Seventh Heaven Surprise
Chapter 1: Prologue (a.k.a. CONFUSE THE READERS WHILE CACKLING LIKE A – sane – HOJO!! XD)
SUMMARY: As Christmas draws closer, Cloud Strife struggles with a very difficult and delicate decision, a decision that could change not only his life but the life of someone very close to him as well. With the help of loyal and supportive friends and allies, will Cloud make the correct choice? Read to find out. Rated for safety, implied sexual content (I can't write that sort of stuff worth CRAP, nor could I do so to save my life!) and for the mouths of Barret, Cid, Reno, and my O.C.'s – Kitara Miyuki Yuri Strife and Akihito Reynolds (rarely Akihito) – and H e a r tless f a i r ytale's O.C. – Kanako Alana Alethea Superior Strife. (HOPE I SPELLED HER NAME RIGHT, H e a r tless!!) Main pairing is CloudxTifa with side-pairings of KitaraxAkihito, VincentxKanako (Yuffie didn't get the balls to tell Vinny she loves him yet, Jei, so put up with it! ;P), CidxShera (they'll be at a party in one of these chapters), TsengxElena (will also be at a party in one of these chapters), ZackxAerith (they're gonna show up from the Lifestream at some point).
Kit: Okay, soooo... this is a little late, but... this is another Christmas ficcy for everyone. This one is dedicated to my boyfriend of 2 years, "Jei" (as he is known in my yet-to-be-published-on-here "Kingdom Hearts" series fanfic and on here sometimes, the other times he is known as "Aki" or "Hito" but more commonly "Hito"), as a belated Christmas-slash-Valentine's Day gift to him. Now, I normally write my fanfics out on paper first, and then type them up, but I didn't feel like doing that this time around. (XD) So, instead I'm just typing this all up from scratch. Sorry if it's sucky. I came up with the summary AFTER I typed this up, so if you find it totally rock-bottom suckish, now you know why. Though, since you're reading this, thanks for not finding the summary TOO suckish to not even consider taking a look at what's inside. I usually suck ass when it comes to writing summaries. So far, my only GOOD summary was for my currently-on-hiatus "Teen Titans" fanfic. anime sweatdrop Well.... ON TO DISCLAIMER!!
Denzel: KitaraStrife does not hold any claim to the Final Fantasy franchise, its characters, or any of its merchandise. All she owns is a copy of "Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII," a copy of the "Final Fantasy X" walkthrough guidebook, and – though most say it doesn't count – a copy of "Final Fantasy X-2" for the PS2. Any O.C.'s within this one-shot are entirely owned by KitaraStrife or one of her friends (namely those of H e a r tless f a i r ytale). She does not own any songs used in this story either, the artists who sing them will be stated in the ending author's note. Also, please note that her father told her in an irrelevant-to-this-disclaimer-conversation that bars tend to close at around 2 or 3 in the morning, effectively explaining the somewhat random appearance of an N.P.C. (or Non-Player Character) from the "Final Fantasy VII" video game named Johnny. And finally, she has no pocket money to her name whatsoever, save for random change in the form of a few quarters, dimes, and multiple pennies.
Kit: Thank you, Denzel. Have a cookie. smiles and hands him a cookie
Denzel: Thanks! runs off with cookie
Kit: Well... First off, if any of the songs used in here are stated during dialogue, I will most likely state the name of the artists who sings them as well. Now then... TIME TO GET TO THE STORY!!
"words" means Person talking on the other end of any phone of any sort; Flashback-like sequences; Recaps in later chapters
"words" means Regular talking
'words' means Thinking
December was a beautiful time of year. Thanksgiving was over and done with while Christmas was just around the corner. There were colorful decorations around the inside and outside of every shop and home in all the villages and towns, lights of reds, greens, blues, and rainbows strung up around the rimmings of windows and spiraling around grand trees. But what the children and delinquent teenagers loved the most about the final month of the year was not the decorations, multiple gizmos they could badger their parents and relatives into buying for them from the plethora of shops around the world, nor the delicious Christmastime cookies – sugar, gingerbread, and the occasional, and rare, chocolate chip – which the bakeries and wonderful grandmothers of Gaia always made.(1) No, none of these things mattered to the younger generations as much as one simple thing:
"SNOWBALL AMBUSH!!!"
Snow. The greatest thing in all the world – in all the universe even – to young ones.
'Whoever said snow was great must never have lived around children.' These were the thoughts of a spiky-haired, blond man with a huge sword and a very kickass-looking motorcycle as he was pelted left and right with snowballs by the children and teens of Kalm Town as they threw perfectly-shaped snowball after perfectly-shaped snowball at him, deflecting the majority of the icy cold ammunition with his trusty sword. 'Now I'm going to have to clean off First Tsurugi before rust sets in. Damned weather.'
Cloud Strife, two-time hero of Gaia and now delivery man, was, after a week, on his way back home to Edge from delivering a Christmas present for someone's little girl in Kalm – the last of his deliveries before the holidays – and was being attacked by hoodlums with icy cold snowballs as their ammo. Though he admired their fighting spirit, he still did not condone their activity of attacking passersby in or on their vehicles as they drove by, much less the savior of their world. If he was Sephiroth— He cut that thought short right then and there, mentally scolding himself for even starting to think such a thing. No one deserved to be reminded of the man they all used to consider a hero until he turned into a genocidal killer. Suddenly, his thoughts were detoured as his cell phone rang. Continuing to speed along the streets – being wary of red lights and civilians in the crosswalks – he answered. "Strife Delivery Service. You name it, we—."
"Hey, Cloud. It's been a while since I've seen you." The voice on the other end of the line was Reeve Tuesti, leader of the World Restoration Organization – the W.R.O. – and former Head of Urban Development for the Shinra Electric Power Company, not to mention former operator of Cloud's undercover spy-turned-companion named Cait Sith over 4 years ago now.(2) "When are you getting back to the bar?"
"I'm on my way right now," Cloud replied as he blocked another snowball to his head with First Tsurugi. "I just dropped off the final Christmas gift to a family in Kalm and am currently getting attacked by little kids and their mountains of snowballs." He grunted as he slashed yet another snowball in half.
"Little kids you say? Hm... look up right now," Reeve told him, causing Cloud to knit his eyebrows together in confusion.
"What?" he said, doing as was asked of him.
"AIM FOR HIS FACE!!!" was the shouted, albeit laughed, command to all the children and teenagers ambushing Cloud from a very familiar voice: Reeve's. From the rooftop of a nearby bakery, Reeve had the perfect view of Cloud's route through the city – with the use of a pair of binoculars, that is – and from this same rooftop was where he was giving the young ones their commands via walkie-talkie, a smirk evident on his face.
"Reeve, you're getting dropped from Cid's airship after this!" was all the swordsman was able to growl into his phone before he hung up and slipped it back inside his pocket so it would be safe from short circuiting as just about every snowball thrown hit his face, successfully knocking him off of Fenrir and into a snowbank; the ex-SOLDIER grudgingly admitted that the children had damn good aim. One minute later, the command to cease fire was given and Reeve's laughter filled the air as he drew closer to Cloud.
"Sorry about that, Cloud. Tifa called and told me your last stop would be in Kalm somewhere and that I should round up the kids and teens to ambush you," he chuckled as he helped the blond to his feet while one of the teens wheeled Fenrir over to where the two older men were standing.
"Here's your bike, Mr. Strife," said the teen, one who had shoulder-length shaggy brown hair and was wearing just a plain black hoodie with an oozing-blood skull emblem to represent the band "Blood Skulls" that the swordsman's little sisters were apart of – one being a back-up singer and bass guitarist, the other being the lead singer and lead guitarist – over a red tee that Cloud assumed held the same band emblem – only in black – with worn out blue jeans and black sneakers—not at all the sort of clothing one would wear in the winter; Cloud guessed the boy was an orphan of some sort.
"Thanks." Cloud got on Fenrir and looked at the kid with a vague smile. "And just call me Cloud, okay?"
"Yessir, Mr. Cloud!" the boy replied with a smile and nod before he ran off back to his friends, happy that his idol had even talked to him.
Shaking his head at being called "Mr." again, Cloud looked at Reeve once again. "You're still going to dangle out of Cid's airship for listening to Tifa." With that, he zoomed off, throwing a snowball of his own over his shoulder at the slightly bearded man, hitting him dead in the face and successfully making him fall backwards into the same snowbank he had just helped Cloud out of only moments before.
FEARTHESCENECHANGEFONTORZACKWILLSCREAM"ZACK ATTACK!!"ANDGLOMPYOU!!!!!!!!!
"Tifa, when's Cloud getting back?" Denzel asked, helping the brunette woman with baking cookies by setting a plate of them on the counter.
"Yeah, we haven't seen him in over a week!" added Marlene, also helping Tifa by cutting the dough into the Christmasy shapes everyone knew and loved: Christmas trees, bells, Santa Clauses, reindeer, angels, snowmen with top hats, stars, sleighs, and many more.
Tifa smiled down at the 11-year-old boy she and Cloud saw as a sort of son and the 9-year-old girl she saw as a sort of much younger little sister as she wiped flour off on the Christmas apron she was wearing.(3) "I don't know, you guys. But whenever he gets back, he'll be wanting some of these cookies, right?"
"Uh-huh!" the two children replied with a smile of their own, both holding up their hands in a high-five motion that wasn't meant to be a high-five but more of a way of agreeing to what the older woman had said.
"Alright then, Marlene, once you're done making this batch of cookies for me, why don't you get started on decorating the ones that have already cooled off? Denzel, you can help by mixing food coloring in with the vanilla frosting to make different colored frostings, okay?" Tifa ordered with a smile, switching out a tray full of freshly baked gingerbread men, women, children, and snowmen (Marlene's idea) from the oven with a tray of freshly cut sugar cookie trees, bells, angels, and stars.
"Okay!" the two kids said, hopping right to their newly assigned jobs, Denzel of course piling the freshly baked gingerbread cookies onto a plate first.
Around one hour and thirty minutes later, the three of them heard the sound of an engine pull into the garage before it cut off, followed by a kickstand being kicked down to hold up a two-wheeled vehicle. A moment later, the door was opened and out of the garage stepped Cloud, goggles still over his eyes and clothing sopping wet.
"Thanks a lot for the ambush, Tifa," he playful growled as he peeled the biking goggles away from his face, sending a playful glare towards his childhood friend, the woman he loved with all his heart. Though his feelings had been mislead during their first adventure to stop his former idol from destroying the planet, Cloud had eventually realized that he loved Tifa and not Aerith.(4) Speaking of which, the hazel-eyed brunette woman was now currently giggling quietly at his sopping wet appearance.
"I hope they didn't hurt you too badly, Cloud. Because then you wouldn't get to partake of these wonderful cookies," she giggled, pointing to one of the plates with fully decorated cookies, courtesy of Marlene and Denzel, sitting next to the many boxes of already-finished cookies the three of them had already made over the last few weeks. Cloud's eyes followed the path of where her finger was pointing and immediately lit up like the Christmas lights strung around four synthetic aluminum trees set up in the bar area of their building.(5) Denzel and Marlene stifled their laughter at his wide-eyed look behind their hands, glancing at each other to quietly exchange some sort of childish message with their eyes.
After staring at the cookies for a full minute, Cloud subtly shook his head and cleared his throat. "I'll be back down in a little bit; taking a shower and changing out of these before I get sick," he stated as he headed for the back stairway that lead upstairs so he could take a shower.
"You can't get sick, Cloud!" Denzel called after him. "You're too powerful to get sick!"
Just inside the doorway to the stairs, Cloud stopped and slightly turned his head to smile – in his own way, at least – and reply, "Thanks, Denz." Then he was headed up the stairs and out of sight.
Tifa watched the stairwell for a few seconds longer after Cloud had disappeared from view, having caught the slightest glimps of what she hoped was not regret for a past event.(6) 'Please let him be okay, Aerith. Please help him to stop blaming himself for your death,' she silently pleaded, briefly closing her eyes so as to keep tears of pain, of hurt, from leaking out and worrying the kids before she turned her attention back to them.(7) "All right, you two. Whaddya say we hurry and finish these cookies up for everyone tonight."
"You got it, Tifa!" Denzel replied with a smile and nod of his head, Marlene doing the same just as the timer for the oven went off.
FEARTHESCENECHANGEFONTORZACKWILLSCREAM"ZACK ATTACK!!"ANDGLOMPYOU!!!!!!!!!
While Tifa and the kids finished with the cookies, the shower was running upstairs. Standing under the water in his birthday suit, Cloud leant his head against the shower wall, the water splashing down on him from behind.
"You can't get sick, Cloud!" Denzel called after him. "You're too powerful to get sick!" Denzel's words kept playing in his mind, over and over, again and again.
"If only you knew how powerless I felt sometimes, Denzel," he said to himself, eyes closed. "If only you knew, then you wouldn't have said that." He stood like that for what felt like hours but was only five minutes, just letting the water melt away his aches and pains before he picked his head up and began to wash his hair.
"Zack... how the hell do I tell her? What if she doesn't like me?" he asked to the air, knowing that he'd somehow hear his old best friend's voice – whether it be suddenly showing up in the field of flowers fully clothed when he's truly naked or just the sound of Zack's voice, to him, echoing around the bathroom.
1. HEY! I love chocolate chip cookies! Sadly, they are the ONLY cookies I can make from scratch with minimal help from my mom. (XD) I know, sad but true. But don't get me wrong, sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies are great, too! We just didn't really have the gingerbread ones this year for some reason. sad face Oh well. THERE'S ALWAYS NEXT YEAR! (XD)
2. A) I say that Reeve's last name should be pronounced "TOO-sti" like "Tuesday" instead of "Too-es-tie", considering the fact that if you take off the "-ti" at the end of his name and replace it with "-day" you get the word "Tuesday". ... Please tell me I am NOT the only person who realized that? (-.-) B) Yeah.... I'm saying this is based AFTER the events of "D.o.C." so Vincent's already saved the planet once himself. Gaia has TWO heroes to its name! (XD)
3. Taking into consideration that – at least to me – it seemed to be around sometime in the summer that Denzel met Reeve and told him his background at Johnny's Heaven in "Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children – The Novel," I'm going to say that Denzel's B-Day is somewhere after that, considering that this fanfic is taking place during Christmastime. Also, this would explain why Marlene is now being called a 9-year-old, since she was 4 in the video game and 6 in the movie. Hey, the game never has Dyne state WHEN her birthday is, so I'm taking some creative license here!!
4. Those of you who say that Cloud and Aerith is canon, YOU CAN ALL GO DIE FOR ALL I CARE! That's right, I just said to go die. DIE IN A FIERY PIT OF HELL WHERE YOU BELONG! AERITH IS ZACK'S GIRL, YOU HEAR ME!!! takes deep, calming breaths Sorry... I just hate those who say that the canon pairing is "CloudxAerith" instead of "CloudxTifa" and "ZackxAerith". It makes me SICK! dry heaves Honestly, CloudxAerith has to be the ONLY het pairing that I will ever despise with a passion so far. I don't know why, but it is.
5. If any of you watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special this past Christmas, you may have seen the crappy aluminum Christmas trees they had in there. Aluminum Christmas trees have come a LONG way since that time and actually look like REAL trees once set up nowadays. I should know, we have two in my house: one for upstairs set in front of the window so everyone outside can see it once it's lit up at night and one downstairs that my big sis usually decorates since she pretty much lives down here (it's where our computer is anime sweatdrop) but I got to help her out with the decorating this year, so some of the decorations on it this year are mine, but most of them are hers.
6. For those that might be too tired to have payed close attention to this line, too "I don't give a shit; just let me keep reading this fanfic!", too lazy to remember, or those who just plain forgot, the words "regret for a past event" is just my shitty way of referencing back to when Sephiroth gutted Aerith (Aeris for those who prefer her "correct" North American translation name rolls eyes) from behind with Cloud just standing there, thus effectively making him feel like he couldn't do a damn thing to stop it, like he was powerless. Perfectly sensible reaction to someone saying that you're "too powerful" for anything bad that happens to someone who is NOT enhanced with Mako to happen to you when you have felt powerless in the past, right? ............ only hears crickets as a response Yeah... that's what I thought I'd get. sulking and growing mushrooms in a dark, dismal corner This has been my even SHITTIER way of explaining the words "regret for a past event."
7. And THAT was my even SHITTIER than anything else attempt at being even a little poetic or whatever you want to call it. gags at her pitiful excuse of word phrasing
Kit: Okay... I was originally planning on having this go a LOT longer than it did, but this chapter was getting too damn long for my tastes. Hope you enjoyed this "prologue" and want to read more. I'm too lazy to say any more, so I'll actually let Yuffie say something for once. reaches into Hammerspace and pulls out an icepack to press against her head while Yuffie talks
Yuffie: Read, review, and stay tuned for the next chapter!! Flames will be used to keep KitaraStrife warm while she types the rest of this story up in her basement.
Kit: ... quirks an eyebrow at the self-proclaimed Great Ninja You're hoping to get some form of sugar out of this, aren't you?
Yuffie: Nope! smiles innocently
Kit: You're hoping for Materia instead, huh? -.-
Yuffie: Absolutely not! smiles a smile that Kit immediately knows is false
Kit: You ain't gonna get any fucking Materia from me, bitch. I don't have any, anyways. But you can have a cookie or two. holds out a plate of chocolate chip cookies to Yuffie while secretly hoping she'll just take the entire plate
Yuffie: huffs and crosses her arms for a minute before swiping not only the cookies but the plate as well and running for it I'M HOLDING THE PLATE RANSOM FOR MATERIA!! dives out a window and pulls the strings to a parachute
Kit: watches her leave Tch! Good riddance. I hated that plate; it was a ceramic light pink with darker pink flowers on it. No offense to Aerith, but that is just WAY too pink for my tastes! XP Anyways, like the annoying ninja-bitch said, read and review and stay tuned for the next chapter! I need to get my ass to bed already. teleports herself away
Aerith: ...I'm stealing that plate!