A/N: Sorry this took so long! My real life has been absolutely insane, and this is also one of several stories I'm writing right now. This is the last chapter to this story, so…enjoy! Thank you so much to everyone who has reviewed!!

Family

The bar was quiet, the only noise coming from the clank of the dishes as I washed them and the low murmur of voices from one of the tables. I was doing my best to stay awake long enough to at least get the dishes clean. It had been another long, tiring day at the bar. I had even managed to spill beer on the floor twice, knocking over one cup in my exhaustion and pouring the second one too quickly so that it overflowed.

The one occupied table was covered in papers, but it was homework spread across the table, not the maps and charts that Cloud had always used to plan out delivery routes. It had been months since he had started keeping the delivery service very close to home, which allowed him nights like this. Nights to spend with the kids, helping with homework or just spending time with them.

Denzel and Marlene had been helping me keep the bar running during the two exhausting months following Aerith's birth, and Denzel's friend Aria--a girl who had once dragged a moogle toy around everywhere--had been conscripted to help, too. Denzel's idea, of course, as soon as I said I was going to need more assistance if I was going to keep the bar open while taking care of a newborn.

Of course, by now, Denzel's friend (and, I knew, not-so-secret crush) had already become a permanent fixture around the place. I was glad to be able to give her something to do after school, and a little gil to save. Though she lived in a nearby children's home, she had started staying late to do her homework with Denzel and Marlene after she helped out in the bar.

I sighed as I watched my son give her very surreptitious glances out of the corner of his eye as he wrote a paper. Cloud was pointing something out to Marlene, using one foot to gently rock the little carrier seat on the floor, where Aerith was wide awake and waving her tiny fists around, undoubtedly gearing up for another night of keeping me up, and by default, Cloud and Denzel, since they were such light sleepers. After a week of Denzel dragging himself downstairs for breakfast red-eyed and falling asleep in his cereal, he had started wearing earplugs and sleeping downstairs on the couch. None of us were sure how Marlene managed to sleep through all of Aerith's wailing and screeching.

When the dishes were washed, I slid into a seat beside Marlene and squeezed her shoulders, then rested my head back against the chair and closed my eyes, loving the sounds of my family around me. I slipped into a half-awake, half-asleep daze, only stirring when Cloud said my name.

I opened my eyes and saw the kids standing up, gathering books and papers. Cloud was holding Aria's bag, waiting for her to put her jacket on so he could walk her back to the children's home. I stood, swaying slightly on my feet, and went into the kitchen, pulling one of three lunch bags out of the fridge. I brought it out and pressed it into Aria's hand. She had tried to argue with me the first few times I gave her lunch for school, but I told her firmly she more than earned it. I had no idea what they fed the kids over at the home, and I felt better knowing she was eating meals that were good for her.

"Thank you, Tifa."

"You're welcome. Good night, sweetie. See you tomorrow."

"Okay."

My forehead pinched into a frown as she headed for the door, and Cloud and I exchanged glances. He nodded briefly at me before following her out the door, and as expected, as soon as the door closed behind them, Marlene immediately jumped all over Denzel about how much he "looooved" her.

I broke up the potential argument, even though I did find Denzel's red face really sweet. "All right, kids. Bedtime."

Both of them headed upstairs to brush their teeth, and I walked over to Aerith's carrier, surprised to see that she was sound asleep. I smiled and whispered, "We'll have to have your daddy rock you to sleep more often, hm?" I carefully lifted her out of the seat, afraid she might wake up, and was astonished when I was able to carry her upstairs and lay her down in the little crib next to my bed without waking her.

The instant I was sure that Marlene and Denzel were ready for bed and tucked in (even though Denzel insisted he was way too old to be tucked in), I collapsed in an exhausted heap on my bed and was asleep about five seconds later.

I didn't even wake up when Cloud opened the door downstairs and came in, which was a mark of how tired I really was; I only realized he was home when he climbed into bed next to me. I moaned and rolled into him, sighing against his chest. I would have been asleep again had he not spoken quietly, "Tifa?"

"Mm?"

"Aria."

I opened my eyes and focused on him. "Yeah."

"I know we don't have a lot of room. But she's already been spending most of her days here the last two months. I just hate taking her back to that place every night, and with what happened this morning--"

"I know." She had arrived at the bar that afternoon with a horrible black eye and some scrapes and bruises, and it had been Denzel who told me flatly that she had been hurt by some of the other kids at the orphanage before school that morning. "I was thinking the same thing today."

We looked at each other for a moment, and then Cloud nodded once. "We can ask her tomorrow."

"Yes." I yawned. "Though we're going to have to keep a close eye on her and Denzel as they get older, or they'll end up eloping and I'll become a grandmother when I'm thirty."

That got a half-chuckle out of him. I closed my eyes contentedly, only to snap them open once more as Aerith started fussing. "I knew it was too good to last," I said, resignedly sitting up and twisting to get out of bed.

"It's my turn," Cloud said. As our baby began to wail, he picked her up, and I curled back up on the bed. "Rest," he told me firmly. He opened the bedroom door, only to reveal Marlene standing just outside, one fist poised to knock, the other hand pressed to her stomach.

I sat up again. "Marlene? What is it, sweetie?"

"I'm not…feeling so well," she said, and then promptly threw up, just missing Cloud's feet.

As I slid out of bed to take care of Marlene and clean up the mess, I knew for sure I wasn't going to be getting any sleep that night. And that was okay. I really didn't mind the sleepless nights or the fatigue. I had come so close to never having any of this at all, and if a little sleep-deprivation was the cost of being a mother and having a family, I was more than willing to pay.

I took Marlene back to her room, settling her on her bed and going downstairs to get a bucket in case she was sick again. Cloud was walking around the bar with Aerith, who was perfectly content as long as he didn't stop moving. Denzel was already asleep on the couch. Well, at least one person in the house might sleep tonight.

One thing was absolutely certain: life was an adventure. It threw the unexpected at us; it gave us sorrow and pain, beauty and joy. It made us laugh and cry, but it made us feel, and whether it was bad or good, it meant that we were alive and that we were part of the world around us.

I went into Marlene's room and set the bucket on one side of her, sitting on her other side and smoothing one hand rhythmically over her hair. "Tifa?" she whispered, her eyes half-closed.

"Hm?"

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

Yes, I thought in contented exhaustion. Sometimes life gave us wonderful, heartwarming moments.

"Tifa?"

"Yes?"

"I think I have to--" She rolled over and threw up again, missing the bucket entirely and getting it all over her bed. "Uhhhh," she groaned. "I'm sorry!"

Of course, life was messy and smelly sometimes, too.

Still, no matter what it brought, it was my life to live, and I wouldn't have traded it for anything in the world.

-fin-