Flowers by Heart
Chapter 1

Pairings: Yuffie/Riku. Some Leon/Aeirth and Sora/Kairi. Platonic Cloud/Yuffie.
Warnings: Language. Talk of sex. Post KH-2.

Please enjoy, and don't forget to review!

--

It is always on very ordinary days that very unordinary revelations are made.

So Yuffie thought as she glanced around the breakfast table. The table looked the same, with its usual varietal spread of cereals and fruits and breads. Just like every other day, today Yuffie had come downstairs first, messy-haired and bleary-eyed, to find breakfast already made, fresh and warm and delicious. On all those other days, Yuffie had never known who provided their meals, and although today was going to be a different day, she still did not know who provided their meals. They lived in an old castle, though, and today Yuffie mused that there must be servants or some kind of magic, just like she did all those other days. And just like those other days, today Yuffie selected a croissant to be spread with butter and strawberry jam, poured herself a heaping bowl of cereal and a tall glass of orange juice, and took one bite out of an apple. It was delicious and filling today, just like it was on all those other days.

Today was not going to be like those other days, though, no matter how much it looked like it would be; that was why it was going to surprise her family so badly.

Aerith appeared in the dining room second, as she did every day, her honey coloured hair perfectly arranged in a long braid down her back, secured with a pink ribbon, and her rosy cheeks looking washed and fresh. She looked ready for her day before breakfast every day, and she was energizing to look at, even on days not like those days, like today. She smiled at Yuffie as she sat gracefully in her chair at the head of the table and spread butter on a bagel. It was clear she did not expect today to be different.

Leon was third as he always was, the clank of his heavy boots and the jingling of the chains he wore announcing his presence down the hall, before he even appeared in the doorway. He looked tired, dark smudges under his eyes, but this wasn't circumstantial in the least, as Leon happened to look tired no matter what the day was like or was going to be like. It would have been more surprising, and thus more fitting for the day, if Leon had come into breakfast looking well rested. He paused in the doorway and his stormy grey eyes surveyed Yuffie's messy hair and rumpled pyjamas once critically. Then he moved forward into the room, pausing only to lean over Aerith's chair and murmur good morning into her ear, before finally settling into his chair at the opposite side of the table and making himself a plate of eggs. Yuffie supposed it would have been kinder to him if she had come to breakfast dressed and ready. Then, at least, he would have expected surprises. He'd been silently complaining about her sloppiness since she'd been old enough to dress herself.

Cloud wandered in half-way through breakfast. They never expected him earlier than that. He entered the room as silently as a breeze, settling into his chair across the table from Yuffie as if he had been there the entire time. He never spoke, and they never looked at him to acknowledge his appearance. That way, he never had to explain why he was late, and they never had to ask where he'd been. It was just normal, everyday routine. Today, however, Yuffie had to break that routine. She knew that more than anyone, Cloud deserved advance preparation. Today as Cloud reached for the box of cereal, Yuffie raised her eyes to his and met them. Cloud stilled, his hand still on the bright yellow cardboard box. Cloud was quiet like Leon but he wasn't cold, no matter how badly he tried to be. Yuffie understood that better than the rest of their family. Cloud still had the ability to look surprised, and today, he did. His lips parted, almost childlike. He looked desperately younger than he was, and always had. Yuffie remembered how soft those lips had been.

"Guys," she said, finding it the appropriate moment to make today not a normal day, now that Cloud was prepared. "I think I'm pregnant."

Poor Aerith started to choke on her bagel. Yuffie wasn't most interested in her reaction, though. Leon put his fork down quietly against his plate, and raised his hand to rub his scar, eyes falling shut. He did not look surprised, or angry, or happy. Leon looked tired, just as he always did. His reaction might have been the most interesting, but it was not the most important. Yuffie's eyes drifted to Cloud and watched as his lips slowly met again, his expression neutralizing. It was a look of shock that was so difficult to feel, it became acceptance. The room became completely silent.

Yuffie let it be silent for a moment, letting them all recover from the stumbling feeling of today not being like any other day.

"Well," she said finally, cheerfully taking that one bite of her everyday apple. "That's all."

-----

"Riku, I want you to think very carefully about this."

Riku was silent as he folded two pairs of freshly washed socks together. He was packing seven pairs of socks, and six of them were already lined up in a straight line at the bottom of his suitcase. To the right of the suitcase, a pile of clean and warm laundry sat on his bed, waiting to be carefully folded and organized and packed away. He'd washed those clothes himself. He hadn't asked his mother to do it. He hadn't asked his mother to pack for him, either, the way that Sora's mother was no doubt doing it for him. He hated suitcases not packed by him. He would hate opening his bag to see his mother's folding, like it was his mother herself in the suitcase, smiling out at him.

"Riku, I wish for just once you would give me your fucking attention!"

Riku turned. Across the beige carpet of his bedroom, between his desk (where books were perfectly stacked and alphabetized, and pens arranged in order of colour) and his dresser (with every drawer empty and closed) stood his father. His father tall and unfit, his blond hairline receding and glasses perched on his nose. Imperfect and angry. He hardly ever swore. That was all Riku's mother, her voice trembling as she aggressively washed the dishes and asked Riku if he hated her. His father was the calm one, the mediator, but he was not so calm now. Riku looked at him silently, the pair of socks held in his left hand. His left hand had once been the hand he had used to fight and summon power, to hurt and control and manipulate people to make things easy for himself. With his father in front of him, it was nothing but the hand he used to hold socks.

His father removed his glasses and wiped sweat off his brow. He looked less angry and suddenly, startling unsure, as if he had no idea what to do with his son's attention now that he was giving it. Riku hadn't looked at him directly in months. Had hardly spoken to him.

"Your mother and I don't think it's a good idea for you to move away right now," was what he said finally, pushing his gold-rimmed spectacles back on to his nose. "You're not well."

That was his father's explanation for his behaviour. He was depressed, or had some other mental issue. For him, there could be no other reason why Riku wouldn't talk, why he stared off into space, why he locked his door at night and wouldn't let his parents reach him even when they could hear him having horrible nightmares. There was no other reason why their fifteen year old son who had been so active and passionate and cocky had become a nineteen year old that hardly left his own mind.

"I know you, Sora and Kairi have had this planned for awhile," his father continued. "I know you want to be with your friends. But going out on your own can be a difficult process, Riku, and I...are you sure you can handle it?"

His parents thought he was moving to a city on the other side of the mainland to find a job. They thought he would be sharing an apartment there with his friends. They didn't know that he, along with Sora and Kairi, would be boarding a gummi ship authorized by King Mickey to take them to a different world. They did not know of gummi ships or other worlds or King Mickey. If Riku told him, they would be even more concerned for his sanity than they already were. Riku hadn't told them, seeing as how it would destroy the vow of secrecy he'd taken before being allowed to return home two years ago. Riku had only been able to come up with that lie when they'd received a letter from Aerith, authorized for sending by King Mickey, asking them if they would please come help the rebuilding of Radiant Garden, as they were desperately understaffed and there were too many homeless. Sora and Kairi had been eager to help. Riku, more than anything, was eager to go. Desperate to leave parents who loved him and worried about him because they didn't remember that he had destroyed everything, because they didn't remember that he had abandoned them for two years and had planned to abandon them forever, because they didn't know that he had been evil, that he had kidnapped and tortured and killed.

"Riku..." his father stepped towards him, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Don't go. Your mother and I are worried about you. We want you here so we can help."

Riku lowered his eyes from his father's face, staring instead at the knee of his ugly brow corduroy pants. "I can't stay," he said quietly. "You and mom don't even know who I am."

---

Aerith and Leon sat across from each other in the library, their chairs angled towards each other because Aerith insisted on always having discussions while sitting in circular formation, whether there were two of them or ten people altogether. She said it facilitated openness. For Leon, there was going to be nothing open about this discussion. Once Aerith had confirmed Yuffie's pregnancy by asking her questions about her period and morning sickness, and then finally performing a spell to make sure, casting Yuffie in a green light that indicated pregnancy, Aerith had called this meeting between the four of them. Only she and Leon had showed up. Leon was adamant that Aerith perform a spell that would cause an abortion. Aerith was not so sure.

"Aerith," Leon said, his hands folded between his knees, his eyes on the dust floating in the air passed her shoulder. "You have to perform the spell."

"Whether or not she wants it?" Aerith replied quietly, hand twirling in her braid. "Leon, you know I can't do that."

"Why would she not want it?" he asked, straightening. "She doesn't want a baby. It's not too late."

Aerith was quiet for a moment. She didn't want to upset him, even though it seemed inevitable. "If Yuffie wanted the spell to be done to her, she would have asked me already," she said softly, ducking her head to meet Leon's eyes. "Maybe she does want the baby."

His jaw tightened. "She can't have it," he said just as tightly. "She's only a child herself. She doesn't know what it means."

"Leon, she's twenty. There are women in other worlds who start having children when they're thirteen."

Leon met her eyes dead-on. "Do you really think Yuffie is mature enough to raise a child?"

Aerith hesitated. "No," she conceded finally, because it was the truth. Some women might have been at her age. Yuffie was not. "But there are other options. Tons of families in Radiant Garden alone have lost children, or aren't able to have them...it wouldn't be difficult to find a good family..."

Leon stood from his chair, staring down at her cooly. "Perform the spell."

Aerith stood and met his gaze, far from intimidated by the look. "It's her choice."

She watched with sympathy as those haunted grey eyes were lidded, as his hand rose to his scar, as his shoulders slumped. To an outsider, it might have looked like he was experiencing his own pain and his own inconvenience. But Aerith knew he was imagining the next nine months and perhaps the next eighteen years of Yuffie's life and how difficult they were going to be. "You know Yuffie," he whispered tiredly. "She gets attached. It won't be so easy as finding another family when it comes down to it. And she's careless, she doesn't eat properly."

Aerith touched his cheek, and found it warm and rough. His exterior couldn't fool you when you touched him. "That's why she has us," she whispered soothingly. "I'm not going to force her, Leon. The spell could even hurt her. If she wants to have it done, I will do it in a heartbeat. But not until she asks...we can't make that decision for her."

Leon breathed deep, wishing that he could have made the decision for her to stay a virgin until she was menopausal. "We don't even know who the father is."

Aerith smiled. "I know it isn't you."

---

Sora grunted as he heaved Kairi's suitcase into the back of their gummy ship. Their driver, as sent by the king, was an aardvark type man in knight's uniform, and he did not seem very impressed with a keyblade master's struggle to lift a tiny bag. "Single?" Sora asked him in a friendly manner. The irony was lost on their driver, who merely nodded. "I figured."

"I told you I could carry it myself," Kairi called from where she was lounging back against the rock wall of the Secret Place. The gummi hardly fit, but it was the only place they could do this in secret. They couldn't take the risk that Tidus, Wakka or Selphie wouldn't boat over at any time today, a Saturday. "You try to be manly and then you complain about it being too heavy!"

"I wasn't trying to be manly," Sora protested, hopping out of the back of the ship. They were all packed, except for Riku's things. Sora crossed the sand to her. "I was trying to be chivalrous. I don't need to try to be manly. I just am."

"Uh-huh," Kairi said playfully, removing the strawberry flavoured lollypop from her mouth so that Sora could kiss her. His hands found her waist, warm and strong, and soon enough his lips were drifting down to her neck. Sora was getting to the point where just kissing was never enough. It was so different from the shy boy he'd been when they'd first started dating. He'd been nervous to even kiss then. He was a man now. "Sora," she protested, pushing a hand against his chest. "Not in front of the aardvark."

A cleared throat sounded from the entrance to the cave. "Or the friend," Riku offered quietly. His hair was tied back but for a few strands, his suitcase slung effortlessly over his shoulder. "But if you can't keep your hands off each other for a three hour trip, I'll write the King and ask for a separate gummi."

Sora sighed and rolled his eyes, making a show of removing himself from Kairi. "Riku, you put a huge damper on my sex life," he declared, moving over to his friend to take the bag from his hand. Riku let him, because Sora liked the strength that he had, liked using it, whereas Riku was sick of his. He let him because Riku let Sora do what he wanted these days, because Riku owed him that.

"Hold on," Kairi said, smiling at him. "Why are you being chivalrous to Riku?"

"That, that dude looks like a lad-eh!" Sora crooned from inside the back of the gummi, where he was putting away Riku's bag.

"Like I haven't heard that one before," Riku muttered, settling down on to the sand beside Kairi's legs. He kept his eyes on their drawings across the cave, to avoid looking at those legs, how smooth and tanned they were.

"You used to say he was just jealous of your hair," Kairi commented with a smile in her voice, thankfully sinking to a crouching position beside Riku, her hands folded over her knees. "You know it's a gift for a guy to pull off that length."

Riku turned his head just a fraction to smile at her. "You know Kairi, sometimes you make me feel gay when we talk."

She laughed, and Riku watched like it was a beautifully setting sun. "Sorry about that."

Sora appeared then, sinking down crossed legged in front of them. They had to wait until an appointed time for the gates to open, approximately twenty three minutes from then. "Sometimes you make me think you're gay when we talk," he said to Riku, grinning.

Riku looked at him, his bright blue eyes and his familiar smile. "Takes one to know one," he replied tiredly, giving in to the old childhood rhetoric. It was worth it to see that grin brighten.

"So what took you so long?" Kairi asked him, watching his face. "I thought we were gonna meet at the dock at eleven thirty and row over here together."

Riku had felt simultaneously disheartened and relieved when he had come to the dock half an hour late and found it empty of any boats. A lot of the time, he liked to be alone, or felt too tired to come up with the obligatory input to his friends' conversation. Still, everyone liked to be waited for, didn't they? Maybe Riku was just selfish, all get get get and no give give give. It wouldn't be the most shocking revelation about him. "I got held up by my parents," he told them, keeping his gaze on his white and green sneakers, unwilling to view the sad understanding on their faces, the look shared between them. They got along with their parents just fine. Didn't have any reason not to. Never made their mothers sob so hard she nearly vomited. "Saying goodbye, and all that."

Riku winced when Kairi's tiny arm came around his shoulders, when he felt Sora plop down by his feet. Their support hurt, reminding Riku each time how little he deserved it. "This is gonna make everything a lot better, y'know," Kairi told him in her softest voice, sweeping her free arm towards the gummi ship, indicating their adventure. "You'll have the space you need to figure yourself out. No pressure to return to them before you're ready."

He swallowed and raised his eyes to Sora, finding his best friend looking at him with playful eyes dulled to seriousness. Riku was pretty sure that Sora knew it wasn't any figuring out that Riku needed to do. Riku knew only too well who he was, and exactly what he was capable of doing. Sora understood that what Riku needed to do was to figure out how to forgive himself, if it was even possible. To find a way to fit this new person into his old life. Sora knew, because he'd had to do it himself. Even the hero's path was not without consequences. "And if not, at least it's something to do, right?" Sora said finally, punching Riku's shoulder. "When life sucks, build something. I'm sure that's what someone used to say."

Riku smiled. "I'll tell myself it's something Sora used to say."

"Yeah! Right? Quote me. I'm a genius." Sora grinned and pushed himself up, sticking both his hands out for Kairi and Riku to pull themselves up with.

Kairi took it immediately, leaping up and whacking Sora on the head, telling him affectionately that he was dumber than a coconut.

Riku stared at the hand for a long moment, his own still pressed into the sand. Maybe the path to forgiveness didn't begin when you packed your suitcase, or when you took off in a gummi ship, or even when you arrived in a broken town to help rebuild it. Maybe the start was here, in a moment like this. Maybe it was trusting a friend to pull you in the right direction. Once, Riku had reached out his hand to Sora to pull him into the darkness. Maybe it would all start again when Riku reached out his hand to let Sora pull him back out.

He took it.

--

Yuffie stood at the window of her chamber - see bedroom - her small hand pushing back the heavy red drapes that usually covered them. She was listening to the roar of gummi ships as they settled down from out of the sky, the king's men arriving from many worlds to help rebuild this one. Already there was shouting, loud laughter, the scrape of stone against stone. It was going to be a noisy year, but Yuffie thought noise would be like medicine to this place, where it had been too cold and sad to be anything but silent for almost ten years. Yuffie wanted to see her home again, the way she remembered it as a little girl. Yuffie wanted...her baby to see her home like that, too. To lie in the warm grass for hours and know the flowers by their smell.

There was a gentle rapping on the door. Yuffie turned.

"I'm sorry," Cloud said in his deep, quiet voice, his mouth hidden behind the collar of his cloak. Vinnie's old cloak. Cloud hadn't put it on in ages. Yuffie didn't like seeing it, because it was always what Cloud wore when he was feeling guilty about something. Vincent had given his clothes and his weapons to Cloud before he'd been summoned to the castle by Ansem for the last time, where he would later die in experiments. By then, enough people had never returned, their parents included, for Vincent to know it would be a one-way trip. Yuffie thought Cloud clung to the trust Vincent had put him in by giving him his things. Wore the clothes and the weapons when he needed to feel worth something, when he had lost all sense of worth in himself.

"Sorry?" Yuffie repeated, coming forward, her sneakers padding against the carpet. She reached up, tugging down the collar and revealing Cloud's frowning mouth. "For what?"

"I should have known better," he said even more quietly. "I did know better. It wasn't supposed to be--"

"You did me a favour," Yuffie told him, smiling her brightest grin so she could show Cloud that she wasn't mad at him. "And hey, I'm a big girl. I can accept at least half the blame. Maybe even more than half, since I talked you into it."

Cloud closed his eyes, shaking his head. "You're a little girl," he whispered. "I forgot that."

"I'm not little," Yuffie replied crossly. She was tired of everyone saying that. "I was old enough to want sex. Isn't that old enough?"

"Not if you wanted it when you were thirteen."

"Well, I'm not thirteen. I'm twenty. When the baby is born, I'll be twenty-one." Yuffie huffed, turning away. "Leon and Aerith took care of me when they were fifteen. I'm five years older than that, and no one thinks I can take care of a baby."

Cloud watched her pace across the room, his shoulder leaning against the doorframe. He took a breath. "You won't have to worry about munni," he said. "I'll provide you with whatever you need."

Yuffie turned to face him. She'd known she wouldn't be able to fight heartless for munni when she was pregnant or with a baby at home who needed her. She'd talked to a woman who ran a jewlerry store in town and got a job there. She could do it herself. Still. For Cloud to say that he was willing to commit to helping her was not something she had thought she would hear from him. Cloud hardly ever commited to anything. "Do you..." Yuffie swallowed, unsure how to properly phrase such an awkward question. In her mind, of course, she had known that Cloud was the father. But never in her mind had she linked that concept to...to she and Cloud and the baby being some kind of family. She and Cloud did not love each other that way. But that didn't mean he couldn't love the child, if he wanted. "Do you want to be the dad?"

Cloud shrunk back into his cloak, and Yuffie saw the panic surface in his eyes like light under water. She couldn't help it. She laughed. "Don't worry, Cloudie," she said, coming over to him and hugging him, her arms around his stiff shoulders. "You have seven and a half more months to think about it."

Cloud relaxed in fractions, and slowly. Finally, he put his arms around her small waist. "I think," he said, just as slowly. "that I should probably tell Aerith and Leon."

Yuffie smiled into the red material of his cloak. "Can I watch?"

--

Sora threw his hands up into the air in a long stretch when they stepped off the gummi ship. "WOO HOO!" he shouted, gathering the attention of many of the workers near by. His breath was visible in the air, a big change from the sun that had beat down on all their shoulders that morning. "Hello, Radiant Garden! You're looking very radiant!"

Kairi pinched his side as she stepped out of the gummi ship, carrying her own bag because she had insisted. "Shut up," she said, smiling over at the workers. "You're distracting everyone."

Riku took a deep breath and held it as he stood behind them, looking up at the big castle that loomed over the rest of the town. Looking at it felt like looking straight into a sunset in Destiny Island. Painful but hard to look away. Malificent was gone. Ansem was gone. The people had taken back their world. There was no one here who could whisper dark temptations into his ear. "It looks exactly the same," he said quietly, not entirely sure this was a good thing.

Sora shouted again, despite Kairi's words, when Aerith came into view, walking up the stone road towards them, a red coat wrapped around her and a basket of muffins in her arms. Both Kairi and Sora ran to hug her, smothering her laughter with their arms. Riku stood back awkwardly, his bag in one hand. He had never officially met Aerith, only heard about her.

"I'm so glad you guys are here," she said, when they finally let her go. Her green eyes searched and found the tall, silver haired teen standing behind them. "You must be Riku."

Riku nodded, stretching out his hand. "Aerith...right?"

She smiled, squeezing his hand. "I've heard so many great things about you from the king."

His lips twitched slightly at the side. The king believed in Riku nearly as strongly as Sora and Kairi did. "Most of those things are probably exaggerations."

"Aerith, where are we staying?" Sora hooked an arm around Aerith's waist and picked up a muffin from the basket.

"We set up a house for you guys right here in town. We thought it would be easiest since you'll be working on the roads." She turned to head back down the road, gesturing with her hand. "Three bedrooms. A fireplace. It's nice. I'll show you where it is."

Kairi and Sora held hands as they followed Aerith up the street towards their new house.

Riku really liked the idea of building roads.

--

Please leave me a comment/review! It's been so long since I've written fanfiction and I would love to know what you all think. :)