"You! With the stupid hair!" Hojo flailed to the first grunt he could find, and he had climbed down a couple flights of stairs to do it too. He was so angry, he might just develop a nervous tic.

"Sir!" The young blonde recruit stood at attention and saluted, recognizing the man as a superior... Sort of.

"I want you to track somebody down - anybody - that can cut power to the building!"

"The... Whole building, sir?"

"Yes! The whole building! Shut the entire grid down, immediately!"

"O-Of course, sir! I'll get right on it!" Cloud took off at a half-hearted sprint for the elevators.

"Here's hoping that dimwit can get there in time..." Hojo mused to himself.

I quickly found Aeris' name within Hojo's personal files - under 'experiments', no less. Don't tell me she's some new breed of super-soldier, I thought to myself - Then I almost laughed. The files themselves were sketchy, as if there were big holes in the data, probably due to the fact that she's been in hiding so long. There wasn't even a recent picture of her on file, in the last one she appeared to be about three or four years old. I cursored over to her parental history, and found two names, one of which I thought I would never see pop up again. My mentor.

"Professor Gast?" I said in surprise. "That's her father?"

He was now listed as Killed In Action in the war at Wutai, which was complete nonsense. I knew that Gast had dissapeared almost sixteen years ago - Which would fit right in with the time of Aeris' birth, in fact. Ifalna was the name of the mother listed, and no surname at that. Not a name I recognised, so I was disinterested and moved on. There were apparently daily logs that were also uninteresting - Apparently Hojo was keeping tabs on how adept Aeris was with her motor or language skills on a day-to-day basis. One of them mentionned offhand how she seemed to stare at the painting on the wall.

There was a checkbox in the lower left corner of the screen, where her age, birthdate and blood type were all listed. It was checked off, but it had no indication of what it was that was confirmed. I went back to the file on Gast; Box was unchecked. Then out of curiosity, I went to Ifalna; Box was checked.

"What the heck does that mean?"

I then went to the last day of the logs on Aeris' profile now. She was definetly in the Shinra building until this day, but what happened that allowed her to escape?

"Thank the Ancients you're safe!"

Half-heartedly, I had opened the door to my 'home' and immediately tore off my jacket. My arms felt like they were going to fall right off, and I didn't really want to talk about anything right now. After all, I'd just went through an entire night with no sleep dragging around some red-haired Turk for Tseng's game. Which was really fun. But still, I hope he's okay...

"Hello, Elmyra. I'm going to bed."

Instead, I was assaulted by a middle-aged woman desperately seeking a hug.

"Aeris... I'm-"

"Don't say it." I held her and stroked her hair. "We've both lost a family. I've had a lot to remind me of my own grief lately, so I understand the frustration and the need to let it all out. Don't say you're sorry, okay? It's nothing to be sorry for."

I let her cry into my shoulder and we stayed like that for a while, choking back my own tears. She calmed down after a while, and I walked her to her room, on the main floor.

She once told me that, after she heard about her husband dying in the war, she could no longer sleep in their room upstairs, because she could still smell him. She moved a bed into the study on the main floor to get away from it all, and my room was the room intended for a child they never had.

She was just as tired as I felt, I helped her to bed and rubbed her back, and after a short while the quieted crying stopped, so I went to my own room. I tore out my ribbon as I readied myself for bed, and pulled out the small white Materia hidden in the seam, as the cloth came from the base of my mother's skirt. I laid down and held it above me, staring into it, sensing the quieted power.

"Mom... I miss you."

Author's note: RAH! NOT DEAD! You people had better review. The other day I did three chapters in one night (Insomnia, again). Yes, they're getting smaller, but I'm not getting as much time to do them, although I'm trying to pick it back up again. Besides, if they're smaller then that means they're faster to complete, right? :P

A few words about Aeris: This is my cosplay character, and a character I'd like to think I have a lot in common with, but a lot of people make a few assumptions about her personality. They seem to think that she is this ditzy character with her head in the clouds, or Female Jesus #84557823, or something equally presumptuous.

I find her to be one of the most miserable characters in the game.

She tries to hide it and be strong instead by acting like this silly happy-go-lucky person. Many times she tries to brighten the mood. She sells flowers. She wears a pink dress. She giggles a lot and tries to make everyone smile. But read her dialogue around the campfire at Cosmo Canyon. Notice how often she proclaims that she can "take care of herself" before running ahead to do something dangerous. Take into account how she takes off to the Sleeping Forest without any company. I think she knew she was going to die there, that's why she didn't ask for any help - She didn't want anyone to get caught in the crossfire. More importantly, she'd rather feign a smile than have anybody worry about her and get caught up in her own grief. These are her finer points.