"You saw him?" Marlene practically shouted with excitement, "And you didn't tell me until now?!"

They sat together on the top bunk in their bedroom in Kalm. Marlene's birthday was over, but the horrors of the day were fresh with Denzel and he couldn't sleep. Finally, he had decided to tell Marlene that he had seen Cloud.

"Shh, lower your voice!" Denzel whispered. "Elmyra will hear!"

"What did he say to you?" Marlene went on, quieter. "Did you tell him to come home? Did you tell him I miss him?"

"No... He was really different. I didn't let him see me."

"You hid from him? That doesn't make sense."

"And he looked sick."

"Sick? Like, how Elmyra is sick?"

Denzel had no idea so he just shrugged.

"I can't believe you didn't talk to him," Marlene pouted. "If I were there I would've said something. He would've come home."

"I doubt that…" Denzel said under his breath.

She threw a pillow at him.

"You've been acting so strange since we got that stupid photo in Edge and now you tell me you saw Cloud but you didn't even say hello. I wanna know the real reason why. I wanna know what you aren't telling me," she insisted.

He knew she'd just argue until she got what she wanted. An awful trait she'd picked up from Yuffie, no doubt. There'd been many times he could remember Yuffie arguing with Cloud about something inane and Cloud would give in eventually.

Sure enough, Marlene kept whining until the older boy sighed and conceded.

He took a deep breath and began. He told her about Icicle Inn, about how Cloud cut apart a visitor from Junon and then didn't seem to recognize Denzel and swung the sword at him, slicing into his forearm. And the version of Cloud he'd seen in Junon just recently was the exact same one from that fateful day.

At the end of the story, Marlene folded her arms.

"In Icicle Inn, you obviously scared him," she said. "Why'd you sneak up on him like that? He was probably reacting on instinct. Or maybe it was grief. Barret says grief makes people do crazy things."

She was searching for anything to validate her feelings, ignoring the obvious answer that Cloud was not the same man she remembered.

"Are you even listening to me?" Denzel argued. "Cloud was not responding when I called his name that day. He was off some place in his head. And Tifa had told me once before that he wasn't all there. Do you know what I mean?"

"Sounds like regular Cloud to me. He's always staring off into space."

Denzel exhaled. He was not getting through to her.

"Just let this whole thing go and forget about him," he said.

"Are you going to forget about him?"

Couldn't even if I tried, Denzel thought grimly. To Marlene he said, exhausted, "No, of course not."

"Then I won't either. And now I'm determined to help him even more."

"And how are you going to do that, huh? What exactly are you going to do to bring him back?"

There was a long pause. Marlene was persistent and smart, he had to give her that. And brave, of course. The bravest girl he knew.

Finally, she spoke, calm and conclusive.

"I'm going to ask Aerith."

"Who?"

"The flower girl. You know. The one from the church."

But he didn't know. He'd heard the name from Cloud in stories, but Marlene was acting like this person was alive, and from what he understood, she was dead. Very dead. Long dead, in fact.

"Are you saying that Aerith is alive?"

She let out a little laugh. "No, no, silly. Of course not."

Denzel stared blankly. "So…? You can talk to a dead person?"

Marlene nodded. "Yup."

Now it was his turn to laugh. "Stop it. You're just being stupid now. Dead people can't talk."

"This one can," she insisted. "I talk to her all the time."

"Oh yeah? And what does she say back?"

"It depends what I ask. And some days she doesn't talk at all. Some days it's more like feelings."

Marlene was being totally serious, though, and Denzel had thought himself quite astute at detecting her bullshit.

"You don't believe me," she said. "But you should. She's listening right now, I bet."

A distinct chill moved over his skin. Marlene was talking about ghosts.

"...No, cut it out. Stop lying," Denzel said.

"I'm not lying. Elmyra was her foster mother, you know."

Denzel hadn't known. He shook his head a little.

The young girl raised her eyes to the ceiling. "She lives in the attic."

The attic? He shivered. Hadn't that been the room where Cloud spent three days straight after Tifa's death?

"I'll show you." Marlene hopped off the top bunk. "You don't believe me. Come up to the attic. You'll see."

But Denzel wasn't about to let her frighten him. He was older and he'd fought off junkies and escaped countless perils in his life. He agreed and followed her upstairs, tiptoeing past Elmyra's bedroom where the blue glow from the TV shed light down the hallway.

Upstairs, the small attic room was cold and untouched. Elmyra never went up there, and everything had a thin film of dust.

Denzel looked around mockingly.

"Okay, I don't see any ghosts, Marlene…"

"I said I talk to her, not see her. There's a difference. I think only Cloud can see her."

"This is stupid."

"Shhh!" Marlene appeared to be listening. "I hear her."

But nothing was out of place. No strange movements, no rustling curtains. If there was a ghost present, it was like nothing in the movies.

"Uh… okay." Denzel decided to humor her. "So ask about Cloud. And Tifa."

Marlene closed her eyes.

Denzel thought about Aerith. The woman who'd saved us all, as Cloud had told it. But she'd been murdered by a madman. Another chill went across his skin. Isn't that how most ghost stories start?

"Aerith says hi to you," Marlene said. "She also says Cloud is lost. He's… a shade. Like a shadow."

"Yeah, I coulda told you that," he replied, unimpressed.

"You still don't believe me."

"No, I don't."

"Aerith says Cloud is trapped. He's very important, but he misses us. He wishes he could come home and see us and hug us, but he's afraid. He doesn't want either of us to get hurt." Marlene looked straight at him. "He misses you, Denzel."

The boy became very quiet. A light wind rustled the windowpane, and the abrupt scent of lilies materialized in the air.

"Do...do you smell flowers?" he asked softly, his pulse picking up.

Marlene nodded. "I told you she's here."

But that thought wasn't comforting at all. In fact, it was downright terrifying. He played it cool and pretended not to care.

"So what about Tifa? And how are we going to help Cloud?" he asked, nonchalant.

"Well, Aerith isn't sure what happened to Tifa, but it wasn't Cloud's fault."

Denzel waited for more, but Marlene didn't say anything else.

"And Cloud?" he whispered.

"Aerith says to talk to him."

"...Just talk to him?" It sounded so simple yet he knew there was no way.

"Yeah. We just need to go back to Junon, find him again, and actually talk to him. He's there, Denzel."

A creak in the stairwell made both children jump.

"And what are you two doing up here?" Elmyra's tired voice emerged from the doorway. "What is this I hear about going to Junon and finding Cloud?"

Denzel spoke up, "No, that's not what we were—"

Elmyra sighed loudly and pressed one hand against her temple, eyes closed.

"I try my best with you kids," she said, "I really do. I know I haven't been around as much lately, but please help me out here. Please no more talk of Cloud or finding him or anything of that. When he's ready to come home, he will and that's that. That's how adults handle things sometimes."

"But Elmyra," Denzel protested, caught up in Marlene's story. "Aerith says he's trapped!"

"Aerith!" Her eyes widened. "Oh dear. Aerith has been gone for many years. Is that why you're up like this in the middle of the night? Telling each other stories?"

Marlene stared at the floor.

"I just haven't been around enough. That much is clear…" Elmyra said, looking between them in contemplation. "I'm going to call Barret in the morning and you'll spend time in Corel with him. I think it would do you both good to be in a more positive environment while I finish this next batch of appointments in Edge."

Neither child said anything for fear of exacerbating the situation.

"Now, please." Elmyra rubbed her eyes and stepped away from the doorway. "Go to bed."

Sullenly, the children descended. The supernatural sense in the air was gone.

Marlene didn't speak of it again that night, and in the morning they both sat somberly, eating breakfast, while Elmyra chatted on the phone with Barret. Denzel couldn't focus at all during school, and the day went by quickly. He didn't want to believe that Marlene could speak with ghosts, but if it were true...if any inkling of it were true, that Cloud missed him…

He toyed with the cylinder of pills in one hand, the drugs called 'mako', and thought back on what he'd heard Cloud talking about with that visitor in Icicle Inn. Cloud had specifically told the man that he'd been clean and the man had laughed right in his face. So Cloud had once been tied to the drugs, and if he still were, maybe Denzel could use these to find Cloud again.

He met Marlene after school, and they walked home together as usual. She was strangely quiet and finally Denzel asked her what was wrong.

"What's wrong?!" she repeated. "What's wrong is Corel is across the ocean!"

"But I thought you liked seeing Barret."

"Of course I do! But we were going to rescue Cloud together, and now there's no way we can do that from Corel."

"It won't be forever. We can always try later."

"Not if Cloud's sick and running out of time. And maybe the longer Cloud is away the more he will forget us."

That didn't seem likely, but he kept his mouth shut as a plan was formulating. He wanted to prove his bravery to Marlene, especially after he'd doubted her ghost in the attic. Despite their occasional rivalry, he hated seeing Marlene upset. He was still the big brother. He's supposed to protect her.

He spoke quietly as they walked, "I'll go to Junon. Alone. And I'll bring him back for you."

"You're coming to Corel, though."

"Not if you tell Barret I decided to stay here. He won't think twice about that and then you can be safe with him and I'll go to Junon. Elmyra will think I'm with Barret, too."

"She'll figure that out pretty quick with one phone call."

"That's why I have to leave for Junon tonight, at the same time Barret picks you up. It will give me time to get to Junon before either of them realizes what's happened."

"What if you need help? I should go with you. I wanna see Cloud, too."

"No, if we're both missing, Elmyra and Barret will figure it out much faster. I need to go alone."

They reached the house and so the discussion stopped there, but once inside it was clear Elmyra wasn't home from her weekday appointment in Edge yet. There was a note on the table instructing them to order dinner, and telling them that she'd arranged for Barret to pick them up that evening.

"This is great," Denzel said at once. "If she's not going to be home by the time Barret picks you up, I can just leave right away and you can tell Barret I'm with her."

"And you're sure you wanna do this? You sure you won't be scared of him again?"

Denzel grinned as best he could. "Cross my heart."

A genuine smile answered him. "I really hope this works."

"Me too…"

He plucked gil from Elmyra's emergency household stash for a round-trip flight and some food. Then he got his things together in a backpack, the dagger and the mako especially, and gave Marlene a hug.

"Be careful, Denzel…" She sounded so much like Tifa.

He simply smiled and then departed. He'd do this for Marlene. He wouldn't fail her.