Prompt: #20 Guard

Summary: It was the promise he would always keep to her.

Guard

Steadfast. Vigilant. Able. Three qualities that made for a good guard.

He could be steadfast. He could be vigilant. But what he couldn't seem to be, was the last one. To be able. He'd failed too many times to consider himself that. He'd fallen even more. All his life he'd wanted to be better than what he was and then always, always had it thrown in his face that he couldn't. It was really kinda sad, not to mention frustrating. It wasn't as if he didn't try. He'd had the drive, but he didn't have the means it seemed. It wasn't just embarrassing. It was humiliating. There he was, in the presence of such greatness as Sephiroth, Zack and all the other SOLDIERs that he'd only been able to read about before and he couldn't get any higher than a measly grunt.

Then Sephiroth had lost it. Completely lost it and killed his mother, killed Tifa's father and killed everything else that had made up his home. Then he had bested Zack, injuring the man who was like a big brother and best friend to him. Yes, he had been angry. He had been furious. But it was when he had seen Tifa lying in a pool of her own blood from a gaping hole in her chest that he had simply snapped. Fury had turned into such a rage that he had taken up Zack's buster sword and stabbed it right through Sephiroth's demented self. He had thrust it in so deeply that he had cracked the capsule that had contained Jenova's body.

To this day he is not sure how he managed to do that without freaking out. In basic training you're taught how to become a killer, and honestly it was one thing that he had never actually had the stomach for. Killing in a holographic scenario may look real but it didn't feel real. There was always a part of your brain that remembers that these aren't real people that you're killing, so it doesn't really matter. As good as a computer could be and as realistic as it could make everything look, your brain wasn't fooled and that made all the difference from real life and virtual. Not to mention that this wasn't just some clone or enemy. This had been Sephiroth. But, none of that had mattered at that moment. He had been so enraged against the injustice and hurt and pain of it all that he didn't have a moment to think about the fact that he had mortally wounded a man that he had considered his hero. A man that he had idolized. A man that he had wanted to be just like.

The only thing that seemed to penetrate that fury had been his worry for Tifa. It was kinda silly to think that he'd just shown such incredible bravery by stabbing THE Sephiroth but had still been too scared to touch the girl that he loved. He'd taken advantage of her shaky consciousness to touch her for the first time. He had never had the guts to do it before and he had always wanted to know what her hair felt like. Watching as her face had lit up in a way that it never had before when looking at him, had given him a heart pounding renewal. A ray of optimism that everything might still turn out okay. Just that one smile gifted from her was more potent than a shot of Mako.

Much later, when they had met again and during the events that had followed, he'd reverted back to that useless boy that he had always been before. He'd failed Zack. He'd failed Aerith. He'd failed them all by giving Sephiroth the Black Materia. Not just once, twice. Because he'd been too weak minded to fight the possession. It hadn't mattered that he had beaten Sephiroth again and that they had saved the planet. It hadn't mattered that he'd been called a hero. He hadn't felt like one. When he had seen a collapsed Denzel beside Fenrir and felt the trembling hand of a kid so much like himself, he'd found something that gave him motivation to try. That is, until Denzel's condition got worse and Sephiroth's presence had returned to taunt him. The things that Sephiroth had threatened had terrified him until he couldn't trust himself around his family anymore. Especially around Tifa. Tifa, who had seen him fail so many times already and that made him feel like a loser every time that he looked at her. Every time that he looked at the scar on her chest. So, he'd fled.

After getting his head nearly chewed off by Tifa herself and little Marlene, he finally managed to make it just in time to not fail again. Where he had been helpless to save Zack, he had saved Denzel. Where he had stood by and watched Aerith be killed, he would not do so with Tifa. Then, to see her there, just before he defeated the bahamut. Looking at Tifa's determined and confident face, he couldn't help keep the smile from forming as she reached out to him. Tifa, his fearless fist throwing goddess.

When all is said and done, it is Tifa that convinced him that he really was steadfast, vigilant and able. He just needed a good tongue lashing to get his act together… and he would always, always keep his promise to her.

That he would always be there to guard her. Steadfastly. Vigilantly. Ably.