LatteJazz says this drabble was inspired by replaying a bit of FFVII. If you like this, thank my friend Clarisa for playing FFVII, and author Lunamaria for her wonderful LatteJazz-has-writer's-Spock assistance! (For those of you who don't know, Writer's Spock is where you can't figure out if something is logical or illogical, so you need somebody else's opinion. Makes sense, right?)

Setting: Disc II of FFVII. Cloud and company are in the Northern Cave. They are interrupted by Sephiroth, who transforms the scenery around them into a gruesome scene from the past.

If you aren't familiar with Cloud's personality complex...get familiar! NOW!

:: Truth, Lies, & Something in Between ::

Orange claws of fire raked at the timber that was once her home. Smoldering embers burned into the dirt beneath her feet. In front of her a support beam snapped and collapsed, sending debris flying upward in smoke. Something exploded in one of the houses and another wave of heat scorched her skin. She stared into the flames, arms crossed and shakily clutching at her sides.

It was all fake; nothing but an illusion. That's what Cloud had said.

She stood unmoving and tried not to listen to the words being spoken over the greedy crackling of the fire. They came to her anyway.

"Tifa," she heard Cloud say.

She didn't turn around, and she felt sick from the uncertainty in his tone.

"Tifa. Is Sephiroth right?"

That very question was plaguing her. How could she answer when she herself didn't know the answer?

She wanted, so desperately, to tell him that what Sephiroth had said was all a lie. That it was he, Cloud, and not Zack Fair, who came to Nibelheim five years ago. That the picture Sephiroth had shown them would only be right with Cloud in it.

But that would be a lie, too.

"Cloud…" she started to say, then trailed off before she could finish the rest of the sentence. Five years ago in Nibelheim, it was Zack I saw—not you. You weren't there. You're not in that picture because you aren't supposed to be. Nothing Sephiroth has shown is an illusion—he's right.

It came down to two alarming possibilities: either Sephiroth was right about Cloud and the mindless experiment he claimed Cloud to be; or he was wrong and, consequently, her memory was wrong.

She shut her eyes, slender fists clenched tightly. None of this made sense, and her head hurt from trying to sort everything out. "Please," she pleaded aloud, "don't think, Cloud." If she was this confused, she couldn't imagine what was going on in his mind. "Don't listen."

She wanted to drag him out of the flames, the illusions, the dark words that, if he wasn't careful, could poison his mind. And maybe they already were….

She had seen his fading eyes. And beneath his casual, cool poise, his hands—they were trembling.

The toxic words had already begun to creep into his core.

And into hers, too.

Her own memories were muddled. The only clear picture she ever saw was Zack. Cloud and Zack--somehow they were connected.

Or were they?

What if Sephiroth was poisoning her own mind? Just as Cloud's reality was twisted by these words and this being called Jenova, so hers may have been tampered with. Anything she remembered could be a lie. An illusion--but just as vivid and convincing as the inferno blazing in front of her. And if anything could be a lie . . .

Sephiroth's words to Cloud crept cynically into her mind. "Inside of you, Jenova has merged with Tifa's memories, creating you. Out of Tifa's memory…a boy named Cloud might've just been a part of them." And now she honestly considered it.

. . . what if Cloud himself was a living, breathing lie?

The thought held her frozen. Something slowly clawed her stomach into knots: fear.

No. A lie? This was the boy who had lived next door and had grown up with her. And the memories they shared—the hike up the reactor path and the accident that followed; the closest thing she had to family and the man she had slowly fallen in love with—they were too real to be illusions.

Just like this town, repeated her mind.

Cloud was too real to be an illusion.

Certain she could prove this, even if only to herself, she flipped anxiously through memories and information.

Each example proved her wrong.

Since he had first come to work for AVALANCHE, something had been . . . off. His speech was often hesitant. His demeanor was strange. Even his body language was uncertain. Sometimes she couldn't tell if those mako blue eyes were lost in thought or somewhere else entirely. He didn't know things he should have—what year it was, or when they last saw each other. And he did know things he shouldn't have known. And now that she fit the pieces together, he seemed . . .

Fake.

Panic gnawing at her body, and she tried desperately to recall anything about this Cloud that was the same as the old one. But seven years is a long, long time, and time erases memory. She could find nothing to prove this Cloud was the same as the one of her childhood. But . . . now that she thought of it, if it were Jenova merging with her memories of a boy named Cloud, wouldn't this Cloud be exactly the same regardless? After all, Tifa's memories were consistent. So any Clouds created from such memories would be consistent.

Unless, as was completely possible, her memories had been distorted.

She drew her arms tighter around herself, nails digging into her sides. Frustration and confusion merely fueled her fear. At the edge of her spirit lurked despair, threatening to consume in any moment of weakness. For Cloud's true existence, the strongest evidence she had was hazy at best: intuition. If memories couldn't be trusted, then her best defense was instinct; now she had to trust it. But it was so hard to trust a mere feeling when everything else pointed the wrong direction.

She drew an unsteady breath and realized she had been thinking in circles. If anything, she was more confused and afraid than before.

If only she could think of something tangible, or logical, or some hidden memory that would prove Sephiroth's words a lie. Her mind was a tangled mess; she wasn't sure what she remembered or what she didn't or what might be a lie. If only she had the time to pick the pieces up. If she could put them together again, like a mirror, and show to Cloud his real reflection as she knew it, then maybe part of this nightmare would be over.

She turned around, not ready to confront Sephiroth but knowing it was inevitable. But he had vanished, leaving Cloud alone in the flames. He was doubled up on the dirt, one hand pressed against the earth to keep to keep from falling over and the other clenching a fistful of hair. There it was again, that distant, troubled expression in his eyes as he dropped his head in his hands. His cracked lips moved slowly as he stared into the fire. Over the noise of the burning, Tifa could barely hear his voice: "Soldier? How did I join Soldier? Why…why can't I remember? I'm…"

He was fading—and fast.

"Cloud?" She hurried to his side, anxiously bending to see his face. For several moments he didn't answer, then seemed to see her. "Let's go, Tifa," he said when he found her eyes. "I'm…I'm…."

She should have spoken up right then, even though she didn't know how to say what she felt. It would have been difficult to even begin to explain her thoughts or feelings. She was afraid of, and had always been afraid of losing him. Now it seemed to be happening before her eyes in a different sort of way as his grip on reality began to crumble.

She took his arm and helped him to his feet; despite the heat of the flames, his skin was cold. He was still shaking.

"Cloud," she began, and his uneasy gaze flitted to her face. "Don't give up hope. We're going to make it through this. You'll see, you're going to be all right…."

But they both knew that was a lie.

x.x.x

This is my first "drabble" ever! I would ask you for a cookie in congratulations of my accomplishment, but a detailed review works, too.