New Routines

The issue their first night in their shared situation had been the awkwardness of it all. Suddenly forced into this rather intimate position when both (okay, one of them in particular) had wanted the time and room to properly heal their old foundation had been a sudden and shattering surprise courtesy of Barret. The slight edge of guilt still ran through Cloud's conscious, and there was a piece of it even now.

…That had been before though, now Cloud was only faced with a sense of insurmountable longing. 'Not yet,' he'd had to tell himself time and time again during the night, wanting to reach out and take gentle hold of Tifa in his arms… after asking for consent obviously, but he never made the attempt.

Waking up the next morning though, still on his side of the twin beds but with himself and Tifa holding hands in the center…

'She's a master of breaking that distance, even from me,' Cloud conceded before gently letting her hand go. He'd been careful in his movements, but even this was enough to cause his childhood friend to stir, gently open her eyes before coming face to face with Cloud. Yesterday he might've been a nervous wreck… today less-so. "…Sleep well?"

"Next to you? Who wouldn't?" Ah. That classic lead in. He'd been the one teasing when he'd said it in the past, but the way she said it so genuinely he couldn't help but softly smile. "And you? It was a bit of a rush yesterday."

"Yeah, I calmed down enough," he assured before glancing to their digital clock. "Kids alarms should be going off soon, you ready for a little of Zangan's practice?"

"I should be asking you that; I was one of his best students after," she reminded him proudly. "He always said I had the makings of an amazing fighter… wish he could've seen me now."

If Zangan's final letter to Tifa was to be believed, his strength finally gave out after saving her from the Nibelheim slaughter and bringing her to a doctor. While there hadn't been any news of the world traveler since, Cloud suspected that she was holding out hope that she could one day reunite with the man despite the odds.

"Did he ever talk about any of his other students?" Cloud asked.

"Only a few times, he was always more focused on my training. Probably one of his principles of not comparing yourself to others." Always a good lesson to have.

"I was just thinking maybe you should try to reach out to some of them," he decided. "Not sure how easy they'd be to find, but the guy boasted that he had plenty of students around the world."

"Right, one-hundred-twenty-eight of them," Tifa recalled. "I don't know how I'd be able to find any of them, but if a way ever comes up maybe I should." She smirked at him. "Of course, I'll probably be the best he's ever taught."

"I dunno, let's see how well you do on today's stretching first," Cloud half joked with a sly smirk.

"Considering I'll be leading our little class, I think I'll do just fine," Tifa assured him confidently. "But about Denzel, what's our plan there?"

"Try to act natural, keep an eye on him, but don't coddle him… at least don't make it obvious if you are," Cloud tried before shaking his head. "No, we won't hide anything from him. If we're worried about his condition we tell him as much; we need to be honest here."

"You're right, but let's do our best not to be too overbearing on him; we all have our times when we need to be a little proud." She'd had more than enough experience with people who could be too prideful to admit they needed help (present included), but that at least meant she had experience in softening the blow. "Is Barret joining us?"

"I was going to say 'If we can get him up', but we'd be able to hear his snoring by now. He's already awake," Cloud rightly figured before the two heard some muffled beeping a few rooms away. "That'll be the kid's alarm," he rightly guessed before heading over to his phone and removing it from the charger. Opening it up, he saw that he'd been left a lengthy text message.

"Anything wrong?" Tifa asked patiently as she gathered a few things from her closet that they'd need for their stretching.

"Reeve just messaged me; I told him earlier about my plans to help with any monster extermination requests and let him know he could call on me," he informed. "It's not far out of Edge, meaning it's both close and I should handle it quickly before anyone gets hurt."

"…Will you at least stretch before you leave?" she asked hopefully. "We'll be a little quicker about it since it's only our first day doing this."

"I made promise I'd be there, plus it's better that I loosen up before I take off," Cloud agreed.

"Any idea what you'll be fighting?" Tifa inquired as she brought out two Yoga mats.

"Sweepers. I guess even after everything, there are still at least a couple wandering around the scrapyards of Midgar. Or at least whatever's left of them," he explained before remembering an important step for preparation. Heading to his satchel of broken Materia, he sorted through until he found the largest shard of a broken Lightning Materia. It had been Mastered by their journey's end, but now it could only cast up to the second tier of Thundara. "I'll take this with me along with the second-best Healing Materia I've got."

"And the best?"

"Leaving it with you, just in case."

"While you head off to obviously get into a life-or-death fight. I understand it's for Denzel, but you need to make sure to take care of yourself. If it's not for your own sake, then everyone else worrying about you."

"Don't worry; already got a recent reminder of that," he promised. "And I'm going to be careful instead of just rushing in." Something about her still didn't appear convinced. "Is that not enough?"

"I'm just thinking that I should go with you on future jobs."

'If she can fight even half as good as she used to, I wouldn't mind the extra help.' "Alright, but let's save that for once we get the Materia repaired. That way we're both fully equipped."

"Deal," she agreed, right as there were three knocks on the door. "We'll be out in a minute! Go ahead and wait for us downstairs."

"Okay," came both Denzel's and Marlene's voice from the other side, followed by gentle footsteps as they headed down below and said their good morning to Barret.

Cloud and Tifa joined them not long after, giving their good mornings as well. Everyone was dressed in sweatpants and loose-fitting shirts that would be perfect for stretching. Cloud had wondered if Barret was going to take his artificial arm out to balance himself out, but the former leader of Avalanche was going to do the routine with it on.

"Alright everyone. Since something important came up for Cloud, we're going to just focus on stretching for today," Tifa explained. "Starting off easy, reach for the skies as high as you can."

Easy was right as they all followed the motion, though Barret felt the need to give a taunting smirk at Cloud since their difference in height let him reach quite a bit higher. Cloud didn't let this get to him and followed Tifa's lead as she then brought them stretching to their side to practice their core before attempting to reach down and touch their toes… something that Cloud seemed to have better luck with than Barret, so he sent him back his own taunting smirk.

"Cloud; this isn't a contest," Tifa chided without even looking up.

"He started it," Cloud retorted, causing the kids to smile as the hero's more childish side came out.

The two then moved onto balancing on one leg as their next form of practice. While Cloud needed to make some effort to balance himself properly, Tifa seemed as still as could be on one leg. Much more surprising was Barret, while he didn't have his leg up as far but didn't seem to be struggling at all.

"Wow, you've got a really good sense of balance," Marelene happily discovered. She was having similar ease to Tifa while Denzel was having to work the hardest to stay upright (Cloud was keeping a careful eye on him)

"Of course, your daddy's pretty amazing!" Barret beamed with fatherly pride. "I've had a lot of practice with this, having to deal with one half of my body heavier than the other. This is nothing."

'Wonder how good my balance would be if I had to do this with swords on my back?' Cloud briefly considered before realizing he was being ridiculous.

From there Tifa guided her students (she was taking her new teacher role with pride) through another series of stretches to limber up before rolling out the mats. She only had two and while she promised to go out for more in the future, for now they'd have to take turns. Without having to worry about balance now they could really focus on actually stretching. Cloud and especially Barret were feeling the burn now as they had to move their limbs in ways they'd never considered before.

The workout had only lasted a half hour even with them taking turns. Denzel had tried to get Cloud to show him some simple workout routines before he left, but he'd had to insist that it was better that they wait until the following day. At the very least, Denzel didn't seem to be at any risk of going into a sudden collapse like the day prior.

A small cup of coffee, a plate of eggs, and a short shower later left Cloud dressed in his regular garb and ready to head out.

"I'll be back before you know it," he promised them all. Most of them gave a classic 'see you soon' or something along those lines, save for Tifa.

"Be safe."

He only nodded at that, meeting her eyes and locking the gaze for a few good seconds before closing the door behind him.

"Spiky'll be fine," Barret insisted, trying to comfort her. "By the by Denzel, I picked you up a little something special yesterday!"

'He can take Sephiroth, he can do this no problem. I'm just being silly at this point,' Tifa reprimanded herself. But the fear she'd only felt a few days ago during that explosion on Midgar's ruins. Where she thought she'd really lost him. That fear had been real. 'We better get that Materia repaired soon.'

Later -The Ruins of Midgar-

At the very least, the Sweepers would be found on the side of the ruined Megalopolis furthest from Edge. That meant the townsfolk wouldn't need to worry about the city for a good while and Aerith's church was still safe. Cloud still knew that he needed to end the potential threat immediately; he didn't want to try forgiving himself if someone had gotten killed because he wasn't fast enough

Reeve had sent him instructions on a nearby rendezvous point where he'd met a few assigned agents. These were volunteer workers from Reeve's ever growing World Regenesis Organization, a new faction dedicated to rebuilding all that had been lost in both Shinra's reign and the Sephiroth incident that had followed. Several of its recruits had actually been low ranking Shinra grunts, meaning Cloud needed to be careful if he was about to meet someone with a grudge held against him for destroying the company.

A worry that he wouldn't need today apparently. Swerving his bike around to the meeting point and parking it, he was actually met with a formal salute from all four of the guards in attendance. Without a proper rank of his own, Cloud only settled with a reserved nod as he opened Fenrir's blade storage to grab the parts of the fusion sword he'd need for that day.

Though it'd be overkill, he decided to take every part with him and complete the Fusion Sword. The hefty blade would be perfect for cleaving through the metal Sweepers, though if he could go fully prepared he would've also given the weapon a combination of Lightning and Elemental Materia to give his physical attacks more potency with the elemental effect. With any of the Elemental (or any of the supports in general) shattered, Cloud was worried that they would cause a backfire onto himself. Not something he could afford to risk doing this alone.

"What's the situation?" he asked, as he dismounted his bike wanting to get to business. With all of the punishment it had taken from Kadaj's group in the previous days, Cloud was leaving Fenrir out of the fight for the time being.

"Ten sweepers at least, you can track their movement from here, sir," the grizzled commanding office briefed as he pointed further into the scrapyard. "They're not straying too far from each other, but we don't know for certain what their centralized point or even their range is. It would only be a matter of time before some hapless scavenger wanders in and gets filled with lead."

"Did they ever detect any of you?" Even if Cloud was never truly in SOLDIER, he still had information from his basic training and more to the point actual combat he'd taken against these mechanical threats.

"Not as far as any of my troops could tell, but they'd all kept their distance and didn't take any aggressive actions against them. We didn't even take sniper shots from afar, instead following the director's orders and waiting for you, sir."

"You don't need to be so formal with me; really I'm just a hired sword on this job," Cloud reminded.

"You're not just any hired sword though! You're the hero that took down Sephiroth twice!" one of the soldiers exclaimed. "Really, it's an honor to meet you in person. And I say that for all of us."

'More of this kind of attention, but I guess it's better than what we were getting yesterday,' Cloud conceded. "Stay back here and don't get involved unless I signal for you to get involved; if you start taking shots at them their programing might cause them to respond with return fire."

"Sir!" Another line of salutes from all of them. Cloud humored them and responded with his own salute… his first time doing it since he'd infiltrated Shinra's ranks in Junon.

Instead of rushing in first thing, Cloud was actually much slower and more methodical in his approach to the group of sweepers before him. Not only did he have much more experience now and far less of an ego, but he also had Tifa's promise to keep that he would make it back to the Seventh Heaven bar in one piece. Ducking behind piles of rubble and narrowly avoiding the machines' long-ranged sensors let him get a proper grasp of his enemy's number, positioning, and their condition.

'None of these have had proper maintenance in some time, but it's a bigger surprise that any of them are active after all of this time. That rust on their armor might make it look like they're about to fall apart, but it's only the first layer and these things still have plenty of other defenses. As far as weaponry we've got gunners, lancers, and even some with flamethrower or missile capabilities, but that fuel should've gone bad by now.'

A mystery for later, right now Cloud decided he'd remain in the present. He'd only have this one chance for an opening strike. Once he was detected by a single one of the mechs, the others would be sent information on his positioning and from there it would be a constant relay between all of them to quickly locate and exterminate him. Wanting to make the most of this opportunity, he started channeling the Lightning Materia and took aim at one of the mechs with a missile bed on its back.

Even if the spell had been downgraded from its max level, Cloud had still developed an amazing proficiency with magic and the devastating lightning bolt that followed completely decimated the mech in a single shot, blasting it to pieces and causing its loaded missile to misfire. Many of them exploded harmlessly against the scrape piles of the ruined city while one of them struck another Sweeper and inflicted heavy damage to it.

With the rest of the mechs on high alert mode and already gunning for him, Cloud wasted no time in sprinting towards the incoming threat. Closing the distance before leaping over the ranged attacks, Cloud brought his sword down in his signature Braver technique and succeeded in cleaving the Lance based weapon apart. Twirling his sword in front of him, he deflected another incoming barrage of bullets before leaning back and barely avoiding an impalement from the second Lancer (he'd had to deal with too many of those recently). With both hands on the handle, he twisted into a devastating slash that again succeeded in cleaving another mech in half.

'Feels good, more than good. Maybe I'd forgotten how strong I really was before Geostigma,' he considered before charging up more lightning magic. The second of the missile launchers had just locked onto him and was about to set off another barrage of missiles. It never got the chance as his second Thundara caught it and destroyed the mech while setting its missiles off early resulting in a massive explosion. 'If I could use any All Materia here, this fight would've been over already.'

What could've been out of his mind, Cloud continued closing in on the remaining sweepers that were still trying to drive him off with a rapid barrage of gunfire. Compared to keeping track of Sephiroth's blade, these bullets were practically moving in slow motion and he could deflect or move around them with ease. Finally reaching the closest sweeper, he lunged forward and impaled his blade through the entire weapon. Using his victim as cover from the other sweeper before vaulting skyward using his blade, he charged his inherent Mako energy into his sword before bringing it down. The resulting shockwaves cleaved clean through three sweepers at once and caused the two flamethrowers to explode.

If the two remaining mechs had any sense of self-preservation they'd had fled long ago, but their programing kept them in place and focused their sights on the warrior. Cloud then moved so quickly that it would have looked like he blinked out of reality, only for him to appear sliding behind one of the sweepers before they both fell apart into pieces. All present threats were dealt with, but that didn't mean that Cloud's work was done just yet.

"THREAT LEVEL… INCREASED…" A mechanical voice from an unseen intercom. Cloud kept his sword ready. "NOW RELEASING… FINAL… DEFENSES…"

'So they were in patrol mode like I thought, guarding this place,' Cloud realized as the grounds of the scrapyard shifted around, creating an opening for a subterranean elevator to bring out the system's so-called final defenses. Taking one look at it, Cloud couldn't help but smirk. "We meet again."

A Scorpion Sentinel, even the exact same model from when his journey had begun over two years ago. Back then it had taken both him and Barret to bring this monster down, but now he'd have to do it with just himself. Already the systems had scanned his presence and locked onto him for more accurate aiming, so his attempt to channel lightning magic was cut short as the guardian attempted to interrupt the casting with a barrage from its twin cannons. Deflecting the bullets with his sword while maintaining the charge, he still managed to get the Thundara casted, striking home causing all the Scorpion's internal systems to overload and resulting in the aggressor going limp… aside from its tail which raised up and began charging a laser.

"Not happening."

Cloud had already leaped to the top of the mech before unleashing a skyward strike that cleaved the tail off before it could even begin to fire its laser. High in the air above the monster, Cloud plunged down with a mighty slash that even resulted in a Shinra weapon system even as large and powerful as this one being cleaved completely in half. Still cautious in case the defensive systems had anything else planned, Cloud kept ready for a moment until he was satisfied that he was truly done there. Feeling a pang of nostalgia, he gave his sword a flair filled twirl before setting it on its proper place on his back.

"We saw everything from here," the commanding officer from before greeted as Cloud returned to the WRO unit, all of them standing at salute. "It's no wonder you were able to defeat Sephiroth if that's what your fighting's like."

"It was nothing." Literally. He'd been careful that fight at Tifa's insistence, but the way he felt now he could've handled that sort of fighting in his sleep. A huge boost to his confidence, but still something to be kept in check. "Your works not done here; did all of you hear that announcement before the Scorpion got sent up?"

"We did. All signs point to there being a weapons storage bed sealed away in the area. I'm not sure how we didn't come across it earlier, but something must've reactivated the core defense systems."

'Either Sephiroth and I managed to somehow set it off in the middle of our fight, or Shinra's set off some sort of failsafe in situations like this,' Cloud internally considered. "Either way, both of our jobs should be done for now. Let Reeve know what happened and await further instructions from him. Final defenses or not, that place probably still has some nasty surprises in store ."

"Yes sir!" the commander and his soldiers said in unison as they once more saluted Cloud. Considering he'd just given them an order, he decided to again return the salute before returning to Fenrir and revving the engine.

"Good work," he commended before driving off, eager to get back to the bar and set Tifa's mind at ease.

"…So did we really do any actual work?" one of the grunts realistically questioned.

"Doesn't matter; hero of the world tells you good work, you take it," the commanding officer instructed. "Besides, we kept anyone from getting past our blockade and getting killed before he got here, that's gotta be worth something."

"But no one even came this way, sir."

"You still take it!"

Back at Seventh Heaven

"That didn't take long at all," Tifa greeted with a relieved smile as Cloud opened the door. "How was it?"

"Was careful as could be like I promised; no problems," Cloud answer which ended up relieving her ever further.

"Even after everything else has happened, we're still stickin' it the Shinra. Or are they stickin' it to us at this point?" Barret asked from where he sat at one of the bar tables with Marlene and Denzel. The young man had just been invited into Barret and Marlene's book club, so all three of them were reading their own copy of the same book. "Feel good takin' some Sweepers apart like old times?"

"That wasn't the only nostalgic thing there. Once they were dealt with, the defense systems brought out a Scorpion," Cloud informed.

"You mean like the one at the end of our first reactor mission?" Barret reminisced. "That was a nasty surprise… though not as nasty as you telling me to hit the damn thing and getting countered by its laser."

"Give me a break. You didn't let me finish back then and I got burned by that laser too," Cloud weakly defended as Tifa giggled at Barret's held grudge. "We didn't try heading inside, but Reeve might have another job for me if Scarlet was using that place as weapon storage facility."

"Guess that means Midgar's still holdin' a few dark secrets to it," the man with a gunarm concluded darkly. "Least it means you'll have some job security outside your delivery routes. How much did you charge Reeve for the help?"

"Five hundred." Tifa and Barret shared a glance at his low number. "He offered Two Thousand for each job for old time's sake, but I told him that this work was important to me as well. Helping to keep the lights on is just extra at this point."

"If ya do ever need the money, I think ol' Cait can afford to foot the bill." Even if Barret had eventually warmed up to Cait Sith and his driver Reeve, he still had that small grudge toward the ex-Shinra executive. "Guy's probably sitting on a whole mountain of Gil."

"I'm not so sure about that; creating and running an organization as big as the WRO can't possibly be cheap," Tifa argued back. "And I'm sure he spent plenty of his own money out of pocket trying to find a possible cure for Geostigma."

"And he's responsible for bringing anyone still afflicted with Aerith's church for healing," Cloud also reasoned.

"Guh… Okay! Okay! Point proven! The furball's been puttin' the work in!" Barret finally conceded. "Plus, I guess… we still ain't so clean ourselves. Even after everything."

"Might not be a bad idea to reach out to him. You can see if he can help you get your oil rig plan off the ground," Cloud advised.

"Long as he doesn't expect me to wear a suit to the meeting," Barret grumbled as he tried to play nice.

"You could always break out your old sailor one," Tifa teased, leaving him to pale.

"Not that again! Give that old thing a rest!"

"Daddy used to wear a sailor suit?" Marlene asked, choosing now of all times to stop reading her book. Even Denzel seemed interested.

"He looked like a giant marshmallow," Cloud cruelly elaborated as Marlene and Denzel both laughed at the mental image. Tifa meanwhile only smiled sweetly as she remembered how it had really looked, much to Barret's chagrin.

"Well, you ain't never gonna see me in it again!" he shouted. "Burned that thing long ago!"

"Uh huh…" Cloud retorted as he crossed his arms, fully unconvinced. "So you're saying if I go up into my room and double check the office for my things, I won't see the suit dry cleaned in your luggage?"

"…No, you won't," Barret insisted. His face growing deathly serious as he glared at the Merc with sharp features.

…Features he couldn't hold as Cloud made one step towards the stairs and Barret sprawled out of his chair before faceplanting trying to stop him.

"Just let Marlene see you in it already," he sighed as he headed over to help his giant of a friend up.

Later that Night

Seventh Heaven had been closed for a half-hour and Cloud was still downstairs finishing up the dishwashing. It had been another hectic night, not helped by the two extra hours the bar had been open due to yesterday's sudden closure. Tips had been good at least, he felt even more in control at the bar with Tifa, and thankfully he didn't need to worry about any rumors or whispers about their relationship status. Even still, they'd barely been able to keep up with all of the orders and Seventh Heaven had been at max capacity during that night's last call. Hence why he was still working with the clean-up. Tifa had wanted to stay behind and help out, but he'd insisted he finish up so she could get to that bath she so obviously wanted to get to that night.

'Only a few tables worth of glasses left then I just need to get to mopping,' Cloud assessed as he glanced around the bar. Weirdly enough, the frantic nature of Seventh Heaven's popularity had beaten out his life or death battle against the Sweepers in terms of frantic pacing. Maybe it was because he had a battle adrenaline to deal with against the robots… and even now he still had bits of his old socially awkward persona? 'Maybe it's a blessing that people still don't know how to approach me; helps that it goes both ways.'

He was able to hear the soft creaking of a door opening from upstairs followed by soft footsteps coming downstairs. Glancing up, he saw that it was Denzel as the youth peered into the restaurant, not for sneaking but to make sure that business had really concluded for the night.

"You can come down. We closed a bit ago," Cloud assured. Denzel didn't waste any time heading downstairs. "What are you still doing up?"

"I just need a glass of water, I'll go back up to bed in a second," Denzel said as he grabbed one of the family cups from out of the cupboard. "That, uh… organization you were talking about earlier."

"You mean the WRO? What about it?"

"Are they good? Like, do they do a lot to help people like you do?" he asked. Cloud didn't answer right away, turning his head so he could judge Denzel's expression, but the young boy had his back turned as he was getting his water ready. "I'm… just wondering."

'There's more going on, but he'll tell us when he's ready.' "Yeah, they do help a lot of people. I don't know too much about the organization though; especially since I was away for so long. Like we said earlier when we were talking about them, their main focus was finding a cure for Geostigma, but I don't really know what else they're doing beside curing everyone they can. Rebuilding, but after everything we went through that could really mean anything."

"Yeah, there's probably a lot to do there," Denzel said before taking a long drink of water.

"So… make any friends these past couple of days?" Cloud asked as he refocused on his work. "I've seen you hanging around plenty of other kids."

"Yeah, but that's mostly been through Marlene." Denzel admitted as he brought the empty glass over. "You wash and I dry?"

"Sure thing, I need to get to bed too," Cloud accepted.

They didn't talk any further past that until the job was done. Cloud was starting to wonder if Barret had been right saying he was ready to start acting as a father figure. Hopefully it was just a matter of time before things actually set in.

Author's Note

So I'm going to be posting another chapter after this as sort of a buffer. Fanfiction been really weird lately about showing the lastest update to a story… so there's that.

Short chapter once again, but I don't think I'll need to write anything too big anytime soon. Probably have some fun and write Cloud at the leafhouse next time, or maybe I'll save that and skip to him and Tifa going out to Kalm.

Either way, thanks for reading as I'm still trying to get this project off the ground. Ciao!

Clem: Thanks for the birthday wishes.