Life had settled down again, after what had passed into local legendry as the Bad Day. Bahamut had gone back where he came from, the dreaded return of Sephiroth had turned out to be something of a non-starter, and the plague of geostigma was lifted. A celebratory mood had spread over the world, especially in Midgar, and showed no sign of lifting any time soon. Life was good again.

In keeping with the beatific spirit of the moment, Cloud had wrung half a cup of Kadaj's blood out of his shirt and fished a few silver hairs from one of its buckles and looked into the sky with the most adorably earnest expression he knew, until Aeris relented and reassembled him. After that it was a simple matter to sort through the rubble of the blasted tower and find pieces of Yazoo and Loz big enough for a phoenix down to work on. The tainted triplets, freed from Jenova's commands, could make a fresh start in the world they had played an inadvertent part in renewing.

…at least that's what Cloud had told himself so he could get to sleep at night.

Nevertheless, they seemed to be re-adjusting well. Tifa offered to let them use three of the spare rooms at the Seventh Heaven, until they'd found somewhere else to stay, and they accepted. For the first month neither Tifa nor Cloud had seen much of them; more often than not they were out on their bikes doing something or other. Tifa fretted a bit about it until Cloud explained how different the world must be to them now.

"They're probably just trying to figure out where they fit in," he said.

"I'm sure they are, but…don't you think they could come back once in a while?"

"They'll come back when they're ready," Cloud said with the wisdom of experience, and that was that.

Thus it was that Tifa came down the stairs one morning to a surprisingly domestic scene in the kitchen almost a month and a half after the Bad Day. The trio were seated around a table, out of riding leathers for once and dressed in simple, dark clothes. Their attention was focused on their breakfast—the gorgeous smell of fried bacon still hung in the air.

"Good morning!" Tifa greeted them, truly pleased. Three pairs of electric-lime eyes blinked at her in unison. "What are you having?"

"Bacon," mumbled the youngest one, Kadaj, chewing with obvious pleasure. He poked another piece into his mouth. "Make some coffee."

"I'll, uh. Sure." Tifa dug out the big canister of grounds and dumped a few tablespoons into the coffeepot's filter basket. "Bacon's expensive around here—where did you get it?"

"Shinra," said the big one, Loz. He offered her a sunny grin, and Tifa felt her apprehensions melt. The three of them are going to be just fine, she thought. She hummed a scrap of tune as she filled the coffeepot's pitcher with water and upended it into the reservoir, added a little cinnamon to the coffee grounds as an afterthought, and turned the thing on. Then something occurred to her.

"But Shinra's an ELECTRIC compa-"

"Shinra Rufus." Yazoo flicked a glance at her and swallowed his mouthful.

"But he's still around, how-"

"Cure materia."

"…oh."

The coffeepot slowly finished brewing. At Kadaj's demand she doled out three cups, one with extra sugar and one with milk, and returned upstairs. Her feet didn't seem to work quite right with each other, and there was a strange ringing sound in her ears. Her head felt hollow. Cloud was just coming out of the tiny bathroom, his hair a floppy toweled mess.

"Something smells good," he noted. "What's for breakfast?"

Tifa blinked once, slowly, and took a deep breath. "Vodka."