Dark Secrets

Fenrir groaned as it gained permission to sleep from its master. Cloud removed the ignition key and rolled it safely into the garage. The night had been a dry one so he'd been able to drive home quickly, it was just a shame he had got held up earlier in the day, otherwise he could have been back sooner.

He walked in his exhausted state from the garage to the bar, from the bar to the landing and then took a quick left into his office. He pulled the invoices he'd stuffed in his pocked onto the table and emptied the cash payments from his wallet into an envelope and slipped it into the desk's draw. He pulled his dusty boots from his feet as he balanced on a nearby chair and tidied them to the side. Tifa would probably scold him in the morning for leaving dusty footprints through the house but considering how cute she looked when she was annoyed it didn't seem so bad. With a good feeling melting through his chest he took in that he was home.

Having only his socks on he tiptoed quietly from his office up the small stairs opposite to a door behind which he knew Tifa was sleeping soundly. He pushed the door gently so as not to make a noise and gently shut it again. She was coiled in the white sheets like a doll, her face taking a porcelain look as moonlight seeped faintly through the curtains. She was beautiful. He smiled a little as he watched her sleep and came alongside the bed, removing his gloves onto his bedside table. He stripped down to his underwear and then slipped into the bed next to her.

He wasn't meant to do this either, slip into bed late at night when she was already asleep, his cot in the office was for that, but he wanted to feel her warmth nearby, her scent, and her soft and welcoming, embracing arms while she slept.

He tucked himself behind her, fitting his body perfectly against hers so that he could reach his arm around her if he wanted to. His face buried into the exposed flesh of her neck and in her sleep she tilted her head back a little and gave a small sigh.

It encouraged him, and soon he was dragging his fingertips lightly down from her shoulder, past her elbow and crossing from her relaxed fingers to the smooth and firm tone of her thighs. In her sleep he watched the edges of her mouth curve up a little. She began to wake.

"Cloud?" she murmured.

"Who else?" he whispered in her ear and she laughed.

Meanwhile his hand traced back up her arm.

"Why are you waking me up?" she whispered back, pretending to be annoyed.

His hand had found her jawline and began to trace along the soft edges.

"It's cold in the office," he answered softly.

His index finger began to trace a long line down her slender throat.

"You could have put the radiator on," she suggested innocently.

"I'd rather save on the energy bills," he murmured against her earlobe.

Callus fingertips skipped teasingly over her top and began to trace upwards from the base of her tummy to her navel.

To her navel.

She seized his hand quickly with her own.

"I'm tired, Cloud," she said forcefully calm, easing her grip, "and I can't afford to be worn-out tomorrow," she attempted to tease. His hand stayed in hers as she waited anxiously for him to say something.

"Okay, Tifa," he said affectionately as he kissed the nape of her neck, and he settled himself closer into the shape of her body with his own. She became aware of his hand again as it moved out of hers to drape itself more generally around her tummy. Carefully she moved her arm as he did his own, making sure that it ended up just beneath his as he rested it on her, further ensuring he wouldn't detect the thin layer of bandages that were wrapped around her waist.

Soon she felt his sleepy breathing against the back of her neck. It took a couple of hours for her to follow him, her thoughts keeping her awake. The call had been too close.

When it oozed there was the bandage there to stop it and soak it up. When it hurt it she made sure it was not painful enough to break the smile she was holding on her face. When she saw how it had grown that little bit more over the past few weeks she had looked stoically at it in the mirror, slipped her top back on and got back to work.

They, her family, were still oblivious to her illness just as she'd rather have them. Her dirty bandages were always incinerated in the core of the stove; she washed her sheets often in case of stains that formed when the infection wept onto them in her sleep, and at the times when she'd had a bad enough attack to fall to the floor she was usually and luckily on her own anyway, and she'd mop up the mess, clean her clothes, shower, and grab something else to wear before anyone could to suspect anything. It certainly wasn't ideal, it was hard, but it was worth it to keep her secret.

Laying a new blanket over Denzel's bed she watched him as he slept. She would usually come back from the lunch period, or from doing a certain task to find more black liquid trickling down from his forehead. It made her sad, it made her very sad. At first deep inside she thought it hurt because he was only a child, a child she thought had been given to her as a way of penance for her own sins if she were to take care of him, but in time he'd become something much much more to her; in a way he felt like her own son, and it complimented the way that Marlene felt like her own daughter, and how both children acted as if they were siblings to each other.

She continued to watch him sleep even though she knew she had other things to be doing. Seeing him at peace put her at peace however, and a part of her needed that right now. She reached out with her hand to gently move some strands of hair from his forehead. Then the pain came again, a sharp, viscous, bloodthirsty stabbing in her side that caused her whole body to seize as if paralysed. She felt like she was choking on pure air. It subsided momentarily but then came back, and she had to fight the need to cry out, to groan out her anguish. The world span wildly from beneath her. She felt her limbs falter under the weight of gravity. The familiar putrid taste rose abruptly in the back of her throat and she doubled over. Soon she hit the floor, her hands digging into her left side, her lungs aching in tension and the world blacked out.

How long had she been there? She dragged herself from the bedroom floor immediately and looked at Denzel's face. He was still asleep, his small, raspy breaths soothing her heartbeat, her anxiety. Realising she was still clutching her side, she looked down to the carpet and was horrified by the evidence of her attack, the transference of pussy muck now clinging in between the fine fibres of the rug. Her top was also soaked through with the same vile liquid. She felt empty and cold. She shook the feeling away and rolled the rug up quickly, tucking it under one arm. With one last glance to check Denzel was sleeping she stepped out of the room and sprinted down to the washing room.

She threw the rug into the machine and then stuffed it with whatever other washing she could find in the wash baskets. Promptly she threw off her own top and stuffed it into the machine as well. She added soap to the tray, and plenty of it, and then turned the dial to the hottest presetting before pressing "wash". The washing machine's drum began to roll and rumble to life. She felt better, but there was still residual, thick liquid on her hands, arms and tummy from where it had seeped through her bandage.

She showered; she washed; she scrubbed her skin hard, and then she nursed the dark curse until it quietened down to leave a faint, though still painful, feeling of pinpricks across her side. Yet again she began her ceremonious wrapping of bandages around her tummy when she found the roll of bandage cloth was spent. No more bandages. She lifted her arm and looked more intensely into the mirror. She allowed herself to look at her plague properly for the first time in days, for she had been avoiding it. The mark had spread to almost twice its girth, and the tips had eaten all the way up to her chest.

She let out a small exhale.

It was already worse than Denzel's and it'd only been a month or so. It seemed, just maybe, her time may be up before his. But no, it was futile to think like that. It was so negative and defeated. Dying? Her dying? After all she had been through; falling from a drawbridge and into a seven day coma at eight, being sliced open at sixteen by a madman, nearly being gassed to death in a sealed chamber by Shinra, falling into the life stream after Cloud, and facing the same madman again amongst other life or death situations as she helped save the world; could things have really turned out like this? She shook her head in a weak defiance. She couldn't think about dying, she just couldn't. Not now. She wouldn't let herself.

But... did she really have a choice? Was she being selfish?

Did she really want Cloud to wake up one night and find her dead in his arms? No, of course she didn't... She didn't want the children to know, see, experience, feel it when a loved one dies either, especially a... mother figure.

The air became more lifeless as she absent-mindedly wrapped her arms around herself in the cold of her half-nakedness. The mark burned under her scrutiny as she stared at it.

No, she just couldn't think about it.

The next afternoon Denzel looked considerably better, he was out of bed and helping round the house and even went for a small walk to the shops with Marlene. When they came back Tifa noticed their cheeks were both rosy from walking, and for a moment she forgot that Denzel was sick and dying, and that Marlene had to cope with the potential loss of one who now felt like a brother to her.

As she watched them walk away upstairs the pain came again and she had to brace herself on the bar surface and suck the air in through her teeth. Every time the more miniature attacks happened it was the same thing; a horrible boiling sensation rose through the infected flesh, a grasping sensation seized on to the life in the rest of her body, and that sickly feeling rose in her throat as she felt the black puss soaking into the bandages under her top. A deep breath and it was all over, but she could still feel the evidence wet against her skin.

For the first time in weeks she thought she might cry.

She hid her eyes in her forearms that were still bracing against the wood of the bar and swallowed down a tear. Then the children came back in.

"Tifa, do you know where -" Marlene cut her sentence short when she saw in an instant that Tifa was upset. She looked up to her guardian with a curious upset herself. "What is it, Tifa?" she asked tentatively.

Tifa found herself unable to do anything, including answer Marlene or even breathe properly. She thought that if she attempted to swallow some air it would turn into a choke, and then another tear, and then the children would both see her crying. She couldn't let them see her so weak.

"I'm fine. Just tired, Marlene," she managed, turning the ache to burst into tears into a deep and hollow tone that portrayed tiredness.

A moment passed, and then she felt two pairs of small arms suddenly clutch around her hips. In her surprise the tension of misery fled and she looked down at both a brown ponytail and a brown mop of hair, each on either side of her. She quickly wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye so that she could speak to them.

"I'm fine..." she repeated, lightly holding their heads in her palms. She had attempted to sound reassuring, except an unsure note in her voice crept though, making her words a tired, faint sounding utterance.

"Love you, Tifa," Marlene murmured into her side, and a completely new feeling took hold of Tifa.

Both children pulled away and began to head for the staircase. Before he reached it, Denzel turned to face Tifa himself.

"Love you, Tifa," he said shyly and ran up the stairs after Marlene.

When she heard their bedroom door shut she gasped and her eyelids fluttered shut. Pinpricks at the corners of her eyes returned while a large tension pulled on her heart and almost snapped it.

She didn't want to think about losing her life because... she didn't want to lose them.