The rain almost never fell in the slums. After the first year Tifa found herself missing the weather. It was an odd thing to realise. Odder still to discover she was romantacising falling water like that. Back in Nibelheim she would have cursed the sky, the water, the mountain if a rain-storm caught her while crossing Mount Nibel. And it made mundane tasks nuisances as well - just walking to the shop became an unpleasant quest to brave puddles and try not to get all her clothes soaked through in seconds. Worse was the deceptive light rain she thought would not catch her too badly. That either ended in being wet through before she knew it, or else the second she stepped outside the rain decided to really start hammering down.
Worse was if the washing was hanging out in the garden and dad was who knew where at the moment - no one else to take it in. Worse still was towards the end of Autumn and the beginning of Winter when the heavens exchanged rain for stinging hail and snowflakes. At least the latter - while painful - would melt away fast enough. The snow had a tendency to pile up making the mountain paths treacherous and external deliveries to the village extremely problematic. Tifa had made the crossing to Rocket Town once after a snowfall. Upon arrival she immediately phoned her father to tell him she was not coming back until it thawed.
And despite all the negatives she just could not quite shake the other memories. Rainbows in the sky after a heavy rainfall. Darting around in the sunlight as the rain drizzled from up on high during the midst of summer. Even the heavy, horrible rains were kind of appealing - providing a warm blanket near a heat source with a mug of hot chocolate was available. The best way to enjoy a rain-storm. Often the best way to enjoy snow too - though the lure of charging around in the freshly fallen whiteness had always proved too enticing, the snowball fights that followed always fun - until her fingers went numb with the cold and snow soaked through her pants. Then again that did lead to the warmth after awkward shuffling and trying to get rid of her wet clothes without any further contact with her skin.
Midgar was so different. The perpetual warmth of the slums contrasted sharply with the more varied climate of the upper plate. The city still had rain; though it was typically nothing like her memories. Fine wisps of mist would trail down from the gaps in the upper plate. Some days something like rain would fall, but for the most part the water falling from above was the result of the storm drains overflowing and their contents spilling down to flood sections of the slums below - not something she wanted to spend time getting soaked in. Always worth checking for the heavy, dark rain clouds when near the plate gaps; weather reports were hard enough to come by in the slums. The few trips above plate had not been worth the time, the crowded trains and miserable nature of the downpour leaving her feeling unfulfilled. Foolish thing to romantacise, but what else did she have? Was there any way back home? Was there any home back there to find? Not something she was desperate to answer.
And yet, when the conditions were perfect, there was something enough like rain to make her feel if not exactly happy, then at least a little less homesick five years after awakening in Midgar. On certain days, when the wind was almost non-existent, when the rain was not too heavy, there was a spot in the slums that offered her a fleeting moment so much like her memory of youth and innocence up in the mountains. The Sector Seven station lay beneath the gap between the upper plates and something enough like rain could reach her so far below. Tifa grabbed her umbrella, called to Barret she would be back before they left on the mission and wandered out into Sector Seven.