Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is early morning.

Tifa wakes on Cloud’s side of the bed. This isn’t because Cloud isn’t there. It is because her body creeps towards him unconsciously during the night. It’s as if she seeks him even under the spell of sleep, hands grasping for his warmth and the firm umbrella of his security.

Usually, he’ll mumble and stir, his own arms curling around her hip and across her chest, and they share a single space on the mattress. It gets hot, sometimes, and Tifa has woken up to sticky patches of sweat on her back or stomach, and she’ll kick off the sheets to help regulate her temperature. She’s tried to roll away before, but Cloud holds on tight once they’re spooning, and Tifa can’t bring herself to try any harder to get away from him. This is mostly because she doesn’t want to get away from him.

This morning, however, she wakes up on her side facing him. They are close, mere inches apart, his left arm folded in front of him and his right arm underneath his pillow. His breath is deep and heavy, and Tifa can spy the shadows of his eye movements locked in a dream.

She watches him awhile, admiring the laxity of his features and the completely unburdened skin that is stretched across his cheeks and forehead. She loves him every way, but there is a special love she has for him like this, where he is unbothered and peaceful in a place that wakefulness cannot comprehend.

Once, she had looked at him this way, in this exact spot, filled with uncertainty and a desperate, unreachable despair. She wondered for so long if he could love her like she loved him. Wondered and questioned it, made herself sick over it, her stomach in a perpetually tangled knot ever since Meteorfall.

It shouldn’t matter, she had thought, if she loved him and he didn’t. Love is an unconditional thing. She didn’t mind if he couldn’t, or if he wouldn’t. She loved him, and she would continue to love him regardless of what he chose to give back.

But he would touch her—light little things that might as well have been lightning strikes. He protected her, comforted her, talked to her, looked at her, did everything but kiss her. And one day, finally, after agony and aching for him, she finally asked it in what she thought were the throes of sleep.

Do you love me?

Then he woke up.

He woke up, and the next day he had cornered her, and he kissed her against the wall, and he took her to bed so thoroughly she couldn’t see straight for days.

She sighs at the thought of that day, and every day after, admiring the fact that they sleep almost fully undressed, their skin touching and indulgently intimate. It is Tifa’s favorite time of day, always looking forward to curling up against him and soaking up the mixture of mako and earth and wind of his body.

Her sigh is so full that Cloud stirs, twitching, his eyes opening to small, thin slits as his drowsy gaze finds her.

“Tifa,” he whispers, voice thick in sleep.

She smiles. “Keep sleeping, Cloud. It’s too early.”

His eyebrows furrow as if he doesn’t believe her. To be fair, she’s lied to him before about the morning time, allowing him more sleep that he never seems to give himself.

She leans forward to kiss him, and she means it to be soft and chaste to prod him to fall asleep again. Instead, it becomes long and sweet, and there is something about the way he kisses her—there has always been something about the way he kisses her. There is a fullness in them, and it is robust and daunting. The sensation tickles her chest and pulls at her stomach like a gentle claw. She never wants to stop when she kisses him.

Her lips open, and Cloud immediately reciprocates. His tongue touches hers, and it is terribly tender. Her toes curl, and she reaches for the side of his face with her palm. He wraps his left arm around her and pulls her in closer until their bodies align, naked chests touching, heat melding together.

She wraps her leg over his hip, and he palms her bottom, giving it a playful squeeze. She moans into his mouth, and they press together in a suddenly violent, desperate twirl. It never ceases to amaze her at how urgent their need becomes, how from simply a mumble of her name can become now, and how there is absolutely nothing else that matters except them, together.

He rolls them over, and she stretches her legs apart to consume him. They are so sparsely clothed, it only takes a few moments to be completely free of their confines, and in brief moments, they are at home with one another, and there is nothing else, and no one else, and it is everything to have him be a part of her.

When they are spent, curled up with each other and basking in the aftermath, Tifa thinks about their story. How they started in Nibelheim, and how they found each other and performed the most improbable feat of all—saving the world, side by side. Somehow, they had been together then, finding each other, then finding each other again and again. Even now, Tifa thinks, they continue to learn everything there is to know about one other, and it is a blessing to spend her life this way. To feel so full and…and happy.

“I love you,” Cloud mutters in her ear, squeezing her one more time before he succumbs to sleep.

Tifa’s throat tightens, and she grasps his forearms. “I love you.”

Tifa knows, even in another lifetime, in another world, every single alternate universe there is, they would find each other. In the mundane, in the fantastic, in another epoch or era. They have infinite ways to be together, and she thinks about the possibilities. She thinks about all of the millions of first glances, first kisses, first touches, first smiles, first conversations. Her mind is flooded with them, her and Cloud, and how many places they’ve converged and found one another—and it’s such a funny idea. Such a funny thought, her mind glazed with thoughts of Cloud and the endless lives they must have shared throughout eternity, because this one is wonderful but it is so much more than enough that it can’t be the only one. How could something so immense be restricted to one lifetime?

Tifa falls asleep with that last thought, smiling, with one tear curling down her face.

It can’t be the only one.

And Tifa dreams.

Chapter Text

Tifa spins the golden band on her finger. It’s her left ring finger, of course, and it gleams underneath the bright, late afternoon sun. It is a thin band, but extravagant and heavy with the gem it holds in its center. It is a mythril diamond, unblemished underneath three of the best professional eyes on Gaia, Tifa has been told. Unmatched in quality. She is blessed and privileged to have such a gift weighing down her hand. What a man she will marry, say her ladies in wait. To be tethered to a handsome duke, to have riches beyond imagining, and for the simple price of her dowry. Simple. Her dowry includes her father’s estate in the western countryside.

Tifa sighs, resting her hand on the smooth, stone railing in front of her. She leans her body into it, gazing out into the garden. It is stuffed to the brim with pansies, lilacs, and daffodils, with vines of roses growing uncontrollably along the rails and half-walled partitions that section off the trails and winding pathways. It is fragrant and lovely, the natural perfume wafting up to her on the ledge. It is thick and mesmerizing, and Tifa closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

It has always calmed her here. The view, the scents, the gentle breezes, the vibrant color of the petals. It relieves her from the confinement of this life for a few quiet moments.

“Lady Tifa?”

His voice is soft and low, and it has been a rare gift the last few months. Her skin buzzes in response, and she turns to face him. He is a polite distance from her right side, staring out into the garden. His eyes are a shade of sapphire blue, comparable to the ocean paintings along the hallways leading to her room. Their gaze upon her has been a rarity, as well. Tifa regrets their absence. She misses their comfort. He had always been there for her when she needed him, but ever since the engagement, he’s been occupied with other duties. Some have been from her father. Others have been from the town.

“Sir Cloud,” she greets, tipping her head forward. “What have I done to gain the pleasure of your company?”

She can see the twitch along the corner of his mouth, but he doesn’t smile. She takes it upon herself to try to get at least three smiles out of him every time they converse.

“It is almost sunset. I’m here to escort you back by curfew.”

Ah, has she been out here that long? Her eyes find the horizon, realizing the sun hovers above it like a gentle pendulum.

“Oh,” she states, pulling her hands from the railing. “Time has been flying so quickly as of late.”

“Ever since the proposal?” he inquires.

Tifa wishes she could hear an inflection in his words. Anything to hint at…well, what would it matter now, anyway? He’s always been so professional, keeping to himself. He’s never done anything to make her think he could possibly admire her in a light other than employer and guard.

Tifa frowns. That’s not quite true—perhaps all of the teasing banter had been something. Friendship, at the most. Respect at the very least.

It has always been a breath of fresh air, that’s been certain. He has always brought a smile to her face by simply being, and Tifa never quite understood it over all these months of his service to her. She had known him briefly as a child, always crossing paths in town when they were children, their mother’s being good friends. He had been a constant presence in her life. Something stable. Then he had been shipped off to the war and had come back, only to take employment as her personal guard. It had been a greatly welcome thing.

And now she realizes what a stupid, naive girl she’s been. Only when forced into an engagement did she understand what she really wanted.

“Yes,” she hedges, glancing down at the ring on her finger. It’s a beautiful thing. Beautiful…wretched. “It feels like the days are running away from me.”

Cloud mulls over that for a moment. “You know how to make it stop feeling that way?”

Intrigued, Tifa tilts her head at him. “How?”

At this, he smiles. Tifa’s mental counter automatically ticks up.

“Do something different every day before…before your wedding,” he states, and his smile falters. “Less monotony, more change.”

Tifa blinks, taking in his words. It’s a good idea. A great one. She nods. “Okay, I’ll try that.” And in a bold showcasing that she hasn’t felt in a long time, she adds, “But only on one condition.”

He raises a brow. “What’s that?”

“You help me,” she says. “Help me find different things to do. You are my guard, right? You can make sure I stay safe but also help give me ideas.”

“I…” he trails. He seems speechless. “I…guess I can do that.”

She beams. “It’s a—“ She abruptly stops herself. She almost had the audacity to say date. It’s a date. Her cheeks burn, and she shakes her head. “Uh, it’s a…plan.”

Cloud gives her a funny look but escorts her back to her room. Before she closes the door, he says, “Think about what you’d like, Lady Tifa. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I will,” she says, smiling. “Thank you, Cloud.”

He gives her that brief, wondrous smile. Tifa feels it like a glorious, unguarded punch in her stomach. Only two tonight, but she’ll take it.

They are trapped within the confines of the mansion and the village, but it does not mean there aren’t adventures to find.

Cloud takes her to her favorite shops in Nibelheim and allows her to ride a chocobo instead of a carriage. He shows her his old haunts along a river toward Mount Nibel and a small cave he used to go to collect mako rocks and crystals.

They buy canvas and paints, and Tifa tries her hand at painting the garden surrounding the mansion. Tifa realizes she is terrible at it, and she laughs at the disproportionate style of the flowers she blots onto the canvas. She tells him, “I’ll stick with cooking as my art form.”

She continues to practice her Zangan-Ryu stances every day in the mornings, and she’ll perform her daily chores in the afternoon, but they fill the day between with a thousand mundane things. Cloud takes her to a small pond located on the south side of Mount Nibel, in the opposite direction of the mako caves, and they have a light picnic. They take walks in the garden and surrounding neighborhoods. Cloud teaches her about the vegetation, what is safe to eat, what is medicinal, and what survival skills he’s learned during his time in the service of SOLDIER.

Tifa shows him the different stances of her Zangan-Ryu and their meaning, how they ground her. She shows him how to cook, but he’s adorably helpless, making more of a mess than retaining any of the steps. She volunteers to fix the stray holes and fraying in his uniforms, and he’s so deeply grateful that Tifa doesn’t stop blushing at his gratitude for the rest of that day.

All of these things happen within a span of a week. It simultaneously feels like a lifetime and a moment.

Tifa looks at her calendar when arriving back from the pond, eyes hooking on the date circled with bolded emphasis. Two weeks left. She turns the band on her finger. It should fill her with…excitement. Anticipation. Happiness.

Instead, it suffocates her with an unshakeable dread. She stares at that date and wills the emotion to go away. The days preceding it feel like the only life she has left. The date looks like a gravestone, covered in ceremonial flowers celebrating death, not marriage.

Then she thinks about Cloud. She sits on her bed, pulls her knees under her chin, and begins to cry.

Is it possible to fall so deeply in love with someone in the span of a week? Tifa buries her face further into her skirts. No, she thinks.

She’s loved him longer than that.

Tifa tries to keep her emotions at bay through the next week. It isn’t hard when she spends time with Cloud, but it is difficult when she is alone with her thoughts, when she performs her chores or her stances of Zangan-Ryu. Her mind stalls on what the wedding will look like, with flowers from her gardens, to her ladies in wait standing at her side, wearing her late mother’s veil and family pearls.

She doesn’t think it shows until one late afternoon, Cloud finds her standing in that same spot he had found her those few weeks ago, staring at her new wedding band and glancing out at the flower fields. It is dusk, that hazy time of day suspended between the dregs of day and the beginning creep of night.

They don’t say anything for a while. Cloud eventually breaks the silence, saying, “Wanna talk about it?”

At this, Tifa faintly smiles. “Did I make it that obvious? That I need to talk about it?”

Cloud’s chest falls in a deep sigh. “No. No one talks to you about anything that matters.”

She blinks. “What?”

He nods his head back to the mansion. “Everyone. The chefs. The maids. Your dad. Everyone talks about your clothes, your hair, what food to make, your future—“

“My future matters,” she interjects, surprised at his tone. He is usually forthright and dry, but there is something different today.

“Your future, but not what you think about it. What you want. Has anyone asked you what you saw for yourself before the engagement?”

His eyes are steely and bright. They are like a gentle push against her sternum, and her heart ignites at their intensity. She looks away, fingers tightening along the concrete railing.

“I…yes. I was always meant to marry above my station. If I did, it would give me more freedom in what I could do in the world. My mama always encouraged me to follow the things that made me happy, and…” she trails, unsure of how to continue. Her mother always encouraged dreaming. She pushed Tifa to follow the extraordinary, and in this world that could mean anything from living in the city of Midgar to owning a dojo and teaching Zangan-Ryu. But this was hard for women. Women who worked were considered lower class citizens, and her father had done everything in his power to keep Tifa from ever being in a position of lesser regard. He had done so much to puppeteer this engagement, and how could Tifa possibly say no to her father’s happiness?

“I’m not asking what you were meant to do, Tifa,” Cloud says softly. “If no one else existed in your life, and it was just you on your own not worrying about keeping anyone else happy, what would you choose for yourself?”

The question is so loaded and meaningful that Tifa has a hard time wrapping her mind around it. For Cloud to ask something like this means he has been spending time thinking about it, thinking about her and her circumstances. He’s her guard, yes, and it wouldn’t take much to think about someone you’ve been spending so much time around, but…but the thought of it still squeezes Tifa’s heart. It still makes it hard to breathe.

“I…” she whispers. “I…don’t know.”

It’s half a lie. She does know, but there is not an inkling of courage in her to say what she already knows deep down.

I feel so at ease with you.

I wish I had more time to give you.

I want to be with you.

The back of Tifa’s throat balls up. She hasn’t thought it before now, but it is what she wants. She hasn’t even kissed him, hugged him, held his hand, but somehow she just…

How can she feel like this? That he would fit seamlessly in a life with her?

He stares at her for a time, and the air is so thick and constricting she thinks she’ll be flattened into the ground by it. This is one of the last moments she’ll have with him, and if she reaches out, if  she attempts to tell him her feelings, if he rejects her confession, if she ruins this beautiful thing they have between them…she’ll never forgive herself.

She wonders what she’ll regret more: staying quiet and keeping her feelings to herself, or telling him what she wishes could have been.

She takes a deep breath under his unrelenting gaze. It is as stark and beautiful as a summer sky.

“I…I wish I had more time,” she relents.

He’s quiet as they look at one another. His jaw works around a thought, his muscles twitching underneath his taut skin.

“You can,” he answers.

She furrows her brow. “What do you mean?”

He reaches out, and her stomach bottoms out as he touches her left hand. “You can refuse. Say no. Postpone the engagement, even. You have the power to do anything, Tifa. You have the right to be happy.”

Her heart lurches, and it has never been such a dramatic organ before today, because he said her name for the first time. Simply her name without the “Lady” in front of it.

It’s all the courage she needs to curl her fingers around his hand. Adrenaline rushes through her limbs and wraps around her skull until she feels like her feet leave the ground. She might be flying.

She pulls herself forward, leans in, and kisses him. It is soft and abrupt and wonderful, and it is more than words could ever say. None could express what she wants, anyway, and she’s prepared to run as soon as she steps back from him.

“I’m sorry,” she says, letting go of his hand. “But that is the only thing I wanted.”

He shocks her by gripping her hand harder, refusing to let her go. He pulls her in again until their breaths clash, and she can’t believe how he’s looking at her. She’s never seen his expression like this—the stoicism is gone and replaced with an open, determined gaze.

“When I trained for SOLDIER, the thought of you was the only thing that kept me going,” he says. “I…know we weren’t close as children, but after my mother died, I could never forget what you and your family did for me. Supported me until I could enlist. Gave me shelter. And you gave me…you were…” he pauses. His jaw works over his words again, and Tifa can only stare at him as he tries to find them. How can words be such difficult things to puzzle through?

“I missed you,” she blurts, her voice thin and a faint wisp on the air.  “I was so happy when you came back after the war.”

“Tifa…” he trails, and somehow they are kissing, truly kissing, and it is brazen and raw, and it lights Tifa from the inside out, curling her skin like burning paper.

“Don’t marry him. Please.” Cloud husks between desperate kisses. They pull and tug on one another. “Please don’t.”

“Will you stay with me?” she asks, her fingers twining in the soft, downy hair along the back of his neck.

“Yes,” he breathes. “Why do you think I came back to you?”

For perhaps the first time, Tifa feels a pungent, unadulterated river of happiness flowing through her. Her laugh is bright and unrestrained. Suddenly, with Cloud by her side, she is not afraid of the future. Her future will be her own. She will make it her own.

No one else’s.

“We’ll have to elope,” he states after a marathon of kissing. He is completely serious, and Tifa has never felt so sure about something in her life.

“The Gold Saucer?” she asks, smiling and delirious.

“Is that what you want? It won’t be the garden wedding that you were planning, but—“

“I don’t care about that,” she interrupts.

“And I…don’t have a ring,” he admits. “But I—“

She shakes her head. “I don’t care about that, either.”

He stares at her, and she stares back. She places her palm along his cheek.

“This is what matters to me,” she emphasizes. “This.”

A slow smile breaks over his face, and it is the most beautiful smile Tifa has ever seen on him. He scoops her into his arms, and she squeaks before giggling.

“How fast will your father kill me by the time we get back?” he asks as he carries her bridal style to the stables.

“Within a half hour,” she answers with little thought.

“I’d give it at least an hour,” Cloud rebuts. “Besides, I received his blessing. Surely, he’ll let me live a while longer than a half hour.”

Tifa jerks. “What?”

A half-smile appears on his face. “He thought you’d say no. I was…proving myself worthy to your father, but Rufus got to you before I did. He said if I didn’t have the guts to even ask you, he’d never consider this. But now…”

Tifa nearly weeps. “Cloud…I…” she shakes her head, voice thick. “Let’s go, right this moment, before I wake up from this dream.”

He smiles at her again, kisses her tenderly, and continues on to the stables.

Chapter Text

Tifa isn’t sure what’s worse: being stuck in the gaol of Shinra’s ship, or being locked up beside him. Cloud Strife. SOLDIER defector, ex-commander, and newly designated pirate of their Avalanche group, he had been a wayward, standoffish, frustratingly handsome addition to their ragtag faction. With Shinra monopolizing the seas, sinking merchant ships and destroying trade lines, someone had to step in to combat Shinra’s overwhelming presence as they monitored and obstructed cargo from all three continents. Shinra has been not only destructive on sea, but on land as well, forcing Tifa’s hand to join Avalanche to rebel and fight against their menacing dictatorship. And now, on a very important, strategic mission to destabilize Shinra’s barricade between the northern and western continents, Tifa found herself overpowered by three brutes on the bow of the ship. While Cloud was supposed to be setting and placing the bomb, he had instead intervened in Tifa’s fight, essentially saving her from a few kicks and punches and ending their escapade bound in metal cuffs bolted into the thick, durable wooden wall of the ship.

All because of a few silly brutes. Tifa could handle them well enough—while she sits here, she knows she should feel grateful and thank him—but it is very hard to thank him while they sit behind bars on a Shinra ship destined for Junon with no way out, surrounded by the smell of rotting wood and sewage.

“You should have set the bomb,” she tells him, once more.

He grunts. He’s a lot of noise, this Cloud Strife. Grunts and low rumbles and scoffs.

“What’s done is done.”

His voice is gruff, too, as if his vocal cords have also been locked in a cage. Tifa shakes her head.

“You can’t do that again. You can’t go against orders. We would be well on our way back to camp,” she says.

As a defector, she thinks, he might be used to going against orders. Having his way with things. Tifa frowns. She tends not to think ill of anyone, but with him…with him, she’s not sure. She can’t read him, hasn’t been able to read him since meeting him. Tifa prides herself on being able to read others—it had been one of the things that saved her a time or two before she fell into her home with Avalanche. But he’s indecipherable. He’s as easy to comprehend as an ancient Cetra tablet buried within the Forgotten City.

“I might be well on my way back to camp. They would have captured you alone had I not intervened.”

Tifa tightens her jaw. “I’ve been in worse situations.”

He eyes her, seemingly unimpressed. “Doubt that.”

“Do you not believe me capable?”

It irks her how he glances at her like she’s…well, like she’s not worthy of being a pirate. Or maybe it’s just her insecurities reflecting off of his cool, stoic demeanor. Sometimes, Tifa isn’t sure if she’s up to the task of pirate life. Some days she feels validated and justified with her actions. Other days she feels…small, with a hard rock in the pit of her stomach. Death happens on the seas, of course, and Tifa feels disgust with herself that deaths have happened by her hand. She doesn’t feel as though she is strong enough handle it. She thought it would get easier, but…but it doesn’t.

Perhaps Cloud could care less about her being worthy. She’s certain it has never crossed his mind.

But if he did care less, why did he save her from getting impaled with the sword the brute swung at her neck?

After a long, quiet moment of staring at one another—and Tifa admits, he is terribly easy on the eyes, perhaps too easy on the eyes—he finally states, “You are capable. I’ve seen you fight.” Shrugging, he looks away. “I didn’t want to lose a valuable member of Avalanche during such a—“ he cuts himself off. “During…a mission I was part of.”

She blinks, not expecting that answer at all. She bites the inside of her lip.

“Thank you, Cloud.”

His head lifts, and their eyes catch. It’s a buzz that flashes inside Tifa, and she puffs out a breath.

“You’re welcome, Tifa.”

She feels the buzz again, she she shakes it off. She does her best to shake it off.

By the time they escape after an Avalanche ship tears into the Shinra cruiser, Cloud nudges Tifa in front of him the entire way, protecting her from behind, a light, guiding hand on the small of her back, and Tifa realizes then that Cloud does care. He is subtle and quiet and intense, and he doesn’t show much emotion, but he utilizes action. After that, she notices how he hovers around her, how he is somehow always on her missions, and how she will catch him occasionally staring at her during meetings or mission debriefs.

Tifa is no dummy, but she wonders about his motive. All pirates have one. She doubts he is doing this without purpose.

There have been whispers about Cloud amongst their group. He keeps to himself. He does the job and gets pain. That’s all he seems to care about, but he’s let it slip that he’s intelligent. He speaks up when he’s frustrated about a mission plan. How he devises secondary plans is quick and clever, and in the midst of stressful situations, he can deviate from the path of the first plan yet finish the objective efficiently.

Barret asks Tifa to keep an eye on Spiky, and to make sure he is who he says he is.

“We don’t need a Shinra lapdog on our hands, spilling secrets,” he’s told her. “I trust you, Teef. He’s closest to you. I don’t wanna make you uncomfortable, but we need to make sure he’s legit. Can’t waste my money on a fool.”

Her loyalty to Barret trumps all. Tifa promises herself she’ll corner him the next chance she gets, even if it feels…wrong. She wants to trust him, but wanting and knowing are two very different things.

The chance comes sooner rather than later. Back to back and facing five Shinra brigadier crewmen, Tifa and Cloud have become a pretty damn good team. Cloud uses a large broadsword, and Tifa uses her fists and legs, two daggers sheathed on her thighs for a secondary weapon, but Tifa ducks, dives, and elbows while Cloud swings and slices. They move in a circle, Tifa knocking a guy in the head with her booted foot before he reaches Cloud, and Cloud slicing a man running up toward Tifa. It is a continuous dance before it is abruptly over, the Shinra crewmen either unconscious or dead, and Tifa and Cloud breathing heavily and recovering from the onslaught. Cloud sheathes his sword, and Tifa adjusts her gloves atop her brass knuckles. When she glances over at Cloud, the adrenaline is rushing through her with such force that it gives her the bravery to corner him like she means—but when she looks up at him, he’s already staring at her like a shark circling his prey.

“Cloud—“ she begins, but he beats her to it.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

It jars her. She almost loses her footing, but her adrenaline restarts. “I…what?”

“When you fight,” he clarifies, and his cheeks are red from exertion, and she knows he must be feeling the adrenaline and the power of it, too, because he continues. “And any other time. You’re beautiful.”

“What are you—this isn’t part of the mission plan,” she says, watching as he takes several fast strides toward her. She tenses, bracing herself for some kind of impact.

“No, but I don’t care if it is or not,” he says, only stopping once he’s towering above her. He isn’t much taller than her, but the power of his presence makes him able to tower. He exudes strength, and Tifa’s knees weaken.

“Cloud,” she says, and it comes out less threatening than she means and much, much more breathy. “I don’t understand.”

“Like hell you don’t,” he says, and he pushes her bangs off her forehead. It is surprisingly gentle, and the buzz is abundant between them. Tifa feels it like a thread pulling at her stomach. She’s not sure what it means—she really doesn’t—because she knows the lust she has for him, and she realizes she has the largest crush in mankind on him, but it doesn’t equate to either of those things. It feels…deep. Untouchable. As vast and terrifying as the sea.

“Is this a trick?” she asks him.

This makes him pause, and he blinks at her. “I hope not.”

It takes her a moment too long to realize he’s teasing her. She shakes her head. “No. I mean, I have to know your motive. I need to know if your commitment to Avalanche is real.”

He tilts his head, and she feels his eyes on the line of her neck. She feels her skin burn. “Barret put you up to this?”

She thinks about lying for a split second. “Partly. But this is for me.”

He furrows his brow. “You don’t think I’m here for the right reasons?”

“I don’t think anything,” she says, evading. “I just need to know I can trust you completely.”

His eyes soften at that. “I was here for the money—am here for the money,” he corrects himself. “But I didn’t expect you. I didn’t expect…”

“What?” she breathes, realizing their faces are close. His breath is hot and sweet against her cheek.

“I didn’t expect to be here for another type of treasure,” he mutters, voice husky and thick. “I want you so badly.”

Tifa’s lower belly coils with a deep, warm pleasure. Their lips are almost touching. “Prove it, then, Strife. Prove you’re not a spy, you’re just here for the money, and I’ll visit your bed chambers, and you can take me however you want.”

His eyes darken further, and they are close—so close and hot, sweat coalescing along the dip of her collarbone, him with muscles taut and jaw flexing. He wants to touch her, she can see it plain as day. She’s tightening up everywhere and wishes she could let him, with the buzz and the thread, the adrenaline, the darkness in his eyes. The unfathomable depth of them.

“Fine,” he states tightly. He takes a begrudging step away from her. “I will.”

It isn’t until he brings back Shinra’s head—not on a platter, but skewered on his sword—that he stalks toward her, throwing the head at Barret but hardly noticing where it goes.

Tifa merely watches as he comes up to her, stopping before he crashes into her, lips hot and decadent on her own, and says, “Trust me, now?”

The buzz fills her up—consumes her. She drowns and drowns, and she reaches up to take his face in her hands and kisses him as feverishly and desperately as she has been wanting since the feeling took root in her heart.

When they break apart, he unceremoniously takes her by the hand, and he pulls her to his room, in front of the entire crew to see.

Chapter Text

It is raucous and loud in the bar this afternoon.

Tifa swallows down a healthy mouthful of ice water before continuing her task of filling orders behind the counter. Sweat glides in thin streams down the sides of her temple.

Smoke fills the barroom. Usually, Tifa doesn’t allow for smoking or tobacco to contaminate her establishment, but it’s different today. The revelry is overflowing, and Tifa has never known such an abundant amount of happiness in family and strangers alike.

“Tifa!” Aerith shouts over the cacophony. “The ship has landed! Zack will be here any minute!”

Aerith bustles past the crowd and pushes past the partition in the counter. Her pink ribbon flies behind her head, holding her luxurious bangs out of her face. Her long braid whips behind her like a dog’s tail. She grabs onto Tifa’s arm and wraps her arms around Tifa’s shoulders in a deep squeeze.

“If you’re not careful, you’ll pop my eyes out,” Tifa smiles, hugging her back.

Aerith gives one more playful pulsing squeeze before letting go. “Oh, Tifa, I didn’t think this day would come. I thought he would die overseas. So many thousands have, and I haven’t let myself believe that…that…”

Tifa’s smile deepens as Aerith is suddenly overcome with emotion. Tifa grabs a bottle of Aerith’s favorite rum from under the counter and fills a small shot for both of them.

“With a love like yours, not even a war could keep you apart,” Tifa says, slipping the glass into Aerith’s hand. Aerith grins through the tears coating her eyes, swiping at them and heartily taking the shot glass. They cheers, downing the rum. Tifa can’t help her cough while Aerith laughs at her.

“Oh, Tifa,” she says. “You’re more romantic than I ever was.”

That’s a lie, but Tifa lightly pinches her cheek before sending her off.

“Go find your man.”

Aerith titters. “I’ll be back!”

Tifa watches Aerith dart through the bar’s front doors in a mass of pink and magenta tulle, her white stockings peeking out from under her dress. Tifa is happy Aerith will fulfill her love story. For Tifa, it had been something always severely lacking in life. The war had been going on since she was a little girl, and with her father being a general, her family had always been on the move. Always the general’s daughter, locked away in the barracks like a princess in a castle. Tifa had laughed at the notion, then and now. It helped with her imagination, blunting the isolation and loneliness.

Her mother had a weaker disposition, passing away when Tifa was a young girl. Her father had dalliances with foreign women wherever they had been stationed, and Tifa always held the belief that true love might be real, depending on how much magic someone believed in. Tifa’s belief waned when her father died. She was paraded around in a foster system, yet another orphan from a war that had lasted almost twenty years. She ran away, and her belief in magic and hope waned more and more each day, until she finally built a life out of the tatters left behind in her world.

But she had been luckier than most.

Tifa swipes a hand over her forehead, giving smiles and drinks to the customers.

Magic was not an abundant commodity, but Aerith’s joy, and the crowd surrounding her, and the end of what had reaped her of her family…

Sometimes, magic lights like an uncontrollable, voracious fire. Tifa soaks it in and, finally, she thinks the world might not be so bad. It takes and whittles, but it also gives back.

Tifa meets Zack for the first time that late afternoon. Her eyes burn from the clouds of tobacco smoke, and she is sticky from the perpetual sweat as she mans the bar, and the greeting Zack gives her is, “I apologize, my beauty tends to do that to women.”

Aerith smacks him on the chest, but his arm is slung around her and it doesn’t look like he’s going to remove it any time soon.

Tifa cracks a smile at his joke, and she serves them for free.

“Tifa!” Aerith shouts, clinging to Zack. “Meet Cloud!”

Zack pulls another man into view, and Tifa can’t believe she didn’t notice him. His hair is a distinctive, happy yellow, and when he lifts his shy, blue gaze to her, she feels a nauseous sense of deja vu.

“He’s Zack’s best friend!” Aerith grins.

“Hi,” she greets, reaching out a hand. “Tifa.”

“Cloud,” he says, tipping his head and taking her outstretched hand. His grip is firm but polite.

Tifa thinks it might be because she’s been on her feet for so long, moving and inhaling stale smoke for a consistent six hours. She begins to feel lightheaded, and her other hand moves to her stomach.

Cloud’s brow furrows. “You okay?”

“Fine,” Tifa breathes, and that’s the last thing she remembers.

She wakes up in her bed. It’s in the living quarters upstairs from the bar, and she can hear the distant clamoring and vibrations from the celebrations all the way through her mattress. She blinks away the haziness filling her vision, realizing there is a damp, cold washcloth on her forehead, and someone sitting on a stool beside her.

“Hey,” Cloud says, his voice quiet. “You passed out.”

Tifa shifts to sit up, and her head throbs at the movement. She winces, a soft grunt leaving her.

“You hit your head against the floor pretty hard,” he continues, edging closer when he notices her discomfort. “Aerith and Zack took over the bar. I promised her I’d look after you.”

Tifa blinks, reaching up to remove the washcloth. She closes her eyes and sighs. She doesn’t feel nauseous anymore, and the sudden hot flush she had felt before passing out is gone.

“Thank you, Cloud, but I’m fine,” she says, avoiding his eyes. Now, the most prominent feeling is embarrassment, and she can’t stand to look up and see his pretty blue eyes taking pity on her. “You should be celebrating with everyone.”

He shrugs, shifting his weight on the stool. He’s in his casual, soldier attire, just like Zack had been. The dark, navy button down fits snugly across his shoulders, tucked into black, baggy cargo pants and combat boots.

“I don’t care so much about all of that,” he answers. “The noise is…a lot,” he trails, rubbing the back of his neck. It’s endearing. “I’m just happy to be home.”

His eyes lift and find hers. She’s still embarrassed, but his eyes are kind. They are blue with hints of green swirled through them, and Tifa has a hard time describing how they make her feel. It is peculiar and oddly…familiar. Her embarrassment begins to ebb, replaced with comfort and content. He’s a stranger, but she has no sense of unease being alone in her room with him. In fact, she begins to regain that sense of deja vu, and her heart beats loud enough that she hears it in her temples.

“Are you feeling better?” he asks.

No, she thinks, staring at him.

Not thinking, she blurts, “Have I met you before?”

He starts at her question before his eyebrows rise.

“I would have remembered,” he says.

He might be flirting, but Tifa only narrows her eyes.

“I…you seem so familiar,” she says softly, before her cheeks heat. She glances away. “Sorry, that’s rude of me.”

“Tifa…” he trails, and she looks up at him again. He holds her eyes in his own. “No, you seem familiar, too.” He shrugs, and there is a hint of a smile in his eyes when he says, “Maybe we have met, in another life,” he says.

He’s flirting again. He’s warm and cute, and she thinks he might be…well, he might be someone.

She shakes her head good-naturedly. “Sure.”

He leans forward. “The only way to know is to…get to know each other.”

“I guess you’re right,” she says.

At that moment, she thinks about magic.

Chapter Text

Tifa stands by the open bar.

The music is loud enough to dance, but distant enough to converse. Several tables decorate the room, the gymnasium filled with banners, pictures, lights overhead, a DJ on the stage in the corner of the area, and clusters and clusters of people and faces that Tifa remembers well enough over those high school years. She has talked to almost all of them, reminiscing about the past and catching up over what the years have entailed for all of them. Some have children, some holding impressive or mundane jobs, some having stayed in Nibelheim since high school and being sucked into its “blackhole”—what they used to call it back then and what they still call it now.

Some laugh it off, but Tifa wonders if they regret their decision to stay in the standstill town. It’s quaint and lovely, but compared to the big city of Midgar, it feels years behind. It reminds Tifa of a relic on a shelf collecting dust.

Tifa almost hadn’t come to this ten year reunion. She hadn’t kept up with many of her old friends, and she was afraid no one relevant to her formative years would have made the trip.

But if she’s completely, harshly truthful with herself, Tifa came here for only one reason. One blonde haired, blue eyed reason. And that’s why she had been so afraid the day before she purchased her ticket and made the long trek back to the western continent.

Tifa never thought Cloud Strife would be someone to participate in something as nostalgic and cheesy as a high school reunion, but she desperately hoped he would. Her disappointment would be crippling, and she promised herself she would take it as a sign to just…move on. To finally accept that they would never cross paths in this life again.

With all the social mediums for connection, it should make it easy to make contact with anyone in the world. But Cloud Strife became a ghost. Tifa knows this well—it isn’t as if she hadn’t tried to find him before this. Her searches had been fruitless. All of her connections in Midgar, with Shinra, and SOLDIER led to only dead ends. In her weakest moment, Tifa had searched obituaries, fearing the worst and coming up empty-handed. Tifa hadn’t been sure then whether to be happy or remaining in the limbo of uncertainty. She remembers slamming her laptop closed in frustration and telling herself that had been the sign to give up on him. Just because he had been a high school sweetheart…just because she had loved him with all the love you can have at sixteen…well, what did it matter?

Once, Tifa’s father drilled into her mind that high school relationships with boys would always be a waste of time. Relationships at this time were too immature for anything substantial. Enjoy the time you have here with the friends you make, but you’re too young to know what you want.

Practice, her father had called it. It will never survive the world.

Back then, Tifa hadn’t expected Cloud to break her heart. She hadn’t expected him to let her go. To leave.

“Your father’s right,” he had told her, underneath the well where they had made their promises. So many promises. “We can’t survive the world, Teef.”

Tifa had been so angry—so blindsided, so shocked—that she couldn’t hear anything else. She turned on her heel and fled from him. She couldn’t even say goodbye.

She stirs the diluted cocktail with the short, thin black straw. A Cosmo Canyon, the bartender called it. She sighs and downs the rest of it.

That was her one biggest regret in high school. Seventeen years old, overcome by the shattering of her heart and unable to see past her emotions. She never told him goodbye. She hadn’t tried. She hid in her room and played her piano until her forearms burned, until her fingers spasmed, and until she had no tears left. They had felt so swollen, she remembers, and there was a deep ache she had never reached before. It lingered in the backs of her eyes, and she had a peculiar emptiness after that. Everything just seemed…wanting. Bereft.

She finally learned her lesson. She should have listened to her father. She shouldn’t have opened that bridge with Cloud. All it had done was tarnish her vision. It made it hard to feel anything. The world felt like an echo in an empty corridor, and she couldn’t make it better. So she turned her efforts inward, went to school, got a job, and made sure she excelled. For a while, Cloud became a memory. A soft imprint on the skin. He became a scar, and eventually she came to appreciate the experience he gave her. But she could never forget how he made her feel—how she has never found something like that ever since.

Silly, she thinks, ordering another Cosmo Canyon from the bartender. After all this time…after so much emptiness, so much wondering, so much distance…she knows, deep down, she’d still love him. Easily. Stupidly.

She glances around and tries to stifle her disappointment.

Cloud Strife isn’t here.

How can it be, she mulls over the thoughts swimming in her mind, that even ten, twelve years later, she can still hurt. That he can do the same thing to her, unknowingly. So simply.

Just by not doing anything at all.

Mind hazy from the two drinks, Tifa leaves the high school auditorium and finds the path she always took to walk home. It’s strangely ingrained in her old muscle memory. She doesn’t think about it at all as she finds the same slopes, the same vegetation, the same dry grasses lining the trail. It is a used to be place. It used to be her home. It used to be her world. This one town held her hopes and dreams, her wonder, her curiosity, her naivety, her love. What a strange thing that a place can be—it will always be part of her fabric, but she has grown out of it. All the years that have passed changed the terrain of her heart, of her ideas and her new dreams, and now Nibelheim is like an old dress hanging in her closet. She looks at it fondly, remembers it in its prime, but she will never wear it again.

Her feet take her to the water tower, and she does nothing to stop the journey, her heart pounding heavily the entire way.

It has been refurbished, she notices, fresh rope along the edges and an updated stain on the wooden planks. It’s always been magical, somehow. Underneath the splatter of stars overhead, the glow of the moonlight against its peak. Tifa steps up to one of the beams and places her palm against the worn wood. It had been the perfect place as a teenager to make promises—to believe there was magic in the world, to hold onto the idea that promises, once made, were sacred and revered. It was a whimsical notion she had made when she was young, and perhaps that was what made the hurt even worse when her and Cloud’s promise was broken.

Tifa can see herself, young and happy, wide eyes gleaming and staring up into Cloud’s blue eyes and knowing, without question, without one ounce of uncertainty, that she loved him, was in love with him. That he was her person, connected to him in a way that was indescribable. She felt threaded together with him, so fully taken with his words and his thoughts, that she knew they were simply meant.

Tifa sighs, sliding her hand off the beam. But that’s what happens when you’re young. You don’t know. You want to know, you think you know, but you don’t.

Tifa shakes her head, her eyebrows furrowing. It was a mistake to come here. It was stupid, and she feels like a foolish seventeen year old again, and he didn’t even come back. He didn’t even—

“Tifa.”

She whirls around, startled so badly that she falls back against the beam. 

Suddenly, there he is. Golden hair glowing underneath the loving moonlight, his eyes a bright, deep and swirling blue, his face sharper and even more devastating than it was when he was a teenager. He is…unfair. Unfair to be so beautiful, after all this time.

“Cloud,” she breathes, finding her voice. “I didn’t think you came.”

His eyes don’t leave her face. The hairs on her arms stand on end.

“I had to come,” he states. His voice is gravelly and soft. “I wanted to see you.”

Straightforward. To the point. Still the same Cloud. Already, she feels transported back ten years.

“You could have…we could have seen each other before this,” she says. “We didn’t have to wait ten years.”

“Didn’t know if you’d want to see me,” he says.

Tifa narrows her eyes, placing her hands on her hips. “Sounds like an excuse, Strife.”

His eyes blaze in amusement, and they are still as intense and overwhelming as they had always been. “Maybe it was.”

She stares at him, taking a deep breath. “I know we left it…badly,” she says.

He shakes his head, taking a step forward. “It was so fucking stupid.”

Tifa almost flinches at his tone. “You’re the one who told me…” We can’t survive, Teef. She closes her eyes for a moment. “I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. It was such a long time ago.”

“It does matter, Tifa,” he answers, and her name with his roughened voice is filled with so much nostalgia and memory. He takes another step forward. “Get a drink with me. Or dinner. Or both.”

Tifa blinks, lips parting. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she can feel the heat from his stare, how it’s drilling holes into her skin. And she is breathless just by seeing him, and her curiosity is so compounded by the mystery of past years, and being in his vicinity is already breaking her down into a puddle that there is no other answer but yes.

The smile he gives her is an arrow into her stomach. It pierces her, and it is all she can do to follow him down the familiar path to an old bar and grill they frequented as teenagers, ordering grilled cheeses and burgers. Now they order alcohol and a simple appetizer, and Tifa has no appetite as he stares at her, and there’s something about the thick, dim glow from the gas lamps overhead hitting his cheekbones, the broadness of his shoulders, and Tifa takes a moment to wonder how this could have possibly happened, sitting across from each other in the same exact restaurant they would spend so many hours in almost a lifetime ago.

They catch up. He tells her he became a SOLDIER, what he had aspired to be before, and he’s a Major General at the main headquarters in Midgar. He explains what it means, how he commands divisions while also being highly skilled at combat, and Tifa is so proud of him and so impressed, she thinks she might burst. She beams at him, and he dips his head, seemingly uncomfortable talking about himself. He is bashful, and she spies the redness that flushes his cheeks when she compliments him.

She tells him about her. She’s become a business owner of several bars in Midgar, almost one in each Sector, and she’s hoping to grow along the continent. It keeps her busy, but she’s established herself, remaining independent and secure financially and personally.

Cloud looks at her with what Tifa could only call warmth. He smiles and says, “You’re amazing, Teef.”

Emotion punches at her throat, and she opens her mouth to respond. Her vocal cords are shaky as she answers, “Thank you.” She has to take a sip from her drink and must glance away from the intensity of his gaze. The drink burns in her belly, and her heart pounds away like a jackhammer while he openly admires her and she—she just can’t—

“Why’d you leave back then?” she asks, the question falling out of her. “I know you thought we wouldn’t work, and we probably wouldn’t have,” she says, though she doesn’t necessarily believe that and never has. “But I’ve always wondered why. I thought it might have been my father or the long distance after graduating.”

Cloud finally glances away from her, one of the rare times he has all night. “I…I didn’t know what I was doing with my life, and you did, Tifa. I was dumb and lost, and I wasn’t…” he pauses, and he turns his head toward the bar, avoiding her gaze. “I wasn’t good enough for you back then, and I had to prove that I could be. I ended up traveling a lot in the military, and the training was grueling…” He scoffs a laugh for a moment, and continues, “But the thought of you kept me going. I didn’t know if I’d see you again, but I thought if I did, I might finally be…something good enough for you.”

His gaze finds her, and she is holding her drinking glass so tightly she thinks it’s a miracle it doesn’t crack.

“Cloud, you…you thought that? That you needed to prove something?”

“Yes. It’d be crazy not to.”

“Oh, Cloud,” she says, and she is unsure how to process. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

He smiles faintly, but it is a sad look. “There was no reason. You were always going to go off and become whatever you wanted to be. I had no chance. I would have constantly held you back.”

A tear falls down one of her cheeks, but she’s too preoccupied with the revelation to be embarrassed. “You wouldn’t have held me back. We would have grown together. I…”

He reaches forward, and his hand touches hers on the table. “I’m sorry, Teef, I didn’t mean to make you cry, I—“

She stares at his hand on hers, and she can almost feel the weight of the decade. The missed opportunities, the lost time.

“I wish you told me,” she says, roughly wiping away her tear. “I didn’t understand, and I have been so mad at you.”

Cloud shakes his head, his eyes darkening. “Like I said, it was so fucking stupid.” He squeezes her hand, and she watches as their fingers slowly thread together. His hand is warm and calloused, enveloping her left hand in a gentle cradle, and it is immaculate and divine.

“I’ve wanted to find you for the longest time,” he says. “I’ve just been…”

Tifa catches his eye, and she can almost feel the words he isn’t saying. Terrified. Busy. Hoping.

“Me, too,” she answers.

“I was expecting you to be…with someone,” he states, tugging at her hand. Her left ring finger is bare. “I was so fucking relieved you weren’t.”

The fervor in his tone almost has her laughing. Instead, she smiles, and says, “I thought you didn’t come. You’re the only reason I’m here.”

They stare at each other. Tifa feels the tumult between them, and it presses against her chest like a weighted blanket. Their hands stay locked. Cloud pays for the check, and they get up to leave, silent but glancing at each other over and over, and as soon as they leave the restaurant, Cloud presses her up against the wall and kisses her.

She threads her fingers into his hair. He digs his hands into her hips. They tilt their heads to get deeper and deeper within each other, curling and twisting, and Tifa is filled to the brim with him. This kiss is everything, all at once.

“Come back to Midgar with me tomorrow,” Cloud says between kisses. “Stay with me tonight.”

It is the easiest yes Tifa says, breathless, and it is so reckless, and it is unfathomable. She feels it again, and some might say they don’t know each other anymore, but Tifa knows him, and she knows herself, and it finally, finally feels as though whatever had been missing is now complete.

Whole.

Chapter Text

Tifa wakes.

She blinks several times, bleary-eyed and mind fogged with the vestiges of what feels like a thousand dreams. As she comes to, she remembers each dream so vividly, so clearly, that she lies beside Cloud, tangled in his arms, and stares at him while she wraps her head around each storyline fabricated by her imagination.

She feels the depth as she gazes at him, peaceful in sleep. There is a depth here, unlike anything she knows. This morning is different. The light that comes through the window is a distinctly lighter tone. Her vision blurs and clears again. The sensation within her can only be described as…complete. Whole. Unfathomable, like the sea. Unknowable, like magic. A thread as long as time itself.

Tifa watches as Cloud wakes up beside her, blinking slowly and smiling softly, reaching across to her and pulling her to him for a morning kiss.

That’s when it all comes together. In the present glow, Tifa understands it in that brief, hazy instance with the sunlight streaming in, coloring Cloud in a thousand different shades, a million different layers, perfect and serene.

They’ve always been meant to be, in every world, every genre, every timeline—in this life and the next.