The lamp kept flickering every few seconds, threatening to go out and leave the train station in darkness. It was fairly early in the morning, but the people of the slums had no way of being certain of this fact. They relied on the accuracy of clocks... Clocks that ran on power supplied by Shinra, Inc., which occasionally deemed it necessary to deny them electricity.
The 7:00 train was running a little late, and pulled into the Sector 7 station at 7:12. The light finally shorted out, leaving the station dark save for the dim illumination from the train's open door. Aeris hurried up the steps, tripping but managing not to fall, and into the first car. She sank down into the nearest seat, closing her eyes and listening as the station man called, "All aboard!" and the train left the sector.
She felt so horribly tired. She had not slept well the night before at all, having spent long hours on the surface, trying to sell her flowers. Midgar had harsh winters, hardly a noticeable fact in the slums, but certainly obvious on the plate, and there were so few people on the street that she hardly earned anything. But it was either those meager gil, or nothing, and she and her mother had to get by.
Aeris opened her eyes to look around. This car had two rows of seats, facing each other with tinted windows on either side. Her gaze did not go very far, for almost directly across from her sat an impossibly handsome man.
He leaned back in the seat, his long legs stretched out before him, crossed at the ankles. His bare arms rested across the backs of the seats beside him, and his head was turned slightly to look out a window to her right. His eyes glowed a Mako blue-green and had a slight tilt that lent his face an exotic quality. His hair was straight and long and silver, and near-white highlights flashed across it with each light they passed along the tunnel.
Once her mind began functioning and she could breathe again, Aeris recognized him as Shinra's great General Sephiroth, though he did not quite look it. True, his body was slender and well-toned, all long, sleek lines and tension held back. He did not quite look relaxed. He looked somehow like a freeze-frame of himself, caught between motions.
But his clothes were entirely casual, and certainly not appropriate. He wore a pair of boots and pants with a short-sleeved shirt thrown on top that hung loosely off his lean frame. She could see no coat lying near him.
She thought she should tear her gaze away before he noticed, but realized immediately that he had already noticed her. He simply did not care to look in her direction. She wondered why he was on this train, and she longed to ask, but she was just some flower girl. His manner did not indicate that he would answer her. He had not even returned her glance.
Aeris fidgeted and looked down at her lap. She shifted the basket of fresh flowers on her arm and the blanket under her other. She had no coat, and one did not walk about in Midgar's winter weather without something to keep oneself warm... Unless, perhaps, one was Sephiroth, she thought with a glance in his direction.
A woman's voice over the loudspeaker announced that the train would be arriving in upper Sector 1 in five minutes. Aeris slowly got to her feet, swaying with the motion of the car, wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, and moved to wait by the door. She stepped off as soon as the door slid aside, and struggled to keep her pace quick as she stared in awe at the swirling snow. It had been a long time since it had snowed this heavily in Midgar, and it was beautiful...
Of course, she realized with a sigh, this would not make her task very pleasant. To walk about in the cold with the snow stinging her face and nothing more than a blanket to shield her. The streets looked empty. She considered turning around and getting back on the train, but to her dismay, it had already left the station. Sephiroth was walking swiftly along the street, arms at his sides, silver hair fluttering with the wind.
She stood watching him for a moment before walking on. She was startled to find her feet disobeying her and carrying her towards the silver-haired general. Aeris reached him and hurried along at his side, as he would neither slow his pace nor look in her direction.
"Excuse me," she said, feeling as though her motions had been set for her as she pulled a flower from her basket and held it out to him. "Would you like a flower? They're only a gil."
Finally, Sephiroth stopped and looked at her. His gaze was steady and penetrating, but gave nothing away.
She remained motionless as he studied her, arm still extended from beneath the blanket, flower in her bare hand. She noticed that his were gloved.
At length, the only response he gave her was a raised eyebrow.
"I... suppose not," she sighed, lowering her hand and carefully replacing the flower in the basket. Sephiroth continued to look at her, somehow able to make it seem like one long glance rather than a stare, and she fidgeted. And then she noticed the color in his cheeks and the goosebumps along his arms, the only two signs he gave that he was cold. He would allow no others.
"Aren't you cold?" Aeris asked. Her face felt frozen, too, and she thought that her lips moved slowly and her voice came out as a blur.
He shrugged.
"You are cold," she stated, starting to shrug off her blanket. "Here, why don't you take my blanket, and..."
"No, keep it," he interrupted. His voice was perfectly efficient, his tone clipped and no louder than necessary.
She hesitated, the blanket half off her shoulders. "But you'll freeze," she said stupidly.
"So will you."
She still did not pull the fabric about her again, though the cold was biting. "Where are you headed?"
"The Shinra building," he answered, surprising her by doing so. "It is not far."
"Not far?" she echoed incredulously. "Yes it is, especially if you're walking through this mess."
"And most especially if I am being pestered by little flower girls," he added dryly.
"You're just too stubborn to accept any help," Aeris said indignantly, pulling the blanket closer. "You'd think that Shinra's brightest general would have a bit of common sense and look after his own health!"
Now Sephiroth looked amused. "And I suppose you're in a position to offer me help, flower girl? You're wearing less than I am under that."
She blinked, not knowing that he had noticed more than her presence on the train. "Well... I could lend it to you until you reached the Shinra building. That wouldn't be so bad." Her freezing face and fingertips told her otherwise. She wondered how he could stand it.
"You intend to try to sell your flowers in this weather, don't you?" he inquired.
"Well, yes, I have to."
He nodded towards the basket at her elbow. "How many flowers have you got in there?"
"Um... maybe thirty," she answered, stumbling over her words.
One of his hands went into a pocket. "I will give you 60 gil, you will leave me be, and you can keep the flowers; I've no one to give them to anyway."
Aeris stared at him. Had he just implied that he was buying the flowers for her? No, that was completely absurd. She shook herself. "I don't want your charity," she told him. "I'm not a beggar."
"And neither am I," he stated.
She understood what he meant, but she was not about to give up. Perhaps a compromise would work. But how could she compromise? "Why don't we share?" she offered. Oh yes, wonderful idea, Aeris. What a way to make him think you're not just another girl vying for his attention.
Sephiroth looked at her askance and said slowly, "You expect me to share a blanket with a girl I have never met before?"
She held out her free hand for him to shake. "My name is Aeris Gainsborough, and I know, of course, you're Sephiroth."
He took her hand, almost suspiciously, and shook it once before returning the hand to his side. "Is that supposed to make a difference, knowing your name?"
"What else do you need to know?" she asked.
He shrugged.
"Well, let's see..." she began. "I'm fifteen, I live in the Sector 5 slums with my mom, I despise Shinra, and my favorite color is pink." Had she just said all that aloud? "Does that help?"
"Only fifteen?" Sephiroth queried. "Your mother lets you wander about Midgar alone?"
"She doesn't actually have much of a choice... We need the money."
"I am surprised you were brave enough to approach a man in a deserted street," he remarked. "You realize I could have taken advantage of you."
Aeris shook her head. "You didn't, and you won't. Besides, I can take care of myself."
He arched an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yes. I have my ways."
"And you think that whatever ways these are could protect you from, say, myself?"
"Yes," she answered, her voice softer now and her eyes on her feet. She did not like where this conversation was going. "You're unarmed..."
"So are you."
She fell silent.
Sephiroth took her chin in his hand and lifted her face to look in her eyes. Her breath caught. "I think there is more to you than this flower girl image," he said quietly.
Aeris took a step backwards, albeit regretfully. His hand and his breath had felt warm against her face. "I think I should be going now, General Sephiroth," she said as frostily as she could, drawing the blanket around her. "I have things to do aside from talking to you, and you ought to be getting back to the Shinra building before you freeze. Good day." She turned away from him and started walking hurriedly down the street.
"Aeris, wait-!" Was that emotion she heard in his voice?
She slowed and looked back over her shoulder. He came to walk at her side, a slight frown on his face now. She sensed that he had not meant to call out.
"What are you afraid of?" he asked.
She only shook her head slightly. They walked along in silence for a moment; Aeris was certain that the street they were on did not lead towards the Shinra building at all. The wind picked up, and she thought that the snowflakes would have stung her face if it was not already quite numb.
Sephiroth had folded his arms across his chest, and he glanced at her. "...are you still willing to share that blanket?" he asked hesitantly.
"...what made you change your mind?"
"I am cold," he admitted finally.
"You've been cold," she replied. "I mean, what made you change your mind about me."
He hesitated again. "You are... I get the feeling that perhaps... you are not so different from me."
She stopped walking, and he stopped with her. "Then you're not... not..."
"Normal?" he asked. "Human?"
She nodded silently.
"No."
"...neither am I," she whispered. "Not quite."
Sephiroth waited.
Aeris shook her head slightly. She shrugged the blanket off of her shoulders, letting the cold and snow hit her bare arms as she handed the blanket to him. "Here."
He blinked and took it slowly. Then he pulled her against him and threw the blanket around the both of them. "You said we would share, remember?" he said, noticing her surprise.
"Right, I did," she replied. Already some feeling was returning to her face, with his added body heat. And her cheeks felt like they were on fire. She wasn't sure if it was from the sudden warmth or from her embarrassment. She had never been this close to a man before. What had ever possessed her to offer to share the blanket?
"The Shinra building is this way," Sephiroth murmured, guiding her down a different street, his hand on her shoulder.
"...what were you doing on the train, anyway?" she asked. She did not want to walk in silence. Gods, she did not want to walk in silence with him. "That one in particular, I mean."
"I went to see how the construction of Sector 8 was coming last night," he answered.
"In the middle of the night? Were you ordered to, or...?"
"No, no one ordered me to," he said. "If it was official, I would not be so casually dressed. As it is, I... I like to see the framework of it."
"Why?"
"Right now... every beam and every girder is entirely necessary. Nothing is superfluous and nothing is harmful. It won't look that way when it is completed. Shinra likes to spend. He likes to waste his money on inessential things because they advertise his ability to do so. Efficiency means nothing to him. If he needs more money, he'll simply raise the Mako rates. When it is finished, it will be a tangle of metal plating that scorns the sun."
Aeris was silent for a long moment. "If you hate him that much, why do you work for him?"
"...I have always worked for Shinra," was his faltering answer.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that I cannot remember a time when I did not. What would I do with myself if I was not part of Shinra?"
She frowned. "I don't know much about that sort of thing, but Shinra is... it's simply terrible. You shouldn't be helping them."
"It is a little late for that," he told her. "The war has been won. No one besides Wutai has ever been strong enough to defy us."
"But if you were against Shinra... Sephiroth, you could do a great deal of damage."
"...I had not thought of it," he admitted. He sounded so honest and so bitter that she could hardly believe who she was speaking with. "But what good would it do now? I have already fought their greatest battle for them."
"I know, but... Can't you take over Shinra?" she asked suddenly. "Can't you overthrow the President and run things yourself?"
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow.
"...but... why not?"
"How would I do it, Aeris? Most employees care nothing for morals, only for money. I would find no support with them."
She sighed. "I guess not. I'm sorry. I must seem so nave to you..."
"You have optimism," he told her, "something I have never possessed, and it is quite refreshing."
"Say, Sephiroth...?"
"Yes?"
"Is it true? All the things they say about you, all the things they say you did in Wutai...?"
"Yes."
Aeris frowned. "But, they can't be. You don't seem like a cold-hearted killer to me. You're... well, I can't say you're a gentleman, but you're sort of nice."
He laughed, a clipped, false sound. "It seems I will have to work a little harder on my image. I can't have people thinking I am 'sort of nice.'"
"Why not?"
"Can you imagine how many women I would have chasing after me if it was known that I was not simply a cold-hearted killer? If I was, in fact, actually sort of nice? Gods, I have enough problems as it is."
She smiled, biting back a giggle. She never would have thought that he disliked the attention, had she not met him. "Maybe you need a girlfriend," she suggested. "That would probably scare off more of them than your reputation."
Sephiroth gave her a look.
"What?" she asked. "Did you think I meant me? I'm far too young!"
He shook his head. "No, no... I was only thinking that there are two things glaringly wrong with that idea. For one, I have no wish to be involved with a woman. For another, I have never met a woman that I got along with." He paused. "Unless you count."
She laughed.
"What is so amusing?"
"You," she answered. "And this whole situation. Think about it: here I am, trudging through the snow with the great General Sephiroth, sharing a blanket with him, and talking about his love life."
He chuckled quietly. "When you put it that way, it does seem rather funny."
They both fell silent when a man hurried past them, his stride purposeful. He had not seemed to notice them, but Aeris felt a little anxious anyway. It occurred to her suddenly that if the media knew what she and Sephiroth were doing, they'd be all over them, and the story would be everywhere, exaggerated and blown out of proportion...
She thanked the gods that they hadn't a clue.
The pair walked on in relative silence and finally stopped in the street before the Shinra building.
"Meet me at the train station at noon tomorrow," Sephiroth said, as though it were a continuation of some previous conversation. It wasn't. "I'll take you to lunch."
"People will think we're a couple," Aeris said hesitantly.
He looked down at her. "Does it matter?"
"You're so much older than I am."
"Is eight years really that much?"
She did not reply.
He turned her to face him, bent down, and kissed her. It was a brief kiss, light and fleeting, and it left her staring up at him, wanting something more and not daring to ask.
"...I'm only fifteen," she whispered.
"I know. You've told me."
"My mom will kill you when she finds out."
"I doubt that."
"This will never work."
"We'll see."
There was a long pause between them. Why, oh, why had she approached him in the first place? And why did she feel blissfully light-hearted when she should have felt so incredibly frightened?
Sephiroth gestured towards the Shinra building. "Why don't you come in with me? You could let me know more about... you, and we would not be forced to share one blanket."
"I... I can't..." she said, knowing that she would.
He scoffed. "I will pay for everything you have on your person twice over; that should more than compensate for a month's worth of 'flower-selling,' shouldn't it?"
"I'm not worried about the flowers..." She glanced towards the building. "It's... You're..."
"It does not matter."
The secretary at the front desk was too baffled to be jealous when Sephiroth and Aeris walked in through the door, wrapped together in a snow-covered blanket. She watched them disappear into the elevator, the general smiling and the girl laughing, and stared blankly after them, almost too dazed to wonder what that was all about.