Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This story is mine, as are the OCs, now including Mikayla! Enjoy the chapter.

..:-X-:..

098 – Meet the Gang

"Am I doing it right?" Yuffie asked, feeling awkward as she held the new baby. "They always say support the head, but I've never really known what that means."

Sitting on the couch in the living room of her and Leon's house, Tifa chuckled, "You're doing it fine." She beamed and glanced to the others with a wink. "Super Aunt Yuffie, right?"

Yuffie nodded quickly, but it still felt extremely weird holding Mikayla. The baby had done nothing but sleep since she and the others had come by to visit and meet the new member of the Restoration Committee family. The same was said of Leon. Like father, like daughter. Apparently the emotional crash had only just hit him. After a week of running amok, making sure that Tifa and Mikayla were well tended and comfortable, he had finally just toppled over in bed and stayed there. He hadn't made an appearance throughout Yuffie, Aerith, Cloud, Cid, Jake, Merlin, Rinoa, and McCallister's comings and goings during the afternoon.

"She's moving." Yuffie squeaked as the baby shifted in her arms. "What do I do? She's…she's moving around." She stiffened, feeling all of their eyes on her. "Help. Alert!"

Cid huffed and reached out. "Aw, Hell, give her here."

Yuffie quickly but carefully let Cid take the squirming bundle from her arms, relieved when she stopped worrying about messing up or dropping her. So far, Aerith, Merlin, McCallister and even Jake had all handled Mikayla like pros, now even Cid seemed to know what he was doing with the baby more than she did. Rinoa ogled at the child from her spot at Cid's elbow.

"Oh, if she isn't the cutest little thing I've ever seen." She gushed. "And she just looks so squishy." She reached out and touched Mikayla's arm. "Hello." She giggled.

"You two did good." Jake smiled to Tifa, leaning over the back of the couch and nudging her shoulder. "How're you feeling?"

Tifa folded her hands over her stomach, which was still a little swollen but much less than before. "Happy. Sore. That donut pillow thing that McCallister gave me is a miracle worker."

From her spot in the kitchen, helping Aerith, McCallister offered a mock salute. Jake smiled at her, but whatever he was going to follow up with was interrupted by Cloud.

"Did Leon really cry?" He asked, wearing a shit-eating grin.

Yuffie lifted her eyes from Mikayla to look at Cloud and then Tifa. "Leon knows how to cry?"

Tifa sighed, "There may have been…a few…tears of joy."

Cloud snorted.

Cid turned to face him, still holding the baby. "I heard he was a fuckin' waterfall."

"Cid!" Aerith snapped at his language.

Yuffie snorted, "Aaand baby's first swear word learned from Uncle Cid."

Tifa chuckled, she'd been wearing the same tired smile the entire time that they'd been here. "I won't lie; it was a sight to behold." She pointed at Cloud though in warning. "Leave him alone about it."

"Nope." Cloud shook his head, folding his arms. "I make no such promise."

Yuffie frowned, hands on her hips. "Please, like you won't fall apart when you have a kid. And lookit that face," She gestured to Mikayla, "nobody could resist that level of cuteness."

"Can I hold her?" Rinoa asked sheepishly.

Yuffie hopped over to stand with Jake behind the couch as Cid transferred Mikayla from his arms to Rinoa's. Rinoa, for her part, let out an inhuman little squeak of awe as she cuddled the baby. Cloud crossed the room to go join Aerith and McCallister in the kitchen.

This was so weird, Yuffie thought. It didn't feel like their group should be old enough or grown up enough to be having kids. Tifa and Leon were frickin' parents now. PARENTS. What memories Yuffie had retained of her own parents always cast them in the light of calm, wise, superhero Mom and Dad who had all the answers and knew everything. She couldn't remember any times when her parents hadn't seemed to have everything together.

Now Tifa and Leon were this kid's Mom and Dad. Tifa could burn macaroni and cheese if she tried to cook it, and frowny-face Leon was, well, LEON. Yuffie glanced at the rest of the group in the living room. It was weird, but a good weird.

"When did we all become adults?" She mused aloud. "Getting married, having kids, buying real houses. Strange." She shook her head.

"Ohmigosh lookit her pretty eyes!" Rinoa squealed as Mikayla finally woke up.

"Do you have any lemons?" Jake asked. "I bet she'd make a funny face if we fed her one."

"Don't be an idiot." Cid cuffed him across the back of the head.

Tifa, the only one who seemed to have heard Yuffie, lifted her shoulders. " 'Adults' is a subjective word, I think."

"Someone's gonna have to teach this kid how to play paintball." Jake said. "Dibs."

Yuffie balked. "You can't call dibs on life lessons! Besides, you lost that title."

"The black panther will rise again!" Jake declared.

Cid groaned, "Will you two shut up. Flying lessons before paintball…and dibs."

..:-X-:..

099 – Baby Steps

"What are you two doing in here?" Cloud asked, popping into the kitchen of Leon and Tifa's house, where Aerith and McCallister had holed up. "Center of attention is out there."

Aerith shrugged lightly, "Just trying to help out. Besides, I think Mikayla is getting plenty of attention."

Cloud leaned back, glancing into the living room, where Rinoa was rocking on her heels with the baby in her arms, while Yuffie and Jake hovered beside her and Cid talked to a beaming Tifa, and nodded, "Looks like it."

He leaned back into the kitchen, standing beside the counter as Aerith flitted about, rummaging and arranging things in the cabinets and drawers as though this was her own house. For the past week, it practically had been. She had stayed for the evening and through the night after Mikayla had been born. Tifa had been understandably exhausted and Leon had been in a daze; Aerith was the only one with her faculties completely about her for about 24 hours after that. She had called Cloud a few times as she stayed there for a few days, mostly for groceries or some other supplies that she needed. Tifa looked to have leveled out and relaxed since Cloud had last seen her, but he hadn't seen Leon since he bolted out of the garage last week.

This was Aerith in her element, Cloud mused inwardly. For all her talk about wanting to contribute 'real stuff' to the Alliance and the Restoration Committee, she was providing more than enough at the moment. She was taking initiative and doing things where Cloud knew he and the others would hesitate at first. And she looked happy. She was cutting tomatoes and organizing the contents of the fridge and doing laundry: and she looked happier doing all of that than she ever had when he'd seen her doing her research on the undercurrent. It wasn't that she liked doing those things; she found joy in helping people, in whatever form that help took.

As opposed to Private McCallister behind her, who looked confused at the cooking instrument that Aerith had handed her.

"It's a potato peeler." Aerith explained.

Cloud pursed his lips and looked into the living room again. Tifa had taken her daughter back, and little Mikayla was making unhappy noises at changing hands so many times.

Jake snorted as the baby started whimpering. "She's thinking 'you have disturbed my slumber, peasants!' You can see it in her eyes."

Cloud's gaze lingered on Tifa and Mikayla. He lifted a hand and rubbed idly at the healing burn on his jaw, glancing toward the stairs and then back to Aerith. "Do you like living with Rinoa?"

Aerith slowed in her drying of clean dishes. "Yes." She looked at him with a quizzically raised eyebrow. "Why? Did she say something to you? Because I told her I would replace that pillow that Piper destroyed."

"No. No, no." Cloud mumbled, folding his arms over his chest. "I was just…asking." Feeling suddenly awkward, he shifted from one foot to the other. "Piper's still a pest, huh?"

"He's not a pest. He's just…fickle about who he likes." Aerith tutted.

McCallister covered up a snort by putting the potato peeler away.

"He happens to have a very short list of people that he likes." Aerith defended.

McCallister lifted her hands in surrender, moving past Cloud to get at a hand towel.

Aerith set the dish down. "He likes me—because I feed him. He's starting to tolerate Rinoa…And he doesn't mind you, Cloud."

Cloud swallowed, "Um, yeah. We get along…I mean, I don't mind him. I could get used to having a cat around." Uncomfortably, he unfolded his arms, paused, and immediately folded them again. "I mean, I guess, I'd like…seeing him around…more."

Aerith faced him, head tilted and one eye squinting. "Are you looking to adopt a cat?"

"No." Cloud grumbled. "I'm just saying…I could…" He rolled one shoulder to try to work out the tension building up there. It didn't work. "Rinoa doesn't like the cat; I…do."

Aerith's one eye remained squinted. One of her eyebrows raised in confusion. McCallister looked between them, puzzled and awkward.

Jake called from the living room. "Tabaeus, could you—"

"Yes!" McCallister immediately bolted from the situation in the kitchen before Jake could finish his request.

"You…want to be friends with my cat." Aerith said slowly, deadpan.

Cloud looked at her flatly. "I want…" He ground his molars and glared at the sink.

He wanted to just spit it out. Hell, Leon and Tifa had just created a PERSON, Cloud should be able to ask the woman he loved if she wanted to move in with him. But it was so…messy. Between his lukewarm feelings towards her research and her prickly disapproval of his 'time travel stories,' this could get awkward really fast. Shit, it was already awkward and he hadn't even asked her the damned question!

Aerith looked concerned. "Two people in our group just had a baby." She stated plainly. "It's…jarring to think about." She tilted her head. "Kinda makes you think about things, doesn't it? Everything is going to be different from now on. For all of us."

She was letting him off the hook, deciding not to pry and make him spit it out.

For the first time, Cloud wished that she would have made him spit it out. "Yeah."

..:-X-:..

100 – Strange Villages

There was something so disorienting about waking up when it was dark outside. Leon staggered out of the bedroom and, hearing voices downstairs, went to investigate. He had told Tifa that he was just going to lie down for an hour or two to get his wind back, but that had been at 2 pm. It was clearly much later than that now.

The front door closed as he reached the bottom step, turning by default into the living room and finding no one there. Absently, he turned back around and walked into the kitchen. There, he spotted Tifa and Jake talking, with Mikayla snoozing in the baby carrier on the table. Tifa saw him first, grinning as she set down the glass she was drinking from.

"Oh look, he lives." She stated, standing by the counter.

"Barely." Jake added, giving Leon's rough appearance a once-over.

Leon blinked, ran a hand across his eyes, and looked at the dark windows. "What time is it?"

"Eight o'clock." Tifa replied with a smirk. "You missed everybody. They just left."

"Everybody." Leon repeated, slumping down into one of the kitchen chairs beside the baby carrier.

"Merlin came by right after you went down." Tifa said. "Not long after he left, the rest of the gang showed up: Yuffie, Cloud, Cid, McCallister, this guy." She pointed her thumb toward Jake. "Aerith was still here. I finally convinced her to go home and get some real sleep in her own bed."

"We were here all afternoon, dude." Jake said. "You sleep like the dead."

Leon gave him a flat look and then looked to Mikayla, resisting the urge to touch the sleeping baby and incur her infant wrath. "Sorry. Didn't mean to."

"You needed it." Tifa affirmed, walking over to him and ruffling his hair with one hand.

"So they left?" Leon let her do her ruffling, he doubted his hair was any kind of composed anyway.

"Yup." Jake answered. "Tabs had to head up some paperwork. Yuffie had patrols. Cid got a perimeter call. Aerith got really twitchy all of a sudden and went home. Cloud left just as you came downstairs…also twitchy all of a sudden."

Leon snorted and poked Mikayla's foot. "Did you meet everybody?"

Tifa chuckled. "And was held by everybody, and was squealed at by everybody, and was doted on by everybody…You know what they say: it takes a village to raise a child."

Leon rubbed his neck and sat back, opening his eyes wide briefly to clear them. "Strange village."

"Oh, and apparently Cid has called dibs on teaching our daughter how to fly, and Yuffie has dibs on teaching her paintball." Tifa noted.

"Pending dibs." Jake clarified, pointing at Tifa. "We've got a few years for me to re-take my honor and drop-kick her off the Number One pedestal."

Leon straightened, "Shouldn't we get first dibs on everything?" He gestured between himself and Tifa.

Tifa narrowed one eye at him. "I'm giving Cloud dibs on teaching her mechanics."

Leon scoffed and started a comeback, but Mikayla abruptly sneezed herself awake, opening her eyes wide in surprise as both arms flew up with the motion. All three adults looked at her. The infant's face bunched up a little in dislike, but her features soon smoothed out as she looked around at them all.

"Bless you." Jake chirped, glancing at his watch. "I need to get going."

"Okay." Tifa gave him a short wave. "Thanks for coming by."

As Jake left, Mikayla squirmed and kicked her feet, making a restless noise.

"Hey." Leon reached over, stroking the back of his index finger down her cheek.

She squinted the eye nearest his touch and kept squirming.

"She was so good today." Tifa remarked. "She was like the group's hot potato. First Merlin and then Yuffie and then Cid and then Rinoa—She only started really fussing when Cloud was holding her."

Leon snickered, lifting his daughter out of the carrier. "That's my girl." He held her up at eye level. "Take no prisoners." He pressed his lips to her cheek before looking to Tifa. "Just the three of us tonight?"

"Yeah." Tifa straightened slightly as she thought about that. "Yeah. First time with just the three of us in the house."

"Maybe we could have a wild dance party." He said, rocking side to side with Mikayla against his chest.

Tifa snorted. "You should go back to bed…And your hair is looking fab." She reached over, ruffling his head again.

Leon saw her fight a yawn and he immediately had to fight his own. "Rain check on the dance party then." He concluded. Even though he'd just gotten up, the idea of being horizontal again was awfully tempting.

"You get dibs on teaching her how to dance." Tifa smirked as she went upstairs.

..:-X-:..

A/N: I'll try to keep the fluff level below asphyxiation, but when Mikayla is in the chapter, I make no promises. She pretty much has the entire Restoration Committee wrapped around her finger from the start. That being said, this story arc will definitely involve the flipside of parenthood that is less adorable. Leon and Tifa will have their hands full.

Preview for next week: "It's like people are trying to stay away from me to avoid incurring her wrath."