Chapter 3. 1995 - εуλ-0000

"Please don't tell Mr. Lockhart, Mom!"

Tears were running down Cloud's face. She had just finished wiping down his scraped knees, thankful his injuries were nothing worse, when Brian had come over like a thunderstorm. If she had thought he had been angry this morning… it was nothing compared to this.

He had been screaming, cursing her, even launching into obscenities, and other villagers had stopped to stare. The only thing that finally calmed him down was the realization that he was making an ass of himself in public.

Somehow, she was able to discern the story, and her heart fell. Tifa in a coma… At least, she could understand Brian's anger, having lost his wife only days before…

But the rest, she couldn't tolerate.

She informed Brian quite forcefully that she didn't believe for a minute that Cloud pushed Tifa down, and she didn't give a damn what the other boys had said. She would get the story out of Cloud later, but for now –

"Get the hell off my porch," she finished. Brian, stunned, stared for a moment, then turned with a huff.

Cloud – her sweet, gentle boy – would never willingly hurt anyone. Especially not Tifa. Her son rarely smiled, but Claudia had not been blind to the way his face lit up whenever he saw the girl next door. It's not that he doesn't care – he just needs something to care about. She wished there were more opportunities for his gentle soul to shine, but Nibelheim was small and isolated, and nothing much ever changed.

One day, she knew in her heart, he would have to leave. She could only do so much teaching him how to be a man.

But for now... she had other concerns. She tried to explain to him what had happened, as gently as possible, telling him Tifa was really badly hurt – the chance she might not recover, was more than she could bear to tell Cloud at this point, more than she could put on his little head - but he just kept crying that it was his fault, all his fault…

"Cloud," she asked softly, "how is it your fault? Tell me what happened. Don't be afraid, just tell me the truth."

Cloud barely managed to squeeze out words between his sniffles. "I… followed… her… there… no one else... did…"

"And then what?" she prodded carefully.

"The bridge… broke… she... grabbed…on… to… me…!" Cloud let out a wail, and Claudia's heart went out. "And… I… couldn't hold on…"

He buried his head in his mother's shoulder, sobbing. "I wasn't strong enough! So she fell…"

Claudia was beginning to understand. How far her son's heart and sense of responsibility extended… but she couldn't let him blame himself. "It was NOT your fault. You were the only one who cared enough to go after her, weren't you? That says something." She smoothed her son's unruly hair. "We'll just tell Mr. Lockhart and…"

And that's when Cloud started begging for her not to say a word. "She'll be in trouble if she went up there on her own!" he cried. "I don't want her to get into trouble!"

Claudia sighed sadly. It seemed such a simple matter to resolve – Cloud had followed her, not the other way around. But in his state of distress, she doubted Brian would see it that way. Reluctantly, she agreed to let the subject lie, in favor of waiting and hoping that Tifa would be alright…

It was seven days, and the village waited anxiously to find out if one of their favorites was going to be okay.

Cloud was scared to go to the Lockhart house – not that Claudia thought he would be allowed in – but there he was, staring out the window in that direction every afternoon – and it broke Claudia's heart in two.

It was as if a collective sigh of relief was heard when on that last day, Tifa woke up - groggy and confused, but apparently unharmed.

Word got around that Tifa didn't remember anything, and much as Claudia tried to persuade him otherwise, Cloud still didn't want his mother to tell Brian the truth. No matter how many times she told him otherwise, Cloud seemed determined to fault himself for the accident.

It pained her to watch. She wondered, later, if perhaps she should have been firmer when she had a chance – but by then, it was too late. The damage to her little son's reputation had been done, and her sweet child found himself ending up in fights. Even starting them. All over an accident that wasn't his fault.

She was glad for Tifa's kind spirit. Even with her father declaring Cloud off-limits, she still would risk his wrath, remembering to say hi whenever their paths crossed, brightening the whole of Cloud's world. She, an idol of the village, totally out of the league of a young quiet boy, nothing but an outcast to the others. Even so, Claudia started to see the first stirrings of love in her son's eyes, signs only a mother could tell this early. And she wondered.

Cloud never forgot that day. From that day on, there was no more playing with Tifa. He would sometimes see her for a little bit, and talk to her, but she would always seem nervous, looking around for her dad.

Her father bought her a new kitten, not something to replace her mother's love, but something to ease a little bit of the pain. Cloud ran into her in the town square one day, with the bundle of white in her arms. "Can I pet it?" Cloud asked.

"Him," Tifa corrected, "and yes, you can."

Cloud softly stroked the kitten's white fur, entranced. Tifa looked so happy, so perfectably comfortable holding that ball of fluff in her arms. "She's like a little baby," Cloud remarked, mindless of the other kids in the square, not caring for once if anyone called him a sissy. Tifa's smile was worth any amount of embarrassment.

"He kind of is my baby, for now," she told Cloud. "Someday, I'll have my own." She stroked the cat herself, and for a moment, their fingers brushed. Cloud felt an electric energy, strange, something he had never felt before in all his ten years… it felt… almost like a little bit of magic.

"Is that what you want?" Cloud wanted to know.

She smiled, but it was sad, wistful. "Yeah. That's what I really want. A family of my own… You know. Children. Someone to love them with me. A home."

Cloud's heart went out to her. They both were missing a parent now, Cloud realized. And it she had it worse, it seemed to him. He didn't even have a dad… but wasn't losing a mom worse? It felt like it should be. And he'd never gotten to know his dad… but she'd had her mother for eight years.

Eight years of memories, with the knowledge of never more to be made.

He wished he could make that better for her. Now, Cloud understood how silly he had been to think his mom should marry Mr. Lockhart. But he started to wonder if maybe… when he grew up… maybe he could marry Tifa himself. And then children… He'd have to save up a lot of money to buy her kids. Come to think of it, he didn't even know where to buy them. Was it… like a special medicine or something? That a woman took and then it started growing?

He wanted to be her best friend. Make her happy. See her smile every day. But most of all, he wanted to take care of her. To protect her. To do what he hadn't done that day on the mountain, make it better this time.

Sometimes, Cloud couldn't help thinking she should stand up for herself. Tell her dad she would talk to anyone she wanted. One day, to his own surprise, Cloud found himself saying exactly that to her.

She seemed startled. "Maybe…" she told him. "But… I mean... I have to take care of my father."

"But if he loves you, he would want to know how you feel," Cloud replied.

"I guess… I'm just not very good at saying how I feel," she replied awkwardly, as if even saying THAT was too much. Cloud felt bad for making her so uncomfortable; he didn't know how to rescue the moment. Instead, he found himself reaching for her...

Tifa let him gently take her hand. He's always been so sweet with me, she thought. Ever since we were little. I think he's my favorite boy in the village. So why does he get in these stupid fights with my other friends? Cloud rarely "won" those fights, but he didn't seem to lose, either. More than once, she had encountered one of her other friends with bruises or a bloody nose after running into Cloud.

"Why doesn't his mom stop it?" she asked her father once.

"Hmmph." he snorted. "Claudia's a strong woman, but sometimes even the strongest women can't control a boy completely. After a certain age, he's going to have to want to change."

Tifa thought about that a lot.

In some ways, it was a constant battle with her own father as well. He tried to keep her from going up into the mountains, and every time he pulled a little harder, she'd pushed a little further. Fights over Cloud, too; she knew her father disliked their neighbor - irrationally, as she saw it - there had been rumors of an accident he had caused, and although Tifa remembered none of it, she wouldn't believe for a minute that he'd willingly do her harm. Never.

In the meantime, Cloud was changing, Growing, slowly but surely – and so was she. At age twelve, her shape started changing in ways that she had been warned about, but wasn't entirely prepared for nevertheless. Curves filling out, making her feel gangly and awkward. Without a mother, she found herself woefully unprepared. On the surface, she understood what it all meant, even though part of her still thought, yuck, I'll never do that with a boy; but it didn't change the fact that the same boys who had been her friends all these years were starting to look at her differently and act different around her as well.

It left her self-conscious and confused. At heart, part of her wanted to be a little girl again, to run and play freely without these kinds of… complications.

Cloud started to hear the other boys talk about Tifa, how pretty she was. How stupid the other boys are, he thought. She's always been pretty. Tifa, what do you see in those boys? Can't you see I'm different?

He wanted to believe he was something special. Something Tifa could like. Or even love, he was now saying to himself.

He saw Tifa kissing some of those boys. He wished it was him. Some of the girls let him kiss them too – not as many as the boys who kissed Tifa, but some – and it was fun, but he still kept wanting something – someONE – different.

They said other things too. About the way her body looked. Cloud was pretty sure you weren't supposed to say things like that about a girl, even though he couldn't help noticing too. It made him really uncomfortable for a while. I don't want to be like those boys.

One day, he happened to be shopping with his mother. He was almost as tall as she was now, but still shorter than all the other boys - they all seemed to be growing much further than he was, and that worried and frustrated him. Was he doomed to be the shortest and weakest forever?

Tifa was across the square, and three of those boys were looking at her, laughing. One pointed, though Tifa was looking away. Cloud wanted to punch that boy; if his mother wasn't there, he would have in a minute. As it was, he was thinking about doing it anyway. He looked at his mother, who had a serious frown on her face.

"What is it, Mom?" he asked.

"I don't like the way they're talking." Cloud couldn't but agree. "If they are looking, it's one thing... but they're making fun of her. I hope I raised you to be a better man than that."

"Why would they do that?" Cloud demanded, angry. If he asked his mother, would she give her approval to go kick some ass?

"Because they're nervous around her." His mom's answer surprised Cloud; HE was the one who was nervous around Tifa all the time, what did they have to be worried about? "That poor girl. She doesn't even understand yet how much attention she will get for the way she looks. She really doesn't need to dress so skimpy to attract them."

Cloud didn't think that was the reason at all. "It's easier to move around in," she told him once. She was sitting outside, mending one of the short skirts she favored nowadays. "I put shorts inside them and everything. See?" She held up her work to show him.

In fact, Cloud wasn't sure she knew boys looked at her at all; she didn't seem to care much one way or the other. He more often saw her running wild in the hills, with or without the others. And if she didn't favor any of them… He gathered up his courage one day.

"You're really pretty," he told her one day, right out of the blue.

"Am I?" she asked, flustered.

"Of course you are," he told her gently. "Why wouldn't you think so?"

Tifa sighed and looked away, and for a moment Cloud thought she wasn't going to say anything. "I guess it bugs me to think of myself like that, because of what I've always been told. Girls are supposed to be pretty, so they can find a hero who takes care of them." She paused. "Is that really what I'm supposed to be?"

"I think you can do more than that," Cloud told her gravely, and she smiled, her heart warmed inside. It was a touching thought, and the way he looked at her… it was different, somehow. She couldn't really explain it. It just felt… like he was really looking at her.

Cloud wondered sometimes – often – if Tifa could see in herself the same that he saw in her. Beautiful, intelligent, kind… He wanted to feel worthy of her. Like… maybe he could BE that hero for her.

But he wasn't good enough now.

He couldn't be the weakling he was. He had to get stronger. Better. He wanted to be the best for her.

It was around this time that Nibelheim started hearing about Sephiroth.

Over the years, sporadic groups of ShinRa employees had come to Nibelheim to work on the old reactor. That was nothing new. The reactor was further up the mountain than most residents cared to go, even as they derived the village's electricity from its source.

They always gossiped, news from the outside; Cloud had never much cared before. But this time, he found himself paying attention to their stories. He heard all kinds of reports from the Wutai war, a distant abstraction that had been around for nearly as long as he could remember, but was too remote to affect the small village. Had it not been for their connection to the company, it might not have made any difference at all.

He found himself listening to the rumors about the war heroes. SOLDIERs, ShinRa's elite force. Brave. Powerful. Invincible. And the greatest of them, Sephiroth, the hero of Wutai, who was single-handedly winning the war for ShinRa.

His heart still panged with the memory of Tifa sliding out of his grasp and falling down the mountain.

SOLDIER. That was what he wanted to be, the best of the best. For that, he would have to go… to Midgar.

The other boys of the town had already started leaving, many of them leaving for Midgar themselves. For ordinary jobs. Nothing special. He would do better than that.

He would be something special.

He would be the hero Tifa wanted.