Tifa stood at the sink, piling dirty mugs and glasses on top of one another as she collected the remnants of last night's business. Saving the world works wonders for publicity, she thought, smiling to herself. The bar had been fuller the last few nights than she could ever remember. And even Reno's boisterous, flirtatious presence couldn't drive the customers away. Another smile tugged at her lips as she thought about the massive hangover the red-headed Turk was trying to sleep off upstairs. He had been too drunk to walk, and Tifa had insisted he stay the night in the spare upstairs bedroom.

She jumped and nearly dropped a soapy dish as the phone rang, and she closed her eyes in irritation for a moment. Cloud Strife's Delivery Service had become immensely in demand overnight; Tifa suspected it had more to do with the idea of calling a number and having Cloud show up at your house than it did with the actual deliveries. Still, the extra money definitely didn't hurt. Drying her soapy hands, she climbed the stairs resignedly.

She peeked in at Reno and saw through the crack in the door he was lying fully clothed sprawled across the bed on his face, his shoes still on and a pillow over his head. She giggled and then ran for the phone.

"Hello, Tifa's Seventh Heaven and Cloud Strife's Delivery Service, you name it we deliver it!" She listened silently to the calm male voice of the man on the other end of the phone for a few minutes. "Yeah, sure I remember you! How could I forget? We owe you so much….Yeah, Cloud's doing great." He continued to talk, and Tifa abruptly felt all the blood drain out of her face. Her mouth dropped open in shock and she felt around for a chair to stumble into.

"How can that be? Is this a sick joke!? It can't be true!" The serious voice on the other end kept on at length, and Tifa clenched her trembling hands in her lap.

She hung up suddenly, and took several deep breaths with her eyes closed to steady herself. When she looked up she saw Reno leaning unsteadily in the doorway, looking vaguely ill and very rumpled, but a little concerned.

"What's the trouble, babe?" he asked curiously. Tifa looked at him with worried eyes and tried to collect her thoughts.

"Something…something's happened…"

The room he was in was white; the walls were white, the ceilings were white; he didn't know about the floor because he hadn't managed to sit up yet and the room was pretty small. Sometimes he was awake enough to see blurry faces, and hear snippets of conversations. Most of it was surprisingly un-clinical: expressions of concern, reassuring voices, worried sighs. He would be encouraged to open his eyes, turn his head, try to lift his arms sometimes. Most of these actions still eluded him. He couldn't even speak more than a few words, even though they had a lot of questions. Questions about who he was, how he had gotten there, questions about his sword…

He was glad when they eventually stopped asking questions, and soon after this he started to get new visitors. Their faces swam across his vision, worried green eyes and silver hair like his own. He knew his hair was silver only because he had seen it fall across his eyes when he couldn't lift his head up anymore and it flopped back on his pillow.

Kadaj, they called him. The name swirled around his brain and rippled through his mind. It sounded familiar. He could see the faces were sad. He wanted to be able to move, to speak, to show everyone he was still alive, still… there. He wasn't all there yet and he knew it, in the same detached way that instinct warns people of danger. He couldn't look right at the thought, only approach it from an angle like a mote in the eye that disappears when you look at it. So he floated in and out with it, until the morning came when he finally found the strength and cohesion to squeeze his brother's hand back and open his eyes.

Reno let out a low whistle as Tifa finished telling him the news.

"No kidding," he said in amazement. "I knew they were tough, but…whew!" She shook her head.

"I know they died, I believe Cloud. But this is the same doctor that rescued Cloud when he had the Mako poisoning. He wouldn't lie to me, I know him. I think – the only thing I can think of is that she brought them back the way she brought back Cloud. But why?"

"Who knows? I always said she was weird, yo," he said with a weak hangover smile.

"That's not the half of it. He wants us to bring them here. To take care of them." Reno's eyes popped open.

"I think you've done enough al –" he started to say, but she shook her head again.

"He says they're not even the same people. He doesn't know about their minds or personalities or whatever, but their DNA is totally different from the Sephiroth and Jenova genes. They didn't even remember who they were until this week, Kadaj is still in a coma. How can I hold all that against them if all of it was just Sephiroth? Besides," she added in a quieter tone. "The villagers there won't tolerate it. They've given Cloud's doctor two weeks to get them out before they… before they're killed. They're still very weak. They won't stand a chance, it'll be murder."

"Kadaj and them killed a lot of innocent people you know. Do you think there'll be any better reception for them in Midgar? There's gonna be a mob outside your door in ten minutes. They stole a bunch of kids, Tifa. The guy's out of his mind."

"They're just boys, really. Only kids themselves. Only alive long enough to be used by a crazy evil man and then die trying to please some rotting mutated corpse." Reno groaned.

"And we all know how you feel about kids. I know where this is going."

"I felt sorry for them. Even Loz."

"You mean the sadistic pansy that beat you up?"

"I didn't say I liked him, I just felt sorry for him," she amended quickly.

"Can you handle this? Can Cloud? Especially this soon after. I mean, he's had his head fucked with a little too much in the last three years. He's better, he's more stable, but he needs time. Know what I'm sayin', yo?" Tifa laughed softly.

"Yeah, I know what you're sayin', yo," she said winking at him. "Since when did you become Cloud's psychologist?"

"I'm just sayin'. Shinra doctors trashed my mind all to hell with Mako years back, and I'm still shakin' it off. That kid's lucky not to be a basket case," he said seriously.

"I know," she said sadly. "I'm not even going to consider it until I've talked to him. I'm afraid to even bring it up, I don't know what it'll do to him."

"Where is he?"

"Costa Del Sol, making deliveries."

"Why don't you go talk to him? Take a vacation. I'll hold the fort down. But only for a few days," he added quickly.

"You." She said skeptically. "Watch two kids, keep the house up, bartend at night, and answer phones during the day?"

"With Rude as a bouncer. It'll be fun!" Reno said with a toothy grin. He nodded enthusiastically, then stopped and grabbed the sides of his head and grimaced.

"Tell you what, you take a shower and a hangover remedy, while I think about it." She got up, rummaged around for a towel, and dropped it playfully over his head.