Yuffie finds Tifa against the wall of the Shinra Convention Center. Tifa can't seem to stop staring at her phone, even with her vision blurred and teary. She wipes at her eyes, and she feels the clumping and smudging of mascara against her eyelids.
"Tifa!" Yuffie exclaims, coming up beside her. "What's wrong? What's happened? What did dickface Rufus say? What did Strife say? I saw you smack that Scarlet bitch in the fucking face, and…" she trails, stopping her splutter of words as Tifa catches her gaze. Tifa is startled to see Vincent standing behind her, shifting his weight. He seems out of place. He glances away and looks at his watch before averting his stare to the sidewalk.
Tifa takes a shaky breath. "My dad…" Her face crumples, and she turns it away from Yuffie, hating how hard it is for the words to come out of her mouth. "My dad, um…won't answer."
Yuffie gently grabs Tifa's arm. "Tifa…"
"He—refused treatment," Tifa says, words broken and stilted. "And now, he—he won't—pick up—and I—"
Her voice hiccups, and the tears fall faster. Tifa shakes her head and holds in a sob, swallowing it down. There's a pressure forming behind her skull, all the sadness and anger pulsating in her throat. A headache is already beginning, and Tifa squeezes her eyes shut.
"I'm—calling a cab," she gasps, reaching her hands up to hide her face. "I need—to go."
Yuffie places her hands on Tifa's shoulders. "No, you are not calling a cab. Are you kidding me? We'll take you home."
Tifa shakes her head. "No, I—need to go see my—dad," she stutters. "I'm taking the—train."
Yuffie's eyebrows pinch, concern and uncertainty bordering her eyes. Then determinedly, she nods. "Okay. Vincent drove here. We'll take you home and I'll order the tickets."
At that, Vincent straightens. "What…?"
"We're using your car," Yuffie says, her voice hardened and severe. She turns to give Vincent a glare. "No buts about it. I don't care how expensive it is."
"That wasn't what I meant…" Vincent's low, chilled voice begins before it stops, and Tifa hears his footsteps as he walks toward the parking garage.
"Don't worry, Tifa," Yuffie says, cradling her against her small frame. Tifa slowly allows her hands to come around her in a hug. Her face is snotty and her breaths are still hiccuping and embarrassing, but she's never felt so much comfort from her friend as she has at this moment in time. "We'll get you home."
The first ride available is 4:00 am the next morning. It's eight long, dreary hours. Even on the high speed train, the journey is deterred by multiple stops—Costa del Sol, Corel, Rocket Town, and finally Nibelheim. The change in terrain and atmosphere gives minimal distraction, and Tifa tries to keep her mind blank from worry.
It's impossible. She clutches her phone close, occasionally lighting up the home screen just in case she somehow missed a phone call or notification. She attempts to call her dad one more time when she reaches Costa del Sol, but it nearly breaks her again when he doesn't answer. She wishes she had his assistant's number. Maybe he would give her information about her dad. Surely, if it was dire, someone would have notified her by now. She's his emergency contact on all the medical forms. She's his only living relative.
She feels too sick the entire journey to eat anything. The nausea and anxiety come and go in waves. She pushes her head back into the seat and closes her eyes, takes calming breaths that do nothing to relax her. She dozes in restless exhaustion, only to wake up every few minutes, jolting and remembering where she is and where she's going.
She thinks about texting Cloud as each of the hours trickle past. She thinks about his sorrowful gaze as she left him behind. What would have happened if she let him take her home? If he drove her back to Nibelheim, instead? She wonders about it, imagining herself sitting in the passenger seat of his car, burning up with worry and him beside her, attempting to soothe the ache with his cool and calm stare, his voice a mild reprieve. She wonders if it would have given her comfort, if she held his hand on the stick shift, if she caught his eye between the minutes on the road, clutching her phone in her other hand.
There are still three more hours of driving. Tifa sighs as she opens up her phone and sends a text to Cloud.
Tifa: Hey.
He responds so quickly, Tifa startles.
Cloud: Hey.
Cloud: Get a train ride okay?
Tifa: Yeah. The earliest was 4:00 am. Three more hours until I get there.
Cloud: Good.
Cloud: I'm sorry. I should have told you.
Tifa stares at his words. She frowns and leans her head against the window. Her knee-jerk reaction is to answer, it's okay. Her first responses have always been that way—to assuage guilt or brighten black, heavy feelings. With Cloud, it's no different. It's even more prominent than ever.
Tifa holds back. This is more personal. The most personal it has ever been.
Eventually, she types out her reply.
Tifa: I don't know what I would have done had you told me. Maybe this was for the best.
Cloud: I hope you can forgive me. I understand if you can't.
Tifa's eyes pinch, and she's too full of so many emotions, she can't help the tears that line her vision.
Tifa: But I get it. You tried to protect me. You tried, even when you didn't need to. That's more than what so many others would have done, and I thank you for that.
Cloud: Let me know if you need anything else. Text. Call. Anything.
Tifa wipes at her eyes, sniffling.
Tifa: Thanks. I will.
Tifa: Actually, I wish I could be distracted. I feel stuck in a limbo.
It takes a few long minutes for Cloud to respond. When he does, it isn't what Tifa is expecting.
Cloud: Can I call you?
Tifa eyes the black text for a moment, her mind darting back to the image she thought about an hour ago—of sitting beside him in his car in the passenger seat, listening to the low tone of his voice.
Tifa: Yes.
Her phone buzzes a moment after she sends her text, Cloud's name emblazoned across the screen. It takes her another second before she answers, putting the phone up to her ear.
"Hi," she says softly.
"Hey," he says. "I really don't…have anything to say, I just…"
"That's okay," she says. "We don't have to say anything." She pauses. "It's, um…nice to have the option to talk."
"Yeah," he says. "Wasn't sure how else to distract you."
She lays her head against her seat, looking out the window. "Are you at work?"
"I am. We aren't doing much. Rebooting systems. Making sure everyone knows what the hell they're supposed to do. That kind of thing."
Tifa cracks the first small smile she's had ever since the merger ceremony, when Barret ruined their moment. "Sounds exciting."
"It's fascinating," he says, sarcasm bleeding through the phone. "Where are you, now?"
"In between Costa del Sol and Rocket Town. I can still see the ocean."
"Have you ever been to Costa del Sol?" he asks.
Tifa flips through her memory. "Once. I was really small. It was a family vacation."
Her mom had still been alive, then. She remembers running across the beach, the sand gritty between her toes and her attention caught on a dead jellyfish that had washed ashore. She went to pick it up, captivated by the shine of its body. Tifa remembers her mother shouting for her to stop before she could hurt herself.
"It's just a pile of goo!" Tifa had shouted back, staring at the gray and purple mass, so squiggly in its lines yet so vivacious and bright, even without a soul. Her mother had scooped her up into her arms and scolded her, diverting her attention to other mundane secrets of the beach, like sand dollars and how to find crabs that had burrowed along the line of the shore. Strangely, Tifa remembers looking back at that jellyfish, occasionally, thinking about its beauty and wondering how it would have felt between her fingers.
"What about you?" she asks him. "Have you been?"
"I've only driven through. I've never been for a real visit."
"Sounds like we're both overdue," she says, watching the landscape speed by. It's a blur of green and brown, mountainous crags and a sleepy blue sky.
"Maybe we can go together," he says.
"I wouldn't mind traveling. Especially now that you're beginning the new department."
"It will be a lot of travel. That's…part of the reason why I took the position."
Tifa frowns against the window. "Is it what you wanted? I know you said it was last night, but…"
"It is. I needed a change. I spent the last few months figuring out what I wanted for myself." There's a long pause after his response, and she hears him softly sigh. "I didn't want to give up my position at first. I didn't think I could work for someone like Rufus after…after knowing what it's like to be my own boss."
Tifa runs her fingers over her lap, curling the end of her shirt.
"But I think the end goal with this…it'll be worth it. The medication. Helping people. I think I can handle Rufus for that."
Tifa imagines Cloud's face, lined with determination and surety. She knows the exact face he's making with the tone of his words.
"Plus, I'd…" he continues. "I'd, uh…"
She hears him scoff. She tightens the hold on her shirt.
"What is it, Cloud?"
"I'd be…fulfilling what I want." There's a brief pause, but before Tifa can say anything, he says, "I'll be moving my stuff to another office space. I'll still be in the same building with you."
At that, Tifa lets go of her shirt and sits up in her seat. "You will?"
"Yeah. Won't be the top floor, but that's alright."
Tifa smiles. "We'll still be close."
"I hope you don't mind."
Tifa rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "Of course I won't mind." After a moment, her smile begins to fall. "Just as long as…after this…I don't know how I'll be."
She's not sure how to explain it. If it's the worst case—she's not sure about her heart. She doesn't know what state it will be in or how it will remain. She doesn't know if she can persevere. She's not sure what she'll do or what she can handle.
She hates not knowing, and she hates being unable to prepare, but she can't think about the what ifs. Not right now. So she tells herself not to dwell on it. Instead, she lets herself be distracted by her anxiety, letting it fill her up to the edge. It shrouds her mind and her logic like thick fog, unable to allow clarity in her thoughts. Yet, behind the veil of it all, there continues to be a glimmer of hope. That hazy, undying beam of light, even when the world tries to suck it out of you, even as despair drains the dregs of your soul. Even then.
Because when there's nothing left, what else is there to do?
"No matter what happens, Tifa," Cloud says, his voice hushed and quiet. "I'll be there."
She's not sure what makes her ask it. Perhaps it's because, as close as his voice is inside of her ear, he still manages to sound so far away.
"Promise?"
He answers with easy immediacy.
"I promise."
Tifa arrives in Nibelheim at noon.
It looks just as she'd left it. From its quaint neighborhoods to the rustic blocks of downtown, to the taller, busier buildings in the middle avenues of the town. Where Midgar is tinted in cold steels, blues, and cooler shades of gray, Nibelheim is dusky, dusty, stained with warmth and suburbia, open fields and pastures. While its population is smaller than Midgar, it is still nothing to sneeze at in terms of size density—but it somehow maintains a solitude and slowness. Nobody rushes to where they need to go. They walk with lazy swagger. There is muted purpose in their steps, easy smiles on their faces, and courtesy between passersby on the sidewalks. There are simple hellos and a balance of polite nods and waves between strangers.
Welcome to the Friendliest Town on the Western Continent! Those words label the entering billboard. You're going the wrong way! Says the billboard 10 miles outside of town.
Compared to Midgar, this place feels endlessly homey and secure. What it lacks in technological advances it makes up for in complacency and contentment. In the past, Tifa could see why her parents chose this place for her to grow up. It was big enough—but not too big. It was competitive enough, nice enough, good enough. Conservative enough, nothing too radical to give her ideas. It was safe enough. It was simple.
It was enough of a place, but it was just enough to make her wonder about what else was out there. Surely, the world was not only made up of gentle smiles and anecdotal stories and climbing the business ladder until she became mayor and had nothing else to do or accomplish. It always seemed to whet her hunger for something that wasn't good or simple or nice.
She wanted greatness. She wanted an unidentifiable something. Something out of her reach—something that required her to outstretch her arms and leap and scrape her knees and try harder than she's ever had to try in order to accomplish it.
Her dad had called it a college degree. Tifa had laughed and asked him to go with her.
"The town needs me to keep it running," he told her. It was his favorite excuse, and it persisted against the true test of time.
Tifa walks toward her neighborhood, breathing in the heat reflected on the sidewalk by the midday sun. She sees Mrs. Wilkin's hedges, as straight and perfect as ever. She sees the pothole in the street that still hasn't been fixed, no matter how many complaints have been issued to her father's office.
She treks by the old-now-newly refurbished playground, the sight containing shiny, plastic seats on the swing set, lightly scuffed steps on the kid mountain, swirling and twisting slides that will burn the skin off your legs if you're wearing shorts.
It doesn't take her long to arrive at her house. By first glance, she can already tell it's unoccupied, but she takes out her key to unlock the front door and steps inside on the off-chance that her father is resting or took a mental health day or has done anything other than what she believes.
The house is still and quiet. All the lights are off, only highlighted with the natural sunlight streaming through the curtained windows. Tifa runs up and calls for her father, but his bedroom is empty when she opens the door. She turns and hustles up the stairs and down the hallway to her old room, just in case, and finds it like she findsthe bathrooms and the guest room, too: vacant and dark.
She hurriedly goes to her father's home office and finds Dyne's phone number—her father's assistant. He's the closest thing to a family here for her dad, and Tifa smashes the numbers into her phone. She listens to the dial tone and is angry that she had never thought to get his number in the first place.
"Hi, this is Dyne Otting—"
"Dyne, this is Tifa," she interrupts, her eyes already flooding with tears. "Where is my father?"
"T-Tifa, oh," he stutters. "How did you get my—"
"Dyne," Tifa says, her teeth gritting. "I'm in Nibelheim at my house. Where is he?"
"I…he didn't…" he tries before sighing. "I'm sorry. He didn't want me to call you. He didn't want you to worry."
Tifa takes the phone away from her ear for a moment, wanting to scream but unable to form the breath strong enough for it.
"Does that mean—is he okay? Is he—is he okay?" she says quickly, her stomach churning. "Tell me he's okay."
"He's…okay," Dyne says, hesitating. "He's sleeping. Had a bad turn last night, but he's stable."
Tifa's legs are shaking. She realizes this as she crumples to the floor. Her heart is ricocheting behind her sternum, and she blinks away her dizziness.
"He's okay," she repeats. Are you sure? She wants to ask. He hasn't left me? This isn't what he wanted you to tell me? To lie to protect me?
It strikes Tifa that she's suddenly surrounded by two men who try to protect her. They try when she doesn't need it or want it. She had snapped at Cloud last night, and perhaps that's partly why she had been so angry. It is something that her father would have done, and what her father's doing right now. Trying to protect her from what? His eventual, inevitable death? And why? What gives him the right when he's been dying for so long and has rejected every invitation to live closer to her? To be with her?
Because he loves her?
She gasps, two tears falling down her cheeks. "What room?"
"Tifa—"
"What fucking room, Dyne?" she snaps, smashing the receiver of her phone into her ear.
"327," he eventually answers. "But Tifa, your dad—"
She hangs up. She folds over for a moment, heaving in a handful of deep breaths before she wipes her eyes and stands. She squeezes her hands into fists at her sides, one wrapped around her phone. She regains her bearings for a second, then two, and her eyes come upon the picture standing on her father's desk.
It is the same picture she has on her own work desk. It is of her and her father grinning brightly into the camera, the light wash of December behind them in fluffs of white, pristine snow. They have their arms wrapped around their sides, and it is before his diagnosis when they were both full of life and as happy as they could have been.
The hope swells behind her sternum again, stupid, blazing, ridiculous, endless, and hot, like a raging forest fire.
Because once, before Tifa left to take her job, that picture frame had been filled with a photo of her mother.
327. The number swivels around and around her mind as she smashes the 3 inside the elevator, willing it to go faster.
Please be real, she thinks. Please, please be real.
She nearly sprints out of the elevator when the doors slide open. She follows the arrows on the signs for rooms 320 and up, walking so quickly she has to jerk her body to a stop when she comes upon 327.
She inhales a deep, shaky breath. She steadies her feet. She thinks about the forms she practices for Zangan's training. They are as strong and graceful as the curling, sprawling branches of an oak tree. They are full of long lines and deeply rooted feet. She expels her breath, squares her shoulders and gently knocks on the door before stepping through the threshold.
Dyne immediately stands up from his perch on the chair on the other side of the hospital bed. Tifa's eyes catch onto it, and she sees her dad's form bundled underneath the thin, cheap blankets. There is an IV line attached to his hand, and an oxygen saturation monitor clipped to one of his fingers. His heart beeps on the machine mounted on the wall, his well-being framed and described with numbers—heart rate, blood pressure, how much oxygen fills his lungs. His heart monitor shows the steady spikes of its rhythm, colored black and green against an electronic grid. It's a wonder how one place can minimize the depth of life, with all its memories and future potential, into sterile coloring and antiseptic.
"Oh, Daddy," she whispers, hurrying to his side. The tears come back, pricking behind her eyes. She grips the rail of the hospital bed, absurdly afraid to touch his skin. It might be cold, and it might feel clammy and deadened, no matter what the monitors say. His face is pale and ashen, lacking the normally gentle flush that lingers in his cheeks, pushed up with his gregarious smiles.
"Tifa," Dyne starts, coming forward. "I'm sorry. I didn't want to—"
"What?" she says, cutting her eyes up to him for a moment before turning them back to her dad. "You didn't want to call me because you respect my father? Or because you want to ensure you become mayor once he passes?"
Dyne nearly flinches. He slowly places his hands in his pockets. "Tifa…"
Tifa bites the inside of her cheek, closing her eyes and turning her head. "I…forgive me. I didn't mean that."
Dyne gives a wry smile. "Yes, you did. But you're right. I should have called you."
"I'm his emergency contact. The hospital should have called me," she says, staring at her dad.
Dyne looks at the floor. "Your dad changed it to me about three months ago."
Tifa nearly chokes, whipping her head up to him. "What?"
Dyne has the decency to look abashed and ashamed. "Your father had good intentions, Tifa. He wanted this to be as painless for you as possible."
Tifa stares at him. A laugh bursts from her throat after a pause.
"Painless? You think any of this has been painless?" She spreads out her arms, and she feels her body beginning to shake again. "This will never be painless. In fact, the mere thought of my father removing me from being his contact is—" she stops, holding back a sudden sob. She turns her head away, looking back down at her father. "I can't believe him. Painless, dad? You really thought that?"
"I'm sorry, Tifa," Dyne says again, and it sounds as though he is uncertain about anything else to say. "Like I said, he had good intentions—"
"Intentions are just that. They hardly end up any good," Tifa says softly, finally daring to touch her father's hand. It is chilled from the fluid of the IV. It is cold, but it is dry and textured just as she remembers. It makes her breathe a little easier.
"Whatever else you think, he loves you," Dyne says, frowning. "Even if you think his choices are misguided."
Misguided. Tifa smiles wryly. For being a mayor, her father certainly has a diminished view on how to communicate his love.
Maybe that's the thing, too. There isn't a right way. There are only different ways—actions, words, the combination of the two. She sighs, squeezing his hand.
"Has he woken up at all?" she asks.
"Once, after they stabilized him. We forced him to eat some pudding, then he went back to sleep. He's been sleeping since."
Tifa pulls up one of the two chairs in the room, bringing it closer to his side and taking a seat. She stares at his sunken cheeks and thinning neck, and a swirl of malicious thoughts run through her mind. It is so unlike her—she never feels this way. She's never taken over by thoughts that are this disruptive or this mean.
"Did my dad tell you about…" she tries, taking a breath. "About the clinical trial?"
Dyne bobs his head. "Briefly."
"Did you two discuss it?"
Tifa catches Dyne's eye, and he straightens in his seat. He blinks.
"We…yes. A bit."
"What did he say?" she asks. Half of her wonders if Dyne will answer truthfully. He is good at evading transparency. Tifa's father used to joke about the difficulty when he first took office—filled with half-truths and dreams with what he wanted to accomplish, and the reality of what he actually could. Dyne is no different. He might even be a better politician than her father, because he's younger and hungrier and more heavily ambitious.
"He said…" Dyne trails. "We both know he hasn't been in a right state of mind for a while, Tifa."
Tifa knows that. She also knows that her father had made his own mind up, without needing the encouragement of anyone else, but…
She still hates it. She still hates that she can't be enough for him. As relieved as she is that he is still breathing and alive, she continues to be angry and sad, with the tears boiling behind her eyes in a red rush of feeling.
"It didn't help that it was your boss who offered it," Dyne says. "You know your father hates him, with everything he's put you through."
Her breath catches, and she whips her head up to Dyne.
"What?"
Dyne raises a brow. "Did you not know it was Mr. Strife who came to Brian's office? He introduced himself, and Brian shut him down almost immediately. You know how protective your father is of you. He cut him down into shreds. Poor bloke could barely get out the information without Brian interrupting him every few words."
Tifa's hands curl together. She hadn't thought about that. She hadn't even thought to ask Cloud how the conversation went. And Cloud didn't have the chance to explain to her before she ran out the door.
"Brian was never going to consent to a treatment offered by the man who's made your life a living hell this year, Tifa. We both knew that."
A tear falls down her cheek. Tifa wipes it away.
"R-right," she says. "Of course he wouldn't."
"Your father and I thought it was a sham. Shinra's bad enough, but to go through a merger with that company? They are going to monopolize the big cities." Dyne sighs, shaking his head. "Mr. Strife left a video of its effects on a dying dragon, in the plains outside of Midgar. Seemed almost a miracle. Neither of us really believed it, though. We've seen a lot of things, but this one was too good to be true."
Yes, she thinks. Too good to be true.
She understands that. She forces a sob down into the back of her throat. She reaches out a hand to push back a lock of hair from her dad's forehead.
"Thanks for telling me, Dyne," Tifa says, voice tremulous. "I'm sure it was a shock to have Cloud Strife visit out of the blue and offer an experimental cure for dad's cancer." She nearly laughs. "I wouldn't have believed it, either."
Dyne shakes his head, his eyes going to her father's face. For the first time, she sees remorse on his face, settling in the deep lines around his mouth. His eyes soften.
"Do you think it could work?" he asks her.
Cloud's face appears in her mind's eye. She hears the gentle timbre of his voice. She remembers how the sunlight hit his face when he told her about his own father, and if only he could have just been enough.
"Yes," Tifa says. Her voice is clear, though the fog of tears remains in her eyes. "I know it could work if given the chance."
Dyne nods slowly, rubbing his hand over his cleanly shaven jaw. They sit in silent contemplation until, eventually, Dyne excuses himself, needing to attend to business matters. Tifa promises to keep him updated in the interim.
When Tifa is finally, blessedly alone with her dad, she lowers the railing on the hospital bed. She carefully arranges the wires and the IV, avoiding their obstruction. She climbs beside him, nestling delicately into his side. She places her head on his chest, and she hears his heartbeat matching the machine above them. Her eyes are too exhausted for anymore tears. Instead, she closes them, lulled by his slow, steady breathing.
It doesn't take long before she's fast asleep.
She awakens to her dad's coughing. She jerks, sitting up, and watches her dad's body wrack with their force. He settles back after the fit, and he blinks, bleary-eyed, noticing Tifa for the first time.
"Hey Dad," she says softly.
"Sweetheart?" he says, coughing one more time. "What are you doing here?"
It's been so long since she's heard his voice through the medium of the air, not transmitted through a phone. It's different. She can feel how his gravelly tone disrupts the stillness surrounding them. The warmth of his body is tangible, and she has no need to use her imagination to see the expression of his face.
Her eyes immediately fill with tears again, and she is simultaneously annoyed and overwhelmed by her emotions. Her anger is washed away at the sight of his eyes. His mustache is peppered with more gray than she remembers, his temples whitened but the majority of his hair clinging onto its youthful black.
"You didn't pick up the phone," she breathes, the sob finally releasing itself from her chest. She reaches forward and envelopes him into a hug that he hurriedly reciprocates.
"Oh," he mutters softly into her hair. "Oh, darling."
"You always pick up the phone," she cries. "I feared the worst, and no one was calling me, and I was so mad at you—I was so mad."
He lets her cry into his shoulder. One of his arms tightens around her waist while the other holds the back of her head.
"I'm so sorry for worrying you, Tifa," he says. "I knew you had the merger ceremony. I didn't think you would call."
She shudders against him. "The announcement—they told us—Cure and—and—"
"Oh, yes, of course," he whispers, and his voice sounds despairing. "Cure."
She pulls back from him a little, wiping at her nose and her cheeks. "Cloud told me he came to offer you a place in the trial, and that you—you—"
Her dad begins to frown at her, pushing back her bangs. "Tifa—"
"You rejected it," she says, her voice breaking. The torrent of the past eight weeks floods her windpipe with a vicious force. It pours out of her mouth.
"Why am I not enough for you?" she asks between gasps. "Why—why won't you try it? Even—even if it doesn't work—why can't you try it?" The tears run faster, and she can't breathe. "I know you miss—mom, and I know—it's been so hard, but I—I love you, too—"
She dissolves into a mess, and she has to turn away from him, hiding her face with her hands.
"Tifa…" she hears him say. "You think I don't love you enough to stay?"
Tifa says nothing, trying to recover her breath. She sniffles, wiping at her face.
"My love for you…that is the furthest from the truth. I love you more than anything in the world, Tifa. You are my daughter. Besides your mom, you're the love of my life."
Tifa breathes in deeply, hating the instability of her emotions. She can't bring herself to look at him, her face mangled with feeling.
"Then—then why?"
He heaves a sigh. There is a slowness to his words as he says them, as if he's collecting the right ones.
"I can't deny that I miss your mother, Tifa. I've missed her ever since she left us. It's been so different. I've been different, too."
"I know," Tifa says. "We both have."
"I haven't…dealt with it well, I know."
Tifa shakes her head, finally breathing a complete lungful of air without hiccuping. "There is no right way, Daddy."
"I should have been stronger for you, and I wasn't. But you were strong, Tifa. I tried to follow your example over the years. You went to college, and you found the job you wanted. You followed your dreams, and it inspired me to try to follow mine, too."
Tifa looks up at her dad. He is giving her a wan smile.
"I was re-elected for the next term s . The people like me here, but I think they hate change more than they actually like me."
Tifa's lips thin at the words. "That's not true, Dad."
He merely shrugs. "Maybe it's not. Regardless, that's why I've been teaching Dyne so much, just in case. He's been great. He has a mind for this kind of thing, and a passion that's been lacking in me."
Tifa reaches out to take his hand. His smile lifts a bit more when she does. "With the cancer diagnosis, I thought it was a sign. It was my time to go and join your mother," he says. "Even further proof to teach someone I trusted to take my place in office."
"But, Dad—" she tries.
"Hang on, Tifa. Let me finish," he says, squeezing her hand. "I was lucky to have met your mother in this life. I was blessed to have you. And in life, I think, there are only so many pleasures to experience. Before you were born, I experienced many of them with Suki. When you arrived, I was able to experience more than I thought I could.
"But with great love means heavy grief. I've been visiting her grave much more often, these days. I've been asking her a lot of questions, but she's still stubborn and hasn't answered any of them."
Tifa lets out a small, breathless chuckle. Her father smiles at her.
"It has been hard for me to keep my purpose, Tifa," he continues. "My energy is declining. The chemo makes me feel sicker than I thought I was. And then yesterday, I just…collapsed. I'm lucky Dyne was around to bring me here."
Tifa looks down at his hands. "Why did you change him to your emergency contact?"
"Ah," he says. "He told you."
"I was really, really mad at you today," she confesses. "And yesterday, when Cloud told me you rejected the treatment."
Her father watches her for a moment, his face falling in a somber shadow.
"I didn't want you to worry. Your career is thriving. Dyne was going to notify you if anything happened, anyway, and—"
She shakes her head. "That's unfair, Dad."
"Especially with the merger. You were going to visit me, soon. I thought it best."
Tifa furrows her brows. "I'm still mad at you for doing that. You need to tell me everything."
He gently smiles at her, though it's sad and melancholy. "I'll keep that in mind." He shifts on the bed, relaxing further into the papery pillows. "And about Mr. Strife's visit…"
Tifa's stomach starts to transform into lead.
"His appearance was quite the shock."
Tifa bites her lip. "Dyne told me."
Her father makes a noncommittal noise under his breath. "I'm not the biggest fan of the kid. After everything he's done to you this year…"
Tifa begins toying with the lip of her shirt. "Dad…"
"And then he travels here, pitching an innovation found and created by Shinra, no less." He shakes his head. "I didn't know what to think. Hard enough to believe on a good day."
"Yeah," Tifa says softly. "I understand."
Her father surprises her by touching her forearm, encouraging her to look up at him. "But you know what really surprised me?" he asks.
Tifa raises a questioning eyebrow. "What?"
"Never in my life have I heard of a CEO traveling across a continent for one person."
Tifa shakes her head. "He came to offer you the treatment because it was confidential. No one else could, unless they notified Rufus. And even then, I'm not sure how that works."
"Be that as it may," he sighs. "I told him upfront. I said that you had told me all about what he had done to you before. That he hurt you. The emails. Being a prick. I told him that I didn't like him."
Tifa opens her mouth. "Dad—"
"He reacted just as I thought he would. He had that stoic look about him, the kind I see with all the business professionals. He was trying to strike a deal without any emotion. I could see this kid sending you those emails filled with cowardice, bullying you. I thought, what an arrogant piece of work, standing in front of me, having the audacity to be here."
Tifa is unsure how to respond. How can she tell him? How can she explain it? She is uncertain about how to confess to her dad how Cloud has distracted her from the weight of the world, how he helped shoulder her burdens during these last weeks.
"He changed a little after that," he continues. Tifa catches his eye, and she's startled at the look on his face. He stares at her questioningly and almost knowingly. It reminds her of the look he used to give her in high school, when she lied about where she was in the evenings, allowing her the one chance to fess up before she was punished. "It happened when Dyne left the room. His demeanor shifted. It wasn't much, but it was enough that I noticed. I asked him what he was playing at. I asked him if he had a motive, because a lot of young guns usually have one. No one I know would come this far from home base unless he was going to gain something from it. Otherwise, he would have sent someone else. I don't care what protocol was with this Cure. He would not have wasted his time."
"What did he say?" Tifa asks, a bit fearful of the answer.
"You," he tells her. "He mentioned you."
Tifa curls her fingers harder and deeper into the cotton of her shirt. "Oh."
"He asked me to think about you," Brian says. "He said that if I loved you at all, I'd want to spend as much time with you as I could. I'd want to be present for the next milestones in your life. Even if Cure doesn't work, why wouldn't I want that chance?"
Tifa's breath is like a rock lodged in her chest.
"He said that?"
Her father nods, his lips thinning and becoming stern. "Tifa, I slept on his words. They have haunted me these past few days. It wasn't as if I'd never thought about them, but to have them said so directly to my face—I was angry. I was angry at him and everyone and myself, just like, I'm sure, you've been angry with me."
Tifa bites her cheek to keep them from quivering.
"And I've come to a conclusion about Mr. Strife and his actions," he barrels on, cradling her face with his hand.
She sighs, feeling tears prick at her eyes again. She huffs, rolling her eyes at herself. "What's that?"
He half-smiles. "He did this because he loves you."
Tifa scoffs a laugh, trying to avoid her tears. She reaches up to rub them off her cheeks, and she doesn't know how her father deduced something so profound in such a small amount of time.
"I don't…I'm not sure about that, Dad."
He pulls her against his side, kissing her temple.
"Tell me about it, then."
Tifa doesn't know how. She's not sure how to tell her father about how she feels or the intimacy her and Cloud have shared—it's embarrassing and vulnerable and things she tries to avoid on a daily basis.
Thinking about it all in a hospital bed, with a deadly sickness inside of the closest person she's attached to on this earth, somehow makes the ideas behind the story a little less. Tifa gains the courage from the lingering kiss on her temple from him, because her embarrassment and vulnerability and shame and hope all seem to be insignificant when staring into the face of possible death. Life is short, and it is never simple. What would be the point if it was?
Tifa takes a breath and contemplates the last few weeks of her life. Unsure of how to start, she ends up using a tried and true method.
She starts at the beginning.
And she keeps it PG-13, for both of their sakes.
By the end of Tifa's story, the nurse comes in to check on her father's vitals and take his dinner order. She refills his water glass and makes sure they are both comfortable. Tifa's father tells her they've tried to avoid as much press or information getting out as possible, but it is only a matter of time before he has flowers and balloons sent to his room, along with journalists for the news channels. He sighs tiredly at it, and Tifa wonders about her father's his verbalized lack of passion from before.
Tifa pulls out her phone and notifies her girls that everything is okay. They all respond back with capitalized words and exclamations, with Yuffie saying, Tell Brian never to do that to you again, I swear to Holy. Who does he think he is? Ugh!
Tifa tells him. Her dad chuckles lightly and says, "You have a wonderful group of girls. I'm happy you've found them in this world."
Tifa sends Cloud an update, as well.
Tifa: I'm still a little mad at him, but he's alive.
Cloud: Very happy to hear it. :)
Cloud never sends any smiley faces or emojis. Her face softens in surprise.
Tifa: Me too.
Cloud: Let me know if you need anything.
Tifa: I will.
Once the nurse is gone fulfilling their dinner order, her father unceremoniously asks, "Do you love him, Tifa?"
She shifts in the hospital chair. She's been afraid to even think it, let alone say it. She focuses her gaze on the evening sunset light filtering through the window in the corner of the room.
"I…" she pauses. The low, orange and yellow glow shelters the room like light from a campfire, warm and soft. Though she is already thinking about him, it still reminds her of him. It is comforting like a fire in a cabin, like the all-encompassing heat of a hearth. She wants him there, suddenly. Out of everyone else on the planet, she'd choose him to be sitting beside her.
Eventually, she nods. "Yes."
"What makes you think he doesn't love you?"
Tifa opens her mouth, turning her gaze to her lap. She wrings her hands together.
"I…I don't know. It's all a little scary, I guess. I'm not afraid to love him, anymore, but…I don't know what he feels."
Her dad smiles at her, moving to sit on the edge of the bed. "Well, I don't think I could understand how he couldn't love you, sweetheart. If he didn't, I'd wring his neck."
Tifa laughs, shaking her head. "Dad."
"Oh, it's true. Everyone you've met loves you, Tifa. I've witnessed it. If this Cloud's sorry ass couldn't love you, then he wouldn't be worth your time."
Tifa's smile remains on her face, but she says, "Yeah. Yeah, I know."
"So, what do you think? If you asked him to come here, to drop everything, would he do it?"
Tifa blinks, opening her mouth. "I…I wouldn't do that to him, Dad."
"I know you wouldn't, but humor an old man," he says, waving his hand. "If you did, what would be his response?"
No matter what happens, Tifa, I'll be there.
Tifa takes in a breath. "He'd come."
At that, her father nods.
After they eat their dinners, her father sends her on an errand to retrieve his work bag from his home office, along with wanting her to get some fresh air.
"You haven't been back home in years, Tifa," he says. "I feel just fine after eating and whatever they're feeding me in this tube." He lifts his right arm. "I'd leave this stuffy room if I was allowed."
Tifa sighs. "Fine. But I'll be back very soon."
"Sure, honey," he says, settling into the bed again. "I'm not going anywhere since I'm not allowed."
"Ha-ha," she says as she leaves.
This time around, Tifa's pace is much less manic and blurred. While night is beginning to descend and streetlamps are slowly flickering on, Tifa sees so many things she has forgotten about in her hometown. She notices the wildflowers lining the sidewalks, pink and yellow and blue. She glances out to the darkened border of Mt. Nibel, the peaks hovering over the town. The sunset is a brilliant blaze of reds, yellows, and purples, reflecting off the crags and dips of the mountain. The windfall from the valleys are cool and crisp, and she inhales the juniper and sweet, woodsy cedar. It's a nostalgic smell, and she is reminded of running around the town as a child, playing on the teetering bridge leading to the hiking trails along Mt. Nibel, and getting lost in the underbrush. It smells like the recklessness and abandonment of growing up, and Tifa smiles against it.
She tries not to linger in her home too long, oversaturated with nostalgia. Her father hires cleaning ladies to fight the dust and keep the rooms tidy—especially the ones he never visits. It is a different smell, now. It is a stale, lemon scented cleanliness. It is no longer pungent with the punchy, floral aromas from her mother's mopping, or the cherry smell from the wood polisher.
Her father moved rooms after her mother passed away, sleeping in the downstairs guest room. He hardly ever goes upstairs. Even more, Tifa isn't sure how much time he truly spends at home, preferring to spend most of it in his work office or the office at home.
Tifa slips into his office space, seeing his beaten up, scuffed leather work bag. She opens to check for his laptop, satisfied when she sees the silver square of it inside the sleeve. She spends a minute longer in the room, taking in the family pictures hanging on the walls. There is one of their Costa Del Sol trip, Tifa held in her mom's arms, their legs sparkling with sand, her dad wearing a visor and sunglasses. Her mom is in a one - piece, and Tifa is wearing a robin's egg blue bathing suit with small, purple cartoon octopi.
She looks at the other pictures—opening gifts on a Christmas morning, a mundane breakfast before school with Tifa sitting beside a plate of pancakes, and one with Tifa holding a broken, particle board, graduating from a white belt to a yellow, still missing a front tooth.
There's a tap on her chest again, just like the previous night. She readjusts the strap on her shoulder and leaves the house, inspired to take the long walk back to the hospital.
Her feet take her on a longer detour down the neighborhood. She takes a left on a lit, unpaved trail, passing underneath the metal gate of Nibelheim's cemetery.
As long as it's been and as dark and shadowed as the evening is making the grounds, she knows the journey to her mother's grave by heart.
It is an unassuming plot. The headstone is beveled along the border, the granite lightly speckled and glinting underneath the moonlight. A fresh white rose lies across the ground, kissing the bottom edge of the headstone. Her father's gift, she thinks.
The tapping against Tifa's chest grows louder. She hasn't been this close to her mother in several years, and she instantly regrets not taking the time to come more often. While a grave is only a place, there is something different about standing in front of it, close to the physical tethers of the dead rather than the spirit and the haunts of ghosts in the throes of her dreams.
"Hi, Mom," she starts. "It's been a while. I'm sorry I've been gone for so long."
The night is quickly falling into a cooler temperature. It is still warm, summertime clinging to the town, but it is comfortable and dry.
"Dad said he's been asking you a lot of questions. I have some questions, too, but I think you've already been trying to help me find the answers."
Tifa kneels, running her finger over the indentations of her name. "If he decides to go back to you...if he decides this must be it for him, I wanted to tell you that I've accepted it. I've finally accepted it. Whatever my dad thinks. Whatever he wants. I want him to be happy. I don't want him to regret anything." She pauses, her finger catching against the r of Lockhart. "Love is selfless. It's supposed to inspire the best in us, isn't it? And...it doesn't matter what I want. I love him, and that's all that has ever mattered."
She smiles, softly and sadly, the inflamed emotions puffing up her throat. "I met someone, too. I wish you could have known him. I think you would like him. I love him." The words feel loud against the night air. "I love him very much. Why did it—" she pauses. "Why did it take a tragedy for me to realize how much, or what it meant? He's been there for me. He's accepted me so easily. I'm no longer afraid when I'm with him. I feel like I'm strong. He makes me feel like I can do anything I want, even if I can't."
Tifa's hand falls to the grass lining the grave. Her fingertips hit a few beads of dew on the blades.
"But I promise, no matter what happens—no matter how this ends—you and Dad—you are both a part of me." Tifa presses her palm to her chest. "No matter if it's deep in the earth or across the universe. You'll be near me, always, and I'll never forget it."
Tifa kisses her palm and places it on the middle of the stone. Then she stands, and she leaves.
As Tifa makes her way back to the hospital, there is a flicker in her chest. It is something deeper than despair, deeper than grief, even deeper than hope. It's an ache—like a tug in the threads of her heart, pulling against the strings that reside there.
It's like the tapping. It's like the intuition. It's almost a relief, as if everything will somehow be okay. While life takes away, scrapes against the jar of your body until there is absolutely nothing left, it also gives back.
She doesn't know if she believes it's her mother, or if it is merely a vain wish in the hopes of hearing her answers. But the feeling persists, even if it is just the breeze of the night or the dew left against the lines of her fingertips. Tifa smiles all the same.
As she arrives back to the hospital room, seeing her dad sitting in the bed with a gentle flush in his cheeks, Tifa begins feeling the empty jar of her body start to replenish.
She falls asleep to the gentle rhythm of her father tapping on his laptop keyboard. She wakes in the middle of the night, having fallen asleep in one of the chairs. She groans against the strain in her neck, but when she opens her eyes, Tifa thinks she must still be dreaming.
"Hey, Tifa," Cloud says, kneeling beside her. He's giving her a soft, beautiful smile.
Dreaming, she thinks. I'm dreaming.
"Hi, Cloud," she says. I love you. "How did you know I wanted you to be here?"
One of his eyebrows quirk up. "I didn't know."
"Then how are you here?" she says. "This is a weird dream."
He reaches up to cradle her face. His palm is warm and calloused, as rough and textured as it is in real life. She presses her cheek into it, humming.
"This isn't a dream, Tifa," he says, and she blinks at him, the rest of the room coming into focus.
She's on the left side of the hospital bed. It is still dark out, with one of the lamps dimly lit in the corner. The beeps and drips from the machines reverberate like foreboding background music.
She sits up quickly, seeing a few others in the room with them. Her heart immediately begins to race, and her eyes widen. She finds her father's figure, and he's still alive and breathing and her adrenaline slows. He's talking to a few of the men in white lab coats. She grips the armrests of the chair, and her eyes catch onto Cloud, who doesn't look away from her.
"Cloud," she says, her voice broken from sleep. "What's—what's going on?"
"Your father called me," he says. He reaches up to her face again, as if he can't help himself. "He told me he signed the papers I left him."
"He..." Tifa trails, blinking. She loses her breath. "Papers?"
Cloud smiles a little at her confusion. "Yeah. I made him keep them, just in case he changed his mind."
Her own thoughts whir and buzz, all mashed together. She shakes her head. "I guess I'm trying to catch up."
Cloud tilts his head. "I'm sorry. This isn't the easiest thing to wake up to."
She glances back to her father, who catches her eye this time. He smiles reassuringly at her before turning back to the man beside him. He has curly, puffy hair, disheveled and rumpled, as if he is working on too little sleep. He pushes his glasses up onto his nose as his jaw moves faster and faster, one of his hands gesticulating wildly.
She turns back to Cloud. "You said...he called you? He changed his mind?"
Cloud nods, staring at her. "About five hours ago. We took a helicopter."
Tifa glances at her watch. "Five hours? That must have been when...I went back to the house." She shakes her head, looking at her dad again. "When I was coming back from seeing my mom..."
The feeling. The coincidence. Tifa pushes her palm into her heart, and it roils into her hand like a falling boulder from a cliff.
Her eyes begin to blur with tears. Not again, she thinks.
"Tifa," Cloud says softly, tipping up her chin. "Don't cry. It's okay."
"I know," she says, sniffling. "I just can't believe it."
Cloud smiles, reaching up to catch a tear. "He loves you."
It's strange how Tifa never thought that weighed toward her father trying to live. But now she believes in it—she believes in the feeling more than she ever has before in her life.
She leans forward and kisses Cloud, holding the back of his head. He rests his hands on the armrests to keep from toppling over.
"Thank you, Cloud," she says against his lips.
He smiles. "I didn't do anything. I just answered my phone."
"You did more than that," she says.
She leans back and goes to stand. He moves out of the way so she can walk to her dad, and she touches his arm, giving him a smile.
Her father is signing along the dotted lines on about a hundred sheafs of paper. He smiles when he feels Tifa take a seat beside him.
"You're sure, Dad?" she asks him, watching him flip the papers.
"I am," he answers. "I was sitting here, waiting for you to come back from the house, and I kept thinking about you. I kept thinking about how I've let you down all these years."
"Oh, Daddy, no," she says. "No, you didn't."
"I did," he says. "I think I've let Suki down, too. She wouldn't talk to me. I started to think maybe I wasn't listening."
Tifa leans against him.
"I've never been too good at listening," he says. "But I think I knew it when I collapsed yesterday. I was afraid to leave you without you knowing how much I loved you. How proud I am of you. And when you told me you thought I didn't love you enough..." he sighs, signing one more sheet before placing it aside. He turns to face her. "I knew then. I haven't been the father I wanted to be."
Tifa's grip on his arm tightens.
"Perhaps this will not make sense to you," he continues, handing over the clipboard to the disheveled white lab coat. His name tag reads Dr. Gast. "But this cancer has shown me how beautiful life is. It must be the impending death—knowing it would happen sooner and sooner each passing day. And when I woke up with you this morning, I realized I was hoping for the wrong thing."
Tifa stares at him, and he gives her a small smile.
"I never feared death until your mother passed, and by then it was too late. I never feared it when I was diagnosed. I welcomed it. But when I woke up with you beside me, I realized that I never feared not continuing to live. And I haven't lived since your mother. That's what I should have feared most of all."
Tifa tugs him into a hug, smashing him into her.
"Dad," she breathes.
"I love you more than anything left in this world," he tells her. "Let me begin to live for you, Tifa."
She gasps, crying into his shoulder.
"Okay," she says. "I love you, too."
Tifa and Cloud are ushered out of the hospital room once Dr. Gast makes all the preparations and agreements with the rest of the medical staff. It takes a few hours to have everything settled and secure, with the hospital manager signing off on the treatment, signatures from witnesses, and everything covered to avoid any complaints of malpractice, with sole responsibility placed on Shinra Industries and Dr. Gast's license.
Tifa kisses her father's cheek as they leave the room, with Tifa giving the overseeing nurse her phone number for the hospital to call when the administered dosage of Cure is complete.
It's nearing sunrise as Tifa and Cloud walk out of the hospital. Tifa is too wired and awake to care about her fatigue. Cloud doesn't seem to be very tired, either. He only seems to be too preoccupied with looking at her. She finds herself blushing under his scrutiny, and her heart pounds thinking about the unlocked freedom of love that swims in her bloodstream. Waking up to him in the hospital room only solidified how easy it was to feel. Now, completely alone in the darkened streets of her hometown, she can experience the energy between them. She feels charged too fully, her tongue sparking with the emotion she needs to give him.
She expels a breath. Instead, she finds balance with something ordinary and simple.
"Are you hungry?" she asks, smiling up at him. "There's a coffee shop that opens in a few minutes."
Cloud places his hands in his pockets. "Sure, I can eat."
Her stomach has finally settled after the last tumultuous twenty-four hours. She realizes how hungry she is, the hospital dinner she picked at hardly doing much to tame the growling of her stomach.
They order and eat breakfast croissants, which is what Tifa always used to eat before going to class. She is submerged in her history, vocalizing memories that hit her and stories that surface within her thoughts. Cloud watches her as he listens, a tender serenity on his face.
She takes him aimlessly down lanes of the neighborhood. She points out the streets she would walk to school. She shows him the playground where she'd meet with friends. They walk a trail toward Mt. Nibel, and they arrive at the entrance to the bridge. Tifa tells him about how she used to be a tour guide, wearing a ridiculous cowgirl outfit as a uniform.
"What did this uniform look like?" Cloud asks, raising a brow.
"It looked like something a sixteen year old should not wear in public. It bared my midriff and my shorts were very short," Tifa says, chuckling at the memory. "It was…silly."
"Hm," Cloud hums, stepping closer to her. "It showed your midriff?"
Tifa shakes her head. "I'm sure you would have enjoyed it."
Cloud only smiles. "I bet most of the tours were catered to teenage boys."
Tifa blushes but laughs. "Not all the time."
"I'd have been a repeat customer," he says, placing his hands on her hips. He bumps her nose with his own. "I'd probably come here whenever you were working. I'd be shameless."
"I wouldn't have minded," Tifa whispers, bringing her hands behind his neck. She pulls him into a kiss, and it starts soft before Cloud deepens it. She feels the emotions being pulled up her throat. They are so different than the ones she felt a handful of hours ago. These are sensations that weigh on her chest—not with anxiety, but with undulating excitement.
She breaks away from him for a moment, intertwining their fingers. "Come on," she says. "I want to take you somewhere."
They reach the water tower in a few minutes, their walk quiet and serene. Tifa goes around to the ladder and climbs, and Cloud follows right behind.
Tifa takes a seat on the wooden planks, letting her legs dangle over the edge. It's the same spot she used to sit so many years ago. Cloud takes a seat beside her, bending up one knee and resting his forearm on it, placing the other behind her back.
"I used to come here all the time," she says, leaning into the side of his chest. "It would be nighttime, when I wanted to be alone."
"You wouldn't meet anyone here?" he asks her.
"No," she says softly. She looks out to the stars, holding onto the vestiges of the dark, deep morning. The sunrise is beginning to filter into the sky, hinting at the beginning of day. There is a glow of lavender, fighting against the pull of night. "I would always be on my own. It was my place to think." She smiles. "The playground was the place for talk. This was my secret."
"I'm intruding on your secret," Cloud says, pressing further into her.
She shakes her head, looking up at him. "I want you to know this place. I want you to be here."
"It's a pretty place," he says, still staring at her. He's been staring at her all evening, she thinks. As soon as she woke up, as they walked around Nibelheim. He stares and stares as if she'll disappear.
"It is," she says. "I'd use it for inspiration, when I was sad or…or down on myself. Sometimes…" she trails, breaking eye contact. She looks out over the neighborhood to the line of the horizon. "Sometimes, I'd come up here and imagine all of the things I could be. I didn't know what I wanted. Nibelheim always felt so small to me," she explains. "It felt like a blackhole. So many people who grow up here stay here. It's like they can't leave. I didn't want to stay here, but when mom died, everything changed. I couldn't leave my father. I didn't want to be so far away from my mom." She takes a little breath, expelling it into the darkness. "I daydreamed a lot, here. It's funny—I always thought of fanciful things. The things that would never happen, you know? The things that were so outlandish and extravagant. I'd imagine myself as some famous doctor or scientist or fighter, and I thought about everything I might be and everything I would never be."
Tifa pauses, suddenly remembering her sixteen year old self, curling her knees up to her chest and crying and feeling all alone.
"I…once my mom died, I spent my time wishing. I wished for her to come back—to come back and fix my dad and put my life back together."
She feels Cloud's arm shift across her back, huddling closer. His warmth touches her like his calloused fingers touched her cheek in the hospital room, full of gentle comfort. Tifa closes her eyes, falling into this new memory on the water tower, with him beside her.
When she opens her eyes, she sees the sun beginning to peek over the line of trees in the distance. A curl of orange and shimmering blue clashes with the dark navy blanket of the quiet morning. She turns her head to look at Cloud's face, and he gazes back at her. His eyes are a culmination of things—sometimes dark blue, sometimes cerulean, sometimes the bright shine of the dawn.
She reaches out to hold his face. Of all the things she imagined, she never imagined him. Perhaps she couldn't, she thinks, because he couldn't be imagined if he was already created.
"My dad told me about your conversation," Tifa says. "I know it wasn't…the best."
Cloud smiles wryly. "No, not the best. He didn't like me very much."
"I'm sorry," she answers. "That was my fault. I complained about you all the time to him when you sent me those emails. I…" she pauses, glancing away from him. "I didn't give you glowing reviews, but I've been updating him on how we've…gotten along better."
Cloud raises an amused eyebrow. "You have?"
"Nothing about us…" she trails, blushing. "You know. But I told him our relationship had gotten better."
He shrugs a little. "It didn't matter to him. He still hated me." He touches her cheek. "I deserved every bit of it."
She frowns at him. "You didn't."
"I did," he says. "He almost refused to see me when he realized who I was. I acted like it was a business meeting. It was like I…reverted back to my normal self."
"You had to," Tifa says. "That's how you protect yourself. That's how you've always made deals, Cloud."
"But I knew it was different," he says, glancing out to the neighborhood rooftops. "And I still screwed it up."
"You didn't," she says. "He called you back, tonight. You told him something that stuck." She smiles. "He even told me you did."
Cloud looks at her, and his face softens. "I guess I did."
She settles closer to him. "He said you mentioned me."
"Yeah…" he says quietly. "I…had to. I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry," she says, taking his hand in hers. "I think he had to hear it from someone else who, um, cares about me."
Cloud is gazing at her again, watching as she hesitates over the word. "I do care about you, Tifa."
The new sunlight refracts against his face as they stare at each other, and Tifa blinks. It is a sudden realization that hits her, so quick and abrupt and obvious. His eyes are the color of daydreams. They are nighttime daydreams, the deep, dark ones made in secret, the ones no one will ever know, cradled in her heart and isolated from the world.
They are sky blue daydreams, the ones made during the daytime hours, the ones that can be made real. The ones to reach for and grasp and make possible.
They are both.
He is both.
"Tifa," he says, his brow furrowing. He reaches up to wipe away the tears once more. "What's wrong?"
She shakes her head quickly, trying to push the tears away. "Nothing," she says. "Nothing. I know you said crying isn't a waste of time, but I'm certainly tired of all these tears today."
Cloud smiles a little, uncertainly. He seems to make up his mind, shifting forward. He kisses one of the wet lines on her cheek.
Her heart strikes against her sternum, and it feels like a blow from his sword. "Cloud," she says. She grips his arm. "Cloud, I'm happy. I don't know the last time I was happy like this."
The sun blazes in its burst of red, seeping into the atmosphere. The sky is not fully awake, but it hits her skin, and she feels every last drop of emotion wringing out of her system.
She leans her forehead against his, and he rests one hand on her hip.
"I'm happy, too," he whispers.
She grabs him tighter, pulling him closer. "I want to keep this," she says. "This feeling. This place." She breathes out. "This day will never come again, so let me…let us have this moment."
"Yeah," he murmurs. "Okay. Let us have it."
They hold each other until the day breaks, and the morning settles upon their shoulders like a blanket of possibilities.