Vagrants Rhapsody (part 20 of 27)

a Final Fantasy 7 fanfiction by PnkPanther9

Back to Part 19
Two mirrors face each other, an infinite sea of reflections that lead on 
to nowhere. They greet one another similarly, their expressions blank, 
but in their gleaming faces the world can be seen multiplied, over and 
over again...

This was her mind. She made her hopes into dreams that reflected those 
of the world.

The world said that love meant marriage, and marriage meant children, 
and children meant grandchildren, and so on and so forth. The world said 
that love was a fairytale, and that love fit into destiny, and destiny 
fit into life. So if life were a fairytale, she dreamt she were the 
princess. She wanted to be the princess. All girls her age wanted to be 
the princess, so why couldn't she?

After all, each princess had a knight to protect them.

"Whenever I'm in trouble, my hero will come to rescue me. I want to 
experience that at least once."

But she had no knight in shining armor. The one she believed to be her 
savior came too late, and nearly died in his battle. What the girl had, 
instead, was a martial artist; her mentor. A man, weakened by age, who 
used his final shred of strength to rescue her from the fiery clutches 
of death. Unable to stay with her, this man left her in the belly of a 
beast.

Midgar.

And even after waking alone in this place, she still dreamed and 
believed in something better and bigger than what her heart seemed to be 
drowning in. Yet she could not believe in the idea of the princess any 
longer. She was not a princess, and never would be.

So she became a fighter.

She sought to heal and to mend, she sought to stop the tyranny of a 
terrible organization and liberate the lives of thousands.

In her attempts, she and her companions killed thousands.

And yet, even after her mistakes, she plowed onward. Her failed knight 
had come back to her, broken as she had once been, in the belly of the 
beast. But he remembered nothing of his failings, and instead believed a 
fabrication of the past.

Fearing the consequences of her correction, the woman remained silent. 
But even after her dreams had been drenched in blood, somewhere in her 
heart, she felt a notable lift at the sight of her failed knight. Draped 
on his shoulders was the sheer cloth of tragedy and heroism. He became a 
work of art, one that drove her imagination upwards. ...Was what she 
felt love? Surely one could call their unlikely reunion a design of 
fate. But regardless of the truth, the fighter found herself falling 
into a familiar march of romanticism.

Round and round again, the beat went on.

As the cycle turned to repeat itself, the woman failed to see the part 
of her that chose to deny. There was a part of her that found itself 
constantly looking for the truth, yet lying, just the same. What sort of 
splintered spirit made a person contradict herself so much? Deny her so 
much?

The answer came in the woman who proclaimed love to a concept. The 
answer came in the woman who sought spirits in mountains. The answer 
came in the woman who kept her heart in a tin box buried deep in her 
mind.

Tifa Lockhart.

She was lost in a place lit with warm streetlights, the concrete 
stretching on and on as if never ending.

She was looking into a mirror.

She was certain the street she gazed down was a bare and empty 
continuation of nothing; a reflection of her heart.

And in turn she reflected this dimly lit world, vague and unfamiliar. 
She felt it as intensely as any recognized emotion.

"Make it go away," the woman breathed.

She had wandered out onto the streets, away from The Neon Carnivale. She 
no longer saw it as a place for escape, but rather, a prison, one of 
demoralization and endless torment. Her skin crawled and she wanted to 
leap out of it.

"Make it stop. Make it stop."

Her senses slowed and dulled as they were, recognized that she was 
somewhere unfamiliar. Tifa's despair, however, led her to apathy.

The only thing she wanted was for everything to disappear.

The woman paused long enough to lean against a cold brick wall, her 
breathing heavy as she reached her hands up to her face and forcefully 
pressed her fingers into her eyes. "Make it go away!" the woman hissed.

Though dimly aware of her surroundings, the woman was somehow caught in 
her head, and all she could recall was Chauncey's greedy hands clutching 
at her skin, all she could recall was Yuffie's broken expression...

And it had been all her fault.

"Make it go away!" Tifa shouted, falling to her knees.

Tears slipped between her fingers as she bowed her head.

Magicians often used mirrors to fool their audiences. Somehow, Tifa had 
done the same, using smoke, lights, and a clever diversion of attention 
to arrive at different conclusion than what her heart wished.

The world said happy endings consisted of families and old age. The 
world said normal was good, different was bad, and forever could only 
exist between two opposites.

The world offered many good excuses.

And she used all of them.

But never did her heart believe in these things. It was the mind, feeble 
as it was, that stumbled along this commonly used path. But even Tifa's 
mind knew that she was not common, not by any stretch of the definition.

Tifa's hair fell about her face in miserable wisps, their strands 
lifting with each gust of the wind. Her dress was a wrinkled mess, and 
her eyes were red and swollen. Her body moved uncertainly, unsteadily, 
both a result of her mental state as well as her intoxication.

Tifa was in distress. She found herself the prey of her own demons, the 
world coming down on her in a rain of expectations and condemnations.

"...Tifa?"

The woman dropped her hands and turned her head, her glistening eyes 
spotting a man coming toward her hurriedly.

"My god, it is you!"

The man knelt quickly next to her, and his bright green eyes met hers.

Roland was gazing at her in surprise and deep concern, his handsome face 
producing the slightest wrinkle as he frowned at her. "Ms. Lockhart, 
what are you doing out here alone?"

Tifa gazed at him with soulless eyes. "I made a mistake..." she croaked 
after a moment. Turning her head, she looked down at her hands. 
"Everything came undone. I...I made a terrible mistake!" the woman's 
voice strained at these last words, her eyes quickly filling with tears. 
Covering her mouth, Tifa looked away and pressed herself to the wall; 
ashamed and wishing that she could fade into nothing.

Roland gazed at her in distress. Turning his head, his eyes fell on the 
companion he was with. "Mason, help me. I don't think we should leave 
her here like this..."

Mason, a tall man with dark hair that swept about his ears, approached 
him, a frown on his face. He was dressed in a large gray coat, a white 
button up shirt tucked into his pants. Gesturing with a broad hand, 
Mason asked in a deep and clear voice, "Who is this?"

Roland glared at him as he wrapped Tifa's limp arm around his shoulders. 
"Didn't you hear me? This is Tifa Lockhart!"

Mason's gray eyes bugged, and he gazed at Tifa in bewilderment. 
"But...But she's completely out of it! Are you sure this is her?"

Roland's patience grew thin. "Mason will you quit asking questions and 
just help me for gods sake?"

The man's lips pursed, but he did as he was told.

----------

It was all white.

Tifa's eyes gazed forward uncertainly, their narrowed vision blurred 
further from sleepiness.

Her hand clutched at the sheets about her, and they felt unfamiliar 
against her fingertips. Sitting up carefully, the woman looked down at 
her clothes in confusion. A man's worn t-shirt. The t-shirt was large 
and long, so that it reached down to Tifa's thighs. The front of it had 
a martini glass and read, "Costa del Sol's Annual Martini Festival."

Alarm gripping her, the woman looked quickly around.

The room she was in was not her hotel room, but rather, someone's 
bedroom. She was sitting in a large bed with white sheets and a dark 
comforter, the walls painted gray and the furniture painted black. The 
curtains were pulled over the window to the right so that no sunlight 
came through, and in the mirror on her left, Tifa could see a reflection 
of herself. Her hair was disheveled and she was pink about the eyes and 
nose.

Repulsed at the sight, the woman looked away.

Memories of the night before trickled into her conscious, and Tifa's 
body sagged as she gazed ahead at the closed door across from the bed. 
"I've ruined it all..." the woman breathed in despair. Turning her head, 
she noticed on the bedside table a framed photograph of a certain young 
man with light hair and bright green eyes. "Roland." Tifa said, her 
stomach now twisting in discomfort. Burying her face in her hands, the 
woman groaned, "Shiva I've been so terrible..."

A creak.

Tifa lifted her head with a jerk, her puffy eyes turning wide.

Roland peeked uncertainly around the door, his face pulled in concern as 
he gazed at Tifa in the bed. Seeing she was awake, the man carefully 
slipped into the bedroom, his bare feet making no sound on the carpeted 
floor. Shuffling towards the bed, the man pulled his pajama pants up a 
little as he sat carefully on the edge. Eyes trained on Tifa, he asked 
in a low voice, "How are you feeling?"

Tifa blinked at him, then turned her gaze downwards. "I have a bit of a 
headache...but it'll go away."

The man nodded, pressing his lips together.

A pause.

Tifa swallowed and said suddenly, "I'm sorry for being such a bother. 
I...I only met you yesterday and yet-"

Roland shook his head. Patting her foot, he said soothingly. "Hush. No 
good person would have left you there. I would have hated myself if I 
ignored you."

Tifa's chin crumpled and she pulled her legs up to her chest. "You're 
too kind. Compassion like that shouldn't be wasted on a person like me."

Roland frowned at her, leaning forward and gazing up into Tifa's 
down-turned face, the man waited until the woman hesitantly met his 
gaze. "What happened last night? From what I could tell, you were more 
distraught than drunk."

Tifa swallowed, "...I went out with Chauncey."

At the mention of his cousin's name, the man's face hardened and he 
asked in a stern voice, "And what did that idiot do?"

The fighter's lip trembled and she looked away.

Roland touched her knee. "Tifa...did he hurt you?"

Tifa quickly shook her head. "No! No...I-" she swallowed, trying 
desperately to keep from crying. "It was my fault." She eventually 
managed.

Now Roland gazed at her in confusion. "Your fault?" he shook his head. 
"I don't understand."

The fighter bit her lip and looked up at the ceiling. Tears filled her 
eyes, and she hastily wiped them away. "I never was interested in him. 
He was like so many other guys I had met. Cocky, stupid, handsome...but 
he seemed like such a good excuse."

"Excuse? You saw Chauncey as an excuse?"

Tifa nodded her head once. "You can't feel jealous if you haven't got 
anything to be jealous for."

Roland gazed at her blankly. "I'm sorry honey, I don't think I follow."

The woman smiled brokenly. "You were right before, Roland. The 
dress...it...it was for her. I wanted to wear the dress for her."

"Her?" the man's frown deepened, but realization soon set in as his mind 
recalled their previous meeting at the store. "Ahhh!" he said, tilting 
his head back and smiling. "So you really cared for her then?" but his 
face returned quickly to a scowl as he pieced Tifa's reasoning together. 
"So you tried to lie to yourself? Tried to make yourself believe there 
was never a chance to begin with? And with Chauncey of all people!"

Tifa hugged herself tighter, burying her face in her knees. "I know!" 
she cried, her voice straining as she neared breaking down into tears.

Roland's face softened considerably to hear her. Sighing, he looked down 
at the bed covers. "That never works. You just hurt yourself more when 
you do that...and worse yet, you hurt others too." The man glanced at 
her, now regretting his stern tone. "But I just can't understand it. Why 
would you do something like that? Are you really so afraid of what the 
world thinks to get involved with someone you don't even like?"

Tifa sniffled. "...I don't know."

Roland blinked. "...You don't know?"

"I don't know." The fighter glanced at him meekly.

"But you have to know." Roland smiled slightly in disbelief. "It's one 
thing to be confused about your sexuality, it's another thing entirely 
to be confused of what you're afraid of!"

Tifa shook her head helplessly. "I honestly don't know!"

The man blinked his green eyes, confounded. Running a hand through his 
hair, he sighed. "Well this is certainly odd..."

Tifa shifted to the side of the bed, slipping her legs out of the covers 
and placing her feet on the floor. "Thank you, Roland." She stood 
slowly, her head aching slightly at her movements. "I think...it'll be 
best if I leave now."

Roland gazed up at her with genuine concern. "What will you do?"

"I'm not sure." Tifa answered honestly. She looked down at her feet. "I 
guess I'll just go back home. Yuffie will be gone by now. I can't 
imagine why she'd stay. Maybe she's already on a ship to Junon." The 
woman swallowed and hugged herself. "There won't be anyway for me to 
reach her."

Roland bit his lip and looked down at his lap.

Tifa turned to him, her face apologetic. "How much should I pay you? For 
letting me stay here? I know it's a superficial way of showing my 
gratitude, but I don't know what else I can do to repay for your 
kindness."

Roland shook his head adamantly. "No!" he stood and moved to her, his 
hands touching her arms tenderly. "No, no, sweetheart. You don't need to 
repay me."

Tifa shook her head in return, "But please! I've been such a bother, you 
have to let me pay you back!" her tone broached on pleading.

Roland sighed and cupped her face in his hands. After a moment, he said, 
"You wanna know what you can do for me? You can have breakfast with me. 
With me and Mason."

Tifa hesitated, but after a moment, she smiled and nodded. "A-All 
right..."

The man smiled warmly. "Brilliant." He turned and began to walk toward 
the door. "Help yourself to the bathroom. Your dress is hanging on the 
door and your shoes are to the side of it." He opened the door and 
prepared to walk out.

Tifa started forward with a jerk. "Wait!" Roland looked back at her 
curiously. "Whose Mason?" she asked shyly.

Roland grinned. "He's my lover."

Tifa stared as he disappeared through the door.

Looking down at herself with raised eyebrows, the woman muttered, "Well, 
at least its good to know I wasn't taken advantage of..."

----------

Mason immediately came across as a strong-minded fellow who went about 
things as efficiently as he could. His handshake had been firm, and his 
voice was solemn. Roland had stood at Tifa's side at their introduction, 
his lips turned up at the corners as he regarded his lover with a bright 
gaze.

Mason, after taking one look at Tifa, stated clearly, "You're going to 
have a plate of pancakes and eggs. It'll do you good." And before she 
could say anything on her own behalf, the man disappeared into the 
kitchen, pots and pans clanging and ringing as he set to his task.

Tifa, bewildered at Mason's brusque behavior, gazed uncertainly at 
Roland.

Roland smiled apologetically at her. "He's nervous." He explained 
softly.

Soon the woman's plate was ready and she was at the table, her food set 
before her.

But Tifa hesitated, her eyes turning forlorn at the sight of the 
pancakes.

Roland, his own food in front of him, gave her a curious look as he 
salted his eggs. "What's the matter? You don't like your eggs fried?"

Tifa blinked and looked up at him in distraction. "Pardon?"

The man's gaze grew soft. "What is it? Your expression is wistful."

The fighter stared at him blankly for a moment before returning her gaze 
to her plate. "Pancakes are...her favorite."

"Whose favorite?"

Tifa jumped as Mason sat down across from her, his gaze probing. Roland 
sighed and looked at him with mild annoyance. "Mason, you're being 
abrasive." He scolded.

Mason slouched apologetically.

Tifa shook her head. "No, that's fine..." gazing at Mason shyly, she 
explained. "I was talking about my friend...Yuffie. She loves pancakes."

"Yuffie? So Yuffie Kisaragi is in Costa del Sol as well?"

"Well...she was. I'm almost certain she's left now." Tifa muttered her 
gaze turning downward.

"You can't know that." Roland said, trying to offer a bit of optimism.

The woman gazed at him miserably. "You didn't see her last night."

"Why don't you explain it to us?" Mason said simply.

Roland glared at him.

The dark haired man shrugged in response. "It would help us understand!"

Tonguing his cheek, Roland offered him one last dirty look before 
turning back to Tifa. "Well?" he asked lightly, "DO you want to tell us 
what happened? ...You don't have to if you don't want to." He added 
quickly.

Tifa sighed and looked up at them both.

Sometime later, the fighter had explained everything from Yuffie's 
sudden arrival at her home, to Tifa's date with Chauncey. Towards the 
end of her tale, the woman became increasingly flustered and 
shame-faced, her shoulders slumping as she described Yuffie's reaction 
at the Neon Carnivale. When she was through, both Mason and Roland were 
gazing at her with thoughtful expressions their eyes keenly searching 
her face for any omitted details in her account. The woman blushed under 
such scrutiny.

"My! That's quite a tale."

"Yes...very interesting."

Both men sat back and put on pondering faces.

Feeling almost as if she were being judged, Tifa cleared her throat. 
"I'm sorry I took so long explaining." Anxiously, she shifted in her 
chair. "I guess I got carried away..."

Roland, his hand covering half his face, looked at the woman with eyes 
that suggested he was smiling. "No need to apologize. We wanted to 
understand...and now I think..." he looked to Mason. "Mason, did you 
draw the same conclusion as me, or am I just silly?"


The man looked at him calmly. "I think we're thinking the same thing."

Roland nodded his head and made a small, "Hmm."

Tifa looked between them both nervously. "What? What are you both 
thinking?"

Roland looked at her. "Your way of recounting all that had happened to 
you was rather interesting. When it came to time, people, and things, 
you seemed to gloss over details. ...But you seemed to remember colors 
and sensations pretty well. You also seem to remember conversations very 
well, too. The conversations between you and Ms. Kisaragi, I mean."

Tifa gazed at him, bemused. "But I spent most of my time with her. That 
isn't so strange, is it?"

Mason sat forward and laced his fingers together. "The pitch and tone 
your voice took suggested otherwise. You spent time with others, but you 
seem to recall better what your friend did over all of them."

Roland smiled complacently. "You love her." He shrugged. "That's all 
we're saying by this."

Tifa blinked at him, surprised at his candidness. "Love her?" she 
repeated her eyebrows rising high and her cheeks turning rosy.

Mason raised an eyebrow. "Yes. Is it so hard to believe?" The woman 
gazed across at him helplessly.

Roland reached over and grabbed the woman's hand. "You've got this fear 
in you, I can see it. You took a chance leaving your home the way you 
did back in Tiesmire, and suddenly you found yourself back in this crazy 
place," Roland rolled his eyes about the room, "This world. It is 
frightening. And your mind was still somehow mired in memories of your 
struggle against Shinra and the general, Sephiroth, yes?" He gave her 
hand a slight squeeze. "But you shouldn't let the past stop you. In 
anything that you do. Your fear of disappointment and pain was what was 
hindering you all along. Don't you see? Love came to you in a different 
form and you didn't understand it. You feared it because you were so 
certain that it would come crashing down on you in more ways than one. 
You pushed it away, trying to deny that you ever wanted it to begin 
with. But its like I said, that doesn't work. That doesn't work at all."

Tifa gazed at Roland with wide eyes. At first, she thought the man was 
insane. She was still looking into her mirror, her mirror that was the 
world, and the world insisted that the matter was different entirely. 
But something squirmed in Tifa's heart at the earnest expression that 
was on Roland's face. Fearfully, she turned her mind and looked back to 
all the things that had happened to her before.

In her past, she recalled warmth and a feeling of joy.

Yuffie's smile.

Yuffie's laugh.

Yuffie's eyes.

But even in her memories she could see how the hesitation had snaked 
about her limbs and mind, restraining her when her feelings threatened 
to spill over. Always were the words, "It would never work." Or "It's 
wrong."

Excuses.

They were just excuses.

She had seen it in the wrong way. She had misinterpreted her own fears 
to believe that she cared what the world thought...in reality, she had 
simply been afraid of failure. Been afraid of the pain.

Knights had failed her. Others had abandoned her. She had been let down 
many-a-time before. Could she truly allow herself to try again with 
something so unfamiliar? Was the possibility of pain worth it? After 
suffering so much already, was it really worth it?

The world gave her the means to deny the truth, and she took it.

But now the smoke cleared and Tifa's eyes were looking in the right 
direction. No more concepts, no more fairytales, no more lies.

The mirror cracked.

Along the broken rivulets, the woman could see the light seeping between 
the glass fragments.

She had feared her own selfishness, she had feared her own 
deceitfulness, and in turn, she saw Yuffie as some foreign, strange 
thing, capable of permanently breaking what was left of her spirit. Not 
certain of this new path and where it would lead, the woman clung to her 
past dreams.

Family, knights, normality...

But 'normal' was an abstract word, and it suddenly hit Tifa that she 
didn't understand it...and never had.

...A talking beast with a flaming tail.

...A revolutionary with a gun for an arm.

...A robotic fortune-telling cat.

Tifa's life consisted of characters of such extreme shades that the 
world now lit to become a fluorescent show of colors. All that separated 
people seemed to be thin black lines, lines which could easily be erased 
or reshaped at one's will. In such a world, could the word 'normal' hold 
any weight?

At the look on the woman's face, Roland sat back and gave her hand one 
last squeeze before letting go. Mason, finishing off his plate, asked 
simply, "So are you going to try and find her? Tell her how you feel?"

Tifa gazed across the table at him, her eyes hazy. "I...don't think I 
could find her."

Roland bit his lip. "Well, if she really loves you, I'd imagine she'd 
still be there. At your hotel. She might even be waiting for you."

The woman looked at him sharply.

After a brief second, she stood up. "I have to go."

As she hurried back to the bedroom, Mason called after her, "If you 
could fold that t-shirt your wearing and just place it on the bed, I'd 
very much appreciate it!"

Roland reached over and slapped the man's shoulder.

Mason glared at him. "It's my favorite shirt!" he snapped.

Roland sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Mason..."

----------

The taxi ride from Roland's house seemed to take ages, especially when 
the driver managed to get stuck in morning traffic.

Tifa almost leapt out of the car in frustration when the driver began to 
hum to himself.

But eventually the traffic let up, and like blood freed from a clogged 
artery, the taxi was once again on its way to the Oceanside Inn. As the 
city went by in a blur, the fighter tried to keep her breathing steady; 
she wanted to be as calm as possible when she entered the hotel. But as 
she stared down at her upturned palms, the woman could see how her body 
shivered uncontrollably. Clenching her fists, she willed the nervous 
energy out of her limbs.

Finally the taxi arrived at its destination.

Tifa, annoyed with the driver, paid for the fare without tipping and 
entered through the hotel's front doors as quickly as she could.

But for all her hurry the woman could not help but pause at the painting 
near the entrance. Tifa's eyes trained on the face of the woman in the 
painting, her sunlit face striking a note in the woman that it failed to 
hit before.

"Ms. Lockhart?"

Otis gazed at her from his place at the reception desk, his eyes wide. 
"Ms. Lockhart there you are! You've been gone so long and your friend-"

Tifa's head snapped towards him. "Yuffie?" She hurried towards him. "Did 
she come back?"

"Yes! Yes she did! And-And-" The man stammered as Tifa hurried up the 
stairs. "Ah, Ms. Lockhart? Ms. Lockhart!"

But Tifa didn't stop. Yuffie had come back and now was her chance to 
make things right. Before it had been so easy to blame everything on 
circumstance, but this time, Tifa knew she was at fault, and she had to 
make amends for it.

But as she entered the hotel room, the key still in the doorknob, Tifa's 
world came to a screeching halt.

...The room was empty.

Stepping forward slowly, the woman looked around her with wide eyes, her 
body shaking terribly. Suddenly feeling exhausted, Tifa sat heavily on 
the edge of her bed, her eyebrows pressing together in distress as she 
gazed down at the carpet. Her eyes began to burn.

Otis appeared at the door, his demeanor apologetic as he gazed quietly 
at Tifa's shivering form. When he spoke, his voice was low and 
embarrassed.

"What I was trying to tell you, Ms. Lockhart, was that Ms. Kisaragi came 
sometime last night and turned her key in. ...She...she's gone I'm 
afraid."

----------

"They were right."

This thought came to her in the most abstract of ways.

She was lying on her back, staring up at the ceiling when she suddenly 
imagined a butterfly fluttering away from her in a meadow. She wasn't 
sure why or how, but the image seemed to speak the words as clearly as 
if it were speech.

"They were absolutely right."

Mason and Roland, two people she had barely come to know, had figured it 
out before she did.

"I love her. Why else would it all hurt so much? I love her, that's just 
how it is." Tifa could feel two more drops of tears stream along the 
sides of her face and down into her ears, but she didn't wipe at them. 
There was no point in wiping them away. More would come in their wake.

At first she had thought, "Why. Why now? Why didn't this come before?"

But the answer was simple.

It was because the two had never really spoken before. Tifa, being 
second-in-command to Cloud (whom she then believed she loved) had little 
time to converse with Yuffie. At any rate, the ninja had been distracted 
by her goals (and illnesses; half the time the girl was fighting nausea 
elsewhere on Cid's ship and refused conversation.) And what could the 
two have done even if they could have talked? The pace of their 
adventure put a strain on everyone, no matter where they stood in the 
group. Amiable friendship came only after their struggle was done.

And with all the time in the world set between them, Tifa and Yuffie had 
come to understand each other better then they ever had together in 
Avalanche.

But that time was gone.

Tifa, through her continuous denial had managed to ruin her friendship 
with the one person she had come to love more than anything else.

"That's why it hurts so much..." the woman whispered. She turned onto 
her side and curled up into a ball, her dress bunching at her knees. 
"That's why..."

Tears spilled from her eyes at her movements, and through her blurred 
vision, the woman thought she saw phantoms. Chauncey, Roland, Mason, 
Otis, Vera, Mal, Barret, Cid, Cloud...

Yuffie?

Tifa's face pulled into a scowl as she saw light coming from the doorway 
leading out into the hall. In the door frame, a slim figure stood, her 
body rigid as the light cut around her form.

Tifa wiped at her eyes and lifted her body up halfway, her left arm 
supporting her body as she tried to make sense of what she was seeing.

"Yuffie...is that you?"

Yuffie gazed at her with hard eyes, her back straight and her shoulders 
squared. Her head was tilted back slightly, a defiant tilt of the chin 
that made her seem distant. Tifa's heart hammered against her chest as 
she sat completely upright, her lips parted in surprise. "You're back." 
was all the fighter could manage to say.

Yuffie exhaled through her nose, her hands clenching at her sides. 
Finally looking down at the ground, she said quietly, "I don't know why 
I'm here."

Crossing her arms, she leaned against the door frame and tongued her 
cheek, her hair falling about her eyes. "Otis gave me back the hotel 
key. Said you'd only got here two hours ago..."

Tifa rubbed her arm. "Yeah, I slept somewhere else last night."

Yuffie's jaw clenched. "Where were you?"

The fighter's head jerked up when she realized what the girl was 
thinking. "I wasn't with Chauncey!" she said quickly, desperate to 
dispel the thought from Yuffie's mind. "I left him at the club. I...I 
don't even know what happened to him." Tifa sighed, "I went wandering 
around last night. A friend gave me a place to stay."

Yuffie didn't say anything to this. Instead she swallowed and looked up 
at the ceiling.

The silence that came after Tifa's words was thick and stifling. The 
woman, her mind fearing the girl's reticence, willed Yuffie to say 
something.

The girl, as Tifa thought this, had been tapping her fingers on her 
arms, idly gazing around at everything else but the fighter. As she 
turned her head and tapped, the scowl on her face grew increasingly 
intense with the passing time, and soon, tears began to show in her 
eyes.

Turning suddenly, the girl shut the door, a shaky sigh escaping her lips 
as she pressed her forehead against it.

Speaking in a low voice, she said, "At first I couldn't believe it. My 
legs...I couldn't feel them."

Tifa closed her eyes to hear Yuffie speak.

Yuffie pressed her palms to the door tenderly, as if it were a living 
thing. "It all hit me so fast I wasn't sure what to do. Cry? Scream? A 
bunch of things ran through my head at once. The biggest thing I thought 
was 'why?' 'Why am I seeing this?' Why would she do this?'" Yuffie grit 
her teeth and slammed her palm into the wood. "And that idiot! I wanted 
to kill him!"

Tifa swallowed, her throat tightening unbearably. "Yuffie-"

"When I came back here to the hotel, I was ready to leave. I didn't care 
where I was going anymore, I just needed to get away." The girl turned 
and leaned back against the door, her head tilted all the way back. "By 
then I decided I'd rather be angry than let myself drop into some stupid 
depression...but as I rode out on my bike, I felt the wind at my 
back...and I felt empty. I stopped at some run-down motel on the 
outskirts of town and barely slept at all. By the time the morning came, 
I felt worse than before. My plan failed. I couldn't stay angry. I 
wanted to, but I couldn't." Yuffie tilted her head forward and looked at 
Tifa, who still had her eyes closed. "I wish I was as shallow as 
everyone seems to think I am. Maybe then, none of this woulda been such 
a big deal."

Tifa looked at Yuffie sorrowfully. "Yuffie...I'm sorry."

The girl scowled, her body recoiling at the woman's words. "Save it!" 
the ninja snapped. She pushed off the door with her shoulders and 
stepped further into the room, her hands jamming into her back pockets. 
"I don't want your apology. It won't make me feel better. What I want is 
an explanation." Yuffie turned her gaze on the fighter, her eyes 
searing. "You still have to make me understand. I've broken some 
promises myself, but I can't wrap my head around this one."

She wanted her to explain?

Tifa paused, her mind churning as she tried to gather herself enough to 
speak. The ninja mistook her brief silence as hesitation, however, and 
barked, "Just give me an excuse! A lie! Anything! Fool me with some 
stupid reasoning and I'll just live with that!"

Tifa looked at her sharply, her eyes lighting some. "I can't just lie to 
you!"

"So tell me the truth, then!" Yuffie half-shouted, leaning forward 
slightly as the words burst from her lips. "I'm sick of your bogusness! 
You've been screwing around with my head ever since we've come to this 
stupid city and I'm getting fed up with it!"

"I didn't like seeing you with her!" Tifa blurted out. Her body 
stiffened after saying this and she continued hurriedly, "With that 
girl. From the bakery, I mean."

Yuffie blinked, the anger draining from her body. "You...you saw us?"

Tifa nodded. "It made me jealous...but I didn't want to admit it. I 
didn't want to admit it because I had just rejected you and because I 
was still scared out of my wits that, somehow, if I allowed myself to be 
with you, something terrible would happen. So I asked Chauncey out. 
I...I can't recall the last time I did something so ridiculous." Tifa 
looked down at the floor. "The entire night, I tried to convince myself 
that I wasn't doing anything wrong... I tried finding the missing piece 
to make the ache in my chest go away, but I couldn't find what I was 
looking for. That's because it wasn't there. It never was. I wanted to 
feel whole. I...I wanted you, Yuffie." Tifa looked fearfully up at the 
girl, her hands wringing themselves in her lap.

Yuffie was gazing at her blankly, her eyes wide. "What're you saying?" 
she shook her head and her eyes became pained. "What the heck do you 
think you're saying to me right now? Is this some kind of game to you!?"

Tifa gazed somberly at the girl. "...I love you." She whispered.

Yuffie took a quick step back, her face pulling one of surprise. 
"No...that," her face pulled slowly into a scowl, and she shook her 
head. "That isn't," without warning, she stomped her foot. "That isn't 
fair! You can't just say that! You can't just say that after all the 
practical bull you shoved in my face yesterday morning! What about not 
getting ahead of your emotions and keeping realistic?" the girl pointed 
at herself energetically, "I'm not an on-and-off switch to fuck around 
with at your liking, Tifa!" Yuffie's face was pink, and her eyes were 
wide. Heaving, she stomped her foot again, a small cry ripping from her 
lips as she did so. "To HELL with you! To hell with you Tifa!" After 
saying this, the girl reeled back, and an agonized sound came from deep 
within Yuffie's throat. When she began to teeter Tifa rushed forward in 
alarm, catching the girl and hugging her tightly.

"To hell with you, Tifa..." Yuffie sobbed as the woman held her around 
the shoulders, her expression tender. The girl huddled herself in the 
woman's embrace, hands pressing at Tifa's shoulders. "This is my heart 
you're messing with...my heart... You can't keep twisting it around, you 
can't, or I'll die..."

"Do you want me to take what I said back?" the woman asked sadly.

Yuffie shook her head against Tifa's shoulder. "Don't ask me that." She 
whispered.

Tifa frowned, genuinely confused. "Why?"

Yuffie lifted her head and looked at Tifa. The woman's breath held to 
see the girl's eyes so tender and anxious, her cheeks moist from her 
tears. "Because I'll never have an answer." The girl breathed shakily.

"Does that mean you're going to leave?" Tifa asked, distraught.

The girl smiled wryly. "Dummy. You don't get it, do you?" She pressed 
her forehead to Tifa's. "I lied to you. I knew exactly why I came back 
here..."

Tifa swallowed. "Why did you come back?"

Yuffie looked at her with a warm gaze. "...It's because I love you, 
Tifa."

"...What?"

"I said I love you. That's why you can't lie to me. If you do, I won't 
be able to take it." The girl buried her face in Tifa's neck, her arms 
coming around and holding onto the fighter fiercely. She began to 
shiver, and Tifa, feeling her heart throb at the girl's vulnerability, 
tightened her embrace.

Suddenly, she wished she could take the ninja into herself, to make her 
realize the strong sense of feeling she elicited in Tifa's soul. The 
girl had become such an important part of the woman's life in such a 
short time...but that was the force of her personality. It was why so 
many failed to understand her.

Yuffie Kisaragi channeled the very essence of passion.

"Yuffie..." Tifa whispered, her voice thick with emotion.

The girl lifted her head, her eyes warily gazing at Tifa through a 
curtain of hair. Brushing the hair behind the girl's ear, the woman 
caressed Yuffie's cheek with her thumb, her eyes half-closed. The woman 
could feel the girl's warm breath against her parted lips, and Tifa 
could feel her mind turn hazy.

She wanted Yuffie to understand. The girl had to understand...

...How much Tifa needed her.

Leaning forward slowly, the woman pressed her lips firmly against 
Yuffie's.

...And there, the world slipped away into nothing.

Onwards to Part 21


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