"Tifa! No!" Cloud sat bolt upright in bed, sweat pouring from his forehead, awakening from his nightmare. He glanced rapidly around the dark room, trying to catch his breath and get his bearings. He ran his hands through his blond spikes, staring blankly ahead for a few moments before falling back on his pillow, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. He closed his eyes and rolled over on his side, trying to block out the images he had seen, but he couldn't.

Tifa poked her head in the door. "Cloud? You okay?" she asked. He continued to face the wall, pretending to be asleep; he didn't like the fact that he had cried out in the middle of the night like a frightened child. But Cloud knew Tifa wasn't fooled—she was smarter than that. She sat down on the bed behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, what's wrong?" she said.

"Nothing," he mumbled, not looking at her, "it was nothing."

"Well obviously it was something if you woke up screaming," Tifa replied gently.

"Just some dumb dream, that's all…nothing more."

"Are you telling me or yourself? Come on, there's nothing to be embarrassed about," she said, as if reading his mind. "Marlene is with Barret, and Zack and Aeris are off on vacation this week and took Denzel with them, remember? It's just you and me. And since it was my name you woke up screaming, I'd kind of like to know," she added.

"There's…it's…it's nothing to worry about," Cloud said.

"If you don't tell me, I'll make you fill in for Aeris on her flower-selling until she gets back," Tifa said teasingly.

Cloud sighed and sat up. "All right," he said, rubbing his temples. "It was…we were…it was back in Nibelheim. The night it burned."

"Mm-hm."

"I could see you trapped in a burning house. I'm not sure if it was yours or not—I guess it doesn't really matter. I saw your face in the window—you looked so scared. And I couldn't get to you. I tried but, I …I couldn't move. Like I was cemented to the ground somehow. Then I looked down at my feet and saw blood…just...flowing through the streets. It must've been an inch deep, everywhere I looked."

"Was Sephiroth there?"

"I'm not sure…I didn't see him but I could hear him laughing. It kept getting louder. Then this screaming started…I'm not sure where it was coming from, but it kept getting louder too." The high-pitched sound still rang in Cloud's ears. "Then I looked up and couldn't see your face anymore—only the flames where you had been a moment ago. And I guess that was the end of it."

"I'm sorry Cloud," Tifa said, wrapping her arms around him from behind and resting her chin on his shoulder sympathetically. He put a hand on her arm, as if to hold it still, and continued to stare straight ahead.

"Oh, and you had a child with you for some reason."

"A what? Cloud, I think you should try and get some rest," Tifa said, drawing away slightly. "Would you like me to stay with you for a while?" Cloud's first impulse was to say no—he wasn't a baby, he didn't need taking care of. But he had to admit that feeling her touch and knowing that she was alive felt very good to him right now…

"If you don't mind," he replied.

"Of course not," she said.

***

The next morning Cloud was sitting at the bar, sipping his coffee and mapping out his delivery route for the day as usual. Tifa was behind the bar finishing the previous night's dishes and they were listening to the news on the radio, as they often did.

"In world news," said the voice in the box, "wildfires have been raging towards the village of _____ this weekend…" the sentence was broken up in a burst of muffled static.

"Hey, turn that up, would you?" Cloud asked. Tifa leaned over and adjusted the radio's volume.

"…they say those things sound like a train when they're coming, Steve," one broadcaster was saying to the other.

"Well if you were planning on taking a real train anywhere near the village of Gongaga…" the second broadcaster said to the audience. Cloud and Tifa exchanged glances.

"Don't," the two broadcasters said in unison, chuckling at their little joke. The two listeners at Seventh Heaven weren't laughing.

"That brings us to our traffic report. Jim?"

"Thanks Steve," said another voice, "big jam heading out of Sector Four today…" Tifa turned down the radio. Normally Cloud liked to hear the traffic report but his mind was drifting far away from his delivery route now.

"Gongaga…" Cloud said slowly. "Isn't that where Zack and Aeris were going?"

"Yeah, to see his parents," Tifa said, her eyebrows knitting together, gazing straight ahead at the counter instead of focusing on the glass she was aimlessly drying off. Cloud stared down blankly at his map, spinning his pencil in his fingers as the lines on the paper blurred before him. Tifa put down the glass and said, "I think I'm going to give Zack's cell phone a call. Just to, you know, see how it's going." She quickly moved out from behind the bar as she spoke, trying to hide the urgency in her voice.

"You do that," mumbled Cloud, as Tifa headed for the phone. He tried to focus on the map again but his eyes failed him—he hadn't exactly gotten a good night's sleep. Soon Cloud found himself following Tifa up the stairs and leaning against the wall that faced the little office, with his hands shoved in his pockets. He watched as Tifa stood with her back to him and dialed the number and held the phone to her ear. They both waited as the phone on the other end rang. And rang. And rang. Cloud shifted from one foot to the other; there was no answer. Tifa hung up the phone and stared down at it as she held it there.

"They're not picking up," she said, not looking back at him.

"Maybe they just have bad reception," said Cloud. "You know, being out in the country and all."

"Yeah," said Tifa, taking her hand down. "Yeah, that must be it." Clearly neither of them believed what they were saying. They wandered back downstairs and went back to what they had been doing. The only sounds were the scratches of the pencil and the clinks of the glasses as Cloud and Tifa worked in silence. After about ten minutes Tifa's towel had only dried two dishes and Cloud's distracted pencil had squiggled out a route that would have sent Fenrir straight into the ocean. "Cloud," Tifa said finally, "do you think…we should go after them? Y'know…just to be sure?"

Cloud leaned back, away from his map. "You're right…I should probably go."

Tifa slapped her hand down over the map and looked him in the eye. "I said we." Cloud looked up at her and said nothing; but Tifa read his face like a book. She knew he couldn't help but think of his nightmare from the night before; after hearing the wildfire reports, he didn't want her to come. "It was a dream, Cloud," she said. "Nothing more. You said so yourself." He looked slightly taken aback, but still he said nothing. "They're my friends too, and if they are in trouble, I'm not going to sit back here and play waitress while you go get yourself killed. The world won't end if we close for a day or two," Tifa went on.

Cloud knew Tifa's mind about as well as she knew his. He knew that once her mind was made up, it wasn't easily changed. And most of all, though he hated to admit it, he knew that she was right; it had only been a dream. Without looking at her he sighed and put his map away. A smirk came to Tifa's face as Cloud crossed to the opposite side of the room and put up the sign in the window:

Seventh Heaven and Strife Delivery Service: CLOSED FOR BUSINESS.