A/N: 'Stay' is definitely a good one for Tifa and Cloud, I think. I hope you like it!
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII Characters and Places belong to Square Enix.
"Wait! Please don't go!"
He stopped, looking over his shoulder to see his childhood friend, his childhood love, and his childhood demise looking at him with bright brown eyes, newly cut brown hair playing around her slim shoulders. She had her hands pressed against the counter of the bar, hoisting her up as she leaned over the side to try and grab his attention. Her mouth was skewered into a tight-lipped line, her chin wobbling as she tried to hold in her distress. He sighed inaudibly then, turning to look at her properly.
He adjusted the bag over his shoulder that held his meagre belongings, motorbike goggles resting around his neck, red ribbon of remembrance still clutched tightly in his hand, afraid to tie it over the slowly developing oozing wound he had on his arm that she didn't know about. He didn't want her to know about it. It was his own problem, and he had to figure out how to fix it himself.
"You can't just leave us. We need you!"
"Tifa."
She started at her name, and he sighed again, lowering his head so that his bangs covered his eyes. "I can't stay here…right now. I have things that I need to take care of."
"Well, that doesn't mean you have to go—"
"By myself."
Silence slipped over their heads then, blanketing and strangling them slowly as it settled heavier and heavier on them. When the silence started to stuff his ears full of cotton, he turned again to the door.
"Cloud."
Pausing once more, he rested his hand on the doorknob, waiting for her to talk.
"Stay. Please."
Closing his eyes, he inhaled slowly through his nose before twisting the doorknob and stepping out of the bar, leaving Tifa to stand alone at the bar, staring at his back.