Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Tifa wakes to the hum of summer cicadas and a slow and familiar—if oddly misplaced—whirring. She yawns deeply, rubs the sleep from still-closed eyes as she rolls over, fully expecting to come face-to-back with a warm body. Instead she rolls all the way over and around to land on her back in the middle of a very empty bed. Frowns and pops her eyes open, squinting against the morning light to survey a very empty bedroom. Wriggles upright and glances all around the room to confirm it. Yup, it’s empty. Too empty. The floor is completely bare of her neat and organized piles of to-do laundry.

Ah, that explains the noise, then. She peers at the clock and grimaces—nine am?

He really let her sleep in.

Tifa swings her legs over the bedside and grimaces, pinches the collar of her t-shirt to peel it off her sweat-slick skin, fans it out for some relief. Zack warned her all those years ago—Gongaga summers are no joke—but even after all this time, she’s still a mountain girl at heart.

With another yawn she stretches her arms overhead, cracks her neck, and finally alights from the bed. Pads quietly downstairs toward the laundry nook, fully expecting to see Zack doing his morning squats as he waits for the laundry to finish.

She’s not disappointed. At all. Curls up against the doorframe, content to watch the contours of his back muscles, the swing of his arms, the sweat running down the nape of his neck. Zack notices her immediately—Tifa’s never once been able to sneak up on him—but instead of stopping, he puts on a show. Finishes his set in double-time before glancing over his shoulder to send her an exaggerated wink. “Like what you see?”

“Mm,” Tifa replies appraisingly, looking him up and down for good measure, which wrestles a hearty chuckle out of him as he spins to face her. “You didn’t have to do the laundry. I was gonna get to it.”

“That’s what you said last week when you ran out of shirts.” Zack starts his next set with his eyes locked on hers. “And lo and behold, I check my drawer this morning and somehow I am also out of shirts!”

“Shocking indeed,” Tifa murmurs, all honey and sympathy, as she fans herself with the collar of his shirt again. “Must be a thief.”

“Must be.” He finishes his last squat and moves toward her, bringing his hands to rest on the small of her back. “Good morning.”

She smiles lazily up at him as she stands on her tippy toes, winds her arms around his neck and presses her chest firmly into his with a sweaty squelch and a satisfied sigh, finally feeling complete. He fits his mouth against hers and he tastes minty fresh against her morning breath. “G’morning.” She snuggles her face into the crook of his neck as he hums and twists the ends of her hair around his fingers, and just when Tifa thinks she could stay like this just shy of forever—

The machine dings.

Zack sighs dramatically. “Duty calls.”

“Five more minutes.”

“You’ve already got the rest of my life here.” She pouts against his collarbone and he laughs, a comforting rumble against her heart. “Okay, fine. As long as you’re okay with wrinkles.”

Tifa sighs dramatically. “Okay, fine. If I help, we’ll finish faster. Then more snuggling.”

“Then more snuggling,” he agrees, though he’s yet to let go of her waist.

“It’s for the best anyway, I’m out of underwear, too.”

“Still are.” He waggles his eyebrows. “I didn’t wash any of them.”

“Zaaack!”

He reaches under his shirt to pinch a bare cheek. “Must have been a thief.”

Chapter Text

Zack wakes with the sun, eyes fluttering open as light peeks in through their crooked bedroom blinds he somehow always forgets to adjust. He slides his arm out from under Tifa’s head and kisses the top of her bare shoulder, before tucking the covers gently back over it. She sighs and snuggles deeper into the blankets, still sound asleep, as he eases out of bed to slip on a pair of shorts and socks. His morning route takes him through the surrounding Gongaga jungle forest, down winding paths with twisted overhead vines, around the shallow spring of crystal clear waters, and all the way back, well-tread grass beneath his feet.

He returns home after a thirty minute run, toes off his sneakers at the entrance, and wipes himself quickly down with the towel hanging by the door. When he’s satisfied, he slings the towel around his neck and proceeds to the kitchen, pours some grinds and enough water for a single cup of incredibly strong coffee, then sets the machine on with a click. The towel, shorts, and socks get tossed into the laundry bin on the way to the bathroom, where he hops quickly into the shower.

Tifa’s alarm rings at exactly 6:25 am. Her eyes blink open, followed by a giant yawn, and she stretches arms overhead before finally shuffling out of bed and down the stairs, making a beeline for the kitchen. Grabs a clean mug from the cabinet and pours herself a full, steaming cup of coffee with just enough room for a splash of milk. She drinks with her eyes closed, savoring the warmth as it trickles all the way down her throat. The caffeine kicks in after half a cup, and with one hand she sets a kettle of water to boil on the stove, grabs Zack’s favorite teacup, and fills its metal strainer with some loose leaf oolong from the tin. There’s just enough for one decently strong cup.

She drains the last of her coffee with her head tilted all the way back before placing the mug in the sink and heading to the bathroom. Her face is met with a thick cloud of steam as she blindly reaches for her toothbrush and pops it into her mouth, glancing at today’s morning message smudged onto the fogged mirror: nice butt <3.

Tifa chokes on a laugh when the shower head turns off and she sees the reflection of Zack’s face poking out the curtain, eyebrows waggling in her direction. She shoots him a frothy air kiss before tossing a clean towel from the rack at his head and finishing. By the time she’s finished patting on some sunscreen, Zack steps out of the shower with the towel around his neck.

“Good morning,” he says, mussing up her bangs as he steps around her to grab his toothbrush.

“Nice butt,” she replies, smacking his bare ass on the way out. She musses her bangs back into place and runs her fingers through her hair as she heads back to the kitchen, tying up the end of it with the elastic band around her wrist.

Zack finishes brushing his teeth before slapping on some sunscreen and taking a dime-sized amount of gel and running it quickly through his hair. He’s done in about five minutes, but spends another wiping the mirror down with his hand and thinking of something new to write.

When he joins Tifa in the kitchen, the teakettle is whistling, the radio is playing something soft and jazzy, and the smell of perfectly fried eggs fills the air. She turns the burner off as he scoots around her, palms one hand over her butt and uses the other to pour hot water into his teacup. He leaves it to steep and pops two pieces of bread into the toaster oven.

After Zack butters and jams the toast, Tifa slides sunny-side-up eggs on top of each slice—two for her and four for him. They both cleave the the yolks with their forks, letting it drizzle all over the bread and the plates, before giving thanks and digging in. When they’re done, he clears the kitchen table as she heads upstairs to get changed for the day.

Tifa decides on a clean white blouse, a knee-length skirt, and a pair of neon green socks with little cactaur detailing Zack picked up at some flea market two summers ago. The supermarket is always, somehow, freezing cold, so she grabs one of his hoodies in addition to a fresh towel from the dresser.

He catches her at the foot of the stairs and tilts his face up just in time to meet hers as she reaches the second-to-last step. “See you for lunch,” she manages to say before he captures her lips with his again, and again, and again, until she giggles and has to use a bit of force to push him away, lest she be late for work. Again. She hangs the clean towel on the hook by the front door as she steps into her red hightops and heads out the door.

Back in the kitchen, Zack flips through the radio stations until he finds some sugar candy pop to accompany the dishes. When everything is sparkling clean and left to dry on the rack, he ambles into his workshop in the backyard with the rest of his tea. Today he needs to finish fixing up Mrs. Cole’s watch in time for their anniversary dinner. He gets lost in work until his cup is empty, goes inside for a refill, and realizes with a frown that they’re out of oolong. Settles for some bagged green tea and heads back out.

It’s a little past noon by the time he’s putting the finishing touches on a dark cherry wood gift box. He swings round to drop the box and watch off to Mr. Cole, whose thankful smile is far brighter than the Gongangan sun at noon, before heading to the diner.

Maude’s Diner is still filled to the brim even though it’s past the lunch rush, but luckily Zack has a standing reserved booth in the corner closest to the kitchen. He waves at Maude as he grabs a pitcher of water and two glasses for the table. Within minutes, Tifa exits the double doors of the kitchen carrying two orders of her freshly fried chicken lunch plates. She sets the trays on the table and slips into the opposite seat, and he grins, reaches over to wipe away a bit of stray gravy under her chin with his thumb. He makes an exaggerated show of licking his finger clean and she rolls her eyes and throws a napkin at him.

After lunch, Zack heads home to work on his next project, and Tifa spends the rest of the day prepping for a very special dinner set menu. The diner clears out around three when Mr. and Mrs. Cole arrive, and the booth right by the windows—the one they were seated at on their very first date exactly twenty-three years ago—is ready and waiting with a vase of freshly cut marigolds. Just before dessert is served, Maude shoos her out of the kitchen, saying she can close up alone. On her way out, Tifa wishes the happy couple all her best, and lingers in the doorway just long enough to see Mrs. Cole gasp with delight upon opening a dark cherry wood box.

On her way home, she stops by the market and picks through some of the freshest fruit in season, and makes sure to grab two bags of loose leaf oolong as well.

“Nice hoodie,” Zack says, greeting her at the door when she gets home. Instead of answering his smirk, she kisses it away,  bags left forgotten at their feet. When Zack finally, reluctantly, lets her go—because he knows that she’ll worry about the groceries—he heads into the kitchen to unpack as Tifa heads upstairs to change into her workout gear.

There’s enough time for a full routine, so she even gets out the punching bag from the shed and knocks it around until she’s breathing heavy and hard, completely soaked with sweat. Just as Tifa’s winding down, she notices Zack watching from the doorway, so she ends with an extra fancy backflip that turns into a second and a third into a somersault to land gracefully on her feet right in front of him. He raises both hands—a perfect ten out of ten—and she bows with a grin before meeting his hands with hers. His fingers curl into hers, pulling her body flush against him for a lingering hug.

“But I’m so sweaty,” she laughs and he replies by swiping his tongue along her jaw.

“Delicious,” he corrects, and she swats him away with another laugh. “You’ll ruin your appetite.”

Tifa heads into the bathroom for a quick shower as Zack finishes cooking, a simple affair of steamed rice, grilled fish, and the last of their pickled vegetables from when Tifa decided to experiment with some Wutai-inspired side dishes. She tells him all about her coworker Milly’s new cat and how happy Mrs. Cole was about the watch. He tells her about his next commission from little Rowland down the street, who wants a brand new set of building blocks for his baby sister’s birthday. Zack’s getting paid in candy. Tifa thinks it’ll be his most lucrative project yet.

After dinner is eaten and cleaned, it’s Zack’s turn to choose a movie so of course he chooses a horror movie for the season. It’s not that bad, he promises, so they sit pressed together on the couch as the screen lights up, only to dim into a bleak, moody setting of a haunted manor. She kneads the knots of out his neck and shoulders to distract herself as Zack massages her calves, and Tifa does a pretty good job of not screaming bloody murder at the television until his hands trail higher and higher and, ah, well.

They’ll finish the movie next time.

For now, it’s time to wash up and head to bed for the night. Tifa shuts off the bedside lamp and as Zack’s head hits the pillow, a sliver of moonlight washes directly over his eyes from the window. He groans and decides to fix those crooked shades, once and for all, but then there are hands sneaking around his abdomen and lips hot and insistent at the nape of his neck and he groans anew and promptly forgets all about the shades.

Ah, well, he’ll adjust them next time.

Chapter Text

Tifa’s not a particularly vain person.

She grew up an only child, the apple of her parents’ eyes, with almost too much love and tenderness. Every night her father enacted grand performances of heroes and princesses—princesses who would become their own heroes—as she and her mother sat curled on her bed, her mother stroking her hair until each inevitable happily ever after. Then they kissed her cheeks until they were pink and warm, turned on her nightlight of twinkling overhead stars, and said goodnight, sweet dreams, we love you so much.

They were so happy.

Then her mother passed away and her father tore down all their family photos off the walls, smashed his hand through a mirror when he saw her reflection in the glass, grief like an overwhelming tide, pulling him completely under. She just looked too much like her mother.

Tifa remembers her mother as the most beautiful woman in the world, even though her face has blurred and faded in her mind’s eye over time, even though every record of Ayumi Lockhart has been completely burned from existence.

So maybe it’s nice she looks too much like her mother, for whatever that’s worth. Not that she’d really been keen to stare at herself for too long. 

Tifa’s not a particularly vain person, and yet—

Sometimes she can’t help but stare at her reflection in the mirror, at the point just where her breasts meet, a fist-sized lump of gnarled, purpled flesh and dead nerve endings.

The bathroom door clicks open behind her and Zack’s face swims into view over her shoulder. “You okay?” he asks softly, familiar concern etched over his features.

Yes. No. “I don’t know.”

He nods and comes to stand behind her, circles his arms around her whole body and she sighs into his embrace. “I figured, you never spend this long in the bathroom.” That wrings a choked laugh out of her and he smiles at that, presses a gentle kiss on her shoulder. “Does it still hurt?”

It used to. For a long time after. For much longer than feasible. A phantom sharpness that would steal her breath away and hold it hostage every night until she was so sure she wouldn’t wake in the morning.

She runs hesitant fingertips over the skin and feels nothing, even as her breath stutters in her throat. Zack reaches over with one hand to open the cabinet behind the mirror and Tifa’s breathing steadies as she focuses on neatly lined shelves of cotton balls, toothpaste, and other bathroom necessities, focuses on Zack’s hand curling over a palm-sized shiny red pot tucked in the corner of the very top shelf. He offers it to her and she takes it with both hands.

“It’s one of the last things I have of your mother."

“She loved you,” Zack replies, lacing his hands loosely around her waist. “She wanted you to be happy. It’s why she left it for you.”

The very last of the healing salve Evelyn Fair had used to save her life all those years ago, when Zangan had shown up at her doorstep with a dying teenager in his arms. “What do you think?”

“I think that if it will make anything better for you, if it will help you forget, help make living even a bit more bearable—if it will make you happy, you should use it.” He hums and spins her around so that she’s facing him, still circled in his embrace, her arms pressed against his chest. “But me? There is not an inch of you I don’t love.” He lowers his head, nudges her arms up, and presses his lips sweetly against her skin. And it’s just the ghost of a sensation, a soft tingling warmth.

Tifa closes her eyes and ruffles his hair with one hand as the other curls around the pot decisively. “You know, I don’t think I could be happier.”

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The next morning, when Tifa goes to brush her teeth, something catches her attention in the mirror, written in sloppy, sloping letters through the fog: I’m happy too.

Chapter Text

“Guess what I’ve got!” Tifa sings-songs, entering the kitchen with a white-crepe-paper-wrapped parcel in hand.

“A winning personality? A dazzling smile? Incredible abs?”

She leans against the kitchen counter and juts her bottom lip into a pout. “Are you doing the thing where I think you’re complimenting me but you’re actually complimenting yourself?”

“Noooo,” Zack replies, trapping her against the counter with his arms and nipping gently at her lip. “But thanks.”

She rolls her eyes and shimmies her hips with impatience, but when he makes no move to stop sucking on her bottom lip she leans her head all the way back and away with a breathless little huff. “Do you wanna see what I’ve got or not?”

“Oh, I wanna see oof—” A firm hip check shuts his mouth long enough for her to unwrap the parcel, revealing two very shiny— “Uh, apples?”

“Not just any apples! Banora White apples!” She presses one into his cheek. “Look! Look how beautiful!”

“That’s dumb. They’re not even white, they’re purple,” Zack grouches, taking one of the two apples in hand and inspecting it closely.

“They’re white on the inside.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“Anyway, these are considered the most delicious apples in the world. But they’re so hard to get shipped anywhere because they’re so temperamentally unseasonal. Luckily Maude has a cousin who lives in Cosmo Canyon, and he and his wife went to visit her folks in Banora, so on their way back he swung by and—don’t eat that!!!” she shrieks, stopping Zack mid-bite. She wrangles it from his grasp and holds it protectively against her chest.

“What! I just wanted to eat the Banora White.”

“You do not simply eat a Banora White,” Tifa tuts, shaking her head sagely.

“Then what must simply be done with a Banora White?” he plays along, hands on his hips.

“Pie.”

“Ooooh.”

“Mmhm.”

*

“I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.”

“And I’m telling you I didn’t do it!”

Hours later finds the house still smelling so sweetly of cinnamon buttery apple goodness. Tifa left the pie to cool on the windowsill before going to do her daily workout routine and then popping in for a quick shower. After that, she screamed and Zack thundered down the stairs from the bedroom, looking for the culprit. What he didn’t expect to find was a Banora White apple pie sitting delectably atop of their kitchen table—one perfect slice cut out from it—and Tifa with the most distraught expression on her face.

They’ve been arguing ever since.

“I was upstairs the entire time!”

“You could have snuck down while I was in the shower.”

“And why would I do that?”

“I don’t know! Because it smelled too delicious?”

Fair point, it’s why he was hiding in their bedroom to resist the temptation. Zack takes her face into his hands and stares seriously into her eyes, sky blue meeting deep, deep red. “Would I ever lie to you?”

Tifa inhales once before exhaling very, very slowly. “You once told me megon gaga was the traditional and most polite way of saying hello in this village.”

“Pft.” In an attempt to hold back his laughter he ends up smushing her cheeks together—puckering up her mouth while her eyebrows furrow adorably in rage—and the sight of it pushes him straight over the edge into a maniacal cackle. She punches his chest and it hurts enough to make him let go, and probably enough to bruise a little, but not enough to stop laughing.

“I knew it!”

“No, PFT, really, I—HAHAHA—I promise it wasn’t me!!!”

“But if it wasn’t you, who else could it have been?!” Tifa asks, hands on her hips, looking just upset enough to quell his laughter.

“Pft.” Okay most of it. She glares and he shrugs. “I don’t know, it must have been a—a thief!”

“A thief,” she repeats, deadpan. “Really? We know every single villager in this town.”

“We didn’t know Maude’s cousin—he was in town!”

“Why would Maude’s cousin steal the same apples he dropped off?”

“Because one does not simply eat a Banora White apple?”

“Who steals a single slice of pie?!”

She has a point. Still doesn’t mean it’s him, though. “Look, I don’t know who did it, but I would never do something to make you this unhappy—you know that, right?” He gives her his best puppy dog eyes because he truly doesn’t like seeing her this distraught.

Tifa sighs and nods, rubbing at her arm sheepishly. “I know—I know, stop looking at me like that it’s not fair.”

“But I am.”

“Oh my god.” He waggles his eyebrows and opens his arms wide and though her first instinct is to huff, Tifa does, begrudgingly, walk into his embrace. “I guess we just have a single-slice-of-pie stealing thief on our hands.”

“I guess so.”

She winds her arms around his neck and stands on her tippy-toes to give him an apology kiss which he’s more than willing to oblige, especially when she pokes her tongue gently between his lips, sweeps it clean across his teeth. Just as he’s inching his hands down to her ass, she parts from his mouth and murmurs, so softly he almost doesn’t hear, “no cinnamon.”

“What?”

“What?” Tifa flutters her eyelashes at him, which is her very bad tell for when she’s made a mistake.

He gasps and very, very reluctantly removes his hands from her ass to point an accusatory finger at her. “You still thought I did it! You were just seducing me to see if I tasted like pie!”

“Well, duh! What kind of weirdo steals a single slice of pie?!”

“Not this weirdo!”

“Well, okay! I was wrong, I admit it. I’m sorry.” She looks up at him with the sweetest doe eyes. “You’re right, you’d never do anything to hurt me like this.”

“You really think I’m gonna let you off that easy?” Zack deadpans and she juts out her bottom lip in a pout.

“I was gonna tr—eep!” She squeaks as he hoists her up into his arms, her legs wrapping around his waist on instinct. “What are you—mmfmm!”

“Just desserts,” he pants, finally, separating their mouths just long enough to toss her onto the couch, before kneeling in front of her. “It’s way past dinner time.”

“Pffft.”

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They don’t notice the entire pie is missing until the next morning, after there’s a knock at the door and a disheveled Tifa—wrapped in just the couch throw—glances through the peephole to discover a small bundle on the doorstep. When she takes it into the house and unwraps it, she’s amazed to find a whole dozen Banora White apples inside.

Now, every so often there’ll be a knock on the door and a sudden parcel of the ripest Banora White apples delivered straight to their doorstep. Tifa doesn’t question it, but she does always bake an extra pie to leave cooling on the windowsill.

Chapter Text

“Tifa, you here?” Zack calls out, noting the unlit first floor of their house as he toes off his boots in the foyer and places them neatly against a pair of red high-tops.

“Upstairs!”

Weird. She’s usually already prepping dinner by now. He quickly jogs upstairs to their bedroom, opens the door, and the blood promptly drains from his face.

“Everything okay?” Tifa asks, sweeping tousled damp hair behind her ear, eyes bright and smoldering wine red, with a smile painted to match. She’s wearing a sleeveless white cotton croptop with an absolutely dripping neckline. Over her shoulders and laying flush against curves is a pair of suspenders extending down past a set of incredible abs to clip onto the waist of a skintight, black leather miniskirt that leaves very little to the imagination. It is also the size of a goddamn placemat.

“What are you—” How can his mouth be simultaneously bone dry and intensely salivating at the same time?

“Oh this?” Her hands gesture down the length of her outfit as she cocks her hip, making for an incredibly delightful bounce. “Maya said she was sick of seeing me wearing your clothes all over town, so she gave me some hand-me-downs from her ‘glory days’ or something silly like that.”

Zack doesn’t think he could ever get sick of seeing her in his clothes, to be quite honest. And while he also thinks she would still look like an absolute bombshell in a potato sack, this outfit is—something else entirely. Especially when she raises her arms languorously above her head before bringing them down and behind her back, lacing her fingers together and stretching her whole body up, and all the blood that drained from his face finally reaches its destination with a cheerful sproing.

“—go out to dinner tonight.”

Oh, shit, was she saying something?

Her lips quirk dangerously plump. “Were you listening?”

“Um.”

Tifa steps closer, closer, closer until she’s just in front of him and he can smell the herbally sweet scent of her shampoo and the natural fragrance of her skin. “You wouldn’t happen to be distracted by something, would you?” Her face tilts slightly up toward his, gaze hidden under a fan of dark lashes, and the position absolutely draws his attention right down the line of her cleavage.

She’s an absolute devil, but so is he, so he runs the pads of his fingers along the underside of her suspenders, flush against shoulders before traveling down until her breath hitches in her throat when his fingers stop over the curve of her breasts. He pulls until he feels the elastic taught and tense, before releasing so that the suspenders snap against her shirt, nipples pebbling under the fabric. He sweeps his thumbs against them slowly, reverently, and she sighs, leaning into his touch.

“So you’re telling me,” Zack murmurs, lowering his mouth into the shell of her ear, letting his hands trail around her back, down down and lower still to toy with the hem of that goddamn teeny tiny placemat of a skirt, “you want to go out to dinner.”

“Mmh-hmm.”

“Sitting among all of our friends. Wearing—this.” His hands snake under the skirt to feel the bare skin of her ass. “And not that.” Squeezes and she lets out a breathy little moan that shoots deep into his core. “And you expect me to sit across from you for over two hours in agony waiting as you take forever to chew your damn food?”

“It’s not my fault you inhale your meals.” Tifa folds her arms around his neck and presses her body neatly, finally, against his with a throaty chuckle. “But yes, that’s what I expect.”

It sounds appealing, sure, and damn sexy, true, but he’s never really been the patient, slow-burn type. “Counterplan.” He lifts her up and her legs instinctively wind around his waist.

“Yes?”

“We eat in and I take my goddamn time.”

“Mmmmmm!” He grinds into her when she pretends to think for too long and her head bucks against his shoulder, breath warm and sticky sweet on his neck. “Come and get it.”

Tossing her onto the bed, Zack rolls up his placemat, and gives thanks.

Chapter Text

“Zack?”

Zack parts his mouth to answer but doesn’t quite manage it. She let him be for the better part of the day, packing up the entire rest of the house all on her own, with the kind of efficiency possessed only by Tifa Lockhart. But there’s a clear thrum of worry in her voice now, and Zack knows he should answer. So he clears his throat and tries again, manages a hoarse but audible, “In here.”

The door creaks open and shut, but he doesn’t glance over, keeps his eyes trained on the faded glow-in-the-dark stickers arranged in constellations on the ceiling. He feels the bed dip under her weight, and the scent of herbally sweet shampoo tickles his nose as her hair flutters against his shoulder, as her whole body aligns neatly against his.

“The movers said they’re gonna be a little late.”

“Kay.”

“Apparently a fire hydrant burst on Main Street, so they had to take a detour.”

“Kay.”

She shifts next to him, brings her shoulders up to her ears, the way she always does when she’s feeling particularly helpless, tension so taut in her neck that she’ll knotted up for days. And he hates that he’s the reason for it—never wants to be the reason for it—but he’s just too spent.

Tifa takes a deep breath and shimmies her shoulders loose. “I can’t believe the stickers are still hanging on!” He blinks, taken aback by the suddenness of her words. “I still remember crying when your dad gave them to me for my sixteenth birthday.”

That tugs the corners of his lips upward, heart warming at the memory. “He saw you staring at them through the window display, said he’d never seen you actually want for anything except just then, so he knew he had to get them for you. Bought out the whole store’s worth.”

“They reminded me of the ones I had in my old room back in—” She cuts herself off, finding his hand and running the pad of her thumb over his wrist. “I think I cried all over the cake your mom made when I saw them.”

“Oh, you definitely did. There was some snot, too.”

“There was not!” She swats at him and he smiles and captures her hand in his, holding it against his chest.

“And then, instead of sticking them in your room, the next day you marched over and demanded I help you stick them onto my ceiling.”

“I remember asking very politely if I could,” Tifa corrects with a smothered giggle. “By then Zangan had already left and I was spending most of my time at your house, anyway. Felt like they would be wasted at my room at the inn.”

“Ah, yes. That was a hard summer for me.”

“What? Why?”

“Because you were coming over every day.”

“I’m sorry, was I annoying you?”

“No! Well, maybe.” She gasps and tries to wriggle her hand free, but all it does is make him laugh and hold her tighter. “Look, that was the summer you suddenly decided to wear these teeny, tiny crop tops. And that day you made me lift you up to stick these onto my ceiling while wearing said teeny, tiny crop top.”

“Ah.” Her cheeks dimple, all faux hurt replaced completely with something suspiciously akin to pride. “So when you say hard summer.”

He groans dramatically. “So. Painfully. Hard.”

Tifa lets out a hearty laugh at that. “And all this time I thought you just didn’t notice.”

“Didn’t notice?” Zack tugs on their laced hands to roll her over and onto him completely, so that her face is directly above his to receive the full brunt of his narrowed stare. “Tifa Lockhart, are you telling me you were trying to get noticed all those years ago?”

“Well, Maya lent them to me—said it would be a good way to get a particularly stupid boy to pay attention.” She brings her free hand up to smooth the bangs away from his forehead. “If I had known it was working, I would have kept wearing them.”

“If I had known you were working me, I would have made my move sooner.”

“Hmm, pretty sure I made the first move.”

“That’s only because Mom very seriously took me aside one day and warned me to think long and hard about what you meant to me. You were already like a daughter to her, and she would not tolerate anyone messing around with you—even, or especially, her own son.” He smiles wistfully and taps his nose against hers. “I think she knew I liked you before I did.”

She grins teasingly. “But you didn’t think too long about it, did you?”

“Well, when you asked for a kiss for your seventeenth birthday what was I supposed to do? Not kiss you?” Zack swallows her grin with his lips. “I never thought you’d be so bold.”

“Well,” she hums, skimming her teeth over a plump bottom lip. “I decided that I was old enough to finally go after what I wanted, even if I might get hurt in the end. It was better than wallowing in my own inaction and endless what ifs.”

“And to think, my real present to you that year was gonna be a hair tie.”

Tifa puckers her mouth thoughtfully. “Oh, was that an option? I take it all back.”

“Nope.” He swoops up to capture her lips again. “No take backs.”

“Mmkay, no take backs,” she agrees between further kisses as his free hand slides down the length of her back.

“How late did you say the movers would be?”

“Not that late.”

He groans and she laughs, presses one last featherlight kiss against his jaw before rolling off of his body and into a sitting position on the bed.

Zack sighs. “I’m gonna miss this house.”

“Me too.”

“I miss them.”

“Me too,” she repeats softly, giving his hand a gentle squeeze. “But—I still see them every day.”

“Hm?”

“In you. You have so much of your father’s thoughtfulness, your mother’s kindness—you’re the living legacy of two of the best people I ever knew.”

He thought he was through with crying today, but somehow his eyes are watering right back up again. “Thank you.” Squeezes her hand back before finally letting go and turning his face, wipes at his eyes while she averts her gaze.

There’s a light vibration, the snap of a phone, and then Tifa’s regretful, “Ah, they’re here. Do you want a few more minutes?”

“No,” Zack says, shaking his head. He swings his legs up and then back down, using the force of the momentum to land cleanly upright on the floor.

Tifa slips off the bed to join him, cranes her neck to glance up at the ceiling. “Should we take them with us?”

Zack considers, stares at the stars and then at Tifa in turn before making a decision, takes her by the waist and lifts her up so she can reach the ceiling. When she manages to pluck off a single sticker, he lowers her gently back to the ground and something drops from the pocket of her shorts. He reaches for it before she can; a gossamer sachet of black silk filled with what looks like tiny, bright red rubies. His heart constricts.

“Phoenix flower seeds,” Tifa confirms as Zack gently pries the bag open and breathes in. His nose and lungs are instantly filled with a faintly burning warmth. “I found it tucked in your mother’s bedside table. I know they haven’t been able to grow since the explosion—but she tried every year. I thought that maybe we could try. For her.”

“Yeah,” he says, taking the sticker from Tifa and pressing it gently onto the top of the sachet, cradling it in his hands. “That sounds nice.”

“What about the rest of the stars?”

“Leave ’em. Maybe—maybe the next owners of this place will have a kid who’ll like ’em.”

“Yeah, that sounds nice.” She smiles softly as she covers his hands with hers. “Let’s go home, Zack.”

“Yeah, let’s go home.”

Chapter Text

“Beep beep beep.”

Tifa furrows her eyebrows as the beeping rises slowly in pitch, curls her fingers around the edges of the covers and holds it over her face. It gets tugged off instantly as the beeping grows ever louder.

“Beep beep beep.”

She groans and blearily opens her eyes to the sight of cheerful, twinkling, far too wide-awake sky blue. Zack’s entire frame hovers over her, arms bracketed around her shoulders, knee nestled between her thighs. When she smacks her lips in sleepy protest, his cheeks dimple into an impossibly bright smile. “Beep beep beep.”

With a tiny smile, she lifts her face and boops his nose with hers. “Snooze.”

His eyes close instantly, weight dropping like a comforting warmth over her body. Zack’s face lands right onto her chest, and his faux-but-soon-to-be-real snores rumble lightly against her heart. Tifa cards one hand through his hair and closes her eyes with satisfaction as his breathing slows, steady and even, and they both fall back asleep.

Chapter Text

After dinner, Tifa finds herself lying flat on her back at the foot of Zack’s bed, hands twined over her stomach, staring up at barely glowing constellations on his ceiling. Which is a pretty common occurrence, all things considered. What is rather new is Zack’s silence. Out of the corner of her eye she spies him hunched against his headboard, arms propped up on his knees as he reads with his face way too close to his book of choice. It’s a series of fantastical fantasy novels about magic and crystals and chosen heroes and whatnot. Tifa stopped paying attention when he was describing the sixth one—arguably the best one according to Zack—because she’s still stuck on why the author would name it “Final” anything when there are already over ten novels in the set.

She’s also, okay, maybe a bit miffed that he’s been ignoring her in favor of said books for the better part of a week. Tifa feels something has changed, an almost imperceptible shift in his demeanor, but she can’t quite put her finger on what, wracks her brains for anything she might have done that she should apologize for, then rolls her eyes at herself because how self-centered can she be? They’re probably just really good books. She might even give them a read. Later. When she’s not feeling so miffed. When she’s not trying to tamp down the fear that Zack somehow knows she’s been harboring a silly crush on him for far too long for someone she considers a friend—for someone who is her friend—and that his silence is the answer to this particular conundrum she’s been wrestling with.

No, there’s no way he knows. Tifa wills it so, steels her resolve to snap out of it and decides that today she’ll give into a little pettiness and ignore him twice as hard. She alights from his bed and stretches her arms behind her back, wanders over to the other side of his room to poke and peruse his belongings. Lifts one of the silver balls on the pendulum sitting at the corner of his desk and releases, watches as it clinks loudly, endlessly, against four other silver balls, smiles in satisfaction when she feels his eyes briefly on her back. She leaves the pendulum swinging, clicking and clacking, as she moves on to his overflowing bookshelf.

The entire fantasy novel set gets prime real estate on the top shelf, which is eye level for Zack but a bit out of reach for Tifa. Otherwise he has an assortment of comics, some science fiction, a surprising amount of textbooks on architecture and engineering, and even something that looks suspiciously like a smutty romance novel. She considers teasing him about it, but then catches sight of something small and shiny on the very bottom shelf. Bends down to free it, and a thin, well-worn paperback follows. It’s a copy of the Loveless screenplay—and the shiny thing affixed to the corner of the book is a metal pin bearing the infamous Shinra logo, engraved with SOLDIER SECOND CLASS.

She blinks, unpins it from the paperback and holds it out with her thumb and forefinger into the light to see if she’s misread. But the light doesn’t lie. “What is this?”

Zack glances over and blanches like he’s seen a ghost and the look is so—unfamiliar on his face. He tosses the novel aside and strides up to her in just a few steps, takes the pin carefully from her hands without so much as grazing her skin, forcing an uneasy smile onto his lips. “Would you believe me if I said it was nothing?”

Tifa crosses her arms over her chest and shakes her head, because this is the first real conversation he’s started with her in ages, so of course she’s going to take advantage of it. He sighs and trudges back to his bed, seats himself on the edge and pats the space next to him. She takes it, and when Zack’s expression doesn’t change from looking so absolutely stricken, her pettiness unfurls into concern. “Zack, what is it?”

“It’s just—not something I’m proud of.” He lays the pin palm up between them. “When I was thirteen, I packed my bags and hitched a ride to Midgar with dreams of becoming a hero—a SOLDIER.”

“Ah.” Tifa nods slowly, understandingly. Of course. “To be like the great General Sephiroth, just like all the other boys.”

He smiles painfully at that. “I never really meant to hide it, but you can imagine why I never wanted to bring it up to you.”

She gets it, really does, but can’t suppress the shudder than runs down her spine, the phantom sharpness that flickers just under her chest. Exhales shakily and tries to keep her tone light. “So? What happened? The Zack Fair I know would never stop until he achieved his dream.”

“Well, three grueling years later, I made Second Class—was told it was the fastest anyone had ranked up in SOLDIER, actually. Hence the pin.” He chuckles wryly, sadly, and curls his hands into a fist over it. “And then, that same year, the Gongaga reactor blew up.”

“Zack…”

His breathing hardens and his fist shakes, and it takes Tifa gently pressing his hand down into his lap with her own to finally steady it. She doesn’t move away from him and he doesn’t ask her to. “I wouldn’t have even known about it if my friend hadn’t pulled me aside one day, concerned, because he remembered that this was my hometown.”

“You mean—”

“Luckily it happened in the middle of the night and there were no casualties. The reactor was becoming obsolete, anyway, and Gongaga was behind on their taxes. Shinra would take care of it, of course, but later, when they were able to get the proper parts available, as if the reactor was more important than the people.” Disdain drips off every word. “That’s what they told me when I asked around. Always an answer and excuse but nothing that ever made sense. The explosion was enough to take Gongaga fully off the grid, and the line would cut dead every time I tried to ring my folks, so how could they even be sure of anything—let alone casualties—if they couldn’t reach anyone in Gongaga and weren’t sending anyone to check? So, when I was sixteen, I packed my bags and hitched a ride to Gongaga to make sure my folks were okay. And never looked back.”

He casts his gaze down and Tifa is again struck by the unfamiliarity of his expression, the open, fragile vulnerability laid so clear in his eyes. So unlike his usual overbearing cheerfulness. She’d once compared him to the sun after mere weeks of knowing him, casting blinding and almost painfully bright rays into her life, when all she wanted to do was slowly waste away.

“Sorry.” Zack shakes his head and lets the pin drop from his hand. It bounces off the floor and under the bed, out of sight. “I know it’s stupid. I know they’re the bad guys. I don’t regret coming back here. But at the time I thought I was really making a difference. I thought I could become some kinda hero or something.” He screws his eyes shut and wheezes brokenly. “It’s so, so stupid.”

“Your feelings aren’t stupid,” she says, repeating the words he’d said to her so many times over, every time she burst into sudden tears that would ruin an otherwise good day. He never let it stay ruined, and somehow always managed to crack even the tiniest of smiles back onto her face before the sun set. “They’re important, and I’m here for you, and, and—and so what if you never made First Class! So what to SOLDIER and Shinra! So what to heroes! What matters is that you came back and every day you worked to rebuild Gongaga, to make it what it is today. You helped make this town completely independent of Mako power. You’re amazing!”

Zack cracks a tiny smile at that. “You know dad did all the actual technical work. All I did was follow his orders. Lift things and junk.”

“You were here when they needed you.” He was here when she first opened her eyes, terrified and alone and so, so angry after her whole world burned to ash. He was here for her every day after that, without fail, helping her pick up the pieces of her life to build something new. And somehow, seeing him now, broken down and just as human and fragile and lost as she is, makes her realize just how much she wants to be here for him, too. Her heart stutters in her chest at the thought and oh, no, so much for getting over that secret massive crush she’s been harboring on her friend.

She glances up just in time to see his gaze flicker across her face before looking away. He swallows audibly and she’s entranced by way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat, is caught off guard by a particularly acute familiarity she can’t quite place.

“So, um,” Zack says after a measured pause, eyes settling on their hands, which are still firmly wrapped around each other. He pries his free from hers with a noticeable flinch and Tifa tries not to feel so disappointed. “Your birthday’s coming up—have you thought about what you want? Your hair is getting really long, isn’t it?”

She blinks. What a pair of non sequiturs. Her birthday is indeed coming up and her hair has grown in the almost two years she’s been in Gongaga, when they’d had to lop off all the burnt ends so short it barely fell past her ears. She runs her hands through the length of it now, watches as her hair falls back into place just past her chest, almost as long as it had been, before. In her periphery she catches him staring, his eyes flickering over her face as he swallows, Adam’s apple bobbing all over again. And then comes a memory unbidden. Of the diner last week after the tables were cleared and the check was paid. Of the starry Nibelheim night sky so many years ago at the water tower.

Oh. That’s what’s so familiar about the sight.

“Tifa?”

She tears her eyes away from his throat, licking her lips. “Huh?”

It’s exactly what she remembers seeing just before getting kissed.

“What do you want?”

What does she want? For so much of her life things had been decided for her, dictated for her, until everything was taken away. And even then she’s had so much given back in spades already. It feels selfish to want more from people who have given so much out of just the kindness of their hearts. It feels selfish, so selfish, and yet— “Kiss me.”

Zack’s eyes balloon wide.

Silence.

Well, she’s gone and done it now. And Tifa knows she has a tiny window of a chance to take it back, to laugh and brush it off and leave their friendship safely intact. But is that what she wants? And from the way his eyes darken and flicker towards her lips, she can’t help but wonder: what does Zack want?

“Nathan.”

“Excuse me?”

He sends her a searching look. “Aren’t you dating him?”

Oh. Right. Well. “I mean we went on a date.” At Maya’s insistence. But wait. “How did you—”

Zack winces, caught. “I, uh, was getting a milkshake at the diner.”

So he saw them. Saw her. On a date last week. The last week in which he had thrown himself into a giant fantasy series and barely said a word to her. The imperceptible shift in his demeanor. Her sinking feeling that something was somehow wrong and that she was at the center of it.

“Were you jealous?” she blurts out, and then covers her silly mouth with her hands because that can’t be—

“Yeah.”

His easy admission catches her off guard—though he’s always been honest to a fault—and it makes her feel weightless and floaty and bold. “So do something about it,” she dares, closing her eyes and lifting her face to his, fisting his bedsheets in her hands. Her back is ramrod straight and made of steel.

“Now?” He squeaks and her steel crumbles.

“Wha—of course now!”

“But your birthday is in three days!”

“You want this hanging over our heads for three days?!”

“No, no I guess not.” He covers his face with his hands, peers at her through his fingers. “Um, okay. You’re sure sure?”

Becoming less sure by the second, but still she nods and screws her eyes shut again, but this time she turns her entire body toward him. And this time she feels the bed dip under his weight as he leans in, breath warm over her eyelashes, a featherlight caress against her jaw slanting her face higher and—oh.

His lips are soft and sun-chapped, pliant and warm and so gentle against her mouth. She’s not sure why it would feel different than before—than all two of her previous kissing experiences—but it still feels a little like nothing. Just skin against skin.

Zack pulls back a little and murmurs, “Breathe, Tifa,” and she hadn’t realized she’d been holding her breath so she inhales through her nose and his lips follow hers. But this time he moves, presses in deeper and it feels different, better, makes her brain go a little fuzzy and her knees jelly weak and she wants more of it, mimics his motion and that sets them both off completely.

It feels both too short and an eternity before they finally part, gasping for air. He presses his forehead against hers and laughs softly. “So. How was it?” His tone is airy, but his eyes look so vulnerable again, and his lips so very shiny. It’s both endearing and thrilling all at once.

“Um.” Tifa exhales shakily, feeling warm and glowy all over. “Do I have to wait a whole year for another one?”

His cheeks dimple into an impossibly bright smile. “You’ll never have to wait again if—if that’s what you really want.”

And that’s what Tifa really wants. So she throws her arms around his neck and surges forward, knocking them both backward onto the bed, laughs messily into his mouth as his hands snake around her waist and the pads of his fingers find skin under the hem of her shirt and she shivers and gasps and—the door swings open.

“Kids, do you want some apples—” Evelyn’s voice trails off and Tifa buries her face into Zack’s shoulder, unable to look up. “Well, I’ll just leave these here, then.”

“Thanks, mom,” Zack says, voice gravelly and strained.

The door shuts, but it’s not enough to drown out Evelyn’s cheerful, “Adrien, honey, we might have to add some protection to Tifa’s gift this year!”

Tifa rolls off of Zack’s body so that she’s lying face up at the foot of his bed and covers her flaming face with her hands. “I will never be able to face your parents ever again.”

“You will. But we can leave through the window later, promise.” He tries to pry her fingers loose from her face but she’s not quite sure she can face him, either. But then there’s a gentle nip in the hollow of her neck that startles her fingers loose and suddenly she finds herself staring up at his face.

“Hey,” he says, and she’s at least glad to see that he looks almost as red as she feels.

“Hey,” she replies, lowering one hand to press against the now searing spot on her neck.

“So, do you want some fruit?”

No, Tifa thinks, but Zack is already hopping off the bed and heading toward the door. He twists the lock with a sharp click and returns empty handed, much to Tifa’s delight.

Later, he pops his window wide open and leaps onto the branch of the nearest tree, climbs down the trunk with what is definitely way too practiced ease. Dusts off his hands, opens his arms wide, and tells her to jump.

She trusts him completely. So she jumps—

—and lands neatly into his arms. Zack lowers her to the ground, but before she can say goodnight, he takes her by the hand and leads them down the street toward her room at the inn.

“You don’t have to walk me, it’s right there,” she protests, laughing, which just makes him hang on tighter.

“Yeah, but I want to.” He shrugs, and the smile he sends her is a little lopsided, a little shy, and completely brand new.

(Eventually Tifa learns it’s a smile just for her.)

Chapter Text

“Oh, is it comfy oversized sweater weather already?” Zack asks, swooping down to kiss the smooth, exposed skin of Tifa’s shoulder.

She glances up at him with a half-smile which grows full bloom against his lips. “Yup, the one time of year you can steal my clothes for a change.”

“I do look great in your off-the-shoulder blue fuzzy number.” She laughs at that and it makes him feel a little better. He came home to the smell of incense filling the entire house, noted the date on the calendar by the hallway as he padded his way into the kitchen, where he found her, as expected, sitting at the kitchen table, hands around a mug of tea, lost in thought as she stared out into the backyard.

Zack pries the mug of tea from her hands and takes a sip. Lukewarm. So she’s been at it for a while. “What are you so lost in thought about?” He replaces the mug in her hands before taking the seat across from her.

“Snow.”

“Snow?”

“I was thinking about it as I took the comfy sweaters out of storage—how I haven’t seen snow in years now. Back in Nibelheim, around this time, we’d be bundled up in puffy winter coats awaiting the second or third snowfall of the year.” Her voice takes on a dreamy quality as her eyes glaze over, and Zack blinks.

Tifa doesn’t talk about Nibelheim. Not ever in all the time he’s known her.

Not since she was fifteen and angry and reckless and tried to steal the Fair family car in the middle of the night with a backpack full of supplies and a ridiculous plan in her head.

Not since he caught her red-handed while grabbing himself a midnight snack, and realized that the only way to beat her was to join her, to drive her there himself so she wouldn’t hurt anyone—especially herself—scribbled a note for his parents and left it in place of the keys.

Not since they drove six hours straight into the night, stopping only once for gas and caffeine and a bag full of snacks, drove and drove until the sun rose overhead just as came upon a town that should have been burned to ash.

Not since she tore out of the car before he even rolled to a stop, skidded on her knees in a mad dash through the town gates, pale as a sheet as she wandered from door to door, muttering. It can’t be. Past the water tower in the heart of the town, she stumbled toward a two-story house with a bright red door, knocked her fist against the wood so hard she bloodied her knuckles.

Not since she screamed at a confused elderly couple because This is my house! and Who are you? and How? Why?!

Not since he had to throw her over his shoulder and carry her kicking and screaming out of the town before they were arrested, placed her back into the passenger seat where she curled up into a tight ball and cried her tiny heart out. Hours later, spent and weary, she exited the car with her backpack, stopping just before the town gates, took out a stick of incense and stuck it into the ground. She lit it with a match and dropped her head in prayer.

Not since they drove all the way back to Gongaga, stopping only once for bandages and peroxide for her hand, and never spoke of it again.

Tifa doesn’t talk about Nibelheim, but she is now. So Zack listens.

He listens to how the entire town used to celebrate the changing of the seasons by cutting down fresh pine trees and decorating them in their homes with twinkling fairy lights. How they would sit by a warm and flickering fireplace at night, drinking hot apple cider with plenty of cinnamon and nutmeg. How after every snowfall, they would go outside with their ice boxes and spoons and collect fresh snow that they would quickly run back home with to enjoy, drizzled with honey, berries, and nuts. How beautiful the Nibel Mountains looked in winter’s twilight.

Zack listens until long after the sun has set and the tea has cooled completely.

“Sorry, I don’t know what came over me so suddenly.” Tifa sniffs, rubbing at her eyes and averting her gaze. “You must be starving, I’ll get dinner started.”

He catches her wrist before she can busy herself in the kitchen and bury her hometown all over again. “You were worried.”

“Huh?”

“Back then.” He traces his thumb over the sharp jut of her wrist. “You were worried the incense wouldn’t reach your dad—that it wouldn’t help lead his soul to the other side of the mountain.”

She lets him tug her into his lap with a light sigh, tucks her head into the crook of his shoulder. “You remembered.”

“I remember everything about you.” He brushes his lips against the crown of her head. “It’s why you light incense every year at the start of December, right?”

Her breath warms his collar bone. “I’ve always regretted it—not being able to control myself long enough to just make it up to the mountain for him. And then I would feel guilty because I just couldn’t bring myself to go back.”

Zack purses his lips. “And now?”

“Now?”

“Would you wanna go back now?”

Tifa leans back to look at him, bemused. “What are you talking about? We can’t—”

“We can. We can drive over this weekend, and we wouldn’t even have to stay in town. We can bring supplies, camp out in the mountains—eat some snow.” He smiles softly. “Light some incense for your dad.”

“Nibelheim winters are no joke.” She sucks in a shaky breath. “Definitely not comfy oversized sweater weather.”

“It’s a good thing I’ve got a tent, a giant sleeping bag, and two body-length puffy jackets in storage.”

Tifa eyes him through suspicious, red-rimmed eyes. “How long have you been planning this?”

“Long enough.” He wraps his arms around her waist to pull her closer and she sighs again, this time sweetly, against his temple.

“Dad would have loved you.”

“Really?”

“No.” She laughs as if she can see his disgruntled pout. “But he would have liked you well enough because I love you.”

“Good enough for me.” He squeezes her tighter. “So let’s go, yeah? Make sure he’s able to finally meet your mom.”

“Yeah. Let’s go meet them there.”

Chapter Text

After a quick breakfast scramble of eggs, bacon, and any leftover vegetables in the fridge, they pack their car with thermoses of iced coffee and tea, two tote bags full of snacks and MREs, a giant canister of hot water, and all their cold weather and camping gear. Tifa navigates until they’re on the main highway and then they’re cruising along, Gongaga just a speck of green in the rearview mirror. Zack pops the arm rest compartment between them, finds and slips on a pair of rhinestone studded, aquamarine sunglasses over his nose. On opposite ends of the frame are protruding figures of a cheering moogle and chocobo.

Tifa nearly spits out her coffee in laughter. “You still have those?”

“They’re from our trip to the Gold Saucer, of course I saved em! What am I gonna do, waste money on nonsparkly pair of sunglasses instead?”

“You’re right, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

She fiddles with the dials until she lands on a station playing some sugar candy pop that has Zack immediately bopping his head, and then sits back and sips at her coffee. In the car, with Zack concentrating on the road and nothing but the blur of scenery and the passage of time to distract her, the feeling that kept her up all night creeps slowly back into her gut, snaking up her throat, threatening to swallow her whole. She tries to drown it down with coffee, but it doesn’t quite do the trick. Especially after her thermos runs empty. So she peels the top off a bag of jerky, sticks a piece between her teeth before plonking two into Zack’s open and eager mouth.

“Fanks,” he says around the mouthful before immediately choking.

Tifa opens his thermos and hands it over with a scowl. “Chew your food!”

He swallows painfully, clears his throat, and not two seconds later he’s reaching back over for more. She swats his hand away until he promises, sullenly, “All right, all right, twenty bites each.”

She absolutely counts only ten before his hand is back at it, and when she tips the bag just out of reach, his fingers drum impatiently against her thigh. “Okay, but you better chew before swallowing this time,” Tifa warns before breaking off a small chunk for him.

To his credit, he does chew twenty times before replying, “That is not what he said.”

“Oh my god.”

“Can we open the cheese puffs next?”

“Yes, yes.”

*

One minute Tifa’s hopping back into the car after their third restroom break, the next minute she feels a light tug on her seatbelt. She opens her eyes with a great big yawn, arches her back and stretches as much as she can in the passenger seat. Above her is brilliant blue underneath a long stretch of wispy, translucent clouds, stretching slowly through the sky like spun sugar.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep. Where are we now?”

“Here.”

“Where?”

“Here,” Zack repeats, reaching over to muss the top of her hair all over. She swats him away and yawns again.

“Why didn’t you wake me?”

“You didn’t sleep well last night.” Ah, so he noticed.

He unclicks his seatbelt and exits the car to stretch out his whole body—and then immediately scrambles right back inside. “It is freezing out here!” he hisses, running his hands up and down the length of his forearms, rubbing away the gooseflesh beneath short sleeves.

“Nibelheim winters.” As she says it, that unpleasant feeling coils viselike around her heart again. She swallows thickly and unfastens her seatbelt, reaches into the backseat for Zack’s thermal sweater and puffy jacket, and tosses both over to him. He pulls them over his body with a grateful sigh, and once Tifa has also zipped her new coat all the way up to her chin, he glances her way.

“Ready?”

Nope. “Yeah.”

She exits the car and the sting of cold, sharp, mountain air staggers her, lights every nerve of her body on icy fire. She turns right back around and braces her arms on either side of the door, doubled over, takes several deep, gasping breaths to no avail. Something clatters behind her and then there’s a hand on her back, rubbing soothing circles down her spine.

“We don’t have to go in.”

Tifa shakes her head and wills herself to breathe. “No, we came all this way…and dad…”

Zack helps her out of the car but doesn’t let her go, keeps an arm slung around her waist as they head straight through the town gates. Her eyes flick wildly through the streets, every image superimposing itself onto a distant memory, like a spot-the-difference game of nightmarish trauma. They round the bend of the water tower and her eyes instinctively search for the bright red door of a two story house—but Zack’s hand is faster, travels up her back and over her head, gently pressing it down and mussing up the hair over her eyes for good measure.

She keeps her head low after that, lets him greet townsfolk with cheerful hellos and how-do-you-dos, charming strangers just as quickly as he leads them through town. Tifa only raises her eyes at the crunch of snow underfoot, and when she does she’s met with the sight of the Nibel mountains looming tall and imposing above. Shivers and the chill settles straight into her bones.

They set up their tent further into the mountains, where the path levels out flat and the wind is neatly blocked by two different mountain ridges. Inside, they crank up their battery-powered portable heater and shiver and sigh as it slowly wheezes to life. The water in their canister is still hot, so they make tea and tear into the rice balls Zack prepared last night.

After polishing off his last bite, Zack shucks off his jacket and crawls into the sleeping bag. Tifa wrinkles her nose. “You really shouldn’t lie down right after eating.”

“Just a quick nap,” he replies drowsily, eyes already half-lidded and falling fast. “Someone kept me up all night.”

There’s no arguing with that, so the sound of his heavy breathing against the backdrop of whistling mountain wind is soon the only thing filling the silence. It’s not enough to keep Tifa’s thoughts at bay so she unzips her backpack and notices too late that her plastic incense container has cracked, the scent of jasmine spilling into the air. Her mother’s scent. The Nibel mountains. Tinkling piano keys. The two-story house with the bright red door—

“C’mere.” Zack’s eyes are still closed, but his arm slips out of the sleeping bag to grope blindly for her.

“No, I’m okay.” She blinks back her tears. “I napped, remember?”

He somehow finds her hand and tugs. “Tifa.”

She complies, slips off her jacket but takes the time to fold hers and his into a neat pile in the corner of the tent, is a shivering mess by the time she climbs into the sleeping bag after him. Her back hits the warmth of his chest and his arms wrap around her instinctively, protectively, and all her muscles relax at once. Full and warm and tucked snug against Zack’s body, Tifa’s eyes droop and her mind clears and she could almost fall asleep.

Almost.

“I thought you were sleepy.” She wiggles her butt experimentally and the hard poke against her ass answers back, followed by wandering hands.

“I am,” he murmurs, nosing into her neck, “but it occurs to me we’ve never done it in a sleeping bag.”

“What about when we went camping last summer?”

“We didn’t make it to the sleeping bag.” Zack nips at her ear. “Or the tent for that matter.”

Ah, that’s right. She found bits of leaves in her clothes for days after.

It was worth it.

“Well, I guess we’ve gotta try it now.”

“For science.”

His hands finally find her skin under all those layers. “F-for science.”

*

The sun’s already set by the time they wake to the sound of shrill mountain wind, and the temptation to remain snuggled in the warm comfort of their sleeping bag is tempting indeed. But, Tifa thinks, more tempting is the prospect of leaving this town, perhaps once and for all, sooner rather than later.

“You sure we shouldn’t just wait until it’s light out?” Zack asks, shivering even though his hood is drawn up and pinched tight around his face.

“You’ve got the best guide in town.” She clicks on her flashlight with more conviction than she feels.

Tifa leads them up the mountain slowly, taking great pains to keep their footing on the slippery slick icy trails and stopping every time the wind threatens to blow them astray. Eventually they reach a familiar fork in the path, but instead of following either direction, she lifts the leaves of a great pine tree and ducks underneath them. On the other side rests a small, crumbling stone shrine that Tifa can barely believe is still standing at all.

Zack grabs the flashlight and holds it up so she can dig into her bag for the incense. She accidentally breaks two against the brittle wind before managing to place a single stick in the groove of the shrine, lights it with the several flicks of a lighter.

The scent of jasmine ignites the air and her eyes prickle.

“So.” Zack places a hand on the small of her back. “What now?”

“Now we pray for my dad’s soul to follow the scent to the other side of the mountain.”

“Show me?”

So she shows him, dips her head and leads him into an old Nibelheim prayer, struggles to remember the very last verse lost to years gone by. They finish just as the last wisps of smoke filter into the air. Zack lifts the remnant of the incense stick and shakes it off, slips it into her pocket. “For remembrance.”

“Thank you.”

He smiles with his teeth, which has the unfortunate side effect of wracking his whole body with shivers. Funny that, how she’s already gotten accustomed to the aching chill in her bones. She wiggles her toes in her boots. “Let’s get some sleep and head back in the morning.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

They walk nearly the entire way back in silence until Tifa stops short. Zack barrels into her with an oof which sends the flashlight spiraling out of her shaking hands.

“What’s wrong?”

She takes a steadying breath and bends to retrieve the light, angles it toward something she hoped was just in her imagination.

“Tifa?”

“Blood.” And a good deal of it, a pool of deep red against the glittering white of snow, just underneath a rusted metal animal trap. The trap has been sprung, but is empty, and the red trails further down the mountain path toward the general direction of their tent.

“Are there bears up here?”

“No.” Worse.

He must hear the strain in her voice because he lowers his. “Let me lead.” She nods, and they forge on carefully, Tifa pressed close to his side, stopping to listen for every whisper of wind, every crack of a twig. The trail goes cold and they reach their tent without incident.

Except for the huddled mass just to the side of it.

“What is—Zack, wait!” But Zack is already rushing over, skidding on his knees across the ice. When she shines the light over him, she sees him peering down at a brown something flecked with red cradled in his lap.

“A…dog?” A small one at that.

“I think it’s breathing, but not well.” His worried blue eyes meet hers and Tifa gnaws on her bottom lip.

“Well, we can’t keep it in the tent with us.” When he looks crestfallen at that, she adds, impatiently, “We need to take it into town!”

“Y-you sure?”

Tifa glances at the tiny shivering creature in his arms and nods. “I’m sure.”

*

It’s late, their camping gear is stacked and dripping all over the lobby, and they have to wait five whole minutes after ringing the bell for the innkeep to appear. She’s dressed in a bathrobe with gray hair done up in pastel pink rollers, and doesn’t sound all too keen for the business. Zack doesn’t let it deter him, lays the charm on thick as he requests a room for the night.

“Didn’t y’all arrive today to camp up in the mountains? And with a baby that small?” The innkeeper’s voice is a low rasp, and Tifa can feel smoldering eyes from all the way across the room. The dog is swaddled in one of her extra sweaters like a baby, and she rocks it gently from side-to-side, hoping it stays asleep. “Now ya want a room?”

“You know, dumb kids in love. A mountain camping trip sounded romantic at the time!”

“Nibelheim winters are no joke,” she drawls in an unfamiliar accent, and something pangs in Tifa’s chest all over again—until she notices a tiny tongue dart out from the dog’s mouth. It stays put, crooked and pink.

“Lesson learned!” The innkeep curls her lip in what looks like the beginnings of a smile, but it just as swiftly disappears as she ducks her head to rummage under the counter. She dangles a set of keys from her finger and Zack snatches it up.

“Thank you and good night,” he pauses, eyes flickering toward the nameplate on the counter, “Edna.”

When they get to their room, Tifa sheds her coat in the doorway and hurries to the bathroom, fills the sink halfway with warm water, and gently sets the dog in it. Behind her, Zack rolls up her sleeves and she shoots him a grateful smile as she pumps a bit of soap into her hands and lathers up, massages fur and feet and soft pink belly all over.

“Aha, aren’t you a good girl, little one,” she says soothingly as tiny eyes flutter but don’t open. Still, Tifa takes it as a positive sign, even as the water stains pink and brown. Lets the sink drain as she cards her fingers through wet fur, searching for any signs of injury. Thankfully, confusingly, there’s nothing to be found. Not a single scratch that could leave such a daunting trail of blood. As she rinses off the last soapy remnants with a fresh round of warm water, Tifa is surprised to discover that the dog is completely Snow White, including those dainty little eyelashes. The rims around her eyes, snout, and mouth a stark black contrast against it.

Zack grabs a towel and they work together to gently pat her dry, but when her tiny frame starts shivering again, Tifa rustles up a hairdryer from the sink cabinet, plugs it in, and hopes. They’re rewarded with a burst of warm air, and, aided by Zack’s personal hair brush, they manage to dry her completely down and even brush out some of her matted fur, which has poofed up tremendously. Before Tifa can dwell too long on what breed of dog she might be, though, tiny black eyes blink open.

“She’s awake!” Zack cheers, scooping her up and pressing her face against his, and any worried protest dies on Tifa’s lips when a tiny pink tongue darts out the corner of the dog’s mouth to lick him on the nose.

He sets the little one onto the bed and Tifa pours some water into a paper cup, holding it just under her snout. She drinks with such wild abandon that drops of water flick everywhere and she ends up hacking and coughing in her haste. But she recovers just as fast and drains the entire cup, before glancing up at them and licking her lips.

“She must be hungry, but all we have left for the trip are MREs,” Tifa mumurs thoughtfully as stubby white ears twitch in her direction. “I don’t think there’s much good for her in those.”

“Well,” Zack offers, picking up a card from the desk and twirling it between the points of his two index fingers, “apparently the Nibel Lodge offers room service.”

“At this hour? With all the fuss of even getting the room?”

“It says twenty-four hour service. And hey, at these prices I think she’ll make an exception. And a tidy profit.”

Tifa raises her eyebrows skeptically. “You’re ordering.”

“Of course, Edna loves me!”

With much preamble and a lot of sweet talk, Zack orders a plain breast of chicken with rice and vegetables, the largest steak on the menu with a baked potato, and a bowl of their famous beef stew.

Tifa settles herself against the headboard of the bed as Zack tears into a pack of crackers from an MRE and flips through the same seven channels on the dinky television set up. He tosses a few pieces to the dog, who crunches through them with delight. When the pack is empty and there’s nothing more to give, however, she pads over toward Tifa, circling around twice, before curling herself into a ball against Tifa’s thigh. Her smile only grows as she runs her fingers through soft white fur and the dog flops onto her back, exposing her tiny pink belly. She skates her fingers against the skin and hind legs kick in the air with pleasure, little black eyes slowly, slowly, blinking shut.

A full episode of some canned laughter sitcom later, there’s a knock at the door. The little one scrambles up in full alert and Tifa quickly throws part of the blanket over her tiny form as Zack cracks the door open.

“Room service.”

“You’re a peach, Edna!” Zack sets the trays onto the desk near the door and slips her some gil for the trouble. When she remains, unmoving, he chuckles and hands over some more before Edna finally walks away, satisfied. And it’s not a second too soon because the little one eagerly noses her way out from under the covers, sniffing wildly at the air, stomach rumbling audibly.

“A dog after my own heart,” Zack says with affection, rubbing her behind the ears before cutting a portion of the chicken platter into bite-sized pieces. She watches as the dog quickly demolishes the portion set in front of her, and then continues to lap up every crumb of the seconds he slides onto the plate.

Tifa is so caught up in watching that Zack has to physically place a spoon in her hand and the tray on her lap to remind her to eat. She sniffs. It smells nice. And judging by the way both the other two are all but licking their plates clean, it’s probably pretty good too. And, now that the scent of beefy goodness wafts right under her nose, Tifa realizes she’s starving. So she takes a spoonful, blows it cool, and takes a bite.

It’s—different. The ingredients are familiar, locally sourced as described by the menu—and she recognizes the purple parsnips, starchy Nibel potatoes, and tiny bell mushrooms foraged from the mountains. It certainly doesn’t taste the way it should—the way her mother used to make, the way every mother in Nibelheim used to make—but it’s not bad. It’s really quite good. She cleans the bowl without realizing it, only does when metal clangs against empty porcelain. It takes another few seconds after that to realize Zack is staring at her.

“What?” She feels silly and self-conscious, as if he’s already read her mind and thinks she’s thinking too hard about a simple bowl of stew, but then he’s crossing over to her, swooping down to her face and leaning in. He licks the corner of her mouth.

“You missed some.” Pulls back with a grin. “Shower?”

“Do I stink?”

“Only of perfection.” She laughs at that. “But it’ll make you feel better.”

He’s right, of course. There’s nothing quite like a good shower after a stressful night at the diner, or a particularly rigorous workout, so she goes and showers. And even though the water is only mildly warm and the pressure is low, it does make her feel better. She scrubs her hair and skin clean with the all-in-one, overly floral scented gel in the tub, lingers in the spray a good few minutes longer. Then feels a bit guilty because Zack is just as tired and cold as she is, surely, and he’s been so thoughtful all day, so she shuts off the nozzle and quickly towels off. “All yours!” Tifa calls, still tousling her hair dry as she pads into the bedroom. She drops it near immediately with a gasp. “Zack?!”

Zack is halfway out the window, butt wriggling in the air, a sight that would be comical if she wasn’t so concerned. “What are you doing?”

“It’s snowing!” is his muffled response, and when he shimmies bodily back into the room he’s got a bowl filled with freshly fallen snow. “Quick, there’s some honey and a can of nuts in my backpack.”

Warmth blooms in her chest. “The forecast didn’t even call for snow.”

“Yeah, but I packed it just in case. Hurry, hurry!”

So she hurries, and they drizzle honey and nuts over the fresh snow and eat it with a single shared spoon that they let the dog lick clean when they’re done. And it’s not exactly the way it should be—the way it used to be—Gongaga honey is richer and sweeter, and they never imported macadamia nuts in Nibelheim, but it’s not bad, not bad at all.

It’s nearly perfect.

*

Tifa wakes to a fluffy butt. And it’s not Zack’s. Some time in the middle of the night, the little one must have moved from the foot of the bed to curl into a ball on her pillow. She skritches the fur of her back and little legs kick out in a languid stretch. Tifa can’t help tapping her fingers against the soft black pads of her paws, and hind legs instantly tuck back under fluffy white fur. Tifa giggles and Zack leans over to kiss her on the forehead.

“Good morning.”

“Morning.”

“Did you sleep well?”

Tifa considers, still stroking soft white fur. “I did.”

“Good. So what’s the plan for today?”

“We eat some breakfast and then head into town.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The breakfast is good, though the coffee is not, and Tifa has stolen about half of Zack’s tea by the time they’re finished. When they’re washed up and ready to head out, he decides to remove the covers from the pillows and tie them together.

“What are you—” Tifa starts, but shrugs and decides to let it play out until Zack is ready to explain himself. He loops the tied pillowcases around his neck and under one arm, and then scoops the dog neatly into the makeshift sling. “Huh? Huh? Isn’t this great? Now Tofu and I are ready to hit the town!”

“Very cu—Tofu?”

“Yeah, doesn’t she look like a block of Tofu now that she’s all clean?”

“You gave her a name?”

“You don’t like it?”

She does, and it is cute, and the dog really does look like a block of Tofu. But. “Oh, oh, Zack. We’re going into town to find her family.”

Zack instantly deflates. “What?”

“A dog like this—you think she could be a stray? Her owners must be worried sick for her.” His lower lip juts out. “If she were ours, wouldn’t you hope someone would find her and bring her back to us?”

“I guess I hadn’t really thought about that.” He sighs and glances down at the little dog in his sling, whose eyes are slowly fluttering closed as her tongue peeks out the side of her mouth. “But can we at least call her Tofu until then?”

“We can,” Tifa replies, and offers him a tiny sad smile that he mirrors.

She helps Zack slip on his jacket one arm at a time and he zips it up to his chest, tugs part of the sling over it, so that Tofu can rest snugly with her face open to the world. But it’s far too cold to be walking around with a bare neck, so Tifa removes her scarf to wrap around his shoulders, draping the length of the remaining fabric over Tofu like a blanket.

Knocking on houses and talking to strangers is more of Zack’s forte, so he begrudgingly walks up to every door and knocks, makes polite conversation, and then comes back with the biggest grin on his face when he can announce, “They don’t own a dog.”

By noon they’ve covered the whole left side of town, and they decide to take a break to check out the farmer’s market being set up in the central area. They let their noses guide them for lunch, munching on meat and veggie skewers, homemade rice balls, fried parsnips, and dried persimmons crusted with sugar. Zack sneaks bites of everything to Tofu, and Tifa pretends not to notice as they stroll through various stalls selling spices and dried goods. She loads her bag up until it’s full to bursting with ingredients for a stew, perhaps.

After, they drop off their purchases at the inn before tackling the houses on the right side of town. Knock, talk, retreat. Not a single family is missing a dog. Eventually there’s just one house left.

“I’ll take this one,” Tifa says softly, placing a hand on Zack’s shoulder.

“You sure?”

The coil in her chest reaches an icy fever pitch, but she nods. “I’m sure.”

It’s just a house, after all.

A house with a faded, pale yellow door.

Tifa freezes in her tracks, and before she can reconcile pale yellow against bright red, the door swings open and a tiny child with hair like sunshine hops onto the pavement with arms splayed out like a plane.

“Brrrr—oh, hello!” she says upon noticing Tifa, blinking curious green eyes up at her. She has platinum blond hair tied into pigtails and she’s wearing a fluffy magenta parka with thick gray tights. “What’s your name, miss?”

“O-oh? I’m Tifa.” She leans down so that they’re eye level.

“What a pretty name. Nice to meet you, Miss Tifa!” She grins and there is a gap where her two front teeth should be.

“And you are?”

“My name is Elsie! I live here with my mom. Do you know my mom?”

“No, I don’t—”

“Moooom! There’s someone who wants to meet you!”

“Ah—”

The door swings open again, revealing a woman with strawberry blond hair with her hands on her hips.

“Elsie, are you bothering folks again?”

She scurries behind Tifa’s legs with a pout. “Noooo.”

Elsie’s mom seems less than convinced, shoots her daughter a suspicious glance before turning to Tifa. “I’m sorry if my girl is giving you some trouble. She’s quite the chatterbox.”

“No, not at all. Elsie’s been nothing but charming.” Elsie sticks her tongue out at her mom before running off making plane noises again, and Tifa can’t help but chuckle at the sight. “In fact, I was the one who was standing before your door.”

“Oh, is something the matter, dear?” Elsie’s mom has warm brown eyes that soften sweetly with motherly concern and Tifa feels hers prickle all over again.

“I’m so, so sorry to disturb you. Her voice is thick with emotion that she tries to swallow down. She should ask if they’re missing a dog, she should ask about Tofu, but the question that bubbles forth is— “How long have you lived in this house?”

Elsie’s mom inclines her head and purses her lips in serious consideration, as if a stranger hadn’t just shown up at her door asking ridiculous questions. “Hmmm, let’s see. We moved in around a year ago now, me and Elsie.”

“Just you and Elsie?”

She nods.

“And the townspeople—are they nice to you?”

“They’ve been nothing but lovely.”

“That’s great. That’s really great.” Tears are definitely blurring her vision now and spilling all over her cheeks, but she can still see the obvious compassion in those warm brown eyes.

“My dear girl, is everything okay?”

“No, yes. I uh—I’m sorry, this is so silly. But I used to live in this house a long…long time ago.”

“Oh!” She opens the door wider and gestures within. “Would you like to come in and take a look around?”

“Thank you, but I’m all right now.” Tifa wipes furiously at her face and turns away before she can embarrass herself any further. “I hope you have a wonderful day!”

When she walks straight into Zack’s chest, his arms wrap tightly around her, careful not to squish Tofu between them too hard. He presses his lips against the crown of her head.

“You okay?”

She nods even though Zack’s scarf is quickly dampening from her tears.

“The couple who were living in my house—no, in that house all those years ago.” Hiccups. “They said they lived there all their lives, but they said it so weirdly. So quickly. Like they were reading from a script or something.” It had been the thing that tipped her completely into a youthful rage, the audacity of their easy lies, as if there were no casualties from it. “But children can’t lie, not like that.”

And even a conspiracy coverup from the most powerful company in the world can only last so long. Even Shinra can’t stop people from moving on or in as much as they can’t stop the passage of time. Life goes on and it might be different, and she and Zack might be the only two people in the world to know it. Who would believe them, after all? But if life gets better for some people—for sweet, unconventional families in otherwise small, and no longer so judgmental towns—maybe that’s enough.

And just like that, the snakelike vise in her chest finally unfurls a little.

“Let’s go home,” Tifa says, kissing Zack on the cheek before dropping lower to kiss Tofu on the head. She’s rewarded in turn with a tiny pink tongue wiping the salt off her cheeks.

“Miss Tifa!” Elsie’s back again, zooming toward them with her arms stretched out. She stops right in front of them and turns an awestruck glance at Tofu, reaches up just as Zack leans down so she can pat the dog on the head. “Is that Mr. Wolfy’s puppy?”

“Huh?”

“You know, Mr. Wolfy?” At their blank stares she huffs with all the impatience of a child. “He lives in the log cabin just near the entrance to the mountains. He has dogs that look just like this one.”

Tifa frowns thoughtfully. “Elsie, there’s no cabin near the mountains.”

“Sure there is! Right there!”

Tifa follows Elsie's finger to the other side of town, past the water tower and past the row of houses and somehow, just near the entrance to the mountains, is in fact a log cabin she completely missed the day before. A log cabin she has absolutely no memory of.

*

With obvious trepidation, Zack walks up to the wooden door of the log cabin owned by one “Mr. Wolfy” and knocks, so softly that Tifa barely hears it over the wind. “Looks like no one is here,” he announces, spinning on his heel just as the entire log cabin erupts into thundering footfalls and a chorus of howls. Zack winces, Tifa’s breath catches in her throat, and Tofu emits a tiny yowl as the door opens.

A man with a head and beard of thick salt-and-pepper hair, dressed in all brown leather, leans against the doorframe. His eyes are milky white behind dark sepia-toned frames, but still they alight upon Tifa, and then Zack, before lowering to Zack’s chest. Behind him is a metal gate keeping a gaggle of fluffy white dogs from parading right out of the house. All of them are much bigger than Tofu, but otherwise look nearly identical to her.

He nods at them before turning back into his house, walking over the metal gate and leaving the door open in his wake. Tifa finds Zack’s hand to give it a gentle, sympathetic squeeze, as they follow, closing the door behind them. Over the metal gate, dogs clamor everywhere, pawing at legs and knees with their front paws and wagging fluffy tails in greeting. Zack gently scoops Tofu from his sling and she wriggles impatiently out of his hands to join the rest of her pack.

The sound of the kettle whistling crisp and sharp breaks the cacophony of dog noises, and they follow the sound to the kitchen, where “Mr. Wolfy” introduces himself at last as Fredrick Volshe. He pours them steaming mugs of black tea before speaking without preamble.

“You new to these parts?” He levels his milky stare toward Tifa, who lowers her head to gaze into her tea cup.

“Um, I used to live here.”

“Here? Or the here before here?”

She blinks and snaps to attention. “What do you—”

“My big sis also used to live here, near ten years ago now.” Tifa’s lips part and Zack’s hand finds hers under the table and squeezes. “We had a falling out, something stupid, family things, and didn’t talk for years after that. And when I finally came to my senses to apologize in person, well. She wasn’t here anymore, but this town was.”

His emphasis makes her choke out her next words. “But then why stay?” How could anyone—

“Nowhere else to go.” He shrugs and takes a long sip of his tea. “Built myself a cabin out here to live out the rest of my days with the dogs.” Life goes on. “But I didn’t realize how much I’d been getting on in age until one of the dogs went missing from the pack a few nights ago—and I didn't even realize it. Course, it’s much easier to notice when the runt of the litter is gone, but just as I suited up to go searching for her last night, who shows up at the door but Tveir, covered in blood and limping on her hind leg. I had to tend to her first, and by the time I could go searching for my little runt, I couldn’t find a trace of her.”

At that, Tofu wanders into the kitchen, right through another metal gate keeping the rest of the dogs out. She makes a beeline for Zack, stretches tall on her hind legs to scratch at his legs, clamoring for attention.

“Thought she was a goner when I didn’t find her, but,” Volshe carries on, cracking a crooked smile for the first time all day, “maybe she just found her way to her people.”

Zack’s eyes widen immediately. “You mean?”

“Well, if ya wanna keep her, anyway.”

“I think I want to keep her,” he whispers, picking Tofu up and nuzzling her face against his. She licks him on the nose.

Tifa’s eyes prickle again as she wraps her arms around them both. “I had a feeling you’d say that.”

*

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“I’m taking a Tofu for a walk!” Tifa calls, hooking the leash around the metal clasps of Tofu’s bright blue harness.

“Coming!” There’s a thunder of footfalls before Zack appears on the stairwell.

“You’re not wearing a shirt.”

“So?”

“And I just put some chicken in the oven.”

“So?”

She laughs and picks Tofu up so she can lick Zack on the nose. “We’ll be right back! I think keeping the house from burning down is more important than going for a walk together.”

His lower lips quivers.

“All right, you can take her if you want. She’s gotta poop.”

“Chicken, you said?”

Tifa rolls her eyes and heads out the door. Outside, Tofu bounds down the sidewalk, barking at the parrots feeding on crumbs in front of Mrs. Slate’s house. The parrots skitter and take flight, and she has to rein Tofu in from chasing after them. Eventually they reach her favorite patch of grass and Tofu quickly squats down to pee, circles and sniffs the area, before prancing triumphantly on toward the town entrance, where she particularly likes to poop.

It’s solid, Tifa notes as she picks it up with a little baggy and tosses it into the nearby garbage can, which means the marinated steak Zack snuck to her under the table probably wasn’t the cause of her subsequent tummy ache. Tifa’s debating whether to keep this information to herself when Tofu’s little ears twitch and she tilts her head skyward, sniffing at the air. And then suddenly she’s taking off toward the forest on the outskirts of town.

“Tofu—hey Tofu!!” Tifa has to sprint all out to keep Tofu from choking on the pull of the leash. She leads them off the usual path, clear across a tall stretch of grass, running faster, and faster still until she finally stops at a small clearing in the woods.

Before them lies a woman face down, long auburn hair cascading over her bright red jacket and pale lavender sundress. Tifa quickly rushes over, feels for a pulse under a thin silver bracelet. It’s there, but faint.

“Hey, miss, please stay with me.” She takes the woman by the shoulder and rolls her gently onto her back. But Tifa’s not prepared for blood—so much blood—pooling into the grass and staining the entire front of her dress. Tifa curses and yanks her sweater off, doesn’t even notice the prickle of cool air against her bare skin. She ties the sweater tightly over the woman’s stomach to put pressure on the wound, tucks Tofu under her armpit, and then scoops the woman into her arms and runs.

Chapter Text

Tifa runs.

Pumps her legs and pushes past the searing pain in her muscles and the deep ache in her lungs, runs like her life depends on it—because it does. The woman in her arms is far too cold, breath ragged and slowly fading with every passing minute Tifa wastes by not running fast enough.

By not being enough.

If she doesn’t make it…

No, Tifa won’t let that happen. Takes a deep breath and lets adrenaline run on autopilot until she can see the town gates and just past that, the familiar sloping roof of home. She pivots too fast into the walkway and feels her ankle pop, but barrels forward, slamming her shoulder into the unlocked door with too much force. Before they hit the ground, Tifa shifts her body to cushion the blow. Her back meets hardwood floors and in the tumble, Tofu leaps from the huddle of limbs, barking agitatedly, which sends Zack thundering into the living room.

“What—”

“No time! Your mom’s—!” Tifa gasps, struggling upright.

Zack understands instantly, wastes no time running toward the bathroom with Tofu yapping at his heels, while she limps toward the couch to deposit the woman onto it. There is just so much red, seeping deep into the fabric of her sweatshirt, of her pale dress, the pungent stench of iron filling her nostrils and making bile run up the back of her throat. She gags and swallows down, narrows her eyes and tries to focus on the source of the blood. Tifa runs her palms gently along the fabric until she finds a tear in the dress, carefully eases it from clotted blood, off her skin, and tears it further open so she can inspect the wound. It's a deep one, but thankfully clean, no trace of fragments or debris.

Finally, Zack is by her side, offering a warm wet towel that she uses to clean blood from the skin. He takes the towel from her hands and wordlessly, seamlessly, hands her a shiny red pot. The very last of the healing salve—his mother’s salve—the one that saved her life all those years ago.

Tifa just prays it will be enough, scoops out as much of the dark red ointment as she can with her fingers and presses it firmly into the wound, feels its power tingle and burn at her skin. Smoke rises from the contact and she can hear nothing but the sizzle of flesh over the thudding of her own heart.

And then a sharp gasp from the woman as her body judders, jerks, hand flailing to smack her in the face, but Tifa simply holds it with her other hand, laces their fingers together and squeezes tightly. After a minute, the smoke subsides—and the woman’s breathing continues steady on, beat by beat.

Tears pool at the corners of her eyes as she sits back onto the floor, would crumple in relief if not for Zack’s warm, solid presence at her back, keeping her upright. Tifa removes her hand from the wound and sighs in relief as the salve glitters bright red, the skin beneath slowly regenerating. She means to remove her other hand too, but there’s a faint squeeze from the other side. The woman’s eyes are still closed, but her eyebrows are furrowed deeply as if still in pain.

“It’s all right, it’s all right, I’m here—” Tifa croaks, as Zack kisses the crown of her head and Tofu firmly snuggles into her lap. “We’re here for you.” She envelopes the woman’s pale, tiny hand with her other one and only then notices the thin silver chain around her wrist again. Attached to the chain is a slightly thicker band that reads, when it catches the light: Aerith F.

Aerith—

“Please hold on, Aerith.”

It takes an entire day until she finally opens her eyes, and when she does, Tifa is right beside her, holding her hand.

Aerith’s eyes are a startled, frantic green as she thrashes and snatches her hand away to press against a wound that no longer exists. She sucks in a breath and glances at her sharply. “Who—who are you?”

“My name is Tifa. I don’t know what you’ve been through, and you might not be okay yet, but you will be. I promise.”

Chapter Text

Aerith is—resilient, Tifa thinks, watching as the young woman daintily demolishes everything put in front of her; the entirety of yesterday’s leftover roast chicken and peas, half a container of potato salad, freshly scrambled eggs and fig jam on toast topped with strawberry cream cheese and the far too overripe fermented cabbage even Zack won’t touch. Asleep she was a tiny, shivering, huddled mess of a thing, but newly awake at five in the morning she is vibrant—earth green eyes positively aglow with life, cheeks softly pink like the first Phoenix flower buds in all of Evelyn Fair’s photo albums, shyly rising from dirt ashes.

It is such a relief, after such a long night, after noticing the silver white scars against Aerith’s pale skin, the bruised injection marks, the remaining bit of gnarled purple flesh adorning her abdomen—

Tifa doesn’t want to think about it, about how close Aerith was to never opening those green eyes again, so she doesn’t. Tucks the memory of it carefully away and wonders if Zack has hidden a single slice of apple pie in the freezer like he usually does. Serves it toasty warm from the oven with a thick pat of ginger butter melted over it—and doesn’t think about it. Not tonight, nor the next day or the day after, which Aerith spends glued to her side so Tifa can make sure she’s okay.

But the day after that—Maude tells her, Tifa tells her—sorry, but she’s really needed back at the diner.

“Don’t apologize!” Aerith immediately gasps. “You should never have put your life on hold for me!”

She wasn’t— “I wasn’t—” But Tifa already knows the other woman won’t fall for a lie. “Anyway, are you gonna help me come up with a new drink idea or not? Maude said this is payment for covering all my shifts.”

Aerith purses her lips. “It’s my debt, too. Let’s do it.”

“Good—so, something hard?” She suggests, twirling a bottle of crème de cassis deftly in her hands, figuring they should start somewhere sweet.

But Aerith, surprisingly, wrinkles her nose. “Er, oh no, I can’t stomach any type of alcohol—”

Tifa sets the bottle down with mild surprise. “Oh? I figured you weren’t of age yet, and that you’d be itching to taste some!”

“How rude!” She pouts, crossing her arms over her chest. “Why, I bet I’m older than you!”

Highly unlikely, but Tifa chuckles and decides to drop it. “Then what’s your poison?”

Aerith considers, tapping one finger against her chin. “Tea.”

“Tea?”

“Tea.”

“I don’t think Maude will accept just any old tea recipe.”

Aerith nods with serious determination. “I’ll do my best.”

And she does, all things considered, do her very best. The first drink is far too bitter, the second too sweet, the third too mild, the rest not remotely interesting enough. Tifa usually likes a challenge—but she also rarely finds herself this challenged.

When Aerith quietly pushes away her latest attempt—rosehip and cardamon with a sliver of lime—she sighs. Really, this is maybe why she prefers coffee. Tifa skims Zack’s now nearly empty tea cabinet—various boxes and tins and bags already strewn over the counter tops—when she spies one last carton crushed into the far corner. Stands on her tippy-toes to reach it and has to blow a thin layer of dust off the top. It’s—oh—sealed shut with a sticker label: the outline of the Nibel Mountain range. She carefully breaks the seal and opens the box wide enough for Aerith to take a peek as well.

“What is it?” she asks, eyes roundly staring at the bumpy, misshapen roots covered in thick black bark, with a single golden sprout emerging from its depths.

“Silphium,” Tifa replies, and boils more water for tea.

Her mother used to make the first cup of silphium tea every year to herald the coming of spring, and always with a generous tablespoon of honey. Tifa prepares the roots carefully, cuts off the bark to reveal the inner stalk, twisting off gold leaves with her fingers. Both get rinsed quickly in cold water and dumped into the whistling glass kettle. She counts the seconds before Aerith gasps in delight as the water blooms from pale pink into deep brown red. Strains the tea into two mugs, adds a teaspoon apiece of Gongaga honey and—after a thoughtful glance at Aerith’s eager expression—decides to top it with a thick pat of ginger butter. Because it just tastes good with everything the other woman had declared mere hours ago, scooping a large chunk into her pasta.

The time it takes Aerith to blow on the tea is filled with far too much suspense—but eventually, she raises the mug to her lips, closes her eyes, and drinks.

And drinks and drinks and drinks.

“It’s amazing!” Aerith cheers, setting down her empty mug and smacking her lips together.

“Really?”

“Really really. Maude’s debt fully repaid!”

Tifa laughs, picks up her mug and warm relief floods her veins. The silphium tea tastes like Nibelheim springs, with all the sweetness of Gongaga summers, and a surprising bite of ginger that sizzles pleasantly over her tongue.

“So what will you name the drink?”

“Well, it’s just silphium tea with honey, so, Honey—”

“And Simpha Tea!” Aerith declares, smile wide and excitement far too contagious to correct her.

“Honey and Simpha Tea,” Tifa repeats, with a grin to match, “served Aerith style.”

Aerith is—clumsy, Zack thinks, suspicion rooting itself firmly in his brain the morning Aerith takes Tifa’s empty dishes from her hands, tutting away all protest.

“You’ve got work—leave clean up to me,” she declares in a tone that leaves no room for argument. Tifa glances from her face to Zack’s, eyebrows pinched and eyes pleading, and all he has time for is a hopefully reassuring shrug before Tifa is quickly escorted to the door by Aerith and Tofu.

With Tifa gone, Aerith quickly sets to work piling the dishes into the sink—and immediately cracks a porcelain bowl with slippery hands. Has to have her fingers cleaned, disinfected, and bandaged up before Zack can actually clean up her broken mess as well as wash the remaining dishes to the backdrop of her blubbering apologies.

But that doesn’t deter Aerith from wanting to help in the slightest, oh no. Next up: laundry. Simple enough. Put everything from this hamper into the washer, and he even fills the detergent himself. Thirty minutes later—ding—and Aerith shrieks. So he races back to the laundry room to find her holding her tattered wet and red jacket between trembling fingers. The washer is otherwise filled with his once-white-but-now-baby-pink t-shirts.

“Pink is nice,” he says hastily, handing her several tissues before packing everything—red jacket and all—into the dryer. Her bandages end up soaked through, so back to the bathroom to clean and change them before finally getting to work three hours late.

Please, give her one more chance, so into his backyard workshop they go, because she couldn’t possibly get into trouble just watching and learning, right?

Wrong.

Of course, he already has a fresh pack of tissues stuffed into his back pocket for the occasion. She snuffles into a handful while he gets onto his hands and knees to search his way through thick blades of grass. Tosses every painstaking find—all manner of screws, nails, and various extra bits of carpentry miscellany—into the remaining plastic bin.

Tifa often joked that Zack’s Box of Joy Sparks—as labeled with her handwriting on the lid now cracked in two—was the only organized part of his otherwise chaotic tool shed. Because it’s always the smallest overlooked things that he’ll never be able to find otherwise, he’d always reply, booping his nose to hers.

Five full minutes of otherwise finding brings him back to: clumsy. Definitely clumsy, Zack decides, downgrading all of his other previous suspicions.

Figures he’s wrong again; Tifa is usually right, after all.

He spies the final nail rolled nearly under the shed, and on his way to scoop it up notices a dusty cardboard box on the bottommost shelf, and picks that up, too. The last of his joy sparks found, he leaves the whole bin to organize later and jogs over to the still sniffling Aerith with the box, plops a hand over her head and musses the top of her hair all over. “Wanna plant some flowers?”

Aerith turns out to be a natural at gardening. Quickly and perfectly mimicking how he scoops out soil with the trowel, sprinkles in some seeds, and seals it over. Rinse and repeat. She’s already planted three more when the phone rings and Zack frowns, considering. She couldn’t possibly get into too much trouble a fourth time, right?

“You keep going while I answer that.” When she sounds off affirmatively, he jogs back into the house to spend maybe several minutes too long small-talking Mrs. Cole about this year’s anniversary gift.

When he finally returns, Aerith’s sleeves are rolled up to her elbows and she’s already on the final row, fingers and knees caked in dirt. And, left in the cardboard box with various other empty packets is a sachet of black silk with a faintly glowing star stuck to it.

An empty sachet.

He chokes and Aerith freezes, hands shooting into the air, a look of pure terror in her eyes. But what most catches his eye are the silver white scars jagged along her forearms. The final mystery of how she could possibly don long sleeves even during Gongaga’s humid springs laid fully bare. He understands.

“We’re gonna have to change those bandages again,” Zack tuts.

Aerith hiccups into a giggle, wipes at her face and leaves a streak of dirt smeared across her nose. “It was faster to use my hands.”

Aerith is—

“Moving out,” she declares after dinner, after not-so-surreptitiously feeding Tofu her last bite of chicken under the table.

Tifa’s fork clatters against her plate, but it’s Zack who finds his voice first. “What?” “Why?”

“Just downstairs, I mean.” Aerith glances between them and shakes her head. “Zack must have felt so cramped on the sofa these past few nights. Look how big he is!” And, really, there’s no arguing with that.

Which is how Tifa later finds herself in bed, the place by her feet usually occupied by Tofu now empty—she’d taken an instant liking to Aerith’s generosity—and the place usually occupied by Aerith now overflowing with Zack. Although, technically, really, that used to be her side of the bed before the other woman unintentionally rolled into it. And, well, Tifa just wanted her to be comfortable.

Zack’s breathing is uneven, noisy with his restlessness, and Tifa knows he’s waiting.

For her.

He always does.

He’s the type who wants to confront everything head on—problems, feelings, life—and while that works for them sometimes, other times she needs time. Time to think and compartmentalize and figure things out on her own.

The last time they actually fought fought—so long ago she can barely even remember what it was even about—he kept pushing and she kept bottling until they both exploded. And, after much crying and apologies, what the fight resulted in was a promise. That Zack would always give her the space she needed, when she needed it; whenever she was ready to talk, all she ever had to do was reach out to him. And it’s a promise he’s never once broken, even after so many years.

But in so many years, she also can’t remember a time they hadn’t made up within the day.

Tifa rolls onto her other side to stare at his back, broad and tanned and illuminated by moonlight and she—reaches over, barely lands her fingertips on the jut of his shoulder blade and suddenly she’s crushed to his chest, skin against skin, all her senses enveloped by him.

“I’m sorry,” they blurt out at the same time, before breaking into shared tearful laughter.

“I’m sorry for not trusting you,” Zack murmurs into her skin, leaving her forehead damp and tingling. “You were right—I’m sorry for suspecting her.”

“No, I’m sorry, I—” Tifa shakes her head, because she was supposed to apologize first, to explain why, but all the words are now jumbled in her head and caught in her throat. She swallows and his hands rub circles against her back, waiting for when she’s ready. “I know you had every right to be suspicious. She was a bleeding stranger I found in the woods, but—” Her voice cracks and her fists curl against his chest. “But I was also once a bleeding stranger. And—and if your mother hadn’t taken a chance on me—”

“You were a child. And she trusted Zangan.”

“Just like you should have trusted me,” Tifa sniffs.

Zack chuckles wryly. “Point taken.” He sighs as she snuggles deeper into his chest, breathing him in and feeling all the weight lifted from her shoulders and her heart. “I just don’t want you to ever get hurt.”

“But I don’t want to become a person who ever second guesses helping someone—even if I might get hurt in the end. It’s worth it. It’s always worth it. That’s what your mother taught me.”

“You’re right.” He squeezes her close. “You’re always right.”

“I’m not,” Tifa mutters, but he cuts off her off with his mouth pressing into hers softly, then firmly, hands sliding up to caress her face. And just like that, any remaining distance between them melts away completely.

“You are,” he repeats, his words rustling her eyelashes while she tries to catch her breath. “So, what do you think about Aerith?”

“I think I want to keep her,” Tifa whispers without any hesitation, and Zack’s subsequent laughter rumbles her body all over.

“I had a feeling you’d say that.”

A full week later, the doorbell rings just before dinnertime. Zack and Tifa glance at each other from opposite sides of the kitchen island—he’s searing meat on the stove and she’s chopping the last of the vegetables for stir fry—before quickly raising their fists in a battle of rock, paper, scissors. Which she wins, of course.

Zack raises his hands in defeat, hands her the spatula, and wipes his hands on a towel before jogging toward the door, opens it to reveal—a shock of electric red hair and a very particularly well-cut, black suit with shiny leather-skinned shoulders.

“Yo,” the stranger drawls, tapping a long thin rod against his thigh. “A little birdy told me you might know a girl in a bright red jacket.”

Chapter Text

“Zack, who is it?”

He slams his hand into the doorway when he hears Tifa approach, splintering the wood beneath his fingers, creating a clean line of division between them. The stranger raises a single eyebrow in response, completely unruffled as he taps the point of his metal rod along Zack’s arm until he reaches the crook of his elbow. There’s a sudden change in pressure as he lifts the rod higher, a feeling Zack can’t quite place until he sees electric blue crackle to life and—just barely manages to retreat with his arm fully intact.

Turks always play dirty, after all.

Said Turk’s grin is razor sharp as he shambles through the doorway, tapping the weapon against his shoulder in a steady rhythm as the sizzle fades. His right foot is louder than his left. “Thanks for your hospitality.” He nearly makes it right up the stairs before Tifa cuts him off at the first step, arms crossed over her chest. She sends Zack a concerned glance which he returns tenfold. Be careful.

“If you’d like to talk, I’ll make some tea after you take your shoes off in the foyer.”

“Don’t worry, not staying long.” The Turk tries to push past her, but Zack yanks at his elbow just in time for the weapon to spark against his own suit jacket.

Zack wills the corners of his lips higher as the smell of burnt leather fills his nostrils. “We insist—that’s our Gongaga hospitality.”

“Gongaga?” He chuckles, repeats and then chuckles again, running a gloved hand through bright red hair, revealing unremarkable brown roots beneath. “Listen Mr. and Mrs. Gongaga,” he drawls slowly, retracting his rod and clipping it onto his back holster—a peace offering or a warning? “I don’t have time for your bullshit. Where. Is. She?”

A warning then. So be it. Zack motions toward the backyard with his head. “She’s out in the garden—I’ll take you to her.”

“Nah.” Tifa’s eyes widen as the Turk slips his arm around her waist and Zack’s nostrils flare. Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm—unclenches his fists. “Why don’t we let the Mrs. lead me while you go and wait for my associate. He should be here shortly.” He’s seconds from ripping that smirk right off his face when Tifa shakes her head subtly. “Wouldn’t want him to miss out on all your hospitality.”

Zack trusts her completely, but he’s still uneasy about it. Flits his gaze meaningfully toward the Turk’s left leg—he’s pretty sure it’s busted up—before stepping aside for them.

“This way,” Tifa murmurs, taking off without a further glance at the intruder, masking her nerves with nonchalance. When she reaches the back door, she closes her eyes and listens—shff thump shff thump—Zack was right. He’s definitely favoring his left leg.

And he’s dangerous.

She turns the lock before shutting the door behind her, and he makes it three shambling steps into the backyard before whirling around with an unamused frown. “Lady, where is Aer—”

Tifa doesn’t let him finish, takes a bracing step into his space and uses the momentum to aim right at his face—but he catches her fist with an open hand. Turquoise eyes narrow to slits as he snarls, revealing two sharp rows of teeth. “What the fu—”

Tobacco-stained teeth. Weak lungs?

She pulls back her fist before he can crush it between his fingers, ducks and slams her palm into his chest, sending him reeling backward. He staggers and hisses audibly when all his weight shifts onto his left leg. It’s her best chance to immobilize him completely, so she swings her leg toward his calf, but somehow he’s still faster. His weapon is fully retracted in an instant, blocking the full force of her blow and knocking her off balance. She twists her whole body to break her fall and then rolls back up onto her knees.

“Just give me the girl and you won’t get hurt.” The rod crackles and Tifa grimaces. The damage to the shoulder of his suit jacket doesn’t look pretty, so she can’t risk getting caught unawares by it.

But she also can’t give him Aerith, because Aerith is—

Tifa dives for his left ankle, twists until she hears a pop.

Aerith is—

“Reno!” Aerith is screaming from the bedroom window, eyes wide with fear as he begins to tumble backward.

“Aerith!” Tifa barely processes the fact that Aerith is terrified not of this man, but for him, when there’s a booming shout from the door.

Another man wearing a similarly cut jet black suit and a pair of sunglasses, who reminds her so viscerally of— “Rudolph?”

“Hey, Princess,” Reno wheezes, eyes rolling toward the sky as the back of his head falls among the flowers.

Complete silence. And then—

“Did no one else notice that those flowers grew to full bloom right before our eyes?!” Zack screeches.

“Aerith’s bodyguards?” Tifa repeats, blinking wildly. After Aerith got them to lay an unconscious Reno onto the sofa, the man who introduced himself as Rude explained the situation concisely.

To be honest, Zack is a little more interested in the fact that Aerith is apparently some kind of magical girl, but Tifa has her priorities.

“Yes, we’ve been protecting Aerith since—”

“Protecting?” Her trembling voice rises to a fever pitch, a tone Zack has only ever heard when he was in some kind of danger. “Well you didn’t do a very good job of that now did you, Rudolph? If you had seen the state she was in—”

“You’re right, there’s no excuse.” Rude slips off his shades and pockets them, revealing somber brown eyes. “I’m grateful you saved her life, Tifa.”

Tifa grits her teeth and looks so—disappointed?

But Aerith verbalizes his suspicions before Zack can. “Wait, do you two know each other?”

Before either of them can reply, there’s a groan from the living room and Aerith immediately runs over, is kneeling by his side when the rest of them catch up. He stirs as she smoothes the bangs away from his forehead, opens his eyes and gazes right into hers, smiles—before shifting focus completely to Rude.

“Did someone call you Rudolph?”

Rude’s eyes widen in alarm, but it’s Aerith who smacks him in the chest with her balled up fists. “You don’t see me for weeks and that’s the first thing you have to say?! Do you even know how scared I was, how worried? I thought—I thought—” She dissolves into a tearful, hiccuping mess as she clutches at his shirt and buries her face into his chest.

“Glad you’re alive, too, Princess,” Reno mutters, though his gruff tone belies the way he tenderly crushes her into him, hands shaking as he holds on tight. There’s no mistaking it.

This is her family.

Zack reaches for Tifa’s hand and gives it a light squeeze, which she returns with a soft, almost inaudible sigh. At her heels, Tofu whines in sympathy.

And so, after seven short days, Aerith Faremis leaves the Fairhart household.

Chapter Text

“Rudolph!” At the scatter of brightly verdant plumage into the air, Tifa slows her approach, smiling sheepishly at her growing reflection in a pair of shades. “Oops, sorry.”

“It’s fine, they nearly finished it,” Rudolph replies, tucking an obviously half-full bag of breadcrumbs into the pocket of his shorts. It reminds her so clearly of that stoic, yet considerate young man who never left Master Zangan’s side except to feed the crows circling the base of Mount Nibel.

“I still can’t believe it,” Tifa murmurs, shaking her head and glancing sidelong at him. “Of all the small towns in all of Gaia, I never would have guessed meeting you right here in my own backyard.”

“Likewise.” Stoic indeed.

“So—have you been in contact with Master Zangan much?”

“No.” Ah. “Not since he called me an utter disgrace to the Zangan Ryu name after taking up a full-time position with Shinra.”

“He didn’t!” Tifa’s eyes balloon wide in shock.

Rudolph’s lips twitch at that. “Nothing I didn’t deserve.”

But she still can’t fathom it, blubbers a mile a minute to convince him otherwise. “No, I’m sure he didn’t mean it that way. You know he was always rather brusque with his words, and he was probably just being harder on you because you were his favorite.”

“Favorite?” A single eyebrow emerges from behind his sunglasses.

“Yes, of course!” Tifa nods vehemently, arms crossed in self satisfaction. “You traveled all over Gaia with him, after all. The longest out of all his pupils. And Master Zangan always spoke so highly of you to others.”

“You never heard him talk about you.” A brisk wind picks up, mussing up her hair and scattering leaves and pollen all over.

“Huh?”

But he doesn’t repeat himself—just as he never repeated his instructions so many years ago—changes the subject as he removes his shades to wipe them against the front of his shirt. “I heard what happened to Nibelheim.” And, so many years later, she learns that Rudolph’s eyes are hazel. And right now they are so full of remorse. “I’m very sorry about your home—”

“Thank you, but—” She takes a deep, clarifying breath as she closes her eyes, as she tilts her face toward the sun. “This is my home now.” Tifa’s already learned she cannot change the past, nor her memories, or the pain that still lingers, sometimes. But she’s also learned that a life spent haunted by the past isn’t one that her mother or father would ever wish for her. Isn’t a life being lived. “And I’m glad that Gongaga can now be your home, too. How have you all been settling in, anyway?”

“Well, Reno’s ankle is still pretty banged up, but Aerith got most of the swelling down.” Her guilt must be pretty evident, because he quickly follows up with, “Don’t worry. He likes when Aerith fusses over him.”

“And Aerith is doing well?” Tifa worries her bottom lip with her teeth. “She still won’t let us come over to help—keeps saying we’ve done enough.”

“You have. And she’s fine. Says the house will finally be guest-presentable once she gets her hands on the most perfect accent pillows from Cosmo Canyon.”

Tifa giggles at that. Classic Aerith. “And you?”

“Well.” He swipes the back of his hand over his forehead, dotting the ground below with a fresh shower of sweat. “Getting used to everything but the heat. Tried going for a run just now, but this heat is brutal even for spring.”

“Gongaga springs are no joke,” Tifa murmurs sagely. “That’s why Zack always gets his runs in before the sun gets too high. And the route he takes in jungle is pretty well shaded—you should ask him to take you next time.”

This time, both of Rudolph’s eyebrows raise in thoughtful deliberation. “I might do that, thanks.”

“Oh!” Tifa exclaims, smacking a fist into her open palm. “That reminds me! We’ve been betting on who took his old bedroom—the one with the ceiling of glow-in-the-dark stars. My money’s on you. Please please please tell me I’m right?” She asks, turning hopeful eyes his way.

Rudolph’s lips curve into a rare smile. “No, we all easily decided that room is reserved for the new arrival.”

“Oh. Is another one of your, ah—” She leans in, keeping her voice low and inconspicuous. “—associates coming?

And, so many years later, Tifa learns that Rudolph’s laugh is softly rumbling and brimming with warmth. “Ah, no, sorry, I thought you knew. Aerith is pregnant.”

“She’s what?!”

Chapter Text

Zack wakes with the sun, eyes fluttering open as light peeks in through their crooked bedroom blinds he somehow always forgets to adjust. He slides his arm out from under Tifa’s head and kisses the top of her bare shoulder before slowly shifting his weight toward the outer edge of the bed, careful not to make a single creak.

He’s not careful enough.

A pair of perfectly round and adorably brown eyes snap open at the foot of their bed. Tofu watches as he slips on a pair of shorts and socks, tongue poking pink and crooked out the corner of her mouth while her tail wiggles between a pair of heavenly shaped calves. Without opening her eyes, Tifa reaches blindly down and Tofu meets her halfway, nuzzling her entire face into an open palm.

Zack melts at the sight. Snaps a quick picture with his phone before crouching down to kiss a soft fluffy forehead, smiles wide when the little pup’s tongue licks him all over his lips and chin. Tifa’s hand wanders toward his cheek and Zack nuzzles into it, kisses up her palm to her wrist and would travel further if not for Tofu stretching onto her back, hind legs kicking tiny yet surprisingly sturdy feet into his chest.

“You’re gonna be late,” Tifa murmur-laughs, voice still drowsy with sleep.

“Nah, Rude’s always exactly on time,” Zack replies, ghosting his fingertips against Tofu’s soft pink belly before swooping in to capture Tifa’s lips.

He leaves them huddled together and heads down to the kitchen, fills the machine with enough grinds and water for three and a half incredibly strong cups. By the time he’s toeing on his sneakers on his way out the door, the smell of freshly brewed coffee begins to fill the air.

And by the time he reaches the end of the house’s walkway, Rude arrives, exactly on time. Zack grins, waves a wordless good morning, then shoots down the street toward the town entrance. Rude keeps pace with him the entire run.

They return after thirty minutes to find Tifa outside the house, hair adorably messy and still dressed in her pajamas—one of Zack’s new t-shirts and linen shorts—with a leash in one hand and a pair of towels draped around her neck.

Tofu immediately perks up at their arrival, strains on her leash and stomps her front paws in impatience when she can’t reach them sooner. Zack swoops eagerly down to greet her, but it’s Rude’s legs that she paws at until he bends low and offers some breadcrumbs from the plastic bag in his pocket.

Zack, heartbroken at the betrayal, buries his sweaty face into the towel around Tifa’s neck. She pats him soothingly on the back with her leashed hand and slips the second towel free with the other. Tosses it over to Rude, who catches it easily and nods in appreciation.

Tofu remains blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding above, too busy enjoying her morning treat. She would lick the bag clean—and Rude would let her—if not for a quick tug on her leash. “She’s gotten so chonky since you’ve been spoiling her rotten.”

Rude’s eyes are hidden beneath his usual shades, but his lips curve wide and easy. “Reno said the same thing about Aerith because of you.”

Tifa laughs but Zack shakes his head knowingly. “She smacked him real good for that one, huh?” When the only answer is an even wider smile, even Zack can’t help but laugh as well.

Eventually, after wiping off, Rude tosses his towel back to Zack and waves a wordless goodbye before jogging off. Tofu whines softly when she can no longer see him, and Zack huffs. “I used to be her favorite guy.”

“Does it help that you’re still my favorite guy?” Tifa asks consolingly, leaning her head into his warm bare shoulder.

“Yeah,” he admits, leaning in for a quick kiss. She tastes like coffee with a splash of milk. “But only a little.”

“Hey—” But her protests are short-lived when Zack licks his way into her mouth. And he would lick her clean—for all their neighbors to see—if not for an unpleasant stinky waft. Tifa’s nose crinkles against his and they break apart to stare down at Tofu, hunched vulnerably over and staring up at them with innocent, unblinking eyes.

A brisk walk to the garbage can later and they’re back home, making a beeline for the bathroom. Tifa holds Tofu over the sink as Zack rinses and dries off her paws. She gives him a lick of gratitude on his nose before being whisked out of the bathroom.

As Zack’s shower begins, Tifa sets Tofu onto her kitchen rug before filling the kettle and setting it onto the stove to boil. Next, she fills a bowl with ice cold water from the fridge, grabs a homemade peanut butter biscuit from the canister, and sets it in front of Tofu. Finally, she clears away her empty coffee mug into the sink and sets Zack’s favorite tea cup and strainer onto the counter. Along with three extra mugs. Looseleaf oolong in one, cherry blossom green tea in the second, and a bag of lapsang souchong in the third.

Tofu has long since finished her treat and has taken to napping in a sunbeam, crumbs scattered around her head. Tifa snaps a quick picture with her phone before making her way to the bathroom. The door opens to a thick cloud of steam, so she reaches blindly and ends up squirting a bit too much toothpaste onto her toothbrush. Her mouth is so full of foam that by the time her vision clears enough to read the message smudged onto the fogged mirror—You’re my favorite guy too <3—she doesn’t stand a chance.

Toothpaste froth dribbles down the side of her mouth to plop right onto her—Zack’s—t-shirt.

Zack pokes his head out and winks in the mirror’s reflection. “Meant every word.”

Tifa laughs and chucks a towel at his head before quickly finishing up at the sink. Leaves Zack to dry off as she heads back into the kitchen, where Tofu has flopped onto her back, paws wiggling in the air. A sure sign of a vivid dream. Tifa snaps another picture before texting both to Zack, whose subsequent “Awww!!!” booms from down the hall. She gets an immediate reply—Tofu’s face a fluffy white blur as she nuzzles into Tifa’s hand. “Awww…” Saves the image into an ever growing album while turning the radio dials to her favorite jazz station, though she knows it will be short-lived.

Today feels like a pancake kind of day, so she gets out her biggest mixing bowl and measures from memory. Two cups of flour, a fourth cup of sugar, four teaspoons of baking powder and a good pinch of baking soda, two pinches of salt, a splash of vanilla extract, a single large egg, and enough oat milk to make the perfect consistency. Last but not least—a healthy scoop of dark chocolate chips.

The pancakes are sizzling and the kettle is whistling and the radio is crooning by the time Zack joins her in the kitchen. She tilts her face toward him when he hugs her from behind and gets a fresh hit of minty freshness on her tongue.

Zack sways to the bluesy beat as he takes the kettle and pours a full cup of oolong and a full cup of green, before pouring the rest into the lapsang, filling it halfway. By the time the tea is perfectly steeped, the front door opens. Loudly.

“I’m jussayin’ we can’t name ’em after a flower if it’s a boy!”

“And I’m jussayin’ it’s going to be a girl—but there’s nothing wrong with Frangipani for a boy!”

“Frangipani Faremis? You want to name our child Frangipani Faremis? That’s child abuse no matter what pops outta ya!”

“It means spring and new beginnings!”

“It means dooming the brat to be bullied!”

“You can call him Frani for short,” Zack chimes in with a shit-eating grin, despite Tifa shaking her head in warning.

“Thank you Zack. I’m glad someone around here has some taste.” Aerith sniffs haughtily as Reno shoots him a mutinous glare. “W-wait, you’re not making fun of me, right?”

Her lower lip trembles and Tifa hastily slams her tray onto the table. “Whooo wants chocolate chip pancakes with ginger butter and fermented cabbage?!”

“Oooh, my fav!” Aerith bubbles cheerfully. Tifa pulls out a dining chair and helps her sit before shooting her sternest Be nice! look at both Zack and Reno in turn.

Zack serves Aerith her cherry blossom green tea and plops one of his pancake’s onto Aerith’s stack in an offer of penitence.

Reno rolls his eyes and steals the bite from straight Aerith’s fork before grimacing from instant karma. “It tastes like feet!” He pours coffee into the empty mug on the counter and downs it black and fast, before pouring himself a second cup. The rest of the coffee perfectly tops off the remaining mug half-filled with tea.

“Thiefs get grief,” Aerith sing-songs, dousing the rest of her stack with the fermented juice. “Can you turn on the pop station?”

“Thieves,” Reno mutters, twisting the dials until he reaches the pop station. He settles on it for three seconds before turning one more station over into heavy metal.

Tofu startles onto all fours in that moment, but not from the music. Skitters out of the kitchen with her tail wagging frantically and returns following after a freshly showered Rude. He hands her a second peanut butter biscuit from the tin before taking up the mug on the counter and taking a deep sip.

“Heavy metal’s gonna scare the baby!”

“Pop will rot their brains!”

Rude wordlessly changes the station to the news and seats himself between Reno and Zack. “Thank you for the food, Tifa,” he says, bowing his head in appreciation.

“Ahh how could I forget to say it?! Thanks, Tifa!!!” Aerith gasps before elbowing Reno in the ribs. “Oops, yeah, thanks, Tifa.”

“No, no, it’s nothing. Enjoy!” Tifa laughs, shaking her head as everyone digs in.

“Always do.” Zack nudges his shoulder against hers and lingers. “And it’s never nothing.”

She smiles and catches his hand under the table, removes one of two biscuits smuggled in his palm. “Only one—she’s had two already.”

Tofu’s tail whips gently against her calf under the table.

“Breaking news! President Shinra found dead in his office in what appears to be a shocking murder-suicide with head of the science division, Professor Hojo. New details emerging—”

Aerith’s fork clatters against her empty plate. “Good fucking riddance,” she declares viciously, wiping at her mouth with a napkin.

“That’s my girl!” Reno cackles, sliding her the last half of his pancake. Zack snorts-laughs which in turn causes Tifa to giggle uncontrollably until they’re all laughing in earnest. Even Rude cracks a smile.

And Tofu, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding above, happily devours her fourth peanut butter biscuit.