"I can't remember a time like this. When we were this close."

Tifa had spoken the words on the night Cloud had first kissed her, right before everything had fallen apart. She had nearly lost him to Sephiroth and the brokenness of his own mind. It was not something she liked to dwell on. All that mattered was that they found each other again.

Now, everything else was falling apart. It was, without hyperbole, the end of the world. When the team went their separate ways, they had, at best, a week left before it was all over. Hardly any time at all. And yet, it seemed to Tifa she had never had so much time to just be. To fully realize every little moment of life.

It was funny in a way that, here, as time ran out and everything fell apart, they would finally come together.

Tifa was the one who had wanted to sleep outside. Even with Meteor hanging in the sky, she wanted to see it – the sunset, the stars, the sunrise. She had missed all of them during her years in Midgar, which had been, figuratively and literally, the darkest years of her life. Now, on what might have been her last night, Tifa had a sudden need to see all three.

Cloud had quietly followed along when Tifa said she wanted to sleep under the sky. He had descended the Highwind behind her, blankets carefully slung over his shoulder. Tifa was determined to find the perfect spot to camp out for the night. It had to be high enough ground, without trees blocking their view. She wanted to see the last glimpse of the sun as its upper arch kissed the horizon. To spot the evening's first star. To stay up and see the sun's first rays in the morning.

She found a reasonable spot, on a grassy knoll a short distance away from the airship. Tifa stopped and took a deep breath, tilting her head back to feel the breeze. Behind her, Cloud set their blankets down, sensing this was right. He could always read her, but now more than ever, they anticipated the other's thoughts and moods. An artifact of time spent in the Lifestream together, perhaps, where their thoughts, memories, and emotions had been exposed.

They talked, some. But in the end, neither of them really knew what they were trying to say or how to express the wells of emotion inside of them. Tifa had learned how deeply those feelings could be hidden. They could spend a lifetime with those feelings protected, safely inside.

But now a lifetime was only a day. A night, really.

So Tifa had meant it with all her heart when she told Cloud that words were not the only thing that tell people what you are thinking.

When Cloud touched her, Tifa heard his every thought in the way his fingers danced up her bare arms, trailing from elbow to shoulder. His lips wandered from her mouth to her jaw, to her collarbone. Each featherlight touch was a whisper. I love you. I want you. The barely discernible tremble in his hands, the restrained gentleness of his touch was a question. A question that Tifa herself answered without words.

What might have been Tifa's last sunset washed the sky with oranges and pinks. She saw none of it. No matter how much she had wanted to see it, she had seen sunsets before. What she had never seen before was the look on Cloud's face when she slipped her hands under his shirt. His small shiver and the way he closed his eyes.

They were careful with one another, that first time. Both of them were shyly curious and delighted at the way their bodies responded to one another. Words were not necessary, and they used very few. Like that? and That alright? Tifa figured out fairly quickly that as long as she was touching him, Cloud always answered yes. His enthusiasm made her giggle, but her laughter quickly turned to gasps as he touched her again, first with fingers, then his mouth. He was a quick learner, as it turned out.

When their bodies came together the first time, neither of them moved for several long moments. They had hungered for each other's touch for so long. For weeks, they had satisfied their cravings with small gestures – hands brushing hands, gentle touches to the shoulder. Fleeting moments that they lived for but left them wanting more.

Now, it seemed to Tifa, there was no part of her that was not touching Cloud's bare skin or the soft earth beneath her. She felt safe, connected. To Cloud, certainly, but also here with death looming in the sky, she had never felt so connected to life. Cloud lifted his head from where it had been tucked into Tifa's neck and she saw her own wonderment reflected in his eyes. He touched her face with shaking fingers.

They moved together slowly at first, then quicker. It was clumsy, but achingly sweet. Tifa heard her name gasped in ways she had never even known to imagine. Fingers digging into Cloud's back, she responded with noises she had not known she could make.

After, they laid on the blanket together in each other's arms, their legs tangled. Tifa had never seen Cloud so loose limbed and relaxed. His fingers lazily traced a line up and down her bare back. The balmy air slowly dried the sweat from their skin. Tifa had the sense again that, although time was limited, it was not passing as it normally did. She lived an eternity in the time it took for Cloud's fingers to travel from the nape of her neck to her tailbone.

"Cloud?"

The rhythmic path of his fingers stuttered on her back for a moment before continuing. Tifa wondered if, like her, he was thinking of how his name had sounded moments before, wrenched from her lips.

"Mmm?"

"There won't be another time like this again, will there?"

Tifa did not have to lift her head from his chest to see his frown.

"We don't know that," he said firmly, stopping the leisurely path of his fingers to tuck her closer to him. "There's still a chance. Still hope."

"No," Tifa clarified. "I mean, even if we win, even if a miracle happens, there will never be another time like this. When it's just us. And nothing else."

Cloud's arms tightened around her, and Tifa knew he understood what she was trying to say. She shifted so she could look at his face. The look in his eyes was fierce, but also urgent. Just seconds before, Tifa had felt a sense of forever lying in his arms. Now, the same urgency she saw in Cloud's eyes seized her. No matter how it felt, this night would soon be over.

Tifa kissed Cloud, hard, and he returned it with equal force. This time they were not careful with one another. Their kisses were frantic, their mouths and hands wandering. There was a desperation in their joining as they tried to communicate every last pent up feeling by touch alone. Some part of them knew they might die before they had the chance to do everything they longed to do to one another, but they were determined to try.

They drew it out as long as they could, but eventually collapsed in each other's arms, spent and sated. The night air had begun to chill, and when Tifa shivered, Cloud reached for the second blanket. Tifa tucked herself into his side and he pulled it over them. Tifa realized that as much as she wanted to stay up all night with Cloud, she wanted this moment just as much– for him to hold her while she fell asleep. Cloud's heartbeat slowed beneath her ear. In time, she drifted off.

"It's almost dawn."

The soft words woke Tifa. "Hmm?"

"Sorry, did I wake you? You wanted to see the sunrise, right?"

Tifa refused to believe this would be the last time she would wake in Cloud's arms and hear that tender note in his voice. She squeezed her eyes shut and turned her face into his chest. She hated the sun.

"Give me a little longer," she begged. "Just a little bit longer."

Cloud pulled her closer.

"This day will never come again. So let's just have this moment…"

"Okay," Cloud agreed, voice soft. "Just a little longer."

They stayed, unmoving, until even with her eyes tightly shut and her face pressed to Cloud's chest, Tifa could not deny that it was daybreak. They sat up slowly, disentangling themselves and retrieving hastily thrown aside clothes. Hand in hand, they walked back to the Highwind.

That night had not been their last night alive, after all. Nor would it be the last time they fell into each other's arms. But Tifa was right. There never would be quite another time like that night, when they were only tasked with loving each other as much as they could before the sun came up.

Tifa often thought back to that night later, when things got bad. There would be nights that they slept on the ground in the ruins of Midgar with other refugees surrounding them, and she longed for their grassy knoll. There would be days when grief drained her and she scoured the memory, grasping for what it felt like to experience that mindless desire. There would be weeks when Cloud felt as distant as the stars and she would close her eyes, remembering his body pressing hers into the earth, how it felt like part of her own.

But there would still be times when they came together. Their cries would be muffled into shoulders, so as to not wake the children sleeping next door. Moments would be stolen early in the morning before the demands of the day began. Tifa learned new joys, like how it felt to be kissed by Cloud after spending days apart. Or to pass a sleeping child from her arms to his.

Together, they had one perfect night. It might have been their last. But it was not. Instead, they would continue living. Together, but imperfectly.