Disclaimer: Melodically not mine.

A/N: I haven't written FF7 fic in a long time, but writing Zack/Aerith is the best pick-me-up in the world when you need to feel cheerful. Reviews appreciated.

Fools Who Dance

© Scribbler, May 2009.

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. -- Japanese Proverb

He took her dancing, once. Not to a club, though, the way other guys took their girls out on the town to show them off, show them a good time and possible show them up if they drank too much. She didn't like crowded places, and he knew instinctively she'd hate clubbing. Too many pushing, crushing, shoving bodies there. She preferred always having a clear view of the exit, even if the only indication of this was a quick glance as she smiled and tipped her head to one side, just so.

He recognised what she was doing, frowning a little that something he'd been taught as part of his survival training came so (apparently) instinctively to her. Angeal's lessons were thorough and tailored to fit all terrains, including a country like Wutai and a city like Midgar – make sure you know the entrances and exits before you enter a hostile environment, don't let yourself get boxed in and, for Ifrit's sake, don't leave your back unprotected.

She always seemed to have her back facing a wall when they went out. Even at the playground she insisted they sat on top of the slide – good vantage point, the Angeal in the back of his head murmured. The rest of the time she seemed nervous, masking it with giggles and pivots on one foot as she asked innocuous questions designed to distract him. After a while she started putting him at her back when there was no wall, in those moments when she wasn't casting about, as if for spies in the crowd waiting to jump her. Sometimes her eyes widened imperceptibly and she skipped backwards until there were scant inches between him and her spine. She evidently saw him as unyielding enough to suffice.

She didn't like talking about her past, but he wished he knew what had made her like that.

When she was in her church she breathed easier and didn't mind her back being exposed half so much – standing right in the middle, open space all around her and no quick exit no matter how fast she ran. She cupped her flowers, dug with her bare fingers and allowed herself to become absorbed in simple tasks until he thought a bomb could go off and she wouldn't twitch. She barely looked up at all when she was gardening, as if nothing bad could ever invade this place, so what was the point of worrying?

He watched her, noting the differences between inside and outside until she met his eyes and distracted him with a smile.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Can't I be just enjoying the view?"

She rolled her eyes, but they crinkled at the corners. "You're hopeless."

"Or endlessly hopeful." He waggled his eyebrows.

"Definitely hopeless. Incurable, too."

"Incurable what, though?" Another eyebrow waggle. It got him a giggle that made all the hairs on the back of his neck prickle and the soles of his feet itch. Being with her was like stepping into a sunbeam after walking down a dark alley.

She moved differently inside the church. She was always graceful, but her steps were jerkier outside. When she left him to go home she hurried. When they walked she fell into step beside him. Tending her flowers, however, she eddied like water; sometimes here, sometimes there, sometimes not walking at all but still moving, even when she seemed still. In the church he noted the pulse in her throat, the rustle of her skirt, the way the tendons in her hands and feet tensed when she was thinking about what to do next to her precious garden. Outside he often observed how her hair was so much thicker than other girls', and seemed better cared for even though they whipped out combs and she never did. Inside he realised the huge hank was made of up of so many individual strands, and would watch them waft in the breeze from the rafters as she worked.

"You could give me a hand, you know."

"I could."

"Aren't you going to?"

"Sure." He got up, crossed the creaky floorboards and swept her up. She squeaked as he twirled her around. Soil flew from her hands, spattering the pews.

"What are you doing?"

"Dance with me."

"What?"

"Do you need a q-tip to hear me properly?" She weighed practically nothing, or maybe that was the mako talking. He felt like he could break her by accident, just by hugging her too hard. How could she see him as protective, and put him at her back, when he could do what he could do? He shook off the thought and concentrated on the feel of her flat belly level with his chest.

"I … I can't …" She hesitated slightly, and admitted, "I don't know how."

"That's okay. Neither do I. Not much call for it in the field, and at those fancy dinner dance things they expect us to just stand in tuxedoes looking menacing but civilised for the cameras."

She stared down at him, momentarily bemused. "Oh, all right. But I want it noted that this is silly."

He grinned, set her down and positioned their arms in an approximation of the couples he'd seen at the last Shin-Ra Ball. His hand felt huge around her waist. She had normal sized hands, but her fingers looked so tiny in his other palm. It was like placing a forget-me-not in the centre of a sunflower.

"I have no idea what I'm doing."

"That's what makes it fun."

"Your idea of fun and mine really are different, aren't they? We don't even have any music!"

"Sure we do."

"Let me guess: in our heads?"

"No, that'd be nuts." He gestured, unwilling to let go of her hand and so nearly pulling her off her feet in the process. "Whoops, sorry. But listen."

She did. "I don't hear anything. Is this your superior senses talking again?"

"Listen. Can't you hear it?" He pressed close, releasing her waist long enough to gently pull her head against his chest. His heartbeat was a steady ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum, which was quite amazing considering how close her body was to his at that moment.

"Oh," she said at last. "I think I can follow that."

Slowly, she shifted her feet, and he followed, falling into step beside her for once. He could sneak up on an enemy undetected and slip by the finest Wutaian guards, but trying to match her movements made him feel like a gazelle with three broken legs. She didn't seem to mind, though. Not even when he stood on her foot.

"Sorry!"

"You're hopeless," she murmured against his shirt, still listening to the oldest music in the world until his hand traced up her arm, lightly pulling at the strap of the sundress she wore even though there was no sun in the slums, and they danced the oldest dance instead.

Fin.