"Whoa! Look Marlene!" Denzel said pulling the vertical blinds away from the sliding glass door in the living room. Marlene gasped as they peered out the glass letting their breath fog the cold surface before them. Midgar was coated in ice this morning. There was an accumulation of at least three inches on the banister outside.
"It's like a frozen wonderland out there!" Marlene said as she and Denzel admired the ice covered city. "Denzel! I have an idea! Let's make hot chocolate!" Marlene said. Obviously, there weren't going to school today and the extreme lack of traffic outside was a sure indicator that the city was in a level three ice emergency. Marlene excitedly hurried to the kitchen to look for cocoa and whatever else it was she wanted for hot chocolate.
"Let's have bagels with peanut butter too." Denzel said trailing behind Marlene. It was unusual for them to be awake before Cloud and Tifa. The door to their room was still closed and there wasn't any evidence of a light on. Tifa however began to stir as untamed blond hair tickled her nose and was half stuck in her mouth. She thrashed her head around a bit and yawned. She squirmed under the covers, shoving Cloud beside her and looking at the clock on the nightstand: 7:52. Her squirming caused Cloud to wake.
"Are you…chewing on my hair?" He asked pulling the covers farther up around them.
"No…your hair is in my mouth and I'm spitting it out." Tifa mumbled closing her eye again. Cloud sighed.
"If you were in to tattoos what would you get and where?" Cloud asked out of absolutely nowhere.
"Is this the result of a coffee hangover?" Tifa asked.
"No…I had a dream where you got a unicorn tattoo." Cloud said. Tifa shook her head.
"If I were in to tattoos I wouldn't get a unicorn anywhere on my body. I would get your name in script writing right here on the inside of my hip bone." Tifa said.
"That's hot. Don't get me wrong, I'm not in to tattoos so please leave your body the way it is but still...that's hot." Cloud said.
"Why were you dreaming about a magical unicorn tattoo?" Tifa asked.
"Hey, I said nothing about it being magical. But to answer your question, I don't know. Maybe it is in fact an adverse effect of too much coffee from yesterday." Cloud said.
"So, what would you get? If you were in to tattoos?" Tifa asked.
"I would get Zack's name with wings around it but then people would probably think I was secretly gay so instead I would get your name on this shoulder." Cloud said.
"Oh Cloud, that much coffee seriously messes you up. Let's drink tea this morning." Tifa said. Cloud jumped at the sound of their bedroom door opening. Thank god they had put some clothes on otherwise this could have been a potentially awkward situation.
"Cloud! Tifa! Get up! Get up! There's ice everywhere outside and it's almost 8:10! You've gotta come see it!" Marlene said jumping in to their bed. Tifa yawned.
"Sweetie, I'm pretty sure it's not going to melt." She answered as Marlene did her best to wrap her arms around both Tifa and Cloud.
"I made hot chocolate!" she announced.
"You did? Okay, we'll be up in a minute, honey." Tifa said rubbing Marlene's back. Marlene smiled and put her head on Cloud's shoulder.
"Did you look at that box of pictures last night?" Marlene asked turning her head around and looking at the box on the opposite wall.
"Some of them. We still have many more to go through." Tifa told her. Marlene could hear the toaster pop up in the kitchen.
"Denzel toasted bagels! I'm going to get one before they get cold. We're going to put peanut butter on them." Marlene said squirming her way off their bed and hurrying back into the kitchen.
"We have got to start locking that door." Cloud said rolling over and practically crushing Tifa to reach the rest of his clothes that were in a pile on the floor.
"We're not locking the door. Let's just both agree right now that eventually one of them will walk in on us and when that happens we will deal with it when it happens." Tifa said pushing herself up.
"Watch that will be the one time we decide to do something seriously kinky and then we'll have to make up some line like all the other couples were doing it." Cloud said.
"Give me that long-sleeved shirt over there on the dresser." Tifa said knowing that her t-shirt wouldn't nearly be warm enough. "Yeah, we'll…come up with something."
"Cid is supposed to call today about the blueprints." Cloud said throwing her the shirt.
"What blueprints?" Tifa asked pulling it over her head and tying the string on the waist of her fleece pants.
"For the living room and the kitchen. You know, tearing that wall out and making it bigger in there?" Cloud reminded her.
"So, we're honestly going through with it? I thought you were just agreeing with him finally the other night because you were drunk and totally about to get laid." Tifa said.
"He may have gotten me at a weak moment but I think he's right about opening that wall up. Why, do you not want to do it?" Cloud wondered.
"No, no. I would love to open that room up. Of course, this house will be torn upside down again but it will be worth it once the project is done. And ooh I can just imagine how we will finally be able to have a beautiful cherry-stained, glass inlaid front door instead of that clunky white thing with the lame wreath Yuffie stuck on there." Tifa said thinking about this home improvement project.
"We probably should have asked him for an estimate on this project. Of course we were drunk, we didn't think that far ahead. I know Cid will do most of the work because the man is a genius with this sort of thing but we need a number from the contractor." Cloud said pulling her up off their bed.
"We'll ask him to give us an idea when he calls today." Tifa reminded him. They walked out into the kitchen noticing that Marlene and Denzel were hard at work with their crude breakfast of hot chocolate and bagels. "Don't you two want something good on your day off?" Tifa asked putting her arms around Denzel.
"Will you make those sweet batter waffles?" Denzel asked with hope in his eyes.
"If that's what you want." Tifa promised him.
"Yes! That's what I want!" Denzel said shoving his half burned piece of bagel toward Marlene.
"I don't want this you burned it, silly!" Marlene said shoving Denzel's sad breakfast toward the edge of the counter. Tifa quickly pitched it away as she pulled her large mixing bowl from the cabinet above her.
"I cannot believe there isn't a single car out there, just emergency vehicles. Does the sidewalk around the bar need de-iced?" Cloud asked already knowing that the answer to that question was going to be yes since he and Tifa were recent owners of the 7th Heaven building. The good thing about owning the building was that they no longer paid any rent...the bad news was that the liability insurance of owning a business was staggering. It was for that reason that collectively Cloud and Tifa chose to rent the space for the delivery business. "You going to work today?" Cloud asked her.
"Are you kidding? I will easily clear 200 gil in tips alone today of course I'm going in. A day like today means a lot of money in my apron." Tifa said. Cloud turned around to listen to what the TV was saying about the ice emergency. Since half of Midgar was shut down, the crowd at the bar would be large.
"Can I come help you with the sidewalk?" Denzel asked Cloud.
"Since when did I say I was going to de-ice it? Marlene and Tifa are going to do it and you and I are going to sit up here, eat waffles and be warm." Cloud said disappearing to get some more layers of clothes on for this de-icing project.
"Hey! Whatever!" Marlene yelled at him.
"Whatever, you!" He yelled back at Marlene. "Yes, Denzel you can help. Go get some more clothes on." Cloud called out at him from the bedroom.
"Alright! This will be fun! Tifa, do you think the waffles will be ready when we're done?" Denzel asked.
"I promise I will make it work out that way, honey." Tifa reassured him. "Don't forget your scarf, you'll need it." Marlene watched as Tifa stirred the batter.
"It always smells so good." Marlene said.
"It does, doesn't it?" Tifa agreed with her.
"Can we have eggs too? I'll break them and everything!" Marlene said.
"Okay, you get them out of the fridge. Do you want to scramble them by yourself?" Tifa asked her.
"Yeah, but you have to help me a little because I don't want to burn them." Marlene said and Denzel and Cloud left to go outside. Tifa laughed at her.
"Okay, I'll help you."
"Tifa? Are all boys stupid?" Marlene asked her seriously and seemingly out of nowhere.
"Hmm?" Tifa questioned her wondering where this comment had come from.
"Boys...why are they stupid?" Marlene repeated herself.
"Well, what do you mean?" Tifa probed her further.
"There's this boy at school...some of the girls told me that he really liked me and wanted to invite me to his birthday party next weekend but every time he's around me and my friends, he just acts like a jerk and does really stupid things to get other peoples' attention. When he's just around me only though he's really nice and stuff. I don't get it." Marlene confessed. The truth was Marlene had already told Yuffie all about this 'stupid boy' on the phone the night before.
"Maybe he's trying to get your attention. Maybe he's trying to impress you and that's the only way he knows how. But to answer your question...yes...all boys are stupid at some point in their lives." Tifa said still stirring the batter as she watched Marlene spin one of the eggs in a slow circle on the counter top.
"Hmm, I never thought of it that way. When did Cloud stop being stupid?" she wondered sincerely.
"When did he stop?" Tifa replied knowing it would make Marlene laugh and she did.
"Tifa!" Marlene said through her laughter.
"He stopped being stupid on May 3 of this year." Tifa answered her sincerely.
"Hey, that's your birthday." Marlene realized.
"Yeah." Tifa answered her remembering that day in her mind as if it happened yesterday. "So, do you like this boy back?" Marlene's face turned pink. On the phone she had told Yuffie yes but she was scared to tell Tifa that...or at least she thought she would be scared to tell her that.
"I...yeah...I do. Is that bad?" Marlene asked.
"No, it's not bad. But Marlene, you can never tell Cloud I told you that." Tifa said.
"Why will he freak out like he did that time I wore a jean skirt to school?" Marlene asked cracking the eggs in the bowel.
"Yes, only, if he knows you like a boy he might have a heart attack." Tifa said.
"That doesn't make sense at all! He was a boy once and you liked him and that was okay!" Marlene argued and Cloud wasn't even here to defend himself.
"Sweetie, that was completely different as far as he is concerned even though you are right." Tifa said. "I bet you'll get invited to his party, you just wait and see."
"If I do, can I get something special to wear?" Marlene asked a bit embarrassed by her question.
"Sure you can, but Marlene? If we go shopping for something special for the party…you can't tell Cloud. This has to be between you and me." Tifa warned her. She felt a little guilty about keeping such a thing from Cloud but she was protecting him and protecting Marlene. She knew how he blew things out of proportion when it came to his only daughter.
"I promise I won't tell him." Marlene said.
"I'm almost done with this section!" Denzel announced. The ice had turned to a light snow which made clearing this ice from the sidewalk that much harder. This stuff was frozen solid and both Denzel and Cloud had to be careful of the slickness.
"Good, we only have to clear it off to the door up there." Cloud said watching Denzel's progress.
"Cloud, why did you join SOLDIER?" Denzel asked as he carefully chiseled away at the ice underneath him.
"To impress a girl." Cloud answered him. Denzel laughed.
"That's the only reason?"
"That was the main reason. Sure, I thought I could be like my idol too but really I just wanted her to notice me." Cloud said working on the other side of the door.
"Was she pretty?" Denzel asked resting his shovel up against his side as he tightened the hood of his coat.
"Yeah, she was. She was really pretty." Cloud said.
"Who was she?" Denzel wanted to know.
"The waffle maker upstairs." Cloud answered him. Denzel laughed again.
"It was Tifa? So it worked then. You getting her to notice you, I mean."
"No, it failed miserably. I never made SOLDIER, I broke her heart because I didn't know how to express anything to her, I never really listened to her all that much, and I made her jealous and I never meant to. And yet somehow, through all that…I got her." Cloud admitted.
"You know what I'd do if I wanted to impress a girl?" Denzel asked still shoveling.
"What?" Cloud wanted to know. He was rather amused actually.
"I'd compliment her hair." Denzel said honestly. Cloud had to make himself not laugh.
"Why her hair?" he wanted to know.
"Because, they seem to spend a lot of time with their hair. Like how Tifa yells at you when you touch hers after she dries it? It must be a lot of work and it's nice to compliment someone when they've worked so hard on something." Denzel said logically as he resumed shoveling. Cloud turned his head away from Denzel and did the unimaginable. He laughed…but not without covering his face so Denzel couldn't see. This very moment, this was why you had kids. They could certainly put things in perspective in the strangest of ways.
