Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Final Fantasy Characters.

Wow… my first fanfic… like… wow… haha so I guess if you're reading this you must like Vin/Tifa. If you don't… I REALLY –emphasize REALLY -emphasize- you don't read this. Any flames are welcome. VERY welcome. Bwahaha. I like any kind of review, good or bad. I'll take it. –looks very desperate- This story's pretty much about Tifa being left by cloud and Vincent helps her out, they DO fall in love but the past always comes back to haunt you. Well lets start this story now… that is unless you want me to keep typing…o.O –ahem- YES YES I'D RATHER GET TO THE STORY TOO.

A Shattered Hope.

Her raven hair trailed behind her, her sleepy form slugged slowly to the bathroom. She looked at her reflection and saw a broken woman; she had offered him the only thing she had that was worth shit, her heart. Maybe that wasn't even worth shit. Her personality was always perky and optimistic but her mind absolutely ravished at being pessimistic. Her once vibrant red eyes were now dulled to a rusty roan red.

"Why…?" anger flared deep within her. "After all I gave you! We could have been fucking happy! But you had to have your petty little Aeris!"

With unbelievable speed and strength, her fist flew into the mirror and shattered it. Tifa Lockheart, the heroine of the Planet, fell to her very knees like the night before and felt tears prick at her eyes as the crimson fluid poured from her knuckles onto the white tiled floor. She had promised never to cry, not after her father was ruthlessly murdered by a crazed man. But compared to Cloud, Sephiroth would have seemed like a perfectly sane man.

When the blond warrior was still inside this very house, he had slept in this very house. It had been their home, but he still brought a ghost with him. Claiming she talked to him, claiming that she was lonely and she wanted him to go to her.

First of all, he was absolutely crazy; people don't talk from the grave. Next, if, and that was a huge if, Aeris truly talked to him, she would never have told him to kill himself. She was too selfless for that, she would have wanted him to live a life.

The young woman finally stood; still refusing to let the persistent tears have their way. Another day was beginning; Tifa would change into clothing that made her form seem to disappear, wash up, descend from the same stairs that held painful memories of her and Cloud. He would sometimes chase her up, attempting to tickle her the whole way up, every single day she would feel the urge to throw herself down those very stairs. After she calmed her urges, she would enter the kitchen and make breakfast, every time she picked up a knife to cut onions or anything, she would be tempted to slice through her very own skin, the only barrier between the world and her blood.

Death. It called for her whatever she did and where ever she was. She still wore the counterfeit smile she had been wearing since she could remember.

After breakfast, she would head down to the small bar. Her bar. It belonged to no one else. Unlike Cloud, who was also Aeris'… if he wasn't completely hers, this town wasn't hers, her friends always had someone else that was more important, they had lives of their own. Nothing was hers except for this small bar. The red-eyed beauty finally reached the bar, Intoxication. It was much different than her previous one, Seventh Heaven, it had more of a moody feel, more so, no men hooted at her anymore, she deliberately destroyed her perfect image with shapeless baggy shirts and starchy jeans that held itself up, it didn't even shape her slender legs.

Slow nights always left her with her thoughts; Tifa hated it. The only reason why this wealthy fighter still worked was to stay busy and to force the painful memories back into their little boxes. She had gotten enough money to last a lifetime… all of AVALANCHE had received a glutton of money.

It was only 12 am and the entire bar had fallen silent from the fact that roughly no one was in it. The silence ushered the memories into her mind's eye.

"Cloud? Are you alright?" Tifa's voice was sincere and kind with a tinge of concern. They had lived at the edge of Nibelhiem forfive months… together but he still seemed so distant.

"Yeah." His swerved his head around and faced her with a bright smile. Cloud stood on top of the small, grassy hill as he looked out into the distant stars. "It's just… I miss her."

"…Her?" the pain was evident in her voice but you couldn't even see her expression through the shadowy night.

"Aeris… Did you know she talked to me? Not now… but in my dreams."

"C-Cloud… that's not possible… she's gone." Her brow furrowed in worry, was he losing his mind?

"No, she's not. She wants me to go to the Promise Land. I can be happy there. Don't you want me to be happy?" The delirious lightness in his voice was frightening.

"Of c-course. B-But can't you be h-happy here?" With me? Her heart screamed for her to voice.

"…" His face fell slightly but he crossed the space that was between them and gave her a tight embrace. The female martial artist's heart pounding… could he hear it? She quickly returned the hug; savoring his warmth.

"I love you. I'll always love you. But… I love her a different way than I love you." It felt like he had just reached into her ribcage, ripped her very heart out and threw it towards a spiked wall. Tifa felt all the hope that she had been harboring for so many god damned years shatter into a million pieces.

"I think... I should go now. I've been thinking... a lot about this. Don'tyouthink it's theright thing? Ican't live my life like this, pretending…Lying to you. It isn't fair to you or me. I have to go find her or else... I'll... I'll..."

"Never find closure." Her voice was almost inaudible.

"Yeah... I need her."

"H-How?" She finally pulled out of the alluring hug and looked in his eyes with a desperate gaze.

His arms finally dropped from her waist and he began to back away, the smile that graced his lips told Tifa that thought she would never see again…

"Hey! LADY!" She shot back into reality and saw a drunken man calling to her for another drink. Tifa moved around the counter and towards the table he sat at and served him the scotch but she remembered the feeling she felt when he finally faded out of sight, that he was truly gone. All hope drained from her and that's where she was now, cold and void of everything she used to be.

Almost 3 months after Cloud left, it was raining and Tifa went outside to the mountains. They were her place, they belonged only to her since no one could go into them without getting themselves' killed. But that night it was different, she went outside and saw the same blotch of golden hair through the rain that she had seen in her dreams for the last 3 months. He stood at the edge of the cliff almost ready to step off. She had screamed to him and he had heard her… but it didn't stop him. He gave her a hopeful smile before stepping off and plunging to his certain death. Her piercing scream cut through the wind until it was completely silent aside from the pelting rain. Now even the mountains have been stained and were no longer hers.

Once again, she returned back to the present in a depressive mood. Now, the bar was deathly quiet, it was already 3. Closing up and headed home, but the mountains caught her attention that very night. Like the evening of Cloud's suicide, it poured down on her skin, making it ice cold.

"Maybe…" The girl was weary and desperate to be with the love of her life. "Maybe I can finally be with you…"

It was freezing and Tifa's body was slowly shutting down, if she didn't warm up soon, she would pass out. But ignoring the shivers that attacked her torso and limbs, she continued towards the cliff that Cloud had leapt off.

"…Don't go…" the faintest voice called in the back of her mind. What was it saying? It didn't matter. Tifa stood exactly at the edge, she could feel herself slipping into the darkness that crept up her.

"Cloud…" Her eyes drooped and her legs couldn't hold her up anymore. Tifa was overjoyed yet scared of what was going to be coming. But nothing mattered anymore; she slipped from consciousness before she could remember anything.