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13. Meeting the Flower Girl

Zack hunkered over the edge of the embankment and whistled. "That's a long way down."

Don't fall.

"Really? Y'think?"

Cheeky. Good advice.

Smiling slightly, he picked his way along the ridge and down a pathway Alpha guided him along. There were no fresh paw-prints in the powdery snow, but Zack guessed he knew of its existence because wolves had walked this way before. What wolves knew, Alpha knew. Zack supposed it was like the collective mind of a hive or insect nest, but that was an oversimplification. Alpha knew what wolves knew because, in many ways, he was those wolves and those wolves were him. As Zack understood it, Alpha was an embodiment of wolf-kind – a kind of essence with an independent consciousness and a collective one inside one mind. It was confusing, and he didn't think he truly understood it, but he knew enough to grasp at least part of the nature of the spirit currently sharing his body.

The thick boots he had found in the cabin were invaluable. Alpha had been all for transforming at every opportunity, especially when going outside, but Zack needed to stay human for the sake of his own sanity. He was getting used to shapeshifting, but he wanted to take things slower. If he and Cloud were going to stay in these mountains for a while, he and Alpha needed to set some ground-rules, and the first had been Zack retaining control of his own body.

Can't smell prey, Alpha grumbled. Wasted effort.

"I'll check the snares anyway," Zack replied.

Tooth and claw catch many rabbits. Skilful. Faster. Reliable.

Zack didn't reply. It was an argument they had gone through before and probably would again. Alpha maintained that hunting as a wolf was the better way to feed themselves. After a week of chewing dried strips from the only rabbit his snares had caught, Zack was starting to agree.

He knew it had been a week since they arrived because he had counted the rising and setting of the sun. After years of being trapped underground, each sunrise and sunset was a little miracle. The blizzard that had covered their escape from the Nibelheim lab had let up before sunrise the next day. Zack had made sure Cloud was safe and then stood outside the cabin to watch. The first sliver of orange light on the horizon had shocked him with a well of emotion so thick it felt like his mouth was full of treacle. A tear had slipped out without him even noticing – SOLDIERs didn't cry, but the wonder of being free was too much. By the time the sun had risen completely, his cheeks were wet and he had been forced to retreat inside before his tears froze on his face.

Seven sunrises later, the sight was still amazing. Greyed-out wolf vision didn't do it justice. Zack had to watch the colours with human eyes, even if it did risk retinal burn.

The snare was indeed empty. Zack cursed. Alpha said nothing. Methodically, Zack made his way back to the cabin. This had been the last snare – carefully hidden in case Shinra goons made it up this far looking for them. Zack hadn't seen any evidence of a search, but he knew there had to be one. Hojo would not give up any prize easily. Plus, there was the mystery of the cabin to consider – it hadn't been used in some time, but someone had built it, which meant at some point humans had lived here. Zack had too much to lose to take stupid risks.

Safe here, Alpha said, reading his thoughts, or maybe just guessing the direction they had taken.

It wasn't difficult. His own survival and Cloud's were what dominated Zack's brain in between marvelling at the tiny luxuries freedom brought: fresh air against his skin, the smell of outdoors, sunshine, burning sunlight, Cloud, vampires, Shinra, Hojo, freedom, tiny luxuries, fresh air – the cycle went on with incremental changes, but always looped back to keeping them safe and hidden. Zack's immediate desire had been to go back to Midgar and confront Shinra, but Cloud's safety had superseded that. Zack would do nothing until his friend was at least conscious, if not returned to his own consciousness.

Zack paused to look up at the sky again: eggshell blue all over. He was reminded of Aerith, and how she had once told him the thought of an open sky scared her. She had been born in the slums and existed below the Plate practically her whole life, or so she said. After spending so long in the labs, Zack felt infinitely sorrier for her than before. A life without freedom, without sights and sensations like this, wasn't a life at all. No wonder she had cultivated her flowers so diligently.

Guilt and regret compressed in his chest. It hurt to think of Aerith. No doubt she thought he was dead now. Zack wasn't even sure how long he had been away, but he had overheard enough technicians' idle gossip to know that the Shinra press office had characterised Nibelheim as a Red Zone operation with no survivors – including himself and Sephiroth. He wished he could let her know he was alive, but that was impossible. He just had to hope she had moved on and found someone good enough for her. Aerith deserved someone to make her happy. Once upon a time, Zack had thought that might be him, despite the difficulties a relationship with a SOLDIER brought. Those things had never seemed to bother Aerith. After Angeal disappeared and the world turned very bleak, she had been a bright spot and a hope that he might have a future not filled with pain and remorse.

He snorted. The irony was as biting as the mountain chill.

Miss your mate? Alpha asked.

Mate? It was an equivalent term, but the difference between that and 'girlfriend' emphasised who he was talking to. Zack suddenly felt very alone. "Yeah," he muttered. His voice came out croaky. He coughed into his fist and started walking again. "But she's better off without me."

Not true.

"Just drop it, okay? I don't want to talk about her."

Alpha went silent, but Zack felt like there was more the spirit wanted to say. He concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other and covering his tracks. He tried to block out all the unwelcome thoughts that seemed eager to drown him. He had to stay positive. He was free, Cloud was free, and who knew? Maybe someday he would be able to go back to Midgar. Maybe someday he could see Aerith again without worrying about Shinra following him and her getting caught in the crossfire when they tried to recapture him. Maybe someday he could have that future, if he waited long enough and Shinra forgot all about the 'werewolf' who had helped kill the Silver General when he illogically became a vampire and fell into a mako reactor core …

Yeah right. Quit dreaming. You lost Aerith the moment you touched down in Nibelheim. If you keep thinking about her you'll really lose it.

Zack kept walking.

The vampire was fast. Zack bounded along the fire escape and swung himself up onto the mezzanine with one hand. Even with his superior SOLDIER speed, he was only just in time to see its feet disappear over the edge. He vaulted the gap and launched himself into empty air. His boots thumped on the neighbouring walkway, pausing only briefly to adjust his footing so the weight of his sword didn't put him backwards over the edge.

Vampires in Midgar. If word got out, there would be mass panic. Shinra's city was supposed to be untouchable. Only a few knew the truth, and they were intent on keeping it secret. Vampires weren't common, but they did sometimes get in. That was when the elite were sent to deal with the problem – which meant Turks or SOLDIERs, depending on how big it was.

Zack was a First Class. They only sent for him when the problem was getting too hot to handle. The brief this time had said ten confirmed vamps in a limited area of the slums. There were a lot of hiding places down there, plus lots of available blood sources: Walking Blood Donors, as Reno called them. Zack had worked with him only a handful of times and the Turk had yet to crack an actually funny joke. Under the Plate one vampire could become ten in a matter of hours. Ten could become a hundred. If too many were infected in the tightly packed tenements, the sector would have to be razed and thousands of innocent people would die.

Zack had taken out six vamps so far. He knew from audio communications that Turks and other SOLDIERs had decimated at least twenty others. One Turk had collapsed a building to make sure the job was done properly. Cissnei had told Zack the details confidentially when they met at the edge of Sector Five.

"It was the only way to make sure."

Zack had been aghast. "But the other people in the building –"

"I don't like it any more than you do!" she had snapped. "But the situation called for it. Can you tell me you didn't have any collateral damage in Wutai?" At his expression she had become penitent. She knew about what had happened in Wutai. Everyone knew about Wutai. Two elite SOLDIERs didn't desert without people noticing.

Yet Cissnei knew more than most. She had been there to help Zack pick up the pieces afterwards. She had echoed Sephiroth, encouraging Zack to channel his emotions into something else apart from grief. Zack had chosen work, which had led to him becoming the youngest ever First Class in Shinra's history. Cissnei was Zack's friend; despite everyone telling him Turks didn't have friends, and that trying to befriend one was stupid. Zack had ignored them all. Cissnei was different. She wasn't exactly sociable, but she had sought him out during social hours. Of all the Turks, she was the most human.

Still, there were moments he could see what people meant, even about her. The Turks had a cold streak through their entire department. You couldn't do what they did without getting tough to protect yourself. It was the same with SOLDIER, but Zack hoped he would never reach the stage where he could blow up an urban landscape and consider unnecessary civilian deaths simply 'collateral damage'.

His boots rattled against broken concrete. The air vents along here were coming loose from their moorings. One lay on its side, the flue beneath exposed. It was easily wide enough to accommodate a burly man – or vampire. Zack heard metallic clanging from inside, like that of a body sliding down and hitting a sharp bend. He also spied a streak of red on the side, at the right height for someone to have thrown out their arm to steady themselves. He had cut off this vamp's hand. It was the last one, and then Midgar would be free and clear. He calculated the risk versus the chance of success and swung himself down the flue in pursuit.

Zack hadn't been on a playground since he was a very little kid. He didn't like the chute then, either. He whizzed down the flue, bracing himself like a bobsledder as he went. He shot out of the end like a bullet from a gun. The vampire was already trying to crawl away through the air duct, but while the passageway was strong enough to take the weight of one person, it wasn't up to handling two men and a Shinra-issue sword. It creaked ominously and gave way, spilling them both onto the walkway below.

Zack righted himself in a second. He managed to roll to his feet and draw his sword in the same movement. The vampire also jumped to its feet, baring razor-sharp fangs at him. It clutched its injured arm to itself. Blood splotched the floor where it had rolled; a lot of blood. It was wobbling, but still ready to fight him. Desperation brightened its red eyes. Zack knew that it would kill him if it could, but it also saw him as a food source now it was hurt. It would drink him first, and only if he was lucky would he die from that.

Zack set his feet and adjusted his grip. "Nowhere left to run, chuckles," he said.

The vampire was beyond rational speech. It screeched and threw itself at him. What ensued was a frantic few seconds of claws, blade and blood. The vampire's other hand catapulted into the air. It kept coming. Zack put his sword in his right hand and pulled a stake from his belt with his left. When the vamp came at him again he aimed and threw with SOLDIER strength. The stake hit its chest with such force the ribcage caved in and the creature disintegrated mid-flight. He raised his arm to cover his eyes as a body's worth of dust hit him like gravel.

"I hate it when that happens," he muttered. "Yeeeuch." His eyes watered, blurring the world around him. He rubbed his face with the back of his hand, reaching to activate his comm-link and report in another kill.

Ominous creaking filled the air. The walkway juddered beneath him.

"Oh sh-" Zack started to say before it collapsed.

He reached out to grab or brace his feet against something. He kicked off the falling walkway so it wouldn't crush him, but that disorientated his sense of up and down. He crashed into a hard surface. It only slowed his fall. He fell through and bounced off what felt like a rocky outcropping of the kind he used to avoid in Gongaga gorge. Finally he crashed landed in a shower of debris. Wreckage rained down on him for the next few seconds. He curled into a ball to avoid it striking his head or vital organs, though he needed to loosen up and suck in a breath. All the oxygen had been driven from his lungs by the impact. He had kept hold of his sword, but it fell from nerveless fingers as a wave of pain and darkness washed over him.

He blinked back to consciousness some time later. A groaned escaped his open, dry mouth. His skull hurt. His spine ached. His ears pounded. His legs felt weird and his insides extra squishy, like they had been smacked with a meat tenderiser while still inside his skin. Heck, his skin hurt too! He tried to raise his arm to massage the bump on his head, but electric jolts ran up and down his nerve endings.

"Shh, lie still," said a voice.

"Whu-?"

"You're injured. You just fell through the roof. You're lucky to be alive."

"Mrrf–"

"Don't try to move." A cool hand pressed against his forehead. "You might be bleeding internally."

That would account for the squishiness. Zack wasn't worried – if he had knocked himself out but come back to consciousness, it was likely his SOLDIER healing processes were taking care of things. He was willing to follow the voice on the lying still part, however. He had no desire to move and cause more pain. He concentrated on breathing; the simple rhythm a cadence of his own body as it … turned suddenly tingly and cold. The sensation blossomed outward from his stomach. It wasn't normal.

His eyes snapped open, but his vision was too blurry to see details. Vague shapes orbited him – or maybe they stayed still and his eyeballs rotated in his skull. He shut his eyes again.

"Shh, don't worry, it'll be okay," said the voice.

"What –"

The tingling faded. Zack sat up. He still ached, but it seemed worth the risk. Surprisingly, there was less white-hot agony than he anticipated. He looked around to see he was indoors, surrounded by high walls, stone statues and stained glass windows.

A church? He had fallen from the walkway into a church?

"Are you feeling better?" asked the voice. It belonged to a girl kneeling close by. She was just a teenager, probably only a little younger than him, but the differences between them were perceptible. She probably wasn't as tiny as she looked all scrunched over like that, but his sprawling achy body felt massive in comparison. Where he was grimy, sweaty and stained with blood and vampire dust, she had on a spotless blue dress. What looked like small white flowers had been woven into her ponytail and the brown ringlets around her face.

Zack gaped. He had seen pretty girls before, but none of them had worn flowers in their hair. Flowers were such a rarity in the city that most people didn't bother even trying to grow them, and imported ones were always limp and half-dead by the time they crossed city limits.

"Can you hear me okay?" The girl frowned. She raised her hands as if about to attempt sign language before remembering she didn't know any. "Can you hear my voice? Can you see me? Oh … fudge, I've heard about people going temporarily blind or deaf when they bang their heads. Hello? Helloooo?"

Could he see her? Could he ever.

In Zack's experience, Midgar girls fell into two groups: those above the Plate and those below. Above-Plate girls were affluent and dared each other to date SOLDIERs out of some peculiar rebelliousness that came from being rich and living in the safest, most automated city in the world. They were generally spoiled, bored and looking for a way to fill their hours and make their friends or boyfriends jealous, plus the SOLDIER stipend came in handy for expensive dates. Below-Plate girls had been made harsh by circumstances and hated SOLDIERs for what they represented. They wouldn't stop one saving them from a vampire, but they wouldn't voluntarily talk to him, either. There was an adage that went around the barracks with each new intake of one SOLDIER who limped past a bunch of below-Platers holding in his own guts and not one offered him so much as a band-aid.

On first glance, this girl didn't look like either group. She looked too impoverished for above the Plate – her hemline had obviously been let out a few times and the strap of one sandal had been glued back on – but she didn't look at him with the disgust he expected in the slums.

"Hellooo?" she waved a hand in front of his face.

"I can, uh, hear you," Zack stammered. "And see you." On impulse, he rolled back onto his shoulders and flipped to his feet. "And I'm fine. See?"

She skittered to her feet and backed away in surprise.

"Wait, no, sorry!" he stuttered. What the hell was wrong with him? He tried to think of something witty to say and failed. The best his mind could come up with sounded like 'flagarhmaggajagga'. "Um, I'm okay?"

She beamed. "Thank goodness. The way you came through the roof like that, you really scared me."

Zack looked up. The ceiling was patchy and full of holes anyway, but he could see a fresh one right above them where he had obviously made his entrance. "Sorry. Is the priest around? I'll apologise."

"You nearly died falling all that way and you want to apologise for it?" She stared at him. "Who are you?"

"I'm Zack."

She squinted. Her body language was still cautious. Abruptly she came to some sort of decision and held out her hand for him to shake. "There isn't any priest. This church isn't used anymore. It's abandoned."

"So what are you doing in here?"

She flicked her eyes at the floor. "Looking after the flowers."

Zack looked at his feet and realised with a start that he had missed the obvious: a patch of garden in the middle of the floorboards. Some were crushed where he and parts of the ceiling had fallen on them. He looked again, realising that the entire church was studded with greenery. Tendrils of ivy crawled over the pulpit. Honeysuckle covered several pews. Climbing roses stippled the walls where the plasterwork was coming away. The lectern had big green leaves and even bigger pink blooms covering every inch. The choir stalls were home to vines and other things beyond his limited ability to name. How had he missed it all before? Things didn't grow below the Plate. Most of the food was patterned soya mixed with the cheapest grains Midgar could import since they couldn't afford proper meat, fruit or vegetables.

"I'm Aerith," said the girl, reminding him why he hadn't noticed the greenery before. Zack was a SOLDIER, trained to notice his surroundings and note any discrepancies as a matter of survival, but she had somehow made him forget his training. Or maybe he had a concussion. Yeah, a concussion would be better. The last thing he needed was to go all googly-eyed over some girl while his was still on duty.

"Did you do all this?"

"No." She shook her head. "They grow all on their own. But I helped plant them." She smiled. It lit up her whole face.

Zack was sucker-punched. He wasn't used to the feeling and didn't know how to deal with it. Damn it, he was eighteen, a war veteran, and sounded like a stupid twelve year old whose hormones were just waking up! Flummoxed, he stuttered, "I, uh, gotta go –"

"Oh." She looked disappointed.

"I was, uh, chasing someone up on the walkway when, uh …" He hesitated. If by some miracle she hadn't realised he was from Shinra, he didn't want to give her an excuse to look at him with the disgust of all slum-dwellers. "I have to go."

"But you're hurt –"

"I feel fine. Just great. See?" He turned a somersault to prove it. He didn't know why, but it seemed like a good idea. He even added a flourish on the end. Angeal would admonish him for showing off like that. What was wrong with him? "Right as rain."

"But you fell …" She looked up at the ceiling and then back at him. He expected her to call bullshit, but amazingly she didn't. Instead, she looked a little relieved. "If you really have to go, I guess you'd better go."

A kernel of disappointment crimped his brain. Impulsively, he stepped towards her. When she didn't back away again, he blurted, "I need to repay you for looking after me while I was KO-ed. How about," he flourish his index finger, "one date?"

She looked shocked. "A date?"

"Sure. You, me, wherever you want to go, me footing the bill at the end: a date. So how about it? Will you let me say thank you?"

"I, uh …" She was clearly flustered. "I guess so."

"Cool! Do you have some paper? I'll give you my cell phone number."

She was wearing a small bag strung across her front. From it, she extracted a notebook of the kind waitresses used to take orders. She had slid a pencil between the metal spirals at the top. When she handed it to him he saw the words 'orders to be fulfilled' and names with neat lines through them underneath. Next to each was the name of a flower. He jotted his cell number at the very bottom along with just his first name, which he underlined twice. Before handing the notebook back, he added the words 'guy who fell through ceiling'.

"In case you forget and wonder who I am."

"I don't think I'll forget you." She accepted the pencil and notebook. "Zack, the guy who fell through my ceiling and owes me a date."

Despite everything – his crappy day, his constant worry about Angeal, his loneliness, his apprehension for the future – Zack grinned and gave a mock salute as he dashed away through the giant double doors at the front of the church.

"And I always pay my debts."

To Be Continued ...

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