Fic: Half Forgotten (Dissidia)
This was written ages ago as a Secret Santa gift for valentineninja over at ffchaoticcosmos, and somehow I neglected to cross post it here for ages. Which I guess is kind of fitting, given the title. Better late than never!
Title: Half Forgotten
Rating: PG
Summary: The twelth cycle rages on as Tifa struggles to remember something- anything- about the strange soldier that saved her.
The first time it really hits her is when Yuna tells them about Tidus. It’s been clear to all of them that something has been bothering the Summoner, but it’s not until a few weeks after the incident that she lets herself be coaxed into retelling the story for those that didn’t witness it. She sounds halfway between laughter and tears as she tells them what she remembers from her life before, how much happiness this strange new arrival had brought her on her journey, how they’d been pulled apart just at the moment where they should have been celebrating a new life together.
She’s already described how devastating it was to finally find him, only for him not to remember her, and has moved on to telling them about the Emperor’s appearance at Dream’s End by the time Tifa realises her mind is picturing the grey stone and cold green rush instead of a fiery arena. Instead of desperate looks, curious glances and turned backs; instead of passionate pleas, stilted sentences and silences so loud even fireworks wouldn’t drown them out.
She thinks of how it must feel to have your heart soar when you see a loved one so suddenly, so unexpectedly- familiar, her mind comes up with before she can be sure she’s not imagining it.
Her eyes sting and her throat burns but she sits there, perfectly still, until Yuna falls silent. Then she stands quickly, offering to take first watch, desperate to do anything that doesn’t require her to talk or think about Cloud.
-
That’s not to say she hasn’t thought about him at all between their meeting and this point- quite the opposite. The fact is she finds her thoughts drifting back to him more often than she’d like to admit, and not just when battles with copies of him might prompt her to do so. Sometimes it’s when she first wakes up, wondering if their paths will cross again today; sometimes it’s when they’re hopelessly lost again, idly guessing what direction he might choose; sometimes it’s just in the quieter moments when there’s little else to occupy her mind.
At first, she tries to justify it to herself. Their meeting was pretty unique, after all- it’s not every day you find yourself rescued from an enemy by someone who also claimed to be an enemy, right? To her, it was clear that there was something more to him than he was letting on. Whether or not her guess had been right, he just didn’t seem to fit in with what she’d seen from the other warriors fighting for Chaos.
But there’s something else too lurking deep down- something more than that. No matter how blunt his dismissal had been, she can’t shake that creeping sense of déja vu that comes whenever she remembers him standing there, sword outstretched in cold confidence, ready to defend her.
-
He tells her that the next time they meet, it’ll be as enemies. She tells him he’s being ridiculous. He listens.
He makes to go. She rushes forward to grab his hand; their eyes meet. He doesn’t leave.
He tells her exactly why he saved her from Sephiroth.
She remembers something, anything, that makes all the difference.
It doesn’t matter how many nights she dreams of a different outcome to their meeting. She always wakes up disappointed.
-
“Something troubles you, Tifa.”
Tifa finds she can’t look at her, can’t look at the gentle expression she knows the goddess is watching her with. She could probably pass off the unworded question behind that statement with something about their fallen comrades, or the impossibility of the task facing them. She could smile and take her leave and keep her thoughts to herself.
She also knows that Cosmos wouldn’t believe a word of it.
So instead she asks, “It’s just...can you...I don’t know, sense warriors of Chaos?”
From the corner of her eye, she can see Cosmos shake her head. “No. They are not tied to me as you and your comrades are. Why is it that you ask?”
Tifa opens her mouth but hesitates, unsure of what to say. How can she possibly describe what happened, what’s been happening to her ever since? But Cosmos is patiently waiting, so eventually she forces herself to speak. “I...I met someone a while ago. A warrior of Chaos, I mean. He...saved me.” The words start to come easier and she almost stumbles over them in her rush to get them out. “He saved me from Sephiroth. Even though they’re both fighting on the same side, he saved me, and I thought I might recognise him from...from before, you know, when we spoke afterwards. When he said his name was Cloud, I really thought I might know him. He was a bit taller than me, lots of spiky blond hair, carried a large sword-”
Suddenly she realises that the silence under her words has grown too deep; she breaks off and turns abruptly to find Cosmos with her head bowed, looking desperately sad.
“C-Cosmos?” Tifa takes a wary step towards the goddess. “What is it? Do... do I know him?”
The goddess shakes her head. “That I cannot answer, because I do not know. I am sorry, Tifa, but all of your pasts are as clouded to me as they are to yourselves. But...” She trails off and for a long moment Tifa barely dares to breathe. “This warrior you speak of...I have taken him under my protection.”
Tifa’s heart leaps in her chest-
“But...he called to me only as he lay wounded.”
- and freezes-
“I am sorry, Tifa. Cloud is dead.”
- and then breaks all together.
-
Later on she wonders if maybe there was something she could have done- some way she could have repaid the favour by jumping in to help him out in his moment of need. She turns it over and over in her mind- if I’d taken this turn, gone to this place first, tried to track him down- even though she knows there’s no way she’ll ever get an answer.
Cosmos told her that Cloud’s last wish was that she should look after a friend of his, although he didn’t say who. She isn’t sure if it’s selfish to wonder whether it was her he was referring to.
She feels like crying, but she isn’t sure whether the tears are for him or for the chance she’ll never get now to ask him again whether there was more to them than strangers passing in battle.
In the end, she doesn’t shed a single tear, telling herself it’d be stupid to waste what he’d done for her that day in Planet’s Core. She keeps them all inside instead and doesn’t say a word to anyone.
-
When the end comes, it’s not at the hand of one of Cloud’s crystalline copies- that would almost seem too perfect, too fitting. Nor is it one of Sephiroth’s, which might come a close second with no Cloud here to defend her now. She thinks for a moment it might be a double of Exdeath that deals the final blow, but in the confusion she doesn’t even look closely, her mind too focused on taking down as many manikins as possible before her time’s up. In the end, after all, it really doesn’t matter- the end result is exactly the same. Her legs finally give out from underneath her and- battered, bruised, exhausted- she slumps forward.
And it’s at that moment-
- a calming presence behind her giving her the resolve to hold her head high as she approaches the rickety mountain bridge up ahead-
- rough wood under her hands; a shoulder pressing against hers as she asks for a promise-
- the way her breath catches in her throat at the sight of spiky blond hair at the far side of a station platform-
- a flower that sits alone in a glass at the end of a bar top until its white petals begin to shrivel-
- the last night of the world, falling asleep propped against one another under the stars-
- rock crumbling beneath her; a strong arm grabbing her and pulling her close; heaving each other to solid ground, working as a team-
- that the empty space in her memories seem to explode with colour and motion. She knows somehow, somewhere deep down, that this isn’t it- that this isn’t the full story- but it’s so much more than she’s come to hope for.
He’s lying safe under Cosmos’s care and she knows that soon he’ll rise again, ready to fight. Whether or not it’s her he meant to die for, she knows him, what he’s capable of, and that he can bring an end to all this.
And so a second later, when the world around her fades to nothing more than deep black silence, Tifa smiles.
Title: Half Forgotten
Rating: PG
Summary: The twelth cycle rages on as Tifa struggles to remember something- anything- about the strange soldier that saved her.
The first time it really hits her is when Yuna tells them about Tidus. It’s been clear to all of them that something has been bothering the Summoner, but it’s not until a few weeks after the incident that she lets herself be coaxed into retelling the story for those that didn’t witness it. She sounds halfway between laughter and tears as she tells them what she remembers from her life before, how much happiness this strange new arrival had brought her on her journey, how they’d been pulled apart just at the moment where they should have been celebrating a new life together.
She’s already described how devastating it was to finally find him, only for him not to remember her, and has moved on to telling them about the Emperor’s appearance at Dream’s End by the time Tifa realises her mind is picturing the grey stone and cold green rush instead of a fiery arena. Instead of desperate looks, curious glances and turned backs; instead of passionate pleas, stilted sentences and silences so loud even fireworks wouldn’t drown them out.
She thinks of how it must feel to have your heart soar when you see a loved one so suddenly, so unexpectedly- familiar, her mind comes up with before she can be sure she’s not imagining it.
Her eyes sting and her throat burns but she sits there, perfectly still, until Yuna falls silent. Then she stands quickly, offering to take first watch, desperate to do anything that doesn’t require her to talk or think about Cloud.
-
That’s not to say she hasn’t thought about him at all between their meeting and this point- quite the opposite. The fact is she finds her thoughts drifting back to him more often than she’d like to admit, and not just when battles with copies of him might prompt her to do so. Sometimes it’s when she first wakes up, wondering if their paths will cross again today; sometimes it’s when they’re hopelessly lost again, idly guessing what direction he might choose; sometimes it’s just in the quieter moments when there’s little else to occupy her mind.
At first, she tries to justify it to herself. Their meeting was pretty unique, after all- it’s not every day you find yourself rescued from an enemy by someone who also claimed to be an enemy, right? To her, it was clear that there was something more to him than he was letting on. Whether or not her guess had been right, he just didn’t seem to fit in with what she’d seen from the other warriors fighting for Chaos.
But there’s something else too lurking deep down- something more than that. No matter how blunt his dismissal had been, she can’t shake that creeping sense of déja vu that comes whenever she remembers him standing there, sword outstretched in cold confidence, ready to defend her.
-
He tells her that the next time they meet, it’ll be as enemies. She tells him he’s being ridiculous. He listens.
He makes to go. She rushes forward to grab his hand; their eyes meet. He doesn’t leave.
He tells her exactly why he saved her from Sephiroth.
She remembers something, anything, that makes all the difference.
It doesn’t matter how many nights she dreams of a different outcome to their meeting. She always wakes up disappointed.
-
“Something troubles you, Tifa.”
Tifa finds she can’t look at her, can’t look at the gentle expression she knows the goddess is watching her with. She could probably pass off the unworded question behind that statement with something about their fallen comrades, or the impossibility of the task facing them. She could smile and take her leave and keep her thoughts to herself.
She also knows that Cosmos wouldn’t believe a word of it.
So instead she asks, “It’s just...can you...I don’t know, sense warriors of Chaos?”
From the corner of her eye, she can see Cosmos shake her head. “No. They are not tied to me as you and your comrades are. Why is it that you ask?”
Tifa opens her mouth but hesitates, unsure of what to say. How can she possibly describe what happened, what’s been happening to her ever since? But Cosmos is patiently waiting, so eventually she forces herself to speak. “I...I met someone a while ago. A warrior of Chaos, I mean. He...saved me.” The words start to come easier and she almost stumbles over them in her rush to get them out. “He saved me from Sephiroth. Even though they’re both fighting on the same side, he saved me, and I thought I might recognise him from...from before, you know, when we spoke afterwards. When he said his name was Cloud, I really thought I might know him. He was a bit taller than me, lots of spiky blond hair, carried a large sword-”
Suddenly she realises that the silence under her words has grown too deep; she breaks off and turns abruptly to find Cosmos with her head bowed, looking desperately sad.
“C-Cosmos?” Tifa takes a wary step towards the goddess. “What is it? Do... do I know him?”
The goddess shakes her head. “That I cannot answer, because I do not know. I am sorry, Tifa, but all of your pasts are as clouded to me as they are to yourselves. But...” She trails off and for a long moment Tifa barely dares to breathe. “This warrior you speak of...I have taken him under my protection.”
Tifa’s heart leaps in her chest-
“But...he called to me only as he lay wounded.”
- and freezes-
“I am sorry, Tifa. Cloud is dead.”
- and then breaks all together.
-
Later on she wonders if maybe there was something she could have done- some way she could have repaid the favour by jumping in to help him out in his moment of need. She turns it over and over in her mind- if I’d taken this turn, gone to this place first, tried to track him down- even though she knows there’s no way she’ll ever get an answer.
Cosmos told her that Cloud’s last wish was that she should look after a friend of his, although he didn’t say who. She isn’t sure if it’s selfish to wonder whether it was her he was referring to.
She feels like crying, but she isn’t sure whether the tears are for him or for the chance she’ll never get now to ask him again whether there was more to them than strangers passing in battle.
In the end, she doesn’t shed a single tear, telling herself it’d be stupid to waste what he’d done for her that day in Planet’s Core. She keeps them all inside instead and doesn’t say a word to anyone.
-
When the end comes, it’s not at the hand of one of Cloud’s crystalline copies- that would almost seem too perfect, too fitting. Nor is it one of Sephiroth’s, which might come a close second with no Cloud here to defend her now. She thinks for a moment it might be a double of Exdeath that deals the final blow, but in the confusion she doesn’t even look closely, her mind too focused on taking down as many manikins as possible before her time’s up. In the end, after all, it really doesn’t matter- the end result is exactly the same. Her legs finally give out from underneath her and- battered, bruised, exhausted- she slumps forward.
And it’s at that moment-
- a calming presence behind her giving her the resolve to hold her head high as she approaches the rickety mountain bridge up ahead-
- rough wood under her hands; a shoulder pressing against hers as she asks for a promise-
- the way her breath catches in her throat at the sight of spiky blond hair at the far side of a station platform-
- a flower that sits alone in a glass at the end of a bar top until its white petals begin to shrivel-
- the last night of the world, falling asleep propped against one another under the stars-
- rock crumbling beneath her; a strong arm grabbing her and pulling her close; heaving each other to solid ground, working as a team-
- that the empty space in her memories seem to explode with colour and motion. She knows somehow, somewhere deep down, that this isn’t it- that this isn’t the full story- but it’s so much more than she’s come to hope for.
He’s lying safe under Cosmos’s care and she knows that soon he’ll rise again, ready to fight. Whether or not it’s her he meant to die for, she knows him, what he’s capable of, and that he can bring an end to all this.
And so a second later, when the world around her fades to nothing more than deep black silence, Tifa smiles.