Interlude.

Seven Songs, Six Petals, Thirty-Eight Pearls Minus One

"And we were only kids, and our time couldn't end

And how tall did we stand, with the world in my hands

And we were only kids, and we were best of friends

And we hoped for the best, and let go of the rest."

From Shadows and Regrets by Yellowcard

- L.

Cloud wasn't her only friend, but she was his only friend. The irony had escaped her at the time; she'd never really stopped to consider how unfair it was.

It wasn't like she hadn't known, either. She'd watch how the village women scurried away from Cloud's mother and whispered amongst themselves. She didn't understand it, but she knew it anyway; how other kids would not talk to him, how some boys would kick dirt over his carefully constructed sand castles and bring them tumbling apart (He did not fight, then, just watched with those big blue eyes). It wasn't like their friendship, her easy acceptance and his guarded smile, was a secret, either. And also the irony of that had been lost to them at the time.

- L.

Seven songs.

Before her mother died, in the short memory she had of her, she was always smiling. That wasn't true. Her mother – like any mother – would have yelled and sighed and scolded. Had she lived long enough, eventually Tifa might have remembered those as well.

Her mother died three days after her eighth birthday, a strange sickness that made her hair brittle like sand castles. She had been too stunned to cry then. The tears came a day later, in waves. As time passed she forgot all the yelling, sighs, scolding. Only the smiling face remained.

When she was alive, before she got too sick to get out of bed, Tifa's mother let Cloud into her house. Tifa knew that her father disapproved; as young as she was, she knew this almost by instinct. She felt, rather than saw, the disapproving gaze that sometimes lingered on the too-still glass of a boy when he sat down at their table for dinner. Tifa's mother was always kind, only too kind. It was another way of discrimination, Tifa would reflect later. Cloud was either avoided or pitied. Tifa didn't know why. All she knew was that it made her uncomfortable, the way the adults – and by extension, the kids – would look at him like he wasn't one of them.

"It's 'cause I'm not," Cloud said, when she told him what she'd been thinking about. They were lying on the endless field of grass somewhere beneath the mountain, looking up at the sky. It was a gray day, like someone had spilled the wrong color watercolor that morning.

"Why?" Tifa asked. "You live here."

"Well, not always. We moved here." Cloud was making something with his hands. Tifa tried to watch his fingers moving in and out of the loops of the glass blades and a foxtail and a lean violet flower, but her neck hurt. She turned her head back to the sky.

"Yeah, but that was when you were really small. You live here now," she said, stubbornly.

"I know I do." She could hear the silent laughter in his voice. She thought that he might have been mocking her, but couldn't gather enough energy to get angry. Tifa was happy right here, lying still as the occasional gray wind brushed her cheeks and the overgrown grass tickled her bare arms and ankles. Well, almost.

"I don't know why daddy doesn't like you so much. I don't know why Neve Hanson bullies you." She tried again. She felt Cloud shift a little beside her. The grass blades sighed as another gush of wind brushed past them, and it sounded like Cloud was sighing. He was one year older than her. Sometimes it felt like more.

"I don't have a father," Cloud said.

"You can't not have a father, you just don't know him." Tifa said, wisely. Cloud shrugged. The wind shifted. It blew against her hair.

"Same thing, here."

"Is that bad?" Tifa didn't understand. For a moment all she saw was dark brown locks of messy hair over her eyes. She tried to sweep them off.

"I guess." Cloud didn't sound too sad. "I guess that's why your father doesn't like me so much."

"Well. I don't think it's fair." Tifa felt defiant, maybe even a little brave. She was still struggling with her hair, though, and some got into her mouth. Cloud laughed.

"You look funny. Like a tentacle monster."

"No, I don't." Tifa said, but she was laughing too. Eventually Cloud sat up and helped her brush the rest of her hair off. The wind was getting stronger. Tifa sat up too. She held her hair in a fist, wishing she'd brought a string to tie it with.

"Here," Cloud handed her a string made of nimble glass blades, a foxtail to weave it together, and a little violet flower at the end.

"It's so pretty." Tifa said, eyes wide. She admired the things Cloud could do with his hands, so quick and clever. "Can you tie my hair?"

Cloud took her hair, made a knot with the string he'd made. Tifa grinned. "Thanks. I'll wear it to school tomorrow." Cloud frowned at that. Tifa knew what he was thinking. "I won't tell anyone that you made it," she said, because Cloud preferred it that way. If she had her way she would be telling everybody.

"Good." Cloud nodded, finally smiling.

"So why is Neve Hanson so mean to you?"

The other day, he'd torn up Cloud's book, for no good reason. Tifa was pretty sure that the teacher had seen it, but she hadn't done anything; just passed them by. Tifa had run to him, from across the hallway, but by the time she got there Neve was already gone and Cloud had already picked up the pieces. Gathered them up thrown them into the bin.

"Because," Cloud rolled his eyes. A drop of water, from the discolored sky, and it landed right beneath his eyes. Cloud blinked and it fell like a teardrop. It was absurd, though. Cloud didn't cry. All the time she'd known him, she'd never seen him cry. "Because he's a cabbage-headed pig."

Tifa burst out laughing. After a while Cloud joined her too. More raindrops started to fall and they got up quickly. Tifa's mother wouldn't like her running around wet; especially when she was meant to be practicing the piano and not sneaking around outside. The thought of practicing the piano made her sigh.

"I'm no good at music. I wish my mom would stop trying."

"I love the piano. I wish I had one." Cloud said, as an answer. It made Tifa kind of embarrassed, kind of guilty, but also warm. Sometimes Cloud stayed with her while she practiced. Sometimes his fingers played on the keys, white and black. The sounds were always clearer when Cloud played, Tifa thought.

"You can use mine, you know. Whenever you want." Tifa said. Cloud smiled. Tifa wanted more of that smile. "I'd give it to you already, but it's too big to take."

"Yeah, and my room is so small. It won't fit anyway." Cloud said. They were walking down the hill as raindrops started to come in longer strides, becoming a rainfall.

"I'm supposed to be practicing right now." Tifa said, as if she had just remembered. Cloud raised his eyebrows. "Come on, nobody will see us if we go through the window." She tugged Cloud along. "I'm learning a new song. It's called the Song of Summer."

"Sounds nice." Cloud said. Tifa knew that he would sit with her on the piano stool, watch her fumble more than usual (she wasn't so bad when she was alone), and learn the song much faster than her. One day, he would play it, and Tifa would say that she never knew it was such a beautiful song.

"Race you to my window." Tifa said started running. Cloud took a moment to catch up with her words and started late. Wind and raindrops slashed against her face. She suddenly remembered the flowers in her hair. She was afraid that it might fall off, so she had to take it off and hold it tight in her hand.

Cloud learned the song, Song of Summer, and six other songs during Tifa's piano practices. But no more after that. When Tifa was eight her mother died, her father didn't make her practice piano anymore and sometimes Cloud would stare at the white cloth over the piano gathering dust, and Tifa would pretend not to have seen him looking. The white cloth looked too much like the white sheet over her dead mother's face and she couldn't bear to take it off. She was afraid that she would find a face beneath it instead of a piano, cold and blue.

- L.

Six Petals.

Cloud started fighting when he was eleven, when Tifa was ten. He was surprisingly good, too. Surprising for everyone else but not Tifa; she would have guessed as much.

He was too small for his age, because he was always hungry. He didn't like to hear it, but he looked so fragile, too, with his pretty eyes and too-white skin and the light golden hair that he wore in a ponytail now. But he fought like the devil, and Tifa couldn't have told him to stop even if she wanted to. She always feared for him when he got into one of those fights, especially with boys twice as big as him, but it was also true that she'd rather see him fight and bleed than sit quietly and take whatever came.

The first time it happened, Tifa was getting lunch. It was one of Neve Hanson's loyal friends; he was saying something, Cloud said something back (she was too far away to hear), and soon the boy was throwing punches at Cloud, and Cloud was ducking every one like he was a forest animal. Kids were gathering to watch.

Cloud kept getting out of the way. The boy kept getting angry. The crowd cheered, yelled Peter, what are you waiting for, and still no teachers came to stop the fight. Tifa started getting worried. Cloud was cornered, now, and Peter was grinning and huffing. The punch was coming fast and there was nowhere else to back out anymore.

That was when Cloud hit him, square in the face and faster than the other boy's punch. Peter fell backwards, brought down chairs and a table and someone's lunch with him, and couldn't get up for minutes. Cloud won that fight, but it was the beginning of a string of other fights, and there were many. For the next three years, there wasn't a time when he was without a band-aid or a bruise or sometimes even a cast.

Tifa, in turn, became an expert at patching up small cuts and bruises, because Cloud didn't have enough money to go to a doctor every time. Each time Tifa knew that she should be reprimanding him, telling him not to fight and hurt himself. She tried a few times; it didn't work out so well, because Cloud would just nod all solemn-like, like he understood, and Tifa laughed because they both knew he didn't. Most times Tifa told him that she was proud, that those bastards needed to be taught a lesson, that Neve Hanson's nose was too high anyway.

A light knock on her window woke her from her sleep. Tifa sat up, shook the sleep off from her eyes. There was only one person who would be knocking on her window in the middle of the night. She got up and wrapped the blanket around herself; didn't turn on the lights.

It was January. The floor was cold on her bare feet. She walked in tiptoes to the window. She almost gasped too loudly when she saw the state he was in: his lips were blue, and he was dripping water all over. His hair fell flat and heavy across his forehead. There was a deep blue bruise over his right eyebrow. Tifa fumbled to unlock the window as quickly as she could.

"What happened? Why are you dripping wet?" She whispered as Cloud climbed into the room. A gush of wind came in with him. Cloud looked miserably at the small puddle now forming beneath his feet.

"Sorry 'bout the carpet," he said.

"Don't worry about the carpet, idiot." She threw off her blanket and wrapped it around Cloud instead. Cloud shifted as if to protest, but Tifa shushed him. "I'll get some towels and… and some dry clothes."

"I'm not gonna wear your clothes." Cloud made a face. Tifa knew he was joking, trying to stop her worrying. It didn't work. She scowled at the fake innocence on his face.

"Not mine. I'm gonna steal some of my dad's clothes."

Cloud murmured something, but Tifa ignored him. He held the blanket tighter together. He was rattling, like ice cubes knocking against each other in a glass, although he was trying hard not to.

"Wait here," Tifa said and snuck out of the room.

When she came back with her dad's old t-shirt, clean towels and the emergency med-kit, Cloud was still standing on the exact same spot. The carpet beneath his feet was dark with water spots. Tifa waited until he'd warmed up some before she started asking.

"So, what happened?"

Cloud pretended to look busy with the towel as he rubbed his hair. It fell messily over his shoulders. Cloud had told her that he was letting it grow to see if that will make it stick up less. So far, it wasn't working so great. His hair still stuck out everywhere except for the part he tried to hold down in a ponytail.

"Cloud," Tifa sighed. Cloud finally finished with the towels and looked up through his fringes.

"Do you have a string?" He asked.

"I might, if you answer me."

"Alright. It's nothing. There. Where is it?"

Sometimes Cloud could be so annoying. Tifa knew, at some level, that Cloud was acting like this on purpose because he didn't want her to worry. Which meant that it was something to worry about. She glared at him. Gave him the hair tie, though, because he did kind of look ridiculous like that.

"I, uh, fell." Cloud finally answered.

"You fell?" Tifa narrowed her eyes.

"Yes. Into the river."

"It's January. In Nibelheim." Tifa said slowly. Cloud made an attempt at looking incredulous.

"I know, Tifa. I'm not an idiot. Although you seem to think…"

"I mean, the river is frozen." Tifa interrupted. Cloud looked like he might laugh, for the completely wrong reasons.

"Oh, yeah. It was. I fell… hard. The wind – knocked me off balance."

"Must have been a strong wind."

"Yeah. Must have been," Cloud said, with a straight face. Tifa tried not to laugh, especially when she was trying to be annoyed. It didn't work, though, as usual. She felt her face crumple in a laughter at the same time he twisted his lips in a grin.

"Did this… wind have a name?" She asked.

"It's the wind, Tifa. Winds don't have names." Cloud was still looking serious. Admittedly, he did it much better than her. Tifa just rolled her eyes. Cloud squatted down in front of her, in a shirt much too big for him and still wrapped in a blanket.

"Although," Cloud said while Tifa squeezed out some salve from a tube. "I broke its nose after that, so I don't think it'll be trying that again."

"So what were you… and the wind, fighting about?"

"Some stupid thing." Cloud shrugged. He winced as the cold salve touched the blue knot starting to swell.

"It's always stupid," Tifa said.

"He – I mean, it –" (Tifa rolled her eyes) "Didn't want to believe that there were flowers that could blossom in winter," Cloud said.

Tifa paused and looked at Cloud. She couldn't believe boys would actually fight about something like that.

"I can't believe you would actually fight about something like that."

"He was looking for a reason." Cloud said, indifferent. "He told me to prove it."

"Why'd you answer in the first place?"

"I dunno." Cloud said, but Tifa knew he did. She knew he was looking for it too; a reason to fight. She sighed.

"So did you? Prove it?" She asked instead.

"Oh yeah," Cloud said. He raised his eyebrows. "Unfortunately they grow too close to the river."

And then, as if he'd just remembered, he pulled something out of his pants pocket. It was a small notebook that he always carried around with him. Tifa had no idea what he wrote down in it, he wouldn't let her see. Now, though, it was completely soaked, so she would never know. He didn't look too heartbroken about it. He flipped through it until he found something tucked between the pages. It was a tiny white flower; the flower he got pushed in the river for.

"You picked a flower?" Tifa said. "While you were being pushed into the river?"

"After." Cloud said simply. "Look, this one has six petals. Normally they have five."

At that, Tifa tore her gaze from Cloud's face and peered closer to the flower he was holding out. It really did; a smaller petal had squeezed itself out, hanging dangerously on the edge, trying to fit it.

"Why did you…"

"Because it has six petals." Cloud said, and dropped the small flower on Tifa's palm.

- L.

Thirty-Eight Pearls Minus One.

If she was overjoyed by the unexpected gift from her father, if she showed it more than she usually would, then it was because of the breathless white. Thirty-eight pearls strung together by a thin line, which shone like it was glossed in silk, through the even heads of the pearls.

"This looks expensive." Tifa said. She carefully held the necklace to her chest. Her father looked at her with a silent smile. He had always been a quiet man, but he'd lost more words since her mother's death.

"Not too much. Anyway, you're thirteen now. Almost a lady." Her father told her. Tifa huffed.

"I have been for more than half a year now."

"Yes, I know." He smiled. "You're graduating secondary school. You can wear this to the dance."

The big dance. Tifa's face fell a little at the thought of it, but she struggled to keep the smile pasted. Her father didn't notice.

The dance. Everybody was talking about it these days. It had been that way as long as Tifa could remember. Only this time, it was her turn to attend it.

It wasn't that Tifa didn't look forward to it. She liked dancing, and the music, and the warmth and the laughter and the good food. It was just that Cloud wasn't going to be there. He'd been invited, because everybody in school was, but he wasn't going to go. Tifa knew it even before she asked.

"Why the hell would I go?" Cloud's pronunciation was a little distorted, because of the ice pack he was pressing against his cheek. They were sitting in the nurse's room. The nurse was one of those that pitied, rather than hated. Cloud hated both sorts but at least the former didn't throw a punch. The nurse had gone out to get more ice, and it was only Cloud and Tifa in the room.

"Because…" Tifa tried to find a good reason. There really was none, though, except maybe the one she'd never tell him.

"See? Exactly. I'm just glad it's over." Cloud shrugged and winced when the bruised cheek scratched against the ice pack. Tifa winced with him.

"What do you mean over?" She asked.

"School. It's over. Since I'm not going to the dance… today's my last day."

Cloud's voice sounded so free when he said it, my last day, that Tifa hated to ask, but she did anyway.

"You're not gonna… what about high school?"

"It's not mandatory, is it? Then, no."

"Well, what are you gonna do, then?"

"I don't know." Cloud said vaguely. Tifa got the impression that he was avoiding something, but couldn't ask. She was afraid.

"Who was it this time?" She asked instead. Cloud made something like a snorting sound behind the ice pack.

"I'm not gonna tell you." He said, as if it was obvious. Tifa gave him an offended glare.

"Why not?"

"I don't know, remember Perry Bill?" Cloud rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, what about him? I just gave him a little…"

"Let me tell you from experience, your kicks hurt. A lot."

Tifa considered this. She had embarrassed Perry Bill in front of a lot of people that day. But she'd been so mad. Perry Bill had called in his five older cousins (two of whom were preparing to join SOLDIER), and Cloud had ended up with broken fingers and ribs. And if that wasn't cowardly, she didn't know what was.

"So what? He was a mean bag of potatoes. He deserved it."

"I know, but…" Cloud seemed to be studying Tifa's face. He lowered his ice a little bit. His eyes were so blue, so piercing. "Don't do that again, Tifa."

"They're not gonna do anything to me." Tifa said, more quietly. Then she added, "Don't worry about me." Because it was true that, as absurd it was, Cloud spent more time worrying about Tifa than about himself. As if she was the one who constantly had a bruise or a cut like decorations of a soldier.

"I'm not worried." Cloud said, just as softly. A silence settled between them.

Then she was staring at his profile, the lost expression on his face and the eyes that were seeing something beyond the gray painted walls, and maybe that was why she said it out loud. She hadn't meant to; he just looked so lost to this world, she felt like getting lost with him.

"It's just that my dad, he bought me a necklace. To wear to the dance. It… it's pretty."

"Hmm?" Cloud looked up. Tifa felt herself blush a little. It was stupid that she brought it up.

"Nothing." She muttered just as the nurse came in with more ice packs.

- L.

It wasn't like she didn't have any other friends beside Cloud, because she did. Tifa still spent a lot of her time with Cloud, though. And although her other friends didn't particularly try to be friends with Cloud, they were okay with him. They accepted their friendship, in such a way that Cloud's name never came up in their conversations. Tifa sometimes felt ashamed that the most they could do to accept him was pretend he didn't exist. She felt ashamed because she wasn't brave enough to change that. It was the same way with Cloud. Tifa never mentioned her other friends in front of him. It was like she had two separate lives. They didn't clash because they never came together in the first place.

Not all the kids were content with pretending that Cloud didn't exist, though. Bored kids, looking for a taunt or a fight. As Cloud got too fierce for some of them to pick at (not unless they were in groups of more than five), the taunt slowly moved on to Tifa, too. She was the mayor's daughter, though. Nobody really dared to spit at her face, but she knew what was going on behind her back sometimes. There was nothing she could do about it. She didn't care much as long as they stayed words.

Not always, though.

When she heard that her stolen necklace had been found, scattered everywhere in the field, she thought she might know who had done it. There was no proof, though, and she had to endure Perry Bill kindly telling her how sorry he was that her necklace had been broken like that. Who could have done such a thing? It was a piece of beauty.

Tifa thought of Cloud and refrained from kicking him hard in the shins again. He ran away before she could, in any case.

The dance turned out to be okay, but no more than that. Johnny asked her to go with him and she didn't have a reason to turn him down. She wore the light blue dress that she only wore on special occasions. Cloud had seen it once or twice, told her it was the color of a waterfall. Which was also the color of his eyes, but she didn't tell him that.

The food was excellent and the musicians were brilliant, but the heels hurt her feet like blades and the waterfall blue looked horribly wrong next to Johnny's flaming red hair. Also, Cloud had asked her to meet at their usual spot, by the dry well, as soon as she was finished. The last reason was probably the one that made her most anxious. She got out as quickly as she could, ran through the woods until her abused feet couldn't take it anymore. She couldn't help a grin when her eyes met his, and he smiled back.

And the stars, the night, December in the air. SOLDIER and Sephiroth and unspoken dreams. The promise. Tifa felt hollow. Like her soul had suddenly left her to join the Milky Way up above. She tried to cover it with a smile, a joke, something. The thought of him leaving was terrifying. She thought of all the young men who left to join SOLDIER and never returned. But Cloud would be different, she desperately reasoned.

"All right, I promise."
A shooting star shot across the sky. She wished it to be some kind of a sign, that someone high up there was listening to her. That she was not alone.

That Cloud wouldn't ever be alone.

"Oh, I almost forgot to ask," Cloud said, straightening up. Tifa swallowed the tears and faked a smile as best as she could.

"What?"

"How many pearls were in your necklace?"

"What?" Tifa asked again, momentarily thrown off, the tear momentarily forgotten. Cloud shrugged like it was the most natural question to ask.

"How many pearls in your necklace? Did you count them?"

"Yeah… thirty eight. Why?"

"Damn," Cloud muttered. He looked up at the sky and blinked. Tifa watched him like a dream. Cloud shoved a hand inside his pocket and took something out of it – things – her pearls.

"I only found thirty seven. I guess the other one must have been swept by the wind… or something. Or maybe Perry Bill ate it." Cloud said as he took her hand and carefully poured the small glistening pearls inside her palms. Tifa watched; she thought she'd forgotten how to speak. It took a few tries.

"Thank you." She finally managed, without tears that would surely incriminate her. It was hard. Although she tried not to, she kept thinking about Cloud leaving. She would never be the same, she thought. Because his eyes were so blue, because these pearls were so white. Every time she looked at the sky, the snow, the peak of the mountain she loved, she would think of him. Always.

"You're welcome," he said, and it was as if all the blue had slipped from the sky and seeped into his eyes, his smile, and the sky was left to remember – and to miss – for all of time. She would, too.

- L,

A/N:

First of all, thanks for the reviews & favorites & follows! They cheer me up a lot :) This chapter was actually the inspiration of my other Cloud & Tifa story, White Heaven, though it changed a lot. Which means… yes, I actually finished writing this thing (Loveless) years ago, and I've just been editing and posting them – which explains the uneven quality of writing. Some days I was just so tired and horrified by my old writing to edit a lot, and some days I wrote the whole chapter again. Sorry about that… Anyway, it's almost finished, and I hope to update the rest real quickly because I have nothing else to do at the moment, no school, heh. Thanks for reading! :)