AN: At one point—or maybe several—I swore I'd never bring this back. For one, I lost it in a hard drive accident. Two, the drama surrounding it gave me a decidedly ambivalent attitude toward it.

But time and distance have a way of dulling things. This will not be the original story, however, but a cleaned up version. I'm even caving and changing his name from Forrester to Fair. Expect sporadic updates while I pick through it with a fine toothed comb amidst other updates.

And send out a thought of thanks to AngelaFox for sending me her copy. She's the real MVP.

The dead do not always die.

The public park in Gongaga wasn't one she was used to, but it didn't bother her.

Tifa had always assumed parks purposely strove for common elements to make people feel at home in whichever city they visited. The trees sometimes differed from region to region, but they still offered shade. The outdoor chatter might contain different accents, but they still consisted of Did you hear? He said that? Oh, my! Same runny noses, same high-risk drinking fountains, same semi-reckless pursuit of the outdoors on playground equipment. Parks were comforting clusters of leisure and germs.

It was a neat trick, really, and she was grateful for any comfort she could get. Because as Tifa approached her reason for being in this particular park, she knew the next thing she did would be very uncomfortable.

Tifa stopped. She cleared her throat and asked, "Excuse me, but is this spot taken?"

At her polite inquiry, the older woman sitting on the park bench stopped her knitting. The sun glinted softly off loose brown curls, and the smile on the woman's warmly appealing face was a kind one. But Tifa's heart still shrank a little to see it.

He had his mother's smile. She would've recognized it anywhere; for the past three months, it had been a frequent, uninvited guest in her dreams.

"Nope! Have a seat!" The woman patted the slats of green paint with a slim hand. As she resumed her knitting, the woman casually said, "I come here to meet with my son, but he hasn't arrived yet."

And he won't be arriving any time soon, I'm afraid, Tifa thought. She perched herself on the edge of the bench, too nervous to commit to the whole seat. She was acutely aware of how tense she was in contrast to the woman's relaxed concentration. Had sweat broken out under her armpits? She squeezed her arms closer to her ribs and added "self-conscious" to her list of anxieties.

"It's so nice out today, don't you think?" the woman continued, not looking up from her knitting. "The weather's been unseasonably warm these past few days. Might as well enjoy it while you can."

Tifa nodded, but the pleasantness of the weather had been lost on her. The last couple of days she'd been holed up at her hotel, trying to pluck up the courage to talk to this woman and her husband.

But today was her last chance. Tifa took a deep, resolve-strengthening breath then blurted, "I'm sorry, ma'am!"

The woman stopped in the middle of a purl and blinked at Tifa. "Sorry? Why ever would you be sorry?"

Tifa sucked in a deep breath through her nose then forced herself to meet the woman's eyes. "Ma'am, this is really awkward for me," she began, just like she had rehearsed in the hotel mirror that morning. "I mean, I've never done anything like this before. But I want to talk to you about your son. I have something I need to tell you about him."

"My son?" the woman repeated. "What about him?" She frowned suddenly. "He hasn't gotten you pregnant, has he?"

A bark of laughter escaped Tifa. "No!"

"Then what is it?" the woman wanted to know. The knitting needles had stopped. "Is he in some sort of trouble? Is that why he's late?"

Tifa shook her head. "My name is Tifa Lockhart, ma'am—maybe you've heard of me? I knew your son once, years ago. I'm here now because I thought… I thought you should know what happened to him. You see, your son is—"

"Sorry I'm late, Mom. I got a little...held up."

"Ah, there you are!" The older woman cast aside her knitting and stood to embrace the young, dark-haired man who had just loped over. She released him and turned to where Tifa still sat, immobilized, on the bench. "You remember— I'm sorry, did you say your name was Tifa?"

Tifa nodded and rose to her feet, speechless.

Tall, was her first thought—so tall he had to stoop to drop a kiss on his mother's cheek. Had he always been this tall, she wondered. She felt small and unsure standing so close to him, enduring the scrutiny of his too-luminous eyes.

Solid, was her second thought. He looked like a man—like how men were supposed to look, like how she remembered her father—nothing like the boy-man who had stopped loving her a year and a half ago. His black hair was short, but she knew, if allowed to grow a few more inches, it would be as spiky and unruly as she remembered.

Seeing him in the flesh brought back memories of flames and death. His eyes collided with hers, and something passed between them, questions mostly, but also pain and a little resentment.

He held out a hand—polite, but wary.

"Hello...Tifa."

As Tifa shook it, the feel of his warm, very-much-alive skin broke through any hesitation to give voice to what had brought her to Gongaga—what she had, up until a second ago, still assumed to be true.

"Hello, Zack," was her cool reply. "I thought you were dead."

AN: Can you believe? I had butterflies in my stomach reposting this. Leave me your thoughts, yo!