A bit of a holiday trilogy, I wrote these about a year and a half ago but figured, in light of the season, I may as well edit them a bit and post them here. :) Still not completely polished, but I promise the first is the worst of the three so don't let the cheese deter you!

Oh and...I kind of fudged the timeline by a couple of weeks. From the research I did I think they actually left a little before December 25, but since there's no actual mention in the game (or if there is I missed it), I figure I'm allowed a little bit of artistic license. ;-) And to be really technical, who says Gaia has to adhere to the Christian/Western calendar anyway:p


Seventh Heaven always stayed open on the holidays. It wasn't that Tifa didn't celebrate, but it was her gesture of good will—anybody looking for an open bar on a night intended for staying home with friends and family, could only be out looking because they had no friends and family to go home to. Besides, the bar was her home--open or not, Tifa would still be there. She felt it was her gift to the slums, and often it was—she'd had people as far away as the fourth sector wander in for Thanksgiving Dinner before, strangers seated together sharing drinks and laughs like friends who had known each other for years.

This night though, this Christmas Eve, Tifa was pleased by her lack of business. At a glance, it may have been her busiest night—her bar was far from fully stocked, and the room was as loud as ever—but her last customer had left around sundown and she hadn't had one since. Now, Seventh Heaven was occupied only by Avalanche and their junior member Marlene. Barret, who was always considerably more upbeat when drinking, had been loudly declaring that his Christmas present would be a huge bonus for everyone, with little Marlene repeating his every word. Biggs and Wedge had given Jessie a book on electronics, and the three of them sat huddled around it, pointing out ideas they wanted to try, and bursting into excited shouts whenever they got to something Jessie had already come up with on her own. Tifa, always the observer, laughed at her friends from the bar where she was topping off mugs of spiced cider, cheering on the bomb squad as they generated one wild plot after another, and cutting off Barret when his language exceeded Marlene's appropriate vocabulary.

There was nothing to distinguish their celebration from any other house in the slums that night; the only thing different from any year before was the lack of outside company. But they were together—a big, loud, strange-looking family, and they were happy. None of them could have known that this was the last Christmas they would spend together, nor could they have predicted that just days later their fates would change forever. But even had they known, this evening, surrounded by the closeness and comfort that spending the holidays with friends can create, would have been everything they could have wished for.