Tifa hadn't yet opened the bar (she missed her own 7th Heaven back home, but she would work as a bartender here for now if here was where Cloud was staying), and was instead standing at the window that overlooked the street, one of Hollow Bastion's side-alleys; it was by mere chance that she happened to see a flash of pink and long, brown hair braided into a spiral.

"It's you!" she called out in surprise.

"Me?" Aerith asked, smiling and pointing to herself; she came over to where Tifa leaned out, a heavy frown on the younger woman's face. "Well, I suppose I am me, aren't I?"

"No, no, no. I know you."

Still smiling, Aerith placed her hands on the windowsill. "Do you, now. You seem familiar yourself."

"Aerith Gainsborough, don't you play with me. What are you doing here?" The taller woman bit her lip. "Is he here?"

A sigh. "No."

"I'm searching. He isn't allowed to keep running away! It isn't fair. There was a time that I said he was honest, but I think I may have been wrong."

"You weren't wrong. But he's a bit of a child, and children are frightened and weak. Maybe it would be good if a grown up woman-of-the-world such as yourself could take care of him. I've only ever been just another mother, after all, and he has too many of those. You...were always something else."

Tifa shrugged. "Yeah. I was always just another orphan. So we're both lost kids. If I can find him, though, maybe we can be lost together -- and that might make wherever we are into more of a somewhere. But that's all I can do for him."

"You're not weak, Tifa. Don't doubt yourself; you can protect him."

"He doesn't need me."

"Why are you looking for him, then?"

Silence hung between the two, and shutters drew over the light in Tifa's eyes. "I want to know. What is it with him? He found you. He should have stopped searching. But now it's something else, and I don't even know what, and I want to ask him myself if it will always be another something after that, and then another."

"Denzel believes he will come home."

"If he does, he'll come to Denzel, not to me."

"If he does, he'll come to where he feels home, and you will always be a part of that."

"Doesn't it make you sad, not putting yourself in the picture like that? Me, Denzel, Marlene, but not you."

"I'm a ghost. Like mothers, he has too many of those these days, too."

That soft, small smile again (and only a little sad), and then Aerith turned away to continue down the street. Tifa stared after her.

"He doesn't need me, Tifa Lockheart, and neither do you."

It was later that evening, polishing glasses to the muted chatter from her patrons, that Tifa realized it was true. She couldn't have found Cloud until she had Aerith's go-ahead. But if Cloud really needed her, she wouldn't make herself wait for that.

Thanks, I guess. Next time...I'll be honest.