A/N: That was quick. ._.

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII Characters and Places belong to Square Enix.

The sink was on and the bubbles from the dish soap were over spilling onto the counter. They had been so lucky when the guy who had originally owned the bar had given it to them for free once they had told him that they had need for it. He had claimed that he had been waiting for this day to come, handed the keys over to Barrett and left wishing them the best of luck while grinning.

Tifa had thought he had been nuts.

Life in the slums was horrible. The people were dirty and poor, complaining about the sewage that they got every half an hour from the plumbing and wishing that they could earn just enough money to get the hell out of there. Some people liked the slums for its misery and nitty-gritty feel, taking advantage of people's desperation. Markey Place was the best example of this, with Don Corneo and the whore house that Tifa had been offered to work at more than once. She blatantly refused every time.

Putting away the clean dishes as she dried them, she listened to the boys in the lower level talking about something or another; probably one of the plans. She knew that Barrett, Biggs, Wedge and Jessie (the only girl) were planning on freeing the Planet from ShinRa Power Company Inc.'s rule. The small electric power company had grown larger in size as the years went by until finally it was more like an empire than a company. Barrett had been one of the first to realize that the company was harming the Planet by sucking out its energy to create life for humans that much easier on Gaia. He had then started AVALANCHE.

Draining the sink, she wiped her hands on the cloth and started towards the upstairs, where the bedrooms were. She didn't need to be in the meeting this time as she wasn't on the mission. She scowled at that; Barrett never allowed her to go to the missions. He thought she was too emotionally attached.

You'd be emotionally attached too if ShinRa destroyed your home into a forest flames.

Sighing, she shook her head and pushed back dark brown hair, climbing the stairs and entering one room to see a little girl curled up sleeping peacefully. She smiled, pulling the blankets up around the girl's shoulders. Marlene was Barrett's adopted daughter, small and pale but just as determined and hard headed as her father. She helped around the bar a lot, giving Tifa a break once in a while and the fighter thought she was a Goddess sent.

Once making sure Marlene was comfortable and sleeping soundly, she left the room and closed the door gently, walking up another flight of stairs to the topmost level of the bar 7th Heaven. She opened the door and peeked in, looking worriedly at the sleeping occupant.

He looked worse for wear, skin pale and tinged green, clothes dirty and dusty. His feet had been bloody when she yanked his boots off, telling her how far he'd walked with a heavy burden—a large sword she recognized as the Buster sword, yet she didn't say anything about it.

She crept in, walking over to the man and pulling his blankets up, smoothing back blonde hair. He looked so young…Almost as if he were still sixteen when he was really twenty-one years old. How had he been preserved? She felt almost old next to him, and she was younger by a year. She shook her head after that thought, smiling gently at the sight of her childhood friend whom she hadn't seen in five years.

Life…It had been so hard on her. She'd lost her family, her friends and her home. She thought she'd never be able to smile again.

Yet staring into Cloud Strife's sleeping face, wondering what he was dreaming about, it made her smile.

And it gave her the hope to laugh again.