Tifa could sense the light behind her closed eyelids before she ever opened them. When she did, she winced as the sunlight ignited a powerful headache, moving one hand to cradle her painful head.

"Ughhh.." she muttered, and she heard a feminine voice somewhere across the room she hadn't been able to see yet made a sound of surprised.

"You're awake?" The voice sounded soft yet with a girlish tint to its maturity. Tifa recognized that voice, but couldn't pin a face to it, so once again, she slowly tried to open her eyes.

She found herself staring up at a concerned looking blond woman whose short hair framed an attractively built face. "Elena?" Tifa groaned out through the pain her head was giving her, wondering what on earth the female Turk was doing around her. It took a moment for everything to come back to her – the museum, somebody running at her, and then the explosion.

"You both hit your head really hard when you finally hit the ground. I thought you hit yours worse, since you were underneath him, but since he still hasn't woken up…" Elena trailed off, her eyes worriedly roving to another bed that Tifa hadn't yet noticed.

Following the woman's line of sight, Tifa found not only that they were in what appeared to be a hospital room, but that next to her on a white, sanity bed identical to the one she was on laid an unconscious man.

Gazing over at the man's fair features, white-blond bangs falling above closed eyes, Tifa found herself staring down at Rufus Shinra.

She only had time to catch a blur of white clothes and blond hair as a man came hurtling across the room so quickly that she didn't get a glimpse of his face before he cried, "Get down!"

What on earth had happened? Why had she managed to bump into Rufus Shinra, of all people, and why had he been in an exploding building of all things?

"….we thought we could disarm it," Elena replied, making Tifa realize she had voiced her thoughts outloud. She turned to see the blond woman averting her gaze with an abashed expression on her face.

"Disarm what?" Tifa asked, not knowing what Elena had been referring to.

"The bomb. We thought we could disarm it."

"…so you knew there was a bomb in there? Why on earth did you stay in there instead of running like everybody else?"

Elena began to fidget under Tifa's perusal. "We got a tip that there was a bomb. The President makes most of his appearances a public matter to try to show Shinra's growing support of the people, so it's getting harder and harder to keep him safe! This time, we accidentally found the bomb, and it was a fairly simple one, so we thought with Rude on the phone we could disarm it and save the museum, but…"

The woman broke off, and Tifa urged, "But…?"

"…but then we saw that there was a timer, and that it only had sixty seconds left on it."

Tifa stared. She couldn't help it.

"I didn't think a woman of your seeming intelligence would run into a building that was clearly being evacuated." Tifa turned to look at the newcomer, staring at Tseng's imposing figure as he strode into the room.

"For all I knew, someone might have needed help in there!" Tifa objected, bristling with anger at the comment the male Turk had made.

"It turned out he was the one who helped you," Tseng replied, nodding his head towards Rufus. "He would've made it farther out if he hadn't tried to take you with him."

Elena sputtered. "Sir!" she protested. "Miss Lockhart was only trying to help!"

Tifa turned her appraisal onto Rufus, noting how peaceful the man looked in his sleep. She knew very well that Rufus Shinra had taken a severe turn-around since after Meterofall. Despite his urging to stay unanimous, he was the WRO's largest and most remarkable donor, contributing unimaginable amounts of funding to their cause. They all knew that the man felt he had a great debt to repay the planet.

"Is he alright?" Tifa questioned, feeling a twinge of guilt that the man had hit his head while doing his best to tackle her out of harm's way.

"The nurse said he'll be fine," Elena responded, glowering at Tseng. "He'll have a headache, of course, and a few bumps. You both had some burns, though he took the brunt of it when he covered you."

Tifa noticed for the first time that Elena had bandages wrapped around one of her hands as well as her forehead. Both she and Tseng wore smaller bandages that held together multiple gashes and what appeared to be very painful and serious burns.

"You said that it's getting more difficult to keep him safe. Who's trying to blow him up?" Tifa questioned.

Tseng fixed his solemn eyes on her. "There are some people," he replied slowly, "that haven't forgiven Shinra Company's actions."

"They won't stop trying to shoot him, or blow him up, or whatever other stupid scheme they have up their sleeves!" Elena ranted in frustration. "I can't believe it! After all he's been doing these last years to help atone for Shinra's mistakes, there's still-" The woman cut off when Tseng gave her a slow, even look.

Tifa frowned, taking in the information they had just given her.

"The nurse said you're free to leave." Tifa took Tseng's comment as a dismissal. Eyeing Rufus one last time, she nodded and headed towards the door.

"Tell him I apologize for getting in his way. And thank him for me," Tifa told Elena, smiling in a friendly way. "I hope he's alright when he wakes up."

Tifa found her way home fairly easily, though her head wouldn't stop pounding the entire time. Once she reached 7th Heaven, she pulled open the door, not realizing in her pained state that the door which she had locked before leaving was no longer latched.

She had taken one step into the room when she was grabbed roughly from behind, and a damp cloth was shoved over her face. The room swam for only a moment before once again, Tifa lost consciousness.

Blue Nayru: Thank you! This fic might be a little slow in coming out, since my main one right now is Picture Perfect Truth. But it'll still have chapters coming out every now and then. Hope you enjoy the rest!

Aeriths-Rain: I apologize for having so few chapters… like I said above, I'm mainly concentrating on my other fic right now, but I want to write this one too before I lose the idea.  Thanks for reading!

Blueravenchick: Sorry this chappie isn't too exciting… it's the background info needed for the rest of the story to start working. I should have the next one out in a day or two! Thanks for your review.