a . n ////
has it really been more than two weeks? D: time sure does fly nowadays. i'm sorry for you guys that were expecting an update so long ago. this is longer than the other ones, so i hope it doesn't disappoint! and hopefully fulfills, too.

oh, and there is a kindofreallybad word in there, so i hope nobody is offended, even though i'm not going to change the rating.

E—is even more than anyone that you adore can—

They got back to Seventh Heaven in a flighty haze. Cloud was a bit surprised that he was able to keep himself effortlessly holding her hand, with her taking it in stride. He gave her a few looks, sometimes shy, sometimes questioning, and she'd only smile back at him.

"I don't think I've seen Yuffie laugh so hard before," she had said, her high heels clacking against the sidewalk. "Or Vincent so out of place."

Cloud smirked, rubbing a hand through his hair, "I think Vincent enjoyed it though," Tifa quirked an eyebrow at him. "For the most part."

But as they walked through the door, they parted their hands. They both headed up the stairs and bid each other goodnight, each going to their respective rooms.

As Cloud laid in his bed, he couldn't will his mind to tire. His eyes would close, but he couldn't stop feeling odd prickling sensations on his hands. They made him blink his lethargic eyes open and persuade him, torment him with an all encompassing flutter of a feeling.

He raised his hand in front of him, seeing it clearly in the midnight-washed room. The more he looked at it, it seemed, the worse the feeling got. He turned it over, but it grew larger and larger. He flexed it, but it started to crawl up his arm, touching the tip of his neck and caressing the knobs of his spine. He felt it slither down his nerve endings, giving him goosebumps, cramping up the muscles of his legs. It flirted with his toes, and he tried to wiggle them enough to make it disappear, but they only beared down upon them harder, unrelenting.

When he felt it take over the hairs of his face, making them stand up and draw out the sweat on his forehead, he felt it breach his chest. He heard his blood singing in his ears, and his heart pounded irregularly as it became covered with the icy hot coolant. He couldn't shake it, and it was driving him insane.

He sat up, wiping and rubbing at his face, and he was about to head to the bathroom when he heard his door creak silently in the background. He looked up and he could make out a dark, rounded blob peek in.

"Tifa?"

Caught, she let half of her pajama-clad figure show through the doorway. "I'm sorry Cloud, I didn't mean to wake you—" he cut her off with a shake of his head.

"'S okay. Couldn't sleep." He motioned for her to come in, and she closed the door behind her with an inaudible click.

"I couldn't sleep either." It was too dark to see her blush. "But I was thinking maybe..." she bit her lip. She glanced up at him, and gained courage at his probing glance. "I was thinking maybe it would help if I stayed in here."

He blinked a few times at her, and rubbed his hands over his eyes again. It was to mostly to clean the blurriness of his vision away, but a part, a teeny tiny part, was to hide the redness from her view.

"Uhm," he fumbled with his vocal chords. "I—" he nodded, stopping himself. He didn't have to make this be more awkward than he probably was.

She bit her lip. "I don't have to Cloud. I woke you, didn't I?" She noticed his eye rubbing. "I can go back—"

"No," he said, and she was startled by his forceful intonation. But it'd be a safe bet that he was even more.

He moved over and patted the side he left vacant. Tifa smiled a little. "Alright."

-

In Nibelheim, after Tifa fell, everything became different.

"It wasn't your fault," his mother told him that night, cradling him with her moderate, experienced hands. "It wasn't your fault, no matter what they say."

Cloud felt water leaking from his face and onto her faded blue blouse. He watched the tears soak in and scar it, turn the wet circles into stiff patches.

"Don't listen to them," she said. It was his mantra those days, watching through Tifa's window.

When her father would stomp out, tell him, "You goddamn bastard! Who said you were welcome here?" Cloud would scamper away, through the fields and the mountain, skinning his knees and bruising his cheeks. He was still praying for her to wake up, his conscience repeating don't listen to them, don't listen to them.

It wasn't your fault.

But her eyes opened.

No matter what they say.

There was a burning on her face, and she could have sworn something was watching her, that whole time she was asleep, unconscious. But when she looked out the window, nobody was there.

Her father came in, redfaced, but when he saw her beautiful, earthy eyes, he smiled. "Baby, my beautiful baby! She wakes!"

She smiled at him, overwhelmed by his hugs. But as he left the room to fix her a nice, hot cup of cocoa, she touched her cheek. She looked back out the window with a hopeful glimmer to her spirit.

"It wasn't your fault, Cloud."

-

They both laid in bed, a respectable distance between the two. The atmosphere was thick, and the only noise was their slight breathing.

"Cloud?"

"..mm?"

His eyes were closed, but he was wide awake. The whole left side of his body was painfully aware of her presence right beside him, and the sensations were anything but merciful.

He felt her fingertips graze against the hand and he thought his flesh had exploded. He jerked away.

"Oh, I'm sorry—"

Cloud squinted his eyes, breathing out his nose. "No..." he said, rolling his eyes at himself and flexing his hand. "I..."

He looked over at her, catching her eye, and carefully sewed his fingers with hers, even through the burning.

-

After Cloud dropped Aerith back to her room, he looked helplessly and guilt-ridden down the hallway. He breathed in, turning his head in the direction toward his room, and then faced the opposite way, across the corridor.

He walked on the carpet until he reached the room.

503, the door pronounced. All of a sudden, those intense, aggravating sensations came barreling back. Cloud's stomach lurched.

He rose a tightly fisted hand and knocked on the door in a gentle, desperate way.

"Tifa?"

He didn't hear anything, so he knocked again, a little louder.

He waited a few seconds, until he finally heard a, "Coming!" and shuffles on the other side.

The door opened a crack, showing Cloud half of Tifa's face. Her eye was a little bloodshot, and she started to rub it with her hand.

"Cloud?" She pushed her hair back, giving her a better view of him. "What are you doing here?"

"Tifa. Hey," he said, scratching the back of his head. He didn't really think any farther than seeing her. "I just, uh, wanted to make sure you were sleeping well."

She opened the door all the way, giving him a skeptical, but surprised, look. "Well, as good as I can be, I guess." She glanced at him, eyebrows rising up. "Want to come in?"

"No, no," he waved his hand. "Thanks though. I just wanted to let you know," he stopped himself, taking in her partly withdrawn face.

"Tifa—" he watched her furrow her brows and rub her eyes. "Sorry, I shouldn't have woken you." He turned to face down the hallway. "I'll leave—"

But her smile interrupted his sentence. "No Cloud, it's fine. I wasn't," she hesitated, "sleeping, really. Honest," she added when she saw his gaze. "So—what did you want to tell me?"

At her question, he blinked, and almost took a step back. "Uh..." he rubbed his neck and placed his weight on his heels. "I just—wanted to check up on you, and see if you were .. okay." He furrowed his brows as he said it, and it could have passed for a question instead of a statement.

Yet, her eyes became just little bit whiter and just little bit brighter.

"I'm alright. Thanks," she said it slowly, she showed him a soft smile.

And when he left and she closed the door, she didn't think she'd have a problem going to sleep anymore.

--

When he woke up, all he saw was her.

Her mouth was partly open, showing the tips of her teeth. The slated lines of morning light glinted on her hair and changed the strands auburn. The lines of her face were nonexistent, and she looked peaceful, content. Her breathing was languid and deep, and they caressed his face.

It wasn't fair that it smelled sweet and fresh, and it didn't have that morning, humid grossness.

He felt a pressure in his right hand, and he belatedly realized they were still holding hands.

Her hand twitched, and then squeezed his with sleepy effort. And that tiny squeeze sent a jet through his veins, making his blood rush down numerous, marked roadways only to come back around again. When it did sizzle back, it scorched down his forearm and burned into his skin.

He started hearing noises, and he took his eyes off their hands and back to Tifa. She started to move around, arching her back in a drowsy stretch. She let out a gust of air and sank back down into the mattress.

It was then she lifted her eyelids, raising the hand that wasn't holding his, and wiped at her eyes. Her eyes peeked through her lashes and landed on him, and she let her hand drape across the blanket. The right side of her face was half hidden by the pillow, but he could still see the line of her mouth turn upward just a bit.

He remembered that little girl lying in her bed. It was hard to realize how much he admired her through that foggy window. How much he regretted all the things he didn't have to do.

"Mornin'," she said, bleary.

And then his thoughts fast-forwarded, to the time at Gold Saucer, and how her face was obscured by the door. She looked so fragile.

"Hey," it came out gruff and tight. He swallowed to soothe his throat, but it only made it drier. Her mouth became straight.

"Cloud, you okay?" Her eyebrows raised a bit. She reached out and touched his cheek. "You look kind of..."

He breathed out at her touch.

There was just something about them—the light flecks of her fingertips, the smoothness of her hand—they all made his pulse quicken, his mind race.

He remembered sitting under her bedroom window, listening to the music she would play. Those fingers connecting with pretty, pretty notes, pushing them out into the night sky, letting them touch the stardust, making them magical.

And he felt the tempo crescendo, but the memory faded away. They were still in his bedroom, but the music was thrumming against his mind. Something was changing.

"Cloud?" Her hand brushed his forehead, and his pupils dilated. "Oh, hey, you're burning—"

Something...

She squeaked, caught off guard and unsuspecting. Cloud found himself looking down at her, her hair splayed upon the pillow like paint. "Tifa."

She let her eyes graze his mouth as he said her name, and he couldn't hold up.

He kissed her, without hesitation, without breaks. And even though his lips were pushing and pulling against hers, he had gone deaf. He didn't know anything except her music.

So he stopped abruptly, and lifted his head again. It was only then that he felt her hands across his shoulder blades, and he saw her half-lidded look and strawberry swollen lips. She insistently tugged him back down, legs squirming a bit under his weight, and he tasted her energy, her love.

And he thought, over the c-sharps and the e-flats, there wasn't a better time to show her his love, too.

thanks for reading! i hope everyone enjoyed it.
merry christmas and happy holidays!~