Glimpses of Normalcy

"Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves - regret for the past and fear of the future."

Fulton Oursler

It seemed nowadays, no matter where you went everyone wanted to discuss Sephiroth. Immediately after meteor fell, all you read in the papers were detailed accounts of Sephiroth popping up all over the planet like a phantom. Whenever the World Regenesis Organization sent out a team to investigate, there was never any credence to these tall tales, and so we all turned our backs on them. There of course were the rarer, second strain stories circulating around the world, the stories of who Sephiroth was as a man before he went insane- tales of his SOLDIER valor, his incredible strength, and his personal, more intimate life. Even after everything he'd done to destroy me, I couldn't help but feed my obsession and bought as many tabloids as possible about him. Cloud called it morbid; I called it closure. Liars' stories were more easily picked apart, but they did in the end make for much more sensationalist little reads, and after all who is even concerned about truth these days? After all, aren't these polite fictions always preferable to ugly reality? Yeah. Right.

I needed a break from my "pilgrimage", because healing was the furthest thought from my mind. I wanted to pummel his face into the ground each time I saw him. My fists would be cracked and red with his blood running down my knuckles and calluses, hot like red salvation, and over the month, the long, long month in Nibelheim, I nearly wore a hole in my cheek from chewing it. Sometimes, you have to trade one addictive habit for another to keep your cool, and it made me sick that all my worst memories were just his long bad dream, something barely remembered. Who can honestly be sincere and apologize for sins they don't even remember committing?

Costa del Sol hadn't changed without me, and for one stupid minute, I had the gull to imagine that it had. People would look every now and then, pointing, whispering, and snapping photos- all of those touristy sorts of things that still pissed me off. I wasn't someone's goddamn museum exhibit. There goes Tifa Lockheart. Quick, take a picture! Snap! The world goes white for a moment, and then there were the floaters passing over my eyes as I shielded myself from some offending camera.

It really was Lockheart again; I'd adopted my maiden name because the divorce was just a hair's breath away from finalized, and there was court. Court and even more photos. Court and photos and dozens of annoying reporters wanting to pull you aside for just a minute's comment. As if I could spill out the sad fiction of my life in just one minute; so I just walked by, content to be taken as the ice queen the papers painted me as these days. It was funny how the media could turn on you in an instant. The headline in the Soleil Herald was that I was unraveling fast, spiraling down, down, down. That sweet, sweet man, my once husband, tried saving me, but I was too far gone to be saved by anyone, especially him.

Bah.

Cloud hadn't spared a minute to get his words into print. Here was the attention he'd craved at last, but who am I to criticize? Sometimes, I can be the biggest damn hypocrite. Could I fault Cloud for being himself rather than the Cloud he'd always thought he was during our Avalanche days?

Sephiroth would always let himself in when he was least expected and mostly unwanted.

Mostly.

He'd come around usually when Yuffie was visiting Vincent. I hated those days. Everything you think you know about Sephiroth is about to be turned on its side and utterly destroyed. He must've known that I didn't want him coming around because he was all the more obstinate, all the more insistent, and I couldn't fault him, because I hated myself for being unable to remain hating him. You can't apologize for your own nightmares.

"Coffee," I offered without turning around. I knew he was here. I always knew when he was here. He pulled back a chair as lightly as possible without scuffing the cheap black and white tile of my kitchen floor. My dingy, ugly house in Old Town. I could've afforded better, but I didn't want to move. He didn't answer me, so I poured him a cup anyway. How long are you going to hang around here, hanging over me? That was what I wanted to say, but that would've been rude. He couldn't even fathom why I disliked him. After all, eight years ago was still only three months to him, and it was three months and several days since we'd been together. Bile rose up in my throat. Oh the stupid things you'll do when you're a hormonal confused kid.

After a month of staying here, I quickly picked up that eloquence wasn't Sephiroth's strong point, and couple that with the complete absence of empathy, undue arrogance, and just a general lack of tactfulness, you'd have a teenage Cloud. It would've been cute in its own way if it weren't Sephiroth we were talking about. To keep coming around here he must've been socially starved. That or masochistic.

I knew the world must still be ending in these Post-Shinra days when your worst enemy could become your sort of friend.

"Spar?" He inquired hopefully, looking over his cup at the back of my head.

He is such a kid in so many ways that it's sort of sad watching him to know that he is so skilled in some pursuits but so unknowledgeable at the same time. Just what sort of childhood did he have? Maybe we could sit down and talk about it one day when we were beyond single sentences with monosyllable words.

In your dreams. That's what I wanted to say, but instead, "Later," comes out.

A window opens, and my curtains flutter. I turn around, he's gone, his coffee cup still steaming, untouched.

Costa del Sol's exactly the same, the sun, the palms, and the sea. Everyone's still running around in their bikinis and swim trunks playing volleyball or clubbing at beach side bars. Everyone's still partying. The snooty rich crowd visits their little upscale cafes scattered around the upside of town. The sun's beating down on my back, and there's no promise of rain, only that beachside air, heaving salt and seaweed into my lungs. You breathe in. You breathe out. Everything's waiting for you just like you left it.

I'm on the upside of town with those CEO dads, socialite moms, and businesswomen in their black pencil skirts and tight, crisp suit jackets, passing old haunts looking for one café in specific, some place with a name like Chez Ciel et Mer, and there's Cat. She looked different without her lab coat, somehow less clinical if that were possible.

Her hazel eyes caught mine, and she motioned for me to sit. So I did, across from her underneath the giant blue beach parasol and watched the waves roll in and out of shore. Seagulls crying in the distance, I divided my attention between listening to her and them. It was so damning to be here again.

"So how's the divorce coming along," she asked, her head held up in one hand, leaning to the side, the way someone leans when they want share a moment with you, to express their understanding.

"It's coming along." I shrugged, and it was, but that neither here nor there. I just ooze cynicism. I almost expected her to slap my wrist with the way she looked at me, but I just wanted the whole thing to be over. We divided our finances today, into two separate WRO bank accounts.

She changed the topic, "And Nibelheim, how was that?"

"I really don't want to talk about it."

Or rather I couldn't talk about it. I really, really couldn't because she wouldn't have liked what I was going to say. The last thing anyone would want to hear was that Sephiroth was still alive, that he'd never really died in the first place. As close as I felt to Cat one month and one week ago as I sat before her at her little prim desk pouring out my soul, no one, even her could handle a secret like this.

A sigh escaped her lips, "You know, Tifa, this isn't really going to work if you aren't willing to talk about it. This sort of healing is a process that will work only if you want it to work. You've lost weight, and you have dark circles underneath your eyes. Have you been sleeping properly?"

"No," I said, "No, I haven't been sleeping well at all recently. Are you sure there isn't something you can just give me short-term?"

"And have results like last time? No way," Cat snorted and then grew very solemn, "Look at you. You're almost twenty-four years old, and physically, you're in peak condition, Tifa. You know who we prescribe drugs to at the hospital? Usually, people with chemical imbalances in their brains and genetic abnormalities, mako victims, the injured and disabled- people who live lives beyond the point where just talking about the issue could resolve it. All of these predispositions to mental illness warrant drug treatment, but I'd be a bad doctor if I were to say that you didn't fit into any of these categories or that you didn't need medication without you being tested first, but before we get to that, I won't let you run away that easily. I will exhaust every other form of therapy first, and I want you to want that too," and I could tell she meant it by the martial gleam in her eyes.

She asked me if I thought I was one of those people, and I had to shake my head no. It was embarrassing to be stripped so bare. She was right though; ketamine had just been another form of escape.

"What happens now?"

"You decide."

"Okay," I rasped and closed my eyes against the blinding sun beyond the horizon at her back.

I swallowed, the thick green taste of mako coating my nostrils and throat. It was everywhere in this place, and it made me sick ever having stepped foot in here. My diaphragm was threatening to close in on itself.

"Breathe in. Breathe out. Take deep, even breaths." Someone was speaking above me, beyond me. The dim lighting came into view, and I scraped against already rusting iron. The reactor isn't a ruin, but it's going to be with all of this unfiltered mako bubbling up through the manmade cracks in the mountain.

Breathe in. Breathe out. It's like a new mantra. The thick velvet baritone washed over me, and I wasn't even aware of anyone speaking now. My throat was closing up, constricting itself. My neck's veins were turning red and then blue from the lack of oxygen, and they bulged out something hideous. My hands were around my own throat for a moment before they dropped to my side as someone attempted to lift me up into the air. The lights filtered in and out. Dim. Corrugated steel, blistered underneath my fingers as I scraped the floor. Or were my fingers blistering?

Get off of me, is an unspoken phrase that comes to mind.

Vincent is a lunatic too, and I was wrong to come here up to the mountains. He's been harboring him…taking care of him. A million possibilities raced through my mind, and I have to get up and run.

"Tifa. I'd rather not have to do that again. Just listen this time. Please, listen before you do anything else rash. Esuna."

A warm light washed over my eyes, warming my body and spreading throughout.

"Breathe in. Breathe out. Steady now, Tifa," that voice, it was so familiar, and it made my skin crawl.

I looked down at my hands, at the teetering china grasped in my grip before I realized they were shaking. I placed the teacup back on its saucer before looking up at Cat, folded my hands in my lap, and asked, "Do you know the names of all of the members of Avalanche?"

She nodded and scrunched her eyebrows up in confusion. Of course she'd know their names; we were after all extremely famous.

"Even Vincent Valentine?" I whispered.

Yes. She nodded again. In the immediacy of the fallout three years ago, Vincent had been unfortunate enough to have his photo taken here or there.

"I saw him in Nibelheim, living in my old house. Well, would you believe he's a father? Experimentation always was a nasty bit of business in the old Shinra days. He looks barely older than you or me, but trust me, he's actually somewhere around sixty."

Don't give me that look. Trust me, I'm not crazy. At least I think I'm not, and no, I'm certainly not jealous of his newfound fatherhood. What's that even supposed to mean? I don't know.

"You're talking in circles, Tifa."

"I know," I assure her, because all of this is crazy. So let's go back to beginning.

"Vincent Valentine," I repeat, choosing to give her the brief version of the story, "Was a former Turk assigned to guard an important Shinra scientist's wife. The scientist's name was Hojo and his wife, Lucrecia. She was pregnant with a child who even in her womb was subject to her evil fuck of husband's twisted experiments. This child was Sephiroth. At the time, Vincent lied about Sephiroth's paternity. I mean, who wouldn't deny him? And at the time, we were on a mission to kill the man…So it all makes sense in the end."

I let her draw the conclusions for herself, and her immaculately red doctor's mouth formed a perfect little circle in surprise. Her manicured nails, her little fancy up do of glossy healthy black hair, the prim, cleanness of her daywear, Cat was much too together and sane to hear this. She waited for me to continue, and I waited for a reply. When there was none, I just decided to wrap things up and leave it simple for both of us. I'd still call; I'd even show up in town every now and then for an appointment, but tell her the whole truth? Never.

"I've been staying in Nibelheim ever since then; it's good to be away from this place and the tabloids. Except for that little shocker, everything's been as clear as the sky."

I'm a liar, and she fucking knows it.

"Sephiroth is your son?" I managed to wheeze out between choking gasps for air. I'm on all fours, panting onto the ground, staring at the steel toes of Vincent's dirty hiking boots because the betrayal is too fresh and raw for me to look into his eyes.

"Yes," that muted little reply. Was that seriously all he had to say?

"Yes?" I echoed dumbly and jumped to my feet. My hands ached to stretch their way around Sephiroth's neck and strangle him. Up from the top of the stairs in front of the chamber still with "Jenova" carved immaculately above it, his angel's face stared back down at me. His turquoise eyes and cat's pupils narrowed.

"And, you didn't tell us? He could still be insane and hell-bent on killing us all. How do you know he isn't? Damn it, Vincent. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you under some sort of spell?"

Vincent's hand and his golden gauntlet shook my shoulders, "Look at him, Tifa. Does he look crazy to you? Calm down. I'm sorry, but I can't let you kill him. Not my son. It's the least I owe to Lucrecia."

I swatted his dirty hands off my body and landed one right hook in his jaw. Boxing in the hospital paid off. I'd learnt some new tricks. He hit the ground almost instantly, "I don't give a damn about your Lucrecia. This man killed everyone. Everyone that I've ever loved here," Me included in that massacre, but mine was more of a psychological death.

"He was under Jenova's control. She…that thing's dead now," Vincent spat between big, thick gobs of blood and pushed himself back to his feet, "Tifa, if you don't calm down, I'll have to immobilize you."

Vincent wouldn't dare. He pushed his way in front of me to block me from my target, and I reached for the materia in my pockets only to see it's all gone. That bastard. Okay, we can play this game because I know where it ends especially after insulting Vincent's Lucrecia. Death, and I've been waiting too long for that sweet release. What am I even living for after all?

"Tifa," Vincent had his hand on mine and tugged it, "Come on. Let's go back down Nibelheim. We can talk this out in the morning."

Well, this was certainly a turn of events.

"A trip as enlightening and as clear as the sky, Tifa?" Catherine Klein deadpanned.

"Yeah. It was just like that. I'm only in town for this appointment or whatever and to clear up what I want out of the villa. After that, I'm going back to Nibelheim," because that's how it worked when you knew too much. So these people could go on living their comfortably ignorant lives, clubbing, shopping, and eating along the boardwalk, I had to move away. I wouldn't even be able to look Cloud in the eye if I saw him. Johnny, either.

I stood up from the table, looking down at my half eaten teacake and drained teacup. Soggy tea leaves swam in the remnants of dark wisps of liquid. In that dainty blue and gold cup, I saw high peaked cliffs and immediately felt guilt's gut stabbing sting. I picked up the bill on the table lying beneath the delicate china on the lacey tablecloth, "I suppose I'll be paying for this since you're not charging me for this appointment," and I leave my money on the table and walk away to Costa del Sol's distant residential district, to look one last time at the villa where I lived for the last three years.

Sephiroth's in my dingy little house in Nibelheim as I drag my old little tattered sofa from the house I shared with Cloud inside the doorway. Thank God, the man in the moving van had already driven away back to the new side of Nibelheim.

"You have to stop sneaking in like this," I berated him. From the way things are moved around here and there throughout the house, he must've been crashing here for the last few days. He jumped up from whatever he'd been doing seated on the floor to help with the sofa. The red and grey plaid clashed with everything in the house, but it had a history to it, and I loved the damn thing. When we'd journeyed into the ruins of Midgar two years ago where the WRO was still trying to reconstruct the city into something new and habitable, I'd stumbled into the burnt out remains of my old bar. The sofa, though a little singed, was mostly intact, and I brought it back with me. It was the first I could afford after opening the Seventh Heaven, and so it stayed with me like a chip on my shoulder, following me around from place to place. Cloud being his spiteful, asinine self that the divorce had turned him into towards me, decided to slash up one of the cushions, and now it was a big feathery mess.

Sephiroth made a face at it, "Why don't you just throw it out? It's trash."

"Shut up," I muttered, good-naturedly for once towards him, "And, just keep pulling it into the living room before anyone sees you. Why do you keep sneaking into my house anyway? You should know I hate you."

His chest heaved a heavy sigh, "I know, but I am sorry. I regret every minute of every day for each life I've taken or ruined, and above all, I apologize for ruining yours."

My jaw closed with a snap, the witty retort dying on my tongue. Well, he shut me up, and before I thought about how rehearsed he sounded, I was thrown off by the sudden show of eloquence and thoughtfulness on his behalf. Three weeks ago, he'd just shrug and say that he was every bit as much a victim too in this whole thing.

The sofa scuffed along the floor, leaving treads in the carpet. He was doing most of the work at this point, and I just pointed where I wanted it, in the center of the empty living room. The walls were so bare and such a stark white that the room would be blinding at noon; each wall was a sponge ready to reabsorb my own personality, my own house. Wasn't what I dreamt of for years? No. Well, it would be now. Feathers fluttered throughout the air, caught in the midday sun, and bits of fluff stuck up between the jagged tears in the red and grey sofa's lining.

"You should really just throw it out."

Thanks Sephiroth, you can leave now. My lips broke into a slight grin, and I shook my head. It was pointless telling him to go now after I let him stay so long in the first place. Yuffie must've been over at Vincent's again.

"No," I hear myself say, "I can fix it. Reupholster it, put on new legs, and make it work."

He snorted.

Then, I turned and looked at him, standing in my doorway where if someone just peered into the glass portal at the top of the rusty green door, maybe the mailman or someone like that, he'd be seen, but I don't think he really cares. There's something really rather wretched hanging over Sephiroth, and though he tries to hide it with aloofness and nonchalance, I can really catch a glimpse of him every now and then. I suppose the reason that I didn't throw him out on his ass or try to kill him again when he first came down here a month ago after I bought my house, was because it'd be like kicking someone's little muddy abandoned dog. The motivation to hurt someone so lonely eyed just sort of dies in you once you see them.

I pouted, "I guess I'll have to go shopping again. I hope you had the dignity to leave a grocery list or something," the damn bum was always clearing out my refrigerator like it just magically filled itself, and as I waded into the other room to just put some distance between him and myself before it drove me mad, I said, "Next time let the apology come naturally, then I'll be more inclined to believe you and accept it."

I know you're sorry. What I want to say always gurgles up and snuffs out, because it's still that hard to forgive him and move on with life. I'm too afraid of what I'll lose if I do something silly like that.