Cloud just stared at Yuffie in shock, not sure he heard her right. "You're...what?"

"We welcomed you with open arms in deference to your heroism and honor, and you repay us by defiling my daughter and obliterating the future of the House of Kisaragi!" Godo spat at Cloud. "She can never marry now, since she refuses to purge herself of the dishonor growing inside her. So now I am forced to purge her from our lineage instead...take your spoilt woman and get out of my sight!" he ordered Cloud. "You both are hereby exiled from Wutai, and you have one week to get out of our borders. After that, you will be killed on sight." Godo stood up.

"Father..." Yuffie tried one last to plead for clemency.

"I am not your father. You don't exist for me anymore." A frown passed over his face as he regretfully disowned her. "Take her and go!" he told Cloud.

In a daze, they were ushered outside the building to Fenrir, and followed to the outskirts of the village where Cloud was given back the Buster sword and his hunting knife.

"What...what just happened?" Cloud asked as the shock started to wear off.

"Father banished us." Yuffie tearfully replied as she realized she no longer had the right to call him Father.

They camped for the night by a small stream a few miles from the village. Cloud could have driven them much farther, but they both needed to rest and process the day's tumultuous events. "I...I don't have a tent, just a sleeping bag." he explained almost apologetically as he started getting supplies from Fenrir.

"It's okay, I used to sleep under the stars a lot when I was a kid." Yuffie reminded him, not really caring how or where she slept that night.

"You weren't pregnant with my child then." Cloud felt strange to say those words. "Are you sure? How...I mean what...how did it happen?"

Yuffie stared at him as he started their campfire. "I thought you couldn't have children. Hojo's experiments made you sterile, didn't they?"

"Apparently not." Cloud frowned. He had forgotten that he had lied to Tifa long ago about his fertility when she had wanted to start their own family to prove to him that they belonged together. Obviously she had told her girlfriends. After they ate a meager dinner in uncomfortable silence, he unrolled the sleeping bag. "You can use this, I'll sleep on Fenrir."

Neither of them could sleep...Yuffie was staring at the dying embers of the fire, feeling unreal. If she wasn't Wutaian anymore, what was she? Cloud was also questioning his identity as he lay on his bike staring up at the stars. He was going to be a father! Raising adopted children was hard enough, even if Tifa was doing most of the work now. He flinched at the thought of her finding out, not only that he lied to her, but that one of her best friends was the one carrying his child, not her. What was he gonna do now? Shaking his head, he got off his bike and was adding more wood to the fire when he heard a strange noise. Listening carefully, he soon realized it was Yuffie trying to cry silently. Pity for her overcame him and he walked over to her and sat down on the edge of the sleeping bag.

"It'll be okay." Cloud couldn't think of anything else to say as he patted her shoulder, trying to reassure her, even though he wasn't sure how everything would be okay, this situation was so beyond him. He had expected a private tea with a woman he cared about so he could apologize to her, not to find out she was pregnant and her father deciding to banish them. He remembered Godo saying she wouldn't purge herself of her dishonor, which must mean their baby. "Why...why didn't you just have an abortion?" he wondered aloud, then realized how that sounded. "I mean...I'm not...oh never mind!" He went to stand up again when she turned her grief-stricken face to him.

"I...I just couldn't! I'm so sorry I did this to you." she tearfully apologized to him. "You're...you're all I have left and I know you don't want any of this."

Those words hit Cloud hard...Tifa had often told him he was all she had left, even when she had her bar, Avalanche, and Marlene, and he didn't even really know who he was. But Yuffie...she literally only had the clothes on her back, having essentially been declared dead by her own father, all because she decided to keep their baby, even after the awful way he treated her the last time when he stormed out of her penthouse. Cloud had never been more touched and he couldn't screw up this second chance with her, even if life had thrown him another curveball. "I do want you." he told her, putting one hand on her cheek and the other on her as-yet flat stomach. "I want both of you."

He kissed her and before either of them knew it, they were undressing each other in the sleeping bag, and Yuffie's breath caught to feel him hard against her, still slightly disbelieving that he had forgiven her. Tears filled her eyes again at how gentle he was with her, and her body responded eagerly to his touch. Her moans soon turned to cries of pleasure, culminating in her exclamation to Cloud, as her body exploded and she was lost in the wonder of her first orgasm. "I love you!"

"I love you too." Cloud replied, realizing it was true. Had he always felt that way and just suppressed his feelings for Yuffie because of Tifa? It didn't matter, they were together now, and he intended to keep it that way. "And I want you to marry me."

Hope flared in Yuffie's eyes, quickly replaced by sadness. "I...I don't have anything to offer you. I'm a nobody now."

"Will you offer me yourself?" he asked quietly.

"Of course!" Yuffie agreed immediately. "But..."

"That's all I want." Cloud kissed her again, her comment about being a nobody sticking in his mind. He remembered his dream when Vincent had woken him up with news about Zack, how he had promised Yuffie he would honor her traditions...her Wutaian heritage was such a part of her. Deciding he couldn't marry her with how things stood and his unfinished business, he waited until she fell asleep and quickly left.

The lack of warmth next to her woke up Yuffie as the sun was rising. She found a note next to the sleeping bag, weighed down with a rock and Cloud nowhere in sight. Her stomach in knots, she took the note and read it.

I love you, don't ever forget that. I'm going to try and set things right. If I'm not back by nightfall, take Fenrir and get out of Wutai tomorrow morning, and tell our child their father loved them very much.

"You are no longer welcome here." Godo told Cloud as the young man forced his way into an audience with the ruler of the Wutai nation. "I spared you and your woman once when I should have executed you on the spot. You won't be so lucky a second time."

"You're not going to let things end like this." Cloud stated. "I want the Shagaro trial."