Well here it is drum roll please MY FIRST FANFIC! Wahey! Now, as much as I would love to keep pumping out ideas onto the page, I need to know if you guys like this stuff, or whether I should quit now with a shred of dignity left...

Xx Jessie xX

When Heart Rules Over Mind

Prologue

The sun was dying on the abandoned shore of Costa Del sol. The tourists had long since gone back to their hotels, and the local people had left to close up after a long day. The beach was abandoned now.

Except for one soul.

Of the few bars that aligned the edge of the beach, there was one that was occupied at this moment. The sun was at it's most brutal just before sunset, and so every other bar had closed just over an hour ago. A late siesta before the night dawned. Only one person stood on the deck of her bar, resting in her usual spot watching the sunset in awed silence. Her strong yet gentle form rested against one of the wooden beams that supported the thin roof of the overhead balcony. The outside decking ran a few feet in front of her covered with four small crimson clothed wooden tables, each supporting two upturned chairs. Three wide steps ran along the mouth of the deck and planted down onto the sand, leading out to the mystical shore.

It was there that her gaze had become fixed. Her deep garnet eyes reflected the spectacle of the setting sun today, as they had done for the last 8 months. She had become captivated by the rawness of the natural, untouched beauty that lay before her ever since her first night here. Sure, she had visited this place before with her comrades, but since she had ventured here alone, she had never noticed how powerful the sunset really was here.

And she hadn't parted with it since.

Just to be able to stand there where she stood now, calmed her and soothed her internal pain. It would never leave her, or ease completely but she welcomed this temporary release that was granted to her each evening by the sun. She believed it was a cruel irony. Every evening, the sun would fade, and with it, her worries, her cares – her pain. But as the sun rose again in the dawn, her heart would remember the pain of that day 10 months ago...

"Don't leave...you can't leave Cloud. Not now..."

"There's no other way Tifa. I can't live like this." He had pleaded, trying to make the broken woman before him understand. His efforts clearly failed as he watched the tears fall down her distraught face.

"But...you could...you can! If you would just try-"But she was cut off by the shaking of his head.

"There's nothing left here. Nothing but memories, painful memories of things I need to learn to put behind me. I can't do that with you. You remind me of the past Tifa, the past I need to forget. Otherwise, I will never find peace." He ended in almost a whisper, his voice failing him as he held his childhood friend arms length away from him. Her shaking hands were gripping his forearms, and he held onto her, pleading with her.

She looked into his eyes with no trace of anger, just sorrow.

"You want to forget me." She stated, her voice barely audible. It wasn't a question.

Slowly he brought a hand up to her face and brushed her tears away. "I could never do that." He said. And she knew he meant it. But...in that case, what did he mean?

"I need to find out who I am. There is a part of me that Sephiroth still shadows. There is a part of me that can never get over the pain of losing those I cared deeply about, the depression that causes me to hurt those around me-and myself. And there is the part that you see. The real me. Without grief, or the anger Sephiroth stirs in me. The Cloud Strife who you grew up with..." He gently caressed her wet face. "I want to be that person again Tifa. I need to be that person again. Right now, I can hardly breathe, I'm suffocated by this place, everything about the world is just...wrong...Nothing makes sense anymore..." He trailed off, but a soft, trembling sigh escaping from Tifa's lips as she struggled to calm herself, brought him back to his senses. "But this time," He looked at her carefully and added in a low voice; "I need to do it alone."

Slowly Tifa brought her head up and with all her strength – she smiled.

Cloud blinked in surprise for a few seconds. She's smiling! he said to himself, and almost as a second nature to him now, he effortlessly found himself returning her smile. He had always respected the way she could put her own grief aside and retain her unrelenting optimism to support her friends. He loved her spirit, her soul, and her smile that melted away all that was wrong with the world...

Slowly, he took her into his arms, and held her that night. For what seemed like forever, neither one of them wanting to let go. The grief was almost too overwhelming for Cloud as he felt Tifa's body against him, gripping him tightly as she sobbed her heart out. He would never forgive himself for making her hurt so much, but he couldn't stay like he was now, he had to find peace before he destroyed himself, or more so, her. Eventually, and unwillingly, he parted from her.

"Goodbye Teef." Was all he could bring himself to say, his voice breaking as he looked at her water glazed eyes. She nodded, smiling through her tears.

"Goodbye Cloud." She whispered, and watched as he turned away from her, water prickling the corner of her eyes, which she visibly fought to hold back. Then he walked away from her towards the new dawn of the day after the miracle of the world being saved.

"I'll miss you..."

She whispered to the retreating form of her hero, as he left her side for the last time. Her words carried into the wind and sealed the broken promise they had kept all their lives, permanently in her heart. As she wrapped her arms around her trembling body, her vision blurred with un-spilled tears as she watched his form fade into the distance. When he eventually disappeared from her sight, she lost all of her strength and let out her sorrow in a huge release, crying out to the silence around her, staining it with her pain. Her legs crumbled from below her, and she dropped to her knees in anguish, crying her heart out before the dying sun.

That evening, as the sun fell to the mercy of the night sky, Tifa Lockheart wept for love, and the unbearable realisation that she would never be loved by the one she so un-endingly had done for her whole life.

When the heart rules over mind, grief is the price we pay for love.

Author's notes: This is the first chapter then. I'm a good few chapters in front now, and just modifying all my chapters. Hope you all like this! New readers, welcome, welcome you special people. Read and Review!

Xx Jessie xX