DISCLAIMER: It still ain't mine. Can't blame me for wishing, though.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: Technically I should be studying for my Hinduism final tomorrow, but I feel pretty confident about it (it's essays, I've had a long history of BSing and I've actually done the reading for the class unlike most of my fellow students) and this was just begging to be written because Murphy's Law is love.

For Gin, for suggesting snow - twice, which ended up being the motivator for finding a plot for this since I've seen a fairly good number of "Squffies in snow" and I didn't wanna repeat any of 'em. It's more humorous than the previous two - and yes, I just had to make Squall bad at poker, and you'll see why in the storylet. Let's just say I don't think anyone who likes Squffies would've been disappointed if he'd said yes to playing it. This is also semi-based on a real life experience me and my friends had a couple years ago, when we went to the store in a big group to buy food for a cookout, though that was in August and dealt with a violent rainstorm and not snow. Especially the "bzzrt." You'll see. What're you still here for, read, read!

By sheer technicality this one takes place before the rain one, but I don't really care about timeline with this collection. Make sure to keep suggesting weather, because I'm still looking for more! (heartsoblivion, I'll do sleet as soon as I can think of a mini-plot for it!)

(Soundtrack: "Please Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" by Santa Esmerelda, from the soundtrack to Kill Bill Vol. I)

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It wasn't like it was July. It wasn't like it was even April, or March, or November. It was January. It was cold in January. Snow was to be expected.

But not this much snow.

Yuffie whistled very quietly as she stared through the glass, plastered to the big grocery store windows and unable to see even five feet in front of her. It had been snowing when she and Squall walked in, but that snow was the fat, fluffy flakes of the kind that made excellent snowballs and gave just enough work for the snowplows to be pulled out and put back again within an hour. Not even enough to have the local schools closing.

This, however, was a blizzard, and there was no getting around it.

"Uh, Squall…" she called to the young man behind her currently paying for the groceries. "I don't think we can leave."

They had done their shopping as fast as they could, but shopping for five people for a week in an unfamiliar store took a lot longer than they had anticipated. Apparently in the hour and a half they had trolled the aisles, the gentle snowfall had grown into a silent monster that blanketed everything and almost seemed to be pressing the life out of the world.

Squall came up beside her as soon as he received his bank card back, and she heard him curse quietly under his breath. He knew more about snow than she did, but that not-quite heard curse assured her that her assumption had indeed been correct, and when he pulled out his cell phone it was only confirmed. Quickly dialing the number and leaning a little more towards the glass for a better signal, it was only a few moments before someone answered. "Cloud, yeah, it's me… Yeah… Yeah, we can't leave yet. It's like a blanket out there and I probably couldn't see my hand in front of my face… We'll be fine, we'll just come back once it's over. What about you?... I don't have a teleporter, Strife, otherwise you would be in space right now." Yuffie bit her tongue so she wouldn't ask about that one. "Yeah… Break up those old bookshelves and start a fire, we needed to get rid of them anyway. Just- Cloud? Cloud?" Lowering the phone from his ear, Squall shook his head and turned it off. "We got cut off, but I don't know whether it was the signal or the ground line that went."

"With how much Murphy's Law loves us, I'd bet both. What's the teleporter for?"

"He wanted us to send the food back to them but keep ourselves here."

Yuffie snickered, finally peeling herself away from the window and heading over to the cart. Her parka was buried there, and she dug under the plastic bags for the bulky bundle. "Hey, if we're making him sick it's only payback for what he and Aerith did to us."

"I'm sure he doesn't see it the same way."

"Least we don't randomly grab each other in public." Yuffie pulled a waded bundle from one of the parka's pockets and untangled it, pulling on the two separate gloves it made once she was done. Suddenly she spun on her heels and fell towards him, grabbing his sleeves just as he caught her by her elbows. "Kiss me, Cloud! Kiss me, you tall blond stud!" she cried in a high falsetto, somehow managing to not dissolve into laughter despite the fact that she was attracting the attention of the clerks and the other shoppers.

Normally Leon wouldn't like all those eyes on them, but at the moment he was trying too hard to not break out into laughter. "Yuffie…"

"Yuffie? But I'm Aerith!" she continued in the fake voice, widening her eyes at him dramatically. "Why do you say Yuffie's name? You love her, don't you Cloud! Not me! Oh woe!" And she spun away from him, throwing one hand to her forehead, and plainly would have continued if Squall hadn't quickly grabbed her around the waist, pulled her back into him (making her squeak), and clapped a hand over her mouth.

He could feel her trying to bite him through the leather on his hands. "That typically works better when I'm not wearing gloves," he said into her ear.

"Damn you, Leonheart," she replied, muffled, but in her own voice.

He chuckled quietly as he took his hand away from her mouth. "You're scaring the nice spectators, Yuf."

Her only response for that was to throw them a cheesy grin and a wave before finally breaking free of his restraint and going back to look out the window. There hadn't been many people in the store, most people having been smart and not nearly running out of food while the snow went on, but there were still five cashiers and a handful of shoppers with them, and they were slowly coalescing behind them to watch the blizzard as well. The large windows provided an all too clear view of the snow coming down, which was slightly creepy in its silence.

"I'm gonna go crazy if I just stand here and watch this," Yuffie said suddenly. Grabbing her parka from the cart and pulling it on as she walked, she turned and started heading towards the produce section on the right, clearly doing it just to have something to do. Glancing at the other few people trapped there with them, Squall decided the cart (and their purchases) were safe enough, and followed her. With his luck, she'd find something for them to do to pass the time until they could get out. Of course, if his luck was bad, that something would involve stuff being destroyed.

By the time he reached the vegetables, she was gone, having disappeared down one of the aisles when he hadn't seen her. A couple of minutes later, he finally located her in the cereal aisle, at the small display of incredibly cheap toys the store sold, ripping open a pack of normal playing cards. "Yuf, we haven't paid for that," he reminded her as he came up next to her.

She just shrugged. "I'll pay when we head out. No big deal. Come on, play something with me."

"What were you thinking of?"

And a grin. "Strip poker."

"No."

"Aww, come on."

"It's too cold." And Cid and Cloud would kill me. Or worse.

"You just hate that you always lose. Blackjack then."

But after four rounds of Blackjack, one of War that they actually finished, a round of poker that did not involve stripping (and he did indeed lose), two rounds of Hearts and a round of Fifty-Two pickup that they both refused to participate in, there was still no getting out. The management had come blaring over the intercom at some point during their game of War, and again during the second time through Hearts, saying that the snow had not stopped, nor had the plows come by. Playing cards scattered around them as they sat on the linoleum, Yuffie buried her face in the shoulder of his overcoat and groaned. "I'm going to go crazy."

"Please don't, I don't like having to talk you out of insanity."

"You haven't had to yet. How long do you think this is going to take?"

"I don't know." The air was gradually chilling, and he put an arm around her shoulders as she started to shiver a little even with her parka. "But this place still has its electricity, so we'll be all right."

BZZZRT.

Damn.

"Squall," Yuffie said casually into the sudden darkness, "if you say one more thing, I'm going to kill you."

He nodded silently. Murphy's Law did indeed love them.