At the close of another long work day, Sephiroth glanced at the date on his word processor with a vaguely irritated expression. "St. Patrick's Day," he remarked.

Cloud grunted from his desk. "A pretty minor holiday if there's no local parade, unless you're Irish or you like to drink a lot."

"And I fall into neither category." Sephiroth folded his arms.

"It was always good business at 7th Heaven, at least," Cloud remarked.

"I suppose Tifa likes the holiday then," Sephiroth said.

"At least for business-related reasons," Cloud said. He gave Sephiroth a Look. "I'll never forget when you showed up there the last St. Patrick's Day before we ended up on Earth."

Sephiroth had to smirk a bit. "That was enjoyable."

Cloud snorted, but he was really smiling under that attempt at a stern scowl. "It was," he had to admit. "Except when that one drunk guy tried to pinch you."

"He regretted that," Sephiroth remarked. "One look at my eyes—or rather, the pupils—and he fainted."

"Oh yeah." Cloud had to snark. After that mini incident, everyone watching with goggle-eyed interest had gone back to their food and drinks, minding their own business, and Tifa had sighed, shaking her head at it all and frowning at their bizarre guest. Sephiroth, of course, had found it highly amusing. Cloud had grumbled and groused to himself as he had pulled the drunk guy out of the bar and over to a couch to sleep it off. But, since Sephiroth really hadn't been doing anything wrong (unless going into 7th Heaven in the first place had been wrong), Cloud really hadn't minded him being there that night.

No matter how much he had grumped about it.

"So, did anybody else ever try to pinch you?" Cloud had to ask, eyeing the man's usual black and white clothes.

Sephiroth smirked. "Some foolish people tried and either got too intimidated or they saw I actually do fulfill the requirement to be left alone . . . without fainting upon seeing it."

Cloud glanced at his green eyes. The pupils were wider today, a sign of inner calm. "Lucky. So if you didn't have that, would you have ever worn green?"

Sephiroth scoffed. "Just to appease tradition? Of course not." A pause. "And yourself?"

"I didn't want to do it just for that either," Cloud said. "Aerith said it was all in fun, but I didn't want to feel forced to do it to protect myself. Nothing about pinching is fun."

"Unless you're the one doing the pinching, I suppose." A smirk.

"Heh. And I don't think either of us would be doing that," Cloud said.

"You're right," Sephiroth agreed.

"What about food?" Cloud wondered. "Zack likes to celebrate everything. Did he ever take you out to eat for the day?"

"Yes, he's done that," Sephiroth said. "Those were the only times I actually enjoyed the holiday . . . aside from the time I walked into 7th Heaven."

"Zack has a way of making everything special," Cloud said.

Sephiroth smiled. "He does." A pause. "One time he insisted we should look for leprechauns." He said this completely deadpan.

If Cloud had been drinking something, he might have either spat it out or swallowed wrong at this information. "What?!" he finally gasped. "Did you do it?"

Sephiroth had to chuckle in amusement. "Yes, I did. Of course it was just to humor him even though I thought it was ridiculous, but then it ended up being fun. I was with my dear friend, who actually wanted to be with me and share something with me, and that made it worthwhile."

"There must be a lot more to it than that," Cloud said. "I mean, he wasn't trying to find leprechauns in Midgar, was he? Were you guys on assignment or something?"

"We were on assignment in the Celtic part of Gaia," Sephiroth said. "But it was a long and dull assignment that wasn't going much of anywhere. We were investigating monster reports in the area and the monsters weren't appearing. So Zack said we could look for the monsters and look for leprechauns while we were at it."

Cloud snarked. "Oh brother." But he had to smile.

"That was a very strange assignment in general," Sephiroth said. "The monsters ended up not being an actual problem at all. They were benign. People were too quick to decide they were dangerous."

Cloud grunted at that. "Yeah. . . . People are like that."

"It was a welcome break from chasing after all the Genesis clones, at least," Sephiroth said.

"Guess it would be," Cloud acknowledged. "So . . . what do you want to bet that Zack's planning something for today?"

"I doubt there's any need to bet on that," Sephiroth smirked. He got up from the desk. "Shall we go see what he's up to?"

Cloud got up too. "Yeah. Let's."

And Zack was right there when they stepped out of the office, holding a gold pot filled with what looked like gold coins and wearing a leprechaun hat on his head. "Hey!" He grinned at his friends. "I was just coming to get you!"

Sephiroth had to smirk. "So you're the leprechaun this year?"

"Yeah!" Zack held out the pot. "And you guys absolutely get my pot of gold!"

Suddenly hunger and delight went through Seph's eyes. "Is that . . . chocolate?"

A happy nod. "The whole thing's full of chocolate coins!" Zack said. "And the actual chocolate candy called Pot O' Gold!"

Sephiroth immediately reached for a couple of coins.

Cloud had to smile. "He'll like that better than real gold," he commented as he took one too. "Not that it doesn't make sense when we're already rich from the company, but even if we weren't, he'd rather have chocolate."

"I know!" Zack grinned. "Life's simple pleasures are the best!"

He continued to grin as he said, "Hey, did you know it's also St. Gertrude's day? She's the patron saint of cats!"

"You're not Catholic, though," Cloud said.

"It's just a fun fact," Zack said. "Especially when we've got eight of them!"

"She's not officially recognized as the patron saint of cats, as far as I know," Sephiroth remarked.

"They need one too!" Zack said.

Sephiroth had to smirk. "I'm surprised you're not trying to celebrate St. Gertrude's Day as well."

"Well . . . I bought some stuff for the kitties to celebrate," Zack said. "And Lucy too, even though she's not a cat!"

"Of course you did," Sephiroth deadpanned.

They all started heading down the hall.

"So, is there a party in the works?" Sephiroth had to ask.

"Of course!" Zack said. "Tifa and Aerith are making corned beef and cabbage and potatoes! The kids are helping too!"

Sephiroth smiled. "That will be delicious."

"Oh yeah! The best!" Zack gushed. "And there's shamrock cookies for dessert!"

Cloud smiled too. So everyone was making sure that a holiday they didn't normally celebrate would be fun. He could definitely get used to this.

From Sephiroth's expression—and his eager grab for more chocolate—he could too.