Disclaimer: Don't own Final Fantasy VII, or Vincent, or Tifa, or any of the other Final Fantasy VII characters. Just inserting them into the machine of my imagination and watching what pops out.

Destination: Confrontation

by: thelittletree

(Thanks, thanks, thanks for reviews! Stuff is finally starting to happen in this fic! Yay!)

"Anxiety is love's greatest killer. It makes others feel as you might when a drowning man holds on to you. You want to save him, but you know he will strangle you with his panic." -- Anais Nin (1903 - 1977)

The worst part about staying, Tifa felt sure, was the confrontation she was probably going to have to have with Yuffie. Just when she'd started to think she knew where everyone stood on the issue of herself and Vincent, she'd discovered a hole in the fence. She'd never been close friends with Yuffie, but the younger woman had never seemed the type to choose sides in things that didn't really affect her.

As she'd noticed before, however, some things had changed. And one of those things had obviously been Yuffie's take on the world, and the people in it. Especially the group of people she'd forced herself into more than four years ago.

And Tifa suspected Barret of having something to do with it, though she couldn't believe he'd use Yuffie as a means of getting herself and Cloud back together. Barret was many things, but he was not a manipulator, or a liar. He was the muscle of the underdog, she remembered him saying once. A very giving person, in fact. He'd taken her under his wing when she'd had no one else, no direction. And she would've done anything for him in return...

Curled up on the bed with Vincent at her back, his arm around her belly, Tifa frowned a little. And wondered what had really brought Yuffie to North Corel. Wondered if, perhaps, Godo wasn't the one she was trying to prove herself to. Wondered, too, if there was a way to approach this without damaging any of her friendships.

She felt Vincent sigh suddenly into her hair. "You're not sleeping."

She smiled a little and turned to look at him. "No, I'm thinking."

"About what?"

"About this." She pulled herself determinedly out of his embrace and off of the bed. And, expecting his question, she spent a moment straightening her hair and clothes while he sat up.

"And what is 'this'?"

"I have to talk to Yuffie."

He raised one eyebrow, but dutifully got up from the bed. Tifa took it upon herself to straighten his shirt and looked him in the eye, wanting him to understand. "I have to talk to Yuffie alone."

His eyebrow flickered upward again, a silent question. She smiled and tugged at his hem until she was reaching around him to get at the back. And then she completed the hug and looked back up at him. "I don't want to make her feel like we're ganging up on her."

"Two people is hardly a gang."

"Yes, but you have all the presence of a gang."

He gave a sudden quiet scoff, but she could see the corners of his mouth turned up in grudging amusement. "So you're saying I'm threatening."

She smiled up at him. "It's all right. You can't help it."

"Oh, thank you."

She laughed and held him a little tighter. "Threatening to the guilty conscience, at least. And I don't want her to feel like we're accusing her."

He was still for a moment as he considered her words. "You don't want to accuse her?" He sounded surprised, as if pointing the finger was the first thing he wanted to do.

She shook her head. "I think she's probably feeling kind of torn right now." Like everything else, she thought to herself, this wasn't a case of black and white. So many shades of gray to 'good' and 'bad', and Tifa remembered times in Avalanche when she had been closer to black than to white. "I want her to know that I want this resolved, too, but not through deception."

Vincent almost seemed not to be listening, but Tifa could feel the changing tension in his body. She sighed a little and leaned her head against his chest. "You trust me, right?"

Part of the resolution would undoubtedly come in the form of talking to Cloud. And, though he knew it, Vincent was obviously still struggling with the idea. She felt him trying to relax. "I said that, didn't I?"

"You did."

"Then I suppose I'd better stick to my word."

"You should."

He smiled a little at her, though she thought it looked somewhat forced. She smiled back and tried to look encouraging. And then she shook him slightly, her hands around his waist. "Trust me, dammit," she pleaded, only half joking. "Soon this will all be behind us and we'll have a whole new set of problems to worry about." She slipped a hand down to her belly.

And he gave a quiet chuckle and glanced at her stomach. Put out his own hand over hers. "All right."

In the end, talking to Yuffie didn't prove to be as hard as she'd thought it would be. Yuffie apologized for lying, and it seemed sincere – and though she was no experienced interrogator, a few well-placed questions told Tifa that Barret hadn't known about last night's meeting. Whether it had been a coincidence on Cloud's part, however, she couldn't ask without making it sound like an accusation. Though she was fairly sure he must've known. Even if it still didn't sound like him.

Lunch was just some sandwiches from the kitchen in the hall, most of them courtesy of Shera. Vincent arrived with Tifa, but didn't join the table. It was a quiet gathering for the most part, the majority of the conversation coming through, or from, Yuffie. No Cloud, no Barret, and Cid only spent a few minutes in the hall before he wandered over to chat with Vincent. And when Tifa looked again, both men had disappeared, likely to Cid's poker table.

When the meal was over, Tifa debated what to do. Yuffie hadn't seemed ashamed of her decision to lie so that Cloud and she would have a chance to talk, and despite herself Tifa was a little angry at her. So when the younger woman invited her to the exercise room, Tifa politely declined and went to help Shera clean up in the kitchen.

She was wrist deep in dish water when Barret walked in. He paused a moment when he saw her, when their eyes met, but then continued gamely toward the leftover sandwiches.

"Shera..." he began.

"Yes, those are for you and Cloud," Shera answered without glancing up from the counter she was wiping down.

"Thanks." He picked up the plate and began to leave.

And Tifa tensed in indecision a moment before grabbing up a dishtowel to dry her hands. "Barret, wait."

He stopped in the doorway, obviously surprised at being called back.

She turned to him and tried to smile, but she felt nervous and her lips seemed to reflect it. "I'll come with you."

She felt Shera glance up at her, but she didn't turn her head. She just watched Barret's expression, waiting for him to say something, waiting for the suspicious crease between his thick eyebrows to be smoothed away.

"What about Vincent?"

She shook her head a little and dropped her eyes, determined not to make that the issue. Because how could she explain to Barret, someone who could be so stubborn about black and white, that the Vincent who was supposedly wrong for her was the one who had given her such capacity to hurt him – all with his trust?

"This isn't about Vincent," she told him quietly, and met his gaze again. "This is between me and Cloud."

He stared at her a moment longer, and though he had once known her so well, known all of her moods and her faces, he seemed to be having trouble reading her. But finally he nodded, satisfied, as if he'd suspected all along that she would eventually come around.

She followed him up a staircase and to a small conference room. A small, round table, a few chairs – and Cloud. Cloud turning to look at her as they entered. Cloud opening his mouth as if he might greet her, or give some protest to her unexpected visit. Cloud looking just like he had last night, a year and a half ago: same hairstyle, same kind of clothes. And she frowned inwardly on these observations for the first time. So many things had changed for her, even for Vincent. And yet Cloud remained the same. She couldn't help but believe at that moment that it was by choice.

Barret pulled a chair out for her. When she glanced at him, he smiled, and it was suddenly so warm and familiar that she knew Yuffie had been right. As much as a part of her wanted to hold onto her anger at what she thought of as his betrayal, she had to accept that he was doing this because he really believed it was for her own good. Because he loved her. Because he didn't know Vincent.

And she smiled back as she sat, hoping one day they could come to an understanding of things.

Cloud was looking at her as if he expected she had come here with something to say. And so she started the conversation directly, not willing to let him open up old wounds and bring her to tears again. "Did you talk to Yuffie about lying to Vincent last night?"

He didn't seem surprised by the accusation. He met her gaze directly, and she knew they were going to talk. Talk like they had after he'd come back, before it had become clear to her that there was nothing for them to talk about. And she had to steel herself against the part of her heart that had missed being able to talk to him.

"I'm sorry about last night, all right? I'm sorry. Everyone just seems to want to help me, and...I don't know. I thought that if I got you away from Vincent..."

She sighed, and it was almost a laugh as she shook her head. "Why doesn't anyone believe that I might actually be in love with him?" she asked quietly, not really expecting an answer. And after a moment, when she didn't get one, she continued. "Vincent knows I'm here." At least, he probably suspected, and she didn't want to bring any doubts to the table. "He's not happy about it, but he wants this – us – to be resolved as much as I do."

She heard a door close behind her and glanced over her shoulder to see that Barret had left the room. She felt, in that moment, both grateful and a little uneasy.

"Tifa..."

His voice was soft, and she couldn't help looking into his eyes. The hope there – hope, and something else, something she might've paid anything for a few years ago – made her throat feel thick. She swallowed and looked resolutely at the table. "Cloud, what is your motivation in this?" No use in tiptoeing around the question anymore at this point, she thought. "I have a life now, and you say you don't want me to shut you out, but what do you mean?" She forced herself to meet his gaze again, those luminescent blue eyes that had always inspired such pity and such a fierce, almost protective, possessive love.

But this time, he glanced away. Shrugged one shoulder. "I've moved around a lot since...since I came back." He looked up quickly, to make sure she knew his meaning without offense, before continuing. "I have no life, no purpose, no family..."

And Tifa felt justified in interrupting. "You have Barret, and Yuffie, and..."

"I need you."

She stared at him a moment before closing her mouth.

"I've tried to move on, I've gotten jobs, I've even had a couple of girlfriends. But I can't seem to get over...this." His gaze was on her again, so direct that she couldn't believe he was simply trying to manipulate her. And, God, everything felt like it was crumbling. "You're my past, and you were always there to hold things together." He was merciless, merciless, and her heart was beating so fast. "I can't stop thinking, what if there was a way we could've made it work."

But she'd lived with that question, stayed in hell with that question, for a long time already. And finally, she'd given it up to hold onto her sanity.

"I only need a little of you, to convince myself. Or so that we can convince ourselves."

He looked so hopeful, so desperate, hanging by a thread. And she had the power, at least he felt she did, to make all of that hurt in him go away. And a part of her so wanted to say yes. But, but...

"I still love you, Tifa."

And that was the clincher. Love was not unselfish, like the poems would have her believe. Love was greedy, love was grasping – love was need and want and pain and healing. It was about finding someone who amazed you every day because of who they were, and because of the way they managed to stay by your side. Love was joy when it was returned, and obsession when it wasn't.

Love was what would ruin everything, unless Cloud let her go. And she stood from her chair, knowing she had to leave.

"Tifa?"

She turned to the door without a glance back and opened it.

"Tifa, wait."

Walked down the hall. Tried not to think. If only he'd been willing to work at it like this before Vincent, before Nibelheim, before she'd jumped from the bridge...

"Tifa!"

And then he was behind her, his hand coming to take her shoulder. But she shrugged him off as he tried to turn her around, took a quick step away from him, ready to tell him this couldn't be about love. It couldn't be about love if he wanted it to work.

But she hadn't noticed the stairs coming up so quickly in front of her. And now, as she tried to back away, the well-worn sole of Yuffie's old sneaker slipped on the corner of the step. And she lost her balance.

It happened very quickly, and she barely registered the rest of the fall after she hit her head. But she knew a moment before she blacked out, as she lay at the bottom of the staircase and clutched her abdomen against the lancing pain, that something was very, very wrong.