Edited as of 9/16/2016

Reverse One: Aversion

Tifa liked the cold; it chilled her bones and her nose, reminding her of times back home where the cold was like the comfort of a mother. She loved the scent of the chill and, as the fall changed to winter, she loved to see the sky turn gray. Snow was something she missed the most when she woke in Midgar. Zangen said there was no other choice but to move her from Nibelheim to the loathsome city, and Tifa had no other choice but to believe him.

She missed her teacher. He had carried her on his back through the Nibel Mountains, fed her, clothed her, kept her warm when the hypothermia would have otherwise set in, and when they reached Midgar he never once left her side. She had been a teenager then, a fifteen-year-old with a personality too big for herself, but he hadn't cared that she was a bit on the snotty side. Zangen had done everything and more for Tifa, and if she could see him one more time she wouldn't know what to say.

Zangen had been the man that pushed her toward her goals; the training he put her through wasn't easy, with extreme physical and mental stress, but somehow the older man had helped her. Pain wasn't all that important when you had an idol helping you learn.

Tifa laid her head down on her pillow, looking out of the tent. Cloud was poking the pot sitting in the fire with a metal spoon. He was going to burn off part of his hand if he got any closer to the flame, Tifa noticed with a bit of exasperation.

"Cloud—you're going to hurt yourself with that metal spoon!" the woman yelled to the blond, whose eyes shot up from the cooking pot, landing on her. Tifa watched as he shook his head, a small smile on his lips.

"No, Tif. Don't worry 'bout me; I put an ice spell on it. My hand's a little cold, but that's it." Lifting his hand, Tifa saw the green glowing materia on his wrist. A small red materia hung next to it.

I hadn't expected him to be able to do something like that, Tifa thought, giving a small wave. "Oh, alright," she added, watching Cloud put the spoon back. Really, I thought he wouldn't know what to do. He doesn't really know how to cook, but I'm too tired to try.

Tifa closed her eyes briefly, a small flicker of blue invading her senses. Zangen had told her one day she would begin to feel things for a man, but she hadn't expected it to be with someone like Cloud. But, as she learned from her childhood with Zangen, there was no way of stopping it.

Tifa always had strange ways of falling in love.

With Cloud it had been something that surprised and shocked her. She remembered one day when she was thirteen he had knocked on her door and begged for her to come to the well. At first, she hadn't wanted to go; Cloud had always been rather odd, not really having any friends, but the brown-eyed girl had always felt bad that her friends made fun of him. Sometimes the teasing was about his hair, his lack of a father, his mother who was too young to have a child so old, and his lack of brand new toys. Tifa knew it had always hurt.

She hadn't worried about being made fun of with who her father was.

So, it had been pity that drove the girl to join Cloud that night, but when she saw his eyes glow in the moonlight, something inside of her had clicked and she made him promise something with her. He would be her hero…he had promised it. But Zangen had told her that after two years and no word, there was little chance that he was still alive. And so Tifa lost some of the hope for Cloud and placed it to her teacher.

Zangen was as old as her father, small gray streaks through his otherwise black hair, but he had been the first person to ever pay attention to her the way she had wanted. While fighting against him, honing her skills as a martial artist, Tifa knew that if she was able to kick just a little higher, to punch at just one degree different he would notice that she was in fact female, that her chest was not just something to hold her martial arts skills back, but something that she wanted to use to please him.

She had given herself to him fully at the age of sixteen and the next morning he was gone like the cold in the coming spring. Tifa had, for one night, been happier than ever imaginable; but now, without even a note of goodbye, she was left without anything.

Opening her eyes, they landed immediately back on Cloud who was now sitting cross-legged, tapping the spoon against a bowl. Tifa put her hand against her forehead, sending Cloud a smile. Love never seemed to work with her, but she was determined to make Cloud notice that she was female. It had taken years for Zangen to figure it out, but she was willing to wait longer for the blond. He wouldn't do the same thing, she believed with everything in her, and for that anything was worth the wait.

There was a small kink in her ideal world, and his name was Zack Fair. She liked him and knew he was a good, trustworthy man (even if a tad bit scatterbrained), but he was a risk she didn't want to take. She saw how the raven-haired man gravitated to Cloud, how Cloud would be ignorant to the world if it wasn't for the other man, and Tifa didn't like it. She had been through so much unspeakable hurt and to know there was a chance for her to feel that again, that feeling of loneliness and desertion, she would fight against anyone who stood in her way.

To Tifa, Zack Fair was an obstacle in front of what she wanted from the age of thirteen to twenty. Zangen had shown her that her feelings could be fooled, but the feelings for Cloud Strife couldn't be falsified. He was the star of her life…and there was no trickery to that.

Zack Fair was the sun, the summer, and Cloud the stars, the winter, so it wasn't possible for them to meet in the sky, right?

Aeris slung her boots over her shoulder, running her feet through the cold dirt. It soothed her both physically and spiritually; her feet were sore from the constant walking and her mind continued to run at too fast a pace. There were times where she couldn't sleep, her green eyes roaming the tent, watching Tifa's chest move soothingly up and down, little breaths that reminded her that her eyes should have been closed, but she couldn't stop her mind from roaming. Her body felt as jittery as her brain.

Why? She asked herself this often and repeatedly, but there wasn't any straight answer…no, she wouldn't, couldn't, be given a straight answer, because what she was worried about was something that no woman with a good boyfriend would worry about.

Another man. Aeris was terrified of another man, not even a man by physical or mental standards. Cloud was someone that was a formidable opponent, but Aeris hadn't wanted that. She had been willing to hand Zack over to him if it made the ex-SOLDIER happy. She had been willing to hand Zack over to Reno when she had found out about the affair, but Zack had said it was nothing, that he loved her.

Marriage…he had asked her to marry him. That was the only thing that convinced Aeris that Zack hadn't been serious about the Turk, that it was only a carnal pleasure Zack indulged himself in. It was common, she knew, for men in Shinra to have multiple partners and be married. It bothered her to no end but she was willing to deal with lipstick on his collar, the scent of sweat on his skin. Smoke.

Oh, Zack told her that he hadn't smoked in years, but every time he came to the church after being with Reno he smelled of cigarettes. It bothered Aeris perhaps more than the relationship—he was lying. She knew he had problems with monogamy, yet he promised to settle down with her and marry. Aeris knew that the very idea sent him into fits of panic, but he seemed to forget of those fears when he was next to Cloud.

Cloud was too sad; but, when he smiled he lit up a room. He was a good boy, yet at the same time there was something hidden within the blond. Something, Aeris thought, that wasn't so nice. But, as Aeris's toes ran through the brown dirt, she didn't worry about that.

But... there was something different about Cloud. Something, Aeris knew, that subconsciously attracting Zack to him like a bee to the nectar of a flower. Crystal clear from the moment she had laid eyes on Zack holding a bleeding boy in her garden—potent emotions that she couldn't wrap her mind around. Difference was not something common and Cloud was marked with it.

There was a time when Aeris was willing to be submissive, to bend to what she considered the power of fate, but what said that submissiveness was fate? What if fate wanted her to stand strong, to keep Zack by her side? There was love, quite a bit of it, and wasn't that enough for her? Fate dictated Zack into crashing into the Sector Five's church like an angel falling from the sky, right into her flowerbed. It was her flowerbed, thus it was her fate.

The voices in her head were loud, telling her things about fate and destiny, love and passion, but Aeris tried her hardest to ignore them. Various answers only led to further confusion and that was one thing Aeris had enough of. How sadly amusing that the voices of the planet seemed to have better ideas than what her own mind could come up with.

Cloud was the answer to every question. Who was strong enough to be with Zack? Who was drawn to Zack? Who drew Zack in? Who could take care of Zack? Who could turn Zack into a man with only one lover?

She couldn't be strong enough for Zack, nor did she draw him. But when Cloud was around, Zack didn't act like himself. Of course he still had that annoying little habit of hitting on anything and everything, the little nicknames like toots and sweetheart, doll and princess, but it wasn't the same.

And so, when Aeris saw the growing fondness between the two, she knew that there was one chance to see if it was true.

Her body, her chastity, her virginity—she was willing to give it to Zack. Never, in all of her life, had Aeris even thought of doing something without true commitment of marriage. If he wanted her, she would give herself to him. Women did it for people they loved, and she was a woman…wasn't she?

Aeris sighed, digging her toes deeply into the coldness. There would be another night without much sleep.

Oh, Zack, I don't know what you want me to do. Do I hand you away or hold you tighter? Will either action produce the same outcome?

She decided to fight, Tifa doing the same. They hadn't even needed to share more than a few moments of passing glances to know of exactly what the plan was. Because, as the brown-haired woman figured out, there was no plan to love or war…there was just an outcome.

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