I hope you enjoy this (as always), and I beg of you for a review (as always). By the way, this is based on the song Here Without You by Three Doors Down. Result of a song getting stuck in your head.


Before the Storm
by Syzeria

Chapter I
Routine

A hundred days have made me older
Since the last time that I saw your pretty face...

He was overwhelmed in darkness, and the pain in his arm made his knees buckle. He glanced around with turns of his head, but nothing could be seen in the blackness. Even a floor beneath his feet couldn't be seen. Though, he thought it existed.

Did it, really...?

His left arm was suddenly attacked by pins and nails and hammers. He felt as though something hard and unnatural was pounding against his bones, making him wince and suck all the air he could to keep himself from screaming. Cloud vowed to never scream, not even here.

Screaming only proved you were in a bad situation.

Cloud's right hand burned the second it touched his left arm and Cloud rammed his fist into his mouth to block his urge to cry out – or make pained grunting noises. This hasn't happened before, he wondered amidst the pain.

An expected sharp breath broke the chillingly silent place, and Cloud released his fist and lifted his head toward the sound. He staggered forward blindly while trying to avoid any quick movements of his broiling arm. A sob rang in his pounding ears and Cloud closed his eyes, stopping for a second, and sighed. He'd heard that sob before.

So many times before ...

Cloud saw the small figure far away, sitting curled up with its arms and legs pressed together. As Cloud stepped forward in agony, he saw pale skin under black clothes. Crying and unsteady breathing was heard so clearly as Cloud shuffled faster in hopes of ending this as fast as it could. He cringed slightly with every hurried swing of his left arm. Beads of sweat stuck to his forehead and the golden spikes floating above his eyebrows as he made an immense effort to ignore the queasiness in his stomach.

Cloud stood three feet away from the figure. The pain in his arm seemed to have subsided as a new pang hit his hammering heart. The pang, the guilt, felt like a dagger, piercing him ever so slowly. He moaned in his head.

"Tifa ..." he breathed feebly. His vision was becoming blurry.

Cloud staggered forward, reaching out unthinkingly to touch the heavy hearted woman. But, as he outstretched his hand, he was halted by an invisible barrier. He felt a vibration from under his black glove that stopped at his collarbone and his surroundings began to change. Cloud stood on a flat layer of thick metal, the rooftop of the Seventh Heaven. He ignored what he stood on and sighed tiredly. For an abrupt second he couldn't see.

Cloud banged his fist strenuously against the invisible barrier, but the irritating obstacle didn't give way.

Cloud didn't expected it to.

He rested his hand on the barrier as his surroundings continued their revelation. All around him, stars sparkled brightly and a small crescent moon appeared on his left. Cloud remained ignorant as he stared at Tifa through tired eyes.

"Tifa ..." he murmured hopelessly. Tifa wiped her eyes hastily as she stared at the moon, oblivious to the man behind her.

"Where are you?" she whispered, desperation plaguing her voice. "Why did you leave us?"

"Tifa ... please ..." Cloud begged, her echoing words scratching against his chest. He knew what was coming next.

Cloud began stepping backward. He looked down at his feet and tried halfheartedly to stop. Despite his effort to move closer to Tifa, he continued to back away from her, stepping closer uneasily to the edge of the rooftop.

The woman staring at the moon began to fade into the looming darkness. He didn't remember the roof being this long before ...

The pain in his arm intensified and he could no longer ignore it. He grasped his arm in spite and gasped in anguish before he let go. He quit resisting the unimaginable force that was separating him from Tifa entirely as he watched her disappear from his line of sight.

Only Cloud's faint wheezing and panting were heard for a moment, but even that stopped. Then, a string of distant words echoed in the air.

"Are we not enough for you ...?" Tifa half-sung, half-cried the words.

Cloud stepped passed the rooftop. He reached out hopelessly to grab the edge, but his surroundings disappeared around him. He began to drop, but it felt unnaturally slow. It couldn't even count as falling.

Cloud dropped through the darkness, unable to act. An image of Tifa, Marlene and Denzel filled his mind. What he saw was blurred, a faded image of the family he left. "Denzel ..." he breathed as he continued to fall into nothingness. "Marlene ..."

"Tifa," he moaned before opening his eyes. His colbat blue eyes flashed to his surroundings as he took in reality.

His back was stiff and his arm throbbed as usual. But tonight was still different somehow. Worse somehow.

It took a moment for Cloud to remember why.

It had been exactly one hundred days since the time Cloud left his family. Almost every night since his departure he's had the same dream. Every night, he would be surrounded in darkness with Tifa crying on the rooftop. Then, he would fall, ashamed and some other emotion he could never name, with the faces of his family in his mind and he would wake up to the church. The routine made him miserable.

Cloud rolled over painfully and stared at the lilac garden. Why do these dreams keep getting worse?

Though the same thing kept happening, the scene and Tifa's words became more distant with each passing night, but they rang in his ears for longer and longer. Cloud took this to heart on just the thirtieth night, and ever since he'd wondered what it could mean.

It also became part of the routine that after he awoke in the middle of the night, his arm alighted every time, and he would clutch it – and it wouldn't hurt the rest of his body when he grasped it – as he curled up on his mat.

Once the pain would lessen and Cloud's mind would become clear, he would know he couldn't ever go back – the hell he called his life being the reason. He couldn't go back with one foot in the grave, only to force Tifa to work herself harder to keep two people alive.

I can't be selfish, he reminded himself.

Cloud would then think back to the one time Aerith appeared after he left Tifa and the children. It was the first time he thought about her, but not the last.

It was dawn and Cloud sat outside the church, dejected and in pain. He was thankful when she came, because then he wasn't alone. However, her presence did not help him, really. Two sets of very different guilts stabbed his heart, when she appeared and when she spoke.

She smiled at him encouragingly, yet solemnity outlined her curved lips. "Why are you here, Cloud?" she asked him.

"I ... I don't know."

"Why don't you go back to your family?" she offered mildly.

Cloud lowered his shoulders in defeat. "I can't."

"Why not?" She asked softly.

All her whys made him upset. He could not answer them, not even when he asked himself. He decided to get his thoughts out to her about one of the worst days of his life. Maybe that would loosen the tie of his guilt ...

"Aerith ... I'm sorry, I couldn't save you from–"

"And what do I have to do with your family?" she interrupted gently. Cloud felt himself recoil. Her words were hurting him. Couldn't she realize he was apologizing to her?

"They need you, Cloud," she continued, "and you need them ... More than you think you do."

After a second of reticence, she vanished from his consciousness, and he was alone again. He walked back inside unthinkingly, with his head hung and his soul dazed and hurting. Cloud picked a white lilac in Aerith's garden and placed it in his pocket.

Despite the truth in Aerith's words, Cloud could never bring himself to go back.

Cloud experienced the excruciating pain in his arm and remembered that morning with Aerith. He told himself he could never go back until he was all right, which wasn't going to happen. He rolled over painfully and fell asleep after what felt like a very slow minute.

Cloud had the same dream, like always, and woke up to find the church bathed in sunlight ... and he was still waiting to die.