Guided by Starlight Chapter 4
By Tifa Strife
"Tifa! Tifa!" Cloud ran over to her but she merely stepped back into the door.
He looked at her and didn't believe his eyes. How can this be possible? She was dead! Everyone knew that there was no way to bring back the dead, and was much as he wanted Tifa to come back to him he knew in his right mind that could never happen.
"Who are you?" She asked again timidly.
Cloud stepped away from her. He fell backwards into a chair and stumbled onto his back. Tifa went to go help him but he brushed her away. He tried getting up but knew it was useless, the tears were already sliding down his cheek.
"How can this be happening? How did you get back here?" he managed to say through the tears.
"That's the thing, I don't know how I got away from here. I woke up one day in the middle of no where. I had no clue where I was or how I got there. Someone told me where to go to get back here, and here I am. Please, tell me who I am. I can't remember a thing." She put her head in her hands and tried to fight back the tears.
Cloud sat there no the floor not knowing what to do. She didn't remember. She didn't remember him, their memories, their time together. She didn't remember their wedding, his proposal, their first date. Nothing. It was all gone.
"You are.." he said without finishing.
"Please tell me."
"You are..Tifa. Tifa Strife."
"She was right! She told me that was my name!"
"Who is she?" he asked picking himself up off the floor.
"A woman. She brought me to this place, the place I awoke. She wouldn't tell me her name or anything, she said someone else could explain it to me."
"Who would explain it to you?"
"My husband. I don't even know who he his. Can you tell me where to find him? The lady said he would be here somewhere." Tifa walked around behind him and looked the place over. Cloud sat there motionless, not even blinking.
"Well, what is your name at least?" Tifa said coming face to face with him. Cloud sensed right away that she was wearing the same perfume she always wore, his perfume.
"My name? Oh, my name. It's Cloud.."
"Do you have a last name?"
"Yes." He took her hand in his. She looked puzzled by this but didn’t refuse him.
"Cloud Strife. That is my name, and yours. You and I are married. We have been married for almost a year now. Tifa, you died a week ago."
Tifa jerked her hand away and slapped him. He didn't react to it and she slapped him again.
"How can you say such awful things?! And I would think when I met my husband again I could at least remember something about him. I have never seen you before in my life!" she said and ran away from him out the door. He tried perusing her but it was too late, she was lost in the shadows.
"Tifa please! Oh god, please wait." He said collapsing to his knees. He stood in the doorway feeling as helpless and small as he ever had.
***
Far away from him now, Tifa stopped to rest on a bench near a park. She sat there crying her eyes out and gasping for air between her sobs. What had she done? Her only chance to find out who she was, and she ran away from it. What had frightened her so much?
"He said I died. How could he say that? It's so sick and horrible. Is he really my husband?"
"Tifa." Said the same sad voice as before. "Tifa, please listen to me. I know this is so much for you to take in at once, but he is telling you the truth. He is your husband and you love him very much! Go back to him and let him sort things out for you."
"How do you know all of this? Who are you dammit, tell me!"
Tifa stood up screaming to the heavens above, but she never got a response. She walked around aimlessly for an hour finding that she brought herself back to the "Seventh Heaven." It was now dark inside and a sign was placed on the door.
"'Closed' Great job, Tifa." She said kicking the door. To her surprise it pushed open and revealed that Cloud was still sitting there drinking, but now there were several glassed on the table.
"Hello." She said keeping her head down.
Instantly he shot up and stared her back. His cheeks were red along with his blue mako eyes. Something in Tifa wanted to run over to him and cradle him in her arms, but it was all too soon.
"Tell me everything. I want to know." She said taking a seat next to him.
His lower lip quivered and he bit it hard to keep himself from crying. He knelt down on one knee and took a hold of her hand again. He placed it gingerly on his heart and put his hand on top of hers. She felt his heart beating fast and knew her heart must be beating faster than his.
"Don’t you remember, Tifa? Don't you remember that night?"
She looked down at her hand on his chest and back to his face. Nothing. She felt nothing, and she knew nothing. She closed her eyes.
"Try to remember, Tifa. Try." She told herself.
Somewhere in the corner of her mind a picture appeared. It was a man. He was tall and had eyes like emeralds, hair of silver. Tifa shuddered at the thought of him. He was so handsome, but an eerie presence was foreboding her about him. He was evil. Everything right down to his smile reeked of pure evil. It oozed out from everywhere on his body.
Tifa also saw something else. Another man came running up and faced the evil man. It was Cloud! He had a long sword and face full of hatred.
"A final battle." She said under her breath from her vision.
"Tifa?" Cloud still had her hand on his heart. He had no clue what she was thinking, but didn't want to disturb her. This might be the only way she can remember anything at all.
Tifa was lost in her own world. She saw Cloud slash the evil man over and over again till there was blood covering the both of them. A final battle, and it was a very important one. Cloud stood for good, and the other for evil.
"Sepiroth.." she whispered.
"Yes, Tifa, you remember! You and I, and the other, we fought Sepiroth."
"Me? I fought him?"
"Yes! You did. We all did. Keep trying to remember, Tifa."
The next picture was after the battle. Sepiroth was defeated, but there was something else was lingering in the air, something more dangerous. Cloud and Tifa were on a ledge when it suddenly broke apart separating them. Tifa reached her hand out to him but fell off the ledge herself. She fell a few yards before Cloud grabbed onto her and held on for the both of them.
'I think I'm beginning to understand it all.' He said
'Understand what?'
'Lifestream. I think I can find her there.'
'Yea, lets go find her.' Tifa hugged him closer to her and he pulled them up to safety. Now they sat together, understanding one another for the first time.
During the next ten minutes, the fate of the universe was decided. Meteor was crushed by the Lifestream and everything that threatened the planet was destroyed. All would be well again. A bright light shone before the faces of those 8 heroes. All but one looked away from that burning light, the leader. He had turned his head away from the past to many times, this time he was going to look forward into the future, and this was the future right in front of him.
Inside Tifa felt her chest being crushed as she remembered that moment, the intense heat ahead of them. She remembered not telling Cloud how she felt about him and wished she were braver to admit her feelings. No one knew the outcome of this all and prayed together that everything would be all right.
The light was finally upon them. It hit like a truck and knocked them off all their feet. This was it. Tifa felt herself blown back hitting the side of the airship. She hit her head very hard and cried hoping this wasn't the end. A foreign object slipped between her fingers intertwining them together. Someone had pulled her back to reality and held onto her so tight telling her not to lose hope. The wind rustled past her like a freight train, but that someone kept her from falling. He was so strong.
"You saved me." she said to Cloud. He said nothing but nodded. He did hold onto her during that time. He remembered it like yesterday. She was so cold and scared.
"I was so scared, Tifa. I was scared of everything. Of losing you and losing what we could have had. I didn't want to die alone, so I held you like you were mine. I pretended that you were mine for those last few moments."
"Why?"
"Why you ask. Because I loved you so much and I didn’t know it yet. I didn't know that I loved you so much it hurt me inside. And then you were mine, after all that time, you became my wife. And I still love you more than ever right now, I will always love you forever." He said, the tears falling onto his shirt, a few landing on her hand.
Tifa kept her eyes closed. She knew he loved her so much, but not even a sparkle of a feeling was inside of her for him. The only feeling she felt in her heart was emptiness. A kind of emptiness and loneliness that crept up on her so suddenly.
"I want to love you, but.."
"What? But you do love me, Tifa! You do!"
Cloud was shaking her viciously. He was so frustrated with her. He couldn’t believe that she didn't know anything, she couldn't even love him back. She forgot what it was like to be in love.
"I'm so sorry, Cloud! I don’t. I don't love you." Tifa took her hand from his heart and placed it on her lap, keeping her eyes to the floor. Cloud got up and rushed out the door slamming it behind him.
"I'm so sorry." She whimpered.
.