Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This collection is mine, as are Beverly, Jake, McCallister, and Mindy Tallman. And Duke and Piper the cat of course. Enjoy!

..:-X-:..

076 – Date Night

Eating pizza by the fireplace during a rainstorm: there were worse ways to spend a first date.

Rain clattered over the worn tiles of the roof of Merlin's house, blending in with the muted thunder that broke over the town. The power had gone out half an hour ago. Luckily Cid had salvaged some dry firewood and kindled a healthy fire. Also luckily, the local pizza place still had power and so they had ordered delivery pizza.

"My only regret," Beverly chirped, sitting on the couch in the living room with a slice of pizza held in both hands, "is that I wore my good shoes in this storm."

Cid snorted, sitting on the floor beside her legs. He glanced down at the black high heels that she was wearing: covered in mud and scuffed from running out of the rain. He trailed his eyes from her feet, up her legs, over her knees, and along her thighs to her oh-so-short denim skirt. She had clearly dressed up more for this date than he had.

"Yeah, that's…" He reached down to one of her shoes, undoing the buckle on it. "…quite a shame. Y'know, you got soaked out in that rain. You really shouldn't wear wet clothes."

Beverly chuckled and shifted her feet away. "Ah, ah, you may look, but you may not touch, Mr. Highwind." She winked and stuck the rest of the slice of pizza between her teeth, freeing up her hands to remove her shoes by herself.

Cid finished his pizza. "Prude." He ribbed lightly, glancing across the living room.

Leon and Tifa's golden retriever, Duke, was where Cid had left her, lying on her belly and pawing at Aerith's grey cat Piper, keening and trying to get the feline to play with her. Cid had been tasked with dog-sitting Duke and cat-sitting Piper while the women threw Tifa a baby shower over the weekend. At first, he hadn't minded, but it turned out that Beverly was a big animal person, and most of her attention had been focused on playing with the pets.

"Well, fine, you don't get to touch either, Miss…Miss…" He frowned. "Beverly."

"Hrr dernt eern nrr m'lfft nrn!" Beverly babbled.

Cid twisted around to look at her, just as she tugged her pizza out of her mouth, chewed, and hastily swallowed the bite.

"You don't know my last name?" She asked again, more clearly.

Cid blinked, "You've never mentioned it."

Beverly started to look irritated, then snorted and leaned sideways, bringing her legs up onto the couch behind his head. "Hm, I kinda like that. Makes me feel mysterious."

Duke barked at the cat, and Piper hissed, ears flattening back on his head.

"Hmph." Cid grunted, stretching his shoulders back on the seat of the couch. "So, on a scale of one to ten, where do you rank this date?"

"Oh, you do know how to make a girl feel special." Beverly cooed, polishing off her slice of pizza. "Sans the mud." She looked woefully to her ruined shoes.

Cid climbed to his feet and perched on the edge of the couch by her knees. "Don't pull that. You're hardly one to complain when something gets…dirty."

She cackled and folded her arms across her low cut blue blouse. "You dog. Here we were, having a sophisticated, adult dinner, and you manage to make it perverted."

"I would never dream of it." Cid snickered, running one calloused hand up her leg until he reached her hip. "You were the one who mentioned mud."

Beverly giggled and reclined against the armrest, neither encouraging him nor fighting him. Cid smirked and leaned forward, kissing her on the mouth. She returned the kiss and lifted her hands to his ribs, running them up along his back.

"Okay." She whispered, "You can touch a little."

He tilted his head at her and kissed her again. She sat up slightly so he could get an arm under her back. Kissing her neck, he sat up, lifting her as he did so and twisting around until Cid was sitting up properly on the couch, leaning against the backrest with Beverly sitting on his lap, straddling his legs. She placed her hands on either side of his jaw, kissing him deeply.

Duke's sudden barking made them both jump in surprise. Cid ended up sitting forward abruptly. This caused Beverly to bite his lip, and his recoil caused him to end up butting his forehead against her nose.

"Ow!" He lifted a hand to his bleeding lip. "Dammit!"

"Ack!" Beverly clutched her nose.

Duke barked again, and then both glared over at the canine. Piper the grey cat shot out from his hiding place from the dog, clawing at Duke's face and bolting for the kitchen. Duke yipped and clamored to her feet, giving chase and knocking over a lamp in the process. Both Cid and Beverly cringed as the lamp shattered on the floor. More noises accompanied the mischief of the animals in the back room.

Cid ran his tongue over the cut on his lip; it wasn't too bad. Beverly massaged her nose and wiped at the pained tears that had sprung unwarranted to her eyes.

"You okay?" He chuckled.

"Yeah. You sure know how to romance a woman." She snorted.

"So is the mood ruined?" He prompted.

She scoffed and leaned in, kissing him again. "Shut up, you dog."

..:-X-:..

077 – Confusing Times

Mindy Tallman. Leon stared at the intern application. This was the petite blond whose mere presence in Radiant Garden had rattled Private McCallister. She had no criminal record nor military record beyond recruitment. She came from a well-off family and had good marks on her application…Okay, her marks were spotless…But beyond being from the same hometown as McCallister, Leon couldn't figure out why his soldier seemed to despise the other woman.

"What kind of name is Mike?" Cloud was still fuming.

Leon glanced up from the application. They were the only two in the backroom of Merlin's house that afternoon. Leon was trying to figure out this Mindy versus McCallister situation; Cloud had come to Merlin's house looking for Tifa and had found Leon instead.

"Probably wasn't her real name." Leon grunted, flipping the page of Tallman's application. "This 'agent' sounds sketchy…You've been training Mindy Tallman in basic…What's she like?"

Cloud blinked at him. "Oh, she's a Sagittarius and enjoys long walks on the beach…How the Hell do I know?" He folded his arms, slouching in his seat. "I've got two hundred soldiers in basic right now. I can't tell any of them apart at this stage."

Leon frowned, "McCallister hates her for some reason."

"Does she ever really like anybody?" Cloud raised an eyebrow. "Mike is a time traveler; she was wearing the same clothes and had the same wounds that she had over a month ago when I first saw her."

"So what if she is?" Leon shrugged.

Time travel clearly didn't interest Leon as much as it had gotten under Cloud's skin. If there was such a thing as time travel, clearly Leon and company's little corner of the time continuum wasn't very interesting to them, as they would have been more of a threat. Leon had enough problems worrying about the people in this section of history without worrying about people from centuries after him.

"She knew me. She said I didn't know her 'yet'." Cloud emphasized. "Which means she's from my future. Radiant Garden's future. Maybe she's from a time after this damn war has ended and she's…I dunno…Maybe this 'Leech' hybrid monster thing is a time traveling evil…thing." He waved a hand vaguely.

Leon ignored him, reading over the application again. Private McCallister wasn't very emotional; it was one of the qualities that had caused him to select her as his first intern. He knew she had few friends, but he realized it was probably naïve to assume a soldier so close to the top of the Alliance wouldn't have enemies. But why Tallman? She appeared to be cheerful, popular, and ladylike: practically McCallister's anti-thesis.

"Did you really end up on the no-fly list?" Cloud suddenly questioned.

"Hm? Oh." Leon set the application down; he was getting nowhere with it anyway. "Yeah, I was supposed to head the mission to Enchanted Castle around Halloween. Apparently there was some mix up with paperwork and I ended up on the no-fly list."

Cloud snorted at that.

Leon rubbed his eyes. "Turned out it was supposed to be one of Yuffie's men. His wife was pregnant with twins, and he didn't want to leave Radiant Garden, since she was due in a few weeks."

"Yeah…little early for you to be getting that treatment." Cloud smirked.

"By the time they realized the mistake…whatever." Leon made an absent gesture and glanced over to Cloud. "Maybe your time traveler friend did it, made sure I was at Yuffie's party. She was probably the one who put that ridiculous hat on me."

Cloud deadpanned, "You're mocking me."

Leon held his index finger and his thumb an inch apart. "Just a little bit."

Cloud exhaled and stood, "You suck."

"Hey, if you run into this Agent Mike, tell her thanks for all the incriminating photos. Tifa will be using them for years."

Cloud glared as he walked across the living room. "You're an ass."

From his spot on the couch, Leon snickered. "C'mon. You have to admit that it sounds a slightly stupid: time travelling women."

"You want to talk about slightly stupid?" Cloud folded his arms. "You're the one sitting there investigating the past between one of your soldiers and another recruit."

"McCallister had an emotion. That's…worthy of investigation." Leon pointed out.

"Fine, fine, whatever. While YOU're in here trying to figure out the mind of a woman, I'M going to be out there, solving time travel."

"Whatever." Leon rolled his eyes. "Maybe you should spend some time trying to figure out the mind of a woman…One woman in particular."

When Cloud looked at him, Leon just lifted an eyebrow.

"Aerith?" Cloud said. "Have you talked to her?"

"Have you?" Leon lifted the other eyebrow. "You've been obsessed with this Agent Mike for over a month, but when was the last time you talked to Aerith about her research?"

"Oh yeah? How's the whole naming your unborn child thing going?" Cloud snapped.

Leon glared, "You son of a bitch."

..:-X-:..

078 – Brought to You by the Letter M

"Oh…wow…it's a…thing." Tifa tore the rest of the wrapping paper away, looking uncertainly at the gift inside. "…Thanks, Aerith."

"It's a pappoose." Aerith chimed proudly.

Tifa held the thing up, turned it over, and then turned it back right side up. "Oh, I see now. To carry the baby, hands free, nice."

"Can't wait to see Leon wearin' that thing." Yuffie snorted.

Tifa chuckled and let Aerith hand her the next gift. "This one's from…Rinoa." She glanced over to the other woman, who smiled and gave her thumbs up.

The baby shower was just their small group: Tifa, Aerith, Yuffie, Rinoa, Beverly, and somehow Jake Alms had snuck in and joined the party. He had initially just stopped by to drop off McCallister's gift, since the soldier was on a mission, but he had managed to invite himself to join. Tifa had been in too good a mood to argue with him.

Tearing open the wrapping and opening the box, Tifa first tugged out a stuffed, blue elephant toy that was roughly the size of a football. "Aw, this is cute." Holding that in one hand, she dug out the other item in the box. "Baby's book of fists." She read the title.

"Awwwwwww." Aerith cooed.

"First smile, first words, first steps…" Rinoa offered with a smile.

"First diaper change." Beverly chimed in, "I babysat for a friend for a while several years ago…All the horror stories about diaper changing are true."

Tifa looked at the older woman warily. "Well, we've been through war. I think Leon and I can handle a diaper."

"Diapers." Jake corrected, "Dozens. Mountains of diapers." He gestured. "Your bundle of joy is also going to be a tiny poop factory."

The women all looked at him.

He shrugged, "What? I babysit too sometimes."

"People actually leave their children with you?" Yuffie teased.

Tifa chortled and set the stuffed elephant and the book beside the other gifts, including the electronic baby monitors that Beverly had given her and the black onesie from Yuffie that read: "My awesome ninja aunt loves me."

"Har har." Jake snorted, handing Tifa the gift from McCallister. "I'll have you know that I will be a fantastic babysitter for little Michelle."

"Michelle?" Aerith blinked, looking Tifa. "Did you guys finally decide on a name?"

Tifa started to open the box. "Er, we decided on a letter." At their blank looks, she huffed. "Picking a name is hard, guys, okay? We had to narrow it down somehow. So…we decided that we liked names that started with M…so…we're going from there."

"Is Michelle at the top of the list?" Yuffie prompted.

"Well…I like Mckenzie…Leon likes Milly…" Tifa rattled off, tugging the box open.

"Then there's Madeline, Mindy, Morgana, Medusa—" Rinoa added.

"Medusa?" Aerith's eyebrows shot up.

"Or Morgan…Monique, Melissa, Maria, Marjorie, Mikayla…" Jake joined in.

Tifa looked at him. "What?"

"What is that?" Beverly cut in, looking at the gift in her hands.

Distracted, Tifa lifted the object. It appeared to be a pillow, but had a donut shape to it. McCallister had suggested weeks earlier that Tifa buy a body pillow, stating that it would make it easier to sleep during the third trimester when it was difficult to get comfortable. Tifa had caved soon after and bought a body pillow…It was the best sleep she'd had in weeks. But this…she wasn't sure what purpose this was supposed to serve.

"I'm…not sure." Tifa absently stuck her arm through the hole in the pillow.

"It's a sitting pillow." Aerith informed. "After you have Michelle-Maria-Mikayla, you sit on this pillow and it helps ease the discomfort you're going to have down there after delivery."

"Whoa." Yuffie leaned back, lifting her arms in front of her in an X shape. "Too much information."

Rinoa looked at Yuffie flatly. "We were literally talking about breastfeeding ten minutes ago and you're getting uncomfortable talking about THIS?"

"It's simple logic, Yuffie." Aerith pointed out, "The ladybits take a thrashing when you give birth. There's stretching and later sore muscles and—"

"Ah, ah, ah!" Yuffie covered her ears, "Can we not talk about Tifa's ladybits?" She glanced at Jake, who was turning the pages of the baby book of firsts unaffectedly. "How are you not grossed out by this?"

Tifa waved a hand, "He's been de-sensitized. I've been using him as a sounding board for a lot of this stuff already lately."

"Ask me anything about a cervix, I dare you." Jake challenged them all, looking unaffected.

"OR." Aerith emphasized, "We can open more presents. Here, this one's from the Fairy Godmother…"

..:-X-:..

A/N: For those who have read any of my stories involving Leon and Tifa's daughter before, I slipped a few Easter eggs in that last one. There was also one for McCallister too, for those who have read my other collection, What it Takes to Come Alive. Actually, there was also a bit in there about Aerith that's been background noise in some of my other fics…

Damn, I got kinda sneaky in this chapter. Ah well. Hope you guys liked it anyway.

Preview for next week: "I've barely nicked the tip of the iceberg with this undercurrent theory."