Title: Broken Stair
Fandom: Final Fantasy: Advent Children
Characters: Tifa, Denzel, Marlene, Cloud
Prompt: 064 - Fall
Word Count: 297
Date finished: 10/03/2006
Rating: G
Summary: There's a broken stair between the apartment and the bar.
Author's Notes: This was, admittedly, influenced by laurel_crowned - her fic for the same prompt. It's a lovely one, in Gravitation, and I fully owe her for this one!
Disclaimer: Characters are owned by Square Enix and Sony Pictures as far as I know.

"Tifa?" Denzel and Marlene shouted in unison, both standing at the top looking down at her. "What happened? Are you all right?" Their voices combined and ran over each other in their concern.

"I'm fine," she muttered.

"Tifa, what…." A disheveled-looking Cloud appeared behind the children, blue eyes only half-open. They opened wide, however, when he caught sight of her. "Are you okay?"

"Embarrassed," she said, loud enough for them to hear, "but fine. I know you don't have any deliveries today, Cloud. Please fix that step." She pulled herself carefully to her feet, putting her weight on each in turn. Good. Nothing was broken, but she'd have bruises. She could live with bruises. "Yep. All good," she reported, smiling up the stairs. "You two get dressed," she added before turning to go into the bar.

Not five minutes later - had Cloud even finished getting dressed? - she heard the blonde fixing the step she kept tripping over (although this was the first time she'd tripped going down the stairs). A smile creased her face as the pounding of the hammer quit, and then feet pounded the stairs as the children came down, presented themselves to her, and dashed out to play.

Cloud poked his head - and one bare shoulder, he hadn't finished dressing - into the bar. "It's done. Check to make sure you like it; I can change it if you need me to."

"Thanks," she called, and he vanished again.

Tifa smiled. Maybe they weren't a conventional family, but it felt good to have them around her. She could almost consider her life normal, now.

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