Chibi: Yes, I know, crazily fast updating. But if it's written, I might as well - right? Hopefully this will satisfy some people! Every review has been saying don't let Cloud die! Haha. I'd like to take this moment to thank everybody who has reviewed this story. It really means a lot. I'm sorry that I haven't replied to the reviews but it truly means so much to me to get continual feedback from such supportive readers! Thank you very much.

So - enjoy Eleven!


Eleven

Her fingers, always so soft and slender, were cool at my neck as she gently shook me awake. I had been asleep so deeply that it took me some time to understand, to become aware, to realise where I was and that she was trying to wake me up and rouse me from the warmth of my bed that shielded me like a cocoon from the cool, November air. I wanted to tell her no, to leave me alone, to give me a few more hours sleep because it was still dark, the air was still quiet and my bones were too heavy to move, but all that came out was a low, pained moan as her breath slipped down my ear.

"Come on, Tifa. Time to get up."

"No ..."

I warily sat up, my hair in its customary braid sliding off of my shoulder and down my back as she pulled open my curtains. The sky outside was still dark, tinged with a soft, almost invisible hue of orange across the base that made it feel like it was dusk, when really I knew this was the beginnings of a dawn that was coming far too early for my liking.

"Come on, I have a surprise!"

She ended my protests by slipping her hands under my armpits and lifting me easily from the bed, putting me down onto the cold wooden floor and ignoring my whimpers as my pyjama covered backside connected with the ground. She rifled through a drawer, selected some underwear, a vest, a blouse, trousers and a thick jumper and she put them on the floor beside me, already pulling my pyjama top up and over my head.

"Get dressed, and quickly! I'm just going to wake your brother up."

She left my bedroom door open, and as I reluctantly started dressing myself with hands that shook with the crisp, early morning air, I could hear an objection from next door as my mother roused Zack. I could hear him through my bedroom wall – no, no no no, I won't, it's too early Mum, I won't – but then I assumed she must have subjected him to the same treatment as me, because suddenly there was a thud and a yelp as my mother made shushing noises with a desperation tainted with humour. Mama that's cold! Mum!

I chanced a glance at the clock on my bedroom wall – the face was the shape of a balloon, and below it, a teddy bear was holding onto the string. Its legs were the pendulum, swinging in a fashion that had always irked me, but I had always remained quiet because it had been hers, my mother's, and then it had been Zack's, and now it was mine, and I was just another member of a long line of Fair's, née Lockhart, who possessed this clock that marred my bedroom wall. It was five in the morning – a fact that made the air shoot out of me in a great, built up expulsion as I pulled the last item of clothing, the jumper, over my head.

She came back into the room, to see how I was getting on, and I frowned at her, my face that was still only six years old crumpling up in confusion and annoyance at being forced to get up at this early hour.

"Why are we up so early?"

"I told you, it's a surprise. Now hurry up, we need to get going."

"What about breakfast? I'm hungry! Is Dad coming?"

"Dad has to work. It's just going to be you, me and your brother. We'll have breakfast when we get back. Are you finished?" I nodded, and she quickly helped me make my bed, dragging the quilt that was still warm up and over the soft, worn sheet and down to rest on the familiar, tempting pillow. I yawned loudly, deliberately – not even bothering to cover my mouth with my hand – as she patiently took my hand and led me downstairs. Zack stumbled down after us, his hair even at nine years old beginning to fall into a strange, spiked style that I knew none of us in the family would have wanted to change.

Gatsby circled our legs as my mother pushed our arms into coats, wrapped scarves tight around our necks, slid gloves over our fingers and pressed hats down tight over our heads. The cat purred, meowed, begged to be fed and to be let outside for the first time – we had only had the cat for a month and he still wasn't allowed outside, and was still becoming accustomed to living in our house. We felt that he wasn't ready to explore Gongaga yet.

"Shh, Gatsby," my mother whispered, reaching down to scratch the fur between his ears. "Go back to sleep."

"Lucky cat," Zack muttered. My mother shot him a grin.

We were bundled into the car in the early morning dim, buckled into our seats by Mum's easy, trained hands and then she was shutting the doors, buckling herself into the driver's seat, and pulling out of the drive with a smoothness that came with the experience of living in Gongaga for the last ten years.

She took us to the beach. It was still early by the time we got there – creeping on half past six – and the ride had been long and quiet, so when she finally manoeuvred the car into one of the hundreds of empty parking spots in the lot that led down to the shore, Zack and I were still grumbling and unappreciative of what she'd done. The sky was lightening, barely, and I frowned, folding my arms and leaning my head against the window. She bent down beside her and produced from the glove compartment two cartons of juice, and a packet of slightly crushed croissants. My brother and I quietly accepted them, chewing and sipping thoughtfully as she did, staring out at the increasing orange light spreading out from the back of the sea, and listening to the surge and retreat of the waves along the dark, almost black sand.

"There," she suddenly said, her finger pointing east. Our head snapped about, scanning the horizon, and suddenly I could see it, knew why she had brought us here – the sun was slowly, gradually rising, hovering and shimmering as faintly as a spectre, rays of light casting off and rippling outwards across the ocean and right towards us. It rose shakily, unsteadily, like a newborn animal learning how to walk for the first time, and suddenly, as it passed the final line of the horizon, it took true shape and became this bright, solid being that I had to squint my eyes to look at, with light so dazzling it almost hurt shining off the windows of the car and making the sand of the beach twinkle like tiny shards of fallen stars.

"Well that was corny," Zack snickered. My mother said nothing – didn't seem offended – and merely sat in her seat, watching the dawn unfold before her with something in her eyes that I could only describe as contentment.

As morning drew out, we went down onto the beach for a walk. Zack ran ahead, collecting shells, pieces of driftwood and crab carcasses and brought them back for us to see as I walked with my hand in my mother's, her gloved fingers squeezing mine tightly, as the sand shifted to accommodate each of our slow, pointed steps.

"Time to go home," she told us around ten o'clock.

"Do we have to?" Zack whined. She nodded, giving a soft, happy smile. She was pleased that we'd been enjoying ourselves.

"I promised Dad that we'd have lunch with him. We'll have to leave now to get back in time."

"Fine," my brother scowled, trudging heavily towards the car. I stayed close to her side, letting her lead me. I didn't want to leave, but at that point in my young, short life, if she told me she was going somewhere, I knew that I would be sure to follow her.

The ride home was filled with chatter from Zack and my mother as I stared, like before, out of the window, watching fields and roads and houses and towns flash past in a never-swirl of colour that made me feel nauseous but I couldn't draw my eyes away from. I was locked inside, fated to watch, helpless, as the world rotated around me in a blur of activity that I could never be privy to.

We pulled back into the drive to see my father standing in the doorway. His face, which was normally relaxed and easy, as smooth as new paper, was hard and tense, his eyes sad and his jaw set. We could all tell that something was different, something had happened to make my father – my laid-back, quick to laugh father – disappear and leave this unknown, this uptight and anxious being in his place. My mother was the first out of the car as Zack and I fumbled with our seatbelts.

"What's happened?"

I couldn't hear all of their conversation – the doors were shut and Zack and I were still inside the car – but I could see her face drop in shock, her eyes crinkled at the sides as my father took her hand and spoke softly to her, his fingers smoothing over the back and palm as he tried to explain. She shook her head, like a child, and suddenly lurched forward against his chest. His arms were quick to wrap themselves around her and I could see, even through the distance between us, that her fingers were digging themselves deep into his jumper as she shook gently in his arms.

They sat us down in the living room to explain what had happened. My mother sat on the windowsill, staring out across the drive and the village as though she were ignoring us. I wondered if she was in denial, trying to pretend that nothing had happened. My father crouched before me and Zack where we sat on the sofa, his face still grave and serious as he explained gently to us that Gatsby had somehow got outside, and had been hit by a car, and had died. Zack didn't cry but I did, sobbing noisily into my hands as my father's hands stroked my back, my hair, my arms, trying to soothe me. Zack stared straight ahead, looking like he felt numb inside.

"We'll get another cat," Dad told us gently. My mother adamantly shook her head.

"No," she said almost viciously. "No more pets. Ever."

We knew then that her word was final, that she meant everything she had just said, and Zack and I knew not to fight her – my father did, too, but he still weakly protested.

"Grace, you can't mean that-"

"-They'll just die," she said shortly. She resumed looking out the window, and I could see that she was doing the one thing that frightened me the most, more than any monsters and horror stories told to me by my brother in secret – she was crying silently, making no noise whatsoever as tears slipped seemingly uncontrollably from between her eyelids and down her cheeks.

"Everyone dies," my father said softly – a sentence far too serious and thought provoking to be said in front of even Zack's young mind, let alone mine.

She said nothing – couldn't say anything if she'd tried – and resolutely ignored us, shaking her head softly as she kept crying for the poor, innocent creature that had made one, simple mistake, and was gone.

It took until I was fifteen years old, and watched Kadaj Shinra kill himself by firing a bullet through his head right in front of me, to understand why she had reacted in that way.

As he fell forwards, onto his knees with blood streaming from everywhere – his eyes, his ears, his nose, his mouth; any crevice it could slide out of – all I could remember was the look on her face, the absolute sorrow as she determinedly tried to keep her face, wet with tears that seemed foreign against her skin, turned away from me. I wondered, as I felt my own tears still falling, if I had the same look of sadness on my face.

Zack gave a small gasp, of what could have been disbelief, and he staggered forwards towards Kadaj, who I could see had died before he'd even fallen, and with shaking hands tried to shake him into awakening.

"Kadaj ... please ... I'm sorry ..."

"Zack ..." The stretched, ragged voice sifted across the air and it took me, and I think Zack, by surprise. I'd been so caught up in my memories, watching Kadaj fall and reliving a memory that was nine years old, that I'd forgotten about Cloud.

"Cloud!" Zack got there first, crouching down beside his friend – my heart jumped painfully as I saw Kadaj, his other friend, motionless on the floor as blood spread out beneath his turned down face – and gently coaxing him to pull up his wet, blood stained shirt.

"I – I think I'm okay." I moved seamlessly yet with a slowness that made me feel tired. All I could see now, in my line of vision, was Cloud's pained face, and his eyes sought mine almost desperately. I reached him, crouching down before him, keeping my eyes trained on his as I tried to prevent myself from looking down, to where my brother was gently examining the wet, scarlet indent that lay just off to the left side of his stomach. I leaned forward, cupping the back of his head, and I pulled it close, towards mine, so that our foreheads were pressed together.

"Please," I whispered, to no one in particular. I'd never believed in God, or one specific creator, and I wasn't about to start now, but I couldn't help but wonder if someone, somewhere, would hear and answer my plea.

"Tifa, I think I'm okay."

"Huh?"

"He's lucky," Zack murmured, a hand settling on Cloud's shoulder as he dropped back down the hem of his shirt, covering the mess that I hadn't been able to look at but had still been able to see in the corner of my eye. "But we should get out of here quick. What we need to do is get him some help."

He made to help Cloud stand up but he shook his head swiftly.

"Please, just a minute. I need to catch my breath," he said. Zack nodded, still down low beside him. He kept his back to Kadaj.

I rose up, and I could feel every muscle in my legs working as I did so, stretching and tightening with each movement as I forced myself upright. The rain was still falling but it wasn't like before – it wasn't hard, like bullets, like it always was here in Gongaga. This rain was different, because it was soft. It fell almost with a tenderness, dropping down onto my skin with a gentleness that surprised me but at the same time just felt normal, felt natural, felt right. Each drop of pearlescent, beaded rain connected with my skin like a kiss, and I looked upwards, into the dark sky that still shook with rumbles of thunder, feeling the rain pool on my lips and I tried hard to give it back, give back to it what it had given to me. I didn't believe in a creator but for some reason, that evening as I stood there trying to kiss the rain back with a gratefulness I've never truly been able to find again since, I felt as though the rain had done this – the rain had saved him.

The shots – two of them – cracked through the dark air and connected with the skin of my left shoulder with a sharpness that made dark spots fill my vision.

I didn't even know that I had cried out until the noise stopped pouring from my throat, and suddenly all I was aware of was the fact that I had slumped down, onto one knee, the other leg still positioned with the foot planted firmly on the ground but could slip at any moment, and I was holding myself close, breathing heavily, trying not to pass out from the pain that was spreading through my shoulder and making every gasp feel like my lungs were slowly, carefully, being compressed.

"Tifa!"

I glanced up, and saw Cloud still on his knees ahead of me with a look on his face that I could only describe as being appalled. Zack was getting up from beside Cloud and moving forward, towards me, when suddenly two more shots echoed, and Zack clutched at the side of his face. As he fell to his knees in front of me, his hands leaving his face to hold mine, I saw that the two bullets had grazed his cheek in such a way that the two shallow cuts intercepted each other in the shape of a cross.

"Tifa! Come on, talk to me!"

"Shoulder," I said hoarsely, and he reached a hand around to gently touch it. When he brought it back, to look closely at it through the dark, I saw that there was a thick coating of blood across his fingers.

Another shot was fired, and we each instinctively ducked as a bullet whizzed over our heads, and I chanced a glance around, behind me, and found that Loz and Yazoo were standing at the top of the path, looking wet and exhausted but their faces set with determination as they held their guns tight and outwards.

"Cloud, no!"

I looked back around, to see why Zack had yelled, and saw that Cloud had stood up, shakily, and was picking up the gun that lay beside Kadaj's unmoving form.

"No!" I cried roughly. He didn't even turn to look at me – he just suddenly ran forward with a strength and resolve that he must have dredged up from deep within him, yelling wildly as he approached Loz and Yazoo and fired endlessly. As yells and shots echoed all around me, all I knew was that finally the pain in my shoulder was creeping over every inch of my body, my vision was going hazy as Zack pressed me tight against his chest, and I was falling against him as limp as a ragdoll as finally, in the dark of night and the falling rain as a silence finally stretched out, I succumbed to the pain, and everything, mercifully, went black.


I had a few, very brief, moments of lucidity after that. I could hear deep, heavy breathing in my ear, then a distinct pressure against my stomach but a strange weightlessness beneath my arms and legs. I slipped back into darkness for a while, then, and only found myself aware what felt like a long time afterwards. My eyes shot open but I had to swiftly close them again as a bright white flooded my vision and made me moan and my head fall back. Then I heard voices, speaking words that meant nothing to me, and I was suddenly scared because I didn't know if they should actually mean something – but slowly things were becoming coherent and I could hear a man's voice and my hand was being held strangely.

"Okay, she's ready,"

"Thanks," a distinctly female voice said, and suddenly there was a sharp, jabbing pain in the back of my hand, and then abruptly rings of dark were closing around me, and I suddenly felt myself slipping down and under once more, and then I didn't know anything.


Zack was right. This is hard. I knew that as I started writing it out.

But I have to do it – have to complete it. I've got this far.

He's here.


"Tifa? Can you hear me?"

I softly moaned a response, my tongue feeling too thick to form words, as sounds began streaming in through my ears like sunlight through open curtains. My head felt strange – very thick, and heavy. I slowly opened my eyes, but this time I didn't need to shut them immediately. The light that flooded down was still a bright white colour, but it wasn't as harsh and I could rapidly feel myself growing adjusted to it. I couldn't concentrate, couldn't gather my thoughts together well enough to remember what was going on, where I was and why, what had happened ...

"Where am I?"

"You're in recovery in the St. Ifalna Hospital in Junon, Tifa." I didn't recognise the voice speaking, didn't know who this woman was.

"Why am I here? What happened?"

"You were in the woods with your brother when a hunter mistook you for a deer. He accidently shot you in the shoulder. We had to operate on you to get the bullets out. You should be fine, don't worry."

I groaned as a wave of nausea swept over me, shutting my eyes again and taking deep breaths as I tried to quell it, begging with my body not to throw up all over myself.

"How do you feel?" I opened my eyes again, and the woman who had been speaking – a nurse with a kind, friendly face – was hovering over me, sweeping hair out of my eyes.

"I think I'm going to be sick," I told her weakly. She reached out and suddenly deposited a cardboard bowl in my lap.

"That's perfectly normal. We had to put you under a general anaesthetic to operate, and that normally leaves you feeling nauseous. You can use this bowl. Your father's here, by the way."

"Daddy?"

My own words surprised me, alongside the weak, trembling voice that had spoken them. I hadn't referred to my father in that way in over ten years. But, if it bothered or surprised him, he didn't betray it. He just reached out and held onto my hand, squeezing it tightly to reassure me, to remind me that he was beside me.

"I'm here, sweetheart," he said softly. "And so is Zack."

I fell back weakly against the pillow beneath my head as the nurse gently removed the oxygen mask that I hadn't even noticed had been covering my face. Things were piecing themselves back together in my memory, now, but slowly and only one at a time. I took a deep breath, finally thinking that I had overcome the queasiness, when Zack suddenly bounded forwards into my vision.

"Hey, Tifa, look!" He waved a long, transparent plastic tube in my face. His smile – a wide, infectious treat that I felt had been absent all summer – was splayed across his face and it made the corners of my own mouth twitch in response. "Tifa, this was down your throat!"

As I caught sight of the blood staining the tube he was thrusting into my vision, I suddenly lost the battle against the after effects of the anaesthetic and I found myself lurching forwards as I vomited into the bowl in my lap. The only thought that crossed my mind, as I coughed and spluttered and felt my father's hand on my back and heard the nurse's chuckle as Zack apologised continuously, was that strangely, here in the recovery room of a hospital as I hunched over a cardboard bowl, we were finally a family again.


After I had been taken up to a thankfully private ward, I was allowed to sleep again and I slid back into it with what felt like a practised ease. My sleep was drifting but undisturbed, and it wasn't until a good three hours later that cool hands were at my wrist, testing my pulse, and a soft voice – different from the one before – was asking me to wake up. I opened my eyes smoothly, looking up into the face of a young, pretty girl with a big auburn ponytail, who could only have been around Zack's age.

"Hi Tifa," she said softly. She wrapped something around my arm, and then I felt a strange pressure on the end of one of my fingers. "I just need to check your blood pressure. It'll only take a minute."

She helped me sit up and I leant back against a stack of pillows, wincing as my shoulder throbbed. She gave me a sad, sympathetic look.

"I'll bring you some painkillers in a moment," she said. The band she'd wrapped around my arm began inflating so that it was tight against my skin. I looked down, and saw that my left arm – the side I'd been hit – was trussed up in a sling. The nurse followed my gaze.

"You won't have to wear it for long," she said as the band slowly deflated. She checked a machine and scribbled down a number on a clipboard, which she hung on the end of my bed. "It's just to stop you using your arm for a few days."

My eyes slid down to look at the badge hanging from the breast pocket of her uniform. Beside a small security photo of her was a name printed in large letters: JESSIE.

She disappeared momentarily, and I noticed that Zack was in the chair beside my bed, his eyes closed. Two steri-strips were crossed over the cuts on his cheek. My father was nowhere to be seen.

"Here," Jessie came back into the room, carrying in one hand a syringe, and in the other a steaming Styrofoam cup of what smelled like tea. She put it down on the windowsill beside Zack. "He'll need that in a minute." She lifted up the corner of my t-shirt – I only noticed then that someone had changed me out of the standard hospital gown and into my own pyjamas – and she pressed the needle of the syringe into my stomach. I watched, transfixed, as she steadily pushed down the plunger. A small bead of blood remained when she withdrew the needle.

Jessie gave me a small smile, wiping away the blood and dropping back down the hem of my top.

"Your father's having some lunch in the cafeteria," she said. She dropped the now empty syringe into a bag, and wrapped it up into the front pocket of her uniform. She glanced at Zack. "I'll leave you two alone."

She shut the door behind her as quietly as possible but the sudden sound of it closing startled Zack awake. His eyes found mine and offered me a small, wan smile. He saw the cup of tea on the window sill beside him and gratefully sipped from it. We were silent, for some time, except for our regulated breathing and the sounds of him drinking from the cup. Then, finally, I broached a topic that had been confusing me since I had awoken in recovery.

"You lied to them," I said. "You lied about how I got hurt."

"Actually," he said, stretching his arms out above his head. I watched the muscles beneath his shirt flex and play. "Dad did. He came up with the story. I don't think they really bought it, though. Wrong kind of bullets."

"So ... he knows?"

"About what happened?" I nodded. "Yeah. I told him everything."

"Zack, how did I get here?"

He frowned, scratching absently at his chin. "Well. After you passed out, I had to help you and Cloud down the mountain-"

His words sparked my memory, and suddenly I could see Cloud hurtling towards Loz and Yazoo, his eyes wild as he yelled, gun outstretched in his hand.

"Cloud! Is he-"

"-He's alive," Zack said grimly. He looked like he was going to add something on, perhaps the word just, but he didn't, and just shook his head. "He's asleep at the moment. Yazoo and Loz, unfortunately, aren't."

I felt numb, not just with the shock of finding out that he was alive, that he was going to be okay, but also with the knowledge that suddenly, three people I'd known and lived in the same village with all of my life were dead. I stared right ahead, past Zack, trying to process the strange information that made me feel conflicted. I remembered what had happened with Kadaj, and I found myself fighting tears.

"Will ... will he get in trouble?"

Zack shook his head. "No, the police have already been and gone. They know it was self defence." His eyes grew very sad quite rapidly. "They know Kadaj killed himself, too."

"I'm sorry," I said. I tried to reach out a hand to pat his shoulder but it was awkward – he was on my left side and my right arm didn't stretch far enough. He shook his head again.

"Don't be," he murmured softly. He stared at the floor again for a while, and then seemed to remember that he had been in the middle of telling a story, and he broke the silence to resume it. "So, I had to get you both down. I ended up carrying you over my shoulder, and then I kind of supported Cloud as we walked down." He looked up at me, and I could see tears shining his eyes. "He kept trying to carry you, Tifa. He kept asking me, even though he could barely walk himself ... kept saying give her to me. I'll carry her. Let me carry her." Suddenly his voice cracked and tears slipped down over his cheeks.

"Come on, son, be a man."

Zack spluttered with a tearful chuckle as my father crossed the room, placing a comforting hand on my brother's shoulder. Zack dredged up a small smile.

"Hi sweetheart," my father said. He pressed a kiss to my forehead.

"Hi Dad," I told him. I gave him a small smile.

He never said anything about it. He never questioned it, never said I told you so. He never, after that day, ever mentioned to me what had happened ever again. I don't think he had it in him to do so. All he could do was comfort me as I cried.


After they had both gone home for the evening, to their hotel room in the city, I cried on and off for the rest of the night. I slept fitfully, only waking when a nurse gently shook me to take my blood pressure, and then it would take a long time to get back to sleep. I sat up in bed for four hours straight, crying and stopping at certain intervals. At one point during the night as I was crying softly, the kind nurse from earlier – Jessie – very quietly came and sat beside me and gently held my hand.

The next morning I greeted with sore, tired eyes, which I bathed clumsily in the sink in my room with one hand. My father and brother came to see me around mid-morning, as the nurses cleared away my half eaten bowl of cereal, and for a while we didn't really speak. Instead, we sat and watched the television on the wall opposite my bed, watching a sitcom without really concentrating, our eyes unfocused and our minds elsewhere. Around lunch time, Zack disappeared, and my father and I played a game of cards with a pack he'd thoughtfully brought with him. I found it rather difficult, and in the end we resorted to playing a simple game of snap, as all I had to do was reach out the arm that wasn't in a sling to slam my hand down. The concentration that was required to watch each card as it was placed face up on the table was something I welcomed gratefully, and I won every single time.

Around mid afternoon, Zack reappeared at the door, his face neutral and unreadable. His hair was standing on end, as it always was after he'd been running his hands through it with anxiety. My father tidied away the cards and I look expectantly at my brother.

"I just thought you'd like to know ... Cloud's awake."


I walked the hospital corridor as quietly as I could, wrapping my cardigan tightly around my pyjamas as I glanced up at room and ward numbers beside me. I reached up, pulling my hair into a simple but most likely messy high ponytail, up and away from my face, and rubbed at my eyes, which were still sore and bleary from crying. Zack had wanted to come with me, to help me, but I had told him that this was something I wanted to do by myself. He saw the worry in my eyes, knowing that Cloud was hurt somewhere not far from me, and he gave in, and just gave me directions to Cloud's room.

I found the room, and saw that the door was closed. I very tentatively knocked on it, and a voice I knew wasn't Cloud's responded.

"Come in!"

I gently pushed the door open, and my eyes were immediately drawn to the prone figure in the bed. Cloud was leant back against pillows, his eyes shut and his fringe brushing down by his cheeks. His arms were flat out in front of him, resting limply on top of the bed covers either side of his body. There were some steri-strips like Zack's on his cheek, covering a nasty looking cut, and I could see that the bicep of his right arm was wrapped in a bandage. He was breathing deeply, evenly. He was asleep.

"Ah ... Tifa."

I glanced around, away from Cloud, and saw Mr Strife sat in the chair beside the bed. I closed the door as quietly as I could and padded softly across the room, to sit on Cloud's other side. I felt my face grow hot and I looked down at the bed, and Cloud's hand, as I felt his father's gaze on me. I was surprised, which seemed odd, but truth be told I had almost forgotten about his father, about Mr Strife. I don't think I had expected him to be alone in this room but it hadn't really crossed my mind that his father might be here.

Mr Strife reached out a hand and leant forward, gently brushing his son's bloodstained fringe out of his face.

"I'm sorry," I said softly. My hands were clasped tightly in my lap. "Zack said he was awake."

"He was," he said kindly. I glanced up and he gave me a small smile that reminded me so much of Cloud that I felt myself blush again and I had to look back down. "But he's very tired. He needed a bit more sleep."

"Is he ... okay?" I asked tentatively.

Mr Strife nodded. "He'll be alright. He's very lucky."

A silence fell between us, which I used to study Cloud's sleeping, relaxed face. I noticed with some shock that he had a small smattering of freckles brushed across the bridge of his nose. I guess I was surprised because it was something I'd never noticed before. They were sweet.

"This is my fault," I started, but his father shook his head and held up a hand, effectively silencing me.

"No, Tifa," he said softly. He looked at his son, hurt and unconscious in a hospital bed with bullet holes in his arm and stomach, and somehow managed a smile. "This isn't anyone's fault."

"I-I'm sorry," I whispered, but he shook his head again.

"Don't be." He looked round at me, looked right into my eyes with his own that were so like Cloud's, and I felt myself fall quiet again. "You've got to promise me that you won't let guilt eat you up over this, Tifa. This was not your fault." He looked back towards his son with a sigh.

"Okay," I murmured softly. He nodded.

"He's so much like his mother," he said suddenly. I felt myself smile slightly.

"Really? I always thought that he was just like you."

"Really?" Mr Strife gave me a friendly grin. "I guess it's the hair ..."

"And the eyes," I added. He laughed softly.

"I guess so. Well, he's a lot like his mother, too."

"How so?" I found myself asking. I was curious, I realised. I liked learning about Cloud. I loved him, but I didn't really know anything about him, except that, strangely, he seemed to feel the same way about me.

"Well, he's just as stubborn as her," Mr Strife murmured. "And just as quiet."

"I bet she'll be pleased for him to go back to Nibelheim," I said conversationally, without really meaning what I was saying. I was only saying it to cover my sadness at the realisation that he would in fact be going home soon.

"She's dead, Tifa," he said softly. I blinked in surprise.

"Oh," I said dumbly. I didn't say anything more – was too wrapped up in the revelation to be able to ask anything else about the matter, because his mother was dead and I hadn't even known – but Mr Strife must have realised my shock, because he tilted his head, and told me more.

"She died last summer. She had breast cancer."

"I'm sorry," I whispered. He shook his head.

"Please, don't be. We were never truly together. And don't be sorry for him," he said, nodding in Cloud's direction. "He won't appreciate it. He'd rather just move on."

It was then, sitting in the hospital room in Junon beside Mr Strife and watching his sleeping son, that I learned something very important about my heart: a river runs through it. A river that snaked and wound about each and every obstacle I came upon, but still continued to flow. At the bottom of the river resided my mother; finally laid to rest. At different sections of the river, as in different times in my life, tributaries broke off for each person who entered my life and settled down in the river that ran through my heart. The strongest, most prominent streams that flowed separately belonged to my father and to Zack, and there was one steadily growing for Cloud, too. Yuffie's still remained fairly strong, and there was even one developing for Aerith. One day, I wondered if maybe Mr Strife would take his place along the river of my heart.

I nodded weakly. He reached out a hand and gently ruffled his son's hair, and then he stood up.

"I'll give you some time alone with him," he murmured.

"Thank you," I said. He nodded, gave me a small smile, and then he left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.


After laying my head down on the bed beside his hand, holding it tight between mine, I fell into a shallow sleep, dreaming of his kiss and of rain, which I quickly awoke from when his hand abruptly grabbed hold of mine. I sat up quickly, unsure of how long I'd been asleep, and saw that his eyes were open.

"T-Tifa?"

It was said in a voice I didn't recognise – the voice of a child, with an accent I'd not heard before, but he looked so frightened that I paid no heed to it and leant forwards, gently easing my free hand away from his so that I could push his fringe back from his face like his father had done.

"I'm here," I told him softly. His eyes closed again, and then opened, and he gave me a small, rare smile. When he spoke, his voice was how I remembered it – mature, soft, and free of any accent.

"We both are, hmm?"

"Yep," I said shakily, my hand still in his hair. I moved it down t stroke the side of his face. I carefully leant down and kissed him. "We're both here."


Chibi: Ah. There. Only two chapters left. Hopefully now no one will be out to kill me! I didn't kill him off! I was going to, but like a year ago I changed my mind. I had to make lots of decisions about who was going to die. It was originally going to be Aerith but jeez, I love Zack too much to do that to him. You here me, Square Enix? Haha. Anyway, like always, please review, and thank you for reading! We're almost at the end!

Just a small note - when I finish this story (which will be soon) I plan to do a collection of one-shots relating to this fic. I got the inspiration from Square Enix's On the Way to a Smile (read. just. read.) and each one-shot will be from a third person perspective, and look at how the life of a character in the story has played out following this fic's end. They will span out in order over the year that has passed before Tifa decides to write down the story. They will go in this order: Zack, Yuffie, Aerith and Cloud. The collection will unofficially be under the title Rivers of the Heart - can you guess why? Haha. I will, however, upload them as separate one-shots, so please keep an eye out for them!

Anyway, long author's note! Sorry! Thank you very much for reading and please review!