Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Wow, it's been a while. My apologies.

Memento

Even two years after the whole Geostigma thing, Marlene wasn't allowed to play in the ruins of Midgar. None of her friends were. All of them had heard the lectures- the buildings were unstable, a lot of the metal lying around was sharp, rusty, dirty, they could get lost, blah, blah, blah.

Marlene didn't always listen to the lectures. Once, not long before the Geostigma, Cloud had caught her exploring the edges of what had once been Sector Six. She'd found the remains of what had once been a shop. It couldn't have been a very successful one; the place was tiny. She suspected that some of the dust in the corners had been there since before Meteor.

Cloud had spotted her there, opening a cupboard in the back, pink ribbon standing out amongst all the grey and dull brown. He'd taken her home and told Tifa and her father exactly what she'd been up to. They'd both given her long lectures about the dangers of playing in the ruins. Cloud hadn't, but his silence was distinctly disapproving. It was one of the only times she had a chance to ride on his motorbike, she remembered.

The Geostigma, or the Advent, as some called it, was another occasion where she had been allowed in the wreckage. She'd gone with Tifa to the remnants of the building everyone now called Aerith's Church. It was a peaceful place; Marlene could understand why Cloud liked it here. She couldn't, however, understand why Cloud wanted to live there. Peaceful or not, it was half destroyed.

There was more to the Old City than just Aerith's Church, though. The alleys were endless, and deserted. So many places had been abandoned with personal possessions or merchandise still in them. Many people had left almost everything they owned behind when Meteor fell, and never returned for it. This was especially true of the shops, when there was no longer a market for many of the goods they sold. Healing items were eagerly scavenged, but weapons, many ShinRa machine parts and trinkets lay on the same shelves they had seven years ago. Provided the entire building hadn't been destroyed.

Three days after her tenth birthday, Marlene snuck into the Old City alone again. She avoided Aerith's Church- even after so long, and even though he lived at Seventh Heaven, Cloud still visited the Church frequently. And even though she was old enough to look after herself, Cloud would still take her straight back home if he found her.

Instead, she headed in the direction of her old home in Sector Seven. A lot of it had been excavated. People wanted to at least try to find the remains of their loved ones. Virtually nobody was successful, and all that remained after the excavation was flat muddy ground.

It was late afternoon when she arrived in more or less the right area. Try as she might, she could not find even a trace of anything that might once have been her old home. There was plenty interesting, though, including an old weapons shop, rusty blades still in brackets on the wall. Marlene eagerly picked her way through the rubble in search of more.

She didn't even notice how late it was until the moon was out. Then she realised that she was lost, too. She was suddenly afraid. Not just because she was alone, at night, in a ruined city. There were stories, too, stories that she laughed at during the day. But at night, tales of ghosts haunting the ruins of the Old City seemed a lot more likely. After all, if Aerith's spirit could haunt the Church, there was no reason why anyone else who'd been killed in the Meteor Days couldn't haunt their old homes.

The wind whistling through the derelict buildings suddenly seemed sinister. All the shadows looked like people. There was a woman, crying over the ruins of her family's home. There was a boy, dead in the street. There was an old man, bent over in despair.

Marlene knew, in a vague and abstract way, that the Old City had been a hard place, harder even than Edge. But the ghosts she could see now seemed as real as the rocks she was leaning on, and they were all in pain. They were in pain and there was nothing they could do, there was no escape and they'd be here forever along with her and-

-there was a light in the sky. Meteor. The sky was falling and Marlene felt like she was four again.

But then she realised that the light wasn't the red shade that Meteor had been, and wasn't nearly bright enough. And people were calling her name. She called back.

It was Cloud who found her. Again. He listened to her frightened stories about ghosts and Meteor and soothed her.

"Why don't we get rid of this place, Cloud?" she asked. "It's horrible!"

He smiled sadly. "Because we need to remember. You need to know what happened, what it was like before Meteor."

She sniffed again, and wiped her face on her sleeve. "Then why can't I play here?"

Cloud laughed as he took her hand, leading her back towards Edge.