Chapter 1
Reno walked into the lab, looking for Hojo to get the latest status reports from him. Wandering around, he noticed a brown-haired girl in one of the containment cages.
"Well, hello there." he said, walking over to her cage.
She was startled by his sudden appearance, and when she opened her mouth to say something, he realized the cage was soundproof when he didn't hear her response.
"What do you think you're doing?" Hojo said, coming up behind Reno.
"There you are. Boss wanted the latest status updates." Reno explained, trying to conceal his distaste for Hojo.
"Here, now leave!" Hojo handed him a disc.
"Who's the girl?" Reno asked before he headed towards the door.
"Something beyond your understanding." Hojo sneered at him.
The next time Reno was in the lab, he found himself wandering over to the girl's cage again. Since it was soundproof, he put his hand against the outside wall of the cage, and she responded by putting her hand on the inside wall and smiling at him. That became a routine for him whenever he was in the lab, except when Hojo was present. One day, he noticed the cage was empty, then he saw her being wheeled back to her cage. She sat in the wheelchair, listing to one side, and Reno guessed she was heavily medicated or seriously ill.
"What's wrong with her?" he asked the lab assistant who was lifting the girl out of the wheelchair and putting her back in the cage.
"Nothing's wrong with her, it was just time to terminate her pregnancy so we could study the fetus." the assistant replied.
"Study the fetus?" Reno repeated.
"Yeah, this little lady keeps giving us research gold." the assistant explained before sealing her back in the cage.
Reno left the lab then, looking back at the girl once before walking out the door.
That night, Reno snuck back into the lab and checked on the girl. She had recovered from the sedatives and smiled when she saw him, putting her hand on the cage wall. He put his hand up too, looking her over to try and figure out her age. She looked like little more than a child.
In the morning, he did some discreet investigating but he couldn't access any information about her without a higher clearance. Well, he could, but it would be too easy to trace him if he continued searching.
A few nights later, he visited the girl again. After their usual greeting, he wrote on the small chalkboard he had brought with him and showed it to her.
Can you read?
The girl nodded her head enthusiastically, and he erased it and wrote something else.
How old are you?
She concentrated a moment then flashed one hand three times.
Fifteen?
She nodded again.
How long have you been here?
She flashed her hand three times again.
Do you have a name?
She nodded and traced letters on the wall.
Aerith?
She smiled in agreement. Reno wanted to ask her more, but he heard someone coming and quickly hid.
"Well, my pretty, third time's a charm." Hojo said as he approached her cage. "We finally figured out our mistakes with your first two pregnancies. Your fourth one might just be the breakthrough we've been looking for, as soon as your body is ready."
Hojo left then, and Reno waited a few minutes before writing Goodbye to Aerith and leaving.
Reno didn't understand why he was drawn to Aerith, or why he got uncomfortable as he learned more about the experiments being performed on her. After all, a main focus of his job was to find successful candidates for military experiments. But Aerith…he shook his head, trying to forget about her and focus on the beer in his hand and the blonde in his lap.
Two months later, he was having another nightly visit with Aerith when he had to hide from Hojo again.
"That damned Tseng!" Hojo exclaimed as he glared at Aerith. "I know he's been visiting you on my nights off. He doesn't have the wit to know what he's doing, but he's Shinra's pet and they gave him clearance to interfere with my work. Little does he know that I'd kill you before I let him ruin everything."
Reno couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't believe what he had decided to do, but he felt he had to. Once he had everything planned out, he visited Aerith at night again. Disabling the security lock, he opened her cage.
"Come on Aerith, we're getting you out of here." Reno told her.
Chapter 2
"What?" she asked him, surprised.
"Sssshhh." Reno said. "Be quiet until we're safe."
He took her hand and tried to lead her out of the lab, but she resisted, pulling her hand free.
"I'm safe here." Aerith said, walking back into her cage and sitting down.
"We don't have time for this." Reno picked her up and clamped his hand over her mouth as he hurried out of the building into the waiting helicopter. During the elevator ride to the first floor, he could feel her trembling with fear and tried to reassure her. When they got to the helicopter, he strapped her in and realized her fear was not just for his abduction of her.
"You've never been outside the lab, have you?" Reno asked Aerith.
She shook her head, too terrified to speak.
Reno took a deep breath. "Well, don't worry, we'll be somewhere safe soon, okay?"
He hurriedly got in the pilot's seat and took off. Two hours later as they approached the mountain range, he brought out the timed EMP device that would disable the helicopter controls in two minutes. Activating it after he switched the controls to auto-pilot, he grabbed the parachute and supply pack. He was somewhat relieved to find that Aerith had passed out during the flight. Putting the parachute on, he grabbed her and the supply pack and jumped out.
When they landed, Reno experienced intense pain in his ankle. Checking it out, he was not happy to realize it was broken. He was relieved that Aerith seemed to have no injuries. Opening the supply pack and taking the lantern out, he was happy to see that they had landed close to the cave system he had been aiming for. He scooted himself and Aerith inside the nearest one. Too tired and hurt to do anything more, he wrapped himself and Aerith in the parachute as a makeshift sleeping bag and fell asleep.
He woke up when he felt Aerith move. He looked towards the entrance of the cave and noticed it was morning.
"We better get a move on. It's not going to be safe here for much longer, they'll figure out the crash was a decoy. Could you get me a stick I can use for a cane?" he asked Aerith.
Aerith just stood there. She wanted to be back at the lab…that was where she belonged, they had told her that all the time. She had no idea what she was supposed to do, or what anything was.
"Aerith! I need a stick." Reno said, getting impatient with her.
"What's…what's a stick?" she asked.
Reno sighed, then scooted to the side of the cave, and used the wall to for support as he stood up and hopped to the entrance. "Those are sticks." Reno said as he pointed. "At the base of the trees."
"Those are trees?" Aerith asked in awe, then hurried to go see them. She remembered to find a stick for Reno, looking all around her as she brought it back to him.
Reno had her help him roll up the parachute, and she carried that while he carried the supply pack. They made it to the abandoned logger's cabin he had been looking for by sunset. He wanted it to make it by noon, but they were hampered by his injury and her wonderment at the natural world around her. It called to something instinctive in her.
They had just enough daylight left to get the supplies put away and to do some spot cleaning. The dust was terrible, and they just had to settle for getting it off the furniture onto the floor. Reno had picked up some more sticks, for firewood as well as to make a splint for his ankle. He told Aerith to take the bed with the parachute as a blanket, and he tried to make himself comfortable on the floor. However she didn't like that and slept on the floor with him.
Reno woke up to Aerith still curled up in his arms. He gently nudged her, and she woke up as well, looking confused and scared until she met Reno's eyes and then she relaxed.
"We better get started moving." Reno said and got himself up, getting their things together again while Aerith went outside to look around at everything. He had wanted to stay here for a while, but with his injury he wanted to make the next destination soon and stay there instead.
"Aerith!" he called, handing the parachute to her when she came back inside. Then he checked the compass and headed off again.
They reached the abandoned trapper's cabin with plenty of daylight left. Aerith stood outside the cabin and looked at the river in wonder, never having seen so much water before.
"You can go see it soon enough, right now it's meal time." Reno walked inside the cabin and pulled out the last of the food out of the supply pack.
They ate in silence, and then he grabbed a dusty bucket sitting on the floor in his free hand, and gestured for her to follow him.
"Come on, now you can go see the river up close." Reno said.
He couldn't safely navigate the rocky river bank to get the bucket filled up with his cane, so he asked Aerith to do it, telling her to rinse the dust and grime out of the bucket first. He watched her fascination with the river as she would stick her finger in and then jerk it back out again, and was relieved when she came back with the filled bucket. He liked this cabin having access to water, but the river was exposed, and he had no way to know if they figured out that the helicopter crash was staged yet. And this location would be obvious as a good place to hide out if they were being hunted.
Rude stood in the President's office, where he faced a very angry Tseng and Hojo, not to mention the President of Shinra himself.
"You had no idea what he was planning?" Tseng asked, nearly spitting the words out.
"None, sir. I didn't even know he knew about the girl you say he abducted." Rude answered.
"He did abduct her, right out of my lab!" Hojo yelled, banging his fist on the President's desk. "I will not tolerate the Turks interfering with my work again!" Hojo stormed out of the office then, after that reminder of how he dealt with Vincent Valentine.
"There were no human remains at the scene of the crash, but there's no way to tell when they jumped out, or where they landed. If he planned the crash, we can assume he planned an escape route on the ground. We don't have the manpower to search the area covered by the flight path, so we'll just have to monitor the nearby settlements for when they inevitably will need supplies." Tseng said, informing Rude and the President at the same time of their plan of action.
As Tseng and Rude left the President's office, Tseng put his hand on Rude's arm. "You know what we have to do if we find Reno, don't you?"
"Yes sir. He's a dead man."
Chapter 3
When they got back to the cabin, Reno and Aerith cleaned out the fireplace, and while he got the fire going, he sent Aerith to go rinse out the dutch oven and a bowl. Once she came back, he put the dutch oven close to the fire and poured some water into it and took out the hair coloring kits he had brought with him, blonde for her and brown for him. He dyed his hair first to show her what he was going to do to her hair. She didn't seem to mind at all, and he wondered if it was no different to her than the experiments performed on her.
Since they had no more food, that evening before sunset, he told her how to catch fish and gave her a net hanging up on the wall. Looking dubiously at the net, she went down to the river, and came back a little while later with three fish. She wrinkled her nose in distaste as he cleaned and gutted them. He cooked them in the fire, and when he handed hers to her on the plate they had also cleaned with the hot water, she just picked at it.
"You don't like fish?" Reno asked her.
"No." she replied.
Reno was surprised to wake up to Aerith naked on top of him. "What are you doing?" he asked her.
"I have to have sex with you." she said as she kissed him and started to unfasten his pants.
Reno grabbed her hands to stop her, surprised at her behavior. "No, you don't have to. This isn't right, Aerith."
"Right?" Aerith pulled her hands free from Reno's grasp with surprising strength, and held up her right hand.
"Right as in right and wrong." he explained.
"What does wrong mean?" she asked.
Reno was momentarily taken aback, then he realized that of course she would have never been taught about right and wrong. Aerith used his distraction to finish unfastening his pants, caressing his penis until it hardened, and Reno groaned as she guided him inside her, and then started riding him. He realized he had no business to explain right and wrong to her, not after what he had done for his job, and then he had forcefully abducted a 15year old girl from the only world she'd ever known, making them both fugitives for some idiotic idea of protecting her. And now he was letting that same 15year old have sex with him.
"Why don't you look pleased?" Aerith asked after she felt him climax, wondering why he wasn't reacting like Tseng. "Wasn't I a good girl?"
"What do you mean by that?" Reno asked, not sure how she could have gotten such experience being locked up in the lab.
"If I didn't please Tseng, I was a bad girl." Aerith explained as she lay down next to Reno. "He said it was up to him to make sure my sexual education wasn't neglected.
"I'll bet he did." Reno muttered. "Did he teach you how to enjoy sex?" he asked her, since he had noticed no reaction from her while she was having sex with him.
"How am I supposed to enjoy sex?" she asked him. "Was I not paying attention to my lessons?"
Reno wasn't surprised Tseng was only interested in his own pleasure from this child. "He probably didn't bother to show you."
"Will you show me?" Aerith asked him. "I don't want to be a bad girl."
"You're not a bad girl, Aerith."
She smiled. "Then you will show me? Thank you!"
Reno was about to explain that wasn't what he meant, but Aerith kissed him, her breasts pushing against his chest as she started caressing his penis again. Before he knew it, he was naked as well, Aerith beneath him. She had never experienced anything like an orgasm, not even with the medicine they'd give her occasionally at the lab, and each one she had made her feel something growing inside her, and it was forging a bond between her and Reno.
Reno woke up the next morning, damning himself and Tseng. He hated that it felt so right to wake up to her naked body curled against his. The only excuse he had was that he had kept his promise, and taught her how to enjoy sex. He kept wondering if this was why he really took her from the lab, using saving her as an excuse when he was no better than Tseng, having sex with her when she was still basically a prisoner, having no skills to survive without him.
Aerith woke up with an odd mixture of contentment and confusion. Reno kept teaching her new things, and last night he had taught her what pleasure was. But it didn't make sense to her that it tended to contradict what they had taught her at the lab. And the world was so wonderful. The trees, the rocks, the water, the dirt...she could almost hear them talking to her. Aerith felt Reno stroking her hair and she smiled, snuggling closer to him. She hoped she had succeeded with what the scientists expected of her, but if she hadn't, she would have to have more sex with him, and she wanted to.
"Will you teach me about right and wrong now?" Aerith asked him.
"Time to get to started on today's work." Reno said, suddenly getting out of bed. Pulling his pants on, he went to get the fire going before putting his shirt on.
Aerith got her dress on and went over to the fireplace where he refused to look at her. "What did I do?"
"You didn't do anything, Aerith." He finally spoke as he stared at the fire for a long time. "Tseng and I did. If you want to know what wrong is, it was wrong for us to have sex last night."
"Why?"
"Because…because you don't know why it was wrong." Reno put another log on the fire.
"If…if that was wrong, than what is right?"
"Right is protecting you. And I failed."
"But I had to have sex with you. You were helping me."
"You don't need more of that kind of help."
"I don't understand!" Aerith exclaimed, frustrated that there was something she was missing in his explanation.
Reno almost smiled. "Welcome to the real world, Aerith."
They settled into a daily routine. Foraging for fruits, nuts, and firewood in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, housework in the evening, and leisure time in between. Reno had become fascinated by watching Aerith explore the world she never knew. She would touch everything, examining it. And she would constantly pick up handfuls of dirt or sand, letting it trickle through her fingers. He was most amused by how she would stand on the river bank and stick her toe into the running water, jerk it back out, then put it back in again.
At dinner one night, as Aerith made a face again as she watched him eat the pan fried fish.
"Do you remember how you said you don't like fish?" Reno asked her, and Aerith nodded. "If you don't like something, that's a good way to know that it is probably wrong."
"Does that mean if you like something, it's right?" Aerith asked.
"Not always." Reno said as he stood up from the table and latched the door shut before going to the chair he had placed all the way across the cabin from the bed to sleep in.
As the days went by, Reno noticed that the edible plants seemed to reveal themselves when Aerith would be the one to go out foraging. They never ran out of food, and the fish seemed to jump into the net when she was the one trying to catch them. Once it seemed that his ankle was healed, he decided to wait another week before leaving to not take any chances. Aerith had become quiet and reserved when he told her they'd be leaving soon, and he thought it was because she loved being here, but on their last night at the trapper's cabin, he found out otherwise.
"You're not eating much, aren't you hungry?" Reno asked.
"I'm very hungry, that's the problem." Aerith replied.
"What do you mean?"
"I have to go back to the lab."
"What the hell makes you say that?" Reno was stunned.
"I'm pregnant."
Chapter 4
Reno stared at her in shock. "Are you sure?"
Aerith nodded. "That's why I had to have sex with you. It was time for them to impregnate me again when you took me from the lab. So I had to get pregnant in what Dr. Hojo calls a vastly inferior way. They taught me how to know when I was at my most fertile."
"That doesn't mean you have to go back to the lab."
"Yes I do. They need the fetuses. My fourth one might be the most important one."
"Don't you need them?" Reno asked.
"I'm not supposed to be a mother. They said-"
"Dammit, think for yourself!" Reno suddenly yelled, slamming his fist down on the table.
Scared because she had never seen him mad before and confused by her conflicting feelings, Aerith turned and fled outside into the darkness.
Aerith ran to her favorite spot, a hollowed out tree that she could crawl into that reminded her of being in the lab. She got inside and wrapped her arms around her knees, leaning her head against them and letting the tears flow. She hurt, but this was different from how she hurt sometimes after they ran tests on her at the lab, or after the first of Tseng's visits. She hurt inside, and it wouldn't go away like other pain usually did.
Reno grabbed the lantern and went out after her. He was still mad, but at himself now, and Shinra. This situation kept getting worse…he had wanted to hurry up and get on the move again, because it was bothering him that there had been no sign of pursuit. If they did get caught, Aerith might be safe, but he didn't put it past Hojo not to make good on his promise to kill her if he felt she was a failed experiment. Reno knew he was a done deal though…he had accepted that he had signed his death warrant by taking Aerith from the lab. And their child would die as well. Suddenly he saw movement, and held the lantern in that direction. He saw the grass outside a hollow tree waving, which was strange because there was no wind.
"Aerith?" Reno called into the stump.
Thinking he heard a sniffle, he crawled into the stump, holding the lantern ahead of him. Aerith lifted up her tearstained face as he came closer.
"I'm sorry I yelled at you." Reno apologized.
Aerith started crying again, and Reno took her in his arms, holding her to offer what comfort he could, and she cried harder. She didn't understand why going back to the laboratory didn't make her happy, because that was where she belonged.
"It's okay, I understand." Reno kissed the top of her forehead. He meant it, he needed to remember that she was little more than a child herself. And two months of isolated living on the outside was not going to overcome fifteen years of brainwashed captivity.
Aerith's tears eventually lessened, and the pain inside her had gone away as soon as Reno put his arms around her. She wished they could just be locked in and be safe. Neither of them noticed the plants growing up around the hollowed tree, forming a thick protective barrier that effectively sealed them in, since they were both facing the back wall of the tree.
"Are you sure you saw light in this direction?" Tseng asked Rude.
"Yeah, it was moving around in a straight line, then it turned and disappeared." Rude answered.
"Well, this is the area that is supposed to have a cabin that people said they've seen smoke coming from the chimney, after being abandoned for fifty years." Tseng reminded him.
"Well, that's different." Rude suddenly said.
Tseng moved his flashlight beam to where Rude was. "What?"
"Look at this overgrowth." Rude said, pointing his flashlight at the hollowed tree.
"That's not the cabin we're supposed to be looking for." Tseng snapped, and kept walking.
"Yes sir." Rude said less than gracefully and followed him.
They found the cabin shortly afterwards, noticing the fire still burning and the two unfinished dinner plates.
"This must be where they're staying." Rude said, pulling out the folded up parachute from under the bed. "Or were staying, maybe they knew we were coming and left in a hurry."
"Well, just in case they come back…" Tseng pulled out a jar and sprinkled some powder on the food.
"What's that?" Rude asked.
"The most powerful sedative we have. We'll come back in the morning and see if we can take them quietly." Tseng said, then they both left.
In the morning, Reno and Aerith woke up in the tree, having fallen asleep leaning against the side. They were surprised to find out they were trapped in the tree. Reno went to push the vegetation out of the way, and he got pricked by a thorn.
"Ow!" Reno exclaimed, shoving his finger in his mouth, then waving his other hand at Aerith to stop her from trying.
However when she went to touch them, they moved out of the way. Surprised, Reno grabbed the lantern and followed her out.
"I'll go get more firewood, do you want to go home and wash up?" Reno asked her.
Aerith nodded and they went on their separate errands. As she approached the cabin, she was surprised to see the door open. Reno was usually very careful about keeping it closed, he must have been really worried about her to leave it open like that. She walked inside towards the water bucket, when suddenly the door slammed shut and she felt a hand around her neck.
"I've missed you." Tseng told her.
Chapter 5
Aerith froze as Tseng stroked her hair.
"Blonde looks good on you. Now let's get you back where you belong." he said as he dragged her to the edge of the woods where Rude was waiting.
"Where's Reno?" Rude asked.
"He wasn't there, but she's more important anyway. If need be, we can use her as bait. Feel free to scream." Tseng told Aerith.
Aerith didn't know what else to do but silently call out for help as they marched through the woods, wanting someone to save her. When Tseng had touched her again, she realized she didn't like it.
Suddenly Tseng and Rude stopped dead in their tracks, Aerith bumping into the back of them, then she saw what had stopped them. A pack of boar wolves was circling the three of them.
"This isn't good." Rude said, swallowing hard as he clenched his hands into fists.
"Boar wolves don't even hunt during the day. This might be a rabid pack." Tseng started slowly reaching for his gun.
The boar wolves circled ever closer, snarling furiously. Aerith tried backing away, and they were all too distracted to notice that the boar wolves moved out of Aerith's way. Once she was away from Tseng and Rude, the boar wolves attacked. Aerith turned and fled, screaming as she heard Tseng's screams.
Reno was almost back to the cabin when he heard her screams. Dropping the wood and running towards the sound, he stopped when he saw Aerith coming towards him. She ran into his arms, crying hysterically.
"What is it, Aerith? What happened?" Reno asked.
"I don't want to go back to the lab! Take me with you!" Aerith exclaimed when she calmed down enough to talk.
"Okay, we'll leave tomorrow morning." Reno said.
"No, we have to leave now. They're here!" Aerith was frantic.
Reno felt a twinge of fear as he looked behind her for the pursuit. "Who's here?"
"Tseng and a man I didn't recognize."
"Where are they now?"
"Boar wolves attacked."
Reno breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay, that should slow them down. We have time to buy some supplies in the town downriver." He went inside and grabbed the pouch of gil he had in the supply pack. "Let's go show you what shopping is like."
"From now on, my name is Tomas and yours is Mira, okay?" Reno said as they walked along the river bank.
Aerith silently recited the names to herself. "Where are we going?" she asked.
"After we get supplies? We're probably going to have to keep on the move." Reno said.
"How come we didn't take any supplies from the cabin?"
"They're not safe anymore. Did Tseng say anything to you?" Reno asked.
"He said that I looked good as a blonde, I was more important than you, and they might use me as bait and I could scream if I wanted." Aerith said after concentrating a moment, not seeing Reno's hands involuntarily clench into fists.
When they reached the outskirts of the town, Reno stopped and pulled Aerith to one side of the road.
"Now remember, you're Mira and I'm Tomas. And don't talk to anyone unless they specifically ask you a question, okay?" Reno told her, and Aerith nodded.
Reno spotted the general store and took Aerith's hand in his before making a beeline for it. Once inside, Aerith couldn't stop looking at all the things everywhere.
"Why don't you pick out a couple of pretty new dresses, Mira?" Reno suggested to her, while he went to look at shotguns.
Aerith went to the clothing section, and looked at the dresses like she saw the other women doing. A saleswoman approached her.
"Can I help you with anything?" the saleswoman asked.
"I need to pick out a couple of pretty new dresses." Aerith said.
The saleswoman looked her over more shrewdly, wondering how much of a commission she could make off her. "I think I have just the thing, follow me."
When Reno came over later to the clothing area looking for Aerith, he found her with a saleswoman holding two evening gowns. He inwardly groaned for forgetting that she had never been shopping before.
"Thanks but no thanks." Reno told the saleswoman, then steered Aerith to the discount rack.
They left the store with two dresses, a shotgun with plenty of ammo, sturdy hiking boots for both of them, four oversized nightshirts, vegetable seeds, winter gear, matches, three thick wool blankets, a first aid kit, rope, ten pairs of socks, an axe, three big bars of soap, and five bottles of whiskey. Reno used the remaining gil to buy a pack mule who Aerith named Henry. Once the goods were properly secured to Henry, they left town by taking a ferry across the river, and they had to give up a bottle of whiskey to pay the fare.
Hojo redid the tests one more time, his anger growing with each confirmation. The dinner plates and utensils from the cabin Reno and Aerith had been staying at were brought in for testing, and they ran extensive testing on the saliva on the silverware and food. Aerith's saliva revealed she was pregnant, and Hojo was furious that another test subject was out of his grasp.
They wandered the countryside, looking for a good place where they could stay for a while. As Aerith's pregnancy progressed, she was limited to wearing the oversized nightshirts Reno had picked out for this very reason. When she was in her sixth month, they found a spacious cave behind a waterfall where they decided to stay until after the baby was born. Once they were settled in, Reno foraged and hunted to have a stockpile of food for the coming winter. Aerith kept house while Reno was out, such as it was, and took care of Henry. Reno had traded another bottle of whiskey for a box of books for her to read to help pass the time.
Aerith tried reading the books, but a lot of the words were unfamiliar to her, or she didn't understand the context, so she asked Reno to read and explain them to her. Winter arrived with a bitter vengeance, one day as a blizzard raged outside, Aerith went into labor. She had just gotten out of their makeshift bed to get herself some tea as Reno slept, and she suddenly felt a horrible pain in her stomach and cried out. Reno was instantly at her side, and eased her back into bed as her water broke.
"Is childbirth supposed to hurt this much? Nothing's wrong with the baby, is it?" Aerith asked him.
"I hope not." Reno said under his breath. Then he raised his voice to normal. "I've never experienced childbirth, so I don't know how much it's supposed to hurt."
The labor lasted hours, and it took all Reno's self-control to not down the rest of his whiskey. He never thought that emergency medical skills course he took as part of his training when he joined the Turks would be used to deliver his own child while hiding out in a cave with the underage lab escapee that he got pregnant.
"I can see the head, keep pushing!" he told Aerith.
A few moments later, Reno was awestruck as he held his own child in his hands. "It's a boy!"
Chapter 6
Reno hurriedly cut the umbilical cord, then took his son over to the small metal wash basin that he had staying warm by the fire. He had put water in it hours ago, and after checking to make sure the water was the right temperature, he washed his son, who started crying as soon as the water touched him. Aerith started demanding to hold him when she heard him crying. Reno dried their son off and then wrapped him in one of the maternity nightshirts that Aerith wouldn't need anymore.
Aerith eagerly grabbed hold of her son and looked him over from his toes to his red hair as Reno cleaned her up with the pot of warm water he started heating up as soon as she went into labor. When their son grabbed hold of Aerith's finger, she started crying as she thought about her other babies that never became anything but tissue samples. Reno took him back when she couldn't calm down and got slightly hysterical, and he placed their son in the basket bed Aerith had woven for him.
"It's all over now." Reno said as he washed the tears and sweat off her face after she calmed down from sheer exhaustion.
"We can keep him, can't we?" Aerith pleaded.
"Of course we will." Reno promised her.
Aerith took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "He looks just like his daddy." she whispered before falling asleep.
When Aerith woke up, she heard her son crying, and saw that Reno had fallen asleep in their only chair. She saw that the fire was just embers, so she managed to get up and put the right firewood on it to get it blazing again, then picked up her son. The volume of his crying went down when she picked him up, but he didn't stop crying. She shook Reno awake.
"Hu...what?" Reno startled awake and then rubbed his eyes when he realized it was just her.
"He's crying and he won't stop. What's wrong?" Aerith asked worriedly.
Reno sniffed the air. "Well he probably needs to be changed for starters, but…oh crap we don't have any diapers! Um, he's probably hungry too."
Reno just unwrapped the shirt around him and wiped him off, then wrapped him in another shirt. Then Aerith sat down in the chair and started breastfeeding as Reno took the diaper shirt out and held it tight under the waterfall to rinse it out, then hung it on the rope they were using as a clothesline.
"The storm has stopped, I'm going to go try and get some diapers." Reno told her, then got into his snowsuit and gloves. Putting the hooded jacket on, he put a bottle of whiskey in each pocket before leaving. He came back right and put his snow boots on before heading out again.
Aerith looked down at their son who was greedily feasting. "That's your daddy." she told him. She was surprised by Reno's sudden departure, and was worried that something might happen to their son while he was gone. She didn't know how to take care of babies. He soon stopped eating and fell asleep, so she put him back in his bed, and then put more wood on the fire before getting into bed herself to take a nap.
Reno made his way to the village as fast as he could. They needed diapers before their son could start wearing the clothes they had for him. He felt like a horrible idiot for forgetting about diapers, but at least it gave him a reason to leave. He was overwhelmed by it all and needed some breathing room. Being a father was never something he had planned on, anymore than he had expected ending up leaving the Turks as a fugitive.
Aerith saw a figure standing over her son's basket bed, looking at him. "Get away from him!" she yelled, looking for a weapon.
The figure turned towards Aerith, and she saw that it was a woman, who smiled at her.
Don't worry, I would never hurt him. Aerith heard the woman's statement in her head. He reminds me a bit of your grandfather Jonah if his hair color was different.
"Who are you?" Aerith demanded to know.
You don't recognize me? The woman frowned.
Aerith stared long and hard at the woman, and a buried memory resurfaced. "Mo…Mommy?"
Yes, my little one. The woman smiled. The planet and I are always here for you.
Aerith suddenly woke up to Reno's return, surprised to see that there was no one by their son's bed.
"Okay, now we can get that little guy suited up." Reno said as he put down the bags of diapers down and brushed the snow off himself.
"Can we name him Jonah?" Aerith asked.
"Sure, that's fine." Reno agreed. He hadn't been able to think of a proper name, all he came up with was Hey Kid.
Now that they had Jonah to take care of, Reno and Aerith had started using their aliases Tomas and Mira all the time, so their son would not grow up confused, and they wouldn't be as likely to slip up.
Chapter 7
"If the snow continues to melt like this, we can leave next week." Tomas said.
"Can we go to the coast?" Mira asked as she changed two month old Jonah's diaper. "I want to see the ocean."
"We could, but the nearest is Junon Harbor, and that's not safe for us. So we'd have to go farther south and take a wide detour." Tomas explained.
"That's fine." Mira had enjoyed a book on ocean faring that he had read to her.
When they set out on schedule, Mira was excited. She enjoyed their nomadic lifestyle, it gave her a chance to see so much she never knew existed while she was in the lab.
They had been traveling for a week when after a day of foraging, they came back to their campsite to find a thick manila envelope on top of their rolled up bedding. Tomas carefully opened it and pulled out a file folder.
"It's about you. It's your file from the laboratory." he said to Mira.
"I'm half-Cetra. What does that mean?" Mira asked as she read some of it.
"They're also called the Ancients. I'll explain later. We're leaving now." Tomas said in an unarguable tone of voice after looking around.
They hurriedly loaded Henry back up and headed out. Traveling after dark was not fun for them, especially since it meant Jonah's sleeping cycle was disturbed. Mira had not known it would be so exhausting taking care of a baby. If he wasn't sleeping for short periods, he needed to be fed or changed or entertained. He was just like his father in that respect, except Tomas didn't wear diapers. As they traveled, Tomas told her what little he knew about the Ancients.
"They were an itinerant race that could talk to the planet and it would respond to them." he told her.
Mira remembered how the boar wolves let her escape, and the extreme vegetation growth around the hollow tree. "Why do you say they were an itinerant race?" she asked.
"They're extinct. Or at least they were supposed to be." he replied, looking intently at her.
"No one knows anything about them?"
"Not really, I'm sure Shinra does, but I lacked clearance to find out anything about you. I did hear rumours about a Temple they built eons ago though."
"Where is it?"
"On an island far south of us."
"So if we went there, we could still see the ocean?"
"Yeah, but it might not be a good idea to go there. They might try to recapture you." Tomas explained.
"Don't you mean they'd try to recapture us?" Mira asked.
"No. They want you back in the lab. They want me dead." he said.
Mira stood there in shock for a few moments before hurrying to catch up. She was learning how little she really knew, but she knew what dead was, and she hurt inside terribly when she thought of him dead.
When they camped for the night again, Mira picked out a book to try and read by firelight while Tomas cooked their dinner over the fire. They had learned to make do with cooking what they could hunt and forage, and Tomas liked to try new things, so they ended up with quite a varied diet. He was making a spicy tuber and legume dish for her, and fried meat with the leftover tubers for him.
"How come we're not married?" Mira suddenly asked.
Tomas looked in surprise at her, then saw the book in her hand. He inwardly groaned when he saw it was one of those silly romance novels. He should have checked through the box first before giving it to her. He sighed before answering.
"We'd have to get blood tests before we got married, and when the results are sent to the national database, you'd go back to the lab with Jonah, and I'd be history." he said.
Mira frowned. The book said that the couple should get married if they had a child, and then they'd live happily ever after. But Tomas just told her that wouldn't happen to them. Before she got too upset at the contradiction, Tomas distracted her.
"Here, taste this and tell me what you think." Tomas held out a spoon for her.
She held his arm and put the spoon in her mouth, watching him smile as she moved it around, then slowly pulled the spoon back out and slowly swallowed. She returned his smile and moved in closer to him til their lips were almost touching. "Perfect as always." she said. She was always glad when he wanted her to taste his food, that was the closest they got to sex for the time being, he had made it clear that he wouldn't touch her again until she was 18. Anytime she felt like he was going to change his mind about that, he would look at their son and leave her alone.
Tomas agreed to head south, and when they finally arrived at the coast close to the island where the Temple of the Ancients was supposed to be, Jonah was six months old and starting to eat solid foods. They stayed at a small fishing village and did odd jobs to earn money for roundtrip passage to the island. Being constantly around people, Mira learned more about the nuances in how people interacted with each other during their stay there. It took them a year to save up enough money, but they finally did it, and Jonah was just learning how to walk when they boarded the ship.
Mira spent most of the voyage staring out at the vast expanse of the ocean, enthralled when she saw marine life leaping in and out of the water. Once they landed, it took them a few days to find the Temple, Mira leading the way, somehow knowing how to get there.
As they stood in front of the Temple, Tomas took Jonah from Mira. "I'll take care of him while you go inside."
She carefully started walking towards the entrance, trying to concentrate through the maelstrom of voices that suddenly started echoing in her head. She saw a strange looking figure there on the steps, and the other voices stopped, replaced by a single one.
Why have you come here? the voice asked.
"I'm…I'm not sure." Mira said. "Are you a Cetra?"
I was.
"Are all the Cetra gone?"
Not anymore. The figure pointed to her, and then to Jonah.
Tomas didn't know what to make of Mira and Jonah's behavior. She was talking to thin air, and then Jonah started waving at her like he did when he saw someone new.
"May I go inside?" Mira asked the figure.
There's nothing for you here.
"But I want to know…"
Yes, I suppose you do. The figure reached its hand out and touched Mira's forehead, and she collapsed.
"Mira!" Tomas exclaimed and ran over to her.
She recovered by the time he reached her, and reassured him she was fine. She looked up at the stairs and the figure was gone. But the knowledge he had given her about the Cetra's relationship with the planet was still in her head.
Chapter 8
As they made their way back to the coast for their return trip back to the main continent, Mira worked on practicing communicating with the planet. And she started going barefoot so she could feel the earth on her feet. She had some success in understanding what the planet was trying to say to her.
They stayed overnight in an abandoned fisherman's shack when they reached the coast. When she had finally gotten Jonah to go to sleep, she went outside to look at the stars and feel the beach sand between her toes. She sat down and stared out towards the ocean waves, even though she could barely see them in the darkness, all she could make out was the shininess of them. Suddenly she felt Tomas' presence. She looked up in surprise at him standing beside her.
"Had you forgotten? Today is your birthday." Tomas said as he held out his hand to her.
Now she remembered…according to that file someone left for them, today she was 18. She smiled as she put her hand in his, accepting his offer. He pulled her up to a standing position, then picked her up and carried her back to the shack. They nearly tore each other's clothes off in their hurry to make up for lost time. Once they were naked on the bed, they were oblivious to the flowered vines that started encircling the shack, blooming in concert with Mira's cries of fulfillment.
As Mira slowly woke up the next morning, the vines retreated back into the ground and sunlight penetrated the windows, waking up Tomas and Jonah. She remembered feeling that same sense of bonding with Tomas that she had felt in the trapper's cabin when they first had sex. But this time she thought she knew what it meant.
"If you take care of Jonah, I'll get our things together so we don't miss the boat." Tomas said as he rubbed his eyes.
Mira nodded and kissed him before hurriedly getting dressed and tending to their son. As they left the shack, they saw the boat at the dock and hurried to it. Once back to the fishing village on the main continent, they picked up Henry from the stables.
"Where are we going now?" Mira asked.
"We could try the other continent." Tomas suggested. "But it would mean we'd have to leave Henry or build our own boat."
Mira balked at the idea of getting rid of Henry. "Let's just go north."
As they journeyed north, Mira continued to strengthen her relationship with the planet, and was able to know when bad weather was coming, or where to hunt and forage for the best results. And she started teaching Jonah what she knew. A few weeks after they started their wandering northward, Mira confirmed she was pregnant again, and knew that was the sense of bonding she felt during sex with Tomas on her birthday, it was because they had started a new life together. She had conflicting feelings about it. She had learned enough about people to realize how abused she had been at the laboratory, and occasionally she felt a twinge of bitterness and anger over what she had been forced to endure, and swore she would never let that happen to her children.
As she laid in Tomas' arms that night, she broke the news to him. "I'm going to need maternity clothes again."
He stared at her for a moment, and she felt him tense up, then relax. "And diapers…we can't forget them this time."
Tomas was incredibly gentle with her that night, and Mira thought that even though she had unknowingly suffered at the lab, if not for that she wouldn't be in the arms of the only man who had ever been kind to her right now, pregnant with their second child.
They stayed on the outskirts of another fishing village during the final trimester. Mira gave birth with the assistance of a midwife this time, with Tomas supporting her. They were both surprised when it turned out to be twin girls. The firstborn had blonde hair, the other one had brown hair. They named the blonde girl Rina, and the brunette Lexia. The spirit of Mira's mother visited her again, and Mira knew now that her name was Ifalna thanks to the file.
Rina looks like your Aunt Nora did at birth. I'm not sure who Lexia looks like. Ifalna told Mira.
"Maybe she looks like someone from Tomas' family." Mira suggested.
Possibly. I'm glad you're happy with him. Ifalna said as she looked at the sleeping Tomas. Pity about his hair though. She disappeared then.
A month later as Tomas watched Mira nurse their daughters, he compared the Mira he first escaped with to how she was now, and it was hard to believe they were the same person…she had grown so much. He had been wrong to think she couldn't survive on her own then. The planet had protected her, and him by association. Without her, he probably would have starved to death or been captured by now. Of course, even if he could survive without her, he wouldn't want to.
When the girls were two years old, they passed through the town of Kalm, and Tomas was nervous. It was too close to Midgar for his comfort, and he never forgot about the fact that they were still fugitives, even though it had been years without any sign of trouble, which worried him more.
Mira came back from buying clothes for the children with a flyer in her hand.
"What's that?" Tomas asked, pointing to the flyer.
"There's a meeting tonight for a group that is interested in protecting the planet from misuse by the Shinra corporation." Mira told him. "I want to go."
"What's the group called?" Tomas said, though he had an idea.
Mira looked at the flyer again. "AVALANCHE."
Chapter 9
"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tomas asked.
"Of course it is! It's my duty to take care of the planet." Mira said.
"I'll stay home and take care of the kids then." Tomas knew that trying to explain that they really weren't that much different than Shinra wouldn't do any good, Mira had to find out things for herself. And an AVALANCHE meeting was one of the last places he wanted to be, especially since he and Mira had stopped dyeing their hair. The years had changed their appearance except for their hair and eye colors. Mira had changed more, having reached maturity and giving birth to three children. Tomas had become more muscular due to the hardships of their lifestyle, and his skin had darkened from constant sun exposure.
As she left to go to the meeting after dinner, she put her hand on the outside of the window of the house they were staying in, and he put his on the inside. When she got back a couple hours later, Tomas was in bed, and he could instantly tell she was mad.
"Did you know what materia and mako really is?" Mira asked him and Tomas nodded.
"It's gonna kill the planet!" she ranted as she changed into her nightgown and joined him in bed. "I won't let Shinra hurt my children!"
"All four of them?" Tomas asked, putting his hand on her stomach.
"You know? I wasn't going to tell you until we left here." Mira's anger faded as she thought about the new baby growing inside her.
"I thought you seemed to be getting a little fat." he teased her. "We're going to have to get Henry a companion if this keeps up, just to carry all the baby clothes and diapers."
"There are rumours that she's been sighted at AVALANCHE meetings in Kalm." Rude reported.
A grotesque smile appeared on Tseng's face. That was the only kind of smile he could muster now. The boar wolves had nearly killed him, and it left him horribly scarred on his throat and left side of his face, and he wore an eye patch over that eye.
"Then let's spread some rumours of our own, that a Shinra spy has infiltrated AVALANCHE." Tseng said.
With serious misgivings, Tomas agreed to return to Midgar when Mira signed up for an AVALANCHE mission there. He only agreed because she had said the leader of the Kalm branch was a man named Veld. When a man came to visit them to give Mira details for who to contact in Midgar to complete her mission, he kept staring long and hard at Tomas.
They found a place for Tomas to stay at with the kids while Mira went on her mission. She found the warehouse where she was supposed to meet her contact, but no one was there. Suddenly she heard a noise and saw the man who had visited them in Kalm and told her where to go here in Midgar. Only he wasn't alone, he was shoving Tomas towards her, pointing a gun at the both of them.
"What are you doing?" she asked both of them, suddenly scared. Tomas held her and quietly told her that the children were safe.
"I guess the rumours were right about a traitor in our midst. I wasn't sure I recognized him til I saw him following you. I only saw the famed Reno of the Turks once, but that was enough." the man said.
"My name is Tomas. I've never been to any village called Turks." Tomas said.
"Save it for the other side. You know what the price for treason is?" the man tried to point his gun at Mira, but Tomas was standing in the way.
Suddenly Tomas dropped to the ground. "He knows what the price is now." a voice from the doorway said.
The man and Mira turned to see a horribly disfigured Tseng standing there, holding a silencer gun. A handful of armed guards stood behind him.
Mira dropped down the ground as well, shaking Tomas' body. "Come on, get up. We've got to get out of here. Please get up!" She put her hand on his cheek, feeling something inside she never had before, as she saw the red mark on his forehead and his eyes refused to see her, or feel the tears that fell on his face.
Tseng walked over to her as the guards shackled the AVALANCHE operative. "Reno was always lucky, but even luck runs out on you, doesn't it?" he asked her.
Tseng stood over her as Reno's body grew cold under her hands. Aerith shook her head, then suddenly screamed out against what Tseng represented to her and how he had just taken from her again. The ground started to shake, and the more she screamed, the worse it got. The walls of the building collapsed around them, and cracks appeared in the ground, widening into small chasms. Storm clouds swirled overhead and strong winds whipped through the area.
The AVALANCHE operative and the guards fell into one chasm, screaming. Tseng was losing his footing and tried to grab onto Aerith when a bolt of lightning shot out of the clouds and speared him, dropping him where he stood. A silver haired man appeared, and a hole appeared beneath him, the lifestream rising up to pierce his body and drag it into the hole, which closed up again, leaving his long sword clattering on the ground as the only evidence he was there. Aerith kept screaming until she heard a voice.
Aerith, STOP!
Aerith looked up and saw her mother standing over her.
This is not what we do. Ifalna gestured to the destruction all around them. She kneeled down and put one of her hands next to Aerith's cheek, and with the other hand she went to touch Reno's body.
"What are you going to do him?" Aerith grabbed Reno's body away from her mother.
Return him to the planet, as I had to do for your father when Hojo killed him. Ifalna said with deep sadness.
"Dr. Hojo killed my father?" Aerith was shocked anew.
Yes, so he could take us back to his laboratory. Ifalna touched Reno's body and they both seemed to shimmer for a moment before disappearing.
Aerith stared at the spot where they had been, then saw the Shinra building looming over everything. A fissure appeared in front of Aerith as she smiled, and grew as it headed straight for the Shinra building.
Hojo muttered as he waited for the generators to kick on. The earthquake must have disrupted the electricity, because the lights kept flickering. Suddenly they went black.
"What the hell is going on here?" Hojo was about to start yelling for an electrician when the lights suddenly came back on.
He turned to resume his latest experiment and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw Aerith before him.
"Well this is a surprise. Why have you come back after all this time?" he asked her.
"I'm going to give you what you always wanted." Aerith said sweetly. "I'm going to show you exactly what I'm capable of."
Hojo ran, trying to escape Aerith's fury. She pointed her finger and lightning came in from the broken windows and blasted the monitors behind him. She finally had him cornered, and started to point her finger at him when she caught sight of the containment cage that she had lived in for so long.
Memories flashed through Aerith's head…the first time she saw Reno there, their unspoken hand greeting, him delivering Jonah in the cave behind the waterfall, their whole life together. It gave her pause just long enough for Hojo to pull out his gun and aim it at her. A gale force wind appeared and blew Hojo into the huge ventilation fan for the laboratory. He didn't even have a chance to scream before he was ripped to shreds. Aerith turned to look from where the wind had come from, and her mother stood there with her finger pointed towards the fan.
I may not have been able to save your father, but at least I was able to save you. Ifalna turned to Aerith and smiled. Go to your children. She touched Aerith's cheek and disappeared.
Chapter 10
Aerith found herself back at the house Reno was supposed to be waiting for her at while she completed her mission, not sure how she got back there. Suddenly Jonah ran out.
"Mom!" he exclaimed and hugged her. He had hoped the planet was lying to him, but if she came back alone, it wasn't.
Aerith stared at him, not understanding why he was hugging her or why she started crying when he did. A lady came out of the house and said she lived next door and Reno had asked her to look after the children for a little while.
"That earthquake and storm was horrible, I've never seen anything like that. I'm glad you're back, I need to get home and make sure everything's okay. Where's their father?" the woman asked as she looked towards her own house, then looked at Aerith's face. "Oh, don't tell me that the earthquake got him."
"He…he returned to the planet." Aerith heard herself say as Jonah guided her back inside the house.
She didn't remember sleeping that night, but she woke up with her children all holding onto her, and realized there was a knock at the door. Aerith managed to get out of bed and go answer it. The man who had tried to take her from the trapper's cabin with Tseng was standing there, looking uncomfortable. Aerith just stared blankly at him.
"You're free now, Shinra has called off the search. And um…consider this Reno's pension payment." The man held out a thick envelope, but Aerith didn't take it, so he put it on the table right inside the door and then left.
Jonah came to his mother's side, watching the man leave, then he grabbed the envelope and exclaimed in surprise. "Mom, look at all this money! And there's a note with it."
Aerith read the note, noticing that it said the money was the salary Reno would have been paid in the years since he broke her out of the lab. Her first instinct was to burn it all, but she had a second thought. She paid someone to take them and Henry to the village closest to the cave behind the waterfall. Aerith wanted their last child to be born where their first one had been. She hired a midwife to stay with them during the last month of her pregnancy, and she gave birth to a brown haired son that she named Tomas. A week later, they loaded up Henry and his new companion, another pack mule named Peter, and they headed out, reaching their destination in three months.
"What is this place, Mom?" Jonah asked as they approached the cabin.
Aerith slowly approached the trapper's cabin, opening the door and walking in, stunned by how untouched it look since she had last seen it, except their dinner plates were missing. She saw the stick that Reno had used as a cane while his ankle healed from their escape, and she nearly broke down again as she picked it up. He had tried to warn her about AVALANCHE and returning to Midgar, but she hadn't understood, just like she hadn't understood when they lived in this cabin why he tried to resist having sex with her. Then the result had been life when she had conceived Jonah, but when she was pregnant with Tomas, her misunderstanding had resulted in Reno's death. She took a deep breath and swallowed hard on the guilt she felt for how she ended up repaying his kindness.
"Mom, what is this place?" Jonah asked again.
She forced a smile and turned around to face their children. "This is where we're going to live from now on."
Aerith never left the clearing surrounding the cabin, having bought the land with some of the money. As her children grew up and moved on to their own happy lives, they kept trying to get her to live with them, but she refused. It was where she felt closest to Reno, the river water sometimes matching his eyes, an occasional sunset or the fire in the fireplace matching his hair, and sometimes she almost heard his voice on the wind. She lived in that cabin until the day she died, when a sinkhole appeared and returned the whole cabin to the planet.