Holding his breath, the red headed Turk opened the door as quietly as he could. Slowly, he slid around it; listening for any sign he had been spotted. He crept softly across the room, praying no-one would notice him.
"You don't need to creep around like that Reno" said a voice. He froze, and looked over to the speaker, a small young woman with short blonde hair.
"Elena!" he hissed, you'll blow my cover!" She rolled her eyes.
"Tseng isn't here" she said, sounding bored.
"Damn! I thought I was just good! He's usually caught me by now… where is he anyway?"
"Gone for a walk, luckily for you. You are half an hour late" said Rude, without looking up.
"A walk?" exclaimed Reno, incredulously. "It's raining!"
"He likes the rain" said Elena softly.
Tseng wandered through the streets of Edge, reveling in the feel of the rain on his skin. It reminded him of another rainfall, her rainfall, warm as her kisses and soft as her skin. This rain was cooler, a spring shower, but it still reminded him almost painfully of her.
He remembered the first time he met her. He was the only son of a rich Wutain family from the plate, and he hated it, hated their snobbery, their ancient decrepit traditions. Whenever he could he escaped down to the slums. There he was nobody, another street rat, with no one to tell him what to do, to force ancient ceremonies upon him. He hated Wutai and everything about it.
One day, when he was sixteen, after a particularly fierce argument with his father, he found himself in a different sector of the slums, one he hadn't explored yet. In the back of his mind, he knew he was just a plate kid, lost in a dangerous world that he didn't belong to, but he wouldn't admit it to himself. Anger and bravado made him reckless, and soon he found himself trapped down an alleyway, two nasty looking men bearing down on him. That's when she appeared.
She was four years younger then him, just a kid in his eyes. She strode out in front of him, out of the shadows. Her face was dirty and she was a little to thin, but his would-be attackers froze in their tracks.
"You two" she had sighed, with an exaggerated roll of the eyes. "What have I told you about attacking innocent people?"
"Uh, sorry Aerith." They had blushed, and shuffled their feet before turning and running. She had laughed, and turned to him where he crouched watchful and angry in the shadows.
"You're not from around here are you" she had smiled. He shook his head once.
She had taken him round her sector of the slums, and her church, showing him her favorite places. Everywhere she went, people recognized her. She was a sort of slum celebrity. He has asked her about it once. She had blushed, and mumbled that her mother said she brought them hope.
They became firm friends, and he would sneak out to see her whenever he could. He would bring her things from the plate, luxuries like exotic fruit, perfume stolen from his mother, chocolate. He loved to see her face as she sampled each new delight, constantly amazed at the things she didn't know. She had never been to school, Elmyra her mother had taught her to read and write, and simple mathematics, but she knew little of the world outside the slums. He loved teaching her, showing off his knowledge, he loved the way she would stare at him, and exclaim in wonder at each new discovery.
He told her of his hatred for his family, and his secret ambition to join Shinra. The animosity between the company and Wutai spurred him on even more. He wanted to break free of his roots, to throw away his heritage. She would sigh when he spoke like that.
"What?" he would ask her, irritably.
"A flower without roots soon withers and dies" she said sadly.
In the end, he finally got his job, in the newly created Investigation Division of the General Affairs Department, also known as the Turks. He was eighteen, she was fourteen. She was becoming increasingly beautiful to him. He also realised there was something special about her, something different, that made her stand out from the other slum girls. Where they were dirty and mindless, she was fresh and innocent. She was like the flowers that grew in her church, unique and beautiful in this desolate world.
Shortly afterwards, war broke out between Wutai and Shinra. He had to endure some mistrust from many members of the company, but he hadn't let it affect him. He wanted to prove to everyone he had truly cut himself off from Wutai. He hadn't seen his family in years. It paid off, and two years later when the war ended he was promoted to second in command of the Turks.
It was then that he discovered Aerith had been hiding a lot more from him then he thought. The file that was placed on his desk read "Last remaining Cetra" but the photo was definitely Aerith. He had quickly scanned the file, discovering in a few seconds things she had kept from him for four years. She was the last remaining member of an ancient race of people who had mostly died out. Her mother was Ilfana, who partook willingly in experiments and research performed by proffesor Gast, who she later fell in love with. Gast was Aerith's father, but had been shot when she was just twenty days old. She had spent seven years of her life in a laboratory, but they had escaped. Her mother had died, and entrusted her to Elmyra Gainsbourgh.
However it was the final part of the report that stunned him to the point of dizzyness. Ever since she escaped, Shinra had been persuing her. They had hoped to persuade her to come peacefully, but she had refused. Now they proposed to take her by force. This would be Tseng's first assignment as second in command.
That evening he had made his way as quickly as possible to her church, only to find it empty, and with a huge hole in the roof. Terrified he had run to her house. Elmyra had answered the door, and said she was out with "A nice SOLDIER boy she had met."
A few days later he had found her. She was full of stories of Zack, the handsome young SOLDIER who had fallen out of the sky. They had warned him about this.
"If SOLDIER are the heroes, the Turks are the rats" Reno had sneered at him.
He told her he knew, about her past, about who she was, and hated himself for it, for causing her face to fall, tears springing to her eyes.
"I suppose you wan't to take me to them then" she had said softly.
But he didn't. Instead, he did his best to keep her from them, sending his men on false trails, never letting them catch her. He was promoted to the leader of the Turks when he was twenty-two.
Suddenly, Tseng realised where he was. He had wandered into the ruins of Midgar, and found himself standing outside the ruined church. Slowly, he entered, and walked to the clear spring that bubbled there. Staring into the waters, he remembered the flowers that had grown there, and her sitting in the middle of them, crying.
Zack had dissapeared. He had met Zack now, knew who he was, and he knew what had happened to him. Mortally wounded fighting Sephiroth, he had been taken wih the rest of the victims to be experimented on by Hojo. It was part of a grand cover up he had organised. He couldn't tell her though, not when she looked at him like that. She would hate him if he told her. So he took her in his arms and let her cry into him, and when later he found himself kissing her, and as they fell back together onto the bed of flowers, it all seemed like a dream, and he knew he could never tell her.
For her twenty first birthday, he bought her the dress from the shop in the Wall market, the pink one she had always wanted. Bizzarely, she wouldn't let him watch her change, despite the fact that they were lovers now. However he knew she held on to some strange loyalty to Zack, that even as she pressed herself against him, it was Zack that was in her mind, and the guilt she felt for betraying him. Yet still she let him, even asked him to, and he could never say no.
He finally let her be captured so he would know where she was when the plate fell, know she was safe, at least for now but the betrayal in her eyes when she discovered what he'd done haunted him to this day. He saw only fleeting glimpses of her after that.
When she died, he felt so alone. He remembered her words, "a flower with no root withers and dies." She was his root, and something had died in him with her, until that magical healing rain. He remembered standing in that rain, watching it heal Rufus, letting it wash over him. It was all her, like being in her, like her arms around him.
Tseng crouched down, and looked at his reflection in the water. Then, just for a second, he thought he saw her, leaning over him smiling, green eyes full of happiness. But when he turned, he was alone.
Sighing, he got to his feet. Outside, the rain had stopped, and the sun was filtering through the holes in the celing of the church. He should get back to the office, he needed to shout at Reno for being late, although the red-head would probably have come up with some mad but brilliant excuse. Slowly he walked out of the church. Just for a second, he thought he heard her sigh, a soft, barely audible whisper through the broken coloumns. Then it was silent again, and he walked out the door, blinking in the bright spring sunshine.