"So why don't you like weddings?" Tifa asked Reno during the car ride back to her place after she gave him directions.

"Bad luck. Most of the women who go to those things are either already married or desperate to be. And as I told you, I don't want a 'committed' relationship." Reno braked for a red light, wondering why he was being so talkative with Tifa. "You keep things casual, it makes sure no one gets hurt."

Tifa mulled that over as he continued driving. She had never considered that his love 'em and leave 'em routine might be his way of trying to protect himself and the women he slept with. With how dangerous his job was, it made a certain sort of sense, even if all the life-threatening situations she had been in just made her want the stability of a loving partner that much more. She frowned, thinking of all the times she had referred to him as Mr. Skank. "I'm…I'm sorry, Reno."

"Sorry for what?" he asked guardedly as he pulled to a stop in front of her new apartment. He hoped she wasn't going to go on about how she felt sorry for him, having anyone pity him was beyond unacceptable.

"For all the nasty thoughts I had about you." she confessed.

"Oh. Don't worry about it, you don't have to apologize to me for everything. Hey, how come you live in this dump?" he replied, looking more closely at her apartment building, changing the subject before he started to blush again at being caught off-guard by her second apology.

"It was a better investment than buying a house." she told him as she got out of her jeep.

"Are you kidding me?" Reno stared at her.

"No, the rent's cheap enough that with the money from selling the bar and the money that Cloud gave me when he sold his delivery business, I can send Denzel and Marlene to good private schools while I take figure out what to do with my life, besides my art classes." she explained. "And I get to spend a lot more time with them."

"How come we didn't take them home with us?" Reno asked, feeling stupid that he hadn't thought about them or wondered about their absence from Tifa's side until now.

"This is their monthly weekend with Cloud." Tifa's voice had only a trace of bitterness.

"Well, here are your car keys." Reno didn't want to get into her issues with Cloud again, so he handed the keys back to her through the passenger side window before he got out himself and took out his cell phone to call Rude to pick him up. "See you around."

"Would…would you walk me upstairs?" Tifa hoped she didn't sound desperate, but the thought of being alone after a wedding was just too depressing, and having a few more moments of someone to talk to was irresistible.

"Um, sure. Oh, nothing Rude, I'm at Tifa's and I'll need you to pick me up in a few." Reno said before hanging up the phone. "There's no elevator?" he asked her when they entered the lobby.

"No, costs too much to maintain. I told you the rent's cheap." Tifa said as she grabbed his hand to lead him to the stairwell. Reno felt a bit uncomfortable yet relaxed at the same time, her warm hand holding his as they walked up the stairs to the third floor.


Vincent was surprised by the knock on his door, since everyone he knew went to Cloud and Yuffie's wedding and he thought they'd still be there. He had spent most of the day trying to figure out what to do with his coffin now that he had his own apartment, and enjoying that people left him alone to do it. "Elena! What are you doing here?"

"Do you know what this means?" A rather tipsy Elena asked Vincent as she showed him the wedding bouquet she was still holding tightly in her hands as she barged past him.

"You went to a florist? What for?" Vincent was confused by her visit and her behavior.

"No, silly. It means you're mine tonight. Us Turks are a breed apart, but you're…" Elena's words were slurred, and she paused until she remembered why she had come here. "You're going to show me how much of a beast you are!" Elena tossed the bouquet aside and stuck her hand down his pants with one hand while her other hand pulled his head down to hers for a sloppy kiss.


"At least you must get plenty of exercise going up and down these stairs all the time." Reno remarked when he and Tifa reached the third floor landing.

"I actually only go out once or twice a week, for my art class or to buy groceries." she explained when they stopped in front of her door.

"You're taking art classes still?" he asked her, a smirk starting to appear on his face as he fondly remembered modeling for her first class.

"It's something creative for me to do while I figure out what to do with my life now." Tifa replied as she looked in her purse for her keys.

"Do you still have my painting?" Reno's smirk was now a full-blown Chesire cat grin.

Tifa whipped her head up to stare at him, the sudden change in movement causing her to drop her keys. "Crap!" she exclaimed in frustration.

"Here ya go." Reno knelt down to snatch her keyring off the floor and handed it back to her. "But you didn't answer my question."

Tifa couldn't help but let out another giggle as she unlocked the door. "Now you're the one on your knees. Come on inside."

"Um, okay." Reno answered a bit warily, her teasing and invitation seemed out of character for her, unless she wasn't thinking what he was. He frowned slightly as he realized she probably wasn't, but he followed her inside anyway. "Not bad." he remarked, looking over the well-kept apartment, rather at odds with the seedy building it was housed in.

"Thanks." she replied, putting her purse on the coffee table in the living room. "This way, please." Tifa kept walking to another door and opened it. Reno was surprised that it was her bedroom, and she reached under her bed and pulled out a huge storage drawer filled with paintings. Tifa carefully took out her nude portrait of them. "Here it is."

"How come you don't have this hanging up for all to see?" Reno wanted to know. "It's a work of art!"

"I'm not hanging up naked pictures when I have two young children!" Tifa exclaimed. "Do you want it?" she asked hesitantly, torn between wanting to keep what her painting instructor assured her was proof of her talent and not wanting to keep something so blatantly sexual around.

Reno's frown returned. "The painting's great, but where would I put it at my place? I don't want you looking at me while I have sex with other women!"

"That would bother you?" Tifa's curiosity was peaked. "You like being on display, don't you?"

"Of course I like letting people know how great my body is!" Reno blurted out. "But having a picture of me with another woman in the same room would ruin the mood for both of us."

Tifa turned thoughtful as an idea popped into her head, one that she would have immediately dismissed once upon a time, before Cloud left her in shambles. She was trying to redirect her life anyway. "Well, there is an alternative, if you're up to trying something new."

"You forget who you're talking to!" Reno haughtily replied. "Wait, what did you have in mind?"

"I'll tell you in the morning." Tifa's voice was sharp as her way to combat the nervousness she felt for what she was going to propose to him. "But first, I'd…I'd like you to teach me how to do this." She knelt awkwardly in her Maid of Honor dress before him.

"Are you serious?" Reno stared blankly at her. This wasn't the Tifa he knew…

"Yes!" she almost shrieked, hurriedly unfastening his pants. "You did say you wanted this. Okay, what do I do now?" Tifa asked quickly as she gazed at his flaccid member, wanting this over with before she lost her nerve.

"Um, open wide." Reno felt himself start to harden as he looked down at her, his eyes fixated on her breasts, and he idly wondered if he was asleep and this was another daydream. It felt unreal, and then he shrugged…worst case scenario, he'd wake up in another boring briefing with Tseng stating the obvious, but he'd have one hell of a boner to liven things up. "Now take me in your mouth."

"You showered before you got dressed for the wedding, right?" Tifa's maternally inspired germophobia kicked in.

"Yes, I did. I'll help you since this is your first time." Reno put his hands firmly on her head and gently entered her. He had to fight the urge to laugh at the absurdity of it all, so he could give Tifa proper instructions. She diligently tried to follow them, but it was still a mess as she started gagging when he came in her mouth.

"I…I need a shower." Tifa managed to say. She didn't know what she had expected oral sex to be like, but she wasn't prepared for how sloppy it was.

"Don't worry, it takes time to get used to." Reno felt obligated to reassure her as she bolted for the bathroom, it had been almost sweet how hard she tried.

"You're still here?" Tifa asked when she got done with her shower and found him looking over her DVD collection.

"Mind if I clean up too?" Reno asked. "I just need the sink."

"Oh…um, okay." Tifa replied, blushing a little over her lapse of courtesy, of course he'd need to clean himself up too.

Reno came back out, drying his hands off with a washcloth, which he just negligently tossed back towards the bathroom, then refastened his pants. "Thanks, I'll see you later." he told her.

"You go pick that washcloth up and put it in the hamper!" Tifa snapped at him. "Why are you smiling like that?"

Reno was relieved as he complied with her demand. "Because that's the Tifa I know." He stopped in front of her on his way to the door, and leaned down to give her a perfunctory goodbye kiss, but the spark he felt when their lips touched gave him another idea, and he picked her up and carried her to her bed.

"What are you doing?" Tifa asked him.

"It's only fair if I return the favor you just did for me." Reno untied her bathrobe, exposing her body to him.

Tifa half-opened her mouth, but whatever she had wanted to say was silenced as he kissed her again. For all his faults, he was the most sexually experienced man she knew, and low moans escaped from her lips as his mouth trailed down her body.

Tifa gasped as she felt his tongue, her moans getting louder and louder as her body reveled in his expertise. "Fuck me until you love me!" she heard herself crying out as she orgasmed.

Reno looked up at her. "What did you just say?"

Tifa's cheeks turned even redder. She hadn't meant to say that out loud. "I…um…want you to stay the night…please!"

"If you insist…" Reno started taking his tuxedo off.


Rude parked in front of Tifa's apartment building, and honked in the code he and Reno had come up with, when he didn't see his partner waiting for him. When Reno still didn't show up, he called him, and after the third attempt with no answer, Rude started cursing Reno's perversion as he drove off again.


Reno groaned in disgust as the sunlight shone in his eyes, waking him up. He smelled food and realized he wasn't in his own bed. "Tifa?" he called out.

"I'm in the kitchen!" she replied.

Reno flopped himself out of her bed and headed into the kitchen. "You're a morning person, aren't you?" he asked her almost grumpily when she smiled at him.

"And you're a night owl." she replied in a friendly tone. "I thought you might be hungry." She handed him a plate of pancakes and eggs. "Bacon or sausage?"

"Bacon, I don't need any sausage but my own!" Reno retorted, taking the utensils from her as he sat down at the table. "It's morning, what alternative did you want to suggest about the painting?" He felt slightly uncomfortable with her casual niceness and wasn't sure why, so he wanted to get back to business, so to speak.

"That we keep it at your place, just for storage. You don't have to hang it up at all." Tifa carefully chose her words so as not to spook him. "But I might need to come and look at it once in a while."

"I suppose." Reno looked as if he had just swallowed a worm. "But I'm not giving you a key to my place!"

"That's fine, I can just text you when I need to look at it if that's okay." Tifa said. "And thanks for last night."

"You know it's just sex, right? I don't want anything serious." Reno reminded her.

"Fair enough. Would you mind if I need that from you again too?" Tifa gently asked him.

"Fine, as long as you don't try and turn this into a relationship." Reno agreed as he finished eating his breakfast. "Are there seconds?"


"I'm glad you have such a big bathtub." Tifa said as Reno insisted on joining her.

"One of the perks of being second-in-command." Reno said as he playfully fondled her breasts.

"You know the wedding's in two hours, we don't want to be late." she half-chided him, even as her body eagerly responded to his caresses.

"We have plenty of time." Reno smirked before kissing her.

"You always say that." Tifa reminded him, even as she repositioned herself in the tub to accommodate him. "It's a good thing you know what you're doing."

"And don't you forget it!" Reno exclaimed as he entered her.

"Never!" Tifa promised him. Water splashed onto the floor as he thrust into her and she returned his kiss while her hands ran over his back, barely stopping herself from clawing him as he easily made her climax again.

"I think that will have to last you until tonight." Reno teased as he pushed her hair back from her face. "You did say something about not being late, didn't you?"

As they dressed for Elena and Vincent's wedding, Tifa couldn't help but smile at the last two years. She had meant it when she told Reno she wanted him to fuck her until he loved her, but she wasn't going to make the same mistake she had with Cloud and was careful to just see how things worked out instead of trying to force it. Her patience had paid off, and he had asked her to move in three weeks earlier. Reno had been so adorably nervous about suggesting it, so she pretended to be totally casual about accepting so he wouldn't feel trapped. "I'm ready, what about you?" she asked Reno when she finished adjusting her dress.

"Sure, let's go." Reno said, a bit grumpy about having to wear a proper tuxedo again.

"Lead on, handsome." Tifa had learned how to flirt courtesy of her relationship with Reno.


Elena took a deep breath as she got into her wedding dress. "I feel like a dress-up doll." she complained to Ellie Beasley, who was helping her as a favor to Reno.

"But you're such a pretty one. You really don't need my help, so why don't I go check on the groom? Men are so flighty, you know." Mrs. Beasley suggested.

"You don't know the half of it." Elena stated. She knew that Reno's neighbor had no clue about his real job or Vincent's condition, so was careful to not let anything drop. "I'd appreciate you checking on him." When Mrs. Beasley left, Elena sighed. She didn't know what she was doing, marrying Vincent. It was absurd…sure she pretty much forced herself on him when she was drunk after Zack and Aerith's wedding, which had resulted in her giving birth to twins, but…she sighed again and reminded herself he was willing to be a stay-at-home dad since he was basically retired and she was still working.


"My, aren't you turning out to be a handsome groom?" Mrs. Beasley said when she walked into his room at the church.

"Thank you, ma'am." Vincent absently replied as Tseng helped him with his bowtie.

"Oh, don't you call me ma'am, I'm not one of those women." she told him. "It's a shame you're going off the market, it looks like Elena is quite lucky, but if I were 40 years younger, she wouldn't have a chance."

"Um, okay." Vincent felt his cheeks burning as the older woman looked pointedly at his crotch as she said that. He didn't want to tell her he was older than he looked, afraid of what she would do if she knew he was really not that much younger than she was. "Is…is Elena ready?"

"Smart women are always ready." Mrs. Beasley smirked. She couldn't help but flirt just a little more with Elena's unusual looking husband-to-be.


The wedding went off without a hitch, and at the reception, Tifa caught the bouquet, much to Reno's dismay.

"Don't worry about it." Tifa reassured him. "It's just a bunch of flowers."

"Don't listen to her." Ellie Beasley teased him as she walked by them. "You could do a lot worse than Tifa though." Walking off, she smiled over how her meddling had finally paid off. She knew a happy couple in love when she saw it, and she expected an invitation to Reno and Tifa's wedding sometime in the next year.


"You did promise to put out more, didn't you?" Tifa asked when she and Reno got back to their place later that night.

"Just let me get out of this stupid tuxedo first." Reno smiled down at her.

"I'll help you." Tifa returned his smile as they undressed each other. "But first…" She hurried to the storage closet.

"What are you doing?" Reno followed his naked girlfriend.

"Can we put this up now?" Tifa held up her painting of them.

"Um, where?" Reno asked, surprised by her request.

"Our bedroom." Tifa suggested. "After all, it'll be just us watching ourselves having sex."

"There's no place for it." Reno pointed out.

"Well, let's just put it in there for now and worry about that later." Tifa had a mischievous glint in her garnet eyes that Reno found captivating.

"Whatever." he agreed, taking hold of the painting with one hand and grabbing hers with the other as they walked to their bedroom. "But now I've got to keep my word, don't I?" Reno sent the painting down leaning against the wall and pulled an unresisting Tifa to their bed.

"Yes, you do." Tifa kissed him, feeling as happy as she had ever been. The blank canvas her life had been once Cloud dumped was now painted in promising colors. Marlene and Denzel were alright with Reno, thinking of him as an uncle figure instead of a fatherly one, which made Reno feel more comfortable with them. Eventually he would propose to her, she was certain of that, but having a steady relationship was new to him, and in some ways for her too. She hadn't really been with Cloud even when they lived together. But Reno…he ended up being more of a decent guy than she had once thought. And she wasn't going to ruin her second chance for happiness. "What do you want me to cook for you afterwards?"

"Keep talking like that and I'll never let you leave!" Reno exclaimed, not seeing the triumphant smile on her face as he focused on the rest of her body.