Everything Changes

By: The DayDreaming

Dedicated to: Kaikai PANTS, for being uberly awesome, and I said that I would make her some Clouffie love. And also to Chiisarin, who's new one-shot inspired this piece of crap (I'll review when I have the time!).

Warnings: This story comes from several combined themes from another piece of writing I did for the Clouffie pairing, so if you've read that story you'll notice some familiarities. This is basically what those ideas could have shaped up to be, had I not written them in one sentence. Also, this one-shot is set to the mood of Everything Changes, an uberly awesome song by Staind. LISTEN TO IT BEFORE READING OR WHILE READING THIS STORY!!! You will understand this story if you do! Or maybe you won't. I don't know. That is all.

Recommended listening music: Everything Changes by Staind.

Disclaimer: Honestly, you morons.

Summary: "Because I like you." (CloudxYuffie) To Yuffie, memory was never important. To Cloud, it was what made him stop feeling. (For Kaikai PANTS and Chiisarin.)

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Oh God. She was coming.

The hyper monstrosity. The bouncy girl of doom. The Great Ninja.

Yuffie.

Cloud inwardly cringed.

Now don't get him wrong, Yuffie was a perfectly fine person. Ninja. Thing. Yeah.

Actually, considering everyone else, she was probably the most normal person in their little group. After all, she had no protruding limbs that would otherwise not be found on a human being, didn't have any scars (Not that he looked! Ew. Okay, maybe a little. But he couldn't help it! She was wearing those [almost scandalous clothes at the time.), didn't wear an excessive amount of pink, and didn't go around randomly punching walls and causing miniature earthquakes. But, compared to normal people Yuffie was…irregular. Strange. Just a tiny bit out there.

Okay, she was weird in all senses of the word.

And she was still coming towards at a pace he was not comfortable with, and here he was, rambling on, against his wall. His. Not Yuffie's. Damn. He was doing it again.

Honestly, the girl was like a gateway drug for thinking random and inarticulate thoughts. Maybe when she jumped around it was really some type of magic that made opponents distracted and confused. A one-hit K.O. from brain implosion.

She was here. Yuffie.

Damn.

"Hey, Cloudie!" She leaned up against the wall he was currently using as a kickstand. His wall. Damn.

"…"

"Aw, c'mon Cloud." Yuffie looked at him with a rye grin. "You aren't still mad about that little accident with Aerith's bra, are you?"

"She hit me with a Blizziga and kept me frozen. For. Seven. Hours." He indignantly glared at her. "And you sat there. For seven hours. While laughing at me."

The ninja scratched her head sheepishly, still keeping that – stupid – grin on her face. "I was all out of magic!"

"Your item pouch was full and laying right next to you."

"How was I supposed to know?" She turned her head away innocently, hiding her face as if that would hide her lie.

Cloud fixed his gaze on her. "…Yeah."

"So, why are you here?" He changed the subject before Yuffie could get too comfy on the wall. His wall. Damn.

"Oh," She lifted her head to stare up at Radiant Garden's sky. "Just to talk."

The swordsman highly doubted this and made this fact known with a poorly disguised cough-snort.

"Whaaat?"

"…I'm leaving." Cloud began to lift himself from the wall. His wall. Damn.

"Wait!" Yuffie quickly reached out and grabbed his black shoulder guard. "Uh, why don't you stay?"

The swordsman glared at her, as if saying, "Give me a good reason." Or maybe it was, "Get the F!# off." They should really come out with a glare interpretation manual…

Yuffie snapped out of her thoughts of how one would come about making a glare dictionary when Cloud tried to sneakily pry her hand off his shoulder and make a grand escape. "Just for a friendly talk, y'know? Please? You don't have to talk if you don't want to!"

Cloud his amusement at the interpretation of a fish face she was making and dejectedly leaned against the wall again. His wall. Damn.

Yuffie grinned, holding out a victory sign. The face got them all the time. Screw puppy eyes; fish face for the win!

The ninja settled down in her post and rested her hands on the back of her head, content for the moment. "So. What do you want to talk about?"

Cloud almost left then and there, but controlled himself at the last minute. It was not Cloud-like to leave a comrade behind in battle. The wall. His wall.

(Bet you thought there was gonna be a 'damn' in there.)

Damn.

"…"

A thick silence hung in the air, Cloud unwilling to break it, and Yuffie distracted by some dropped munny. After a while Yuffie was beginning to get antsy. This common courtesy thing sucked, but Aerith kept saying that Yuffie needed to learn some.

As the teenager was about to blurt out something random Cloud finally spoke.

"Do you remember?"

"Remember what?" Yuffie glanced towards him curiously before turning her head to look at the horizon. Radiant Garden's horizon. Her "home".

Cloud's face was solemn, also looking to the distant sky. "Remember to back then. Before all this happened."

The ninja kept her eyes trained on that nonexistent line, the divider between earth and sky.

"No." she mumbled.

She did.

"Only Traverse Town."

Her home.

The swordsman stayed silent for a few minutes; this subject required careful thought on what to say. It was touchy for all for all of the Restoration Committee, except maybe Yuffie. It was even hard to talk about it himself, although he never talked much anyways. So why did he bring it up?

"Did you ever miss it?" Cloud finally decided to ask.

"Nope, and maybe that's why Aerith and Leon were so upset." Yuffie scuffed the heel of her boot on the cobble street. "You can't miss what you don't know."

Look. Common sense. Coming from Yuffie. The worlds never cease to amaze.

Cloud seemed to be out of questions or perhaps at his maximum word limit for the day, and so Yuffie filled in the silence herself.

"I don't know if I could miss this place anyways. It doesn't…it doesn't," she grappled for proper wording. "It doesn't feel warm."

Because Radiant Garden – Hollow Bastion – was like a dead body with a cold, beautiful heart.

The ninja took a few seconds to figure out what she was going to say (Look, another miracle!) before starting up again.

"Squall and Aerith say I should be happy to be back home, but…this isn't home. It doesn't feel like it. Traverse Town was my home. That's where I grew up, where I learned everything, where all my friend are…"

Yuffie's breath hitched and she refused to look at Cloud, staring intensely at a spot in the sky. She tried to keep her voice from wavering as she continued.

"C-Cloud…is it…is it wrong, t-that I want to go home?"

It all felt wrong. Cloud felt a strange, panicky-sinking guilt. He had never seen Yuffie cry, he thought she was incapable of such an emotion as sadness, but here she was, trying to stifle sniffles and sharp gulps of air, hands trembling and trying to repress the urge to reach up and swipe away the offending tears.

It made him wonder if she held in tears all the time while the others openly grieved in their own ways.

"So, you don't remember?" Cloud looked at the shaking ninja intently, desperately, to see if this was really happening; the Great Ninja wasn't just hot air and ego, but human and cracked pride.

Yuffie looked up at him, eyes red-rimmed and glassy. She didn't look pretty, like so many pictures of girls depicted, or ugly, or anything of the sort. She looked beautifully raw, like this was the way people were supposed to look when they cried, but usually didn't.

Cloud's heart seemed to stall and he had to stop himself from reaching up to feel and make sure that it was still there. The moment passed though, and Yuffie used her forearm to scrub at her face.

When she was done and had settled down to quiet sniffle and hiccups she gave a wide grin, and scratched her head sheepishly –familiarly.

"Sorry 'bout that. Don't know what came over me." She turned her focus back to the sky. Acting as if it never happened, keeping that – stupid – grin on her face.

"I remember," Yuffie began. "When the heartless were invading. Taking over Radiant Garden. A boy saved me."

A blond boy, with spiky hair and amazing blue eyes, that didn't speak much and gave shy smiles.

"Because you got yourself in trouble while escaping, didn't you?" Cloud said amusedly. He was hesitant for a second, but then his face broke out into a smile, something so foreign, and yet looked so right. "That would be like you."

When Yuffie looked up she had to keep from blushing at Cloud's face. Then she realized what he said and snorted indignantly.

"Hey! I was younger and not as uberly awesome as I am now."

As an afterthought she added, "I remember you used to smile more, too."

Cloud's smile dropped, and formed into a contemplative line.

"Everything changes." He said.

Yuffie stood from the wall and stretched, mouth pulled in a wide smile, then gave a satisfied sigh as she heard several bones crack.

She turned and grinned at Cloud, that – stupidwonderfulbeautifullyraw – grin and said, "Yeah, everything changes. But on the inside you're still you."

Yuffie took a few steps away from the wall. The wall they always talked to each other against. Their wall.

"If you forgave yourself, Cloud, maybe it would be easier to feel."

The ninja began to walk away, but stopped and turned around again when Cloud called her name.

"So, why did you come to talk?" Cloud asked, removing himself from the wall as well.

Yuffie mumbled something indiscernible and her cheeks turned a slight pink.

"What?"

"Oh, no reason!" She scratched the back of her head and grinned. "Just killing time."

"You probably forgot, didn't you?" There was no hesitation this time when Cloud gave another amazing smile.

Yuffie scoffed, but then continued to grin, even wider than before. "You know Cloud, you should smile more. It makes this place feel warmer."

Then she left, as unusually as she had come, jumping about and snagging her feet in invisible cracks, like something she would do.

"Yeah." Cloud began to walk away. "I'll try to change."

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But everything changes

If I could

Turn back the years

If you could

Learn to forgive me

Then I could learn to feel

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If you just walked away

What could I really say?

And would it matter anyway?

It wouldn't change how you feel

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End.

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Lyrics belong to Staind.

Yeah. That was a complete waste of time. I'm tired.

But I have to say that I like this piece, just because I accomplished what I wanted to. I started out with the idea of 1) Making a Clouffie, and 2) Using the line, "You used to smile more." Yeah, I'm pretty happy.

I'm sorry if they're really as OOC to you guys as they seem to me, I'm awful that way. Also, sorry for the many, many mistakes that are probably present. I'm in a hurry to get this posted before I go to bed.

I also want to say: SUPPORT THE CLOUFFIE REVOLUTION!!! (salute) There's not enough out there! Be kind to the starving minorities and shower the Kingdom Hearts section in Clouffie godliness! (foams)

Also, what did Yuffie say? Here a hint: Go look at the summary! Duh. I was even nice and included it on the page, at the top.

I think that's all I wanted to say.

Please review! Support the Clouffie cause and make me feel like I should write more by leaving a message! The DayDreaming out!

Oh, one more thing.

FISH FACES FOR THE WIN!!!