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Heart Of Ice

Chapter Four

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Tifa bolted upright at the sound of a high-pitched screeching noise, her heart suddenly racing. She covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

"Make it stop, please, just make it stop already..." she whimpered to herself, drawing her knees up to her chest as if she could physically protect herself from pain racking through her mind. She had passed out in the cave as the Ice Witch shrieked her deadly voice, causing a cave-in. Was she still there? Had her friends abandoned her?

Suddenly, the shrill noise stopped. Tifa cautiously lifted her head and took in her surroundings. She had been laying on a couch, next to a crackling fire where Vincent had just pulled a steaming kettle out of the fireplace. He watched her silently for a moment, taking in her tear-streaked face and shaking hands. He walked to a nearby table and began to pour hot water from the kettle into tea cups.

"I am most sorry, Tifa," he said quietly, his back to her as he worked. As she returned to reality, she realized that she was in the living room of the cabin, and that the shrieking noise had been the hot kettle.

"I did not mean to wake you," he continued. "I meant to take the water off the fire before you woke."

"What... happened?" Tifa asked cautiously, rubbing her temples as a headache started throbbing behind her eyes. "I remember the cave collapsing, and that God-awful screeching sound, and..."

Tifa's head snapped up, her eyes wide with fear.

"Cloud!"

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It was a few moments before Cloud became aware that he was staring at a different ceiling than before. It was a blurry, brownish-orange color instead of a blurry, bluish-white. So he wasn't in the cave anymore. Whoopdeedo.

He still couldn't feel his legs or move his fingers, or any other part of him for that matter, and that was all that he really cared about right now. He supposed that orangish glow came from a warm fire somewhere nearby, but obviously not near enough for his benefit. He still felt as frozen as when he had first collapsed in that cave.

No, maybe not as cold as the first time. This felt much worse. Somehow, and he couldn't really explain it, but he felt inwardly cold, as if that Ice Hag had stabbed his chest with an icicle and left a hole where his heart had been...

He gasped, his brain sending fruitless signals to his fingers to clutch at his chest and feel a heart beat, just to assure himself that it was still there. His startled gasp triggered movement in the corner of the room, and a great bulkly figure lumbered toward where Cloud lay. Cloud felt sure that if he had a pulse, it would be racing now as the shape neared.

As the figure approached, its features became more defined to Cloud's blurry vision, although he did not need perfect sight to distinguish the familiar face.

"Barret," he managed to croak with a weak twinge of a smile. Barret managed to muster up his own version of a smile, but it was half-hearted at best. It was hard to smile at your best friend when you knew he was dying.

Barret wrung hot water out of a small wash cloth and re-applied it to Cloud's chest, watching the hissing steam rise from its contact with his skin once again. Despite all their efforts since they had brought him down from the lair of the Ice Witch, Cloud's body remained frozen, as if he were carved of ice.

"Barret," Cloud said, his smile vanishing. He could feel Barret's hands shaking as the older man massaged Cloud's arm, trying to stimulate blood flow in the paralyzed limb. "Barret," he repeated, stronger now. "What's wrong with me?"

Barret sighed and looked sadly into Cloud's eyes. This was the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about.

"Cloud..." he began huskily, blinking fast. "Cloud you're... damn man, I'm sorry but..." Barret swallowed hard and shook his head. "But you're-"

"Cloud!"

The door to the bedroom burst open and Tifa flew in. Cloud managed to tilt his head slightly to watch her rush to his side. All at once he was certain that he still had a heart, as he felt it pounding throughout his whole body as it always did when Tifa was near him. She was smiling though tears as she kneeled beside the bed that he was lying on, and he couldn't help but smile back at the woman who was so happy she would cry.

"Oh Cloud," her voice strained as she struggled to speak without sobbing. "I was so worried when you didn't come down from that mountain, and then to see you lying there like you were..."

Vincent stepped quietly into the room after her and gave Barret a meaningful look. Barret nodded and cleared his throat.

"Okay, listen you two," Barret began on a brave front. He really, really didn't want to have to do this.

"Cloud ain't outta the woods yet," he said gravely. "His body temperature ain't rising, and he's slippin' into hypothermia as we speak."

"But..." Tifa asked, puzzled. "He's out of the cold now, his body should be warming up now, shouldn't it?"

"The Ice Witch," Vincect said quietly from his shadowy corner. "It isn't natural, you're right, Tifa. He should be returning to normal, but his body remains frozen, as if he were still lying in that cave."

"Are you saying," Cloud spoke in a ragged whisper, "that this is some sort of spell?"

"Something like that," Vincent agreed.

"Well, they don't call her the Ice Witch for nothing, huh?" mused Barret.

"But," Tifa started, still tearful. "There must be some way to reverse it, right? I mean, if he just stays like this..."

Vincent looked around the room at the worried faces of his comrades. "...He will die."

Tifa's large, maroon eyes flashed up in anger at Vincent. "How can you say that!" she demanded. "We haven't even searched for a cure! We don't know that it will kill him! We don't know anything about it!"

"Yo..." Barret began, an idea forming on the tip of his tongue. "We do know one thing about it– whatever happened, it happened in that cave."

"Go back to the source, find the solution?" Vincent offered.

"You think if we defeat that witch, it will break the spell?" Barret scratched the stubble on his chin.

"It seems to work in just about every other fairy tale," Vincent sighed wearily.

"But..." Tears started to well up in Tifa's eyes again. "What if by killing her, we destroy the last chance at a cure?"

"You mean, what if she has to willingly reverse it?" Vincent's eyes narrowed into his "thinking" glare. As pensive as he appeared, Vincent preferred the "hack-and-slash" solution rather than negotiating his way around it.

There was a heavy silence in the room for a few moments, punctuated only by Tifa's sniffling. Finally, Cloud spoke:

"I remember..." he rasped, closing his eyes as if it could jog his memory. "When she was screaming and cursing at me, she said something about my heart... being frozen... "

He opened one eye to look at Tifa, and managed a weak version of his typical cocky smile. "You think maybe I need a new heart?"

"Maybe just some good old fashioned electro-shock therapy..." said Barret with a wiley smile.

"But..." Tifa said thoughtfully. "I remember what she said to me, too..."

"She said something?" Vincent asked in a moment of rare curiosity. "I don't remember hearing anything but that mad shrieking. What did she say?"

Tifa blushed as she always did when something even remotely connected her romantically to Cloud. "She said that my life was 'frozen like him,' too, but I'm not cold or anything..." Barret raised an eyebrow as Tifa trailed off, hoping no one was thinking any dirty thoughts about her "warming Cloud up." Finally, Barret got the hint and forced a very obvious cough.

"Why don' we jus' sleep on it for tonight, eh?" the big man said as he stood up and stretched. "Cloud ain't going no where, an' that Ice Hag ain't around, so there ain't much we can do for now anyway."

"...Barret's right," Vincent said, shooting a sideways glance at the daft, larger man. "As hopeless as that sounds, there is nothing more we can do tonight. Let us begin afresh in the promise of a new day."

The two men started toward the door. Tifa sat still with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, unable to look at Cloud on what could be his death bed. She could hear Barret's and Vincent's voices as they faded into the next room–

"Damn, man. Why you gotta spout that poetic mumbo-jumbo all the time. You sound like a reverend at a memorial service."

"That may not be so out of place, considering..."

The door shut behind them, sparing Cloud and Tifa any more grim prophecies. If he heard their dire foreshadowing at all, Cloud appeared unconcerned. Instead he tried once again to shift his frozen body to get a better look at Tifa.

"Hey, Teef..."

Tifa shook her head, squeezing her eyes and lips shut. "No, Cloud. Don't listen to them. I know... that there has to be a way... to help..." She swallowed very hard, trying to choke down a fresh wave of sobs. She hated being so weak, especially in front of Cloud.

"Actually Teef," rasped Cloud, his smile strengthening as he looked at her, "I was going to ask you for some more blankets."

Tifa gave a short burst of a nervous laugh, unable to hold back her tears even as she smiled. "I think you've got every one in the house," she said gamely, wiping her cheeks with the back of one gloved hand.

Cloud stared at her for a few moments, watching the fire light reflect off her tear-welled eyes. That Ice Hag didn't make any sense. How could his heart be frozen when it felt everything but when he looked at the woman sitting beside him?

"Tifa..." he whispered, his voice cracking from a knot forming in his throat. "You don't think I'd give up so easily, do you?"

"No, Cloud, but I just..."

"I don't know what's going to happen to me, but..." he trailed off, unsure if he was ready to say what was on his mind. "I think... as long as you're here, I'll be fine."

Tifa looked at him for a moment, her eyes wide and frightened. "I don't know... if I have that much power, Cloud. I want to help you so much, but I'm so scared..."

Cloud struggled to reach his hand out to comfort her, but his frozen muscles seized up at the effort. He grimaced, and Tifa grabbed the now cold wash cloth that Barret had been repeatedly heating and walked over to the hot water kettle. After soaking it to a scalding temperature again, she carried it to Cloud, preparing to massage some warmth back into the near-lifeless bicep.

The moment her skin made contact with his own, Cloud felt something surge through his entire body, as if a bucket of warm water had just been thrown over him. He gasped, and she started, pulling her hand away from him.

"Tifa!"

"Oh! Cloud, I'm sorry! Is it too hot? I wasn't thinking..."

"When you touched me..." Cloud braced himself as the cold flooded back into his veins. When she removed her hand, the warmth fled from his body and he shuddered.

"Did you feel it?"

"Feel what, Cloud?"

"The warmth... When you touched me, you were... so warm..."

Tifa looked at him curiously. "Couldn't you feel the warm cloth before? Barret was using it..."

"Yes! I mean, no, it's not the cloth..." Cloud struggled to keep his teeth from chattering.

"T... touch me again, Tifa."

"Cloud, I– "

"Please, Tifa..."

Tifa warily stretched out her right hand and placed it delicately on Cloud's arm. She felt the stinging pain of contact with his frozen skin, but watched him as he closed his eyes and sighed in relief.

"Cloud? Are you... okay?" Tifa asked, a little worried.

"...Yeah, yeah... I'm fine... now."

Tifa watched in amazement as Cloud lifted his right arm easily, without the frozen stiffness of before, and placed his hand over hers. He looked at her with a warm smile that held none of the strain he had shown before.

"Tifa," he said, squeezing her hand. "I think you're the cure."

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Disclaimer: I did not create/publish/sell Final Fantasy VII, its characters, locations, plots, etc. It all belongs to Squaresoft.