Final Fantasy VII 1. Chapter 1

I'm not going to talk about how long this thing has been fermenting in my head/document folder, because it's years. YEARS.

An unconnected series of events led to this being prepared for posting.

So Shu'up and take it like a man, the second part of this two-shot will be up by the end of the week.

* * *

Tifa Lockhart was enjoying one of the rare moments in her life when everything felt like it _should_. Cloud had returned from his last delivery of the day without any inexplicable 'disappearances'. She, Marlene and Denzel were waiting for him at home; happy, like a family _should_ be.

The bar was shut for the night, so they sat around and played game after game of 'chocobo trap', upon Marlene's fierce insistence. It was just the four of them making their funny, but sometimes believable, imitation of a family. It was enough.

Probably.

All Tifa had ever fought for was _this_; a stable and loving family like the one she lost after SHINRA had its way with her; killed her father, her friends. She had her friends now, there was no question of that, and she had a family; _just about_.

Although, there _was _that something hanging in the back of her mind, leeching on her thoughts this happy day; something dark and awful. It shouldn't have ever happened but somehow it _did_, and now she couldn't forgive herself or try to take it back – even if she wanted to more than anything else.

So she threw a proud blanket of repression over the thing, refusing to let her own folly spoil the evening. Tifa Lockhart did not let go of a dream without a fight, and she was nowhere near through fighting: even if it was with herself.

However, when the children and Cloud were in bed, asleep and she was left alone with her thoughts in a _very separate_ room to his, she couldn't stop thinking about _it_, denying any sleep as she passed in and out of vivid dream-come-nightmares.

Eventually she lost hope and gave in, rising with the dawn just to banish her own self-torment; just to keep those awful thoughts _(memories)_ at bay.

She was awake to hear the mail being delivered. The clumsy thud of the letters, mostly bills, on the mat downstairs, as she sat in the office flicking mindlessly through a photo album – frozen faces staring straight into the lens. Everyone always all smiles and sunshine, pretending that we aren't actually all weak and selfish people deep down; no matter who we are, or how much we try, or what we ever did to save the world.

A sudden knock followed the letters: it was probably a package. Tifa rose from her chair in the office and walked down to the side door of the bar, where the mailman stood on the other side; grinning at her through the window as she slid back the bolts on the door.

"This one was too big for your letterbox," he said jollily. "It looks important so I thought I'd check if anyone was up." He handed her the package. "Have a nice day, Miss Lockhart!"

Tifa shut the door and then hurriedly did up all the bolts again; the name that still sent an unpleasant shudder through her body – _Miss Lockhart_. It was still too soon to hear anyone call her that, _far _too soon.

The package itself was no more than a large, bulky envelope made of an expensive looking cream paper. Things were rarely printed on such good quality paper these days, but it was the letterhead that troubled Tifa the most.

The words _'From the Desk of Shinra' _were etched in neat handwriting on the face of the envelope; her address sketched carefully onto the back. This too was ink obviously from the nib of a good, expensive fountain pen, and there was very little that you saw handwritten – let alone in real ink – these days.

_'From the Desk of Shinra' _– although this was a professional-looking letter, it read just 'Shinra'. This was odd because it was certain that anything truly official should have read 'Neo-Shinra', and not the company's pre-meteor name.

Despite the popular belief that the SHINRA corporation of old was out for the count, the general public were all very much mistaken. _Neo-_Shinra, the phoenix that rose out of the ashes of the old Shinra little less than five years after its fall, was very much the same creature by another name. True, the old officials had been exiled and they talked a very different game, but Tifa had every confidence that they were no different to the Shinra she'd devoted over half of her life to hating, and they would be no better given the same shot at power.

However, agonizing over Neo-Shinra and Shinra wasn't going to anyone any good, so Tifa bit the bullet and tore open the envelope. Inside was a glossy booklet and a few leaflets all promoting the WRO's work in the area, some of which Tifa had seen before; she had even left them on top bar for customers to read.

It was speaking in riddles, but she understood well enough. It was not N_eo-Shinra _because the sender knew as well as she did that there was no difference, and the WRO leaflets were a reminder of exactly _whose _flow of dirty money was supporting the World Regenesis Organization – Gaia knows they couldn't operate as a profiting _business. _The implosion of such a massive cooperation had left more than just the wreck of Midgar: there were _billions_ of gil floating around in obscure safes and far-out laundering businesses, and a person with the right knowledge could filter that currency into almost anything he or she wanted to.

The WRO, for example. It was a sick statement, really, as the sender seemed unable to resist reminding her of one of the most wretched things about himself and his company: they _were _doing some good in the world.

Tifa tossed the pamphlets aside disdainfully, and was about to throw away the rest of the abhorrent package when one last thing fell out of it. It was another smaller envelope, apparently containing something bar paper, as the surface of the parchment was very slightly misshapen.

She tore it open suspiciously, and was reviled at what she found._ Underwear._ Although they were not provocative or... _lewd_ in any particular way, seeing it was more than enough to push a blade of dread down her throat, and for a very good reason. It was _hers._

A small, handwritten note fluttered out in the wake of her knickers and Tifa snatched at it in a panic, scrutinizing the looped text.

'_I believe you may have left this in my office, Miss Lockhart._

_R.S.'_

It read with precise strokes of a high-quality fountain pen, and Tifa felt a bitter taste rise in the back of her mouth. She prayed that she wouldn't be sick, but her stomach had turned over so many times now she couldn't escape the nausea.

He was really going out of his way to rub it in her face. _Yes_, there was no doubt that _Rufus_ _Shinra_ was chuckling away to himself as she read this.

She was about to crumple the slip up when she noticed an additional line on the back; this read...

_'P.S. I hope you don't mind my having them dry-cleaned prior to posting.'_

Oh he was a sick bastard indeed.

She should have never gone to there; this wouldn't have happened if she had only listened to her own good advice. But _of course _she had to convince herself – in spite of her best instincts – that there _was_ a greater good to mankind, and that perhaps Rufus Shinra really_ was_ a reformed character.

She was just a little curious about him after the attack of WEAPON as well, but didn't care to admit it to herself.

In retrospect it was undoubtedly the biggest error of judgement Tifa ever made in her life. As she stood leaning against the bar, fixed in a kind of horrified paralysis, she found herself unable to hold back any longer, and her carefully prepared guards came crashing down.

She couldn't stop the memories returning any longer, and as soon as she started to recall each shocking and vivid detail right from the very beginning, she knew it was a lost cause. Sinking down to the floor with her head in her hands, she begged herself not to cry as she relived the events of that afternoon one more time.

Mr. Rufus Shinra of the Neo-Shinra organization had initially requested her 'audience' on the basis of her occasional work with the WRO, and she thought perhaps he wanted to make amends and try to start anew; even offer an _apology _if she was lucky - and Rufus had _seemed_ cordial enough at first, and he _had _tried to have her executed.

Surprisingly enough, the new NEO-SHINRA HQ was in fact a tumble-down, grubby little office in the most crowded part of Edge. They hadn't even bothered to take down the sign advertising the last company who used the building, and according to some they received far more requests to fumigate houses than do any of their _own_ work.

As Tifa stepped into the room that fateful morning Rufus stood up from his chair in an act of his well-bred gentility; he even offered to hang her jacket beside his long white one, on a salvaged hat stand in one corner of the room, but she refused.

"I am fine," she said stiffly as she looked over the 'reformed' Rufus Shinra, dressed down a little more than his usual ties-and-tails combination, but still formal in suit trousers and an immaculately ironed shirt.

"Then please sit." He signaled that she take a chair opposite to his, which she noticed was on the _same_ side of the large desk that occupied the back of the room, and she foolishly read it as an insignia of equality.

He started to talk without invitation – mostly about Shinra's debt to the planet, the goals of Neo-Shinra, and some other things of little relevance as Tifa gripped her seat and pretended to pay attention while resisting occasional urges to jump out of her chair and punch him: he was undoubtedly spouting no more than mere propaganda created to quell the company's old enemies. Herself included… he _had _tried to have her executed after all.

She expected that Neo-Shinra was just as corrupt as before, and would do everything they could to seem like they were on the side of the heroes, while dealing to the world from the bottom of their already-fixed pack. She could not be so indifferent to these things as Cloud; her heart could not forgive so easily.

However, oddly enough, Rufus seemed to twist the conversation off course without Tifa realizing. Slowly the questions became more personal: he asked politely of Cloud's welfare, and then the children they were caring for – he somehow knew about them – and then how business was doing in Heaven's Edge. The multitude of pointless things that a man like Rufus Shinra _should_ have had no interest in seemed to be rather fascinating to him all of a sudden.

Tifa resisted this prying as well as she could, as she was already regretting ever setting foot inside this building, but the former President had an unnerving talent for working his way into people's minds without any hope of escape. A cat holding its paw above a simple unsuspecting mouse.

He picked at her as if she were no more than a rag doll, slicing stitches so delicately that Tifa never noticed being pulled apart at the seams; until she was somehow assembling the notion that her life wasn't _completely_ satisfactory: Cloud still disappeared without any warning, Barrett took Marlene (and Denzel with her) away on weekend trips and holidays more often than she _truly _liked, because she always missed them horribly but did not want to be seen as irrationally clingy, which she knew she was being.

Yuffie and Vincent had their work at the WRO a lot of the time, which did not take them out of the way completely but Vincent was not a social creature and Yuffie had a blossoming Empire across the ocean to manage and inherit. Cid had a baby of his own to look after, as well as pioneering the new space plan, and Red wasn't really the most frequent of visitors as he was busy on his Doctorate in Cosmo Canyon at the moment. Reeve occasionally dropped by, but he was the busiest of everyone.

All in all, it _sometimes_ – only sometimes, never enough to complain – resulted in her finding herself all alone in the bar, feeling like the last, lost child at playtime.

"Loneliness, Miss Lockhart," Rufus said quietly; flexing his fingers against each other; a calm smile on his face and the shadow of his hair hanging over his eyes, "is inevitable. There will always be those moments of longing. We are isolated creatures. Bar scattered moments of belonging we have nothing; we are all born and _die_ alone…." He stopped for a moment, and she could have sworn he almost looked sad, before he added, "I am more aware of that than most, perhaps."

Tifa resisted the urge to hug herself; the statement was brutally cold, but she could tell it had come from the heart – she saw the person before _President Shinra, _who been formed with those ice-cold views_, _the one who _had _spent most of his life years horribly and negligently alone_. _

Rufus took the whole issue far more lightly, but he did not know any different. He was far more interested in knowing that there was a big, unspoken _something_ missing in Lockhart's life… and his guesses could prove to be entertaining to say the least. If he _could _manipulate and break apart her character, then he would; it would fascinate him to discover what made her tick, if only for a little while.

Tifa got up in a rush not long after this, intending to leave when Rufus began to pick insistently at issues that she would prefer to keep to herself. However each time he managed to say something that stopped her from storming out – made a passing comment that she simply _had _to correct, or commented on her 'running away' from the truth; little things that she just couldn't leave be and kept her from walking out just yet.

It was eventually so that ex-president Shinra calmly said – after she had been trying particularly hard to convince him (as he made himself particularly difficult to convince) that the reason she missed the kids so much _wasn't _because she was bored and had nothing else to do; she hadn't meant to sound so flustered and hyped-up as she snapped at him, but unfortunately it came out that way. It was just after this that Rufus said, with a slight smirk behind his lips.

"You know, you are rather beautiful when you are being argumentative, Miss Lockhart. It animates you." The statement sounded out like a shot in an empty room, and although it wasn't a totally untoward kind of thing to say to a woman, he somehow managed to make it feel slimy and awkward_._

She fell dumb for a moment as she tried to process the compliment, of all things.

"That isn't to say... that you aren't so all the time," he added. "You are a naturally beautiful woman.... Though I wonder how long it has been since Strife…no," he cut himself off, "since _anyone_ told you that." He fell quiet again, and at that _Miss Lockhart_ stood up from her seat as if it had given her an electric shock.

At first with the intention of leaving, but then after hearing his final snipes with the goal of a withdrawal from the rude, proud egomaniac. How _dare _he make comments like that? It was not his place to make any little observations about things that had _nothing _to do with him. The compliment was obviously no more than a set-up on which to vault his new attacks of course, and she would make sure he learned his place.

"I have a good mind to…" she began while taking a few aggressive paces across the floor towards Rufus, only for him to stand at the last second and lean in uncomfortably close into her personal space.

"You wish me to take a _compliment_ _back_? Miss Lockhart?" he said softly as he leaned in, and Tifa felt a slight tang of mint and expensive aftershave on the inside of her lips as she inhaled, surprised by the sudden confrontation.

"Well... " he appeared to think about it, "absolutely not_." _His his voice dropped to a hoarse whisper, and as he exhaled she felt his breath on her skin. She was rooted to her spot with a curious mix of shock and surprise. It took a whole third second of Rufus Shinra's face being very dangerously near to hers before Tifa regained control of her body, pushing, shoving, backing away from him and running towards the door.

For all the ways she'd prepared herself _not_ to be frightened of him, it'd only taken a single breathtoo, _too_ close to send her into fight or flight mode. She was _not _here for a fight so out the door it was.

"Miss Lockhart," he said formally as she tried to wrench the door handle open, but the rusted contraption that had let her in so easily beforehand now wouldn't budge.

"Miss Lockhart," he repeated insistently, and she heard the rustle of fabric as he moved across the room, but thankfully did not make any advance upon her.

"_Miss Lockhart," h_e used the tone that had sent people to their deaths, she was sure of it, and try as she might she _could not _ignore it any longer.

Reluctantly she turned away from her escape route, and let her gaze slip back towards Shinra over the seat she'd very recently occupied, one of his hands laid gently over the soft jacket she'd left across the back of the armchair.

"I believe this is yours," he said coolly, and she drew her face into a tight expression of discomfort.

"Is this door locked?" she asked, as once more the handle _wouldn't _budge despite her trying it again and again behind her back.

"Of course," he replied calmly, a devilish smirk on his lips and something sinister playing itself out in his eyes.

"I would like to leave now," she said; not moving from her hold on the door nor letting her expression soften despite the almost sympathetic smile flashed her way. "Goodbye," she added as an afterthought.

"Without your jacket?" he questioned, then followed it with a hushed tutting sound. "That is _careless_, Miss Lockhart. If you left such an item here I would be inclined to return it to you, and judging by your scowl I would say you are not keen on such an idea. Am I correct?"

Of course he was right, she thought vehemently. He was _always _right while wearing that self-sastified smirk of a man holding _all _the cards.

"Unlock the door," she demandedmoreso than she requested, but Rufus wouldn't have done it either way.

Instead he laughed, and beckoned her closer; a command she begrudgingly obeyed as she reached out for the jacket she was ready to leave behind. As she drew nearer, all of a sudden Rufus closed the final distance with a single movement; for someone recently in a wheelchair, he seemed surprisingly lithe.

"You seem very _tense, _Miss Lockhart, perhaps I could suggest you try to _relax _a little…" he suggested, and the words alone sent twitches down her neck, although his face being uncomfortably close to hers certainly didn't help.

It was when one of his hands somehow found its way to brush gently against her forearm that Tifa took a step back and slapped Rufus smartly across the left cheek, a satisfying clap ripping across the room as his jaw was wrenched violently to the side. Restraint was not an option for when it was _Rufus Shinra_ making a pass at her.

However, it was with curiosity that Rufus raised a hand to press against his assaulted cheek, which was already tingling under the whirlwind force of none other than _the_ Tifa Lockhart; luckily for him the damage was only skin deep; having to undergo any more reconstructive surgery would probably be the death of him.

"That hurt, Miss Lockhart," he stated in what sounded like surprise, and wiggled his jaw from side to side and felt it click.

'_It was meant to'_ was what she wanted to say, but never had a chance before he spoke again and cut her off before she had even started.

"But I suppose I would deserve it after the pain Shinra has caused you…" That was practically one half of an apology from _him, _but much to Tifa's disappointment hearing it had absolutely no effect on the anger bottled up inside her, and she was no less enraged facing him than she was when she arrived.

Her fists tightened and flexed, and when Rufus looked straight at her again, and in the same restrained voice said, "You may strike me again if you like." She couldn't resist, and the vengeance in her heart took hold.

She slapped him again, across the right cheek this time, and then again and again and again. He made very little effort to ease the blows and hardly flinched as she grabbed him by the collar and anchored him in place to hit him one last bone-crushing time.

Cloud – for everything that was presumed about him – forgave easier than Tifa did. Rufus had to do no more than give him a job and put them on the same side; if they were fighting for the same cause, Cloud would not antagonize them, and he seemed to understand something that Tifa never did about Shina. Maybe it was because he used to be one of them. Maybe he was just a better person.

Tifa had been one of the core members of AVALANCHE, and hating Shinra was as natural to her as breathing. She simply did not _want _to forgive them: she just wanted to pound them all to pieces.

As she swung her hand around to deliver the final blow, Rufus Shinra suddenly twisted his head away – an act of self-preservation – and pulled his shirt collar easily out of her hand; allowing her palm to sail harmlessly over his head and shake her off balance with her own force.

Using this as an opportunity to regain the upper hand, Shinra caught one of Tifa's surprisingly delicate wrists and pulled her out of step with herself, which then forced her into stepping closer to _him_ to regain her balance.

The angles of this entire manoeuvre (having quite possibly been configured prior to the event itself) meant that Rufus had only to turn his head to the side in order to bring his mouth a whisker away from Tifa's cheek – possibly even pressing against it for a transient moment – and after that it was only another slight shift that placed him in the opportune position to whisper in her ear, lips brushing her earlobe as he spoke.

"I apologize to you, Miss Lockhart," he said softly, and the fingers wrapped around her wrist squeezed together very slightly as his little finger traced a popped vein down to the base of her hand, "_For everything_. If there were ever a way I could make it up to you…" he began, and Tifa's eyes widened as for a second time she realized she _way _too close to this man, so tearing her hand away she hurried over to her jacket and snatched it up into her arms. He found a way to spoil _everything._

'_For everything'_ indeed. Could he apologize for Aerith? What about Zack? Or for Cloud's memories? Neiblehelm? Could he apologize for having to live a life rougher and poorer than Midgar beggars while their ragtag group tried desperately to fight against _him _to save the world? Or for an ex-Turk shut up in a coffin for thirty years?

_Everything _was a mighty bold word for Rufus to throw around like that, and she wondered if he even had the tiniest idea as to what _everything _might entail? Her lost love? Weeks, months and years of heartache for a boy who _forgot _he ever loved her? Her parents and home? Her _life _aged 14, and every single thing she'd had to deal with since that day…. Did Rufus Shinra _really_ think he was in _any_ position to start apologizing to her?

"Unlock the door," she said with much more composure than she felt, which was very largely due to the fact that Rufus Shinra had possibly just given her a _kiss on the cheek_, and she didn't think there was enough hot water in Edge to cleanse _that _from her body. However this restrained front seriously wavered when Rufus only laughed at her request.

"I will in time, Miss Lockhart," he replied calmly, "but I would like to hold your company for just a little while longer. I do not entertain many visitors personally these days." Tifa was barely listening to him now, as the only thing that mattered to her now finding a way out of spending any more time with this sociopath.

"Unlock the door, _please,_" she reluctantly groveled, hoping that a subservient lip service might procure a release. This didn't have the desired effect at all, as it only caused Rufus to follow her back across the floor of the room and once again close that dangerous gap between the two of them.

"I wonder what else I could get you to say _please_ to me for," he remarked inquisitively, taking yet another step forwards and observing the space between him as if those three inches of air held a secret no man had ever discovered.

"Don't…" she began threateningly, but just as the word had left her lips Rufus's eyes dropped from her face and carefully traveled down her body and back up again: an obvious act of evaluation. Meeting his eyes again Tifa suddenly noticed that Rufus's left pupil was significantly smaller than his right, and she also saw a set of very faint but still noticeable scars under his eyes, on his nose and in front of his ears.

It occurred to her that she could only see his scars if she was this godawfully close to him, and almost felt a pang of guilt for making all those harsh judgments from all the way across the room where she couldn't even see the marks of pain _he'd _endured. Maybe she had been just a little unfair, when she'd thought just about her pain and problems without considering Rufus's lot, because she could easily imagine that it wasn't all rainbows and sunshine: she could see the end product, and that was _not _the result of a perfect upbringing.

"Perhaps, Miss Lockhart," he said hypnotically, and he quirked his head very slightly to the side. "Perhaps I could offer you a compromise… "

"Let me leave," she whispered so quietly he would've _had_ to be that close to hear her. He gravitated in even closer, and slowly without even moving his lips breathed a few words across the non-existent space.

"Are you _sure _that's what you want?" His mouth now hovered over the corner of hers for a second and she screwed her eyes shut with a mixture of horror and paralysis. She _wanted _to move but it was like one of those nightmares where she simply couldn't. A more rational part or her knew that if she ran away he'd just chase her again and again until _something_ snapped.

The scent of fine aftershave floated off the pale skin of his neck, and she wondered how he managed to stay so _clean _– every man she'd known in the past ten years or so had been covered in a basic level of grime that seemed to accompany the average Gaian working male. But here was Rufus, an inheritor and upper class; he probably had a degree or two and had never worked hard labour in his life.

He was something rich and 'tasteful', the kind of thing that the common man (or woman) wasn't ever supposed to have; like foie gras or caviar, because it simply wasn't _suited_ to their palette, and to them just tasted like crap. He was a rich, jumped up, self-serving rich boy. But for _some stupid reason _she had let him get to her, and she knewhe would leave a bad taste in her mouth but she needed to _prove _something.

"Is it what you _really... want... right... now?"_ he breathed, and brushed his lips feather-light against her cheek again; more of a contact than a kiss. She slowly raised her hands from her sides, and her fingers came into contact with the loose ends of a waistcoat, her knuckles sliding against the delicate silk lining and closing tensely in his one hundred percent linen shirt.

Her hands were knotted there for seconds that feel like hours, and a dizzying sensation took over her head and everything began to feel blurry from the rush. The lightest tug on the bottom of that shirt – her hands moving when her mind could not – provoked a reaction from him in an instant, and no sooner had her muscles twitched into that motion than his lips were pressed flat and firm against hers. Whether that was what she'd _wanted _him to do was another matter: this was simply what she'd got.

She shuddered as his hands skimmed immediately down her sides and around her waist, settling comfortably over her hips as he quickly ended the kiss and initiated another, lighter one, and then quickly followed it with a heavier more passionate clash. She felt his tongue brush against her lip and part of her wanted to bite it off, but the other part wondered how _long _it had been since she had done this. She had bedtime kisses and well-done kisses and make-it-better kisses for the children. She had we're-alive kisses and I-missed-you kisses and congratulations kisses for all her friends.

She even had spur-of-the-moment-forced-on-you kisses and I'm-sorry kisses from Cloud, which he always rejected or apologized for, but it was _too damn long _since she'd ever had a 'I _want_ you' kiss.

To goddam long.

* * *

Done! Posted! HO'SHIT!  
Review it quick before it disappears!

Also I have a cruel throat infection and it hurts like a bitch. Sympathy me.


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry about the delay, lads. You know what us studenty uncommitted writers are like T_T

This may be subject to edits in the next few days, but screw it it's done enough right now. Enjoy.

Also a little mature in here, young girls and boys who do not like this kind of business back off until they're legal. Otherwise knock yourself out.

* * *

Tifa Lockheart was kissing the man who personified the one thing that she had hated most in the world – the thing that had destroyed her life. She was kissing him, and she was _enjoying it._

More important was the question of where Rufus Shinra had learned to kiss like this? Somehow she'd hoped that he'd be awful and clumsy and try to force himself on her and she'd knock him back with one almighty punch and he would spend the rest of his days in a sexual offenders' camp.

_Not _making her weak at the knees, and smelling really nice, and having a touch so delicate she wondered why she hadn't _missed_ all of that stuff.

It was his fault, absolutely his fault for being all of the above, and making her open her mouth just a _tiny _bit. Although she wasn't kissing him back.

Much.

"Miss Lockhart," he hissed seductively as he pulled his lips away from hers for a moment. "A tango is much more enjoyable when both partners dance."

"Wha-" was the only thing she had the opportunity to say before he captured her parted lips fully, and his tongue darted out again to remind her that his last remark had been an _instruction_. Then there was a moment of suspended time, where she reeled through the condensed timeline of her life and saw how little _romance _and _intimacy _it really had. She was always bloody fighting, or failing that, making dinner or doing favors or watching out for someone.

The most she ever did for herself was curl up on a sofa with a mug of cocoa and watch mindless romantic-comedy films while someone else took the kids out. Her dreams had always matched those films – happy endings, husbands, soul-mates, children and pets in domestic heaven – if that was what she'd always wanted how had she ended up where she was? The thought that what she had now was going to be _it _terrified her: no children of her own but all the _stress _and _worry _of having them while others reaped the ups, and in love with a man who seemed incapable of loving her (or anyone?) back.

She was in happy-ending _limbo._

So, perhaps, she thought in this fragment of decision-making time, perhaps she could just let go for _one _kiss and to hell with who it was_ with _she could just feel like an attractive, desired woman for once.

Because living with Cloud made her doubt that much more than she ever cared to admit. She wasn't beautiful like Aerith had been, and if their hands or legs should accidentally touch at home sometimes, he would always just move away – she'd started to believe maybe she just wasn't attractive enough. The few times they'd both been drunk – her usually much more than him – and she'd tried to start something, it was always a polite decline and suggestion that perhaps they should go to bed now.

But here was just _one man _who thought she was beautiful, he'd _told _her and he was _showing _her, and in that moment she took the bait, because she _needed _it. She kissed him back.

_Bit _him back, as something of the loathing in her for him made an interjection in her open-mouth-kissing Rufus Shinra, though surprisingly at this his fingers suddenly tightened and dug into her hips and he let out a short, flustered half-breath over her moist lips.

'_So you like that,' _she thought and after a nerve-wracked second, fearful of rejection or doing it wrong or overstepping the mark, she tilted her head slightly to drag her teeth harder along his lower lip, and suddenly he lifted a hand and cupped it around the back of her head; crushing her lips against his as his tongue probed further and more desperately into her mouth. She discovered now that for the first time _she _held a couple of cards in this poker game of emotions.

She wasn't sure exactly how long she was there, standing in the middle of a disused office in the ruined SHINRA office making out with the President, but she knew it was long enough to make her conscience do a dancing jig in its grave.

It was also long enough for her tingling legs to provide very little resistance to being coaxed towards the President's leather armchair, however when she realized what he was doing she pulled away immediately.

"I don't know what you're thinking but-" she started insistently, but lost herself when he grinned a million-gil grin and placed a very hot and hard kiss on her neck, and the sensitive skin curdled with the contact.

She felt him sucking gently to draw her skin between his perfectly modeled teeth and then pinching them together, and she thought she might really have fallen over if he hadn't been pulling her down to the chair with him.

She never realized until that day how sensitive her neck was, and that somehow Rufus had managed to find the softest and most tender spot in under a minute. She clenched her jaw to stop herself from making any untoward sounds, but as he tugged her to kneel on the chair, _over his lap, _he drew his tongue across another hotspot and she had to put her hands on his shoulders to push him away – she couldn't handle any more and this time it was _she _who pulled him into a kiss. A hot and messy one that made him so inclined to wrap his hands around her waist again and slowly push her hips down over his

That made her want to run away; she desperately wantedto _want _to run away. But it was like seven years of sexual repression had all been unraveled at once and she was made drunk on the thought that _she _was the one who was turning him on. Not beautiful Aerith, intelligent Lucrecia or athletic and daring Yuffie: girl-next-door-Tifa who knew Rufus Shinra liked to be bitten and thought that _she _was a beautiful woman when she was being argumentative.

Her legs relaxed just a little more and she was more malleable and easily molded, and with a short pant as he squeezed his eyes shut Rufus put more force down on her hips and ground them over his. He started to become vulnerable to her, she realized, as his breath shortened and other things hardened – he was losing the control he'd assumed to have all this time, she was unraveling him.

"Mi-ss Loc-k…" he panted as he caught her lips and they moved together slickly; they were getting accustomed to kissing each other and it became a (dare she say it) more _natural _act as they learnt the ropes of the other's mouth.

"Shhhh," she could only hiss as the fingers of one of her hands crawled around his neck and began to insinuate themselves underneath his collar. She didn't want him to speak, she didn't want to remember who he was – he was just _sensation _to her, not Rufus Shinra…

She was snapped back to reality by a sharp zipping sound, which was in fact a zip, but not any zip, it was the zip of _her _top. True she was wearing a faded blue tank top underneath, but the situation remained that a man had just started the removal of part of her clothes. Not just a man either, _that man._

"What are you doing?" she whispered tensely, realizing that perhaps she had gotten herself thrown back in way beyond her depth.

"I... think I've found a condition in which you are even more beautiful than when you argue with me," he murmured, out of breath, drawing her vest apart so he could be fully winded by the breasts that launched a thousand wet dreams – _how _could this woman not realize the way men lusted after her? Why had she been so _easy _to crack with just a few compliments, was Strife _really _that uninterested?

"It's when you're _lusting_." He chuckled and pulled back a little to look into her desire-tainted eyes: she was _enjoying _this, and that only made him enjoy it even more.

Tentatively, and after flexing his hand other to make sure his fingers weren't too cold, Rufus lifted the bottom of Tifa's top and ran his fingertips across her soft and sunless skin, feeling the indent of her navel and tracing his fingers up along the centerline of her body, eventually splaying them under her breasts. Tifa gasped and flexed her spine, pushing her chest up into his hand very slightly. Taking this as an assent to go further, Rufus started to push up the light cotton shirt and kissed her neck again, sucking on one spot hard enough to pull up a purple-red mark she would be frantic to cover up later.

Tifa's hands would've shaken had she not been shoving them respectively down the back of Rufus's shirt collar and up it from the waist, and rather to her surprise she didn't feel the smooth, daily-moisturized skin only the filthy rich can have, and that she'd fully expected, but an uneven net of misshapen scars: more marks of WEAPON on him. Her fingers butted against ridges and stitch-marks as she explored his torso – the first male torso she'd touched skin to skin without an orb of heal materia in her belt for a long time – and she realized she was touching a deeply scarred man, and not just on the surface.

His strongest front of attack had also become his vice, because Tifa learnt that a flick and roll of her hips over his could reduce Rufus to a groaning pile of tissue; here he had no words, not that she had any of her own with him being so infuriatingly _good _at what he was doing, but as his shirt buttons twisted open one by one and he found her very quickly bra-less, she realized somewhere in the recesses of her mind that they _were _equal in this situation now.

However it might have started or shifted, he wanted her, and she wanted him for wanting her, and he'd pushed her thin cotton shirt half-way up and she'd forced his waistcoat and shirt down to his elbows and they still couldn't stop kissing each other.

Tifa noticed after a while that whenever she tried to lean out and look at Rufus's whole upper body, he would somehow stop her or obscure her view; even though she'd felt the state of him already, and his pants and groans had been more than enough to let her know that he'd enjoyed it immensely, she could sense that he didn't want her to look at him in the harsh daylight… could he be embarrassed about not looking perfect?

Everyone had scars; even she knew that, (although she was lucky in spite of her appearance not to be a girl who scarred too easily) and she attempted to show this to him by grabbing one of his hands by the wrist and guiding it to a raised line all the way up her side that had been cut with none other than the Murasame. His soft fingertips detected this and he traced them along the tissue curiously as their lips clumsily parted.

"It's fine," she breathed and went back in to kiss him, but his hands warped around to grab hers tightly and he shifted his mouth back. "I don't care," she added, "we're all the same..."

"I'm _not_," he hissed, and then as he moved to drag his shirt back up and re-do it, so Tifa did a bold thing and pinned his arms inside the armrests of the chair with her knees, pushing him back in the chair, and then firmly leaned out to end the silly subject by looking at him once and for all. He couldn't have it only ways _he _wanted, now they were both trapped in this thing.

To her disgust, she had to stop herself from crying out for a second. Scarred was one thing, but Rufus was _reconstructed_. There were patches of what could only be artificial flesh held on with heavy metal stitches, chunks of his body that were obviously missing and torn from him and deep mottled gashes that only high-speed flying broken glass can cause scored across his stomach. His face may have been made to look as if new to the unassuming eye, but his body was _broken_.

As soon as she saw, and the blood drained from her face, Rufus's eyes hardened and he suddenly stopped being so inviting and encouraging of affection, in fact he seemed as if he might like to avoid it all together.

"_Go_ if you must," he snapped furiously as he rustled his shirt back over his ravaged chest, as if he expected her to run squealing from the room from the awful freak currently situated between her legs, and he flapped a hand carelessly towards the door. But he had forgotten Tifa knew _Vincent_, this was admittedly bad, but Vincent tore open his own body to turn into Chaos, and she _had _seen worse. She simply hadn't expected it on _him_, and the shock had blown away some of her assumptions.

She reached out to take hold of his directing hand, and gently pulled it away from the direction of the door and towards herself and her body – his fingers curling inquisitively with the action. She leant over and just before speaking let out a hot and humid breath on his ear, and then after she anxiously licked her lips she dared to speak words she never expected to hear herself say.

"I'd like to… _forget_ for a while…" she whispered in his ear, and trailed her other hand down the opening of his shirt forgivingly, "what it's like... to be me."

He paused and did not push her away, or move so much as a muscle, but she could feel him relax bit by bit, and then he finally murmured, "I can do that." As she finally guided his hand to her chest and he pressed it into warm and soft flesh. Mouths met again and soon shirts, waistcoats and tanktops were one and the same on the floor, and she really didn't _want _to think about being half-naked where she was with who she was with… but it was hard to ignore when he had his hand directly over one of her breasts.

She was pleased in some sick part of her mind when he quite deliberately put both his hands at the waistband of her shorts and pushed it down, and reached further into the crotch with a single hand, because she couldn't go back now so her runaway-train mind just wanted to go as far as possible before the track ran out. However, she was very displeased when he, also very deliberately, stopped everything and leered forwards to whisper in her ear.

"Are you going to _beg_, Miss Lockhart?" he questioned degenerately as she hopelessly tried to generate some friction and move against him, but he held her away and purposely deprived her (and himself) in order to see who would crack first. Tifa bit his ear in retaliation, not gently, and then ran her tongue around it, and Rufus lost the stand-off spectacularly by moaning jaggedly and grabbing hold of one of her wrists to shove down in the direction of his pants.

"You _win_..." he hissed, as she tentatively reached down and palmed a certain part of the anatomy – thankfully spared the damage of WEAPON – and clumsily pulling apart the fly. Every push and squeeze drove a raspy groan out of him, and hastened his hands' course into her shorts, past the aching dampness of underwear into the slick center of her sin and degeneracy – _this _was why she was where she was now. But she didn't care, couldn't care. They were reduced to nothing more than the screaming apes of their instincts; no class, no hatred, no memories. Two people simply tearing pleasure out of each other, like they'd never felt it before.

Why did it have to be _him? _She asked herself, as they spiraled deeper into the pit of no return and notable items of clothing were thrown away – marked offensive by the deity of passion – and Tifa knew in the back of her mind where this was going to end up. Where else _could _it end up? No Shinra had ever done things by halves, and this Shinra was no different.

But when had he stopped being the immaculate suit she so hated, and become the pockmarked creature holding her like she'd longed to be held? Why _did _she always end up attached to damaged people?

She screamed when he finally did it – no more gags or fooling around; this was about obtaining _one thing_ – and they connected the way that people like them were _not _supposed to connect. With Cloud, the man she loved, perhaps, but not with Rufus. Never with Rufus.

Which only made it too bad that it was happening, really. Again, and again, and again.

It also _hurt_, which it had every right to do, but it added an edge that she had not expected to cut her as hard as it did, and she ended up with her face in the crook of his neck; crying and gasping from both pleasure and pain. And he _held _her through this, his hands strong and his body cold and scarred – at least _some _body parts had been protected in the blast – and genuinely holding her as she cried everything apart.

Too long holding back, being gentle, waiting patiently had made her into this, and with _his goddamn interference_ everything had fallen to pieces. She felt like she was being destroyed, but she couldn't stop doing it, and she could stop begging – yes, now she _begged_ – for _more, harder, faster, don't stop_...

She hated it, and she loved it. He took her entire body and turned it all onto _one thing_ – the last time she had done that was in the fight for her life, but this was so much better, as hateful as it was to say.

It wasn't really surprising to realize that – as she shattered at last and he took everything apart and put it back together in an almost painful climax, screaming into his mouth and tearing at the scars in his skin like emergency-stop cords – that this had been a _long time coming._

She felt wanted by him, needed, even, and there was no mistake about _who _was making him feel this good, or who was responsible for his groans and equally surrendering pleas to keep doing what she was doing, even after she had been and gone herself. There was no mistaking who made him come at last, and whose name – _first name_ – was on his lips as it all came crashing down. _'Tifa.' _He knew. He'd always known.

They stopped like a toy with the batteries suddenly knocked out, what had been spasmodic, desperate motions only minutes earlier turned into shallow, broken breaths and sweat-coated skin against cold air. It was impossible to tell how long they had to remain there, sticking together in the wind-down and panting until they could breathe normally again. Tifa moved her hands and realized they were shaking.

"What have I _done?_" she whispered to herself; horrified, disgusted, repulsed.

"I have no idea," Rufus replied suddenly – the question had not been for him, but he had answered anyway, "but if you do it again, I fear it might kill me."

"I would never!" she said guiltily, trying to move away and remembering that he hadn't even pulled out yet; how _humiliating_.

His returning look said as much.

"What... have I...?" she gasped, frightened by what she had done and how powerless she'd been to stop it. Was lust that powerful a master?

"Do not deny," he said calmly, as they moved apart and she collapsed coldly to the floor, not even bothering to cover herself, "that you wanted it." He ran his hands along his own contusions, and then quickly pulled his shirt back up; also redoing his pants.

Tifa sat on the floor blinking like a fawn; unable to process what was happening to her.

"Miss Lockhart," Rufus said. "As much as I appreciate your naked body, you might consider redressing."

Tifa knew suddenly that she was going to cry, and in a horrible rush she scrambled for her clothes and dragged them on – almost unable to move for the _shame _that filled her – and ran towards the door.

"Miss Lockhart!" he called after her. She imagined he was going to tell her she needed the key, but she did not want to face him _ever again_, and it was only a wooden door that stood between her and escape, and she had broken far stronger than things than this before.

She picked up speed, and rammed the door with her shoulder, hitting it with a crack.

She had no energy or strength left; it did not budge one bit – shoddy in appearance, but this office _was _fitted out properly – and she merely slammed into the wood, hit it hard, next the floor, and then burst into tears: what had she _done?_

She could not stop this like she could not stop _anything_ – she couldn't stop Cloud leaving, she couldn't stop Sephiroth, she couldn't stop herself now... she couldn't even stop Cid smoking, so she certainly couldn't stop herself crying in front of someone she was supposed to hate.

She hit the floor almost as hard as she hit the door and covered her face with her hands; noisy, obvious, and hopelessly emotional and typically female. She was a mess, and that was before she even started to _think _about why she'd let what had just happened happen.

"Ah," Rufus said quietly, and Tifa heard the footsteps – dear Gaia, he hadn't even taken off his _shoes_ – coming close to her.

"Stay away," she sobbed. "Don't look at me." She heard a pocket rustle, and then something soft brushed against her hand; a handkerchief. She snatched it humbly and pressed it against her eyes – why couldn't she stop crying?! The more she tried to stop the worse it got, and tears poured out of her eyes and her chest would _not _stop heaving.

Rufus had to admit, he had never predicted things would end up like this – that he would sleep with Lockhart? A little, maybe. That it would be what it was for them both? Not really. But that she would cry like this? Never. If this were his fault he would almost feel encouraged to apologize.

He stood up, and she heard more sounds, followed by the distinct click of a lock turning in the door. She supposed she was free to go now.

However, before she could move, she felt his hand on her shoulder.

"Whatever... _this_ is," he said calmly – not sympathetic, but almost softly enough to make her think he just _might _give a shit. "I am sure you will find an answer. People do not stay unhappy forever, Lockhart, and I believe you will find what you are looking for."

Could she? She wasn't sure, but that hand on her shoulder felt like the only thing that was real enough to be trusted, and for no more than twenty seconds she grabbed his arm, threw herself against his chest and cried so hard it made her sick.

She pulled away, wiped her face, dropped the handkerchief on the floor and stood up.

"Goodbye," she said shallowly, putting her hand on the doorknob.

"Wait," he said urgently as she started to open the door. "You have forgotten..." Tifa didn't listen, she didn't want to listen. She just needed to go.

It was only when she reached the street that she realized what she'd left behind – apart from her dignity. How could she have been so stupid? Her body had been so numb, and the need to run so desperate, that she had managed to leave without her _underwear_. She was duller than she'd thought.

She only prayed nothing would... _Gaia, _it was disgusting even thinking about it, until she could get home and lock herself in the bathroom for an hour or so.

When Tifa got home again, she cried once more – hiding in the bathroom and covering the sound with running water, lying in a tub so hot that the steam came out from underneath the door. She soaked until the water was almost lukewarm – barely moving, just basking in the heat and trying to erase every mark from her body – and then filled it up with hot again.

Her skin wrinkled and the tank eventually ran out of hot water, but it was only when she heard a voice downstairs (the bar had been empty when she'd arrived) that she got out, squeezing her wet hair dry on a towel and running across the hall to her room for a fresh set of clothes. She would later throw away everything she had worn to the Shinra HQ that day.

"Tifa?" Cloud's voice – of all people – echoed up from downstairs, as she stuffed herself into tracksuit bottoms and a tank-top. "You in?"

"Yes!" she replied, surprised by how normal she sounded. She stared at herself in the mirror on the way out; why did she feel like something was different?

"Why is everything...?"

"I just had a bath!" she explained, jogging down the stairs and nearly running into him at the foot. He took a step back automatically and stared at her.

Oh god. He could _tell_.

"Oh, yeah," he said dumbly. "Well. I had a delivery canceled so..."

"Oh. That's good," she replied cheerfully – whose voice _was _that speaking?

"Where are...?"

"Marlene has band practice and Denzel stays at school to walk her home," she said automatically; she didn't even have to think about their schedules, she just knew.

"Oh."

"Yes."

Normally, in this kind of a situation Tifa would talk to him; draw him into a conversation. But she couldn't not now; after what she'd _done _to him; to both of them. They were silent, and she barely moved from her position at the bottom of the stairs.

"Did you..." he started awkwardly, "use a new shampoo or something?"

"What?" she said in confusion.

"Oh, I just mean," he muttered, looking a little like he regretted saying anything at all. "You look quite..."

Betraying? Heartless? Pathetic?

"...nice."

"Nice?!" she wasn't able to mask her shock – in over three years Cloud had not said she looked 'nice' more than five times, and four of those had been when _she _asked him.

"Uh, I just mean..." He glanced about furtively. "You just look kinda... I d'nno."

"Different?" she probed. He could tell, he could definitely tell.

"Yeah." He was quiet for a second. "In a good way, though."

She noticed that he was looking right at her, and she suddenly felt very conscious in the tank-top; she still had no bra, and she could still feel_ his_ touch against her. Why did he have to be like this _now_? Was she emitting some kind of pheromone that made him think she looked prettier, one that could only be released after having sex?

"Hey, what's that on your neck?" Cloud asked suddenly.

"Uh?"

"There." He pointed. "It looks painful."

_Shit. Goddamn Rufus Shinra! _He had left marks on her neck!

"Ah!" she cried, covering her neck with her hands and praying there wasn't anything giving the game away anywhere else. Why hadn't she noticed them in the mirror?! What was _wrong _with her? "It's just a rash," she lied. "I think I got it off Marlene. You know how things get passed around schools."

Cloud didn't know, why would he know? But hopefully he didn't know enough to buy it. She watched his face carefully for signs that he didn't believe her.

"Oh," was all he said, and it seemed she had gotten away with it.

"I'll just go and put a sweater on," she said apologetically. "I don't want to give it to you, do I?" At the 'sweater' comment his face could _almost_ be remarked to fall, and as she turned on her heels and ran back upstairs Tifa swore she heard him say 'pity' to himself.

The kids came back soon after, and Marlene – excited that Cloud was back early – insisted that they all play 'Chocobo trap'. Tifa tucked herself into the big sweater of Barette's she usually only wore when she was sick, and tried to A – avoid the funny looks Cloud was giving her, and B – act normal so Marlene and Denzel wouldn't think there was anything wrong.

She wanted to act normal because this was what she _wanted_; moments like these were what she'd always craved – happy families. Like this, they could almost be convincing as a family, but she very nearly cried again, because no matter what, that thing was _always _going to be there. She was always going to have had sex with Rufus Shinra in his goddam leather office chair; no reason, no explanation, all consenting. She had slept with him with her own free will and she had screamed and moaned and _begged _him to do it more.

The _things _she had said would not leave her mind, and the things she'd felt were burned in her memory forever – there was no way she would ever forget. So she pretended she had forgotten – that was the best thing to do, and she carried on like everything was all right.

But everything was _not _all right. It was so far from all right it could be accurately described as all _wrong_.

A week and a half after that afternoon – ten days after Rufus had sent her that charming _package_. Tifa hung over the toilet bowl with _more _tears (would they ever stop again?) running down her face, and the last thing she ever expected to be crying over in her hand.

A pregnancy test.

"Oh _Gaia_," she whispered as she stared at the two blue lines. "Oh _Aerith_." Was Aerith listening? She could sure use some help right now, and Aerith always knew what to say. "What have I _done_?"

There were a few things Tifa was sure of.

She would never throw away something she had longed for her whole life. Something that dear to her. A child of her own blood, from her own body.

She would love it more than anything she'd ever loved or ever would.

People would see blonde hair, blue eyes. They would assume things. They would assume _Cloud Strife_, even if he'd never confirm it himself. He would stay quiet just to protect her, she was sure of that.

Fair hair? Blue eyes? Who would ever know the truth?

It was just another lie to lock away in her heart.

* * *

Leave a review if it pleases you to do so. It pleases me. In sexual ways ;) Eeehhhey.


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