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Chapter Text

Chapter One - The Fall

“Tifa!”

It was Cloud. She heard his voice from somewhere below, under the recoiling bullets that fell from Scarlet’s mech and the whirlwind of the Relnikas that circled overhead. His voice carried over all of the noise, and it sounded pained as if shot through with an arrow. She could feel it down to the marrow in her bones that he was in danger, and right now, the only thing she could think of was that she had to get to him.

Tifa’s sense of dread only grew as she drew nearer to the reactor’s core as if she could feel his threads come further undone with every step closer that she took. She bit into her lip, leaping and running over catwalks and shallow pools of reactor run-off, the soles of her boots thumping against the metal grates as she went.

Gunshots rang out overhead, and Tifa watched sparks fly around her head as they ricocheted off of the catwalk and into the coolant tubes that hung from the adjacent rafters.  Gasping, she ducked and rolled out of the way when one dislodged from above and crashed in her direction.  She fired her grappling gun onto the nearest overhead platform, dodging the hail of bullets that whizzed past her. Relnikas were still circling overhead, and Tifa could see Scarlet and her mech redirecting their efforts in her direction, its arm cannons facing her and prepared to blast.  Tifa leaped deftly out of the way, narrowly missing more rapid-fire before she heard the Shinra Weapon Director call for retreat.  Crouching to her knees, Tifa braced herself as the entire reactor shook from the force of the fighting going on below and the whirlwind of the Relnikas that tore through the thick jungle air.  Wide red eyes scanned the reactor core, and she spotted him as he raised his arms overhead, the sharp silver of his blade glimmering in the sunlight as he brought it down into the spine of an already wounded Shinra grunt who was sprawled out on the floor.

It was the blood that spurt out in every direction and marred his beautiful face that lurched Tifa’s gut.  There was a glaze across his eyes that froze the pit of her stomach into ice, and swallowing back the burn of bile that rushed up into her throat, Tifa pushed up onto her feet, balling her hands into fists as she stared down at him and blinked through sudden and hot tears.

“Cloud, that’s enough!”

It didn’t seem that her voice reached him, which worried her even more.  He was unsteady on his feet, wobbling where he stood as he snatched his sword out of the grunt’s flesh with one clean pull.  The blood leaked in every direction, running in a lazy river down the metal grates of the floor.

Tifa gasped and jumped down onto the reactor core’s floor below, running straight for him.  Her heart was pounding and sweat was dripping down the sides of her temples, some of it pooling into her eyes.  She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, swiping her bangs out of the way as she rounded up to Cloud’s side just as he dropped his sword and fell to his knees, clasping his head.

He was having another episode. These strange headaches started back in Midgar, but since they’ve left the metropolis on this journey, Tifa noticed that they’ve increased, that they’ve become a constant.  She still didn’t know what caused them or how they started, but she knew that they were debilitating, that they were linked to Cloud’s mismatched memories, and that they caused him pain.

Something had been wrong since she found him at the train station, Tifa knew. When she found him, he had the same vacant and lost look in his eyes that he does now, the same distance that made him seem like he was a shell of the boy she once knew staring back at her, the life inside of him somewhere far away.  And even when he looked up at her at that moment and the awareness flooded back into him, as he blinked up at her under the rain and softly called her name, Tifa had realized that something was terribly wrong with her childhood friend.

Now, as he stared back at her with blood spattered across his face, she could see something else behind that vacant look.  Something sinister and cruel.  

Something foreign.

“You have no scar,” he deadpanned accusingly.

Tifa blinked, her eyes scanning his face again for something - anything- recognizable. But the fury and the accusation only grew in his aquamarine eyes, the mako that rimmed his pupils glowing with the feral fear of a caged animal.

She didn’t understand why he was bringing this up again.  She glanced around, looking at the scattered bodies of the Shinra troops he had slaughtered.  Fear of her own began to curl inside of her belly, the realization of the destruction that Cloud had wrought ripping her heart to shreds as she glanced at the pools of blood forming all over the reactor floor.  He was spiraling, further and further out of control, further and further away from her.

Guilt was the next cold hand to grip her heart.  Guilt that maybe she was the reason for all of this death, that she was the one who had caused him to lose his touchstone of reality.  

He had been coming for her, hadn’t he?

Even so, now, he looked at her with something she’d never seen before.  A muted hatred almost, as if he didn’t believe that she was who she said she was, even as she stood there in front of him in the flesh.

Where had this all been coming from?  She knew that something was wrong with Cloud from the very beginning, that his memories were off, and that things were not as they seemed.  She could only doubt her own memories so far.  There was something deeper in the incongruence, and the story he’d told in Kalm had only been the start of her realization that he was terribly, terribly broken.

But wasn’t that why she was here? She always did her best to try and support him, to hold on to his broken pieces, and to keep them glued together so they could make it through the next step on their journey together.  But now, staring at the violence and enmity in his eyes, Tifa felt her resolve waiver.

She loved him.  She had loved him for so long, it was scary to admit.  Especially now, when she no longer recognized who he was, when he was no longer the shy, sweet boy from her memories but rather a stoic and hardened ex-SOLDIER who seemed to be slipping further and further away from her with each passing day.

But it was because she loved him that she could never give up on him, no matter how difficult things got or how far he drifted.

“We’ve been over this,” she tried to redirect him as calmly as she could.  “I do have a scar.  Remember?”

“Liar,” he bit back harshly, tearing his eyes from her and staring to his left as if listening to another voice on his other side.

He never used that tone with her.  Tifa felt as if she had been slapped, wincing as Cloud grabbed his head again in pain.  Panicking, she rose to her feet, bringing her hands to the hem of her tank top and lifting it slightly to reveal the tail end of her scar where it curved under her ribcage.

Bile was in the center of her throat again as she stepped back, watching Cloud’s eyes carefully.  Something flashed in them, something unrecognizable to Tifa.  Sea-green eyes darted over the thin, pale line of marred flesh, but there was a lack of understanding or realization in his stare.  There was none of the shock or embarrassment or guilt she had seen in his eyes the first time she’d shown him under Kalm’s starry night sky.  There was only vacant emptiness, an emptiness that transformed into disdain when he dragged his eyes back up to her face.

“Those we love… those we fear… Jenova will become anyone to fool her prey...”

Cloud reached for his sword, dragging it by the hilt, the blade scraping nauseatingly against the ground.  Tifa’s heart continued to race as she followed his every movement, watching as he unsteadily rose again to his full height. The glow of mako behind his irises intensified, and he stepped closer to her, a low growl emitted from deep within his throat.

Tifa watched in disbelief as he advanced on her threateningly, raising his weapon with every step.  Was he going to attack her?  Did he really not believe she was who she said she was…but that she was an imposter… Jenova?

She looked around as panic gripped her, but the sudden escalation of fear was nothing like the immense sadness and despair that folded itself around her heart.

She had never been afraid of Cloud before. She had never feared him.  She’d known since the moment she found him at the train station that he was messed up, that he wasn’t himself, that he wasn’t the boy she’d held onto in her heart and who’d made that promise to her.  But he’d never given her a reason to be afraid.

“Please,” she pleaded with him, backing away towards the edge of the reactor core’s platform.  There was no place else for her to go.   “Don’t do this!”

The high-pitched tenor of her voice frightened her, breaking in half over her words as she spoke.  She felt her heels tip over the edge, glancing behind her to be sure she didn’t lose her footing.  Cloud’s eyes remained glazed over as he stared at her, creeping ever closer, raising his blade higher and higher.

“But I’m no fool .”

Everything happened so fast.  Cloud ran towards her, the buster sword held in front of him, the blade glimmering as he slashed it in her direction.  Tifa could only gasp as she narrowly backed away, avoiding the slice of its sharp edge but losing her footing and falling backward towards the mako pool below.

The last thing that she saw was the caged anger in Cloud’s narrowed, mako-blue eyes, staring at her with that same foreign distrust that she’d seen briefly flash in his eyes in Kalm.  Only this time, it was intensified by something violent and hateful, something she thought she would never understand.

She was weightless, floating in the air while she heard terrified shouts from the lower coolant platforms.  And then she was sinking, engulfed by a shock of cold liquid.  Her lungs were choked by the dense mako, and she struggled to break through to the surface, clawing her way up through the submergence.

It was so cold that she almost couldn’t feel her limbs.  Nonetheless, she fought with every ounce of strength that she had, propelling herself upward until she broke through the surface with a gasp.  The stench of mako and cooling reagents was thick and overpowering, and she coughed, feeling herself grow dizzy even though the sudden rush of oxygen into her lungs was welcome and stabilizing. 

“Swim to us, Tifa!  Don’t stop!”

Barret’s harried voice broke her out of her stupor, and she looked around, focusing her line of sight even as the mako burned her eyes and blurred her vision.  She tried to look up at the platform from where she’d fallen for Cloud, but the sunlight made it too painful and the need to get out of this mako was a priority.  Gasping, Tifa pushed forward, setting her sights on the lower-level core platform where Barret stood with Yuffie, both waving their hands in an attempt to get her attention.

Tifa pushed Cloud out of her mind.  She could think of nothing but survival now.  Her mind was torn asunder by what had just happened, but she couldn’t think about it.  She couldn’t think about him.

She needed to live.

Swimming towards the platform, she kept her thoughts focused until she was only a few feet away from the ledge.  She found herself forced to stop, treading water precariously as the entire reactor began to shake, the jungle overgrowth that had weaved its way around metal pipes and walkways sending leaves and dirt flying through the air. 

Without warning, the surface of the mako in front of her broke with a terrifying splash.  A WEAPON emerged, lurching its entire body out of the mako pool with a deadly roar.  Tifa’s eyes widened, fear running cold as ice through her veins as the WEAPON bared rows of sharp teeth as long as cars at her before hovering over her, its open mouth a black void of death.

And then, it descended.

Warmth.

It was so cold before, but now, it was warm.  Warm and comforting, like their family living room on Yule morning, or her mother’s lap when she was tired or sick, or her father’s arms wrapped tight around her when he carried her up to bed.  It felt safe, and it was beautiful, but it was strange.

Memories were there.  Ones she remembered and others that she didn’t, ones that she’d lost the pieces to.  Running off with her friends to find her mom on the other side of the mountain.  Cloud following behind her.  Cloud staying at her side when none of the others would. Cloud trying to get her to turn back.  

Cloud, making a promise to her.

Cloud.

Voices that carried her thoughts and feelings as far back as her birth seemed to float in the green ethers that surrounded her.  Friendships and loved ones she cherished now, those she had lost.  They all sang in her memories, they all seemed to guide her to remember a strength she’d forgotten.

But Cloud was the only one who anchored her to this place, who floated ahead of her, her distant star.  Unattainable, but somehow hers.

Cloud… please… I need you.

Always just out of reach.

Your words can’t reach him now.

A vicious battle.  A fight between worlds, between the planet and its destroyer.  Her memories caught in the balance.

Sephiroth.

No… don’t take him too!

“Tifa..?”

His vision blacked out and then back in, static haze filtering over the facade in front of him.  It was as if he had left his body and then returned to it somehow, and now, he was trying to remember where he was and how he had gotten here. But all he could remember was her - Tifa - and that she had been in danger.

He looked around for her, the hilt of his sword beginning to slip past his fingers as slow realization hit him.  Bodies of Shinra troops littered the ground, surrounded by pools of blood.  His last full memory was of slashing his way through them, fighting to get to Tifa.

He turned towards the edge of the reactor core, overlooking the mako pool. Another flash of static and the rest of his recent memory returned to him, an image of Tifa hovering above him bleeding through the haze of colors.

“Please, don’t do this!”

“Alright, look!”

He watched her stumble backward. He watched his blade swing in front of her, narrowly missing her midsection. He watched her arms stretch toward him as if he could reach out and catch her.

He watched her fall.  

He pushed her.

Cloud dropped his sword with a clatter, falling to his knees as the realization hit him.  

He pushed her.  

And now, a WEAPON had swallowed her.  Tifa was gone. His Tifa, the only person he had left in his life who tethered him to reality, the one who kept him going every day, who cared for him and grounded him in a way that he knew he might be lost without.

Tifa.  The girl who made him feel more complicated and deep feelings every time she stood at his side or looked at him or gave him one of her cute, adoring smiles.  The girl who made him feel like himself.  The girl who he loved in ways he’d avoided examining too closely since reuniting with her in Midgar.

He pushed her.

 He fell to his knees and cried her name so loudly that the earth shook, but Cloud couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice.

How could he even go on?

His vision began to blur as he stared up at the now barren skyline. The tears came freely, but they preceded something far worse.  He was already collapsing in on himself.  Because without Tifa, who was he?  What did anything matter? What did he matter?

Her last words to him played on a never-ending loop in his head. They tore through his skull until he could see nothing but blank space in front of him.  He could feel himself shutting down, every synapse dying as his world began to fade.  Somehow, he made it to the lower level, staring vacantly at the mako pool while the others hovered over the catwalk and stared into the deep green oasis of viscous liquid, searching for a sign of Tifa.

But Cloud knew the truth.

She was gone.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been sitting there.  It might have been hours.  It could have been days.  It could have been only a few minutes.  Time had no meaning to him.  Nothing did anymore.

Not without Tifa.

It was only when the flat of Barret’s palm slammed violently into his cheek did Cloud even feel himself inside of his body again.  But the mention of Tifa’s name snapped him out of it fully.

“Get your shit together!  Tifa needs you!”  

Looking up and barely feeling the sting of Barret’s 350 pounds of muscular force against his jaw, Cloud blinked, seeing the WEAPON with its fish-like gaze hovering over the platform from the water below. Its jaw was hanging open, baring carnivorous fangs, the bright green orb at its belly glowing.

Tifa was inside.

Something cracked within him.  He dragged himself to his feet, still dazed by the mako and still not totally all together.  But the outline of Tifa’s body inside of the WEAPON's sphere dissipated his daze, and he ambled forward, trying his best to gather his bearings.

The WEAPON cried out then, waves of white Whispers circling as Tifa floated out of its mouth on wave after wave of sparkling Lifestream tendrils.  Their entire party circled around to watch, Cloud watching almost dumbstruck as Tifa’s body was slowly lowered to the ground.  Barret caught her as she descended, gently laying her on the tarp below.

The sight of Tifa fully emerged was enough to return all of his remaining faculties.  Cloud pushed past Barret, running up to Tifa’s left side falling to one knee to crouch above her.  Panic gripped him as he watched her cough up the last bit of mako from her lungs, the thick, pungent liquid clinging to her skin and hair.

“Tifa!” he called to her softly.  He was at a loss of how else to help her.  His entire body was trembling with the desperate need to do something - and yet all he could do was sit there and stare at her, waiting achingly for her to open her eyes.

Mercifully, she slowly began to do just that - sputtering a bit more before she blinked up at him, her dark, ruby-red eyes glazed over, her pupils dilated.  She stared at him, her gaze distant.  Her lips parted as if to say something, but the WEAPON screamed behind him, tearing away her attention.

“Good luck down there,” he heard her whisper.

And then she was gone again, her eyes closed and her breathing mellowing.  Panic seized Cloud once more.  What if she had mako poisoning? What if the WEAPON had injured her internally? 

What if she died?  

Cloud touched her arm again, the sense of desperation and fear rising in him once more. He could not lose Tifa.  He could not let anything happen to her.

He wasn’t sure if he could ever forgive himself for putting her in this position as it were.  Suddenly, the memory of the way he’d nearly killed her assailed his senses, and Cloud wobbled, falling forward and clutching his head in one hand while the other continued to squeeze Tifa’s arm.  The mako cooled her skin to the point that it almost felt unnatural, and Cloud badly wanted to lift her into his arms and hold her tight, to give her all of his strength and his warmth.

But he didn’t.  He didn’t deserve to.

Barret came around then, leveling his eyes at Cloud before glancing at Tifa.  

“I sent Red and the girls to bring the chocobos around,” he said gruffly.  It was then that he realized the others had all left except Cait Sith, who was covering the exit while they waited.  You think you can make it back without collapsing again?”

Cloud looked up at him.  There was no real suspicion behind his words, rather just deep concern.  He wondered then if Barret and the others had seen him push Tifa from the platform above.  Glancing behind him, he realized that from their vantage point, they would have only seen her after she’d fallen in.

He swallowed thickly. “I got it,” he answered, not wanting to say anything further.  “I’ll carry her outside.”

Barret put his good hand on his hip.  “You sure about that?”

Cloud decided to ignore him, focusing all of his energy on bending down to gently scoop Tifa up into his arms.  He was still feeling dizzy and lightheaded from all of the mako fumes, and the oppressive jungle heat wasn’t making it any easier to keep his head or his balance steady.  Despite that, though, he had to hold it together for her.

If he couldn’t help Tifa now - especially after what he had just done - then he would know for sure that he didn’t deserve her.

He lifted her into his arms, cradling her close against his chest.  She felt heavier than he remembered her to be, and he realized it was because of the weight of the mako in her clothes and skin.  She moaned slightly, leaning into him and curling her head against his chest. The unconscious gesture of trust and affection squeezed his heart, and he hoisted her up closer to his chest and held her tighter.

“I got it,” he reaffirmed gruffly to Barret.

It was well after dark when they finally returned to Gongaga Village.   The chocobos that the girls had brought with them made the trek back across the jungle faster, but as night approached, fiend sightings increased and they’d had to stop several times to dispatch them in battle.  It made Cloud all the more weary as they traversed the humidity of the jungle, but once they put space between them and the reactor, he felt his head begin to clear.

The guilt of what he’d done to Tifa in the reactor began to dogpile on his conscience and his heart.  The hold he maintained on his sanity seemed ever more precarious, and he wasn’t sure of how he’d keep his grasp on it any longer.  Not if he could so easily be turned against the one person who meant the most to him, the one whose very presence was the only thing keeping him glued together at this point.  Every time he replayed the events in his head, the first image he saw was that of Sephiroth - the sinister look in his eyes and the baleful words that he spoke before everything dissipated into mist.

How could he trust himself with her?  How could he trust himself with anyone?

Maybe he should just leave, abandon the party and pursue his vendetta with Sephiroth alone.  He knew that he was degrading.  It had been stuck in Cloud’s mind ever since President Shinra had mentioned it back in Midgar. But over the last few weeks, and especially the last few days… Cloud knew that it was only a matter of time before he fell apart completely.

He was no good to anybody… especially not to her.

But it was as he had that thought that Tifa stirred against him.  He’d seated her side-saddle in front of him, folding her gently inside of the shell of his body as he rode the chocobo back across the jungle, keeping her body close to his where he knew she would be safe as they crossed the uneven terrain.  He may not trust himself, but he didn’t trust anyone else either when it came to her.  Especially since it was his fuck up that had got her into this situation in the first place.

The streets had been vacated as most of the villagers had retreated to their homes for supper and to take it down for the evening’s rest.   Their party rode their chocobos as quietly as possible into town, depositing them at the nearby stable.  Cissnei met them halfway in the village square, carrying a torch to guide them through the now dark and deserted dirt streets.

Cloud carried Tifa as they followed Cissnei to her home, keeping his eyes averted from the rest of their team.  The mood of the group had sobered significantly, even as Cait Sith tried to provide directionless conversation as they made their way. Aerith peeked over at them, and every time he met the Cetra’s eyes, she smiled mischievously and then turned away.  Barret, on the other hand, watched him with the intensity of a hawk, or perhaps a worried father, waiting for him to make a wrong or dangerous move.  Cloud admitted that it made him unreasonably angry, but he bit his tongue and did his best to ignore the older man. 

Even Yuffie had quieted down by the time they made it to Cissnei’s house, though she was the first to loudly claim the couch as her own for the night.

The others hung back as Cissnei directed Cloud into the bedroom that she reserved for guests.  Her home was frequently used as a place for the weary militiaman in the village or the occasional traveler, and so she was no stranger to their need for convalescence.

When Barret and Aerith followed behind him, peering over his shoulder at the bedroom door, he turned to them both and shook his head.

“She needs to rest,” was all he said.

Aerith clasped her hands in front of her, nodding and stepping back.  Barret lingered for a moment longer, staring severely at Cloud before scratching the back of his head and then throwing his hand up.

“Alright,” he conceded.  But you better take care of her. And if she doesn’t wake up by morning, we’re blowing this backwater to find a place with real doctors.”

Cissnei made a clicking sound over her tongue, tossing an annoyed look over her shoulder.  She was fixing the lone bed in the room, turning down the covers.

“A little rest and she should be fine,” she said.  “If she was mako-poisoned, you’d know by now.  But even so, we have a great doctor in the village, so no need to worry.”

Cloud straightened his spine, walking into the bedroom and still holding Tifa close to his chest.  He turned back to Barret.

“ I got it, ” he affirmed for the third time.

Barret leveled another dark stare at him, but eventually relented, turning away and retreating into the living room.  Cloud turned to Cissnei, nodding at her in silent thanks before moving to place Tifa on the bed.

“Wait,” Cissnei stopped him, holding up a hand.  She shook her head, waves of bright red hair tumbling across her shoulders.  “She’s still quite damp, and covered in mako. She needs to be cleaned up a bit before you lay her down.”

Cloud blinked, looking at the bed before looking down at Tifa.  Her clothes had begun to dry, but her skin was slightly damp, the mako leaving a strange sheen across her skin.  He looked back at Cissnei, seeing her sympathetic but expectant look, her hands balanced on her hips.

“I, uh -”

“Hold on,” she said with a light sigh.  Cissnei was incredibly patient, but she was also curt and to the point.  It was evident that she had many responsibilities as a leader in this village and that she was used to helping others, but not without making sure they could help themselves. She disappeared into a small washroom in the back of the bedroom, returning with a stack of towels.  She laid one across the bed, then set the others off to the side. “You should clean her up before letting her rest for the night. Or I could go get one of the girls to help if you prefer.”

She waited for him to answer.  Cloud immediately felt a new sense of panic induced by the position he was put in. Clean up Tifa himself, or hand the responsibility off to Aerith or Yuffie.   Neither option was really palatable at the moment.  He was already working his nerves into a frenzy just carrying Tifa like this, but the thought of trusting himself to touch her and clean her up after what had happened earlier scared the hell out of him.  At the same time, though, he had no intention of getting Aerith or anyone else involved.

Tifa was his and it was his duty to take care of her, even if he didn’t deserve the honor anymore.  She was always there for him, even when he was on the brink of destruction.  He wasn’t about to give up that one piece of himself that he had left to anyone else.

Tifa held him together.  But it wasn’t just because she was kind and caring or because they had a long history together.  It was because she believed in him and it was because he promised her once, seven years ago, that he’d make that belief worthwhile.

If there was nothing else for him to hold on to, he still had to hold on to that.

“Thanks. I’ll take care of it.”

Cissnei nodded dutifully and left the room without another word, closing the door behind her with a telltale click. Cloud breathed out a sigh of relief, grateful for her lack of interrogation or intrusion.  She went on about her business without asking too many questions or offering too many unwanted opinions.  Something he somehow doubted the rest of his party would be able to do.

Tifa groaned slightly in his arms, shifting her weight against him.  Cloud refocused on the task at hand, carrying her quietly over to the bed and gently laying her across the towel Cissnei had laid out.  Once she was unburdened from his arms, she sighed softly, her head lolling to one side, eyes still closed.  Her breathing was gentle, no longer strained the way that it had been when she was sprawled out across the reactor floor. It calmed him greatly knowing that she was no longer in pain or distressed.  

But he still had to confront the matter at hand - cleaning her up sufficiently so that she could sleep in peace.  Part of him didn’t trust himself to touch her so intimately.  Worse, a greater part of him thought he had lost the right.  After they’d reunited, Cloud had slowly found he and Tifa closing a gulf between them that he hadn’t even realized had opened up after they separated all those years ago.  They didn’t remember or know each other as well as he thought, but it didn’t matter.  Every day was a happy exercise in growing together and getting to know one another better.  Their days spent fighting together and working odd jobs in Sector Seven were some of the best he’d had since defecting from Shinra, maybe even longer than that.  And even though things had become tense and strained with Tifa since they’d left Midgar, those moments never lasted long.  They always found a way to come back to each other, to share a moment that reaffirmed how much they meant to each other, even if neither of them had found a way to say it.

But after this?  Now, Cloud wasn’t so sure.  Maybe he was wrong about everything he felt and everything he’d thought Tifa had felt.  Maybe he was wrong about the moments they’d shared and their reunion and their relationship and their entire history together.  Maybe was wrong about being able to keep his promise.  

Maybe he was just wrong.

He was torn amid a war inside his mind and his heart over whether to prove himself worthy of Tifa or whether to abandon this entire endeavor.  Maybe he should just go and get Aerith or Yuffie.  Maybe he should tell Barret that he was leaving to find Sephiroth on his own.

Tifa moaned softly then, turning to face him.  Her eyes were still closed, but her brow furrowed as if in pain, or maybe deep thought.  Cloud froze, watching as her lips parted.

“Cloud… please…. I need you.”

The words were so softly whispered that if it weren’t for his enhanced hearing, he might not have heard them, even though she was only lying a foot away from where he stood.  But he heard her soft coos, felt them float inside of him and wrap their way around his heart, squeezing until he felt he couldn’t breathe.

“I’m right here,” he found himself replying, the softness in his voice that he only ever found himself using with her returning.  He knelt by the side of the bed, scanning Tifa from head to toe. She didn’t open her eyes, but her sounds subsided, signally she drifted back into the throes of sleep. Methodically, he untied the laces of her boots, slipping them off of her feet and sitting them on the floor by the bed.  While most of her clothing had begun to dry, her stockings were still damp and the last thing Cloud wanted was for her to catch cold because of the clingy wet material.

He blushed, his eyes searching the lengths of her shapely legs from narrow ankles and well-defined calves up to her thick and powerful thighs.  A new feeling of guilt overcame him as he felt the heat and shame of his impulsive thoughts corral themselves in his skull.  Tifa was his friend.  His childhood friend.  They may be close, but he had no right to think of her so impurely.

It couldn’t be helped, he knew.  Even so, his duty to care for her outweighed his personal desires and so he filed them away, concentrating on the movements of his hands as he carefully rolled each stocking down, and then laid them out to dry.  He held his breath the entire time, trying to ignore the way the tips of his leatherbound fingers brushed against her pliant and delicate skin.

Next was her armor.  Removing each piece of leather and iron was far less overwhelming than her stockings, but the intimacy of the act was still not lost on him.  His cheeks warmed as he undid each clasp and buckle and slid away each piece, gently rubbing the grooves and marks out of her skin that wearing her armor for hours and hours on end had left behind.  Her skin had reddened and chafed in some places, and it took everything in his power to resist kissing those bruised and damaged spots.

Gently laying her arms back down at her sides, Cloud picked up one of the downy folded towels Cissnei had left and carefully unfolded it.  She had dampened it with warm water, while the others in the stack were dry.

Tifa’s eyes remained closed as Cloud carefully began to first wipe down her clothes and then her skin, soaking up some of the excess mako with the hand towel.  His hand shook as he worked, but he swallowed back the fear and the inadequacy that tormented him and tried to concentrate on cleaning Tifa up.  She continued to doze, but groaned quietly in her sleep, occasionally lolling her head from one side to the other as he went.

Cloud held his breath as his eyes carefully studied her face and her body.  Even in this state, Tifa was pure perfection. In the years since they’d separated and twice reunited, she’d gone from the cute girl next door to a blossoming teenager to the kind of shapely and feminine woman that made a man want to settle down with property and plans for the future.  He’d never seen a woman who was as beautiful or divinely constructed as she was.  It was made even more enchanting to him by the fact that Tifa had put herself together this way all with hard work and sacrifice.  Every sinew and muscle was carefully crafted and trained, built under supple, pale skin that was so soft it had Cloud cursing his gloves.

Moving on to her hair, he didn’t dare take them off, though.  As much as he wanted to, he still didn’t feel that he had the right to touch her.  At least, not like that.

Gathering her thick tresses of hair in one hand, he ran the wet towel over her locks and squeezed out all of the mako he could, rinsing it out into the wash basin Cissnei had left.  Knowing Tifa, she would be dying for a shower when she woke up.

His gentle washdown would have to do for now, he surmised.  He cleaned her up as best he could, trying to keep his thoughts from drifting towards the constant edge of disquiet.  He smoothed out her long tresses of hair, untangling them carefully with his fingers and admiring the delicate strands of slick that he’d been enamored with since he was a child, dark slats of onyx in his hand.  How badly he wanted to lay with her head in his lap and run his fingers unbidden through that hair, touch it whenever and however he pleased.

Along with the rest of her.

He sighed that thought away and picked up one of the dry towels, gently dabbing at Tifa’s skin and hair to dry her off.  Once he had finished, he tossed all of the towels aside, reaching for the blankets at the foot of the bed to tuck her in, draping the covers across her body up to her shoulders.

“Cloud…?”

Her voice was a gentle and hushed whisper again, but looking up, Cloud realized that this time, Tifa’s eyes had fluttered open.  She was still lying back on the bed, those soulful crimson orbs peeking through wet lashes and searching his face.

His heart began to race as he looked down at her.  He hadn’t expected her to wake so soon and he hadn’t expected to have to face her after what had happened so soon, either.  He needed to buy himself time to gather his thoughts and explain his horrific actions.  He glanced back at the door in mild panic.

“I - I’ll get the others -”

“Cloud, do you remember what our parents told us?  That when a person died, their spirit would cross Mount Nibel?”

Cloud blinked at her words, a lump forming in his throat.  A memory pricked at the back of his mind, distant and hazy, a bridge swaying in the wind and a little girl with dark hair with her hand outstretched to him. 

He turned and ran back to her side, crouching by the side of the bed.

“Yeah,” he breathed in response.  “We all knew it was a story to scare us out of climbing the mountain.  You… believed it though.”

He wasn’t sure why his heart was racing or why he felt so suddenly suffocated by this shift in topic.  Tifa shook her head, laboriously pushing herself up.  She looked down at her body - her missing armor, her lack of stockings and shoes - and he saw her cheeks stain with warmth.  But she blinked through the glaze that coated her eyes, turning back to him.

“I didn’t… But I wanted so badly for it to be true.  I didn’t want to think my mom was just… gone.  And Emilio and the others…”

Cloud sat back on his knees, resting his hands on his thighs.  He looked down at them as Tifa continued, recounting that day from their childhood.  Like so many of his memories, it was all a blur to him.  Following behind Tifa from afar, hearing the voices of the other boys as they laughed and called her name.

Hanging on the edges of her life like he always did, too afraid and ashamed to get closer.

“I only knew what the others told me… didn’t even occur to me to question them.”

Cloud snapped his head back up at her then.  The lump in his throat tightened, a harsh sense of dread speeding the pace of his heart even further.  “What’d they tell you?”

Tifa looked away from him, down at her hands.  “They said… that you egged me on.”

Cloud felt his heart drop all the way to his stomach. He sat back, shaking his head and scoffing lightly, the dread twisting into anguish. 

Of course. 

 Tifa leaned in close to him then, blinking those bright scarlet eyes, the moonlight from the window overhead dancing across their glass surfaces.  “But now I know, that’s not what happened at all.  When the rest of them ran, you were there for me.”

 She smiled, resting her hand above her heart, sending beams of warmth into his chest where the trepidation and unease had crawled. “You stayed when I needed you most.  If that’s not a hero… then I don’t know what is.”

Cloud looked up into her eyes.  The word she used - hero - struck him like a lightning bolt.  His mind immediately drifted to the moment on the reactor catwalk just hours ago, to Tifa lifting the hem of her shirt, backing away from him, shaking her head and pleading with him until his blade sent her over the edge and into the mako below.

A knife tore through his gut, and Cloud started to push up to his feet, shaking his head.

“I’m no hero,” he choked.  “What kind of hero falls from a mountain with the person he’s trying to save?  And pushes them into a pool of mako?”

His throat tightened, tears threatening the corners of his eyes.  He turned away from her, staring down at his hands.  The leather and steel in front of him began to blur.

“Sometimes… I don’t even know who I am.  I forget things everyone else remembers just fine… and know things I’ve got no right knowing.  It’s like… I’ve got different people inside of me.  And the worst part is, I can’t even tell where they end and… I begin.”

She leaned forward, swinging her legs over the side of the bed.  “Go on.”

Cloud looked at her.  Her eyes were still glossy from her concussion, but she was staring at him with so much sincerity.  So much care and encouragement and conviction.  So much…

Love.

He had promised her he would spill his guts, didn’t he?  Maybe now was as good a time as any.

“SOLDIERs’ cells degrade.  I think that’s what’s happening to me.  That I’m… falling apart.”

“Cloud, come here.”

Cloud turned back to her.  He took another step closer, until he was almost standing between her knees by the side of the bed.  Tifa looked up at him, taking his hand in both of hers, wrapping them tight around his.  She squeezed, and he could feel all of her warmth transfer into him, sinking into his bones.

“That’s not going to happen to you.”

She pulled him down gently.  Cloud followed her unspoken direction, sinking back down to his knees, kneeling in front of her between her legs, the heat of her thighs caging his torso.  He was just slightly below eye level with her now, looking up into a somber but hopeful kaleidoscope of ruby red.

“You saved me before, now it’s my turn.”

Cloud tried to process her words.  What did she mean by that?  He searched her scarlet stare for a clue, but she pulled him in closer by his hand, his heart pounding its way up into his throat as he saw her eyelashes begin to flutter and her eyes slowly begin to close.

He barely had time to decipher what was happening before her lips were pressed to his.

Cloud froze, his hands beginning to tremble even as she held onto his tightly in her own.  Her lips were so soft and warm, quivering against his like butterfly wings, the lightest touch.  It was shy and tentative and unsure, sweet and pleasant, pure and innocent.

It set fire to his soul. 

In his mind, Cloud wasn’t sure how to react.  He couldn’t imagine why Tifa Lockhart would ever want to kiss him.  Not after he failed her on the mountain and not after he failed her in Nibelheim.  Not after he let her down in Kalm.  Not after he almost killed her hours ago in that reactor.

How could she want to be close to him like this?  How could she want him?  

How could she love him?

But while his mind warred and tormented itself, his body acted on its own, guided by the emotions that swirled inside of his heart.  Somewhere deep inside of him, a voice was crying at him to act.  And for whatever reason, his body couldn’t ignore that voice.

He released her hand and wrapped his arms around her back and shoulders, pulling her into a tight embrace.  The feeling of her small frame and soft breasts against his body brought back memories of the night they’d shared in Aerith’s garden in Midgar, the night when he’d felt closer to her than he’d ever felt before in his life.  He squeezed her tighter, gapping his lips to encourage their kiss to deepen.  It was the first time he’d ever shared a moment with a woman like this and to be blessed to share it with Tifa was enough to mend the cracks that had been worn across his soul.

He wasn’t sure how long they kissed.  Neither of them pushed it past the connection of their lips and the barest brush of their tongues. Tifa moaned and looped her arms around him too, holding him tight.  He held her closer and the tears that had welled in his eyes finally began to fall.

When she pulled away to breathe, it was hell to let her go.

She licked her lips, blushing brightly as she looked up at him with a smile.  She reached up, brushing her thumb across his cheeks, flicking away the tears that ran under his eyes.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Cloud was flabbergasted.  “I should be thanking you,” he ventured, shaking his head in disbelief.

Tifa dipped her head in that adorably deferential way he’d seen her do time and time again, still holding a hint of her smile.  She pulled her legs back away from him, climbing back onto the bed and crawling under the blankets again.

“My head is feeling really heavy again,” she muttered.  He could see the glassiness in her eyes and the hazy look infecting her features.  “ Your kisses must be dangerous.  Gonna go back to sleep now.”

Cloud chuckled softly, a smile of his own stretching his jaw almost painfully when Tifa giggled teasingly at him.  

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he teased back.

She laid back, resting her head on her pillow and closing her eyes. “Night, Cloud.”

“Goodnight, Tifa.”

He tucked her in with the covers, then took a seat in the lone chair in the room, watching as she fell asleep again, her breathing even and calm.  It was well after midnight and the quiet in the rest of the house told him that the others had settled and taken it down, too.

Glancing over at Tifa, he knew that she still hadn’t completely recovered and that she needed to rest.  He hoped she’d be okay by morning, knowing that their enemy was still out there and that their time for reprieve was short.

Touching his lips with his fingertips, remembering the gentleness of her kiss just moments ago and watching her sleep, Cloud knew was going nowhere until she was okay. 

She would always be his priority.

Light poked at the corners of her eyes, pulling her back into awareness.  She felt as if she had slept for years, and yet somehow, she also felt as if she could simply turn over and fall right back into a deep slumber once again.

A red band of pain attached itself to her forehead as she came to.  Quietly, she blinked through it, staring up at the ceiling.  It was brown clay, bright green lianas crawling across the walls where the vined plants seemed to be embedded into the infrastructure.  The air was thick but slightly cool from the shaded windows, shielding from the tropical environment outside that the building was sturdily built against.

Her limbs felt heavy.  She leaned upwards, fighting against the lingering fatigue as she struggled to fully awaken.  Every time she blinked, her memory pulsed with images that were tinged in turquoise and green - a water tower and a mountain bridge, a little boy with bright blue eyes and wild blond hair.

“Who…?”

“Tifa?”  

She looked up at the sound of the voice.  A man sat across from her bed in a wooden chair, his hands crossed over his knees. Like the boy in her dreams, he was blond-haired and blue-eyed. But he was no boy. He was a man, handsome and muscular and serious, with perhaps the most intense look in his eyes she’d ever seen. He stared at her acutely, his eyes glowing in a way that was both familiar and foreign.

She blinked.  There was a look of longing in his eyes that she couldn’t place.  He got to his feet and crossed the room to her, crouching by her bed.

“Tifa,” he tried again. “You’re awake.  How are you feeling?”

She inhaled a breath.  Tifa. Why did that name mean nothing to her?  Who was this handsome stranger, staring at her with wildness and concern in his eyes, kneeling by her bedside with his gloved hand dangerously close to her thigh?  Where was she, and why was she lying here like this?  Why did everything hurt?

Who was she?

That last thought filled her with sudden and immeasurable confusion and fright.  She struggled to sit up fully, pulling her knees in close to her body.  She was scantily clad in a leather tennis skirt and cotton tank tops, and she suddenly felt very vulnerable and exposed, alone with this strange man in the room.  The realization terrified her.

She looked at him, pulling the blankets closer around her.  “…who are you?”

The man winced and pulled back slightly, looking as if he’d been struck.  Or worse.  He cocked his head to the side, staring at her with mouth agape as if he didn’t understand her words.  But she stared back at him, waiting patiently for an answer and growing all the more afraid when he didn’t provide one.

“Tifa…” he whispered.  His eyes softened and she could tell he was doing his best to be patient with her.  But she couldn’t remember anything.  All she could remember was a familiarity about him, his warmth and his scent, that hair and the faded blue behind the glow in his eyes.

But it connected to nothing, and it scared her.

“Tifa, it’s me.  Cloud.   You… you really don’t remember me?  What about last night?”

He looked just as scared as she felt now.  She shook her head, not knowing how to answer without making the situation worse.  She was lost and confused and afraid, but she was suddenly guilty for how she was making this stranger feel.

Why couldn’t she remember?  What had happened to her?

Who was she?

“Tifa…” she repeated slowly, sounding the name out between her lips.  It resonated in her mind, and she thought she could hear it echo somewhere in her distant memory, a woman’s soft voice calling out to her.  But once again, the connection remained severed.  “Is that… is that my name?”

The man - Cloud - bowed his head, closing his eyes and swearing quietly under his breath.  He clenched both his hands into tight fists on the bed, wrinkling the sheets.  His soft blond hair fell into his eyes and brushed the sides of his boyish cheeks, and Tifa didn’t understand the compulsion she felt in her limbs to reach out and touch.

His reaction was gut-wrenching, and she hated that she was the one who was causing it.  But she couldn’t do anything about it, and perhaps, that was the worst thing of all.

She simply didn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” she found herself suddenly apologizing.  “I just… I don’t...”

Her voice broke and she started to cry into her hands.  They were silent but ugly and terrified tears, and the man in front of her finally looked up, his blue-green eyes widening at the sound of her sniffles and sobs.  He suddenly latched onto her wrists, the coolness of his leather and steel gloves shocking her as he gently pulled her hands away from her face.

“Hey,” he bade her softly.  “Don’t cry, Tifa.  It’s gonna be okay. Just… tell me what you remember.”

She swallowed back another sob, choking on it as she tried to stifle the weepy sounds escaping her throat.  She felt the hot tears run down her cheeks, the horror unfurling and then tightening like a fist in her belly as she searched her memories but found nothing but broken fragments dipped in green, all faceless and nameless and disconnected from one another.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated, shaking her head so that the tears rolled off of her cheeks and spilled onto the thumbs of his gloves. Seeing how tightly he held onto her suddenly scared her, and she pulled away abruptly, scooting back from him on the bed.

She didn’t miss the hurt that flashed across his face or the pain in his eyes when he looked down at his now empty hands, didn’t miss the way their corners glossed over with tears of his own.  But she didn’t know what to do.

She didn’t know him.

“I don’t… I don’t remember anything.”

Chapter Text

Chapter Two - Unfamiliar 

I don’t remember anything.

Cloud leaned back against the door of Cissnei’s guest bedroom, his heart running laps around his ribcage, his arms crossed over his chest in an attempt to calm the erratic thumping.  The house was quiet, pale, early strands of dawn’s sunlight slowly beginning to leak in through the windows.  It was still dark inside, but with his enhanced eyesight, Cloud could see the others where they lay in various positions across the couches and pullout beds in Cissnei’s living room, still asleep and oblivious to the peril he found himself in.

He took a deep breath, feeling the sharp lump that had formed in the back of his throat. On the other side of the door, Tifa was inside the guest bedroom, sitting up in the bed where he’d left her.  Her wide vermilion eyes were still imprinted in his vision, their dim lack of recognition staring back at him when he approached her, crouching by her side once again.

Cloud didn’t know what was seared to his memory more - the look of complete unfamiliarity she’d just given him, or the sweet, soul-crushing kiss she’d pressed to his lips only hours before in the dead of night.

He closed his eyes and tried to center himself, wondering if perhaps that kiss had been a figment of his own fucked-up imagination.  There had to be a reasonable explanation for Tifa’s sudden memory loss.  When she’d awoken in the middle of the night, she’d been fine as far as he could see.  A little dizzy and off-kilter, but that was to be expected after a major fall and a likely concussion.  But she hadn’t looked at him with complete confusion and she hadn’t forgotten everything that had come before, things as basic as her name or what had happened hours ago or who he was or who they were to each other.

That was what frightened the hell out of him more than anything, Cloud realized as he puffed out a breath.  It was the loss of familiarity that was special between them, the closeness that had grown and developed ever since they’d reconnected in distant Midgar.  It seemed as if it were all suddenly gone, evaporated with the banishing tendrils of Tifa’s memory.

How could that be?

Clutching his head, Cloud ruminated again that he was the one who was supposed to be all fucked up.  He couldn’t even imagine how he would manage to survive with Tifa’s memory in shambles, too.

A creak in the floorboards alerted him to Cissnei’s approach long before she drew near. Begrudgingly, he looked up, straightening his spine.

Her eyebrow immediately raised when she landed eyes on Cloud. “What’s going on?”

The redhead placed her hands on her hips, watching Cloud with intense scrutiny. It only took one look at him for her to realize that something was terribly wrong.

He tried to maintain his composure, pushing away from the bedroom door and flexing his hands into tight fists. “She’s awake,” he replied evenly, narrowing his eyes as she approached. “But… she’s… she’s….”

Cloud realized that his voice was trembling and that it was barely audible over the wild murmuring of his own heart.  He could feel the frenzied rush of his blood swelling in his veins, his entire body pressurizing with fear and anxiety as he thought about the woman who sat on the bed, stilled and stunned, on the other side of that door.  His mind briefly flashed back to the moment his awareness returned to him in the reactor, when he stared down into the pool of mako at the pit of the basin and realized that he may have killed her.

He knew now that he hadn’t, the memory of Tifa’s kiss still light on his lips.  But what he may have done instead might have been almost as horrific.

“Cloud,” Cissnei interjected softly.  Her hand was suddenly on his arm, and she was staring at him with concern in her dark brown eyes.  He realized as he looked up at her that his eyes had misted over.

“What happened?” Cissnei asked directly, leveling her gaze at him.  “Is Tifa okay, Cloud?”

He blinked back the tears and averted his gaze, stepping away from the door to make room for Cissnei to enter and to deflect from the way that he was crumbling. 

“She doesn’t remember anything,” he replied evenly.

Cissnei narrowed her eyes and entered the bedroom, leaving the door cracked open for him to follow.  But Cloud found that he couldn’t. The shame and the guilt were beginning to gnaw at him again, and the thought of being faced with Tifa’s hollowed expression and empty stare made him feel sick, his stomach lurching and reaching the base of his throat.

He heard the soft confusion of her voice from inside the bedroom when Cissnei greeted her, and the sudden suffocation he felt was almost unbearable, hot waves of an impending panic attack beginning to fan over him.  Pushing away from the doorframe, Cloud stalked through the living room, passing the still-sleeping forms of Yuffie, Barret, and Red XIII.  Aerith was nowhere to be seen.

Not that it phased Cloud.  He didn’t even notice.  He simply needed to breathe.

He left the house, stepping onto the patchy grass out front and looking around at the slowly awakening village.  Dawn was opening up into full daybreak, the sun rising higher and higher over the jungles and casting the heavily shaded village with long shadows.  People were beginning to mill about the nearby roads, toiling to start their days as they lugged over-filled carts and roughly worn parcels about, the village slowly stirring to life.  Cloud watched as they went, clenching his hands into fists as he breathed in the heavy humidity of the air and tried to ground himself.

Waking up in Midgar had been brutal for Cloud.  He had been stumbling through a blurred lack of awareness and a blank slate of memories, and things were only seeming to get worse as time wore on.  The only thing that kept him glued together as he continued to degrade and his memories scattered out of reach like the leaves on these tropical trees was Tifa.

And now… not only had the sickness infecting his mind led him to hurt Tifa, but his behavior had damaged her so badly that she had forgotten everything.

A fitting punishment, a clawing voice in his mind reminded him.  He didn’t deserve her and now he had proved it so thoroughly that he’d inadvertently evaporated himself from her mind along with all of her other memories.  It was like everything that he had ever known of himself and who he was had been burned to ash, blown away to be left with nothing but the burnt remains and rubble of her ashen stare as she turned up to him with no recognition whatsoever.

That was perhaps the most painful aspect of all of this.  To stand in front of Tifa - the woman who occupied every cell of his body in some way, who propelled his heart to continue beating, who declared to him she would be there to save him when he would inevitably need her - and no longer be seen by her was more crushing a blow than any her fists could have dealt him.

That she had pressed her lips to his just hours ago as she made that vow only worsened the horror and the devastation he now felt, his lips tingling with the sad memory.

His stomach was beginning to churn with bile again when he noticed a familiar figure approaching from over the hill that led to the public memorial for the reactor explosion. He narrowed his eyes against the rising sunlight, Aerith’s form emerging from the blinding hue of colors as she stepped into the shade and walked with hands clasped in front of her toward the house.

Cloud felt his heart sink.  The last thing he wanted to do was get roped into an awkward and uncomfortable conversation with Aerith that would likely include teasing and unwanted advice.  His chest was tight with frustration over Tifa’s condition and he didn’t think he had the patience to entertain the florist’s overly cheerful disposition so early on a miserable morning like this.  But there was no avoiding her, not with her green eyes flashing when she made eye contact with him.

“Good morning,” she greeted, switching her hands behind her back as she leaned forward.  “You’re up early.  Tifa awake yet?”

“Morning,” he replied gruffly.  The mention of Tifa’s name had pinpricks of fear stabbing through him again, and he glanced back at the house, trying to will the burn out of his eyes. He pointedly ignored her query. “I could say the same of you.”

Aerith glanced back the way she came, then turned to him with a shrug.  “I just wanted to go for a walk.”  She leaned in closer, peering up at him in a way that made him feel uncomfortably unmasked.  “So… Tifa ?”

Cloud crossed his arms over his chest, deliberately avoiding looking Aerith in the face.  “She’s awake,” he said plainly.  “But… she’s not doing too well.”

This alarmed Aerith, because she straightened her spine and placed her hands on her hips.  “What’s wrong?” she asked.  “I could have sworn she was fine late last night.  We could hear you two talking, you know.”

Cloud could not stop the mad way that his cheeks brightened at that, and he tightened his jaw, looking down the road and away from Aerith in an effort to avoid reacting to her insinuation.  “She’s lost her memory,” he finally replied.  “Doesn’t remember anything before she woke up.  Cissnei… Cissnei is talking to her now.”

Cloud bit his tongue. Just the thought of what was happening to Tifa was beginning to stir the sour feeling in his gut again.  He more he spoke on it, the more real it became.  Aerith looked at him pensively, not speaking for a long moment before she leaned back and sighed quietly.

“I guess that isn’t too surprising, after what happened,” she said softly. “But I’m sure she’s going to be fine, Cloud!  I’ll go check on her.  I’m a healer, after all.  Coming with?”

She started for the front door, heading back inside with a glance over her shoulder. But Cloud stood rooted in place, dropping his hands into his pockets.

“You go ahead,” he finally responded, setting his stare blankly on the foreboding reactor in the distance.  The place where everything had collapsed and crumbled to dust.

Aerith clicked her tongue, then took a step back towards him, getting entirely too close to his personal space.  He leaned back to avoid the starkness of her emerald-green stare.

“I know you’re beating yourself up,” she told him sagely.  “But I wish you wouldn’t.  It’s not your fault.  You have to know that Tifa doesn’t blame you.  Don’t you?”

She turned without waiting for a response, disappearing into the house without another word and leaving him alone to brood in the sunlight, watching villagers come and go and watching vultures and aerial fiends circle the reactor in the distance.

Perhaps Aerith was right, he thought.  Maybe Tifa didn’t blame him and maybe she didn’t hate him for what he’d done.

No, it was worse.

She’d forgotten him.

Tifa’s head continued to pound as she sat up in bed and looked around the room, trying to orient herself to the new circumstances she found herself in.  Her body felt foreign and strange, like she was inhabiting a skin that wasn’t hers.  At the same time, though, there was a strange familiarity in her limbs as she stretched her hands out in front of her and glanced down at her bare feet.

She stared at the door in silence and mild terror when the handsome stranger named Cloud finally left her alone.  She was ceaselessly haunted by his appearance, and not because he had been hovering contemplatively by her bedside for what she could only assume was the entire night. There had been a wild, naked look in his eyes, eyes that were the color of Costan seas and undergirded by an otherworldly and unnatural glow.  Even though she couldn’t place it, she knew that glow meant something, and for some reason, it filled her with a strange sense of foreboding.

But he was beautiful.  His skin was so clear and soft-looking it was almost difficult to believe it belonged to a man, and there was a boyish prettiness in his features that made her feel an unexpected warmth.  His hair was messy and golden blonde, his body well-defined and muscular.

She blushed as she ruminated over it, heat pooling in her belly as she thought about how he looked at her, how he nearly leaped across the room to be at her side, such tenderness burning through his stare.

Who was she to him?

Who was he to her?

She pushed that thought away for now because the many ideas that careened into her brain left her feeling flustered and confused.  Instead, she focused on herself, rubbing her temples with the pads of her fingers and combing her fingers through her thick hair.

The first thing she did when Cloud left her alone was carefully climb out of bed and cross the room to face the mirror above the dresser.  She approached it tentatively, as if afraid of what she might discover.  The truth was, she had no idea what to expect and that scared her, her heart thundering as she crept barefoot across the room.

She heaved out a sigh when she encountered her reflection in the mirror.  Pale skin and soft, rounded cheeks framed a pleasant face, one that flooded Tifa with the sudden recognition of self that she had been searching for.  Wine-colored eyes that were wide and almond-shaped, inky black hair that reached past her hips.  A svelte but well-endowed, athletic figure that, as she turned to investigate each curve of it, was as feminine as it was sturdy and strong.

Tifa.

Staring at her reflection helped surge her recollection of herself. For some reason, odd, sensory memories floated to the surface.  The sore, tight feeling of muscles after intense training. The soft, supple leather of tennis skirts and fighting gloves.  Bloodied knuckles and calloused palms, the sickly sweet smell of spilled alcohol and bleach as she cleaned up floors on her hands and knees.

The sound of men’s voices as they cat-called, the lechery in their eyes as they stared.

A little blond boy who watched her from a distance but never approached.

Beautiful.

His voice - as smooth and rich as the red drink he held up in front of her.

She blinked at her reflection and then turned away.  That was Tifa - a beautiful girl who trained her body hard and earned a lot of attention for it, nearly all of it unwanted.

But some …

She glanced back at the door, wondering again who Cloud was to her.

She sighed and turned back to stare in the mirror for a little while longer, letting the disjointed memories float around her as she tried to rearrange them back into place.  She was falling into further confusion when there was a knock at the door before it slowly crept open.

She turned, watching as a woman with deep red hair entered the room.  She was dressed like a warrior, Tifa surmised, eyeing her up and down, and the thought instantly raised her guard. There was a familiar compulsion to lift her fists protectively in front of her body. She turned and leaned against the dresser instead, balling her hands up, waiting and watching carefully as the woman entered the room.

“Tifa?” she entreated.

Tifa stood up a little straighter, glancing back at her. She swallowed carefully.

“Yes...”

The woman eyed her, then stepped into the room, leaving the door ajar.  Tifa glanced behind her, looking for Cloud, but saw no sign of him, the corridor beyond empty.

“I spoke to Cloud,” the woman continued, keeping a safe distance from across the room. “He’s worried.  Tifa - do you remember anything? Do you remember me?”

Tifa blinked, staring at her. The woman was unfamiliar to her.  She was pretty and pleasant enough, but Tifa couldn’t recall ever laying eyes on her.

“I’m sorry, no,” she answered truthfully.

The woman was careful not to let her face betray her thoughts, simply nodding in response.  “I’m Cissnei,” she responded.  “This is my house, here in the village of Gongaga.”

She paused, watching Tifa carefully to see if her words registered any meaning to her.  And while the name Gongaga stirred an awareness in her, she knew nothing of it.

She simply waited for Cissnei to continue.

Seeing her lack of reaction, Cissnei took a step closer.  “I met you for the first time yesterday when you came to the village with your friends.  There was… an accident at the reactor, and you were hurt.  Do you remember any of that?”

Tifa stared at Cissnei, letting her words sink in.  

Accident…

Reactor …

Friends …

Cloud.  Was he her friend?  Or was he something more? 

Why did he look at her like she was something more?

“No,” she answered, shaking her head again.  “I’m sorry.  What friends?  What accident?”

Cissnei was incredibly patient.  “The blond man, Cloud, and the others who came here with you.  There’s seven of you, including a… dog and a cat.”

Tifa blinked. “And… you said there was an accident?”

Cissnei exhaled.  “There were some disturbances at the old mako reactor here, and Shinra showed up.  Somehow, with everything going on, you fell into the mako basin and had an encounter with a WEAPON.”

“A WEAPON?” Tifa repeated, incredulous.

Cissnei nodded.  “From what the others shared… it swallowed you.  And then brought you back.  You don’t seem to be suffering from any adverse effects of the mako, but it would seem this accident has impacted your memory.”

Tifa stared, digesting this new information.  None of it meant much of anything to her, and no real familiarity was stirred.  But it frightened her deeply to think that she had fallen into mako and was swallowed by a WEAPON of all things.  And even more strange to her was the fact that the concepts of mako and WEAPON and Shinra were familiar to her, although distant and unclear. Thinking about all of this made the ache in her skull begin to pound again, and Tifa sauntered over to the bed, lowering herself to sit.

“Are you alright?” Cissnei asked in a light voice, leaning over to scrutinize her.

Tifa nodded, taking in a deep breath.  “I’m okay,” she responded.  “This is just… a lot to take in.  My head hurts, and I’m not sure what I should do next.  I don’t remember any of these things.”

She was surprised by the rise of panic in her voice, and she swallowed thickly.  Cissnei took a step forward and bent down, looking her closely in the face and scanning her over.

 "It's okay. Memory loss can be disorienting, and I’m sure there’s a good reason for what’s happening.  And… I am sure it won’t be permanent.  But I do think we need to have the village doctor take a look at you, just to rule out any long-lasting effects of the mako or other injuries.  Would that be okay?”

Tifa nodded slowly, the weight of the unknown pressing down on her shoulders. She felt lost in a labyrinth of forgotten moments and unfamiliar faces, desperately grasping for a thread of recognition to guide her way back to herself. 

“She doesn’t have the most pleasant bedside manner, but she knows her stuff,” Cissnei said, straightening up again.  “I’ll be back in a bit.”

The young militawoman backed up, turning to leave.  She reached the door, taking the handle in hand before turning back to glance at Tifa.  “Cloud is really worried about you,” she said softly.  “I don’t think he slept a wink last night.  Maybe if you talk to him, it’ll jog your memory some.”

Tifa just stared, offering Cissnei a blank look.  Her thoughts drifted again to Cloud, to his bright blue eyes and soft, doleful expression that made her think of breezy mountain air and cottages made of wood.

She wasn’t sure if she could talk to him.

As Cissnei opened the door, Tifa was surprised to see another woman standing in its frame.  She was young and pretty, light brown hair framing her face and tied into a braid trailing her back, a pink linen dress and red military jacket an uncoordinated clash with her muddied combat boots.  But it was her eyes that stood out to Tifa - bright green orbs that lit up when she locked sight on her.

“Tifa!” she exclaimed, pushing her way into the room.  Cissnei narrowed her eyes, staring at her sharply. The woman paused, realizing her intrusion, then stopped to glance back and forth between them.

“Sorry,” she apologized sheepishly.  Her voice was bright and high-pitched, almost shrill. “I couldn’t help but overhear what was going on.  I’m a healer.  While you get the doctor, can I take a look?”

Cissnei glanced back at Tifa, giving her a look as if waiting for her consent.  Tifa stared back at both women, finally turning back to the green-eyed girl.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “Who are you?”

The girl giggled, shaking her head back and forth.  

“This is Aerith,” Cissnei answered for her.  “One of your friends who came here with you.”

“You really don’t remember?” Aerith chided playfully.  She stepped closer to the bed, leaning forward over Tifa. “I’m Aerith, silly.  Just like, just your best friend.”

She moved her face close to Tifa’s, blinking as she smiled at her. Nervously, Tifa laughed and slid back on the bed, offering her a smile in return.

“Okay… Aerith.”

Aerith sat on the bed uninvited, right beside her.  “Is it okay if I take a look while you wait for the medic?  I might be able to help.”

Her smile was warm and genuine.  She reached a slender hand forward, the colorful metallic bangles on her wrists knocking together and sliding down her arm.

Tifa nodded, reaching out her hand and placing it in Aerith’s.  She wasn’t sure why, but there was a geniality that she felt in the girl that told her she could trust her, if even just a little bit.

At that point, Cissnei nodded dutifully and left the room, leaving them alone.  Aerith held Tifa’s hand in both of hers, closing her eyes and murmuring something quietly between her lips.

Tifa watched her, studying her face. There was something very odd - different - about this Aerith girl.  It wasn’t just in the way she spoke and her strange mannerisms, but something greater than that. Tifa wasn’t quite sure how to read it.

After a moment, Aerith opened her eyes, frowning slightly.

“What is it?” Tifa asked.

Aerith squeezed her hand and then gently laid it down on the bed.  “You seem to be just fine, overall,” she answered.  “Healthy as can be, for someone who just had such an accident. A little concussed. But…”

Aerith frowned, pausing for a moment to ponder her next words.  Tifa tipped her head to the side, waiting patiently but also badly wanting answers.  The more time went on with her lack of memory, the more confused and desperate she became, feeling as if she were drowning.

“It’s nothing,” Aerith said hurriedly, looking back into Tifa’s eyes.  “I’m just really glad you’re okay.  I’ll cast a cure spell to help with the headaches, okay?”

Tifa nodded, not really sure that she believed Aerith’s response.  But she sat there quietly, closing her eyes as the woman cast her spell.  Pleasant waves of warmth washed over her, basking her in a soothing green glow.  But as she opened her eyes, she noticed that Aerith didn’t seem to have any materia on her.

“How did you do that?” she asked. She blinked, feeling the raw edges of pain around her temples ebb away as the magic wove its way into her blood and sinew.  “Don’t you need…?”

“Materia?” Aerith shook her head.  She leaned close again, and Tifa noted that this was a gesture she seemed fond of. She held her finger up to her lips. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m an Ancient.”

Tifa blinked.  Strange, distant memories floated in the back of her mind, but like everything else that clung to her, they were disjointed.  “An Ancient?”

Aerith waved her hand in the air.  “We can talk about that later,” she insisted.  “Did you talk with Cloud, Tifa?”

The reminder of Cloud had Tifa’s heart beginning to race again, and she didn’t know why.  She suddenly felt very vulnerable and awkward and maybe even shy, and she turned away from Aerith slightly, tucking her hair behind her ear.

“He stopped by for a little while,” she answered.  

“And?”

Aerith kept staring at her - hard - and Tifa found that she couldn’t help but look back up at her.

“Aerith,” Tifa began.  “What - what is my relationship with Cloud?”

Aerith almost looked taken aback by the forwardness of the question.  But then she smiled, almost ruefully, turning away to look at the ceiling.

“He’s someone special to you,” she answered. “You guys grew up together, go waaayyy back. Like, cradles and diapers back.”

Tifa found herself blushing at this information, finding it somewhat unexpected.  But it didn’t really answer the question.  “So… we’re just friends?”

Aerith wrinkled her nose, then looked down at her hands in her lap, clasping them together.  “It might be a bit more complicated than that.  But it really isn’t my business, Tifa.  I just met you guys a couple of weeks ago, back in Midgar.  And Cloud, well…”

She paused, letting the words die on her tongue, the unfinished sentiment hanging in the air between them.  Tifa wanted to press her to finish her thought, but found herself too worried and uncertain to push the matter.  She wondered if she was always this hesitant and complacent in difficult situations.

Aerith turned back to Tifa, and it seemed that a certain sadness had crept into her stare that Tifa wasn’t sure she understood.  But she filed it away from now, feeling her own discomfort rise as Aerith shared more information that made Tifa realize just how much she had lost.

Sensing the awkward lapse in the conversation, Aerith sat up straight again.  “Tifa, you really should talk to Cloud about it.  About everything, I mean.  He cares a lot about you, I can tell you that much.  And if anyone can help you remember, it’s him.  He’s a little moody, but he’ll talk to you.”

Tifa gazed at her, trying to figure out what to say or even think.  Everything was becoming overwhelming now, and the weight of her circumstances was truly beginning to sink in.  

Cloud may have cared about her, but he was unfamiliar to her.  Everything was. And she wasn’t sure she knew how she could let anyone in to see her broken parts and try to piece them back together, much less him, a boy who seemed to have attached himself to her in a way that the girl sitting in front of her was reluctant to voice.  

Before she could respond, the door opened again, Cissnei appearing with a stout, middle-aged woman dressed in a drab healer’s frock in tow.  The medic, she assumed.

And right behind them stood Cloud, his blue eyes wild, their whites red as if from tears.

“It’s post-traumatic amnesia,” Dr. Whitaker, the medic, announced, stepping away from the bed where Tifa sat. “There’s no blunt-force trauma, and with the equipment I have, I can’t detect any significant swelling on the brain. But you are quite concussed. And it would just seem that the fall into mako somehow caused a loss in long-term and short-term memory.  I would say that, considering how most people make out when coming into contact with mako, this is a rather mild reaction.”

Cloud had stubbornly refused to leave Tifa’s room when the medic arrived.  His mood had been swinging wildly since Tifa woke up that morning and his lack of sleep certainly wasn’t helping things. Aerith’s little pep talk had only made him more anxious, and by the time Cissnei arrived with the medic, his nerves were so badly frayed that he couldn’t stop himself from storming into the bedroom behind them and slamming the door in Yuffie and Barret’s faces.

Cloud glanced at Tifa, finding her staring down at her hands folded in her lap.  Her entire body seemed to be caving in on itself.  She was meeker and more reserved than he’d ever seen her, and he could feel himself crumbling with desperation at the thought that she might be withdrawing even further away from him.

“Mild reaction?” Cloud repeated.  “She doesn’t remember anything!”

Dr. Whitaker appeared nonplussed by his harsh reaction.  She began to gather her stethoscope and medical supplies, packing them back up into the satchel that she had brought them in.

“I know it seems dire now,” she said, leveling her eyes at Tifa and ignoring him.  “But the truth is, these things are usually temporary.  You seem quite healthy and in good shape, aside from the concussion.  Now, you can run and see a fancy Shinra doctor in the city if you want, but in the end, you’ll be spending a whole lotta money for them to tell you the same things I just did.”

Cloud turned to Tifa, watching the stress and turmoil roil across her face.  She kept her gaze downward, shaking her head from side to side gently as she mulled over what the medic was saying.

All of this was fucked, Cloud thought.  The entire situation was a disaster, but the fact that he wanted so badly to fall to his knees in front of Tifa and take her into his arms but couldn’t was wrecking him.

“I understand,” Tifa finally agreed, her voice as soft as Nibelheim’s morning breeze.  Cloud felt his heart sink.

Dr. Whitaker turned to him, pursing her thin lips so that the crow’s feet in her ruddy skin stretched and pulled.  “You, or whoever is closest to her, needs to spend some time talking to her about her past.  Memories, things about herself she should remember. Could be something that happened ten days ago or ten years ago.  The sooner, the better.  And I advise you to cool it with any strenuous physical activity for at least a few days and get plenty of rest. After a concussion, the brain and the body both need to decompress for a while, so avoid any unnecessary travel, activities that require too much fine or gross motor skills and concentration, or undue stressors.  You may be healthy, but you still had a nasty fall into mako and we don’t want you relapsing, especially while you’re dealing with so much memory loss.”

Tifa nodded, tucking her feet under her on the bed.  The medic left, having nothing more to do or say, escorted out by Cissnei.

Cloud turned to her, finding her expression strained as she leaned over the bedside table and began to reach for her gloves and armor.  Cloud could see the growing determination and quiet rage underpinning her features, knowing that Tifa - his Tifa - was tapping into her sense of busyness and utility to avoid the difficult situation she was faced with.

His heart shattered at the sight of it.

“Tifa, you don’t have to -”

His clumsy words were cut off when Barret thundered into the room, followed in short order by Yuffie, Cait Sith, and Aerith.  Red was at the group’s heels, squatting on his haunches by the door.

The moderately sized bedroom was now woefully overcrowded, and Cloud resisted the urge to swear, clenching his hands into tight fists and then crossing his arms over his chest as he stared at the group.  He badly needed time alone with Tifa, but the others had been patient and he knew how much they all wanted to see her.

“Tifa,” Barret was the first to roar.  He was employing his best attempt at a whisper - or trying to, anyway - but the sound of his voice managed to bounce off of the tightly insulated walls nonetheless.  “You alright, girl?”

Yuffie stepped forward, jumping onto the bed to sit beside her.  It had only been days since Yuffie joined their party, but she and Tifa had grown close, a sisterly bond developing between them.  

Judging from the look on Tifa’s face, she didn’t remember any of it at all.

“We were so worried about you!” the young ninja exclaimed.  “You’re gonna be okay, right?”

Aerith came around the other side of the bed, sitting next to Yuffie.  She leaned close to Tifa, placing a hand on her arm. Cloud watched Tifa carefully, noting the uneasy smile she wore that betrayed her confusion yet her unwillingness to voice it.  Tifa was always so kind and thoughtful of others, even when it caused her great discomfort.

“You really don’t remember anything?” Yuffie continued.

“Hey,” Cloud interjected crossly, frowning at Yuffie and shaking his head. 

“I’m okay,” Tifa answered quietly.  “And no, I don’t… but the doctor said it’s temporary, so, I’m hopeful…”

Conversation erupted and Tifa entertained it as the group gathered around her, everyone lobbying her with their names and who they were and how long they knew her.  It was a competition to prove their affections for her, Cloud realized, with Barret ripping off his sunglasses as his eyes pooled with tears and Aerith latching on to Tifa’s arm.

Cloud stood by the window, on the outskirts of it all.  All he wanted was a moment alone with Tifa so they could figure things out.  He didn’t understand why this was making him so blindingly vexed, the anger running like white-hot rods of steel in his veins.  But he stared out of the window and stayed out of the way with his jaw set, listening as the team chattered and gushed. 

Tifa hugged her knees closer to her chest, another sign that she was withdrawing.  It tore Cloud to shreds, and standing there watching helplessly as she was further overwhelmed by the intrusion was setting his nerves on fire.  When Cait Sith jumped and cartwheeled across the bed in front of her, Cloud finally lost it.

“I think that’s enough,” he erupted cooly from his place at the window.  His voice was a clap of thunder among their jubilant voices, silencing their nattering questions.  Tifa blinked, looking up at him in surprise.

“Tifa’s been through a lot, and needs to rest, just like the doctor ordered,” he went on, looking across the room at every member of the group.  They all stared at him, enraptured by the sudden tone of command in his voice.  He was their leader, and despite his fractured psyche and the mess things had become in the last week, they still looked to him for guidance.  “She hasn’t even eaten yet.  We need to give her some space.”

Red XIII sauntered into the center of the room, nodding up at them.  “Cloud’s right,” he agreed.  “We all should give Tifa a chance to ease back into things.”

“Sorry, lass,” Cait Sith lamented, his ears drooping and pressing against his skull.

Barret nodded.  “Gonna have to ease into things on the road, then,” he rejoined.  “We need to get a move on.  The Planet is in danger, and she needs every last one of us.  We need to put our lives on the line to save hers!  You in?”

Aerith jumped to her feet.  “You bet we are.”

The others murmured their agreements, but Tifa just held her knees tighter, her fingers picking at the soft fabric of her stockings.  Cloud watched her, his mind blurring at what he witnessed there.  

He could feel it coming off of Tifa in waves.  Her pain, her confusion, her sadness.  She wasn’t ready to go anywhere, he knew.  And this wasn’t fair.

Cloud opened his mouth to say something, but Cissnei appeared in the doorway, clearing her throat to get their attention.

“Wow, what’ve I walked in on?” she asked, eyebrows raised and arms folded under her breasts.  “You know, there are other places better suited for these kinds of conversations.”

Red got to his feet.  “Cosmo Canyon, perhaps.”

“The home of Planetology!” Barret declared.  “It’s right around the corner, isn’t it?”

The group began a vigorous discourse on the merits and methods of traveling to Cosmo Canyon, Red sharing that it was his hometown while Yuffie lamented the need to discover whatever materia it may be hiding.  All the while Cloud watched Tifa, her silence deafening as she contemplated inwardly.  

“I think -” she finally spoke, cutting through their prattling, her voice broken and threatened by unspilled tears.  “You all should go on without me.  I would just get in the way, and this voyage sounds very important.”

“What?” Barret woofed.  “We aren’t leaving you anywhere, Tifa.  Amnesia or not, you’re coming with us, even if we have to carry you.”

Tifa shook her head and stifled a small sob, smiling ruefully down at her hands.  She looked so lost and afraid that Cloud felt his heart shatter like glass under Thor’s hammer. His hands were clammy in his gloves, and he could feel his desperation build, the need to protect her suddenly outweighing everything else in the world.

“Barret,” Cloud suddenly interrupted, his voice clipped but self-assured.  “You guys go on ahead.  Tifa needs to rest for a couple of days, anyway.  The doctor said she can’t travel with the concussion.”

There were a few small gasps of surprise, and Barret’s eyes widened.  “What?” he bellowed.  “You mean you’re staying here?  But -”

“Go on and scout Cosmo Canyon with Red and Aerith,” he responded, his voice heavy with finality.  “Get as much info as you can. Tifa and I will catch up with you in a day or two.”

Tifa lifted her head, staring at him with those wide, carmine eyes, her dark lashes wet with tears.  He looked back at her, nodding slightly before turning back to the others.

“A couple of days,” he reiterated firmly.

Tifa watched as the strange, ragtag group that she’d come to Gongaga with slowly began to file out of her room, bidding her goodbye and leaving her with well-wishes. The two girls - Aerith and Yuffie - both hugged her, while Cait Sith - the cat plush - jumped up and down in her lap.

They were going to Cosmo Canyon via chocobo and air, and would communicate with their team via PHS when they arrived. She didn’t know what to say even as she observed Cloud standing by the door and watching them leave, as he made arrangements with Cissnei to let them stay with her until Tifa was ready to move on.

She sat in Cissnei’s kitchen alone, finally out of bed for the first time since she’d woke that morning.  She was quietly eating the fruit and yogurt Cissnei left for her before departing on her own business for the rest of the day, finally putting food into her belly since everything that had happened the day before.  Cloud was outside, talking to the man named Barret, who had to be the loudest and most animated and passionate person she’d ever met.  It seemed Cloud was entrusting him to be the leader in his absence, though Tifa didn’t understand the importance and urgency of traveling to Cosmo Canyon or why they were even traveling the world together in the first place.

The constant lack of answers and understanding was sending her into a state of depression that was frightening and suffocating.  She tried to tamp the darkness down, but the negative, doubtful thoughts were becoming loud and unrelenting.

She finished her orange juice just as Cloud came back into the house, closing the front door quietly behind him.  They were alone now, and the realization made Tifa’s heart begin to race.  Cloud rounded his way towards the kitchen, standing in the threshold and pinning her with heat in his stark blue eyes.

“Tifa,” he breathed.

She inhaled at the sound of her name.  Heat rushed between her thighs, her breath catching and her back straightening.  The way he said her name… it was soft and gentle, yet pulsing with something she couldn’t understand.  It was something that touched her deeply, threads of warmth and tenderness lacing their way through the fibers that made up her very soul.  It was a feeling she had known forever and yet one that was unfamiliar all at once, and seeing the ardent, mournful blend of regret and desire in this man’s aquamarine eyes, she felt a pull she couldn't explain. 

Tifa knew she should walk away.  She knew that she should leave this house and leave these strange people who called themselves her friends, to separate herself from the suffocating captivity of being around people she didn’t know and try to find the answers herself. Maybe in the reactor where she had fallen, or maybe in that city Aerith mentioned called Midgar. And she knew that she should forget about Cloud’s captivating eyes and the silent pleas they seemed to hold. But her feet remained rooted to the ground as if they knew something she didn't. 

Without a word, Cloud extended a trembling hand towards her, a silent invitation hanging in the air between them. 

“Tifa,”  he whispered her name again, sending shivers of pleasure and uncertainty down her spine.  And in that moment, she made a choice - a choice that would perhaps forever alter the course of the life she had forgotten. Taking a deep breath, she reached out and placed her hand in his, feeling an electric jolt run through her as their skin touched, watching as he got to one knee in front of her place at Cissnei’s little kitchen table. 

“I’m not going anywhere until you remember it all, Tifa,” he vowed.  “I won’t leave your side.  I promise.” 

Chapter Text

Chapter Three

Convalescence

Tifa felt as if she were drowning again.

I promise. 

The swell of emotions from those two little words whispered between Cloud’s lips surged upwards and slammed into her like a crashing wave, covering her with a confusing blend of pleasant warmth and ice-cold shock.  Tendrils of familiarity and longing wrapped around her heart while knives of fear and uncertainty sliced at her veins.  She stared down at him, his bright, aquamarine eyes looking back into hers, unblinking and unwavering. His hand tightened slightly around hers, his gloved thumb tracing up along the fine bone of her naked knuckle as he waited for her reaction or response.

I promise.

She was choked.  Those words meant something to her.  And yet - she didn’t know what .  She didn’t know why her heart beat faster at hearing them or why her vision blurred with that strange tinge of viridian she had first seen when she’d awoken from falling into the reactor.  She didn’t know why heat flooded her cheeks or why her heart felt squeezed, why it suddenly ached with longing.

But there was a level of commitment behind those words that was somewhat frightening. She didn’t know this man, and his words suggested there was something far deeper than their being childhood friends and traveling companions.  Aerith had said he was special, but Tifa still didn’t know what that meant.

It was petrifying.

She swallowed carefully, feeling the tender feelings give way to sudden anxiety.  His gaze was warm and gentle but also expectant, and Tifa hated that she didn’t know what to do.  She hated that she had nothing to offer him, not a memory or reassurance or even a smile that didn’t feel forced.  All she had to offer him was emptiness, and it left her feeling inadequate and unavailing.

She nodded, then tore her eyes away from his, destabilized by the intensity in their glow.  Gently, she slipped her hand from his.

“Thank you,” she managed.  She didn’t know what else to say.  Cloud’s hopeful stare suggested he was expecting his words to land with some significance with her.  And she hated to disappoint him. But all they did was create confusion and complicated feelings in her.

She didn’t miss the disillusionment that crept across his face, even as he tried to hide it by lowering his eyes with a curt nod before getting back to his feet, his hands clenched into fists.  He backed slightly away, giving Tifa some space as he averted his eyes, looking around Cissnei’s kitchen as if for a distraction.

Tifa herself certainly needed one.  She felt like she was suffocating in this tiny hut and she needed time and space to sort out her feelings and the confusion that was taking up space in her head.   She glanced out the window, seeing the bright sunshine and blue skies. Before Cloud could speak, she pushed up to her feet, brushing off her skirt and adjusting her suspenders.

“I think I’ll go for a walk,” she told him.  

Cloud’s eyes widened, and he frowned immediately.  She could see that he was going to try and talk her out of it.  He took a step forward, almost as if to block her from making her way to the door.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” he asked.  His voice was stricken, a cross between serious and mildly pained.  “The doctor said you need to rest, and you shouldn’t be traveling.”

“Walking around the village isn’t traveling,” Tifa insisted.  His frown deepened into a pout, and she saw the war flashing behind his eyes.  “I just need some sunshine and air.  That’ll help me get better faster than anything.”

The resignation in Cloud’s face told her that he knew he couldn’t argue with that.  Still, he didn’t relent easily.

“I’ll come with you,” he declared.

Tifa’s chest tightened.  She needed space from him if she was ever going to clear her head and make sense of things. Cloud turned to start for the door, and she knew already that he was the type to be headstrong about things once he was determined.  She bit her lip, shaking her head.

“No, Cloud,” she stopped him.  “I - I want to be alone for a little while.”

This seemed to startle him.  He stopped, turning back to face her.

“But -”

“I’ll be fine,” she reassured him quickly.  The crestfallen look on his face shattered something inside of her, and she turned away, trying to tamp down the new surge of complex feelings that were rising.  “I won’t go far.”

She moved quickly, wanting to be out of his presence.  The hurt, puppy-dog look in his eyes was withering her more than she expected, and it only made her fret even more over their relationship.  

She didn’t wait for him to respond and he seemed torn, turning and watching her go.  When she reached the door, she turned back and gave him a reassuring wave before slipping out of the front door.

He nodded, but she didn’t miss the hurt and stricken look that pulled at his features.

Outside, Tifa stood in front of Cissnei’s house and inhaled deeply.  It was only then that she realized that her heart was racing.  She exhaled slowly, trying to calm her nerves and center herself amid the storm of emotions raging inside her.

Breathe.  Breathe.  Breathe.

She closed her eyes as she breathed steadily and repeated the mantra to herself.  She wasn’t sure where she had learned it, but it was a skill she seemed to have mastered and it did wonders to anchor her and ease the tight choke of anxiety.  Sighing, she looked around the village, mapping out a trail for what was sure to be an aimless walk.

Morning was well underway and the village was bustling, people weaving to and fro in the streets and shops and stands open for business.  Tifa followed the main road through the center of town, holding her hands in front of her she went, observing the goings-on of the small but industrious jungle settlement. Tifa watched as farmers came and went with their wares and equipment, while merchants haggled and militiamen traversed the roads, keeping an eye out for fiends. She watched children play in the streets and follow older teenagers around on odd jobs as if they were their apprentices, and she wondered if there was any formal schooling in Gongaga.

The thought tugged at faded memories that she still couldn’t seem to polish into clarity.  She wondered what her childhood had been like and it pained her greatly that she couldn’t remember any of it.  Again, she recalled what Aerith had said about her and Cloud being childhood friends, and she made a mental note to ask him about where they had grown up when the time was right.

Crossing her way to the center of town, she came upon a small memorial seated on the top of a hill in the center of the winding roads, a stone edifice surrounded by flowers and bright Gongaga mushrooms. The railed enclosure overlooked a steep fall into the thick understory of the jungle below, and in the distance, provided a sweeping view of the dilapidated Gongaga Reactor.

Reading the inscription carved into the slab of marble beneath a fresh bouquet of carnations, Tifa noted that the memorial was dedicated to the victims of the reactor’s explosion years ago.  She looked up, a heaviness filling her heart at the sight of the names that were written there.

The side of the reactor with its twisted and broken spires of metal made Tifa’s stomach lurch.  She found herself thinking of Cloud again, the questions beginning to stack.  Why was she traveling with Cloud and the others - such a motley and unruly bunch?  Why were they at the reactor and how had she managed to fall into mako?  How did she get attacked by a WEAPON, and more importantly, how had she survived?

Her thoughts swung back to Cloud. They had known each other in childhood it seemed, but what were they to one another now?  Why did Cloud look at her so intently, and why did he seem hesitant to be away from her side?  Why did he always stand so close, and why did he look so miserable when she told him she wanted to be alone? What had he been expecting?

Why had her heart fluttered and soared when he said the word promise , only to fall back to the soles of her feet?

The realization that there was probably nothing she could do to figure out the answers to any of these questions on her own left her feeling trapped and terrified, her heart picking up speed again.  She sucked in another deep breath and shook her head, turning away from the reactor and the memorial and following the path through a patch of mushrooms.

For whatever reason, she was intrigued by the assortment, their colors and sizes and shapes, and used the opportunity to distract herself by picking a few.  She wasn’t sure what she might do with them at first, but something told her they could be quite useful, perhaps in cooking.  Nonetheless, she was happy to busy herself with a task that was relatively mindless and kept her from pondering over the painstaking questions and blank slates of memories that were looming over her.

She filled the pouches of her skirt with as many as she could carry before crossing the bridge over a small stream and climbing the hill to the northern part of town. The road widened with thick dirt that had been routinely trampled by chocobo talons, and small patches of farmland littered the open space.  The dense tree line began to thin and grow sparse, letting in wide, unbidden bands of sunlight.  Tifa squinted as she made her way, stopping when she came across an older couple standing outside in front of their home.

The woman was wiping her hands off on a towel while the man was loading farming equipment into a chocobo cart.  Tifa stopped, realizing she had nearly traversed private property.  She hung back by the tree line, ready to turn back the way she came when she overheard their voices.

“I want to talk to her again,” the woman said.

The man shook his head.  “What good will that do either of us?  It isn’t going to bring Zack back.  No, I think that young woman has been through enough. And so have you.”

The woman - his wife, Tifa surmised - lowered her head and sniffed.  The man approached her and gathered her into his arms, and Tifa immediately felt her embarrassment grow at witnessing their private moment, turning away to head back towards town.

“Maybe Aerith will visit again,” the man conceded consolingly.

That caught Tifa’s attention.  She looked back, watching as they comforted one another silently.  The woman said nothing else, and Tifa wrinkled her nose, wondering how Aerith knew these people and if it had anything to do with why they had come here and why they’d visited the reactor.

Zack …

A familiar if not somewhat generic name.  Tifa sighed, knowing it was foolish to try and chalk that up to anything useful to her depleted memory.  She sighed, following the bridge back the way she came and taking the road to the southeastern side of town.

She thought about Aerith again as she walked, remembering how enthusiastically the girl had greeted her and how she had mentioned that she was an Ancient.  When had Tifa become friends with Ancients? When had they met one another?  

Her thoughts drifted to the harried conversation between the group before they’d departed, leaving her and Cloud behind in Gongaga.  The planet was in danger.  We need to get a move on. We need to put our lives on the line to save hers.

It was so confusing.  Bleak tendrils seemed to snap at the edge of her mind, promising the edge of a memory that might remind her of why she was traveling with Ancients and talking beasts and freedom fighters.  And maybe it would remind her why the blond-haired boy stirred her heart and looked at her with such openness and need.  But they were all out of reach, and she remained surrounded by white, empty space, voids on all sides that betrayed the gaps her injuries left on her brain.

A sharp command and a few shouts to her right caught her attention, and Tifa stopped to catch sight of a group of local militiamen and women lined up and sparring with one another, practicing a variety of kicks and punches and twirls.  Their movements were fluid and choreographed, practiced and precise.  One man circled the group, critiquing their form and pointing out corrections here and there.

Tifa stared, her fingers twitching at her sides.  She held up a hand, looking down at her palms.  She hadn’t put on any of her gloves and armor, and for the first time since she had awoken, she wondered why she might have needed any of it.

Surges of familiar sensory memories assailed her.  Her knuckles bruised and torn and calloused, her thighs aching after another round of training until the lactic acid in her muscles burned. The rush of air in her lungs as she twirled and roundhoused in the air, the sharp, metallic scent of blood when her fists cut through the soft, messy give of flesh.

The leader passed by her then, shouting another command, and the group turned, switching partners and beginning a new set of parries and kicks.  Intrigued, Tifa found herself suddenly and compulsively stopping him.

“What are they doing?” she blurted.

The militiaman stopped, turning to face her.  He was young and dressed in very similar leather and linen garb as Cissnei had been, the patches of color in his belts and vests denoting his rank.  “Zangan-Ryu,” he answered bluntly.  “I was taught by the master himself when I was a kid.  Me and my brother both were his only pupils in Gongaga.  Anyway, I’ve been teaching this form of combat to the rest of the militia as part of the village self-defense.  Cissnei thinks I’m doing great!”

He turned away, leaving Tifa standing there as he returned to drilling with the others.  But she stared blankly, her mouth slightly open as a fresh wave of blurred memories hit her.

Mountains with twisted peaks.  A dangerous river that every child in the village was told to avoid.  Old people practicing in the village square.  A man with thick muscles and a deep voice, chanting her name and urging her not to give up.

The sudden influx was dizzying.  The memories were gray and disconnected and once again, they were meaningless. 

She backed away, finding a nearby bench to sit on and gather her thoughts.  Her head was beginning to ache again, and she just wanted to crawl back into bed and sleep.  She cradled her head in her hands, watching the militia for a few more moments before closing her eyes and bowing her head.

She couldn’t stop herself when she began to cry.

Cloud tried to stop himself from following Tifa around town, but it was impossible.

There was no way that he could sit back in Cissnei’s house and do nothing while Tifa was wandering around alone.  He hadn’t wanted to argue with her and he knew that things were on unstable ground between them at the moment.  Even so, he had to make sure she was safe and so after pacing back and forth in Cissnei’s living room for a few moments, he slipped out the front door, quietly shadowing Tifa as she made her way through town and using every stealth skill he had learned in SOLDIER to keep her from detecting him.

Keeping his eyes on her as he meandered through town as inconspicuously as possible, Cloud’s mind was the most restless it had been since they’d left Midgar.  Tifa’s amnesia was a bigger problem than he thought he’d know how to deal with.  Not only had she forgotten years of critical memories, but she was now somewhat suspicious and distrusting of everything and everyone, including him.

It tore him apart inside.  All he had ever wanted was to be her hero, to be someone special, someone she could look up to and admire.  Someone who she could believe in and someone she could trust with her heart. Just when he thought he may have been close to earning that, it was snatched away from him forever.

And she had forgotten their promise.  More than anything, their promise atop the water tower under shimmery night skies had been the one thing keeping him anchored, and now, it had lost its significance to her.  It tore at his soul.

He had berated himself endlessly for forgetting it once, but now the tables had been turned.

He hung back in the distance, watching as Tifa made her way around town, her steps slow as she looked around, absorbing the sights of the village around her.  She moved like a person seeing everything for the first time.  He watched from the cover of a large tree as she visited the memorial and inspected the nearby mushroom patches, and when she stopped outside of Zack Fair’s parents' home, Cloud felt a sudden surge of anxiety and almost retreated.

He backed up to the edge of the village bridge, hiding again beneath the foliage overhead.  He shook his head, inwardly despairing over the mess of their entire visit to Gongaga.

He pushed it aside when he saw Tifa suddenly settle on a bench near the center of town, outside the sparring exercises of a militia group.  The slump in her shoulders and the way she dug her toes despairingly into the dirt caught his eye, and Cloud watched her carefully, his heart squeezing with pain when she suddenly lowered her face into her hands and began to cry.

Mild panic swelled inside of him.  More than anything, Cloud hated to see Tifa cry.  He hated seeing her hurt or in any sort of pain, and even though he wasn’t sure what had triggered such a reaction, he had to act.

No matter what, he intended to keep his promise to her.  Even if she didn’t remember it.

Hesitating, Cloud stood and watched Tifa for a moment, clenching his hands into fists before he decided to act.  She might be angry with him for following her around town but he didn’t care.  He wasn’t going to sit there and let her shatter right in front of his eyes like that.

Swallowing determinedly, Cloud stepped out of his place in the shade and approached the bench where Tifa sat, his steps light but resolute.  She sat with her head low, her long, chocolate-brown hair shielding her face from the world.  Cloud could hear her light sniffles as she wept, breaking his heart into a million pieces.

“…Tifa?” 

She looked up slowly at the sound of his voice, blinking in surprise when she saw him hovering over her.  Her cheeks were tear-streaked and her eyes puffy and red, her lashes wet when she blinked at him.

“Cloud?”

The shaky but seeking way that Tifa called his name reeled him in closer to her, and Cloud slid to a seat next to her on the bench.  He had to fight hard to resist the compulsion to wrap his arms around her and pull her in tight.  The last time she had spilled her tears in front of him, he cradled her close, a moment he still thought about every hour of every day.

He staved off the urge and instead focused his attention on her, locking eyes with hers.  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “You were gone for a while, so I came looking to make sure you were okay.  Why are you crying, Tifa?”

Tifa looked down at her hands, opening them wide to study palms before closing them again into tight fists.  She glanced back up at Cloud, shaking her head slightly.

“I’ve forgotten so much,” she told him.  “And yet… I feel like there is someone inside of me that is trying to get out.  I don’t know how to help her.”

Her voice trailed off as she sniffled again, wiping her eyes with one hand.  She looked up, watching the group of militia fighters as they pivoted into another round of sparring.

Cloud held his breath, watching Tifa’s face as her eyes followed the back-and-forth movements of the militia group in front of them.  Her hands trembled.

Cloud knew what it was like to be missing wide swaths of memories, to not know who you were completely.   There were days where he suddenly remembered things about himself that he found surprising - skills and knowledge he had that he never remembered having.  He realized then that Tifa seemed unaware of her skills as a fighter, and that seeing the practicing militia had triggered something.

Hesitatingly, he reached out, taking her hand.  He was careful about touching her, not wanting to cross any boundaries with her when things were so shaky and weak between them.  But he needed to ground her, to bring her out of her sudden despair and let her know that she was okay.

“Do you remember?” he asked her, nodding at the militia fighters.  “Do you remember fighting, Tifa?”

She turned to him, blinking at him.  He half expected her to take her hand away, but she didn’t, simply curling her fingers beneath his.  She still wasn’t wearing her gloves or armor and Cloud suspected that was another reason she was still feeling so confused.

“I…” she trailed off, looking back down at where their hands were clasped together.  “I remember it distantly.  Training, pain, the rush of cold mountain air in my lungs.  But how did I learn?  What kind of fighter am I?”

Cloud couldn’t resist squeezing her hand slightly beneath his. “You learned from Rashard Zangan, Tifa,” he answered softly. “The master himself.  You’re one of his disciples, I guess you could say.”

Tifa blinked, looking back up at him.  “Disciples?” she repeated.

“You’ve mastered the art,” Cloud added softly.  “You’re the best there is, after all.”

Tifa laughed ruefully, shaking her head as she looked away again.  Reluctantly, Cloud let go of her hands, slipping away from her as she dropped hers back into her lap.  She wrung her hands together there, sniffling again as she tried to even out her breathing.

“Why are we fighting, Cloud?” Tifa asked, watching the group of militiamen and women as they practiced and sparred.  “Why were the others talking about the planet being in danger?  Why have we been traveling together?  Why did I fall into the reactor?”

Cloud felt a lump form in his throat as her questions stacked, each one more harrowing than the last.  The mention of the reactor made his insides lurch, and he turned back to stare in the direction of the doomed facility, the sun beginning its descent behind it as dusk approached.

“It’s a long story, Tifa,” he said.  “Do you remember anything about AVALANCHE?”

Tifa shook her head, her eyes connected with his, waiting for him to help her fill in the gaps.

Cloud sighed lightly, sitting back on the bench.  “Well… it’s been five years since I’ve seen you, Tifa,” he began.  He frowned, realizing how traumatizing it would be to suddenly start talking about Nibelheim and the way their home had been destroyed.  “We can talk more about that later… but when I reunited with you in Midgar, you were running your own bar called Seventh Heaven. But you and Barret were also part of an anti-Shinra organization called AVALANCHE.”

Tifa tilted her head at him curiously, turning to face him on the bench.  She pulled up one knee to her chest, hugging herself close as she leaned in to listen to him.

Cloud nodded, easing closer to her.  He nodded back at the reactor in the distance.  “The disturbances in the reactor that we went to check out the other day occurred because Shinra’s been draining the planet of all of the Lifestream and refining it into mako, which is causing the planet to fight back.  That’s why the WEAPON emerged.”  He paused, deciding to return to the events in the reactor at another time.  

He explained to Tifa how when they’d reconnected in Midgar, she had been a part of what Shinra had deemed an eco-terrorist organization. He told her of the bombing missions they had participated in and how all of it had led them to meet Aerith Gainsborough - an Ancient - and to find out that their fight was against a darkness that ran even deeper than the avarice of a world power and transnational corporation. Tifa listened intently, her eyebrows furrowed as Cloud explained that Sephiroth was their target.

What he couldn’t bring himself to tell her was how Sephiroth had burned their village to the ground five years ago, how Tifa had nearly died at Sephiroth’s hand back then and nearly died at his own just days ago.

“It seems so hard to believe…” Tifa murmured after he paused to let her digest everything he had recounted.  She was looking down at her hands again, this time flexing them into fists.  “To think I had a part in all of that… that that’s what we’re fighting for…”

Her voice broke and trailed off, and Cloud watched as her shoulders began to heave slightly, rising and falling as she took in sharper breaths.  He could almost see the anxiety rippling off of her, her brow furrowing in confusion and disbelief as she mulled it over.

“I just don’t know how…”

Her voice broke and Cloud felt stricken again, frozen in place and unsure how to act.  He so badly wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her fears and doubts away, to let her know with his touch that everything would be okay and that she would soon remember everything that made her who she was.  After all, it was his touch that he had always relied on to comfort and secure her.

He looked down at his own hands.  He couldn’t do that, not anymore.  He was foreign to her, and the guarded and dubious looks she continuously gave him warned him away from trying.  He clenched his right hand into a tight fist, shaking his head as he thought about his own degradation and how losing Tifa meant losing himself.

Despite the terror that thought instilled in him, he couldn’t give up.  Tifa may not have remembered their promise, but he would keep it no matter what.

“Tifa,” he interjected softly.  “You may not remember it all now, but you will.  But just know that you’re strong.  And brave.  That’s why you’re fighting.”

She looked up at him, lips parted as if slightly stunned, ruby red eyes glinting under the flutter of thick, dark lashes.  The depth of her stare tangled him, and it almost implored Cloud to impulsively take her hand. The crack of thunder in the distance snapped them both out of the reverie they were suddenly caught in.

“Shit,” Cloud swore softly, looking up at the now rapidly darkening sky.  “I think it’s gonna storm.  It’s getting late, anyway.  Think we should head back, Tifa.”

He waited patiently for her response.  He wasn’t sure if Cissnei was home yet, but even so, returning to the house meant he and Tifa would once again be faced with their discarded trails of memories and the ensuing puzzle pieces they left to solve.  It was awkward and uncertain and Cloud knew, despite his hopes and desires, how hesitant Tifa was about spending time alone with him. He wanted to insist, but he also want to be sure that he waited for her assent.  Before her amnesia, it had always been so easy for them to communicate and agree and for him to gather her consent for everything with as little as a quick glance or a fleeting touch.  Now, though, Cloud knew he had to put in more effort.

Tifa heaved out a little sigh, looking up at the sky.  After a beat, she finally turned back to him, giving him a tiny, tentative nod.

“Okay.”

The rain began to lightly fall, the sky hazy and dim by the time they made it back to Cissnei’s house.  Cloud hurried to run for the front door, opening it for Tifa so she could scurry inside ahead of him.  She offered him a small, grateful smile, wiping her boots off on the welcome mat in the foyer as she stepped inside the warm and cozy hut.

It was quiet and dark inside.  Cissnei was apparently still not home.  The fact of this made Tifa’s gut twist, the realization that she was once again left alone with Cloud.

It made everything feel leagues more overwhelming.  Just sitting next to Cloud on the bench in town had left her feeling shaky and unwound.  His presence was debilitating.  She wasn’t sure what it was, but his closeness produced a distant ache in her, at war with the peculiar strangeness of a man she was supposed to know almost intimately and yet could not locate the tethers of such a bond.

She clasped her hands in front of her, resisting the urge to retreat to the guest bedroom again and lock the door, closing herself off so she could gather her thoughts.  She was still trying to process their conversation on the bench, trying to reconcile the longing her muscles felt at watching those men and women train.  It felt strange to suddenly know that she was a fighter and had taken up such a grand cause, but the lack of understanding of why or how left her feeling bleary and empty.

Still, she didn’t want to be rude.  If nothing else, Cloud was patient with her.  And he was kind.  She could see in the watery depths of his glowing turquoise eyes that he wanted more, was craving a connection that she sadly could not remember.  But he didn’t push. 

He stayed close but out of reach, a rock that was ready for her to lean on should she need him.

Awkwardly, Tifa stood in the center of the living room, glancing around and staring at her boots.  Cloud stalked inside, pausing to glance at her after he locked the front door.  She saw him clench his fists and stop as if he were going to say something before he continued moving through the house, his attention landing on a slip of paper on the kitchen table.

Tifa watched him silently as he read the paper quickly and then put it down.  He looked over at her, those hazy blue-green eyes glowing in the dimness of the abode.

“Cissnei had to leave town,” he announced.  “She’ll be back in a day or so.  Anyway… she says we can stay as long we clean up after ourselves and we don’t let anyone else in while she’s gone.”

He returned to the living room, his steps measured and slow as he stared at her.  Tifa didn’t know what to say in response.  Her heart had lurched at this information.  Knowing that Cissnei was around had made her feel a little more comfortable about her current situation.  It wasn’t ideal, of course, but being alone with a man she had a history with but couldn’t remember simply frightened her.

She looked up at Cloud, his blue eyes placid but masking a war within.  She wasn’t afraid of him.  It was just the idea of all of this.

She was mostly afraid of her own memory… or lack of it, and what that meant for her life in the near future.

Her stomach rumbled loudly then, interrupting her thoughts.  Cloud raised an eyebrow at the sound, and she saw the corner of his mouth quirk upward ever so slightly.

“I’m pretty hungry too,” he stated, turning back to the kitchen. He scratched the back of his neck, looking around awkwardly before sighing and turning back to her.  

“I’m not much of a cook, though,” he admitted, his pale cheeks taking on a subtle pink hue. “You kinda spoiled me back at Seventh Heaven.”

He gave her a tentative look, as if testing the waters and awaiting her reaction.  Tifa found herself somewhat surprised by his statement.

“Seventh Heaven?” she repeated.

Cloud retreated deeper into the kitchen, taking a moment to light the small lanterns on the table and countertop.  The rain was beginning to fall in earnest now, clattering at the windows, and the sun had fully gone down, dark clouds blackening the sky and leaving it to grow rather dark indoors. The soft illumination was welcome and helped Tifa feel at ease.

Shadows danced across his face as he leaned back against the counter, folding his arms across his chest.  “Seventh Heaven is the bar you owned in Midgar,” he explained quietly, his cheeks warming even further for some reason.  “A bar and restaurant.  You’re a really good cook, Tifa, and since we -”

He stopped there, frowning inwardly before he shook his head and sighed. “After you and I ran into each other back in Midgar, I spent a lot of time there, while taking odd jobs for you and AVALANCHE.  So I got to have a first-hand taste of your cooking.”

He gave her a slight smirk, and Tifa could not ignore the flush of warmth that radiated from low in her belly all the way up to her cheeks.  She could feel herself blushing, and she dipped her chin slightly to look away from him, her heart pounding as feelings she didn’t understand nor recognize began to swell.

“I see,” she replied softly.

She drifted further into the kitchen, looking around at the pots and pans and utensils, the sink and the stove, and even the icebox.  More warm waves of distant, familiar thoughts floated above her, just out of reach, the fragments of memories of standing side by side with older women at her side in a rustic little kitchen whose bay windows overlooked a distant, gray mountain range.

It was then that Tifa remembered the mushrooms she had picked when walking through the village earlier.  A sudden jolt of excitement ran through her, and she approached the kitchen counter next to Cloud, carefully unpacking them and laying them out on the wood.

“I… I think I can make a nice pilaf with this, if Cissnei has some rice and veggies in stock.  It’s not much, but it’ll be quick and filling.”

Cloud nodded, his smile expanding slightly as he pushed away from the counter.  “I’ll help,” he offered sweetly.

Tifa found herself blushing again, and they avoided eye contact, Cloud turning away to rummage through Cissnei’s cabinets.  Tifa swallowed, trying to calm her wayward and conflicted thoughts by focusing on searching the icebox for vegetables.

After washing her hands, she settled on stalks of leeks and scallions, bringing everything to the counter and grabbing a knife to begin chopping.  She didn’t even realize the ease with which she fell into the routine - muscle memory picking up where her brain had dropped off, a faraway recipe forming in her mind as she gathered the ingredients and got to work.  Cloud found a bag of rice and brought it to her, a sheepish look on his face that betrayed that he had no idea what to do with it.

She laughed, feeling a weight lift off her shoulders and the center of her chest for the first time since she woke up after the reactor fall.  It was nice to find amusement in something, and she had to admit that Cloud’s flushed cheeks and embarrassed smile felt familiar to her.  They warmed her, and made her feel as if everything was going to be okay.

She wasn’t sure why.

They worked in companionable silence, Tifa gently calling out instructions and asking Cloud for help as she cooked.  He assisted her eagerly and without complaint, trailing her throughout the kitchen like a heeling puppy.  They fell into such a natural and easygoing rhythm working side by side without even trying that Tifa found herself completely surprised by it all by the time the pilaf was ready.

“This smells great, Tifa” Cloud said.  “Here, you’ve done enough.  Sit down and I’ll bring everything over.”

Tifa stopped, lowering the spoon she was holding back into the pot.  He was suddenly standing so close, hovering over her, one hand reaching for the bowl, the other on her wrist.  She hadn’t even realized he’d gotten so close.  The warmth of his body had been so pleasant and familiar that it wasn’t until he spoke that she realized he was close enough that she could smell the faint scents of cedar and leather that drifted off of him.

She looked up at him, somewhat stunned.  His proximity once again betrayed that their relationship must have crossed boundaries beyond friendship at some point.  Something special Aerith had said.  Tifa wanted so badly to know what that meant.

Cloud was beautiful, she realized, looking up at him.  Beautiful in an almost admirable and distant way.  And her faded, missing memories of him and their relationship only reinforced that she was so far away from him, no matter how close he stood.

The prolonged pause that developed alerted Cloud to how close he was standing, and Tifa realized by the way he widened his eyes that he hadn’t even intended to get that close.  It had simply happened and it was more evidence that there was more to their relationship than she currently understood.

“Sorry,” he murmured, turning the heat off the stove.  “Come on, have a seat.”

Tifa did as he asked and was grateful for the distraction while Cloud prepared two plates for them both and brought them to the table, serving her like a perfect gentleman.  His eyes were averted from her the entire time, and when he sat down, he picked up his fork, his cheeks still bright as he dug in.

“Let’s eat,” he commanded quietly.  “Should help you recover faster if you get a good full meal in.”

Tifa nodded, smiling slightly as she carefully dug into her food.  After the first bite, she realized how voracious she was.  And the food was surprisingly tasty.  Cloud was right; she was a good cook.

“You haven’t forgotten how to cook, Tifa,” Cloud remarked.  He had already cleaned his plate, washing it down with a glass of water.  “Delicious as every meal you made back at Seventh Heaven.  Guess that’s a good sign, huh?”

She appreciated his optimism, offering him a small smile as she nodded.  Despite his generally brusque and stoic demeanor, there was an eagerness and a softness to Cloud that made him seem interchangeably boyish as he was manly and tough.  She wasn’t sure why, but it set off butterflies in her tummy.

“I can’t disagree,” she added.  “This is pretty good.  Gongaga mushrooms make for some great dishes.”

“You had a really extensive menu at Seventh Heaven,” Cloud responded, almost as if he was proud.

Tifa blushed again, catching the hint of Cloud’s smile before he focused his attention on his drink.  She wondered again about this life of hers before they’d arrived in Gongaga, how she had become involved with AVALANCHE, and how she came to own a bar of all things.  

But even more, at that moment, she wanted to know about her reunion with Cloud.

“Cloud?” she queried, setting her fork down.  “You said we reunited after five years, right?  How did we reunite?  And… when had we last seen each other?”

Cloud grew quiet, his face growing serious and stony again. She could see his jaw set, his blue eyes darting to and fro as he thought about his response. 

“I… I was in SOLDIER,” he explained.  “I defected from Shinra after a mission in our hometown of Nibelheim went wrong five years ago.  You must have moved to Midgar after everything that happened in Nibelheim, but I didn’t catch up with you again until a couple of weeks ago at the train station in Sector Seven.  You told me about the AVALANCHE job, and that’s how this all started.”

He went on a little bit, elaborating on reactor bombings and Shira’s oppressive activities.  Tifa listened quietly, trying to piece everything together as he recounted the events of the past weeks as carefully and succinctly as he could.  Faded memories blurred around the edges of her mind as he spoke, more feelings and colors and smells than anything she could visualize.  Still, Tifa was stunned by what she learned.

Cloud seemed to dance around the nature of their relationship as he spoke, instead focusing on the details of how they’d come to fight alongside each other.  Tifa pondered on this when he sat back and crossed his arms over his chest again.

“What happened in Nibelheim?” she asked.  The memories of mountains and cold gales pulsed again.

 Cloud looked up at her, his face somewhat pained.  He hesitated, his lips parted slightly as he struggled to get the words out.  Tifa watched the ripple of emotions cross his features, her heartbeat beginning to rise in anticipation.

Finally, he sighed.  “It burned down,” he conceded softly.  “It… was Sephiroth.”

Tifa’s heart began to race.  Flames licked at her vision, blurred and distant, their heat singeing her skin.  It was almost as if she were standing in the midst of it all again, feeling the burn and smelling the ash and hearing the screams, but seeing nothing of the memory in front of her.  She frowned, looking down at her hands.

“Papa…”

Horror washed over as the memory returned in a sudden burst of color and heat.  Her father’s body sprawled out along the catwalk, lifeless and still, blood pooled around him.

Her father. 

Dead.

Sephiroth.  Shinra. Mako.  SOLDIER.

Cloud pushed back in his chair suddenly, dragging it around the table so he could pull it up in front of her.  He leaned forward, looking at her with concern in his eyes.

“It’s okay, Tifa,” he said softly.  She gasped slightly when she felt his hand reach for hers, gloved fingers curling around hers in a gentle hold.  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Tifa glanced down at their hands.  His presence so close so suddenly helped to calm the rage and horror that wound itself up inside of her at the return of the painful vision.  She blinked, lowering her head and closing her eyes so she could comb through the branching memories that faded into the background - faint remembrances of her father carrying her in his arms or brushing her hair from her face, calling her pumpkin from across the dinner table with a smile.

“I-I’m sorry,” she stammered.  “It’s- it’s okay.  I’m okay.”  

She breathed in deeply, trying to will the tears back.  Cloud scooted his chair even closer, leaning in, his leather and steel gloved hands tightening around hers.  “Did you remember something, Tifa?”

She exhaled.  The tears stung the corners of her eyes but she held them back, her lashes feeling flooded.  

Papa .

“Papa,” she repeated the word echoing in her mind to Cloud.  “I remember him…  But it’s so hazy.”

Cloud stared and Tifa could see the glimmer of hope shine through the concern in his eyes.  He nodded, the corner of his lips turning up in a slight smile.

“It’s a start, Tifa,” he murmured.

She looked up at him.  “I remember him dying,” she added.

Her heart was sinking, and she could see the sadness enveloping Cloud’s expression.  His lips parted as if about to speak, but he said nothing.  Tifa slid her hand from his, suddenly overwhelmed and wanting to be alone with her thoughts and her damaged memories.

“I think I’m going to go to bed now,” she told him.  “Thank you for helping me with dinner.”

She got to her feet, taking her plates over to the sink and avoiding Cloud’s burning blue gaze.  His chair scraped against the floor as he got to his feet, and when Tifa turned around, she saw him standing there, staring at her with his mouth still open.

“I-” he started, then blushed slightly and looked away.  “Are you sure?  I mean, do you want to talk about it more?  I’m happy to listen.”

Tifa’s heart began to pound again, that familiar heat rising inside of her, a warmth so comforting it was almost frightening.  It felt both new and like something she had lived with her entire life, almost too comfortable to be real. She hesitated for a moment, searching his face for any signs of insincerity or hidden motives. But all she found in his earnest expression was genuine concern and a glimmer of something else she couldn't quite place.

Taking a deep breath, Tifa finally spoke, her voice barely above a whisper. "I appreciate that, Cloud. But this… I’m not sure if I can talk about this right now.” She paused, gathering her thoughts as she looked down at her hands fidgeting nervously in front of her.

Cloud nodded understandingly, not pushing further but offering silent support with his mere presence. She met Cloud's gaze once more, his soft blue eyes. "Thank you," she said softly, the words carrying more meaning than she could express. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

He looked like he wanted to respond, but Tifa needed to sever the blinding connection she felt snapping into place between them.  Her chest felt heavy with the weight of it and she needed some time to think and figure out how she was going to move forward with her slowly returning memories that were clearly full of terror and trauma, all while navigating her relationship with him.

“Goodnight, Tifa.”

His voice was gentle and soft, drifting behind her like the clouds that were his namesake.  She blushed again and left the kitchen quietly, slipping into the guest room where she finally paused and breathed, the anxiety lifting for at least a moment.

Now that she was alone, she could think over her memories more clearly.  Her anger at Shinra and the past began to stack, the pain of losing her home and her father slowly returning to her.  One thing led to another as she went into the bathroom to wash up and change into sleepwear for the night, her head beginning to pound as memory upon memory returned to her like a chain link fence. Memories of Nibelheim and her mother and father, faint and lacking cohesion but still beginning to paint a picture where a blank canvas had been left.  

By the time she had changed and climbed into bed, she was so dazed by what she’d remembered and the confusion it left her with that she found it impossible to fall asleep. With each passing minute, the weight of her past pressed down on her chest, suffocating her with its intensity. She tossed and turned for what felt like hours, trying to shake off the flood of memories threatening to drown her. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't escape the ghosts of Nibelheim.

And she couldn’t escape the indescribable longing she felt for the blond-haired boy who sat on the other side of that bedroom door.  And as the moon rose high in the sky, casting an eerie glow through her window, she finally gave up on sleep. 

She couldn’t be alone.

Tifa’s absence left Cloud with an emptiness that ached, leaving him staring at the door to the guest bedroom she’d disappeared behind for long moments before he sighed and turned away, shaking his head and looking down at his hands again. The entire day he felt as if he was taking two steps forward and three steps backwards with Tifa.  The little progress they made in their conversations and in helping Tifa with her memory was quickly undone by the awkwardness that lived between the planes of their relationship.  And none of this was helped by the fact that his own memory was broken and he was living with the constant reminder of his degradation.

Cloud paced the living room with his thoughts for a while before finally giving up and giving in to his body’s desire for sleep.  He could survive for a while without it with his enhancements, but even so, after Tifa’s fall, he realized he hadn’t slept in close to three days.  It was beginning to take its toll.

His mind repeated his conversations with Tifa throughout the day as he claimed the daybed next to her room, pulling his armor off and changing into the sweats he’d brought for sleepwear.  His body ached and he wasn’t sure why, but he was beginning to realize that the lingering effects of his last fight with Shinra in the reactor were creeping up on him thanks to his general neglect of his body.

It made him realize how much Tifa had taken care of him before all of this happened.  Tifa before the fall made sure he ate and slept and drank plenty of water.  She was always at his side when one of his strange headaches attacked or when his mind was plagued by visions of vengeful enemies.  And she was the only who he confessed his deepest, darkest fears to, the fears of his own unraveling, the fear that he might become one of those dark robes they were pursuing.

He admitted that the absence of that Tifa was what was destroying him from the inside out.  He felt so far away from her now, a painful realization after the way that they had begun to close a five-year gap between them in the last few weeks.  He had held Tifa in his arms and he had even kissed her, despite his unforgivable transgression in the reactor.

Now all of that was erased.  Now he was fighting for Tifa to just remember who she was and where she’d come from, which was no easy task with how destructive their pasts had been.  It hadn’t occurred to Cloud at first, but he realized now that Tifa would be confronting a lot of forgotten trauma as her amnesia faded and her memories returned.  It made him ache inside.

He lay there in the darkness, his mind racing with thoughts of Tifa and their tumultuous journey. The weight of his promise to her bore down on him like a heavy burden, reminding him of the gravity of their situation. With each passing moment, he could feel the distance between them growing, like an insurmountable obstacle standing in the way of their fragile connection.

As he closed his eyes and tried to push away the doubts that threatened to consume him, a sudden noise outside Tifa's room caught his attention. Sitting up alert, he strained to listen for any signs of danger. The hallway was shrouded in silence, broken only by the soft rustling of curtains in the night breeze.

The door to her room slowly crept open, Tifa’s figure outlined in the shadows and the streaks of moonlight.  His eyes were glued to her, knowing every line of her curves even from where he lay back with his hands behind his head.  She took a few tentative steps forward, the floorboards creaking under her bare feet.

Cloud's heart raced as he watched Tifa move closer, her silhouette both familiar and foreign in the dimly lit room. He could sense her hesitation, her uncertainty palpable even from where he lay. It was as if she was searching for something, reaching out for a connection that had been fractured by the cruel hands of fate.

Without a word, Tifa approached the daybed where Cloud lay, her eyes searching his face as if trying to decipher a long-forgotten puzzle. The air between them crackled with unspoken words, heavy with emotions neither of them dared to voice.  He sat up slowly to get a better look, his eyes glowing against the darkness, his heart racing as he stared up at her.

“Can’t sleep?” he asked her, hoping the familiarity of his words might recall a more pleasant memory, one of when they were closer than they’d ever been, one where flowers and artificial stars had been the only witness to the momentary surge of feelings he still longed to express.

She shook her head, staring at the empty space on the daybed beside him.  Cloud felt his heart pound and his skin flush with heat.

Tifa doesn’t want to be alone , a voice inside of him screamed.

Cloud's hand twitched involuntarily, a silent invitation for Tifa to join him on the bed. She hesitated for a moment before slowly sinking down beside him, their shoulders almost touching, Tifa sliding back against the window.

As they sat there in silence, an invisible thread seemed to weave between them, drawing them closer together despite the vast emptiness that yawned before them. It was a fragile moment, hanging in the balance like a delicate dance on the edge of a precipice.

Cloud could feel the weight of unspoken words pressing against his chest, threatening to spill out and shatter the fragile peace that enveloped them. Memories were missing but so were feelings, hanging somewhere in the ether above them.  He turned his head to glance at Tifa, her features bathed in the soft moonlight filtering through the curtains. Her eyes reflected a myriad of emotions - confusion, longing, and a hint of fear.

Without a word, Cloud reached out tentatively and brushed a stray lock of hair away from Tifa's face, his touch feather-light against her skin. She flinched slightly at the contact but didn't pull away. In that fleeting moment, it felt as if time itself had stilled, trapping them in a cocoon of silence and raw emotions.

Tifa's gaze met his, and for a heartbeat, everything else faded into insignificance. In her eyes, Cloud saw a reflection of his own doubts and fears, mirrored back at him with heartbreaking clarity. It was a silent plea for reassurance, for understanding in the face of overwhelming uncertainty.

Cloud had promised he would be there for her when she needed him, when she was in trouble.  In his heart, he had always known what that truly meant.  

Without breaking eye contact, Cloud mustered all the courage he had left and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, “Whatever you need, Tifa,” he whispered.  “I told you I’d be here for you.”

She looked up at him with glassy carmine eyes, and he could see from their red rims and damp lashes that she had been crying again.  It shattered him inside.

But he was surprised when Tifa scooted a little closer to him, as if chasing the warmth of his body.  At least it seemed that way.  Maybe he imagining it.  She pulled her knees up to her chest, holding them with both her arms as she lowered her head, the moonlight sinking into her inky tresses.

“Tell me about Nibelheim,” she whispered, her voice barely above a breath.  “Happy things.”

He could feel her warmth, her body gently leaning closer to his.  His heart was beating so loud that he was certain Barret and the others could hear it in Cosmo Canyon.

Cloud’s memories of Nibelheim and his youth were hazy in places.  But there were plenty of things that he remembered.

“You like cats,” he began.

And so he began recounting what he remembered, of Tifa’s cat Maru and how he would run away. There weren’t many memories that they shared, but there was plenty to tell her about the town and the people.  He spoke of the soothing but tumultuous sound of the Gunnthra River flowing on the outskirts of town, the way the sunsets painted the mountains in hues of pink and gold, and the laughter that echoed through the streets during the annual harvest festival. 

He spoke until he felt her head touch his shoulder, her body leaning against his completely, a tiny smile gracing her lips.

She had drifted off to sleep, safe at his side.

Where she belonged.

Chapter Text

Chapter Four:  Beneath The Red

“Tifa? Cloud?”

The light, feminine voice slipped through Tifa’s groggy awareness, the distant call of her name breaking through her fog of sleep.  She blinked her way awake, straining slightly against the warm, bright sunlight that streamed in overhead.

“…hmm?”

She looked up, finding Cissnei crouched over her with her hands on her hips, brows furrowed slightly as she studied her with waves of her red hair highlighted by the sun streaming in the windows.  The warrior woman blinked slightly, peering at Tifa curiously before gazing to her left and then leaning back with her hands folded over her chest.

Tifa blinked, shaking her head before she sat up, her eyes following Cissnei’s.  It was then that she realized she was sitting next to Cloud on the daybed, that she was leaning against his shoulder and had spent the entire night sleeping there.  Her cheeks flushed with warmth at the hazily returned memories of the night before, of her fitful attempts at sleep and how Cloud had calmly lulled her by talking to her about their pasts.

A past that she still couldn’t remember but was reaching desperately for.

Cloud stirred then, also sitting up, glancing at Tifa with a matching warmth to his cheeks at their closeness, especially with Cissnei’s scrutiny.  He tried to mask his embarrassment at their position with a stony, straight face, sitting up as she looked up at Cissnei.

“Cissnei,” he acknowledged her, turning then to Tifa and getting to his feet to give a respectful space between them.  “Good morning, Tifa.”

Cissnei scoffed, then took a step back, shaking her head slightly as she smirked inwardly.  Tifa rubbed her shoulders, sitting up properly.

“Good morning,” she replied.  Their eyes met for a moment, and Tifa immediately thought of the night before, how she’d crept out of the bedroom weary-eyed and seeking solace.  She turned away from him, her thoughts weaving through the hazy puzzle pieces of lost and forgotten memories that Cloud had helped her put together again the night before.

Cissnei exhaled.  “I’ve just got back from the Outskirts,” she interjected, choosing not to comment on how they’d spent the night together.  “But I’ve got some bad news if you’re planning to travel to Cosmo Canyon any time soon.”

Cloud rubbed at the sleep in his eyes, then crossed his arms over his chest.  “And why is that?” he asked brusquely.

Cissnei took a step back, heading towards the coffee table in her living room.  She unloaded a firearm that was strewn across her back, laying it across the table.  She sighed quietly.

“The free-flier pilot seems to have run into some mechanical trouble after taking your friends to Cosmo Canyon,” she explained, taking a seat on the couch.  Tifa watched as she began to methodically dismantle the rifle’s parts, laying them out across a thin sheet of cloth as she prepared to clean them.

“So what does that mean?” Cloud asked, somewhat impatiently.

Cissnei looked up, sitting back slightly. “It means you’ll have to travel by foot.  He’ll be out of commission for at least a week from what I’ve heard, so if you want to catch up with your friends, you should probably head out soon.”

The redhead turned then to glance up at Tifa, who instinctively wrapped her arms around her waist, somewhat unsettled by this new information.  “How are you feeling?  Do you think you can handle traveling now?”

“But - “ Cloud started to interject.

Tifa shook her head firmly. “I think I’m okay,” she said, watching as Cloud frowned slightly and then glanced down and away from her at her words.  “My head feels much clearer, and the headaches have subsided.  I think I’ll manage.”

Cloud looked as if he wanted to protest, but he kept his mouth shut and his gaze averted.  Tifa knew that he wanted her to rest for a couple more days, but she also knew that it was unfair of her to hold their party up like this any longer.  He sighed audibly instead, then turned away from them both and went over to the window.

“Then we should probably get moving sooner rather than later,” he declared, his arms folded over his chest as he stared out onto Gongaga’s still-quiet streets.  “Gonna take us quite a while to cover that amount of terrain by foot.”

Cissnei offered a sympathetic look to them both.  “You guys can take Fango,” she offered, turning back to Tifa. “She can get you through the jungles and across most of the Western terrain far more quickly than on foot.”

Cloud nodded curtly, but didn’t say anything.  Tifa could see the tension that was wound through his shoulders, and it pulled at something in her gut.  Instead of thinking too deeply on what it could mean, she turned away from him and nodded at Cissnei.

“Right,” she responded.  “I’d better clean up, then.  Mind if I use the shower, Cissnei?”

“Of course,” Cissnei answered, focusing her attention on cleaning her rifle again.

Tifa was glad to slip into the small lavatory, closing the door and leaning against it for a moment as she collected her bearings.  Her heart beat quickly,  her mind spun with everything that seemed to be happening too fast.  Memories that were fuzzy around the edges still clung to the back of her mind, evoked by Cloud’s words the night before and the feelings those sentiments had stirred.  

A quick but hot shower helped her to push them deeper for now, to be reflected on when there weren’t more pressing matters to attend to.  As confused as she still felt, Tifa didn’t want to be a burden to Cloud or the party any longer.  She would find a way to cope with her broken memories and the scattered emotions she felt, but for now, she wanted to get moving.

Perhaps getting out of this house and out of Gongaga would help her clear her mind and regain some of what she had lost.

She cleaned up quickly, rinsing herself under the hot spray but careful not to use up all of Cissnei’s hot water.  She dried off and dressed in clean underwear and her leather skirt and tank tops.  She found her armor and gloves in the guest room, staring at them for a moment and feeling the strange familiarity of their purpose reawaken within her like an anxiously rising Pheonix.

She glanced down at her hand, clenching it into a small fist and watching the veins in her arm bubble.  She thought again of the militia in the village and their martial arts practice, how Cloud had told her she’d trained with one of the best.  She felt the truth of his words in her blood, close but yet still so far away.  She sighed, shaking her head as she pulled the armor on without even thinking about the process, every movement burned into her muscle memory.

After brushing her damp hair, Tifa packed up her things in her rucksack and returned to the living room.  She found Cissnei in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee while she stared out of the window.

“Feeling refreshed?” she asked, turning to Tifa.

Tifa nodded, resting her rucksack on the couch.  It was heavy and made her wonder how long they had been planning to travel on this journey.  She made a note to ask Cloud about it on their way to Cosmo Canyon.

“I think so.   Thank you.”

“Good,” Cissnei affirmed.  “Cloud cleaned up at the armory while you were getting ready, but he should be back by now.  I sent him to get Fango from the stables so you two could get a move on before the sun is too high in the sky.”

Tifa just shrugged at this, not sure what to say.

Cissnei waved at her, setting her coffee mug in the sink as she made her way out the front door.  Tifa followed, shouldering her rucksack as she squinted against the early morning sunlight pouring through the gaps in the trees.  Outside, Cloud stood next to a bright green, harnessed chocobo, gently petting its peak and seemingly whispering something to it under his breath.  He turned at the sounds of their footsteps, his eyes landing on Tifa and looking her up and down in an appraisal she couldn’t quite understand.

She couldn’t stop the warmth that crept up the sides of her face when their eyes met.

The chocobo warked excitedly at their appearance, distracting her when it pulled away from Cloud and made its way in her direction.  He stomped his talons against the soft grass, then bent down, lowering his long neck so that he could affectionally nudge Tifa’s shoulder with his beak.

Cissnei laughed, placing her hands on her hips.  “Seems that Fango really took a liking to you the other day,” she quipped.

Tifa smiled graciously, not remembering those events at all but happy for the bird’s pleasantry nonetheless. She reached up and petted his beak, stroking his feathers.

Cloud cleared his throat.  “Guess we should get going,” he mumbled.

“I'm afraid Fango here is the only bird I can spare,” Cissnei remarked.  “Are you guys okay riding together?”

Tifa looked up at Cloud, her heart quickening slightly at the thought of sitting close to him on the saddle as they traveled the miles to their next destination.  Her eyes dropped to the strong muscles of his torso that were concealed by his sweater, and feeling the heat rise again, she lowered her eyes and said nothing.

“We’ll manage,” Cloud finally acquiesced.

Cissnei seemed to think nothing more of it.  “Good.  It’s dangerous to travel this region at night, so you’ll want to try to cover as much territory as possible and cut through the Outskirts near the waterways to kill some time.  But if you don’t make it to the Vale by sundown, I’d advise making camp somewhere elevated in the foothills.”

Cloud nodded, turning to Fango and giving the bird a pat on its peak.  “We’ll manage,” he said again.  “Thanks, Cissnei.”

Tifa then looked up, nodding as she turned to the red-haired woman.  She’d only known her a couple of days, and they had been strange days at that.  But she was incredibly grateful for her kindness and hospitality.  There was so much she still had to navigate ahead, but Tifa honestly didn’t know where she would be right now if it weren’t for Cissnei’s graciousness.

“Yes, Cissnei.  I can’t thank you enough for helping me these last few days.”

Cissnei smiled, offering a nod in return.  “You’re very welcome. If you’re ever in the area, don’t hesitate to drop in.  And… I hope you both remember everything you’ve forgotten.”

Tifa blinked, watching as Cissnei waved and then turned away to head back into her house without another word to share.  It was certainly an odd thing to say, Tifa thought, turning to glance at Cloud.  He was staring at Cissnei’s back, his eyes glazed over at her words, and Tifa wondered what the woman meant by them.

Cloud blinked, snapping out of it.  He turned around, mounting the choboco before leaning down to reach out a hand to Tifa.

“Ready?”

His stark, mako-blue eyes were softened by the sunlight, their green flecks and glow even more prominent than usual.  His brow wore its usual furrow, betraying to Tifa that he was caught deep in thought somewhere behind those azure pools.  But there was a gentleness there that she had to admit set her heart at ease, and she nodded, accepting his hand with her own.

She stepped into the stirrup and he helped hoist her onto the chocobo behind him, one hand keeping her steady by the wrist while the other helped her up by her waist.  She settled onto Fango’s back behind Cloud, blushing slightly at the close contact of their bodies and the way his hands were on hers.

“You okay?” he asked softly, slowly releasing her hand.

Tifa nodded, her throat suddenly dry.  Cloud grunted in approval and turned away, reaching for the chocobo’s reins and patting him to encourage him to start navigating the narrow village roads.

“Y-you might want to hold on tight,” Cloud stammered suddenly.  “The terrain might get rough, and I’m gonna try to ride a fast pace so we get to Cosmo as soon as possible.”

He cleared his throat, leaning forward as Fango carried them past Gongaga’s village gates and into the thick jungles beyond.  Her heart racing at his words, Tifa hesitated for a moment, staring at Cloud’s back and the messy spikes of his golden blond hair as she considered the implications of such closeness.

Cloud cared about her, she knew.  He only wanted to protect her.  She needed to stop overthinking every little thing.

Tentatively, shyly, she reached out to place her hands on Cloud’s waist, holding onto him in the most unassuming and respectful manner she could manage.  She felt his body stiffen slightly at her touch before he relaxed, leaning forward even further as he spurred Fango on to faster speeds.

Trying to ignore the warmth of his body she could feel emanating from his back, Tifa turned to admire the jungle horizons beyond the river and the interludes of waterfalls as they made their way, pushing the intrusive thoughts and incessant questions plaguing her mind and her heart away.

The sun dipped low on the horizon, casting a warm glow that kissed the rugged cliffs of the Cosmo Canyon Region as Cloud guided the chocobo along the winding path. The terrain began to turn rocky after several long hours, the green and blue hues of the jungle thinning into desolate red and sienna crags.  The humidity shifted into a dry heat, the air acrid as Fango’s talons kicked up dust as he traveled the well-worn roads.

Cloud sat with his jaw set, his eyes focused on navigating the roads ahead but his thoughts scattered in a thousand different directions.  The heat of Tifa’s body was clinging to his from the way that she held onto him. Somewhere along the way as he pushed Fango’s trot into a full gallop, she’d slid her hands from his waist and leaned in closer, wrapping her arms around his middle so she could hold on more tightly.

The closeness made him aware of every nerve ending in his body.  Her breasts were soft against his back, her body warm and even her clean, confectionary scent enveloping him.  It was difficult to be so close to Tifa while the knowledge of her amnesia and the events of the days prior continued to swirl in his head, events with consequences he still couldn’t fathom how to properly confront.  He was torn between the constant desire to care and provide and protect, with the nagging sense that he needed to give her some space to figure things out.  He felt awkward and hamstrung by the entire situation, as if every move he made was the wrong one.

Even contemplating the night before and how he and Tifa had found moments of quiet solace with one another - moments that he admitted felt like small breakthroughs - still plagued him with the sense that he wasn’t doing things right.  When the morning came around, the awkwardness and the distance had opened up between them again, to the point that they had barely spoken more than half a dozen words to each across the hours they’d spent together traveling west.

The lack of conversation only made it easier for him to stew in his own thoughts and question his every move, his anxieties creeping at the edges of his thoughts as he considered the fractured threads of his own sanity and the ever-present threat that both Sephiroth and Shinra represented.  He stared down at his gloved hands where they rested against the downy, bright green feathers of Fango’s neck, the degradation that periled his body the most pressing matter on his mind.

Somehow, though - despite her forgotten memories - the warmth and softness of the woman behind him brought small comfort to his troubles.

Cloud was abruptly shaken out of his thoughts when Fango reared up on both feet, flapping his wings and bucking violently with a frightened wark.  Tifa yelped behind him, her arms tightening their hold around his waist to avoid falling from the chocobo’s back.  Cloud immediately pulled back on the reins, attempting to calm the bird down.

“Fango, whoa,” he shouted, patting the bird’s neck.  “What’s gotten into you?”

“Cloud, look!”

Tifa’s sharp cry, coupled with her outstretched arm pointing over his shoulder, pulled his attention to a hilly outcropping to the north of the road they traveled along.  Cloud’s eyes narrowed at the sight - a small army of Sahagin monsters surged from the shadows, their scales and the sharp tips of their spears reflecting the dying sunlight like shards of malice. The chocobo reared in alarm, its panicked squawks piercing the otherwise silent atmosphere.

"Stay close," Cloud urged, drawing his sword with a metallic ring that sang of impending battle. He could feel Tifa's pulse quicken, her grip on him tightening for a fleeting moment before she slid from the chocobo's back, her movements hesitant.

"Cloud..." her voice wavered, undergirded by a tender note of vulnerability and fear. "I don't... I don't remember how..."

He locked eyes with her, seeing the flicker of doubt shadowing her gaze. He knew that she was worried she might not remember how to fight.  But with the sahagins approaching them with the spirit of guerrilla warfare behind their movements, there was no time to worry about what could go wrong.  All they had was hope.

“Just follow my lead," he said, his tone layered with an unspoken promise to protect, to guide. To be her memory when hers faltered.

As the first Sahagin lunged, Cloud met it head-on, his blade slicing through air and monster flesh alike, bright spurts of red blood and green offal sluicing through the air. Tifa stood beside him, her fists raised defensively, betraying the memory of her inner warrior even in the face of uncertainty.

"Trust yourself," Cloud encouraged between strikes, his focus split between the relentless foes and the woman whose presence made each swing of his sword a vow. He felt it then, an inexplicable pull towards her that transcended the chaos around them.  They had fought side by side in battle countless times and there was no one on earth Cloud trusted more to have at his side in the face of danger. 

It was their first time fighting together since the incident in Gongaga, and Cloud knew that no matter what happened in those next few moments of chaos, he would protect her.

"Cloud!" Tifa cried out, her voice laced with a newfound resolution as she launched herself at a Sahagin, her body moving with a grace that belied her amnesia. She was a flurry of kicks and punches, each movement fluid yet powerful, a testament to the strength that lived within her regardless of recollection.

"Nice move," he couldn't help but quip as he watched her body spin and turn with the power and grace of a dancer, the corner of his mouth lifting in an admiring smirk despite the gravity of their situation. There was something innately alluring about Tifa in motion on the battlefield—the fierce beauty of her form, the passion in her eyes as she fought without remembrance, but not without skill.

A second Sahagin lunged at Cloud, but he was ready, swinging his sword in a wide arc that cleaved through the monster with a single, decisive blow. Beside him, Tifa moved with a grace and ferocity that surprised even herself. Her muscle memory took over, guiding her movements as she launched into a series of swift, powerful punches and kicks.

One Sahagin managed to close in on Tifa, its claws swiping dangerously close. She ducked and spun, delivering a crushing uppercut that sent the creature sprawling. Cloud couldn't help but steal glances at her between his own clashes, his admiration growing with each of her precise, devastating strikes.

"Tifa, behind you!" Cloud called out, but she was already turning, her reflexes sharp. She delivered a spinning kick that connected with the Sahagin's head, sending it flying back.

The fight was intense, the air filled with the sounds of steel meeting flesh and the guttural cries of the Sahagin as scales and flesh alike were torn asunder. For a breathless eternity, they fought back-to-back, their silhouettes weaving an intricate tapestry of combat against the backdrop of the desert sunset. 

As the last Sahagin crumbled to the ground, the silence of the canyon returned. Tifa panted, her chest heaving from the exertion as she leaned forward on her knees. Cloud lowered his sword, his eyes locked on her, a mix of concern and admiration in his gaze.

“Is that… Is that all of them?” Tifa's voice was soft, almost disbelieving as she turned to face him, her dark eyes searching his for confirmation.

“Looks like it,” Cloud affirmed. "Thanks to you.”  

The pride in his voice mingled with something more fragile. It was there in the way he reached to brush a stray lock of hair from her face, in the lingering touch that spoke volumes in the quietude of their shared victory. His fingers ghosted over her skin with a tenderness that contrasted starkly with the violence they'd just wrought.

She remembered.  She was every bit the fighter she had been before he had pushed her into that mako.  He hadn’t taken that away from her, at least.

"Me?" her soft laugh was melodic, easing the tension from his shoulders. "I guess I'm remembering more than I thought."

"You're remembering everything that matters," Cloud found himself replying, the depth of his feelings for her shining through the stoicism he wore like armor. It was only half true, but saying it bolstered him against the fears that had been consuming him for days and that dug at him even after their shared moments the night before.  She was still unsure of him, he knew… but whatever confidence he could offer her, he would.

They walked to the side of the road where the chocobo waited nervously. It was only then that the adrenaline rush began to plummet, the awareness of mild injuries setting in.  Cloud noticed first, wincing as he touched his busted lip. Tifa followed, her hand pressing against a gash on her thigh.

The sight of bright red smeared across her milky skin was an instant alarm in Cloud’s brain. “You're hurt," he said softly, reaching out to her. 

"Just a scratch," she replied, but her voice was tinged with pain.

Cloud ignored her dismissal, reaching into Fango’s saddle bag and tearing a strip of medicinal fabric from a recently transmuted cushion. He turned back to her, meeting her dark carmine eyes for a moment, seeking their permission before he lowered himself to his knees in front of her at her slow nod.

"Here, let me," he murmured, crouching down beside her on the rocky ground. His voice was quiet, not wanting to shatter the fragile bubble that enveloped them.

Cloud was eye-to-eye with the midpoint of Tifa’s thighs, the pale space above her stocking and below her skirt dangerous.  His desire surged like a tsunami inside him, and he tamped it down by focusing on the ugly red gash that marred her left leg.  The sahagin’s spear had swiped just deep enough to expose the spongy red flesh below her skin, now bleeding profusely.

"Does it hurt?" he asked softly, positioning himself so that his shadow sheltered her injury from the amber glow of Cosmo Canyon's crystals.

"A little," she admitted, her teeth catching on her lower lip in a way that drew his gaze momentarily from the task at hand.

He inched closer, his breath hitching as he felt the warmth of her nearness, his heart pounding for reasons that had nothing to do with the fight.

With utmost care, he began to gently wrap the medicinal bandage around her thigh. His touch was tender, his fingers lingering a moment longer than necessary.  He couldn't help but be acutely conscious of the firmness of her muscle beneath his fingers, heat flowing through his veins like lava.

"Your fighting was incredible," Cloud said, his words distracting him from the longing and need being so close to an intimate part of her body was drawing out. "You've always been amazing, Tifa."

"Really?" Her voice wavered, laced with a giggle that made his heart bellyflop. It was a sound that stirred memories within him—echoes of laughter and shared glances that had once been their secret language and had now been lost, thanks to his own inner destruction.

"Absolutely." His gaze lifted to meet hers, blue clashing with crimson. The corners of his mouth twitched, drawn upward despite the pain from his busted lip.

"Cloud, your lip..." She reached out tentatively, her fingers ghosting over the swollen flesh. "It looks painful."

"Ah, it's nothing." But his protest died on his lips as her touch lingered, sending jolts of sensation that contradicted his nonchalance. "Tifa..."

"Let me," she insisted, echoing his earlier offer. There was a tenderness in her eyes that he hadn't seen since before her memories became veiled in fog.

Cloud got to his feet, standing in front of her and watching as Tifa went into her rucksack and pulled out a small, clean cloth, dampening it with water from her flask. She leaned forward, gently dabbing at the cut. Cloud stilled, hyperaware of every movement, every brush of her fingertips against his skin. The heat that was coursing through his body seemed to burst, and he gripped his hands into tight fists at his sides, trying to control the urges that were boiling inside of him, pushing him to grab her and kiss her right there.

"Thanks,” he managed to breathe, allowing himself to close his eyes and just feel—the cool touch on his lip, the softness of her breath, the lingering adrenaline from battle mingling with the embers of desire she stoked in him.

"Does that help?" Tifa asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her hands retreating hesitantly.

"Yeah." He opened his eyes, finding himself lost for a moment in the depths of hers. In that gaze, he saw flickers of recognition, glimpses of shared history rekindling in her mind.

Cloud breathed heavily as he nodded at Tifa, turning away to gather his bearings, the thick ropes of tension between them finally severed.

“It’s late,” Cloud remarked as Tifa moved towards Fango, preparing to mount again.  “We’re still fifty or so miles out from the Vale.  If we keep traveling, we’re sure to run into more fights like that.”

Tifa glanced over at him, her wide, crimson eyes masking emotions he wasn’t sure he could read.  His eyes fell again to her thigh, and he couldn’t help but think about her injury in the reactor a few days back.

“Besides, you really should take it easy.”

Tifa’s lips parted as if she were going to say something in protest, and Cloud was momentarily transfixed by their pouty, beckoning state.  But she acquiesced with a small nod, looking at the terrain around them.

“I guess you’re right,” she agreed.  “I am a bit tired after that.  I remembered how to fight but… my body just feels out of it.”

She blushed slightly at the admission, shielding her face from him by distracting herself, stroking Fango’s feathers to calm him down after the incursion.  Cloud’s chest felt tight at her words.  He badly wanted to reach out and touch her, to offer a hand or an arm or anything he could to support and comfort her.  But once again he felt awkward and stuck, failing to do anything meaningful to help her.

He berated himself inwardly for his cowardice, swearing as he circled around Fango to rub the chocobo’s beak and gather his reins.  “It’ll just take some time,” he finally managed, speaking to Tifa but looking at the chocobo.  The bird warbled softly as if it understood, blinking and fluttering its wings.  “We should move to high ground to make camp.  Come on.”

He finally turned back to Tifa, offering her a hand to help hoist her back onto the chocobo.  She glanced at him for a moment, a thick rope of wired tension running between them as she stared at his hand.  She nodded after a moment then, taking his hand and lifting herself onto the saddle while Cloud steadied her, his hands reaching for her waist when she slid backward a little bit.

“Careful,”  he warned.

He realized then that her hips had fallen squarely into the palms of his hands, his fingers inadvertently curling around the top of her bottom, just below the waistband of her skirt.  Heat raced up Cloud’s neck as he realized how intimately he was touching her again, and the sudden scorch he felt was not helped by the way that Tifa looked back at him in surprise, her cheeks flushed and her lashes fluttering as she pulled on the saddle’s horn to right and steady herself.

“Sorry,” she apologized meekly.

“I-it’s fine,” Cloud quickly responded, turning away once she was settled on top of the bird.  His hands burned under his gloves, and he busied himself by taking Fango’s reins, leading them off the side of the road along a padded stretch of inclining desert land that led up red, clay-beaten hills.

Cloud stayed silent as he carefully navigated them up the crags, careful to guide Fango through the rocky landscape.  Fango was a gliding chocobo, accustomed to wetlands and soft grass and mushroom patches in the jungle.  He didn’t want to overburden the animal outside of its typical climate, knowing it would be more likely to get injured or suffer an accident on unfamiliar terrain.

He tried to calm his thoughts as he brought them a safe distance from the road and the lower foothills where fiends were more likely to traverse at night, finding a quiet and isolated cliffside space below deep red mesas that kept it sheltered from the broader desert beyond.  They made their way up the cliff, Tifa sighing quietly as they went, her every breath so attached to Cloud’s senses it was as if he could feel them at the cellular level.  It was incredibly distracting, and he couldn’t help but glance back at her at every chance he could to check on her. But she simply offered him a small smile or nodded complacently, letting him know that everything was alright.

She was trying so hard to not be a burden and to prove that she was doing just fine, despite the circumstances.  But Cloud knew this was not the case. What he didn’t know was how to fix it.

Nonetheless, he wasn’t going to stop trying.

When they made it behind the mesa, Cloud stopped, quietly praising Fango with a pat on his peak before he began to unload their rucksacks from the saddlebags to make camp for the night.  As he did so, he heard a giggle to his left.

He turned, looking up to see that Tifa had dismounted the chocobo and was standing beside him, her arms crossed across her chest and an amused smile on her face.

“…What?” he asked, warmth spreading across his cheeks again.

She shook her head, dipping it slightly as she brought her hand to her mouth.  “Nothing,” she responded. “Sorry, it’s just… you’re great with the chocobo.  I guess I didn’t expect it.”

Cloud blinked at her, then shrugged.  “Gotta take care of the animals if you want them to perform for you.”

“It’s cute.”

Cloud’s face was instantly engulfed by flames.  She giggled again, and he quickly averted his eyes, making quick work to unpack the rucksacks and tents.  

Did Tifa just call him cute?

He wasn’t sure how to take that, but if it got her smiling, it was good enough for him.  He turned back to her, offering her a smirk in response before he nodded over to an open outcropping below the mesa’s farthest wall.

“That looks like a good spot to set up camp,” he suggested.  “Perfect to keep watch from, and has a great view of the stars.”

He paused there, turning to glance back at her, waiting to see if she would have any reaction to that.  Last night, he’d talked to her about those days in Nibelheim that he could still remember, carefree summer days and nights as children, simpler and happier times.  They’d talked briefly about that fateful day five years ago and she’d cried over her father’s death, small but tragic memories returning to her.  But he hadn’t brought up their promise again since the blank stare she’d given him in Cissnei’s kitchen the prior afternoon, and it tore at his heart to think that a moment that meant so much to him had lost all of its meaning to her.

Tifa didn’t say anything, just looked up at the sky, her eyes tracing the lines of the clouds as they faded into wispy violet streaks with the sun sinking behind the horizon.  Cloud thought he saw a faint smile pull at her lips, but he couldn’t be sure.

“Okay,” was all she managed in response. 

He tried not to sigh in defeat, despite the way his shoulders suddenly sagged as if all of the wind had been knocked from his sails. Instead, he offered her a warm and consoling smile in return, then put the matter out of his mind, turning away to unload their wares and set up their camp for the night.

Tifa was just as industrious as ever, getting right to work alongside him and falling into a rhythm helping him set their camp.  While he staked out her tent and stoked the fire, Tifa unpacked their rations and prepared to cook a quick but filling meal of pre-packaged stew they’d bought way back in  Under Junon. 

The campfire crackled, its flames licking at the evening air as Cloud set down the last tent peg. He stood, glancing over at her. She was stirring the small pot of stew, the aroma of cooked meat and herbs wafting into the breeze. He watched silently, unknowingly captivated, as she set the ladle down and then walked over to Fango, who trilled softly as she stroked his neck and then fed him greens from her hand. 

Cloud blinked, realizing how hard he was staring when Tifa came back to the fire and sat down. She glanced over at him, waving him towards the pot as she stirred the stew again.  Sighing quietly under his breath to dispel the tension that was wound around his bones, Cloud moved closer and sat near Tifa by the fire, the light dancing across her delicate features. She kept her eyes downcast as she ladled stew into two tin bowls, handing one wordlessly to Cloud, their fingers brushing. Tifa's cheeks colored slightly and she tucked a strand of chestnut hair behind her ear.

“Thanks,” he managed, his hand on fire again, his neck hot.  He sat back, leaving a respectful distance between them in hopes he might be able to cool his nerves.

They ate in silence, the occasional crackle of the fire and Fango's muted kwehs the only sounds. Unwittingly, Cloud's gaze kept drifting to Tifa as she ate. The starlight overhead - the Cosmo region’s bright, vast sky unbidden by pollution or obstruction - drew forth memories that he knew were still buried for her. 

He ached to speak, to ask her if she remembered the promise they'd made as children. The promise sealed under the stars that fateful night so long ago. But her distant manner gave him pause. 

Cloud yearned to see her smile again, the way she did briefly when she quipped about the choboco, or when he told her about her cat Maru, or when he helped her make pilaf in Cissnei’s kitchen. He yearned for her wine-hued eyes to meet his with the same familiar warmth that stared back at him in Seventh Heaven all those weeks ago. To hear his name in her gentle voice as it used to be, not the guarded detachment that now clouded her tone.

Tifa glanced up, noticing Cloud's stare. Another blush bloomed on her cheeks and she looked away shyly. Cloud felt his pulse quicken at her reaction. Could it be that buried somewhere deep in her heart, she still remembered what had blossomed after their reunion in the slums?  Was that same care and tenderness she’d given him those first few weeks still there, ready to bloom and glow? The very possibility flooded him with hope.

Tifa set her empty bowl aside, her gaze drifting upwards. Cloud followed, taking in the dazzling expanse of the night sky above Cosmo Canyon. The stars shone like jewels against velvet, the moon a luminous pearl overlooking it all. 

"It's beautiful," Tifa murmured. 

Cloud glanced at her upturned face, bathed in starlight. His memory overlapped with the sight of her in the same position to his right that night on the water tower, and his heart clenched. 

"Yeah," he said softly. "It is."

Tifa met his eyes briefly before looking away again, a new tension in her posture. She shifted, trying to hide a wince of pain that Cloud noticed immediately.

"I need to check your wound,” he said, concern furrowing his brow. Silently, he was grateful for the distraction from his feelings and the confusion of all of it. “You might have reopened it. Here, let me see."

He reached for her gently but Tifa recoiled. "I'm fine," she insisted, though her voice shook slightly. 

Cloud hesitated, then said in a low, earnest tone, "Please, Tifa. I just want to help." 

She searched his face as if gauging his sincerity.  It tore the blood out of his ventricles to see her look at him that way. Finally, she relented with a small nod, leaning back slightly.  Cloud was mindful to keep his touch feather-light as he examined her injury, his breath catching at her proximity. Her unique scent, subtle and sweet, stirred memories of lighter days now veiled in shadow and tremulous longing. He longed to unveil them once more, to restore what had been lost. To rekindle that spark hidden within her.

Shoving those thoughts aside, he quickly redressed the bandaging, careful not to let his eyes linger on any one patch of flesh for too long.

"Thank you, Cloud," Tifa said softly when he finished. 

She gifted him with the whisper of a smile and Cloud felt something stir deep within his heart. It was suffocating, but he held on to it tightly.

Tifa rose slowly, careful not to aggravate her wound. As she stood, her gaze fell upon the single small tent erected nearby. 

"Just one tent?" she asked.

Cloud nodded, a touch of color rising in his cheeks. "Yeah. I figured I'd keep watch tonight so you could get some rest." 

Tifa tilted her head, studying him. "You don't have to do that," she said gently. "You need to sleep too."

Cloud shook his head, avoiding her earnest eyes. He hated to admit it,  but the thought of sleeping anywhere near her tore him to shreds, especially after the way they’d dozed off together last night and had emerged with nothing but newfound awkwardness between them. “It's okay. I can go a long time without sleep - part of the enhancements from being a SOLDIER."

"Oh," Tifa said softly, a complicated mix of emotions flitting across her face. She hesitated as if wanting to protest further, but instead simply shrugged.

"Good night, Cloud."

He watched her disappear into the tent, his heart aching. To be so close to her now, yet separated by the gauzy veil of forgotten memories...it was torture. 

Cloud settled near the dying fire, sword close at hand. He would keep her safe tonight, as he had always sworn to do. And perhaps, in the quiet hours beneath the blanket of stars, he would find the right words to help bring back what they had lost. For now, her nearness and knowing she was safe was enough to keep the darkness at bay.

Cloud leaned back against a weathered boulder, the crackling fire casting flickering shadows across his pensive face. His mako-infused eyes reflected the dancing flames as he gazed at Tifa's tent, his acute hearing picking up the soft sounds of her moving within. 

His fingers traced idle patterns in the dirt as his mind wandered to memories of their shared past - secret meetings under the stars, drinks shared across a worn wooden bar counter, embraces shared in flower gardens with the scent of cinder and ash in the air. A small, wistful smile pulled at his lips.

She had always been able to pierce through the walls he put up around his heart. With just a touch or a kind word, she could make him feel truly seen - known - in a way no one else could. 

He glanced down at the Buster sword staked in the ground beside him gleaming softly in the firelight. He had made a promise to be her hero, her protector. But now she was the one saving him, her light guiding him through the dark fog of his own mind.

Even if she didn’t remember what she had vowed to him that night in Gongaga before she closed her eyes and lost it all.

Cloud sighed softly, picking up a stray twig to poke at the embers. He would tell her everything soon. For now, just having her near was enough to keep the demons at bay. As long as she was safe, he could face anything the shadows had to offer. 

The dawn was a gentle caress against the vast horizon of the canyon as Tifa nestled closer to Cloud on Fango's broad back. The rhythmic sway of their chocobo's gait lulled her into a state of calmness, the soft warmth of Cloud's body in front of her both a balm and a torment. Faint strains of longing twined through the fog of her foggy, melancholic thoughts, binding her to him in ways she couldn't grasp.

"Are you holding up okay?" Cloud's voice, low and rough from a night without sleep, vibrated through her.

"I'm fine," she murmured, more to reassure herself than to answer his question. She noted the subtle tension in his posture, the way his arms tugged at Fango’s reins just a touch too firmly.

Tifa dared not confess the sadness that pooled within her, the sorrow for memories lost and for the night he'd spent vigilant while she slumbered in the tent—alone and unaware. She cursed her own timidity, wishing now she had pleaded with him to join her, or at least to share the quiet hours of darkness.

As they approached Cosmo Canyon, Tifa felt the earthy scent of ancient stone and burning sage tease her senses, drawing her out of her reverie. The land seemed to hold its breath, watching them as they approached with their fragmented pasts in tow.

A wide rope bridge opened up in front of them as they at last approached the vale, the village of Cosmo Canyon and its clay pueblos and cliffside dwellings towering above them and piercing the pale blue sky and the sun’s white-hot glow.  The sight of a well-populated province eased some of the discontent she was feeling being alone in her thoughts.  Being around people would help her push them aside for a while. 

"Friends of Red XIII, you say?" an elder inquired skeptically when they reached the settlement’s entrance and Cloud brusquely stated their business.  “I know no one by that name.”

Cloud frowned visibly, his irritation apparent.  “That’s right,” he repeated, his voice steady despite the hint of challenge.

A ripple of confusion passed through the gathered elders, their whispers like leaves rustling in the wind. The name did not resonate with them, and Tifa sensed the undercurrents of a misunderstanding about to unfold.

It was then that a familiar figure flashed by in a burst of sienna red, and intercepted the growing disquiet. 

"Red XIII is what Hojo called me," Red explained as he approached, his voice tinged with the innocence of one not yet burdened by the world's weight.  It was a vast and almost comical change from the deep timber Tifa had heard him speak with previously.  "But my true name is Nanaki. Yardis, they are part of my troupe.  You may let them pass.”

The revelation seemed to echo off the canyon walls, and Tifa watched as understanding dawned on the faces around them. The elders guarding the entrance stepped out of the way, opening up their passage to the bustling market square of Cosmo Canyon’s village center.  Red XIII - or Nanaki, it seemed, galloped at their side with the exuberance of a young pup, his tongue hanging from his mouth as he filled Cloud and her in with the details of everything they had done while waiting for the two of them to catch up.

He brought them to the town’s pub where the rest of the party was gathered, enjoying breakfast and hot cups of spiced coffee.  Tifa could not help but be intrigued by the complexities of the conversations that surrounded her and the boundless energy of the Canyon’s many visitors.  Despite the early hours, almost all of the shops were full, mindfulness classes were being held on the balcony, and prayer and study sessions were held in nearly every corner.  Cosmo Canyon was a place that embraced one’s need for the practices of its beliefs.

“You made it!” 

The embrace came as a sudden warmth against the chill of Tifa's uncertainty, Aerith's arms wrapping around her in a hug that felt both foreign and familiar. She returned the embrace half-heartedly, her touch hesitant like a melody played with forgotten notes.

She knew these people - including this over-eager girl - were her friends.  But it was so hard to find the remembrance of that when her memories were in short supply.

“It’s so good to see you, Tifa," Aerith whispered, pulling back just enough to search her eyes with mild concern.

"Thanks, Aerith," Tifa replied, the words strange on her tongue, a reminder of friendships she could not fully recall.  Aerith turned away with a smile, aiming her attention at Cloud, who stood now by the bar with his arms over his chest.

Barret's booming laughter broke through the awkwardness, his large hands clapping Cloud on the back with enough force to stagger him. "Man, it's been too quiet without you two!"

"Quiet is good sometimes," Cloud responded dryly, recovering his balance with a scowl.

"Ha! Of course you'd think so, broody boy!" Yuffie chimed in, raising a glass of orange juice into the air so forcefully that it sloshed messily. "We've learned so much about planetology here. It's wild—all about the Lifestream and how it connects everything!"

"Sounds... enlightening," Tifa managed, offering a small smile that didn't reach her eyes.

“I got what to say about some of it,” Barret complained, banging his good fist on the counter so harshly that the bartender stopped and frowned at him.  “Some things ain’t adding up.”

Nanaki entreated them, dismissing Barret’s insinuation with a wave before he motioned for Cloud and Tifa to follow, his tail flicking with an eagerness that beckoned them onward. "Come, Bugenhagen has much to show you.  We were waiting until you guys made it back.”

“I’ll come with!” Aerith exclaimed excitedly, running up behind them as Tifa followed behind Cloud.

They made their way deeper into the Canyon, taking the elevator to the highest peaks of the encampment. As they ascended toward the observatory, the pathways wound tighter, spiraling like the thoughts in Tifa's head—around and around until they were swallowed by the vastness of space within the elder's sanctuary.

The observatory was as messy and overwhelming as an overpacked museum - everything from trinkets, crystals, vintage technology, and books lining the walls and shelves of every floor. Aerith, who Tifa was realizing has the wistfulness of a young child, stopped to touch everything, while Tifa found herself intrigued by some of the titles of books along the walls and the old crystals of materia that still glowed faintly with forgotten memories.

Not unlike her own, she thought ruefully, wondering if a materia out there somewhere held her past in its swirly depths.

“Welcome, my young friends," Bugenhagen greeted, appearing from an enclosure above, his voice resonating with the wisdom of the stars themselves.  He floated atop a large, glowing green orb, making his movements swift and boundless.

“Come with me.”

They followed up to the top floor, Tifa watching silently as he explained the machinery in the room that hummed with the energy of a thousand galaxies, the projection of the planet floating serenely amidst a tapestry of constellations. The cycle of the Lifestream unfurled before them, ethereal streams intertwining in a dance of creation and destruction.

“The Lifestream," Bugenhagen explained, his fingers tracing the arcs of light that painted the cosmos.  “It is the very essence of our star.”

Cloud stood close to Tifa, their shoulders nearly touching in the dim illumination. He watched her face, illuminated by the celestial display, the wonder in her eyes reflecting the very stars that held his gaze.  Feeling the heat of his stare, Tifa turned, their eyes meeting.  For what felt like an endless moment, the universe paused, granting them solitude amidst the grandeur of life's eternal flow.

Cloud watched Tifa as the vibrant strands of the Lifestream swirled around them like a cosmic ballet, her eyes wide with wonder and something akin to recognition. Her hand lifted slightly, fingers twitching as if to grasp at the memories that played hide-and-seek in the corners of her mind.

“The great river where all are fated to intertwine and circle the planet without end.”

The lights of the observatory switched back on, the platform lowering as the planetary display faded back to the high-arched ceiling.  Aerith clapped her hands in excitement, questions firing from her lips, while Tifa blinked, absorbing everything she had just seen and heard.

“But what of the mind?  The soul?”

Bugenhagen’s words - his carefully crafted explanation of the Lifestream, the illuminating sights of energy and life forces melding and dissipating into the planet’s endless river - it stirred something in Tifa, triggering hazy images of bright green rivers flowing beneath the earth’s core and weaving between places she’d seen before.  Silver hair and an even more silvered blade flashed in her mind, circled by black and white ghosts and bursts of light as bright and purple as lightning.

"Bugenhagen," Tifa's voice trembled like a leaf caught in a gentle breeze, her heart pounding against her chest.  The sudden influx of recollections spilled forth with so much urgency that she could not hold her words in.  "I think... I remember falling into the Lifestream near Gongaga."

The old man turned, peering at her through eyes that had seen the ebb and flow of countless seasons. His weathered face twisted with suspicion and thought, then eased with slight amusement, the age spots in his skin stretching with every line of his expression.

“Ah, so you claim to have been embraced by the planet's essence?" His tone held a note of skepticism, a sharp contrast to the warmth of his earlier words.

"Yes," she insisted, her resolve hardening like ice forming on a winter lake. The images in her mind were too real - in fact, they went deeper than her mind, reaching the depths of her heart. “I saw the planet—fighting, struggling against… its enemies." Her hands moved as she spoke, but her voice slowed, the words sounding ridiculous once they finally left her lips.

"Child," he scoffed, the sound cutting through the stillness of the observatory. "You need education, not indulgence in flights of fancy.  Or perhaps you should seek treatment for mako poisoning."

"Her experiences are real," Cloud suddenly interjected, his voice low but firm, carrying a weight that defied his usual reticence. Tifa blinked, glancing at him, the mako blue in his eyes icy but flaring.

"Enough," Bugenhagen dismissed, waving a dismissive hand. "Your friend requires guidance, not empty reassurances. She will attend a seminar."

Tifa's lips parted in protest, but before she could voice her objection, another elder appeared, leading her away from the celestial tapestry to the nearby seminary hall.

“I’ll come too,” Aerith volunteered, racing to her side. Cloud scoffed loud enough for everyone to hear, but followed close behind, his scowl deep and his jaw set.

As they walked, Tifa ruminated over the images that appeared in her mind so suddenly.  She was suddenly back in Gongaga, staring into Cloud’s soulful blue eyes as he regretfully explained she’d fallen into the reactor, right into a pool of mako. She had at the time wondered what that could possibly mean for her, but now, she was finally getting her first hint.

Cloud caught up to her side, leaning in close in an attempt to keep Aerith and the elder from overhearing his words.

"Will you be okay?" he asked.

"Of course," Tifa replied as confidently as she could, her smile brave yet fragile as a spider's web glistening in the morning dew. But her eyes betrayed her, and her voice shook.  The weakness that was hidden below the surface plagued her.

"Remember," he said softly, standing mere inches away, "I'm right here with you." 

His hand hovered over hers, but he pulled back just before they touched.  Tifa could feel the warmth of the leather tease her skin, and when she glanced up at him, he was staring straight ahead again, stone-faced. 

Aerith glanced their way, a knowing look in her gaze, but said nothing, allowing the moment its sacred space. They continued in silence to the seminar, following the directions of the elder.

The room was a sanctuary of wisdom, its walls whispering tales of the ancients as Tifa took her place among the eager congregants. She sat on the woven mat, legs folded beneath her, the soft light from the hanging lanterns casting shadows across the floor. Aerith settled beside her, folding her hands in her lap but suddenly quieter than she had ever been.

Cloud remained apart, a solitary figure leaning against the stone wall with folded arms, his gaze fixed on Tifa. His eyes were oceans of concern, and she could feel their waves lapping at the shores of her troubled mind.  He seemed both angry and intrigued, a quiet storm in the corner of the room.

She didn’t understand it, but she had a strong compulsion to help him calm the tempests of his mind.  

If only she knew how.

"Share with us your questions, child," the elder intoned, his voice smooth as the pebbles lining the canyon's pathways.

Tifa’s heart clenched. It was as if she stood on the edge of a cliff, the chasm of her fragmented memories yawning before her. Swallowing her fear, she spoke, her voice hesitant. 

"I... I fell into the Lifestream. I don’t know how to describe it, except… beautiful, maybe?  Feelings of kindness…long forgotten memories…It was a warm, comforting place.”

Tifa closed her eyes, placing her hand over her heart.  The more that she spoke, the more that the images gained clarity, as if they were crystalline figures being polished before being placed back on the shelves of her mind.  Her home in Nibelheim, a dangerous bridge, a water tower under the stars…

A little blond boy with bright blue eyes… 

“But… there was also conflict.  A war, between the planet and its enemies, shadows I couldn't understand.”

A collective gasp swept through the room like a sudden breeze, eyes wide with disbelief. Cloud's fists tightened imperceptibly, his stance protective even from afar.

"Such fancies," the elder dismissed with a wave of his hand.  He offered her a patronizing smile. "You speak of dreams, not the teachings of planetology.  But perhaps you may seek your curiosity among the Apocrypha. I suppose it never hurts to keep looking for that which we seek.”

The seminar drew to a close, an unceremonious end that left a bitter aftertaste. As they rose, Tifa wrapped her arms around herself, a barrier against the chill of rejection. Cloud approached, his footsteps soft and quiet.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"I'm fine," she lied, her voice a poorly crafted mask that didn't quite fit. She stepped back, distancing herself from the electric pull of his concern.

Aerith glanced at Tifa, emerald eyes conflicted. Yet she held her tongue, choosing the silence of respect over the intrusion of consolation.

"We should join the others at the River of Lights Ceremony," Aerith suggested instead, turning on her heels to leave.

Tifa nodded, her movements mechanical, as she followed her friends through Cosmo Canyon’s embracing corridors. The longing in Cloud's gaze reached out, a tender vine seeking purchase in the garden of her soul. Her eyes met his, and for a breathless moment, the dam within her trembled, threatening to release a deluge of tears born of love and loss, of forgotten promises and phantom embraces.

But the dam held, and Tifa turned away, the weight of her sorrow silent and heavy. 

Tifa slipped away from Cloud and Aerith to the sanctuary of a secluded rest alcove, its walls cool and rough beneath her fingertips. The dim light from a nearby luminescent crystal flickered across her face as she leaned over the basin, water pooling in her cupped hands before she splashed it onto her heated skin. Droplets clung to her eyelashes like morning dew, the chill of the water biting into the warmth of her flushed cheeks.

In the reflection of the polished stone, her eyes—a stormy blend of Bordeaux and twilight—betrayed the turmoil within. The first tear escaped, tracing a glistening path down her cheek.  She didn’t understand the memories she had just recalled.  She didn’t understand the things she had seen in the Lifestream or why Cloud’s young visage was marked all over them, why the elders’ ire was aimed at her as pointedly as Sephiroth’s violence had been.  All of it was so confusing and unsettling, and she bit into her lip, trembling as tears stained her cheeks.

She inhaled deeply, her breath hitching as she whispered words of encouragement to her own image.

"You're stronger than this, Tifa. Hold on."

Her fingers trembled as she wiped her face clean. With one last look at her reflection, Tifa steeled herself, leaving the alcove to join the ceremony below.

The night had wrapped Cosmo Canyon in a velvet shroud by the time Tifa emerged, the stars above weaving an intricate tapestry of light against the infinite dark. She moved with quiet grace towards the glow of the Cosmo Candle, its flames reaching skyward like the fiery hands of the planet itself.

Through the dance of shadows and light, Tifa's gaze was drawn to two figures standing apart from the rest. Cloud, his blond hair a halo in the firelight, stood with a rigidness that spoke volumes. Beside him, Aerith stood with animated excitement, her gestures painting the air with invisible strokes as she conversed with him.

Tifa's heart beat a staccato rhythm against her ribs as she watched, hidden in the shadows. Aerith leaned in, her proximity to Cloud an almost intimate invasion of space, and Tifa could feel the tension radiating from where she stood. Cloud's reaction was as silent as ricocheting bullets; he turned his head away, his frown etching lines of discomfort across his usually impassive features.

For a moment, Tifa was an unseen spectator to their wordless exchange. As Aerith continued to speak, her hands fluttering like the wings of a captive bird, Cloud took a subtle step back, his arms folding defensively over his chest.

As she watched them, Tifa felt a deep sense of unease. Aerith lifted on her toes, her continued proximity to Cloud making Tifa's heart clench. Cloud's awkwardness, his frown, his retreat—none of it seemed to matter in the face of the possibility that Aerith could be as close to him in a way that Tifa herself may once have been but woefully had forgotten. It was a possibility that gnawed at her soul, leaving her feeling raw and exposed.

Tears welled in her eyes, blurring her vision as she struggled to contain the emotions that threatened to overwhelm her. Why did she feel this way? Why did the thought of Cloud being with someone else hurt so much? She had no right to expect anything exclusive with him, especially when her own memories were a shattered mosaic of half-remembered truths and an empty, barren past.

Tifa turned away, her chest tight with a mix of sorrow and confusion. She found a secluded spot, a small alcove nestled between two large rocks, and sank to the ground. The soft murmur of the gathering crowd preparing for the River of Lights ceremony drifted to her ears, but she felt isolated, cut off from the joy and anticipation that filled the air.

As she sat there, waiting for the ceremony to begin, Tifa's mind wandered back to the snippets of her past and the memories that she could remember. The warmth of childhood summers and the fires of her village’s death, the green glow of the Lifestream as it beckoned her towards a greater purpose that she couldn’t understand. She clenched her fists, her nails digging into her palms as she tried to make sense of the tumultuous emotions roiling within her.

In the dim light of the approaching night, Tifa allowed herself to grieve for the memories she had lost and the uncertainties that plagued her heart. She longed for clarity, for the truth about her relationship with Cloud, but for now, all she could do was wait and hope that the answers would come in time. As the first lanterns were released into the sky, their soft glow mirrored the flickering hope within her, a hope that she and Cloud would find their way back to each other, no matter what the past held. The sight was a jagged edge against Tifa's heart, yet she remained motionless, a statue carved from longing and confusion. Her chest tightened, the ache spreading like wildfire through her veins, but she offered no sound, no movement to betray her vigil.

The flickering flames of the Cosmo Candle cast a warm, amber hue over the gathered faces as they watched the River of Lights ceremony unfold. Each lantern released into the night sky carried a silent wish, ascending towards the stars with a promise of hope and renewal. Cloud stood among the throng, his gaze following the lanterns' ascent, but his thoughts were anchored firmly to the ground, heavy with concern.

Aerith's voice, melodic and clear, had risen above the murmur of the crowd, speaking of her Cetra heritage with a reverence that touched the hearts of all who listened. Yet Cloud could scarcely concentrate on her words; instead, he felt the nagging pull of inner conflict, an insistent throb that drowned out the ceremony like a discordant note.

He remembered the seminar earlier that day, the scoffing laughter that had greeted Tifa's earnest account of falling into the Lifestream. The ridicule had stung, not just Tifa, but him as well—deeply. Since then, she'd seemed more melancholy and distant, her usual light dimmed by a shadow of sadness that pained him to witness. His heart clenched at the thought of her distress, a tightness that begged for release in the form of comfort he yearned to give.

But Tifa had vanished after the seminar, slipping away like a wisp of smoke, leaving Cloud cornered by Aerith's chaotic persistence. Cloud considered the Cetra to be a good friend after the first tumultuous weeks since they’d first met, but she had an accomplished ability to scrape beneath his nerves.

"Cloud," she had said, her eyes searching his, "you need to help Tifa." And though the intent behind her gaze was pure, it unsettled him, forcing him to dance delicately around feelings he far preferred to keep buried and to himself.  It wasn’t the first time Aerith had tried to rope him into a conversation about Tifa and he suspected it wouldn’t be the last.

Thankfully, he’d managed to slip away from her, and her distraction at Cosmo Canyon’s reverence of her Cetran ancestry kept her occupied for the rest of the evening. As the last lantern disappeared into the darkness, the crowd began to disperse, their voices a soft murmur against the backdrop of the infinite cosmos. But Cloud remained still, caught in the gravity of his hesitations, the memory of Tifa's hurt look anchoring him to the spot like a chain to his soul. He needed to find her, to speak the words that might dispel the shadows and bring back her smile—a smile that was, to him, as vital as the very air he breathed.

The embers of the Cosmo Candle danced like restless spirits in the night, casting their warm glow across Tifa's solemn face. Cloud moved through the thinning crowd, his boots crunching softly on the gravel as he approached her side.

"Hey," he said softly, the word more breath than sound.

Tifa didn't turn to look at him, her gaze fixed on the bonfire's dance. The light painted her features in a warm glow, casting the subtlest of shadows beneath her lashes. She was a portrait of stillness, yet the tremble in her shoulders spoke volumes to Cloud's observant eyes.

"Is this seat taken?" His voice was a gentle murmur, calibrated to soothe rather than intrude.

"Only by ghosts," she finally replied, not bothering to turn, her voice tinged with a melancholy that wrapped around him, intimate and raw.

Cloud hesitated at her sharpness but sat down beside her, their shoulders nearly touching, the space between them charged.  He realized he was incapable of keeping much distance from her and he cursed himself for this fact. He watched her profile, the soft curve of her cheek, the way her lips parted ever so slightly as she breathed.

"Are you okay?" The question was meant to bridge the distance, yet it felt inadequate in the face of everything happening around them.

“I’m fine,”  Tifa rejoined somewhat hurriedly.  “That was a nice ceremony.  What of tomorrow?”

She was clipped and to the point, discussing logistics rather than emotion.  It threw Cloud off balance. In the flickering light, he could see the distant gleam of tears threatening to spill over her dark lashes.  She was trying so hard to hold it all at bay, and once again, Cloud felt his monumental failure at helping her overcome it.

“In the morning we face the cave of the Gi,” he recounted Bugenhagen's earlier announcement. "And after that, straight to Nibelheim."

Cloud turned to Tifa, observing how the firelight caressed her features, igniting flecks of amber in her eyes and painting her skin with hues of gold and crimson. 

He reached out, hesitantly, a gloved hand hovering just shy of her arm. “Tifa… you seem... more upset than usual." It was not a question but an invitation, one that was probably crossing a line but one that he could not hold in nonetheless.

Tifa drew in a shuddering breath, her chest rising and falling under the simple white tank that clung to her like a second skin. She remained cloaked in her reticence, the walls she built to protect herself standing firm against his gentle probe.

"They don't understand," Cloud said, his voice infused with a quiet defiance. He thought of the elders, how they had dismissed her harrowing experience within the lifestream as if it were nothing more than a child's nightmare. "To hell with them."

The corner of her mouth twitched, a ghost of a smile that vanished as quickly as it appeared. Tifa's eyes, usually so full of fire and conviction, now held a glimmer of vulnerability that reached out to Cloud, beckoning him into the depths of her uncertainty.

In the sacred silence of Cosmo Canyon, where the whispers of the ancients seemed to echo off the stoic cliffs, Cloud felt the weight of his emotions stir; a maelstrom of desire, protection, and an ache to bridge the gap between them.

“Tifa,” he murmured, his voice rough like the winds that carved the canyons, "I'm here to listen.”

Tifa's breath hitched, and she finally turned to face him, her eyes reflecting the fires of the Cosmo Candle—a beacon in the darkness, guiding lost travelers back home.

Under the tapestry of stars, Cloud shifted closer to Tifa, the warmth from the dying embers of the fire barely contesting the chill of the desert night. His eyes traced the contour of her face, illuminated by the gentle dance of flame reflected in her gaze.

A laugh escaped her lips, airy and light, yet it never quite reached her eyes. 

"Cloud," she said, her voice a whisper woven with the night's breeze, "I don't even know who I am, who we are,” Her words lingered between them, delicate and fraught with unspoken fears. "And there's so much I can't remember. It's like I'm fading away..."

She paused, a tremor in her breath. "And Aerith. Sometimes I wonder if…”

Cloud felt a sharp pang in his chest—a mixture of surprise and a kind of hurt that only comes from misconstrued understandings. His heart hammered against its cage, a drumbeat out of sync with the rhythm of everything he knew to be true.

"Is that what you think?" The question slipped out, edged with an emotion he couldn't quite name. The last thing he wanted, especially at this juncture, was for Tifa to get the wrong idea, to think that she had any competition in his heart.

No one could compare, could even come close to taking her place. The love he had for her went deeper than his memories or even his soul.

if only he could properly express that.

He took a moment, organizing the chaos within him, before continuing. "Tifa…”

Cloud reached out, his fingers tentatively brushing the back of her hand, urging her to look back at him. His voice was low, a gentle cadence meant only for her ears amidst the symphony of Cosmo Canyon's nocturnal serenade.

"Aerith... " he began, each syllable carrying the weight of truths that had resurfaced painfully when they first arrived in Gongaga.  He realized now that Tifa remembered none of those difficult conversations concerning Aerith’s past, and that her amnesia meant that any interaction he had with Aerith may have been colored strangely to her. "She's a friend, Tifa. Just a friend. Just like she’s your friend, just like Barret is our friend, and Nanaki, and Cait, and… Yuffie too, I guess.”

That got her to laugh, if only briefly, He watched the light of understanding cross Tifa's face, her eyes reflecting the embers that danced like captive stars at their feet. She nodded slowly, a silent acknowledgment of the sincerity behind his words.

She finally turned to face him, and the vulnerability in her eyes struck him with the force of a revelation. "I just… I keep wondering," she whispered, her gaze flickering like the flames before them. “…about... us. What we are to each other."

The confession hung in the air, a fragile thing waiting to be shaped by his response. Cloud's heart thrummed a painful rhythm against his ribs, each beat echoing her words, resonating with a longing that was growing more and more difficult to tame.

"Whatever we are," Cloud began, his voice barely above the crackle of the fire, "it's something I don't want to lose."  It probably wasn’t the smoothest thing he could have said, but it felt as honest and real as anything else in his heart.

Tifa's breath caught, and for a heartbeat, the world seemed to hold its breath with her. Her eyes searched his, delving deep as if to unearth the truth buried under years of shared history and unspoken confessions that they were both trying to wade through.

“Listen to me," Cloud urged, his voice dropping to a hush. "You're—you mean everything to me. More than I ever let on.  Maybe I don’t know what to call it, but…”

The words hung between them, tender and fraught with the gravity of emotions long held at bay. He watched as she lifted her gaze to the heavens, where the constellations spun their ancient stories above. A single tear traced a glistening path down her cheek, catching the light of distant suns that had shone down upon lovers throughout the ages.

"Cloud," she whispered, her voice barely audible over the crackling of the fire. It wasn't a question, not even a statement, but an invocation of his name that seemed to hold all the complexities of their shared past and uncertain future in its grasp.

He could feel the pulse of the planet beneath them, a rhythm that resonated with the cadence of his own heart. At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to reach across the chasm of their doubts and fears, to pull her into the solace of his arms where he could shelter her from the storms that raged within.

But he stayed still, allowing her the space to navigate the tempest of her emotions, even as his own threatened to breach the walls he had meticulously built around himself. Cloud Strife, the man who had faced monsters and mayhem without flinching, found himself laid bare by the vulnerability in Tifa Lockhart's tears.

"Please don't cry," he murmured, the plea soft and fervent against the backdrop of the desert night. He had seen so many of her tears already, and he ruefully knew that he was almost always the reason behind them.

Cloud watched as Tifa's gaze fell from the stars to the flickering shadows cast by the Cosmo Candle. The silence between them was thick, punctuated only by the ritualistic drums humming through the canyon walls. She drew in a shaky breath, and the simple act seemed to draw forth the weight of her fears.

"I'm scared, Cloud," she admitted, her voice a tremulous whisper that cut through his defenses like the sharpest blade. "The amnesia, the Lifestream... Sephiroth…. going back to Nibelheim…” Each word was a stone added to the burden she bore, and he could see the strain it placed on her, bending but not breaking.

She began to weep.

Cloud's heart clenched—her pain echoing within him, reverberating through the hollows he tried so hard to hide. Memories of Aerith's garden bloomed in his mind, where he'd held Tifa close, a sanctuary amidst chaos and cinder and ash. Without a thought, his arms reached out, encircling Tifa in an embrace as natural as breathing. He pulled her in, a tight hold that sought to meld their fragmented pieces together.

"I’m here, Tifa," he whispered against her hair, forgoing his earlier pleas for her not to cry, his voice a soothing balm as she buried her face into the crook of his neck. Her sobs were muffled against his skin, each one a hot ember sparking against him as they slipped into the soft fabric of his sweater, igniting a fierce need to protect, to comfort, to be her unwavering pillar.

Time stretched and folded upon itself, measured by her breaths gradually evening out, the rise and fall of her chest syncing with his own. When she finally lifted her head, Tifa’s eyes shimmered—a liquid galaxy reflecting emotions that Cloud found himself falling into head-first. His breath hitched as he traced the tear tracks on her cheeks with his thumb, his touch feather-light.

Their faces were mere inches apart, breaths mingling, a silent, magnetic pull between them. Cloud could feel the tension weave through the charge in the air, his heart overcome by longing and desire as he lost himself in her scent and the crimson pools behind her lashes. Eyes locked, they leaned closer, the space between them charged with the electric promise of what could be. Their lips hovered in an almost-touch, a dance of desire so palpable that the very air around them seemed to vibrate.

They were so close, and Cloud could feel his eyes grow heavy.  The thought of having Tifa’s lips against his again was like waiting to be blessed by a goddess, eclipsed by the memory of that cherished moment in a bedroom in Gongaga when he fell to his knees in front of her and she promised to save him.

But then, without warning, Tifa flinched back, severing the invisible thread that had drawn them together. The abruptness of her retreat left Cloud grasping at the lingering warmth of her presence, the ghost of a connection that had been moments away from igniting into flame.

Tifa's abrupt motion to rise left a cold void where her warmth had just been. "I'm sorry," she murmured, voice trembling like the flame of a candle caught in a draft. "I should get some sleep. Tomorrow... it's a big day." Her eyes darted away, not quite meeting his, as she brushed past him, footsteps light and hasty against the stone ground.

"Wait—" Cloud started, but the word died on his lips when she quickened her pace, becoming one with the shadows that clung to Cosmo Canyon's rugged walls. She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, a delicate gesture that spoke volumes of the turmoil swirling within her.

And like an extinguished flame, she was gone.

He was left alone by the dying embers of the fire, its once vibrant dance reduced to a mournful flicker. The stars above seemed distant now, their twinkling light mocking the heaviness in Cloud's chest. He felt the acute sting of isolation, the silence around him oppressive, as if the canyon itself held its breath, waiting for something to break.

Cloud sank down, the coldness of the rock seeping through his SOLDIER uniform, a chill that matched the unease knotting his insides. His mind was a battlefield of emotions—hurt tangled with confusion, love laced with an aching sadness. How could he bridge the chasm that fear and uncertainty had carved between them?

He longed to envelop Tifa in the safety of his arms again, to shield her from the pain that haunted her steps. Yet, even as he sat there, her fleeting presence still lingering in the air, he grappled with the shadows of doubt that clouded his thoughts.

The truth was a silent specter at his side; he loved her, more deeply than the canyons that cradled them. But how could he mend what had been fractured when words failed him, when every attempt to draw close only seemed to push her further away?

He couldn’t even manage to get her to remember their promise.

Cloud gazed into the remnants of the fire, seeking answers in its smoldering core. The glow cast a soft light upon his features, etching lines of determination amidst the sorrow. He would find a way, he resolved. 

For Tifa, he would become the steadfast beacon that guided her through each night's uncertainties.

Because isn't that what he promised?

Chapter Text

Fire Walk With Me

The Tiny Bronco descended through lazy wisps of clouds, the jagged peaks of Nibelheim's mountains rising ominously through a clear blue sky. As Cid Highwind touched the plane down in an abandoned airfield outside the village, Cloud felt a shiver run through his spine despite the balmy western air. An eerie calm hung over the entire secluded mountain region, an unnatural stillness prickling his skin and raising the hairs on his neck. The quiet was heavy and oppressive, almost as if the village and the surrounding foothills held their breath in anticipation of their arrival.

Cloud glanced over at where Tifa stood beside him. Her eyes were fixed straight ahead, arms wrapped around her middle and her body rigid with tension. The unresolved emotions from the previous night still weighed heavily between them.  It had been a sleepless night for him after they parted ways by the Cosmo Candle, and they had barely exchanged more than a few words all throughout their excursion with Bugenhagen and Nanaki into the Cave of the Gi.  Nonetheless, Cloud stayed close by Tifa’s side, unable to be too far away from her and careful to always keep an eye on her.  She had only just recently begun to fight again and recall her battle skills, and so as much as he trusted her prowess, he always had to be sure she was safe.

The hours since their moment in front of the fire had been torturous for Cloud. He couldn’t dispel the image of Tifa, haloed by the brilliance of stars and the soft glow of flames, staring at him, her lips slightly agape as they leaned in closer to one another.  It had seemed for a brief moment that despite their traumas, despite the malice infecting his brain and the amnesia infecting hers, that they had found a bridge to finally move past all of it.

Cloud sighed.  Unfortunately, the moment had been fleeting and the ghosts of past and present alike had howled their way between them again.  It seemed that every time they were finally moving closer together, something would drift its way between them again, moving them even further apart than when they started.

He still remembered their first kiss, the one shared in Cissnei’s bedroom after Tifa had first awoken and before the amnesia had set in.  The urge to touch his lips and reminisce on the soft, warm feel of hers was overwhelming at times.  Now, especially after last night, it was no different.

He shoved the thought aside as they de-boarded the Tiny Bronco, bidding a temporary farewell to Cid.  Cloud turned to Tifa and opened his mouth, desperate to say something, anything, to bridge the chasm that had opened up between them again. But the words lodged in his throat, trapped behind a lump of guilt and confusion. He looked at her, wanting to comfort her, but the right words eluded him.  She was staring dully at the horizon, fidgeting her hands in front of her.

He swallowed thickly, steeling his resolve before cautiously approaching her side. “Ready?" Cloud managed, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears.

Tifa nodded stiffly, her eyes never leaving the distant silhouette of the village up ahead. "Let's just get this over with," she muttered, her voice small and strained.  

Cloud nodded, unsure of what to say in response that would be helpful.  Instead, he motioned to the rest of the group, waving for them to follow as they began to make their way down the road toward the village, nestled in a quiet but barren valley at the base of Mt. Nibel. 

Along the way, more robed men appeared, their dark figures emerging from the edges of his vision like slithering shadows. Cloud's breath hitched from where he hiked ahead of their troupe, the world around him narrowing to focus on the dark shapes in front of him. His head began to pound, his footsteps slowing as if suddenly weighted by bricks of lead.  The men moved with an eerie, synchronized grace, their hoods obscuring their faces, but he could feel their eyes on him, burning into his soul and drawing him towards them.

"Sephiroth..." The name slipped from his lips unbidden, foggy and dull, whispered past his own recognition.

The pain in his skull intensified, a searing agony that nearly brought him to his knees. He staggered, the world tilting precariously. Familiar but harrowing threads of fuzzy interference clawed at the edges of his consciousness, a dark, insidious presence that threatened to consume him.

"Cloud!" Tifa's voice was suddenly urgent and close. She was by his side again, her hand gripping his arm. "Look at me."

He tried to focus, but the robed figures loomed larger, their presence oppressive and suffocating. The pain was unbearable, a relentless assault on his mind, as if he could feel himself slipping away into a current of darkness and malevolence. He felt Tifa's hands on his shoulders, shaking him gently but firmly.

"Cloud, please," she implored, her voice breaking through the fog. "Look at me."

With immense effort, he turned his gaze to her. Her eyes, bright crimson and wide with concern, bore into his. For a moment, he was lost in their depths, the chaos in his mind slowly quieting. The pain ebbed, replaced by the steady, grounding presence of Tifa’s lingering stare and her soft exhales. Her grip tightened, anchoring him and bringing him back to the present.

"Breathe," she instructed softly, her voice a lifeline when he needed it most. "Just breathe."

He obeyed, taking a shuddering breath. The robed men faded into his periphery, their influence waning as they escalated aimlessly along the nearby cliffside. The ache in his head dulled, retreating like a receding tide. Tifa's eyes never left his, unwavering in their intensity and betraying her compassion for him. 

"I'm sorry," he managed, his voice hoarse. "I don't know what—"

"Shh," she interrupted, shaking her head. "It's okay. Just... stay with me."

There was a tense, awkward silence between them, a lingering echo of what still sat unresolved between them after the strain of the last few days. Cloud swallowed hard, a confused blend of guilt and gratitude mixing in his chest. He wanted to say something, anything to bridge the gap, but the words eluded him.

"Thank you," he finally managed, the sincerity scraping along the lining of his throat as he croaked out the words to her.

Tifa's expression softened, and she stood back, finally releasing his shoulders.  Something unreadable passed across her eyes. Nonetheless, she nodded solemnly and gave him his space but lingered at his side, a quiet promise of support. The others hung back behind them, silent but staring with curious, watchful eyes.  Cloud could feel the weight of shame stack on his chest, knowing that such episodes were constantly testing his mettle as their leader in front of them all.  

Despite that, Cloud realized that even with her amnesia, Tifa was still his rock, and with her by his side, even with the anxieties and challenges their relationship was caught in, she was holding him together. Her presence alone was a constant in the swirling chaos of his mind. He took another steadying breath, nodding to the group behind him as he focused his attention on the village ahead.

"Let's go," he declared, his voice stronger now. "We've got a lot to figure out."

As the group silently began making their way down the winding path into town, an impossible sight greeted them. Instead of opening up to the ashen rubble of a burnt-down ghost town, Nibelheim stood before them, perfectly intact, every surface bright and shining as if brand new. Quaint cottages with wood-shingled roofs lined the cobblestone streets, window boxes overflowing with vibrant flowers and the smell of freshly cooked meats and roasted vegetables lingering in the air. The water tower stood in the central square, its base ringed with barrels and township parcels, the scene straight out of a nostalgic memory Cloud had long ago shelved in his own mind.

Cloud's heart began to pound, blood roaring in his ears. It was as if the inferno five years ago had never happened, the screams and searing flames nothing more than a bad nightmare, a figment of his imagination. Had his memories been a lie? Some kind of false reality constructed in his broken mind? The weight of these thoughts pressed heavily on him, suffocating him with dread.

The others voiced their bewilderment, but Cloud barely heard them. His attention was fixed on Tifa, dreading her reaction. As they took the first steps into the unfathomably replicated town, Cloud watched Tifa's shoulders hunch as she withdrew into herself, her breath coming faster. Her wide eyes darted around, drinking in the surreal scene. Cloud cursed himself for not anticipating how much this would distress her, reopening barely healed wounds.

"Tifa..." Cloud reached out a tentative hand, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms. He wanted to shield her from this new horror, to offer her some semblance of comfort in the face of this inexplicable nightmare. But the fact that he had no answers or explanation for what surrounded them left him feeling incapable of protecting her from the emotional menace of it all.

“What the hell is all this?” Barret suddenly demanded, making his way to the front of the group.  Cloud watched as he looked around, his arms thrown up into the air with frustration.  The older man whirled around, landing his accusing stare back on Cloud.  “I thought you said this place burned to the ground?”

“It did,” Cloud muttered quietly under his breath.  “I -”

Tifa stepped forward, running her hand along the steel piping of the overhead gate to the village. Her voice, gentle but terrified, interrupted his confusion. “Cloud… look.  It’s brand new.”

Cloud stared, narrowing his focus as he inspected the gate and then let his gaze sweep broadly across the village.  It seemed, upon further inspection, that everything here was new.

“They rebuilt the whole village,” Cloud finally stated.

The others began to murmur amongst themselves, but Cloud couldn’t take his attention off of Tifa. The urge to go to her and hold her in his arms was overwhelming, but he didn’t dare.  All he could do was clench his hands into tight fists and attempt to hold himself together, shaking his head back and forth before he finally resolved to take action.

“This is Shinra’s doing,” he announced, earning a resigned nod from Cait Sith.  “We should split up and search town, find out what’s going on.”

“I’ll head to the Town Hall and see about the terminal,” Cait added before running off on all fours.

The team all nodded, agreeing to regroup later that evening once they’d gathered enough intel to move on.  Cloud turned to Tifa, seeing her staring up at one house in the center of the village, right across from the water tower.

"I...I need to see my house. I need to..." Her voice wavered and trailed off, filled with a raw anguish that tore at Cloud's heart.

Cloud's chest constricted at the pain in her tone, the brave front doing little to conceal her inner turmoil. He could only imagine the memories bombarding her—memories of flame and terror, of her father's broken body. All of that while she struggled to recall so much of who she was and what had happened in her life.  It was undeniably cruel to be faced with so much turmoil when one was already questioning the truth.

As they walked through the eerily silent streets, Cloud's mind churned with unanswered questions, each step fueling his growing unease as his eyes darted from one familiar landmark to another, each one a ghostly echo of a past he couldn't trust. His own mind felt like a minefield, fragments of memory and identity scattered like shrapnel. With each step, the doubt grew louder, insidious whispers making him question everything he thought he knew.

Was any of it real? The flames, the screams, the searing pain of loss? Or was it all just another twisted fabrication, his own psyche fractured beyond repair?

Cloud's gaze drifted to Tifa, her face a mask of barely contained confusion and despair as he watched her veer off from their group and approach the replica that stood in place of her childhood home, right next door to his own. The sight of her pain cut through his own bewilderment, a reminder of the one truth he clung to. 

Tifa. 

His anchor in the storm, the one person who shared the weight of their shared history and knew who he truly was.

But even that certainty felt fragile now, threatened by the impossible reality that surrounded them and the strain they’d faced since that fateful day in Gongaga.  Cloud's hand twitched at his side, aching to reach out and take hers, to feel the solid warmth of her fingers and know that she, at least, was real.

But he dropped it to his side, stopping in the central square of town and watching her go.

How could he reassure her when he couldn't even trust his own mind? 

Tifa drew in a heavy breath as she crossed the center of town, her footsteps echoing hollowly on the cobblestone path. Each step was a leaden effort as she approached her childhood home, a house that only dawned on her in its familiarity when she laid her eyes on it again.  But it was not the home of her childhood or the home of her memories, however scattered and fragmented they may be.  The house that loomed before her was a fraud, a once-comforting sight that was now twisted into something strange and unsettling.

She tried to get a handle on her emotions.  She had slept terribly the night before, and the moment with Cloud at the Cosmo Candle still burned across her mind.  She had been so close to kissing him, a dam of emotions threatening to break as they sat side by side and tried to quietly navigate the tumult of feelings and uncertainties that lay between them.  There were heavy doubts and a cache of missing memories that left her still questioning what her relationship with Cloud even was, to the point that seeing him even converse with another girl brought smoldering feelings of unfounded envy to the surface.

In fact, it was those very feelings and doubts that had led them to nearly cross a line together the night before.  Cloud had assured her that Aerith was nothing more than a friend, and in hindsight, Tifa wondered why he had been so eager to make that distinction, turning his body towards hers with blue eyes wide and hopeful, his lips parted and eager for a kiss.

She wondered, too, why she had been so eager for the distinction - why she felt the pestering feeling somewhere in the swell of her heart that Cloud belonged to her, that there was something more between them than they had been bold enough to yet name.

But the moment hadn’t materialized.  Tifa realized that she was pushing herself into territory with Cloud which was not only unfamiliar but was dangerous and frightening.  The truth was, no matter what feelings his closeness produced in her, nearly all of her memories of him were still missing.  He was sweet and protective and unbearably handsome, but he was still foreign to her.

And right now, Tifa knew, she had to prioritize figuring out who she was herself.

With that thought in mind, she paused at the threshold of her old home, her hand trembling as it hovered over the doorknob.  She drew in a shaky breath, steeling herself for what lay ahead. She couldn't run from this, couldn't hide from the truth, no matter how painful it might be. With a final surge of determination, she grasped the knob and pushed the door open, stepping into the haunted but fraudulent stillness of her past.

She was teased with the feelings of memories rather than the sight of them— distant laughter and tears, joy and sorrow, all intertwined within the walls of what appeared to be her childhood home. But now, those same walls seemed to mock her, their very existence a cruel joke in the face of the destruction she knew had taken place. This house was an illusion, a fabricated version of what once was.

Instead of the familiar scent of her home greeting her, the sterile, citric scent of household cleaner hung in the air. She walked through the living room, her fingers trailing over the worn fabric of the couch and the smooth surface of the coffee table.  They all pulled at the threads of her dissipating memories, teasing dull images from the years of her youth that Tifa yearned to see again with full clarity. But each item she encountered was a meticulously crafted replica, designed to evoke memories and emotions, yet hollow and devoid of true history. It was as if she were walking through a ghostly museum of her past, an eerie recreation that only deepened her sense of loss.

In the kitchen, Tifa paused, her gaze drawn to a faded photograph on the wall. It was a picture of a man and a woman who could be her parents, but that Tifa knew were not.  The man was tall and broad-shouldered, but he didn’t wear the same kind and powerful smile that her faded memories reminded her that her father had.  

The woman was pretty and dark-haired, but the look in her dim eyes was too stoic, too unfamiliar and too joyless.  

And a little girl sat between them, dark-haired and round-cheeked.  But that little girl was not her.

Even so, as Tifa stared at the photo, she felt a new flood of gentle memories return to her, of warm smiles and soft laughter, of flowing ebony hair and roses that grew on windowsills and filled her house with beckoning fragrances.

Tifa, a voice called to her. Ahh… that little Strife boy has a face like an angel.

Tifa tore her gaze away from the photograph, a blush coating her cheeks at the memory but her heart heavy with the weight of her loss.  It was a loss that was so much more than just death and destruction, but one that ran its ugly claws into the deepest parts of her soul. Blinking back tears, she made her way upstairs, each step a struggle against the rising tide of memories. The staircase creaked in just the right way, but the sound felt manufactured, like a hollow imitation. Her mother’s lost voice still echoed through her mind like a lonely, forlorn hymn, the soundtrack of her melancholy as she rounded the hallway on the second floor.

Her bedroom was exactly as her shaky memory recalled it, a frozen snapshot of her childhood. The sight of her bed, neatly made with the same floral quilt, brought a fresh wave of tears to her eyes. It was all here, every detail painstakingly recreated, yet it felt like a cruel parody of the life she had lost. Tifa sank down onto the mattress, her fingers clutching at the soft fabric as she tried to anchor herself in the reality of the present. Closing her eyes, she tried desperately to grasp onto fleeting recollections that danced at the edges of her vision. She knew this place wasn’t real, but the emotions it stirred were all too genuine, pressing lightly on everything she was trying so hard to recall.

Glancing through the window, a familiar sight caught her eye. Cloud and Aerith sat on the platform of the old water tower, Aerith facing the sky with a sunny smile, Cloud leaning away from her, his attention on his boots. A faint, hazy memory flickered in Tifa's mind—a promise made under the stars, a vow to always be there.

But the details slipped away like sand through her fingers, leaving only a hollow ache in her chest. She rose and pressed a hand to the glass, her heart twisting with a confusing mix of longing and jealousy, the same anxious feeling she’d had when she’d seen them talking together in Cosmo Canyon.

Tifa closed her eyes, allowing herself a moment to drown in the bittersweet tide that pulled at her.  She opened her eyes to find Aerith waving enthusiastically at her, attempting to get her attention.  Cloud was turned even further away, his shoulders hunched, his eyes downcast.  It was obvious to Tifa he was avoiding looking up at the window.  Instead of thinking about it too much, she blinked, returning Aerith’s smile and wave.  The girl looked exuberantly pleased, and Tifa sighed lightly to herself, returning to sit on the bed where she wrapped her arms around her waist and sat in quiet contemplation. The house that had once been her sanctuary now felt like a prison, each room a reminder of all she had lost.

And now, it seemed, she had lost more than she had even realized.  Not just her parents and her home, but something important that she had cherished, something precious, something that had kept her going ever since she had lost everything here five years ago and maybe even long before that. 

It was then that the piano in the room caught her eye. She stared at it for a long moment, her heart pounding in her chest.

The piano stood there, an elegant but false relic of her past, its polished surface gleaming softly in the sunlight beyond. It was an exact replica, down to the tiniest detail, and for a moment, Tifa felt the pull of buried memories pulling her back through time. Her fingers tingled with the memory of ivory keys beneath them, the echo of long-forgotten melodies whispering in her mind.

Drawn by an inexplicable pull, she rose to her feet, crossing the room and sitting down on the bench. Her hands hovered over the keys, trembling slightly. Just hours before she had no recollection of ever having played the piano, and yet now, confronted with this vestige of the past, she could feel the memory of that part of her life begin to tease her senses.  

The realization slowly dawned on her that not only had it been years since she had played, it had been years since she had allowed herself to even reflect on this part of her life.

Taking a deep breath, Tifa let her fingers fall gently on the keys, pressing down to strike a soft, tentative note. The sound resonated through the room, pure and haunting, stirring something deep within her. More grey, fuzzy memories flickered at the edges of her consciousness, fragmented and elusive, yet tantalizingly close.

She began to play, the melody flowing from her fingers with a grace and familiarity that surprised her. The notes wove together, forming a song that spoke of childhood dreams and quiet afternoons, of a simpler time before the world had turned so cruel. As she played, Tifa felt the walls of the fake house closing in around her, the illusion pressing down on her like a suffocating weight. But the music, her music, cut through the falsehoods, anchoring her to something real and true, a feeling she could never replace but perhaps, could now recall.

The melody stirred memories that had been buried deep within her mind. She remembered the way her mother would correct her form as she taught her while her father made his best attempts at cooking in the kitchen. She remembered her father's gentle smile as he listened to her play, the way he would hum along, his voice a comforting presence while her mother clapped and took joyful credit for their daughter’s success. These were memories that the fire had tried to erase, memories that Shinra's lies had tried to distort, memories that her amnesia had tried to suppress.

But here, at the piano, they came rushing back, vivid and clear. Tifa closed her eyes, allowing herself to be swept away by the music and the memories it evoked. She saw herself as a little girl, her feet barely touching the pedals, determined to master a particularly difficult piece. She saw her parents, standing by the door, their love and support a palpable presence.

Tears slipped down her cheeks as she played, but she didn't stop. The music was a lifeline, connecting her to a past that had been twisted and broken but was still hers. With each note, she reclaimed a piece of herself, a piece of the Tifa that had been lost in the flames and the lies and a mako pool in Gongaga.

As the final notes of the melody faded into the silence, Tifa opened her eyes, her heart aching but also filled with a new resolve. She had lost so much, but she had also found something precious here in this false version of her home. She had found a connection to her past, a reminder of who she was and what she had once held dear.

And with the tears still streaming down her face, she played the next melody that came to mind.

Aerith's laughter echoed through the quiet village as she tugged Cloud towards the water tower, her slender fingers wrapped around his wrist. Cloud stumbled behind her, his brow furrowed in annoyance. He had been planning to conduct some inquiries at the local General Store, but Aerith, it seemed, had other things in mind. 

"Aerith, wait," Cloud protested, his voice strained. “We need to -”

Aerith glanced over her shoulder, her emerald eyes sparkling with mischief. "Oh, come on, Cloud! It’s just begging to be climbed!”

Cloud's jaw clenched as they approached the tower, the weathered wood and rusted metal a stark reminder of the promise he had made to Tifa so long ago. This was their place, a sanctuary where he had shared his dreams with her in hopes that one day he might be worthy of her love, that he might be special enough to her to have a real place in her life. 

The thought of sharing it with another felt like a betrayal.

Cloud frowned, rooting himself on the ground with his hands on his hips as he watched Aerith boldly climb the creaking ladder.  His mind raced with thoughts of Tifa - the way her eyes had shimmered with unshed tears when they first arrived in Nibelheim, the tension in her shoulders as they walked through the too-perfect streets. He’d wanted to reach out to her, to offer comfort and reassurance, but the words had stuck in his throat.

She wandered off alone, and now, he was stuck here with Aerith, being pulled towards the one childhood memory he was most reluctant to face.  When she called out over her shoulder for him again, Cloud sighed in frustration and finally relented.

At the top of the water tower, Aerith leaned against the basin, her face tilted towards the sunny sky. "It's so peaceful up here," she murmured, her voice soft and wistful. 

Cloud said nothing, just hovered a few paces behind her, reluctant to sit even when she patted the wood beside her.  She urged him for a makeshift tour of the town, and so he relented, pointing out each landmark from where he stood.

His gaze finally landed on Tifa’s house.  Like everything else in the village, it was somehow exactly as he remembered it before Sephiroth’s fires consumed it all, and yet, there was a strangeness to it that betrayed its inauthenticity.

“And that… that’s Tifa’s house,” he pointed out, finally sitting on the platform beside Aerith and leaving a respectable space between them.  As harmless as she was, it was broad daylight and he didn’t want anyone, least of all Tifa, getting the wrong idea.

“Tifa’s house,” Aerith repeated.  “So I’m guessing this here is where you kept lookout?”

Cloud shifted uncomfortably where he sat, feeling flames lick up the side of his neck.  He glanced at Tifa’s bedroom, searing memories of sitting up here on cold nights and listening to the notes of her piano drift up to the sky burning the back of his mind.  He turned away from Aerith slightly, shaking his head.

“What?” he replied stupidly.

“Don’t tell me you weren’t sitting up here all the time, hoping she’d wave,” Aerith laughed.

It was then that Tifa appeared behind the foggy glass of her window, jolting Cloud with a sense of nostalgia that threw him back into the past.  He watched as she turned, pulling back the curtain to get a better view, her face shining under the glassy sunlight.  Aerith immediately threw up both hands to wave, and Tifa spotted them, gazing at them curiously before she smiled and returned the gesture.

Cloud quickly turned away, feeling like a fourteen-year-old boy again, caught spying on his crush, his face flooded with heat.

Tifa finally disappeared again and Aerith turned to face him, a knowing smile on her lips. "It's written all over your face, Cloud. The way you look at her, the way you protect her. What are you waiting for?”

Heat crept up Cloud's neck, his cheeks flushing. He averted his gaze, his fingers curling around the railing. "I... It's complicated," he mumbled, the words sounding hollow and silly even to his own ears.

Aerith laughed. It was a gentle and understanding sound, but there was also something heavy behind it, something akin to bitterness.

“You always say that.  Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

Cloud swallowed hard, his heart aching with the weight of his feelings and the palpable discomfort of constantly having them prodded and unmasked.  Aerith kept trapping him in these uncomfortable conversations, and Cloud hated it, used to keeping his thoughts and feelings close to the vest.

Feeling assaulted by the swell of emotions that tightened his chest, Cloud had finally had enough.  Broodingly, he pushed up to his feet, picking his sword up again.

"I... I need to check something," he told Aerith, his voice strained. "I'll catch up with you later."

She said nothing, keeping her eyes on the horizon as she waved at him over her shoulder.  Cloud sighed, turning away and descending the ladder.

Aerith's words echoed in his mind as he crossed town, heading towards the inn, her insights both comforting and unsettling. As he walked through the sleepy village, eyeing the men in black robes and the Shinra employees who tended to them, Cloud's thoughts turned inward, his mind grappling with the conflicting emotions that swirled within him.

He turned away from Tifa’s house, needing to put some distance between himself and the memories and feelings that it stirred.  He was painfully reminded of his failures, and Tifa’s current predicament and their struggle to reconnect because of it was only making things worse.  It was not helped by the way the weight of his feelings for Tifa pressed down on him, creating a bittersweet ache that refused to be ignored. 

He knew he needed to confront the truth, to find the courage to express what had been left unspoken for so long. But the fear of rejection, of losing the one constant in his life and of ruining what they were so shakily rebuilding, held him back.

Cloud decided to investigate the inn before he did anything else, hoping to get more insight into Shinra’s fabricated machinations in his childhood village.  He stepped inside, the familiar scent of aged wood and dusty linens buried under something antiseptic and fake. The creak of the floorboards beneath his feet echoed through the empty lobby, a haunting reminder of the ghosts that lingered in this place. The innkeeper was busy behind the counter, so Cloud ignored her, heading for the second floor, eyes observing the faded, peeling wallpaper and old oil paintings along the walls as he made his way up the stairs.

The Nildhogg Inn was a small establishment, only a few rooms occupying the upper floor.  As Cloud rounded the hallway, entering the first room on the right, a sudden flash of memory overtook him with a blinding, white pain, static filling his vision and blocking out the quiet sounds of the village beyond the walls.  Gasping, he clutched his head in his hands, his memory suddenly flooded with visions of the past he’d forgotten.

Zack sat on the edge of the bed, a wistful smile on his face.

"She’s real beautiful,” he said, his eyes shining with adoration. “She’s just great to be around.  And what about you?  I’m sure you’ve got someone special here in town you want to see.  Maybe a girlfriend?”

Cloud doubled back as the memory faded, his heart clenched, a wave of longing and loss washing over him. Zack.  Zack Fair.  His friend, his comrade, his mentor, who he’d fought side by side with in SOLDIER.  

What had happened to him?

The magnitude of the realization collided with him - the very Aerith who traveled with them now, who’d mourned her first love in Gongaga - was Zack’s girlfriend, the one he’d spoken of so reverently.  She didn’t know what had become of Zack and neither did Cloud - in fact, he’d forgotten him completely until this moment. 

With such fates unknown, the weight of this realization hung heavy on his soul.

Cloud sank down onto the bed, his head in his hands as he struggled to reconcile the conflicting emotions that warred within him, holding silent tears at bay. The memory of Zack was both a comfort and a curse, a reminder of the friendship they had shared and secrets that left Cloud's mind racing with questions, doubts and fears that he had never dared to voice. 

The silence of the inn pressed in on him, suffocating in its intensity. Cloud felt the weight of his memories, of the lies and half-truths that had shaped his life, bearing down on him like a mountain of shadowy chains, each link a reminder of the burdens he could never fully escape.

He sat there, lost in his memories until the sound of footsteps on the stairs jolted him back to the present. 

The innkeeper's voice cut through the haunting silence, startling Cloud from his reverie. "Can I get you anything, sir?" she asked, her tone polite but expectant.

Cloud shook his head, his voice caught in his throat. The weight of his memories choked him, making it difficult to speak. He stood up, his movements slow and deliberate, as if each step required a monumental effort.

"No, thank you," he managed, his words barely above a whisper. "I'll be on my way."

The innkeeper nodded, her eyes flickering with a hint of concern before she turned away, leaving Cloud to his own devices.

Cloud finally stepped out of the inn, the cool mountain air hitting his face like a physical blow. He took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind, but he found little relief.

As he walked through the streets of Nibelheim, Cloud couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, a prickling sensation that sent shivers down his spine. He glanced around, his eyes scanning the empty streets for any sign of life, but found only the eerie stillness of a town frozen in time.

The silence was oppressive, broken only by the sound of his own footsteps echoing off the cobblestones. Cloud knew that his unease was a product of his own troubled mind, a manifestation of the doubts and fears that plagued him, but he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.

In the distance, the reactor loomed like a dark specter, a stark reminder of the horrors that had taken place within its walls. Cloud felt a swell of emotion rising in his chest, a mix of anger and despair that reminded him of what he had lost and what propelled him toward the pursuit of Sephiroth.

As he walked, Cloud's thoughts turned to Tifa, to the pain and confusion that he had seen in her eyes. He knew that she was struggling with her own demons, with the memories of a past that had been ripped away from her. He wished that he could take her pain away, that he could shield her from the horrors that lay ahead, but he knew that it was a futile hope.

With that thought in mind, he decided to check on her.  With the amount of anxiety he was feeling from his fluctuating memories, he could only imagine how she might be faring.  

He passed the water tower, eyeing it only to find that Aerith had abandoned it, most likely to join the others. He flinched at the sight of the wooden structure, his heart racing at the memories it invoked. 

Tifa still hadn’t remembered their promise. 

The thought gnawed at him, a relentless ache that echoed with every heartbeat. It felt like a part of him was missing, a piece of their shared past that she couldn't recall, and the pain of it twisted his insides. Cloud clenched his fists, his knuckles whitening as he fought to keep the anguish from reading on his face.

As if on cue, familiar notes began to drift toward him from above. Cloud glanced up at Tifa's window, the soft melody drawing him closer. The notes were hauntingly beautiful, filled with an ardor and sensibility that tugged at his heartstrings. It was a song he faintly remembered from their childhood, a melody Tifa had often played.

Without a second thought, Cloud made his way to Tifa's house. He stepped inside, the music growing louder, more poignant. He followed the sound up the stairs, his heart pounding with each step. As he reached her room, he saw her sitting at the piano, tears streaming down her face as her fingers moved gracefully over the keys, her dark hair framing the round puffiness of her cheeks and draping over her shoulders.

For a moment, Cloud stood in the doorway, watching her. The room was filled with an eerie stillness, the only sound the melancholic melody that she played, piercing the sunny daylight that broke through her window. He felt a lump form in his throat, the sight of her crying breaking something inside him. Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward, his boots barely creaking on the wooden floor.

"Tifa," he whispered softly, his voice almost drowned out by her music.

Tifa didn’t stop playing, but her eyes flickered towards him, the sadness in them almost unbearable for him to witness. Cloud approached the piano, unsure of what to say or do. He wanted to comfort her, to take away her pain, but he felt so helpless, especially with everything that lingered unspoken and unexplored between them.

Despite his hesitancy, he knew he couldn’t stand there and watch Tifa cry, the soft sounds of her sobs tearing shreds through his soul.  Swallowing slowly, he sat down on the bench beside her, the melody continuing to flow from her fingertips. He watched her for a moment, then reached out, his hand gently covering hers on the keys. The music faltered and then stopped, the last notes hanging in the air like a fragile and broken whisper.

Tifa turned to him, her face wet with tears. “Cloud, I... I don’t know what to do," she finally admitted, her voice breaking.   The sight of her puffy, tear-stained cheeks shattered him.  “Everything feels so wrong. This village, these memories... they’re not real. But they feel…”

Cloud’s heart ached as he listened. He knew the confusion she felt, the pain of being torn between reality and illusion. His mind was already a turbulent sea of memories, with recent recollections of Zack adding to the chaos.

"Tifa," he said quietly, his hand still resting on hers. “It’s okay.  Just talk to me."

Tifa took a shaky breath, her eyes searching his for reassurance. "I keep seeing my parents, Cloud. I remember their faces, their voices... but I know they’re gone. And this house... it’s like a cruel joke, a reminder of everything I’ve lost. I feel like I’m losing my mind."

Cloud squeezed her hand gently. "You’re not losing your mind, Tifa. This place... it’s meant to confuse us, to make us doubt ourselves. But we know the truth. We know what really happened.  You remember now, don’t you?”

Tifa nodded, but the tears kept coming. "I miss them so much," she whispered. "My mom, my dad... they were everything to me. And now, it’s like I can’t even trust my own memories."

Cloud’s mind drifted back to Zack. The recent resurgence of memories about his friend was a double-edged sword, adding layers of confusion and pain. "Tifa," he said, his voice trembling slightly, "I... I remembered Zack.”

Tifa glanced at him, her head tilting slightly to one side. "Who?"

Cloud sighed, shaking his head, knowing that Tifa would probably still have gaps in her memory from that day five years ago.  "Zack… he was my friend.  More than just a friend. He was my mentor, my guide... I looked up to him. And… he was in love with Aerith.”

Tifa’s eyes widened in genuine surprise.  Cloud searched the dark scarlet pools to understand what lay behind them, but her thoughts and emotions were masked by the confusion.  

“Aerith?’ she repeated.

“She was his girlfriend,” he went on, his chest tight.  “And remembering him now… it’s so confusing for me. It makes me question everything I thought I knew about myself, about that night five years ago.”

Suddenly, Tifa’s hand tightened around his, her body leaning in closer.  Cloud was surprised by the gesture, another wall of defenses seemingly breaking down.  He was desperate not to let it crash the way he had the night before at the Festival.

 "Cloud, I’m so sorry. It must be so hard, trying to piece everything together."

"It is," Cloud admitted, his voice low, breaking over everything he was holding inside. "But it also makes me realize how important it is to hold on to the real memories, the true ones. Just like the memories we have of our childhood, of our parents.  Of what this fabrication of our home is trying to steal from us.”

Tifa leaned into him, her head resting on his shoulder. The sudden weight of it both surprised and calmed him, the warmth of her body a balm on the demons trapped in his soul. "I’m so scared, Cloud,” she admitted. “I don’t know how to make sense of any of this."

Letting his defenses down and taking the risk of bridging the gap between them again, Cloud slowly wrapped his arm around her, pulling her closer. Tifa sighed quietly, leaning into his embrace. “Don’t worry, Tifa,” he reassured her quietly. "We’ll get through this, one step at a time."

For a long moment, they sat there, the silence filled with unspoken words. Cloud felt Tifa’s body tremble as she cried the last of her tears, her body slowly stilling until she was melding against his.  Looking out of her bedroom window, he saw the late afternoon sun begin its slow descent towards the horizon.

“Tifa," he said softly, “We need to finish what we came here to do before it gets too late. The last place for us to look is the reactor. Then we can leave this place for good."

Tifa lifted her head, her eyes red and swollen but filled with acquiescence at his words. “Okay,” she agreed.  “But… just one more song?”

She turned back to the piano, her fingers drifting back to the ivory, tapping out another soft note.

Cloud nodded, reaching up a gloved hand to gently brush the line of tears from her cheek.

He sat there, his arm still around her, listening to her play, the song distant but familiar.

Like home.

The flickering firelight cast shadows across their weary faces as they huddled together in the small Nibelheim inn. Tifa's fingers absently traced the worn grain of the wooden table, her thoughts a tangled web of newly discovered memories and the burning embers of rocky and intense emotions.  After leaving their home, they visited Cloud's house and the reactor in the mountains, even running into her pet cat, Maru in the foothills, years after she had thought she'd lost her forever and triggering a whole fresh slew of memories and emotions.  The day had been rewarding in that respect, but it had been exhausting.

"We need to get moving," Barret said gruffly, his gun-arm glinting in the dim light as he checked his ammunition and materia slots. "Shinra's not gonna wait around for us to make a move, and neither is Sephiroth.”

Cloud nodded, his mako-infused eyes sharp and glowing brighter than usual.  After their visit to the reactor earlier that afternoon, Tifa knew that he was determined to put a stop to whatever Sephiroth was planning and to thwart Shinra before they made matters any worse.  The reactor had not only been a somber reminder of what she and Cloud both lost that day five years ago, bringing her amnesiac memories to the forefront, but it stood as a testament to the horrors of which Shinra was capable.  "Our best bet is to head to the Gold Saucer and get the Keystone for the Temple of the Ancients from Dio before Shinra gets its hands on it, which means we need to leave tonight."

Tifa's heart clenched at the mention of the temple, a reminder of the secrets buried within its ancient walls - secrets that could unravel the very fabric of their world. She glanced at Aerith, who sat motionless and said nothing, despite being an Ancient herself.  She sighed inwardly and then turned to Cloud, wondering if he felt the weight of all of this as heavily as she did. 

"I'll contact Cid and have him prepare the Tiny Bronco," Cait Sith piped up, pointing a finger in the air. "Won’t take him long to get here, aye.  We can leave before first light.”

"Ugh, temples and secrets... Why can't anything ever be simple?" Yuffie groaned, rolling her eyes dramatically and kicking her legs out in front of her as she slouched on the couch.

Tifa offered the teenager a smile, but Cloud waved his hand, an indicator that he was ready to move. As the others dispersed to gather their belongings and gear, Tifa lingered behind only footsteps away from Cloud, an unnamed tension crackling between them like electricity. After everything she’d recalled since they’d entered town and the ways that Cloud had repeatedly comforted and grounded her, she felt an undeniable pull in his direction, a magnetism that refused to let her distance herself from him no matter how much her brain screamed that they needed to give each other space.  But the truth was, being away from Cloud only made her feel worse - terrified and alone, voices of uncertainty raging in her head.  Even the memories of the events at the reactor and mansion - the searing heat of the flames, the acrid stench of mako, the haunting whispers of that fateful night - all seemed to quiet their fury inside her heart when Cloud stepped near.

His soft, gentle voice - so gentle, it was - cut through her reverie. 

"Tifa... are you ready to go?" 

Blinking with a light blush dusting her cheeks, she met his gaze, those luminous blue eyes that had seen and endured so much staring down at her expectantly. In their depths, she saw a flicker of the boy she once knew, tendrils of safety and warmth and stolen happiness hidden behind his troubled gaze. 

Tifa nodded, glancing away slightly so as not to let him see how much his steady stare unraveled her. 

"I'm ready.”

His lips quirked into a faint smile, a rare sight that warmed her from within.  Tifa had come to the realization that Cloud was often stoic and aloof around most of their companions but would melt down some of that icy exterior for her, showing her a softer side. Shouldering their packs, he nodded, turning towards the front door where the others began to file out.  She followed Cloud, stepping out into the misty Nibelheim night and leaving behind the ghosts of their past.  

At least for now.

Tifa's thoughts instead drifted to the challenges that awaited them - the Keystone, the Temple, Sephiroth's looming threat. She was still uncertain about the mission they were on and how their ragtag little group had come to be fighting in it, but she was certain about one thing:  Sephiroth and Shinra’s atrocities could not go unchecked.  They had to be stopped.  

Memory or not, Tifa resolved that she would do whatever she could to see that through.

The night sky was murky and cloudy, an ominous shade of gloomy, cerulean blue blended with the stark darkness.  Faint stars littered the sky in wide bands, lurking beneath the thick fog above as if their shine were trying to fight through a heavy curtain of doubt and uncertainty.  Tifa blinked at them, her eyes drawn to the way they poured across the muted sky like faded glitter, forming an arc that hung right below the milky glow of the moon. 

They held her attention as they walked towards the water tower, and Tifa found herself stopping abruptly, her gaze drawn upwards to the looming wooden structure where it was silhouetted against the foggy night sky. The sight stirred something deep within her, a flicker of recognition that grew into a blazing realization. Memories long buried surged to the surface, fragments of a promise made under a starlit sky. The feelings she felt stirred earlier that afternoon when she gazed upon the structure from her bedroom window bubbled forth and burst, and now, seeing the water tower under the night sky, Tifa stopped, turning slowly to stare at it as the memory came rushing back.

Cloud turned away from her, staring straight ahead at the night sky above. “When Spring comes, I’m leaving town.  I’m going to Midgar." 

She felt her heart drop, sudden and hot tears burning at the corners of her eyes as she turned away.  This wasn’t what she was hoping to hear.  “Shoulda figured. All the guys are leaving.”

“B-but I’m not like them,” he insisted, his voice cracking. “I’m not going to look for work. I’m going to be a SOLDIER.  The best of the best.  Like Sephiroth.”

 She turned back to him. “The great war hero, huh?  Isn’t it… isn’t it pretty hard to become a SOLDIER?”

“Yeah.” His voice had seemed to grow lower, softer. “So I won’t be back for a while.”

 “Guess not.”  The tension in her body swirled, possibilities unearthed with his every word.  “Think you’ll be in the papers?”

“I’ll try.”  

She swung her legs back and forth, her heart pounding as she considered her next words.  She looked to the stars for strength, for guidance.

“Just…promise me one thing.  If I'm ever trapped or in trouble...promise you'll come and save me."

“H-huh?”

“That’s what heroes do.  They save people.”

“Please?  Just once?  Come on, promise me!” She turned and stared deep into his bright blue eyes, committing this moment to memory.  He flinched lightly but he didn’t move, swallowing thickly enough she could hear it.

“Fine… I promise." 

 Gasping lightly for breath as if the wind had been knocked out of her from the memory, Tifa turned to Cloud, her eyes wide with wonder and disbelief, complete enchantment at what the memory invoked.

"Cloud…?” she queried softly, her voice a breathless whisper.

Cloud stopped where he walked ahead of her a pace, turning back to face her. His eyes widened in slight confusion as he gazed at her, seeing her standing beneath the water tower, her hands folded in front of her and her face tilted slightly up towards the night sky.  She turned to him, her heart racing as their eyes met, Cloud blinking before he stepped towards her, joining her beneath the water tower.

“What is it, Tifa?

Tifa felt her heart skip a beat.  Just like that, he was suddenly standing so close that she could feel his breath on her cheek, the heat of his body emanating towards her like a warm blanket she badly wanted to wrap around herself.  Swallowing hard, her cheek staining pink, she looked down at the knot her fingers had created.

“Cloud, I… I remember.”

She heard Cloud suck in a tiny gasp of air, and she glanced back at him, finding his cheeks desirably hued with color in a way that was almost uncharacteristic.  His eyes seemed bluer than ever, invoking the memory of that night when he had looked at her with wonder and surprise before turning away shyly to make that vow. Tifa was still fighting to recall all of her memories, but with this very precious one restored, she realized that the Cloud who stood in front of her was very much the boy who was hidden deep inside her heart.  She felt a torrent of emotions assault her with the realization that the compelling and conflicting feelings she had towards Cloud after awakening with her amnesia all stemmed from that very moment.

It was the moment, she knew now, that she had fallen in love. 

Cloud swallowed so hard she could hear it, just like that night sitting at the basin of the well, his voice trembling with anticipation. "What do you remember, Tifa?"

She felt her eyes glisten with unshed tears, burning at their corners. The promise he made to her had been so much more to her than just a vow to protect her.  It had solidified his place in her heart.

 "It was the night," she whispered. "The night you promised to protect me. That night, on our water tower, I asked you to promise you'd be there for me if I was ever in trouble.  And you did.”

Tifa closed her eyes, the surge of feelings squeezing her heart to the point of pain.  It all made sense now.  The constant compulsion to be close to Cloud’s side.  The mind-numbing attraction to him.  The comfort she found in his warmth.  The confusion and conflict she felt anytime he spoke to Aerith or spent time with her.  The way that she simply could not stop thinking about him.

 “It wasn't just a promise, Cloud.” Tifa went on softly.  “It was… it was the moment I realized... I realized how much you meant to me."

Cloud's breath hitched, his eyes widening further as the weight of her confession sank in. He stared unmoving at her for such a long moment that Tifa quickly feared she had said too much, and she began to regret letting so much slip out. She started to turn away, her face burning for new reasons. But Cloud stopped her, his hand suddenly hovering near her cheek as if unsure whether he dared to bridge the gap between them. 

“Tifa," he murmured. “I…never forgot that night. Even when everything else felt like it was falling apart, that promise... it was the one thing that has kept me going."

Tifa's heart swelled. She took another step closer, closing the distance between them even more. "Cloud… after everything that happened in Gongaga, when my memories were scattered and broken, something deep inside me kept holding on to you. I think that's why... why I couldn't bear the thought of losing you again.  Why everything has… been so hard for me.”

Cloud's own eyes burned with unshed tears, his heart aching with the weight of their shared history. He reached out, his fingers brushing away the tears from Tifa's cheek with a tenderness that belied his usual stoic demeanor.

Tifa leaned into Cloud's touch, her eyes fluttering closed as she savored the warmth of his leatherbound hands against her skin. She realized now that she had yearned for this moment for so long, for the chance to reconnect with the boy she had loved since childhood. 

Cloud's voice was low and tender as he spoke, each word imbued with the weight of their shared history. "That night, when we made that promise... It was more than just words to me, Tifa. I know I haven't always been the man you needed me to be. I've been struggling with my own demons, my own doubts. But through it all, you've been my anchor… and all I want is to be there for you the same way.”

As Cloud finished speaking, Tifa felt a surge of love and gratitude wash over her. The tears that had been threatening to fall finally spilled over, trailing down her cheeks in glistening rivulets. She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could utter a word, Cloud closed the final stretch of distance between them and enveloped her in a tight embrace.

She gasped, feeling his arms close tight around her. She closed her eyes and let his strength draw her in, closing her tight in a bubble of protection and care.  A new memory returned to her, one of his arms around her in a similar moment beneath the steel sky of Midgar’s plate, yellow lilies laid at their feet and a gentle waterfall cascading behind them.  It made Tifa sob harder into his hold, her fingers clutching at the well-worn threads of his sweater.

She buried her face in the crook of Cloud's neck, inhaling his familiar scent - a mix of leather, mako, and something uniquely him. She felt his strong, heavy arms tighten around her, his fingers tangling in her dark hair as he cradled her head against his chest as if she belonged to him.

I do, she thought.  I belong to Cloud.

For a long moment, they simply held each other, savoring the warmth and comfort of their embrace. The weight of their promise settled around them like a protective cocoon, shielding them from the uncertainties of the future. 

It seemed like an eternity before they reluctantly pulled apart. Cloud's hand found Tifa's, their fingers intertwining as if it were the most natural thing in the world. His other gloved hand reached up to gently brush the tears from her cheeks, offering her a small, sheltered hint of a smile.

"We should get going," Cloud said softly, his voice tinged with a hint of regret. "The others will be waiting for us."

Tifa nodded, her eyes still glistening with unshed tears. The others had already passed through the gates of town and they were alone with one another in the empty streets. She felt as if she could breathe properly for the first time in days, since she awoke in Gongaga after the reactor accident.  

“Yeah,” she agreed, squeezing his hand and delighting in the subtle warmth beneath his gloves. “Let’s go.”

Cloud felt an unusual sense of peace as they walked hand in hand out of Nibelheim. The weight of the world seemed to lighten, if only for a moment, with Tifa’s warm hand nestled comfortably in his. The memory of her recalling their childhood promise filled him with a quiet joy, a reminder that even amidst the chaos, what had always been real and enduring between them still existed.  His devastation after he’d nearly killed her in Gongaga was beginning to feel like a distant nightmare. Although Tifa still had a way to go in recalling all of her memories, her ease in falling into his embrace and admitting how much their promise had meant to her was enough to make him hopeful that maybe, despite the challenges that lay ahead, they had each other in ways that nothing and no one could get between.

He had to admit that it left him feeling a little giddy.  He thought back to the moment in Cissnei’s bedroom before all of this had happened - when Tifa had bent down and cupped his cheeks, pressing her soft lips to his.  He would give anything to relive that moment, and now, it seemed that there was a sliver of hope that the gods were giving him the good grace to have that opportunity again.  He wanted so badly to kiss her under that water tower - as much of a sham as the edifice was - but he didn’t want to push her too fast and too hard.  It was enough that she remembered the promise and that she was willing to be so vulnerable and close to him.  He would take that and cherish it until the moment was right to ask for more.

He tried to quiet his mind as they passed through Nibelhiem’s gates, leaving the haunted streets of their past behind. The sky grew ever more gloomy as they made their way along the beaten path outside of town, heading for the airfield where Cid and the others waited. As they rounded an uphill bend in the road, a sudden chill swept through the air, and Cloud’s grip on Tifa's hand tightened instinctively. 

A familiar, sinister presence washed over him, a cold fist wrapping around his heart with sudden dread.

"Cloud…?" Tifa’s voice was soft, filled with concern. She was looking up at him where he had suddenly stopped, confusion etched across her features and piercing her bright ruby eyes. "Are you okay?"

Before he could respond, Sephiroth's voice cut through the silence like a blade.  He was suddenly standing over Cloud, six and a half feet of silver and darkness, emerald green mako-eyes glowing with menace in the darkness. His presence was invisible to Tifa but all too real to Cloud, sending a bright searing pain through his head, his vision blurring. The dark, foreboding whisper echoed in his mind, chilling him to the marrow in his bones.

"You think you can escape your past, Cloud?" Sephiroth's voice was a chilling whisper, cutting through the silence like a blade.

 He felt Tifa’s hand on his arm, her touch grounding him, but Sephiroth’s words persisted, relentless and cruel.

"You can't hide from the truth," Sephiroth continued, his voice dripping with malice. "Let's see how strong your bond truly is."

As quickly as he had appeared, Sephiroth was gone, a ghost vanishing in the night wind. Cloud clenched his jaw, trying to push his words away, but the headache only intensified. Tifa’s worried eyes searched his, her hand squeezing his bicep.

“Cloud,” she repeated his name softly.  The husky murmur of her voice and the gentle pressure of her small hand on his arm alleviated the fissure that was tearing through his brain, and he forced a smile, desperate to reassure her.

"I'm fine," he said, his voice strained. "Let's just keep going."

Tifa hesitated, but she nodded, letting her fingers trail down his arm as she carefully and reluctantly released him.  To reassure her, he took her hand again, and they continued towards the airfield silently, Cloud’s mind reeling with the turbulence of his thoughts and anxieties. The warmth of her hand and her presence at his side were waves of calm in a stormy sea of fear and doubt that he suddenly found himself drowning in, gnawing at the fractured edges of his mind.

But as they reached the Tiny Bronco, the conflicting emotions raged within him, a battle between hope and fear. His renewed bond with Tifa was a source of strength, but Sephiroth’s words had sown seeds of doubt that would refuse to be ignored.

Chapter Text

Chapter Six

Golden Sparks

Cloud’s heart clenched as he watched Tifa climb into the Tiny Bronco, her movements tentative and unsure, like a bird testing its injured wings for the first time. He followed her on board, choosing a seat slightly behind and across from her, where he could observe her without drawing attention. Between them lay the weight of memories, fragmented like a patchwork quilt, as Nibelheim faded into the distance. The sleepy village of their youth shrank away, becoming as distant as a half-forgotten dream.

“Everything all right back there?” Cid called from the cockpit, his voice gruff but concerned.

“Fine,” Cloud replied tersely, though his mind was elsewhere.

The Tiny Bronco’s propellers sliced through the open sky, carrying them high above the world. The rest of the group engaged in soft conversations, while Cloud sat in contemplative silence. His gaze kept drifting toward Tifa, who sat with her hands folded neatly in her lap, her eyes lost in the sky beyond the window. Wisps of clouds floated by, but her expression remained distant, like she was miles away, lost in her own labyrinth of thoughts.

His mind wandered back to his encounter with Sephiroth, the memory still vivid. As they had passed through the gates of the reconstructed Nibelheim, Sephiroth’s chilling words had echoed through his mind, stirring a tumult of anger and fear. The rage and confusion gnawed at him, a constant distraction. Even now, as the plane soared through the clear blue sky, those words clung to him like a dark cloud.

Yet, despite the storm within him, Tifa’s closeness offered him a small, quiet comfort. He wondered if she, too, was caught in the pull of their shared past. Was she still thinking of the promise they had made all those years ago? That memory, though buried beneath layers of pain and distance, stirred something deep in Cloud’s chest. It was one of the few memories that brought him solace amidst the chaos.

But as his gaze lingered on her, he noticed the subtle movements of her fingers tracing the edge of her skirt—a nervous habit she’d had for as long as he could remember. That fidgeting, the way her brow furrowed ever so slightly, spoke of a deeper turmoil within. Was she reliving warm memories of the night they made that promise beneath the stars, or were her thoughts trapped in darker places? Fires, blood, and Sephiroth’s cold, venomous voice—were these the ghosts that haunted her now?

Cloud’s heart tightened further. Seeing her like this, burdened by unspoken fears, tore at him. He clenched his hand into a fist, the nails biting into the leather of his glove as he focused instead on the memory of that promise—the one thing that had tethered him through the years. Tifa had said that night was when she realized how much he meant to her. He wasn’t sure exactly what she had meant, but Cloud clung to those words like a lifeline.

“What’s on your mind?” Cloud asked, leaning forward slightly, his voice low enough not to disturb the others. Tifa had distanced herself from the group, her isolation palpable.

Tifa turned toward him, her expression a delicate mix of confusion and longing. “I’m not really sure,” she admitted, her voice soft and tinged with melancholy. “Everything feels so strange... familiar, but also... different.”

Cloud’s usually hard, mako-infused eyes softened. It pained him to see her struggle with the delicate threads of their shared history, especially now that those memories were slowly returning to her—fragile and incomplete, like a puzzle missing too many pieces.

“It’s a lot to take in,” Cloud said, his voice steady, offering the only comfort he knew how. “But you’re doing great. You’ve already remembered so much. Just... take your time.”

Tifa nodded, a faint smile touching her lips. Cloud caught a flicker of light in her garnet eyes, a glimmer of the woman she had been before the amnesia took hold. For the first time in a while, hope stirred within him. Maybe her remembering their promise was a sign that things were slowly starting to heal.

As Cid expertly guided the Tiny Bronco further away from the shadow of Nibelheim and the ominous peaks of the Nibel Mountains, Cloud leaned back in his seat, his eyes still on Tifa. The path ahead promised more battles and more uncertainties, but he knew that the most difficult fight lay within—against the fading and fractured memories that could either bind or break them. He only hoped he had the strength to confront Sephiroth when the time came and sever the last ties to a past that continued to haunt them both.

When the Gold Saucer’s glittering expanse came into view, its gaudy brilliance was a jarring contrast to the somber quiet they had left behind. The moment Cloud stepped off the Tiny Bronco, the barrage of light and sound hit him like the crash of a wave. Families laughed, children’s squeals filled the air, and the mechanical noise of games and rides buzzed like a constant, chaotic hum. The smell of popcorn and candy floss hung heavy in the air, a sweet aroma that clashed with the tension still simmering inside him.

Beside him, Tifa’s eyes widened as she took in the spectacle, her gaze drifting over the spinning Skywheel and the flashing neon lights that beckoned with promises of 3D adventures and virtual realities. It wasn’t their first visit to the Gold Saucer, but it was the first since Tifa’s amnesia in Gongaga, and she took it in as though seeing it all for the first time. Cloud watched her carefully, noticing the way her hand twitched at her side, as though searching for something—perhaps for a memory just out of reach.

Cloud looked down at his own hand, recalling the last time they were here. They had held hands, walking through the same brightly lit streets, and had almost ridden the Skywheel together. But that moment had been interrupted—just like so many others between them. He remembered the brief warmth of her fingers entwined with his and how it had felt like another promise, now shrouded in the fog of her forgotten past.

He glanced up at the night sky, the flashing lights and overwhelming noise swirling around him. This time, he promised himself, things would be different.

The group quickly responded to the chaotic energy of the Gold Saucer. Aerith and Yuffie darted off to explore, though they were soon reined in by Barret’s stern, fatherly command. Red XIII padded quietly at Cloud’s side as they navigated the center corridor, the space alive with music, color, and laughter. Even Red couldn’t resist looking up at the flashing lights, his amber eyes reflecting the swirling hues.

“Not much we can do now,” Barret pointed out, his deep voice cutting through the noise. “It’s late, and we’ll need rest before we head to the Temple.”

“Agreed,” Cloud replied, his gaze drifting toward Tifa. “We should corner Dio in the morning when we’re all fresh.”

Barret nodded, watching as Red XIII followed after Aerith and Yuffie, their laughter echoing through the crowded square.

“I’ll secure the rooms at the Ghost Hotel,” Cait announced before bouncing away. Vincent and Cid exchanged indifferent glances before they trailed after him, leaving the group to scatter in different directions, some eager to explore the night, others heading straight for rest.

Cloud remained still, contemplating his next move. His eyes flicked to Tifa, noticing that she hadn’t followed Aerith and Yuffie, but instead lingered at his side. He seized the opportunity, feeling a small, unexpected victory in her choice to stay close.

“Let’s take the scenic route to the hotel,” Cloud suggested, his voice soft but steady. “Maybe it’ll jog some more memories.”

Tifa nodded, stepping closer to him as they began to walk. The vibrant streets of the Gold Saucer hummed around them, the lights dancing in their periphery as they navigated through the square.

Their shoulders brushed occasionally, and each time, Tifa would look away, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. Cloud, on the other hand, bit his lip, torn between letting the growing distance between them remain or closing it by taking her hand once more. Every step they took together felt like a bridge across the fractures that had opened between them since Gongaga. Yet, despite his longing for closeness, fear held him back—fear that pushing too hard might make the fragile bond between them break.

“The Gold Saucer is something else, huh?” Tifa finally said, breaking the silence that had wrapped around them.

Cloud nodded, but his mind was still tangled in the remnants of their shared past—memories of a childhood bond strained by the weight of time and trauma. “It sure is,” he murmured. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so... overwhelming.”

Tifa glanced around, her brow furrowing. “I wonder how much mako this place uses every day.”

Cloud caught the edge of her voice, a subtle shift in tone that made him wonder what else was running through her mind. They had spoken briefly about AVALANCHE’s mission, about Shinra and the damage wrought by its insatiable hunger for mako, but not much else. He wondered how much of their cause she truly remembered.

As they meandered through the vibrant crowd, Cloud felt the weight of unspoken words press heavily on his chest. There were so many things he wanted to say, questions he wanted to ask, but the fear of pushing her too far, too fast, kept his mouth shut. Every time he thought about it, his hand itched to reach out, to hold her, to offer the comfort he so desperately wanted to give. But something always held him back—the worry that if he overstepped, the fragile Tifa who held his memories with such care might slip away, piece by piece, until there was nothing left to grasp.

When they finally reached the Ghost Hotel, its garish facade loomed before them, a grotesque parody of what hospitality was meant to be. The place was more comically eerie than terrifying, but it wasn’t Cloud’s first choice for a place to rest. Still, they weren’t in a position to be picky.

As they walked through the dimly lit lobby, Cloud couldn’t help but glance at Tifa again. Her eyes scanned their surroundings, wide with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. He noticed her hand trembling slightly at her side. Almost without thinking, his own hand brushed against hers.

“Creepy, huh?” he murmured, his voice low as they passed through a replica cemetery filled with stone mannequins and mechanical ghouls.

Tifa nodded, her gaze flickering over the strange sights. “Yeah... it reminds me...” Her voice faltered, a haunted note creeping into her tone. “There was a house near Nibelheim. We used to dare each other to go inside.”

Cloud stopped, turning his full attention to her. There was something in her voice, a weight to her words, that made him realize this was more than just idle chatter. This memory had substance; it had cut through the amnesia and reached her from a past that refused to stay buried.

“Haunted?” Cloud asked, his voice steady as he probed gently.

“Supposedly.” Tifa wrapped her arms around herself, as though shielding herself from a chill that wasn’t really there. “I remember being scared... so scared, but I can’t picture it. The house, the rooms... it’s all just... feelings.”

Cloud watched her closely, seeing the inner conflict play out on her features as she grappled with the fragmented pieces of her history. She seemed caught between two worlds—the known and the forgotten.

“Shinra Mansion,” Cloud said softly, his heart aching for her. “It was where the scientists worked. But it was old, and there were all kinds of stories about it being haunted. We used to sneak in there as kids... I remember getting caught by Monami once. My mom was furious.”

Tifa glanced up at him, her red eyes searching his face for some kind of reassurance, for something solid to hold onto in the chaos of her mind.  A slight smile teased at her lips.

“Is that what you remember?” he prodded gently.

Tifa turned away, shrugging slightly but not offering any further answer. Cloud decided to let the conversation drop, instead walking silently beside her as they entered the lobby of the Ghost Hotel.

At the front desk, Cloud collected their room keys, handing one to Tifa.

“You should get some rest,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “I’ll be right down the hall.”

Tifa nodded, twirling the key between her fingers. “You too, Cloud,” she said earnestly. “Don’t push yourself too hard. Things are only going to get tougher, aren’t they?”

She didn’t wait for him to answer, instead offering him one of her melancholic smiles—the kind he had grown all too familiar with since they’d left Gongaga. He watched her turn and walk away, heading for the elevators.

Cloud sighed, the tension weighing heavily on his shoulders as he made his way toward the hotel bar. Maybe a drink would help him sleep. Maybe it would quiet the gnawing worry that had burrowed into his mind—the worry that he might never fully bring back the Tifa he had once known.

If only he could help take those sad and uncertain smiles away from her forever.

Tifa sat up in bed, her body tense, mirroring the restless energy that seemed to pulse through the very walls of the Gold Saucer. The flickering lights from outside bled through the blinds, casting erratic shadows that danced across the room. They moved like restless spirits, filtering through the joy and laughter of the amusement park beyond her window. Yet, no comfort could be found in the park’s bright lights and promises of fun—only a deep, gnawing unease that wrapped itself around her heart.

She ran a hand through her hair, pushing back the stray strands clinging to her damp forehead. She’d awoken from another fitful sleep, plagued by strange visions of ethereal green light and faceless memories of Nibelheim. Her dreams had been haunted by this strange, elusive imagery ever since Gongaga, and it felt as though each night they became more vivid, more insistent. There was something those dreams were trying to tell her, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t piece together what it was.

Her thoughts were a tangled mess, haunted by fragments of memories that refused to fully emerge. Every time she reached for them, they slipped away, leaving her grasping at shadows. But always, lurking in the recesses of her mind, was the image of Cloud—his blue eyes filled with worry and something deeper, something she couldn’t quite name. That look he gave her, every time she faltered in her memories, made her heart ache. It was as if every forgotten moment was a small betrayal.

The weight of those lost memories pressed down on her, making it difficult to breathe. She had tried to sleep, to find some reprieve in the darkness, but it eluded her. Every time her eyes closed, she saw Sephiroth’s sneering face, heard his voice whispering doubts into her mind. And worse, she saw Cloud, standing just out of reach, his expression filled with a sorrow that cut deeper than any blade.

None of it made sense.

Yet, despite the anxiety and confusion, there was something about the thought of Cloud that eased her, that brought a flicker of light into the darkness. Tifa glanced at the door, remembering how she and Cloud had parted ways just a couple of hours earlier in the lobby. Her heart fluttered at the mere thought of him, and she couldn’t suppress the longing that bubbled up inside her chest.

She sat for a few more moments, wringing her hands together as she mulled over her options. The feeling of being adrift, desperate for something solid, something familiar, pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. It wasn’t long before she found herself standing, slipping into her skirt and boots. The time on the ominous wall clock read just after nine PM—she had barely managed to sleep for two hours.

Tifa sighed. She was seeking comfort, and though it surprised her to admit it, she knew exactly where that comfort could be found. Ever since she had awoken in Gongaga, the only thing that felt even remotely stable was Cloud.

Without letting herself overthink it, she crossed the blood-red carpeted corridor and paused in front of Cloud’s door, just down the hall. Her heart raced, pounding in her chest as she steeled herself. The decision weighed heavily on her shoulders, but she knew she had to do something—anything—to shake off the oppressive unease that had settled over her.

After a deep breath, she raised her hand and knocked softly on the door.

A moment passed before Cloud’s voice came from the other side, low and rough, as though he had been caught in the middle of his own thoughts.

“Yeah?”

“It’s me,” Tifa answered meekly, her voice small and uncertain.

The door slid open before she could blink, and Cloud appeared in the doorway, his familiar presence filling the space. He was still fully dressed, though she could tell by the slight pillow creases on his cheek that he had been resting. His eyes swept over her, concern flickering behind those deep, mako-blue orbs, before he stepped aside to invite her in.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she admitted, shaking her head. Her voice trembled slightly, betraying the turmoil inside. “I thought maybe a walk might help. Do you want to hang out with me for a little while? There’s so much to see here.”

Cloud seemed disappointed that Tifa didn’t step inside of his room, and he glanced mournfully back at his bed for a moment before he turned back to her with a softened expression.  He nodded, stepping into the hallway and closing the door behind him.

“Of course,” he agreed. “I wasn’t having much luck sleeping, either. Where do you want to go?”

Tifa felt her cheeks warm at the unexpected eagerness in his voice. Cloud usually seemed so composed, so stoic, that she hadn’t expected him to agree so easily. She couldn’t help the small smile that tugged at her lips, and already, the weight on her chest felt lighter.

“I hear there’s a show playing at the theater,” she said, her voice softening. “Maybe we could check it out? And there’s the Skywheel, too.”

Cloud nodded without hesitation. There was no reluctance in his eyes, just quiet acceptance.

They left the room together, stepping into the vibrant chaos of the Gold Saucer. The lights and sounds were overwhelming, but Tifa barely noticed them. She was too focused on Cloud’s silent presence beside her, the gentle brush of his hand against hers as they walked sending shivers down her spine. His cheeks flushed with a faint pink hue, and she wondered if he felt the same pull she did.

Each accidental touch was like a fleeting reminder of what seemed to be slowly rekindling between them. If only her memories weren’t so fragmented, she might have been able to reach out and grasp the full truth of their past together.

They wandered past game booths and rides, the kaleidoscope of lights and sounds forming a vivid backdrop to their quiet stroll. When they arrived at the Event Square, the neon glow of the Gold Saucer's VR theater sign cast a flickering light over Tifa’s face. Her eyes reflected the vibrant colors as she peered up at the sign, “Loveless” emblazoned in bold letters on the marquee. She turned to Cloud, her lips tilting upward in a hopeful smile.

“Come on,” she said, waving him over. Her voice carried a hint of enthusiasm, cutting through the melancholy that had settled over her. The idea of getting away from reality, even for just a little while, filled her with a strange kind of excitement.

Cloud followed her without hesitation her into the dimly lit foyer, the distant sounds of the carnival fading behind them as they were enveloped by the theater's hushed atmosphere.  As they navigated through the tightly packed rows of theatergoers, Tifa felt a sudden, strong warmth at the small of her back.  She realized almost belatedly that it was the weight of Cloud’s hand, his presence close behind her and mooring her close to him as they found their seats.  It was both a securing and possessive touch, and Tifa found her cheeks hot all over again, the flood of feelings capturing her at his quiet boldness both confusing and thrilling.

Inside, they found their seats and put on their virtual reality lens, the theater darkening as the show began. Tifa found herself entranced by the story unfolding before them as the performance began, the virtual world materializing around them with a cacophony of brilliant colors and the heavy overtures of dramatic classical music.  But her eyes widened with shock and surprise when she realized that its audience members, they were participants of the performance, finding herself cast as Rosa, a princess whose love defied the boundaries set by time and circumstance and Cloud in the role of Alphreid, a knight ensnared by fate's cruel hand. Tifa gasped as she looked down at herself and the ivory robe and copper bangles she now wore, her nervous excitement tangible as she stepped closer to where Cloud sat trapped in a dungeon’s cage, becoming Rosa to his Alphreid.

Her amnesia and all the anxiety it brought with it seemingly slipped into the shadows as she embraced the character, her focus entirely on the narrative that swirled around them. The technology felt so real that it was as if she had left her world entirely and was standing in the midst of an alternate universe, that she had become Rosa in her broken and forlorn world.  Tifa embraced it, letting go of her own fractured reality for just a little while.

As they progressed through their roles,  Tifa found herself as Rosa, bound to Alphreid in a timeless dance of love and loss. Cloud, though clad in the armor of a fictional hero, exuded a vulnerability and strength in his performance that belied the fact that it was not real. Tifa, embodying Rosa, moved with a grace that belied her inner turmoil, her actions resonating with the echoes of a past that refused to fully reveal itself. Each word she uttered, each step she took, was laden with an emotion that transcended the script—it was real, raw, and achingly familiar despite the fact that that it was only a show.

In the dimly lit dungeon, Tifa, as Rosa, stepped carefully over the uneven stone floor, her eyes scanning the shadows for her imprisoned knight. The virtual chains that dangled from the walls clinked with a hollow sound, blending into the ambiance of despair. Cloud, embodying Alphreid, stood stoically against the cold wall, his armor reflecting the faint torchlight.

"Alphreid?" Tifa's voice echoed softly, a tremor betraying the character's resolve. It was more than Rosa's worry for her beloved—it was Tifa's own heart speaking through the lines, her emotions entwined with the fear of losing the memories they had yet to reclaim.

Cloud turned, the blue glow in his eyes meeting hers with an intensity that transcended their virtual surroundings. He reached out, his gauntleted hand brushing against hers as if by accident. The contact sent a surge through Tifa, a shock that felt far too real to be just part of the game.

"Rosa, you came for me," Cloud said, his voice deep and resonant within the dungeon's confines, but soft enough to stir a yearning only Tifa could understand. Her fingers curled around his, clinging onto the sensation, the connection, wishing it could anchor her fragmented past.

As the scene shifted, they found themselves in the perilous land of Gardenia. The simulation conjured a vista of jagged rocks and twisted vegetation, a landscape wrought with danger at every turn. They fought together in battles simulated with their friends, the virtual experience expanding to include their entire group and adding to the excitement of it.

Bursts of flames singed the air behind them as the battle ended, the cliff upon which their virtual avatars stood was jagged, a stark silhouette against the setting sun that spilled fire across a laden sea. Cloud's character, Alphreid, turned towards Tifa's Rosa, the victorious battle behind them now as silent as the grave.

Tifa felt her chest tighten, the pixelated world blurring at the edges as the echoes of her own heartache bled into Rosa's. She gazed at the simulated sea, its waves whispering of memories lost to the depths of her mind. How much of this beauty had she once shared with Cloud, only to have it stolen away by amnesia's cruel hand?

“Must you go?” she breathed, less a statement and more an ache for all that she still could not recall and all that she had lost.

Cloud's avatar nodded, his digital expression mirroring the solemn nod he gave in reality. “I shall return,” he agreed, his voice reverberating through the speakers with the undertone of his own longing.

The silence lingered, heavy with words unspoken, feelings unexpressed. 

Then, the moment shifted, the scene changing to one of grandeur and anticipation. They found themselves standing in a ballroom aglow with ethereal light, opulence draped over every surface. A symphony swelled, filling the space with a melody that seemed to reach back through time, touching something within Tifa that was both foreign and intimately familiar.

"May I?" Cloud asked, extending his hand in the role of Alphreid, every inch the knight from a tale of yore.

Tifa, as Rosa, placed her hand in his with an eagerness that betrayed her inner turmoil. Her pulse quickened at the contact, the warmth of their touch seeping through the virtual barrier. As they began to dance, Cloud pulled her tight against his body, his hand clutching her waist and his blue eyes boring into her with that same possessive spark she had recognized earlier.

Is this what it felt like to dance with him under the stars? The thought stirred something deep within her. Is this a shadow of a memory? Or was it a prelude to new ones?

With each step, each turn, the tension between them grew taut, a string ready to snap under the weight of their unspoken desires. Cloud led her with gentle assurance, his avatar’s firm grip on her a stark contrast to the tenderness she felt emanating from him. The simulated crowd around them faded into the background, until there was nothing but the two of them, lost in the rhythm, the movement, and the possibility that this—this moment—might unlock something long buried within her.

"Cloud," she whispered, his name slipping out before she could stop it. It wasn’t part of the script, but a plea, a prayer, that this connection between them wouldn’t vanish like the fleeting moments of her fractured memories.

He looked down at her, his blue eyes filled with an emotion so raw and genuine that it made her breath catch. "Tifa," he responded, his voice soft, almost reverent.

The music swelled around them, their bodies moving in perfect harmony, the virtual ballroom a mere backdrop to the emotions that swirled between them. Each movement felt deliberate, laden with significance, as though they were two souls reaching through the darkness, searching for something to hold on to.

As they leaned closer, Tifa’s heart raced, her gaze flicking to Cloud’s lips, which hovered just inches from hers. Her breath hitched as the world seemed to slow, the weight of their proximity heavy with anticipation. His lips parted as if he were preparing to close the distance between them, to bridge the gap that had lingered between them for so long.

But before either of them could take that final step, the virtual world dissolved around them, pixels scattering like dust in the wind. The grand hall, the music, their avatars—everything vanished, leaving behind a stark silence that echoed the hollow space where the dance had just lived.

Tifa’s heart sank as reality came rushing back, the loss of that moment leaving her reeling. It was like waking from a dream at the exact moment of revelation, only to have the truth slip through her fingers like mist. She blinked, disoriented, the weight of the real world settling back over her like a heavy cloak.

The theater’s lights flickered back on, and the audience erupted into applause, jolting her fully out of the dreamlike haze. Tifa sat up straighter, her pulse still racing as she glanced over at Cloud, who was watching her intently. His expression was softer than usual, a quiet smile tugging at the corners of his lips—one that was far more open than she was used to seeing from him.

“That was fun,” Cloud commented, his voice gentle as he offered her his hand to help her up.

Tifa blinked, trying to shake the lingering emotions from the performance. She turned to him, meeting his gaze, and found herself momentarily lost in those deep blue eyes. Her heart was still pounding, not from the excitement of the show, but from the intensity of what had passed between them—both in the virtual world and in reality.

“Yeah,” she agreed, returning his smile. Her cheeks flushed as the memory of their almost-kiss replayed in her mind. She wondered if Cloud had felt the same surge of emotion, the same connection that had tugged at her heart. But she didn’t dare ask, the vulnerability of the moment still too raw.

Cloud got to his feet and offered his hand to her again, this time drawing her fully out of her daze. She accepted it, letting him pull her to her feet, the warmth of his touch a reminder of the fleeting closeness they had just shared.

“Come on,” he said, his voice quiet but filled with the same quiet affection she had seen in his smile. “Let’s check out that Skywheel.”

Cloud sensed the turmoil that knotted within Tifa as they walked side by side through the exit, stepping back into the virulent kaleidoscope of lights and sounds that was the Gold Saucer. It was visible in the slight crease of her brow, the way her lips pressed together in thought, and the subtle bite of her lip. Though she walked beside him, Cloud could feel her reaching inward, grappling with something just out of reach, her spirit tethered to memories that still slipped through her fingers.

He wanted to offer her comfort, to be the anchor she so desperately needed, but words failed him. His own uncertainty wrapped around his thoughts like a tight band, pulling at the edges of his resolve. Still, the urge to be her beacon, the one to guide her through the storm of confusion, was stronger than the doubts gnawing at his heart.

The shimmering lights of the Gold Saucer blurred into distant constellations as Cloud and Tifa approached the Skywheel Square. By now, the night was draped in velvet darkness that seemed to pulse with anticipation as they drew nearer to what was inarguably the most romantic feature of the entire park. He glanced over at Tifa as they approached, surprised to find that not only had her expression softened, but a readable sort of happiness and excitement seemed to color her smile, something he had not been expecting to see from her after everything, despite the mood of the entire evening.

“Cloud, look!  A gondola’s here!”

He realized, as they approached the gondola, there was a sudden childlike exuberance that suddenly overtook her mood.  Cloud wondered idly if it  were merely an effect of the atmosphere, or if it were because she was excited to share such an intimate moment with him.

He dared not dream it was the latter. 

“After you,” Tifa shyly murmured when the gondola arrived, clasping her hands behind her back, turning away from him with blush staining her cheeks.

“You first,” he insisted, happy to distract himself from his desperate thoughts.

“Cloud!” she suddenly exclaimed, pointing to the sliding doors of the gondola.  Moving swiftly into action, Cloud jumped aboard the gondola, extending his hand to Tifa and pulling her in close behind him.  She spilled forward into his arms, and he caught her, pulling her in close to ensure she was safe.  The doors slid closed, an electric current running between them where they were connected through the clasp of their hands and the close press of their bodies.

“S-sorry,” Tifa gently apologized as they slowly separated.

Cloud didn’t mind, but he simply nodded, already regretting the loss of the warmth of her body as she eased into a seat.  He unstrapped his sword, breathing out between the gap in his lips as he took a seat across from her, balancing his hands, which were now sweating profusely under his gloves, atop his knees.  

Slowly, they ascended into the night sky. The Gold Saucer's myriad colors painted the heavens around them, fireworks and simulated scenery lighting up the sky.  Tifa steered the gondola, efficiently blocking an attack from a simulated spaceship and leaving a smile on Cloud’s face when she stood proudly in front of him with her hands on her hips.

“Nice save,” he complimented, unable to tear his eyes away from the soft curves of her body as she stood before him.

Tifa blushed, her lips quirking into a shy smile as she returned to her seat. The gondola continued its slow journey upward, the world below growing smaller, more distant.

“It’s beautiful,” Tifa commented softly, her eyes tracing the patterns of fireworks that bloomed in the sky outside their window.

Cloud’s gaze was no longer on the scenery. He couldn’t agree more, but not for the reason she thought.

To him, the beauty was her .

As the gondola reached its zenith, Cloud’s gaze lingered on Tifa, tracing the soft contours of her face bathed in the sway of colors and light. Outside the glass walls, the twinkling lights of Gold Saucer, the distant hum of life, faded into the background. His lips trembled, words forming at the edge of his thoughts but unable to find release. So much was left unsaid between them, so many questions, feelings tangled like a web of uncertainty. He wanted to speak, to lay everything bare before her, but fear kept him caged.

Tifa, sensing his eyes on her, turned to meet his gaze, her breath catching in the delicate web of longing and fear. The air between them thickened with the tension of all that had been left unspoken, emotions that swirled like the fireworks outside but remained bottled within them.

"Cloud," Tifa whispered, catching him staring again. The sound of her voice, soft and almost hesitant, sent a jolt through him, snapping him from his internal struggle. He blinked, his lips still parted with the words that refused to form.

“I—have we ever been this close before?" Tifa’s voice trembled, as if the question itself was fragile. Her eyes were wide, reflecting the fireworks outside as she searched his face for answers. "I can’t remember a time like this…”

Cloud swallowed hard, struggling to steady his racing heart. The truth was, they had never been this close—not like this, not without the weight of catastrophe pressing down on them. The moments they had shared had always been fleeting, brief instances of intimacy buried beneath the rubble of chaos and destruction. Their embrace in Aerith’s garden, a moment of shared grief. Their kiss in Gongaga, born out of desperation and fear.  Both were now long forgotten. But now? Now, everything felt different. Cloud knew with all the disrepair between he and Tifa’s memories that she was right.  There hadn’t been a time like this.

“Or am I… getting ahead of myself again?” Tifa’s voice broke through his thoughts, her uncertainty pulling at his heart. She looked down, her hands wringing together in her lap, her lashes brushing her cheeks as she lowered her gaze. Her vulnerability in that moment was palpable, and it struck Cloud like a physical blow.

“Again?” Cloud’s voice cracked as he repeated the word, confusion and hope swirling in his chest.

Tifa nodded, her fingers still twisting nervously. “Yeah… again.”

A flood of emotions surged through Cloud—elation, confusion, panic. He wasn’t sure what she meant by "again," but the possibility that she remembered something, anything, from their shared past made his heart race with a mix of excitement and dread. Had he missed something? Was there a moment between them, buried beneath the haze of her amnesia, that he had overlooked?

Whatever it was, Cloud couldn’t let it slip away this time.

Slowly, carefully, he extended his hand toward her. It was a silent offering, a bridge between them, cautious and unsure but filled with the desire to close the gap that had existed between them for so long. Tifa’s gaze lifted to meet his, her eyes softening as realization slowly dawned on her, though uncertainty still lingered in the molten depths of her gaze.

"Not one bit," Cloud told her, his voice steady despite the pounding of his heart.

It was all the reassurance she needed.

Tifa placed her hand in his, and the moment stretched taut, fraught with the weight of everything left unsaid. A myriad of colors burst around them, fireworks lighting the sky, bathing her in a cascade of light as though she were an angel caught in the radiance of a thousand rainbow-hued stars. Cloud’s breath hitched as he felt her warmth against his palm, and for a moment, the world outside the gondola ceased to exist. There was only her, and him, and the space between them that slowly dissolved with every passing second.

Emboldened by the feel of her hand in his, Cloud closed the distance between them. His movements were slow and careful, as if he were afraid that if he moved too quickly, the fragile connection they had just begun to build might shatter. He gathered her into his arms, pulling her close, responding not with words but with the action that had always been beyond his reach. His arms tightened around her, the embrace meant to convey all the affection and longing he had kept bottled up inside for so long.

Tifa’s heartbeat thrummed against his chest, the rapid rhythm of it mirroring his own. The anticipation that hung between them was electric, bursting through the tension that had clouded their interactions. His embrace was tight, meant to convey the deep affection, longing, and desperate need he had to protect her in every way - physically and emotionally - all this time.  He could feel her heartbeat radiate against his chest, the anticipation between them bursting along with the fireworks. 

Carefully, Cloud pulled back, his hands sliding to her shoulders as he gazed down at her, his blue eyes searching hers with an intensity that sent a wave of warmth flooding through her.

He waited, his breath held, his heart pounding so loudly in his chest that he was sure she could hear it. Tifa’s eyes were locked on his, her lips slowly parting as she glanced down at his mouth, then back up to meet his gaze. Her eyelids lowered slightly, her expression softening into something that made Cloud’s breath hitch. It was the look of desire, of affirmation, and it was all the signal he needed.

The hesitation that had lingered for so long between them crumbled as Cloud leaned in, his lips finally brushing against hers in a kiss that shattered the barriers of restraint he had kept so carefully constructed. It was deep and fervent, a rush of emotion that spilled out from the depths of his soul. Every unsaid word, every unspoken feeling was poured into that kiss, a dam breaking under the pressure of all the pent-up desires he had harbored for so long.

Tifa’s response was immediate, her body surging forward to meet him as though she had been waiting for this moment as long as he had. Her hands, which had fidgeted nervously in her lap just moments before, pressed achingly against his thighs before her arms found their way around his neck, wrapping around him as she pulled him closer. There was a desperation in her movements that mirrored his own, and Cloud could feel the heat between them growing, the intensity of the moment threatening to consume them both.

Her lips parted, a soft sigh escaping her as their kiss deepened, and Cloud couldn’t help but lose himself in the sensation of her. He was adrift in the kiss, lost in the convergence of past and present, each caress a testament to what they had endured together over those last several weeks. Unable to help himself, Cloud's hands, which had been holding her shoulders, began to roam with a blend of reverence and need, mapping the landscape of Tifa's back and her waist and hips memorizing the curves and planes as though they were sacred sculptures.

The heat between them grew, slow but steady, building into a wildfire that threatened to burn them both. Each brush of their lips, each entwining of their tongues, stoked the flames higher, fanning the passion that had long been simmering beneath the surface. Their breaths mingled in the small space between them, the air thick with both the melancholy of lost time and the heady rush of new possibilities.

Cloud’s mind swam in the haze of their kiss, his thoughts blurring as he lost himself to the sensations. Her warmth, her softness, the way her body seemed to mold perfectly against his—it was overwhelming, a wave of emotion crashing over him, pulling him under, every part of his body that he could feel alight with warm and pleasurable feelings. His hands tightened on her waist, pulling her closer, as though he could somehow make up for all the time they had lost in this single moment.

The abrupt stop of the gondola wrenched Cloud back to reality, the fervor of their kiss dissolving into the cool night air as they hesitantly separated. The fireworks continued outside, but inside the gondola, silence reigned, save for the ragged breaths they both drew, chests heaving as though they had just run a great distance.

Cloud cursed softly under his breath, pulling back just enough to meet Tifa’s gaze. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen and stung from their kiss, her eyes wide and still swimming with the same desire that had fueled their embrace. For a moment, neither of them spoke, their breaths still too uneven, their minds still too wrapped in the remnants of what had just transpired.

“Come on,” Cloud finally whispered, his voice hoarse as he reached for her hand once more.  He wasn’t sure how long he had been kissing her, but it had been for the rest of their ride and his cheeks were bright with the realization that he had actually made out with Tifa.

Together, they stepped out onto the platform, the darkness of the gondola giving way to the bright, flashing lights of the Gold Saucer. The cool air brushed against Cloud’s heated skin, and he felt his cheeks burn under the glow of the lights as they walked. He released Tifa’s hand, though his fingers itched to keep holding it, to keep her close to him.

He cast a glance at her, and his heart swelled at the sight of her still-flushed cheeks, her lips parted slightly as though she was still trying to catch her breath. She walked with her hands clasped shyly behind her back, her gaze cast downward, a soft smile playing at the corners of her lips.

Cloud swallowed hard, clenching his hands into fists at his sides as he tried to determine the right thing to say after such an experience, but he found himself rendered utterly speechless.

“We should probably head back to our rooms,” she muttered quietly.

Cloud could only nod, and together they marched away from the Skywheel, a whirlwind of thoughts clouding his mind. He remained close to Tifa as they navigated through the bustling crowds, his senses heightened to her presence, his mind reeling through the last several minutes of their ride where they had spent it kissing.  Cloud wondered if they had been swept up in the moment and the atmosphere, or if this truly marked a significant shift in their relationship.

He knew what it meant for him… if only he knew what it meant for her.

As they continued their walk back toward the hotel, the bustling crowds around them seemed to fade into the background, replaced by the quiet hum of their shared thoughts. Cloud remained close to Tifa, his senses heightened to every movement, every breath she took. His mind kept replaying the last few minutes, the warmth of her body against his, the taste of her lips on his, the way she had clung to him with the same desperation he felt inside.

They stopped first at Tifa’s room.  Cloud continued to clench his fists, feeling them sweat beneath his gloves as Tifa slid her key into the latch.

“Goodnight, Cloud,” she whispered over her shoulder, and Cloud realized she was trying still to conceal her blush.

“G-goodnight, Tifa,” he stammered.

She disappeared, and Cloud stood there for a moment longer, his heart heavy with the knowledge that everything they had shared tonight might be forgotten come morning. But even in the face of such uncertainty, one thing remained clear.

He would fight in whatever way he needed to ensure that Tifa was safe and happy and that the eclipse of their memories would not impede what was growing between them.

Cloud knew as he made his way inside his room that sleep would elude him. His mind was stuck in a replay of the evening's events, etching them deeper into his consciousness, even as he feared that Tifa's grasp on them might fade with the coming dawn. The thought was a specter that haunted his steps—a reminder of the fragile thread upon which hung the tapestry of their shared experiences. 

Cloud's room felt colder than usual, the loneliness settling in his chest like a heavy stone. It should have been enough, the warmth of Tifa's lips still lingering on his own, a memory to be treasured. But as he sank onto the bed, the joy that had surged through him was now tinged with a gnawing dread. The thought of her amnesias returning, that she might forget their kiss cut through him sharper than any blade he had wielded.

He lay back, hands clasped behind his head, staring at the ceiling where shadows danced in the faint moonlight. 

Just as sleep began to weave its gossamer threads around his weary mind, a sudden chill disturbed the stillness of the air. Cloud's eyes snapped open, the abrupt change casting an unsettling pall over the room. A draft meandered lazily through the space, teasing the edges of the curtains and whispering secrets only the night could comprehend. He sat up, alert, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end as the lights flickered—a staccato pulse that seemed to mock his disquiet.

“Enjoy it while it lasts.”

The voice slithered through the stillness, cold and mocking, a phantom whisper that clawed at the edges of Cloud’s psyche. Sephiroth’s taunt was a needle fine enough to thread the fabric of his deepest fears, pulling tight the stitches that held together his fragile hope.

Cloud’s gaze darted through the darkness, every shadow a potential hiding place for the menace that haunted him. The air felt thick, charged with malicious intent as Sephiroth's laughter cascaded around him, a cruel symphony that sought to suffocate his spirit.

“You can’t save her, Cloud. You can’t save any of them. You’re nothing, Cloud. Nothing but a puppet.”

Cloud’s hands trembled slightly, the memory of Tifa’s hand in his own both a comfort and a torment. How could he protect her when his own mind was a battlefield, strewn with uncertainty and the wreckage of forgotten wars? 

In the quiet that followed, the melancholy that enveloped him was not one of defeat, but rather the somber acceptance of a soldier who knew the cost of war. Staring at the door, Cloud felt the pulse that had been beating between him and Tifa ever since they reunited in Midgar throb in a raw and undeniable way.  While his skull pounded with terror and disease, he felt himself drawn to the only source of comfort and healing that he knew.

Heaving a sigh and steeling his resolve for the second time that night, Cloud got to his feet and left his room.

Tifa sat up in bed, staring at her reflection in the ornate mirror hanging on the opposite wall. The faint, flickering light from outside the window cast her face in soft shadows, and she barely recognized the expression staring back at her.

She had kissed Cloud.

It felt like a dream, like something that had happened in another world. The memory of it sent a rush of warmth through her, a heat that spread from her cheeks down to her chest, making her feel both exhilarated and nervous at the same time. She replayed the moment over and over in her head, the way his eyes had softened, the intensity of his kiss, the way his hands had held her so tenderly yet with such need. It had been more than a kiss—it had been a window into something deeper, something real, a truth she had been too afraid to confront until now.

Her feelings for Cloud were undeniable. She had always known, deep down, that her heart belonged to him, but the events of the last few weeks had shaken her to her core. Losing her memories, trying to piece together who she was, had made her question everything—including her connection to Cloud. But tonight, that connection had felt stronger than ever.

She exhaled slowly, leaning back against the headboard as her mind spun in circles, thoughts tangled up in memories of the night—their night. Her fingers brushed her lips, still tingling from the kiss she’d shared with Cloud on the gondola, her heart fluttering at the memory.

Cloud.

Her pulse quickened just thinking of him. How could a kiss stir so much inside her? How could a simple, fleeting moment have unraveled everything she thought she understood about her feelings for him? It hadn’t just been a kiss—it had been the culmination of years of unspoken words, of long looks across rooms, of silent promises and bold ones made under stars.  It was the bridge across forgotten memories and half-remembered once, across dreams tinged in Lifestream-green hues.

It was everything.

And now, the sensation of his lips on hers lingered like a phantom touch, heating her skin and sending a fresh rush of warmth through her body. She could still feel the way his hands had held her, how his fingers had curled against the small of her back, pulling her so close that she’d almost forgotten where she ended and he began. It had been a kiss full of hunger and tenderness, of desperation and comfort, all at once.

Tifa closed her eyes, hugging her knees to her chest as she replayed the moment over and over. She hadn’t wanted it to end. She hadn’t wanted to pull away from him, to step out of that perfect, intimate space they had shared. And now, sitting alone in her room, she couldn’t help but long for him again—for his warmth, for the way he made her feel like everything was going to be okay, even when her memories were still scattered and broken.

She was head over heels. There was no other way to describe it. Every time she thought of Cloud, her heart skipped a beat, her skin tingled, and she felt a deep, aching desire to be close to him, to feel the weight of his arms around her again. It was more than just affection. It was something deeper, more primal, more consuming.

I love him.

The thought came to her unbidden, and with it, a surge of fear. Because loving him meant exposing herself to the risk of being hurt. Loving him meant that she had to trust that he would be there for her, even when her memories of the past were still hazy, still fragile. And what if… what if the things she couldn’t remember changed everything? What if there were parts of their shared history that would tear apart the fragile connection they were just beginning to build?

Tifa’s chest tightened with the weight of it all, her fingers clenching in the sheets as her mind raced. 

What if I lose him?

A soft knock on the door jolted her from her thoughts, her heart leaping into her throat. For a moment, she froze, staring at the door as her pulse quickened. Cloud? It had to be him. No one else would come to her this late. She could almost feel the weight of his presence on the other side, as if the bond between them was pulling him toward her.

She rose from the bed, her movements slow and hesitant. Her hand hovered over the doorknob for a heartbeat before she finally turned it, pulling the door open.

There he was.

Cloud stood in the dim hallway, bathed in the faint light spilling from her room. His eyes met hers, and she saw the same uncertainty in his gaze that mirrored her own. He looked… different. More vulnerable, as if the walls he usually kept so firmly in place had started to crack.

“Tifa,” he murmured, his voice low and rough. “Can I… come in?”

Her heart fluttered at the sound of his voice, and she nodded, stepping aside to let him in. As he brushed past her, she suddenly became acutely aware of what she was wearing—her skimpy nightclothes, a simple tank top and shorts that left her feeling exposed, bare in front of him. She crossed her arms over her chest, trying to cover herself, feeling her cheeks flush.

Cloud noticed. She saw the way his eyes darted over her, how his cheeks reddened slightly before he quickly looked away, trying to pretend he hadn’t seen. The tension between them was thick, palpable, as if the air itself was charged with the memory of their kiss.

“I… couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. “I was thinking about you.”

Tifa’s breath caught in her throat. Thinking about me? Her heart pounded at the admission, her mind racing. “I couldn’t sleep either,” she confessed, her voice soft. She moved to sit on the edge of the bed, pulling her knees up again. “I keep having nightmares.”

Cloud frowned, his gaze softening as he sat down beside her, though he left a few inches of space between them. “Nightmares?”

She nodded, her hands twisting nervously in her lap. “Sephiroth… my memories… things I don’t understand. The Lifestream, WEAPON, everything.” She bit her lip, hesitating before she continued, her voice trembling slightly. “It’s like I’m trying to put together pieces of a puzzle, but they don’t fit. I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

Her voice cracked with the weight of the admission, and the vulnerability that came with it made her feel exposed, raw. She didn’t like feeling this way—so uncertain, so fragile—but around Cloud, it was impossible to keep her guard up. She couldn’t hide from him. She didn’t want to hide from him.

Cloud’s hand moved, brushing against hers, and the warmth of his touch sent a shiver down her spine. “Tifa,” he said quietly, his voice gentle. “You’re still you. No matter what you remember or don’t remember, you’re still the person I’ve always known.”

His words hit her like a wave, crashing over her and filling her with a mix of relief and fear. She wanted to believe him, but there was a part of her that was still scared—scared of what might change if she remembered everything. What if those memories tore them apart?

She looked down at their hands, her voice barely above a whisper. “The only time I feel safe is when I’m with you.”

Cloud’s breath hitched, and she could feel the way his body tensed beside her. He turned towards her, his hand tightening around hers, his touch grounding her in the present, in this moment.

“Tifa…” His voice was thick with emotion, and when she looked up at him, his blue eyes were filled with something that made her heart stutter in her chest. Something deeper, more intense than she had ever seen before. “You’re the only thing that makes me feel whole.”

The weight of his words hung in the air between them, heavy with the truth of all they had left unsaid. Tifa’s heart raced, and before she could stop herself, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him and burying her face in his chest.

Cloud froze for a moment, as if caught off guard by her sudden embrace, but then his arms came around her, holding her close. The warmth of his body seeped into hers, and she felt a sense of peace wash over her, a calm she hadn’t felt in days.

In his arms, she felt safe. She felt loved.

The weight of their embrace settled between them, a comforting anchor in the midst of all the chaos swirling inside their heads. Tifa stayed still for a few moments longer, soaking in the warmth of his arms, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her. His heartbeat, strong and constant, was a reassuring rhythm against her cheek, and for the first time in days, she felt the tension in her body begin to ease.

Cloud’s grip on her tightened slightly, as if he were afraid she might slip away. His fingers gently brushed her back, and the sensation sent a shiver through her. There was something so simple, yet so intimate, about the way he held her. It wasn’t just a hug; it was something more. Something deeper. And it terrified her how much she wanted it, how much she needed him in that moment.

After what felt like an eternity wrapped in the safety of his arms, Tifa finally pulled back, just enough to look up at him. Her eyes met his, and she saw something there that made her heart skip a beat—an intensity, a vulnerability that mirrored her own. For a second, she wondered if he would kiss her again, if they would pick up where they left off on the gondola, but instead, Cloud’s gaze dropped to the space between them, his breath coming in short, uneven bursts.

The words slipped out before she could stop them, her voice a soft, trembling whisper. “Will you stay with me tonight? Just… stay with me, so I can sleep?”

Cloud hesitated, his arms tightening around her as if he was warring with himself. “Tifa, I don’t know if…”

“Please?” She pulled back just enough to look up at him, her eyes pleading. “I don’t want to be alone tonight.”

He stared down at her, his gaze flicking between her eyes and her lips, and for a moment, she thought he might refuse. But then his expression softened, and a small, resigned smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Didn’t you promise you’d be there for me if I was in a pinch?” she added, a teasing note slipping into her voice despite the seriousness of her request.

Cloud chuckled softly, shaking his head. “Yeah… I did.” He glanced around the room, clearly still hesitant. “I’ll stay, but I’ll sleep on the floor.”

Tifa shook her head. “No, you don’t have to. It’s cold in here… Will you stay in the bed with me?”

His eyes widened slightly, and she saw the panic flash across his face for a moment before he quickly masked it. “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he stammered, clearly unsure.

“You won’t,” she assured him, her voice soft and full of vulnerability. “I just… I want to feel safe. And warm.  Please, Cloud?”

She hated to beg, but her words seemed to break down the last of his resistance. With a sigh, he stood up, slowly untying his boots and pulling them off. Tifa watched him, her heart racing, a mix of anticipation and nervousness swirling inside her. She hadn’t expected him to agree, but now that he was here, her pulse quickened at the thought of being so close to him.

Cloud slipped off his boots and climbed into the bed beside her, moving carefully under the covers. At first, he lay on his back, keeping a respectful distance between them. But Tifa could feel the heat of his body radiating beside her, and it was both comforting and terrifying at the same time.

The air between them felt charged, thick with unspoken tension. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she knew—she knew—that she couldn’t just lay here, with him so close, and pretend that nothing had changed between them. Pretend that her heart wasn’t screaming for him, for his touch, for the comfort of being held by him.

Tifa closed her eyes, the sensation of being held by him overwhelming her. Every part of her was hyper-aware of him—the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath her, the subtle scent of him that lingered in the air. She could feel every breath he took, every shift of his body as he got comfortable.

Slowly, hesitantly, she scooted closer to him. The back of her body brushed against the front of his, and the heat of his skin seeped through the fabric of their clothes, sending a shiver through her that had nothing to do with the cold. Her breath caught in her throat, the tension between them palpable.

Cloud stiffened at the contact, clearly unsure of what to do. But then, slowly, he relaxed. He turned on his side, facing her, and after a brief pause, he gently wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against him.

The sensation of his arms around her, of his body pressed against hers, sent a wave of warmth and comfort through her that she hadn’t realized she had been missing. She let out a small, contented sigh, closing her eyes as she nestled into the safety of his embrace.

Her mind drifted back to their kiss on the gondola, the way his lips had felt against hers, the intensity of it all. She wanted that again—wanted to feel his lips on hers, wanted to be wrapped in the safety of his embrace, to feel that he was hers, completely and utterly. But even now, with him holding her so close, she couldn’t bring herself to ask for it. She didn’t want to push too hard, didn’t want to ruin this fragile moment between them.

But Shiva, she wanted him. She needed him.

Cloud’s arms tightened around her, and she felt his breath warm against her hair as he pressed his face into her shoulder. His grip was firm, almost possessive, as if he was afraid to let her go.

For a long while, neither of them spoke. There was no need for words. The silence between them was full, heavy with unspoken feelings and the quiet understanding that something between them had shifted. This was more than just comfort, more than just a means to ward off the nightmares that had plagued her. It was an intimacy she had longed for, a connection that had always been there, but was now finally beginning to take shape.

Tifa’s heart raced as she felt Cloud’s breath warm against the back of her neck. His grip tightened slightly, and she could feel the hesitation in his movements, as though he were holding back. But she didn’t want him to hold back. Not now.

“Cloud,” she whispered, her voice soft but steady. “It’s okay.”

She felt him tense behind her, his grip on her waist faltering slightly. “What do you mean?” he asked, his voice low, almost hesitant.

Tifa swallowed hard, gathering her courage before she spoke again. “You don’t have to be so careful with me,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “I trust you.”

Cloud’s breath hitched, and she could feel the tension in his body, the conflict that raged inside him. But after a moment, he relaxed, his arms tightening around her once more. His fingers brushed against her side, a gentle, almost tentative touch that sent a shiver down her spine.

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice rough with emotion.

Tifa nodded, her heart pounding in her chest. “I’m sure,” she whispered.

For a moment, the world seemed to stop, the only sound in the room the soft, steady rhythm of their breathing. And then, slowly, Cloud leaned closer, pressing a soft, lingering kiss to the back of her neck. The warmth of his lips against her skin sent a surge of heat through her, and she bit her lip to keep from gasping.

Cloud’s hand moved, trailing gently down her side, his touch light and hesitant, as though he were afraid of pushing too far. But Tifa didn’t want him to stop. She shifted slightly, pressing herself back against him, silently encouraging him to continue.

He responded to her unspoken invitation, his hand settling on her waist, his grip firmer this time. The warmth of his body against hers, the slow, steady rhythm of his breath on her skin, was intoxicating. She felt a shiver run through her, her heart racing as the heat between them grew.

Cloud's grip on her waist tightened slightly, his fingers tracing the curve of her side with a gentleness that sent shivers down her spine. Tifa felt her pulse quicken as his breath ghosted across the back of her neck again. Every inch of her skin seemed hyper-aware of him—his warmth, his presence, the steady beat of his heart against her back. The quiet intensity of the moment was overwhelming, and she found herself sinking into it, letting the sensations wash over her.

The space between them felt charged, a tension that simmered just below the surface. It wasn’t the kind of tension that made her uneasy. In fact, it was the opposite—it felt like a quiet promise, something that had been building between them for so long. Now, here in the dim light of the room, it felt like they were on the edge of something, something they could no longer ignore.

Tifa shifted slightly in his arms, turning so she could face him. The movement brought them closer, their faces just inches apart. She could feel Cloud’s breath against her lips, see the way his eyes flickered with uncertainty and longing. For a moment, neither of them spoke, both caught in the pull of the moment, in the unspoken connection that had grown between them.

“Cloud…” Her voice was soft, almost a whisper, but it felt loud in the stillness of the room.

He didn’t say anything in response, but his gaze held hers, deep and unwavering. There was something in his eyes—something raw and vulnerable—that made her heart ache. She could see the weight of everything they’d been through, the pain, the uncertainty, but also the hope. The desire.

Tifa reached up, her fingers brushing against his cheek. The simple touch made her feel grounded, connected, and Cloud’s eyes fluttered closed for a moment as if savoring it. When he opened them again, there was no mistaking the depth of his feelings, the way he was letting down his guard, even if just for this one moment.

“I…” he started, his voice rough, but the words seemed to escape him, leaving him in silence once again.

Tifa understood. There were so many things neither of them had the words for. And maybe they didn’t need them. Maybe, right now, it was enough just to be here, together, like this.

Slowly, she leaned forward, closing the distance between them until her lips brushed against his. It was a tentative kiss at first, soft and hesitant, but the moment their lips met, something inside her stirred—something deep and powerful. The kiss grew more insistent, more fervent, as though all the emotions they had kept bottled up were finally finding release.

Cloud responded with equal intensity, his hand coming up to cradle the back of her head, pulling her closer to him. Tifa’s heart pounded in her chest as the kiss deepened, their breaths mingling, their bodies pressing together in a way that felt so natural, so right. She could feel the heat of his skin through his clothes, the way his body seemed to fit perfectly against hers, and it made her dizzy with how much she wanted him.

The world outside their embrace faded away, leaving only the two of them. It was like nothing else mattered—just the warmth of his lips, the strength of his arms around her, the way his fingers tangled in her hair. Tifa’s senses were overwhelmed by him, by the closeness, by the quiet urgency that pulsed between them.

When they finally pulled apart, both of them breathless, Cloud rested his forehead against hers, his hand still gently cupping her cheek. His eyes searched hers, as if looking for reassurance, for something to anchor him in the storm of emotions swirling between them.

“Tifa…” His voice was soft, filled with a tenderness that made her chest tighten. “I’m—”

“You don’t have to say anything,” she whispered, cutting him off gently. She didn’t want him to apologize, didn’t want him to explain. She knew what he was feeling—she felt it too. She placed her hand over his, squeezing it lightly, hoping he understood that she was here with him, that they were in this together.

Cloud exhaled, his shoulders relaxing slightly, and he pulled her closer, wrapping his arms around her once again. Tifa nestled into his embrace, her head resting against his chest. She listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, letting it soothe the lingering anxieties that had been gnawing at her.

For the first time in what felt like forever, she didn’t feel lost. She didn’t feel alone.

Cloud’s hand ran soothingly up and down her back, and Tifa closed her eyes, allowing herself to sink into the warmth and safety of his arms. The silence between them was comfortable now, filled with the quiet understanding that they didn’t need to rush, didn’t need to force anything. Whatever this was—whatever they were—it was enough for now.

“Tifa,” he whispered against her skin, his voice rough and full of emotion. “I meant what I said. You… you’re the only thing in this world that makes me feel like I’m not falling apart.”

His words hit her deep, settling in her chest and filling the empty spaces with warmth. She snuggled closer to him in his arms, her face so close to his now that she could feel the faint brush of his breath against her lips.

“Cloud…” Her voice was barely a whisper, her heart pounding louder than ever.

For a moment, the world around them seemed to disappear. There was only him, only them, tangled together in the quiet intimacy of the night. She wanted to kiss him one more time, wanted to forever close the distance between them, but the vulnerability in his voice held her back.

Instead, she let herself sink deeper into his embrace, closing her eyes as she leaned back and burrowed against him as he pulled her even closer. She could feel the strong, steady beat of his heart beneath her ear, the warmth of his body pressing against every inch of hers. His arms around her were a solid, reassuring presence, and for the first time in what felt like forever, Tifa felt safe. 

She felt… loved.

Sleep came slowly, her mind swirling with the memory of his kiss, of his arms around her, of the way he made her feel whole. But even as she drifted off, a quiet dread lingered in the back of her mind. She didn’t know why, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that this would be the last moment they would have like this, a moment before everything changed.

How little did she know she was right.

Chapter Text

Chapter Seven

 Puppet’s Strings

It had been difficult for Tifa to pull herself out of Cloud’s arms that morning.

She still clung to the imaginary, lingering feelings of warmth from their embrace that night, Cloud’s kisses still burned to her lips, his touch still emblazoned to her skin.  She could still feel the heaviness of his arms wrapped around her waist and the heat of his chest firmly against her back, ensconcing her against him throughout the night.  She realized now that she had slept better than she had in weeks, maybe even longer.

But the morning eventually came, the melodic sounds of the Gold Saucer’s restless night bleeding into the slowly rising sunlight.  When Tifa had opened her eyes that morning, Cloud was sitting up on the edge of the bed, facing away from her, leaning over his knees as he stared out of the window.  He had turned instantly when she stirred, the anxious look on his face evaporating and replaced with concern and concentration as he watched her rise.

“Morning,” she’d whispered quietly.

“Morning,” had been his terse response.  It had seemed uncharacteristically strained, especially after the night that they had shared in her bed, kissing and holding one another tight.

That had been hours ago, and their exchange as they got themselves ready for the day was still burned to Tifa’s mind as she dug the toes of her boots into the fresh earth of the jungle outside of Northwood. She could hear the rotors of the Tiny Bronco still whirring behind her where Cid left it docked at the shore, the foreboding sound matching the heaviness that weighed on her.  But she kept her focus on Cloud, watching him as he stood a few paces ahead of her, his hands clutched into fists as he determinedly marched forward through the understory.

Tifa blinked and pushed her way through the thick forest, sighing as she followed in lockstep with the others.  The group stuck closely together, Cloud leading the pack and Aerith not far behind him, her arms extended as if reaching out to feel the very air they passed through.  Her green eyes were full of wonder and the hidden depths of her thoughts, though Tifa couldn’t mull too much over what those thoughts might be.

She was too deeply entangled in her own, caught between the whirlwind confusion of her feelings, the yawning gaps in her memories, and the re-emergence of what she’d remembered in the last few days.  While Cloud’s kisses and touches burned to her skin, the memory of his promise atop the water tower all those years still clung to her retinas.  And she could still feel the burn of the flames of Nibelheim, could still see the blood leaking through the grates in the catwalk of the reactor as her father’s body was drained of its life-force.

All of it was too overwhelming to think about, and watching as Cloud made his way towards the temple up ahead, Tifa could only sigh in resignation at the intrusiveness of her thoughts, her anxiety piling up high.  Tifa was beginning to wonder if her closeness with Cloud last night had been a mistake, if she had been swept up by the ambient mood of the Gold Saucer last night and allowed herself a momentary lapse in judgment. Now that they had left the gilded amusement city behind, that mood had dissipated, replaced by the urgency and panic of stopping Sephiroth. 

Cloud behaved as if the moment had never even happened.

Tifa tried to push that realization out of her mind, but his singular focus on moving through Northwood and getting to the Black Materia before Sephiroth did was unnerving. She tried to focus her thoughts on her own memories and on the battles they encountered as they trekked through the temple’s corridors and mazes, but it was almost impossible to ignore the tight, angry twitch in Cloud’s muscles every time he raised his sword above his head or the cold deadpanning of his voice whenever he spoke.  But it was when they reached the inner sanctum of the Temple, encountering a gravely wounded Tseng, that Tifa began to realize that something was terribly, terribly wrong with Cloud.

“Are you finished?”

It was the flash of hurt across Aerith’s green eyes that woke Tifa up to how bad things had become since the night before.  His words, cross and unavailing, had been aimed at the young Cetra, cutting her off in the middle of a rousing speech at the center of the Temple’s main corridor.  The stone that surrounded them seemed to tremble in response to the harshness of his words.

“Let’s just keep moving,” Barret had suggested, gesturing ahead at the doorways that seemed to be pulling each of them in different directions, red pulses of magnetic energy following them around the room.

Tifa looked down at the wavelength that had settled on the center of her chest, pulling her toward a stone doorway at the end of the corridor.  Affording a glance to Aerith, she watched as the young woman disappeared behind a doorway of her own, the others following suit around the room.  Only Cloud remained, unmoved and unbothered, standing in the center of the room by the Keystone’s pillar, his arms folded across his chest as he looked angrily and impatiently ahead.

Tifa swallowed, turning away from his brooding stare and back to the doorway in front of her.  It seemed that they would be going nowhere until they did as the temple beckoned them to, and swallowing her panic and fear, she stepped forward, pushing through the doorway into a dark, candlelit altar room filled with pink mist.

The pit that has formed in her stomach twists when the mist thickens and chokes, leaving Tifa to spin around frightfully, waving her arms back and forth in an attempt to clear her line of sight.  The yellow grip of panic tightened around her as her vision blurred, and she shook her head back and forth despairingly in an attempt to find her footing.

When she opened her eyes again, the scenery had changed, immaculately depicting a foggy night in the town center of Nibelheim. The sky was a deep turquoise, its stars muted but the moon spilling milky ink across its tapestry.  The streets were deserted and the water tower seemed to loom overhead, urging Tifa voicelessly in its direction.

A bright peal of laughter caught her attention, and Tifa turned to find a younger version of herself standing a few feet ahead, waving at her urgently.  She blinked, feeling her heart pound as their eyes met, two matching sets of deep carmine, one pair full of hope and wonder, the other floating with uncertainty. 

The younger Tifa spun around, and Tifa watched the frills of her dress twirl around her legs.  It was the dress she wore the night she had met Cloud on the water tower, Tifa knew now, and even though her recollection of that night had still been fuzzy, she knew that it had been one of the most special and important moments of her life.  

It had been the moment she’d known she was truly in love, the moment that years of quiet admiration and pining going back to their earliest years together manifested into something that would never leave her heart.  She had lost so many of those memories when she fell into the mako pool in Gongaga, but now, as she quietly followed her younger self toward the water tower, she felt the surge of feelings and memories that stretched back lifetimes return to her.

She had loved him far longer than she had ever known, Tifa realized, grabbing the metal rungs of the tower’s ladder as she began to climb. 

At the top of the water tower, young Tifa disappeared.  Instead, left in her wake was a young boy with blond hair and bright blue eyes, sitting with his head bowed as he looked over the ledge of the water tower, swinging his legs back and forth in the cold.  He was the same boy that Tifa had seen in her dreams, the same boy who haunted her mind every time she tried to close her eyes and get some sleep.  

It was Cloud.

Like the younger version of herself, he looked so innocent and sweet, yet unlike Tifa’s hopefulness and bright-eyed joy, young Cloud seemed lost and afraid.  His hands trembled where he sat and his gaze was hollow, blue eyes empty and hurting.  Tifa felt a cold shiver run along her spine when their eyes met, and she held on to the side of the water tower to keep from losing her step.

“Cloud?”

He glanced up at her, his eyes glassy and moist.  Had he been crying?  She bent down next to him, cautiously reaching out to place a hand on his shoulder. Cloud flinched, whipping his head to the side, almost in shame.

“What’s wrong?” she asked him tentatively.  “Why are you sitting here all by yourself?”

“I’m waiting,” Cloud answered.

“Waiting?” Tifa repeated curiously, cocking her head to one side.  She watched as Cloud shook his head, a tear rolling from his eye.  “Waiting for who?”

He looked squarely at her.  “You,” he replied, his voice small and shaking.  “I’m waiting for you to come and find me.”

Tifa’s mouth fell open with surprise, and she started to respond, only to hear a scream in the distance as the world suddenly shifted around her.  Cloud was gone in an instant, and the village surrounding her was suddenly burning, flames sent up in every direction and on every side.  Tifa could feel the heat of them lick up against her skin, and panicking, She turned and made her way down the ladder again, following the trail of fire as it led to the reactor.

Standing amongst the flames was young Cloud again, his eyes vacant as he pointed at the reactor.  Tifa watched in horror as her father ran in its direction to his death.

“No!” she cried in disbelief.  “Don’t go there!”

But there was no stopping him, no stopping Cloud when he turned and walked away, tears streaking down his cheeks as he disappeared behind a plume of smoke.   Long-forgotten memories of that night returned, assailing Tifa with their whirlwind of misery and pain as she closed her eyes and tried to shut out the sight of her father’s dead body on the catwalk and the glimmer of Sephiroth’s blade as he wrangled it out of her grip and held it high above her head.  Clutching her hand to her chest, Tifa collapsed to her knees, heavy sobs spilling from her lips as she felt her body assaulted by the realization of what had happened that night.

And Cloud was gone… nowhere to be found that night.

“Tifa!”

Tifa looked up at the sound of the bright and high-pitched voice.  She was no longer crouched among the flames and twisted metal of the catwalk of the Nibelheim reactor but was ensconced in the sunlight of the Temple’s inner chamber again, a warm hand on her shoulder.

She blinked to meet the bright, welcoming eyes of Aerith staring down at her, a calming smile painted on her face.  Tifa breathed out slowly as she realized she was no longer inside the nightmarish memory of Nibelhiem, but had returned to reality, those memories pinned to her and trailing behind her now like coattails.

“You’re okay,” Aerith promised her, offering her a hand to help her stand.  Tifa got to her feet, watching with a dazed expression as the others all began to emerge from their own chambers, depleted and torn expressions etched across their faces.  All of the others except for Cloud.

“Trials,” Aerith explained.  She was gripping Tifa’s hand, gazing into her eyes.  The intensity of the Cetra's stare was almost enough to force Tifa to look away.  “You’re okay now.  But Cloud… he went on ahead.”

Tifa let Aerith’s words soak in.  Trials.  She wasn’t sure what that meant, but the experience she had just gone through certainly felt like it was putting her through some sort of challenge.  But more than that, she worried about Cloud.  Turning towards the center doorway that led to the corridor of Effigies, Tifa gently pulled away from Aerith’s arm.

“I have to find him,” she whispered.

And she turned and made her way down the hallway, leaving the rest of the group behind.

Cloud stood in the center of the Corridor of Effigies, its stone walls pulsing with otherworldly energy. As he stepped along the narrow halls, statues and faceless effigies of the past looming overhead, a heaviness settled over him, a weight that pressed deep into the center of his chest. 

Shadows flickered along the temple's narrow passageways, dancing to an unheard, sinister melody that he could hear echo from deep within the chamber’s walls. Cloud moved forward, his footsteps echoing against the ancient stone. The air grew thick, suffocating, as if the very walls were pressing in on him, remnant, familiar voices beckoning him nearer.

And then, without warning, he was no longer in the temple.

Smoke choked the air, stinging Cloud's eyes. Flames licked at the edges of his vision—Nibelheim, burning. Screams pierced the night, agonized and terrified. Among them, he heard voices he recognized. 

Biggs. Wedge. Jessie.

His mother.

"You couldn't save us." Their accusations swirled around him, bitter ashes on their pale tongues. "Some hero you are."

Cloud whirled, searching for the source, but the smoke obscured everything.  His mother’s voice pierced the night among bright flames, ripping through space and time with its shrillness.  The heat assaulted him from every direction, sweat pooling around his lips and dripping down his forehead. 

Then, through the haze, he saw her. Tifa, kneeling beside the fallen bodies of their friends, tears streaking her soot-stained face. 

He tried to call out to her, to go to her, but his body wouldn't obey. Paralyzed, he could only watch as she wept, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

"Puppet." 

The word slithered through the smoke, cold and mocking. Sephiroth emerged from the flames, his silver hair untouched by the inferno. "Dance for me.  Let your rage guide your every step.”

Cloud's hand moved of its own accord, reaching for his sword. He fought against it, straining, but his fingers wrapped around the hilt nonetheless. 

The scene dissolved, and he was back in the temple, cold sweat beading his brow. Anger surged through him, white-hot and searing. He welcomed it, embraced it, let it burn away the guilt and grief that threatened to consume him.

Sephiroth stood before him, a smirk playing at the corners of his lips. "Your will is not your own," he said, his voice a silken purr. "You are mine to control."

Cloud snarled, lunging forward, his sword slicing through the air. Sephiroth dodged, effortlessly, and Cloud pursued, deeper into the temple's heart. The walls blurred, fading into insignificance as his focus narrowed to the man in front of him.

And as soon as he was there, he was gone.

“Cloud?”

Her voice broke through the fog in his mind, and only upon hearing it did Cloud realize just how disconnected from reality he had become. His breathing was shallow and labored, and his heart pounded, his forehead lined with sweat.  His hand still gripping the hilt of his sword, he turned to find Tifa standing a few paces behind him, her eyes wide and worried as she gazed upon him, the others lined up behind him in the corridor.

Immediately, the immense guilt began to stockpile on him.  Cloud knew that he was a failure and that he was only continuing to let her down.

“I’m not like him,” he found himself muttering defensively.  “I’ll never be like him.”

Aerith and the others appeared as if they wanted to say something, but none of them ventured forth.  Only Tifa did, blinking and nodding slowly as she took a careful, tentative step closer to him.

“I know,” she whispered, her voice so soft and smooth that Cloud could feel the way that it landed inside of his soul, easing him.  If only he could spend all of his time listening to the gentleness of that voice.  Maybe it would heal the rifts that had opened up inside of his spirit.  

“It’s okay,” she reassured him.

Cloud nodded, but turning back to the corridor and the glowing lights up ahead, the urgency of the Black Materia pressed on his mind, and he shrugged his shoulder away from Tifa’s light grip.  Sneering, he made his way down the dimly lit hallway, Sephiroth’s insistent, laughing voice still pulling him further and deeper into the Temple’s sanctums.

It was not long before they reached the inner chamber, the ancient runes glowing with eerie light, the faded voices of the Cetra humming through the very walks themselves.  Black space opened up all around them, endless voids of death surrounding them on every side. In the center, suspended in midair, hovered the materia above a blood-red platform.

Aerith had moved to the front of the group by now, the Temple responding to her presence and her Cetra blood.  The antagonism that Cloud could feel emanating from within the entire structure seemed to only calm and abate in the face of Aerith’s involvement, though it mattered little to him.  At the present moment, all he could think about was getting his hands on that materia. 

Cloud felt his body moving, pulled forward by invisible strings. Sephiroth's laughter echoed in his mind, triumphant and cruel. 

His hand stretched out, fingertips brushing the materia's cool surface. Power thrummed through him, foreign and seductive. 

And then, the entire temple began to tremble from within, as if an earthquake were erupting from the earth’s very core.

Aerith’s voice cut through the haze, reading the ancient inscriptions above the pillar.  Cloud could hear the shuddering breaths and swears of the other members of the party then, the realization that his removal of the materia from the pillar had triggered the Temple’s ancient, deadly defense mechanism.

“We have to get out of here,” Aerith cried in panic. “The temple will crush all those who are within it once the materia has been removed!”

Barret swore loudly, gripping his gun-arm tightly as the walls around them began to crack. "Damn it, Cloud! This whole place is comin' down! We gotta move—now!"

Yuffie’s voice was high-pitched with fear as she stumbled back, nearly tripping over a loose stone.  “I don’t want to die here! I’m too young and too pretty to be squashed like a bug in some ancient tomb!”

Cloud ignored their complaints, mesmerized by the blood-red glow of the materia in his palm.  He could feel the shaking of the templed, dust falling into his eyes as the ceiling began to cave, but he did not care.  The power and the purpose that suddenly surged through his veins was enough to keep him rooted in place, a grin spreading across his lips.

It was then that Nanaki bounded into view. He launched himself at Cloud, knocking him away from the materia. They tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs and fur.

Cloud struggled against Nanaki’s grip, his eyes wild. "Let me go! I have to... I need to..."

"Snap out of it, lad!" Cait Sith pleaded from the sidelines. "Sephiroth's messin' with your head. We need to get out of here, now!"

The temple shuddered, ancient mechanisms groaning to life. Dust rained down from the ceiling as the floor began to shift beneath their feet.

Cait Sith ran for the pillar, holding up the mechanism to keep the ancient technology from triggering the Temple’s complete collapse. Cloud stumbled, his mind a whirlwind of conflicting impulses. Sephiroth's whispers echoed in his thoughts, insidious and alluring.

Growling in anger, Cloud turned and followed the others as they began to make their way through the slowly collapsing temple and back outside to the jungle.  As he ran Cloud caught a brief glimpse of Tifa, her face pale with fear, her eyes fixed on him. The concern etched in her expression cut through the fog clouding his mind, making something stir deep within him—a fleeting moment of clarity.

Tifa’s voice was breathless, trembling as she stopped at his side, reaching for his shoulders and pulling him to meet eyes with her.

“Still with us?” she pleaded through the chaos. For a split second, he wanted to reach out, to tell her he was still here, but Sephiroth’s whispers dragged him back, pulling him further into the darkness.

All he could do was nod, pulling away from her as the walls continued to cave in.

Cloud clenched his fists, fighting the urge to turn back to the Black Materia. His body felt sluggish, as though he was battling himself with every step, but he forced his legs to move, pushing forward.

Behind him, Barret yelled over the din of the collapsing temple, “C’mon, man, we ain’t got time for this! Move it!”

With a final glance at Tifa, Cloud pressed on, following the group through the crumbling corridors, the weight of everything growing heavier with each step. Dust and debris fell from above, the temple groaning ominously as they ran, and for a moment, Cloud wondered if he would make it out at all—or if the temple would become his grave.

Outside, the world began to unravel as the Temple collapsed in on itself, the jungle all around them howling with the sounds of the world ending. 

Cloud's heart pounded in time with the rumbling earth, but it wasn't fear that gripped him—it was something darker, something that gnawed at him from within.

He took a few steps forward, his eyes scanning the scene before him. The others were ahead, still running, shouting at each other to keep moving, to get further from the collapsing temple. But for Cloud, time seemed to slow, his pulse quickening for a different reason.

A flash of pink caught his eye. Aerith stood at the temple’s edge, the materia clutched in her hands. Her eyes met his, wide and fearful.

Behind her stood Sephiroth, arms aloft with laughter.

Something twisted inside him, dark and hungry. His sword arm twitched, fingers tightening around the hilt.

"Give it to me," he growled, his voice not his own.

Aerith backed away, shaking her head. "Cloud, please. Don't let him control you."

But Cloud was already moving, shrugging off Cait Sith's restraining hand. He lunged forward, his sword raised, a puppet dancing on invisible strings.

“ Aerith… ”

Tifa sat by the lake's edge, her knees drawn up to her chest. Tears streamed down her face, mingling with the mist that clung to her skin.

Beside her, Cloud stared blankly at the water's surface. His eyes were hollow, devoid of the warmth and determination she knew so well.

In the distance, a makeshift grave marked the spot where they had laid Aerith to rest. The sight of it sent a fresh wave of grief crashing over Tifa, stealing her breath.

She reached out, tentatively, and placed her hand on Cloud's arm. He flinched at the contact, his muscles tensing beneath her touch.

"Cloud," she whispered.  

But it was as if he didn’t hear her. He didn't respond, his gaze fixed on some distant point. Tifa's heart ached, a physical pain that settled in her chest and refused to budge.

She wanted to scream, to shake him, to do something, anything, to bring him back to her. But she knew it wouldn't be that simple.

Sephiroth's hold on him was too strong, a twisted web of lies and manipulations that had burrowed deep into Cloud's psyche. 

Tifa closed her eyes, memories of the Temple of the Ancients flashing behind her lids. The wild look in Cloud's eyes as he chased after Aerith, the way his sword had glinted in the dim light.  Her mind floated to the ethereal blue glows of the Forgotten City when they had arrived, to the bright red stains of Aerith’s blood as it pooled across the marble floor.  

Tifa kept her hand on Cloud’s arm, though he flinched again, his body stiff and unyielding under her touch. She bit her lip, willing herself not to pull away. Her heart ached with every second that passed, the weight of his silence pressing down on her. The Cloud she knew—the Cloud who had been so determined, so protective—seemed to have vanished into the emptiness that now filled his eyes.

She glanced back toward the makeshift grave, her breath hitching. The image of Aerith’s lifeless body lying beneath the cold earth was burned into her mind, as was the look on Cloud’s face when it had all happened. The wild, frenzied way he had charged at Aerith—the moment his sword had gleamed in the dim light of the Temple of the Ancients—it haunted her. He had been so far gone, so lost in Sephiroth’s twisted influence, that she had barely recognized him. It had taken everything in her to pull him back from that edge, but even now, sitting beside him, she wasn’t sure she had succeeded.

For now, though, all she could do was sit beside him, offering what little comfort she could as they both drowned in their grief. Her heart felt heavy as she remembered the Forgotten City. The eerie glow of its ethereal beauty had made it seem like they had stepped into another world—one untouched by violence. But then... Aerith’s blood. Tifa’s mind kept returning to that moment. Cloud standing over her, sword in hand, the manic desperation in his eyes. Aerith, with that peaceful smile, almost as if she had known what was coming. And then, Sephiroth's blade, flashing in the strange, otherworldly blue of the city, cutting through that serenity like a nightmare come to life.

But the worst part hadn’t been the killing blow—it was what Cloud had said afterward.

“Aerith… wake up.” Cloud’s voice had been so calm, so unnervingly detached, as if he were witnessing something completely different from reality. He had knelt by Aerith’s body, his hands trembling, cradling her head as if he believed he could wake her, as if she were just sleeping. But she had been bleeding, crimson seeping out from beneath her, pooling across the smooth marble floor in stark contrast to the cold glow of the city.

Tifa had stood there, frozen, watching Cloud’s delusion unfold. She had wanted to scream at him, to shake him, to force him to see the truth—that Aerith was gone, that no amount of pleading or holding her would bring her back. But she hadn’t. She had been paralyzed by the weight of it all—by her own helplessness—and now, that moment haunted her. The image of Aerith’s blood, Cloud’s empty insistence that she was fine, and the look on his face when he finally realized the truth... it played on a loop in her mind, over and over.

Cloud was breaking—that much was clear.  And Tifa could see inside the open spaces and gaps in his psyche, wide pools left open for her to swim through. But as she sat beside him now, she realized it wasn’t just him. The cracks in her own mind were widening, the fractures of her memories from Nibelheim and the promise they had shared. 

Who was he, really? Was he even the same boy she had grown up with? The boy who had stood by her, awkward but determined, in front of the water tower, vowing to protect her?

That question clawed at her, gnawing away at her sense of certainty. In those moments where Cloud seemed so lost, so far removed from everything they had been through together, she wondered if she had ever truly known him. The memories she clung to—were they real? Or were they something else, some twisted version of reality that Sephiroth had manipulated inside his mind?

And what about her own memories? The fog of her amnesia still lingered, casting doubt over everything she thought she remembered. The promise at the water tower... she had held on to it for so long, but now, even that memory felt like it was slipping away, corroded by doubt. What if her memories were wrong? What if Cloud wasn’t the person she believed him to be?

Tifa’s gaze drifted back to Cloud, sitting beside her, his shoulders hunched, his eyes distant. He was still here, but in a way, he wasn’t. He was lost somewhere deep inside himself, tangled in a web of lies and memories that neither of them could fully understand. Sephiroth’s hold on him was terrifying, and Tifa wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep fighting it—for both of them.

Her throat tightened as she withdrew her hand from his arm, feeling the cold rush in where her fingers had rested. It wasn’t enough. Whatever she did, it never seemed to be enough to pull him back. The guilt twisted in her chest, mixing with the confusion of her own fragmented memories.

Was this Cloud even real? The thought struck her like a dagger. The boy from Nibelheim, the one she had grown up with... had he ever truly existed? Or was he just another illusion, another piece of Sephiroth’s cruel game? The idea terrified her—that the boy she had cherished, the one she had believed in, might never have been real at all.

Cloud got to his feet, leaving Tifa behind as he followed the others.  It was only when she remained sitting there alone for long moments that he turned to her, softly beckoning her to follow.  For a moment, there was a gentleness in his eyes that seemed like the Cloud she had grown to know over those last few days since she’d awoke in Gongaga, her mind wiped clean of the slate of memories that they once shared.  Since that day, she’d been slowly pulling the pieces together again.

But now, glancing out at the calm stillness of the lake and knowing that Aerith was buried deep within its watery tombs, Tifa knew that everything had fallen apart again.

She rose to her feet, wiping the tears from her cheeks, her heart heavy as she looked up at Cloud one last time before they would leave the Forgotten City behind. She didn’t have the answers, not now, and she wasn’t sure she ever would. But the question burned in her mind with every passing moment.

Who was he, really?

As she boarded the Tiny Bronco, the roar of the engines filling the air, the question echoed in her mind, louder than ever. She watched Cloud from across the cabin, his figure slumped and unmoving. The distance between them had never felt greater. The wind whipped her hair around her face, but she barely noticed, her attention fixed solely on Cloud. The distance between them felt like an impassable chasm, a gulf that had opened up the moment Sephiroth had taken control.

Tifa's heart constricted, a physical ache that made it hard to breathe. She wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and tell him that everything would be okay. But she knew it would be a lie.

Nothing would ever be okay again. Not after what had happened.

And as they lifted into the sky, leaving the Forgotten City behind, Tifa's heart ached with a growing certainty that the Cloud she once knew might be gone for good.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eight

The Cold Beyond the Snowfields

The Tiny Bronco's wings shuddered as another gale slammed into the aircraft, jostling the tiny and overcrowded cabin. Tifa gripped the edge of her seat, knuckles whitening beneath her gloves. Beyond the scratched plexiglass, the tundra raced past in a blur of white. 

Nothing but snow and wind for miles in every direction.

Tifa glanced at the empty seat across from her, pain constricting her chest.  On most rides like this, Aerith occupied that seat, her cheerful smiles and joyful quips battering away the seriousness of their journey.  Tifa hadn’t known the young woman long, and the memories of the formation of their friendship were still elusive beneath the heavy weight of her amnesia.  Even so, the last week or so since she’d woken in Gongaga let her know just how close they were and had become, and despite her confusion of aspects of their relationship, she realized that she had come to rely on her presence.  Her sudden loss draped like a cloak of desolation around her shoulder.

"How much longer 'til we land?" Barret grumbled, his breath misting in the frigid air inside the cabin.

"Couple hours if this storm doesn't worsen," Cloud replied flatly.  “Need to push past it.”

Tifa sighed, turning back to the window. Snowflakes swirled hypnotically past, as elusive as Cloud’s rough words and Aerith’s distant smile, now only a memory. Guilt and regret pulled her into herself.  

If only she could have stopped all of this. 

The Tiny Bronco shuddered again, groaning under the strain of the gales beyond and the strengthening storm's fury. She glanced at Cloud again, taking in his rigid posture and clenched jaw. Behind that stoic facade, she sensed a maelstrom - anger, guilt, grief, but perhaps most disturbingly, denial.  He seemed beyond the events of the Forgotten City as if they had not occurred at all.  He was singularly focused on their goal of reaching Sephiroth. 

Tifa longed to reach him.  She longed to say something, to have one moment alone with him where they could navigate this devastating loss together. Yet the gulf between them seemed insurmountable. Since the Temple of the Ancients, it seemed he had withdrawn further into himself, cold and distant as the tundra they now soared above.

"Hey, Tifa, you got any snacks back there?" Yuffie called from her seat. "I'm starving!"

Tifa shook her head apologetically. "We're all low on supplies. We'll stock up once we land."

Yuffie groaned dramatically. "Ugh, this trip is for the birds!” 

“Pipe down!”  Cid hollered from the yoke.  “Your yapping ain’t making things go any faster!

Tifa sighed, turning to gaze back at the hazy white sky, her breath fogging the icy windowpane. She drew her knees to her chest, seeking what little warmth she could find. The Tiny Bronco's interior was frigid, barely shielding them from the realities beyond its steel frame.  The shiver that ran along her spine reminded her of the chill she’d felt as she’d approached the altar, and she closed her eyes again, a fresh wave of sorrow consuming her and filling her bones with new dread.

The Bronco shuddered then, buffeted by a fierce crosswind. Cid wrestled with the controls, cursing under his breath. 

"We can't stay airborne much longer in this mess," he called over his shoulder. "I'm taking her down at Icicle Inn."

Cloud groaned audibly, his eyes narrowing as he approached the helm and stared out of the windshield as if he were looking for a reason to argue with Cid.  But the turbulent skies and the wicked skyline below were enough to give even him pause.

The landing was rough.  They were jostled amongst the winds and Yuffie’s motion sickness was so bad that she retched as soon as she stepped into the snow.  Tifa felt her heart weaken at the sight, and she immediately ran up beside her, rubbing her hand along her back until the younger girl was able to find her equilibrium again.

Aerith had one evening, at the inn in Cosmo Canyon, declared that without Tifa, their group would be lost.  The memory rushed back to her as Yuffie thanked her, messily wiping her mouth.  She didn’t know why, but these fiercely nurturing urges came from somewhere. She couldn’t much remember what she had been like before Gongaga, but there was something natural about taking care of others that she couldn’t avoid.  Even others that she did not know well.

Glancing at Cloud, who marched determinedly ahead of their group without so much as a glance backward, Tifa longed to take care of him more than anything.

But it seemed he was out of her reach.

  Tifa peered out at the snow-cloaked town nestled ahead as they approached Icicle Inn. Warm light glowed from frosted windows, smoke twisting from chimneys into the grey sky. It looked like a refuge from the storm, the cheerful hum of the village jarringly out of place after the tense silence that had followed in their travels from the Forgotten City. Laughter drifted from the inn where travelers gathered to escape the cold, the scent of woodsmoke mingled with roasting meat wafting into the icy air.

The group filed silently into the inn. Tifa glanced at her companions, taking in their haggard appearance. The arduous journey had taken its toll, their faces gaunt, their eyes haunted. 

Tifa followed the group inside, her eyes on Cloud’s rigid back as they shuffled into the warm foyer, Vincent shutting the heavy doors behind them. She was immediately grateful to be inside; trudging through ice and snow in tank tops and a tennis skirt had left her bones brittle beneath her skin.

Moving to the front of the group,  Barret ran a hand over his face wearily. Several patrons around the lobby and bar had already begun to stare at their oddly assembled group. “Good as time as any to regroup,” he muttered. "Supplies are runnin' low."

Before Tifa could respond, Cloud's sharp voice cut in. "We're not here to rest," he said impatiently, sweeping his gaze across the entire inn, eyes glowing and brow furrowed more than usual. “We stock up and keep moving. We have a job to finish."  

He started to turn on his heel, but Barret rounded his way in front of him, his imposing figure towering over Cloud.  Even with his sunglasses still on, Tifa could see the weariness and frustration etch in his features.

“Now hold it right there, SOLDIER boy,” he put a massive palm up in front of Cloud’s face.  “We’ve been going straight by air for almost seven hours, and ain’t had a proper meal in two days.  We’re chilled down to the bone and ain’t even had a chance to take a shit since we left the Gold Saucer.  We got a child with us, for Gaia’s sake!”

He gestured with a thick finger in Yuffie’s direction, who immediately whirled backward on both feet.  “I’m no child!” she protested vigorously. “I am THE White Rose of Wutai!”

This earned a gruff laugh from Cid, who had lit up a cigarette right in the center of the lobby, despite a few dirty looks from nearby patrons who stared.  He made his way around to the front of the group, standing beside Barret for backup.

“The hothead’s right,” he insisted to Cloud.  “And I for one need a respite after flying through that bitch of the storm.  I ain’t going nowhere til mornin’.”

He walked off towards the bar, a plume of smoke in his wake.  Tifa watched as Barret continued to stare Cloud down, unerring.  She warred within herself to step between them before the tension snapped into something dangerous, but she found herself unable to move. 

Cloud’s eyes narrowed impossibly further, but Tifa saw his shoulders ease, and he stepped back, seemingly relenting.  He glanced back at her, then the rest of the party, before he reached into his pocket, pulling out a handful of gil that he shoved roughly at Barret.

“Fine,” he conceded.  “Make yourself useful and book the rooms.  I’m going to plan our next steps.”

With that, he shouldered past Barret, the taller man grunting at his disregard.  Before he ventured to the back of the inn, he glanced back at them.

“But we leave at dawn.  No questions asked.”

With that, he was gone, disappearing down a candlelit corridor.  Tifa watched him until he was gone, feeling every tiny crack that formed across her heart when he was gone.

She found herself at a loss.  There was too much pain weighing her down for her to even decide how to respond.  Part of her wanted to go after Cloud, to gently touch his shoulder and try to bring him back to reality, to ground him in the here and now and really figure out how they could proceed after the horrors of what they had just witnessed hours ago.  But she was frozen by her own fear, her own doubts, her own gaps in her understanding of what was happening and had happened for so long.

A heavy hand fell gently on her shoulder, pulling her out of her despairing thoughts. She turned to see Barret looking down at her, dangling a room key in front of her, his craggy features creased with concern. 

"You okay?" he asked gruffly. 

Tifa did her best to manage a faint smile, brushing off his worry.  She knew that it was important she maintain a sense of calm for the others, including him, especially with how volatile he could become when things seemed uncertain. "I'm fine," she said lightly, hoping her voice didn't betray her. Barret's gaze remained steady, as if seeing through her facade. Still, he gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

"Get some rest," he rumbled, dropping the key into her palm. "Long road ahead tomorrow, and doesn’t look like it’s gonna get any easier.” 

Tifa nodded mutely. Barret moved past her, heading towards the bar to join Cid and Vincent who had already parked there. Yuffie and Nakaki were quietly on their way up the stairs with Cait Sith not even a pace behind them.

Tifa sighed, glancing down at the key in her hand, and wordlessly made her way behind them.

Tifa lay back on the plush, oversized bed in her room, her hair fanning out around her shoulders like spilled ink.  She stared up at the wooden rafters above, her mind adrift.

Despite the plush comfort of the rustic room, she was completely unable to sleep.  Her thoughts were torn between two viciously opposing directions - Cloud and Aerith.  She could see nothing but the vivid wildness and coldness in Cloud’s dazzling blue eyes, and nothing but the extinguished emptiness in Aerith’s green, the blood that splattered her face and pooled around her pink dress.

Tossing and turning on her sides and snapping her eyes shut did nothing to alleviate the anguish Tifa felt in her heart.  This was the very first night since Aerith’s death and her first serious attempt at any sleep.  It eluded her, leaving her instead with the guilt of her fleeting memories, her inability to save Cloud, and her helplessness in helping Aerith.

What was she even good for?

That thought died in the back of her mind when she heard a soft, familiar clink echo through the wall.  Stiffening where she lay with her knees pulled up to her chest, Tifa squinted, listening intently.  There was no mistaking the source, especially when it was followed by the heavy thud of footsteps against wooden floorboards.

She knew those footfalls anywhere.

Tifa sat up on the bed, tucking her legs beneath them.  The clinking and the thudding continued.  He’s pacing, she thought.  His steps were harried and swift, like a caged tiger, ready to unleash its fury on whoever had imprisoned it.  

Only in Cloud’s case, Tifa wasn’t quite sure who that fury was exactly aimed at.

She fretted over what to do.  She desperately wanted to go to him, to wrap her arms around him and let him know that everything would be alright.

Her mind reeled so badly that she found herself sitting upright in agitation, the compulsion to pull her own hair out of her head dangerously strong.  Instead, she recoiled deeper into herself.  Cloud had hardly looked her way since the moment they left the flower field outside of the Forgotten City.  None of her words seemed to faze him in even the slightest.  It was as if the boy who had kissed her and held her close under a sky of golden sparks in the Gold Saucer had never even existed, as if the memory itself was only a fabrication of her imagination. 

The clinking of Cloud’s armor only grew more discordant alongside the violence of his pacing. Anxiety began to cripple Tifa, her heart palpitating in her chest. Pushing her way to her feet, Tifa reached for the room phone, calling down to the inn’s lobby.

“How may I help you?”

“May I please have a bottle of your strongest local spirit?” she asked, surprised by the way her voice trembled.

The concierge cleared his throat.  “Of course, miss.  Our local import is a vodka that is purified by waters straight from the northernmost peaks. It is quite strong, though, I must warn.  Would two hundred-fifty milliliters suffice?”

Tifa swallowed.  That was probably more than enough.  As a bartender, she was well acquainted with the world’s liquors and could easily identify appropriate quantities. And while she herself was not much of a drinker, she knew how much it would take to quiet her mind and block out the insidious sounds coming from the man she loved in the next room over.

“That’s fine,” she agreed.

After hanging up, she sat at the edge of the bed and waited, holding her head in her hands to block out the sounds next door.  She would have left to drink at the bar, she didn’t want to deal with Barret or the others right now.  She didn’t want to deal with anyone, right now.

All she wanted was quiet and peace.  To fall into the darkness of sleep that was dreamless and empty, where neither bad memories nor the amnesia left behind by those that were missing could haunt her.  Perhaps, if she were lucky, she could stay in such darkness forever.

That morbid thought was dissipated when a soft knock came at the door.  Quietly, Tifa opened the door to find the delivery of her packaged goods.  After paying the courier for her drinks, Tifa brought the bottle and the little bucket of ice that it came with to the small dresser in her room and poured.

The first drink went down like icy fire, burning through her throat even as it sent chills down her spine.  Tifa shuddered, feeling her skin heat and her head swim as the alcohol warmed her blood.  She leaned back against the headboard, sipping quietly, closing her eyes and doing her best to block out the sounds of Cloud’s relentless pacing next door.

It was so unfair.  Tifa tried but could not think back to a moment of pure happiness that had not been ruined by some cruel twist of fate.  Most of her memories still escaped her.  Those she had recalled, like the night of her promise with Cloud or the night of her village burning, hung between a precarious balance of precious and traumatizing. Friends had been murdered, including one she now realized had probably been the closest girlfriend she’d yet to have.  

And now, the man she loved more than anything was fracturing before her very eyes, refusing to face the brutality that lay not even a day in their wake and leaving behind all of the tenderness she now realized she’d been seeking her entire life.

It hurt.  It tore shreds through her soul, lighting fire to moments over the last few weeks that she had naively thought were signs of the light at the end of the tunnel, of the dawn at the edge of the horizon.  Aerith’s bright smiles and teasing jaunts.  Cloud’s soft words of encouragement and the gentleness and patience behind his every touch and look.  The bonds the party had all begun to form, fortifying them as a unit that could take down any form of corruption or evil.

It had all been dashed away now.  Aerith was dead and Cloud no longer seemed to care about anything, least of all her. The party was fracturing, barely holding on as their leader crumbled, dissension and distrust beginning to fester with each hour that passed as they left the flower girl behind in the ancient city. 

Tifa’s head was spinning.  She hadn’t realized it, but her vision was blurred, and it wasn’t because she had nearly consumed the entire bottle of vodka, taking sip after cold, harsh sip.  It was because tears had flooded her eyes, pooling below her lashes and raining down her cheeks.

Sniffling, she drained the last few sips straight from the bottle, not even bothering to pour it over her glass.  The world spun, heat swelling in her belly and flushing throughout every cell.  Canting pitifully, she set the bottle down and rolled back to lay on the bed, her hands tucked under her cheek as she stared at the wall.

Despite the steadily rising onset of inebriation, Tifa could still hear Cloud pacing.  Back and forth, the thump of his boots and the clang of his armor.  And perhaps she was imagining things, but she was almost sure that she could hear his voice, too.

Tears staining her face, Tifa planted herself face down into the sheets, pulling the pillow over her head to muffle out all of the sounds beyond.  Buried in the soft fabric, all she could now hear were the sounds of her own cries, leading her into a hazy but silent slumber.

.

.

.

Tifa stares up at the twinkling lights burrowed into the plate above, flashing like tiny signals of doom.  Smokes chokes her lungs as shouts of anger and fear fill the air.  She blinks, her heart thundering with indecision in dread.

“Tifa?”

She turns at the bright voice.  Eyes as green as emeralds blink curiously up at her, waiting, watching.

“I’m sorry,” Tifa hears herself say.  “I… I have to help them.”

Aerith smiles sagely, her eyes softening.  She steps closer, and Tifa feels her hands clasp around her own, holding them together, palm to palm.

“Don’t be sorry,” Aerith replies.  Her hands are warm and soft, like energy is radiating from within.  Tifa can feel it all the way to her bones.  “Go.  Follow your heart.”

As if in response to her words, Tifa’s heart stutters.  She locks eyes with Aerith, who only nods in understanding.

“I have a bar in the slums,” Tifa goes on.  “There’s a little girl there-”

“Marlene, right?”

Tifa freezes, her brow furrowing in confusion.  She cocks her head to the side.

“How - "

“Go,” Aerith insists before slipping her hands away.  Tifa exchanges a final look with her, before turning back to the pillar, the distant shouts growing louder and louder.

Follow your heart.

“Cloud!”

.

.

.

Her eyes shuffle closed.  The smoke and flames of Sector Seven dissipate into the warm, bucolic hues of a spackled ceiling that is overlaid by thick, wooden rafters.  A quiet blue moon shines through the heavy curtains of a wide glass window, raining its light on the quaint and comfortable room.

Tifa rolls her fingers over her knuckles, her hands clasped together. She squeezes in anxiety, the roil of her heart reflected in the simple movements of her hands.

She glances across the room to the bed beside her.  Aerith lays on her side, her back facing her.  Tifa sighs softly before gently calling her name.

“Aerith?  You awake?”

She hears the flower girl shuffle.  “Barely,” she admits.  “What’s up?”

Tifa can hear a similar sense of unease in Aerith’s own voice.  She wonders what it is about this journey that they are on that is constantly leaving them all feeling so tense and unsure.

“Was wondering…” Tifa begins, her heart beginning to pound as she considers the truth she’s about to admit.  It’ll be the first time she’s said anything to anyone about what’s been weighing down her heart, and it scares her.  “What Cloud’s been doing these past five years…”

Aerith seems startled.  “You’re asking me this?”

Tifa tightens her hands over each other.  Her friend was so intuitive, seemed to have knowledge of things that went far beyond her perceived scope. Like Marlene.  “Just… had a feeling you’d know.”

She can hear Aerith shuffle uncomfortably in her sheets.  “Maybe… at one point.  But it feels like all of that was taken from me… or… maybe erased.”

Tifa thinks, her heart beginning to pound.  “By Whispers?”

Aerith nods.

“Aerith…” Tifa continues.  “As far as I know… Cloud was never in Nibelheim five years ago.”

Abruptly, Aerith sits up.  She turns to Tifa, her eyes wide at this admission, as if it can’t quite be believed. Tifa simply nods, verifying its truth.

“What do you mean?” Aerith asks.

Tifa finds herself sitting up, glancing at Aerith, her hands folded in her lap.  The young Cetra woman is staring at her expectantly. Staring down at her hands, she sighs softly and shakes her head.

“I… I don’t remember him being there.  There was another SOLDIER.  His name was Zack.  Cloud never came to Nibelheim.”

Aerith gasps, pressing a hand to her chest.  “Zack?” she repeated.  “What - what did he look like?”

Tifa glances down at her hands.  Her memory is still fuzzy, but some things remain.  “He was tall.  Dark haired.  Charming, but a bit goofy.  I’m sorry, I don’t really remember much else.  But I know that Cloud wasn’t there.  I looked for him… waited for him.”

Tifa closes her eyes, remembering the water tower, the promise, the wait.  The hope that he would return.  The forlorn dejection when he ultimately didn’t.

She couldn’t have been mixing those things up, could she?

“Zack,” Aerith repeats.  “My first love… he was a SOLDIER.  He went on a top-secret mission five years, and never returned.  I…”

Tifa stares at Aerith, seeing tears well up in her eyes.  She tries to think of the right thing to say, but confusion overwhelms her.  Aerith had mentioned boys in passing, and Tifa could see that she was a bit of a flirt.  But this is the first time she’s heard her mention a serious affair.

“It doesn’t matter,” Aerith finally perks up.  “There is something going on with Cloud, Tifa.  But I… even I can’t understand it.  Even my powers can’t get passed the walls he’s built.  You’re the only one, you know that?  You need to talk to him.”

“Talk to him?” Tifa balks.  The idea is terrifying. Confronting Cloud, who already seems so fragile, about things that even she isn’t sure about… the idea raises goosebumps on her flesh.

Aerith swings her legs over the bed, leaning forward to take Tifa’s hands in her own.  Warm palms, clasped around hers, just like the pillar.  

Follow your heart.

“You have to,” Aerith insists, sensing her hesitation. “Cloud listens to you. In fact, I think you’re the only one he listens to.  He… really cares about you, you know that, right?  Tifa…”

Aerith trails off, a whimsical look on her face.  She looks down at Tifa’s hands, held in her own, before she meets eyes with her again.

“Go talk to him, before he falls asleep.  I’m sure he’s still up.  Just… ask him what else he was up to over those five years.  I’m sure things will start to come together.”

Tifa hesitates, pulling her hands away from Aerith’s.  But the flower girl doesn’t relent, squeezing Tifa’s hands tighter.

“Everything will be okay.  I promise.”

She releases Tifa’s hands, finally, leaving her with a reassuring nod.  She waits for Tifa to get up, gesturing to her boots.  Tifa sighs, looking down at her hands, before she gets to her feet and slowly pulls her stockings back on.

Her heart pounds as she crosses the inn’s small corridor, knocking on the boy’s room.

“Cloud?”

.

.

.

The sun blazes in the sky above them, but with the ocean breeze, it is anything but oppressive or harsh.  The smell of saltwater lingers in the air, fresh and inviting, and Tifa can’t help but smile against the breeze as it wafts over her lotioned skin.  Aerith sits in the warm sand beside her, sipping on an orange-hued drink while Tifa drinks from a familiar, blue concoction she remembers serving in her own bar.

“So,” Tifa starts, her voice tentative. She turns her head just enough to catch Aerith's profile. "Back on the boat, you said you wanted to talk about something... about boys?"

Aerith doesn’t answer immediately. Her fingers toy with the tiny umbrella in her drink, twisting it slowly like it holds the secrets of the world. When she finally looks at Tifa, her emerald eyes carry an unusual heaviness.

“Yeah,” Aerith murmurs, her lips curling into a faint, wistful smile. She takes a quick sip before continuing, her voice soft. “It’s about Zack.”

Tifa feels the name hit her like a tiny pebble dropped into the calm pool of her thoughts. They’ve talked about him before, and Tifa never really had the chance to press.  All she knew was that he was Aerith’s first love, that he was in Nibelheim, and that Cloud…

“I loved him,” Aerith goes on. Her gaze fixes on the horizon, where the sun now dips closer to the water’s edge. “He was brave and funny and... so kind. The kind of guy who makes you feel like everything’s going to be okay just because he’s there.” 

Her voice wavers, and she takes a steadying breath. “And Cloud... he reminds me of him.”

Tifa blinks, her mind scrambling to process the confession. A sudden pang of confusion and possession knots her stomach, though she can’t quite name why. “Oh,” is all she manages.

Aerith laughs softly, though there’s no humor in it. “I know, it’s strange, isn’t it? Sometimes it feels like I’m looking at Zack when I look at Cloud. The way he talks, the way he carries himself... It’s like little pieces of Zack are still here, in him.” She pauses, her fingers tightening around the glass. 

She sits up, turning to Tifa.  “But it’s not him. And I know that….We know that.”

The waves crash louder for a moment. Tifa shifts, unsure whether to speak or let Aerith continue.

“I don’t know what to do with that, you know?” Aerith says, her voice quieter now. “It feels like I’m holding onto a ghost, and it’s not fair. Not to Zack’s memory... and not to Cloud.” She turns to Tifa then, her expression softening. “But you... you don’t have to worry about any of that. You’ve got Cloud, all of him. And he’s so... loyal to you. I see it, Tifa. In the way he looks at you, in the way he listens.”

Tifa’s breath catches, her chest tightening. “I don’t think—” she starts, but Aerith cuts her off with a gentle shake of her head.

“Don’t doubt it,” Aerith says firmly, her hand brushing briefly against Tifa’s arm. “You’re lucky to have someone like him. Someone who’s always there, even when things get hard. Don’t give up on that. No matter how hard it gets, Tifa.”

Tifa looks at her, then back at her drink.  Abruptly, Aerith takes the drink out of her hand and shoves it into the sand beside her own.  Once again, she takes both of Tifa’s hands, folds them inside her own.

Warm.  Soft. 

“You love him, don’t you?”

Tifa blinks, her heart pounding. How badly she’s wanted to talk to Aerith about her feelings, about the moments she’s shared with Cloud since they’ve reunited and the promise they forged as children.  But she holds onto all of that in her heart, afraid to make peace with the truth and everything that might go wrong if she dares to unlock it.

“Don’t wait till it’s too late to tell him,” Aerith advises.  She releases her hands, picking her drink back up and relaxing back against her towel.  “I know what it’s like to lose something like this…”

The sun finally kisses the horizon as Aerith’s words sink in.  She thinks about Cloud, wondering if she can confess.  She thinks about Aerith, who lost someone so special to her that she still can’t seem to move on.

Tifa can’t let that happen to Cloud.  She can’t lose him, too.

.

.

.

Tifa feels herself sinking into the moment, a sense of calm and clarity washing over her. This is important—this memory. She feels it in her bones. Aerith’s voice comes back to her, soft and tinged with that unique blend of vulnerability and strength. 

“No matter how hard it gets.”

“You love him, don’t you?”

“Don’t wait till it’s too late to tell him.”

““I know what it’s like to lose something like this…”

Something clicks into place, like a key turning in a long-forgotten lock. Tifa begins to speak, to tell Aerith she understands, that she’ll never let go. But the words die in her throat.

Aerith shifts in her seat, her face pale and drawn, the light in her eyes dimming. She’s no longer dressed in her swimsuit and they are no longer in Costa Del Sol, but rather under the ethereal blue-green glows of the Forgotten City.  

Tifa’s stomach churns as a dark stain spreads across Aerith’s dress, blossoming from her center—a sickly, vivid crimson that spills downward, soaking the light pink fabric.

“Aerith?” Tifa’s voice is a strangled whisper, her hands flying to the other woman’s shoulders. The warmth of the sun fades, the breeze vanishing as if the world itself is holding its breath.

Aerith’s lips part, but no sound escapes. Her body sways, and Tifa lunges forward, catching her just before she collapses fully. 

“No,” Tifa breathes, clutching Aerith’s lifeless weight in her arms. “No, no, no. This isn’t—this can’t—”

The sound of laughter pierces the stillness, low and resonant, chilling her to the core. She stiffens, her head snapping up, and the nightmare deepens.

Behind her, two figures loom in shadow. Their laughter is perfectly synchronized, cruel but hauntingly melodic. She knows these voices too well.

Cloud’s, warm but twisted into something foreign. 

And Sephiroth’s: smooth, calm, and dripping with malice.

Tifa tries to turn, to look at them, but her body won’t move. The weight of Aerith in her arms roots her in place, the sticky warmth of the blood spreading onto her own clothes.

The laughter grows louder, reverberating around her like the toll of a death knell. The figures edge closer, but their features blur, twisting and melding into something inhuman.

“Stay with me,” she begs Aerith, her voice cracking. “Please, Aerith, stay—”

Aerith’s head lolls, her glassy eyes fixed on nothing, and Tifa’s scream rips through the silence.

The world collapses, darkness rushing in like a tidal wave, and Tifa is falling, her arms empty, her voice swallowed by the void.

.

.

.

Tifa awoke with a shout, shooting up in bed and looking around in every direction.  Slowly, she retunes to the careful realization of where she is and why.  The inn at Icicle Inn.  Less than a day after Aerith was killed. Cloud cold and distant and unfeeling, the rest of the party splintering at the seams.

Tifa was covered in a light film of sweat, her breath rough and harried as it escaped her lungs.  She was left with a devastating blend of confusion after her conflicted sleep left her with both the return of very precious memories but also a nightmare that too vividly reminded her of what she had lost and what she continued to lose.

Tifa thrust her head into her hands, unable to stop the tears that rolled into her palms and the shuddering sobs that wracked her shoulders. Her head was pounding with the remnants of her over indulgence of alcohol the night before. She and Aerith had been closer than she’d realized.  In those few short weeks, they’d shared secrets, supported each other, and dove into one another’s pasts.  Aerith had known exactly what to say to Tifa to help motivate her beyond her own doubts and insecurities.  She had become a rock, even as she tried to sort out her worries for Cloud.

And now she was gone.  Cruelly stolen from her, leaving her to navigate the brokenness alone.  And Cloud only continued to worsen, creeping closer and closer to the edge, while Tifa could feel her own resolve falter to the point she wasn’t sure if she would make it to the Northern Crater.

Maybe things would be better off if she just left.  Maybe everyone would be happier and stronger if she was no longer here to mess things up.

Even Cloud.

A knock at the door tore her out of her thought, and Tifa wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands as she heard Barret’s gruff baritone on the other side of the door.  Clearing the sobs out of her throat, Tifa rose to her feet, straightening her clothing and pulling on her boots before opening the door.

“Barret,” Tifa greeted. 

Barret stood there, his hulking figure wrapped in a thick winter jacket. He carried a bundle of supplies in one hand his face set in a look of tired annoyance.

“Double-time, Tifa,” he insisted, thrusting the pile at her.  “Cloud had me up at the ass-crack of dawn to pick up provisions and he’s already downstairs, raising hell at everybody he can.  He’s on the warpath, so we best get a move on.

Tifa blinked, still feeling the rawness rimming her eyes as she accepted the supplies from Barret.  It was a satchel of provisions and a stack of winter clothing - a fur-lined bomber jacket, a scarf and glove, and heavy, wool leg warmers.  All of the material was thick and practical, perfect for the frigid temperatures of the north.

“Tifa?” Barret interjected, leaning towards her in the doorframe.  “You alright?”

Without even realizing it, Tifa sniffled.  She wiped at her cheek again.  “I-I’m fine.  Just didn’t get much sleep, is all.”

Barret looked at her with skepticism curating his features.  He tore his sunglasses off, warm hazel eyes connected serenely with hers. 

“I know it hurts,” he told her gently.  “We ain’t even had a proper chance to mourn.  And Cloud doesn’t seem to even acknowledge what happened back there.  Pisses me off, I tell you.”

Tifa could feel his words eat away at what little was left of her heart, and she did her best not to flinch.  Usually, she would defend Cloud when Barret would rip into him like this.  And over the course of the last several weeks, it had become less needed, as the older man had fortified his trust in Cloud.  But all of that was eroding, and Tifa wasn’t quite sure what to do.

“It doesn’t matter now,” Barret went on, not waiting for her to finish.  “We’ve got to keep moving for now.  But at some point, we’re gonna have to talk some sense into him and we’re all gonna have to stop.  For our own sakes.”

With that, Barret grabbed her shoulder, squeezed it affectionately, then put his sunglasses back on, whirling his heavy frame and heading back down the hall.

Tifa quietly closed the door, her thoughts a myriad of worries and doubts.  Cloud’s volatility was so bad that even Barret was at a loss on how to handle it.  She had never seen him - the man who fearlessly declared his intentions to take down the Shinra Company by any means necessary  - so dejected and complacent.  She felt her heart squeeze as hard as he had done to her shoulder.

Tifa dressed quickly, checking the provisions in the bag he’d given her.  Some dried rations, water, potions, and other restorative items.  An upgrade to her leather gloves, her weapon of choice.

Gathering everything and wrapping the scarf tightly around her throat,  Tifa zipped her coat and made her way downstairs, finding the others had already gathered and were in various states and moods.  They had all bundled in more weather-appropriate garments, and they stood around the lobby quietly brooding. Even Yuffie was surprisingly silent.

Cloud stood in the front of the room, the only one still dressed as he had come and not bothering with any winter gear. The instinct to say something about it clawed at Tifa, but the look he shot her stopped her dead in her tracks.

“About time,” he snapped.  He unfolded his arms from his chest, pulling open the inn’s front doors and letting in frosty wisps of winter wind beyond.  “Let’s go.  We’re heading north and we aren’t stopping again.”

Tifa’s mouth dropped open slightly, stunned by his exceptionally harsh words and tone.  But no words came out.  Instead, she watched as the others all tossed her apologetic, sympathetic looks before they too filed out behind him, one by one.

She felt her lip tremble, tears burning at the corners of her eyes.

Biting back the pain, she stepped into the snow.

The sky was bleak, a dark gray shadow that hung over the vast white of the Great Glacier region like a cloak.  Along the backdrop of the horizon were the wicked, stark white peaks of Gaea’s Cliffs, hanging above the endless miles of dangerous white tundra and snow.

Cloud stopped, staring at them in the distance beyond.  The biting chill of the winter winds bit into his bare skin, but he could scarcely feel it, could hardly feel the way each icy flake pierced his cheeks and clung to his lashes.  All he could feel was the distant pull, the need, the impulse to kill and destroy.

Reunion.

Stop Sephiroth.

Reunion.

I’ll end him.

Reunion.

“Yo, Cloud,” Barret’s gruff voice called from behind him.  “There’s a cabin right up this path.  Turn yo’ ass around so we can rest for the night.”

“Seriously,” Yuffie chimed in with a high-pitched whine.  “My whole body is frozen.  I can’t feel my toes anymore!”

“Maybe it’s best if we stop here for the night?” Nanaki calmly added.

Cloud winced at each of their voices.  His pulse was rushing, and his head was aching, the only thing that he could truly feel as they continued on this relentless hike north.  The cold did not bother him so much as the unerring assault on his mind.

Flinching against another flash across his temple, Cloud turned only slightly, glancing over his shoulders at the team.

“No,” he stated bluntly.  “We keep moving.  No sense in wasting another night.  Sephiroth is waiting and we need to get to him before it’s too late.”

He started to press on, ignoring the way that snowflakes whipped into his vision.  But he was stopped by another gruff shout, this time, a heavy hand gripping him by the shoulder and pulling him backward.

“Wait a damn minute,” Barret woofed, forcing Cloud to whirl around and face him.  His irritation skyrocketed, disgust at being touched and rage at the unwanted interference.  “ It’s past nightfall and everyone on this damn team is hungry and exhausted.  We’ve been hiking through pure ice for the last 10 goddamn hours!”

Cloud narrowed his eyes, feeling his blood boil beneath his frigid skin.  Without hesitation, he walked up to Barret, standing chest-to-chest with him even though the man towered over him.

“We aren’t stopping,” he informed him coldly.  “If you can’t handle it, you can stay behind.”

Barret narrowed his eyes, then gave Cloud a rough push in the center of his chest with one thick finger.  “You need to take your spikey-head up out of your ass,” he roared.  “You ain’t the only one on this team.  “Look around you, Cloud.  We ain’t gonna survive the night on that cliff.”

Cloud’s fists clenched at Barret’s words, the anger rising in him like a tidal wave. “I am looking around,” he snapped, his voice low and sharp. “And all I see are people slowing me down.”

Barret’s eyes widened, his nostrils flaring as his jaw tightened. “Slowin’ you down? Is that what you think this is? We’re bustin’ our asses out here, followin’ your lead, and you got the nerve to say we’re draggin’ you down?”

Cloud stepped forward, his movements stiff and robotic. “I don’t have time for this. We don’t have time. Every second we waste here, Sephiroth gets closer to whatever he’s planning. If you can’t keep up, then maybe you should stay behind.”

Barret let out a humorless laugh, his voice booming over the wind. “You don’t get it, do you? You keep talkin’ like you’re the only one who matters, but this ain’t just your fight, Cloud. It’s all of ours. And you ain’t gonna get nowhere alone, no matter how much you pretend otherwise.”

Cloud’s vision blurred for a moment, a pulse of pain shooting through his head. His grip on reality wavered, the edges of Barret’s silhouette flickering like static. Sephiroth’s voice whispered in his mind, oily and smooth. 

They’re weak. They’ll fail you.  Slow you down. They always do.

Cloud shook his head, the noise in his brain roaring louder. “I’m not pretending anything,” he ground out, his voice shaking with suppressed fury. “I know what I’m doing. I know what needs to be done. And I don’t need you or anyone else second-guessing me.”

Barret took another step closer, his face a thinly-veiled mask of rage and disappointment. “You keep sayin’ you know what needs to be done, but all I see is you runnin’ yourself—and us—into the ground. You ain’t thinkin’ straight, Cloud. Hell, I don’t even know if you’re you anymore.”

The words hit like a physical blow, and Cloud staggered back, his breath hitching. The snow around them seemed to darken, the wind howling louder as if it were feeding off his turmoil. His mind swirled with conflicting images—Aerith’s still body, the flames of Nibelheim, Sephiroth’s sneer. You’re not real. None of this is real.

Barret jabbed a finger at Cloud’s chest again, his tone unwavering. “You think you can do this alone? Go ahead, then. But don’t expect the rest of us to follow when you’re too damn blind to see what’s in front of you.”

Cloud’s lips parted, but before he could retort, a loud, exasperated voice cut through the icy air.

“All right, that’s enough!” Cid barked, stepping between them. He shoved Cloud back with one arm and planted himself in Barret’s path with the other, his weathered face a mixture of irritation and exhaustion. “You two wanna throw punches? Fine. But wait ‘til we’re not freezin’ our asses off in the middle of a goddamn glacier.”

Barret’s glare didn’t soften, but he didn’t move forward either. Cid turned his attention to Cloud, pointing a gloved finger at him. “And you—pull your head outta your ass, kid. People are dyin’ to keep up with you, and all you’re doin’ is runnin’ them into the ground.”

Cloud opened his mouth to argue, but Cid cut him off. “Save it. Whatever’s goin’ on in that spikey head of yours, you ain’t gonna get to Sephiroth faster by killin’ your whole damn team in the process.”

Cloud looked away, his teeth grinding together. The anger was still there, boiling under the surface, but so was something else—shame, guilt, the weight of Barret’s and Cid’s words pressing against the cracks in his mind.

“Fine,” he muttered, his voice barely audible over the wind. “Stay here if you want.  I don’t need any of you.”

Cloud ignored the look of disbelief that stretched Cid’s haggard face and the way that Barret flinched.  None of it mattered to him.  It only mattered that he get north and put a stop to Sephiroth, once and for all.  With the cold nipping at his skin, he turned on his heels, heading in the direction of Gaea’s Cliffs, even as the night sky continued to darken.

“Cloud?”

Tifa’s voice called softly from the distance, pulling his attention briefly. He glanced back at her, the ache in his head momentarily dulled. She stood a few feet away, her expression heavy with worry, her arms crossed against the cold.

Cloud turned fully to face her, his irritation clear in the sharpness of his movements. The cold stung his skin, but the ache in his head was worse, a constant, maddening pulse that only seemed to worsen the more he tried to focus and concentrate. He glared at her, the words spilling out before he could temper them.

“Tifa, don’t try to stop me,” he said, his voice harsher than he intended. “If the others don’t want to follow, that’s fine. I’ll find Sephiroth myself. I don’t need anyone slowing me down.”

Her expression flickered—hurt, worry, frustration—but she didn’t back away. Instead, she took a step closer, her boots crunching softly in the snow. He could see the visibly pained expression pull at the lines of his face, and it prickled at something deep in his chest.

“Cloud, please. You can’t do this alone. You’re not thinking clearly, and if you keep pushing like this, you’re going to—”

“I’m fine,” he interrupted, his tone cutting through the frosty air like a knife. He turned his back on her, intending to leave her and the others behind. If they couldn’t keep up, that was their problem. 

Not his. Not anymore.

“Cloud, stop!” Tifa’s voice rose, desperation bleeding into her words. “Please, listen to me. This isn’t just about Sephiroth. It’s about you. You’re...  I’m scared for you. Let me help.  Please .”

Cloud almost didn’t stop. Almost didn’t turn. But something about the tremor in her voice made him glance back. That’s when he saw it—the way she curled her arms around her middle, holding herself tightly against the cold. She was trembling, but it wasn’t just from the icy wind. It was a familiar gesture, one he’d seen so many times before, betraying the chaos and uncertainty in her heart.

It struck him hard.

Memories surged in unbidden flashes. Tifa as a child, standing alone in the Nibelheim square after her mother’s death, hugging herself with the same fragile determination. Tifa, years later, at the well, arms curled around herself as she asked him to make her a promise. Tifa, standing in front of him in her room in Sector Seven, arms clutching her tummy as she shyly asked him on a date.

Something in him broke through the haze. Something inside of him—something that wasn’t consumed by rage or pain or delusion—surfaced, cutting through the insidious whispers in his mind. He exhaled shakily and shook his head, as though trying to physically dislodge the darkness pressing down on him.

Slowly, he walked back to her, his boots crunching over the snow.

“Tifa,” he said, his voice soft now, hesitant.  He almost didn’t recognize the sound of it, realizing that in the last day, the disquiet in his own brain so overpowering his every sense.

She looked up at him, her eyes wide and filled with a mixture of hope and fear. She glanced down, her eyes trailing his body and her expression tightening. 

“Cloud, you’re freezing.”

Cloud frowned, confused.  What was she talking about? The pain in his skull intensified as the turmoil in his mind swirled.  Unsure of what was driving her sudden concern, he followed her gaze to his own arms, finding his skin pale and tinged with blue, his fingers trembling slightly from the cold. He hadn’t even noticed.

“Why didn’t you grab a coat in Icicle Inn?” she asked, frustration mingling with worry as she reached out and grasped his forearms. Her leather-bound hands were warm, the touch shocking against his frigid skin. She rubbed his arms briskly above his braces, her brow furrowed, crimson eyes picking up the glow of the moon. “You’re going to frostbite out here if you don’t warm up.”

Cloud wanted to argue, to tell her it didn’t matter, but the words caught in his throat. Her hands, her presence, the very sight of her -  it was stabilizing, grounding him and pulling him out of the spiral he hadn’t even realized he was in.

“Tifa, I -”

“Please,” she whispered, her voice breaking slightly as she interrupted him.  Her hands gripped his arms tightly, and with the strength that belied her lithe form, she pulled on him just enough to jostle him slightly in her direction. “Let’s go back to the cabin. Just for tonight. You don’t have to do this alone, Cloud.  Let’s rest, so we can be ready for tomorrow.”

Her words settled over him, heavy but comforting in a way he had to admit he wasn’t ready for.  The last several hours had found him stepping outside of himself, and it seemed she was the only one who could bring him back.

Even when he hadn’t realized he was gone. 

He swallowed, hesitating for a long moment and savoring the feel of her grip around his forearms before slowly nodding. “Fine,” he said, his voice low and gruff but yielding. “Just for tonight.”

Relief washed over her face, and she let out a shaky breath. She stepped closer, as if to guide him, but he didn’t move immediately. There was a pull in his chest, a familiar and magnetic sensation he couldn’t ignore.

Before he could think too hard about it, he reached out, his fingers brushing against hers. He wasn’t sure what was coming over him, but the familiar helplessness he felt when it came to Tifa was infiltrating his bones and suddenly all he could think about was being with her, pleasing her, giving himself to her completely.

Tifa looked up at him, startled by his sudden change in demeanor and the simple but affectionate gesture. But she didn’t pull away. Instead, she let him take her hand, his grip firm but careful, as though afraid she might slip away.

She tightened her hand around his.

“Let’s go,” he said softly.

They walked back toward the cabin together, the snow crunching beneath their boots. For the first time in what felt like eons, Cloud’s mind was quiet, the constant ravaging that tore at him suddenly pushed aside. Tifa’s presence at his side seemed to beat back the demons and visions that had been curling through the ridges in his brain since they’d arrived at the Temple of the Ancients, and he had to admit that the brief tranquility it brought him was welcomed, no matter how temporary it might be.

Finally entering Holzoff’s cabin, they found it warmer than Cloud expected, a sharp contrast to the biting cold outside. It made him acutely aware, despite his enhanced senses and mako-forged protection, how cold he really was from being out in these frigid temps without proper clothing all day. The smell of a hearty beef stew filled the air, mingling with the faint scent of old wood and the smoky tang of the fire crackling in the hearth. Voices greeted them as they stepped inside, but they died quickly when their party noticed him trudging in a step behind Tifa.

Barret was mid-sentence, his large hand wrapped around a mug of something steaming. Yuffie, Vincent, and Cid sat nearby, their bowls half-eaten, Nanaki curled by the fire with his emblazoned tail flickering back and forth. Holzoff, the weathered and wiry old mountaineer who had welcomed them into his cabin, was at the head of the table, a bushy eyebrow lifting in curiosity as Tifa gently closed the heavy wooden door behind them.

All eyes turned to Cloud.

The air in the room shifted, heavy and charged with unspoken and dangerous tension. Cloud felt it immediately, and it made him suddenly cognizant of how their group was beginning to fracture, mostly thanks to him. Barret's brow furrowed deeply, his dark eyes narrowing with something between anger and exasperation. Yuffie’s expression was guarded, her usual levity replaced by unease. Even Nanaki, ever composed, lifted his head slightly, his fiery tail flicking in muted agitation.

Cloud’s hands flexed at his sides, and he unconsciously shifted closer to Tifa, his shoulder brushing hers as if her presence alone could shield him from the scrutiny.  The security of having her so close to his side was the only thing at that very moment that was keeping him from snapping at everyone.

Holzoff, who was easily seventy years old, broke the silence, his gravelly voice filling the bleak void that sucked all of the air out of the room. “Young man.  You look like you’ve been through a meat grinder,” he said bluntly, squinting at Cloud. “You’re half-frozen. Sit down before your fingers fall off.”

Tifa stepped forward quickly as if to defuse the tension. “We need to warm him up,” she said, her voice steady but gentle. She placed a hand on Cloud’s arm, her touch grounding him even as his shame flared hotter than the fire.  Her fingertips were warm and they set off flames under his frozen skin, his blood responding as if she’d set a match to his veins. “He’s been out in the cold too long.”

Holzoff nodded, gesturing to the small kitchen in the rear of the cabin. “There’s hot food on the table, and plenty of blankets upstairs, young lady. Take him up there—no sense staying down here in the drafts. He needs to thaw out, and fast.”

Cloud opened his mouth to protest.  He hated the feelings of helplessness and ignominy that weighed him down from how useless he appeared in front of his team. He could feel all of their stares pinning him down from their seats, an array of disdainful emotions —pity from Yuffie, frustration from Barret, disgust from Cid, and even an empathetic sadness from Vincent. It churned his stomach, the shame coiling tighter, and he felt himself withdrawing, curling inward. 

His despairing thoughts were disrupted when Tifa’s hand slipped into his once again, her fingers curling gently around his with an encouraging squeeze. “Come on,” she said, her voice soft but insistent. She didn’t wait for him to argue, didn’t give him a chance to sink deeper into his own misery and conflict. Instead, she guided him toward the stairs, her hand firm in his as though she were afraid he might vanish.

He could only follow, no longer wallowing in self-loathing but instead entranced by the sway of her body as she moved. The others said nothing as they ascended, but the weight of their silence followed him, thick and suffocating.

The second floor was quieter, the warmth of the fire below rising to fill the small space. The room was simple but nicely furnished, a narrow bed pushed against one wall, a low table, and a thick pile of blankets folded neatly in the corner. The glow of the firelight flickered up to the ceiling, painting the walls in amber and shadow.

Tifa led him to the bed, finally letting go of his hand. Cloud watched her, his body stiff and unyielding, but his chest ached in a way that had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the woman who, despite her own pain, remained so dedicated to helping alleviate his. She was careful, methodical, moving with a quiet determination as she grabbed one of the blankets and draped it over the bed.

“Sit,” she said gently, her hands brushing against his shoulders to ease him down. He obeyed without thinking, his legs folding beneath him as he sank onto the mattress in one slow movement.  The bed was softer than he was expecting, and he braced himself with his hands on either side of his thighs, looking up at her speechlessly and unsure of what to do or how to even respond to her care.

She crouched in front of him, her crimson eyes scanning his face, his hands, his arms. Her worry was etched into every line of her expression, and it gnawed at him.  Why did she care so much?  He didn’t deserve her.  He had never deserved her.

His mind flashed back to Gongaga.  Pushing her into the reactor.  Carrying her, crestfallen, back to the village.  The way she kissed him and promised to protect him.  The way she woke the very next morning, having forgotten everything, all because of him. 

The way they had spent the next weeks trying to reforge their pasts and their connection to one other, leading up to the night they shared in the Gold Saucer.

“Your hands are like ice,” she murmured, reaching for them. It was then that he noticed she had shed her gloves, having tossed them to the side along with her coat and scarf.  She rubbed his hands briskly between her own, her warmth bleeding into his frozen skin.

Cloud swallowed hard, his throat tight as he carefully eyed her movements and the concentration etched into her features.  The pain of his unworthiness was almost unbearable now. 

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to,” she interrupted, her voice steady. “Let me.”

Her words silenced him, and he watched her work, her touch both practical and unbearably tender. She slipped his gloves off, exposing his stiff, pale fingers, covering them in her own before she rose to grab some of the blankets and wrap them around his gaunt and heavy shoulders.

For a moment, the only sounds were the crackle of the fire below and the faint whistle of the winter winds outside.

“Tifa,” he finally spoke, his voice hoarse.

She paused, looking up at him, her hands still wrapped around his. “Hmm?”

“I...” The words caught in his throat. He wanted to apologize, to explain, to say something that could convey the storm raging inside of him but still let her know just how much she meant to him. But the words were scrambled in his mind, forlorn sentiments floating over shaky breaths and the constant reminder that he was nothing but a failure in her eyes. 

“Thank you,” was all he could manage.

She smiled faintly, her grip on his hands tightening briefly. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything right now. Just... let me take care of you, okay?”

He could hardly breathe in the face of such a statement, his eyes hooked on her ruby orbs without any hope of looking away. He nodded, the motion slight, and for the first time in hours, the ache in his chest began to ease.

She rose then, pulling another blanket from the pile and draping it over his knees. The weight was comforting, and her hands lingered for a moment, her fingers brushing against his side.

“You’ll be warm soon,” she said softly.

Cloud watched her as she moved, her presence anchoring him in a way nothing else could. The whispers in his mind were quieter now, seemingly muted by her voice and her touch, her unwavering love.

Love ?

It couldn’t be.  He didn’t deserve it.

When she returned to his side, she hesitated for a moment before sitting down next to him, close enough that their shoulders touched. The silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t heavy. It was calm, filled with something unspoken but deeply understood.  Something that they had been visiting back and forth since they had reunited in distant Midgar but most certainly since that fateful morning in Cissnei’s bedroom in Gongaga.

And for the first time since they’d left the Gold Saucer, Cloud let himself lean into whatever it was. Into her .

“You know,” she murmured, lazily tipping her head against his shoulder. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the past.  About… our childhood.”

Cloud blinked, his gaze shifting to her face. Her expression was calm, though there was a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes as she looked down at the blanket they shared.

Cloud shifted uncomfortably under Tifa’s gaze, her words stirring something inside him that he wasn’t ready to face. The fire crackled softly, its warmth a sharp contrast to the tension knotting in his chest.

“I… I’m still remembering bits and pieces,” she said, her voice quiet but steady. “But it’s all... hazy. Like pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit together yet, y’know?”

She glanced up at him, her faint smile carrying a weight that made his stomach churn. “But anytime you talk about Nibelheim, it helps. It’s like it fills in the gaps.”

Cloud nodded, swallowing hard against the lump forming in his throat. Her words held an unspoken plea, one that tugged at parts of him he had long tried to bury. The truth of those days was tangled and sharp, and it wasn’t something he could give voice to—not now, not yet.

“What do you want to know?” he asked instead, keeping his voice steady, though the effort left his throat dry.

Tifa paused, her hands stilling briefly over his. “Anything,” she said after a moment. “Anything you remember. What you liked to do, what you thought about... what you wanted to be.”

Her gaze held a quiet vulnerability that made his chest tighten. The memories came unbidden, clawing their way to the surface—the boy he used to be, standing on the edges of her world, desperate to be a part of it. To be noticed by her. 

To be special to her.

But he couldn’t tell her that. Not now.

Cloud let out a slow breath, his gaze dropping to the fire. “I used to watch Gramps and the other old men in the village,” he said finally, his voice low and even. “On summer nights, they’d sit outside, drinking and telling stories. Sometimes they’d get loud enough to wake half the village.”

Tifa’s lips curved into a faint smile, and the tension in his chest eased slightly.

“Sometimes,” he continued, “I’d wander around the outskirts of the village. I liked exploring the fields, the forest... places where no one else went. It was quiet out there.”

It was true, though it wasn’t the whole truth. The edges of those memories bled into others—of watching Tifa with her friends, the laughter that wasn’t meant for him, the moments that made him feel invisible. And the jealousy that burned hot and shameful in his chest, even as he told himself it wasn’t fair to feel that way.

“That sounds nice,” Tifa said softly, pulling him from his thoughts. Her hands resumed their gentle work, her touch grounding him even as his mind threatened to spiral. “I used to wonder where you went sometimes. You’d disappear for hours.”

Cloud hesitated, his fingers twitching slightly under her grip. “I just... liked being alone,” he said vaguely. “It was easier.”

Her expression softened, and she tilted her head, as though trying to read him more deeply. He could feel her gaze pressing against the walls he’d carefully built around himself, and for a moment, he worried she might see the cracks.

Even so, Tifa didn’t press him further, and for that, he was grateful. He wasn’t ready to talk about the truth of those days—about how he’d watched her not just because he was curious, but because he wanted so badly to be part of her world. To be the one she laughed with, the one she trusted.

He wasn’t ready to admit how much he’d envied her friends or how much he’d hated the boy he used to be—the boy who couldn’t find the courage to close the distance between them.

But sitting here with her now, the firelight casting warm shadows over her face, he realized he didn’t need to say those things. Not yet.

For now, it was enough just to be here.

The warmth in her voice settled in his chest, spreading like the heat of the fire. For a while, they talked quietly, trading memories of Nibelheim—of the mountains, the well, the small moments that lingered in the haze of the past.

Tifa brought over a tray of food at some point, simple but warm and filling. They ate together, the silence between their words comfortable and easy. Cloud found himself relaxing, the tension in his shoulders easing as the room’s quiet intimacy wrapped around them.

For the first time in what felt like days, he felt... normal. The grief and guilt were still there, lurking at the edges of his thoughts, but they no longer consumed him.  At least not for now, he’d found a temporary refuge to store them. All that mattered was the warmth of the fire, the soft cadence of Tifa’s voice, and the way her presence filled the room and wrapped around his heart.

When she smiled at him, he couldn’t help but smile back, the moment grounding him in a way he hadn’t thought possible.

After they ate, Tifa cleared away the tray, setting the last remnants of their meal to be forgotten on the small table. The fire crackled, casting a soft glow over the room, its warmth welcome but not enough. Cloud noticed the way Tifa rubbed her arms absently, a faint shiver coursing through her shoulders despite the blanket she had wrapped around her.

She sat on the edge of the daybed now, no longer at his side, her posture tense, her gaze lost somewhere in the flames. The heavy look on her face struck him like a dagger to the chest—pain and exhaustion etched into every line of her features, her usual strength seeming so far away.

Cloud swallowed hard, his heart twisting as guilt clawed at him. How long had he been so consumed by his own torment that he’d ignored hers? She’d been by his side this entire time, carrying her own grief and burdens, and he... he hadn’t even thought to ask how she was holding up.

“Tifa.” Her name left his lips in a rough whisper, unsteady and unsure.

She turned her head slightly, her crimson eyes finding his, but she didn’t speak. The flicker of vulnerability in her gaze was enough to shatter whatever wall he’d been trying to hold up.

Wordlessly, he shifted, opening the blanket draped around his shoulders. He held it out to her, the motion quiet and tentative, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Come here,” he murmured, his voice soft but firm, leaving no room for her to argue.

Tifa blinked, her expression flickering with surprise, then hesitation. “Cloud, I don’t want to—”

“Please,” he interrupted, his tone almost pleading. “You’re freezing, too. Just... let me do this for you.”

Her lips parted, but no protest came. Slowly, hesitantly, she slid closer to him, her movements unsure, as if afraid she might break something fragile. When she finally settled under the blanket, the space between them seemed to hum with unspoken words.

Instinctively, Cloud reached for the blanket she had given him and pulled it over her knees, inviting her to share the warmth beneath.  The faintest hint of a smile crossed her pouty red lips, and she leaned even closer to him, a gesture that was so natural and affectionate that it betrayed the feelings and connection between them that Cloud had found elusive for far too long.

Cloud tightened the blanket around both of them, his arms moving carefully as he pulled her closer. She curled against him, her body fitting against his in a way that felt achingly familiar and yet brand new. The warmth of her seeped through his clothes, chasing away the last remnants of the cold, but it was the vulnerability in her proximity that struck him the hardest.

She sighed softly, her head coming to rest against his chest, her hands clutching lightly at the fabric of his shirt. Cloud’s arms tightened around her instinctively, his grip protective and gentle, his fingers brushing lightly against her back.

For a moment, he simply held her, his chin resting lightly against the top of her head. The quiet between them was thick with the weight of everything left unsaid—the grief they shared, the unspoken fears, the yearning that had always lingered between them like a tether too fragile to pull taut.

Long moments passed where they sat in quiet silence together, before Tifa shifted even closer to him, her heat pressing deeper into his skin.  She reached over under the blanket and took one of his hands again, this time interlocking their fingers together.

Cloud tilted his head slightly, pressing a feather-light kiss to her forehead. He lingered there for a moment, his lips brushing her skin as he closed his eyes.

“Thank you,” he whispered, the words barely audible but carrying every ounce of his sincerity.

Tifa didn’t respond with words. Instead, she shifted closer, the fingers of one hand tightening slightly against his shirt while the other deepened their handhold. The gestures were small, but they spoke volumes—acceptance, trust, and something deeper that Cloud was too cowardly to name.

They stayed like that, the firelight casting soft shadows over their intertwined forms as the world outside the cabin fell away. Slowly, the tension in Tifa’s body eased, her breathing evening out as she drifted into sleep.

Cloud held her tighter, his own eyes growing heavy, though his thoughts remained restless. He wasn’t sure if he deserved this moment—this closeness, this comfort—but he couldn’t bring himself to let go.

Not of her.

As sleep claimed him, the storm in his mind was quiet for the first time in what felt like years. And for now, that was enough.

But it wouldn’t be for long.

Chapter Text

Chapter Nine - Lost in the Whirlwind

Tifa stood at the precipice of the crater, the Lifestream churning violently below in a maelstrom of ethereal energy. An unnatural spiral of black clouds overhead seemed to pulse with malevolent intent, drawn inexorably towards the gaping wound deep in the Planet's surface. 

Scarlet eyes drifted to Cloud, who gazed into the abyss with a distant, hollowed expression. The glow of his Mako-infused irises had dimmed, as if a part of him was lost in the swirling depths along with the Lifestream and its screaming memories. Tifa's heart clenched, remembering how vulnerable he had been last night, clinging to her like a lifeline as the weight of his fractured identity threatened to crush him. For a fleeting moment, the walls he had erected around himself crumbled, allowing her to catch a glimpse of the real Cloud—the boy she had grown up with under the starlit skies of Nibelheim, the boy who promised her safety and care under that same earnest glow.  

But as swiftly as that moment of raw honesty had manifested, it vanished with the first light of dawn. Cloud retreated once more behind his stoic facade, his shoulders squared and jaw set in grim determination, the delusions that propped up his existence in the face of unspeakable truths returning with a harrowing mask. Yet Tifa could see the cracks in his armor—the way his chest rose and fell with strained breaths, the slight tremor in his gloved hands as they gripped the hilt of his sword - and it served to remind her of how broken everything was.

Unbidden, her thoughts drifted to stolen moments of tenderness—the brush of Cloud's lips against hers as they huddled together on the gondola at the Gold Saucer, the solid warmth of his body pressed close in the frigid air of Holzoff's cabin. The way he held her beneath gilded, silk-brushed sheets, the tremble of his muscles promising her the world even as her memory faded somewhere behind in Gongaga’s green depths. In those rare instances, the weight of everything they shared hung between them, heavy with unspoken emotions and the bittersweet ache of missed opportunities that now she chased with teeth grit and fists furled.

The wind carried whispers of decay as Tifa’s boots sank into ash-soft earth. Below them, the crater yawned wide, its edges crumbling like burnt paper. The Lifestream coiled beneath in emerald spirals—not the gentle glow from childhood stories, but something rabid, thrashing against invisible chains. Above, the sky had been stitched shut with storm clouds that pulsed like a fresh bruise. She could taste the mako sharpness coating her tongue, bitter as regret. 

Her own memories were fragmented, lost to the haze of amnesia that clouded her past. Each recollection she managed to grasp felt like a hard-won victory against the encroaching darkness in her mind. But even as she struggled to piece together the shattered remnants of her own identity, Tifa couldn't help but feel that the key to unlocking the truth lay entwined with Cloud's own fractured psyche.

Cloud stood half a breath ahead, back rigid beneath the weight of his sword. His hair caught the sickly light, strands bleached ghostly where they brushed his neck. She remembered how those same strands had felt between her fingers two nights ago—damp with melted snow, clinging to her palms as he’d pressed his forehead into the hollow between her collarbones. A raw, wordless sound had escaped him then, something torn from deeper than bone. Now his silence was absolute. 

She watched him now, silhouetted against the eerie luminescence of the Lifestream, and her heart ached with a longing she couldn't quite define. Tifa took a tentative step forward, her boots crunching on the rocky ground.

"Cloud..." she whispered, her voice nearly lost amidst the howling winds that whipped through the crater.

“We have to keep moving.”

Cloud’s voice cut clean through her chatter. Not the ragged edge he’d carried since Nibelheim’s flames, nor the hollow monotone that sometimes swallowed him whole. This was colder. Smoothed. Like steel resting against a whetstone. 

Tifa’s gloves groaned as she flexed her hands. The phantom weight of his ribs beneath her palms lingered—how he’d shuddered when she traced the scar tissue spiderwebbing his back in Holzoff’s cabin. The firelight had painted them both in molten hues that night, every hitched breath from Cloud echoing louder than the blizzard outside. By dawn, he’d rebuilt the walls mortar-quick, slipping into his armor of clipped responses and thousand-yard stares. 

Cloud's eyes remained fixed on the chaotic dance of the Lifestream below, as if mesmerized by its haunting beauty. Tifa's fingers twitched at her sides, yearning to reach out and anchor him to reality, to let him know that she was here—that she would always be here, no matter how lost he became.

But the chasm between them felt insurmountable, a yawning void of unspoken truths and buried secrets. As much as Tifa longed to bridge that gap, to offer Cloud the comfort and understanding he so desperately needed, she feared that her own brokenness would only drag him further into the abyss.

So she stood beside him in silence, their shoulders barely brushing as they faced the impending darkness together. And as the Lifestream's eerie glow cast haunting shadows across their faces, Tifa prayed that somehow, someway, they would find the strength to confront the demons that lurked within and emerge unscathed on the other side.

Barret's gruff voice shattered the fragile silence. "This whole place smells like a damn death trap," he grumbled, his gun-arm whirring as he scanned the crater's edge for hidden threats. "Ain't no way we're gettin' outta here without a fight."

Nanaki crouched low to the ground, his keen senses attuned to the Planet's anguished cries. "The Planet is screaming," he murmured, his tail swishing anxiously behind him. "The wounds inflicted upon it run deep, and the Lifestream writhes in agony."

Tifa glanced over her shoulder, her gaze settling on Vincent's stoic form. The enigmatic man stood apart from the others, his crimson eyes narrowed as he surveyed the unnatural landscape. "Whatever force awaits us," he warned, his voice a low rumble, "it is warping fate itself. We must tread carefully."

Yuffie huddled close to Cait Sith, her usual bravado replaced by a palpable sense of unease. "Guys, I don't like this," she whimpered, her fingers clutching the robotic cat's arm. "It feels like something really bad is about to happen."

Despite the growing sense of dread that permeated the air, Cloud barely reacted to his companions' warnings. His voice remained eerily calm as he took a determined step forward. "We keep moving," he declared again, his eyes still locked on the distant horizon.

The others exchanged hesitant glances, their faces etched with worry and uncertainty. But as Cloud pressed onward, his resolve unwavering, they had no choice but to follow. Tifa fell into step behind him, her heart heavy with the weight of her own fears and doubts.

With each step, Tifa felt the chasm between her and Cloud growing wider, his essence slipping further away. She longed to reach out, to tether him to the present and remind him of the unbreakable bond they shared. But the words caught in her throat, suffocated by the fear that even her love might not be enough to save him from the darkness that threatened to consume him.

With a sudden burst, mako erupted in a geyser, tendrils whipping like enraged serpents. The blast lifted her off her feet. For three heartbeats she flew—hair lashing her cheeks, Yuffie's shriek shredding into Cait Sith's mechanical wail. The impact drove the world white. Jagged stone bit through her gloves as she skidded, every joint screaming.  She felt herself lifted off her feet, her body hurtling through the air as the ground trembled beneath the onslaught. Pain lanced through her as she hit the rocky surface, her vision blurring at the edges as she struggled to catch her breath.

Tifa blinked, trying to clear the spots that danced before her eyes. The air had thickened, heavy with an unnatural presence that pressed down upon them like a suffocating blanket. She pushed herself up on shaking arms, her muscles screaming in protest as she scanned the area for her companions.

Her gaze landed on Cloud, his form crumpled a short distance away. Muscles strained and bled from gaping wounds that caught the angry, starlit sky. Fear seized her heart, and Tifa stumbled to her feet, ignoring the agony that radiated through her body. She half-ran, half-crawled to his side, her hand reaching out to grasp his arm.

"Cloud," she whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion. "Cloud, look at me."

His eyes met hers, but they were distant, unfocused. Tifa tightened her grip on his arm, trying to anchor him to the present. "We're here to fight Sephiroth, remember? I'm right here with you, Cloud. I won't let you face this alone."

Cloud remained silent, his expression unreadable. Tifa's worry intensified, her mind racing with the possibilities of what horrors Sephiroth might be subjecting him to in the depths of his fractured psyche. He flinched at her words, his body tensing under her touch. For a moment, Tifa thought he might pull away, but instead, he closed his eyes, his brow furrowing as if in pain. Cloud leaned into her touch, his eyes searching hers. For a fleeting instant, Tifa saw a glimmer of the man she knew, the man she loved, before the shadows of doubt crept back in. Gravel scored her palms as she scrambled forward. The air hummed, pressing against her eardrums like diving too deep. 

He didn't flinch when she grabbed his bicep. Up close, the cracks showed—tremors beneath his skin, a vein pulsing wild at his temple. The scent of ozone clung to him, sharp and chemical.   

Crimson light pulsed ahead, silhouetting jagged spires. Tifa's ribs throbbed in time. Each step chipped at memories: The precise tilt of his head when pretending not to watch her mix drinks from the corner of his eyes.  Holding her tight against his body while her tears burned his sweater, face lit gold by the Sector 5 lamplight of Aerith’s garden. How he'd mouthed sorry against her collarbone at Holzoff's cabin, fingers mapping vertebrae like counting prayer beads.  

"You're shaking." Her thumb found the tiny mole above his elbow, a beauty mark she recognized from summer sunshine in Nibelheim, that had grown with every ligament and limb over the years. Real. Anchoring.  

His exhale fogged faintly green in the misty northern air. "We need to go."  

Reluctantly, Barret stepped forward, his gruff voice cutting through the tension. "Let me take the Black Materia, Cloud," he offered, extending his hand. "I promised I'd help carry this load back in the Forgotten City. Let me keep that promise."

Cloud's gaze darted between Barret and Tifa, uncertainty etched into his features. Tifa nodded encouragingly, her eyes never leaving Cloud's face. "It's okay," she whispered, her voice barely audible above the howling wind. "We're in this together."

With a shaky breath, Cloud reached into his pocket and retrieved the Black Materia. The orb seemed to absorb the light around it, its surface pulsing with an ominous energy. As he placed it in Barret's outstretched hand, a pained expression crossed his face, as if the act of relinquishing the Materia had torn away a piece of his soul.

Barret's fingers closed around the orb, his jaw clenching as the Materia's power burned against his skin. He met Cloud's gaze, a silent understanding passing between them. They both knew the weight of the responsibility they now shared.

As Cloud turned away, his shoulders hunched against the bitter cold, Tifa felt a wave of despair wash over her. She watched him take a step towards the glowing center of the crater, his form silhouetted against the eerie light. Each step seemed to carry him further from her, from the life they had once shared.

Memories flooded Tifa's mind—a starlit night under the water tower, a stolen kiss amidst the chaos of the Gold Saucer, a whispered promise of a future together. Those moments, once so vibrant and alive, now felt like fading echoes, drowned out by the relentless march of fate.

But even as her heart ached, Tifa refused to lose hope. She had fought too hard, sacrificed too much, to let Cloud slip away. She would chase him to the ends of the earth if she had to, battling through the darkness that threatened to consume him.

As she watched Cloud's figure disappear into the swirling mists, the planet gawped shouts quaking the ashen earth, Tifa made a silent vow. She would bring him back, even if it meant descending into the very depths of hell itself. 

For in the end, for her - he was the only thing that mattered, the only thing worth fighting for.

Cloud's mind reeled as he pressed forward, each step a battle against the warring voices within. A frightened, shy little boy trapped inside, crying out against the insistent bravado of a SOLDIER who had never actually made it. Sephiroth's influence clawed at the edges of this broken consciousness, a sinister whisper that promised power and purpose. Yet, beneath the siren call of the SOLDIER persona, Cloud's true self struggled to surface, clinging desperately to the fragments of his past.

Memories flashed through his mind like shattered glass, each shard a glimpse of the life he had once known. Tifa's gentle smile, the warmth of her embrace, the unspoken promise of a future together—these images danced amidst the chaos, taunting him with their fragility.

But even as he grasped at these fleeting moments of clarity, the fractures in his psyche deepened. The guilt and confusion over Aerith, the crushing weight of his own inadequacy, the insidious doubt that he was nothing more than a puppet—these dark thoughts swirled within him, threatening to consume what little remained of his true self.

"You are nothing," Sephiroth's voice echoed in his mind, a cold, cruel whisper that seeped into the very marrow of his bones. "A mere pawn in a game beyond your comprehension."

Cloud's steps faltered, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he fought against the insidious influence. "No," he whispered, his voice barely audible over the pounding of his heart. "I am more than that. I am Cloud Strife, SOLDIER First Class."

But even as the words left his lips and drifted into the cold tendrils above, he could feel the hollowness behind them, the fragile facade crumbling under the weight of his own doubts. The SOLDIER persona, once a source of strength and purpose, now felt like a suffocating mask, a lie he had told himself for so long that he could no longer discern the truth.

Reality reassembled in migraine strobes. Cloud staggered, sword pommel grinding against what might've been rock or frozen screams. Tifa's palms pressed his breastbone, her breath coming in visible hitches. 

"Others... gone." She craned her neck, crimson-lit irises darting across impossible geography. "How...?"

He knew. Felt it in the Jenova cells rejoicing along his marrow. This close to Sephiroth's cradle, the Planet's rules dissolved. Only willpower shaped reality now—and his mind was such fertile soil for nightmares.

Tifa, he murmured, her name a desperate prayer amidst the tempest of his thoughts. I'm sorry. I'm not the man you think I am. I'm not the hero you deserve.

The internal admission tore at his heart, a searing pain that eclipsed even the physical agony of his wounds. He had failed her, failed them all, and now he was nothing more than a broken shell, a shadow of the man he had once pretended to be.

As Cloud pressed onward, his footsteps heavy with the weight of his own despair, he could feel Sephiroth's presence growing stronger, the tendrils of his influence tightening their grip on his fractured mind. The battle within him raged on, a silent war between the man he had once been and the monster he feared he would become.

Yet, even in the depths of his anguish, a single spark of hope remained—a fleeting glimmer of light amidst the darkness. Tifa's love, the memory of their shared past, the promise of a future he had once dared to dream of—these were the things he clung to, the fragile threads that tethered him to his humanity.

As he stepped into the swirling mists, Cloud knew that the path ahead would be a crucible, a test of his very soul. But for the sake of those he loved, for the chance to be the man he had always yearned to be, he would face the darkness within himself and fight with every last ounce of his strength.

Cloud felt the ground beneath his feet give way, his body plummeting through a vortex of swirling energy. The voices in his head grew louder, clashing against each other like discordant notes in a twisted symphony. Images flashed before his eyes—memories of a life he had never lived, of a man he had never been, of lives lost that he’d thought he’d saved - they intertwined with the shattered fragments of his own reality.

As the world distorted around them, Tifa reached out, her fingers grasping for Cloud's hand, desperate to anchor him to the present. But the forces that pulled at them were too strong, and she felt herself being torn away, her voice lost in the maelstrom of light and sound.

When the chaos subsided, they found themselves in a realm of fiery colors and shifting shadows, the rest of their companions nowhere to be seen. Tifa's eyes searched for Cloud, her heart constricting as she saw him standing motionless, his gaze fixed upon the swirling abyss before them.

"Cloud..." she whispered, her voice barely audible above the thrumming of the distorted reality. "Please, come back to me."

A slow, deliberate clap echoed through the void, shattering the silence like a hammer against glass. Sephiroth stepped forward, his silver hair cascading down his back, a smirk playing across his lips. Tifa immediately moved in front of Cloud, her fists clenched, ready to defend him with every fiber of her being.

But Cloud, as if drawn by an invisible force, stepped around her, his eyes locked with Sephiroth's. Tifa's heart pounded in her chest as she watched the two men, the weight of their shared history hanging heavy in the air. She could see the war raging within Cloud, his fractured mind screaming, tearing him apart from the inside.

"You've done well, Cloud," Sephiroth said, his voice a razor's edge. "But it's time to stop pretending."

Cloud's brow furrowed, confusion etched across his features. The world twisted once more, and suddenly they were standing in the streets of Nibelheim, the village untouched by the flames that had once consumed it. Tifa's breath caught in her throat as she recognized the scene before them—a memory from five years ago, a turning point in their lives.

As they watched, Sephiroth entered the village, flanked by two Shinra grunts. But instead of Cloud, the SOLDIER who walked beside them was a man with black hair, his features achingly familiar. Zack Fair, Cloud's friend and mentor, strode into Nibelheim, his presence a jarring contradiction to the memories Tifa held dear.

Cloud's eyes widened, his lips parting in a silent gasp.  The sights before him made little sense, betraying the trembling and frayed edges of memories he held on to that said so much. Tifa could feel the tremors that ran through his body, the foundations of his identity crumbling beneath the weight of Sephiroth's illusion. She reached for him, her fingers brushing against his arm, a desperate attempt to tether him to reality.

"This isn't real, Cloud," she whispered, her voice quivering. "It's just another one of Sephiroth's tricks. Don't let him get inside your head."

But even as the words left her lips, Cloud could see the doubt that clouded her eyes, the unspoken questions that hung between them. What if Sephiroth was right? What if the memories they had clung to, the stories they had told themselves, were nothing more than a fragile web of lies?

Did Tifa know?

The illusion shifted once more, and they found themselves standing on the mountain bridge, its wooden planks creaking beneath their feet as rain battered and stained the earth and skies. Tifa's breath caught in her throat as she watched the scene unfold, a twisted mirror of the past they had both endured.

The bridge swayed and groaned, its ropes straining against the weight of the figures who traversed its length. And then, with a sickening crack, the wood gave way, sending splinters flying through the air like shrapnel. Cloud’s eyes widened as he watched Zack leap forward, his hand outstretched, grasping for the grunt who teetered on the edge of oblivion.

But it was the other figure that drew his gaze, the one who tumbled into the abyss below, his body limp and unresisting. Even from a distance, she recognized the shock of blond hair, the Shinra infantryman uniform that had haunted her dreams for so long.

"Cloud..." Tifa breathed beside him, her voice barely above a whisper.

Cloud stood motionless, his eyes fixed on the scene that played out before them. His mind was at war, rage tearing a battle between the fractured pieces of his mind. His jaw clenched, his hands balled into fists at his sides, as if he could will the illusion to bend to his own memories.

"This isn't how it happened," he muttered, his voice low and strained. "I was there. I remember..."

But even as he spoke the words, he could hear the uncertainty that lurked beneath them, the seeds of doubt that Sephiroth had so carefully sown. He tried to ignore it, feeling as reached for his hand, her fingers intertwining with his, a silent reminder of the bond they shared, one that was slipping through their fingers.

"Cloud, listen to me," she said softly, her eyes searching his face. Crimson orbs that reminded him of precious jewels sparkled against the Lifestream’s angry greens. "No matter what Sephiroth shows us, no matter what lies he tries to feed you, I know who you are. I know the man you've become, the hero you've always been."

Cloud's gaze flickered to hers, and for a moment, he felt his resolve strengthen, felt his soul soften by her belief.  But Sephiroth’s mocking laughter echoed behind them, silver wisps like raindrops taunting his window floating along the wind. Inside, the boy that knew Tifa, loved her for all those years, recoiled behind the SOLDIER whose expression hardened in doubt and fear, his eyes turning back to the illusion that taunted them.

"I... I don't know what to believe anymore," he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. "Everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I was... it's all falling apart."

"Then we'll find the truth together," she said, her voice steady and strong. "We'll keep fighting, keep searching, until we uncover the answers we both need. And no matter what happens, Cloud... I'll be right here with you, every step of the way."

Cloud's fingers tightened around hers, a silent acknowledgment of the strength she offered.  But inside, his mind continued to lose the battle to doubt and the whispers of a silver-haired demon, his heart beating its way out of his chest.

As the illusion dissipated, Cloud found himself staring at his own reflection in the still waters of the river. His face, once a mask of determined resolve, now seemed fractured and uncertain. Sephiroth's words echoed in his mind, each syllable a shard of ice piercing his already fragile sense of self.

"You see, Cloud," Sephiroth purred, his voice a velvet whisper that sent shivers down Cloud's spine. "You were never the hero of this story. Merely a puppet, dancing on strings woven from stolen memories and falsehoods.  Failures that day, just like your failure on the altar."

Cloud's hands clenched into fists at his sides, his breath coming in sharp, ragged gasps. The blood that had formed around Aerith’s wound pooled his vision. He wanted to scream, to deny the truth that lay before him, but the words died in his throat. How could he refute what his own eyes had shown him?

Tifa's hand on his shoulder was a lifeline, a tether to the reality he so desperately wanted to cling to. "Cloud, don't listen to him," she pleaded, her voice trembling with emotion. "Remember our promise, under the stars that night? Remember how you helped me find my own lost memories?"

Cloud's gaze met hers, searching for the certainty he so desperately craved. But even as he looked into those warm, familiar eyes, he could see the flicker of doubt that lurked beneath the surface.

Sephiroth's laughter cut through the air like a knife. "Ah, but even your dear Tifa hesitates to defend you, Cloud. Can you truly blame her? After all, who would want to put their faith in a mere facsimile of a man?"

Tifa flinched as if struck, her hand falling away from Cloud's shoulder. Cloud felt the loss of her touch like a physical ache, a hollowness that spread through his chest and left him feeling utterly alone.

"Tifa..." he whispered, his voice breaking on the syllables of her name. But even as he reached for her, Sephiroth's voice cut through the air once more.

"Let me show you, Cloud, what truly lies in Tifa's heart."

The world around them shifted and blurred, colors bleeding together like a watercolor painting left out in the rain. And as the new illusion took shape, Cloud felt his heart sink with dread, knowing that whatever lay ahead could only bring more pain and uncertainty.

Cloud turned to Tifa, his heart overflowing with a tumultuous mix of love and desperation. Her hesitation cut through him like a blade, mingling with the fractured thoughts of his true self and his crumbling soldier persona. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes as he spoke, his voice raw with emotion.

"Why are you so scared? Don't worry about me. I'm all right," he said, his words tumbling out in a rush. "No matter how confused I am, I'll never believe a word that Sephiroth says. It's true that sometimes I can't figure out who I am. There's a lot of things muddled up in my memories. But, Tifa... you said, 'Long time no see, Cloud' right? Those words will always support me. I am the one you grew up with. I'm Cloud of Nibelheim. No matter how much I lose faith in myself, that is the truth. That's why you shouldn't be so scared. No matter what anyone else says to me, it's your opinion that counts..."

Cloud's chest heaved with the weight of his confession, his feelings colliding between the inadequacy and failure he felt deep inside and the desire to uphold the fracturing of his ideal self in the soldier persona. He searched Tifa's face, desperately seeking a glimmer of the unwavering faith she had always shown in him.

But Tifa remained silent, her eyes glistening with unshed tears as she struggled to find the words to refute Sephiroth's lies. The air between them grew heavy with unspoken fears and doubts, and Cloud felt himself crumbling under the weight of her hesitation.

"A first-class SOLDIER would've protected everyone,”  Sephiroth went on, the black leather of his gloves shimmering against the moonlight and the North’s snowy tears. Cloud's pupils swallowed blue irises as the words floated over him. "Not let the whole town burn."

The vision changed again. Furnace winds. Mom's scream. Tifa's own voice, raw from smoke as she screamed her father’s name.

Her hand on his shoulder fell away as he crumbled, his hands finding his skull and crushing.  Her voice was distant, serene, but floating away from him, abandoning him alone with the discordant confusion of the people inside of him.

Suddenly, the scene shifted once more, and they found themselves inside the deepest cavern. Rufus, Hojo, and Shinra soldiers arrived, their presence a stark reminder of the forces that sought to control and manipulate them.  Blue walls of ice rose up on every side of the cavern, caging them inside a frozen hell his mind nor his body could escape. The others finally reappeared, restrained by Shinra’s forces, powerless to intervene as Hojo's laughter echoed off the rock walls, his amusement at Cloud's turmoil a twisted mockery of the young man's pain.

Sephiroth's taunts grew more vicious, each word a barbed arrow aimed at Cloud's fragile sense of self. He painted a picture of Cloud as nothing more than a failed experiment, a puppet dancing on strings held by unseen masters. And as Tifa wept, unable to challenge Sephiroth's lies, Cloud felt the last remnants of his identity slipping away, lost in the maelstrom of his fractured memories and the cruel machinations of those who sought to control him.

It was Hojo’s satisfied laughter, though, that told Cloud all he needed to know.

The air tasted like burned ozone and crushed granite. Tifa's palms stung where she'd skinned them catching herself during the latest tremor, but the pain felt distant compared to the jagged edges of Cloud's smile. That smile—all wrong, like porcelain stretched over cracking ice—didn't reach the mako glow burning behind his eyes.

For three seconds, everything held. Then Cloud turned, and Tifa saw the boy who'd promised her loyalty and the very moon in the sky. The man who'd held her tight through Midgar's ruins. The ghost who'd kissed her under the Gold Saucer's false stars and shivered in her embrace while his ego flatlined.

His thumb brushed the apple of her cheek, calloused and warm. 

Cloud's expression softened, the weight of his own brokenness etched into the lines of his face. He turned to Tifa, his hand trembling as he cupped her cheek, pressing his forehead to hers in a gesture of intimate despair. A single tear slipped from his eye, tracing a path down his cheek as he whispered, "Tifa... I'm sorry. You've been so good to me. You deserve so much better. I hope... I hope one day you get to meet the real Cloud."

His lips brushed against her forehead in a tender kiss, a final act of love and apology. Then, with a voice that seemed to come from a place far away, he demanded the Black Materia from Barret. The larger man hesitated, his eyes darting between Cloud and Tifa, before reluctantly handing over the gleaming orb.

Tifa screamed, her voice raw with anguish as she reached for Cloud, desperate to pull him back from the brink. But he didn't even look at her, his gaze fixed on the Black Materia in his hand, as if it held the answers to the questions that haunted him. He moved like a man in a trance, each step taking him closer to the edge of the abyss.

Her scream tangled with the Black Materia's keening wail. Lifestream tendrils lashed upward, coiling around Sephiroth's crystalline prison in a grotesque mockery of veins. She lunged, fingertips grazing frayed belt straps, before the floor buckled violently.

For one suspended moment, she saw him whole—spikes of blond hair catching the emerald hellglow, lips shaping words lost in the maelstrom. Then the chasm yawned, swallowing him whole along with the last echoes of Nibelheim's boy.

Rubber soles squealed against shifting stone. Barret's arm hooked around her ribs. "Move, sister! Whole damn mountain's—"

The sentence drowned in an earth-rending shriek as the first Weapon erupted—a colossus of obsidian scales and molten joints. Shinra troops scattered like ash flakes, Rufus barking orders from the Highwind's open bay. Tifa ran blind, the taste of Cloud's apology still salt-bitter on her lips.

Her boot caught an exposed root. Time bent—Sky tilting. Ground rising. Then nothing but white silence.

Cloud stood before Sephiroth's crystal, his eyes locked on the figure within. "Sephiroth... So we finally meet again," he said, his voice eerily calm, a stark contrast to the chaos that raged within him. With a steady hand, he slipped the Black Materia into the crystal, watching as it pulsed with an unholy light.

Purple, black, and red energy surged from the crystal, engulfing the cavern in a maelstrom of power. The ground shook beneath their feet, and the air crackled with an electric charge. Sephiroth's form began to shift, his features twisting into a grotesque mockery of the man he had once been.

As Sephiroth awakened, the crater erupted, the Lifestream tearing through the ground in a violent upheaval. Tifa watched in horror as the world around them unraveled, the very fabric of reality straining under the weight of Sephiroth's malevolent presence. And at the center of it all stood Cloud, his eyes vacant, his soul lost to the machinations of a madman.

Tifa's heart shattered, the pieces scattering like the shards of the crystal that had once held Sephiroth. She had failed him, failed to be the anchor he needed in the tempest of his own mind. And now, as the world crumbled around them, she could only watch as the man she loved was consumed by the darkness, a puppet dancing on the strings of a twisted fate.

Tifa lunged forward, her fingers stretching out to grasp Cloud's arm as the chasm widened between them. For a fleeting moment, her skin brushed against his, a whisper of a touch that held a lifetime of unspoken emotions. But it was too late. Cloud's face, once a canvas of conflicting emotions, now stood vacant, his eyes hollow and unseeing. And then, he was gone, swallowed by the abyss that had opened up beneath their feet.

The ground convulsed, the tremors intensifying with each passing second. Deep within the bowels of the Planet, the WEAPONS stirred, their ancient forms awakening from their slumber. With a deafening roar, they burst forth from the crater, their colossal bodies tearing through the earth and sending shockwaves rippling through the air.

Chaos erupted as everyone scrambled for safety, their screams lost amidst the thunderous cacophony of the WEAPONS' emergence. Tifa found herself swept up in the tide of panic, her feet pounding against the ground as she ran alongside Barret and the others. In the distance, she caught a glimpse of Rufus and the Shinra personnel, their faces etched with a mixture of awe and terror as they fled towards the Highwind, the massive airship looming like a beacon of hope amidst the destruction.

As they neared the Highwind, Tifa's vision began to blur, the edges of her consciousness fraying like a tattered cloth. She stumbled, her body betraying her as exhaustion and grief took their toll. The last thing she saw before the darkness claimed her was the ground rushing up to meet her, and then... nothing.

Tifa finds herself adrift in a sea of white, the world around her a blank canvas devoid of form or substance. It is a place she had visited before, a realm that exists between the boundaries of dreams and reality. The air hums with a gentle energy, and she can feel the warm caress of the Lifestream against her skin, its tendrils wrapping around her like a comforting embrace.

In this ethereal space, Tifa's mind wanders, her thoughts drifting like leaves on the surface of a still pond. Memories of Cloud flood her consciousness, each one a bittersweet reminder of the bond they shared. She sees him as he had been in their childhood, his eyes bright with innocence and his smile untainted by the weight of the world. She sees him as he was now, a broken man struggling to piece together the fragments of his shattered identity.

Tears stream down Tifa's face, each one a silent prayer for the boy she had loved and the man she had lost. In the depths of her heart, she clings to the hope that somewhere, buried beneath the layers of manipulation and deceit, the real Cloud still exists. And she knows, with a certainty that defied logic, that she will stop at nothing to bring him back, to save him from the darkness that threatened to consume him.

The white dreamworld dissolves, giving way to a familiar scene that tugs at the corners of Tifa's memory. Her boots meet solid ground where there should've been none. Neon letters smear across her vision: SECTOR 7 STATION. The memory unfolds wrong, edges bubbling like film left too close to flame. There he is, sweat and steel stench overwhelming the Mako-tinged air.  The Sector 7 station materializes around her, the air thick with the scent of exhaust and the distant echo of trains. Her heart skips a beat as she sees him, a figure crumpled on the ground, his blond hair matted with dirt and sweat.

Tifa rushes to Cloud's side, her hands trembling as she cradles his head in her lap. His eyes flutter open, glowing with the telltale signs of mako infusion. At that moment, she sees a flicker of recognition, a spark of the boy she had once known. But it is fleeting, replaced by a vacant stare that sent a chill down her spine.

"Cloud," she whispers, her voice cracking with emotion. "It's me, Tifa. I'm here."

He blinks slowly, as if trying to process her words. "Tifa?" he murmurs, his voice barely audible above the din of the station.

She nods, tears welling in her eyes. "Yes, it's me. It’s… it’s been so long.”

Awareness floods him, eyes softening, eerie glowing mako blue fading behind the cerulean of childhood. Her heart stutters, cheeks warm with youthful memories of water towers and stars. She takes his hand in hers, helping him to his feet, and he leans against her, a warm, welcoming smile pulling lightly at pained features. So long they have been separated, but the spark in the air when they touch reminds her that this reunion must be ordained by fate.

The scene shifts, the station fading into the warm glow of Seventh Heaven. Tifa finds herself in her bar, Cloud seated at the counter, his eyes fixed on a mug of steaming liquid she’s prepared. She approaches him, her footsteps soft against the wooden floor.

"Hey," she greets gently, placing a hand on his shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

Cloud looks up at her, his expression distant. "I... I don't know. Everything's a blur."

Tifa sits beside him, her heart aching at the confusion etched on his face. "It's okay. We'll figure it out together."

They talk, their words punctuated by long stretches of silence. Tifa listens as Cloud recounts fragments of memories, his brow furrowed in concentration. She notices the inconsistencies, the gaps in his recollection, but she doesn’t press him. Instead, she offers words of encouragement, her touch a gentle reminder that he wasn't alone.

“Thank you for helping me earlier,” she comments lightly, a faint smile playing on her lips. “With carrying those crates of liquor. I don't know what I would have done without you."

A flicker of a smirk, stoic and smug, crosses Cloud's face. “No biggie,” he quips.

Tifa nods, her heart swelling with gratitude. "You were a big help, Cloud. And it got me thinking... maybe you could work as a mercenary, taking on jobs to help people. You've got the skills, and I know you've got the heart for it."

Cloud looks at her, a glimmer of hope in his eyes. "You think so?"

"I know so," Tifa said, her voice firm with conviction. "And I'll be here to help you, every step of the way. We can take on jobs together, watch each other's backs."

A faint smile tugs at the corners of Cloud's mouth, the first genuine expression of emotion she had seen from him since their reunion. "I'd like that," he said softly.

As the dream begins to fade, Tifa holds onto that moment, the warmth of Cloud's hand in hers, the flicker of hope in his eyes. She knows the road ahead would be long and treacherous, but with each step, each shared memory, she would guide him back to the light. Back to the man she knew he could be.

.

.

.

The dream shifts, colors swirling and blending until a new scene materialized before Tifa's eyes. She finds herself lying in a bed, the soft glow of morning light filtering through the curtains. Beside her, Cloud lay asleep, his features peaceful and untroubled.

Moonlight lacquers the curve of Cloud’s spine. Tifa counts the scars intersecting his shoulder blade—four parallel lines, faded silver—while his breathing deepens into sleep rhythms. Her fingertip hovers above the longest mark, close enough to feel body heat radiating from damaged skin.  

Tifa watches him, her heart aching with a mixture of love and uncertainty. In the quiet stillness of the moment, she can’t help but wonder about their relationship, about the unspoken feelings that lingered between them. Before she could stop herself, the words slip from her lips in a whisper. 

"Do you love me, Cloud?"

Suddenly, Cloud stirs, his eyes fluttering open. Tifa freezes, realizing he had been awake all along. Panic grips her, and she quickly tries to cover her tracks. "I mean... do you love Marlene?"

Cloud looked at her quizzically, his blue eyes searching her face. After a moment, he nodded. "Of course I do. I just... I don't always know how to talk to her, you know?"

Tifa feels a wave of relief wash over her, but it is short-lived. As she looks into Cloud's eyes, she realizes that she is no longer observing the dream from the outside. She is living it from Cloud's perspective, seeing through his eyes, feeling his emotions.

And in that moment, she knows the truth. Cloud had heard her original question, had understood the real meaning behind her words. She can feel his love for her, a deep, unwavering affection that he struggled to express. He knew he loved her, but the words seemed to catch in his throat, tangled up in the scars of his past.

Tifa reached out, her hand cupping his cheek. "It's okay," she murmurs. "I understand."

.

.

.

The dream shifts once more, and Tifa finds herself standing in a sunlit room, her hands resting on the swell of her pregnant belly. Strong arms wrapped around her from behind, and she felt the warmth of Cloud's breath on her neck as he places a tender kiss on her cheek.

Warmth pools low in her abdomen, insistent as a ticking clock. Cloud’s palms bracket the swell beneath her navel, his chin hooked over her shoulder. They watch sunset bleed through fractured stained glass, casting rubied light across a cold, concrete city.  

“Ginger tea,” he murmurs against her earlobe. “For the nausea.”  

“Since when do you read pregnancy books?”  

“Since you started sleeping through breakfast.” His lips graze the hinge of her jaw. “Priorities change.” 

In that moment, Tifa sees a glimpse of their future, a vision of the life they could have together. A life filled with love, with laughter, with the warmth of a family. It is a future that seemed so close, yet still just out of reach.

“This doesn’t scare you?”  

Cloud’s arms constrict briefly—a human vice. “Different kind of mission.”  

Laughter bubbles up, sharp with unshed tears. “No save points.”  

“Don’t need ‘em.” His hand slides upward to cradle the curve where life quickens beneath skin. “Got the best backup already.”

As the dream begins to fade, Tifa clings to that image, holding it close to her heart. She knows that the path ahead is fraught with danger and uncertainty, but she also knows that she will fight for that future with every fiber of her being. For Cloud, for their unborn child, for the love that burned bright within her soul.

No matter what challenges lay ahead, no matter how dark the shadows grew, Tifa will never stop believing in the power of their connection. She would be Cloud's guiding light, his anchor in the storm, until they could finally find their way home to each other.

.

.

.

The sting of antiseptic yanked Tifa into consciousness.  Her eyes snapped open, the remnants of her dreams still clinging to the edges of her consciousness. She blinked against the harsh fluorescent light that flooded the room, her vision slowly adjusting to her surroundings. The cold, hard surface beneath her reminded her that she was far from the warmth and comfort of her dreams.

Barret's gruff voice broke through the silence. "You're finally awake. Been out for a week, Tifa."

She pushed herself up, her body aching from the prolonged stillness. Tifa's mind reeled as she tried to piece together the events that had led them here. The crater, Sephiroth's taunting words, Cloud's broken expression as he handed over the Black Materia—it all came rushing back in a dizzying torrent of memories.

Tifa's gaze drifted to the small window in their cell, her heart heavy with the weight of their predicament. As she approached the glass, her breath caught in her throat. There, hanging ominously in the sky, was a sight that chilled her to the core.

Meteor .

The massive, flaming rock loomed above the planet, a testament to Sephiroth's twisted ambitions. It was a harbinger of destruction, a countdown to the end of all things. Tifa felt a wave of despair wash over her, threatening to drag her under.

But as she pressed her palm against the cool glass, her mind drifted back to the dreams that had sustained her during her unconscious state. The tender moments with Cloud, the promise of a future together—they were more than just figments of her imagination. They were a reminder of what she was fighting for, of the love that bound them together even in the darkest of times.

Tifa's resolve hardened, her jaw set with determination. She turned to face Barret, ready to plan their next move, when the sudden sound of the cell door opening shattered the quiet.

The door hissed open on pneumatic hinges. Rufus Shinra stepped inside, his pristine white suit a stark contrast to the dingy surroundings. A smirk played across his lips, his eyes glinting with a mixture of amusement and disdain.

“Miss Lockhart!” His smile could frost the Corel desert. “How kind of you to rejoin our narrative.”  

Tifa's hands clenched into fists at her sides, her muscles coiled with tension. She met Rufus's gaze head-on, refusing to be cowed by his presence.

"What do you want, Rufus?" she asked, her voice steady despite the turmoil raging within her.

Rufus chuckled, the sound devoid of any genuine mirth. "Straight to the point, I see. Very well, then. Best not delay the inevitable.”

Tifa stared, the smugness radiating off of him like gamma rays. Her eyes narrowed as he continued to belabor the matter with his faulty smirk, approaching her, his fingers tracing the cold steel of her gurney.

Rufus paused beside the cot, examining rumpled sheets with detached curiosity.“Notice the craftsmanship,” he quipped, admiring Meteor’s silhouette through the window. “Sephiroth always did have an artistic flair. Pity about the collateral damage.” 

He turns, sunlight glinting off the shotgun’s gold filigree and the white threads of his coat. “But every catastrophe needs scapegoats. Your execution broadcast should buy considerable public goodwill.”  

“Execution?” Tifa repeats as Barret slams his disarmed gun-arm into the windowsill.

 "Hojo's latest reports suggest Sephiroth has accelerated the planetary decay beyond even his projections. Estimates give us seventy-two hours until critical failure."  

Tifa's knees remembered buckling under collapsing plateaus. "Your point?"  

He turned, ice-blue eyes reflecting Meteor's bloody glow. "My board members prefer extinction to admit they backed the wrong deity. I find myself in need of heretics."

The weight of Rufus’s words settled like a stone in Tifa’s stomach, but she didn’t flinch. Not as Barret cursed under his breath, not as Meteor’s crimson glow bled through the tiny window, not even as the guards behind Rufus reached for their weapons.

Her heart pounded, but her mind was sharp.

Her fingers flexed at her sides, aching for the hilt of her gloves, the weight of a fight. Not yet.

Tifa met Rufus’s gaze head-on, searching for the lie in his cold, calculating stare—and finding none. This wasn’t a game. He meant it.

Tifa exhaled slowly, pushing down the fear clawing at her throat.

They had faced impossible odds before. They had fought gods, ghosts, and the weight of fate itself.

And now, with the world crumbling around them, she would do it again.

Tifa set her jaw, lifting her chin as she took a single step forward.

“Then I guess you better find yourself some heretics,” she said, her voice steady, steel-edged.

Because she would not die in this cell.

Not while Cloud was still out there, lost in the abyss.

Not while there was still time to bring him back.

Chapter Text

Chapter Ten - The Sound of Falling 

Tifa's exhale bloomed across Junon’s cool, humid night air, the condensation catching flecks of crimson light from windows that stretched floor to ceiling. Rain hammered the glass in wind-driven diagonals, each droplet bursting into prismatic sprays under Meteor's baleful glow. The air reeked of ionized mako and something sweetly astringent that made her nostrils burn - not the pine-resin scent lingering at the edges of her memory, but something artificial, desperate to sterilize.  

Steel cuffs bit into her wrists where they crossed behind her back, the cold seeping past calluses earned through years of training that still felt foreign and unknown to her. Her booted feet registered alternating textures - gritty traction strips then ice-slick alloy - as the military procession wound through corridors that seemed to never stop turning. The guards' synchronized footsteps became hammers on the anvil of her skull, each metallic echo conjuring phantom memories of climbing Nibelheim's shale slopes. She stumbled over nothing, knees threatening betrayal, until a gauntleted hand clamped her bicep.  

"There she is!" It was a woman's voice, sharp with revulsion and disdain. Tifa lifted her chin to see a wall of monitors flashing her face - no, not quite her face. The jawline was too squared, eyes glowing toxic green under the words ENEMY OF THE PLANET scrolling in angry red. Her reflection in the black glass showed sunken cheeks crusted with dried blood, hair matted in a nest of battlefield snarls. The real horror lived in her eyes - twin voids swallowing Meteor's light.  

Tifa blinked, staring up at the faces of her friends that flashed across the screen with the same propagandized photo manipulation. Barret Wallace, the Midgar AVALANCHE cell leader. Still wanted were Cid Highwind and Yuffie Kisaragi, a former Shinra pilot accused of espionage and defection, and a Wutain ninja, a sworn enemy of the state.  A beastly, missing and highly dangerous lab specimen de-classified as only number XIII. 

And of course, most urgently, an Ex-SOLDIER First Class, Cloud Strife.  Suspected of aiding and abetting not only the terrorist organization AVALANCHE, but also presumed to be associated with the deadly activities of Sephiroth, including the summoning of the world-threatening meteor in the sky. His picture blinked across the screen, hollow ultramarine eyes staring right into her soul, begging her for salvation.

Tifa swallowed as she felt a grunt shove the barrel of his rifle menacingly into her spine, urging her to walk faster. 

You saved me before, now it’s my turn.  

Her own words punished her as his boyhood face plagued her vision. Somewhere beyond this labyrinth of rivets and fluorescence, a mountain bridge spanned clouds. A promise floated in turquoise mist, lips brushing hers with the taste of well-water and boyish sweat. She squeezed her eyes shut, chasing the ghost.  

"We have confirmation from President Rufus," announced a nasal voice over the intercom. "Proceed directly to Chamber C-12 for terminal processing."  

The hand on her arm tightened, and the rifle prodded again. Tifa opened her eyes to green.  It wasn’t the memory-green of valley meadows, but the putrescent glow of mako reactors. It bled from every recessed light panel, reflecting off the guards' sealed helmets until they became floating orbs of radiation sickness. 

The air was sterile and chemical, sharp with disinfectant and something faintly metallic, like blood diluted in water. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting an eerie, clinical glow across the gleaming floor and smooth, seamless walls. No windows. No vents. Just a network of pipes coiled into the ceiling, their tips lined with circular nozzles that looked too purposeful to be anything but lethal. Her boots squeaked against the tile as she caught herself, eyes scanning for escape even as the magnetic lock behind her sealed with a final, echoing click.

Junon Harbor boiled below, waves crashing against the Sister Ray's support struts. And there, dominating the bleeding sky, Meteor's crystalline bulk turned the world to stained glass. Crimson light lanced through its geodesic fractures, painting the storm clouds in hues of clotting blood. For one vertiginous moment, she remembered standing beneath a different apocalypse - Sector 7's plate fracturing overhead, screams rising like smoke from the ruins. 

A gloved hand in hers, squeezing tight.  

The guards yanked her sideways into a rigid steel chair bolted to the floor, its surface icy against her skin as thick restraints clamped down across her wrists, forearms, and ankles with mechanical finality. She struggled on instinct, but the cuffs bit into her skin, unyielding. One of the guards muttered something under his breath—maybe an insult, maybe a prayer—as he fastened a padded strap across her chest, locking her completely in place. The click of each buckle felt like a countdown. They didn’t speak to her. No explanation. No threats. Just protocol. One typed something into the wall panel and turned to go. The door hissed shut behind them, sealing with an ominous thunk. Then silence. Tifa’s heart pounded against the strap across her chest. The room was too white, too quiet, except for the faint hum of overhead lighting and the slow, pulsing hiss of air venting through the nozzles above. Her breath quickened, panic creeping up her spine like frostbite. She tugged against the restraints again, more desperately now, but they didn’t give. No one was coming. Her memories were still broken, but her body remembered what this was. 

Death.

When the first tendrils of gas kissed her ankles, it smelled of extinguished birthday candles and the gasoline leaking from the fuel tank of old truck in Nibelheim's square. She pressed her back harder against the riveted wall, her bare thighs sticking to the cryo-treated steel. Meteor's light leaked in through a tiny porthole, painting everything in arterial crimson—the floor's hexagonal drainage grates, her boots’ ragged edges, the condensation spiderwebbing from the observation window's upper left corner.

"Subject shows elevated theta waves," crackled a voice from hidden speakers. "Proceeding with phase two."

The gas thickened into languid coils that climbed her body with a predator’s patience. It tickled her knees' hollows, swirled in her navel's indent, and pooled in the clavicular dip where Cloud's nose had once brushed during that snowbound night in Holzoff’s cabin, a night she found she was now struggling to recall. Her lungs spasmed in primal protest as the mist reached her nostrils.

Before she could ruminate on that thought, something massive struck the facility's lower levels.

The entire chamber shuddered, making it seem that all of Junon shifted and tilted. Alarm klaxons warbled as the gas dispersed chaotically, forming fractal patterns that mirrored the throbbing bruise on her hip. The jolt had been so violent it tore bolts from their moorings—her seat wrenched halfway from the floor, metal groaning under stress, and the restraints across her legs and torso strained, then snapped loose. The right arm cuff jammed, but the left gave way with a sharp pop. She twisted, yanking her arm free, then clawed at the other until it gave. The room spun, disoriented from both the gas and the tremors, but her instincts kicked in. She crawled toward the observation window, palms slipping on suddenly dewy steel, every muscle screaming with urgency.

Through the triple-paned glass above, she could see how the ocean boiled with the fervor of something distant but violent. A spire of iridescent chitin breached the waves, taller than Junon's central elevator shaft. 

And then, she saw it.

The WEAPON's carapace glittered with alien bioluminescence, shifting between ultraviolet and infrared in patterns that burned afterimages against Tifa's retinas. Its dorsal fin tore through an offshore platform like rice paper, scattering Shinra personnel like ants in a kicked nest.

"Identification: Sapphire WEAPON,” the speaker's voice stammered. "All personnel evacua—"

The sound that followed liquefied Tifa's bones. The WEAPON's roar traveled through the facility's metallic skeleton, vibrating her teeth into a disharmonic resonance. She watched in silent awe as its cranial array swiveled toward her chamber, photoreceptors narrowing into slits of cobalt fire. 

The chamber's roof split open and peeled back like lotus petals, exposing Tifa to screaming winds. She stood ankle-deep in the still swirling gas, unblinking as the WEAPON's colossal face filled her universe. There, a jagged scar ran across its right pectoral fin, edges glowing faintly with curative mucus. 

Her lungs seized. Not from poison, but remembrance. 

Gongaga’s ruins sprawled above them, a shattered patchwork of jungle and ash as the WEAPON thrashed through the swirling depths, roaring in pain. Tifa floated weightlessly within its glowing core—inside the living lattice of its Lifestream-infused body—watching through layers of shimmering bone and translucent hide as Sephiroth drove the Masamune deep into the creature’s right fin. The sword sank up to the hilt, a burst of green light erupting from the wound like a bleeding star. The WEAPON screamed, its cry vibrating through her bones, and she clutched at nothing, helpless to stop it. The fin jerked violently, sinew tearing, black ichor spiraling into the air. Tifa gasped as the agony the creature felt rippled through her—foreign, yet eerily familiar. 

She could feel its pain, its rage, its will to protect. As the WEAPON spiraled away from Sephiroth’s strike, she was hurled deeper into its energy, engulfed by the Lifestream’s pull, Cloud’s fragmented voice echoing faintly through the current, already beginning to fray.

“It was you..." She stumbled forward, her arm outstretched as the memory returned and then dissipated like mist. The WEAPON's answering rumble vibrated in her molars, a sound older than Gaia’s continents. Its clawed appendage hovered millimeters from her palm, charged particles arcing across the gap. 

White light annihilated the moment. 

The Sister Ray's particle beam struck the WEAPON at the neck, severing its massive head in a flash of white-hot plasma that vaporized bone, muscle, and armor in an instant. Tifa's retinas adjusted, capturing every nanosecond—carapace ablating layer by layer, photoreceptors bursting like overripe fruit, the scar's luminous edges blackening and curling. The creature's death cry contained multitudes: the shriek of tearing continental plates, the wail of dying stars, the whimper of a girl watching her mother's coffin lower into Nibelheim’s cold earth.

She was screaming, too, though she couldn't hear it. The WEAPON's collapsing form, sinking with a seismic splash into Junon’s harbor, backlit her against the apocalyptic red sky. Its disintegrating form drifted past her outstretched fingers, and as it crumbled, something passed between them—not touch, but transmission. A final pulse of thought, emotion, memory. Without words, it buried itself in her mind: a vision of Cloud suspended in glowing green currents, eyes vacant, fingers clawing through the void as if searching for her in the dark.

When the shockwave hit, Tifa's body became language. Every scar, every freckle, every war-torn cell sang the same word: 

Run.

The first of her senses to return was taste - copper and brine undercut with something abyssal, as if she'd licked the Junon Trench's floor. When she blinked, afterimages floated like jellyfish blooms—pulsing remnants of the particle beam's wrath burned into her optic nerves. 

She climbed to the roof of the gas chamber, hauling herself up through the jagged rupture left by the WEAPON’s strike, her hands slipping on warped steel slick with condensation and blood. Smoke curled around her as she emerged into the open air, the wind slapping her face and whipping her hair into her eyes. Just ahead, the cannon’s observation deck loomed through the haze, tilted at a precarious angle. She crawled toward the observation deck’s shattered edge on raw knees, each movement accompanied by the symphonic creak of dying infrastructure. The WEAPON's carcass dominated the seascape, its once-iridescent carapace now dull as charcoal as it continued to sink, steam and ash curling from its sundered neck like the last breath of a god.

Rain fell in jagged diamonds. 

Tifa's pulse beat a death march in her chest, each throb syncing with the Sister Ray's overheating core. She scaled the maintenance ladder two rungs at a time, fingers blistering on alloy hot enough to sear her fingerprints away. Below, the ocean vomited up dying machinery—twisted helicopter rotors, smoldering Shinra banners, the occasional limb still twitching under waves turned iridescent from mako leaks. The entire fortress was in chaos following the WEAPON’s attack, and she could hear the brutal aftermath continue to erupt below.

"Leaving so soon, little bird?"

The syrupy voice carved through the storm of alarms and smoke like a poisoned blade. Scarlet - Shinra’s Weaponary Director - descended from the upper deck in a mechanized exosuit—a sleek, crimson walker with gold trim and Shinra insignias etched into its plating. The cockpit sealed around her waist like a throne of war, towering her over Tifa by at least two meters. Hydraulic limbs hissed with menace as stiletto-shaped servos clicked against the steel catwalk. Her signature vermillion dress, somehow untouched by the inferno, flared beneath the armored plating like a ceremonial shroud.

Scarlet smirked. “You're a persistent little vermin, I’ll give you that. But every rat maze ends at a wall.”

Tifa braced herself, breath catching in her throat. Her limbs trembled with exhaustion, blood trailing down her forearm from a gash she barely remembered earning. Her knees buckled slightly as the deck groaned beneath her, every tremor from the crumbling cannon tower radiating up through her bones. Her head throbbed. Pressure and thinning air from the altitude made her nauseous. Somewhere above the ringing in her ears, she thought she could still hear the WEAPON’s final scream echoing through the ocean air.

Scarlet raised the mech's right arm, hinged with a compressed launcher unit, and fired. A tungsten spike screamed through the air. Tifa threw herself sideways just in time; the spike embedded into the grating inches from where her skull had been, molten edges still glowing.

Scarlet's laugh followed like perfume laced with poison. “Still quick on your feet, even without your little lapdog here to carry you.”

Tifa’s breath hitched. 

Cloud .

His name struck like shrapnel in her chest, tearing through the thick fog of blood loss and adrenaline. For a moment—just a flicker—she was back in the Lifestream, floating amongst green light, his voice calling her name, haunted by the helpless look in his eyes as he followed blindly behind Sephiroth.

That pain anchored her.

Scarlet launched another volley. Tifa ducked beneath the mech’s wide swing and slid across the deck, boots scraping sparks. A mounted taser arm lashed out, crackling violently. It connected with flesh, an arcing burst that flared across her shoulder. She screamed, dropping to one knee with her teeth clenched in agony. The scent of scorched fabric and ozone filled her nostrils. Her skin sizzled where the charge had caught.

Scarlet circled with maddening grace. “Is that what you’re fighting for, dear? Some broken little puppet swimming in mako soup? A shame you can’t remember how forgettable he was.”

Tifa surged upright, rage overriding the pain. She lunged forward, feinting left, then ducked under a swipe from the mech’s serrated limb. She rolled toward one of the cannon's exposed power terminals, a crackling bundle of damaged wiring left from the earlier WEAPON assault. Her hands moved on instinct, yanking free a sparking conduit cable. It hissed like a live serpent in her grip.

Scarlet’s mech stomped forward. “A power cord? Really?” Her laughter pierced the rage-filled sky

Tifa didn’t speak. She waited, breathing through the pain, heart hammering as she let the mech close in. The moment Scarlet lifted the arm-mounted cannon for another shot, Tifa spun, using momentum to vault herself up the side of the walker. Her boots scraped against its armored thigh as she climbed higher, dodging the whirring servo near the hip joint.

Scarlet's eyes widened just as Tifa jammed the live cable directly into the mech’s exposed thoracic port. The reaction was immediate. Electricity surged through the walker’s core, and Scarlet shrieked as the cockpit convulsed. Her limbs snapped outward like a marionette dipped in lightning. The stench of scorched electronics and melting poly-flesh filled the air.

The mech spasmed, flailed once, and collapsed backward in a screech of tortured metal.

Tifa dropped to the ground beside it, knees buckling, breath heaving in ragged sobs. Her vision blurred. Her arms shook. Her body screamed in protest. But Scarlet was down—twisted in her cockpit, limbs twitching, eyes bloodshot and locked in a silent, hateful glare.

From within the ruined mech, Scarlet spat blood and fury. “Stop her! Don’t let her escape! Kill the little—”

Tifa didn’t wait to hear the rest.

Behind her, bootfalls began to thunder, soldiers emerging from the smoke, weapons raised.

She turned to face them, legs trembling and fists bloody. Her vision swam, her mind screaming for her to run. But her body wouldn’t move.

Suddenly, a voice bloomed in her mind like sunlight through fog. A man’s voice. 

Calm. Steady. Familiar.

“Run.”

Her breath caught.

“You’ll be okay. Just trust me.”

Her eyes widened. She didn’t know who it was. But she knew the voice. Somewhere deeper than memory, deeper than thought. It felt like home. Like warmth. 

Like Cloud.

She stumbled forward, the soldiers shouting behind her.

“To the end. Don’t stop.”

Even as her muscles screamed, even as she limped past ruined struts and flame-streaked catwalks, she moved. She obeyed. She didn’t know why—but she did.

“You’re not alone.”

The end of the cannon loomed, and beyond it was nothing but empty sky and ocean.

No escape.

But she kept running.

And just as she reached the edge, just as she prepared to leap into certain death, the clouds parted.

The Highwind burst into view, engines roaring like a chorus of angels. A rope ladder unfurled from the hull.

Barret’s voice cracked through the smoke. “TIFA!!”

She didn’t even think.  She simply jumped. Her body left the deck in free fall, bullets whizzing past her from the grunts behind. Her arms reached, catching the ladder mid-air. Pain flared in her shoulder, but she held on.

Barret’s massive hand grabbed her wrist and hauled her up with a grunt.

She collapsed onto the deck of the Highwind, gasping, trembling, shaking with pain and triumph and loss.

And somewhere deep in the green cradle of the Lifestream, Cloud Strife stirred.

Tifa limped toward the edge, every step leaving bloody footprints that evaporated in the radioactive heat. The escape ladder swung wildly thirty feet out over the maelstrom, its rungs glinting in Meteor's feverish light. Below, Scarlet's vengeful laughter bubbled wet and broken.

"Got you," Barret growled, hauling her onto the shuddering airship deck. "Ain't no gettin' rid of us that easy."

Tifa collapsed against the bulkhead, watching Junon's funeral pyre shrink beneath them.

Tifa’s gaze swept the deck. Red XIII stood near the bridge, his fur bristling as he sniffed the charged air. Cid barked out coordinates over the intercom, cigarette clenched between his teeth, the tip flaring red against the stormlight. Vincent’s crimson cloak rippled in the slipstream like blood in the wind. Yuffie’s shuriken glinted red beneath the shifting glow in the sky above. Even Cait Sith hovered close, bouncing with his Mooogle’s arms raised high above his head in heavy white fists.

But there was no spiky blonde hair cutting through the crowd. No Buster Sword glinting like a beacon. 

Just absence.  

“Where—” The word came out raw, shredded by smoke and grief. She staggered against Barret, grabbing a fistful of his harness as if she could anchor herself there. “Where is he?”  

Yuffie’s silence answered louder than any alarm.  

Tifa wrenched back, her breath hitching. Her hands covered her face as she turned and bolted, Barret’s voice calling after her, thunderous and distant. She tore through the Highwind’s narrow corridors like a storm, shoving open doors, ripping through curtains and lockers, searching for any trace of him.  

The infirmary: empty. Crew quarters: cold and still. Chocobo stalls: silent save for the rustle of hay. Even Cid’s storage closet, smelling of oil and iron, gave her nothing but dust and old rope.  

She caught her reflection in a porthole and froze. A wide-eyed stranger stared back at her, dark hair matted with WEAPON ichor, face streaked in soot and blood, eyes flickering unnaturally between warm crimson and eerie mako green. Her breath fogged the glass. Her knuckles, split from climbing the cannon’s wreckage, curled into fists. 

She struck the steel wall once. 

Then again. 

Again. 

Blood bloomed in stuttering arcs like broken constellations. Outside, muffled voices rose. Barret and Cid were arguing about whether to check on her. Vincent’s voice was quiet but firm in the background: “Give her a moment.”  

But moments were all she had, seconds ticking by like heartbeats in a failing body. She pressed her cheek against the steel she had just beaten, the vibration of the ship thrumming through her bones. The sound mimicked Cloud’s pulse, what she used to feel during those stolen pauses after battle, when they leaned into one another, temple to temple, pretending it was just exhaustion that kept them close.  

He was always there for her.

She pressed her ruined palm to the spot beside her, where her blood stained the steel.  He was always right at her side, a fixture of permanence that even with her amnesia that she had come to know as familiarly as her own face. A lullaby hummed in her throat, half-forgotten and instinctual. It was the kind of song you don’t remember learning but couldn’t forget if you tried.  

Her angry reverie was broken as Vincent’s shadow stretched across the threshold, distorted by the warped pebbled glass. He didn’t knock.  

“Memories are fractals,” he said from beyond the door. “Each fragment reflects the whole.”  

She didn’t lift her head. His words spun out in her chest. “What if the pieces don’t fit?”  

The knob creaked as it turned. He stepped inside, long and quiet, the flicker of emergency lights casting his cape in blood-red relief.  

“My nightmares of Lucrecia used to smell like jasmine and burnt wire,” he said. “Thirty years before I could even remember her face.”

Tifa flinched as she caught a sudden trace of Cloud in the room—his scent, woven into the air. Leather. Steel. Midgar’s smog. The static electricity of battle. Her chest constricted at the memories, and she pressed her face harder against her bloodied palms, the pain grounding her in the present.  

Vincent knelt beside her, not touching. Just near. “Your body remembers,” he said softly. “Even when your mind can’t.”  

He stood. His hand hovered over her shoulder, then slowly pulled back. He left without another word.  

Outside the viewport, Meteor burned low in the sky—its surface swirling with molten reds and black fractures like an open wound that would never close. The Highwind banked into its turn, and the reflection of the dying planet smeared across the window in front of her like blood in water. Tifa stared at it, hollow and silent. Inside her, everything ached—muscle, memory, meaning. The weight of what she couldn’t remember pressed down like a second gravity. 

She felt fractured, not just by loss but by uncertainty, like a puzzle missing its core piece. A stranger to herself. Her fists curled, trembling—not from anger, but from grief. 

She was so tired of forgetting. Of being lost. Of being left behind. 

But beneath all of it—beneath the confusion and despair and the sharp, gnawing fear that Cloud might be gone for good—there was still something solid. A thread of warmth running through the dark. 

It was him. 

The memory of his voice, the way her name had sounded inside her mind before she jumped. The way she knew he was still out there, somewhere, waiting. That hope—small, stubborn, and wrapped in love—was all she had left. 

And it would be enough. It had to be.

She found the others in the war room. A tactical display flickered in cerulean light across their faces as they collectively poured over facts and data and next steps. Cid jabbed his cigarette toward a glowing mark on the spinning map. “Mideel,” he said. “Whole place’s riddled with Lifestream vents. Last time I flew over, it looked like the damn planet was bleeding.”  

Barret’s fist slammed the table. “And we’re just gonna keep chasin’ ghosts while Meteor’s still fallin’? Corel’s got reactors too, hell of a lot closer—”  

“The voice,” Tifa said. Everyone turned. Her voice wasn’t loud. Just steady. “During the fall… a man’s voice told me to jump.”  

Red XIII narrowed his eyes. “You’ve been through quite an ordeal,” his youthful voice intoned softly.  “And exposed to a lot of mako, plasma, and gas.  Perhaps it was a mere psychic projection.”  

She shook her head. “It felt real. Like…” Her voice faltered. She wrapped her arms around herself, knuckles whitening. “Like a song I used to know. One I’ve always known, but can’t quite sing.”  

Yuffie stepped in, unusually quiet. She handed Tifa a chipped mug, steam curling from coffee that had been sitting in the airship’s cabinets far past any reasonable expiration date.  She accepted it anyway. 

“You think it was Cloud?”  

Tifa didn’t answer.  

Outside the viewport, Meteor glowed like a wound in the sky. As the Highwind banked sharply toward the Southern Continent, its reflection bled across the table like red ink.  

Below, somewhere inside the wounded planet, Cloud was still breathing. Broken. Lost.  

Hers .  

The Highwind lurched, its hull groaning as it cut through turbulent skies. Tifa gripped her mug and steadied herself against the conference table in the war room. Meteor’s red glare poured through the portholes, washing the interior in bloodlight. For a moment, the reflection in the polished table caught her off guard—her own soot-smeared face overlaid with another: Cloud, pale and contorted in silent agony, green light bleeding from his eyes. She blinked. The image fractured and vanished.  

Yuffie appeared in the doorway, her usual energy dampened to a sharp stillness. “Cid says we’ll be over Mideel in twenty,” she said, tossing Tifa a clean tank top.  

Tifa changed quickly, grateful for anything that didn’t smell like fire and fear. She scrubbed soot from her brow with the edge of her sleeve and stepped into the hallway, this time really seeing the ship around her. 

Add grand theft airship to her ever-growing list of crimes.  

The corridors reeked of jet fuel, sweat, and days-old coffee. Footsteps echoed off steel plating. The ceiling lights flickered with every turbulence jolt. Crew shouted orders down the narrow halls, and somewhere, an engine whined like a dying animal.  

“He’s alive,” Tifa said suddenly, voice low but steady. The words cut through her own doubt like a blade.  

Yuffie didn’t reply right away. Her gaze dropped to Tifa’s bloodied knuckles. “Then why didn’t he come back?”  

The silence that followed stretched taut, unraveling at the edges, until Red XIII’s voice rumbled through the hold. “The storm is worsening. Cid requests navigational support.”  

They made their way to the cockpit, where static danced across cracked monitors and Cid argued with the flight crew over glowing green flight maps.  

“Lifestream geysers ain’t just scenery,” Cid barked, jabbing his cigarette at a flashing coordinate. “They’ll rip the whole damn ship in half if we get pulled into one!”  

Outside, Meteor pulsed like a heartbeat in the clouds, casting its sick glow through the cockpit glass. The Highwind banked, its engines groaning as it descended.  

Tifa moved to the viewport. Below, Mideel sprawled like a living wound—lush jungle steaming beneath perpetual rain, the canopy scored with glowing veins of Lifestream that pulsed like arteries. She pressed her forehead to the cold glass, a dull, clean pain to match the hollow in her chest where his heartbeat should be.  

Somewhere in that green-lit inferno, he was waiting. 

And she would find him. No matter what waited beneath.  

Mideel was quiet. Too quiet.

The jungle’s breath met Tifa as she stepped off the Highwind—hot, wet, and clinging, perfumed with earth and something faintly metallic beneath the rain. The town spread out before them in lazy coils of wooden walkways and mist-veiled rooftops. Everywhere, the scent of the Lifestream hung heavy in the air, glowing fissures threading through the underbrush like veins beneath skin.

The others fanned out in search of answers, boots creaking against warped planks. Tifa approached one of the villagers, but the old man only shook his head. No, he hadn’t seen anyone. Another shrugged. A young woman blinked at her, confused, and said no strangers had come by her shop. It was the same at every corner—no answers, no recognition.

Frustrated, Tifa drifted toward the edge of a dock where the jungle met the sea. There, curled in the shadow of a half-cracked crate, a small white cat mewed softly, its fur matted and one paw muddy. Her breath caught. She crouched, arms stretching slowly.

"What's the matter?" she murmured, her voice softer than the mist curling off the ocean. "Are you all alone? You got lost, didn't you? Separated from someone you love...?" She picked the cat up gently, petting behind its ears. It purred weakly, nuzzling her chest. "Silly thing..." She cradled it for a moment longer, her heart aching from the uncanny mirror the animal offered.

Then—voices. Nearby, just around the corner of a toolshed.

“Blond guy, yeah—washed up on the south shore yesterday. Barely breathing.”  

“The clinic took him in. Haven’t seen him since.”  

“He was real messed up. Eyes glowing like the core of a reactor.”  

Tifa’s head whipped toward the sound, the cat forgotten as it leapt from her arms. Her boots were already moving before she spoke. “Where is the clinic?” she asked the men. They looked up, startled, then pointed north.

She ran.

The town blurred around her—broken fences, steaming cracks in the ground, villagers stepping aside as she tore past. She heard the others calling behind her but didn’t stop.

The clinic came into view—a weather-worn building nestled between two massive roots, vines trailing over its awning like veins. She burst through the front doors, winded, and a nurse startled behind the counter.

“I’m looking for someone,” Tifa said breathlessly. “Blond hair, blue eyes, tall. He’d have… a sword with him, maybe. Or…” Her voice faltered. “Or maybe nothing at all.”

A door creaked open to her right. A man in a white coat emerged, mid-forties, spectacles glinting faintly with green reflections. “You’re describing the man who washed up yesterday,” he said gently. “He’s in our care now, down in room seven. Come with me.”

They followed him down a dim corridor lit with bioluminescent lanterns. Vines curled at the corners of the ceiling. The air was damp, pulsing faintly with the ever-present hum of Lifestream beneath the floorboards.

He led her to a small room at the end of the hall.  Room Seven.

Cloud lay motionless on the gurney.

He looked smaller somehow. Thinner. The sharp angles of his face had dulled with days of unconsciousness. His skin held a sickly pallor that the IV’s green glow only worsened. An oxygen mask veiled his mouth and nose. Electrodes clung to his temples. The rhythmic hiss of the ventilator tracked every breath like a metronome for grief.

Dr. Donovan’s voice was quiet and clinical, but not unkind.

“Mako poisoning… quite an advanced case. It appears this young man’s been exposed to a high level of Mako energy for a protracted period of time.” 

He paused, watching her face. Tifa blinked, staring at Cloud’s supine form as Barret and Cid crowded behind her. 

“Mako poisoning,” she whispered idly.

“He probably has no idea who or where he is now,” Dr. Donovan went on.  “Poor fellow, his voice doesn’t even work. He is literally miles away from us. Some place far away where no one’s ever been... All alone…”

Tifa’s breath hitched as she took one step toward the bed, and then another. Her fingers hovered near Cloud’s hand, afraid to touch, afraid to wake him—afraid he wouldn’t wake at all.

“Cloud…” she whispered. Her knees buckled. She collapsed into the chair beside him, burying her face in her hands as the others murmured and grunted amongst themselves, and then quietly began to file out of the room.

The door clicked shut behind them.

Alone now, Tifa gripped his hand and sobbed. All the hurt and hope, the fear, the forgotten memories, the longing—it all poured out, unfiltered, raw, agonized. She whispered promises she wasn’t sure she could keep. Apologies for things she couldn’t even remember. She begged him to come back. Told him how lost she’d been without him. How scared she was still.

And through it all, the machine kept breathing for him. 

In. Out. In. Out.

A rhythm.

But it wasn’t his rhythm. 

Nightfall brought thunder, each low rumble echoing like something ancient stirring beneath the surface. Lightning cracked the horizon, throwing sharp silver light across the room. Between flashes, Tifa catalogued the quiet erosion of the man she loved—his stillness too perfect, his lips dry and cracked no matter how often she swabbed them with balm stolen from the nurses’ carts. A faint papercut traced his collarbone from the rough shift of hospital linens. Once, his fingers twitched—and her heart soared—only to crash seconds later when it became clear it was just a phantom signal, some errant nerve firing in an otherwise silent body.

At dawn, Barret entered with a rice ball, setting it in her hand with a grunt. “Eat, dammit.”

She stared at it. The seaweed wrap curled in on itself, creased in a pattern that reminded her of the grooves in the water tower’s wood back home in Nibelheim. She took one bite. It tasted like wet paper. 

The second bite tasted like ash.

Barret paced. His boots echoed too loudly in the small room, and it made her nerves jittery, her knees buckling where she sat. When she didn’t speak, he exploded.

“This ain’t right, Tifa. You sittin’ here like some damn ghost.”

She didn’t look up.

“I know you wanna believe in him,” Barret continued. “But maybe… maybe he ain’t who we thought he was. Maybe he never was. Guy shows up with memories that don’t line up, strength like a SOLDIER but no official record… Maybe he’s just what Hojo said he was. A puppet. Sephiroth’s shadow.”

Tifa’s head lifted, slowly.

Barret exhaled. “We can’t afford to keep pretendin’. We gotta move. Shinra’s on the hunt again, and Sephiroth’s camped out at the crater. We can’t waste time on someone who’s already gone.”

“He’s not gone.”

“Tifa…”

“I don’t care what Hojo said. I don’t care what you think. I know he’s still in there.”

Barret’s jaw tightened. “You think so. But how much of that’s real? Even he didn’t know who he was.”

“I know,” she said, louder now, standing. “Even when my memories were broken, even when I couldn’t put the pieces together—I knew him. And every day, I remember more. Every moment I spend by his side, something comes back. A laugh. A story. A scar. And not just the old memories. New ones, too. Of who he became. Of who he tried to be.”

She crossed the room, standing between Barret and the bed.

“You can go. All of you. Fight Sephiroth. Stop Shinra. Save the world if you have to. But I…”

Her hand found Cloud’s. Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“I don’t care about anything else. Only Cloud… I want to be by his side.”

Barret looked away. When he finally spoke, his voice was rougher, subdued. 

“You’re stronger than me, Tifa.” 

He didn’t try to argue again.

Later that day, the team began to drift. Cid muttered about coordinates and bad air pressure and stomped off toward the Highwind. Yuffie lingered at the doorway before slipping a kunai into the frame, just in case, she said, something needed stabbing. Red XIII pressed his forehead to Tifa’s knees in silence. Vincent stepped to Cloud’s bedside and paused. He met Tifa’s eyes, quiet understanding passing between them like breath. Then, without a word, he turned and slipped into the rain.

She was alone.

Just her and Cloud.

The storm had passed, but Mideel still breathed like it was holding something back. The scent of damp wood and Lifestream clung to the air, thick and faintly metallic. Inside the dimly lit clinic, Tifa sat beside Cloud’s bed, voice soft and tired as she read from a worn Corel travelogue. Something about it reminded her of their last good day. Sun. Sand. His hand resting close to hers, even if neither reached.

She was mid-sentence when the door creaked open behind her.

“Forgive the intrusion,” came a voice—warm, low, and familiar. “But I heard you were here.”

Tifa turned.

She was on her feet before she fully registered it. “Dr. Sheiran?”

The older man smiled. Rain dripped from the hem of his coat. His hair, silver-streaked and windblown, curled at his collar.

He stepped further inside, his eyes flicking briefly to Cloud, then back to her. “I didn’t expect to find you here. I was passing through, following Lifestream activity readings. Then I heard about a comatose young man. Mako exposure. Blond. Blue-eyed. Something told me to look.”

Tifa swallowed hard. Her grip tightened on the edge of Cloud’s blanket. “He’s not—He’s not gone.”

“I believe you.” Dr. Sheiran said it gently, without hesitation.

She glanced up, startled by the certainty in his tone.

“I’ve seen mako poisoning in every form—rage, silence, collapse. But I’ve also seen strange things. Impossible things. One man woke after twelve years because his daughter refused to stop talking to him. Every day. Every morning, she’d read him the weather.”

Tifa blinked. Her throat tightened.

Dr. Sheiran set a small datapad on the windowsill. Charts glowed briefly, faint blue pulses reflecting in his glasses.

“His EEG readings spike when you speak,” he said. “When you read. When you… sing.”

Tifa froze.

“It’s subtle,” he continued, “but real. A pattern. A tether. Something in your voice… it resonates. Not with his ears. But deeper.”

“You’re saying…” Her voice dropped. “You think he can hear me.”

“I think your voice is more than sound to him,” Sheiran said, stepping closer. “I think it’s memory. Connection. I think it’s home.”

Tifa’s eyes filled. Her hand found Cloud’s, resting lightly on the back of it.

“You said something like that in Corel,” she murmured. “About emotional frequency overriding cognitive decline. I thought you were being poetic.”

“I probably was.” He smiled faintly. “But sometimes, the poetry turns out to be true.”

A long silence stretched between them. Then Sheiran dipped his head in a parting nod.

“If you’ll allow it, I’d like to stay a few days. Observe. And… I have recordings. Tones. Auditory tests. But only if you’re willing.”

Tifa nodded, stunned. “Yes. Of course.”

He turned to leave, then paused at the threshold.

“You already know the most important thing,” he said. “Keep speaking. Keep singing. He’s still with you. The question isn’t whether he remembers. It’s whether you can reach him.”

Then he was gone.

The door clicked softly shut behind him.

By week’s end, Tifa could recite Cloud’s medical chart like scripture—his vitals, medications, fluctuations in oxygen saturation. She learned the nurses’ shifts by heart and timed her steps so precisely she could slip extra balm and morphine syringes into her skirt’s pocket without notice. She stopped eating anything more than water and scraps. Even flavor had abandoned her. All that remained was the sharp, mineral sting of Lifestream in the air—metallic, faintly sweet, a ghostly aroma she couldn’t name.

During the day, she wheeled Cloud through the village’s winding paths—his unblinking face tilted toward the jungle canopy as if it might stir something inside him. She spoke to him constantly, even when others looked on with pity or polite confusion. The wheels squeaked over moss-covered walkways, leaves rustling above them in patterns she imagined he’d find soothing if he could only hear them. His blanket would slide, and she’d adjust it carefully and gently. His head would loll to the side in the wind, and she’d cradle it with gloved fingers, brushing his hair back in quiet apology.

Sometimes they’d stop beneath the old banyan tree in the village square, where Mideel’s children dared each other to peek at the glowing fissures between the stones. She’d crouch beside him and speak low, her voice threading into the air like prayer.

She told him whatever she could remember, even the memories that were still messy and she wasn’t really sure were even fully True. How they’d stomped through the Sector Seven slums pretending every odd job was a mission from the Planet. About the Icicle Region, and how only his furnace-like body heat could keep her from turning blue beneath those heavy blankets. She reminded him of standing beneath the water tower in the rebuilt Nibelheim, holding him close as he helped her to remember the promise that had started this all. 

Of their first kiss under a bloom of fireworks at the Golden Saucer, and the way he’d pulled her close in the glow.

She confessed to the ache she’d felt seeing him in his SOLDIER uniform. How she both loved and hated the way he looked in it—so sharp, so strong, yet so far from the boy she knew. How her heart twisted with pride and pain at the sight of him.

Her voice would break, grow raspy. Then whispery. Then only the shape of words, mouthed silently against the back of his hand. She never once stopped.

At night, when the nurses dimmed the lights, she would curl herself against his side in his gurney. Her boots on the floor, one hand clutching the thin blanket that covered him, cheek pressed to the crook of his arm as if pretending he had just fallen asleep. She listened to the quiet rhythm of machines that breathed for him. The occasional drip of condensation from the ceiling. The rain.

The nights were hardest. It was then that her memories twisted—phantoms rising from fractured places. A flash of Cloud’s smile, his voice echoing her name inside her mind. The weight of him when he’d catch her mid-fall. The ghost of his lips brushing hers, just before it all went dark. She remembered promises without context. Kisses that felt too vivid to be dreams. 

And every time a new memory clicked into place, it burned her like fire and saved her like light.

The care was unglamorous—tedious, even. She bathed him, gently washing behind his ears, along his neck, his arms. Brushed his teeth with damp gauze. Cleaned beneath his fingernails. Changed his bedding, massaged his legs to keep the muscles from withering. There were days she nearly vomited from the antiseptic smell, from exhaustion, from the quiet horror of watching someone she loved exist in stasis. 

But she never stopped.

She did it all because it was him. Because even if he wasn’t there , his body still carried the weight of their shared past. Her love for him ran deeper than memory, deeper than thought. It lived in her bones.

Eventually, she began to sing.

At first, it was a hum—shaky, tuneless. But then her voice began to shape itself around something older. A half-lullaby from Nibelheim. Maybe something her mother had once hummed, maybe not. She didn’t know the words, not fully. But the melody came on instinct.

She leaned down one night, lips near his ear, and sang through the static in her throat.

“A million shades of light

The old echo fades away

But just you and I

Can find the answer and then

We can run to the end of the world”

Her voice cracked, but she kept going.

“… We can run to the end of the world …”

Cloud’s hand twitched.

It was small. Barely a movement. But it was there.

She gasped, jerking upright, both hands grasping his now-still wrist. Her breath caught in her throat. Her eyes burned. She waited.

But it didn’t happen again. The silence resumed. The machines beeped, sighed, pulsed.

Tifa swallowed hard, pressing her forehead to the back of his hand. Her tears came quietly, soaking into the fabric of his blanket.

And still, she kept singing.

The tremor hit just after nightfall.

It started as a hum, subtle and deep—a bass note that rattled glass. Then the ground lurched sideways. Villagers screamed. The sky fractured with green light as a geyser of raw Lifestream burst through the jungle floor, spraying glowing mist high into the air. Clinic monitors spiked in response. Outside, the jungle screamed.  

Tifa bolted upright from Cloud’s side, hand still resting over his chest. 

"Incoming threat,” Red XIII warned, racing into the room.  She hadn’t know when her friends had returned, it had been nearly a week since they’d left her in Mideel with Cloud. "It’s the same pattern from Gongaga. And it’s heading for the village center.”  

Tifa ran to the window.  

Through the mist, the silhouette of the WEAPON came into focus—leaner than the ocean-born colossus at Junon, but unmistakable. Silver and magenta plating shimmered like molten crystal as it stalked through the ruins. Six limb-like appendages sprawled from its core, the creature navigating rooftops like a spider.  

Then she saw it. The bright, silver and magenta capillary network pulsing across its carapace. The shimmer of its exposed core.  

She remembered—green light, Gongaga, falling. The WEAPON had been there. It had shielded her in the Lifestream. Protected her.  

“It’s the second one,” she whispered. “It remembers us.”  

Before she could move, a thunderclap of power split the sky.  On the ground below, she could see the rest of their party, already positioned for defense.

Yuffie's shuriken struck the creature’s eye cluster and bounced off harmlessly. The WEAPON recoiled, then shrieked in pain. It retaliated instantly—an arc of energy fired from its limbs, atomizing the town hall.  

“Fall back!” Cid yelled, raising his spear as he charged a materia attack. “Get out, all of you!”  

The village descended into chaos. Residents screamed and scattered as buildings collapsed. Lifestream tore through the earth in glowing fissures, devouring walkways and swallowing entire structures in seconds.  

Tifa spun toward the clinic. Cloud.  

The building was crumbling. Support beams cracked. A medical cart tumbled past her feet.  

“Miss, you have to go—now!” a nurse shouted, grabbing her arm. “We can’t—he’s unconscious, there’s no time!”  

“I’m not leaving him!” Tifa tore free and raced back into the collapsing hall.  

Cloud’s gurney was sliding toward a deep fracture in the clinic floor, one wheel already dangling over empty space. Monitors blared. IV lines snapped like veins torn from flesh.  

With a cry, she lunged forward, throwing her weight into the bed. It tilted dangerously but stayed upright. She unfastened the restraints with trembling fingers, hauling his dead weight into her arms and dragging him toward the emergency wheelchair jammed into the corner.  

Her breath came in gasps. The air reeked of burning plastic and exposed mako. Sparks rained from the ceiling.  

“Come on,” she whispered. “Stay with me. Just a little longer.”  

She hoisted Cloud into the chair—awkward, heavy, unyielding. His head lolled against her shoulder. Then she ran, pushing the wheelchair with every ounce of strength and speed she possessed.  

Outside, the village was disintegrating. Roots split and planks shattered beneath her boots. The wheelchair’s wheels bounced violently over uneven terrain.  

The WEAPON loomed at the far end of town, tearing through buildings as if hunting something. Searching. Remembering.  

“Cloud!” Tifa screamed into the storm, weaving through falling debris. “You know him, don’t you? You came for him!”  

The creature paused. Its eye cluster swiveled, locking on her.  

A moment passed.  

Then it screamed.  

The ground beneath her feet ruptured. Concrete shattered and erupted in every direction behind her. The wheelchair hit a jagged edge and toppled—Cloud’s limp body nearly spilling out as Tifa caught him, falling hard onto one knee.  

“No no no—” she gasped, dragging him up again, arm around his shoulders. “Not now.”  

The street behind them crumbled into nothing. Steam rose from the jungle floor. A final Lifestream surge exploded upward, swallowing the last of Mideel’s western edge.  

They were almost to the cliff path—almost safe—when the ground dropped beneath them.  

Tifa screamed as the earth gave way, Cloud still in her arms.  

They fell, suspended in a moment of chaos.  

Chunks of the village spun around them—shattered beams, chairs, glowing fragments of crystalized Lifestream. The WEAPON’s cry echoed above, distant now, but still shaking her chest from within.  

Tifa twisted midair, wrapping her body around Cloud’s, shielding him with everything she had left. Her ribs cracked on impact. They hit a ledge, bounced, then slid. She held on, screaming into his shoulder.  

Then the ledge broke too. They plunged into the core, cold slamming into her like a thousand needles.  

The Lifestream swallowed them whole. It was like falling through memory.

Her lungs burned. Her limbs convulsed. But her mind—her mind split open.

She saw it all. Zack. Nibelheim. A boy with Cloud’s face crying beneath a water tower. Sephiroth’s voice like poisoned silk. Her own hands bloody in snow.  

Her grip faltered. The current pulled Cloud away.  

“No!” she choked, kicking downward, arms outstretched. Their fingers brushed—his still, hers shaking, glowing faintly with mako.  

Darkness rose between them like a tide.

Then he was gone.  

She screamed, but the green took her voice. Her thoughts unraveled, trailing behind her like threads in water.  

Above, Meteor’s glow began to flicker.

Chapter Text

Chapter Eleven

The Light Between

Cloud fell through veins of light that pulsed around him like the fading beat of a dying heart. The green pressed into him from all sides - not water, not air, but something older than both, something that tasted of iron and starlight and the first breaths drawn by the Planet itself. His body tumbled in the faraway distance, a broken doll in currents he couldn't feel, but his mind scattered into fragments, each piece catching on memories that blazed and dimmed like embers in an endless void.

A woman's hands, rough from gardening but soft from love, smoothed the fever from his forehead. The scent of chicken soup filled the small kitchen where sunlight caught dust motes in the amber suspension above his eyelids. His mother's voice hummed a tune he'd forgotten the words to, something about mountains and promises, and when she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkled in ways that made him feel safe. 

But behind her stood the empty chair where his father should have been. The absence had weight and texture, as smooth as the worry stone she kept in her apron pocket and as heavy as the silence when neighbors asked after him.

The kitchen dissolved into schoolyard dirt. His knees still stung from a fall he couldn't remember taking, and through the fence slats, he watched her. Tifa. It was always Tifa. She laughed at something one of the other boys said, her head thrown back, dark hair catching the light like spun silk. The sound carved hollows in his chest. He pressed closer to the fence, the wood grain printing itself into his palms, and tried to imagine what words might make her turn his way. But his tongue felt thick, clumsy, full of sand and shame. 

The other boys called her name easily, tossed it between them like a ball, while he could barely whisper it to himself in the dark of his room.

More memories crashed over him - her window glowing warm while he shivered in the shadows below, counting the minutes until her light went out. The way she moved through the village, purposeful and bright, while he skulked at edges, in corners, behind things. Once, he’d found her cat, Maru, wandering near the river, and he'd kept her for days before his mother finally gave up and brought her home to Tifa herself.

The current seized him, pulled him under and through and apart. Green light fragmented into prisms that sang with voices he couldn't decipher. His mother's kitchen became a Shinra barracks, became a schoolyard, became nothing at all. Time folded wrong - he was four and seven and sixteen and ageless all at once, watching himself from outside while drowning within.

Rain on metal and the taste of recycled air, thick with ozone, surrounded him. Zack's laugh cut through the monotony of their quarters, bright as a blade. 

"Come on, Cloud! You're thinking too hard again."  

Strong hands hauled him upright from where he'd collapsed during training, and there was no mockery in it, only warmth. Zack made everything look easy - the way he moved, the way he spoke, the way he existed in his skin like he'd never once doubted his right to space in the world.

Cloud followed him through memories that felt borrowed, too sharp and too clear. Zack teaching him to maintain his equipment, hands patient as they guided Cloud through each step. Zack smuggling extra rations, shoving them into his hands with exaggerated stealth. Zack in the washroom, singing off-key while Cloud tried not to laugh, tried not to feel like he was stealing these moments of belonging.

"You've got potential," Zack said, but the words warped, stretched into something else. "Just need to figure out what you're fighting for."

What was he fighting for? The question echoed through the green, multiplying until it became noise. His mother's worried eyes. Tifa's distant smile. His father's empty chair. Zack's confident grip on his shoulder. They all blurred together, a kaleidoscope of need and loss and wanting to be more than what he was.

But the memories wouldn't hold. They slipped through his consciousness like water through spread fingers, each drop precious and irretrievable. He reached for them - his mother's songs, Tifa's cat, Zack's laughter - but the harder he grasped, the faster they fled. The Lifestream pulled at his edges, unraveling him thread by thread. He was forgetting something important. Someone important. Several someones, maybe, or maybe they were all the same person viewed through broken glass.

The green shifted, warmed, and became something else entirely. Not memory now but possibility, though Cloud couldn't taste the difference. Light bloomed behind his eyelids like dawn through canvas, and suddenly there was solid ground beneath him, metal plates that hummed with engine vibration and the sky wheeling overhead in constellations he'd never learned to read.

Her mouth found his in the darkness - soft, searching, tasting of the cool water and wine they'd shared from emergency rations. 

Tifa. 

The name rang through him like a bell, clear and true, and his hands tangled in her hair without thought, without plan, just need. She pressed closer, her body a question he'd been trying to answer his whole life, and when she sighed against his lips, he felt something locked inside him finally open. The Highwind's rotors swirled cold wind around them but her skin burned everywhere they touched - throat, wrists, the delicate curve where her neck met shoulder.

"I love you," she whispered, and the words rewrote him from the inside out. "I've always loved you."

The stars watched them move together, tentative at first, then with growing certainty. Her hands mapped territories he didn't know existed within himself, found borders and crossed them, claimed spaces he'd kept vacant out of fear or shame. When she gasped his name - Cloud, Cloud, Cloud - it sounded like absolution. Like coming home. 

Like being reborn.

The vision blurred, reformed. Sawdust in his nose now, splinters in his palms. He stood back to examine the frame they'd raised, checking angles with a critical eye while Barret cursed creatively at a support beam that wouldn't sit right. The building taking shape around them smelled of fresh lumber and ambition - a bar on the first floor, rooms above for family, for friends, for the life they were constructing nail by nail.

"Yo, Spiky!" Barret called. "Quit screwin’ around and help me with this damn -"

But Cloud's attention had already drifted to where Tifa stood in what would be the kitchen, sunlight through the unfinished wall slanting across her face. She held blueprints in one hand, pencil in the other, bottom lip caught between her teeth as she concentrated. 

When she glanced up and caught him staring, her smile was radiant, knowing. Private. The hammer in his hand forgot its purpose in his hand.

The currents shifted again, leaving silk sheets against his back and shards of pre-dawn light painting Tifa's sleeping face in shades of pearl and shadow. He studied the new lines around her eyes - laugh lines, she called them, though he'd seen them deepen with worry too. Her hand rested on his chest, fingers spread like she was checking his heartbeat even in sleep. He covered it with his own, marveling at how small her fingers looked beneath his, how strong they were despite their size.

She murmured something, pressed closer. Her breath warmed the hollow of his throat. He tightened his arms around her, careful not to wake her, and tried to name the feeling that expanded in his chest. Safety, maybe. Or certainty. Or just the simple pleasure of being known, being held, being chosen again and again across all the small disasters that made up his life.

New wisps in the currents left weight in his arms. A tiny, impossible weight that smelled of linens and new beginnings. The baby's face was wrinkled, red, perfect in its imperfection. Cloud found himself crying without understanding why, tears sliding silently down his face while Tifa watched from the bed, exhausted and glowing.

"She's beautiful," he managed, voice cracking on the words.

"She has your eyes," Tifa said softly, and when he looked closer, it was true - the same shade beginning to emerge from newborn blue, the same shape already visible in miniature. 

His daughter. The concept was too large for his mind to hold, so he held her instead, this small, fierce life they'd made between them.

He turned to the sound of footsteps on gravel. A girl, six, maybe seven, was racing toward him with dark hair streaming behind her like a military banner. Her face was Tifa's in miniature but her expressions were his own, that serious concentration that broke into unexpected sunshine. She launched herself at his legs, arms wrapping tight, and he swung her up into the air while she shrieked with laughter.

"Daddy! Higher!"

The word arrowed through him. Daddy. He was that, somehow. Had become that. Behind them, Tifa stood in a doorway he recognized but couldn't place, one hand on her hip, watching them with an expression that made his chest tight. 

The little girl's laughter rang out like bells, like promises, like all the futures he'd never dared imagine for himself. He spun her again, drinking in her joy, trying to hold the moment even as he felt it slipping away. Because it was slipping - all of it was slipping. The edges of the vision began to fray, colors bleeding out into green, and he was falling again, through light that stung with copper and regret.

"Wait," he tried to say, reaching for the girl, for Tifa, for the life that had felt so real he could still feel its warmth on his skin. "Please, wait -"

"Such beautiful lies."

The voice sliced through the warmth like a scalpel through skin, and everything Cloud had been holding shattered into frost. Sephiroth's presence flooded the space between memories, revealing that he had always been there, coiled in the shadows between each heartbeat, each breath, each desperate grasp at happiness.

The green light curdled, became the color of infection, of things rotting beneath the surface. Cold rushed in with crushing force, so absolute it burned, and Cloud found himself on his knees, though he couldn't remember falling. The visions of future - family, love, belonging - peeled away like old paint, revealing a black truth beneath.

"Even your violence belongs to me," Sephiroth purred. "Watch how easily you break things."

Sector 5’s mako reactor screamed as it died. Metal shrieked against metal, supports buckling, and below - how many thousand below? He'd planted the bomb. His hands had armed it, set the timer, and walked away while families slept none the wiser. 

"And what about him?"

Rain now, mixing with blood. His friend's breathing came wet and wrong, punctuated by words Cloud couldn't understand through the static in his ears. When Zack finally stopped moving, stopped breathing, stopped being, Cloud had left him there. Just walked away. Abandoned the only person who'd ever believed in him to rot in a nameless waste.

The guilt rose like bile. He saw himself from above, standing, walking, leaving Zack behind and forgotten. What kind of person did that? What kind of friend? The betrayal was absolute, unforgivable. He'd stolen Zack's life, his identity, his sword, worn them like a costume while the real hero fed worms.

"You let them all die."

Aerith's prayer hung suspended in cathedral light, beautiful and doomed. Cloud's body moved without his permission, legs carrying him forward, arms raising the sword. He screamed inside his own skull but nothing reached his limbs. Just a puppet, yes, dancing on strings while she smiled up at him with those knowing green eyes, forgiveness already forming on her lips-

Blood spread across white stone like spilled wine. Her body fell forward, prayer unfinished, planet unhealed, and it was his fault. His hands. His weakness.

"But this," Sephiroth's voice dropped to silk over steel, "this is my favorite performance."

Gongaga's reactor materialized in pieces - steam, heat, Tifa's frightened face. But the memory twisted as it formed, angles going wrong, intentions inverting. He watched himself advance on her with predator intent, saw calculation in his own eyes as he backed her toward the edge. Not confusion but clarity. Not resistance but purpose.

"Those we love," he heard himself say, but the words came out different now, dripping with malice. "Those we fear."

He'd wanted to hurt her, because she wasn't who she said she was, but instead was the enemy. That was the truth Sephiroth showed him. So he'd pushed. Watched her fall. Felt satisfaction as the mako swallowed her whole.

"Did you think you deserve peace?" Sephiroth's laugh was wind through a ribcage. "You, who couldn't even hold onto a little girl's hand?"

The mountain materialized around him with brutal clarity. Not the soft-edged memory of before but the real thing - sharp rocks, thin air, Tifa's scream cutting through everything as she fell. He stood frozen at the bridge's edge, nine years old and useless, watching her body bounce off stone. His hand extended into empty air where hers had been a second before. Just a second. That's all it would have taken - one second faster, stronger, better, and she wouldn’t have fallen.

"No!" The word tore from him, but Sephiroth only laughed.

"Every kindness, a manipulation. Every touch, theft. You've never protected anyone, Cloud. You've only dragged them down to drown with you."

The images multiplied, refracted - every moment of connection reframed as predation, every gesture of love revealed as selfishness. He was the common denominator in everyone's suffering. The poison in the well. The crack in the foundation that brought everything crashing down.

Darkness pressed in from all sides now, not the clean darkness of night but something viscous, suffocating. It filled his lungs like oil, his thoughts like tar. He was sinking into himself, into the space between spaces where even guilt was afraid to follow. Just absence. Just void. Just the truth of what he'd always been - a nobody dressed up as somebody, a failure wearing a hero's face, a weapon pointed at everyone who'd made the mistake of caring.

"Sleep now," Sephiroth whispered, and it sounded almost gentle. “And dream nothing but nightmares.”

Cloud felt himself dissolving, cell by cell, thought by thought. Somewhere above or below or inside, his body drifted in mako currents, taking on the poison drop by drop. But that was just meat. What mattered was here, in the nothing space, where he finally stopped fighting and let the darkness have him.

Because Sephiroth was right. He'd always been right.

Cloud had never saved anyone.

He'd only ever been the reason they needed saving.

The glowing green currents inverted and compacted inward,  pressing against Cloud's consciousness like wet concrete settling in his lungs. He couldn't remember how long he'd been drifting - time folded and unfolded without meaning in this place where thought scattered before it could form. Green threads of light occasionally pierced the void, each one carrying whispers that might have been memories or might have been lies. His name floated past in fragments: each syllable belonging to a different voice, a different version of himself that he couldn't quite grasp.

 Clo - ud - Stri - fe…

Was he drowning? The sensation felt familiar, though he couldn't place why. His limbs - did he still have limbs? - moved through something thicker than water, thinner than earth. Mako, his mind supplied, then immediately doubted itself. The word triggered a cascade of sensations: burning veins, electricity arcing through synapses, the taste of copper and ozone. But these too dissolved before he could examine them, leaving only the exhausting effort of trying to think through sludge.

Then, cutting through the suffocating silence like a blade of silver light, came a sound that made his entire being still.

A woman's voice, humming.

The melody drifted through the darkness with impossible clarity, each note a lifeline thrown into his drowning consciousness. Feminine, soft, achingly familiar in a way that bypassed thought and struck directly at something deeper. His soul - if that's what remained of him in this place - turned toward it like a flower seeking sun. He reached, or tried to reach, but distance meant nothing here. The humming continued, patient and steady, and he strained toward it with every fragment of will he could gather.

The tune... he knew this tune. The recognition bloomed slowly, like frost patterns spreading across glass. His mother's voice emerged from the depths of memory, younger than he'd ever heard it in life, singing the same melody over a cradle. The notes had lived in his bones since before language, before understanding. "A million shades of light," she'd sung, her calloused hands gentle on his fevered forehead during some childhood illness. "The old echo fades away..."

But the voice humming now wasn't his mother's. As the melody continued, his fractured mind began to piece together why it felt so vital, so deep. The tone was different - lighter, carrying traces of classical training his mother never had. Piano lessons. The realization struck him with the force of Thor’s hammer, and suddenly he could see fingers moving across keys, could hear the imperfect but earnest practice sessions that had drifted through Nibelheim's evening air.

Tifa.

Her name was like a key turning in a lock, memories flooding through the breach. He was eleven years old, perched on the water tower long after reasonable children had gone to bed, the wood rough beneath his palms and the mountain air sharp with pine and approaching snow. 

Below, golden light spilled from the Lockhart house windows, and through the glass came the sound of her practice. She'd been working on the same passage for twenty minutes, stumbling over a difficult transition, starting again with determined patience.

The first time he'd heard her voice paired with the melody, he'd nearly fallen off the water tower. It wasn't that she sang perfectly - she didn't, occasionally flat on the higher notes, rushing through phrases when her fingers struggled to keep up. It was that she sang at all, unconsciously, the way people did when they thought no one was listening. The intimacy of it had burned through him like fever.

"But just you and I can find the answer," her voice had carried through the still night air, "and then we can run to the end of the world..."

He'd pressed his face against his drawn-up knees, overwhelmed by a feeling too large for his child's body to contain. Even then, before he had words for it, he'd understood that this, this quiet devotion, this secret vigil, was some kind of love. Not the kind the older kids giggled about behind the schoolhouse. Something else. Something that made his chest ache with the certainty that he would never be enough for her.

The memories were layered now, night after night blending together. Sometimes she'd leave the window cracked despite the cold, and the music would carry clearer. He learned to recognize her moods by the pieces she chose - energetic scales when she was happy, melancholy nocturnes when something troubled her. After her mother died, she'd played the same lullaby for weeks, the one his own mother had sung, the one now threading through the darkness of his mako-poisoned mind.

He'd wanted to knock on her door a thousand times. To tell her the music was beautiful. To offer clumsy condolences. To exist in her presence as more than Nibelheim's weird kid who got into too many fights. But he never did. What would he say? How could someone like him - too small, too strange, too angry at the world - deserve even a moment of her attention?

So he'd promised himself he'd become someone worthy first. Someone special. Someone strong. Someone who could protect her. A SOLDIER, like the great Sephiroth.  A hero. 

Then, maybe then, he'd have earned the right to tell her how her music had kept him company through every lonely night of his childhood.

The humming in the darkness crescendoed now, and with it came her voice, cracking with emotion: "We can run to the end of the world... we can run to the end of the world..."

Cloud reached toward the sound with everything he had, but his consciousness was already fragmenting again, pulled in too many directions by the chaotic current. Still, the melody continued, patient and persistent, refusing to let him drift entirely away. It anchored him even as the green light began to fade, even as his sense of self scattered like leaves in a storm.

He held onto one thought as the darkness claimed him again: her voice had found him even here, in this place beyond maps or meaning. She was singing for him - had always been singing for him, maybe - and though he couldn't reach her yet, though he remained trapped in this liminal space between memory and death, her music promised he wasn't alone.

Somewhere beyond the mako poisoning, beyond the fractured identity and stolen memories, Tifa was still singing their childhood song. And Cloud, formless and fading, reached toward it with the same desperate devotion he'd carried all those nights on the water tower - knowing he wasn't enough, might never be enough, but unable to stop himself from hoping that someday, somehow, he could be.

The Lifestream hit Tifa like a wall of screaming glass.

Every nerve ending ignited at once - not pain exactly, but sensation so intense it transcended category. The mako rushed into her lungs, her throat, her eyes, carrying with it the weight of ten thousand voices shrieking in frequencies that made her teeth ache. She tumbled through currents that ran hot and cold and electric.

But it was the voices that threatened to unmake her.

They poured in through every opening - accusations, lamentations, death rattles that magnified and multiplied until they became a symphony of anguish. A mother wailing for children crushed beneath Sector 7's plate. A Shinra grunt choking on his own blood in Gongaga. Flowers wilting in a church that was no longer tended to. Each voice demanded witness, demanded acknowledgment, demanded pieces of her psyche as payment for passage through their pain.

She fought to hold her shape against the onslaught. This wasn't like Gongaga - there was no WEAPON cradling her in protective light, no buffer between her consciousness and the raw wound of the Planet's memory.  Black corruption threaded through everything like cancer, turning the Lifestream's natural flow into a maze of barbed wire and broken glass. Where voices should have harmonized, they clashed in discordant keys. Where memories should have flowed like rivers, they crashed together in whirlpools that led nowhere but down.

Tifa pressed her palms against her temples. The training her master had drilled into her - center yourself, find your breath, root down into the earth - seemed laughable here where there was no earth, no breath, no center but the maelstrom.

"Stop," she gasped, or thought she gasped. Sound worked differently here.

The voices laughed, a sound like breaking bells. They showed her mother's death from angles she'd never witnessed, made her experience the illness from inside, cell by cell. They showed her father's final moments in the reactor, his confusion as Sephiroth's blade found his spine, his last thought - Tifa, where's Tifa, is she safe - before the light left his eyes.

Real or fabrication? She couldn't tell anymore. The Lifestream held all memories, all possibilities, all the truths that could have been. In its corrupted state, it vomited them up without logic or mercy, forcing her to drown in events that happened, might have happened, should have happened, never happened but felt real enough to scar.

Her strength, both physical and mental, began to flag. The Planet's protection that had shielded her before felt thin here, stretched like skin over too much bone. She was strong - stronger than most - but strength meant nothing when you were a single drop fighting an ocean. The darkness between the voices grew longer, deeper. She felt herself spreading thin, consciousness scattered across too much space.

Fear crept in with the cold. Not for herself - death had stopped frightening her somewhere between the first reactor and the hundredth near-miss - but for Cloud. He was here too, somewhere in this maze of green and shadow. Broken worse than she was, missing pieces she'd only just begun to help him find. If she dissolved, who would reach him? Who would know to even look?

"Cloud," she whispered into the void.

The voices seized on the name, twisting it and throwing it back at her. Cloud the puppet. Cloud the failure. Cloud who pushed you, Cloud who forgot you, Cloud who was never real to begin with. They showed her his empty eyes in the clinic, the ventilator breathing for him, the way his hand lay limp and cool in hers no matter how long she held it.

"No." Stronger this time. "No, that's not - he's not -"

Time meant nothing here. She might have been drowning for seconds or centuries. Her mother's voice rose from the depths, singing a lullaby she'd forgotten she knew, but the words came out backwards, the melody inverted into something that hurt to hear. Her father called her name, but when she turned, his face was Cloud's face, was Sephiroth's face, was nothing at all.

Madness. This was madness, and she was drowning in it.

"Cloud!" The scream tore from whatever remained of her throat, powered by desperation and love and the terrible knowledge that she was losing herself. "Cloud, please! You promised! You promised you'd come!"

Silence answered. Even the voices paused, as if surprised by the raw need in her cry. Then they laughed again, showing her the water tower, the promise, the way he'd looked so earnest and young and absolutely certain he could become someone worthy of saving her.

But he had saved her, hadn't he? Maybe not the way either of them had imagined, but in all the ways that mattered. By existing. By surviving. By letting her love him even when he couldn't love himself.

"Please," she whispered, curling into whatever shape souls took when they gave up. “Cloud, please… I need you...”

Something stirred beneath the corruption, parting the diseased currents like curtains. Tifa felt it rather than saw it - presence so enormous it had its own gravity, pulling her from the dissolution she'd been spiraling toward. The voices shrieked and fled before it, corruption peeling back like burned skin.

Ultimate Weapon rose from depths that had no bottom, its form magnificent and terrible in the Lifestream's light. Where the corrupted mako had been gangrene-green, the WEAPON blazed with colors that didn't have names - the shade of stars being born, of deep ocean trenches, of the planet's own sleeping consciousness. Its eyes fixed on her with recognition that transcended their brief meeting in Gongaga.

She didn't understand what was happening. Her awareness had scattered too far to process anything beyond the basic animal recognition of something larger than death approaching. The WEAPON's chest cavity opened like a flower, revealing a hollow that pulsed with soft rose light - empty materia, she might have recognized if she'd been capable of thought. Pure potential waiting to be filled.

Massive claws, gentle despite their size, gathered her from the currents. Then reached again, pulling something else from the poisoned flow - a form she knew by the shape of the hole it left in her heart. Cloud, unconscious and drifting, mako-burned but whole. The WEAPON cradled them both with impossible tenderness, drawing them into the glowing sanctuary of its chest.

The rose light enveloped them, warm and clean and blessedly quiet after the shrieking chaos of the corrupted stream. Tifa felt Cloud's presence settle against hers, two drops of water finding each other in an ocean. But she was too far gone to reach for him, too lost in her own dissolution to do anything but exist beside him in the silence.

Outside the cocoon, Ultimate WEAPON began to move with purpose through the Lifestream's depths, carrying its precious cargo toward something - toward hope or healing or simply away from the corruption that would have claimed them.

But Tifa knew none of this. In her mental realm, she was still drowning in darkness, still calling Cloud's name into a void that swallowed sound. Still hoping, with whatever remained of her consciousness, that somewhere in the green depths, he could hear her.

That somewhere, somehow, he was reaching back.

Something strong and steady pulled at her consciousness, drawing her up from the drowning dark with inexorable force. Not the WEAPON's claws - she understood that distantly - but something more intimate, more desperate. The sensation was like being turned inside out, every atom of her being reorganized around a different center of gravity. The screaming voices fell away, their accusations becoming whispers becoming silence.

Then, like breaking through water's surface after too long below, she opened eyes she hadn't realized were closed.

The world that greeted her defied physics, defied reason, defied everything but the logic of dreams. She stood - somehow she was standing again, had form again - at the entrance to Nibelheim. But this wasn't the rebuilt lie Shinra had constructed, nor the ash-covered grave Sephiroth had left behind. This was memory in architecture, hovering in an endless expanse of soft green light.

The town existed in fragments, each piece floating at different heights and angles. The water tower drifted thirty feet up and to her left, rotating slowly on an axis that should have sent everything sliding off but didn't. Her childhood home hung above the inn, windows glowing with warm light that had no source. The path to the reactor spiraled up into darkness, broken into stepping stones that led nowhere and everywhere at once.

Between the floating pieces, the void breathed. The air tasted of lightning and old snow, of childhood summers and endings not yet written. When she moved, ripples spread from her footsteps like she was walking on water that had forgotten how to be liquid.

And everywhere, in every fragment of this impossible place, she saw him.

Cloud.

Not one Cloud but several, each caught in different moments of being. A small boy with scraped knees sat beneath the general store's awning, arms wrapped around himself, watching something only he could see. A teenager stood at the gates of the Shinra mansion, shoulders squared in false confidence, practicing words he'd never say. Another Cloud - ageless, translucent - drifted past the water tower, leaving trails of silver light that dissolved before they could form meaning.

Some versions looked at her without seeing. Others didn't look at all, too caught in their own loops of memory to notice her presence. She saw him at seven, nine, fourteen, saw him in SOLDIER uniform and civilian clothes and sometimes in nothing but light and fractals. Each iteration carried its own weight of emotion - loneliness, determination, shame, love - that pressed against her consciousness like heat from a forge.

Understanding bloomed in her chest, sudden and absolute. This wasn't just a place but a person turned into landscape. Cloud's soul, fractured and scattered across time, trying to hold itself together through a geography he could scarcely control. Every building, every stone, every mote of light was him - his memories, his dreams, his desires and fears all crystallized into something almost tangible.

The revelation should have been overwhelming. Instead, it filled her with purpose sharp as a blade. This was why she was here. Not to witness but to gather, not to observe but to heal. The same instinct that had kept her by his bedside for days, changing his sheets and whispering stories he couldn't hear, now pulled her forward into this shattered mindscape.

She understood then what she needed to do. To walk through this fractured space and see each piece of him, hold each fragment in her hands until it remembered what it was to be whole. The task felt enormous, for how did one reassemble a shattered soul? 

But it also felt inevitable. Who else could do this? Who else knew him well enough, loved him deeply enough, to recognize every broken piece as precious?

The pull toward him intensified, not toward any single fragment but toward all of them at once. She felt like a moon drawn to scattered planets, each exerting its own gravity, its own need. Some pulled harder - the teenager at the mansion gates practically vibrated with suppressed emotion, while others barely registered as more than whispers.

But they all mattered. Every version, every moment, every crystallized pain and joy that made up the constellation of Cloud Strife. She could feel that truth in her bones, in the space between heartbeats.

She moved toward the child-Cloud, each step deliberate and gentle. The water tower platform hung suspended like a steel island in the green void, rotating with dreamlike slowness. He sat with his back against the basin’s base, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them. Nine years old, maybe ten, wearing clothes she half-remembered - a too-large shirt that had probably been handed down from a neighbor, shoes with the laces done wrong. His hair stuck up in defiant spikes even then, though softer somehow, still touched with baby fineness at the edges.

She knelt beside him, careful not to touch.  His eyes stayed fixed on something in the middle distance, unblinking, the blue of them hazed with longing so pure it made her chest ache.

Then the emotion hit her like a wave.

Not her feelings but his, flooding through her with the force of lived experience. She followed his frozen gaze and found herself seeing through his eyes - not literally but emotionally, the world filtering through his youthful perception. There, across the square that existed in memory-space below them, her own child-self skipped past in a blur of dark hair and laughter. The feeling that surged through him at the sight was too large for his small body, too complex for his young mind to name.

Not love, not yet. He didn't have that word. But something that would become love, given time and tending. A recognition that here was someone worth watching, worth waiting for, worth becoming better for. 

She felt how he counted the minutes between her appearances, how her smile could brighten his whole day, even secondhand. How he practiced conversations with her in his head, simple things - hello, how are you, did you see the flowers blooming by the gate - that he never found the courage to voice.

The intensity of it staggered her. This wasn't a crush or passing fancy but something fundamental, structural. She was woven into his sense of the world from the beginning, a fixed point around which everything else orbited. When he imagined the future, she was there. When he dreamed of being stronger, it was her face that drove him. When loneliness threatened to swallow him whole, the possibility of someday mattering to her kept him afloat.

"Oh, Cloud," she breathed, and the child-fragment stirred slightly at the sound.

More memories cascaded through the connection. Watching her window at night, not in any strange way but just to know she was there, safe, existing in the same world. The light meant she was reading or brushing her hair or just being Tifa, and that was enough. When her mother died and the light stayed off for seven days straight, he'd sat beneath her window for hours, trying to push comfort through the walls with thought alone.

The dream-space bled forward in time, the edges of childhood softening into adolescence. Tifa felt it first in the air: warmer, heavier with summer. Crickets chirped far below. The stars above sharpened into real constellations, and the soft wood of the water tower platform gained the weathered grooves of years passed. The child beside her shimmered, stretching taller, limbs ganglier, features maturing into the familiar contours of the boy she’d known at thirteen.

She was no longer kneeling beside him.

She was herself - her teenage self - standing at the base of the tower, looking up, her heart fluttering in her chest. She remembered this. Her fingers clutched the hem of her skirt. She’d spent an hour getting ready, brushing her hair, changing dresses, applying a little gloss with a shaking hand even though she never wore makeup. It was silly, she’d thought at the time - silly to care so much about how she looked, silly to think it meant something, that cryptic invitation: “After midnight. The water tower.”

But she had gone anyway.

And now she stood there once more, watching herself ascend rung by rung, her pulse audible in her ears, each breath sharp with nervous hope. The scene unfolded as if choreographed by memory and magic alike. The Lifestream held it all - how her heart had leapt to find Cloud already waiting, sitting with his back against the railing, hands curled over the edge, watching the night as though trying to decipher his future in the stars.

He turned when she reached the top. His hair was unkempt, his shirt wrinkled, and he hadn’t said much at first - just offered a little nod, scooting over to make space beside him. She remembered the tremble of the wood beneath them as they sat, side by side, inches apart but galaxies away.

Now, Tifa could feel everything he’d felt.

Not just the nerves or shyness, but the aching. The longing. The desperate, quiet need to be seen by her - not just as the boy from the edge of town, not just as some tagalong in the background of her life, but as someone. Someone she could love. Someone who mattered to her in the way she mattered to him. Someone who could be enough.

She felt how his heart had beat harder every time she leaned toward him, how he barely dared to look at her directly, afraid she’d see how much he felt. She felt how he'd chosen this place - this time, after midnight - because it was a known place for confessions, a secret, symbolic ritual among the village teens. He’d asked her here not by accident, but because it was the only way he knew to tell her what he couldn’t say aloud.

It had been romantic.

She hadn’t known it then - hadn’t let herself realize it - but it was. All of it. The stillness, the stars, the quiet tension, the electricity between them as she dangled her legs over the edge and asked him about his dreams. She had gone because a part of her wanted it to be romantic, too.

And now, watching it from the inside out, she knew.

He’d loved her.

And more than that - she’d loved him, too. Had felt it blooming in her chest like fireflies lighting all at once. That dizzy recognition that the unreachable, sullen boy she thought she’d never understand was not so unreachable after all. That he had been orbiting her quietly, faithfully, for years. And that somewhere along the way, she had started to revolve around him, too.

All that love, the tentative, unsaid, adolescent kind, wrapped itself around the two of them like starlight and dew. A missed chance. A near-confession. But it had been there, real and lived.

They had always been trying to find each other.

And now, at last, she saw that they had, in all the small moments, the wordless gestures, the pauses pregnant with feeling. It had always been love, even when it went unnamed.

The Cloud beside her, this version, teenage, shy, luminous with hope, began to shimmer.

Tifa turned toward him as his form dissolved into light, warm and golden, not unlike the night sky they’d watched together. The glow gathered around her heart, spiraling gently, tenderly, until it folded inward, slipping into her chest with a soft, final pulse.

One piece saved. So many more to go.

But this one… this one ached the sweetest.

The gentle green suddenly convulsed, wrenching Tifa from the dissolving water tower into somewhere colder, sharper. The transition hit like a slap - warm air to mountain wind, soft light to sickly yellow glare. She stumbled, catching herself against stone that bit her palms with remembered winter.

The mountain path materialized around her in jagged pieces. Not the idealized suspension of before but raw memory, ugly with truth. The bridge stretched ahead, broken now, its planks scattered on rocks far below. The air tasted of iron and altitude, thin enough to make her lungs work harder. Storm clouds pressed low, the same bruised color they'd been that day.

Young Cloud knelt at the precipice where the bridge ended, nine years old, staring at his hands with the fixed intensity of someone trying to solve an equation written in blood. His palms were scraped raw, fingernails torn, knuckles swollen from clawing at rocks that wouldn't give. The blood had dried to rust, but he kept staring as if watching might change what had already happened.

Tifa's breath caught. She knew this moment, had lived its other side in fragments. But seeing it from here, from his vantage point, was like learning a familiar song had been in minor key all along.

The emotion hit harder this time, perhaps because the trauma ran deeper. His guilt was a living thing, wet and writhing in his chest like something birthed wrong. But it was the self-hatred that staggered her. He wasn't just guilty; he was convinced of his own worthlessness with the certainty children reserved for absolute truths. 

Of course he'd failed to save her. Of course he'd frozen while she fell. He was Cloud Strife, the nothing boy, the ghost who haunted edges. How could hands that couldn't even hold her attention expect to hold her weight?

She watched his memory unspool, saw herself through his horrified eyes. How she'd charged ahead despite his warnings, confident and careless. How he'd followed, always following, trying to keep up. The moment she'd stepped onto unstable planks and he'd known, known with the certainty of someone who studied her every move, that they wouldn't hold.

He'd reached out. That was the detail that cut deepest. In his memory, she saw his hand extending, saw his mouth opening to warn her, saw his body trying to move faster than physics allowed. For one crystallized second, he'd almost been quick enough. Almost brave enough. 

Almost enough.

The words echoed through his child-mind like a death knell. When she'd fallen - her scream cutting through air like scissors through silk - he'd lunged forward. Not away, not frozen in cowardice, but toward. He'd thrown himself at the cliff edge so hard he'd slid, leaving skin on stone, trying to grab her, catch her, follow her down if that's what it took.

But the universe didn't care about trying. She'd fallen, hit stone, gone still. And he'd been left careening with bloody hands and the knowledge that when it mattered most, he'd been exactly as worthless as he'd always known he was.

Then came the part that made Tifa's knees weak. The other children arriving, their accusations flying like arrows.  And Cloud, nine years old and hollowed out by failure, straightening his shoulders and saying nothing. Taking their hatred into himself like a poison he deserved.

Because if they blamed him, they wouldn't blame her for being reckless. If he was the villain, she could wake up - please, please let her wake up - without the weight of the town's judgment. He could carry that. 

He was used to carrying things alone.

She saw him visit her window during her recovery, standing in shadows too deep for her father to notice. Saw him leave flowers picked from the mountain - the same variety that grew near the bridge, beautiful despite their dangerous home. Saw him turn away when she finally appeared at the glass, not wanting his cursed presence to slow her healing.

"No," Tifa breathed, stepping forward. "No, that's not how it was."

But it was how he'd lived it. 

She moved behind him, each step careful on the unstable ground. Her own memory of the fall rose up, the sudden tilt, the air rushing past, the impact that stole consciousness. But now she had his memory too, could feel how the two fit together like broken halves of a plate. The truth lived in the space between their perspectives.

"It wasn't your fault," she said, kneeling behind his frozen form. "It was never your fault."

Her hands hovered over his shoulders, feeling the tremors that ran through him like aftershocks. Nine years old and already learning to turn pain inward rather than inflict it on others. Already choosing her comfort over his own truth.

She felt him shudder, felt the child he'd been finally, finally let someone else hold part of the weight. His form began to shimmer at the edges, the guilt that had kept him frozen starting to dissolve under the solvent of shared truth.

"I remember," she said into his hair that smelled of mountain wind and boy-sweat and crushed wildflowers. "I remember calling for you when I woke up. Not father, not mother. You."

The shimmer intensified. He turned in her arms - not the frozen fragment but something more aware, more present. His eyes met hers, and in them she saw wonder mixing with the old pain. He'd never known. All those years of thinking she'd forgotten him in her suffering, and he'd never known she'd called his name.

“That’s when I heard about Sephiroth…”

“If only I could be stronger…”

Light began to bleed from his edges, softer than before, tired like the end of a long day. This fragment had held its post for so long, guarding a guilt that had never been his to carry. Now, finally given permission to rest, he came apart with something like relief.

The mountain dissolved around them as he transformed to light, bronze and amber, the color of old pain made beautiful by time. When the warmth settled into her chest, it came with bone-deep exhaustion, the kind that followed finally setting down a weight carried too long.

Two fragments now safe. But she could feel how much this one had cost him, how the guilt had metastasized through every version of himself.

Stone materialized beneath her feet - cobblestones worn smooth by generations of footsteps, now floating in the void like a stage waiting for its actor. The Shinra Mansion gates rose before her, wrought iron twisted into patterns that looked elegant until you noticed how they resembled reaching hands, grasping faces, corporate logos disguised as art.

 And suddenly, without transition, Nibelheim burned around her.

But this wasn't the roaring inferno of that night. This fire was silent, flames frozen mid-lick, smoke hanging in solid curtains that divided the space into chambers of memory. The heat existed without temperature, the destruction without sound. Even the screams - and there should have been screams - were muffled to whispers, as if the memory itself was holding its breath.

She stood in the town square, equidistant from every tragedy. Her father's body lay by the reactor path, unchanging. Her old house smoldered in perpetual collapse. And there, in the center of it all, knelt Cloud.

This version looked exactly as he had that night - sixteen years old, wearing the Shinra grunt’s uniform, hands pressed to his temples as if trying to hold his skull together. But she understood now that this wasn't just a memory. This was where he lived, always. The part of him that had never left this moment, that circled it endlessly like water down a drain.

She approached slowly, glass crunching under her feet like breaking promises. As she drew closer, the perspective shifted - not her eyes but his, the memory opening to show her what he'd seen, felt, carried.

The weight of her in his arms, blood seeping through his fingers no matter how hard he pressed the wound. Her father's eyes, already empty, accusing him of being too late. The reactor looming above, Jenova calling, Sephiroth's laughter echoing off metal walls. And beneath it all, drowning everything else: the certainty that he'd failed her again. Failed to stop Sephiroth. Failed to save her father. Failed to be the hero he'd promised to become.

But she saw more than his guilt. She saw him carry her to safety first, hands shaking but sure, whispering promises she'd been too unconscious to hear. Saw him go back - not running away but running toward, always toward the danger. Saw him face Sephiroth with nothing but rage and Zack’s sword, because Sephiroth had hurt her and his mother and his home and that was unforgivable.

The confrontation played out in stuttering fragments. Cloud, barely trained, nothing special, somehow driving his sword through Sephiroth's back. The moment of impossible victory. Then Sephiroth turning, smiling, running him through with the Masamune like he was nothing more than paper.

But even then - impaled, even dying - Cloud had held on. Pulled himself up the blade inch by bloody inch, used his own suffering as leverage to throw Sephiroth into the mako below. Not for glory. Not for the Planet.

 For her. Because Sephiroth had hurt her, and that was the only equation that mattered.

"You did save me," she whispered, kneeling beside this truest fragment. "You were there for me."

The Cloud in the memory lifted his head, pulling the infantryman helmet off, and his eyes held all the contradiction she'd been trying to reconcile - the weak boy who'd become strong in the moment it mattered, the failure who'd succeeded when success seemed impossible, the nothing who'd been everything when everything was needed.

"It wasn't enough," he said, voice raw with years of repetition. "You still got hurt. Your father still died. I still -"

"You still kept your promise,” she finished.

She pulled him against her, arms wrapping his torso tight, and this time he didn't dissolve immediately. This fragment had roots, had weight, had been the core around which all the lies had been built. It fought her, tried to pull back into its cycle of guilt and flame.

But she held tighter, pouring her own truth into the space between them. How his sacrifice had meant everything. How she'd never needed a perfect SOLDIER, just the boy who'd thrown himself at impossible odds because she was in danger. How the love that had driven him to face Sephiroth was the same love that had made him watch her window, made him listen to her melodies, made him promise her everything.

When this Cloud finally came apart, it was like watching ice melt in spring - slow, inevitable, necessary. The light was deep red shot through with gold, the color of love alloyed with pain until you couldn't separate one from the other. 

As the fire faded and the green void began to reform, she understood the truth that connected every fragment: He had always been enough. The broken pieces, the desperate lies, the impossible victories - all of it was him, and all of him was hers.

Now she just had to make him believe it, too.

 Tifa felt herself sinking through layers of memory like diving through honey, each stratum older and sweeter than the last. The corrupted green faded to gold, then to something beyond color - the shade of summer afternoons before you knew summer could end, the exact hue of safety before you learned you needed it.

This deep, even the Lifestream moved differently. Not the rushing torrent above but a gentle pulse, protective and encompassing. She understood instinctively that she'd found the center, the seed from which everything else had grown. The place Cloud had wrapped in so many layers of protection that even Sephiroth's poisonous influence couldn't reach.

The memory materialized around her with the clarity of a bell's first note. Nibelheim's market square, but not the one she'd been navigating - this was older, simpler, seen from three feet off the ground. The cobblestones were mountains to climb, adult legs were trees to dodge between, and the whole world smelled of fresh bread and mountain flowers and possibilities endless as the sky.

She found herself standing near the fruit vendor's stall, watching the scene with the reverence reserved for holy things. Because this was holy, she realized. 

This was the beginning of everything.

Cloud sat alone by the crates, four years old and already carrying himself like someone who'd learned not to take up too much space. His wheat-bright hair stuck up in defiant tufts despite what looked like recent attempts to tame it. He wore hand-me-down shorts and a shirt with a mended tear at the shoulder - clean but obviously worn by someone else first.

The scrape on his knee was fresh, beading with blood that he stared at with the fascination of someone still learning how bodies could betray you. He'd fallen - she could see the scuff marks on the cobblestones where he'd tripped - but hadn't cried out. Hadn't run to his mother who was busy at the bakery stall. Had just quietly relocated himself to the shadows and begun the child's work of understanding pain alone.

Then, she saw herself.

Tiny Tifa, barely three, in a sundress that had probably been white that morning but now showed evidence of a day spent exploring. She moved through the market with the confidence of someone who'd never met a stranger, who expected the world to be kind because it always had been. Her dark hair was already escaping whatever style her mother had attempted, forming a halo of whisps around her round face.

She stopped mid-skip, noticing Cloud the way children notice things - completely, immediately, without the filters adults learn. Her head tilted, processing the picture: Cloud, alone, hurt, sad. The calculation took maybe two seconds. Then she was moving, straight as an arrow, purpose radiating from her small form.

Cloud looked up at her approach and froze. She dropped to her knees beside him with the gracelessness of toddlers, her dress immediately acquiring dirt that would earn a scolding later. Up close, adult-Tifa could see her younger self's face - the determined set of baby features, the concentration of someone attempting something very important.

"Hurt?" Tiny Tifa asked, the word simple and direct.

Cloud nodded, apparently robbed of speech by this unprecedented attention. His eyes, already that startling blue, went wide as Tifa leaned closer to examine the wound with the seriousness of a trained physician. She made a small sound of sympathy that seemed to break something in his chest.

Then, with movements that were clumsy but infinitely careful, she began to help. The sash from her dress came off with determined tugging. It was mint-blue, probably silk, definitely expensive, absolutely not meant for first aid. She didn't care. With tongue poking out in concentration, she wrapped it around his knee, her small fingers working to tie a knot that wouldn't quite hold but tried its best.

"There," she announced, sitting back on her heels to admire her work. "Better?"

Cloud stared at the messy bandage like she'd handed him the moon. His mouth opened, closed, opened again. 

And he looked at her.

Adult-Tifa gasped, her hand flying to her chest where all his fragments pulsed in recognition. She'd seen that look before, would see it again across years and traumas and transformations. Wonder mixed with disbelief, gratitude tangled with unworthiness, and beneath it all, setting like concrete in his young heart: love. 

Not the love of a four-year-old's crush but something deeper - the recognition of finding someone who saw you hurting and chose to help, who gave freely what others wouldn’t, who saw your soul and decided to unite with it.

Tiny Tifa smiled at him, bright and uncomplicated, then patted his shoulder with one sticky hand. "Okay now," she declared, and it wasn't a question. In her child's wisdom, she'd fixed what was broken. The world was right again.

She skipped away, back to her mother who'd finished shopping, leaving Cloud stunned in her wake. But adult-Tifa saw what her younger self missed, how he touched the bandage with reverent fingers, how his eyes followed her through the crowd, how he held that knee stiff and careful for the rest of the day rather than disturb her work.

More than that, she saw the moment crystallize in his mind, becoming the foundation everything else would build on. This wasn't worship of an idea or projection of what he needed her to be. This was recognition of who she was: kind, direct, willing to help even when it cost her something. The sash would earn her a scolding. Her dress was dirty. Her knees would have their own scrapes from the cobblestones. But she'd seen someone hurting and acted without hesitation.

That was who Cloud fell in love with. Not the wealthy daughter or the pretty girl or the survivor he'd failed to save. The person who saw pain and chose to kneel beside it, who gave what she had even when what she had wasn't much, who declared things "okay now" and made the world believe it.

Tifa sank to her knees in the golden space, tears streaming down her face. She'd forgotten this. How could she forget this? But of course she had - three years old was too young for memories to stick properly, and by the time they were old enough to remember, the patterns were already set. Cloud watching from distances. Her wondering why he never came closer. Neither remembering the moment that started it all.

But he'd kept it. Buried it so deep even Jenova couldn't touch it. The core memory around which everything else orbited: Tifa helping him simply because he needed help.

The Planet itself seemed to sigh, acknowledging what Tifa now understood. They weren't random souls who'd found each other. They were a matched set from the beginning, their connection written into the world's foundation. She helped, he loved her for helping, she forgot but kept helping, he never forgot and loved her more with each kindness she didn't remember giving.

A circle. A spiral. A dance they'd been doing so long that neither remembered learning the steps.

And there was Cloud.

Not a fragment this time, not a memory or construct or broken piece. Him. All of him. His essence hung in the flowing void like a star collapsed to perfect density, every moment of his existence compressed to a single point of being. He blazed with cold fire, silver-blue shot through with veins of darkness where the pain lived, spots of brilliant gold where joy had taken root despite everything.

Her own soul answered before her mind could process what she was seeing. She felt herself unfold, not physically but essentially, every barrier she'd built dissolving. The boundaries that defined where Tifa ended and the universe began meant nothing here. She was rose-warm and autumn-deep, threads of scarlet strength woven through amber compassion. Where his soul showed the sharp edges of too much breaking, hers curved and flowed, shaped by different pressures.

They began to orbit each other without conscious choice. Physics had no claim here, but something older did, the same force that pulled seeds toward sun, that taught birds which way was home. She felt his awareness brush against hers, tentative at first, then with growing recognition. 

You found me. 

You came for me. 

You always come for me.

The orbit tightened. Where their souls touched, colors bled together - his blue into her red creating purples that had no names, her gold into his silver forging alloys that shouldn't exist. But they weren't mixing, she realized. Not dissolving into each other. Instead, they were alchemizing something new in the space between while maintaining their own essential selves.

They reached for each other with mutual intent, and the universe held its breath.

 Light met light in a burst that should have been blinding but instead felt like opening eyes that had been closed since birth. She flowed into him as he flowed into her - not replacing but complementing, not conquering but completing. Where he was sharp she was smooth, where she was fierce he was gentle, where they both were strong they became stronger.

For one eternal instant, they were one being with two hearts, one soul with two perspectives. She could feel his thoughts as her own while still knowing them as his. He could access her memories without losing himself in them. They shared everything - pain and joy, triumph and failure, the weight of being human and the lightness of being loved.

The Planet sang.

They were the key. Not Meteor, not Holy, not any materia or summon or limit break. Two souls choosing each other completely, bridging the gap between human and Planet through the simple act of loving without reservation. Their joined light spread through the Lifestream like dawn, showing other lost souls the way home, reminding the Planet itself why humanity was worth saving.

Time meant nothing in that state. They might have been joined for seconds or centuries, learning each other in ways that transcended physical intimacy. Every fear, every hope, every small daily kindness that made up a life - all of it shared, all of it sacred.

But even transcendence had its limits. Slowly, gently, they began to separate. Not breaking but unfolding, returning to individual forms while maintaining the connection forged between them. It was like stepping apart after an embrace, still yourself but warmed by contact, carrying the imprint of touch long after skin stopped meeting skin.

They faced each other in the flowing green, distinct again but changed. Cloud's soul no longer showed those veins of darkness - not erased but integrated, acknowledged as part of his whole. Tifa's light gleamed steadier, the questions that had haunted her answered by certainty that ran soul-deep.

He reached for her, not desperately now but with quiet confidence. She took his hand, and together they began to rise. The Lifestream parted for them, no longer fighting their ascent. They had proven themselves. More than that, they had proven something the Planet needed to believe: that love could still grow in poisoned ground, that two broken things could choose to be whole together.

Tifa... We finally... meet again...

Up through layers of memory and dream, through currents that whispered gratitude, through the thinning space between death and life. Together. Always together now, even when apart. The thread between them would stretch but never break, spun from something stronger than fate, from choice, from knowledge, from love that had survived everything the world could throw at it.

Light began to break through the green above. Not the sick glow of mako but honest light, clean and bright and promising air that lungs could breathe. They swam toward it with shared purpose, ready to face whatever waited above.

Come on, Tifa. Let's go home...

Her consciousness returned in layers - touch first, then sound, then the slow understanding of what it meant to have a body again. Sand pressed rough against Tifa's cheek, each grain distinct after the flowing sameness of the Lifestream. Salt crusted her lips, her eyelashes, the hollow of her throat where tears and seawater had pooled and dried. Her muscles felt like water, like she'd been poured back into flesh that had forgotten how to hold shape.

But she wasn't cold. Warmth pressed along her entire left side, solid and breathing and miraculously there. Cloud's arm draped heavy across her stomach, his face buried in the curve where her neck met shoulder. His breath came deep and even against her skin, each exhale a small miracle that made her chest tight with emotions too large for her reformed body to contain.

They lay twisted together like driftwood, limbs tangled in ways that should have been uncomfortable but instead felt essential. His leg hooked over hers, her hand clutched in his shirt. The fabric had worn to threads in places, same as hers, evidence of their journey through spaces that weren't meant for physical things.

She didn't move. Couldn't, maybe, but didn't want to anyway. The moon hung low and swollen over the water, painting everything in shades of opal and shadow. Waves lapped at the shore in rhythm with Cloud's breathing, and for these few perfect moments, nothing else existed. No Meteor bleeding the sky red. No Sephiroth waiting in the crater. No world needing saving. Just them, alive and together on this narrow stretch of sand.

Her free hand found his hair, fingers carding through salt-stiff spikes. He made a sound - not quite a word, more vibration than voice - and pressed closer. The simple comfort of it made her eyes burn. 

Time stretched like taffy. Maybe minutes, maybe hours. She dozed in fragments, jerking awake each time to confirm he was still there, still breathing, still warm. Each confirmation loosened something in her chest. They'd done it. Somehow, impossibly, they'd found each other in the dissolving depths and clawed their way back to air.

" - ifa! Tifa, that you?"

Barret's voice shattered the peace like a brick through glass. It echoed across the water, urgent and rough with what might have been tears. She tried to answer, but her throat produced only a clicking rasp.

More sounds now - boots on the shore, multiple sets, getting closer. Cid's cursing carried clear in the night air, creative combinations that would have made her laugh if she could remember how. Yuffie's higher tones, excitement and worry tangled together. Red's deeper rumble, Vincent's quiet presence like a shadow with weight.

They'd been found.

She should sit up. Should wave, call out, let them know she and Cloud were alive and whole. But her body refused even the simple commands. Everything felt disconnected, neurons firing into empty space. She managed to turn her head - a monumental effort - and saw lights bobbing down the cliff path. Flashlights. Her friends, coming to collect what they'd probably assumed were bodies.

Cloud stirred against her, making a sound of protest at the disturbance. His arm tightened around her waist, trying to pull her closer as if he could hide them both from whatever threatened their peace. The gesture was so purely him, protective even in exhaustion, that she almost cried.

"Cloud," she whispered, the word barely shaped air. "They found us."

His eyes opened slowly, blinking into focus. For a moment, naked confusion crossed his features. Then recognition, remembrance, and something soft that made her heart skip. His hand found her face, thumb brushing dried salt from her cheekbone with impossible gentleness.

"Tifa." Just her name, but weighted with everything they'd shared in the Lifestream. He'd said it a thousand times before, but it had never sounded like that - like prayer answered, like coming home, like the only word that mattered.

The lights were closer now. She could make out shapes - Barret's bulk unmistakable even in silhouette. With effort that felt heroic, she raised one arm. Barret's shout of recognition boomed across the beach.

"They're alive! Goddamn, they're - both of 'em, they're alive!"

Chaos descended in the best way. Their friends crashed onto the beach like an army, voices overlapping in questions and exclamations and Cid's continued creative vulgarity. Tifa tried to track it all but gave up, overwhelmed by the sudden shift from solitude to cacophony.

Gentle hands - Yuffie's, surprisingly careful - helped her sit up. The world tilted alarmingly, sparks dancing at the edges of her vision. Someone wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. A water canteen appeared at her lips. She drank greedily, the fresh water burning her salt-raw throat.

" - been seven days," Barret was saying. “Seven goddamn days since Mideel went under. We been searching every beach, every cove - "

Seven days. They'd been in the Lifestream for seven days. No wonder her body felt like a stranger's. No wonder Cloud could barely keep his eyes open even as their friends fussed over him, checking for injuries that existed in dimensions physical examination couldn't reach.

"How?" Red padded closer, his single eye bright with curiosity and concern.

They were trying to help Cloud sit up now, Barret supporting his shoulders while Cid checked his pulse with surprising gentleness. Cloud submitted to the attention with closed eyes, clearly fighting to stay conscious. His hand searched blindly until it found Tifa's, fingers interlacing with desperate strength.

Then, between one heartbeat and the next, everything went wrong.

Cloud's body arched like a drawn bow, every muscle seizing at once. His eyes snapped wide, pupils dilated to black points in seas of mako green. A sound tore from his throat - not quite scream, not quite gasp, but all agony.

"Cloud!" Tifa lunged forward as he convulsed, her own weakness forgotten. "What's -"

Green light pulsed beneath his skin like a second circulatory system, following veins and arteries in patterns that hurt to look at. It was nothing like the gentle glow of mako enhancement. This was violent, invasive, wrong. His back arched again, hands clawing at his chest as if trying to tear something out.

"Hold him!" Vincent commanded, but Cloud's thrashing had inhuman strength. Barret tried to pin his shoulders only to be thrown back. Cid narrowly avoided a flailing arm that would have shattered his jaw.

"No no no -" Tifa caught his face between her palms, forcing him to meet her gaze. "Stay with me. You promised. You promised!"

For one moment, his eyes focused on hers. She saw him in there, the real him they'd just spent eight days assembling from fragments, saw his lips shape her name though no sound emerged. Saw him fight with everything they'd rebuilt in the Lifestream.

Then the green light pulsed brighter than the moon, and he collapsed.

Not unconscious - worse. Empty. His eyes stayed open but reflected nothing, puppet-vacant as they'd been in the clinic. His chest rose and fell with mechanical precision. The violent light faded, leaving only the faintest green tracery under his skin like poisoned tattoos.

"Cloud?" Tifa shook him gently, then harder. Nothing. No response. No recognition. "Cloud! CLOUD!"

Her scream tore across the beach, raw and desperate, carrying all the fear she'd thought they'd left in the depths. She'd gathered every piece of him. She'd held his soul in her chest. They'd merged in ways that should have made separation impossible.

But something else had claim on his body, and all their spiritual healing meant nothing if she lost him to it now.

" CLOUD!"

Chapter Text

Chapter Twelve

Back to You

The world shattered.

Cloud’s body slackened beneath her, his head falling back with a terrible finality, eyes half-lidded and empty. The light behind them was gone, no more whispers from the Lifestream or remnants of hazy mako glow.  There was no warmth in his skin and no proof he was still with her. There was nothing but silence, a silence so loud it drowned everything else with a roar more deafening than that of a WEAPON.

Tifa couldn’t hear the waves anymore. She couldn’t hear the voice of the others calling behind her, their shouts muted into a dull chorus of panic and fear behind her. The ocean’s night air had gone hollow around her, as if the planet itself had recoiled in fear of the moment that was unfolding in her arms. Fear and disbelief gripping her, she gripped her fingers into Cloud’s shoulders, shaking him harder than she had even meant to. His body jolted, but there was no response, just a dull loll of his head to one side.

Not again.

Not again.

“No,” she choked out, the word brittle as glass. “No, no, no, no…Cloud, come back… please, don’t you dare …”

The scent of salt and mako clung to his skin, his lips pale, almost blue. His pulse had vanished, and the warmth - that cherished warmth that had once lingered beneath his skin, that she had clung to so desperately - had faded away into a grotesque and frightening coolness. 

Tifa’s entire body felt as if it were beginning to crater into itself.   Only moments ago, it seemed, she had held him. Saved him. Felt his soul cry out for hers in the Lifestream, wrapped it in hers with a vow to never separate from her again, memories of their past, present, and future floating around them in ethereal, verdant glows. 

But now, he was dying, right in front of her very eyes. And it seemed there was no magic left, no WEAPONS or materia or planetary blessing to save them.

Tifa tried to navigate her way through her thoughts as harried voices erupted around her - Barret's deep boom, Yuffie's high-pitched shriek, Cid shouting expletive-laced orders - but Tifa couldn't process any of their words. Her entire world had narrowed to Cloud's face, to the violent tremors that shook his frame, to the sickly cyanotic hue that had absorbed his countenance.

Then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

The stillness was worse than the convulsions. Cloud's body went completely limp, his head lolling back at an unnatural angle. His chest, which had been heaving moments before, went motionless. No rise, no fall. 

Nothing.

"No." The word tore from her throat, raw and desperate. She pressed her ear to his chest, searching for a heartbeat, for any sign of life. 

But she was met with nothing but silence.

Tifa didn't think. Her body moved on pure instinct, muscle memory from her training and years in Midgar taking over. She positioned herself over him, lacing her fingers together and placing the heel of her hand on his sternum. The first compression felt wrong, too violent, pressing down on the chest of the man she loved. But she couldn't stop. Wouldn't stop.

“Tifa -” She heard Vincent’s voice caution behind her.

"One, two, three, four..." She counted out loud, her voice breaking on every number, the world around her fading into an obscure, meaningless blur. Blinking through tears, she counted out thirty compressions, each one precise despite the trembling in her arms that left her muscles weak. She tilted his head back, pinched his nose, and sealed her mouth over his, forcing air into his lungs. 

Once. 

Twice.

Nothing.

She shifted back to compressions, her arms burning, sweat and tears mingling as they dripped onto his still face. 

"Come on, Cloud. Come back to me. You promised. You promised!" The words came almost as accusations, cried between counts, between the mechanical rhythm of her hands pushing down on his chest. She could feel his ribs shifting under her hands, and to witness such frailty in his body after everything they had already been through nearly destroyed her.

"Please!" The scream ripped from somewhere deep in her core. She abandoned her careful rhythm, pounding on his chest with her fists. "You don't get to leave me! Not now! Not after everything!" Each word was punctuated by a blow, her knuckles splitting against his sternum.

“Tifa!” She registered Barret’s voice shouting somewhere behind her, boots thumping against the wet, packed sand.  The world blurred through her tears, and she could dimly feel Barret trying to pull her away, heavy, large hands on her shoulders.  But she shrugged them off violently, surprising the older man with her strength. 

If Cloud was gone, nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed.

She pressed her lips to his again, but this time it wasn't clinical. It wasn't measured breaths meant to fill his lungs. It was desperate, broken, a kiss goodbye that she refused to accept. Her tears fell on his face like rain, tracking paths through the sand and salt on his skin.

"I love you," she sobbed against his mouth. "I've always loved you. Please don't leave me. Please ."

The words came from the deepest part of her, the part that had been locked away with her lost memories, that had shone so brightly under the planet’s protection and its diaphanous emerald glow. They poured from her lips alongside her grief, blended with the pure, devastating love that had carried her through the darkness of the broken memories and the earth’s core to find him. She kissed him again, tasting her own tears and feeling nothing but the coldness of his lips.

It was after an eternity seemed to pass that she felt a flutter, the smallest movement against her mouth, a whisper of breath that she knew instantly wasn't hers.

Cloud's entire body convulsed, his back arching off the sand as he gasped - a raw, violent sound like a drowning man breaking the surface. His eyes flew open, wide and wild, pupils blown so large the mako blue of his irises was just a thin, glowing ring. He was choking, coughing, his hands scrabbling weakly at nothing.

Her chest constricting as if wrapped in metal chains, Tifa gathered him against her, pulling him up and straightening his spine so he could breathe easier. He was shaking - they both were - violent tremors that had nothing to do with seizures and everything to do with the terrifying fragility of being alive. She held him the way she'd held him in the Lifestream, their bodies forming a perfect balance in a symbol of absolution and completion.

"You're okay," she whispered, over and over, though she wasn't sure if she was trying to convince him or herself. "You're here. You're alive. I've got you."

Cloud’s fingers suddenly dug into her back, clutching at the dampened fabric of her tank top like she was the only solid thing in a world turned to liquid. His breathing was ragged, punctuated by harsh coughs that shook his entire frame. But he was breathing and his heart was beating, and Tifa could feel the effort of his life-force hammering against her chest where they were pressed together.

They stayed like that, wrapped around each other on the cooling sand, while the others hovered nearby in shocked, petrified silence. The sun had nearly set, painting the sky in shades of purple and gold set against Meteor’s harsh and angry red backdrop. But Tifa didn't see any of it. All she could see was the faint glow returning to Cloud's eyes, the color coming back to his lips, the proof with each shuddering breath that she hadn't lost him.

He smiled weakly at her, before leaning his head against her shoulder, his arms forming a loose hold around her waist as the weight of his body pulled her back down against him in the sound.  She fell into him, closing her eyes to the world as her consciousness faded into the security of knowing they were both alive.

She hadn’t lost him.  Hadn’t lost herself. 

And for Tifa, right now, that was all that mattered.

Consciousness returned slowly as surfacing from deep, still blue waters and bubbling up to the surface with calmness and tranquility. His awareness was slowly filled with the awakening of each of his senses -  the low, steady thrum of engines,  a familiar vibration that resonated through metal and into his bones. The soft glow of starlight through glass, painting silver patterns across his closed eyelids.  The scent of saltwater, and mako and cherry blossoms, emanating like a memory wrapped in moonlight and the hush of things lost but not forgotten.  The warmth of soft skin and heavy linen, curled around his limbs like the arms of someone who remembered all of him.

Cloud didn't open his eyes immediately. He lay still, climbing the rungs of sensations as they filtered through the peaceful haze of waking. The surface beneath him was soft - an actual mattress instead of a bedroll or hard ground. Clean sheets that smelled faintly of the industrial detergent Cid stockpiled on the Highwind. The temperature perfectly controlled, neither too warm nor too cold. A porthole to his left, signaled by the direction of the starlight.

He was in one of the private cabins. Safe.

The realization should have brought relief, but something more profound cracked open his mind. As his consciousness sharpened, Cloud became aware of an absence - the constant static that had lived behind his thoughts for so long was gone. The fractured feeling that had left him constantly looking at the world through a cracked mirror had vanished. Memories sat in their proper places, clear and undistorted. 

His name was Cloud Strife. 

He was from Nibelheim.

He was twenty-one years old. 

And he had never been in SOLDIER.

The truth didn't hurt anymore. It simply was.

A soft exhale against his neck made him still, and he pushed the gravity of those thoughts to the side. A gentle, soothing warmth pressed along his entire right side, and as his awareness expanded, Cloud realized he wasn't alone in the bed. More than that, he was completely entangled with another person. An arm was draped across his chest, fingers curled loosely in his shirt. A leg was hooked over his hip, anchored to him in a manner that was protective and almost possessive. Wisps of silky hair tickled his jaw, soft as the whisper of her name in his mind.

The scent gave her away before he even needed to look. That familiar mixture of cherry blossom shampoo and something uniquely her, a warmth that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the tether that kept his heart beating. They were wound together so tightly that he couldn't tell where he ended and she began - hip to hip, her face tucked into the curve of his neck, his arm somehow threaded beneath her to wrap around her waist and keep her close.

His heart thundering, Cloud finally opened his eyes, turning his head just enough to see her in the starlight. Tifa slept deeply, her breathing even and peaceful. But even in sleep, there were signs of what they'd been through. Tear tracks had dried on her cheeks. Her knuckles were wrapped in white gauze - split open, he remembered with sudden clarity, from pounding on his chest and beating against rough, angry sand. 

She had been trying to restart his heart.

The memory hit him like a fist. He could see it all from outside himself - Tifa crying over his still body, screaming his name, refusing to let him go. Her kiss, tender and desperate and sweet, that had pulled him back from the edge of oblivion.

She had saved him. Not just from drowning, not just from death, but from the fractured maze of his own mind. In the Lifestream, she had been his anchor, diving through his memories with him, helping him piece together who he really was. She had seen him at his weakest, his most pathetic, and she had stayed by his side through every hill they had to climb and every war zone they had to fight through. She had done more than stay, he realized - she had fought for him and with him with a ferocity that, upon reflection, stole his breath away.

Cloud lifted his free hand slowly, not wanting to wake her. His fingers ghosted over her cheek, barely touching. Her skin was soft, warm and pliant with sleep and life. She was real. So impossibly real after everything that had felt like an endless dream, sometimes even a nightmare.

Cloud’s chest tightened as he watched her peaceful dozing.  How many times had he taken her presence for granted? How many moments had he missed, lost in the static of false memories and a manufactured personality? The boy who had promised to come if she ever needed help - he had been there all along, buried beneath layers of trauma and lies and forced bidding. And she had found him. She had always known he was in there somewhere, and she had risked life, limb, and her own sanity to rediscover him.

His throat constricted with a feeling too heavy to name. Gratitude seemed too small a word. Love was far too simple for the complexity of what he felt. She had literally breathed life back into him, but more than that - she had given him back himself.

Cloud's mind was clear in a way it hadn't been since...since before that fateful day, five years ago. Since before the mako tanks and the experiments and the shattering of everything he thought he knew. The memories were all there, properly ordered, matched to the right sequences and the right emotions. The march to Nibelheim as a grunt, not a SOLDIER. Hiding his face behind a helmet, too ashamed to face Tifa as a failure. Watching Sephiroth descend into madness. The heat of the fire, licking against the fraying threads of his infantry uniform. His mother's last words, belted out with fear but the hope that he might live, even as he clawed against the dirt and the rubble with flames tearing everything to ash. The rage that had given him strength to lift the Masamune with Sephiroth still hanging, impaled on its silver spine like a fallen god.

And Zack. Oh, Zack. That grief was clean now too, sharp but bearable. His best friend who had protected him, talked to him through years of mako poisoning, died to give him a chance at life. Cloud had taken his sword, his stories, even pieces of his personality, weaving them into a false identity strong enough to function. But that scaffolding wasn't needed anymore.

He was Cloud Strife. Just Cloud. And somehow, miraculously, that would be enough.

Because it was enough for her.

Tifa shifted against him, murmuring something unintelligible. Her fingers tightened in their hold on his shirt, pulling herself impossibly closer, soft breasts pillowing against the curve of his ribcage. Even in sleep, she was holding onto him like she was afraid he might disappear.

"I'm here," he whispered, so quiet it was barely a sound. "I'm not going anywhere. Not this time.”

His words slipped from his lips and floated through the air like a vow, spoken at the edge of ruin, clinging to the silence as if it could hold him here. After everything - after pulling her into danger, after pushing her away, after nearly killing her in the throes of Sephiroth's control, sacrificing her memories in the process - she deserved that promise and so much more.

Everything that he could ever give her, he told himself.

Cloud pressed his lips to her forehead in the lightest possible touch. Her skin was warm, and he could feel the thrum of her life-force beneath the surface, steady and strong.  She stirred at the contact, a soft sound escaping her throat. Her eyelashes fluttered, and Cloud watched as consciousness returned to her the same gradual way it had come to him. First confusion, then awareness, and then, as her eyes focused on his face,  something that made his heart skip.

Joy.

"Cloud?" His name was barely a whisper, rough with sleep but filled with so much hope it made his chest ache.

"Yeah," he whispered back, his own lips spreading into a bonafide smile, a feeling he couldn’t remember the last time he’d experienced. "It's me, Tifa.”

Waking was like swimming up through honey - slow and sweet and thick with dreams she couldn't quite let go of. Tifa's eyes focused gradually on Cloud's face, and for a moment she wondered if she was still in the Lifestream, if this was another memory made manifest.

But no - this was real. The steady thrum of the Highwind's engines, the soft but practical sheets beneath them, the warmth of Cloud's body pressed against hers - it was all real and tangible and grounding her to the very earth she had plunged into the center of. They were so tangled together she couldn't move without disrupting him, her leg thrown over his hip, her hand fisted in his shirt. She should have been embarrassed by the clawing intimacy, but all she felt was a bone-deep relief that he was here, breathing and alive.

"Hi," she whispered, not trusting her voice beyond that. Her throat was raw, probably from screaming his name on the beach. The memory made her shudder - his still body and the terrible silence where his heartbeat should have been.  The realization that it was now just another memory they had triumphed over made her heart swell and ache all at once.

“Hi yourself." His voice was soft, clearer than she'd heard it in months. Younger, as if years of hard edges and icy personas had been wiped away, leaving behind the boy who had left Nibelheim in the middle of the night with nothing but a promise and a dream.  The fog that had clouded his eyes for so long was gone, replaced by something that made her breath catch. 

Recognition. True recognition, like he was seeing her for the first time in forever.

They stared at each other in the starlight, neither seeming to know where to begin. How did you talk about something like the Lifestream? How did you put into words the experience of diving through someone else's memories, of standing together in the space between life and death, between memories of the past and apparitions of the future?

"I saw..." Cloud started, then stopped, his jaw working like he was trying to find the right words. The sight of his porcelain beauty caught in such a wordless struggle made her heart clench. "In the Lifestream. I saw you. I saw… your heart, Tifa.  Our life together.”

He flinched when the words left his mouth, looking down at the sheets as if they might cover the pain and diffidence he was sheltering beneath his feelings.

"I saw you too." The words came out barely above a breath. "All of you. Even the parts you tried to hide.  The parts that broke you, that broke me… the wishes and feelings we were meant to seal away.”

There was a long, stuttering pause as Cloud blinked, absorbing the truth of his words.  Tifa’s heart pounded, worry and doubt climbing their way up her throat.  How much did he remember of their shared experience in the mental realm?  How much did he wish to face or even discuss?  The thought that such an intimate intrusion might cause him to lock up and back away was not lost on Tifa, and a shiver of uncertainty laced its way down her spine.

But then his hand came up to cup her cheek, his thumb brushing over her cheekbone with unspeakable gentleness. 

"I'm sorry,” he breathed.  “For everything. For not being who you thought I was. For not being strong enough - "

"Shhh.” She pressed her fingers to his lips, silencing him.  She would not let him drift back into the doubts and insecurities that had wrought them here.  "You were exactly who I thought you were. You always have been. You just …forgot for a while.  Had it stolen from you.  But you were always you .”

The words seemed to break something open in her chest. Suddenly, she needed to tell him, needed him to understand what had happened to her in that strange space between worlds. 

"Cloud… my memories. They came back."

His hand stilled on her cheek. She felt the breath catch in his chest, the slight tremor that ran through his fingertips.

"All of them," she whispered. "The fall. The window. The water tower. Even before that - when we were kids. When you were watching me from the shadows. I remember now."

His eyes widened, something sharp and startled flickering behind them - fear, maybe. Or the fragile hope of someone too used to disappointment.

"Tifa -"

"Let me say this." Her voice shook, but she pressed on. The words had lived too long unspoken. They bloomed like breath at last freed.

"I remember how you sat under my window at night, just to make sure I was okay. I remember the flowers you left after the fall, the ones you picked from the mountain because you thought they might make me smile. I remember you taking the blame so no one would blame me. You always did that, didn't you? You carried pain so others wouldn’t have to."

He said nothing, only watched her, breath shallow. His thumb resumed its reverent trace along her cheekbone, grounding her even as her heart cracked open.

"You were always there," she said softly. "Even when I couldn’t see you. Even when I didn’t remember. Watching, protecting, loving."

"And the night you called me to the water tower..." Her voice dipped, quiet and raw. 

His grip on her waist tightened just slightly, as if bracing himself.

"It wasn’t about SOLDIER. Or glory. Or heroics. It was about me. You chose me, Cloud. Of all the people in the village, you wanted me to know you were leaving. You wanted me to remember you."

Her tears came then, unresisted. But not out of sorrow, out of the overwhelming weight of truth finally returned.

"You made that promise because you already loved me." Her voice cracked. "And I didn’t know how to say it then, but I felt it. Even when the memories were locked away, I carried the feeling. I used to sit at the piano upstairs and play that same little melody my mom taught me, over and over, never knowing why it made me cry."

She touched her heart, where the fragments of him still pulsed.

"Now I know. It reminded me of you. It was you. The melody was the shape of your love. It meant home. It meant hope. I didn’t know it at the time, but that’s what it meant to me."

His lips parted like he might speak, but no sound came.

Then, finally, in a hoarse whisper:

"I heard it."

She blinked, breath catching.

"Your voice. Your music. In the dark... when I was lost... it was the only thing I could follow. You brought me back, Tifa. Like you always do."

Her heart clenched. She couldn’t breathe for a moment, overwhelmed.

"Cloud…"

He guided her into his lap, lifting her easily until she was straddling him, their foreheads nearly touching. The intimacy should have felt overwhelming, but instead it felt inevitable, as natural as breath.

"I saw everything in there," she said. "The boy who tried to save me and thought he failed. The teenager who walked through the fire alone. The man who blamed himself for everything he couldn’t stop."

She cupped his face, drawing him impossibly closer.

"But you didn’t fail. You kept your promise. You always kept it."

She pressed her forehead to his, their noses brushing together.

"I loved you,” she confessed. “I loved you then, and I love you now. I never stopped. Even when I didn’t remember, even when you lived like you were someone else, even when the world tried to rewrite who we were -"

He kissed her.

“It was your kindness,” he whispered against her teeth, “That made me fall in love.”

His kiss wasn't gentle. It was desperate, his fingers tangling in her hair, holding her in place as his mouth claimed hers with fevered hunger. She gasped against him, and he took advantage of her parting lips, deepening the kiss until she couldn't think, couldn't breathe, couldn't do anything but feel.

Her hands found his face, holding him like he might disappear if she let go. She could taste salt - saltwater or her tears or his, she didn't know. And she didn't care. All that mattered was Cloud's mouth on hers, one hand spanning her waist while the other cradled the back of her head, the solid realness of him steady beside her.

When they broke apart, gasping, his eyes were bright with unshed tears. "Say it again," he demanded, his voice wrecked.

"I love you," she breathed, and he pulled her down into another kiss, harder this time, her body shifting completely over his. His hands slid under her tank top, gloveless palms hot against her bare back, and she arched into him with a soft moan that seemed to break whatever control he'd been maintaining.

He rolled them suddenly, pinning her beneath him without breaking their kiss. Tifa was suddenly dizzy. The weight of him was electrifying, grounding her in reality even as her head spun. She could feel his heart hammering against her chest, matching the frantic pace of her own.

“I thought I lost you," he gasped between kisses, trailing his lips down her jaw to her throat. "On the beach, in the reactor, so many times. And I kept pushing you away.   But… you wouldn't go."

"Never," she promised, gasping as he found a sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. Her hands tangled in his hair, holding him close. "I'll never leave you. Not if I have any say in the matter.”

He made a sound against her skin - half sob, half growl - and leaned up to claim her mouth again. His kiss was different this time, deeper yet more careful, full of promise and need and years of unspoken desire. She could feel the heat building between them, could tell by the way his hands shook cloyingly against her skin that he was affected as she was. His hand slid higher under her shirt, and she arched again, wanting more, needing to feel his touch not just on her skin but in her, soul to soul, where the Lifestream had already shown her what it meant to belong. 

“I love you, too, Tifa,” he nearly wept.  “So much that I -”

The sudden banging came like a thunderclap, a metallic barrage violent enough to rattle the porthole in its frame. Tifa's entire body went rigid beneath Cloud, her desire transforming into mortification in the space of a heartbeat.

"HELLO? Are you two even alive in there?" 

Yuffie's voice screeched through the metal door, pitched high enough to wake the dead. "Because everyone's waiting and I drew the short straw to come get you and if you're dead I'm gonna be really mad because that means I walked all the way here for nothing!"

Cloud's forehead dropped to Tifa's shoulder with a groan that vibrated through her entire body. His hands were still under her shirt, palms warm against her ribs, and she could feel him fighting to control his breathing. "I'm going to throw her off the airship," he muttered against her neck.

Despite everything - the interruption, the embarrassment, the complete destruction of the moment - Tifa found herself giggling. It started as a tremor in her chest and built until she was shaking with suppressed laughter, which only made Cloud groan louder.

"We should..." She tried to catch her breath. "We should probably answer her before she picks the lock."

"She wouldn't dare.”

Another round of banging was the response to that. "I'm giving you thirty seconds before I come in there! Remember that I am a ninja, so don't test me!"

"She would," Tifa sighed in exasperation, pushing lightly at Cloud's shoulders. The last thing she wanted was the heat and weight of him to leave her, but it couldn’t be helped. He rolled off her with obvious reluctance, his hair even more disheveled than usual. They stared at each other for a moment, both flushed and breathing hard, and then scrambled to fix themselves with coy but disappointed smiles.

Tifa's hands shook as she tugged her tank top back into place, acutely aware of how obvious they must look. Her lips felt swollen, her skin oversensitized everywhere Cloud had touched her. She glanced at him and bit back another laugh - he was attempting to rearrange his perpetually spiky hair with no success whatsoever.

"Do I look...?" She gestured vaguely at herself.

Cloud's eyes darkened as they traveled over her, and the heat in his gaze made her stomach flip. "You look like I was about to -"

"THAT'S IT, I'M COMING IN!"

The door burst open before either of them could protest. Yuffie stood in the doorway, hands on her hips, looking supremely pleased with herself. Her ninja training apparently extended to lock-picking, because she was twirling what looked suspiciously like one of her smaller shuriken between her fingers.

"Finally! Do you have any idea how long - oh." She stopped mid-rant, eyes narrowing as she took in the scene. Cloud sitting on the edge of the bed, shirt untucked. Tifa still half-reclined against the pillows, her hair a dark tangle around her shoulders. The charged atmosphere that not even the blind could miss.

A slow grin spread across the young ninja's face. "Oh my gods. Were you two making out ?"

"Yuffie," Cloud seethed, his voice carrying a warning that would have sent most people running. Unfortunately, Yuffie wasn't most people.

"You were! Ha! Barret owes me fifty gil!" She bounced on her toes, looking far too delighted. "He said you two would be too weird and emotionally constipated to do anything but stare at each other like chocobos in heat. But I knew better. I mean, after what happened on the beach, and Gongaga, and the Gold Saucer -“

"What happened on the beach?" Tifa interrupted, suddenly desperate to know how they'd gotten from there to here. The last clear memory she had was holding Cloud as he gasped back to life.

Yuffie's grin widened. "Oh man, you don't remember? It was like something out of one of those cheesy romance movies. When we found you two, you were wrapped around each other so tight we couldn't tell where one of you ended and the other began. Like, literally . Barret tried to lift Cloud and you came with him. Cid tried to separate you and Cloud nearly punched him in his sleep."

Heat flooded Tifa's cheeks. She avoided looking at Cloud, though she could feel his tension from across the bed. 

"We were unconscious,” she stated carefully

"Unconscious and clinging to each other like the world was ending," Yuffie continued cheerfully, apparently oblivious to their discomfort. "It was actually really sweet. In a weird, codependent sort of way? Even Vincent looked emotional. Or, well, as emotional as Vincent gets, which means he blinked twice instead of once."

"Yuffie," Cloud groaned again.

"Right, right, getting to the point." She waved a hand dismissively. "So we carried you both up here - and let me tell you, you're heavier than you look, Loverboy. My back is killing me! Anyway, we put you in here because it was the only bed big enough for both of you, and we figured if we tried to separate you, you'd probably wake up swinging the Buster sword. Plus, Tifa had a death grip on your shirt that we literally could not break."

Tifa's hands folded unconsciously in her lap, remembering the desperate need to hold onto him, to make sure he didn't slip away again. Even unawares, she hadn't been willing to let go.

"So we just left you like that," Yuffie continued. "Figured you'd wake up when you were ready. That was..." She glanced at her wrist, though she wasn't wearing a watch. "Like six hours ago? Maybe seven? Honestly, we were starting to get worried. Red said something about mako exposure and delayed reactions and Barret was about ready to kick down the door himself."

"Everyone's waiting?" Tifa managed to ask, trying to process the idea that they'd been unconscious - together - for over six hours.

"In the conference room, yeah. We need to figure out our next move. The WEAPONs are rampaging, Meteor's getting closer, and..." Yuffie's expression sobered slightly. "We need our leader back. Both of them, actually. The team's been kind of lost without you two."

There was an unexpected maturity in her voice that made Tifa's chest tight. Sometimes she forgot how young Yuffie was, how much she'd been through with them. How much they all meant to each other.

She thought of Aerith, and a soft wave of sadness floated over her.

"We'll be right there," Cloud said, and his voice had shifted too. It was steadier, filled with a certainty that she couldn’t remember hearing from him, even when he had been deep in the coldest and most calculating trenches of the SOLDIER persona. More like the leader he'd been trying to be and the man he actually was.

Yuffie nodded, her usual grin returning. "Cool. I'll tell them you're alive and definitely not making out."

"Yuffie!" Tifa's mortification returned full force.

"Kidding! Mostly. Kind of." She was already backing out the door. "Five minutes, okay? Or I'm coming back with Barret."

The door closed behind her with a click, leaving them in sudden silence. Tifa could hear her footsteps retreating down the corridor, probably rushing to share her gossip with anyone who would listen.

"Well," Cloud said awkwardly after a moment. 

The silence stretched between them, taut as a held breath. Tifa smoothed her hands over her skirt, acutely aware of Cloud watching her every movement.

"We should go," she said, not moving.

"We should," he agreed, also not moving.

They stared at each other across the small space, and Tifa could see the same conflict in his eyes that she felt - duty pulling them one way, desire another. It was always that way, it seemed. The air between them crackled with unfinished business.

Then Cloud moved. One moment he was sitting on the edge of the bed, and in the next he had crossed to her, hands framing her face as he captured her mouth in another kiss that made her knees weak. This wasn't gentle or searching - it was claiming, desperate, a promise and plea wrapped into one.

Tifa's hands fisted in his sweater again, pulling him closer even as she knew they needed to stop. His tongue swept across her lower lip and she opened for him with a soft moan that he swallowed, pressing her back against the wall of the cabin, just below the porthole. The cool metal against her back contrasted sharply with the heat of him pressed against her front, and she felt dizzy with want.

When he finally pulled back, they were both gasping. His forehead rested against hers, eyes still closed, and she could feel the fine tremor running through him.

"Promise me," he said roughly, "that we'll finish this. Later. Soon.”

"I promise," she breathed, and meant it with every fiber of her being. There was nothing short of the end of the world keeping her from making love to him with the force of all the love she’d carried for years.  “After the meeting. After we figure out what comes next. We'll talk. We'll..." She trailed off, not quite able to put words to what she wanted.

"Yeah," he said, and she could hear the same unspoken need and silent agreement of the deeper implications in his voice. "We will."

He got to his feet, offering her hand to help her up from the bed.  He stepped back, and they both took a moment to compose themselves. Tifa finger-combed her hair while Cloud attempted once again to tame his spikes. She straightened his pauldron and harness; he fixed the strap of her suspenders that had twisted. Small touches and necessary adjustments, each one charged with a new sense of ownership and belonging that had blossomed between them.

"Ready?" he asked, hand on the door handle.

She nodded, squaring her shoulders. They had responsibilities, a team depending on them, a world to save. But underneath that duty was a new certainty - whatever came next, they would face it together. No more lies, no more distance. Just them.

Cloud opened the door, and they stepped out into the corridor, side by side.

The door to the conference room felt heavier than he had expected in Cloud's hand. Beyond it, he could hear muffled voices - his team, his friends, waiting for the answers he finally had to give.

He paused, feeling Tifa's presence at his shoulder like an anchor. She didn't touch him, didn't need to. Just knowing she was there gave him the strength to push open the door and face what waited inside.

The voices cut off abruptly as they entered. Six pairs of eyes turned to them - Barret's suspicious, Vincent's unreadable behind his collar, Nanaki's ancient and patient, Cait Sith's mechanically joyful, Cid's gruff concern poorly hidden behind a scowl, and Yuffie's barely contained excitement.

The conference room table stretched between them, maps and reports scattered across its surface. Evidence of planning that had continued without him. Without them. The weight of his absence and his failure as a leader pressed down like an anvil on Cloud's shoulders.

"Well," Barret broke the silence, arms crossed over his massive chest. "Look who finally decided to join us."

"Barret," Vincent scolded firmly.

"No, he's right." Cloud stepped forward, leaving the false safety of the doorway. His boots clicked against the metal floor, each step deliberate. "I owe you all an explanation. More than that… I owe you the truth."

Silence greeted this announcement. Even Yuffie managed to keep quiet, though she was practically vibrating in her seat. Cloud could feel their attention like a storm pressing in, but for once, it didn't make him want to run. The static was gone. The fractures were sealed. He could do this.

Because she was by his side.

"My name is Cloud Strife," he began, and his voice didn't shake. "I'm twenty-one years old. I was born in Nibelheim. And I was never in SOLDIER."

The words fell into the room like stones into still, unchartered waters. He saw Barret's eyes widen, Cid's cigarette pause halfway to his mouth. But Cloud pressed on before anyone could interrupt.

"Everything I told you in Kalm - about being SOLDIER First Class, about working with Sephiroth - it was a lie. Not a deliberate one. I believed it myself. I took memories that weren't mine, experiences that belonged to someone else, and built a persona who could function. Who could be strong enough to fight."

His hands clenched at his sides, the only outward sign of his internal struggle. "Five years ago, I returned to Nibelheim as nothing more than a Shinra grunt. A nobody hiding behind a helmet because I was too ashamed to face anyone from home as a failure. I watched Sephiroth burn my village. I saw him kill my mother. And in my rage, I did something that should have been impossible - I defeated him. But that victory cost everything."

"Hojo found me after. Found us - Zack and me." The name hurt to say, but it was a clean pain now. "Four years in a tank. Four years of experiments, of mako poisoning so severe I couldn't remember my own name. Zack, my friend, a real SOLDIER First Class, protected me, carried me when I couldn't walk, died to give me a chance at freedom. And when he died, I took his sword, his stories, his dreams. I became him because I couldn't bear to be myself."

Cloud forced himself to meet their eyes, to see their reactions. Shock, confusion, sympathy - but not rejection. Not yet.

"In Midgar, when Tifa found me at the train station, I was barely human. The mako poisoning, the trauma, the grief - it had shattered my mind. But she recognized something in me, some piece of the boy she once knew. And because she believed in who I had been, I was able to get up and carry on. I built a personality strong enough to function, pulling from Zack's memories, from stories I'd heard, from the procedures Hojo subjected me to that gave me the strength of mako enhancement without the prestige of SOLDIER’s rank."

He could feel Tifa behind him, her presence steady and sure. It gave him courage to continue.

"That false personality let me fight. It let me lead. But it was breaking down more with each day. The headaches, the blackouts, the moments where Sephiroth could reach through the Jenova cells in my body and control me - I was losing myself piece by piece. I gave Sephiroth the Black Materia. I let Aerith die. I almost killed Tifa in Gongaga, causing her to lose all of her memories.”

His voice cracked on that last admission, remembering her tears as she fell toward the mako. But he pushed through.

"When Sephiroth broke me at the Northern Crater, I fell into the Lifestream. I thought it was over. I was ready to let go, to stop fighting… to simply die, to let the hollow shell of a puppet I turned into dissolve. But… I saw things when I was in the spirit world. I remembered things. And Tifa… she came after me." 

He turned slightly, finding her eyes. The world around them blurred, muted. In that moment, only she existed. 

"She dove into that stream of consciousness and found me. Not the constructed personality, not the false SOLDIER, but me. The real Cloud Strife who made a promise by a well when he was fourteen. Who tried to save her when we were children and got blamed for her injuries. Who left to join SOLDIER to become someone worthy of her notice."

"Cloud," Tifa whispered, tears tracking down her cheeks.

He turned back to the others. "She helped me piece together my real memories. Showed me that the person I actually am - just Cloud from Nibelheim - was enough. That I didn't need to be a SOLDIER to matter. To fight. To protect the people I care about."

The room was utterly silent. Cloud drew a breath, moving to the final part of what he needed to say.

"I'm not asking for your forgiveness or your trust. I know I have to earn those. But I am asking for your patience as I figure out who I am without the false memories. And I'm making you a promise, a real one this time."

He stood straighter, feeling more like himself than he had in years. "I will fight for this planet.. For Zack, who gave everything to protect me. For Aerith, who I failed. For my mother and everyone else who died in Nibelheim. For all of you who followed me even when I didn't deserve it. And for Tifa, who refused to let me disappear."

Cloud's eyes hardened, mako-blue bright with determination. "Sephiroth is my enemy. Not just because of what he plans to do to the world, but because of what he's already done to all of us. He took our homes, our families, our sense of safety. He tried to take my mind, my will, my very self. But he failed. Because of all of you. Because you wouldn't let him win."

"The same goes for Shinra. They created the monster that Sephiroth became. They destroyed countless lives in the name of progress and profit. They turned me into an experiment, turned us all into fugitives for trying to save the planet they're draining dry. This fight is personal for every single one of us."

Cloud straightened, meeting each of their gazes in turn. "I'm Cloud Strife. Just Cloud. No titles, no false rank, no borrowed memories. And if you'll have me, I'd like to keep fighting beside you. As myself this time, and not the illusion I created.”

The silence that followed Cloud's confession stretched like a held breath. He could feel the weight of it pressing against his chest, waiting for judgment, for rejection, for anything to break the tension.

It was Barret who moved first, his heavy boots thundering against the floor as he crossed the room. Cloud tensed, unsure what to expect - anger for the deception, disappointment in his weakness - but the big man simply clapped a massive hand on his shoulder.

"Takes guts to say all that," Barret said gruffly. "More guts than most people got. You're alright in my book, Spiky. Always have been, even when you were being a pain in my ass."

"The circumstances of your enhancements are irrelevant," Nanaki added. "You have led us with courage and determination. That leadership came from you, not from false memories."

"Besides," Yuffie piped up, "you still fight like a SOLDIER, even if you never were one. That's pretty badass if you ask me."

One by one, the others voiced their support - even Vincent, with a quiet nod that spoke volumes. Cloud felt something tight in his chest begin to loosen. He'd expected anger and recrimination. Not this steady acceptance.

Next to him, Tifa simply smiled, dipping her head in his direction as if she had been assured of this reaction all along.

"Well," Cid said around his cigarette, "touching as all this is, we still got a giant rock heading for the planet and a madman trying to become a god. So what's our next move?"

Before Cloud could respond, Tifa stepped forward. She'd been quiet during his confession, standing beside him like a guardian, but now she moved to the table with purpose. Cloud watched her, struck again by the change in her - not just the restoration of her memories, but something deeper. A confidence that hadn't been there before, her shoulders pulled back and her chin high.

"In the Lifestream," she began, her voice steady despite the tears that still marked her cheeks, "I didn't just see Cloud's memories. I felt... something else. The Planet itself."

Nanaki sat back on his haunches, his single yellow eye sharpening with interest. "What do you mean?"

Tifa's hands spread on the table, fingers tracing patterns on the scattered maps as if seeing something beyond the paper. "It's hard to put into words. It was like... like hearing a song too vast to comprehend, feeling a heartbeat that's been going for millions of years. The Lifestream isn't just energy or memories. It's alive. It's aware. And it's angry."

"We knew that," Barret said. "That's why it created the WEAPONs, right? To defend itself?"

"Yes and no." Tifa looked up, and Cloud saw something in her eyes that made his breath catch. Ancient knowledge, impossible understanding. "The WEAPONs aren't just monsters or defense mechanisms. They're... fragments. Pieces of the Planet's will given form. Each one embodies a different aspect of its fury, its pain, its desperate need to survive."

She moved to the window, gazing out at the stars. "Diamond, Ultimate, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire - they're not random. They're specific responses to specific threats. But here's what I understood in the Lifestream: they're not just meant to destroy. They're meant to communicate."

"Communicate?" Vincent's voice held rare surprise. "With whom?"

"With us." Tifa turned back to face them. "The Planet can't speak in words, can't reason the way we do. But it can feel. It can recognize intent. The WEAPONs attack because they see everything as a threat - Shinra's reactors, Meteor, even us. But what if we could show them we're not the enemy? What if we could align ourselves with the Planet's will instead of just reacting to it?"

Cloud felt a chill run down his spine. In the Lifestream, he'd been focused on his own memories, his own identity. But Tifa had gone deeper, connected to something fundamental.  Maybe it had started as far back as Gongaga, he thought, recalling the tadpole-like WEAPON that had carefully carried her in the verdant seas of the mako reactor.   Maybe it went back even further than that. 

He thought of her as a child, always in tune with others' pain, always trying to help. Of course she would be the one to hear the Planet's cry.

"You're saying we should try to... what, exactly?" Cid asked under a plume of smoke, though his usual skepticism was tempered with genuine curiosity.

"I'm saying the fight isn't just against Meteor or Sephiroth," Tifa said firmly. "It's about healing the Planet's wounds. Showing it that not all humans are parasites. That some of us are willing to fight for it, not just on it."

“Aerith knew this," Cloud said suddenly.  “She knew more than she let on.  That’s why she went to the Capital.  Why she…”

“She understood the Planet in a way few ever could,” Nanaki interjected when the awkwardness of Cloud’s words hung warily in the air. “And she trusted that someone would follow the path she opened. That someone would listen.”

His gaze settled on Cloud. “She knew healing couldn’t begin until the connection was restored. Between people. Between souls. Between the Planet and those who live on it.”

Cloud swallowed hard, but didn’t look away.

"So what do we do?" He asked, though he already felt the shape of the answer. This was bigger than just stopping Sephiroth, bigger than preventing Meteor's impact. This was about fundamentally changing humanity's relationship with the world that sustained them.

Tifa met his eyes, and he saw his own understanding reflected there. "We start by stopping those who hurt the Planet most. Shinra's reactors that drain its life. Sephiroth who would wound it beyond healing. But we also need to find a way to communicate our intent. To show the WEAPONs, and through them the Planet itself, that we're allies, not enemies."

"The Huge Materia," Vincent stated plainly. "That's why Shinra wants them. Not just for power, but because they're concentrated Planet energy. They're a language the Planet understands.  In the wrong hands, they are a powerful tool.”

"Then we stop them from taking it," Barret said firmly. "We protect the Planet's resources instead of letting Shinra weaponize them."

The energy in the room had shifted. What had started as confession and uncertainty had transformed into purpose. Cloud felt it in his bones - this was right. This was what they were meant to do.

"It won't be easy," he said, drawing their attention. "Shinra has resources we don't. Sephiroth has power beyond anything we've faced, and he’s harnessing more every hour that he’s holed up in that crater. And the WEAPONs… even if Tifa's right, even if they can be communicated with, they're still incredibly dangerous. We're asking to stand between all these forces and find a path that saves everyone."

"When have we ever done anything easy?" Yuffie grinned, though her eyes were serious. "Besides, saving the world sounds way cooler when you put it like that. We're not just heroes - we're like, planetary diplomats or something!"

Despite everything, Cloud found himself almost smiling. This team, these people who had followed him even when he was broken, who accepted him now that he was whole, were ready to take on the impossible. And with Tifa's insight, they might actually have a chance.

"Then we know our path," he said. "We stop Shinra from taking the Huge Materia. We find a way to show the WEAPONs we're not their enemy. And we stop Sephiroth before he can wound the Planet beyond recovery. Together."

"Together," the others echoed, and Cloud felt the word settle into his bones like a promise.

As the meeting broke apart, voices rising with renewed purpose and energy, Cloud found his attention drawn inevitably to Tifa.

She stood by the window still, bathed in starlight, watching as their friends began to plan. Barret and Cid were already arguing over approach vectors to the nearest reactor. Yuffie had produced a map from somewhere and was marking potential Huge Materia locations with enthusiastic circles. Nanaki and Vincent spoke quietly about ancient texts that might hold clues to communicating with the Planet's will.

But Tifa remained apart, her reflection ghostlike in the glass. Cloud moved to her side, not touching but close enough to feel her warmth.

"You saw more than memories in there," he said quietly, for her ears alone. "You saw the truth."

She turned to him, and the look in her eyes made his chest tight. Love, yes, but also understanding. Partnership. The promise of conversations yet to be finished, of moments interrupted that begged for completion.

"We both did," she said simply. "We just saw different parts of it."

Their hands found each other without conscious thought, fingers intertwining in the space between their bodies where the others couldn't see. It was a small touch, barely anything, but Cloud felt it like lightning through his entire system. The muscle memory of how she'd felt beneath him less than an hour ago, the taste of her still on his lips, the words of love spoken in the safety of that private room.

"Later," she promised, answering the question he was silently asking.

"Later," he agreed, squeezing her hand once before letting go.

They turned back to their friends, to the planning and preparation that would consume the next hours or days. There was work to be done, a world to save, wounds to heal that went deeper than any of them fully understood.

But between them stretched that invisible thread, stronger now for having been tested. The Planet might be stirring, Meteor might be falling, Sephiroth might be ascending toward his twisted godhood - but Cloud and Tifa had found each other in the space between memory and dream.

Outside the Highwind's windows, the stars burned with unusual brightness, as if the cosmos itself had taken notice. And far below, in the depths of mako reactors and ancient caverns, the Planet's pulse quickened, and a WEAPON roared.

The real fight was about to begin.