A/N:If You haven't read "Breathless" and "Joie de Vivre" then I highly suggest that you do, since this is offically the ending piece to the "cigarette series". You won't get it unless you read them, trust me.

Happy Reading,

TMoh

At The End of an Evening Cigarette

"If you let me, I'll be the fire inside of your heart…"

She doesn't know what she's doing every night, staring like some stupid hopeless teenager at his front door, turning her last cigarette in her hands. It has her greasy fingerprints all along the white surface, and it still has the smell of his cologne and the smell of his brand of cigarettes on it. It smells like his apartment, and in truth, it's the only thing she has left from him besides a continual wave of disappointment rushing through her heart every time she hears his words repeat themselves inside of her head, like some kind of dismal mantra. But it's not funny because she really needs a smoke, but she refuses to use it.

The yellow glow of the streetlight reflects weakly against the hard wood of his door, because it was night when she left and it'll be night when she eventually comes back—though she has no idea in hell when she'll ever kick her fear in the gut and saunter through his door like she actually plans on staying.

Yeah, as if.

She does the same thing she's been doing ever since before she met him, she'll catch a mid evening coffee, strong, hard, but with three extra dollops of meltingly sweet whipped cream. And then, maybe with a good book, she'll sit outside on the bridge and lean over it, watching the sun flicker in and out against the water like it is waving goodbye. She likes the sunset better from his balcony, and it's really nice when he watches it with her, because it'll be peaceful and nobody will be fighting, and the sun will be glowing off the buildings like they're on fire. The bridge is pleasant too, though, because she can look at the water and see the sky looking down at her, the red and purple clouds swimming on the ripples in an exotic waltz. She'll occasionally see a bit of green, most likely from the discoloration of the water, and she'll see it dancing around all the other colors like it doesn't belong.

It's quiet on the bridge, but the hectic rumble of traffic and the muttering of constant passerby's ruin the overall effect. But until she can walk through his door, all smiles and carelessness, and see him welcome her in, his cocky self assured grin pasted back onto his face, she'll make do with the bridge and sing along to the waters gentle weeping. The bridge itself is stocky, and nothing short of glittering city gaudiness. The flickering Christmas lights strung in garish quartets on the rails blink and glare resolutely in the corners of her eyes, glittering like false stars. They're cheap colors of red and green, and some are white, glistening stubbornly no matter how many she undoes with hands that shake gallingly. She hates anything false, anything that resembles hope and life and then when the switch is flicked off for the night, the light that so many look up to, vanishes, waiting to disturb the sun with their tasteless appearance. The sun isn't like that; its glow naturally fades and lulls itself to sleep, cradled in the soft radiance of the clouds ghosting over the moon in pale cream sheets. The sky isn't all pitch black, it's actually layers of mystifying murky velvet blue, and she thinks with a single slipshod shrug as she curls against the wall next to his door, that if she touched the sky, it would be like touching his skin all over again.

That's why; she doesn't reach out any more.

But tonight, she's huddled against the flaking plaster wall, watching with eyes round as saucers, at the sky, and at the clouds curling in on themselves like the so familiar billows of smoke that he blew from his lips.

It's been a month, maybe two, since she told him to close his window, and ever since that night she's been telling herself that she's been just too tired to climb up there and check. However, in reality, she's scared of what she might find. If it's open, she won't know what the hell to do, and if it's closed, she won't know whether to pound on the door and demand that he let her in, or just sit in the street and sob onto her bare knees. Either way terrifies her, and she's no closer to walking through the door unnoticed, than she is to climbing up the red fire escape and checking the window that she's always gone through—just because she could.

Somewhere, inside of her, she yearns to know if there's a new pack of her favorite cigarettes on the little round table in the bedroom. And she wants to see if her spot at the railing has been covered by the potted plant that lived there before she moved it to a lonely corner in the shadows. She wonders if he waits by the open window every sunset, and smokes, looking out at the sun and at the short little bridge in the distance, speculating when she'll come back and where she might be. Or if it's closed, the blinds tautly stopped shut as another unfamiliar female silhouette dances with his familiar sinewy form, their shadows flickering against the curtains like two unwavering tree branches sweeping in the wind.

But it's this 'wondering' that brings those scratchy acidic tears that bubble in tiny bursts against her eyelids, sometimes streaming in thin lines down her cheeks and into her slightly parted mouth. They're salty, and then that just reminds her of his smile, so clear in her mind and cryptically correct, that no matter what he does, it's always right. She doesn't exactly understand how tears can remind her of him, but, she understands that it has a little bit to do with the sadness laminating his quiet rejection.

She doesn't know he's upstairs at this very moment, a cigarette balanced between his two fingers as he watches the curtains brush against the callous surface of the wall in a gentle enigmatic motion. And to be fair, he doesn't know that she's right outside his door, trying to forget.

They both think in their own self righteous ways, that to not know something is to forget that the thought ever took place in their minds.

Just like she can't will herself to forget about his face, and the way his eyes crinkle and shine, he can't forget the way she enters the room in a charismatic display of recklessness, bounding from one corner to the next, her arms reaching towards the ceiling.

They're a case of hopelessness just waiting to be discovered.

For two, or one—he stopped keeping track after three weeks of waiting for her to come back—months, the window has been open. It's winter now, and though that means stronger sunsets, and bitter wind, it means his heating bill has been upped since she left. In all her stubbornness, he has half a mind to don his blazer and jog to her little apartment three blocks away. He wants to walk in like he's been waiting for her to do for a while now, and he wants to grab her and kiss her, and then, after that, he wants to take her back to his apartment, and close that damn window.

Because once she's there, he'll close it, and make sure she'll never leave again.

But he's scared that she'll do the same thing to him that he did to her two months ago. In a flurry of movement, he stands up in his rumpled suit, and tucks the cigarette in his pants pocket, before lumbering half heartedly to his door. His front porch is like a balcony itself, overlooking the city, though still, it's not as good as his balcony, because that's located near the back of an alley, and it overlooks the whole city in its entirety and not just the shining tourist attractions. He stops, and in a rush, before he can make any more cowardly choices, he turns the lock and steps outside, feeling the chilling rush of midnight city air, and then stops, gawking unbelievably at the feminine figure staring straight back at him.

She's asleep now, to the side of his door like a homeless little girl, and the cigarette is clutched tightly in her hand, crushed by the clawing effect of her long fingers. She's just dozing, so she can still hear the occasional rumbling of a truck or the sing song voices of cheery drunks on their way to the next bar. She thinks she's dreaming when she hears the latch on the door click, and the sodden footsteps clamber their way into the early winter breeze. So she makes an attempt to wake up, her eyes slowly lifting open and her legs scrambling for a foothold on the lopsided doormat. Her vision is filled with blurred shadows, as she stands there focusing until her eyes glaze over everything else and sharpen the shadow of him standing to the side of her, his eyes glittering in dull surprise.

They don't know how long they're standing there, but when a series of frantic beeps from a nearby car cry shrilly in the distance, they realize that they're not staring at a figment of their imagination, they're staring at the real thing.

His eyes try to focus on something else, anything really, but they betray him and always revert back to her as she balances her hands on her hips, eyebrows scrunched up awkwardly. He looks at the ground, contemplating the tiny pieces of jagged pavement settled between the threads of his doormat, while she stares at the switch of his doorbell, wondering what it sounds like.

If it's clear with clarity like she wishes, or if just as fogged and muddled like they are right now.

He manages to speak first, his voice dry and helpless as it wavers—which she notices, is so unlike him it's almost scary.

"Hey…"

She manages a dry chuckle, fingers gripping at the scarce fabric of her khaki shorts, eventually groping their way into the loops sewn into the waistband. His hair is tied back as usual, but there's something pallid about his skin, its pale and his cheeks are tightly drawn and his eyes are helpless and wandering, almost a puppy dog like restless.

"Hey, yourself…"

He points out to the staircase leading to the road, "I was…"

"I was taking a walk, and uh…" she tries to finish, lamely shuffling her feet against the ground and hearing the crunching of the minuscule grains of rock beneath her boots.

"I didn't know…"

Stepping away, she looks elsewhere, anywhere but him, "I really didn't think I'd show up here…I thought…"

"I was just getting some air…" he begins to back step into the apartment.

"Well, I've got places to go…you know…"

She's about to walk away, still disoriented and groggy, though she's perceptive enough to know when the situation's grown to be so awkward that they don't know what to do with themselves but stumble over words and not say what really needs to be said.

He's torn between just closing the door and smoking a whole pack with or without her, or grabbing her before she walks away from him, again. He decides, as he sees her desperate withering look, that he won't do anything. So he tries to force a smile to creep onto his lips and she tries to remain careless enough to the fact that he's standing right there and there's nothing she can do but run like she does every other time.

"Yeah…me too."

So, she waves goodbye with a weak twist of her hand, and he flicks his fingers in her direction before shutting the door and falling to his knees, burying his face in his sweaty palms and wondering what the hell he just did. As he tries not to cry—because men like him just don't shed tears—he can hear the similar sound of someone falling right outside his door, and in a vague sense he can tell she's doing the exact same thing. Because like all the other times before, they're more alike then they'd like to admit.

The next morning, she wakes up in her own bed, and vaguely remembers walking away from him in a stupefied bundle of words. She puts her hand to her forehead and groans, staring out the small window at the azure morning sky. The clock says it's ten, which means it's actually nine, because she's had this bad habit of copying the stupidest things she's learned from him.

For instance, chicken pasta is her favorite food now, as well as the newest collection of corny action DVDs being the only things not collecting dust on her shelf of other movies.

"God…I am an idiot…"

She doesn't know that three blocks away, he opens his eyes from his sprawled position on the unmade bed and stares at the clock that visibly reads nine A.M. because last time she mentioned her clock, she said it was actually set at the right time, unlike his.

She thinks that she might go for a morning smoke, and as she groggily makes her way to the convenience store, she veers around and instead makes a straight, unhindered line to the coffee shop. She only smokes with him, and it would break a certain fragile taboo if she even so much as put a cigarette between her lips without him there to witness it.

An hour later when she can walk straight, she steps right out of that coffee shop and looks up at the sky, contemplating the tissue thin clouds skating on the wind like a kite but with a hundred percent more freedom. The wind is cold, but it's not as chilly as last night, so she has no reason to wrap her arms around herself protectively. The air is alive, and so are the people. And deep inside she wants someone to make her as animate as the sun is shining in the sky. So she lifts her hand uncaringly into the wind, and in a way that is purely therapeutic, though some passerby's think otherwise, she spins in circles and screams. She's letting out everything except for that one thing she needs to desperately say, and in ways it feels so, so, so good and in other ways she feels a burning sort of nauseous disappointment quelling in the bottom of her gut.

"Are you okay?"

Those words turn her out of the dazing reverie, and bring her to the real world where he's standing in front of her, a confused expression tilting in his eyebrows and an almost amused grin making its way onto his pale lips. He's holding a plastic grocery bag in one gloved hand while the other remains motionless by his side, though it twitches slightly with the thought of holding her hand in his.

She breathes deep, because she's never seen his eyes so rich before and his hair is a rival for even the brightest stop light turned red. And then, after that, she smiles like her old self, because it's morning and things are a little different, and she just needs to be happy whether she likes it or not.

"Yeah, I'm fine, what are you doing Turkey?"

"Getting breakfast…"

He smiles softly, secretly vivid that she's added the nickname to the end of the sentence, and feeling so blissful that they've met again. Her smile is infectious, and before he knows it, they're slowly walking down the street, his own little smirk creeping into his cheeks.

"So, what have you been up to recently, Turkey? Not trouble?"

He shifts the bag to his other hand, stretching it before scratching absently at an itchy spot on his neck.

"Paperwork, you know the same old, same old, sugar."

"Oh…"

They stop and before she realizes it, they've crossed the stocky bridge with tasteless lights, and they're standing in front of his apartment complex, just staring at the ground unsure of what to say. They continue walking in silence, until he stops in front of his door and sets the bag down by his feet, fishing awkwardly in his pocket for the keys. His finger brushes a paper cylinder, and for the moment, he ignores it, pulling out a key ring instead.

She shifts positions, staring at the bag with imaginary curiosity as he unlocks the door, turning the knob and pushing it open with his foot.

"So…I really should-"

He forgets about the bag, and grabs her wrist, eyes pleading like he's actually had practice asking for things before.

"Want to come in? There's coffee, and…I'm going to make pancakes…"

She stares at the door, eyes wide and all silver and he thinks she doesn't want to but actually it's a sort of twisted apprehension, because she thinks that if she walks through the door and wants to stay, he'll tell her to leave and she won't have anywhere to come back to if she does. Because she refuses to leave forever through the same place twice and the only place left is the door.

"Uh…the window's still open, if you want to, come through there…"

She waves her arms, trying to light a smile.

"No, no. I'll just, uh…give me that bag, I'll make some breakfast."

He deadpans as she scrambles for the bag; accidentally hitting her head on the side of his arm as he reaches down and grabs it.

"You can't cook."

And before she knows it, she's unzipping her jacket and throwing it on the floor where it flops lifelessly in the entry way, joining a few other scattered articles that he's been too lazy to pick up.

He makes his way to the kitchen, kicking off his shoes as she scuttles around the living room in little frantic circles, putting the cushions back on the couch and the T.V. remote back on the small coffee table where it lives among the crumpled celebrity magazines he keeps around for her. He takes a carton of milk and sets it on the counter, lingering in the silence before realizing that it's too quiet for her to still be there. He skims his eyes over the living room, a little less cluttered than before, but really, still the same, and he looks to her jacket which still lies twisted on the tiled floor. "Where did that girl go?" He wonders aloud, before realizing that there is a window upstairs, and wherever there is a window, there she'll be. He almost starts to walk up the staircase two at a time, just to see if she's actually up there, but stops when he sees her bounding down the staircase, a wide goofy smile stretching her cheeks out to their fullest. Stopping directly in front of him, she folds her hands over her chest, still smiling though the usual lively freckle in her eye has changed.

"I closed the window, and locked it too, since you didn't listen to me last time."

"You mean…that, to say…?"

She huffs impatiently, the vigor back in her voice, now that she's realized that she's faced her greatest fear and she feels that she can do practically anything!

"I mean to say, you big dumb old man Turkey, that if you don't let me stay, then I'll burn this apartment down right now, and make you live with me."

It's what he's been waiting to hear for over two months, not those exact words, but nothing is exact with them, and especially her, but even so, to him it's an undiluted perfection. He can't just stand there and talk, and she's been waiting, waiting, waiting, for him to say something, or else she'll have to walk out the front door and never ever come back.

He thinks sardonically, that he's going to have to lock the front door, because he doesn't want her going anywhere.

So, his arms snake around her waist with a surprisingly lightening speed, and then his lips are blanketing her own. She pulls back from the kiss long enough to stare at him and then giggle loudly in his ear, her own arms slung around his neck and toying with his hair playfully.

She laughs aloud in his ear, lips faintly brushing against skin, "So Turkey, since the window is closed, so are my fugitive adventures, huh?"

He takes the moment to nip at her ear playfully, "Yup, you guessed it Sugar. You ain't going anywhere."

She sighs leaning into his shoulder, and she's so glad that she locked the window, and he's so glad that she's not trying to climb through the heating vent. (Though he doesn't realize that the vent is something she has yet to discover.)

Softly, it almost seems that she's whispering to herself, though he knows it's directed at nobody but the air and themselves. "The end-"

He lets her go this far before cutting her off in another strangling kiss, her shoulders sagging and her upper body leaning against his for support.

The window is locked, she is in his arms, and for the first time, she realizes with a small content smile, that they don't need a smoke and sunsets to feel alive.

The end of being alone is gone

Because after all this time of watching

I'm with you,

And this time,

I don't dare let myself go.

~End~

A/N:

First of all, I have to say thanks for those reveiws I have received for my other two stories. It helped me complete this series and makes me feel so much better about myself. I really do appreciate it a great deal, believe me.

I don't know what my next series will be, but, it'll probably be a totally un-canon paring - As I DO love those so much - so, look forward to it.

I hope this was, romantic, but not overly so. I thought the ending was total cheese, but, i'm the writer, so I usually say bad things about myself.

Thank You again for reading, and as is always, feedback's a babe,

Until Next Time,

TMoh

Disclaimer: If I owned Final Fantasy Seven, or any of the characters, I would have totally ruined the plot, and overall amazing-ness that is Final Fantasy.