Obligatory disclaimer. Also, minor spoiler warning--I'm assuming even if you haven't played the game, reading VII fic means you at least know about certain major events from the game...but if not, spoiler for the end of disc 1.
His breathing slowly returned to normal as he stared at the mountains before him, lost in the fog and reaching into eternity. It was snowing. He thought it must always snow there, high above the rest of the world. The town could disappear in a minute's walk, fade into the atmosphere, become invisible just blending in to the mountainside.
He had thought he could handle it, being in the house. Of course he hadn't known when they walked in, but even once he figured it out, he thought he could handle it. But he should have learned by now not to trust his thoughts.
In the light flurry, a single snowflake escaped its path and moved towards him. He watched it spiral around a few times, almost dancing. It landed on his cheek and, as if it landed on a sort of switch, the numbness he had felt since he'd stood on the altar began to fade away. He realized he could…feel.
His cheeks stung. He wondered how long he had been cold without realizing it—wondered how cold he actually was.
He reached up to brush the dancer from his cheek, finding it bruised. He remembered the day before, when Elena had punched him in retaliation over Tseng's death. He did not feel any anger towards her; he welcomed the pain. She was hurting, just as he was hurting, and she needed to deal with her pain in whatever way she could.
The air outside was crisp. He found it easy to breathe—it seemed to draw in a cold that invaded his entire body, bringing life back one breath at a time. He knew it had been like this since they arrived, but he guessed it took the sharp contrast of the air outside with the stifling calm of the basement for him to notice.
The basement. In his mind, a little girl still ran around, energetic, and ready to live. A little girl who knew a happy life, and who expected that life to last.
Cold. He had to focus on the cold, or he would suffocate. But he couldn't stop the images, as though the tapes had been copied into his own head, to remind him. To remind him of the little girl with pink bows in her hair, the little girl lively enough to take on the world, and the little girl who one day would grow up to try—
"Hey."
Cold fingers brushed against his shoulder and he felt, once more, the suffocating heat fade away.
"Tifa…Tifa, she—"
"I know."
"She probably stood in this spot once. And now she'll never see it again. She'll never even see where she was born, she won't—"
And it broke. He sank to the ground no longer able to support the weight of his guilt, and everything—the heat, the cold, and finally the despair, rushed through him like a flood. He felt Tifa slide down beside him, felt her arms around him, and he clung to her, sobbing into her shoulder. He was afraid to let go—and in this catharsis, he wasn't sure if he would ever be able to let go.