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 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.

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