(A/N: Hullo, another fic for you all, this time it's a seph/tifa fic. … I know not very likely, but I like a challenge. So if you don't like this couple then run now. Warning angst ahead! Thanks and enjoy :D )
My Greatest Sin
By
The Redundant Goddess
X Confession X+
When I was with AVALANCE trying to save the world from certain doom, I remember Vincent talking about how he had sinned and how much he wanted to atone for them. For his wayward youth, the lives he took as a Turk and mainly for not being able to save the woman he loved more than anything else in this world.
Back then, those sins, although I suppose unfortunate, seemed worse. However, seven year later, to me at least, they don't seem so bad.
In fact, compared to my sins, Vincent's pale in comparison.
My name is Tifa Lockhart and I have sinned. Not a little sin like tell a lie or even steal something .I haven't even killed anyone, although there were a few times when I wanted people to die (but I'll get to that later) No, my sins are far greater than anything anyone could imagine.
However my greatest sin, no matter how awful it may have be, is also my greatest joy…
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"MUM!"
I looked up from my desk to see my smallest run into my kitchen and hook her arms round my legs.
"What is it, honey?" I asked and petted her long dark hair that I had put up into bunches that very morning.
She looked up at me with those eyes that I once found horrifying and squeaked.
"There's a guy outside, he's on a big bike, he was asking about you."
My heart sank into the bottom of my stomach. Cloud. He's not supposed to be here… not yet… Panic began to seep through my body like poison and I jumped up from my invoice slips. Thoughts flashed through my mind as I tried to figure out what to do. Why was he here? Why now? Why after all these years and with no warning? Had he found out?
"Where's your brother?" I asked my daughter quickly, heading for the front of my house and down the stairs into the bar area. She followed the best she could, her long oversized jumper almost tripping her up.
"I think he's in dojo out back, Mum, why what's wrong?" She asked worried.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gave her a stern look.
"Nothing, just go and stay with your brother out back, don't come out until I call you okay?"
"But Mum…"
"No 'buts' Lu', just go." I snapped, my heart in my throat.
Her face filled with hurt and her eyes started to well up with tears. I quickly jumped up the steps, knelt and gave her a brief but warm hug.
"Shush," I soothed and rubbed her back. "Mummy isn't mad at you, but you have to do as I say now. Okay?"
I gave her one of my warm smiles that Cid always said made me more than qualified to be a mother and Lu returned it, albeit with added sniffles.
"Okay." She whispered and nodded.
I smiled again.
"Good girl, now go on, find Riku and stay put, okay?"
She nodded again and as she turned to run back up the stairs I jumped down the remaining steps and out into the bar, where a very familiar someone was waiting for me at the other end of the bar closest to the door.
Cloud…
My god he hasn't changed a bit. I thought. Still carrying that over-sized sword I see… In the whole six a bit years since he left 7th Heaven for the final time the only thing I could see that had changed was the length of his spiky blond hair and new clothes. My heart was beating so fast I thought I was going to die and not out of total admiration for my oldest friend…
"Tifa." He says.
"Cloud." I reply.
An uncomfortable silence drifted between us as we stared at each other. In my mind all I could think was how to get him out of my bar before something happened.
He moved closer to me as I squeezed through the opening to face him out from my fortress from behind the bar. He went to hug me, but before he managed to get one arm around me a loud yell broke the silence and a ball of black scruffy hair stormed into the bar.
"MUM! You never guess what, there's a really cool bike outside and it's got all kinds of neat stuff on it and…"
My young son skidded to a halt and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw my visitor and stared in disbelief. His little green eyes blinked questioningly at the blond haired man before him with his massive weapon on his back in the hazy light of the bar. I my heart stopped dead as the saviour of the world glanced at my son and looked back at me with a more than surprised look on his face.
Cloud stepped back from me and raises and eyebrow.
"Mum?" The word slipped from his mouth in a hushed tone. He's totally shell shocked and to be honest so am I. This wasn't the way I had intended for him to find out I was a mother… and in all honesty I had never intended on him finding out at all…
"Yes." I replied my voice shook ever so slightly.
I waved my hand at Riku to come over to me, which he did and immediately latched onto my left leg. He's usually quite a brave boy, especially for a five year old, but I guess seeing a strange man with an oversized sword must've been a little too much for him. Not that I blame him. He hid behind my skirt when Cloud's mako blue eyes looked his way again and I want to join Riku. The ex-solider tried to say something but I cut him short.
"One moment." I turned towards the back of the bar and called out. " Lu! Could you come down here please?"
I turned back to my old friend and gave him a strained smile as he yet again gave me a confused look. After a minute or so the sound of tiny footsteps could be heard above us. A minute later a small girl popped out from behind the bar with a small Chocobo plushie under her arm and quickly latched onto my right leg.
I knelt down and gathered my two children into my arms and hugged them close. I smiled back up at Cloud, my body shaking with fear and introduced my family.
"Cloud, these are my two children, Riku and Lu Lu. They're twins…" I coughed and turned to my children. "Kids, this is my old friend Cloud Strife. Say hello."
I nudged my shy children and they mumbled out a hello, Riku gave a small wave and Lu just hide behind my skirt some more. Cloud gave them a small polite smile and waved back them at them, his expression a mixed of bemused and completely confused. I laughed, not at their cuteness but out of sheer terror. My whole world was about to implode if I didn't get them out of here soon.
I whispered in their ears to run back upstairs and stay in their rooms, but as I let them go Cloud decided to take a closer inspection of my offspring and knelt down before them.
My children stood very still as Cloud looked at them, those blue eyes moved silently over their small bodies until they came to meet their bright green eyes. I held my breath and flinched a little as the Ex-Solider stared into my son's and then my daughter's eyes. I felt sick. I watched in horror as his expression changed from bemused to confused to recognition. He looked up at me with those Mako blue eyes and I knew I had been rumbled. The terrible truth that I had hid from him for almost six years was about to come out.
Without further ado and before Cloud could draw his sword I told my children to hurry upstairs. As soon as they were gone I looked back at my ex lover, my eyes filled with pain, fear a regret. His eyes had turned cold and angry his face filled with a million questions.
"Tifa, who…"
"Cloud, I can't." I cried.
"…Who is…?"
"Cloud, I'm sorry!"
"Tifa!"
" I…"
"Who is their father!"
I couldn't look at him. I hung my head and turned my back to him. Even now, after everything I couldn't admit out loud, not to him of all people. Not that… Tears began to streak down my face.
"Just go…" I choked.
"Tifa?"
"JUST GO!
I screamed and ran up stairs into my house leaving Cloud to walk out of my bar and my life yet again and possibly… forever.
My name is Tifa Lockhart and I have sinned.
But from my greatest sin came my greatest joy.
My children.
His Children.
My name is Tifa Lockhart…
And…
…I…
I am the mother of Sephiroth's children…
(A/N: Right that's the opening done, hope you enjoyed :D Until next time. Peace and pies! RG XXX)