Chapter 7

Waking early from a fitful sleep saw Tifa tired beyond belief, and as she stretched her aching muscles, her stomach was doing somersaults as she remembered what their plans for today was. When she was ready, they would head back to the Shinra building where the event was set up, and from there, she would hopefully meet her husband. Someone whom she couldn't remember, but desperately wanted to. Especially if he could get her out of her situation with Corneo. He was like a bloodhound: unrelenting and always pushing. They were supposed to be there by 9 to get everything kicked off, so Tifa had to get ready soon. A knock at her door saw her quickly putting on a new outfit that Corneo had bought her the day before. When she had unlocked and opened the door, she found Astasia waiting on her. She must have arrived sometime during the night.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Lieutenant General? What are you doing here?" Tifa asked curiously, turning around and shutting her door tightly, keeping the key in the purse that went with this dress.

"Please, between the two of us, it is just Astasia. I make that tub of lard call me by my title because he doesn't deserve the familiarity of a first name basis. I have been sent here to escort you to the event. The President. . .has taken an interest in your situation. His eyes will be on the outcome of this event and wishes you the best. Shall we be off?" the older woman suggested. Nodding, Tifa followed after her and joined her in the car sent by Shinra. Corneo would follow after them in his chocobo drawn carriage, but the two ladies would arrive in style.

Resting her forehead against the window, Tifa's thoughts wandered as the world around her zoomed by. She was still heartbroken over her friends in Sector 7, and the more she thought about it, the more Shinra must have been lying about AVALANCHE's involvement. Astasia must have seen her thoughts on her face, for she broke the silence between them, in an attempt to console the brunette.

"It must have been terrifying, living in the same Sector as a terrorist group." At Tifa's alarmed stare, Astasia elaborated, interpreting her expression wrong. "AVALANCHE was based in Sector 7. We only found this out when we dug out any survivors that we could and they were cursing the group for meddling where they didn't belong."

"There were survivors?!" Tifa asked in growing horror, unable to imagine how much pain these people must be in.

"Yes, thankfully. We did not find a lot, but there was enough to fill all of the emergency beds in the hospital. Thank goodness the hospital itself was on the Sector 1 plate. I would hate to see the damage AVALANCHE could have done had they taken that plate down instead," Astasia replied, her gaze now resting on the scenery rushing past them. "After we are done here, we could always visit to see if you know any of the survivors?" she offered, and for the first time in the last 48 hours, hope blossomed in Tifa's chest.

"I...would like that," the barmaid replied, her countenance a bit more lifted than earlier. Smiling to herself, Astasia let the conversation drop, knowing they would be at the building in a few short moments. The joys of using a company car meant they could not only take the freeway, but they could also take the express lanes, ignoring all of the traffic of commuters on their way to work. While traffic congestion wasn't a problem yet in their growing city like it was in Junon, there still was a good amount of cars on the road.

Passing the hospital only a few blocks away from the Shinra Building, Tifa's gaze was inexplicably drawn to it. Her friends could be in there. There was hope. . .

The car came to a stop, and Kiani was on the steps ready to greet them. Assigned to organize and preside over this event by the President Shinra himself, Kiani had a clipboard ready and a staff of five all stationed behind her. Everyone was pristine and tidy, and ready to get this event underway. The Head Secretary explained how everything would go as they walked into the building, their event stationed to take place on the first floor between the two staircases. A stage was set up to elevate Kiani, Tifa, and Astasia, the last of which staying as main security, a request also given by President Shinra.

How the event would go is that the contestants would fill out paperwork at the first line of tables, then wait in line past that to hand the paperwork in at the second line of tables, where the five individuals roped into this would check the signatures at the bottom of each paper to the signature on the electronic certificate on the computer screen in front of them. From there, contestants would be told to wait or to go home. Expecting this to take only a few hours, everything was set up for the normal business hours of the building. Their rough estimates for the people brought in were under a hundred. When hoards of men turned up all throughout the day, more workers were called down to assist in the event to handle the surge of people in their building.

"Remember, Tifa, smile and wave. One of these men could be your husband, and you at least want to appear nice and docile before he takes you home and realizes why you two were separated," Kiani said teasingly, currently looking over the only 10 applicants whose signatures came even remotely close to the original. Sadly for them, however, their names didn't correspond with the original, and they were soon asked to leave.

With the time reaching closer to the dinner hour, the crowds began to thin, and the workers started to relax, knowing their jobs were almost done. Tifa was so done with this day, having lost interest in it already with how long this process was taking. She had exhausted her imaginative capacity in fantasizing about what her husband would be like. Was he even alive? Had he decided a one-night stand, something she was wholly not unused to, was not his thing? Had he moved out of Midgar and gotten a new wife?

It could have only been a one-night stand. . .or possibly a very drunken one-night stand, considering she didn't remember any of it!

The long hours of this event spent together with Kiani and Astasia endeared them to each other. Tifa found herself actually enjoying spending time with these two Shinra employees, despite their employer, and when both women could frighten off Don Corneo with a look, Tifa found herself wanting to spend as much time with them as possible.

Through their conversation, the barmaid learned that Astasia had lived within a Shinra setting her entire life. Having been born to one of the scientists, her and her brother were enrolled into the Soldier program at a young age, taking the military style classes designated for children 14 and under. The only life she has known was the military, so she had apologized several times when she thought she had misread an emotion or a situation, due to her conditioning. She claimed she was trying to work on that.

Kiani, Tifa learned, actually came to Midgar near the end of the Wutai War 7 years ago, and miraculously got a job being a secretary, a position her sister had helped her get. However, through sheer perseverance and dedication, Kiani rose through the ranks of secretarial power, and became one of three personal secretaries of the President Shinra. Even her expertise there saw her claiming the title of Head Secretary once the old matron Mrs. Lewis retired three and a half years ago. Since then, her orders were always, "Kiani! Do the thing!" or "Kiani, make sure that thing gets done today." or her favorite, "Schedule a meeting with so-and-so about that thing." This one usually involved President Shinra flapping his hands in a gesture of trying to remember what words to actually use. However, understandable, Kiani found her job improving when her boss actually knew what he was talking about and could coherently get his point across.

Tifa found herself telling the two women about how she had lived in Nibelheim up until the end of the Wutai war. She had then gone to Midgar to see if she could make money to send back to her family, but after working for a year or so as a barmaid, her only remaining family died when her father guided someone through the Nibel mountains and never came back. Tifa had then inherited the bar she had been working at when the owner retired and left to go to Costa del Sol, and now that she's lost 7th Heaven, she wasn't entirely sure what she would do now. She was poor, homeless, and didn't want to impose on Corneo's 'hospitality' for too long.

Astasia and Kiani agreed with her immediately and offered their own places for her to stay should they not find her husband soon. After all, the participants only had a 24 hours notice, since the announcement was put together and aired only an hour after Tifa had gotten her picture taken the day before. Only those in Midgar were really able to attend, unless they had guaranteed fast transportation from other place around the Planet. She had to warn them, however, about the small gifts and flowers she would occasionally get. Once every two weeks, a package would be waiting on her doorstep, no matter where she spent the night. This week would actually be the week to receive the first present of the month, and while Tifa had started looking forward to getting these little trinkets and bouquets of flowers, she had worried about how her admirer could always find her. Her stomach growling however cut that line of thinking short.

Having had lunch brought to her hours ago found Tifa becoming slightly peckish once more, as she lounged on the cushiony settee provided by the company so she wouldn't have to stand on her feet for 8 hours or more, despite that being her profession. While contemplating asking for at least a snack to tide her over until the event finished, Tifa was startled out of her musings by one of the Shinra employees staffing the first line tables coming up the stairs of the stage and whispering something into Kiani's ear. With a wicked grin, the Head Secretary whispered back. Tifa was able to catch a snippet of what was being said.

"Let's entertain him. Let him apply." The lobby was pretty much empty by now, only a few stragglers hanging around to either hope they could catch the beautiful Tifa's eye, or to see who actually was her husband.

Tifa's eye, at that moment, was caught by a movement of white, and she turned to find a blond man in a white suit talking to one of the workers at the first table before grabbing one of the application papers and filling it out in seconds, before heading to the second line of tables. He was waved towards the stage, his paper not even gracing the sights of the people working there. Tifa watched, fascinated, as he approached.

"Who is he?" Tifa asked Astasia just before noticing that she stood at attention and saluted the newcomer. As soon as he came up on stage, Tifa got her answer as Kiani greeted him.

"Welcome back to Midgar, Vice President Rufus," she said, and she took his application to compare the signature to the one on the certificate.

"What brings you back here, Mr. Vice President?" Astasia asked the young man as he turned to face the other two women on stage. Tifa saw over Vice President Rufus' shoulder that Corneo was practically falling over himself as he tried to rush up onto stage. His name was ringing a bell in her mind, she just couldn't remember where-

"I'm here to get my wife back," he said simply. Turning to her and taking her hand to bow over it and kiss it, he greeted Tifa with a "Hello, Mrs. Shinra. You obviously don't remember me." At this moment, Corneo made it up to the stage and was trying to lay claim to Tifa when Kiani tripped him, not letting him ruin this moment. Tifa was simply entranced, her mind going to mush, as she finally had a name to pair with the face that would occasionally flash in her mind.

"What. . .what happened?" It was the only thing she could get out and she was kind of glad she hadn't said anything else that was on her mind. She was super glad he was attractive and looked near her age, but could only cringe that his name was Shinra, the company that she had been working against up until recently. Although Shinra wasn't completely bad. It helped her get out of a marriage with Don Corneo, and Astasia and Kiani were two wonderful women who just so happened to work there.

"A drunken night together got us to talking, I proposed, you accepted, we got married that night, consummated our marriage-" Tifa grew bright red at this as Kiani sniggered in the background and Astasia smirked at her side "- and when we woke up, you regretted everything, kicked me out of bed, and told me you'd call me. Only you never did. That was about two years ago," he explained, letting her hand fall to her side, knowing it might hurt his cause if he held it for too long.

"I-I. . .I don't remember anything," Tifa replied, confused. She walked over to Kiani and checked the signatures herself. It was a perfect match. "Why didn't you contact me?"

"And hurt my chances if you were still mad at me?" he shot back with a lighthearted tone and a grin. "Would you have believed me?"

Something then dawned on Tifa. "All the flowers, the random presents. . .that was you?"

"For two years. I thought you were angry at me."

"I just never knew."

It was at this point that Corneo regained his feet and his bravery, to face down the Vice President of the company he stood in. "H-hey!" he exclaimed. "She's supposed to be MY bride!" Rufus glared at him before Tifa got the chance and she didn't know whether to be flattered that he came to her rescue or indignant that he thought her helpless.

"Don't you dare talk about my wife like that! Begone, lecher! Find some other woman to seduce!"

As Corneo scampered off-Tifa hadn't had any emotional attachment to any of her things she had at his abode, although her plans with Kiani and Astasia to relocate her things might still be viable, so she didn't mind burning that bridge-Tifa huffed at the Vice President. . .although she should start referring to him as Rufus, or even her husband in her mind, at least. Even at that thought saw butterflies in Tifa's stomach and she had to force the blush off her face as she tried to stay annoyed at her husband. However, before she could get started on a tirade, Rufus had her hand in his and was kissing her knuckles once more.

"I know you might hate me, but please, give me another shot. Let me woo you properly. You might not love me right now, but I want to remind you why we had gotten married in the first place. Please, will you give me a chance?"

A/N: Welp. I'm back for now. Look at this bombshell right here XD The next chapter shall (hopefully) be in the next few days. The next several chapters are already written, for I have been busy while gone, but I still need to put them through my rigorous editing process. Thank you all so much for your patience, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Credit definitely goes to SunnyGirl202's Sunset Slice, a RufTi collection of one shots that reinspired me to come back to this fic. So make sure to head on over to read that fic, because ahhhh I love it.

Make sure to follow if you liked it, fave it if you love it, and leave a review if you wanna. Until next time My Lovelies! MWAH! *Kissy noises*