A/N: So, after all these years of reading Cloti, I finally decided I needed to come up with my own version of how Cloud and Tifa got together. These are formatted like oneshots, but they all relate. Thanks for reading! ^_^

Clueless

Cloud Strife had never felt more defenseless. Not when he was bullied, or when he was rejected from SOLDIER, or when he was experimented on, or when he fought Sephiroth, twice.

She was just too damn beautiful.

He wasn't sure when he had first realized it. It had started as a crush, embarrassing habits he had of glancing at her periodically during class, of sitting in his room, straining to hear the faint piano music from next door, the flutter he felt in his heart when she spoke. The crush had morphed into a longing, a desire to prove himself: to be her hero when she had none other. That had changed to friendship, pure and understanding. He could always trust her, and he knew she could him. But when the crush, the longing, the friendship had become love, he didn't know.

He had never been in love before. He thought he was when the flower-girl was all that was on his mind, but now he realized she was a mentor, a big sister whose affections had been confused with Zack's. What he felt for her was a very different love. So when he started falling in love, it was a very bizarre experience.

When the feelings started, when it became so very hard to breathe around her, when her face was the only thing he ever pictured, when all he wanted to do was see her smile, he sought professional help. Only a not-really-ex-soldier who saved the world could call asking a maybe-vampire-ex-Turk who slept in a coffin for thirty years seeking professional help, but for Cloud, Vincent Valentine was the only one he could think of who wouldn't laugh at him.

It was the first time he'd ever heard the man laugh. It was a soft sound, more of a low chuckle, but it was enough to shock the blond swordsman as well as make him scowl. "I'm serious Vincent. What's happening to me?"

The chuckling started again. "I would have thought that to be obvious Cloud."

"What?"

"You are experiencing firsthand the emotion of love."

Cloud blinked. "I what?"

Vincent sighed. "Shall I state it in simpler terms? How would Yuffie put it? Oh yes, you have the hots for her."

That phrase coming out of Vincent's mouth was so wrong. "You're telling me, I love her?"

"Come Cloud, even you cannot be that clueless."

The click of the phone seemed to confirm the point. He had known it all along, ever since they were children; he had just never admitted it.

I love her? Something inside him stirred, a long lost something that had been dormant, a little fire blazing back to life. I love her.

The phone in his hand rang. He looked at the screen and his heart leapt.

His stomach was fluttering when he flipped open the PHS, his mind telling his voice to stay steady.

I love Tifa Lockhart.