Savior

I Just Want to Be So Much

I don't own Final Fantasy, it belongs to Square Enix

The next I my 'Strife Family' series and might I add…quite a heavy installment.

"Leo! Leo! I need…aaagghhh!" Tifa semi-screamed, dropping a glass. It shattered to the floor. Her cry alarmed Leo, the cook and the patrons of the bar.

"Tifa! Tifa!" The cook yelled at her. "Oh my god!' he yelled mortified. He ran to the back of the kitchen, pale as a sheet and picked up the phone. "Hello! Hello! I need an ambulance! She's bleeding! She's bleeding! Oh god, the blood. I need help!"

"Hi, am I speaking to a Mr. Cloud Strife?" a woman asked over the phone.

"Yes, this is Cloud Strife." Cloud said attempting to multi-task and click on mailing orders on his computer screen at the same time.

"Hello, Mr. Strife. My name is Naomi and I'm the Head Nurse of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Intensive Care Unit of the Midgar Comprehensive Medical Center Women's Division. I by no means wish to alarm you but your wife was admitted to our care approximately two hours ago. She's stable and I'm aware that you are her husband therefore I wanted to contact you in order to let you know she is under our care." There was silence on the phone. "….Mr. Strife?" the nurse repeated.

"Wh…what's…what's going on?" Cloud asked in a subdued panic.

"Sir, we'll explain everything that we know thus far upon your arrival." The nurse explained.

"Please….please tell her I'm on my way." Cloud didn't wait for the nurse to say goodbye. He just hit the cut off button of his phone and proceeded to quickly dial Yuffie. It was by the grace of god that today was Yuffie's day off. He barely let Yuffie answer the phone. "Yuffie, I need you to pick up the kids from school and take them home with you until I call you. Don't ask questions just do it, please! I don't…I don't know Yuffie, Tifa was admitted to the hospital an hour ago. I don't…know…Yuffie! Just…just do it please. I'll call you. Thanks." Cloud practically yelled at her. He frantically grabbed his keys, and flew out the door without saying a word to anyone.

Tifa was asleep when Cloud arrived. She looked pale and exhausted. He didn't think it a good idea to wake her so he returned to the nurse's station. "Hi, excuse me. Cloud Strife. I was called about twenty minutes ago. My wife is in room 3114 she was admitted a while ago?" he told one of the nurses. "What's going on?"

"Hello, Mr. Strife. Come with me and I'll explain everything. There's nothing to worry about. Your wife will be just fine." The nurse waited until she had Cloud in Tifa's room with the door closed before proceeding further. "Have a seat, let me get her chart. Mr. Strife, it seems that your wife was brought in to us bleeding profusely. She's lost a lot of blood sir and she's going to be weak for a few days. We have her stable now, and she's received a little over a pint of blood." The nurse explained. Cloud wanted to cut her off and yell at her to just tell him what the hell was wrong, but he wanted to know everything.

"What happened exactly? She's been complaining these past three weeks I think it's been of intense pain in like…like down here? Her lower abdomen, I guess?" Cloud said putting his hand where Tifa had complained. The nurse took her glasses off and looked at Cloud.

"Mr. Strife…your wife had a miscarriage. She was nine weeks pregnant. She didn't know. The doctor will share all of the details with you. But that's what happened and that explains all the blood loss. Mr. Strife, are you okay?" Cloud could hardly catch his breath and the nurse could nearly see through the paleness of his skin.

"What…wha….how….what do you MEAN she was 9 WEEKS PREGNANT! How is that…HOW! She's been on the pill for….HOW?" he asked incoherently.

"The doctor will explain more but before your wife fell asleep she spoke with the doctor and she said something about being on an anti-biotic about two months ago? Anti-biotics counteract the effects of birth control. That's likely when she conceived. Mr. Strife, she miscarried because the embryo was poisoned with a combination of Mako Energy and remnants of Geostigma…that's something we haven't seen in this hospital in….well….about four years. I'll page for the doctor and he'll come talk to you more. Would you like some water, sir?" the nurse asked, seeing as how Cloud was about to either have a panic attack or…an even bigger panic attack.

"Please…" he barely uttered. The nurse left to call the doctor. Cloud sat there looking at Tifa, fairly certain his heart was about to beat out of his chest. The nurse came right back, handing a bottle of water over to Cloud. "…thank you…" his voice was still hardly audible.

"I've paged the doctor. He'll show you the x-rays taken of your wife, answer any questions you have and explain everything in greater detail. It's going to be alright, Mr. Strife." The nurse assured him. Cloud watched Tifa sleep as he guzzled nearly half of the bottle down. He stood up and walked over to her. He noticed her wedding band, her engagement ring and her earrings in a small plastic cup labeled T. STRIFE. They must have been placed there from her x-rays. Cloud picked up the container and shoved it in his pocket: TOOK TIFA'S DIAMONDS he jotted down on a nearby notepad. Like he trusted hospital personal with 22,000 gil worth of diamonds. Well, it was a hospital and hospitals weren't exactly known for their high crime rates but he felt better holding on to them. He looked at the dry erase board near Tifa's bed: TODAY'S DATE: 10/26

HEAD NURSE: NAOMI

DUTY NURSE: LIZ/RIKO

DOCTOR: DR. CHANDRA

Cloud read the small list of drugs she was currently being administered. The IV in her arm was merely fluid to prevent dehydration. There was a knock on the doorframe.

"Hello! Mr. Strife?" the doctor walked in. Dr. Emil Chandra. Please, have a seat. I'm sure you must have many questions, yes?" the doctor said motioning toward the chair near Tifa's side of the room. Cloud had no idea who was on the other side of the thin curtain, or why.

"Hi, hi…yeah…I…I can't….she miscarried? A baby! My wife was pregnant?" Cloud still couldn't wrap his mind around this.

"She was nine weeks, yes. Now, your wife told me that she had been taking an anti-biotic for a sinus infection? Can you tell me more about that?" The doctor asked.

"Uh yeah, she uh…see friends of ours go married in Rocket Town, up north about three weeks ago. About a month before going to the wedding, she had been talking medicine for yeah…a sinus infection. She was on it….I don't know…maybe….two months ago. I think the nurse said that too?" Cloud answered him.

"Mmm. Yes. Well, during that three week time frame of taking the anti-biotic is when she got pregnant. Now, with that being said sir, your wife would have never carried this child to term. That leads me to you. Tell me about your health history." The doctor pulled his pen from his pocket.

"Well, I worked for the Shinra Electric Power Company years ago. During a mission to my hometown of Nibelheim, I was exposed to an extremely high dose of Mako Energy. Oh, that was in 1994. I was in an unconscious state for months because I was so poisoned by its effects. But, I get a physical every year…I mean, every single year to monitor Mako presence in my body and in every fluid in my body. I just had a physical two weeks ago. I can have the results faxed to you if you want to see them." Cloud was thinking more logically now that things were beginning to make sense. The doctor wrote some things down.

"Yes, I'd like to see it as well as run some tests of my own. Tell me, Cloud, have you or your wife ever come in contact with Geostigma in the past?" the doctor asked.

"Yes, I contracted it in 2008. But, my son had Geostigma as well." He explained.

"Your son? Is he adopted?" the doctor looked puzzled.

"Yeah." Cloud explained.

"Ah, that makes more sense to me." The doctor shoved his clipboard aside. "Please, allow me to show you some ultrasound and x-ray images. When your wife was found, the emergency team stated that the blood was immense and it was partially black. A woman who miscarries bleeds heavily because the amniotic sac breaks. Now, this is an image of the broken amniotic sac. Here's where it was implanted and as you can see, the image shows this entire area being very, very black; looking almost like an ink stain. We also took this thermal image. Here you can clearly see how red this entire area is; indicating it was very hot. What we did; was run tests on what was left of the residual fluid and discovered a Mako concentration of over 85 percent. There was a Geostigma presence of approximately 3 percent. What we had to do; was scrape your wife of the infected tissue. She'll be fine. There's no worry for her health. All the infected area is gone and she's taking medication to avoid infection. Your wife had none of the early pregnancy symptoms because they were being masked by the Mako slightly altering her hormone levels. The thing is, Cloud…I hope you and your wife weren't planning to have any children; because you can't. And pardon me, sir….but when I say you can't…I mean YOU can't. I'm sorry." The doctor finished. Cloud took a minute to absorb all this.

"Wait…wait. Back up just a minute. You said the embryo was poisoned…last year the presence of Mako in my blood was….well it was like non-existent. How is that possible?" It was a fair question.

"There may be no Mako presence, but the Mako has already done it's damage to your cells years ago. There's simply been a very recent mutation, Cloud. That's why they are called mutations; we don't particularly understand nor know what triggers them. As for the Geostigma presence in the embryo; its merely the footprint; so to speak; that's left with you." The doctor further explained.

"So…me and Tifa…we can never have any children." Cloud asked of him.

"Not with your DNA, sir. Do you have any questions for me?" The doctor asked.

"Yeah…have you ever seen anything like this happen before?"

"What miscarriages? Of course, twenty-five to thirty percent of all pregnancies end in miscarriages." The doctor answered.

"No….this….a Mako poisoned embryo…as a result of someone who worked in the Shinra army ranks." Cloud clarified.

"I have, but it's been at least maybe five years. We saw lots of problems of various kinds as a result of Mako exposure in the SOLDIER ranks. I was a resident doctor then, spent some time in the Shinra Medical Ward. I'll leave you alone with your wife. Call the nurse should you or your wife need anything."

"Wait! Wait…one more thing. Here's the number of my physician. You can get all my medical records faxed over." Cloud wrote the number down for him. "Oh and uh, I'll give you any sample you want whenever you want. Just way when. I'll do anything to keep her safe." The doctor nodded at him.

"You're a good husband." He left, leaving Cloud in the room with TIfa. Cloud stood there a bit frozen for a minute. He had been slammed with a hell of a lot of information. Mako. Geostigma. Poisoning. Miscarriage. Scraping. Infected. It all flashed in his mind. Just when he thought, he had completely outrun the past. Cloud sighed nervously, his palms were clammy. He pulled the rolling chair over near Tifa's bed. He wanted to wake Tifa, he needed to talk to her and wanted to talk to her. But at the same time, he knew she needed to rest.

"Tifa…" he whispered to her. "…he's wrong…I'm not a good husband…I was a fuckin' Shinra experiment gone wrong…and now you're the one payin' the price…" He buried his face in his hand. If the sound of his tears didn't wake her. The sound of his heart breaking would.