Author's Note: I swear, I am actually going to get somewhere in this chapter. Oh, and if you want to see a picture of the two cats Squall's are based off of, go to my livejournal. I have the link listed as my homepage of my fanfiction profile. Oh, and any of Squall's opinions on animals (you'll see in the chapter) are not shared by me. I happen to love most animals.

Ack... I found a mistake on my part. In chapter three, I said Squall had a corner sofa and then in chapter four I said he had two sofas, opposite each other. Just forget all about the corner sofa. Just erase it from your memory. :)

[Disclaimer: I own Sidney, Demi, Amaya, the pawnshop guy, and the man who tried to rape Yuffie. Everyone else belongs to their respective owners.]

Chapter Six: A Little Sunshine

For the next few days, Yuffie floated in and out of consciousness, staying awake for an hour or so at a time before the cold pills would kick in and make her fall asleep once more. But, her fever was steadily going down and her frequent headaches were gradually disappearing. And as she began to feel better, she would wander around the apartment, scaring Leon half the time as he was used to being alone in the apartment. It didn't help that, as a thief, Yuffie had learned to walk silently and, thus, would unintentionally sneak up on her host.

Yuffie stepped quietly into the living room, immediately seeing Leon standing in the kitchen with his back to her as he cut up some vegetables. On the stove, she could both smell and hear the sounds of a roast sizzling as he seared the outside before putting it into the oven. Her nose in the air, deeply breathing in the heavenly scent of the food he was preparing, the teenager crossed the living room and the kitchen, stopping just behind Leon as she stood on tiptoe to peer over his shoulder. "What're you cooking?" she piped up suddenly, jumping backwards when the man in front of her spun around, knife in his hands.

"Don't do that!" he hissed, sticking the bleeding thumb he had sliced when she just appeared behind him into his mouth. It never ceased to amaze him how many times she had done just that in only the five days she was there. Especially since for most of those five days she had stayed in bed. "We need to get you a bell or something to wear around your waist," he muttered as he washed the blood off his thumb and the knife blade before turning back to cutting up the vegetables. "And I'm making a roast, by the way."

Yuffie took another whiff of the roast, closing her eyes and smiling as she did so. "It smells delicious," she murmured, temporarily forgetting what she had come in here for. "So, you do this at your restaurant, right?" She remembered him telling her one day that he owned an Italian restaurant called The Rustic Oven, but he since Yuffie had been staying at his apartment, he had only spent a few hours a day there, conducting most of his business over the phone.

His eyes on the task at hand, chopping up the carrots, potatoes, onions, and other various root vegetables, Leon answered her. "Not very often. I used to, when I first got the place. But, now, I'm mainly just manage most things," he explained, taking the now seared roast off the burner and placing the vegetables around it, covering it with a lid and carrying it towards the oven. "Open the oven, please."

Doing as directed, Yuffie opened the oven for Leon, her mouth already watering for the food. Never in her life had she been fed such delicious food on a daily basis. Which brought her back to her reason for coming out of her room to find Leon in the first place. "Uh... So, Leon, I guess I'll be leaving tonight since I'm not sick any more," she tried to say cheerily, but failing miserably. But, she knew she didn't belong here. She would never be able to fit in and she couldn't impose any more on his hospitality.

"I suppose so," Leon muttered in reply, washing his hands as he silently wondered what would happen to this girl if she returned to the streets. He decided that she would probably return to pickpocketing and, when that 'job' stopped giving her enough cash, maybe even prostitution, leaving just a shell of the girl that she once was. "I'll be back in a minute."

"Uh.. okay," Yuffie stammered as she watched him quickly dry his hands and walk to the apartment door, nearly slamming it shut behind him. Shrugging, the former pickpocket plopped down on the sofa, flipping on the TV and channel surfing until she came across one of the cartoons she had grown to love in the past few days.

In the hallway, Leon leaned against his door, wondering why he felt compelled to do what he was about to do. What was it exactly with this girl that made him not want to let her go back to living on the streets? In his life, he had seen plenty of people living on the streets, and while he did pity them, he never felt the urge to help them anymore than giving them a little spare change.

Sighing, Leon crossed the hall to Aerith's door, knocking relentlessly as he heard her small dog yipping in the background. He hated small dogs. They just seemed like overgrown rats to him. The door was thrown open and a harried-looking Aerith stood there looking at him, a small black and white dog in her arms that was growling and trying to lunge towards Leon. "What do you need, Leon?" she asked as she stepped away from the door to let him in, putting the dog down as soon as the door was shut.

"I have a favor to ask, Aerith," Leon began, dodging the dog that was jumping and biting his pants leg as he tried to walk into the living room. "And what is the deal with the damn dog?"

"Iris, sit!" the florist commanded, pointing towards the floor as she did so. The dog, though still eyeing Leon warily, did as her master bade and dropped to the floor, big butterfly-like ears twisting to follow what she deemed as the intruder. Aerith sat on the couch, sighing tiredly and looked at her guest. "Okay, what's the favor? Or should I ask, what's the chore?"

Leon cringed slightly, remembering it had just been a week ago that he had begged Aerith to do his laundry for him. Of course, he later regretted it when all his white clothes came back pink, which he promptly rewashed and bleached himself. "No, it's not a chore. It's about Yuffie."

Aerith cocked her head to the side, her eyebrows raised slightly, and stared at him, urging him to continue. When he didn't, she rolled her eyes in exasperation and verbally prompted him. "Well, are you going to tell me or not?'

"Can she live with you?" Leon asked bluntly, figuring it would be a lot easier and faster this way. He never was good at leading up to things.

The florist's bright green eyes widened and she leaned back slightly in shock. "I... uh... huh?" she stammered in confusion, trying to get a grasp on the situation.

Nervously running a hand through his long mahogany hair, Leon continued. "She's planning on leaving tonight and we can't let her go back to living on the streets. There's no telling what will eventually happen to her," he explained, taking a seat at the other end of the couch, turned towards Aerith.

"Well, no. I knew that. What I want to know is why me? I mean, I'd gladly take her in except that she's already used to living with you and you need a little more light in your life. You've been living in the shadows for far too long," Aerith said firmly, staring at him pointedly and using the same tone of voice she used on her dog when she wanted her to mind.

"But, Aerith... she's only seventeen. What would it look like for a twenty-six year old bachelor to take in a seventeen year old girl? People would talk," Leon argued, already knowing that he was going to lose the fight. Whenever Aerith set her mind to something, she always followed through, no matter what she had to do to get there.

"People will always talk, Leon. You know that as much as I do," the florist pointed out, refusing to back down from her position. "Besides, you told me yourself how amazed you were that Sydney and Demi took to her so fast. Especially Demi." She paused and leaned towards her guest slightly. "Leon, Demi doesn't even like me unless I have tuna on my breath and I've known her for three years."

Leon ran a hand down his face, running his thumb along the jagged scar between his eyes as he did so. "You're telling me I should keep her because my cat likes her?" he asked incredulously, his stormy blue eyes widening and then narrowing.

"It's a sign, Leon. It's like she's saying 'Can we keep her?' Consider it fate."

"Enough with the fate stuff, Aerith. You know I don't believe in fate," he said in frustration, rising from his seat and starting towards the door. He stopped and turned back to his longtime friend. "So, should I buy her a collar and license?"

"What?" Aerith asked in confusion.

Leon threw his head back, rubbing his forehead as he did so. "Never mind, Aerith, never mind," he muttered as he left her apartment and went to his own, opening the door to hear Yuffie laughing. He looked across the room to see her lounging on the couch, watching a cartoon with a blond man wearing a black muscle shirt, who was trying to get the girl but never succeeding. Leon couldn't help but see how natural Yuffie looked in the setting which slightly disturbed him for some reason. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts, he walked over and sat in the love seat opposite the couch. "How do you watch that show?" he finally asked after Yuffie spared a passing glance to him before going back to the cartoon.

"I like it. I mean, come on. It's hilarious," she began, pausing to laugh as the man was hit by his would be date once again. "He's such a mama's boy and doesn't even know it. I actually feel sorry for him."

"Whatever," Leon muttered, leaning his head back and closing his eyes to take a short nap. But with the thought of Yuffie being his permanent guest running through his head, he was finding it hard to do so. What was he going to do with a girl in his apartment? There hadn't been one there since her and that was five years ago. And he was younger than he was now and she had been older than Yuffie. Things were different then.

And that didn't even bring into account the fact that Yuffie might not want to stay. She had already expressed an urge to leave just that afternoon. For all he knew, she could take his offering of a roof over her head as a form of pity, which he had found out early on that she hated. Of course, he could always blackmail her into staying if it came down to it. After all, she was still a minor and a runaway from her last foster home, not to mention a pickpocket. All he had to do was report her to the police and they would take matters from there.

Again, this brought him back to why he was doing this. Why would he go through all the trouble to keep her there with him? Why did he feel compelled to keep her around? But, it was one thing that both he and Aerith agreed on. They couldn't let Yuffie go back to living on the streets, not after they had both seen the condition she was in when he had brought her here.

Mulling this all over in his mind, he opened his eyes and stared at the girl, who had quieted considerably when she noticed he was trying to take a nap. After only five days here, she was already gaining weight that she needed. The hollows that had been in her cheeks were filling out slightly and her eyes didn't have the dark rings around them anymore. Of course, part of that could have been due to her illness that she was now over, but the way her vertebrate jutted out of her skin wasn't. That had to have been from months of malnourishment.

He didn't know how long he had sat there, musing over the situation at hand, until the timer on the oven went off to tell him that the roast he had put in there earlier was done. Rising from his seat, Leon stretched his arms over his head and yawned before going into the kitchen to retrieve their dinner from the oven before it burnt. He noticed that Yuffie was following closely behind him, eyes already on the oven door. "I still have to carve it, you know," he said over his shoulder, laughing silently when he saw the look of disappointment on her face.

"How long will that take?" Yuffie asked, her voice sounding just slightly whiny but she couldn't help it. That smell had been taunting her senses for the last hour or so, begging her to just come and take a bite. Besides, this would be the last good meal she would have since she'd be leaving tonight.

"Not long," Leon answered, pulling the roast out of the oven and setting it on the stove. "But it has to rest for fifteen minutes or it'll dry out." The look of horror on her face was priceless. He pointed towards the cabinets while he pulled a knife out of the butcher's block. "Make yourself useful and set the table or something."

Complying, Yuffie reached into the cabinet and pulled out two of the blue and white plates, lingering as she passed by the roast. "Are you sure you have to wait fifteen minutes? I mean, what if I just took a small bite right now?" she pleaded, looking back and forth between him and the roast.

Reaching into the pan, Leon pulled out a small piece of potato with a fork and handed it to her. "Will that satisfy you until it's actually ready to eat?" he asked, nearly laughing at how fast she grabbed the fork and stuffed the potato into her mouth. He had to admit, he had never seen anyone eat as much or as often as her since she got over her nausea while sick.

The fifteen minutes Leon insisted upon finally passed and he carved the roast, much to Yuffie's relief. As far as she knew, this was her last real meal. Their dinner passed in silence with Yuffie shoveling the food into her mouth like there was no tomorrow and Leon watching her out of the corner of her eye.

Dropping her fork as she took her last bite, Yuffie looked up at Leon. "Well, I guess it's time for me to be going," she announced, rising from the table and going back to the spare room for her stuff. She stopped in the hallway and looked down at her clothes. She was still wearing the stuff Aerith had loaned her. "Uh... do you think Aerith wants her clothes back?"

"Nope. She won't mind," Leon called back to her, taking the plates to the kitchen and placing them in the dishwasher. He watched as she came back into the living room, a plastic bag in one hand with her clothes and stuffed bear. Before she reached the door, though, he had beat her to it and stood in front of it, blocking her path.

"Uh... is there anything else?" Yuffie wondered aloud, confused by his actions and trying to sidle past him. He only placed his arms on either side of the door to prevent her exit. "I really do need to leave and find some place before it gets dark."

"I want you to stay here a little longer," Leon told her, his voice coming out a little colder than planned.

Yuffie's eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she tried to figure out what he was up to. Her thoughts flew back to what she had offered him her first day here and she took an involuntary step backwards. "I thought you said you didn't want that!"

"What?" Leon asked, now his turn to be confused until he realized what she was talking about. He ran a hand through his hair. "No, no, no! Why do you keep thinking that? What I meant was that I think there's a lot more you can do with yourself. if you stay with me I can at least help you stand on your own two feet–without committing misdemeanors on a daily basis to survive."

"Like what?" she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Look, if you stay here, I can give you a job at the restaurant so you'll be earning your money honestly," he explained calmly.

Yuffie rolled her eyes and tried to get past him once more. "I've told you before, I don't need or want your pity. Now let me leave."

Leon stood his ground, still blocking the doorway. "If you don't stay here, I have no other option than to report you to the authorities. You are still a minor and, therefore, you would have to return to a foster family until you turn eighteen. Not to mention, you were a pickpocket," he told her coldly, his voice leaving no room for argument.

"Are you threatening me?" Yuffie asked just as coldly as him.

"Yes, I am," he replied, eyes narrowing slightly as he began to wonder what he was getting himself into. "It's your choice." He stepped away from the doorway, opening the door so she could leave if she wanted.

Tiredly rubbing her eyes, Yuffie glared at him. "Fine. You win. I'll stay here until I turn eighteen and then I am out of here. Got it?"

"Okay, then," Leon muttered, shutting the door and watching as she stomped off down the hallway to what he now considered to be her room. "Aerith, you owe me for this," he mumbled, going back into the kitchen to finish cleaning up.

Author's Note: Gotta go post. VL is yelling at me. Anyways, review for me. I don't know when the next post will be since school starts tomorrow and college sucks. Okay, I'm done.