Hey, again! This was a random thing my cousin and I came up with the last time I was at her house. I volunteered to write it, but it's for her Christmas present. I hope you like it!

Standard Disclaimer: I do not own Inu Yasha or Yu Yu Hakusho. Neither do I own Final Fantasy 7 or The Legend of Dragoon. I only own the Elves, Altariel and Rána (Think Lord of the Rings Elves). My cousin, Inuyasha Kagome 2gether, owns the character Sakura, the hanyou. There, I think I've got it all down. Anyways, on with the fic, and enjoy!! Namarië!!

Christmas with the Dogs

Chapter 1: The Predicament

That day almost started out like any other. Altariel and Cloud arose from their separate bedrooms and went downstairs, as usual, silent so as not to wake the other inhabitants of the house. Inu Yasha, Kagome, Kurama, and Sakura would not wake for a couple more hours, as always, so Altariel walked silently down the stairs, her long, chocolate-black hair seeming to float behind her.

Altariel was an Elf: her ancestors came from a place called Middle-Earth. She had long, chocolate-brown hair that was almost black, and warm, loving eyes that were the same color. Her temper, however, was quite fiery, as she had been raised with an Irish family since they had found her on their doorstep one morning. Her real parents had been killed by an evil being named Naraku, or so said the letter found with her. Altariel herself had only learned of her true heritage when she looked to be about 15 years old, but her true age was undetermined, as Elves can live for millennia, and they don't appear to age after a certain point. They appear to be babies until they turn about 100, and then they start growing like a human child, so it was very, very possible that Altariel was actually 117 years old. So, being an Elf, she had inherited all the abilities of her ancestors. She glowed faintly, and she had enhanced eyesight and hearing, and she was so light that she didn't make any noise when she walked. She could walk or run for great distances without tiring thanks to the Elven endurance, and she could also talk to trees. However, she was a human at heart, an Irish one at that, and she made friends with mortals. She knew this would hurt her deeply some day and she would fade away after that, but at least she could live life to its fullest while her friends and family were still around. She was human at heart.

Cloud was a man from a world called Gaia. He had blond hair that, strangely, gathered into sharp spikes that defied gravity. His eyes glowed a strange bluish-green, and he always toted around a huge sword. The sword was longer than he was tall, about 6 feet, and he wielded it with ease, having trained with it for the past 7 years. His real age was about 21, but his body had reverted back to about 17 years of age when he had accidentally come to this world. He was still trying to find a way back to Gaia, but for the moment, he was taking a bit of a break to hang out with his new friends and forget about his troubles. He'd only been on Earth for about 10 months up till now, but he had met Altariel and the rest of the gang about 6 months ago. He was usually quite cold towards people, but when it came to his friends, he warmed up and was a fairly good friend. He was quite loyal, but seemed to carry a burden on his shoulders that wasn't his sword. You could see it in his eyes.

Altariel walked into the kitchen and pulled out a kettle and teabags, and her favorite Harry Potter mug and another. Setting the mugs on the counter, she held the kettle under the faucet and turned on the water, filling the kettle up. Cloud came up next to her and put the teabags in their individual mugs, and then he gave Altariel a quick 'good morning' hug and sat down at the kitchen table. He looked to be deep in thought as Altariel placed the kettle on the electric stove and turned on the power to 'high', and she watched him, wondering what he was thinking about. He often seemed to have these spells of thoughtfulness, as if there was something that kept making him withdraw into his mind. She walked over to the table as soon as the water was secure on the stove, and sat down next to him.

"Is there anything you want to talk about, Cloud?" she asked softly, leaning forward to try to see his face better. He shook his head, looking at her with a smile.

"No. I'm ok, I'm just trying to think about what to do today." he replied, putting an arm around her shoulders. She smiled and put an arm around his waist, leaning in and laying her head on his shoulder. They stayed like this for a few moments before Altariel's acute Elven hearing picked up the first hints of the kettle whistling and she got up, chuckling, to take the water off. Seeing as it was not completely boiling yet, she took the whistle off of the kettle and came back to sit next to Cloud, who was back to staring off into space again. She waited a few moments until steam started to billow out of the mouth of the kettle and then got up and poured the boiling water into the mugs. She put the kettle back on the stove and turned off the power, and then brought the mugs back to the table to steep for about 5 minutes. She chuckled when she saw Cloud still staring off into space, and waved her hand in front of his face.

"Hello, Earth to Cloud! Come in, Cloud! Over!" she said playfully as he snapped out of it. "Didja get hit by a whammy?" He looked over at her and blinked sleepily.

"Yep." came his one-word reply. She chuckled.

"You're not much of a morning person, are you?" she asked. He looked at her.

"Actually, I usually am. Back in Midgar- that's on Gaia- my, uh… well, to tell the truth, she was my girlfriend before I got here." he started, and Altariel nodded, smiling one of her genuine smiles, the kind she used quite often. "Well, she and I ran a bar together, called the Tifa's 7th Heaven. We had to get up at about 5:30 each morning to get ready for the day, so I'm pretty used to it."

"Then what's the matter? Why aren't you awake like you usually are?" Cloud's eyes turned haunted, and he looked down at his hands on the table.

"I had a nightmare. That's all." he replied shortly. He had turned cold again, which was quite unlike him, causing Altariel to worry deeply.

"Cloud, that doesn't sound like just a nightmare. What happened in it?" He looked at her again for a second before turning his gaze back to his hands. After a moment, it didn't seem like he was going to tell, so Altariel got up and went to get out some sugar and milk, but she froze when she heard Cloud's voice.

"It was something from my past." he said, so softly that even her Elven hearing nearly didn't catch it. She whipped around, looking at the man, and quickly grabbed the sugar, milk, and two spoons before coming back to the table. She took out the teabags as Cloud told her about his nightmare, and she poured the milk in and put about 3 spoons of sugar in each mug as she listened, stirring it up at the same time. By the time she had finished with the tea, he had come to the end of his story, and fell silent.

"Damn, Cloud…" she said, her eyes wide as she slowly shook her head, looking down at him.

"This isn't the first time, either. I've been having it for 3 days, now." he murmured, and she gaped at him.

"WTF?! Why the hell didn't you tell anyone before?!" she exclaimed. He looked up, scowling slightly at her.

"Do you think I'd want to relive it in detail?" he asked quietly, and she looked taken aback as she blinked at him. "Knowing all of the others, they'd probably want me to retell it blow for blow, and in all the detail I can use." She made a thoughtful face and tipped her head from side to side in a 'You've got a point' kind of gesture.

"You've got a point there…" she murmured. She looked down at him, a soft smile on her lips. "Don't worry. I'm sure it'll be gone by tomorrow. Besides, today's Christmas Eve. We can't have someone having bad dreams tonight!" Her smile erupted into a full-blown grin that made even him smile slightly.

"Thanks, 'Tar." he said quietly. She nodded.

"No problem. If you ever need someone to talk to or a shoulder to cry on, I'll be there for you." she said. A ghost of a smile graced his face, but then it faded and an almost pained look came to his eyes. She gave him a concerned smile, and then took her tea into the other room to watch the news. He heard the TV click on and a few seconds later, the voice of the weather man.

"…the blizzard is moving south quite rapidly, and is expected to stop over the mountain area." the weather man was saying. Cloud heard Altariel murmur something incoherent as he slowly drank his tea, the weather man talking in the background. Suddenly, Altariel shouted, causing him to choke on his tea so bad that it came squirting out of his nose. As soon as he was done coughing it all up, he heard her shouting. She was cussing so bad that she could make a sailor blush 10 times over, and in between the curse words, she was hollering praises to God above and singing 'White Christmas'. He grabbed a towel and held it to his face over his nose and mouth, muttering a few choice curses to himself, and walked into the living room with a glare on his face. Altariel was dancing around like a ballerina mixed with a rapper and a break dancer, and she was whooping and hollering like her 150th birthday had come early.

"IIIII'M DREAMING OF A WHIIIIIITE… CHRISTMAS!!!!" she shouted. She danced about as she shouted this, and he rolled his eyes.

"WHAT IN HELL'S NAME ARE YOU SHOUTING ABOUT, ALTARIEL?!" came an angry voice from the stairwell, and a second later, Sakura, Inu Yasha, Kagome, and Kurama appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"BLIZZARD!! BLIZZARD!!" cried Altariel in a sing-song voice. "WE'RE GONNA BE STRANDED HERE UNTIL THE SNOW MELTS!!" The four of them looked at each other in bewilderment as Cloud just shook his head in exasperation, Altariel doing cartwheels in the large living room in the background.

Whew! Finally! Well, that's the end of Ch.1. Hope you liked it! I'll try to update it a.s.a.p., but I can't make any gurantees. Anyways, please R&R! Thanks!