"It's amazing
How you make your face just like a wall
How you take your heart and turn it off
How I turn my head and lose it all"

Cloud Strife stood at the window to Tifa Lockhart's new bar looking in. He was always looking in, never looking out. None of them looked over to him, they were too busy listening to him. Tifa looked at him with such love in her eyes. The love she used to look at him with. She must have felt his eyes on her because she turned to the window. Her face instantly blanked, her eyes losing their loving glow. He turned away from the window knowing she was lost to him.

"It's unnerving
How just one move puts me by myself
There you go just trusting someone else
Now I know I put us both through hell"

(Two weeks prior)

He walked into the town, taking in all the small changes that had occurred in the few months he had been gone. Someone in the crowd stopped and turned to him focusing wine colored eyes on mako infused blue ones. It took all his self-control to keep him from running over and sweeping her up in his arms. Something bumped into his and he turned momentarily to see what it was. When he looked back his heart plummeted, there she
stood in the arms of another man. He had waited to long, in the hell and torment he had put her through she had finally moved on.

"I'm not saying
There wasn't nothing wrong
I just didn't think you'd ever get tired of me
I'm not saying
We ever had the right to hold on
I just didn't wanna let it get away from me"

(Present time)

"So you like him," he asked her.

"Yes," she said.

He simply nodded, his throat constricted, his eyes threatened to betray him. He would not cry in front of Tifa, he could not show her how this affected him.

"I never thought you would move on," he almost said.

"That's good." Was all he was able to muster.

"But if that's how it's gonna leave
Straight out from underneath
Then we'll see who's sorry now
If that's how it's gonna stand, when
You know you've been depended on
The one you're leaving now
The one you're leaving out"

He sat alone in his house in Nibelhiem, he always seemed to be alone. None of his friends would talk to him anymore. Maybe he needed to reach out to them, but he was so lost without Tifa. First Aerith now Tifa. He wrote a few more lines on the paper, signed it and slipped it into an envelope. He slipped it into the mailbox and walked away.

"It's aggravating
How you threw me on
And you tore me out
How your good intentions turn to doubt
The way you needed time to sort it out"

He walked farther into the dark terrain of Mt. Nibel. He couldn't keep his mind from wandering back to her. Beautiful Tifa, lovely Tifa, the woman who had his heart.

"I need some time," she had said.

He had given her time and with that time she had found another.

"I gave you your time! Why did you betray me?" he screamed, his voice cracking.

Tears trailed down his cheeks as he came closer to the edge. He stood on the edge of the cliff staring down into the dark abyss.

"Strange," he muttered. "My heart and the darkness. So very similar."

"Tell me is that how it's going to end
When you know you've been depending on
The one you're leaving now
And the one you're leaving out"

Tifa Lockhart's hands trembled as she read the letter from Cloud.

'I think I've finally lost you. I think you're really gone and I think I'm finally scared now. Why didn't you wait for me? I love you, Tifa. In Mt. Nibel where the dead travel, I will eternally be waiting.'

Tifa smothered a sob as tiny drops of water smeared the ink of the letter.

"Oh Cloud," she moaned, her body racked with sobs. She clutched the letter to her chest unable to control her emotions. He was gone and she couldn't help blaming herself.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Authors Note: Updated and put into HTML. "Leave" is copyrighted by Matchbox Twenty and their label. The note Cloud wrote is a screwed up version of "If Your Gone" also by Matchbox Twenty. Hope you enjoyed this.