_Saturday with Aeris_


Saturday found him trailing idly after Aeris as the girl wandered one of the small markets next to the station in Sector_1. He eyed a stall selling bags of fresh apples and wondered to himself if bringing some back to her mother along with the groceries the girl was already picking out would earn him any points. He shook his head, deciding it was a lost cause. Elmira hated him. Fruit wasn't going to change her mind.

"Zack! What are you doing!" Aeris was waving at him from over behind a clothesline hung with carpets. None of them struck him as particularly nice, certainly not worth the prices the little ratty man was asking, but he was hers to command for the afternoon, so he joined her.

"You want me to haul a carpet all the way back on the train?" He eyed her selection, a shaggy green monstrosity with a yellow border and revised his expectations of her sense of taste. "If you want a carpet, I can take you to the outlet center you know. Get more selection there."

"I don't actually want it." She confessed as the merchant got distracted by another customer. "I just wanted to hide behind it." Giggling she braced her hand on his arm and leaned up to kiss his cheek.

It was heartbreakingly sweet, he decided as he smiled in automatic reply. It also didn't change the fact that she was practically still in diapers compared to his usual dates. He had honestly been surprised to find he still had some morals left after all his years of special operations and general debauchery, and yet here he was, bashful, when under the guns of an adorable sixteen year old crush. Zack smothered a cynical snort, not wanting to have to explain what was so funny to the girl who had just kissed him. Maybe he'd explain when she was older.

Probably she'd get tired of him before then.

"So, what else's on your list? I'll buy you some lunch before we head back."

"Oh no, it's too late! We'll spoil dinner and mom will be angry."

"I don't think I'm going to stay for dinner, cute-stuff, but thanks for the offer. Besides, I haven't bought you anything extravagant yet today, I'm overdue."

Aeris tilted her head and pouted. Someday she'd have men on their knees with that look, but at the moment it was borderline childish. "I didn't invite you along so you could buy anything."

"But I want to buy you something." He grinned, guiding her to her next stop. "How about an ice cream? Kids always love ice cream."

"I'm not a kid!" She stamped her foot.

Zack shook his head, "Sure you're not. Now, how much rice do you need?"

"A kilo ought to do." Aeris sighed. "Thanks for coming along. It was nice of you."

"Nothing to it." He leaned against the counter, waiting for the man to measure and bag up their order. "So do you do this every weekend? Groceries?"

"Just about, mom and I run a bit of a daycare for the other parents in our area who have to work. Since mom gets a widow's pension, she doesn't have to ride up to the city everyday like most people."

"Where as you do, to sell your flowers." He teased.

"Only sometimes." Aeris twirled a lock of hair around her fingers. "What do you do? I know you're a SOLDIER, but do you, you know, fight every day? Or guard important things? Or what?"

"Who me?" Zack considered the question. There were easy ways to answer it, and truthful ways to answer it, and the two weren't always one and the same. He settled for the safest he could think of. "I do a little bit of everything, I suppose. Lately it's been a lot of paper pushing, writing reports and the like." The answer seemed to satisfy her, and he sighed in relief. It wasn't until they were walking back to the train station, him loaded down with her bags, her loaded down with his ice cream cone, that she proved him wrong.

"Have you ever killed anyone?" She asked while holding his cone up for him to get a mouthful.

He was lucky he didn't inadvertently spit it on her. Aeris didn't seem troubled by the question. Her unbelievably green eyes just looked up at him, calmly curious, as if they were talking about the train schedules. "Um. Yes. I suppose I have." This was by far the most surreal conversation he'd ever had while eating ice cream, even including his random chats with Sephiroth. His hands were full, but he was able to wipe his lips on the back of his glove to shake the uncomfortable sticky sensation on his chin. He would have to remember to wash it later. "Why do you ask?"

"Don't know." She shrugged. "Have you killed a lot of people?"

"Depends what you mean by a lot, I guess." He shrugged, bags in hand.

Aeris gave him one of her inscrutable looks. "Oh." Not for the first time, Zack wondered how it was he had managed to land the one girl who could match Sephiroth in terms of ways of making him squirm with a look. Dumb luck, he figured. "Well it doesn't matter, really."

He settled into a seat on the train but didn't take his eyes off of her, not sure he was off the hook yet. "It doesn't?"

"No. I know you, you're a good man." Her faith in him was disturbing. He really wished she would change the topic. There were several things in his past that were definitely not the works of a 'good man'. It had never been something he'd precisely aspired to. She wasn't to know that though, and he wasn't going to be the one to tell her.

"Well that's nice to know." Zack slouched into his seat with a sigh, and the train began its descent into the haze beneath the plate.

"Sure you won't stay for dinner? I can convince mom, even if she's stubborn." She flashed him a winning smile, but he was unmoved.

"No can do, girl. I'm due back in the tower by nineteen hundred hours." Seeing the look she threw him, he translated. "That's 7pm, you know."

"I can do math." Aeris stuck her tongue out at him. "Well, you have to promise to have dinner with us next time."

Over Elmira's dead body, he thought to himself. It didn't need to be spoken aloud though, and he kept it to a smile. Seeing the flower girl to her door was no big burden however, even with the glares her parent was shooting his way. Ducking back onto the streets he even got a second peck on the cheek for his efforts. He kissed her hand in a play at gentility and got another pout for his trouble.

She really would be a knockout some day. Thankfully for his criminal record, and for Elmira's blood pressure, that day wasn't today. He whistled on the train as he rode the first four stops, and once they cleared the plate, checked his cell phone for reception. The little screen showed clear signal coming in, and on a whim he flipped through the list of names until one caught his fancy.

"Hello Brenda. It's Zack. How are you? Hey, what are you doing tonight?"

Teenagers were all well and good, but he still needed dinner, and then maybe to satisfy some other appetites, before crawling back to base in the morning. He did feel modestly bad about lying to the girl, but then it really was for the best. He had no intention of antagonizing Elmira anymore than he already did, or leading Aeris on more than he had to. What ever he might be, she was still a good girl after all.

***