A piece of him was still that nervous fourteen year old staring at his feet dangling over the edge of the water tower and rehearsing the same conversation in his head even though, in the end, he would never say half of it. That kid would be horrified now. You don't just say those things out loud. Not even if you mean every word. The moment the first syllable left his mouth he felt exposed, but maybe that was the whole point. He'd been wandering for weeks, spending most of his energy just trying to convince himself that he'd even see Tifa or any of the others again. That they were still alive. That he'd have the chance to say things to them that he could be embarrassed about later. He was too damn tired to stay guarded.

That didn't mean he couldn't second guess himself after the fact. Cloud felt the back of his neck get hot and he scratched his head and started to think that maybe it had been a mistake. Until she said she missed him too and he stopped and dropped his hand and looked over at her with those bright Mako eyes just a little wider, a shade shy of surprised. The moment hung in the air like smoke. He studied her is if he wanted to fix every detail of the scene in his mind. That if his memories failed him again at least this would be branded into his brain.

Then he looked down at his feet and while his face reddened reflexively he wrestled with a smile. After a moment he awkwardly cleared his throat and stood up and started to pace slowly around the room.

"So... How're you feeling now?" he asked, nodding his head towards the empty potion bottle. "If you need anything else..."

He made a small open gesture with his arms. Just ask, it said.

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@tifa

When she told him he didn't need to worry about her the barest smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. She made it sound so simple. Maybe he didn't need to, but that didn't mean he could stop. Then she turned it around on him, and Cloud realized he hadn't given a thought to his own condition since... well, more or less since he'd woken up in this world. He glanced down at himself in a brief scan for injuries. There were accumulated scrapes and bruises here or there on his arms, some old, some new. Dirt on his face, on his clothes, tears in the cloth. Singed edges and black smears of soot from the explosion of the robot he and Caius destroyed earlier. Nothing serious.

Cloud long had a habit of getting by with nothing more than skinned knees.

"Yeah. I'm fine," he answered, and it was mostly the truth. He could use a shower and a hot meal and a week of sleep but neither the robot house nor the thugs in the alley managed to knock him around very badly. "I'm just... tired, I guess. Been a long day."

If a day lasted a couple of weeks.

He found a spot on the wall to lean against and crossed his arms loosely. His expression grew serious. He thought back to the fight, to the people who attacked Tifa. It was still a blur in his head. There was a part of him, like a tight ball of anger in his chest, that felt only regret for letting any of them stumble away.

He knew it was stupid to think that. The only thing that mattered was getting Tifa to safety. But it meant they were still out there. It meant they could regroup and try again.

"Who were they? Why were they after you?"

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@tifa

Cloud shifted his weight onto his right heel and crossed his boots at the ankle. His bones felt like they were slowly gaining weight, a steady drip of lead filling the hollow where his marrow should have been, an ache tugging at his joints. He realized, only after Tifa offered a drink, that he was very thirsty. A drink sounded like a good idea. Tifa mixing it for him sounded like a better one.

When she started into explaining the situation he listened to her with a quiet focus. A furrow of his brows. Gangs. He thought of Midgar again. Sonora was its distorted reflection, a city made up of half-remembered details patched together with dreams and nightmares. Only fitting that in both places Tifa planted herself in direct opposition to some force's oppressive boot. Shinra, gangs, what difference did it make? Of course she would be there trying to make things better for other people. She was possessed of a selflessness that Cloud never saw within himself. Revenge, necessity, money - those he knew well. He still burned with shame to think of who he was back in Midgar, spitting on the plight of the planet to demand fifteen hundred gil.

Tifa chose the harder path, but strong as she was Cloud saw the weight of it resting heavy on her shoulders. The doubt in her eyes. He frowned. Ever since she woke up here she'd been fighting and turning that fact around in his head brought forth a vague and useless sense of guilt. He should've gotten here sooner. Somehow. He was never one to let the logic of a situation stand in the way of blaming himself for it.

But he was here now, and knocking around some idiot gangsters until they got the notion to stay gone seemed well within his wheelhouse.

"Sounds like a lotta work for one person," he said. "Maybe they'll think twice about making trouble, now that you've got backup. ...If you want a hand with 'em, I mean."

Cloud shrugged, as if to say it was no trouble. He didn't know why he was playing it so cool. He almost laughed at the absurdity of it, like he was a parody of the cold professional mercenary he once pretended to be. But the ill-fitting ex-SOLDIER persona was long gone now, and in its place, Cloud was... Cloud. Truthfully, he was still trying to figure out what exactly that meant.

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@tifa

When she smiled at him the shabby slum room seemed a little less dull and a little less grey. In Cloud's eyes, too, something changed, grew brighter. He glanced down at his boots and huffed a toneless little laugh. Support beam sounded about right. Then she questioned him, and he looked back up, studying her face, head canted at just the slightest angle.

Don't have anywhere else to be? Something about the question rang strangely in his head. Was she probing, or giving him an out? After the long, lonely journey he'd taken through strange lands to get to this stranger one he couldn't think of anywhere else he'd want to be but with a familiar face. An anchor to his past, his world. Proof that everything that happened to him before he woke up wasn't just the twisted dream of his unreliable mind. It was luck that reunited them, as it had been at the train station in Midgar what felt like yesterday and a lifetime ago. Cloud didn't want to push it.

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Don't know where else I'd go," he said. "Only got in to the city today. I didn't... really think too far past trying to find somebody I knew."

I was hoping it'd be you, he didn't say. He cleared his throat like it was insurance against the words slipping out on their own.

"How long have you been here, anyway?"

Long enough to get a job, earn a reputation, and make enemies, at least. If she was here making a living, what happened to the others? Were they stranded in some far-flung corners of the world? If they'd been in the city long enough to find Tifa, Cloud figured she would've mentioned them. That put a journey in his future.

But not now. For now, Sonora seemed like it would suit him fine.

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@tifa