Disclaimer: I didn't put this in the first chapter cause I forgot, but since I don't think any of you are mistaking me for a Square Enix Exec, I'm too lazy to edit. FFVII & all related characters do not belong to me.

Chapter 2:

"Marlene, you have to let go." Tifa was amazed by how statuesque and immovable Cloud could be, even in the face of such unrelenting cuteness. Still, he stoically maintained his position, trying to shake the miniscule parasite off his leg, while calmly telling her to get off. "You have to go to school."

They were standing outside the newly-built school gates, and already other children were rushing inside, excited, or, like Denzel, they trudged along, snail-like, to delay the moment they'd have to learn. Tifa sighed, and knelt down next to Cloud so she could gently try and pry the little girl off. It was no good...She had a good grip, that one.

"But you were so excited to go this morning..." Tifa cajoled, Marlene had been bouncy right up until they'd left the bar, and she seemed to realize that she wasn't going to be able to spend her day at the bar with Tifa, like always.

"Yeah, but then Denzel said that-" That was where Tifa tuned out, turning her head fractionally towards the brunette boy, knowing he was watching the scene out of the corner of his eye, as she saw his ears redden under her gaze. He peeked over his shoulder, and gulped audibly when he caught sight of the glare Tifa was shooting his way, not quite murderous, but still something that hinted at punishment at a later date. She sighed and turned back to where Marlene was burying her face into Cloud's leg determinedly, refusing to look elsewhere. Tifa looked up at Cloud, and shrugged.

"But we told you all about all the fun stuff you can do once you start at school, Marlene! Art projects, and presentations, and you'll get to play with all the other kids, too!" She purposely left out the unpleasant bits, like math and studying and hard work, because they didn't need to discourage her any more than Denzel apparently already had.

"But if I go to school I can't spend the day with you..." Tifa detected a hint of deception there, not intentional, just like...she'd left something off, something she'd meant to say. When the little girls' head tilted up slightly, Tifa followed her gaze, and had an inkling of what the real problem might be.

"Cloud promises to stay at least until you get home from school." Tifa told her with a grin, and winked at Cloud when he looked down at her quizzically. Marlene shook her head and buried her face into his leg once again.

"Sure, but then what about later? He's gotta leave again, and then I'll have wasted time that we could be a family during." She pouted, and Tifa found she had no response...in fact, she found her eyes making their way from the little girl to the man she was clinging to, as if to ask him what he had to say to that, but after meeting his mako blue eyes for only a few seconds, she tore hers away as if she been burned, and rubbed Marlene's back soothingly.

"You know that Cloud is doing his best, and he can't always be around..." Her voice was purposely quiet, and she tried to sound as sincere as she could. The truth of the matter was, when Cloud went away, Tifa missed him just as much as the kids did. Maybe more...she just didn't have to guts to attach herself to his leg and make him stay home.

"Marlene..." Tifa was surprised to hear Cloud, although she had no right to be; the conversation was pretty much centered around him. She looked up at him, and noticed that Marlene was doing the same. "How 'bout if I promise to stay around more...take less jobs that I have to leave for a long time for...Then will you go to school?" Tifa was even more surprised by this. Cloud had been traveling for the last two years, and if that was what made him happy, Tifa didn't want him to stick around just because Marlene wouldn't go to school if he didn't stay. She did want him to stay...but because he was happy here.

"Really?" Marlene's grip slackened slightly, and her smile at Cloud was brighter than sunshine, and Tifa couldn't help but smile a little. "You swear?" She let him go, and held up her hand, pinky extended. Cloud bent over and hooked his pinky with hers, letting her give it a vigorous shake before she pulled her hand back.

"I swear." He smiled, and Marlene smiled happily. She gave a quick nod of her head, and turning towards the school without a hint of the hesitation she'd had mere moments before, she ran to catch up to Denzel, who was nearly to the school door, even with his impossibly slow gait. Tifa stood up slowly, watching her go with a smile on her face, and once the pair had disappeared into the school, she turned to Cloud, smiled brightly, then balled her hand into a fist and punched him on the arm, hard. Okay, maybe not as hard as she could have, but she was going for bruises, not broken bones. "OW! Tifa! What the hell?!"

"You can't lie to her, Cloud! Now it'll just hurt twice as much when you leave again!" She noticed how she didn't mention who it would hurt more. She folded her arms over her chest and glared at him angrily, smile replaced by cold fury.

"Geez, Tifa, who says I was lying? How do you know I didn't mean it?" He replied, rubbing his arm and eyeing her with suspicion. That had hurt, but he knew that was nothing compared to what she could've done...he shuddered to think. The fury in her eyes only seemed to intensify when he said this, and he knew he had precious little time to diffuse the situation before he was being carted off to the hospital with severe injuries. "I-I've been thinking of maybe hanging around some more, now that the kids are starting school and all..." Her fury decreased, but now she just looked at him with an angry sort of disbelief.

"Cloud, you leave because you like being on your own, and if you hang around when that's not what you want to do, you'll only get bored and go away for even longer." That was what she believed...she knew the reaosn why he went away was because he was still feeling guilty, and maybe living a regular life reminded him too much of what others had lost; she wasn't quite sure where he got this reasoning, but she could live with it, if she had to, as long as he came back once in a while, at least.

"That's not true." Tifa was taken aback by his response, the flash in his eyes when he spoke, so suddenly and sharply, and then he frowned. "I meant it, okay?" He dropped his eyes again, and before she could ask about this sudden change of heart, he turned away and starting walk back to the bar. "Which means I'll have to rearrange some things with work, so we better get back." He didn't even turn to look at her, just kept walking away, hands in his pockets, just expecting her to follow along...like she always did.

Well, today was going to be different. Today, Tifa would hold her head high and proudly march in a different direction, not follow that stupid spiky-headed jerk around like a puppy dog. Today...she had grocery shopping to do. By the time Cloud did turn around to see if she was following(because no way could Tifa keep quiet for that long and something not be wrong), Tifa was halfway down the street in the opposite direction. He blinked once, then twice. Didn't she know where her own bar was?

"TEEF! YOU'RE GOING THE WRONG WAY!" He cupped his mouth and hollered at her, and she turned to look over her shoulder at him, and...did she just stick her tongue out at him? What the hell!

"NO, Riverby's is THIS WAY!" She called back, pointing. Riverby's? Oh, yeah, that new massive supermarket they'd put in a few weeks ago...was that place open already? Wow, time sure flies when you aren't around. "I'LL SEE YOU AT THE BAR WHEN I'M DONE!" She waved, and disappeared around a corner. Cloud shook his head and sighed.

"Grocery shopping...? What's next...washing dishes?" Oh, wait, he already did that. "I saved the world, doesn't that get me some slack? Shouldn't I get some gratitude and servitude, here?" And yes, how the mighty had fallen, because that was Cloud Strife, muttering to the air as he sulked down the street.

--

Tifa was still laughing when she stepped over the threshold of the grocery store, the doors sliding open before her to allow admittance. She grabbed a cart and wiped a tear, forced from her eye by the strength of her laughter, from her cheek, doing her best to burn the incredulous expression on Cloud's face into her memory for the rest of her life. That wasn't something you saw everyday, even if you happened to see Cloud everyday(which no one did), and she was just glad she had been around to bear witness to the occasion.

Still trying to quiet her giggles, she began her rounds of the grocery store, grabbing what food and daily supplies they'd need for a while. The stuff for the bar was delivered en masse, but unfortunately, she still had to shop for the stuff her little family needed. And so the tumdrum of daily life continued. Boring as it sometimes was, though, Tifa still preferred it to the ways of the adventurer...never knowing what was around the corner, or what was going to happen to you or your friends, that was much too terrifying for her.

Tifa was so lost in thought as she pushed her cart around the corner, that she didn't even notice she'd run someone over until she heard a yelp and saw several apples go rolling off in every direction. Her eyes widened as she snapped back into attention,walking around her cart with an apologetic look on her face to help whoever it was she'd mowed down with her cart. And when she saw him, she did a double-take and wound up staring at him in complete and utter confusion, frowning.

"Geez! Watch where you're going la...dy..." He looked up, just as startled as Tifa was by the person standing before him, and at first he could just blink, despite the fact that he was sitting on the floor, his groceries strewn around him, his basket overturned a few feet away.

"Reno?" Tifa spoke after a moment, recovering enough to reach out a hand to help him to his feet. He took it, more out of impulse than because he had enough working function to realize she was being helpful.

"Tifa." He seemed to have recovered his cool by the time he stood up, and he cockily ran a hair back through his crimson hair, putting it back into his usual array of spiky wonder. Tifa couldn't help but think that she should definitely go into the hair gel business...between Reno and Cloud, they alone could support her endeavour. "You don't look happy to see me."

"I-I'm a little shocked. What are you doing here?"

"Well, ShinRa's setting up a new headquarters in Edge, so we're here to oversee the details." He explained, and Tifa's expression darkened slightly. It still bugged her that ShinRa wasn't behind bars for what they knowingly did to the planet, but she supposed when you had as much money as Rufus did, there wasn't a crime in the world you couldn't get away with. But life went on.

"That's great, but I really sort of meant what are you doing here...at Riverbys?" She gestured to the store they were inside of, you didn't usually expect to run into a former enemy/friend/who the hell knew at a grocery store, of all places. Maybe they were following her...?

"Ummm...grocery shopping? Turks gotta eat too." He pointed out, raising an eyebrow at her as though that were obvious. Tifa hadn't expected that at all, in actuality, she supposed she'd never considered the possibility that even her enemies needed to eat. How...weird. She looked around at the food scattered over the floor, and grabbed the upside-down shopping basket, picking stuff up and placing it back into the basket, frowning a little when Reno didn't even try to help. What, he was too goo-

"Eep!" Tifa squeaked and stood bolt upright when she felt a hand on her backside, and within a few seconds, she had Reno pinned to the glass door of the freezer by his throat. "Touch me again and die, pig." She growled, and thrust his half-filled basket back into his arms before she went back, grabbed her own cart, and stalked off, fuming. Oh, she should've expected it, but still! She tries to help him, and what does he do? He does what he always does. That was just Reno...an asshole!

--

Still fuming as she shoved cartons of milk into the fridge and boxes of cereal into the cupboards, she doesn't hear the soft pad of bare feet entering the kitchen over her furious mumblings, barely even discernable other than a trill of fury here, a squeak of indignant rage there. So when she spun around to grab the bread from the kitchen table, the last thing she expected to find was one Cloud Strife, sitting on the table and eating one of the apples she'd bought less than twenty minutes ago. Her eyes widened with surprise, and she cursed herself for not noticing; Cloud was surprising her far too much recently for her liking. She sighed and picked up the bread from next to him, wondering why he hadn't said anything yet.

"Those aren't washed yet, you know." She pointed to the fruit in his hand, and turned around to put the bread away.

"They do that at the store; it's what those shower things are for." He pointed out, and Tifa rolled her eyes, leave it to Cloud to be smart about it. "So, did something happen at the grocery store, or are you still just mad at me? Cause you didn't seem this mad when you left, but then again, you did just sorta leave me in the street." She grimaced, leave it to Cloud to be blunt as hell. "Something involving a certain red-head Turk, by any chance?" This time, when she spun around to look at him incriminatingly, he had a look of pure innocence on his face, and he took another bite from the already half-eaten apple.

"Cloud Strife, were you following me?!" Surprising even herself, Tifa managed not to yell, and her voice came out in a hiss of suppressed rage, although she couldn't help but curl her fingers into fists, ready to pummel the hero if he didn't have a good explanation. For his part, Cloud looked a little frightened, but more confused.

"What? No. You were muttering about him when I walked in, I figured it was a safe bet." His calm demeanour was doing nothing to calm the seething Tifa down, though, and she didn't feel the urge to knock his block off diminishing any. She forced her hands to loosen and she took a deep breath, deciding she really needed to stop repressing her emotions, if it was going to lead her to killing Cloud one of these days. "So you did see him? What did he do?"

The smug look in his eyes was enough to make Tifa want to kill him all over again. With a narrowing of her eyes, she waved at the groceries on the table. "Finish putting the groceries away, would you?" It sounded like a question, but they both knew that it was an order, and Cloud was too fond of his health to argue it. He hopped down off the table and set about to putting the groceries away, and later Tifa would discover everything was in the wrong place, but for now, she didn't care. She was going for a walk, and heaven help any man who pissed her off now. "And pick Marlene and Denzel up from school at three!" She poked her head back through the door to yell at him as an afterthought. She did everything around here...he could at least pick up the kids from school.

A/N: Soo...what'd you think? Reviews and honest critiques of all varieties are welcomed!