Okay, despite myself it looks like the characters are insisting on actually starting to develop a plot. Which means this is apparently going to be longer than just a couple of chapters. no fear, gentle readers, I don't start stories I don't finish. ;)

Chapter 5: Memories

Tifa had to admit – she'd stayed out too late last night. She'd just never imagined there would be so much to do at a convention of this size and at all hours of the night no less despite Aerith's stories. The all night Brisco County Jr. marathon had really taken it out of her. Though, really, who could resist the entire 'touching Pete's piece' section? she thought with a stifled yawn.

She was dressed as Rita again, less because she was going with a theme for the convention and more because Rita's outfits were easy to put together and comfortable. Well, other than the very, very short skirts but Tifa was learning to kind of enjoy those once she got the hang of them. Rita hadn't had a lot of costume changes in the movie. The outfit Tifa had worn yesterday had been the main one. But she'd worn a brown leather set when she'd been guiding people through the mountains of her homeland in the beginning of the movie and for several flashbacks and that's what Tifa wore now – even if she did wonder at the logic of wearing a mini-skirt and midriff baring tops in a mountain climate. So – it was brown leather vest and short skirt, white top, boots. She'd skipped the hat mostly because Tifa had a hard time not fiddling with anything that ended up stuck on her head. Out of habit, she checked the schedule she'd figured out for the day and looked at the clock on the wall. She'd intended to hit up the Dark Horse new release forum but the patch of sunshine coming in the large windows and the relative quiet of this particular area of the convention center seemed much more tempting. Granted, she could go back to her hotel room and crash there but it seemed like a lot of hassle when she could just sit against a pillar here and take a ten minute break instead.

Another yawn decided her and she moved over to settle down against the pillar in the warm spot of sunshine instead. Just a quick break, to close her eyes and catch a short rest. She did it all the time back home since sleep wasn't always a regularly scheduled thing with her father's sickness not particularly paying attention to the clock and whatnot. She was careful as she scooted down and got comfortable with the short skirt. It was next to impossible to sit modestly on the floor in it but she finally figured out a way that tucked her legs just right so she wasn't giving any of the camera happy boys running around a shot at something she didn't want plastered all over the internet. Satisfied, she smiled and tipped her head back against the pillar, closing her eyes as the heat from the sun started to soak into her. This section of the convention center was pretty empty right now. Ten minutes. She'd just do this for ten minutes and then she'd get up…

Tifa could doze almost anywhere in any situation and she was just in the process of sinking into it when the light from the sun was suddenly blocked. She ignored it for a minute, waiting for whoever wasn't paying attention to the people around them to move but when they didn't, she opened one eye and squinted up. After last night, she'd left out the contacts. They made her eyes dry.

She saw black. Tall, lean and lots of black blocking out the sun. And – further up…

Blond. A blond spiky halo. Before she even realized it she smiled. She should have known…

"Cloud."

He dropped down from where he'd been standing facing her to kneel in front of her. It kept him tall enough that he still kept the sun from shining in her eyes when she looked at him. The sun behind him hid his face but she could see that he was smiling and it seemed almost shy - his quiet smile.

"Want some company?" he asked and without really thinking about it, she nodded. Smooth, he shifted around to sit next to her, his own back against the pillar as well and a second later she felt his larger shoulder nudge behind hers. She was tired, she told herself. So she was going to make that her excuse for why she shifted forward enough for him to move a little behind her so that she could settle back against him, resting her back against his side and chest.

"Where's Yuffie?" she asked in a murmur as she shifted her legs to make sure her skirt stayed where it should and shut her eyes again.

"Practicing with 'Edward'" his quiet voice was dry. "They've decided to do a skit for one of the cosplay competitions."

"oh. my" Tifa offered and felt more than heard his silent chuckle.

"You have no idea," he admitted, relaxing against her. "They said I was 'limiting' and threw me out."

"Poor guy" Tifa commiserated and tipped her head back. His shoulder was there for it and that was much nicer than the hard pillar.

She expected him to ask her why she was falling asleep propped up against a pillar in a quiet section of the convention center but he didn't and soon she found herself starting to drift again. The rise and fall of his chest behind her was comforting and between him and the sunshine she was warm and lazy feeling.

Dozing wasn't exactly sleeping. It was more – letting her mind drift. For some reason, maybe the sunshine, her mind slipped back to when she was a child. Piano lessons… apple tarts and the cinnamon smell of the kitchen… high pitched children's voices calling outside her door for her to come and play… like waves, indistinct and fluid the memories slipped forward and then slipped away. They were comforting memories. Times had been different then. Mom had still been alive, Dad hadn't been sick, they'd lived above the Plates… But then the memories drifted and they were below the Plates. In the slums. Dad was sick… Mom was dying but they didn't know it yet… she had still had her piano… there had still been children that wanted her to play… children with dirty faces and ragged clothes – but her clothes had started to grow ragged too… Aerith hadn't been there yet – they'd met later, when they were both almost adults. Most of the children she'd played with those first few years were gone by now. Dead. Lost. Moved away, upward or outward in the hopes of finding a better life… In her doze their faces came to her again though and she heard their voices. Demitir – the bossy leader of the pack… Ruben – always spilling marbles out of his pockets… Mycroft and his broken glasses… Bessie and her inevitable tears…

Blond messy hair glimpsed from time to time on the edges of the lot they played in and the small boy that never joined them –

Really?

It woke Tifa up, or at least broke her out of her drifting and she blinked her eyes open slowly, trying to catch at the unraveling threads of where her mind had been. Children playing in a rusty, abandoned lot… voices calling to her…

Blond hair.

She blinked against the sun in her eyes. Behind her, a chest rose and fell in slow rhythm, heavy with sleep. The memory tickled at the edges of her mind. Had there been a blond boy or had her head just worked that in because she'd been seeing so much blond lately? Still lethargic and relaxed she thought about it without moving from her comfortable position. No. No, she remembered. There had been a blond boy. They'd lost their ragged leather kick ball under a pile of rusted metal one time and she'd been determined to get it back even though it wasn't hers. Mostly because it wasn't hers and she'd felt responsible for losing it. It had been getting dark – darker - it got dark fast under the Plates - and everyone else had abandoned it to go home – they'd abandoned her. She'd been scratched up and dirty and scared and frustrated, unable to fit herself in any of the holes in the rubble that would show her where the ball had gotten lodged when he'd appeared. He'd looked like a dandelion yellow hair sticking out everywhere around his pale, lean face. He'd silently crawled under the pile and she'd lost sight of him. When he'd finally come out he'd been bloody and scraped with torn clothes. But he'd had their ball.

And his eyes had been the concentrated blue of the sky 'above' when he'd handed it back to her.

Sitting up, careful not to wake the man behind her, Tifa turned a little to look at his sleeping face. Relaxed, he looked – young. Young and unguarded. Mentally she tried to match the face she hardly remembered from childhood with the one in front of her but she couldn't. The incident with the ball had been one of the last times she remembered seeing the flash of blond hair around the neighborhood.

Had she remembered to thank that little boy of long ago? She – she thought so. She remembered chattering, being excited and thrilled but also scared of being out alone in the dark and wanting to go home. He'd never said anything in response to her, she remembered that but not much else. Mostly she remembered the scolding she'd gotten when she'd finally come home and it hadn't been long after that that her mother had died. Tifa shook her head. Cloud said he was from Wutai. Not Midgar. It was hardly as if there was only one blond haired, blue eyed male in all the world. But – it was something about those eyes… Those quiet, expectant blue eyes…

To distract herself she looked for a nearby clock and realized that she'd slept – or drifted at least – for a great deal longer than her ten minutes. Which was odd because she was good about timing herself and waking up when she was supposed to. But if she didn't hurry she'd be late to the art show and Aerith had some of her work entered in it. Tifa hadn't needed to promise to be there, it was just a given that she would be. Shifting over onto her knees with her legs tucked under her she looked at the face of the man sleeping against the pillar. Sunlight in his shaggy blond hair. Blue eyes hidden by closed lids and pale lashes.

Little boy waiting to have someone tell him what they expected him to do with what was in front of him…

Silent she rose to her feet. She was tempted to take a picture of him, just as he was now, but something warned her that it would wake him up somehow. The way little children and animals always stopped doing whatever cute thing they'd been doing when you turned on a camera around them. And she didn't have the heart to wake him up. She didn't think it was necessary. No one was going to bother him here. She already had the picture in her head and she puzzled over it in front of her mental eyes on her way to meet her friend.