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Chapter 26.

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I woke up with the smell of scrambled eggs in the air. I got out of bed and put on a white shirt. I then walked downstairs to see Tifa standing in front of the stove, with shorts and that same long T-shirt that she had had on just last night. Apparently she didn't know I was awake yet, so I snuck up behind her. I then put my arms around her waist and put my head on her left shoulder in one swift move. She jumped in fright, but then let out a quiet purr-like sound. "Good morning," I said. "Mmmm…good morning, Cloud." "Heh. You're making eggs already. Anxious to be a wife, eh?" "Damn right."

We sat at the table and had her eggs. Once again, it became apparent that Tifa was a much better bartender then a cook, but she was still way better then me. At least her food stayed together in one piece.

Tifa couldn't take her eyes off me. I had trouble taking my eyes off of her long enough to actually eat breakfast. I guess that's what you do when you're completely in love.

It then occurred to me. After I had denied her body twice, she hugged me and said 'thank you.' Thank you. Did that mean 'thank you for finally proposing?' Or did it mean something else? Had she felt obligated to try and give herself to me? Why would she feel that way?

I thought about asking her, but then thought against it. The memory was still too fresh and too vulnerable a topic to discuss right now.

I finished the under-cooked eggs, and turning to Tifa said, "Thanks, that was really good…" "Liar," she smiled calling my bluff. "Hey, it's better then what I could make," I responded, trying to make her feel a little better.

"So what do you want to do today?" I asked. She thought a moment, and then said, "Well…should we call all the others and tell them the news?" She then gazed at her three stone ring, with a smile on her face and in her eyes. "I guess…but shouldn't we set a date first? You know…set a time to get married?" "Yah…probably." We discussed it, and we both decided that we wanted to get married fairly soon, but not so soon that we wouldn't have enough time to get everything and everyone ready. We decided at four months from today. Four months. I can wait that long.

I picked up the plates and started to clean them, my fiancé by my side helping me. As we finished, I asked her, "Where do you want to go?" "Huh?" she replied confused. "I renewed a promise one year ago that I would take you away somewhere," I said. "Away from all the hubbub of the world. So…where do you want to go?" She looked at me still confused. "Do you mean on our honeymoon? Or where to live afterwards?" "Well actually, both." I responded. "Well…I thought that maybe we could go someplace warm for our honeymoon. I thought maybe Costa del Sol would be nice." "Costa del Sol it is, if that's what you want." "It is, but I'll go anywhere you want to, if you would rather go someplace else." "Costa del Sol sounds great, as long as you're there." She again did that strange little sigh that I had seen her do last night after my 'I would have waited for you forever' comment. "And afterwards? Where do you want to live?" I asked. She turned and stared at the pool of soapy water in the sink. "Well…with the money between the two of us we could live for a long time just about anywhere. But we should go somewhere where we can do something to support ourselves. You know, in case we run out of money." "Midgar?" I asked. "No…I hate that place," she said. "How about Junon?" I asked. "Well…" she paused. "We could, but Junon reminds me a lot of Midgar. It's too big, and is made of metal and concrete. I'm sick of metal and concrete." I thought for a moment. "Well…there's Kalm, Nibelheim, Rocket Town, Utai, Cosmo Canyon…that's about it, unless you want to take over the Chocobo Sage's house." She laughed. "Well, what about right here in Mideel. You already have a house. Why not?" "I guess we could do that," I responded, "but it's not the homiest house in the world. I mean, I designed it so that it could be converted into a hospital." "That doesn't mean that we have to move away, does it?" she asked. "I guess you're right. We'll stay here, as long as you would like."

Over the next week we started making some basic plans, but we still hadn't called anyone with the news after an entire week. We were too busy with figuring out what we wanted to happen at the wedding, as well as having picnics, dates, and meeting and introducing Tifa to the people around town. Actually, I never really had to go to anyone to introduce Tifa. I found very quickly that word had already spread that my wife (we had to explain to everyone that she was in fact my fiancé and not my wife yet) had waken from her insanity, and everyone was very eager to meet her. Everywhere we went we would find ourselves with a small group of people around us, shaking hands and rattling off names and wishes of good luck to our marriage. I even heard a couple of people say how lucky Tifa was. The people that said this were mostly the ones who had had friends or relatives in the hospital over the past year, and had seen me serve her hand and foot without any thought of reward besides drool. "You two share something special," they would say. "And you young lady, are especially lucky. It takes real love to be able to stay and help someone for an entire year. Even more so when the person you're serving doesn't even know that you're there." Tifa always gripped my hand a little tighter whenever she heard something like that.

Once we had ironed out the details of what we wanted for our wedding, the phone calls began. Tifa called her family first, and they seemed half-hearted about our marriage. "You're going to marry that little kid with the spiky hair? Well…if you're happy about it then we support you, but I never thought you would marry a scrawny little kid like him." I guess they never realized that I had grown up to be one of the strongest men on the planet.

Next came Barrett. Tifa did the honors (I didn't like talking on phones, not even to my closest friends. It always seemed awkward and too impersonal to me). I listened to Tifa's side of the conversation, and from what I gathered, Barrett had started to cry, although now that I think about it, it was because Barrett had not found out until that moment that Tifa had waken from her insanity. Yah, that was probably it. After talking to Tifa for a few moments, Tifa suddenly handed the receiver to me and said, "He wants to talk to you." I picked up the phone. "Hey Barrett," I said a little awkwardly. Like I said, I don't like talking on the phone. "Cloud you spiky-ass #$%#! Way to go man! So how does it feel to be tied down?" "Uh…good." "Good answer, cuz if you hadn't have said that I would have marched on over there and blown your ass all over the %$#& wall…"

I talked to him for a few more minutes before saying good-bye and letting the receiver down. "What did he say?" Tifa asked. "Not a whole lot," I started. "He said congratulations…kind of. But most of the conversation were threats that if I ever hurt you he would blow my head off." "Good ol' Barrett…" she said.

We wanted to tell Red XIII next, but they don't have phones in Cosmo Canyon. So we called Cid next instead. Tifa again talked to him in the same excited voice. The conversation only lasted a few minutes. When Tifa hung up, she told me, "Cid said that it's about &%$# time that you proposed." I did a short laugh. "But not too late I hope." Tifa smiled. "Did you tell him to use Highwind to tell Red XIII the news?" I asked. "Of course, she said.

Before Tifa called Yuffie next, she turned and asked me, "How long have you waited to propose? I mean, I only woke up a few days ago, and you proposed pretty much right away. So have you been anxious or something?" I scratched the back of my head nervously. "Well…I've been waiting…I guess since I bought you your ring a few months ago. By then I had decided that if you did wake up I was going to propose. But I didn't plan to do it so sudden like I did. I was going to wait for the perfect moment—a sunset on a hill or something. But a week ago, when…well…err…it just seemed like a good time to do it, I guess." "You wanted to mend the rift between us," Tifa said, reading my mind. "Yah…" I said. "That's okay, Cloud," she replied. "I'm actually kind of glad that you did it when you did. I mean, I would have expected it during a sunset or a picnic or something. You totally caught me off-guard, and I wouldn't have had it any other way."

Tifa called Yuffie next. Yuffie sounded very excited when she heard Tifa's voice on the other line. Tifa took a few minutes to explain how Vincent and I had brought her back from her insanity. Then when she said, "Cloud and I are going to get married," there was an odd silence followed by a scream that even I heard from across the room. It was so loud and so sudden that Tifa dropped the phone in fright. I stood up from my seat and picked up the phone to talk to Yuffie so Tifa wouldn't have to. Yuffie was still screaming uncontrollably. "Yuffie? Is that you?" I asked. Suddenly there was silence. "Yuffie? It's me, Cloud. Are you there?" "Yah, I'm here you %&$#," she replied. Man, she must really be pissed about something. She hardly ever curses. "Are you okay, Yuffie?" "No," she said sternly with a hint of sadness. "I always thought I was going to marry you, Cloud."

I stood there like a statue. A part of me wanted to console her. A part of me wanted to laugh out loud because of the absurdity of the idea. Instead, I just handed to phone back to Tifa and said, "You talk to her."

Tifa took it and tried to talk to her, but she mostly just got screams which I now recognized as pure jealousy and anger. I laughed when Tifa started panicking because Yuffie let out a particularly loud scream. Tifa thought that Yuffie had just stabbed herself or something. "Nope," I said. "But she might stab you the next time she sees you." Tifa looked at me puzzled. "I'll explain after you're done trying to talk to her."

It didn't take her long to hang up. When she did she looked at me and said, "What the hell was that all about?" I laughed. "She said that she had always thought I was going to marry her, not you. Jeez, you think that she would have put two and two together by now. I mean, I've been down here with you for a year now."

And so the arrangements were made and the first three months went by without a hitch. Tifa chose her wedding colors as dark blue and white. The dark blue didn't surprise me at all. When I had been in Tifa's mind, there had been a picture of me in a tux with a dark blue cumber bun and bow tie. Not wanting to disappoint her deepest desires I got a tux just like in her mind, except that I added penguin tails on the back of the coat. I thought they looked funny but kind of cool, and Tifa would probably get a kick out of them, so I figured, why not?

The question was, where were we actually going to get married?

I secretly knew where I wanted it, but I thought that it might hurt Tifa to suggest it, so I had kept quiet about it, hoping Tifa would come up with her own idea on which chapel to have it done at, or maybe by some miracle she would choose the one I was thinking of.

About one month out from the wedding, I was lying on the floor in Tifa's room, late at night. Tifa was lying on the bed and I stared out the window. I had been coming down and sleeping in her room for a few weeks now. Tifa didn't seem to mind at all. In fact I think she liked it. But the real benefactor was me. I got to enjoy her faint lilac smell pretty much every night. It was intoxicating, and I couldn't seem to get enough of it.

As I gazed out the window at the stars from the floor, Tifa turned over and looked at me from atop the bed. I thought she had been asleep, so I looked up at her surprised. "Cloud," she said dreamily. Was she still half asleep? "Yah?" I responded. "Where do you want to get married?" she asked. "I mean, it's only a month away and people have got to know these things if they are going to come…" Nope, I guess she was wide awake. "Well…we've worked out the wedding together pretty much from the start," I said, "deciding which flowers to get, who to get to cater for us, the whole thing. But I thought that I would leave the 'where to get married,' up to you." She looked down at me with narrow eyes. "You're not telling me something are you?" Damn it! She can always read my mind somehow… "Uh…what do you mean?" "You've avoided this subject for the past three months now. I mean, I haven't just come up and directly asked you until now, but I've given some not-so-subtle hints. Like when we ordered the cake I asked, 'Now where in the chapel are we going to put this?' I was hoping that you would have said, 'You know, we haven't even decided where we're going to get married.' But instead you were just silent. So I think there's something that you're not telling me."

"Tifa," I responded. "I've put some thought to it, and my decision was to let you decide where it's going to be. It's your day just as much as mine." "So why don't you give me your ideas?" "Because it's your day too." "And it's yours too, Cloud. Come on, tell me your thoughts."

Unable to avoid the question any longer, I said, "Well Tifa, there are two people that won't be coming to our wedding. One is Cait Sith. I mean, his controller might show up by some miracle, but I doubt it, unless we were married somewhere in Midgar where maybe he would read about it in the newspaper and come." "Okay…" Tifa said, wanting me to continue. "The other person who won't be coming," I continued, "will be Aerieth." "Yah…" Tifa said. "So…I was thinking that, now it's completely your choice and I really in truth don't mind where we get married, but I was thinking about getting married in…"

"Aerieth's church," we said together.

She took her eyes off of me and stared up at the ceiling. Here I had tried to avoid the subject for the longest time, because I didn't want to see what Tifa would do. Would she reject me and still say I was in love with her? Would she not care? Would she not talk to me again for a long time? "Tifa," I said. "It's okay Cloud," she said. I felt a wave of relief sweep over me. "In reality," she continued, "I was thinking the same thing." "Really?" I said, sounding more surprised then I intended. "Well, you, Barrett, Cid, and whoever else you can get are going to have to clean it up real good, but I would like for Aerieth to come, or at least feel like she was there." "What about you're dream?" I said. "What dream?" she asked. "Never mind…" I said.

The next morning I called Cid and Barrett, and told them to meet me in front of Aerieth's church the next day. Cid agreed to pick me up, and said that he would leave from Rocket town in a few hours, so I should expect him sometime late in the evening. Tifa agreed to stay behind for an extra week and iron out some more things before she left. I didn't ask her what these 'things' were, but I think it had something to do with her wedding dress.

That day seemed to go too fast. Come to think of it, the past three months have gone by really fast, like I had been in a timeless blissful dawn with Tifa, while the world around us spun and flew by without recall. Somewhere around five o'clock, I saw Highwind pass high overhead, meaning that Cid would be showing up at my door any minute now. I turned and kissed Tifa good-bye. I know it was only going to be a week, but it suddenly sounded like a year. I didn't want to leave. Tifa saw my dismay, and then, without saying anything, she pressed her body against mine, and gave me a slow, passionate kiss like the one she had given to me just after I proposed. I felt my heart melt and my dismay washed away as my body was strengthened and my spirit quenched. She pulled away and said, "We've talked a lot about what we want at our wedding ceremony. Now go make it happen." With that, she pushed me out the door.