I am really, really sorry. I had to focus on my studies and on my thesis. Now I hope have some more time to write, and find a job since the school I worked kicked me out when the semester ended.

I want to thank the new readers who reviewed and started following this story while it was on hiatus.

Hope you like this chapter, please leave a review telling me what you think. And sorry for my english.


The two-day break were not as boring as Denzel thought it would be, he would say it was a blessing having some time out. Because of his injuries, his choice of activities were limited, so he chose to spend his free time studying for his missing classes and trying to find a way to make the recoil from his MPGS less violent.

Unfortunately, he was unable to do more on his gunblade than calibrating a little the aim and improve the power line. As a big fan of engineering and weapon design, he had a lot of material to help him learn, books, magazines, even some annotations Reeve gave him, but his ability was still too shallow.

During this time, Nanaki proved to be a pleasant company when he did not eavesdropped in Denzel's personal life and gossiped it to Marlene and Tifa. The fire-lion would lay lazily while Denzel read, asking a few questions about the reading from time to time.

Marlene and Cait Sith also did a good job in making some company to the teen. After school, the two of them came to the bar to play a board game with him until the closing time. It was fun seeing the cat robot get frustrated with the girl's victories against his 'flawless strategies'.

The only problem, which pained Denzel's heart, was Tifa. He could see how his foster mother was putting too much effort in making him comfortable, something that could indicate worry and/or guilt.

'Not your fault' he wanted to say 'There was no way you to know that the guy would come for trouble while you were out'.

However, as usual, he never said a thing.

Relief came when he had the thumbs up to go back to his usual routine, but, of course, he had to explain his absence to the school board. Because of it, Cloud came with him, worried about the Vice Principal not believing in Denzel when he told the made up story they came up the night before and call the social service.

Since it was already out the rumor of the Seventh Heaven being broke in, Cloud told a story about a small gang of burglars breaking in the bar while Denzel was home alone and had to fight the bandits until help arrived.

"I'm sorry such thing had to happen with you, Mr. Strife."

"Luckily the insurance is going to pay for all the damage"

"Thank you for setting everything right" The vice-principal looked the papers that had been given to him before turning to Denzel "If you wish so, you can take a few more days off, Denzel."

'Don't pity me' "Its okay, this just looks bad." He said pointing to the bruise covering his cheekbone and part of this eye with a smile.

Seeing that the subject was settled, the educator shook Cloud's hand and dismissed them.

"You sure you don't want a ride home after school?" The blond asked, worried about any pain that Denzel could still be feeling.

'Why can't materia and potions heal everything?' "Yeah, I'm sure."

"Well…" Cloud putted his hand again on Denzel's shoulder "If you want like this, Nanaki will come to pick you up. Don't forget to get Marlene, and you guys can stay out as long as you can, just answer the phone if we call."

"Yes, sir" Denzel playfully made a salutation, earning a chuckle and a pat on the head from Cloud.

Denzel stood still until he could not see Cloud among the students. He made his way to his locker, wondering how he could organize his stuff and carry his books with one of his arms on a sling. As he worked on the lock, he heard a few whispers, turning his head around, he saw a trio of girls whispering between them and pointing to him. The girls realized that he was glaring and walked away.

That small group in particular was known for spreading rumors. Maybe he should had let Tifa cover his bruises with makeup; even with them healing nicely, it still looked ugly. Now he had to wait for the ridiculous stories of how he got hurt. He just hoped no one came up with one involving abuse, he had heard of a girl who was separated from her foster parents because of an ill rumor like that.

He heard a loud gasp at his side. Turning to it, he saw Lucia, visibly shocked and looking his bruises.

"What happened to you?" She moved her hands to gently touch his injured skin.

'One of Cloud's enemy came for him and I tried to kick his ass.' She could never know that, so he had to stick with the story he, Tifa and Cloud had made up. "Some assholes tried to rob the bar, I fought them off".

"That was your 'small accident' you texted me about? You liar!" Lucia hit him with a weak slap on his left arm. Denzel backed up a bit, laughing playfully.

"Hey, hey! What you wanted me to tell? 'Sorry girl, a bunch of a-holes almost beated me to a pulp but I scared them off. See ya in two days.' You'd get scared and overreact if I did that." 'And you don't know about the road burns, cuts and other bruises'.

"Never thought that I'd get angry at you for not telling me everything?" She asked making a face.

Denzel opened a small smile. "No, I expected a nice kiss since I was a hero."

"No" her response was so fast that Denzel didn't realized that Lucia was grabbing his books. When he saw it, he protested. "No choice in this. I'll carry your things until your arm is good again."

"No way." Denzel gripped his backpack more securely "No need for this, I'm not crippled. What you gonna do next? Spoon feed me my lunch?"

"Since you asked so nicely…" Lucia said it in a singsong voice.

"What! No! I mean-" Denzel was pushed against the lockers. He felt a jolt of pain all over his body, but just grunted.

No chance for him to just slide down to the floor and take the time for his head stop spinning, the same person who pushed him was lifting him up by his jacket, his back on the lockers. With no surprise, he saw Rick in front of him, smiling mockingly.

Lucia tried to get him, but was barred by one of Rick's friends.

"Look what this. So, the word of the last two days were true, someone did beat the crap out you…"

"And if you wait three more weeks, I can do the same with you." Denzel used his usual 'unimportant subject' voice tone. "C'mon Rick, we both don't want you to gain fame on hitting a injured foe, it will make your reputation change from 'bully' to 'coward bastard' "

"No if everyone believe that it was me who did this on your pretty face, my buddies already began to spread the word."

Denzel laughed a little. "Really? You never took me down Rick; everyone knows it. Besides, everyone probably already heard that someone tried to rob my guardian's bar. Come on… Can't you wait half a month for us to fight in public?"

Rick punched Denzel in response. Lucia screamed and tried to go to him, but one of the boys held her. Denzel barely had time to recover, Rick punched his uninjured side of his face again, and then just below his ribs, the same spot that was still sore.

No one in the hallway moved, no one stopped Rick, impossible to know if it was because of shock or amusement. The only sound that Denzel heard besides Rick's mocking voice was Lucia's screams of protest.

"Ryan! What a hell are you doing with Lockhart?!" upon hearing coach Jones' storming voice, Rick immediately let go of Denzel and backed up holding his hands in the air. Denzel slipped to the ground, dizzy. Lucia, now free, went beside him. Apparently, someone had gone to fetch a teacher instead of watching the show.

"He attacked me coach, I have the right to defend myself." Rick had a smirk on his face.

"Don't insult my intelligence, Richard. You and your friends are going to the director's office and wait me get there. Now."

The boys followed the order without complaining, they even seemed pleased. Coach Jones did not paid attention on it, he turned to Denzel, who was being helped by Lucia to stand up.

"Denzel, are you okay?"

"Yeah, Rick hits like an old lady" When Lucia let go of him, he stumbled on his feet and almost fell. "Okay, maybe I'm a little dizzy."

Lucia supported his weight again, Denzel was too heavy for her, but she still could help him walk. Paul got Denzel's and Lucia's things.

"Come on, let's take him to the infirmary."

Denzel ignored how the P.E teacher talked like he wasn't there, the dizziness kept him too busy to protest. Rick wasn't as strong as himself, but his punches probably worsened the injuries he already had, making him feel nauseous.

'Why didn't I kicked his ass for good yet? Oh yeah, I'm a pussy'

As they got closer to the Infirmary, he felt his nausea worsen, until a bad taste came up to his mouth. Lucia probably felt him shudder, because she immediately stopped.

"Denzel?"

"I gonna be sick"

Lucia let him kneel and went to get a trash can, putting it in front of him. After Denzel emptied all contents from his stomach, the coach changed places with his girlfriend, helping him walk instead of her.

Arriving at the Infirmary, the school nurse never asked what happened; she instructed them to the bed and went to grab something from the cabinet. Denzel refused to take off the sling and his jacket to lie down, but accepted the nausea medicine and the painkiller he was offered.

Just a minute after lay down, the teenager fell asleep; the combination of the medicines he took earlier with the new ones were too much for him stay awake.

Lucia sat beside him, watching him sleep. She moved some of his hair away from his forehead. No scar, a few small cuts and a growing bruise, but nothing that marked his skin permanently. She huffed a little. Her eyes found the dark-green and gray cellphone on the desk at their side; Denzel had took it off his pocket to lay down.

She let a small smirk out and grabbed it, immediately looking at the messages and the contact numbers. Quite a lot contacts for a loner. The girl grabbed her own phone and started transferring a copy of all information from her boyfriend's gadget to hers'.

After she finished, she saw that the image that he used as wallpaper was a photograph of them together. How romantic.

She flipped the phone shut and putted it back where she caught it. Lucia eyed Denzel's injured face for a few moments before gently caressing it with one finger, the bruise would disappear when the bone healed completely.

"He was pretty harsh on you, wasn't he?"

Her hand was hovering his throat when Denzel stirred, that made her move her fingers back to his hair.

When Denzel opened his eyes, he saw Lucia combing his hair with her fingers and smiled.

"Hey"

"Hey there." She also smiled "You look pretty adorable while sleeping, you know?"

"Then, you must have a sight problem" Denzel slowly sit up. "These bruises hardly make me adorable. How long I slept?"

"Almost an hour, I think. The coach said he would call your parents after he dealt with Rick."

Denzel's eyes went wide and he screamed "What? And you let him?"

Lucia shrank back to the chair she was sitting on, not expecting Denzel to raise his voice. "Should I have not let it?" She asked in confusion.

The teen never had the chance of giving an answer, because immediately after Tifa got in the room and rushed to him. She kneeled in front of him, completely ignoring Lucia, and started inspecting his face, staring a little sad at the new bruise he got.

"Why you have to be a magnet for trouble?" she asked as she stroked his face. Denzel looked down and mumbled an apology. Tifa gave him a smile and turned to coach Jones. "Can I take him home now?"

"Of course, Miss Lockhart. Don't worry about the kids who did this, I can assure you that they are going to be punished."

Tifa thanked him and helped Denzel up against his protests. The teen said his goodbyes to Lucia and accompanied his guardian out from school. At distance, Lucia observed them before going to her class, noticing how Tifa had her arm around Denzel's shoulder and how lovely she was guiding him.

'They are close…' she concluded after witnessing how the two interacted with each other. 'This is going to be a problem.'

For a moment, Denzel feared seeing Cloud at the parking lot with Fenrir and waiting them, but Tifa guided him to a Jeep, which he recognized as being Barret's. He got in the vehicle at the passenger side while Tifa got the wheel.

"Should I ask?"

"I had it borrowed after you got out with Cloud, I it needed for an errant downtown. When we got the call from school, we knew that you'd be in no condition of riding the motorcycle." She started the engine "So I decided to keep it for a little more time."

Denzel nodded at the answer and turned his head to the window, looking at the street with a bored expression. Nothing on that day made it a good one. It was particularly humiliating be beaten up by Rick in front the whole school, even if it was clear how it was a coward act. He didn't even wanted to show up at school again in the next day, or ever again.

To make things worse, Denzel knew that Coach Jones had talked to Tifa, but how much had he said? There were things that he knew that the teen wasn't ready to share. Start a conversation with Tifa just became the scariest thing in the world, not even Loz had made him so reluctant.

"Denzel" he flinched when he heard Tifa's voice. "Is there something that I need to know?" Denzel turned his head down and stayed silent. The barmaid sighed and dropped the subject. "It's okay if you don't want to talk now, but you know that Cloud won't accept silence as an answer, don't you?"

XxXxXx

"A fight Denzel! That's the first thing you do when I leave you alone? You pick up a fight?"

Tifa was right, and Denzel hated it. Cloud was waiting them when they arrived home, the first thing the blond did was indicate a seat to the teen and started questioning him. Denzel's silence did not pleased the ex-soldier. To make things worse, his position – with Cloud standing in the other side of the table while he sat on a chair – made him feel guilty and intimidated.

"You attend a high school, not a prison, for god sake! You don't have to fight when you're injured to prove you have balls! So why you did it?"

"Not my fault" Denzel said when he got tired of hearing Cloud's accusations. "Rick is an asshole. He do this to everyone. I was minding my own business when he assaulted me."

Cloud couldn't deny that there were assholes everywhere, but he didn't believed a thing that Denzel said. He just knew there was something more, something Denzel was refusing to share.

"He had to have a motive." That made Denzel shiver, which made Cloud see how close he was to make him talk. "No one attacks someone in your state in public, like he did, for granted."

Tifa saw that too. Believing that Cloud was going too far, she touched his shoulder, but the blond shook her hand off, determined to have some of his questions answered.

"Maybe he was pissed because I gave him the wrong answers during a test!" Denzel had raised his voice, tired of Cloud's accusations. "Why the hell am I being questioned? I'm the victim! Where all this is coming from?"

"This is coming from what you keep from us!" with each word, Cloud's voice raised a pitch higher. "You come home full of bruises, with cuts, with mud and blood in your clothes; give a lame excuse and expect us to not notice something is wrong?"

"I already told you. I fell, I'm clumsy!"

Cloud slammed his fists on the table, making Denzel and Tifa jump.

"Stop lying! You are not clumsy, the last time I checked, your reflexes and sense of your surroundings were great!" Cloud was screaming now. "The truth, Denzel. Now!"

Cloud wasn't the only one to lose his temper. Denzel got up kicking his chair out and screamed at Cloud's face.

"I have to pretend I am! I trip on propose! I pretend that I don't see when the ball is coming for me during P.E. Why? You wanna know why? Because when you taught me to fight, you told me 'don't misuse your skills' and 'don't show off', told me to remember that all my skills are for my protection and not for me to abuse!" Denzel paused to breathe for a second. "Well, I remember all this that you two told me, that's why when assholes mess with me like it happened today I turn the blind eye, never fighting back like I should because I'M TOO DAMN NICE!"

Denzel made a longer pause realizing what he just said, and how Cloud and Tifa were looking at him. He had just admitted that he got in fights a lot, and screamed at them.

'Fuck…' He needed a escape plan. Tifa made a move towards him, he took a step backwards and raised his good arm. "You know what? Fuck it, I don't need this shit!"

The adolescent went past them, going upstairs. Cloud made a move to stop him, but Tifa held his arm. A few moments later, they heard a door slamming. Cloud breathed out and sat supporting his head with his arm.

"Was that really necessary? You really had to scream and accuse him like that?"

"What I was supposed to do? I'm tired of this situation."

Tifa sat in front of him. "You are not the only one frustrated, and I know everything that came up the last few weeks is stressing you. But it's not fair to take everything on Denzel." She sighed. "You were too hard on him."

Cloud rubbed his eyes, admitting his mistake. "What know?"

"Now I am going to leave him cool his head and then fix what you done."

The two sat there for some time. While Cloud thought about his attitude, Tifa wondered how she could make things right. Obviously she had to make her two boys apologize to each other, even so, it wouldn't make Denzel feel any better after the treatment he had received.

'He probably hates us right now'. The barmaid remembered the talk she had with Denzel's P.E. teacher, Paul Jones. According to him, Richard was a recurrent troublemaker, a headache for the teachers, and, sometimes, a bully. He also said that the teachers liked Denzel a lot and there was no way he started the fight, but they suspected he might have a few problems and the teen refused to share.

'The kid won't open up with us, the teachers. I believe he will talk only to you two, since he seems to trust both of you, but you have to pressure him just a little.' That was what he said. Unfortunately, Cloud had pressured Denzel too much. Tifa had to find a way to make Denzel see that they trusted him.

XxXxXx

Spend time by himself was harder than usual that afternoon. Music was dull, the new motorcycle and engine models were boring, not even studying was making him think in another thing.

He screwed up. He screamed at the two people who cared for him the most, his secret was out, and everyone in school probably turned him to the biggest idiot after seeing he get beaten up by Rick. Worst day ever.

"Today, I declare that this date shall be known as the official 'Denzel Lockhart is a moron' day." He chuckled as he ridiculed himself.

Denzel stopped it a minute later; the thoughts were just making him feel worse, instead of that, the turned his attention to the ceiling. For some time, it was the only form of entertainment he had, he would have fallen asleep it weren't a few knocks on the door.

'Go away' "Come in"

Tifa timidly entered the room, carrying a small box with her. She didn't smiled, her expression was a gentle one, showing she was not judging him.

"You didn't lock the door." She observed.

"You asked me not to."

The barmaid sat on the bed, next to Denzel. He sat as she opened the box, reveling a medic kit. Without waiting to be asked, Denzel took off the sling and rose up his shirt, letting Tifa have access to the road burns on his side. None of the two talked as Tifa removed the old bandage from the wound and applied ointment on the damaged skin.

Denzel did his best to avoid eye contact as long as possible, an effort that failed when Tifa gently putted her fingers on his cheeks and turned his face to her. There was a new bruise and black eye on the teen's face, the skin around his piercing had a small, but painful, cut. When she touched it, Denzel let out a hiss.

"Sorry" she took a Restore materia from the box and held it close to his cheekbone. A green light shimmered around the bruise, and little by little, the yellowish purple stain began to fade. When Denzel's skin color turned to a healthy one, Tifa smiled ad stroked it. "Much better now".

She had finished what she came to do, but still had not left. After a few minutes, Denzel finally understood: she was waiting.

"I'm sorry, I passed the line earlier." Denzel said it in a sheepish voice. Tifa turned her head a little, making him hide his face with his hair. "I-I just… I can apologize to Cloud too if-"

He stopped when Tifa patted his head and started ruffling his hair. It felt good, a little awkward, but good.

"You both went too far, so both will apologize. But not now, Cloud is cleaning the dishes."

"But, he hates doing it…"

"That's why it is called a 'punishment'." She let go of him. "And he is doing it for a week."

Denzel sighed. "What is mine?"

"Since I can't make you work with your arm like this, you won't receive your allowance this month. And, you are grounded for a week."

"What?!" he exclaimed.

"That's what Cloud said" Denzel lowered his head in defeat, making Tifa giggle. "Denzel, there is something that I want to tell you."

The chance on Tifa's voice tone didn't gone unnoticed by Denzel, making him fell a mix of curiosity and apprehension about the news.

"Our family is getting bigger." Tifa guided Denzel's hand to her belly. "We found out some time ago. The plan is to tell everyone during the New Year dinner, but it is important for us that you know this before everyone else since you are an important part of our lives."

Tifa kept talking, but Denzel had stopped listening when he realized what she was saying. It kept echoing in his mind 'Tifa is pregnant. Tifa is pregnant. Tifa is pregnant' repeatedly. His trance came to an end with a gentle hand on his shoulder, he did his best to not flinch.

"Sweetie, are you okay?" Tifa touched his forehead with the back of her hand, looking for a fever "Is there something wrong?"

"No, no!" Denzel slapped her hand away and opened the biggest fake smile he could "It's… It's just a little shocking, but is great news!"

Tifa hugged him, making him wince, but she ignored his small protest of pain. She started babbling about how important it was for him to be okay with the news, but Denzel, again, did not listened. Although, he was thankful for the hug, it helped him hide his expression of angst.