Last chapter! I don't like leaving things unfinished so here we are. Thanks to everyone who read and enjoyed this. I reread everything (oh lordy the typos!) and I'm overall pretty happy with the result. I think I was more surprised at how Rufus in this evolved than Tifa because the more I think about it the more I think he was the one that grew while Tifa is still struggling to let go and trust. Maybe there's something about how if you're very guarded, once you let someone in they're IN. I didn't expect him to be like that... :O

There is much more that could be told, but I figured instead of me hemming and hawing forever and producing nothing we can skip straight to some closure, of a sort.

Until Rufus and Tifa strike me again… 3 you all. It's been an adventure. :D

Disclaimer: see part 1

After all these years September made her feel like it was back to school. She still found herself unconsciously buying new clothes in late August, and one year Tifa even found herself in the aisle of the store with all the binders and pencils with something akin to longing. It was a lot simpler then, even if then included graduate school and rolled right up to fairly recently. It was an entirely new feeling in September to be sneaking around the feminine care aisle looking for pregnancy tests.

Life with Rufus had been like a dream, but one of those dreams where you spend a lot of time confused and things just happen one after another until you're not really sure how you ended up in a room full of people you don't know asking you questions but the dominant thought is that you really hope you remembered to put on underwear. Paparazzi were like gnats for a while, and she had gotten used to flash bulbs going off randomly in the corner of her eye at times she should have suspected it but didn't. It was the absolutely worst way for her dad to find out about her dating Rufus Shinra, but the picture hadn't been totally unflattering even if the accompanying article had ripped her apart. They had found her worst yearbook photo (sophomore year) and featured it rather prominently in one of those 'then and now' spreads which was both life affirming and absolutely embarrassing.

Did you know you could receive both fan and hate mail just for dating someone? Tifa would not have guessed it until they started trickling in. The Turks screened her mail now, so she wouldn't have to bother with it, and she almost preferred it to how it was before because the only things she had to think about were bills and the various circulars and fundraising attempts from her schools. No more sifting through the coupon spreads to make sure something important hadn't gotten mixed in. That was a major improvement, and you had to appreciate the small things.

No hat could hide all her hair sufficiently and Tifa knew the sunglasses would make her even more suspicious, so she casually moved her cart down the aisle and grabbed tampons she knew for a fact she hadn't needed for more than a month as well as surreptitiously shoving in two different pregnancy tests just in case she screwed one up. Yuffie, whip cord thin and prone to exercising a little too much, had told her how easy these things were to use when she had had her own pregnancy scare a few years ago. It had turned out she just needed to eat more and exercise a little less, but the memory had stuck in Tifa's mind as she piled a bunch of other random groceries on top of the tests in an attempt to obscure them from both others and herself.

"I'm still hoping for a warm autumn," the checkout clerk said in bubbly tones while giving Tifa that stare that said she knew her from somewhere but just couldn't place her. Tifa's fifteen minutes had largely been up in early June when Scarlet, who probably was choking on her own jealousy, had announced her marriage to a very rich and very old man and spending gobs of money on outlandish wedding preparations only to break it off in August with a firm refusal to return said gentleman's hunker of a diamond engagement ring. There was a pending civil suit which Tifa knew nothing about except the grocery store headlines like today's "Scarlet goes for the throat!" with a picture of the blond pointing a crimson nail and yelling something. Tifa wondered if it would be appropriate to send the woman a thank you card for getting the press off her back, but thought twice about it.

Tifa watched the puppy chow (what the hell had she grabbed!) and heads of cabbage pass down the line right in front of the pregnancy tests which in turn were followed by a bag of cookies and some hot sauce, but thankfully the clerk said nothing. She wondered if guys felt this mortified buying condoms, and then smiled at the thought of Rufus having to stand in a grocery store line to buy anything let alone condoms.

"Forecast says rain this weekend, but warm rain! I was going to jog outside, but oh well." Tifa laughed nervously, knowing she planned no such thing. The real plan was avoid Yuffie's phone calls while she was a bag of nerves or avoid Yuffie's phone calls while she tried to think of what to say to Rufus.

Even thinking of him conjured up that feeling inside, like her soul was still on his yacht getting unwisely burned off the coast of Costa del Sol and lazily wondering what weird local dish he wanted to try that night. It had been a good vacation, as dear a memory to her as hiking with her father earlier that year, but maybe a little too good as the cashier rang up her purchases finally.

"Well you need any help to your car?"

"No thanks, I've got it all." Tifa flashed a smile, hopefully showing none of her nerves, which the cashier answered.

She still took the bus. Rufus and Tseng fought with her endlessly about it but Tifa turned a blind eye to the offers of a chauffeur and she had promptly "lost" the keys to the car Rufus had tried to give her earlier in the year. Never was she more grateful for hanging on to this piece of independence as in this moment. Facing someone who knew her well while trying to accomplish this task would have merely ended in all sorts of dumb questions at how weird she was acting. As it was, Yuffie knew something was up and was circling her like a text messaging buzzard.

Let's pretend, she told herself, for the sake of argument that even though you're late and showing no symptoms of any kind and you were very careful that you just happen to be… you know… is it a happy thing or a scary thing?

Scary. That was the gut reaction. Terrifying. Her body slowly transforming and betraying her and ending in another human being that relied on her for survival. She felt like she only just had a handle on her own life.

But happy, too. After all, babies were wonderful! She wasn't too old or too young, she had a stable income in a job that could give her slightly flexible hours, and tons of friends that would support her and be overjoyed for her. Barrett would immediately try to foist all the baby clothes on her that his wife insisted they keep in storage just in case. And then there was Rufus…

Back to scary then!

Her leg would not stop twitching and she felt like every stop was there to personally irritate her until she leapt out near her apartment complex and charged like a bull towards the elevator. A tornado of anxious energy now, Tifa unlocked her door and threw all the bags at the couch heedless of how they landed or if the contents flung themselves everywhere but their target and smashed a finger down on the button that, should the apartment be bugged, jam every signal within a spherical distance that included all her living spaces. Her adjoining apartments had been well compensated by Rufus for the inconvenience this caused the various people living near her, and Tifa turned a blind eye to that particular help because it was his fault in a way and she didn't want to live in fear.

Unwrapping everything as she made her way to the bathroom she was struck by how little there was to it compared to how much she had paid for the two tests. Colors and pluses and minuses or dots and dashes or whatever all ran together as she tried to read the instructions all at once and immediately confused herself with what she was actually looking for. Resolving to read it all after she took some sort of action, she proceeded to discover that actually getting things done was more awkward than she had imagined. Peeing into a cup was simple by comparison.

She set everything up to hurry and wait before washing her hands and then going back into the living room to pick everything up she had scattered in her haste. All the groceries she could see using Tifa put into one bag, and all the ones she couldn't possibly she set aside for donation to a food bank. The puppy chow was a mystery. Did she even know anyone with a dog? Would Rufus' cat eat dog food?

The instructions which had seemed to be written in another language when Tifa first looked at them turned out to be pretty straight forward. It boiled down to two dashes or a plus. Those were the answers that mattered and everything else was white noise. After sorting groceries she had another ten minutes, so she turned on her radio and cursed under her breath when she got nothing but static. It was so easy to forget the jammer, which is why it wasn't on nearly as often as Rufus or the Turks had encouraged it to be on.

They had been so careful, but Tifa knew well enough that when they had run out of condoms on the yacht at the end of their trip there was no skipping off to the store when the time came. She had made a judgment call, Rufus had given her the choice after all, and she didn't think it was wrong. There were other methods to stay relatively safe, but no matter what you did there was always a chance every time that it would end with her trying to remember meditative breathing exercises on her couch.

Ten minutes wasn't long at all but it felt enough like eternity that Tifa figured it didn't make a difference.

"She's avoiding my calls. Did you have a fight?"

Rufus knew better than to answer the phone when Kisaragi called, but he was actually getting concerned about the fact that Tifa would not answer his calls, emails, or texts. A part of him, so happy these past months, had been waiting for the ball to drop and he wondered if this was it. She had finally gotten sick of the attention and the disruption in her life, of the fact that he only had time to see her a couple times a week and that that time often wasn't very quality as he was distracted by work and she was tired from her own. The gifts he tried to give to her to remind her he cared she had summarily rejected recently, with the only real bright spot being the week they spent sailing in August. They had even managed to be in Costa del Sol and not run into his mother so it had been the best of all worlds.

"Not that it would be any of your business, but no, we did not have a fight that I'm aware of."

"So you might have had a fight, and just not know it yet." Yuffie was annoying like it was her hobby.

Rufus did not have time for this now that he knew Kisaragi had no information for him to glean. It was a Friday night and a cancelled dinner meeting meant he could see Tifa if she had bothered to answer her phone and assuming she still wanted to see him.

Stony silence was all the answer he had for the peppy woman on the other end and she laughed loudly into her mic.

"Remember, if you hurt her, I'll destroy you!" It had started out as a real threat, when Rufus and Yuffie came to a shaky truce that while they both wanted all of Tifa's spare time they had to be willing to share and give up a little bit to the other. Now, Yuffie's warning came across more a playful reminder before she hung up.

He was in his office looking over reports he had already memorized and waiting for Tifa to call as it was much faster to reach her apartment from here than from his house. She didn't particularly like the taste of gin so he was refraining from drinking this evening in hopes of currying favor and learning what it was that had turned her mood sour towards him. It galled him to admit it, but he was arriving at the conclusion that he felt more for her than she felt for him and it stung his pride as much as it worried him. Tifa functioned just fine on her own, in fact there was less for her to deal with without him around, but he felt incomplete without seeing her at least once in the week. He had entertained the idea of offering to have her move in because god knew he had more rooms in the house than he would ever need unless they had a dozen children. If she stuck around that long.

And with that thought he needed a cigarette.

Rufus spent enough time on the roof that it had slowly come to resemble a patio rather than the bleak utilitarian space it was. The helicopter pad now housed a bolted down iron table and chair set. The helicopter was used in his father's day frequently, but Rufus had retired it thinking it expensive and ostentatious in a bad way. An ash tray that looked frequently emptied but really just blown away by the wind gusts was built into the table. Even on calm days it was windy up here and Rufus liked that. A view of the city during the sunset, a pack of cigarettes, and time alone… this was his idea of a mini-vacation. Nothing could touch him up here.

"Oi!"

Reno always did have the voice that carried the best. What could possibly be important enough to bug him now?

Turning his head he caught sight of Reno standing next to Tifa, who had tied her hair into a sensible ponytail in deference to the wind. Reno was behind her and pointing and smiling in a display that was the opposite of subtle happiness. The Turks were probably far too entertained by his private life, but it couldn't be helped if he was going to maintain live-in bodyguards. Tifa gave a shy wave and wrapped herself more tightly in her puffy coat as she came to join him at the table. There was something sorrowful in her eyes, like she had been crying, and he tried to harden himself towards the inevitable.

"Tifa." He said her name casually, drawing smoke deep into his lungs and letting it spiral away from them.

"I'm sorry I haven't been answering your texts… anyone's texts really… I just had a really stressful week." He said nothing and concentrated on her face, memorizing the details of this moment. Already he felt himself becoming brittle and hard in defense of her words. "Now that I'm here with you…"

He could break up with her first, but it only seemed like a possibility of a thought and he knew he wouldn't do it. In fact, there was always the possibility of not allowing her to break up with him. Contrary to what people thought, he had actually heard the word no quite a lot in conjunction with women growing up. Not every beautiful woman wanted to be involved with a man like him, but he had always been graceful about their preference. This moment felt so intensely personal he knew it couldn't be like those other moments. It was a terrible thing in someone's life as they realized they were going to be, in all truth, the crazy ex.

"… here I just don't have the words." She had been talking. Lost in the dark places of his mind, Rufus had missed her rambling preamble.

"If you don't want to say it, then don't say it." It was as close to pleading with her as he would allow himself, but his words were a lash.

Tifa looked up, clearly trying to conquer tears without letting them fall. "Please don't be like this today."

"Like what," Rufus pulled out his lighter and started on cigarette number whatever. "You know what I am." Maybe if they started fighting this would be easier. He could pick on that scab later and point to the words they said and see how it wouldn't have worked anyway.

True to form, she was stronger in anger than sadness. "I came up here to tell you something important but now I'm wondering if this is the right time for this."

"Does it change anything?"

"No." Eyes flashing, he wondered what life without Tifa would be like. He couldn't picture anything but his boardroom. "I can tell you tomorrow or I can tell you today, but I don't want to talk to you when you're being a bastard."

"You mean that doesn't make it easier?"

She rolled her eyes at him and stood up. Her hair flowed out behind her elegantly and he allowed himself to admire the curve of her hips leading up to generous bust and incomparable face. His mother would have a tall order to find a woman to compete with this one, if he ever let her try to play matchmaker. Dying alone sounded suitably dramatic, and he let the thought flit through his mind.

"I will talk to you later, and next time I hope you can put aside whatever mood has possessed you." She looked troubled still, like she wanted to say more, but she set her shoulders and turned her back on him.

In his office, as midnight approached, he wondered if it was worth it to send Reno out for more gin. The better part of the bottle was gone and he was going to have a screaming hangover the next day but alcohol poisoning sounded like a lot more fun than the conversation he was going to have with Tifa. Maybe, seeing how pitiful he looked in his slept in grey wool suit and greasy hair, she would put it off just another day.

How maudlin he was being. How pitiful. Rufus Shinra destroyed by a woman and he only had himself to blame. Tomorrow he'd suck it up, clean up, and take her tongue lashing like a man. He had heard all the words before, in different tones and different orders, but all the usual words would likely show up: cruel, selfish, distant, inconsiderate, and, depending on their vocabulary, derisive and snide. Nothing he hadn't heard his mother say to his father or vice versa. It was a family tradition of dysfunction.

His phone pinged as it often did, but it was that special one that meant Tifa had changed the setting and it meant it was her or someone she knew. This had been her way of allowing him to screen his texts quickly. Reeve never texted he always called, Wallace still talked to Tifa only, and her other important people had never contacted Rufus directly so that meant it was either Tifa or Kisaragi. He hoped she wasn't breaking up with him by text, that would just be too much.

OMFG CONGRATS!1111!1!1!

So it was Kisaragi, in a forwarded reply to both of them. She had always been on the fence about him, her allegiance so closely allied to Tifa she would bend to whatever mood struck her best friend in regards to him. This seemed a little cold, even for her.

Scrolling up casually he noticed that Tifa had sent no text to her best friend just a picture of two funny looking thermometers and one of them had a plus sign while the other had two stripes….

Oh holy fuck.

"Reno!" Rufus, his voice hoarse from the alcohol, yelled out as he sprung into action. He clumsily made it to his feet from where he had been sitting on the ground leaning against his desk and was lurching towards the bathroom as the Turk ran in and came to attention. Rufus didn't raise his voice, he just didn't, and the young man clearly looked concerned. They were almost the same age, but Rufus suddenly felt like he had matured another thirty years.

"Yessir!"

"I need a hundred roses delivered to Tifa's apartment in the next hour. If I get there before they do there will be hell to pay!" He looked at his already red eyes and knew he reeked of booze. "Get me water and coffee, hot or cold doesn't matter, just get it!"

"Hot water and hot coffee, boss?" The look Rufus shot Reno made him yelp. "Right, boss! On my way!"

Rufus looked in the mirror and mulled over how he felt he looked like a father already. Gleefully he thought that even if she left him in the future, Lockhart was always going to be stuck with a piece of him, though now that he knew he had read her all wrong earlier. Today was the best damn day of his life. If he had to camp out on her doorstep until she understood that, he would, hangover and all. That partially might have been the alcohol talking, but he was sure he wasn't taking no for an answer tonight as he proved to her he was ready for her not so secret news.

He may have all the money and the power he could use but walking around out there in the woman he loved was his legacy and he was going to do them both right, not like how his parents raised him. Every good empire needed an heir, and he knew that whatever fears Tifa had, which probably were about him not wanting this child, were laughable.

Maybe once she had the baby he could use it as leverage to get her to agree to move in with him at the very least, and (this was pie in the sky here) get married! No more nearly empty house, no more mother butting into his life with matchmaking schemes—he would have a real family. She would think it was too soon, but they had known one another since high school and that had to count for something.

"Holy hell," he laughed at himself in the mirror, "I'm such a fucking sap." But he couldn't bring himself to hate that.

Rufus wandered through the hospital wing, away from where his mother was being furtively moved from her private room to a transport to detox and rehab. If she hadn't fainted at tea with her friends and ended up in the hospital she might have ODed for real this time. A family member needed to be present for the public hospital to legally discharge her and it would have been too high profile to send his father so here he was, fourteen and hating both his parents more desperately than he could remember at any time previous to now.

All the paperwork was being done and soon enough his father's people would find him and haul him back to the mansion and he would have to sit there while the lawyers talked to his father about what to expect. Never this bad before, he wondered if they would get a divorce idly and was shocked when he realized he didn't care what the answer was even as a hypothetical. It was all so tedious, and he wondered if this was how it was for normal people. With his visitor badge on, no one bothered to stop him as he made his way down hallways and into elevators. Might as well make it hard for them to find him, it was the only passive aggressive rebellion he could get away with without serious repercussions.

Nurses with clipboards were everywhere and someone else wheeled a huge machine out of a pair of double doors, so he slipped behind them before they closed. This wing was quieter and darker than the others he had been down, and so the sobbing was all the easier to hear from a room to the right.

Morbidly curious, he peeked around the corner to see a bald woman stroke the long dark hair of a girl who had her face firmly planted in the blankets near the woman's hip. She sounded as broken as Rufus felt, and he looked up at the handwritten name on the door. Lockhart.

Rufus knew of one Lockhart, since it was a pretty uncommon name, and it belonged to a girl in his year but not his class with a pretty face and an impressive rack. He was too male not to have tracked her progress every time she entered the lunchroom. Here at least was someone who understood about disease and family, and maybe even more about pain, and he wanted to go talk to her. She would get it, he felt, but he also was aware enough to realize he was seeing something private and he wasn't really welcome here. Rufus was a third wheel everywhere these days, not old enough to be useful and not young enough to be left alone to his own devices.

But he would remember this he was sure, remember her, and maybe someday his time would come.