"A single rose can be my garden...a single friend, my world."
-- Leo F. Buscaglia
-. Wait For It .-
Chapter III: Factor of One
Three months pre-proposal
Ignoring the pleas of the secretaries while easily shaking off the hands of the security guards that tried to hold her back, Tifa burst through the double doors and into Reeve's office with a ferocity she usually reserved for battle.
"YOU SON OF A BITCH!"
The Commissioner's eyes widened in shock at the abrupt interruption to his conference call, then softened with a sigh as the assailant's identity was acknowledged.
He had been expecting her. Or, at least, her reaction.
"I'll have to call you back."
It had only been a few weeks since they had agreed to support the tax, and already the WRO was in full force preparation mode. Almost every day there was some sort of paperwork being delivered to 7th Heaven and the surrounding homes and establishments. Some were advertising pamphlets for the new municipal elections, some were instructional booklets for the paperwork and deposit standards of the levy, and many were of over enthused propaganda, reminding those who continued to resist the reaping of their pitiful profits that they were contributing to a coming-soon new and faultless planet.
Grossly corny pictures of fluffy clouds with unnaturally blue skies, of laughing children blowing bubbles etc. were accentuated by text so big and bright it hurt your eyes to read, saying things like 'Count on someone who can count. Vote McArthur for Edge Treasurer!' or 'Putting the 'right' back in Copyright Infringement laws'.
If anything, these excruciating documents encouraged people to donate if only so that the WRO could afford to hire better PR designers. Who the hell, artistically trained or not, would put yellow writing on a neon green background?
Naturally, Tifa began to loathe the mail.
Cloud was even noticeably resistant the few times she had asked him to pick it up from the corner safe box on his way home. There was always a thick handful of it, a kaleidoscope of glossy paper that contained maybe only one or two actually pertinent letters from friends or order receipts. Still, every night without fail after closing and counting the cash, Tifa would spread the pile on the table and begin to read. Thoroughly. Taking notes as she came across budget numbers and/or percentages.
Reeve was being understandably paranoid about the public's approval, thus explaining why every single gil they planned to spend was advertised so boldly with essay-length explanations regarding their reasoning. Though she assumed this would only go on for the first few months until trust began to develop, she had some strange and intense need to keep an eye on them. It was starting to become a sort of disgruntled side profession for her, collecting these pamphlets, doing the math and thankfully assuring both herself and her patrons that, so far, absolutely nothing seemed out of place. Every night, without fail, the numbers continued to add up.
So far.
It was thanks to this obsession that Tifa came across one particular tidbit of information, nestled innocently in a pamphlet highlighting the plans for a world census. Uncomfortable though it was, she had to acknowledge the benefits of being a registered citizen. Not only would the census information help better gauge populations and other such statistics, but, as the written details emphasized, the many orphaned children of Gaia would no longer slip through the cracks of society. They would be searched and accounted for, some reunited with parents, some placed in foster care or newly built orphanages. The WRO was trying it damn hardest to get youths out of the streets and mines and brothels and into proper homes.
She had almost put it away then. She had almost let it go. She was eighteen out of twenty paragraphs in, with six more pamphlets to looks over, and this one seemed satisfactory as they had all been over the past few weeks.
Then she saw it.
The sentence, the law, that could very well destroy them.
For the first time in her life, Tifa swore.
"You can't do this to me! To US!"
"I'm sorry Ms. Lockhart," an infuriatingly calm Reeve gently replaced the phone on its cradle, his eyes never daring to leave hers. "But I can't make any special exceptions. That would be abusing what little power I have."
"Those kids- don't touch me!-," a particularly ballsy guard had made one last ditch effort to pull the woman away and was sent sprawling to the floor as a result. Reeve cringed and held up a hand to signal abstaining from further damage. From both parties.
"Let's be civil, please."
"Civil?" Tifa repeated, her dark eyes flashing with anger. In a few brisk steps she closed the distance between them, followed by the pitter-pattering footsteps of what sounded like the entire building's guard force, and slammed her gloved hands on the desk so hard that it shook. "You-you're trying to break my family apart, and you expect me to be civil?"
"Ms. Lockhart, I'm warning you," his grey eyes, both threatening and sympathetic, flicked around the room to the mounted cameras and now near-army of witnesses. "You have to calm down."
"I can't just calm down. This isn't my weaponry you're trying to confiscate or my alcohol production you're trying to restrict. Though remind me to get back to you about those fun new policies."
"Tifa…"
"These are human beings, you twit! These kids are all-"
"Tifa, please!" Deeming protocol to have long since been dismissed, he stood and leaned over his desk then, both of his warm, bare hands moving forward to cover hers and their faces mere inches apart. Tifa's automatic reaction was to slap him for daring to be so apparently kind, so intimate, after having participated in such a heinous back stabbing. But before she could organize herself enough to react, hazed by anger as she was, he spoke. Wisely using probably the only words in world that had a chance in hell of actually calming her down.
"Don't risk it," he whispered to her, in a hopefully low enough tone to be missed by the majority of the guards. "As both a friend and government official, if you want any chance of getting custody of those kids, put on a new face. Play the mother, not the warrior we both know you are. You can punch me later. Out in the alley. Deal?"
Tifa froze, stunned more by his advice than by his offer of a secret thrashing. The hands beneath his wiggled themselves free and were used, in what she hoped was a casual manner, to push her hair behind her ears.
Play the mother, she reminded herself. Demure. Responsible. Patient.
Easier said than done. What she wouldn't give for a dummy to kick across the room.
Reeve re-seated himself the moment her forehead smoothed back from its furrowed state, visibly relieved that she could still listen to logic. "You may leave us," he told the guards with a wave of his hand as he pulled his chair closer to the desk.
Not surprisingly, they hesitated.
"But-but sir…"
"I'm okay! I promise." Tifa spun to face them all then, suddenly all smiles and sunshine. The same face she used to reassure Marlene after she had had to throw someone out of the bar. "Just a minor…um…episode. I'm good now. No bloodlust. All gone."
It took several more minutes of useless chit chat before they were convinced, the secretaries still lingering longer than necessary as they delivered messages, hands forever clenched to their communicators. When the doors finally closed, Tifa's smile instantly melted away. Replaced no longer by a scowl, but with a genuinely terrified expression.
"Marlene's been with us for as long as she can remember," she began to plead, hoping against all hope that he found it in his heart to grant her this one favor. The citizens wouldn't hold it against him. They'd understand. They'd appreciate him for being so compassionate! "It would be cruel- no- heartless of you move her into one of those…dingy, crowded, dark, impersonal-"
"I assure you, our orphanages will be of the highest quality-"
"No. No! Don't-don't even say that word to me!" Tifa shuddered at the very notion. Orphanage. It sounded like the dirtiest of curses. A word only uttered in the most vile of conversations. "I don't care if they're palaces. They won't be home. They'll NEVER be home. For either of them!"
"If you simply apply to be a foster care taker, you'll be helping the system greatly."
"It's not the system that I want to care for. It's Marlene and Denzel. It's only ever been Marlene and Denzel."
"Then apply for a formal adoption."
Tifa scoffed and fell backwards into one of his leather waiting chairs, desperately rubbing at the space between her eyebrows. She thought back to the paragraph she had read only a few short hours ago, the census pamphlet that she had originally considered such a brilliant idea and had then led to this rather messy confrontation.
All citizens have to be registered, it had stated. All births and deaths reported. It made sense. It made a painful amount of sense. Originally.
But then came the particulars. At the beginning, only reminders of the horrors Reeve had already presented when trying to coax her towards the benefits of the tax. Children, desperate children, being plucked off the streets and forced into various nefarious types of work. It was that more than anything that the WRO hoped to eradicate. Which was why, obviously, the practice of bringing random orphans into one's home and/or business establishments was now frowned upon.
Well, not so much "frowned-upon" as made completely illegal.
Taking care of her children was going to be made ILLEGAL.
"You can't do this…" she whispered in a suddenly quiet and broken voice, her head desperately shaking back and forth. "It'll crush us."
It'll crush him.
Reeve only nodded. "You're worried. You don't think the committee will approve of the adoption?"
"I know they won't." It wasn't self-pity, it was fact. "I'm only twenty-two. I-I run a bar. I'm known throughout the world a-as a rebel fighter. I'm…I'm…"
"Single?" Reeve suggested, his expression somber with lips that hinted the beginnings of a teasing grin.
She pinned him with a stabbing glare, but remained otherwise unaffected. Baiting her was definitely not wise decision at this point. The previous offer of a back alley beating just got that much more tempting.
"The point being," she continued, knowing that he was very well aware of her many, many shortcomings "no one in their right mind would give me a child. Let alone two. No one in their right mind would give me a cat. Or even a plant. Or even a pet rock. Heh."
It wasn't funny. Nothing about the situation was at all funny. It was so un-funny that she wanted to cry. In fact…
"Damn it." The tears started coming before she could stop them. Liquid proof of yet another reason she was unfit to be a mother; she wasn't nearly strong enough.
"Tifa…" Reeve began in that authoritative, condescending voice of his. And yet his humane side was not totally unaffected, as proven when he tentatively nudged a box of Kleenex toward her side of the desk. "If you think you're so bad, then why do you want them? Don't you think they'd have a better life under the care of professionals? Growing up alongside kids who have had to endure the same hardships?"
"No!" Of this one thing, Tifa was adamant. Even as she dabbed the corner of her eyes to absorb the remaining moisture, she continued to vigorously shake her head. "They don't need to be reminded every day of how crappy their luck was. It shouldn't be a focus, not if there's a choice. They deserved to have happy normal lives away from all those bad memories! The lives they would have had if their parents survived."
"And you can offer them that? Really?"
"More so than any government-run orphanage could, yes. And this new 'law' of yours is just robbing them, yet again, of their futures!"
The conversation went back and forth like that for a couple of more minutes. Up until Reeve finally snapped and blatantly had to tell her that he didn't have time for such fruitless debating, especially since the decision was no longer in his power. The truth was; a collective of over two-hundred and seventy elected officials had unanimously supported the bill. And her little unconventional family was just an unfortunate innocent bystander that was considered a more than reasonable sacrifice for the greater good.
Yes, children like Marlene and Denzel would be denied a small and standard (well, slightly standard) family life. But thousands of others would be saved from countless horrors that resulted from a primordial instinct to survive at any cost.
It made sense when she was forced to think about it. It really was the best thing for the world in general. And it wasn't like the situation was entirely hopeless. She could apply for adoption. She could work hard and impress the crap out of the inspector when he or she came for an interview in a few weeks time. It could be done. There was a great chance actually, that nothing would have to change.
At least, that what's she told herself. At least that's what she told him when he came home that night.
"So, I got the paperwork before leaving," she said with attempted nonchalance while scrubbing the dishes across from where he sat at the bar, trying her hardest to keep her voice from quivering. Play the mother, she had to remind herself. If she used the memories of her own as an example, a woman never seen without a smile, then it should be an easy enough feat. "And a secretary told me that we have a few months at least before any real action would be taken. If I get the application in by Monday, I'd have an interview and inspection appointment in a couple of weeks. We'd get the go ahead wayyyy before the Census results are due, and I can include Marlene and Denzel on the household papers. Easy."
That is IF the application was even acknowledged. IF she managed to impress the inspector. IF the person processing her papers happened to have had a recent lobotomy or some special disease that cause them to mixed up the 'denied' and 'approved' stamps, hopefully for only that one time.
So many hurdles to face, all of which she fully intended to leap over with flying colors. If only because the mere idea of any other outcome would lead to far from constructive breakdown.
Through her rambling, Cloud kept his eyes glued to his drink, slowly turning the glass in circles between his palms. Though never certain of his feelings, he seemed to be taking the news rather well. Like the very likely loss of the children had been nothing more than yet another expected emotional blow dealt to him by the so far merciless life. It must be nice…expecting nothing. You never have to be disappointed.
"Sorry to have bothered you with all this," Tifa giggled awkwardly, shaking her head to clear it. "It's going to be fine. I know it is. Perfectly fine. Everyone around here knows how happy and healthy the kids are here. And Barette approves. I asked. He doesn't care who Marlene's official legal guardian is, as long as she's in the family. And as pathetic as my chances are, with a stable home I'm a better candidate than he is. It's going to be fine. Perfectly fine. I'm saying 'fine' a lot aren't I?"
After placing the last dish in the drying rack, she stretched both her arms across the bar and leaned onto them, her dark eyes moving up to look at Cloud now from above her. He gave her the benefit of a small smirk of encouragement before his gaze returned to his beverage. Stoic and unreadable as always. Whether he was as terrified as she was or completely relieved to potentially no longer be faced with the daunting responsibility that is child-raising, she had no idea. He could very well be doing a mental grocery list for all the concern he was outwardly showing.
The sensitive, frustrated Tifa of a few weeks ago would have been enraged by this reaction. Interpreting this annoying yet natural characteristic of his as a complete lack of human feeling. She would have probably taken him by the collar and shaken him until, at the very least, an ounce of fear for his own safety appeared in his eyes. Desperate as she had been for some, silly form of proof that he still could feel, that the experiments done on him by Shinra and Hojo hadn't included the removal of his heart.
But for now, noticing that he had yet the take even of sip of the Corel wine she knew he relished was more than enough evidence. Cloud was obviously (to her at least) deep into thinking mode. Mulling over the many facts she had spewed over the past half hour and digesting them one by one. If experience taught her anything, especially considering his last various attempts to open up recently, a few moments of pensive silence were all he needed.
"It'll be fine," came his much anticipated break of the silence a couple of seconds later. She almost laughed at the lameness of the statement but let it slide, needing him to continue. "You're a good mother. They'll see that. Everyone sees it."
"You think so?" Tifa felt her lips slowly form the beginnings of a grin as she tilted her chin against her arms to face him.
Eyes always on the liquor, he nodded. "I know you're afraid you'll fail. You think you aren't good enough. But you are. This place," his gaze moved around, taking in the entire bar, everything except her eyes "this place is a home."
A pathetic chuckle unavoidably escaped in response. "Yeah. It's every little girl's dream house alright. Grey walls and cemented back lot included."
"Tifa…" he said in a groan, followed by an exasperated sigh. Yet another one of his seemingly terse responses that held a plethora of meaning to those who were trained to translate.
"I know, I know. Don't be so hard on myself, I get it. It's just…not easy. You know?"
Of course he knew. He knew better than anyone.
No one in the world was better practiced in the art of wrecked confidence than Cloud Strife.
If only there were a healing body of water that could cure all her primary shortcomings – namely the existence of a bar as her source of income, the cramped quarters and her physical age. If only Aerith was still around, bringing color and sunshine to everything she touched. A committee wouldn't have to think twice about putting children into the care of someone like her…
…Maybe if she wore a pink sundress on the day of her interview, as wince-worthy as the mental image was…Maybe…
"Maybe I can help…?"
Tifa's train of thought was violently ripped from its tracks as his mako-blue eyes finally shifted to meet hers. Though having every appearance of being casual and collected, Tifa was one of the few people in the world who could tell just by the almost imperceptible glow to them that he was nervous. Very, very nervous.
"Help?" she repeated, not bothering to hide the awe and confusion from her voice. "Help how?"
"I don't know," Cloud shrugged. As always, playing it cool as he finally lifted his glass to his lips. Probably more for liquid courage than an actual desire to taste, considering that he downed half the contents in one gulp. "I just…I assume the chances would be greater if we applied…together?"
Brows furrowed together as she pondered this offering. In all her planning, she really hadn't considered to include Cloud as part of the process. Not only because she was so used to working solo with almost everything related to the children, but because even now, even though all three of them had almost come to depend on him fully for some things…there was still that gap. A little wedge she kept firmly stuck between her heart and his, a piece she knew Denzel still carried as well, that smartly remained as a defense mechanism in preparation for the next time he decided to leave.
But even if that wedge didn't exist, even if she had long since been able to one hundred percent forgive, forget and even lean on him a little, there were a multitude of other, awkward reasons for keeping him far away from the application.
She thought back to Reeve's teasing in his office earlier that day, the contemptible word 'single' added to her already long list of why the committee had reason to deny her. Applying together would bring up questions. Questions she was far from ready to even think about let alone answer truthfully.
"That's…so sweet Cloud," she whispered, shuffling to free one hand so that it could give his a thankful, platonic tap. "But…I think it would do more harm than good."
"Why?"
Why indeed. Why today of all days did he feel the need to be inquisitive?
"Well, because," she righted herself, pulling on her vest to re-arrange it before moving to bring up a new glass and corked bottle from beneath the bar. Even the best mothers, in certain situations, needed, no, deserved a drink. "Think about it. I don't think the committee would look highly upon the fact that in addition to running a bar, I have…men hanging around."
"But I live here," Cloud stated factually.
Tifa sighed. "I know. And I don't mean to offend you really, it's just…it'd be easier, won't it, if we just pretend you rent a room here for your business? It'll be the same as always, but you won't have any legal obligations."
"So…pretending that I'm a stranger sleeping across the hall from the kids is deemed better than an official guardian? How?"
After filling her cup and re-filling Cloud's, she took a healthy gulp to help settle her nerves. The blonde antagonist followed suit, narrowed eyes boring into hers, silently repeating the unanswered question.
"Look, it's just going to complicate things. There are a million new issues that come up with joint custody. So let's just let it go, okay? My file is going to be cluttered enough as it is."
"I don't get it," his eyes were fully gleaming now, mouth set, urge to debate fueled by the wine. "Together, we have a greater income. We have twice the time. Twice the resources. I think it could help."
He could see the cogs turning in her head, considering. To him it was a straightforward fact that applying together would greatly increase their chances. Tifa he had always considered to be a logical woman, the voice of reason in the household. She always made sense, always gently coaxed him and the kids out of some of their more ridiculous decisions and/or experiments. Like the time Marlene and Denzel had somehow convinced him to put chocolate in their breakfast eggs. Straightforward bad idea, she had said, but let them try anyway and discover for themselves. Tifa was always sure of what was right and what was wrong. Tifa had always known yes or no before a question was even asked.
Which was why, now, today, every second of her hesitance was making him more and more uncomfortable.
"Tifa…?" he tried again, after a full minute of tense silence.
She had her glass pressed against her lips, dark eyes soft and shiny in the dim light. "Let it go, please," she begged that one, final time.
Cloud shook his head. "I can't."
"You want me to be blunt Cloud? Fine." With a newly determined stance, she swigged the remainder of her glass and dropped it heavily back onto the bar. She then set her palms against the edge for support while leaning over, determined that he not miss a single word or expression. "I don't trust you yet. I can't help it. Neither does Denzel. There's no guarantee that you won't have another episode and take off, leaving me to go through this painful process yet again. Not only that, but we're not married or anything. How do I convincingly explain your presence in this house? I've been doing this job, taking care of both of them by MYSELF for nearly a year now. And if I have even the smallest, most inestimable chance in hell of adopting these kids, I'm not risking it by attaching myself to the still unstable character that is you, ex-military, slightly schizophrenic Cloud Strife. I won't let them start seeing you as a father, just so that you can abandon them again when it gets to be too much. They deserve more than that. I deserve more than that. So, no Cloud. No is my answer. I'll take care of it. Alone. As I always have."
It worked. It better than she had ever thought it would. The subject was not only dropped, but never touched again.
Months later, Tifa, the always sure and confident in her decisions Tifa Lockhart, didn't know whether to consider that speech to be either the best or dumbest thing she had ever done. On the one hand, Cloud had slowly slunk away to his room that night without a word and avoided her for days afterward. She worried for a while that she had unwittingly pushed him into doing exactly what she most feared; becoming so detached and miserable that leaving would eventually become the only choice. As terrible as the idea of such an end to their friendship was, if it was inevitable then sooner was better than later. If one silly argument was enough to convince him to leave, then he was just proving her point: that he wasn't strong enough to support them.
At least, that's what she told herself as she began to fill in the adoption application, cautiously checking off "single" in the appropriate box.
On the other hand, something changed in him after that day. Mainly concerning his interactions with the children. He began taking on fewer deliveries and rarely accepted those that kept him away from home for more than a day. As the bar business began to pick up thanks to the WRO's building projects' mass hiring, she would often find notes taped to the fridge from Marlene stating that Cloud had taken them to the park, or for a ride on Fenrir, or to that small Wutainese food stand down the street.
In the mornings, even though he made sure to be gone before she woke up, both kids would be dressed and fed and busy with some silly task he had given them such as sweeping the garage floor (funny that when she asked it was a chore but when Cloud asked it was an adult privilege). Or sometimes, with education in mind, he had them writing a short story about where, for example, they thought snow came from. Or once, as a joke, why they thought his hair stuck up like it did (Denzel had assumed it was because he spent so much time in heavy winds that it just froze like that, while Marlene's story guessed that one of his great-grandparents had actually been a chocobo…a hilarious though disturbing theory).
One time she had found them downstairs fawning over his dismantled Tsurugi blades splayed over several bar tables, polishing them with cotton rags. It was this event that finally broke the silence between them the second he came home that night, for what kind of idiot left two kids under ten years old responsible for deadly weaponry unsupervised?
He had apologized of course, legitimately flabbergasted by her intense reaction, but Marlene and Denzel had eagerly sprung to his defense seeing as they had begged to check out the blades and had promised not to pick them up. Though this did little to abate her anger, the kids were quick to point out Cloud had trusted them because they had frequently proven to be responsible, and it was time Tifa realized the same.
It was the first time she noticed how dedicated he really was to their family. It was the first time she considered him as something more than a live-in babysitter or financial provider. For that's what fathers do, isn't it? They're the trusting ones. They're the ones that push the kids into doing something scary, wanting them to face their fears and conquer them, while the mother nervously watched from the side lines, whispering to be careful.
One step at a time, he was beginning to prove himself. That night, she felt the wedge in her heart jostle a little, and she noticed Denzel's was nearly completely gone already. She could only hope that he could keep it up long enough. For all she knew, this revamped attitude of his was merely a result of thinking that these next few weeks would be their last together; a possibility that she had yet to resign herself too.
After the bar had closed, after they had sat together for the first time in days planning his routes and counting the cash as if nothing had ever interrupted the tradition, Tifa walked herself to the corner mail box. She gave the thick manila envelope a lingering kiss for good luck before gently pushing it through the slot and into the system.
She could only hope that they didn't read too much into the layers of white-out over both the checked 'single' and blank 'joint' status boxes.
Author's Note: Wrote this one really fast, an in-between that helps better explain the events in my pre-written chapters. Thanks for reviews. Tired. Review please!