Yay, here's my first contribution to the Zeris fandom. This fic is inspired by my current job- I work at a pizza place about a 20-minute walk from my house.
Warning: Zeris, Closeph. AU (sorta), it'll be explained.

Ages: Zack, 22; Aeris, 17; Cloud, 16; Sephiroth, 30; Tifa, 16. (Yeah I know that Tifa is supposed to be a year younger than Cloud, go with me here.) Drinking age and driving age is 16.

Disclaimer: Dun own FFVII. Though I did beat it before my brother did... when I was in kindergarten... . (It helped me pass vocabulary tests for years! XD)

Edge Street Strip Mall Chapter One Lunch for Two

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Aeris hummed softly to herself, sitting alone in the back of her mother's shop. Ifalna, her blood mother, had been best friends and work partners with a woman named Elmyra since middle school, and the two had started a flower shop together. When Ifalna died of a "heart attack" at a suspicious age, Elmyra had taken her in, as per her mother's wishes. It was a decade since then- Aeris was now seventeen, legally old enough to get a lisence or go drinking at the local pub, even to leave her new mother's house. She'd been helping out at "Edge Street Florist" as long as she could remember, and started officially working at twelve. The extra pair of hands lifted weight from Elmyra, that was for sure, but in truth is was Aeris' natural talent for homegrowing and arranging flowers that had really put the business on the map.

"Aeris," her mother called from the register at the front of the shop, "it's lunchtime. Don't want you to pass out from exhaustion." She shook her hands off, wiping them on her mint green apron, strolling into the back room. "Maybe you could go to the new pizza place that just opened up on the other side of the strip mall," she suggested.

Aeris gave it a thought. "But it's the Shinra chain, and you know as well as I do that they have ties to the Turkish mob," the young brunette said, tucking a sprig of baby's breath next to a few roses in a clear crystal vase. "And last week it made Tifa sick."

"Tifa may be a strong girl," Elmyra reminded her, "but she works at a bar. With so many drunk and sick people who go through, her immune system is shot." She pulled a twenty-gil note from her pocket and handed it to the girl at the counter. "Bring me back a stromboli?"

Aeris smiled. When she was charged with a task, she always lived up to it. "Deal," she said, untying her apron and laying it down on the stool. Looks like she was going to have to try the place out.

oOoOoOo

The shop door opened with a soft 'ding' from the bell attached to the top of the doorframe, and the small sound had a black-haired man in the back look up. It was his turn to man the register- being Wednesday, business was rather sluggish and there were only three people in the shop- himself, the delivery boy, and the branch manager. Said branch manager, an older man by the name of Angeal, was asleep in the office at the back of the shop, and the young delivery boy (a scrawny teen named Cloud) was probably playing his gameboy in a corner somewhere in the place.

Zack tucked another pizza into the oven, turning another, and pulling one out before reaching the front counter. The girl standing there was beatiful, to say the least. He'd never known that a pristine, pretty thing could survive in this section of the city. "What can I getcha?" he asked, leaning on the counter, grabbing a pen and a tablet to jot down her order.

"Can I have a small stromboli and a caesar salad, please?" Aeris asked, placing her mother's paper money on the counter. He gave her just enough change and turned to the back of the shop to shove the paper in the overhead holder, noting the 'clink' of the girl putting her change - all five gil, whereas people would normally only take one - into the tip jar on the laminated counter.

The spiky-haired man turned back to the direction of the counter. "That'll be about a half an hour, we're actually pretty busy today," he lied through his teeth. This girl was damn gorgeous - and even in his area uptown there wasn't anybody like her. He deserved a little eye candy every now and then, didn't he?

"Okay," was her sweet reply, finding a seat for herself in a nearby booth. The brunette wassoftly humming to herself once again for at least another five minutes before she heard the man from behind the counter pipe up.

"You're a rarity," he concluded aloud, "A sweet girl, downtown? What twist of life threw you down here?"

"I don't know," she said, "but whoever put me here, they had their reasons." She nodded, her answer satisfied her enough, though leaving it rather ambiguous.
Zack knitted his eyebrows. This girl was... different. The girls who were already regulars here at his branch of Shin Ra Pizza were young, skanky, standoffish, blunt and rather stupid, but this girl was a welcome change."What's your name?'

"Aeris." she said, flicking her bangs out of her eyes - a sea-colored combination of green and blue. "I work at the flower shop, just on the other side of the strip mall."

"Damn, you just keep on breaking yourself further and further out of the mold, don't you?" Zack shook his head, setting a timer next to the oven to go off in twelve minutes, and lifting a section of counter to step over to Aeris' booth. He sat, quasi-ungracefully, on the slate-colored pleather. "I didn't even know you could get flowers shipped into Midgar. Yours must be the only shop in the city."

"There's another one, way uptown for all the hoi palloi, but Gaisborough Gardens services everyone else, all the people who can't afford caviar prices." She smiled. "And we don't ship them in, it's far too expensive. All our stuff is home-grown, all organically."

"I've come to a conclusion," Zack declared, "you've got to be an alien, or brainwashed, or something! You just ain't natural!" He watched the girl giggle. Score one for Zack.

The timer went off with an unpleasant chirp, and Zack was wrenched from his confortable seat to pull the stromboli from the oven. He eased it into its proper box, with a container of marinara sauce for dipping if it was so needed. He grabbed a sheet of coupons from next to the register, flipping it over and scribbling on the back before taping it to the inside of the stromboli box. Placing her caesar salad on top of the package, he handed it to her over the counter. "Have a nice day," he chimed, "and if I need flowers soon, I'll take a run down to your shop."

"You too, thanks," she responded, using a free hand to brush off her clean blue-and-white dress. Thank god the trip back to the flower shop was short - the sky was darkening itself to an unwelcome grey, signaling rain. As much as Aeris loved nature, she couldn't stand being cold and wet.

"One stromboli," Aeris said, pulling the cardboard box out from under her salad and handing it to her mother. She pulled a desk drawer open and fished out a disposable plastic fork for herself and sat down at her station, peeling the cover off.

Elmyra smiled. "Oh, well this is definitely some customer service," she commented, getting Aeris' attention. "Not only do we get coupons, but they write us notes, too!" She pulled the paper sheet from the inside of the box and dashed to a spot in the shop where she knew Aeris wouldn't be able to snatch the slip of paper from her. "Aeris," she read loudly, "You're definitely something I've never seen here in Midgar before..."

"Mom, give it here!" Aeris said, blushing rather furiously. "I didn't even know it was there!"

Elmyra held it far over her head, continuing her concert of the coupon letter. "...and I'd love to do lunch with you sometime. Zack." She flipped the note a little sideways. "And he left you his number!"

Aeris pulled back her assault. "His number?"

"I can't let you go anywhere without some unknown guy hitting on you! Goodness, Miss Gainsborough, you'll have a boyfriend in no time!"

"Mom!" Aeris breathed. Sure, the pizza-maker had looks. And hell, he had charm, and not the 'come hither little girl' charm but rather the 'I'll take you out for a night on the town' charm. "He's not bad," she mumbled.

"But you were the one complaining about how the Shin Ra chain has ties to the Turks-"

"Not all of the employees would know that," Aeris said, not knowing why she was getting defensive. "Besides, I don't even know if I'll respond. I might not even go back there."

Elmyra snorted. "Of course you're responding! You write a note, and I'll drop off some flowers tomorrow. At my expense, of course," she said, standing in front of a chart of different arrangements of flowers. "I think this one'll match their decor nicely, after all, white does seem to go with everything."

"Mom..."

"No 'mom', missy! From what you say, and from what I can tell - oh, don't even think you can hide that, I've been in love before! - this guy can't be a bad match. How does Friday sound?"

"Mom, it's two days."

"So? You know how fast I can sew!"

Aeris poked her mother in the side. "Mom, I'll just wear one of my normal dresses. Going to lunch with the local pizza guy doesn't contitute a cocktail dress."

Elmyra pointed to a flower arrangement on her wall chart. "This one'll do," she mumbled, grabbing a vase from a shelf. "Don't just stand there, eat your lunch and write out that note! You've got a date to set up!"

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I'm actually loving this fic. And I can throw in random yaoi bits of I so choose... (Huzzah for a canon couple with a far-from-canon couple in the background!) Next chapter will be either the next day (which would happen to be a Thursday) or their date. Probably the next day.

Ja ne! Kitteh ../"