AUTHOR'S NOTE: Yeah...so I may have forgotten about this fanfic for awhile. I also lost the notes I had for my plot...so I'm going on what little I can remember. This chapter got a little longer than I expected, what with the explanations about ShinRa and stuff. I figured that if Squall was going into the world, it'd help if he knew a little about it. That being said, this chapter is mostly talking. Soo, thanks for reading, and bear with me. Also... I don't own the characters. Unfortunately. =(

Chapter Three

"So I'm dead." The man said, looking down at himself in despair. Aeris shook her head, and Elimir looked over at her unconscious husband.

"I'm going to see what I can find out from Alek. He has to be possessed, and if he is...he knows something." She said. The man didn't move or speak, but Aeris nodded. This would give her the chance to get the man away from Alek, and get to know him. Maybe figure out how he got here, and why.

"Good idea. I'm going to take..." She looked at the man, realizing that she had no idea what his name was. He looked up and caught on quick.

"Squall." Was all he said. Aeris nodded, then looked back to Elimir and finished her sentence. "Squall...back to my house. We can talk there." She finished, looking at Squall who shrugged. He seemed forlorn now. Like he had no hope. She couldn't really blame him though, he thought he was dead. For all she knew, he was.

Elimir watched them both for a few seconds, then turned her attention to her husband. Aeris motioned for Squall to follow her, and he did. What else was he going to do? Obviously he could trust her, since she'd saved his life. But this was too complicated. Was he dead or not? Surely she had to know.

"I'm Aeris, by the way." She said as they walked down the hill just outside the Shrine. They were coming up on the ocean of life now, a beautiful blue sea of water that reflected the sun's golden rays into the sky in rainbows. It was a truly magnificent sight.

"Yeah, I heard that...Alek...call you that." Squall answered. Aeris cringed a little. She realized what Squall must be thinking. Having met Alek first, he must think that all Cetra's were as evil as he was. That, coupled with the thought that he was dead...she wondered how he felt about that. One look at his face told her that reading him would be difficult.

"We're not all like Alek." She said quietly, looking at the grass beneath her feet as they walked. Squall gazed at her face for a few moments, and caught the expression she wore. He wasn't sure why, but his heart tugged at his voice.

"Are they all like you?" He asked with a soft voice. Aeris looked at him, momentarily startled, but the look was gone instantly. She replaced it with a resigned smile.

"No. But we are a good race. We do good...not attack strangers. " She said, looking away from his face to stare out over the ocean. She was afraid that if she looked at him any longer, she would blush. He had entrancing eyes that captivated her. They were so sad, and they reminded her of Cloud so much. His brown hair draped over his face, and almost hid his scar.

"Am I dead, Aeris?" Squall asked, stopping in his tracks and watching her with determination. He wasn't going to let her beat around the bush anymore. He needed to know if he was dead..or what was he if he wasn't. Aeris froze, and kept her back to him for several seconds.

Even though he was determined to demand an answer, his thoughts strayed. Her white, feathery wings were large, but they didn't hide her figure, or her long honey brown hair tied up and braided down. A pink ribbon tied her braid together, but seemed out of place against the white robe she wore. When she finally turned to look at him, he didn't recognize the expression in her emerald eyes. She seemed to pity him...

"I...don't know." She answered quietly. Frustrated, Squall gritted his teeth.

"How can you not know?" He demanded, sounding furious. He winced, realizing that it came out much worse than he intended. Aeris seemed hurt, but she didn't lash out at him. Instead, she looked him in the eyes with a serious look washing over her features.

"Are you an Ancient?" She asked, already knowing the answer.

"Not that I know of..." He said, looking at her quizzically. He thought to tell her he didn't even know what an Ancient was, but the words never came out.

"Then I don't know how you got here. Until I know how you got here...I won't know if you are dead." She said, frustrated. She wished she knew the answers, to help him. She felt like she needed to help him...

"Where is...here..exactly?" He asked, looking around at the warm sand that covered the ground. Aeris stopped walking to turn and face him. With her arms open, she spoke.

"This is called the Promised Land. It is a sacred place for the Cetra's." She gestured to the world around him, a world so foreign to his own it was amazing in its beauty. It was like a paradise. The sun was high, the clouds were white and the water was the bluest he had ever seen. Sacred seemed right, but who were the Cetra's?

"Cetra's?"

"Protectors of the Planet. Some called us Ancients, but very few people remembered us when I was alive. I was the last of our race." She said sadly, turning from him and continuing the walk past the lake in a different direction. He could see structures up ahead.

"So this is heaven...for dead Cetra's?" He asked bluntly.

"Yes." Was all she said. He was quiet for several minutes, wondering what her life was like, and how she had coped with her death. How anyone coped with such news. How was he going to deal with it?

"Where does everyone else go?" He asked, curious now. If he wasn't an Ancient, or Cetra, where should he be?

"Into the Lifestream." She said warily. Everyone knew that, or so she thought.

"What's the Lifestream?" He asked, staring at her when she stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around. She stared at him for several seconds to determine if he was joking. He didn't know what the Lifestream was?

"It's what brings life to the Planet. It swirls through the Planet and when you die, you return to the Planet through the Lifestream to be born again. How have you never heard of the Lifestream?" She asked incredulously.

Squall shook his head. "I don't know. It's never come up. So...Am I the only non-Cetra to show up here?"

"Yes." Aeris replied, suddenly curious about his reaction to her answer. "Should we be expecting someone else?"

"No. Just... The last memory I have before waking here...I was with someone." He said, unsure how to continue. Obviously Rinoa wasn't here...but he sorely wished she was. He needed her.

"Really?" Aeris asked. Squall nodded, and took a look around. They were almost to the structures, but they didn't look like any houses he'd ever seen.

"I was hoping she was here too. She would know what was going on." He murmured sadly. Aeris didn't speculate.

"Ok...so tell me the last thing you remember." Aeris said. Maybe she could figure out through him how he got here.

"I was talking with Rinoa...the girl I thought might be here...about leaving Balamb." He looked up and stopped when he saw the confused expression on Aeris' face.

"Balamb? Where is that?" She asked. Now it was Squall's turn to look surprised.

"Balamb...is a continent." he said simply. Aeris was sure there were no continents on the Planet named Balamb, and Squall couldn't figure out how she had never heard of an entire continent.

"There is no continent named Balamb on...our...planet. Oh my god." She said, backing up. Squall held out a hand toward her, afraid she would fall.

But her realization dawned on him as well. Not only was he the first non-Cetra in their little corner of Heaven, but he wasn't even from their planet in the first place. Somehow he had been taken from his planet, from Rinoa, and transported to this Promised Land. And if he was here, where was Rinoa?

"Yes. Now it all makes sense. I have never heard of Cetra's, or the Promised Land, the Lifestream, any of it. But if I am not from this Planet...how do I get back?" Squall asked, afraid of the answer. Aeris averted her green gaze from his scarred face and took in a deep breath.

"I think the how will come after the why..." She said softly. Squall's broken eyes searched her face for a clue to the riddle she just spoke. After a moment of silence, she decided to explain.

"Obviously you were sent to our planet for a reason, Squall. And I think once we figure out the reason why you are here, then we can begin to figure out how to get you home. And how to find your Rinoa." She said with a measure of certainty. Then she felt her heart skip a beat, and the butterflies hit her. She was very still for several minutes as Squall watched her.

"What is it, Aeris?" He asked, holding a hand out to touch her shoulder briefly. She turned, and stared at the ocean of life for almost a minute before speaking.

"Something very important is happening. Someone...close to me?" She said it almost as a question, staring at the water as if for answers but receiving none.

"What does that mean?" He asked, pulling his hand away and stepping back. She shook her head.

"I don't know..." Then she motioned for him to follow as she turned away from the ocean of life and started walking towards the large seashells as if nothing weird had happened.

The closer he got, the more he realized that they resembled houses in a way. "Do you guys...live in these shells?" He asked. Aeris nodded, and turned up the sidewalk to the open mouth that appeared to be the doorway. Inside was what he expected. There was a small table against the wall, and a few chairs beside it. Around the small bend was a ladder that lead to what he assumed to their version of a bedroom.

Aeris motioned for him to sit, so he did. She filled a glass with water and handed it to him. Only then did he realize that he was thirsty...and hungry. When was the last time he ate? As he drank the glass she filled a plate with several cracker-looking items and sat it down in front of him. He stared at the plate for a moment without speaking. She giggled and sat down at the chair across from him and held up a cracker.

"Eat them. They are full of nutrients to keep you strong, and they expand in your stomach to make you feel full faster." she explained, then popped one in her mouth and ate it. He picked one up and looked at it for a second, then looked at Aeris in disbelief.

"I'm not gonna sprout wings or start waving knives at innocent people am I?" he asked, a hint of a smile on his lips. Aeris laughed, a soft laugh that reverberated through the small room that served as her house. Squall caught himself staring at her green eyes and quickly looked away before she noticed, and decided to try her cracker thing. After putting it in his mouth, he realized that it was sweet. Not at all what he was expecting.

"It's made to taste like whatever you are craving at the time. Quite handy." She said with a smile. He returned her smile and forced himself to focus on the cracker in his hand. Now that the excitement was over, he began to notice how pretty the young woman was sitting across the table from him. She had light skin and emerald eyes. Her face was framed with short brown bangs, parted in the center and falling to her ears. Then another twirl of hair fell from both sides of her face to her shoulders, and the ends of the pink ribbon peeked out from behind her head.

"What's with the pink ribbon?" He asked. Aeris stared at him for a moment, her face unreadable. Then she looked down at the plate on the table and forced a smile. Squall saw the sadness behind her smile though.

"It was a gift from a dear friend." She said softly, looking up and banishing any sadness from her expression.

"Where is your friend now?"

"He has returned to the Planet." was all she offered. Squall put together what he'd been told so far, and realized that her friend was dead. Ouch...

"I'm sorry..."

"No. Don't be. I want to remember him. I keep him close in my heart. One day I will see him again." She said, her smile genuine now. But Squall didn't understand. Wasn't this Heaven? If he was dead, shouldn't he be here? No...This was Heaven for Cetras. Her friend must not be a Cetra.

"His name was Zack Fair. He was a SOLDIER First Class. He fell into my life, quite literally, and changed it for the better. I remember his eyes, they glowed...All SOLDIER's are infused with Mako to make them strong. It's also makes their eyes glow. Sign of the SOLDIER. He was so proud to be a SOLDIER. I will never forget him, or how important he was to me." She said, looking down at the table once again as memories rushed her. Squall was lost.

"Soldier? Mako?" He asked, completely confused. Aeris smiled apologetically.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Remember what I said about the Lifestream? It's the blood of the Planet. It swirls under the surface of the planet and brings life to all things. A powerful company called the ShinRa Electric Power Company built many Mako Reactors around the continents to harvest the Lifestream and make it power the cities with electricity. It's called Mako.

Mako is also crystallized and turned into Materia. Materia can be used for several things. It calls from the powers of the Planet to alter nature. It can be used to start fires, summon bolts of electricity, shake the ground, or enhance the user's abilities. Sometimes it holds the essence of a powerful being, which can be summoned for help in sticky situations.

ShinRa is also the company that employs SOLDIER's, it's very own army, to keep people in line." Aeris explained. Squall nodded, trying to take it all in. Most of it made sense. ShinRa and SOLDIER sounded like Garden and SeeD. Mako was energy forged from the Lifestream, where all dead things go to be reborn. Wasn't that hard...but where did he fit in?

"So how did Zack...return to the Lifestream?" Squall asked.

"He died saving his best friend, Cloud Strife. Killed by the very people he had been working for." She explained.

"ShinRa? Why did they kill him?"

"They were running tests on him and Cloud. Mako tests. Hojo, the leader of ShinRa's science division, wanted them back with a passion. So ShinRa set out to capture them, but Zack wouldn't go back. He died fighting to save Cloud. Thankfully Hojo never found Cloud and gave up. He is an evil evil man. He once captured me for testing too."

For some reason Squall felt his stomach turn. If this man was half as bad as she was making him out to be, he could only guess what kind of tests they ran on her. His hand balled up into a fist suddenly, and he silently promised himself that no harm would come to her while she was in his presence. "What kind of tests?"

"Hojo wanted to find the Promised Land, and I was the only surviving Cetra. He came after me for years, and finally got me when I was saving Marlene from the falling plate. But Cloud and the rest of AVALANCHE saved me."

"Falling plate?"

"AVALANCHE was a group of rebels, Cloud, Tifa, Barret, Jessie, Wedge, and Biggs, that hated ShinRa and the fact that they were using the Planet's life to make their life comfortable. They often led attacks on ShinRa, and blew up their reactors. To stop them, ShinRa blew up the pillar holding up Sector 7 of the city, crushing all those below the plate and killing many of those above it. Cloud, Tifa, and Barret made it okay, but everyone else died. The Turks, an elite group of mercenaries working for ShinRa, found me outside my house, and threatened to hurt Marlene. So I went willingly with them."

"That's very brave of you. It sounds like ShinRa is a very bad company."

"They are. But Sephiroth is even worse. He tried to destroy this Planet by summoning Meteor to inflict a wound so great that the Planet would summon all of the Lifestream to heal the wound. He thought that by being in the wound, the Lifestream would make him a God. AVALANCHE couldn't let that happen. So we went and tried to stop him. But he seemed to always be a step ahead of us. We were too late, and he summoned Meteor."

"What happened?"

"Well...Our adventures brought us near a Forgotten City of the Ancients, the Cetra. My people. My mother passed down to me a piece of materia I could never make work. In my dream, I was told of its origin and realized what I had to do. So I left AVALANCHE, and went to the Forgotten City and prayed as hard as I could for Holy. My materia was the key to saving the Planet from Meteor. Cloud found me...but it was too late. Sephiroth was there too."

Squall found himself leaning forward against the table, the crackers forgotten. He was so engrossed in her tale that he didn't realize the level of intensity in which he was staring at her. It made her a bit uncomfortable, but she continued anyway.

"And in an effort to stop me, Sephiroth...killed me. Cloud was powerless to stop him, and never quit blaming himself. But Sephiroth was too late. Holy had heard me. Sephiroth fled, and AVALANCHE pursued him all the way to the Northern Crater, where they fought him and defeated him. But Meteor was still coming. Holy had been summoned too late, and wasn't powerful enough to stop Meteor alone. So the Elders unleashed the Planet's Lifestream as a weapon, and it worked. Meteor was destroyed, and all is well." She finished, a bit winded.

Squall stared at her in amazement. She died to save her planet. He no longer wondered how she coped with her death, she expected it. She was a hero... She reminded him of Rinoa. Brave, and strong.

She didn't realize how long they had been talking. He seemed so interested that she kept going and going. But she couldn't forget that she had brought him here to talk about himself. To find out how he got into the Promised Land. And how to get him home again...