"We should get married," Aerith says out of the blue one morning.
Tifa freezes in the middle of shrugging on her coat, arm caught awkwardly in the sleeve. Aerith is leaning against the counter, elbows propped on top, looking at her over a mug of coffee. Her eyebrows are raised expectantly.
Tifa averts her gaze, robotically completing the coat pulling motions. She smooths down the wool for lack of anything to do. Clearing her throat, she looks back at Aerith.
"Well," says Tifa, inwardly wincing at how hoarse her voice is. "This is...sudden."
Aerith shrugs, hands still wrapped around her mug, a study in nonchalance. "Not really. Kind of inevitable if you think about it." A smile quirks her mouth, brightening her eyes.
Tifa ignores how her heart flip-flops a little to sneak a glance at the clock. She wonders if she can have this cleared up in time for errands. Sighing, she unwinds the scarf around her neck, setting it down on the counter. She keeps her coat on. She doesn't know if that's optimism or what.
"Aerith...you do realize you've skipped a couple steps here, right?"
Aerith's brow furrows. It's as adorable as it is frustrating. "Like what?"
"Like dating, for one thing." They hadn't been on one as far as Tifa is aware. She thinks she'd remember.
"Oh, that," Aerith says airily, like they're discussing teaching Cloud how to do laundry and not marriage. "Well, married couples go on dates, right? We can do that then."
She settles back with a satisfied air, wearing a look that screams problem solved, and Tifa desperately tries to breathe through her nose. She may or may not be choking. Aerith just watches as she struggles to get in air, idly toying with a spoon.
"Aerith—that's not—"
"Really," Aerith bulldozes ahead, ignoring Tifa's spluttering, "if you think about it it's the next logical step. We've only been living together how long now? And raising children at that! The only surprising thing, I think, is this didn't happen sooner."
Tifa gives her as flat a look as she can manage under the circumstances.
"By that logic both of us should marry Cloud since he lives with us too."
Aerith's nose wrinkles playfully. "This proposal is strictly Tifa only, sorry."
Is that what we're calling what's happening here? Tifa thinks sardonically.
Her face heats up all the same. She tries to blame it on wearing a winter coat indoors—is it any wonder she's so hot—but fails miserably. It's all Aerith, like always.
"I'd be okay if you decided to marry Barret too though," Aerith says musingly, tapping her chin with the spoon. "The Lockhart-Gainsborough-Wallaces. One big, happy, polyamorous family." She grins, eyes sparkling with mischief. "Bet that would delight Marlene."
Tifa brings a hand up to her face, smiling behind her palm.
Like usual, fondness wins over exasperation by a long mile although there is still some of that too.
In a way, Aerith is right. There is a certain inevitability here—a sense of something finally giving way. They've been on the verge of something for a long time now, have been since the moment they met, but Tifa hadn't wanted to risk their friendship much less this life they had built together—this peaceful, domestic existence—on a mere possibility.
Tifa lowers her hand from her mouth, clearing her throat once more. It's really rather dry.
"Not the teachers at school though." Her voice comes out steadier than she'd thought.
Aerith stretches a hand across the counter—when did she set down the spoon, Tifa can't help but wonder, and stops thinking coherently altogether when Aerith takes her hand in her own. She brushes her thumb over Tifa's knuckles, once, twice, so tenderly that a lump rises in Tifa's throat.
Tifa shivers a little, bringing her eyes up to Aerith's.
"They can just deal," Aerith says, "unless they want my wife to beat them up."
She's still laughing when Aerith bridges the gap between them once and for all.