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Aerith’s spot hadn’t been too stuffy compared to most other decrepit churches, thanks mainly to the oxygen produced from her unusual flower patch. The hole in the ceiling helped, too, but the installation process came with the fresh smell of broken beams of wood; any escape from the congestion—as well as from Shinra’s hounds—and back into the welcoming taste of city smog was in order.
Emerging into the bright expanse of broad daylight from the other hole in the roof was an unusual—and nauseating—experience to follow the pretext of supposedly being the Sector 5 slums, but it gave at least some context as to how Aerith’s babies had managed to photosynthesize under the steel sky of Midgar: the plate was still under construction, sunlight peeking through for a longer chunk of the day than normal, grasping for any life dwelling there like a doctor in as dire a need as their patient. Even that hint of warmth seemed to be cosmically sedated by the cool December rain graying out the otherwise heated rays.
When his vision fully came to, he was greeted by a vast circuit of crumbling construction, swamped in a sea of towered junk. Individual buildings shot up from the ground as bountifully as the flowers in the church they’d just emerged from—except conditions dictated that these plants more adhere to what the yield of the city of mako ought to be; in place of soil, air, and water, any growing things under the plate are fed on torn gravel, black fumes, and whatever droppings are sent from a crowd made more artificially fortunate.
Cloud let his acumen filter the wayward path from all the clutter, and was captured by the blush of a brown head in his sightline.
Following her own once-over of the rusted vista, Aerith turned on her heels and hits him with an expectant countenance. Holding the inside of her elbows behind her back and rocking on the balls of her feet, she passed the ball.
“Well? Shall we mosey on over?” She asked, a single eyebrow subtly quirked up.
“Let’s,” Cloud replied.
The prospect of jumping rooftop ravines and contorting his body to the whims of rusted metal isn’t ideal—his back is still feeling the effects of falling 400 meters—but he’ll manage; whatever loose aches the tussle with a Turk earlier hadn’t shaken out, his nascent SOLDIER injections surely will. He’s honestly more worried about her falling through the dubious solidity of all this tin flooring than himself at the moment. He takes the lead in front.
“Just be careful. Follow my lead.”
She let her arms fall from her posterior and brought them up in an excited fist-form instead. “You got it, captain!”
Cloud picks up on an unknown lightness in his extremities, despite the persisting soreness. He may be projecting some wrong ideas with this girl. So he thought as he jumped over a crack in the path and plods along when a bell-like chime cuts his thoughts short.
“Wait a sec! Gimme a moment!” Aerith bleats, eyeing the space of the ravine laid before her.
It’s reasonably large, now that Cloud’s had a proper looksee; he quite honestly wasn’t really thinking about it as he crossed, but now here’s a quality place to display distance he's looking for; he lifts his visage with a cunning smirk.
“Having trouble?”
“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you,” she pursed, narrowing her eyes at him before flitting back to her task. “Prepare for my arrival!” Cloud duly nods and steps back, casually. He wasn't sure if hers is the exact response he was seeking, but it should be enough to let her know where he stands.
She took one step back, then another; a third one for good measure. Then, she doubled her torso over, leaning to the direction of her landing space and leapt with precision onto (semi-)safe ground, the hem of her long dress billowing in the aftermath.
Cloud awarded her with a single chuckle. “A+.”
She smiled, reciprocating with a theatrical bow. “The pleasure’s all mine, dearest.” Her faux-posh accent was horrible, and Cloud found himself biting his cheek to snuff out a feeling furline and warm.
“Ready to go?”
“Yep, all set?” Aerith beamed with renewed vigor.
He turned around and struts a few steps to see an anemic and rust-blackened pipe, probably from the days when Midgar was still supplementing their burgeoning yet quaint yields of mako with steam power. It wasn't his preferred precipice, but it’s really the only way forward.
“Take it easy here. Rusty.”
“Gotcha. Thanks,” she said as he assumed the first tentative steps. Then she rubbed her arm in a meek sort of way he was unused to witnessing from her, thus far. “Sorry if this is a lil dangerous, by the way. . .”
He seized the opening to scoff. “I could do this shit in my sleep. SOLDIERS have to be prepared for anything,” he preened, all while maintaining proper analysis of the pipe’s integrity.
She giggled in reply—a sound he’s not quite sure he wanted to hear beside evidence of his higher position.
“Anything, huh?” She questioned with a heavy lilt. “That include first dates on rooftops?”
Most of his analysis was gutted, reduced to a snail's pace across this damn pipe as he ponders how to even respond to that.
“Uh . . . no.”
She let free a full-faced laugh, and it happened to resemble the little sounds Nibel birds used to make—the ones living in the pines past the outskirts of an old and graying village.
He reached the narrow walkway’s terminating point and used the excess time of her following suit to come up with a cleverer response—save at least some of his pride.
He eyed her through the louver of his lashes as she cautiously moseys across. “I—I thought the payment was one date, by the way,” he mumbled while sampling the strength of a steel ladder they’d need to scale.
She gave a creeping smile, he noted, before hopping off the pipe and watching him begin his ascent. “Depends on how good of a bodyguard you are! Think I could call you in for whenever I’m in another bind?”
Interesting. “That happen a lot?”
“Well, those Turks are a pretty persistent bunch, y’know,” she hummed, trailing beneath him, “and they don’t exactly care as much about how much they step on the flowers as you do.”
He wanted to scoff again. “Who said I did?” He postures with practiced distance, cresting the small climb. She topped it herself with ease and pats the front of her dress down.
“Nobody said it; you just did.”
Cloud made to retort, but was hitched back by the unexpected softness in her voice, as well as an unplaceable look in her emerald eyes most closely resembling fondness.
He elected to second-guess himself on that last idea; the sight of her looking at him like that coupled with any guess as to why she would ever was making him more anxious than anything else.
This girl was trouble.
His protests having fallen away, he compromised with a muffled huff and aversion of his gaze to his surroundings instead, allowing any view of his immediacy to unsharpen; he just needed to swim up for a gulp of air, at least.
Stray conundrums still wheeled in his mind, however, and so swilling his leftover courage, he spoke up again. “What exactly do the Turks want with you anyway?”
Her demeanor shifted ever so slightly to accommodate the follow-up non-committal shrug. “Dunno. Hey!” She gasps abruptly. “Maybe, they think I could be the greatest SOLDIER yet!!”
“. . . Forget it.”
“Hm? You mad?” She hastened her gentle saunter enough to catch his gaze, leaning over from his side. The gesture set him on the conversational backfoot again, but it wasn’t long before her attempts to reach him left her literally off-balance: her foot caught in the tie of the remains of a railroad track he was only just then cognizant of treading.
Any lingering indignation at her peculiar form of avoidance was jettisoned instantaneously; Cloud flattened the distance between their bodies and caught her torso in his arms before the universe dared meet her face with the rough ballast.
Supporting her weight in his arms, time unwinding, he let her find her footing within his grasp. Some bodyguard you are. He resolves not to take his eyes off her. At least until their feet are friends with the ground again.
He let another moment pass, to have the air flow into their lungs more freely. He quickly realized his holding her any longer was very counterproductive to that end. Adrenaline quickly evaporating, he set her stone-straight on her feet and pal-pats her on the shoulders. Her look of disorientation promptly flew off, replaced by a shining ray right into Cloud’s face.
“My hero!”
His head was now running in concurrent tramlines: gauging the distance between himself and her, alongside that of the ledge he was perched on to the nearest roof below. Focusing on the latter seemed like a more straightforward avenue. “Just—make sure to watch your step, okay? This ain’t exactly a walk in the park.”
“Gotcha, thanks,” she spoke with renewed cheer. “Although, if that’s what you were hoping for, I know just the place on the way back to Sector 7!”
“Pass.”
“Aww, c’mon! It won’t be just us. There’ll definitely be kids playing, at least—assuming we get there early enough, of course.”
“That’s . . . kinda what I’m worried about,” he muttered, prepping his jump down to the lower level.
“What, that it won’t be just us?”
Cloud spits out what little air he was holding and slips off the ledge with less finesse than he’d have preferred, her as his audience. It felt his ears were made to be hypersensitive to the joyful mirth in the storm her questions rode in on. He was a dog chasing his tail, with her as his owner, happy to observe nature take its course.
Shadowing his visage to conceal the blush bannering his nose, he squeezed a fist to hopefully schlepp some blood into his brain.
“No,” he uttered with strain he prayed she wasn’t picking up. “Was talking about the kids.”
“What about em?” She questioned genuinely as she sailed her way down through the air in his step.
“Don’t really like kids.”
A mock-gasp, complete with the time-honored palm-on-chest gesture. “You don’t?! Well maybe you’ll like the one from the Leaf House.”
“Leaf House?”
“It’s an orphanage I help out at sometimes.” She takes the lead again, swinging her arms with abandon as she plucked stray thoughts from the wind. “They’re really good kids. I think they’d like you a lot!”
“You think so, huh?”
“I do!”
“And . . . why is that?” Honestly, he wasn't sure why he's even asking in the first place.
“Silly. You’re funny and kind and strong, that’s why.”
Coils choked Cloud’s heart as her words branded themselves in his skull. Her tone may very have suggested disregard, like it was all a joke to her, a red herring. The fact her back was turned to him only simmered his flux-state even further. He continually dipped his head, fishing for another opportunity—another look at her eyes. . .
The pair surfaced at the top of a steeper incline, stepping up and over a fence picketing a platform clung three-quarters up a silver spire, overlooking the corroded expanse. A view of the wall encircling the breadth of the Shinra capital was given freely, and Aerith duly indulged with commensurate ease.
The air surrounding her seemed different, however, acting as a barrier to whatever organism may attempt to get close. The space between her and Cloud was typical for what he’d set during any social transaction—yet the distance between them felt as if it stretched the length of the Planet.
“Y’know, I thought about leaving once,” she uttered, her characteristic cheer blanketed neath an invisible veil.
“Midgar?”
She hummed in affirmation. “It’s a big world out there. Maybe a little too big, for someone like me.”
Cloud studied this thought, for a moment. “I . . . find that hard to believe.”
Aerith shifted; a leaf on porcelain wind. “Really?” She breathed, her gaze still sedentary.
“I mean . . . hard to find any flowers around these parts.”
At this, she stirred properly—looked at him with a perplexed countenance. There was relief in that she’d at least been drawn from the swallowing well she found herself in, or so it seemed.
“And . . . that relates . . . how?” She’d mouthed with genuine curiosity, as if she was a student seated at the front row of a primary school class.
Mr. Strife justly resumed the lesson. “Just sayin’: if you can grow anything in Midgar, you’re probably not the usual type. If anybody else can get outta this place, I don’t see why you can’t.”
Cloud was fixed on keeping his bastion maintained, even for this job. Even if only out of a bare intellectual curiosity, though, he felt pulled to egg out whatever answers lay dormant beyond her curtained state. Perhaps of any person he’d ever met, she seemed to be the one with the longest arms to outstretch, and yet her speech implied she’d never even traveled outside the teal shelter; if that was the case, he was beginning to wonder how she’d ever kept with being cooped up in the first place.
Aerith seemed to glacially retreat back into a blanched state. “That’s the problem: I’m not really ‘usual’." She sighed. "Got other reasons for not moving outta Midgar.”
“Somethin’ else?”
Aerith leaned back against the railing, fixed on shooting a fast stare at the border-wall, almost as if trying to peer behind it.
Cloud shifted. Or somebody else, he thought.
“Y’know . . .,” he began, “that’s what the bodyguard stuff is there for, right?”
Aerith drifted her line of sight to his for another puzzled look, but soon transformed, with the grace of a plane pushing off an airstrip, to one of coy understanding.
“So, you are thinking of getting hired again?”
Cloud should’ve been keeping score at this point—how many times she’d knocked him on his stupid blonde spikey head. The quiet yet obvious lift of her figure as she blazed a hole in his sockets triggered a nameless frisson of threat and throes in the bedrock of his heart.
He certainly hadn’t meant to get her excited in any way, and the fact she was—genuinely uplifted at words he let slip no less, left him dangling over either side of a pencil-precipice. Afraid.
“Uh, let’s just go.”
And overjoyed.
She giggled behind her palm and scampered up to his front. “Not so far, Mister. Team leader’s already decided!”
Most of his rooftop trekking had been spent with words at a loss, but somehow Cloud found it in himself to be utterly dumbfounded every time. For that reason or maybe another, he obliged her with zero protest. He usually considered himself quite adept at self-discipline, yet any attempt at salvaging his typical asceticism seemed to immediately fall pliant at the toes of her black combat boots. So he let himself dissociate from his crumbling pride, and grow numb to the cycling rise-and-fall of her feet tramping blithe and free through the ruins of rusted leftovers. They reminded him of the rubber boots he’d seen the other Nibelheim children playing in as they smashed the tranquil rain-puddles out of their settled habitats in the packed ground.
Watched, because what self-respecting next-in-line would let themselves indulge in such proclivities without growing red in the face at their own childishness.
And to think those other kids wanted to be in SOLDIER, too. Ridiculous. They lost their right to pull any favors with fate the minute they thought rain games and a war hero's welcome somehow fit into the same life.
Cloud knew they didn’t, or at least hoped so. What chance was there otherwise?
He shoved those thoughts aside; they felt much closer to his present than they ever should have, anyway.
Shaking his head and turning it upright gifted him the merry sight of Aerith heave-hoeing fruitlessly at a rusted-shut door barricading the path to victory. The visual of pencil forearms flexing with 110% initiative without even a squeak from their opponent nearly—nearly—had Cloud chuckling, all the more because it was punctuated by jade eyes darting to his person every few seconds, cresting steaming-red cheeks in a wordless call for assistance.
“Need help?” Cloud asked in the driest tone he could summon. He failed to bite back a smirk as the effect he desired from his offer blossomed beautifully.
Aerith stood back from the door and promptly harrumphed, crossing her spent arms. “What, were you planning on watching me toil away all day?” She asked with that incredulous lilt he unwittingly found himself becoming addicted to—in all its variations. This one was “annoyed”.
“Only as long as it might take for the whole building to collapse.”
Another quiet huff for that. “That’s the only reason I didn’t just blast it away with a spell! These things are pretty old.” She pointed a finger in the direction of his face as if giving a lecture and usurped the lead once more. Cloud grew increasingly fascinated by the kaleidoscopic array of tones her various deliveries could flit into, each shift leaving an alien ease on his soul.
“So you mean you weren’t just trying to flex in front of me?”
She waved her hand away. “These muscles are popping through my jacket, Mister, I don’t need to go around showin’ em off to everyone.” She peered over her shoulder to give him a wink, punctuated by a twinkling glint in her forested eyes that held him in a vise. Glistening sap, straight from the tree. “Aaand,” she sang with another ridiculous lilt, “I wouldn’t want you to get jealous. SOLDIER’s calling for me, I know it.”
He gave out a quiet involuntary breath that, to anyone else, might have seemed like a huff of annoyance, yet it made her ears perk up in a way that made him think perhaps she recognized it for the laugh it was.
Trudging further forward, they came upon a hollow length of tubing, stretching the width of the dirt-brook alleyway cleaving the cluster of brown Brigadoon in half. Aerith immediately straightened.
“Up for a slide?”
“Only way forward.”
“That’s right,” she declared, fists–on-hips as she sized the thing up, “so we’d better enjoy it while it lasts.”
Cloud afforded it another look-over. “. . . Might not last very long, actually.” He made to step forward—”I’ll go first,”—before nearly being tripwired by an outstretched pale arm.
“Got this handled, Mister Bodyguard, just watch and learn!”
Every time he thought he had a handle on the situation when it came to her, another layer of grease would have his grip slipping off.
“‘Learn?’” He repeated, incredulity thick in his throat. “I’ve ridden on slides before.” He mumbled, stupidly.
“You have, huh? All the more reason for me to go first—since I’m not as practiced as you are,” she pitter-pattered her fingertips on the upper rim of the slide in naked anticipation.
“That’s not the—,” he put a palm to his face and sighed, “—it’s not safe.”
She waved one hand his way. “Oh, you worry too much; I’m not some princess who needs to be coddled. Now, off we go!!”
He let his queries leave with a sigh and laid back into the echoed woops and woos of her speeding through the tunnel. She emerged on the other end standing erect with her arms erected in a gymnast’s landing. Assured she was unscathed (and apparently unfazed by the layer of grime coating the back of her dress), he swung himself down the hatch. It noticeably bent and buckled, but the real disconcerting factor came at the end of the tunnel: Aerith, wide-eyed and slightly slack-jawed, spearing her oncoming doom with a stare so vacant Cloud could surmise within a millisecond how little she was prepared for his fast-approaching arrival.
“Aerith, get back!”
“Oh!” She stepped backwards and immediately began windmilling her arms to push herself against the pale currents urging her over the edge of the platform.
“Aerith!” Cloud leaned into his feet as his ride terminated and lunged forward, desperate for purchase.
He caught her by the wrist; the silver bangles normally at the apex of her wrists were slid down to the deepest part of her forearm.
Cloud pulled her back to safety on a balanced scale of gentle tact and pointed skepticism.
She shot a quick sigh his way and smiled none the wiser, eyes more iridescent than ever, this close. “Woo, that was reeeaaally close, Cloud! Thanks,” she breathed, and he was wracking himself to devise whether the clear exasperation in her voice was a performance or not.
“Just—leave some space for me to land next time, okay?” He regretted letting the wobbling in his tone announce itself so transparently.
A breezy giggle and loose salute was her response. “Hehe, you got it captain! Avast, we go—” she flipped herself 180°—”onward!”
She took 2 steps before halting in her boots.
“Ah. There it is. The ground.”
Cloud ran his fingers through his hair and lumbered forward to seize the opportunity.
“Okay, this time I’m going first.”
“Hey, I—well, actually that’s a good idea.” Another pearly giggle.
He chuckled. “Glad you’re listening to reason on this one.”
She gave a sharper laugh in reply. “Don’t get too used to it, Bodyguard,” she voiced with a smile that beamed in his periphery.
He distracted himself by peering over the lip of their final rooftop, down to the security of solid sediment below. Definitely not an ankle-breaking drop, but not exactly a simple step down, either—about three or four times his own height, he’d wager.
He righted himself for proper absorption and let himself feel the impact shock his systems for a stretched moment; in one way and out the other.
He started again, thankful for the joys of a flat floor, but stopped counting his blessings when the soft clunking of shoes caked in old dirt went unheard. He craned his neck up to his charge, steeling himself for the inevitable.
“You good?” He asked, sincerity laid bare.
“Of course!” She cheered, but the change in her visage as it darted from him to the hard ground beneath her again left him wanting besides her assurances.
He rolled his neck, the last of the post-freefall joint-creeking at last sorted out. “If you need help, you can just ask.”
“Oh this is nothing,” she dismissed with a casual flick of her wrist to punctuate her composure. “It’s just a little . . . big. Compared to the last drop, I mean.”
He let this simmer, for a moment. The last drop hadn’t had the slick encumbrance of rain coloring its surface, either—the wall of mist that clouded the sun's rays from the beginning of their trek had finally traveled over the steel hills to meet them at journey’s end, as it were.
If he was being honest, Cloud was willing to exercise patience for this scenario. The problem was Aerith herself; it felt like every other obstacle they'd hit so far had her nearly tripping over her own head. He found himself unable to judge her too harshly for it, however; a sense of belonging in his dalliance as her shield began to flower within him, going nearly unnoticed. Nearly.
He was ready to bite the bullet and offer her his hand when nature—something scarce in Midgar, yet so seemingly abundant around her—made the decision for him. A stray pigeon, perhaps bothered by the enveloping moisture, swept itself into the aircurrents and the flower girl along with it, sailing past her face and jolting her off her heels—off the roof.
Not time to waste, but by now this was nearly routine. He sprinted—caught her in his arms with ease, one hand under her knees and the other at her back. Still wincing for an unfelt impact, she crept her lashes open and took attention to her currently incredulous rescuer.
“So reliable,” she explained, beaming right in his face.
“That’s, uh, what I’m here for.”
She giggled and popped her index finger out of the slowly uncurling fists held idly at her chest. “And that’s why you’re getting paid so well,” she said with a sly wink.
Cloud pressed down a hard gulp of nothing he prayed was inaudible—unlikely, considering how tight the distance between them was; he could feel each inhale and exhale of her lungs through the palm cradling her middle. The dew from a winter brume had made a lovely home of the flow of her face. It outlined the shape with glistening droplets catching his eye and pushing it gently to the sight of deep emerald countries, iridescent in the heart of milk-white seas.
Speeding towards a chemical meltdown in his own face, he left her back to her legs and turned on his heels, ignoring her mild surprise. “Let’s get going. Don’t wanna get wet.”
She laughed as she flew to catch up with his speedwalk. “You sure? It might help you cool down a bit.”
Cloud suppressed a choking movement. “Walking isn’t that tough.”
She hummed, floating near to his side now. “Hm, musta been somethin’ else, then . . .”
“Dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”
Aerith smiled cheesily, threading her fingers together behind her back. “Nothing.”
The pair strolled easily, side-by-side within the shoulders of junk hills. There really was never a dull moment with her, huh?
x
It’s been over 10 years since that walk across the rooftops, and just about as much since he last saw her; 2 weeks later and she’d be gone.
There are no pictures of her—no photos. What little remained of that dilapidated array of progress is suffocating under a younger layer of earth, brought by a celestial calamity which nearly took her mother’s life as well; their home and garden did not go unspared.
All that remains is her church, the path he walks backwards through to get there, and the flowerbed he falls into every night—much the same as he did a decade prior.