AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story and its sorta sequel "…Would you just laugh?" both take place that last night at the well between Cloud and Tifa, only this one through Cloud's eyes.

Both of these are the prequels to "If I said I loved you…" and "…Would you Turn Away?", also published in my profile.

Please read them.

I don't own Final Fantasy, and I never will. If you wish to contact me, you can reach me at:

Sm (underscore) scales (at) yahoo (dot) com

This story is dedicated to Anita, for she knows what it truly means when you make a promise to someone that you really care about…

She's not gonna come. I know it.

I knew asking her to meet me was a mistake.

It's not like I really am her friend anyway.

I pull my shirt a little tighter around me, as the wind begins to pick up and my teeth start to clatter against each other.

She's not gonna come, I should just get up now and walk away. I just, I should just get up, turn around, and walk back along that path back to my nice, warm house. It doesn't really matter that she didn't come, she had no real reason to. I should just sit up, and walk away, yessir, just get up offa this grass and walk away.

Yet I don't move.

She's not gonna show, and I shouldn't cling to the hope that she will. Its not good for my health.

Footfalls.

Soft, delicate, footfalls.

Coming closer.

Is that her? Could it be her? Could she actually have…come?

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

The scent of mangos and peaches fills my nose, as her long black hair gently swishes past my face as passes by me, and then sits down on the other side of me in front of the well.

It's her…

She actually…came.

Silence hangs in the air between us like midnight dew, as we sit there just staring out into the empty nighttime nothingness beyond the well, dotted with a few white specks here and there, and a great big moon hanging behind them.

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

Ba-dump

"Sorry I'm late…You said you wanted to talk about something?"

She then looks at me with those beautiful brown eyes, and suddenly for no reason my lungs freeze, my legs quiver, my hands shake, and my heart stops, all for just a simple second in time.

I wanna just move in a bit closer to her, just move in a bit closer, and put my arm around her.

"Come this spring…I'm leaving this town for Midgar." The words escape my lips unbiddingly. What am I saying?

She tilts her head slightly, and the chilled wind picks up her hair, blowing it in her face and past her shoulders freely.

"…all boys are leaving our town."

"But I'm different from all of them. I'm not just going to find a job. I want to join SOLDIER. I'm going to be the best there is, just like Sephiroth!"

Oh God, what am I saying? I am going to join an elite military unit??? What is wrong with me, why am I saying these things?! Am I trying to impress her?

"Sephiroth…the Great Sephiroth. Isn't it hard to join SOLDIER?" She speaks the words so softly, so carefully. Is she surprised by what I am saying, is she scared of what those words I am saying might mean to her?

"…I probably wont be able to come back to this town for a while."

The silence falls again between us, as we both turn our heads skyward, watching the stars shoot and arc across the sky, the water ripple across the well's surface, and the grass blow over itself over and over again beneath the force of the wind.

"Will you be in the newspapers if you do well?"

"I'll try."

Ba-dump Ba-dump

I want to just move closer over to her, and cuddle with her. Just to feel her warm body pressed up against me, keeping each other warm against the cold night.

To kiss her…

"Hey, why don't we make a promise? Umm, it you get really famous and I'm ever in a bind…You come and save me, all right?"

Her words break me out of out my dream, and back into reality.

"What?"

"Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come and rescue me. I want to at least experience that once." She says those words with a slight stutter, as if she is almost embarrassed by them.

Ba-dump Ba-dump Ba-dump

Her words speed up my heart till it is near bursting. Is she asking what I think she is asking me?…Is she asking me to be her hero? I must be mistaken, there is no way that she could possibly be asking me to be her hero, I am just a nobody, a nothing to her.

"What?…"

Ba-dump

"Come on--! Promise me--!"

Ba-dump

She's…serious.

She wants me to be her…hero?

Me?

Ba-dump

"All right…I promise."

Without thinking, I said it, and thus sealed the world and my heart away for her and for her only.

-fin