Dedication this chapter is for Senigata, writer on this site, who's the only person I know about who has completed a fic for this portion of Tifa's life (though tbh Seni, my take's somewhat different from yours). And for, well, Jessie.

Chapter 18. October εуλ0002-εуλ0004

White lights were gazing into her face when she woke up.

Where am I? she wondered. Memory was hazy. The last thing she could remember… wait. Was that right? It couldn't be… She touched her face, her stomach. She couldn't feel a cut, or a scab; no blood came away on her fingers.

Could I have dreamed it all? Please, please let that be the case…

She heard voices, though she could not make out the words; one, at least, sounded familiar. She tried to sit up, but immediately the room crashed and spun around her, and she let her head flop back on the pillow, waiting.

A young woman in a white coat and glasses leaned over her. Okay. A doctor. So this must be a hospital… but there isn't a real hospital in Nibelheim…

The doctor, a lady not much older than herself, smiled. "Finally. Looks like you're coming around for good. Your father has been very anxious. He's been here day and night."

"My father…" Tifa trailed off. "He's here?" she asked, suddenly invigorated, carefully raising her head… but the man who entered was not… was not…

Zangan.

Her teacher met her eyes; there was relief, but also a warning. Tifa swallowed what she had been about to ask. Something was going on here; she'd figure it out soon enough, but until then... Trust your instincts, Zangan had always taught her…

"What a relief. You've done marvelous work, Doctor," Zangan began, coming to the bed. He reached down to give her hand an affectionate squeeze.

"She's pretty resilient. "The doctor went through the motions of checking her vitals. "Your father told me you were in a coma when you were seven. You'd best be careful, if it happens once, it can easily happen again."

"That's why I started her training." Despite the charade, Tifa couldn't help but hear a hint of pride in Zangan's voice. You're my best student – and I've got a hundred twenty-eight! he had once told her, laughing. "She's pretty resilient. She can handle a lot."

Tifa hoped he was right.

"The good news is, there won't be any scarring." Tifa reached up to touch her face involuntarily, the graze of Masamune the punctuation to the statement drawn on her torso in blood. "We've got plenty of practice here, doctoring the guys in SOLDIER, Some of them want to keep their scars, like a badge of courage or something, but I can't imagine a beautiful girl like you would want to. Especially considering the circumstances."

You got that right, Tifa thought to herself. I don't need to keep that reminder. The scar will be etched on my soul instead.

"Did she say anything strange?" Zangan asked. "I mean, we heard all sorts of odd rumors traveling back… and then getting attacked when we were barely inside the city limits!"

"Not much. She mumbled something about clouds. Maybe she wishes she was back on vacation. Can't blame her, after all?" The doctor and Zangan shared a laugh as she put her stethoscope back in her pocket; Tifa caught a flash of light, a yellow orb embedded within. "I know Sector 6 is supposed to be seedy, but really Sector 1 is the worst for crime. If you have to live in the slums, you might want to look into buying in Sector 5. Most of it is as much of a slum as everywhere else, but there's some really nice houses there."

"I've been thinking about it, but I hear Sector 7 isn't bad, and it's a bit more affordable." He looked at Tifa, his gaze lingering just a moment too long; was he trying to tell her something? "Gotta work with a teacher's salary, you know. Not everyone works for Shinra." The doctor chuckled.

SOLDIER… Sectors… Something tickled Tifa's brain. "Midgar," she suddenly blurted out without thinking.

The doctor and Zangan both turned at her outburst. "Yes, sweetheart," he told her, "we're back home." The slight emphasis on the last word was unmistakable. "Do you mind if I talk to my daughter for a little while?"

"Of course! I have to make my rounds anyway. I'll be back later to check on you." Zangan pulled up a chair, and waited, even several seconds after the door slammed behind her. Finally he drew a deep breath.

"Zangan," Tifa began; but he put a finger to her lips.

"No," he told her, more quietly than he should have needed to, even with the door closed. "I gave your first name as your mother's, because it would be easy for you to respond to. Don't use your real name until you're away from here, lost in the population."

"Then your name…" She was putting it together. "What did you put down for it? And our last name?"

"I won't tell," Zangan told her. "What you don't know, you can't lie about. Just call me Father, and anything else can be chalked up to lingering confusion."

Everything is shrouded in secrecy here. "Father, then." "What happened? I mean…" Father… but my real father?!

Zangan sighed, and for a moment he looked older than she had ever seen him before. He was only fifty-seven, still a man in his prime; but he'd once confessed that even in the time since he'd met her, he could feel his age creeping up on him ever more. "How much do you remember?"

Fear. Flames. Pain, as that slender sword grazed her face and dug into her bowels, Sephiroth's horrible grinning face behind it… "I remember a nightmare."

"Then you remember the truth." He took her hand in both of his. "You may have to brace yourself for this."

"I'm ready." Tifa steeled herself as Zangan himself had taught her to do. Your first weapons are those inside your heart and mind… "Tell me."

"You guessed right. We are in Midgar. Nibelheim is gone." Even expecting the words, Tifa felt a sharp pain, not unlike that of Sephiroth's sword all over again. "Burned to the ground. I had to bring you here, I couldn't do anything no matter how many Cure spells I tried…"

"I don't care about me." Tifa said, more harshly than she expected. "Tell me about the town."

"I don't think there were many survivors, and those there were… I saw some Shinra people taking those who were still alive towards the mansion. Maybe they were going to heal them there, but… I just had a bad feeling about it. You never can tell with Shinra. That damn President – no morals at all. No brain, either. I hear his son's a little smarter, but until the old guy dies… Well, anyway. I decided not to find out. I knew I would only be able to save one person…"

She was suddenly very glad Cloud hadn't been there to keep their promise. Wherever you are, at least it wasn't in that hell. "Zack…?" she asked, concerned.

"Was that the young SOLDIER?" Zangan asked. "Last I saw, he was injured in the reactor... but I'm sure he was one of the survivors. SOLDIERs are notoriously hard to kill."

"I know." And that damn Sephiroth is a SOLDIER too. She felt her hatred well up all over again. Not now, Tifa. Don't lose control of your emotions. Allow your chance for revenge to come with time…

Zangan looked at her with compassion, as if he could read her mind; maybe he could. "Revenge is not the way for a martial artist to go, Tifa," he said softly. "It might sustain you for a while, but it will eat you alive in the end. Eventually, you will have to find some forgiveness to make yourself whole."

But it's all I have left; it's what I need to survive. "What else did you tell the doctors?"

"Here's what I told them. We were on vacation in Costa del Sol – that's a city far enough away from Nibelheim so as not to arouse suspicion, but close enough that some rumors might have travelled to us. That would cover any slips in conversation you might make. We were getting home to Sector 1 when we were attacked in the streets. You heard the rest." Zangan paused. "We've only been in the hospital a couple of days, but you were in pretty bad shape at the start – the doctor's right, you might be vulnerable to coma in the future. Nothing to be done about that, though. You have the tools to protect yourself, and past that, well, you'll just have to trust to luck."

Luck. Not much of that going around, is there? "What now?" she asked, worried.

"Tifa…" Here alone, he dropped her pseudonym as he grappled with thought. "You can't go back home. You'll have to start over. Midgar will be your home, at least for now." He brushed her hair out of her face with a decidedly paternal gesture. "I know you can do it."

Midgar, huh? She cursed the city's name. She knew she could fight, she could take care of herself, and one day she'd planned to take the chance to see the world… But not like this. Travelling was not the same as having nowhere else to go.

"You know I don't like to burden myself with possessions… so I don't have much gil, but I can give you a little bit to get started. Please, whatever you do, promise me you won't resort to selling your body!"

"That actually happens?" Tifa replied, genuinely shocked.

Zangan laughed, of all things. "Oh, Tifa… Please don't let this city take all of your innocence away. But seriously, this isn't the village you're used to. You'll have to keep your wits about you. Let's start by thinking practically. What are you good at, that you could do for money? Except, you know, what I already mentioned?"

Tifa thought for a minute. After her mother's death, she and her father had settled into a comfortable routine, where he did most of the cleaning and she… "I'm a really good cook," she told him. "I've been doing it since I was a kid."

"Well, that's a good start. People always need to eat, even in the slums. What do you know about alcohol?"

She paused, considering the question. Like most villages, beer and wine had been freely available – even as a teenager and an older child, she had been allowed to partake in moderation. Oh, and then there was that holiday party where her father invited her to try a special foreign whiskey he'd received as a present… and forgot to tell her not to refill her glass over and over… "Not much," she admitted.

"Well, you might want to add that to your repertoire. This is a heavy-drinking city, especially with that depressing plate hanging overhead. It's not so much different from cooking, actually. And don't forget – your personality and your looks are assets as well. Don't be afraid to use whatever you can."

Tifa remembered something then. "But I have some friends here… somewhere! A bunch of guys from the village were trying to come here… I think one even made it into SOLDIER…"

To her surprise, Zangan shook his head vehemently. "No, Tifa. You don't want any associations between you and Nibelheim. Don't go looking around for your friends – ESPECIALLY not one in SOLDIER. In fact, stay as far away from Shinra as possible right now. What if they want to eliminate a witness?"

"I didn't think of that," Tifa admitted. She'd been too excited at the thought of seeing friends again… but… it seemed she would have to make it on her own.

Somehow.

"Only I and the Turks know you're alive - nothing to be done about that but hope they won't bother with you further. Perhaps you'll run into your friends eventually, but for now, your goal is to… disappear. Sector 7 is your best bet. Like I was saying, it's cheap, but still relatively safe, and it's very diverse. You'll be able to blend in there." He breathed a moment. "I'll have to leave you soon. I'd stay with you, except… who might eventually place me in Nibelheim as well? And that could lead to you."

"I see," Tifa said, deflated. She yawned involuntarily. Zangan noticed.

"It's a lot to take in, I know," he told her. "You should rest now. Sleep is healing. Let it all sink in. You'll probably need a couple more days here, and then… well, like it or not, you're moving on to a new life."

Zangan helped her find a small room to herself, but wouldn't stay, even one night. She knew why, but she wished otherwise. "Consider this part of your training. My last lesson to you," he advised; and swallowing her anxiety and fear, she nodded.

The longest night of her life was that first, never before having been alone, without anyone she knew ever near. It was clean, but plain and simple, and it made her homesick for her old house. Her bed. Her piano… She had to force herself to remember it was all gone, up in flames, existing now only in her head.

The slums were worlds apart from the country homes and fresh air of Nibelheim; she looked in surprise and awe at the giant sun lamps dangling so far above. There was constant noise, the buzzing of life down on the street below. She only had enough courage to step outside for some minimal groceries, a couple pieces of inconspicuous clothing. All she had was a tunic and pants from the hospital, even her flashy Nibelheim outfit – how much pride she'd had in it when putting it on! – missing, probably discarded.

On impulse she bought two bottles of cheap wine; not nearly as good as wine from back home, but then again, it was just as well she didn't feel nostalgic. The newness of her situation was all she could tolerate for now, she a fifteen-year-old orphan, a girl –child in the big city. She certainly planned to drink more than she ever had in Nibelheim – she was a city girl now, no real reason for restraint, if what Zangan told her about Midgar's habits was true. In her hands, she held a mako shard, a single-use heal the shopkeeper had recommended, eyeing her size and her purchases. First the one bottle emptied, then the other as she drank the tears away into a blackened sleep, the drink keeping away for one night further the nightmares that were sure to come.

She was grateful for the shopkeeper's recommendation the next day, waking to blinding artificial sunlight and a pounding head, running to her small bathroom to puke before she crawled back, wrapping her thin blanket around her and reaching for the green-glass sliver of mako. Zangan had taught her the bare basics of materia use, exhibiting his own scant collection to demonstrate, training cut short far before he'd ever gotten to it in earnest. But everyday materia like this could be used by just about anyone, with no particular training over a moment of focus, and the lessons of meditation gave her far more concentration than that. A wash of cool cleanness that made her think oddly of mint, and her stomach was settled, her headache rapidly fading.

She got out of bed, putting on the basic brown dress and shoes she had purchased the night before; as she looked in the small tarnished mirror on the wall, she pushed her hair back, and realized – her right earring was gone. Who knows where it could have been lost? Anytime, during the events of the past few days. Hardly her biggest problem, but she felt a bit of sadness anyway. She considered taking out the other, but decided to leave it in, the small reminder of who she had been traveling with her.

Chalking the experience up to her first lesson about alcohol, she wandered out into the streets that were to become her new town.

The crowds everywhere amazed her; it seemed a single street held more people than the whole of the village where she'd grown up. She gaped in open-mouthed astonishment, until an older woman warned her off. "Be a little more circumspect, dear," she was told. "It's obvious to anyone that you're from out of town. Don't want to make yourself a target for thieves."

Thieves. Yet another part of the city she'd never had to worry about before. Had she even locked her apartment? She considered backtracking, but decided not to bother; everything she had of any value was with her, and she clung to her small pouch of gil that much tighter.

But despite the woman's warning, she was surprised to find the citizens of Midgar… friendly. Were they all like that, or was that just Sector 7? "It's living in the slums," a young man told her. "We have to look out for each other. Not like those topside assholes. If you're new here, you should introduce yourself around. You're going to need to know a few people to make it."

For the rest of the day, and many days after, that was exactly what she did, expanding her social horizons. She'd been prepared with Zangan's made-up history if anyone asked; but as it turned out, no one actually cared. Whatever had happened to get you where you were, had happened, and as far as everyone else was concerned, that was it; they were much more interested in comparing life above and below the plate, than Midgar vs. some strange reactor town they'd never even heard of. For Tifa, accustomed to Nibelheim being not just home but identity, she started to realize how insular her upbringing had become.

She realized that like it or not, she had a fresh start; she could shape a whole new identity here, if she so desired. Randomly, she thought of Cloud. What had it been like for him, coming here and starting a new life? She wished dearly she could find him, ask him; but Zangan's warnings rang alarm bells in her head. Was he even in Midgar? If he was, perhaps, in time their paths would cross.

But until then… she'd find her way. You got this, she told herself. It was almost convincing.

Returning every night to her tiny room, she wondered what she could do to spruce up the place. Furniture? She had the most basic, spartan needs, including her closet-sized kitchen; but maybe a small table, some chairs. Pictures? Absolutely, but she took her time finding ones she wanted, inexpensive one-gil prints of the nature she couldn't have any other way, and over time, adding photos of friends as she made them. She dearly wished she could go out and pick some flowers; a couple tiny blooms would make such a difference in cheer. One day, wandering near the border of Sector 8, she thought she saw a young woman selling flowers… she dug in her pocket to see what money she had, but by the time she looked up, the woman was gone. Perhaps it had only been her imagination?

Finding a job was easier. Too easy, in fact. Tifa had always considered her clothes to be practical, not revealing. Nibelheim, downwind of the reactor, was warm – and so was Midgar - so dressing light was not exceptional. But now, even in the most basic tops and skirts, she found her body stared at, scrutinized. Money from Zangan rapidly shrinking, she bought a blue dress for her first day looking for work – and got offers nearly everywhere. Some made her suspicious that it wasn't her cooking they were looking for. Most of them, in fact.

Ultimately, she found it easiest to work odd jobs here and there. She soon had plenty of money for her few needs, but more importantly, it let her meet a large amount of people very quickly. The longer she lived there, the more she realized that Sector 7 wasn't bad. It was lively, if nothing else – she was still sad more days than not, but she could distract herself with all the things going around her. All the strange people, some from close, some from far away, places she had only barely heard about… where in Nibelheim everything was always, always the same, here everything was changing.

Word of mouth led her to the places where other young people could be met. With little true outdoors to be had, the plate citizens had theaters and concerts, centered around the Sector 8 business district, but the poorer hung around. Or watched TV. And drank.

And drank. And drank. And drank. Zangan hadn't been kidding. Tifa soon enough found herself drinking at her new friends' apartments, at bars, even on the street in between if the mood struck.

Beer and wine were just as easy to come by as ever – some people even made it at home, as in Nibelheim - but hard liquor was rarer; it was usually only businesses that had the right connections to get it. Thus, it was in a bar one night that Tifa was introduced to – tequila.

It was her sixteenth birthday, surrounded by a crowd of acquaintances and closer friends – not how or where she had always expected to celebrate it, to be sure. But it had been months that she had been in Midgar, and even if she didn't want to call it "home" – maybe she never would – at least she was pretty settled. She was still often lonely, but not entirely alone.

Tifa smelled the strange liquid. "Is this like whiskey?"

"Sort of." One young man picked up his own. "Only, you drink it like this." He and several of the others picked it up and drained the glass in one gulp. A couple girls cheered.

Tifa followed their lead, and almost retched. It was harsher than the whiskey from that party so long ago, and she certainly remembered that. At least, until she had drank enough that day to not remember anything. "Is this supposed to be good?"she asked, wiping her lips on the back of her hand.

"You're just not used to it," another told her. "You've got to increase your alcohol tolerance."

"Yeah, we all know you can't drink," a young man told her. "Didn't you get wasted on two beers the other day?"

"I did not," Tifa insisted, silently thanking Gaia that no one in Sector 7 could afford a camera.

"Don't listen to them," Jessie told her, placing a hand on her arm. "You don't have to imitate these jerks. Sip it slower if you like." The redhead handed Tifa her own half-empty cup.

Tifa took her friend's advice. It still burned… but in a way she found tolerable, almost pleasant in its sting. Not horrid, but… She looked at the plate of oranges and lemons on the table. It was the most expensive thing they had ordered, even more so than the steak and the decadent chocolate cake, because they had to be brought from so far away. "I think I can do something with this." She squeezed a lemon into it and tasted it. Better. Next to the pot of tea were a few lumps of sugar, and she mixed one in as well. Even better.

She handed it back to Jessie, who grew wide-eyed. "Wow," the other girl replied. "This is really something. You need to give it a name."

"I'll think about it," Tifa replied.

She had dates, more or less. One thing she had difficulty getting used to was how much more aggressive the boys here were – and most of them still felt like boys to her, even as she was starting to feel ever older herself. It happened time and time again that, looking for friendship, the guy she was hanging out with tried to kiss her, wanted to put his hands all over her.

Sometimes she was interested, sometimes it was fun to participate – a little playing, a little touching, gradually going ever further than she had with the boys in Nibelheim. And other times – ugh. Were all guys like this? Had she just never noticed before?

She had grown two or three inches in the year she had lived in Midgar, and she figured she had hit her full height, but she had also filled out more, even more than she had expected. Her continued martial arts training and work schedule kept her slender, but there was one part of her body that was unaffected. Looking at herself in the mirror, gazing at her ample chest, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was all out of proportion. But guys never seemed to think that way.

Seriously? Is that all guys need to get their attention? At the same time, she was beginning to understand what Zangan meant about using her looks as a weapon.

Cloud, she suddenly thought. He was my friend, before… well, my body grew up. What would he think of me now? Would he still tell me I'm pretty?

She still found herself scanning the newspapers for his name, but she did so less and less. Even if he was in the city – something she increasingly doubted – this was a city of a half million people, what were the chances she would run into him? And if he had made it into SOLDIER, he'd be living in the military lodging above the plate, where Tifa rarely went. Seeing the influence of Shinra everywhere filled her with hate. The slums might be the slums, and there was dirt, and crime, but for the most part she found her sector to be filled with good people who were just trying to get by, same as she herself was.

If he made it into SOLDIER, he'd be quite a catch. He could easily find himself a girlfriend – maybe a wife. She pushed the thought down.

As time went on, her thoughts of Cloud were fading, just as all her thoughts of Nibelheim. Back then – lifetimes ago, it seemed - thoughts of him had driven her, she wanting him to be as proud of her as she was of him, to see her as an equal. But now - she could only do it for herself. Zangan had been right. She had to make a new life here. She couldn't be thinking of boys long gone, puppy loves faded to whatever passed for romance in the here and now.

It was almost by accident when it happened. She had a larger apartment now, and a few of her friends were over for a New Year's party. Tifa had spent the first half relegated to the kitchen, cooking food and mixing drinks, until her friends told her she had worked hard enough, and dragged her out to enjoy her own party.

Cocktails littered the room, but very few went unfinished. Tifa had become quite proficient at mixing drinks – it really wasn't much different than making food. Easier even, since you rarely set fire to anything. Locally, she'd gained a bit of a reputation – supplies were limited, but it was said you could bring Tifa anything to drink and she would turn it something at least palatable, but usually delicious.

The blare of sirens – geez, couldn't Shinra come up with anything more pleasant, like bells? – announced the new year. Tifa found herself agreeably hazy and relaxed, thinking of the future instead of the past for once – and her New Year's kiss turned into another, and another, and another. The minutes stretched into hours, the dawn finally breaking on the first day of the year – and Tifa was still kissing.

When she finally awoke, the sun was high in the sky. She lifted her head wearily, gauging herself. Not half the hangover she could've had – she'd long since stopped trying to keep up with her friends.

Emptied glasses were on the window and nightstand; the floor was littered with the clothes she and he had discarded sometime after midnight. Self-consciously, she pulled the blankets around her, and turned her head to the bed's other occupant.

His eyes were open, and he looked back at her, hand trailing her long brown hair. She hadn't cut it since she arrived in Midgar – why, she couldn't say, but for some reason she didn't want to, and it now reached passed her rear.

"You okay?" he asked.

Tifa gauged herself for a moment – her body, her feelings. Not fantastic, maybe – but overall, not bad. "Yeah," she told him. "I'm okay."

Naturally, the first person she told was Jessie. "How was it?" the other girl asked.

"It was… fun. I guess," Tifa replied. "But maybe not what I was expecting. I mean, not enormous or life-changing. Shouldn't I feel uh, different-er?"

Jessie only laughed. She was only two years older than Tifa, but planets ahead in experience. "It isn't always earth-shaking. It doesn't have to be that big a deal. Wait and see when it's with someone you love. Now you'll be able to appreciate the difference so much more. Like, when I was with Biggs…"

"Wait, you were with Biggs?" Tifa asked. Biggs was his last name; he'd never given his first – but the twenty-five-year old was a notorious charmer, wavy brown hair and soulful brown eyes that attracted half the women in Sector 7, nagged only by a reputation for anal-retentive cleanliness.

"Yeah, he was the first guy I really liked - loved. It was good for a while, but in the end – well, it was a friendly breakup. As you can see, we're still friends," Jessie laughed. "But, really – we'll you'll see."

Tifa thought about that. Her fairy-princess fantasies had been just that – fantasies. Dead now. Along with everything else she had expected for the future. No matter, she lived in the real world now. She'd never told Jessie about Cloud and their promise, or really much of anything now relegated to her past; Jessie had never asked, cursory hints of family above the plate the only background she herself gave.

"You remembered your Materia, right?" the other woman asked.

"Of course I did." It had been some months back, when Jessie, in the middle of a very personal girl conversation, had brought it up. "You don't want kids yet, right?"

"Ugh, no." She loved children, did want them – she looked forward to someday being a mother – but not for some time. Not here, not now.

Jessie was surprised to find out what Tifa had been taught, openly laughing when she heard what Nibelheim used. "Birth control pills?" she had asked, laughing, not without a bit of snobbery. "Condoms? How primitive can you get? This isn't a village. We have something better here."

It turned out it was something nearly every Materia shop carried – though you had to ask for it, it wasn't as well advertised as the more popular items, like Cure and Fire, maybe because everyone but Tifa already knew about it – but it was small and convenient. You set the spell like any other, and then – done. It came in daily, weekly, and monthly forms. An expensive "Mastered" copy let you set the length of time.

Geez, what DON'T they use mako for in Midgar? Tifa wondered. But Jessie had bought her one, and now she was glad for it.

There were other guys. Not many, but a few – Jessie was right, it wasn't that big a deal. Some she saw for a little while – others she tired of quickly. But she didn't love any of them, and wondered if her capacity of love had faded away.

In any case, guys weren't the most important thing on her mind. She had other ways to fill her life. She trained as avidly as ever, her body a source of strength and joy. Nibelheim had its share of monsters high in the mountains, but this was the first time that she'd seen them inside a city's limits; the lesser ones made excellent practice targets, as well as earning the gratitude of her neighbors. Slowly she improved her gear – leather skorts where once she'd had only cloth, studded gloves to protect her hands. A top with enough support for her gawky breasts. Stripped down to the basics, she channeled all the lessons she'd been taught, streamlining her techniques into a tough, efficient fighting machine.

Her income was steadier; her gigs lasted longer, were more profitable. She'd gained enough of a name for herself that she didn't need to search as hard. Other than her new equipment, she didn't need much, content to pass the days in whichever way presented itself. Still, she was settling down to something close to permanence, and wanted a regular job to go with it.

The building a few blocks from her house had been under construction forever, and then sat empty for the longest time after that. She'd been surprised it hadn't been snapped up yet, in the slums where land was a free-for-all – someone must have been keeping an eye on it, since no squatters had moved in. So it was a surprise one day when she ran past and saw a group of men moving items in – table, chairs, even – a jukebox?

"What's going on here?" she asked, curious.

The man huffed and puffed, setting his burden down on the porch. "Opening a bar," he told her. "Been the plan from the start. Building wasn't the problem – it was affording all the rest of it." He looked around at the forest of furnishings. "Finally, it's getting there."

A bar, huh. "Are you going to need some help here?" she asked.

Nervously, she waited, but the owner, an older man she'd seen around, was there soon enough. Brief introductions were made; it turned out he'd heard of her already. "Tifa," he told her. "So glad to finally meet you."

"Likewise," she replied politely.

"Well, I don't have to think about it twice. You're hired." His hand sweep took in the interior, slowly starting to take shape. "Welcome to a piece of paradise in Sector Seven – Seventh Heaven!"

Author's Public Service Announcement: Yes, Materia works as birth control and other things in my world. I'm going to assume that since they have Cure and Heal, sexually transmitted diseases aren't an issue.

But the rest of us live in the real world, so don't forget: Use a condom!