A/N: And so, after a few months of drawn out drama and sex scenes, the little sub- story comes to an end! Thanks again to everyone who's been following and reviewing-and to those who are reading this for the sake of it's role in "The Fire," hang in there! This will come into play very soon. :)
Happy Thanksgiving!

Chapter Four: Fighting

"Cold is the water, it freezes your already cold mind,
Already cold, cold mind.
And death is at your doorstep, and it will steal your innocence,
But it will not steal your substance

But you are not alone in this, and you are not alone in this.
As brothers we will stand and we'll hold your hand,
Hold your hand...

And I will tell the night,
Whisper, 'Lose your sight.'
But I can't move the mountains for you."

-Timshel
~Mumford and Sons
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Morning comes early, but unlike yesterday, I know there will be no time for silence- no time to hold her in the quiet of the sunrise while she sleeps.

Breakfast consists of some biscuits I picked up from the market shortly after I woke up. I finish packing what little we have while she eats, and by the time she's done we're ready to go.

"I just don't see why we have to leave so soon," her voice is sad as we walk, the barely stirring town disappearing into the trees behind us. "It isn't like anyone is looking for us."

"My dear," I shake my head, guiding her into the loading station to catch our ferry, "someone is always looking for us."

She doesn't seem to take much from this, simply sighing as the ferryman checks our tickets and lets us pass.
~~~~~

The ride back to the Eastern Continent is uneventful at best; as we port, a light fog settles over the boat, stretching miles inland. By the time we reach the local chocobo stable and get our birds, it's become apparent what the weather plans to do.

"Is it safe to ride in the rain?" She asks me, and I take note of the general lack of fear in her tone.

"If it starts raining we'll find a place to stop." I reply, pretending not to notice the look of hurt that flashes across her face. I know what she's aiming for, that she wants to delay getting home as much as possible, but I can't risk it. As cold as it sounds, at this point the longer we stay away the more danger it puts us both in.

We ride along in silence for the first hour, and while she seems content to look at the cloudy landscape, my mind won't be quiet. I keep thinking back to the night before- what could she have meant when she said she had no right to a decision concerning her Fate? While I'm a firm believer in the plans of the Planet for all of us as individuals, I dobelieve that we have control over our walk of life to some extent. We all make our own decisions.

I look over at her, watching the way her eyes scan the empty plains; her slack stance and her light hold on the reigns. It's hard to believe such harsh thoughts live in that beautiful head of hers, but the more sensible part of me knows there's much more to her than what anyone sees.

"Are you scared?"

She turns to me, and I suddenly wish I hadn't disturbed her.

Her brow furrows. "What do you mean?"

"About going home."

"Oh," her voice drops, and she shrugs. "I'm not sure, I haven't really thought much about it." She rolls her bottom lip under, pondering on it for a second before shaking her head. "No, I don't suppose I am."

"Why not?"

She smiles slightly, as though she knew that question were coming. "Well, I'm fairly certain two days of being gone has already sent ShinRa's men into a scramble looking for me elsewhere."

I raise an eyebrow. "How do you figure that?"

"Because," she starts, her tone matter-of-fact. "I'm a person with a routine. I never leave the city- I barely leave my own sector. They've been following me for years, and by now they know my patterns. My guess is they've begun to assume someone else has taken me. That is," she adds with an impish smile, "if they haven't already ruled you out as an option."

A younger, more inexperienced version of myself might have turned red, but I manage to contain things to a slight smirk.

"Sometimes I'm not so sure you haven't been studying us."

She laughs. "Well of course I have. Ever since Zack fell into my life I've been curious to know more about ShinRa and SOLDIER and the Turks..." Her sentence trails off and she fades into a quiet that I can only assume was brought on by her own mention of the late warrior. Wetting her lips she lowers her head, then looks back over the fields. I feel my heart ache, but say nothing, letting the uneasiness of the moment slip far behind us as we continue to ride well into the afternoon.
~~~~~

Just as night begins to fall, Midgar appears on the horizon. From a distance it looks unnatural; a stark, metal alien form against the Planet's natural landscape. The sky is still cloudy, which only adds to the grayness of the scene- not to mention the gloominess of the situation.

"It looks so small from here," her voice cuts the silence for the first time in hours. "So...out of place."

"It is very much 'out of place.'" I agree, looking around for the chocobo stable I know should be coming into view soon. "A metal kingdom built out of greed for mako and power."

"It isn't a kingdom for everyone." She replies softly, and I glance at her. Her face reads every bit of someone about to walk back into a prison after having escaped for a while.

We ride the rest of the way to the stables, where the owner recognizes us from a few days ago and gives us keys to the barn with little more than a "Welcome home." We take our chocobos back, somewhat expecting to run into other riders, or even a stable hand, but finding no one as we put our birds in their respective stalls and begin taking their tack off.

"I don't want to take you back, you know." I say to her from across the hall, peeking through the stall bars at her. "I would keep you with me, if I could."

"I know." She doesn't look at me, instead moving to hang the saddle over the door and then pulling a brush from the wall to groom the animal. "But we both know that isn't really possible orsmart. Besides, my mother is probably beside herself worrying about me."

"She will be glad to see you."

She smiles absently, and I feel a small twinge of happiness. I finish brushing my chocobo, then gather the saddle and bridle to take to the tack room. She's close behind, but I'm through putting mine away by the time she reaches the door, her blanket nearly touching the floor as she struggles to hold everything in her small arms. I move to take them from her, shelving the blanket and hanging the rest of it on the wall.

"Does it bother you? Knowing you'll have to leave me alone for a while after this?"
"You won't be alone," I remind her. "And believe me, I'll be keeping tabs on you, from a respectful distance."

She gives a short laugh, and I turn to face her. Her demeanor is different now, and I feel it's alright to approach her. Gently I reach up to brush her bangs out of her face, and she turns her cheek into my hand, sighing.

"I always used to wish I could just disappear. Now that I have, I'm thankful I had the option to come back."
"It's more of an obligation than an option."
"I suppose."

We look at one another for a moment, before she turns and leads the way back to the barn hallway. The sound of rain beginning to pick up on the tin roof rings overhead.

She stops walking and I pause behind her, the two of us looking out the open double doors to the rolling fields we just came from. A few seconds later she turns to the other side, where the stormy view of Midgar looks more miserable than ever in the lightning-filled cloud cover.

"You're really making me go back, aren't you? Back into the same cage you pulled me from. And then you'll just go home."
"At least you have someone waiting for you."

She turns to me, eyes wide. "What a terrible thing to say, Tseng." She shakes her head. "Then again, I guess we both arein our own form of a cage. Yours is just more of the...suit-and-gun variety."

Silence. I know she isn't trying to say anything hurtful, but I can tell by the look on her face that she's angry.

"What do you want me to say?"
"That you'll take me with you."
"You know I can't do that."
"Then what's the point?" Ah, there was the break in control. "Why even take me away in the first place? You know they're just going to come back! If not today, then tomorrow."
"They won't be there today, or tomorrow."
"If not tomorrow, then next week, or next month-."
"Aeris-."
"There's no point, Tseng! I'm trapped, don't you see? They've been tracking me my entire life, why would they stop now-."

"That isn't why I took you!"I shout.

...I shout.

It's been months, years, since I've done that, but I know it needed to happen. She stares at me, not one ounce of surprise or fear on her face. I breathe heavily, but before I can gather my thoughts she turns and runs out of the barn, into the rain and toward the city that sits miles away.

I follow after her.

"Aeris! Aeris wait!" Catching up, I try to grab her wrist. "Aeris-."
"What is it then?" She spins on me, eyes turning red with tears that are invisible in the water that quickly soaks us both.
"What-?"
"Why did you take me? If not for ShinRa, if not for you, then why? For who?"

I groan, daring to let my proper stance down long enough to lean forward onto my knees.

"You misunderstood me."

"Then explain." She crosses her arms. "Because it sounded a lot like you said-."
"I know what it sounded like, but you have to listen to me." Standing upright, I regain control of my frustration and look at her, seeing no objection. "I took you because of Hojo, remember? He was the one in charge of the operation in the first place, because he went straight to the President."

It's apparent she does remember this, I can tell because she has a very impatient eyebrow cocked.

"If I had let you stick it out and try to escape like you normally do, he would have burned your sector to the ground." I went on, voice weary. "Hojo isn't normal, Aeris. You know that by now. I took you to avoid him, because if he'd gotten his hands on you, you'd never come out of it alive, or in one piece, even. At least this way you'll live to fight another day."

We look at each other for a while, the cold front of the Eastern plain beginning to blow through the storm and turning out shivering breaths to steam. A bit longer, and I run an uneasy hand over my face.

"I would have never done this if I hadn't feared for your life."

She purses her lips, gaze softening. "I know." With a shudder, she turns back to the city, rubbing her arms. "I'm just...I'm tired. I'm tired of running. Tired of fighting. Tired of hiding... And something inside me keeps saying it will only get worse."

I want to protest, but that same something that tells her it's only going to get worse suddenly tells me she's absolutely right. It's an aura, a whisper, sweeping over and around us like the wind through the rain. I feel calm, and- despite the cold- warm.

It's the Planet.

I feel her hand slip into mine, and instantly I know she senses it too.

"We have to leave soon," she whispers.

Looking down at her, the reality of the situation begins to weigh in. Fate, distance, even the surrealism of mortality rears it's ugly head as we stand in the storm, Midgar suddenly seeming minutes away as we hold hands and quietly pray for time to stand still.

"The sun will be setting soon," I offer. "It will be best to go into the city when it's dark."

She nods in agreement, pulling her hand from mine. "We should get ready to go."

We walk back to the barn, and though it is quiet, the air between us is everything but.

She slows her pace, contemplating something, and I don't miss a beat. Grabbing her shoulder I turn her to face me, rushing in and circling my other arm around her waist. She gives no resistance, wrapping her arms around my neck and pulling herself closer as I lift her off the ground and begin kissing her feverishly.

It's different this time. There's an entire shift in the universe as I carry her into the barn, back into the tack room. It feels as though the Lifestream itself is suddenly pouring through her and into me, telling me all the secrets she was too scared to voice. In one instant I see it all- the war, the fall of ShinRa and the rise of his son, the man with the machine-gun arm and his team from the slums, the boy with the buster-sword that oddly resembles Zack, and a Masamune-...

And just like that, it's gone. Every image just as quickly as it came. It's just as well, because while I am retroactively filled with a sense of purpose, I can't force away the sorrow that wrenches through my chest. I didn't see everything, but I know what's going to happen.

"We weren't supposed to be here, you know." Her shaky voice cuts through my thoughts, and I realize I have her pressed again the closed door, her legs wrapped around me. She doesn't seem to mind. "We weren't supposed to leave Midgar- to be here, the way we are. It's causing a shift."
"I don't understand."
"There's a lot the Planet won't tell me," she goes on. "But this...this I've felt since the night you took me. It was an open door, but it wasn't put here by the Planet."
"Then who made it?"
"I don't know...but because they did, things will be different. I can't see how yet."

The pain in my heart grows. This can't be how things end.

"Aeris," I let my weight pin her up and hold her face in my hands, chasing the look of terror from her eyes. "I swear to you, I will do everything I can to keep you safe. Come Holy or Meteor, I will guard you, even if it costs me my life."

She takes this in, before letting me know former mood is far from forgotten. Leaning forward, she begins to kiss me again, and I move my hands to her backside and pull us away from the door. We nearly crash into a saddle rack, and I spin around to sit in an old armchair while she maneuvers in my lap to pull her panties off. Tossing them aside, we then work my pants down just enough for her to reach my length, which she carefully guides herself onto.

Caution ends there.

"Tseng!" She breathes, and I barely resist gasping as she moves on top of me, her slick heat torture as she pushes herself to move faster. I bury my face into her chest, running my hands up her ribcage to pull off her top and expose her breasts. Taking one in my mouth, I tease her nipple gently while sliding my other hand to her pearl between us.

She moans, arching into me. A few more seconds of coaxing and I feel her walls tighten with the first orgasm. At this point I can tell she's getting tired so I intervene, picking her up and moving a few steps to the pile of blankets nearby. I go to lay her back, but she twists at the last second, swinging her leg and turning her back to me. I don't hesitate, taking full advantage of the new position and holding on to her beautiful waist as I begin driving into her once more.

She cries out, leaning back into me, begging me to go faster. After she comes a second time, I know I don't have much longer, but this isn't how I want it to end. Pulling her back, I turn her around, setting her onto the table and looking her in the eyes.

"Tell me you want me."
"I want you," she whispers, leaning forward to run her fingers into my hair. "Please, Tseng."

Pulling her hips to the edge I enter her once more, holding her steady as she lays down. I lean over her, bracing myself with one hand while teasing her with the other. She writhes, begging me in breathless pleas, pushing against me. After a minute, my need grows to be too much, and I know I can't slow down. She comes again, then once more, digging her fingernails into my shoulders as I finish with a groan and slow my pace, letting us both come down gradually.

We lay in silence for some time, holding one another in the calm of the storm, reveling in our moment of 'time standing still.'

These times I will always remember. Long after we find it in ourselves to pull away, get dressed; long after I've taken her home to the safety of her Sector, to her mother's arms... When the touch of her skin, the smell of her hair, when the sound of the rain slowly fading into stars just bright enough to light our walk home is distant in my memory, I will never forget the sound of her voice, the look in her eyes as we laid there in the stable, not a witness to be had when she leaned against my chest and softly murmured, "You hold a piece of my heart."

She does not love me- not the way she loved him, I know. Not even the way I've seen she will love the new SOLDIER that will come into her life. But this fact, this 'piece of her heart' that she has given me, I will keep it forever. I will cherish it, and continue to watch over her, just as I promised.

The night is as calm as when we left, when we finally reach the sector. Just as predicted, not a SOLDIER is in sight when we reach her home- the only sign of life being the flickering candle hanging in the lantern just outside. Pausing only to kiss me goodbye, she then runs inside, and I wait just long enough to hear the excited voice of her mother before I turn and make my way home.

It will be six months before I see her again, and our lives will never be the same.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~