Ah, my first posted story for this fandom and it's this pairing. Of course it is. XD I hope that you all enjoy it. It is AU, although if you want you could suppose that everything up to the end of Crisis Core happened. Then I divulge into my own little fandom world and have fun with the characters and pairings. This is also a birthday present for Jini, who loves this pairing and who deserves as many presents as she can get. Happy birthday, lovely!

Disclaimer: FFVII is not mine. I am not brilliant. Oh, and the formatting. My computer is freaking out and I dunno wtf is going on there.

-----

day one, afternoon; kiss

It was a bit odd, the way that they met up again. Cloud was supposed to be meeting Zack for the afternoon, who had said that he has it all planned out, so Cloud should just leave it to him; this usually led to circumstances that were difficult to explain, but the young man went along with them anyways.

Upon reaching the restaurant he was greeted with a beaming Zack, a quietly glowing Aerith and long, silky black hair, amber doe eyes, skin that looked impossibly smooth and porcelain.

She blinked up at him with her long eyelashes framing those eyes that he used to have dreams about, just as shocked as he. "Hello, Cloud,"

His throat was closing up and he wondered if his face was on fire. "Tifa," he nodded stiffly.

It was okay, for now. And though he had to sit next to her, it was still okay when Zack and Aerith started talking, even as he was acutely aware of how close Tifa's thigh was to touching his.

He caught phrases of what his other friends said, things like, "together now" and "three weeks now" and "wanted you to be the first to know".

Although Tifa has never been the kind of girl to shriek, she did emit a high-pitched sort of squeal and began chatting a mile a minute with Aerith, who was sitting across from her.

Cloud turned to Zack who was looking at him expectantly. He swallowed, "Congratulations," he commented lowly. "I'm really glad for you guys."

There was no way that he would have been able to say anything else, but that was all that his best friend seemed to need. "Thanks, Cloud," he sighed, and his pure blue eyes showed the layers of gratitude expressed in his voice. "I am too,"

And with that he grabbed Aerith around the waist, who yelped in surprise before it was covered by her boyfriend's lips in a deep kiss, which she relaxed into easily.

Cloud's palms started sweating, and he casually shifted away from Tifa on the bench. Without looking her way, he could feel her doing the same.

---

day six, noon; promises

Cloud would have been perfectly content to let her rest in his memories after that one night, but he couldn't seem to get away from her. Not only did Aerith enjoy her company, Zack liked to have her around as well.

Then there was Tifa herself—she wasn't okay with letting him disappear into the fog of the past, and he had forgotten how stubbornly insistent she could be when she wanted to.

That was probably how he ended up sitting on one end of the couch in his apartment with his childhood friend on the other. She was twisting her fingers around while he sat perfectly still except for his eyes, which continuously darted back to her.

"Where have you been all these years?"

He wasn't expecting the question and tensed up so that the muscles in his shoulders were bunched together. "Nowhere exciting," he finally settled on for an answer, turning to Tifa in order to gauge her reaction.

A stress line appeared between her eyebrows as the corners of her mouth just barely turned downwards. "Nowhere exciting, including here?"

No response, he chanted to himself. No response. "Not really."

"This place looks kind of lived in," Tifa observed, glancing around.

"Only for a few days at a time before I leave again."

The frown on her face deepened, and Cloud couldn't help thinking that it didn't fit her face; she looked as though she really had to work to make it happen. "Why didn't you come and see me?"

Oh no, she couldn't be bringing this up now. "I didn't know that you were here,"

"That can't be true," the young woman commented lightly with a shake of her head, although there were undertones of something harsher in her voice. "Zack or Aerith would have told you in a second."

There was nothing for him to say. Cloud sat, fiddled with his sleeves and prayed that she wasn't going where he thought that she was.

When a few minutes of silence passed, Tifa scooted closer to him and made a move as though to put a hand on his shoulder, but thought better of it. "You promised me that you would come back to me."

Silly little kids' promises. He didn't want to talk about it.

The quiet pressed onto their ears for an indiscernible amount of time before Tifa gracefully stood up and glided to the door, exiting the room without another word. For a long time afterwards, Cloud didn't move.

---

day ten, evening; bed

"Hey, buddy! I heard that you've been to visit my girlfriend. Again."

Cloud rolled his eyes and sat down next to his friend, putting his feet up on the coffee table and relaxing minutely.

Zack grinned and put an arm around his blonde friend, flicking through channels on the television with the other. "If I didn't know any better, I'd think that you guys were going at it behind my back."

A small cough was the only reaction that Zack got for that one; Cloud was so used to these sorts of comments that he didn't even flinch.

"So… I hear that you and Tifa are some pretty awkward turtles, huh?"

How did everyone know about them? It wasn't like he had been broadcasting it to the world, and he was pretty sure that there wasn't a difference in the way that he acted towards her in public. Aerith had always called him 'socially awkward'.

Zack seemed to read his mind. His normally jolly face melted into one of at least partial seriousness and he faced his younger friend. "Tifa mentions it sometimes, in passing. I've tried to get her to tell me, but she clams up."

"You're getting nothing from me either."

"But you're getting something from Tifa, right?" And the grin was back.

"No,"

"But you want to?"

Cloud didn't know how to answer that. He didn't know what he wanted with Tifa anymore. Having her be merely a memory was still seeming pretty appealing, but who knew.

Zack seemed to know when to stop, because he turned back to the show, sprawling all over the couch and making Cloud remind him what personal space was, and what it meant to him.

---

day fourteen, afternoon; date

Aerith's intentions were good, they really were, and Cloud understood that. But still, he couldn't see how forcing him into spending time with Tifa was going to make things any better between them. They hadn't been alone together since she asked him The Question, and he was pretty certain that any other interactions would travel along basically the same vein/

Aerith was cooking dinner for the four of them tonight, but she had run out of a few main ingredients while in the process of making the dishes. She had asked Tifa to run to the market and buy some more, and then suggested that Cloud go with her.

"So she can carry his groceries," Zack had joked.

Now, Tifa was skating along the street, alternating glances between the list that Aerith had given her and the stands lining the curb. Cloud was trailing dutifully behind, hands stuck stiffly into his pockets, eyes glued to the ground.

"Carrots, lettuce and potatoes we've got…" the girl muttered to herself, hefting the bag of groceries in one arm. "Let's see…"

She stopped at the next stall, which was selling fresh fruit and gathered a few different kinds into her hands. Cloud halted next to her, studying the wooden post holding the canvas hood up as though it was the most interesting thing that he'd ever seen.

While he was just getting into a debate with himself over whether or not the grain was shaped like a face, he heard a giggle next to him which turned into a full throated laugh. Despite himself, he turned around to see Tifa staring at a peach.

"What?" he asked before he could catch himself.

She smiled brilliantly at him, and Cloud felt his breath sucked out of his lungs. This was the Tifa that he remembered and fell in love with as a child; the smiling, laughing, ass-kicking girl who lived next door.

"It's a peach," she chuckled, shaking her head. "Remember when you were little, they were your favorite food? And once while you were sleeping in a field that we were playing in, we stuffed them all down your shirt and put them all over your face?" She had to stop and chuckle before being able to continue, "And when you woke up you were the happiest little boy in the entire world. You weren't mad at all."

Cloud stared, astonished that, one, she remembered that, and two, she was taking the incentive to share it with him. He hadn't thought much of those days since his goal in life had been to become a first class SOLDIER.

Tifa must have seen something in his face, for she blinked a few times and let out a breath. "I had a lot of fun when we were young," she tried, and Cloud felt a knot in his stomach twist. He knew that this would come up again.

But Tifa's lips just quirked at him again, and she paid the money that was due before marching off down the street again. Cloud stood rooted to the spot, unable to keep from noticing the way that the sun shone on her hair.

Later, when they returned, Zack looked up from where he was setting the table and smirked. "Have a good date?" he asked.

"Not a date," Cloud grunted, and stomped into the kitchen to deposit Aerith's groceries on the counter.

---

day twenty, morning; jealousy

Tifa sat by the edge of the flowers, watching her friend, bent over and tending to her pride and joy. She gently weeded, watered, and simply smoothed down the petals of the various flowers. Aerith hummed gently while she worked, and the atmosphere would have been perfectly relaxing if Tifa hadn't had something on her mind.

"Aerith?" she spoke up, sitting up straighter and refocusing her eyes.

"Hm?" the girl murmured, not stopping her progress.

"I have a question,"

It was not like her to beat around the bush, but the brunette didn't seem to notice, simply nodding and waiting for the other woman to continue.

"Why is Cloud so comfortable around you?"

At that, Aerith looked up and studied Tifa with her hands on her hips and a smile curling her lips. "Oh, it has to do with Cloud?"

Tifa could feel a blush crawling onto her cheeks and she fought it off with all of her might, keeping her chin held high. "Yeah, so?"

Aerith giggled conspiratorially, but didn't dig any deeper, choosing instead to answer Tifa's initial question. "Well, for one thing, I press him so hard that he has no choice but to talk to me,"

Tifa snorted.

"For another, he's not intimidated by me; he doesn't look at me as anything more than a friend."

Tifa's brown eyes widened marginally. "But you guys had a thing for a while, didn't you?" she pointed out, crossing her arms.

Aerith mimicked her position. "You and Zack also had a 'thing', didn't you?"

"Yeah, but—that doesn't—that's completely different!"

Aerith's eyebrows rose, showing that she didn't miss her friend's stuttering. "Is it?" with a sigh the pretty girl made her way over to Tifa and sat next to her. "I guess then I should be worried about you and Zack getting back together."

Tifa said nothing, but her jaw line was set. Aerith laughed at her. "I would have thought that you'd be happy to know that he sees you as more than just a friend. It's obvious that you feel the same way."

If choking on air was possible, Tifa would have been dead.

---

day thirty-six, early morning; family

Well, they could do things together now, which was a plus, Tifa noted, looking at her blonde friend out of the corner of her eye as they jogged.

The two of them had slowly been able to be with each other without awkward silences and unanswered questions the more that they tried. Tifa, while still frustrated and sometimes even angry, learned that asking him questions about the time period between when they were last together and now was a sure way to the dead-end of a conversation, and she avoided anything that wasn't superficial.

Cloud eventually seemed to realize that she wasn't going to press him for details any more, and he learned how to interact with someone who was quite different than either Aerith or Zack.

Tifa huffed as they turned the corner in the park and immediately settled herself into a sprint for the last stretch. To her utter shock, Cloud had been able to keep up with her the entire time, and now, with her eyes trained on the finish line, she could see him overtaking her from her peripherals.

Once they were both walking around with their heads on their heads and panting, she sidled over to him, still astonished. "I had no idea you were so athletic," she told him, elbowing him with a grin. He was nowhere near that athletic when he was younger.

A small smile adorned his expression. "It didn't happen all at once." A pause. "I didn't know that you were so good either."

A small spike of pain stabbed her heart, and she shrugged. "Well, after my dad was killed by Sephiroth, I became sort of obsessed with training. I told myself that I was going to kill him, someday."

Cloud winced, but Tifa smiled sadly at him. "It's alright," she assured him, patting his arm before walking to the entrance of the park so that she could go home and change. "It was years ago."

"Still…" she heard her friend mutter, and felt her heart lurch. They were friends again now, and he still felt the need to hold things back from her. She wondered what kind of skeletons he kept in his closet.

---

day forty-two, late afternoon; over-protective

It was clear to Tifa that she had to take the initiative on this one. Aerith's words kept repeating themselves in her head, but Cloud wasn't making any sort of forward movement in their relationship at all, even to something between friends and more.

So one day Cloud had gotten a call on his cell, which he instinctively answered, seeing Zack's number on the caller ID. Instead of hearing a playful, masculine voice on the other end, the boy was greeted with a much softer female one.

"Go out?" Cloud had blinked a few times, his mouth going dry. Did he want to go out?

"Yeah," How could she sound so casual about this? "I want you to try my favorite restaurant in town; I've taken both Aerith and Zack, and they don't like it. I want there to be someone I can go there to eat with!"

Like a real date? A date date?

"Uh, sure. I'm hungry."

He could practically hear the ecstatic smile on the other end. "Great! Meet me at Zack's in a bit; we just need to finish cleaning up after our hand-to-hand."

"O-okay. Sure."

He was now standing in front of Zack's door, nervously tugging on his spiky locks of hair and wondering whether or not he was over or under dressed. Neither of them had mentioned if it was a date, or if they were just headed out as friends, and Cloud wasn't asking.

When the door opened, Cloud was sure that his eyes were going to pop out of his head. Tifa's smile was tinged with a bit of anxiety, but it didn't mar her beauty at all. She was wearing a black dress that hugged her curves and tapered out at the knees to show off part of her legs, and all of the creamy white skin of her arms. Her necklace and earrings were both glinting gold, bringing out the brilliant flecks in her eyes.

"Hi," she said to him, hitching her purse farther up on her arm. "I guess I'm a little too fancy."

"Uh, no," Cloud tried to find the words, unsure if he'd be able to not stumble over them. "No, you look great."

That seemed to break the ice with her, because her shoulders relaxed and her smile seemed less forced. "Thanks, so do you. Should we go?"

Cloud nodded jerkily and stepped aside to let her pass. Before he could leave, however, a strong hand grabbed his arm and pulled him back to the doorway.

Zack's lightning blue eyes stared down at him, and Cloud's brows rose towards his hairline.

"Listen, bud, I know you're a good guy and everything, but I swear that if you hurt her, I will not stop her from kicking your ass. And then I will kick your ass. And then I will unleash Aerith on you."

Cloud wasn't sure whether to laugh or back away slowly. His gut was telling him that the second was probably the smarter option.

---

day forty-two, evening; rain

When the two stepped outside, arguing about which dish they had liked best, they were instantly drenched to the skin by buckets of rainwater being poured down onto them. Cloud had to shake his sopping wet bangs out of his eyes while Tifa laughed freely, futilely attempting to squeeze some of the water out of her dress.

"Should we get a cab?" Cloud called over the rumble of thunder right above their heads. Tifa shook her head, sending a spray of water into his eyes.

"What's the point, we're already soaked!" she shouted back.

She had a point. The girl grabbed his hand and dragged him down the street in the direction of her apartment, which was closest to the restaurant.

Once inside, Tifa giggled and slid down part of the way against the door, leaving a wet mark and creating a puddle where she was dripping on the floor. Cloud headed over to the kitchen sink and began wringing out his shirt, constantly having to blink water out of his eyes.

When he looked around again, he realized that Tifa was nowhere to be seen. Still holding his bunched up shirt in his hands, Cloud moved back into the hallway and down it, following the trail of water, peeking his head around the open door.

"Tifa?"

"I don't know if I have anything that will fit you…" the girl mused, holding up some pajamas of hers. "I'm going to change, and then I'll see… oh wait…"

She dropped the tank top she was holding and moved over to the closet where she dug through it to finally bring out a blue shirt and pants that looked distinctly familiar…

"They're Zack's!" Tifa said brightly, tossing them to Cloud. "He left them here after we sparred once, and I cleaned them and kept meaning to bring them back but I keep forgetting. I'm sure they'll fit fine."

Cloud nodded his thanks and retreated to the bathroom, attempting not to think of other reasons why Tifa might have Zack's outfit. When he emerged once more, clad in articles of clothing that were a bit to big for him, he saw Tifa lounging on her couch in a pair of baggy sweats and white tank top.

For some reason, he found this to be just as attractive as the wet dress clinging to her body like a second skin.

She saw him and grinned, throwing him a towel with one hand and using the other to dry her own, very long hair. "Here you go," she said. "Don't mind my hair once it's dry; it's bound to frizz up or something."

The young man nodded and sat on the couch with her, where they both dried their hair vigorously with respective towels for a few minutes. Once they were done, they both had a variety of a bedhead, which Cloud was horrified about, and Tifa laughed at.

"Want to stay for a movie?" asked Tifa, tossing the towel onto the back of a chair nearby. "I heard that some of the old classics are going to be on tonight, if you feel like watching."

He was sure that his heart leaped into his throat. Tifa had to know what she was suggesting, but she was smiling benignly up at him through those dark, dark lashes, and Cloud was made to rethink his assumptions.

"Alright. I like black and white movies."

"I know," her smile grew wider. "I remember."

---

day forty-two, night; memories

One movie turned into two, which turned into three, and eventually four. In the middle of the fourth movie, which was some obscure one about a murder mystery, Tifa's head was lying on Cloud's shoulder, and she was breathing deeply. He craned his neck at an odd angle to see whether or not she was asleep, and from what he could gather, her eyes were shut tight.

He sighed, and on the in breath his nose was filled with the scent of her hair, which, after all these years, still smelled like strawberries, although there was a difference from before; he couldn't quite put his finger on what.

And then, with his nose and his mind filled with the scent of Tifa's hair while she slept, words began to tumble out of his mouth. He wasn't thinking, just speaking, into her ear, into her hair, the way that he had always dreamed about when he was a kid.

"I remember the first time that I saw you over the fence between our yards, and I thought that you were an angel in my imagination until my mom told me about the new neighbors living next door. I remember how I used to follow you around like I was lost because I always wanted to be with you. I remember how your soap was vanilla and your shampoo was strawberry, and you used to read comic books. I remember how beautiful you were the first time you roundhouse kicked me in the jaw. I remember how we hid out in the tree house in my backyard once because you were upset with your parents. I do remember that promise that I made you. I'm sorry I couldn't keep it."

With a sudden movement, Tifa sat up, blinking her eyes at him, surprise obvious on her face.

Cloud wanted to melt through the floor and never return.

"Cloud…" she whispered, reaching out to touch his cheek However, her hand hovered over it, and she waited for him to close his eyes before actually touching his skin.

"I'm sorry, Tifa,"

And that was all that she needed to hear. With a perfectly timed movement, she leaned forward and touched her lips gently to his.

---

day forty-three, early morning; lullaby

They were both lying on the couch, Tifa with her head on Cloud's chest, and he with an arm around her waist. The silence that encompassed them now was comforting and welcome, and it took much effort on Cloud's part to break it. He felt, however, that he was obliged to, that Tifa had earned an explanation far too late.

"I couldn't come back to you," he told her, and she turned her head to look upwards at him. His expression was vacant, albeit a bit pained, and he was staring at the ceiling. "I couldn't face you after I healed from my coma-like state. I wanted to have all of my memories, and come back and tell you that I was a first class SOLDIER."

Tifa said nothing, simply absorbing.

"When I finally did get all my memories back, I couldn't face you without having that promise fulfilled. I wasn't first class, I never even made SOLDIER; I was ashamed. I also…" he took a deep breath. "I also thought you'd probably moved on. That you wouldn't remember a stupid promise from years ago. I didn't want to interrupt a life that you'd rebuilt with something you'd moved on without. If you had a new life, I definitely didn't belong."

Tifa felt her heart clench, and her hand mimicked around his.

"I hate thinking about how I broke my promise to you," Cloud admitted, finally closing his mako-infused blue eyes.

Tifa sat up and leaned over him, frowning. "Cloud…" she said to him, eyes boring into his own. "I didn't care about the part where you become famous, or even becoming SOLDIER. The promise was for you to come back to me,"

It looked like he was about to speak, to protest, but she put a finger over his lips. "And you did."

When she was sure that Cloud wasn't going to contradict that statement, she settled back down in the crook of his arm and closed her eyes. "Now, go to sleep."

Tifa could feel the rumble of a quiet laugh in Cloud's chest. "Yes, Tifa."

A few more minutes of silence passed, when Tifa could feel the sound of humming deep in his chest. She closed her sleepy eyes and sighed, snuggling deeper into his side. "What's that?" she slurred to him.

"It's a lullaby," Cloud replied, sounding quite a bit more awake than she was. "When I was getting mako poisoning, it was all that I could hear; it kept repeating over and over in my head."

His voice tightened slightly. "It's like poison. I feel like I need to bleed it out, or it'll kill me."

"It's beautiful when you sing it…"

Tifa drifted off into sleep with the sound of Cloud's minutely off-key singing echoing in her ears.