What If? [Final Fantasy VIII, Cloud/Tifa, G]
Title: What If?
Author: Valk
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Word Count: 650
Prompt: Final Fantasy VII, Cloud/Tifa: Reminiscing about never was - "What do you think would have happened if you/I hadn't gone into SOLDIER?"
…
It was night like many others. The smog-free sky since Shinra’s downfall revealed the glittering stars to the population below. It was good thing to see after all the fighting.
Tifa Lockhart felt it was worth all the battles, the blood, and the scars when she saw the stars looking down. They’d always been special to her. A legend passed down in Nibelheim said that the stars were actually the bonded souls of all soulmates. Once their physical forms found one another on Gaia, the star for their soul would shoot across the sky, ecstatic that they’d found each other.
She remembered the shooting star the night she’d met Cloud by the well. It took her by surprise at first, but then she went into a phase of denial, repeatedly thinking that the star was meant for someone else.
Now, ten years later, she knew it was indeed their star.
A smile crossed her face as the roar of a motorcycle’s engine died out and footsteps went inside the house. She sat on the roof of her bar, watching the stars as she waited, counting the seconds.
He just finished taking off his travel gear. Now, he’s headed upstairs to say goodnight to Marlene. Next, out to the hall and five steps to the right to get to Denzel’s room and do the same. Finally, he’ll check their room to see if she’s in bed-though she never is anymore-and then check the roof for her.
As if on cue, the master bedroom window slid up and his feet swung up, flipping and landing easily onto the roof. Tifa turned with a smile to greet him as he walked over and sat on the blanket next to her, automatically leaning in to kiss her in greeting.
He pulled back and frowned as her took in her expression. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head with a smile. “Nothing’s wrong… I was just thinking.”
He settled in next to her, wrapping an arm around behind her. “What about?”
“Do you remember when we met at the well?”
“Of course.”
“Well… Do you ever wonder what it would be like if you hadn’t gone to join SOLDIER?”
He looked at her, blue eyes tinged with a sudden minor worry for her sanity. If there’s one thing Tifa wasn’t, it was regretful. “No… Why?”
“I was just thinking… What if our star danced at a later date? What if you and I fled burning Nibelheim together?”
“Tifa, don’t-”
“I’m not saying things would be all bad. I mean, if we’d fled together, maybe we wouldn’t have gone to Midgar. Maybe we wouldn’t have joined AVALANCHE. Maybe we-”
“Never would have met any of our friends, including Marlene and Denzel.”
She turned her gaze from the stars and down to the white toes of her high-tops. “I can’t imagine life without them now.”
“Then stop. Our life is how it is because of what we’ve done. Yes, I have regrets. But I… I like my life now. I like our lives now. I’m happy here with our small, weird family. Life is hard, yes, we work hard every day and we barely scrape by sometimes. But it’s worth it. We have a home, two great kids, and we have each other. We don’t need to look back on what ‘could be’ or what ‘we should have done.’ There’s no going back. We are who we are.”
Her gaze slowly turned back up to meet with his. That was the most she’d heard him say in one breath in a long time. “Cloud…”
“Tifa, what we have is what we’ve built. Don’t be upset with that.”
She smiled at him and scooted a little closer, leaning up to kiss him on the lips. “You know, it’s times like this that I really love you.”