Author Note; I don't own stuff… 'cept this computer.

Clarity

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It began like any other typical night at the 7th Heaven. The bar was as full as it got with half of her patrons drunk and murmuring amongst themselves, the others only half as drunk as they would like to have been staring solemnly at their empty glass either unable or unwell to refill it. Not that Tifa would have had half a mind to if they asked. It wouldn't do anyone any good whatsoever.

Barret was downstairs going over the plans of attack. It had been awhile coming now but they were finally ready to do it; to blow one of those reactors sky high. Tifa was only sorry she herself could not also go. But they did indeed need to put up a front.

"Could I get a drink please" a man asked. Pulling herself out of her thoughts she gave the stranger as warm a smile as she could muster.

"What would you like?" she asked the hooded man.

"Just something hard, thanks Tifa" he responded. She moved down the bar and fixed the nondescript drink for the man, passing it to him promptly before turning to make herself busy by sorting out the empty glasses and bottles threatening to litter the bar.

Thud

She resisted a smile. Apparently Biggs was paying as much attention as he normally did judging from Barret energetic response. As quickly as her smile had came it was soon gone again though. She couldn't help but worry a little bit. After all they were her friends, and Shinra was a global power, so her concerns were not at all unfounded. But then again, they were not going to be rolling in with hopes and dreams as clearance and foul language as a weapon. The plan was as solid as it was going to get. No, she thought to herself, the thing to do would certainly be to keep herself busy, focus on what she could do rather than to concern herself with something she cannot change.

As the night went one and the bar became quieter she found herself wondering what a certain spiky haired blonde was doing right about now. She wondered what life is SOLDIER was like for him now, surely he would have had time to get used to what was surely a tough routine by now. She was disappointed she had not heard anything of him, but then after That incident she had heard no news of any SOLDIER activity. She the glass she had been cleaning absent mindedly cracked under her grip. Sighing to herself she cleaned up the mess. Just as she decided to forget about the source of said stress…

THUD THUD

'Time to close up then' she thought to herself. Placing her hands on her hips she surveyed the bar. There were only three people left and two of them were always stumbling out. The only one left was the hooded guy. She moved down the bar and leant over in front of him her arms holding the bar on either side.

"Sorry but it's time to close up" she said in a regretful tone. The man smiled at her.

"Don't worry about it, You can let your friends up" he said knowingly. Tifa cooled at that, this couldn't be some sort of agent could it?

"What do you-" she began but was cut off

"Your friends downstairs, using the pinball machine I think" He said gesturing in the direction of the arcade machine. This time he cut her off before she could do anymore than inhale to respond

"Come on, Tifa, I was never that dumb to you, was it?" he asked, seemingly hurt. This time Tifa had to pause. A thought later, she realised he had thanked her by name when she served him earlier, yet she was pretty sure he was not a regular, or even someone she could identify by lower face and voice. And just who was he that he assumed she know who he was?

"Who are you?" she asked slightly irritated by the act already. He smiled and lowered the hood revealing spiky blonde hair.

"…..Cloud?" she gasped, breaking out into a smile when he nodded with that smirk of his.

THUD THUD THUD

"Oh, one moment" she said before hurrying off and sending the 'hidden' elevator down, hurrying back to her old friend.

"How have you been?" she said smiling brightly now. "Did you get into SOLDIER?" He raised his hands as though fending her off

"Sure I did. I said I would didn't I? But now… well all that stuff is history, which I guess isn't a bad thing. But that's a long and boring story, filled with sighs. How about you, how are you doing? You have your own bar which certainly doesn't seem to be a bad thing" he finished just as Barret came and stood next to them.

"Whose this guy?" he asked, not taking his eyes off Cloud. After Cloud simply stared back Tifa decided to introduce him.

"This is Cloud, we grew up together" she said. Barret gave her a look. He likely would have said something were she not beaming, something he hadn't the heart to break for something he really didn't altogether care about.

"He's Barret, he's a friend" she commented as Cloud watched the bigger man move away. She softly jabbed his arm, causing him to look back at her mildly surprised

"You didn't start a fight!" she teased "Back in the day; one wrong look? That's all it took. You've grown up" Cloud gave her a bemused smile

"I know… ghastly isn't it?" He commented, "So you didn't answer my question"

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Tifa had learnt a lot of what Cloud had been up to. Though it was mainly just SOLDIER, his travels, brief details of where he had been and the kind of things he was sent to do. He had told her that both he had resigned and the group was shut down 5 years ago, and she felt she had an inkling as to why. After all when your prime star goes rogue it's definitely time to re-evaluate. He also happened to mention they didn't take too kindly to his 'resignation' and it was more than a few unkind words directed at his person by them since, hence the hood. He had spent a bit of time moving around as invisibly as he could before wondering into the slums. After he had found out she was here, he decided they hadn't seen each other for long enough. She was very glance he had thought so.

She had spent some time talking about what she had been doing with herself, and told him about AVALANCHE. She explained their theory about what harm the mako reactors were really doing, and to her delight he agreed with the theory and agreed to help out on this mission. Barret wasn't overly keen on the idea, but she noticed the slightest change in his facial features when he learnt Cloud was Ex-SOLDIER, never a bad thing to have on your side.

She slid herself under the covers and smiled to herself. It was always an odd fact to her mind that things could change so drastically in a day. But it was rather wonderful when that was for the better.

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R&R if you want more. If you don't, then don't I guess….

Any questions about it you can review or PM