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.

10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thanks to everyone reading and reviewing! Your comments fill me with joy so much! If you want to talk more, follow me on twitter nitezintodreamz

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter Ten

—

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2007 | June 12th

Do What it Takes

Shinra Journal of Medicine and Autoimmune Disorders

A Comprehensive Literature Review of Star-Scar Syndrome

Christiana Lang, M.D. & Michael Hannon, M.D.

Published January 24th, 2004

Languorem cicatrice stella, most commonly referred to as the Star Scar Syndrome, was first documented in Shinra Medical Journals in 1951, though Wutain medicinal texts have long recorded instances of the once considered bizarre affliction throughout its population (Hojo, 1972). Star Scar Syndrome has been classified as an autoimmune disorder where the body's cellular structures begin to break down or attack one another, causing acute malfunction of both physical and psychological systems.

While the disease's exact origins are largely unknown, scientists have identified in test subjects the appearance of scar tissues and cell damage with stellar markings that reveal that the syndrome's cancerous properties stem from a genetic predisposition to sensitivity to starlight. These stellar imprints embed into cellular tissue and are activated by extreme emotional and psychological distress (Hollander & Gast, 1982). Most cases of Star Scar have documented the onset of symptoms anywhere from eighteen to sixty months following the initiating traumatic event. These events are categorized as intense, acute, and adverse experiences of emotional or physical trauma that leave patients vulnerable to cellular level activation of the disease. For individuals predisposed to this illness, these traumas may include, but are not limited to:

Sudden death or loss of a loved one and traumatic grief

Heartbreak or unrequited love

Emotional abuse from a family member or intimate partner

Physical abuse or domestic violence

Sexual abuse

Serious personal injury

Community violence or victimization

Disasters, Terrorism, or Refugee trauma

Star Scar has been classified as a terminal and incurable illness that affects about two times more women than it does men (Lang, 1997). The severity of its effects on sufferers varies depending on the scope of the event and the individual's personal reaction to the disease and associated symptoms. Repeated exposure to chronic trauma and emotional distress can exacerbate symptoms, resulting in incapacitation and death. Symptoms range in severity, and most commonly include:

Stardust tears. This substance is present in 100% of documented cases and is utilized by doctors as a primary symptom for diagnosis. Star-tears typically emerge as painful minerals, celestial substances that may be dust-like or take on the appearance of small gemstones. In very severe cases, star-tears may liquify and egress the tear ducts in streams or streaks. The shedding of star-tears varies in pain depending on the patient and the case and is often accompanied by deposits of blood.

Chronic pain. This review found that over 74% of patients experienced varying degrees of musculofascial or musculoskeletal pains that do not resolve with regular therapies, including back and joint pain, prior to the onset of star-tears (Gast, 1989). This often leads many patients to mistakenly ignore other symptoms or pursue pain therapies as a recourse for alleviating symptoms.

Acute sporadic myopia. Studies have demonstrated the occurrence of acute myopia in over 60% of patients suffering from Star Scar who previously did not report vision problems (Lang & Hannon, 1999). This symptom may occur in sporadic waves of blurred, nearsighted, or farsighted vision that may suddenly impact an individual's daily activities, such as driving or reading.

Mood disruption and emotional disorder. Patients suffering from Star Scar Syndrome are overwhelming at risk for mood and emotional disorders (Lang & Hannon, 1999). Research indicates that many patients may suffer from mood swings, depression, anxiety, and even manic-depressive episodes. The intensity of emotional responses often depends on the severity of the disease in an individual, the extent of traumas and level of continued exposure, and the use of pharmacological or therapeutic remedies to manage symptoms.

Chronic fatigue and vertigo. Many patients experience decreased activity levels due to decreases in energy and persistent feelings of fatigue. These symptoms are very often associated with depression in patients suffering from Star Scar (Lang, 2001).

Memory Loss and cognitive impairment. One of the most alarming symptoms of Star Scar is its impact on patients' executive function. Research has consistently demonstrated that many sufferers may experience acute or complex memory loss, or may find themselves struggling cognitively with mental tasks that came fluidly and naturally in the past (Gast, 1994).

Co-morbidities. Star Scar adversely impacts patients who may be suffering from other chronic illnesses. Those afflicted with pain disorders such as fibromyalgia may find an intensification of symptoms. Similarly, patients already suffering from mental or emotional disorders such as anxiety or depression are also at increased risk for severe reactions to the presence of Star Scar in the body. In addition, Star Scar has been documented to complicate pregnancy, lead to infertility or miscarriage, and increase risk of postpartum depression in women.

As noted above, Star Scar does not have any known cure, though clinical trials on experimental pharmaceutical remedies and the use of magic variants engineered in Shinra Laboratories has shown promise (Lang & Haddon, 2003). As such, symptom management becomes the primary vehicle of care for patients living with the disease. Primary care physicians and immunology specialists, when working hand in hand on patient care, can design treatment plans that prevent the worsening of symptoms, increase quality of life, and reduce risk of fatality. Common treatment plans include regular exercise and balanced nutrition, the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), therapy and counseling, and skin and musculoskeletal treatment. In a limited amount of cases, patients who have been able to confront or reconcile preceding traumas have had the disease fall into remission. The inclusion of loved ones, family members, and close friends in patient care further becomes incredibly significant toward the successful management of this disease.

"Hey, man."

Cloud rocked back into his chair at his desk in the contractors' ward, tearing his eyes wearily away from where they had glossed over reading medical journals on his laptop's screen. He blinked, then turned to look up, finding Kunsel standing over him with two paper cups of coffee in hand.

"Star Scar?" Kunsel read, glancing over his shoulder.

Cloud shook his brain free of the momentary fog the words on the screen had clouded through his mind, quickly minimizing the window on the screen until he was bringing up the desktop again. He sighed at the Shinra logo that was emblazoned in red against the blue background, whirling around to face his comrade.

"It's nothing," he shrugged it off, his eyes landing on the cup of coffee Kunsel was carrying.

"Really?" Kunsel's tone implied that he didn't seem to buy this, judging from the way he pulled up a chair from a nearby desk and dragged it across from Cloud, leaning over his knees as he pushed one cup toward him. Cloud picked it up and drank a sip, finding it just slightly sweet from cream and sugar, good enough for him. "I got those from the new coffee shop on the cafeteria floor."

"It's not bad," Cloud conceded.

"My aunt Lucette had that disease," Kunsel went on, nodding toward Cloud's computer screen. "It's pretty rough, if I remember correctly. All that crying, it scared my momma half to death."

Cloud hummed, recalling the way Tifa's eyes had spilled gold and silver all over his hands and shirt and her piano that first night they'd spent together. That had been just a few weeks ago. Since then, he'd seen her on a number of occasions - any chance he could get, really - and he spoke to her every night on the phone, making sure that she was okay. As far as he knew, she hadn't cried that way since, and he liked to think he had something to do with it.

"You ain't sick, are you?"

Cloud set his coffee down, turning back to Kunsel. "What? No."

Kunsel looked relieved, but then he furrowed his brow thoughtfully as he leaned in even closer to Cloud. "Somebody in your family, then?"

Cloud leaned back in his chair, trying to open up some space between himself and Kunsel, who he realized was endlessly relentless. Despite the way that this persistence clawed at the surface of his nerves, Cloud had to admit that over the course of the last couple of months - ever since Tifa had shown up in his life again - he found that some of his usual defenses with people were beginning to weaken, and Kunsel was a prime example of this. In fact, he realized somewhat shakily, Kunsel was becoming his friend, and he found that he didn't mind this fact at all.

"…My girlfriend," he finally admitted, his heart picking up a faster pace.

"Girlfriend?" Kunsel's interest was definitely piqued now, his gray eyes widening as he swallowed back another sip of his coffee. "Is this the girl you gave your jacket to?"

"Yeah." Cloud could feel the brushfire beneath his cheeks, highlighting them red.

"How long she been your girlfriend?" Kunsel asked. "You never said anything."

Cloud found it mildly amusing that Kunsel seemed so affronted by this, as if they were schoolgirls who were supposed to share their every secret. "I guess a couple of weeks. It's still kinda complicated."

Kunsel pulled at his goatee. "I'm sorry that she's not feeling well," he offered somberly. "Is she gonna be okay?"

Cloud leaned back in his chair again, staring down at his coffee, not really sure how to answer that and not really sure he wanted to think about it, either. All he wanted was for her to get better and for things to go back to the way they had been before the years fell away between them, the way that they should have gone if they had been allowed to live their lives together how they had planned.

"I think so," Cloud said as optimistically as he could. "I really don't know too much about it. That's why I was looking it up. We read about it in school, but the only person I ever knew who had this disease was her mom. And… it didn't end up well."

Cloud shut his mouth at that point, staring down at his leather-bound hands. Bringing up Tifa's mother reminded him once again of the harsh reality of what he and Tifa were now facing together, what Tifa had been facing on her own for the last few years. It chilled him to the bone to think that things could ever get that bad, and Cloud knew that he would do or give up just about anything to keep Tifa from such a fate. Feeling a shudder pass through him at the memory of her mother's red and gold bedsheets, he quickly shoved the thought aside and resumed drinking his coffee.

"I'm sure she'll be fine, especially with you there for her," Kunsel added encouragingly, only managing to heat Cloud's cheeks even further. Then, his friend sighed. "I hate to do this, but this isn't why I came by. Lazard wants to see you in his office at the top of the hour."

Instantly, Cloud set his coffee cup down and groaned.

"What does he want now?"

"You already know I'm not privy to any of that," Kunsel responded, tipping his chair back dangerously. "He just calls me and issues me orders 'round the clock, never tells me nothin' about it. But I suspect it's for the same reason he's been calling you to his office for the past six months, Strife."

Cloud could only blanch and bite back the urge to swear and roll his eyes like a petulant child. He glanced at his watch, seeing that he still had at least twenty minutes before he was to report to the Director's office, and he clicked his computer screen back on, scrolling through the articles again while sipping his coffee.

Kunsel stayed where he sat, now quietly enjoying his caffeine and occasionally throwing out conversation to which Cloud grunted or unloaded monosyllabic responses. But mostly, he let Kunsel's words hover in the background, his attentions squared on the screen in front of him as the tiny print all began to run together.

Cloud wasn't exactly sure how anything he could do would truly help Tifa get better. If the trauma that had brought on her illness had been their separation and the impending heartbreak, he thought that maybe just his being there might be enough. But scanning over the list of symptoms and associated treatments again, Cloud wondered if he had what it took to make up for all of the years and scars that had ripped their misery into her cellular structure until it was tearing her apart from the inside.

He pushed that thought away when he heard Kunsel's chair scrape against the floor as he got up and ventured back to his own desk. Running his fingers through his hair, Cloud rose and dumped his empty cup into a trashcan, making his way to the elevators to head to Lazard's office.

Cloud kept his hands in his pockets the entire way up, his eyes watching the city of Midgar float by in front of him through the glass. He thought again about his conversation with Kunsel and about the words he'd read in those medical journals. Tifa's illness seemed grave, even if her condition wasn't as bad or as volatile as what they'd witnessed her mother go through. He wondered, with everything else that he had going on in his life - including what he knew Lazard was calling him for - if he could live up to the promise he had made her just a few short weeks ago.

His nerves rising at just the thought of it, Cloud reached into his pocket for his PHS as the elevator arrived and deposited him on the 49th Floor. He stepped to the side, opening Tifa's contact and typing a quick message to her.

Cloud: Hey. I hope you're having a good day. It's Friday, and I was thinking maybe we could take the kids somewhere fun now that school's out for the summer. You think Barret would mind? I'll stop by the bar when I get off work.

He didn't wait for her reply, just killed the screen and stuffed the device back into his pocket, inhaling a deep breath before he made his way down the carpeted hallway of the SOLDIER wing until he approached the Director's office.

His secretary showed him in without much discussion, and Cloud entered the vast office to find it shrouded in a bright beam of spring sunlight, pouring in from the wall of windows behind the Director's desk. Lazard was standing by the windows, overlooking the city below, a tablet in hand that he seemed to be pouring over absently.

Seated in front of his desk, white lab coat over her shoulders and a clipboard in hand, was Dr. Rayleigh.

Cloud held in the sigh that was struggling in the back of his throat as he slowly approached Lazard's desk. At the sound of his entry, Rayleigh looked up at him, her steel-blue eyes softening as she smiled and tucked a lock of her hair away from her eyes. Cloud only nodded at her as politely as he could manage before he sank into the chair beside her, keeping his attention directed forward.

Director Lazard finally turned away from the window, tucking his tablet under his arm as he returned to sit behind his desk. He sat back, setting the device in front of him as he offered Cloud a warm smile.

"Strife," he greeted.

"Director," Cloud rejoined, doing his best to not grit his teeth as he spoke.

The Director nodded. "You remember Dr. Rayleigh, of course?" he said. "Our chief research psychologist?"

Cloud glanced over at Rayleigh, who was still smiling pleasantly. It was too practiced, Cloud thought, too much the look that a seasoned practitioner had perfected offering to patients. It made Cloud's nerves begin to fray again as he considered why he had been called up here.

"Sure," he answered in as measured a tone as he could muster.

Lazard was silent for a moment, regarding Cloud with a pensive and weighted stare. Cloud hated the scrutiny that he could read behind the Director's frosty blue eyes. It was no secret that Lazard Deusericus was just as adept a psychologist as many of the researchers working for Shinra and that he had a penchant for reading people with just a glance. It had been why he'd been so successful at making the final determination of SOLDIER candidates who were admitted into the program and why he had risen to the Director's seat, despite his brother's best efforts to keep him away from positions of power.

As he did anytime he sat across from him, Cloud could feel the Director's eyes beginning to unwind all of his secrets.

"I know it's been a few weeks since we last spoke on this matter," Lazard continued, "And working alongside Kunsel, you've managed to keep a relatively low profile on most of your assignments. I'd like to commend you for that."

Cloud shifted in his seat, crossing his legs at the knee. Somehow, this compliment sounded awfully backhanded.

"Even so," Lazard went on, and Cloud could see the other shoe dropping, "I have to be honest. I am still concerned about your mental and emotional well-being, Cloud. I have run this division long enough to know first hand the sorts of traumas that SOLDIERs endure - "

"Ex-SOLDIER," Cloud interrupted childishly.

"…as a result of the nature of their work, their conditioning, their exposure to mako. It is a complex, compounded sort of trauma."

Cloud just stared, unconsciously clenching his right hand at his side.

"First Class Strife," Rayleigh interjected softly at his side, turning to face him. "If I may. Alongside everything that Director Lazard just mentioned, living with the additional measure of grief from an event that was outside of your control, as well as raising a child that is not your biological kin in the aftermath of that event only prolongs the trauma. Even if you think you have everything under control, the truth is that these things bury themselves deep under the surface, and they reveal themselves in ways that you will find only make things worse."

Cloud thought about this, staring at his boots and not really wanting to look up at Rayleigh nor acknowledge her words. He knew, deep down inside, that what she was saying was the truth. It was revealing itself in his propensity to drink too much on weeknights and binge on the weekends, to brood over things he had no control over, to lose his patience with people when all they were trying to do was help, Denzel included.

Staring at his hand again, at the grooves in the worn leather sheathing his palm, Cloud thought about Tifa and his reunion with her after all these years. They had both suffered losses in the time that they'd known each other, but Cloud realized he could never stack the misery of his life up against what Tifa had faced. She had been the one to nearly die on a mountain because he couldn't protect her. She'd been the one to watch her mother die a brutal death while her father only made things worse with his alcoholism and his underhanded emotional abuse. She'd been the one to leave for the city all alone, to work toward her dreams even though there was no longer anyone standing behind her, only to have all of what she achieved snatched away from her by the malfunctions of her own body.

She was sick, and everyday Cloud fell deeper in love with her and worried more and more about how all of this might turn out.

He thought about her and about Denzel, who had grown and changed for the better so much in the few short weeks since Tifa had entered their lives. Cloud wanted to be a good father to Denzel, to live up to the promise that he had made to his best friend before he took his last breath.

And he wanted to be a better man to Tifa, to show her that he wasn't the fuck up that her father had always thought he was, and to prove to her that he would be there to take care of her no matter how good or bad things got.

"Alright," Cloud said, looking up, first at Rayleigh and then at Lazard, leveling a steely but sincere blue gaze at him.

"I'm sorry," Lazard paused, sitting up straighter at his desk, while Rayleigh leaned forward with her clipboard. "What are you saying, Strife?"

"You want me to go to counseling?" Cloud blurted, his voice sounding foreign as the words left his lips. "I'll go to counseling. You're right."

Lazard was silent for a long moment, seemingly caught off guard by this abrupt turnaround. Cloud just leveled his eyes with his until the older man offered him a very slight smile and then leaned back in his chair again, pleased.

"This is great news," Rayleigh was saying at his side. "Is it alright if I call you 'Cloud'?"

Cloud shrugged, feeling a rising sense of panic envelop his insides now that he realized what he had just impulsively committed himself to. "Y-yeah. Sure."

"Okay, Cloud" she was smiling broadly at him now. "We'll meet once a week for now, when you're not on assignment. I'll work within your schedule. How does that sound?"

"Fine," Cloud answered, content to falling back into one-word responses.

A few more pleasantries were exchanged, the look on the Director's face gratuitous while Rayleigh was already scribbling notes into her clipboard anytime that Cloud spoke. His guts were feeling water by the time he stood up and left Lazard's office with an unenthused wave, wondering how he was ever going to manage knowing he'd gotten himself into a situation that he absolutely would never feel comfortable with.

When he stepped back into the hallway, he took a moment to lean against one of the pillars that held up the massive ceiling above, facing the floor-to-ceiling windows that invited all of Midgar's steel and mako-infected views from below. He took a deep breath, trying to suppress the panic that was rising in his chest, disbelieving how fast his heart was beating.

He was distracted by the buzz of his PHS against his thigh in his pocket. Snapping out of his anxious thoughts, he reached for it and stared at the screen.

Tifa: I would love to! What did you have in mind? I'm sure Barret won't mind at all.

Cloud couldn't stop the way that he smiled at his device in response, his earlier unease beginning to dissipate. Feeling the warm rise of giddiness that always hit him when he interacted with Tifa, he quickly typed a response to her.

Cloud: How about the Gold Saucer? Just for the weekend? We can come back on Sunday.

Tifa: Wow, an overnight trip? I would have to pack.

Tifa: Let's do it. Marlene has been wanting to go for ages. This is going to be so much fun!

Cloud: I'll be by the bar with Denzel in a few hours to pick you up.

Cloud shoved his PHS into his pocket, unable to wipe the smirk from his face the entire way out of the Shinra Tower that afternoon, forgetting all about counseling and the prospect of facing his guilt and his regrets head-on.

—

It was close to six that late afternoon when Cloud and Denzel arrived in a yellow taxi cab in front of Seventh Heaven, each carrying a backpack with their overnight gear. From the moment that Denzel had arrived home from school to Cloud's announcement that they were going to the Gold Saucer for the weekend, the boy had been a ball of excitement and energy that Cloud didn't think he had witnessed since his parents were alive.

Since the four of them were traveling together, Cloud left his bike at home. He paid the cabbie a few extra gil and asked him to idle while he and Denzel made their way up Seventh Heaven's front steps and went inside.

Marlene was waiting for them at the table closest to the front door, her bright brown eyes widening with her smile when she spotted them. She had her arms wrapped around a pink, fuzzy backpack, and as soon as her eyes connected with Denzel's, she was at her feet and throwing it around her shoulders.

"Denzel!"

"Hold on a second," Barret Wallace had risen quickly from his seat at the bar and was shoving Marlene behind him with his good hand, his long strides terminating the distance between him and Cloud. Cloud craned his neck to glance up at him, scratching the back of his neck.

He knew that since the day he'd shown up here to bring Denzel for his first piano lesson that Barret Wallace was not very fond of him. It had been apparent in the disapproving glares he shot him or the way he grunted through responses, always seeming on the edge of keeping a tight lid on an explosive reaction for Tifa's benefit only. Yet as the weeks wore on and Cloud and Tifa's relationship began to turn, Barret seemed to come around, at the very least tolerating him.

"I wanna have a word with you," Barret groused, clasping a hand around Cloud's shoulder and pulling him in the direction of the rear dining room.

Cloud only had half a second to notice Tifa emerge from the back room with Jessie hot on her heels. His eyes widened at the sight of her; her long hair had been twisted up into twin buns on the top of her head, her fringe spilling into her dark eyes and around her perfectly shaped face. And she was wearing a shimmery, leopard print halter top over jeans that looked like they were painted to her lower half.

Cloud was trying to process how cute and mind-numbingly sexy she was all at once when Barret shoved him into a chair in the dining room, abruptly pulling one out at his side. As he sat, Cloud realized how massive the man was, still towering nearly a foot above him even when seated, his thick, tattooed and scarred arms stretching over his barrel chest as he sat back.

Tifa had never said much about what Barret actually did with his time outside of operating this bar, and Cloud never cared enough to ask. At that moment, though, he did wonder.

"Alright," Barret began. "I'm gonna level with you man to man. I've been keeping my distance ever since you showed up here that first Sunday afternoon with that kid taggin' along. But now you wanna take my daughter away for the weekend, and there's somethings I got to get straight before you take another step further."

Cloud just stared back at him, watching as Barret pulled off his sunglasses and tucked them into a pocket on his vest. His gaze turned to blue steel as his eyes met Barret's serious, light hazel stare. Despite his size, Cloud was hardly about to be intimidated by someone so blusterous. Even so, he really hoped he didn't have to unsheathe his sword inside of Tifa's bar.

"Yeah?" he finally bit out, feeling his patience begin to wear thin.

Barret guffawed once in response, then leaned forward. Cloud's eyes fell to his gun arm, a massive arrangement of barrels that were wrapped around one large blaster in the center. He wondered idly how the man had lost his arm and how he had ever come to make the decision to replace its loss with such a powerful and brawny-looking weapon.

"This ain't about Marlene," Barret picked up, and Cloud groaned, unable to keep from rolling his eyes. But Barret was unfazed by his irascibility, only leaning even closer, his light brown eyes stern. "Tifa is like a daughter to me, too. Been that way for a good six or seven years now. Used to love to hear that girl play, you know. I'm a big music lover, a fan of the classics."

Cloud did not care about this, staring at Barret and waiting for him to get to the point.

"We've been friends for a long time, and I watch over her like she's one of my own," Barret went on. "When she got sick and stopped working, I offered her a job here, let her have the studio upstairs. She's made this place better than it ever was."

Cloud could only nod in response to that, feeling a spool of warmth unwind inside of him, knowing that anything Tifa got her hands on, she made better.

"Since then, any guys come around here, hittin' on her, bringing her flowers - I was ready to throw them on their asses. But Tifa knows how to protect herself - I'll give her that, too. She told plenty of them where to shove their candy and flowers. But when your ass showed up here - I knew something was different."

Cloud swallowed carefully, still not tearing his eyes from Barret's. He waited, silently, for him to finally say what he had dragged him here to say.

"Before I let you off and take her and my daughter away with you for the weekend, I need to know what your intentions are," Barret finally demanded. "I need to know who you are to Tifa and why I should trust you. Far as I can tell, you're the reason she got sick in the first place."

Cloud couldn't help the way that stabbed, so painfully that it made him wince. He took another deep breath, trying not to betray his rising anger or the hurt that that comment had unearthed inside of him. The truth was, as far as the conversation between him and Tifa that night at her apartment had revealed, he had been the cause of Tifa's illness. But it was so much more complicated than that, and he found himself finally tearing away from Barret's gaze to stare down at his hand, furling and unfurling his fist.

"Tifa and I…"

The words lodged themselves in his throat as he stared at his hands, remembering the night that Tifa had fallen off the mountain, the night that she had cried, her body in a blue gown, the night that her father had discovered their continued disobedience and finally made good on his threat to separate them forever. At every juncture, Cloud felt the guilt of his mistakes bubble up to the surface, realizing that he could have done something in each case to keep things from getting so bad that they not only destroyed their happiness together but ended up ruining Tifa's life.

He could have told her father to go fuck himself and found her in Midgar. He could have taken her to the prom himself.

He could have saved her from falling.

He shook his head inwardly, but Barret was losing steam in front of him.

"Well?" he demanded, slamming his fist against the table.

Cloud finally looked up, his heart beginning to pound as he thought again about Tifa and her buns and her tight jeans and her sunny, resplendent smile just down the hall, a sense of resolve burning through his chest like wildfire. "Tifa and I have a long history together," he finally responded. "I don't know how much she's told you, but it's complicated. A lot of things happened between us that - well, it doesn't matter. What matters is - Tifa's my girl now. I'm not letting her go again. And I know she's sick. But I'm going to do everything I can to make sure she's okay, that she gets better. Does that answer your question? My only intention is to be there for her the way no one, not even you, can."

Barret's eyebrows had risen slightly on his face, deepening the twin scars that stretched over his right eyes. But Cloud was now feeling too defiant and too determined to pay it any mind, his eyes narrowed and his nerves on edge as he anticipated another challenge to his character over Tifa.

But Barret, it seemed, was placated enough to back down. He pushed up to his feet, replacing his shades over his eyes.

"I want Marlene home by Sunday morning," was all he said in response. "That's my afternoon with her, and she has to get ready for school."

"Yeah, okay," Cloud agreed with a nonchalant shrug.

Barret said nothing else, just turned away and left, returning to the bar. In his wake, Cloud looked back at his hand, clenching it and once again reaffirming his promise to Tifa.

When he returned to the bar, he found her sitting beside Denzel and Marlene at a booth as they waited for him to return, her eyes radiating new hopes and dreams as she smiled up at him.

—

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2007 |June 12th

Something Wonderful

"Tifa!" Marlene called. "I want to go to the Wonder Square! They have all the cool games there!

Tifa smiled and nodded, rolling her shoulders and trying to shake the dull aches that ran across them and down into her arms. Cloud had insisted on carrying her overnight bag as they began to travel, and so she was relieved of that little bit of stress, yet still, she couldn't shake some of these deep-seated pains that remained so rooted in her body.

It had been over a month since she and Cloud had reconciled their relationship and first made love in her apartment that hazy spring evening May, days after her twenty-nine birthday. Despite the dates they'd taken together over the last few weeks and the intimate moments that they shared whenever they could steal them away between their schedules, that first night was forever burned into Tifa's memory, as precious and unforgettable as the first night she had ever laid down beside Cloud Strife under a blanket of stars.

Still, her body was failing to keep up with the passage of time and the rekindling of a romance that Tifa had been sure would begin to push back some of these less tolerable symptoms. She hadn't felt the need to cry in weeks, but that didn't mean much of anything when her body was still aching and her head still swam with dizziness and her vision still crossed.

She didn't mention any of this to Cloud, though every moment they spent together those last few weeks she became sure that he was aware of all of it. He was never too far behind her, always ready to lend her a helping hand when she struggled with something heavy or strenuous, always ready to rub her shoulders or run his fingers against her scalp consolingly whenever her face twisted up in pain. Somehow, he managed to be a beam of support without ever hovering too close or getting in her way or leaving her feeling like she was too weak to do anything herself.

Nonetheless, Tifa went to great lengths to hide the way that things seemed to not change, but instead, fluctuate or even worsen over those last few days. She felt her body grow weaker, her muscles and joints constantly sore, her eyes drying out and forcing her to blink over and over again so that she could refocus. Her fingers still locked up over the keys when she tutored her students, and more than once she had fought off a dizzy spell when standing behind the bar, mixing cocktails for her customers.

It had become especially clear to her early that very morning when she had met with Master Zangan for a training session at his dojo. She had woken up that morning fatigued, but she had fought it off, ignoring the way that her body was protesting the prospect of extreme physical expenditure. It was only during their sparring match did Tifa realize that she was more winded and weak than she had ever been.

"You seem out of your element today, Tifa," Zangan had warned sternly when they took a water break, Tifa finding a seat on the bench, clapping dust into the air. "I thought you were in remission."

Tifa didn't know why she had ever suggested such a thing. Clearly, she was getting ahead of herself.

This disease was not giving up.

She didn't understand it. None of it made any sense. Her doctor, one of the foremost researchers on Star Scar, had worked through this with her over three years ago. She recalled the conversation vividly.

What can I do?"

"There is really no cure, aside from rectification of the source of the trauma, but that is almost impossible for most people. So we advise that patients treat Star Scar as an autoimmune disorder. It must be managed.

Rectification of the source of the trauma. Tifa thought had thought about that over and over again for years, not wanting to admit to herself for a very long time that that idea was far removed from her reach, probably forever. But things had since changed, and she had Cloud now. They were as committed to each other as they could possibly get without vows exchanged, golden rings and a charm bracelet the symbols between them.

So why was she not getting any better?

Marlene's vivid cry tore her out of her thoughts again. They were standing in front of the Ghost Hotel, waiting for Cloud to return after checking into their rooms and dropping off their bags. It was already late - after nine, in fact - but the Gold Saucer was not the sort of place that ever slept. And on a Friday night, it was packed and fully alive, families with children even younger than Marlene wide awake and milling about the attractions.

"Okay," Tifa conceded. "I think we have enough time to check out at least one Square tonight. But at midnight, we are going to bed, okay? We have all day tomorrow to enjoy the rest of the Saucer."

Marlene pouted, but she nodded happily, before she turned and pulled on Denzel's arm to gush to him about the cemetery that was on display in front of the hotel. Tifa watched them with a smile on their face, enamored by the way that Marlene looped her arm through Denzel's happily and dragged him along. By comparison, Denzel was so quiet and shy next to Marlene, and it was adorable the way that his cheeks lit up bright pink as she jumped up and down next to him.

It was cute. Tifa knew that Marlene was lonely growing up as an only child constantly surrounded by preoccupied adults, so it was nice to see her so exuberant and carefree with another child, especially one who seemed to enjoy her company so much.

"You ready?"

She turned to find Cloud standing at her side, his hair blowing gently in the winds that wafted by in the open sky above the Square. He was smirking at her, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. It was warm enough on the Western Continent that June that he'd foregone his jacket, standing there in a dark t-shirt, the well-defined muscles of his biceps and chest straining slightly against the soft fabric.

Along with the fresh scent of his aftershave, it was mildly distracting for a moment, but Tifa quickly caught herself and smiled, glancing up at him to meet his eyes. "Mhm," she hummed in response. "I told the kids they could stay up until twelve, and then we have to head back for bed. I don't want them to be too tired that they don't enjoy themselves tomorrow."

"That works for me," he responded, wrapping his arm around her waist, and Tifa could see something mirthful and impish dancing in the swirl of sapphire and emerald in his eyes.

She clicked her tongue and looked away from him. "They want to check out the Wonder Square first," Tifa responded, her eyes back on the kids. "I think that's a good idea. They can play a few games and have a light snack before bed. What do you think?"

"Let's go," Cloud answered, leaning in to steal a kiss from her cheek, too close to her lips.

Tifa blushed, distracting herself by calling Marlene and Denzel over. The two children fell between them, Denzel taking Tifa's hand and Marlene taking Cloud's as the two children held onto one another's, and together, they navigated the Gold Saucer together, the bright lights and colorful music their backdrop as they went.

The Wonder Square was quite possibly more boisterous and invasive than any other part of the place with the exception of the Battle Square and maybe the Chocobo races. The arcade was lit up with machines and music and flashing colors, workers stuffed into chocobo costumes at every corner trying to sell more GP or tickets to performances that were occurring in the Event Square that week. The Square was packed with families and teenagers, and all of it was so noisy that Tifa found herself wincing slightly at the onslaught.

"This really isn't my thing," Cloud leaned over and whispered to her as Marlene and Denzel started to gush over the assortment of games available to play. "I hate crowds and I hate noise. I only suggested this because Denzel's been begging me to bring him here forever."

"I completely understand," Tifa replied with a husky laugh. "Kids, the food court is right over here. Do you want to get a bite to eat before you play?"

"We're not hungry!" Marlene and Denzel almost said at the exact same time, and when they realized it, they both broke down into a fit of giggles.

Tifa glanced over at Cloud, who just shrugged, a smirk toying at his lips again.

They followed the children deeper into the square, Cloud buying enough tokens for them both with the GP he'd stashed for them to play way past midnight. Tifa stayed at his side, her hand in his, as they watched the kids play dance games and wack-a-Cactuar and Mog's House. They won prizes here and there, Cloud being left the one to carry everything.

At the basketball game, Denzel grabbed Tifa's wrist and pulled her close, eager to show her his skills.

"I'm one of the best basketball players in my class," he announced to her proudly before shooting the first hoop, the ball sliding against the rim and then falling through the net. Impressed, Tifa bent down and kissed the top of his head, and when Denzel won a stuffed Bomb Monster, he gave it to Tifa, Cloud red-faced but trying to hold in his smile at the entire exchange.

It was the motorcycle game, though, that captured Cloud's attention, though the kids were not interested in this and scampered off toward games that were more to their liking. Tifa stayed with Cloud, standing behind him and watching over his shoulder as he broke the high score and earned enough tickets to buy her the biggest stuffed chocobo they had in stock.

His arms were soon full, and Tifa didn't mind carrying the oversized bird. For a little while, she was so happy that she had forgotten the way that her knees were burning and how her lower back ached, enamored by him and his son and how they were all spending a little bit of time together with no other worries to snag them.

"Your children are adorable," a tired young woman wearing a baby wrapped close to her chest commented as Marlene and Denzel ran past them, en route to another game. She was shadowed by three older children and a man who looked only half as exhausted as she did.

Tifa's eyes widened slightly. "Oh, their not - "

"Thanks," Cloud interrupted, pulling at Tifa's waist so that she was close to him again, and she glanced up at him, an eyebrow raising at the smirk on his face.

The young couple kept on their way, and Tifa turned to Cloud, one hand on her hip.

"Why - "

"Just pretend for a little while," he said, his smirk deepening into a smile before he leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek. "This is what a family feels like, isn't it?"

Tifa thought for a moment, her cheek seared where his lips had marked it. She thought back to happier days as a young girl in Nibelheim, before her mother's illness and death and before her father's descent into depravity.

It had felt something like this.

"I guess you're right," she agreed, watching Marlene and Denzel battle each other in an arcade fighting game.

"It was only ever me and my mom," Cloud said softly, taking her hand again and leading her toward a bench outside of the food court. "And it hasn't even been that way for a long time. You hungry?"

His words were spinning through Tifa's mind, but she shook them loose and nodded. "A funnel cake would be nice," she replied. "It's been years since I had one."

He smiled, then disappeared for moments, leaving her there to sit and ruminate over her thoughts, keeping her eyes on Denzel and Marlene as they continued to play together throughout the Square. They were oblivious to any of the pain or hurts that had laid ruin to the world, both still so innocent and care-free, only seeking and expecting happiness in every shade that life colored for them. She thought about Cloud's words, and realized that like him, she too had been without a family for those same set of years. Barret and Marlene and even Jessie and Biggs and Wedge and Marle and Zangan had become as close to a family as she would ever get again.

Not all families look the same, she remembered Barret telling her when he had first introduced her to his daughter Marlene.

Cloud returned moments later with the funnel cake, settling it on the bench beside her. He'd already taken off his gloves and was tearing a piece away, his fingers covered in sugary powder, the stuff getting all over his pants.

"I got an extra one for the kids for later," he told her. "I know they're gonna be jealous as soon as they find out we had one."

Tifa felt a new round of affection make its way into a burst of turbulence through her belly, and she leaned into him as he held up a bite of the cake for her to eat. She accepted it, warm and doughy and sweet, holding his smile as she chewed and wiped a little bit of the powder away from her lip with her pinky. The last time she had had this stuff had been at the carnival in Nibelheim, with Cloud, at the end of the summer and right before everything between them had come to an abrupt end.

"You're a great dad," she found herself gushing as soon as she swallowed.

Cloud blushed, turning away and making a face as if he hardly believed this, though he didn't say anything, taking a bite of the funnel cake. After feeding Tifa another piece, he spoke again.

"I used to… I used to be jealous of Zack," Cloud suddenly admitted in a low tone. "I mean, he was my best friend. But he was always so happy. So happy with Aerith, so happy with his accomplishments, so happy with everything. When he got married, I remember the way that he smiled at me before he stepped up to take his vows. I was his best man, and I watched the whole thing, and all I could think about was you."

Tifa felt her throat tighten, a painful sharpness embedded in the back of it as her emotions began to swell, and she urged them down, not wanting any tears to spill tonight.

"And then Denzel was born," Cloud went on. "And that was when Zack was happier than he'd ever been. The joy that he felt - I was happy for him, but I couldn't help but feel sorry for myself, knowing I'd never feel that way."

"Cloud…"

"I guess their deaths were the universe's way of teaching me to be careful what I wish for," he added miserably, turning back to the funnel cake and tearing off another piece.

Tifa felt like her heart was going to burst apart. Despite the pains that lived all across her body, she knew it was nothing like the pain that he continued to bury beneath miles of sediment inside of his heart. She sidled up closer to him, dropping a palm to his forearm.

"That's not true, Cloud," she consoled him softly. "The universe doesn't act with that kind of foresight. It strikes the way that lightning does. But it did the right thing in giving Denzel to you. You are good for him, and I know that Zack is proud of you."

Cloud glanced at her, his eyes placid and blue and glassy. He nodded slowly, before looking away again.

Tifa bit the inside of her lip. Any time that they talked, she had never had the opportunity or the gall to push him to ask him more about their deaths. He had talked to her fondly about their time alive, but Tifa knew from Marle that they had died horribly and that Cloud blamed himself for it.

"You can't blame yourself for what happened to them," she added when it had fallen quiet between them for a moment, only the rambunctious sounds of the Square bleeding between them.

"You don't know that, Tifa," Cloud added. He held up another piece of funnel cake to her lips as if to distract her. "You weren't there. I was driving and I - "

He winced at the memory and Tifa wrapped her arms around him, offering him a gentle hug, trying to avoid getting the powder from the fried cake all over her blouse. "Shh," she whispered in his ear. "It's okay, Cloud."

"I'm going for counseling," he suddenly confessed as she pulled back, his voice so low and shaky she could barely hear him over the noise.

The lights of the square were spotlighting rainbows over his pale skin, and Tifa could see the vulnerability that was couched in his admission written across the royal blue oceans of his eyes. He waited for her response, looking away from her after a moment, and Tifa could hear her heart beginning to beat faster as she realized what he had just shared with her.

Without thinking about it, she reached for his hand, taking it in hers and squeezing it gently.

"I'm glad, Cloud," she professed resolutely. "Really glad. I'm here for you every step of the way, okay?"

He finally looked back up at her, his eyes softening.

"Thanks, Tifa." He was smiling now, and soon he was feeding her again, the weight of their conversation dissipating like mist around them.

They finished their cake, and Tifa soon realized how late it was getting. Cloud summoned Marlene and Denzel despite their protests, and they got to their feet, the two children instantly fighting over the funnel cake that was wrapped in a brown paper bag, Cloud holding it far out of reach and insisting they couldn't touch it unless they behaved.

Tifa stood, a smile pulling at her lips. But it quickly evaporated as a dizzy spell seized her, accompanied by a new wave of nausea she had not experienced before. She wavered slightly on her feet, leaning against the bench to keep from falling.

"Tifa," Cloud was instantly at her side, one hand gripping her upper arm. "Are you okay? What's wrong?"

Tifa swallowed, quickly trying to center and reorient herself. She shook her head, rising again to her full height, realizing that both Denzel and Marlene had crowded at her sides, looking up at her with concern.

"I'm fine," she managed after it had passed. "I shouldn't have eaten so much of that in one sitting. I'm not used to all that sugar."

Cloud watched her for a moment as if assessing whether or not she was truly okay before he nodded and threaded his arm through theirs. This seemed to placate the kids well enough, and they both skipped ahead of them, carrying some of the toys they had won while Cloud held the rest in his free arm and Tifa carried her chocobo against her hip.

"Let's get some rest," was all Cloud said in response as they made their way back to the hotel.

—

The first thing that Tifa did when they reached their suite for the night was kick out of her shoes, sinking her feet into the plush carpet of their room. Cloud had booked a double suite with a connecting door between the two rooms, Marlene and Denzel sleeping in the twin beds in one room while Cloud and Tifa discretely claimed the king-sized bed in the other. Initially, Tifa had been embarrassed by this arrangement, offering to sleep with Marlene, not wanting the kids to know they were sharing a bed. But it was the kids who insisted that they wanted to share a room, and Cloud certainly didn't seem inclined to argue, smiling smugly as Tifa conceded, a smile of her own painting her lips.

Denzel and Marlene were both in their pajamas with teeth brushed, already in bed when Cloud and Tifa came in to check on them.

"Lights out," Cloud said firmly, ruffling Denzel's hair while Tifa bent down to give both children cheek kisses. "Don't even think about staying up playing and talking all night, either. You need to get your rest for tomorrow. We have the whole rest of the Saucer to explore."

"We won't, Cloud!" Marlene vowed, though Tifa could detect the faintest hint of mischief in her voice.

"We'll be able to hear you through the walls," Cloud warned.

The kids eventually settled down, and Cloud and Tifa returned to their room on the other side of the door. Cloud quietly stripped down to his boxers and climbed into bed while Tifa dug through her bag, realizing after a moment that she had forgotten to pack her nightclothes.

She sighed, slumping over on the floor, shaking her head. She had been in a rush getting both herself and Marlene ready to leave that she must have overlooked it. She tried to avoid the tiny voice that pinged the back of her mind, reminding her that these episodes of absent-mindedness were becoming all too routine.

"What's wrong?" Cloud asked her from the bed, where he had been watching and waiting for her to join him. He was leaning up on one elbow, his hair already a messy golden halo around his head, the lights of the Saucer beyond the window filtering a myriad of colors into their room.

"Can I borrow a shirt?" she asked instead of answering.

Cloud quirked an eyebrow at her. "A shirt?" he asked.

"I forgot to pack my pajamas," she explained, unsure of why this was making her blush.

Cloud smirked at her, laying back across his pillow with his eyes still trained on her. "You don't need pajamas, Teef," he told her. "Just take all that off and come to bed."

Tifa frowned at him. "Cloud, the kids are right next door," she chastised. "I at least need a shirt, in case they wake up in the middle of the night or something."

He laughed, then waved at his backpack. "I think you just like wearing my clothes," he commented, crossing his arms behind his head. "Put on whatever you want."

Tifa tossed his smirk back at him, but she didn't miss how he kept his eyes on her as she disrobed, even though he tried to appear casual. Despite their intimacies, she couldn't hide the shyness that his open stare on her body erupted inside of her, and she quickly found one of his plain white t-shirts and pulled it over her head.

She stood in front of the mirror across the room and undid her buns from her hair, setting the pins and ribbons down on the dresser. Her hair fell down her shoulders in tumbles as she unwove them, and after having been twisted up for so long, her locks were rippled with gentle waves. She turned around, now wearing only Cloud's shirt and her underwear, finding his blue eyes glowing in the dimness of their room as he watched her.

She came over to the bed, turning out the bedside light, Cloud opening the covers for her when she approached. She climbed into the bed beside him, cradling herself in the shell of body as he wrapped his arms around her and his fingers fell into her hair.

"You should wear your hair like that more often," he whispered into her skin. "You were so cute that it was hard for me to control myself all night."

"I'm glad you liked it," she responded, feeling the warmth of his body collide with the heat that was bubbling up inside of her at his sweet words.

"You look cute in my shirt, too," he said, shifting slightly so that he could lean over and look down at her as he held her. "You always look cute in my stuff."

"So I guess you like me wearing it as much as I do?" she teased.

"Maybe," he admitted, his fingers caught in her hair again.

His words brought back a distant memory of a hoodie that Tifa had buried somewhere in one of her closet and was still there. She hadn't had the heart to ever get rid of it, and after their breakup, when she had been alone in Midgar, it had become a small comfort. But as the years passed and the distance grew, she weaned herself off of it, hiding it away among other tokens of the past that she didn't want to face again.

"I still have your hoodie, you know," she breathed against his neck after a long moment.

He sat up a little further. "What?"

"The hoodie you gave me the first day we met, in Nibelheim. When it was raining. Remember?"

"Of course I remember," Cloud whispered in response, now caressing her cheek and dragging long tendrils of her silky dark tresses in his fingers. "You looked so cute in that thing every time you wore it. You kept it after all this time? Even after - "

"I used to wear it to sleep, after we broke up," Tifa confessed, leaning in closer to him, nuzzling her face against his chest. "I used to wear it every night, even when it was too hot - I would turn up the air conditioning in my dorm in Midgar when I moved there just so I could keep it on. It smelled like you, and it helped me not feel so lonely. Shiva, I missed you so much, Cloud."

He now had both of her cheeks in his palms, ducking his face down to hers so that their foreheads touched gently. "I missed you too, Teef," he whispered against her lips, his breath heated and stirring the butterflies in her belly. "I'm here now, baby. I told you I've got you forever."

His voice had taken on that tenor that made her melt, his words willowing her bones away into rivers of lava. It generated a burst of welcome heat in her blood, and she couldn't avoid the purr that escaped her lips as she pressed her body against his, signaling the effect that he had on her.

Cloud read her easily, crowding her even closer to him and pulling the covers over their heads as if it would shield them away from the rest of the world. She cooed her encouragement to him, and Cloud silenced her by kissing her for long moments, one arm behind her body holding her to him while the other traveled under her shirt to squeeze at her hips and waist and gently caress her breasts.

She was panting against his mouth when he broke their kiss and brought two long fingers up to her lips, prodding them apart gently, his eyes glowing in the darkness. Tifa opened her mouth, letting him in as he whispered to her against the pillows.

"Wet them," he instructed her softly.

Obediently, Tifa drew his fingers into her mouth and began to suck, wrapping her tongue around them and holding his eyes as he watched her. She could feel his already steel erection stiff against her leg, and everything about him was driving her wild, her center tingling as he pinned her down with his gaze.

Slowly, he withdrew his fingers, still staring into her eyes, the blue swirling with green in his. "Good girl," he whispered, the softness of his voice making her crazy until she was so wet and achy the way he always made her feel when he spoke to her in these sweet, gentle tones. "Lay on your tummy."

She did as he told, folding her arms under her pillow, the anticipation an inferno inside of her as she heard him shift behind her. She exhaled when she felt his fingertips at her hips, soon pulling her panties down to her ankles before he laid beside her and brought his two wet fingers to her slit, stroking her up and down, circling around her clit that was now throbbing as he leaned in and kissed her jaw.

"Oh, oh," Tifa moaned as he ran his fingers over her most sensitive parts, sliding inside of her and rubbing her nub until she was coiled tight from the pleasure. "Cloud… it's sooooo -"

"Shhh," he was shushing her right against her ear, his voice low and so, so very soft, its cadence strumming a chord that ran from her heart all the way along the delicate threads of her nerves until it reached her core. "You have to be quiet, Teef. The kids are right next door, remember?"

She buried her face in the pillow, crimping her eyes shut, biting her lower lip to keep from mewling in response to him.

Cloud only continued to pet and caress her until she was arching her back and spreading her knees, trying desperately to not cry out at the way that he played her like a finely tuned instrument. She was close, on the version of collapsing into a pool of fire, when he pulled away and then climbed on top of her body, caging her beneath him and holding her close to him beneath the sheets as he laid fully atop her.

Her cry was muffled into the covers when he pushed his shirt up a little around her waist and then slid his length inside of her, and Tifa felt all of the euphoric heat blend with the froth of her emotions that had been escalating for hours now. She could feel the hot tears threaten again, Cloud working a slow but deep rhythm inside of her, blissfully digging against the spot inside of her that he somehow always knew how to find that made her unravel like a ball of yarn between a cat's paws.

She was moaning into the pillow, the sensations were so good, and Cloud didn't help matters when he began to whisper and groan above her, Tifa clenching her walls down on him as the crescendo built to a climax and she felt ready to fall completely.

"I love you so much, Tifa," his words fell into her ear and greeted her brain like the crashing cascade of a waterfall. "You're my girl forever, baby. Mine. I'll always love you, Tiiii-ffaa…"

She whined as her orgasm hit, and Cloud was right behind her, huffing her name into her shoulder. Both arms had reached around to find hers, and he had taken reign of her hands, pinning her down to the mattress completely as he rocked in and out of her with a sweet and wondrous finality.

She breathed heavily, his shirt she was wearing sticking to the sweat of her body, his heartbeat grounding her as the ecstasy of her climax ransacked her brain. She tried to organize her thoughts, but all she could think about was how much she loved this man, how much she had always loved him, and how much that love was growing into something deeper and more real than she had ever dreamed it could be or that she might ever be able to obtain.

Cloud slid away from her, kissing her one more time before he helped her fix her panties and then righted his own underwear. He curled her close to him again when he laid down, and soon, he was asleep after whispering his love for her one final time, Tifa sighing as she drifted off soon after he did.

It was hours later, deep in the middle of the night, did Tifa awaken with the same swell of nausea she had felt earlier tumbling through her gut. Only this time, it raged through her like a whirlpool, sending her running into the bathroom and emptying her insides of all of the funnel cake and everything else she had eaten that day.

—

[ μ ] - εγλ - 1997 | 24th April

Bluebells and Blue Dresses

Winter came and went with a quietness that Tifa had not felt or experienced in a very long time. With mama gone, her home was mostly silent - there was no longer the warmth and happy chatter of their family from her younger days, nor were there any of the angry shouts and screams that had come to characterize the days after her mother's illness had set in. Her father kept mostly to himself, coming and going to work, silent during dinner and now taking his bottle with him upstairs to bed after he'd eaten or into the darkness of her study.

Though the quietude was unsettling, it was the dull loneliness of her new routine that most ate away at Tifa as the weeks and months stretched on. Now fully recovered from her accident on Mount Nibel, the full weight of her mother's death had finally hit her, and the emptiness in their home that her absence created was staggering. Tifa found herself constantly drifting toward her bedroom to check on her or turning toward her place on the couch where she would watch her daytime soaps or read her romance novels, expecting to find her there but finding the space a void.

She wound her way through taking care of herself and her father and trying to keep up with her schoolwork despite the fact that she was drowning in a melancholy that she could not name. It consumed her thoughts most of her waking hours, especially whenever she found herself alone, the pain and the sadness of that winter and everything it had left her living both with and without an anvil on her chest.

Jody had begun to pursue her relentlessly again when school started back up after the holidays, though his tactics were laced with a haughty smugness that made her stomach churn. No matter how much she turned him down or ignored him, slamming doors and lockers in his face, he laughed alongside his friends as she stormed off, reminding her over and over again that she was his. Her father was a co-conspirator to all of it, reminding her over and over again of the ceremony and how she had better not dare further embarrass him or their family name by defying what had already been writ in blood and stone.

Jody, it seemed, was rejuvenated following the Goddess Confirmation and the public humiliation that both she and Cloud were mired in after the incident on the mountain. Tifa soon learned that it had been Jody who ran to his father and then hers and spread the awful rumor that Cloud had led her purposefully up to the peak of the cliffs himself. Tifa had tried to reveal the truth, but Cloud didn't want her to face any further shame by admitting her reckless behavior, and he pleaded with her to let him take the blame.

Cloud became her only solace, but it was difficult to take refuge in him when she was forbidden to see him and her father not only watched her every move but had half the town spying on her as well. It left her with a steady, infectious ache to know that he was right next door to her all of the time, but that she could not have and hold him the way that she desperately wanted to. Sometimes, very, very late at night when she was certain her father had blacked out, she let Cloud sneak into her room, and they would crawl under her covers together and cuddle, whispering to each other under the sheets, Tifa unloading her sadness while Cloud built walls of encouragement around her. All the while, Tifa pushed him to go for his own dreams as he talked more and more to her about history and his favorite novels and even his newfound fascination with motorcycles. And sometimes, he would nudge her into playing the piano for him, and despite her fear of waking her father up, she would play for Cloud, letting him wrap his arms around her waist with his chin on her shoulder as her fingers tapped out their mournful notes.

Their dates became few and far between. Tifa had to lie to her father anytime they attempted, and it always filled her with anxiety, a rod of fear laced through her spine at the thought of being caught. They had to avoid the villagers for the most part, and so they were relegated to the water tower in the park or the farmlands that clung to the valleys on the other side of town, frequenting Willie's, a backwater place where no one really seemed interested in the intricacies of their lives.

Despite all of this, though, Tifa couldn't avoid the machinations that others continued to design over her life. The weather began to warm with the advent of Spring, flowers returning to crest along the base of the mountains and the orchids that lined the valleys blooming with new flora, the snow melting away and the air becoming acrid and dusty again. After it all, Tifa's nonconsensual commitment to Jody and his family bared its fangs once again.

It started in the hallway after fifth period one afternoon in late March, just as Tifa was on her way to lunch. As he had so many times before, Jody cornered her by her locker during the change of classes, his posse in their varsity jackets feet away in the background.

Tifa had instantly sighed when she caught sight of him standing beside her, leaned against the locker next to hers. "What do you want?"

"That's no way to greet your future husband," he teased, but all it did was make Tifa see red until she was slamming her locker door shut. "I just came to remind you that prom is just about a month away."

Tifa shouldered her backpack, glancing heavenward in frustration. She was well aware that prom was coming up, and she was torn between going with a group of girls that she was friendly with or not going at all. The effort didn't seem worth it, especially since she couldn't very well take the boy that she wanted to go with.

"And?" she had huffed in his face.

Jody clearly found her irritation amusing, because he was laughing as he crossed his arms over his chest. "Well, we're going together, of course," he stated matter-of-factly. "We've been talking about this since Junior year, Teef."

It scraped against every nerve in her body that he had the audacity to use that nickname with her like that, a name that she couldn't imagine anybody but Cloud or maybe mama ever calling her. She balled up her fist at her side, her fingernails digging sharp indents into the flesh of her palm.

"We aren't together," she reminded him, already shouldering past him. "And if I do decide to go, it won't be with you."

Unfortunately, things had not been that simple.

That very same night, Jonathan Hartley - Jody's father - had phoned Brian Lockhart, and somewhere in the midst of their conversation, Brian had drunkenly begun to scream for Tifa to join him in his study. It was there that he explained - in no uncertain terms - that she was going to attend the senior prom with Jody Hartley, and that she was going to stop acting like a brat because she was eventually going to marry him, just as they had vowed before Minerva. Tifa had tried to argue, tried to grovel and fight and plea, but it was fruitless, no more effective than screaming at a brick wall. She ran to her room instead that night, crying herself to sleep and mourning the loss of her girlhood that was quickly being turned into somebody else's nightmare.

Weeks passed and Tifa resisted the inevitable, but it didn't get any better. Cloud told her to just blow off the entire prom, but Tifa knew that there was no way that she could pull that off. He held her in his arms in the backseat of his mother's car as she whimpered her wishes for him to take her to her senior prom - the boy that she loved - even though they both knew it was an impossibility.

The day came, though, and Tifa now sat in the backseat of a chocobo carriage wearing a deep, royal blue prom dress, one that was corseted at the waist with a plunging sweetheart neckline, the skirt billowing out in taffeta and glittering netting. Her arms were wrapped in blue satin gloves, her thick dark hair twisted up on the top of her head in a messy but carefully woven updo.

She had gone through the motions at the dressmaker and the salon, a bored and resigned expression on her face, her brain on autopilot while she let everyone continue to make the decisions for her.

Jody was sitting beside her in his tux, smiling at the villagers who had gathered in the center of town to watch the parades of carriages cart the teenagers through town and up to the high school for the prom. Tifa had watched Cloud's house disappear from view as they departed, wondering if he was watching the spectacle from his window, knowing he wouldn't dare venture outside when her father was hovering on the sidewalk. She turned away, feeling as if she were in the midst of committing a massive betrayal.

The night didn't seem to get any better. Tifa felt crowded and choked by the throngs of her peers around her, everyone happy and laughing, carefree as they celebrated an event that heralded the beginning of the end of their senior year. She sat at a table that was full of Jody's friends from the team and their girlfriends, girls that Tifa knew well but hardly felt any affinity to.

In fact, she was beginning to realize, Tifa was losing all affinity for anyone she had in this town, with the exception of one blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who was probably laying across his bed playing video games at this very moment.

She tried to push Cloud from her mind, her heart pounding every time that she thought about him. Over and over again, Jody asked Tifa to dance, but she declined as many times as he asked, soon finding every excuse in the book to get up and leave the gymnasium to stare at her reflection in the mirror in the girl's room.

The third time she went into the bathroom, when it was already late into the evening and most of the students had been dancing and enjoying the death throes of their high school careers for hours, Tifa was alone. She trembled over the sink, feeling anxiety grip her again, and she tried to breathe, knowing it was close to midnight and that she would not have to stay here for much longer.

She had just begun to reassure herself when two girls burst into the bathroom in a fit of laughter, their fingers curled around crumpled sheets of paper. As soon as they saw Tifa, though, their laughter died and their eyes turned downcast, the papers they held were soon hidden behind their backs.

Tifa quirked an eyebrow at this, not really thinking much of it as she brushed off her skirt and left the bathroom. It was only as she stepped back into the gym did she realize that something was terribly wrong.

All throughout the hallways and in the gym, students were holding folded sheets of paper in their hands, most of them laughing, others with shocked expressions on their faces. But all of them turned with eyes wide to Tifa as she passed, some of them looking amused and others dour, some even sad. Their stares were like knives, all pointed and sharp and squarely targeted at her and her alone until she felt like she was being stripped of everything she was wearing in front of everyone.

It was Rebecca - a girlfriend that she had a few classes with - who stopped her before she approached the table where she had been sitting with Jody and his friends. Her dark green eyes were wet with tears, setting off a bomb somewhere in the back of Tifa's brain as a shaky hand held out the folded slip of paper to her.

Feeling the burn of hundreds of eyes on her bare shoulders, Tifa slowly accepted the sheet, unfolding it and glancing down at what was etched across it.

It was a black and white copy of her yearbook photo, Tifa smiling at the camera, looking smart and happy in the dark blue dress that all the girls had to wear for their pictures. But scrawled diagonally across her face was the word 'SLUT', in bright red lettering that looked like it had been carved from a tube of lipstick. It had been photocopied and reproduced, but the impact was still the same, and Tifa felt a gunshot hit her square in the chest as she realized what she and everyone else in her senior class was staring at.

All around her, the whispers and the snickering seemed much, much louder than it had before, drowning out even the sound of the music that blared from the speakers overhead. Tifa blinked, looking around at the faces that watch her in amusement and pity and shame, everything happening in slow motion as she turned and tried to process.

She stopped when her eyes fell on Jody, finding him leaning against his chair with his hands in his pockets, a satisfied look of triumph on his face. He wasn't holding one of the papers in his hands, though all of his friends and their girlfriends were, all of them laughing around him. When their eyes met, Jody just tipped his head at her, and Tifa felt all of the air leave her lungs.

Without trying to think anymore, Tifa crumpled the offending sheet of paper up into a ball in her fists, picking up her skirts and turning and running from the gymnasium with all of the speed that her legs could carry her with. Her heels clicked against the vinyl of the hallway floors as she tore through the school, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes and smearing her mascara until it ran in heavy black lines down her cheeks.

"Maybe that will knock her back down to earth," Jody could be heard saying to his friends as she ran, his laughter igniting in the air like a firecracker.

Tifa wasn't sure where she was going, turning down corridors without her brain making any conscious decisions, empty of thoughts. It was stamped with the image on the page she'd been handed, that ugly red word branded across the back of her eyelids forever.

Somehow, her legs had carried her to the school's music room, a large classroom with tiered rows of chairs where the band would practice whenever they gathered. The piano was in the back of the room on the highest dais, Tifa's eyes instantly falling to it as she burst into the room.

The room was dark, but Tifa didn't bother to turn the lights on. She stumbled through the rows, tripping over her own feet, soon becoming aware of her own voice echoing in sobs as she ambled her way to the back of the room.

She stopped by the piano, her heart aching and leaking in the center of her chest as she dropped a gloved hand to the smooth surface of its lid. She could still faintly hear the music playing in the gym, its thunderous beat rocking through the walls of the entire school. She closed her eyes, feeling fresh tears fall, wondering why the gods hated her so much.

Was Minerva punishing her for her defiance? She wept, slamming her hand down against the wood, dropping the ball of paper and its ugliness onto the lid.

All she wanted right at that moment was Cloud.

With that thought, Tifa snapped her head up to glance at the small office in the back of the music room. It was where the band teacher and his assistants held their planning meetings before lessons. The door was open, and Tifa slowly crept inside, flicking on the light and finding the telephone on the desk.

Without hesitating, Tifa called Cloud's house, his number memorized and written on her heart for moments just like this.

"Hello?"

It was Claudia. Tifa closed her eyes, swallowing carefully. The last thing that she wanted was for his mother to get wind of how upset she was. Knowing her, she would show up at the school to put down Jody and anyone else behind this horror show.

Tifa cleared her throat, trying to sound neutral. "Hi, Mrs. Strife. It's Tifa. I'm sorry to call so late. It's just - is Cloud awake?"

"Of course, Tifa," Claudia responded. "But aren't you at your prom?"

"I kinda need a ride," Tifa responded,tasting her tears on her tongue.

"Hold on, honey."

Tifa waited a moment, holding her breath until she heard Cloud's voice pick up the other end and Claudia click off.

"Teef?"

"Cloud!" Tifa cried. "Please, can you come pick me up? I can't stay here. Something terrible has happened, and I - "

"Whoa, slow down, Tifa," Cloud interrupted, shaking the grogginess from his voice. "What happened? Are you alright? Did that asshole - "

"I'm fine, Cloud," Tifa broke in, aware that she was crying again. "Just - please, come get me. I'm in the music room."

"I'm on my way," he promised, hanging up without another word.

Tifa sighed, replacing the receiver and backing out of the office, returning to the darkness and the piano. She stared at it for a long moment, her eyes hovering over her defiled, crumbled photo on its lid before drifting to its keys, the ivory glistening under the moonlight that streamed in through the windows overhead.

Moving as if in slow motion, Tifa stepped toward the piano, tucking in her skirts as she sank down onto the bench. Her hands still wrapped in blue satin, she brought her fingers to the keys, tapping out Jurrivh's The Reason Why over and over again, not aware of how much time had passed as her tears splashed onto the keys.

"Tifa?"

It was half an hour later when she stopped playing at the sound of his voice, turning to find Cloud standing at the bottom of the classroom, below the rows of orchestral tiers, wearing sweats and his leather jacket over his t-shirt, his hair wild and messy around his head. As soon as he saw her tear-streaked face, blackened by her makeup, he bounded up the rows, finding her at the top of the platform and instantly falling to her side on the bench.

"What happened?" he demanded, breathless from running. "Why are you crying? And why are you sitting here in the dark?"

Her bottom lip quivered and shook, and she stared up into his eyes, wild and impassioned and the deepest, truest blue she had ever seen. Unable to formulate words, Tifa just pointed at the paper on the lid of the piano, instantly covering her face with her hands when Cloud reached for it.

She felt his body stiffen next to hers when he'd unfurled it, and seconds later, he was crumbling it, then tearing it apart, the shreds scattering to the floor around their feet. He turned to her, his hand on her arm, but Tifa refused to look up at him, tears and eyeliner now staining her gloves.

Gently, he pulled her hands away, though she could feel in the strength of his grip that he was holding back the fury that was buried inside of him. "Tifa," he spoke very calmly, his voice measured and even. "Who made this? Did Jody do this to you?"

"I don't know," Tifa wept, keeping her eyes downcast, wishing she could stop crying long enough to answer him properly. She felt so weak and broken. She didn't understand why this was affecting her so much; it wasn't like the word that bled across her photo was true.

Still, the humiliation and the shame made it feel as if she deserved every letter burned across the page.

"Whoever it was, they spread it all around the prom, like a flyer," she sniffled, wiping her eyes again and smudging everything even more. "I - I don't know how I can even go back to school. I'm ruined."

"You're not ruined," Cloud insisted at once. "Whoever did this to you is ruined. Where is Jody?" Cloud was at his feet. "I'm going to kill him."

"Cloud, no," Tifa stopped him, tugging on his jacket. "Please, don't. I don't want you to get in trouble. Just - stay with me."

She got to her feet, standing in front of him. She pulled her corsage off of her wrist, a bright, deep blue flower that matched her dress and matched his eyes. She offered it to him, taking his hand in hers so that she could press it into his palm.

"What's this?" he asked her softly.

"It's a desert bluebell," Tifa answered, gently stroking the flower's fat petals with her fingertip. "They grow in the orchids near the base of the mountain. They… reminded me of your eyes. I decided to pick them for our corsages as a way to tell Jody to fuck off."

At this, Cloud could only laugh. "I love it when you swear."

For the first time all night, Tifa smiled. She watched as Cloud took the corsage and tucked it into the front pocket of his jacket, right above his heart, leaving just a few delicate petals peeking out.

Tifa could still hear the music from the gymnasium down the corridors echoing through the wall, this time a slow ballad that she couldn't quite recognize. She stepped closer to Cloud, dropping her palms to his chest.

"Dance with me?"

He glanced down at her, then nodded, slowly folding his arms around her body. He held her close to him, wrapping his arms around her shoulders, Tifa folding hers around his waist, and they stayed like that for a long time, rocking back and forth together. She basked in the warm security of his body, intent to never let it go, while Cloud ran his fingers through the tendrils of her hair that had spilled from her updo, gently grazing across her shoulders as he held her tight.

"Ms. Lockhart?"

Tifa broke away from Cloud's body at the sound of the voice, turning to find one of the school's vice-principals, Ms. Adams, standing at the classroom door with a walkie-talkie in her hand.

"Sweetheart, we've been looking everywhere for you," she said, turning on the lights, Tifa wincing against the bright overhead fluorescents now that her eyes had adjusted to the moonlight. "I'm sending everyone home after that little stunt. The entire senior class is being placed on probation until we find out who is behind this. I'm sorry, darling. Come on, your father is on his way to pick you up. You can sit and wait for him in my office."

But Tifa was shaking her head. She didn't want to go back inside that school, she didn't want to see any of her peers, she didn't want to go with Ms. Adams and she definitely didn't want to ride home with her father, who was probably intoxicated.

"No…"

Cloud, sensing her distress, was taking her hand in his. Ignoring the administrator, he leveled his gaze with Tifa's, then nodded at her.

"Come on," he whispered.

And then he was pulling her through a back door of the classroom, through a custodial closet and beyond an emergency exit, depositing them at the back of the school near the soccer field, Tifa's heels sinking into the grass as they both ignored Ms. Adams and ran.

And they didn't stop running as they raced across the field and to the side of the building where Cloud had parked his mother's car, Tifa holding her breath until they were inside of it and he was driving away from the school, heading in any direction that wasn't home.