Disclaimer: I don't own FF7 or the Dixie Chicks song 'Traveling Soldier'. I barely own the six dollars in my pocket so how can I own that stuff?
Author's Note: I changed a little piece of the words so don't flame me if it's not right. Also, this is an AU so don't flame me if you're confused. If it's really, really bad, flame me if you must but I'll just ignore you anyway.
TRAVELING SOLDIER
Zack sat there, fumbling with his thumbs, looking throughout the pub nervously. He had traveled so far to get to this sector of Midgar. To be right under Shin-Ra headquarters. As far as he was concerned, the journey was just his first step toward becoming the first-class SOLDIER of his dreams.
"Hey, do you want anything?"
The black haired man looked up, seeing probably the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen before- and you had to trust his judgment on that. Before he had left his village, all the young women there had doted on him. Many of the girls were a pretty bunch but there didn't seem to be any beauty that compared to her back home.
"A... A cheeseburger would be nice", he whispered, his eyes on the stained table, his focus being on his strong fists nervously twittering between thumbs. Funny, he wasn't known to be how he was acting at the moment. Zack felt her gaze upon him, confused yet amused at the same time. "I'm sorry", he blurted out. "I usually don't act like this around girls."
She giggled. "Guess I should feel lucky then. By the way, my name's Aeris." He looked up at her, surprised of her actions.
"Um... Zack." They then shook hands.
Two days past eighteen
He was waiting for the bus in his army greens
Sat down in a booth, in the café there
Gave his order to a girl with a bow in her hair
"Aeris, do you think your boss would mind if you sat here and talked with me? It's just that I need to talk to someone. A lots happened to me lately and I need someone to talk to, you know?"
The brown haired goddess shook her head no, disappointing him to some level. "But I'll give you one better." His eyebrows raised in surprise. "I get off of work in an hour. How about you wait for me and we go somewhere. My mother won't mind as long as I'm escorted home." Zack's eyebrows rose higher. Escorted? It sounded as if he was taking her to a ball or something.
"Sounds good."
He's a little shy so she gives him a smile
And he says would you mind sitting down for a while
And talkin' to me, I'm feelin' a little low
She said I'm off in an hour and I know where we can go
They sat on the pier that Aeris's house sat beside, the one bear the waterfall. He stared at the sculptured beauty of the falling water, it reminding him on the young woman he had just met.
"Aeris, I know you got a boyfriend, 'cause I know that no decent guy would give up someone like you, but I don't really have anyone to write to and I want to ask if I could write to you." Zack had somehow gotten that all in one breath. He inhaled. "Would you mind if I did?"
Instead of answering, she had dived for his lips, capturing them faster than how a man from SOLDIER could throw around a sword. He kissed back, feeling as if he needed to, that he actually was destined to do it. Him being nervous around one young woman had to mean something. How could he be so physically and emotionally involved with someone he had just met an hour or two before?
So, that night, they made love by the waterfall.
So they went down and they sat on the pier
He said I bet cha got a boyfriend but I don't care
I got no one to send a letter to
Would you mind if I sent one back here to you
She had watched the bus pull away a couple months ago, and she already knew that she loved him then. Aeris had received numerous letters from him, always gaining a look of disapproval as she gleefully opened his letters about his training to be a SOLDIER candidate. He wrote about his roommate, Cloud something, pinning over a girl back in his hometown.
His letters never once spoke about the moment they had shared at the waterfall, nor did he speak about his welfare that much. That Cloud guy was probably reading his mail and Zack had to keep a lot of stuff out. He was always asking how she felt, not that she ever told him that she never felt good around food or in the mornings. It was probably the stomach flu or food poisoning- although the latter seemed a bit too out there. Would food poisoning last for almost two months?
Zack's latest letter said that he had reached first-class soldier while his roommate had been dropped into the normal Shin-Ra army. Poor guy.
It also said that after his trip to Nibelheim, he had some vacation time, and that he wanted to spend it with her. She felt like she should tell him about her ill feelings, having heard somewhere that SOLDIER had some medical training. Her mother, the one she could her calling from the earth beneath her feet, seemed to be congratulating her for something she didn't know yet. Plus, she wouldn't tell her anything so, whatever her happy attitude was for, she hadn't a clue.
I cried, never gonna hold the hands of another guy
Too young for him they told her, waiting for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end, waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letters say a soldier's comin' home
Aeris grinned like a madman as she read his latest letter, two months and a week after he had left. He had finally mentioned the night the two of them had shared entwined, and said that he loved her more than she knew. But she didn't take her newfound knowledge and skip through the rest. Zack was afraid for his own safety. It was his first mission after getting to first-class and he was working with the famous Sephiroth.
So the letters came from an army camp
In Rocket Town and Nibelheim
And he told her of his heart, might be love
And all of the things he was so scared of
Her grin faded as she read on, when reading that monsters purposely attack him and the villagers. Her grin then had grown into a soft smile as he told her that he thought about the day at the pier without end, and that he dreamed endlessly about her.
But something irked her when he told he not to worry, that he couldn't send out mail for a little bit. Something just didn't feel right. She just couldn't help but feel that something would happen to him.
Aeris couldn't think about that now. She had a doctor appointment to keep, one that her adoptive mother had set up after hearing from the brown haired seventeen year-old how she didn't feel well yet great at the same time. The older woman had almost had a heart attack when hearing the girl's symptoms, saying over and over again to herself that she hoped that it wasn't what she thought it was.
He said when it's getting kind of rough over here
I think of that day sitting down at the pier
And I close my eyes to see your pretty smile
Don't worry but I won't be able to write for a while
Her adopted mother was angry at her, not that she didn't understand her reasons. No matter how angry she was though, Aeris was happy- no, ecstatic. Se could sense it from both her mothers too, even though they had tried to put up the strong front of anger.
Aeris stared at the results of the tests the doctors had given her. According to this, she was carrying Zack child. That had explained the morning and food sicknesses.
She wanted to write to him, tell him the news, tell him that she was pregnant. But she then remembered that he couldn't write to her, nor did he give her the exact address of where he was staying in Nibelhiem. So, she would have to tell him about 'it' when he came over to see her after his important mission.
"Aeris, hurry up", her mother shouted, slight anger in her tone of voice. "We have to go to that collage football game your friend, Tseug, invited us to. Its his final game before he goes to that job in Shin-Ra." The young woman nodded, placing her hand softly on her flat belly, somehow feeling the being inside of her grow. It had to be because of her Centra abilities, like so many other things she hadn't found out yet.
"Okay. Coming, mother."
I cried, never gonna hold the hands of another guy
Too young for him they told her, waiting for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end, waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letters say a soldier's comin' home
"Folks, I bring the sad words of murder in a town far from here", a man said as he stood in the middle of the field.
Aeris's stomach tensed, remembering the bad feeling after reading her boyfriend's letter. 'Don't say Nibelheim', she pleaded silently, hoping the man had heard her mute thought. 'Don't say Nibelheim.'
"Would you folks bow your heads for a list of people murdered by our former hero Sephiroth in the town of Nibelheim?"
One Friday night at a football game
The Lord's prayer said and the anthem sang
A man said folks would you bow your heads
For a list of people in Nibelhiem dead
She could hear a piccolo trumpet playing the sorrowful tune of Taps as the man began his list of casualties in the town where her lover had been positioned in. Both her mothers and herself were listening to the man, listening if they heard the one name she feared would be there.
She only caught half of it. "... Zack..."
Cryin' all alone under the stands
Was a piccolo player in the marching band
And one name read and nobody really cared
But a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair
Aeris stood, rooted to her spot, her hand resting absentmindedly on her belly where Zack's child laid, unborn. She could hear her mothers, consoling her on the loss of her baby's father. But they sounded far away, as if she was getting yelled to from quite a distance away.
The news sank in finally as an uncontrollable sob took over her body.
I cried, never gonna hold the hands of another guy
Too young for him they told her, waiting for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end, waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letters say a soldier's comin'
I cried, never gonna hold the hands of another guy
Too young for him they told her, waiting for the love of a travelin' soldier
Our love will never end, waitin' for the soldier to come back again
Never more to be alone when the letters say a soldier's comin' home