Family Ties
"We could all help each other and try our best… Can't do it, since we're not a real family, huh?"
She's put the children to bed—they've had a long, terrifying day, and they're exhausted. They wanted to stay up with Cloud, probably to ensure that he won't vanish while they sleep. In all honesty, she's avoiding her bed for the same reason.
He stares out the window of his room, watching the rain. Its normal rain, now—not Aeris' gift to them all.
She wonders how many more times the flower girl is going to save them.
She lingers outside the door, wanting to go in and reassure herself that he's alive and whole and breathing. She knows that her sleep will be plagued with the same images for weeks—Cloud smiling, looking peaceful for the first time in years, then the twin explosions: the first of a gun, the second of magic and fury crashing together. She shudders involuntarily and hugs herself, trying to ward off the bone-deep fear of losing him.
"Tifa?"
She blinks. He's turned away from the window and is watching her instead. Her reflexes fail her, and the automatic smile comes up seconds too late.
"Yeah?"
Cloud frowns, whether in thought or at her false cheeriness she can't tell. "I wanted to ask you something," he starts. She watches him warily, waiting for him to continue.
"Why don't you come in?" he says, waving a hand in her direction. He moves across the room to sit on the bed as she closes the door behind her. She walks towards him, then leans against the desk. She looks at the photographs and clippings covering the wall, smiling faintly at a few of them.
Silence falls. She looks to him, waiting for him to make the first move. He called her in here, after all. Cloud is looking at his hands, which are free of gloves and resting on his knees. He looks worn.
Most of what they've gone through would have been enough to kill an army, much less one man. She wonders how he's managed to survive this long, what exactly he holds onto that forces him to keep going.
"What did you want to ask me?" she finally inquires, hoping that his question will keep her mind off of her own.
He shakes his head as if to clear it, then looks up at her. "Yesterday, after you woke up… you said… you said we weren't a real family…" He trails off, as if hoping she'll figure out both the question and answer from that statement. She stays silent. "What'd you mean?" he asks awkwardly.
She shakes her head. "I was just upset, Cloud. Don't worry about it."
He shoots her a look that's familiar, despite the fact she hasn't seen it in a while. It's a look that says I've known you since childhood, stop lying to me. I know you better than you think.
For a moment, she resents that he's using her own weapons against her.
"It was just that… you'd given up, and I thought that maybe if…" Maybe if they were really our children. Maybe if you told me you loved me and wanted to spend forever with me and have a family of our own, then you would have had something to live for, because obviously the broken pieces of other peoples' families I've gathered aren't enough.
"Maybe if you had a real family, you wouldn't have left," she finishes lamely, knowing it's a weak line that's still dangerously close to the truth.
He sighs. "You are my family, though," he says quietly.
"Then why'd you give up?" she asks bitterly. "Aren't we worth fighting for?"
His hand goes to his shoulder, fingers tracing over a non-existent scar. "I did fight for you," he replies, sounding somewhat defensive. "You've always been worth it, I just… I just had to remember."
She smiles ruefully. "Are you going to have to find some sort of crisis to avert every few years so that you'll remember?" she asks, only half joking. His lips quirk upward in a brief smile, and it occurs to her that he's smiled more today than he has in months.
"I don't think so. I'm pretty sure I'll remember it now… and if I start to forget, you can remind me."
There's something loaded in the look he gives her as he says that, and she's suddenly too damn tired to sort him out tonight.
"I'll write it down for you," she teases lightly, standing. He makes a sound that might be a brief laugh.
"I'm going to bed," she says, knowing that she's put it off for too long. He nods, watching as she stretches her arms over her head.
"Good night," he says softly. She flashes him a genuine smile, then leaves, closing the door behind her.
When she wakes up the next morning to find all three of them in her bed, chased there by various fears and demons, she knows she was wrong. They're a family in all the ways that count.