My Decaying Star

I think it was around the time that Holy left the Highwind in ruins that the crazy idea that had been running around since Aeris' death actually became somewhat of a good idea. I'm still trying to figure out if it's been worth it.

We still don't know if Tifa's memory loss was a result of the nasty banging her head went through, or the shock of waking up in Cloud's arms…or rather, they weren't so much Cloud's arms anymore as they were Cloud's body's arms. Or maybe 'corpse's arms' gives a clearer picture.

Still, I don't know which option I'd prefer: Tifa repressing any memory of Cloud before that fateful night by the well, or Tifa suddenly waking up one day and remembering the man she'd fallen in love with and how he died in an instant. Course, the doctors say she could regain her memory slowly, or in one instant, or in no instant at all…which puts us in a pretty problematic situation.

See, when big ol' bad ass Barret came crawling his marshmallow butt over the iron beam they'd found Red under, bawling about how it was 'terribly wrong for his baby girl to be starin at him like he some kinda fool'. We're talking about his other baby girl, not itsy witsy Marlene. Needless to say, it took time to calm him down.

When he finally towed us over to where Tifa lay in Cloud's corpse's arms, we certainly suffered the resulting shock.

Vincent had been the one to find me. At least I'd been conscious when he found me. Cid was slung over his shoulder like a rag doll, mumbling about how 'if Shera didn't fick (that's right, he said fick) that damn fucking fuel line, he was going to give her what for' or something along those lines. He lost three teeth, and his tongue was swollen when he gave this little vendetta.

We'd found Barret next, holed up under a wall that used to make up the captain's quarters of the airship. Cid's brass plate declaring his status was still nailed across the locked door. It took us a while to figure out he was locked in, and not locked out. It was relatively easy saving him once we figured out he needed to unlock the door. From there we freed Red from beneath the iron beam. He's still got a limp in his back left leg to this day, and another nasty scar across his nose. He was protecting the remnants of Cait. Seems even genius animals lose their mind in a time of chaotic tragedy. Ah well, at least I kept my cool, and my smart mouth, putting Cid down what for a few times, even though I'm still pretty sure he thought he was at the head of the Highwind flying through the skies. He still won't admit to it to this day.

We'd all been sobered when we found Cloud and Tifa, though. I mean surely, if a scrawny ass kid-ahem…teenager like me could survive a crash like that, well, hell, that dumbass swordsman would've too. I joke around now a days that Tifa bounced off her boobs, that's what saved her. I couldn't back then, not when she looked so pathetic.

Anyways, they'd been lying on a large piece of sheet metal, another beam perched precariously over their bodies. Tifa was lying in Cloud's arms, almost afraid to move it seemed to me, with her eyes wide open, and Cloud's eyes were open too, but in a different way; half lidded with glazed pupils staring dully at the back of Tifa's head. There was a large pipe stuck through Cloud's chest.

I realized later that Tifa was so freaked out and afraid to move, because someone had their arms around her, and she was bleeding, and didn't have a bloody freaking clue how she ended up in an airship crash. And when she saw us, all bedraggled and awful looking, she thought that we were survivors come to rescue her, and while that was true…

It was a real pain in the ass that her memory decided to cut off on the night Cloud left Nibelhiem, a really really really big pain…cause that meant she knew none of us, and we all knew her, and that scared her shitless.

And oh good heavens how appalled she was, her last memory being at age fourteen and her being like…twenty or something. And dear gods, she would not stop asking about Cloud.

'Did he make it to SOLDIER?' and 'When will he be back?' was her most frequent inquiries. She figured out we knew him after Barret so unceremoniously said he went to see Cloud today…or rather, his body. It took a lot of explaining that Cloud had went on a mission with his buddy Zack, and his old girlfriend Aeris. It also took a lot of carefully weaved lies to explain Sephiroth and the destruction of Midgar and ShinRa.

There was no lying about Sephiroth, and ShinRa…there was lying though. None of us could bear to tell her the truth that Cloud had died.

Gaia, she was fourteen years old again! Younger than me! Sure, she knew she was really much older, and obviously she knew she'd missed out on a lot, but damn! Everything, and I mean absolutely everything she had learned or anyone she'd met…everything was gone. All those nifty drinks she said she'd teach me, all the experience she gained fighting, the pride in defeating Sephiroth, her friends…us, she lost us…everything was like it had never happened.

Cid though, Cid said once it was almost a blessing for the child. By this point, he'd started calling her that, 'the child'.

'After all the pain and suffering that child's been through…she needs to forget, cause if she'd known Cloud died protecting her from that crash? Ye gods, that'd be a sad fucking day indeed.'

She got reacquainted with us, you know? And she was glue, too, that held old AVALANCHE together, beaten and torn as it was…and she was the glue, the glue that had no recollection of us. How ironic is that? I think she would've been the glue regardless of what happened…whether she had her memories or not. Tifa wasn't just the kind of woman that'd let all of us rest alone. We'd have to be in touch, in one way or another.

So, it was about three months after Meteor that Barret mentioned the idea. The idea that had been crazy, but then seemed reasonable, and farfetched, but now was a must. He wanted his old Tifa back, he said…and even if he couldn't have that, he'd see her happy…he'd see her see Cloud one last time, at least that much.

At first me and Cid, we had disagreed. We were selfish, no denying that. We absolutely adored the new Tifa, as much as the last one. She was the same, but different. She was still bright, and wonderful, but a certain innocence touched her eyes, and the sorrow that always lay trapped beneath her smiles was gone. She was a clean slate, and she was the brightest, most positive thing to happen after Meteor. And everyone adored her, because she was a child in a woman's body, and she was happy.

Still, there were those times when I'd catch her looking off in the distance at the stars, late at night when whoever she was with was supposed to be asleep. I wasn't the only caretaker to notice this.

I asked her only once, and she didn't reply for a moment. She still stared up, and I had doubted that she'd even heard me at all.

Finally, she tilted her head to the side and said; "See there," she pointed up to the sky, "See that star, Yuffie? That's my star…mine. And he's been away for far too long. I know he belongs in the sky, but he belongs with me, too," I couldn't even tell which star she was pointing at, "I could be his sky…and that way he could fall back down to this planet, and stay with me."

And we had sat in silence for a while, and I digested her words, and it sort of scared me…cause suddenly, in that moment, I was afraid Tifa had remembered everything, and that star was Cloud, and she was just sort of in denial. I was afraid she'd just snap suddenly.

And then she'd snapped her head in my direction and said, "What are you doin up, Yu-ffeh?" She had said it with her old accent; the one Barret said she'd shaken off in her early days in Midgar.

She had said that with her old accent, and when she'd spoken of her star, she hadn't. That was when I knew we had to get Cloud back.

It took a little time to finally convince Cid, but still, what did we know of getting someone back from the dead? Surely there had to be a price, and what was the land of the dead like? How do you get there? And Cloud's been dead for months! How the hell do we get him back?

So we bound up folklore, from all of us. Legends that we had all gained of the afterlife and death we combined to form something that we thought might actually bring Cloud back from the dead.

Vincent brought into the account of a body. Could a soul inhabit a body that's been dead for months? And if so, would the results be that pretty?

Here ya go, Tifa! Take your decaying star…

Nope, I don't think so. We sort of pushed that to the back of our heads.

I brought up the price, after all, who thinks of payment except for a thief? We simply just couldn't take Cloud from the after life, there had to be a price, right?

Barret mentioned that the afterlife was a different place, and we all immediately thought of the lifestream. So what, we take a lifestream swim like dear old Cloud and Tifa did so long ago?

Red mentioned the actually getting of Cloud. Could we convince him to come back to the world of the living? Would Tifa be enough? Would he be in a state of mind to choose?

Cid thought, well, if he's in a place, how do we get there? If it is the lifestream, do we jump in? Do we find some nifty portal? Is there really something to all that hocus pocus bullshit?

But Reeve brought in the most important thing, which would take all of our information and plans and make them utterly useless.

Love. Of freaking course, nothing's simple, is it? Oh sure, Tifa loved Cloud but she didn't know Cloud was dead! Hell, she didn't know she'd spent the last year of his life with him! She didn't remember everything they'd been through! What were we suppose to tell her? Spring her suddenly with the fact that her blue-eyed boy was long dead and gone and might not want to come back?! But he was right; we couldn't do it without her.

I think I cried the night before we left for the lifestream, that crack in the ground near the hospital Cloud nearly died in. I think the last time I cried was when my mom died, but I was just so frustrated, and I hate crying. It's absolutely senseless and useless and pointless…and bad. Just bad.

What if it was all for nothing? What if Tifa found out the truth, and poof! She went even crazier than she already was? What would we do? Gaia, just thinking about all things that could've gone wrong sends a chill up my spine even now.

And when Cid flew us all out there the next day, and we landed beside the crack of the ground where to this day the lifestream still bubbles up from it, Tifa was silent. She was quiet, unusually quiet…and it scared me, cause, she called me 'Yuffie' and not 'Yu-ffeh' when she did speak. She asked where we were going, and I didn't tell her. She already knew anyways.

When we started to descend the side of the crevice, we heard the voice…or rather, the voices.

It was Cloud, then…standing in the green mist, and Tifa didn't freak out like I though she would and dive into the crevice after him. She just stared, and stood there.

We had found the place, and the means of getting there. We had brought the love, and it seemed as if Cloud's body was there in the lifestream. It also seemed that Cloud was there to indulge us, and perhaps he had made the choice of coming with.

But we didn't have a price. We didn't know what it would cost, and we had nothing to give. It frightened me dearly, and we all were holding our breath until Tifa finally spoke.

'Cloud, how did you get in the lifestream? How did you die?'

And I saw pain cross the ghost's features.

'They said you went on a mission, with your friends Zack and Aeris,' she smiled sweetly, 'I haven't seen you in so long.'

I thought she was going to cry.

And she sort of laughed bitterly, 'I think I'm fourteen, even though I know I'm not.'

'That's okay,' and Cloud's voice was eerily smooth, 'I think I'm sixteen in my head.'

And I saw him reach out to take her hand before she even got the words out of her mouth.

'Yes, I'll come with you.'

It seemed too simple to me, after all that stressing and worrying, all she had to do was take his bloody hand! Still irks me to this day, even though Cloud finally explained it when he was on his death bed…well…

I had asked Cloud on his wedding day how he felt marrying a woman with half her memories gone. He replied that Tifa probably felt the same about marrying a man with a hole in his chest.

And it was true, too. He always kept the left side of his chest bandaged. Never showed it to me, or any of the rest of us. His kids don't even know about his little dip in the lifestream, and I ain't about to tell them.

It seemed all too soon that the years passed, and each of AVALANCHE's members had started dropping like flies.

Tifa passed at the ripe age of eighty-seven, and I was old and cranky (I'm old and ornery now) and Cloud was following her.

He told me a lot in that moment.

'I've never slept, this whole time I've been back. Never had a reason for breathing or eating, what with this hole in my chest,' he'd changed a bit with his time in the lifestream, 'I was never really alive, Yuffie. The lifestream breathed life back into my decaying body, and revived it…for me. Kind of weird, huh? I'm living but I'm not. My body is still dead. My heart doesn't beat, I don't even know if I have a heart, what with this hole and all.'

'Why did you come back?' he had stared at me strangely then, 'I mean, Promised Land isn't all it's cracked up to be?"

He'd laughed a hearty laugh, then, 'No, the lifestream…it was…heaven.'

'Then why'd you come back? For Tifa? Cause you loved her?'

Cloud lifted his eyes in thought before shaking his head, 'No. It wasn't because of that. I could die, and be dead with the knowledge of Tifa loving me, and I loving her. It wasn't about that.'

'Then what was it?'

He sighed deeply, trouble lacing his brow, 'You see, Yuffie…the whole plan to bring Aeris back? You remember that?' I had nodded my head, 'Wouldn't have worked.'

'Why?'

'She was at peace. Everything…she was right with it in the mortal world. She didn't have a need to go back. She didn't have a want.'

'So…you weren't at peace?'

'No, I wasn't at peace,' he sighed, 'I couldn't stay dead…knowing that Tifa didn't remember me.'

'She did remember you, though,' I said, 'You were all she ever talked about.'

He shook his head again, 'No…she didn't remember everything we'd been through together. She had cut it off with the well…no Nibelhiem burning…no Midgar, no Golden Saucer…no Seventh Heaven. She had no memories of me…being with her in that time. And, I just couldn't rest when she had no memories of me. I wasn't at peace.'

'That was why you came back?'

Cloud nodded his head, 'She paid the price so I could create new memories with her.'

I had shaken my head, 'Wait, what? I thought…you said you came back, because she didn't have memories with you.'

'Right.'

'But what price did she pay?'

'She gave up her memories.'

'What?' I had screeched, which sent me into a fit of old-lady coughs, 'But…wait. She paid the price for your resurrection with her memories of post-Nibelhiem…but you came back because she didn't have any memories…my head hurts.'

He had laughed again, 'It's hard, I know. It's a circle connected, I think. And, it's hard to tell where the circle begins and ends. I think she knew, though, on some level,' his eyes were getting droopy as he had said this, his speech slurred only slightly.

'Of course she did…you were…' I tipped my head down in thought, 'You were her decaying star.'

He had grunted, a muted laugh, and when I looked up, I saw a skeleton sitting in the bed where Cloud should've been.

I think it was worth it, now…I'm sure Tifa's life wasn't all she had dreamed it to be post-Meteor…course, she didn't even remember Meteor. I'm certain, that if souls like Cloud and Tifa can watch down on the living that they were laughing their wrinkled asses off at my reaction to Cloud's 'death'. I can't really call it that; I think he was just returning to the life stream. He was never really alive to begin with, so I don't think I can call it a resurrection. I don't know.

Hell, I bet they don't have wrinkly asses anymore…I bet since they are in the lifestream, their souls are young and beautiful.

Damn, they've outdone me again.

I wonder if Tifa got her memories back…I guess I'll have to ask her when I get there, to the life stream that is.

I wonder if I could've done what Tifa did…give up my memories for my love…save my decaying star.

Course, my star doesn't really decay…but, I hope he does someday, as gruesome as it sounds.

The lifestream will be a bit lonely without him…or maybe he'll pay with his memories to get his love back.

I wonder where he'll stop them at.

A/N: I think I'm in a block, and I wrote this to sort of break out! I've been busy, thus the lack of updates, and the fact the computer with all my written chapters isn't hooked up to the internet...but anyways, I hope you enjoy it. It's strange, I know, but...I kinda felt like being strange.