Author's Note: I deciding to keep posting chapters here, to finish off this story! I find AO3 easier to use, though, for editing chapters (when I find typos, etc.) and for replying to comments. So, I'm more active over at AO3, but if you prefer , I'll still be updating here. Enjoy :)

They were headed south.

Nanaki had told Cid the tale he had heard as a child of an island where the Lifestream reached the surface of the earth. Cid was not familiar with the story, but he knew a small island town renowned for its hot springs. They were rumored to have healing properties. He had flown passengers there before who traveled there to convalesce.

It was called Mideel.

Thrilled to have a destination, Cid had readied the crew immediately. He assured Tifa that they would arrive before sunset, lamenting that they would be there sooner if they could prioritize speed. Instead, he planned a less direct course to avoid Shinra's detection.

Unfortunately for Yuffie, this involved making several strategic turns that lilted the airship from side to side.

Tifa was keeping her company now, on the lower deck of the airship. Yuffie was not much for conversation when she was like this, which suited Tifa just fine. There were not many places to be alone on the airship and she could feel worried eyes on her when she got too quiet.

It was difficult to walk on eggshells within her own mind. It required all of her concentration. One kind word from one of her friends and she might give into the pain of Cloud's absence. One word of doubt and her fragile hope they might find Cloud would shatter.

Out here, the rush of wind filled Tifa's ears. If she focused on it, she need not think too much. It drowned out her all her thoughts, except for one.

Maybe.

Tifa held onto it. Maybe he's still alive. The airship swung to the left, seemingly at random, and Yuffie groaned in protest. Maybe we can find him. Meteor came into view as they changed direction and Tifa averted her eyes. Maybe I can still save you, Cloud.

There had been water beneath them for some time, blue and sparkling. Now, the airship straightened its path and Tifa could see the outline of craggy cliffs ahead. They must be getting close.

Tifa's heart thudded. What were the odds that Nanaki's half remembered story might actually lead them to Cloud? How badly would it hurt to search and find nothing but a dead end? What if they never found Cloud? What if that moment in the Northern Crater had been the last time –

Maybe, Tifa reminded herself.

"Ugh, please tell me that's our island," Yuffie groaned.

Glad for the distraction, Tifa moved closer to her. She had kept a healthy distance. The unexpected turns the airship had been made anything too close to Yuffie a potential, very unfortunate target.

"Do you need anything?" Tifa asked.

She hovered a hand over Yuffie's back. Sometimes rubbing her back helped, but other times it triggered a new round of vomiting.

"Yeah," Yuffie said. "I need to get off this thing."

"You will. Soon, I think."

The shore was growing closer. Tifa could make out the steep shoreline more clearly. The landscape was forested with tall palms. She could see the thatched roofs of buildings set back into the forest.

Nanaki's nails clinked against the deck, announcing his presence behind her.

"Cid said we'll be landing soon," he told them. "Depending on how long it takes to find a good spot to anchor the ship."

Yuffie cheered weakly. "About time."

"Are you ready?" Nanaki asked, looking at Tifa.

Tifa did not answer. She did not have an answer.

Nanaki cleared his throat. "I mean, is there anything you need from inside? We'll disembark from here."

"No," Tifa said. "I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

That was true enough.

Nanaki settled by Tifa and the three of them watched the approach to the island together. Tifa could understand why people might seek healing here. The surrounding waters were turquoise and clear, and the forest was lush. Sprinkled in the forest, they caught glimpses of the fabled springs.

In fact, it was near one of them that there was a clearing large enough for the Highwind to land. Tifa, Yuffie, and Nanaki did their best to stay out of the way as the crew appeared on the deck.

Unless it was at an airport, the Highwind did not touch land entirely. A patient crew member explained the process to them as the others worked. A landing such as the current one required them to tether the airship to the earth so that it might idle when they disembarked.

They would get the ship close enough to the ground that they could climb down using its ladder. Tifa, who at that point had only ever entered the airship dangling from its underside on a rope, was relieved to hear there was an easier way.

Cid's crew was efficient. In a matter of minutes, the Highwind's engine quieted to a low hum and it was steadily hovering mere feet above the ground. The ladder connected at the tail end of the deck and it had been lowered, awaiting their descent.

As soon as the crew disappeared, Cid came out onto the desk, hands on hips and a satisfied smile on his face.

"Island or crater, this crew could land the Highwind anywhere, with me as its captain," he boasted.

Yuffie groaned. "Yeah thanks, it's been a real pleasure."

"She's a smooth ride," he said defensively. He glanced critically over the guard rail, checking the side of the hull. "At least your aim's not as weak as your stomach."

There was a long pause as Yuffie tried to decide whether to take the comment as an insult or a compliment. Luckily, the appearance of their remaining friends saved her from having to decide.

Barret approached Tifa cautiously.

Of everyone on the team, it was Barret who Tifa had avoided most over the past few hours of their journey. He knew Tifa best. He saw too much. And Tifa knew Barret too. She could read him all too well.

He would support her, but he had doubts of his own. Not necessarily that they would not find Cloud, but whether or not they should.

"Red and I will head to the village with you, if that's alright?" Barret asked.

Tifa only nodded.

"Me too," Yuffie demanded. "I gotta get offa this thing."

Cid opted to stay with the Highwind. He had spent only a week with the ship and its crew and wanted to use the time to get it up to his standards. Cait would stay behind as well, to work with the communications system.

"If Shinra's onto us, I'll be the first to know!" he promised.

Vincent did not feel it necessary to disclose his plans, and none of them ventured to ask.

It was an easy descent from the deck of the Highwind to the ground below. The air there was humid with a hint of salt. It was warm, but comfortably so. Tifa breathed in deeply as Barret, Red, and Yuffie climbed down the ladder. Her lungs were healed from her ordeal in Junon, but she would never again take a breath for granted.

There was a well-worn path from the hot spring to the village. It led through the thicket of trees and tropical underbrush. Cid had been true to his word that they would arrive well before sunset, and Tifa was grateful for it. The thick canopy of trees blocked the sun. Even in daylight, the path was dim.

They spoke little as they walked through the forest. As Yuffie recovered from her sickness, she tried to initiate conversation more than once. Barret and Nanaki took turns cutting her off. Eventually, she took the hint and soon only the crunch of their feet and the sounds of wildlife filled the silence.

The path opened to a village of humble buildings with thatched roofs. Boardwalks connected the buildings, creating pathways above their heads. It was a quiet village. Some of its residents were out and about, but they were not hustling around as they might in Midgar or Junon. There was no sense of urgency.

Tifa paused as they approached the entrance. As harmless as the village appeared, Tifa feared it. This was it. Their only lead.

Despite her avoidance of him, Barret's solid presence behind her was reassuring now. He stood close behind her, waiting for her to continue. Nanaki waited patiently as well at her heels. Yuffie danced anxiously behind her.

"Perhaps we should divide and conquer?" Tifa suggested quietly.

The village was small. They would have their answer soon enough. She could feel glances being exchanged behind her, but none of them protested the suggestion.

Tifa entered the village.

The others followed behind, trailing off in different directions. Still, Tifa could tell that they were not straying too far. She wandered slowly, without direction, entering shops and eavesdropping on conversations.

From what she gathered, Mideel's people were peaceful yet insular. She heard muttered complaints about Shinra, but no calls for rebellion. Meteor was spoken of in hushed voices. They were fearful yet accepting. What was meant to be, would be.

Tifa left a shop, where she had fended off the owner's attempts to wheedle her into stocking up while she still could. The people of Mideel were wary of strangers, but not their money, it seemed.

The owner had explained to Tifa that the village had few visitors, given its remote location. It was relatively untouched from the scourges of war and Shinra's greed. Its few visitors came to the island for its fabled hot springs. Many sought healing for various ailments. There was a clinic in the village that catered to them.

The sandy path crunched beneath Tifa's boots as she continued through the village. Maybe was feeling farther and farther away. Tifa did not know what she had expected prior to entering Mideel. Perhaps she to have some sort of sense of Cloud's presence, and whether or not he was there.

Tifa only felt directionless.

She stopped now, for a moment, in the center square of the village. Although none of the buildings were especially big, some of its more impressive buildings lined the square, including its inn and what appeared to be the clinic. Two older men were conversing in rickety chair outside of it.

As Tifa approached the building, she noticed her friend approaching the center square as well. Yuffie was coming from an above boardwalk, Barret and Red from paths off to the side. From a distance, Tifa caught Barret's eye and he shook his head a single time. No luck.

Sudden, devastating, disappointment seized Tifa. She hustled forward, trying to outrun the feeling. In doing so, she nearly stepped on an old dog that lay in her path. When she stopped, the dog looked up imploringly, its tail thumping against the ground.

The dog had sad, soulful brown eyes. Tifa stopped to kneel by his side and pat his head. He whined pitifully, leaning into her hand as if nobody had ever thought to pet him before in his life.

"What's the matter?" Tifa asked him. "Are you all alone?"

His tail wagged eagerly.

"You got lost didn't you? Separated from someone you love. Silly thing…"

As if confirming he was, in fact, a silly thing, the dog's mouth flopped open in a smile, and he rolled to his back. Obligingly, Tifa reached out to scratch his stomach.

"Guess it's been almost a week now since he washed up on the shore."

Tifa caught the thread of the conversation happening just ahead, between the older men in front of the clinic. She looked up from the dog. The other man was shaking his head regretfully.

"Poor, young thing," he said.

"It was sad," his companion agreed. "But strange. He had this huge sword on him…"

Time seemed to stop. One moment Tifa was petting the dog and in the next, she was standing in front of the men.

"Excuse me?"

Her voice sounded strange. There was a rushing in her ears. The men looked up in concern.

"What was it that you were just saying?" Tifa asked, heart thudding. "The young person you were talking about?"

"Ah, right. One of the villagers found him by the coast. Poor kid, must have drifted a long ways."

The old man shook his head sadly.

"Did he say –" Tifa was stumbling over her words, unsure what she meant to ask. "Is he – Where exactly…?"

"They took him to the clinic," one the men answered, gesturing behind him. "But I heard that –"

Tifa was already moving. Distantly, she heard her friend calling after her, but she did not slow. The clinic had double swinging doors and Tifa pushed through them. The inside was bright and clean with light colored bamboo flooring.

There was a reception desk immediately inside. Two nurses were chatting behind it, holding clipboards, an older woman and a man around Tifa's age. Tifa's boots squeaked on the floor as she skidded to a stop.

"Well now!" the older nurse said, her face somewhat startled. "You'd think Meteor were falling, the way you're rushing around here."

Tifa braced her hands on the edge of the reception desk.

"I'm sorry! It's just that I heard a friend of mine was here. He has blue eyes and blond, spiky hair. His name is Cloud?"

The words tumbled breathlessly out of Tifa's mouth. The nurses exchanged a glance.

"Cloud, is it?" the man said gently.

Tifa was impatient. "Yes, is he here?"

The man hesitated, and the woman began to move around the desk, pointing in the direction of the waiting area.

"He's in one of the rooms on the second floor. Why don't you have a seat while I go get the doct–"

Tifa was already running toward the stairs. She heard the doors opening again behind her, shouts coming from behind.

"Miss, you can't just go up there!" the nurse yelled after her.

Her friends' voices. "Tifa, wait up!"

She ignored it all. Cloud's here! Cloud's alive!

The stairs flew under feet and Tifa swung through the door at the top to the second level. There was a corridor, lined with doors. The first door was open. The room was empty.

"Cloud!" Tifa called out, unable to quiet her voice.

A doctor emerged from the next door, her face scandalized.

"This is a medical clinic!" she admonished. "You can't just –"

Her jaw hung open as Barret, Yuffie, and Nanaki all appeared at top of the stairs. She seemed lost for words for a moment. She shook herself and then moved out of the doorway, reaching for Tifa's elbow.

"I'm afraid you all can't be up here," she began.

As the doctor moved away from the door, Tifa caught a glimpse into the room behind her. She saw the back of a blond, spiky head. Tifa shook off the doctor's hand and pushed past her. The doctor made a sound of protest.

"Cloud!" Tifa cried.

He was really there. Alive. Tifa was not sure that she had truly believed there was a chance of it until that moment. He was seated in a wheelchair and dressed in loose fitting scrubs, but it was Cloud. The chair was facing a window and Cloud's back was to the door.

"Cloud, I'm so glad you're safe!"

Cloud did not turn around, and Tifa stepped fully into the room to face him.

Immediately, Tifa's heart sank into her stomach. Something was wrong. Cloud's head hung slack, but his eyes were open, staring blankly. His hands laid palm up on his lap.

"Cloud?"

Tifa bent down to meet his eyes. Cloud's head began to move. He looked around the room, as if tracking something that Tifa could not see. His eyes darted to the ceiling, from wall to wall. Not once did his eyes land on Tifa. He made strange, garbled sounds.

With a trembling hand, Tifa reached for one of Cloud's. The fingers were limp and unmoving. She held it with both of hers.

"Cloud, what's wrong?"

She whispered the question, although she was certain he would not be able to answer.

"So that's his name."

The doctor had followed Tifa into the room. Her voice no longer sounded chiding. It was sad. Her face looked kind. Tifa looked away from it. She had seen that look on doctors' faces before, when she was a little girl and her mother had been very sick.

Tifa faintly noted footsteps behind her as her friends followed behind the doctor.

"What's wrong with him? Is he sick or something?"

Yuffie asked the question, distressed.

"Mako poisoning," the doctor said. "Very advanced case, the worst I've ever seen. It's a miracle that he's even still alive."

"What do you mean?" Barret demanded.

"He was exposed to massive amounts of mako for a long period of time. The human brain is not built to endure exposure to that much knowledge at once."

Nanaki made a distressed whine and the doctor paused, as if uncertain exactly what to make of him. But then she shook her head and continued.

"He does not seem to know who or where he is. He has not spoken since coming here and is unresponsive to his environment," she told them. "He's lost, somewhere unreachable."

Barret continued to ask questions, but Tifa did not hear them or what the doctor said in response. She sank to her knees in front of Cloud, his hand still sandwiched between her own. He groaned, eyes still searching for something along the ceiling.

"Cloud…" Tifa whispered.

The doctor cleared her throat. "Let's give them a moment."

Footsteps, a gently closed door, and the room was quiet. Tifa and Cloud were alone.

For several long moments, Tifa did not speak. She knelt on the floor, squeezing Cloud's lifeless hand. She kept her eyes fixed on his face, that never quite turned in her direction.

Tifa had feared for Cloud for a long time now. Perhaps she had been afraid since the moment she found him at the train station in Sector Seven and realized that something was off.

What had happened in the Northern Crater, and the days leading up to it, had felt like the culmination of those fears. Surely, Tifa had thought, she had already lived out her worst nightmares. There could not possibly be anything more painful to endure.

She had seen Cloud unravel entirely, believing he was nothing but Sephiroth's puppet. A tool created from Jenova cells and mako. Every moment Tifa and Cloud had shared, chalked up to a lie, an alien deception.

Tifa herself had believed it, if only for a terrible moment, when Cloud had denied Aerith's death. She had even been convinced that perhaps Sephiroth had used Cloud to kill Aerith. That her feelings for Cloud, and her faith in him, had allowed it all to happen.

Surely, nothing could hurt worse than that.

In the short journey to Mideel, Tifa had not let herself indulge in ruminating on worst-case scenarios. She had tried to hold onto the possibility of maybe.

But, still. She had known what her worst-case scenarios might be. She would never find Cloud. He was dead or lost to her forever. Or perhaps she would find him, but he would be the same as he had been the last time she saw him. Tifa would have to convince him that he was really Cloud.

This was not a scenario that Tifa had imagined. Cloud was alive. He was here, in front of her, his lifeless hand warm in her own. But he was not here. His eyes were unseeing. When Tifa spoke, he did not respond.

How could Tifa save Cloud if he could not see her? If he could not hear her? If her touch provoked not even the barest response?

"It's too cruel!"

The words burst out of Tifa. With the words, came tears as she allowed herself to do what she had held back since waking in Junon.

Tifa started to cry.

It was not fair. Tifa had endured. She had believed, against all odds, in the possibility of maybe. That she might find Cloud. After everything they had been through, everything Tifa had been through, to arrive at this moment felt impossibly unfair.

It was too cruel.

Tifa reached for Cloud's face. She cupped it between her hands, tilting his face down toward her own. Cloud did not resist, but still, his eyes wandered aimlessly, never meeting Tifa's.

"Cloud, please."

Her voice was weak. She was begging. Tifa did not care.

"Please, Cloud, tell me what you want me to do. Tell me you can see me, that you can hear my voice. I came this far, believing in what we have together…"

His head sagged in her hands and Tifa released him. Cloud's chin slumped towards his chest. Tifa dropped her hands to his legs, gripping the soft material of the loose-fitting clothes he had been dressed in. She buried her face in his lap and let herself sob.

Tifa's energy ran out before her sorrow did. That alone stopped her tears.

The sun was finally setting. It was casting golden light across the room, coming in from the west-facing window.

It was a lovely room, Tifa realized. Clean, with a neatly made hospital bed. It was carefully decorated in soft, soothing colors and there were flowers in a vase next to a water jug by the bed. There were two windows with charming views of Mideel and its surrounding forest.

Cloud had been well cared for. His hands, resting on his lap near her face, were clean, the nails neatly groomed. Although the pants of his scrubs were now wrinkled and damp from Tifa's crying, he was dressed in clean, comfortable clothing that fit him well.

For that, at least, Tifa was grateful.

Tifa smoothed Cloud's pants over his knees, where her crying had mussed the fabric. Even if he were aware of his surroundings, Tifa knew he would not mind. It's stupid. I know crying is a waste of time. Tifa had said this to him once before.

The vehemence and sincerity in his response had struck a chord directly in Tifa's heart. That's not true, he said.

You saved me before, now it's my turn. Words Tifa had spoken to Cloud. A promise that she had been holding onto since Gongaga. A wish, her one regret as she had taken what she had been certain would be her last breath in Junon.

Tifa had wanted to save Cloud completely, to help him fix his addled memories and repair his fractured sense of self. She had wanted them to stand side by side. They had always saved one another, in battle or moments of weakness.

A blond spike fell over Cloud's eyes and Tifa reached up to brush it back.

When Tifa had committed to saving Cloud, this had not been what she imagined. But neither had she imagined to lose everything she had ever known and loved at fifteen, and to start a life on her own in Midgar. She had never imagined that same life she built in Sector Seven might be crushed and burned in one fell swoop.

Tifa never, in her wildest imagination, thought she might meet the dearest of friends in Don Corneo's basement, only to lose her and mourn her death within a matter of weeks.

Life had never been quite what Tifa hoped or imagined. But Tifa had always made the best of it. She had been strong. She had tried to do good, to help others. Sometimes, she had even smiled, despite it all.

It was who Tifa was. She did not know any other way.

Tifa was not sure that she could do it anymore. But she was certain that she did not want to do it without Cloud. She would never stop trying to save him. But even if she could not save him, Tifa would not leave his side.

Cloud made an incomprehensible, strangled sound. He was looking off to his left. The sound seemed fearful to Tifa, but Cloud's face was empty of emotion. Tifa touched his cheek gently.

"It's going to be okay," she told him. Her voice was steady. "I'm here now, okay Cloud?"

He did not respond. Tifa stood and squeezed his hand once before releasing it.

"I'll take care of you, Cloud. I'm not going anywhere," she promised.