I'm still not a therapist and Cloud is most definitely dramatic. I chose to let him speak a bit more to Tifa and the kids because of the way he speaks in the OG - he will say words if he can think long enough about them. In Advent Children, he doesn't speak nearly as much, but I wanted that side of him from before to bleed through a little again. I like to think of it as slow progress...that immediately regresses again. One step forward, two steps back? We'll see where this goes...
When Cloud got to the therapist's office the next morning, he almost immediately turned around and retreated the way he came. The relatively good mood from taking a dip in the refreshing, salty ocean the day before and talking with Tifa and the kids instantly washed away when he caught sight of the familiar head of red hair and smirk waiting outside the building on a park bench. His mind shifted to the ignored text message from the day prior and he winced as he took a step backward.
He couldn't sneak away before the newcomer caught sight of him, however.
"There he is, the hero of Edge!" Reno called, his words dripping with sarcasm as he waved a manila envelope in the air as a gesture of greeting.
Cloud, gritting his teeth, stalked over and crossed his arms. "What are you doing here?" he demanded, determinedly brushing aside the new tabloid nickname for him.
"I'm here for you, buddy," Reno answered easily. He reclined back in the seat and brought Cloud's attention to the envelope again. "I'm playing delivery boy since the best delivery service in Gaia is on hiatus." He smirked and offered a wink. "This folder here has your name on it, courtesy of the WRO."
His heart sank into somewhere below his knees as he realized what the folder was. Betrayal washed over him like a suffocating wave and he took another step back, hands clenching into fists as he stared at it.
Reno's grin slipped off his face and he went on the defensive. "Hey, I didn't read it, yo," he insisted. "The folder is sealed up tight, Reeve made sure of that." He held it out and Cloud grabbed it roughly, holding it tight against his chest as he eyed the former Turk with distrust.
"Why did he have you bring it? Since when have you ran errands for the WRO?" he asked sharply.
Reno shrugged, and the easy grin slipped back onto his face. "I may have requested the honor of assisting you," he shrugged. "I wanted to thank you for your help a few weeks back, too. How about we go for a drink when you're back in Edge, first round's on me?"
Scowling, Cloud was extremely tempted to turn down the invitation, except something caused him to be hesitant. He glanced towards the office behind Reno, wondered what Ayla would say, and remembered his conversation with the random old woman the day before. Resigning himself to a fate that everybody was determined for him to have, he sighed, "Fine, but get out of here. Don't tell anybody where I am."
"Suh-weet!" Reno crowed, shooting finger guns his way. "I'm headed back then, buddy. Hit me up when you're back!"
"I'm not your 'buddy'," Cloud retorted. His complaint fell on deaf ears as Reno jogged away with a final peace sign thrown up over his shoulder. He stood there a minute longer, staring at the manila envelope that he clutched in his hands. The envelope had no visible markings other than 'Strife, Cloud' printed on the front in carefully scrawled handwriting that looked a lot like Reeve's. He had half a mind to open the envelope out here, see what it had to say, and not repeat any of it in his session, but he knew Ayla would ask and his anxiety was peaking at the idea of seeing what his forgotten life was like.
He decided to wait. Pushing through the front door, he walked past the receptionist desk and down the long hallway to the farthest room on the right side, where the door was open and Ayla was sitting behind her desk. As he walked in, envelope in his left hand, she glanced up from a book she was reading and smiled.
"There you are," she greeted warmly as she closed the book and stood from her desk. "And – oh, is that it?"
She had zeroed in on the envelope and he held it out to her, not trusting himself with it. "Yeah," he replied simply. She accepted it, gave him a curious glance when she noticed the seal hadn't been broken, and shut the door behind him. Cloud propped his sword against the wall as he always did and took a seat on the couch. His hands fidgeted as he tried to look anywhere but at the envelope; this was proving to be a rather impossible task.
Ayla sat down and set the envelope on the table between them. Then she leaned back, folded her hands, and examined him. This made him fidget more.
"You haven't opened it," she said. He shook his head, eyes staring at it. "Why not?"
"I…" he looked up at her nervously, admitting, "I don't know."
Her smile became encouraging and she picked the envelope up again, slid it onto the floor next to her, and commanded his attention. "Okay, we'll wait to look at it. For now, let's talk about yesterday! How did your homework assignment go?"
Caught while still trying to see the envelope from its now-hidden position, he grimaced and glanced back at his lap. "It was uncomfortable."
"Do you want to tell me about it?"
"Well…" He sighed and looked up at her patient expression. A burst of that childish stubbornness of not wanting to share his feelings blossomed in his chest, but he shut it down almost instantly. For Tifa, he reminded himself. For the kids. "It wasn't all bad. I talked to the waitress at the bar. She wanted to gossip…it was weird."
Ayla laughed out loud, surprising him as she beamed. "Gossip is a common form of communication, yes. It isn't always comfortable, either. Great job testing those waters, Cloud!"
He squirmed under her praise but didn't entirely not enjoy it. He continued, "I also talked to an old lady on the beach. She liked to talk. She asked if I had been in the Wutai War."
"Really now?" Ayla tilted her head, eyebrows raised in surprise. "What did you say?"
He frowned at her. "I told her no, I haven't been in the war. I'm only 23," he pointed out. "She said I have this look in my eyes…like people who have gone to war have."
"Ah." She nodded understandingly as she leaned forward and smiled. "You definitely have the eyes of somebody with a traumatic past, Cloud. There's no shame in it."
He hid his face behind his hair and stared at the bookshelf.
"How did the conversation with your family go?" she asked then as she leaned back in the chair and studied him further. He could feel her gaze and he blushed slightly, remembering.
"It's great to hear from you, Cloud!" Tifa said on the other end of the phone, her voice warm and sliding into his lonely heart like a beacon. "Hold on, the kids are upstairs."
The call of "Cloud's on the phone!" had a response of footsteps thundering down stairs and excited shouting that Cloud could hear even on the other end of the line. For a beat, he let the excited chatter of Marlene and Denzel calm his nervousness. This was his family, and they were still there for him even after he'd left them. He could do this.
"Hey guys," he said softly once they'd quieted down. "How are things in Edge?"
"Great!" Marlene answered in her bubbly young voice. She proceeded to tell him all about the rebuilding efforts by the WRO and that her and Denzel were attending school again. Denzel let out a groan when she mentioned that, but it didn't sound convincingly unenthusiastic.
"Tifa says I can learn to fight with a sword," Denzel announced then. "When you get back of course…if you want to?" The last part was posed as a question, in a similar hesitancy that the young boy usually had when it came to requests.
Cloud tried to imagine himself at that age again, and he remembered his enthusiasm for the sword, for joining SOLDIER, for idolizing Sephiroth. He was so young but so sure of himself… "Sure," he finally answered. "I'll teach you when I get back. But only if you can find a smaller sword. Mine are probably too big to start with."
"Aw, yes!" Denzel shouted in excitement, and Tifa laughed over his cheer as she moved closer to the receiver.
"How are things in Costa del Sol, Cloud?" she asked next.
Cloud sighed. There was no putting it off anymore. "It's…hard," he admitted. "I had today off, but she assigned me homework."
He took a deep breath and it fell quiet on the other end of the line. "What kind of homework? Math?" Marlene asked curiously.
"No…I'm supposed to talk to you all about…my feelings." He cringed as he said the words. This suddenly felt much more impossible. "Uh…"
"Go ahead, Cloud. We're here for you."
Tifa's words were reassuring as always, and he let them wash over him as he thought back to the carefully worded statement he'd been cultivating all afternoon while enjoying the refreshing water at the beach.
"Uh, well…I've been unhappy," he admitted slowly. "I blame myself for a lot of things that happened. I always feel like a failure, and I made everything worse by pushing all of you away."
He took in a deep breath, perhaps waiting to see if somebody would cut in and yell at him. When no response came, he continued, "I realize now that you all were there for me all the time, even when I ran away. The thought of dying from geostigma…it seemed like the easy way out. I'm sorry for not being there for all of you."
He let the words hit the intended audience and took a deep, shuddering breath. The corners of his eyes were wet and he anxiously rubbed them with the back of his hand so that he wouldn't cry.
"Oh, Cloud…" Tifa said then. "Thank you for your apology. I'm sorry you feel like this."
"Are you getting better?" Marlene piped up then. She sounded curious but almost proud, as if the six-year-old knew more about feelings than he did. Cloud was betting she probably did.
He exhaled shakily. "I'm not better yet, but I'm working on it." And that was the truth. Maybe he could see this through after all.
There was one member of his little found family that hadn't said a word yet. "Denzel?" he asked cautiously. The boy had gone through so much in his short life, and Cloud wondered what he was thinking.
"I'm here," Denzel spoke. His voice was small. "So you didn't leave because of me? Because of my geostigma?"
Cloud blinked and pulled the phone away to stare at the black screen for a moment. "What? Of course not," he said. "Denzel…I had geostigma too. None of this was your fault."
"That's right," Tifa chimed in. "There's nothing you can do to make us leave, okay?"
"Yeah! And besides, you're like the best big brother I never had!" Marlene added cheerfully.
There was a sniffle on the other end. "Okay," Denzel agreed, sounding a bit happier.
Reflecting on the conversation and summarizing it for Ayla was difficult but Cloud still felt lighter, like he had when Marlene reminded him of his duties to their family a few weeks prior. That initial feeling of forgiveness, duty, and purpose lingered like a memory he could almost touch.
"It sounds like it went really well," Ayla said encouragingly when he finished. Shrugging, he looked out the window at the cool autumn day and admired the empty beach. "Do you mind if I ask a question?"
He glanced back towards her, nodding his affirmation.
"What is your role in your family?" She asked thoughtfully. "Do you consider yourself a parent to the kids? Perhaps a brother or a role model?"
The question brought him back to those feelings he just had, and suddenly he felt them slipping away again as he pondered the potential answers. He'd never had a father or father figure, so he didn't really see himself as such. Brother? That didn't fit right either, although he supposed responsibility for others went a long way. Role model? There was no way in hell he'd want either of the kids taking after his mistakes, that was for sure.
"I've never thought about it," he voiced aloud.
Ayla jotted something down on the notebook she'd procured from the table again. "I think in your case, it's important to distinguish your role with your family," she told him. "If you're not able to figure out who you are in that small family dynamic, then how will you figure out who you are in your life? How will you know how others see you?"
This line of questioning was deep and made his head hurt. He rubbed his temple absentmindedly as he tried to think. He really didn't have an answer for her, and he'd spent so long assuming he would perish from geostigma or heartbreak at not being able to find forgiveness from his friends that he hadn't given his own life and own wants a second thought.
"What about Tifa?" Ayla continued then, changing tactics as he looked up at her. "Who is she to you? Are you two business partners? Childhood friends? Lovers?"
Cloud flushed at the last line, thinking back to their habitat at Seventh Heaven in Edge – they had separate beds, they had separate schedules, they led separate lives. He'd accepted her offer of running his delivery service from the bar when Edge was first being built because he didn't want her to worry about him like she always did. Over the couple years they had been living together, they had always supported one another in their endeavors. Despite all that, Cloud had never been ready to try anything new or beyond what they had. Once upon a time, a much younger version of him would've jumped at the chance to be with her in a relationship capacity, but lately, his own life and own wants had been the furthest things from his mind.
"I don't know," he said, a bit more cross than he intended. "We're not like that. I don't want that." At least, he was pretty sure he didn't. He really didn't know what he wanted.
Ayla smiled gently and set the notebook down. "Do you know what Tifa wants?"
"I don't know anything," he repeated as he crossed his arms and looked away, a pit of discomfort sitting in his chest at the thought. "Tifa is…just Tifa. We don't…we aren't anything."
She sighed in a kind of disappointment, which had his face flushing further from his lack of knowledge on the subject. He firmly planted his gaze outside the window as he felt his heartbeat tick up a bit.
Just as quickly as the good feelings from his conversation with Tifa and the kids had arrived, they were gone again, replaced by a gaping chasm in his chest that was so unwanted and yet familiar to him. Why did he have to define his role and what everybody wanted of him? He certainly hadn't needed a formal role while growing up with his ma; she did the majority of the chores so he could attend school. There hadn't been any traditional roles because she performed all of them. A distant, blurry image of his mom smiling knowingly floated into his head as she gripped the axe in the backyard and taught a young him who couldn't even lift said axe how to chop firewood.
His thoughts were spiraling now - a part of him could see that and tried to warn him - but all he could think about was the unknowns that suddenly hit him like a hard weight to his chest.
Did he need to have some kind of a relationship with Tifa in order for his family to be 'real'? Did they need to play "mom and dad," a concept he'd never had but she had grown up on?
What about the kids? Marlene had been staying with them for the most part while Barret led the coal excavations, but what about Denzel, who had only been with them for a few months? Did Denzel see him as a father figure? This thought had him reeling with his mistake-riddled past and his constant avoidance of people. The idea of him being any kind of father felt wrong. He would just let people down in that role, too.
Cloud's headache grew and began to pound behind his eyes. He closed them and covered them with his hands, palms pressing against his eyelids, as his desperation to avoid the conversation and anger at not knowing where he fit grew to peak levels.
"Who do you want to be in this family?" Ayla asked then, her voice a gentle current that set off a tsunami of thoughts.
He couldn't deal with this anymore. His stomach turned the coffee he'd had before the session over and over, and he was suddenly reminded of the times when he used to be violently motion sick. Standing up quickly, he turned his back to her, desperately searching for a way out for both his mind and his gut.
"I don't want to talk about this," he said shortly.
There was a rustling of clothing as he presumed she stood as well but didn't bother to check. "Cloud, we have to at least address these issues," she replied calmly. "This is the only way I can help you: I need to understand what you want from life."
"Nothing, I don't want anything!" he practically shouted, fingers reaching for his sword propped by the door as his stomach twisted itself over again. "I'm done here." Swinging the sword over his back, he whipped open the door and stalked back down the hallway, Ayla's voice calling over his shoulder. He didn't care what she was saying. He couldn't be here right now, he needed out.
Making a beeline for the safety and darkness of his villa where he could get away from the unknowns of his life, Cloud vowed never to attend therapy again.