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.

11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

---

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2007 | July 2nd

Buried Beneath

Cloud's hand was shaking around the styrofoam cup of coffee he was holding in the small, nicely decorated vestibule he sat in outside of Dr. Rayleigh's office on the 62nd floor of the Shinra Tower. It was empty and quiet, the walls painted in muted colors and a gloomy summer rainstorm clouding the sky behind the windows, coloring his mood.

Cloud's nerves had been fraying since he'd gotten out of bed that morning. It had been close to a month since he'd first committed to meeting with Rayleigh, and in the weeks since, he'd been dodging her and finding excuses not to meet. He claimed that he was busy with assignments or backlogged with reports and paperwork, but the truth was he was avoiding her at every turn, afraid of how the conversation might pan out when it finally happened despite his promise to himself to begin to repair this aspect of his life.

It couldn't be avoided forever, though, and Rayleigh's secretary eventually found space in Cloud's calendar to pencil him in early that summer. Cloud relented, remembering what he had told Tifa and what he had committed to himself.

Thinking about Tifa, spending time with her, every facet of their rekindling relationship had him reevaluating his choices in life as the weather in Midgar grew warmer with the advent of spring. He found himself drinking less on the weekends and very little if at all during the week, wanting to keep a clear head for both her and Denzel. He tried to keep a lid on his temper at work, biting his tongue under the acerbic commands of the executives he guarded and focusing on efficiently handling the dirtier aspects of his job. And he tried not to dwell too much on his annoyance with his present circumstances and the unfairness with which life had treated him, investing a little more into his friendship with Kunsel, who he started to spend time with even outside of work hours.

With school out, Denzel began to dedicate even more of his time to his piano lessons with Tifa. Graciously, Tifa offered to move his lessons to five days a week, still refusing to charge Cloud for any of her time spent with him. Denzel, it seemed, was focused on his goal of playing piano with the school's concert band the following year, and it only further deepened his bond with Tifa, who let him hang around the bar in the daytimes with Marlene while Cloud was working so that he didn't have to find a babysitter. Cloud soon realized that Tifa let him practice on the piano for hours even when Tifa wasn't directly tutoring him and was managing the bar, finding that Marlene had taken a deep investment in his budding talent and was frequently at his side, encouraging him.

The smiles that Cloud began to see split between Denzel's cheeks more and more over the course of the summer were unlike any he could remember seeing on the boy's face in a long, long time, and it made Cloud smile, too.

But it was Tifa who was the glue that held them all together, the anchor that kept him grounded to his new world that was beginning to take shape with a resplendency that he was unfamiliar with and quite frankly, a little afraid of. As much as he enjoyed spending time alone with Tifa - really, really enjoyed it - he found that he was also content spending time with her and the people that surrounded both their lives. He spent more time at Seventh Heaven in the evenings, often waiting for her shift to end while the children played together. He found a favorite stool at the bar, against the wall, where he would watch her while quietly nursing a beer or sometimes just a glass of water. Sometimes, he would chat with Biggs or reluctantly listen to one of Barret's lectures, soon learning the work that Tifa's imposing elder friend did revolved around environmental justice and tackling some of Shinra's less sustainable practices.

More often than not he shared dinner with Tifa and her friends, the kids included. The first time that Marle had joined them, Cloud found himself with his cheeks warm the entire evening, unable to avoid the fact that he was sitting across from his child's teacher who read everything that was happening between him and Tifa without any effort at all and was taken to commenting all about it. He soon met Tifa's martial arts sensei, Zangan, as well, realizing that he was among a group of people who cared deeply for Tifa Lockhart.

All of this began to unwind some of the tension that had grown to be a constant vice around Cloud's heart. No matter how much Jessie harassed him or Wedge annoyed him, Cloud found himself growing somewhat attached to all of Tifa's friends, friends that he knew were really as much as her family as he wanted to make himself.

The only thing that persisted like a nagging mosquito was Tifa's illness. As the weeks wore on, Tifa didn't seem to get better despite her constant reassurances that she would, that time was all that she needed. It didn't matter how much time Cloud spent with her, how much he cared for her or tried to alleviate some of the mundane burdens and stresses of her life. It didn't matter how much she tried to brush it off or deny that it was affecting her. He could see it in her eyes every time she flinched from pain, knew it from the way that she ran into the bathroom, holding onto her stomach, slamming the door shut as she vomited into the toilet. He could tell whenever he would see the melancholy settle behind her eyes when he observed her silently as she worked, a sadness that seemed to only be lifted when she came back to him but always returned to her when they separated again.

No matter what he did, she seemed stagnated, and it broke him up inside despite the progress he felt he was making. It was another failure between them, stacked on top of miles of others he had let build, even if this one remained unspoken.

"First Class Strife?"

Cloud looked up from where he had been staring into his now empty cup, his hands still shaking, tearing himself from his thoughts to find Dr. Rayleigh standing at the door of her office. She was smiling pleasantly at him, her dark blue eyes sheltered by round-rimmed spectacles, wearing a simple dark pantsuit sans her lab coat.

Begrudgingly, feeling his insides turn to ice water, he slowly got to his feet, offering Rayleigh a tepid nod in greeting from across the room. Tossing his cup into a nearby trash can, he followed her inside her office, waiting by the door until she closed it behind them.

"Have a seat," she offered, gesturing to the chair across from her desk.

Dr. Rayleigh's office wasn't very large, but it was nicely decorated. Cloud had never really spent much time on the research and development floors; occasionally when he had been an active-duty SOLDIER his work had brought him up here and in contact with some of Professor Hojo's bizarre experiments. But as a contractor, most of his assignments were not classified enough to warrant any visits up here.

He settled into the chair, clenching and unclenching his fists in an effort to tamp down his nerves. Rayleigh settled across from him, opening a file in front of her and taking a look at it before raising her eyes to his again.

Cloud hated the idea of personnel files, especially since he'd never laid his eyes on his own. The entire clinical and somewhat voyeuristic nature of it made his blood boil and made him feel a little sick. He wondered, at that moment, just exactly what she was reading on the pages as she carefully flipped through them.

After a moment, she looked up at him, another smile on her face. It was warm, but it came with too much ease, and Cloud knew that it was the same one she offered to everyone who sat across from her this way.

"Cloud," she began, once again dropping formalities between them. "I'm so glad that we could finally get our schedules to align. How have you been?"

"Fine," Cloud swallowed carefully, realizing that his voice came out sounding strained and choked as he spoke. A long pause ensued before he remembered himself and sat up straighter. "And you?"

"I'm quite well," she responded, sitting back a little, her fingers dragging the file along with her across her desk. "Thanks for asking. I thought we could use this first session to get to know each other a little better, if that's alright with you?"

Cloud offered her a shrug, not really sure how to respond. He hadn't walked in here expecting to be the one to make any decisions. "Yeah, sure."

"Okay, great," Rayleigh agreed. "Cloud, why don't you tell me a little about yourself? Where you're from, the things you're interested in, how you came to work for Shinra, anything else you may think I should know?"

Expectantly, Rayleigh opened a notebook, a pen instantly in her hand.

Cloud shifted uncomfortably in his seat. This was the part about therapy he had most been dreading - him talking. He kept his words and his thoughts to himself for the most part, intent to let his feelings stew inside of him for his own ruminations. He rarely shared his opinions with others unless he was directly asked or if he had a vested interest in its outcome, and he certainly didn't talk to others about himself. In fact, the only people he ever really talked to were Tifa and Denzel, and now, if not a little reluctantly, Kunsel.

His throat growing tight, Cloud considered that he hadn't even given much thought to the questions that Rayleigh had just asked in the last few years. They were thoughts he had ignored and suppressed, not wanting to unearth demons of his past he really didn't want to confront.

"Uh, I'm from Midgar, but I lived for a little while in my mother's hometown, Nibelheim. Just for a year before I came back to the city to join the infantry. This was at the height of the war, and I was drafted."

Rayleigh wrote in her notebook, nodding her head. She glanced up at him but didn't say anything to push the conversation forward, clearly wanting him to continue.

"I, uh, was in the infantry for about two years, then SOLDIER for another five. When I turned twenty-seven, I was considered aged-out of active-duty, as you know, so I've been a contractor since."

He didn't really want to say much else. He knew that he wasn't really addressing all of her questions, but he hoped that she didn't press, not wanting to dig further than that. Just hearing the words come out of his mouth was already leaving him feeling annoyed.

Unfortunately, Rayleigh did not give up easily.

"Tell me a little bit more about your time in Midgar and your move to Nibelheim," she asked. "And then we can talk more about your work and your interests."

Cloud could feel the back of his neck start to sweat. Nibelheim was a topic he wanted to avoid altogether. Even so, he nodded slowly at her, then began to tell her about his years growing up in Midgar, his mother working as a secretary for the Shinra company in one of its customer service departments. Unwittingly, he found himself sharing with her how he had been quiet and withdrawn as a kid, how his preteen years found him evolving into a bit of a troublemaker, a stigma he hadn't been able to shake since. He talked about the fights and how school bored the shit out of him and how he had preferred to spend his time at the local public library after school if he hadn't managed to find himself sitting in detention.

His voice was still shaky when he finally came around to his senior year. He'd avoided all of the typical teenage activities - homecoming, prom, all of the senior trips - only attending his graduation ceremony because his mother had threatened him. He revealed to Rayleigh that at the time, he'd really never made any friends outside of a few acquaintances who were every bit as much the delinquents he was, and that he never felt enough of an attachment to his senior class to care. He finished by explaining how his mother had foreclosed on their house in Sector2 during a bad market season, and how she had decided to move them back to Nibelheim to her parents' little old cottage on the western side of town.

At that point, Cloud stopped. There was too much about Nibelheim that he didn't want to talk about, and he looked down at his hands in his lap, letting the conversation lag.

"That must have been quite an adjustment," Rayleigh acknowledged with a nod of her head. Across from her, the rain had picked up, but the storm clouds had thinned out, leaving the sun to shine through the window even as the droplets pelted the glass. "What was your mother's village like for you?"

Cloud was silent for a moment. All he could think about was Tifa as a young girl, her cheeks rosy and bright, her lips full and her body seeming to grow thicker and somehow more statuesque in front of him with each day that passed. He shoved it aside, instead trying to focus on her question.

"I don't like the country," Cloud admitted. "It was too much of an adjustment. It was quiet and everybody is nosy. It was hard to find work, especially since I didn't go to college."

"Any reason why you didn't go to college?" Rayleigh chose to ask.

This led to a discussion of Cloud's lack of motivation for anything academic, at least as long as it came from an authority figure or an institution he had little respect for. He talked about his conscription and his first months back in Midgar, about his deployment overseas during the war. He avoided mentioning anything about how things in Nibelheim had ended, though he didn't fail to let Rayleigh know exactly how he felt about the way that Shinra treated its most elite employees.

Rayleigh wrote and asked probing questions the entire time, but eventually, Cloud ran out of steam, his responses falling into one-word answers, punctuated by sarcastic grunts. Nearly an hour had passed, and Rayleigh finally closed her notebook, glancing back up at him with a nod.

"I think that will be good for today," she conceded. "We should schedule your next session while we are here. I think one week will be good. It's very important that we maintain consistency. Today was a very good start, but over the next few sessions, we'll start to dig a little deeper, okay? Oh - before you go, I have some paperwork I need you to fill out."

Cloud realized that they had barely scratched the surface of his deepest issues, hadn't even really broached them, and he was already feeling lightheaded from sharing so much about his life with this woman who was a stranger as far as he was concerned.

He filled out the forms that Rayleigh indicated, reluctantly scheduling his next appointment before he left her office with an unenthused wave. As soon as he was in the carpeted hallway beyond, he stopped for a moment to breathe, pressing his palm against one of the marble pillars in the corridor and closing his eyes for a brief moment.

When the wave of panic finally passed, Cloud righted himself and then pulled out his PHS, sending a text to Tifa before heading back downstairs to the contractor's wing.

Cloud: Hey. Just had my first therapy session. Was ok. I'll see you later.

Without waiting for her response, Cloud shoved his PHS back into his pocket. When he got back to the contractor's wing, he found Kunsel eating his lunch in front of his desk.

"How'd it go?" his comrade asked as soon as he sat down.

Cloud held in the sigh he wanted to expel. After that session upstairs, he had been looking forward to a little alone time, not expecting Kunsel to be waiting for him.

"Yeah, it was alright," he finally answered, turning the monitor to his computer on. As he did so, his stomach growled, and he frowned, realizing he hadn't even eaten breakfast that morning.

"I got you a sandwich," Kunsel said as if he knew everything, pushing a brown paper bag toward Cloud. "Nothing too exciting, just something I picked up at the cafeteria upstairs. Figured you'd be hungry when you got back."

"Thanks," Cloud responded, not expecting this.

He started to eat, logging on to his computer to check his emails for new assignments. Kunsel didn't ask anything further about therapy, but after a long silence, he cleared his throat and spoke again.

"You doing anything tonight?"

Cloud turned away from the screen, chewing and swallowing a mouthful as he glanced at Kunsel. He was completely taken aback by this question.

"Uh…"

"I've got extra tickets to Loveless," Kunsel informed him. "The film version. I'm taking my girl tonight, but I already know I'm gonna be bored out of my mind. Was thinking maybe you'd want to tag-team it and bring your new girlfriend."

Cloud blinked. Was Kunsel asking him on a double date?

He thought about it for a moment, Kunsel nonchalantly returning to his sandwich as he awaited an answer. Cloud scratched the back of his neck. He'd never done anything like that before; the most he'd done was take Tifa out on dates, just the two of them, and even that had been an adjustment for him after such a long dry spell.

"I'll ask her," Cloud responded after a moment.

Kunsel nodded, reaching into his pocket and sliding two tickets across the desk to Cloud.

"The theater is in Sector8," he told him. "Show is at seven-fifteen. If you can make it, just text me. We can meet you in front of the theater, grab some drinks at the tavern next door after."

Kunsel had already gotten up and gone back to his desk when Tifa finally responded to Cloud's text.

Tifa: I'm glad to hear it went okay. When I see you tonight, if you want, you can tell me all about it.

Tifa: Denzel and Marlene worked on an art project together today, by the way. They did a great job. I'm going to hang it up in the bar. Wait till you see it!

Cloud: I can't wait.

Cloud: You feel up to going out tonight? A friend gave me tickets to the new Loveless film. Wants to do a double date with his girlfriend.

Tifa: A friend? That sounds like a lot of fun. I would love to go!

Cloud: Be ready by six-thirty.

Tifa: I will be. I wanted to see that movie, but I didn't think you'd like it.

Cloud put his device down, feeling his cheeks warm up as he smiled at his exchange with her. He looked up, glancing across the room to find Kunsel leaned back in his chair at his own desk, a smile of his own shining back at him.

---

It was hours later when Cloud stepped outside of the theater in Sector8 with his hand settled on Tifa's waist, Kunsel and his girlfriend Katie walking hand in hand in front of them. The truth was, Tifa was unfortunately very right about Loveless. He hadn't meant it, but the film had bored him enough at one point that he caught up on half an hour of sleep that he had lost the night before.

After work, he had made a brief detour home to shower and change before he headed to Seventh Heaven. When he got there, Tifa was already dressed and ready for their date, sitting at a table with Marlene and Denzel. Her hair was loose over her shoulders, but he noticed that the crown of her head was threaded with a gold headband that's jewels matched the flowing, sleeveless violet sundress she wore.

It didn't matter how many times Cloud saw Tifa and it didn't matter what she was wearing or how she styled her hair. Every time he laid eyes on her, he was blown away anew by her beauty. He sometimes wondered if he were wearing goggles that colored his world so much with how enamored he was by her, but he was always quickly reminded by how others greedily stared whenever she went past just how true her beauty was.

Cloud knew that he would never get over the prettiness of her face or the firm but soft curves of her body, but he also knew that there were so many things about Tifa that had made him fall in love with her all those years ago - her sweetness, her dedication, her hard work and her smarts and her insatiable need for him - all of it had blown him away. And he'd seen it again when he arrived at Seventh Heaven that warm summer evening, the air still thick with the humidity from the day's earlier rainfalls. It was in the way that she smiled at him as soon as he walked in, her eyes brightening as she pushed away from the table to greet him.

"Barret is going to watch the kids tonight," she informed him, and Cloud held up the overnight bag he was carrying for Denzel, Tifa taking it from him with a nod. "I know they are going to have a lot of fun while we are out. Are we going back to your apartment?"

Cloud could only smirk in response to the way that her voice dropped when she asked that last question. He leaned in with a little nod.

"Whatever you want."

She blushed, but the kids were both at their feet, crowding around Cloud to get his attention. In the weeks since he and Tifa had been formally seeing each other, Marlene had attached herself to him, and he found that he was growing increasingly fonder of her, too.

"I can't wait to meet your friends, " Tifa told him before they left, and then, it was his turn to blush.

"Not really friends," he shrugged it off. "Just someone I know from work."

After making sure that the kids were squared away with Barret for the night, Cloud drove Tifa across the sectors to Sector8 to meet Kunsel and his girlfriend, Katie, for the film. It was the premiere night of the film adaptation of the famous play in cinemas, a production Cloud had heard about but was not very well informed on. All he knew about it was that it had been a favorite of a retired, high-ranking SOLDIER operative named Genesis, stories about his obsession frequently passed along the ranks of the elite warriors.

Kunsel's girlfriend, Katie, was a good-looking, well-built woman with a dark ponytail and placid blue eyes. She was pleasant without being overbearingly cheerful, offering both Cloud and Tifa firm handshakes before she fell in place beside Kunsel again. Cloud thought she was a good match for him.

Following the film, Cloud yawned and held Tifa close to him as they walked side by side to the nearby bar and grill where Kunsel and Katie were just a few feet ahead of them. As soon as they stepped inside, Cloud realized that it was another country establishment, judging from the music and the smell of fried food in the air.

Cloud frowned slightly as they were shown to their seats across from a dance floor, but Tifa was laughing lightly at his side as they sat down.

"What's so funny?" he asked her, holding out her chair for her.

"Doesn't this place remind you of something?" she asked, her eyes shining under the dim blue and yellow lights overhead.

Cloud scratched his head, pulling in his chair as he watched her, waiting for her to make sure she was comfortable. Cloud had to admit he wasn't a big fan of the country scene or these sorts of establishments, and he definitely didn't care for the music. He shrugged at her in response.

"Willie's, silly," she told him, pursing her lips in teasing disapproval. "Don't you remember?"

Of course, he remembered. Glancing at the dance floor that was just a few feet away, Cloud remembered distinctly the moment he had gone up to the jukebox in the old bar on the other side of Nibelheim and changed the music to something much more tolerable, one of Tifa's favorite songs.

"Yeah, I - "

"Willie's?" Katie interrupted, leaning forward over the table. Her voice was bright and self-assured, with a pitch that easily careened over the loud music. Cloud noticed at that moment a hint of a twang laden behind her tone, and he wondered if she too were from some backwater village on another continent.

"It's a really small dive bar back in Nibelheim, our hometown," Tifa responded, gesturing fondly with one hand between her and Cloud as she said this. Cloud glanced at her hands, noting that tonight, her nails were painted an opalescent white, the color bouncing off of the purple of her dress.

"Hometown?" Katie repeated as Kunsel ordered a pitcher of beer for their table while they perused the menu. "Y'all been together for a while?"

Well, fuck. That sure didn't take long. This had piqued Kunsel's interest in the conversation, and he turned away from where he had been staring at the side of Katie's face to glance over at Cloud.

"Well…" Tifa started, her cheeks highlighting suddenly. She turned to Cloud, blinking her dark lashes at him before he offered her the faintest hint of a smile. She looked back at Katie. "It's something like that. We've known each other for a long time, and we were together when we were kids. We just reunited recently, here in Midgar."

Cloud felt himself warming up as she talked, glancing down at his menu to busy himself.

"That sure sounds romantic, don't it, Kunsel?" Katie asked, turning to him. He nodded, and Cloud met eyes with Tifa, who was smiling at him again before she turned back down to her menu.

They ordered their meals, fried catfish and greasy greens with pasta and potatoes, Kunsel and Katie digging in as if they ate this way all the time. Cloud and Tifa shared a look at their enthusiasm, barely able to contain their laughter before they dug into their own plates.

During their meal, they learned that Katie was a monster adjuster. Cloud had never heard of this, but it turned out she was responsible for assessing the damage of property, personal injuries, or lives that were caused by monsters in neighborhoods in the city, especially in the slums. She also kept tally on the number of monsters that were eradicated in the city, either by Shinra dispatched clean-up crews or local mercenaries. Cloud wondered how many times someone like her had been sent to assess the result of his own clean-up work.

They talked and ate, and despite the fact that Cloud was not used to these kinds of social activities - not by a long shot - he found himself feeling a little bit at ease with the conversation, especially with Tifa at his side. Tifa and Katie got along well, and Kunsel was easygoing and relaxed as they spoke, and it was enough that Cloud didn't feel terribly pressured or overwhelmed by the situation as the night wore on.

He wondered what it might have been like if he and Tifa could have done something like this with Zack and Aerith, if only the fates and the hands of time had worked in their favor.

"Kunsel," Katie began once their plates had been cleared away and they were polishing off their beers. "I like this song. Want to dance?"

"Yeah," Kunsel answered without hesitation, draining his beer and rising to his feet at once. "Come on."

As they sauntered off together, Cloud realized that Kunsel was maybe just a little bit whipped. For whatever reason, he found himself smiling inwardly at this thought.

"Want to dance too?" Tifa asked him shyly at his side.

Cloud turned to her. The song that was playing was a country ballad with some outrageously tragic lyrics. Cloud hated this stuff. He remembered his mother listening to it in their home in Midgar, and it had always driven him crazy, grateful when he finally owned a pair of headphones and was able to drown her music out with his own. He really didn't want to dance with Tifa to this music.

"Why don't we wait for the next one?" he suggested quietly. "We can pick a better song, and have the floor to ourselves. Just like at Willie's."

At this, Tifa smiled warmly, dumping hot lava into his chest all over again. "Okay," she agreed.

She reached over and took his hand, giving it an affectionate squeeze.

When the song was coming to an end, Cloud got up and found the jukebox across the room. After depositing a few coins in the slot, he looked through the available albums on the electronic screen, not stopping until he found the Final Heaven song he and Tifa had danced to all those years ago.

By the time he returned to Tifa, Kunsel and Katie had broken apart and were returning to the table. Kunsel had a bit of a dopey look on his face, while Katie looked blissful and pleased.

"Come on," Cloud said, taking Tifa's hand. She followed him, her palm soft but firm beneath his. They ventured out onto the dance floor, just as the first rifts of guitar began to strum.

"Hey," Tifa whispered, Cloud pulling her in close, his arms in a loose but secure hold around her waist. "This is one of my favorite songs. Did you pick this?"

Her voice was so light and warm, it wrapped around him like a coating of velvet. Cloud held her closer to him, lifting his hands across her back until they came to rest just below her shoulders.

"Don't you remember?" he asked, echoing her earlier words.

He watched Tifa's eyes widen slightly and then soften, just as she looked away with a new highlight of red across her cheeks. She dropped her head to his shoulder, and as the Final Heaven song started to play, Cloud threaded his fingers through the tendrils of her hair that swept across the backs of his hands, holding her closer and closer to him as the song fell around them.

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

As the song played, Cloud closed his eyes, cradling Tifa to him. Every time that she tried to shift slightly or look up at him, he held her tighter, almost crushing her against his body. He felt her palms slide side by side against the small of his back, creeping up toward his shoulders over the fabric of his t-shirt.

Forget what we're told

Before we get too old

Show me a garden that's bursting into life

He rocked with her, feeling the warmth of her body echo into his. Her breathing was light, but even with the crash of the guitar and the thunder of the lyrics around them, he could hear each of her gentle puffs, light and soft against his chest.

All that I am

All that I ever was

Is here in your perfect eyes, they're all I can see

Cloud's fingers were becoming further tangled in Tifa's hair as they danced together, her threads sliding like silk against his skin. He breathed in her scent, all vanilla and cherries, colored by the sweet and noxious odors of beer and fried hush puppies and cigarette smoke that permeated the air. As they stood there, slowly rotating in a circle as their feet moved together, Cloud thought for a moment that he was eighteen again and somewhere on the other side of the world in a tiny, backwater dive where her father and no one else could find them.

I don't know where

Confused about how as well

Just know that these things will never change for us at all

Cloud was caught up in memories of a time he wanted to let go but never could when he felt Tifa tugging against him again, the final notes of the song descending like raindrops around them. He finally opened his eyes, the lyrics of that song burned across his skull, and he looked down to find Tifa staring up at him.

If I lay here

If I just lay here

Would you lie with me and just forget the world?

Her eyes were shadowed by the dim lighting, taking on the hue of a deep pinot noir. They were wide as she looked up at him, and he realized that her hands were now in his hair, fingers carefully but gently pulling on his strands and grazing his scalp.

"Tifa…"

He didn't have much of an opportunity to get anything out beyond that, because Tifa was on her toes, leaning up to him and kissing him, the same way that she had a decade ago.

Something collapsed and then melted inside of Cloud at that moment, turning his insides into silly putty as she pulled on him, her soft mouth pressed to his as her tongue gently found a way into his. He relented to her, his blood heated and his brain warped, letting her control him until moments had passed and she withdrew her lips to breathe, lowering back to her feet.

The music shifted, another country song now playing, this time a raucous one that had several patrons up out of their seats and crowding the dance floor. Even Kunsel and Katie had gotten up, but Cloud was so enraptured by the look on Tifa's face as she stared up at him that he barely registered that they had moved in beside them to dance.

Tifa's lips dropped apart as if she were prepared to speak, and Cloud watched her and waited, sliding his hands forward to lightly grip her forearms. They held eyes, but Cloud watched as Tifa slowly grew pale and then backed away even further, her eyes growing wide as she brought a hand up to her face and then turned away from him and fled the dance floor.

His emotions had already been tearing through him with the force of a hurricane, but watching Tifa suddenly run from him in a sudden burst of panic set his nerves on edge, the twangy chords of the music grating his eardrums, sending everything inside of him in a tumble.

Tifa stayed in the bathroom for a long ten minutes, Cloud in turmoil as he sat at their table and waited, But when she returned and for the rest of the night, even as Cloud drove them back to his apartment and laid down beside her, she insisted over and over again that nothing was wrong.

Somehow, replaying that broken moment on the dance floor over and over again in his mind, Cloud knew that wasn't true.

---

[ ν ] - εγλ - 2007 | July 7th

Truths turned to Secrets

The sun was high in the sky when Tifa stepped off of the train in Sector1, the midday crowds light but thick as they moved on their way to nearby shops and business. As bright and warm as the day was, though, it was a poor reflection of her mood, which was dismal and ridden with layers of pulsating anxiety.

She shouldered her handbag, stepping onto the platform and making her way to the sidewalk so that she could venture onto the boulevard. Her heart was heavy in her chest, a weight that seemed to deaden her legs as she walked, every moment strained. She could feel every pain in her body vividly, down to the sparks that ignited the joints in her hands and her knees to the deep, lingering aches that infected her shoulders and back. Even her eyes hurt, the sunlight too bright, forcing her to wince and blink against an uncomfortable dryness.

The truth was that she had not been feeling anymore like herself as the weeks stretched on into the summer. Some things had gotten better - she hadn't cried star-tears in as many weeks as she and Cloud had been together, blood and sparkles no longer falling from her eyes whenever the days grew too long and hard. And she seemed to have a better hold on her emotions, no longer quite so easily upset by things that were minor or that she had no control over.

But physically, she saw no improvement - in fact, in that respect, it seemed that she was further deteriorating. Her sessions with Master Zangan became more difficult each time that she went, her sensei growing frustrated with her inability to hold true to her stance or her form, her attacks losing their range and their aim. Playing the piano became so painful that she almost never attempted, only touching the keys long enough to demonstrate a rift to a client before she pulled away to rub her knuckles. Her head swam through waves of dizziness that sometimes left her stopping and leaning over countertops or chairs, trying to hold onto her balance, her vision fading in and out as she tried to focus and avoid spinning out completely.

But it was the vomiting and nausea that caught her off guard. It started sporadically, bouts of sickness that appeared at random that she blamed on poor dietary choices. The first time, the night they had spent at the Gold Saucer - Tifa had written it off as a reaction to the funnel cake she'd eaten. But as the weeks went on, the episodes became more and more frequent, ripping her insides to shreds whenever she managed to find a toilet or a trash can to empty her guts into.

She tried to keep all of this from Cloud. Already, he was worried enough about her, and it ate away at her, covering Tifa with a heavy blanket of guilt every time that she thought about how much of himself he was beginning to give to her. Despite the words they had exchanged their very first night together, she knew that deep inside, he blamed himself for her condition and was committed to rectifying it however he could. He went out of his way to do things for her even when she didn't ask, picking up groceries for her and Barret to bring to the bar or to her apartment, helping her around the house whenever he came by, even offering her a hand around the bar on the evenings when Jessie was off or on break. Whenever they spent time together, he doted on her, finding every way he could to make sure that she felt at ease and comfortable, even if it were as simple as wrapping his arms around her and holding her close to him when they sat together on the couch or laid down beside each other at night.

All she wanted was to get better for him, to alleviate the strain and the weight that he carried as he tried to atone for wrongs he had nothing to do with. But no matter how she tried, swallowing painkillers and nausea medication, abstaining from coffee and greasy food and too much sugar, her symptoms persisted and worsened. Cloud worried and hovered, and Tifa blocked and evaded, reassuring him over and over again that she was fine, even though she could read in the seafoam swirls of his eyes that he wasn't buying any of it.

It had spilled over that past Friday when they'd gone on a date with Cloud's work friend and his girlfriend. Tifa had been in high spirits the entire night; despite the way that the morning's rainstorm had inspired the aches in her knees, she was in a good mood and excited about the evening when Cloud had picked her up. The film - an adaptation of Loveless - had been enjoyable, even if Cloud had fallen asleep during it, and although their choice for dinner that evening had been a little rich and heavy for her, Tifa enjoyed it nonetheless. And then, she and Cloud had shared a moment on the dance floor, listening to the same song that had played when she first realized she was falling for the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who lived next door.

But moments after her lips had left his, her favorite song still humming in her ears, she had felt the build low in her belly, climbing its way into her throat. It had only taken a moment, but it swelled inside of her, the dizziness slamming into her with the force of a train, and Tifa didn't have the time to explain, running from him and barely making it to the bathroom in the back of the bar before she lost everything she had just eaten.

It was worse than Tifa had ever felt one of those spells, leaving her crouched over a toilet in the ladies' room until there was nothing left to vacate and she was dry heaving, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes from the force, her esophagus burning from the bile. She was shivering by the time it was over, her vision blurred and dark around the edges, her head swimming with fog.

For the rest of the night, Cloud was at her side, his face willowed by concern for her. She could tell that he was apprehensive about crowding her, but even so, he couldn't stop himself from dropping his hand to her arm when they walked together to steady her, insisting she head to bed as soon as they got to her apartment before he brought her a bottle of water and climbed under the sheets with her, holding her in his arms until she fell asleep and not even bothering to try to make love to her.

All of it left her feeling more broken and useless than she had ever before, regret beginning to settle into her spine, making her wish again that she could be free of these chains.

She crossed the street when the light changed, her eyes squared ahead at a multiple-storied glass and steel building with a plain white facade. It was paired with a massive parking garage, and even from where she stood, Tifa could see the ambulatory vehicles that were parked along its ramp.

The sight of them caused her to breathe in a little more deeply to calm the torrent of anxiety that was rising inside of her, her fingers wrapping tightly around the straps of her purse as she approached the building. She had called her doctor the Monday after the episode with Cloud inside of the bar, calmly making an appointment and explaining to the medical assistant over the phone that she was concerned about her symptoms. She had been asked to come in that Thursday.

Tifa did not visit her doctor, aside from regular check-ups, unless something drastic was happening that made it appear she was relapsing into a more severe form of the disease. She realized that she had not had to see her doctor for this sort of a visit since she had first fallen ill.

By the time she made her way inside of the building and took the elevator up to her doctor's office floor, her nerves were so ragged that she could feel a thin rim of sweat build along her forehead at her hairline. She tried to push down the anxiety as she greeted the receptionist, but when she filled out the symptom screener on the tablet she was handed as she waited, she only felt it rise again as she checked off box after box and then scribbled additional notes into the lines on the bottom.

"It's been a while since I've seen you, Tifa."

Tifa was sitting atop a gurney in one of the patient care rooms with her eyes closed when her doctor entered the room, smiling at her before quietly closing the door behind her. She was carrying the same tablet in hand that Tifa had been entering her information into earlier.

"Hi, Dr. Lang."

Christiana Lang, a middle-aged Wutain woman with dyed golden hair that was curled around her shoulders, was a foremost researcher in the field of autoimmune disorders, particularly Star Scar Syndrome. When Tifa had first fallen ill, her first concern had been the fate of her piano career, and she had gone out of her way to find the best doctor in the entire city with the hope that she might heal enough to save her livelihood. She had watched her mother deteriorate under the inferior healthcare back in Nibelheim, and despite the devastation that came with the knowledge that she shared her mother's disease, she was determined to fight back.

Despite Lang's expertise, though, it hadn't been enough. Not nearly.

Lang smiled placidly at Tifa, standing in front of her and centering her attention on the tablet's screen for a moment. Tifa watched as the doctor's brow rippled in thought, chewing her bottom lip and hearing every beat of her heart as she waited.

"Okay," Lang said, looking back up to meet Tifa's eyes. "How are you feeling today, Tifa?"

Tifa shook her head, glancing down at her legs where they swung over the side of the gurney. "I'm okay, I guess," she began. "I'm in a lot more pain than I was a few weeks ago. I get dizzy a lot. I try to eat well, and I still practice martial arts to keep active, but it's not really helping and keeping up with my workout regimen is becoming difficult. I haven't been crying any star-tears, but I am getting nausea and vomiting often, which is new."

Dr. Lang considered this for a moment, glancing back at Tifa's chart on the tablet. After a moment, she set it down to the side on the counter behind her.

"I read that on the screener you filled out," she responded. "I will say that nausea is not a typical symptom of Star Scar, so I'd like to assess you for other comorbidities. But some of the other changes you have highlighted are a little alarming, Tifa. Can you tell me if there is anything going on that may be affecting you emotionally? Any triggers, like we've discussed before? Changes at work, or at home?"

Tifa expelled the breath she was holding, suddenly feeling like the fluorescents overhead had grown too bright. She stared at her sneakers for a moment, then glanced up and met eyes with Dr. Lang.

"My ex-boyfriend is back in my life."

Dr. Lang simply blinked, then nodded, and Tifa could see her processing the information as she stared back at her.

"Is this the one that you told me about, from your hometown? The one you believed was the original trigger?"

"Yes," Tifa answered, suddenly feeling embarrassed, her face warming.

"I see," was all Lang said in response, still mulling this bit of information. Tifa felt a strong compulsion to explain herself as the silence clung to the air.

"I ran into him here in the city a few weeks ago," she began. "He brought his adopted son by for piano lessons. At first, I thought it was going to make things worse, but I realized the feelings I had for him had never gone away. I was so heartbroken over our split, I thought that if we got back together, things would get better. He's been so good to me, too - I don't, I just don't understand -"

"Tifa," Dr. Lang interjected when her voice began to rise in pitch, panic setting in. "I understand that it seems as if this disease is that simple. Unfortunately, sometimes it just doesn't work that way. There are cases where the emotional traumas of past events are just too deeply set that even attempts at reconciliation or rectification are not enough to reverse its course, especially if too much time has passed."

Tifa couldn't believe she was hearing this.

"There are also many, many cases where initiating trauma is far more complex than patients originally thought. Your symptoms are getting worse, which, as you rightly assume, is strange considering you repaired your relationship with someone who you care for deeply and who you lost for some time. My concern is that there may be more to your affliction than we originally discussed."

"I don't understand," Tifa practically whined, on the verge of tears.

Dr. Lang sensed this, because she reached behind her and plucked a handful of tissues from a box on the counter and handed them to Tifa. Tifa felt the telltale burn at the corners of her eyes, and her sense of panic only rose, worried that she might burst into an episode of star-tears right inside of her doctor's office.

"Please take a deep breath, Tifa," Lang said softly. "I'm going to ask you to do something very difficult, okay? I am going to need you to keep yourself grounded as much as possible, okay. If you feel like this becomes too much, just stop, and we will work through it."

Tifa could feel her stomach begin to stir, and she swallowed to push down the swell that was making her tremble. She nodded in concession, tearing her eyes from Lang's to look at her shoes again.

"I need you to think back, Tifa," Dr. Lang continued after a moment. "Are there other events in your life that could have contributed? Did anything happen that could have complicated your relationship with your ex-boyfriend? Were you ever hurt, or experiencing any severe losses or traumas?"

Tifa closed her eyes, Nibelheim's dusty cobblestone streets taking root in her mind, Mt. Nibel's sharp grey peaks the backdrop among a purple and blue sky of stars. So many moments flew by in her mind, all of them stacking like bricks throughout her senior year, faces flashing before her eyes.

"My mother died," Tifa blurted suddenly. "My father betrothed me to a boy in the village who painted me as the town slut when I refused him. I fell off the mountains outside of our village. I almost lost my scholarship. I was forbidden to see the boy that I loved, and I got in big trouble when I got caught with him. My father beat me and sent me to Midgar weeks before I was supposed to start college. I broke up with Cloud. I haven't spoken to my dad in almost nine years."

By now, she was beginning to weep, but there were no stars, only salty wetness that stained the tissues she pressed to her eyes.

Dr. Lang had picked up the tablet again and was scribbling into it with a stylus. She waited for Tifa to stop sniffling, handing her more tissues and then watching her for a moment before she spoke.

"That is a serious exposure to complex trauma," she acknowledged finally. "I want to be very honest with you. I am quite concerned that it may be impossible to reconcile all of that and send this disease into remission the way that you were hoping for, Tifa."

Tifa just shook her head, disbelieving that she had ignored all of these deeply hidden pains for so long, pinning her troubles on the only person who had loved her throughout all of it.

"I'm going to recommend a set of additional therapies and medications to help combat these symptoms. Is your father still alive?"

Tifa glanced up at her. "He is," she answered.

Dr. Lang nodded. "I am of two minds about this," she stated. "Many practitioners may advise that in your case, it would be a good idea to reach out to him. And, there is a reasonable chance that it may help you. But I have studied this disease for decades now, and in my experience, in situations like this, it will usually only make things worse. As your doctor, your health and physical well-being is my number one priority."

Tifa dabbed at her eyes again, then stared at her hands. She couldn't imagine speaking to her father after all of this time. She had pushed her memories of him so deep that she rarely gave him a thought. When she had refused to marry Jody Hartley, he told her in no uncertain terms that he would have nothing to do with her unless she came back to him and begged him to let her marry him. He left her alone in Midgar after that, and when Tifa refused to back down, the phone calls stopped coming.

He was not there when she graduated from college or grad school. He was not there when she joined the philharmonic and began to tour the Planet. He was not there when her first star-tears fell and she got sick and lost her job, all of her dreams crashing around her because of him.

Tifa did not want to see or speak to him ever again.

"I understand," was all she said in response.

Dr. Lang nodded, then looked back at the tablet. "I'd like to talk about the nausea and the vomiting, Tifa. That symptom doesn't seem to fit."

"Okay," Tifa replied.

"When was your last menstrual cycle?"

Tifa blinked, not expecting this question. "A little over a month ago," she replied. "I don't remember the exact date. But it's been irregular ever since I got sick, so I don't worry about it much."

"Are you sexually active?"

Dr. Lang pulled no punches. Tifa couldn't stop the way that her face lit up, and once again, she was looking down, trying to distract herself from meeting Lang's penetrating stare. Her mind drifted to Cloud, all of the nights that he had been inside of her and how they had never even thought to use protection, so caught up in their passion and Tifa having discarded any notions about her fertility years ago when she first grew ill.

This outcome had been one that she hadn't even considered. Whenever something went wrong with her body, she blamed it on the stars.

It couldn't be.

Could it?

"I am," she answered very slowly.

Lang simply nodded, scrawling into the tablet again. Tifa watched her slap the cover shut and fold it in her hands.

"I'd like to run a urinalysis before you leave today," she informed her. "While I work on your prescriptions and write up the referral for joint and muscle therapy, one of the nurses will assist you. It should only take about fifteen minutes to get the results, so you can wait in the waiting room until we finish up everything."

Tifa could only nod in response, her heart now living in her throat as it began to pound harder than she could remember it feeling, her ribcage on the verge of collapse.

It was just under a half an hour later when she sat with her PHS clasped between both hands in the waiting room, her skin cold and her belly filled with turbulence as Dr. Lang finally called her into her back office. As soon as she sat down, Lang slid the prescriptions and two referrals in front of her.

"You are about five weeks pregnant, Tifa," Lang stated matter-of-factly when she was seated. "I've added an additional referral for an obstetrician who works out of Shinra. She is an excellent doctor and I trust her to handle your pregnancy well, should you choose to carry to term."

Tifa could only stare, unable to process the words she was hearing.

"Pregnancy can be very much complicated by Star Scar, Tifa," Lang went on. "I want to make sure you know that as you consider your choices. "It is difficult on the body and the risks can be grave for both mother and baby. Dr. Crescent can help you, but you will still need to be very, very careful."

Those last few words stayed with Tifa throughout her ride back to Sector7 and to Seventh Heaven, her only thought on the life that was growing inside of her and how she was ever going to tell Cloud, certain now that she had put them back into a place that would only drive them apart again.

—

It was only two days later - Saturday afternoon - when Tifa found herself laid across her couch at her apartment in Sector7, her feet propped up on Cloud's lap.

"Where's Denzel?" she asked him.

They were watching a movie, and it was raining again beyond Tifa's windows, the sky overcast and cloudy. For an early July day, it made the air thick with humidity, and Tifa had turned the central air up in her apartment to stave off the heat.

She was staring at the rain, but her mind was elsewhere, filled with thoughts of the baby growing inside of her as Cloud rubbed her feet and massaged her ankles. She hadn't said anything to him about it yet, and was still reeling herself from what she had learned earlier that week in Dr. Lang's office.

The entire visit had left her stunned. Between realizing that her relationship wasn't the true source of her affliction - that its threads were buried somewhere far deeper in a place where the pain was as sharp as shards of glass - and that she was pregnant with Cloud's child after just a few short weeks of their intense reconnection, Tifa hadn't been able to pull herself out of the stupor that she found herself mired in.

"I got a new babysitter," Cloud explained. "Girl from Wutai, already done with high school and was looking for a full-time gig. She's a little annoying and kinda expensive - I think she's ripping me off, honestly - but she's almost always available. She's taking Denzel to the museum in Sector5 today. Gives me a break to spend some time with you."

He smiled at her as he said that, giving the soles of her feet a squeeze before running his hand up the length of her calf. She returned it, dropping her head back to her pillow and closing her eyes.

Tifa had always wanted children. Growing up in a small village like Nibelheim, the expectations of traditional family life were on display everywhere around her. She had always imagined that one day, she would marry a sweet boy and settle down to have a family. As she grew older, she intertwined that dream with her goal of playing the piano professionally, vowing to find someone who would support her future endeavors.

When she met Cloud, she thought she had found him. Never, had she thought her father would try to seal her future away that way without letting her have any choice in the matter.

After breaking up with Cloud, though, she had mostly let those hopes scatter, focusing instead on her career. It had been hard to find a partner who could capture her interest, much less find a way to her heart. Plenty of men wanted to date her, especially once she began touring, and she had given a couple of them the time of day. But there had never been any spark with any of them. She never again felt things the way that she had when she was with Cloud, and without that, it wasn't worth it.

It was after she became sick that Tifa had finally given up on those dreams completely. Star sickness made getting pregnant a near impossibility, and when it did happen, it became dangerous. Yet aside from all of that, Tifa knew that her chances at love were vanquished anyway, knowing that no man would want someone whose life expectancy was up in the air.

Now, she was reunited with the love of her life after living years believing she had lost him forever, his child beginning to take shape inside of her. It was still so surreal that Tifa was unsure if she truly believed the words her doctor had spoken to her.

"What are you thinking about?"

Cloud's voice, his tone low and sweet, tore her out of her thoughts, forcing her to open her eyes again. He had leaned in a little closer to her, both hands now wrapped around her calves, gently working his palms and fingertips into a massage that soothed the aches in her muscles. He was watching her face, the expression on his relaxed and happy, at ease being so close to her like this.

How could she tell him what was truly on her mind and risk collapsing all of the tranquility that lay behind those ultramarine eyes?

Subconsciously, Tifa dropped a hand to her belly, still flat and toned, the life inside of her merely more than a small, slowly developing formation of cells. She thought about how the months would begin to pass and the child would take shape and grow, expanding her belly until it would be impossible for her to hide her condition from anyone, least of all him.

"I'm just happy we got to spend the afternoon together," Tifa answered, pushing her thoughts as far aside as they would go. "It isn't often that we get to have these daytime moments. It feels… a little domestic."

Cloud's smile began to widen, his right hand traveling higher up her leg, skimming beyond the back of her knee. She was wearing soft, stretchy knit yoga shorts, and the feel of his rough and heavy palm on her bare skin had her widening her knees apart. "Do you like that?" he asked her, his voice growing even softer.

Tifa wasn't sure if he was talking about domesticity or the way his hand was traveling her body, but either way, the tenor of his voice left her feeling a little weak-kneed. "Yeah," she responded, tipping her head to the side and holding his smile and his gaze. "It feels… nice."

"We can make it even more domestic," he told her, leaning forward even closer, and Tifa watched his hands creep up to the waistband of her shorts.

She closed her eyes again, surrendering her body to him while she tried to wipe away any remaining vestiges of her troublesome and persistent thoughts. Relinquishing her control to him and letting him overcome her with the sensations of his love was one way that she could for sure ignore the secrets she was carrying that were a heavy burden on her, at least for a little while.

She felt the brush of his fingertips across her thighs as he pulled the shorts down over her hips and lowered them over her legs until they were gone. He shifted again, this time pulling her legs apart as he laid between them, centering himself with his face by her thighs.

She was still wearing her underwear, white cotton boy-cut panties that were slung low on her hips and matched the tank top she was wearing. A rainy day where neither of them had to face any commitments at the moment - Denzel was occupied and Tifa had the day off from the bar - she'd opted to dress casually and comfortably when Cloud asked if he could come over. He had the same idea, it seemed, dressing in sweats and a t-shirt, and at the present moment, she sat and watched as he took a moment to sit up and dispatch that shirt, leaving her with an appreciated view of his toned and defined torso.

He lowered himself again, pressing kisses into the insides of her thighs, his breath heated against her skin. The sensations were so light and airy that all Tifa could do was sigh and toss her head back, balling both fists up and resting them above her breasts as she waited.

She had been expecting Cloud to eventually relieve her of her underwear, so she was surprised when she felt his lips against her seam, kissing her right through the thin cotton that was flush against her wetness. With that barrier between them, she could feel the smooth press of his lips but not the texture of them, and somehow, as his mouth drew higher and higher and then dipped lower again teasingly, it made the climb feel even more enthralling than if they were skin to skin.

Tifa expelled a quiet little sigh when Cloud's tongue snaked out and ran lines against her folds, prodding her through the fabric. His arms were under her thighs, both hands now resting flat on her belly as he held her in place. Tifa could feel him soaking the material with his saliva with every stroke of his tongue as it ran lines along her split of flesh, pushing against her opening and barely grazing over her clit that was beginning to throb from the anticipation that he was building low in her belly were he held her firm.

"Cloud…"

She felt a warm wave of bliss wrap around her when he moved a little higher, his tongue now flicking lightly at her clit through the cotton. He was being too gentle even as he teased her, and it had her stretching and elongating her back as she lifted off of the couch, thoughts about babies and fathers and the tragedies of the past far away and dismissed from her mind.

"You okay, Teef?" he asked her, his eyes back on hers but his lips still wrapped around her clit. She could feel the vibrations of his voice run through the fabric and all the way deep inside of her body, leaving her writhing and struggling. Sensing her need, Cloud spread her wider, pushing her left leg up higher so that her calf could rest on the top of the couch.

The stretch of cotton that was shielding her most intimate patch of skin was wet all the way through from his lapping, and when he widened his jaw and ran his teeth gently across her nub, Tifa keened, arching her back even further. She dropped her hands away from her chest and lowered both into his hair, combing through the soft threads that felt like tufts of feathers, her teeth grinding before she bit into her lower lip.

"Please…"

He laughed quietly, but the force of it was just enough that she could feel the wind of his breath sting through her drenched panties and ignite her nub with a new ache. She twisted and lifted her hips, wanting more and wanting it now, but Cloud pressed his palms into her abdomen, his fingers hooking around her waist and digging into her flesh.

"I know you want more, beautiful," he told her. "But you're too pretty and too sweet, so I want to take my time and savor you."

He knew exactly how to unravel her, his words lacing themselves through her heat and her brain, leaving her breathless as she clutched his hair in her fingers. Her mouth dropped open, and she turned her head from one side to the other in rising desperation.

"I know, but Cloud, please. It's too good."

He responded by diving back in, humming over her clit before he finally pulled her panties to the side. His mouth was soon on her heated flesh again, now wasting no time as he latched fully around her engorged clit and sucked it between his lips, his tongue lashing against it as he went. Hot railways of liquid fire ran their way across her body as every spark of euphoria crossed her nerves, her hips twisting as she tried to maneuver away from him, only to be held down in place by the strength and weight of his arms. She cried out and moaned, Cloud lapping back and forth at either side of her button as her orgasm broke her.

The heat of his lips remained wet and secure around her flesh as she whimpered and gasped, her hands pulling at his hair. She could feel his smile spread across her inner thigh when he finally relented and pulled away to press a kiss there, Tifa shuddering as the aftershocks of her climax ran their course through the highway of nerves in her body.

She was still catching her breath when she felt Cloud fix her underwear and then sit up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand before he carefully gathered her into his arms. Still feeling giddy, she let him cradle her to him, snuggling into his embrace as he pulled her on top of him and laid back against the other side of her couch, securing her body between his legs.

"I can't get enough of you," he professed after a moment.

Tifa closed her eyes, smiling at his words as she settled against him. She'd wrapped her arms around his ribcage as he shifted their positions, and she squeezed him gently in response. All she could think about at that moment was how she could never, ever get enough of him either, how she wanted every moment from here until the end of forever with him, how she wanted to share every part of her life with him, no matter how good or bad, just as long as she knew that he loved her as much he did right at that moment and as much as he did ten years ago.

Feeling his hands travel up and down her back, Tifa was suddenly reminded of the truths that lay inside of her body, one that was shared between them, a sacred revelation of their bond. It made her feel a phantom rumble in her belly, and she tightened her hold on Cloud's body, her nerves beginning to steel little by little as she turned to look up at him.

"Cloud, there's something I wanted to talk to you about."

"Hmm," he hummed above her, cradling her closer to him, making sure she didn't fall from the couch. "What is it, baby?"

Tifa let her thoughts simmer for long moments, trying to find the strength to speak aloud what she knew was living inside of her. The more that she became connected with Cloud, the more real that all of this felt - and the more that shouldering this secret alone without at least knowing where he stood became impossible. It had only been a couple of days, but Tifa knew that she could not survive without confessing what she was living with so that she could find a way forward.

"Cloud, I think - "

She was cut off by the sound of his PHS. It rang from the pocket of his sweats, and Cloud reached down to grab for it. He mouthed an apology to Tifa, holding up a finger to her as he glanced at the call display and then answered with a sigh.

"Hey, Yuffie. What? A chipped tooth? How did that happen? Okay, okay - Okay. Nevermind. I'll be home in about twenty minutes. Just bring him by and I'll meet you there. Yeah, yeah, 1500 hundred gil. I know. Whatever."

He hung up the device without another word, but Tifa had been ruminating on the words that she was going to say, her insides becoming cold and watery as she realized she was losing her resolve by the second.

"Sorry about that," Cloud said. "Denzel fell and chipped his tooth on some jungle gym thing. I gotta get going to meet him and Yuffie, they're on their way home."

"Okay," Tifa managed. "I hope he's alright."

"I'm sure he'll be fine," Cloud stated. "He's a big kid. You want to come with me? I'm sure he'd be happy to see you."

But already, Tifa was thinking about her doctor visit earlier that week and all of the turmoil that had been unleashed, and she could scarcely collect her thoughts, now no longer so sure she could share her secret with Cloud the way she had prepared too.

"It's okay, I should stay in tonight. You guys go ahead. You'll pick me up tomorrow, right?"

He sat up, gently helping her right herself with a hand on her upper arm. "Of course," he agreed, nodding his head at her.

He started to turn away as if to make ready to leave, but he stopped, glancing back at her.

"Hey, what did you want to talk to me about, Teef?" he asked.

But it was too late. All of Tifa's nerves by then had dissipated into a finer mist than the green haze that burst out of the mako reactors at odd intervals throughout the day, and she could only shake her head, not even able to imagine sharing the truth of their shared passion and devotion that lived and grew deep inside of her at this moment.

Why was she such a coward?

"Nothing important," she deflected. "I already forgot. Come on, let's get you moving. I'll pack up a snack for Denzel, should help put him in better spirits."

Cloud didn't argue, though he did watch her face for longer than seemed necessary. But he eventually nodded, rising to his feet and helping Tifa stand so she could put her shorts back on.

When he was gone, Tifa sat at her piano, watching the rain open up and fall harder beyond the windows, mirroring the melancholy that lived in her heart. She dropped one hand to her belly, the other beginning to tap out a song that she remembered her mother playing for her, slow and melodic but the sweetest lullaby she'd ever heard.

"It's okay, little one," she whispered as the notes warmed the air. "We'll tell him soon. But I'll be here for you, no matter what happens."

---

[ μ ] - εγλ - 1997 | 3rd May

Firsts

"Cloud, honey?

Cloud was sitting at the desk in his room, staring down at the collection of white pages that were scattered in front of him and the dotted blank lines on each of them that were waiting for him to scrawl his information and intentions across. The colored logos in the top corners of each began to blur under his eyes, and he closed them, turning away from the sheets to face his door at the sound of his mother's voice.

"Hey, mom."

Claudia pushed open the door and peeked in, then stepped inside, offering Cloud a warm smile. She came up to him, glancing down at the table in front of him.

"What's all this?"

Cloud blushed, looking away from her and back down at the desk, his pen still sitting unmoved at the side where he'd left it. He'd brought these applications home days ago after picking them up at the local library, but he hadn't worked up the nerve to face them, much less attempt to fill them out, until now.

When his nerves collapsed and he didn't answer, Claudia leaned over the desk and picked one page up. She peered at it, her eyebrows rising as a small smile returned to her face.

"Sector Seven Community College?"

Cloud bit the inside of his bottom lip, feeling himself heat up even further. He hadn't made any mention to his mom the direction his thoughts had taken in recent days. Ever since the incident at Tifa's prom and the firestorm it had ignited at the high school and even throughout the village, Cloud's mind had suddenly been repositioned on the future and on possibilities between him and Tifa that laid outside of Nibelheim and the barriers and traps that laid here. Instead, he became preoccupied with building something better for them both out of his life, only wanting to be at her side no matter what. Already knowing that Tifa was far, far out of his league, a shining star that burned through the darkness of his world, Cloud realized nothing about his current behavior would ever justify his being with her. Working maintenance in a Shinra reactor could never make him a man worthy enough of taking care of her and being by her side, a woman who was not only beautiful and smart but talented beyond measure with the fate of her future already etched across the stars.

Tifa's kindness and her love for him that year, ever since the moment they'd collided on a rainy day in September, had become an anchor of support and inspiration that Cloud hadn't realized until recently that he really needed. Despite the way that they had to keep their distance from one another at her father's insistence, she was at his side in all of the ways that he needed, and her words of encouragement and her listening ear and her own passion and drive had inspired something in him to be better than what he'd let himself become, just so that he might be able to be close to equal footing with her.

"Yeah," he responded to his mom, unsure of what else to really say.

His mother turned the paper over in her hands, her smile beginning to brighten. "I didn't know you were thinking about going to college," she gushed, almost unable to keep the enthusiasm from bursting free in her voice.

Cloud could feel himself blushing again. "I just started thinking about it, mom," he tried to brush past her excitement. "I really don't want to stay in Nibelheim, and Tifa thinks I'd be good at studying history."

Claudia clasped her hands together in front of her skirt. "This is the best news I've heard all month!" she exclaimed, her dark blue eyes wide with joy. "I'm so proud of you, sweetheart. Why colleges in Midgar, though? Cosmo Canyon is a little bit closer, and I am sure they have a wonderful history program."

This line of questioning only had Cloud's cheeks heating further. He scratched the back of his neck, turning away from his mother to focus his attention again on the remaining applications swept across his desk.

"No real reason," he answered, though this was wholly untrue. "But Tifa is going to school in Midgar, so I thought it would be nice to have someone I know nearby."

Not the complete truth, but not exactly a lie either.

He glanced back up, finding that his mother was still holding her smile, but that it had dampened slightly, a little bit of the excitement defusing from her eyes. She took a step closer, leaning against Cloud's desk as she dropped her hand to his.

"I'm glad to hear it, sweetheart," she told him. "But Tifa's the reason I wanted to talk to you."

Cloud turned to look back up at her, something in the low tone of her voice sending his heart into a ride.

"Yeah."

Claudia sighed, closing her eyes for just a moment. "I hate to suggest this, Cloud," she began, shaking her head slightly, her ponytail swaying. "But I think you should put a little bit of distance between you and Tifa for a while. At least, until things in this village cool down a bit. Maybe until the school year is over."

The race of his heart suddenly crashed, Cloud blinking as his eyes met his mother's. In the week and a half since Tifa's prom, they had only seen each other a handful of times and usually for brief moments, and they hadn't discussed that night nor the way that Cloud found her weeping in her pretty blue dress in front of the school's Steinway. They didn't talk about the black and white photos, smeared with vicious red lipstick, that were scattered like snowflakes across the gym's floor. And they didn't talk about the way that that one moment of cruelty had ripped through the entire high school and then the entire village, covering Tifa with a veil of shame that had kept her home from school for almost a week after what was supposed to be one of the most memorable nights of her adolescence came and went.

"Why?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

Claudia expelled a short breath and then moved to take a seat on the edge of Cloud's bed, folding her hands together in her lap. Cloud turned to face her, his skin beginning to feel hot and clammy as he realized he was building himself up into a panic.

"Cloud," Claudia began carefully. "What happened the other day to Tifa… it's been quite the talk around town, unfortunately. How is she doing?"

Cloud looked down at his hands, clenching the one that had dropped her months ago on Mt. Nibel. He thought about the melancholy that was constantly behind her eyes, prompting him to reach out and hold her. He considered the joyless tone that her voice had taken on even when they spoke on the phone late at night, the way that she seemed filled with caged anxiety from everyone and everything around her. She had told him how she hated going to school now, how the students' eyes followed her everywhere she went and how the teachers treated her as if she were a fragile piece of glass that might shatter. He knew that she was waiting for the year to end and for her graduation to pass her by, eager to be out of the village and moving on with her life, away from the staggering commitments her father was trying to force her into.

It was why he had figured he had better get his shit together if he thought he had any shot at keeping her.

"She's managing," Cloud responded, knowing this was not even half of the truth.

His mother hummed, shaking her head again. "Cloud, her father is very angry about what happened, and rightfully so," she continued. "But… he's made it clear to me that he blames you for it, even though you had nothing to do with it."

Cloud snapped his head up, his eyes widening at her.

"I tried to reason with him, but he's making things very difficult for me in this town as it is," Claudia went on. "I can't lease the property downtown to open the seamstress shop because he keeps blocking my permit applications. I've been denied loans at the bank three times. He's come by here twice already to let me know just what he thinks."

"I'll kill him," Cloud vowed, feeling his anger brew and heat his neck.

Claudia huffed. "You can't do that, Cloud," she told him. "I know none of this is your fault, so don't think I'm blaming you. I only want to protect you. I don't want you to get in trouble or to get hurt. Lockhart is not a stable man."

"But mom," Cloud found himself whining. "Tifa and I haven't done anything wrong. She broke up with that loser months ago. Why does anyone care if I date her?"

Claudia just shook her head, now writhing her hands together.

"I didn't mean for her to get hurt on Mount Nibel," he went on, now feeling tears burn the corners of his eyes, and he felt so stupid and so, so pathetic and weak. "I tried to save her, I just - "

"It's okay," Claudia reached out for his shoulder, gently shaking him to quiet him. "I know, sweetheart. But Tifa, whether we like it or not, is supposed to marry that Hartley boy. It's none of our business how people handle their affairs, honey, but I don't want you getting caught up in it and getting hurt. The talk in the village is that you're the reason Tifa's reputation has been sullied. I know that isn't true and I know that isn't fair, and I have had what to say about it in town. I'm your mother, honey, and I am not going to sit here and listen to these people slander my boy and think they can get away with it."

"Mom," Cloud complained, now worried about her too and how all of his entanglements were making things even harder for her.

"Don't worry about me," she insisted as soon as she caught the pout on his face. "This is about you. You have a future ahead of you. I want you to focus on yourself for a bit. I know you care about Tifa, Cloud, but I don't want you to lose yourself to her. At least wait until the summer, when school is out and it quiets down a little bit around here. I'm sure things will work out, especially once you both go away to college. Perhaps getting out of the village and picking up a fresh start in Midgar for a while would be good for both of you."

Cloud nodded, slightly placated by that idea. Nibelheim was already in his rearview as far as he was concerned. Once Tifa was in college on the other side of the world, her father and Jody and all the busybodies in town would cease to matter. He and Tifa could go on living their lives, just the way they were planning, and they would be together just the way he had dreamed.

"Today is Tifa's birthday," Cloud suddenly blurted. "I have to see her."

Claudia just smiled, getting back to her feet and brushing off her apron. She cupped Cloud's cheek, then nodded. "I understand, sweetheart," she told him. "Just be careful, is all. Now fill out those applications. I'll leave you to it."

She bent down to kiss his forehead, then left his room, closing the door behind him.

The silence left in her wake folded around him like a cocoon, and Cloud closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in and trying to calm the churn that was spinning through his insides.

They just had to get through the summer, and then they could move on together, leaving this miserable town and all of its bullshit behind them.

Opening his eyes again, Cloud turned to the applications in front of him, finally picking up his pen to begin filling them out.

---

It was hours later when Cloud was parking his mother's car under a nestled bunch of trees just off of the narrow road inside of Nibelheim's central park, the water tower where he had first kissed Tifa Lockhart holding sentinel beyond in the distance. At the moment, Tifa was in the passenger side beside him, turning to him with her full, cherry-pink lips pulling into a smile as their eyes met and he killed the engine.

Cloud's heart had been racing from the moment she'd stepped outside when he picked her up, the sight of her dispelling the anxiety that his constant ruminations over his mother's words to him that afternoon had buried inside of him. It was Tifa's eighteenth birthday, and she had never looked prettier than she did that night, he thought. And Tifa always looked pretty.

She was wearing an aquamarine-hued sundress with spaghetti straps and a corseted bodice, the skirt flaring around her long, shapely legs in a full A-line. She was statuesque in wedge-heeled sandals, almost as tall as he was in them. Her hair was brushed out long and full around her shoulders, freshly washed and the most brilliant black he had ever seen. And while Tifa almost never wore makeup, tonight her eyes were rimmed with kohl, leaving them bright and doe-eyed and leaving him breathless.

"I'm glad you could come out tonight," he finally spoke after they had been staring at each other with tentative smiles for a moment. "I thought your dad might want to spend the night with you."

Tifa shrugged. "He gave me my gifts when I woke up in the morning," she explained. "He even made me breakfast. I don't think I've seen him in the kitchen since even before mama got sick. But there's a board meeting at City Hall tonight, so he had to leave early."

"Worked out for us," Cloud responded, turning his lips up into a little smirk. "I brought some blankets and stuff to put out under the water tower for us. I think it will be more comfortable than sitting up at the top all night."

"A picnic?" Tifa immediately asked, reading between the lines. Cloud blushed, turning away and thinking about the little tray of cupcakes his mother had baked that sat in the basket in the backseat.

"Something like that," he responded shyly, earning a bright giggle from Tifa.

They walked hand in hand across the grass to the center of the field where the water tower stood, surrounded by patches of blue and white flowers, Cloud carrying the basket and the blanket in one hand. The air was warm and acrid, still carrying the heat from the intensity the sun had shone on the town all day. It was a clear night, and the stars were so bright that the sky had almost taken on their shades, colored a bright hue of deep cerulean and streaked violet.

Finding a spot beneath the water tower that offered them an unobstructed view of the celestial landscape above, Cloud spread out the blankets while Tifa watched him diffidently with her hands behind her back. It was so warm that Cloud shrugged out of his jacket, tossing it to the side as he settled on the blanket with his knees raised, extending a hand to Tifa.

She crept toward him and accepted it, crouching to sit beside him. But Cloud was pulling her in his direction until she fell to a seat between his knees, nearly in his lap, her legs bent over his as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in close.

"Happy Birthday, Teef," he whispered gently against her hair, dropping a kiss to her cool, silky strands, eliciting a giggle from her throat.

"Thanks, Cloud. This is really sweet."

He blushed, reaching up to brush her hair out of her eyes as she settled more comfortably against him, looping one arm around his shoulders. His heart beginning to stomp again, Cloud leaned forward and opened the basket he'd brought with him with one hand, carefully pulling out the cupcakes and a small, thin box wrapped in blue paper.

"Cupcakes!" Tifa exclaimed. "Are those vanilla and red velvet? They look so good!"

"My mom baked them for you," Cloud told her, his cheeks warm and highlighted again.

"That's really nice," Tifa answered. "Thank you, Cloud. I wasn't expecting this."

Without saying anything, Cloud offered the box to her.

"What's this?" she asked him, accepting it and glancing down at the shimmering blue gift wrap.

Cloud leaned back on his hands, admiring the streaks of starlight in her midnight hair, another sky he could lose himself in forever. "It's not much," he told her. "Just open it."

She nodded, her line of white teeth exposed when she began to grin. Carefully, she began to pull apart the wrapping, Cloud staring at her pretty, pink fingernails as she tore the paper.

It was only a moment later when it was gone, scattered to the side, leaving his gift bare in her hands. It was a compact disc in a plain clear case, a heart with the letters 'C + T' etched across the front of the plastic in purple permanent marker.

Cloud wasn't good at this type of shit, getting gifts and being sentimental. But he knew that music was one thing that Tifa loved more than anything in the world, and as soon as the idea came to him, he was convinced it was the perfect gift.

"Cloud," she purred as soon as she realized what she was holding in her hand. "What is this?"

Cloud just shrugged. "I just burned a CD for you on my computer," he rejoined nonchalantly. "A bunch of songs that make me think about you. The Final Heaven song we danced to is the first track. If you have a Discboy, you can listen to it while you're at school and ignore all those idiots around you."

At that, she laughed lightly, leaning forward to press one kiss to his cheek and then another to the corner of his mouth.

"Thank you, Cloud," she said. "I love it. This is so thoughtful."

He couldn't stop blushing at her affection for the rest of the night, still holding her in the center of his lap as they shared their cupcakes and giggled and talked about everything other than the pressures that stood in wait like an army behind them back in the village. All that Cloud knew was that he was content with her at her side, all of those weights dropped when he had her this close to him.

"How does it feel to finally be an adult?" he asked her after some time had passed, a laugh undergirding his words. Tifa rolled her eyes at him, offering him a slight grin.

"I feel the same," she told him. "I don't think it makes much difference, Cloud."

"Maybe, maybe not," he answered, chuckling at the way she shook her head, unconvinced. He fell quiet for a moment, thinking about how close they had grown in the months that they had been together and how he was ready to reevaluate his entire life just for this girl. Gently, he took her cheek and turned her face up to look at him again.

"Hey, Teef," he began. "I wanted to tell you something."

Her brow creased just a tad. "What's up?"

"I… I decided I'm gonna try to go to college in the fall," he managed to blurt, wondering why his heart was beginning to race again. "Nothing special, just a community college or something. Maybe study history like you said, become a teacher. Or a professor. Yeah, I think I'd rather teach college kids. You high school kids suck."

Tifa laughed at that, but he saw how wide and bright her eyes had grown as he spoke. She sat up a little in his lap, dropping her mouth open.

"Cloud!" she exclaimed. "That's so exciting. Oh, I'm so happy! You will make a great teacher! You're so smart, and you already know so much stuff… you'll be amazing!"

Cloud had not expected that level of enthusiasm or that amount of praise, and his face instantly seared, his heart leaping in bounds in his chest. He found that he was so embarrassed that he couldn't hold her eyes, looking down as the affection bloomed throughout his body like a tidal wave had crashed over him.

"I… was thinking about applying in Midgar," he quietly admitted, still looking down, now studying the embroidered patterns on the lace hem of her skirt where it draped across her knees. "…So I could be close to you."

Tifa didn't respond for a moment, and at her silence, Cloud looked up. He caught her staring at him, her eyes beginning to film over with glassiness, her lips parting again.

"Oh, Cloud," she said softly after a moment. "That would make me so happy! If we move to Midgar together, nobody here can stop us from being together. We could start over and just be ourselves."

Cloud felt his lips break apart his face with a smile. "Yeah," he agreed. "Exactly what I was thinking."

They held eyes for a moment longer, but Tifa was soon leaning in, pulling him closer to her with the grip of her arm around his neck. His chest was filled with heat and pressure as he dipped his head, his lips finding hers and pressing against them in a sweet and chaste kiss.

Its innocence did not last long. Tifa was soon parting her lips, inviting him in with a curl of her tongue. It sent sparks of pain straight to his groin, and Cloud wrapped both arms around her waist, holding her close to him.

It wasn't long before their necking grew messy and desperate, Cloud's mouth soon on Tifa's jaw and then her throat, his hands roaming. Suddenly, though, she shifted in his embrace, pulling away just long enough to get to her knees in front of him on the blanket.

She knelt between his legs, dropping her hands to both of his cheeks and angling his face up to look at her. She was now bordered by the starlight behind her, the moon casting a white halo around her hair and skin. As many times as Cloud had marveled at her beauty every day since he had met her, at this moment, she was more beautiful than she had ever been.

"Cloud," she whispered, her voice barely audible above the tranquil summer winds. "I…"

"What is it?" she asked when she hesitated.

"I just…" she paused again, closing her eyes and releasing a breath. "We've been together for a while, and I…"

Instead of continuing, she dropped her hand to his chest, brushing her fingers over his shirt, lowering it slowly across his abdomen until they fell to the buckle of his pants, and instantly, Cloud could read her meaning.

"Are you…are you sure, Tifa?" he asked her, his voice low and cracked, his heart racing, his back breaking out with a line of sweat.

She finally opened her eyes again, nodding her head at him as he stared up into her strawberry-red irises. She remained silent, but her fingers stayed against his lower belly, burning him right through the fabric of his shirt.

Cloud and Tifa hadn't shied away from showing their affection for each other that year, but there was a line that neither had been ready to cross. Cloud had kissed her more than he could ever recall, his lips heavy on hers before they explored her face and throat and even her collarbone. His hands had begun to learn the curves of her body, traveling every hill and valley when they made out, going so far as to discover the soft peaks of her breasts over her bra when they ventured under her shirts. But that was as far as they had ever gone, Cloud not only terrified of the next step but wanting to remain respectful, Tifa never indicating that she wanted anything further.

Until now.

"Tifa, I - "

"Shh," she shushed him, leaning forward to kiss him softly again. "No words, Cloud."

He nodded, her sweetness calming his nerves. Although they'd never even talked about wading into this territory, it certainly didn't mean that Cloud hadn't thought and dreamed about it endlessly. It was the reason he'd kept a string of condoms folded inside of his wallet.

Taking her instructions to heed, Cloud silently rose and shifted so that he was able to lay Tifa beneath him against the blanket. He moved to unlace his boots, Tifa leaning forward to unbuckle her sandals. Pulling off his shirt, he tried to watch her out of the corner of her eyes, observing the way that she tossed her long hair behind her back, the stars filtering a cool, pale glow on her skin. Already, he was as hard as a rock, even though his nerves were collapsing and his heart was palpitating.

She settled on the blanket in front of him, widening her legs slightly and leaning back, waiting for him. Cloud swallowed, crawling toward her slowly and laying beside her. He glanced around the park; it was late at night and abandoned, the field where the water tower stood never a place that generated much interest, especially not at this time of night.

Tifa was staring up at him, waiting, her bottom lip trapped between her teeth. The sight of it sent all of his emotions into hyperdrive, and he tried to breathe, remembering who and where he was and why now, of all times, he needed to hold it together.

"I've never done this before," he warned her.

"It's okay," she replied. "Me either."

And then she laid back, waiting.

Despite the fact that they were alone, Cloud wanted to be careful, and so he decided to leave her dress intact. He laid his upper body atop hers, his arms around her as they fell headfirst into another easy kiss again. She sucked and nibbled at him, drawing him in greedily, clearly already filled to the brim with passion. It drove Cloud crazy to know that she wanted him so badly, and soon, he felt himself losing control, his hands rough and seeking over her body, squeezing her waist and palming her breasts.

Her knees had slowly begun to spread, her hips weaving circles as he lowered his mouth to her throat, licking and nipping the spot by her pulse that always had her moaning. The tightness in his pants growing painful, Cloud lowered one hand to the hem of her dress, slowly pushing it up along her legs until it was bunched up around her waist.

Tifa was trembling slightly, her hands now in fists, balled up on top of her chest as she waited patiently. Cloud dropped his eyes between her legs, finding her womanhood separated from him only by a pair of lacy pink panties.

The back of his throat was sore when he swallowed, trying desperately to gather his nerves. But his hands were shaking, and he found himself frozen as he reached for her, unable to pull her underwear away without passing out completely.

Tifa recognized his trepidation because she smiled and sat up, reaching for the waistband and shrugging them over her hips and dropping them to the side.

She laid back again, shyly letting her knees slide apart again, offering Cloud a first glance at her bare center and the patch of dark curls above it.

He was certain that he was forgetting how to breathe, his chest suddenly so tight that he thought his lungs may be collapsing. He slowly exhaled, his fear becoming eclipsed by his desire, and he dropped one hand to her inner thigh, feeling her warm skin beneath his palm.

She closed her eyes when he got close to her most intimate part, her breathing already growing ragged and deep. Cloud watched her face for a moment, then ran his fingers over the split lines of pink between her thighs, feeling her slick skin for the very first time. She was already so wet and so hot, and the feel of it sent an electric thrill through his entire body, Cloud becoming giddy with both need and adoration as he dipped a finger inside of her.

Tifa moaned as he gently explored, and after moments of discovering what she felt like inside, Cloud found that he could not hold back any longer. He withdrew, right away getting to his knees and withdrawing his wallet from his back pocket before working his belt open. Tifa watched him from the blanket the entire time, her eyes following his hands as he unzipped his pants and dropped them and his boxers just below his hips, taking his cock in his hand as he blushed and reached for the condom.

He didn't miss the way that Tifa's breath caught when he had finally bared himself, and he didn't miss how wide her eyes had grown as he pulled the condom over his flesh.

All he could hear was the sound of his own heartbeat as he knelt between Tifa's legs, carefully laying atop her and doing his best to keep from crushing her smaller body beneath his. As soon as they were flush together, her arms were around his shoulders, holding him to her as she stared up at him.

"Tell me if I'm hurting you," he whispered. "Or if you want me to stop."

"Okay," she trilled, her voice threaded with nothing but trust and affection.

Cloud nodded at her, gently kneeing her legs a little further apart as he guided himself carefully inside of her. She was so tight and warm that it almost seemed like an impossibility that he would make it through this experience, forcing him to wince as he felt her rim wrap around his tip. His brain was conflagrated by flames, and he pressed down a little harder, feeling himself sink in an inch deeper.

"Ow," Tifa cried right beside his ear.

Cloud instantly stopped moving, opening his eyes again to glance down at her face. "I'm sorry," he said. "I should stop."

"No!" Tifa protested. She was breathing heavily, and her eyes had grown low-lidded, her pupils dilated until her irises were thin red discs around them. "It's okay, Cloud. Just… go slow."

He was skeptical, but he nodded, crowding her close to him with one arm above her head. Slowly, he pressed in further, Tifa wincing and hissing every time he got a little further, letting out a pained cry when he fell fully inside of her.

"I'm so sorry," Cloud managed to say, his brain beginning to malfunction at the sensations of her wrapped tight and hot around him. "You okay?"

"I'm okay," she whispered, opening her eyes again. "Just… move slowly, okay?"

"Okay."

He did as she asked, withdrawing and lowering his hips in a steady but languid pace. Each stroke pulled another soft cry from Tifa's throat, but all of it was overwhelming Cloud, the feeling of being inside of Tifa so blissful and euphoric that he was quickly losing control and they had only gotten started.

It couldn't be helped, he realized tragically, his body seizing as he felt his orgasm creep forward, Tifa clenching her walls on him. He swallowed, trying to fight it back, but a dozen thrusts in, the firefight erupted along his nerves and he spilled, moaning quietly beside her ear as he reached for her hand with his and squeezed it.

Tifa huffed beside his ear, but otherwise, she was quiet, her chest rising and falling slowly beneath him. Cloud was trying to reorient his thoughts, the pleasure coating his brain and leaving him incoherent and flustered. He swallowed, lifting his head and shaking it out, bringing himself back to earth before he glanced at Tifa.

She was looking at him, calm but offering him a wan little smile. Cloud could see the disappointment in her eyes, even though he could tell she was trying hard to mask it. Instantly, he felt like a dick.

"I'm sorry," he said for the third time that night.

"Don't be sorry," she told him at once. "Everything is okay."

"No, it's not," he insisted. "I… I couldn't control myself. I wanted you to feel good, too."

"I feel good," she replied. He was still holding her hand, and she brought her free hand up to brush his hair away from his forehead where it had stuck to the line of sweat on his skin. "I'm just happy to be with you like this."

But that wasn't good enough for him. He sat up on his elbow, releasing her hand and dropping his to the center of her belly.

"No, Tifa. I have to make it up to you. Tell me how to make you feel good."

She blushed profusely at that, looking away from the heat in his gaze. He pressed his fingertips into the fabric of her dress over her abdomen, encouraging her to look back up at him.

A moment passed, but wordlessly, Tifa took his hand in hers, her eyes finding his again. Slowly, she slid his hand down her body, guiding his hand between her thighs and pressing his fingers gently against the wet heat he had just been buried in, finding her still soaked with pleasure that had plateaued but hadn't peaked. He focused on the textures he could feel as she directed his hand, his eyes widening when his fingers passed over a hard little button that had Tifa tensing and gasping.

"Right here," she breathed.

She pulled her hand away, leaving Cloud to explore on his own as she laid back again. Desperate not to screw this up and further prove his unworthiness, he kept his eyes on her face, studying her reactions as he began to slowly stroke that stiff, hot nub of wet flesh with the tips of his fingers. He watched Tifa's eyes pinch shut, her mouth dropping open as her first real moans began to climb into the wind.

"Oh," she keened, arching her back and rolling her hips forward. "Oh, oh, Cloud… mmmm."

The cadence of her voice was ungodly, sending lighting bolts straight through his soul as if he was beneath Ramuh's staff. It was sexy and naughty and bright, all brought on by him, and Cloud found himself losing all sense of propriety as he began to rub her a little faster and test new ways to tease the spot on her body that melted her this way, feeling her grow wetter and wetter on his hand.

She continued to moan and writhe, and Cloud was biting his lip, his eyes traveling her face and body as he flicked and pinched her clit, her sounds growing louder and more forlorn. She grew so wet that he couldn't help but dip a finger inside of her, pumping in and out of her tight passage until her breaths were escaping in puffs. Heat bursting apart inside of his chest, he dragged his fingers back to her nub, rubbing circles over it until she was crying out and falling apart beneath him.

"Ohh…" she let out a final whine, and she rolled forward, her body colliding with his as she closed her thighs around his hand. She trembled against him, breathing heavily across his neck, his name still falling from her lips. Sensing her coming down, Cloud slid his hand from her thighs, wiping his fingers on the blanket and not really wanting to ever wash his hands again.

She wrapped her arms around him, pressing a kiss to his cheek in gratitude. It made Cloud blush even harder than he had been all night, a smug sense of satisfaction washing over him. She laid back again, and Cloud took a moment to right her skirt and adjust his pants, tossing the condom into the grass before he laid down on his back beside her, both of them looking up at the stars.

"That was so good," Tifa cooed at his side after moments had gone by.

Cloud couldn't stop himself from grinning, listening to the rhythmic sounds of her breathing at his side. He folded his arms above his head, feeling the coolness of her hair beneath them. "Really good," he agreed.

She giggled, then fell silent for a little while. Cloud found that his mind was on nothing but her, the stars shining their blessings into both their skin after they had connected with one another beneath their ethereal glows. No matter what was going on around them, he knew that there was nothing that could get between them and what they shared.

"If I lay here," Tifa began to sing quietly at his side, her voice melodic and soft, reminding him of the lulling notes she struck against the piano. "If I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?"

Our song, Cloud thought, listening to her voice. It was the lyrics to the Final Heaven song they had danced to, the one that was on the very disc he had burned for her for her birthday.

"Forget what we're told… before we get too old…show me a garden that's bursting into life."

Tifa continued to sing, Cloud closing his eyes to the sound of her voice, losing himself in her forever, the lyrics saying everything they felt for each other that words still hadn't, much as their bodies joined as one had done moments ago.

Maybe, Cloud thought, drifting off into a light snooze, everything was going to be alright.