So I decided that I was going to mix a little change into everything and make a series of drabbles (which is what this will eventually turn into). ^_^

I'm having a little writers block from a severe lack of time to day dream (although you would think that I would be doing plenty of it during school? Haha.) Almost all of these will be Cloud and Tifa-centric; although this first chapter here will focus more on the relationship between Tifa and Aerith as Tifa reflects on the day that Sephiroth had been defeated and the planet had been cured of the Geostigma. This entire chapter is from Tifa's POV.

I hope that you enjoy it-and of course and like always, you know that I love my reviews. So feel free to leave what you think! And if you've got constructive-criticism, let me hear it. :) I always like to hear what readers think. There's definitely going to be more chapters to come. But enough of me-to the story! c}:

Enjoy!

It wasn't just something we used for protection.

It wasn't just something used to tell others that we were heroes.

It wasn't just something that we wore to make ourselves look fashionable .

It was used for us to remember.

We all wore that ribbon to remind ourselves of one another. To keep ourselves aware that we all had one another in such a changing world-that we as a whole would remain the same.

All of us had lost so much. We had all lost our homes at some point. Most of us had lost our families. At least one of us had lost an appendage. Perhaps, at one point or another, we had lost hope for something that we felt or cared so strongly for.

And I know that all of us had lost her.

We lost Aerith.

Our flower girl was gone.

Looking down at the two, lone maroon ribbons sitting on the table in front of me, I could feel the bittersweet sadness beginning to well within me.

That was the first time that I had cried since my father had died in Nibelheim. It had been almost seven years since that had happened; yet somehow I still knew how to mourn. Even after I had promised myself that I would never cry after that-even after I had taught myself to be strong, no matter what happened.

We had all loved her-all of us. Cloud, me, Barret, Cid, Yuffie-even Vincent; who had never said much to anybody about anything. But seeing the look on his face when he saw her body; slumped against the altar was an almost undeniable look of hatred and grief. Maybe the sight reminded him of Lucrecia-but that had never been my business and we let Vincent keep to himself about what had happened in his past.

And maybe it was knowing that we couldn't save her in time that destroyed us. We had lost a member of our family. It was like loosing a sister; a daughter to us. She was gone.

This was our way of remembering her. Sure-I suppose that we could have carried pictures with us everywhere; but pictures faded with time. And even with her in our memories; this reminded us to think about her and what she had done for us when we were too busy to do it ourselves.

People wore ribbons for protection, normally. But we wore them to remember. We wore them to keep ourselves thinking.

We weren't supposed to think about negative things-Aerith wouldn't have allowed that. We wanted to keep ourselves thinking about happy things that reminded ourselves of all of the things that we did have.

So I picked up the ribbons and carefully folded them between my fingers. Making my way upstairs, I kept my footsteps light in an attempt to keep the children asleep. They were absolutely exhausted-neither would be too happy to have been awoken so late at night.

I stopped in front of the office's door.

I probably shouldn't wake him up.

Against my better judgment, I carefully pushed the door open; cringing as its old and worn hinges creaked with my pressure. Making just enough room to pass through, I slid between the small gap and found myself standing on the other side; struggling to see correctly into the dimly-lit room.

…But I could see just enough to see somebody sleeping in the small bed on the other side. The bed sheets rose and fell with every breath they took; up and down-in and out.

Slowly, I came closer until I was only a foot or two away from him. I could see a mess of blonde above the thick blankets I had washed only a few days earlier-just in case he decided to come back.

Home.

He wasn't sick anymore.

He was going to stay this time-he wanted to stay. He told me after the celebration that he promised that he wasn't going to leave us again. And I knew that Cloud Strife never broke his promises.

I smiled as I knelt down beside him and watched him sleep. He looked so calm; so relieved. He was content, now. I looked at his left arm. No more bruising. No more oozing, black liquid.

No more ribbon.

It was bittersweet.

After this battle, we knew that we didn't have to wear that ribbon.

Yes, it was a reminder. But Aerith had once again kept Cloud safe.

She had given him back to us. She had even given a cure to the people who were told it would never come. For somebody who had done so much for us already, did we still really need something to remind us?

Suddenly, those pictures and memories weren't so forgotten. Seeing Cloud happy made me happy-she had helped to give us that.

He was smiling again. I hadn't seen him smile in such a long time; I almost forgot what it even looked like. He was smiling at our friends, he was smiling at the kids, he was smiling to complete strangers-he was smiling to me.

…And I haven't blushed in a long time, either.

I missed that feeling.

I stood back up and walked to his desk, where old receipts laid, unorganized and scattered about the top. I couldn't help but laugh quietly to myself. I picked up the small frame containing our family photograph and unscrewed the back of it until it came loose and fell into my hands. I pulled the picture out and dug in my pocket for a moment longer before my hand came back out with another, folded picture. I unfolded and slipped it into the thin frame; gently pushing it's corners into where they belonged before I screwed the back onto it and set it back down onto his desk.

I opened my hand to reveal those two red ribbons once again. I carefully tied them, one by one, onto the corners of the picture frame into small bows.

My smile grew.

Even Aerith was in our family photo.