"... Wow."

I hugged my knees, staring off into the distance, avoiding his eyes. It's a hard thing to keep a secret so life-changingly important, even harder to trust someone enough to tell them, and hope that their opinion of you won't change. At least, now he could see why it was such a huge deal, why I had to avoid Shinra, and why both my parents are dead.

"What's on your mind?" I asked softly. I was almost afraid to ask. Afraid that his opinion of me did change, or that he'd turn me in to his superiors-

"Stuff. A lot of stuff," he said, muddled.

He became really distant. I slowly turned to look at him, and he had lines of panic in his expression. He made me worry, and I felt like I should get ready to run. Suddenly, his scared blue eyes snapped to lock with mine, and triggered my fight-or-flight instinct. In the same moment I tried to get to my feet and jump off of the slide, he had encircled his arms around my shoulders tightly. I had already shifted my footing to leap away though, and I screamed as we both slid and tumbled down into the sand.

"Aeris! Are you crazy?"

"Zack, what are you-?"

"Whoa. What's happening here?"

I fumbled my way out from underneath Zack and he got to his feet to face the owner of the voice. It was one of Tseng's Turks, the redhead. Zack looked angry when he saw him, and held the hilt of his sword, waiting for someone to make a move. I took a stance a good distance behind Zack, just in case I had to run from either one of them.

"Reno. What the hell are you doing here?" Zack demanded angrily.

"Jus' passing through, what the hell are you kids up to this late at night? Alone in a park, apparently rolling around in the sand?"

I blushed furiously as I shook the sand from my dress, still unnerved by the two of them. If it was on Zack's mind to bring me back to Shinra, Reno's standing orders were to do the very same, and I didn't think I had a chance at evading the two of them. "We-we're not doing anything."

"I heard you scream, little lady. Does your mother know where you are?"

Strange. I straightened to examine him. He had a bruise around his eye that was just starting to darken and his hair and clothes were a mess, and the bits you could see of his arms and neck were scratched. He looked like he'd been in a vicious fight.

"Aren't you a Turk?" I demanded.

"I'm off-duty."

"Turks are never off-duty."

Reno laughed. "Who told you that?"

"Doesn't matter, but... Why do you even care?"

"What do you mean, 'why do I care'? I heard a lady scream, so I came running. Thought I might get to save a pretty girl tonight." He took a challenging look at Zack. "Do I need to?"

I looked at Zack, who was pretty fixated on Reno. "Uhm, we're okay, I think. Thanks," I said. It felt weird to say that.

"All right. I'm out then, g'night." Reno slipped his hands into his pockets and with a nod, turned and started walking away.

"Wait!" I called, running ahead of Zack. "Reno?"

He turned. "Yeah?"

"Why? I mean... You know, right?"

"Yeah, well..." he shrugged. "I might've finally learned my lesson not to mess with Tseng's business... Well, maybe not. But I'll turn the other way for a bit, I know how important you are to him now, and I think I owe it to the back of my head to be a good little Turk for a while" he smiled charmingly. I worked hard to stifle a giggle, I was the one who'd hit him some weeks before.

"Thanks, Reno."

"Hey now, anything for a pretty face." He took my hand and kissed it with a devilish grin. "Maybe when you're a little older I'll take you out on a date, show you a real night on the town. For now though, you should probably get back to Romeo before his jealousy kills him," he finished with a wink.

I giggled and waved goodbye, then skipped back to Zack, almost blanking on all that had happened tonight.

"Aeris, you sure he's okay?" Zack asked.

"Well, he did look a little beat up. I meant to ask why-"

"No, I mean... Is it okay that he knows?"

"I don't know. He knows, because he's one of the people chasing me, but he said he was going to look the other way, at least for a while," I said. I kept my distance from Zack though, and cast him a cautious look. "I'm not sure about you, though."

"What do you mean?"

"What were you trying to do? Scared me. I wasn't sure if you were-"

"Oh. No no, I was just-." He looked pretty shocked, probably worried about what I thought of him jumping on me like that. "Here, can I try again?"

"Depends what you're trying," I said, hands to my hips.

He smiled and held his hands up in the air, walking slowly towards me. When he got to me he slowly moved to wrap his arms around my shoulders in a comforting hug. When I decided it was non-threatening, I returned it, and he stroked my hair gently.

Zack cleared his throat. "I was just going to say, that I want to protect you. For as long as I'm in Midgar, I'll be your bodyguard, and make sure that those lunatics don't get you, okay?"

I spoke over a sob into his chest. "Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much."

"Why didn't you come out of the shadows, you freakin' spook?" Reno spat.

"As I told you before, if the opportunity makes itself available, I like to observe my enemies before leaping into battle," I smirked mischeviously. We made our way through the slums to the train station, to go back home for the night. I wanted to go in early for training, and Reno had sobered up remarkably fast and decided he wanted to go home.

"Yeah, well you still could've helped me when that blonde psycho sobered up and tore me a new one, Sephy," he said disdainfully.

"I was busy observing. Now I know her tactics, and that she's not afraid to scratch and bite."

"Ugh. Don't remind me. I think I still taste blood." He spat off to the side again. "Say, what's the deal with you and those two? Zack's like, your only friend, right?"

"While I'm sure that's a stab at my lack of a social calendar, I appreciate that you don't count yourself to be one of my friends."

"Why haven't you two hung out recently? And didn't you bring that girl to the dance a while back?"

"I've been busy."

"Doing what?"

"Solving a mystery." I grinded my teeth slightly at my next thought. "Zack knows, you've always known, but no one's bothered to tell me the big secret as of yet."

"You know I can't, it's classified, man. Ow, my shoulder's going to hurt for a week," he said, massaging his right shoulder with the opposite hand.

"I just need to find out."

"So, when you said you were observing your enemies, who did you mean in the park just a few minutes ago? Zack or Aeris?"

"Perhaps both now. I'm not positive, yet."

"... Dude, I think this is a lot less complicated than you make it out to be. This stinks of one of those 'my best friend stole my girlfriend' scenarios, and you need to get over it and move on."

"Would you like some broken ribs to go with your other injuries?"

"I'm just saying."