Chapter four: Landing - a homicide


They landed in a huge field of mud. The momentum from their entry carried them a fair distance but before long they stopped, the wheels spinning uselessly in the mud.

Aeris sat with her head against the steering wheel, staring emptily at nothing. But before long she sat up. She noticed that the motor was still running, if they ran out of gas they'd be in serious trouble.

So Aeris turned the key in the ignition and took the key out, stopping the car… Aeris stared at the keys, and slapped herself on the forehead. "Stupid!"

Aeris turned towards Leo and noticed that rather than cowering in fear, Leo was staring out his window, mesmerized. Looking past him, Aeris saw why. The view was breathtaking.

Where Toronto had once been there was now a colossal jungle valley. Behind the car was the side of a colossal cliff. A few miles to the southeast Aeris could see a monolithic crescent shaped waterfall, more than two hundred feet high and five hundred feet wide. Everywhere else, they could see was covered in jungle growth.

"Wait, jungle, in Canada?"

"Oh fuck" Aeris groaned. She bowed her head and cupped her face in her hands.

As if noticing Aeris for the first time Leo turned around. He realized then, who he was in the car with and, more importantly, what had just happened. At that same moment Aeris looked up.

Aeris had a certain look when she was really angry. Her shoulders would hunch, her eyes would narrow and fill with ice, glinting. Her brows would darken, shadowing her eyes almost completely. Sometimes, her lips curled back unveiling her left fangs. When she had that look, Leo knew he was doomed, and she had it now.

Leo scrambled for the door handle and had it open when Aeris shot at him from her seat, sending them both sprawling in the mud. Aeris reached for Leo's throat but he flipped onto his stomach to try and get on his feet, so instead, Aeris attempted to seize the back of his head and force it into the mud and suffocate him.

But the back of Leo's head was already covered in mud and was slippery. With Leo thrashing underneath her, Aeris slipped and lost her grip on him entirely. When she fell off him, Leo crawled away franticly and unsteadily rose to his feet.

Aeris regained her footing at about the same time and once again tried to hurl herself at Leo, but her feet slipped in the mud and instead she fell forward and ended up face planting comically in the mud.

Leo watched and couldn't help himself; he started laughing uncontrollably at Aeris's blunder. While Leo was waving around laughing, he too lost his balance and fell over, landing on the back of his head.

While he did that, Aeris clawed her way towards him murderously. But before she could reach him Leo noticed and it became a race of who could swim faster in mud. Eventually Leo reached the perimeter of their mud field and got to his feet once again. Aeris was close behind and he sprinted for all he was worth. By the time Aeris had regained her own footing Leo was already a quarter of the way around. Aeris was beginning to tire now, but that didn't matter. She screeched at the top of her lungs and gave chase.

For the better part of several hours it went like this. Leo and Aeris worked themselves to exhaustion. Aeris was fueled by pure boiling rage and Leo by his determination to live. Throughout the chase they continually slowed.

Leo had only so many places to run though and Aries had been getting ever closer to him as time had gone by. And then she caught him in a dive that was half tackle and half collapse.

Leo didn't have the energy to cringe or even cover his face. He just sat there, gasping for breath. Panting heavily on top of Leo, Aeris stared down at her victim. Now she had him… and she was too tired to care. She toppled off him and rolled over onto her back next to him.

"God Dammit Leo", she wheezed, "Why the hell did you have to go and-" she hacked for a little while, "- fuck shit up this badly?"

Leo rolled his head to the side to look at Aeris and choked, "I thought I'd go back and-", he stifled a fit of coughing,"- fix whatever it was that made you mad at me earlier."

Aeris blinked, confused, and then it all came flooding back. She turned her head away from Leo. She didn't want to look at him anymore.

Between coughs, she managed a strangled, "I see."

Leo was again puzzled by Aeris's reaction to what had happened earlier that day, or what he supposed had been that day, now that they were… wherever. He still had no idea why she'd been so angry or, for that matter, why she hadn't tried to kill him back then.

He knew she'd had him a moment ago and still she hadn't killed him, or even touched him. By Leo's estimation, that meant that he was either in the clear or that Aeris was as dead as he was and couldn't conjure the energy to do much of anything. In either case, now was the time to ask.

"Aeris?"

"What is it Leo?" she rumbled.

"Why were you so mad this morni- I mean, back then?"

That did it. Aeris was furious, tired, miserable, cold, wet, and covered in mud. She was entirely overwhelmed by everything; their situation, where they were, everything. That Leo would bring that up now was what pushed her past the breaking point. Aeris couldn't help it, she started sobbing.

Before she could stop herself she wailed, "Because you forgot Leo!"

As confused as ever Leo stared at Aeris's like he'd never seen her before. This was not the Aeris he knew and understood. That Aeris was an Aeris of cold fury and rage induced violence, always in control of herself if not her anger. She was not this person, whimpering next to him like the world was coming down around her head. Aeris did not do that.

In his tangled state of mind he dared ask, "Forgot what? What did I forget? Aeris what's going on, what's the matter with you?"

"What's going on?" Aeris whispered.

Louder this time, she answered in full, "What's going on is that you broke your promise." She turned again and faced him directly, eyesfilled with anger and pain, "You said you'd never forget that day. Not ever. But you did. You did and you acted like it never happened at all. Like it was just another day where you did something stupid, broke things, and then I had to come in and save your sorry ass."

Leo's eyes widened as he realized what Aeris was talking about. He lifted himself off the ground and leaned in towards Aeris as much as his spent muscles would allow and whispered into her ear, "Aeris, were not supposed to talk about the day with the cranes-."

"Cranes?" Aeris's mind raced. "I didn't mention the cranes? How did he-"

"- you told me not to talk about that again, remember Aeris?"

Aeris's eyebrows shot up higher than she could ever remember and her eyes widened to match. Could it be that the idiot had just been wondering why she, specifically, hadn't bought the game for her own use? It couldn't be.

Aeris turned back to Leo and demanded, "Leo, forget what I said. Tell me everything you remember from that day. I want to hear every little detail. Then I want you to tell me exactly why you asked me why we didn't buy Battlefield 3 sooner."

Leo fell onto his back and did exactly as he was told, relaying the entire story back to her in every detail he could manage. Aeris watched Leo carefully throughout. As she listened to how Leo told it, Aeris felt a soft warmth spreading through her.

Just before the end, he took a breath and finished, "-and the reason I asked was that it seemed unusual for you not to buy a game like Battlefield 3 for yourself sooner. I was waiting for you to buy it." He shrugged and looked at the sky through the trees, "It just seemed weird is all."

Leo looked back at Aeris now, tentatively, worried about what her reaction would be. What he saw was definitely not what he expected. Aeris was smiling at him more warmly than he could ever remember, her eyes glistening with old tears and new ones. The sky had darkened and her eyes were glowing.

Even through the mud, she was stunning. Leo had never seen Aeris like this and seeing it now captivated him.

"Leo," Aeris purred

Leo edged up closer to Aeris and murmured under his breath, "Yes"

"You are a perfect idiot", and Aeris punched Leo solidly in the nose.

"Ouch!" Leo yelped, rubbing his abused nose, "Aeris! What'd you do that fo-"

Aeris reached up, grabbed Leo, and kissed him on the cheek.

Leo froze mid-sentence, agape, and stared at Aeris with disbelief.

Aeris didn't give Leo a chance to gather himself.

"Come on" she said, getting up. "I'm tired and we're going back to the car to sleep. There's no way I'm staying out here."

As she finished, Aeris proffered a hand to a still dumbstruck Leo.

He looked up at Aeris like a leaf before the wind.

"Well come on" she beckoned.

"…Okay"

Aeris heaved Leo up onto his feet and they started walking.


They made their way back to the edge of the mud field. When they got there they stood side by side and made their way through that. Trembling from fatigue and cold, they almost fell in several times, but one always caught the other until, finally, they reached the car.

Getting in, Aeris shut the door behind her and rolled the windows all the way to the top. She instructed Leo to do the same. Though she hadn't noticed anything unusual about the air outside, Aeris was still unsure of whether or not their environment was entirely livable.

She'd installed an air filtration system in the DeLorean after the dust incident with the Rod Stewart look-alike, and until she'd had an opportunity to actually have the air tested she wasn't going to take any more chances than she had already allowed.

She was just drifting off to sleep against the door when Leo asked from next to her, "Aeris?"

"Yes Leo" she grumbled irritably.

"What was the kiss about?"

Aeris's eyes shot open. "Why the hell did I kiss Leo?"

Fortunately for Aeris she couldn't see that Leo was grinning to himself in delight, it would have made answering the question all the more difficult.

Aeris realized Leo was still waiting for an answer. She had to say something before he got suspicious. She settled on, "Not now Leo, I'm trying to sleep. Now go to bed."

Leo recognized that tone and he wasn't going to argue. "Ok Aeris, see you in the morning. Thanks for-," he paused, considering his next words, "…not killing me."

Aeris blinked; glad he couldn't see her face. Her cheeks and ears felt hot for some reason.

"Yeah… no problem Leo…" Aeris couldn't think of anything else to say so she just said,"Now get some rest. Tomorrow your helping me fix this thing."

"Ok… ", Leo shifted uncomfortably, "Goodnight Aeris."

"Yeah, goodnight Leo"

Both exhausted, they fell asleep in minutes. They slept like stones and dreamed of empty things that would drift away like mist in the morning.


A/N: And here you were perhaps thinking I was going to kill someone. Nonsense. One cannot have romance with only one.

Ah yes, another sentimental chapter. But one with violence too. Don't you all love the violence? I hope so because there will be more, I guarantee.

Violence aside, one must wonder, when in goodness grandmas gravy could they possibly have landed?

Well, if you want to find out, you know where to go... Into. The Next. CHAPTER!