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Cloud wove through the Sector Six Slums deftly, for all that he walked with a bit of a limp nowadays.

The muscles were fine, but Shinra had not been overly concerned with the finer points of his nervous system once Cloud had declined to consent to 'experimental treatments'. If he had signed the forms, Shinra would have taken care of him. Set him up with a high-quality prosthesis and healed him to the fullest extent possible with their technology and Materia.

However, by that point Cloud had seen too much. He knew that the words on the contract were only worth the ink that had formed them. So he had taken the crappy prosthetic they had grafted for him, his meager belongings, and had been medically discharged from the Shinra Infantry less than three hours after he had woken up in Midgar.

Less than forty-eight hours after his life had gone to shit, but that was okay because they gave him some glossy pamphlets that would 'see you through your transition back into civilian life, sweetheart'.

Cloud had never really possessed a desire to punch a woman in the throat, but he had quickly learned that there is a first time for everything.

Cloud had left Nibelheim with a pathetic few amount of belongings, most of which had not survived his tenure in the Infantry. By now his personal belongings consisted of a few toiletry items, a change of clothes, and the blanket his great-grandmother had quilted when his Ma had been born.

It had been a fickle stroke of luck that had landed his first fix-it job- apparently growing up poor in a rural town was good for something- and the semi-consistent stream of jobs had been what kept him going. It allowed him to keep sending money back to his Ma, though he never wrote anything about his squad mates or his job anymore.

Knowing that he had proved everyone in Nibelheim right- that he had wasted all the sacrifices that Ma had made to raise him alone like she had- was probably the deepest wound. Nothing could rip his beating heart from his chest and twist it quite like the knowledge that Ma had sacrificed everything for naught. The definitive knowledge that he was absolutely inadequate and that he was better off dead than returning to Nibelheim a cripple still stole the breath from his lungs some nights. It was a dull knife to the gut and a shrapnel wound in his soul whenever he really stopped and thought about how utterly alone he was now.

No squad mates to lean on. No Ma to make everything right. No Tifa; because Cloud could not rescue anyone, he knew that for a fact now. No Nibelheim, unpleasant as his childhood had been the base of Mt Nibel was still his home. Knowing that he absolutely could not return was an unpleasant, unexpected, and uninvited heartbreak.

Now it was just him, his mostly-useless body, and the quagmire of human suffering that was life Under the Plate.

Cloud's breaths began to quicken and he instinctively started to edge away from the main streets, just in case.

The shiny, laminated pamphlet that had come with his discharge packet had warned of 'possible violent outbursts' from 'damaged persons'. It had actually said that. 'Damaged persons'. As if Cloud and those like him had somehow become something lesser. Less human, less worthy.

Cloud pressed his back against a tin wall in an alleyway- instincts honed more from living in the Slums than his time in the Infantry- scanning the alleyway for any possible unfriendlies before he braced his good arm against his knee and let his head loll forward so he could breathe. Blond hair framed his face as the young man tried to bring the shattered pieces of himself back together just enough to make it through the next few hours.

This was his life now, this progression of dying by inches. Fading away in this cesspool of broken dreams. Unravelling further with every step he tried to make towards recovery, redemption, or release.

It had been nearly two years since everything had changed. Cloud had turned twenty down here. Hell, by the calendar he was nearly twenty-one. Yet he felt as if had not taken a single step past eighteen years old, seven months, and nineteen days.

Sometimes I think that the SOLDIER who pulled me out from under Trembly's body and made sure I made it back to Midgar is the cruelest bastard ever to grace the Planet.

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Aerith planted her hands on her hips determinedly as she inspected the errant wheel of her cart. She had brought her mother's shopping cart on her errand to Wall Market and now she deeply regretted that choice. At the time her mother had asked, though, all Aerith had been thinking was that going to the Church to retrieve one of the carts Zack and Angeal had made her would have nearly tripled her errand time.

"Do you need some help?" A quiet, softly accented voice asked from a bit to the left and behind her.

Aerith whirled around, her hand moving to her staff out of habit. There were other people milling about, passing by quickly as they went about their business, even on the quieter side-street she had managed to baby the cart down. The person who had called out to her was a blond man with the brightest blue eyes she had ever seen on an unenhanced person. His light blond hair hung down to his chin in front and was tied up in a mid-level tail in the back. He dressed in what she suspected were Shinra surplus Infantry clothes, dangerous things to be wearing in the Slums. Then she noticed that his left arm was neatly tucked against his side under the shirt, leaving the shirt sleeve empty. The toolbox he was carrying actually had a harness and was attached to a chain that hung front his belt; as opposed to being carried in his right hand, as she had assumed at first glance.

Then Aerith realized that she had been rudely staring at someone who had offered to help her.

"I'm so sorry!" She gushed as she clasped her hands in front of her and offered the man her most sincere smile. "I wasn't meaning to be rude!" She babbled quickly. "It's just-"

"The arm. Or the clothes." The man replied wryly in that smooth, calming voice. A small, sad ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. "It's alright. Happens a lot."

"Actually." Aerith cocked her head to the side and took another small step towards the man. "I was surprised you offered to help." She amped up the charm in her smile and injected as much cheer as she could into her next words. "I've been here near an hour already, and you're the first one to acknowledge me! I had to make sure you weren't a crazy person, you see!" Aerith added a sage-like, silly nod at the end of her statement and grinned brightly. "But I like you, so that's that!"

The man arched a blond brow at her and his let out sort of a breathy half-chuckle, half-sigh.

Aerith pouted. She bet he was adorable when he actually smiled! She wanted to see it!

The man walked towards the cart steadily, though there was a bit of a hesitation in his steps at one point, and kneeled down by the errant wheel, deftly disengaging his toolbox from its place on its chain as he did so. The blond fiddled with a few things and then hummed lightly, opening his toolbox and searching for a tool.

Aerith wandered closer and bent over his shoulder so that she could see better. The man stiffened, instantly uncomfortable.

"Could you please move a little more to the side?" He asked politely as he shifted a knee under the cart and began to use the tool he had procured on the wheel's fastenings. "Sorry." He added after she obligingly shifted. "It just bothers me to have someone right behind me when my hand's busy."

It makes him vulnerable. Aerith realized suddenly, feeling positively horrible for making such a kind stranger feel uncomfortable. "Nonono- I'm sorry!" She blurted out guiltily, wind-milling her hands in front of her as she tried to express how sorry she was for being so incredibly rude.

The blond gave her that sad half-smile tug on his lips thing again. "It's fine." He assured her as he shifted and replaced his leg with a small, collapsible jack from the bottom of his toolbox. It had a few extra additions that Aerith assumed the blond had made himself, but she did not dare ask after how rude she had already been to poor guy!

The next few minutes passed in silence. Well, as much silence as being on a side-street in the Slums ever allowed. Eventually the man shifted backwards a bit and gestured to the cart. "I'm going to keep my tools out until you push it and let me know if it's working alright."

"Ok!" Aerith chirped brightly, bouncing a bit on her toes from her place by the cart's front handle and resisting the nearly overwhelming urge to wrap the man up in a fluffy, warm blanket and smother him in hugs. "Oh, wow!" Aerith exclaimed, green eyes wide with surprise as she tested the cart's mobility. "It's never rolled this smoothly!"

"It'll do, then?" The blond asked softly, tilting his head back a bit so he could see her properly.

"Oh, yes!" Aerith gushed happily as she wheeled the silly thing in circles a few times, marveling at its smooth handling. "Thank you so much!"

"It's no problem." The blond demurred, packing up his tools with his good hand before snapping his toolbox shut and reattaching the harness to the chain attached to his belt.

Aerith gasped. "But it is! I had no idea how I was to get everything home alright!" Aerith wheeled the cart closer and fixed the blond with the pleading look that always got Zack or Angeal to cave to her whims. "And I don't have enough gil to thank you properly-"

"It's really not-"

"-so you should come back and have dinner with my mother and I!" Aerith finished, ignoring the man's interruption blithely as she continued to use her eyes to beg. "Please? You were really nice to me and I want to make sure you feel properly appreciated!"

The blond hesitated, resisting.

So she upped the ante and tried out her 'kicked puppy' look. (She was totally attempting to channel Zack, really.) "Please?"

The blond hesitated a bit more before sighing gustily and capitulating. "If you're really set on it." He murmured lowly, his eyes glancing down and to the left.

Success! Aerith crowed triumphantly in her mind as she began babbling cheerfully and steering the man back towards the Gainsborough home. The brown-haired young woman did stay on the man's left, hoping it would make him more comfortable even though he was essentially her gently coerced hostage at the moment.

Meh, semantics.

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Feel free to leave me a note on your way out~!

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