"Oh! Oh my god! Holy….shit! Did I…did you…did I fuck you last night?" the woman in the kitchen asked Cloud as she took a long drag on her cigarette and blew the smoke into a fan she had situated in front of her.

"No, no…um…I…" the woman interrupted Cloud.

"Whew…I came in here pretty fucked up last night…but I thought you looked a little too clean for…oh my god I am such a bitch…I'm Tanzi…Tifa's roommate. Name's Tanita but everyone calls me Tanzi. Or, I don't know if you've ever been to 'The Willow' but you may know me as Astor…that's my stage name." She said in a hoarse voice. It sounded as if she had been up all night. Cloud looked into her eyes…it was as if no one were in there. Her eyes were bloodshot and glassy…a hollow shell of a woman.

"Hi, it's nice to meet you. I'm Cloud…I'm…Tifa's boyfriend." Cloud said. Strange, it didn't feel funny saying that at all.

"Oooh, oh okay. Shit, that makes sense now. I really didn't remember bringing any guys home last night so that's why I nearly freaked when I saw you." Tanzi answered. "God, I am such an ass! Cigarette?" she extended her pack to Cloud who was trying to figure out how the hell he was going to get around her to get in the kitchen. He had come in here for orange juice…what he had gotten was one strung out stripper.

"No, thanks. I'm just here to get some orange juice actually." He said somewhat awkwardly.

"I'll get it for you, sweetie." Tanzi said turning around to the refrigerator and pulling a half gallon of orange juice out. She handed him the biggest glass she could find in one of the cabinets. "I have to smoke in front of this fan because I know how Tifa hates the smell in the apartment. She's so sweet, you know that? She's such a wonderful roommate. She takes care of me…hasn't judged me once. Hey, would it bother you if I cut a line of cocaine? I haven't told Tifa yet that I have a bit of a habit…been bingeing on this shit for six hours." Tanzi said. Cloud spilled orange juice all over his hand when she said this. No one had ever asked him such a thing before.

"Um…no…that's okay...sure." how the hell was he supposed to answer a question like that! He reached for a paper towel and watched Tanzi carefully as she scraped away with a razor on the crystal before her. He wasn't sure what it was, maybe the thousand hormones surging through him right now, but whatever the case; he felt miserably sorry for this woman. He was watching self destruction as it happened. You could tell that at one time she was pretty but now she looked frail, undernourished and addicted.

"So what do you do?" Tanzi asked as Cloud waited with great anticipation for an opening to leave Tanzi and her self induced torture.

"I work for Shin-Ra." Cloud answered her. Tanzi smirked as she finished cutting her line.

"Shin-Ra huh? Damn…you all are gooood business for me. Shit…if I had a gil for every Shin-Ra SOLDIER I've given a lap dance to…oh wait…I do!…I'm sorry. I should shut the hell up. I don't even fucking know you…never seen you in my life. But, if you're with Tifa you can't be all that bad. So, what class are you?" Tanzi asked snorting white poison up her nose. Cloud felt his heart break and he didn't really know why. What the hell could have ever happened to this woman to make her kill herself like this? "Oh I'm uh…I'm…not…I…I'm infantry…a guard actually." Cloud said taking a step away from the kitchen.

"Oh." Was all Tanzi said. She blinked a few times and put her head back in the chair she was in. "You ever met any SOLDIER 1st Class? Me, I've met plenty. That's the shit you know. Never met Zack Fair though. You heard of him? Finest piece of SOLDIER Shin-Ra has to offer. Shit…I would give anything to get underneath that. Swear to god that's the sexiest thing I've ever seen in my life. Fuck, listen to me…going on and on. You take that juice and get back to Tifa or whatever the hell you were doing. It was nice to meet you, Cloud." Tanzi said not lifting her head up.

"Hey, um…you know…Shin-Ra is looking for some…part time help in their museum. If you're interested you should stop by sometime." Cloud said before he left the kitchen to get back to Tifa. He lied…he had no clue why he said that. There was no such opening. Part of him felt like someone needed to save this woman from herself.

"Thanks for the thought honey but that kind of work don't pay enough." Was all Tanzi said before Cloud left the room.

It was now 11:30. Aerith woke suddenly and sat straight up in bed. She yawned and looked over at Zack who was still asleep. She groaned a little and got up, going into the kitchen. She didn't even bother getting dressed; besides it was okay to walk around naked in your boyfriend's apartment, right? It was obvious that no one had been in the kitchen meaning that Cloud wasn't home. Aerith struggled to find whatever it was she was looking for. She stared at the coffee pot across from her wishing to god that coffee would make itself. She needed it to be strong and black if it was going to do anything about the hangover that she and Zack had. The phone rang while she was in the kitchen. Aerith stumbled over to it and answered it reluctantly as she searched the cabinet above her for the coffee grounds. It was Cloud.

"Oh my god! Are you on your way over here!" Aerith asked excitedly as she could to feel this badly right now.

"Yeah, me and Tifa were going to go grab some lunch and then be there." Cloud said.

"Will you bring me and Zack a chicken dinner? Please, please, please! Like…the biggest fucking one the grocery store deli has! Oh! And get mashed potatoes with it but make sure they put the gray on the side because Zack freaks when they combine it. Oh! And get…you know what get whatever the hell they have, we are so hungry and hung over. I mean this is baaaaad, Cloud. The last time was nothing compared to this." Aerith whined.

"Okay, hold on…let me get a pen and write all this down. Alright, tell me what you want." Cloud said. While Cloud was on the phone with Aerith, Tifa had her suitcase out cramming it as full as she could. She and Cloud had been talking earlier that morning about her roommate.

"Hey, hey Aerith is Zack awake?" Cloud asked her.

"No." she answered.

"Well, listen…I really need to talk to him. This is kind of important. Do you care to go wake him up?" Cloud asked a bit concerned.

"Hold on." Cloud heard Aerith accidentally drop the phone all over the kitchen counter. Aerith managed to get him to wake up and make a little bit of sense before she put Cloud on the phone.

"Hey, it's me. Are you alert enough to talk to me right now? I'm about to ask you something and I need to know if you're coherent enough to give me a real answer." Cloud said. Zack yawned.

"Yeah…yeah what's going on?" Zack said rolling over to one side miserably.

"Um…do you think…I mean since Aerith is with us you know…most of the week…do you…would it be okay if um…if Tifa stayed us…for a while?" Cloud asked.

"Of course she can. Hell, I don't care." Zack answered him.

"I'll explain everything later, but thanks Zack." Cloud said gratefully.

"Yeah, sure. I'm going back to bed now." Zack said turning the phone off and throwing it beside him. He could smell coffee starting to drip in the kitchen and he wondered what time it was. It Zack's mind it just couldn't be any later than 9:00. Aerith managed to make a mess all over the counter top in the kitchen as she let the coffee pot drip too long. She decided she would clean that up later; the important thing was that it was done. Aerith grabbed an oversized coffee mug in the cabinet above her. She was going to leave this mug on the nightstand for Zack and take a shower. She thought that may wake her up a little.

"Here, do you want this now?" Aerith asked knowing Zack didn't have a chance to fall asleep yet.

"Ooooh I do want that." He decided this huge cup of coffee was worth waking up for. "Wait, wait, wait…where are you going?" Zack asked Aerith.

"I'm going to take a shower because I need to wake up." Aerith said.

"Well hold on a minute, come and talk to me. Um…this is good…um…oh I know what I was going to say…what do we have to eat that we don't have to cook?" Zack asked Aerith pushing tangled strands of hair away from her face.

"Cloud and Tifa are coming over later. They are going to bring lunch." Aerith explained.

"That's the best thing I've heard in the 20 seconds I've been awake." Zack said. He reached out for Aerith and kissed her. "Okay, now you can go get in the shower. Wait no you can't….get me something to wear." Zack said.

"My god Zack, this room is a mess. What have we done in here for the past three days?" Aerith asked digging around in a drawer.

"We haven't cleaned, I know that. Hey….I have an idea. Today, after we eat or whatever…let's make Cloud trade us rooms since Tifa's going to live with us a while anyway." Zack said. Aerith gasped with excitement.

"Tifa's moving in! She's moving in here! When! Why!" Aerith couldn't hide her happiness.

"I don't know. Cloud said something…I was only half listening. I still feel kinda' sick so I wasn't paying much attention." Zack said.

"I am so excited right now!" Aerith said. "Okay, so today we take Cloud's room. After I get out of the shower I will go moving his stuff out!" Aerith said throwing something on the bed for Zack to put on. "Yay! Yay! Yay!" Aerith said hurrying off to the shower. She was so happy about this news.

"Wow…this room really is a mess. Ehh, Cloud and Tifa won't care." Zack said looking around at the fact that they hadn't cleaned in at least three days or more.

By 12:30 Zack and Aerith were awake and much less hung over than they had been that morning. So far, they had all of Cloud's clothes out of his closet and out of his dresser and they were all piled up on the opposite side of the living room. The hardest part would be moving all this furniture around but there were still plenty of other things to move before worrying about that. Zack and Aerith had two completely different techniques to moving Cloud out of his own room: Zack's technique was throw everything in a pile…Aerith's method was to organize everything by color and size…neither mattered…Cloud was going to freak when he saw this. They heard the door open just as Zack had literally scooped everything on Cloud's bathroom counter into a bag.

"Oh my god! That's our food!" Aerith said dropping the bag in the middle of the floor and running into the living room. Both Cloud and Tifa had their hands overloaded…it was interesting dragging two suitcases, three huge garbage bags and a chicken dinner on the bus. They dropped everything in the doorway. Aerith's pink dress from the night before was still laying there in a wad where Zack had stripped it off her.

"Hi! You're going to move in!" Aerith asked excitedly tearing the bag of chicken away from Tifa. "Ooooooh you got everything I asked for and more!" Aerith said sitting on the couch and pulling everything out of the bag. "Zack! Get out here!" Aerith yelled at him. Zack stopped whatever he was doing in Cloud's room to join Aerith.

"Oh my god that chicken smells amazing; I'm getting iced tea for this." Zack said as he also grabbed two forks as fast as he could.

"I smell those candles…the ones I'm allergic to. And dare I ask why I see all my clothes in a pile over there?" Cloud asked closing the door behind him.

"Oh yeah, that…we're changing rooms with you and Tifa. By the way, what's up with this move, Tifa?" Zack asked opening everything on the table in front of he and Aerith.

"Apparently, my roommate is addicted to cocaine and I didn't know this. That makes me feel a whole lot unsafe living with her." Tifa said.

"Yeah…that's…well that's bad. So how did you find out?" Zack said.

"Cloud found out actually. I'll let him tell you about it if he wants but to make a long story short I have lots of stuff to put into storage tomorrow and I promise I will start looking for a place immediately. " Tifa said.

"Well, you don't have to start that soon." Cloud said moving her suitcases out of the doorway. Cloud proceeded to tell Zack and Aerith all about Tifa's roommate.

"So wait…how in the world did you manage to pack all that stuff, have lunch, rent a storage unit and get this amazing chicken dinner for us? Oh my god they didn't combine the gravy with the mashed potatoes! I love that place now!" Zack said.

"We moved pretty fast." Tifa said.

"So, what about your cocaine addicted stripper roommate? Will she have anything left in that apartment after you get all of your stuff to storage?" Aerith asked.

"Why did you never tell me you lived with a stripper!" Zack insisted.

"There won't be much left that's for sure. I'm going to handle her tomorrow; that part won't be hard. She can live there until the end of the month anyway. I'm pretty sure she'll just move a stripper friend of hers in." Tifa said.

"You know, that's a sentence I never thought I would ever hear." Zack said.

"Now, about this changing rooms shit you mentioned?" Cloud asked rubbing his already watering eyes.

"Don't you worry, man! You and I are going to move all the furniture and me and Aerith nearly have all your crap moved out."

"I was afraid you'd say something like that…and why do we have to switch rooms today?" Cloud asked now feeling himself stop up completely from those stupid candles.

"Well, when you said Tifa was going to move in with us I figured what better time to switch rooms than now!" Zack said happily.

"Riiiiiight." Cloud said unamused as he felt tears stream down his face. "By the way…thanks for lighting those damn candles."

"Oh yeah! You're allergic to those….wow that room is really going to irritate you today. We lost power last night." Aerith said. Both she and Zack were completely sidetracked by the chicken. There was a knock at the door. Cloud answered it. Surprisingly, it was Cissnei.

"Hey, I'm really sorry to stop by. Do you care if I use your phone?" she asked Cloud.

"No not at all, come in." Cloud said.

"Shit, what happened in here? It smells like pine needles, Aerith's dress is in the floor, there is a huge pile like someone's moving out over there and there's a bunch of luggage in the doorway." Cissnei said stepping inside.

"Cieenei is here!" Aerith said jumping up and running over to her. She hugged her and returned to the chicken. Funny…..Aerith was supposed to hate Cissnei.

"Ooooooh my god! You are wearing a guy's clothes!" Zack said.

"Shut up." Cissnei said trying not to smile.

"You stayed with someone last night!" Zack said.

"Go to hell." Cissnei said dialing the phone.

"Who did you fuck!" Zack asked.

"I hate you." Cissnei said.

"Is it who I think it is?" Zack asked smiling all over.

"Yeeeees!" Cissnei said. "Hey, come pick me up. I'm at Zack's." she had called Tseng to come get her.

"Ooooooh I am going to see him Monday morning." Zack said still smiling.

"Shut uuuuuuup!" Cissnei said.

"Come on you have to tell us now! Believe me Cissnei…nothing you say will be a shock to anyone in this room. If you don't tell me…I will find out Monday morning and I'd rather hear it from you." Zack insisted.

"I'll tell you if I can have some of that chicken and stuff. My god you've got enough to feed an army." Cissnei said.

"You can sit by me!" Aerith said.

"I thought she hated Cissnei." Tifa whispered to Cloud.

"I guess making out with her drunk cancels it all out." Cloud said sniffing repeatedly.

"So, while they eat what do you say we go start moving Zack and Aerith out of their room?" Tifa asked.

"As allergic as I am to those candles….yes…yes I want to go move them out. You know what they say…paybacks are hell." Cloud stood up and shook Tifa's shoulders. She laughed and stood up with him.