For The Sacred and Profane.

The movie reference is to "An Affair to Remember". The references to Reno and Tifa's phobias are from "Scared" by The Sacred and Profane.

This was new territory for me in more ways than one. I hope I succeeded.

Disclaimer: I neither own nor profit from ffvii or the use of its characters.

Thank you for reading. Reviews are welcome.

Enjoy.

fire mystic

Unexplained Phenomena

"Reno?"

There was no answer. Tifa could hear voices, though, and as she made her way through the house, she realized it was the television. She followed the sound to find Reno sitting cross-legged on the couch with a bowl of popcorn forgotten at his side.

Crying.

With a box of tissues in his lap, one held in his hand as he wiped the tears away.

"Reno? What is wrong with you?"

He looked up at her, eyes red, tears streaming down his face, waving a tissue at the screen before him, which she couldn't see from her position.

"It's so sad, Tifa. I think it's the saddest and most wonderful thing I've ever seen in my life."

Crossing the room to sit beside him, Tifa glanced at the flat screen, trying to find out what Reno was watching that he thought was so sad and wonderful, something she had never seen before.

"What is this Reno?"

"A movie. See, they're supposed to meet on the top of this building on New Year's Eve, but when he arrives, she's not there."

Tifa harrumphed at the screen, a scene in an imaginary city she had never seen before. The sad part, she got, but: "And how is that wonderful?"

"Oh." He was so into the movie that he could hardly look at her. "He finds her later and discovers she never showed up because she's been in an accident and doesn't want him to know she's crippled, but that doesn't matter anyway. He tells her he loves her and they live happily ever after."

He looked at Tifa, then, eyes brimming. "Kind of like us. Happy ever after."

Tifa looked at the screen. Reno must have seen this before, because it didn't look like quite like they had found happy ever after yet.

"Um, Reno?"

"Yeah, Tifa?" His eyes were glued back to the screen.

She nodded over his lap at the bowl of popcorn.

"You gonna eat that?"

That's how it started. It most definitely wasn't the end of it.

Reno made his way across the bedroom gathering up clothes as he went. Where had all the clean clothes gone? Hell, even the dirty ones weren't where they were supposed to be.

"Tifa?"

"Yeah?" She called from the bathroom.

"Where's the laundry?"

She came out of the bathroom, scanning the room. "In your hands." She stated matter-of-factly as she tossed the towel she had been using over the top of the stereo and exited the room.

"Where are you going?" She had been acting so odd lately. The clothes had been piling up all over the place, as were dirty dishes and glasses, and Reno was pretty sure there wasn't a clean fork or spoon in the house. And Tifa just didn't seem to care. It was just so sad.

Reno shrugged the melancholy feeling away and took a shaky breath, gathering up the towel Tifa had discarded before following her down the stairs.

"I'm hungry Reno. I haven't eaten in hours."

Hours? Reno struggled to see his watch over the pile of laundry in his arms. More like thirty minutes, if that. Tifa was turning into a bottomless pit.

He followed her to the kitchen, slinging the clothes into the laundry room on his way, and watched her rummage through the refrigerator. Unable to resist, he walked up and wrapped his arms around her, squeezing tightly.

"I love you, Tifa. So much." He closed his eyes as he rubbed his face into the hollow between her shoulders.

She stood up into his embrace, leaning back against him and managing to head-butt him in the nose as she dove into the freezer, coming up with a half gallon container of Chunky Monkey ice cream.

"Damn! Where did that come from?"

Reno wasn't sure if she meant the ice cream or his declaration of love, and couldn't think past the pain in his nose. Damn, was it broken? She turned, kissing him quickly on the cheek.

"I love you too, Reno. Now, there were a couple of cookies around here somewhere." She searched them out and held up the package.

"Were you planning on eating these?"

Tifa finds something in the kitchen, but will anything get resolved?

"Reno?"

He tripped out of the laundry room, where he had been wading through the pile of clothes that was now up to his knees and seemed to double every day.

"Yeah?"

"What is this?"

She was standing in the kitchen, covered in crumbs, the culprit a bag of tortilla chips held in one hand, while she held up something small and rectangular that looked like a large air freshener in the other.

"It's a prototype from the Shinra labs."

"Pro-to-type?" Her eyebrows were somewhere up in her hairline.

"Yes, Tifa. Prototype. I thought it was cool, and they needed someone to test it out. I told you about this." Well, he had. Sort of. He had waited until she was falling asleep, on that cusp between reality and dreamland. At that point, she would have readily agreed to anything, including trying something that came from the Shinra labs.

He took the small device from her and replaced it on the shelf above the counter.

"You said it was fine." He needed something, anything, to distract her. He would rather not have to explain what it was for specifically. He didn't have to search too hard.

"Um, Tifa? What happened to your hair?"

She bunched her fingers up into the hair on one side of her head. "What do you mean?"

He was looking at her strangely, tilting his head to one side.

"It's all…messed up." And it was. Was she ever going to be able to get those knots out of her hair? And what WAS that pasty stuff gelled in there? Ew!

Pulling at the hair, she managed to make it even worse. "It's just hair, Reno. I didn't have time to brush it this morning. In fact," she frowned as if some distant, hazy thought was occurring to her, "I can't remember if I washed it, either. Hm." She shrugged, holding up the chips.

"Do you know where the peanut butter is?"

Dinner…always a nice, normal thing to do. And romantic! Right?

Reno added the final touches to the table, making sure everything was perfect; the table cloth smooth, the silverware lined up just so, the napkins folded evenly. He lit the candles and stood back, admiring the way they flickered off the crystal goblets and shimmered on the fine china. His heart swelled with the beauty of it, the love and joy it represented, and he had to reach for a tissue to wipe the moisture from his eyes. He turned the small bouquet of flowers at the center of the spread; he wanted everything to be perfect.

He heard the front door open and close, and then the sound of Tifa stomping, stumbling down the hall, a loud swear accompanying her as she told off a stray pair of shoes that had apparently been the cause of the havoc. Bursting into the kitchen, she threw the light switch on, illuminating the room in harsh fluorescents, completely ruining the mood of the candlelight.

Surveying the scene before her, a smile lit up her face.

"You cooked?"

Reno managed a nod, completely dumbfounded.

"Good. I'm STARVING."

He prodded himself into motion, getting a small platter out of the oven where it had been keeping warm and putting it on the table; Cornish game hen in a rosemary glaze surrounded by roasted potatoes and spears of asparagus. Tifa had flopped in her chair, one foot drawn up under her while the other leg swung back and forth. She had filled her plate and started eating before Reno was even seated, ignoring the utensils in favor of her fingers, and occasionally wiping her chin with the back of her hand, failing to notice, or care, when droplets of warm butter escaped to fall on the cleavage of her tight shirt. Reno was awed by the gusto with which she ate, but at the same time pleased by her enthusiasm.

She polished off her plate, licked her fingers, and turned her bright gaze on him expectantly.

"There is more, right?"

Reno provided her with seconds.

Then thirds.

"That," she stated as she seemed to be finally satiated, "was delicious! So, why so fancy tonight?"

"It's our anniversary," Reno stated, rather incredulously.

Brows furrowed, Tifa shook her head. "Our anniversary was two months ago, Reno."

"That was our wedding anniversary. Today is the anniversary of our first kiss."

That was interesting, Tifa thought. Since when did Reno remember things like that? Hell, she didn't even remember when their first kiss was! And now he was on his feet, bending over her, sweeping her out of her chair with a grunt.

Tifa giggled, wrapping her arms around him and hefting herself further into his embrace.

"Guess I've gained a few pounds."

"A few?" Reno was pretty sure it was more than a few.

"Yeah, well I haven't bothered with that stupid scale lately. What's the point? What're a few pounds here or there?"

Reno didn't have an answer that wouldn't end him up in traction, so he wisely decided to let the subject drop. So long as he didn't drop Tifa.

Halfway to the bedroom; that's how far he had gotten when she asked about dessert.

Ah, love! Can we guess where this is headed?

Reno's idea of dessert had absolutely nothing to do with food. Placing Tifa on what he was relatively sure was a bed beneath the mess that had accumulated, he distracted her from her endless craving for food with a yearning of a different sort, and while Tifa was as insistent in this as she was in her demand for food, her hands, mouth, and body grasping, greedy, Reno was considerate and methodical. He relished her urgency, high on the knowledge that he was the cause of such feelings, and was profoundly grateful that this woman shared such pleasure with him. When he finally succumbed to the plethora of sensations engulfing him, it was with an earnest sob full of emotion as hot tears fell upon Tifa's pale, moonlit skin.

"Do you have any idea how much I love you, Tifa?"

Tifa gazed into eyes wet and shining with shedding tears, listened to the choked rasp of his voice, and wondered, not for the first time in the past few weeks, what was wrong with Reno. This overwrought, sensitive crap was so unlike him.

She wiped his tears from her face, holding them up to him.

"I think I have a pretty good idea. I love you, too. You know that, don't you?"

He nodded, wiping his face against one of Tifa's discarded shirts.

Tifa's smile was radiant. "Good. Now, what about that dessert? Something chocolate, I hope!" And, with that, she rolled him over, swam off the messy bed, dragging him by the hand, and headed back to the kitchen.

Catastrophe strikes!

Tifa reached up on the shelf above the counter for…oh yeah. There it was! Chicken bouillon. She couldn't very well make her famous chicken vegetable noodle soup without chicken bouillon.

As she picked up the bottle, the small rectangular object Reno had brought home from Shinra once again caught her attention. Putting down the bouillon, which was momentarily forgotten, she picked up the device for closer inspection, turning it over in her hands…and promptly dropped it in the pot of soup.

She stood there, looking down in the pot of steaming liquid, the sight of the foreign object in the pot somehow causing hysterical laughter to bubble up within and burst out before she could stop it.

"Reno!"

He knew simply by the sound that, though she was laughing, something was not right, but couldn't figure out what might be bothering Tifa. Nothing had concerned her in weeks; the house was a blivet, she was a total mess, and she just didn't seem to care. Entering the kitchen, he couldn't see what the problem was. Well, he couldn't see what the problem was besides the fact that Tifa found something incredibly funny going on in the soup she was making. He made his way to her side, and cautiously, comically, looked over the rim of the pot.

"Oh, crap, Tifa!" Without thinking, he reached into the pot to retrieve the device, burning his fingers and dropping it twice before managing to extract it from the boiling liquid.

"It's not like I meant it, Reno." Shrugging, she couldn't figure why he cared anyway. It wasn't like Shinra ever made one of anything anyway, despite them calling it a prototype. He could just replace it if it were…that…important. The thought edged into her mind, triggering her suspicious nature.

"What was it for, anyway, Reno?"

He had been toweling it off, a clearly hopeless endeavor, as it was covered in the slime of chicken broth along with a couple of vegetables and a string of chicken stuck here and there, but when she asked, he turned his gaze to her, eyes wide, cheeks flushed.

"Nothing, Tifa. It's nothing important." Who did he think he was kidding? That wasn't going to work, and he knew it. Once Tifa got a question into her head, she didn't let it go, and he hadn't been fast enough to distract her this time.

"Seems pretty important to me, if you're that worried about it." She was nodding at him frantically trying to get the liquid out of the tiny openings in the surface of the device. "So what's it for?"

His face flushed even brighter, and he finally set the ruined item down.

"It was a…a…" he mumbled something that she couldn't quite make out.

"Say again?"

"It's supposed to control pests." He blurted out. "You know, keep them away from the house.

"Pests?"

"Yeah. You know. Like…" He didn't need to finish that sentence. He could see the light dawn in her face.

"Like insects? Like…grasshoppers?" She narrowed her eyes at him. It had been weeks since she had teased him about his secret phobia.

He nodded sheepishly, but that didn't stop him from trying to save a tiny scrap of his dignity.

"They said it would work on bats, too, Tifa."

The laughter bubbled out of her. As if bats had any real connection to her own phobia to vampires; that was only in stories, but Reno really was quite adorable like this.

"Bats, huh?" She cleared her throat. "And considering how much garlic was in that soup, it's possible it might actually work on vampires now as well." She joked.

"That may be all it's good for. It looks like it's seen its day."

"Ya think?"

"Yeah, but I'll take it back to Shinra. They'll be ticked that it's broken, but more so if I don't return it at all."

She nodded, turning back to the soup with a sigh. "Well, so much for that pot of soup."

"You want me to help you make another one?" He could be pretty handy in the kitchen when he wanted to.

"I…don't think so." She looked at him strangely. "I'm not really that hungry anymore."

Then again, maybe this catastrophe is a good thing.

The lab was deserted. All for the better, Reno thought. He'd just leave a note for the tech to explain what had happened. He slipped a piece of paper from the printer, grabbed a pen from the nearby desk, and wrote in small, neat print.

"Gen, sorry about this. There was a small accident; it was the girlfriend in the kitchen with a pot of soup." Reno's humor caught him by surprise. It was the first time in a long time he had felt like…himself. "I think it might be ruined. I'll understand if there's money missing from my paycheck. Reno." He noticed an exact replica sitting on the table and placed the device beside it. It was now mostly clean, with only a few remaining splotches of the terminal chicken soup. Having placed the note on top of it, he was turning to leave when he noticed the notebook nearby, open to a picture of the device in question. Curious, he sidestepped to take a closer look, glancing over the notes in the margins: 'Are effects of BMM temporary or is permanent alteration of personality possible?'; 'BMM test subjects reported feeling out of sorts in the first weeks…'; 'failure to recognize initial changes after only five weeks'; and further into the notebook: 'Permanent behavioral deviance anticipated in several test subjects. Data collection and observation is ongoing'.

BMM? Reno flipped back to the beginning of the notebook, finally finding the full name of the device in question, the device that had been sitting in his home, on his kitchen shelf for the past few weeks.

Behavioral Modification Mechanism.

There was a loud thump as Reno vented his anger, leaving an imprint of his fist on the page, directly over the hand-drawn sketch of the mind-fucking contraption.

Gen was so dead when Reno next got a hold of him.

So everything goes back to normal. Or will it?

It was late when he got home, but he could hear the television in the living room and found Tifa sitting up waiting for him, completely absorbed in a familiar old black and white movie.

"Why are you watching this, Tifa?" He slid onto the couch beside her, wrapping his arms around her, and pulled her back between his legs to lean comfortably against his body.

"Hm. I was trying to figure out why you were crying when you watched it. I've never seen you cry at a movie before."

He tilted his head. He had been crying? Over a movie?

As absurd as it sounded, it was true, he knew, and what bothered him more than the cause of his high-strung emotions was the fact that he couldn't clearly remember the episode.

"I couldn't tell you, but I'm pretty sure it was a one time thing." Definitely a one time thing, he thought; he was never bringing another piece of Shinra technology into his house again!

She sat up slightly, looking around at his hands, as if searching for something. "Did you get a new bug zapper thing? Or did you give up on it?"

He laughed softly. "I didn't bother. I decided to let you fend off the nasty little jumping creepies." He had decided on the way home not to tell Tifa what the device had really been for. If things did not get back to normal, he would deal with it then, but there was no reason to panic her. "The tech said they were discovering there might be some strange side effects, anyway, so better not to chance it."

"Good idea." She settled back. "Hey Reno? Have you noticed I've gained a little weight?"

Inwardly, Reno flinched. Should he admit it, or pretend he hadn't noticed? That was such an unfair question for a woman to ask her boyfriend. Right up there with 'does this outfit make me look fat'.

"You can be honest, Reno." Damn; it was if she were reading his mind.

"Yeah, Baby, I've noticed." He was not going to enlighten her as to how much she had been eating, though. He hugged her closer, bucking his hips up gently, suggestively, against her. "I've got a few ideas to help you work it off, if you want."

Nuzzling her head back against him so she could bury her face in the curve of his neck, she chuckled.

"Of course I want, but I don't think it will help anytime in the near future."

Reno had to force his body to relax; he didn't want to alarm Tifa. If she was permanently altered in any way, it would be more than Gen's head on the chopping block. He would make all of Shinra pay.

"Are you feeling all right, Tifa. Nothing's wrong, is it?" He asked cautiously, hoping that Tifa was just a bit down about realizing the weight gain.

"Oh, I feel wonderful, Reno. In fact, I haven't felt this good in weeks. I was feeling rather…strange, but now everything is good." She took his hands in hers, entwining their fingers, and brought them down to her belly, massaging their fingers into the softening flesh. "It's just that when you're eating for two, one of which is just beginning to grow…Yeah. I figure it will be about nine months or so before I can think about losing weight."

Reno felt his heart trip in its steady rhythm as her words sunk in and took meaning. She turned her face up to him, eyes searching for his reaction to the news, a small amount of trepidation visible. Reno gathered her to him, meeting her with a deep, tender kiss, and when he felt the tears slip from his eyes, he knew they were tears of joy, tears of love, and that they were real, not caused by some damn machine, and that they would not be forgotten, that this moment would not be forgotten. Ever.