Summary: AU. When an astronaut volunteers to be Tifa's Eyes, she wasn't expecting to meet Cloud again. Will be 3 chapters.

For Tifa Week 2020's day 1 prompt: "Have you ever wished for an endless night? Lassoed the moon and the stars and pulled that rope tight." - glitter in the air by pink.

This story's main premise is inspired by the short story In Her Eyes by Cixun Liu. I recommend you read it if you ever get the chance. No knowledge of that story is necessary to read this.

This AU is a mix of our earth and Gaia. Their planet is called Gaia but the planets in space are named after our planets. Also, Shinra is like… NASA and way less shady than in canon, otherwise this fic would go on forever and no one wants that.

I have a title page for this AU that I drew on my tumblr, youlighttheskyart. Just search up Stellar Eyes in the tags.

Stellar Eyes

Part 1 - childhood

Black

Darkness is a word that Tifa is familiar with but has never had an opposite to compare it to. Her world has always been dark, devoid of any colours. There are flickers of light tones, a little bit 'less' of dark, of black. But she doesn't remember what sunshine looks like, what colours the sky is, or the sun.

She's told she used to have a little bit of sight as a baby, but her eyes were so unhealthy back then that she went blind.

'Colours' became like a fairy tale to her, as intangible as stories of humans who can walk on the moon and magic. She imagines colours to feel like the warmth on her skin during the spring, or the wind flowing through her hair in the autumn. She imagines colours to be like the piano singing under her fingers or her guitar. She imagines colours to be as uplifting as singing in the choir.

Tifa knows what people, even her family, say about her. If pity were a colour, she'd imagine it to be murky and darker than black, trying to sludge into her insides and weigh her down like the sea.

How can our Tifa ever live a normal life?

It's your fault she was born this way.

Don't sit with the blind girl, she always stares and smiles at nothing.

What a shame for such a beautiful girl to be deficient.

But Tifa has her piano and her voice and her guitar. Tifa has Aerith and the feeling of warm laundry and sunshine.

She doesn't need to be fixed.

…But sometimes, when the words get a bit too much, when the whispers are too loud, when even her piano can't blot out the jeers and the sneers, she lets herself cry.

:

Blue and Ruby

There's someone new standing nearby as Tifa practises her octaves and scales on the piano. She's about to start practising her new pieces and wonders if she should add some variations to the melody (even if it drives her teacher Marle crazy.) Aerith usually accompanies Tifa during practise, braiding her hair as Tifa plays. Aerith is the only one in town, besides Marle, who talks to her like Tifa's important, like Tifa isn't a doll for dress up.

Tifa loves her for it.

But today Aerith has to help run her mother's flower shop and volunteer at the church so Tifa plays alone. The presence she hears by the door is new. She suspects this person is the cause of the distracting breathing from the window that she hears sometimes, but she doesn't have any evidence for that.

Instead, Tifa pauses and says, "You can come inside and sit if you want."

The presence makes a noise, a startled grunt. Their voice sounds soft and masculine, like the autumn wind just before winter.

She waits and after a minute or two, the presence slowly inches towards her piano bench and sits by her, close enough for her to feel their warmth but not close enough to touch.

"I'm Tifa," she says, stamping down the excitement of possibly making another friend.

"…I know."

"You're supposed to tell me your name now."

"Uh C-Cloud…"

"Oh? Like… those things that are in the sky?" Tifa thinks that's what clouds are. She's not sure what they look like. Aerith says they look fluffy, like cotton candy or pillow fluff but that always makes Tifa imagine fluff falling from the sky in soft little tuffs instead of rain.

"Um… yeah…"

Tifa nods. "You don't talk very much, do you?"

"S-sorry…" His voice falls like a baby bird left alone in the nest for too long.

"It's not a bad thing!" Tifa quickly says, reaching out to touch him. Her hand falls against what she assumes is his arm. He tenses but slowly relaxes. Tifa smiles, feeling more secure, like Cloud is a real person, now that she can feel his arm. "My friend Aerith loves to talk while I practise and sometimes she can be a bit distracting. Don't tell her I said that. You feel calm… like the ocean."

One of Tifa's favourite things to do is listen to the sounds of nature on the internet. She likes hearing what the planet sounds like in orbit versus the vibrations of the sun. Sometimes she listens to dolphin clicks or flamingos walking. But her favourite thing to listen to are ocean waves, fading in and out. Cloud's breaths, his quiet voice, feel just like that.

"You're like the colour blue," she ends up blurting out.

"Blue?"

A hot blush hits her face. "Ah, what a silly thing to say, forget I said that." He's not Aerith. He won't understand.

"No!" Rough hands keep hers in place. "Please. Tell me."

For a moment, Tifa considers pulling away, making up an excuse to run back home. But she feels his pulse through his thumb, racing faster than the annoying second hand on the clock. She hears the soft tremble of his voice, this note that Tifa hasn't ever heard directed towards her before.

She lets her hand relax again against his.

"I… can't see colours. Obviously. But I like to try and find other senses that could be colours. My friend Aerith, her laughter and her jokes, they're so bubbly. I feel like she's the colour pink, because I read that's what pink is supposed to make you feel. And you… you're blue, because you're quiet… but it's not the kind of quiet that's dead or vanishes. It's the kind of quiet that the world has when you sit outside, the quiet of the wind, the hush of its breath. It's a calm quiet… it's blue. It's you."

She hears him take in a breath and her mouth feels dry. Maybe she shouldn't have told him. The boys that she hears in her class are all jerks anyways, why did she try opening up—

"Like how you're ruby," Cloud shifts closer.

Tifa nearly falls off the piano bench. "Sorry?"

"Ruby," Cloud says again, a little stronger, his fingers tightening around hers. "It's a red gem, it sparkles… it's so bright, so hard not to notice. Like your eyes. Gems reflect the sun's light and warmth, that's what sparkling means. You feel like that. You radiate… warmth. You feel like the colour red… If it was a ruby."

"…A ruby…"

"Yeah."

Tifa's eyes go wide. So many thoughts bounce back and forth in her head. She wants to say so many things but words seem so inefficient. No one's ever said that to her. No one but Aerith has ever understood. She wants to say, 'thank you.' She wants to say, 'come back and listen to me play every day.' She wants to say that he 'sparkles' too.

Instead, she whispers, "Do you want to hear me play a sonata?"

He says yes.

Stars

Cloud comes back every Thursday when Aerith goes volunteering. He seems incredibly shy, only ever showing up at the same time as Aerith by accident. Whenever Aerith is in the same room, he sits by the window, not daring to come close and shuffles nervously under Aerith's teasing. Otherwise, he only seeks out Tifa on Thursdays, when it's the two of them.

He's a welcome presence by her side. Tifa never feels like he's bored, even if he doesn't say much. By the third week, he stops being so reserved and presses against her shoulder while she plays. Sometimes she tries to teach him the part to a duet, clapping with joy when he masters a simple phrase. They play chopsticks and twinkle twinkle little star together as well as a few made up duets that Tifa simplifies for Cloud to join in.

She learns that he's in the same grade as her but a different classroom, hence why she's never run into him before. (Honestly, she's thankful for that. He won't know how strange she is.) She learns that he lives with his mother, who he adores, never talks about his father, and that his favourite subject is science.

They don't talk much outside superficial conversations and yet Tifa feels comfortable around him, her shade of blue, her ocean.

Nothing changes until one Friday night, when Tifa stays out too late at school to practise and walks home on her own. Normally she'd call Aerith to pick her up, or a taxi. She never calls her parents. But Tifa feels brave tonight. She doesn't understand what's so dangerous about the night when she's always seeing the dark anyways.

She walks home alone, carrying her bag of music books.

Counting her steps, listening to cars, Tifa uses her walking stick to maneuver herself through the park. Blades of grass tickle her feet through her sandals as if to say hello. Tifa smiles and keeps going forward, the sound of crickets her only company.

The smell of fresh grass never fails to invigorate her senses. One of her favourite things to do is visit Aerith's garden and smell all the flowers, trying to imagine what every flower species feels like. Floral scents are gentle and bubbly like Aerith, just as 'pink' and excited to feel the sun.

The hint of iron in the air, damp and bitter, makes Tifa stop in her tracks. She swings her walking stick experimentally, wondering if anything else is nearby when her stick hits something firm. Frowning, she prods the object again, only to hear a pained and familiar groan.

"Cloud?"

More noise. Probably Cloud sitting up. "T-Tifa! W-what are you doing h-here?"

"I'm walking home. What about you? Why do you smell like blood? Are you hurt?" She's careful not to swing the walking stick around too much and crouches down, feeling around for his arm. Her hand touches something soft, Cloud's hair, and she slowly reaches down to his shoulder. "Where are you hurt? Do you need a bandage? I have some in my bag… Aerith makes me carry them around and—"

"I'm fine!" Cloud squeaks as Tifa's hands wander to his face. She feels something wet trickling under his nose and frowns.

"You're not fine! I'll get some tissue!"

"No, wait you'll get blood on your books!"

"It's not like I can see the books. I just need the braille!"

"But still, it's so red and dirty, I—"

"I'm ruby, remember, Cloud? I don't mind getting your blood on me. You need to stay healthy and blue. Now here," she gently dabs his nose with the tissue. "You'll have to wash your face when you get home, I don't think I can get all the blood off."

"…It's fine," his voice, muffled under her care, whispers.

Tifa can't help but trace her fingers over his face, while her other hand holds the tissue against his nose. She's never properly felt his face before. Cloud is a faceless entity to her, a warm voice like the ocean. But now that she can feel his eyelids, his lips, his nose… she thinks his face suits him. He feels kind.

"…Tifa?" Cloud chokes.

"Ah, sorry. I just… I don't know what you look like. I should have asked first. That was rude, sorry. You can hold the tissue if you want—"

"No," his hand lifts up to steady hers. "You… you can look. I don't mind."

Tifa smiles and she hears Cloud give a breathy sigh.

They both sit on the grass, waiting for Cloud's nosebleed to stop.

"Are you feeling better, Cloud?"

"Mn…"

She takes that as a 'yes.'

"What happened? Why were you lying there?"

No answer. She feels his shoulder tense under her touch. Tifa wonders then, if Cloud is like her, if he's outcasted by his classmates. Hers leave her alone… but what about Cloud? What if he's being bullied?

She wants to tell him that he can ask for her help anytime. She'll come running. She'll be there. But what can she really do when she's not in the same class, when she can't see attacks coming towards him?

Instead, she asks, "What does the night sky look like?"

"…The sky?"

"Yeah, the night sky. I always hear people talk about how dark it is but I can't imagine it. I know, I'm blind. All I see is the dark, so it should be easy to imagine? But then Aerith and the girls in my class talk about the stars and the moon and I can't picture those at all. Are they even real?" The silly question slips out before Tifa can stop it. The moon and stars have to be real, too many people talk about them for them not to be.

She nearly takes back her question, laughs it away, when Cloud presses against her shoulder in that quiet way that always makes her feel secure.

"The night sky…" he starts, "is like the dark when you close your eyes but peppered with tiny white pricks of light. Little pricks like the shots you get at the doctor's, that's how small they seem to us. The pricks of light dot every tiny centimeter of the sky, like spilled rice on the floor. When you look up at the night, it feels like there are spirits, something more out there, watching over you and you feel less alone. There are multitudes out there… just waiting to be discovered."

Oh.

Tifa feels her breath being taken away.

"Amazing."

No one's ever described the night like that before. It's always don't walk out alone, it's dangerous, or horror stories about what happens to children in the dark. The night sky suddenly seems tangible and real because it's just like her. She's walking in the dark but all the voices, the warm presences around her, Aerith and Cloud, they're her stars, watching over her.

They're real.

Cloud ducks his head down with a grunt. "It's nothing…"

"No, really, the night sky sounds amazing and so alive when you describe it, Cloud! If that's what stars are like, no wonder people want to go up there, into space! What do you think being on the moon is like? Or Mars? Do you think we'll ever go up into space?"

"… Do you want to go see the stars one day, Tifa?"

"I doubt I could ever go up to space. But if I could, just imagine. It's like you said, endless possibilities. I wonder what real stars look like." She wonders if they're as wonderful as the human stars she has in her life.

She suddenly feels Cloud take her hand and she tilts her head in his direction.

Cautiously, Cloud begins to trace a shape on her hand, pausing occasionally to add little dots in the shape. His skin, rough with calluses, feels like wild feathers caressing her with care and Tifa can't help but suck in a breath.

"…That's a constellation," Cloud says slowly, connecting the strange quadrilateral shape together with a long line like a spoon on her skin. "The big dipper. People use it to navigate… so they can always find north…"

"Kind of like braille," Tifa thinks of the set number of dots, put in constant patterns so she can read her way through her dark world. If they aren't in the right place every time, she feels limbless.

"Yeah," Cloud agrees, continuing to draw more patterns of constellations on her skin.

"What's that one?"

Happily, Cloud tells her.

:

"Cloud?" she asks, lying on the grass to him, eyes closed as he traces more constellations on her hand.

"Hm?"

"Do you want to do this again next week?"

His grip on hers becomes tight.

She knows it's a 'yes.'

:

Grey

That spring, they meet up every Friday evening to stargaze. Cloud always whispers the best stories, researching constellation myths from different countries and sharing them with her. He always explains his astronomy knowledge using metaphors of other senses and Tifa feels like she can feel, touch, and smell the night sky just from his voice alone.

"Can you promise me something?" she asks, because she's noticed how smart Cloud is, how he absorbs information about the stars like a sponge and makes quick calculations on the fly.

The way Cloud's breathing startles tells her he's listening.

"If you ever become famous and leave, if you ever get to see the stars, come back and tell me about them. I want to know all about your adventures."

Cloud shifts, turning towards her. "I'm not going to leave," he says firmly.

"We don't know what will happen in the future," Tifa repeats what her father always jeers at her when she tells him she wants to become a pianist. "It's just in case."

He moves their hands closer together, brings them up to his chest, where Tifa can feel his heartbeat.

"I'm not leaving you Tifa. Not ever. That's my promise."

Hot warmth floods through her, burning into her cheeks. She wonders if she's blushing. Aerith always tries to bring out Tifa's blush, Aerith would be in glee if she saw this scene now.

The air is thick with… with something, some colour and sensation that Tifa doesn't have the words for but she knows that Cloud is sincere. He means this. Whatever this is, it's important.

"Okay," she rubs her thumb against the back of his hand. "I'm not leaving either."

:

That summer, they're inseparable. Cloud begins opening up more, telling her about his dreams to study astronomy and engineering at a good university. Tifa tells him she wants to be a famous pianist and write music. Aerith teases them both constantly. The three of them often sit by the piano or Aerith's garden together, but the stargazing is still Cloud and Tifa's time.

Those Friday evenings become sacred. Tifa's sure that Cloud wouldn't mind too much if Aerith was invited but she feels like she'd lose something delicate and fragile, something she wants to keep blooming with all her might. Besides, Cloud only ever seems to be fully himself when it's just Cloud and Tifa. Cloud only ever seems to open up under the stars.

But then autumn comes.

:

On the first Friday of autumn, Tifa hears Cloud calling her from the park. She hears his footsteps rushing towards her in excitement. She also hears a car driving too fast, too close, and Cloud's yelp, and his footsteps aren't moving fast enough—

Tifa's feet know each road and crosswalk and stop sign. Tifa's feet rush forward just as the car's sound comes towards Cloud, and Tifa thinks that the dark can't have her star, her Cloud.

She pushes him out of the way.

The car hits her instead.

:

The hospital is loud with constant beeping and machines that measure her heartbeat, a private part of her, broadcasted for all the nurses to hear.

Tifa drifts in and out. She remembers shouting. Her mother's sobs, promises to be a better parent. Her father's shouting, blaming, always blaming others for things that aren't their fault. Her father yelling at a 'bastard' to leave before he does any more harm…

No, Tifa wants to croak, don't make him leave.

She thinks she hears Cloud, breathing near her. And the sound of a silent sob, then the feeling of wet lips against hers.

"I'm sorry."

His voice, murky, is so tired and defeated. It should never sound like that. Her Cloud's voice is steady and warm…

"It's my fault…"

Silly Cloud, I'm just glad you're alive…

"I'll become stronger. I'll protect you. Just wait for me. I promise, I'll protect you next time."

When Tifa opens her eyes, the hospital room is silent.

There's no one there at all.

:

Aerith's the one that tells Tifa that Cloud and his mother moved away.

At first, Tifa doesn't believe her. Is this a joke? Some sort of late April Fool's day prank? But the sad tremble of Aerith's voice and her soothing hug says it all.

"Did he… did he at least leave a message? Any way to contact him? A phone number?"

"Oh Tifa…" Aerith murmurs softly. "I'm sorry. He didn't."

That day, Tifa cries in her best friend's arms for the other anchor she lost. That day, Tifa knows what the colour grey feels like.