A/N: Yes, this is Denzel/Moogle Girl, because I'm weird. Or maybe because I've just always found them adorable. I have a gazillion prompts I'm trying to get done, but this piece wouldn't leave me alone until I wrote it. Oh, well. When the muse attacks, it's usually best to satiate it.

This is more of a snapshot story than anything else. Also, Moogle Girl has had the same name in every story I've ever written her in, and since I'm stuck thinking of her that way now, her name will stay the same here.

Warning for a few spoilers for ACC.

Disclaimer: Not mine, not making money off this, etc., etc.

we may fall, yet hope remains

and from the ashes rises life anew

Denzel was eight when he met Aria. The start of his friendship with her was one forged in death and life, in dreams lost and hopes found, in understanding of similar lives and situations. He didn't know what direction his life would have taken had he not been sitting outside Seventh Heaven when she was carrying her dead brother down the street. Their bond had started with death and a Moogle doll--not exactly anyone's ideal beginning, but it was theirs.

If there was one thing Denzel understood in his life, it was pain and loss. He knew how hard it could be to forge any bonds at all, let alone ones that lasted. At the time of their first miserable meeting, he had been stamped with a death sentence, the black pus on his skin evidence to all the world that he was doomed. The girl who had been dragging her brother and an old toy down the street had been even worse off than he had been.

Funny, Denzel thought as he sat at the edge of the pool in the church, how things can change so fast. A huge smile was stuck on his face as he watched the Geostigma-inflicted people in the water, getting healed in droves, as he watched the futures of more and more people open up before him.

"Hi."

Denzel looked over at Aria as she sat down next to him, dangling her legs in the water with his. "Hi."

"So what are you going to do now?" Aria asked, leaning back on her hands and glancing sideways at him. "Now that you're better?"

Denzel blinked, not quite sure how to answer the question. "What I've been doing, I guess." He paused and glanced over at Tifa, chatting animatedly with her friends, to Cloud, standing at her side with a smile on his face. "Helping Cloud and Tifa." Except now he would be able to help in the bar or with the delivery service without fear of having a bad sick day or an episode where he collapsed and had to be carried to his bed. "What about you?" he asked. He really didn't know much about her except her name and that her brother had died only a day earlier.

Aria swirled her legs in the water, staring down at her lap intently. "I live in one of the homes here. For…for kids like me." Her shoulders were stiff and she kept her eyes carefully away from him. "All I had was my brother."

She was fighting for composure, and Denzel suspected she was probably thinking that if her brother had lived just one more day, then he would be here among the healed. Denzel might not have known some things, but he knew loss and he knew regret. He knew how many times he had wondered what if about his parents, about Ruvie, about other people that had been in his life for too brief a time. He also knew that nothing anyone said had made him stop second guessing. It was just something that anybody who had lost someone they loved had to work out, and Aria had to still be in the hazy, too-fresh phase. There would be a lot to work through. Grief and anger and guilt, tears and frustration--things that came with any loss.

"Denzel! Yuffie and Daddy and Vincent and everybody are going to come over to Seventh Heaven for a celebration! We're heading over there now!" Marlene danced around excitedly. "I'm so happy to see them all again. It's going to be so much fun!"

Denzel smiled at Marlene as she bounced back over toward Tifa, but his eyes were still fixed on Aria's hunched shoulders. On impulse, he pulled his legs out of the water and stood, holding out a hand toward her. "Come with me."

Much as she had grabbed his hand and pulled him along with her the day before, he took her hand and tugged. Aria rose slowly to her feet, looking bemused.

"You can come to my house," he told her. "Well, it's a bar and a house, but it's my home." He looked over at the motley group of Cloud and Tifa's friends, people that he didn't know, but who were obviously much loved by Marlene. Any friends of Cloud and Tifa's had to be great people. "If you want to, I mean." She had just lost the last bit of family she had; for all he knew, she might want nothing to do with being around anybody, let alone a bunch of strangers. After all, she didn't know anything about Denzel except his name and where he lived.

Aria paused for only a moment, and then her grip on his hand tightened and she nodded. "Okay."

Though their physical pain was healed, Denzel knew it would still take a long time for other hurts to fade. Maybe some things never would heal completely, but they now had something that had been disappearing faster than sand in an hourglass. They had hope--hope for tomorrow, for a chance to pick up their broken pieces.

And Denzel knew from experience that it was a lot easier to pick up the pieces with other people by your side.

:--:--:--:--:

By age twelve, Denzel knew that though his two closest friends were girls, it didn't always help him in understanding them. Every time he thought he had them figured out, they did something that made no sense.

"Oh, no." Aria held up her hands. "No way am I getting on that thing."

This was yet another perfect example. "Aria, five minutes ago you were talking about how cute the chocobos are," Denzel said pointedly. Aria had come along on a family outing to the chocobo farm. Tifa had been incredulous when she found out that Aria had never left the city and had only ever seen chocobos in passing, and had insisted she come with them.

Aria looked up at Denzel calmly sitting on the chocobo. "I said they were cute; I didn't say anything about riding them." She took a step back as Marlene, laughing gleefully, went racing by on a chocobo. Cloud and Tifa stood off to the side, talking to the owner of the chocobo farm as they watched.

Denzel raised his eyebrows. "It's just a chocobo." As if to emphasize this, the chocobo warbled a loud, "Wark!"

Aria folded her arms across her chest. "Exactly. It's a giant bird, Denzel. It's up high off the ground and--" she glanced at Marlene "--really fast."

Denzel blinked. Since when had Aria ever refused to do something fast? She was usually the one jumping into the fray and Denzel was usually always hurrying to keep up.

Aria took another nervous step backward as Denzel's chocobo turned its beady eye on her and warked loudly again. Thinking he might have some idea of what the problem was, Denzel said, "You're not going to fall."

Aria shook her head. "I think I'll just stay here on the ground where it's low. And steady."

Denzel nudged his chocobo to lower down to the ground. It obeyed instantly, and Denzel held out his hand toward Aria. "You can ride with me. You're not going to fall," he repeated. "I promise."

She met his eyes for a moment before taking a slow step forward. Catching her hand, Denzel pulled her toward him and waited while she clambered on behind him. She tensed and latched onto his waist as the chocobo rose again. "Denzel--"

"Hold on!" He probably hadn't needed to say that; she was already squeezing him so hard he could barely breathe.

As the chocobo set off at a rapid pace, gaining speed as it ran, Aria made a half-strangled, half-laughing sound in Denzel's ear. Grinning, he steered the animal toward Marlene and quickly caught up with her, waving at her from the saddle as he passed.

"Oh, no, you don't!" Marlene shouted, urging her chocobo forward. "I'm so going to win this one!"

Marlene won by a hair, and Denzel thought he might have won had his chocobo not been carrying two passengers. After the race, Denzel nudged the chocobo to again lower it to the ground. He waited until Aria had released her death grip on him and slid off before jumping down himself.

"Are you okay?" he asked Aria in a low voice.

When she looked at him, her eyes were sparkling with exhilaration, not fear. "That was amazing! Can we do it again?"

:--:--:--:--:

By the time Denzel was fifteen, he was positive he would never understand women. The older they got, the more complicated things seemed to be.

"Denzel, what do you think you're doing?" Aria's grip on his arm was tight as she dragged him to the side of the schoolyard. All around them, the smaller children were playing on the swing set, diving down the slide, or shrieking happily as Marlene and her friend Kiri spun the merry-go-round as fast as they could for them.

Denzel stared at Aria in disbelief. "What do you mean, what am I doing? I thought I was helping you."

Aria dropped his arm and waved an impatient hand toward the boy who was the object of Denzel's current frustration, being restrained by a couple of other kids. Their fight would undoubtedly have been worse if Aria and a few others hadn't stepped in. Even with Aria arguing with him, Denzel could hear the curses coming out of the other boy's mouth. "You think I don't know how to handle him?" Aria demanded. "He lives in the same house as I do, for Gaia's sake!"

"That makes it worse," Denzel retorted hotly. "It's not bad enough that he can screw with you at home? He has to do it at school, too?"

"It's not something you need to worry about," Aria snapped. "Do you think I can't take care of a little harassment?"

"That's not it! I know you can take care of yourself!" He might not have been so angry, but it was far from this idiot's first offense, and when it came to Aria, Denzel was more than a little emotionally invested.

"Then what, Denzel?" She looked just as frustrated as he felt, and that somehow only served to irk him further. All he'd been trying to do was stand up for her. "You just punched him in the middle of school in front of a bunch of kids!"

"He deserved it! Didn't you hear what he was saying about you?" Denzel's hands clenched into fists just at the memory of it. "It was sick."

"Of course I did. It's nothing I haven't heard before. I know the kinds of things that come out of his mouth better than you do." Aria sighed and her sharp glare softened a little. "I also know that you can't seem to help defending other people's honor," she finally said, "but I don't want you getting in trouble because of me. You know there's going to be some trouble from this."

"If he tries anything to you at home--"

"Haven't we already established that I can take care of myself?" Aria planted her hands on her hips. "I have learned a thing or two in my years with your family. I don't want trouble for you, Denzel."

"I'm not worried about that." Denzel paused, and then added, "And it's not other people's honor I'm worried about right now, Aria. It's yours."

They stared at each other, and then Aria abruptly threw her arms around him. Before he could so much as blink, she had kissed him quickly and firmly on the lips.

Denzel was so shocked that for a moment he couldn't even react as Aria turned and walked back across the yard. How could she go from berating him to giving him his first-ever kiss in less than a minute?

"Aria!" His feet finally found movement and he ran after her.

No, he would never in a million years understand women.

:--:--:--:--:

When Denzel was nineteen, he had come to know one thing for certain. He might never completely understand women, but he understood Aria more than anyone else in his life, aside from his family. It didn't mean he wasn't surprised by things she said or did, or baffled sometimes by her logic (or what she called logic), but that was just part of the nature of women. At least, that was what Tifa and Marlene always said.

"Women have to have some mysteries, Denzel," Tifa had told him quite frequently through his teenage years.

"To keep you men from thinking you know it all," Marlene would add with a grin and wink.

So though there might still be mysteries about his wife, he knew enough. He knew, when he woke up before sunrise one morning, why Aria wasn't in bed beside him. Rubbing his eyes and glancing at the clock--5:03 AM--Denzel threw off his covers and padded toward the front door. A quick look out the window showed Aria standing outside, awaiting the dawn.

Denzel slipped outside. Aria heard the door open and turned her head away, swiping one hand across her face. In her other hand, clutched tightly against her chest, was an old, familiar Moogle doll.

"Aria?" Denzel rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. He had been through this day with her every year since that first fateful day so many years ago, but it never got easier.

Aria let out a long breath and leaned into Denzel as he wrapped an arm around her. Her fingers idly played with the pompom on the Moogle's head. She shook her head against Denzel's shoulder. "It's just…this day…"

"I know."

"You'd think after eleven years it wouldn't be this hard."

Denzel looked down at her with eyes that shared the knowledge of remembered pain and heartache. Aria always said his eyes always showed exactly what he was feeling, and that they had always been older than his years. He understood what she meant, because he saw the same thing when he looked at her. They had met as world-weary children, and even though they'd had years of peace and a chance to have normal lives, the world-weary look remained. It might have faded and made room for other things, but Denzel suspected it would always be there in both of them to some degree.

"It's good to remember," he told Aria softly. "Even though it can hurt."

There was a small sniffle from Aria. "I still miss my brother," she whispered. "I think sometimes about what he might have been. I try not to, because I know…I know there's no point in dwelling on what might have been, but sometimes it just comes up before I can stop it." Her hand found Denzel's and she squeezed it tightly. They were silent for a minute, until Aria at last spoke again. "There's always one good thing about this day, though."

Denzel knew what she was going to say before the words came out of her mouth, but he squeezed her hand back and let her say it.

Aria turned her head upward and smiled, tears still on her cheeks. "It's also the anniversary of the day I met you."

The first rays of sunlight touched the city of Edge, and they stood together, silently watching the shadows begin to dissipate around them with the arrival of the dawn.