The front door opens.
Elmyra can hear its lowest hinge whine even from inside the kitchen. Air sticks to the walls of her lungs. Instinctively, she lifts the metal ladle from the steaming pot and turns it bowl-side up in her hand. Bits of stew drip from it onto the floor and the skirt of her dress.
"I'm home, Mom!" Aerith says. Relieved, Elmyra returns the ladle to the pot. Grabs a stray dishtowel to dab at her clothing.
One could never be too careful in the slums.
With her free hand, Elmyra turns the heat on the stove down to a simmer. Then she crouches. Zigzags the dishcloth over the surface of the floor. It takes her a moment to register that the floorboards in the neighbouring room are creaking far too much for it to just be Aerith.
Someone else is with her.
When Elmyra steps around the partition wall dividing the kitchen and the foyer, she is not pleased to discover she is right.
Elmyra recognizes the uniform straightaway: she has seen it featured enough times on posters and the news to know it at a glance. This man's uniform looks shoddy and in need of a wash. But it is aubergine all the same.
His eyes are what clinch it for her.
Typically, she would have difficulty determining somebody's eye colour from across the room. This is not one of those times. His blue eyes glow in the dim light.
This man is from SOLDIER.
"Hey Mom," Aerith says as she sets her boots aside. "This is Cloud, my bodyguard."
Something about Aerith's smile gives Elmyra a sinking feeling.
Cloud nods at Elmyra in greeting. That only causes her mind to stutter. Then the implication of what Aerith has said catches up to her.
"You were followed again?!" she asks. Closes the distance between her and Aerith. "Are you alright? You're not hurt, are you?" Her palms ghost over Aerith's shoulders and down her arms as Elmyra inspects her face for signs of anything untoward. Aerith just keeps on grinning.
"I'm fine. I had Cloud"— Aerith looks over her shoulder at him— "with me."
Oh no.
It has only been about eight or nine hours since Aerith first left the house. Somewhere in those five to six hundred minutes, something had to have happened to make her smile like this.
There is not a doubt in Elmyra's mind that something is Cloud.
Bowing, Elmyra thanks Cloud. Clenches the material of her apron between her thumbs and fingers. The joints of her hands press into her stomach as she straightens up. Elmyra cannot tell what Cloud is thinking as she meets his gaze. Wonders if she is anywhere near as inscrutable to him.
She takes this chance to excuse herself from the room. The staircase squeaks under her feet as she ascends to her bedroom. Elmyra leaves the door open as she preoccupies herself with rearranging the handful of knickknacks that sit on her vanity. With any luck, Cloud would soon leave.
"Mom! I'm taking Cloud to Sector Seven!" Aerith calls out. "I'll be back in a while."
In the cloudy mirror on her vanity, Elmyra glimpses her own morose expression.
There is no point in arguing with her. If the last fifteen years have taught Elmyra anything, it is that Aerith just takes dissenting opinions under advisement.
She can recall returning to the Sector Six playground to find a twelve year-old Aerith slowly climbing up the side of a jagged junk-heap. Her blood had gone cold at the sight.
Get down from there, right now! Elmyra had cried. A misstep could spell disaster: it is not uncommon for children of the slums to die from infected injuries. Still climbing, Aerith had shouted something down to her that Elmyra cannot remember. Her own heartbeat had been too loud in her ears then.
Elmyra thanked every star in the sky and every voice Aerith heard when she finally came down the junk-hillside unharmed. Crushing Aerith against herself, Elmyra had muttered barely-coherent warnings into Aerith's hair. Don't you ever do that again. Never, never, never! That was dangerous.
I'm fine, Mom, I'm fine, Aerith said between breaths into Elmyra's shoulder.
An unfamiliar girl with watery eyes approached them shortly afterwards. Disentangling herself from Elmyra, Aerith placed what looked like a tarnished locket into the little girl's hand. Elmyra suspects some bully had taken it from the child and tossed it up onto the garbage heap. Suspects that Aerith would have had a hard time ignoring something like that.
Not much has changed in a decade. The difference now is that Aerith likely has more than one reason to see Cloud to Sector Seven.
Elmyra hurries down the staircase to find Aerith already putting on her boots. Next to her, Cloud has a strange and faint expression on his face.
"You've made up your mind, haven't you?" Elmyra says. Sighs. "Well, if you must go, why don't you go tomorrow? It's getting late now."
Sucking in her lips, Aerith considers it. She looks a little silly standing there with only one boot on. The strange and faint expression on Cloud's face becomes a little less vague. Elmyra might even say he looks charmed.
"Yeah." Aerith sounds lost in thought. Then— "Yeah, you're right, Mom."
Pinning the heel of her boot under her toes, Aerith slips out of it. Two thoughts occur to Elmyra.
"Aerith, could you please make the bed upstairs?"
"Sure thing," Aerith says.
Elmyra waits to hear each of the fourteen steps groan under Aerith's feet before she motions to Cloud to join her in the kitchen.
"I almost forgot about dinner," Elmyra says. Feels her voice tremble slightly. She stirs the pot and points with her other hand to a cupboard. "Bowls are up there."
Without a word, Cloud goes to open the cupboard. Elmyra turns off the stove. Sets the pot on a cold element. Her fingers seem to stick to the handles.
"That glow in your eyes... you're from SOLDIER, aren't you?"
Cloud closes the cupboard door as Elmyra peels her fingers from the pot.
"Yeah," he says. She turns to find him cradling three bowls between his hands. One side of his mouth looks pinched. "Well, I used to be..."
Elmyra thinks she should be relieved: the less contact they have with Shinra, the better. The only problem is that used to be sounds like a whole other can of something-more-dangerous-than worms.
"I don't know how to say this, but..." Elmyra grits her teeth a little. Meets his eyes. "Would you please leave here, tonight. Without telling Aerith."
She does not say it as a question: it is not one.
Aerith is not a child anymore. Elmyra knows this. Yet she cannot bring herself to stand aside in this matter. Cloud might be a different man, but he wears the same uniform. That this uniform belongs to Shinra only exacerbates things.
Little creases form between his eyebrows as he holds her gaze. He has questions. Then those creases disappear as fast as they came on.
Ever so slightly, Cloud nods.
Like most denizens of the slums, Elmyra sleeps lightly. The sound of a door hinge whining is enough to wake her. Rolling over, she looks at the old-fashioned clock that sits within the glow of her bedside lantern. It is inhumanely early.
The front door squeaks shut.
A few seconds pass with nothing but the white noise of the slums to fill them. Elmyra wiggles down further under her blanket as she tries to get comfortable.
Relief seems a rare commodity these days. When Elmyra thinks she should feel it, the sense is absent. She supposes it cannot be helped: he had done as she had asked. Elmyra snorts.
It should be a lot easier to dislike him.