Healed. I was healed, physically, but emotionally, I still had a lot of work to do. And I knew I would have to be the healer for some, not that I had the ability. One person in particular was my job to mend. I was amazed she was still here, still with me. Everything I'd put her through, in my sad efforts to drive away who I didn't deserve, had only made her hold on tighter, cling more desperately. I didn't deserve her. Any of her. Not in the way I wanted, and not in the way we had always been. Every time I had left, I knew I was tearing her wounds deeper, wounds that I had created. There's that sad effort again.

For some of my life, I had led a life that never even existed for me, a life that wasn't ever mine. How could I have what I wanted? I was unfit for the life I would have chosen had everything turned out the way it should have. If I hadn't royally screwed it all up. I would have her, Tifa Lockheart. And we would be happy. Together.

I knew I loved her. I always had. So much so, I would give her away to the future that didn't include my unworthy self in it. A future where she would have a fighting chance at happiness. Tifa thought I could make her happy, but if she just logically thought about it, she would understand. She had to know how horrible I would make her feel, if she only just thought about it. I was selfish, but on this account, the point of her happiness, I would not let my feelings hinder her chance at joy. She deserved so much better. I hoped she knew enough about me to know I was no good for her.

Tifa had once asked me to choose between a memory, or her. The memory I was dwelling on was not what she thought it was. Tifa believed I was in love, she probably still thinks that. I never told her otherwise. But, not in love with her, with Aeris, the girl I had once thought I let die. Truth be told, I was in love with a memory, but not of Aeris. I was in love with a memory of a simpler time. A time when I hadn't felt so guilty, so utterly hopeless. It was a different kind of love than what Tifa had assumed.

Silly Tifa. It was always her. It would always be her. Even after I would leave her for the final time. Could I leave her? Yes, yes I could. No more would I put her in danger for what my past had made me. She asked me to choose between a memory or her. Tifa was the memory. A memory of when it was just the two of us, best friends. I left then when it was best, and I would leave again. I couldn't talk myself out of it, I wouldn't. I stepped out of the door and into the blazing sun. I felt colder somehow. And then, I was yanked backwards.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Damn it. She was supposed to be out.

"Away."

She was shaking her head.

"No, you're staying right here, where you belong."

I chose then to look at her, and when I did, I knew that she knew. I could tell because she looked broken. God, I'm a bastard. I looked away. I could feel her gaze bore into me however. I looked everywhere, everywhere but into her eyes. I looked at the walls behind her, the photos that aligned them each depicted a happier moment than this. A trip to a fair, a "family" portrait, and then one of Tifa. That one I had put up. I looked away from it and focused on something else. Anything. I just had to avoid her eyes. Her big brown eyes had always been my downfall in an argument. I only had to glance at them and I knew I would lose the battle. My eyes raked over Tifa's hands, clenched into fists at her sides. Anything but her eyes. And when I finally couldn't help myself, when I glanced into her eyes, I hated myself. She was crying. Not sobbing, not weeping, but silently crying. I doubt she even knew. Tifa blinked then, and began to rub furiously at her cheeks. I knew it. She hadn't had the slightest idea that she was crying.

"Tifa…I'm not right for you."

I recoiled when she slapped me.

"That's up to me to decide! You don't just pack up and leave because you think you're no good. Cloud, you're an idiot."

She maneuvered herself between the exit and me. I wanted so badly to close the distance between the two of us, to hold her, claim her as my own. I didn't.

"Tifa, let me go," I whispered.

"You first."

I stumbled a bit.

"What?"

"You want to leave? I'm only letting you go if you let me go first. If you don't want me, don't love me, then go. But, if you're leaving because you're a stubborn ass, and you think you're right, even when you're flat out wrong, then I'm not moving."

"I'm not wrong."

She called my bluff.

"Wrong again."

And then I was holding Tifa. Kissing her in a way I never had before. Loving her in a way I had always wanted to, always had, always would.

"You're staying."

It was a statement, not a question. I nodded anyway.

"I'm staying."

"Forever," she whispered into my ear. Another fact. Tifa rarely questioned anything. She was always somehow sure, without an interrogation.

"Yes."

She leaned against my shoulder and I held her close. I stroked the top of her head down to the end of her hair. She sighed and wound her arms around my neck.

"I love you."

I felt her smile. When she didn't reply at first I was worried. But then, she lifted her head, put both of her hands on the sides of my face, and looked into my eyes.

"I love you too." Now, I was healed.