{3 years later}
The smell of poster paint mingled with the scent clay filled the air. The sound of a young student teacher reading to he children droned on in the background as the little ones began to drift into sleep. Every one of them climbed on their little mats and closed their eyes falling into a light slumber.
It was nap time at the Nibelheim pre-school and every child listened to the teacher as she told them to get in their sleeping bags…..
….Well….all except one….
A little girl sat by the window staring out it smiling rocking slightly. Every once in awhile she'd laugh…but no sound came from her grinning mouth. No giggling sound of joy…just silence. It was as if she was listening to something that no one else could hear. Some silent joke only audible to her little ears. She didn't listen to the teacher as she ordered the students into their sleeping bags. She just stared and smiled out the window.
"Terra?"
Her blond hair flowed like liquid as she craned her little neck upward to look at the teacher. She smiled widely but when she got no smile in return it faded from her innocent face.
"I said naptime Terra…"
Terra just looked up at the women and slowly made her way to her sleeping bag. She climbed into it and stared up at the ceiling not sleeping. She sighed inwardly knowing fully well that they were watching her. She knew they were telling her parents about her…. about how she didn't listen, respond, or react….
….telling them that she was different
*~*~o0o*~*~
"Do you see what I mean Mr. Strife? She just sits by herself all day. She won't interact with other children. And truthfully her lack of speech is starting to worry us..."
"I know that she is different but that doesn't mean she's retarded…"
"Cloud! She's not saying that!"
Cloud reeled around and glared at the teacher. He looked back out into the playroom to see that Terra had gotten up from her sleeping bag and walked over to another waking its spiky black haired inhabitant and making him make room for her. She laid down nest to him and wrapped her arms around his neck before falling asleep.
The teacher stood next to him and frowned, "That's another thing….her strange attachment to the Son boy often interferes with both his and her educations. We've tried separating them but Terra just begins crying and then Gohan starts crying and then we have a whole chain reaction and all the children get upset." Cloud nodded and turned away from the window and sat next to his wife. He put his head in his hands and sighed.
"I don't understand this sure she doesn't talk but she listens to Aeris and I…."
"Barely Cloud…"
Cloud looked at Aeris in confusion. Aeris sighed and looked at the ground, "She'll listen to you….she barely listened to me…you, Gohan, and Goku… those are the only people she always listened to… maybe Malcom is right." Cloud stood angrily and stared down at her shaking his head violently.
"No Aeris. She is not Autistic!"
"Cloud…"
Cloud stared down at her and then back into the playroom to find Terra gone. He scanned the room looking for his blond haired blue eyed tot. But she just wasn't there.
"Where's Terra?"
He turned to the teacher who had already ran from the room in search of the toddler.
*~*~o0o*~*~
"Ms. Nopatas! Where is Terra?"
The elderly women looked up from the book and gestured towards Terra's empty sleeping bag. Then she noticed the girl missing. She looked to Gohan's air mattress to find him gone as well. Cloud muttered some curse under his breathe before running towards the entrance of the pre-school with Aeris looking in all the other rooms with the head teacher.
Cloud ran to the door to find it wide open with Gohan standing by it looking out frightened. His eyes worried and torn focused on something out on the new highway in front of the school. He stepped outside and shouted out to it.
"T-chan come back!!!"
Cloud bolted out the door nearly knocking the boy over. A feeling of utter terror crossed his being as he saw Terra walking out unto the highway staring out into the distance as if she was following something that wasn't there. Cloud screamed to her but she didn't even turn around. Then everything seemed to happen in slow motion. Cloud jumped off the steps and without thinking and sprinted into the road after her. The truck honked its horn loud expecting the child to move. Terra didn't acknowledge it and kept walk further into the road. Cloud dove and caught her by the strap of her overalls making her fall on her face and smack he face on the pavement. The truck passed its horn blaring in Cloud ears. He didn't think he just snatched her up and ran off the road. Her nose was bleeding and probably broken and she sobbed quietly reaching for her mother as she ran from the school. Aeris grabbed her and held her close now crying as well. Cloud stared out unto the highway on which she had almost been killed than he looked back at her as she cried against he mother's shoulder and held her broken nose with one hand as the other clasped her mother's shirt. By now Gohan was bawling as well the sight of blood scaring him. Cloud forced Terra to look at him grabbing her shoulders tightly and looked down at her sternly.
"Terra! Don't you EVER walk out onto the road Terra! Don't you EVER leave the school! You DO NOT go in the road without your mother or I Terra! Do you understand me!?"
He shook her by the shoulders a little.
"Do you understand me Terra!!!???"
Terra stared at him in disbelief. Daddy never yelled at her. She stared at him not understanding her eye clouded with confusion. Then Cloud realized that she didn't understand what she did wrong….she didn't understand any of it…Malcom was right…
Terra began to sob again and reached out to him wanting to be held. Cloud took her and let her cry against him. He stared towards the school and slowly accepted the fact that Terra wasn't normal…He sighed in anguish before walking into the school and wrapping Terra in his jacket before tending to her bleeding nose.
*~*~o0o*~*~
"Mr. Strife?"
Cloud looked up from his now sleeping child and looked into the teacher's eyes. He nodded and handed Terra to his wife before standing up facing the teacher. Then with a sigh of defeat he said, "We've decided to tranfer Terra to that school that….that you recommended…"
The teacher smiled sadly and puta hand on Cloud's shoulder.
"It's for the best Mr. Strife…"
*~*~o0o*~*~
A month passed and it wasn't long after that that Cloud was once again called up this time by Terra's new school. A school for children with disabilities or handicaps. Cloud walked in the school praying that he would be greeted with good news for once….
….but he knew that wouldn't happen.
*~*~o0o*~*~
The teacher stood and greeted the Strife's with a fake smile. Cloud already didn't like her. They sat and listened to the teacher talk about the school for a good 10 minutes before Cloud sighed in agitation and placed his head in his hands. Then after another 5 minutes of her obsessive and non-related jabber Cloud finally spoke up.
"Listen you self absorbed twit! You called us here about our daughter not so we can have a conversation of all the wonderful little things you do with the children!"
"Well I never! Young man if I were you I'd learn my place I'll have you know that I graduated from Harvard University at the top of my class!"
"Well Laddi freaking Da! I saved the freaking world! Why did you call us here Lady!?"
"Cloud!"
Cloud settled back into his chair glaring out of the office window into the therapy area mumbling something under his breathe. The middle aged teacher glared at him before continuing to speak.
"Well I hate to say it but it seems that Terra isn't making any sort of progress here…we ask her to do simple commands and she'll follow them. Like asking her to put things in order like numbers she can do but when we ask her to do anything that involves her voice she refuses to cooperate. She just folds her arms across her chest or places her hands over her ears and blocks us all out. And there is also the matter of her manners and attitude…she tends to think she's the one in charge not the other way around!"
Cloud snickered under his breathe while Aeris glared at him knowing it was his genes that caused her rebellious streak. The teacher was about to speak when the door slammed open and a harried and frightened looking teacher stood in the doorway. She looked around panicked a ruler suck out of her hair and paint was splashed on her shirt.
"S-S-She's doing it again!!! That child is not Autistic! She possessed!!!"
Cloud and Aeris ran out of the room knowing very well that it was most likely their child being causing the chaos.
*~*~o0o*~*~
And they were right. The four adults walked into the classroom to find Terra zapping things with little ki beams and dancing up on a table riling up all the other children. The Radio blasted out a song which Terra mouthed while she dance about on the table and flung paint around. The sounds of the song Lady Marmalade blasted through the air and Terra was totally unaware to the adults currently staring at her as objects darted around suspended by ki beams extending from Terra fingers. Cloud tried to stifle his laughter but found that he could not no matter how hard he tried. Aeris ran up to Terra and began to scold her and pull her off the table. Cloud just smiled down at her and called her to him.
*~*~o0o*~*~
The night air was cool and still. It felt good against the child's bare arms as she leaned up against her father's pant leg gazing up at the stars with him. She sighed slightly completely content with things the way they were. A smile spread across her delicate lips as she pointed to various stars having her father name them and their constellations. After a few minutes of this she let out another content sigh thinking about a way to let her father let her stay home from school when she noticed something.
Tears?
She studied her father's face not understanding why he was sad. She just sat there in the cool summer grass staring at him contemplating what could make him cry. Terra frowned and brushed away the tear and felt his forehead checking his temperature. Cloud chuckled slightly and picked her up and tossed her up slightly making her smile. He stared into her little eyes so pure and innocent they were. A great sadness washed over his mind as he stared into those eyes. What he'd give to hear her speak…to understand what she was thinking. He loved her with all his heart, but he was running out of options. He set her down on the grass and looked into her eyes her face taken on a serious expression much like his own. He looked away from her eyes and down at the ground another tears sliding down his cheek.
"Why won't you speak Angel?"
Terra gave no answer just a blank stare.
"T-chan? Please just once I wish I could understand why you're….why you're afraid to talk."
Still no response except her bottom lip began to quiver slightly.
Cloud sighed one last time before standing and looking up to the stars as if they would some how give him the answer he longed for. All the time Terra just stared at him on the verge of tears herself. He thought she didn't understand his words….she understood perfectly. She knew she was different but she didn't care. She liked things the way they were. She didn't want them to change.
*~*~o0o*~*~
I was young when he asked me that. Very young. Most would think that I was too young to understand what he was saying but I understood him perfectly. I just stared up at him that night wanting to tell him but I was too afraid. Telling him would mean my speaking….I couldn't speak to him…I loved him too much. I was young but what I had come to understand was one thing….
….Words hurt people….
Words caused wars, caused fights, caused hate. I was innocent I knew not of what hate felt like and I liked it that way. I wished that I could let him see into my mind let him understand what I felt and thought. What I heard and saw. I spoke. But I didn't need words to speak. Why use hurtful things such as words when I could tell them what I needed without them? I stared at him that night tears running down my pale cheeks just wishing he knew the hurt that words had caused me.
I heard words constantly.
Whilst I dreamed.
Whilst I ate.
Whilst I drank.
Whilst I cried.
The words were so hurtful so hateful that even I did not understand. I would cover my ears at times and rock back and forth as the words, the screams, seemed to rise from the cracks of the very earth. Screams of pain and anguish. I didn't speak because of these words. But lately the words had not been as pained or frightening. They'd been calming and bewitching. They coaxed me forward. They told me to come to them. I had tried to follow but always found myself being stopped by my parents. I wanted to tell them of my visions, dreams, and the voices that spoke to me. But I couldn't speak! I couldn't, I wouldn't use words.
But that night I realized it as it stared up at my father. As I backed away from him and ran to the house crying silently. I was right in thinking that words hurt people…
….but silence hurts them even more.