Together as the Lights Fall

v; discovery

Tifa expected anger, but not this. The quiet implosive force of it, the hard edge in his blue, blue eyes startles her.

It's a stupid mistake to make, she thinks. Stupid and selfish to think that it wouldn't hurt anyone. But the choosing was hard and the words to express it were impossible to find.

"Why," he asks, voice sharp and hoarse and stretched thin with pain.

It's not something she could help. Because you were never here, she wants to say. I was always waiting, and you were gone. That wasn't the life I wanted.

She doesn't say anything.