with the wind and the sun

She treads on along the rocky beach, hands clasped at her back and naked feet sinking into the chafing brown sand. She doesn't know for how long she's been walking, so lost in her trains of thoughts, only that she's a little hungry, a little flushed from the heat of the sun, and alone.

For all her need for companionship, she does like the solitude.

The sky is blue. Bright. The sea hums pleasantly, cool waves sucking at her ankles, and the briny wind carries the whine of a cargo ship returning to port. Up ahead there's a row of palm trees, their pinnate canopies rustling, pulling her to the welcoming shadows.

"Tell me immediately if he hurts you." Cloud drew his hand through her hair, kinder than he'd ever been.

"What would you do then?" His smile turned into confusion. His hand retreated from her. "If I told you?" She sounded caustic and she knew it. It wasn't like her to take it out on him.

"Did he…?"

Mako eyes widened as he inferred the worst. She shook her head. "No." The irony was not lost on her as to who was not hurting her, and who was able to.

The dry sand burns her skin. In the short sprint to the shade she suddenly feels carefree, like the breeze rushing through the folds of her clothes would catch her should she fall. But then that feeling ends just as abruptly. Her vision is filled with stars. She settles against the rough trunk and allows herself to adapt to the darkness.

Somewhere out of sight there's the laughter of children and the cries of the seagulls. She rubs her feet together to rid them of the grey grains of sand and smiles to herself, dull thumping between her ribs. She doesn't know where she's left her heels. Eyes closed, she sees his face again, even after all these long months.

"Tifa-"

"Don't worry." And, "Just a bit. Let me stay like this."

Her forehead rested against Cloud's warm chest, warm heartbeats, but her hands are kept strictly at her sides. Her silly little heart did not quicken like it once had, only slowed. Sank like a thousand pounds in the vast ocean.

"Don't worry about me."

His eyes narrowed with tenderness. "But I do."

It was a common mistake people made, confusing pity with love. They were old enough now not to. She smiled in return, unable to help the crease between her own brows. "This is what I want."

His lips became a thin line. "All right." And he left.

"Must you waste time in this manner?"

The voice snaps her out of her thoughts, and she looks up from her fistful of sand and nearly snorts when she sees him moving toward her underneath the shade provided by the umbrella held by a Turk. Wingtip shoes crush the sand in decided steps, he stops beside her underneath the flickering shadows and waves the Turk away.

"Like you're spending it any more wisely in meetings where nothing gets resolved."

"I'm not surprised diplomacy is lost on you."

It's not, but she doesn't think he cares to correct that opinion.

She stares up at him and tries to decipher his intention in coming to find her all the way down here. The black pair of sunglasses he has on shields more of his thoughts than usual, and she gives up.

"They're good." The slightest tilt of his head conveys his unvoiced question. "The Turks. I was pretty sure I bought myself more time than this." She even slipped her PHS with the tracker into another woman's bag to give them a little run-around. She briefly wonders how long it took for them (for him?) to start worrying, if at all.

"A woman dressed as you are boarding the public elevator will naturally draw attention." He gestures at the expensive black one piece she has on. "We only had to ask."

She keeps forgetting how much she stands out now from the grunge and grit, how coddled she must seem draped in the layers of spilling extravagance simply to walk next to him.

"I'll remember to bring a change of clothes next time."

"I'd pray there isn't a next time." There's a hint of exasperation in his otherwise lazy tone. "You're not in a position to wander around in public unattended."

In another life, she would have taken great offense at the way he seeks to control her movement, and the galling notion of being treated like some fragile damsel. Now she's just amused. If he were anyone else, she might have thought he was concerned for her well-being. But if that then it wouldn't have been the baby Turks following her around only for her to lose them.

"Unlike you, Shinra, I'm only worth anything alive." Tifa is mighty pleased with herself with that small jab, even knowing he cares not how the world views him. She pushes into the sand to get to her feet. Facing him on levelled ground, she smiles.

"I won't be taken alive."

His chuckle is almost inaudible in the strong wind that blows her hair aflutter. The sunlight dances on him, reflects off his sunglasses. She can almost see the blue eyes behind the dark lenses. "I think you're trying to bring WRO's wrath down on me."

"What needless worry. Reeve was furious last we spoke." She waves at the thought, trying to be nonchalant. But her smile turns bitter as she recalls the disappointment and betrayal in Reeve's eyes when she told him of her decision.

Rufus looks at her, silent, assessing. "Do you believe yourself any less dear to the Commissioner because of that?"

She blinks. He reaches past her cheek, and she doesn't flinch when his hand brushes into her hair. Tiny bumps spread across her skin as his searing fingertips slide along the cup of her ear and lift up the small marble dangling from her earring to scrutiny.

"Even if it's not written down in the book, being affiliated with Shin·Ra guarantees that one will never get a materia license." And he lets go, retreats into his own space. "Reeve is canny foe, Miss Lockhart, but also a sentimental man."

She doesn't know what to say to that, so, "I hear jealousy."

He considers that without snark and nods. "Close enough. I can think of many occasions where materia would have been…preferable." His gaze drifts. Silence settles between them, not uncomfortably. The leaves rustle. She casts her gaze out into the sunny, rocky beach. The low whine of cargo ships and the grumble of the waves. The children and the gulls.

"It's too bright here," he says, hand held out to her.

"Are we ready to head back?"

"I guess you do need your decoration back." She takes his hand, and he snorts.

"Last I checked, decorations did not move on their own." Then his grip tightens, drawing her attention to his eyes behind the sunglasses. "You feel powerless." Something in the pit of her stomach twists and her heart begins to beat out of order. Suddenly, he's seeing through too much and making her feel vulnerable and pathetic and she wants to run away again. His grip doesn't let her.

"I'll remind you that this isn't where I have a use for you."

"Know your own worth, Miss Lockhart."

She hesitates, thinks and wonders and ponders, still unable to decipher those eyes hiding behind the lenses. The rhythm inside her chest regulates itself, still rapid, but uplifted. She returns his grip in a semblance of the handshake they'd shared before that sealed their agreement. It feels like an eternity ago.

"Fine. I'll be patient."

"Excellent." His signature smirk creeps onto his lips.

And they climb the hills of sand and rocks, hands to themselves, and meet up with the Turks. The baby Turks are there too, turning disapproving looks on her but saying nothing. Before joining him in the car, she glances one last time over her shoulder at the wind-swept beach below.

"I did not realize you were fond of the sea. I could arrange for Costa del Sol. Much less sharp debris." He's looking at her scratched up feet. Seated, she shakes her head and reaches down to heal herself, materia softly glowing by her jaw.

"My experiences with it can be counted on one hand. Most of them less than pleasant."

Still she looks out the window as the car steadily accelerates. And she wonders if the sky is clearer, or if the water is simply frothing less.

The Junon beach in her memory didn't have quite the same charm.