Disclaimer: None of the FF characters in the story are mine, although I hope Square would consider my offer to pay them in the gil I amassed during FFX.

A/N: WOW! I've never gotten so many reviews for the first chapter of any story! Now that I know there are people who like it, it makes it more satisfying to post. An ENORMOUS thanks to Major-Lauren-Carter, Grant, Judanim the Green Mage, Spooky Fyre, and Minako for your reviews.

Twin Cities: Station Woes
Everything was so blurry…so…cloudy.

He gave a small grimace. Cloudy.

No one had ever dared to call him that. Not even his mother.

Still…cloudy. He couldn't understand his sudden fixation with that word. But then, understanding had been a rather difficult task for the past five years.

Even now, he had no idea where he was, or how long he'd been sitting in the same position, head slowly rocking back and forth. His eyes fluttered before closing, only to reopen with a swift jolt several seconds later. His mind drifted. He remembered a large amount of grief, the death of someone close, but it was dulled by his mind's current state.

He just continued to sit, no agenda, just drifting.

Tifa Lockheart was heading back to her bar, 7th Heaven.

Fear was omnipresent in her life the past few weeks, but tonight, she knew that she would be crossing the line of no return. She had promised her friend Barret Wallace that they could use the basement of her bar for the meetings of their new group, which would hold its first meeting tonight. They had finally reached the breaking point with Shin-ra, and had recruited such members of the neighborhood as thought it was time to take affirmative action.

Tifa wove her way around the abandoned train cars, meandering along. She had some time to kill before she had to be back, so she hopped around the train cars, avoiding some of the nastier monsters and climbing around the disheveled old train yard.

She climbed onto a dilapidated engine, gently wiggling her hands and feet into holds as she worked her way up. She scurried onto the top and looked around. Midgar. Once a prosperous city, even in the slums, now decrepit and nearly unlivable under the plate. It was a place people only lived when they had no place else to go, or who had ties to their houses: she couldn't really bring herself to call anything in the slums a remote resemblance of a home. She shook her head in disgust.

As she jumped to the next section of the train, Tifa's eyes happened upon a lone figure with its back braced against a small wall at the train station. She felt a small spring of pity come up for the poor soul. Probably just another homeless guy. Many people in the slums were.

She slid down a piece of metal placed like a ladder against the side of the car. Her footfalls scared a small cat out of its hiding place under the train, but she was too preoccupied at the moment.

An invisible pull was drawing her toward the man who sat at the train station. It was an indescribable line that was reeling her towards him. She often felt pity for the homeless in Midgar, but she had little enough to keep herself. So why was she heading towards this one? What singular quality made him so special?

A shock of fair hair greeted her in answer.

It couldn't be.

Tifa ran to him, heedless of everything else. He seemed to hear her, but he stayed put and his head reeled back and forth.

She hesitantly stopped a few feet away.

"Cloud?" she queried, gently moving closer.

He reacted to his name by turning his bobbing head in her direction. His eyes were completely out of focus, but she saw some recognition cross his features, and the grimace he was wearing faded.

"T–t-ifa?" he said. She knelt down next to him.

"Oh my god, Cloud, what happened to you?" She stared at her childhood friend in horror. He took a few moments to process her information, but he answered her in a far clearer tone, "I escaped…f-from Nibelheim. Came here."

Tifa was dumbfounded. Cloud had come to Midgar! Other questions vied for her attention, but her sole concern for the time being was her friend, whom she had given up for dead after the reactor accident over five years ago. Wait, no. He hadn't been there. She hadn't seen him since he left Nibelheim to join SOLDIER two years before that. She took a closer look and saw that he had changed, but he was definitely Cloud.

Cloud's previous lethargy was slowly leaving, and he could see more clearly now. He could remember Tifa, and with that memory, countless others flooded back. He sat as his mother, Sephiroth, Hojo, and many others floated back into his head. There was one face that he couldn't remember the name of, though. A mid size man with a heavy build, green eyes, and long, spiky black hair. Cloud dismissed him as a figment of his imagination. Besides, of all the people he could have happened upon, he had just run into the one he would have been happiest to see.

"Tifa, wha-? Where am I?" he asked as his head cleared and he could think properly.

"You're in Midgar," she replied. She quickly hugged him and dragged him to his feet. She took a closer look at him. He was not very tall, only a few inches taller than she, and was slim and well built. His face was the same as ever, but his large blue eyes held a very ethereal glow that she couldn't remember at all. He smiled at her with a weird overly happy and energetic smile that she also hadn't ever seen him wear. She quickly pushed her thoughts aside and smiled back at him.

"Why're you here? What happened to you? Come on, Cloud!" the words flooded out of her mouth and he shook his head and kept on smiling.

"Why don't we get out of here, and I'll tell you all about it?" he suggested. The nagging voice of 'something's wrong with him' only increased as Tifa heard him speak and watched his motions, but she again banished it. She began to drag him along, chattering, "I've got a bar that's not too far from here, and you can come with me, and–" Tifa was cut short as Cloud dropped to the ground with a groan and clutched his head as though in extreme agony.

"Cloud!" she cried. He rocked back and forth, jolting every so often as flashes of pain went across his face. They slowly stopped coming and he held his head while Tifa slowly brought him back to his feet.

"What was that?" she asked concernedly.

"I'm alright," he said forcefully, just like he always had as a child. He hated showing to her that even the great Cloud Strife could feel pain. She raised her eyebrows at him.

"Yeah, right," she stated blatantly. She fixed his face with a stern look and he met her gaze. He groaned again and rubbed his hand across his face.

"I was used as a guinea pig by a guy who worked for Shin-ra named Hojo, okay? I've been sitting in a tube full of mako for five years, and I remember little bits and pieces of my life, but not much else," he said in a fairly neutral tone.

"Shin-ra?" Tifa echoed, "Shin-ra did this to you? I wish – oooooh – they're gonna wish they'd never heard of AVALANCHE when we're done with them," she snarled.

"Wait, what's AVALANCHE?" Cloud said, bewildered. Tifa grinned. "A way to take out Shin-ra and save the planet," she said, "It'd be great if you'd join us, Cloud."

"Some days I think there isn't a way to stop Shin-ra," Cloud said disgustedly. "If I had the choice, I could stop it from ever creatin' this place," he gestured to their surroundings, "But saving the world, that's not my problem."

"Come with me," Tifa sighed. Cloud still looked disgusted and rather cold, a far cry from his initial goofy happiness, but he followed her.

'It's stupid to think that you can take down Shin-ra,' he thought. 'The only way that could happen we could do that would be to stop it from ever being created."

A/N: Ahh, foreshadowing! Next chapter, more FFX and FFVII, and the beginnings of the real plot. Please, if you like this story, review.