I've been thinking of this angle since I wrote Taken Away. It struck me while I was watching ACC and I don't know that it was really explored or explained - so, hey! that's what we do, right? It's set directly after ACC. I realize things were written very snuggly but my theory at least is that by this point and time in their lives Cloud and Tifa have been together long enough to be past the 'careful, don't touch' stage with each other even if they may not be to the 'and why do I always feel the need to touch her so badly in the first place?' stage. I hope that it's a believable reaction between Cloud and Tifa after so many 'she's dead, she's not dead, he's dead, he's not dead, we're dead, we're not dead' situations piled one after another directly on top of them. It's one of my least polished pieces so I'm sorry if it's not up to expectations. And, before I get run over by cute brown soft looking boots I want to point out that in my head Cloud put the quotes around the 'sainted'. I get the impression it pisses him off slightly that people have made Aerith into a 'saint' and stolen her humanity and just how much it really did cost her to sacrifice herself. It's a tarnishing of her memory to him and not that he was mocking her himself at all. Ah, and the question at the end? That's from Case of Tifa. Though its possible you could guess what she waited until she thought he was sleeping to ask him anyway.

ps - am I the only one that noticed how often Cloud made it a point to say Tifa's name in the original game, especially at the beginning?

Here With You

by TamLin

"You left because you were sick, because you didn't want to be a burden."

His hand stroked her cheek and she closed her eyes and tipped her chin to make it easier for him. She always tried to make things easier for him. He made a soft sound in his throat. It was a hum and a laugh and sad all at the same time and in response to her move, his hand slid into her hair and cradled the back of her head.

"You always make me sound better than I am," he breathed it against her forehead as he drew her closer and his other arm slid around her waist. "Tifa…"

She had once told him that words weren't the only way to show someone how you felt. She'd lied. Every time he said her name, the way he felt filled the single exhale and overflowed it like warm golden honey-wine. It was one of the reasons he said her name so much. Even when they'd first meet again in Midgar, all those years and lifetimes ago, for the longest time her name had been the only one he would say. Over and over again...

He was warm, always warm, and she curled her fingers in the knit of his shirt and leaned into that. Into the familiar smell and warmth and feel of him and even though she'd survived without it while he'd been gone, a part of her wouldn't wake without that near her. His lips touched her forehead again and they were parted slightly, resting against her –

But then his head dipped and his golden hair fell across his eyes. His fingers wove in her hair and sent shivers over her skin.

"I left because I didn't want to hurt you."

"Leaving us hurt more than – "

"No." He stopped her with the soft, implacable note in his velvet voice and the way his fingers on the back of her head tightened imperceptibly. "Tifa…" his fingers slipped down to rub a light circle against the back of her neck, melting her bones and muscles.

"Tifa… I heard him. In my head. I heard him in my head the way I used to when we were hunting him the first time."

Next to the fire he always gave her with his touch, the ice shivered in great icicles down through her at his words and sent sharp crystals whirling through her blood, filling her lungs with cold. It surprised her when her breath didn't mist as she exhaled in shock and protest. His fingers didn't stop their slow, comforting movement against her and where he held her, his gloved hand slipped under the very edge of the hem of her shirt to rest reassuringly against her skin. Her hands spread on his chest and she tipped her head back in the cup of his palm to look at him with wide eyes.

"Sephiroth…"

Unlike the witches from the mountain fairytales of their childhood, naming the demon didn't invite his presence. It made him manageable and definable. It stole his mystery and made him familiar. Cloud's blue on blue eyes found hers and they were guilty and scared and sad… and yet not as guilty and scared and sad as she had been afraid they would be.

"I would have left because I was sick," he agreed. "But I wouldn't have been able to stay away from you, all of you, for as long as I did. I'm too weak, I need your comfort too much, for that." His low voice was a soft rumble. It was what he'd told the children. It was what she'd assumed for that matter and he'd let her. But he'd never actually told her -

Cloud never lied to her. Never. He had learned to simply not volunteer information though…

"I thought – I thought you didn't want to hurt us with knowing you were – you were sick," she stumbled over it, only able to say it now because it was over. He was safe. Denzel was safe. And – because they were, so was the entire family. "I thought you were running, just for a little while, until you could settle it inside yourself."

Had she known he'd left and it wasn't just a prolonged delivery? Of course. Had she assumed he had left for good? Of course not. Cloud always came back to her. Even when he didn't know what he was doing, Cloud always came back to her. The edges of his lips shifted weakly and he moved her so that she was cradled against his chest, half in his lap, so that he could hold her in the safe shelter of his arms and feel how she didn't resist it, how she trusted him completely to hold her that way. Tifa Lockhart… sake and sugar, silk and steel. And she only – ever – went helpless and soft for him…

"That too," he agreed. Because she was right. He would have run anyway. Not far, not for long, but he was still the Cloud Strife that needed to internalize problems, that needed to deal with them on his own first before he felt comfortable presenting them to anyone else. He still felt the need to be more and better and invincible for the people that he protected even if his head told him life didn't work out that way. So he would have run – but he wouldn't have stayed away. Not from her. Not from their children. Not from his home. Not for long. Except –

"I couldn't risk you. Or the children. Not after what happened the last time." His eyes searched hers and he saw the way her heart bled over into those smoke and ruby depths. It hurt and healed his own heart at the same time and he reached up to reverently brush his bare fingers over her cheek. She rested her head in the cradle of his arm and shoulder and looked up at him. Bleeding for him. Peaceful and trusting.

He'd hurt her. He wasn't blind. He'd make it right. But for now, for tonight, so suddenly free of the fear and the pain and the worry, there was only each other. The children were celebrating with Barret, Seventh Heaven was closed. This was just for them. Tomorrow she'd worry if he would come home after work. Tomorrow he'd come home early to prove that he would. Tomorrow the children would wake up and peek into his room to make sure his bags were still empty and left in his closet and Denzel would pretend he wasn't touching his forehead to double check and –

And tomorrow.

Tonight was for relief and themselves. For touching to prove to themselves and each other that they were still alive, still together, still whole. And – for him at least – it was time for a confession he would only give once and only to the woman in his arms.

"I remember," she told him and it was only because she did, because she was her, that he would ever admit what he just had. She was the only person he would ever tell and his shame, his secret, that ugly flaw in his very soul, would only ever be for her to see.

"I hurt Aerith the last time," his voice didn't break but it stumbled, the memory still fractured and disjointed in his head and yet sharply painful because he knew it was true. He had hurt the gentle Cetra he should have been protecting. "He used me to hurt her. He tried to use me to kill her. I couldn't – I would never risk you or the children that way. When I heard his voice… I knew I had to stay away. She forgave me for hurting her. I would never be able to forgive myself if I hurt one of you."

The pain of being away from his family… his family… had been impossible. He hadn't even been able to answer when they'd called on the phone because he'd known – he'd known if he did, he'd go home. Go home to the woman that carried his heart, to the children that filled it… he'd go home. And what if Sephiroth used him to hurt them?

Her fingers found his face and he realized he'd been drowning in her wine and shadow eyes for a while, so soft and bottomless and warm. The roughened, soft tips of her slender fingers traced his features and he saw her smile. Saw her lips soften for him and he almost forgot the conversation as the desire to kiss her washed over him in wave after slow wave.

"You didn't," she whispered and his heart lurched to hear… pride? in her voice…

"You didn't," she repeated. "Not once. He couldn't use you, not even once. Not this whole time…"

It bemused him, enchanted him, felled him with one swift stroke.

"How do you know?" he couldn't help but ask, feeling like a little boy. Her smile was there again and just for him as the tip of a single finger lightly tapped the tip of his nose.

"Cloud Strife, do you think I can't recognize guilt in your eyes by now? You were afraid he would use you, but I don't see any guilt in your eyes that he did. You're whole now. He can't call you his puppet or manipulate you anymore. You're too strong."

She gave him the last sentence like a velvet wrapped sword for him to carry and – he believed it. He believed it because she did. Because she… only she… would know. It made the edges of his lips shift shyly and the single move was a sword stroke of its own to her heart but she cherished it and held it close. His body shifted over hers and he laid her down on her back, the rug under her and her bed he'd been leaning against the leg of behind them as he settled down over her.

Her almost lover…

Her always, only almost lover…

"I had an attack," his voice was low as his body fit itself to hers the way it always did, the way his was the only one that ever could. His hand slid down to cup her thigh and bring her leg up. She knew he liked her legs. She saw the way he watched them when he thought she wasn't noticing… and the way he flushed when he realized she had. She let him and her arms slipped up to wind around his shoulders.

"In the church. When I was with you. When you were – "

She nodded and saved him from having to say the words. Soothed away the way it made his heart stop even now. She'd been so still, so frail.

So his…

He inhaled and slipped an arm under her head to cradle it, to give him an excuse to feel her silk soft hair over his skin.

"I thought he was going to use me, to hurt you. It was the first time I fought one of the attacks." The pain, the feeling of 'other', the terrifying familiarity of blacking out and not knowing what happened between that and opening his eyes in a different surrounding. The sheer terror that he might have done something – might have hurt her. The near silent exhale the only relief he'd let himself have when he'd seen her breathing and safe next to him on Marlene's bed….

The fact that, even though he'd known he should have, he hadn't been able to leave once he'd found himself near her again. The way he'd waited in balanced pain for her to find the words he knew he needed to hear but couldn't find for himself in his tangle of self-inflicted isolation and feelings of uselessness…

"I said I wasn't fit to protect anyone because I wasn't. Tifa, I could have been used."

Only she loved him enough to understand the horror and violation of that. Only she loved him enough to take it into herself and look at him without a flicker of fear or disgust or pity. Only her.

Even the 'sainted' Aerith had run away from him. She just hadn't run far enough...

"You weren't," her fingers stroked his face, slipped through his hair and lightly tugged it to draw him down to her. He went with an exhale and rested his head in the curve of her shoulder. Her fingers sent shivers and soothing warmth down his neck and shoulders as they played with the restless spikes in his hair. Her heart beat under him and he could hear it as well as feel it. "You were Cloud Strife and you kicked his ass. Again."

It made him laugh, surprising him, and wrinkling his eyes shut, as the almost silent sound escape his lips past his suddenly showing teeth. He felt her laughter, just as silent as well. They'd gotten good at sharing their silences. His arms tightened around her.

As children they'd dreamed of him becoming her hero. It was only later that he'd figured it out. She said he'd always been her hero. He knew it was because she made him that way. He slid one hand up her vest and tugged the zipper down. They had a strict 'clothes on' relationship. It was how they got away with being close physically without stepping over any lines.

He thought he was ready, finally ready, to challenge a few of those lines.

He was Cloud Strife. And he thought, maybe, finally, he was stronger than the ghosts that lived inside him.

She inhaled in surprise and he heard her heart beat go broken but she laid her hand over his on the zipper and it was permission, not protest. It made him smile against her and he linked her fingers over the top of his before tugging the zipper the rest of the way free and then sliding his hand down to the silk fabric of her shirt to trace circles over her delicate ribs, unhindered by leather.

"Are you…" she paused and he heard the way her voice fluttered between emotions. He heard the whispered laughter in it though and knew he was going to get away with this. "Are you coping a feel, Cloud Strife?"

He made a serious humming sound against her and she felt the way it vibrated down into the very core of her bones. His thumb flicked out to threaten and yet not touch anything more intimate than the curve of her rib. Which was starting to feel intimate enough.

"It seems like I finally don't have to worry about anyone else showing up in my head at the wrong time."

She shut her eyes and didn't know whether to smile or chide. How could he say such horrible, teasing, serious lines with such a calm, 'straight' voice? Especially when she knew he was joking with her… and dead serious at the same time.

He shifted them both then and she was lying on top of him with his hands on her hips and his blue eyes under hers were dark and full of light at the same time. Was it really this simple?

Yes.

And no.

But sometimes… yes.

"I'm still not right inside," he warned and she looked down at him with eyes that said she knew. With eyes that said she loved him, not 'in spite of' or even 'because of', but 'just the same'.

"You are pretty messed up," she told him and because it was her, and only her, it made him laugh. Because she would know. And, for her, it was all right.

She cupped his face in her hands and his eyes found hers, sank into hers, lost themselves in hers – but it was all right. Because she'd lost herself in that blue fire long ago herself and each time she fell into it again, it rekindled the light in her own soul.

"Yes," he told her in a murmur as one of his hands, the one he'd taken the glove off of, lifted to stroke the hair back from her face and she tipped her head at him.

"Yes?" she asked and he smiled a little shyly and a little smugly.

"Yes," he repeated. "I do wake up when people come into my room no matter how quiet they are and I hear really well in the dark too. And since I already answered your question about Marlene I thought I should answer your first two questions too. The answer to both of them is 'yes'." He paused while her eyes went wide.

"'Yes' and 'always'," he amended seriously.