Completion Chapter 2
Movement One: Lover's Tune
By Drakonlily
a year after Meteor
Tifa sat on her couch in Kalm. Well, their couch. She had moved in with the hero of the Planet himself, Cloud Strife. She looked over at him doing the dishes- he couldn't cook to save his life, so he did dishes. Her mind wandered back when she had learned to cook from Rude at his urging that it would help Tifa find a job. He had introduced her to Rude and the rest of the Turks. They had been so close.... 'Tifa stop thinking about them! That part of your life is over. They wouldn't want to see you, you are happy.' Tifa lied to herself on that last part. She wasn't happy.
She had given herself to Cloud just before the battle and immediately regretted it. He had been too rough, it hurt. It still hurt when he managed to get her to have sex with him, every time. She had tried to tell herself that they made love that night outside the Highwind, she still didn't believe that. It had been sex, nothing more. 'Cloud isn't him. You love him.' There had always been a fire in her soul when he had looked at her. Her body tingled when they had touched. She shook her head. 'NO NO NO I am supposed to love the hero, I am supposed to love Cloud. He is my hero.'
She had saved Cloud from the lifestream, but he had saved her from.... 'from what?' It wasn't Cloud who consoled her when her mother died, it was him. It wasn't Cloud who pulled her safely out of Nebilhiem and gave her a home, he did. It wasn't Cloud who helped her get the information for Avalanche, he did that too. He was even the one to pull her from the lifestream, Cloud didn't do that. 'I really don't love Cloud. He doesn't love me either.'
Cloud had called her Aeris last night in bed. It was almost feeling right until then. He felt badly, apologized profusely, but in the end it had happened. She wasn't mad at Cloud, she wasn't even sad. Somehow, Tifa had been expecting it. They hadn't talked at all today. Cloud finished washing the dishes and moved to sit down next to her.
"Tifa, I have been wanting to ask you this ever since you told me about the Turks." The blond man looked her in the face, his sapphire eyes begging her to be honest. "You don't love me do you?"
She was taken aback. "I am supposed to-"
Cloud cut her off gently "but do you?"
"Your my knight in shining armor, Cloud. You are the hero of the planet!" She meant that. Cloud was a hero and a great friend. No matter how confused he rightly was in the past.
"Not your hero." He looked to the side and sighed. When he turned back to her his eyes were downcast. "You talk in your sleep. I hear you call his name, the same as you hear me call for Aeris."
"But that's different." Tifa was confused, what was he doing?
"Yeah it is, Aeris is dead. I can't bring her back. But your hero is alive, Tifa." She opened her mouth to speak, but Cloud looked up with such sadness that she couldn't find the words. "You are my best friend Tifa, I want you to be happy. You fell in love with your knight in shining armor a long time ago. Why don't you go to him?"
"What about you?"
"I was thinking about moving to Cosmo Canyon. It's quiet there."
"I will come visit?" They hugged. She felt his tears on her shoulder and she cried with him.
"Whenever you want. Now get out of here."
Tifa went to pack her bag to head for Juion. She had apologies to make, she only hoped that he would want to hear them. 'I love you Reno.'
***
Nanaki looked to his companion. Dark Nation (She changed her name to Rovina) had come a long way. She learned to speak, and was proving to be very intelligent. She was also funny and cute- 'did I just call Rovina cute?' The red beast shook his head. 'No place to think about such things, she has prepared far to much for me to lose my concentration.' They were going into the caves to try to find a way of relighting her tail fire. It was snuffed out sometime during her extensive experimentation. The research that she and Nanaki had done led them both to believe that relighting her fire would allow her to recover all of her memory.
Rovina herself was not entirely sure she wanted to remember everything. Hojo still haunted her nightmares, so vivid she could feel the pain all over again. 'All of that torment, the near wipe out of an entire race, for a few guard dogs. That is all I was, a pet to Rufus.' She shuddered at the thought of the blond VP of Shinra.
"Are you cold Rovina?" Nanaki's voice freed her from the painful memories. She turned to him and smiled. He had been so happy to see her, the first creature to want to be near her. He was a proud warrior now, a hero as well. She hung her head in shame, 'I don't deserve to share the same air space you do. Yet you want me near.'
"No. I am simply thinking." 'about you.'
"Care to share it?" Again with his sturdy honesty, with his calming sincerity. She did not deserve his friendship.
"This is not the time Nanaki. We are almost to the great warrior's resting place." They moved up the cliff with slow reverence. Rovina bowed a good distance away from the stone warrior and sat awaiting a welcome to come closer. Nanaki walked to his father.
"Father, I bring before you one of our people in great need. She is my friend, I trust her. She wishes the honor of your guidance." There was a rumble in the earth itself, no words were spoken. Rovina felt as if she was ushered forward. She moved to stand next to Nanaki, before the great Seto. Her eyes were cast to the floor.
"Look into my eyes, child." Timidly, Rovina obeyed, the stone cast hero's voice rang in her head. "You call yourself Rovina, and in havoc you have lived. You now seek to regain what you have been raped of."
"Yes great one." She was trembling, Nanaki moved closer to her side.
"Follow your dreams to your name, let your heart help you light your fire." With that Seto's presence was gone.
Rovina looked at her flame-less tail. She began to cry. "I don't deserve your help Nanaki. You are a great hero, I was a puppet." She tried to stop sobbing, but couldn't. "You must be so tired of my tears."
Nanaki slid his head under her's, he sat with Rovina crying into his mane. "They were long in coming." As he spoke he wrapped his tail around her's- the way a human would hold another's hand to comfort. A blue flame began to grow on the tip of Rovina's tail. It was as if Nanaki's tail had been a candle, tilting to her own. Her fire glowed brightly for the first time in many years. The spark of friendship fired into love that night, before the warrior's approving gaze and under the all knowing stars.
***
In their small apartment Reeve looked out the window to Junion. He thought about the past year, all that had transpired. 'We are finally happy, free.' With the exception of Reno they all remained in Junion city. Reeve chuckled at the red head's reasoning for moving into the country. '"All the thugs an shit Reeve. I can't have my kid growing up in that."' Reno had been a gang leader himself before he became a Turk. The idea of someone like that avoiding criminals was ironic to say the least. Reno was a good kid, hard to admit that, but he was despite everything.
Avalanche had basically stayed in touch, Cloud and Tifa- Holy, how he wished he could hate her- lived in Kalm. Red took Dark Nation under his wing so to speak. Cid was in rocket town, Barret in Coral. Cait Sith was put away, Reeve was making a hefty amount with his machine working as a result of that creation. Vincent lived in the apartment below Reeve's with a little white cat Yuffie made him take in.
'Now there is a changed woman.' Yuffie stayed in Juion as well, working in the Dojo with Reno, Rude, and Elena. Sometimes she took shifts for Vincent or Scarlet bartending/bouncing at a large local bar. She had become a big part of their little group, calling them the "Anti-hero's of the planet". Reeve had to smile about her crush on the bald Turk. He went back to the bedroom to wake his wife.
"Scarlet you are as bad as Reno. Get out of bed." He pulled the covers off the bed. The blond woman moaned in displeasure. He laughed and picked up his pillow. "Don't make this get violent now. We can do this the easy way or the Turk way."
Scarlet swung her pillow at her husband, hitting him square in the jaw, "that was my line you jerk!" they battled with the pillows till feathers were flying and both were out of breath. "Hey isn't Rude teaching Yuffie how to fire a gun today?" Scarlet asked.
"Yeah, now that you mention it. Reno bet me 30 gil that she'd shoot him."
"Only 30?" The ex-Shinra execs laughed. 'It is about time things relaxed for all of us.'
***
The door to Rude's apartment swung open revealing an interesting sight. Yuffie was trying to carry Rude. However, the big ex-Turk not only outweighed the little ninja by over 100 pounds, he was almost a foot and a half taller then the 5'2" Yuffie. As a result, Rude was more or less limping with her attached to his side. Yuffie's mouth was going about a mile a minute. "Are you going to be okay? Do you need anything? I am sooooo sorry!" Rude sat slowly on the couch.
"Towel." Yuffie dashed to the bathroom and returned with a black towel. Rude lifted himself as she slid the dark cloth under his body. As he settled back down she put her hand on the offending upper leg causing Rude to growl in pain.
"I'm sorry! Is the bullet still in there?" She asked as she jumped backwards
"What do you think!" he snapped.
Yuffie bit her now trembling lower lip. "You don't have to be mean."
"You fucking shot me!"
"So act like a baby about it why don't you! I thought that you were a Turk! You must have been shot before!" She crossed her strong arms over her small, perfectly crafted chest. Yuffie was more upset with herself then with Rude, but she wasn't going to let him know that.
"Not there!" Rude motioned to the bullet lodged in his inner thigh.
"The way you are whining you would think that I shot your got damn dick off!" The language she had picked up from Barret, Cid and later Reno was coming out in her excitement. Rude looked down to his lap, back up to Yuffie and down to his lap again. He then held up his thumb and forefinger about an inch and a half apart. "No way!" She gasped. Rude only cocked an eyebrow in response. She leaned over him to look at the wound, her eyes started to drift about an inch and a half over, she blushed.
"You will have to get that out of there before I can use my materia." even though he was in a fair amount of pain, Rude couldn't help but be amused by Yuffie's shyness.
"A doctor-"
"Over my dead body." his grating voice ended that argument before it began. "Tweezers are in the bathroom with the bandages, everclear's in the kitchen."
Yuffie returned and sat everything on his high coffee table. She moved the furniture over so she could kneel beside him, 'you know first aid girl, you have done this before. OH GAWD.' "Uhm Rude?" He just looked at her. "You are uhm going to have to take your jeans off."
Rude couldn't resist to comment at that, "if you wanted me out of my pants you didn't have to shoot me you could have just asked."
"Oh! I should just leave your perverted ape ass to bleed to death!" she began to help him out of the pants none the less. Just Yuffie's luck, Rude wore briefs. She immediately blushed redder then Reno's hair. Rude stayed silent, thinking that Yuffie looked hot when she blushed. Despite being distracted by a certain aspect of Rude's anatomy Yuffie did a good job of bandaging the big man up. To his credit, Rude didn't complain at all during the procedure. Yuffie stood up when she was done, putting much needed distance between herself and Rude.
"Thanks." he said simply. "You are a mess. Use my shower if you want."
"Uhm yeah I will. You gonna be okay?" He nodded.
When Yuffie had cleaned up after her first aid work and hopped in the shower Rude lit a cigarette. 'She fucking shot me.' It was true, he had been shot MANY times before. But never by a sexy ninja. He shook his head, ';good thing this hurt like a bitch when she was fixing it.' He pushed himself up to go put on boxers or something, Yuffie was uncomfortable enough at the moment. Even if Rude thought it was attractive when she blushed.
'DOLT DOLT DOLT!' Yuffie berated herself. 'All that work to get Rude alone and she had to almost castrate him.' Thinking about that made her blush all over again. She picked up Rude's soap, 'he smells so nice.' As she continued to clean his blood off she realized that she would have to find something else to wear. 'Maybe Rude has something....'
"Why is it frikk'n freezing in here!" The ninja walked around into the living room dressed only in one of Rude's hoodies. It fell down to her mid thigh, she hadn't zipped it all the way up. Even if she had, it would probably still try to come off her slender shoulder. 'OH fuck.' Rude thought, suddenly grateful for the coverage of his baggy sweats. 'Okay, so this is what I get for the pants comment.'
He shrugged, she came and sat on the coffee table. The height of the table made it possible for them to look eye to eye. 'He's got such bright eyes.... Say something!' "Are you better?" He nodded. "How's come you don't talk much?"
"My mouth got someone very close to me killed." 'Why did I just say that?'
He waited for a barrage of questions, but none came. Yuffie frowned. "I'm sorry."
"It wasn't your fault." 'it was mine.'
"I doubt it was yours either." He blinked at her. "I mean you couldn't have been very old."
"Twelve." Rude replied in a tone that said he didn't want to say any more on the subject. Yuffie picked up on it and nodded.
"Your turn, ask me something." He arched his eyebrow at her, "Lets see is that 'Yuffie why are you so adorable?' Or something else? Nanaki never did teach me to read minds all to well...." Rude smiled at her and she felt something run up her spine. He couldn't help himself any longer, he reached over and tucked a piece of her shoulder length hair behind her ear. His rough hand was warm on her skin. She put her small hand over his, holding it to her cheek. Yuffie smiled back at him.
"Staying tonight?" he asked.