"Just a little further." she said to herself as she continued to kick her legs as fast as she could. She saw the moon shining through the rippled surface and her hands clawed through the water as if it was the lid to her own coffin. Her lungs were burning and she knew if she didn't get any air soon she was going to drown.

As she forced her body to keep moving, she began to hear a voice calling for her through the waters distorted gurgles. An even bigger fear began to set in and she desperately fought the water to break the surface.

Hope was brimming as she felt her fingertips brush the surface. She stretched out her arm and her hand broke through her watery grave, but something grabbed her ankle. A screamed raged through her she felt herself being pulled down. She didn't want to die, not now!

"Help me, somebody please help me!" Suddenly a white light engulfed her and she found herself lying in her bed, drenched in a cold sweat. She rubbed her eyes and sighed with relief, "It was only a dream."

"Shazz! Hey, are you up?" Shazz looked towards the open bedroom door and recognized the voice that was calling her name.

"Y…yeah Tifa, I'm up."

"Hurry up, your breakfast is getting cold."

Shazz shook away the awful images of her dream away and threw her legs over the side of the bed. She cringed a little as her bare feet touched the cold hardwood floor and grabbed her fuzzy pink rove that lay on the foot of her bed. She put it on as she headed down the stairs. As she entered the kitchen, she saw Yuffie, Tifa, and Marlene all setting at the table, enjoying a fresh batch of pancakes.

"Good morning Shazz." Marlene said with a big smile. Shazz replied with the same warm greeting and took a seat across for the young girl. Tifa took a couple of pancakes from the plate in the middle and set them on Shazz's plate.

"Oh, thank you Tifa."

"I can't believe you slept in on a day like today." Tifa said as she passed Shazz the butter and syrup. "You're not getting cold feet are you?"

Shazz giggled, "Of course not."

Everyone at the table was in high spirits today, but Shazz in particular, was eager with anticipation. Her and Tseng were getting married. They had only been dating six months when he purposed and it was another six before wedding.

Tifa had closed down the bar and kicked out all the boys so that Shazz could celebrate her last night as a single woman. Cloud and Denzel ended up staying with Barret's place.

"Ok Shazz, I have your dress, shoes, veil, and make up all packed and ready to go. The flowers should have already arrived at the church and Reno and Rude finished up setting up all the pews. As of right now, we have about an hour left before we have to be at the church so hurry up an eat."

Shazz smiled and nodded her head. She was glad that she asked Tifa to help plan the wedding, but sometimes, she was a bit overbearing. "Thanks Tifa, I really appreciate all the work you've put into this."

"No problem, but seriously, you need to eat."

Shazz shoveled half a pancake in her mouth and washed it down with a glass of milk. Tifa gave an approving nod and began to finish her breakfast.

"So Shazz," said Yuffie who was leaning back in her chair with her arms folded behind her head. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and grey sweat pants. "have you given any thought about what you're going to do for that whole something old, something new, something barrowed and something blue?"

"Well," Shazz put down her fork and pointed to the diamond earrings in her ear. "These were my mother's. She gave them to me when a graduated high school. That is my something old, other than that, I haven't really thought of anything else."

"Well here, you can barrow this." she handed Shazz a miniature version of her weapon of choice.

"A sh…shuriken?" said a very nervous Shazz

"Yeah, I used this when I was four and started training. It holds a lot of great memories for me." she looked upon the blades like mother might gaze upon her new born child. "As your friend, I want you to have it with you when you get married, you know, just incase the groom tries any funny business."

Shazz smiled nervously as she realized the Yuffie was being completely serious. "I…I,,,I appreciate this very much, but I don't think…" she felt Tifa kick her underneath the table. She looked over to find Tifa subtlety shaking her head as if to say, "You'd better just accept the gift"

"What I mean, is that I don't think I could thank you enough for this…uhhhhhh…lovely gift." Shazz gingerly placed the shuriken down on the table, she didn't want to slice her hand open before the wedding.

"No thanks needed, anything for a friend." Yuffie said with a huge grin

"Well now that we have that cleared up," Tifa said with enthusiasm, "I'm dying to know where you and Tseng are going on your honeymoon?"

"Well, we got our own private cabana on our own secluded part of the beach in Costa Del Sol."

"Seriously, sounds really romantic." All the women laughed as they noticed Shazz blush at the thought of her own honeymoon.

"What's a honeymoon?" The room became deathly quiet as all heads turned to look at Marlene.

"Well…uhhhh…Marlene," Tifa stammered as she tried to find a PG way of explaining this "it's sort of like…a little vacation."

"Vacation? Are we going?"

"No, only Shazz and Tseng are going."

"Why?"

"Because they want to be alone."

"What for?"

Tifa was finding it hard to keep up with all the questions. She could feel the sweat starting to form on her forehead as she looked into Marlene's probing brown eyes. "Because, they uhhh….want to…"

"Build sandcastles!" Yuffie quickly interrupted. Shazz and Tifa looked at her like she was out of her mind, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

Marlene turned to look at Shazz, "Can I come too? I'm really good at building sandcastles and I can help you build one so big it will reach the sky!"

Shazz smiled at the innocent girl. She knew how to defuse this situation because she had to talk Zack down from a ledge every time she started seeing someone. "Look Marlene, I would love for you to come but I need you to stay here to look after Cloud. You see, Tseng and I want to build our own sandcastle and you know how bossy Cloud can be, plus, I need you here to make sure he doesn't get too lonely when I'm away."

Marlene gave a confident nod. "Sure thing! I'll be sure to take good care of Cloud while you're gone."

"That's my girl."

"Alright you guys," said Tifa as she stood up from the table and started to pick up the dirty dishes "the time is done for conversation. I want everyone to start getting ready."

"Ok Tifa, don't get your undies in a bunch." Tifa glared at her and Shazz high tailed it up to her room. She went over to the dresser and put on Zack's old sweats, mainly because this was the closest Zack was going to be at her wedding. She was about to throw her hair up in a ponytail when she cell phone rang.

She quickly flipped the phone open to answer it. "Hello. Are you here?"

"Yeah, I'm parked right outside," came the voice on the other end

"Has she seen you?"

"No, I shut my bike off a few blocks away and walked it here. You'd better hurry because this window won't stay open for long."

"I'm well aware of that. I'm going to be running right through the door and as soon as my butt hit's the seat, just take off." She hung up the phone and tip toed down the stairs. She was about to the door when she heard a voice behind her.

"What are you doing, you're not even ready?"

Shazz smiled and out of nervousness, began combing her fingers through her hair. "Oh…uhhh…I thought I would just get ready at the church, you know, so I don't get my dress dirty."

Tifa arched an eyebrow in suspicion and an awkward silence feel upon the room. Shazz wasn't an idiot, she knew that look meant that Tifa was about to figure out what was going on, but she wasn't going to give time to talk her out of it. Shazz bolted out the door and Tifa quickly gave chase. When she noticed that Shazz was running towards Cloud who was sitting on he motorcycle, a ball of anger bounced around in side her stomach.

Shazz hopped on the back of the bike and shout at him to go. Cloud kicked the bike into gear and revved his engine. Tires squealed as he pealed away, Tifa still trying to run after them. She realized that she was never going to catch up and shouted after them "Dammit Cloud! If you make her late for her own wedding I swear to god I will rip out every spiky hair on your head!"

Cloud glanced back to the disappearing image of Tifa and then back at Shazz who seemed to be quite amused about the whole situation.

"Are you sure about this?" Cloud yelled over the sound of the engine "She did seem pretty mad."

"Yeah at you, not at me."

Cloud let out a low chuckle and shook his head. "You knew this would happen all along didn't you?"

She let out a laugh that was filled with sugar and spice. "Of course, I'm always right you know." She wrapped her arms around his waist as they whizzed down newly paved roads. The warm summer sun mingled with a light breeze to create a most perfect day. Fields with rows of corn and prairies littered with wild flowers stretched far and wide as puffy while Clouds dotted the azure sky.

Riding on the back of Cloud's bike was something she always looked forward too. It was the only time that her and Cloud were alone under the watchful gaze of the clear blue skies It was a comfortable feeling that they alone were able to share.

They slowly came to a stop and Shazz quickly got of the bike and made her way across a rocky plateau. Patches of grass were speckled with tiny white flowers and any signs of the battle that had once taken place here had long since been blown away with the wind. They remnant of the past was a rusty buster sword that stuck out of the ground.

Shazz laid a gentle hand upon the handle. "Can you believe it Zack, I'm getting married! I can honestly tell you that I've never been this happy." He eyes drifted towards the heavens. "You'll be there won't you? I mean, I did come all this way to deliver a personal invitation?" She kept watching the skies in hopes that a sign would appear, but nothing happened. She let out a heavy sigh and her eyes became downcast.

"Are you ok?" asked Cloud as he came up behind her.

"Yeah, it's just that, I thought that since the today was really important, you might do something to let me know I had his blessing."

Cloud stood by her side and looked up at the still sky. "He has been rather quite lately, which is not like him, but I guess this just means that he is truly at rest." He put an arm around her and pulled her close. "I bet, when you least expect it, he'll make his presence known. After all, this may be the last time the three of us will be together."

Shazz looked up at him with utter disbelief, "Is that what you think is going to happen? Yes, I'm getting married but that doesn't mean I'm going to cut you out of my life."

"But you'll be wanting to start a family and…"

"You are my family Cloud and Tseng is just becoming a part of it. If we happen to be blessed by the pitter patter of little feet, then I wouldn't want to raise them without their Uncle Cloud."

He smiled and it made his whole face soften. Uncle Cloud had a nice ring to it. "Well, in that case, here's a little something to sweeten the deal." He handed her a small white box.

Shazz took and eagerly removed the lid. "Oh my god! Cloud, this is beautiful!" She pulled out a sparkling silver necklace that had a sapphire pendant that was cut into the shape of a heart.

Cloud helped her put it on, "I saw this in a window of a little boutique and when the sunlight hit it, it reminded me of Zack's eyes."

Shazz held the gem to the sun's rays. The light made the jewel sparkle with a million shades of blue and she could feel the lump in her throat begin to form. Cloud was right, Zack's eyes would shine just as brilliant as this sapphire pendant.

Cloud smiled as he watched his friend marvel at the jewel. "I take it from your lack of words that you either really like the gift, or you just realized that I was right this time."

A tear ran down her cheek, "You stupid boy, look what you've done." Before Cloud had the chance to respond, he felt Shazz crush her body against his in a loving embrace. "Thank you."

They stood there for a moment in front of that sword and allowed the sun's warm light to consume them. It was bittersweet to stand there and know that they had finally moved on with their lives, happy lives, but lives they had always thought Zack would be a part of.

Shazz finally broke the embrace, brushed away her tears, and replaced them with a smile. "So I guess, this takes care of new and blue part huh?"

Cloud nodded his head, "Speaking of wedding traditions, I need to get you to the church before I end up being bald for the ceremony."