Chibi: Hi there everybody, sorry for the delay, had some essential essays to complete! This is the penultimate chapter, and I'm very pleased because I've managed to include everything I wanted to up until the last chapter. I feel very sad that this is ending but I'm really happy, and I'm really proud. This will be the first multi chapter fic I've ever completed, and it's been buzzing around in my head for years. I hope you enjoy this next-to-last chapter! By the way, I imagine Cloud's Nibelheim accent as sounding South African ... I've heard some writers consider it as sounding German, and I sort of agree, so I chose South African because that has elements of German in it. I like fics that have Cloud speaking with a Nibelheim accent!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, and please review!

Twelve

I slept deeply that night – more deeply than I had in a long time, and I was undisturbed until morning. Despite the fact that I had slept for almost ten hours, though, I awoke feeling exhausted and sore, and it wasn't just my shoulder that hurt, but it was my entire body that ached and throbbed and begged for more sleep. But I wasn't allowed to go back to sleep, because a nurse was taking off the dressing on my shoulder to look at the stitched up bullet holes, and as she re-dressed the wounds and gently eased my arm back into its sling, she told me that a physiotherapist was coming up a little later to help me with some arm movement, and then I'd be free to leave with my family. I ate breakfast with my father watching me, his gaze soft and as always lacking judgement, and chatted idly until Zack came back into the room, having been visiting Cloud, and we watched some daytime television together until the physiotherapist arrived.

He arrived around midday, whilst we were engrossed in a repeat of a game show. We hadn't even noticed anyone arrive; it wasn't until there was a knock at the door that each of our heads snapped over to face the doorway, and we were met with the sight of a tightly muscled man who almost looked like he couldn't fit into the standard polo shirt and shorts I recognised as being a physiotherapist's uniform. He gave a curt nod, and came further into the room, extending a hand for my father to shake.

"Hi there," he said, shaking Zack's hand too, and then finally mine. "I'm Angeal Hewley. I've come to help you with some arm movement before you go home today."

As he helped me with some stretches, and generally ease out the stiffness that had settled in over the last day or so, something rather strange happened, something I'd never have really expected, but as it happened, it didn't really surprise me. Zack became completely entranced with what Angeal was doing. It began by him leaning forward in his seat at the end of the bed, his head cocked to the side almost like a dog, and his brow furrowed in concentration, and then he actually got up and pulled his chair over so that he was sitting right in front of Angeal, watching with such deep and sudden interest that I saw my father give a small smile, as though Zack was a curious child. Angeal noticed his interest and, like a teacher in a primary school who has seen a child's curiosity in a subject and wants to help expand on it, began subtly involving Zack in the exercises, pointing out the movements of certain muscle groups, answering his questions with a small smile, and even encouraging him to help me, his hands on my brother's as they gently guided my arm to move in circles that flexed the muscles of my shoulder. As I let them move my arm about, I thought about the fact that Angeal's surname was Hewley. I was instantly reminded of the t-shirt I'd been wearing, the day I played my mother's piano for the first time in five years, and the advert I'd found in the back of the university prospectus in Zack's room.

As he was finishing up the session, Angeal looked at Zack with a sudden interest that wasn't unlike the way my brother had been watching him before. He helped me put my arm back in the sling, and then clapped a hand on Zack's shoulder.

"You ever considered physiotherapy?"

Zack shrugged, but his face was taut with thoughts. "I don't know. I guess not before, but ... I wouldn't rule it out, now."

Angeal nodded, and began heading out the door. "You should look into it," he told my brother. "You'd be just right." And with that, he bade us goodbye, and left.

For around ten minutes, we sat watching the television again, until my father gently touched my arm.

"We'll be leaving soon," he told me. "Do you want to go see Cloud?"

I nodded, and he helped me out of bed. Zack began fussing over me, finding my cardigan and helping me drape it over my shoulders like the previous day. I managed to pull my hair into a somewhat sloppy high ponytail with my one, free hand, and then I left them in my room, my father watching Zack with soft amusement, as my brother screwed up his forehead in contemplation, his eyes on the television screen but not really taking anything in.

I met Mr. Strife as he was leaving Cloud's room. Words weren't really needed between us, at that moment, but they still stumbled out of my mouth to fill what to me felt like a rather awkward silence, but I guessed to him felt perfectly normal. He'd always struck me as someone who had learned from his experiences in his life.

"Is ... is it okay to see him?"

He smiled, and gestured towards the door. "Go ahead, Tifa," he said softly. I nodded, a smile feeling unnecessary then, and I quietly pushed open the door as he carried on walking down the corridor.

Cloud's head perked up as I opened the door. I closed it behind me, giving him the small smile I hadn't managed to give his father, and I was pleased to see that his face had a bit more colour, and the skin beneath his eyes was a little less bruised from exhaustion than it had been the previous day. I quietly crossed the room and sat down in the seat beside his bed, and my free hand found his, lying on top of the blanket. He squeezed mine gently.

"We're leaving soon," I told him gently, staring at our clasped hands. His fingers had already began to softly trace the length of mine, held tightly between his own and his palm. He gave a nod that I felt rather than saw. He absently began twisting the tag on my wrist around, pulling it up to face him so that he could look closely at it. He gave a small, rare smile.

"I didn't know you had a double barrel surname," he said with soft amusement. I glanced down at the tag, and saw they'd put my full name on it, a name that I'd always felt was too long, but now felt was too much a part of me, and a link to her, to dispute: Tifa Grace Lockhart-Fair.

"I don't really use it," I told him vaguely, my eyes still fixed on the tag. "It's more of an official thing. Zack doesn't have it, though."

"What's his full name, then?" Cloud asked.

"Zachary Florizel Fair," I said. Cloud's eyes widened and I felt a soft laugh bubble in my throat. "Yeah," I began to explain, my smile stretching. "Our mother had a bit of a thing for The Winter's Tale when she had him. When we were younger I used to call him 'Flo' to annoy him."

"So why do you have the double barrel surname, then?"

"It's my mother's maiden name," I said. To my surprise, and I think Cloud's too, my eyes began watering, all the amusement from just moments ago dissipating swifter than snow in the desert. "My father changed my surname from just 'Fair' to this one after she died."

"And ... Grace?" Cloud asked softly. He gently hooked a tear off my cheek with a finger.

"Her name," I whispered, and with that I leant forward and he coaxed my head down onto his lap, his fingers soft in my hair as I felt, not for the first time since he'd woken up, since we'd first kissed, since the first time I'd ever met him, that early morning at the start of August in my kitchen, soft, shaking sobs tugging at my entire being that I managed to keep quiet, the only hints giving me away the trembling of my body and the little gasps of breath I took every few moments. He didn't say anything – couldn't or wouldn't, I don't know, and don't suppose I ever will – and just held onto me as I let myself, finally, cry over her.

The journey home was fairly silent, with the whir of the car's engine being the only sound that echoed in my head as I stared out of the window, the unfamiliar flashing past until it became familiar, and I began to recognise landmarks and landscapes as we drew closer to Gongaga. When we were about half an hour away from the village, my father finally spoke, and his sentence appeared at first to be merely a contemplation spoken aloud, but as I caught his eye in the rear-view mirror, shifting between focussing on me and Zack, in the front seat, I knew that there was more to what he was saying, and that he was saying it to gently push us, to encourage us to make our decision and to start choosing for ourselves, to make ourselves happy.

"The book goes on sale tomorrow," he said softly. My thoughts instantly trailed to the money he'd put aside for each of us, the money that was more than I had ever owned and hadn't know what to do with. No more was said, after that, until we pulled up outside the house a little later, and we spent the rest of the journey home each contemplating our decisions – even my father. I knew what he had said was hard for him to do, what he was trying to do was even harder – to encourage each of us to go our own way.

When we pulled up at the house, Yuffie was sat on the door step, wrapped up in my cardigan and her feet firmly planted on the dirt of the drive in a pair of battered black combat boots. As my father turned off the engine, and Zack leaned around in his seat to help me out of my seatbelt, she stood up, and I saw that she was wearing an old pair of denim shorts and a black Jack Daniels vest top. Even with her hair parted messily to the side, and her face pale and drawn without makeup, she still managed to look as beautiful as ever.

My father and Zack very tactfully let themselves into the house, and left the two of us outside together to talk. There was a strange, stilted silence between us for a few moments that neither of us was particularly used to – we'd been best friends for so long, that silence and awkwardness wasn't something we knew very well. But now, having been so distant from her for the last month or so, I almost felt the need to make small talk. I was groping around for a subject to talk about, but then she looked right up at me with tears in her eyes and I did the only thing that I knew would help: I moved towards her and bundled her close to me with my one, good arm, and let her cry softly on my shoulder, just the way I had done on Cloud's lap earlier that day.

"I'm sorry," she kept saying, shaking and clinging into me with her sharp little fingers that dug into my shoulders almost painfully. In fact, it was painful – she was pressing right on my bad shoulder – but I didn't say anything. I felt that she just needed to have a good, uninterrupted cry, and frankly I felt like she deserved it. When I look back on it now, I know that at the time I was thinking that the same thing had happened to her as had happened to Kadaj, and soon it would happen to me, and maybe Zack, too. Like I said before, Hell is others. At some point, the isolation of the village would get to all of us. I think that it was around then that I made my decision – as I held Yuffie as she cried and I tried to stop wincing in pain as her fingers dug into my shoulder; my decision to help myself.

"I'm here," I whispered. She brought her wet, shaking face up to look into mine. Her eyes shone. "I told you, didn't I? I promised I'd see you back here. Well, I'm here. It's alright."

She nodded, but kept crying, and we stood out there until it grew dark, and some point along the way, I began crying too, my tears dripping down into her hair, as I saw my father watching us out of the living room window.

Two days was all it took. Two days of sitting where my mother had always sat, on the windowsill in the living room, watching rain fall and birds fly and people just live, waiting for my own life. Two days, before I went back into Zack's bedroom with the cordless phone whilst he was out running, like he'd done each morning since we'd got back from the hospital to release pent up energy and anger and sorrow, and dug out the prospectus for Midgar University that I'd found a few weeks before, and flicked to the back. I sat cross-legged on my brother's bed and dialled the number before me, and when the other end was answered, I calmly told them what I wanted, what I needed, who I was, and it took little convincing. I remember your mother, the lady said. And I've read your father's books. We don't normally take on students this close to the start of term, but you're more than welcome here. We'll see you in three days.

Three days was all that remained before I left.

A day later, a day of not telling anybody what I'd done and spending all of my time on the living room window sill, I gathered my father and brother around the kitchen table and told them my decision. Zack was shocked, and I almost expected him to be angry with me – to shout, to even cry, maybe – but he just nodded, his eyes wide with surprise. My father seemed indifferent, understanding, and only asked when I would be leaving. After I told them – "In two days," – there was a stunned silence held by us all around the table, before my father nodded at Zack, who told me what my father clearly already knew: my brother's own decision – what he planned to do with his share of the money my father had put aside for each of us.

"I've managed to get onto a course for a degree in physiotherapy," Zack said, and he nearly smiled. It was harder for him to smile, these days. It was all very well that things were coming together for me, but I knew that for him they felt like they were falling apart, and I knew that Aerith leaving was the reason for it. This was just something he felt he had to do, and not only that, but it was something he wanted to do. When I looked at my father, who was sat leant back in his chair sipping from his tumbler of whiskey – his first of the night, and I knew it would be the last; in the days since Kadaj had died he'd been drinking a lot less – with a look that could almost have been happiness, but was actually understanding and contentment, and I remembered the anger that he'd shown the day Zack had come home at the start of August, to tell us that he'd dropped out of university. I knew then, looking right at him, that he was learning. But, still, I worried. I leaned forward and rested my chin in my good hand (my left arm was still in a sling) and supported myself by my elbow on the table, and I cocked my head, feeling my eyebrows knit together.

"Will you be okay?" I asked him. He shrugged.

"Things will be different," he said simply, and I knew that he meant yes, he'd be okay. We needed this. I looked to Zack.

"Where are you doing the degree?" I remembered how I'd wondered if he'd missed the stars when he was in Midgar, and I didn't want him to be unhappy going back there again. I knew he'd want to be close to home. He gave another of those soft, almost smiles, his eyes relaxing in the corners.

"Junon University," he told me. "A little closer to home than before. I'm coming home each weekend. I like the countryside too much to leave it for good, but I've got to get on the right track to getting myself a job. I'm getting a little flat, too. I might have to get a roommate-"

"-Just give it time," My father suddenly cut in with. We glanced towards him, and he looked down into his glass of whiskey. "Just wait. Give it a month or so, and then see." Zack shrugged and looked down at his own glass, which I'd only just noticed he had been sipping from, but I looked hard at my father, who deliberately avoided my eye. I wondered if he knew something that we didn't.

There was more silence, and whilst we sat holding it, my father quietly got up, fetched an extra tumbler from the cupboard, and poured me a glass of whiskey of my own. I nodded my thanks, and sipped from it lightly, staring down at the table cloth. Zack sighed.

"You don't have to do this, you know. I'm sure it'll be fine if you stay." I looked up at him, but he wasn't looking at me – he was looking down at the table cloth like I had been.

"I know," I said, putting my glass down. "But it's just something I need to do for me. I think sometimes you have to be selfish."

"Yes," my father agreed. He finished his glass, and got up to put it in the sink. He tidied the whiskey bottle, still two-thirds full, away into the cupboard. "You have to be selfish in life, sometimes."

Zack nodded in accord, and no more was said.

The day before I was due to leave, I told Yuffie, who surprisingly didn't cry, but sat beside me on her bed and gently laid her head down on my shoulder for a good hour, and didn't say a word. I reached up a little awkwardly, stroking her hair gently and breathing in her smell to try and commit it to memory. I was leaving tomorrow, and most likely wouldn't return until Christmas. I didn't have to wear my sling now, so I was able to wrap an arm around her to try and give her comfort.

"Here," she said as I was leaving, around an hour later. She pushed my cardigan, the one she'd been wearing most of the summer, into my hands. "I only realised the other day that this is yours. Sorry I've had it for so long."

"Thanks," I said. I gave her a smile, which she returned, and then suddenly she leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

"I'll always be your best friend, right? No other girl is gonna take my place?"

"Of course," I laughed softly. She beamed.

"Right, because if they do, I'm gonna kick their ass into next year."

I wrapped my arms around her and laid my cheek down on the top of her head. It only occurred to me then that I was actually tall enough to do it now. She mumbled something, and I almost missed it, but then I worked out what she'd said and smiled into her hair, pleased that she was starting to sound like herself again.

"You better not forget about me, girl."

I held her tightly, again fighting tears, like I always seemed to be these days.

"Couldn't if I tried."

When I got home I began two things: clearing out, and packing. I put on some music, and began methodically sorting through all the clothes in my wardrobe and chest of drawers. Half went into big bags, half went into a suitcase. Everything that I had bought and regretted – every scrap of flimsy, lacy material that was far too short and nearly see-through – went into bin bags, and by the end of the clearing out session, I had gotten rid of three whole bags full. I considered putting them aside to send to a charity shop, but truthfully I just wanted to be rid of them, and so I took them downstairs to put in the bins outside the house. As I opened the front door, the bags clasped in my hands and my fringe falling annoyingly into my eyes, I looked up to find Cloud walking up the drive.

I nearly dropped the bags in my hands with a suddenness that would have been painfully obvious, but I managed to calmly put them down on the ground and carefully brush my fringe out of my face. I was horribly aware of the fact that the clear out had made me quite sweaty, and I surreptitiously tried to wipe my forehead dry, thankful that I was wearing a loose vest top that had kept my upper body at least a little cool.

"Hi," I called, squinting in the afternoon sun. He stopped about ten yards before me.

"Hey," he said. He was wearing a loose check shirt, and as it flapped in the breeze it lifted up slightly, and I could see that his stomach was still tightly wrapped with bandages. "Having a clear out?" He asked, gesturing towards the bags on the ground at my feet. I nodded.

"Just getting rid of some things I don't need." He nodded, like I had done, and I knew in the way he did it, the way his eyes softened slightly, that he knew exactly what I meant. "So ... how are you?"

"I'll be okay," he murmured. "They let me out yesterday. Just have to be careful."

"I'm glad," I told him. He came closer to me, reaching out a hand and gently brushing my cheek with the pad of his thumb.

"Can you do me a favour?"

With his touch on my face like that, I could do anything for him. I nodded.

"Sure. What is it?"

He held my gaze tightly, his eyes still soft with understanding and a tenderness that made me feel like I wasn't wholly there.

"Come round my house tonight, please? We should talk."

"Yes, sure. I'll be there." My heart had started pounding at his words with a sort of fear that I wasn't used to, but instantly recognised as a fear of rejection. My fears were swiftly put down to the ground, though, when he leaned forward suddenly and kissed me. Then, he gave me another of those small smiles that I knew were so incredibly rare from him, but were almost unbelievably uplifting and endearing when they were given, and then he turned around and headed back down the drive, heading, I assumed, for home.

Later that evening, after I'd had a final dinner with my father and brother, I changed into a pair of denim shorts, a pair of boots not unlike the pair Yuffie had been wearing the day we came home from the hospital, and a soft blouse and cardigan, and fiddled with my hair for a while before sighing and putting it in a ponytail. My uniform for the next day, which had arrived that morning in the post, was laid out on my bed, the blue plaid skirt, white shirt and grey cardigan ready for me to dress in and head on towards something new. I got my bicycle out of the garage, and began to cycle up the hill towards Cloud's house.

It was growing dark when I arrived there, which surprised me a little as we were still lingering in the remains of summer and it was only around eight o'clock, but the sky was already darkening and the only light guiding me towards the house was the one coming from the living room window. I was thankful that I'd brought my bike lights with me for the ride home, and also for the fact that they'd left the curtains open for me to see where I was going in the dim of evening.

I left my bike leaning the decking of the porch, and climbed the steps to the front door, knocking lightly on the wood.

"Come in!" A voice that I recognised as Mr. Strife's called, and I hesitantly pushed open the door. "We're in the living room." He then said, in a softer voice, "Carry on, Cloud."

I cautiously made my way down the hallway towards the living room, and as I reached the door and made to open it, I realised I could hear Cloud talking, but like the day he'd woken up in the hospital and spoken my name, it was in a strange, clipped accent I didn't recognise. I pushed the door open with some tentativeness, and found him sat on the sofa reading aloud from a book, one knee pulled up to his chest, and his father was sat on the coffee table before him.

"Under tower and balcony, By garden wall and gallery, A gleaming shape she floated by, Dead-pale between the houses high, Silent into Camelot."

His father motioned for me to sit down on the sofa beside Cloud, who turned and gave me a short nod as I did so, and he resumed reading aloud again. His accent entranced me. Apart from that one time in the hospital, when he'd briefly, almost like a young boy, said my name in that way, I'd never heard him speak in this way. His voice was always very soft and neutral, but the way he was speaking now was almost completely different. The vowels were flat, and some parts were heavily stressed – parts of words I'd never have considered to stress. It was like curt, clipped English with a foreign lilt. He waited until he'd finished the poem, his father nodding encouragement now and then, before closing the book.

"But Lancelot mused a little space; He said, 'She has a lovely face; God in his mercy lend her grace, The Lady of Shalott."

His father took the book back from him, and held it loosely in hands, turning to give me a smile.

"Hi there, Tifa. Sorry about that. How are you doing?" He nodded towards my now free and loose shoulder.

"Not too bad, thank you," I smiled. I pointed towards the book in his hands. "That poem was lovely, what was it?"

"Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott. You know it?"

I shook my head. "I've heard teachers talk about it at school, but I've never had the chance to read it. So, why was Cloud reading it to you?"

His father's eyes softened slightly, and he gave me another, easy grin that stretched lazily across his face.

"He used to stutter," he told me, and I saw that Cloud blushed immediately beside me.

"Dad," he hissed, but his father just chuckled.

"So, I used to get him to read aloud to me, to help him with it," Mr. Strife continued. "He got past it long ago, but I still like him to read to me now and then, just to keep him in practice. As you probably heard, his accent tends to come out when he's concentrating on not stuttering." Cloud shook his head in embarrassment in the corner of my eye.

"So ... was that the Nibelheim accent? I've not heard it before." They both nodded. Mr. Strife gave me another smile, and stood up, gently ruffling his son's hair.

"I'll leave you two alone," he said, and then he left the room, heading into the kitchen and closing the door. Cloud leaned back on the sofa, stretching his arms out in front of us. The silence that hung, for me at least, was awkward and tense. I waited a moment as he stretched, to see if he'd break it, but when he didn't, and instead scratched the back of his head, I decided to break it myself.

"So ... what did you want to talk about?"

His eyes flashed with what seemed like pain, and I wondered briefly if it was his stomach hurting him, but the way he looked down at his knees, almost refusing to meet my eyes, told me that it was actually what he had to say that was causing him pain, and I felt my heart sink. There were still steri-strips covering up the cut on his cheek, and a bandage was still wrapped around his right bicep, and I wanted so badly to run my fingers over them and try to soothe them, even though I was sure he was about to hurt me.

"I'm leaving," he said suddenly, and his hand shot out to hold onto mine. He grasped it tightly, knotting our fingers together, but he still wouldn't look at me, keeping his gaze on his knees. "I've been talking with my father ... did you know he runs a delivery service?" I shook my head. "Well, I'm going to take over it. He's ready to retire and I need a job, so we've agreed I'll run it from now on." He then looked up at me, with eyes that were crinkled in worry and shone with uncertainty. "Your brother's giving me his motorbike."

That surprised me. "Really? But he's barely had it."

"That's what I said," Cloud said softly. His gaze returned to his lap again, but he still held my hand tightly. "Tifa, I ... I still feel the same way about you. I ..." He looked up again, almost pleadingly, and I knew what he was trying to say, but couldn't say aloud. I knew what I wanted to say in return, too, but I couldn't either. It wasn't that it was too soon, or that we didn't really mean it, it was just hard. I squeezed his hand tightly, trying to tell him yes, I understood, I felt the same way too. "I'll see you soon," he finished, the sentence almost a whisper.

"Cloud," I murmured. He looked up, and reached out a hand like he had done earlier that day, stroking the side of my face. "Tomorrow ... I'm moving to Midgar. I'm starting at Hewley Academy for Girls ... my mother went there."

He didn't say anything – didn't need to – and simply smiled softly, before holding my chin in his hand and gently guided my face to his, kissing me lightly. I knew he was pleased with my decision, just in that small action.

As I was leaving, around an hour later, he walked me out to the front door, and pulled me close, holding me tightly against his chest. Like I had done with Yuffie earlier in the day, I breathed in his smell deeply, trying to remember it so that when I next saw him it wouldn't be new and unfamiliar. I wanted even something as small as his smell to always be constant and familiar to me.

"Be careful," he said as I pulled my bike upright, and his words instantly reminded me of my brother, and the way he'd said the same ones to me the day Kadaj had died, as I was leaving for Yuffie's house. When I looked at Cloud, looked properly and studied every inch of the hard expression on his face and the shine in his eyes, I knew, like before, that he was trying as hard as he could to convey how he felt, without being able to say it aloud. I smiled at him, and nodded, before beginning to walk my bike down towards the mountain path. I glanced back over my shoulder to reply, giving him the most truthful, most meaningful smile I could.

"Always," I told him, like I'd told Zack, and then I swung my leg over the bike and began cycling down onto the path, heading down towards the lights of the village. I love you too.

Chibi: ahh. There you have it, the penultimate chapter. I hope you all enjoyed it! Can't believe it's nearly finished!

Thank you for reading, and please review!

Till next time!