Quote Originally Posted by Sephex View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Flying Arrow View Post
Dumb question here: How long was it in between Cloud being left at the outskirts of Midgar and him hooking up with Tifa and joining Avalanche? Was it more or less the first thing he went to do or did he wander around the city some?
To me, it seemed like it was maybe a couple of hours because Cloud was still out of it until Tifa spotted him and snapped him out of it. Then boom--Cloud started to play SOLDIER in his mind.
Cloud seemed to have been found by Tifa very shortly after the death of Zack, which was several years before FFVII. He made it to Midgar, though he was still very out of it from the trauma of the events of Nibelheim, and Tifa nursed him back. That is the impression the game gives.

He seems to have spent a couple years hanging around Midgar, but didn't actually join up with Avalanche until the reactor mission, which is why Barret didn't know him yet.

Likely he was picking up Zack's job of being a jack-of-all-trades, helping out people with odd jobs around the slums.

Which also means that, had Aeris mentioned Zack, it would have been little different than Zack's parents mentioning him. His memory had already solidly blocked that out.