Author's Note:

And now for… Aeris. Yay? I'm beginning to regret bringing her back. She's hard to write. I don't own Final Fantasy. Final Trinity is coming.

Chapter Fifty Six

Morality

Aeris sat in the passenger seat of one of the armoured cars that Rufus had brought with him looking out the window. She hated leaving Rufus like this. Hated that it had come to this. If she went to him, would he turn? Would he go back to his path of redemption? She wanted to see him succeed, she wanted it so badly, but she wasn't sure why. A few months ago, she would have been happy to see an evil man like Rufus Shinra turn from his path and onto one of a hero, but would've also expected him to not give up old habits so easily. So now why was she so disappointed?

She stared out the window chewing on her lower lip wondering that for a long time.

She needed someone to talk to and discuss it with. She glanced over to Gerald who sat at the driver's seat, and inwardly thought 'no.' Gerald was nice, and even though he had decided to leave Rufus and chose her, and she was sure he was a fine soldier, he wasn't very good at things related to the heart. She needed someone passionate to speak to, someone who could understand the topic.

She needed Cloud.

Thinking about it, though, she wondered at where she would go with her new, make-shift army. She could go to Kalm, find Cloud, speak with him, figure out their next course in action. But Kalm was out of the way, and would take a while to get to. No, she needed to figure this out on her own, and figure out what to do.

"You really think Rufus is a bad guy, ma'am?" Gerald asked suddenly, and Aeris sat straight up, a little shocked to hear him speak.

"No," she answered after a moment. "I don't think he's 'bad.' He's definitely not evil. He's just…" She struggled, looking for a word.

"Misunderstood?" Gerald asked.

She couldn't help but laugh. "No, not misunderstood. Maybe he was at one time, with his father being such a prominent ghost in his past. But no… he's hardly misunderstood now. Anything he does now is his own fault, and is to be taken at face value. He betrayed the Planet. That sort of thing shouldn't be taken lightly. He could have been a champion, you know. Like Cloud. Or how Sephiroth should have been, if not for Hojo."

"So you're sayin' Rufus is like Sephiroth, ma'am? A bad guy when he should be a good guy?"

"No," Aeris said, almost offended at the notion. "Those two could not be further apart. Sephiroth was born good, and had the chance to do great things. But because of Hojo's and Jenova's influence, he became evil. But ultimately, in the end, he did good once more.

"Rufus on the other hand… I hate to say this, but Rufus was born evil. He's the product of being Tobias Shinra's son. He had that seed in him from the beginning, and his father enhanced it with his own brand of cruelty, greed, and insanity. Rufus became evil himself. And then one day, he had goodness thrust upon him by outside influence. But in the end, he stuck with his own twisted morality. 'What does doing this serve Rufus Shinra?' And he chose to do evil once more. They are very much opposites."

Gerald coughed. "Now, I don't know anything about this Jenova person or what happened with Sephiroth, but I knew Hojo. Hell, not an employee in Shinra that didn't. Everyone was scared of him. And I can see why that monster's influence hurt Sephiroth. But when it came to hurting people, Hojo was a rank amateur compared to Old Man Shinra. Hojo destroyed a few lives with his experiments, sure. Tobias Shinra killed families. So what did you expect him to do to his own family? Rufus was lucky to have come out of that alive. Now, the way I see it, ma'am, is that, sure, maybe Rufus came out a better man after he got the Soldier process done on him. Everyone noticed it right away. But maybe it's not that he had a chance to be a good man thrust upon him, but more like he got a second chance."

Aeris smiled wistfully, then shook her head. "But he failed. He destroyed his 'second chance.' He's betrayed us, Gerald. He's trying to turn the Planet over to the Tali Hishna."

"Forgive my saying this, ma'am, but all I know about the Tali Hishna is what I've heard from you and Rufus, and that ain't a whole lot. At first, Rufus said they were bad. But now he says they're good. Now, we're taking a big risk defecting from him. Where are we gonna go? It's not like we can go back to Junon now."

"Or maybe we can," Aeris said. As soon as Gerald had said it, she knew that was where she had to be. Something in her gut screamed at her that Junon was where she needed to go, the place that she needed to defend. The Planet was calling to her. "We don't know where Rufus is going, and the radios don't work right now. The Tali Hishna are jamming them with some sort of magic. I think it's the same thing that's causing Materia to fail."

"Forgive me, ma'am, but Materia is failing…?"

She nodded once. "I can feel the energies of certain Materia being suppressed so that they won't unleash. No one else knows this because no one brought any Materia on this expedition. Just mechanical weaponry. But at the moment, I can feel… Ice, fire, lightning, cure, and earth all locked away. And something is beginning to lock away gravity. But while the radios are down, Rufus can't contact Junon and tell them what's happened. He can't say that I'm now a fugitive. It's a race of us against him, and his arrogance is working for us. He gave us a week head start. He can't hope to catch up with us in time."

Gerald smiled. The more she thought about the plan, the more she liked it. She just had to figure out what she was going to do once she got to Junon. And she really hoped that Rufus would truly give her that week head start like he had boasted.

But even as Gerald sent the order along the short-band radios, which weren't affected by the Tali Hishna's jamming, Aeris couldn't help but wonder if Rufus' defection was somehow her fault. Had she caused a potentially good man to turn from his redemption? Was all this somehow her fault? What was it that she and Rufus had said to each other?

Rufus, what have you done?

No, Aeris, what have you done?

He obviously blamed her. And in a sense, he knew what he had done was wrong. The Cetra in him would have told him that much. But still, she couldn't help but feel a little guilty about it all.

She tried to force herself to think of only the path that lay ahead of her, and not the one that lay behind. Rufus had made his choice. It was not her fault. She did not make his decisions.

And that albino woman. She'd heard soldiers speaking of her and Rufus after she'd left the tent. What had that said her name was? Ephain? Aeris always clenched her jaw when thinking of that wretched woman. She was the enemy.

Normally, Aeris considered herself a nice and peaceful girl, despite having grown up in the Midgar slums. But thinking of that Ephain woman made her want to do violence.

I am not jealous!

Aeris started as that thought it her, and she absently wondered where that had come from. She wasn't jealous. There was nothing to be jealous of. She had Cloud. And she was more than happy with him. She was deliriously happy. When they were together. Things just seemed to keep getting in their way. Like treaties with Shinra. Or her own death. Little nuisances like that.

"What are we gonna do once we get to Junon, ma'am?" Gerald asked.

Aeris, broken out of her train of thought, gave a start once again at Gerald's unexpected words. She wasn't sure. What would she do once they got to Junon. "Talk with Reeve, I guess. He's a good man. He'll understand what's happening, and try to help us. I think he'll make the right decision."

Gerald nodded once more, happy with the answer. It didn't seem to take much to make him happy.

She mulled it over, though, and wondered if she could really trust Reeve. She'd never really met him face to face, only seen him as Cait Sith, and before her unfortunate, yet temporary, demise, Cait Sith had just betrayed Avalanche and subsequently sacrificed himself, or so it seemed, to gain the Black Materia for them.

As the car moved forward, Aeris began to wonder if she had any idea of what she was getting herself into.