Author Notes – As you can see, this will be my first fanfic. The story will be the life of Aeris Gainsborough, the flower girl in the slums. This 'timeline' of Aeris' life will start the day before she meets Cloud until the day Sephiroth's blade pierces through her chest.

This story isn't all based on the game. I will add twisted plots and mesmerizing storylines, trust me on that one. It's just the beginning, and I can't put all my ideas in this chapter. It's only Chapter One!

This story will be A/C but because the game never really cleared on that, I think it is a bit more plausible than T/C. There will be other pairings, but I'll keep them inside of my brain until their parts come up. I'm going to hide now.

Also, this story will be in first person.

Oh, and the italics are her thoughts and memories. Just letting you know.

And thank Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, my sister, for editing this to the best she could. Also, why don't you thank her for making me write this in the first place? Hell, thank her for bouncing ideas with me (Which lead to this)…. Why don't you just go read her story, hmmm?

Hope ya guys like it!

Disclaimer – I don't own FFVII or any game, really. I'm just your average teenager, giving people some stories to read and eating away my boredom by writing them.

Chapter One - The Flower Girl

"One carnation please," the little girl reached her hand into her dirty back pocket, grabbing the one coin she had with plans to give it to me. She dropped the small coin into my hand, grabbed the carnation she bought with the other and began skipping away.

I smiled at the sight of the little girl, skipping toward the center of Sector Five with her prize. "Even in the darkest of places, that girl can still become pleased by the littlest things," I sighed peacefully, and went back to work.

I stayed at the church for a couple more hours, selling as much as I possibly could. There was never much business, but it keeps the lights on and food in my mother and my stomachs, if only for a little while. But, staring out at the rest of the slums, I know it could be worse.

I was walking home when I saw a man coming toward me. "I've seen that man before. His blue suit, his long, black hair in that ponytail is very familiar..."

"Tseng," I breathed. I was shaking.

Tseng walked over to me in three big strides. "Ah, Aeris, I didn't know you would be here –"

"You know that I work at the church, Tseng. Don't give me that."

"Oh? Well, yes, I did know that, didn't I? Well, unfortunately, I'm not working, and I have no orders to try to come get you yet, so I guess you're lucky." Tseng brushed off some dust that was on his Turk uniform, and went walking along, as if nothing had just happened.

"Well, that was weird." I thought. "He never acted that way before…was he really off work or he just doesn't want me to be captured? He was wearing his Turk uniform..."

"Mom, I'm home!" I walked into the narrow front door and put my basket of flowers on the wood table.

Mom was at the stove, cooking dinner. "Hello honey, anything good today?"

"Sure, if you call 25 gil good." I put the twenty-five coins on the table, next to the basket. "Well, Mom, at least it'll buy us some more chocobo. I'll get more tomorrow."

"Oh, honey, it's not the money I'm worried about. I'm worried about you. This is the slums, Aeris. There are some very sick people out there and you are quite the attractive young lady. I don't want you to get hurt, sweetie." Mom sighed as she looked away from the food she was preparing to my face. The stress lines around her eyes were more pronounced than I wished them to be.

"Mom, everything's fine. It's not like anyone's going to kidnap me or something," I knew this was a lie, and obviously so did she.

"What about the Shinra, dear? They know that you sell flowers at the church and –"

"I promise to you that I will be fine. Nothing's going to happen to me, okay?" I took my basket and started to go upstairs.

While I was walking up the stairs, I could have sworn that I heard Mom sigh the way she always did at the end of this topic. She knew that I wasn't going to just stop because she wanted me to. Even if it was because of my own safety.

Of course, I understood, but I honestly have a good feeling about this. That something good would happen soon.

When I got up to my room, the first thing I did was throw the flower basket on the floor and then hop onto my lumpy twin-sized bed. I loved my bed, even though it was harder than a rock; it was because it was the first thing my foster mom gave to me.

"Aeris, dear, this is your room," Elmyra walked me into the small bedroom, with a smile on her tiring stress-wrinkled face, but yet the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. It was the first smile I had seen in so long. "This is your bed, and that's your dresser. Later you and I will go and get you some new clothes. How's that, hmm?"

"Aeris, dinner's ready!" Mom yelled, loud enough to break my daydream.

Dinner was the usual: Chocobo. It really didn't taste that great, but I couldn't complain; it was better than nothing at all. I had hoped that in a little while I would be able to buy my mother and I something else. But for at that moment, it was all that we could afford.

I got my helping of the cooked yellow bird and water then sat down at the table. Mom sat down as well, right across from me as usual, and started eating her meal.

"Mom, why are you so protective of me? I know the Shinra wants me, but it doesn't mean that I can't sell flowers at a church, does it? Do you really think that they would come there?" I took a bite of my chocobo and watered it down with my drink. I willfully drank it, too, which could only begin to hint at how bad it tasted.

"Dear, I don't think it. I know it. They want you, and there is no denying that they would go out to the end of the planet just to get you. I'm surprised they haven't even come here yet."

I sighed. The topic was never a pleasant one; it always brought back bad memories of how the injections hurt and how bad the mako smelled. I would always remember that faint rust-and-alcohol stench. At least that's how it smelled to me. Rust and alcohol. I remembered it as if that stench was here with me.

"I know, Mom," that was all I could say.

Once I was done with my dinner, I put my dirty dish in the sink and went upstairs to go to bed. I didn't know why I was so tired; all I did was walk around and give a couple of children flowers.

I went to my lumpy bed once again, thinking of the little sleep I would get. Even if people didn't live anywhere by me, the screams and the sound of gunshots at Sector Five still rang in my ears every night.

I laid there, I just thought about random things: the Shinra and what they would do to me if they ever caught me, how I was going to keep my mother and I alive, since I barely made any money and Mom didn't really make much either. While I was thinking, I finally drifted into a deep sleep.

"My arm hurts. Please, stop it!" I begged the scientist as he put the needle in my arm, and pressed the top of the object. I screamed fairly loudly, the pain was too much to bear.

"The S Cells should most likely dominate the G Cells and..." the scientist was writing insanely on his notepad, making a few mistakes now and then, and then scratching the paper so hard I thought he was going to break both the paper and the pen. "Since she's a Cetra, the S Cells should dominate the G Cells! I am not doing this wrong! I am a genius! Genius I tell you! I'm never wrong!"

I woke up suddenly, tears in my eyes. "I have been having that nightmare quite a lot lately," I thought while I was trying to decipher the symbols on my clock.

"5:23," I mumbled, and slammed myself on the hard bed. I didn't want to get up this early, but then again, I always did. It wasn't any different.

"Wake up sweetie! You need to water the flowers before the sun comes up, so no one sees you." Mom turned on the light, and I saw her standing there, fully awake, smiling the smile that I've always loved.

I groaned, got up, and went downstairs to start my awfully long day.

It was as cold as ever, and being in my thin pink dress, I was freezing to the point where I thought my teeth were going to break.

I watered the flowers, picked up some materia that had been there for a couple of days, and ran back to the house where it would be nice and toasty.

When I got into the house, Mom was upstairs, doing laundry. The water could be heard from ten miles away; it was banging so hard into the bathtub. "Who would do laundry at almost 6 o' clock in the morning?" I wasn't in the greatest mood. Maybe I should have gone to bed earlier.

I went upstairs to see my mother, lying on the floor, sleeping.

I sighed. "She works herself way too much," another sigh escaped from my lips. I brought Mom into her room, tucked her in, and kissed her forehead. "You never know when someone could leave you," I thought. "I've had someone leave me before, right when it was the least expected."

I looked at the clock by the bed, and realized it was time to go to the church to sell more flowers. I hoped that some more people would actually buy today, but I highly doubted it.

I turned off the running-hot water, got my basket of flowers from my room, and left.

I was talking to a homeless child about how to grow daisies when five people came rolling out of a mako reactor. I could see them, but I couldn't interact with them because they were too far away. Even though they were far away, you could still hear their whole conversation.

"Move out! Meet at the back of the last train in fifteen minutes." The big, black man said with much enthusiasm.

He kind of scared me a little, I had to admit.

When he said that, three people went to leave to their destination.

"Hey –"

"If it's about your money, save it until we get to the hideout. There might be people listenin'." The big man was obviously trying to distract the other man. I could tell that he didn't want to give him money- that I was sure of.

The big black male turned to leave, obviously to what I heard, going to the train station.

The spiky blonde-haired man walked over to me, his expression one that I couldn't read.

"Hey, what happened?" I was very curious, since seconds after they left something blew up. I thought it was the mako reactor they exited out of, but I wasn't exactly sure.

"Oh, it's nothing. Hey, listen..." He was obviously trying to keep something from me, but I honestly didn't mind.

"Wait, I don't see flowers like that often," the man was trying to distract me, I could tell.

"You want one? It's only a gil," I said. I was practically hyperventilating. He was cute, but he looked a lot older than me. Maybe it wasn't that he was older, but that he had a hardened look to him. He reminded me of a war veteran.

"Sure, why not?" he reached for his pocket, just like the little girl the day before did, and gave me a gil. In exchange I gave him the flower and he smiled.

There were butterflies in my stomach.

"Thanks," he said, and walked slowly, inconspicuously, in the same direction the big black man and the others had.

"Oh, oh, you're quite welcome!" I screamed excitedly back at the blonde-haired man, already half way toward the train station.

I hoped he heard me. I thought it would be the last time I would ever see him.

How wrong I was.

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