Drabble #41: Mind
Summary: Deep in his mind, she still lived on
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the text. Characters and places belong to SquareEnix
Broken images played in his mind but he couldn't make them out. They were all blurred and speaking with broken voices. Then the misty images faded and a clear picture began to form. A pretty brunette woman stood in front of him, her emerald eyes shining with love for him.
"Aeris!" he cried out, reaching out his hand for her but the moment her name escaped his lips, her image faded and his eyes opened. He was staring into the hurt expression of Tifa Lockhart.
"I thought you were having a fit," she explained after a moment of silence. "You were shaking so much and I was worried."
"I'm fine," he replied in monotone, settling back down into his covers and ignoring her presence. Tifa sighed as she watched him and slowly made her way back to her own bed. Sometimes, Cloud made her feel as if she was losing her mind. It often felt like he had lost his. She sighed again because she knew exactly why he acted like that.
The broken cries of a name long gone, the helpless pleas to spare the innocent woman who had died on the alter of the Forgotten City. Tifa knew what he saw in his mind as he slept. She knew that Aeris was there.
It hurt her more than anything else to know that even with the flower girl dead, she was still only second best to Cloud. He would rather dive deep into his mind to speak with a dead woman than spare her some time for conversation. After everything she'd done for him, the barmaid thought she at least deserved that but Cloud obviously didn't.
Sometimes, she wished she could just lose her mind, and then she could forget about how Cloud confessed his love for the flower girl while still deep in sleep.