When Heart Rules Over Mind

Prologue

"Don't patronise me."

"I wasn't even considering it, all I'm asking is that you could just –"

"I said don't patronise me!"

"Would you just list –"

"No!" Sofia slammed the vegetable knife that was in her hand, hard onto the wooden chopping board in front of her.

"I've had enough Miguel." She paused in the awkward silence, before raising her head to look out of the large kitchen window of her family home hidden away in the hills of Costa Del Sol.

After hearing the door of the kitchen creak to a close she sighed heavily.

On the window ledge in front of her was an early picture of her and her brother when they weren't even of an age that had reached double figures yet.

A small giggle escaped her lips, as she remembered when it has been taken, and what it was like to be that young. Wiping her hands on her apron, and tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear that escaped from her braid, she picked up the photograph.

Miguel was posing, standing proud because of the friendship bracelet on his wrist that he had gotten that morning from his first girlfriend. He hadn't known what a girlfriend was at that age, but that was during the time when he was blissfully naïve. Ella. That was her name. Sophia was the reason Miguel had Ella, because as a sister, Sofia had thought it her job to look after her big brother, and marched right up to Ella, asking her to be Miguel's girlfriend because he wanted one for his birthday, and she'd heard him say Ella was "real pretty".

Miguel couldn't stop raving about 'Sofy' all that day, telling everyone he could about how she was the best little sister in the world. So he could show her off, Miguel stood tall in their garden, grinning with one of his baby teeth visibly missing, and his arm around his sister. Sophia was holding a thumbs up like Miguel was doing, with a cute expression as she looked up at her brother to see if she was doing it right.

The photograph embodied their relationship. Sofia, the sensible one, who was slightly reserved in comparison to her loud, energetic, charismatic brother who though she acted like she was superior to, in fact had learned all she knew from the things Miguel had taught her.

Obviously, their parents came into play with the main lessons, but as for growing up, Sofia couldn't have been without Miguel.

And now?

Sofia put down the photograph. She knew what her brother had asked her to go along with was stupid, not anywhere near the right thing to do, given their recent situation.

Having said that, she admired Miguel in such a way that only a sister could understand. Going against what he asked was definitely the right thing to do, there was no doubting that, nor a single benefit to following Miguel's idea; other than his word.

And in the end, that was what she trusted.

Breathing deeply, she turned and picked up the phone. With trembling hands she waited for the dialling tone to stop.

The phone rang.

Cloud stirred.

The phone kept on ringing, and got louder when he lifted the stone weight of his head off of the pillow it was on, before letting it drop back down again.

Sensing Tifa wasn't around, he eventually realised he should be pulling his weight as she has allowed him to stay here so selflessly, and with a groan, he reached out for the phone and placed the receiver to his ear muttering a muffled "Hello" in a grainy early morning voice.

There was a pause from the other end.

Cloud blinked when he felt his eyes drooping close again and lifted his head up slowly with a yawn repeating his greeting once again.

Again there was no answer.

"Who the hell is this?" Cloud asked the mystery caller.

"…I…Is that Cloud?"

"…Who is this?"

"It's Sofia, I work with Tifa. I…Is she in?"

"Not right now."

"…Well, could you ask her if she would come around to see me this afternoon? I need to speak to her about…something."

Cloud paused. The girl seemed edgy about something. Nervous.

"One. That's the best time. Ask her to come then. Sorry to have disturbed you." With that the phone clicked off, leaving the drone signalling Sofia's abrupt exit from the conversation.

Cloud paused after he replaced the phone receiver. What had that been about? He didn't have a place interfering with Tifa's affairs, but whoever the girl was he didn't like the tone of her voice, not to mention the fact that she had smacked him over the head with a pan the first time she met him, and was the reason his head felt like a lolling brick when he tried to lift it up.

After another ten minutes drifting with the idea of sleep, Cloud decided to get himself up.

Heaving his body into a sitting position, he rubbed his fingers on his forehead, hissing briefly at the pain. "It must be illegal to be up at this hour in a holiday resort." He moaned stretching his aching back until he felt his shoulders click out of their tensed position.

"Ok Tifa. Where are you?" He asked the room, looking around.

The room looked normal enough, unchanged from the night before when he had slept here – more comfortably though it had to be said. Standing up he slowly stretched his strong arms out, before letting them flop back down to his sides.

Walking bare foot over the carpet, he approached the kitchen area, flinching slightly when his foot met the cold clean floor of the open room.

He smiled, more awake now, at the room. It was Tifa's all right.

The colours were fresh, white and light blue with yellow hinted in places. Deep wooden cupboards and table gave it a warm almost homely feel – although Tifa was a long way from home, right?

Cloud reminded himself – this was her home now.

He moved over to the fridge

On the Smeg fridge there were alphabet magnets holding various drawings from Marlene, newspaper clippings, recipe samples, a stuck on notepad and pen - wait - newspaper clippings?

Cloud leaned closer – and his eyes widened in shock.

"Well well, what do we have here?"

Tifa jumped slightly before halting and smiling to herself.

"Morning Miguel." She said without turning around. Soon enough, Miguel appeared in front of her, after allowing two women to pass him in the street, tipping his invisible hat at them with a wink.

They giggling played on in the background behind Tifa as Miguel's smiling face came into view.

"Lovely day don't you think?"

"Yeah, uh, sure it is."

"Come on you, let me take those bags away and sit you down in the Café De Marca and buy one of those pastry things you like so much." Miguel said wrinkling his nose at the thought.

He motioned to the café across the cobbled and slightly busy street. An old woman was the only resident occupying one of the outside tables, and smiled to Miguel in greeting.

He waved and greeted her by name – his neighbour – just as Tifa started speaking again.

"With you being a woman and all, why do you eat things that have the pastry suffocating in calories?" He questioned, attempting to grasp Tifa's thin white stretching carrier bags full of – well, food.

"At at ahh." Tifa shunned, backing away slightly, shaking her head. "I can cope with these fine thanks. As for being a 'woman' as you call it, might I remind you that I have had you face down begging me to stop more times then I can remember?"

The old woman choked on the coffee she was drinking.

Miguel smirked, then faked a look of panic, moving closer to Tifa as he looked around them at the people in the street passing by. "Keep your voice down woman, please. You're gonna ruin my eligible bachelor reputation around here. If people hear you they'll start thinking I'm a one-woman kinda guy, and that you're the one wearing the trousers in this relationship. I mean geez."

Tifa laughed and nudged him toward the café.

"Fine, I give up. But if this goes straight to my hips, I'll work off the calories by beating you to a pulp. Now be a good boy and buy me that pastry you promised." She winked mockingly at him and took a seat, setting her bags under the table beside her feet.

Miguel saluted casually as he headed inside the café. Tifa smiled warmly at the old woman opposite, who widened her eyes in shock before getting hurridly to her feet and leaving.

"Okay…" Tifa said slowly as she watched the woman hurry off in confusion.

Miguel returned with a tray and looked from Tifa to the empty table the woman had just vacated. He turned his head back to Tifa and perked a brow. "Causing trouble with the locals again Tifa?" He shook his head as he placed the tray on the intricately patterned round metal table and sat down. "Honestly, I can't take you anywhere these days."

Tifa frowned as she reached over and lifted the plate with her pastry on and set it in front of her.

Miguel smiled. "Only messing with you kiddo." He said as he grabbed the cherry from Tifa's pastry and popped it into his mouth.

"Oh, feel free to pinch my cherry Miguel." Tifa said sarcastically.

Miguel's eyes went wide.

"Scuse me?"

Tifa blushed slightly in the silence.

Miguel smiled, and Tifa finally got the butt of the joke.

"That joke was cheap and predictable Miguel. You're getting worse." She said, ripping the pastry and placing sections in her mouth.

"Me getting worse?" He asked, lifting his own order from the tray – a smoothie – and gulping a large portion of it down. "Impossible." He said, wiping his mouth.

"Oh you think so do you?"

He nodded.

"Well then, as soon as we next see someone in the street who knows you – preferably not female, they're biased –"

Miguel smirked at that.

"We'll ask them what they think. I bet you they will agree with me."

"That's biased on your part!"

"how?"

Miguel looked at Tifa's white three quarter length sleeve, fitted shirt, that had only the top two buttons undone to show the silver cross pendant around her neck.

"Well…you're not showing your um, 'assets' off as such, but you're still a woman and men around here are biased towards you just as much as the women are towards me."

"Fine. We'll ask three men, and three women. Happy?"

"Yeah I guess. But why don't we make a wager on this?" He grinned before lowering his head to suck the straw stuck in his smoothie, with his arms folded on the table in front of him.

Tifa laughed. "Well you would think of th – " Tifa stopped mid-sentence at the sound of her ringing PHS.

Her eyes widened and she rummaged in the back pocket of her low hip cut jeans until her hand came upon it. She pulled it out, flipping it open and placing it to her ear.

"Cloud?"

Miguel's expression turned dark, as his eyes flicked upwards to look at her, sucking louder on the straw until Tifa waved him silent with a motion of her hand.

"What?…Who did?…You mean Sofia?…No she is not called that just because she hit you, learn her name – oh okay…one?…that's barely two hours away…what?…oh ok…fine…I'm in town…no not the tourist part, it's the residential town, the more traditional area of Costa…It's just down the small hill at the back of the bar, and left down the side streets…Yes…No I haven't…Miguel…What do you mean who's that?"

Miguel sat back folding his arms over his black tank top covered chest and watched her.

"…I'll be there, I promise, so if she rings back, tell her I got the message and that there's nothing to worry about…Hasn't he?…I don't know where to look for him, you know what kind of person Vincent is."

Miguel's eyes widened. There was another member of AVALANCHE here at Costa?

"Ok Cloud…take care…I will…there's food in the cupboards and I'll be round to speak to you this afternoon as soon as I get back from Sofia's…Yes…" Tifa's voice softened. "I do too…I know you are…don't mention it Cloud, honestly I wouldn't have it any other way." She smiled. "Goodbye Cloud."

With that, she clicked the PHS shut and shoved it back into her pocket.

"So, how's lover boy?" Miguel asked sourly.

Tifa frowned.

"Don't call him that."

"What? Why not? He is isn't he? Come on Tifa, we've all heard about you and him, even the papers spout all that crap. They sniffed a romance between AVALANCHE members and jumped on it. There's talk of a film too."

"Oh please…" Tifa said unimpressed.

"I'm telling you! Anyway, you'd better head back to him. Don't worry, I'll grab the bill for all this. Go on, run along now."

Tifa grabbed Miguel's arm as he tried to clear away the plates.

His head snapped up to meet her gaze.

"I'm not going anywhere until I finish my pastry, now sit."

Miguel blinked in confusion, then smiled slightly, sitting back.

"Ok missy, but hurry up, because I have an errand to run. I need to apologise to that old woman you offended earlier. She has a stall in the market square you know, and it just so happens I am strolling that way later on."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. Her grand daughter just turned eighteen. Now who could be better at showing the girl the sights now she's legal and above board hmm?"

Tifa frowned.

"Whoa whoa, before you start lecturing me, I'm in my prime, barely twenty, thought maybe a bit too close to twenty one by now, but still, I'm within my limits to go for a girl her age. I've had youngsters of sixteen come to me before trying to act all grown up, and I just laugh and tell them to come back when they've grown up. Just so happens one of them finally has. And she's an old flame. I remember trying to hold onto her when I was eighteen, bless. Thought I was all besotted. Pah – then I discovered bars and she went out of the window."

Tifa shook her head in disbelief. "I don't believe you sometimes, but I have to see this, so I'll be coming along. My guess is, she'll knock you down for being such a prat to her in your past lives."

"Only sometimes? That's good. So, shall we get going? Honestly now pastry girl, it aint good for your hips, and if you're coming we have to hurry up or you won't get to our's for one. Yes, I asked Sofy to ring you last night for me before you ask."

Tifa stood up. "Last night? But she rang me this morning according to Cloud."

Miguel smirked.

"Oh…you didn't wake up at home this morning did you?" She asked tentatively, watching him as he left money for the bill. Eventually he stood up and smiled at her.

"You know me too well my friend."

Author's Notes:

Well this may seem a little short and not much helping the plot regarding other characters (the turks, Dylon the bad guy, Cid, Barrett) but, this is an update is what it is, and a break from the major storyline - though there are some very important bits in this, so read carefully ;)

G'night and G'bless

Xx Jessie xX

P.S Welcome back WrexSoul!! where you been> Good to have you back! And to all of you lovely reviewers I am so happy about the responses I have been getting about my one off fic Souls Lost In The Snow. Thank you so much, it boosted me into updating this because you guys yet again restored my confidence in being a writer. Every comments counts to me, ask my reviewers, I have even changed parts of m fic because an outsider's comment on my work that I'm so wrapped up in, made clear sense of the jumble I made of Cloud's disease. Thanks again! (R & R!!!)