Melodies at Midnight

by Somebody's Nightmare

Cloud's life is defined by tragedies and failures. Following the tragic deaths of his best friends, Cloud is raising their child, still reeling from the inadequacy and anger he's had since he was ripped from the girl he had fallen in love with 10 years ago, until they reunite. She was supposed to teach his son how to play the piano. Instead, she taught him how to love again.

5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

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[ ν ] - εγλ - 2007 |April 6th

Trial and Error

Cloud sat staring at his desktop computer on the contractor's floor in the Shinra Tower, the cursor blinking on the screen as it beckoned him to complete his report on a recent courier mission he'd been dispatched on in Junon. But even though he was looking right at the glow of the screen, his thoughts were fixated elsewhere, and it was as if he couldn't even see his work.

Tifa.

He couldn't get her out of his mind, not since that night last Sunday when she pulled him to the side, wearing that cute outfit that now he couldn't stop thinking about - a short skirt and thigh highs and a tight top, combat boots and her long, silky dark hair pulled away from her face. He hadn't seen her with that kind of fresh, laid back style since they'd reunited in Midgar, hadn't seen her dress like that in years, since they were both teenagers. It was an instant distraction, had been for the rest of the night and in the days that followed.

That was that past weekend, and it was now days later and Cloud could not get his mind off of Tifa and the way that their damaged relationship had hit a turning point. He was still thinking about her hand on his arm, gently leading him up the stairs of Seventh Heaven to the quiet studio on the second floor, and the heat that radiated from her soft palm straight through his leather jacket, burning his skin. He couldn't let go of how she had sat him down at that piano, about the way she had apologized to him for the ruptures that had quaked between them all those years ago, for the way that she had broken his heart, even if she hadn't intended to. And he still couldn't get over how she began to play those soft, easygoing notes for him, a melody he had not heard in so, so long, one that she said reminded her of him and how he once was.

His eyes drying out as he stared at his screen, Cloud blinked and leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head, thinking about how he no longer was that stupid, lovestruck boy, who had acted a fool for a dark-haired girl who'd stolen his heart so long ago.

He hadn't been that guy in a long, long time.

Even so, his heart was beating again the way that it used to - back in those days, every time he saw her, its rhythm would grow irregular, thumping against his chest too loudly and threatening to alert the whole town to what he was feeling. His palms would grow hot and sweaty, his nerve endings tingling as he yearned for a touch or to move just a little closer to her. It had him jumping out of his normally reserved shell, and as much as he had tried to keep his cool around her, he couldn't stop the way that he blushed and melted and fell into a stupor, unable to keep his eyes off of her or to keep his mouth from saying the most ridiculous, impulsive things.

He remembered those days well, but that kid had been broken and sent into hiding after the way that her father had screamed at him and after the way that she had broken his heart in the very same spot that he had given it to her forever. Ever since, he'd treated the world with a casual coolness, uninterested in letting anyone see past the icy facades he developed for himself, and doing his best to keep anyone from getting through them. There had been other sonsy women with dark hair that he'd met along the way, women who liked to tarry around the SOLDIER hangouts in Midgar, and sometimes they caught his eye.

But they'd never captured his heart.

He hated to admit that those old feelings were back, feelings he'd had when he was around her as a teenager, locking his throat up with pain and quickening his breathing, raising the hairs on his arms every time he saw her. He'd been trying to suppress it all, to deaden the impulses that had him wanting to reach out to her and touch, to talk to her again in those low, sweet tones he'd used with her all those years ago. And his anger at their separation had become the strongest emotion bubbling under all of it, leaving him snapping and finding himself short with her when he could no longer stand in the face of the deep-seated desires that had lingered inside of him since he was eighteen years old.

But she flipped it all on its head with her sweet smile and her long legs wrapped in black silk, with her graceful fingers and prettily painted nails drifting across ivory and black, gracing him with those notes from a time long ago in the past. And he was stuck wondering how he was going to navigate any of this, his defenses now weakened as he agreed to at least be friends with her.

What was he thinking, contacting her in the first place and letting her back in this way?

He would never survive this.

"Hey, man."

Cloud was so startled from his deep thoughts that he almost jumped from his seat, sitting up far too quickly in the rickety metal office chair. He kicked his feet off of the desk and lowered his arms, looking up to find Kunsel standing above him, scratching the side of his chin and the uneven stubble of his goatee.

Cloud took one look at him and exhaled, dispelling Tifa Lockhart from his mind, leaning over his knees and rubbing them with his palms as he tried to shake the heat that his thoughts of her produced in his body.

"Yeah?" he responded, irritated with the interruption, but more so with his own thoughts and how he was finding he couldn't keep them under control.

"How's it going?" Kunsel asked, dropping his hand into his pocket. "Getting anywhere with those reports? Lazard wants them on his desk by COB."

Cloud turned away and glanced back at the open document on his screen, seeing the first few text boxes filled out but the page mostly blank. He grimaced, and avoided answering Kunsel's question verbally, instead giving his head an aggrieved little shake at his own distraction. Kunsel sighed quietly above him.

"Don't worry about it," he went on. "I'm a little behind too. You want to grab some lunch? There's this new place downtown that serves all Western fare - deep-fried stuff and seafood. Thought it might be nice to get out of here for a change and not have to eat in that noisy cafeteria."

Cloud pondered this for a moment, leaning forward without looking up at Kunsel. He was hungry; it was already well past noon. But he normally took lunch by himself, often a liquid lunch if he could get away with it, not really in the mood to spend his time listening to other contractors or SOLDIERs or Shinra employees prattle on with their chatter. Not to mention, he hadn't spent much time with Kunsel since the drake takedown in the reactor, and he really didn't want to have to broach that subject and how he'd almost blown that mission again. He scratched the back of his neck, frowning to himself as he considered a way to decline.

"Come on, man," Kunsel urged when he didn't reply after long moments. "Let's just take a break for a little while, yeah? I know you gotta be tired of sitting around this stuffy office all day."

Cloud couldn't argue with that, and, with a little sigh of resignation, rose to his feet and grabbed his jacket from where it was slung over the back of his chair.

The lunch spot that Kunsel had mentioned was only a couple of blocks away from the Shinra Tower, along a main thoroughfare of eateries and shops, and so Cloud walked quietly side by side with his comrade through Midgar's busy, afternoon streets, his hands buried in his pockets as they moved along the sidewalks. Now early April, the weather was beginning to grow mild again, the winds losing some of their chills and the sun dominating the terrain with its bright, high-noon shine.

Kunsel was whistling, and Cloud vaguely recognized the old folksy tune, a rendition of something sung by a famous female country singer. At the sound, Cloud quirked an eyebrow and glanced up over at him.

"Where are you from?" he asked, realizing he'd known Kunsel for years, but that they had never really talked about their personal lives much. In their early days with SOLDIER, Kunsel had always been closer friends with Zack; it was only after Zack's death that Cloud started to find himself engaging more with the former Second Class SOLDIER.

Kunsel laughed at his question, just as they rounded a corner in the direction of the main strip. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Small village on the Western Continent, so small most people have never heard of it. Not even on most maps. Usually, it just gets lumped in with Gongaga. Used to have to do all our shopping and get our mail from there."

Cloud fell quiet, thinking of Zack again, just as Kunsel stopped in front of the shop they were eating at. It was a small place with tightly packed, bright red tables, and although the lunch rush was thinning out, there was still a line.

Cloud didn't say anything for a while, staring instead ahead at the menu above, looking over the options of fried Chocobo wings and catfish, vegetables simmered in hog grease and cheesy pastas, and a whole other array of foods that looked like they were instakills on one's arteries. Not much of a cook, Cloud ate a lot of junk and takeout as it were, but he tended to avoid this kind of rich, heavy food, food that he knew was popular back in Nibelheim and that his mother was proficient at cooking.

They placed their orders - Cloud going for a helping of the cheese pasta while Kunsel loaded up on wings - and chose seats at a small table near the window. With the grease fryers and the ovens roaring in the back in the kitchen, the tiny establishment was too hot, and Cloud found himself sweating and shrugging out of his jacket.

Kunsel wasted no time tearing into his meal, chewing the fried fowl happily as if he had been starving. He washed his first bites down with strong gulps of cola before he sat back a little and looked up at Cloud.

"What about you?" Kunsel asked, picking up their earlier conversation. "Ain't you from Nibelheim or something like that?"

Cloud shook his head, chewing down a forkful of his food. He had to admit, despite its heaviness, it was tasty. "Not exactly. My mom is from there. I lived there for about a year, but I actually grew up in Midgar."

Kunsel chuckled at this, tearing the meat of another wing off the bone. "A city-country boy, huh?"

Cloud shrugged, sipping at his water. "I guess. I didn't spend much time in Nibelheim. My mom is real country, though. Me, I never cared for it."

Cloud sat back in his chair, Tifa flashing briefly through his mind again, and he didn't dare admit that one of the biggest reasons he didn't think much of Nibelheim or even want to talk about it was because of everything that had happened there between him and her.

"I've heard it's pretty bumpkin, but it's nowhere as bad as Gongaga or my village," Kunsel commented, dropping a bone before wiping his greasy fingers across a napkin. "We didn't even have access to television where I lived."

"Shiva," Cloud responded, wondering how the fuck anyone could stand to live such a backwater existence. Growing up in Midgar, he had been inundated by Shinra's level of technology even in the nineties, where the net was new and becoming available to everyone, color televisions in every home Topside and jumbotrons all throughout the sectors, even pocket PHS devices beginning to become commonplace. When he'd moved to Nibelheim, he was startled by how different things were. While some villagers owned cars, many still relied on chocobos for transportation, and there was no access to the net. Televisions were available, but they were hard to come by and most people had antiquated, black and white sets in their homes, others preferring to rely on ham radios to get their news and entertainment. And Cloud was sure he hadn't seen a single PHS his entire time there; every phone had been a landline. "How did you know what was going on in the world? Or keep up with shit like the war?"

Kunsel shrugged, pulling apart a biscuit. "Sometimes we could pick up the radio signals, but the towers were weak, so we used to have to pick up the papers in Gongaga to find out just about anything. I used to go into Gongaga with my Pa to watch TV at the taverns. He would get shit-faced and we'd watch the games, or the war reports from Shinra. I think that's when I decided I wanted to go into the army."

"Damn," Cloud muttered, pushing his pasta around a bit with his fork, finding that unbelievable.

"I met Zack in Gongaga," Kunsel softly added.

Cloud set his fork down, sitting back again and looking up at Kunsel, feeling a mild sense of panic wash over him at the mention of Zack's name. He settled in his chair, staring ahead at Kunsel's grey eyes, finding them suddenly watery.

Cloud wasn't sure how old Kunsel was, but he knew he wasn't much older than he was. He was probably Zack's age, if Zack had still been alive - thirty, maybe thirty-one. But Kunsel had a sad look behind his eyes that seemed to age him despite his scruffy ganglyness.

Talking about Zack, though, seemed to age him further.

When Cloud didn't respond, Kunsel was encouraged to continue. "Zack played a lot of sports with the other boys in Gongaga, and since my village was so small, sometimes we would go there to play. I met him when I was about sixteen, a year or so before I left to join SOLDIER. He was the most popular, well-liked, and easy-going kid in that entire town. I was really skinny back then, and I had doubts about applying for the military. Thought I'd never cut it. But Zack encouraged me, and when we signed up, we traveled to Midgar together. If it wasn't for him, I don't think I'd be where I am now."

Cloud raised an eyebrow, surprised by this, but Kunsel kept on going. "You were close to him, weren't you?"

Cloud scratched the back of his neck, looking back down at his food but suddenly not interested in it anymore. He felt his stomach begin to harden, spots dancing in front of his vision as an image of Zack, bleeding into the rain and trying desperately to clutch his dead wife on the side of the highway invaded his mind. He grimaced, swallowing the rock in his throat forcefully.

"Yeah," he finally admitted, slowly looking back up at Kunsel, finding a purely empathetic look in his comrade's eyes as he stared back. "He was my best friend. I… didn't have many friends growing up. Not in Midgar and not in Nibelheim. Zack was… different."

Cloud drew in a breath, his thoughts spinning as they became overcome with grief again, and he began to wonder what was compelling these words to rush out of him like this, why he was sharing any of this with Kunsel at all. All it was doing was brightening the image of the highway and the Zolom and the rain, his best friend's words echoing in his ears as Cloud wondered why it had been Zack to die and not him.

"Yeah, I know what you mean," Kunsel agreed. "Zack had the same effect on me, too. I guess we all miss him."

Cloud started to say something else, but Kunsel's PHS was ringing loudly in his pocket, and Cloud was unsurprised, though slightly amused, to hear that the ringtone was a playback of that same country singer's song.

Kunsel answered it, and Cloud tried his best to polish off the rest of his lunch, despite how unsettled and clenched his stomach felt. While Kunsel took the call, Cloud washed everything down, trying to ease his insides while his brain fought fruitlessly to dissipate the ugly and haunting memories.

"Yes, sir. I understand, sir."

Kunsel hung up the PHS, storing it back into his pocket with a light sigh as he turned back to Cloud.

"Director Lazard wants us to return to the Tower right away. He wants our reports, and he wants to speak with you."

Cloud rolled his eyes visibly, instantly feeling the hot wash of irritation float over his skin as his fingers twitched against his water bottle. Why the fuck couldn't Lazard just leave him alone? He had been doing his job with no serious qualms for the last couple of weeks. To his knowledge, Kunsel had kept his word and said nothing about the drake snafu. Why did he keep harassing him?

"Fine," Cloud muttered, unable to keep the disgust from his tone.

As they walked back to the Shinra Tower, Kunsel was mostly quiet, while Cloud found his thoughts were loud, infiltrating his head with warring images of the past, of Tifa as a young, pretty teenaged girl and of Zack, blood flooding his sky blue eyes as he drew his last breath, their hands clasped together. The competing feelings of longing and loss were somehow at once the same and yet altogether different, leaving him feeling a thick, choking tightness in his chest that diffused into his throat, making it difficult for him to swallow or breathe.

When they arrived, Kunsel splintered away from him with a lazy wave, resuming his seat at his desk to finish his reports. Heaving an uncomfortable sigh, Cloud rolled his shoulders and made his way for the elevators, trekking the unpleasant climb up to the 49th floor.

He tried to keep the penetrating aggravation from boiling up inside of him, but after the way his daydreaming that morning and his lunchtime conversation with Kunsel had kicked up his most deeply held and emotional thoughts, his concentration was suffering badly and he was in little mood for the prickly nuisance of Lazard's supervision and his propensity to be needlessly meddling.

Passing his secretary with little more than a passing glance, Cloud made his way inside of the Director's office, finding him this afternoon seated behind his desk with a spread of reports and piles of files in front of him. He had shed his suit jacket and was sitting with the white sleeves of his silk shirt rolled up to his elbows beneath his navy blue vest.

To Cloud's surprise, there was a woman in the room, standing beside his desk, looking over his shoulder at one of the open files that were scattered there. She was young, dark ash-brown hair reaching her shoulders with a thick spill of bangs, light blue eyes that were shot through by the mid-afternoon sunlight streaming in through Lazard's endless walls of windows. She was wearing a sharp, well-tailored dark blue suit, a pair of wire-framed glasses hanging from her neck.

Her unexpected appearance caught him slightly off-guard, and Cloud hesitated a little, not expecting to share this already annoying visit with anyone else. She looked up and offered him a warm smile as he quietly closed the door behind him, and Lazard then sat up straighter, putting down the papers he had been looking over.

"First Class Strife," he greeted, "Please, come in."

Cloud bit back his irritation at the useless title, trying to swallow the frown that was threatening to display itself across the lower half of his face. Instead, he remained as stoic as he possibly could, wordlessly crossing into the room and sinking into one of the chairs across from Lazard's desk, saying nothing as he stared ahead at the Director.

"…Good afternoon," Lazard greeted awkwardly at his silence, leaning back slightly in his chair. "How is your day going?"

"Great," Cloud deadpanned. "Why am I here?"

Lazard looked instantly amused by his question, and it did nothing to alleviate the pressure Cloud felt in his chest from his frustration. The Director swiveled in his chair slightly, turning to face the woman, who was standing patiently at his side, still wearing the same placid smile. He lifted a hand in a gesture.

"Strife, have you met Professor Rayleigh?"

Cloud looked up at her then, meeting her eyes, and her smile warmed a little as their gazes connected. He held hers for a moment before he turned back to Lazard in complete boredom.

"No," he answered simply.

"Jessica Rayleigh is one of our chief research psychologists," Lazard continued. "She specializes in occupational, trauma, and grief therapies."

Instantly, Cloud felt his entire torso tighten, forcing him to sit upwards in his chair as his irritation transformed into dread. He crossed his arms over his chest, his fingers curling and pressing into his biceps.

"Nice to meet you, First Class Strife," Rayleigh greeted, her voice low but even more youthful than her face.

He said nothing, letting the deepening scowl on his face do the talking.

Lazard seemed to detect his hesitation and trepidation, because he leaned forward with a small smile, catching Cloud's eyes with his and forcing him into suddenly uncomfortable eye contact.

"Cloud," he began, Cloud hating it when this man used his first name, "I know we've discussed this before, but I remain concerned about your wellbeing following the accident that took place last October. You haven't properly dealt with the fallout of the event, and I believe that is a failing of this company for not providing you with the proper resources."

Cloud continued to stare ahead, the heat in his throat searing, his palms sweaty and shaky. His mind flared with a dozen responses, but all of them involved swear words that were probably best not said in the presence of a woman.

Lazard just went on, though, seemingly acquainted with his petulant bouts of silence. "I know you have shared your concerns about the lack of benefits in the contractor's union, and I share your grievance. And it is an issue I intend to address with my brother." He paused then, clearing his throat slightly. "In the meantime, Professor Rayleigh, who provides outpatient services to SOLDIER, has taken a look at your file and agreed to provide counseling to both you and First Class Fair's son, free of charge."

"My file?" Cloud questioned a little too roughly, dropping his arms from his chest to fall flat on his knees, blowing past the rest of Lazard's statement.

Lazard leaned back, working to keep a measured facade on his face, but Cloud didn't miss the way that the Director's left eye twitched.

"Every employee, every SOLDIER has a personnel file, Strife," Lazard informed him. "Information we keep on staff, their assignments and performance, and other pertinent details that help us with certain Human Resource decisions."

"What other 'pertinent details'?" Cloud nearly snapped, his tone already infected with venom, and he was leaning forward, his jaw setting into a hard, sharp line.

Lazard opened his mouth to respond, but Rayleigh took a step forward, intervening. "Cloud," she began, and Cloud was then wondering why the fuck she was using his first name. "I think that, given the circumstances, I can be a great deal of help to you and to the boy… Denzel? That was a very traumatic experience, and it pains me greatly to learn that over a year has passed and you and the family were not provided any therapeutic supports by the Company. I'd like to do my best to rectify that."

"Not interested," Cloud responded at once.

"Cloud," Lazard cut in again, setting Cloud's neck on fire. "I really think that you should consider -"

But Cloud was instantly pushing to his feet. "I said," he seethed, "Not. Interested."

With that, Cloud turned and made his way for the door, his heart racing a wild rhythm, his face tight and his lips pursed together.

"Strife," Director Lazard called from behind him in a stern voice before he reached the door.

Cloud paused, rolling his eyes to himself before he exhaled carefully and then turned back to Lazard.

"Turn your reports in today," Lazard ordered. "On time. Close of business."

Keeping his mouth shut, Cloud turned and left, resisting the urge to slam the door.

He didn't finish his reports that afternoon.

---

Cloud finally did finish his reports by the end of the week, and moved into the weekend in a thick fog, spending most of his time day-drinking beers in front of the television in his living room. Denzel stayed in his room and played on his tablet or read; Cloud still hadn't figured out how to really spend meaningful time with him in a way that was not completely awkward. Instead, he played video games as he spun out in a loose haze of inebriation, playing a wartime shooter that he had once battled Zack against. Somehow, playing it in single-player mode wasn't nearly as gratifying, and eventually, Cloud tossed the controller to the side, feeling a dull pang in the center of his chest at mundane memories that he once thought would hold no meaning at all.

That Saturday evening, he sat with Denzel in the living room as they chewed through another pepperoni pie. Denzel had downloaded a piano app on his tablet, and was quietly practicing the notes and melodies that Tifa had taught him on the device. Cloud sat back on the couch and turned the television up, flipping through channels, absently trying to ignore Denzel's innocent playing at his side. But when the familiar notes began to resound from the tinny speakers of the tablet, Cloud felt a familiar itch in his blood that had him curling his fingers at the hem of his sweatshirt.

Do, Re, Me, Ti, La -

"Could you take that in your room?" Cloud found himself suddenly snapping.

Denzel's fingers fell away from the tablet, and he glanced up at Cloud, somewhat startled. Almost instantly, Cloud felt regretful for his words and his tone, especially when the look on Denzel's face faltered.

"Sorry Cloud - "

"No, Denzel," he interrupted, feeling the pang at the side of his skull again. "I didn't mean to get angry. It's fine."

Denzel sat there for a moment, quietly looking at his device as the screen dimmed and then darkened. Cloud's insides began to quiver with the desire to do something, to act, to reach out for Denzel and physically reassure him. But he was rooted in place, his arms limp at his sides as his palms began to go numb.

"I'll play in my room," Denzel said in a tiny voice, still not looking up at Cloud, and at that moment, Cloud felt like a massive asshole. "I'm feeling sleepy anyway."

The boy got up, taking his tablet with him, leaving his greasy paper plate on the coffee table as he quietly shuffled away, into his bedroom, shutting his door down the hall with a soft click that resonated in Cloud's mako-enhanced hearing. And the entire time, Cloud watched him disappear, frozen in place, his mind spinning with his constant, unending failing at the simplest of things.

When Denzel was gone, he heaved a massive sigh, now tired of beer and ready to graduate on to something with far greater potency. He went into the kitchen and found a half-full bottle of whiskey, grabbing a drinking glass meant for water and filling it almost halfway. He brought both the glass and the bottle back into the living room, falling back onto the couch with his feet on the coffee table, sipping in silent misery as he began to flip through channels with the hope of distracting himself from the constant whirlwinds in his mind.

He stopped on a film he'd remembered seeing years ago - a romance about two young lovers who had fallen for each other one summer as teenagers, but the girl's parents had tried to keep them apart because the boy was poor and from the rough side of town. The girl moved away to the city with her parents, and the boy eventually went away to the war. The girl married someone else, before years later, they found each other, and began a tumultuous and provocative affair that got them both into trouble.

Cloud had always thought this movie was lame and sappy, the kind of film that girls liked to sit around and watch and waste boxes of tissues to. But it wasn't until he sat there that Saturday night, watching with his heart heavy and a cup of whiskey flavoring his lips, did he realize how much it mirrored his own love affair with Tifa. As he watched the two hopeless characters on screen, the booze warming his blood and fueling both his desires and his despondencies, he found himself drowning in Tifa, thinking about her and only her, soft red lips and wide scarlet eyes, black hair and ivory skin, until the movie was rolling towards the credits, tears in his eyes as he passed out on the couch with the television still on.

Sunday came around quickly enough - Denzel waking him from his stupor on the couch sometime before noon - and Cloud realized that it wouldn't be long before Denzel's next lesson with Tifa. He kicked himself out of his haze, eating leftover pizza for breakfast with Denzel before dragging himself into the shower to scrub himself out of his fog.

After dropping Denzel off at Seventh Heaven, Cloud found himself anxious as he waited for the two hours to pass before he picked Denzel up. He hadn't seen Tifa off at the drop-off - he'd hightailed it out of there on his bike as soon as Denzel made his way for the doors - but he knew he couldn't avoid her at pickup time, especially not after their conversation last weekend. His mind burned up the entire time he drove through the city to clear his head and steady his nerves, and by the time he returned to Seventh Heaven, he'd had a chance to breathe, but he couldn't chase the tremors from his nerves.

As was becoming habit, Tifa was waiting by the door when he stepped inside the bar. Today, she was dressed in a skirted, denim jumper over a white, long sleeve t-shirt, her legs wrapped in white over-the-knee nylons and her feet tucked into white sneakers with blue laces. Her hair was pulled up into a thick bun on the top of her head, giving space for long tendrils to hang around her face, silver teardrop earrings glittering against her throat and her fringe brushed carefully to one side of her forehead.

She looked so goddamn vibrant and sexy again, and Cloud realized he was pulling at his collar as she shut the door behind him, his eyes mapping trails along the tight curves of her outfit against her body.

The bar was more packed than usual - most of the booths were full, and Cloud didn't immediately see Denzel or the little girl, Marlene, with whom he had become friends. He did see a familiar face - Biggs, his mechanic - hanging out with the auburn-haired waitress by the bar, and when he spotted him across the room, he tipped his head and offered Cloud a wave.

"You know Biggs?" Tifa asked him, her voice too light and too sweet, and Cloud could already feel the sweat gathering on his collarbone.

"Yeah," he answered, despising how his voice was already dropping in octaves. Why the fuck was she wearing that outfit? Why did she have her hair up like that? Her neck resembled a vanilla creamsicle, good enough for him to eat. "He's my mechanic. Is Denzel ready to go?"

Tifa offered him a bright smile, coyly ducking her head away from him, and Cloud noticed then that her lips were sparkling with a red gloss under the bar's dim lighting. "Actually, we're having some bar pies in the back dining room. Why don't you join us? Save you from having to cook dinner tonight."

Cloud hesitated, not wanting to tell her that he and Denzel had already eaten pizza twice that week.

"Of course," she continued, her voice colored by incoming laughter, "You still haven't learned how to cook, hm?"

Cloud felt his face erupt with fire, her teasing dousing him with gasoline. He opened his mouth to respond, to level a protest or a retort, but then her hand was on his arm again, pulling him along inside the bar and burning him alive.

He followed her wordlessly, powerless to resist or stop himself, his boots carrying him behind her. Cloud tried to focus on his breathing and not the way that the pressure from her hold on his arm seemed to be collapsing his bones into ash.

They reached the rear dining room, which was a little quieter than the bar's front section. Cloud spotted a long table in the center of the room, finding Denzel sitting next to Marlene, both children laughing, Denzel far more shyly, over slices of pizza. Several others were sitting at the table, including the tall brown-skinned man and the portly one whose plate was stacked with slices.

Seeing the group of Tifa's friends, Cloud felt the resistance continue to build in his body. But Tifa was pushing him, her palm gentle but warm on his sleeve. Denzel looked up at him and offered him a smile, and Cloud stopped by a chair that Tifa led him to.

"Hey everyone," Tifa started, pulling out the chair beside him. "This is Cloud, Denzel's father. He's going to join us for some pizza. Cloud, this is Barret Wallace, my friend who co-owns Seventh Heaven, and Wedge, who also helps us out around here and with some other jobs. You know Marlene, right? Barret's daughter?"

Cloud let his eyes scan the table, landing on each person's face as Tifa introduced them. Barret had taken off his sunglasses and was staring straight at him, glowering threateningly directly into his face, arms folded over his chest and not saying a word. The man named Wedge was smiling at him, dropping a half-eaten slice of pizza onto his plate.

"Hey, Cloud," Wedge greeted him. "You gotta try some of Tifa's famous bar pies. Her recipe is what brings half of Midgar here to eat."

"He's exaggerating," Tifa said demurely, standing a little too close to Cloud, a wave of her body heat slipping through him as she pulled out her chair. "Have a seat and relax, Cloud," she added softly.

The way that she said his name had him fighting to try and capture his breath again. Steadying himself, Cloud obeyed and slipped out of his leather jacket, hanging it over the back of his chair and finding that he was falling into a very old rhythm of happily doing anything that Tifa Lockhart told him to do.

Wedge liked to talk. A lot. Cloud tried to muddle through the questions that he asked, doing his best to ignore the way his hangover from the previous night's abuse seemed to flare right back up again at all of the incessant chatter. Tifa handed him a plate with two slices, and Cloud realized that he was starving. He dug in immediately as an excuse to avoid engaging in too much conversation with Wedge, realizing that Tifa's pizza was at least a hundred times better than any of the franchise delivery stuff he and Denzel had been consuming.

The entire time he ate, he watched Denzel happily chatter with Marlene, the younger girl teasing him and laughing, and occasionally, Denzel would glance over at him and smile.

Meanwhile, Barret was mostly silent, speaking only when Tifa or Marlene addressed him, staring at Cloud as he sipped his beer. Cloud felt pierced by his hazel eyes, and avoided looking over at them as he ate.

"How's the pizza?" Tifa asked at his side after a moment, turning in his direction, lowering her volume. "Do you like it?"

"It's really good," he answered her, facing her and catching the ruby sparkles in her eyes as she looked up at him. "You always were a really good cook."

She smiled up at him, parting those juicy red lips to speak and sending a spark through his brain, but whatever thought she was entertaining was interrupted by a rich voice behind them.

"Okay, Wedge!" the woman with the ponytail was behind them, pulling Biggs along with her. "Your turn to cover the front. Biggs and I are hungry."

"Ah, man," Wedge instantly complained. "But I'm still eating!"

Cloud resisted the urge to laugh, but it died when the woman came right up to him, leaning over him to get a good look at his face.

"So, you're Tifa's old flame, Cloud, right? I'm Jessie. Nice to finally meet you. I've heard a lot about you, y'know. That bike is super hot."

Cloud felt his entire face glow with heat, hearing Barret grunt loudly, Biggs groaning Jessie's name at her side. Tifa leaned forward, her eyes wide.

"Jessie!" Tifa cried, her face now matching her eyes and lips, and Cloud felt himself melt into the floor, even as Jessie made her way around the table with laughter.

"What, Tifa?" she went on. "It's been weeks, and you haven't introduced him to any of us yet."

Cloud could almost feel Tifa stewing in her seat beside him, but he could only focus on his own embarrassment, floored by the fact that she had shared with her friends that they had once been lovers. He tried to gather his wits, not even registering when Biggs clapped him on the back and gave him a reassuring, sympathetic smile.

"You know what," Tifa was suddenly saying. "Wedge, don't worry about covering the front. I've got it." She rose to her feet, and Cloud couldn't stop the way the sweat pooled in a line under his shirt, straight across his torso.

But then her warm, gentle palm was wrapped around his bicep again, and he was putty on the floorboards.

"Join me?" she asked, her voice having dropped another thousand decibels. "I'll make you a drink."

Cloud felt like every eye in the room was on him, but Tifa didn't wait for his response, simply moving past him and heading into the front of the bar again, expecting him to follow.

He immediately got to his feet.

Cloud followed her, watching her hips as she sashayed behind the bar. He tried to snap out of his fog, his dizzying thoughts of the past thirty minutes leaving him feeling drunker than any of the benders he'd gone on recently. Mercifully, there were no other patrons currently sitting at the bar, and he slid carefully onto one stool, willing his hands to stop shaking as he sat across from her.

She leaned over the counter, unwittingly offering him a generous view of her breasts, and he stopped himself just in time from licking his lips. Carefully, he lifted his eyes up to meet hers, catching a ghost of a smile on her face.

"What can I get you this time?"

"Scotch," he answered without thinking about it.

She nodded, then turned around and reached for a bottle of Hagur's, the same imported whiskey from Nibelheim that they'd shared that day when he'd offended her with his stupid questions. Just the thought of that moment had his tongue swelling up in his mouth, and he urged himself to get it together.

She poured them each a drink, then whirled back around to face him, placing the tumblers in front of them. He picked up his glass as soon as it was available, but Tifa clinked hers against it before he could bring his up to his lips.

"I'm sorry about Jessie," she said quietly.

"What did you tell her?" he couldn't stop himself.

"I…" she trailed off, looking down into her drink and away from him, her cheeks staining pink, and Cloud used the opportunity of her silence to sip. She shook her head a little, clearly embarrassed.

"I just… I just told her that we used to date, a long time ago. She's very nosy and very perceptive. I didn't tell her anything else. I just wanted to get her off my back."

Cloud nodded, sipping again, not sure if he was pleased or disappointed by her response. Used to date was a pale representation of the facts.

He noticed, then, that she was suddenly rubbing both of her wrists, her hands alternating between them as she stretched her fingers out. She grimaced slightly, and Cloud leaned back, something prickling him at the sight of her appearing in pain.

"You okay?" he asked her, once again unable to stop the softness in his tone.

She met eyes with him then, and she nodded, dropping her hands. "Oh, yeah. Just a little stiffness, you know? I'm fine."

He didn't say anything, and a moment of silence passed between them as Tifa began to sip her drink. At one point, a customer called her over for a beer, and she disappeared to fetch it for him, leaving Cloud to stew again in his own thoughts.

What the fuck was he doing here? He should have taken Denzel home nearly an hour ago. He shouldn't be sitting here, his belly full of her warm, delicious cooking, sitting under the appraising and curious eyes of her friends, sitting across from her at her fucking bar and tiptoeing around their pasts with her.

He should never have brought Denzel for these fucking lessons in the first place.

"So, Denzel," she began, as if hearing his thoughts when she returned. "He did great today, as usual. He's learned at least three tunes that he can play well when reading the music."

"That's great," Cloud responded, his voice too low again. "He's got an app on his tablet. He's been practicing at home."

Tifa smiled, and it lit up her entire face. "That's wonderful! I'm so happy that he's really taking an interest."

"Yeah," Cloud agreed, and looking up at Tifa, her eyes sparkling at her cheeks bright, he couldn't help but offer a whisper of a smile back. "He's really becoming friends with Marlene, huh?"

Tifa giggled, and the sound sent fire into his lungs, making his chest feel tight, reminding him of oh so long ago. "Oh, yes. In fact, I think he has a little crush on her. They're really cute. Might have to have that talk with him earlier than you planned, Dad."

At that, Cloud smirked but blushed, looking down to sip his drink again, realizing he had never given those kinds of conversations with Denzel much thought, and it kind of terrified him.

"I don't think your friend Barret is too crazy about me," he said, changing the subject.

Tifa smirked at him, then swallowed back another drink, setting her glass on the counter as she carefully wiped the corner of her mouth. As she did so, Cloud noticed that today, her fingernails were painted a light, shimmery coral-red, almost matching the gloss on her lips.

"Don't mind him," she responded, leaning forward again, and Cloud found himself scooting back on his stool, growing warm from her sudden closeness, unable to pull his eyes from the fullness of her breasts against the front of her jumper. "He's a little overprotective, that's all. He's like that with everyone."

"He like that with every guy who comes around here to see you?" Cloud couldn't stop himself from asking, and as soon as the words left his lips, he wondered again what the fuck was wrong with him and why he was so goddamn impulsive.

He saw Tifa's lip twitch a little, but even as her eyes widened slightly in surprise, she remained leaning over the counter in his direction. "Did you come by here to see me, Cloud? I thought you were here to bring your son for piano lessons."

She was teasing him, and Cloud felt his cheeks heat up, knowing they were turning bright red, and he turned away from her with his glass, aware that he was the cause of his own destruction.

After a moment, Tifa finally leaned back and stood up straight, rolling her neck slightly, out of his immediate space, and he felt like he was finally able to breathe a little bit again.

"I'm just messing with you," she finally said, tilting her head to one side. "Besides, no guys come by to see me, I can assure you."

"I find that hard to believe," Cloud shot back, the words flying from his lips unprovoked once again.

Tifa blushed, turning away slightly with her lips pursed, and she sipped her drink again. A silence fell as Cloud drank, and a customer came up to the bar, pulling away Tifa's attention again for a moment.

Cloud took the opportunity to finish his drink, feeling dizzy from the rollercoaster ride of his brief conversation with Tifa, not sure if they were flirting or just managing to dig open the scabs on old wounds. He was feeling flushed again, and the alcohol certainly wasn't helping.

When Tifa returned, Cloud was already at his feet, pushing his empty glass towards her.

"It's getting late," he told, his voice with its low tenor again, and Cloud cleared his throat, trying to recapture some of its strength. "I should be getting Denzel home."

"Okay," Tifa conceded, dipping her head slightly as she nodded. "Um, Cloud?"

"Yeah, Teef?"

She was blushing suddenly, he realized, reaching for both of their glasses and moving them out of the way in the space between them over the counter, before she leaned over again, Cloud's brain fizzling and his heart starting to pick up pace in his chest.

"You think we could exchange numbers?" Tifa asked, keeping her voice quiet and tiny as if she were afraid someone was listening, as if she were trading secrets with him. She was still looking down, but when she continued, she looked up at him under her lashes, and Cloud felt as if she had slammed her fist into his sternum. "You know, just so we can keep up on things?"

Cloud rubbed the back of his neck, unable to tear his gaze away from her but suddenly feeling like the entire building was on fire. His thoughts were racing, but they were incoherent, stunned by the notion that Tifa Lockhart had just asked him for his number.

"Y-yeah, sure," he answered, his throat clogged and choked, but his words rushing out like a gulf stream.

Tifa smiled again, relief washing over her features at his easy assent, and then she was digging into the pocket of her jumper, pulling out her PHS, a slim, silver device.

"Just put your number in my PHS, and I'll text you so you have mine," she told him, her voice too sweet, pure honey in his ears.

Cloud stared at her hand, at her long, smooth fingers and her prettily painted nails, the device gleaming under the bar's lights. He tried desperately to stop his hand from shaking as he reached out to take it from her, and as her knuckles brushed against his fingers, he was at once grateful for and damning his gloves that kept him from feeling her skin.

Hoping she couldn't detect the amount of concentration it took him to cease his trembling, he carefully opened her contacts app and typed in his phone number, leaving his name simply as 'Cloud'. He saved it, then deadened the screen, handing it back to her.

She slipped the PHS back into her pocket. "I'll text you later," she promised again.

"Okay," he responded, way too eagerly.

For the rest of the night, on his ride through the sectors and back home with Denzel, Cloud's PHS was burning a hole in his pocket as he waited, until around eleven PM, her message finally came through, brightening his screen and maybe his life.

555-777X: This is Teef. ✨

---

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2007 |April 16th

Poking and Prodding

The following Saturday morning, Tifa stood behind the bar at Seventh Heaven, brewing a pot of coffee, humming quietly to herself as she waited for it to percolate. She was singing the same tune again, the one that had always reminded her of Cloud.

It had been almost a week since she had seen him last, but since they'd reconciled at least somewhat - aiming to be amicable, to maybe even be friends - things were beginning to look up, and Tifa could feel the old feelings that had been stirring inside of her ever since their reunion rise like a phoenix in her chest, bringing with it all of its fiery warmth, and she knew that it was no longer just about trying to avoid a dangerous relapse in her disease.

No, now, it was becoming about something more, about a tenderness and deep longings that she had been burying for over a decade, reemerging and consuming her attention and her focus. She'd found herself beginning to daydream about him, unable to tear him and his messy blonde hair and deep, cobalt blue eyes from her mind, that wild mako rim intriguing her, reminding her of how much time and space had been lost between them. She couldn't stop thinking about the sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw, the way he still retained some of that youthful boyishness that had reeled her in years ago but had somehow perfected and sharpened it with age, as if it were possible for him to grow both cuter and more handsome at the same time. And she definitely couldn't stop thinking about the definition of his form, how he remained slim but had become cut and well-defined from his years in the military, no longer a skinny kid with his hands slung low in his pockets.

She also couldn't stop thinking about how much he had changed. Even though they were no longer dancing on eggshells (at least, not quite so much), he was still so different than the Cloud she remembered. The Cloud from her memories was a little reckless and liked to laugh, was sarcastic and confrontational and flirty but also shy in the most endearing way. This Cloud, the Cloud who had returned to her, was surrounded by walls, afraid to let his guard down, refusing to crack a smile, biting back his wit until it tumbled past his lips with an improper nastiness.

She had to admit, as much as she tried to restrain herself, that she was yearning to peel back those layers, to get the real Cloud to emerge, and it had her wanting to tease and goad him, to flirt with him and maybe even show a little skin, if only to get him to smile at her again the way that he once had.

That past Sunday following Denzel's latest lesson had gone better than she'd expected. He'd actually sat at her side, ate dinner with her and her friends, however silently, and endured their teasing without snapping or losing his patience. He then joined her for a drink at the bar, and Tifa didn't miss the way that his eyes traveled over her body, didn't miss when he tore his away from hers in embarrassment when theirs held one another's for too long or when she leaned in closer to him.

And then, he'd given her his number.

Tifa wasn't sure what had driven the impulse to ask. It wasn't like she needed his personal PHS number for them to carry on the business of Denzel's lessons. He brought Denzel by on time for his lessons every week, and always paid for each lesson promptly. If she needed to reach Denzel - which she hadn't yet had any reason to - she always had Denzel's number.

But that didn't stop her deeper motivations - motivations to grow closer to Cloud, to get to know him better, and to find out what happened to the boy she used to know - from driving her to ask, however impetuous it seemed at the moment. And despite the look of surprise on his face, he'd readily agreed.

Even so, she'd had his number for a week, and aside from her reaching out to make sure he had hers, neither of them had taken the opportunity to use this new binding between them to communicate.

Her bigger issue, though, was beyond her feelings for Cloud and was on the impact he was having on her physically. While the initial spikes of symptoms his reappearance in her life had triggered had quelled somewhat, there was no doubt that she was still ill and still deteriorating. She masked and hid the soreness in her body with painkillers, drove away her fatigue by beginning to sneak cups of coffee, even though caffeine was no good for the inflammation in her body. And although she was not weeping the way that she had been, she was still prone to overly emotional responses, and had to be very careful to avoid things that might trigger her.

Nonetheless, crossing that first step over the bridge with Cloud had been a positive step in the right direction, and even if it wasn't reversing her progression, it was at least helping to keep her from getting worse, at least for the moment.

Tifa was in a particularly good mood, because her close friend, Marle, was coming by that morning to have breakfast with her. It had been a while since she had seen the older schoolteacher, and she was looking forward to spending some time with her.

Tifa opened the bar; it was still early, and she usually did not get very many customers before noon. Jessie didn't even typically arrive until the lunch rush, which was when she took over for a few hours so that Tifa could focus on other tasks, or, offer piano lessons to clients who scheduled later appointments in the day. Even so, she occasionally was visited by a patron who wanted a quick breakfast on the way to work, and so Tifa kept the bar open, never one to turn down business when she knew they could all use the money.

Marle arrived a little before ten, dressed in long beige skirts with her hair tied back away from her face, a shawl around her shoulders. Tifa smiled when she came inside, turning from where she was pouring coffee for the sole pair of patrons who were sitting in a booth near a window.

"Marle!" she called across the room. "Have a seat. I'll be right there."

Marle nodded, finding a seat at a booth along the windows but on the opposite side of the door. Tifa finished serving her customers before she retreated into the kitchens, retrieving a fresh pot of coffee and some egg soufflés she'd kept warming in the oven for Marle's arrival.

She brought everything out, placing the plates and cups on the table in front of Marle, who instantly got to her feet, insisting on helping. Tifa shooed her away.

"I've got it."

Eventually, Tifa finally sat across from her with a small huff, blowing her bangs out of her face. As soon as she sat, she felt a spike of pain shoot up her shins and to her knees, and she winced slightly, pushing the sensation down as she inhaled.

"Tifa, my dear girl," Marle greeted her, leaning over the table. "How are you? Have you been doing well?"

Tifa offered Marle a smile. Although she and Marle were good friends - Marle treated her as if she were her granddaughter, in fact - Tifa did not share with her every intimate detail of her physical malady the way she had with Barret or even Zangan. Still, Marle was aware that Tifa was suffering from Star Scar, and for that reason, she couldn't stop worrying over her.

In fact, it had been Marle who suggested Tifa become a piano teacher as a means to cope with the loss of her career, thanks to her affliction.

"I'm doing fine," Tifa responded, and it was mostly true. She stared at her cup of tea, wishing it was coffee, but she'd already had one cup today and that had been risky enough. "Things have been going well. How are you?"

Marle smiled, stirring cream into her cup. "I can't complain. This is the testing season, which you know I hate. It stresses the poor children out so much, so it becomes very difficult. I may retire next year."

Tifa laughed, finally bringing her tea up to her lips. "You say that every year, Marle."

Marle laughed, her voice raspy and thick. "I may be serious this time."

"Speaking of children," Tifa cut in, "I never got a chance to thank you for your referral. Denzel?"

"Ahh," Marle conceded, picking up her fork to slice into the soufflé. "Yes, a wonderful child, isn't he? I'm so glad it's been working out. How is he doing with his lessons, Tifa?"

"Very well," Tifa responded. "He's very bright, and he seems to have a natural talent."

"So I noticed," Marle agreed. "He did very well in music class. He was struggling a great deal in school before you began to tutor him, Tifa."

Tifa set down her tea, now reaching for her own fork, but pausing slightly at Marle's words, finding them somewhat surprising. "Really?"

"Fighting, failing his classes, that sort of thing."

Tifa's eyebrows shot up on her face. "He really doesn't seem like that sort of kid."

Marle finished chewing, then swallowed and set her fork down. "I don't think that he is at all. But… he's very troubled. He suffered a very traumatic event, and was orphaned."

Duh. Tifa sat back, instantly remembering and wondering why that hadn't dawned on her. "Cloud did tell me about that."

At this, it was Marle's turn to raise an eyebrow. "So you've met the boy's father, hm?"

Tifa could detect something suddenly mischievous in Marle's tone, and she leveled her gaze with her pale blue eyes carefully, catching her sudden smirk. "Yes, I have," she said, without revealing much else.

"A nice young man," Marle commented, continuing to eat in careful, birdlike bites. "Also dealing with so much, but doing his best, I suppose."

Tifa was intrigued by this, immediately thinking about Cloud's weighted blue eyes and his quiet stillness, about how different he was from the boy who lived deep in her memories. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, he was there for the accident."

"The accident?"

"The one that killed Denzel's parents, Tifa."

Tifa set her fork down, suddenly jolted by this knowledge. Neither Cloud nor Denzel had shared how Denzel's parents had died - Cloud had made a vague, passing comment about an accident, but he had quickly shut the conversation down, and Tifa never pursued it. And she didn't think it an appropriate question to ask Denzel. But she had no idea that Cloud too had been involved, and suddenly, her heart was picking up speed in her chest.

"What happened?" she asked.

Marle glanced at Tifa as if surprised that she didn't know this information already, but then relaxed her features. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that he didn't say anything to you about it. I think that young man is going to blow a gasket one of these days, the way he keeps things bottled up inside."

Tifa found she couldn't argue with that.

"Cloud and Denzel's father both worked for Shinra," Marle went on then. "Cloud was picking Denzel and his parents up from a vacation in Junon, I believe. On their way home, their vehicle crashed during a rainstorm on the expressway near the swamps, and they were then attacked by a Zolom. Cloud and Denzel survived, but Denzel's parents were both killed. Cloud saw the whole thing happen, though he'd gotten Denzel away to safety before the Zolom attacked."

Tifa brought her hands up to her mouth so quickly and in such shock that her shoulders ached with the jerky movement. She blinked in disbelief.

"That's horrible!" her mind was racing, torn between thoughts of sweet, young, innocent Denzel witnessing something so traumatic, and thoughts of Cloud, likely living with regret and guilt, and suddenly, she was filled with a lot more clarity about why he was the way he was, cold and disinterested and short-tempered.

"Indeed it is," Marle agreed. "Denzel wasn't my student at the time - he was in Folia's class last year - but you know how we teachers talk. As soon as I saw his name on my roster, I knew I would be dealing with a handful. Cloud tries, but… well, Tifa, between you and I, the burden he's assumed is probably not any fairer to him than it is to Denzel. He's just as shell-shocked as Denzel is, I'm afraid. And he's a lonely man."

At this, Marle was now looking Tifa directly in her eyes, something different in her stare. Tifa caught on quickly and bristled, reaching again for her fork to finish her breakfast. More times than she dared recall, Marle had tried to play matchmaker with her and one of her students' single father parents or other charming young men that she knew in the sector, but Tifa was never interested in any of them. She said nothing in response.

"I'm glad that he's bringing Denzel to you for lessons," Marle went on when Tifa remained silent. "I don't think that he gets to spend much time with other people, much less women."

Tifa dropped her fork again. "Marle…"

But Marle simply laughed. "Oh, Tifa, darling," she rasped and then coughed. "I'll never understand how such a talented and beautiful woman like you could remain single as long as you have. My, when I was your age -"

"Marle!"

Marle cackled, but stopped, instead moving in on her coffee and drinking again. "Alright, alright. I'm sorry, Tifa. It's just… when I first met him and saw how melancholy he was, I thought of you immediately."

Tifa stared back at her, wondering if there was any way in holy hell that Marle knew of her history with Cloud. It was impossible, unless he'd said something about it to her, which she highly doubted.

She let it drop, instead focusing her attention on Marle's empty plate.

"More soufflé'?"

---

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2007 |April 16th

New Beginnings

On Sunday morning, Tifa was staring at her PHS, Cloud's contact blank on her screen with the exception of their brief exchange last week, when she'd texted him so that he could store her number in her phone.

Tifa: This is Teef. ✨

Cloud: Got it.

She sighed, torn and conflicted on whether she should do what the impulse in her fingertips was itching to do, to reach out to him a little bit more informally, to take another tentative step forward between them, closing the gap even more.

"Tifa, watcha thinking about?"

Tifa looked up from her seat in the booth, finding Marlene standing in front of her, her head cocked to one side and her dark brown eyes wide and inquisitive. She'd just arrived for the day with Barret, who'd taken Wedge and Biggs in the basement to plan for one of their upcoming jobs.

"Oh, I was just thinking about a friend," Tifa responded. "I might send them a message to say hello. It's nice to send your friends messages. Lets them know you're thinking about them, and puts a smile on their faces."

"Is it Cloud?" Marlene asked right away.

Tifa blinked, staring back at her, stunned. She had no idea how Marlene could reach such a conclusion, and suddenly, she wondered what she and Denzel talked about when they huddled and played together in their booths and corners every week.

"…Why do you ask that, Marlene?"

"Well, he's always staring at you when he comes over, and you're always taking him away to talk to him in private," Marlene stated that last bit as if it were highly classified and maybe even scandalous. "And Denzel said he really likes you. A lot. You should send him a nice note. I bet he'd be really happy!"

Tifa scoffed, trying to shake that off, especially since it was coming from a six-year-old, but deep inside, her heart was doing somersaults.

"He's a nice man, Marlene, that's all. You know what, you're right. I'll send him something to brighten his day."

Marlene beamed at that, nodding her head enthusiastically.

"Tifa, can I go get the bar ready for Jessie?"

"Sure, sweetheart."

When the little girl bounded away, Tifa bit her bottom lip and looked back down at her PHS, reawakening the screen with a tap of her thumb and staring at Cloud's name, before the impulse returned and she was typing.

Tifa: Hey. I'm looking forward to seeing you this afternoon.

Long, agonizing moments passed, Tifa's PHS remaining silent, and she began to regret her behavior, thinking herself foolish and rash and probably getting on his nerves.

But then, her device buzzed.

Cloud: Me too.

Her heart leaped into the center of her throat, throbbing as she felt the sudden rush of disbelief and excitement transform into a wash of heat over the front of her body. She blinked a few times, staring at the screen before her thumbs began to dance across it.

Tifa: Stay for a drink after Denzel's lesson? I'll play a song for you, while the kids play.

Another long, drawn-out pause, and Tifa wondered what was going through his mind as he read her messages.

Cloud: Yeah. Okay.

She almost squealed, but bit it back, dropping her PHS on the table and staring at it as if it was the key that had just unlocked all of the secrets to the universe.

Was Cloud opening up to her?

Cloud was opening up to her.

That afternoon, Tifa found that she was having difficulty concentrating on her lesson with Denzel, she was so preoccupied thinking about Cloud and seeing him again that evening. But the boy demanded her attention, and she soon refocused, turning her focus to walking him through a new set of sheet music, now that he had mastered some of the fundamentals.

"Excellent, Denzel," Tifa praised him when he successfully practiced the bridge of Rosyln's Imagination in A Minor, a very simple tune. Denzel smiled meekly up at her, then dropped his hands from the keys.

"Tifa?"

"Yes, Denzel?"

"Do you think I'm good at the piano?"

Tifa blinked, turning her lips up into a smile at his question, wondering what was provoking it. She told him all the time how good she thought he was. "Yes, of course, darling! I think you are very talented. You're one of my best students."

Denzel offered her one of the widest smiles she'd seen, and she realized that it tore knives through her heart to see it. Here in front of her was a little boy who had been through so much already at the tender age of eight, had seen his parents die in perhaps one of the most horrific ways imaginable, was struggling through every day, and had to adjust to having a broody, ill-equipped, and equally as traumatized man as a stand-in father. He deserved to smile that way all of the time, and Tifa suddenly resolved right there that she would do anything in her power to make it so, if she could. Fighting back tears, knowing she would terrify him with her blood and her sparkles, she resisted the urge to reach out and hug him.

"Thanks, Tifa," he replied. "I… I want to join the school band next year. It's too late this year, but when I'm in fourth grade… do you think that I can?"

He turned those wide, hopeful, cornflower-blue eyes up at her then, and Tifa felt her heart burst apart in her chest.

"Of course you can, Denzel," she answered him softly, reaching out to gently cup his cheek. "You can do anything you set your mind to, sweetie."

"Will you help me?"

Tifa couldn't help the way that her smile deepened, and she leaned forward a little closer to him on the bench.

"Absolutely, Denzel."

And then, she did hug him, tight, and for a brief moment, she thought she felt a pulse of something calm and warm run through her nerves, a deadening of the lingering pain that lived inside of every tendon and tissue in her body.

Later, Tifa was still pushing down the torrent of emotions she was feeling when she walked Denzel downstairs at the end of his lesson. To her great surprise, Cloud was already there - he never arrived this early - seated at the bar, staring at his PHS and not doing much else.

In a flash, Jessie was at Tifa's side by the staircase, leaning in conspiratorially to whisper. "Loverboy has been here for the last twenty minutes," she tittered. "Is that why you're wearing that dress?"

Tifa felt her cheeks brighten, and she looked down at herself. She'd dressed that day in a three-quarter sleeve steel-gray knit dress, form-fitting but not outrageously so, belted at the waist and matched with black nylons and black patent-leather ballet flats. She glanced over at Jessie, ignoring her question.

"Just keep Denzel and Marlene busy for a while, please?" was all she said, and Jessie was instantly guffawing.

"Ha, I knew it," she gawped as she turned away. By now, Cloud had noticed their arrival, and he slid off the barstool, rising to his feet to turn to her and Denzel. But Tifa realized that he was staring directly at her, his blue eyes steely and dark, the mako a gentle, verdant glow, his arms loose at his sides as his gaze traveled upward along her shape until they met her face.

"Um," Tifa started, "I -"

"Alright!" Barret suddenly roared from where he appeared on the pinball machine that led to the basement. Marlene was bounding behind him, a ball in hand. "Weather's nice today. Who wants to go play out back?" He stomped through the bar, making his way to stand just a few feet across from Cloud.

Tifa watched in amazement as Denzel abandoned her side and ran to join Marlene, and soon, both children were jumping up and down in front of Barret in excitement.

Barret shot a stern look to Cloud. "I'll take him outside for a bit," he grubbed, "That is, if it's alright with you, SOLDIER boy."

Tifa gasped a little, knowing Barret to not be very fond of Shinra, and she could see the way that Cloud's face crumbled with dissatisfaction. But whatever nastiness was on the tip of his tongue, he held back, offering a shrug of his shoulders in response.

"Yeah, sure. Fine."

Barret nodded as if to say yeah, that's what I thought, and then rounded the kids away, leading them outside. Jessie took the opportunity to make a quick pass by where Tifa stood.

"Told ya, I got your back," she whispered, disappearing with a laugh to go wait on some customers.

That left Cloud and Tifa standing there, Cloud now running his hand across the back of his neck, no longer staring at her but watching his boots instead, the tops of his cheeks a rosy color.

Tifa cleared her throat, steeling her own nerves as she moved behind the bar and reached up for two chalices and a bottle of pinot noir. She gathered everything in her hands, and then walked over to Cloud.

"Hey," she greeted him finally, her voice dropping, growing low and soft. "Let's go upstairs for a little while?"

Cloud looked up at her then, and the green against his pupils was bright.

Tifa offered him a reassuring smile, then turned, exhaling carefully when he could no longer see her face, and led him upstairs to the studio, her heart slamming every time his heavy boots echoed across the floorboards behind her.

When they reached the studio, Tifa stopped to set the wine and the glasses on the piano's lid, taking a moment to twist the corkscrew through the cork to open it. As she squeezed and pulled, she felt her joints burn, and she winced, feeling the resistance in her hands as the strength to pop it free failed her.

Cloud was standing just a few feet away, watching her, and as the seconds ticked by, Tifa felt her forehead begin to sweat, her nerves on edge as she realized she was taking too long and drawing his attention. Her frustration began to build, and she pulled her hand away, shaking it out before trying again.

But Cloud was suddenly moving toward her, far too quickly, and at once he was standing at her side, slightly behind her, and he was so close that she could feel his warmth and smell his scent, the faint spice of his cologne and the hidden curls of mako deep in his veins.

"Let me help you," he practically whispered, and Tifa's heart was crashing and tearing, creating utter chaos in her chest.

She watched his gloveless hands twist the cork free with ease, noting the pale translucence of his skin and the dark blue veins beneath as he opened the bottle and then handed it to her before he set the corkscrew to the side. When he finally took a step back from her, she realized that she had stopped breathing.

"Th-thanks."

He was now staring at her hands, his left eye twitching for a moment before he looked up at her face again.

"Are you okay?" he asked her.

The way that he asked her that sent a pulse traveling hot through her body, reminding her of a time and place far away in the past on another side of the world. She swallowed, letting their eyes meet again, his head tilted to one side as he waited for her answer.

"I'm fine," she replied, almost breathlessly. "Have a seat. I'll pour."

He watched her for another moment, then nodded, shifting to sit on the piano's bench, once again facing away from the keys, the way that he always did.

Hands shaking, Tifa carefully poured them each a glass, willing herself not to spill any. She picked the chalices up and handed one to Cloud before she slid into a seat on the bench beside him, facing the keys and turning slightly in his direction.

Cloud sniffed the wine once he had it in his hand. "Smells fancy," he told her. "This a special occasion?" As if to emphasize, his eyes were on her body, drinking in her dress, and Tifa felt the heat flush and consume her all over again.

She tried to distract herself by thinking of a suitable response to his question. She turned to him and lifted her lips into her coyest smile, raising her glass to his for a toast.

"To new beginnings," she responded quietly.

He didn't respond, but his features did soften, remarkably so, and he nodded just enough that the tufts of his soft blonde hair floated around his face. He clinked his glass against hers, and they both sipped, Tifa suddenly glad for the foggy, mellowing effect the alcohol had over her senses when it hit her bloodstream, easing her anxiety and her excitement.

They were quiet for long moments as they drank side by side, Cloud warm next to her, still wearing his leather jacket over his dark jeans and black shirt, and Tifa realized that not everything about him had changed. Her mind began to pour over ways to initiate a conversation, thinking about Denzel and his lessons and wanting to join his school's concert band, about her conversation with Marle about his parents' death and how Cloud had been there for it all. But none of these things seemed like the right thing to bring up at the moment.

And Tifa didn't want to talk about those things, anyway.

She wanted to talk about them.

By some act of the gods, though, Cloud was turning to her and speaking first.

"Hey," he began, his eyes locked on hers. "You told me you were going to play something for me."

Tifa could distinctly feel her pulse rocking inside of her throat, and she resisted the urge to scoot closer to him on the bench. She smiled at him, nodding and turning to the keys.

"Yes," she finally found the oxygen to respond. "I thought I'd play something new this time. Would you like to hear?"

"Of course," he responded immediately.

Tifa was surprised by his eagerness, and it only made her nerves brighten and her heart rate quicken, and carefully, she reached up to set her glass on top of the piano before she stretched her fingers over the keys and began to play Hewson's Our Story, a simple but rousing melody of alternating cadences, two competing keys melding into one. She closed her eyes, letting the notes drip from her fingers, her heart swelling as the music surrounded her and infected her heart and her brain.

She was striking the final notes when she felt the familiar tension in her right wrist, and it shot straight through to her fingertips, causing her hand to fumble across the keys and ruin the last rift of the song. She opened her eyes, seeing a film of sudden tears erupt over her eyes as she stared down at the ivory, and desperately, she bit them back, gasping to keep from crying and to swallow the urge to sob.

She soon felt a steady warmth on her forearm, and she looked over to see that Cloud had turned to her, that he had moved closer, and that he had dropped his palm to her arm, his fingers grazing her corrupted wrist. She could feel his heat radiate to her bones, could feel the callouses line the undersides of his palms. Her entire body suddenly hyperaware and trembling, she turned to him, finding his eyes brightened blue and wide with concern.

"You sure you're okay?" he asked her again, his voice softer than she'd heard it yet.

She swallowed thickly, nodding her head, realizing how close they were now sitting to one another. "I'm… okay. It's just… a little piano hands. Carpal tunnel, you know. Comes with years of playing."

He stared at her for a moment longer, his hand still searing her flesh, before he nodded. He didn't take it away though, instead leaning even closer.

"That was really beautiful, Teef."

Tifa realized he was looking at her lips, and her heart began to palpitate and stammer, seeking egress from her chest. She started to part her lips, and then he was parting his too, and she felt like fireworks were exploding in her stomach when she realized that he was about to kiss her.

She was milliseconds from closing her eyes and leaning in, from relenting, when suddenly he caught himself and pulled back, dragging the reassuring, blessed heat of his hand away from her arm. Almost as soon as he let go of her, she felt the pain in her joints return.

"Oh, okay. You should get that looked at," he said, instantly turning away from her to lean over his knees, his cheeks the color of fire trucks.

She wanted to burst into a loud combination of laughter and tears, his words clawing away at something ugly and broken and raw inside of her.

If only you knew.

She started to say something else, but she heard loud voices and heavy stomps downstairs, realizing that Barret had returned with the kids. Taking this as his cue to escape, Cloud drained his wine and rose to his feet.

"I guess I better get Denzel home," he said, still not looking back at her. "Thanks for the wine, and the song."

"Wait," Tifa was suddenly in a panic, wanting this moment to end on a better, escalating note, one that would carry them higher than where they currently stood. She slid away from the bench, coming around to stand in front of him. As soon as she did, he gasped a little, his eyes unable to stop themselves from covering all of her territory again. "Why don't you and Denzel come over to my place for dinner next week? I'm sure Marle's told you, but it's not a myth that I'm the best cook in Sector7, maybe even Midgar. I'll fix you a real meal, not just pizza."

The blunt explosion from her mouth had her face and neck flaring, but there was no way to shovel the words back in. All she could do was stand there, staring at him, waiting for his calm, cool rejection, waiting for all of this to come crashing back down to earth where it belonged.

Cloud blinked, as if thinking it over, but his deep blue eyes never left hers. And then he was nodding, one corner of his mouth turned up in the barest hint of a smile.

"Yeah, sure," he agreed smoothly, leaning back a little. "Just text me the time, and the address."

As Tifa walked him back downstairs, she rubbed her wrists, no longer feeling the dull pain there, the only part of her hurting now was her jaw as she grinned, her insides giddy and turning to mush.

---

[ μ ] - εγλ - 1996 | 6th October

Jukeboxes

That Friday, Cloud took Tifa out for their second date.

His mother let him borrow her car - an old, beat-up blue sedan that she bought from the only dealer in town when they first moved back to the village - after he'd shown her proof that he'd secured work at the reactor. As for that, Cloud had just started working there that very week. There hadn't been much of an application or interview process; they were practically signing men up at the front door to work there, and by his third day on the job, Cloud was still in training at the basecamp near the Shinra mansion and hadn't yet been sent up into the reactor yet.

It wasn't his first choice of work - he'd heard plenty of horror stories about the reactor, and he wasn't interested in becoming one of them - but for the time being, he really didn't have any other options. No one else in town was hiring, he wasn't going to college, and his mother wasn't going to continue to let him lay about and do nothing all day, either.

So he accepted it, figured he'd make it work until he figured something else out. Whatever it was, he was sure that eventually, his luck would change.

And he wasn't really concerned about it, anyway, because the one thing that occupied most of his brain and thinking power was her.

Tifa.

Tifa Tifa Tifa Tifa.

Cloud realized that in the month since they'd met, Tifa had come to take up permanent residence in his headspace. He thought about her night and day; she was on his mind when he laid down and tried to sleep at night, she stayed with him through his dreams and she was right there with him again when he woke up in the morning. None of this was helped by the fact that he lived right next door to her, that he could see her window from his, and that already, they'd formed a special bond, her coyly accepting his shy flirtations and letting him kiss her on top of the water tower, and almost two weeks later, Cloud could still taste her lip gloss and the warm feel of the press of her lips to his.

They didn't get to see each other often, to his regret - Tifa was a busy high school student, and Cloud was a borderline lazy delinquent. Her father was strict while his mother let him run loose, and Tifa could only go out on weekends. Usually, she was with that stupid boyfriend of hers, who Cloud couldn't wait for the opportunity to send his teeth flying out of his mouth.

But despite these minor obstacles, they were finding ways to see each other and make their small romance blossom. Tifa canceled dates with Jody and met with Cloud instead. She started to call him on weeknights, talking to him late on the phone about school and her friends and the things she was interested in until both their eyes were heavy with sleep. And sometimes he caught her attention at their windows, threatening with a coy smile to climb his way over to her room again.

But tonight, they were going on a real date, this time not one at the apex of a water tower where they were sneaking away and hiding from the rest of the town, but one where he was driving and could take her wherever he wanted and even had money in his pocket to pay for everything. As he stood in front of his mirror, dressed in dark jeans and a black button-up under his jacket, his hair wild and messy around his face just the way he liked it, he couldn't stop grinning at his appearance, his heart already pounding as he thought about spending the night with Tifa.

He bounded down the stairs and went straight for his mother's keys where they hung from a hook in the kitchen, but before he could escape, she was turning from the stove and capturing his attention.

"Taking the car, sweetheart?" Claudia stopped him.

Cloud skidded to a halt, backing up a little into the kitchen and smiling sheepishly at his mother. "Yeah. I'm taking Tifa out." He almost made it sound like an accomplishment.

Claudia smiled, drying her hands on her apron as she walked over to him, then dropping her hands to her hips. "Well, look at you. Just be safe, okay, sweetheart. Don't get too carried away. I know how much you like that girl."

"Mom…"

Claudia held up her hands. "I know we've had this conversation before," she told him, "But it's easy to lose yourself when you like someone a lot, Cloud. Just… be careful."

Cloud couldn't stop blushing, and to stave it off, he leaned forward and pecked his mother on the cheek.

"I will, Mom."

He left the house trying to fling her words and their implications from his mind, instead looking next door for a sign of Tifa. His mother's car was parked in their driveway, and he hung back in the shadows by his fence, waiting for Tifa to emerge.

He didn't have to wait long before she appeared, sliding out of her front door and closing it quietly behind her. It was early October, but the mountains were already striking the village with their chills, and Tifa was wearing a dress and stockings and a snug, form-fitting jacket over all of it. It was a little after seven PM, and the sun had just begun to set, casting violet shimmers in the shine of her onyx hair as she approached.

"Hey, Cloud," she greeted him when she stepped in front of him by his fence, her voice bright and sweet.

His heart had begun a new climb as soon as he saw her step out of her front door, but now that she was right in front of him, he felt it race tracks around his ribcage, throttling him where he stood. The coolness of the night air abandoned him as his body began to grow warm, and he tried to put up a front of implacability, shoving his hands into his pockets as he tried to pretend that her beauty and the honey in her voice wasn't affecting him at all.

"Hey, Teef," he responded, throwing his lips into a smirk, realizing that she was only standing a few inches away from him, likely trying to chase away the cold with his body heat. Her hands were also in her pockets, but tucked in deep as if seeking warmth, her body shivering a little. He realized that she was one of those kinds of girls that was always cold, remembering the way that she trembled in the rain on the day they first met. For some reason, that sudden thought thrilled him, and he wanted to keep her warm and safe forever. "You ready?"

She nodded, her smile widening and lighting up the entire block, and Cloud's night was off to a great fucking start.

He drove her across town - far away from where most of Nibelheim's central shopping and entertainment district was, away from the movie theater and the family-style diners where the high school kids hung out. After a while, they entered a neighborhood where the streets were quiet and the houses were small but sat on farms, where dogs slept in the middle of the road and there were few and far cars to be seen but chocobos found grazing on ranches.

"Where are we going?" Tifa asked him when the road got bumpy beneath the car's wheels. "This is the sticks."

Cloud smirked at her choice of words, because it was exactly how he would have described it. Leaning back with one hand gripping the wheel - he was doing his best to look cool for her - he tipped his head in her direction and stole a glance at her before he focused on the road again.

"Yeah, so I've been figuring out this weird village since I moved here," Cloud answered. "This is the rural part, where all the farms are. Anyway, there's a spot out here where I heard they serve real good chocobo po'boys. Thought we could get something to eat, maybe tip some cows on the way back."

Tifa laughed richly at that, leaning forward in her seat, and the fact that Cloud produced such a rich melody and a deep reaction from her had his heart soaring and a dumb grin on his face.

"You mean Willie's?" Tifa finally asked when she'd come up for air. "That's a bar, Cloud. They serve booze there."

The way that Tifa said "booze" was for some reason ridiculously adorable to Cloud, and he found himself grinning harder. "It's more than a bar, Teef. There's music and food. And hillbillies. Hillbillies are always fun, aren't they?"

Tifa laughed again, shaking her head. "I'm not old enough to go to a place like Willie's, Cloud."

"I am," he told her, feeling mighty proud of himself for being the legal drinking age. "You'll be fine. Besides, none of those high school douchebags will be hanging out there, so we'll get to breathe a little. By the way, how did Joey take you blowing him off tonight?"

"Jody," Tifa corrected him without much emphasis, knowing that Cloud was teasing her, and it made Cloud laugh, loving that she had a sense of humor. "I'm sure he took it fine. He went out with the team tonight."

"Fuck that kid," Cloud couldn't stop himself from swearing, just as he parked on the grass in front of Willie's, and Tifa looked up at him wide-eyed at his language, before she burst out laughing, Cloud joining her as he shut off the engine and jogged around the other side of the car to open the door for her.

They entered the bar arm in arm, and Cloud could smell the sweet shampoo lingering in her hair and a gentle waft of the cherry blossom and white jasmine in her perfume. It was smoky and dim inside, a backwater crooner lamenting from the jukebox, the kind of music Cloud realized he couldn't stand once he got to Nibelheim. Tifa didn't seem to mind, though, and Cloud walked her inside, looking for a place to sit.

"Let's sit over there," he pointed to an empty table near a far wall in the back.

The bar lined one long wall, already full with patrons. There was a small dance floor in the center of the room, surrounded by tables throughout the rest of the space. The lighting was dim, accentuated by bright blue fairy lights that lined the wooden banisters. The bar was already filling with the after-work crowd, all adults who looked mostly older than Cloud and Tifa, a few small groups of kids who appeared to be in their early twenties.

"My dad would kill me if he knew I was here," Tifa commented after she'd shrugged out of her coat and they'd sat down, and Cloud did his level best not to openly stare at her breasts and the way they were snug against the soft material of the front of her wine-colored, A-line dress.

"He ever come here?" Cloud asked, now a little bit worried, remembering a comment Tifa had made about her father's drinking one night when they were on the phone. He leaned over the table on his arms, something magnetic pulling him closer to her.

"No way," Tifa responded, folding her hands in her lap, and in the process, her arms only pushed her full breasts up even higher, sending smoke signals through his brain. "He likes to do his drinking at home. He thinks only low class degenerates come to places like this." She sighed a little sadly. Cloud had something to say about that, but he bit it back and held it on the center of his tongue.

Instead, he looked up at Tifa's eyes, and he smiled at her, and the sadness left her face as she smiled back.

A waitress came around and took their orders - they both ordered po' boys - and after showing his ID, Cloud ordered a pitcher of beer. Tifa made a face as soon as he started pouring from the pitcher into her mug.

"That looks like piss," she said, and Cloud started laughing, wondering what he'd done to find a girl like Tifa Lockhart. "I'm not drinking that."

"Have you ever drank beer before?" he asked her.

"No," she admitted. "I've never drunk any alcohol before."

Cloud made a face. "Not even at those lame parties Jory drags you to?"

"Jody," Tifa corrected again with a simper on her face. "And no. I… never tried it."

Cloud didn't even fill her mug halfway. "Just try it," he told her. "If you don't like it, you don't have to drink it."

He pushed the mug toward her, then lifted his own in her direction, watching her as she sniffed the cup. "Never know unless you try."

She smirked at him over the rim of the mug, then sipped carefully, while Cloud drank back a gulp of his own.

She wrinkled her nose, then took another sip. Cloud sat back in his seat and admired her, finding her absolutely adorable, his pants growing stiff as he watched her tentatively sip.

"Well?" he asked her when she set the mug back down. "What do you think?"

"It tastes funny," she answered after a moment, "But it's not terrible."

"And how do you feel?" he couldn't stop himself from asking.

Tifa smiled, and he thought that it looked a little giddy, making him feel like he was on the moon.

"Warm," was her response, and Cloud felt a rush of heat creep up over him, too.

They sipped and talked for a little while longer, Cloud later ordering a basket of fries for them to share to soak up the beer while it wore off in their systems. He asked her about her paper for Sunrise, and Tifa told her that she'd got an A. This made Cloud swell up with happiness and pride, because he'd sat with her on the phone for hours talking about that goddamn book.

She asked him about his job at the reactor, and he ran through a mundane explanation of his orientation and training. And again, she asked him what he really wanted to do, when it became clear he felt indifferent and disinterested in just about everything.

Except you, he wanted to point out.

"I wouldn't mind getting a job at the library," he finally admitted, blushing a little and feeling like a huge nerd, out of sync with the facade he tried to construct for himself. "I like books, historical shit. But they're not hiring right now. I'll try again in the spring."

"Y'know, I bet if you just spend some time at the library, hang around there a few hours a week and volunteer, they'll eventually hire you," Tifa suggested. "It's a great way to build your reputation. That's how everything works around here. It's not what you know, but who you know."

She smiled at him, and Cloud was so enamored by her and her sweet thoughtfulness that he impulsively asked her to dance.

Tifa got to her feet right away, slinging her purse over her shoulder, smoothing her hands over her sides and biting her bottom lip as she waited for him. Cloud stood and joined her, then took her hand, and together they walked over to the dance floor, where two women were dancing innocently together to a raucous country song.

Cloud was sick and tired of this music, and he pulled Tifa for a moment over to the jukebox.

"What kind of music do you like?" he asked her. "I mean, besides piano? And please don't say you like this hick stuff."

Tifa giggled, then pursed her lips together in thought. "I like alternative rock," she told him.

"Like who?" he asked. That was a genre that was a little vanilla for his tastes, but he already knew the kind of music he listened to wouldn't make for a good slow dance.

"Final Heaven," Tifa answered.

Cloud smirked, digging into his pockets for change. He was familiar with the band enough to know they had a couple of good ballads that would work for these purposes. He dropped the gil into the jukebox and searched through the cards of albums, eventually selecting a song that he had a feeling that Tifa liked.

It wasn't long before the current song finished playing, and the two women stumbled back to the bar. Cloud walked Tifa onto the dance floor, just as the first rifts of guitar dripped from the speaker, and as she turned to face him, she looked up at him with her scarlet eyes bright and wide, almost turning purple from the clash of the blue lights overhead.

"I love this song," she told him.

I bet you do, he thought.

He only smirked at her, then dropped his hands to her waist, dangerously close to her hips, feeling the soft, knit material of her dress. He realized then how thin it was, because he could instantly feel the warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips. The strain in his pants was back, and Cloud was blushing, glad that it was too dark in this bar for her to see.

She stepped closer to him, dropping her hands to his shoulders, and as the song began to pick up and play, they slowly rocked together, Tifa still looking up at him, their eyes joined as if by a chain. Cloud found that he was mesmerized, unable to tear away, his heart now beating in time with the drums of the song.

Halfway through the tune, Tifa was drawing nearer to him, and Cloud felt his brain fizzle into static when he realized that she was dropping her hands from his shoulders to his waist, and she was now holding on to him, her body pressed to his. With the chasm closed, her breasts were soft against his chest, full and warm, and the sensation melted his insides. Suddenly desperate and craving her, Cloud lifted his hands and wrapped them around her body, holding her to him, her cheek pressed against his chest as they danced in a slow and steady rhythm against the music.

They finally broke apart when the song ended and another country song began to wail, not realizing they had drawn a few interested stares. But the crowd really took interest in them when Tifa rose up on her toes, her hands once again on Cloud's shoulders, and she pressed her lips to his, right in the middle of the dance floor.

It was his second time kissing Tifa, but this time, it was her taking the lead, and it made every organ inside of his body fall to the soles of his feet as he realized that she was kissing him with the kind of passionate heat that he had only saved for his dreams in the middle of the night. Her fingernails were clawing into his shoulder, pressing deep into the fabric of his shirt, her tongue gently but tentatively slipping inside of his mouth. Their last kiss had been a press, but this was a breach, and he let his tongue dart out to meet hers, tasting the beer and the salt from the fries and her strawberry lip gloss, his hands squeezing the dip in her waist as she moaned into his mouth, and he was drowning in Tifa.

They broke apart after a moment, Cloud gasping for air, Tifa's lips swollen. Suddenly, he couldn't get enough of her, especially not when her eyes met his again and she smiled at him, beautiful and genuine and sweet.

That night, after he'd taken her home, Cloud took a cold shower and tried to get himself under control. But he knew then and there the exact moment that he had fallen in love with Tifa Lockhart.

---

[ μ ] - εγλ - 1996 | 21st November

Splintered

In November, Tifa's mother started to refuse to see her doctor.

Tifa didn't understand it. As the weeks crept by and the weather grew colder, her mother's behavior grew more erratic, more unpredictable, and even more violent. It grew to the point that Tifa almost didn't want to go home anymore - Lorelai was almost always crying, leaving trails of blood and stars, or screaming, breaking glass when she argued with her father or passing out, bedridden with fatigue for days. She complained of endless pain, her joints screaming with fire as she swallowed back painkillers with wine, Brian's face rippled with exhaustion as he stared with bloodshot eyes, trying to reason with her to see the doctor, before he gave up and sat at his desk in his study with his bourbon and his ledgers.

Everything that Autumn, it seemed, deteriorated quickly for Tifa. She broke up with Jody the week of Hallow's Eve - it had been messy, but she found that she had welcomed it. It had started when he approached her outside of her locker one day, just before she was on her way to her eighth-period end of cycle AP calculus exam. She went to shut the locker, only to turn and find Jody standing right behind its door, startling her.

"Jody!" she'd cried, backing up a step. "Shiva, you frightened me. Why are you sneaking up on me like that?"

But Jody only rolled his eyes. It was only the start of the practice season for the basketball team, but already Jody was wearing his varsity jacket over his button-down and sweater. He carried his backpack slung over one shoulder, a curl of his light brown hair hanging over one blue eye as he grimaced at her.

"Are you hanging out with that Strife bastard?"

That Strife Bastard. Why was Jody talking like her father? Were they hanging out or something?

"What are you talking about, Jody?" Tifa asked, her voice as thin as her patience.

"I've been hearing things," he whispered harshly, stepping threateningly closer to her, looking around as if afraid someone might see them. "You've been hanging out with him lately around town and in the park, walking around, and someone even said they saw you kissing him."

Tifa had felt the air leave her lungs at that point. Nothing that Jody was saying was technically wrong. She had been spending plenty of time with Cloud - she talked to him on the phone almost daily, sometimes he snuck through her window into her room, and on the weekends, whenever she could avoid Jody, they went on dates, sometimes places that Cloud took her that avoided the more populated parts of town and sometimes to their spot on the water tower, though it was starting to grow too cold to hang out there. Sometimes they just sat in the back of his mother's car and made out, each time Cloud's hands growing a little bolder on her body than the last.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Tifa lied.

"Stop lying, Tifa!" Jody whined, banging a fist against the locker, right next to her head, startling her. "Is this why you've been canceling our dates? Dylan said you were a slut, but I didn't -"

Tifa had slapped him, and then she'd dumped him, storming away with her heels clicking against the vinyl floors of the school's hallways.

She hadn't known it at that moment, but it wouldn't be the last she would deal with Jody that year.

She didn't tell Cloud the full details of the breakup, knowing that he'd probably want to kick Jody's ass. Nonetheless, he'd been more than happy to learn she was single, smoothly telling her I told you so.

After that, Tifa tried to focus on school and her own sanity at home, on piano lessons and getting into college, Cloud becoming the one person she could turn to and talk to whenever she felt overwhelmed.

It was the night before Harvestfest when her mother's illness reached its limits. Lorelai had been laying on the couch in the living room all day, and Tifa was only grateful that she had made it out of bed. Since school was already out for the holiday, Tifa had spent most of the day in the kitchen, prepping their meal for tomorrow evening - thawing the turkey and peeling potatoes, chopping vegetables, and layering the pumpkin pie. The entire time she labored alone while her mother stared blankly at their little black and white television, watching a daytime soap opera, Tifa hoped and prayed to Minerva and Odin both that this would be a holiday that the three of them could enjoy in peace.

That was not in the cards for them, it seemed.

Around four that afternoon, after Tifa finished sealing the turkey in a brining bag, she heard footsteps lightly pad into the kitchen behind her. Turning, she found her mother standing in the doorway behind her, the front of her nightgown glittering, a trail of blood and stars running down her cheek from her left eye.

"Where is your father?" she suddenly demanded.

Tifa opened her mouth, but seeing the vacant, faraway look in her mother's eyes, her voice died in her throat. She swallowed thickly, carefully placing the turkey on the cutting board, wiping her hands on the front of her apron.

"He - "

"He's gone again, isn't he?" Lorelai cried, inching into the kitchen. "Which whore is he with this time, Tifa? Hm? Is it MaryAnn? Lucille? Rachel?"

Tifa could only hold her mouth open in disbelief, backing up until her spine hit the rim of the sink behind her. Her mother began to sob then, and the stars grew thicker, twinkling as they fell and cracked away into dust on the linoleum beneath her feet, blood staining her high, porcelain cheekbones.

She watched as her mother crossed into the kitchen fully now, her eyes darting wildly from side to side. Tifa's heart was racing, the fear palpable. She glanced at the phone on the wall across the room next to the refrigerator, but for whatever reason, she was too terrified to move.

"Never listen to men, Tifa!" Lorelai began to scream. "They are all liars. They only care about themselves, about their next fuck. They don't care about us. We're just playthings to them, do you hear me? Stay away from them! Stay away from them all!"

"Mom - " Tifa whimpered, terrified when Lorelai opened the cabinet and began to dump all of the dishes onto the floor, sending them into shatters, glass and porcelain breaking in every direction and creating a huge, dangerous mess. In her rage, she swept her arms across the kitchen table, knocking all of the food that Tifa had prepared for Harvestfest to the floor, the pie landing flat on its crusts and splattering, the potatoes and vegetables soaring in and turning to mush upon impact. She stepped all over the broken dishes as she went, cutting her bare feet open on the shards and leaving footprints of blood in her wake.

Tifa covered her face with her hands and began to sob.

"Don't trust any of them!" Lorelai screamed, now throwing silverware from the drawers, sending them across the room like darts, colliding with the window and the walls. Tifa screamed as they flew toward her, feeling the clatter of forks and spoons across her forearms and her shoulders.

"When your father gets home," her mother was suddenly shouting, and Tifa looked up to see that she was advancing toward her with a butcher's knife in hand, "I am going to kill him. I am going to gut him like a -"

"Lorelai!"

Tifa looked up to find Claudia Strife standing in the doorway of their kitchen, still wearing her coat over her dress, a bag of groceries in her arms. She dropped them the moment she saw the disaster in the kitchen and the way that Tifa cowered in one corner. Instantly, she lifted her skirts with both hands, stepping over the debris and making her way in Lorelai's direction.

"Claudia - "

Lorelai seemed frozen upon the sight of her old friend, and fearlessly, Claudia grabbed her arm and wrestled the knife away from her, sending it in a clatter across the room behind her, safely out of the way. Tifa watched with her eyes as wide as compact discs as her mother fell limp in Claudia's arms, and Claudia caught her, pinning her arms to her sides and holding her upright and keeping her from crashing like a rag doll to the floor.

"Call Emergency!" Claudia shouted at her, and Tifa ran for the phone.

The next few hours progressed like a blurred nightmare for Tifa. Claudia Strife had apparently been walking home from shopping when she heard the screams and the crashes come from inside their home, and she had made her way inside, forcing the front door open. Lorelai fell into a daze shortly thereafter, staring blankly at the ceiling as the golden tears continued to run now in leaky streaks down her face. Emergency services arrived soon after Tifa called them, and Tifa's mother was loaded into a stretcher and taken away.

Tifa had spent the entire afternoon and evening with Claudia, waiting for her father, cleaning up the kitchen and crying tears of her own while Cloud's mother tried to console her.

Tifa's father didn't come home until very, very late that night. After Tifa had called him at City Council, he'd gone straight to Nibelheim's only hospital, where he stayed with Lorelai until the doctors sent him home. They had sedated her mother, and they refused to pull her out of it until they ran more tests and determined exactly how bad things had gotten.

When Brian did get home that night, Claudia had already left, making Tifa promise to call her if she needed anything. She stood in the hallway by the banister to the second floor, watching as he shuffled into the house with a thick brown paper bag in one hand.

"Dad?" she called quietly, following behind him as he crept into the living room, shrugging out of his coat and dumping it onto the couch. He fell into a spill next to it, setting the bag on the coffee table. He looked up at her, his eyes bloodshot from crying, his face pale and haggard and shorn.

"Go to bed, Tifa," was all he said, leaning forward and pulling the bottle of whiskey from the bag.

That night, he drank without even using a glass.

It was nearly midnight by the time that Tifa had showered and had combed her hair and put on her pajamas, and she sat in front of her piano, her hands shaking and soon her entire body trembling as they hovered above the keys. Over and over again, she replayed the events of that afternoon in her mind, of her mother's harsh, accusatory screams, of the plates and the food flying, of the knife pointed in her direction, aimed for her heart as her mother marched forward.

She needed desperately to distract herself, and so she closed her eyes and let her fingers fall across the keys, pouring out the melody of Lang's Gnossiennes, even as her hands continued to quiver. It was a dark, despondent piece, echoing the slashes and rips across her soul, and as the notes carried out into the air above her, Tifa felt fresh tears run down her cheeks.

She didn't know how long had passed or how many loops of the song she had played before she heard a familiar rapping at her window, and she stopped playing, turning and instantly rising.

She crossed her room and pulled open her curtains, finding Cloud leaning out of his window, gesturing for her to open hers. She did so without hesitation, backing up away from the sill as she watched him carefully navigate the tree toward her house.

She stood there as he climbed into her room, dressed in sweats and his hair still slightly damp from a recent shower. He brushed himself off when he climbed into her room, and he closed her window before he turned around, and the first thing that he did was wrap his arms around her.

Tifa let him hold her, dragging her fists up to his shoulders as she began to sob the day's and the weeks' stresses and hurts away into his sweatshirt. He squeezed her tight and stayed silent, letting her use his body as a pillar, a beam that was holding her upright. She didn't know how much time had passed as he held her tight in his embrace, only that his warmth was the only thing that mattered in the entire world, and that it was keeping her grounded; in that moment, it was maybe even keeping her alive.

After a while, they slowly broke apart, and Cloud looked down at her as she began to wipe her eyes, shaking her head out. He tried to meet her eyes, and when they finally connected, she felt herself begin to melt.

"I'm really sorry, Tifa," Cloud whispered. "My mom told me what happened. I wish I could have been here to help you."

"It's okay, Cloud," Tifa responded, shaking her head. There's nothing that could have been done to stop it. My mom has been really, really sick for a long time now. She's just been getting worse."

"Are you gonna be okay?" he asked her.

Tifa shrugged, backing away to sit back down at the piano, facing the keys, and Cloud instantly followed her, falling right beside her with his back to them.

"I don't know," she answered. "My mother… I think she was going to kill me, Cloud. I don't know what is going on with her and my dad, but…"

She started to sniffle again, the memory of her mother's screams already infecting her mind. Cloud pulled her close again with one arm around her belly, rocking her gently.

"She wouldn't have killed you, Tifa," he said softly. "You're her daughter."

But Tifa shook her head, unconvinced. "I don't know, Cloud. This disease…"

She trailed off, not wanting to think about it anymore, and a silence fell between them for a moment, Cloud's arm still around the front of her waist.

Finally, he turned to her and broke it. "Hey, that song you were playing just now. It was nice. What's it called?"

"Gnossiennes," Tifa answered. "It's from a play. I'm supposed to play it at the winter concert this year. It's… a very sad rendition."

"Play it again for me?"

Tifa looked up at him, meeting his eyes, and then she nodded as he pulled his arm out of her way. She leaned forward and dropped her hands to the keys again, the melody filling her room as she played, her fingers once again strumming tiny earthquakes into every block of ivory and ebony as she played until her heart broke once more, and halfway through, she began to weep again, the tears splashing onto her fingers and onto the keys.

But her reality splintered apart when Cloud was suddenly wrapping his arms around her again, and she felt him lift her away from the bench, picking her up and carrying her across the room to her bed. He sat her down, finding a place next to her, and the next thing she knew he was holding her and kissing away her tears, whispering to her and running his fingers through her hair.

"It's going to be alright, Tifa," he told her, over and over again. "It's going to be alright."

And he held her, kissing her face and soon her mouth, and she held him back, clawing at him desperately as her tears burned a trail between their lips.

Cloud stayed with her until dawn, holding her in his arms on top of her sheets, long after she had cried herself to sleep.