Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII.

A/N: So apologies for how long this took to get out. As you can probably tell from my page, I've been thoroughly derailed into the Until Dawn fandom for more than a few months now – but I'll do my best to keep up with this story too in the future. I didn't realise this chapter was actually still sitting here, so I just rounded it off and decided to post it without waiting until I have time to make it longer, since you've been waiting for so long anyway. *sheepish*

Just thought I'd address a question that came up in the reviews, one that I think is fine as just general information. And in case anyone else is wondering, I'm putting it here instead of in a PM. Non-spoilery obviously, but feel free to skip if you don't want any extra character information. :)

Mystic 777- Huh, I'm kind of curious about how Cait Sith's bit works since Reeve was controlling him. According to the Final Fantasy Wikia, official info about Cait Sith and his moogle seems to be very contradictory; like Cait Sith brought the moogle to life with magic/the Urban Development Department built it for spying, the moogle is stuffed/the moogle is mechanical. The wiki also observes that Cait talks in the first person and that it would be impractical for Reeve to control him all the time, yet he still is moving about and speaking constantly – therefore it could be extrapolated that Cait possesses artificial intelligence and his own personality, that is only occasionally 'taken over' by Reeve. The page for Cait says "One of the few cases where Cait Sith asserts his seeming sentience is at the Temple of the Ancients where Cait Sith, referring to himself in the first person, tells the party not to forget about him "even if another Cait Sith comes along". Afterwards, a second Cait Sith appears and introduces himself. If Reeve were entirely in control, Cait Sith's mentions of sacrifice, and the second Cait Sith introducing himself, would be redundant, so one could take this scene to assume Cait Sith has a mind of his own." This is basically my headcanon, that Cait Sith has grown into his own distinct personality and sense of self, and can function independently of Reeve (does in fact do so for the vast majority of the time). Thus, he can also survive being severed from future Reeve, as he doesn't need him to exist.

…Yay for long-winded explanations. xD

Out Of Suffering, Emerge The Strongest Souls

Chapter Six: Reunion

Tifa was vaguely aware of loud voices around her, even as hands grasped her arms and pulled her gently to her feet. She hadn't even been aware of falling to her knees. Her mind was too busy trying to process the sudden stream of new-old memories that were crowding her head. However, even as it did so, another part of her mind was rapidly forming conclusions that she barely even dared credit as possible.

"…why the hell would someone clone Tifa? This makes no goddamn sense!"

"Do you have a better explanation? Because I sure can't think of –"

"Time-travel."

Tifa tuned back into the argument taking place around her just in time to hear the speculation and found herself blurting out the words without thinking about it at all. Six pairs of quizzical eyes turned to face her in unison and she flushed a little. "Time-travel," she repeated, a little more firmly. "I know it sounds it crazy but…she wasn't a clone of me. She was me. I…saw her memories. My memories. From when I was younger…it was like I was living them all over again for a minute. And then she dissolved. I – I think I absorbed her, somehow. Or we merged."

There was a long considering silence from the group. It was a mark of both their communal friendship and the various ridiculous, incredible events that they had been caught up in that her statement wasn't dismissed out of hand.

"Well fan-fucking-tastic," Cid said eventually, grimacing around his cigarette. "Unbelievable."

"Oddly enough," Nanaki said dryly, curling his tail around his forepaws, "I would say that seems exactly like our luck to have such a thing happen."

"I think time-travel pretty much takes the fucking cake though, pup."

"I'm fifty-one years old, Cid," Nanaki said in mild irritation.

"Yeah, but still a teenager in lion-wolf years though, right?" Cid grinned. "I remember what your Grandpa said."

"Grandfather!" Nanaki sat bolt upright, eyes going wide and fur bristling in shock. "If – if we have time-travelled – I'll see Grandfather again!"

"…Shit," Barret muttered, uncharacteristically quiet. "Myrna…"

Tifa hadn't even thought as far ahead as that. Her hands clenched into fists. Dad…Dad could be alive. Nibelheim could be whole…

"I think," Vincent murmured, "That heading down to the town would be an excellent way to confirm this theory for definite."

xxx

Yuffie watched Tifa carefully, as she paused on the outskirts of Nibelheim. The ninja really didn't like seeing her friend like this. The martial artist had never been loud and confident in the way that Yuffie was, instead carrying herself with quiet self-assurance and radiating an air of complete competency. Now she just looked lost, hovering at the edge of her hometown, miraculously – for real, this time – restored to its former self.

"So no doubt, then?" Yuffie muttered to Vincent, jamming her hands in the pockets of her shorts. "I've only been here once before."

The tall gunman glanced down at her with crimson eyes. "There is no doubt. I spent much time in Nibelheim before..." Before Hojo went batshit and shot me and experimented on me for years. He didn't say any of that, but Yuffie was pretty good at interpreting his pauses by now.

"This is the original town," Vincent finished quietly.

Yuffie huffed. "Well, shit," she said eloquently. She laced her hands together behind her head and surveyed Nibelheim with a scowl. "That's kind of a dick move on the Planet's part."

"You don't say," Cid broke in, wearing a matching scowl and smoking a cigarette ferociously. "You realise we're gonna have to go through all the shit that we went through before all over again?"

"There must be a reason," Nanaki pointed out logically, the slight twitching of his tail the only thing to betray his agitation. "If nothing else, transporting a large number of people through time must have taken a vast expenditure of energy, even for the Planet – therefore it stands to reason that it wouldn't have spent so much energy without a purpose."

"Well, that's all very well an' good, but I think we should probably go rent a room at the inn and get out of the cold before we continue talkin' about this," Barret interrupted, throwing a pointed glance at Tifa, still looking lost.

"Good idea," Yuffie jumped in. "Using Fire materia for heating is freaking exhausting! Teef, you should hang back, we don't want anyone in town recognising you."

"It is probably best that Cid and Nanaki wait behind too," Vincent commented, his red eyes scanning their party. "And perhaps Cait Sith. They are very recognisable, to Shinra at least. We do not want them to be able to retrace our steps later on."

Yuffie frowned thoughtfully, ignoring the sudden explosive cursing from Barret and Cid at the abrupt realisation that Shinra was currently an ongoing issue again. "You expecting them to try tracking us down for some reason?"

"It is us, Yuffie." Vincent's tone was as dry as the desert. "We are bound to do something attract their attention at some point, and it is unlikely to be the good kind of attention."

The ninja snickered, breaking out into a wide grin. "True. Our awesome knows no bounds."

"Our affinity for trouble knows no bounds," Vincent corrected wryly. "Now, you, Barret and I should go and purchase a room at the Nibelheim inn, seeing as I'm believed to be dead, Barret an ordinary coal miner, and you –"

"A Wutain princess," Yuffie finished smugly. "I'm not exactly low-profile either, you know."

Vincent raised a brow slightly. "We are however, back in time, before the burning of Nibelheim. It therefore stands to reason your past self is a lot younger and you are unlikely to be recognised as Yuffie Kisaragi, Crown Princess of Wutai."

The ninja opened her mouth to argue, more for contrary's sake than out of any real disagreement, when Cid cut her off. "What about once we've got the room? How are the rest of us gonna get in without being seen?" the pilot demanded. "You gonna stuff us in through the window or something?"

A sheepish silence fell.

"Oh, you have got to be shitting me."

xxx

It took most of the rest of the evening to get the group settled in at Nibelheim's sole inn if only for the fact that over half of the group had to sneak in without being seen.

(Vincent stood in the back alley behind the inn, watching Cid and Yuffie hissing curses at each other in a vicious undertone as they attempted to shove Nanaki's hindquarters through the too-small window, and distantly questioned his life choices. More so than usual.)

When everyone was more or less settled into the two adjoining rooms, the gunman pitched his idea to Cid and the still-shaken Tifa, who in Cloud's absence were the de facto leaders of the group. They couldn't see any issue with the idea and so he set off into night.

It took him less than half an hour to reach his destination and less than thirty seconds prise open the final barrier between himself and his target. As the stone slab crashed to the ground, a pair of startled red eyes met his own identical gaze and Vincent folded his arms, staring down impassively at his younger self. "Get up. We need to talk."

xxx

It was after midnight when Vincent slid soundlessly back in through the window and looked up, to meet six pairs of expectant eyes. He refrained from sighing. "Some of you could have gone to sleep, you know."

"Then we'd have to wait 'til morning to find out," Yuffie pointed out. "So spill, Vinnie!"

Vincent managed not to twitch at the nickname, knowing that it would only encourage her. His gaze slid over to meet Tifa's burgundy eyes, filled with silent questions. "It happened for me too. I believe it is more of a merging of souls than anything else, possibly because the same soul cannot exist at the same time twice. And that once it has happened, the spare body dissolves and returns to the Lifestream."

The gunman paused, idly tapping Cerberus' handle. "I talked to my younger counterpart and he experienced the same symptoms of nausea and headaches as I did, which I feel reinforces this theory. I am also no longer experiencing them, the same as you," he added, looking at Tifa. "I would therefore recommend that we make this merging of souls a priority for the rest of the group."

He didn't mention the long conversation he'd held with his younger self and the wondering disbelief in his eyes at description of the patchwork family Vincent had somehow managed to stumble into, during the crusade to stop Sephiroth. The gunman had forgotten how painfully hopeless and apathetic he'd been; how utterly sure that he was unworthy of ever being gifted with anyone's trust ever again. His double had accepted his hand gladly when the time came to merge their souls.

"Well, hell." Cid exhaled loudly, drumming his fingers loudly on the haft of his spear. "That's gonna take some organising. Especially for Miss Princess," he added, jerking a thumb at Yuffie, who scowled mutinously at him. "Given that she's royalty and all."

"Bah," Yuffie waved a dismissive hand. "It's not that hard to break into the palace if you have insider knowledge." She tapped her chest, looking smug. "Which you do."

Tifa took a deep breath, straightening up. "Well, we should start planning then. And while we're at it, try and figure out exactly why the Planet's sent us back in time."

There was a round of assent, Cait Sith produced a notebook from somewhere and the seven time-travellers immediately set about their appointed task.

xxx

Three days later

"No, this reconnects here, it's the blue one that goes there…"

Tifa watched most of Cait Sith's body disappear inside the Moogle's chest cavity, muttering to himself as he tinkered with the robot's mechanics. "Do you want to me to hold onto your back paws?" she asked, amused. "You're in danger of falling in."

Cait Sith huffed. "I'm not that short," he protested, before letting out an excited, "Aha!" He wriggled around for a few more seconds and then popped back out. "Thanks for your assistance, but I can probably get her back up and running from here," the little cat assured her. "Why don't you go get a breath of fresh air? You been cooped up in here for ages."

Tifa blew out a dispirited sigh, climbing to her feet and stretching languidly. "Only because I look the spitting image of Mayor Lockhart's daughter," she said. "Who happened to vanish three days ago while out exploring the mountainside."

That had been another unforeseen side effect of her younger self disappearing – the whole of Nibelheim was buzzing like an overturned beehive with the news, and Yuffie, Vincent and Barret, as the official renters of their rooms, had all been questioned extensively and suspiciously. It hadn't helped that they'd arrived on the day she'd disappeared and there was, Yuffie reported, a lot of general grumbling and whispers about the people staying at the inn.

Cait Sith gave her a sympathetic look. "You could go and speak to him, you know. Cid's planning on telling Shera, Barret on telling his wife, and Nanaki, his grandfather."

Tifa bit her lip and looked away. "I'm not sure he'd believe me. He's never believed any of so-called fairytales about the Planet and the Lifestream." A slight smile tugged at her mouth, as the bittersweet memories of her childhood welled up. "He's a proud man of science."

The little AI hummed. "No reason he can't be both," he pointed out reasonably, twirling his screwdriver.

Tifa laughed, the sound catching a little in her throat. "Try telling him that." She'd mostly calmed down from her initial shock but between finding out that she was in the past, her father alive and her home intact, and then having to deal with the guilt at the realisation that she'd inadvertently cost her father his daughter, by absorbing her younger self – it was safe to say that she'd had a tumultuous few days.

At least he's alive. Tifa bit her lip. But alone. After Mum died, he only had me. And now the me that he knows is gone…

Tifa sighed, guilt and longing squeezing her heart in equal measure. "I'm going to talk to him."

Cait Sith give her an encouraging smile. "That's the spirit. I'll text you when the others get back with the supplies."

A fleeting grin touched Tifa's lips at the thought of Yuffie haggling furiously with the shopkeepers of Nibelheim, trailed by a long-suffering Vincent and a heavily scowling Barret. "Let me know when Cid and Nanaki get back from monster hunting too." Some of the monster parts fetched a decent price and they needed all the gil they could get.

Cait Sith saluted her with a spanner. "Will do."

Tifa laughed as she shimmied out the window and dropped into the back alley behind the inn. She straightened up, absently humming as she plotted the best route to get to her father's house unseen, when a very small, very familiar voice spoke behind her. "Tifa?"

The dark-haired martial artist froze, the shock slamming into her like a tidal wave, and the sudden, painful hope so strong it was nearly paralysing.

"Tifa?" A different voice, but again so familiar, so dear to her, piped up. "Is that really you?"

Tifa spun around and the cry of overwhelming joy that burst from her was entirely involuntary, as she saw the small boy and girl she loved as her own standing at the mouth of the alley, shock written all over their faces. "Denzel! Marlene!"

As if her voice had broken the spell, the two brown-haired children's faces lit up and they immediately pelted down the alley towards her, crying "Tifa! Tifa!" She was barely aware of running to meet them and then swinging them up into her arms, their arms wrapping around her even she hugged them to her as tightly as she dared, laughing and crying at the same time.

"Don't cry, Tifa," Marlene said, wiping at her cheeks with small hands. The little girl sniffled, scrubbing at the tears running down her own face. "This is a happy moment."

Tifa laughed through her tears, pressing fervent kisses to the top of both Denzel and Marlene's heads. "You're allowed to cry when you're happy too, you know," she teased and Marlene's answering smile was blinding.

Tifa pressed another kiss to Denzel's feathery hair, as the boy tucked himself more securely against his adoptive mother's neck. "Where on earth have you two been?" she asked, still smiling uncontrollably as she glanced over the children. "The rest of us appeared up in the mountains –"

"We appeared outside Midgar," Marlene supplied happily. "It took us a while to get here."

"What? But how –?" The question died in her throat as Tifa looked up and finally caught sight of what she'd missed before.

Just beyond where the children had been standing, there were a pair of young green chocobos laden with saddlebags – and in between them stood a familiar blond figure dressed all in black, his feet rooted to the ground, his glowing blue eyes staring at her with utter shock.

"Cloud?"

A/N: Thanks again for reading – please let me know what you thought! ^_^