A/N: I wanted this to be happy and stuff. Instead, it turned kind of bittersweet. Hm.
Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII Characters and Places belong to Square Enix.
She crouched among the yellow and white blooms, humming to herself happily as she ran her fingers over the silken petals. The soil was soft, her feet sinking into the dirt as she pressed her weight against it; the air around her was heavy with the rain that had fallen a few hours ago. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, feeling as if she could fall back to when she and the flower girl would kneel amongst the blooms and tend to the flowers, the flower girl smiling at her and telling her the secrets to creating beautiful blooms even in the most dismal of places.
Opening her eyes, she imagined for a moment that the flower girl was next to her, laughing at something that she had said and calling her a 'sweet, wonderful child' again. She imagined that she was braiding her hair, running her long, stained fingers through the brown strands. She imagined that she was being hugged tightly by the woman, reminding her of her mother.
Marlene imagined, just for a moment, that Aeris Gainsborough was not dead and gone.