A/N: All that time with nothing and then two updates at once? Goodnes gracious! ;)

55. Elmyra: Mom

Elmyra Gainsborough had endured more grief than any one person should ever have to. She'd lost her husband young, and her parents even younger. She lived beneath the Plate in Midgar, in a slum where sunlight was practically a myth and a dying woman tumbling off a train didn't even draw a crowd.

For a brief period, however, she'd been able to believe none of that mattered. A little girl had landed in her lap and called her Mom, and with one blink of those big green eyes all Elmyra's troubles suddenly seemed, if not solvable, then at least endurable. For years she'd climbed the staircase of happiness holding a small hand, thanking each day Aerith was there to stop her falling into despair at the spiritual body-blows she'd received.

At least, until she reached the top and found the staircase led to the edge of a sheer cliff.

She'd been teetering on the cliff-top for nearly five years now, pieces flaking away beneath her feet. The balancing act of not falling off put her between counteracting forces – she wanted to lash out when Shinra came sniffing around, and scream at them that they'd already driven Aerith away, but doing so would be dangerous for all concerned. Visceral satisfaction wouldn't be a fair exchange for the price Aerith would have to pay.

Plus, impossibly, within the ranks of those searching for her absent daughter were also people covering for her. Aerith had somehow managed to find allies even within the company that had killed her real mother, and those allies were willing to risk their own lives to keep her safe. Elmyra admired that talent as much as she feared for what it might mean if even one brick in Aerith's defence came loose. It was a badly stacked wall, full of mismatching bricks and stones. If it did fail, Elmyra was sure everything would come crashing down around them, and Aerith would lose even more than just her own freedom this time.

Please be safe. Please be safe. Please be safe. That was Elmyra's mantra the entire first year Aerith was gone, when she was checking off days on her calendar and counting each one as a victory. If anything happened to Aerith, somehow she felt she'd know about it. She wasn't a Cetra, but after living alongside one for so long there was a connection between them Elmyra hadn't even had with her husband.

When she passed the square block of a day ringed in red she redoubled her prayers, wondering whether Aerith's ancestors could hear her. Fervour made her screw up her eyes and hands, murmuring every morning and night for the Ancient bloodline to actually mean something; for it to be useful for once, instead of just bringing pain, grief, the misery of the Planet, and warnings of disaster nobody could do anything about.

Please be safe. Please be safe. Please be safe.

Elmyra wasn't sure how Aerith's allies kept Shinra averted for so long. Elmyra was a practical woman who had no head for politics. Those were someone else's survival skills, not hers. All she knew was that sometimes a Turk would come to the door asking for Aerith, and she'd give the same response each time.

"She's not going with you. She's not interested in anything you have to say. Why can't you just leave us alone?"

And each time the Turk would nod and go away again without a fuss. It wasn't like the early days, when they followed Aerith everywhere and alternately tried coaxing, bribing and forcing her to go with them. As she'd gotten older their tactics had become gentler, if gentle was a word that could ever be applied to that bunch of back-stabbing, morally bankrupt thieves and murderers.

Now, however, the entire process seemed more of a formality. It made Elmyra uneasy. She didn't pretend to understand whatever deal Aerith had worked out with these people. Elmyra didn't trust the Turks as far as she could drop-kick them, which was the best way to be with the truly devious. But she had to accept that her curiously mature little girl knew what she was doing in this, as she'd known with previous things Elmyra had considered her too young for until Aerith proved, unequivocally, that she was old enough.

One thing they both agreed on was that it was no longer safe for Aerith to be in Midgar. To that end, Elmyra had stayed behind so as not to arouse suspicion of Aerith's departure, but part of her yearned to pack it all in and go wherever her little girl was. Sometimes a girl needed her mother, even when she was on the cusp of womanhood herself. And sometimes a mother needed her daughter, even if they didn't share DNA.

Please be safe. Please be safe. Please be safe.

The years hadn't been kind to Elmyra. She was older now, and had the rickety hunch and shuffling pace of someone who'd lived too long under the Plate. New lines bracketed her mouth, and her eyes had dimmed. She wasn't old, but she felt it. A fire had burned lower and lower within her over the past five years. No news was good news, but any news was fuel, and an unstoked fire would eventually burn itself out. Her days now had the repetitiveness of habit, the only splash of colour when she went to Aerith's church to tend the impossible flowers there.

"Did I ever really understand you?" she asked one day in Autumn. She knew it was Autumn more than anyone else in Sector Five. It didn't make her feel superior, just tired. Everyone else had given up tracking seasons. Some had even given up checking whether it was day or night. Under the Plate it was always a depressing twilight.

Elmyra sat back on her heels and surveyed the tiny garden. She sold the flowers the way Aerith used to, but not often, in case anyone noticed the missing flower girl more than they should. Also, she just liked keeping the flowers to herself. Tending them made her feel closer to Aerith, just like going into her bedroom and curling up on her comforter. Sector Five had closed around them both, shielding them without asking too many questions Elmyra wasn't willing to answer, but you could never be too careful when it came to wagging tongues.

"I think maybe you were always apart from me," Elmyra murmured. She talked to the flowers as if they were a telephone that could beam her words into Aerith's head, wherever she might be. "A little or a lot, there was always a piece of you that didn't belong to me. Although I guess, in a way, you were never really mine at all, so the piece was a pretty big one. You were on loan to me for a while. That's how it felt, at least. Like an overdue library book or something." She chuckled at her own words and shook her head. "Gaia, but I come up with some sappy nonsense sometimes."

"I don't think it's sappy."

Elmyra froze. She was on her knees, bending forward over the flowers, but suddenly she couldn't move. Her thigh muscles started to ache. Her stomach clenched. Still, she didn't so much as twitch.

Few people ever came here. The only real visitor was that black woman; the one Aerith had befriended from a brothel, of all places. Kuchibeni and Elmyra weren't friends. They regarded each other warily, even now, but they had a mutual understanding whenever one of them came here to find the other already there. The church was a place for truces, not conflict.

But Kuchibeni had a distinctive speech pattern, and this wasn't it. Neither was it her smoky alto behind Elmyra.

"I think it's really nice, actually. But didn't the only library in the sectors get torched years ago?"

Elmyra straightened. Held her breath. Turned.

Her heart beat so hard it felt like it had swapped sides.

Aerith smiled. "Hey, Mom. Miss me?"