Great Small Things
A FFVII ficlet by Ice Lady

Rating: PG13
Category: AU - Set in Magic Rat's 'Rabid Tiger' AU
Pairing(s): Barret/Tifa
Warnings: It’s not as polished as I hoped it would be, but I hope it’s decent enough, even though it doesn’t really make me happy.
Summary: “The beginning is the most important part of the work.” Plato
Notes: This is in Rattie’s AU. I didn’t ask for her permission because I wanted to surprise her a bit, so if that instead makes her angry, I apologize and wait for a punishment.

Tifa had spent her entire childhood thinking of adventures, knights in shiny armours, maidens in distress and their heroes. It seemed like such a perfect fantasy, until she grew up, that is.

Somewhere around the time when she hurt herself at Mount Nibel, a grain of doubt had been implanted into her mind, but she clung onto the fantasy for many a year after that. Then those adventures did come, filled with monsters to kill, people to rescue, heroes that helped her as well as maidens in distress she’d saved.

But that experience taught her just how much she envied those simple folk, farmers and traders and those whose biggest worries were would they be late for work that morning or how soon the rain season would come this autumn.

There were no monsters strong and powerful enough to obliterate the whole villages that had to be destroyed, or heroes gone wild, dangerous on a planetary level, that needed to be stopped, though how the nine of them thought they’d be able to stop a madman so above beyond them in strength, she still couldn’t explain.

Lucky for them, the entire issue had been resolved and Sephiroth was safe now, mostly sane and, most importantly, happy.

About that time, seeing all her friends thriving in their new relationships (wondering if it was the fear of death that brought them together or they’d actually work in the years that would bring new and quite boring, when compared to before, toils and problems), she started questioning and then dismissing her hero and rescuer idea, this time for real. She was a capable fighter and could kick any man’s ass, or at least give them enough to worry about, and honestly didn’t need anyone saving her.

Quite the contrary, she sometimes thought. If she ever did find someone who thought she was a unique and delicate flower that needed to be put under a glass bell and protected from the cruel, cruel world, she’d probably introduce his balls with her knee and move on.

But when it came to choices, they were kind of slim, true. They were either gay or taken (or both) or female and, like it or not, Tifa was simply not into women (and she had a few pictures from several drunken parties from high school experimental period to prove it, though she prayed to the deities daily they would never see the light of the day). Or they were weak.

She never thought she would think that about the people living around her, but after spending months seeing Cid wield his spear or Vincent flying, Cloud walking through walls as though they were made of paper, or even the Turks, who were definitely not engineered in the slightest, always pushing the human limits, she just couldn’t get used to admiring the local man making two hundred crunches. Or managing to hunt five ducks that day when she’d seen Barret splash the mountain dragon three times his size over the cave wall as though it was a cup of yogurt.

Speaking of which… as their entire group slowly became busy with their new families, somehow Tifa and Barret ended up together, two singles managing a new bar and taking care of Marlene. At first, when she started suspecting some things, she kept on denying them, thinking she was just imagining, he was like a brother to her and she was just confusing her feelings, she was lonely and horny and that was all.

But then she learned how good he was at giving massage. It was a random thing, some holiday that made her keep the bar open two hours longer than usually since it was still crowded and money was always a good thing. Finally, as she washed the dishes and Barret tucked Marlene in (and yes, that was their routine, even though Tifa used to get angry that it was her doing the woman’s work, but mixing Barret’s gun hand with breakable dishes was simply not smart), they ended up on the sofa in the living room, watching some random movie on the TV. Tifa complained how her neck hurt from all that standing and Barret offered to massage it.

She was worried, of course. No human being with one working brain cell would willingly hand their neck and shoulders to a man whose one arm turned into a gun bigger than their head. But, Barret insisted that he could help her and Tifa was desperate, knowing if the neck stiffness turned into a full blown headache, she wouldn’t be able to sleep that night.

And, damn, he was good. So good, in fact, that she complained how much her legs hurt the very next evening, to which Barret responded with another massage. And that was about the time that Tifa realized she didn’t mind him touching her. To the point that she became uncomfortable enough to be happy it was her legs and feet he was touching and not her neck, so he wouldn’t notice the nervousness and stiffness followed with the butterflies in her stomach; the entire package, really.

Then came the period of denial, of course. Every person in a similar situation had been through something like that. She decided to do the paperwork in the evenings instead of watching TV or talking nonsense with Barret over a bottle of fruit wine, claiming it was just a hard period in time, paperwork wise. Barret was smart enough not to ask after that.

Then the paperwork was settled and she just thought about keeping the bar open for one more hour at night, but it ended up being a bad move as most people were used to it working till eleven that they didn’t like changing their routine after all this time. It was mostly empty after that and Tifa couldn’t think of an excuse to keep herself busy.

She tried renovating then, claiming perhaps Marlene could use a bigger room as she was turning into a bigger girl every day. Barret kept quiet and did as he was told, never really being able to say no to the women of his house. But that meant seeing Barret half naked in the wildest possible poses all over the house and in the strangest places possible.

She mostly felt angry with herself for torturing the man so, but that didn’t stop her from snapping at him instead. Eventually, Barret realized he had his limits, even when it came to his girls, and he decided he had to confront Tifa.

“I’ll regret this,” he started, glancing quickly at the door to make sure he could be able to run through them if needed. “But do you need chocolate or aspirin or somethin’?”

Tifa growled. It was a low growl but, knowing her abilities, terrifying enough for Barret to think running through walls was fun. If there was one thing, he learned, it was never to mention premenstrual period to women even if they were in it.

He was just about to beg for forgiveness and go back to work, hoping she might not throw rat poison into his dinner, when a sudden change went over Tifa. From that deadly and pissed off beast, she turned into a soft, sighing woman with watery eyes.

Then she looked the other way, trying to hide whatever it was that passed through her mind from him.

“Tifa?” he decided to try, going after her. She stopped quickly after hearing her name and Barret caught up with her in no time, not sure what to do now. “You know you can tell me everything,” he said, hoping at least that made sense.

She just sobbed again, then managed to gather herself enough to look at him. Well, she was definitely not crying, but she surely seemed distressed and, knowing Tifa all these years, that scared Barret. A lot.

“I’m sorry,” she just answered, shaking her head and forcing a smile. “I’m just…”

“What’s wrong?” Barret insisted, feeling rather strange all of a sudden. He didn’t really want to see Tifa suffer, and this was devastating in a way. He had to take care of his women, his girls, and if one of them was suffering and not allowing him to help, it was killing him.

Then Tifa drew a sharp breath, composing herself all over again, much better than the first time, as though finally making a decision to act, do something about that whatever bothered her. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Well, that moment Barret learned how true the saying ‘be careful what you wish for’ was.

He wondered why all of a sudden he didn’t feel his legs.

That was how it started, though. After days of snapping at him, Tifa finally confessed and Barret heard her out, feeling completely and utterly lost. He was a man through with his life, or at least he thought so. He had his wife and lost her, mourned over her and moved on. He gained a daughter, though, and dedicated her life on raising and taking care of her.

He didn’t really think about new relationships and love and romance.

But somehow, after Tifa confessed, that was exactly what crept into his mind and he couldn’t stop thinking about it until the moment he decided to have another talk with her and confess something similar.

Of course, it was awkward at first. More than awkward. Tifa didn’t know why, but she had a hard time confessing it to her friends. Somehow, she wanted to keep it secret, but she had no idea whether that was because she was a secretive type or because she was ashamed, no matter how horrible that sounded.

But it felt good, even though she wanted to keep it secret. Marlene felt happy seeing that there was some other form of care growing between her guardians, even though she showed a few signs of jealousy. In the end, the child decided that it was much better having the parents very happy and smiling than having them always keep their attention to her. Jealousy had its limits, anyway.

At least this way, she could get away with a few things she wanted to hide from them, because they seemed too busy looking at each other and smiling and stuff.

Tifa felt much happier now that the weight was off her chest, as well as having certain needs fulfilled that she had completely neglected.

Yes, the sex.

Oh, the sex! It was so amazing to finally stop pretending she liked celibacy and simply let go, knowing that at least this man was incapable of being harmed if she accidentally got carried away. And that gun arm had its purposes that made her blush just thinking about it.

Life was good, but she knew they had to tell the news to the rest of them, eventually. She dreaded the moment, but then she finally decided it was time to call Aeris and talk to her, since she’d postponed it enough and Aeris had probably picked up a few things and decided not to interfere, being a Cetra and all.

“Tifa!?” she heard her squeal and giggle, as merry as only Aeris could be. “I’m so glad you called! I missed you? How are you? You should come visit! Or I should come over! You should see the new dress I made for Ifalna! How’s Barret? I hope he’s treating you well and helping around the house!”

Tifa laughed, all of a sudden feeling so much better that she decided to pick up the phone and finally be over with it. Well, there was still the part of saying it and then they could hopefully go on talking about other things. “I…” she tried, then cleared her throat, noticing how she started playing with the phone wire in her fingers. “Umm… that’s why I called.” She paused, knowing Aeris was waiting, giving her time to say whatever it was that made her so nervous. “Barret and I… we’re…”

“No!” Tifa heard her say, surprised, but in a good way. She felt a blush warm her cheeks as she nodded, forgetting Aeris couldn’t see her. “You and Barret?” Aeris continued, her voice getting higher with every word.

“Yes.”

“Really?! For real? You two are…? Really?!” It eventually reached the level only bats could hear and normal humans would get headaches of. “So is he really proportional everywhere?” Aeris added, her voice just teasing this time.

Tifa felt her cheeks turning hot, to the point that she was probably cherry red by now.

“I’m calling everyone and we’re coming over,” Aeris said before Tifa could think of a way to answer… diplomatically, and she hung up. Tifa wanted to protest, but she knew Aeris knew better than to hang on and wait for it. Instead, she turned around, deciding that the house needed proper cleaning, because over a dozen people squeezed into it would trash it beyond repair.

The hardest thing was over with, unless she counted endless teasing and size jokes that would definitely be the centre of attention during their entire visit.

She shrugged it off, though, and went to the living room, telling her family about the news.