I, I cry,
Never gonna hold the hand of another guy.
Too young for him they told her,
Waiting for the love of the traveling soldier.
Our love will never end,
Waiting for the soldier to come back again.
Never more to be alone,
When the letters say, soldier's coming home.

Dixie Chicks – Traveling Soldier

Chapter Eight: Wounds Time Can't Heal

Tifa walked with her friend Aerith down the narrow streets of Sector 5. The pair were on their way back to Aerith's church, to tally up the money Aerith had gotten that day. The flower girl was usually content to walk alone, but Tifa had been passing by and insisted on escorting her.

"I don't know how you stand Wall Market on a day-to-day basis." The bartender glanced around at the pristine Sector 5. "It seems way safer here. Don't you ever get frightened?"

"There've been a few times I've gotten worried, but there's always a well-meaning someone to help out." Aerith said, smiling lightly. "I'm fine, really."

"I know, I know!" Tifa said with a laugh. "So how much do you think you made today?"

"Hmm… I'd say around forty gil. Lots of guys wanting flowers for their dates. It is Friday, after all." Aerith smiled to herself, though her eyes were sad. Tifa nodded, understanding, as they reached the door to the abandoned church. "Want to come in for cookies, or something?" Aerith inquired. "I made them this morning, before I left."

Tifa nodded, turning to the door, but stopped when she saw her friend stiffen. "Aerith?" The flower girl was staring off in one direction, eyes focused on a figure standing some distance away.

"That looks like…" she murmured. "Oh, Holy…… Zack!" She started to run forward, but Tifa caught her arm. "Let go of me! Zack!"

"He's not there, Aerith. He's never there." Tifa soothed. "Please Aerith…"

"I saw him!" she sobbed hysterically. "Oh…." Tifa held her as she cried. Aerith had never gotten over the loss of her boyfriend, since the day she'd realized what had happened to him.

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Aerith was in Sector 5, selling flowers as usual. Two men walked by laughing.

"Hey, look!" said one. "A flower seller! I'm gonna get Tseng one and tell him to give it to Elena!"

He approached Aerith, who was thinking, Who would know the name Tseng? As the man came up to her, she suddenly realized, "Reno!"

"Whoa! I know I'm unbelievably irresistible, but…" Reno paused, confused. "Wait a minute, what's your name?"

"Aerith." she said guardedly. He flinched, and the man behind him, Rude, looked ashamed.

"Shit… You're Zack's girl, right?" He shuddered as she nodded.

"What have you done to him? Where is he?!?" she cried.

"I didn't do anything, I swear!" Reno said. "I did my best to SAVE him! Your boy was chased by SOLDIERs, and on the outskirts of Midgar, he was shot! I heard it from the commander of the unit. They left him to die, okay?!? There was nothing… nothing I could do…" Aerith let out a pain filled wail. Reno awkwardly pulled her into his arms, and she sobbed into his shoulder. He felt tears begin to escape his own eyes as well. "The worst things… they happen to the best people… Zack was one of a kind. I' m sorry he's gone…" They stood there, the Turk and the flower girl, and cried, mourning for the friend they had lost, who had been taken from them before his time.

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"Reno told me he's gone, but still…" Aerith sniffed unhappily. "He's Zack. He seemed invincible…" Tifa hugged her, trying to hold back her own tears.

"I know… I know…" she tried to say with a steady voice, failing miserably. "He and Cloud… They seemed untouchable. Things got bad around here, and they'd just keep going, unfazed. Right after they vanished… AVALANCHE was the only thing I had to hold on to."

Aerith managed to get the door open, and she and Tifa went into the church. Tifa got out the container of cookies, and Aerith made hot chocolate. They sat without speaking for a long time, each wrapped in their own individual memories. Tifa had lost a close friend, and the only other survivor of the destruction of Nibelheim. Aerith had lost the love of her life, the only guy she'd ever cared for that much.

"Do you know how I met Zack?" she asked softly. Tifa shook her head. "He fell through my ceiling." Aerith pointed to a boarded-up patch of the wooden ceiling. "He was on the top plate, apparently, right after the incident with the original AVALANCHE attacking the Shinra building with their Raven army. He fell off the plate, and landed in my flowers. He was up in like three seconds, blathering something about murdering his friends. I got the whole story later. His friends were SOLDIERs who'd been turned into Ravens, and they couldn't free them. He and Reno had to shoot them."

"That's awful…" Tifa murmured. "Cloud and I lost our entire families and hometown, but… To have to kill your own friends? Terrible…"

They visited a while longer, then Tifa bid her farewell to go back to the small set of abandoned apartments in Sector 4 that AVALANCHE was hiding at. Aerith sighed, looking out the miraculously intact stained-glass window. It had been three years since Cloud and Zack had vanished and never come back. She had never thought they'd be killed. Not in a million years.

Sephiroth had vanished the same day. Tifa had salvaged their eight-times-broken television, and had been watching the upper-plate news. It reported that he had been working for Shinra, but vanished without a trace. Later, Aerith had turned up in tears, having heard the whole story from Reno.

"What a thing to happen…" Aerith whispered to herself. "The last lights are going out. Soon there will be no hope left at all."

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Where was he? Did it even matter? He'd made it to Midgar… Maybe that was all he could do…

"But where am I…?" His voice was weak. Mako was poisoning him from the inside out. It was all he could do to stay upright.

"You? You're in the Train Graveyard, the Sector 7 ruins." The voice came from an abandoned train engine that he now noticed lying nearby. A man covered in soot and dirt crawled out of it, grinning. "You lost, boy? What's your name?"

"Cloud. I'm Cloud." That was his name, right? Too much Mako… "Train Graveyard?"

"Yeah. Shinra didn't bother to rebuild Sector 7. They just throw all their derelict junk in here. Lots of trains that can't run anymore end up in here. I run one of the stations up on the plate."

"You work for Shinra?" Cloud asked; worry prickling the back of his mind. The man shook his head

"Not really. I have no loyalty to them, but I certainly won't fight them. That's for other people."

"You mean you don't care?" Great, the first person he runs into in this city and he's arguing with them.

"Look, boy… Cloud… Whatever the hell your name is." the man said. "When you've been a train man as long as I have, you see a lot of people and a lot of lives. People meeting, parting, joy, sadness... After a while, it doesn't even get to you anymore. I wonder how long it's been... Anyway, there's an invisible rail between me and the passengers. I could never live their lives. No matter if their lives are to die in the slums, leave this city, or fight Shinra. I'm just a train man plain and simple. It's easier that way. That's not to say that the crossing gate of my heart doesn't hurt now and again. But it's not my issue to deal with."

Cloud frowned, frustrated. "Fine. Stay here and die."

"What?" The man laughed out loud. "You gonna go take down the Shinra?"

"Maybe I will." Cloud said quietly. He turned, leaving the man behind.

Cloud climbed around, making his way slowly out of the so-called "Train Graveyard." Stamping through the narrow tunnel, he found he was on the Sector 6 side. As reliable as his memory was, he knew that this was not a safe place to be. He kept his head down as he passed amidst the people strolling through Wall Market. Many people looked his way, thinking he seemed familiar, but unable to remember why. He passed through into Sector 5, pausing to look around.

Cloud let his feet carry him to an abandoned playground near the edge of the sector. He sat on the swings and let himself drift into thought. He was going to die. There was no other thing to think of. The Mako in his blood was eating away at him from the inside. Cloud sighed, noting dully that the only thing he had to be thankful for was that he had not died in the hands of Shinra. He was surprised he had lasted this long, since he had certainly not taken the best care of himself during his six-month trek from Nibelheim.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw a blur of pink, as a brown-haired girl climbed up and sat on top of the slide. She scanned the playground aimlessly, before her eyes lighted on him.

"Cloud!!!!!!" she screamed, sliding down quickly and running to him. His vision was blurring, but she looked familiar. She reached him, throwing her arms around his neck. "Oh, my god, I thought you were dead! What's wrong?" She peered into his eyes, seeing their telltale glow. "You have Mako poisoning? Oh, my god… Come with me, quick."

Cloud allowed himself to be dragged along, hand caught in the girl's vice-grip. His failing memory told him that he knew her, and could trust her. At least that was one thing that made sense in this horrid city.

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Reeve Tuesti hated his office. Damned confining little box. Shinra could afford to give every other high-ranking official a nice office, but not him. All of the computers and things required to run Cait Sith could not be integrated into a normal office, no! He was stuck in this little room in the lab area, surrounded by computers. Thank Holy they'd at least given him a coffee machine, or he'd probably have curled up in the corner and died by now.

His official title was 'Head of Urban Development'. What a load of bullshit that was. He was responsible, single-handedly, for the city of Midgar as everyone knew it right now. Shinra kept him around to make the upper plate nice for all the rich people. Even he could see that. They didn't give a damn about the slums at all. They only considered them festering places for rebellion.

He looked up at his screen, seeing through the stuffed cat's eyes Aerith racing back into the church, another figure being pulled behind her. Reeve's eyes widened. There was no way in hell… Cloud Strife? What on earth? If Reeve remembered correctly the boy had escaped a Shinra facility in Nibelheim with severe Mako poisoning. The scientists there had written him off as dead, believing he would never be able to survive for long. And yet, here he was.

"Cait!" Aerith cried. Reeve seized the controls of his toy and leaned over to the microphone.

"What is it, Aeri?" he asked, fighting to keep from laughing despite the dire situation as the Scottish accent of his robot filtered through the screen.

"Cait, get me the box that Tseng brought me that one time. Remember? The one with the picture of the healing staff on it."

Reeve knew what she was taking about. About two years ago, the Sector 5 reactor had malfunctioned, and rained Mako down into Sector 5. Many people had gotten mild Mako poisoning. Tseng, who still remained Aerith's friend, had brought her a very generous supply of anti-Mako curative. She treated the people, and there was still plenty left. He tumbled into the kitchen, retrieving the box from its' cabinet under the sink and bringing it back.

Aerith took it from him, opening the lid and removing the hypodermic needle and a vial of purple solution. She filled the needle all the way and turned towards Cloud. The boy's eyes, which had been empty up to this point, filled with fear.

"No!" He flinched away from the needle, sliding away to the point that he fell off the bench and landed in the flowers. "Not again… Not again…"

"Cloud… Cloud, please…" Aerith said, getting up and following him. "I know, I know…" Whatever had happened to him, he was terrified of needles now. She forced him to look up at her, staring into his faintly glowing eyes. "Cloud, everything's okay. You're safe now." She skillfully stuck him with the needle when he wasn't looking. He yelped, but Aerith got the medicine into his arm. His eyes cleared a bit, and he looked at her with recognition.

"Aerith…?" Aerith smiled and nodded. Cloud blinked once, and then pitched backwards, abruptly falling asleep in the middle of her flower garden. She laughed softly, going and getting a blanket and putting it over him.

"He'll be okay, don't you think, Cait?" she said happily.

Reeve had watched the whole thing in amazement. He and Tseng were the only ones who truly understood how special this girl was, and not just because she was an Ancient. In all of Midgar, there was no one else like her.

"Yeah, Aeri. He'll be fine."

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Reno sighed, a margarita in one hand and the television remote in the other. He was at him and Rude's apartment, moping, for lack of a better word. For three years, nothing had been the same. There was no Seventh Heaven to get drunk at anymore. Tifa would gladly accept his company sometimes, but the rest of AVALANCHE certainly didn't trust him. And his friend was gone. Zack had been shot outside of Midgar. Reno kept telling himself there was nothing he could have done, yet he still felt guilty, like he could have done more.

There was a knock on the door, and Reno dropped the remote onto the cushion beside him in frustration. "Rude, you have a damned key!" The knock came again, and Reno set his margarita down with a growl. He stormed to the door, throwing it open and revealing a girl wearing a SOLDIER uniform standing there. The insignia on her shoulder noted that she was only Fifth Class.

"A-ah… Umm… Mr. Reno…?" she stammered. Reno's expression softened.

"Yeah. That's me." He smiled, trying to get her to be less nervous. "Who are you?"

"Umm… SOLDIER Fifth Class. Ariome Larine. You can call me Momi." She looked at her feet.

"All right then, Miss Momi." he drawled, smirking. "What can I do for you?"

"Ahh… My commander asked me to come and get this signed."

"What is it?"

"Some kind of medical thingy. He wanted you to sign it. It says any high-ranked Shinra member can, but he wanted you for some reason." Momi said.

"Oh, all right." Reno scrawled off a messy, but still recognizable signature on the form. One thing caught his eyes as he did. "Oh, Commander Loire. Yeah, I think he believes I'm the most forgiving out of all the high-ups. You're part of that weird unit that's mostly girls, right?"

"Yessir. If you'll excuse me, sir, I'll take this back to Commander now." Momi said quickly. Reno nodded, and she scurried away down the hallway. He laughed to himself as he closed the door. He had heard of the little SOLDIER platoon that was a strange mix, having more girls than guys in it. The commander was still a guy, but it seemed Shinra had thrown all of the girl recruits into one squad.

Today was certainly interesting. First Rufus insists on a vacation to Costa del Sol, no warning, with Tseng and Elena accompanying as guards, naturally. Then Rude acts all weird and leaves for forever and a day. Now a little SOLDIER girl wants him to sign some random medical form. Meteor and Holy, the only thing Reno needed now was a dead friend to come back to life and his freaky day would be complete.

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After Cloud had woken up, Aerith promptly had begun questioning him. Namely, what had happened to Zack, if he had survived?

"Cloud, please… I need to know… Zack… Is he still alive?" Aerith asked. Hope lit her emerald eyes.

Cloud stared at her blankly. "Who?"

Aerith's eyes widened. "Zackary Donovan. Your brother. He was with you when you vanished."

"Never heard of him. My only brother is Sephiroth, and he betrayed me." Cloud said. Aerith reeled back in horror. Something was wrong. The Mako must have affected his memories. Nothing else could be responsible for him just forgetting Zack.

"Are you sure?" she asked. Cloud nodded. Aerith put a hand to her forehead. "Oh, my… What did they do to you, Cloud?"

This question, he refused to answer. Aerith recognized the stubborn look on his face. It was a look that said, There's no way you're going to get me to talk. Aerith sighed, standing up from her position seated on the bench. "Come on, Cloud. I think we need to go pay Tifa and AVALANCHE a visit."

"Tifa? Oh, yeah, is she okay?" He stood as well, following her to the door. "And Barrett, and Jessie, and Biggs, and Wedge, and Marlene…?"

Aerith wanted more than anything to cry in that moment. Why could he remember everyone else, and not Zack or that terrible day three years ago? Why wouldn't he talk about what happened to him at Shinra? Hopefully Tifa could help her get some answers out of the stubborn blonde. She walked off towards Sector 4, Cloud following behind, to find AVALANCHE and hopefully get some answers.

VIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVIIVII

Li: I love Reeve. Can you tell? God, this chapter was an angst-fest. I guess it's the best I can do, since I shot Zack and made Seph insane. People would obviously be miserable, huh?

Now the game storyline actually kicks in, so get ready for a ride. I had a strange idea, so expect the unexpected, everybody! Until next chapter!

Oh yeah, remember to review! I know more people read this than just one! Thanks to Just Jill for actually showing that she cares!