Fifteen feet of pure white snow

Chapter 9: The sounds of silence

"You guys wouldn't happen to know what's happened to my kitchen, would you?" Cloud stared at Yuffie and Zexion. The two culprits hadn't realized how big a mess they'd left. The shelves Yuffie had been searching through in her hunt for the chocolate sauce looked like someone had dropped bombs on them, their empty mugs and bowls were still on the countertop, and little pieces of candy was strewn on the floor. They looked at each other for a few second. Yuffie was the one to speak.

"I'm sorry, Cloud. We couldn't sleep. I suggested we raid your kitchen, and we ate most of your candy and ice cream. And we forgot to clean up this mess. I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I wasn't really angry with you. It's no wonder you guys couldn't sleep, you're just worried about Tifa."

Seifer, the aspiring chef, made them all breakfast. No one said a word while they ate.

"Where's Leon?" Yuffie asked when they'd finished eating. She'd just realized her friend wasn't there.

"I let him sleep," Cloud said, "He needs it, poor thing. What little sleep he gets is full of nightmares."

-

Half an hour later Seifer had called just about everyone he could think of that might know where Tifa was. Her family, kids from school, even some of the teachers.

"No one knows where she is," he said, "The way I see it, we have two options. One, we could call the cops, or two, we could split up in two groups and go search for her."

"I guess we could called the cops to check if they know anything," Zexion said, "but I don't want them to be out looking for her."

Yuffie and Seifer both agreed with Zexion. Cloud and Leon, who was now awake, said it wasn't really their decision.

Seifer spent fifteen minutes on the phone with various people down at the police station, but no one knew anything about Tifa.

"Let's go search for her," he said after putting down the receiver, "Yuffie and Zexion, you go check her house once more, and I'll go with Leon and Cloud and check the park, and cafés and stuff."

"You're not coming with us?" Zexion asked.

"You two know which places she's likely to be at better than Leon and Cloud do. It's best that I go with them, or they'll just be walking about at random."

-

Yuffie and Zexion were banging on Tifa's front door as hard as they could. No one opened. They walked around to the other side of her house and started throwing stones at her bedroom window. The window remained closed.

"Hey, what's that?" Zexion said, pointing to an open window on the second floor.

"An open window. That must mean someone's home, right?"

"I don't know. I guess we could try to get in somehow. Maybe she has a spare key under the doormat or something."

There was no key under the doormat, however there was one in a flowerpot by the door. They unlocked the door, hesitating slightly before opening it and walking into the house. Tifa's shoes and jacket were in the entrance.

"Either she left the house without shoes and jacket, or she's home," Yuffie's voice was shaking slightly.

They searched the first floor, which basically meant the kitchen and living room. No sign of Tifa. As they walked up the stares they unconsciously reach for each other's hands. Both were scared of what state Tifa would be in, if she was even there. The bathroom was empty, so was the little room that Tifa called her study. The only room left was the bedroom. Yuffie squeezed Zexion's hand as she slowly opened the door.

The sight that met them was horrible. Empty pill-bottles were scattered on the floor, some pills were lying between the bottles. Maybe a pill or three for every bottle. A small knife, covered in blood was lying on the carpet next to Tifa's bed. Tifa herself was lying on her bed, her arm was dangling over the edge, and her wrist was bleeding. Yuffie's eyes moved from the pills to the knife to Tifa's wrist to the lifeless body on the bed and back to the pills. The scene swam before her eyes. She opened her mouth to scream, but not a sound escaped her throat. With shaking hands she found her cell phone in her pocket and dialed Leon's number.

"Leon, come quick. We're at Tifa's house. Please, just hurry."

-

A few minutes later Leon arrived with Cloud and Seifer. When he saw Tifa and the mess in her room, Seifer made a strange noise before running out of the room. He sat down just outside the door and started to cry. Leon immediately turned to Yuffie to see if his best friend needed comfort. She was sitting next to Zexion to paralyzed to say a word, much less cry. The boy next to her was weeping silently.

Cloud, however, was over by the bed in two strides. He touched Tifa's neck, checking if she had a pulse.

"Somebody call an ambulance! She has a pulse, but it's weak. Her breathing's even weaker."

-

Nurses in white uniforms, and doctors with stethoscopes around their necks walked by, but no one stopped to tell them anything about Tifa's condition. Yuffie tried to stop one of them, but he just shrugged and walked on.

After almost an hour a nurse came up them, just to tell them that Tifa's condition was unstable, and it was uncertain whether she would survive. An hour passed, once again Yuffie tried to stop one of the doctors, but she was no luckier than the first time. More hours passed. Cloud fell asleep with his head on Leon's shoulder. Seifer was drinking his seventh cup of coffee. Zexion and Yuffie were taking turns crying at the other's shoulder. After a while they, too, fell asleep. Zexion with his head against the wall, his neck bent in an odd angle, Yuffie curled up on two seats with her head in the boy's lap.

-

They didn't get any news until the next morning. At seven o'clock, Leon was the only one still awake. A nurse with brown hair, and kind green eyes told him that Tifa was unconscious, but stable, and should be awake in a few hours. She would not need any surgery. Leon decided to let the others sleep a little more. Tifa wouldn't wake for a few hours, there was no need to tell his friends the news right at that moment.

The first to wake up was Yuffie. She walked over to Leon and sat down on the floor by his feet. He grabbed her around her waist and pulled her onto his lap.

"No need to sit down there. You'll just mess up your neck looking up at me."

Yuffie rested her head against her friend's chest. "Any news?"

"Yeah, actually there are," Leon said, "Tifa's still unconscious, but she's stable. The doctors reckon she'll be awake in a few hours."

Yuffie sighed in relief and asked if Leon wanted some coffee. A few minutes later she came back with one cup of espresso, for Leon, and one cup of mocha, for herself.

"Now that we know Tifa will be okay, I want you to tell me about your nightmares," she said.

"Not much to say really," Leon started, "it's the same as always. I reach her just before she jumps, but I can't touch her, and she doesn't here me shouting at her. Then she jumps and floats away."

"It wasn't your fault, Leon. You know that, right?"

"I guess. But I can't help feel I should have done something to help her. I knew she was unhappy, why didn't I do something about it?"

"You tried. That's all that matters. You couldn't have done more. You tried every possible way to help her. Like you said, she was unhappy. There was nothing you could do to help her. Aerith had made up her mind a long time before you even realized anything was wrong."

"What makes you such an expert?" Leon asked, he sounded annoyed. Then he remembered Yuffie's own suicide attempt a few years ago. "I'm sorry, Yuffie, I didn't mean anything by it. I shouldn't have said that."

Yuffie looked at him with big, sad eyes, but she didn't say anything. She didn't have to. He knew he'd hurt her feelings, but he also knew that she understood that he hadn't meant to, and she wouldn't be angry with him for long.

-

The next person to wake up was Zexion. At first he seemed a bit surprised to find himself in a hospital. After looking around for a few second, he turned to Yuffie. "Any news?"

"She's unconscious, but stable. The docs say she'll probably be awake in a few hours."

"That's wonderful. Should we wake Seifer and Cloud?"

"Let Seifer sleep," Leon said, "he was awake until about two hours ago. Cloud has been sleeping like a baby the entire night, so I don't really think he needs any more sleep, but let him sleep, too. He's so cute like that." He nodded towards Cloud who was lying curled up in a ball on the seat next to Leon's, sucking his thumb with a peaceful expression on his face.

The two sleeping blondes came around within half an hour. The group was drinking coffee and chatting about everyday things to make the time pass, when a doctor came up to them.

"She's awake now. You can see her, but only three at a time," he said.

Leon and Cloud looked at the others. "You guys go," they said simultaneously.

-

Yuffie was so happy to see Tifa that she could hardly say a word. She ran over to the hospital bed and grabbed Tifa's hand, clenching in tightly. She kissed her girlfriend lightly on the lips and sat down in a chair next to the bed. Seifer and Zexion sat down across from her. Seifer was holding the hand that was not being crushed by Yuffie, and Zexion was stroking her hair.

Tifa looked at her friends and her sweetheart. She had tears in her eyes, but she was smiling.

"I love you, Tifa. Don't you ever do something like that to me ever again," Yuffie said.

"I love you, too," Tifa's voice was weak, but the look she sent Yuffie said more than every word in the dictionary.

Seifer got up to go talk to a doctor. When he came back he had a serious look on his face.

"Tifa, that doctor said they've examined you and discovered that you've been sexually assaulted. When, how, who?"

"What?" Yuffie shouted, "Sexually assaulted? Who did this to you? I'm gonna kill the fucker!"

Tifa avoided meeting anyone's eyes. She spoke in a low whisper.

"Larxene…"

"That… that… that bitch! I'm going to fucking kill her! How could she do something like that to you? When did this happen, Tifa?"

"Sunday morning… I was on my way to you, when I met her. She started talking about how much I missed me and told me that she wanted me back. I told her I had a new girlfriend. I told her she and I were finished. Then I tried to walk away, but she grabbed and pushed me up against this wall and started kissing me. She was too strong… I tried to get away, but I was weaker than her… She was too strong… At first she just kissed me, but then she started pulling at my clothes. She just ripped them off, half of them are completely ruined. I was standing there in the snow wearing only a t-shirt and underpants, and then she…" Tifa's words trailed away. She started crying, and Yuffie pulled her into a hug.

"Shh… It's okay… Everything's okay now. We're here for you. It's okay," Yuffie kept on whispering comforting words into her girlfriend's ear until Tifa fell asleep in her arms.

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Actually, the reason for Tifa's suicide attempt was supposed to be something completely different, but then this idea just popped into my head. You'll get the details on what Tifa did between the rape and the suicide attempt and details about the suicide attempt itself in the next chapter. It's really late now (05.08 am) and I've been writing since around 07.00 pm yesterday, and I need to proofread this before I go to sleep. Therefore this will be a short author note.

By the way, the nurse with brown hair and kind green eyes was s'posed to be Olette, but it doesn't have anything to do with the story.

The title is from a song by Simon & Garfunkel.

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