of his two cherished friends finally walk away in calmness and serenity, had left him feeling as if a weight had been lifted from the center of his chest, Cloud still had to concede that there were colossal demons lingering around him that needed to be battled back and challenged.  He had made some terrible decisions in the worst ways possible.  

It started with his heavy drinking months before, a habit that annoyed Tifa greatly, especially whenever he would start the process in the bar, in front of her clients or the children.  She would banish him upstairs to their bedroom for the rest of the night, and he would sit there and polish off an entire handle of whiskey, his mind mired in the failures of the past, including the ones that surrounded the raven-haired beauty who flitted through the bar below in quiet rage at his childish and inappropriate behavior.  He would relive every event, every moment of violence or death or regret, turning the memories over and over again in his mind, the amber liquid in the bottle draining away to nothing until he was passed out on the bed, long before Tifa made it upstairs to join him.

He knew that he did not deserve her, that he did not deserve any of what they had built together.  The happiness that he had felt those very first months after Meteorfall - when he had sat side-by-side with Tifa and Barret, laughing and drinking and crying the hard memories of the past away, working to rebuild her bar as he had promised her all those months ago after the Sector7 plate drop that he would, had been short-lived.  They were eclipsing moments in time that soon shifted into a routine of responsibility that unearthed the dark apparitions that he had been trying so desperately to repress.

It had started with the stress of trying to spearhead a family.  Cloud had no idea why Tifa agreed to take in Marlene and why he had agreed alongside her.  He remembered the sorrowful look on Barret’s face, the way that Tifa’s eyes had faded before she pulled herself together and nodded her head quickly in agreement, telling Barret that there was nothing that she wouldn’t do for him or especially Marlene.

Cloud remembered staring down at his gloved hands, at the streaks of dirt in the SOLDIER uniform he was still wearing at the time.  He had only begun to piece together the broken vestiges of his memory, had only discovered himself just weeks prior when he had fallen with Tifa into the murky verdant waters of the Lifestream, where he learned that he was missing a lot of time, far more than he had previously realized when he had been ambling through the broken crags and crevices of his disheveled and fragmented psyche.  It dawned on him, not long after, that it was the reason why he was so awkward and shy and why he didn’t know how to navigate certain situations, why he didn’t know the right things to say when people were looking up to him expectantly.

He was still a kid, and it made him embarrassed to realize how far behind he was, made him resentful when Tifa would try to cover for him and explain his behavior away or go out of her way to help him with every little struggle that he had.  But it really made him nervous about raising children, and he didn’t know what the hell he was doing when Marlene finally moved in with them above Tifa’s new bar.  He had always been clumsy and inept around Barret’s daughter, but became especially so when they all were living together.

Things only grew worse when work began to pile and he was forced to travel more and more.  Elmyra Gainsborough’s delivery requests to the Forgotten Capital had been especially triggering to him, and every time he made the trip, Cloud found the stirrings of guilt beginning to reawaken inside of him.

But it was when he learned that had been afflicted by Geostigma that he realized that everything had come full circle for him, that he was finally being punished for his sins and that he was going to die for them.

It hadn’t taken long for him to accept the finality of this, to accept the hands that fate dealt.  Cloud knew that the universe aligned in response to the events of the past, that eventually, everything would find a way to balance out. Cloud had let so many people down in his life - his mother, Tifa, Zack, Aerith - now his entire, small family - he deserved everything that was coming.

And so he had given up.  His last act of redemption was to bring Denzel home.  He had found the boy in the church, orphaned and sick from the disease just like himself, and he hadn’t hesitated to bring him home where he knew he would be well cared for with Tifa.

Tifa.

Even now, staring up at the glitters of stars in the sky above Edge, Cloud knew that Tifa was the one that ultimately, he had failed the most.  And the failures of the past paled in comparison to the failures of the present.

Once, he’d been too late to save her.  But this time, he had abandoned her completely.

He’d promised that he would be there for her.  That promise had meant so much to him.  He had held it near and dear to his heart, and he’d tried endlessly to fulfill it whenever he could, whenever she needed him.  

But as soon as the ghosts began to haunt him again, as soon as he fell ill, he’d broken it.

Over and over again.

Now, standing in the cold with the fumy, tarry odor of cigarette smoke hovering in the air above him, Cloud realized that he was standing over the precipice of his relationship with Tifa once again, with broken promises and the pains and heartbreaks of the last few weeks, the bleak, overcast winds of the previous months hovering between them, and he didn’t know how he was going to fix it.

He didn’t deserve her, and so maybe it didn’t deserve to be fixed.

With the kids gone, and he and Tifa finally alone again in a way that they hadn’t been in longer than he could remember, how was he going to be able to handle the rifts between them?  

What would he even say to begin to bridge this gap?

He wondered if he could just escape on his bike for a few hours to clear his head first, but somehow, he doubted that that was going to make things any easier or better.

“I can tell by that stupid, broody look on your face what you’re thinking already,” Cid was saying, tearing him from the gray misery of his thoughts as he leaned over the railing of Seventh Heaven’s front stoop.  He blew another thick puff of smoke into the air, and Cloud watched as it plumed upward into the sky and was then carried away by the wind.

“What are you talking about?” Cloud asked, trying carefully to bite the nastiness back from his tone, not wanting to get into an argument and hoping that if he indulged Cid’s fatherly concern, this would transpire quickly and he might back off.

Cid placed one hand on his hip while the other continued to hold onto his cigarette.  “I bet you’re scared shitless of going back inside and talking to her, huh?”

Cloud stared at him, blue eyes narrowing as he carefully measured his response.  But Cid went on, leaning over the railing as he chuckled.

“You know,” Cid went on, his voice a slow, drawly drip from his inundation of whiskey and beer that night.  “Let me tell you a thing or two.  I’m an idiot.  A real, grade A, certified jackass.”

Cloud scratched the back of his head, confused and unsure as to where this was going.  He folded his arms across his chest, shifting his weight over his feet while he glared at Cid and waited for him to continue.  On the curb, the engine of Barret’s truck turned over and roared to life, and Cloud watched its headlights flicker on and bathe the street in a warm yellow glow as the vehicle idled.

Cid puffed on his cigarette again, and Cloud backed up a step, detesting the stench.  “I’ve been with Shera for a long time, believe it or not.  We started dating back in ’95.  We met at the Academy.  I was only nineteen, studying aeronautics and engineering.  Didn’t only want to fly shit, but wanted to build it, too.” 

Cloud turned, leaning back against the railing, facing Cid and placating him by offering him his full attention for this tale he was certain he had heard at least once before.

“Shera was another aeronautical engineering student.  Man, she was such a fox in those days.  I mean, shit, she still is, but you know how it is.  No thirty-something woman is quite the same as an eighteen year old one, you know what I mean?”

Cloud’s eyebrow drifted upwards at this, but he said nothing.

“Anyway,” Cid went on, shaking his head.  “We’ve been together for a long time.  And things used to be really good between us in the beginning.  Before I started workin’ for Shinra, we were a couple of lovebirds.  I was outta character, I loved that girl so much.”  Cid rubbed the stubble that lined the lower half of his face.  “But after the shit with the rocket, everything changed.  I started - I started to treat her real bad, Cloud.  Even though I knew it was my own fault, that it was Shinra’s fault - I blamed her.  She only tried to save my life and my dream.  She was gonna sacrifice herself for my dreams.  And it angered me so much that she would do some shit like this.  I couldn’t forgive her, not for ruining the launch and not for being so goddamn stupid.”

Cloud found himself unfolding his arms, now looking down at his own hands, clenching and unclenching them in front of his waist, filled suddenly with memories of stars and water towers and a bubbly green oasis of spirits that were filled with the whispers of tender, sheltered wishes floating in its ethers.

“It went on for years like that afterward,” Cid continued.  “Almost a decade of resentment and me just being a pissed off pile of dog shit.  Y’know, I was planning to ask Shera to marry me after the launch.  Had a ring and everything in my pocket.  Chucked it in a drawer somewhere after that and didn’t look for it again until this past year.”

Finally, Cloud sighed.  He turned to Cid with his hand on his hip.

“Are you going somewhere with this?” he demanded, his patience wearing thin.

Cid only chuckled, straightening up from the railing to look at Cloud, his pale blue eyes still red and glassy from drink.  “Ah, don’t be a little bitch.  You’ve been running from your problems long enough, you can stand there and listen to me for a few minutes without gettin’ your britches all twisted up.”

Cloud could only roll his eyes.

“I say all this because,” Cid went on, “I know what you’re going through.  I see it in the stupid, sad look you got on your face.  Don’t think I didn’t catch you turning away from the bar all night to steal a glance at Tifa while she was running around serving everybody and working her ass off.  You ain’t fooling anybody.”

“I wasn’t - “

“Don’t give me any of that shit,” Cid cut him off.  “I’m well versed in bullshit, Strife, but I don’t like speaking it.”

Cloud sighed in defeat, turning away, wearing the pout of a child.

“Tifa is like a little sister to me,” Cid stated.  “I can’t deal with seeing her hurt.  And Barret isn’t any more tolerant.  In fact, your ass is lucky that he let me handle this conversation tonight.  He was gonna tear your head off and shove it right up your dumb ass.”

Cloud groaned and rubbed his palm against his forehead in embarrassed frustration, shaking his head.  But Cid was actually moving closer to him, tipping his head in his direction as a fresh billow of smoke drifted away from his lips, and Cloud could now smell the whiskey in his pores, the combination of toxins making him dizzy.

“This is all I’m gonna say on the matter,” Cid finally seemed to be driving toward the point.  “This ain’t gonna be easy.  Women don’t take well to being abandoned.  Especially not with fuckin’ children.  I don’t care how sick or fucked up you were feeling, you got a lot of explaining to do.  But you know that Tifa loves you.  You do know that, don’t you?”

Cloud stared at him, refolding his arms across his chest.

“Answer me, goddamnit,” Cid snarled.

“…yes,” Cloud finally admitted, his voice suddenly small and choked, and he realized that his entire body was flooded with heat.

“Good,” Cid responded, relaxing some of the aggression from his tone.  “Then here’s my advice to you.  Take it from experience.  You’ve got a lot of ground to cover and a lot to make up for, but it’s only been a few weeks, not years like it was between me and Shera.  And if I tell ya that me and her can make it work, then you got no excuse.  But you might have to get down on your knees.”

Cloud expelled a breath, looking down at his hands again.

Cid had finished his cigarette, and he flicked the butt of it to the street below with a pluck of his fingers.  He turned back to Cloud.

“Well, I ain’t got shit else to say,” he gruffed, dropping his hands into his pockets.  “Just don’t fuck this up.  Otherwise, me and Barret both will be back here to tear you a new asshole.”

Cloud winced, just as Cid punched him in the shoulder and turned for the steps, clamoring down them, his boots leaving heavy thuds in their wake.

“We’ll bring the kids back in a few days,” he called over his shoulder.  “Hope to see a smile on Tifa’s face when we get back.”

This made Cloud blush, and he rubbed the back on his neck, watching as Cid climbed into the passenger seat of the truck, and soon, Barret was pulling away from the curb and they all disappeared, leaving him alone with his heavy dark thoughts and Tifa just beyond the door, waiting for him inside.

The fear and the terror was beginning to grip his chest as he thought about going back inside of the bar.  Cid’s words were floating in the air around him, but they did nothing to alleviate the pressure he was feeling at the prospect of venturing inside and finding Tifa there alone.  He felt the swell of a panic attack build low in his belly, and he found himself leaning over the railing, gripping the wood tight beneath the leather of his gloves, as he looked back up at the stars.

The stars.  The sky on this continent offered a different view of the heavens than it did on the other side of the world, back home at Nibelheim, where the night was so starry that the sky shone blue and purple, the celestial bodies dumped onto the canvas in a spill of sparkles and glitter that lit up the sky like the beacons of a lighthouse.  But here in the East, the skies were still so blunted by smog and light pollution, and the skies were darker and gloomier, still rimmed with stars, but instead in gentle white smatterings that one had to squint to appreciate.

Cloud sighed as he stared up at them.  The stars had always been the one symbol of hope and of home between him and Tifa.  They were the one constant in the world that tethered them together, that linked them not only through their promise but through their commitment that night under the twirling rotors of an airship, when they both silently vowed that they had been made for each other and that they would never be apart, no matter how cruel the world grew or how difficult things became or if they even lived to see another day.

She was his, and he was hers.

But maybe their problems lay in their silence, Cloud thought as he tore his eyes from the galactic skylights above and hung his head over his arms, draped on the rail.  They had always devoted their emotions and their faithfulness to one another through actions, through the press of their lips or their bodies together, through Tifa’s support of Cloud’s delivery business, and Cloud lending her a helping hand around the bar whenever he could.  It was in the looks that they stole from one another, in the way that blue crashed into red when their eyes met across a room and whispered the sentiments that they never could speak aloud through the sparkle and shine in their irises.

It wasn’t enough, he realized now.  He had said nothing when Elmyra started writing, said nothing when his depression kicked in, said nothing when his blood started to itch for booze, and nothing when Geostigma wrapped itself around his skin and his veins. 

And he said nothing when Tifa had asked him if he loved her, only opening his eyes in confusion to look up at her as she quickly backtracked, blinking with bewilderment as he stupidly let the moment pass.

Maybe Cid was right.  Maybe he didn’t have a whole lot of sense and maybe he was an idiot and a jackass.

He had to do something.

He swallowed, clenching his hands again as he dropped them to his sides and turned back to Seventh Heaven’s front door.  He took a deep breath, steeling his resolve as best he could, though he felt his heart pound and ache, and he took a step forward, opening the door.

He found the bar dim, the chairs already stacked on the tables, the floor already swept.  The only light in the main dining room came from the kerosene lamp behind the bar, and Cloud looked up to see it washing a warm, yellow glow over Tifa, who stood in front of the sink.  

From where he stood, the contrast of colors was casting her in shimmers of gold and orange that danced across her skin, that pulled aurulent highlights out of her sleek, dark hair.  Her face was pinched with a pained expression, and she was looking down at something, fumbling over the counter.

Cloud closed the door softly behind him, and at the sound, Tifa looked up, their eyes meeting across the room.  Cloud felt his heart rate accelerate, felt it spin and dive inside of his chest when his eyes caught the sparkles of her ruby red, and she straightened her spine as soon as they connected.

She stopped whatever she was doing, the aggrieved look in her face softening when she saw him, and one corner of her lips turned up into a small smile, reminding him of the way that she had looked at him inside of the church.

It flooded him with warmth, especially the way that he could see the cuts of gemstones twinkle in her irises even from the distance between them.  It was a familiar feeling, one that started low in his belly with the flutter of butterflies and spread out over the rest of him like an electrical current.  It was a feeling he hadn’t felt in weeks, one that he had started to tear himself from and pushed away and repressed.

The magnetic pulse was back, the one he had felt drawn between him and Tifa Lockhart for as long as his memory could stretch back, and he found himself crossing the dining room, his boots echoing with a loud thunder across the floorboards until he was crossing behind the bar,  Tifa’s eyes widening as they followed him and every step that he took.

“Tifa…” he started, Cid’s words echoing in the smoky shadows of his mind as he tried to map out his approach.  He had never been good at this sort of thing, and that had been on good days, not when he was coming back to her with his tail between his legs, a thousand unspoken apologies hanging on his lips.

She opened her mouth to respond, and Cloud’s enhanced senses immediately detected the faint scent of blood clinging to the air, and his eyes drifted and spun until they dropped to where she was leaning with her hands hovering above the counter.  He spotted the bloodied dishrag first, a white canvas splattered with dark red, and then he noticed the open first aid kit.  His eyes fell to where her left hand held her right wrist, its palm split open and still leaking.

“Oh, Cloud,” she whispered her greeting in reply, but Cloud ignored her, instantly crossing the small space between them and taking her wrist in his hand.

“What happened?” he asked her at once, inspecting the gash carefully.

He heard Tifa swallow beside him, lowering her head slightly and refusing to look up at him.  He could feel the deep echo of her breathing, light but somehow weighted, and his body reacted with a shudder as he realized the sound was doing something to his insides.

“I broke a plate and cut myself,” she finally replied, her voice tiny and quiet.  “I… guess I wasn’t paying attention.  Been a little distracted.”

For some reason, this sent a pang of guilt right through the center of Cloud’s gut, and he almost flinched at her words.  He nodded instead, though, and released her hand just long enough to dispatch both of his gloves, dropping them onto the counter without a second thought.  He reached for both of hers then, careful with her injured one, and held them in his palms.

“Let me take a look,” he breathed.

Tifa turned her body toward him slightly, and it grew so quiet in the bar that the only sounds he could hear were the ticking of the clock above the refrigerator and the sounds of both his and Tifa’s heartbeats, the rhythms slowly synchronizing into one harmony the longer that they stood beside one another.  It was a phenomenon that he had begun to notice transpire between them a long time ago, that even when they sat next to one another, his enhancements could detect the way that their bodies aligned.  Back in those early days in Sector7, he had never understood it, but years later, after their shared moments in the Lifestream and after the way they had voicelessly committed themselves to one another, Cloud knew that it was something beyond the stars and beyond the masterminding hands of destiny that had designed them to fit together the way that they did.

As soon as his skin touched hers, he felt the jolt in his synapses, felt the bolt of electricity return and scorch his insides like he’d been hit with a thundaga spell.  His fingers wrapped around the back of her hands, and the skin there was so, so smooth, so soft and so warm, that he found himself pressing the tips of his fingers into it, feeling the fineness of her bones and the tender bubble of her veins.  It had been so long since he had touched her hands, since he had touched any part of her, that he found himself unraveling at the feel of her delicate flesh, at the slight roughness on the crests of her knuckles from so many years of fighting and labor.  He realized he was squeezing both of her hands, before he lowered her uninjured hand and reached for the first-aid kit.

Nothing pulled more desperate, terrified, unnerved and unstable feelings out of Cloud than the sight of seeing Tifa hurt.  It didn’t matter how bad or how mild it was - seeing her broken and bruised the way she had been after her fight with Loz, or seeing her with a minor, household laceration like this - it always scraped at something primally instinctual in him, something that had been buried in a part of his persona that was specific to her.  It was a deep desire to care and protect, to shelter, and to love and support.

And as he held her hand in his, gently pressing a gauze he dipped in a potion to her carved, open flesh, he realized that his biggest mistake of the past weeks had been ignoring her emotional aches and pains, forgetting that it was just as traumatic, if not even more so, than these physical hurts.

This thought wouldn’t leave him as he worked, setting his heart on fire and the desperate guilt into a nauseating tailspin in his belly, almost dizzying him with the realization of his errors and lapses in judgment.  He heard her hitch her breath as he carefully dabbed a bit of salve over the wound with his fingertip, and he stopped, holding her hand in his and squeezing it again as he looked up to reach her eyes.

“That hurt?” he asked her softly, his voice hovering a decibel above a whisper.

“A little,” she admitted, not meeting his eyes, staring down at her open wound and biting her lip a bit.

Something about this knotted Cloud’s heart and sent it into a new rise, sent him careening through the stars the way that he had felt himself every time he had ever been seconds from dropping his lips to hers for a kiss.  It was a familiar feeling of thrill and trepidation, of pride and panic, of desire and disbelief.  He stared for a moment before he caught himself and pulled his eyes away, looking down to her hand and concentrating on the task at hand.

“Sorry,” he responded to her lamely.

“It’s okay,” she replied right away.

Still feeling her warmth shoot through his palms, Cloud carefully unraveled a strip of bandaging and began to wind and wrap it around her palm to staunch the bleeding and lock in the healing effects of the potion and the salve, careful not to press too hard and hurt her further.  The more that he worked, the more that he realized her bloodstream was rushing louder in her veins, assaulting his hearing and making him ever more aware of the gentle, calming power in her presence.  

The distance that he had created between them all those weeks and maybe even months ago was now a haunting chimera in his rearview mirror, and he was ready to shake it from his back, to loosen its paralyzing hold so that he could reach out for Tifa and fix everything and finally be with her again the way that he had always wanted.

But he knew, as his eyes drifted up to meet hers again, staring into those deep pools of grenache, that he didn’t deserve her, not someone so beautiful and selfless and hardworking and faithful and warm.  He had never been worthy of her, not then and certainly not now.

He was reluctant to let go of her hand, even though he had carefully tended to her wound.  She offered him a faint, ghost of a smile, but Cloud could only shake his head at the torrents of thoughts tearing ugly and loud through his skull.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, squeezing her hand in his once more, wanting to put his all over her, wanting to feel hers roam his skin.

Her smile widened just a little.  “I said it was okay, Cloud,” she told him again.  “It’s really not that bad.  Just a little sting.  I should be more careful.”

He winced, feeling the seconds begin to tick by. Of course, she was already blaming herself.  That was always her way of dealing with things when they went wrong, taking the responsibility on herself even when it wasn’t warranted.  It made him angry, got under his skin, especially when the blame almost always lies with him.

Shiva, he was a fuckup.

“No,” Cloud interjected, and he found himself once again holding both of her hands, his thumbs drawing circles over their tops until they greeted her wrists.  With this movement, he pulled on her a little bit until she was forced to take a step closer to him.  “That’s not what I meant.  I meant…”

He stopped, instantly hating himself for the emergence of his cowardice, an ugly yellow and black specter that floated above him and made him weak and ineffectual, especially in moments when it truly mattered.

Like now.  Now was a moment when it truly mattered.

He realized that Tifa’s eyes had widened, that she was looking at him expectantly, with something like hope behind the crimson tides in her gaze.  It melted a part of his insides, twisted his organs into puddles of goo, and he couldn’t help but look away from those cherry red orbs, back down to her hands.

He struggled, those next few seconds.  Cid’s raspy cusses were a distant resonance in the back of his eardrums, needling and pushing him.  Putting together sentences coherently, especially when it concerned his deepest held feelings and emotions, was always so difficult for him.  He could drift through life without needing to say more than a handful of words to anyone at any given time, and he knew that he would be perfectly content with that.

Maybe it was the trauma, maybe it was the lost time, maybe it was the brain damage or the mako poisoning or the latency of the JENOVA cells deep in his blood.  But whatever the root cause of it was, he knew, especially now, after Aerith’s rain had been on him, after Zack’s voice had encouraged him, after they had both thrown him out of the Lifestream, that none of it was healthy.

“Cloud?” Tifa was saying, and her voice was tiny again, a tone that he hadn’t heard from her in over two years, when they had shared a moment under the spin and roar of the Highwind’s rotors, the stars their canopy and their covers.

It was a moment when, for a brief, carefully carved slice of time, they had both felt like the teenagers they had never been allowed to be, had both recaptured a sliver of a stolen youth, of an eradicated and stunted adolescence that burned away in flames and ash and collapsed into the barren wasteland of suspended animation in cold, empty mako tanks.

“Tifa,” he finally found his voice, his eyes lifting to meet hers again.  His hands drifted up along her wrists, fingertips finding her pulse points, before they navigated further up her forearms, finding her skin cool, goosebumps raised with the drag of his fingers.  He heard her breath catch in the back of her throat at the sensation, and the sound was deep and sensual and full of expectation and even surprise, and it spurred something inside of Cloud, sending his nerves into hyperdrive even as his confidence wavered.

He had to fix this.

“I meant,” he finally continued, and although he found his voice, he found that his eyes couldn’t hold hers as he ventured beyond this difficult border with her, his cheeks turning pink.  “I’m sorry for everything that’s happened.  I’m sorry for leaving.  I’m sorry for making your life a living hell.  I’m sorry for ignoring the kids.  For not helping out around here more.  For coming home so late.  For drinking so much.  For never making time for you.”

“Cloud,” Tifa was gasping, and her eyes were instantly misted over, and Cloud felt awful inside for already making her cry again.  “It’s okay, please don’t -“

“No,” Cloud heard himself nearly snap, and he squeezed her forearms in his grip, shaking her gently.  “It’s not okay.  It will never be okay.”

His voice was trembling, and as the words left, he realized how truly awful he had been these last few months, and he knew for sure that nothing he could ever do could make up for these terrible decisions and the way that he had wasted so much time.  He felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of his degeneracy, and suddenly, he was horrified, terrified by the thought that he might lose Tifa and his family forever.

Without thinking, the despair suddenly suffocating him, he found himself falling to his knees to crouch in front of Tifa, his arms sliding to wrap around her waist, holding her tight as he pressed his forehead to her belly, closing his eyes as he realized tears of his own were sliding from his eyes.

“Please,” he suddenly whispered.  “I don’t deserve you, Tifa.  But will you forgive me?”

He could hear the inside of Tifa’s body as held her lower half, the way her heart began to thunder and roar, the way her blood spun through its ventricles, the way her stomach turned over and flipped, the way her lungs constricted and heaved.  All of these sounds of life only lit the fuses of his emotions deeper, and he found himself squeezing her hard as he began to beg, not even giving her a chance to respond.

“Please, Tifa,” he sobbed.  “Please.”

Tifa gasped, but Cloud had found that he’d lost control of himself.  He shook his head against her hip, but before he knew it, Tifa was pulling slightly away from him, dropping to crouch in front of him on her knees as well so that they were both eye level again.

“Cloud,” she cried, weeping now too, and she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him in close to her, so hard that he stumbled forward and fell into her, sending them both crashing down to the floor.  She held him tight, and Cloud found his face pressed against the pillowy firmness of her breasts, a soft feeling of solacing comfort he had not felt in so, so long.  He wallowed in it, embracing her back, and soon, she was rocking back and forth as she held him.

“Of course I forgive you,” she cooed above him.  “I love you.”

Cloud felt himself shudder in her embrace.  It was a sentiment that they never said out loud, but that had passed between them in the form of touch so many times.  Hearing it fall from her lips so easily and with such conviction now gripped and twisted his heart as if it were wrapped in tightly pulled ropes.

He didn’t deserve her, he thought again.  He didn’t understand her kindness or her empathy or her willingness to endure so much just for him.  She should hate him right now, not love him.  She should be angry with him, should be shouting and throwing things at him, should have packed all of his things into garbage bags and tossed them to the curb.  Why was she letting him back in like this?  Why was she making this so easy for him?

Why was she so good to him?

“I don’t deserve you,” he repeated, his voice thick with tears.

He heard Tifa sniff, and she was shaking her head vigorously, now pulling her fingers through his hair. “Stop it, Cloud,” she scolded, her voice still tight from crying. “You do deserve me. We deserve each other. You’ve always been there. I know… these months have been hard for you. But I’m here, and I’m not going anywhere. We can get through this.”

Long moments of silence passed while Cloud remained there in her arms, wishing that he could be the kind of man who truly was worthy of an angel like her, wondering how he could show her that he really was sorry and that something like this would never, ever happen again, that he would not only live up to her expectations but that he would far surpass her wildest dreams.

“Tifa,” he whispered finally in response, having choked back another set of tears.  “I… I love you too.”

Tifa made a sound that was trapped somewhere between a moan and a whine, and Cloud could only squeeze her back tightly as they sat there in a heap on the floor for a long, long time.

Eventually, Cloud sat up and looked at Tifa, their eyes meeting, and she offered him a warm smile, one that she had gifted him with so many times before.  Unable to stop himself, he was suddenly feeling a strong desire to press his lips to hers, to be connected with her in a far deeper way, a way that he had denied for himself for so long but that he couldn’t stop thinking about.

If she would have him.

“So…” his voice trailed off, unsure how to breach the next phase of the conversation.  There was so much more to talk about.  Would she even want him to sleep next to her, let alone with her?

“I think we should take a shower,” Tifa suggested, and he watched her as she carefully pushed to her feet, dusting herself off.  She offered him her hand, the one that was not injured, and Cloud slowly accepted it, rising to his feet in front of her.

“We…?” he heard himself repeat in a whisper.

But Tifa only smiled, turning away from him with his hand still in hers, leading him quietly to the stairs.

Tifa’s heart was racing in her chest, pounding against her sternum, beating so quickly and wildly that she was almost certain that it was going to jump into her throat and choke her to death.  She tried to ignore it, tried to ignore the building anxiety and fear that set her blood on fire, her hand still holding Cloud’s as she led him upstairs, his boots heavy on the floorboards.

His earlier words were still infecting her with a desperate hopefulness that maybe, despite the trials and the sacrifices of the past two years, despite the tragedies and the traumas of their entire history, despite the ringing, bright pain of the last few months and especially the last three weeks, that maybe, things would be okay.  It was a reassurance that went far beyond the power of healing rain and the eradication of disease, it was a promise in a plea of forgiveness and a vow of commitment.

Tifa had once been desperate to hear him say those three words to her.  She still remembered the cold sting of the night they lay in bed and she had tried unsuccessfully to claw it out of him.  But now, despite everything that happened, despite her fears and her insecurities and her terrible, awful communication style, the words had been spoken on the dusty wooden floor of her bar, a smarting red pain searing the center of her palm as she held him tightly to her body.

Now, she was taking him upstairs for the first time in weeks, their hands entwined in a way that belied a deep underlying need and the intimation of a new promise hovering beyond their bedroom door.  The words had been spoken.  He had wept in her arms and she had found herself crying in response.  Tifa didn’t feel the need to say anything else.

As far as she was concerned, it was past time for talking.  It was time for them to show their love the way they both knew best.

First, though, they needed to wash the sins and the dirt from the days behind them away, Tifa not wanting to bring any of the past into their bed with them.  

It was time to start anew.

Without the children home, the house was quiet, and Cloud was silent as she led him to the bathroom, sliding her sneakers off by the door.  Cloud followed suit, kicking his boots off, following her lead as she led him inside and closed the door carefully behind him.

She looked up to see his eyes were hooded, but she caught the brilliance of his deep blue pools sparkling at her with immersions of sparked steel and fiery sapphire, a gently pulsing verdant rim lining his irises.  They were eyes that she missed so much, a blend that was different than their boyhood color but that she had come to love again nonetheless.  They were a comfort as they shined down on her with a hazy glow; they were a reminder of where home stood.

She said nothing as she began to quietly disrobe in front of him.  Cloud just watched her as she unzipped her vest, carefully sliding the leather over her arms before she tossed it into the hamper in one corner.  There was something hungry growing in his stare as he watched her, especially as her hands dropped to the hem of her white tank top, just below her belly button, and pulled it over her head, tossing it aside and leaving her standing there in only her bra and her shorts.

“Tifa,” Cloud warned.

She smirked, loving the dangerous edge in his voice.  It was a tenor that she hadn’t heard in months, and it struck a sultry chord deep in her belly, spilling heat between her thighs and flooding over her chest.

She kept her eyes locked with his as she dropped her hands to her waist, sliding her shorts down her thighs and legs in one slow movement.  She stepped out of them, kicking them to the side, standing in front of Cloud in her bra and panties, and Cloud licked his lips before he crossed the short distance to her and forced her against the wall.

Tifa moaned with a sort of joyful pleasure when his mouth found hers, pressing against it in the first kiss they had shared in weeks.  It was a hot blend of overdue longing and deep affection, and on Cloud’s end, she could feel the raging torrents of need and desperation collide against the heat in the cavern that was her mouth as they melded together.

Feeling the tile cool against her back, Tifa looped her arms around his neck, crossing them at the wrists as she let him ravish her, responding with gentle nips and tongue twirls of her own.  Cloud was pressing his entire body against hers, all warm, hard lines and leather and steel, his hands traveling her body, squeezing whatever hills and valleys of her flesh he could find throughout his exploration.  She relented to his firmness and his roughness, moaning into his teeth when he pulled her bra and her underwear away so haphazardly and violently that both pieces of material were ripped and ruined when he tossed them away.

He lodged one knee between her thighs, and she felt her heat settle over the top of his thigh, and she knew that with the way his lips were on hers and his hands were traveling her hips and waist and breasts, thumbs flickering over her pink nipples, she was making a mess of his pants.  She indulged him for a moment longer, unable to stop herself from rolling her hips and grinding on his leg, before she tore her lips from his and brought her palms to his cheeks, gently pushing him away from her.

“We’re still dirty,” she breathed between gasps of air, “You need to get undressed.”

He slammed his palm against the wall in response, pulling back from her with a growl spilling from his throat before he brought a fist up and wiped her saliva from the corner of his mouth.  She watched him, naked and her chest heaving, as he stood in front of her and carefully unstrapped his pauldron and placed it off to the side.  Her own eyes became clouded with lust as he removed his belts, unzipping his sweater and dropping it, offering her the gorgeous view of his well-defined chest and those chiseled arms that made her press her thighs together every time she saw them, every time she felt them wrapped around her.

His pants disappeared next, and when he slid out of his boxers, Tifa let her eyes fall and hover squarely on his erection, standing tall and staring right at her, pink and firm and slick at the tip.

She looked back up at him, smirking as he advanced toward her with the intention to crowd her against the wall again.  But she ducked quickly out of the way, dancing around him to move toward the tub, turning the shower on and adjusting the temperature.

“Tifa,” he called after her, turning around and following behind her, but she held her playful smile, her heart in a dangerous tempo as she pulled the curtain back and slid into the tub.

She doused herself under the spray, reaching for her soap to lather herself, but it was only a few seconds later when Cloud ripped the curtain back, his eyes instantly on her.  They discovered a new trail along the highways of her body, drifting away from her face to careen down her shoulders and arms, hovering over her breasts and waist and hips before finalizing his scope and search along the lines of her legs.  Tifa let him admire her, her heart now staggered in an irregular rhythm, her center seared and soaking.  She turned away from him to face the downward rush of water, carefully running her sponge along her body and washing herself and her past miseries away.

It didn’t take long for Cloud to climb in behind her, and without another moment, he was wrapping his arms around her, pulling her in flush so that the back of her body blanketed the front of his.  She gasped at the firm definition that suddenly bordered her skin, at the wet, heated skin that was pressed to hers, at his length against her rear and the strength in those muscular arms that held her tight.  Her bottom lip was trembling when his hands found hers, careful to not brush against her bandaged palm, and he was pulling the sponge from her hands, squeezing soap over her flesh as he gently began to wash the front of her body with tenderness and care that she had not felt in a long, long time.

She purred and closed her eyes, leaning back against him, letting his hands move over her with an agonizing slowness that had her mind wandering with possibilities and hopes.  As he brushed and pressed the lathered sponge into her skin, she could feel the teasing dance of his fingertips along her wet skin, and she longed to feel those fingers on even more intimate parts of her, to make her sing with pleasure the way that she knew only he could make her feel.  She pressed against him again, rolling her hips at the thought, wanting him badly.

At the rock of her hips, she felt Cloud’s lips press softly against the side of her throat, before he gently pushed her forward so that he could cleanse the back of her body.  As his hands ran over the expanse of her back and down her shoulders, over the curves of her ass and the thickness of her thighs, she heard herself emit a forlorn keen, spreading her thighs apart in need.

She heard Cloud grunt behind her, and he was pulling her close to him again, under the cascade of water to rinse her clean.  She turned in his arms, offering him a shy kiss as she took the sponge from him, stopping to add a little more of her soap to it before lathering it carefully in her good hand and then turning to him to return the favor.

Cloud kept his eyes closed and was completely accepting of her ministrations over him as she carefully washed his body.  Tifa sucked her bottom lip between her teeth as she watched the sudsy water ripple over his pectorals and his abs and his obliques, over the deep, narrow V that led straight to his cock.  Cloud caught her openly admiring, and he cocked his head to one side, his eyes still heavy-lidded as her hands trailed his body, washing the marks and the damage of past hurts and guilts away and down the drain.

Once she had washed his back and his legs, taking her time to cover every part of his alluring territory, she put the sponge away and let him rinse under the spray.  The water temporarily flattened his flaxen mess of hair, and Tifa giggled, reaching up to run her fingers through his damp locks.  At the sensation of her fingertips against his scalp, Cloud offered her a small smile.

Seeing that expression on his face was enough to send her skyward, dragging something cherished out of her, and Tifa was moved to crowd him against the back wall of the tub this time, pressing her lips to his, gently forcing his mouth open as she demanded a kiss.  Cloud groaned in response, clearly obliging, his hands dropping to the dip in her waist to pull her in close as the water continued to crash over them.  Ignoring the waterfall, Tifa lifted her leg to wrap around his waist, the ache in her center now impossible to neglect.

Cloud relented against her sudden assault, letting her grind against him as their lips and tongues continued to fuse.  His hands roamed the back of her body, his hips angling up to hers, and Tifa felt the firm heat of his cock sliding between her folds, soon coated in her slickness.  She adjusted the angle of her body until she felt her clit trapped against his skin, the gentle rush of water making every slide and grind between them all the hotter and wetter and sparking her brain with fiery electric pulses.

She felt the pleasure quickly spike in a hot white firefight across her body, and she leaned deeper into their kiss, pausing it only to gasp at the sensations that were overwhelming her.

“Cloud,” she cried, and he dropped his hands to her hips, pulling her tight against him and raising his hips again as they undulated against one another, and Tifa moaned darkly into his mouth as the pressure on her clit grew, and she rolled her hips faster and harder, stalking a feeling of bliss she hadn’t experienced in far, far too long.

“More,” she moaned, and Cloud held her hips tighter, his fingers surely leaving marks he dug so deeply into her skin.  After another moment of their grinding, Cloud hooked both arms under her thighs, spinning them around so that she was now against the wall and hoisted up in his arms, and he dropped his mouth to her neck, his palms flat on the tile as he held her up and rocked against her.

It didn’t take long to build into a crescendo of euphoria that had Tifa trembling the longer that he held her and rubbed the thickness of his cock hard against her clit, his hips moving faster in their grind.  Suddenly, Tifa wanted him buried inside of her, and she whispered as much in his ear.  But to her surprise, he laughed in response, and even worse, to her horror, he began to slow the movements of his hips until he wound his way down to a complete stop.

“No,” he whispered, and she heard the teasing lilt in his voice, a cadence she hadn’t heard in an eternity.

Her body was flushed and in a bright, heightened state of arousal, so close to eclipsing, now left in a stunted state of stasis, the ache between her thighs sore and desperate, her clit pulsating with need.  Her mouth fell open in disbelief as he gently lowered her legs again until she was standing in front of him.   And then, he was leaning over to shut the water off.

“I think we’re clean now,” he told her, his voice still thick with that dark, playful edge, and then he was turning away to grab a towel, offering one to her.

Tifa just stared, wrapping the thick, fluffy material around herself.  It was their first night together in so long, and already he was up to his same antics and games. 

She wanted to slap him.  Tonight was not the night for this nonsense.

But she let out a yelp when Cloud picked her up and carried her out of the tub, slinging her over his shoulder so that she was hanging over his back, her rear end right by his cheek.  He gave her bottom a playful smack, and then he was carrying her out of the bathroom, down the hall to their bedroom.

Tifa held her breath the entire way, until Cloud dropped her onto their bed, right in its center.  As soon as he did, he took a long look around, and Tifa saw a sudden flash of sorrow and remorse that was very out of place among his earlier demeanor cross his face.

“Cloud?” she ventured, immediately concerned.

He tossed his head, lowering it slightly, before he looked back down, then sat next to her on the bed, his towel still wrapped around his waist and his body still damp.  He ran his palm over the top of the dark blue sheets, driving them in a trail until they found her wounded hand, taking it in his, his thumb brushing gently over her bandage.

“Tifa,” he began.  “Will you… will you have me back?”

Tifa felt her heart melt with a blend of sadness and regret and new wishes, and she gently returned the affection between their hands with a careful squeeze, making sure not to irritate her injury.  

“Of course, Cloud.  This is your home.”

Finally, he smiled at her again, and then he crawled over her, dropping his lips to hers once again before pushing her into the bed and kissing a long trail down her body.

Tifa kept her eyes closed as she felt his lips all over her, traveling her neck and shoulders and her arms, stopping for a long reprieve at her breasts, where they suckled and nipped at her swollen peaks, drawing wet mewls from her throat. The yearning twinge between her legs from his earlier teasing in the shower still lingered, and she couldn’t push it away, feeling it flare and send her body into desperate overdrive as he laid on top of her and kissed and caressed her body senselessly.   She tried to distract herself from that deep throb, trying to concentrate on the way that his mouth worked on other sensitive parts of her body, but it was almost impossible as she felt herself leak and stain the sheets beneath them.

Soon, though, Cloud was lowering himself between her legs, his kisses drawing constellations along the ridge of her hip bone.  The closer he drew to her desperation, the more Tifa rolled her hips, balling her fists up under her jaw as she waited, the anticipation fire under her skin.  Cloud looked up at her once, his aquamarine eyes glowing under the starlight and the artificial lamps outside that lined Edge’s street, and when they connected with her eyes, there was a new understanding between them.

“Home,” he whispered before he began to press his lips against her most intimate, sensitive skin, showering her soaked split of flesh with kisses.

Tifa could only lay there and moan and cry with delight as he began to pour his love back into her with every stroke of his tongue and firm suck of his mouth.  He was spoiling her, she realized quickly as the sensations began to build and spark, laving her folds with long licks, swirling his saliva all over her skin, dipping and pressing his tongue inside of her as deeply as he could go. He brought the flat of his tongue up to her clit, running it long and hard against that encasement of nerves, relieving the earlier pressure he built that had pooled low into her stomach and settled there, making her crazy.  Soon, his mouth was wrapped fully around it, aiding his tongue in this gentle seduction, rubbing and twirling, stinging her brain with hot, wavy pleasure. She moaned and begged, and he sucked harder, his tongue flicking and tapping and discovering new angles with which to lovingly assail that tiny button that ignited everything inside of her.

Soon, Tifa was seeing the stars as she pulled at his hair, the pleasure quickly building into an explosion, bursting apart inside of her white and hot, leaving her sobbing as she stumbled messily through the first orgasm she had had with him in so many weeks.

He stayed on her for a moment, kissing her away from the high as she bubbled and gasped.  Eventually, he pulled away from her, leaning back to wipe his mouth and offer her another one of those smiles that had become so rare.  In the haze of her elation, she felt a sudden urge to take a photo of that smile so that she could never, ever lose it again.

She watched, moments later, as Cloud crawled over her, pushing her thighs back so that her legs were stretched and bent back high, her knees hooking over his shoulders.  His lips still shining and tart with the sweet flavors of her arousal, he bent forward and kissed her sloppily, and Tifa couldn’t stop herself from reaching up to capture his face in her hands.

“I love you,” he told her again, and she gasped when felt the tip of him press against her entrance, slick and hot from her earlier release, gently sliding himself inside of her.  “And I’m so sorry, Tifa.  I’ll always be here for you from now on.  I promise.”

“I love you too,” she wept as he pressed fully inside of her, all the way to the hilt, filling her in a way she had been longing for, for so long.  The tears fell down her cheeks, and he kissed them away before he paused to pull her hands away from his face, instead lacing his fingers through hers, gentle with her damaged hand, bringing her arms above her head, holding them there with his arms on top of hers and their fingers locked together as he laid down on top of her and began to move inside of her.

It was a slow grind, long and deep and languid and sweet, his hips rolling with a seeking purpose.  She mewled and cried his name, and he growled and moaned into the crook of her shoulder, calling her name over and over again as he made love to her like it was the last thing he would ever do. The build was slow, and with the way she was folded beneath him, his penetration was deep and pressing right into her spot, pulling fresh tears out of her eyes every time he thrust, her body tightening with tension with every move of both their bodies.  

She wasn’t sure how long it lasted, how many times she had cried his name as she came apart in a succession that built into a chain of gentle detonations of her insides before he finally joined her in the final one, but she knew that it was an eternity.  She was so spent by the end of it that she could only lay motionless beneath him, their bodies drenched with sweat, her hair still damp from the shower and sticking to them both.  Cloud finally let go of her hands, only to shift to his side and wrap his arms around her, pulling the covers over them both, holding her tight to him as he whispered something into her ear that she was too delirious to decipher.

Whatever it was, she was deep into new dimensions of his affection, and she knew that she would never climb her way out.  And that was okay, because it was exactly where she wanted to be.

Because she forgave him.

Because he loved her.

Because they had a new promise.

Cloud spent the next three days making love to Tifa anyway that he could, any place inside of Seventh Heaven he could find.

He bent her over the bar’s counter.  He fucked her silly on top of one of the tables, her ankles hooked around his neck.  She straddled his lap on the couch, riding him while he watched her gorgeous tits bounce, sweaty and perky in front of his face.  He bent and twisted her body six ways from Sunday on their bed, taking her from behind while the headboard slammed, holding her thighs while she reverse-cowgirled him until he almost fell off of the bed. 

They bathed together, petting each other beneath the bubbly water.  They showered together, washing each other until Tifa was on her knees with his cock deep in her throat, or he had her backed up against the tile, tearing into her brutally under the hot spray of water.

He even fucked her on his bike in the garage, if for no other reason than the fact that he could.  She had laughed at the idea, but he noticed she wasn’t laughing when they were finished, her legs boneless and trembling as she tried shakily to stand and adjust her skirt.

They hadn’t left the bar in three days.  Tifa hadn’t reopened it in those three days, either.

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and it wasn’t long before Tifa’s PHS buzzed, Barret’s booming voice announcing he was on his way back with the kids.

Still, Cloud was happy to see the kids again, especially now that his mood had improved so much.  He even thought that, maybe, he might be able to actually start getting on with them better, knew that he could really begin to make an effort.

“How does it feel?” he asked as he changed Tifa’s bandage again, holding her hand gently in his as he worked.  Late afternoon sunlight streamed in through the bar’s windows, casting everything with a white and yellow glow.

“It’s much better, Cloud,” she answered him sweetly, and Cloud felt his heart drip away into a puddle in his chest.  “Thanks for taking care of me.”

“Of course,” was all he could say in response, squeezing her hand gently.

It wasn’t much later that Barret burst in through the front door, Marlene on his shoulder and Denzel a pace behind.  Cid brought up the rear of the group, quietly closing the door behind him.

“We’re back!” Barret announced.  “Kids had a good time, ain’t that right?”

“We sure did,” Denzel responded first, and Cloud was amazed by his sudden enthusiasm, knowing Denzel to be quiet and withdrawn.  “We saw so much cool stuff at Cosmo Canyon!”

“The Gold Saucer was way better!” Marlene cried.  “Oh, Tifa, it was so pretty!”

“I can’t wait for you to tell me all about it,” Tifa replied, just as Barret lowered Marlene to the floor so that Tifa could offer her a hug.

Cloud swiveled on the barstool he was sitting on, surprised when both children ran up to him and offered him new, tight hugs.  He couldn’t stop the smile that erupted across his face at their warmth, something pleasant and unexpected settling into his chest.

“I’ll get everyone something to eat and drink before you guys hit the road again,” Tifa announced.

A while later, the kids were sitting with Tifa and Barret at a booth, sharing with her the stories about their travels those past few days.  Cloud remained at the bar, now nursing a whiskey, watching as Cid bent down and whispered something in Tifa’s ear that had her blushing. He quirked an eyebrow as he watched this unfold, until he realized with dismay that Cid was now heading in his direction.

The pilot slid onto the stool beside him, a tumbler of his own in hand.  Cloud just stared at him, waiting.

“Well, I’ll say this,” Cid finally began.  “Tifa’s a real pretty girl.  But I’ve never seen her look this gorgeous.  She’s glowing, brightest smile I’ve ever seen her wear.  I guess you ain’t as hopeless as I thought you were.”

Cloud said nothing, bringing his glass up to his lips for another sip as his cheeks flared.

Cid was laughing at his silence, a deep, gruff chuckle that quickly deteriorated into a raspy cough.  Then, he was leaning into Cloud again, bringing with him a nauseating blend of the scents of nicotine, caffeine, and booze.

“You didn’t knock her up, did you?”

“What?” Cloud blurted, instantly affronted.  “No!”

Cid just continued to chuckle, turning back to his drink.  “No?  You sure about that?  I know a thing or two about this stuff, you know.”

Cloud turned away with a dismissive wave, already tired of Cid.  But after a moment, he let his eyes drift across the room to Tifa, watching her as she chatted with Barret and the kids, her face bright with a warm, rosy glow, her smile practically radiating her entire countenance as if her skin was underlined by pure gold.

He thought back to the last three days, their activities all over the house and their absolute lack of any form of protection.

Zack would be so, so pissed.

“Shit,” Cloud suddenly found himself muttering out loud.

But Cid only laughed, slamming his glass down so abruptly that everyone turned to him, and Cloud found himself growing hot as he realized he was in trouble.

Oh, well.

It was worth it.

FIN