As Cloud faces an unexpected shadow over his life, Tifa receives a surprise visitor of her own . . .

~*'.~*.'~

On throbbing, close to numb feet, Cloud Strife ran. He soared down staircase after staircase, each one pounding with a sick, metal bang. The racket echoed through his skull. His breathing matched the panic of his heart.

Huff, huff . . .

All Cloud knew was that he was looking for someone. And he needed to run.

There were doors on either side of him now, and every single one of them got shoved by his ragged, desperate hands. This place was a fricking maze with empty dead ends. A fricking funhouse that thought "fun" was just another form of terror.

Huff . . .

But then there came one more staircase, one more room straight down below. Now Cloud's breath was nothing except sandpaper against lungs, but somehow, once he reached the secluded basement, he found enough air to gasp. Because there on the floor, tied in nasty knots with a mouth covered tight, was his friend Claire Farron. Her wild eyes made a beeline to Cloud's. All she did, and all she could really do, was force a muffled cry through the fabric sealing her voice.

"Damn—!"

Cloud thrusted himself forward. He saw his arm reach out for Claire to rip her free, but he didn't make it halfway. He couldn't, because the only thing ripping was Cloud's unsuspecting flesh. At the mercy of what felt like a double-edged blade, his abdomen singed several shades of pain.

"Hello, Cloud," came a wickedly velvet undertone from behind.

Seph . . .

Sephiroth Crescent had been waiting, and he let his knife stay right where he put it as his chuckle resounded—as Cloud buckled and crashed to his side. Everything inside Cloud was a burning whirlwind. The way Claire screamed, cried, and kicked through her binds only made the wind scrap deeper. Even though Cloud's vision was blurred by either tears or pain, he saw her eyes were still desperate, horrified pearls, and watched suit-clad legs slowly waltz over to her form.

"Don't despair, Cloud . . ." Seph, his silver hair a stringy mess over his face, fisted Claire by the bindings. "Your little friend here is going to be in very good hands."

Against brittle floor tiles, Seph continued to drag Claire away to somewhere beyond the room's shadows. Cloud couldn't feel himself breathe anymore. He just lied helplessly on numb bones, hot tears raking his face and extending a weak hand. The last thing he saw was Claire's mouth-wrap finally losing its restraint, and the last thing he heard was her tear-swollen cry.

"Cloud!"

Then there was nothing but sweat, a body jerking upward, and Cloud's ice-cold hands gripping silk bed sheets.

A dream. A fricking hell-born nightmare. He fell back down on his elbow, tried to grab his breath.

Cloud didn't have enough time to shut up the screams in his chest before his wife, Terra, stirred beside him. In an instant, the gentle fire of her hand met Cloud's arm, and suddenly reality bloomed.

"What's wrong?" came Terra's whisper.

Everything in Cloud just crumbled. All of his relief, fear, and confusion was clear as day. Everything was supposed to be fine now. Cloud's plan to save the pool with a unanimous petition was a success; Seph couldn't get his hands on it to twist it into some useless casino. They'd won that battle—Cloud's friends and all the folks that loved the pool—the victory was theirs. Seph lost for once in his manipulative life.

So, why . . . ?

Why does it feel like I'm on the edge of a goddamn cliff?

Cloud's reply to Terra's question was a desperate embrace. He thrusted naked, misted flesh into her delicate frame, and it was electric.

Though Terra was stiff from surprise, she hugged him back. "Oh—oh no, hey . . . Did you have a nightmare?"

Against her shoulder, Cloud nodded.

"Aww. You're okay, Cloud." Terra trailed soft lines on his back. "You're okay now. I promise."

Secretly, Cloud wasn't sure if he agreed.

🎶 ᴺᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ🎶

Tifa noticed, as her hand made solid movements to polish a glass, that it was a bit quiet right now in her little bar, Seventh Heaven. Of course, that wasn't overly strange for this hour, the time just barely scraping by the edges of late afternoon—this was never a super busy time for her. Somehow though, this quiet was different. It made her eye twitch at random, thoughtless moments. It made her want to straighten up her guard and sharpen it to a needle point.

". . . ."

Another couple minutes glided by, and Tifa's hands were still on the move. She waved a thin yet muscular arm across the bar counter, skillfully wiping it crystal clean in a flash. She stopped for a second, stared down her reflection in the cherry-brown granite. There was nothing visibly wrong with her, she noted, watching her brown locks hug her face as they usually did. Tifa sent her face up to the bar lights. They still shone with a golden honey-glaze, still dangled in loose patterns above the barstools.

Everything's dandy, the thought came strained and flat. For some reason, she wanted to believe that was a lie—that everything was in fact, not dandy at all.

So when her sight zipped over to the glass entry doors, and she saw a figure casting a silhouette over the sunlit city, she wasn't entirely surprised.

The figure was tall, bald-headed, and clad in a black suit that instantly dropped a sour bomb in Tifa's memory. She recognized this man straight away. She didn't want to, but she did—very well. And as the man gave an even push to the glass door and walked a few steps in, Tifa's thoughts did a three-sixty around that day at the pool, when Kain had proposed to Claire, and two supposed PIs flounced their sharp-suit asses in and crashed the party uninvited. This was that silent guy with the shades. He looked exactly the same, making the sight of him even sicker.

The bald man tugged on his suit jacket as he approached the barstools. His appearance was keen and stoic as heck, but there was something in the tap of his footsteps that seemed almost shy . . . or nervous.

Good, Tifa glared. Maybe you realized just whose bar you stepped in, buddy.

Before the man could get himself settled in the slightest, Tifa already had her tone polished and shined. "Are you kidding me?" she snarled. "What the hell are you doing here?"

His reaction was so small and quick, Tifa almost missed it. But even behind his shades, the man seemed slightly taken aback. "Name's Rude, FYI." The supposed PI, Rude, went ahead and seated himself on a stool. "And you can relax, alright? I'm not here on business."

Tifa's eyes didn't break their dangerous sheen. Not only did this guy crash their private pool party, but he also worked for that damned Sephiroth Crescent. If Cloud hadn't made up that petition to stop their favorite pool from becoming one of Sephiroth's ludicrous casinos, that pool would've been bulldozed and stolen from all the people who loved it. All the families who loved it. And the way Sephiroth did business was anything but decent; he manipulated, bribed, and forced his way into getting what he wanted. Cloud's petition was really the only thing that saved that pool from becoming another piece of rubble in Sephiroth's pile, and here sat one of the jerks that aided in his crazy schemes.

Rude said he wasn't here on business, but Tifa would be damned if she believed that. "Oh yeah? How do you expect me to take you seriously after that stunt you pulled at my friend's private pool party? Got another PI excuse up your sleeve today?"

"Is this how you treat your customers? Interrogatin' 'em?" Rude jerked his chin a little, and the movement made the lights dance on his dome.

Tifa crossed her arms, made them comfortable on the bar counter. "I'm the boss around here, so I can talk to anyone any way I want to. Especially someone like you, Rude, who apparently doesn't know when to quit his stupid job."

Rubbing thick-boned fingers on his chin, Rude audibly sighed. His shades dipped just enough to where exasperation emitted from his gaze. "Look, the sooner I get a drink, the sooner I'll be on my way." He glanced up, quickly skimmed the bottles behind the counter. "Is it too much to ask for a scotch?"

After a couple bland blinks, Tifa reluctantly turned around to get a glass. She jerked her hair to the other shoulder as she poured the scotch. When the bottle went down, it went down with an annoyed clatter. She felt Rude's shaded eyes locked on her back the entire time, and it felt way too much like the time she caught him staring at her at the pool that day.

Just . . . what is this guy's deal? I'm not some chick he can reel in with some phony lovey-dovey stare.

Tifa spun back around. An effortless hand easily slid the filled glass over to Rude's side of the counter. She almost didn't catch the tiny "thank you" he uttered as he took a sip. Despite herself, Tifa felt her glare melt into something more lukewarm. Was his stare really phony? Just what went through his mind when he looked at her? The questions should've made her cringe in disgust, but they didn't. They just floated around in her mind space, trying to find an emotion to settle on.

Tifa's arms found the counter again. "So tell me, there are plenty of other bars around here. Why pick this one?"

Rude swallowed some scotch, and Tifa hated that she let her eyes linger on his throat a few seconds longer than she meant to. It was covered up pretty well by his suit, but his neck bones looked firm and even a little muscled, somehow. "Just ain't been in here before," he said, smooth-edged. "Thought I'd check it out."

"Mhm." Tifa felt the heel of her shoe slip off, so she aggressively kicked the floor. "Are you sure it's not because you're scoping out more real-estate for your boss's trash casino business? Because I'll be damned if I ever give up my baby to you."

"I done told ya, I'm not here to make any trouble." Rude downed the rest of the colorless scotch, and when the glass came back down, any traces of nerves were thrown to the wind. He stood with one swift shift of his legs. "If it's really that party we crashed that's got you upset, I'm sorry. It wasn't planned, I swear."

Pff. Yeah, right. "It wasn't planned" my ass. The words wanted so bad to fire-rocket from Tifa's mouth. Rude's fast, "done with this" movements didn't give her an opening, though. He flung a wallet out from his suit's jacket, flipped out some cash, and let it slide across the counter to her.

"Have a good day," Rude said. The goodbye came stone-toned, but the way he walked away deliberately slower than expected, made it seem like he didn't really want to leave. Like if Tifa called him back, just maybe, maybe, he'd turn around.

She just watched him until his tall frame stepped out the glass doors, until his dark silhouette faded into the brightness of the city where it came from.

A feeling wanted to tingle in a sensitive area of her gut. She didn't let it.

Tifa just huffed a breath she didn't realize she was holding, and looked pointedly at the glass he'd used.

That one's going for an extra long wash.

~*'.~*.'~

🎶 ᴺᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ, ⁱⁿ ᵐʸ ʰᵉᵃᵈ
ᴺᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ, ⁱⁿ ᵐʸ ᵇᵉᵈ
ᴺᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ⁻ⁿᵃʰ . . .
ᴹᵃᵏⁱⁿ' ᵇᵉᵃᵘᵗⁱᶠᵘˡ ᵐⁱˢᵗᵃᵏᵉˢ 🎶