It was a Sunday, and Veld was making pancakes.
Shera had gone home a few days prior, and there were still things they hadn't asked or touched. But Tifa didn't feel that same urge to pry anymore, because there was something to the way he was flipping pancakes in their little kitchenette that let her know there would be talks. There would be stories. And it might not hurt so much.
Yes, she could feel a little bit of ownership over the place now. Just a little.
He never wore an apron, but he never really needed one. But he did roll up his sleeves and the phoenix on his forearm appeared to wink at her, like it knew something she didn't. Or they were in on a shared joke.
"I haven't seen you fiddling with the guitar lately."
The griddle hissed as he flipped over one. "I've been working on it when you've been practicing your bad aim or running."
"Why? It doesn't bother me."
He shrugged. "I concentrate better that way."
Tifa tucked her feet up on to the chair and rested her chin on her knees. "Makes me want to learn to play something new."
"There's a xylophone."
She rolled her eyes. "No, I should probably just pick the piano back up again. What harm could it do?"
It wasn't harm that was the problem. It was those heavy memories. That heavy honesty. At least she knew her hypocrisy.
They talked about things that didn't matter when they ate pancakes. Comfortable, yes, she was still comfortable. She could easily stay comfortable with him for a long long time. It wasn't wishful thinking, that. It was fact.
"We should try playing sometime."
That prude look again. "How so?"
"With instruments. Like that man in the horribly bad cantina did. You think you could learn guitar in time?"
"I suppose I could. But do either of us sing?"
That answer was no. She didn't have to ask to know why. It simply was. Like pancakes on Sunday and knowing that he would keep the business going if she decided to be romantic and declare an ultimatum. They weren't that kind of people, their passions weren't dramatic. They weren't even obvious anymore. She could see them sitting on a porch and chatting until they keeled over more than anything else.
Not that 'anything else' wasn't still... well there were awkward times. Mostly from his end.
"We don't need to sing, if we're just playing instruments. There's even a call for that kind of music nowadays." But the statement was unfinished. Something else was on the tip of her tongue.
"In a month." She blurted it out before she thought about it. Veld made her do things like that. It was unfair.
"You'd like to play in public in that amount of time?"
"Yes. People are going to be drinking anyway, not like they'll notice."
It was hard not to be attached to a man that smiled like that.
ooo
Though he didn't know the reason why, he was disturbed by the fact that Tifa had no letters or pictures given to her. It wasn't right and even if the definition of right and wrong was fluid with him, Veld felt the need to do something about it.
Only, the answer he thought of wasn't easy. If Tifa had never been given a letter, it could be said he'd never written one. He carried a blank piece of paper in his pocket now, maybe hoping that it would seize him at random. He might have been good with quick words, and maybe even manipulative ones, but he was never the type to write them himself.
Made him respect those authors and historians he already respected so much more.
"You're acting foolish," he muttered to himself. The guitar was nearly mastered at this point, though. He felt accomplished there. Still had the old Dragoon tenacity that had made him famous. Well, not really famous, but there was a sense of being well known amongst the scum of the earth that did make him a little prideful.
Hard work, not talent. That was how he'd become what he was. His fingers still remembered cello strings and guitars really weren't much different. It was strange how easily he forgot some things, but others... his sense of touch was always memory exact.
There was a customer, another local businessman, and he was talking. But Veld had zoned in on the feeling of paper as he wrapped up a mail order. Tifa apparently used to work in a delivery business, she'd set up something so tourists didn't break their valuables by transporting them home.
Smoother things like paper and instruments and the like were wearing the calluses off his hands.
"Veld? Not to bother you, but your assistant mentioned that you play guitar to me a few days ago and would be willing to come and play at my bar?"
He heard it that time. She had meant it and was taking steps to keep him from backing out of it. He nodded to the man. Yes, yes he was willing.
The first thing he penned on the paper later when the sun had set and Tifa had gone up to bed was simple. He almost chuckled at the fact he hadn't thought of it sooner.
You are the most stubborn woman I've ever met.
ooo
She didn't have to ask him when he told her the story. Though one could hardly call it a story as much as a statement. But Veld was the type of man in which statements could be stories, because he didn't make solid statements much.
Tifa noticed that he didn't look at her when he said it, and that he was sanding down the sharp edge on an old toy as he said it. She really took in the details for some reason. She didn't know why.
"Aeris was a little spitfire."
It still hung in the air a bit, and she realized that the way he said it, there was an apology but even more so, there was an invitation. He'd pulled out something she would find meaningful, even if she knew what a tempest force Aeris could be and she knew that she had always been that way...
But it was that he acknowledged it. Them. That he had been there as well, on his side, with his loyalties.
"I was married to Cloud once, briefly."
Tifa wasn't going to give him her buttons and ribbons for that, but she knew that there was no need to pry. Maybe she would never get the whole story, and maybe she would never tell him all of hers.
It was a little more than leaving things in a box, the way that they might continue to speak. But that little more was all the difference.
When they looked at each other finally, they laughed.
"Maybe we should have a story time each week." It was good when he joked like that.
"Will you bake cookies and let me sit on your lap?"
"Don't disrespect your elders."
"Or what?"
He puffed up, making himself look taller. "I'll send you to the corner with buckets of water."
She wanted to kiss him for that. But she wasn't some silly teenager anymore. Tifa was a grown woman and even if he liked to tease her about it, they were now on equal footing. And he had recognized it.
Though, she supposed he didn't recognize that she'd translated his expressions. They were so subtle, but she'd seen them in reflections and mirrors and sometimes in the corner of her vision. Veld was so careful otherwise.
And this expression didn't make her worry that she was chasing again.
ooo
"You can back out if you want to."
"And disappoint the drunks? Never."
They hadn't practiced together. For all that Veld knew, Tifa had forgotten how to play entirely. She had assured him that she knew the song before she'd given him the music for his own practice, and maybe he'd taken her word on it. At very worst, they looked disorganized. It wouldn't be a problem.
She was wearing that dress again and had insisted that his tie match. He could never feel uncomfortable in a suit, so despite her little demand, he felt comfortable. Strangely so. Then again, it was a small crowd. No tourists.
The owner had introduced them with the usual informal air that bartenders possessed, and there was a silence now.
He had a few bars before Tifa came in. For a bar, the acoustics were wonderful.
"Duets are so much better than playing alone. Or a band. We should all start a band. Everyone except Vincent plays something. Maybe we could get him to try the triangle."
"It would be a really strange band."
"That's the fun of it. Or at least play with me sometime."
Veld was glad that they hadn't practiced together. The song wasn't a left behind like the things they had pried into, it was something breathing and alive. He'd always thought that piano players were delicate on their instrument, but Tifa wasn't. She was brash and her fingers lashed out the notes.
He imagined she was taught on classical at a very young age, and she'd looked out the window and wanted to run or to fight and now that she was her, she was Tifa she put all of it into the music.
By comparison, his playing was so restrained. Maybe he would get her to teach him that kind of liveliness. Vivaciousness. No, the world had not buried her. Just hid her for a while under the grey.
For sixteen measures he saw her under a blue Costan sky. For eight he wondered if she would let him tuck back that stray hair behind her ear. For four he wondered if she would like his daughter.
But for the rest of the song, he stopped disconnecting. He was there. And when it ended, he was left wanting more.
"It wouldn't be fair to simply play one song, even if it was long." There was a spattering of applause as he leaned on his stool to talk to her. She grinned.
"What do you have in mind?"
It was yellowing slightly and it had taken him a while to track the sheet music down, but the piano accompaniment would be easy for someone as skilled as she was to pick up on. He'd never played the song, but he'd listened to it a lot.
They'd improvise.
"Stormy Weather?" Her eyebrow curved interestingly.
"Old fogey song. You'll like it, I promise."
He must have said something right, as the skepticism left. There was something nice about the fact jazz was built on improvising, and Tifa seemed to catch on to it rather quickly. He missed a few notes, though. It wasn't perfect.
But it didn't smell like beer quite yet and he imagined that it smelled like a blue sky too. Yes, that had a scent.
They got a few claps anyway, and the owner seemed pleased. He asked them to come back again, learn some more songs. Maybe they'd work up to a full set. At least that's what he thought the man had said. What Veld had realized was that Tifa was distracting.
Quite.
"Maybe we can do this part time."
"Hmm?"
"Play at bars and cafes and all that. Maybe start a band if we run into anyone else."
Normally, such a close call between the past and the present would unnerve him. Normally, he wouldn't have disconnected so much and walked so closely.
"No, we don't need to start a band."
There were beautiful things and beautiful people in the world. Why did he always seem to miss them until they were almost gone?
"Anti-social?"
If she were Ifalna, she would have found a way to hook her arm with his. If she were Lora they would be talking purely about music. If she were Valentine, they'd be arguing about something just to get the other to notice.
"No... I don't feel particularly like sharing you."
But she was Tifa, and Tifa was the most stubborn woman he had ever encountered and yet one of the most patient. And they were walking in the dark not far from his house, which she'd gone to the trouble to clean and organize and prod out of its stagnant state. There was something metaphoric about that too, and he wanted to chuckle about it.
More than anything, Veld wanted to tuck that damned stray hair of hers back.
"That's sweet of you in a strange way."
"Stop for a second."
He knew that Tifa was young. Really young. But she had the misfortune of being born in the wrong generation. He could see that. She would have fit much better with the ladies of his era or before, not just in appearance, but attitude. They were people that wanted to settle and be. The grand adventure was something that just kept getting in the way. Made them lose sight.
Veld wasn't going to lose sight. At least he hoped not. And tucking that hair back didn't cause the world to end or for her to slap him or anything.
"Couldn't help but notice it."
When he opened the door and let her in, he'd fully intended on sitting and talking with her. No stories of the past, nothing crazy like that. But when he closed the door and they paused--not just him, both of them--the shift in how things were going with them was very evident.
"Would you--"
But he didn't finish, because she was gripping his jacket and his arms were around that impossible waist and she didn't smell like perfume which was great because he hated perfume. He had a brief instant of wanting to say something about their working relationship, but she felt so warm and he hadn't realized how cold the night was in such a place as Costa.
They would clean up in the morning.
ooo
Tifa woke up because of a draft. They weren't drunk or stupid, so they had managed to fall asleep in a bed at least. Hers. She couldn't remember what position they'd conked out in and really, it didn't matter. What mattered right now was that instead of a warm body there was a cool draft from the air conditioning vent.
Her heart skipped a beat when she looked at the empty pillow beside her. Well, not empty, as there was an envelope with her name written neatly on it. Reno and Cloud had left without a word, but Veld was polite. He'd at least leave a note.
She was wrong, she was wrong...
When she ran downstairs in a robe, hurriedly tying it, she almost didn't smell it. Tifa had already decided what had happened, and she was going to hunt him down and make him--
He was cooking breakfast. That smell was bacon. He was wearing clothes, but comfortable ones.
She hadn't even realized he owned a pair of drawstring pants like that.
"Is something wrong?"
And smooth move, she was gaping, with the neatly addressed to her envelope crinkling in her hand.
"I thought you'd... you'd..."
"Left you a goodbye note?"
"Yes."
"More like a hello. Sorry if that startled you."
"No, no, it was my mistake."
He put the pan down and looked at her. "I only say goodbye properly."
She supposed that made sense. Considering his experience with letters. "That's good. Are you..."
"Saying goodbye now? No. I'll have to eventually, but that's not my fault."
Oh, he didn't say what she'd thought he'd said? Did he? "It's why I have ribbons and buttons. Ribbons from my old friends, buttons from the new ones... things they left behind because they never said bye. Not to me but not to her either."
Even if some had only partly left and there was a ribbon missing from her collection. Stupid man, if he wasn't dead she'd dig him up again and kick him for going like that.
It was far too early in the morning to be talking about this, but he'd talked about longer than tomorrow in a couple words and she never got that. Cloud was yesterday and Reno was today, but Veld actually understood that time was a constant flow. That it all got so mixed up sometimes that you just had to be there.
He knew that words didn't work for these kinds of hurts. Tifa had missed the simple comfort of an arm around her. Veld couldn't have known that from files and spying. No, that was something you just knew or didn't know.
He had a steady heartbeat. It fit.
"I think you're burning the bacon."
"Let the bacon burn."
"I'm such a bad influence on you."
"You're the one who's flashing me."
For once, Veld had made her turn red. She hadn't realized that she'd failed in actually fastening her robe. Dirty old man.
This didn't fix everything. Or anything. But what had happened for once was that it didn't seem to have caused any dramatic new problems. And for that Tifa was glad that they weren't young. No, she couldn't have met him any earlier than she did. They couldn't have sped things along or slowed them down. The time was now. They needed all the other mixed up times to understand how to say hello.
She'd wait until he was working to read her letter.
"Let's see what other bits of breakfast we can salvage. You're such a distraction."
"And what is so distracting about me?"
She couldn't wait to call Shera.
"Everything."