Reminder summary: The story begins when Cloud proposes to Tifa, and she blatantly refuses. Her reason? Up until that point they had been mere friends and the marriage was simply a ploy to aid their adoption of Marlene and Denzel, solidifying their family status in the WRO's new census. Tifa insists they begin with dating if that is his goal and, not to anyone's surprise, they become close. This becomes a problem however when she wants to become even closer, and Cloud begins to wonder about what exactly the mako poisoning has done to him, concerned that he may be physiological danger. In a leap of faith, he seeks out a dreaded medical-research facility and submits to testing. After weeks of trials, it is determined that with a combination program of him suppressing his jenova cells, and she beginning a treatment to resist them, there would be very little chance of her contracting the poison. However, the side effects are sever and primarily unknown due to the technology's youth. One must simply roll the dice and hope for the best.
"God places the heaviest burdens on those who can carry its weight."
- Reggie White
-. Wait For It .-
Chapter XIII: Endurance
The world became black.
But only for a second or two.
And then, just as unexpectedly, it returned once more in full, nauseating brightness and bass-heavy surround sound. Whether it was tears or blood blurring her sight, she couldn't tell. The world had becoming punishingly clear.
Clinking glasses. Rambunctious laughter. Repetitive music. Cries coming from the left, from the right, from everywhere, demanding fresh drinks, new napkins, cleared plates, hotter food, the last shreds of her sanity served up, steaming, on a silver platter garnished with lemon wedges and sage.
She took a deep breath, but only one. One was all she could afford.
People were depending on her.
A bundleberry soda and ginger brew for table five. A no. 4 tonic with only a splash of water, no ice, for the man with the eye patch sitting at the bar's end. A behemoth steak, as rare as possible, with a side salad, no onions. A grilled cheese, extra fries for freckles. A white wine spritzer for the on-duty escort and a plum juice for her anxious client.
There was a sudden crash loud enough to rattle the floorboards, but in the blink of an eye it was forgotten.
Now where the heck did she put that paprika?
"Tifa!" someone called harshly. Then there was a hand on her shoulder, yanking her away from the pile of broken glass that she didn't remember handling, despite the evidence of her bloodied fingers.
Her automatic reaction was to laugh, and she had no idea why. There was nothing particularly funny about bleeding, and her companion seemed to agree.
"Darn-it all." A deep sigh was breathed against her ear. "Geez Tifa, what has gotten into you tonight?"
She tried to respond, but instead only chuckled some more.
Another sigh was released, this one saturated with frustration.
"Man, you're being weird right now. Can't say he didn't warn me."
"Warn...you?"
The world went black again.
Then, in what seemed like a mere blink, a petite figure was crouched before her, wrapping the last of nine band-aids around her various fingers.
Tifa winced, finally fully conscious of both the pain and the embarrassment of her actions. Not to mention the migraine that was threatening to make her brain leak out of her ears.
"S-Sorry Yuffie," she muttered while shaking her bangs out of her eyes, feeling their sweat-soaked heaviness against her forehead. The movement made her feel nauseous again, but she forced it down and away with a staggering breath; a method she had had much practice with over the past few weeks.
"Yeah, sorry my butt. You're supposed to be resting."
"I was! I was planning to. But then," she turned her ear toward the kitchen doors and, if only for an instant, again heard the amplified chaos as loudly as if she were standing in the middle of it all. Voices, music, dishes and dirt. Someone had just spilled their drink. Another was complaining that their order was taking forever. A couple snuck into the bathroom stall together for some "privacy". She could hear it all. Every sound, syllable and sigh.
It had been, quite literally, driving her mad.
Another deep breath and she managed to block it out, enveloping herself in the once unappreciated noises of plain kitchen tinkering. Never had the clanking of a loose utensil in the dishwasher along with the sizzle of a fryer ever brought anyone such relief.
"It started to seem…busy," was her pathetic excuse for being up and about, to which Yuffie responded with a cocked eyebrow.
"It is busy. Which is why you're supposed to be upstairs so that I don't have to waste time following you around with a dust pan, first aid kit and duct tape."
In the midst of pulling herself up by the counter edge, ignoring the hand that was offered, Tifa paused. She understood the first two items but "why the duct tape?"
"Oh, for your mouth of course." Following her boss' lead, the ninja sprang to her feet, nonchalantly slapping the dust off her palms. "Just in case you decide to lecture yet another customer on the proper way to wield a fork, or how to repair their terrible breath or (and this one was my favorite) offer jobs to any more of the HoneyBee girls."
Still crouched, only a few inches off the floor, Tifa's brow furrowed as she struggled to remember the past hour. It bothered her to realize how quickly she trusted the accusations, even though less than a month ago she never would have deemed herself capable of such clumsy, rude and downright stupid behavior. She considered an attempt to rectify the situation by appealing to Yuffie's youth and pity. It would be easy to convince the girl to let her stay by reminding her that this was one of the first nights in years she was without both Cloud and the children and therefore deserved some "fun". If she managed to ward off another episode for just another half hour, she could catch up on some orders, offer some apologies and revoke some unwise, possibly illegal business dealings.
Or she could end up making things that much worse.
With a groan of defeat, Tifa's hand shot out to grasp her friend's, and together they managed to bring her to her unstable feet.
"I'm going back to bed," she announced with a firm nod, all concentration focused on remaining upright.
Yuffie nodded her approval. "Good plan."
"And, um…the HoneyBee girl? Can you, um…"
"Inform her that the position of cute, sassy, attention-seeking barmaid of questionable morals has already been filled? Done."
"Yes. Good. Thanks."
Eventually, using the counter and various pieces of furniture for support, Tifa somehow managed to navigate her way back toward the stairs. In the minute it took her to return to her bedroom and nose-dive onto the mattress, the cycle had begun again. The painfully bright vision, the brain melting migraine and, as always, the noise. Scraping utensils. Sloshing liquid. Footsteps. Machines. Cars. People chewing, drinking, laughing. Walls away yet echoing as loudly as her own choked breaths.
She could do nothing more than shut her eyes, desperately press the pillows up against the sides of her head, and pray for it all to end.
He had never parked Fenrir on the street before.
There had never been a reason or a point.
After all, their garage was just around the corner, adding a mere seventeen seconds to his route; a small price to pay for peace of mind. For as feared and respected as he was, there were still many desperate people living on the streets of Edge despite the WRO's upgrades. And desperate people made for stupid people. Stupid people who would rush to grab any shiny and unattended object regardless of its owner or its nearly impossible to manage steering without enhanced reflexes or, not to mention, multiple compartments that contained hidden blades on springs.
It wasn't for his safety that the contraption never failed to make it into the garage each and every time it returned home. Last thing this family needed was a civil lawsuit on top of everything.
But tonight…tonight he didn't even think about it. As soon as that familiar door came into his line of vision, there seemed to be no choice but to head straight towards it.
Seventeen seconds was suddenly much too long a wait.
While still several meters away and though many walls lay between, he could already hear her, smell her. Above the roar of the engine, he could note the tinkling of her nails hitting the glass she was washing, the creak of the floorboards as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Laced into the wind alongside the usual smoke, metal and sweet liquor was her distinct scent; one of soap and leather and sweat. More sweat than usual, he noted fretfully. And her breath was also deeper, slower, as if she was taking great care with each one.
Cloud's lips curved downwards as he shut off the ignition and swung his leg over the side, his enhanced senses confirming the expected yet still disturbing conclusion.
It was getting worse.
He hesitated once on the threshold, debating what to say, what to do, anything that would make her see sense. To see that they couldn't go on like this. Proof that it wasn't worth it.
Nothing came to mind.
He could have driven Fenrir around the entire block by the time he decided to venture in unarmed, realizing she had probably long since detected his arrival anyway. Lately, some of her senses had begun to eclipse his own as the medications they were both on began to make their glaring mark. It was odd, to say the least. Only three days prior, for example, Tifa had managed to sneak up on him while he was trying to re-ignite the water heater's pilot light in the dark and silent basement. He discovered then how startling being startled can be when you have not been startled by anything for years. Thank goodness Tifa was fast on her feet and had the flames out before they could spread to the liquor storage, while he could do nothing more but stand there and try to remember how to breathe.
Odd indeed...but not always in such a hazardous way. Of course, he could no longer survive off of one hour of sleep a night, but that made it much easier to stick to a schedule along with the rest of the city. He found lately that he needed to eat more to maintain a certain energy level, and that granted him a new appreciation for 7th Heaven's impressive menu, as dining was no longer a mere chore. There was also, of course, the other thing; the strange and drastic rearrangement of both his mind and his body's priorities. Vexing though it was, it was also diagnosed as very normal for a man his age by both his doctors and the few friends he had the courage to consult. Especially normal, they all assured him, when in the company of a woman like Tifa.
With a small grin on his lips as he celebrated the miracle of all these reverse-enhancements, Cloud slowly began to push open the heavy oaken door to 7th Heaven, to his home. An action that though usually gratifying, also reminded him of the primary horrific effect included within the mako suppressants.
The door was heavy.
He had always known it was. He bought it specifically for that reason, to avoid swinging and letting in any more of the frigid winter air than necessary. He had always known, but never felt it before. He had never experienced the resistance he did now, even if all it demanded was just a slight extra effort, it was still an immensely unappreciated change. For as pleasant and freeing and all-around comforting as "being close-to-normal" had made him, it also made him something he hadn't been considered in years, something he promised himself he'd never feel again.
It made him weak. Weak in every way. Especially when he laid his eyes on her.
"Cloud." She said his name curtly; half greeting, half accusation, and he could not help but wince in response. She was in one of her more hostile moods. And though she had every reason to be, it was not the sort of welcome he had wished for on the long journey home tonight.
Slowly, almost as if he were facing a cobra and not his partner, Cloud approached the bar and took his usual stool. He sat there for a few seconds, staring her down as she aggressively scrubbed the sink, and debated his words, unsure of his intentions, when a cough to his left interrupted all thought.
For the second time since he was sixteen, Cloud was startled and jumped a little in his seat with overstated surprise. A customer had been sitting right next to him, sloppily sipping at the dregs of his tankard and he hadn't noticed. Strange.
"Need anything?" she asked with attempted ease, though something in her tone suggested that he'd pay for it later if he actually requested the desired glass of Corel wine to take the edge off. Instead, he shook his head and glanced at the clock on the back wall in order to confirm the time. 2:48 it read. Only twelve more minutes until closing and this last straggler could be forced out. He would simply have to wait.
Gods, how he hated waiting.
For more than he needed sleep, more than food, more than any other of his body's new requirements, he now needed to talk to her. So badly in fact, that twelve minutes was deemed much too long.
At 2:49 Tifa's business phone-line rang and she stomped off to the kitchen to answer it, leaving the two occupants of her bar alone together.
"7th Heaven, Tifa speaking. How can I help you?" she grumbled into the receiver, praying against all odds that it was a telemarketer with a broken clock that she could rip apart for rudeness rather than an actual customer or supplier.
To her surprise, it was neither. Just the soft buzzing of white noise followed by an oddly bright echo of a slamming door. It didn't take long for her to deduce what had happened. And when she returned to the bar, not thirty seconds after she had originally turned her back, to no one's surprise Cloud suddenly sat alone.
Tifa could only sigh as she returned to her washing.
"You shouldn't have done that. He was a paying customer."
"... He had people waiting for him."
She could have fought, had every reason to be angry, but she also knew that her anger sourced from elsewhere and was therefore unwarranted. Instead, she choose to remain silent and finish her task.
Cloud watched her for a while in silence which, back in the day, she would have translated as indifference. But now, thanks to her enhanced senses, she could practically taste the anxiety in the air. The way he shifted a little in his seat, the slight increased production of saliva and sweat, his warm eyes radiating into her even across the bar. It was as bad as if he were screaming at the top of his lungs.
"I'm FINE!" she asserted, feeling unexpectedly smothered.
Cloud's jaw clenched. "You promised that Yuffie would be taking care of the bar this week. You're in the midst of a textbook bad reaction. The doctors told us that-"
"I know what they said!" she snapped back. How dare he think she could forget. "Yuffie overdid it with the participation shots and I felt better, so I sent her home. Didn't want to deal with her snoring tonight. Besides, weren't you not supposed to be back from Mideel until tomorrow? You know you're not supposed to attempt those all-night drives anymore."
"I didn't. I shortened the contract so that I could get back early and take care of you."
At this her eyes widened and, by no conscious act of her own, the silver tankard in her hand crumpled under the pressure. "Dammit Cloud," she muttered angrily, tossing the ruined piece into the trash so furiously that it pushed the entire bin across the room before falling over. "Did you even think to consult me...?"
"We don't need the gil that badly."
"I promised Tym I'd get the down payment to him by the end of the week! He already started the foundation running on only good faith."
"I'll take care of it. We'll figure it out, maybe delay construction if need be. We don't need the house right now. What we can't survive without is you."
"I can't lay around all day and try to will my body into coping better, Cloud. It's not working. Just let me deal with this my own way. It's only a few more weeks."
Without another word, she returned to washing dishes with an increased vigor. Putting all the pent of frustrations she had stored into the simple goal of cleanliness. She scrubbed until her hands were raw and bleeding, but felt neither the pain nor the usual pleasure at a job well done.
It would pass, they told her.
The injections they were giving her were but a small, inconsequential dose of the Jenova virus, forcing her body to build natural antibodies to the poison. For all intents and purposes, it was working perfectly. Especially for an experimental procedure. Considering that there was no known danger of psychological effects, after the first few days she had politely refused the recommended two month stay in the research facility. Quite frankly, regardless of her being extremely uncomfortable there, the family simply couldn't afford the time off work. The WRO's tax was severely limiting their profits as well as new, similar establishments popping up in Edge every day. In addition to everything, the new, high-standard school Reeve had promised them was demanding several unexpected costs such as uniforms, meals plans and textbooks.
So here she was, week five of the treatment. Perfectly healthy except for the occasional vomiting, migraines, cramps, memory lapses and, perhaps, a slightly shortened temper. She thought she had been brilliant in her management of the side-effects and her home life until Cloud had, without her permission, brought the kids to stay with Barret on vacation "for your own good" until classes began. Then Yuffie had pushed her into taking over the majority of the night shifts, and though she resisted at first, one could not deny the improvement in earnings due to the decision. It was all evidence against her much needed delusion of coping, and for that she couldn't help but hate them all.
Especially him, for whom she had started this whole thing. And for what? Five weeks and they had only the mutual courage/stamina/peace of mind to be with each other twice. That fact alone was the most infuriating of all.
"Tifa," he began as the uncomfortable stillness stretched passed its ridiculous point. "I've...I've been thinking."
'Well that's something new,' was her chosen retort, but she wisely kept it to herself.
"I think," he paused then, taking a moment to swallow the nervous lump in his throat. "I think you should stop the treatment. At least for the time being."
Her reflexive reaction was to scoff, but she bit it down. He wasn't trying to be controlling, she forced herself to acknowledge, he was simply upset. "Why?"
"Because..." he prompted, hoping that the rest of the sentence was obvious. Alas, her glare proved that she was in no mood for mad-libbing. "Because it's hurting you."
"Cloud, I said I'm fine."
"But you're not. I know you're not."
"You don't know anything."
In an unusual show of passion, Cloud slammed his fists on the counter so hard that every glass in the bar rattled, causing Tifa to jump. He then took a deep breath to rein it in and softly pressed his palms again the counter top to steady the shaking. Testosterone takes a while to get used to, he was discovering. "Please. Please stop lying to me."
At this, the unstable flame of her temper flared once more. "Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean-"
"No. Stop. This isn't about us." He fell back into his stool, frustrated that it had to get to this point. "Do you really think I don't notice? That I don't see what's been going on? Can't you tell that it's killing me to see you like this? Do you even care?"
Tifa could do nothing but press her lips together, knowing that any and all of the words bubbling on her tongue would do more harm than good in this situation. How dare he ask if she cared. It certainly wasn't for personal kicks that she was poisoning herself on a daily basis. She was doing it for their mutual peace of mind. So that maybe someday, as soon as possible, they could have some meager semblance of a normal relationship. Her caring should be the least of his uncertainties.
She didn't reply for long, tense seconds, eyes glue to wall behind his head as if it were charging battalion, and Cloud all-too-quickly fell victim to the very human trait of impatience.
"Fine. Never mind. I'm going to bed." The stool fell over in his haste to leave the bar and the resulting clatter was shrill enough to make Tifa's eardrums nearly rupture. Time seemed to slow down then as she watched him pass on the way to the staircase and, suddenly, she was viewing this exact same scene from a different angle, from another time.
Cloud sitting alone, silent and apparently catatonic, as she stormed upstairs following yet another fruitless argument. Mere months ago, before the remnants attacked. They had discussed it recently, back before he had discovered the mako research facility, of how much easier their lives could have been if he had had the courage to tell them about his geostigma. Denzel would have been more confident for one, to know he wasn't going through it alone. Marlene would have supplied him with an infallible source of hope. And Tifa, well, she would have fretted and worried and become a nervous wreck of course. But at least she wouldn't have felt so horrifically powerless and lost as she did during those dark days.
In a rare moment of clarity, Tifa then saw herself as Cloud must see her - much like she used to see him. Strong, but broken. Needing support, but unwilling and unable to accept it. Much like a wounded wolf, blindly lashing out in a few last desperate attempts to prove, to retain, its ferocity.
She wanted, so badly, for them to be happy and normal and all around complete. Finishing this treatment, pushing through it, had once been considered the road to that. But at what cost?
In the haze of her daydream, she saw what must have been her own hand reach out and grasp the sleeve of his sweater. Tugging with an unexpected desperation. He froze, but didn't dare to face her. Not yet.
"If I stop now," she began nervously, needing to voice her primary concern. "we won't be able to-"
"I know. I'll live."
"But you told me...you said it's been bothering you lately. You said it's practically a new compulsion. If I do this, it may be a while before-"
"I don't care. I'll wait."
Though he still wasn't facing her, Tifa nodded. Of course he would wait. The rush was all in her head, charging towards that glittery happy ending and ignoring the life-filled sidelines.
"Okay..." she heard herself conceding in a choked voice, almost without her brain's full participation. A fragment of her true self had managed to shine through the haze of pain to do what needed to be done first and foremost; protect the ones she loved. Cloud turned and his blue-green eyes finally met hers with a greater-than-usual intensity, easily solidifying her resolve. She felt herself nodding again, for both their reassurance. "Yes. I'll stop. You're right, I'm- it's making me sick and...and kind of...mean. I'll stop tonight, until more research has been done and its safer. It makes the most sens-"
She was interrupted by his hands on her neck, vigorously pulling her towards him across the counter top. A giggle of relief automatically escaped her lips as they met his, amused by the fact that he seemed to have adopted her eagerness where he was once so deliberate and sensible.
They kissed for long minutes, despite the awkwardness of their bartender-customer positions, both too worried of fumbling the fragile moment to dare pause. The unspoken consequence of interrupting the treatments had somehow inspired a newfound energy between them. Tonight may be the last chance in a long while; a fact that Cloud seemed very well aware of as his fingers reached for her vest's zipper.
"I can stop," he muttered after pulling it down a mere inch. Always the concerned gentleman.
Tifa could only grin more widely. "Don't you dare."
After all, this was the very reason she had endured all the headaches, nausea and memory lapses so far. Being as close to him as anyone can and no one else had ever been. It had all been worth it, to a point. They'd schedule an appointment to see the doctor tomorrow to discuss other options. But for tonight at least, her chances of contracting the poison were still nearly insignificant, the bar was closed, the kids were away and her head was miraculously no longer throbbing. Tonight she intended, she needed, to take advantage to this rare and precious peace of mind.
Unwilling to break their lip lock, Tifa soon found herself half climbing, half being pulled over the counter, accidentally kicking over a few casualty wine glass in her haste to get closer and surprisingly not caring.
"I missed you..."
"I missed you."
It happened in a blur, the same mind-warping rush as always. A haze of tongues and teeth and nails and skin. It was the only time her heightened senses were more of an asset than a hindrance. Another significant thing she did note as they lay there afterward on the bar floor struggling to catch their breath, wrapped around only each other and a stained tablecloth; she had in fact never, ever, felt so...vital.
Though their physical relationship was such a new, rare and therefore relatively trivial portion of their life together, in the heat of it nothing else ever seemed more significant, more fulfilling. Not even breathing.
"We really should have gone upstairs," Cloud remarked as he extricated a discarded fork from under his thigh and tossed it toward the bar.
Tifa giggled, burying her face into his shoulder in embarrassment. "Sorry. It's been a long few days. I was restless."
"My very content mind forgives you, but my back is still a little sore. You may have noted that I'm not as agile as I used to be."
"You are still plenty agile Mr. Strife. I would know."
Cloud laughed, a sound that never failed to get her heart beating faster if only due to its rarity. One year ago, she could never have even imagined that they'd end up here. Content, mostly healthy, naked and laughing in each other's arms on 7th Heaven's slightly sticky floor.
It was paradise.
"Well, at least now we can say we've tried it," Tifa rationalized as she reached up to the table top above them to grab her t-shirt "but this will most likely be a onetime thing. After all, there's too much potential for way worse things to happen."
"Agreed," said Reeve.
Cloud's head hit the table bottom with alarming force as he sat bolt upright.
Startled for a third time, and really not enjoying it so far.
"Reeve!" exclaimed Tifa as she hastily pulled her top over her head. "What are you doing here?" In a flurry of movements she had on the most important pieces of her clothing and had Cloud's piled on his lap where he sat, rubbing his disheveled hair and wincing.
As she shot up between the tables to face the head of the WRO, she noted with relief that he was still far across the room, highlighted in the entranceway by the glow of the streetlamps. As her eyes adjusted, she prepared for some sort of teasing smirk and maybe even a cringe of disgust. But when his expression finally came into view, her heart began to sink into her stomach.
Of course, there were very few reasons that spurred the head of the WRO to make house calls at three in the morning, and none of them were ever good.
As loudly as though he were less than a foot away, she heard him swallow, heard him take a deep, shaky breath and then, in a whisper that no normal human ears could have picked up at such a distance, she heard him mutter two dreaded words.
"...I'm sorry."
"So we'll get an appeal," Cloud was attempting to rationalize as he sat cross-legged on the edge of their bed. Tifa's newly mako-infused cells plus her own natural nervousness did not allow her the luxury of sitting still. "It's not over yet."
"An entire committee deemed us unfit parents Cloud." Her hands tugged at the letter in her hands with reanimated hostility as she paced the carpet, as if hoping she could bully its contents into changing. "I don't need it doubly confirmed."
"The committee is made up of the paranoid and privileged who don't understand the needs of the basic family. Their desire to be considered objective is leading them to ignore the fact that exceptions do exist. A jury of our peers will be different. Reeve said so."
"Reeve...Reeve obviously can't do anything right." She had wanted to punch him when he told them there was nothing he could do. Like hell he couldn't. She would have gone through with it too if the sudden and intense resurgence of her symptoms hadn't stolen her ability to move and speak and stay conscious. "We were stupid to trust him."
"He's not a tyrant, Tifa. He's an elected official and can't simply fabricate loopholes to help his friends. We'll find another official way. We'll get the appeal."
"And if that doesn't work? What then?"
"Then...we'll apply to foster. We have options, Tifa. Please, just...calm down."
Though calming down was the last thing she felt she had the ability to do, one look at his pleading expression force her to try. So she sat herself on the bed beside him and didn't resist when an arm snaked around her shoulder to pull her closer. He may not have been as warm as he used to be, nor smell as strongly of mako-menthol, but one could not deny the unnatural comfort his simple closeness gave to her.
"It's not fair..." After all they had been through, the statement was redundant. But it needed to be said anyway. He held her tighter in response, as soothing words were never and would probably never be one of his strengths. "How is it that just as the world is getting better for everyone else, it's keeps getting worse and worse for us?"
Cloud remained silent.
They sat like that for several minutes, reveling in the harsh mysteries of life.
After a long while, Cloud broke the silence with a sigh and stood up to walk to his dresser. Tifa watched him with only mild interest, distracted as she was, while he fumbled around in his sock drawer.
"This wasn't how I wanted to do this," he said before tossing something toward her, which she caught with ease.
She didn't even have to open her hand to know what it was. The shape and feel and weight of it was enough.
With a long sniff to hide all traces of emotion, Tifa casually tossed the ring back. "I don't think being married will help at this point. The jury will know it's for show since the committee rejected us."
"I'm not proposing again Tifa. I'm giving you a present." He tossed it again, and again she caught it. This time however, she dared to take a peek. It was a thick platinum band, sized perfectly for her index finger, four shimmering, appropriately sized, square gems embedded flat along its rim. Marlene, Denzel, her and Cloud's birthstones. It was practical for her hard-working hands, modest to match her unassuming style, yet sparkly enough to appeal to her veiled femininity. Much more her style than the gaudy, heart-shaped meteorite that he had offered her originally, all those weeks ago.
"I was told it was for promises. And I...appreciate promises. I trust them. More than anything. So Tifa..." with an indecisive grin on his lips, he went down on his knees before her and, though unexpected, she couldn't help but burst out into happy, amused and primarily desperate tears which he thankfully ignored. "With this ring, I promise that we'll get through this. Together. All four of us. I don't know how, but we will. If only because we have to. Alright?"
Tifa nodded and allowed him to slip the ring onto her finger. Not necessarily because she believed, but because what else could you do when the man you love, such a notoriously stoic man as Cloud, made such a distressed plea? What else could you do but hug him and kiss him and make love to him once more, hoping against all hope that, together, you could make the impossible possible?
Especially when, unbeknownst that night, a top-secret branch of SOLDIER called Deepground was within days of launching a long awaited attack. And a whole new war was about to begin.
Author's Note: The usual excuses for taking a long time to update, but slightly more "grown-up" this time around. I have a new game-industry job and just now cashed in my first week of vacation. Bought a house which requires constant maintenance. I'm getting married in June (to a man who bought me FFXIII-2 collector's edition for Xmas w00t!) and am spending a lot of my free time tying favor ribbons and seeking out linen rentals. My sister broke up with her partner, making me part-time parent of a 1 and a 4 year old...blah, blah, blah. But fanfiction is still one of my favorite ways of blowing off steam, though it now takes me an extremely long time to pump out an entire chapter's worth during my short spurts of alone time.
Thank you for sticking with me, especially those that sent slightly threatening/sweet private messages & reviews to encourage me to continue. Sometimes, I just type out point form stories to have fun, but its for you guys that I turn it into cohesive chapters. I actually have a 60 page FFXIII one going on now, but God help me if I ever have FOUR unfinished stories on this site that I still take seriously.
I'm looking forward to having a completed fic soon, finally, so please keep up your encouragement. Hope I continue to entertain.
Call for Beta Reader: One of the primary factors that keeps me from updating quickly is that I know I have a tendency for grammar and spelling typos. So I take a few days to re-read things a couple of times and STILL end up with dumb mistakes due to writer-blindness that I only notice months later. Its infuriating because I pride myself on knowing the difference between "it's" and "its" and "there", "their" and "they're" and "inflection" vs. "inFECtion" which someone pointed out to me in a review last chapter. Gah! I'm no Tolstoy, but I don't want to be Candace Bushnell either (if you enjoy "sex and the city" the show, please, for your own good, don't read any of the creator's original books. They're terrible).
Long story short, if anyone feels they are committed to fanfiction and foresees still be interested for many, many months (hell, I've been doing this for nearly ten years now :O ) and fulfills the following requirements to beta-read my chapters, please let me know.
1. Interest in multiple Final Fantasy worlds: I have ongoing stories in FFX, FFVIII and FVII and would prefer to have one, dependable editor for all my works. One whom, preferably, is a supporter of all three. Why? Because...
2. Continuity errors: For example, I just caught myself writing "heavy metal door" in this chapter, when I suddenly remembered that in chapter 5, I mentioned the door had been replaced by wood. A silly detail, yes. But one I would be so appreciative if something similar was brought to my attention before publishing. If only to humor those few hard-core (ie: anal) readers. Whom I love!
3. Educated (high-school +) , above 17. This is a tall order I know, since I'm one of the rare adults who keeps up with this type of thing. And I do admit that exceptions exist. But it is my preference that those who edit my work have as "relatively" high standards as I do (not professional obviously - because then you should be working on your own stuff!- but high enough). I am currently working on a Master's thesis in my field of game design, and know the importance of grammar in being taken seriously. Also, due to some 17+ rated content, I don't want to corrupt any minors.
4. Creative/Open-minded: Though grammar and continuity errors are my biggest issues, I also don't mind being told "this paragraph is terrible". I'm lazy sometimes, just wanting to get a chapter out, and would love some constructive criticism. Even re-write suggestions!
5. Microsoft Word "Review" experience: At my work, we often use to Word "review" tools to edit text, and I've found it so helpful in learning from my mistakes, since you can track changes and add comments. Please either know or be willing to learn this amazing tool.
That is all. Looking forward to next chapter!
- May (Nancy)