Disclaimer: Melodically not mine.

A/N: The meme was to choose a pairing, turn your playlist on random and write a fic for each track that plays, but you're only allowed to write for as long as the song is playing. Things I learned from this: I have an eclectic and, in many ways, rather embarrassing selection of music on my laptop, Zack/Aerith is still ridiculously cute, and you should never start typing while tired from walking the dog or you'll fall asleep right after track five stops and leave a trail of 'eee' for fifteen pages. I didn't intend for this to have a coherent storyline when I started, but somehow the songs strung themselves together.

Smiles, Kisses and Teardrops

© Scribbler, May 2011.

Love begins with a smile, grows with a kiss, and ends with a teardrop. – Anonymous

4. Settlin' - Sugarland

Tabitha found her son outside. Again. He was playing with the wooden sword his uncle made for his birthday. Again. She had gone to his room only to find the window open, proof of his escape from chores. She watched as he cut, thrust and parried invisible opponents, oblivious to her presence.

"Take that, dragon!" he yelled, jumping on a rock with a flourish. "You won't get no roast princess while Zack Fair is on the case! Ngh! Huh! Hah!" He jabbed the imaginary beast, which apparently died, since he danced about victoriously on his perch. Suddenly one of his sandals slipped and he tumbled to the ground with a yelp.

Tabitha hurried forward but he was already picking himself up. He finally saw her and smiled roguishly, rubbing the back of his head with one hand.

"Uh, hey Mom. What's up?"

She folded her arms. "Did you clean your room before you came outside to play?"

"Uh…"

She rolled her eyes. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Sorry, Mom." He smiled. He had the devil in him enough to drive her mad at his tricks, but he could also charm wild birds off their perches with that smile. "I'll go do it right now, I promise."

"You'd better."

"I'm going, see?" He started towards the house. "This is me going to clean my room."

"What made you think rescuing pretend princesses is more important than helping out your poor, overworked, very frazzled mother?" Tabitha blew a lock of damp dark hair off her face. Summer in Gongaga was hotter than the inside of an oven, but it was the humidity that got to most people. How Zack could run around in the baking sun was beyond her.

"Aw, Mom. It wasn't like that."

"I hope she was worth it, because you're not leaving the house until that room is spotless. Not even to go fishing with your friends like you arranged."

"Aw, Mom!" Zack pouted. At nine years old, his baby-face was still perfect for pouting. "That's not fair!"

"It's completely fair."

"Aw, nuts." He paused, as if waiting for her to change her mind. When she didn't he went on, "She wasn't a regular dumb princess anyhow."

"Oh? I thought the point of you being the hero was to rescue princesses and fight monsters."

He shook his head. "Nu-uh! It's more complicated than that."

"It is?"

"Sure it is. Princesses should be able to do more than just wait around to be rescued, and heroes don't just do heroic stuff for people they want to kiss and get married to, y'know." He stuck out his tongue. "Yack. I was teaching my princess the best way to defeat a dragon, but she wasn't very good at it. I think she wasn't practical enough."

Tabitha gazed down at her son. He was totally serious. "Okay," she said eventually. "But one day you'll change your tune about that 'yack', I guarantee it."

"As if," he sniffed. "I'm gonna be a wandering warrior, fighting the good fight, righting wrongs, getting songs written about me, and all that other good stuff. I won't have time for any of that mushy stuff." At her expression, he patted her arm. "Don't worry, Mom, like I said, it's complicated. You'll get it someday." He sauntered off, still swinging his sword.

Tabitha watched him go. She shook her head. "I pity whatever girl you fall for, kiddo. She's going to have her work cut out for her."

2. Poison – Groove Coverage

The neighbours talked behind her back. Aerith pretended not to hear, but it was difficult. She had never been like other kids – their kids – but nobody had ever held it against her. She was special. She was the Flower Girl. They could forgive her oddities for the colour she brought into their lives.

Yet they couldn't forgive her seeing a SOLDIER. Shinra was the enemy in the slums – giver and taker from on high. SOLDIERS were the boogiemen used to scared children into bed. One whiff of them and everyone scurried for cover. Even the Turks weren't as feared, and everyone knew exactly what damage they could do.

Aerith knew people watched with disapproval when she went to meet Zack. She would be lying if she said it didn't bother her at all. She knew her mom suffered most – not because people mistreated her for her daughter's choice of boyfriend, but because she was secretly embarrassed and not so secretly worried. She liked Zack well enough, but the slums were a tight-knit community, dedicated to survival in the harshest circumstances. Aerith dating Zack was perceived as a betrayal. Elmyra worried what the consequences of that would be.

"Don't get me wrong, he's a perfectly nice boy," she said one night at dinner. "But … well, there are plenty of other nice boys, honey. Nice boys who don't … um …"

"Work for Shinra?" Aerith finished.

"Well … it just makes life more complicated for you than it needs to be." Elmyra stared at her plate. It had a crack across the centre where dirt had gathered, no matter how hard Aerith scrubbed it. Their cutlery was all mismatching and the prongs of her fork were bent in three directions. "And dangerous. I'm not just talking about …" Elmyra gestured at the window, meaning the neighbours.

Aerith knew what she meant. She had spent her life hiding and running from Shinra. Tseng kept asking and she kept saying no. Eventually the day would come when he no longer accepted her reply. She was living on borrowed time, extended only if she kept under Shinra's radar. Being with Zack jeopardised everything for her.

Yet she couldn't not be with him. No matter what she did or how she tried to phrase it, she couldn't make anyone understand that. Maybe because, if she was being honest, she didn't fully understand it herself. Something drew her to him. Zack was safety and danger and honesty and betrayal, plus everything in between. How could you put that into words when the people you were talking to had already decided to see his uniform before they saw him?

"I know, Mom," she said quietly. "I know."

3. Sail Away – The Rasmus.

"You leave tomorrow."

"Yup."

Aerith nibbled her lower lip. "When do you think you'll be back?"

Zack leaned back on his elbows, contemplating the broken ceiling of the church. "Not sure," he said at last. "Whenever the mission objective is completed, I guess."

She didn't ask what the mission was about. She never did. It wasn't that she didn't care. Rather, it was because she cared too much. Knowing he was going off to face danger was bad enough, without torturing herself with images of what, exactly, he was facing. Sometimes he got the feeling she knew anyway, but she neither confirmed nor denied his suspicions.

He sank back among the flowers and turned on his side to face her. "Are you going to miss me?" he grinned. It was meant to be a leading question: as in leading to play-fighting, kisses and other fun things.

Her expression wasn't nearly so playful. She stayed sitting, arms around her knees. It gave him a perfect view of the back of her neck. "You will be careful, won't you?"

"Uh, sure."

"I'm serious, Zack," she said insistently.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." The word hitched in the middle. She was a terrible liar. "I just want to know you'll be careful and come home in one piece."

He watched her for a second. She squeaked when he reached over, toppled her backwards and pulled her against him. She struggled for a second, but stilled when he held her close.

"I'll be back," he murmured against her hair. "Count on it."

"I do," she said into his chest, so softly he barely heard her. "Every time."

4. Hero/Heroine – Boys Like Girls

Zack stared at the interior of the tube and tried not to go mad. It was a daily battle. Sensory deprivation was torturers' favourite method of breaking subjects, they had learned in training. He remembered seminars preparing cadets in case they had to ship out to Wutai; pictures of poor bastards who had endured hours, days, even months of cruelty. Those who didn't break were just killed at the end, to prevent them telling rescuers anything about the enemy. Several of his classmates had thrown up at the graphic photographs. Zack hadn't, but he had been decidedly queasy when he left the lecture hall. Later he had asked Angeal whether the stories were true or just propaganda. Angeal's expression had been answer enough.

Zack pressed his feet against the bottom of the cylinder, trying not to float free in the glutinous liquid. He had to anchor himself somehow. He concentrated on the sensations his body was sending to his brain. The breathing mask around his face cut into his skin. His cheeks felt puffy, his eyes swollen like he had been swimming in a pool with too much chlorine in it. He pressed a palm flat against the bullet-proof glass and tried to take a deep breath, but the regulated air caught in his throat. Even control of his own breathing was a luxury denied by Hojo and his team of white-coated sadists.

I have to survive, Zack thought desperately. He had to pull through and believe there was light at the end of this tunnel, just like those men in Wutai. He couldn't let himself believe Hojo would terminate him before that time came, the way those men had been terminated before they could be rescued. He had to stay strong. He had to … to … I. Have. To. Survive. Thoughts came sluggishly, but at least they came. He lived in fear of the day they didn't.

He had to survive for the people who were counting on him. Cloud floated in his own tube only a few feet away. He was helpless, eyes flat and staring despite the steady beep of his vital signs on the monitor. He needed to get out of here even more than Zack did. And back in Midgar, Aerith was waiting for him to come home. Zack wasn't sure how long had passed since he saw her last. Time had collapsed around the six month mark, but he was sure he had been away too long. Maybe long enough to be declared legally dead. That would sure suck.

"When do you think you'll be back?"

"I want to spend more time with you."

"You will be careful, won't you?"

"I'll be back. Count on it."

"I miss you."

"I love you."

From somewhere, Zack found strength, and watched with narrowed eyes, waiting for his opportunity, as the latest white-coated sadist came to check on them.

5. Leave a Light On For Me – Belinda Carlisle

Aerith's head jerked up when the church door creaked open. It wasn't shut all the way, so needed to open only a fraction further to allow two figures entrance. They wore thick cloaks made from the kind of rough material wild chocobo hunters wore during sandstorm season. One half-propped, half-dragged the other inside. They had barely made it three feet before the obviously injured one buckled and sank to its knees, dragging the other figure down with it.

She hurried over without thinking. Perhaps she should have stayed out of sight, but someone so obviously injured galvanised her into action. She knelt next to them.

"Where are you hurt?"

"He can't answer," said the other intruder.

She pushed back the fallen one's hood and gasped. It had been years, but the spiky black hair and scarred cheek were the same. It was impossible, she had felt … and yet … "Zack?"

"Is that his name?" The other figure pushed back his own hood, revealing a thatch of blond spikes. He blinked at lot; more than the dim interior of the church required. His eyes were also slightly unfocussed. He squinted, as if having to concentrate very hard just to speak to her. "I wasn't sure."

"Who are you?"

He hesitated. "I'm not sure of that either. I woke up on the cliff outside town. He was on the ground. They … shot him." He sounded shocked and confused. "I don't even know why we were out there, and they just shot him and walked away."

"Who did?" Aerith's hands moved inside the cloak, finding tufts of torn fabric, stiff with old blood. The flesh beneath had started to pull together. She knew of a SOLDIER'S inhuman healing ability, but this was beyond even her expectations. All the same, the wounds were deep and dangerous. She helped lay Zack on the floor to examine him further. Please, let me be able to help him, she silently prayed. Don't give him back to me and then take him away again so fast.

"They were wearing uniforms." The blond man plucked at the uniform he was wearing under his cloak. Aerith recognised it as that of a SOLDIER. A suspicious bulge across his shoulders signified a sword of some sort, like the kind Zack used to wear – the one that sent her neighbours into conniptions that he was going to lop off their heads if they said anything against Shinra. "Not like these. I thought he was dead at first, but he told me to come here, to this city … Middle? Garble?"

"Midgar."

"Yeah, that. He said to come to this church. He gave me directions and everything. He didn't say to bring him too, but I figured … I mean, I couldn't just leave him out there and … I didn't know what else to do …" He trailed off, then shook himself peered at her. "Who are you?"

"I'm Aerith."

"And what is this place?"

She stroked Zack's cheek, pale and sweaty though it was. "This is home."

Fin.

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