Another chapter is here!

sdphantom10: lol

Kazeshuriken: Thank you!

Enjoy!

Denzel strained not to drop the watering can that was bigger than his head as the water drizzled from the nozzle at the end, sprinkling it over the parched ground that darkened as it drank it down. At present he stood on the lower section of the garden, watering the center patch of golden flowers. With the light peaking from above and the water surrounding them, though he was told not to drink or touch any of it, it was easily one of the prettiest homes in Midgar—let alone the Slums.

"Let's go, Denzel," Mrs. Elmyra said from across the fence, on the top section divided by an angled platform. There were dirt stains on her apron from wiping her hands on it. "Mister Reeve will be here soon. We need to get cleaned up."

"Yes ma'am," he said, leaning back the watering can so it didn't overflow and drown the flowers. She had told him to be careful with that when they first started. There were so many flowers that it took close to an hour to take care of them.

Denzel still wasn't sure why Mr. Reeve Tuesti called himself Richard Reeve when he came down here, but he had been told to go along with it on their way down. He had been nervous coming down to the Slums after what his father had told him about it being dirty and polluted, and that people had to eat rats. But this was the only place that flowers grew in Midgar, and Mrs. Ruvie wanted real flowers. By helping here he could learn more about how to make them grow on the surface plate, where there was more sunlight and cleaner water.

He followed her inside of her two-story home and washed his hands while she placed her apron in a dirty clothes basket. He was in the process of drying them with a towel when he noticed a wooden staff. It looked a bit old and dinged.

"That was my daughter's practice staff," Mrs. Elmyra said as she approached in her green dress. "I made that from an old broom handle so she could practice how to defend herself when she didn't have the arm strength to use a metal one."

"Did it help her?" he asked.

"I imagine it has in her journey, but…." Her expression turned bittersweet for a moment, a longing look like he saw on Mrs. Ruvie at times. Then it went away as she put back on a smile for him. "Anyway, take a seat at the table and I'll make you a snack before you head back."

He did so and, minutes later, he was eating a sandwich and drinking a glass of water. The latter had a nice flavor to it. "Is this water special somehow? It tastes good."

"It's the same water that we use to water the flowers," she said, a proud smile forming on her face. "Faucet water contains too many chemicals, and the rainwater around Midgar is unhealthy because of the runoff from the reactors. My daughter made a purifier when she was about your age so that she could grow flowers and we've used it ever since for cooking and drinking as well. She was a gift to me, even if it came at a price."

This Aerith girl sounded like a really great person to have done so much around his age. Denzel couldn't help but wonder if he would be capable of helping Mrs. Ruvie grow her flowers if it took someone who was special to do so.

"So what did you think of your time here?" Mrs. Elmyra asked as she sat down across from him at the table and took a sip from a cup. "It wasn't too hard, was it?"

He shook his head. "It's a really nice place and the flowers are pretty. I never thought it was like this below the plate."

"Most people who live above the plates avoid coming below it like there's a plague spreading around down here, so that's to be expected." She set the cup down on the table and set her hand on her lap. "No one knows better than those who are being discriminated against how others perceive them. Given how jumpy you were at first, I'll bet that you were told stories about how scary it was to be down here, weren't you?"

Denzel had the decency to at least look apologetic at that. His head fell low. "I'm sorry if that was rude of me."

Her eyes remained gentle. "It's fine. I won't say it's completely safe when it isn't. You do need to know how to take care of yourself down here, more so after that tragedy done by Shinra's lapdogs."

He figured she meant the plate being dropped and frowned. Denzel remembered the destruction he had witnessed, the embers and smoke rising up from the fallen plate where his parents had been. The soldiers there had told him that AVALANCHE was responsible. "Those terrorists were the ones who dropped the plate, weren't they?"

"That's a lie," she said immediately, no doubt in her voice. "They weren't saints and they have a lot to answer for, but Shinra holds the blame for that. Even now they take advantage of those who they victimized by drafting them into their army to use as tools."

Denzel then recalled the words about bombs being set by Mr. Arkham, and what he said as the plate fell. Was it true then? Were the people his father worked for the ones who ultimately led to his parents being killed?

There was a knock on the door before he could get the answer. It was Mr. Tuesti. "Hello, Elmyra. I trust things went well?"

"Yes. He was a big help." She walked into the kitchen briefly and came out with a bundle of flowers. "I'm almost heartbroken to have to give him back to your mother, but I'm not that selfish."

"I'm glad he wasn't any trouble." He gestured for Denzel to come to him. "I'll repay you for the favor somehow. If there's a particular type of meal you would prefer, I think I could make a reservation—"

Her eyebrows quirked in partial amusement as she broke in with the question, "Are you asking me to dinner?"

"Ah, I meant it as a gesture of goodwill but I suppose it did sound that way." He looked somewhat embarrassed or sheepish at being called out on it as Denzel looked between them.

"I'll consider it. It has been a long time since I've eaten something at a restaurant…" She crouched down and handed Denzel the flowers that had been bundled up. "Give my regards to Mrs. Ruvie."

He nodded. "Thank you for watching over me and the flowers."

Their partings words said, Mr. Tuesti escorted him back onto the train and they rode in the front compartment back up to where his mother lived. It was there, when they were alone, he asked the man, "Mister Tuesti, was Shinra responsible for what happened to Sector 7?"

The man in question looked around to be certain that they were alone. "Did Miss Gainsborough tell you that?"

He nodded. "She said they did it and they were taking advantage of the other people by putting them in their army. Does… does that mean the people responsible for what happened to my mother and father were his bosses?"

The old man took a deep breath. "Unfortunately, yes. Heidegger and the President came up with the idea and went through with it before anyone could stop them."

Denzel found the flowers in his arms trembling at the confirmation. His mother had gone back because she wanted to help her friends and neighbors, and his father went to get her. "But my father and Mister Arkham worked for them, and they knew it was happening. Does that make them—"

"Your father wasn't a bad person," Mr. Tuesti assured him. "Neither was Mister Arkham. They sound like honest men who worked for bad people. The ones in charge are responsible, but I'm working on changing that. However, it'll take time and you can't tell anyone—not even my mother."

The boy nodded silently as the train continued to rise up above the plates, where the evening sun hung high in the sky.

[-oOo-]

Elena yawned as she finished documenting the time that Reeve left the house of the Ancient from her perch, binoculars in hand. From the casual way that they were interacting, it seemed as though they were acquainted, something she would also note. It was probably innocent, maybe an arrangement for her to have flowers delivered to the orphanage that had been recently built, but she had been given orders to observe and document everything she could.

Sadly, it was probably the most exciting thing that's happened in the time she had been assigned to watch over the Ancient's adoptive-mother for any activity that could be used to pinpoint her location. Her superior, Tseng, assured her that it was an important task. He said that she would be the most suited for it. But, after so many days, she was starting to wonder if it wasn't because she was in the way after her failure in Costa del Sol.

The others had succeeded in what they were supposed to do except for her. The traitor was shot and hopefully dead by Tseng's hands. There had been enough blood that it would be a close-call, but they had no confirmation so far. Hojo had been retrieved alive, if in a coma with no signs of waking up anytime soon, and Heidegger was still being an abusive asshole to the new recruits and looked at the Turks like something he would scrape off his shoe.

Not her though. She had been too slow to grab the Ancient and barely managed to get away before she had been cut in half by that huge sword. They shouldn't even make things that big. Well, at least she hadn't been fired yet.

Elena missed being in contact with her superior. He was on a mission to escort Scarlet, the Head of their Weapons Development department, in investigating several locations where Huge Materia could purportedly be found. In light of her machine being destroyed, which she mocked Heidegger's incompetence for behind his back, she wanted to use the materia to create an ultimate weapon that could be used to defeat both the traitor's group and Sephiroth after they had both attacked the Cargo Ship and Costa del Sol.

That woman rubbed the newest of the Turks the wrong way. She was haughty, rude, impractically dressed, and had a stupid laugh. The Turks at least used violence as a last resort and operated on a purely professional level, addressing all of their superiors with respect, whereas she practically got off on the chance to hurt people and put her own standing in the company above its wellbeing.

As for Reno and Rude, they were doing… something in the main building. She wasn't really clear on the details. She could only hope that they were doing what they were supposed to do instead of lazing about and wondering when they could take a vacation. Honestly, sometimes it felt like she and Tseng were the only motivated ones.

About an hour after Reeve left, the priority target headed to the Wall Market. Elena followed, dressed down in order to blend in and not draw any attention to herself.

The Wall Market was normally crowded, but with Sector 7 destroyed the number of vagrants loitering around had increased by a few hundred, begging for loose Gil. Since the only ones who could apply for the Shinra armed forces had been men of a moderate age and level of fitness, those that were too old had been left behind. Women who at least looked somewhat decent and had low moral fiber could go to work at the Honeybee Inn, but likewise those that couldn't were left without much either.

The children probably had it the easiest since Reeve had managed to get the current president to remodel the manor, where the deceased Don of the Wall Market had once lived, into an orphanage. He used the pragmatic basis of showing that the company is still sympathetic to their problems, at a time where good PR was a necessity. Tseng also backed him, but that was on the principal that it could also serve to scout out potential recruits.

Elena was still a bit upset that she got stuck ridding the sewers of that giant rat, sealing up the entrance to the dungeon, and ensuring that there were no more skeletons in the closets. It had to be handled quickly, quietly, and in secret—the job of a Turk. It still stunk and took her hours to wash the stench out.

Her tailing came to an abrupt end when a couple of rugrats bumped into her and one of them dropped a pot of some kind. The child with the bandana looked up at her and shouted, "Hey that was my mother's!"

"You bumped into me," Elena said bluntly. "You should have been watching where you were going."

"Meanie!" He tugged at her shirt, joined by a few other kids that circled her and called her the same thing. "Meanie! Meanie!"

Elena resisted the urge to shake them off since she knew it was likely a scam. It would draw even more attention if she did. Better to pretend to be a rube than drawing eyes to her when she specifically didn't want that. She thrust a decent amount of Gil at them to get them out of the way. "Here, buy a new one!"

They took it and ran, but when she turned her head she found that her target was gone. She frowned at the thought that Tseng was going be upset with her.

[-oOo-]

Elmyra doubled back home the moment that her tail had been distracted, closing the windows and blinds before heading to her bathroom. There she set her purse on the bathroom counter and pulled out an envelope and phone. While those children hassled the woman that had been following her, another child approached her and stated he was paid to give her the phone and letter by a man lingering in the shadows of one of the buildings. She vaguely recognized him from the time that he had come over with the others before her daughter left.

Her fingers trembled when she read the front of the envelope containing the letter, from her daughter and addressed to her. It had been so long since she had seen Aerith's face or heard her voice that she had been worried that something had happened to her. She couldn't help but rush back home without finishing her shopping. She opened the envelope and the letter read:

Dear Mother,

I hope that this letter reaches you, unlike the last ones I wrote for Zack. He said that he would deliver it and he hasn't disappointed us yet, so I'll have faith that it'll be your eyes only that find it. I have so much I want to talk to you about, but there was only so much time to write down my thoughts. It'd be easier if they weren't scrambled after what happened last night, but I think I'll tell you what we've been up to.

After we left home, we went to Kalm. It was my first time leaving Midgar, so I was a little more than excited. The countryside hills surrounding it were absolutely gorgeous and it was the kind of place you mentioned that you would have loved to have lived in.

Then we had to cross the marshes south of it on Chocobos that we caught ourselves and learned to ride with Mog's help. The one I had was sweet and brave, but… but he didn't make it. It was sad to watch, but the others kept me safe as we made our way to Junon.

Oh, and we met a new friend before we crossed the ocean by sneaking onto a ship and ended up in Costa del Sol. I got to wear a swimsuit and played on the beach for awhile before we left. I'm getting ready to leave Cosmo Canyon now, but I learned a lot about my heritage here and met Zack's parents. You know the SOLDIER that I had been close to until he disappeared….

I also learned about my birthfather. His name was Professor Gast Faremis. He worked for Shinra but helped my birthmother escape after they fell in love. They were happy until Hojo found them and… he tried to protect us, but they were armed….

I know I'm brushing over things quickly and leaving out a lot of the details. I just don't want to worry you when this is the longest we've been apart. I haven't contacted you sooner since Shinra probably bugged your phone and are watching you—and be careful around Tseng and the others too. I thought I could trust him before, but then he… just be careful. If I lost you too, I don't know what I would do.

I'm running out of space, so I'll just say that despite all the different places we've seen and visited, I miss our home. I miss the flowers in the garden. And most of all, I miss you, Mother.

I miss hearing your voice and seeing you smile. I miss the food you cooked for me and my room. I miss it all, but I have to put the Planet before myself. I have a duty to fulfill and I'm the only one who can do it.

The others are helping to keep me safe, but it's still hard. I've watched them get hurt for my sake more than once. I'm afraid that one day one of them will die and it'll be my fault, but I have to do my duty as a Cetra no matter how much it hurts, otherwise the Planet itself may be in trouble.

I hope that I'll be able to send another letter sometime, or that he'll deliver one from you to me. Please take care of yourself until then.

With Love,
Your Beloved Daughter.

Elmyra's eyes fell onto the last part and noticed the darkened spots near the signature, tearstains. Some were hers as she read the letter, knowing that her daughter was troubled but safe, but the older ones were definitely Aerith's. It had been hard for her to put it all down into words, but Elmyra could tell that she was pained by the fact that she not only had to give up her old life to follow her heritage, but that her companions were at risk of dying.

She wanted to be there for her daughter, to console her like any mother should. The man who delivered the letter must've understood that much as well. She was willing to bet that was what the phone had been for, an untapped line for them to communicate with one another.

Elmyra went through the phone and found there was a single number in the contact list. She pressed the "Call" button and held her breath as the other end rang. It rang and rang and rang, her heart pounding with mixed feelings of hope and worry.

Then the line connected….