Continuation of 'Just a little touch', as requested by anon.

2 Weeks ago, she had been to meet her patient. 2 weeks ago, she had introduced herself to a man in an asylum for the mentally deluded. 2 weeks ago, he had kissed her.

She had no idea why she was going back there. All the time she was in the shower that morning, getting dressed, eating her breakfast, driving her car, she had been asking herself the same question, over and over again; was she scared?

The answer; hell yeah!

She had been raised in a small, countryside village, in a 3 bed roomed house with her father. She'd been a good girl, got good grades, made good friends, earned good money. She had moved to the city and got into the best university, studied the toughest courses, graduated with outstanding marks. But not in one moment had she been scared.

Now, as she pulled up in the car park of the asylum, turned off the ignition, and got out of the car, a cold, chilling dread was filling her, coursing through her veins, shaking her knees. She took a breath, attempting to calm the nerves that were threatening to overrun her. She began walking.

She was greeted at the door in the same friendly manner as she had been 2 weeks previous, and again Aerith met her to take her to her patient's cell. Aerith smiled at her, "Hello Tifa, feeling nervous?"

Putting on a smile, Tifa nodded, "Just a little..." 'I am going out of my mind here...'

Aerith nodded, "It's always a bit difficult the first week, but you'll get used to it I'm sure."

Tifa smiled again, keeping her eyes averted. She had failed to mention the kiss 2 weeks ago, and didn't much feel like bringing it up now, her stomach was doing the conga as it was.

They walked in silence to the cell, the only sounds being Aerith's heels clicking on the stone floor, and the bangles jingling on Tifa's wrist. She didn't even know why she wore the stupid things, they were doing absolutely nothing for her nerves and she didn't even like the colour that much either. They stopped in front of the door, and Tifa nodded her thanks to Aerith, who smiled, then continued to walk down the corridor, peering into different cells as she went.

Taking a deep breath, Tifa looked through the door. At first she didn't think there was anybody in there. But then, in the darkest corner, she saw a figure, sat in the shadows. He was sitting with his head hanging and his forearms resting on his knees. She wondered for a moment why he looked so depressed, but then she thought, if she was stuck in this place, she'd be pretty depressed too.

She knocked lightly, taking an involuntary step backwards as the persons head snapped up, a pair of glowing eyes looking directly at the door. Opening it slowly, she stood in the door way, looking in. She didn't enter. The man sitting in the corner stared at her for a while, and then slowly began getting to his feet. She held her breath. "Tifa?"

He'd remembered her name, she thought with a small inside smile, and in that voice too, like smooth, melted chocolate... 'No, no, no. Shut up girl, he's insane!'

She smiled, taking a step forward into the cell, being careful to push the door shut behind her. The man took a step forward, out of the shadows, and Tifa gasped. The thick, spiky blond hair was matted in places by dark red blood, not all of it dry. There was a trickle of blood running down the side of his face and his lip was split. "What happened to you!?"

Cloud smirked at the panicky look on her face, good to know that she at least cared for his appearance. "Loz started getting attached, thought I'd make a good 'mother'."

Given by the frown on her face, Tifa didn't know about Loz, but he didn't get time to explain because the next second she was gone through the door again, calling over her shoulder "I'll go find something to sort that out, be right back."

Shrugging, Cloud sat down to wait.

He didn't have to wait long, a few minutes later Tifa was back, a bowl of hot water in her hands and a packet of cotton pads under her arm. She put the bowl carefully on the floor in front of him and dunked one of the pads into it. It was when she went to grab hold of Clouds hair that the squabbling started.

"No." Cloud said, leaning a bit further out of her reach. Tifa shuffled a bit closer, still trying to get the wet cotton near enough to clean the blood from his face, "I need to clean it Cloud-"

Cloud, shuffled further away, "Why you need to clean it? It's been fine for the past day and a half!"

"Because it might get infected! And besides, you're going to be put in with the others in a while, you can't look like that!"

"And why not?"

"Because it'll look bad!"

"Fine," Cloud said, plucking the cotton pad from Tifa's fingers before she could touch him with it, "But I'll clean it."

They glared at each other for a while before Tifa huffed and sat back, arms crossed, to watch Cloud clean his face. He was dabbing away at it, missing bits and only half getting others when Tifa said, "You missed a spot."

Cloud ignored her, scrubbing at a different spot when she said, "Missed another bit."

He stopped his scrubbing to look pointedly at her, before resuming, scrubbing viciously at his skin, causing more blood to flow down his face.

"No! Cloud what're you doing?" Tifa squeaked, tearing the pad from him before he could do any more damage. He glared at her furiously, "I was cleaning my face. What did it look like I was doing!"

Tifa flinched at his shouting, "Sorry..."

Cloud huffed, sitting back against the wall and cradling his head in his hands, only half heartedly trying to shrug her off when she attempted to clean him, the bloody pad discarded for a new one. Despite what he may have tried to tell himself, her ministrations were soothing. She gently cleared the blood from the wound in his hairline and even sorted to mat from the fluffy spikes. Cloud was having a hard time not falling asleep under her gentle touch, it was so soft, and feather light, hardly there at all. Eventually Tifa stood up, "Ok, done. And just in time too, your community session starts in two minutes."

Cloud nodded, still half asleep. Tifa stood up, helping Cloud to his feet and leading him out the door. The community room was only a little way down the hall and they could hear the racket from there. Cloud glanced down at the apprehensive look on Tifa's face and smirked, apparently she hadn't expected it to be so raucous.

Ever the gentleman, Cloud pushed the door open, stepping slightly to allow Tifa to enter before himself. She smiled as she passed, and something in Cloud's heart fluttered.

The community room was loud and busy. There was a table broken up in the corner and bits of broken toys littered the floor. A man with silver hair falling long and straight down his back, was nudging a split foot ball with his foot murmuring, "Mother? Are you my Mother?"

Cloud walked away to stand in a corner away from the people in the room, and Tifa fell into her place with the other care takers. She could vaguely recall Aerith saying something about interaction being important because it encouraged the patients to accept some changes and become more confident with the world. Tifa couldn't help thinking, by the looks of the man crawling along the floor towards her, an interested expression on his face, they didn't really need to be given much more confidence.

The man was big with huge biceps and short silver hair, but he was acting like a baby, approaching her on hands and knees, drool falling from his mouth and dribbling down his chin to the floor, Every so often he would stop, sit down on the floor and rock, his hands clutching his feet like a small child would. But then he would stop that too and resume his advances towards her. It was as he was reaching out, fingertips centimetres from brushing her shin, when a table leg descended to his shoulder.

Tifa looked up from watching the man to see Cloud, gripping the other end of the table leg in white knuckled hands. He looked more than angry, he looked livid. The blue eyes were flashing green in the light and his mouth was set in a grim line. four words escaped his lips, "Don't fucking touch her."

Then they were fighting, Cloud lashing out with the table leg, landing straight hits to the man's arms and chest, while the man was swinging huge fists, occasionally landing a hit, but those he did reverberated around the walls, and Tifa could see Cloud's face screwed up in pain. Eventually the man had torn the Leg from Cloud's grasp and flung it across the room. Then the fight descended into grabbing hair, kneeing each other in the stomach and, in the big man's case, biting.

Again the blood was fair pouring off them when the fight was broken up. Tifa was herding Cloud back towards his corner when she heard him whisper, "Don't fucking touch her... Not even a little touch..."

A/N: I might do a little bit more to this if prompted, but you're welcome to prompt me to write anything you'd like :) You know the drill, read it and rate it, even if you hate it ;D