Title: Patience is an Art
Character/Pairing: Tifa/Cloud, Denzel, Marlene, mentions of Cloud/Aerith
Prompt: Forgive and forget, time
Note: Based from after the game till the end of the movie
Summary: She can't stop, even if she wanted to. She is alone, without a clue of how long this will last, if it will even end, for that matter.
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She is waiting. She is always waiting—that much she has known since she was a child. She just didn't expect to still do it as an adult.
-x-
"He's not home, is he?" Denzel asks this, quiet as usual. Tifa worries about him sometimes, an irrational worry but it happens all the same.
"No." She gives a sigh and a resigned smile. He shifts, his head drooping slightly, a fist forming in his hands.
It stirs again, that sleeping beast, and she does her best to quell it. Going to the young boy, she ruffles his hair, ignoring the soft protests and the quick glance at her.
"He'll come back soon enough." It's not a promise, one can never promise when it comes to Cloud these days, but it's better than nothing. Denzel nods, partially reassured, partially disbelieving, and returns the half-smile.
It's a start, at least, better than the tight frowns and angry eyes she's used to seeing. Pushing him up the stairs with a reminder to take a bath, she goes back to cleaning the dishes.
It's hard for Tifa to believe what she's saying, though. She does anyways because she will always believe (and this is what hurts more, that she can't stop even when she knows better).
This is a learned belief, though, one that comes with time and practice until it is a ritual more than anything else.
She scrubs the glass before rinsing it. The door swings open and Tifa realizes with a start that there is no one to comfort her.
She's left alone to face this boogie-man.
-x-
Sometimes, Tifa dreams in gold and blue. She sees Cloud, so young and innocent, nothing more than a child. He's in the background, watching her watch him. It's unnerving, a funhouse mirror, and she looks away quickly.
Next time she turns to face him, she can't see his shy smile.
-x-
The bar isn't the most popular but it gets its due share of customers. Most nights she is busy, both bussing the tables and preparing the drinks. It's quick-paced work, if nothing else, and she's always on her feet.
Denzel and Marlene help her on the busiest nights, taking trays thrice the size of their heads in small hands. They waver, wobble, and she almost chases after them to catch the haphazard meals.
They manage anyways, balancing themselves at the last moment, and she tries to avert her eyes before they notice her stare.
"Another whisky," a drunk old man asks, and she complies, giving a smile with the drink. Marlene returns with her tray first, a small paper folded on top with the requests from table seven, and Tifa turns once more, her hands a blur.
It's time-consuming work, repetitive and exhausting. When she falls asleep early in the morning, she doesn't think of the roar of motorcycles or broken promises.
Instead she dreams of smoke and mirrors and thinks it a wonderful place.
-x-
Sometimes, Tifa dreams in black and silver. She sees Cloud, a jaded young man, uncaring to the world. He seems to be waiting for something, his paycheck perhaps, or his next orders.
She nearly pleads for him to help (with what? Who?) but she stops halfway. He won't listen to her now.
He stares at her with hard eyes and she can't remember if they are brown or green.
-x-
Marlene stares out the window, raindrops paving paths past her fingers. There is a constant drip in the background, one that she falls asleep to now days.
Tifa has tried to fix the roof but there is no time, not when there are meals to be made, homework to be checked, a business to be run.
Two businesses, because Cloud is never around to hear all his orders. She writes them down on a worn-out pad, nearly down to the last page, and gives them to an artificial voice.
"When do you think the rain will stop?" The bucket in the corner is nearly full, the drops splashing, and the little girl's eyes nearly close with sleep.
"Soon, I hope." Tifa looks up from her papers, a pencil tucked under her ear. There are forms all over the table, a calculator beside her left hand, and the numbers dance around her merrily. "Are you sleepy, Marlene?"
Denzel is on the floor, working on a puzzle. Half it is formed, wolves in a pack, but all she can make out are their legs. Glancing at the clock, Tifa gets up. "It's late, you two. Off to bed."
"Aww, Tifa…"
"Now."
They trudge up the stairs, Denzel helping Marlene up the last few steps when she starts to lean on the wall.
A smile on her face, Tifa shakes her head and turns back to the papers. Maybe she should go to bed as well, her eyes heavy and a sluggish movement to her limbs. Shaking her head, she sits down and goes back to the numbers.
She still has to fill out Cloud's papers.
-x-
Sometimes Tifa dreams in red and green. She sees Cloud, heartbroken and old, their flower-girl in his arms. He looks at her balefully, tiredly, and she sees the broken pieces of their childhood there.
He has realized how the world has worked once more.
She reaches out to give him a comforting squeeze (see, not everyone's gone) but he avoids her touch, dodges her outstretched fingers and offers of life.
He keeps to the opposite side of the road and she watches as he walks back down the path she came from.
-x-
It's a sunny day when Cloud appears once more at their doorstop. She expected storms or wild winds to drive him back, but the clouds disappear into the endless blue skies.
He's sitting at the table, quietly eating when she arrives back with the groceries.
"Cloud…" She stares at him, in surprise.
(All she can see are the ghosts from her dreams.)
"…Tifa." He gives her a small nod, taking another bite.
She thinks she should say something else. She thinks that she should hug him.
She thinks of many things she can do, has planned of all the things she would do, but in the end Tifa just takes her groceries to the fridge and puts them away.
He'd leave all the sooner if she tried anything, a skittering deer, and she feels nervous.
Tifa doesn't know this Cloud, not very well at least. The parts she does are hidden, few and hard to find, and the rest is strange, new, disquieting.
(And she knows, deep inside, that she probably will never understand him. Not completely, not in all the ways that matter.)
"Denzel and Marlene are with Barrett," she explains finally, running out of food. Leaning against the counter, she watches him.
Out of the corner of his eye, she knows he is looking at her too.
He looks well, she admits. Not as hungry and dirty as she expected, not covered in cuts and bruises at all.
Cloud looks like a man visiting, not one returning home.
(Then maybe this has never been a home, not to him at the very least.)
She half-wishes he looked more ragged, as though there is something here that could piece him back together.
As though there is something they could do for him that no one else could.
He leaves in an hour, a silent thank-you and a wave is all she gets before he disappears once more out of her life.
Cloud vanishes like his namesake and she wants nothing more than to do the same.
-x-
Sometimes Tifa dreams in silver and orange. She sees Cloud, lost and alone, sees Sephiroth and the fires that burn eternally in her village. There is that realization that not all heroes are meant to be worshipped, that crushed feeling that everything is gone, and she sees Cloud disappear into a pool of green.
She calls out to him, her fingers barely missing his, but he makes no sound as he slips into the murky depths.
-x-
Cloud seems unsure, just as he has appeared for the last few months. He doesn't know what to do and while Tifa sees this, she also needs him to pull out of it.
There is a world at stake, children missing, and all she can think right now is Denzel, Marlene.
Cloud might be back but it amounts to nothing if they are not here.
She sees the man that once was (and still is) her rock, sees how pain and loss has eroded him down to a shell, and something in her screams.
It's ugly and it is annoyed, it is the result of two years of worry and loneliness and unanswered questions.
(She remembers the roll of bandages, the dirt and disease that clung to it. She remembers the abandoned church and the abandoned family and can't choose which is more desolate.)
Tifa lets it out, in her own fashion, and maybe this will bring that fractured photo together.
-x-
Tifa dreams, always in colours, always of loss and pain. She sees Cloud, sees him disappear in front of her eyes. He slowly goes, first his smile, then his eyes, then his voice. His feet dissipate, his legs following after, crawling upward purposely until all that is left is the shock of his hair and soon that is a trick of light.
She doesn't try anything, already knowing that he is long gone.
It is here that she lets go and stops chasing. If he comes back, he will.
Tifa dreams of hope and finds it paints a pretty picture.
-x-
She watches Cloud as he stands with the children. They surround him, splashing the life stream on each other in their joy. The others keep back, keeping the liquid a safe distance away.
He turns to look at her and this time she doesn't turn away. They stay still for a moment before she offers him a broad smile.
Cloud gives a small one in return and Tifa thinks that maybe this time she won't have to wait as long.
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