(What's this? A Final Fantasy 7 AU? No way! Yes. Way. Set after the game, but will not include the events of Advent Children. So far... only this one chapter has been written. Shame on me.

Read and review! It's always nice to see what other people think.

I don't own FF7 or any of the characters... dang it... the credit goes to Squaresoft. Square Enix? Whatever.)

A tall, trim woman leaned her elbows on the railing of the porch, expressive brown eyes set in a pretty, finely featured face staring expectantly at the brightening sky above. Behind her the door to the Venus Gospel bar creaked idly back and forth in the cool early morning breeze. There were no lights coming from either of the two floors, the lower that was the bar nor the top that was her home. The two people that lived with her, a man and a child, were still sleeping. Tifa Lockheart, however, woke up early every morning to see the sun rise over the city and watch the light bring the place to life. The thing that brought her outside regularly was not the beauty of the sun rise itself, in fact, mornings in Nibelheim were far more beautiful in her humble opinion. Sight-seeing was not a good enough reason for her to drag herself out of bed each morning. Actually, it was far more simple than that: she liked seeing the sun from the porch of her bar in a city called Midgar.

Chapter 1:

New Midgar.

Construction on the new city began on the one year anniversary of the Meteor incident. The old city was torn down and the Mako Reactors were painstakingly disassembled. Shinra Inc, the company responsible for many grievances against the planet, spear-headed the reconstruction project to symbolize their own reformation. By building a new, beautiful and completely different Midgar, Shinra told the world that they were no longer the aggressors of the Planet, that they, under the new management of the Turks, sought to heal the injuries they had done to the people they were supposed to take care of. The Mako Reactors, instruments designed to absorb the Mako from the Planet and transform it into a usable energy source to better human lives but instead drained the Planet of its life's blood, were being shut down systematically. It was a long, difficult process that was no where near completion, but it was a good start.

The Venus Gospel was located in the center of the city. Tifa Lockheart, head of the City Development branch of the Turks, had not been casual in picking this location for her establishment and home. It was close to the Neo-Shinra Headquarters and in the most heavily populated district in the city.

New Midgar was wonderful. Life was better by a huge margin over what it had been. There was sunlight, flowers, trees and sky. The water that fell from above was rain from the clouds, not sewage run off from the Plate. The smell of the city was that of life, a popouri of flower gardens and fruit trees. Even the buildings felt new and alive, despite being built of the standard materials used in Old Midgar. As far as the people were concerned life promised to be good this time.

Tifa, now of the Turks, could almost believe all this as far as the citizens did. She was one branch of the Board of Five. They called themselves the 'Heads of…', because no one was brave enough to dawn the title of President. Tifa's former enemies made up the rest of the hierarchy of Neo-Shinra: Tseng, Head of weapon development and technology; Elena, Head of Urban living and betterment; Reno, Head of communications and public relations; and Rude, Head of transportation and defense. Between the five of them were divided many other titled responsibilities.

As far as she could see, from her high ranking position in the company, everything was being played on the level. Despite their past rivalry and her solid connection to Avalanche, the original Turks treated Tifa as an equal and informed her of all their movements. It was a hard won trust, but two years of consistent peace between Shinra and Avalanche had proven her to them.

Still, the activist inside her was uneasy. The change in Shinra was a complete turn. Everything about the organization was different. They no longer use Mako in any of their plans. They understand the responsibility to the lives they touched with their products and do not use the old tactic of control-by-fear to maintain their power. In everything they set out to do there was a profound respect for the Planet, especially where dismantling the Mako Reactors were concerned. They strove to do no more harm to the Planet. Tifa could hardly wrap her head around all the positive efforts the Shinra Company had made in the past four years, ever since the defeat of Sephiroth and the destruction of Meteor. A large part of her former self still couldn't take it all at face value. Somehow the death of their President, Rufus Shinra, by the Planet's Weapon did not seem like enough justification for the flood of good it seemingly loosed.

Unless the Turks always felt the corruption of their company, and his death had simply been the opportunity they needed. Trivializing his death like that, however, did not seem like something a Turk could even think about, let alone long for.

Though they were all viewed as powerful, it was Tseng and Elena that pulled most of the strings, with Reno, Rude and Tifa supporting and aiding them. They each ran the Branch of their title without much interference from the two higher ups, but whenever a decision with a large impact attached, particularly when they regarded Old Midgar or Mako Reactors, crossed their desks it had to be cleared through Elena or, more commonly, Tseng. And everyone was okay with that.

If there was one thing Tifa found surprising about her life after joining the Turks, besides the drastic change in the way they conducted business, it was the strength of her new-found friendships.

In Avalanche, loyalty had been second nature. The ordeals the group survived together tied them closer than any terms of friendship could describe. The founding members of the team had all been friends before setting out on their quest to save the Planet. Barret Wallace was a long time friend of hers. When Tifa arrived in Midgar to recover from a serious injury, she had met Barret and helped him raise his adopted daughter, Marlene. This was around the time of the opening of her first bar, the Seventh Heaven, where he was a regular costumer. The two bonded, but love never bloomed between them. Probably because her heart belonged to Cloud.

Tifa still couldn't think about Cloud without feeling an unbearable pressure in her chest.

Cid, Red XIII, Yuffie, Vincent, and even Cait Sith, for what he was, had become irreplaceable parts of her life. Even Aeris, whose death would never cease to cause Tifa pain, had become something like her best friend in a very should amount of time. Tifa liked to think that those bonds did not come around very often. What she shared with Avalanche should be considered sacred, because those were the people she was meant to love.

She hadn't noticed how thin the line between friends and enemies really was.

It would be a lie to say that she felt hatred towards the Turks during the crisis four years ago. She understood that they were responsible for a lot of pain, suffering, and death, and that they were, in a very basic form of the word, evil. But they had always been efficient and on more than one occasion the Turks avoided confrontation with Avalanche. It was respect that kept the two teams from needlessly slaughtering each other. That was the right word. Though she didn't appreciate or agree with it, Tifa had always respected the Turks for their professionalism.

Still, she never thought that, even if given an opportunity, that respect would transform into friendship. But here she was, sitting in her lush office of the New Midgar Neo-Shinra Headquarters, a high ranking Turk whose closest friends were the very people she had been at war with. It had been hard to see as a member of Avalanche, but now that she was one of them, Tifa discovered that the Turks were susceptible to the same connections and strong, albeit unspoken, feelings that used to tear at her former team.

Elena, being the only other woman on the Board, was the first person Tifa bonded with. Right from the beginning Elena had been willing to trust the change in Tifa's heart. After getting to know each other, the two found that their personalities, though drastically different, were a perfect match. A deep trust grew between them, and now they were inseparable. It was as if they had never really been enemies. If the past was revisited, it was only to laugh at mistakes or reflect on somber memories that only brought them closer. Both loved hearing their own stories from the other side. When they spoke, the lines they had long since drawn between good and evil blurred, and neither could be sure that if what they had done was right. The conversations never stayed deep for too long, and to ease the pain of the past they usually turned to something frivolous: like who liked whom.

Elena was madly in love with Tseng. Even in Avalanche, Tifa had been aware of this. Tseng, it seemed, had always been soft for the blonde Turk, and now the two were an item. Reno, the fiery red-head who had been the unconventional leader of the Turks during most missions, was put out by this. He never said it, but his fondness for Elena was more than professional. Now Tifa was aware of a shift in his affections. The last of the Turks was rude, but he was an aloof man who kept mostly to himself, only really speaking to his partner in crime, Reno. She didn't know what went on in Rude's mind, and sometimes that bothered her.

The phone sitting at the edge of her desk began to ring. She fumbled for the receiver and in the process knocked a pencil and a picture frame from the desktop.

"Tifa Lockheart," She said gruffly as she moved her chair out and bent to recover the items.

"Your door's locked."

"Elena, hi. I didn't hear you knock." Her hand fell over the pencil and she returned it to the desk, "What's up?"

Nothing. I was just coming to see you. Are you okay?" Tifa smiled at the concern in Elena's voice.

"You don't have to worry about me, I'm…" She picked up the picture and, despite her better judgment, looked at it. Cloud stared back at her, his eyes bright and loving, his blonde hair blown by a breeze long since dead. He smiled at her honestly, a rare moment captured in time. "…fine."

"Oh yes," Elena said, her eyes rolling through her voice, "That was convincing."

"The picture. It fell and I picked it up and looked at it… I'm fine, Elena." She forced herself to sound more together than she actually felt.

"I figured you'd say that. Let's go out." Elena was not asking. Tifa could imagine her sitting in her office, grinning from ear to ear.

"We're working."

"What are they going to do? Fire us? The others will understand, and I'm sure they'll survive. I'll be at your office in ten." Elena hung up before Tifa could respond. She replaced the phone in defeat. She put the photo back where it belonged on her desk and leaned back in her seat.

It was four years to the day since Cloud vanished from her life, three days before the fourth anniversary of the Meteor incident. For three years Tifa had used this day for reflection and gloominess. Last year, after joining Shinra, Elena had seen how sad Tifa was and had asked about it. She then vowed that Tifa was no longer allowed to mope. Evidently she had not forgotten her promise.

Tifa stood and crossed from her desk to the window and stared out over the rumbling activity of New Midgar. People walked the streets as if they had lived here their whole lives. Most had already fallen into the routine of their new lives, and were beginning to take things for granted. It was how they protected themselves. Tifa sighed and shook her head, a dull throb pulsing behind her ears. The familiar warning of a migraine.

There was a knock at her door. Those had been the fastest ten minutes of her life. She looked at her watch and it made sense: it had only been three. Tifa opened the door and smiled at her friend.

"You called me from your cell phone while walking over here, didn't you? There is no route in this building that can bring you from the top floor to my office in three minutes."

"I can't believe you timed me!" Elena stepping into the office and caught Tifa with a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek that meant more to Tifa than either could fathom. "You look like hell. Let's get out of here."

"Shouldn't we-"

"No." Whatever it is, the boys can handle it." Elena took Tifa by the wrist and dragged her down the hall to the elevator. "We'll swing by your bar if you want, so you can change. Personally, I like my authoritative look." She pushed the button and the door slipped open with a ding.

"The bar is the last place I want to be, I think," Tifa said with a laugh.

"Right. Okay? Where do you want to go, then?" The elevator slid down to the basement parking lot silently, "We can either confront today for what it is or pretend today is tomorrow and ignore it."

Tifa smiled and laughed at her own expense, saying, "You're so cute. I haven't decided. I did just want to stay in my office and-"

"Pout? Mope? Wallow? Please, you know I won't let you do that. I know it's healthy, but… it's time to move on, you know? Recover a little. You're going to smack me, but… there are other men out there. Maybe we'll meet the man you've always been dreaming about… only you've been so wrapped up in Cloud that you haven't noticed."

The elevator settled into a stop and the doors opened. Elena and Tifa walked into the parking lot in silence. They went to Elena's car and Elena unlocked the doors with a small remote control on her keychain. Tifa reached over and took the keys out of her hands.

"I'll drive," she said. Elena nodded and slid into the passenger seat. Tifa sat at the wheel and, as she turned the key in the engine and without looking at Elena, said, "Let's go to Midgar."

"Old Midgar? Well… okay." Suddenly the roles had switched and Tifa was now the leader of the day's excursion. Elena frowned. Midgar was not a place she had considered and it bothered her that Tifa wanted to go there. "Drive to the 'port and we'll take a helicopter. Though, I think you're missing the point here…"

Tifa eased the car out of the parking space and then out of the lot, into the sunlight. She drove without turning on the radio and without speaking to her cohort. These were demons best confronted in silence, though; Tifa was profoundly grateful for the company. Elena would have to be her strength for the day, and it amazed her that she could easily trust Elena, her former enemy, to be her best friend.