Disclaimer: I don't own it. If I did I would be rich and famous and happy.

Rating: T

Author Notes: Hoo, boy. I am so happy at how many reviews I've gotten! It makes me go, "Squee!" I look at my reviews constantly, and seeing all the ones I have on this one make me wanna yell and jump with joy. (I would love more, of course, though! Heehee.)

I'll try to make Loz a little more harsh, but I don't know, he didn't come off to me as harsh. I think he's more like the follower-without-thought/naive type . . . Well anyway, here's the story.

Crawling

Here she was again—with that man standing before her. He didn't give any acknowledgement to her presence. In fact, he stood with his back towards her. She could see all of it—his long, silver hair; that long black trench coat that fell towards the floor; those boots which were caked with dirt and mud—it was him in all his glory. And she knew that when he turned around, she would see something she would never forget—those eyes.

Those glowing green eyes . . .

"Sephiro—"

With a gasp, Tifa shot straight up in bed. It was just a dream. A bad dream, and nothing more. Grinding the heel of her palm into her forehead, she told herself to relax. There was nothing that was going to hurt her, and Sephiroth was dead.

"He's dead, he's dead . . ."

She would've continued her little chanting, but she heard something shuffle about on the floor.

Wait a second . . .What exactly happened last night? The last thing she could remember was changing his bandages and . . .

Oh, no.

She definitely did not remember lying down in a bed. And this wasn't even her room! It was the guest room . . .

'Don't do it, Tifa,' the girl told herself, but she just had to. Peering over the side of the bed, she saw him. It was him—the one who looked so much like the man she hated and despised . . . who was sleeping on her floor. Okay, so somehow they'd changed places. Maybe he picked her up and put her on the bed? But of course, she could think of no reason why he would do that. In fact, she didn't think he even had the heart enough to do something like that.

Taking a deep breath, she told herself to calm down once again. With the bed creaking beneath her, the 22 year old stepped over him and headed toward the door. It seemed so far away. But when she reached it, she hastily shut it behind her.

She leaned back against it, trying to get her heart rate to slow down. Slowly she slid down to the floor and pulled her legs up to her chest. For a moment or so, she merely sat there, resting her chin against her knee. Tifa didn't even notice that she'd started to cry.

"Oh, God . . ." she whimpered, sniffling. She ran a hand through her unkempt hair and buried her face in her other arm. If Cloud were here, none of this would be happening. If Cloud were here, she'd be happy . . .

Or, that's what she'd always assumed.

Relinquishing a long and sorrowful sigh, Tifa stood up and quickly brushed the tears from her eyes. She was a wreck. A pitiful wreck. And she didn't want the kids to see her like this. If the person taking care of them didn't know what to do, what would they think of themselves? Tifa sniffed one last time and cleared her throat. 'You're gonna be okay, Teef, just get through this,' the brunette reassured herself, nodding.

But she didn't expect to feel warmth from behind her, or a husky breath on her neck. Alarmed, she spun around to see that silver haired man, standing there in the doorway. He wore a rather sleepy expression on his face and was wiping one eye with the sleeve of Cloud's old shirt—luckily she'd found one large enough to fit him . . .

No, she shouldn't be thinking about what he was wearing! Her mind was screaming 'Run, Tifa, run!' at her, but for some reason, her body would just not respond. She was trapped—trapped in the gaze of those glowing green eyes.

The man merely blinked down at her. ". . . Morning . . . ?"

Tifa wasn't sure whether he was asking if it was morning or trying to greet her. In fact, she didn't stick around to do so. This was because the second he took tore his stare from hers, she was off and running. How he recovered so quickly, she didn't know. In fact, she didn't want to know. All she knew was that she wanted to climb into her bed and wait until Cloud came.

Of course she couldn't do that. So instead of running to her room, she stopped at the kitchen and slammed her back into the nearest wall. Again she was trying to catch her breath. Tifa had to admit she was feeling anxious and scared. He hadn't given any notion that he was going to hurt her, but she was sure he was capable of doing so. She needed to remember where she put her gloves . . .

"Tifa?"

At the sound of her name, she almost jumped. But it was just Marlene, with Denzel standing behind her. Air escaping from her mouth, she pressed the palm of her hand to her forehead. "Oh, guys . . . you really scared me right there."

Giggling a bit, Marlene couldn't help but smile. "Sorry," she grinned back at Denzel, who smiled back at her. "But we're hungry, and the bar opens in an hour."

"An hour?!" Tifa quickly glanced at the clock. Indeed, it did open in an hour . . . she refrained from cursing. She was supposed to be up and hour ago! Though she didn't want to turn down the kids, she had to. "I can't cook today, guys, I'm sorry. Can you fix yourselves some cereal? I'm . . . I'm really running—"

"It's okay, it's okay!" Denzel put in, noticing the anxiety in her voice. "Just don't work to hard."

They really were good kids . . .

Running up to her room, she picked out some clothes, took a shower, blow-dried her hair, and brushed her teeth all as quickly as she possibly could. Today was a weekend . . . meaning the chance of Cloud coming back was slightly higher. She knew that he wanted to spend as many weekends as possible with Marlene and Denzel. To say the truth, so did she. On those weekends, they were like one happy—

A loud scream interrupted her thoughts. "Marlene!" Tifa rushed towards where she'd heard it. "What's wrong!?" The first thing she saw was Loz standing there, Marlene sitting near his feet. She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists. The blood was already boiling in her veins. "WHAT DID YOU—"

"Tifa!" the little girl ran up to her, hugging her waist. "Mr. Loz saved me!"

". . . He what . . . ?"

The silver-haired man scratched the back of his head, hiding a smile. "I was gonna get some bowls for me and Denzel in the cupboard and I was gonna fall, but then Mr. Loz saved me and I don't think he's really that bad of a person anyway, I think that he was just following orders what his brothers told him to, and his brothers only did stuff because of Sephiroth and I don't think they're really evil at all and I think that you should let him stay!" After that very long sentence, Marlene took a deep breath before looking up to lock eyes with the older woman.

At the moment, Tifa hadn't fully registered what Marlene had said, so she merely said, "Okay."

This sent the girl into a fit of happiness and squealing of joy. Without even knowing how it happened, Tifa was having cereal with two excited kids and the man she thought she despised.

Plopping down onto what he'd claimed to be 'his bed', Loz let out a contented sigh. What a day . . .

He stared up at the ceiling, recalling what had happened over in his head. There was some chasing around . . . well, a lot of chasing around. It was something Marlene had called 'hide and seek'. Apparently, he was supposed to open doors and check to see if any of the two kids were in that 'hiding place' and then if they were, he was supposed to chase them around the house until they stopped at a specified object. When both of them got to said object, he 'lost'. The man still didn't know how or why he lost, but he didn't really care.

And then there was cleaning the bar with Tifa . . .

With his brothers, they didn't really clean anything. But this whole 'dusting' thing was pretty fun. To him, it was, at least. He didn't really like the labor of going around to every corner and whacking it with this weird fluffy thing, but it was Tifa's reaction to the dust. She would wrinkle her nose or sometimes even sneeze.

And he . . . kind of liked it.

Near the end of the day, he helped cook. Er, rather, he attempted to. After cutting himself numerous times with a knife Tifa decided that she'd do it all herself. The four of them sat there after it was ready and just ate together. It almost reminded him when he was with his brothers. Of course, the food wasn't as good and the place wasn't as nice, but it was still fun. It amused him how Denzel and Marlene seemed to never shut up.

Loz's favorite part of the day was something else, though. He couldn't help but smile thinking about it. Before everyone had gone to get ready to sleep, Marlene insisted they take some pictures. The one he liked the most was the one with his arm wrapped around—

What was that?

It was something he hadn't heard for a long time. It was a . . . what was it again . . . oh, yeah. It was the sound of a phone ringing. He let out a sigh, knowing that it probably wasn't Yazoo or Kadaj. But he could hear Tifa's voice down the hallway . . .

"Cloud? Wait, really? Tomorrow?"

He didn't know it was the start of his experience with a whole new type of pain.

Author Notes: This chapter I guess just makes Loz feel more connected with everyone. And dum dum dum, Cloud's coming back? I want more angst in my story . . . I think I'll have some in by chapter 6.

Hahah, yes, I already have chapter 5. But I didn't want to put it up because I'm selfish and I want reviews. So if everyone who reads this reviews I'll put it up sooner.

I'm so evil.

But I love you guys, haha.

Review please!