Full Summary: What they share is built on a precipice. It teeters dangerously on the edge, wavering towards being alone and becoming more than just friends... But both are imminently afraid of pursuing the intimacy they crave. A series of drabbles and oneshots building up to that moment when, finally, Tifa and Cloud are brave enough to fall.
SCENE ONE: THE WRONG THREE WORDS
I can do this, she thinks. I can do this.
Her features are staring back at her in the smooth reflective surface. Her eyes are as soft and guileless as ever, her complexion pale and creamy, long dark hair hanging over her shoulders and down her back... but there is a stiffness to her, an uncharacteristic tightness that only ever becomes visible when her face is laced with a grim determination.
Never before has Tifa Lockhart spent this much time pampering and pruning herself; usually her day began with a quick lather of soap beneath a jet of lukewarm water before she was on her feet, setting up her bar ready for the punters to part with their money. Today, however, was different. Her hair is still damp from the wash, the new shampoo (a greatly appreciated gift from Elmyra) spreading the heady scents of fragrant flowers up her nostrils.
Nervous, Tifa briefly wonders if it is too much. She knows how much he flinches away from changes, no matter how minute and fleeting they are. Her thought process falters. The change she wishes to propose to him is definitely not minute, nor is it fleeting at all.
Flustered, Tifa abandons the rest of the beauty regime she had been ready to begin and dresses as she normally word - a simple sleevless top and skirt, attire that suffices to fit the days needs. Flicking her hair back over her shoulders, she marches out of her room. It has become a nervous habit for her to pause on the landing outside his door, to take a second where she would hold her breath and just listen. Everyday she was terrified, waiting to find out that he had bolted again, frightened away by something he felt unable to change. He had not disappointed her yet.
She can hear him breathing on the other side of the wood, the gentle rise and fall of his chest as his lungs expand and retract. Sometimes, when he has left his door open, Tifa sneaks a look through the small gap. She is aware that it makes her seem like some kind of creepy stalker, but she cannot help it. When he is sleeping is the only time that he ever looks peaceful. The lines of his woe that always seem to be etched into his face through his waking hours disappear, leaving him looking like just another person, instead of someone that has been forced to carry burdens upon his back for his entire life.
Satisfied that he is in his room, Tifa pads down the staircase and through the side door into the bar. It isn't much, but apparently there is something about the place that is attractive, though she is unable to fathom what on earth it may be. Whatever the case, she is pleased - the Planet is still struggling to repair itself and if people choose to part with their money in her pub, she is fine with it. A little extra gil never goes amiss.
Absently, Tifa begins setting up the premises, the tasks comfortingly mundane, simple and mindless. It's strange, she muses, how her experiences have made her appreciate things that people would normally groan at for being repetitive and boring. So often young men and women would sit at the bar, earnestly telling stories of how this was their first stop on the great inspiring journey they were setting out on in order to see the world... Every time Tifa wished them well, and she would mean it.
Rather you than me, she thinks honestly as she sets the last stool into position. She has travelled and seen a great many things. She has seen death and destruction, she has seen awe-inspiring views and exotic creatures... She has fought dastardly, dangerous humans and monsters alike. She has seen the Planet.
So why is it, she thinks bitterly as she begins wiping over pint classes with a damp cloth, that she is so terrified of the one thing that could never batter her black and blue?
"Tifa?" The mumble from the doorway startles her. Her fingers slacken in surprise, the pint glass tumbling from her hands. There is a blur of movement, a rush of air, and he is right in front of her. His ghostly white hands are holding the glass which he has managed to catch only seconds before it shattered on the floor.
He is right in front of her, close enough to touch, to do the thing she has been itching to do for so long...
Youthfully exuberant footsteps that can only belong to Marlene clatter into the bar.
Tifa gently takes the delicate glass from his hands and breathes three simple words.
"Thank you, Cloud."