Someone to Love
-two-
It had been about a week and a half
that he'd been bed ridden in Tifa's home. He still didn't understand why she chose to take a monster like him in,
but he never refused the help. Every
day, she'd come in and change the dressing on his wounds. She'd bring him soup at
Sephiroth was grateful for her help,
but she did things so mechanically. It
seemed to him that she did the everyday things just because she had to. It disturbed him. Someone as kind and lovely as her was sure to be on the arm of a rich and handsome man who
loved her dearly.
Sephiroth woke to the sound of
clanging dishes and slew of curse words coming from downstairs. He didn't pay much attention to it. He looked out the window and at the night
sky. He heard more crashing and even
more obscenities. His body still hut him
a bit, but that didn't stop him from getting out of bed to make sure that his
hostess didn't injure herself too badly. He looked around the room, trying to find something to cover himself
in. He spotted a black t shirt and a
pair of black boxer shorts on a chair near by.
He slipped into them. They were a bit too small for his muscular
frame, but they would do. Once again,
more dishes crashed against the hard wood floor of the small kitchen. Tifa shouted to no one it seemed. He left the bedroom and found his way to the
stairs.
He walked down the stairs, very
carefully so as not to loose his balance and hurt himself more than he already
was, and down into the kitchen to see Tifa sitting on the floor surrounded by
broken dishes. She was holding her head
in her bleeding hands, her hair a mess around her face. It looked like she was crying. Sephiroth immediately forgot his own injuries,
and went to Tifa's side.
"What do you want?" She asked him,
wiping a tear from her eyes, but leaving a crimson streak down the side of her
face.
"To see if you're all right." He said.
"Why would you care?" She said her voice full of venom. Her brown-red eyes stared into his blue
ones. "And, aren't I supposed to be
taking care of you."
Sephiroth rolled his eyes. He spotted some bandages, cotton swabs and
antiseptic on the kitchen table and walked to over to it, careful to not allow
his bare feet to get cut on the shards of glass strewn about the floor. He picked up the supplies and kneeled next to
Tifa. She stared off into space, looking
at the back of the couch, disregarding the pain she felt in her bloodied hands.
Sephiroth picked up her one of her
hands. She immediately snatched it
away. "I can take care of myself."
"Do you have a problem with someone
trying to help? It looks like you're all
alone here." He said. Tifa stared at him and burst into a fresh
bout of tears.
"Thanks for the insensitivity you
arrogant jerk!" She said through the
tears.
"What? I wasn't trying to be mean,
you took it the wrong way!" He said, his voice carried
just below a shout.
She gazed up at him. Her blood shot eyes met his and found a
genuine care for her. How he could
possibly care in the least bit for her when they've been in the same house for
only a week and a half?
Tifa gave up, and held her hands out
to his, a drop of blood fell from one of her fingertips and onto the ivory skin
of her thigh. Sephiroth took a cotton
swab form the bag and soaked up the blood as best as he could. He worked diligently, making sure that every
abrasion was tended to just as she had done to him. Tifa watched him in amazement. She was amazed that this man, this man who
the vast population of the planet had branded a monster, was sitting on the
floor tending to her self inflicted wounds.
"There." He said. He
held her by her shoulder, and lifted her to her feet and led her across the
thrashed kitchen and to the living room. He sat her on the couch and turned on the T.V. to the local cartoon
station. "There you go. Lick and Frisky,
they're funny."
"What do you take me for? A two year old?" She said to him, glairing at him.
"Now, don't you move from this spot young lady until I'm
finished cleaning up the mess you mane."
"You're pathetic!"
"Not as pathetic as you."
Tifa wanted to say something witty
to him in response for his heartless comment, but she knew in her heart, that
he was right. She was pathetic for her
lame attempt to kill herself. And, deep
down, she was thankful that he was here to stop her.
After seeing that Tifa was partly
engrossed in the stupid antics of Lick and Frisky, he went to work on the
kitchen. She certainly had done a bang
up job. He had a lot of work ahead of
him. He found a broom and dustpan in the
pantry next to the stove. He swept up
the remains of what were once beautiful dishes and threw them away. Before the mess of meteor and such, he
wouldn't have thought that he'd ever clean a mess like this, tend to a person
he hardly knew.
He had just a bout completed the
clean up when something caught his eye. A picture of the wonderful Cloud Strife was pinned to the wooden floor,
right at the forehead, by a bloody shard of glass. He didn't exactly know what it meant, but he
could take a guess.
He didn't make much of it. He just pried the glass form the floor and
left the picture of Strife alone. She
could decide what she wanted to do with it later.
He cleaned his now, bloody
hands. They were covered in her blood
and a bit of his form the nicks and cuts the glass had done to his hands. The blood came off, but to him, he could
still see it. Blood of countless people
that him and his sword hand taken form people. He could never get those stains clean. He was haunted by what he had done in the past, and he wondered why he
was alive now.
He told himself to get away from
such heavy thoughts. Tifa needed
help. And even if he hardly knew her, he
felt that he should keep her form hurting her self. He owed her that much.
Sephiroth made his way to the couch
to find Tifa still enthralled in the cartoons. She actually seemed interested in it.
"You know… This is actually a pretty
good cartoon if you get over the silly gags the play on each other." Tifa said, not directly to him exactly.
"Is it now?"
"Yeah…" Tifa trailed off, not
knowing what to say next. "I want to
thank you, I'm really sorry for what I did."
"For what?
Almost killing you self or cleaning up the mess?"
"Both I guess... If you hadn't have been there, who knows what
I would of done to myself." She said,
looking down at her lap.
"Why did you do it?"
"I was mad. I couldn't help it."
"That's a stupid reason for an
attempted suicide." He said.
Tifa took much offence. "Look, are you going to accept my apology or what?!"
Sephiroth laughed at her. "Okay, I forgive you."
"Good."
_ _ _ _ _
_ _ _
AN: For
all of you kind people who reviewed my ficcie, I went
and mad another chapter for all ya'll! I really can't thank you enough!
Now you kind of get what's going on here. It's not a Tifa takes care of Sephy fic… It's
a Sephy takes care of Tifa fic! So anyway, thanks again to you 7 so
far people who reviewed it!
--Jobi!
