"Here's another one of Uncle Cid!" Marlene said excitedly as she put it in the pile. There were at least ten small organized piles of pictures on the floor. Cloud, Tifa, Marlene and Denzel had been sorting these pictures for most of the morning. Of course this project wouldn't be complete without the presence of hot chocolate…or at least Marlene thought so. It seemed to be her winter specialty and honestly she always did a good job when she made it.
"Cloud, is this you when you were a baby?" Denzel asked handing a picture over to him. Cloud looked at it.
"Sure is. Me and mom. That's my dad too." Cloud said handing it back to Denzel.
"Let me see it. Aww, look at that blue-eyed boy." Tifa said laughing at a two-year-old Cloud.
"You're mom had really long hair." Marlene said scooting over on her knees towards Tifa.
"And I probably pulled it a lot." Cloud told her. Tifa was carefully tucking every picture she found of Aerith near the edge of the couch face down. Furthermore, she even found a few pictures of Zack of which she did the same. Sure she would let Cloud see them, but she didn't know that right now was the time.
"Here's you Tifa!" Denzel said handing the picture of Tifa in her little green dress over.
"Oh god, that's when my parents went through the bangs phase with my hair." Tifa commented looking at her atrocious circa 1987 haircut.
"Every parent puts their child through a horrible haircut phase. You two remember that because you haven't experienced that phase yet." Cloud cautioned Marlene and Denzel.
"Nuh uh! Tifa's going to let me get layers cut in the front of my hair next year!" Marlene said excitedly.
"No she's not, you're going to have a pink ribbon and bangs for the next forty years." Cloud immediately told her. Tifa just grinned and bit her lower lip as she shook her head. She was clearly staying out of this.
"Cloud!" Marlene huffed at him.
"Who's this?" Denzel asked showing another picture to Cloud.
"This…well it's an old man holding a fish. I have no idea who this is. Just put it over there." Cloud told him.
"You know what we need to go with this? Cinnamon rolls! Can I put some in the oven?" Marlene asked excitedly.
"Yeah, that's what we need with photos Marlene…sticky icing and goo." Cloud told her sarcastically. Marlene swatted at him unsuccessfully. "Go ahead and put them in. They do sound pretty good." He confessed.
"I want to help you with the icing!" Denzel said.
"Don't worry I won't do it without you." Marlene promised him as she walked over to the oven to pre-heat it.
"I like the smell of them when they're baking." Tifa said as she scanned through a few pictures in her hands.
"Oh check it out. It's Cid and Shera. Why would he give us a picture of he and Shera?" Cloud wondered showing it to Tifa.
"He probably didn't even go through this box. I'd say he just gave it to us without bothering to see if there was anything he wanted from it.
"Does Uncle Cid date Shera?" Denzel asked. Tifa and Cloud laughed. Denzel didn't know Shera by any means, however he had heard Cid talk about her at least a hundred times.
"Oh Denzel, me and Tifa put every ounce of energy into not asking Cid what he does or doesn't do with Shera." Cloud told him honestly.
"I heard Uncle Cid on the phone with her once. I heard him tell her he loved her but he said it all stupid like how Cloud used to tell Tifa he loved her!" Marlene piped up from the kitchen.
"You haven't heard Cid talk to Shera, Marlene!" Denzel accused her.
"Yes I have! It was that time we all went to his house and helped him clean out his attic!" Marlene said.
"I have never said I love you stupidly to Tifa!" Cloud told Marlene but laughed at himself nearly the moment those words left his tongue. "I can't even say that with a straight face, she's right."
"Denzel, your Uncle Cid and Shera have a complicated relationship. Honey, its hard telling if they are dating or not." Tifa explained more clearly.
"Here's another picture of him and Shera! Hey, his airship is even named after Shera! I bet he secretly likes her a lot but he just doesn't know how to tell her." Denzel said once again proving that he was smarter than his age. Marlene shoved the cinnamon rolls into the oven and washed her hands off before returning to the scattered pictures on the floor.
"Aunt Yuffie says that boys never say what they mean or mean what they say. She's says you have to pry it out of them." Marlene said sitting herself in the floor. Tifa laughed.
"Your aunt Yuffie is full of crap!" Cloud told her. "Don't you go listening to her."
"Listen to her Marlene! Listen to everything she says!" Tifa said still laughing at what Marlene said.
"Oh! Whatever to both of you! Denzel, we don't stand a chance around here." Cloud said as Marlene and Tifa laughed away. The smell of cinnamon started to fill the apartment as the rolls baked.
"I think we can get through this whole box today if we keep this up." Tifa said.
"Hey look! This is a picture of me when I was a baby!" Marlene said holding it up. There was n telling how that picture made its way into this box but sure enough it was as eight-month-old Marlene. It was amazing at how much her young life had changed since that picture was taken.
"Do you think it would be okay to give this to Barret?" Tifa asked her.
"I think so. That is, if we know where to send it." Marlene said a bit solemnly. Barret was gone so much it seemed tracking him down at a permanent address was a challenge. But Tifa knew he at least had a mailbox at the local post office he checked.
"Don't worry. We can get it to him. I'm just sure of it." Tifa assured her.
"You're going to burn those cinnamon rolls." Cloud told Marlene as the cinnamon smell became stronger.
"No, I'm not. They have…" she leaned backwards to look at the digital clock on the stove. "…seven more minutes."
"I want to get the icing out now." Denzel said getting up off the floor to open the pack of icing that was carefully tucked away in the cinnamon roll container.
"Between the hot chocolate and these cinnamon rolls all of us are going to be in a sugar coma." Tifa said.
"Bring it on. The three of us will get really hyped up and annoy you." Cloud said to Tifa.
"What, like one of you somehow doesn't annoy me any other time…mainly you?" Tifa reminded Cloud.
"Denzel is the only one in this house that finds me un-annoying." Cloud complained. "Wait, name three annoying things that I do." He looked at Tifa.
"You tap my shoulder incessantly and say hey Tifa when you have a question while I'm on the phone. You open boxes upside down and you constantly lose the television remote and ask me and Marlene and Denzel where it is. And I love you for all those things." Tifa added before kissing him. Cloud just looked at her.
"It's as if you've had that list on the tip of your tongue just waiting to rattle it off! Cloud insisted as he found a picture of Yuffie with her hands full of materia. "Look at her; she's come a long way from that sixteen-year-old material loving maniac." Tifa laughed.
"She has hasn't she?" Tifa took the picture from Cloud as Marlene ran back into the kitchen to pull the cinnamon rolls out of the oven. It was almost time to indulge in the gooey deliciousness.
"It's been a crazy month hasn't it?" Cloud asked Tifa. "Who would have ever thought we would have ever had to deal with the crap we've dealt with this month? And look at our apartment…it's finally a home isn't it?" Cloud asked as he glanced over to make sure Marlene and Denzel weren't making a total mess.
"It almost is. We need to find some place for this." Tifa said pulling a picture from the bottom of a discreetly placed stack beside her. Cloud looked at it. It was possibly the best picture he had ever seen. It didn't matter that it had been taken seven months earlier at the beach. It was perfect, with the ocean in the background, Cloud and Tifa in the sand, and Marlene and Denzel in the middle of them.
"I know I had to have taken this for granted at the time it was taken but now…I could hug Marlene's friends' mom for taking this." Cloud confessed. Tifa smiled.
"The forty suburban dad deep inside me wants to take this to work and put it on my desk." Cloud said.
"Oh please! No, you are not that lame!" Tifa rolled her eyes and laughed. "Come on Cloud, your into fast bikes and loose women you don't collect desk knick knacks." She teased him. Denzel put a hot pad on the table while Marlene sat their messily iced rolls down. Denzel tore them apart and put two on a paper plate, handing the plate over to Tifa. "Thanks sweetie. Will you get us some paper towels or something?" she asked him.
"I already thought of that!" Denzel said handing the paper napkins over.
"You're too good, Denzel." Tifa told him. Denzel and Marlene sat down in the floor with their plates. They didn't dare touch any of these pictures now; at least not until they washed their hands of cinnamon and icing once they were done. The date was February 21 and they had survived.
My apologies for the slow update! Things have been pretty busy lately. I also apologize if I received any reviews in the past couple weeks and I haven't yet replied. Reviews are special to me and I try to reply to them all! This chapter is short but I have another new fic brewing in my head so I wanted to finish this up. I probably won't start working on the new fic until after the New Year but I hope that you will follow it with me! A always thanks for reading everyone!