Chapter 21: Memories of the Future

July 8, 1997

A month later, Tifa woke up as usual. It was a Saturday morning, and there were no classes whatsoever. It was a completely free day. She sat up in bed, and smiled.

"I'm going to spend this day with Cloud," she whispered.

Regardless of what he previously happened, he was still her best friend.

He was practically her only friend.

And maybe…just maybe…those feelings would come back. She was ten years old now, and Cloud would soon be eleven. She remembered that twelve or thirteen was when the boys and girls started to become interested in each other.

LATER….

Cloud was sitting on his bed when a knock sounded the door.

With nothing better to do, he answered it.

Tifa was standing in the doorway, wearing the obligatory pink one-piece swimsuit all girls were required to wear to the pool.

"Hey buddy!" she greeted with a smile.

"Hey," he greeted. "What's going on?"

"Want to take a dip in the pool?" she invited.

"I'm not really in the mood," he sighed.

"Aw!" she playfully groaned as she marched into his room and sat on his bed. "Don't be a party pooper!"

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Sitting on your bed," she bluntly replied. "Until you agree to go with me."

"Why don't you go with Lynn?" he asked.

FLASHBACK….

"Want to go to the pool with me?" Tifa asked.

"Forget it," Lynn replied, without making eye contact. "I only go to the pool with friends."

"Excuse me?" Tifa inquired.

"We're acquaintances," Lynn said. "Not friends. We good?"

….END FLASHBACK

"You don't want to know," she replied. "I'd rather go with you, anyway."

Cloud huffed and puffed.

Tifa lay down on the bed and rolled on her stomach.

"How come you get a more comfortable mattress than I do?" she asked.

"I dunno," he shrugged.

She then spotted the phone at the foot of the bed.

"You have your cell phone?!" she exclaimed.

"Shhh!" he reprimanded.

"If Mrs. Yaint finds out you have it…." she began in a whisper.

"I know, I know," Cloud interrupted. "She'll take it and donate it to charity."

"Why do you have it?" Tifa asked.

"To remind me of when we were grown up," he replied sincerely. "Sometimes I think it was a dream, or that I was living someone else's life again. But these pictures….they remind me that it was all true."

For a while, Tifa was silent. Then, she asked the inevitable.

"Can I see some?"

"Sure," he replied as he took the phone.

The first picture showed the adult Cloud, Barret, and Jessie walking out the door.

"Is that Seventh Heaven?" Tifa asked.

Cloud nodded.

"It was when we were on our way to blow up the first reactor," he replied. "I think Biggs took that one."

Tifa swiped to the next picture. In showed Red XIII sleeping on a wooden floor.

"He really is more like a cat than a dog," Cloud pointed out.

"Works for me," Tifa said. "I'm a cat person."

"You know what's funny?" Cloud said. "He probably looks now like he will when we meet him, since he ages so slow."

Tifa swiped again, revealing a picture of Cid fast asleep in a chair, with Vincent seemingly trying to wake him.

"The Ghost Hotel at Gold Saucer," she said. "I always wanted to go there as a kid."

"And now you can," Cloud reminded her. "That's the beauty of it."

"He must be just old enough to drink now," Tifa laughed. "Same age as Shera in the present. Funny. Cid is twenty-one now, and Shera is seven or eight."

"I guess in the adult world," he said, "that doesn't mean a thing."

"We certainly have more time to find them a wedding gift," she pointed out.

"Maybe a relic from the past?" Cloud suggested.

Tifa swiped again, revealing a young man who looked kind of like her.

"It's Tobin," she said, with a tone of sadness in her voice. "Boy, do I miss him."

"I know," Cloud said with empathy.

Tifa quickly swiped again, and was surprised to see something from 0002.

It was the picture of fifteen-year-old Tifa in her explorer outfit, with Zack and Sephiroth.

"You never told me you have this one!" she exclaimed. "Why do you keep this after it nearly destroyed you?"

"I keep it to remind myself of who I am," he replied. "And who I'm not. And the fact that Sephiroth is still at large in the present."

"I try not to forget," Tifa admitted. "I just wish I knew what he was up to. He turned us into kids for a reason. It can't just be revenge for foiling his plans. He's not the type who takes it."

"He wanted us out of the way," Cloud said. "But why? He's obviously planning something."

"Maybe we'll find a clue in the past," Tifa suggested.

"Maybe," he replied.

Tifa took a look back, and noticed Cloud's feet were bare.

A wicked grin appeared on her face.

She then reached back with her big toe, and began to tickle the sole of his foot with it.

"Hey!" he protested as he darted his foot away.

Tifa simply cackled, and stood up.

"Come on, lazy bones!" she commanded. "I'll be in the pool. You better be there in ten minutes!"

"I'll change and meet you there," he said.

"You better!" Tifa said as she left the room.

A few moments later, Jake, Amos, and Carter passed by the open door. They were three nine-year-old triplets whose parents died in a car crash five months earlier.

"Was that Tifa?" Jake asked.

"Who else would it be?" Cloud replied sarcastically.

"Are you in love with Tifa?" Jake then taunted.

"No," sighed Cloud.

"Do you want to make a date with Tifa?" Carter asked.

"No," Cloud groaned.

"Do you want to kiss Tifa?" Jake taunted again.

"Forget it," Cloud dismissed.

"Do you want to make sex with Tifa?" Amos teased.

"Get the hell out!" Cloud demanded.

"Oooooooooo!" Jake said. "You said a bad word!"

"I'm telling Mrs. Yaint!" Carter added before the three boys ran off.

Cloud sighed and buried his head in his bed.

IN THE POOL…

Tifa stood in the shallow end of the pool. Five minutes had gone by, and Cloud still had not shown up. She had her eyes on the doors the entire time, waiting for him to appear.

Ten minutes went by.

Tifa folded her arms.

"Really, Cloud?" she asked in an annoyed tone of voice.

Then twenty minutes went by.

Then an hour.

Then two hours.

Tifa grew concerned.

"Cloud may be a little anti-social," she said out loud, "but he'd never blow me off like that."

She got out of the pool and dried herself off. She then marched to Cloud's room, and knocked on the door.

"Cloud?" she asked.

Nobody answered.

She knocked on the door again.

"Cloud?!" she called once more.

There was still no answer.

"Where were you?"

She turned and made her way down the hall, wondering if he was still in the area.

She rounded the corner, stopped, and gasped.

Mrs. Yaint was standing there.

"Have you seen Codi?" Tifa asked.

"I have indeed," she replied. "He was adopted just an hour ago."

Tifa could not describe the feeling she felt.

She remembered her mouth drying.

She remembered her body shaking.

She remembered passing out a few seconds later.

That was her last memory of the day.

Unknown to both Tifa and Mrs. Yaint, Jake, Amos, and Carter saw the whole thing.

"This isn't good," Jake said.

"She's lost her best friend forever," Carter added.

"Now I feel bad for making fun of them," Amos admitted.

The three boys hung their heads in shame.

And then, without warning, a ripping sound came from Carter's butt.

The three boys laughed in unison.

"It was Carter!" Amos announced.

THE STUFF THAT MIGHT HAVE GONE UNNOTICED...

This chapter ran away with itself. I was going to post the next chapter instead, only starting with the final scene in this one, but I kept writing Tifa looking through Cloud's phone, and I figured it would be important to remind everyone that Cloud and Tifa were turned into children and went back in time, and that Sephiroth has a plot they need to uncover.