Day 7

January 16th

6:07 a.m.

So… here we are. The last entry for my part of the journal. Hopefully today will be especially interesting, to finish this with a bang. Of course eventually Cloud will get it and you'll get to read about our hectic life again… but… still. I could use a bang.

6:08 a.m.

That didn't come out right… Ignore that last bit.

6:30 a.m.

Hiding in Cloud's room, leaning against his door to keep it shut.

Cloud was sleeping in his bed on top of the covers (Well, the covers were on the floor… he was sleeping all sprawled out) with "Mini-Tifa" on his face. I ducked down next to him. He looked so peaceful when he was sleeping… So not-out-to-get-revenge on anybody…

"Cloud, wake up, it's 'Kid's Choice' day today… you know if we get up later than them they—" I said to him quietly, to not startle him.

Cloud opened his eyes wide.

"Did you say that it was Kid's Choice?" he pronounced quickly as he turned to face me.

"Yep. And you know if—"

Before I realized what was happening, Cloud grabbed me and flipped me over to the other side of his bed, where we both fell onto the floor on top of his blankets.

I stared at him, expecting some kind of explanation.

"Cloud, why did you just do that?" I asked.

Cloud stared back, nervously.

"Uh… you startled me…" he replied, looking a bit out of it.

"So you threw me over your bed and onto the floor?"

Cloud nodded.

We heard Marlene's voice echo down the hallway.

"Cloud, have you seen Tifa?" she said as she approached the door.

"Get down!" Cloud said as he ducked down, lower to the floor. For some reason, I ducked too. We heard her walk into the room, stop a moment, and leave.

"Why are you hiding from an eight year old girl?" I asked him. Then, I noticed it. My little white cat sticking out the front of his pants. Right there in his waistband. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I just pointed at it weakly. He looked down at it, then back up at me.

"Um… you… you look really nice today, Tifa."

I tried to think of some kind of comeback, like "Flattery will get you no where," but I was so surprised I couldn't think for a moment. Before I could realize that I didn't even brush my hair that day and I was still in my pajamas, he got up and climbed over the bed. I assumed that he would go apologize to Marlene, but he just locked the door.

"Give me ten minutes to prepare myself."

So here we are, just sitting here while Cloud stares into space, "preparing himself".

What a fun start to the day.

7:39 a.m.

Hm. Cloud is actually pretty happy about the choice.

The kids chose snowboarding at Gongaga Mountains. (They added a few nice, safe courses there… You know, so people don't die trying to go down them…) Denzel wants Cloud to teach him, and Marlene wants me to teach her. At the end of the day, they're going to challenge each other in a race…

This should actually be fun. I haven't been real snowboarding since we had no choice but to a few years ago… Well, at least that's what Cloud thinks. I've actually gone a couple of times since then on my days off when Cloud and the kids were gone... I would say that that's an unfair advantage, but Cloud has an advantage against me in the motorcycle game, considering he actually drives one... So this is totally fair.

8:10 a.m.

Cid is picking us up and taking us in a few minutes. We would drive there, but unfortunately our car exploded, and we would walk, but that would take too long, especially with the kids… So Cid volunteered, being the nice guy that he is…

And also so he has an excuse to tell Yuffie that he's busy for the day. Apparently she kept him up last night rambling and rambling about something, but he couldn't understand her because of her tongue being numb. Poor girl… I bet it was about Vincent… I wonder why she hasn't called yet...?

8:15 a.m.

Realized I didn't have my cell phone on me, so I asked Cloud where it was.

"Uh… Home, I guess." Was his response.

Then I heard my ringtone go off.

He froze, slowly reached into his pocket, opened it to answer it, and closed it, hanging up.

It was Yuffie.

He is so getting beat.

9:40 a.m.

All suited up inside the Inn, about to go for our practice runs with the kids.

"We're so gonna beat you, Cloud!" Marlene said in a strong, determined voice.

"Yeah," I chimed in playfully. "You're so going down, Cloud."

Cloud flipped his hair and posed, Denzel doing the same. I couldn't help but smile at it.

"I'd like to see you try," Cloud said in his "sexy" voice. (No joke. He calls it his sexy voice. He says it's what he uses when he messes up a delivery and the customer happens to be female. He also says it's what he uses to get out of trouble with me. Haha.)

"See you at the finish line," Denzel added.

This will be fun.

11:20 a.m.

Marlene is doing pretty well so far… She learned how to stand up on the board and ride a few feet without falling. She's doing better than I thought she would… She's usually not into things like this.

I wonder how Denzel is doing…?

11:58 a.m.

Denzel flew past us as I was trying to teach Marlene how to turn, followed by Cloud riding right behind him. I got a text message from Cloud.

It read:

Tifa—

Whoops, sorry. Hope we didn't startle you. Didn't see you there as we were kicking your butt.

-Cloud

Oh, it's on now. It's on.

2:30 p.m.

Marlene can now ride a good distance and turn with ease… pretty much. Now I'm teaching her how to ride with more speed. I've found I'm a bit rusty myself… The video game isn't as much like it as I remembered…

3:13 p.m.

Got a text from Cloud arranging the time.

Tifa—

4 o' clock is when you'll lose.

I'll see you at the finish line, much after we have finished.

--Cloud

He probably shouldn't try to sound cool. It usually backfires on him.

3:15 p.m.

Sent a text back to him.

Cloud—

Don't try to sound cool. It backfires.

--Tifa

3:17 p.m.

Tifa—

I don't have to try. It comes naturally.

--Cloud

3:18 p.m.

Cloud—

Ha.

--Tifa

3:20 p.m.

Tifa—

You know you want me.

--Cloud

I'll pretend I didn't get that last one.

3:25 p.m.

Tifa—

Hahahahaha.

--Cloud

Should I turn my phone off?

3:35 p.m.

Tifa—

You want me so bad you can't even respond.

Hahahahaha.

--Cloud

I just turned my phone off. This is getting old.

3:56 p.m.

Alright, here we go. We're about to start. The kids are going to go down before us, and we'll be right beside them the whole time. We're riding the ski-lift up the mountain as I'm writing this. I just hope that no one get's hurt…

4:15 p.m.

The ski lift stopped pulling us up and we're stuck here. They said it wouldn't be more than a few minutes.

4:25 p.m.

Still here. I looked back at Cloud and Denzel sitting in their chairs. They stuck their tongues out at us, and we did the same.

We're so mature it astonishes me.

4:35 p.m.

Oh no. Oh no no no no no…

Got bored and decided to turn my phone on.

I have 26 missed calls from Yuffie, 10 from Vincent, 8 from Reeve, 2 from Barret and 40 texts from all of them and many, many voicemails.

The first few are relatively calm ones from Yuffie.

"Hey Tifuh, Ooffie heah…Thust wanted to talk to you avout a STOOPID FIPPIN' TARD!!! Call me back!" (Hi Tifa, it's Yuffie. Just wanted to talk you about a STUPID FLIPPIN' TARD!") I assumed she meant Vincent.

The other messages from her go on and on like that.

The first one from Vincent was:

"Tifa. Listen to me. I think Yuffie is planning something destructive. She is upset by something that happened and is being irrational. Take caution."

And the next from him was:

"Tifa. I have just spoken to Reeve. Yuffie is definitely planning something. Take serious caution."

Then, from Barret:

"Yo, Tifa! Yuffie lost her mind! Watch yourself! Tell Spikey!"

Then, from Reeve:

"Tifa, Yuffie is unleashing her frustration on whoever she can. Please, talk to her and calm her down. If anything more upsets her, I'm afraid that she'll— oh, no, she got to Vincent. Ah… Thankfully he can defend himself. Oh—wh—c---what--? F--- T--- s"

I took a deep breath and turned around to tell Cloud, who, to my horror, picked up his phone, held it up to his ear a moment, smirked and closed it.

I just knew it was Yuffie.

4:50 p.m.

Got a call from Cid.

"Tifa, Cloud! Yuffie took over my f---ing airship! She's heading your way! Get the heck out of there!" He yelled into the phone. I could hear her yelling like mad in the background.

Oh boy. Here we go. This is going to get rough.

7:13 p.m.

This is ridiculous.

We were sitting in the ski lifts, when suddenly, the whole place came under a huge shadow. We looked up and, sure enough, Cid's airship hovered above. I turned around to Cloud, who looked a bit confused.

"Cloud!" I yelled. "Yuffie's up there! She's coming to get you!"

"What?" He shouted back. It was hard to hear over the sound of the airship.

"Yuffie!" I yelled again, pointing up at the airship. He looked up again, and then down at me, eyes wide, looking a bit confused still. I told Marlene to stay in her seat and hang on tight as I slipped out and stood up on it. (Don't try this at home, kiddies.) I jumped over to Cloud's seat, hanging onto the cable above. "Yuffie is here to get you! We need to get you out of here, now, before she hurts somebody!" I explained. This time, he got it.

"Go get Marlene. We'll board down the hill. It's the fastest way." He said firmly (sounding like a leader.)

"Got it."

I climbed the cable back to my seat, picked up Marlene and told her to hang onto my back as tightly as she could, and Cloud did the same with Denzel.

We jumped out of our chairs and boarded down the mountain, side by side, zigzagging to avoid obstacles Yuffie was dropping from the ship. During this, we could hear Yuffie's voice over the speaker system on the ship:

"I'll gegchoo Cloug Sthrithe!" ("I'll get you, Cloud Strife!")

She dropped several nets aimed for Cloud, but he successfully dodged them all.

After a while we turned off course to get out of Yuffie's sights, but of course we got a bit lost; the area wasn't familiar.

We were riding normally, not going too fast, riding pretty calmly. I could feel Marlene relax her grip on me a little. Poor thing… she must have been scared…

Suddenly, we started to speed up. Naturally, both of us tilted our boards back to slow down, but it was useless. The hill was too steep. Down at the bottom of the hill we could see the beginning of a snow storm. I got a flashback of our first trip down the mountains. This path led to the same end: A drop off and a snow storm.

Just the two of us would be hard enough, but with the kids it would be even harder.

To stop I turned my board completely around until I was laid on the mountain, using my hands to try and stop, and Cloud did the same. We slowed down a little, but it wasn't enough. We both flew off the edge.

I held onto Marlene as we fell. I couldn't see Denzel or Cloud in the snow, but I knew that we would land close...

The landing was soft, thankfully, but we couldn't see anything in the storm. Just white. Lots and lots of white.

"What are we going to do?" I asked Cloud.

"I don't know. Look for somebody I guess."

So, carrying Marlene (She was very quiet, but Denzel actually seemed pretty thrilled from all of this) we started walking. There weren't so many monsters as before, probably from all of the recent construction.

After a while of walking, we spotted something in the snow. It looked like a truck. It was light grey; we could barely see it.

As we got closer to it, we could see in plain, bold red letters: W.R.O.

We ran up to it, expecting someone to be inside, but no one was there. It was unlocked, and since the kids were freezing, we climbed in and sat in the back, waiting for whoever was driving it to return.

If they didn't get killed by the monsters, that is…

8:10 p.m.

And now it's dark out. No sign of the W.R.O. who own this car. Great. We'll probably have to put together some kind of rescue mission soon. If we don't need one ourselves.

8:25 p.m.

Well, it could be worse," Cloud said suddenly.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah. You could be in your old outfit."

I shivered at the thought. I was so ridiculously cold it was just… I don't even know. Yuffie needs to make up a word for that.

8:30 p.m.

"Of course that would be better for me." He said later.

I would hit him if the kids weren't here.

8:57 p.m.

Someone's coming…

9:10 p.m.

"Daddy!" Marlene cried happily as she leapt into Barret's arms. Barret heard from Yuffie (who was actually worried about us now after she calmed down a bit) that we turned off course suddenly and didn't turn back up again. He then took one of the W.R.O's trucks and drove down here, when his truck broke down so he went to find us on foot.

He completely broke down when he found Marlene, hugging her and hugging her while Cloud lay unconscious on the floor. (Once he heard what happened he smacked Cloud so hard he passed out. He shouldn't be unconscious for long, though. I don't see any serious signs of damage.)

The W.R.O. are looking for us as I'm writing this. It shouldn't be long now… hopefully…

10:13 p.m.

They picked us up and we're on our way home. Denzel is asleep on Cloud's shoulder (who is conscious now, by the way) and Marlene is sleeping on Barret (who is also sleeping. Poor guy… all tired out. He also looks so peaceful when he's sleeping… So… not out to knock Cloud out cold…)

I can't wait to get home.

10:40 p.m.

"This is why I needed some time before we left." Cloud said as he leaned back into his seat, eyes closed. "Something dramatic always happens…" he sounded tired.

"Well, that's true with us, I guess..." I said as I took off my jacket.

"At least it's never bor--" he began to say, when suddenly his eyes widened in astonishment as he pointed weakly at me.

I looked down.

A little yellow stuffed Chocobo stuck out of the band of my pants. I had stuffed "Mini Cloud" into them trying to put it somewhere safe before we made our way down the hill.

I knew what was coming.

Cloud smiled, looking so totally pleased with himself.

"Hey, Tifa," he said.

I sighed.

"Yes, Cloud?"

"I'm in your pants."

"That's nice Cloud."

Well, I guess that's the end of my entries for now. It's been fun. Lots of craziness… Actually, this helped me realize how not-boring my life is… Thank you, Yuffie, for sharing this with us. Hopefully when we see each other again you won't be trying to capture someone in my family.

Until next time.

Sincerely, Tifa Lockhart.