A/N: I've had this idea for a while.. . wouldn't leave me alone :P So I figured I'd put it out there and see what you guys think. Just a drabble that popped into my head one day and kept poking me with a stick. Lol.

Enjoy and remember this:

An eye-catching summary: some nickels in my jar. A good one-shot: A penny for each thought. A nice review for the author: priceless.

Disclaimer: I don't own them, just the plot.

"Hold my hand sweetie or you might get lost." Blue eyes shifted from the shop displays to a blonde haired woman, a tiny hand offered as he nodded.

They walked like that, him holding his new toy sword with one hand and the other clutched tightly by his mother's own warm grasp as he curiously watched children playing and running rampant with mothers trying to either keep control or haggling for one thing or other in the open shops.

"Hey, I've got an idea Cloud!" His mother said suddenly as she distractedly crossed a street with him, "We haven't been out for some ice cream lately, would you like some, hun?"

Silence was her response.

"Cloud, honey?" As they got to the other side of the street, the woman chanced a look down at her son, shaking the hand that she still held in her grasp.

"Sweetie?"

His eyes were glued to something on the street they had just left, his body rigid as he stood completely enraptured by something. Had she not known any better, she would've guessed her five year old son had been turned to stone right there on the sidewalk.

Following his gaze, she realized that it was locked on a little girl in a blue dress who stood by a shop window with her own mother. She was jumping up and down and pointing at something on display.

Wait . . . Wasn't that the little girl that lived next door?

"Mommy?"

Now that she thought about it, the girl and her mother did look kind of familiar.

"Mmhm?" She answered, looking back down at her son. Cloud tore his gaze away from the scene then, looking up at her with a curiously serious expression.

"Why is that doll buying herself a doll?" His mother's own blue eyes widened then, caught off guard by the strange question as the boy pointed openly with his sword at the girl, his gaze still on his mother as he waited for an answer.

She couldn't help it then, she laughed lightly.

"Sweetie," She said, bending down to his level as she looked at the young girl, "That's not a doll, that's a real girl."

Cloud turned to her, frowning then. "No, momma that's not a real girl."

She mirrored his frown.

"And why do you think she's not a real girl, Cloud?" The young boy turned to look at the girl at the shop window then, tilting his head slightly as he scrutinized her. He seemed to be deep in serious thought (or as serious as a five year old could get anyways), turning back to his mother with an intense gaze that she had never seen on her son before.

"Because," He answered easily, "She's too pretty to be a real girl."

His opinion of her didn't change over the years.

Soft hands, gentle touch, warm laughs.

The flower girl may have been a Cetra, and a pretty one at that, but there was something that she was missing. . . something that only that little girl at the shop window had.

Her smile.

And it killed him to leave such a beautiful doll behind like he did, riding Fenrir off into the horizon like he did, her sad eyes the only image to plague his mind.

"You're leaving again aren't you?"

How would it feel to have her hands touch him . . . if only once?

But there was no other way.

He couldn't admit it to her, couldn't say it to her, couldn't confess the secret that consumed his heart because he was afraid to taint her with his dirty hands, and his dirty thoughts, and feelings. He was infected by memories that would never leave him; Sephiroth had seen to that. There were things he had seen, actions he had taken, words he had said that he knew were too filthy for her, not worthy of being used to taint such a pure heart.

Just once . . .

"A memory or us?"

Us, he wanted to say.

But he couldn't.

Her lips so inviting . . . how would a kiss from her feel?

Or maybe he could?

His name soft upon her lips whispered gracefully, carefully, just for him.

No, no, no, no. Dirty, dirty thoughts of a soul ripped and shredded, put back together in a messy way. He couldn't do it to her, he just couldn't. She was perfect in every way he wasn't. Softness to his harshness, warmth to his cold--love to his hate.

And he couldn't . . .

His hands roaming, feeling every inch of her body in agonizingly sluggish movements with calloused hands . . .

Gods he couldn't do this, he just couldn't!

For one night with her . . . he'd do anything.

Just one night, one touch from the doll at the shop window.

A sweet caress before their world fell down around them again—because it might be the last time . . . the only chance.

His mind seemed to shut down as fear settled into his heart at the thought.

The last time, his mind echoed. No more smiles, or worried frowns, or healing hands. She would be gone. And even though he could barely shoulder the weight of Aeris' own death, Tifa's would be too much for him. He wouldn't be able to live with himself for disappointing her in the most ultimate of ways—in never showing her what she truly meant to him.

If something happened to her . . .

Fenrir was suddenly and quite violently shifted, turned around and now leading back on the tracks it had made to where the swordsman had left her in an empty home.

She was so fragile. He knew she was fragile and it scared him to imagine her in the church, laying so still and deathly pale. Or maybe way back when Sephiroth hurt her, leaving her for dead all those years ago . . . or even further back on the bridge when they were young and he didn't save her.

When he couldn't save her.

But it was just so forbidden, so wrong!

He didn't remember parking the bike outside, or swinging the door open. He just saw her in the middle of an empty Seventh Heaven on a Sunday night, the children gone from the scene—staying with Barret for the week.

Please, please, he wanted to say.

"Oh, hey Cloud, you're home early! Is everything okay?"

Just once . . . .

"Cloud?"

I'm so sorry. . . . I'm so, so sorry. . .

"Cloud, are you okay?"

I want you to be my doll now.

He didn't say anything. Instead he walked up to her, his stride urgent as he wrapped his gloved hands around her arms and pushed her up against a wall before looking her straight in the eye, a deep guilt obvious in his mako-induced gaze as he said the only thing he could.

"I'm so sorry."

No more; no more sadness, no more loss, no more pain.

He didn't wait for an answer but instead brought his lips crashing down onto hers. He felt her tense up in shock, a gasp escaping her open lips as her eyes widened.

Let me touch you.

But then, to his surprise, she began to kiss him back; lightly at first . . . shyly. And then slowly, ever so slowly, her hands came up to snake around his neck, pulling him closer to her as her back met the wall. Her eyes were closed, her fingers grasping at his blonde hair as she began to cry.

Just let me touch you.

There were so many emotions that passed through them as they stumbled along blindly, falling into each other as his kisses became more urgent, hers more soothing. And even then, when she was laying there among the sheets, he couldn't help but think that she was a doll, her body too beautiful and artistic to be truly human. Even the scar that ran across her upper chest was too perfect. . . like it was meant to be there.

My doll. My perfect little doll.

"I'm sorry." He whispered to her in the dark, laying in her embrace. "I'm so sorry."

I'll keep you forever.

"It's okay." She whispered into his hair. "We'll be okay."

And no one will ever take you from me again.

She cried then in the dark, watching as he slept and knowing that maybe, just maybe, there were some things that were meant to be deeper than love. Because he was Cloud Strife and she was Tifa Lockhart, and there were things between them that would never be understood--including their obsession with each other.

Because that's what it was, with him in her arms and she silently crying.

Obsession.