Author's Note: I finally finished this one! Yes, February turned out to be pretty tough to write. This idea had changed itself in my head about five times before I chose one and stuck with it. And then came the editing. It just felt wrong until I re-read it just now and fixed it up and here it is. Now, I originally was stuck between doing Aerith's birthday or Valentine's Day but I decided to go with neither because I couldn't really come up with enough fluff and good ideas for either of those plotlines. So thus came the skating rink. I still stuck in candy hearts because I just love them and I mentioned Valentine's Day but only briefly because Aerith and Zack never came across to me as people who would know very much about commercial holidays. But it's all part of their charm. :)

Please read and review if you want to make my day (or night since it's already past midnight here...)


February

The indoor skating rink, in all of its glory, was Shinra's newest plot to gain support in the Slums. And in truth, the plan might have worked for the sparkling new recreational centre was truly a masterpiece, with its white marble columns and shiny glass walls and fake frosted trees and strings of lights that made the inside of the building look like a scene off a Christmas greeting card. But in their mad race to suck their next victims out of every penny they had, the electric company seemed to have forgotten a rather important detail: no one in the Slums had enough gil for such a luxury.

Yet people still flooded to the area that could best be described as the vaguely chosen town centre of the Slums to see the grand opening. Mainly, they came to see either the state of the art structure (which was boasted to be powered by the new "clean" mako energy) or to see President Shinra and his son, Rufus, for probably the only time in their miserable lives. The only reason that Aerith Gainsborough came to the opening ceremony was to search through President Shinra's personnel and bodyguards in hopes of finding her boyfriend, a certain raven haired SOLDIER. But by the time she had scanned the centre platform for the twentieth time with no sign of her Zack and given up hope, Aerith was caught in the great mass of people with no means of escaping without sustaining great injury.

As soon as the ribbon was cut, the otherwise stationary clump of human became a wild current, carrying the flower girl along. Fighting against the movement once again proved to be fruitless so along Aerith moved, closer to the latest creation of the self-proclaimed leaders of the world who were rumored to be slowly but surely poisoning the planet.

It took longer than expected for Aerith to finally reach the cool exterior glass and despite herself, she couldn't help but gasp along with everyone else at the sight of such a winter wonderland inside. Shinra had done a wonderful job. The entire scene, from the artificial ice to the piles of fake snow, looked so real yet so dreamlike at the same time. It was more beautiful and more valuable than everything else in the Slums combined.

Along with the rest of the observing public that had their noses pressed up to the glass, Aerith watched as the highly ranked father and son, along with the other prestigious members of their dystopian society and put on their brilliant white skates. They made their way onto the rink, smiling and laughing and showing off tricks not only for the cameras, but also for the people, as a reminder that everyone else were no more than dirt beneath Shinra's shoes.

After that day, Aerith couldn't help herself but make it a routine to pass by the skating rink as often as possible. She knew that she shouldn't fool herself into thinking that she would ever skate inside since the admission fee and skate rentals were more that her entire year's worth of salary. And she knew that she probably wouldn't be very good at skating. And most importantly, she knew that coming there only made her feel worse about her own life but regardless of all of that, she had to marvel at the skating rink's beauty and the fact that somewhere out in the big world, places like that existed out in the open for everyone's enjoyment. It made her yearn for the world outside of Midgar's walls more than ever.

A little over a week after the opening, the flower girl found herself in front of the skating rink once more, sitting on one of the brand new benches that were installed to beautify the neighborhood, for the recreational centre's sake. She watched the young kids huddled all around the doors, wishing desperately to have been luckier in life, and the adults, shaking their heads at Shinra's rude way of showing everyone up once again. Aerith wished that she could pay for all of the children, to put smiles on their little face and give them the opportunity of their unfortunate lifetime, but as always, she was small and powerless against the big bad corporate world.

It was pointless, really, sucking all the money that the Slums had left (which wasn't very much to begin with), and proving once more that Shinra was superior (a fact that was already known far and wide). The skating rink had no other use or purpose than to snub kids and cause power failures for all surrounding houses at random intervals.

"Guess who?" an all-so-familiar voice sounded from behind her. Aerith turned her head with a grin to see Zack Fair, the man who made her heart pull in a thousand different directions. She jumped up and threw her arms around him, ignoring the bench that ended up being awkwardly caught between them. Zack seemed to notice this and lifted her up higher than she thought was humanly possible and over the bench so that there were no unnecessary distance between them.

The embrace ended all too soon but Aerith satisfied herself with having her hand in Zack's as they walked around the bench and sat on it again, this time together. Zack turned to her, and with those sparkling blue eyes that looked so young and carefree, she realized he had never reminded her more of a puppy than he did at that moment.

"Do you know what day it is today?" he asked with a smirk. Her brows furrowed in confusion as she tried to recall a list of all major holidays and important dates. Zack laughed.

"Why, it's Valentine's Day, silly!" he said in an obvious manner, as if the answer was painted on his forehead.

"Valentine's Day?" Aerith repeated, "I've never heard of that holiday."

"No? It's my favourite holiday, the holiday of love and romance," Zack replied, wiggling his eyebrows. Aerith shook her head as Zack laughed again, "Okay, I admit, I haven't heard of it before today either. But hey, Shinra gave us a day off and free candy so I'm not complaining." Upon saying this, Zack reached into his giant pocket and pulled out a box in the shape of a red heart, taking off the lid to reveal a bunch of miniature hearts of various different colours inside. He offered the box to Aerith before taking one small heart and popping it into his mouth.

"Why does it say 'Book club?'" Aerith asked as she read the odd line off one of the hearts. Zack shrugged. Aerith rolled her eyes and put the candy into her mouth before grimacing at the taste.

"Ugh! This tastes like chalk!" she exclaimed.

"I know, but aren't they addicting?" Zack said as he put another candy heart into his mouth. Aerith watched him as he winced for the tiniest fraction of a second from the taste and reached for yet another heart. She burst into laughter while silently agreeing with him, and ate one more candy.

They finished the entire box within minutes, laughing at the cheesy messages and how they could not stop eating candy that they both agreed tasted really bad. And to Aerith, during those moments, everything felt perfect.

"So that's it, huh?" Zack asked, finally noticing the skating rink before him as Aerith nodded, "It has been everyone's topic of the month at work. I have to say though, it looks great!" Zack grabbed Aerith's hand and pulled her towards the building, stopping only when he got to the doors. He turned to her, his eyes full of mischief and glee.

"Hey Aerith, how would you like to go skating?"

The obvious answer was to say something along the lines of "I'd love to!" because skating inside had been Aerith's dream since the rink's opening. But she had seen the prices and she couldn't voluntarily let Zack spend so much gil on her. So instead, she blushed and looked away, mumbling about how expensive it was. The SOLDIER raised an eyebrow.

"Is that why there all the people are pressed up against the window, watching rather than skating?" he asked. Aerith's silence told him everything he needed to know. Reassuring her that he would be right back, Zack marched through the doors to the paying booth.

It bothered him to no end that prices like that were considered extremely expensive in the Slums. He earned more than enough in an hour to pay for ten people to skate for an entire day, from dawn to dusk. But here, everyone else would need to save up for years just to skate for ten minutes. Why was Shinra so messed up?

Zack saw Aerith watching him through the glass. All around her were kids of all ages, even some adults, who were watching the few skaters that were currently on the ice wistfully. Suddenly, he got an idea. With a smile on his face, Zack pulled out his wallet and turned to face the cashier.

"All right, everyone," Zack yelled as he back outside, "Feel free to enter inside. Each and everyone of you," he pointed his finger at all the wide eyed people surrounding him, "Each person here now has exactly one hour's worth of free skate rentals!" Nobody budged but instead stared nervously at the well-muscled man with the strange blue eyes that just screamed danger. Zack let out a sigh and rolled his eyes. He pulled the door open, ushering everyone in, "Well, come on! What are you waiting for?"

The hesitant people slowly walked in, only relaxing as they were welcomed by well-groomed attendants waiting inside with wide smiles and numerous pairs of snow white ice skates in many different sizes. Soon enough, only one person remained.

"Free?" Aerith asked with a raised eyebrow and a big smile, "Zack, you are wonderful." Wrapping him up in a hug she whispered into his ear, 'Thank you." She knew that the people, who were undoubtedly grateful, would never approach Zack out of pure fear and intimidation so she hoped that her appreciation would be enough to account for everyone else's.

"You know," he whispered back with a smile, "I paid for us too." She kissed his cheek and interlaced their fingers as she pulled him inside with her. It seemed as though her gratitude would be enough.

Aerith wasn't as bad at skating as she expected and Zack wasn't as good as he expected. So together, they turned out to be pretty equally skilled. And after falling one too many times on his own, Zack came out with a brilliant solution. He took Aerith's hand just as she was about to stumble and continued skating, balancing her up while being balanced up by her in return. Of course, a flaw in this genius plan was that an eventual fall, which was inevitable, would bring both of them down. But, as Zack reasoned, at least they would fall together. And plus, Aerith's hand in his and her smile was worth the bruises he would suffer later on.

It was as they finally completed an entire lap together without a single stumble or inaccurate step that Aerith's wish remerged in Zack's head. And all of a sudden, an idea hit him. He stopped suddenly, bringing Aerith to a stop as well with a steadying movement of his arm.

"Do you trust me?" he asked her seriously.

"Always," was her immediate answer without any hesitation and he couldn't help but smile at that trust in him. It was something that he knew he didn't receive from anyone else.

"Okay then, close your eyes and stay here." She obeyed without a doubt. Gently, Zack pulled his hand out of her grasp, "Don't peek yet, okay?" Zack said as he took a couple of shaky steps backward to get a running start. And as he sped towards Aerith, he put his arms around her small waist and lifted her up as far as she could go. "Now, open!"

Aerith opened her eyes with a sharp intake of breath. She was suspended above the ice and moving as gentle breeze blew against her face. The sparkling strings of lights became a soft blur and the fake snow all around began to resemble soft clouds. She laughed in delight. "Zack, I am flying!"

Slowly and carefully, Aerith stretched out her arms as if they were wings, hearing Zack's responsive laughter from behind her. The other skaters stopped and moved out of the way for the couple and all Aerith could see were shy smiles from every direction. Flying felt wonderful. She couldn't stop herself from beaming; Zack Fair was definitely a keeper.

Too bad that he wasn't a very good skater.

It was all a matter of time before Zack missed a step which caused a stumble which led to an unavoidable crash into a synthetic snow bank. And throughout the duration of this, all Zack was helpless to do anything but make sure that Aerith would land on top of him and suffer the least bit of damage while he took the greater fall.

The snow bank turned out to be surprisingly soft. Zack grunted. His ego was officially beyond repair now. He just hoped that his "accident" would make him less frightening to everyone else. And like déjà vu, as his eyes fluttered open Aerith's delicate face came into view, radiantly.

And so lying in the fake snow, pinned under Aerith's tiny body, Zack Fair realized that he had never been happier in his entire life.

And it only took three extra words for her to kiss him.