Cloud careened through unconscious dark in his mind, unsure whether he was alive or dead. The echo of distant voices sounded far away, though he knew it wasn't the voice that spoke to him every now and then.

Is that why you lied…Because you didn't want to hurt me?

A girl's voice, airy and pubescent. Who was talking?

Then, another voice, slight as a flower like the sigh of soft winds.

The sky. It frightens me. I feel like it's going to swallow me whole.

Then he heard crying, and felt the warm brush of arms around his neck.

I had a bad dream. I don't want you to go…I don't want you to die!

Then silence, the low muffled buffeting of neurons firing. Then, a light shone through, and he came back in that all-too-familiar slow blur.

Rays of falselight streamed down from a hole in a high roof. The arched ceilings let him know he was in some sort of church. Tiny petals brushed his face. He found himself in a bed of marigold flowers growing from a hole in the floorboards.

He turned his head to see a pair of white legs crouch down next to him, and in his field of view hovered an angel, by all accounts. She smirked with little lips down at him, the indentation of a dimple on porcelain cheeks.

"What's up with you SOLDIER guys and falling through my roof?"

She had a soft, light voice like a mother's hum, octaves like cherry blossoms singing. But the song was sad, a low and muffled monotone made of autumn winds.

Waves of auburn hair enchanted him, and he gasped like he couldn't breathe. She stood back to give him some air, and Cloud kicked up to his feet.

Stuntin'

A mean streak in him thought he'd scored brownie points, but instead met the shocked eyes of a slight and beautiful young girl in a white mage's robe with indigo trim.

"That sword. Where did you get that sword?"

An urgency edged her voice as worlds welled in her green eyes. Cloud's mean streak fled like a storm, replaced by shame, an urge to apologize.

"My mentor gave it to me. He—"

But then she fled to the front pew, and broke down in sobs. Her head in her hands, gasps of pain that wracked her thin frame, her cries echoed like organ music in the empty hall of the church.

Cloud just stood confused, and thought maybe the first thing to do at least was get out of the flowers. He went over to her, hands up harmless.

"Hey, um, I'm sorry—"

But she wailed at his approach, and he stopped short. O-kay, some girls were a tad dramatic. Well, there wasn't much he could do about the situation. Best to let her be.

He started out of the church, respectful and soft-footed in his SOLDIER waffle-stompers. Cloud could move like a shadow even in steel-toed boots. He left the church heavy-hearted and scratching his head.

Outside was a bomb zone worse than Sector 7, with bulldozed piles of rubble and debris from failed "Urban Restabilization" operations by Shinra some years prior. Most of the piles were destroyed shanty-huts—people's houses. He could tell it was late at night by the moonlamps that shone from the durasteel Plate above, but he had no idea where he was. He picked a direction down the main avenue and started walking...then stopped on a dime.

Graffiti. Triple Triangles. Triads.

Cloud turned right around and headed straight back to the church.

Inside, he didn't see her. Perhaps she'd gone as well. It was as good a place as any to wait out the night, though not particularly religious, Cloud thought he had a lot to atone for. As he approached the flowers bed, he noticed that they gleamed an airy hue, the luster of Ether. Healing properties. If he'd have fallen a foot to the left, he assumed, he'd have been a goner. A statue of a woman with seven saintly wings stood erected behind the tabernacle, corroding and chipped as if she had been there a long time. Above him, he saw empty mason jars hanging from the rafters with twin, a thin pallor of dust obscuring their opaque hue.

He turned around and there she was, standing with flowing auburn hair that swam down her back like a stallion.

"Uh…Hey, I'm back!" Cloud threw an exaggerated smile, then rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry about your flowers…and your roof."

She flowed past him in a wisp, and gazed at the hole above. She had the long, lost look of someone who'd seen a thing or two, and no longer cared. Cloud noted her delicate hands, and something else…a demantoid-garnet engagement ring. She winced then, and spoke in that low monotone that Cloud could have sworn he'd heard somewhere before.

"I just got that fixed too. Guess it wasn't meant to be."

Then she glanced at him with aquatic green eyes, and Cloud realized in a flash where he'd seen her.

"Hey! You're that flower girl!"

Silence. A subtle stare gazed straight through him.

"…I'm Aerith Fair."

He froze for a moment, having trouble organizing his thoughts. Her beauty transcended the natural world. Cloud could write a sonnet about her eyes.

"I'm uh, uhhhhh…"

"Cloud Strife."

"How did you—?"

"We were introduced once, but it's not important."

"Wait. We were? When?!" He followed after her, tagging along like a puppy as she moved from the flowerbed. Then he noticed something else—troughs full of potting soil, and small terraces in clay pots lined in rank and file.

"What is all of this?" Cloud asked enthused. But she just replied in her same monotone.

"It used to be my gardening operation, but nothing much grows here anymore. I haven't planted a new crop in a long time."

"You're just here gardening? In the scuzziest part of lowcity?"

"The neighborhood used to be nicer. It's gone down in the past few years, like the rest of the city, I suppose."

He caught sight of snaking vines covering the back wall, heavy with bulbous gourds.

"Zucchini?" he asked. An educated guess, she noticed. At least he didn't say grapes.

"Squash vines. They've gotten out of hand though. They've grown too high for me to reach."

"I can help!"

"No, please, really—"

And Cloud was already climbing the terrace up to the rafters. He hooked his legs over a beam to hang upside down, then started pulling squash gourds off the vines and dropping them to the floor. They smashed like Halloween pumpkins, and Aerith just pursed her lips with a sigh. Cloud jumped down from the beam with a huge, stupid grin on his face like he was some sort of hero, until he saw Aerith putting the smashed bits into a garbage bag and wiped it right off.

Then, a searing pain shot up his left forearm. He clutched it with a groan to see an intricate, snaking brand gleaming in golden lines.

"What the heck is this?"

"Let me see," Aerith took his arm. Her touch made the pain dissipate as she examined it. "…An anima brand…you pissed off the Fal'Cie."

"The what?"

"It's the crystal that produces the Mako to power the city. You're lucky to be alive. And now it sucks to be you."

"Hey! Why?"

She took the garbage bag out by the side door, tied it off and dropped it just outside. He still tailed her like some big red dog he had at home.

"Because you have an adventure ahead of you. The crystal has bestowed a task upon you with that brand."

"What task?"

"I don't know. I'm not the one with the brand."

"Well how am I supposed to know? I didn't ask for this!"

She grabbed a broom and started sweeping around the squash vines, as if Cloud weren't there. "Well, you shouldn't have woken it up."

"I couldn't help it! I fell into the reactor!"

She crinkled her nose at that weird admission. "What were you doing in the reactor?"

Busted. Cloud didn't know if she'd caught the tribal tattoo around his bicep, or even knew what it implied, but he really didn't want to point it out. Talk about a long story. What was he doing in that reactor anyway?

"I was…trying to help a friend."

A pile of dead leaves was swept into the flowerbed. They took on a vibrant green hue again.

"I recall you said there was no one special in your life?"

"Well, she's special, but she's not my girlfriend. She's my best friend."

"A girl is your best friend?"

"I get along better with women."

"And let me guess, it brings out your sensitive side."

Cloud shrugged. "If you say so."

She eyed him then, the slightest flash of a glare. Her was a woman who talked with her eyes. But Cloud just stood there taking it, and after a long moment she went to put the broom away.

"The avenue outside will take you to the main street, which will take you to the highway. I'm sure you can get home from there."

"I can't go anywhere anyway. Triad territory, and they don't really like my kind."

"Where do you need to go?"

"Sector 7. Lowcity."

A pause. She eyed him again for a moment that felt like forever.

"I will take you."

Then she threw up the cowl of her robe, grabbed a white oaken staff from the corner, and brushed past him like a proceeding Magi. He whirled to run after her.

Outside felt like an urban map of a first-person shooter. Cloud was scanning his view field like he was in some sort of videogame. Adrenaline surged every time he caught noise from an alley cat or the distant clamor of garbage pails falling over. But Aerith walked swift and confident, a strong aura shrouding her light footsteps. Until…

More footsteps, behind and on all sides. Well, it was inevitable, Cloud figured. His hand shot to his sword and he dropped into combat-mode as thugs appeared from alleyways all around them. But Aerith just stood tall and took his hand, a blank expression on her porcelain face as she interlaced her fingers with his.

The circle around them became smaller. Triple-triangles adorning skin and clothing leered like war banners, and improvised weapons of chains and sharpened steel rods eyed them like prey. The thugs enclosed them in a circle, and their ring-leader stepped forward, a tall guy in studded leggings and a leather vest.

"Aerith…What are you doing?" he squinted.

"I'm taking this boy home with me."

A chorus of ooooooh's ensued, but he just scoffed at the pair.

"But you couldn't take me home with you all those times I asked nicely?"

"No."

Hands flew over mouths. Aerith was so direct, so blunt in her soft monotone voice. She didn't break eye-contact, and he eyed her right back.

"You're something else, bringing home a wanted terrorist from AVALANCHE? What's your mother going to think?"

"I'll find out when I get home."

Now people's patience was tested, and he didn't care to go back and forth with her. Cloud tensed, sensing a fight drawing near, and now he'd have to protect her as well.

"Move away, Aerith. Nobody wants to kill the White Mage of Sector 5," the ring-leader demanded.

She just held up her engagement ring hand.

"You can try."

And a flame appeared in her palm like a blow-torch. Dark fire danced in her hand, flickering in her irises. Dark-Firaga. Even Cloud shuddered at a magic cast he didn't have, and everyone took slow steps back from the tight circle. The ring-leader stood stone as she walked in a slow stride past him with Cloud in tow at her side. They continued down the avenue, and no one bothered them from there.

Cloud didn't speak, couldn't make words form. She let go of his hand some ways down the avenue and Cloud felt a sudden sense of loss, like something right in the world had been jarred. That's when he realized the truth of his nervous quiet: he was swooning.

She finally spoke by a three-way fork in the road, and Cloud's heart jumped at her soft voice.

"There's a park down this way. I walk through it to get home, even though it takes longer. Would you care to go?"

He stood up tall with a gleam in his cyan eyes, and a sweet grin crossed his lips.

"That kinda sounds like a date."

"It's not."

And she started walking away. Shutdown. He trotted after her shoving his confusion to the backburner.

They came to a sad little park with dirt for sand and rusted jungle-gyms. Some swings still hung intact while others dangled by one chain. A beaten path wound down to a stinking riverbed. Aerith headed there and crouched by the water's edge, while Cloud just held his nose.

"This is the worse river in the city," he exclaimed.

"I've been restoring the riverbed for several years," she retorted, but he just scoffed at the murky water.

"Tch, good luck."

"This river was once great and beautiful a long time ago. You believe that just because something has fallen into despair means that it can never recover?"

Cloud stopped at that. Her aquatic eyes bore into him, and he let his head drop low.

"I don't know…" he said as he glanced down at his black fatigues, his scuffed boots, his cut-up arms, "I hope so."

Aerith continued brushing dead grass away from small green shoots that managed to take root along the bank, tossing away bits of trash that had accumulated around the fragile growth.

"There's no sunlight down here. It's suffocating. If only the plants could see the sky, then they could recover. Nothing can grow down here like this."

She stood up then, solemn and sad. Cloud watched her like the sweeping flow of a watercolor brush as she strode from the water's edge, taking a part of him with her at every step.

"My house is this way. You'll stay the night, since the gang will be following to see where I leave you now."

"No prob…" he replied with a glimmer of satisfaction. "No complaints at all."

She lead him down a myriad of side-streets and burned out colonial houses. The neighborhood improved a little, but the level of dilapidation reached blinding poverty. Boarded windows watched them as they walked.

Her house laid down a little cul-de-sac, the only one not missing all the shingles. The front yard seemed kept up enough, though a war with weeds appeared to be ever raging. He followed her up the stone-step stoop and into the two-story dwelling.

Inside was clean and dark, an oil lamp lit to save on electric costs. Mako circulation in lowcity was sketchy to begin with, and this side of the Slums lights were a privilege, not a right.

Above the brick fireplace, Cloud noticed a framed diploma from Midgar University's Botany program. Her last name was different on the certificate.

"You're a botanist?" he exclaimed in a soft note.

She hung up her cloak and staff, revealing cut-off jean shorts and a cropped white vest. A necklace of silver forget-me-not's dangled at her sleek collarbone.

"I should have gone to nursing school. There are more jobs."

Then a big woman appeared from the kitchen, the kind who could eat young gentlemen-callers and spit them out like watermelon seeds. But as soon as she saw Cloud, she let out an exasperated sigh—like she was tired.

"No, no, no! Aerith, no boys! We had this talk! We—"

But Aerith just stood next to Cloud, who wore a SOLDIER's uniform and sheathed a massive Buster Sword over his back. Aerith's eyes were edged with a subtle pleading urgency, and the woman was silent for a long time.

"Oh, grrrrrnnn…Go fetch some clean sheets from the linen closet and fix him a bed."

She whisked upstairs to carry out her mother's orders, leaving Cloud alone with the medieval warrior of a woman. But her armor seemed tattered now, like she was too ambivalent to be a threat to anyone anymore. She eyed the young man standing in her living room with a blank look that gave nothing away.

"You can leave your sword over there by the fireplace," she told him, and then retreated back into the kitchen.

Cloud unsheathed his blade and went to do as he was told. By the brick flooring, he noticed something odd though—a long indentation as if something heavy had drilled it. The tip of Cloud's sword fit perfectly in the groove.

He went into the kitchen to find her brewing a kettle on the old stove.

"Sit," she beckoned to him like a new puppy, and Cloud promptly took a seat at the little table. "How do you take your coffee?"

"Um, black, thank you."

She shuffled about the kitchen, preparing mugs and sweeping stray grounds into the sink. She set his cup down in front of him with a spoon, and he nodded a nervous appreciation, while she sat stirring cream into her own mug across from him. She didn't look at him.

"Where did you get that sword, son?"

Cloud was somewhat taken aback. It was a pretty remarkable sword but this was the second time he'd been asked about it, and the big woman struck a sort of Stockholm Syndrome in him.

"My mentor in SOLDIER gave it to me…He's dead now."

"Yes, rest his soul," she answered in a quick quip, like she was brushing it under the rug. Her spoon clanged against the inside of her mug. "Are you in SOLDIER now?"

"No Ma'am…Not anymore."

"What do you do for work now?"

"I'm a bartender."

"Above or below the Plate?"

Cloud froze. He really didn't want to answer this one. He braced himself in a sheepish shrug, as if a blow were coming.

"…Below."

Now she looked at him.

"Ah, I see. A gangster."

And Cloud cringed. That blow came alright, like a sharp rolled newspaper swat.

Just then, Aerith pattered down the stairs and flowed through the kitchen to the back door. She didn't look at either of them, but her mother noticed the way Cloud's gaze followed her, and stayed on her as she fled out into the backyard.

"What do you know about Aerith?" she asked, serious now.

"She uses magic and isn't Mako-infused. Is she human?"

"No. Of course not." The woman took a long sip of her coffee, then looked off out the window at something that wasn't there. "Aerith will go with you when you leave. I've kept her prisoner here long enough."

Cloud sat up in a flash.

"Ma'am I—"

"My word is final! If you don't take her, she'll have nowhere to go, because she's no longer welcome here!"

Then the woman stood up from the table and fled from the kitchen. Cloud caught whimpering sobs in her wake.

Confusion was nothing new to him. Cloud had been dealing with it for years. Nothing surprised him anymore. Nothing fazed him. He just got up and went outside to join Aerith.

He found her leaning against a big apple tree in the backyard, smoking a thin cigarette. He leaned against the trunk next to her with a perplexed look on his face. Well, almost nothing surprised him. It just seemed so unlike her as she took a slow drag and exhaled.

"Life is short. We're allowed our indulgences…every now and then." She looked up at him with worlds in her eyes. Something dark vexed this poor family, and Cloud had no idea how to deal with it. He pursed his lips up at the bare tree branches as Aerith dragged on her slim smoke.

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I think your mom just kicked you out."

She just smirked out into nowhere.

"Wow. She must really like you. She's only threatened to do that with one other person."

They stood side by side in silence after that, staring out into a dull, distant night.

She lead him to the guest room upstairs when it was time to turn in.

"My room is down the hall. If you need anything, don't knock, just come in."

Then she flowed to her own room like a shaded fawn, leaving him to his own devices. He watched her go, so many thoughts swirling in his mind, her aura leaving him dazed in the wake of her stallion hair. She shut him out of her world, and he turned to his own room. He went in to find a small twin bed nestled next to an antique dresser, but not much more in the way of furniture. A rocking chair lay in a corner next to an entryway for a storage room. Cloud cracked the door a hair to peek inside.

A sliver of light shone on a white gown that had been draped over an armchair, beaded and flowing in royal waves of candlelight silk. Clips and pins lay studded here and there next to spools of thread. The dress lay abandoned and unfinished. Cloud respectfully closed the door.

He only removed his boots and socks. A SOLDIER always remained dressed in a strange place, always remained on guard. He curled up on his side and dozed off to a sense of whirling vertigo. De ja vu.

.

[Received Gold Needle]