Her Own Time
(AU.)
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Tifa isn't sure how she ended up in Midgar.
She remembers Nibelheim burning, and Sephiroth slashing her across the chest, and then waking up in a dirty hospital room as if she'd always been there. Wherever she'd come from, now she was just another piece of human refuse in the slum, with a scar on her chest that could've healed if she'd had the money to have it fixed, and others scars that are far beyond healing.
She keeps her eyes, mouth and ears shut, doesn't listen to her patrons when they complain about the corporation. She pays her dues and a few bribes on top of that, and she doesn't trust anyone for a second, because there's no one out there worth trusting.
Once upon a time, when she'd just arrived, she'd hated Shinra, and had wanted to fight them any way she could. But now she's too tired and too hopeless, because she's never met anyone who would actually be brave enough to stand up to Shinra when they retaliated. None of the handful of resistance groups and freedom fighters out there are worth the time it takes to say their names; she's heard about enough executions and murders to know that it's easy to talk but hard to get anything done.
When she overhears some guy from the train station talking about a sick blond kid he'd seen lying in the gutter that morning, muttering things that he doesn't want to repeat, she just sighs and turns away. What difference would helping someone like that make? She knows that everyone in that bar might end up that way eventually, so for now she keeps her head down and does her own time.
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Note: This one is a bit different - it's not about Barret so much as it is about the absense of Barret and how that would've changed things. Barret is important, darn it.