"Mom…I need a hand with this………"
Tifa walked to where her adoptive son's voice emanated from; the kitchen…she wiped her hands dry on a chequered tea-towel that hung loosely over the back of one of the chairs as she passed it and stood beside the fifteen-year-old Denzel;
"What are you stuck on hun?"
Denzel scrunched his eyebrows up as he mentally began running over each line of the algebraic sum he'd just finished;
"It's this; I did everything right as far as I can tell, but I still come up with the wrong answer; it should be three, but I keep getting minus five…I can't figure out where I went wrong! It's doing my head in!"
At this; the teenager unintentionally snapped the pencil he'd been writing with in two, and as he stared at the splintered remains of the 2HB pencil, tears stung his eyes;
"For fuck sake!"
Tifa watched on as her son forcefully threw the snapped pencil at the opposite wall of the kitchen; she knew it wasn't the homework that had him so worked up………
"Where are you going?"
Denzel didn't even turn back as he answered, he didn't want his mother to see the tears that now stained his cheeks…
"I dunno…a walk………"
Tifa sighed heavily as the sound of the bar door closing behind the youth could be heard; she didn't blame him for being angry…hell; everyone was………she idly flicked through the pages of Denzel's maths copy, stopping as a teacher's note caught her attention; she read the red writing quickly;
Not complete Denzel…why????
Her breath caught in her throat upon reading the date at the top of the page; his reason for handing his homework in only half-complete was a simple one; Cloud had never helped him finish it………
It had been two days since the funeral…and things just seemed to be getting worse and worse; Tifa had found Marlene crying in her room on several occasions at this stage, Denzel seemed to be angry constantly; flying off the handle for the even the smallest of things, and little Ciara may have been too young to comprehend what was happening, but even at that, she knew something was wrong; she knew her daddy wasn't there, and she didn't know why………
Tifa turned and walked back out of the kitchen as the sound of the bar door opening was heard………
"You okay?"
Yuffie searched her friend's face with her hazel irises, her boyfriend by her side; the ever enigmatic Vincent Valentine………Tifa shook her head;
"No…Denzel's stormed off again, I don't know where he's gone, and he's really upset this time around…"
"I'll talk to him…"
"Thanks Vincent………"
Tifa watched as the crimson eyed young-looking man got to his feet and exited the bar, you could always trust Vincent…"
"Mam…a daddy?"
Tifa unintentionally allowed a tear to escape the confines of it's red iris as Ciara looked up from where she sat on the bar floor; playing with her toys, wondering where her Daddy was………how wonderful it must be; to still view the world in such a naïve and innocent way, to not know the true workings of life; the way it can cruelly seem to pick on those who have suffered, to punish those who have fought the good fight time and time again…why did life choose to hate those who finally managed to find their reasons to live?
"Tifa, c'mere…"
The young Wutain princess wrapped her arms around that of her friend as more sobs wracked to woman's body; it wasn't fair, none of this was………
Denzel lay back on the white ground of the forgotten city as the sound of yet another stone made an eerie plop as it hit the surface of the lake………he allowed the tears to flow backwards over his cheeks as he lay there with one thought resonating throughout his young mind; why the hell was life so fucked up?
"Getting angry isn't going to change anything you know…"
The teenager sat bolt upright, drying his eyes, as the unmistakeably voice was heard;
"No, but what will; just tell me that Vincent?"
Vincent Valentine shrugged his red-caped shoulders from where he leant against a white, ghost-like tree, he had no answer for that one………
"If I knew, I would tell you Denzel; honestly, I would………but right now the last thing Marlene, Tifa, and even Ciara need is you losing your cool all the time…it's not their fault………"
Denzel hung his head half-ashamedly; he knew that himself, but he needed someone-something to be angry at, the drunken driver who had been the cause of the crash, had, too, been killed…so who else was there left to be angry with but his family?
"Why………why did that happen – that's all I want to know? What did Cloud do wrong? What did we do wrong?"
Again; the ex-Turk was forced to shrug his shoulders………he walked slowly towards the youth, taking in his blood-shot eyes and tired physique; life was being so unfair…
"It was an accident – no one's fault, not even the other driver, and no one did anything wrong………right now you're needed at home; Marlene is upset; Tifa is trying her best to hold everything together, all Ciara knows is that her Daddy isn't there anymore…and things are going to get twice as difficult when your new sister arrives………"
At this; the enigmatic ex-Turk turned and began walking away from the youth; having said all that needed saying…he stopped as Denzel's voice could be heard yet again;
"Don't suppose you know algebra, no?"
A small smirk played on the pale man's lip…a joke; why did all teenagers seem to have these in endless supply when faced with situations like these…but maybe again that was the best way to deal with the pain; just laugh it off in the end………
"Sorry friend; but you got away with it the first time round, we couldn't do anything this time………"
Cloud nodded from where he stood watching his son, unseen by all living eyes, he knew he'd been lucky with that fight; but you couldn't be lucky all the time………
"I'm sorry…"
