Title: The Fighter and the Faerie Queen

Chapter: 4-A Mother's Love

Game: Final Fantasy VII

Rating: T

Author: Death Mountain

Disclaimer: I wish I owned them!

The damage from the crash of Sector 7 carried over into Sector 6 and cast a shadow over the people living there. Some had organized themselves into small work groups or clean-up crews which toiled away dragging debris into heaps out of the way. Most people watched or gossiped, exchanging increasingly tragic stories of disaster that changed with each telling.

Nobody seemed to notice the rugged trio as they trudged through the streets, eyeing the rubble heaps. Snippets of conversation reached them, all the same in essence. Shop doors all bore signs declaring business closed for the time, and all windows were darkened by curtains or shutters.

"What a mess." Barret grumbled. Tifa was inclined to agree, but she kept this to herself, her mind on leading them to Aerith's house and speaking with Elmyra.

Amazingly enough, neither the house nor the garden bore the scars of the recent disaster. In contrast it seemed to glow faintly like a beacon. Tifa inhaled, catching a whiff of flowers, and steeled herself for the challenge ahead. Cloud and Barret stood behind her in a state of awe as she turned to the front door.

Her knock went unanswered, so she twisted the knob. The unlocked door swung open into the kitchen. "Mrs. Gainsborough?" Tifa called, stepping cautiously across the threshold.

Elmyra was standing in the middle of the room with her back to the door. Her stooped shoulders rose and she turned to face the guests. Tifa felt her heart sinking at the sight of the woman, whose very stance and expression suggested that she was lost in her own home. Tears brimmed at the edges of her eyes, but she blinked and smiled. "Hello, Ms. Lockheart," she greeted politely. "This is about Aerith, isn't it?"

Tifa nodded. "I'm . . . I'm sorry. She was captured by ShinRa."

"I know. She came here, but they found her." Her clasped hands trembled slightly against her apron.

"Why is ShinRa after Aerith?" Cloud asked. "Tseng said she's an Ancient. Is that true?"

Elmyra nodded. "Yes. She's the sole survivor."

Barret shook his head in confusion. "But aren't you her mother?"

"Not her real mother . . ." She looked away.

Tifa blinked. It shouldn't be so surprising; Aerith and Elmyra didn't look anything alike, but she had assumed because of the obvious love between them, that they must be connected by blood. Her stomach did a flip as she realized that Aerith might have endured the same loss as she did once.

"It must have been fifteen years ago . . ." Elmyra spoke in a faraway voice as she gazed into space, seeing some distant memory. "During the war, my husband was sent to the front. Some faraway place called Wutai.

"One day, I went to the train station because I got a letter saying he was coming home on leave. But my husband never came back. I wondered if something happened to him, but I told myself his leave was just canceled, surely. I went to the station every day. Then, one day . . . there was a woman and a child there. The woman had been injured, and she was dying.

"You used to see this sort of thing all the time during the war. Her last words were, 'Please take Aerith somewhere safe.' My husband never came back. I was probably lonely. So I decided to take her home with me." Elmyra smiled wistfully. "Aerith and I became close very quickly. That child loved to talk. She used to talk to me about everything."

Tifa tried to imagine Aerith as a child, talkative and friendly. The image came very naturally to her.

"She told me she escaped from some sort of research laboratory somewhere, and that her mother had already returned to the planet, so she wasn't lonely . . . and many other things."

"Returned to the planet?" Barret echoed dubiously.

Elmyra shrugged helplessly. "I don't know what she meant. I asked if she meant a star in the sky, but she said it was this planet . . . She was a mysterious child in many ways.

("Mom. Please don't cry.")

"She just blurted that out all of a sudden. When I asked her if something had happened . . ."

("Someone dear to you has just died. His spirit was coming to see you, but he already returned to the Planet.")

"At that time I didn't believe her, but . . . several days later, we received a notice that my husband had died . . ." She made no move to brush away the tears. "And that's how it was. A lot had happened, but we were happy. Until one day . . .

"Tseng from ShinRa came here asking me to return Aerith to ShinRa. She refused to go with him, and although he told her she was an Ancient, she denied it."

("He's wrong! I'm not an Ancient! I'm not!")

"But of course I knew. I knew about her mysterious powers . . . She tried so hard to hide it, so I acted as though I never noticed."

Her story ended there, and she appeared to be waiting for their reactions.

"It's amazing that she's avoided ShinRa all these years," Cloud commented. "Being an Ancient . . ."

"No matter how different she may be, she's my daughter. That's all that matters to me." Elmyra carefully wiped her eyes on her apron. "She came back here with a little girl, and when they came, she went with them in exchange for the child's safety."

"Oh, Marlene!" Tifa exclaimed. What had she done, sending them away like that? She had endangered Aerith and Marlene! "Thank goodness."

Barret jumped forward. "Marlene? She's here?" He turned to Elmyra, the tension that had gripped him earlier easing. "I'm sorry. Marlene is my daughter, and Aerith got caught because of her. I'm . . . really sorry . . ."

"You're her father? How in the world could you leave a child alone like that?" Elmyra chided him, her grief turning into anger. "What kind of parent are you?"

"Mrs. Gai—" Barret held up a hand, cutting Tifa off. She clamped her mouth shut. If there was anything or anyone at all that Barret loved unconditionally, it was his daughter. He could handle it.

"I'm so sorry. I . . . think about that all the time. What would happen to Marlene if I . . . but I hafta fight, too . . . or else ShinRa will just keep killin' the planet. But I'm her father, so . . . damn it, I dunno what I'm babblin' 'bout. What I'm tryin' to say is, I'm gonna keep fighting! But I wanna be with Marlene . . . always." He rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed. "Sorry, I'm just goin' in circles."

Elmyra reached out and patted his hand in a motherly way. "Okay. I think I understand what you're saying. Of course she's your daughter and you love her." Was she speaking of Aerith and her as well, as the faraway sadness in her weathered face suggested? "She's upstairs right now, asleep. Why don't you go see her?"

"Thank you!" Barret turned on his heels and was up the stairs in a flash.

Cloud had fallen silent, seemingly deep in thought. He simply nodded to the two women and followed Barret upstairs without a word.

Tifa felt as though an enormous crushing weight had just descended on her. Elmyra's sigh heightened her guilt. Feeling terrible, she spoke up. "I . . . I'm sorry. It's my fault Aerith got taken." She clenched her fists and stared at the floor. "I asked her to take care of Marlene, and . . . I'm supposed to be her bodyguard." The fierce sincerity in her own words surprised her. When had she become so attached to the older girl? Was this normal, to feel like a failure to her? Don't cry, she commanded. You're not a little girl anymore. Don't cry. "I abandoned her . . ."

"No, dear." Elmyra shook her head. "Not at all. You mean a lot to Aerith—she told me that herself."

"She what?"

"Before the ShinRa got here, she told me, 'They mean so much to me. Cloud reminds me of my old boyfriend, so I want to care for him. But I'm so glad Tifa is with me, because she makes me feel safe. She means so much, most of all, to me.' You've tried so hard to protect someone you just met, and she genuinely cares about you."

"No, I—" Tifa fumbled for words. "I'm not—Aerith is—" I thought she had nothing to do with this, and now she's so involved in it! A tear escaped and rolled down her cheek. What was she crying for?

Elmyra stepped forward and pulled Tifa into an awkward hug, patting her back. "There there, dear," she said soothingly. This motherly touch pulled Tifa over the edge. How she had missed this, this warmth, since her own mother died! And now just as they had been separated, she had torn a mother and daughter apart!

Elmyra held her while she cried, tears leaking past the barrier that had once made her notorious in her hometown and in Midgar's Sector 7, for being a woman of iron fists and a heart of steel. She had thought herself made of tougher stuff than this, but here she was bawling like a baby in the arms of a woman she hardly knew. But Elmyra didn't know how hard she tried to stay strong for years on end, and even if she had known, Tifa was sure the elder woman would think no less of her.

So Elmyra held her and rocked her gently until her tears dried, and comforted her as only a mother could.

"We've taken advantage of your kindness," Tifa apologized, watching Barret kneel down for a last hug and kiss from little Marlene.

"No, no. I could do no less." Elmyra smiled warmly at her.

"We've taken too long already," Cloud pointed out.

Tifa shushed him. "Thank you, Mrs. Gainsborough."

"Don't make me feel so old, child. Call me Elmyra."

Barret pried Marlene away from him and stood up. "Please take care of Marlene," he said. "I only wanted to be with her." He bent over and planted a kiss on the four-year-old's forehead.

"You should get out of Midgar for now. It's not safe here, not anymore," advised Tifa. The gratitude she felt could hardly be expressed. "We certainly can't stay."

"I understand. Good luck."

"I'll tell Aerith you love her," Tifa added, as a promise to both of them.

She left that house not knowing if she would ever see it again.

AN: Hey, I'm getting organized. Hurray for me.

Short, I know, but I for one like this chapter. The scene between Elmyra and Tifa was something I felt I needed to have there.

Next—Rescue Aerith! The infiltration of ShinRa Inc!

AN2: Second version. Again, really not much changed here.