A/N: Be gentle. This is my first story, derived from a bunny I just couldn't escape after playing the game again ten years later. Set In-Game so there's a more forward Cloud (though he's muddled; remember how cocky he was?) and there will be an OC that you'll recognize later. Lots of the story will be familiar but I've spun most of it for my own purposes. Please please please R&R, even if it's just to tell me I should stop writing.

Enjoy.

Midgar, 5:45AM

It began as any other ordinary day.

Tifa's internal clock snapped her into wakefulness and, for a while, she simply lay, staring at nothing. It was a penchant of hers to rest after waking, finding it soothing somehow, and so she'd trained her body to allow for it. A strange habit she'd developed, for hadn't she just been resting? And it was always with that last thought that she was up and out of bed, rummaging for her morning running attire.

Did I have a bad dream? she wondered, an odd sense of anxiety beating somewhere along her spine. She slipped on socks and a pair of worn, comfortable jogging shoes next, neatly tying the laces. She couldn't remember the dream, which was strange if it had been an uneasy one. Right? Frowning, she allowed a quick glimpse in the mirror to make sure everything was in place—her, er, generous chest at times didn't constrict correctly— and was out the door.

Habitually, she always jogged the same route, as much a precaution as preference. Preferred because the path she favored was quiet and undisturbed by others. Cautioned because her roommates were familiar with her route and, did she happen to befall any trouble, they would at least know where to start searching.

Not that she couldn't take care of herself. Another motive to take the route through Sector 7, where she resided, and into the neighboring Sector 6, was that she could always find several Whole Eaters—four-legged scorpion shaped creatures that reminded her of steroidal fly traps—and engage is some combat. Usually traveling in teams of three or four, she'd fight off the same number of packs before sprinting the final mile home. The entire routine was comfortable and potent, and still gave her enough time to shower, prepare breakfast, and wake up her housemates, all before eight o'clock.

Jessie was always the first to be woken up, of course, and Tifa was used to simply barging inside the red-head's room and literally shaking her awake, always finding her clutching some gadget or another. As the technology lead of their anti-Shinra team AVALANCHE, Jessie was notorious for staying up late and diddling with equipment, therefore the hardest to revive from sleep.

Biggs and Wedge were next, their shared quarters directly across from Jessie's room, and they were usually up with a hard knock on the door and the promise of breakfast. One or the other would groan in answer of her summons, and she would leave them to their own devices.

Barret, the leader of their group, shared with his daughter Marlene, a room in the basement of the facility, adjacent to the space of AVALANCHE's main assembly area. Tifa always left them for last, wanting the four year old Marlene sleep as long as possible. With nothing more than a soft tapping on their door, she would return upstairs to begin packing lunches.

It was the only routine everyone in the house shared, and it worked well for them. Breakfast was usually a ruckus, with someone always running late—usually Jessie, for sleeping until the final moment—or arguing over who got to take Marlene to pre-school—usually Barret, although his job tended to dictate that he be gone for long periods of time—or who could stuff pancakes in their mouths the fastest—Biggs or Wedge—so they could snatch the final one and march out of the door while someone chorused, "That's not fair! You don't even chew!"

That morning was just a variation of the regular: Jessie made it to breakfast first, hair still dripping wet from a shower, followed promptly by Barret and Marlene, the former grumbling a thanks as Tifa passed him a mug of coffee. Biggs was next and piled his plate with more food than Tifa could eat in a day, while Wedge trailed the others by a surprisingly long ten minutes.

"I was up late watching a movie," he explained around a mouthful of—well, everything, and still managed to capture the final pancake to Biggs' incredulity.

After sharing what their days looked like—Biggs and Wedge were off to Sector 3 for some odd, temporary employment, Jessie to her help desk position at a local communications store, Barret to meet with an oil company who might have a more permanent job for him—someone always knocked something over, be it coffee or juice or the box of cereal Marlene preferred, and that seemed to draw an end to their fast breaking. Someone else, usually whoever had spilled the day before, mopped things up and then, with a kiss from Marlene, everyone was gone, lunches in hand.

Being that it was Tuesday, it meant inventory day for Tifa and 7th Heaven. Tuesdays were the slowest days at the bar, allowing her time to thoroughly take stock and plan out meals for the following week, and she relished that time nearly as much as her laziness after waking. Once she was complete there, she had to prep for the hour 7th Heaven was open for lunch, before cleaning up again, and preparing for the bar's regular hours at 10PM. After clearing out breakfast, she grabbed a clipboard and some paper and got to work, trying diligently to ignore that tiny flicker of unease that was still lingering.

Hours later, with the lunch rush having come and gone, she thought maybe her anxiety had to do with a meeting she had that afternoon at Sector 0, the Upper Plate. Luc, a contact of Barret's who'd helped AVALANCHE with intel on several occasions, had gotten her a meeting with a representative of Icicle Inn Spirits. Icicle Inn Spirits was the only distillery on the Planet that distributed the exclusive Modeoheim Moonshine, and if Tifa were able to secure a contract with them, she could possibly afford to send Marlene to a private academy above the plates, where the four year old would see more sunshine than the few hours she did on their Sundays play dates. It was her foremost worry, that Marlene didn't get enough of the sun and stars and would become trapped in the slums, and Tifa wanted to be able to provide more for her, so much more.

Shaking her head to refocus, she admitted she didn't usually worry overmuch about meetings and money—she'd never had much of either—and so it made that glimmer of anxiety misplaced. Except she could think of nothing else that could be causing the unease. What else could it be? she frowned, and brushed a hand over her heart in an attempt to soothe the worry there, before making her way to her bedroom. It just…it felt like her heart was being tugged, as if something elusive was drawing near…

Her room was the only one located on the main floor as Jessie, Biggs and Wedge commandeered the entire upper level. Forged off a corridor past the storage room, her quarters had been built as a bonus area, almost as if the original architect had only decided upon the space at the last moment. It was large, big enough she was able to keep a desk and small seating area, and it housed a private bathroom too. That space alone had helped concrete her decision to buy the bar.

Deciding she wanted to look smart, but not overly dressed for her appointment, Tifa put on a pair of slim black pants and a gray cotton t-shirt, which she neatly tucked in. For good measure she dug out what she deemed her only business-like attire: a tailored white blazer. A once over in the mirror showed her looking minimal but neat, along with her loosely pinned hair. Satisfied with her image, she gathered some gil, PHS and keys, along with the small list of questions she'd scribbled, and made her way to the train station.

The trains that circulated the eight slums ran every fifteen minutes, at all hours of the day, although there was only a single train that took residents to the Upper Plate. That train, nicknamed the High Car, only traveled once an hour and only began late in the afternoons, ending with a final run at 7PM. Private transportation to the above plates was available, but expensive, a luxury that usual slum residents couldn't afford. The wealthier, Upper Plate didn't enjoy allowing slum residents a place in their society so if you lived within the slums, you were usually forced to work there as well. By limiting the travel of slum workers to the Upper Plate, it kept the poverty-stricken in poverty.

Shinra, along with Midgar's Mayor Domino, made sure of that.

It was just another reason on the endless list of reasons why she despised Shinra.

Frowning at her thoughts—Shiva, she could feel lines forming from all the frowning she'd done that day—she arrived just in time to catch the High Car and slid easily into one of the empty seats.

The meeting with the Icicle Inn Spirits representative turned out to be a triumph, if the generous order and promised shipment of Modeoheim Moonshine she'd secured was of any indication. She'd been pleasantly surprised, to say the least, for she'd been prepared for a battle. Having dealt with her share of self-important assholes who didn't just frown at her for owning a bar, but also treated her like some half-witted female, she'd been primed for an attack.

Not that she really gave a shit what anyone thought, couldn't care less about the opinions of strangers, but she'd learned—after having delivered several nose-shattering hits to groping agents and losing network opportunities—that she would have to maneuver around their idiotic levels of thinking. Her ultimate goal was to obtain alcohol for her bar and get gil in her pockets. More gil meant better things for Marlene.

The agent, a huge man at 6'6" with a loud, booming voice, had seemed to fall into the category of those biased individuals she loathed. "What's a beautiful girl like you doing running a bar?" he'd asked as they'd waited for their coffee, and Tifa had quickly started to tense. How would she need to play this? Stupid girl, big dreams? Flirty girl, no money? Sad girl, alcoholic?

"You should be married to a fine young man and raising children," he'd continued and shaken his head at her. Then, startling her completely, he'd given her a wallop on the back that would have felled her had she not been seated. "I like you already, Tifa!" he'd grinned with a confirming head nod.

The rest of the appointment had gone from there, in that blunt, friendly fashion, and even while squabbling about gil, they'd gotten along easily. He'd been married twenty-three years, he'd shared with her, with three kids in college and a dog named Dog. He'd grown up in Icicle Inn, but was from Banora originally, where he'd met his wife. The entire family vacationed to Mideel once a year, where they owned a plot of land, and the kids always complained about it not being Costa Del Sol.

Tifa wasn't surprised at his sharing; she was a bartender, and good one to boot, and people liked to share things with her. She didn't know if it had to do with the fact that she was attentive and actually listened, but everyone, big or small, old or new, always made confessions to her. And in return, she never, ever, shared confidences.

She'd wondered, more than once, if she'd been a priest in a previous life.

The sound of a mechanical voice announcing her stop had Tifa rising to her feet. It was already dark but she still had plenty of time to get home and dinner ready. And she felt good, very good, pleased with the results of her day and excited at the prospect of the moonshine drawing more customers. It really did mean more funds to set aside for Marlene, growing the measly thousand gil she currently had stashed away. And Shiva knew she'd been hoarding that money since she'd fallen in love with that gorgeous little girl so many years ago.

As the doors of the train slid open, she stepped off onto the platform and automatically scanned the area, eyes taking in her environment. It was precarious place, the slums, and the train station in general, with thieves and lurkers always on the hunt. She could dispatch them quickly, sure, but that didn't mean she was looking for trouble.

She spotted a couple embracing in reunion not far off to her left, and couldn't hide a smile as the male of the pair was unceremoniously lifted off his feet, then spun. A few teenagers were purchasing rides at the ticket booth, and not far off from them, she could make out a man seated on the ground with his back against a lamppost. There was an older woman standing between his outstretched legs and seemed to be attempting to haul him to his feet. As Tifa watched, the woman dropped her purse in the process, spilling the contents out onto the dirty, station floor. Giving the area another quick sweep and finding no immediate threat, she stepped forward to offer her assistance.

It must have been that quick, slight turn in her gaze that triggered it, but suddenly, her eyes were caught by a flash of golden hair peeking briefly from behind the woman's form. Her heart gave a sudden violent kick in her breast and Tifa found herself frowning for the millionth time that day. She'd only ever known one person with hair like that…but it couldn't be. It simply couldn't be.

The prickly discomfort she'd had since the morning traced down her spine, and her heart tugged.

No, she refused to believe. She'd been fooled before, she knew, many, many times before, simply by a flash of that shining, gold color. Her heart would jerk just as fiercely inside each time and whenever her eyes focused on the cause of the gold, it would plummet just as fiercely to her stomach.

Because it had never, ever been what she'd needed it to be.

Shaking her head to clear its thoughts and ignore her disquiet tension, she hurried over and collected the woman's fallen items, depositing them back into her handbag as the woman managed to rouse the man to his feet. They swayed dangerously, and Tifa quickly stepped forward to balance them, sliding an arm around the man and hastily dropping the handbag again.

"I've got him," she murmured before the woman suddenly jerked away, allowing the man's entire staggering weight to descend on her. She yelped and braced her feet, arms instinctively locking around the man for balance.

"Hey—" was all she got out before feeling a hard shove—and falling over into a mess of arms and legs.

"I'm sorry, young lady," the woman was saying, having grabbed her bag and was already shuffling away. "I didn't know he was yours. I just wanted some company and didn't think he'd mind. I didn't take anything! I'm sorry," she finished. And then she was gone, vanished beyond Tifa's sight.

Tifa, head oddly angled beneath a broad shoulder and her hair everywhere, could do nothing but blink.

What in Shiva's name had just happened?

"Great," she sighed heavily, tossing her head as much as she could beneath the shoulder it was pinned. Damn it, hair, she thought, emitting a blow at her bangs. It was then she slowly became aware of the fact that she was spooning a complete stranger on a dirty, concrete floor; her legs were straddling lean hips and her arms were still locked tight around a muscular chest. Heat rising in her cheeks, she mumbled an apology and abruptly let go, thanking Shiva that at least the man hadn't landed directly on her, had somehow fallen a bit beside her instead. She'd taken most of the impact, sure, jarring her entire left side—shit, her white blazer!—but her head hadn't met cement and for that she was grateful.

"Excuse me," she said, tapping the man politely. Well, as politely as she could with her knees gripping a his waist and the fact that she'd more or likely petted a hard stomach when she'd tapped him. "Excuse me, sir? Would you mind shifting a little so I can rise?"

No answer.

"Sir? Hey, can you hear me? If you could just move a bit, I can help us both up."

Silence.

And what could possibly be more awkward than this? she sighed to herself. He was probably some unconscious drunk who'd sat down to sleep off his intoxication and here she was, wrapped around him on the cold floor of a now empty train station.

She wriggled experimentall, feeling as if she were crawling out of the top of a zipped sleeping bag, and was careful not to get her hair caught. Stupid long strands, always managed to get tangled into something and she didn't need it to be knotted around that pauldron he wore...

Her thoughts trailed off as her gaze connected with a head of golden, spiky hair that had always reminded her, of all things, Chocobo down. Yet there it was, right in front of her, those brilliant, gravity defiant locks that she'd only known one person in her entire twenty years of life to have.

But it couldn't be, she told herself, heart pounding erratically. She'd been tricked before, had tricked herself before…

Scrambling now, she shifted mightily and managed to slide her upper body free, leaving her legs trapped beneath his immobile form. Breaths coming in short, painful gasps that had nothing to do with her tumble to the ground, she stared at the profile of the man whose face was turned away from her…pale skin, heavy lashes, sharp cheek bones and solid jaw…As if in a fog, her motions unusually jerky and uncoordinated, she reached and slowly, slowly, shifted the man's features enough so that she could define a face.

Cloud Strife, her pounding heart seemed to shout, and she could only stare.