Archive of Our Own ^beta

At this point, routine had finally set in for her life. At least it felt like it, and it felt shockingly good. It had almost been a full year since the last time she had run away from home, and what’s more she felt bad about all the other times. Well, that wasn’t a new development—Aeris full well knew Elmyra didn’t deserve the stress running out at night gave her. But it wasn’t a guilt that seemed entirely naturally occurring. Firstly, in Aeris’s mind it wasn’t Elmyra she was running from, it was just...she was running, that was it. Secondly, the guilt really only took root when she overheard Elmyra begging the Turk that shadowed her to not remove Aeris from her care.

That Turk was frighteningly quiet as always, and it wasn’t clear if there was any real danger of it—but with Aeris running away so much, wouldn’t they assume Elmyra was a poor steward? It terrified her, and she ran away less and less, and Elmyra started to look at her in relief instead of anticipatory fear.

It was, shockingly, good.

The Turk annoyed her, she hated him, she wished he would drop dead sometimes Aeris huffed. He didn’t know how to have fun, he didn’t even like kids it seemed, which of course was just all part of Shinra’s evilness incarnate. Sending her the worst babysitter (quite frankly) because they were too stupid to understand what would actually endear her to return. Nothing would actually persuade her to, but she liked to think she could trick them by saying yes and then burning their whole operation from the inside. Then she could really run away, truly and freely, out of the city into the big world she only saw in her dreams.

Part of her wondered if it was courtesy that the Turk allowed her a small stretch of time alone in the church before he arrived. He seemed the uptight type to be up at dawn—slept in his suit, showered in his suit, did damn near everything to a perfect, boring T. Now if so, he was giving her a generous breadth of time this morning, which Aeris started happily humming in celebration. Humming loud enough so that he might hear , of course, and know just how much she was happier without him.

Time continued to pass, but enraptured in her gardening she didn’t feel it half as much as she should’ve. In the back of her mind she noted his absence, but brattily decided it was a good thing. A good, good, good thing—and before she could correctly identify her dismissal as anxiety she heard a rustle in her garden.

Aeris stood up, alert and perplexed like any proper nine-year-old would be. Carefully she approached the rustling, which had an odd spontaneous rhythm to it, and when she figured where the creature was she parted the flowers.

She gasped at the big round eyes staring back at her, cut with slim horizontal lines. As she stared the frog straightened its head up a bit, and Aeris’s face slowly grew into a beaming smile as the frog’s throat trembled then expanded with an uneasy yet casual ribbit .

With a yelp of glee she pounced and the frog jumped too late. Aeris’s hands wrapped around its torso and held firm, though once she understood it was caught she loosened her grip enough to not choke the thing. It was pretty big, bigger than she expected it to be, a fine specimen untouched (at least visually) by the mutations the mako reactors usually caused in whatever wildlife that innocently wandered by. Holding it secure despite how its arms pushed and pulled at her hands, Aeris stood up and rushed to the edge of her garden, giggling at how slimy the frog’s skin felt.

She had seen pictures of it in some of Elmyra’s books, seen them in dreams, and heard of them in her true mother’s tales, but this was her first—and best—actual frog. It made her feel like a kid from those imprinted memories; spending lazy summer afternoons shin-deep in muddy waters poking around with a sibling or neighbor, scooping frogs into nets to do nothing more than inspect before releasing them for more. Now she finally had this memory of her own, and Aeris sat down to inspect the frog proper. It ribbited , unhappy and pushing fruitlessly at her.

“Oh hush!” Aeris chided, “Let me look at you!”

Despite its apparent misery, the frog stopped struggling just enough for her to turn it around in her hands. It was more slender than Aeris imagined, and very dark; the only lighter markings were around its wrists and a splotch from its face down its throat. Between its eyes was a spot, almost as if it was tattooed there instead of a naturally occurring pattern. A pained rumbling settled in its throat as Aeris stretched out its spindly dark legs and giggled at its webbed toes.

“How’d you get in here?” she asked it, and, to her elated surprise, it started explaining. An initially-stuttered but constant string of ribbits answered her, surely explaining a fantastic tale of adventure she could only guess at. When she laughed and played along, however, the frog’s ribbits settled back down into a low, continuous note that she deduced was despair before petering out to silence.

“Are you hungry? What do you eat—bugs, right? I think we could find some in the trash pile outside, wanna go?”

At this the frog flailed, to which Aeris scrunched her nose in delight and tightened her grip and took him to just that. Sure enough, flies fattened on trash and rot were circling one of many of underplate’s waste piles. The frog struggled more and more and Aeris scrambled to keep it alight on her palms. It was, after all, how all magical type creatures should act when handled by an innocent maiden—that’s how all the fairy tales went. True, those tales generally didn’t take place against towering spires of garbage—at best there were dirty floors and stables. Midgar seemed like the pinnacle of those worst nightmares where not even fairy godmothers could reach a princess in need. And, like all things, Midgar swallowed up the dream of connection between her and this wild animal because the frog leaped, caught on her fingers, and toppled ungracefully from her hands into the trashpile.

“ Ah! ” she shouted, kneeling to its level and wrinkling her nose from the smell, “You alright?”

The frog frantically righted itself, miserably trying to shake filth off of its wet skin so desperately it toppled all the way to her feet at the base of the trash. Aeris stepped back, still stooped over the poor thing. Briefly it stared at her, unblinking and in such a way it seemed it wanted to punish or correct her for her folly. But just as meaningfully it tore its gaze away, flicking wet tan something off of its legs.

“There—that’s why you shouldn’t jump willy nilly like that!”

It looked back at her as if it could kill her for the assertion. Aeris grinned—for that stare felt familiar somehow, though less threatening coming from a silly frog with far too big of a pompous idea of itself. Because, like it or not, when a fly flew too close, instinct took over and out darted a sticky pink tongue. Aeris watched wide-eyed as the mutated legs of the fly fruitlessly struggled against the frog’s closed lips. When the frog swallowed it in full, it sat very, very, very still. Hunting, perhaps—or contemplating something Aeris wasn’t able to comprehend. Aeris giggled and reached down to pat its moist head, of which it flinched from.

A few more flies became unfortunate dinner and Aeris remarked on how hungry the frog must’ve been. Truly, Midgar, especially the underplate, was no real place for anything to thrive. But she was glad it was eating at the very least, even if it looked more and more dejected with each fly it swallowed. Frogs were funny little things. Aeris wondered why none of her books really talked about the personality of frogs the way they waxed poetic about the loyalty of dogs or prissiness of cats. The misery of frogs? Maybe she’d even be the first to coin it.

“ You . Little girl.”

Aeris gasped and gripped the frog around the torso before standing up and turning around. Three Shinra footsoldiers were looking at her and Aeris grew cold in quiet terror. Suddenly it clicked, Tseng the Turk was still not here . That terror started seizing her and she could hear her heart pound loudly against the back of the frog’s head.

“Have you seen a man in a suit?”

Aeris shook her head, not taking her eyes off of the triangular red dots on the helmet.

“ Shit ,” the frontman swore under his breath. Even that swear word didn’t crack Aeris’s fear and she stood stock still. Against her folded fingers the frog’s throat beat steadily, but she could tell something agitated the animal when the footsoldier spoke to his comrades, “You don’t think he’s gone for good, do you?”

“There’d be evidence of a struggle, or his body or—,” the soldier stopped, as if suddenly aware of Aeris’s young age and corrected himself, “Sorry, our uh—friend? Is lost? Long hair, dark suit, Wutaian, uh, mark in the center of his forehead,”

The frog’s throat beating against her fingers sucked in and in what must’ve been a split-second but felt like a small eternity many things clicked into place. Tseng was missing, there was a strange dark frog with a mark in the center of its forehead, and it was seconds away from calling out its very clear misery to the patrol looking for him.

Aeris clamped her hand over the frog’s head before it could bleat and mustered a smile that grew brighter and brighter with each word.

“Nope, sorry. Sounds like an upperplate guy?”

One of the footsoldier’s mouths twisted, “Well, normally, but...Hell, maybe we should run it back to the start?”

Aeris, smile wide, didn’t acknowledge the frog’s hands scraping against her own in desperation as she nodded. Generously, one of the soldiers gave her a thick shiny gil coin for her help and little frog friend . She then watched them go, the retreating footsteps of which only made the frog—certainly, yes, certainly Tseng the frog— double his efforts. But only in vain. When the soldiers had disappeared down one of the many alleys of trash, she finally lifted her hand, watching in fascination as Tseng’s frog-eyes unfolded from inside his head, staring out into the blank space where the footsoldiers had been.

Another inhale against her hand, but it only amounted to a deflated, miserable ribbit.

Aeris let out a peal of laughter that bounced against the outer walls of the church, hopping excitedly before it became a full prancing sort of dance where she swung Frog-Tseng around. Much, much, much, much, much to his chagrin. And misery. And all other things that she soon realized were far more Tseng than they were frog.

~~

Aeris ran back home, two buckets in hand. One with scooped trash in it with the hopes it’d keep flies attracted to its stench—to be left outside, of course. Two with a dash of clean soil from her garden, a splash of water, and a very, very, very miserable Tseng, all four of his legs to the walls of the bucket to steady himself against the wild bouncing her careless joy subjected him to as she ran.

“Mom!” she burst into the house, “Mom, mom, I found a frog!!”

“A frog—oh,” Elmyra said to herself, wandering to the front of the house with an expression ready to explain to Aeris how what she found was more mutation than anything, but when Aeris beamed and stuck out her muddy hands to show the dark frog at the bottom of a blue bucket Elmyra blinked in shock, “Oh that is a frog! Wow ,” she took the bucket and gently examined the poor thing, “Where did you even find this?”

“In my garden!” Aeris grinned, mischief tinging her pride, “Can we keep him for a bit?”

“A bit, huh,” Elmyra raised an eyebrow at her, “Don’t want to try your hand at being a herpetologist?”

Tseng ribbited in despair and Aeris couldn’t stifle her giggle. Still, she had a good cover story regardless.

“I wanna set him free. I think...yeah. I don’t wanna keep him.” There was an unsaid weight behind those words that she didn’t know quite how to articulate. Saying it was just Ancient intuition was a poisoned phrase to her despite its truth. All living things deserved a chance at a free life—or at least a well-provided life, much as the history of the world in her dreams showed her that wasn’t the case. (Since it wasn’t the case, she should try her darndest to make sure it was wherever she could.) Secondly, hand-in-hand with that explanation...she couldn’t bear to trap something in a place it didn’t belong. Be that a facility, in an underplate home, or under a perpetual watch...never.

Elmyra smiled at her in a way that said that even if she didn’t know the truth of Aeris’s heart she understood that there was depth to her meaning. Brushing an errant lock of hair from her cheeks, her mother smiled and accepted her answer.

Despite this she was clearly nervous when Aeris suggested the frog sit at the table with them, though as Aeris expected Tseng was very well behaved. He sat in the picture-perfect way a frog should sit, eyeing her in distrust as though he could somehow weasel himself out of the dinner of flies she had so meticulously prepared for him with a honeyed plate near the garbage bucket. But, he was a frog not a weasel , and despite what she now understood to be deep and painful despair Tseng’s tongue still flicked out to eat.

After dinner, after Elmyra had her choose a book to read from for the night together with Tseng in his bucket at her feet, Aeris hauled him outside. Not very far, just to the tiered areas that were once gardens but now barren. Once she got good at the church gardening, she’ll see if her skills translate here, because...well, this was her home now, wasn’t it? And her home should be pretty, reflect her, be nice for Elmyra to look at now that she no longer had a husband to grow old with in their inherited house. This all babbled out to Tseng as she (purposefully) swung the bucket back and forth. At first she had meant it to just be babbling, but the depth of her reasoning struck her at an odd angle. She sat down on the tallest tier and Tseng crawled onto the lip of the bucket to stare at her.

“Hey, y’know,” she said to lighten the mood, “Maybe you’ll get better if I kiss you!”

Tseng’s spine straightened and a low croak escaped him, displeased.

“Oh come on!” Aeris protested, “Am I not a fair maiden? I think I’d make a pretty good princess!”

Tseng’s eyes dipped halfway into his head, mimicking narrowed eyes of further displeasure. Aeris laughed, loud and bright. Loud and bright. When it died down she was staring at the waterfall.

Aeris flopped on her back and pretended it was the sky she was looking at. It helped to put an arm over her eyes, squinting so the metal networks blurred into a pallet of color, blinking lights the stars.

“I wish you’d be a knight or a prince if I kissed you...but you’d still just be Tseng.” she spoke into the relative, artificial darkness. It, well. It hurt to say that. Not because she wanted Tseng in particular to be a different person, but that it’d be a knight or prince at all . Someone to shake the status quo, someone to protect her and whisk her away to a previously hidden kingdom, out of Midgar, out of the piles of trash and the white laboratories into a secret place where no one could pull her away again. But reality had a funny way of creeping up on her. Her fantasies never ran so deep that she could truly leave how cold and cruel reality was behind. No painted wall, no sprouting flower, no prank to pull on the Turk, no running away in the middle of the night really staunched the bleeding from the open wound.

Beside her, Tseng was quiet and still. So like him. Since it was clear he could understand what she was saying, she knew he was listening. Maybe, sometimes, she liked to think, he listened listened. But who really listened to a little girl anyway? People underplate laughed at the mere idea of fantasy when their neighbor couldn’t move out of their haphazard capsule constructed of corrugated iron. Not even when the trash piles started to close in around them. Kids her age didn’t understand her, thought her weird for her ‘voices’ she hears, her dreams, and that she didn’t know what to say or do. Hopscotch? Cat’s cradle? TV shows from a few years ago? The rules to kick the can, or the lyrics to Ants Go Marching? Gods forbid they jeer at her for not knowing what band sang what song. Gods further forbid that it wasn’t just that her grandparents died, it’s that she didn’t have any at all, or that her mom wasn’t her real mom, or that her mom died in her arms, sick and coughing up discolored blood, that her first memories were sterile and cruel, that the Planet showed her things but she never really understood them because how could she when hide and seek had to be explained to her like she was a baby? Her peers knew so much more of the world than she did in ways that made her feel awkward and inadequate. Did Tseng know what any of that felt like? She snorted into the night air. Fat chance. Big stupid fat chance.

But what if he listened?

Aeris found herself gripping her arms as she turned away from him. Her best friend was a Turk. That, it, gods. Gods she hated that. Especially because it wasn’t for lack of trying.

“Whatever.” she muttered, burying herself away from verbally confronting what was tormenting her thoughts.

Silence passed by, and she almost forgot he was looking at her, forgot she was outside, forgot she was in Midgar for a blissful (yet numb) moment. Then there was a careful, quiet ribbit.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped, low and unhappy. Tseng didn’t answer. At first that was acceptable, but then she got annoyed. Really annoyed, a spark of anger that felt explosive and uncontrollable. Aeris whipped back around, ready to grip and shake him.

But his head was perked to the plate above them, and she was so struck by the possibility that he was tricking himself into believing it was a sky as much as she did, and it gave her pause. Whether or not he was doing it for his own comfort, doing it to mimic her as if it would bring her comfort, or doing it because he yearned for freedom too—even if it was just being a human being again—Aeris allowed her anger to simmer into melancholy. Unsure of what to do with all of that, she curled herself tight until Elmyra, checking to make sure she was alright (or checking to make sure she didn’t try to run) came out to fetch her for bed.

Before she had fallen asleep with Tseng’s bucket on her nightstand she had whispered to him that she’ll help him turn back tomorrow for real.

~~

Aeris held his bucket gently this time, or at least responsibly. Her first goal was to make it back to the church and hope that another Turk would come check up on her, and from there she would present Tseng as a problem for them to solve. Though she had been brash and bold, even sneaking away to the streets of Wall Market when neither Tseng nor Elmyra allowed her near there normally, with no guarantee of safety through Tseng’s constant shadowing she was wary to stray far from her path. Even though the footsoldier’s gift of gil would, maybe, potentially, buy something to cure Tseng, she didn’t know where to really look. Underplate shops were usually understocked, and the closest shops she knew of only sold the essentials. At that, the essentials were usually half gone at all times of the week. Most first aid stuffers focused on potions and ointments for common problems like cuts or burns. Occasionally if you were lucky you could find an antidote without going to the doctor’s, but for something as rare and high level magic as being turned into a frog? Aeris had no idea where to start and who to ask that would help a nine-year-old out.

Aeris talked to Tseng as they walked, idly wondering these things aloud and if he’d still be slimy when he turned back to a human. Or, would he perhaps burp up ribbits for a while until he’d fully shake it out? Or better yet, would he burp up little black fly legs? She giggled, glancing down to see him very pointedly not look at her.

“Hey it’s schizo-girl!!”

Her heart spiked and Aeris clutched the bucket harder, looking frantically around her until three boys around her age popped out from around a dilapidated building. They were mean kids, crueler than the usual snotty exclusion she was used to. Mean enough that they often got gaggles of other kids to join in on their bullying. Aeris swallowed hard and tried to speedwalk away, hopefully drawing the line between unaffected and urgent.

“Whatcha got, schizo-girl?” Oh no, oh no no no no no no—

She was surrounded. Say that she had nothing and it’d be so blatant a lie they’d jeer at her and yank the bucket from her hands. Say a frog and it was enough of an interesting anomaly that they’d snatch Tseng from her anyway. In the bucket he was very still, no doubt listening intently. He was still a Turk, right? He could handle himself?

“A frog.” she said, on her guard. Quickly she locked in on their names, already knowing she’d have to plead with them. Bonner who was tall, Vex who always had plastic headphones around his neck (probably broken), and Guile who had heterochromia—the latter of which Aeris desperately wished he’d be bullied for. Not by her, but just so maybe he’d feel what it felt like to be different enough to be outcast. But apparently two different colored eyes weren’t enough, not when schizo-girl took the prize every time.

“ No way ,” Vex scoffed, reaching for the bucket that Aeris yanked away, “There’s no frogs down here, stupid!”

“It’s a frog ,” Aeris said defiantly, “And I’m putting him back where I found him.”

“Why are you always so freaking weird?” Guile grabbed the bucket alongside Vex and the two of them successfully pulled it free from her grasp. Of course she was weird for wanting to put a frog back. She could’ve screamed, wishing she had said something normal for once.

Before she could demand it back the boys whooped and hollered—a real live frog! Aeris flinched seeing their arms dive into the bucket, expecting them to squish Tseng in their hold. Their whoops became shouts of determination as Tseng, elegantly, leaped away from their grasp and out of the bucket. Seeing a chance, Aeris charged forward and kicked the bucket up up into Guile and Vex’s chin.

“ Go! Run! ” she shouted to Tseng, who had already started hopping away. Aeris was about to book it when her face suddenly slammed into the ground. Stars sparked in her vision and she wriggled listlessly as her consciousness swam.

“You think that’s funny?!” Bonner sneered in her ear, his mouth stinking of candy and something that very well could’ve been tobacco chew despite the fact that he was only a couple of years older than her. Aeris shook her head, though not as an answer to him. In her blurry vision she saw the legs of the other two boys tear away after Tseng. She hoped, desperately, that he would make a clean get away—leap out of their reach or under some debris or something . But before anything of the sort happened Vex and Guile made a leap of their own, and she saw them crash over Tseng’s smaller body.

“ No!! ” she shouted, trying to will her limbs to work despite their numbing from Bonner’s weight. Bonner spit near her head and Aeris snarled like a dog, trying to throw him off. But the only thing it did was make Bonner pull her up to her feet, still trapped in his hold. Aeris tried kicking wildly as Guile and Vex returned, holding Tseng by one long leg. He dangled inhumanely, his eyes darting towards any opportunity that wasn’t coming fast enough.

“ Tseng!! ” Aeris wailed, and the boys’ noses wrinkled.

“What kinda name is that? Did you get it from your dreams ?” They cackled and continued to do so even as she screamed at them.

“ Shut up! Let him go!!”

“Hey dude, get out the big one!! Captain Frog’s gonna set off on a maiden voyage!”

Bonner yanked her around the corner of the building as Vex darted off, revealing what they had been doing. There were many black stars on the ground, remnants of cherry bombs and fireworks they had managed to get their hands on. Vex dug into a cardboard box and pulled out a big red rocket and staked it into the ground as Guile held Tseng up to it.

“What d’ya think, Cap’n?” he said in a cartoonish accent.

Tseng ribbited, unimpressed and unamused.

“Sounds like a go to me!”

“ No!! ” Aeris struggled against Bonner, who wrapped his arms tight around her so that the only thing she could do was kick wildly. Wise to this, though, he lifted her up off the ground so she only kicked at air, fierce but useless.

Aeris started screeching, putting all power to the highest pitches her lungs could conjure. More than once the boys told her to shut up , then shut up now, then Bonner shut that schizo-girl up!! But she screamed even against Bonner’s scorched hand, hot tears leaking from the strain as she hoped an adult would hear and intervene. Tape stretched and Tseng struggled, almost escaped, but ultimately was strapped to the rocket.

The matchbook came out and Aeris doubled all her efforts, screeching, kicking, striking her heels against Bonner’s shins. He howled and staggered. Aeris tried to make her moment of it, but Bonner squeezed tighter so she kicked again. Over and over, making as much of a struggle as she could while the fuse hissed. Bonner’s hand slipped over her mouth and Aeris opened it, but instead of a scream she bit him.

Hard .

He shouted, first in shock, but as she continued to sink her teeth the shock turned to anger then real pain. Copper exploded in her mouth as Bonner’s voice cracked on a scream. Finally his hold loosened but even as his arms fell away she kept her teeth clamped for good measure until his legs collapsed under him from the pain. Aeris tore away, sprinting towards the rocket.

She didn’t make it one step before it took off into the sky. Guile and Vex whooped, cheering as the rocket soared up and burst against the plate high above them. Aeris stared in mute horror.

No. No. She failed. They. They had killed him . He was gone, he was dead . Their cheers around her sank to the background as she watched white tendrils of smoke flit down from the impact. Tears scrolled down her reddened cheeks. Just like that. Just like that she lost her best friend. Much as she hated him, she just lost her best friend.

“ What? What the hell? ” Guile’s voice slowly came to her consciousness, “The hell is wrong with you, schizo-girl? Are you crazy?! Got rabies?!”

She whipped around, and she must’ve looked sublimely terrifying because the boy blinked his different colored eyes in hesitation. Whatever he was planning to do in revenge for Bonner he was stopped in his tracks, which gave Aeris the advantage as she tackled him to the ground. No screaming, no shouting, just grit-teeth rage as she balled her fists and started punching. Blood roared in her ears, and over them she could briefly hear Vex hooting like it was entertainment to watch his friend get beaten by a girl. But the more she punched, the harder she tore at Guile’s unique and pretty face the hooting became anger that turned very quickly into freaked-out fear.

“H-Hey, stop! Stop!!” Vex’s voice tried, wavering. Aeris barely heard it. Guile was becoming purple and bloody under her hands, spitting red. She hoped, she wished, she envisioned purple bruises shutting his stupid eyes forever. Vex laid his hands on Aeris’s shoulders and shook her.

“Stop!!! Stop it!!! We’re sorry, alright?!”

She reared back and clocked him in the cheek. Vex crumbled and soon became her next victim. Rage consumed her and when he pathetically crawled away from her onslaught she gripped his headphones and made sure they were broken by snapping them in her hands.

“Run, run ,” Bonner yelped, gripping his hand as it oozed blood, “She’s crazy , run!!! ”

The boys scrambled to their feet and fled. With the broken headphones in her hands she watched them, chest heaving. Dropping the bloodstained plastic on the ground she collapsed and sobbed into her dirty fists. It wasn’t loud. Sobbing loudly would be an indication that it could be fixed; loudly calling for someone to either fix or comfort her. This was quiet. She sobbed quietly.

After a time she crawled to the bucket, part of her foolishly hoping she’d tip it to see him inside. His legs would be pressed to the sides again because the only thing that had happened was that she was too rough and dropped it. But there was just watery mud and no frog, no Tseng. Gripping the lip of the bucket she watched her vision blur to smeared colors as her tears doubled their strength.

She tried calling for him, craning her neck around the garbage piles as if she’d see him stride forward. Two-legged, human again, in his sharp dark suit and silky brushed hair. Maybe she really was schizo. Crazy stupid dreams that had no basis in reality. Hot-faced, collapsing on the inside, Aeris gripped the bucket and stood on her feet. Heart crushed beyond repair, she slowly made her way to the church. Another crazy dream. He’d be there. Frog, human, it didn’t matter. That’s where she’d find him.

But of course, she wasn’t fooling herself with these lies really. Still, she was surprised that there was someone in the church. She had seen him maybe once or twice before. Tseng’s boss, she thought. His hair was a nice chestnut brown, and though he looked like a Turk there was something in his smile that seemed kind—at least to Aeris. Not cold, like Tseng’s smile. Even with the gash along his cheek that seemed like a recent scar, she feared him less than she feared Tseng. His jacket was hanging off the edge of the pew he was sitting on, and when he turned to look at her he gave her that smile she remembered him for.

It wasn’t until he stood up and greeted her that she realized she was covered in blood and he didn’t say anything about it.

“Hey there. Hate to barge in on your turf when you’re not here, but I’m in a bit of a pickle,” he walked down the aisle casually, sleeves rolled up to his elbows so Aeris could see that one of his arms was a metal prosthesis, “Do you remember me?”

Aeris gave a single nod, still holding the bucket.

“Remember my name?”

A single shake of the head. His smile remained warm as he squatted down to her level.

“I’m Veld. And you’re Aeris, right?”

She nodded. He extended his working hand.

“Nice to finally meet you formally. Or casually. Whatever this is, right?”

Aeris slowly took his hand, seeing the gleam in his eyes that she couldn’t discern. She looked down at their hands and realized that in taking his she had bared her knuckles to him, and a man like him, a Turk...surely he knew what bruised knuckles looked like and meant. Before the shake could happen she pulled her hand away and wiped it self-consciously on her dress. Of course that was filthy too, but she wasn’t thinking about that.

“So I’m here because one of my Turks is missing, and you know him very well, don’t you?”

She nodded, feeling a different heat take over. Was she in trouble? Oh gods, did he see what had happened? See that she had failed to protect Tseng when he was vulnerable? Veld was going to take her in. This was it, she was going back to Shinra for good now.

Veld was quiet for a very, very, very long time. The longer he stared at her the more she tried to tuck her chin into her chest to get away from him without turning around. The guilt was staggering and she was sure he could smell it.

“...Y’know what, forget about him for now. We gotta fix you up first.”

Aeris hiccuped, not understanding what he meant. Veld stood up and fetched his jacket, slinging it over his shoulder.

“C’mon. Wanna go shopping? You hungry? Let’s get something.”

She hiccuped again, looking at him in suspicious disbelief. Veld stood with his hand extended in friendship for a moment more before he flexed his fingers and turned to grasp and rub her shoulder warmly.

“I’m not gonna find a good answer if you’re in no state to give me one. Besides, I’m always down for some ice cream. How about you?”

That sounded reasonable enough, though Aeris was hard-pressed to ever think of someone that seemed to make space for her like that. Even Tseng didn’t—or at least he wasn’t so blunt about it. She sniffed loudly and rubbed snot on her arm. This caught Veld in an even warmer smile, like he was reliving a precious memory through watching her.

“Can we—,” another hiccup interrupted her, “Can we go to a potion shop?”

“Sure,” he accepted without digging.

“A good one,” she clarified, “I need a special potion.”

“Yeah?” Veld took her hand, mindful of her knuckles though his thumb rubbed a circle against the base of her thumb.

“A maiden’s kiss.” she clarified as he led her out of the church. He didn’t react much to that, but it seemed to charm him all the same.

Veld took her to the edge of the city before going upperplate. The potion shop was first, and Aeris let out a breath of relief as this one was stocked and stocked well. Maiden’s kiss was light pink liquid in a square bottle with a little embossed frog on it. She tried not to cry in the shop even though she felt the sting close her throat. She put the gil coin the soldier had given her on the counter, which was only worth half the bottle. Before it triggered a breakdown Veld paid for the rest as smoothly as though he was expecting to pay full price. Aeris hugged the bottle as close to her as she had gripped the bucket, following Veld without mind to pay attention as her mind swam with guilt.

Ice cream was nice. He had given her two scoops, and laughed when the vendor called her his daughter. Especially so violently dirty and bloody like this! Like father like daughter, he had said in response and pointed to his scar with the metal hand. Aeris looked at him to gauge his reaction, because the laugh he had given felt strangely hollow. But no ill will was behind his eyes as he ate ice cream alongside her.

The last thing he had done for her was get her a plushie. Unfortunately (or perhaps, pointedly—he was a Turk and she was no stranger to how Turks played dumb in their knowledge to manipulate what they wanted out of people) he had picked a frog. It was bright green, not dark, and plain colored—not striped with darker colors. Aeris stared at it like she was unsure if it was going to hurt her if she hugged it. Veld watched in intelligent curiosity as she slowly embraced it, then watched as her tears reformed and quietly fell onto the frog’s plush head.

“You like frogs?”

Aeris didn’t know how to answer that.

Veld didn’t ask further questions, bringing her back down to the church. In her mind he had fixed nothing, but she felt less inconsolable even when she stepped into the stone walls that should’ve had a different Turk within them. Informing her that her mother had his number if she ever wanted to talk, Veld brushed her hair back with his hand. For a half-second Aeris was terrified he’d kiss her forehead, and it was a spell he seemed under too because she could see the moment he snapped out of it and stood up, jacket over arm. His smile was a touch cooler than before as he bid her good-bye for the day.

Aeris sat on the pew and stared out at her garden instead of tending to it.

~~

A ribbit stopped Veld on his way out of Sector 5. He turned, and there perched on the garbage was a dark frog with a dot between its eyes.

“Ah,” he greeted, “And there is the final piece of the puzzle.”

A ribbit, firm and formal, and he noticed that the frog was sitting to attention as best as it could. And, he noticed, its underside was not only filthy but cheap tape was still plastered against its stomach. More ribbits followed, and Veld raised a hand for it to stop.

“You can file a report later. I highly suggest you return to your post in the church. It’d be in your favor; there is a cure waiting for you there.”

The frog stared at him, calculating. Veld watched its throat expand and he decided to add information.

“The Ancient is distraught at your absence.”

The frog still ribbited, protesting his decision. Veld narrowed his eyes and dropped his smile, his hard tone turning from casual to hard command.

“ Distraught .”

The frog was stunned silent. After a moment to process the information it gave a slow yet sharp ribbit that Veld recognized as Tseng’s cadence for yes, sir . The smile settled back on his face as easily as it had left and he dismissed the frog.

~~

The church was silent, punishingly so. Aeris kept rubbing her thumb over the embossed frog on the potion bottle, resting her chin in the plushie Veld had gotten her. Why she had gotten it, she didn’t really know. To immediately fix the next Turk that would be miserably assigned to her? That’d be the practical reason, but her heart still tried to believe that Tseng would stride (hop) through the doors and ribbit blandly at her.

Crazy. Schizo. Stupid dreamer. Meaner names for her brought tears to her eyes again and she sniffled.

Ribbit .

She jumped, and when she turned her head to the sound she, just once, just this once but it reached down past the roots of her heart, believed in dreams.

“ Tseng!! ” Aeris leaped from the pew to where he was perched across the aisle, “How did—wait, wait , I got, look!”

Showing him the potion, she hurriedly uncorked it and held it gingerly to his lips. He looked at her as though there was something he wanted to inform her of but couldn’t, something crucial to this situation in particular.

“Or do I just—,” she tipped the bottle and poured it on his head. He ribbited in shock, probably sputtering her to hold on wait for me to get down and he toppled to the floor. In a sweet pink poof the ribbit that would’ve sounded as he hit the floor turned into a full grown grunt and Aeris stepped back to make room for Tseng’s human body. He made it maybe a foot off of the ground before Aeris crashed into him, flattening him to the floor. She was sobbing again though hardly feeling it, curling her bruised knuckles into his suit.

“...Aeris.”

She had never been happier to hear her name out of a Turk’s mouth.

“Please let me up.”

Despite the fact that she didn’t want to, Aeris pulled back to at least allow him to sit up against the pew with a haggard sigh. He flexed his hands in his gloves, human in their articulation. He then peeled pieces of tape off of his stomach, the edges of which had pulled paint off of the rocket’s side.

“How did—,” she gulped down air in her excitement, “How did you??”

“When you bit into the boy’s hand,” he explained calmly, “It took everyone’s attention away and I had loosened the tape just enough. By the time the rocket took off there wasn’t enough tape to take me with it. After that, all eyes were up. Not down.”

“Oh,” she said, overwhelmed by everything all at once, “I...I helped?”

“In a way,” he eluded, then looked at her with human, brown eyes, “Are you hurt?”

Aeris looked down at herself and for the first time truly saw all the blood splatter and dirt for what it was. Her knuckles were swollen and red, making her childish hands look even more puffy like a baby’s. Tseng was looking at them too, but he waited for her to raise them before he tipped his fingers beneath her palms for a closer look.

“Let me know if they’re still sore tomorrow,” he said. Then, after a pause, “...I think you should learn how to fight.”

Aeris huffed, relieved to feel her spark start to crawl back, “I wasn’t that bad.”

“No,” he agreed, “But you could stand to benefit to learn how to finish a fight before it starts. Pre-emptive instead of reactionary.” Another pause, then he clarified, “Before you lose control rather than after.”

She pouted at him for his criticism, “I wish you were a frog again.”

He raised an eyebrow then said, “That can be arranged—,”

“ No. ” she said quickly and far too revealing of the guilt and terror that had been eating away at her for the past few hours. To emphasize her point she buried herself in his suit again, holding tight so he couldn’t shake her off. Tseng allowed it, though it took him a long while for him to return the gesture with an arm around her shoulders.

A cough traveled up his chest and he muffled it in a curled fist. A couple more, and Aeris looked at him warily in case he wasn’t alright. Her eyes widened when she saw a curled black shape on his lip and she yelped in glee.

“A fly! A fly! You’re coughing up flies!! ”

“ Please ,” his voice was firm and steady but clearly, audibly miserable , “Just—Did my superior take you to lunch?”

Aeris was beaming and shook her head, “Just ice cream! Why! You wanna get rid of the flies in your tumm—,”

“Aeris,” he interrupted, “Enough.”

She closed her mouth but the smile remained and her eyes gleamed. With Tseng returned to her everything about him being a frog was being locked away in her mind in case she needed to win arguments against him later. Arguments that she knew were going to happen because he was a Turk and a Turk wasn’t her friend.

But, for the time being, they were going to have lunch. They were going to have lunch and it was, shockingly, good.