21A/N: Hello! This fic is co-written by SailorStarDust1 from AO3 and me.
Now, with that said, this fic is OG. There's no CC, BC, AC, or DoC here. There will be elements and subjects taken from them, but they're not canon to this fic. Zack will keep his CC personality(Best we've got and really, it's what you'd expect from the OG anyway) and yeah. Anyway, we hope you all enjoy this fic. We have no idea how long it'll take to finish, but with two people instead of one maybe some day.
The church was as full of flowers as it had ever been, tended in the last five years by a learning green thumb. But it felt empty. Empty since the day he left and never returned. No matter how the artificial lights above hit the space with a bright glow, no matter the smell of moist earth, or the murmur of her mother and others, the church had lost something since that day. Sometimes, it was hard to enter.
Aerith appraised a few promising plants that grew near some splintered old floorboards. They were almost ready to sell, their heavy buds threatening to bloom as her fingers delicately plied. What did she do wrong? The dark haired Soldier had been smiling the last she saw him, smiling about their reunion after a supposed mission. But Tseng denied there being a mission at all.
But, then where did he go?
To Junon, she had been informed. What about his cell phone? It had to be changed, for security reasons. What about writing to him? Tseng said he would get the letters to him. But, she never got a response back. It made her sad, then angry, then despondent. Had her then boyfriend lied when he said her ancestry wasn't weird to him? She wasn't a freak…
Water droplets began to fall from the broken roof above her head. Aerith looked up, a prayer in her heart as she clasped her hands together. I just want closure. The rain continued to fall, runoff from the plate and from whatever tiny bit of sky could be spied from the Slums. Were the heavens crying with her?
It continued to rain, and she continued to pray. The murmurs never grew louder, and she never got an answer. Well, some prayers aren't answered right away, she reasoned. She plopped her hands down to her sides with a sigh, then went back to tending her flowers, blocking out thoughts that had badgered her for almost five years now.
"Aerith."
She turned around her head, then rose to face who was behind her: Tseng. The Turk stood tall with his familiar, professional presence, his suit dark blue and fresh pressed and his black hair resting slightly below his shoulders, straight and glossy in the light. He must have arrived in the slums after the rain had subsided. Aerith pursed her lips and gave him a wary look with her eyes. What did he want now?
He stood near the flowers, but never did his black dress shoes ever touch them. "I'd like it if you would be more alert in the future."
Her brow quirked up. "I can take care of myself, you know."
Tseng softly shook his head, his hands still behind his back in that all too familiar pose. "So you say. But I didn't come here to warn you against the usual Slum hooligan."
"Oh. Well, I'm sure you're on it."
A sigh, low and mildly frustrated, came out of Tseng's mouth. "Until they're apprehended, I'd appreciate it if you stayed at home."
Aerith put her hands on her hips, slightly nudging her flower basket as her foot tapped against it. "Do you think they're after me or something?"
"They're fugitives," he began in a hesitant tone. "They've killed Shinra personnel and escaped the prison they were held in. So, I'm worried for your safety."
She denied him with a shake of her head. "I'm not afraid of some criminals. Maybe if I worked for Shinra," she replied as her hands went behind her back and she bent forward. "I would be worried then."
His dark eyes narrowed at the defiant smile mere feet away. "At the very least, for the rest of today and tomorrow? We will be doing a sweep of this Sector for them." Before she could protest further he added, "I will compensate for lost income."
Aerith looked thoughtfully at the Turk. Was he worried this much that he would hand her Gil to stay at home? She straightened up and looked down at the flowers; they would be fine without her for a couple of days. Perhaps she could see if the local children would mind keeping an eye on them, if worse came to worst. When not busy with chores or playing in the Sector Six park, they delighted in helping her with the flowers.
"Hm...They must be pretty bad if you're going through all this trouble for me," she teased.
He seemed to stiffen, almost imperceptible, but she had known him for too long. Strange . "It's a precaution."
Well, he was avoiding giving her more information. Aerith wondered who these people were that they would have Tseng on edge. Were they that bad, were they after her for some reason? There had been talk, rumors of rebellion forming in the slums. It could very well be related...couldn't it be?
As they wandered towards her home, she pondered some more. Would they know Shinra's interest in her, and take her hostage? That was possible, and Tseng wouldn't stand for that, she knew. If there was one constant about the Turk, it was that he did look after her, no matter how many times she insisted that she could handle it all by herself.
But he had been most adamant about this situation.
"We will sweep the Sector as quickly as possible. In the meantime, try to stay near your home and keep your eyes open for any suspicious characters." His neutral expression faded for just an instant, but what was that expression? Trepidation. Was it perhaps just the weather? It was beginning to rain again.
The area her home was located was a unique place among the slums, and from what Aerith had heard, one of a kind in the hundred mile Midgar Wastes. She had tended barren land to give way to flowers and even a modest vegetable garden, and the waters from above were strangely pure by Slum standards here. Of course, she wouldn't give up her secret to how that was managed.
She looked up at the kitchy, two story house, a relic from a time when the Slum was a village. It sported a red tile roof with two sharp, triangular windows that allowed a view from their bedrooms. The outer walls were coated in a grayish-tan plaster, and the wood frame of the door looked ancient. The door was of a similar age, heavy and weathered. Runoff from the plate dribbled down upon the back of the house, but it was sporadic.
It swung open with a creak as the two approached, revealing an older woman in a plain green dress and a white apron on, giving Tseng a distrusting, weary glare with her dark eyes. She tucked a stray, brown hair behind her ear before greeting them. "Tseng, what's the meaning of this?"
"He's just walking me home, Mom," Aerith replied as she left the Turk's side. There was a pang in her chest, part nostalgia and part heartbreak. Didn't Mom also give him that same, sharp glare? Always looking for an ulterior motive if someone was working for Shinra…
Aerith supposed, for once, that Mom had a point.
She looked back at Tseng, then gave him a curt bow of her head. "I'll see you later. Thanks for the help."
The flower girl went inside, letting Tseng and Mom talk about whatever it was they were talking about as they convened in front of the house. Aerith's boots scraped against the stone floor as she made her way upstairs, the kitchen warm with yellow plaster walls and fresh cut flowers sitting in vases. The rickety wooden steps creaked here and there, Aerith unconcerned with choosing where her foot fell.
Finally she made it to her room, the same bedroom that she had found herself sleeping in for the first time sixteen years ago. Aerith sat her flower basket on the floor next to the door, then plopped onto her bed, the soft mattress and quilt cradling her back as she rested her head on her pillow. It was quiet here, except for the soft murmurs that never left her alone.
She stared at the ceiling and all the cracks and spaces between the wood beams, her mind always going back to one person. The one person she told Mom she was completely over, and it was a mantra she said almost every day. But her frustration was again at a peak, and so was her forlorn heart. A sad sigh passed her lips, and she squeezed at the bed covers.
"Zack...where are you?"
The yellow truck, sun-faded with age, carried the pair of outlaws towards Midgar from Kalm without a hitch. At least, that was the most uncomplicated way to think about things, Zack figured, further adjusting the dark cloak around his body. He rubbed at his furred jaw, leather fingerless gloves stroking short, black whiskers.
"How you holdin' up?" Whispering, he leaned in towards his partner in crime, who was quite literally laying low alongside Zack on the truck's bed. A bit of a bumpy ride, to be sure, but whatever it would take to not arouse suspicion was for the best. Besides, their rides in Soldier had been way worse, Zack even now fuzzily recalling his friend's bad cases of motion sickness.
Thankfully, that particular aliment seemed to have quelled these days, considering.
"...Uuh…aah?" Blank eyes, shimmering in pure Mako, met Zack's. The older man grinned, tsk'ing for good measure, playfully ruffling the blond's spiky hair.
"Well, of course you're gonna be chilly like that! What am I gonna do with you?" He laughed lightly, helping Cloud tighten the garment further. Anybody from Shinra that'd spot the otherwise inconsequential, Mako-experimented, ex-grunt...Zack was just thankful his Buster Sword was hidden underneath his own cloak. It was well made of some thick fabric to keep away the cold and snow of a climate they had left behind a few days ago, but nonetheless appreciated how it kept them looking low key.
Reaching the North by boat due to a fishing company based in a port on the icy continent, had been easy enough. Zack had thought that perhaps, they had shaken off Shinra. That was until they were ambushed by a Turk while traveling through a small woods towards Bone Village. In the end the ex-Soldier had gotten the upper hand, then buried the corpse far from the road; a difficult task with the sporadic permafrost that made up some of the soil. Tired and injured, he had made his way to the nearest inn, five miles northeast.
The Bone Village innkeeper insistently offered Zack and his friend complimentary cloaks for the biting chill of the north, free of charge, after seeing how beat up and cold the two were. The former 1st Class had found himself there with questions of how to reach the highest mountain—something about it sounded fascinating —met with replies about needing to approach from Icicle Inn, warnings of how many interested climbers had fallen to their deaths in wanting a taste of adventure. In the end, he felt it would be better not to keep Aerith waiting.
Under the cover of night they stowed away in a ferry bound for Kalm, then sneaking out two days later into the quiet town of fishermen and mythril miners. Zack would have loved to stay for a good bite to eat since the last thing either of them ate was a few bowls of soup at that inn (since they didn't really have any money), but schmoozing that old man into a ride to Midgar was more important. They could eat in Midgar.
"Yo! Old guy! We at Midgar yet?" Zack asked of the older man driving the truck.
He saw a hand gesture. "Shaddap! You're lucky I even gave you a ride!"
Zack snickered a bit at the old man's surliness. He turned back to Cloud. "What're you gonna do once we get to Midgar?"
Cloud said nothing, just stared at his lap. Or through his lap, eyes unfocused as ever.
"I know what I'm gonna do. I got a place I can crash for a while...No wait, that guy might make a visit…" Zack scratched his head. "Guess that's out for now..." He'd find her soon, regardless.
He lightly punched the palm of one hand. "Yep... gotta change my plans! No matter what I do, I need some money first…" His brow quirked upwards as he gave Cloud an appraising look. "...Hey, wanna start a business? But, what could we do?"
Zack thought for a few minutes, but the bumps in the road were interrupting his train of thought. "Hey, Cloud. Think there's anything I'd be good at?"
The blond looked ready to drool out of the side of his mouth, so Zack rubbed it with his cloak's fabric, then looked back at the truck driver. "Hey, old guy! What do you think I'd be good at?"
"What're you yappin' about? You're still young, ain't ya? Young folks should try everything! You gotta pay your dues while you're young. Go out and look for what you really want."
"Try everything...That's easy for him to say…" the ex-Soldier mumbled. He really wished he could do a few squats, but it was too cramped. He instead looked out towards the arid, dusty wastes, watching as a small herd of monsters made their way towards the Midgar Mountains.
He snapped his fingers in a moment of revelation. "Hey! Of course! I got a lot of brains and skill that other guys don't! That settles it! I'm gonna become a mercenary!" He grinned and laughed to himself. "Yeah! Thanks, pops!"
The driver looked at him with the back view mirror, brows furrowed. "Hey...didn't you even hear a word I said?"
"Listen, I'm gonna become a mercenary and that's that," Zack replied with a flippant wave of his hand. "Boring stuff, dangerous stuff, anything for money. I'm gonna be rich!" Again he looked at his blond, comatose friend. "So, Cloud? What are you gonna do?"
"No, wait... you got it all wrong," the driver protested weakly.
Cloud...looked up a little , like he had heard Zack. "U...uhhh..."
Zack just chuckled, and gave Cloud's hand a firm pat. "Just kidding...I won't leave you hanging like that." No, not after everything. Cloud would recover, and they would restart their lives. Maybe after a while he'd even be able to see his parents again.
Parents...Cloud didn't have parents anymore. Or a hometown. Zack wasn't sure how long they had been down in that dark basement, but it had been long enough that Nibelheim had been rebuilt down to that rusted out piece of junk truck that stood at the entrance of the village, and he had spied people who hadn't lived there when he visited.
For a while now, Cloud was all he had. And for the near future, all Cloud was going to have was him.
Zack put on his best smile to reassure his friend. "...We're friends, right? Mercenaries, Cloud. That's what you an' me are gonna be." He leaned in and poked the spiky haired ex-grunt on the nose. "Understand, Cloud?"
The former grunt's bright blue eyes slowly blinked, then closed, and his head slumped to his shoulder. Zack leaned back into the side of the truck and let out an amused sigh. "Yeah, I'm a little tired, too, buddy."
He just felt wore down, and not just his body. Whenever he had a spare minute to think his mind would just go to other things that he didn't want to think about just yet. Getting to the Slums, where they could be right under Shinra's nose and not be caught because of the millions of souls that lived there came before any wayward thoughts and feelings he would have to work out.
And maybe it was hard, keeping Cloud alive, and he was slowing him down, but damn it, they were friends, and he earned it. He wasn't just a barely living lump of meat, he would snap out of his stupor, and they would be mercenaries. It would just take time. They would have time, too, once they disappeared into the smelly shadows of the massive shanty towns under the Plates.
Zack looked up at the vast, blue sky, and wondered how long it would be until he saw its expanse again. Perhaps as long as it had been since he had seen Aerith, however long that had exactly been. Maybe it had just been a year or so. Yeah. Not too long.
There were some clouds in the sky, puffy, white and lazy, their numbers slowly growing as they drove westward. The slightest hint of rain tinged the scent of sun warmed dust, slightly warmer than the early autumn air. At least it stayed warmer than further north, he thought. It was a nice day. The sun warmed his cheeks, and he breathed deeply the smell of freedom.
The truck began to slow a bit, and Zack looked towards the cabin with a frown as they came to a crawl. "Hey, pops, why're you slowing down?"
"Don't be stupid! It's a checkpoint."
A checkpoint? Oh, shit. Zack looked at Cloud as his hand uncovered his sword, resting on the truck bed and partially hidden within the fabric of his cloak. "Looks like we're gettin' off here."
