DISCLAIMER: Final Fantasy VII and its characters are wholly the properties of Square Enix. This story is written purely for entertainment and not profit.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I know the last chapter was really action-heavy and did not focus too much on communication struggles, but as I said, it will tie back to the main theme. In the meantime, please enjoy Chapter 9.

Healing of the Heart

Written by daBOSSz

Chapter 9

One week passed with no major disruptions to Edge, much to the delight of all its residents. Cloud continued to make his rounds throughout the city and its vicinity, choosing to remain in the area for the past week without considering another long-distance delivery. When his clients from cities far away asked about his availability, Cloud simply explained to them that he wanted to make sure his family was fully settled in the aftermath of the elfadunk attack before resuming his travels to other parts of the planet.

Despite having offered to train with Tifa, the opportunity to do so had yet to present itself. For the past week, the two of them had been rising at different times in the morning with neither willing to disturb the other upon getting out of bed, choosing instead to respect the other's need and/or desire to rest for a little while longer. Thus, morning training sessions were tackled alone, and by the time the other party had awakened, breakfast had to be made before the children arrived downstairs. There were no chances for evening sessions either; both were usually ready to pass out by the time their daily responsibilities were completed.

However, today would be different. Prior to retiring the previous evening, Cloud mentioned to Tifa again about training together, and she had agreed to get up at a set time with him so they could finally make it happen. He knew she would make due on their agreement when he heard movement in the master bedroom shortly after rolling out of bed, so Cloud quickly put on his workout clothes—a simple white t-shirt and athletic shorts—and headed to the garage. It was not until he arrived and inspected the equipment that he realized he had no concrete plan for how exactly they would train.

Tifa entered the garage when Cloud was holding onto the punching bag, still pondering over how he would approach their first session together.

"Morning, Cloud!" she called from behind him. "Ready to roll?"

He turned to face her and gave her a quick one-over, taking in the sight of her in a white sleeveless tank top that hugged the curves of her upper body, much akin to the top she wore during her AVALANCHE days. Her midriff was bare as always, revealing her perfectly toned abdominal muscles. Her tight training shorts covered nothing past the top half of her upper leg, exposing the rest of her legs down to her ankles. He was glad that he had gotten at least somewhat used to seeing her in such attire; otherwise, he could imagine being too distracted to train at all.

"You bet!" he responded, trying to exude some degree of confidence.

"How do you want to do this?" she asked.

He had no immediate answer, but quickly decided that he would keep the ball in her court.

"How do you usually train these days?" came his reply.

"Well, I still attack that bag you're holding," she said, pausing before adding, "a lot."

"In that case…" Cloud answered, walking over to the boxing pads and putting them on, "…how about you warm up by hitting me instead?"

He saw a cheeky grin form on Tifa's face and instantly breathed a mental sigh of relief. She grabbed her boxing gloves and suited herself up, then struck her pose as though she was readying an attack.

"Can you handle me, Cloud?" she asked, playfully teasing.

"I guess we'll see," he responded, holding his padded hands up, ready to receive her blows.

She started off with some soft punches to the pads at eye level, switching it up every few seconds by aiming at other parts of his body, to which he easily blocked. After about half a minute, she began adding in some kicks at various levels, swinging her feet in the same swift motion he had seen thousands of times.

"Come on, Tifa," Cloud uttered, attempting to encourage her. "Come at me. I can take it."

She nodded, giving him a much more powerful one-two combo before instantly pushing forward with a spinning kick. His pads absorbed every blow as his arms responded impulsively to all of her movements; thanks to years of combat experience, his body was trained to almost instinctively successfully defend whatever attacks came his way long before his mind could process them. She continued with her attacks, growing more aggressive in trying to find some manner to break through his defenses. While his body kept reacting to her accordingly, Cloud found himself smiling internally at seeing her competitive edge starting to surface.

Then, it finally happened. As one of his arms was raised to defend her from a swiveling kick, she surprised him instead by launching her opposite leg forward, connecting directly with his chest. The move sent him tumbling down to the training mat, crashing his back against the semi-soft surface before he could brace his arms for impact.

"Cloud!" he heard her exclaim, and in an instant, she was crouched above him.

He found it amusing that she actually thought for a brief moment that she had hurt him. He knew it was just part of her nature to respond in such a manner, and he always appreciated that about her. However, seeing as how they were in the middle of a training session in which she was growing more competitive, he thought he would have a little fun with her.

He allowed a few seconds to pass before giving her a slight smirk.

"Tifa," he finally spoke up. "I'm fine. Did you forget?"

Before she could even form a look of confusion at what his question was asking about, he placed his boxing pads around her waist and flipped her over so that her back was now on the mat. Without giving her any time to react, he placed his own body over hers at an angle in which her legs could not reach up to shove him away and held her arms down with his still-padded hands.

"I'm Cloud Strife," he reminded her. "It takes more than just a kick to the chest to hurt me."

To both his delight and relief, she gave him a soft giggle.

"I'll remember that next time," she replied, flashing him her trademark smile.

He returned her smile and was about to let her go, but something inside of him stirred and prevented him from acting. He tried to sort these newfound thoughts out, but the sight in front of him was making it difficult to do so. All he saw was Tifa lying on the mat with his hands loosely pinning her arms down and his body slightly hovering over hers. She was looking up at him with her sparkling red eyes, panting from their first training session, and he found it impossible to look away. It was as though her eyes were luring him in, urging him to inch closer to her face and eliminate any distance between them. He started narrowing the gap, but quickly halted his advancement since even his most basic instincts knew it would not be right to take advantage of this particular situation.

However, her lack of response simply muddled his thoughts even more. He was, by no means, keeping her held against her will. Neither his body nor his hands were pressing her down; should she choose to, she could easily push upward, and he would be forced to let her rise, yet she simply lay there with her eyes glowing toward his, seemingly refusing to break her stare.

Seconds that felt like hours passed. Her breathing started relaxing a bit as their pause in training lingered. He knew he should say something, anything, to break the tension that was increasing seemingly exponentially by the moment, but he was at both a strange and familiar loss for words.

The world underneath the moving train was passing by in a blur, but Cloud knew they had no other choice. Barrett had already jumped out, and now it was their turn.

He looked over to Tifa. The hesitation in her eyes was obvious, but he also saw a glint of fear. She was desperately trying to hold a brave face, but her heavy breaths highlighted her distress. Unfortunately, there was no time to comfort her at the moment if they were to escape from this train alive.

Cloud flashed her a look of determination and nodded, then wrapped his arms around her protectively and leaped from the open door, making sure to angle his body so that the sword on his back would hit the hard surface first. He felt the rough thump of the impact but kept his focus on clutching Tifa tightly as the momentum from their jump sent them rapidly rolling on their sides. Seconds later, they came to a stop in the same position that they had hit the ground in: him on his back and her on top.

He placed his right hand, which he had used to halt their rolling, back on her while still clutching her with his left. She lifted her head, and for a brief second, their eyes met. His mind froze; she was tantalizingly close, and he was uncertain of what exactly she was pondering as she looked at him, but even as his thoughts on other matters continued to confuse him to no end, a brief moment of clarity flashed across his cognizance.

He wanted to keep her clutched against him as if the very act of letting her go would endanger her life. He wanted to apologize to her for acting so rashly in jumping off the train without considering her feelings. He wanted to find any words at all that he could say to comfort her and reassure her that he would never stop protecting her, just as he had promised years ago. He wanted so desperately to understand her needs and put in his own effort to fulfill them.

Sadly, the brevity of the moment passed, and all he could manage to utter was a clichéd question.

"You okay?" he asked her.

"Yeah," she answered while nodding, and he was certain that, based on the way she spoke, she also felt some of his tension during that brief moment.

He gently lifted her off his body, instantly feeling the ache of coldness when her warmth was removed. Their eyes stayed glued to each other's for a few seconds longer though, filled with gratitude, relief, and puzzlement, but their enemies soon showed up and denied them of any opportunities to figure their thoughts out.

The state of confusion continued permeating the atmosphere as time ticked by. Cloud remained speechless; despite moving his mouth as though he wanted to speak every few seconds, no words came out. Finally, unwilling to allow the tension to cause her any more discomfort, he lifted away from her and began dusting himself off to distract his mind from his own uncertainties. Tifa soon followed suit with the same actions.

They spent the next ten minutes training together in relative silence, which wound up being rather ineffective as they simply went through the motions. Cloud continued trying to motivate her with a few words of inspiration, but they came out sounding forced, and he knew she sensed the inadvertent partial emptiness of his attempts. Once it was over, they retreated to the bathrooms to shower, saying nothing to each other besides the standard remarks of gratitude for the session.

He and Tifa made sure that the conversation at breakfast was focused almost exclusively on Marlene and Denzel, and the atmosphere was relaxed enough that Cloud hoped neither of them could pick up on the sudden awkwardness hanging in the air between the two adults. With a schedule packed full of deliveries for the day, he had no time to pull Tifa aside to talk even if he actually figured out what he needed to say. Thus, once breakfast was over, Cloud gave the other three a simple, hasty good-bye before hopping on Fenrir and driving toward his first assignment.

He made his deliveries without incident throughout the day, since he was both experienced and efficient enough to not let any personal sentiments interfere with his professional duties. However, thoughts about what happened in the morning refused to leave him alone, and the longer the discomfort lingered in his mind, the more he was baffled by why it even occurred in the first place. He and Tifa should be relaxed enough around each other by now to avoid these situations or at least clear the air when they did happen; after all, they had already gone on a date that went smoothly, even sharing a kiss at the end, so why was he still bothered by such a moment?

The question still hung in the air when he started realizing something else far more troubling: he had agreed to help with her training because she felt she was losing her edge as a fighter, but by putting her in a defeated position and keeping her there, he may have taken away even more of her confidence. Suddenly, it no longer mattered how he felt for tangling the two of them in such an awkward moment. Suddenly, it seemed terribly selfish for him to act so playfully without even considering the potential consequences for her, and he mentally cursed at himself for it. She trusted him to make her stronger, not weaker, and he did not fulfill what he had set out to do.

He decided then and there that he would need to find another way to make it up to her.

Tifa filled the plate with Cloud's dinner, covered it up with foil, and set it on the kitchen counter. Cloud had called her late in the afternoon to let her know that he would not make home until well after the bar closed, meaning she would be leaving a plate for him to eat separately.

"Last call!" Tifa announced to the few remaining patrons. Minutes later, all of them had finished their drinks, paid their gil, and headed out into the Edge night.

As she locked the door, Tifa found her attention drifting back to what happened during her training with Cloud in the morning. She had been thinking about it throughout the day whenever she had a brief respite: the way his eyes reflected his excitement, the way he pushed her to exert her best effort, the way he playfully teased her when he pinned her to the ground, and the unexpected and inexplicable turn of events that led to their brief, uneasy staring session. She recalled the mixture of emotions that washed over her when he gave her that look: initial confusion over his sudden lack of action, yearning for him to physically close the space separating them, increased frustration as the seconds ticked by without any movement on his end, and a final desire to reach up and pull him down herself combined with the reluctance that held her back. She could see the same combination of uneasiness and longing in his eyes, which was why she could not gather enough wits to look away from him or even make a move herself as she waited for something to happen.

It was disappointing when, in the end, nothing more actually happened. The moment lingered even as they continued to train, and while she tried to pick herself up through his words of encouragement, she could not shake the feeling of déjà vu. When they had their date slightly over a week ago, he had pulled away from her at the end, and he did it again this morning after getting her in such a relaxed mood while they were training. Questions about why this continued to happen had been running through her mind at sporadic moments all day, but no answers seemed to ever reach them and put them to rest.

The day after their date, stories from Marlene and Denzel had served as the perfect diversion to convince her that any unclear feelings she held would eventually be sorted out. However, since then, she and Cloud had yet to have any talks about such matters. Now, with the children in bed and no other stories to distract her, Tifa realized that she would need to be the one to initiate the necessary conversation or her questions would never find their answers. She did not know how she would approach this, but she at least had to try.

Tifa finished her remaining work at the bar and headed upstairs. She brushed, showered, and changed into her sleepwear, but instead of going straight to bed, she walked to Cloud's office and sat at his desk. She knew she would need time to think through what she would say to him; she wanted to be honest, but she was also still full of uncertainty about her some of own emotions, and her last wish was to have that uncertainty confound him more.

She sat and waited, trying to mentally form an outline of her mixture of feelings to deliver to Cloud when he came home. Gradually, the picture started becoming clearer, but at the same time, it felt as though it was also turning somewhat unrealistic, which baffled her even more.

Tifa had no idea where she was or how she got caught in this situation. All she knew was that she was trapped. The giant dragon was on her heels, and the flames coming from its nostrils were so strong that she could still feel the heat against her back in between breaths.

Tifa quickened her pace, digging deeper to find any energy she had yet to exert and plowing through it for one final attempt to outrun the dragon. It seemed to work when the heat from its breaths started fading along with its roars, but she simply did not have enough stamina to continue running. Gasping for air, she collapsed beside a large boulder, looking around for any alternatives she could use to survive.

She spotted a cave and crawled her way toward it as rapidly as she could. There was no light inside, so she could not make out how deep it was; thus, to be safe, she could only hide just out of the monster's sight. She sat with her back against the cave wall, heaving in swift succession, desperate for oxygen.

Her hopes were smashed—literally—with a loud crashing sound. As she looked up, the dragon's tail swooped over her, destroying the mountain that housed the cave and openly revealing her. Its menacing eyes turned toward her, and it inhaled, preparing the deathblow. Too drained to run or hide, all Tifa could do was cower, bracing herself for the impact to come.

A sudden blur of yellow flashed before her eyes and stopped between her and the dragon. As the creature launched its final attack, Tifa peeked and saw the figure raise its sword, deflecting the flames back to hit the dragon squarely in its eyes. The beast writhed in pain, and the figure took advantage to launch into a flurry of attacks, slashing the creature in enough ways to carve it into pieces. Unable to fight back from the speed of the figure's sword, the dragon collapsed with a whimper, losing consciousness.

The figure sheathed his sword and turned around to look at her, wearing a smile of satisfaction. Tifa's eyes widened in pure euphoria as he approached her.

"Are you all right, Tifa?" her savior asked affectionately, leaning down to check on her.

"Yes, Cloud," she nodded in return, unable to drop her beaming expression even if she tried.

He placed one arm under her knees and another around her back, lifting her up.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go home."

Tifa rested her head against his SOLDIER uniform, looping one arm around his neck while running her other hand through his blond locks before placing her palm over his heart.

"My blond knight" she spoke softly. "You kept your promise. You came back for me."

"Cloud," Tifa whispered, leaning slightly into his chest.

Cloud looked down at her in his arms and stopped in his tracks, but did not respond. He found it strange when he entered Seventh Heaven and saw that the only light on was the one in his office, so he decided to check first before grabbing his dinner. That was where he found Tifa asleep while hunched over his desk.

She had whispered his name as he picked her up, but since she did not stir awake, he simply brushed it off as dream speak. Originally, he intended to carry her back to the master bedroom, but not wanting to risk waking her and disturbing her slumber, he decided to tuck her into his bed instead. He was certain that she would not mind if they traded beds for one evening.

He placed his covers over her and gave her another look, brushing a stray strand of hair aside to reveal her face. He could feel his heart beating faster at the sight of her peacefully sleeping figure, and he found some renewed vigor to help her restore the confidence that she had lost in herself. She deserved to be in the highest of spirits again, and he was now more determined than he had been that morning to see her back at that level.

Cloud stepped back out into the hallway, leaving his office door slightly ajar. He vowed he would not return home from his next delivery until he could figure out how to help Tifa regain her edge.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: The idea for Tifa's "blond knight" dream comes from two email messages she sends Zack in Crisis Core. In the first, Tifa writes about how "any girl would love to have a blond SOLDIER guy protect her when she's in a pinch" and how "it's no good just waiting for my blond knight in shining armor to show up, so I've started learning how to fight, myself." In the second, she simply asks Zack not to mention the blond guy to anyone else in SOLDIER. I decided to write her a clichéd fantasy dream of being rescued by her knight during a dragon attack.

Anyway, how did you enjoy this chapter? Please let me know any thoughts you may have. As always, I love hearing from you. See you next time!