Dedication this time is for Drope, Final Heaven Discord member, for insights that helped me clarify… stuff that really confused me about this, among other, scenes. Dro, I know this scene is important to you – I hope you like what I've done with it.

Chapter 48. January 16, εуλ0008

"He's back in the Lifestream again?" asked Zack.

Aerith's face was tired, drawn. Even in a world with no need for sleep… appearance reflected inner turmoil, and she had plenty inside. "It's not funny, Zack."

"I don't think it is," he assured her. "Not at all." How could she think he'd treat this as a laughing matter? Cloud, worse off than even when Zack was taking care of him… and if he was exposed again... would there be any going back?

Or would all Zack's efforts, all his sacrifices, be for nothing?

"There's more." Aerith furrowed her brow in concentration. "It's… It's Tifa!" she clapped her hands. "She's with him… she must have fallen in too…"

"Which means… what?" worried Zack.

"I don't actually know," Aerith admitted. "But I have my hopes." Tifa, I always knew you were the key… "Maybe… she's never been exposed. The flood of memories… she might… be able to hang on to herself. And if she can do that, she might be able to reach Cloud too."

Zack mused. "So if he wasn't healing on the outside… she helps him from the inside out."

Aerith beamed. "You ARE learning how this works."

"Can we help them?" Zack asked anxiously. "I mean, if Tifa's presence is strong…" The same way Aerith had explained, a Cetra could keep a hold on themselves in the Lifestream; but that was something they just knew. Tifa… she was strong, but was she strong enough? "Is there anything we can reach?"

"No," Aerith said sadly. "They're in the place in between. Not close enough for me to touch. I have nothing to grab on to." The slippery sea they'd fallen into, no way to form the bridge. She'd need something in the living world to grasp on, and they weren't there anymore.

"So…" Zack answered. "This is just the two of them."

"The two of them," Aerith affirmed.

As she'd always known it would be.

DARKNESS.

Did it count as looking around when there was nothing to see? She wanted to wail in frustration, in fear.

Dark, but not empty.

Voices screeched their terrors to her from all sides, trying for her soul, as she swirled dizzily in that sea of thoughts and feelings. She could feel her own desperate, disembodied need – to bridge, to join, she both drawn and repulsed as she tried to reach through to the one soul she was looking for.

But she couldn't find him – anywhere.

Cloud…. If he was here, I wouldn't be afraid…

He'd tumbled in with her – he couldn't just be GONE. He'd come out of the Lifestream once… he could do it again, right?

But for now, she was alone in the depths of the Lifestream, the same thing Cloud had experienced, that he'd only just returned from. Had his seizures been a way of protecting his mind from all… this? From Sephiroth, from anyone breaching the barrier? Trapped between this world and the next – overwhelming. She wondered how long Cloud's mind had been exposed, vulnerable – and how he'd endured even as long, as well, as he had.

"STOP IT!" she cried her voiceless scream into the black. Words holding no more substance here than she herself. Surrounding her, the guilt of leaving Cloud in his own figurative darkness; it whispered scathing thoughts. You didn't help him… you abandoned him… Accusing, rasping ifs and buts of everything she should have done, all the mistakes that she had made.

Not saying what she KNEW.

Not saying how she felt…

And now she didn't know if she'd ever see him again, if he'd make it through if she did, if she could get him back one more time…

The blame around echoing her own thoughts, the two vibrating, resonating. The pain, excruciating, crushing weight on her mind, her futile protests, no, no, it wasn't me, I'd never do that, I didn't know…

…creeping in, enclosing, suffocating, and she RAN but only to more nothingness, trying to block it out, crying out for help, calling his name into the void –

And somewhere faint and distant, she heard her name called back… Tifa.

The sound swallowed her whole, ethereal fireflies flooding her eyes, and all she could think was….

Cloud…

Green. Light. She reached without a body, swimming forward. Then… distant, floating, his soul submerged further even than herself. Terrified of ghosts surrounding, she simply had to brave them.

Have to reach him…

There was nothing there to touch, just the ghostly specter of the man, adrift. She reached not with her hands, but with her heart. Her soul whispered to his, speaking with sixth and seventh senses.

Images came anchored by the feelings riding with them. Nibelheim, the answering murmur of his own.

And as their hearts made contact, emotion became as solid as day – their pangs of regret coinciding, for a town that would never be again. The town… where it all began. Where part of her was left for dead. Where answers could be found.

Answers that meant going back.

Reality, or some simulacrum, slowly took its shape. A green moonscape of Cloud's dreams, dredged from the locked reaches of his subconscious. She found herself in a rocky nexus, three paths reaching from the center where she stood, and nothingness in between. She was triangulated by three shadow selves of Cloud, emblematic of his splintered spirit, while above a translucent superimage of his ego twisted and writhed its silent moans of pain. Tortures inflicted on his soul, and here they were laid bare for her to see.

As if the clinic hadn't been enough already, seeing him a slobbering, incoherent mess… he'd hate even MORE for her to see him like this. He'd never understood how desperately she'd wanted exactly that, for him to let her in - now achieved in such a spectacularly literal fashion, as she found herself now viewing him from the inside out. The knowledge of the Lifestream, breaking down the walls that separated them.

She wondered if it could break him free.

Fragmented pieces of him trying to rejoin; she'd have to be the key. They were from Nibelheim, just they two; no one else was left. They would go together.

Three scenes beyond each Cloud, painfully familiar images of Nibelheim lost. Behind one, the welcoming town gates; and it was to those that she first approached. She reached out for the crumpled Cloud before them, her fingertips reaching out to find him as solid as real flesh – but as he lifted his head, she saw blank confusion on his features.

"Come with me," she told him; he had to learn the truth.

"Five years ago… this is where it all began…" he said.

"Five years ago," she echoed. Five years – the start of SOMETHING, something she still didn't understand how he could be a part of. "That's right, Cloud." Five years. Not seven. That critical mistake… and now that she knew why…

Cloud rose to his feet, but then just stood there. Waiting. These were HIS thoughts, but lost, he looked to her to lead him. Nodding, she strode ahead, bracing to see Cloud stripped bare before her.

She'd tell him soon enough. For now… together, they watched the scene unfold in front of them.

Her younger self, curled up by the gates, waiting for the boy she maybe loved – the feelings she had then, the feelings she had now. "This day…" she began, "when SOLDIER came to town…" Cloud projected the image of Sephiroth into view, she shivering at even this memory before her, seeming just as completely and utterly real as the way it lived in her memories.

She was taken back to the illusion Sephiroth had shown – the truth of what had happened – while she'd just stood there, frozen and dumb. Cloud's memory speaking, showing him bringing up the rear – he really DID believe. To have that thought entrenched this deep… unless she herself was wrong… but no, that couldn't be. That was the mystery she was her to solve.

"No, Cloud," she said regretfully. "I have to tell you…" What I've been hiding from you. "You weren't there that day. Sephiroth showed the truth…"

Cloud said nothing, but… before the gates, his image disappeared, replaced by the man Tifa recognized from that day. "That's right," she told him. "You didn't come to Nibelheim."

Cloud's image beside her looked perplexed; finally it spoke. "You mean… that member of SOLDIER who came with Sephiroth wasn't Cloud?" The way he referred to himself, in the third person, like an object – how much he must still doubt himself – She believed in herself. Holding steady against the Lifestream's will. But clearly Cloud did not.

And now…

She swallowed. "I broke your trust. I couldn't… I didn't…"

Even this partial Cloud looked stricken so profoundly, that some of Tifa regretted having spoken. But she'd known all along, hadn't she? She'd known the risks, the pain he'd suffer, but now she recognized – the alternative was so much worse. There was no going back. Only forward.

"Cloud," she said gently, carefully. His fragile heart – how much more could it take? "I don't have all the answers. Only you do. But I'll be with you to find them. We'll go slowly, okay?"

Cloud nodded, sitting down, his head dangling in embarrassment and shame. She walked to him, tried to touch his shoulder, but this time her hand only waved through mist; for the moment, this corner of Cloud's mind had nothing more to give. Straightening, she looked towards the other two paths, the right one catching her eye – and she knew where she was going.

Cloud's second shadow-self stood up, greeting her approach; superficially he looked the same, but his expression was deepened, haunted now by doubt. The doubt she'd seeded there.

Behind him, Nibelheim, but now a different angle, different sight. The water tower – she remembered. How could she not? From the beginning. THEIR beginning. A path that had led them to the here and now.

Looking at her, his expression changed – a flicker of unspoken recognition as she led him inside of the vision. He seemed to read her thoughts. Maybe in this space, he could. The starry night at the well, recalling the hope of their promise that night. A memory she knew too surely to think it could be a lie; that part of Cloud was real and true.

And here it was, found in the deepest reaches of his heart. To show not just the memory, but the feelings attached – it was feelings, magnified by the power of the Lifestream, that couldn't be forged, wouldn't be faked. To think she'd once thought he'd forgotten. How wrong she had been; when he held the memory this close.

She imagined she could hear the emotional bells it rang. Those tiny emotions, those were the bits and pieces that made up who he was inside – individually, little enough to work with, but together making up the whole that was the man.

That day in Nibelheim – the day the town had died. Maybe that WASN'T when it all began – some things, yes, but so many more had ended, doused in violence and fire. For something more personal, more intimate, like the two of them – this, here before them, was the TRUE beginning.

Gently she urged him forward, towards their own remembered selves, their shimmering memories birthed from the vastness around them.

Memories, their power.

Not something to fear.

Let them be your strength.

Tifa felt them rise together to the sky – and as light faded out and in, through Cloud's will or her own, she arrived next to her own shaded self atop the water tower. How well she remembered that girl, her thoughts and feelings hardly to be found in who she was today. But Cloud, himself by his younger image, was the constant there for her, helping her remember parts with her still.

The starry sky above, the sparkling memory bringing with it open memories of childhood left behind. Younger selves, simpler times, before they'd met again as adults – but then again , had they been truly reunited? Was it HIM she'd met?

But now she was excited, hopeful. It wasn't too late. The real him could be found. His stories had been so inconsistent, but she'd kept pressing for the truth she knew was there. The reality of him inside. She'd seen his seeds in the rebuilt Nibelheim, in Icicle Inn, the man hidden behind hardened eyes – and here she was so close, finally so close.

That night she'd been so afraid of losing him. That part hadn't changed. Their threads of life, so intertwined – he'd shaped her destiny as much as she'd made his. Had there already been something between them on this night? Fate, or chance, of just the simplicity of two lonely people together?

Would they have a chance to find out?

She'd hoped this remembrance would bring him out – after all, it had gotten her through the years. But Cloud was solemn, silent – and it broke her heart. "So even this isn't enough," she said, all soft disappointment. "Not even this…" He didn't believe in himself enough to bring himself together; it was her strength that he needed. Her own belief in herself, holding her soul unbroken in the Lifestream – she'd offer it for him to build upon.

He needed something more. There must be more behind the story… she'd just have to keep nudging him further, deeper, until it could be found. "You need something more. Something important to you, Cloud." Something deep within his heart. With that thought, the water tower slipped away; together, they were back at the center. Back to find another start.

He simply stood there, awkward; finally he spoke. "I… uh… don't know." Shyly, he hung his head. "It's…" he drew out the words. "A secret, sealed up wish…"

"That's right, Cloud," she encouraged. "Feelings only yours."

"Tender memories now one can ever know…" His face, anguished, a little boy's fear rising from within.

Getting closer. Her heart beat faster, pounding in anticipation. "How about… something having to do with me?" And right behind – a thought she'd never had before, a question she'd never asked. "Why did you want to join SOLDIER, Cloud?" Dreams of being famous – that couldn't be all of it. Was there a clue behind this night? Something in his decision? Why he'd needed so badly to tell her... and why she'd desperately wanted his promise in return.

Raising his head, he looked her in the eye, and she saw boy and man all wrapped up into one. "I wanted someone to notice me…"

And she KNEW, the answer coming in a flash – so obvious she couldn't believe she'd never realized before. That's why he needed me to know. She tried to keep the quaver from her voice as she delicately asked the one word, "Who?"

In his eyes, it was there, sparkling clear and full and bright – the deepest essence of his heart. And in that moment her heart opened – and she knew he was the one.

"You, Tifa." Love breathed out with the words. "You."

She'd made it. To his center. To his heart. Herself, deep within – and what's more, it had always been there. Oh, Cloud, she thought with sorrow and regret. I was too spoiled and selfish – how was I to know it was really love you were feeling?

"Then why didn't you stay?" the girl in her asked, anguished. "Why did you leave? Why SOLDIER?" Didn't you know YOU were enough?

He hung his head. "Something you didn't remember – didn't understand." Before her eyes, he shrank, a self years younger. Was that the way he saw himself? The high pitch of a boy's voice asked," Do you really want to see?"

She didn't answer – just held out her hand.

He took it in his own small palm, the velvet feel of warm young flesh – and she let him lead her to the third and final path. Cloud as a child, afraid of revealing too much, afraid he wouldn't be loved enough. It was all now crystal clear. That HE wasn't enough. The bridge between boy and man, then and now – the fear still there today. And he was about to show her why.

The third Cloud stepped aside, for himself and her. He took her to a window; she leaned to peer inside. Surprised, she saw where it led - inside of her own room. How many times had he hidden outside, she pretending she didn't know he was there while she played the piano just for him?

But on this day… She was crying by the bed, her other friends around her. This day… she knew it all too well. The day Mom died. The day everything changed. One more piece clicked into place. The accident she couldn't remember. The way things had changed with Cloud.

"Show me that day," she urged – another flash, and they were inside. Her old familiar bedroom, long since burned to ash, here true to life again.

She saw, outside the window, Cloud running to her house, pining, wanting. "Why didn't you just come in?"

He hesitated. "I didn't think you'd want me there. You had all your friends around you…"

"But you were my friend too!" she objected. "That is, I always thought you were…"

Boy Cloud swallowed, the seriousness of the man he would become appearing in his eyes. "They didn't like me, Tifa," he told her. "They didn't want me around."

That HAD been true… and Tifa felt the guilt come on. She'd tried so many times to draw him in, wondering angrily if he was just ignoring her when she tried to call him over. Should she have tried even harder? "But… you weren't just my friend," she said. "You were always there. A close friend…" Had that been her blind spot? Simply assuming everyone knew she liked them all?

Cloud looked to the floor, silent, embarrassed. "I wanted to be closer," he finally admitted.

Such small things, the simple feelings of children. Had it really exploded from such miniscule roots to… the point where they found themselves now? Was it all her fault from the very start?

And if it was… could she still fix it? "What happened?" she asked carefully…

…and white opened up before her.

A bridge. A little girl that had been HER, climbing Mt. Nibel to look for a mother who was never to return. Her friends, frightened, hanging behind – but unnoticed was a small blond boy trailing her to the end, grabbing for her as wood crumbled, toppling them both to the ravine below.

This was not HER memory. How could she remember? She had never known. But he… he was there. He remembered… and he never told.

The broken bridge. That detail he'd inserted… a memory from far before. Projected into the story he told in Kalm, giving him another chance to save her. That's where that came from.

"I was ashamed," he explained. "I was too weak to save you…"

Anger. The lies she had been told. "He took you there." "He let you fall." "He pushed you off…" Him, silent, scared, taking on all of the blame.

Why, Cloud? she wondered. Why did you hurt for me? But deep down she knew… love and protection, inextricably intertwined in his mind, had been all along. Their promise hadn't yet been made, but for a little boy, his silence, his protection, worth its own in gold.

All the things she wanted now to tell him. She cleared her throat, unsure if talking to this boy would be heard by the man. What would he remember when he woke? Or she? "You know…" she began. "I thought about Cloud once he left. Worried what had happened to him, if he made it in. I started looking for his name…" For him.

Until one day, she'd found him.

The boy looked surprised… then smiled. And it was CLOUD'S smile, it really was. "Thank you, Tifa," he said quietly; and it WAS his voice, not the pitch but the cadence, the intonation. "You should tell him later. He'll probably be so happy…"

The core of himself, the gentle soul that shouldered far more responsibility than he should; a continuous thread running through to today. Leading to the promise that shaped both their lives; how clearly she saw that now. Sephiroth, Jenova had pulled his strings; but it had been the promise that had guided him all this way, his soul fighting back.

Memories might be transferred, but not the feelings that came with them.

Now that she understood… now she hoped he could be free.

Just one more thing remained. Now she knew the past, now she believed he was real – there was still one mystery left to solve. "Let's go back," she offered. "To Nibelheim." Tifa feared no more. The truth was right in front of them, waiting to be found.

Together now, they ran back through the gates, a dream-blur of the village passing by, racing up the mountain – and Tifa KNEW where they were going.

The reactor…

Speeding forward to that moment, the one that changed her life – and it was from outside herself and through Cloud's eyes she saw Sephiroth's blade strike down her body, flinging her backwards down the stairs, bouncing to the floor. Phantom pain descended as she winced in memory, gazing on her own crumpled form.

And that other man, the true SOLDIER, rushing past; his gentle hand on her shoulder as she screamed her hate to him, thinking him no better than the rest. If I had only known… but broken and bleeding, all that she had ever loved burning down behind her, nothing else was in her heart.

"Zack…" Cloud's one word trailed off into silence, but Tifa's heart leapt for joy. Cloud, you remember him! Hang on, we're almost there!

"But how do you know all this?" she asked. "I never told you Zack was there…"

…he said nothing, but suddenly it was as if she could both see and feel; she was there, both herself and not-herself at once in a half-conscious haze, watching a trooper rush in –

A hand, caressing the side of her face.

Cloud, beside her. "If only I could have saved her…"

Soft blue eyes, visible above her.

Those eyes…

And it clicked.

Cloud, you WERE there!

Cloud… you kept your promise…

…and I never knew.

"I failed you," he said sadly. "I was late…"

She turned, now herself, rushing back into her body. His eyes clearer still, but full of sadness and shame. Did he really think that? She'd thought he'd failed her because he wasn't there – but he hadn't failed at all.

He'd kept the promise quietly in the background, always there. That desire to protect couldn't have been implanted – it had always been a part of him. She was overwhelmed with regret for opportunity lost – if he had only taken off that helmet - How much might have been different?

It was my fault, Cloud. I made you promise to be a hero. And nothing less in his eyes would be good enough. How had she never seen what was right in front of her eyes? "You kept your promise," she assured him. "You came for me. You WERE my hero that day."

Emotions she'd never meant to toy with. Never meant to hurt him, but… I never knew. She FELT it so strongly now, like he would explode from the inside. Cloud, you wanted to be my hero all along.

And as together they watched Cloud, impaled, toss Sephiroth with unaccountable strength to the mako below – they stopped to savor the moment, not for the sake of Sephiroth's demise, but rather their own unvaunted reunion. Now that they both knew that it had happened.

Better late than never.

She let that boy lead her back to the center; he turned to face her. It was time to say goodbye. "Thank you, Cloud," she told him, filling the words with all her heart.

He nodded. "Then, until we meet again…"

The three shades of Cloud's adult form walked as one to her, passing before her eyes into each other, joining, recombining… filling her heart with joy. For the last, his image floated from about, settling into his reassembled self – and finally he straightened.

The man, whole, complete. CLOUD. She reached forward, taking his face in both her hands, wanting to touch him, feel him; his cheek nuzzled her palm as fingertips brushed his face, both overcome with the sensation of a touch truthful at last.

"Tifa," he smiled; he felt remade, new. He felt himself. Seeing her before him, the sight sharp and burning as it sparked his heart to life. I need you.

"Cloud," she cried, the only word that mattered. "It's you – it's really you." I don't need anything but you.

"We finally meet again," he said. Reunited, now for real.

His hands reached up for hers, taking them in his own; together they began to float, the currents of them lifting them up. "Tifa. We've got to get out."

Now with the urgency gone, she could still hear voices growing closer; some now approving, others still angry and afraid. But as he smiled that beautiful, sweet smile of a little boy once again, eyes full of love now that she knew what to look for –

"Let's go together, then," she told him. "Everyone's waiting to meet you, Cloud. The real you." That smile was real. HE was real. "Cloud… let's go back."

The promise was THEM, and that's why it would always matter.

"Yes, let's go, Tifa," he agreed, their wills combing. "Let's go home."

Green wrapped around them both, pulling together, pulling up…

Tifa coughed. Blue, not green. The sky above…

Barret's face, blocking her view as it popped into her vision. "You're safe," he fretted, as fussy as he would have been over Marlene; the big brother she'd never had. "Damn, you had us worried there!"

"Ugh…" That was the closest she could get to sorry. She couldn't lift herself to sit, her head as dizzy as if it was still swimming in the Lifestream. "Cloud?" she forced out finally.

"Shit, Tifa." Barret sat back. "You think he'd let go so easily? Not while you're around."

Wet, plopping noises, mud squishing near her head. Something brushed her arm, and suddenly Cloud's face filled the sky above her.

He smiled then, a smile like the sun, a real true smile brightening his entire self right up to his brilliant blue eyes, and Tifa nearly gasped, could feel herself beaming in response. "It's me, Tifa," he said, sparkling with a boy's loving youth. 'It's really me." His eyes were clear and young. I don't need anything but YOU, Cloud, the real you, that's all that matters now. He wasn't perfect, but he could still be a hero. It's time to keep your promise again, Cloud. And you can only do that by being YOU.

Tifa, laid out on the ground, looking back up at him, her eyes burning with that embered fire warm and soft and open. "Right on time." And this time he SAW it, the knowledge of the feelings he'd tried so hard not to give away, the love he bore for her in secret all this time; pride, trust, love. reflected right back at him.

He panicked.

She knows.

She had seen him stripped bare so many ways – a loser kid without friends, always getting into fights; a Shinra soldier too weak to protect her outside the reactor, too weak to save her from Sephiroth; a sickened lump of garbage at the train station; an aloof jerk who didn't know himself and barely remembered her; a manipulated puppet, begging his torturer to give him a number, handing their deadliest weapon to their enemy; a hopeless invalid, gibbering and incoherent from mako overdose. And through all of that… she'd stayed. All the way into the Lifestream itself.

And now, she'd seen it all. Underneath the layers, the secrets he hid even from himself. And in his eyes, deep inside the blue, she'd seen – the pain. The pain of wanting something for so long… what did she think of him now?

She knows everything.

A lifetime's worth of emotion hanging in the air, so much in that tangle and no idea how to begin to unravel it.

She knows everything I tried to hide.

He, a man with so much identity torn away, he could barely find what remained.

She knows everything I feel about her.

Something that bonded them forever now, but he still couldn't give it voice

She KNOWS… and she can still look at me like THAT.

Cloud wanted to lean in, kiss her, tell her everything he'd held back and more, even the things he didn't even KNOW he'd hid. But now was not the moment. For one, there were more urgent things to worry about, and for another, everyone else was standing near…

Barret shoved him to the side, but it was friendly, almost playful. "Let her be, Spiky," he scolded. "She's just saved your ass. Gotta give her some breathing room to recover."

Slightly miffed but knowing Barret was right, Cloud reluctantly allowed Barret and Cid to help her to her feet. Tifa wobbled slightly before regaining her balance; his arms twitched, ready to catch her if she fell – as she had done for him so many times.

It was the least he could do in return – from now on. For forever.

Taking a look around at the wreckage of the town, most washed away into the lake of green that had overtaken it, he realized there was no more reason for them to stay; and as they looked to him once again to lead, expectant, he gave a nod and the bedraggled party lugged their weary selves back towards the Highwind.

Rest was not to come. "Let's meet in the Operations Room" he suggested, turning to one and all. Now that he was pieced together… this marked not the end of a journey, but rather only the start.

It was time to begin again.

Cloud faced the assembled group in the ship's operations room, an echo of their gathering in the Forgotten City, Aerith's death then so fresh on their minds. It still hung over their heads, but now, just maybe, he thought he could do her memory proud.

And he owed it all to Tifa.

"I'm sorry," he began, no better introduction springing to mind. Apology was too small, but he had to start somewhere. But he couldn't deny he was relieved when they all rushed over themselves to assure him it was fine, no apology necessary, they were all just so glad to have him back, and on and on.

Well. Maybe that made the next part a little easier. Things he had to explain that were uncomfortable even to himself; embarrassingly difficult to admit weakness, failure. But he was starting to understand that was a test of courage, just as much, owning up to responsibilities and truth. Being a man.

He looked to Tifa, her eyes shining with trust and confidence. What he wouldn't do for that look. She'd been his inspiration all this way.

He could do this.

He cleared his throat and began.

"I never was in SOLDIER." Eyes widened in surprise; he might as well get that out of the way first. "I… was ashamed. Zack was the SOLDIER that went to Nibelheim." Zack, Aerith's love. How had coincidence contrived that he should meet her later? "He was my role model. Exactly the SOLDIER I wanted to be. I… got mixed up somehow." Some details he still didn't have clear, though he had a rough idea, even more things that he didn't want to think about. One thing at a time. "I'm not sure how, but I put myself into his skin, the emblem of everything I wanted to be."

Tifa didn't exactly know either, but she was starting to have an inkling. "Cloud was in Nibelheim…"

"…but just an ordinary grunt," he finished for her. She could see the slight blush of embarrassment, still; she wanted to grab him, embrace him, tell him he was her hero now more than ever. A Sephiroth clone, Hojo had said – he wasn't, but something had been done to him. Maybe Zack as well? And if it was anything like mako poisoning, or the Lifestream they'd just experienced, she wasn't surprised he had shattered apart.

"I went through… the same modifications used to create members of SOLDIER. But I was too weak to survive it unscathed."

But Cloud HAD survived He was stronger than he knew.

"I became… Sephiroth's…" Puppet. Servant. He couldn't say the word; he didn't need to. They'd all seen for themselves.

But Hojo wasn't trying to make him a SOLDIER, Cloud had cruelly realized. Picking on the weak instead of the strong to test his own Jenova "reunion" theory – his years lost not to some noble cause, but a mad scientist's delusional whim. The bile rose in Cloud's throat, but Hojo would have to wait. The chance would come.

Tifa found herself staring tenderly at Cloud as he told his story. The TRUE story. The one that was really him. She could barely think. The anguish he had suffered, the pain he had felt… and underneath it all, there was still a core of love… for HER.

Cloud, I'm so sorry… if I had only understood… maybe it would have helped me figure out I loved you, too. Maybe she always had. Her feelings not always following quite the same path, but at the heart, hadn't it always been the same? She couldn't remember anymore. All she could think of now was him… all he had endured and suffered, the torture and humiliation, mental, emotional, and physical… he had been degraded so many times, and he was still here. All he'd endured and suffered, pain, humiliation, knocked down so many times, but his core untouched, unbreakable. And it only made her love him more. This was HIM. The real him. His eyes, though anxious and afraid, were no longer covered by veils.

He was so regretful, so deprecating. Cloud, you have no need to be. How could he think that way? He had done so much. Sure, he'd made mistakes, some out of his control. She wanted him to accept; to tolerate not failure, but imperfection.

He was him.. and he loved her. That was who he was.

"I'm Cloud… master of my own illusionary world." His world hadn't been his own… it was time to escape the cage. "I'm going to live my life without pretending." Maybe he hadn't perfectly kept to his promises in the past, but he had his chance to move forward, make new ones. There was still time.

He had a chance now.

The group dispersed, their good-natured teasing lightening the mood – and Cloud relaxed. All but Vincent, who said with his eyes, do as you think best – the sentiment appreciated as its own vote of confidence from the taciturn man. One by one, they exited the room – but Tifa lingered behind. Their eyes met; so much more he wanted to say to her, now that he could say it with his whole heart.

They stared at each other, a lifetime's worth of emotion hanging in the air. So much in that tangle, it was hard to find out where to start.

"Tifa," he began awkwardly. She could only look back, pondering. His hand moved, as if to reach for hers, but it dropped back. Cloud found himself at a loss. Even after all this time… Even after she SAW, saw into his heart while in the Lifestream… something that bonded them forever now, but still he couldn't give it voice.

Here he was, a man with so much of his identity torn away that she could only barely find what remained. And she did. And she saw. And she's still here…

There's nothing left I can do. I can only trust myself and what she knows about me now, to her hands…

But something else came first.

"Tifa," he began gently, "so that's how you knew Zack."

She hung her head, ashamed. "I… couldn't tell you," she replied. "Not without… telling you… I'm sorry I doubted you."

"It's alright," he hastily assured her. "But I need to tell you something more." He'd thought he could do this, but facing Tifa alone frightened him so much more. "Nibelheim… Zack was taken with me. All that time we were missing… it was Zack who saved me, Zack who broke me out. I was a useless, catatonic mess. I would have died without him." Zack, I owe you so much. "I was so out of it… I only remember bits and pieces. Traveling for months, keeping out of sight. And in the end…. He died for me."

"Oh… Cloud…." There were no words. So that's what happened to Zack. His smiling face popped into her memory once again.

"Shinra caught up to us. Trying to retrieve their… specimens," Cloud said bitterly. He wanted to numb out the retelling, but forced himself to feel the pain washing over him like liquid fire, the anger, even his love for Zack, all the feelings he'd been denied for so long. "On the cliffs outside of Midgar. He hid me away, then stepped right out in front of them. Half the army must've been there. Gunned down like an animal. He faced them until he collapsed; they shot him where he lay - and he was still breathing when they left him for dead." Zack's last words. You'll be my living legacy. Another promise he still needed to fill. "And that's when… I finally woke up."

Tifa silently mulled the ways Cloud had been broken, shattered, remade. Zack's death… Aerith's… his own near-demise in the Lifestream. "Tifa… you've been there," he told her. "Nudging me along, every step of the way."

My love, my life. Zack's, Aerith's deaths had brought part of him together, even as they tore him apart, but had been Tifa's gentle touch, pushing, shaping him towards today. And in the end, she the only key – the only one who could bring him back from the edge before he fell over.

"Why Midgar, though?" she asked. Not that she wasn't grateful now, but… "Why would you ever come back?"

He wanted to kiss her so badly. "Zack…" One more detail. "He got so close. He was trying to get back to Aerith."

Tifa understood immediately. Aerith… so that's what you hesitated to tell me. So much could have been resolved if they hadn't danced around the truth, delicately trying to avoid uncomfortable mutual feelings for Cloud. Now she realized how stupid that was. Their friendship had been so much more than that.

"So close…" she murmured. Aerith. Zack. She hoped they were together now, that they had some final chance for happiness. But she and Cloud.. they still had THEIR chance, in the here and now – with Meteor taunting them above their heads.

Now what, Cloud? So little time left, it seems, to finally find each other… Was this a joke? Such a cruel joke. Was it too late before it had even begun?

Their eyes smiled together. She took a careful step forward…

"Yo! Kids!" The unmistakable voice of Cid preceded the pilot's head into the room. "You coming up to the bridge? There's still Huge Materia to find!"

The lock of eye contact broke; she felt herself blush as she shyly dipped her head. "Yeah, we're right behind you, Cid," Cloud said, grudging disappointment in his voice. Cid nodded, and his head disappeared.

"We'd better go," he nodded, head jerking towards the bridge above. She remained still for the moment, then only nodded slightly. Turning, he left the room, but he stopped, and turned – just making sure, even though he knew, Tifa was right there behind him.

Once, he'd thought, never look back. Now, he knew – never again.