CHAPTER 43: IN A HEARTBEAT

The smell of smoke and the shrill sound of screams made him gasp awake.

Startled, his sleep laden body trembled as Cloud stumbled to his feet. Eyes wide and jaw slack, the young man took in the sight before him. Down the hill, brilliant flames stood like quivering giants, enveloping Nibelheim in a blinding glow.

"Mom!"

Although his feet felt numb, he abandoned his rifle and sprinted toward the inferno. Upon reaching the village gates, Cloud ran into a wall of heat that made him recoil momentarily. Adrenaline and concern urged him forward. Blazing towers of orange licked at the sky and he blinked, breath coming in short puffs as his heart raced. All around him there was crackling and snapping of wood as it turned to ash. It didn't take Cloud long to reach his childhood home. Smoke billowed out of the house that built him, pluming upwards into the black night. He called out to his mother, but the sound was drowned out by the glass of their living room window shattering from the heat of the fire inside.

Pulling his uniform scarf up over the bottom half of his face, Cloud pushed through the front door to his mother's house. Though his nose and mouth were covered, the smoke made his lungs burn and he coughed until his eyes were tearing. It was hard to see through the black shroud, the only light coming from the orange glow of the flames. The kitchen table had collapsed, its legs long eaten away. Cloud tried to steady himself with a hand against the wall, but the white paint was crackling and chipping from the heat. It seared his palm and he drew back, panting in fear. He never could've imagined witnessing such a horrible sight and every time he blinked, he hoped it would disappear like a fleeting nightmare. But it wouldn't go away. Cloud saw the gaping mouths of ghosts in the wall of fire, their screams disguised as the hissing of wooden support beams submitted to the flames. He held back a sob as his childhood burned around him.

"Mom!" He called out in desperation. He inhaled and it felt as if he had breathed in a thousand needles. "Mom! MOM!"

Cloud's breath caught in his throat when he saw her. The vibrant fabric of her orange dress was splayed against the floor, the rich color vivid in the glow of the fire. He approached quickly, desperate to see more of her through the smoke. When he finally did, he regretted ever stepping into the house. Claudia lay face down on the ground, crushed by a heap of wood and metal. Her escape had been thwarted when the ceiling had crashed down, structural integrity weakened by the ruthlessness of the flames. Her long, loose hair pooled around her head as lifeless eyes stared apathetically into the inferno. Splintered wood had pierced her small body in several places, the worst of which was a large plank that had run her abdomen through, pinning her to the floor of the corridor.

He stumbled backward as if he had been struck and he fled, through the flames and back out into the sweltering air of town square.

Mom… Mom…

Countless memories flooded his brain all at once: memories of the comfort of her warm lap when he was still small enough to sit in it, memories of how the sound of her voice as she hummed a tune made him feel at peace, memories of her soft lips laying a kiss upon his head as she uttered encouragement and praise. His beautiful, wonderful, kind mother was dead, and the emptiness that accompanied that knowledge seized him with unbearable greif. Cloud fell to his knees upon the cobblestone, coughing and gasping and whimpering. His head spun and his lungs burned. It was getting hard to breathe.

Get up! Get up! It isn't safe here!

He tried to stumble to his feet, but the smoke and the screaming and the heat were too much and his knees buckled. Cloud fell backwards, only about ten feet from the front steps of his crumbling home. The vision at the corner of his eyes began to blacken and he struggled to rise, only to have his head fall back once more.

This is terrible. Much, much too terrible.

The world faded away before Cloud had the chance to scream.

… … …

There were two voices, but they sounded far away. Why were they shouting so loudly?

Slowly, Cloud blinked. What was all the fuss about? His head felt heavy and his thoughts were muddled and groggy. But he was warm and comfortable where he lay.

What's going on? Where am I? …Zack?

He recognized Zack's voice, though it was clipped and harried instead of bright and friendly. What was he upset about? Something about going up to the reactor? Cloud tried to move his limbs, but he couldn't summon the strength. Soon, the voices faded away and the warmth surrounding him was starting to get a little too warm. A bead of sweat rolled down his neck and he suddenly remembered his predicament, blue eyes shooting open.

Cloud drew in a ragged breath and a whimper escaped as he tried to stand. His head was whirling and his limbs felt slack, but the hissing of burning wood and the rumble of a collapsing wall had pumped enough adrenaline through his veins to get him to his feet. All around him was the brightness of raging fire and thick, oily smoke that made his lungs constrict and his eyes sting. Town square was now vacant of life. The only other people in sight were his fellow trooper, lying still in a pool of his own blood, and Mr. Taylor, who was motionless on his back in front of his inn, his glazed, lifeless eyes turned up toward the heavens. A dozen needles danced across Cloud's forehead. Had the roar of the flames drowned out the screams, or was there no one left alive to be screaming?

Black smoke billowed into the heated air and he could feel the intensity of the inferno as it ate at his skin. Through the rainfall of embers and charred flakes of wood, Cloud could clearly see the hellish glow against the night sky. Metal support beams of houses lay twisted on the ground as the fire smoldered on. Nibelheim had never been very kind to him. He had grown up anticipating the day he escaped the sleepy village and seldom looked back once he had. But now that his hometown was disappearing before his eyes, all Cloud could recall were fond memories and the warmth of the few kind people he had encountered in this place. In those ashes lie peoples' photographs, artwork, and family heirlooms.

How did this happen? Was it an accident? He should have been watching! How careless he had been to fall asleep! If he hadn't, maybe Mom would have…

He had to get out.

Zack had gone to the reactor? Were the other survivors headed up the mountain? What was going on? On shaky knees he fled through across the cobblestone, past the flaming skeleton of the schoolhouse and up towards the mountain path. Acrid smoke still curled across the way, the wind spreading it across the trail like a thick blanket. The night was dark and the light from the moon was dim beyond the murky air, but Cloud could trace these familiar paths blindfolded. Up and up he went, boots scraping on loose pebbles. There was no way of knowing how quickly he had climbed, but when Cloud stopped to look back, the village was far enough away to look like a small bonfire in the distance. The lights of the reactor lay ahead, casting shadows that reached out into the barren wilderness like slender arms. Just ahead, glinting in the moonlight was the metal of an axe imbedded in the ground.

Cloud quickened his pace, adrenaline fending off any fatigue as he closed in for a closer look. The axe stood uselessly in the dirt beside a familiar figure that lay with his back to the ashen gravel.

"Mr. Lockhart!" The call tore from Cloud's throat before he had a moment to think. He covered the remaining distance between them in wide, desperate strides. "What happened? You're hurt!"

He was afraid to touch the man. All of his life, all Cloud had associated Brian with was anxiety, fear, and the feeling of worthlessness. But the father of his wife was suffering and dying alone, white shirt soaked with crimson blood where he seemed to have been injured by a thin blade of some kind. There were only two people with swords in the area at the moment: Zack's giant buster sword and Sephiroth's grand longsword. Did Sephiroth do this? Brian's breathing was ragged and uneven, his eyes squinted shut with pain. Feeling frantic and lost, Cloud knelt beside him, pushing aside previous apprehension and lifting his head to cradle it in his arms.

"C-Cloud…" Brian managed as a gargling cough wracked his chest. "Sephiroth…"

The man tried to focus his swimming vision on Cloud's face. Those damn blue eyes that he'd resented were locked on him now, and he shivered under their desperate gaze. There was no time left for regret. There was no time to make amends or tell his daughter's husband that he was a good kid that he had been foolish to reject. Brian didn't have the energy left to tell him that Tifa had chosen wisely and that he should've trusted her judgement. Tifa had always been an intelligent one, after all. The man realized with surprising clarity how foolish he had been to isolate himself in his grief and to judge those who were really not so different than himself. But now, there was no time. There was blackness pooling at the edge of his vision and a metallic thickness rising in his throat.

If only he could see his sweet pea once more…

"T-take care of her," Brian croaked, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. "…Like I didn't. Like Lia did." A bloody hand reached out to graze along Cloud's cheek, leaving a thin crimson smear on alabaster skin. Brian's eyes rolled back into his head as he breathed his daughter's name. "Tifa…"

There was an awful trembling of his body and a frightening, gurgling noise before stillness came over Brian. The silence stretched out around Cloud as he held the limp body of his father-in-law. He thought he felt the man move, but it was really only the trembling of his own hands as he stifled a tortured scream. He had thought that he had seen enough of the world to be mature, calm and collected in any situation. There were few things he hated more than when his mother would fuss over him, her overprotective nature making him feel as if she saw him as nothing more than a child. But for the first time, Cloud suddenly saw himself with his mother's eyes. He was helpless, young and inexperienced, floundering in his fear in the face of tragedy. The young man shuttered as he gently lay Brian's head to rest on the dirt and closed his eyes against this world forever.

Emotions swirled inside him like a violent summer storm as he stumbled to his feet. Bile he had been swallowing back finally surged forward and he retched, emptying his stomach onto the dry earth. What had happened to Sephiroth? He was a hero! Good men really could turn into bad men, it seemed. Sephiroth had abused his power; his strength was nothing without wisdom. If you couldn't trust someone like that, then how could you ever be sure of whom to put your faith in? Cloud had idolized Sephiroth, but now those feelings had all been burned to dust. Childhood aspirations and fondness had gone up the smoke of his home town.

"Z-Zack!" he called to the air after he had caught his breath. His calls rang out into the stillness. The cold mountain wind churned up dust that stuck to the tear tracks on his face as he stumbled toward the entrance of the mako reactor.

Inside, an eerie dim light illuminated rows of white pods with a staircase leading up the middle to an upper floor. Cloud crept forward, senses on edge as he looked around. His heart tumbled to his feet when he spotted Zack's head of black hair out of the corner of his eye. His body was sprawled out atop one of the pods: bloodied, broken and still. Eyes wide with fear, the blonde quietly approached his friend only to find him motionless and unresponsive.

His hometown was burning to ashes. His mother had died a reasonless death alongside Tifa's father and the other villagers. In a span of hours, most everything that had made up his entire childhood had disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Though there were many unpleasant memories of being bullied or snubbed, there were also starlit nights and Mom's home cooked meals, Lia's fluffy birthday cakes and brightly painted bird houses. He couldn't lose Zack, too. Anger bubbled in his chest and festered under his skin. This was wrong. None of this was fair! He felt betrayed so intimately by the man he had looked up to since boyhood. Sephiroth will pay for this…

He crept like a cat up the stairs. Before him was a large chamber with lights and several grates along the walls. An assortment of pipes and tubes fed a cylindrical glass holding tank in the center of the room, one large red pipe serving as a pathway to the container. Sephiroth stood before it, running his gloved fingers over the glass. He was too mesmerized by whatever it was that was inside that glass tube to notice Cloud's stealthy entrance or hear the scrape of metal on metal as the blonde picked up the buster sword from where it had fallen. Sweat beaded under his helmet as Cloud raised the sword into position. It was rage that pushed him forward and he sprinted up the pipe, speeding toward his ex-hero like a freight train. At the last second, the Hero of Wutai spun around to face his opponent, but it was too late.

It was surprisingly silent as Cloud drove the tip of the blade into Sephiroth's abdomen, running him through completely and cracking the glass of the glowing tank behind him. Blood spurted from his mouth, droplets landing in his silver hair and across Cloud's helmet.

Sephiroth let out a strangled cry before looking into the face of his attacker. "Who…who are you?"

"Mom…my hometown…Zack…" Cloud hissed through clenched teeth. "Give them back!" There was another cry as the blonde withdrew the blade, and Sephiroth's body slumped to the ground. Cloud took a few steps back, overwhelmed by what he had done. Hateful tears burned at the corners of his eyes as he threw his weapon to the ground in defiance. "I had so much respect for you! I admired you!"

Head spinning, Cloud backed down the walkway. His rapid breaths were fogging his mask and he ripped his helmet off his head as he ran out of the chamber. He had just about reached Zack when he heard the scraping of lazy boot falls upon metal grates and the wheezing of labored breaths. Pressing his body against the far side of a storage pod, Cloud watched in horror as Sephiroth limped down the stairs, masamune in one hand and with something resembling a human head in the other. How the man was still walking, he didn't know. The silver haired demon dragged himself out of the room, toward the enormous mechanical room near the reactor's entrance.

"Cloud…"

The blonde jumped, turning his head toward the familiar voice. He breathed a silent sigh of relief when Zack let out a quiet groan. He was still alive! The older man peeked at Cloud from under heavy eyelids.

"Cloud…" He begged, voice gravelly and thick with pain. "Finish him off."

Cloud nodded. It was all he could do. The pleading look in the eyes of his dear friend rekindled the fires of hatred and revenge for the man who had taken so much from so many. Mind addled and foggy with rage, he took off after his enemy after reclaiming Zack's weapon. Sephiroth was crossing the catwalk over an enormous vat of mako, but Cloud couldn't let him escape. Panting with exertion and unbottled emotion, his shout came from the depth of his spirit.

"Sephiroth!"

As he approached, Sephiroth whirled around, eyes glowing with anger and mako. Cloud felt his body jolt as the masamune pierced his chest and the young man cried out as the sword ran him through, exiting just below his right shoulder blade. The SOLDIER's leather gloves creaked as he gripped the handle fiercely and lifted the infantryman into the air, his body skewered and dangling.

"Don't…test…me," Sephiroth growled, fixing his prey with a wicked stare.

Gasping and trembling, Cloud shook his head. I'm going to die. I can't die! Tifa, the baby…they need me. His mind flashed with memories of his less than privileged childhood and he knew that he couldn't leave his family like Aren had left him and Claudia. Gripping the blade with his gloved hands, Cloud struggled to place his boots back on the ground. Adrenaline and desperation pumped through his veins as he snarled, regaining his footing on the metal walkway.

"It can't be!" The SOLDIER breathed as Cloud—masamune still embedded in his body—lifted Sephiroth up off the floor. Too shocked to let go of his weapon, Sephiroth could only gasp as Cloud used an incredible surge of strength to thrust him off the catwalk. The blade slid out of Cloud's chest, his opponent still gripping the handle as he plummeted down into the mako far below. He almost didn't hear the splash as the SOLDIER's body hit the liquid mako. Cloud slumped against the railing, blood pouring out of the hole in his chest. His vision was swimming and his body suddenly felt weightless.

Maybe if he lay down for a minute, he could find the strength to get Zack out of here. If he could just rest, first…

He closed his eyes as he collapsed, cheek hitting the metal grate.

… … …

Tifa swallowed nervously as she held the receiver against her ear.

Ring, ring, ring…

The pay phone at the corner store cost one gil per call and she had spent an embarrassing amount in the past week. Cloud had written to her to say he'd be home later than he thought, but it had now been two weeks since she had received that letter without any further word. He hadn't been answering his PHS, and Tifa was really starting to worry.

Now fourteen weeks pregnant, her belly was just beginning to swell and every part of her ached to share it with Cloud. Aside from some muscle cramps and a few episodes of lingering morning sickness, her body was feeling better than it ever had in the past few months. Physically, things seemed to be improving. Emotionally, she was becoming a great mess. How was she supposed to wait patiently at home if she had no idea where her husband was or if he was alright? After listening to the endless ringing for much longer than she should have, Tifa finally hung up the phone.

Rumors of a mountain town being destroyed out west were floating through the slums. Tifa didn't want to believe that it could be Nibelheim. After all, how would anyone know about such a remote, tiny place? The newspapers were silent about any such event and she really had no idea how these rumors had started. It was hard to imagine that anything out of the ordinary could ever happen in Nibelheim, really. Or maybe it was just a sense of denial. The fact that her bi-weekly letters from Claudia had stopped and Cloud hadn't written with an update haunted her.

Tifa pushed through the crowds of people sifting through the slums during the afternoon rush hour, scuttling back to her apartment building. It was her safe place, now. While it drove her crazy to be cooped up inside, she knew her husband wouldn't be around to help her out if she got herself into trouble. Now that she had a little one depending on her health, she had to be as careful as possible. Tifa dug her mailbox key out of her pocket as she stepped into the lobby and crossed over to the wall of little square cubbies. She grabbed the small stack of letters with haste and darted up the stairs. A weary sigh escaped her as she tossed her keys onto the tiny table in the entranceway. Pulling off her boots with one hand, she looked through the envelopes in the other, desperately praying one of them was from Cloud or his mother. There was an electric bill, a credit card advertisement, and an envelope from the ShinRA company.

Thinking it was Cloud's paycheck, she slowly tore it open. The world stopped as she read the brief, typed letter.

To Whom It May Concern,

We deeply regret to inform you that Private C. Strife, MP, has been killed in action on October 1 during a routine inspection of the Nibelheim mako reactor. His service to the ShinRA electric power company will be appreciated and remembered for generations to come.

Like a marionette with its strings cut, Tifa's body crumpled to her knees. Her hands were trembling terribly as she read the letter again and again. Eventually, the paper dropped to the floor as tears began to flow from her eyes like water from a pot that boils over. To learn in a single moment that the most precious person in her life had been lost forever was too much to comprehend. She wrapped her arms around herself, gently rocking to and fro with her eyes squeezed shut. No, no, no! This can't be real! With a broken sob, she let the rest of her body collapse onto the hardwood.

Hours passed and Tifa couldn't find the strength to move. Endless tears seeped from her unseeing eyes as they stared at the wall. Her husband was gone. After only half a year of marriage, Cloud had been taken from her. Something terrible had happened in Nibelheim after all, it seemed. Did he slip and fall from a cliff face on the way up the mountain? Was he overtaken by a monster? Why hadn't ShinRA's letter told her exactly what had happened to him? Maybe Claudia had been too grieved to write to her. Hopefully, this was just all a bad dream and she'd wake up with the warmth of the man she loved snuggled closely beside her. How could it be that she'd never see Cloud's face again? His shy smile, his unruly golden hair, the freckles across his nose…were they really all just memories now? Were those beautiful, striking blue eyes really closed to this world forever?

Swirling thoughts raced around and around, like a bee in a jar, as her heart thrummed wildly in her chest. It was just too terrible to comprehend. Her best friend was gone; his constant comforting presence in her life had been swept away like an angry ocean tide. Tifa felt lost, adrift in rolling, tempestuous wave without the stability of her anchor. Cloud had always been what had tethered her to hope. The love of her life was the source of her happiness and security since she was very small. Now that he was gone, what was there to hold onto? What about their marriage? What about their plans to move out to the sea? What about the baby? Their happy life as a family was a dream that had dripped through her fingers. How could everything she had built her life toward disappear with a few printed words on a paper? It had to be a nightmare, it just had to! Her precious, precious friend…he couldn't be dead! Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to make the world fade away. Wake up, Tifa! Wake up!

The hours all faded together in a blur of visions and silence.

She was still alone when the clock read eight in the morning, unable to focus on anything but her grief. A crushing loneliness and desperate sadness wrapped around her heart and she whimpered, craving the security of a loved one's arms around her. But her mother was dead and her father wanted nothing to do with her, perhaps she and Claudia could grieve together? She needed to go home. She needed to get far away from Midgar and never see this dark and dirty place again! If she could get back home, she and Claudia could raise the baby and they could all make a living for themselves. Perhaps they could even move away from the mountains and live out their lives in a friendlier place. But for now, she just longed to be near her mother-in-law, to comfort and be comforted by someone else who had loved Cloud.

But how in the world would she get there?

Curling tighter into a ball, she whimpered. Tifa's body ached from the hours she had spent paralyzed on the hallway floor, but she couldn't find the will to move. For as long as she could remember, Cloud had always led her forward in this life. Whether he had realized it or not, he had always been there to give her the strength to push through the most difficult times in her life. Tifa had shared such an overwhelming amount of her life and heart with him that she couldn't imagine a future without Cloud in it. She still remembered the weight of his hands in hers as they said their marriage vows.

Till death do us part…

The paper lying a few feet from her face said that they had indeed parted ways, so why didn't her heart feel that they had? Was she in such severe denial that she forsook all sensible thought? She remembered that a long time ago, Cloud had told her that ShinRA wasn't always the most trust worthy source of information. She knew that they were responsible for the content in the media, and according to her husband they often twisted truths and led people astray. Could they be lying? Something was fishy about this, and she had to get to the bottom of this.

With puffy eyes and unkempt hair, Tifa marched out into the slums with ShinRA's letter in hand. If this was true, she was going to find out the details surrounding her husband's demise and whether or not his body would be buried at Nibelheim or sent back to Midgar. She needed closure desperately, and the sparse information in that letter wasn't enough to set her on the path to any sort of peace. Tifa didn't smooth her wrinkled blouse as she sat on the train or attempt to fix her hair as she marched toward the ShinRA building. Her eyes were focused and clear as she pushed through the revolving glass doors. The grand lobby was alive with employees hustling every which way, all of whom were lavishly dressed and well groomed. Tifa immediately felt inadequate in her rumpled, second hand clothing and plain hairstyle, but it didn't matter. She was on a mission.

"Excuse me, ma'am."

The secretary regarded Tifa with a detached look as she peered at her over the rim of her glasses. She was a boney woman with thick dark hair and a harsh looking face. Tifa could almost hear the woman's inward sigh at her presence.

"What can I do for you?" the secretary asked, barely taking her eyes off of her computer screen.

"I-I got this letter last night. It says that my husband, Cloud Strife, was k-killed in action." Tifa swallowed before handing her the paper with trembling hands. "I need to know more about what happened to him. The letter didn't tell me how he died."

She didn't move to take the letter from Tifa's hand. "Miss, such information is classified."

"Classified?" Tifa was sure her whole body was trembling now. Hot tears pricked at her eyes as she rummaged through her pocket for her ID card and thrust it out towards the secretary's face. She slapped the letter down on the desk in front of her. "I'm his wife, see? Tifa Strife!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Strife, I'm not authorized—"

"Please!" Tifa keened, bowing her head and wiping at her eyes with the back of her sleeve. "Please, help me. I need to know what happened to him!"

There was silence for a moment. The clack-clack-clack of fingers on a keyboard made Tifa raise her eyes once again. The woman fixed her with a pointed stare and turned the computer monitor around so that Tifa could see the screen. "Here, I've looked up his company profile. Strife, C. It says he was killed in action on October first during a deployment to investigate the mako reactor at Nibelheim. That's all it says."

"But—"

"If you have any problems with it, take it up with the personnel department on floor six." She pushed Tifa's letter and ID back toward her with two fingers. "Take the elevator to your left."

After muttering her thanks, Tifa found her way to the correct office. After an hour's wait for little more than a dry 'our condolences for your loss', she was escorted back to the lobby and left alone with a stapled packet of papers in her hands. She would've started walking, but she didn't know where to go. The flood of people in the busy lobby flowed around her as a stream rushes around a rock in its path. No one paid her any mind. Why didn't anyone care? Cloud was a human being who lost his life in service to this company. Tifa had pleaded with every employee she could, but no one could tell her more about her husband's demise. They refused to print up his death certificate or give her a more detailed report about what had happened. No one could even pretend to be saddened over the loss of her brave young husband. When Tifa had summoned the bravery to voice her disbelief about how cold everyone was, she was told she could file a complaint about it.

The employee who had spoken to her in the personnel department said that she'd receive a letter when ShinRA had worked things out and decided where Cloud was to be buried. It seemed so wrong that Cloud was something the company had to 'process' before she could make sure he had a proper burial. The death of a human being was something to be handled delicately by their friends and loved ones, not callously dealt with by a faceless super-corporation. Her blood boiled and her nostrils flared as she thought of the injustice. Feeling utterly insulted and immeasurably frustrated, she fled out into the sunlight.

To her, Cloud was the world. But to the world, she and Cloud were so insignificant. In the grand scheme of things they were absolutely nothing. No one cared that her beloved friend was dead. No one cared that she was frightened, alone and suffering.

Tifa couldn't enjoy the rare opportunity to feel warmth of the midday sun. Everything in her life was spinning out of control and there was nothing she could do to fight against it. With nothing left to hold onto, she felt like she was lost in space without gravity to keep her grounded. They told her nothing had happened to Nibelheim. But Cloud had said Zack was assigned to that mission as well; surely he would have come to tell her about Cloud if he could. Zack was a familiar presence in their little apartment and Tifa had bonded with the dark haired man. He knew exactly where to find her, so why hadn't he come? Her heart was pounding; something wasn't right at all. There was a payphone outside of a drugstore one block from the train station and Tifa rushed to grab the thick phone book. Mr. Taylor's Inn was the only building in Nibelheim that had a telephone. She remembered the number, but checked it against the phone book anyway as she popped a gil into the slot. The breath caught in her throat when a man's voice answered.

"Hello, you've reached the Inn at Nibelheim. How may I help you?"

"H-hello? Mr. Taylor?"

"No, Miss. The name's David Fusco—would you like to make a reservation?"

Who in the world was David Fusco? Was it even possible to have a new face working for Mr. Taylor? It was unlikely, but she supposed it could happen. "Mr. Fusco, could I please speak with Mr. Taylor? It's very important…"

"Who is Mr. Taylor? There's no one by that name here."

Tifa's jaw slackened as her eyes went wide. How could that be? What in the world was going on? "H-Hans Taylor owns that inn, he had it built a few years before I was born."

"Miss, you must have the wrong place. This business has been in my family for generations!"

Lies! Thomas's family had always owned that place—where had they gone?

"Sir, my father's name is Brian Lockhart. He lives just across town square—is there any way I might speak with him? Please, it's an emergency!"

"Brian, you said? It's a little hard to understand your accent."

She felt sick. "Y-yes, Brian."

"I'm sorry, there's no Brian in this village. Did you mean Brendan, the physician?"

Wrong, wrong, it was all wrong! There was never a physician in Nibelheim, at least in her lifetime. There was never anyone named Brendan, and if this David fellow had lived there for his whole life than why did he think she had an accent? Tifa stood there, dumbfounded, unable to hear the man speaking to her through the receiver. She felt as if the entire world was playing some cruel trick on her. Something very strange had happened. Everyone in Nibelheim knew the Lockhart family. Papa was born to a well-to-do couple that had once been at the top of the social ladder. Things had obviously changed since then, but her surname was still well known in her hometown and the surrounding villages. It was almost impossible that an employee of Mr. Taylor's Inn wouldn't know of her. There was something seriously amiss. All of this combined with the silence from Cloud and Claudia was extremely eerie.

Her thoughts circled and circled with nowhere to go, on a track with no beginning and no end. Was Cloud really dead? Were the rumors about Nibelheim true? There was a feeling of dread growing in the pit of her stomach. What about Thomas or the others? Would they be alive? Would they know the truth about what happened? Even if they did, she had no way to contact them. If Tifa had a way to contact them, she doubted that they would reply to her anyway.

There was no big ceremony when you became a widow. After the song and dance of a wedding and ceremony and necessary social procedures regarding the start of a marriage, being widowed was every bit as empty and disconcerting as it sounded. The world was a different place now that her place in it had changed. She was no longer a best friend, a wife, a confidant and comforter. She was no longer a cherished companion who lit up someone's eyes and spirit. As she walked back to the train station, as she rocked with the movements of the train, as she pushed through the dirty streets of the slums, no one gave her a second glance. Was she truly alone in this world?

Numbly, she made her way back home.

...

A/N: What a difficult chapter to write. :( It was the end of a time of happiness and the beginning of a few years of darkness in our protagonists' lives. I thought a great deal about how Claudia and Brian's death scenes might go, whether or not Brian would reconcile with Cloud and learn about his grandchild, etc. But what I've learned from my twenty-something years on this earth is that death often comes suddenly and without warning, often leaving loose ends as they are. I suppose this is why it's extremely important to always act in kindness and love, because you truly never know which words are your last.

Fun Fact: I didn't really choose the names 'Claudia' and 'Brian' for their names. Tetsuya Nomura's concept artwork for these two seems to have these names scribbled among the doodles.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this scary chapter. x) Please be kind and R&R!