Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/224327.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/M
  Fandom:
      Final_Fantasy_VII
  Relationship:
      Zack_Fair/Aerith_Gainsborough
  Character:
      Zack_Fair, Aerith_Gainsborough
  Stats:
      Published: 2006-06-28 Completed: 2006-07-09 Chapters: 5/5 Words: 27685
****** Peace of the Garden ******
by Miko
Summary
     Zack gets more than he expected out of a week of leave.
***** Chapter 1 *****
Only one in four green troops survived a month on the front lines in Wutai.
Perhaps half of those remaining would make it through a year. But once you'd
survived a year, or so the saying went, you were golden - until you got tired.
Physical exhaustion was common in the trenches, but this was a different kind
of 'tired'. This was a weariness of the soul, when you'd been fighting for
months on end without a break and no chance at leave any time soon. Shinra was
short on troopers these days; they'd already lost too many in the war and there
was no end in sight. The initial rush of patriotism or bravado that had
prompted people to sign on at the beginning had long since faded, and
conscripted troops tended to be little more than cannon fodder. There just
weren't enough of them for them to be granted any kind of extended leave, no
matter how weary they got.
Tired troops made sloppy mistakes, and tired officers made stupid decisions.
There was a direct correlation between the attrition rate of a given squadron
and the length of time since their last leave. Once that slippery slide got
started, all you could do was hang on and pray you'd be one of the few who made
it through somehow.
Zack had always been good at beating the odds, though his luck had come at a
high price this time. Two weeks ago his CO had stepped on a materia landmine,
and Zack had led the remainder of his beleaguered squadron to safety despite
heavy enemy fire. He'd earned himself a medal, a field promotion to 2nd Class,
and the personal attention of General Sephiroth.
And, thanks be to all the gods, a whole month back at HQ. Granted the majority
of it would be taken up with training to master his 2nd Class enhancements, but
he had a little more than a week before he was scheduled in the lab and he
intended to enjoy every last minute of his leave. He wouldn't get another
chance any time soon.
So he'd hopped the first available airship back to Midgar, crashed in his tiny
little room in the 3rd Class barracks, and slept through most of his first day
back. The rest of it had been occupied in eating something that had actually
been cooked properly and a long, long soak in the nearest bathtub.
Now he was clean, fed, and happily unoccupied. The only thing that would have
made his day more perfect would have been a lack of uniform; he'd discovered,
much to his dismay, that he'd completely outgrown all his non-Shinra issue
clothing while he'd been away. It was nice to know that he'd finally put on a
bit of height and muscle, but at the same time he would have liked to shed the
uniform he'd been living in for a year now.
Oh, well. He'd just have to buy some more. He had the better part of a year's
worth of hazardous duty pay burning a hole in his bank account, he could
certainly afford it. And it would give him something to do while he wandered.
The one thing he did regret was his decision to come down under the plate. The
weather up top had been miserable, icy rain making the streets slick and
dangerous, so he'd headed down into sector 6. What he hadn't accounted for was
the reaction of people down here to his uniform. Shinra wasn't terribly popular
with the people who lived cut off from the sun and weather, slowly starving to
death and grubbing about to try to make a living in the dim twilight world.
Even in sector 6, where so many of the troops stationed in the city came to
spend their money and free time, civilians still edged away or even crossed the
street to avoid a man in SOLDIER uniform.
Tomorrow would be different, once he had some jeans to wear. The glow in his
eyes would still give him away to anyone who knew what to look for, but not
many people paid that sort of close attention to a stranger on the street. For
now he'd just stick to the main streets and shop idly for clothes.
At least, that was the plan, until he caught a whiff of an elusively familiar
scent. He paused right where he was, standing in the middle of the sidewalk
with the flow of foot traffic swirling by on either side of the obstruction he
made. Flowers, he finally identified. Not the heavily perfumed tropical plants
he'd seen in the southern regions of Wutai, but something more subtle than
that.
Lilies, he thought, and maybe roses too. His mother had kept a flourishing
garden in their backyard, and he'd learned quickly as a kid not to ever tramp
through the plants there. Lilies and roses had been two of her favourites, and
the scent made him just a little homesick. The weird part was smelling them
here in Midgar, a city where nothing green grew for miles around, let alone
under the plate where there was no sunlight.
It could have been a perfume, of course. There was enough cheap perfume in the
air of sector 6 to drown a chocobo, especially for the enhanced senses of a
SOLDIER. But those same enhanced senses told him that this smell didn't carry
any of the chemical tang he associated with even good quality perfumes; it was
the real thing, or else the best damned approximation he'd ever encountered.
Turning slowly, he sought the source of the scent, his eyes wide. He almost
missed it, but a flash of white caught his eyes and he turned back in time to
see a girl about his own age hand a lily to a giggling young couple. She smiled
at them, and damned if his heart didn't skip a beat. He'd always thought that
was romantic tripe, but there was something about her smile that made his whole
world pause for just a moment.
He tried to catch her eyes, but she turned away before he could manage. He
walked after her, trying to lengthen his stride so he could catch up to her
without running and making a scene.
Despite the fact that Zack didn't have to fight the tide of sidewalk traffic
thanks to the way people avoided him, he couldn't seem to reach her. She didn't
look like she was actively dodging, and people certainly weren't going out of
their way to let her through, but somehow she just naturally slipped right into
the flow of people and made it work to her advantage. Unfortunately the lily
she'd given away had been the last in the basket she carried over one arm, so
he couldn't even hope for her to stop to sell another one.
She obviously knew her way around the area, because her steps never hesitated
as she left the bright streets of the entertainment district and headed into
the maze-like passages of sector 5. Zack followed, doing his best not to lose
sight of her in the twisting corridors.
Before he could make up his mind whether or not to call out and try to get her
attention, she glanced over her shoulder and saw him behind her. "Uh, hey," he
started, not quite sure how to initiate a conversation under these
circumstances.
To his dismay her eyes flicked to his uniform and went wide with surprise and
something painfully close to fear. The expression lasted only a moment before
it was replaced with determination and indignation. "I don't think so," she
said firmly. And then she took off running.
Startled, Zack cursed and chased after her, not even stopping to question why
he was pursuing someone who so obviously didn't like SOLDIERs. He'd had a lot
of people look at him with fear since making 3rd Class, and it had bothered him
in a sort of general way, but this was the first time he'd actually been upset
because someone was afraid of him. The vague thought in the back of his head
was that he wanted her to smile at him like she had at that young couple, not
look at him with fear and anger.
"Wait!" he called, struggling to follow her path and she ducked and wove among
the debris. They seemed to be in a back alley system, with junk left over from
construction of the plates scattered everywhere and turning it into a strange
metal jungle. Following her in this mess was every bit as difficult as tracking
a Wutai ninja through the forest.
If she heard him she showed no sign of it, vanishing around a sharp corner.
Zack took the turn a moment later, and pulled up short. There were four
different paths branching off from here, and there was no sign of her on any of
them. He studied each one carefully, looking for some clue, and finally headed
down the one with the nearest bend in the path. The others ran straight for a
good hundred yards, and he couldn't imagine how she could have gotten out of
sight that quickly if she'd taken one of them.
He ran, knowing she'd probably gotten a significant lead on him while he
hesitated. Under ordinary circumstances he'd have been astonished that a normal
girl could outrun a SOLDIER, but he'd been forced to go slowly for fear of
rounding a turn and finding himself with a face full of rusted iron spikes, or
something.
Once again he was forced to skid to a halt as he came around a second bend.
There was nothing but a solid wall of junk, with no openings large enough to
accommodate anything bigger than a cat. "Odin take it," he swore, frustrated.
How had she vanished like that?
He turned to go back, and hesitated as his instincts told him he wasn't alone.
It was the same instinct that had gotten him through the mine field in Wutai,
so he wasn't about to ignore it. Scanning the area, he searched for a possible
hiding place. "Look, I just want to..."
Something hit him in the chest and exploded in a cloud of white dust. Reflexes
honed by far too many surprise attacks had him lashing back without even
thinking about it. He'd left his sword in his room, but he wasn't stupid enough
to go down to the lower city without his bracer.
Lightning licked out in the direction the attack had come from, the Bolt 3
spell racing along the metal walls of the cul-de-sac. Too late Zack remembered
that he was chasing a civilian, not an enemy fighter - and a third level
elemental spell might very well kill her.
With a hoarse shout and a wrenching effort he pulled the energy of the spell
off course, turning it back on himself. The blast was magnified by the extra
energy he'd had to put into it to divert it, and it left him reeling. Panting,
he dropped to one knee, bracing himself with one hand on the ground and glaring
upwards. "Ramuh's beard, lady, don't you know any better than to attack someone
who just came off the front lines?"
She was above him, balanced on a piece of corrugated sheet metal braced by two
leaning girders. His words drew a bit of repentance from her expression, but
mostly she still just looked indignant. "You brought it on yourself," she told
him firmly. "Chasing me like that. You can just march right back to Shinra and
tell them that if I wouldn't go with the Turks, I'm certainly not going to let
a SOLDIER haul me off."
"Say what?" Zack blinked, feeling like he'd missed an important part of the
conversation somehow. Why would the Turks be interested in a flower girl? She
was a bit young for them to be recruiting her for their own ranks, and anyway
they wouldn't have a use for someone there against her will. But surely she
couldn't be a SOLDIER candidate? Except for the Turks, Shinra was a decidedly
misogynistic environment. If there were any female SOLDIERs, Zack had never met
them.
"I'm not going with you," she repeated, but her determined expression was
slipping into a puzzled frown. "You don't have any idea what I'm talking about,
do you?"
"Not a clue," he agreed, looking up at her. "I just got back from Wutai
yesterday. I'm on leave, despite the uniform."
"Then why were you chasing me like that?" she demanded.
"I just..." It sounded stupid in his head, to say that he'd been hounding her
because he wanted to see her smile again. He flushed, grateful his skin was
dark enough not to show a blush easily. "I saw you with the flower. I haven't
seen anything green within a twenty mile radius of Midgar. Where did you get
it?"
Now even the frown was softening, and she sighed quietly. "I grow them," she
told him. Which still didn't tell him how she'd gotten them to grow, unless
she'd come in from Kalm just to sell them.
Cool blue energy washed over him, and the worst of the pain from the Bolt spell
faded. "I'm sorry I attacked you," she told him when he blinked up at her in
puzzlement. "But you shouldn't just chase strange girls around, you know," she
added with an impish expression. "We have to know how to take care of
ourselves, living down here. If you want a flower, you'll have to come back
another day. I'm all out."
She turned to go, and Zack scrambled to his feet. "Hey, wait! At least tell me
your name!"
Looking back over her shoulder, she smiled at him. It was every bit as pretty
from this angle as it had been when he'd seen it on the street. "Aerith." And
with that she was gone, dropping down into another passageway out of sight.
"Aerith, huh?" Looking in the direction she'd gone, Zack shook his head. She
was without a doubt the oddest girl he'd ever met.
And now he had to make his way back to HQ to get changed, and would doubtless
be hounded by anyone who saw him covered in white dust. By nightfall every last
private and paper-pusher in Shinra was going to know that a flower girl had
successfully ambushed a 3rd Class SOLDIER, and he was going to be the
laughingstock of the base for a while.
Brushing the worst of it off him, Zack laughed to himself. He could take a
little ribbing; he certainly dished it out often enough that it was only just
that he bear the brunt of it for a while. It was worth it, he decided. Not only
was she beautiful, she had enough spunk for three people. How could he not be
fascinated?
He already knew he wanted to see her again. If he had to spend his whole week
lurking in sector 6, hoping to run across her again, he would. With luck he'd
be able to be a little more direct than that, though. Normally he wasn't the
sort of guy to go skirt chasing any time he had a chance, but he was willing to
make an exception.
More than a few people gave him odd looks on the train, and there were muffled
snickers from behind him. Zack couldn't blame people for laughing; when he
caught glimpses of himself in the reflection of the windows, he looked a
fright. Hades, he was surprised the littlest kids weren't fleeing him in terror
or something.
It was still raining above the plate, and Zack made no particular effort to
avoid getting wet this time. He was hoping the water would wash some of it off
him before he got back to the base; the less of it he was wearing, the less
teasing he would have to take.
Running a hand through his hair, he grimaced at the feel of it. The white crap
didn't seem to be washing off, rather it was clumping together and turning into
a thick sort of paste. Hopefully it wouldn't be too difficult to wash out.
The gate guards gave him astonished looks, but were constrained by their duties
not to say anything. Everyone else inside was another matter entirely. There
were snickers from the troopers, desperately stifled lest Zack decide to take
offence and heap punishment duties on them. The commissioned officers and other
SOLDIERs weren't so polite, laughing outright at the sight of him.
"Holy fucking Bahamut, what happened to you?" a 2nd Class Zack knew vaguely
exclaimed as he walked into the locker room. "You look like someone tried to
turn you into a snowman or something!"
"Would you believe it was divine retribution from a pissed off angel?" Zack
replied, laughing and shaking his head. "I was following a pretty girl, trying
to catch up to her, and apparently she thought I was stalking her or something
so she ambushed me." He'd already decided not to give too many details of the
way Aerith had implied that someone in Shinra was after her, not until he had a
better idea of what was going on.
"I'd say her answer is 'no'," the other SOLDIER chuckled and clapped him on the
shoulder. He made a face as he realized he'd just put his hand in a clump of
the stuff. "Hey, do you realize this stuff is hardening?" he asked curiously.
"It's what?" Surprised, Zack prodded at some of it that was clinging to his
arm, and swore. "Hellfires, it's plaster!" he yelped in dismay. "I thought it
was just flour or something!"
Quick-drying plaster, at that. The thinner layers of it had already started to
harden, and he didn't think he was ever going to be able to wear this uniform
again. Tugging at his hair, he confirmed that it was starting to dry there,
too. If he didn't get it out fast, he was going to have to cut it out.
Swearing creatively, he stripped out of his uniform as fast as humanly
possible, listening to the others in the room laughing their asses off. Leaving
his clothes in a puddle of fabric and plaster on the floor, he kicked open his
locker, grabbed his shower kit and bolted for the showers.
"Maybe she admired your pretty face so much she was trying to make a statue of
you?" someone called after him, and there was more laughter.
"Hey, who wouldn't want to be able to admire my stunning features every day?"
he shouted back, his words somewhat muffled by the spray of water he was
standing under. "I'll get you a copy if you want!"
The funny thing was that he wasn't even angry with her. Admiring would be a
more accurate word for the way he felt right now. She'd not only managed to
ambush him, she'd done it in a way that wouldn't hurt him, but that slowed him
down and left him embarrassed to teach him a lesson. If it hadn't been raining
he wouldn't have had much trouble, but then maybe if it hadn't been raining
she'd have used something else. He had the feeling she was the resourceful
type.
And how many people would ever dare to do something like this to a SOLDIER? She
had a lot of nerve, that was for sure.
Most SOLDIERs never settled down; they gave various reasons for it, usually
citing the fact that they moved around too much or that their jobs were too
dangerous, but the truth was that most normal people were afraid of them. Even
the ones who worked with them on a regular basis and seemed outwardly
comfortable with them tended to have a subtle hint of fear lurking in the backs
of their eyes. They were different, alien, and people feared that which was
different. Who could face having their wife or girlfriend look at them like
that?
Tugging a hard lump of plaster free, Zack winced as some of his hair came out
with it. Despite the pain he was still grinning. Somehow, he didn't think fear
was going to be a problem with this girl. Staying on his toes and keeping
himself in one piece was more likely to be a priority, but that would just make
it interesting.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Zack had a lot of friends in some odd places. He made a few discreet inquiries
of the people he knew in the Turks, and the answer had surprised him. "Aerith?
Man, you don't want to touch her with a ten foot pole," one of them had told
him. "You'd be better off forgetting you ever heard the name."
So it seemed she did have reason to be wary of Shinra personnel following her
home, though he still hadn't been able to discover why. Rather than stirring an
apparent hornet's nest by asking more questions, Zack decided he'd be better
off going straight to the source.
His second excursion under the plate was considerably less stressful than the
one the day before, largely due to the jeans and sweater he'd bought after
going back to barracks to clean up. He'd needed them more than ever after the
plaster she'd pelted him with. His uniform had been a total write-off.
Wearing casual clothes and with sunglasses to hide the glow of his eyes, he got
a much warmer reception from the natives of sector 5. He'd started there since
that was the direction she'd been heading in, and it was easier to find locals
than it was in sector 6.
It didn't take him long to hit paydirt. Most of the people he spoke to
recognized her name, and the few that didn't all realized who he meant when he
described her as 'the flower girl'. Apparently she was popular and very well
liked, and she did indeed live in sector 5.
Oddly, though, everyone seemed reluctant to tell him where she lived within the
sector. Well, that probably wasn't surprising if the Turks really were after
her. He got a few sly winks and nudges from older men when he asked about her,
but no real information.
Finally he found a younger boy who didn't seem to realize that it might be a
bad idea to tell strangers about his 'big sister with the flowers'. "Sometimes
she's at home, but mostly she's out selling flowers," the boy told him
earnestly. "She doesn't usually leave until later, though. You can probably
find her at the church!" He pointed in the direction of sector 4.
"In a church?" Zack repeated, surprised. With the advent of manufactured
materia and the ability to summon the gods to do your bidding, religion was
something that became a bit less compelling. Few people bothered to worship any
more, especially in the big cities.
The kid nodded. "Yeah, she spends lots of time there. You can't miss it,
there's not much else still standing in that area."
Ah, now he understood. The church was in one of the many areas beneath the
plate that had been abandoned by its inhabitants when they realized how
difficult life without the sun would be. Those areas were run down at best and
dangerously hazardous at worst, and not many people went in them. Monsters
tended to roam the streets, for one thing.
"Thanks," he said, and headed in the indicated direction with a wave over his
shoulder for the kid.
He quickly found himself in one of the worst areas he'd ever been in. The boy
hadn't been kidding when he said there wasn't much still standing. The church
stood out in the distance, in what had probably been the centre of the town
until it was absorbed into Midgar.
Zack had to fight off two monsters just to get near the place, and he couldn't
imagine how she managed to go back and forth every day. Granted she'd done a
pretty decent job protecting herself from him, all things considered, but she
couldn't lay plaster ambushes for every monster in the district.
Once outside the church he hesitated for a moment, looking at the leaning door
and the partly smashed stained glass windows. It wasn't hard to figure out that
this place must be a kind of private retreat for her. Probably somewhere she
felt safe. If the people of sector 5 had been reluctant to tell Zack where she
lived, they hadn't even mentioned the existence of the church as a possible
place to find her. She might well resent him for intruding, especially
considering the terms they'd met on the first time.
Shaking his head, Zack pushed his doubts aside and strode forward. He'd always
been the kind of person to just go for what he wanted and ignore the nagging
doubts that tried to hold him back. If not, he'd never have even left home, let
alone become a SOLDIER.
The floorboards creaked horribly with every step he took, so he didn't make any
effort to be quiet as he entered. Not that he could have anyway, wearing heavy
combat boots. Despite the noise and their age the boards didn't seem to be in
any danger of collapsing beneath him, at least.
The centre of the church in front of the altar was an open space, and growing
in it was nothing short of a miracle. The field of yellow and white flowers
spread over the floor for all the world as if they were in a sunny meadow
somewhere, not seeming to care about the lack of sun or water or nutrients. He
stopped short in the aisle and just stared at them.
"I was wondering when I'd see you again." Zack started and glanced to one side
of the field where Aerith was rising from a crouch, a small trowel in her hand.
"I didn't expect it to be so soon, though," she continued when he couldn't find
his voice immediately. "You must be very persistent to have found me here."
"You recognize me out of uniform?" he asked, pushing his sunglasses up to look
at her in surprise. When it came to SOLDIERs most people, especially civilians,
tended to look at the uniform rather than the person wearing it. As a result,
SOLDIERs in civvies could often pass unrecognized even by people who saw them
on a semi-regular basis.
"Of course," she said, tilting her head to one side and giving him a thoughtful
look. "Besides, who else would be coming to find me with big noisy boots like
that? You walk too heavily to be a Turk, and too smoothly to be a trooper."
"I don't have any other shoes," Zack said, feeling oddly defensive. "I outgrew
my dress boots while I was gone, and I didn't bother buying any sneakers
yesterday." He'd tried a few pairs on, but after so long living in his combat
boots, sometimes even sleeping in them, anything else had felt uncomfortable
and awkward.
"That's right, you said you'd just come from the front," Aerith nodded, and her
eyes gentled. Her expression wasn't pity; Zack would have resented that,
because he didn't need anybody's pity. It wasn't exactly sympathy, either.
Empathy, maybe? "Is it very bad out there? They don't tell us anything here
except for crowing about the 'glorious victories' we seem to have every other
day."
Grimacing, Zack shook his head. "It's bad enough. If there've been any glorious
victories, I sure missed out on them. I guess Shinra has to keep its investors
satisfied that we're making progress."
"But that's not something you want to talk about while you're on leave," she
said wisely.
"Not really, no," Zack admitted with a rueful grin. "I... are those touch me
lilies?" Diverted by the sight of the familiar big, heavy blossoms, he moved
towards them with wide eyes. "They are! Wow, I haven't seen any of these since
I left home!" He cupped one of them around the stem at the base of the flower,
careful not to get any pollen on him. The lilies were named for the fact that
it was their pollen, picked up by the sticky skin of the frogs when they
brushed by the flowers in the wild, that caused the touch me's odd and
sometimes dangerous effect. Zack had been frogged more times than he cared to
count as a kid. It was a very strange sensation. As far as he knew, they didn't
grow anywhere else outside his homeland.
"You're from Gongaga?" Aerith asked curiously, and Zack nodded.
"Yeah, I ran off when I was thirteen, came to Midgar to make it big as a
SOLDIER," he told her. "Haven't been back since. I really need to get around to
writing to my parents one of these days, to let them know I'm still alive and
kicking. How did you get these to grow here? Never mind the fact that none of
these should be growing here. My mom tried for years to get touch me lilies to
grow in her garden, and she never managed it. They don't like being
cultivated."
"I'm not cultivating them," she told him with laughter in her eyes. "I just
watch over them, they don't mind that nearly as much. They don't like being
told where they are and aren't allowed to grow, or how big they're allowed to
get."
It sounded like the usual sort of animism many gardeners indulged in, including
his mother. But somehow when she said it like that, Zack almost believed she
was speaking literally.
"So did you want a flower, then?" she asked, and now the laughter had migrated
to her voice. "You must be terribly eager for one, to have tracked me down
instead of just waiting for me to go out this afternoon. Which one would you
like?"
"I..." Zack looked from her to the flowers and back, and a sheepish expression
crept onto his face. If he just took the flower, then he wouldn't have an
excuse to be here any more, and he found he was really enjoying himself.
"Actually, I came to see you. The flowers are just a bonus."
Finally the laughter escaped her, a soft sweet sound that left Zack utterly
entranced. Her eyes sparkled when she laughed like that, almost bright enough
to rival a SOLDIER's. "So you're willing to admit it," she said with a warm
smile. "SOLDIERs really are brave. Well, you've seen me. Now what?"
"Uh..." Zack's first instinct was to ask her out for lunch, or some other way
of getting her to go out with him so he could get to know her. Instead, he
found himself looking out over the little indoor field. This was her territory,
the place where she felt happiest and most at home. What better place could he
find to learn about her? "Can I help with the flowers?"
Her smile warmed further. "Right answer," she told him, and the impish look was
back in her eyes. "But I hope you really mean it, because I will put you to
work if you stick around."
"Heavy labour, huh?" Zack asked, and she nodded. He grinned at her. "Point me
at it. Trust me, it'll be a nice change from digging latrine trenches or
hauling crates of supplies around." Or other, far less pleasant tasks, like
burial duty or going out to drop grenades on an enemy position. Or, worst of
all, going out to fight and kill people face to face.
Maybe she read some of what he was thinking in his eyes. Or maybe she just
really was that empathic, because her smile turned sad and she reached out and
touched his arm. If he hadn't been watching her so closely he would have missed
the tiny flinch she made at the contact. Frowning, he caught her hand with his
and asked, "What's wrong? Are you really so frightened of SOLDIERs that it
scares you to touch me?"
The thought was disturbing on more levels than Zack could understand. But she
was shaking her head, smiling again as she squeezed his fingers in hers.
"No, it's not that," she assured him. "I was only frightened when I first saw
you because I thought... well, it doesn't matter, because I was wrong. It's
just the mako. I've never been this close to a SOLDIER before, I hadn't
realized how strong it would be."
"The mako?" Zack repeated, baffled. She just nodded, as if it should have been
self explanatory. "You can feel it?" He'd encountered a few SOLDIERs 1st Class,
Sephiroth in particular, who carried a sort of energy field with them just from
the amount of mako that had been introduced to their systems. Usually only
other SOLDIERs could pick up on it, attuned as they were by their own
enhancements, but there were rare people with a talent for magic who could
sense it as well.
He already knew she was a mage, she'd shown that when she'd healed him
yesterday. Theoretically anyone could use materia, but it took a certain native
ability to be able to handle the forces contained within the spheres. But he'd
never heard of anyone being able to sense the mako in a 2nd Class SOLDIER, let
alone a 3rd.
"Man, if you're flinching away from me, don't ever get close to a 1st Class,"
he warned her, shaking his head in awe. Was this why the Turks wanted her? Hojo
would surely love to get his hands on someone with this kind of ability to
sense mako. And, from what little Zack knew of the man, he probably wouldn't be
all that careful in how he treated her while studying the ability in an attempt
to replicate it.
She saw the comprehension in his eyes, and nodded. "You understand," she said
softly.
"Yeah," he agreed. "Don't worry. You're safe with me. And if the Turks give you
trouble, you let me know. Even they don't like messing with a SOLDIER unless
they have to. I'm Zack, by the way," he added somewhat sheepishly as he
realized he still hadn't told her his name.
Laughing, she tugged her hand free. "You're assuming I'll see you again after
today," she pointed out with a smile to gentle her words. "Let's see how much
you want anything to do with me after I put you through your paces today."
Grinning again in response to her laughter, Zack swept her an elaborate bow.
"My lady's wish is my command."
True to her word, she worked him hard. He spent most of the morning prying up
the pews that were bolted to the floor nearest to the garden, careful not to
damage the floorboards beneath too much. He carried them outside to dump them
on one of the many piles of broken wood that had once been buildings, then came
back to scrub the floor. There was surprisingly little grime; she must have
cleaned regularly to keep the church in such good condition. Then he used
plaster to fill in the holes left by the bolts.
By the time he was done all that, his internal clock was telling him it was
well into lunch time. "I don't suppose you'd let me buy you lunch," he called
over to her where she was working among the flowers. "Either way, if I don't
eat soon I'm gonna collapse."
"Hmm, only if you don't like home made food," she said, smiling at him as she
sat up and dusted her hands off. Standing, she made her way over to the side
where her handbasket sat, and drew out a large box covered in a folded cloth.
"I had a feeling this morning that I should pack enough for two, even though I
didn't expect you to track me down here."
"Uh..." Zack eyed the box dubiously. He'd been burning a lot of energy, and the
drawback to the accelerated metabolism that allowed SOLDIERs to take more
damage was that they also required more food. Plus he was still a growing
teenaged boy. Even if she'd packed enough for two by normal standards, he'd
probably be able to eat both their shares and still be hungry.
"Don't worry, there's plenty," she assured him, patting the floorboards beside
the garden where she'd settled. "If it's not enough, then I'll take you to
lunch," she promised.
"I won't hold you to that," he said, giving in with a laugh as he walked
towards her. "You haven't seen how much I can eat."
There was plenty of food, though. There were large pastries filled with meat,
vegetables and a rich broth, the crust flaky and perfect. Sandwiches with
various kinds of meat and toppings were unpacked next, followed by two sealed
containers of still warm soup, one of which was significantly larger than the
other. And most amazing of all, two large, crisp, juicy apples that looked like
they'd just been plucked from the tree.
"All of this is fresh, except the meat," Zack marvelled, eyes wide as he turned
an apple around in his hand. "The apples alone must be worth hundreds of gil."
Fresh fruit was even more difficult to come by in Midgar than flowers, and the
only people who got fruit this perfectly ripe were the ones who could afford to
have it flown in on a daily basis. "Are you just that rich, or do you have an
orchard hidden away somewhere as well as the flowers?"
"Just one tree," she told him with another little laugh. "Outside my bedroom
window. The rest of it comes from my garden at home. And before you ask, I
didn't make any of this. I grow the food, my mother cooks it."
"Well, she's an even better cook than my mother, and that's saying something,"
Zack said after swallowing a mouthful of pastry. "And you can tell her I said
so!"
"Mmm, I would, but I don't think she'd be happy to hear that I spent the day
with you," Aerith replied, a bit subdued. "She worries. Even if I didn't tell
her that you're a SOLDIER, she'd fret." Her smile this time held a mixture of
exasperation and fondness. "She still thinks of me as a little girl, I'm
afraid. I keep trying to tell her that I'm fifteen now, I can take care of
myself."
"I know that feeling," Zack agreed sympathetically. "I love my parents more
than anything, but they were kind of stifling. Granted, looking back on it now,
I was a bit too young to go haring off to Midgar by myself, but it worked out
well enough."
"Why did you leave? Why SOLDIER?" she asked, curling up with her feet tucked
under her to one side, looking as if she was genuinely interested.
"Eh... all the usual childish reasons, I guess," Zack admitted, rubbing the
back of his head with one hand. "Glory and honour and pride. Dreams of heroic
battles, saving the girl, defeating the evil monster, that sort of stuff. A
pair of SOLDIERs came in to help take care of some of the nastier monsters that
cropped up, and I followed them around all week. Skipped my classes, got a
serious tongue lashing from my mom, but it was worth it." She smiled, and he
grinned. "After that I had so many stars in my eyes I could hardly see the
ground I was walking on. Two weeks later I left home for Midgar, and nothing
anybody said could have stopped me."
"Is it everything you hoped it would be?" she asked playfully.
For a moment Zack's gaze went distant, and he swore he could hear the screams
of the dying echoing in the church, smell the horrible stench of burned and
rotting human flesh that clung to everything. "No," he said shortly, more
abrupt than he'd meant to be. Taking a deep breath, he hauled himself back to
the present and gentled his tone. "No, not really. They leave out all the less
pleasant stuff on the recruiting posters, you know? And I don't think it's what
anyone could expect, without having already experienced it first."
"I'm sorry," she said, laying her hand on his arm again. This time she didn't
flinch. "I promised not to remind you and then I go and do it anyway."
"Nah, it's okay," he shrugged her concern off, though he made no move to get
out from under her hand. "There're good things too. And the war won't last
forever - sooner or later somebody is going to run out of fighters. In the
meantime I'm here, I've still got most of a week of leave, and," he recovered
his grin and winked at her, "here I am sitting around when lunch is done and I
promised to be your slave for the day. What's next?"
"Oh, now, wait a minute," she protested, laughing. "I don't remember anybody
saying anything about being a slave for the day. If I'd known I had that much
authority, I'd have been more... creative with my orders."
He blinked at her, trying to decide if she'd actually meant that in a sexual
context or if his poor hormonal teenaged brain was just spinning its wheels.
She smiled sweetly back at him, as perfectly innocent as a baby, and somehow
that didn't convince him that he was imagining things. He already knew she was
a bit of a minx, and nobody was as naive as she looked like she was right now.
"Well, like I said, your every whim is my desire," he replied after a moment,
and he was grateful when his voice came out light and not husky. "So, what's my
greatest desire at the moment?" She giggled, one hand over her mouth, her eyes
sparkling at him.
"Apparently your greatest desire is to haul soil around," she informed him,
still giggling. "I've got a big stack of bags in the back that a friend
delivered for me. Will you spread it out over the area you just cleared? The
flowers have been getting so cramped lately, they want to spread out."
"As you wish," he said, jumping to his feet with a flourish. She giggled again,
and he headed towards the door that led to the back of the church.
That explained one thing, anyway, Zack thought as he started ferrying the bags
of soil into the main room. If she shipped in good soil from somewhere outside
Midgar's range of lifelessness, she could probably keep a garden going as long
as she replenished the soil every so often. Even if you brought living things
in from outside, Midgar slowly drained them to nothing, but it did take time.
Though it still didn't explain how the plants could be flourishing with a total
lack of sunlight. He knew apple farmers back in Gongaga who would give their
left arm to produce apples like the one he'd just eaten.
Aerith was back among the flowers again, humming to herself just loud enough
for him to hear it as she worked. Or maybe she was humming to the flowers; that
would fit everything else he'd noticed about her. Hades, for all he knew, the
humming was her substitute for sunlight. Whatever it was, it was working.
Once he had all the bags in the main room, he grabbed the top one and carried
it to the edge of the current garden. A quick look confirmed that she'd spread
a thick layer of rich, dark soil over the floorboards for the flowers to grow
in. Well, if she sold her produce as well as her flowers, she could probably
afford to have the stuff shipped in.
Thinking he'd solved at least part of the mystery, Zack tore open the bag and
upended it at his feet. The cloud of dust that rose to engulf him caught him by
surprise, as he'd been expecting damp rich soil. Coughing, he backed away from
the pile, waving his hand in front of him to try to clear the dust. She was
giggling again, though she wasn't looking at him.
"Uh..." Surveying the pile of dirt as the cloud settled, Zack frowned. "Aerith,
I hate to break it to you, but you got gypped," he said, going to one knee and
running a hand through the dirt. It was dry and lifeless, little more than
powdery dust. "This is Midgar soil. You can't grow a weed in this crap, let
alone a flower."
"I wasn't cheated," she replied placidly, petting the plant in front of her. "I
didn't pay anything for it."
"Well, that's good, because nothing is about how much it's worth." Zack was
obscurely disappointed. He'd actually been looking forward to helping her
expand such an amazing miracle of a garden. It was nice to be creating life for
a change, instead of taking it.
"Just spread it around until it's about two feet from the edge of the cleared
area, just like this side," she replied, and he gaped at her.
"What? Aerith, this stuff is useless," he protested. "You'd just be taking up
space that you could use for better soil later."
Glancing over her shoulder at him, she smiled. "You said my every whim was your
desire," she pointed out, eyes bright again. "This is a whim."
Looking from her to the dirt and back again, he finally shrugged. "You're the
boss - or should I say mistress?"
"Hmm, 'mistress', I kind of like the sound of that," she said, tapping her chin
with a mock-thoughtful expression. "I'll consider it. I might come up with a
better title, but that will do for now."
Laughing helplessly, Zack shook his head and went to empty out the rest of the
bags of dirt. Maybe it was just make-work to see if she could drive him off -
though why'd she'd had the bags on hand, he couldn't figure out. Well, if it
was, she'd have to try harder than this. Hard work or not, he couldn't remember
the last time he'd had this much fun in a day. The scent of flowers filled the
air, her soft humming was sweet to the ear, and best of all, the company was
fantastic.
Spreading the dirt around proved to be more difficult than doing it with soil
would have been. The crap was so powdery that it puffed up into dust clouds at
the slightest provocation, and once in the air it was so fine that it just hung
there, refusing to settle again. Zack tried to avoid walking through it as much
as he could so he wouldn't spend the afternoon constantly coughing, but it was
hard to manage.
The whole time Aerith spent puttering among her plants, aerating the soil,
watering, and just generally paying attention to the flowers. Zack's mother had
always sworn that plants grew better when they were loved; if it was true, that
was at least part of the explanation for why these ones were flourishing,
because Aerith loved them like they were her kids.
Because he had to go slowly to avoid losing half of it as dust in the air, by
the time Zack was finished he was getting hungry again and he knew it was late
afternoon. "All done," he declared, stepping back to the clear space around the
edge and surveying his work. The area was criss-crossed with his boot tracks,
but he couldn't really have avoided that. He'd managed to spread it fairly
evenly.
"Good job," Aerith applauded him as she came to stand beside him. "And thank
you. It would have taken me days to do all this."
"So, does that mean I can take you out to dinner as a reward for good
behaviour?" Zack asked her shamelessly, grinning.
Tilting her head, she smiled and asked, "You're used to being considered a
charmer, aren't you?"
"Yeah," Zack agreed without remorse. He'd always been easy-going, and most
people seemed to like him without him making any real effort at it. He
generally made friends as easily as breathing. He gave her an exaggerated
hopeful look. "Does that mean it's working?"
"Hmmm, maybe," Aerith said, her eyes laughing at him again.
"Maybe is good," Zack declared. "Better than 'no', that's for sure. Do I get to
take you to dinner?"
"Not this time, I'm afraid," Aerith shook her head. Maybe Zack was just being
optimistic, but it sounded to him like she was genuinely regretful. "I need to
go out with the flowers, since I didn't do it this afternoon. I'm our primary
source of income at the moment."
"Well, will I see you here tomorrow, then?" he persisted. Something told him
not to offer to go with her tonight; he'd been pushy enough for one day,
tracking her down here.
"Tomorrow?" she repeated, seeming surprised. "I'll be here, in the morning
anyway. But surely you've got better things to do with your leave than grub
around in my garden. You said you only had a week."
"Better things like what?" Zack asked, shrugging. "Beside the fact that I still
want to convince you to let me treat you to dinner at some point, I wasn't here
long enough to make friends outside the military before they shipped me off.
Pretty much everyone I know is back at the front. Grubbing around in a garden
sounds pretty damn appealing, actually; it's nice to be creating something for
a change."
It was the last part that had reached her, Zack was sure of that. She gave him
her soft smile again. "Well, you're welcome here any time, then. Even if I'm
not here. This place was meant to be a sanctuary; it can be that for someone
other than me and the flowers."
"I might just take you up on that some day," he told her with another smile.
"Is that it for the day, then?" He still didn't understand how she was planning
to plant anything in that crap, but it was her garden. She obviously knew what
she was doing, or the existing plants wouldn't be flourishing.
"Just one more thing," she said, turning back to the patch of bare dirt. She
lifted her hands, and a green materia flashed from the bracer Zack hadn't even
noticed she was wearing. Green energy welled up around her and forced him to
take a step back to avoid being caught in the magic. After a moment she
redirected it towards the garden, and he watched as it settled over the dead
soil and sank into it.
Right before his eyes, the dry powder turned darker and clumped together,
forming clods of earth. The dirt drank in the magic like a dried up sponge
dropped into the ocean, soaking it up greedily. When the energy of the spell
faded, the open space was now covered with thin but viable soil.
"You... what was that, Life?" Zack asked, astonished. "You can use healing
magic on inanimate objects?"
"It's not whether the target is inanimate or not that matters, it's whether it
has life or not," Aerith told him solemnly. "Soil isn't lifeless. At least,
it's not supposed to be. The earth here in Midgar is dead; all the life has
been sucked out of it. Healing magics help a little, but I have to renew them
constantly. I wish I was strong enough to cast Life 2 or some of the higher
level Cure spells. Even if I had them available, I don't have the energy. I'm
still building up my reserves."
"It takes a long time at first, but it's not a linear progression," Zack told
her absently, still staring over the soil in awe. Why hadn't anyone ever
thought of this before? Granted they couldn't exactly blanket Midgar and its
surroundings in constant healing magic; that would take every bit of mako from
all the reactors to do. But they could create small plots of farmland, bring
the food prices down a bit so the people under the plate didn't have to starve.
"Here," he said impulsively, lifting his own bracer. He hadn't needed any magic
to face the monsters on his way here, so his reserves were still at full.
Reaching for the energy of his Restore materia, he triggered the Regen spell
and turned his attention to the garden.
At that point he stumbled a bit, because he'd only ever cast healing magic on
people and didn't have the faintest clue how to make a 'target' out of a patch
of bare ground. He fought with the magic, and cursed mentally as the struggle
ended up draining more energy from him than this spell usually took. Regen was
already costly enough in terms of power used.
Finally he forced it to do what he wanted, and the dull red glow of the spell
settled over the bare earth. Sweating and struggling to keep his breathing slow
and even, he lowered his arm. "There. That should help."
"Oh, that's lovely!" she exclaimed happily, clapping her hands together in
front of her and bouncing on her toes like an eager little kid. "Thank you so
much!" Before he realized what she was going to do she'd rested one hand on his
shoulder and gone up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. She smelled like the flowers
and her lips felt oddly warm against his skin, and he had a fanciful notion
that maybe the garden didn't need sunlight because she carried it around with
her.
Oddly, the sudden move had not triggered a reflexive defensive move on his
part; for some reason his instincts hadn't interpreted it as an attack even
though he'd lashed out at people for far less than this in the past. When she
pulled away and smiled at him, he realized with shock that some of the tension
he'd carried around with him constantly for the last year had faded, leaving
him on a bit less of a hair-trigger.
"Is something wrong?" she asked in concern, seeing his flummoxed expression.
"I'm sorry, I thought..."
Realizing she thought the reaction was a negative response to her kiss, Zack
shook his head quickly. "No, no! It's just that I'm surprised I didn't put you
through a wall or something. You really ought to be a bit more careful around
people back from Wutai, especially SOLDIERs. I don't want to end up hurting you
by accident."
"You won't," she assured him, and he knew that like most civilians she simply
could not comprehend how much the war could change people. He wouldn't mean to
hurt her, but sooner or later he wouldn't be able to pull his attack in time.
Seeing the doubt in his eyes, she patted him on the arm. "It's the peace of the
church," she explained. "It's relaxing you, that's all. I'll be more careful,
though, if it worries you that much."
His answering grin was a little uneasy; the reflexes he'd developed in the war
were entirely inappropriate anywhere but in battle, but he wasn't going to be
on leave forever. He'd need those survival instincts when he got back into the
fighting.
"It will be all right, Zack," she told him again. "I promise. Come back
tomorrow, if you want to, and if you're still worried then you don't have to
come back again. I'll even meet you somewhere else, if you like."
Laughing, he managed a more genuine smile. "Careful, now. You don't want me
claiming I'm bothered just to get you to have dinner with me. Short of my leave
being cancelled, I'll be back tomorrow. You can be sure of that."
It would be okay, he reasoned with himself. Even in the unlikely event that he
somehow lost the better part of his reflexes, he had nearly a month of training
ahead of him to master his 2nd Class enhancements anyway. He'd have them forced
right back in again.
"Good," she said with some satisfaction. "I'll see you tomorrow then. Bright
and early, mind you! I'm sure you military types are used to getting up with
the dawn."
"You'd better believe it!" he confirmed. "Not that 'dawn' is all that early,
this far north and this late in the year. So I guess I'll see you then." With a
jaunty wave he turned to head out, since that had sounded like a dismissal to
him.
"Be careful on your way out," she called after him. "The monsters seem more
likely to attack in the later part of the day."
"I'll be fine," he replied, giving her one last grin as he pulled the door
open. "You be careful, too. Over confidence because you think you know the area
has been the downfall of more than one good soldier."
Her sweet laughter was the last thing he heard as he let the door close behind
him, and he headed down the broken steps with a stupid grin on his face. He
couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this sort of uncomplicated happiness.
Spending the day with a pretty girl was about all he could have asked for from
his leave time. Doing it in the middle of a small field of flowers was an un-
hoped for icing on the cake.
***** Chapter 3 *****
True to his word, Zack was there just before dawn the next day. Not that you
could tell it was dawn beneath the plates, or even whether it was day or night
at all. In the lower sectors everything was lit by the harsh glare of the mako-
powered lights above at all hours. There were plenty of people down here who
worked odd schedules because they didn't have to worry about what time of day
it was.
He actually managed to arrive before Aerith, and his steps were a bit hesitant
as he walked down the centre aisle towards the flowers. She'd said he was
welcome here even if she wasn't present, but it still felt like he was
intruding on something private.
The flowers didn't seem to be upset by his presence, at least. He'd half
expected to find that they would be closed up tight, but they were still
happily blooming away as if they didn't realize they were in a place that
should never have been able to support one flower, let alone a small field of
them.
Realizing he was now thinking about the things as if they were sentient, Zack
snorted in amusement. Aerith's casual references to the flowers' attitudes and
preferences were making his imagination work over time.
To his delight the unplanted patch of soil really was soil now and not just
dirt. Kneeling at the edge he ran a hand through it, enjoying the texture of it
against his skin. It felt rich and alive, fairly bursting with the possibility
of life.
Deciding it couldn't hurt to rake the new soil and make sure it was viable all
the way down to the bottom layer, Zack grabbed the rake he'd been using to push
the dirt around yesterday and set to work. Aerith found him there about twenty
minutes later, just as he was finishing up.
"Oh good!" she exclaimed, obviously pleased to see him. "That's exactly what I
was going to ask you to do next, if you came. Good morning."
Putting that look of happiness in her eyes gave Zack a warm feeling in his
chest, and he found himself grinning back stupidly. Boy, you've got it bad, he
told himself, but he found he couldn't bring himself to be dismayed. It was
silly to think he might be falling for a girl he'd only just met, but there was
something about Aerith that drew him like... well, like a flower to the sun.
"Your humble slave greets you well, mistress," he teased her, and she giggled.
"You're quite taken with this idea of being my slave, aren't you?" she teased
him right back. "I'm starting to wonder about you. But since we do need to get
some work done on the garden today, I must reluctantly relinquish my authority
over you. Otherwise I might get distracted thinking of more interesting orders
I could be giving you." Once again she looked perfectly innocent, but this time
Zack was sure he wasn't imagining the innuendo. She was a minx, all right.
"Well, in that case, good morning to you too," Zack replied. "I take it we're
transplanting today?" he asked, looking at the covered trays she was carrying
stacked in her arms. "Unless that's lunch, but I think that might be a bit too
much food even for me."
"I brought lunch too, but these are seedlings," she agreed with a laugh. "Help
me set them down, please?"
He took about two thirds of the stack from her, lightening her burden
considerably, and they spread them out along the perimeter of the untouched
soil. Each was labelled with the kind of flower they contained, as well as a
sketch of the garden with the section they belonged in marked off. "Where do
you even get the seeds for these?" he wondered aloud, seeing that almost none
were duplicates of the riot of flowers already growing in the other half of the
soil.
"Here and there," she answered vaguely, waving a hand. "I collect them whenever
I come across them. Several of my regular customers who travel outside of
Midgar will bring me back seed packets from other cities. They seem to find
their way to me by one route or another." She touched the petals of the closest
flower, a bright geranium, and Zack swore he could see it perk up.
"Shall we get started, then?" he suggested, looking over the trays until he
found the one that was supposed to go beside the existing flowers at one end of
the field. Picking it up, careful not to disturb the delicate seedlings within,
he carried it over to its designated area and opened the cover. Nothing was in
bloom yet, of course, and he wouldn't have known the little green shoots were
pansies if the cover hadn't said so, but just seeing something green inside
Midgar was enough to make him smile.
Zack scooped a hole in the dirt with his fingers, picked up the first of the
seedlings and gently tilted it out of its pot, careful to cradle the roots.
Placing it in the hole he'd made for it, he patted the soil back into place
around it. "Do we have any water?" he asked, looking up.
He found her already standing right in front of him with a small pail of water
in hand, smiling down at him. "You do know what you're doing," she said
approvingly. "Good, I won't have to hover over you. Do you want a trowel?"
"Nah," he shook his head as he took the pail and dipped one hand in it,
sprinkling water around the seedling in its new home. "My mom always swore the
plants grew better when she did it with her own two hands. I don't know if I
inherited her green thumb or not, but I can at least follow her advice."
The delight on her face was obviously unfeigned, and it made him smile back at
her. "Your mother sounds like a very wise woman," Aerith said, moving to select
a tray for herself. "I've found exactly the same thing."
"She'd love you," Zack told her with a laugh. "You'd better watch out if by
some chance you ever meet her. She'll adopt you as the daughter she always
wanted before you even realize what's happening. And then she'll start
matchmaking, since you're exactly the kind of girl she's always saying I should
settle down with. Actually, remind me to make sure you never do meet my mother.
She's like a force of nature when she gets her mind set on something. We'd find
ourselves married before either of us had a chance to comment, let alone
protest."
Giggling, Aerith settled into place with her tray. To Zack's surprise and
delight, she'd chosen to start right next to him instead of going to the far
end and working her way to meet him in the middle. "Oh, I don't know about
that," she said, her eyes sparkling and that impish look back on her face. "She
might think I'm the kind of girl she always wanted for you, but only if she
doesn't look farther than the surface." She winked at him, and he grinned back.
"Probably just as well that I'm not exactly ready to settle down and start
having kids, then," Zack said wryly. And let her take that as an oblique
warning; he liked her and he really wanted to date her, but if she was one of
those girls who thought everything had to be an all or nothing commitment she
was doomed to disappointment with him.
"I don't know, I think you'd make a wonderful father," she countered, and for a
moment he felt disappointment thinking she really was one of the girls who
couldn't think about anything but weddings and children. He was relieved when
she added, "In ten or fifteen years, that is. Anyone wild enough to run away
from home and join SOLDIER at thirteen isn't the type to settle down early, I
would think!"
"You'd probably be right, though I can only answer for myself," Zack agreed.
"And anyway, there's no way in hell I'd risk leaving a widow or - gods forbid!
- orphans behind. I'm not even thinking about it until the war is over, one way
or another!"
He hadn't realized how vehement he was getting until he felt her gentle hand on
his shoulder, calming him. "Sorry, it's a touchy subject," he said, focusing on
the flowers to help calm himself further. "I've already had to write too damn
many consolation letters to the wives and kids of men under my command. And I'm
going to have to write a whole lot more when I go back as a 2nd Class, because
I'll be given bigger commands."
And it was all so damn unnecessary, that was the worst part. Wutai hadn't been
hurting anyone by insisting on keeping its traditional and isolated ways, but
Shinra couldn't abide the idea of anyone not bending to their power.
"You have nothing to apologize for," she insisted, squeezing his shoulder once
before returning to her own seedlings. "It's not something that should ever
stop being a touchy subject."
They dropped it, and instead of going off on another conversational tangent she
allowed silence to fall between them. It wasn't the sort of awkward pause that
demanded attempts to fill it, and Zack was content to let it remain for the
moment. It wasn't even really quiet, since she was humming to the flowers
again. Zack wasn't quite ready to start singing to his seedlings, but he
figured they could hear her just as well as the ones she was working on
directly.
Without really meaning to he found himself timing his work so that he reached
the side of his plot nearest her at the same time she did, so their shoulders
and sometimes hands brushed together as they worked. He was sure she realized
what he was doing, and was encouraged by the fact that she neither said
anything nor changed the rhythm of her work to avoid him. If anything, she
seemed to be making an effort to make certain they met in the middle as well.
By the time they'd finished the first trays, Zack realized he was once again
happier than he could remember being in a long time. It didn't even bother him
any more that his battle-honed reflexes seemed to have vanished entirely,
allowing him to truly relax for the first time in over a year. He'd known he
was tense, but he didn't realize how tense until it was gone.
"Man, this is what leave should be like," he proclaimed as they started on the
second set of seedlings. "If I could get just one whole platoon to have a day
like this, they'd be so energized we'd win the war in a week."
"I don't think it would work with that many people in one place," Aerith
laughed at him. "The crowd would destroy the sense of peace and you wouldn't be
much better off than you started. Besides, they'd trample the flowers. How many
troopers could I trust a job like this with and not end up with more dead
flowers than live ones?"
"Probably not very many," he admitted with a wry grin. "Never thought I'd be so
grateful for all those hours mom made me spend in the garden for punishments!
Besides, I don't think it'd work half as well without the 'pretty girl singing
at your side' part, and I doubt there are thirty of you anywhere in the world."
"Flatterer," she accused him, but she looked pleased. "You never give up, do
you?"
"Wouldn't be in SOLDIER if I was the type to give up," Zack pointed out, his
grin widening. "Is it working yet?"
Laughing, she threw a handful of dirt at him in protest, and he made no effort
to dodge. Instead he caught most it right out of the air. "Thanks!" he said,
patting it into place around the seedling he'd just transplanted. She laughed
again and went back to work, and they fell into a companionable silence once
more.
Gradually Zack found they were lingering over the seedlings that brought them
closest together, spending more time on them so they could use the excuse to
touch, and it seemed the most natural thing in the world for him to curl his
fingers around hers when she announced, "We're halfway done, and if I'm hungry
you must be starving. Let's take a break for lunch."
She let him help her to her feet, and they were still holding hands as they
walked over to her basket where she presumably had brought lunch once more. Her
hand was small and warm in his, and it felt good to have it there. Zack, like
many of the guys he knew, had never really been much on handholding. It was
just one of those things that girls expected, and you indulged them in and
hoped it led to more, not something that was an end in its own right. With
Aerith, he found himself just enjoying the contact for itself.
Which was not to say that he wasn't hoping it would lead to more. He'd have
been flat out lying if he tried to claim that, and he had a feeling that lying
to Aerith would be a very good way to cause her to immediately lose interest.
He also had a feeling she would just know if he tried to lie to her. Thankfully
she didn't seem likely to ask, so he wouldn't have to choose between lying or
making her think he was only interested in getting under her skirt.
Somehow they managed to get the food laid out without letting go, and Zack
didn't mind in the least having to eat a little awkwardly with his left hand.
The food tasted even better this time, and he was afraid he might have made
just a little bit of a pig of himself. She didn't seem to mind, smiling at him
the whole time as she ate her much smaller portion.
"Doesn't your mom wonder why you need so much food?" he asked curiously.
"I told her I was meeting a friend for lunch," Aerith shrugged. "Which is true
enough, just not all of the truth. I feel bad hiding it from her, but... well,
she tries so hard to protect me, but she doesn't realize I don't need to be
protected from everything."
"That's a mom's job, I think," Zack said. "Fussing over you. I'm sorry you have
to lie to her just so you can bring me lunch. You didn't have to, you know. I
can bring my own, or go buy something."
"Certainly not." She sounded a bit indignant, but she was still smiling at him.
"Sit here and eat my wonderful fresh lunch while I make you go out for the poor
imitation of food that's available here? I don't think so. Besides, it's nice
sharing with someone who's so enthusiastic about it." She was teasing him, he
knew, but he could only laugh.
"What can I say? I'm a growing teenage boy, and your mom's a damn fine cook,"
he told her with a grin of his own. "Not to mention you're working me hard,
here. Can I help it if I end up hungry enough to eat a behemoth?"
"Then I guess it's my responsibility to make sure you get fed properly," Aerith
said. "Which means I'm definitely not going to send you off to get other food,
or make you rely on military rations. I wouldn't want you to waste away.
Speaking of work, though, we'd better get back to it if we're going to get them
all settled today! I'd hate to leave any in those cramped little pots when
there's a great big space for them to grow in."
"They'd probably get all jealous of the ones we'd already planted, too," Zack
agreed, going along with it. He squeezed her fingers and released her,
clambering to his feet.
When he then turned and offered her a hand up, she looked at it for a moment
before smiling up at him. "You're really very sweet," she declared, accepting
his hand and letting him pull her up. "I think perhaps I'll have to keep you."
Going up on tiptoe, she kissed him - not on the cheek this time, but a gentle
touch of her mouth to his.
It was over before he had a chance to really enjoy it, and he cleared his
throat as she stepped back. As much as he wanted to go after her and indulge in
a more thorough kiss, something held him back. That was the best sign he'd had
so far that she welcomed his attention, but somehow he thought he'd lose the
progress he'd made if he tried to push things further right now. "Well, I think
my CO would have a few choice things to say if I didn't turn up for duty on
time, but you're welcome to keep me as often as I have leave."
Damn it, he'd meant to say 'as long as I have leave', not 'often'. He didn't
want to imply any kind of long-term commitment. It wouldn't be fair to lead her
on, for one thing, not when he might not get leave again for another whole
year. But Aerith was smiling at him, looking pleased in a way that made him
feel a little overheated, and he forgot to correct himself.
"I guess I've got an extra reason to hope the war ends soon, then," she said.
"Presumably you get leave more often during peacetime?"
Gamely, he decided to just go with it. He'd look stupid trying to retract his
words now. And it wasn't as if he'd mind seeing her again. He just didn't want
her to end up resenting him for getting her tied up with someone who would
never have much time for her. "I'd imagine so," he replied, scratching his
head. "I can't say from experience, since the war started long before I signed
up. I hear SOLDIERs don't stay in one place much, but we do tend to have Midgar
as our home base."
"Then I'll just have to save up all the back-breaking labour for when you're
around," Aerith declared cheerfully. "For now, we've got seedlings to plant.
Shall we?" Laughing at the threat, Zack grabbed the next tray and got to work.
The second half went slower than the first, because now they weren't even
trying to pretend they weren't stealing an excuse to brush their fingers
together every time they met at the end of the rows. Zack found himself
intoxicated by the little touches they exchanged, leaving him feeling giddy and
excited. He felt like a school boy with a crush, and he hoped he'd get it out
of his system before he got back to HQ tonight or he was never going to hear
the end of it from the others. Especially if they found out he hadn't even
kissed her properly, let alone slept with her. Damned if it wouldn't be worth
the teasing, though.
Finally the last of the seedlings was safely in its new home, and he stood with
a groan. Stretching his arms up over his head, he winced as his back cracked
loudly. He might be able to take more damage than an ordinary person, but that
didn't stop his back from feeling sore after a whole day on his hands and
knees.
Aerith didn't seem any the worse for wear, but presumably she was used to it.
"So I guess you need to go sell flowers again now, huh?" he asked as she
started picking through the fully-grown blooms. "Are you ever going to let me
take you to dinner?"
"How about tomorrow night?" she asked, grinning at him when he blinked at her
in astonishment. "There won't really be anything to do here tomorrow, so I'll
go out during the day. Once the sun goes down, I'm all yours. Sound good?"
"That sounds fantastic," Zack exclaimed, delighted. "Just dinner, or do I get
you for the whole night?" Plans flitted through his head for things they could
do; dancing or a movie, maybe. Then the perfect answer struck him, and he
grinned. "Do you have a curfew or anything?"
"You let me worry about my mother," Aerith said firmly. "As long as you have me
back in time to get at least a few hours of rest before dawn, I'll be fine."
"Good." Zack's eyes gleamed. "Dress nice for dinner, but bring a warm change of
clothes with you. Preferably pants."
"Oh? What are you up to?" She gave him a curious look, but he just shook his
head and smiled. Mock-pouting, she tossed her head and planted her hands on her
hips, the basket full of fresh flowers dangling from one wrist. "Hmph! Be that
way, then. All right, I'll meet you here tomorrow at five."
"It's a date," Zack said, and she smiled again. "Don't be late!"
"I won't," she promised. "Now shoo, so I can concentrate on my work!" she
scolded him, flapping one hand at him in a 'go away' gesture.
"Yes ma'am," Zack saluted her, making her laugh again, before turning to go.
Forget about getting it out of his system before he got back, it was never
going to happen. Let the guys on base tease him tonight for the stupid grin he
was probably wearing. Tomorrow he was going to take an incredibly pretty girl
out for a night to remember, and if he was very lucky and played his cards just
right, he might even get laid. The assurance that she didn't need to be back
until late was certainly promising. What more could a SOLDIER on leave ask for?
***** Chapter 4 *****
Some day, Zack promised himself as he ran from the station towards the church,
he was going to find out which god was responsible for the days when absolutely
nothing went right, hunt down his materia and summon him, and give him a good
ass-kicking to teach him a lesson. Nobody should be forced to suffer days like
this, certainly not during precious leave time!
Only repeated reminders to himself that he had his date with Aerith to look
forward to had gotten him through the cluster-fuck his day had been. Spilling
too-hot coffee on himself and suffering burns bad enough to need a Cure spell
hadn't been the best start to the morning. Getting dragged into a random street
brawl and then having to spend hours filling out incident reports as a result
had not been how he'd planned to spend the better part of his day. And now, to
top it all off, he was going to be late meeting Aerith.
He jogged up the stairs to the church, panting a little but nowhere near out of
breath and very grateful to the SOLDIER enhancements that had let him run all
this way. If he'd had to go as slow as a normal person, he'd have been really
late.
"Aerith!" he called as he pushed the doors open and entered. "I'm really sorry
I'm late, you would not believe the day I've... huh?" He broke off and stared
as he realized the church was empty except for the flowers. "Aerith?"
Thinking she might be in the back room, he walked to the door and poked his
head in, but it was empty as well. Puzzled, he went back to the flowers and
looked around for some sign of her. He wasn't that late, only about ten
minutes. She wouldn't have given up on him and left already, surely.
Of course, she might be having a day like his and be late as well. Zack was
just about ready to conclude that must be the case when he spotted her basket
lying half under a pew, tipped on its side with a few wilting blossoms spilling
out of it.
Freezing, Zack stared at it for a moment, his heart in his throat. He couldn't
imagine any reason for her to have left it like that, unless she'd had to leave
in a hurry. The memory of her reaction to him the first day when he'd been
following her returned to him, and he swore and bolted for the door.
If he'd been running fast to get here from the station, he was practically
flying now. Even the monsters seemed to know enough to stay out of his way, and
the one or two that stumbled into his path he fried before they even had a
chance to attack him. He made it to sector five in record time, then skidded to
a halt just inside the sector wall as he realized he had no idea where to go
from here.
Assuming she'd run for home at all, but if she wasn't there then he didn't know
where to start looking for her. And he'd feel really dumb if he scoured the
lower levels for her and she turned out to have been safe at home all along. So
'home' was where he needed to start. The only problem was, he still had no clue
where she lived.
Most of the people in the sector did, though. Zack looked around and sized up
the few people who were out and about, and picked a tired-looking matronly
woman. "Hey! Excuse me. Do you know Aerith, the flower girl? Can you tell me
where she lives, please? It's really important."
She sniffed and gave him a disapproving look. "If she wanted you to know, young
man, she'd have told you herself. You can ask her next time you see her selling
flowers."
"No, wait!" Zack grabbed the woman's arm before she could turn away, careful
not to exert too much pressure. "Listen to me, I'm a friend of hers. She was
supposed to meet me at the church fifteen minutes ago, but all I found was her
flower basket. I just want to know if she made it home safely before I go
pelting off to look everywhere else. Please!"
"Oh!" The woman looked startled, then concerned. "You must be that nice young
SOLDIER boy who's been helping her with the flowers. She's hardly been talking
about anything else for days! Do you really think she's in trouble?"
The knowledge that Aerith had been talking about him made his cheeks heat, but
he shook his head. "I don't know, but I'd rather look like a paranoid idiot
than drop it and find out later that she needed help. Can you tell me how to
get to her house?"
Nodding, the woman rattled off directions, and Zack memorized them grimly. They
were complicated, since there was no such thing as a direct route between
anything down here, but he'd had to remember far more complex field
instructions in the past. Once he was sure he had it all, he waved his thanks
and took off running again.
There weren't any monsters in the streets of sector five, but the people slowed
him down even more. After all, he couldn't just zap them with a spell to get
them out of his way, though he was tempted a time or two. Finally he came to
the last corner before he would reach Aerith's house, and slowed to a stop. He
didn't want to just go charging out without knowing what was going on; that
could get them both in a lot of trouble. Instead he peered around the corner,
and scowled.
Three men in dark suits stood outside, and Zack didn't have to be close enough
to see details to know they were Turks. Normal businessmen didn't carry
themselves like lethal weapons, and who else would wear a suit down here? Two
of them were hanging back, clearly deferring to the third as the leader. He was
standing on the doorstep, talking to someone through the narrow opening in the
door.
Deciding that just walking up probably wouldn't get him shot, Zack shoved his
hands in his pockets and sauntered up the walk. Under other circumstances he
would have been marvelling at the grass growing along the path, and the sight
of the big garden on the other side of the house. As it was, all his attention
was focused on the Turks.
"...not going to be able to avoid him forever," the dark-haired one at the
doorway was saying. Now that he was closer, Zack could see that it was Aerith
standing at the door, but she had the safety chain on so that it couldn't be
forced open more than a few inches. The Turk could easily have shot her through
the narrow opening, of course, but from the little Zack knew he didn't think
they were likely to try to hurt Aerith. Much.
"Is there a problem here?" he asked as he approached, his voice low and full of
warning. Aerith glanced at him over the Turk's shoulder, and he thought he saw
her relax marginally.
"Not until you showed up," one of the two hanging back commented lazily,
twirling his emag rod for emphasis. "Beat it, yo. And stay out of other
people's business if you know what's good for you."
Zack was taken aback for a moment. He was unusual in the fact that he had
people he was friendly with among the Turks; there was a long-standing not-so-
friendly rivalry between the Turks and the SOLDIERs, and both groups tended to
view the other with a certain amount of contempt. Even so, most Turks would
hesitate before actively picking a fight with a SOLDIER.
Then he realized that dressed in civvies and with his sunglasses still on, the
Turks hadn't realized he was anything more than an ordinary passer-by. He
turned his gaze on Aerith, ignoring the Turks. "Aerith? Everything okay?"
"It's fine, Zack," she assured him, in a voice that was just a little too
steady to be casual. "Just a visit from an old neighbour. Right, Tseng?" She
looked back at the Turk on the doorstep, who quirked an eyebrow at her.
"Indeed. I hadn't thought you were the type to get others involved in your
problems, Aerith. We may be at a stalemate for now, but I'd hate to see someone
innocent dragged in to be used against you." Zack wasn't sure if that had been
a threat or a warning, but either way it got his hackles up.
"The day a 2nd Class can't handle a couple of Turks is a sad day for Shinra,"
he snorted, shoving his sunglasses up and giving the man an unfriendly look.
Tseng's mouth tightened at the sight of the unmistakeable mako glow in Zack's
eyes, and the loudmouthed one bit off a curse.
"My mistake," Tseng said smoothly. "We should be going. Take care of yourself,
Aerith."
"You too," she said politely, looking even more relieved that a fight hadn't
broken out. Zack stood just to one side with his arms folded over his chest,
and made the Turks detour slightly off the path to avoid hitting him.
Once they were out of sight around the corner, Aerith sighed and closed the
door long enough to take the chain off. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she
said as she walked out onto the stoop. "I don't mind so much when they send
Tseng, I really have known him since childhood. But it still makes me nervous.
Sooner or later whatever power play is happening between the Turks and Hojo
will be over, and it will stop being an 'invitation'." She shivered, and he
moved to take her in his arms without thinking about it.
"Well, I know I can't promise much help once I'm back in Wutai," Zack said into
her hair, "but anytime I'm in the city, you can always come to me for help.
Sephiroth doesn't think much of Hojo, every SOLDIER knows that, and I don't
think it's likely to change any time soon. So at least you can trust that I'm
never going to be ordered to bring you in."
"Thanks," she said warmly, leaning against his shoulder, much to his delight.
"I've managed on my own this long, but I'll keep it in mind. Are you really a
2nd Class?"
"Only on paper," he admitted with a rueful laugh. "I got a field promotion,
that's the whole reason I'm here in Midgar, to get the second enhancements."
Thinking fast, Zack narrowed his eyes. She was still tense in his arms, and
somehow he knew that she wasn't the sort of person to be revitalized by being
in a crowd like he was. The restaurant he'd been planning to take her to was
high class and very popular with Midgar's upper crust at the moment, so it was
going to be full of snobby people. It was a shame that she'd already gotten all
dressed up, and she looked amazing in her sleek red dress, but he didn't want
the day to be spoiled further.
"Change in plans," he declared. "As much as I'd love sitting around getting to
admire you in that dress, I think something a little more relaxing is in order.
Unless you've really got your heart set on a fancy dinner?" She shook her head
and looked relieved. "Good. Go get changed into your warm clothes, then. I'll
find somewhere to change and meet you back here."
"You can just come inside," she invited, opening the door again. "I talked my
mother into going to stay with a friend in sector eight that she doesn't see
very often. Now I'm doubly glad I did, she gets so worried when things like
this happen."
"I can see why," Zack said, relieved that she wasn't going to get in trouble.
He'd just been hoping that her mother hadn't been watching, and therefore
hadn't seen Zack hug Aerith like that, since Aerith had already said she
thought her mother would be upset to find out that she was dating a SOLDIER.
Stepping inside, Zack looked around with undisguised curiosity. It was a snug
little house, all one big open room on the ground floor as was common in the
lower levels of Midgar. There were fresh flowers in vases, and cheerful
curtains and tablecloths that made the room look much brighter and bigger than
it was. "Reminds me of home," he proclaimed, smiling. "My mom and yours would
get along, I think."
"You can change in the bathroom," she said, indicating a little door off to one
side. "I'll just run upstairs, I won't be a moment." Leaving him to it, she
trotted up the stairs and vanished onto the second floor.
A little disappointed that he didn't get to see her bedroom, but figuring he
probably shouldn't push his luck, Zack shut the bathroom door and changed
quickly. He'd brought a pack with his extra clothes, planning to leave it at
the church when they went to the restaurant. Thankfully he hadn't thought to
dump it before he'd realized something was wrong and went chasing after Aerith.
He shoved the dressy shirt and slacks into the bag once he was done, not caring
if they got wrinkled since he wasn't likely to need them again soon. He'd be
back to living in his uniform once he got out of the labs.
To his surprise he found her already waiting for him when he emerged, freshly
scrubbed and dressed in a warm sweater and jeans. She laughed at the look on
his face. "Not all girls take half an hour to get ready, you know," she scolded
him. "Though if we'd been doing this the other way around and I needed to get
fancy, it would have been a different story."
With her hair in a ponytail and all the makeup washed off, Zack thought she
looked even better than she had all dressed up. "You look great," he said
appreciatively. "Next question, is there something we can grab quickly here for
dinner, or do we stop somewhere on our way?"
"Our way to where?" Aerith asked. "Oh, you're so stubborn!" she added when he
only grinned at her. "I can throw together some sandwiches and the like. I'd
rather have that than what most people call food out there, but weren't you
supposed to be treating me?"
"I'll make it up to you," he promised her. "We need a package, not a basket.
And be sure there's nothing that will spill or leak!"
Now openly curious, Aerith followed his instructions and shortly had the
makings for a decent picnic dinner wrapped up in a cloth. He scooped it up with
a grin, caught her hand in his, and tugged her towards the door. "Okay, let's
go before curiosity eats you alive."
"I'm not that bad," she protested mildly, following him out. "I just want to
know where we're going!"
"You'll see when we get there," Zack told her, and ducked a swat with a laugh.
"Come on, first stop is the train station. We need to go above the plate."
Despite his playful mood, Zack kept a very sharp eye out for signs of the
Turks, both in sector 5 and on the train. There was one; not one of the ones
who'd been at Aerith's house, and he kept to the far end of the train, so Zack
let him be. It might have been a coincidence, or it might be someone watching
them, but as long as they weren't overt he wasn't inclined to pick a fight and
spoil the night.
If Aerith noticed or worried about the presence of the lone Turk, she gave no
sign of it. She curled her hand around Zack's and leaned against his side,
standing much closer than the half-empty train required. Not that he was
complaining.
The Turk didn't follow them off the train, and Zack didn't spot any more, so he
let himself relax a bit. They were in a wealthy part of the city now, the area
where the restaurant he'd chosen was. "I thought we weren't going to dinner?"
Aerith asked when she saw where they were. There wasn't much in this area but
houses and upper class shops and restaurants.
"We're not, but this is where I left my bike, since I thought we'd be coming
from here," Zack explained. "It seemed wiser than leaving it unattended down
beneath the plate. I'm not stupid enough to think it would still be there when
I came back. You're not scared of bikes, right?" She gave him an indignant
look, and he chuckled. "I didn't think so, but it's always good to check. Here
we go."
They'd reached the lot where he'd left his bike, and he found it quickly among
the posh little cars. "One of the first things I ever bought with my military
pay, and I never did get much chance to enjoy it before I was shipped out," he
declared as he dropped his pack on the saddle. He reached into the saddlebag to
produce a helmet and his Shinra-issue peacoat, offering them to her. "Here,
take this. It's going to be really cold in the wind, that sweater isn't going
to do much for you."
"Will you be okay in just that leather jacket?" she asked as she took the coat
and pulled it on. It was too big for her, of course, but not as bad as it could
have been, since it was the one he'd been issued right at the start. He hadn't
needed it in the tropical environment of Wutai. "And shouldn't you have a
helmet too?"
"I'll be fine," he assured her with a grin. He stowed his pack and their dinner
in the saddlebags and swung a leg over the seat. "Hop on, and hold on tight!"
She slid into place behind him, pressed close against him with her arms around
his waist. He could just catch hints of the fragrance of flowers, and almost
imagined he could feel her heat even through all their layers of clothes.
Mentally he made a note to do this again in the summer some time, when he could
really enjoy feeling her against him.
Once she was settled he kicked the engine over and pulled out of the parking
lot. He merged with the traffic, taking the first ramp that led up to the main
highway. It was busy at this time of day, filled with the last of the rush hour
traffic and the start of the nightlife traffic. The bike wove in and out of the
cars easily, his SOLDIER reflexes allowing him to take split-second
opportunities that probably would have resulted in an accident for anyone else.
He couldn't hear her over the wind, but somehow he knew her shaking against his
back was from laughter and not fear.
When she realized he was heading for the city gates, her arms tightened and she
shouted what was probably a question. He just shook his head and shot her a
quick grin over his shoulder, concentrating on getting them out of the city as
quickly as possible.
 
Once outside, the traffic dropped off abruptly. Few people had any reason to
travel outside of Midgar, and even fewer wanted to. The land was ugly and dead
for miles around, all the life drained from it just as it had been from the
city itself. Nothing grew around Midgar except the occasional weed.
She hunched against him and her arms tightened again, and he thought she was
hiding her face against his shoulder. If he hadn't needed to watch the road, he
probably wouldn't have been looking either. Inside the city it was easy to fool
yourself about the true scope of the problem, but when there was nothing
between you and the horizon but lifeless dirt, it really hit home.
Worse still, he was going to have to ride right through it. The only roads
leading from Midgar were the ones to Kalm and Junon, and neither of those went
in the direction he wanted. He took the bike up and over the curb, out onto the
plains, and headed northwest as fast as he dared to go. The moon was only about
half full, but that was enough for him to see where he was going. At least they
were moving too fast for the monsters to catch them.
It took about twenty minutes to leave the desolated area behind. Slowly
vegetation began to creep in; first scattered patches of snow-covered grass,
then bushes and even trees. Once he could look around and not spot any dead
areas, Zack nudged Aerith with an elbow and felt her lift her head again. She
sighed and relaxed, though she returned her head to his shoulder.
Finally he saw the moon glinting off something large and dark in the distance,
and he grinned. Adjusting his course slightly as he took in the landmarks, he
headed for a bluff he knew that overlooked the ocean. He'd found this place
while out hunting monsters as part of his boot camp training, and marked the
spot in his mind because it had such a fantastic view. Since then he hadn't had
an opportunity to return, but what better time could he pick than tonight?
When he brought the bike to a sideways stop and cut the engine, the sudden
silence was almost deafening. "Close your eyes," he ordered her. The visor of
that helmet was tinted, and in the dim moonlight she probably couldn't see much
of anything. When he turned and tugged the helmet off, he found her eyes closed
obediently.
Taking her by the hand, he urged her off the bike. Once she was standing he led
her to one side. "Don't open them yet," he warned her, going back to retrieve
the package of food and the thick blanket stuffed into the other saddlebag.
There wasn't much snow here, as the winds from the ocean swept it all further
inland, but the ground would be cold and hard and uncomfortable to sit on.
The normal noises of the plains at night were returning, and now they could
hear the rush of the waves on the rocky beach below. He spread the blanket out
at the edge of the bluff, led her onto it and pushed gently on her shoulder to
get her to sit down. Once she was settled he dropped down beside her. "Okay,
now you can open them," he told her, leaning forward to be able to watch her
face.
Aerith gasped and lifted a hand to her mouth, her eyes shining in awe. It
really was a stunning view, with the ocean stretched out to the horizon and
stars shining all the way to infinity in the night sky. This far from the city
they were free of the air and light pollution that reduced the stars in Midgar
to a few feeble points, and the phrase 'as many as the stars in the sky'
actually had meaning again. There was hardly an inch of sky that didn't have at
least a dim star shining in it, and the bright ones far outnumbered the dim.
The shimmering arc of the galaxy crossed the sky in one corner, breathtaking
when you realized that the river of light was all stars.
"Oh," she said, and her voice trembled. "Oh, Zack. It's beautiful." She huddled
closer to him, and he put one arm around her in response.
"Never been outside the city before?" he asked curiously.
"Not since I was a little girl," she told him. "I don't really remember.
Certainly I wouldn't have forgotten anything as lovely as this!"
Looking at her, with her eyes shining and lips parted, her breath misting and
her cheeks pink from the cold air, Zack had to agree. He'd never seen anything
as beautiful as this.
Clearing his throat, he looked around and snagged their dinner. "Come on, let's
eat before it gets frozen instead of just cold," he said, and she turned to him
with a smile.
Unpacking the sandwiches took moments, and they sat together in contented
silence, eating their dinner under the awning of the stars. The weather had
obliged him by staying beautifully clear, although that meant it was
correspondingly colder. Bundled up in his peacoat Aerith didn't seem to be
shivering, and Zack was resistant enough to cold that his warm leather jacket
was enough for him. He was glad; it would have been a damn shame to have to cut
the night short because of the cold. Especially considering what was yet to
come.
"Thank you so much, Zack. This is exactly what I needed - to be out in the open
in a place where the earth isn't crying out as it dies," Aerith sighed happily
as they put the garbage back into the package. "To see green things growing
that I didn't put there! Oh, it's wonderful. Thank you."
"Hey, you don't need to thank me," Zack told her, smiling back. "I'm just
paying you back for everything you've given me, letting me work in your garden.
I haven't felt this good in ages."
"I'm so glad you followed me that day," she replied. "And that I didn't scare
you off by ambushing you like that!"
He laughed. "Aerith, honey, ambushing me was what made me so determined to see
you again! I've never met anyone like you. Smart and determined and
resourceful, and so crazy brave you don't even hesitate to ambush a SOLDIER.
You're amazing."
"Flattery like that will get you nowhere," she warned him in a mock-scolding
tone. Looking around at the incredible view again, her voice softened as she
added, "This might, though."
"Hey, it's not flattery, it's the truth!" Zack protested, his heart beating a
little faster in anticipation. Looked like he might have played his cards right
after all. Boldly he shifted closer, tugging at her until she was sitting
cradled between his legs with his arms draped around her. Far from protesting,
she leaned back against his chest with a contented sigh, her head tucked under
his chin. It would have been a lot better without all the clothes in the way,
but Zack was just happy she was letting him hold her like this.
A streak of light caught his attention from the corner of his eye, and he
grinned. Time for the after dinner finale. "Look," he urged, and pointed. The
falling star he'd seen was already gone, of course, but before Aerith could ask
what was so interesting about that particular piece of sky, there was another.
And another, and two more in quick succession, until it became obvious that it
was the beginning of a meteor shower.
"Oh!" Aerith's eyes went wide, and she leaned even closer to him so she could
tip herself back and see it more easily, tilting her head back on his shoulder.
He willingly played the part of her chair, loving the feel of her hair as it
brushed his neck and the sweet scent of her hanging in the cold air.
"I'm kinda glad you made me wait this long to take you out," Zack murmured in
her ear with a soft chuckle. "It was fortuitous timing. It's supposed to last
about twenty minutes, so we'll get a good show."
"It's beautiful," she exclaimed, not taking her eyes off the sky. The flashes
were coming faster now, silver streaks against the night sky that momentarily
eclipsed the stars behind. "So many! Make a wish, though you certainly don't
need to be quick about it. I suppose it would be cheating to make a wish for
each one?"
Looking up at the rapidly increasing number of streaks, he laughed. "Yeah, I
think that would be cheating," he agreed, returning his gaze to her awe-struck
face. "Did you make one?"
"Yes, on the first one I saw," she replied, smiling. "Did you?"
Tightening his arms a bit, Zack shook his head. "Nah. I'd have to be as greedy
as old man Shinra to wish for anything right now."
That made her look at him, with the mischievous sparkle back in her eyes. "Oh?
You can't think of anything at all that would make you happier right now?"
"Well, maybe just one thing," Zack admitted, his voice gone husky. Now,
finally, his instincts told him the time was right to make his move. He leaned
in, tilting his head down to bring his mouth to hers, kissing her properly at
last. She tasted of mint and snow and somehow of life, though he couldn't have
described exactly what the taste was.
Brushing his tongue over her lips, he coaxed her to open her mouth. When she
did and he tasted her more deeply, her tongue flicked against his in brief
little touches, more shy than coy. The knowledge that he might be the first
person to ever kiss her like this made him moan, and suddenly he was grateful
for all the layers between them that kept her from realizing how hard he was
getting.
They hadn't brought any alcohol along with their dinner, but somehow Zack felt
drunk anyway, intoxicated by the taste of her. He couldn't get enough, pulling
away only briefly to allow them both to gasp for air, closing the gap again as
soon as he could. The beauty of the falling stars was lost in the haze of
pleasure he was feeling.
The guys in the locker room might tease him for spending days wooing a girl
when he could have had a different one with half an hour's effort, but Ifrit's
blood, it was worth it. She was worth it.
It shouldn't have surprised him that she would be a fast learner, copying his
movements at first awkwardly and then with more confidence. She tasted him
back, their tongues sliding against each other and occasionally duelling
briefly before going back to stroking.
He wanted more, wanted to slip his hands inside the coat and under her sweater
to cup her breasts, wanted to push her back into the snow and strip her down
and to hell with the cold, wanted to be on her and in her and flying all the
way to the stars with her. At the same time, he wanted this moment to go on
forever, to always feel this sweet sense of astonished wonder at how good she
felt.
"Zack," she moaned when he pulled back again, and turned her face to hide
against his neck. They were both breathing too fast, the winter air chilling
their lungs but somehow not cooling Zack's inner heat in the least. His heart
was pounding hard enough that he was surprised she didn't comment on it.
"You're... you're missing the show," he reminded her, his voice hoarse with
desire. She turned her head back again, looking up at the stars, and the feel
of her breath against his jaw made him shiver.
"You picked a lousy time to start something, making me have to choose between
you and something I won't have a chance to see again for a long time," she
accused him breathlessly, laughing softly. "And I can't believe I'm actually
tempted to pick you!"
Hearing that made the fire spread all through his body, and he shuddered as his
cock hardened to the point where it was pressing painfully against the fly of
his jeans. "Watch the stars," he told her despite the way his body was
screaming at him to say just the opposite. "They'll be gone soon, but I'll
still be here."
She resettled herself more comfortably against him, and they both turned their
attention back to the sky. The shower was in full swing now, lighting up a
section of the night sky. Zack wasn't startled when Aerith wrapped her hand
around his, but he was surprised when she tugged it under her coat to rest on
her flat stomach. Over the sweater, but he couldn't expect everything to go his
way.
When she let go he slipped his hand upwards, brushing his gloved fingers
against the underside of her breasts and then, when she didn't protest, cupping
one in his hand. It was small enough for him to be able to cover it all, but
full enough for him to be able to feel the weight of it. She moaned as his palm
slid over her nipple, and he was amazed at how sensitive she was.
"You're distracting me," she protested, but she arched her back to push herself
more firmly into his hand.
"You started it," he reminded her. He tugged the glove off his other hand with
his teeth, then slipped it quickly under her jacket as well before it had a
chance to get too cold. Even so she squealed softly and shivered when he worked
his fingers under her sweater and felt the smooth skin of her stomach beneath.
"Zack!" she gasped, and this time he wasn't sure if it was encouragement or a
warning. She'd gone all tense and he didn't think that was a good sign, but her
voice sounded needy.
"Shh, it's okay," he whispered in her ear, and made no move to work that hand
higher. Instead he just left it there, rubbing slow circles over the tense
muscles of her abdomen, once in a while just barely brushing beneath her
waistband. His other hand kneaded her breast through the sweater, and she
slowly relaxed against him again. He was so hard it was all he could do not to
tug her further back and rock up against her, desperate for the friction, but
somehow he managed to keep his hips still.
Under other circumstances, with a different girl, Zack might have accused her
of being a tease or leading him on, but he knew that wasn't her intention. He
was willing to go at her pace - even if it killed him. He fought the urge to
squirm, now wishing he hadn't brought the blanket so he could have hoped the
cold earth beneath him might help him stay in control.
"You're trembling," she noted, her own voice a little shaky. He couldn't help
but laugh, though the sound was a bit strangled.
"What can I say? You're just that hot," he replied, and bit at the shell of her
ear gently. She moaned and jerked against him, and he groaned in turn. She did
it again, deliberately, rocking back into him in a way that quickly broke his
control and left him rubbing against her in shallow little thrusts. He buried
his face in her shoulder and made a sound that was embarrassingly close to a
whimper. "That's not fair," he gasped, his words muffled by the heavy fabric of
the coat. "Aerith..."
"What's not fair?" she retorted, shivering against him in a way that had
nothing to do with the temperature. "I bet you could get off just from this,
but I'd have to get cold to be satisfied!"
Even though he already knew she was a vixen, hearing her say something like
that made streaks of fire shoot straight through Zack to his groin. He groaned
again, struggling to control his breathing. He was starting to seriously
reconsider his initial conclusion that she'd never done this before. Though
that didn't explain why she'd been so awkward at kissing. Nice girls weren't
supposed to give it up this easy, were they? Not that he hadn't been hoping,
but he'd expected to have to work harder for it. Especially if it was her first
time.
"I dunno, I could probably find a way to manage," he said with the cocky self-
assurance unique to teenage boys everywhere. "Want me to try?"
"Oh, don't tempt me," Aerith replied, shivering in his arms. "Not only do I not
want to miss the falling stars, but there's a perfectly nice warm house we
could use back in Midgar."
"You..." Zack let out a shuddering breath, and nuzzled into her neck below the
curve of her ear, making her gasp. "You'd let me?" He could wait that long,
really he could. He was a SOLDIER, damn it, he was supposed to have more
discipline than this. But the fact that she had hesitated when he'd put his
hand under her sweater nagged at him. "Aerith, don't do this just for me, okay?
I'm a big boy, I can handle a little frustration, honest." Firmly he told his
protesting hormones to go take a hike.
She was quiet for so long he was afraid he'd done something wrong, or that
she'd changed her mind and was trying to find a nice way to let him down.
Finally she sighed softly, and rested her hand over the one he had on her
stomach. "I want this," she told him firmly. "I want you. I'm just a little
nervous, but if you'll be patient with me it will be okay." Shifting in his
arms so she was half turned towards him, she kissed him gently.
He kept it light, though it took an effort, knowing that if they got caught up
in each other again he might well forget about the lure of a warm comfortable
bed that was all the way back in Midgar. "I'll be as patient as you want," he
promised when he pulled back. "Just remember you can stop any time, all right?
No matter what." Fervently he prayed she wouldn't take him up on it, because he
wasn't really sure his self-control was that good.
"Now, watch the stars," he reminded her. "It's almost over, you don't want to
miss the end."
In silence they sat together and watched the end of the meteor shower. Zack
dropped his hand so that both were clasped around her waist, tracing idle
patterns on her skin with his thumbs. She had her hands over his on top of the
sweater, not restraining him but just for the contact. She'd moved her hips
just a few inches away from his again, which let him cool down enough to get
his ragged breathing back under control and make his heart stop pounding so
hard.
After all this teasing, though, he was dreadfully afraid he was going to
embarrass himself when they did finally get back to her place. He resolved to
leave his jacket open on the ride back, and hope the cold wind would help calm
him further.
Even after the last of the falling stars had faded, they sat and just watched
the sky. This was Aerith's treat, and Zack had no intentions of leaving until
she was ready to go. From the sounds of it she didn't exactly get many chances
to leave the city, and he didn't want to rush her through it.
When she did stir against him he might almost have been disappointed, if not
for the promise of what was waiting for him when they returned to Midgar.
Scrambling to his feet, he offered her a hand up and shivered as the cold air
hit his ungloved hand. After the warmth of her body, the harsh air was like a
stinging slap.
Quickly he tugged his glove back on, and they both cleaned up the blanket and
remains of dinner. It was the work of moments to get it all tucked back into
the saddlebags. Zack stole one last heated kiss before Aerith put her helmet
on, and then they were ready to go.
The trip back into the city was almost painful. As they left the beautiful
green land behind and entered the wastelands around Midgar, Aerith's grip
tightened until it probably would have bruised a non-SOLDIER, and she once
again buried her face in his shoulder to hide from the sight of it. He felt
bad; probably taking her out where the land was living made it even harder for
her to face the dead earth around the city. He hoped she wouldn't end up
regretting the trip.
She didn't lift her head even after they got back inside the city walls. Making
a split-second decision, Zack turned off the highway on the ramp that led down
beneath the plate, heading for sector 5. There was no reason for them to have
to walk all the way back down.
Only when he coasted the bike to a halt and cut the engine at the end of the
path that led to her house did Aerith finally pull away from him. "I thought
you were afraid of someone stealing the bike?" she asked in surprise as she
realized where they were.
"I figure, the respect you seem to get from the people down here, they probably
won't touch anything at your place," Zack told her with a grin. "I spent a
little time under the plate before I made it into the army, I know how it
works. If they're all this protective of you, they won't put up with anyone
messing with you or your stuff."
She smiled. "Yes, everyone is very kind," she agreed. "Why didn't you just
drive right up to the house?"
"Didn't want to tear up the path," Zack explained, pushing the bike along as he
walked onto the path. "Figured your mom might question that. The dirt's hard
enough that the wheels shouldn't leave too much of an impression this way,
though."
Giggling, she wrapped her arms around one of his and walked beside him. "You're
clever," she complimented him. "Or is it just that you're much too accustomed
to getting into trouble, and have learned how to avoid it?"
"A little of both," he admitted freely, and she giggled again. "What can I say,
I was an adventurous kid. Well, I call it adventurous. My mom called it
'troublesome'. There's a reason I'm so good with flowers, and it's got nothing
to do with volunteering. I... hey, we didn't leave the lights on, did we?" he
interrupted himself, blinking at the house in surprise as they turned the
corner in the path.
It was difficult to tell in the ever-present light under the plate, but all of
the lights on the ground floor were indeed on. For a moment Zack thought maybe
the Turks had returned, but Aerith gasped in dismay and clapped a hand to her
mouth.
"Oh no," she moaned. "My mother came back! She was supposed to be gone all
night!"
Zack suppressed a groan as he realized that there was no way he and Aerith were
going to be able to follow through on their plans for the rest of the night.
Even if she changed her mind and decided to introduce him to her mother, he
doubted the woman would be willing to turn a blind eye on them if they went up
to Aerith's room and shut the door.
"I'm so sorry," Aerith apologized, looking up at him with worry in her eyes.
"Zack, I didn't mean to lead you on, truly I didn't. I... suppose we could go
to the church?"
"What? Hell, no," Zack shook his head, despite how tempted he was to take her
up on the offer. That would just be selfish of him, and probably get her in a
lot more trouble. "Someone must have told her about the Turks coming after you,
and she came back," he pointed out. "And anyway, even if she doesn't know about
the Turks, she's going to want to know where you've been."
Looking dismayed, Aerith nodded. "Oh, you're probably right, someone must have
tracked her down and warned her. "She must be worried sick. I'm so...!"
Zack hushed her before she could apologize again with a quick kiss. "Not your
fault," he told her firmly. "Anyway, I've still got three days of leave. If you
don't end up grounded for a month," he gave her a wry grin, "then I'll see you
tomorrow at the garden?"
"Even if I'm grounded, she won't keep me from going to the garden," Aerith
agreed with a sigh of relief. With another of her impish smiles, she tugged him
back around the corner where there was no chance that they'd be seen from the
house, and kissed him more thoroughly.
"I'll see you tomorrow," she promised when they pulled back again, both
breathing a little fast. "Bright and early."
"Once again, your wish is my command," Zack told her, laughing softly as she
handed back his coat and helmet. He watched as she hurried off around the
corner, and waited until he heard the distant sound of the door opening and
closing.
Then he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes tight, pinching the
bridge of his nose as he tried to distract himself from the protests his body
was making. It was already after midnight, he could certainly restrain himself
for another five or six hours until he saw her again. Though he had no
illusions about exactly how long it would take him to have his hand around his
dick and get off once he got back to HQ.
Five or six hours, he reminded himself as he rolled the bike back to the road
and swung his leg over the saddle. Hells, it would probably even do him some
good to have a chance to release some of the tension before he got serious with
Aerith. Less likely to embarrass himself that way. Just five or six hours, that
was all.
He headed straight for his room once he was back on Shinra property, not even
detouring to the locker room to get a shower. The showers were way too public,
and there would still be a few people up and around even at this hour. He
dropped his pack on the bed and was reaching for his pants as soon as he'd
kicked the door shut behind him, desperate for some relief, before he spotted
the official Shinra envelope that had been slipped under his door.
Hesitating, Zack debated with himself. He couldn't imagine that it could
possibly be anything urgent, but given the day he'd been having if he ignored
it then he was guaranteeing it would be. Cursing, he finally reached for it and
tore it open with a vicious jerk.
It took him a moment to actually process what he was reading, and then he cried
out in dismay. "Aw, no! No fucking way, that's not fair!" he railed at
whichever god was responsible for his miserable day. It was the perfect cap to
the day - a notice that a slot had opened in the lab schedule, and he was to
present himself for his enhancements first thing in the morning.
He wouldn't even have time to run down into the city and apologize to Aerith.
He'd have to write her a note and beg one of the others to bring it to her, and
hope she wouldn't be too mad at him for standing her up and telling someone the
location of her sanctuary.
Cursing creatively, he crushed the paper in his fist and threw himself down on
the bed. Chances were good he wouldn't even have an opportunity to see her
again before he was shipped back to Wutai; his leave had ended the moment he
received this notice.
Punching his pillow hard enough to burst the seam and send chocobo down
fluttering into the air, Zack swore to himself that he would find some way of
at least saying goodbye to her before he left. She deserved that much, if
nothing else.
***** Chapter 5 *****
Thanks to the artificial lighting under the plate, the church looked exactly
the same at three in the morning as it did at three in the afternoon. Zack was
a little sad; the church might be creepy in the dark, with its tumbling walls
and half-smashed stained glass, but he thought the flowers would be beautifully
ethereal in the moonlight.
The only real difference as he walked down the aisle was the fact that he was
alone, and likely to stay that way. He'd had no opportunity to send a note to
Aerith asking her to meet him, even assuming she could get away at this time of
night. Or rather, it would have been simple enough to ask the same trooper he'd
sent the last note with, but he hadn't been able to think of a way of doing it
that wouldn't alert Shinra to the fact that he was planning to sneak off the
base. They generally frowned on SOLDIERs going AWOL the night before they were
being shipped back to Wutai.
Not that Zack was trying to run away from being sent back to the front lines.
That was the farthest thing from his mind. No, he'd just wanted - needed - one
last chance to feel the sense of peace this place radiated before he left.
A month of training had gotten him to the point that he was able to handle the
changes in his body wrought by the 2nd Class enhancements, but he still wasn't
used to the way that everything seemed sharper and clearer; colours were
brighter, scents were stronger, sounds were louder, and he kept moving faster
than he meant to. In this state, the garden was even more beautiful than he'd
remembered it being, the flowers they'd planted now indistinguishable from the
older blooms.
It had been long enough since his first infusions that he'd forgotten about the
sense of restlessness that came with the mako injections, as if his body had
too much energy and was trying to burn it off any way it could. That would fade
with time, but for the moment he could hardly bear to stand still for more than
a minute. He was hoping the garden would help bleed some of that energy off, as
well as calming his nerves about going back to the front. Otherwise he was
going to be so damn jittery he'd get himself killed on the first mission he
got.
Briefly he tried settling in front of the flowers, but he lasted all of about
thirty seconds before he was up and pacing again, his heavy booted footsteps
echoing eerily off the walls. The flowers nodded gently in the wind of his
passage, as if chiding him to sit and be patient. "Fat chance," he told them,
shoving his hands in his pockets just for something to do with them.
He missed Aerith. It was stupid, really; they'd only had a few days together,
there was no reason for him to miss her like this. He hoped she hadn't been too
mad at him for standing her up. Her return message had been a verbal
reassurance that she wasn't upset, but who really knew with girls? They could
seem fine about something, and then six months down the road suddenly smack you
with it.
The serenity of the garden was helping, a little. Zack took slow, measured
breaths and tried to match his pacing to his heart, hoping to steady the
somewhat erratic rhythm of it. He'd also forgotten how much he hated this part.
He was naturally restless, but he didn't like having it forced on him like
this. It was as if he was constantly on an adrenalin high, which stopped
feeling thrilling and became irritating after the first five minutes or so.
After fifteen minutes of pacing like that, he managed to put himself into a bit
of a trance-like state. The air was full of the smell of green and growing
things, heavily perfumed with the scents of the flowers. The church was silent
except for the noises he made and the faint rustling of the flowers; it was
easy to imagine he was the only person alive in the world right now.
Despite the silence, he was absorbed enough in his own thoughts that he somehow
missed hearing the door open and quiet footsteps come towards him. "Zack?"
Aerith called from a few feet away.
Startled, Zack nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled in a crouch, one hand
hovering over the materia in his bracer, fighting his reflexes to keep from
casting an offensive spell. "Aerith," he finally gasped, beating his instincts
into submission. "Sweet Shiva, please don't sneak up on me like that!"
She looked like she'd dressed in a hurry; her dress was wrinkled as if it had
been lying on the floor, and her hair was mussed and falling out of its braid.
Her eyes were dark with concern as she took a step closer to him. "What's
wrong? You're even more jumpy now than when I first met you."
"It's the mako," he explained, backing up a step to keep the same distance
between them. It was all he could do not to crush her in his arms, he wanted to
hold her so badly, but he remembered the way she'd flinched away from him that
first day. As strong as the mako in his system was now, he might actually hurt
her. "It makes you really wired for a while, until it works its way out of your
system. That's why I came down, I was hoping the garden would help a little.
What are you doing here at this time of night, anyway?"
Glancing past him at the little indoor meadow, she hesitated for a moment, then
smiled at him. "The flowers told me you were here," she informed him, perfectly
serious. "I thought something must be wrong."
"The flowers..." Wide-eyed, he trailed off and stared at her. There were times
when he seriously wondered about her. Then again, how could she have known that
he was here? Shaking his head, he decided to let it stand as something he just
wasn't going to get. "I'm sorry you were dragged out of bed. I'm glad you're
here, though. I really wanted to see you again before I left."
"I'm glad too," she said warmly. "When you sent the message that your leave had
been cancelled, I was afraid I wouldn't get another chance to see you before
you were sent away."
"I'm really sorry about that," he apologized, hanging his head. "I felt like a
complete heel standing you up that way, but you just can't argue with orders."
"Hush," she ordered him. "I know that. You have nothing to apologize for, Zack!
Even if you hadn't been able to get a message to me, I would have understood.
You're a SOLDIER, your time belongs to Shinra."
Before he could back up again, she stepped forward and laid a hand on his arm.
As he'd expected she flinched, but she didn't pull away. "Oh! Goodness, that's
strong. Doesn't it bother you?"
"Yeah," Zack shrugged, cautiously covering her hand with his. That didn't seem
to hurt her further, so he squeezed gently. Very gently - he had enough control
over himself now that he was cleared to go back to the field, but he was still
a lot stronger than he expected to be. "The worst of it fades, and you get used
to the rest, but it takes a while. Did you get in a lot of trouble?"
"No, actually," Aerith said, looking vaguely guilty. "Mother assumed I'd left
to get away from the Turks, so she didn't say anything. She was just happy that
I was home safe and sound." Her expression turned wry, and she laughed. "Which
means we could have come here and I still wouldn't have gotten in trouble."
"But she would have worried," Zack pointed out, catching her other hand as well
and bringing them both up to hold them before his chest. He looked down into
her beautiful eyes, and felt himself falling a little more. "And then you'd
really have felt guilty, for messing around and making her more upset. You're a
vixen, Aerith, but you're not the sort of hellion who would be able to brush
off something like that and not feel bad about it."
"You're right," she agreed with a sigh. Then she pouted playfully, and twined
her fingers with his. "But it might have been worth it! It's not any more fun
for girls to be left hanging that way, you know. I hardly slept at all that
night, and then when morning finally came you weren't here!"
Rubbing his thumbs over the soft skin on the backs of her hands, he smiled
ruefully. "Trust me, I was at least as disappointed as you were. I'd much
rather have been here with you, whether we did anything or not, than on a cold
table in the Shinra labs." He made a face, and she laughed.
"Well, I suppose that was punishment enough for you, then," she declared, much
to his relief. Then his breath caught in his throat as her smile turned coy.
"But you're here now. And so am I." She took another step closer, bringing them
face to face just inches apart, their joined hands trapped between their
bodies.
"Yeah, we are," he agreed, his voice gone husky as his eyes turned dark with
desire. He honestly hadn't expected this, had thought that he'd have to work
his way back into her good graces first, assuming he got the chance at all.
"But I don't want to hurt you. With the mako in my system this strong..."
"It doesn't hurt," she assured him. "It's just a bit shocking, especially the
first touch. Like touching a live wire that doesn't have quite enough power to
be damaging. Which may present some interesting possibilities, actually, if the
effect is sustained." Her eyes gleamed, and he nearly choked.
"Minx!" he accused her, and she laughed. "Well, there's only one way to find
out, I guess."
Tugging her closer, he leaned down and met her mouth with his, kissing her
gently. She shivered at the first contact and he almost thought she was going
to pull away, but then she pressed closer instead. Tugging her hands free, she
wrapped her arms around his neck and rubbed against his chest.
The feel of her soft breasts pressing against him through her dress and his
shirt was enough to make him gasp against her mouth, and this time she was the
one who took advantage of the opening. She slipped her tongue into his mouth,
tasting him, and he responded in kind. Today she tasted more like flowers and
oranges, but still with that unnameable undertaste that he could only describe
as 'life'.
"You are something else," he told her when they parted. He slipped his arms
around her waist to keep her close, enjoying the way she felt, and she leaned
happily into his body. "I haven't been able to stop thinking about you. Not
just this," he rocked his hips into her slightly to show what he meant, and she
made a soft sound that went straight to his groin. "All of you. Did you cast
some kind of spell on me, like you do on your flowers, so that I turn towards
you instead of the sun?"
"You can't expect me to give away all of my secrets," she chided him, eyes
sparkling with mischief as much as heat. "And what sort of flattery is that,
anyway? You're supposed to tell me I'm just that beautiful and captivating, not
accuse me of needing to cast a spell on you to hold your attention!"
"Now you're just fishing for compliments," Zack told her, grinning. "You are
that beautiful." He kissed her, slowly and thoroughly, until they were both
gasping into each other's mouths. "And extremely captivating," he added, fairly
purring against her lips.
"Flatterer," Aerith accused him, laughing breathlessly.
"I just can't win with you, can I?" Zack shook his head in mock-disappointment.
"Throw me a clue here?"
"You could always just have your wicked way with me, and ravish me senseless,"
Aerith pointed out, and Zack sucked in a sharp breath.
"Yeah, I could do that," he agreed, rocking into her again and making her gasp.
The restlessness was overcoming him again, but instead of pulling away to pace
more, he started running his hands slowly up and down her spine. He memorized
every inch of her back beneath her dress, and wondered what it would feel like
when they were skin to skin. "That sounds like a pretty good idea, actually."
She arched into his touch, and he was reminded of the way she'd pressed herself
against his hands when they were watching the stars. "I want to touch you," he
murmured into her skin, trailing his mouth over the column of her neck. "Let me
see you."
Since she seemed to be having trouble forming coherent words while he was
distracting her by mouthing at her neck like that, he took her lack of protest
as assent and moved one hand from her back to her front. Gently he ran it up
her torso, passing briefly over her breasts and making her shudder, but not
lingering. She made a questioning noise, and he smiled into her skin.
His fingers wrapped around the first button on her dress, at the scooped-neck
collar. They were tiny buttons, at least thirty of them all down the front of
the dress. He had a feeling the garment was probably meant to be just pulled on
over the head, not actually buttoned and unbuttoned, but it was much more fun
this way.
Deftly he flicked the button free of its confining cloth, savouring the glassy
texture of it and the rough contrast of the wool under his fingertips. He was
going to have to be careful to watch his strength, but it was occurring to him
that his heightened sensitivity to everything was going to make this a very
interesting experience. He trailed the pads of his fingers over the inch of
newly revealed skin, lifting his mouth away from her neck so he could watch the
way a rosy flush slowly suffused her body where he touched it.
Restraining his impatience, Zack moved down to the next button and flicked it
open as well. Now he had two whole inches of bared flesh to explore, and he
rubbed his finger across it to test the texture of it against the callous on
his hands.
By the time he had the dress open to the top of her bra she was shivering in
his arms and clutching at his shoulders for support. "Zack," she said, his name
half a plea. "I appreciate you going slow for me, but you don't have to be this
slow."
"I'm not doing it for you," he told her unabashedly. "I want to remember this,
all of it. The memory is going to have to hold me for a long time; months,
maybe even another year. Besides," he added with wonder in his voice, "you
don't understand how the mako changes you. This is all new to me now, like I've
never felt anyone under my hands before. But if you want me to hurry...?"
He raised an eyebrow at her, and she swallowed a moan. "Don't rush on my
account," she assured him hastily. Lifting one hand to cup his cheek, she
smiled at him. "If you're enjoying yourself, then by all means, continue."
Smiling, he returned to his slow exploration. To his delight the clasp of her
bra was at the front and he was able to undo the catch at the same time as he
freed the next button, leaving her skin bare there as well. Her breathing sped
a bit, in anticipation he supposed, and the flush had reached down this far.
Perhaps contrary to her expectations, he simply let the fabric hang over the
sweet curve of her breasts and continued his progress on the buttons.
Her muffled noise of disappointment made his smile turn into a grin, and he
brushed the backs of his fingers against the underside of one breast just to
tease her. He'd be back to enjoy the feel of her, but all in good time.
By the time he reached the buttons at the level of her hips, he couldn't see
what he was doing anymore because she was pressed against him and clinging to
his neck to keep herself on her feet. He tightened the arm around her waist to
help her stay up, supporting her weight without effort. It did give him the
opportunity to return his mouth to her neck, licking and sucking at the soft
skin there. He was careful not to leave a mark in a visible place, not wanting
to get her in trouble with her mother, but he had plans for other places on her
body.
When his fingertips discovered thick, neatly trimmed curls rather than soft
skin beneath the button he'd just released, he groaned into her neck. He'd
expected to encounter fabric first, and it caught him by surprise. "You really
are a minx, aren't you?" he murmured, savouring the texture of her hair as he
ran his fingertips through the narrow exposed strip again and again.
"I was in a hurry," she reminded him, her voice shaking. "I just threw on the
first thing that came to hand, I wasn't worried about the niceties."
"Hey, I'm not complaining!" he assured her, laughing softly as he undid the
next button and she moaned. One more button after that and the curls he
encountered were slick with moisture, making him catch his breath as the musky
scent of her reached him as well. "Mmm, you smell so good."
"You can smell me?" she asked, sounding embarrassed.
"Heightened senses, remember?" he reminded her, sliding his fingers gently
through the moisture. He wasn't quite far enough down to be able to touch her
clit, which made him feel a little smug that she was already this wet. "You
want it bad, don't you?"
Thumping him on the shoulder with one small fist, Aerith moaned. "You've been
teasing me for at least twenty minutes, Zack! If you were trying to drive me
crazy, you're succeeding admir.... ah!" Her voice broke on a cry as he undid
the next button and was finally able to slip his fingers into the folds of
flesh, rubbing the tip of his index finger over the slick nub of her clit. She
was already swollen, and exquisitely sensitive to his touch. He had to take her
weight completely as her knees gave out, and she rocked her hips up into his
hand helplessly, moaning all the while.
"Look at me," he demanded, lifting his head and staring down at her as she
stirred and tried to open her eyes. When she finally managed it, the beautiful
blue-green of her irises had been almost completely eclipsed by the black of
her pupils, leaving a rim of bright aqua that made the black seem fathomless by
comparison.
She shuddered as he pressed more firmly against her clit, whimpering and
clenching her hands tightly into his shirt. "Zack!" she gasped, fighting to
keep her eyes on his as he'd asked. Her face was flushed and she was panting
for air; in short, she was just about the most erotic thing he'd ever seen in
his life.
Making a decision, he smiled down at her and pushed his fingers a little
farther in, until he could slide the whole length of his index finger over her
clit rather than just the tip. At the point where she was pressed against the
pad of his palm, he could just brush the tips of his first and second fingers
against her opening. She was hot enough that he could feel his own internal
temperature rising in response, and so wet he thought he could drown in it. He
was hard enough for it to be painful, but he ignored it in favour of immersing
himself in her feel and scent.
Every time he touched her there she cried out and pressed herself into his
hand, trying to get more. He chuckled and refused to give in, concentrating on
her clit instead.
It wasn't long before her movements became jerky and her moans ragged, and
finally her whole body shuddered against his as she reached the peak. He
stilled his hand and just cupped her gently, waiting for the aftershocks to
pass so she could breathe again. Somehow she'd managed to keep her eyes half-
way open, and the look of satiated pleasure in them made his own body leap in
response.
Then, just as she was starting to recover her equilibrium, he took his hand
away and lifted it to his mouth, licking at the moisture left on his fingers as
she watched. Her eyes widened and she moaned again, watching him suck at his
fingers with every evidence of pleasure. Aerith tasted wonderful, like a
concentrated version of the unidentifiable quality in her kiss, and unlike some
girls he'd been with it really was a pleasure to do this.
At last he removed his now-clean fingers, and she seemed to find her voice
again. "What about you?" she asked, trailing one of her hands down over his
chest slowly. "Are we going to do this standing up?"
Looking around, he grimaced. "I'm not sure we've got a lot of other options,"
he admitted ruefully. Every visible surface except the garden was old and
splintered wood, and he wasn't sure he could manage all out sex without any
kind of support at all. "Not unless one of us doesn't mind being made into a
sliver pincushion."
Giggling softly, she followed his look around the room and obviously came to
the same conclusion he had. "Take me to the garden, then," she invited.
"What?" he blinked at her, surprised and dismayed. "But we'll crush the
flowers!"
"They don't mind," she assured him with a secretive smile. "And they'll grow
back." She pushed at his shoulders and he loosened his grip enough for her to
take a step back. Shrugging, she let the dress slip off her shoulders, the bra
going with it. The fabric caught on his arm, and when he let her go completely
it slid the rest of the way down to puddle on the floor. She was left dressed
only in a pair of soft leather boots, and he caught his breath at how beautiful
she was.
The harsh light coming in through the windows seemed somehow softened as it
reflected off her skin, her long hair coming loose from the messy braid to fall
across her body in strands that invited him to tangle his hands it in. Her eyes
were full of warmth, a gentle heat that nevertheless burned him up from the
inside out. He could still smell her intoxicating scent, and the wetness
darkening parts of the curls between her thighs all but drove him crazy.
"Flowers it is, then," he said, his voice husky. Scooping her up in his arms,
he carried her to the edge of the garden and laid her down in the middle of the
area they'd planted together. Immediately the scent of crushed flowers rose
around her, mixing with her own in a way that made him feel dizzy with lust and
need.
"You're overdressed," she told him, her hands working under his shirt to find
the tight muscles of his abdomen and exploring there. He swallowed, finding
that his enhanced senses affected the feel of her hands on him as much as his
hands on her.
"That's easily fixed," he said, sitting back on his heels out of her reach and
grabbing the neck of his shirt behind his head. One quick yank pulled the
sweater over his head, leaving him bare from the waist up.
She gasped softly and pushed herself up to a half-sitting position, leaning
back on one hand as the other traced the network of scars across his chest. He
grimaced; he'd forgotten about them, to be honest, they were so much a part of
him now. She didn't seem horrified or disgusted, though, just surprised and a
little sad as she touched them one by one.
"They weren't so bad," he assured her, and he was telling the truth. The scars
were from the wounds that he hadn't bothered to use potions or a Cure spell on,
the ones he'd allowed to heal naturally because they weren't debilitating and
he needed to save his resources for the bigger injuries. "I'm one of the lucky
ones. I'm still in one piece."
"And you'd better stay that way," she told him, poking him in the chest. "Where
am I supposed to get my manual labour if you go and get badly injured, after
all? I'll be saving it up for you, don't forget."
"I remember," Zack agreed, his hands dropping to his belt as she continued to
explore his chest. "If I'm going to keep getting rewards like this, I'll
definitely have to make sure to keep myself in good enough shape to do the
work."
"Careful," she warned him teasingly, smiling. "If you keep coming back for
more, I might have to start referring to you as my boyfriend. And then I am
going to have to introduce you to my mother."
He paused, looking at her uncertainly. They'd hinted around the subject before,
but this was the first time she'd come right out and said something that
indicated she wanted any kind of real commitment from him. "Aerith, I can't
make promises," he started, and she leaned up further to hush him with a kiss.
"No promises," she told him against his mouth. "No responsibilities, no
restrictions. I just want you to know you've got someone to come home to, if
you still want me then."
How many guys in the entire army were lucky enough to find a girl like this?
Zack wondered, dazed. Somehow, he believed she really meant it when she
promised no restrictions on him. "Babe, if the day ever comes when I don't want
you, it will be because I'm on my deathbed," he told her, rubbing his thumb
over her cheek. "And how can I do anything but come back in one piece, when my
girl is waiting for me?"
He kissed her again, passionately, then nudged her back down so he could stand
and strip out of his pants and boots. Lying back among the flowers, she looked
up at him appreciatively in a way that made him flush with pleasure. She'd toed
her own boots off at some point, leaving her clad in nothing but the flowers
that nodded and swayed around the edges of her body. They both should have been
freezing, but all Zack could feel was the heat that crackled between them.
Fishing automatically in his pocket before dropping his pants, Zack paused as
he realized he'd overlooked one very important point. "Damn it," he muttered,
tossing the pants aside and moving to kneel over her. He was scowling, and she
lifted one hand to trace the line between his brows.
"Something wrong?" she asked, concerned. He sighed.
"I just realized that I don't have any protection," he murmured, kissing the
line of her collarbone between words. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight,
since I need to be back on base long before reveille. I know I'm clean,
Shinra's medical exams are pretty damn thorough, but..." He growled and shook
his head.
"Shh," she said, kissing his temple since that was all she could reach. Her
hands ran gently over his ribs, her fingers soft against his skin. "Trust me,
okay? I have ways to make sure nothing happens. I promise, no consequences."
She smiled. "I might have tried to talk you out of using it even if you'd
brought anything. I want to feel you inside me, all of you."
Shuddering, he moaned into her neck. He was crazy for even contemplating it, he
knew; the last thing he wanted was to leave her pregnant, and as amazing as she
was he couldn't imagine how she would be able to guarantee that it wouldn't
happen. Still, he wanted it as bad as she did, and somehow he knew she would
never lie about this.
"You're a bad influence on me," he murmured, but gave in to what they both
needed. Trailing his mouth down over her, he finally gave the attention to her
breasts that he'd avoided earlier.
Gasping, she arched against him, her nipples taut hard peaks against his
questing tongue. The earlier orgasm seemed to have worn off, or maybe it had
just left her primed for more, because she shuddered against him and mewled in
the back of her throat like she was still as turned on now as she had been
before he'd gotten her off. He wondered if she could still feel the shock of
the mako in his system, and if it affected her pleasure in any way.
It certainly wasn't any kind of negative effect, if it was. She was
unbelievably responsive, writhing beneath him and running her hands over him in
retaliation. As hard as he'd been focusing on her body, he'd been ignoring his
own needs to the point where he thought he might not last long if she started
stroking him. Whether she sensed that or was just shy, she never quite ventured
far enough to touch his cock, and he was a little grateful.
Still, he definitely wasn't going to last as long as he might like to, so he
wanted to make sure she was more than ready for him. It didn't look like it was
going to take much effort, the way she was rocking her hips up against him. He
slipped one thigh between hers, giving her something to grind against, and
groaned at the slick heat of her against his skin.
"Zack," she gasped, begging wordlessly. "Oh, please... so good, I've never felt
anything like this, oh!" She shuddered as he bit at one nipple, careful not to
pinch too hard, her chest rising and falling rapidly as she panted helplessly
for air.
"I want you," he growled against her, his voice low and almost dangerous. He
knew his eyes were probably glowing brightly with lust enhancing the mako
shine; he'd had more than one girl grow almost frightened at this point, but
there wasn't a trace of fear in her eyes as she looked back at him.
Emboldened by her lack of fear, he moved to lick and bite at the other nipple,
covering the abandoned one with his hand as he pressed his thigh tightly
against her. "I want to fuck you," he repeated hoarsely. "I want to be inside
you, want to feel you around me, want to make you come so hard you'll still be
feeling aftershocks tomorrow. Aerith..."
"Oh!" She trembled at his words, her hips jerking in little spasms to press
herself against him. "Oh, Zack, yes. I want... I want..."
He bit a little harder, and to his astonishment she cried out and threw her
head back, her whole body shuddering once again in ecstasy. He hadn't thought
she was that close again, but apparently he'd underestimated her sensitivity.
Damn it, now he was going to have to wait for her to come down a bit, and then
start working her up all over again. He wasn't sure he could bear to wait that
long.
Aerith seemed to have different ideas, however. She tugged urgently at his
shoulders, pleading brokenly with him. "Now, Zack, please, now, I can't wait, I
need you, please!"
Unthinking, he obeyed her, surging up to cover her pleas with a heated kiss as
he shifted until he was cradled between her thighs. She was so slick and hot
that it didn't take any effort at all to slip inside her, but she was tight
despite that. It took his breath away when he realized she was still in the
middle of orgasm, her body clenching and releasing convulsively against his
cock. He'd meant to go slow at first, to give her time to adjust, but that
squeezing drove his good intentions right out of him.
Thrusting hard into her, he revelled in the ragged cry she gave as she clutched
at him desperately. That cry had been about as far from a protest as he could
imagine getting, so he did it again, shaking with the need to restrain himself
so he wouldn't misjudge his strength and hurt her. She rocked up to meet each
thrust eagerly, rubbing her body against his everywhere she could reach.
The aftershocks of her orgasm faded quickly, and he was briefly afraid she
might grow sore or too sensitive, but she showed no signs of wanting to stop or
rest. She wrapped her legs around his hips and urged him on with her body,
rocking into his thrusts and crying out breathlessly. Closing his eyes in an
attempt to help keep hold of his self-control, Zack slowed the pace a bit and
tried to draw it out. He wanted her to come again as or just after he did, so
he wouldn't leave her hanging halfway to a third orgasm, but he wasn't sure he
could hold out that long.
It didn't help that everything felt so exquisitely intense, sharpened by the
enhancement to his senses. He'd never felt anything half this good in his
entire life, and he wondered if it would be this way with everyone now, or if
it was something unique to her and she was spoiling him for other girls. Even
if she was, he didn't think he really cared. Not if he could feel like this.
Shifting so his weight was supported on one arm, he worked his other hand
between them and searched for that sensitive bit of flesh that would drive her
crazy. He found it easily enough; her clit was swollen and hard, and he could
feel her throbbing around his cock as he played with it.
"Oh," she moaned, writhing beneath him. "Zack, oh, oh gods. Yes, please, more,
I need... oh, Zack! Yes..." Even mostly incoherent, her words drove heat
through his body and made his cock twitch inside her. Fairly growling with
need, Zack somehow forced himself to keep to his slow, steady pace, continuing
to rub his fingers over and around her clit as he worked them both to fever
pitch.
Her hands were clenched so tightly on him that her nails might have been
drawing blood, but he didn't even notice it except as an extra bit of
stimulation. She was keening high in her throat now, a desperate sound that
said more than words ever could about how far he'd pushed her. His pace sped no
matter how hard he tried to hold back, rhythm turning uneven as his body
tightened and he felt the end coming fast.
Gasping for air, he struggled with himself. Ducking his head, he latched his
mouth onto her shoulder and sucked hard enough to bring blood to the surface,
leaving a mark and trying to concentrate on that instead of how unbelievably
good she felt against him.
The only warning he got was when her body started to clench around his cock
again, her hips straining upwards as if she was reaching for something. Then
she screamed, throwing her head back so hard he was grateful it was soft earth
beneath them and not hard wooden floor. Aerith shuddered around him, squeezing
so hard it drove the air right out of him. Otherwise he thought he might have
shouted too, his vision actually going grey at the edges as he let go of the
harsh control he'd been keeping on himself.
He'd heard it described as an 'explosion' often enough, but this was the first
time it had really felt like that, like he was flying apart into little pieces
and pouring the essence of what was left into her body. She was still clenching
around him as he collapsed, panting, and she lifted one trembling hand to
stroke through his sweat-soaked hair.
They lay like that for long minutes, slowly coming back to themselves and just
enjoying the feel of each other. Zack still had his face hidden against her
shoulder, and he was almost afraid to look at her for fear it would be too
intense for him to stand.
"It's okay," she murmured softly, still running her hand through his hair. She
lay cradling him with her body, soothing him as the aftershocks went through
their systems. He felt wrung out, completely emptied, as if he really had given
her the most important part of himself and now he was left an empty shell. The
hollow feeling slowly filled as she continued to touch and hold him, until he
could breathe easily again and didn't feel quite so much like he might shatter
at any moment.
Lifting his head, he gazed down into her eyes, captured once again by the sweet
aqua colour and the warmth of her smile. "Feel better?" she asked gently,
pushing away a strand of hair that had fallen into his eyes.
He started to ask what she meant, but it hit him all at once; the mako-induced
restlessness, the feeling that he couldn't quite contain himself within his own
skin, had vanished as if it had never been. He felt content and peaceful,
almost serene. "How...?" he asked, shocked. He'd been hoping the garden would
help to ease some of the tension, but this was far beyond anything he'd ever
expected. Last time, it had taken weeks for the last of the feeling of having
too much energy to fade.
Leaning up, she kissed him, as gently as she'd asked the question. "I'm glad,"
she said when their lips parted again. "You know you're always welcome here."
There was no doubt in his mind that she wasn't just talking about being 'here'
in the garden. Sighing, knowing he probably wouldn't get a straight answer from
her and not really caring, Zack relaxed into her embrace. Whatever the cause of
it, he felt better than he had any right to, and he just wanted to enjoy it for
the time he had left before he had to leave.
"You're amazing," he said, repeating his earlier words and knowing he would
probably say them many more times in the future. And he would mean it every
time, too. Aerith laughed softly and held him close, and he let himself slide
away into the amazing sense of peace she brought to him.
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