It's two nights after Vincent dies and she'd question why she's in Aeris's church at two in the morning, except for the fact that she doesn't really care and she's very very tipsy.
Cloud though, Cloud looks like he wants to ask her why she followed him here, but then he examines her and then he just looks back at the flowers, which are doing really really awesome considering that they were drowned like a year ago.
"I hated you after she died," Yuffie blurts and he doesn't even turn to look at her, so she just keeps going, "Not because I blamed you for her dying. But you just fell apart afterwards. I expected you to suck it up and lead, and you didn't. You were just all torn up with grief and everything. Like some alien had just abducted you and we couldn't reach the mother ship."
She stares hard at the back of his head like it will make him turn around, but it doesn't. Cloud just keeps staring at Aeris's flowers. It doesn't surprise her, really.
"It reminded me of Godo. After the war, he shut down the same way. Everybody was looking to him and he didn't do anything. Just had that far off look on his face and sat in his throne all day and never said anything. Even to me."
Yuffie sees him cross his arms and she thinks maybe he is going to say something, but she cuts him off because she's got more to say, because her and Cloud don't ever talk. And apparently she needs to talk, because he needs to understand and she is just tipsy enough and Vincent Valentine is just dead enough.
"But you know? I got over it, Spike. I got over hating you when you came out of that mako stupor and almost started functioning like a real person again," she tells him, "But then? After it was all over? You just fucking fell apart again like nothing we did mattered and I hated you even more. Like, I hated you more than Vincent hates—hated—sunshine and kittens. Which was a lot. Except he liked my cats. But you up and abandoned all of us afterwards, even Denzel! You just—you just quit and I couldn't—I've never been that way. I don't just quit or grieve or anything, and I hate people like you and Godo because that's what you do."
Cloud turns then, to look at her, and he seems older than she remembers, with all these deep lines cutting into his face, and she smiles at him, the biggest Yuffie smile she can manage. "I don't hate you anymore. You're—trying and that's really all I've ever—been able to do. So. So. As far as I'm concerned, we're cool. We cool, Spike?"
He laughs, but he nods. "Yeah. We're cool, Yuffie," he shakes his head, laughing again, and then says, "For the record, there were more than a few days I wanted to kill you. I'm glad I didn't now, but back then…"
It makes her smile for real this time and she flings herself at him, holding him tight, and suddenly it's all crashing over her from nowhere. She doesn't want to talk about it. That's why she came with Cloud, because her and Cloud never talk, but now they're talking and it's here, hanging between them like really awkward sexual tension, and she says into his chest, "I don't want Vincent to be dead."
And then his arms wrap around her. His head rests on top of hers and who knew? Cloud Strife gives excellent hugs when he's not being all emo in the corner.
"I don't either."
That's all it takes. Suddenly she's flying apart and shaking and tears sting like acid on her cheeks and Yuffie feels sixteen again, watching Aeris get run through, she feels eight again and Wutai is burning.
It's two-thirty in the fucking morning and Yuffie isn't sure how her and Cloud ended up hugging in Aeris's church, except Vincent has been dead for two days and Yuffie isn't nearly drunk enough.