This is a rewrite of something I wrote back in 2003. I decided to keep the original stored in chapter 2 since it seems some people really liked it. But I wanted to do this rewrite anyways, and it ended up being quite different. Warning - Good ole fashioned angstiness ahead.

Dusk to Starlight

Every evening I watch the sunset through the silhouetted branches of a dead tree. I wait until the last bits of light fall beneath the horizon and the sky succumbs to its natural state of cold dark blue. Sometimes I even wait for twilight to fade into starlight. I wait for the stars to make their lonely appearances, one by one – tiny points of light far in the distance like glittering drops of water strewn about the vast black canvas of sky. It's so silent at night here, with nothing but the rush of ocean waves against the shoreline, a rhythmic heartbeat to the planet. Often, I think of you. I think of the way your long dark hair brushes against your shoulders, the way your eyes curve upwards when you smile. I think of a time that feels so long ago when you leaned against my shoulder under the empty Highwind and we watched a sunset together – when we realized that we were two people entirely alone with no family and no home to fight for or return to. But when you held my hand in yours and your eyes met mine, in that moment, we were no longer alone. We had each other. You fell asleep next to me, with my arm wrapped around you because you were cold and because you gave me an inner warmth I'd never felt before. Suddenly, I had a purpose greater than revenge. You gave me a reason to live. At that time, killing Sephiroth and my own death had felt like they went hand-in-hand. But not after that night with you. I realized that I wanted to continue living afterwards – after all the bloodshed and pain had been left behind – that I wanted to continue living with you.

But good things never last, do they? My optimism crumbled like ash when I realized my love for you would never be fulfilled. Could never be. You are perfect – a porcelain beauty with an inner strength I could never match. You are always cheerful, always hopeful. And whenever I'm with you, I feel total elation and the rest of the world just washes away, like a gulp of fresh breath beneath stifling waters. But sometimes I see myself as I am. I see myself standing next to you and I realize that you could never love me. What am I, but a mess of tangled emotions that I can't even name? How can I even be certain what I feel for you is love at all? And how can you ever actually love someone who's failed to save others, who's failed to be strong and sensible and fearless? You are pure and beautiful, while I...

This is the last sunset I'll watch. When the stars come out, it will be over. They were the same stars that we fell asleep under years ago, my arm tight around your shoulders. The same stars we made a promise under even more years ago atop a leaky wooden well. The same stars you are under now. Will you watch them brighten into existence as the sun sets? Will you watch them fade with the morning's light? --

--

The letter ended there, unfinished. It would never be finished because the hand that wrote it lay cold and still. He can never stand beside her again or hug her shoulders to him. He can never kiss her cheek or smile or laugh or cry. And he had never told her these things that he'd written. He kept it all hidden away, masked behind shiny blue eyes that never betrayed him. But now the reason was becoming clear to her. She stood alone in his villa, a day after he had drowned himself there, clasping the letter in one hand. She had found it on the floor beneath the windowsill.

"You should not have come here." Cloud's voice came from behind her, sudden and low.

She spun around to face him. His eyes were no longer luminous and his skin was deathly pale, his hair colorless. Tears welled in her eyes.

"You wrote this for me." She spoke softly into the emptiness, taking a small step backwards.

The villa felt cavernous and unnaturally silent without his presence. A single bulb hung from the ceiling, shedding a cone of yellowish light over her shoulder, down onto the sheet of paper in her hand. His handwriting was scrawled across it in hasty script.

He quickly stepped forward and snatched the paper from her. "Yes, but it no longer matters." In an instant, he tore it into tiny pieces and let the pieces scatter from his palm onto the hardwood floor. Tifa watched, her throat tight and lips pressed together.

"It does matter," she replied in a whisper, "It does to me." She stared down at the ripped pieces of paper through blurry eyes, and then looked back at Cloud.

She wanted to reach out to him, to grab his shoulder, to hug him and know that he was real. But he wasn't. She shut her eyes, squeezing out the tears. Her body felt cold and broken. And an abrasive loneliness grabbed her with a ferocity she'd never known before. It raked through her bones, tearing apart her muscles and leaving behind a dull numbing pain. He had never told her how he felt. Perhaps he never really wanted her to know.

"I miss you already..." The words soundlessly fell from her lips, and hot tears forced their way through her shut eyes, sliding down her cheeks in rapid succession.

"But you never loved me." His response was cold and flat.

"That's not true," she insisted quietly, shaking her head and letting the tears fall from her chin. "I'll find you. I'll find you again. Just don't leave me. Please don't leave me..."

When she opened her eyes again, Cloud was gone. He was never there. In her hand she still held the crinkled paper, intact, with his words scribbled across. She stood alone, feeling nothing. The front door creaked open.

"Tif, you in here?" Barret's voice called softly into the empty house.

"Yeah." She found it hard to speak, and her first attempt was nothing but a scratchy whisper. "Yeah, I'm here."

"Come on, girl. Come back to the inn." Barret gently placed his arm on her shoulder. "This ain't no place for you to be hangin' 'round."

Tifa nodded, dimly aware of him leading her out of Cloud's villa. The others were no doubt worried about her, given that she was the closest emotionally to Cloud. But she couldn't be sad. She was beyond it now, lost in a sensation of pure detachment. Her fist closed around Cloud's letter.

"Whatcha got there?" Barret pointed down at the paper.

"Nothing." She folded it up and slipped it into her pocket. A hot pain spread along the base of her skull.

"Gettin' late and we gotta get up early for the funeral and all," Barret continued, talking as delicately as possible, "So how 'bout we just get some rest." He tried to smile, but she was staring off at something far away and did not notice.

Just before leaving, Tifa looked back for a moment at the darkened room. She wondered just how many times Cloud had stood by the window and watched the sunset, telling himself that he would never be good enough for her. How many times had he thought about her, kept himself awake over her, convincing himself that she could never love him? It was all so wrong, she thought, so unjust. Barret said nothing more, and slowly pulled her away from it all, back towards the inn.

That night she stayed awake, watching the stars from her window. They looked different to her now, as if they were the ones that had changed with time instead of her. Morning came sooner than she would have liked, and a patch of gray clouds gathered on the horizon, like a host of solemn morticians announcing the arrival of a funeral day. She continued to watch the tiny flecks of light in the sky, however, with the exhaustion and melancholy of someone desperately trying to halt the inevitable. One by one, they dipped into brightening shades of blue until at last they vanished with the sunrise. When the final stars faded away, she shut her eyes and a piece of her heart closed forever.