[They will undoubtedly go through this a hundred times before things are finally normal, or even as close to normal as they can be. Emotions are running high, they're both on edge, so these swells of emotions are only natural, aren't they? They will come and go, but she knows that even as bleak as things can seem, they can always find a way back to each other, just like they have now, and have time and time again in the past. He saves her, she saves him—that's how it always goes for them, but if that's what it takes, then so be it.

Because if this, right here, is where those roads will always lead, then she will tread any rocky path with him until they can get here again.

When it's him who offers the kiss instead, Tifa meets it in equal measure. It's soft, tender, sweet, but salted over with her tears. It's determined in how she pulls him closer, draws him further in, like she's resolved to melt their bodies together into one so she can shoulder his troubles with him.

Pulling back, Tifa stares up at him as if her eyes were drinking him in, like her heart can never quite get enough. She can see the speckles of sunlight that have started to poke through the windows again, leaving leaf-shaped spots on his face as they try to break through the branches that shroud their home, protecting them from the clouds and the storm that's finally lifting outside it.]

Please don't... don't apologize.

[She is the last person that he needs to apologize to, and she gently presses her fingertips to his lips, brushing lightly over them.]

Just promise me you'll remember what I said. And that when... when things get hard, or you feel like you're falling again, promise you'll come to me...

[That he won't try to handle it on his own, or try to run away in search of an easier way out of these nightmares.]