Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and its characters belong to Square Enix and many others. Sadly, I'm not one of them.

Revised and edited January 7, 2007.
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Metathesiophobia or, Moving Forward
By Lady Calliope

Part Eighteen: Ouranophobia

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I thought nothing would be able to divert my attention from the way she licks the chocolate and raspberry from her fingertips like it's a sin. I knew buying her those candies was a stroke of brilliance that would benefit us both: she gets the sugar I know she's been craving lately and I get to watch her mouth as she sucks and laughs and quips across from me. I don't know how I stayed away from this place for nearly two weeks.

Then she has to go and spoil our moment.

"He's coming back." It's not a question—I don't have time to question.

"Apparently." She must have noticed my eyes because suddenly her full attention is on me. Her strategy of casually dropping the news during our first after-hours conversation in a week and a half has proven to be far from effective and she knows it. "I don't know when, exactly, but sometime soon, I think. Says he misses me." Her voice and eyes drop so low I imagine what she says next is for her own benefit, not mine. "Says he still loves me. Still wants me."

This can't be happening. "Of course he does. Because leavin' your ass high and dry while he goes off to chase after a dead girl is the perfect way to show he loves you. Sounds like a real fuckin' Prince Charming to me." I'm talking mad but underneath I'm scared as hell. "And now he writes you once, once, and that's all it takes for you to go fallin' back in his arms. And here I thought you prided yourself on bein' independent."

I'm going to loose her before I even get the chance to have her.

"Don't you dare, Cid Highwind!" She's furious and it's like sitting across from an open flame. "Don't you dare judge me! You know nothing about how I feel. You have no idea what these past months have been like!"

"Like hell I don't!" Everything's falling apart. "I know exactly what it's like to be left behind, what it's like to watch the one you want chasin' after someone else! Or did you forget about the little game we played last time I was here?" Bitterness tastes an awful lot like bile to me.

Her face says she hasn't forgotten. "No, of course I remember. But you can't expect—"

"Expect what? Expect someone as smart as you to realize that what he's offerin' ain't nothin' like love? That you're nothin' but his fallback girl? That you're too good for him? Because I did expect those things from you. Maybe I shouldn't have, but I did."

Her eyes are welling up in a way that cuts me far too deep. "This was a mistake. I never shoulda come back here." I was kidding myself to think that things could change, to think that she'd ever forget about him. Her head is in her hands and her shoulders are shaking and it's all I can do to keep from crushing her to me and never letting go. But I used to be a warrior, and I know defeat when it comes for me. "I'm sorry for everything. You won't see my stupid ass around here anymore."

I gather my jacket and stand. "Tell the baby…when it comes, tell the kid that I'll give it whatever it wants. If it wants the stars all you have to do is tell me. That's something I can do without messin' up."

I try to walk away but one tug on the back of my jacket and I'm rooted to the spot. Her head leans against my back though she stays in the chair. Her grip tightens like she thinks I'm going to bolt any second. She doesn't know that her touch would make it impossible for me to move even if a bullet was coming right at me.

"Stay." It's so small I almost can't hear it. Then louder, more demanding. "Stay, Cid."

She doesn't—she can't—know what she's saying and it hurts like shrapnel under my skin. I make an attempt to walk forward, to escape her, but she pulls me back so fiercely I nearly trip.

"Please don't leave!" There's tears in her voice. "Stay with me. Stay."

I can feel my shoulders fall and suddenly it feels like I haven't slept in a year. Of all the things I want to tell her and shout at her and whisper to her only one comes out. "Why?"

There's nothing but breathing and for a moment my resolve to flee returns in full force. But when her words reach my ears it takes all my strength to stay standing.

"Because I want you to. Because you're the one I thought of when I got his letter. Because I'm nearly twenty-eight weeks pregnant and you've been with me every day of every week and even before that. Because my days with you are the only ones that feel complete. Because I already let you go once and it damn near killed me." Her voice has grown louder with each thing I never thought I'd hear and suddenly she's standing and her arms are around me, pulling me back against her front. "Because I want you, Cid. And I want you to stay with me."

Breathing has definitely become a conscious effort at this point. "Do you have any idea what you're askin', Tif? What'll happen if I don't leave right now?"

If possible she presses into me even harder and the feel of her completely flush against my back drains the blood from all my extremities but one. Her response comes out in something that sounds too much like a moan for me to think straight.

"Yes." Her breath ghosts across my ear. "And I've never been patient."

My lips are on hers before either of us can breathe and nothing has ever felt more physically, unexplainably right. She tastes like raspberry and sweat after a hard night's work. Her hands claps behind my neck and mine are running down her back and she's arching into me and the door couldn't be further from my mind.

We attempt to make it up the stairs to the bed proper but quickly realize that the couch is the farthest we're going to be able to get. Shirts are on the floor before I can blink and I swiftly remove her bra to save both of us the trouble. We stumble onto the lumpy cushions that have served as my bed more than once and it isn't until my perusal of her body with my hands and eyes that I register one important oversight. It takes a few pants and gulps of air before I'm able to even form a sentence.

"Can you…" I lick my lips and force the question that may prevent one of the best things that's ever happened to me. "Will this hurt the kid?"

Her smirk combined with her eyes is mischievous and breathtaking all at once. "No, the baby will be fine. Which is more than I can say for you if you don't shut up and keep going."

Much as I'd love to oblige there's still one more question. "How? I mean, what's…best for you?" Never let it be said that my mother didn't raise a gentleman.

"Why don't I just show you?" And before I can even figure out what she's doing she's flipped us. She's on top of me and her hands are everywhere and I can't get enough of her and somewhere in there she's removed her skirt and she's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. A light sheen of sweat covers her skin and the small bulge of her stomach looks it's glowing with the rest of her. I help her shed my own pants and have to close my eyes at the feel of her rubbing against me. She leans down and takes my mouth like she's claiming it and her hair falls around us and tickles my chest and it's the most difficult challenge I've ever faced to not cry like a baby at what she's doing to me.

Suddenly I feel her hands on me and with one quick motion she takes me in and nothing has ever felt this good. She rides me at a pace that has us both panting with the effort and as she arches her back her swollen breasts and stomach are thrust forward and I sit up as much as I can so my hands and mouth can worship her. Her hair curtains me as she leans her forehead against the top of my head and her nails are digging into my shoulders and her legs have wrapped around my back and everything fits so perfectly it makes me wonder if fate actually does exist.

She trembles and murmurs my name over and over as I find my release on the ebb of hers. We're breathing hard enough to fog up a mirror and take our fill of each other's lips before she slides off me and stands. When she extends her hand to me with that twinkle in her eye from earlier I realize that we're not finished yet. Naked, she leads me up the stairs to her bedroom and my eyes can't get enough of her confidence and her skin. I remember the countless times I've been in here before to put her to bed after too much drink or exhaustion had taken over. Absently I wonder if this night would have come sooner if I hadn't made sure she'd already been asleep all those times.

I pull her on top of me and this time everything's slower. When our lips and tongues meet it's clear that we're trying to tell each other something without words and that's fine by me because I've never been good with words anyway. Minutes pass in languorous exploration before I spy an open letter on her nightstand and old fears replace the warmth in my stomach like a cold stone.

"Tifa."

She stops and her eyes are irritated until she sees where my focus has drifted. "Don't worry about him. Nothing's going to change when he gets back."

I force my eyes to hers. "Nothin'? You were only in love with the shit your whole life, Tifa. That baby is his. Don't tell me that's not nothin'."

"You're right that he's the father." She closes my eyelids and I feel butterfly soft kisses on each. "But this baby's not his. And neither am I. He forfeited that right when he left."

I open my eyes to stare into hers. I don't know if I understand her full meaning completely, but what I do comprehend is enough for me. "I'll try to stay the hell out of your way, then. But if he starts pushin'—"

"Then I'll start shovin' right back." She presses her lips to mine like a ghost. "I know what I want and I don't back down. I've fought too hard for this."

"You've fought too hard for this?" A laugh escapes me and it's the first time in a long time I've been able to so freely find the humor in something. "And here I thought I was the one doin' all the fightin'."

"You and me both."

Then our bodies remember why we're there and we spend the next few hours filling in all the tears and gaps and cracks we've been living with for so long. Things aren't flawless and there's more than one laugh between us as we try to figure out how we fit together in every sense. There's more than a few jagged edges and mismatched corners but neither of us is interested in perfection.

And through everything, somehow, after all these years of stumbling blind down paths I couldn't see, I feel like I've finally found the road home.