Scarlet awoke in the night to the whirrs of the air outside, the hum of the Shera's engine and the clanging of distant pipes. Her quarters were dark and void of decoration – a simple place of hard metal and sharp edges.

Unknowing of what had woken her, she pulled her blanket around her shoulders and went out into the corridor and down the hall, then exited to the deck. Wind gusted as if to push her back inside, but she persisted, revelling in the sharp coldness and the black of the sky set deep with stars.

Then she heard a voice whisper:

Hero.

Scarlet leaned against the railing. "Aero?" she called out.

Out of the darkness a white butterfly careened on the wind and landed on her chest. She cupped it gently with both hands to protect it from the weather.

Help me, whispered the butterfly.

The next afternoon, Cloud leaned over Denzel and Marlene's shoulders as the two pre-teens sat at the table and did their homework. From the kitchen Zack heard Cloud murmur corrections to them gently, the sound of family bringing warmth to Zack's heart.

Annabel down the street owned two goats, from which she made cheese. Cloud traded free deliveries for her goods. Tifa grew a crop of tomatoes out of her back courtyard, and thankfully bread could still be traded for at the market.

Cheese and tomato sandwiches were Zack's speciality. Well, it was the only thing he could cook…

He fried them on the skillet to make both their insides toasty warm. Once transferred to plates, he walked them over to the table with a call of, "Dinner's ready!"

"Thanks Uncle Zack!" Marlene and Denzel chorused.

Cloud threw Zack a soft look.

"Ours is coming right up," Zack told him as Cloud followed him back to the kitchen. Zack threw the second batch on the still-warm skillet.

Cloud leaned his hip on the counter. "I need to teach you a new recipe," he teased.

"Nah," said Zack, "why mess with perfection?"

Zack had taken to wearing Cloud's clothes instead of trading for his own set at market. The sleeveless top he was wearing was too tight around the shoulders and chest, but he enjoyed having his arms bare. Cloud touched Zack's bicep lightly in thanks, then pulled his hand away.

Zack's heart stuttered.

He turned off the stovetop and turned to Cloud, pulling courage from deep within as he took a deep breath. Zack touched Cloud's arm as if in reply, and said, "We need to talk."

Cloud blinked up at him with his large, Mako-green eyes. "Oh?"

"I can't remember much about my past life," said Zack, a statement he had confessed a few times, now, "but I have – flashes. Of you."

Cloud frowned in confusion, as if he wondered where Zack was going with this, but patient enough not to interrupt.

"You – " Zack tried to explain. "You kissed me. While we were on the run."

Cloud's expression shuttered in self-defence, and his shoulders hunched. "There's not a lot I remember from that time."

Zack said gently, "I remember things that you've forgotten, and you remember things I've forgotten. We match. We're good, like that."

The corner of Cloud's mouth lifted in response to Zack's optimism.

"Can you tell me…" said Zack tentatively. "…anything. About you, or us. Or…" His voice dropped, mindful of Marlene and Denzel quietly chatting to each other over dinner in the next room. "Or your… feelings."

Cloud looked down at their feet, golden eyelashes fanning against his cheeks as he blinked slowly. "If you have that memory, then – " Cloud lifted one hand and pressed it against Zack's chest – "you know how I feel."

Zack's shook his head minutely. "That was years ago; you may have changed your mind since then."

"But it's never really about what the mind wants, is it," Cloud reminded him, finally looking up into Zack's eyes. "Love doesn't work like that."

Zack smiled lopsidedly, then ducked his head to hide it. He pressed his mouth to the curve of Cloud's jaw as he pressed closer, feeling when Cloud exhaled shakily at the intimate contact. "Love, huh?"

"You died for me," Cloud said quietly.

"Guess that means," Zack murmured against his jaw, "I love you, too."

Zack slid his mouth to Cloud's and kissed him, gently, softly, mouth slack and welcoming, like he was being deliberately lazy and explorative with the movement of his lips against Cloud's. Zack slid his arm around Cloud and pressed them together, hips flush. Air hot.

"I could watch this all day," Scarlet drawled from somewhere near the coolbox.

Zack and Cloud broke apart.

"I should fucking kill you for ruining that perfect moment," Zack growled at her. Cloud was craning his neck to make sure his kids were alright, which they were, though they were both looking over at the kitchen in curiosity, having caught the sound of another voice. "How did you get in here?" Zack demanded.

Scarlet waved a hand lazily. "Your bedroom window is open."

"Who is that?" Marlene called from the other room.

"A friend," Cloud called back, lying smoothly.

"Can I help you with something," Zack asked Scarlet, "or did you just sneak in here to be a creepy creeper who creeps?"

"Goodness," quipped Scarlet, "how I have missed our little banter sessions." She touched her fingers elegantly to her clavicle as if playing with a string of pearls that weren't there. "Remember the days when you were Zero and I was Hero and we would frolic through the tunnels of Deepground looking for Restrictors to torture? Good times."

"I admit I enjoyed going to war with you – " said Zack reluctantly.

"As did I," said Scarlet. "I also enjoyed our killing and maiming with Aero by our side."

The thought of their dead comrade made Zack's chest restrict. His grief must have shown on his face because Cloud peered at him with some curiosity.

"Who's Aero?" said Cloud.

Zack said, "Our comrade – "

Scarlet said, "Zack's boyfriend."

Cloud's eyes widened. Zack turned on Scarlet. "What? No!" he spluttered.

Scarlet cocked an eyebrow at him. "Aero is in trouble," she said, "and I don't think he would appreciate you smooching up to another – "

"Woman, shut up!"

Scarlet clicked her tongue. "Rude."

"I'm gonna go to my room..." Cloud said, backing away. "If your um, friend, is in danger, I'd better get our gear out, and call Tifa to come over and get the kids."

After Cloud had left the kitchen to go to their bedrooms, head bowed, Zack glared at Scarlet.

"Don't give me that look," Scarlet said with exasperation, as if she was the one fed up with Zack; "now he's nice and jealous. I did you a favour."

Zack shook his head slowly. "I hate you so much."

Scarlet was in full armour: layers of maroon tight against her body and shot through with the typical Deepground lines of blue. She pulled back one sheet of her breastplate and cupped her hand around the white moth that flapped out, ready to be free.

Zack's face went slack with surprise. "That's… oh. Aero really is alive." Zack shouldn't have given up on him so easily.

There was a smug twist to Scarlet's lips. "Yes, and he sought me out first."

Unimpressed, Zack ignored the statement, however true it may have been. "So what do we do? Follow the moth to where he is? Either he's in hiding or – "

"Kidnapped," said Scarlet.

"Yeah, totally." Simply put, if Aero was looking for his comrades, he would have just come himself, not sent one of his little messengers.

About one month earlier, Vincent found Yazoo in the Materia Room in Deepground.

The remnant was staring absently at the beams of the ceiling, their rusted lines leading to the next floor. Yazoo seemed to be made entirely of light, with only his Tsiviet uniform giving him a solidness to his figure.

Keeping his head tilted to the ceiling, Yazoo's eyes slid to Vincent. "Hello, father," he drawled.

Vincent purposely kept his face hidden behind the red material of his cape, and his hand close to his holstered gun. "'Father'?" he enquired.

"Did you not father Sephiroth?" asked Yazoo lightly.

"No, Yazoo, I did not. A persistent and insidious rumour, but unfactual."

There was a softness around Yazoo's edges. "My name is not Yazoo anymore," he told Vincent with some regret; "they call me Aero now, on account of being able to move like the wind, like a ghost." As if to demonstrate, he disintegrated and travelled like pireflies across the room, weaving amongst the materia display cases to get closer to Vincent. "That's how Nero likes us, you see: he takes our names, our identities, so he can own us. He only leaves a little piece of our hearts. I remember my brothers, vaguely. I remember them – " he waved a hand – "leaving me."

Vincent moved, keeping his eye on Aero all the while.

"They went to the Lifestream, you know," Aero continued. "Do you find that remarkable? I do. We are like nightmares from fantasy, born of the negative Lifestream and doomed to return to it, to Mother's corrupted embrace. And yet. When they died, they went to the arms of this planet. Why do you think that is? I wanted so badly to ask you this question, ever since Nero whispered about you in the bowels of Deepground. I believed that you had all the answers."

Aero cocked his head, and Vincent stood still.

"But you don't, do you," Aero continued. "I bet you don't even know what you are, what Chaos is, your purpose. Not to worry, I shall tell you:

"Your purpose is to shepherd the souls to Omega Weapon, so that Omega may take its precious burden to a hospitable planet along the greater Lifestream of the universe. And what do you think Mother's purpose was on her planet?"

Vincent sucked in a breath and narrowed his eyes with focus.

"Ah yes," said Aero, "I see it in your eyes, the dawn of understanding. Of course, it was to shepherd the souls to her own Weapon, so that they may start life anew on another. Do you think she succeeded, or failed?"

In full battle gear and armed with swords, Cloud, Zack and Scarlet followed the moth all the way to an unfortunately familiar doorway.

"Doctor Rotwang's hideout…?" said Cloud in disbelief as he stared at the heavy doors, rusted at the hinges.

"Who?" said Zack.

"Getting those bad feelings in your stomach yet, Strife?" Scarlet asked with an arch of one pale eyebrow.

"Yeah," grumbled Cloud, "you?"

"Tch, maybe."

"Hey, you know," said Zack slowly, "when you guys are done being cryptic, you might want to explain what this place is to me. For you know, reconnaissance purposes if nothing else."

Cloud put him out of his misery by telling him in a softened tone, "We bought your liquid mythril off this guy."

"Oh, right," said Zack. "So like, we should have a pretty good rapport going so far?" He gesticulated. "Right? Right?"

"I certainly don't want to piss him off," Cloud explained, unable to hold back his sharp tone. "I can't lose you again."

"Hey, ah…" Zack lifted a hand, which ended up hovering around Cloud's shoulder before finally landing on his back, gently, just below his shoulderblades. "You're not going to lose me, alright?"

Leaning into the touch a little, Cloud wanted to believe Zack's words.

The panel in the wood slid open and Cloud saw one familiar eye look at them. Then the man said, "Cloud?"

"Leslie?" said Cloud. "What are you doing here? You work for Rotwang now?"

"Hey, it pays the bills. How's Tifa?"

"Um good, I guess. So can we come in?"

Leslie grunted. "No way; you don't have an appointment."

"So get us one," said Cloud.

There was a sigh from the other side of the door, and then Leslie said, "Hold on, I'm coming out," and shut the peep door closed so he could open the main one.

He stepped out and shut the door behind himself, then glared at Cloud with his arms crossed. "You know," said Leslie, with a shift of his stance, "there are good people in there; people who just want to work hard and get paid and go home to their families. But half their families are gone, because Deepground soldiers came in the night and kidnapped them and sacrificed them to Omega Weapon. And here you are, demanding things of me, as you just – stand there, flanked by two Tsviets on either side of you."

Beside Cloud, Zack shifted, as if in guilt, but Cloud and Scarlet stood fast and waited for Leslie to get what he needed to say off his chest.

"You're siding with them, now, Cloud?" Leslie asked with a tilt of his chin. "I helped you when you were Avalanche, but I don't know if I can help you if you're with Deepground."

Zack held his palms out in a placating gesture. "Hey man, we're not here to sacrifice anyone; we just know that our friend is here, probably being held against his will, and we just want him back. No harm has to come to anyone at this compound."

Leslie took stock of Zack.

Cloud told Leslie, "He's telling the truth. Is there a Tsviet in there with you guys, goes by the name of Aero?"

Leslie's eyes slid to Cloud. Leslie hesitated a long time. Then he said to Cloud, "If I help you rescue your friend, will you promise no one else will get hurt?"

"I promise," Cloud told him, "that none of us are interested in bloodshed – "

There was a little scoff from Scarlet, which Cloud ignored –

"We just want to take back Aero."

Leslie nodded. "Alright. Well, there's a meeting scheduled tonight at eleven…"

"I love mines," Scarlet sing-songed as she walked across the dusty road. "I love guns, I love bombs. But close to my heart will always be mines. Not yours, but mines!"

Zack leaned against the hard rock and watched her set the first mine in the centre of the road.

"So…" began Cloud tentatively, "Aero was… is… your boyfriend?"

Zack peered at him from under his lashes. Cloud was standing awkwardly, with fire in his gaze. It was dark, but Zack could see in the dark; he could since his SOLDIER Second Class days. "Nah," said Zack with a grin, "not like that. Things worked differently in Deepground, you know? We didn't have monogamous relationships… we didn't have romance, or dating. Nero… used us. He liked to pit us against one another and he liked to tell us to do things with one another, and then he would stand in one corner and watch."

"Oh," said Cloud. He looked down at the infertile ground. "So you didn't… love him?"

Zack's grin was lop-sided. "I had this old memory, of this boy. He was the only one I loved."

Cloud's head snapped up. Then he stepped into Zack's space, grabbed his armour-clad shoulders and pushed him into the rock-face. Zack went with an oof which was interrupted by Cloud's mouth, his kiss hard and unrelenting and possessive.

Just the way Zack liked it.

He pulled Cloud in impossibly close by his hips, slamming their bodies together as their kiss became deep and heavy. Zack devoured Cloud, mouth wet and bruising, so enthusiastic, their teeth clashing occasionally –

"I want to say 'get a room'," Scarlet snapped as she approached, "but I'm more miffed that you have me doing all the work while you two have all the fun."

"Car's coming," Cloud said as he broke away from Zack's embrace. Scarlet pulled her bazooka from her back and placed it on her shoulder, then took aim. She would shoot the car down should the mines fail.

But they didn't fail.

The left front wheel hit the mine and burst up with the explosion, causing the car to teeter on one side before slamming back down in a cloud of dust and skidding along the road to their position.

There it stopped and ticked for a while, before the three of them moved over to the vehicle, hands on weapons.

Reno stumbled out of the passenger side first, followed by Rude from the driver's seat. They both exclaimed in protest as Rufus climbed out of the backseat.

"Wow, you two are still alive?" Scarlet drawled. "You do know that Shinra is bankrupt into the ground, right?"

"That's not strictly true – " began Reno.

"Your loyalty is cute," Scarlet commented offhandedly as she approached Rufus. She examined the former president with a tilt of her head.

"Scarlet," Rufus greeted, smoothing out his rumpled and slightly singed trouser suit with steady hands, "it's been a while. How did the whole Proud Clod plan go? Successful? Oh but – " Rufus looked over Scarlet's shoulder and laid his eyes on Cloud – "Cloud Strife's still alive. And who's this? First Class SOLDIER Zack Fair? What an honour! Last I heard you were bleeding out on some cliff - "

"You're a popular man," Zack cut in before Cloud, tense beside him, could step forward and punch Rufus in the face. "Still getting invitations to secret lab experiments or whatever, even after you lost all your money."

"I assumed you were dead," Rufus said, hands spread, "and you assume I'm poor. Let's just both admit we were both wrong and move on."

Scarlet tilted her chin to her chest and pretended to snore. When she had everyone's attention, she snapped her head up and announced, "Great! Guess what, we're you're bodyguards - new and improved! Let's get going. Rufus, darling, you're with me on the Vidar." She gestured between Zack and Cloud. "These two will ride the Fenrir. Bye boys!" she added with a haughty wave in Reno and Rude's direction.

Zack pressed himself against Cloud's back as he seated himself on the motorbike behind Cloud. "Too bad we've got business," Zack murmured into Cloud's ear, his breath against his skin, "I want to finish what we started."

Cloud threw a smirk at him over his shoulder, before pulling down his riding goggles and starting the engine.

Upon seeing Rufus at the door, Leslie let the party in with a reluctant twist of his lips.

Leslie led Zack, Rufus, Cloud and Scarlet down a long, brick corridor into the bowels of Doctor Rotwang's hideout.

"Do you remember Aero's obsession with those moth things?" Zack asked Scarlet conversationally.

"Bugaboos, yes..." said Scarlet. "And of course I remember how he used to sit there and stare at them all day – it was gross and weird."

There had been ventilation pipes in Deepground, large enough for people and monsters to stroll through comfortably. Zero, Hero and Aero used to sit at the dead end of one together, legs dangling, and chat about their day. On the ceiling in the next room, the chrysalis of the bugaboos would hang, shining in the red artificial half-light.

Aero was good at predicting their lifecycle, and would go there and wait - Zero and Hero keeping him company - for the bugs to break out of their cocoons and fly away.

There was one bugaboo, once, who failed to come forth.

"We mustn't help it," Aero had said in his lyrical voice. "It must endure this hardship on its own."

Zack remembered the slight curl at the corner of his mouth, and the mad glint in his eye as he watched his little pets with satisfaction.

Back in the present, Leslie opened the heavy door at the end of the corridor, and they went through to a large, dark room. Above the room was an observation deck that had a couple of people in lab coats typing away at computers. It surprised Zack that they had been escorted to the main floor, and not to observation.

Ventilation grates edged the floors. Armed guards stood to the side, backs pressed to the walls. Doctor Rotwang stood in the middle of the room in front of a podium on which was a red materia, behind him, against the back wall, stood a large Mako tank, which contained Aero.

The silver-haired Shadow was awake, eyes wide and unblinking in the liquid. He smiled at Zack and Scarlet and Cloud, mouth stretched around his air tube.

"Yazoo?" Cloud murmured in dismay.

Zack glanced at him. "Pardon?"

"Your friend Aero, in the tank?" Cloud said quietly. "I know him as Yazoo."

Doctor Rotwang greeted Rufus jovially enough, shaking his hand, then scowled at Rufus's entourage.

"My bodyguards," said Rufus, "I hope you don't mind."

"Allies found in the strangest places, I suppose," Rotwang grumbled. Then he returned to a more simpering demeanour and gestured dramatically to the red materia. "The Philosopher's Stone, as named by alchemists of the past. Let me demonstrate - " And he went to the tank and pulled a lever on its console.

Immediately Aero seemed to gasp in air before disintegrating into thousands of white moths churning in in the tank in spiral-like formation. In panic Zack stepped forward, but Scarlet held him back with a fingernail-sharp grip on his arm.

Aero turned into smoke and exited the tank via tubes at the top, which ran from the tank, over the ceiling, and to the podium with the stone. Aero then came out the other side, still as thin as air, and was absorbed by the red rock with a deep whoosh.

Then silence.

"What the fuck did you – " shouted Zack, but was cut off by Aero's voice in his ear:

"Trust," he whispered.

Rufus snatched up the red materia before Rotwang could. "Fascinating," he exclaimed, holding it up to the light to see the swirl of magic.

Rotwang twisted his hands nervously. "A success, yes, I. I would like it back now - " He reached for it, but Rufus pulled away, his eyes alight with a rabid kind of triumph.

"I'm going to use it," Rufus drawled. When he held it out, light sigils formed as magic in the air swelled, and out of the sigil an army of moths formed once again, this time with wings that caught the light like a million little razor blades.

The swarm paused a moment as if contemplating his room full of potential victims before rushing at Rotwang and ripping him apart. He screamed, his skin and then blood shredded to bits and splattering.

"Fuck - !" said Zack.

Cloud had pulled Leslie behind himself and was holding him there with a hard grip on his forearm. "We need to get out - " he exclaimed.

The armed guards were shooting at Aero, now, but the newly-made summon only took that as an invitation to go after them next, the swam splitting and twisting into new, deadly shapes and ripping through its victims, turning them to mush.

Scarlet held the Ultima weapon up like a shield, but she said to Cloud, "We can't leave, we have to get the materia."

Once Aero had made violent work of the room's guards, he went after the scientists on the next level, smashing through the glass of the observation deck and chasing after them.

Rufus was laughing. Zack strode over and grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket with one hand, while he held his other hand out. "Give it to me."

Rufus stopped laughing, but he still appeared amused as he slowly passed the materia over. Zack snatched it from his hand and silently ended the spell. The moth froze, and then disintegrated, as if returning to another dimension.

"You promised," Zack heard Leslie whisper to Cloud. "You promised no one would get hurt!"

"No," said Cloud, letting him go. "I promised we wouldn't hurt anyone. But that? That was your boss's doing."

Leslie's eyes went dim. "Never speak to me again," he mumbled, words slurring. He stumbled to the door and left.

Zack surveyed the mess Aero made: the congealing flesh all over the floor, blood oozing down into the vents.

Rufus clapped his hands together. "Well that was fun. I will see you when I see you." As he left the room he flipped open his PHS and said into the receiver, "Yeah I'm done. Come pick me up..."

The weight of the materia felt heavy in Zack's hand. Cloud's face was blank. Scarlet twisted her red lips and said, "I've seen worse."

Zack conceded that with tilt of his head. "I've killed more." He wondered, briefly, how he was going to get mythril with Rotwang now gone. Tomorrow's problem. He stepped forward and tapped Cloud on the shoulder. "Let's get out of here," he said.

Towards the back entrance to Sector 6 were mountains of discarded metals accumulated and dumped below the plate during Shinra's heyday. The triumvirate weaved a path between it. Then on a whim, Zack climbed up one mountain to survey what he could of the sector. Scarlet and Cloud followed.

Scarlet was talking to someone on her PHS. When she hung up, she stared at her phone for a moment. "Hmmm, interesting."

Zack stared over the horizon. "What is?" he said, not really caring about the answer.

"Reeve says Genesis has been sighted," she told him.

Cloud turned to her. "You're talking to Reeve now?"

"Oh, did I not tell you?" she said smugly. "I'm the WRO's newest member."

Cloud made a tkd sound and turned away from her, crossing his arms. "Unbelievable," he muttered.

There was orange on the horizon, warm and pure, as if the sun was threatening to set. It lit behind Cloud and leant him its ethereal beauty, his profile taking Zack's breath away.

Unbeknownst to the hammering of Zack's heart, Scarlet held out her hand. "I want to speak to Aero."

Zack tore his eyes away from Cloud to focus on her, then handed her the materia. Zack and Cloud watched as she summoned Aero; this time, his arrival was calmer, and he formed a more corporeal version of himself out of the razor moths. He floated before them, moths undulating behind him in the shape of wings.

"Hero, Zero… brother. Did you see Kadaj and Loz die, Brother?" he asked Cloud in a voice like a breeze. "Did you see the way they curled into the planet's embrace?"

Cloud frowned. "Yes, I saw."

"All I wanted," continued Aero, his eyes sightless as he made his confession, "was to die, and to be with them, twisting through this planet's Lifestream. Don't you think it's strange? We were born from Mother, from a foreign Lifestream, and then we changed. We are Hers now; we've been accepted." He blinked a little, then focused on Cloud. "I can see in your eyes that you want me gone. But if I should go, so should you. You can't be the only one allowed to live here. Us – all of us – belong here now."

"If you live," Cloud pressed him, anger just beneath the surface of his voice, "then Sephiroth will always have a chance to come back."

"If he comes back, it will not be through me," Aero corrected him. "You are the nucleus, not I. Besides, don't you see? I am a summon now – I belong in the extramundane, until a master is ready to summon me. That guy can not reach me there." He looked at Scarlet. "Will you keep my summon materia close to you?"

Scarlet nodded. "I will take good care of you, don't you worry."

Aero closed his eyes, and as he faded away, he whispered, "Farewell then, for now."

The roar of an aircraft engine got louder as it approached their position. "That's my ride," said Scarlet with a smirk. She stepped away from Zack and Cloud and unfolded her mechanical wings.

"See you when I see you," said Zack.

"Hopefully not for a long, long, long, long, long time," she drawled, before propelling herself off into the air and to the WRO airship.

"They're gone," Zack said. He quietly examined his internal feelings, and found that he felt relieved. "I'm…" He looked at Cloud, who stared back at him with a patient gaze. "I'm free."

"Oh," breathed Cloud. Then the corners turned up slightly in a warm smile. "Free."

That meant Zack could do anything he wanted. Right at that moment, all he wanted to do was reach for Cloud and pull him into his arms.

So he did just that. With one had on Cloud's waist and the other on his jaw, he held Cloud close to his body and tilted his head so he could examine Cloud's face in the light. Cloud's eyes fluttered closed.

"You're so beautiful," Zack told him, with a press of his thumb to the corner of Cloud's mouth. He moved his thumb away and replaced it with his mouth. Zack's kiss was answered with a soft sigh from Cloud, and he relaxed into Zack's body.

"I'm going to take you home," Zack said eventually, after he'd stood there, holding Cloud and staring at him. The words sounded like the echo from a past life.

Without opening his eyes, Cloud leaned up and kissed Zack firmly on the mouth.

"I don't remember anything," Zack confessed against Cloud's lips.

"I used to dream about you," Cloud told him. "Not just in dreams, but while I was awake. During battle. I'd imagine you there, behind me, telling me encouraging things..."

"Open your eyes," Zack whispered.

Cloud did. He eyes shone bright with the swirling green of Mako, but there was blue hidden there, deep and dark. Zack stared through them and into them, and if he focused just enough he could imagine those eyes as vacant but trusting, as if they were on the road escaping from Shinra, truck rocking them to and fro.