Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This story is mine, as are Jake, McCallister, and Beverly. And Piper the Cat. There's some language in this one…because Cid. I also may have made a stealthy Fullmetal Alchemist reference in this chapter. Enjoy.
..:-X-:..
058 –Between You and Me
"So…is this cat just not a people person or is it just me?" Jake asked.
Aerith sat in front of him, cleaning the angry scratch marks all over his arms with antiseptic. "It's definitely not just you. He likes Cloud just fine. It's everybody else that he seems to hate."
"There's a change." Jake snorted, then, when Aerith abruptly pressed very hard on one of his cuts, "Ow!"
Aerith glared lightly at him. "For your information, everybody likes Cloud now."
Jake's eyebrows went sky high. Across the room, Aerith's cat growled.
"I said 'now'." Aerith clarified. "I even think he and Leon are starting to become friends."
"I bet you ten munny that Leon's daughter will know Cloud by the name 'jerkass'." Jake snickered.
"Do you want me to sic Piper on you again?"
"What kind of name is Piper for a cat anyway? What kind of name is Piper for anything?" Jake questioned.
"This from a guy almost-kinda-sorta dating a woman named TABAEUS."
Jake hmphed at that and looked away, but he could never sustain a silence for longer than a breath, so he soon looked back to her. "Wait, Tifa kept her last name when she and Leon eloped. Is their kid's name going to be Lockhart-Leonhart? That sounds like a traumatizing experience on the playground just waiting to happen."
"I don't know." Aerith shrugged lightly, finishing with the cleaning of the cuts and putting away the first aid kit.
"I like the name Alex." Jake input. "Tifa already shot it down, said it reminded her of a bodybuilder and pink sparkles."
Aerith snorted. "I like the name Emma…or Rose."
Jake rotated his wrist, inspecting her bandaging job. "You want a daughter, huh?"
"I certainly won't complain if I ever have a son, but…yeah…I've always wanted to have a little girl." Aerith said dreamily. "How about you?"
"I carry a minimum of five condoms with me at all times. Do I look like the settling down type?" Jake smirked, but it didn't reach his eyes.
Aerith pursed her lips. "You decide what type you are. Do you want kids eventually?"
"I don't think about 'eventually'." He piped up. "It gets in the way of 'right now'."
"You eventually got Tabaeus to agree to go on a date. That took planning."
"That was…different."
Across the room, Piper made another low noise in his throat, and Jake tensed.
"Just because she agreed to a date," Jake started tentatively. "doesn't mean—"
"Wait, wait." Aerith straightened, "What is this? Pessimism? Jake Alms, I've known you for nearly three years and never seen you with less than a grin on your face. You took rejection from McCallister a handful of times, to some humiliating levels, and you didn't give up. Now you've got her, and NOW you're doubting?"
Jake looked uncharacteristically serious. "I don't have her. I have an agreement to a date. Getting the date doesn't mean getting the girl. So she kissed me, that's not the final word. She could call me tomorrow and tell me to never speak to her again. We might date for a while and break up. We might get married and live happily ever after. Nothing is certain. You should know that better than anybody."
Aerith paused, "And how would I know that 'better than anybody'?"
"For a while there, no one knew if Cloud was coming back." Jake said softly. "For a while, Cloud and Tifa were heading toward coupledom and their own happily ever after. Now Tifa and Leon are having a kid, and you and Cloud are in a serious relationship. Do you see what I mean?"
She looked long and hard at the man for a minute. He was scared out of his mind. Private McCallister's affinity for being antisocial and comfortably alone, not to mention her intense loyalty to Leon—which would make any man jealous—was well known. Aerith had seen Jake get rejected by women and break up with women in embarrassing and soul-shattering ways. From the glass of water being thrown in his face, to being slapped, to actually having a crossbow aimed at his groin at last year's Halloween party…He took all of that in stride. The fact that he was so scared about a simple 'no' from McCallister…
"This isn't a crush." She thought aloud. "You're falling in love with her."
Jake didn't respond immediately, fidgeting with the bandage again.
Aerith smiled at his sudden sheepishness. She patted his knee. "Be careful, Jake."
He paused, swallowed, and abruptly changed the conversation. "So, this cat—"
"Ugh." Aerith groaned.
Piper's fluffy grey face peered out from under the recliner, and both Jake and Aerith leaned away, fearing attack when those mean blue eyes were cast their way.
"I think it can smell fear." Jake whispered.
..:-X-:..
059 – Intentionally Unintentionally
Cid ducked and rolled away from the wall, barely missing the large, pronged claws of the Heartless as it dug into the concrete. Eighty-four days of no Heartless sightings in Atlantica. The DAY that he steps foot on the marine world…the fuckin' things decide to have a reunion.
The large, hawk-like creature turned its attention from him to the team of minutemen on the continent, who were firing at it with their rifles from the streets as the civilians fled. It roared in anger and pain, spraying anyone in range with sputum and acrid breath. Cid got the brunt of the gooey saliva and cursed loudly.
The other, smaller Heartless were quickly being dispatched with by the natives, but this big queen Heartless was determined to be the Godzilla of this little kingdom. Cid shoved his gun into his belt, out of ammunition, and spotted instead a sea vessel cannon parked on the docks.
That might work.
He maneuvered around the danger zone, betting on the minutemen to keep the thing's attention, and he assessed the unused cannon briefly. It was in working order, though not loaded, but he could see a stack of cannonballs waiting to be loaded onto the docked sea vessel. Moving quickly, he carted one of the black balls into the funnel of the cannon. He pushed it back to the base and then checked the wick on the heavy end.
Snapping off a match on the wooden stand of the cannon, he held it close to the wick but didn't light it, instead straightening and yelling: "Drop your shit!"
The squad of civilian-soldiers glanced his way in surprise and immediately ran for cover. Unfortunately, the Heartless also spun at his holler, and Cid just offered a lopsided smirk and lit the cannon.
"Welcome to Atlantica, mother fucker!"
The cannonball exploded out of the shaft and nailed the massive Heartless square in the chest, blasting a hole directly through the beast. The Heartless shrieked in dying agony and staggered before toppling sideways into the harbor. The residual displaced water gushed up over the dock where Cid was standing, soaking him to the knees in sea water and Heartless blood.
He grimaced and wiped the blood, salt water, and sputum from his face as best he could, but it felt more like he was just smearing it around. He let off a string of curses at that, but noted that most of the continental kingdom had been salvaged from the attacks.
"Huzzah! Huzzah!" The minutemen were chanting triumphantly.
"Hey, Mr. Highwind." The squad's impromptu leader, Prince Eric, climbed up onto the docks and offered a hand. "Thank you for your help."
Cid was quite happy to shake the man's clean hand with his gooey, nasty one. Eric looked unaffected by the mess, however, simply wiping his hand afterward on his pants and saying: "I've seen worse. Trust me."
Cid really doubted that, but he let it go.
"Can you all handle this from here on?" He asked gruffly.
"Yes, sir." Eric chimed. "We've already got clean up crews assembling where the attack started, and they're fanning out over the worst damaged areas." He glanced past Cid to the dissolving corpse of the Heartless in the harbor. "What about—"
"It should diminish over the next few minutes." Cid said with a shrug, "If it don't, light it on fire."
"It's in the ocean." Eric replied flatly.
"Them damn things are flammable as Hell." Cid remarked. "Trust me on that."
Eric looked dubious and bewildered, but Cid dismissed him.
"Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a not-date that I need to intentionally-unintentionally drop in on." He waved him off.
The prince gave no comment to that, and Cid took his leave. Cid walked inland, away from the harbor, and tried to mop himself up as best he could…which wasn't much. When he reached the little place where he and Beverly had agreed to bump into each other on-accident-on-purpose, he found that its doors were closed and the lights dimmed: 'closed until after the attacks'.
Well shit.
"Wow."
He turned at the phrase to see Beverly sitting across the street on a bench and sipping from a drink. She looked amused…and if he wasn't mistaken, she was wearing slightly fancier clothes than usual: a short silver skirt and a low cut blue top as opposed to her usual jeans and tank tops. She was even wearing her hair down and curly, instead of up and…curly. She was snickering.
"Shut up." Cid looked down at his rancid appearance.
"I'm glad this wasn't a date-date, or I would probably be pissed." She remarked.
"Wasn't my fault. Some big damn Heartless—" He bickered, slouching over to her.
"I know. I saw." She nodded, "Cannon…nice."
He snorted, but paused when she screwed up her nose and leaned away.
"Dude…you need a shower…"
..:-X-:..
060 – Just for Kicks
Cloud leaned far to the left, gritting his teeth as he jammed the buttons with his thumb. "No, no, no, no!"
On the couch beside him, Tifa was cackling, also leaning to the left. "Eat my dust!"
The split screen on the television in front of them showed two angles of the same depressing scene. Tifa's avatar in the video game was destroying Cloud's. They were barely halfway through the race, but Tifa was playing dirty.
"Foul!" Cloud pointed at the screen as Tifa's vehicle knocked his entirely off the race track.
"There are no fouls in life, son!" Tifa whooped, as her avatar tore forward for the straight away, lengthening the gap between their two vehicles.
"This isn't life!" Cloud snapped, straightening again and hitting every button on the controller to try and maneuver his vehicle back onto the track, but it was stuck in the pixelated bushes.
"And I'm through the lava field again." Tifa commentated, "Oh…crap, crap, crap, I forgot about the pier!"
Cloud saw her avatar vault off the ramp at the edge of the volcano portion of the track, crashing and burning into the bog below. "Ha, karma!"
Tifa grumbled as her vehicle was booted to the resuming point. She was still ahead of him, but the margin had just closed significantly. Cloud finally got his avatar dislodged from the bushes of death, and he leaned to the right, almost against Tifa, as he urged his character to go faster around the turn.
"How did you ever pass your driver's test?" Tifa shoved him with her elbow, moving through the volcano track again. "You suck at this."
"Games and reality are not the same." He snarled, keeping an eye on the heat gauge for his vehicle in the corner of the screen. "Besides," He grunted as he vaulted over the pier, landing safely on the other side. "you've been playing this game all week."
"Well, it's not like I can go on battle missions, Mr. I-Don't-Have-a-Uterus." Tifa bantered, slinging her car around the frozen lake of the next portion of the track.
Cloud snorted and took one hand off his controller, covering her eyes as he tried to pass her car. She squawked and swatted him away, leaning far to the right against the armrest of the couch. His tactic worked, however, and her avatar was sent careening into a glacier.
"You swine!" Tifa snapped, reversing out from under the snow.
Cloud's car merrily zoomed past her.
She straightened her car out and started after him. "That's no way to treat a lady."
"When have you ever been a lady?"
That earned him a pillow cushion to the face, which, considering Tifa's strength, was no joke. He kept a hold of his controller, though, and was able to keep his vehicle from slamming into the side of the track.
However, Tifa sat forward, sly grin in place. "And you, sir, are no gentleman."
She pushed one of the buttons on the controller. A rocket folded out of the back of her car and ignited. Fire blasted out of the back of the car, blasting her avatar across the last stretch of the track, beating him handily.
"Boom!" She tossed the controller onto the couch. "Get some!"
Cloud steamed, hanging his head. "You're a filthy cheater."
"Cheating?" Tifa pointed to the screen, "You're a sore loser."
"You had a ROCKET strapped onto your car! That wasn't even an option in the design."
"It is if you had a secret code." Tifa remarked smartly.
"That's—that's not fair." He slumped back in the couch.
"I've been playing this game for a week straight. I'm on boss level with everything, my car is customized, and I have codes." Tifa snarked. "Don't challenge me, mortal."
Cloud glared at her, prepared to fire back a smart remark. Tifa's face suddenly changed. Her grin froze on her mouth and her eyes widened. Her hand drifted to her stomach.
"What?" He asked, concern flags flying up. "Are you okay?"
"Something—I think." She looked down, and then at Cloud. "I think the baby just kicked."
Cloud stared at her. "Are you sure?"
Tifa smiled slowly. "Yeah, I mean…she's never done that before—" She froze again, "Yes…That—she just kicked again!" Eyes wide, she looked to Cloud. "The first kick! Feel!"
"Wha—" But Tifa had already snatched his hand and planted it on the side of her stomach. "I don't—"
A little thump registered against his thumb. His eyes widened, and he was momentarily speechless. Tifa, however, was already dialing Leon on her phone.
"Hey!" She greeted her husband, practically squealing. "She kicked!"
Cloud heard Leon's voice suddenly blaring over the phone, but he was just stuck with his hand against Tifa's belly. The baby wasn't kicking at the moment, but he felt strange anyway. Until that point, 'the baby' had just been a fog of grey and black on an ultrasound picture, abstract and intangible. Suddenly, this kid was alive and kicking. He had just felt it. The development made it truly hit him for the first time.
Tifa and Leon were going to be parents.
The door burst open across the room, and Leon staggered in, panting and still holding the phone to his ear. He looked like he'd run clear across Radiant Garden…which, Cloud considered, he probably had.
"I'm here." He spoke into the cell.
"I can see that." Tifa hung up and Leon did likewise. "C'mere-c'mere-c'mere!" She waved him over.
Leon practically flew to her side, and Cloud awkwardly took his hand back. Tifa did the same with Leon's hand as she had with Cloud's, although Leon was almost bouncing where he stood, whereas Cloud had been yanked.
"I don't…I don't feel it." Leon said, panicky.
"Give her a second, she's only just learning how to—there!" Tifa said.
If a grown man could actually squee, Cloud saw Leon do it.
Tifa giggled, "It feels so weird."
"What were you doing?" Leon prompted.
"I just beat Cloud at the video game, and she kicked."
Leon snorted, "Nice."
Cloud rolled his eyes with a smirk. "Great, your kid is going to like causing me pain, just like you two."
Leon shook his head, dumb grin still in place, "I can't even snipe at you right now, Cloud."
..:-X-:..
A/N: I just want to say, that Cid's 'Welcome to Atlantica, mother fucker!' is one of my favorite lines of dialogue that I have ever written. I wrote it while I was at work in the library, and I couldn't stop giggling at it.
Preview for next week: Rinoa had had the sniffles yesterday, but it had quickly escalated into a full blown cold, and it was having its way with her.