***Disclaimer: I do not own anything. If I did, I wouldn't be writing fanfic.***

***Warning: Mild language. Cid is in this story. He had a foul mouth. Caveat lector.***

Unnatural Disaster

"I really don't think this is a good idea, Cloud," Tifa said, brushing her hair, standing in front of her mirror.

"Well, I can't help it that Barret's busy. And you yourself vetoed Vincent, 'cause you said the kids were scared of him. Who does that leave? Yuffie?" Cloud answered from the bathroom, where he was unsuccessfully attempting to slick back his hair with a wet comb. All he managed to do was fragment the vertical spikes into many soft, limp tendrils which pointed in all directions and fell over his face.

"She needs someone to babysit her," Tifa commented, tying her hair ribbon at the end of her ponytail. She sighed. "I guess you're right, as usual. I just wish he didn't have such coarse manners. I can maybe understand smoking, but his language... If I come back and Denzel's talking like him, I'm going to wash both their mouths out with soap!"

"And Cid knows that, and that I'd help you do it, too. He'll be fine; he's probably a lot better with kids than some people I know, myself included. He's married now, remember."

"Why couldn't Shera come, again?"

"Some sort of engineering conference, I think. It'll be fine. It's only for a few hours tonight, just to give us a break. The kids can handle Cid." Cloud gave up on his hair and came back into the bedroom.

Tifa looked up at him and laughed. "You look like Zack now, with that hair in your eyes. You really should've just left the spikes."

Cloud blinked at the reference to his old friend, and momentarily thought he felt a presence behind him. He smiled, a sight rare on his face. "But I wanted it to look at least halfway sophisticated. All the gentlemen now have their hair slicked back."

"Who cares? It's dark in the theater, anyway," Tifa answered, standing up and running her hand through his hair, messing it up back into its normal disarray. "It looks fine to me."

"Whatever," Cloud muttered, shaking his head and sending droplets flying. "You almost ready?"

"Yep," she answered, straightening her necklace and flipping her long bangs back over one ear. "You bet."

They went downstairs together, arm in arm, to where Denzel and Marlene were playing at the bar, racing cars and motorcycles from one end to the other. Cid was nowhere in sight.

"Isn't he supposed to be here by now?" Tifa asked quietly, looking around.

"He is here; I met him at the front door not five minutes ago when I went to pull Fenrir around. I don't know where he could've gone, though..."

"Cid's outside," Marlene chimed in.

"He had to go smoke," Denzel added, making his motorcycle jump the gap to one of the tables. Marlene made a helicopter pick up her car so it could follow.

Cloud stopped where he was, bringing Tifa to a sudden halt, too.

"Tifa, maybe we should call this off. We could wait until there's someone else to watch the kids..."

"But tonight is your birthday. Of all days, you deserve this one off. If we wait, it won't have any meaning."

"Fine. I'll find Cid and talk to him."

Cloud strode out the door, looking left and right for the errant pilot. Tifa stood over Denzel and Marlene, watching them play for a moment.

"You know the rules, right?" she asked, and both of them looked up and nodded solemnly.

"No running," Marlene began the litany.

"No screaming," Denzel said.

"No fighting."

"No going outside."

"Obey the babysitter."

"Eat all your vegetables.

"Go to bed on time."

"And stay out of the liquor," Denzel finished.

Marlene's mouth made a big "O". Tifa stared at the boy, trying to keep a straight face.

"I'm not going to ask who told you that one," she said. Denzel looked at the floor and grinned.

The front door was pushed open again at that moment, and Cloud came back in, followed by Cid, looking as chastised as possible, which wasn't much.

"Ah, come on, Spiky," the spaceman was saying. "I gotta have a smoke at least once."

"Not in three hours, you don't. Dinner and a movie don't take that long," Cloud replied, picking up his motorcycle goggles from a table.

Tifa shook her head. "If you absolutely must, Cid, you can, just so long as you keep it outside. Denzel's finally over his Geostigma - I don't want him getting asthma next."

"Sure thing, lady!"

Cloud's head hit his hands. Cid's back was toward the blond, but Tifa saw his movement and half-smiled.

"You'll be fine with the kids, right, Cid?" she asked, sweeping toward the door.

"Course, lady, why wouldn't we?" he asked. "Shera'll be here in a few hours, so don't you worry 'bout us. You an' Cloud go have fun. Take as long as you like - I've got the helm!"

"Thanks, Cid," Tifa said, taking Cloud's arm. "See you later tonight."

Cloud said nothing but nodded to the pilot as he and Tifa left.

Marlene and Denzel let out a chorus of "bye!" and "have fun!" as the door shut. They sat quietly at the table they had been playing at until the sound of Fenrir's motor died away into the distance. Then they turned expectant eyes on Cid.

"So," Denzel said, "what's the plan for tonight?"

One movie and half an hour of playing cars later, Cid was almost happy to have to go to the small kitchen and prepare dinner for the three of them. While he was trying to heat the stove without burning the whole bar down, Shera called on his PHS.

"Hi, honey, but I've got some bad news," she said, her voice a bit worried but not overly so.

"What's wrong? If it's those guys from Junon again, I swear I'll-"

"No swearing, if you're in Heaven. And no, it's not them again, thank Minerva. It's just that the conference is going to run over a bit...they've provided dinner, so I'll be fine, but it may be another couple of hours before I'm able to leave. Are you going to be fine with the Strifes for that long? I could always leave early..."

"No, no. We're fine. Havin' a great time. You enjoy yourself."

"Okay. Thanks, sweetie," she answered.

Cid grinned like an idiot - he always did when she called him that.

"Hey!" he said suddenly, afraid she'd already hung up.

"Yeah?"

He felt embarrassed. "I know I'm the sitter and'm supposed to know this crap, but - how do you make spaghetti?"

"Oh. Oh, boy. Um, first you boil some water-"

"How much? I've got a five gallon pot here..."

"Oh, goddess..."

In the end, the three had frozen chocobo patties and chocolate milk for dinner. Surprisingly, Cid enjoyed it - the two children, not so much.

"This is lousy," Denzel complained, scraping the breading off the fried meat.

"Don't use bad language, boy," Cid reprimanded, taking a huge swig of chocolate milk.

"Yo're one to talk," Marlene muttered in her imitation-Barret voice.

"What's that, lil' lady?" the pilot asked, turning to her.

She smiled sweetly at him. "May I be excused?"

Denzel started choking on his milk at that point, distracting Cid, and letting Marlene escape unseen to the kitchen with her plate of half-eaten chocobo. She was quick operating the sink disposal, destroying all evidence so that by the time Cid came stalking in to see what she was up to, she was busily washing and rinsing her empty plate.

He returned to the doorway in time to intercept Denzel, who was trying the same tactic but was far from adept at it.

"Back to the table, young man, and finish what's on your plate! Do you want me tellin' your parents that you wasted food?"

He shepherded the disappointed boy back to the table. Marlene, finished with her dishwashing, passed through on her way upstairs and whispered, "You know, there are poor starving children in Wutai who would kill you for a piece of fried chocobo!" Her eyes went wide as she said it, and they both burst out in uncontrollable giggles. Cid scowled.

"Listen up, you. I'm goin' t' step outside for a minute and look at the weather. Neither of you do anythin', right?"

"Yes, sir," they answered together, nodding angelically.

Denzel waited until the pilot was out the door and it was shut firmly behind him. "He's going to smoke." He relished the sound of the forbidden word.

Marlene made a face. "I thought Cloud told him not to do that."

"Tifa told him he could. He'll listen to her any day over Cloud."

"That's not fair," Marlene pouted. "Everyone says Cloud's the hero-" She sniffed suddenly. "I smell smoke."

"Duhhh," Denzel said. "You thought I was kidding when I said Cid wasn't going to look at the weather?"

"Tifa told him to keep it outside. He's afraid of her, so he'll obey her. This smoke is inside."

Denzel sniffed the air, too, and suddenly coughed. It certainly did smell like smoke. It brought back unpleasant memories, of the falling of the Plate, and of Midgar in flames, and of fear. He clutched his head.

"Denzel, we've gotta do something," Marlene pleaded, tugging at his sleeve. "What if there's a fire?"

"Uh - okay!" He jumped up from the table, accidentally-on-purpose overturning his chocobo-laden plate, and ran for the front door. "Cid! CID!" Flinging open the door, he looked left and right for the airman, still yelling his name. "Cid! Fire!"

The spaceman was around the corner of the bar, eyes closed blissfully as he breathed the smoke in and out. How long til Shera could get here? Not soon enough, he thought as he heard Denzel calling his name. Then he caught the word "fire" and he dropped the cigarette.

"Hell!" he barked, racing for the door. He shoved past the boy and skidded to a stop in the main room, looking around for the trouble. Marlene was standing at the kitchen door, staring inside with wide eyes. Cid rushed straight into the kitchen.

The front eye of the stove was still on, and was smoking profusely.

"Crap," Cid growled before he remembered kids were present. He grinned guiltily. "Guess I forgot t' turn it off after the spaghetti fiasco. It's okay, kids, Cid'll take care of it."

He reached over and turned the eye off, but the smoke kept coming. Biting back several inappropriate words, he filled up a glass at the sink and poured it on the eye. That took care of the smoke, at least. But apparently there was grease on the eye, which started popping and sizzling when the water touched it. Before Cid knew what was going on, he had a raging grease fire on his hands. He stared in horror for all of a split second, then whirled around, looking for the item Denzel was hurriedly dragging out of its cabinet. A fire extinguisher.

Grabbing the canister from the boy, Cid turned it full blast onto the stove, spraying white foam on the fire, and, incidentally, everywhere else, too. But at least the smoke and fire were gone.

With a sigh, he set the extinguisher down on the floor and stared at the mess. He was completely unprepared for Marlene's yell of "Thank you, Mr. Cid!" and her sudden hug around his waist. Denzel stood at the doorway, one hand on his head, and stared blankly at the white-covered stove. Cid smiled shakily.

"Well, now that that's over, how 'bout we go get you two ready for bed?" the pilot suggested, wiping a hand across his forehead. And I gotta clean this up before Tifa gets back!

His thoughts were interrupted by a shrill siren screaming from the main room.

"Hell!"

He dashed into the bar and glanced about wildly before spotting the cause of the alarm. A smoke detector above one of the windows was going off, because, through the open window, smoke was billowing in in great gray clouds. His hands went cold as he realized that, when he had come running inside to put out the stove fire, he had forgotten to put out his own cigarette and had just dropped it on the ground. This was really, really not good.

Cid's first instinct was to get the kids safely out of the way, and then focus on putting out the fire. He headed toward the front door, yelling for the two to follow him, before he remembered that Cloud had left a gas can on the porch after topping off Fenrir earlier that afternoon. If the fire was near there... He turned around abruptly, nearly tripping over Denzel. He grabbed him in one hand, Marlene in the other, and sped toward the kitchen's back door. It opened onto a narrow alleyway, dead-ending to his left and curving around the building in an "L" to his right. The children stumbling to keep up, he half-dragged them around the corner, only to find that the fire was entirely blocking the narrow way.

"Back inside, kiddos," Cid said, trying to keep his voice calm amid his panic. "There's another door, right?"

"No," Denzel answered, shaking his head - he was already shaking all over.

"Are we gonna die?" Marlene asked quietly, holding onto Cid's arm like she would never let go.

"Nah. Whatever gave you that idea?" He could feel her shaking, and it was making him even more nervous. "Where's my phone? I'll just call the department, and -" He suddenly realized that he had left his phone on the counter after Shera's call, and that the extinguisher foam had covered it. Denzel came running with the PHS at that moment, but, much as Cid had feared, it was completely dead. His head spun. "Okay, where's that extinguisher?"

Denzel left his side again long enough to dash to the kitchen and come back dragging the canister - it was light enough that he could move it now. Not a good sign, Cid thought, picking it up. It was almost empty.

The pilot thought fast. He was very good at that, having been in numerous situations where his own life, as well as others', had depended on his reflexes and quick thinking. He saw a possibility, and ran for it.

"C'mon!" He swung Marlene into his arms, one hand still holding the extinguisher, and carried her back through the kitchen door, Denzel right behind. The fire had yet to spread to the side of the building, where the metal sheeting only barely covered the wooden structure, so only the ground and several scattered barrels and crates were aflame. It wouldn't take long for the building itself to catch, though, and when it went...

Cid set Marlene down as close to the fire as the heat would allow and steadied her. "Denzel, come 'ere."

The boy came up, even with them.

"Get ready to run. An' I mean run. You got that? As soon as I give the word." Cid's voice was taut, and the children were so frightened that it was all they could do to nod and hold hands.

The pilot took one step closer to the fire, holding the extinguisher out in front of him. It felt terribly empty, he prayed - yes, even he actually prayed - to the goddess that there would be enough. "Get ready," he called, then held down the lever and sprayed the fire, covering the ground as best he could. It didn't seem to do much at first, but then, sending up great billows of smoke as if in protest, the flames began to retreat. Not much, but there was enough of a path between the fiery crates for a very slender person to pass relatively safely. The nozzle jerked in his hand and he realized that it was now completely empty.

"RUN!" he practically screamed, stepping back as the children tore past him. They made it past the wreckage just as it returned to life, flames shooting skyward as if to make up for lost ground. The rush of heat made Cid step back, then run inside as he saw there would be no way out through there for him. He headed at double-speed for the front door. It was incredibly lucky for him that he tripped over one of Denzel's toy cars right at the doorway between the kitchen and the bar, for just as he was pushing himself back to his feet, the gas can on the porch exploded. The metal front door was ripped off its hinges and was flung into the room, flipping over Cid's head and landing somewhere behind the bar, amid shattering glass. An orange cloud billowed through the now-open doorway and left a scorched mark on the floor. Cid stared in utter shock, for once his mind a blank, both of ideas and of fitting words.

The front of the building was now on fire, blocking that as an avenue of escape. The back was no good, as was the entire lefthand side. Cid didn't know if the right side had any windows, but he certainly hoped it did.

He stood up rather shakily and glanced around. Nope, no windows. He headed up the stairs three at a time and hurriedly poked his head into each room in succession. No windows, that didn't lead into either the back alley or the fire raging in front. Cid allowed himself a insane-sounding laugh. This really took the cake. Burned to death in a bar, in a fire started by his own cigarette. It might be comical, if he wasn't the one directly involved.

He headed back downstairs at a slower pace, almost resigned to the events about him. He briefly wondered if he could make a run through the front door without getting too badly burned, but as he watched the metal around the doorframe melt and the frame itself collapse half across the opening, he discarded the idea. Well, he'd always wanted to die fighting - just not fire fighting.

Wandering slowly back into the kitchen, he wondered if the irony would be too great if he decided to have one last smoke. He was reaching for the pack when he saw the giant spaghetti pot sitting in the sink, full of water. An ordinary bucket-brigade would do nothing against the present inferno, especially with a brigade of one, but Cid's eyes nevertheless lit up. An idea formed in his head, spun around for several seconds, and quickly blossomed into a full-fledged plan.

Rubbing his hands together, he pulled the pot out of the sink and set it on the bar table. Returning quickly to the kitchen, he jerked cabinets open until he found the one he wanted, and withdrew an absolutely gigantic double-boiler, a relic from Heaven's days as a soup kitchen. He set it in the sink to fill, and strode purposefully into the bar. He retrieved the front door from behind the bar and hauled it out into the open, kicking several tables aside to make room. Throwing it down, he grabbed several of Denzel's toy cars next, placing one under each corner of the door. He put one foot on it to test, making sure it rolled easily and straight.

He ran back into the kitchen just as the giant pot was beginning to overflow and grabbed it up, grunting at the weight of it. He set it down in the center of the door, adding the other large pot for good measure. If he was only going to get one chance at this, he'd better make sure he made the most of it.

Then he turned to the area behind the counter, to the array of liquor arranged there in neat rows. Not having the brazenness to use the most expensive ones there, he grabbed several bottles and arranged them carefully around the two pots, with an eye to the different blast strength of each. He couldn't help opening one, though, and taking a long drink before replacing it on the homemade contraption. Might as well die happy, he thought, once more reaching for a cigarette. He half-laughed at himself and let his hand fall, then kicked gently at the door. It rolled forward, and it took only moments of steering to position it directly before the front doorway.

He paused only a second, muttering a prayer to the goddess and to Lady Luck, and kicked the door as hard as he could. It raced smoothly toward the flame-filled opening, but by the time it crossed the threshold it had lost most of its momentum and coasted to a stop, just as Cid had hoped it would. He hunkered down behind an overturned table and waited. And waited. Frowning, he poked his head up and over the edge just as the doorway lit up with multicolored flames from the exploding liquor.

Cid fell back with a cursing yell, only to leap to his feet just as quickly. The explosions had caused the pots to overturn, momentarily smothering the fire in the immediate vicinity, and Cid took his chance, knowing he wouldn't get another one. He got up his speed and made a running leap through the doorway, arms crossed over his face to shield himself from the intense heat.

He skidded to a stop on his chest in the dirt and asphalt of the front parking area. Groaning, he pushed himself up onto his raw elbows, then his hands. He had to find the kids, make sure they were safe, then find a way to stop the fire before it destroyed the entire bar. He sat up slowly, his eyes taking their time to adjust and focus on the large dark shape not two feet in front of him. Wait, was that...? It was.

Fenrir.

He squinted up at the bike, trying to see if it was occupied. A head of impossibly-spiked hair turned to face him, and he grinned sheepishly as he saw Marlene and Denzel both standing safely, close to the bike.

"I guess this job wasn't all it was cracked up to be," he began, but Cloud shook his head and sighed.

The blond turned to Tifa, who sat behind him. "Be my guest. All I've got on me right now is Hell Firaga."

She swung easily off the bike and stepped toward the bar, her right arm beginning to glow. Cid stood up as a wave of water shot forward from Tifa's outstretched hand, spreading left and right until it was a curtain, and then racing toward the fire, falling on it and smothering it completely. She sent a second wave around the corner of the building just for good measure, then turned to Cid, her eyes severe.

"Uhhh...lady, I'm willin' to take full responsibility for that. I'm sorry. It's all my fault," he began, but stuttered to a stop when he saw a smile beginning in her eyes. "I can pay for it, too..."

"It's okay," she said, not at all angry. "The children are safe, no serious damage was done, and I've always wanted to rewallpaper the kitchen anyway."

"Yeah, but - I'd feel really bad if I left you with this... Is there anythin' I can do to pay you back?"

Tifa smiled and was about to shake her head when Cloud laid a hand on her shoulder.

"As a matter of fact, there is. Marlene, Denzel, how would you like to go to Costa del Sol for a couple of weeks? Cid will be running deliveries for a while."

Amid the children's cheers, shouts, arm waving, and general jumping about, Cid saw Tifa smile half-apologetically at him and shrug.

"Highwind Delivery Service doesn't sound so bad," she commented.

Cid grinned nervously. Not too bad at all, actually, if you thought about it. But boy oh boy, Shera was going to kill him!

A/N: I've had this sitting on my computer for a while now. Depending how it's received, I have half an idea to expand this and make a sort of mini-series, wherein Marlene and Denzel get babysat by each member of AVALANCHE, and see what happens!

A/N II: Do not try this at home. It will (more than likely) not save your life. Don't you just love Final Fantasy physics?!