Tifa stood in the small shower cabin, letting the water pound her incessantly. It was near scalding hot. Her eyes were closed, her skin in goosebumps. She still felt sick. Everything kept rerunning in her head, ever since she had woken up again. She had the distinct feeling she hadn't woken yet. She forced her eyes open and reached for the shampoo. She turned the water up harder. It massaged her back and neck.
Suddenly the curtain was pushed aside, and Cloud was standing there, as naked as she was. Her mouth opened slightly, only to be covered by his. He stepped into the shower, pushing her back in, not speaking, kissing her deeply. She kissed him back, revelling in the feeling. The kisses quickly became longer, more passionate, the lust rising between them. She felt her blood course freely, her heartbeat fast and controlled like his. Neither of them held any hesitance or insecurity.
He took her by the forearms and pressed her against the tiled wall, never breaking contact. A surprised gasp escaped her but she didn't pull away from him. Her back arched at the freezing cold tiles touching her skin. It felt marvelous, with his hot body burning against her. Her hands ran up and down his back, his chest, and the kisses were faster and rougher. She dug her fingernails into his shoulders, feeling the shower's razing sounds hiding their motions. He pulled her up, her hips on his, so her upper body was pressed against him and her thighs clenched against his sides, keeping her there, his arms around her. This way he could-
Tifa's eyes opened as someone knocked on the locked door. "Tifa? You okay?" It was Barret. She turned the water off and stood there alone, in the shower. "Yeah. Fine." That had been totally surreal.
"You were in there for a long time-"
"I'm fine, Barret."
Totally surreal.
She took a towel and started to dry off. She hadn't seen Cloud yet, not since he had just walked out on her last night. She wondered about it briefly, but dropped it. Who cares, she told herself.
And she went out to get dressed. Staring at her clothes, spread out on the bed before her, a thought nudged itself at her mind, poking subtly to get attention. She couldn't figure out what it was. Something about her clothes? She had had this feeling for a while now.. something was missing. She was forgetting something.
She closed her eyes, the towel still around her. There had been this fog draped around her like a wool blanket, thick and suffocating. She pushed and pulled at the fog blanket alternately, not sure whether she wanted to pull it closer or to push it off. It itched her, but it offered her protection. So she was indecisive for now, keeping the blanket slung around her shoulders protectively.
Confusion took its toll, she observed. She didn't know though, exactly what she was confused about. Which managed to confuse her even further. She shook her head and got dressed.
*
Cloud hadn't gone back to the Airship yet. He was still just.. just sitting there, not really knowing what he was doing. He was ready to either laugh at himself or kill himself. Poor pathetic little wannabe-Soldierboy did it again. How could he actually have thought that she loved him, him of all people?
How could he have thought that they could have shared such a sweet time together? -five and a half hours! It rang in his head.
Which was another thing. How could they have spent so much time together and done.. well, done what he remembered as soul-delving, in a span of five hours? It had felt so.. so eternally long, so much longer than five fuggin' hours. So it must have been a dream. A wonderful, delicious, tantalizing, addictive, warm and cuddly and never-wanna-let-go dream, he thought, sarcasm simply oozing. Like everything else that fit any part of that (care bear-esque) description in his life, it did not exist.
"Screw this." he said, and lay back. At least the weather was gorgeous. As he sunned, he tried to convince himself it wasn't that bad.. he could live without her. He could ignore her, and his feelings for her, for the rest of the journey toward Sephiroth. Then, he'd either get his ass kicked and the Planet would go 'boom' and it wouldn't really matter anyway.. or he'd somehow accidentally manage to defeat Sephiroth (hell, he had done it once before) and then he'd be stuck with a gargantuan fireball hurtling itself at them. Now, if he was able to stop that problem from making itself too prominent (prominent, like, beating down into Earth and killing off 87.43% of the population) then he'd still have the mass hysteria to deal with. When he had burrowed through all of this, then maybe he would be able to consider if limping after Tifa like the pathetic (and probably schizophrenic, depressed, everything-phobic, hyper-active, exhausted) dog he was, would still be worth it. Assuming she was still alive at that point in time, and still sane. He wondered if she was sane now, if any of them were.
He wondered how the people of Mideel were holding up, now that Weapon had destroyed most of the village. He wondered how the Junon cannon had fared against the Weapons.
He sat up, his mouth slightly open and nose wrinkled as if he were about to sneeze. He blinked at the sun in his face and did sneeze. Oh my God. The Weapons are awake.
Sneezed again. He carefully ran over everything he had talked about with everyone since he had woken up from his 'little dip in the Lifestream' (he winced).
Woke up, Yuffie was calling. Wanted to go find Tifa. Fell over when I tried to walk, Barret helped me up. Didn't say anything. Found Tifa.. talked to Yuffie briefly.. nothing about Weapons mentioned. Watched Tifa sleeping. Nothing spoken of there. Talked to everyone about what happened. I did all the talking. Nothing about Weapons. Found Tifa awake. She was.. distant..
Cloud stared ahead of him, thoughts racing. He had a good memory, he had had one forever. What didn't make sense, what was wrong..?
His eyes narrowed as he realized that he hadn't known about Weapon until Tifa told him. In the Lifestream. He didn't know she had almost been executed until she told him.
He frowned, looked down in intense thought.
They had talked down there. About why she wore those clothes. About what had happened five years ago. About.. about who he was. She had helped him find himself -hadn't he been full of self-hatred before all this happened? But he could remember almost word for word the conversation they'd had -she had called him a fucking idiot at one point!
A smile brushed past him for a moment, and was then brushed off. He lifted his shirt and poked the scar the Masamune had blessed him with, just to check if it was there. It was. She had said that it was because of this scar. He couldn't actually have been a clone and still have a scar from before the Hojo experiments, conclusion being that he wasn't a clone. He remembered kissing her for that.
He shook his head. Confusion had struck him, poking him consistently like a toddler holding its own set of silverware. Damned be everything. Now what? Had he been dreaming? Had it really all been a dream? But wasn't that simply impossible, given everything he had learned from her, given how he had changed? Or had it been himself? Had he picked up everything subconsciously, and had he only imagined that Tifa might have told him?
His mouth pulled into a tight line. He sat up straight, lifting his head to overlook the Mideel forest.
"Damn it, Tifa.." he murmured, and stood up. He couldn't keep away forever.
*
Tifa stared at the mirror image. A dead girl, bleak and unpoetic, stared back at her. She thought she looked anorexic. She thought she looked like someone else. She thought something was most definitely wrong with her. She didn't know what.
The door opened cautiously.
"Yuffie."
Yuffie flashed her a grin. "Good to see you're doing better."
Tifa nodded. "Thanks."
They were both silent for a moment, meeting each others' eyes uncomfortably.
"So.." Yuffie started. "Have you seen Cloud yet, today?"
Tifa shrugged. "No. Last night he just left without saying anything. I don't know what his problem is."
Yuffie gave Tifa what was possibly the strangest look she had ever given anyone.
"What?" Tifa asked.
"Tifa.. didn't you love Cloud?" Yuffie asked her softly, as if she were trying to remember something that had happened too long ago, something that had always just been assumed..
Tifa stiffened and turned her shocked stare from Yuffie back to the mirror.
"I think I'm going to go back to sleep for a little while," she said. "I think I'm still tired."
Yuffie nodded and left.
*
Dinner always consisted of everyone walking into the kitchen and rummaging around with plates and silverware; they usually didn't have any products to cook (but when they did, Tifa was the one who did the cooking) so they would normally do take out. Tonight was another such night.
"Dunno.." Cid muttered as he skimmed the emergency menu of the Mideel restaurant. The owner of the inn had also had a restaurant to his name, and with yesterday's destruction, had had to improvise and compromise, but had somehow managed to still be able to offer edible food.
"He don't offer much.."
"Well, since he holds the monopoly over 'all the other restaurants in Mideel', we don't really have a choice. We all must eat after all. We haven't any food to prepare ourselves, and even if we did, Tifa is in no state to cook for us. And I frankly don't trust any of you to prepare food for anyone." Nanaki responded, rather crankily. He did not take well to hunger.
So Barret, Nanaki, Vincent, Yuffie, Caith Sith, Bugenhagen and Cid went to the really-not-quite-as-arduous-as-it-seemed task of getting dinner on the table. Each of them had a PHS, so the orders could be made. Now it was up to Caith Sith to go around and ask people what they wanted for dinner. They let Tifa sleep.
Cloud came walking in just as the debate on who had to go pick up the food had risen up. Nobody wanted to go get the food, it seemed.
"Cloud!" Yuffie exclaimed. "There you are!"
He cocked her half a smile. "What's everyone screaming about?"
At that moment Nanaki gave a feral snarl that made everyone automatically take a step away from his direction.
"Gentlemen?" Cloud asked, patient enough to be diplomatic.
Barret grumbled something about getting food and not wanting to go back to Mideel.
"This is about food?" Cloud glanced around the room a bit incredulously.
"Any suggestions?" Caith Sith asked.
"Well, first off, have you guys remembered to count in the flight crew? We forgot last time."
Everyone looked away guiltily. They were still getting used to this Airship thing. Cid glared around the room.
"Uh-huh. Just.. lessee.." Cloud pulled out his wallet and flipped through. "I should have enough. Give me all the orders and I'll go do it. I need to keep myself awake anyways."
*
"Mmm.. Cloud?" Tifa rolled over and sat up, rubbing her eyes.
He stood over her bed, watching her intensely. That look in his eyes made her feel strange. It brought the fog blanket feeling strong on her.
"It's dinnertime, Tiff." he said quietly. "What do you feel like?" And he handed her the menu.
She took it, not meeting his eyes. After looking through it for a moment, she said, "I guess I'll just have the surimi salad. Oh.. and the bagel with cream cheese."
And she smiled a little. The smile sent his head spinning. He nodded, trying not to look at her. She was wearing a tiny nightie under the covers, he could tell.
He was about to leave again when something struck him, and he turned back.
"Can I ask you something?" he said, and started to take off his shirt.
Her eyes widened noticably and she said, "doesn't look like I'm actually getting a choice in the matter -what did you want to ask?"
He pointed to a white slit, a long scar on his abdomen. "Can you remember where I got this scar?"
"That scar?" She motioned him to come closer, and she ran her finger along it. He was glad she didn't seem to be noticing the effect it was having on him. "Yeah, I recognize it -isn't this where Sephiroth stabbed you with the Masamune? Didn't he stick it right through you, missing vital organs just barely, I think you said- "
He rashly took her hand and kissed it. "Thanks. That's all I needed to know."
He noted how she pulled her hand back fearfully, but that was all he needed to know. His mouth set in determination.
She watched him go, the frown on her face tight and worried. The thing was, she wasn't sure of what she was worried about.