I hadn't seen the epilogue of Advent Children, so Zack's sword is still in its original place. My bad :P

Back to Work

Most of the group dispersed once more after a couple nights of makeshift sleeping arrangements. Tifa couldn't help but notice that Barret was avoiding Cloud after the closet incident, and for good reason. Tifa was woken one morning to Barret screaming.

"GAWD DAMN MOTHER F*****G CLOOOOOUD! WHERE DA HELL ARE YOU?!" Barret stomped into Tifa and Cloud's room to find a shocked Tifa and an empty bed.

When Tifa saw Barret, she burst out laughing, "He shaved you?!"

Barret had indeed been robbed of his corn rows and now had a head as bare as a baby's bottom.

"WHERE IZEE?!" Barret screeched.

"Probably gone," Tifa replied, "He probably used a delivery as an excuse to leave early after giving you a haircut," she suppressed more laughter.

"Awww…" Barret rubbed his head, "It don't look too bad, right?"

"No, it actually looks fine, Cloud did a good job. Especially if he did it without waking you up."

Marlene hopped into the room and gasped, "Papa! Your hairs gone!" she giggled, "Is that why Cloud disappeared?"

Denzel appeared at Marlene's side and stared at Barret's head before snickering into his hand.

"Aw, shuddup," Barret waved the kids off, "Hey, Marlene, you wanna go walk around town with your Dad? I've missed you!"

"Yeah! Can Denzel come, too?"

Barret smiled, "Sure, baby. Now come on. Oh, you don't mind if I take the kids, right Tifa?"

"No, you're fine, just don't get too crazy."

"If you get lonely, just call us," Marlene chirped.

"No, I think I'll be okay. Thank you though, Marlene," Tifa smiled.

Cloud paused in his drive away from Edge, then changed his course to stop by the West side of Midgar. As the blond drove to the other end of the city, his destination triggered a memory.

It had been when Cloud still had severe Mako poisoning due to Hojo's testing. Zack had been walking the two of them to Mideel and telling stories about the past in hopes of making Cloud react. Just to make sure that he was alive. Zack knew that Cloud was in there somewhere, but he was just lost with all of the voices of the Mako in his head. But he was trying. That was the least he could do.

"Hey, Cloud, did I ever tell you about my light-up shoes?" he inquired nonchalantly one day.

Cloud said nothing, but paid vague attention.

"Well, I don't remember them myself. My mom told me the story when I was older."

Cloud still didn't react. Unperturbed, Zack continued with his story.

"When I was a kid, well when we were kids, do you remember those awesome light-up shoes? They had that button that if you stepped on it, it would make the shoes light up? Well, my mom ordered me some from Midgar one year for my Christmas present. It was EPIC! Well, on the shoes was a shiny red sticker. I couldn't read, but it said 'Press here' on it. So anyways," he said with a laugh, "it was shiny and red. So I ate it," he paused for a second to snicker, "So…when it came time to change Baby Zack's diaper-I wasn't toilet trained yet-my mom found…a special present," he had trouble getting the rest of the story out through laughter, "I-it was the sticker! It came out TOTALLY readable! A-ha-nd it was face up in my poop!" he stopped walking so he could laugh, "It still said 'Press here'!" he leaned on a nearby tree and laughed until he cried. When he finally got a hold of himself, "Dude, those shoes were the BOMB!"

Unfortunately, Cloud didn't react beyond a slight twitch, but that was apparently enough for Zack to smile and tread on.

Cloud smiled at the memory, then finished his drive to where Zack's sword was embedded in the ground. It had become very rusted and Cloud could see the crack forming up the side of the metal had gotten bigger. Guilt gnawed at his stomach when he saw the condition of Zack's prized memento. The sight triggered another memory. Zack had been telling Cloud about his sword's previous owner after meeting on the way to Modeoheim. Zack mentioned that he never used the sharp end of the sword out of respect for his mentor. Why was that? Who uses a sword as a club? Oh yeah. Apparently Zack's mentor didn't use the sword at all because use would cause wear, tear, and rust. So Zack only used the dull end of the sword to preserve it in his mentor's honor.

Cloud spent the next half hour scraping rust off of the sword and polishing it as well as was possible without proper tools. He would have to come back later and try to do a better job.

Tifa cared to the few patrons that came in at this time, mostly richer people that had time in the middle of the morning, but still weren't above visiting a small, less than 5-star bar. When she wasn't keeping the bar up, she sat and thought about how things could go from here.

The bar was doing fairly well, and was becoming more and more a steady source of income. Cloud's delivery job acted well as insurance. They still had some magic pot money from the Northern Crater, although most of that had gone into building the Seventh Heaven. Edge was slowly but surely becoming a whole city capable of supporting all of its citizens. The Geostigma was gone. But these were current facts, and no matter how Tifa thought, she couldn't find a single ending or a single point where she should be in the next few years, next few months. Her mind wandered for a moment, thinking of several different "What if"s for several different aspects of her life.

Her mind soon turned to Cloud. And what of him? What of her relationship to him? What if they remained awkward friends their whole lives? What if they became a couple? Married? Tifa imagined some of her and Cloud's facial features mixed into a child. A little girl with Cloud's eyes, Tifa's nose and jaw, long and unruly honey colored hair…

Tifa blushed and shook her head to shed the image of the smiling girl. What was she thinking? Now wasn't the time for daydreams. That could wait until true peace was found.

In the following months, little changed. Edge was crawling toward completion and old Midgar was paying the price, everyday becoming a little more broken down, a little more taken apart, and a little more dilapidated. That was seen by several as a sign of moving forward, however, of leaving a painful past behind them. Funny how one has to only change the order of the same old objects to make them new again.

Tifa was pondering this and then laughed, "Edge is a lot like Cloud's bike, actually. A bunch of old bits and pieces polished and put together to act new again."

In the next couple of days, Cloud came back to the house to be still for a while. Marlene and Denzel were ecstatic, of course. The minute Cloud walked in the door, Denzel ran up to his room and came barreling back in with his fighting stick.

"I've gotten a lot better, Cloud! Can I show you?!" Denzel took a fighting stance, ready to show the swordsman how to properly abuse the air.

Cloud "hmph"ed and sat down in a chair after moving Denzel to a more open spot outside.

"Hey, long time no see, Cloud," Tifa commented after handing him a glass of water.

"I guess I had too many jobs lined up at once," Cloud replied with a smile in Tifa's direction. He drained his glass in next to no time.

"Do you want more water?" Tifa said with a laugh, then glanced out at Denzel and shouted, "Denzel, watch for people!"

"Watch it, kid!" an irritated passerby snatched Denzel's stick and rubbed his thwacked arm.

"Oh, sorry!" Denzel bowed, "I'm really sorry, can I have my sword back, please?"

The stranger gave Denzel a piqued look, then laughed and handed the stick back, "Watch where you swing that thing. A real swordsman doesn't hit what he doesn't intend to," he left.

Denzel stared after the strange passerby.

Cloud smirked, "He's right, you know."

Later that evening, after dinner and while everyone was getting ready for bed, Cloud laughed and looked at Tifa, "Any children you have will be well behaved."

Tifa looked at Cloud, "What do you mean?"

"Denzel and Marlene do whatever you say when you're serious."

"Hm, I never really thought about it, I suppose."

Cloud chuckled, an image of Tifa chastising her two children over a broken object snapped through his head. Two little girls.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing."

"Hm," Tifa stared at him for a moment, wondering what was up, then left to brush her teeth.

Cloud lay down on his bed and closed his eyes, appreciating his own place to sleep in and thinking of how he really ought to clean his office free of old job slips.

Cloud caught a whiff of the released air from his bed when he lay down. He frowned. Although it was his bed, it smelled slightly musty and abandoned, with only a faint lingering of whatever soap had been used to wash the sheets last time. He'd been gone longer than he realized. How old were Denzel and Marlene now? Or any of his adult friends? There wasn't a steady supply of calendars in the wilderness and Cloud wasn't even of sure all of his friends' birthdays if he ever knew them in the first place. Well, he would never forget May 3rd, at least.

When Tifa got back in the room, Cloud looked at her, "What's today's date?"

"Umm, August…either 6th 7th or 8th…" she pondered.

"Really?"

"Pretty sure."

"Huh," well, at least he would know when his 24th birthday rolled around now, "Thanks."

"No problem."