I would like to thank the few who have taken time to review this story and also I would like to announce that I have gone over mistakes in the last chapter. As we can clearly see here, we are dealing with Tifa going through a tradgedy and of course love will come later on. I am not willing to reveal that yet, so please be patient. I would also like to highlight that the feelings described are my own through Tifa's eyes. Enjoy.

Cerberus: I wasn't going to make a CloTi fic...but someone totally unexpected. I'll either change my original pairing or stay with the first plan. Don't know yet, unless you want me to write one up seperately for you? I have a few of them up in my head, so let me know.

Chapter 2

To Take Back What's His.

He wants me back. The deal I made, the love I craved and needed...it's all over. Cloud is gone and and the King of Hell wants what is his and now I belong to him. The snow outside is tempting. The months I had resided in Cosmo Canyon changed from summer into a cold bitter winter and here I was devoid of anything meaningful. Why. I'm locked within myself. There is nothing left for me on this planet despite all the battles I have fought with him by my side. What's the use anymore...he's gone. But where is this ache I felt before I fell? Did it really turn into this desolate hollow feeling inside of me? My mentality is failing me as well and it seems that my time has come.

The need for food is gone, but Nanaki stubbornly shoves it down my throat. His optimism always cheerful, but to no effect. I'm too far gone...too lost within to find my way back to the world and I don't even want to go back. I'm here and not here. I just want out, but I want to go the other way. I want to follow him.

So I did. I'm standing, the blanket my body had grown accustomed too falling slowly to the snow surrounding me. My bare legs, feet, and arms exposed to winter's bitter chill, while my head is bent back looking up at the dark pink clouded night sky that let its' snowflakes descend down upon me. The temperature suddenly drops but I know this because my body delivers the message slowly like a messenger from one nation to the other. I don't care.

I didn't know when I fell...but I laid there in the snow, my eyes looking blankly up at the clouded night sky as the chill wind turned my already pale skin a frosty blue. Hours passed, and I believe that if given a few more I would have looked like Shiva herself. My breaths came short. The little puffs flowing so slow in my line of sight that I saw him again. He smiled sadly.

'You can't come here Tifa.'

"Why" I uttered inaudibly while his face turned slightly angry.

'You just can't...you're not wanted here yet.'

My eyes closed slowly and I smiled mentally, "Then I have no where else to go but to cease all together in spirit and mind."

'No.'

I ignored his voice...maybe I really was hallucinating and none of this was real. I was just tired...so exhausted and sleepy. My body began to shut down starting with my nerves rendering my body useless. My fingers grew stiff, while my wrists and the rest of my body followed. My chest moved mechanically taking in ragged shallow breaths, my little puffs of life floating merrily away and my eyes half way closed watching a face, his mouth yelling at me. My sense of hearing faded; all I could hear was the breaths that came in and out including my heart...it has been a while since I've heard that. It beat one strong deft beat after another with a slight pause in between, that pause steadily growing vast as the minutes ticked on by. My breathing became constricted; My vision was at last begining to fade but the last thing I saw was a beast looking down at me. It's blue eyes boring down into mine as my lips curled into a slight smile and that was the last frame of film that I remembered: Cloud.

-X-

She looked like the spitting image of the Ice Queen herself as she lay there, body blue as the morning skies in the northern continent and pale as the snow surrounding her. Aries help me, why did you let her fall apart this way? He picked up the limp woman while looking up at the village golden lights spewing from above thier very windows. The sudden sense of warmth. Especially for this girl he held lifelessly in his arms. The snow was too deep now, but he began his way to the stairway that climbed to the abode of this Canyon's lone protector: Nanaki.

As I entered the chamber the red lion had looked up at me, his eyes growing alarmed at seeing the lifeless woman I held in my grasp. He sped over ordering me to bring her into the spare bedroom and by the looks of it it seemed like it belonged to this woman. I took off the womans shirt and shorts and gently placed her blue naked body underneath the warm covers. Nanaki ran back in followed by the village healers, his tail fueling the flames in the fireplace and the firelight provided inside the room. One of the healers moved to close the bay window while the others began to work on the corpse laying in the divan.

A corpse. She was barely there, her spirit degenerating from the flow of life itself.

'Do something!'

'What's there to do. Blame yourself.' he spat back as he watched the flow of colorful healing auras cast upon the body, hoping to revive what once was. Two women came in as well, some carrying sage leaves and herbs, while the other carrying hot tea with a water basin filled of steaming hot water.

"I would like to thank you for finding her when you did. She must have slipped out while I was in the labratory...how can we repay you?" the lion asked humbly.

"Just keep her alive." he quipped, his words laced in irritation. Nanaki frowned at his tone but nodded before adding,

"You can stay here if you'd like. We have more then enough room so please don't seem like you will be intruding." With that said, Nanaki padded across the room to the bed side, speaking with the healers. From the looks of it, they had managed to keep her stable and she would need lots of bed rest and food to keep her body nutritioned.

'Keep her warm. She's your charge now.'

He narrowed his eyes, 'Go away.'

-X-

I figured that he would stand up to be a man and act like it. Settle down with his childhood sweetheart, but no, she wasn't enough for him, he wanted more. That fool was killing her with his stupid actions of the past. Those two were meant to live together, love one another, to settle down and have a family. Thier children were the reason the world would continue to prosper and live in the near future. But no, he had to up and leave all for the flower girl. Now what are we to do? The planet depended on thier union...sighing he stared up at the biege-pink ceiling.

So why am I here keeping her shivering body warm with my own? Nanaki had left hours ago and I stayed behind to watch over the sleeping woman. She began to shiver violently so he kept her warm by undressing and letting her body take his own heat. Sighing he watched her limp form next to him, her breathing reurning to normal. Sleep. The annoying tugging in his body began to become more irritating with time, for he was never gone this long from the promised land. Mortality. Sighing he closed his blue eyes and let slumber take over his conciousness.

I know they are short chapters, but they mainly consist of feelings, emotions, partial perspectives that I would like you readers to get across. These are sort of the same feelings, that I as the author am undergoing as well, so let me know what you think.