Chapter 2: On Patrol

"Strife huh?" Squall scratched his head trying to remember the name. "I heard that name before."

"Really?!" Aerith's eyes widened. "Do you know anything about him?"

Squall shook his head. "I can't remember, I think it was in the paper once, or perhaps the news,"

"Hey guys what's up?" A young girl ran up to Aerith and Squall. She wore a small t-shirt and some green shorts along with a shrunken that was tied to her back.

"Oh, morning Yuffie" Aerith spun round and greeted the young ninja.

"So watcha doing?" She asked.

"Aerith's trying to find out about her new boyfriend." Squall smiled knowing what Aerith's reaction would be.

"He's not my boyfriend!" She shouted and then quickly covered her mouth realizing how loud she said it. "I'm just curious."

"Uh huh well anyway I think it was something about that Sephiroth incident years ago." Squall finally remembered where he heard the name. "I think Cloud was one of those who helped stop him."

"Sephiroth? Wasn't he that guy who tried to steal the pass codes for Midgar's defenses?" Squall and Aerith looked puzzled at Yuffie wondering how a girl with such a short attention span like her remembered such a thing.

"Err yeah, but he got caught by Strife and some others when he tried to take them to one of the rebel factions." Squall finished.

"That guy must be pretty good to take on someone like Sephiroth, I heard he killed thirty guards while escaping from Midgar." Squall gave Yuffie another weird look once again wondering how she knew all this.

"Well Cid said he was taking a job up with the royal army here so I guess your right. They only allow the finest in there." Aerith picked up a basket from the shelf and headed over to the door. "Well anyway I'll see you two later, I've got some work to do." She opened the door and headed out to the flower garden.

"Cya Aerith," Yuffie waved her hand high in the air and then looked at Squall. "So what do ya wanna do?"

"...?" Squall frowned. 'Don't tell me she's going to hang around me all day again.' "Err well I have some... stuff to take care of so I'll see you later."

Yuffie gave him a hurt look and continued to stare at him.

"Look I have to prepare something's for the festival."

"Wait, your going?" Yuffie dropped the look.

"Yep, but don't tell Aerith. Its part off the reward for passing my SeeD exam and you know how much Aerith wants to go to one of these but its a personal invite, I'm not allowed to bring anyone." Squall gave her a serious look. "So keep quite."

"Well if you let me come with you then I won't be able to tell her." She grinned knowing he had no way out of it.

Squall took a deep breath and sighed. "...Fine, you can come along," He gave in but before Yuffie could celebrate he put his finger to her lips. "But! You keep quite this time, no talking about every little thing that has happened in your life. Got it?"

Yuffie nodded and ran up to him hugging him tightly while Squall still stood shaking his head. "Yuffie..."

"Oh right gotcha." She released him from her grip and followed him out onto the street. They hadn't even passed the first corner before Yuffie had already started telling Squall everything that had happened to her since she woke up.

"So your Strife eh?"

Cloud nodded wondering how many times he was going to go through this. "Yeah that's me."

"I heard about what happened back in Midgar," The soldier continued walking along with Cloud towards the armory. "I guess they must have considered you a hero back there?"

"Sure." Cloud pushed the door open hoping the soldier wouldn't continue to follow him.

"Well I wouldn't expect anything special from the commander here," He continued to talk. "Even if your are a hero he'll always complain about something."

"I'll keep that in mind." Cloud opened his locker and took his weapon and a small jewel. "If you don't mind I have work to do."

"Oh yeah sure, look just remember if you bump into him when your on duty don't say anything unless he talks to you first otherwise he'll put you on over time for goofing off." The soldier put his weapon back in his locker.

"Sounds like a nice guy." Cloud knew his type, the ones who thought they knew better than anyone else. 'The same like Sephiroth had been.'

As he sheathed his weapon the door burst open and a man with spiky black hair ran through. "Hey Cloud! Our shifts up," He wore the same uniform as Cloud and looked at lot like him, the only main difference between the two was the hair. "The commanders getting impatient."

"Hey are you two related or something?" The soldier looked at them puzzled.

"Who us?" The black haired man pointed at Cloud and himself. "Yeah, I'm Cloud's brother Zack." He walked up to the soldier and shook his hand. "Nice to meet ya."

"We should go." Cloud headed out the door leaving Zack and the soldier behind.

"You sure your related?" The soldier turned to Zack. "He doesn't see to act like you."

"Weird ain't it? We look identical but our personalities couldn't be further apart." Zack grabbed his weapon and headed out the door. "Well cya later."

"So.. Cloud and Zack Strife." The commander walked around, circling the two men.

"Yeah that's us." Zack grinned.

"Quite!" The commander walked up Zack and leaned over him. "Do not talk unless you're spoken to! Understood?"

"Err sure." Zack leaned back.

"That's 'Yes Sir!'" He shouted.

"Yes sir!" Zack corrected. 'Man is this guy for real?'

"Now for been late you can spend another hour on patrol."

"Wait that's four hours walking round doing nothing?" Zack protested.

"It's five hours now." The commander shouted making the adjustment to his notebook. "Care to make it six?"

"No Sir!" He rolled his eyes.

"Right now get to work." They both watched as the officer stormed off back to the castle gates.

"Can you ever keep your mouth shut?" Cloud asked.

"Hey I can't help it if the guy has a stick up his butt." Zack shrugged.

Cloud ran his fingers through his hair and shook his head. "Five hours of patrolling..."

"I know," He yawned. "Makes me tired just thinking about it."

"Well... you can take this side and I'll go check over and check out the market." Cloud pointed over to the other side of the street that opened out into a large section of stalls.

"Rodger." Zack saluted.

"(Sigh) I'll meet you back here in five hours then." Cloud waved and started towards the market.

After a half hour of wandering around or 'patrolling' Zack was already bored "Woo, hoo this place is fun." He leaned up against the wall and looked down both ends on the street. 'Man this place is soo boring, at least back in Midgar there would be a fight every five minutes to break up but here the most I've see are two people bumping into each other.'

Zack scanned the crowd until his gaze fell upon a certain person. 'Hello.. who do we have here?' He grinned and watched the flower girl hand out some of her flowers to a couple of children. 'Hmm not bad.'

The flower girl finished handing out the flowers and turned to walk in Zack's direction.

"Hey there." He walked up to her smiling.

"Oh it's... em? You?" She gave Zack a confused look.

"What? I got something in my teeth?"

"Umm no, did you dye your hair?" She asked still giving him a puzzled look.

"My hair?"

"Oh sorry I have you mistaken with somebody else." She blushed feeling a little embarrassed for mistaking Zack.

"Someone else? With different hair? You must mean Cloud." As soon as Zack mentioned Cloud's name the girls face lit up.

"Yeah do you know him? You look a lot like him." She studied the Soldier. 'Same clothes, blue eyes and that huge sword.'

"Well I should do, I his brother Zack." He held out his hand. "And you are?"

"My names Aerith, I met Cloud yesterday."

"Oh right." Zack grinned. "Figures he'd keep and girl like you a secret."

Aerith blushed. "He didn't mention me?"

"If you didn't already notice Cloud isn't the type for casual conversations."

Aerith remembered the other day when Cloud had said the grand total of one word. "Hmm I see your point. Em Zack?" She looked at him shyly.

"Mm?"

Aerith bit her lip. "You.. you wouldn't happen to know if Cloud was seeing anyone right now, would you?"

"Haha Cloud? You must be joking, the last girl Cloud even talked to was Tifa back in Midgar."

"Did they, were they?" She asked trying not to sound too interested.

He cut her off. "Not really, we all grew up together so Tifa was really the only girl Cloud would talk to."

"Oh, I see."

Zack could see that the flower girl seemed to have a thing for Cloud. 'Lucky £$%'

"You wouldn't happen to know where he is now?"

"Sure." Zack pointed over to the market place. "He should be patrolling over there. We both got stuck with five hours of it."

Aerith looked down the street she had just come from. 'I must have walked right past him.' "Did you say five hours? Did you do something wrong?"

"Who me?" He gave her an innocent look.

She smiled figuring Zack was the troublemaker in the family. "Hmm well thanks, it was nice meeting you Zack." She waved and started down the street.

"Yeah you too." Zack waved back and watched her walk away. 'Dammit Cloud, you beat me to this one.'

Aerith passed through the market looking around for Cloud when she felt a tug on her dress, she looked down and saw a young girl staring up at her.

"Hi." The girl smiled.

"Hi there." Aerith kneeled down so she was at the same height as the girl.

"Em can I buy a flower?" She pointed to the basket.

"Sure." Aerith held the basket. "Which would you like?"

The girl studied the basket for a while and a few times held her hand out to pick one but then she would shake her head and pull it back. "Umm.. I don't know which to choose."

Aerith smiled and let the girl take her time deciding, as she looked round though she spotted a yellow spike sticking up from behind a stall near the end of the market. "Um you know what," She stood up and handed the girl all the flowers in the basket. "You can keep them all, there are only a few left."

"Really?" The girl gasped and took the flowers from Aerith's hand. "Thank you." She ran off down the street clutching the flowers.

Aerith's attention had been kept of the yellow spike moving around behind one off the fruit stalls, she ran over and saw the Cloud was sat on top of the wall that over looked the part of the town below. His sword was propped up against the wall as he watched everything down below, Aerith wondered how he could carry such a weapon, it looked like it weighed twice as much as her self.

When she examined him closer Aerith could see that Cloud was really concentrating on the crowd below. 'Is he looking for someone?'

Cloud let out a heavy sigh and shook his head, he rubbed his eyes and turned to pick up his sword.

"Hi." Aerith smiled at him.

"Ahh!" Cloud nearly fell back off the wall surprised to see someone behind him, he regained his balance and jumped of the wall. "Oh its you."

"You were expecting someone else?"

Cloud shook his head. "No I was just..." He trailed off.

"Were you looking for someone?" She asked.

Cloud picked up his sword and put it behind his back. "Yeah."

"Who?" After waiting a few moments Aerith shook her head. "Sorry, it's really none of my business. I'm probably just bothering you."

"Its ok, I need to check out another area anyway." He walked by her.

Aerith tried to think of something to ask him about so she could stay with him a little longer. 'Zack wasn't kidding when he said Cloud was not much a conversationalist.'

"So I guess you and Cid know each other pretty well."

"Hmm? Yeah we go way back." Cloud stopped walking. "In fact he actually saved my life once when I was much younger."

Cloud continued to walk off again but after a few steps he turned to Aerith to see if she was following. "Are you ok?"

She looked at him puzzled.

"I mean after what happened yesterday, did your wound heal?"

She tapped her forehead with her finger. "Good as new. I was surprised that you knew how to cast such magic."

Before Cloud could speak a group of the castles guards stepped between them carrying some heavy equipment.

"Is this for the festival?" Aerith asked them.

"Sure is," One of the guards answered. "Looks like its going to be a big one this year."

Across the market place Cloud could see shop owners gathering up the best of their supplies and placing them in boxes with the castle crest on them. Once sealed one of the castle guards would come up and take it away to the castle.

Aerith walked up to Cloud. "This festival is done every year, a huge party is done in the castle but only those who are invited by the Ansem the ruler of this land are allowed to go. That usually means you have to be really important." She let out a sigh. "I've only ever been able to see the party from outside the castle gates, but someday I'm going to get to go, I'm sure there's away." She looked at Cloud. "You know what I mean?"

Cloud seemed to be thinking about something, whatever it was it made him smile.

"What's so funny?" She asked.

"You want to go to the festival?" Cloud looked straight into her eyes.

"Yeah but, I mean come on," Aerith gave him a serious expression. "Do you really think that I will get invited? I'm just a flower girl, the only people who get invited to it are the upper class citizens and those lucky enough to get a personal invitation from Ansem"

Cloud rummaged around in his pocket until he pulled out two tickets, they were both made of pure gold. "You mean like one of these?"

Aerith stared at the tickets for a moment until it sunk in. "T-Those are.."

Cloud couldn't stop the smile on his face growing. "Being a hero does have its advantages some times."

"Wow, I can't believe I know someone who has one of these." Aerith gasped still unable to look away from the golden objects. "I guess Squall was right about that Sephiroth thing if they gave you a personal invitation. Your really lucky."

Cloud grabbed her hand a placed the tickets in it. "Here." Aerith shot a glace at him shocked and then looked back down at her hand. "I wasn't going to go since it's not really my style so," Cloud's shyness caught up with him. "I guess you would put these to a better use."

"But I can't, you can't. Do you know how rare these invites are?" She tried to give the tickets back to Cloud but he took a step back.

"Look you said it yourself how much you wanted to go. They would just be wasted on me."

Aerith stared at the tickets for a moment and finally decided what to do, if she had the nerves to say it. "Ok,"

Cloud smiled and turned to leave.

"But," He stopped and glanced at her. "Only on one condition."

"Which is?" Cloud wondered what it could be, he ran the many different things she could ask through his mind but none of the seemed to be right.

Aerith leaned over to him and slid one of the tickets into his top pocket. "I want you to come with me."

Of all the options Cloud had run through his head, this was one of them he had classed as 'In your dreams' and 'Get real'. "You want me to come?"

Aerith put her hands behind her back and stared at the floor. "I just wouldn't feel right taking both of them." She chewed her lip. "Plus I would really like it if you were there."

"Who me?" He pointed to himself. "You sure you don't want to go with someone else, what about that Squall guy."

"No just you." She stomped her foot on the floor at how stubborn he was, Cid had always told Aerith the she was the most stubborn person he knew, maybe now she had met her match. "Do you really have to make this so hard?"

"No I just, I was just really surprised that you wanted me to go with you." Cloud kicked himself mentally for not realizing sooner that the flower girl was trying to ask him to go out with her. 'Zack would be loving this.'

"Well I do, I think that you're..."

Before Aerith could finish she was interrupted by someone shouting. "Strife!"

"Not him." Cloud whispered.

"What do you think your doing?" The commander stormed through the crowd making sure that Cloud knew he was mad. "Your on patrol! So that doesn't mean standing around talking to peasants."

Cloud sighed hoping he wouldn't have to put up with this much longer. "Yes sir, I was just.."

"Just what? Standing around doing nothing?" He took out his little notebook. "I though so, first been late and now this, you can have another three hours of guard duty tonight."

"Three hours?" Aerith stepped in. "But he wasn't doing anything wrong."

"Nothing wrong? He is suppose to be keeping the streets clean from criminals like you."

"Me?!" Aerith looked at him confused.

"Yes you, it's a serious crime to waste a soldiers time while he's on duty. Anything could happen while he's goofing off." He flipped through the book. "And for that you are to be arrested and sentenced to one month in the castle jail."

Aerith felt her heart stop as she panicked. "J-Jail?"

The commander took out a pair of cuffs and grabbed hold of her arm but at this point Cloud's temper caught up with him. He grabbed hold of the commander and threw him against the wall.

"What?" The officer stood up and brushed him self off. "Strife! You listen here, I'll have you striped of rank and throw out of the army and in to jail for this."

Cloud walked up to him at grabbed the officer by the neck lifting him up off the ground. "No you listen. I've already had enough of you, piss me off just one more time and I will have you thrown into jail for the rest of your life."

The commander laughed. "You will have me in jail? Hahaha and what makes you think you can do tha..."

He stopped as Cloud pulled another object out of his pocket, it was a small jewel that had the castle crest imprinted onto it. "You know what this is right?"

The commander nodded slightly.

"It means that any order I give is to be obeyed." Cloud grinned as the man's face turned white. "So if I want you in jail, then that's where you'll go." He tightened his grip and looked back at Aerith, who was still shaking from the thought of going to jail. He said something else to the officer but she couldn't make it out.

The officer just stared at Cloud as he was lowered back onto his feet. "Uh, uh yes sir, it will never happen again." He quickly walked away not looking back at Cloud or Aerith.

"Well there goes my cover." Cloud sighed.

"What did you say to him?" Aerith looked at Cloud puzzled. "And what was that thing you showed him?"

"You mean this?" He held the jewel out. "This is a special gift I received from Ansem when I arrived here, it means that any order I give to someone who works for the castle must do as I say. Of course there are a few exceptions, but not for guys like him."

"I take it that your not here to just join the royal army then."

"I'm here on a special mission." Cloud put the jewel back in his pocket. "Been part of the army was just a cover."

Aerith looked over to where the officer had run off. "I guess now your cover is blown," She stared at the floor. "Because of me."

Cloud put his hand on her shoulder. "Hey it wasn't your fault." He gave her a smile. "He had it coming, if I hadn't done it now I'm sure Zack would have at some point."

"Hmm I guess your right." Her face brightened up again. "I guess your brother would."

"How did you know Zack was my brother?"

"I met him earlier, he told me about you been on patrol here." She explained. "Well if were both going to the festival then we should probably go get ready."

Cloud looked down at his clothes. "Well, I'm ready."

Aerith giggled and pointed to some of the writing on the ticket. "It says you have to wear a suit."

"A suit?" Cloud shrugged. "What's wrong with this?"

"It's not a suit for one thing." She tried to picture him wearing one.

Cloud didn't look too happy about it. "Are you sure you want 'me' to come."

Aerith smiled. "Its too late to back out now."

Cloud hated the thought of having to wear one of those stuffy suits for the entire evening, but then again he was going to go with Aerith. 'For once Zack will be jealous of me.' "Ok, I'm in."

"Good. Well I'll see you tonight Cloud." Aerith waved and began to walk back to her house. "Oh I guess now your not going to be patrolling anymore right?"

Cloud nodded.

"You should go tell Zack, he said that you had 5 hours of it right? It wouldn't be nice if he had to do it for nothing"

Cloud couldn't help but smile at the thought. "Yeah sure."

Note: This chapter was bigger than I thought it was going to be so I hope it didn't drag alone too long. I would have finished it sooner but then I had some inspiration for my other big ff7 cloud/aeris fic and had to write it down. Thanks to Kaiiki Taiseiyou and mister uknown for the reviews, I wasn't really expecting any so soon. The next chapter may take awhile but I will try to have it done as quick as I can.