Aerith did not expect anything to be out of the ordinary today. She thought it would be like any other day, spending most of it working with Elmyra before heading down to the church to check on her flowers. There weren't very many of them yet, and most of them were sickly looking, but she was determined to get the whole hole in the floor of the church covered in them.

She walked through the doorway, the doors having long been taken and used for something else, and froze, eyes wide. "I- I'm sorry," she stuttered to the two men in uniforms staring at her, one reaching behind his back threateningly. "I'll c-come back later. Y-yeah, l-later sounds g-good." Aerith turned to bolt.

"Wait!" one of the men called out.

She should have kept running. She knew she should have kept running. But for some reason, some strange inexplicable reason, she didn't. It might have been the desperation in the man's – they were just boys, really – voice, it might have been the knowledge that they could probably catch her anyway. It might have even been a nearly silent plea sent to her by the Planet to stay, but the thought was almost laughable. The Planet wouldn't care if she met these two boys or not.

"Oh, you're staying? Good, I didn't want to scare you away or anything," the black haired boy said with a slight smile before glancing over his shoulder and rubbing the back of his neck. "Well, what I mean is, you don't happen to know any medical stuffs, do you? 'Cause I don't have any materia on me, and they really don't teach this stuff in basic training, and I think they should, and I wonder if Spiky knows it, but he's kind of the one messed up, but it's really not his fault, 'cause I kind of grabbed him and all. And I'm sorry about the hole in the roof, and I think we landed some plants, and I'm sorry about that too, and…"

All Aerith could do was wonder if the boy had five lungs.

The other one, the one with the helmet who had been reaching for a weapon when she came in, beckoned her forward. She hesitated, but quickly decided that anyone who was with the boy who was still rambling couldn't be that bad. Hopefully.

She edged around the one who was blabbering, and somehow he didn't notice she had gone, because he kept talking. It was kind of cute, in an oblivious sort of way.

As soon as Aerith had followed the helmeted one a few steps, she paused. There was a younger boy on the ground, this one with bright yellow hair. For a moment she felt a spark of anger because he was on her flowers, but when he didn't get up she realized something was wrong.

She knelt down beside him, glancing up at the helmeted head before reaching out to touch the boy's forehead. It wasn't hot or anything, he wasn't sweating, and it didn't look like there was blood anywhere, so Aerith couldn't think of any reason why he would be unconscious. His limbs were all in the right place, there were no bends where there weren't supposed to be, and she couldn't see any bruises. That didn't mean much, considering clothing covered most of his body, but it wasn't like she was going to check.

"Is he going to be fine within an hour or so? I'm Kunsel by the way, and I'm sorry about this, really."

She looked up at the more mature of the two boys conscious, Kunsel, and frowned apologetically. "I'm sorry, but I don't really know. I mean, he doesn't look hurt or anything, and he doesn't have a fever, so there's no reason he should be unconscious. People don't just get knocked out randomly!" she growled, blushing slightly when the taller one was startled out of his trance or whatever he was in and turned to look at her. She mumbled more quietly, "It might help if you told me what was going on before this happened."

And with that the one with black hair started blubbering again, while Kunsel knelt down next to her and the unconscious one. "This one is Cloud, and that's Zack," he explained softly, jerking a thumb behind him. Zack dragged us up on the roof, and we fell through." Here Kunsel raised his visor and pointed to his eyes. "Zack and I have mako, so we were alright, but Cloud here…" he shrugged, lowering his visor quickly.

Aerith's eyes grew wide, and she looked up. First at the ceiling, where there was a newly made large hole, then at Kunsel and Zack. "You- you're SOLDIERS? I'm sorry, I have to go." She hurried to stand up, and yelped when she felt a gloved hand on her arm. She glanced up through her eyelashes, surprised to see that Zack was the one holding her in place.

"Please don't go," he begged, amazingly serious compared to his previous self. "We won't hurt you. We're just normal people. Well," he paused, a smirk sparking across his face. "Our eyes are wonderful, aren't they? The color of the sky."

Aerith looked up cautiously, curiosity getting the better of her. Zack's eyes were entrancing. Bluish lavender, with little veins of a glowing green running through them. "That's what the sky looks like?" she murmured, reaching up to try and get a better look before checking herself, blushing as she lowered her hand again.

"Yep," Zack replied proudly, ignoring Kunsel's little snort of incredulity. "The color of the sky, well, mostly anyway. I mean, there's not much green, and less purple, but still. Wait a sec, you've never seen the sky?"

"She lives below the plate, Zack," Kunsel interjected. "All she sees when she looks up is tarnished metal."

"Well, yeah, but…"

"Maybe you should spend less time looking in a mirror and more time finding a brain."

Aerith giggled quietly, not wanting to disturb them from their arguments. They were such bright people. She hadn't known SOLDIERS could be so silly.

"Shut up," someone moaned, drawing their attention to the floor. The young one – was his name Cloud? – had woken up, apparently, and very obviously did not appreciate his companions' bickering. Aerith had no clue how these three were friends.

Zack fell to his knees at Cloud's side, literally tripping in his rush, and proceeded to be himself. "Spiky, you're alive! Well, I knew you were alive because you had a pulse, but still, you're not going to die! I won't have to lug your comatose self around for the rest of my life! Wait, you don't have amnesia again, do you? 'Cause that would really suck if you forgot me, and I wouldn't even be able to blame Seph this time. No, you have to remember me, because if you didn't it would be my fault, and I couldn't live with that!" By now the black haired SOLDIER sounded desperate, his eyes wide as he was grabbing Cloud's shirt and yelling in his face. "No, Spiky, please forgive me! I swear I'll do nothing like that ever again, unless it's an accident, but this was an accident too! I'm sorry! I'm sorry I'm so so so sorry."

Aerith watched, slightly worried, as Cloud opened his eyes and jerked back, reasonably startled by the frantic face about three inches from his. "Wha? Zack?" he croaked, raising an arm to shield of the non-existent source of light.

"The roof broke when Zack dragged us up there," Kunsel explained, prying his older friend off of Cloud. "You don't have mako, so you were more affected by the fall. This girl," he paused, gesturing to Aerith, who gave a shy smile. "arrived soon after and was helpful in diagnosing you and calming Zack down. Her name is Aerith."

Cloud blinked at her, looking confused. Judging from what Zack said about amnesia, though, the boy had a history of head injuries. It could be that he was sensitive to them and they left him lightheaded for a while.

Just then Aerith felt a pulse race through her body. Her hand went up to her head and she jolted, her body straightening. Her vision flickered, but she could still see enough to tell that the three of them were staring at her with concern, and then…

Nothing. Her sight cleared, the strange energy was gone, and she was back to normal. She couldn't see or feel anything that had changed.

"Um, Miss Aerith, are you okay?"

She blinked once before shaking her head. "No, I'm fine, Cloud. It was nothing."

Suddenly Zack's face was right in front of hers, scarily close. His eyes were narrowed to an intense degree, and she jumped back when he frowned. "Z-zack? What's this all about?"

Then Kunsel was in front of her, warding off the other SOLDIER. "No, she's fine, Zack," he growled, obviously annoyed by his enthusiastic friend. "I'm sorry about him, Aerith, truly," he added in a gentler voice, glancing over his shoulder at her while calming Zack down. "It seems you've entered his 'circle of protection'. He has this habit of adopting people, like he did with Cloud. It's really not healthy because then he starts freaking out if he thinks they've been harmed, and that could get someone killed on the battlefield. I'm trying to train him out of it, really, but he's not the easiest to control. He doesn't mean any harm though."

"You are fine though, right Aerith? I mean, it would probably be my fault if you weren't, then I would feel super bad 'cause we wouldn't be here if it weren't for Spiky being hurt, and that's really my fault too. Oh, Spiky! You are fine, and remember everything and stuff, right?"

It appeared that Zack was quite a handful, even on the best of days. She felt sorry for Kunsel. Yet, seeing the black haired boy acting like a mother chocobo was somehow endearing.

Soon after that they left. Just as Aerith was about to leave herself, she noticed a glinting among the crushed greens. She knelt down, careful to avoid wrecking any more of her flowers, and picked up the object. The only thing she was wondering as she left, was why the SOLDIERS would be carrying around a miniature silver wolf's head in the first place.

A shadow flitted over the orange shingled roofs. Had there been any onlookers, they might have noticed the occasional spark of red in the blurred mass, but there were no witnesses, and no reason any one would look on the roofs. After all, no sane person would spend there time in the already hot Costa del Sol on top of a platform that belonged in an oven. Then again, no one had ever claimed Vincent was sane.

Plans had changed, for the worse. Since Cloud had not answered, Vincent did not reveal the situation to Cid, and was forced to believe the worst. Not only that, but it seems even the transaction did not go as planned, though luckily his own Chaos kept the other one under control. However, he did not know how long this situation would last, nor if Aerith could do some damage control and send the rest of it along, though he did not know where it would end up if she did.

Either way, something was changing, he could feel it. He would proceed to Midgar as planned in case of error, though it may be a minor one. It could be that Cloud's phone hadn't arrived yet, and that was why he hadn't gotten the message yet, but Vincent couldn't help but feel it was something more sinister, something that could be disastrous, not only to their plan, but to the fate of the planet. Maybe he wasn't as aware of the planet as Cloud, and maybe he couldn't guide the Lifestream like Aerith could, but there was one thing he could do.

He would make sure the plan proceeded, regardless of who got in the way.

Dreams of the Morrow, Chapter 16: Shut Up. 2,027 words. Updated June 11, 2012.

My birthday was two days ago.

I'm not telling how old I am.

Bye!