Aeris stirred with a groan. Above shafts of brighter light stabbed down, whorls of dust drifting in random movements. Sunlight? Or one of the floodlights Shinra used. What had-? The memories came in a rush; the second reactor assault, the lack of resistance or security. The alarms silently deactivated before they ventured inside. Everything going a little too well. Shinra troops waiting for them on the way out, President Shinra gloating before a helicopter whisked him away.

The robot.

The explosion, the fire and intensity catching them all of guard. Aeris left hanging over the slums. Tifa reaching desperately for her, Barret trying vainly to keep her anchored.

The plummet, the fire vanishing above, the wind whistling in her ears- Mercifully she could not remember hitting anything. And while she hurt from head to toe, somehow nothing broken. Mako treatments. A furtive motion nearby. With a grunt, Aeris forced herself up onto her hands. A slight, blond man with spiked hair and a pony-tail peered at her curiously. "You're alive."

Aeris grinned. "I am." She winced as she sat up. "Might not be so glad I did though." Should be sector five – or at least she fell from over the dividing line between the lower plates. Pews, stained glass windows, huge space with exposed beams above- "Am I in a church?" The old ways were apparently gone, the places of worship and the iconography long since disposed of. Supposedly. This place escaped the cleanse it seemed.

"Yes." The man ventured closer. He frowned. "You didn't come here for me?"

"You?" Unless the man was a secretive Shinra operative, or some underworld associate – neither of which seemed likely – why should he-? The uniform. Needed to ditch that at some point. Tended to make people nervous. "Shinra's after you?"

"Aren't you?"

"I'm-" Complicated. "-not with Shinra." No need to overwhelm him.

The man did not seem inclined to believe her. "But. You're a SOLDIER right? Your eyes...?"

"Was a SOLDIER. Not any more. Now I'm-" Trying to save the world? Helping a terrorist group? "-not." The man hummed, but did not flee. What would Shinra want with this man that he could make such an assumption? "Why are Shinra interested in you?"

He tensed and glanced to the ground. "Not completely sure." Suspicious. "Guess they want me for my gardening."

"Gardening?"

He smiled. "Yeah. The flowers."

"Flowers-" Beneath her was an island of colour, yellows and reds and violets with green beneath. Apparently the trick to her survival. "Flowers." She murmured the word. Flowers in Midgar was supposedly impossible, or at least ruinously expensive. But here in the slums was a riot of colour unlike anything else in Midgar. Out in the slums the world was harshly lit, tinged in places by the piercing glow of neon. How long since she had seen any flowers? "I'm… I'm sorry." She scrambled up, bent stalks and smashed petals where she had lain.

"It's okay." He knelt and ran a loving hand across the broken stems. "Rather not have dealt with another dead body today." Slum humour.

"Okay, so I think I can see why Shinra might be interested. That's quite a trick." Aeris circled the flower patch, the man still tending to the impression she left.

"No trick. They just… grow." The man sighed. "Did you use materia in SOLDIER?"

"All the time." Spells loosed with a thought, muscles strengthened and sleep banished with cure spells, the existing, devastating blade of the Buster Sword made more dangerous with lightning channelled through it.

The man fumbled with his pony-tail and held out a white sphere. Smaller than even newly compressed materia and of no colour Aeris recognised. She reached for it- "May I?"

"Go ahead," the man said. "Doesn't do anything."

It would be easy to dismiss the comment as the conclusion by an inexperienced materia-wielder, but Aeris bit her tongue and plucked up the sphere. Nothing. Still that near spark when making contact with the materia's surface, but no spell or invocation at the back of her mind as if always there. Nothing. The sphere was inert. If not for that first sense, it would be hard to believe the sphere was even materia. "Never seen anything like it." She handed it back and the man pushed the sphere into his hair again. "Where did you get it?"

"It's a memento from my mother. She-" Rusted hinges screamed, and down the other end of the church, one of the huge wooden doors swung open. An all too familiar blue-suited figure stepped into the church. Turks. The man beside her tensed up. "Kept me distracted while back-up arrived?" His confidence evaporated when the red-headed Turk frowned at Aeris; his eyes widening a moment later. He recognised her. So much for any hope of sneaking out of this situation.

"I want to assure you, I'm not with Shinra," Aeris murmured. The Turk muttered something into a radio and leant against the other church door. Was there another way out of here?

"Then can you help get me out of here?" The man stared into her eyes. "Whatever you want. Anything."

Slum-dwellers had little money – Avalanche's pay was tiny. But there was something there, the sudden openness about the materia, and at a closer glance, those eyes were wondrous and blue. Maybe. Should be getting back. Should be focusing on the mission. But how long since someone attracted her attention? "Anything? How about a date?"

"A date?"

"Would that be a problem?" She shot him a side-eye. "You rather I demanded gil?"

The man shook his head. "I'll go out with you. Once."

That would depend entirely on how the occasion went. "Deal. What's your name?"

"Cloud," the man replied. He stepped closer.

"I'm Aeris." She heaved the Buster Sword from her back; a squad of Shinra troops pushed in through the doors. So much for post-mission downtime.