Thump… the sound of glass shattering… a very loud thud…
"Cloud?"
A pained grunt and a muttered curse…
"Cloud? Is that you?"
A dragging sound and the clatter of a barstool falling on the floor…
"Cloud, stop moving before you destroy the entire bar! I'm coming down there!"
Tifa found him sprawled on the polished linoleum, clutching the edge of the counter as if it would save his life. His cheeks and nose were slightly red from the winter wind outside and his clothes were crumpled with smudges and stains all over. Tifa knelt next to him; he reeked of stale alcohol.
"Evenin', Teef," he hiccupped, which was a rather strange sound, coming from this particular young man, "Hope y' don' mind me comin' this late."
The way Cloud spoke was so out of place that Tifa almost screamed.
"Cloud, uh… where have you been?" She leaned a little closer to him, but backed away the moment his smell filled her nostrils. "And why have you been drinking?"
The question seemed to bring him back to his senses. "I… I've, uh… thinking that… I mean… I just… and, umm…" He couldn't seem to find the right words or just didn't want to tell her. Either way, Tifa thought, I'll find out.
She pulled him to his feet and heaved them to the kitchen. If she was right and if alcohol hasn't blown a whole new personality into Cloud, squeezing out a sensible answer was going to take hours, and he wasn't the only one who didn't get much sleep tonight, so it was caffeine or nothing. She let him be until the hot beverage was done. Then, Tifa sat beside him, shoved a mug under his nose and took a sip from her own.
"So then. Where were you, why in the world are you drunk and why is it three o'clock in the morning?"
Cloud looked at her, his mako-colored eyes hazy with exhaustion. "Teef, do we, uh…" he ran a hand through his blonde hair, which made Tifa wonder how he did it without getting cut on the spikes, "Is this really necessary?"
She gave him an incredulous look. "Is this really necessary? You come here in the middle of the night, which is not so new, save for the fact that you're drunk, you crash half the bar, smelling like you've been bathing in whiskey for the past three hours, and now you ask me if this is necessary? Well, what do you think, Cloud?"
Cloud seemed to shrink beneath her stern gaze. He took a deep breath before speaking – obviously he wanted to say quite a lot.
"I'm sorry it's this late, and I didn't mean to wake you. It's just that it's really hard to control your movements when you've had a little too much. I can't help the time, Teef, and as you said, this isn't the first time I've stayed this late. And it's not that I'm proud of it, so don't give me that look." Both his hands encircled the mug as he took a long gulp, focusing his gaze back to Tifa. "As for the why, I… I've been thinking about… well, regular stuff: what did the kids do today, what you're making for dinner, whether or not the lousy weather will continue and stuff… and then I remembered how much time has passed since then – you know, it's been five years already – and in the end, I thought of Aerith, and – wait, where are you going?"
Tifa got up the moment he said the first letter of the dead girl's name. She remembered how peachy fucking keen the young woman was. Tifa remembered how perfect the Cetra was compared to the lowly twenty-year-old her. She recalled how much it hurt when she died, but also how relieved she was because finally, there would be no beautiful ginger in her lovely pink dress and her perfect green eyes on Cloud's mind. Tifa thought of how wrong she was and of how much it had hurt to find out that he had left the kids, left her; all because of the Cetra, the last one, the most unique person in the world, the one who was always kind and smiling, who was loved by everyone, who was never called slutty because her skirt was too short and her shirt to revealing. Tifa was still very hurt by the fact that, even though she was always there for everyone, especially for him, and that she was the first one to be friends with him and that it was her who had found him on the train station that night, he obviously found a much bigger place in that bloody chunk he calls a heart for Aerith than he did for her. Thus, she had no intention of listening to this again.
"I'm not going to hear this, Cloud. I don't care anymore. All you seem able to think about is that girl, so why don't you just go die and be together with her? Then maybe you can tell her how much you've missed her and tell her how much you love her and you'll finally be free of the burden me and the kids represent. Together forever with Aerith, no Tifa in the package. I'm sick, Cloud, I'm really sick of how you get drunk because of a dead person. Fine, she was dear to us, but she's happy now, Cloud, and I don't see anyone else getting drunk for her, or you getting drunk for anyone alive! So go ahead, drown in your sorrows, I'm not going to try and help anymore." Tifa marched out of the kitchen, climbed the stairs and slammed the door to her room behind herself.
Ten minutes later, and a lot of suppressed tears from Tifa, Cloud knocked on her door softly.
"I'm not going to talk to you, Cloud", she called from the inside.
He opened the door and just stood there, looking at her for a while. Then, he finally spoke.
"I never said I loved her."
He could hear her sob deep into the night.
