Final Fantasy VII and PlayStation are owned by Square Enix and Sony, respectively, meaning they do not belong to me. I am in no way, shape, and/or form claiming to be the owner/creator of these concepts, though I do claim any characters not apart of the original Final Fantasy VII storyline (such as Astrid and Marcus) mine. As such, I would appreciate fellow authors and readers to give credit where credit is due and not steal any of my characters and/or concepts.

(Time for Reflection… Not)

"Alright, so we'll be gone from anywhere as long as a few days to a week and a half. No escape attempts, no assisting in terrorism, no lighting things on fire, no using materia to blow up my stuff, and do not touch the plasma."

"Owwwwwww-uh." Astrid whined, glancing at the slot in the ceiling from which said plasma descended, "But it's such a nice TV." She glanced at Rufus and smirked, "I bet it has great reception."

"No. It has excellent reception." Rufus corrected blandly. He then continued, "Emergency contacts are on this." He handed her a new PHS, "There are numbers on there for me, the Turks, and Reeve. Don't use it unless it's an emergency. Dark Nation will be here, so don't think about doing anything stupid."

Astrid rolled her eyes, "Yes, Mommy." She then crossed her arms and pouted, "Are you leaving me with a bedtime, too?"

Rufus quirked a brow, "Eight thirty. And I'm not your mother."

"Who are you, then? The imperialistic husband that graduated from Little Tyrant Academy with perfect marks? Fine." She leaned forward and bumped her cheek against his, the corner of her mouth brushing his skin. Beneath her touch, Rufus jerked. She giggled and put on her valley girl accent, "Good luck, honey. I love you!" She thought about it, then bowed mockingly and asked, "Or should I call you 'führer'?"

Rufus just stared at her, his face blank.

Astrid frowned, "Rufus? Hello?" She waved her hand in front of his face, "Anybody home?" When he still didn't answer, she frowned and stared at him.

"What?" Rufus asked after a moment, blinking and shaking his head.

Astrid sighed, still frowning, "Never mind. Hey…" She thought suddenly, "You never did tell me what was going to happen with my friends."

"I will… later." Rufus turned abruptly, walking into the elevator and pressing a button, "Remember the rules and do not prank call any of the members of the Board."

"Hey, quit avoiding the question!"

He still didn't look at her as the doors closed and he was blocked from her view. And with that, Rufus was gone.

"Huh." Astrid crossed her arms and looked across the room at Dark Nation, who had been watching them from over the back of the sofa. "What do you suppose made him act like that, Dark?"

The hellcat blinked, then yawned and her head disappeared beyond the back of the sofa, presumably to lie down.

Astrid sighed and stared around the room for a moment, then ran for the sofa and jumped, sailing across Dark Nation and crashing onto the parallel sofa. When Dark Nation lifted her head and yowled, Astrid laughed and snuggled into the couch. She froze for a moment, then snuggled deeper.

"Jeez… these couches are comfortable!" She rolled onto her stomach and grabbed a pillow, hugging it, "This is even better than my guest bed… I am so sleeping here!" She glanced over at Dark Nation, who was staring at her. "What do you think?" She asked, rolling onto her side, "Would the President be angry if I slept on the couch?"

Dark Nation just rolled her eyes and set her head back down on the cushion.

Sighing, Astrid rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling, thinking about how Rufus had seemed… detached before he left. "Was it something I did?" She pondered aloud, "Or maybe something I said? I'm not sure… unless he was touchy about me calling him a tyrant, which I don't see why he would be… he kind of is."

Dark Nation, being a hellcat, didn't say a word.

Astrid sat up and stared at the cat, "The only company he left me is you… and you can't talk." After a pause, she sighed and set her head in her hands, "Curse you, Rufus Shinra. Curse you."

Then, Astrid jumped when something pinged loudly and voices flooded the room. She looked above herself, blinking at the sight of a large, working flat screen plasma descending from the ceiling. Looking back at Dark Nation, she blinked when she saw the hellcat's paw on the remote.

"You know, Rufus said that I couldn't touch the plasm—a…" She grinned, "That's right… he said I couldn't touch the plasma… he never said anything about you."

Dark Nation blinked, then tilted her head and lay back down, closing her eyes and going to sleep.

Astrid turned back to the TV, watching the program that was on.

"Greg… Greg, please!" Pleads a redheaded woman, bowing over the body of a man, "Please, Greg, don't leave me! I… I never got the chance to tell you… I love you! You can't die!"

"I'm not dead."

The woman stands and turns, gasping at the sight of a man who looks exactly like the man on the ground standing in the doorway. The man in the doorway opens his arms, "Sydney…"

"Greg!" The woman runs into the man's arms, only to freeze when he wraps them around her. She looks back at the corpse, "Then… then who is that?"

Greg shakes his head, "My evil twin, Gred, but that's not important." He spins her to face him, grabbing her chin and tilting it up to his face. "Did you mean what you said?"

"Yes, Greg." Sydney says breathlessly, "I love you."

"And I you." He closes the space between them and kisses her passionately.

"Holy Materia!" Astrid screamed, falling off of the sofa, "Gaian soap operas! Oh, the inhumanities!" She promptly sat back up, though, and started watching again

An hour later, Astrid left the living room and headed for the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and digging through the contents.

"Salad… some kind of bean dip… something that vaguely looks like horseradish… so moldy it gained its own life-force… a giant glob of I-don't-even-want-to-know… half eaten burrito… pocky…" She froze, then looked back. Yep, it was definitely a box of pocky. "Don't know why it's in the fridge, but I don't care. POCKY!"

The box of pocky was full one second, empty the next, and Astrid was staring at her chocolaty, empty hands, blinking.

"Where did all the pocky go?" Then, when she tasted remnants of chocolate in her mouth, she sniggered, "I remember now." But she was still hungry. "Well, beyond the pocky, the refrigerator was a no-go, so I'll try the freezer!"

Upon opening said freezer, Astrid stared at it with wide eyes.

"HOW MANY BOXES OF ICE-CREAM CAN ONE MAN NEED?!" She dug through and around the ice-cream, pulling out a box of frozen burritos a minute later and striking a victory pose. "Victory is mine!"

Grabbing the largest plate she could find out of the cabinet, Astrid dumped the entire box of frozen burritos onto the plate and threw it into the microwave.

"Hmm… I'd say about… eleven minutes." She poked the buttons and started the microwave, then skipped out of the kitchen and headed for her room. "These don't need to be here." She pulled the comforter and the pillows off of her bed, bundled them up, and skipped back into the living room, making out a bed.

BeepBeepBeep

"Yay! Burritos!" Astrid ran into the kitchen, emerging a moment later with the burrito laden plate and a triumphant grin on her face. "And now, to officially initiate my week long lazing period!" She flopped down on her bed on the sofa, balancing the plate on her stomach and grabbing a burrito.

She managed to go a record time of lazing like this… four hours.

"Oh, materia!" She cursed, throwing the empty plate away from herself and hiding her face in her hands, "I can't do this! I need something to do!"

Just then, the TV pinged and the picture changed. Astrid looked up, freezing at the face of Rufus Shinra.

"Astrid." He said, "It's eight thirty." On cue, a digital clock appeared in the corner of the screen, and it did, indeed, read eight thirty. Rufus pointed to it, "It's time to go to bed."

"What are you, my mother?!"

"And no." Rufus said, his eyes narrowing, "I am not your mother." The screen went black and every light that was on in the apartment turned off, doors slamming shut and locking.

Astrid blinked in the pure darkness around her. "That fascist jerk. Leaving me prerecorded commands…" She did, though, crawl under her blankets and lay down, falling asleep a short time later.

The next morning, Astrid woke to a pair of royal blue eyes right in her face and a black paw poised in the air.

She blinked, "Don't do it, Dark…"

The cat thought about this for a moment, tilting her head, then blinked decisively and smacked Astrid across the face. Dark Nation was gone in a flash, bounding over the furniture and tearing out of the room, claws digging into the carpet.

Astrid sighed and rubbed the now sore spot on her face. "She's been hanging around Rufus too long."

Jumping to her feet, Astrid stretched her arms over her head and twisted her body, the line of her spine cracking rancorously.

She sighed, "Why, oh why, does my spine hate me so?" Sniffing the air, Astrid gave herself a once-over. "Body… needs… shower." She thought about it, then grinned, "If the guest shower was as large as it is, then what is Rufus's like?"

And with that, Astrid's day was decided; she was going to raid Rufus Shinra's bedroom.

"First, the closet."

The closet was filled with… white suits… hundreds of white suits. What were you expecting, a fluffy pink rabbit costume? …Actually, that would be pretty funny.

But, unfortunately, there were no fluffy pink rabbit costumes, just a bunch of white suits.

"Well, that's boring." Ditching the closet, Astrid ran across the room and knelt down, opening the dressers, next. "Since it's typical for the top drawer to be reserved for underwear, I'm going to avoid that drawer and open the bottom one!"

And so she did… finding a load of pants and sweats.

Astrid blinked, "So he does have clothes other than his suits!"

According to the fine layer of dust that covered the top layer of clothes in the drawer, though, Rufus hadn't worn those clothes for a while.

"What a waste."

Smelling herself again, Astrid ditched the drawers and ran into the bathroom, gapping at her surroundings.

"EVERYTHING IN HERE IS MADE OF BLACK MARBLE AND GLASS! HOW MUCH IS HE WILLING TO BLOW ON A BATHROOM?!"

"EVERYTHING IN HERE IS MADE OF BLACK MARBLE AND GLASS! HOW MUCH IS HE WILLING TO BLOW ON A BATHROOM?!"

"EVERYTHING IN HERE IS MADE OF BLACK MARBLE AND GLASS! HOW MUCH IS HE WILLING TO BLOW ON A BATHROOM?!"

"EVERYTHING IN HERE IS MADE OF BLACK MARBLE AND GLASS! HOW MUCH IS HE WILLING TO BLOW ON A BATHROOM?!"

"EVERYTHING IN HERE IS MADE OF BLACK MARBLE AND GLASS! HOW MUCH IS HE WILLING TO BLOW ON A BATHROOM?!"

Astrid blinked, "Wow… an echo. Nice." It was then Astrid's eyes focused in on the biggest bathtub she had ever seen. "You could fit twelve people in there… and I get it all to myself!"

The water was turned on as hot as it could go, every bottle of bubble bath was squirted in, half a box of Epson salts as poured, and eight shampoos and eight conditioners were lined up on each side of the tub.

Astrid then jumped into the shower. "I hate baths." When she got out, the bathwater was still steaming. "Perfect." She grinned evilly and ran back into the bedroom, going through Rufus's closet and pulling out a materia. "Not a good place to hide your materia, Rufus."

Materia in hand, Astrid skipped to the bedroom next door, grinning down at its inhabitant.

"Hello, Dark Nation."

The hellcat, who had been eating some of her kibble from her self-serving cat bowel, looked up at Astrid and blinked. "Meow?"

Astrid lifted her hand and curled her finger, "You want to come with me for a moment?"

Surprisingly enough, getting the ninety pound hellcat into Rufus's tub proved to be easier than she had expected, because Dark Nation apparently like baths.

Astrid shrugged when the cat bound past her and jumped into the tub, throwing the 'Stop' materia over her shoulder. She then walked back into the bathroom and knelt down by the tub, scratching the cat behind the ears and smiling, "I'm going to give you the bath of a lifetime, using all of Rufus's bathing products."

After giving the cat's coat a thorough scrub with the body wash, she moved on to the shampoos and conditioners.

First bottles: "It gives your coat such shine!"

Second: "Silky smooth."

Third: "Such bounce!"

All the way down to the eighth: "So lustrous and full!"

"Well, that's it." Astrid said, standing back and letting the cat crawl out, "Now, all we have to do is dry you off."

Upon hearing the word 'dry', the cat shook her body violently, droplets of water flying and coating everything in the room with a fine sheen of wet.

Astrid wiped her face off and blinked, "Well, that's one way to go about things." She then held up Rufus's super deluxe blow-dryer of doom, a sadistic grin on her face, "But this is a much more efficient method."

…After the war had been complete, Dark Nation tore out of the room fluffier than a puffed-up poodle and Astrid was left on the tiled floor of the bathroom, sore and tangled in cords.

"Owie…"

RingRingRing

Astrid jumped to her feet and stumbled out of the bathroom, tripping over the cord and landing on the carpet.

RingRingRing

She crawled over to the nightstand, pulling herself up and grabbing at the receiver.

RingRingRi—

"Hello?"

"Hello, Astrid."

She grinned, "President Roo-Fuss! What is up, my tyrant lord?"

There was a pause, "I'm going to pretend you didn't say that. How are things? You haven't—"

"Completely liquidated your assets, defaced the building, and sent your entire force of SOLDIER out to Cactus Island to fight a nonexistent threat? Of course not! Whatever gave you that idea?"

Another pause. "Astrid, that's not funny."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry." She sighed and sat down on the bed, untangling the cord from her legs and balancing the phone on her shoulder, "Things are fine. Dark Nation and I are just sitting around, bored as ever. …Do you really leave her here for weeks on end with no human company?"

"The longest I've ever left her alone was three days. Now that you're there, I'm fine with leaving her for a week, though she might not like it."

"We're actually getting along pretty well." Astrid said, flopping back onto his bed, "We just got done with her bath."

"She let you give her a bath? …What did you do to her?"

Astrid shrugged, glancing at her nails, "Nothing, actually. I led her to the bath and she jumped right in." She sat up, crossing her legs, "Enough about us, though. How are things going there? WEAPON still giving you problems? And what about Tifa and Barret?"

"We're doing the best we can to calm the people, Sapphire WEAPON is being handled well, and your friends are… still alive."

She frowned, "I don't like that pause, Rufus. What are you going to do to them?"

"You'll… find out in good time. Well, I have to go."

"Wait!" Astrid shouted, leaning forward so far she nearly fell off of the bed, "What can I do for fun around here?! You've left me with nothing!"

"Play fetch with Dark Nation, or something. Oh, and I left some of your things in the guest room, just don't use the materia on anything expensive…your bathroom would be the best place."

Astrid looked at Rufus's bathroom and grinned. 'Then I guess it's a good thing I claimed your bathroom as mine.' "You got it, mein führer."

"Alright. Remember, don't touch the plasma and be in bed by—"

"I know, I know, eight thirty. Your recording already reminded me."

He chuckled, "Good. Later." Dial tone

Astrid sighed, "Later." She dropped the phone back onto the saddle and wandered into the bathroom, picking up Rufus's impeccably clean brush and running it through her still damp hair. When the brush came loose at her shoulders, she looked in the mirror, suddenly remembering her shortly cut hair.

Wandering back into the living room, she glanced at the hellcat that was staring at her from her perch on the sofa. "Fetch." She threw the brush, which Dark Nation was quick to run after. Remembering what Rufus had said, Astrid walked into her room and opened the box sitting on her bed, shifting through the things inside. She sighed.

"All of my materia, my sword, my gun, and my coat, but no clothes." She looked down at the oversized bathrobe she was wearing, "And this is so not going to cut it."

She considered Rufus's suits… for about half a second. She then promptly had a seizure and fell over.

Then, a thought struck her. 'The unused clothes in the bottom drawer of his dresser…' Other than the dusty ones, all of the clothes looked and smelled perfectly clean, and she was sure a few of them still had tags on them. 'Waste not, want not.'

She walked back to Rufus's room and pulled out a pair of sweatpants and an oversized shirt, walking back into the living room a moment later and throwing herself on the sofa.

"This is going to be so boring…"

"Meow." A brush was dropped onto her stomach.

Astrid sighed, picked up the brush, and threw it again. "Fetch."