Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII, never have, never will (Damn…)

Sorry about the wait, I'll update whenever I can.

This chapter is named after Aerith's theme in Crisis Core for those who haven't noticed that already.

Chapter 4

A Flower Blooming in the Slums

Previously on Path of a True Hero…

'Just one more day… if he doesn't show up by then… then it's time to move on.' Aerith told herself.

Aerith was about to open the door and leave her church when she heard something she hasn't heard in 6 years. The sound of an unconscious body breaking her roof and landing on her flowerbed, Aerith turned around and saw the very person that was haunting her thoughts all this time.

Aerith stood there in shock for a few seconds before she could finally think properly and only uttered one word in stuttered surprise

"Z-Zack?"

Now…

Aerith walked over to Zack's prone body, which was in the exact same place it was last time he crashed through her roof.

"I should wake him up if I'm going to interrogate him on why he's been gone for so long…" Aerith said to herself.

"Ughhh…" Zack moaned, starting to regain consciousness.

'I suppose I should wake him up now, but how… I suppose I suppose I'll just have to do the same thing I did last time…' Aerith thought.

"Hellooo…"

'Here we go again…' Zack thought.

Zack was now fully aware of his surroundings again but kept his eyes shut because he wanted to delay the déjà vu he was about to experience for as long as possible.

"Helloooooo… come on Zack get up already! I know your awake now!"

"I'm gonna experience déjà vu if I get up won't I?" Zack moaned.

"Yep! Now get up so I can interrogate you on why you've been gone for so long!" Aerith commanded in a pretend angry voice.

"Alright…" Zack groaned, not entirely thrilled that he had to re-experience falling through Aerith's church roof again. However, he didn't mind the fact that he got to see Aerith again.

Zack opened his eyes, got up, and saw the most beautiful thing he ever saw since the last time he saw Aerith.

He saw an older, more mature Aerith wearing a pink dress, 'She actually took my advice and wore pink!'

"Okay, now that you're up, can you get off of my flowers Zack?"

"Oh! Right… sorry for crash landing on your flowers again"

"It's alright; these flowers are a lot more resilient than the ones you landed on last time"

Once Zack was away from the flowerbed, Aerith became completely serious and began her interrogation.

"Sooo, Zack, will you tell me where you've been all this time, and why you broke my roof… again?" Aerith asked with a face that clearly says 'tell me the truth or you will regret it.'

"Okay, I'll tell you, but it's not a story I plan on telling often. I suppose this all started right after you called me at Nibelhiem…"

Zack continued his story about the reactor, Sephiroth's descent into madness, his and Cloud's capture, the escape, the showdown with Genesis, his battle against Shinra's army, joining AVALANCHE, and both mako reactors.

"So, let me get this straight… while I was worrying about you for the past 5 years, you were sleeping?" Aerith joked in mock outrage.

"What? That's not what I meant!" Zack attempted at appeasing her.

"It's alright, I understand… wow… I never thought it was possible for me to actually hate something."

"What do you mean?" Zack asked.

"I usually find it impossible to hate something… but after hearing what Shinra did to you… I hate it! I hate Shinra so much that I would be glad to see it burn to the ground!" Aerith started to tremble with both rage and shock, 'Did I… just say all that?!'

"Aerith…" Zack said while holding her in an attempt to console her.

"I-I'm alright now Zack, thanks for calming me down"

"So, do you forgive me?" Zack asked.

"There's nothing to forgive, it's all Shinra's fault after all" Aerith responded.

"What's Shinra's fault" a voice drawled lazily while the church doors opened.

"Tch, so the Turks are being sent after me again? I though Shinra gave up after I wiped out an entire platoon of its army" Zack said, visibly annoyed.

"No, actually we didn't even know where in Midgar you were until just now, we're here for the girl" Reno said.

"And what do you want with Aerith, Reno?" Zack said impatiently.

"I don't know what Shinra wants with her, all I know is that we've been ordered to capture her and we'll do just that" Reno said.

"Over my dead body!" Zack said furiously.

"That can be arranged" Reno countered.

"Not by you though, it's gonna take more than a Turk and two guards to take me down" Zack said confidently, "Aerith, find a safe place to hide, I'll deal with them."

"I'm not leaving you again Zack, I can fight too!" Aerith said, grabbing a metal rod from a pew.

"How good are you with that?" Zack asked.

"This isn't the first time Shinra sent its guards after me, whenever it was just people like those two, I managed to beat them unconscious, but this is the first time a Turk was sent after me, they must be getting desperate" Aerith explained.

"What I'm wondering is why the Turks are being sent after you at all, weren't they supposed to be guarding you?"

"That was until I became 21 a few months ago, I'll explain later, we should deal with these Shinra cronies first" Aerith said.

"Alright then, this clearly has something to do with you being an Ancient, but that can wait until later"

*Gasp* "How did you know about that Zack?" Aerith said in a surprised way.

"Just like you, I'll explain later, right now, we have to teach some Shinra lapdogs a lesson" Zack said.

"Right!"

The fight was rather uneventful. Aerith knocked the first guard out with a well placed rod to the head, and since the guards were trying to take her alive, they couldn't use guns, so they had to use their guard batons instead, and due to the longer reach of Aerith's rod, she had the advantage every time. So the second guard went down in a similar fashion.

Zack's fight with Reno didn't last long either, Reno tried to prod Zack with his EMR stick, which didn't end well because Zack was a lot faster and dodged every attack Reno made. After a few attacks, Zack decided to end it by electrocuting Reno mercilessly with Thundaga, and while Reno was stunned, Zack gave him a brutal punch to the gut, knocking him out cold.

"I didn't even have to use my sword" Zack said out loud.

"Let's go Zack, before they wake up" Aerith suggested.

"Okay then, but where are we going to go?" Zack asked.

"My place of course, Mom's going to be thrilled to know that you're alright!"

"Yeah, thrilled" Zack said with grim sarcasm.

Elmyra was at the dinner table, thinking about all sorts of things as usual. The topic that she's on now is the most frequent topic for the past 5 years.

How to break Zack's death to Aerith.

When the media announced the 'Nibelhiem tragedy', Aerith was at her church at the time so she never heard, but Elmyra did and it left her in a state of stunned sadness, making her suffer from flashbacks of hearing the report of her husband's death until she heard Aerith open the front door. When she noticed that Aerith was as cheerful as always, she knew that Aerith didn't hear the announcement, and inside, she was glad because she wouldn't have to see the look of heartbreak in Aerith's eyes. But lately, Aerith has been writing letters to him, a grand total of 89 letters so far, none of them ever returned. Why would they be? The recipient died after all…

Elmyra approved of Zack when he was around; she knew that he would protect Aerith. The only problem was that he seemed like a bit of a ladies' man at first, but once she got to know him a bit, and the fact that he was around for a full year before he died. Elmyra knew that he wouldn't leave Aerith intentionally, especially since she occasionally saw Zack look at Aerith the same way her dead husband used to look at her, and she knew that Aerith loved Zack and she didn't want to put her through what she had to endure.

However, after seeing her write 89 letters was too much, Elmyra decided that enough was enough, and she had to tell Aerith what happened to Zack when she got home.

Zack dreaded the entire trip to Aerith's house, every minute spent walking was also spent running through a possible, and occasionally impossible scenario of what will happen when he meets Elmyra again.

"And here we are, home at last" Aerith said in an exaggerated way with her arms outstretched.

"Great… now all I have to worry about is facing an angry mother…" Zack thought out loud.

"Zack Fair, you took on Sephiroth and lived, survived the worst of Shinra's labs, dodged Shinra for months, took on an army and won, and blew up two mako reactors, and you're afraid of one middle aged woman?" Aerith asked jokingly.

"Yes, yes I am" Zack said flatly.

Aerith rolled her eyes at that, "Oh, come on already you big baby!"

Aerith then grabbed Zack's wrist and dragged him to her house. Aerith opened the door and shouted out, "Mom, I'm home! And guess who's with me right now!" Aerith giggled while Zack rolled his eyes, just wanting to get this over with.

"I'll be there in a minute" Elmyra said, 'I guess It's now or never…'

Elmyra entered the living room and froze at what she saw. She rubbed her eyes and looked again to make sure her eyes weren't playing tricks on her. What she saw was Zack Fair, the very person that supposedly 'died' 5 years ago.

Zack noticed the look Elmyra was giving him and decided to speak up.

"Is everything alright Mrs. Gainsborough? You look like you've seen a ghost" Zack said.

"That's because I'm pretty sure I'm looking at one" Elmyra said.

"Well, you're not" Zack said.

"You do know that you have a lot of explaining to do right?"

"I know, and Aerith has to explain why Shinra is after her" Zack said.

"And you have to explain why you thought Zack was dead" Aerith said.

"Looks like we all have some explaining to do…" Elmyra said.

'This is turning out better than I thought it would" Zack thought.

And so, everyone explained their stories after sitting down around the kitchen table, Zack explained his imprisonment and escape, plus the Turk Cissnei telling him about Aerith's heritage, Elmyra explained the media's announcement and her not wanting to break Aerith's heart, and Aerith explaining that Shinra wants her for her powers as an Ancient and that they were only guarding her until her powers matured.

"Okay, now that there are no more secrets between all of us, I think it's time to turn in, it's after midnight now and I'm tired" Aerith yawned.

"I agree… dibs on the couch!" Zack said with surprising energy.

"What, you don't want the guest room Zack?" Elmyra asked.

"Okay, I change my mind, dibs on the guest room… by the way… where is the guest room?"

Elmyra and Aerith laughed and giggled at Zack's antics, once the laughter died down, they instructed Zack to the guest room (I don't know if Aerith's house has a guest room or not due to the fact that I have not played the original Final Fantasy VII game and therefore, have no way of knowing).

Once Aerith left, Elmyra stayed because she had something to tell Zack.

"Zack…"

"Huh? What is it Mrs. Gainsborough?" Zack asked.

"I think it would be a good idea if you and Aerith leave tomorrow morning"

"Where did this come from all of a sudden?"

"Think about it, both you and Aerith are being hunted by Shinra right now, and since you're a part of AVALANHCE right now, then their headquarters is probably the safest place to hide from Shinra in Midgar right now" Elmyra explained.

"You have a good point right there… alright, I'll do it"

"Thank you"

"Now if you excuse me, I have to get some sleep if I'm gonna wake up early"

"Of course, goodnight Zack"

"'Night!"

The next morning, Zack and Aerith did as they were instructed and were now navigating through the train graveyard.

"Ugh, I've always hated this place! It's almost impossible to navigate through it! It should be called the maze of trains instead of the train graveyard!" Zack complained.

Aerith giggled at Zack's antics which immediately caused him to calm down.

Zack looked at her softly and fondly thought, 'I might be lost in an endless maze of trains from the pits of hell, but as long as Aerith is with me, I wouldn't have it any other way…'

"Lost are we?" a voice said from atop a random train.

Zack recognized the voice as Genesis's and without looking said with lots of sarcasm, "oh no, we're not lost, we're just taking stroll through this maze of trains in a pattern that's most likely circular, OF COURSE WE'RE LOST!" Zack yelled the last part at Genesis.

Aerith recognized Genesis as the person that crash landed after Mako Reactor 1 blew up, "Hey, you're the guy that crash landed in front of me after Mako Reactor 1 blew up, do you think you can guide us out of here since you can fly?"

"I suppose so, just ask and you shall receive" Genesis said.

Once they managed to get out of the supposedly endless maze of trains forged from the pits of hell, the group found themselves at the playground Zack and Aerith spent their first date at.

"This brings back memories…" Zack said.

"I know…" Aerith replied, leaning closer to Zack.

After a minute of mentally walking down memory lane, both of their faces were an inch apart. However, before they could progress any further Genesis saw it fit to interrupt.

"As much as I enjoyed watching your little love fest, a Chocobo-drawn carriage just went by and it looked like Tifa was in there"

Zack and Aerith immediately broke apart, blushing profusely, Zack was the first one to regain his composure to respond.

"Tifa? What's she doing in there? I remember that the only person in the slums that owns something like a Chocobo-drawn carriage is Don Corneo" Zack said.

"Who's Tifa?" Aerith asked.

"Tifa is a member of AVALANCHE, what I'm wondering is what she's doing with a character like Don Corneo…" Zack explained.

"I heard that Don Corneo is looking for a wife and gathers 3 women each day and then chooses which one he wants to take to his… personal chambers… some of them actually come willingly, just to escape the slums" Aerith said.

"Tifa isn't one to be captured easily, and she didn't look beaten up at all, she also isn't the type of girl to whore herself out like that. The reason she could possibly be going in there is because the Don must have information vital to Shinra that AVALANCE needs" Genesis explained.

Just then, Cloud came by huffing and puffing as if he ran a marathon.

"Whoa, easy Cloud, where's the fire?" Zack said.

"Tifa's gone, she said that she was going to Don Corneo's to get some information out of him because she saw one of his men talking about a man with a gun-arm, which means one of them has to know about Barret-"

"Which means, one of them must know where AVALANCE is located" Genesis finished.

"Yes, but I can't believe that she would just go like that without any kind of backup! She could have at least taken Jessie with her! One of us has to go in after her!"

"I'll go" Aerith offered.

"Not by yourself you're not! There is no way I'm gonna let you near Don Corneo without some form of protection" Zack said.

Aerith huffed, there were times when she enjoyed Zack being protective of her because it made her feel loved, but at times like now, she just found it annoying.

Then Aerith got an idea, it was brilliant, not to mention that she would get a big laugh out of it too. She had to hold her hands over her mouth to prevent from breaking out in giggles. Zack noticed this and decided to ask.

"Is everything alright Aerith?"

"Yep! In fact, I figured out a way to get two of us in there since it's obvious that you won't let me go in there alone."

"Really? So what's the plan?" Genesis asked, intrigued by what sort of plan the flower girl cooked up.

"Since only girls are allowed in there, and Zack isn't going to let me go in there alone, one of you will have to dress like a girl" Aerith said smirking, barely managing to hold back her laughter.

All three men collectively had their jaws hit the ground in shock with their eyes bulging out of their heads at the size of dinner plates, shocked by what she just said.

All three protested ferociously until they each started arguing over who will have to suck it up and just go.

Zack claimed that as much as he may want to protect Aerith, there is no way in hell he would wear a dress and high heels.

Cloud said that as much as he wants to help Tifa, there is no way he will ever dress like a girl.

Genesis protested saying that he has no attachment to either girl and said that one of the other two should be going.

Aerith, once she stopped laughing hysterically at the boys' antics, decided to come up with a solution to their little dilemma.

"Okay, I have a solution to this" Aerith said.

"What is it?" Cloud said, hoping he can use it to escape wearing a dress.

"All three of you will have to do a three way rock-paper-scissors match, and the loser has to dress like a girl and come with me, also, I'll be the judge so what I say goes, is all this agreeable?" Aerith suggested.

All three men agreed.

"Okay then let's start" Aerith said.

"Rock, Paper, Scissors, Shoot!" all three men said at the same time.

And I'll leave you all hanging right there!

I'm going to leave a poll on my profile page to have you all decide who has to dress as a woman, so please do that, the poll will end next Sunday.

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