Dee Writes!

I was known as nibelheiim on AO3. :)

However, because of recent policies that AO3 has supported regarding NSFW ficton involving real-life minors, I have decided that until AO3 takes action against this type of exploitative fiction, I am posting my writing here on tumblr instead!

My current project is called Broken Mirror, a CloTi multi-chapter fic retelling Final Fantasy VII from Tifa’s perspective. However, I also have several new projects in the works! Currently, I am also working on a short AerTi modern AU and a Stranger Things/FF7 crossover! Both these projects will be posted here. :]

I appreciate the support as I temporarily (or permanently) move platforms and appreciate the patience as I move my project from AO3 to this blog! Happy reading. :]

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Broken Mirror

Part 1 of Series: The Truth Will Set You Free

Tifa Lockhart is settled into her routine in Midgar when the sudden reappearance of a familiar face turns everything on its head. Now, as they share tight quarters, she tries to piece together the man she knows in the present and the boy she remembers from her past in order to see the bigger picture. NOTE: Broken Mirror was rated M on AO3 for violence!

Chapter Selection:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

iii. a lot of catching up to do

Stargazer Heights is a tiny block of apartments on the east side of Sector 7 that Tifa calls home.  For a while after she first arrived in Midgar, Tifa lived exclusively on the streets, huddled near train stations at night to keep safe, taking every possible odd job she could find to scrounge up enough money to afford a real place.  Zangan had helped her as much as he could--her medical bills had put her in debt, not that she could remember much from her hospital visit--but eventually she had to fend for herself.  And at fifteen, fending for herself was a daunting task.

But Tifa held on to something.  She had to hold on.  She was the only one left who remembered them--the village, her friends, her neighbors, her father.  If she didn’t survive, who would tell the story?  Who would ever know what happened?

Certainly not the public--Shinra was quick to deal with that.  Tifa starved in those early days, but she always managed to buy the paper.  She’d sit and read it at the station, cover to cover, just to find one single word about Nibelheim.  About her home.  About Sephiroth.  Sephiroth appeared on the front page for weeks: “War Hero dies in freak accident”.  No location, no date, no details.  But Nibelheim only got a footnote; something about a reactor malfunction that Shinra had under control, nothing that the public should worry about.

Tifa’s entire life was erased from history.

And so, Tifa didn’t allow herself to get low.  She doesn’t allow herself to get low.  She survived before, and she survives now.  Not long after she’d arrived in Midgar and she met Barret, a new resident himself, and his little baby Marlene.  He’d bought the abandoned warehouse on the west side of Sector 7 and needed help moving construction supplies.  Tifa was no stranger to heavy lifting, and the two began to develop a friendship.  Eventually, Tifa suggested opening a bar--and the rest of the story wrote itself.

Shortly after, Tifa rented a room at Stargazer heights, owned by Marle.  Marle and Tifa have grown close over the years; whenever she gets exhausted at work, or tired of Avalanche’s antics, she goes to Marle for advice.  Marle’s older and she’s lived in Sector 7 for a long time, and she knows everything about living in the slums.  She never turns Tifa away from her door, even in the dead of night.

Tifa feels a little guilty that she hasn’t told Marle about her overnight guest--but now’s not the time.  There’s a lot that Tifa needs to figure out first.

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Tifa doesn’t tell Cloud her story--at least, not yet.  She wants to hear his.  She wants to know what he’s been through, what he was doing all these long years.  Where he’d gone.

Why he doesn’t seem like himself.

Tifa and Cloud sit across from each other in the dimly-lit Stargazer Heights laundry room.  Marle keeps three washing machines and three dryers in two neat lines in the basement of the apartment building.  Cloud sits on a chair that’s up against the wall--now clad in a white t-shirt that’s much too big for him and even baggier pants--while Tifa sits atop a washing machine.  They talk over the hum of the machines whirring around them.

“So did you end up fighting in the war?” asks Tifa.  When Cloud looks down at his hands, she quickly adds, “Uh, don’t worry if it’s a sore subject--forget I asked--”

“No, it’s fine,” says Cloud, looking back up at her.  “I… did go to Wutai.  Just once.”

“That all?”

Cloud nods.  “By the time I made it into SOLDIER, the war was almost over.”

“So what’d ya’ do after that?” asks Tifa, swinging her legs back and forth as they dangle from the ledge.

Cloud sighs.  “Boring shit, really.  They didn’t have enough for us to do as SOLDIERs, so we went around silencing Shinra defectors, mostly.”

Tifa purses her lips.  “That’s really all you did?”

“If I had more to tell you, I would,” says Cloud.

“Why’d you quit?” Tifa leans on her elbows, eyes looking intently into Cloud’s.  Initially, he looks away from her, unable or unwilling to hold her gaze.  “Sounds like an easy gig--right?”

“Yeah, that was the problem,” says Cloud.  “No risk, no reward.  Couldn’t be a hero that way.”

Tifa thinks back on that night under the stars.  Cloud’s words echo in her head.  I’m gonna be a SOLDIER.  The best of the best--like Sephiroth.  It seemed like such an impossible dream back then, but Tifa always thought that, if anyone could do it, it would be Cloud.  The boy that held the world in his sea-blue eyes.

Tifa thinks to herself, Maybe it’s better he didn’t end up like Sephiroth.  Even before the fire, I never even liked the guy.

But saying this to Cloud would only add insult to injury.  Instead, she says, “I’m sure you were someone’s hero.”

When she says this, Cloud finally looks up from his clasped hands and looks directly into Tifa’s eyes.  He has the power to hold her gaze, to freeze her in her place, though he seems to not even realize it.  Tifa finally has a chance to study his eyes--intensely blue, with a faint green glow from beneath.  Even in this dimly lit space, his eyes seem to light up like blue flame.  There’s something endlessly captivating about them--haunting, even--and they trap Tifa into their grip, shackling her to him.

Tifa hates to say it, but she misses his old blue eyes.

But this held gaze doesn’t last nearly as long as it feels.  Cloud’s eyes eventually drop back down to his hands--now, clenched into two separate fists on his lap.  “Yeah.  Maybe.”  After a long pause, he looks back up at Tifa, though not with that same wistful look as before, and says, “I’ve said enough about me.  What about you?”

“Me?” Tifa asks.

“Yeah.  You.  Who else?”

Tifa taps her fingers against the metal washing machine beneath her.  “After I left Nibelheim, I came to Sector 7.  I eventually got a job bartending from my friend Barret.”

“Barret, huh?” asks Cloud.  “Do I get to meet this Barret?”

“Someday soon,” Tifa says.  “He’s a really nice guy.”  She takes a deep breath, purses her lips, and says, “You ever heard about Avalanche?”

“Avalanche?” Cloud rests one hand on his pensive face.  “Can’t say I have.”

Tifa furrows her brows, but just for a second.  A thought pops into her head.  Funny that he went to Wutai but doesn’t know about Avalanche.  Barret talked enough about it for Tifa to know; Shinra had tried to snuff Avalanche out in Wutai, at the tail end of the war.  That’s where Avalanche had set up their base of operations.  In fact, Avalanche didn’t start gaining traction in Midgar until after the war was over.

But she doesn’t want to question Cloud.  Maybe that just isn’t his area of expertise.

“Uh, it’s a group,” Tifa says, shaking her head.  “How should I put this?... Avalanche doesn’t like Shinra very much.”

“Who does?” Cloud responds, leaning back in his chair.

“They want to protect the Planet,” Tifa explains, “and to do that, they have to take down Shinra.  Shinra’s been labeling them as eco-terrorists in the news...”

Cloud squints his eyes at Tifa, perhaps unable to discern her expression.  She hides her face a little from him.  “What about Avalanche?  You involved?”

 “Sort of,” Tifa responds.  “More like… I help them out from time to time.”

“Help how?” asks Cloud.  Now he’s sitting upright in his seat, listening attentively.  A look of displeasure washes across his face.

“Barret--he owns the bar,” explains Tifa, flustered.  “Or, his name’s on the paperwork.  He’s a part of them.  Of Avalanche.  And so every now and then, I overhear things.  And I guess sometimes I cover for them.”

Cloud looks Tifa up and down, that intense gaze returning, trapping Tifa yet again.  He scowls.  “You shouldn’t be involved in a group like that.  You’re putting yourself in danger.”

“Yeah.  I guess I am.”

Cloud leans on his elbows, moving his eyes to the floor.  “Guess I can’t blame you, though.  Shinra… well, fuck Shinra.  They don’t give a damn about anything.  I’d probably have joined Avalanche, too, if I lived in the slums.”

Tifa nods.  Her hands tightly grip the edge of the machine, turning her knuckles white beneath her gloves.  “Yeah.  I… Shinra just makes me so mad...” Tifa catches herself getting overwhelmed with this.  This anger.  It washes over Tifa in waves, pulling her under, drowning her.  But she always catches herself before that fire in her heart brings tears to her eyes.  She composes herself and continues.  “Avalanche does good for the Planet, too.  I’m… I’m glad I met them.”

Cloud’s eyes are trained on her hands, which have relaxed their grip.  When he looks up at Tifa, she swears that he appears gentler, for just a moment in time.  That harsh, constricting gaze he holds her in, replaced with softness that is uncharacteristic of him.  That permanent scowl gone, tight jaw loosened, eyebrows turned downward.  He says, “Tifa...” and Tifa looks at him, catching this expression only briefly.  But once she does, he turns away and reverts to his normal self.  The scowl returns, and the eyes glow severely, more now than before.  “I trust you to handle yourself out there.  You’re pretty strong.”

Tifa smiles.  “Thanks.”

The rest of the time spent in that basement room is punctuated by small conversations, cheeky comments (all from Cloud), and the occasional lull back into silence.  But even in these silent moments, Tifa looks at Cloud and feels a fullness in her chest.  She worries for him--God, does she worry for him--but there’s something else in her heart.  Something warm.  Something familiar.  She never admitted it before, but now she can’t deny it: she missed Cloud Strife.  That starving girl who read the paper wouldn’t just look for Nibelheim--she’d look for Cloud Strife, hoping to catch even a glimpse of his name somewhere.  She remembers even a few times where, with a heaviness in her chest that weighed her down like bricks tied to her ankle, she looked to the obituaries, and prayed softly not to find him there.

But now, he’s back.  And she missed him while he was gone.

She’s happy to have him back.

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“I promise you, we’ll find you something better in the morning.”

Tifa pulls out a sleeping bag from her small closet and rolls it out on the floor, a few feet away from her bed.  She insisted to Cloud when they returned to the apartment that she be the one sleeping on the floor--but Cloud wouldn’t have it.  “You’re the one doing me the favor, here,” he reminded her sternly.  “What kind of guest would I be making you sleep on the floor?”  Tifa pleaded with him once more, but that seemed to be the end of the discussion.

Now, setting up Cloud’s accommodations, she feels a tinge of guilt.  He’s gone through a lot--though Tifa can’t know exactly--and she wants him to sleep in a real bed.  But the sleeping bag will have to do for the night.  In the morning, she can find him something better.

“God, I’m exhausted,” Cloud says, slipping into the sleeping bag.

“Me, too.”  Tifa found her way to her bed and covered herself with her thick sheets.  Tifa turns so her back faces Cloud and keeps her eyes trained on the wall.  She doesn’t want Cloud to notice her sheepishness--Tifa’s always been a private person, and normally she would never share her room like this.  But this is different--this is Cloud.  So she fights her shyness and her nerves.  Even though thinking about how close he’s sleeping paints her face in a rosy hue.

“Hey, Tifa?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks again,” Cloud says, quietly.  “For everything.”

Tifa laughs lightly.  “You don’t have to thank me.”

Tifa doesn’t hear if Cloud responds to her.  She’s already drifted off into a deep sleep.

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Summers in Nibelheim were particularly hot and brutal--especially after Shinra built the reactor at the top of Mt. Nibel.  The Mako hung over the town in a thin blanket, trapping in heat, making the air sweltering and unbearable.  But Tifa didn’t care.  Not when she was a kid, and she had the whole summer to play, to run barefoot through the fields just beyond the town gate, to climb the water tower and watch those red and orange summer sunsets.

Next door lived Cloud Strife.  This was before he’d grown his hair out long--actually, it looked a lot like it does now.  Cut to just above the shoulders, styled in spikes.  Tifa and Cloud were friends.  She considered him to be her friend, at least.  His bedroom window looked into hers, and they’d often talk across the gap.  It would always be short, superficial conversations, “How are you?” or “What did you do today?”  But Tifa looked forward to them.  She liked talking to Cloud, even if just for a few minutes before she’d fall asleep.

But even though Cloud would talk with Tifa each night, Cloud never played with Tifa and her friends--even when they’d chase each other around in the town plaza, making enough noise for the old shopkeeper to yell at them, Cloud never asked to join.  Tifa always figured he had better things to do.

She always wished he would ask, though.

One day--particularly brutally hot, even for summer--the boys suggested playing a game they called “Save the Princess”.  One team, dubbed “Wutai”, would “capture” Tifa; the other team, the SOLDIERs, would have to defeat Wutai in order to rescue her.  Tifa always thought this was a silly game--and boring.  She always got stuck waiting for the boys to finish fighting; and, even when they finished, all she’d get to do was crown the winners as her “heroes”.  Whenever the boys suggested this game, Tifa protested.  But her alternatives were always vetoed.

This time, the boys had a problem: they didn’t have a third SOLDIER, giving Wutai an unfair advantage.

As they argued about what to do, Tifa peered across the square.  Her eyes landed on Cloud, who sat by himself on a bench, eyes to the ground, his own wooden sword resting against the wrought iron armrest.  He didn’t notice her looking at him, but watching him there, always a loner, Tifa came up with an idea.

“Let’s ask Cloud to play,” Tifa told the group of boys.

“No way!” one boy exclaimed.  “Not Strife.  He’s a jerk.”

“You wanna play Save the Princess--don’t you?” Tifa responded.  And without hearing the other boys’ answers, she skipped off to the other side of the square.

When Cloud heard footsteps approaching him, he looked up and met eyes with Tifa.  In the summer sun, his eyes appeared even deeper.  When she looked at them, Tifa couldn’t help but smile.

“Tifa,” Cloud said, as if he were in awe that she’d approach him out of the blue.  “What’s up?”

“Do you wanna play a game with us?” asked Tifa.  “We need one more person.”

“How do you play?” Cloud asked her in reply, tapping his foot on the pavement rapidly.

Tifa grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet.  He barely had enough time to grab his wooden sword and sling it on his back.  “It’s easy!” she shouted to him.  “I’m the princess.  You’re a SOLDIER.  All you gotta do is beat Wutai and rescue me--got it?  Then you’ll be my hero.”

“How do I rescue you?” he replied, eyes wide and starry.

This time, one of the boys chimed in--with an annoyed tone.  “You gotta bring Tifa to the old mansion.”

Cloud nodded.  Tifa took her place by the base of the water tower.  She caught Cloud’s eyes with her own and waved to him, shouting, “You got this, Cloud!” and eliciting a rare, shy smile from the little blond-haired boy next door.

One of the Wutai boys yelled, and they all started fighting.  Wooden swords clashing against wooden swords.  Shouting over each other, yelling at each other, saying words that Tifa’s dad told her were “unladylike”.  Tifa fell to a seated position and watched from the sidelines, arms crossed on her knees.  Eventually her eyes travelled upward, bored of the fight, to watch the blue sky, and to follow the fluffy white clouds as they drifted aimlessly above her.

But she didn’t have time to daydream.  She felt a tap on her arm, bringing her back to reality.  Standing above her was Cloud, hand outstretched to meet hers, all while the other boys were fighting just a few feet from them.

“Cloud?” Tifa asked.  “What are you doing?”

Cloud cocked his head, before simply answering, “Rescuing you, of course.”

Tifa gave him her hand and he pulled her to her feet.  Hand in hand, Cloud pulled Tifa along behind him, making his way quickly to the mansion at the edge of town.  It was only then that the other boys noticed them running, one calling out, “Hey, what the hell, Strife?” and another complaining, “That’s against the rules!”

Tifa barely had a chance to catch her breath.  She shouted to Cloud, “What about the fight?”

“Heroes always rescue the princess first,” Cloud said to her.  “Then they can deal with the bad guys.”

A red flush washed over Tifa’s face.  She looked back to see the other boys right behind them in an angry mob. But she and Cloud were faster, and they reached the mansion first.  It’s only after they arrived there that Cloud finally lets go of Tifa’s hand.

The biggest of the group of boys pushed his way to the front.  He yelled in Cloud’s face, “Why’d you have to go ruin our game, Strife?” while Cloud stood his ground, scowling back at the boy with an unwavering glare.

Tifa stepped between them.  “What are you talking about?  Cloud didn’t break any rules!”

“Yeah, he did!” another boy shouted from behind.  “He cheated!”

“You guys are being mean!” Tifa said.  “Cloud won fair and square!”

“Come on, Tifa, don’t defend him!”

“That’s why we don’t invite him to play with us!”

The boys’ shouts grew louder and more aggressive with each taunt.  Tifa was unable to yell over them, drowned out by their petty arguing.  She turned to Cloud and watched his face.  At first, he appeared angry.  But Tifa saw his expression morph, for the tiniest fraction of a moment, into one that hurt her heart.  In that second, he looked sad.  He looked as if he could break down.  He looked shattered.

But he didn’t ever express it, if he was sad.  Because the moment Cloud began to feel sad, he replaced it with anger.  He pushed the taller boy out of his face, deepening his scowl, and shouted through gritted teeth, “Fine by me.  This game is stupid anyway.”

Cloud stormed past the group of boys, stomping off to the other side of the square.  Tifa ran toward him, shouting after him, “Cloud, wait!”, but didn’t follow him.  She stopped at the fence that lined the perimeter of the old mansion and just watched him walk away, shoulders tense with anger, hands balled into fists.  Behind her, the other boys were coming up with a new plan, a new way to play the game.  But Tifa barely listened to them.  She just kept her eyes on Cloud until the boy disappeared in the distance, most likely finding refuge somewhere in the fields just outside of town.

That was the first time any boy thought to save Tifa first.  It was the only time any boy thought to save Tifa first.  And eventually, Tifa refused to play that game ever again.

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Tifa lifts her heavy eyelids and finds herself transported back to her tiny apartment, staring at the piano concerto poster hung on her concrete walls by tape.  In a state of stupor, of half-sleep, Tifa groggily rolled to the other side and looked across the room with bleary eyes.

The clock on her bedside table reads 3:35 a.m.  She sighs deeply.  I really must have needed some sleep.

Tifa thinks it’s a little odd, her dreaming of such a memory.  Most of her Nibelheim dreams are tinged in bright red; some are dusted in blue and green.  But this one was colored golden--the color of the many summers she spent under that beautiful mountain sky.

And Cloud?  Tifa must have had Cloud on her mind when she fell asleep.  That’s not such a surprise, though.  Usually, Cloud is absent from her Nibelheim dreams, only appearing when she sees that gorgeous star-studded sky above her head.  He’s sitting next to her on the edge of the water tower, as he should be.  But this was a different memory; it must be because they’ve reunited after so many years.

She turns her gaze to the floor, where Cloud should be, to find an empty sleeping bag.

Wait… empty?

Where’s Cloud?

Tifa jumps from her bed and knocks frantically on the bathroom door, only to get no response.  When she throws the door open, the room is empty.  The sound of wind whirring against the walls draws her attention to the front door, which is slightly ajar, and every so often moves with the breeze and knocks against the doorframe with a metal bang.

Cloud’s sword, too, is missing from its place on the wall.

Shit.  Shit shit shit shit shit.

Tifa doesn’t have time to think.  She doesn’t even bother changing out of her pajamas.  She throws on a coat and runs outside--not even bothering to lock the door behind her.

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ii. obligation

Cloud Strife.  

Tifa often thinks about Cloud Strife.  Every once in a while, when she dreams of Nibelheim, she doesn’t see red flames devouring everything; instead, she sees a sky studded in millions of green and blue stars, the plaza bathed in a warm glow from yellow lights behind lit-up windows.  She hears the faint chirping of insects, feels the dewy grass on her feet.  This is the Nibelheim that reminds her of Cloud Strife--the Nibelheim that she loved.

But the Cloud Strife before her is a far cry from the Cloud Strife she knew.  She can picture him as he looked on his last night in town.  Gawky, thin, slouched.  Long hair tied behind his head in a ponytail.  And those big eyes, filled with so much emotion.

Tifa always loved Cloud’s eyes--blue like the deepest part of the ocean.

But they’re different now.  She can just make them out from beyond the crowd and Cloud’s heavy lids, hiding them away.  His eyes are surely still blue but a fluorescent blue.  They glow from somewhere within.

I guess he made it into SOLDIER after all, Tifa thinks.

But why is he here?  Crumbled on the ground, surrounded by concerned people?  How did he get here?

Tifa pushes past the onlookers, desperate to reach him.  Something’s not right--Cloud’s unresponsive to the crowd’s shouting, his head simply rolling to one shoulder in reply to each yell and shout for him.  Someone has managed to prop him up against the platform, so he’s sitting upright, but Tifa doubts Cloud was conscious when it happened.  His eyes are dead, lifeless; his skin is pale and sallow.  

Tifa kneels beside him to get a closer look.  She takes note of his labored breathing.  He’s wearing his uniform from SOLDIER--they all wear the same standard issue blue coveralls, metal gauntlets, and a single pauldron.  Slung on his back is a massive sword.  Tifa estimates that the thing must weigh at least fifty pounds, maybe even more.

She lightly places her hand on his forearm and nudges him, cautiously.  “Cloud?”  She cranes her next to get a good look at his Mako-infused eyes, trying to read what lies behind them.  “Cloud, are you okay?”

Cloud seems to register Tifa’s voice, if only a little.  He looks in her direction.  At first, his expression is blank; it’s not as if he’s seeing Tifa but rather seeing past her.  But slowly, surely, the dust settles, and Cloud’s emotions return to him.  He furrows his brow and studies Tifa’s face, just for a moment.  Then, he raises his brow in surprised realization.

“T-Tifa?” he says, voice hoarse.  “Tifa Lockhart?”

Tifa nods encouragingly, giving Cloud a shy smile.  “You remember me?”

“Of course.”  Cloud struggles to his feet, and Tifa follows suit.  When Tifa looks around, she sees that the crowd initially gathered around has dispersed--though she feels a dozen eyes trained on her and Cloud.  “How long’s it been?  Five years?”

Five?  Tifa purses her lips.  No, not five.  It’s been seven.  That night at the water tower--that was seven years ago.  Tifa doesn’t doubt herself.  She thinks that maybe she should say something to Cloud about it, but she takes too long to decide and Cloud has moved on without her.

“Do you… live here?” asks Cloud, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Uh, yeah, I do.”  Tifa gestures in the direction she’d just come from.  “I’m a bartender, actually--at a bar called Seventh Heaven.  It’s just down the road there.”  She takes one measured step closer to Cloud, who tenses at her movement and takes an equal step back, almost instinctively.  “I see you made it into SOLDIER.”

“Huh?”  Cloud looks down at his clothes and then back up in a haze.  “Yeah.  Yeah, I did.  First-Class.”  He responds well to Tifa’s question, and she watches as his shoulders relax once more, and he closes the gap between them.  A subtle grimace washes over his face.  “But, not anymore.”

Tifa raises her brows.  “What happened?”

“I quit,” Cloud answers curtly.  “About… four and a half years ago.”

Four and a half years.  Tifa wonders where Cloud has been for four and a half years.  So many people left Nibelheim before the incident--in search of work, of meaning, of something greater than what the quiet green pastures of their sleepy little town could offer.  Tifa manages to reconnect with some of those people, if only briefly, in Midgar.  She always found herself asking them about Cloud.  Have you heard from him?  Do you know what he’s up to?  The answer was always, without fail, “No.  Could be dead for that matter.”

Where could Cloud Strife have been hiding all this time?

“So, what have you been doing?” asks Tifa.  “After you quit SOLDIER.”

Cloud pauses for a long moment before answering confidently.  “I’m a mercenary now.  You know… boring stuff, dangerous stuff.  I’ll do anything for the right price.”

“Is that right?” Tifa says, closely watching Cloud’s expressions, trying to read what’s underneath.  “So, I guess that means you’ve been all over the place, huh?  Seeing the world?”

“Less of it than you’d think.”

“How’d you find yourself in Midgar--Cloud?”

Cloud clutches his head in both hands, contorting his face into a pained expression.  When he tries to speak, only a strained, anguished groan comes out.  He doubles over, head shaking back and forth, gloves hands buried in his blond hair and clutching his temples tightly.  The people loitering around the station begin to stare, some shifting uncomfortably from one leg to another, or shuffling away.

Tifa’s eyes widen at the sight of Cloud--this new, foreign Cloud, made strong by the Mako in his blood--succumbing to such pain.  She panics; her mind races while her feet remain planted to the ground, body frozen without any idea of what to do next.  What’s wrong with Cloud Strife?  What should I do for him?  She musters the courage to extend one hand, with care, and places it very lightly on Cloud’s arm, feeling him shake beneath it.  With a quivering voice, she asks, “Cloud… are you hurt?”

Cloud manages to shake his head, but he can’t form a full sentence.  After a few moments, he mutters, “I’m fine.”  His body tells Tifa the opposite story.

Cloud’s outburst attracts the attention of the station operator.  The man, bearded and clad in a burgundy uniform, steps through a crowd of concerned commuters to make his way toward where Cloud and Tifa stand.  With a white-gloved hand, he taps Tifa’s shoulder.  When she turns around, she’s met with a stern look.

“Miss, do you know this young man?” the station operator asks her, point-blank.

“Uh, yeah,” Tifa says slowly, unsure that she can even accurately answer such a question.

“Then are you responsible for him?” he continues.  “Or should I call Shinra security?”

Tifa stands before him, clad with a blank expression, a million little thoughts racing through her head.  She can only be sure of one thing: something is not right with Cloud Strife.  His gaze, distant and cold and foreign, unyielding and yet unable to focus, doesn’t remind her at all of the boy she once knew.  That Cloud Strife had eyes filled with wonder, with dreams and goals and ambition.  His eyes were blue but they burned with a fire that Tifa admired so much; as a young girl, she thought she could spend hours looking at his eyes, that those eyes held the world inside of them.  It took her away from the tiny little town she called home.

Now, that fire is extinguished.  Behind Cloud’s eyes is nothing but a void, the world once beneath them now consumed entirely by green Mako.

But why?  How?  Cloud surely can change in seven years--but like this?  This kind of change is not growth; it’s decay.

Tifa doesn’t know why just yet, but she’s scared for Cloud.  She’s worried about him.

“Ma’am.”  The harsh voice of the station operator snaps Tifa out of her racing thoughts.  “Ma’am.  Are you responsible for this man?”

Am I?  Tifa’s not sure.  She thinks about how long it’s been since she and Cloud last spoke.  Seven years.  He’d mistaken it for five earlier, but she remembers, clear as day, his last night in town.  The water tower.  The stars.  Her nerves when she decided to meet him there.  After he left, she’d thought about him often; she’d even buy the paper, every Sunday morning, and read it cover to cover with the hope that Cloud’s name would be in it.  Nothing ever came of it, though.  He never reached out to her.  But she didn’t stop thinking about him; no, every once in a while, even all these years later, he still crept back into her thoughts from time to time.

Sometimes it made Tifa angry that she never heard from Cloud after he left the village.  There were so many words left unsaid.  Moments forgotten.  Promises broken.

But when she first saw him at the station today, none of those things mattered.  And they don’t matter now--what matters to her, in this moment, is that Cloud is safe.

Am I responsible for him?  Tifa thinks she finally knows the answer.

With a sigh, she finally answers, “Yeah.  He’s with me.”

************************************************************************

Tifa slings Cloud’s arm over her shoulders and helps him back to her apartment.  His feet drag a little, but he gathers up enough strength to carry himself most of the way, only leaning on Tifa for support.  People in the slums don’t often take notice when strangers roll in, even in Cloud’s stupor--they think, It’s just another drunk.  But they pay attention to Cloud.  The uniform gives him away as a SOLDIER; and in the slums, SOLDIERs are synonymous with trouble.

Tifa catches a group of people staring.  When she shoots them a dirty look, they quickly turn away.  Tifa has a reputation in the slums, too; after five years, she’d been in enough fights to garner a little bit of respect.

Tifa is careful to avoid Seventh Heaven.  She’ll explain everything to Barret later--but for now, it’s easier to keep this to herself.  Barret, of all people, harbors the strongest distrust of Shinra.  Tifa doesn’t know how he’d react if he spotted her with a SOLDIER--even an ex-SOLDIER.

Once at the apartment, Tifa helps Cloud to sit upright on the edge of the bed.  He collects himself while she reaches for the phone, dialing Seventh Heaven’s landline.

As expected, Jessie answers.

“Tifa!” Jessie’s bubbly voice rings through the receiver.  She seems to be in a particularly cheerful mood.  “I thought you were topside today!  Didn’t expect to hear from you ‘til later.”

“Yeah, about that...”  Tifa makes a show of coughing into the phone--though, admittedly, she worries her feigned coughs won’t fly under Jessie’s radar.  Tifa has never been the most convincing liar.  “I think I came down with something.  I feel awful.”

“Really?  You never feel under the weather.  I can’t even remember the last time you called in sick.”

“Yeah, I know, can you believe it?”  Tifa nervously chews the nail on her ring finger in a vain attempt to hide her anxiety.  “Today of all days, I end up catching a cold.”

“Do you think it’s that virus going around?” Jessie asks.

“Could be!” Tifa exclaims, though upon hearing her own excitable voice, she lowers it back to a normal volume.  “Let Barret know I’ll be out tonight, okay?”

“Will do.  Get some rest, okay?  We need you in top shape for Avalanche’s next big step.  And Barret will wanna fill you in ASAP--so make sure you stop by the bar tomorrow.  Okay?”

Tifa thanks Jessie before hanging up.  By now, Cloud has come back to his senses.  He looks up when Tifa returns the phone to its receiver and says, in a very measured voice, “Sorry about that.  I... don’t really know what happened back there.”

Tifa gives Cloud a shy smile.  “It’s really no big deal.”  She pulls the folding chair out from underneath her desk and takes a seat, facing Cloud.  “You have a place to stay while you’re in Midgar?”

Cloud shakes his head.  “No, not yet.  Thought I’d... figure that all out once I got here.”

“You’re welcome to stay with me, if you want.  Just until you find your own place.”

The words escape Tifa’s mouth as if they have a mind of their own.  Tifa’s gut tells her that Cloud needs to stay close by.  That odd, almost surreal feeling she gets when they speak puts her on edge.  Her worry spreads like a fire in her chest.  She doesn’t want him to leave--not yet.  Not until she figures out how she can help him.  And she thinks if she offers him a place to stay, she can buy herself some time.

“R-Really?”  For the first time since they met, Cloud’s eyes show something behind them.  Surprise?  Shock?  Tifa doesn’t have time to analyze, because as quickly as it appears it dissipates into nothingness once more.  “Uh, I don’t wanna put you out--”

“You wouldn’t,” Tifa assures him.  “In the meantime, I can ask around and see if anyone’s got a spare room.  I’ve got a pretty good relationship with the landlady here.”

After a moment of thought, Cloud finally nods.  “All right.  Thanks, Tifa.”

Tifa thinks she sees the faintest hint of a smile form on Cloud’s lips, and almost automatically, she finds herself smiling back at him.  Cloud never was one to smile; that much stayed consistent after all this time.  But Tifa remembered him almost fondly for that.  It made the moments he did smile all the more meaningful.

“I wanna hear about everything,” she says.  “Everything that’s happened since you left the village.  But first, I think I oughta wash that uniform.”  Tifa noticed it at the station—that Cloud’s uniform is covered in dust and dirt from his travels.  He must have gone days without stopping to be this unkempt.

Cloud looks down with furrowed brows.  “Oh, shit.  This is all I have.”

“I might have something for you.”

Tifa walks over to the dresser and rummages through the drawers.  Every so often, as a single father, Barret will start getting overwhelmed.  Marlene is so young and needs so much attention; compounded by Barret’s involvement in Avalanche, he tends to spread himself far too thin.  When Tifa notices his stress, she’ll offer to help him out, so that he has a chance to catch his breath.  Maybe in some ways Barret reminds Tifa a little bit of her own dad.  For so long, it was just Tifa and her father.  She always wonders how it must have been, to lose Tifa’s mother and to continue on without her, raising a little girl all alone.  She’s proud of Barret for what he does for Marlene, and that’s why she does her best to help.

This week, Barret fell behind on his and Marlene’s laundry.  Tifa had folded it all and planned on dropping it off tonight—but a change of plans bought her some more time.  She dug out a plain shirt and pair of pants belonging to Barret and handed them to Cloud.

“These might be a little big on you,” Tifa warns.

“A little?” Cloud holds the shirt out in front of him.  In seven years, Cloud has bulked up, getting a little bit taller, building muscle mass—most likely from his SOLDIER training.  But even with a taller stature and broader shoulders, Cloud has nothing on Barret.  The shirt swallows him up.  “I’ll be swimming in this thing.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” remarks Tifa with a small smirk, before turning her attention back to the drawers.

“Whose is this anyway?” Cloud asks, his voice lowered to a whisper.  

“Why do you ask?” Tifa responds absent-mindedly.

When she turns to Cloud after his long silence, he’s glancing back and forth from the shirt, to Tifa, then back to the shirt.  With a tinge of negative feeling that Tifa can’t quite pinpoint, Cloud says, “Nevermind.  Doesn’t matter.”

“If you want,” Tifa tells him, “you can get changed in the bathroom over there.”

Cloud nods and makes his way across the room.  Once he’s inside, door shut and locked, Tifa finally gets a closer look at his sword.  He leaned it against the wall when he entered the room, so now it stands completely upright; like this, it’s almost as tall as Tifa.  Tifa taps it with her knuckle every so lightly, and listens closely to the sound it makes.  It’s solid, made of some sort of dense metal.  Despite the layers of grime that have settled on the blade, there don’t seem to be any knicks or scrapes on it; every inch of the sword is pristine, as if it were almost brand new.  Odd that he’d buy a new sword, thinks Tifa, when he’s moving to a new city.  Near the hilt, two identical pieces of magic materia sit nestled into perfectly-sized slots.

Tifa squints when she looks the blade up and down.  Why do I feel like I’ve seen something like this before?

*

*

*

i. five years later...

It’s been five years, and Tifa still has nightmares.

Not every night--not anymore, at least.  But somehow, that makes them worse.  She can’t prepare for them now, because she never knows when they’ll happen.  When she falls asleep, it’s either a dreamless void, or a reenactment of the worst day of her life.

It always starts the same, with the fire.  Tifa runs down the stairs and out the door of our little cottage the moment she smells smoke.  She looks everywhere for her father, but the kitchen is already engulfed in flames.  The ceiling banisters come crashing down and block her way in.  She has to escape, and she hopes to God that he made it out before her.

The heat is so intense that she can feel it on her cheeks, even now.  That’s why, at first, she doesn’t understand that it’s all a dream.  It feels so real.  When she walks too close to the flames, they singe the ends of her long hair; when she breathes in too much smoke, it feels like her chest is on fire, and she struggles to take in air.  The smell is a combination of burning wood, blood, and something metallic and rancid: Mako.  They’d been smelling Mako from the broken reactor for days, but it’s even worse now.  It’s enough to make her choke.

Two Shinra guards lie, dead or injured, in the square.  The screams of the people--Tifa’s neighbors, her friends--echo across the plaza and suddenly stop.  She’s frozen.  She stops and thinks, Who could have done this?  Who could have killed all these people?  

And then, just like that, she already knows who it is.  Sephiroth.

But Tifa doesn't see Sephiroth.  She doesn't see her dad.  And then, like a knife through her heart, it all hits her.  The reactor.

She runs as fast as her legs can carry her.  Through town, up the mountain, across the bridge.  All the scenery speeds by in a flash, and suddenly she’s standing in front of the Mako reactor.  Someone broke through the door, leaving only a mangled piece of metal on the catwalk.  A clean, straight line cuts the metal in half.

Every part of her body is numb.  She stands there for just a moment, trying to make her body move forward.  But she’s so scared that she can’t move at all.

That’s when the SOLDIER approaches her, the one who escorted Sephiroth to the village a few days ago.  He’s got a massive sword slung on his back and hair like the night sky.  He grabs Tifa before she can step inside and shakes her, pleading, “Just get out of here!  You don’t know who you’re dealing with!”

But she doesn't listen to him.  She doesn't even really process what he’s saying.  She simply shakes loose from his tight grip on her shoulders and leaves him behind.

When she reaches the catwalk above the Mako pool, she sees her father on the other end, in a motionless heap on the floor.  She doesn't see the pool of blood and the deadly sword lying beside him until she steps closer.

She kneels down; she can’t even cry, because she’s in shock.  In a desperate attempt to grab at hope, she checks for a pulse--and nothing.

Tifa hears her voice out loud, like a matra, but she doesn't feel in control of her words.  “Sephiroth… SOLDIER… Mako… Shinra...”  She brushes her hand against the hilt of Sephiroth’s sword and grabs it so tightly that her knuckles turn white.  She thinks about the many people killed by this blade, the pain they must have felt.  The thought alone makes her hand shake uncontrollably.

“I’m sick of it all...” she whispers to herself.  “I’m ending it here.”

Tifa takes the sword and rushes to the next room to find Sephiroth there.  His presence is foreboding--she can feel the power in the room they’re standing in.  He’s dressed in all black, like the Angel of Death.  There isn’t a drop of blood on his clothes.  He must hear her come in, but he doesn’t turn around--not even when she yells, “Why did you do this, Sephiroth?”  Because Tifa is inconsequential to him--just something taking up space, something for him to mow over.

She feels a burning, searing anger well up inside her.  She can’t think.  She can’t feel.  And she attacks.

But it’s all for nothing.  As soon as she gets close enough, he wrestles the sword from her hands and turns it on her.  One swift cut across Tifa’s stomach and chest sends her tumbling back down the stairs.  When she lands, she tries to get up, only for her vision to blur.  She touches one hand to her stomach just below the sternum where she feels a siering pain and it comes back dark red.  

She hears the voice of that SOLDIER in the distance, but she doesn't ever see him; by then, the whole world has almost disappeared entirely.

Sephiroth didn’t even turn around all the way, and Tifa didn’t even put a single scratch on him.

But the dream doesn’t end in the reactor.  It doesn’t end in the town, or the Midgar hospital where she’ll eventually wake up.  

It ends with a color: blue, like the deepest part of the ocean.

And then, she wakes up.

************************************************************************

Another restless sleep.

On the days she has this nightmare, it’s hard for Tifa to even leave her bed.  For a long time, she just stares at the ceiling of her dingy apartment and focuses on her breathing.  In four… hold seven… out eight.  It’s an exercise Zangan taught her a long time ago, when she studied martial arts.  Every time she’d lose herself, or make a careless mistake, Zangan would yell, “Breathe, Tifa!  Breathe!”  And she’d do this very same ritual over and over again until she cleared her head.

In four… hold seven… out eight… 

Outside her door is the big city--Midgar.  When she lived in Nibelheim, she’d read about Midgar all the time in the papers.  About the wonderful Shinra reactors that blessed the whole city with light.  About the hustle and bustle of corporate men and women commuting to work by train.  About the feat of engineering, the 70-story monolith called the Shinra building that marked the heart of the city.

Never once did Tifa read about the slums--where she ended up.

In four… hold seven… out eight…

Tifa knows that she can’t stall forever.  She grabs blindly at her nightstand and finds Barret’s shopping list there.  In his scraggly handwriting, he’s written down items needed at the bar.  Soda.  Corel whiskey.  Napkins.  The night before, he’d asked Tifa to run these small errands as he had errands of his own--and Tifa knew better than to ask about his plans, when his face became somber like that.

Tifa’s bar Seventh Heaven, the only home she really has in the Sector 7 slums, serves as a front for Barret’s militia group, Avalanche.  Admittedly, Tifa doesn’t know very much about Avalanche.  They have two goals: the first is to save the Planet, and the second is to take down the Shinra Corporation.  Barret tells Tifa all the time that these goals are one and the same.  “Take Shinra down, and the rest will follow!” he’ll shout enthusiastically, from one end of the bar.  “They’re the ones suckin’ the Planet dry!”

Mako, planetology, the reactors.  It’s all foreign to Tifa.  But she remembers a time when she was small, and Mt. Nibel was alive with flowers, trees, animals.  Life.  Before Shinra built their reactor there.  Everything died, and the air in the town reeked with that undeniable Mako smell.

Tifa always agrees to help Barret and Avalanche.  Perhaps that’s her small way of getting revenge.

She gets ready quickly, efficiently.  There’s not much in her apartment, and she doesn’t have many clothes.  What she does have is essential and necessary; she can’t afford to splurge with the bar and the apartment always needing repairs.

She puts on her clothes standing in front of the full length mirror on the wall of her tiny studio.  She chooses something comfortable, breathable, and easy to move in.  As always, when she looks in the mirror, her eyes can’t help but gravitate toward the scar--a hard, discolored line of skin, six inches long, running from the center of her chest to the bottom of her rib cage.  When Tifa runs her fingers over it, she can imagine the sting, cold and unrelenting and siering, as if it’s happening to her now.  She should feel as if this scar is a badge of honor--after all, she lived.  She may be the only one.  But instead, she thinks of it as a brutal reminder.

Today, Tifa dons a coat to protect her from the harsh Midgar winter and heads for the station.

Midgar winters bring no snow--at least, they don’t underneath the plate.  When Tifa looks up, she can see the plate staring back at her, suspended three hundred meters above her head by gargantuan supporting pillars.  The plate looms like a shadow; it blocks the sun from resting warmly on her face and hides the sky behind mangled metal.  The only light that shines on the slums comes from the sun lamps, gigantic, harsh white lights that radiate down on them like spotlights.  In five years, Tifa can count on one hand the times she’s seen the sun; she’s seen the stars even less, since the lights from Midgar’s many buildings and structures wash them away.  Tifa misses the stars the most--back home, she loved looking up at the night sky and picturing what it’d be like to be among them.

Seventh Heaven is on Tifa’s route to the station.  Even this early, Barret is already awake, and he stands on the bar’s wooden porch as he gets Marlene ready for school.  Barret is tall, large, and intimidating--but Tifa knows him well, and deep down he’s got a soft center.  Especially when it comes to Marlene.  She’s his everything.  Tifa doesn’t know how Marlene came into Barret’s care, but it doesn’t really matter; whatever the circumstances, they’ve become a perfect little family.

Marlene spots Tifa first.  Clad in a pink dress, her backpack hanging from her shoulders, she shouts, “Tifa!  It’s time for school!”

“Sure is,” Tifa tells her, patting Marlene’s head when she gets close enough.  “You better hurry or else you’ll be late.”  When she says the word late, Tifa sneaks a cheeky glance at Barret, who returns it sheepishly.

“She said she wanted pancakes for breakfast,” explains Barret.  “How am I s’posed to say no to my little angel?”

Marlene takes off in the direction of the schoolhouse, which is within sight of the bar.  As soon as she’s inside, Barret turns his attention to Tifa.  “You gonna swing by the bar later?” he asks, sitting at one of the outdoor tables, laying his arm--the one augmented with a machine gun where his right hand should be--on the table’s surface.  Tifa doesn’t know the story of his gun arm, and at this point she knows better than to ask.

Tifa nods.  “Of course.  It’s Saturday night--busiest night of the week!”

Barret nods.  “Good.  If it wasn’t for you… I dunno how we’d keep the lights on in this place.”

Tifa thinks Barret gives her too much credit.  After all, Barret protects the place.  Jessie fixes leaks and broken pipes for free.  Biggs and Wedge hand out flyers all over town to get people to come in.

“We gotta talk to you,” adds Barret.  “Biggs, Wedge, Jessie, and me.  We wanna tell you about the plan going forward.”

Tifa’s smile wavers a little.  She nods at Barret.  “Okay.”

Of course, Tifa knows what he’s talking about--the reactor bombing.  Barret and the others have been planning for months.  Jessie sources explosives from a mole at Shinra headquarters, and had them delivered to the bar in the dead of night.  She took them into the bar’s secret basement level--accessible only by a rigged pinball machine-turned-elevator--and spends hours down there now crafting a bomb.  Wedge, too, began stockpiling assault rifles and ammunition for the fight ahead.  Some nights, when the bar is particularly empty, Barret and Biggs will sneak away into the kitchen and mull over a map of Mako Reactor #1, tracing routes in and out with chalk and erasing them until they’re satisfied.

A few weeks ago, it looked like the plan wouldn’t go through.  Barret’s talk with the higher-ups at Avalanche failed miserably; they vowed to separate Barret’s small Sector 7 sect from the bigger movement if Barret intended on going through with the attack, providing them with no support going forward.  Barret said afterwards, “We’re just too visionary for them!  They can’t see the bigger picture!”  For a while, Tifa hoped that maybe Barret and the others would be discouraged.  She wanted Shinra to get what they deserved, of course--but she couldn’t help thinking about the people of Sector 1, the normal people who don’t know any better but to live their lives in Shinra’s bubble.  She worried for their sake.

Unfortunately, it looks like Barret’s decided otherwise.

Tifa waves goodbye to Barret and makes her way to the station with greater haste.  She feels a knot in her stomach now that wasn’t there before.  She thinks, What if the power goes out on Sector 1?  How will all those people survive?  What about the hospitals?  The trains?  She knows what Barret would tell her.  He’d say, “Nothing worth fighting for was ever won without sacrifice!”  That’s his go-to line these days.

At the train station, a few workers dressed in suits and a Shinra train operator are crowded around the stairs.  Tifa doesn’t think much of it--after all, Midgar’s a big place, filled with rowdy people.  Commotions at the station, even this early in the morning, happen all the time.  In fact, Tifa nearly walks past it without a second glance.

But it’s when the crowd shuffles a little, and she’s finally able to see through it, that she finally stops to take one, curious look.

And that’s when she sees him.

She blinks a few times.  She doesn’t trust her eyes--why would she, after seven years of radio silence?  Why should she expect to see him here, of all places?  But the combination of traits, unique to only him, is undeniable.  Blond hair, styled into harsh spikes.  Slumped shoulders.  A chiseled jawline, almost harsh, coming to a sharp point at the chin.

She can’t believe it.  It really is Cloud Strife.

*

*

*