A/N: Yo! So, um. :D This is awful writing. Seriously, guys. I know. I was just browsing through pics on pixiv, and.. whattaya know. I find a really gorgeous one of Tifa, with ghosty!Aerith's arms wrapped around her. So, I started writing and... this super short junk came out. Now, I'm not too proud of this little ficlet, buuuut... I do like Tifa/Aerith... And this is somewhat femmeslash... And I need some of that, so here we go! New blah. =)

Tifa Lockhart didn't cry. She was strong, immensely so. Everyone knew it. She knew it. But... On that day, the day Aerith died... She did cry. She cried so damn hard that everything felt hot and she couldn't breathe and when she caught a blurry glimpse of blood staining that pretty brown hair... blood... Aerith... She fell to her knees from the weight of it all.

Through her pain, she heard soft "Hush, hushh.."s from somewhere behind her. She didn't care; only continued to sob and shake and she heard an almost unbearably pained scream erupt from Cloud and the hand on her shoulder which had actually been a paw was gone in an instant and running to Cloud's side, leaving a trail of flame behind it...

It was sickening, really... the blush of color darkening Aerith's pink dress... Cloud's shaking, garbled sobs of anger... pain...Cloud and Nanaki were fighting some hellatious thing and she was just sitting there! Crying.. Where the hell had all of that strength gone..? A choked whimper bubbled from the confines of her chest...

Aerith... Aerith... Aerith was so good at everything Tifa was not.. She smiled, she laughed.. She spoke her mind when Tifa held her tongue... She was so... beautiful... She shone when Tifa could not... And, sometimes, like when Cloud held his little smiles only for the flower-girl... and Barret gave one of his knowing looks to Tifa, like he was apologizing for Tifa's... for her... inability to be what Cloud wanted... she hated her for it. At Gold Saucer... Tifa's chest had burned with as she lay awake, silently listening to the sounds of Aerith getting out of bed... out of bed to go with him... and she had said nothing...

A dry, forced laugh ripped from her... it was so damn stupid now... Why had she gotten so angry over that? ...Such a little thing... She hadn't spoken to Aerith for days, despite the girls brash questioning on the matter. ...And now... now... Aerith lay on the ground, after doing something so unbelievably strong... And she... this... 'strong' woman... was a blubbering mess whilst her friends fought for this girl... This beautiful, wonderful girl...

No. She wouldn't have it.

Lifting herself from the ground in a swift, forceful motion, Tifa shot towards her friends, stumbling as she did so. She could hear angry screams... Barret's? A curse from Cid... followed by another, worse curse from the underage Yuffie. ...Gunfire from a pistol... and a puff of purple magic... Her friends... all of them... were fighting? ...Here? …For Aerith. Like she should be doing. Like she should have been doing from the beginning.

The feeling of her gloved fist colliding with the side of that damn Jenova beast had to have been the most satisfying thing she had ever felt, right next to the taste of rum-laced coffee in the morning and the scent of that one rainy morning in the plains outside of Kalm...

With one hand, Tifa pulled a grenade from a holster around her leg to throw towards the enemy- a handy trick she'd learned from Yuffie- and with the other, she rubbed the tears off of her face, smearing dirt on her cheeks. All around her was the sound of battle, and Cloud's sobs... With a grunt, Cid landed from a rather high jump to her side.

"Ya done weepin' there, sweetcheeks?"

Tifa grinned at his rough comment, and started running towards Jenova, yelling over her shoulder, "You'd best shut your mouth, Captain!

You should know I don't cry."

When Cloud dealt the killing blow to the bloated thing, the adrenaline of the party was gone, sucked away almost as rapidly as it had emerged in them... and all that they were left with were each other and a sense of loneliness and Tifa's hands were trembling as Cait Sith climbed down from his mog mount and walked over to.. to Aerith...

The cat was silent for once, and had more pain in his eyes than Tifa had ever seen in the eyes of a robot before and his gloved paw reached out to touch her... but hesitated... and he looked down, before walking away. Tifa wasn't crying this time, not even when she noticed Barret's locked jaw and furrowed brow as he stomped off, up out of the core and back towards the surface...

Everyone loved Aerith. That much... was obvious... There were tears on Yuffie's cheeks and Vincent was more rigid and stoic than usual... And Cloud... his eyes... were dead.

When Tifa moved closer to Aerith... liquid started to well under her lashes, but she stopped it, blinked it away. With every step she grew closer... to Aerith... to what used to be Aerith.

This Aerith wouldn't smile... laugh... wouldn't bug Tifa to braid her hair or place a gentle kiss on her forehead at bedtime which Tifa had gasped at and gotten annoyed that Aerith was treating her like such a child... when truly Tifa had missed that touch since her mother's passing, which, in a way, Aerith knew and that's why she did it.

She kneeled in front of the.. body... Her eyes trying to soak in everything, trying to see life in this still Aerith... Her fingers shook, but she lifted them up to the girl's bangs, brushing them away from the closed lids... there were purple smudges... bruises... on the skin. Someone must have shut her eyes for her...

As the silky strands slipped from her fingers, still trembling with reservation... Tifa's chest... hurt. So badly. So much it felt like she would go mad. She leaned forward... her heart was beating rapidly, every thump an ache... every ache... threatening to bring about those damn tears that she refused to let fall... because she was strong... strong...

"Damnit, Tifa Lockheart!" Her whisper was shaky... breathing erratic... "..Be.. be strong... you have to... H-have to..."

She couldn't have stopped them, the tears. No one held it against her, either. Nanaki looked on sympathetically, and almost moved to comfort her, but a gauntlet on his collar stopped him.

Tifa wasn't strong, not the way she thought she was. She wasn't strong like Aerith... Or her friends... But... She possessed a different strength.. And at the base of that strength, just like Aerith's strength... was love.

Tifa wrapped her arms around the fragile form, and felt the last of the warmth it had clung to slip away. She tried not to think about the droplets of water falling from her, onto Aerith's cool face, as she laid a gentle, suppressed kiss on the woman's forehead. ….A last goodbye. And Tifa couldn't look as the still body was lowered into the water; didn't notice that Cloud was shaking as much as she had been... or that tears were on his face as well...

Later that night, Nanaki asked if she was okay. She looked at him and smiled. "Of course I am!"

Tifa couldn't fake smiles the way Aerith could, though... and the beast saw the pain in her eyes.

"Tifa... it's okay to cry, you know..."

Tifa's not-smile drooped.. her eyes met with the floor.

"I... I know that. But.. I have to be strong."

As she spoke, trickles of everything she held slipped down her cheeks, and not a single person blamed her for it. Because, really... they were all crying too. And, honestly, when Aerith saw them from the Lifestream, all gathered and crying and trying not to cry and Cloud's dead eyes... she cried. It was like fate that it rained that night, and the next morning... the sun shone. And Tifa's tears were gone, washed away. And the party moved on, continuing after Sephiroth... now for new reasons, riddled in with the old.

Later, Cloud would tell the friends to find their 'reason to fight'. Tifa stayed with the blonde that night, held him while he held her... kissed him and let him take her and stayed in his arms until morning. Because, he was all she had left. And she was all he had. And, they both thought of Aerith that night in entirely different ways and Tifa cried some more because she missed her and Cloud acted awkward and looked away.. But... for some reason, Tifa smelled the rain that night even though it was clear and she could have sworn at one point that pressing into her own were too soft to be Cloud's and she was sure he was imagining Aerith too... And, when she finally fell asleep, laid in Cloud's arms, underneath the Highwind and a soon approaching dawn.. she dreamt of a pink dress and pretty smile and soft lips kissing her forehead like her mother had...

Cloud looked at the brunette beside him. Fast asleep, with tears in her eyes.