Author's Note: Written for Wallwalker for the 2013 Rare Pair Fest - and a lot of fun to write it was, too! Hope y'all enjoy.

Surprise Party

"- peanuts, maraschino cherries - if you can even find them anymore - oh, and we're getting low on sake from Wutai," Tifa was saying. "I know it's expensive, but there's always someone asking for it, and if we raise the price two gil per cup and five per bottle we can probably afford to keep it in stock..." She took a desultory swipe at the bar top with the stained rag in her hand and sighed. "And if there's a sale on cleaning liquid, can you get some of that, too? Maybe our customers don't care, but it bothers me."

"Yeah, sure," Barret said, "I can get all that." His wallet was crying at the thought, but he could find the gil somehow. Couldn't make no money without spending some.

"I wanna go!" Marlene popped out from behind the bar and latched on to Barret's leg. "Papa! I wanna go too!"

Barret swept her up in one arm and deposited her on one of the bar stools. "Not this time, Marlene," he said. "I'm jus' gettin' groceries, you might as well stay here with Tifa."

"I wanna go!" Marlene wailed, her face scrunched up in a frown and hell, didn't she look just like Dyne when she was mad, he could hardly stand it.

"Honey, you ought to stay here," Tifa said, "your papa has to go on his own so he can get the - um - the B-I-R-T-H-D-A-Y C-A-K-E."

"Bee - aye - arr -" Marlene's scowl deepened. "Birds?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Tifa said, and she winked at Barret. "Anyway, wouldn't you rather stay here and play instead of going to the boring old store?"

"No!"

"Marlene, you best listen to Tifa or -"

"Actually, now that I think about it," Tifa said quickly, "maybe I ought to go with you, Barret, and help you wrangle all those birds. And you know what that means, Marlene?"

"No?" Marlene looked up at her, curious.

"It means you're in charge of the bar while we're gone!" Tifa said, leaning across the bar and smiling so big that Marlene had to smile back. "You can do that, right?"

"Yeah!"

"And since it's Monday," Tifa went on, "you know what to tell anyone who tries to come in, right?"

"Bar's closed!" Marlene said, slapping her hand on the bar.

"Right! Just like that! But just in case someone makes trouble..." Tifa looked over the rest of Seventh Heaven and the other members of AVALANCHE lounging around. "Hey, Jessie! Would you mind being Marlene's bouncer?"

"Sure thing, Tifa," Jessie said; she abandoned her computer and came over to the bar, taking the stool next to Marlene. "Anyone doesn't listen to you, Marlene, I'll throw 'em right out!"

"Yeah! Bar's closed!" Marlene hit the bar again, and Tifa winced.

"All right, let's go already," Barret grumbled. "Sooner we go, sooner we're back. You be good now, y'hear?"

"Yes, Papa," Marlene said, already distracted by the tiny empty liquor bottles Jessie was setting up for her to play with. "Gonna make bird drinks!"

"You don't know what you started," Barret told Tifa on the way out the door. "She ain't gonna forget you said we were gettin' birds, won't give us no peace 'less she sees one."

"Well, maybe..." Tifa checked that the doors had shut properly and the "Closed" sign was hanging straight. "But better than ruining the surprise, right?"

They started towards the shops, through the crowds of people that always surprised Barret. Wouldn't think so many people would stay in a rotten place like Sector 7, but then, where else were they going to go? Bad as it was, the sector was all some people had.

He said, "I don't know why you want to make such a fuss over her birthday in the first place. We can't afford no presents or fancy party, and she ain't gonna remember it long anyway - hell, I ain't sure we can afford no cake, either, now I think of it."

"Of course we can!" Tifa insisted. "Well, maybe not the rest, but we can at least get her a cake. Kids ought to get cake on their birthday... I mean, it's not every day you turn three years old!"

"Heh!" He couldn't help laughing; Tifa had a way of doing that, putting things funny without meaning to. "You talkin' like it's your birthday 'stead of Marlene's."

Tifa blushed. "Sorry, Barret, I just - I really want to do something nice for her. I know you don't like leaving her at the bar so much, so at least let me make up for it a little with a birthday cake for Marlene, okay?" She stopped suddenly and looked around at the rusty buildings with a little frown. "Actually - do you mind if we go to Wall Market instead? There's more variety, and sometimes I can get better deals..."

"Sure thing." It meant a longer walk, but hell, he'd live. Just had to remember Jessie and Wedge and Biggs were all back there at Seventh Heaven, weren't going to let nothing happen to Marlene. He got anxious sometimes, leaving her, but he didn't have no choice in the matter; gil had to come from somewhere, and so did the groceries. And cake, if Tifa had her way, which he figured she would when she was so set on it.

The way to Wall Market could be dangerous, but they didn't run into any trouble, and the market itself was usually safe enough; people there were more interested in taking your money legally than your life. Tifa set her jaw and started on the zig-zagging trail of the veteran bargain-hunter while he followed, carrying arms at the ready. One place for paper napkins, peanuts, and the salty dried peas they usually got for bar snacks, another place for whiskey, a third place for the Wutai sake and those little paper umbrellas Tifa liked to put in the fancy drinks, and somehow she even found a place with maraschino cherries for a price that wasn't too bad. Half of it was stuff Barret knew they ought to be ordering in bulk, but hell if they had the customers to justify it for anything but beer. They just bought cheap as they went and hoped they didn't run out during happy hour. Cleaning liquid they had to skip this time around; the cheapest they could find was still fifteen gil a bottle. "Well, I can always dilute some of Biggs's moonshine and use that till there's a sale, I guess," Tifa said, but she couldn't hide the longing look she gave the gleaming bottles that promised lemon-fresh scents.

After they found the cherries, they took a break by a stack of boxes in an alley that didn't smell too bad while Tifa considered their cake options. "How much money do you have left?" she asked.

"Twenty-five gil." He didn't even have to look. "And you know I got to save ten of that for Marlene's schoolin'."

"Well, I still have forty..." She kicked her foot against the ground. "Together that ought to be enough, right?"

"If we get day-old cake, maybe," Barret said glumly.

"No way! That won't do at all!" She crossed her arms and the bags with the whiskey and the jar of cherries clanked together. "It has to be decent fresh cake - c'mon, I think I know just the place!"

She stormed off towards a bakery with a garish neon sign and strings of blinking lights draped around the door, and he had to follow or lose her. The inside of the bakery was better than the outside; the heavenly smells of sweet cake batter and warm buttery bread lay thick over shelves of croissants, savory pastries, rolls, and of course several beautifully decorated cakes. None of the prices were written up anywhere, which didn't seem so promising to Barret. If there was a cake here under a hundred gil he'd be shocked.

"Don't look so serious," Tifa whispered, nudging him with an elbow. "Try and smile a little, okay? Hey, Buck! How's business?"

"Tifa? That you?" The stocky young man behind the counter looked up from his magazine and smiled widely. "I haven't seen you in a dog's age! What brings you all the way here, and -" He looked Barret up and down appreciatively. "- who's your handsome friend?"

"This is Barret - remember, I told you about him?" She shifted one bag of groceries to her left arm and slipped her right one into Barret's while Barret tried to follow her advice and smile. "And his daughter? She's turning three today and we wanted to get her a birthday cake, and well, this is the first place I thought of..."

"Of course it is!" Buck jumped up and vaulted over the counter. "Honey, you don't need to say another word, we got just the thing. Dinosaurs, princesses, whatever you want on a cake we got it!" He darted towards one of the shelves that showcased neat little round cakes, each one with fancy icing pictures on it. "What were you thinking? Chocolate, vanilla, red velvet -"

"Um, well," Tifa said, still hanging off Barret's arm, "the thing is - you know business isn't so great at the bar right now, so we can't afford anything too fancy... I mean, of course we want to get her a nice fresh cake, but do you have any that are - um - plain?"

Buck gave them both a tragic look. "Oh, Tifa," he said, "I can't let you take home a plain cake for a little girl's birthday party! Don't you worry none, I got just the thing and I promise it won't cost a gil over fifty."

"Fifty gil!" Barret's attempt at a smile collapsed as Buck disappeared into the back of the bakery. "Tifa, we can't - that's all you got left till next paycheck and mine, too, you can't spend it on no birthday cake, fancy or not!"

"Ssh! It's worth it!" Tifa hissed. "Buck might knock another five gil off if you'd stop making faces, he's really nice. He makes most of his money selling to Don Corneo and the Honeybee Inn anyway, so he'll give anyone he likes a discount... And it's for Marlene, remember? We still have lots of instant noodles under the bar, I can live off those for a week if I have to."

"I can't ask you to -"

"Here you are! What do you think?" Buck popped up in front of them with a round white-frosted cake in his hands and another wide smile. "Isn't it just the thing? I was thinking this morning that I wanted to try something different, so I made an extra cake to play with and it turned out so beautifully I almost kept it! But I just can't let my girl Tifa go home empty-handed - well, Mr. Barret? Won't your daughter just love it?"

Barret looked at the cake. The white frosting was covered on top with elaborate swirls and swoops of colorful icing; if he squinted, he could about see a picture in it, but whatever he saw changed as soon as he moved his head. "It's real fancy," he said, politely as he could, "but I don't know that we can -"

"Oh, it's perfect!" Tifa said, elbowing him again. Damn, but that girl had bony elbows. "I know Marlene will be thrilled - and I bet it tastes even better than it looks. How much did you say it was again?"

"Well..." Buck looked Barret over again, then at Tifa's hopeful face. "Tell you what, since I made this one just for fun - you two can arm-wrestle me for it! If either of you win it's free, if you both lose it's thirty gil! How does that sound?"

"Buck, you're the best," Tifa said; she took the cake and set it on the counter, well off to the side. "And you're on!"

Ten minutes later they walked out of Buck's bakery with the cake safely boxed up in Tifa's hands and sixty-five gil still to their names. "I still can't believe you could beat that boy at arm-wrestlin'," Barret said, trying to find the best way to split all the bags of groceries between his two arms.

"It's just a matter of getting leverage," Tifa said, and she gave him a little grin. "And people always underestimate me. You didn't do too bad yourself - almost had him there at the end..."

"Yeah, yeah, you don't gotta rub it in." Buck was pretty damn strong for a baker. Had to be all that dough-kneading or whatever.

They took a shortcut back to Sector 7 - or at least, they tried to. The ways into and out of Wall Market were a maze of heaped junk and uneven paving that made it hard to figure out just where the hell they were headed at any given moment, and all those dark corners and tunnels looked like perfect monster nests. When Barret finally spotted the gate to Sector 7 over the remains of a broken-down construction vehicle he could have kissed it. About damn time. He ran up a creaky wooden ladder set against the junk in front of him, Tifa right behind him, and for one brief shining moment the gates to Sector 7 stood open before them, just a short sprint away through a relatively clear area.

Then a Hell House crashed to the ground in front of them and rattled its shutters.

"Oh, for heaven's sake - this would happen when my hands are full!" Tifa said, while Barret was busy cussing up a blue streak. She edged to the side and carefully put the cake-box down on a flat piece of tin resting on a rusty barrel.

Barret slid the grocery bags off his gun-arm and onto the other, then fired a few warning shots. The Hell House shook its shingles and sprang at him and Tifa punched it right in the door with a resounding thunk, knocking it back. Barret fired again and got a lucky hit; the Hell House shuddered and its roof blew off, and it scuttled off into the junk heaps after one more defiant rattle of its shutters.

"Nice shot," Tifa said as she picked up the cake again and they headed for the gates. "Still, why couldn't that thing have waited just a little longer? Or gone after us before we got all these groceries... Oh, well, at least the cake's all right, and we're almost - say, what is this place?"

Barret looked around. A set of swings with cracked seats, rusted climbing bars, a dirty white plastic mound with a slide and a goofy-looking moogle face on one side... "Old playground, I guess. Looks like it ain't been used in a while."

"Hmm..." Tifa inspected the swings, then ran over to the slide. "Hey, it's not in too bad a shape - it just needs some cleaning up, really."

"Tifa..." He was getting a bad feeling. "Don't tell me you got some crack-brained idea about -"

"Wouldn't it be a great place for a party?"

"Sheeit, I knew it."

When Barret finally walked back into Seventh Heaven with the supplies, Marlene practically jumped at him. "Papa! You're back! Missed you!"

He had to juggle quick to catch her without dropping any of the bags. "Missed you too, baby," he said, settling her on his shoulder. "You been good for Jessie?"

"Uh-huh! I made drinks!" She pointed at a pair of shot glasses on the bar, one filled with clear blue liquid and one with opaque yellow. "Pretty bird drinks!"

"It's food coloring, water, and some corn starch in the yellow one," Jessie said, coming around from behind the bar, "so - yeah, pretty, but I wouldn't drink them. Where's Tifa?"

"It's a surprise," he said, sighing, and handed her one of the grocery bags. "Can you take care of this stuff? Me an' Marlene got to go back for Tifa."

"Uh - sure."

Once the bags had all been unloaded into Jessie's arms, Barret went behind the bar and started digging in the cabinets underneath. Marlene clung to his neck and watched, eventually asking, "Papa? Whatcha doing?"

"Lookin' for - hah, got it!" He pulled a slightly musty blanket out from the corner it had been squashed into, stood up, and snagged a couple paper plates and some dented silverware from another cabinet. "All right, you ready to go find Tifa?"

"Yeah!"

Outside, Marlene insisted on walking by herself, but before they'd even reached the gates her legs got tired, and the rest of the walk she spent perched on his shoulder, talking his ear off about drinks. When they got close, he said, "All right, we got a surprise for you, so close your eyes, okay?"

"Surprise?" Marlene covered her eyes with her hands. "What surprise?"

"If I told you it wouldn't be much of a surprise now, huh? You just keep them eyes shut until I say you can open 'em - no, not yet - not yet - all right, you can look!"

Marlene took her hands away from her face just as Tifa jumped out from behind the moogle-slide with the open cake box and shouted, "Surprise! Happy birthday, Marlene!"

Marlene blinked at the cake and the cleaned-up playground. "Where's the birds?"

"Uh - birds?" Tifa's brilliant smile faded a little.

"You said birds," Marlene said, starting to pout. "You said!"

Barret gave Tifa a knowing look and mouthed "Told you so" while he spread the blanket out on the ground. She glared at him and said, "I know I said birds, but I just didn't want to ruin the birthday surprise - look, we got you this beautiful cake! And I fixed up the playground just for you, so you can play all you want..."

"You said birds! You said! I want birds!"

She was working up to a real tantrum, and Tifa looked close to tears. "Now now, calm down," Barret said, sliding her off his shoulder and into the crook of his arm. "Have a look - see, we got you some birds right here on the cake. Here's a bird -" With his free hand, he traced the outline of a red shape on the frosting that did have sort of a bird shape. "- and here's one - and here's another one..."

Marlene watched in fascination. "Ohhhhhh," she said, reaching out towards the cake. "An' here's one, look, Papa!"

"Yeah, now you got the idea. You got your birds after all, didn't you?"

"Your own special birthday birds," Tifa said, smiling again. "Pretty tasty ones, I hope."

"Birthday birds!" Marlene said happily, and Barret caught her hands just before she squished them right into the cake.

"All right, let me slice this up," Tifa said, taking a knife from Barret and pulling the cake out of Marlene's reach, "then we can all have some cake and you can play once you're done... Here's a slice with a bird on it, just for you!"

"Yay!" Marlene grabbed the plate of cake Tifa handed her and dug in, getting icing and cake crumbs smeared all over her face.

They settle down on the blanket, and Tifa cut off a slice of cake for herself, then another for Barret and passed it to him, whispering, "Thanks for the save."

"I warned you," he said. "Next time, don't mess around with spellin' things out." He took a bite of the cake - under all that fancy icing it was plain old yellow cake, his favorite - and watched Marlene make a mess devouring her piece. He surveyed the old playground for any remaining toddler hazards, but didn't spot a one. "You really got this place lookin' good, Tifa - she's gonna have a blast once she's done stuffin' her face."

"Oh, I hope so," Tifa said, leaning against his side, "I'm exhausted - you wouldn't believe the junk people left here. The equipment's actually really nice, too... Once I get my second wind maybe I'll try out those climbing bars myself."

"Heh, that'd be a sight. You sure you ain't throwin' this party for yourself?"

"Meanie," Tifa said. "I bet I can go across the bars faster than -"

"Tifa! Tifa Tifa Tifa!" Marlene had abandoned her slice of half-eaten cake and started tugging on Tifa's shirt with sticky hands. "I wanna swing! Push me!"

"Well, I guess my cake will have to wait a little while longer," Tifa said as she put her plate down on the blanket and got up. "Don't you dare touch it - okay, birthday girl, let's swing!"

"Papa, you swing too!" Marlene said, reaching out to yank on his shirt.

"Nah, I don't think I'd fit in those itty-bitty swings," he said, "you two go ahead - I'm just gonna relax and watch my two main girls have some fun."

Tifa's cheeks turned pink, and she smiled shyly at him before Marlene dragged her over to the swings. Barret took a big bite of his cake and sat back, letting contentment settle over him like the sunlight he hadn't seen since coming to Midgar.

Marlene wouldn't fall asleep that night till Barret had sung her the "Happy Birthday" song about twenty times in a row; by the time she finally shut her eyes his voice was hoarser than a bullfrog's, but he didn't mind. He just tucked the blanket around her and kissed her good-night on the forehead and wished her one more happy birthday, quietly so she wouldn't wake up.

Tifa caught him on his way out of Marlene's room. "Hey, Barret," she said softly, "about today, and the cake and all - I'm sorry if I was too pushy..."

"Don't be," he said. "It was nice. Real nice. I ain't seen Marlene have that much fun in a while - and I mean, hell, we didn't even have to pay for that fancy cake."

She laughed a little and put a hand on his arm. "I think it would have been worth it, even if we did have to pay," she said. "We could've gotten by... Thanks for indulging me anyway."

"Thank you," he said, and he leaned down and rested his forehead against hers. "Means a lot to me, you lookin' after Marlene like this. 'S good for her to have - y'know, since - well, you an' me are all the family she's got and I ain't always so good at it..."

"That's not true - I think you're a great dad." She tilted her face up, looking deeply into his eyes - right as he failed to stifle a great big yawn, and she giggled. "A pretty tired dad, too! C'mon, sleepy dad - let's get you to bed."

He let her lead him to their room and the big bed they shared to save heat when it got cold; Tifa was out like a light soon as her head hit the pillow, snuggled up against his good arm, but despite the yawning he couldn't sleep quite yet. Just kept thinking about Marlene making a mess with that cake, Tifa pushing her on the swings, Tifa blushing and punching out that Hell House and climbing on the climbing bars with a grin like a kid's... There was a raw place in his heart, had been ever since he'd lost his home and his wife and Dyne, but between Marlene and Tifa, somehow it didn't hurt so much. Wouldn't ever go away, but they made it better, the both of them.

He rolled over, curled his body around Tifa's, and fell asleep.