A/N: After a short time, I have returned with a new installment of this series. It is a two parter so please be patient for what's to come and I hope you enjoy. Please R&R...it's always nice to know what I'm doing right or wrong and this fic took a while to upload for reasons beyond my understanding, the format is being picky for some reason, sorry. All of the general disclaimers apply...I own nothing FFVII.
Dream within a dream series, vol.5
"Warriors Don't Get Sick Part 1"
Cough...cough...thump...cough.
Tifa groaned and heard it again. Thump thump thump. What was that noise? She grimaced and thought about rolling over but didn't at the feel of his solid form behind her, holding her close. At first she thought the thumping was Cloud's heart and felt a warm rush of affection towards the sleeping warrior until she moved and the thumping grew louder, making her close her eyes tighter and bury her head in her pillow.
Cough…thump…thump…cough …cough.
This was not good. Her whole body ached and felt chilled but burning to the touch while it hurt to swallow and her nose was stuffy. Tifa groaned this time out of anger and felt him stir beside her, drawing attention away from her pounding headache. How could this happen? She couldn't get sick, not now with everything still being crazy busy in her life. The kids had to get up tomorrow and eat and the bar…grrrr, the bar had to be open for business.
A tug at her shoulder and squeeze around her waist alerted her to waking up Cloud, who asked her if she was alright. I'm in your arms, how could I not be alright? She thought but when she opened her mouth all that came out was cough cough cough.
Without a word, Cloud got out of bed and walked to the bathroom, returning back to bed with a bottle of cough syrup and a thermometer. She mentally rolled her eyes but instead focused on how sweet his concern for her was and dutifully opened her mouth for the thermometer.
The shrill beeping alerted a fever and Tifa swallowed the cough medicine sorely down her swollen throat that he gave her before Cloud went back and put the stuff away in the bathroom. He came back to tuck her in and slip beside her, holding her to keep her warm even though her body was over heated. She cuddled closer even though she had a feeling she was contagious…but she didn't want to think logically. Finally she drifted off into as fitful a sleep as she could while bringing through only one side of her nose.
When Tifa woke up…something was wrong. There was sunlight spilling across the sheets in a sliver across the comforter through the still closed curtains. What? They should be open by now…what time is it? The clock read 11:23 on the nightstand next to her and she almost fell out of bed. How could I have slept in so late?
As soon as she started to move, her question was answered. Her head felt like throbbing lead and her throat…did she swallow sand or something? Tifa tried to cough to clear it but felt as if wet cotton was stuck there and when she tried to call out to Cloud, a horrible squeaking noise came out.
"Cl…eeee…dddeeeee."
With an unsatisfied inward groan Tifa lay back down against the pillow, immediately feeling as if it was eating her head but unable to move it fast enough nor care to at the moment. Through the murky thoughts she realized something that made her very unhappy…not only was she sick, but she had no voice. This was going to be torture.
Tifa didn't have to wait long for her new found voicelessness to be tested. Right at lunchtime there was a chorus of little feet followed by bigger ones on the stairs and in burst the children, without knocking of course. She only sighed and held open her arms as they ran towards her, shouts of "Tifa!" hurting her head but all she felt was disappointment when Cloud stopped them from jumping into her arms.
"Marlene, Denzel, I told you Tifa was sick."
"So?" Denzel asked while Marlene whined. "But I wanted to give Tifa a hug and make her all better, that's what she always does for me."
Tifa opened her mouth to remind her of the medicine that helped as well but all that came out was that high pitched squeaking noise as her swollen vocal cords tried to force the words out. Both Marlene and Denzel looked at her funny while Cloud looked at her with a whole lot of concern and just a little bit of pity, she could see it in the corner of his mouth.
"Okay you two, I think it's time to go outside and play while I help nurse Tifa to health."
The children both looked at each other after this statement, picturing Cloud in a nurse uniform and had to run downstairs to contain their laughter till they were in the safety of the outdoors. Tifa was trying to hide her pleasure at being in the care of Cloud's very capable hands which were now holding a tray she hadn't noticed earlier. She smiled and looked down at the soup, a dubious expression on her face as if to ask 'you can cook?'
"Tifa, please, just eat it." Cloud asked with a hint of impatience but she eagerly took the spoon and dipped it into the warm liquid. He sat on the end of the bed, watching her eat and she finally had to put down the spoon to reach a pen and pad of paper on the night stand.
With Cloud never taking his eyes off of her, she wrote on the paper and handed it to him. He read the word 'what?' and smiled, placing the note on the bedspread.
"You."
Her eyebrows went up quizzically as he scooted closer to her on the bed and brushed a few strands of stray hair away from her face.
"You have no idea what you mean to me, do you?" he asked her more as a rhetorical question but met her eyes to find the answer while her hands moved the pen across the paper.
Cloud smiled as he read 'I think I have a clue' and turned to her with a thoughtful look on his face. Her hand on his conveyed her question while his eyes locked on the sight of her holding his hand. He brought it to his lips and kissed it lightly, looking up again to see Tifa's radiant smile.
"But I think there's a way you'll know for sure"
Silence resonated the space between them before Cloud took a deep breath and started a tale he had never told her before, too embarrassed to admit it but her smile tugged at his own and so he said, "It was a couple days after I left with SOLDIER, and we were walking along…"
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
(Cloud's flashback story)
The walk seemed never ending as the brood of newly recruited SOLDIERs, ranging from grown men to young boys, caravanned across the barren land. One such boy, a blond haired teenager named Cloud, if memory served him, caught Zack's eye. Ah, yes, the chocobo one, he thought as he chuckled to himself and walked up beside the boy who seemed to be preoccupied with something in his hand.
"Hey, whatcha got there?" Zack asked while casually slinging his arm over Cloud's shoulder like a buddy would to take the picture from his hand.
"Hey!" the young boy protested, oblivious to Zack's presence until the object left his hand. Upon closer inspection, it was a photograph of a girl whose name just so happened to be "Tifa" scrawled in curly cue handwriting on the reverse side indicated.
"Well she's a cutie," Zack commented while Cloud tried to ignore that this man, no, older boy, who he'd met merely days ago held the only picture of his precious Tifa in his hand instead of in Cloud's where it belonged. Choosing wisely to say none of this to his superior officer, Cloud merely nodded and faced forward while watching the dark haired one out of the corner of his eye. But the longer he looked at it, the hotter Cloud felt his face go.
Zack's chuckle got Cloud to face him and was greeted with a hearty slap on the back as the picture was slid into his back pocket. Cloud smiled meekly and removed the photo to hold in his hand and look at it once more, his face still red as a tomato from embarrassment but he couldn't help it, he had to see her. This is the only way he could see her anymore. The thought caused his smile to falter and a sigh escaped his lips, which did not go unnoticed by the Lieutenant.
"Something got you down, Strife?"
Cloud looked up at the warmth in the young man's voice and couldn't help let his thoughts come out in the form of words.
"Lieutenant, sir, why do you care so much?"
Zack laughed out loud this time, long and cheerful.
"Cloud, please, call me Zack. And I ask because I care about the well being of my men. I may not be that much older than you but I know how it is to leave someone you love behind. It clouds one's mind." Zack chuckled again and as an afterthought said, "No pun intended there."
The blond haired boy didn't suppress the urge to roll his eyes this time which only made Zack laugh harder. "You're a good boy, Strife. So, tell me about this Tifa?"
In answer to Zack's question, Cloud spent the entire walk back to command central telling him about Tifa's eyes, hair, smile, lips, voice, laugh, walk, anything and everything that made Cloud love her so. It seemed that even her breathing made him go all warm and fuzzy towards the long haired brunette and Zack had to stop from smacking himself and/or Cloud in the head one too many times.
The only instance he took any breath to not talk about her was to eat but even then, he tried to speak around the food. Thankfully his mother raised him with manners so he chewed thoroughly before continuing to ramble and Zack gave the woman praise on the inside. When it came to shutting down for the night, he thought he was in the clear of anymore talk about the young girl but volunteering to be Cloud's roommate turned out to give him no such luck.
No sooner had the Lieutenant gotten out of the bathroom after his shower had the chocobo head started a riveting tale of Tifa's hairs. That's right, not just her hair all together, but each and every individual brunette strand on her beautiful head that had the habit of changing colors in the sun light.
"Cloud…Cloud…CLOUD!"
The young boy was startled into silence and Zack let out a sigh of relief.
"Strife…lights out, it's time to go to bed."
"Sir, but I didn't finish telling you…"
"I'm sure the birds all sing and flowers bloom whenever Tifa enters a room but if you keep telling me this stuff, I'm bound to have disturbing dreams. I want to sleep Cloud, understand?"
The only response was a nod and Zack let out a small sigh of relief as Cloud followed orders to turn off the light before climbing into his bunk.
"I love her."
The words were just above a whisper but Zack felt himself smile. Ah, to be that young and in love…
"I know you do. Good night, Strife."
Moments of silence passed in which Zack felt his eyes grow heavy and close peacefully. Just as sleep was on the verge of taking over, the urge to open his eyes became overwhelming and Zack opened them to see Cloud right in his face.
"Cloud!"
"You didn't ask how I knew I loved her."
Zack ran a hand through his already overly spiked hair and messed it up even more if possible.
"Cloud, I know why. You are hopeless."
"It's in the way her voice gets all soft when she says my name and sounds like an angel whenever she speaks."
"Cloud." Zack swung his legs over the edge of the bed, feeling the bare wood floor under his feet and shivering.
"It's in the way her face crinkles so cutely when she laughs that I just want to poke her button nose."
"Oh for crying out loud, I'm begging you." The Lieutenant pleaded while maneuvering the young boy closer to the door, just a little bit more…so close…
"It's in the way her lips look so edible and taste so sweet, the way her cheeks flush after kissing her for hours, the way she giggles when I nuzzle her neck, the way she gets breathy when we-"
"STRIFE!"
And with the door finally open, Zack forced Cloud outside to find someone else to talk to death about his precious Tifa. When no such person could be found, he fell asleep on the doorstep, dreaming of his beloved.
(end of Cloud's story)
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox
The image of their fingers interlaced on the bedspread was all Cloud could see as the last words left his lips and finished his story before deciding to look at her face. Tifa's whole form was shining, from the tip of her head down throughout her body beneath the covers and it wasn't from overheating. It was from the man holding her hand, so soft and tender after all of the hardships he had gone through and then what they had been through together…after that story she felt as if her heart could burst with tenderness.
She squeezed his hand in hers and his eyes burned with an internal fire, only for her, always for her. He brushed his lips lightly across hers and loved to hear her sigh. Her cheeks were ablaze from his kiss pleasantly so and when he pulled away her breath caught in her throat. Those were only a few of the things that made him love her and he kissed her again, happy with the thought of what the future held in making him love her more if that was even possible.
Her eyelids drooped dreamily as he pushed her sleepy body down gently onto the bed to lie down. Her smile was peaceful as she felt him curl up against her, holding her close so she was finally able to get the much deserved rest she needed, with him beside her; always beside her.
As it was meant to be
The End…of part 1