Review Responses:

kerapal bubbles: Your use of emoticons both amuses and touches me. I am flattered, my love. And yes. It will be awesome indeed. Thanks for the review! ken08002: NOTHING. There is nothing anyone could possibly want more. death wish girl: I'm so happy, really! Thank you for taking so long to read my story, and reviewing, too! Kurogane7: Aah, our epic battle is sadly a few chapters away…we have too much angst to work out first. Thanks very much for the review! vLuna: I think that may have been the best reason for Cloud to not leave Tifa, EVER. "Who's gonna save his ass?" BRILLIANT. riceball793: Isn't he just…I desperately love young Tifa and Cloud, look forward to reappearances! SorrowsFlower: I'm so glad you stayed up late just to review! I'm sorry I stole your idea…I always imagine Tifa as very maternal, no matter her age, and I've somehow never really seen her as refined. She punches too many things for that. Oooh, I'm glad you like my line. It gets a reappearance just for you. And he was never going to get to kiss her. 'Cause I'm mean. Thanks very much! sasusakufan2357: Slap AND hug him! Sorry the update took so long, and thanks for the review! Lady Foxtrot: I'm afraid I'm too tired to respond to every lovely point in your long and lovely review, but it was an AWESOME review and I love you to pieces. Thank you, darling. And this chapter was named because of what you said in your review for chapter 27, actually. It got stuck in my mind. ohsnapples: Here, update, especially for you. Thanks for reviewing! NamioftheSea: Mindbending indeed. Sadly, Tifa does not go ballistic…although that would have been fun… Darkhorse666: Such a good line, right? Augh, I'm so skilled. Also, phone sex is the answer to all questions, definitely. Except maybe calculus. Screw my summer homework. asukacaramel: Thanks so much for your awesome review! I'm flattered you like my story so much—I always have fun working with these characters, I try so hard to keep them in character. And the disclaimers are always just a bit of humor I have to slap in to keep my darling readers from getting too depressed. Thanks again for reviewing!

WELCOME TO FAIR HELP CENTER

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Begin To Heal

(Someone complimented me on my humorous disclaimers, so of course I can't think of a funny one right now. In any case, I don't own it, la di da, thank you very much.)

She woke up in the morning with an odd sense of peace.

Because the knowledge was there, like a cold dead place inside her heart, and it made her chest ache but it was an ache she could deal with and an ache she could push down and bear and there was no fervent denial, no pleading cries within her mind, just calm certainty and firm, resilient determination.

Because Tifa Lockhart was a person who never forgot her dreams.

So she woke up with warmth wrapped around both her hands and a smile on her face, because she knew exactly who was waiting for her in the waking world.

"Marlene," she hummed gently, the words hurting her raw and bruised throat on their way out, and heard the little gasp of response, as well as a tightening pressure on her fingers. "Denzel."

Opening drowsy eyes, she looked up into the concerned faces of her little siblings, and smiled a soft little smile, her special smile that said it wasn't quite all right yet, but it would be soon. Denzel looked bleak and miserable and Marlene's lower lip started trembling and it wasn't until Tifa laughed a soft laugh of pain and lifted a hand to cup her baby sister's cheek that the little girl burst into tears and hugged her arm tight and wailed like an infant.

Tifa clucked teasingly and squeezed Denzel's fingers, grinning proudly as he clenched his jaw and refused to burst into tears, because that wasn't manly. "Den," she called softly, trying not to work her throat too much. "Come over here and help me sit up." Both children immediately opened their mouths to protest, but Tifa shushed them before they could even begin to speak. "How am I supposed to give hugs if I can't sit up, hm?"

Half-smiling reluctantly, Denzel released Tifa's hand and held her shoulder to help her roll carefully onto her back. She hissed when the movement tightened her skin and stressed the rows of stitches she could feel in her back. Hurriedly propping her up with a pillow, Denzel looked miserably up at her as she gritted her teeth and gave him the best smile she could manage, leaning in to wrap an arm around his shoulders and kiss his forehead as Marlene clambered up onto the bed to hug her knees.

"Hey, now," Aerith protested halfheartedly from the door, leaning a hip against the frame. "You're not supposed to be moving yet, you know." Tifa's only response was a scornful snort, making Aerith smile unwillingly as she walked in for her own hug.

"How long was I out?" Tifa asked quietly, squeezing Aerith's hips.

The older girl sighed and backed away, resting a hand on Tifa's good shoulder. "Well, Shinra's doctors had you in surgery for a few hours right after the fight, then you were sedated for a solid day and a half. You came out of that and kind of half-woke-up yesterday night. But before long you went back to sleep on your own, and then you slept through most of today, so all told you've been out for about three days."

Groaning, Tifa leaned her head back into the pillows. "Well, I guess it's a new record." When Aerith lifted an eyebrow, Tifa continued, "I was in a week-long coma after I first got this scar, the night Nibelheim burned."

Aerith's mouth half-opened to speak, but Tifa interrupted her before the words came: "Never mind me, Aerith, are you okay? What about Vincent and Yuffie, are they all right? And Zack, and the brothers, is everyone still okay?"

With a sigh, Aerith perched on the end of the bed, massaging Tifa's feet idly through the sheets. "The brothers…joined Sephiroth halfway through the fight." At Tifa's shocked expression, she explained quietly: "No one's sure, but Shinra is thinking it's because they're some of Hojo's experiments, too. They're Sephiroth's genes to begin with, so we aren't sure if they even had a choice about joining him. But whether it was their own will or not, they're dangerous now, so Shinra took them into custody. They're in some other jail now, but…without me, I…I don't know how they'll do."

Then there was a hand wrapped around each of Aerith's and two pairs of wide child's eyes staring up at her as Denzel and Marlene both offered comfort in the same selfless way that their whole family did. The children gave Aerith their trademarked brave little smiles and it made Tifa's heart swell full of family pride in her chest and Aerith smiled a fragile smile of her own in return. With a deep breath, she continued.

"Zack, well—he's Zack, you know? Loz managed to hit one of the major nerves in his left arm with a serious amount of electricity. His whole arm was dead for a few hours afterward, but once he got sensation back—you wouldn't know it had ever happened. He's—gone on a road trip, I think. He left the night you woke up."

And then it was Tifa's turn to be quiet and smile the smallest, most fragile smile and stare at her hands and whisper. "Yeah…I know."

Because Tifa Lockhart never forgot her dreams…

The silence hung thick and heavy in the room for a moment before Tifa shook her head carefully, smiled wider and more honestly, and asked, "And Vincent, and Yuffie? Are they all right?"

Wincing visibly, Aerith squeezed the children's hands tighter and sighed. "Vincent and Yuffie, well…"

"No. No, no, no, no, NO! Not okay, dude! This is NOT okay! I don't want it and you can't make me!"

"Yuffie."

"Don't you 'Yuffie' me, Vince! This is—hey, hey, don't think I don't see you three, doctor-people, and I won't—AUGH! Put me down! Put me down, you stupid white-coat wearing eggheads, PUT ME DOWN!"

"Yuffie, you are making an unnecessary fuss."

"No, I am making a totally necessary fuss. Come ON, help me out here, what kind of boyfriend are you? GAH! Doc, don't you dare put me in that thing! Hey! I said don't you dare! I'm about to open a can of ninja whoopass on you if you try to put me in that! Lemme GO! Can't I refuse treatment or something? DNR! I need a DNR!"

Vincent sighed, amber eyes going stern and reproving. "Yuffie, calm down and do as the doctors tell you. It is only a wheelchair."

Pouting up at him from where three doctors were holding her in the chair—one of whom was rather desperately trying to stabilize her legs—Yuffie made her best sulking face, wailing: "It's not 'only' anything, Vince. It's ONLY a torture device. It's ONLY the most undignified thing I've ever ridden in. It's ONLY a freaking wheelchair."

For a moment, he caught and held her eyes.

Beneath the gentle bleeding plum, he saw her annoyance, her overdramatic refusal, her habitual defiance—and if it was just that he would have scolded her and told her to do as the doctors told her—but somewhere beneath her gaudy and overemphasized emotions he found something real. Real hurt, real denial, and maybe even the sharper edges of real terror, real horror.

And he could have passed that off as a mistake, an illusion—

But Yuffie had a long history of hiding her hurt behind laughter and smiles, and if she was finally showing him when she needed him—how could he turn her away?

So he sighed and sat up with a half-smirk twisting the corners of his lips, waving off the instantly fretting doctors.

"Mr. Valentine, sir, you're really not supposed to be moving yet—you're still recovering from a major loss of blood and traumatic injur—"

Vincent turned and glared pointedly at his doctor.

The man swallowed, took two steps back, and didn't speak again.

"Hospital beds," Vincent stated, half to the air, half to the people in the room. "Do not suit me." Carefully, he lifted himself out of the cot with his right hand, trying not to jostle the useless stump of his left arm where it was bound against his chest. Standing for a moment, he swayed gently, trying to reassert his balance with the significant lack of weight on his left side. At length, he was satisfied with his bearings, and bent to offer his right hand to Yuffie.

"And that wheelchair," he added with a slight smirk, "Does not suit you at all, my little ninja."

Her grin was blinding as she clutched at the hand he held out, and he gave her his softest not-smile in return and swung her onto his back as the doctors shrieked protests.

She tucked her arms around his shoulders and clung tightly to his hips with her thighs as he kicked open the door to the hospital wing. "Can you hold on?" He asked quietly. She snorted in his ear in reply.

"I just can't straighten my knees. Inner thigh movement is a whole different muscle group. And I do still have my arms."

"Please do not choke me," he warned, and placed his hand high on the back of her thigh to heft her higher on his back. Yuffie giggled scandalously and hugged his shoulders tightly, resting her cheek against the side of his head, idly watching the hallway doors pass.

"What about you," she hummed, slowly rubbing her face against the softness of his hair. "You sure you're okay carrying me like this?"

He scoffed quietly. "Yuffie, you weigh next to nothing."

"Aww, flatterer."

"Besides," he rumbled, pausing and tilting his head back so she could press her cheek to his. "I promised, did I not? That I would always be here to carry you."

"…"

"Yuffie?"

"Shut up. I'm not blushing. Don't look."

"Yuffie."

"Oh, just—just shut up and kiss me already."

Shinra was shuffling his cards.

Tseng tried not to turn around as the telltale sound filled the room. His headset blocked out most of the background noised, but Rufus kept moving closer and closer, as if to ensure that the Turk could hear the distinctive flutter of the small papers. He knew the sound sent chills down Tseng's spine.

"I miscalculated," he heard the President mutter, half to himself, half to Tseng. "It won't happen again."

The Director sighed quietly and tried harder to ignore the malignant aura his boss was exuding.

Nothing good ever came of Rufus shuffling his cards.

Cloud slept on top of Fenrir. Fenrir was nice to sleep on top of. At night, it was warm from a day of riding, and cool and refreshing against his cheek by morning. He could lean forward or back against the massive bike, and the blanket and pillow Zack had thoughtfully packed before their departure made the whole arrangement rather comfortable. He probably would have been extremely comfortable if it weren't for all the half-healed wounds perforating his body.

He knew Zack didn't like him sleeping on Fenrir. Zack had packed more than just blankets and pillows—sleeping bags and even food stores were stuffed into the storage compartments of the massive motorcycles. Zack set up a camp and lit a fire and made food when they stopped for the night, and Zack rolled out a sleeping bag and tried for all the world to pretend like he was just going on another camping trip.

They both knew it wasn't.

There were mountains starting to loom on the horizon. Another day's travel would probably have them at Cloud's destination. Looking at the hazy peaks in the distance somehow managed to make Cloud nostalgic and nauseous at the same time. He turned around and slept facing the other direction.

His lung wasn't fully healed yet. If he threw up, there'd be blood.

And the cut on his left arm wasn't closing properly. He wasn't sure if Shinra's surgeons had botched the job, or if it had just been an ugly cut to begin with—but it wasn't binding up like the rest of his wounds were. Hojo's treatments had him healing at an impossible rate, but it still wasn't enough. By all rights, he should have been bedridden and on antibiotics and having his every bodily function fully tracked and logged and measured and calculated. Even as fast as he healed, he was fragile.

So, so fragile…

He knew he wasn't running towards a destination.

But Zack didn't say anything and that was why Zack was his best friend, because Zack was easy and accepting and would never push him for answers they both knew he didn't have. So Zack offered cheerful friendship and unspoken acceptance and left him to his own thoughts at night.

He knew he was only running away.

Tifa…

The name hovered on his tongue, tempting him to let it fall from his lips, but he swallowed it down and held it like a warm weight inside his stomach, because he knew—

Edge was only a day's ride away—

If he said the name now, he'd turn back. Go back. The threat lingered like a thick mist on the edges of his mind, refusing to abate, ever-present. The Fair Help Center was somewhere in that mist, calling him back, promising him friends and security and soft hands and dark hair and crimson wine eyes and—

Love.

And Sephiroth's words stayed wrapped around that mist, preventing him from entering.

By all means, continue to reach out to her, to your friends, to everyone around you. But remember, every time you touch her, every time you put those bloody hands on her…she dies a little more.

So he gritted his teeth and stared at the stars and refused to say the name that hung eternally on his lips.

Tifa.

Cloud…

Somewhere on the other side of consciousness, there was a wolf waiting for her.

I'll always stay in your dreams…until the day you ask me to leave.

…XxX…

A/N

Rufus is shuffling his cards.

Now might be a good time to run away.

Sorry to everyone who expected Tifa to pitch a fit at Cloud's leaving. She's going to explain herself a bit next chapter.

And some Vincent and Yuffie fluff, because I know we're all worried about our darlings. Oh, and the kids. 'Cause I love the kids. Yay!

Review, my loves? Please, please, please?