Disclaimer: (see other 6 chapters…)


Chapter 7: Pancakes and Plans

"-fie!"

'Hmm . . . what was that noise? . . . Oh, well . . .'

"Yuffie! Wake up!"

She jerked upright, clutching her hand to her chest to stop her heart from exploding at the sudden shout. Yuffie blinked several times, clearing her blurry, sleep-induced vision to see the amused form of Tifa at the foot of her bed. She had her arms crossed and was smirking in an expectant way.

Telling herself that she didn't care why Tifa was waking her up, very early in the morning, she dramatically sighed. "Go away!" Yuffie murmured before plopping back onto the bed, squeezing her pillow over her face in an attempt to drown out the feminine laugh that was now resounding in her room.

Now incredibly annoyed, Yuffie sat back up in her bed, throwing her pillow off to the side. "Teef! You wake me up, almost giving me a heart-attack in the process, and now you're laughing at me!? What is so funny?"

Tifa clasped her hand over her mouth to muffle her laughter. Once she regained her composure, she cleared her throat and gave Yuffie a toothy grin. "Yuffs, I've been trying to wake you up for the last ten minutes!"

Yuffie's eyes widened. 'She's been yelling at me to wake up for ten minutes!? Why didn't she just push me off the bed or something? Oh, wait. This is Tifa I'm talking about.'

Letting out an amused sigh, Tifa walked to the side of Yuffie's bed and sat down. "But the reason I'm laughing is because I guess I forgot how grumpy you are after somebody wakes you up!" Tifa reached over to ruffle Yuffie's ebony hair.

"Hey!" Yuffie feigned offense as she tried to swat Tifa's hand out of her hair. Even though she tried to remain serious and upset that Tifa woke her up, she couldn't help but let a tired smile escape after she pushed Tifa's arm away from her head.

In all her years, Yuffie was always able to keep a mask of seriousness; she was a fantastic actor. Especially when she had an important mission to carry out, in which case she would be kicking bad guy butt with her many aliases and unmatched ninja skills on top of her great acting abilities.

In this instance, she didn't last long at all. Albeit, she wasn't trying hard, but still…

In a sudden burst of noise, Yuffie began to laugh obnoxiously. "Nobody messes with the Great Ninja Yuffie's hair," she tried to say as forcefully as she could, if it was even possible to do so while laughing.

"Oh, how could I have forgotten!" Tifa sarcastically proclaimed, resting the back of her hand to her forehead in fake astonishment. "I am so sorry!"

Yuffie giggled again. "Yeah, fine. Just don't do it again, kay?" Tifa nodded in agreement. "Tifa, why are you waking me up, anyway?" Her jaw dropped when she glanced at the clock on her nightstand that was flashing 7:48. "It's early!"

Tifa smirked at her friend's exclamation. "It's early to you. Maybe you just stayed up too late last night?"

Yuffie crossed her arms, trying her best to remove all traces of emotion that might reveal that she was guilty of something the night before.

Tifa continued, "Everybody else is already up, eating breakfast. I wanted you to get a chance to have some of the pancakes I made before they're all gone."

Whipping her covers to the side and bolting out of bed, Yuffie screeched, "Pancakes! Why didn't you tell me that right away?" She started running for the door.

"Wait!"

Yuffie turned around, a look of pure confusion on her face. "What now?"

Tifa laughed and pointed to Yuffie's shirt. "You might want to put some pants on or something. I don't think your Choco-Mog nightshirt is long enough, do you?"

Yuffie blushed crimson, memories of where she was wearing that shirt last night, and who saw her in it came rushing to her mind. "Fine, Mom, I'll just shower and get changed. Then I'll meet you in the kitchen." She scurried to her bathroom, hoping to all gods that Tifa didn't notice the drastic color change in Yuffie's cheeks. "Be down in five minutes," Yuffie called over her shoulder as Tifa left her room.

Once Yuffie was sure that Tifa was gone, she closed the door to her bathroom and leaned against it, letting go of all her hidden emotions. 'Ohmigawd. How did I end up in my bed this morning?' Her heart rate was beginning to pick up. 'The last thing I remember for sure is talking to Vincent outside on the deck…' She looked at reflection in the mirror, eyes widening. 'He must've brought me back to my room!' She slowly walked over to her bath to start running the water. 'Oh, I hope he doesn't think that I'm some crazy, emotional freak who can't control herself at all!'

The entire time she was bathing and getting dressed, all Yuffie could think was how much she did not want to face Vincent after making a fool of herself last night.

She knew she had to, though, and that made her dread the day ahead of her even more.


Tifa is secretly an expert chef. What else could explain it? She never fails to pull together a meal, at any time or place, for any number of people.

'It always tastes amazing.'

"You really look like you're enjoying those pancakes, Cumulus," came a cheerful voice from behind Cloud.

Cloud slowly turned his head to face Terra as she placed her own plate down and took a seat next to him. "Yeah." He took another bite of his breakfast. "It's good."

"I hope so." Terra rubbed her stomach animatedly. "I'm starving!"

Cloud turned to face Terra once more. "Did you sleep alright last night?"

"Well, not at first." Cloud noticed the smallest trace of pink in Terra's cheeks as she said that. "But, you probably knew that…"

Cloud shrugged and took another bite of his pancakes.

"After we talked, I was much more relaxed." Terra took her first bite of the pancakes. "Oh, you're right! These are amazing!" She reached over for the syrup and doused her pancakes with the substance. "Anyway, it felt good to finally have some questions answered. It was like a knife that was stuck in my head was finally removed!"

"I don' even wanna know what you two're talkin' about!" Cid's voice drifted in as he entered the kitchen, eyes set on the pancakes. "Oh, Teef made pancakes!"

"That probably was a weird analogy, but you know what I mean, right?" Terra whispered to Cloud, trying to hide the more prominent blush on her cheeks.

"Yeah, sure," Cloud responded, most of his attention directed at his food.

"Kay, good!" Terra began to scrutinize the pancakes, then shrugged, starting to eat ravenously.

Cid took a seat across from Terra and Cloud. "Geez, kid. When was the last time you had a decent meal?"

Terra's mouth was full of food as Cid asked her the question, so she had to quickly swallow a huge gulp of food in order to answer him. "Um, I don't know when my last decent meal was…it's been awhile, though." She left the response quite vague.

'She obviously doesn't want to talk about it, Cid.' Cloud thought to himself.

"Aw, come on! How can you not know when yer last good meal was?" Cid gestured to her body, causing Terra to blush even more furiously than before. "I mean, you're in good shape and all. I ain't saying you aren't---No, what I mean is you look great, it's just that since you were that rat bastard Hojo's test subject, I wouldn't think that---Wait!" Cid clapped his hands to his face in exasperation. "This is not comin' out right at all!"

'Tried to warn him…' Cloud thought, even though he had, in fact, never said anything to stop Cid from continuing his conversation.

"Then tell her exactly what you meant to say," came a monotonous voice from behind Cid. Cid whipped around, not expecting such a sudden addition to the conversation. Vincent and Shelke entered the kitchen together.

Shelke continued, "Actually, perhaps it is better if you do not continue at all?"

Cid grumbled to himself, causing Terra to laugh softly. "Yeah, thanks a lot, kid," he sardonically replied to Shelke.

Attempting to change the subject, Terra urged Vincent and Shelke to load their plates up with pancakes to join them at the table. "They're absolutely delicious!" she insisted.

"I will sit with you, but I would rather not eat anything," Shelke quickly replied.

Cid murmured to himself grumpily as Shelke sat down next to him. Cloud caught a few of the words, like "…girls," and "…food."

Terra must not have been expecting Vincent to eat anything either, because she had a look of pure astonishment when he sat down on the other side of Cloud, plate filled to the brim with pancakes. Vincent noticed this and smirked slightly.

"Yeah, we were all surprised too when we found out that vampire-boy over there actually ate food and didn't drink people's blood!" Cid's gruff voice broke through Terra's reverie.

"Oh, no, it's not that…it's just," Terra fumbled with her words, trying to explain.

Cloud liked to think that he would have intervened and tried to make Terra more comfortable…if he wasn't eating his delicious breakfast of pancakes.

Terra gave up on trying to formulate a sentence, choosing to just remain quiet and continue eating.

Cid cleared his throat, feeling slightly awkward in the now silent kitchen.

'It's never this quiet when Yuffie or Tifa are around…' Cloud couldn't help but think.

"So you two must be close, huh?" Cid nodded to Terra and Cloud. He turned to Terra. "Was it hard for you to beat up Cloud yesterday?"

Cloud put down his fork and stared at Cid. 'He really doesn't know when to talk and when to shut up.'

"Yeah, I was really close to Cloud, Zack and-" she was about to say something else, but chose not to. She quickly recovered, "Cloud and Zack were always there for me."

"Sure, but fighting him yesterday! What was that like?" Cid pressed.

"I don't think you underst-" Terra began.

"Cid, shut up," Shelke interrupted.

Cid whipped his head in Shelke's direction. "What--Why--You spend too much time with the brat!" he finally managed to spit out.

"Let's just say that I knew Cloud wasn't trying his hardest yesterday," Terra smiled. "I'm actually kind of hurt that he would believe that I would buy such a crappy act after being friends with him for a long time in SOLDIER."

Everyone's jaws dropped, including the spiky-haired blond. Cloud seemed surprised that Terra saw right through his façade, and everyone else just seemed to have had a question answered that had been eating away at them since yesterday.

Cloud's friends were slightly confused as to why he appeared to lose so easily, but now they fully understood. Cid began to chuckle obnoxiously as the realization sunk in.

Terra laughed softly in spite of the situation at the breakfast table. Turning to Cloud, she leaned over and whispered seriously into his ear, "What did you expect Cumulus? You did take down Sephiroth…" She reached over and gave his shoulder a light squeeze in a friendly gesture. "You probably just didn't want to hurt me, right?" She winked. "You subliminally remembered me...or something..." she giggled.

Cloud gave a small smile in return, eyes twinkling with mirth. 'She always did know that I was a bad actor.'

Now speaking in her normal tone of voice, Terra continued, "We'll have to have a rematch sometime. Where we give it our all!"

Cloud nodded. "Sure."


As Tifa was walking down the hall, she couldn't stop thinking about how Yuffie acted just before going into the bathroom. 'She seemed embarrassed about something. Then she tried to hide it.' She shook her head slowly, laughing quietly to herself. 'I know Yuffie better than she knows herself sometimes. I'm pretty sure it has something to do with a certain red cloak-wearing man.' Tifa smiled to herself. 'But it's just a hunch.'

Tifa wasn't too far away from the kitchen, but she was still able to smell the aroma of the pancakes, and hear the sound of her friends laughing and talking. 'I hope the pancakes turned out okay…'

She finally made it to the entryway of the kitchen, and the first thing she noticed when she walked in was Terra whispering very intimately into Cloud's ear. Cloud smiled when Terra pulled away, touching his shoulder briefly. Cloud said something in reply, nodding, but Tifa couldn't hear any of it. The only thing pounding through her ears was the beating of her heart against her ribcage. And it was painful. 'Sure. Nothing's going on between them…' When Cloud looked up and saw her standing there, she instantly plastered a fake smile on her face to mask her hurt and confusion.

"Hey, everybody! How are my pancakes?" Tifa stepped into the kitchen and folded her arms across her chest, glancing around the table to see who was having breakfast.

Terra was the first to answer. "Oh, they are so good! Thanks you so much for making them!"

There were nods and murmurs of agreement around the table. "Have you eaten yet, Teef?" Cid asked.

"No, I was j-" Tifa started.

"No!?" the pilot quickly interrupted. "Then sit yer ass down right now and eat breakfast, goddamnit! You do too much for everybody else and not enough for yerself!" Cid sighed and shook his head violently. "Women!" he muttered under his breath.

"Alright, alright!" Tifa scooped herself some pancakes from the counter. "Don't have a heart-attack, Cid."

Cid's head shot up. "Are you implyin' that I'm old!"

Tifa stifled her laughter as she took a seat next to him. "No, I just don't think it's a great idea to get yourself so worked up over such trivial things."

Tifa glanced at Cloud to see that he was trying hard to hold back his smirk. "Tifa, go easy on him. He's had a tough morning trying to remember what he was trying to say."

Cid stood up suddenly, pushing his empty plate to the middle of the table. "You too?" He pointed at Cloud. "Fine, I guess I'm just an ol' geezer to you guys." He turned to leave.

Tifa couldn't control her laughter anymore. "Cid, come on! We're just kidding!" She walked over to him and grabbed his wrist to drag him back to the table. "But if you keep responding like that to our jokes, then we might stop calling you old and start calling you other things…"

"Like what?" he retorted.

"Like BABY! That works!" a high-pitched laugh came from behind them.

"Yuffie, how did you shower and get dressed so quickly?" Tifa was surprised to see the ninja so soon after leaving her room.

"You know me better than that, Teef." Yuffie walked over to the pancakes. "When someone says anything about food, I'm there in a flash! Plus, I am the Great Ninja Yu-" Yuffie cut herself off with a sharp gasp. "What!? Only five pancakes left!?"

"Isn't that enough for ya, brat?" Cid snapped back, smirking.

"Clearly not!" she huffed. "But that's okay. Later, I'll just sneak into--hehehe, never mind." She took a seat next to Tifa.

Cid glared at Yuffie. "Sneak into what?"

Tifa laughed. 'Oh, yeah. Cid still doesn't know that it was Yuffie who kept stealing his secret stashes of food from his room.'

"Oh, nothing." Yuffie stuffed as much food as she possibly could into her mouth. To change the subject, Yuffie asked, "Hey, where's Red?"

"Hell, I dunno!" Cid scratched the stubble on his chin. He still hadn't forgotten about her near slip of the tongue, though, and was watching her with wary eyes. "I haven't seen him since last night."

"The last I spoke with him, he informed me that he sensed something strange outside," Vincent offered.

"That's weird. How long ago was that?" Yuffie tried not to meet Vincent's eyes. She was still embarrassed about last night.

"Three hours ago," he replied calmly.

Yuffie's eyes widened. "What? That must've been at 5 in the morning! Why were you guys up that early?"

Vincent just gave a soft grunt in reply, choosing not to elaborate further.

Yuffie huffed in annoyance. "Whatever…" She directed the rest of her attention at finishing her breakfast.

"I hope everything's alright." Tifa was worried. It wasn't like Red to just take off without a clear explanation.

"Don't worry, Teef. Red can take care of himself," Cid attempted to comfort her.

Tifa shook her head slowly. "I know. It's not that I don't think Red will be okay. I'm more worried about why he took off."

Yuffie shrugged. "We'll find out soon enough," she said with her mouth full, causing bits of pancakes to fly across the table towards Cid.

"Git some manners, kid," he grumbled, examining his clothes to make sure that none of the food was splattered on them.

"Sorry," she mumbled.

Suddenly, Terra's mouth opened in a small 'o' as though she had just remembered something. "Um, Yuffie?"

"Yeah?" Yuffie choked out after she swallowed her large portion of pancakes.

"Have you decided whether or not you want to help me---us deal with Filix?" Terra finished, somewhat weakly.

"Yeah, actually." She looked around the table slowly. "I thought about it a lot last night," her cheeks were slowly reddening, and she was avoiding eye contact with Vincent at all costs. "I've decided that I want to help you. Everybody's entitled to a second chance, I guess."

Terra smiled wholeheartedly. "Oh, thank you, Yuffie. You have no idea how important this is to me."

Yuffie was taken aback by Terra's genuine emotions. "It's no problem…but if Sephiroth so much as touches any of us the wrong way, my kunai are coming out!"

Terra nodded. "I get it. I'm afraid that I have to have that mindset too, regardless of how much I don't want to-"

"You really don't want to hurt him, do you?" Yuffie cut in.

Terra's cheeks began to redden. "Um, no."

"Why?" Yuffie pressed. Cloud was looking at Terra, interested in her reasoning as well.

'He doesn't know? I thought that would've been one of the things they were talking about last night,' Tifa thought to herself. She looked back at Terra, awaiting her response.

"I just-What I mean to say is, I think that he deserves a chance to know that he wasn't created by an extraterrestrial lifeform or a mad scientist. He was conceived by a woman that loved him very much, and that would have given anything to see her son live a normal life."

"You're right. She gave her life," Vincent's deep baritone supplied. "But to no avail."

Terra's brows furrowed, and shook her head quickly. "Wait, I don't understand. How do you know so much about Lucrecia?"

Vincent closed his eyes and chuckled softly. "Thirty years ago, I was the same age and appearance as I am right now. In that time, I knew Lucrecia quite well."

Yuffie muttered something under her breath.

"Unfortunately, I knew Hojo as well. And I understand what it's like to be experimented on," he continued. "You are not alone in that respect."

Terra clapped her hand over her mouth in shock. After a few moments, she shakily asked, "You were one of his guinea pigs too?"

Vincent nodded solemnly.

"I'm sorry," Terra's head dropped down.

"There is nothing to be sorry about," Vincent responded. "It is done and over with."

"Yeah," Terra sighed. "But I'm guessing you're cursed with aftereffects of his experimenting too?"

Vincent nodded again, then added, "But not as bad as it once was. Chaos no longer lurks in my mind."

Terra gasped. "C-Chaos? Oh my…"

"Yup!" Yuffie pumped her fist into the air. "And Vinnie was awesome at controlling the little monster too, weren't ya!?"

Vincent shook his head slowly. "If only I had had more control…"

"HEY!" Yuffie banged her fist against the table. "You were a lot stronger than anybody else could've dreamed to be if they would've been placed in that situation!"

Tifa's brows furrowed in confusion. 'First, she acts too embarrassed to even look at Vincent. Now, she's admonishing him for his self-deprecation. What is up with her, today?'

"Anyway…" Terra tried to take the attention off of Yuffie, whose cheeks were starting to burn with the unwanted attention. "So you're like fifty years old?"

"More or less," Vincent calmly responded.

"Whew, I would've never thought of that by looking at you…" she trailed off.

"Now you really know what I meant about that vampire comment?" Cid joked.

"Yeah," Terra smiled.

"When we met him, he actually was in a coffin!" Tifa laughed.

Vincent cleared his throat awkwardly. Terra looked flabbergasted. "Wait, are you kidding?"

"No, he really was," Tifa countered.

"…" Terra's jaw dropped.

Vincent cleared his throat again. "Shall we go back to Terra' reasoning for giving Sephiroth another chance?"

"…How did we get so off track?" Tifa wondered out loud.

"Come on, Teef. It's us!" Yuffie laughed. "We do that a lot."

Cloud joined the conversation. "You're doing it again, Yuffie."

Yuffie's eyes widened. "M-Me?!"

"He's just giving you a hard time, Yuffs," Tifa assured her, then turned to Terra. "So, you think Sephiroth deserves another chance." It was a statement, not a question.

Terra nodded vigorously. "I really do! He was a great ally, a skilled warrior…" she paused for a few moments to regain her train of thought. "And he was a good friend to me. I refuse to believe that those heinous acts were done by him. It was Jenova!" she sighed shakily. "And I miss him."

"I miss how he used to be too." Cloud reached over and rested his hand on top of Terra's in a comforting way.

Tifa tried to ignore the pain of her stomach knotting up even more at Cloud's simple gesture. 'She brings out another side of him. Maybe that's the Cloud she used to know…in SOLDIER?'

Terra mouthed "Thanks" to Cloud, who simply nodded in response. Tifa wondered if Terra was thanking Cloud for more than one thing…

Tifa shook her head roughly to clear her straying thoughts. "We'll do our best to help you, Terra," she managed to voice. Turning to Cid, she added, "What about you? Have you decided whether or not you'll be joining us?"

Cid humphed. "Eh, why not! Plus, how else are you and yer sorry asses gonna get to where you need to go?" He crossed his arms proudly.

"Don't be so sure, old man," Yuffie smirked. "I bet Reno could get me a lift in his helicopter anytime, for free."

Cid uncrossed his arms and glared at Yuffie. "Dammit, brat! I thought I told you to stay away from them Turks!"

"You're not my dad!" Yuffie crossed her arms angrily. "And I happen to like the Turkeys!"

"How'd that happen?" Cloud wondered out loud.

Yuffie laughed. "I never thought it would happen either. But I guess after doing so many missions with them in the reconnaissance field…I dunno. We all get along pretty well now."

"Hey, kid?" Cid interrupted.

"What?" she chirped back.

"Just promise me you won't get too close to the red-headed asshole."

Yuffie smirked and muttered under her breath, "Too late."

Tifa heard what Yuffie had muttered, and she had to control herself so she wouldn't laugh out loud at the ninja's comment. 'Yuffie and Reno. Now there's an interesting thought.'

Shelke stood up suddenly. "Please excuse me. I am going to go outside for some fresh air."

"Would you like one of us to accompany you?" Vincent asked, getting ready to stand to join her.

"Shelke is a big girl, Vince," Yuffie said. Shooting a dark look to Cid, she added, "Just like me. She can take care of herself."

"Very well," Vincent nodded as Shelke left the kitchen.

"So, guys," Terra began. "I was thinking that maybe we could head over to Nibelheim sometime this week so we could check out Hojo's lab."

"You were in the Shinra mansion this whole time?" Cloud asked.

"Um, no. I was somewhere else." Terra cleared her throat. "I can show you when we get there, though."

"Fine by me," Cloud responded.

Yuffie was finally finished with her pancakes and ran over to the counter to see if she could find any more food. She was no longer visible as she ducked her head into one of the cupboards below the counter to search some more.

"Hey, look who it is!" Cid suddenly exclaimed.

A loud thump came from below the counter, followed by a loud "OW!" Yuffie popped up again, rubbing her sore head.

Red walked into the kitchen followed by Barret and Shelke. "I sensed something was amiss outside, and when I left the airship to investigate, I found Barret walking around a few miles west of here. He was pacing around and was so deep in thought, he didn't even hear me approach."

"Yeah, well, ya damn paws aren't exactly easy to hear when you prance around!" Barret countered indignantly.

Red glared at the large man with his good eye. "I do not prance."

"What were you doing out there, Barret?" Tifa asked softly. "I thought you were going to go back to Corel."

Barret chuckled nervously. "Eh, long story short: I called Elmyra to tell her I was comin' home and she asked why…." He started to examine his gun arm to break his eye contact with the people in the kitchen. "Let's jus' say that after I told her, she made me feel like an asshole."

Cid's laughter resounded throughout the kitchen at Barret's expense. Tifa elbowed him in the gut to get him to shut up.

"Myra won' be 'specting me anytime soon now," Barret finished.

"We're glad to have you back, big guy!" Tifa tried to make him feel better. Barret had always been there for her, ever since she can remember. She figured that it was the least she could do, as a friend, to make him feel a bit better.

"Yeah!" Yuffie happily agreed, followed by more grunts and affirmations around the table of agreement.

Barret sighed in relief. His confidence seemed to be back to normal now. "Oh, and Terra? Sorry 'bout overreacting yesterday."

Terra smiled kindly. "I completely understood. It's no problem."

Barret nodded and took a seat in one of the empty chairs. He looked over at Cloud and asked, "So what are our plans, Mr. Leader?"

Cloud grimaced at the annoying nickname, but acknowledged the question by explaining what they were going to do later on that week.

Barret slapped his hand against his thigh enthusiastically. "Awright! Can't wait to smash up that Fricks guy!"

"Barret, it's Filix," Yuffie corrected, only resulting in Barret waving his hand in the air in a dismissive manner.

Tifa smiled to herself. 'Wow. He's really excited. It's almost like it was a few years ago. Only we have a few extra members than when we started.' She looked over to Cloud. '…But one less member as well.' Tifa sighed as she stood up to start collecting all of the dirty dishes. 'I can only hope that we come out of this with the same number that we started with…'


Author's Notes:

Hey thanks everybody for the support in reviews! They make me feel so GOOD! =)

I hope this chappie was worthy!

I tried to make it a bit more fluffy and lighthearted than other chappies b/c I was trying to show a bit of the characters' relationships w/ one another.

For right now, I think the POVs of the chapters are either going to be in Cloud, Tifa, or Yuffie's POV. (it's just easiest for me to write)

So yeah! Thanks again everybody for reading!

AND I'll get the next chappie out as soon as possible!! ;)

Quick poll: Since I have this as a Cloud/Tifa (even though Tifa's having issues with the GREEN EYED MONSTER…lol), I was wondering if I should make the second pairing a DEFINITE Yuffie/Vincent…or Yuffie/???

Feedback would be much appreciated!! =)

-koalababay-