(2,625 words) Okay, I was being a little slack with this chapter, and maybe with the editing too. That's why I took four days for something so short. I'm keeping this short so I can go read Inuyasha.

I finished another one of my stories so updates can maybe come a little faster. I've overloaded myself, so it's hard to write.

Disclaimer: I don't own this, Vincent is just my husband.

Coin Laundry

Chapter 4: Blonde

Tifa was sitting outside a small shop at a metal table with three chairs around it, two of them occupied. One by her one by Synda, the little boy was munching on an ice-cream cone as he'd already finished his bubble gum flavoured ice-cream. She was half way done a coffee flavoured one as she didn't eat it at the speed of light like her excited son had.

Synda finished the cone giggling happily. His mother picked up the napkin that had previously been wrapped around the cone and wiped clean Synda's grubby face.

"You need to open your mouth wider so it goes into your mouth and not onto your cheeks." She told him in a motherly tone, with a hint of a chuckle. The small boy was so cute sometimes. She enjoyed to time she got to spend with him so much. Work took away a lot of that possible time, which was such a shame.

"Ready to go?" She asked, and took his tiny hand in hers. He nodded beaming and she led him away from the shop and they walked along the concrete path close to the main street of the city until they finally rounded a corner which led to a park, in the middle of which was a playground with a multitude of kids his age climbing on and having fun with their friends.

She walked to it then sat down on a bench, where she could finish her ice-cream without fearing someone was going to knock it out of her grasp.

"Now have fun and be careful. Don't climb on anything you're not supposed to." She informed him; the laughing boy smiled and replied,

"I won't mamma." Before running to the slide where a boy he knew was playing.

Tifa smiled at Synda as she watched him. It felt peaceful here in the park, despite the screaming children. She didn't have to deal with the problematic people she usually had to deal with. No violence, no bad mouthing and swearing to listen to, yeah, this was quite calming on comparison. It was a plus that she could see her precious son having fun, sure he was a cheery boy but she never got to see him with friends or anything. Jessie was the one that took him to daycare. So when she had the chance to see him with other children, it made her so happy she had trouble putting it in words.

She wanted the best for him, because she felt like she had never had it. Her mother died when she was young, so all she had was her father. It saddened her to think Synda was in a similar situation for only having his mother, even if his father wasn't dead, it still left something missing in his life. She was glad there were people in his life to be a father figure to him, for she'd never had someone who could fill in the role of her mother. She'd grown up in a small town, so she barely had any friends, and no one really had anything back there. Midgar was going to be able to offer so much more for him. Hopefully when he got older, she'd be able to send him to good schools, she knew the others working at the bar would help her there, even if they couldn't afford it. Synda was someone they all loved to. Because of her workload everyone took their time to be with him so he was never lonely.

"Mamma mamma!" Synda ran over to her enthusiastically, she eyed him for a second with curiosity but the second he reached her he started yelling what he wanted to say in his cute child voice.

"Those girls over there said they wanted to play with us! But they're girls and girls have cooties!"

Tifa had to use all her restraint not to laugh at his accusation. Cooties, she'd almost forgotten about them.

"Oh Synda, girls don't have cooties, I'm a girl aren't I? Do I have them?" She chuckled quietly, questioning.

The kid pouted and said this, "But you're my mamma, parents don't got cooties, girls got cooties!"

This was getting too cute.

"Synda," She ruffled his hair, which made him pout again. Was it wrong to say it made his face look cuter?

"Just let them play, be fair and let everyone have fun." She told him.

Reluctantly the boy nodded and ran back to his group of friends by the slides. From the appearance she'd successfully got him to allow the girls who wanted to play to join in the game him and his friends were playing. He was a good kid; he probably would have let them play eventually even without talking to her about it.

Tifa sat on the bench for around an hour, letting him have all his fun. All she had gotten up for since she'd come here was to put a napkin in the bin which she'd used to clean her face with after her ice-cream.

When she did her eyes had strayed and she noticed a man decked out in all black sitting under a table a few metres away smoking a cigarette. When she noticed he was blonde, out of habit she stared at him for a minute or so trying to spot roots. Every blonde person she found, male or female, wasn't naturally blonde. Usually they were a brunette. Even when they'd just dyed their hair it could still be possible to tell on occasions. She frowned when she noticed she couldn't see any. Either it'd been professionally dyed, or that hair was natural.

Heh, a natural blonde, she hadn't seen anybody like that since she'd left Nibelheim. Dismissing it, she turned and went back to the bench.

The following day Tifa woke up early, earlier than usual. And when she found she couldn't return to her little dream world, she got up and watched TV. She hadn't the slightest clue what time it was, just before sunrise was what she got when she finally looked out the window. She usually didn't wake till 7, when Synda jumped on her bed demanding breakfast.

Her shift didn't start till close to noon, work was common for her to start later in the day, as she worked the night shifts most night. When 7 o'clock came around she heard Synda scurry into her room to wake her up, and she clearly heard his confused questions when he found it empty. She called out to alert him she was in the lounge room. The boy ran out giggling and jumped into her lap.

She talked with him for a bit, and let him watch his favourite cartoons until she got up and went into the kitchen and got him some breakfast. She rummaged about to see what they had left, someone desperately needed to go shopping to restock the shelves. She found a box of chocolate flavoured cereal so she chose that and made a bowel for him.

"Synda. " She called him over, "Breakfast!"

Synda scampered over with a smile covering his whole face.

He ate while she made herself toast. Breakfast was a silent as each were too busy eating to talk to one another. When her son finished Tifa put his bowel in the sink and cleaned the spilt milk of the table. He was a messy eater.

She watched TV with him for an hour before Jessie woke up and forced Tifa to aid her with some chores. Noon reared its head far faster than she'd like, and she knew she had to hurry up and get ready. By the time she was dressed Jessie had already gone and driven Synda to daycare, so despite missing that she hadn't the chance to say goodbye today at least it made leaving quicker.

She ran down the steps to go find Barrett, again she made a plea to borrow his car, but at least this time he was more willing than last.

Tifa turned on the car engine and it roared to life. A soft breeze came in through the open window, coming from the outside of the garage. It was refreshing after being in the stuffy confined place, even when most of what she breathed in stank of gas. She reversed out and spun the car around so her front faced the road. It was a pain turning such a big thing in the tiny driveway, but she'd adapted after having to do it almost every day since coming to Midgar.

The sun was blocked by clouds, and it was quite nice not having the blinding orb around, it wasn't like it was a cold day. The weather was nice for once. As she drove closer to the station traffic began building up, but luck was on her side today as just before it got horrific she turned in to the station and got out of it.

Today she was being put on patrol; her partner for the day was a man she rarely saw. Another officer named Jackson. He wasn't a bad guy, but when he got angry he may as well have shape shifted into a horrifying monster.

The day was uneventful, and by the time the sun began to set nothing had occurred at all. It almost seemed wrong, this was Midgar after all. It had a million and one poor people so usually at least a robbery would happen. People got desperate round here, not to mention it had a drug problem. It just made things all the more worse, and the department couldn't even find where the dealers were, or where they were getting their stuff from. It was a confusing matter, sure the force was small and all their equipment was outdated, but enough time had gone by for at least one dealer to be brought to justice. Strangely that was not so.

For Tifa, the night went almost as the day had. Three couples had to be handled with after they caused some trouble for neighbours on account on being drunk, but that wasn't much for this city. Two such occasions had even occurred down in the slums. She was glad the mundane shift left her without having to witness her partners terrifying anger, thank the lords that the few they were alerted about hadn't been any trouble. For the second couple, the man had been too drunk to stand; he'd been complaining and talking gibberish on the floor, waving about a half empty bottle that he spilt everywhere.

It was late when the shift ended, and Tifa was intent on getting home as soon as possible. But just as she was to enter her car, she heard something that caught her attention. Someone back inside was going off their head at another. She didn't recognise the voice and knew that whatever was happening didn't concern her in the slightest, she couldn't help her curiosity. She crept back in the doors and stood on her tiptoes to look over the men blocking her view. One of the higher-ups was standing in front of a girl sitting on a chair. His was angry and his face was turning purple. But she didn't appear to be putting him in a bad mood on purpose. She was small, with short black hair little more than boy's length, her clothes were looking worse for wear, but the main thing was how terrified she looked. Tears edged both of her grey eyes.

Tifa looked about for someone she knew could give her a hint on what was going on. She found Sia leaning against a wall listening in, probably doing what she was doing. She had severe doubts this concerned him either.

"Sia, what's happening, why is that girl there?" She questioned; her curiosity too much.

Sia looked up surprised; he hadn't thought her the type to eavesdrop. "Apparently she has some connection to a drug ring. Boss is trying to get her tell spill whatever she knows. And as you can see, he's intimidated her to silence. Honestly I don't even think she knows anything." He looked to her with a sympathetic look.

Tifa turned back to look at her again as well.

"If it is true though, what do you think would have to happen to get you that kind of life so young? She doesn't look a day over 15." The question came out barely more than a mumble, she hadn't intended it to be so but she almost lost her voice as she wandered into her thoughts, trying think up an answer herself.

"Rumour has it she's a prostitute too; bet that'd really make you wonder eh? Let's just say life is all one horrible horrible game with the odds stacked against us."

Tifa bit her lip and looked away; she didn't want to hear anymore.

Life is a horrible game, when a moment all is right, it throws a curveball at you and all is lost again. Sometimes never to be regained.

A man stood by the door of an apartment; he'd been waiting for the occupants to come back for over an hour. He didn't have anything to do with his day so this was his best option. He was short, with blonde hair dyed black at the tips. His outfit consisted of black jeans, black jacket and a plain white tee. His clothes and brown boots had all seen better days, but he hadn't enough money to buy himself some more.

He stared at the wall and attempted to go off into a trance, but after ten minutes of trying he gave up. He was starting to wish he hadn't used up the last of his packet of cigarettes. He sighed and sat down, if his back and legs could talk they'd be thanking him right about now, an hour of standing didn't do one good. He blew at a strand of hair stubbornly covering right his eye. He may need to have a haircut as well, not like he had the money.

He was about to give up and leave, but just his luck the man he was waiting for came around the corner a second before he was going to get up. He used the wall behind him to assist him into getting to his feet, and waited for him to reach him.

The taller black-haired man upon noticing him grinned and covered the remaining distance between them in less than a second. The brunette previously at his heels trailed behind with a coy smile gracing her pink lips.

"Yo, Cloud, haven't seen you in ages!" Zack slapped his hand on his shoulder and with a laugh ruffled his spiky blonde hair.

Cloud smacked his hand away and fixed up his hair, which looked even worse than usual thanks to him.

"Yeah, hi to you to." He mumbled, his friend had actually managed to hurt him simply by ruffling his hair.

"You gonna come in? We can catch up and stuff, haven't seen you in what? Three months?"

"Four." Cloud corrected.

"Jeez, feels even longer, but hey come on." He swung the door open, which Cloud realised he must have forgotten to lock it, and they walked inside. Aerith shut the door behind them.

I'm just mentioning this for the heck of it. Two days ago my sister's gone and asked me, "So is Synda's dad an OC or an actual character?" Obviously asked because of my obsession with OC's which I only got over a little while ago.

Instead of answering I grinned evilly and walked backwards out of the room. Even though she was yelling at me to answer.

Sorry my lips are sealed.

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Also if you'll be nice could you check out my precious 'Wings of regret'?

Jya ne,

~Serah Villlers Valentine