Author's Notes: Muse has come to visit again. Still working on my 3 current on-going FF7 stories.
Warnings: THE NEXT TWO CHAPTERS WILL BE FULL OF ANGST AND SLIGHT AEIRTH BASHING!
Summary: None, I'd like for this chapter to speak for itself. This scene takes place during Advent Children when Cloud finds Tifa on the ground at the church.
Cloud had come to intimately know the faces of many emotions. Happiness had been the one he had been acquainted with the least. It was most prominent in the brief time of his childhood and re-appeared again like a long lost old beloved toy in glimpses in his adulthood. Pain had been his seared into his mind for his teenage years, his best friend.
Guilt rendered him handicapped in his young adult years. It clung heavily to his shoulders like dead weight and stuck its feet into the ground to prevent any moving on. Anger had held his sword with him, guiding him along in the days of being a hero lost. But regret? Regret hugged him tightly. Its whole body twisted itself around him, choking him with its presence.
With the death of his mom, he had barely reacted. Hell, he could barely remember.
With the death of Zack, he had screamed.
With the death of Aerith, he had shouldered guilt and looked on as she sunk down into the water.
And with the death of her, he had cried.
Cloud doesn't think he's ever cried before. Past his childhood years in which he would try to hold in angry tears of being left out, he had never cried for sorrow. But as he held her delicate fallen figure against his chest, he knows sorrow better than anything else.
When he finds no vibrations under his fingertips when he checks for a pulse, he knows regret. And then it is a whole onslaught of emotions. It is shock that blinds him and fury that shakes him. It is sorrow that screams inside of him and it is regret that rips him apart. Because he is too late. And as he cradles her closely to his body, as close as he had ever held her in his entire life, the knowledge sears himself into his head. He's been late before and the reminder bore onto a beautiful woman's chest and it always looked angry when he thinks about it.
And he is too late now when instead of the warmth he'd always dreamed about and a smile that he had always seen is voided out. There is no wrapping of her strong and slender arms around his neck. There is no pressing of her strong, lithe, beautiful body against his that lets him know that they're perfect for each other. There is no brush of soft lips against his neck. There is nothing but the coldness of death that has blemished her skin and the should've beens.
And for once, Cloud mourns. Mourns that he had traded living in a past for chances to make himself and Tifa immeasurably happy. To protect her. To love her. To cherish and hold her. To do everything he'd ever dreamed of as a kid.
When pain shoots across his arm and into his skull like a shooting star across a night sky, he doesn't fight it. Pain had been the most prominent in his life. It had been his best friend. It had sat on his shoulders and whispered into his ears and had been sealed across his body. It is almost comforting. And as he falls next to her silken shower of raven hair and flowers, he acknowledges that at least death had let him escape the responsibility of shielding her as he falls. And the pain and the blackness that is associated with it is welcomed because it provides escape because the bleakness of a bottomless black is comforting against the startling reality.
The reality that Tifa is no longer with him.
Author's notes: I know massive updates but you guys should all be happy right? I know I haven't been fulfilling prompts lately but that's because I haven't had too much inspiration or knowledge on how to write to fulfill thoseprompts. I hope you've liked this chapter. Please review!