Summary - Because little girls are supposed to be so strong or so pretty, and little boys aren't supposed to cry so much. Pre-KH. [SquallAerith/CloudAerith/SquallYuffie]

AN - Wow…this came out of nowhere. It barely even makes sense to me, so sorry if it confuses the hell out of you. But I always did wonder if something like this happened, because, well, kids are kids and hormones are hormones, and without chaperones, I don't see why it WOULDN'T…I dunno. Reviews to feed my Yule log? :3 Kisses! -C.K.

Clover

By C.K.

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- Yuffie -

Aerith always hums when she brushes her hair. Even in the Green Room I can hear her whenever she gets to the task, some melody from home, from before the world collapsed and before we lived in a hotel. I remember sometimes she'd go down to the infirmary and hum all of the soldiers to sleep, running her comb through the long curls, and they loved her so much for it, all of them.

I don't love it at all. One time she was humming this song my mama sang to me once, and I told her if she ever hummed it again I'd rip all her hair out, so she wouldn't ever hum again. She was so surprised, I tell ya--her face went all slack, and it's the first time she didn't look like she could understand me. But it wasn't worth it, because her eyes were so sad I thought I might cry, and it didn't do any good anyway, 'cause soon she was up and humming again, just like it never happened.

I'm eleven and three quarters and I can't even read yet, something I refuse to ask help for. Instead I just take out the big, thick book that's in the hotel and stare at the pages. I know my alphabet, I tell you, so I make sure it's facing up, and try and remember the stuff I was supposed to learn all those years ago. It's just, so much has happened, and reading doesn't save your life when you're staring into empty yellow eyes.

So I snap the huge book shut--it's called the 'Bible,' that much I've learned--and sigh dramatically while rolling off the bed. The door is shut between our room and Squall's. Sometimes I sleep on the floor in his room because sometimes she has nightmares. And I know they're really bad--she doesn't cry out or kick or hog the sheets. She just wakes up sometimes, and there's this look in her eyes. It's the look people have right after their hearts are snatched up. First time I saw it I screamed, and ran to Squall, and told him I wouldn't ever be able to rest while she's up looking like that, and sometimes I can't. But mostly, it's Aerith and I and our big, cozy bed.

I kick the door open and she's unbraiding her hair. It's so long now, to her waist, and it's so wavy from that thick braid. But instead of yelling at her like I'd planned on doing, I feel something strange as I look into the mirror at her and notice just how pretty she is.

She's tall, now--not taller than Squall, but almost. She's skinny, but she has--and I blush when I think about them--boobs, and they're round and sort of big and nice. And she's got hips and long legs, the kind that you see on the mannequins in the stores, just a little fuller. But it's not a bad thing…and her eyes are sparkly and green, and her wrists are thin and her fingers are so skinny and elegant.

I guess beauty is sort of a hard thing for a kid to grasp. I mean, I've always known Squall is handsome. He's my knight in shining armor--that day all those years ago, he saved my life, just like knights are supposed to. He protects me all the time, my prince, even if it's making me stay home while he and Aerith go fight the heartless.

I never thought someone else could BE a princess, since my life is my own fairy tale, and I hate, hate, HATE the ache that grows in my chest, and through the mirror she's looking into I see my own reflection. I'm a scraggly little kid with a bad haircut (I insisted I could do it myself), and my fingers are still sort of small and my face is round, not shaped like hers, and my eyes are dull and sort of grey. And I don't have boobs--I guess kids my age don't usually notice things like that, because no one does, but I can't help but wish that a pair might be nice. And hips like that, instead of my boxy-boy self.

"Yuffie, I'm going to take a shower," she says, and her voice is just like wind chimes.

"F-Fine," I grunt, and my voice is nasally and stupid in comparison. But she smiles, and her eyes crinkle in the edges, and she leans down and gives me a big fat hug and a kiss on the cheek. She does that sometimes--no explanation, just holds me, and this time I notice her boobs and I wish I didn't sound like a boy, and I blush, scrambling out of her grip. She giggles and grabs her towel.

Since the bathroom's in the Green Room, I surrender Squall's room for my own, for once. I try and imagine that I'm five-foot six and my hair is wavy and chestnut; I imagine my chest is big and my body is curvy, and that everyone calls me beautiful. I accept their flowers and curtsy in my prettiest dress. My prince comes to me and we dance, just like in the stories I used to hear, and when the music is done he bows and I kiss him right on the lips; this is the image that makes me the happiest, and I blush as I touch my lips. They feel warm--almost as if it actually happened.

"…Yuffie."

I scream, completely unaware of having an audience, and I turn to him. He raises an eyebrow as he shuts the door behind him. I growl, because he looks even better than I imagined; I pictured him all nice and clean-shaven for a ball, and here he is, stubbly and in dire need of a haircut, dirty and a little wet from the waterway. He smells like sweat, but not in a bad way, and he looks amused at catching me in a moment of solace. I'm so embarrassed and flustered all at once that I lunge at him, punching him in the chest.

"What are you doing back, y-you stupid?!"

"I'm back from patrolling and training," he says, but there's a lilt in his voice, and I shriek, indignantly pushing him, wishing I could beat the moment out of his memory. He does nothing to stop me.

"You suck, you know that?! Ugh!"

"Yuffie, calm down."

He grabs my arms, but I grunt and scuffle against him, snarling. I hate to be embarrassed or humiliated in front of him and Aerith, because they were the most mature people I knew and I don't want to feel so young around them. I want to feel beautiful, like I'm a flower, a jewel, and not just some little scrap of a person playing a game I don't understand.

And I don't know if it's this or something else, but I feel tears, hot and salty and waiting in my eyes. I know more than anything else I cannot let him see, can't let him see me in pain, or crying. Aerith doesn't, so I shouldn't either--I pry myself away from him and bolt into the Green Room. Aerith's just out of the shower, and stands naked, but the moment I open the door she flings the towel up in front of her body, unable to wrap around it in time.

"Y-Yuffie, what are you--"

I slam the bathroom door, trapping myself and the steam of Aerith's prior shower and the scent of her flowery shampoo inside. Any minute now, I expect that both of them will start pounding on the door and expect me to come out, explaining myself. Aerith will be all understanding and kisses and for just a minute she'll fill the empty thing inside of me where my mama used to be. She'll hum that song against my ear, and I'll close my eyes and pretend, just like I always do. And Squall will pet my head, and instead I'll pretend he's kissing me, and that I'm seventeen and beautiful.

And after a minute, when I hear nothing, I decide to peek to see what's taking so long.

Aerith is still standing in the same spot, the towel covering only her front, and from where I'm peeking I can see the curve of her back and her bare butt, and her pretty legs. Her face is flushed and her lips are parted, and there's something so scared in her eyes, and I don't understand why she's fearful until I look at Squall.

His eyes do more than just stare at her--he looks hungry for her, just like the heartless do, and I find myself cold with fear. I click the door shut and listen, praying that they'll start knocking soon.

"…L-Leon…I'm sorry, I--mmf…"

For a moment there's a soft, unfamiliar sound, and I hear both Squall and Aerith making small noises, and I know then and there he's kissing her. Not even half a minute passes but I feel like it's been hours. The door conjoining the red room and the green room smacks shut, and then, I can't hear anything.

For the next minute I stand, frozen with the strangest, most horrible feeling building in my belly. The tears are almost overflowing, but I hold them back and step outside, curiously stepping slowly towards the door. Aerith's towel is on the floor, discarded. Every step, I realize, is one closer to finding out something dreadful between my prince and Aerith, something that a part of me already knows, but every other fiber in my being denies.

I grasp the handle, and very slowly I turn it, only to discover--

It's locked.

I ignore the part of me that says to ignore this and I lean a little closer, listening with keen ears. The walls and doors are pretty soundproof, but Aerith's gasp and Squall's moan shutter in my heart so sorely that I run back into the bathroom and lock the door.

I reach blindly for a towel and pull it--and the rack it's on--down and towards me, because the tears are already pouring by the time I put my face against it. I cry, harder than I've ever cried before, because I miss home and my mama's voice and Squall's girlfriend Rinoa, even though she's dead, and I miss Tifa and Nanaki and everyone, and the feel of sunshine and flowers and Cloud, who visits us at this hotel once in a while, but mama, mostly. I cry because I'm just eleven, just eleven, and I've lost my home and my past and I haven't even gotten my period yet and Aerith is a princess where I'm just a bratty, ugly kid, and I know Squall won't ever look at me like that.

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- Squall -

I'm not a hero.

It had to have been cleared up by now, the whole confusion about who can and cannot be a hero. People like me aren't allowed to be. Bigger, stronger, wiser guys get to run around with mythical keys to lock the doors to worlds. They're endlessly kind and strong, and don't have normal human flaws and imperfections. People like me can't change the world--we just try and survive until the real heroes can.

For example. If I were a real hero, I wouldn't have stared at Aerith like that. I might've remembered Rinoa, and the horrible feeling of losing someone you love, but her face doesn't even come to mind. I just see…Aerith.

Sometimes you don't notice how beautiful someone is until it's too late.

And she is beautiful like I've never imagined. How can she only be fifteen, but have curves like that, with a face like that, with a heart like that? She's beyond her years and we both know it, and in this space of time, where I have to force myself to look up into her eyes, and I see them sparkling prettily, there's nothing I've ever wanted more in my life.

Maybe it's because it's been four years since I've known a woman's touch. It makes me sound like a pig and I know it, but I won't lie--once you've had sex, there's nothing like it. It adds to the list of food, water, and breathing--it's something one can't be denied for so long, after having so much of it.

Call me weak if you will, but I'm not a hero. I'm a man. And even though I'm twenty-two and she's just a girl I grab her wrist and pull her to me, and there's nothing sweeter on this earth than her lips against mine.

It's like listening to a fairy tale you know by heart--the feel of lips and bare skin, and the towel slides between us, forgotten. Her hands cling to my shoulders in a way that confirms my suspicions, that she's about as much of a virgin as I am, which, I suppose, is what erases my guilt as I pull her into the Red Room and push her onto the bed.

She looks up at me with those eyes, and it's like a mutual understanding between us. If she can't have Cloud, and I can't have Rinoa…people have needs. It's not something I'm proud of, and I probably need it so much more than she ever will, but she's offering with her eyes and I'm not strong enough to say no.

My hands shake as I pull my shirt off and unbuckle my belts, kicking them aside and followed soon after by my pants. She looks like an angel against the red, her hair splayed out and her lips pink and bruised and her chest heaving, and as I climb over her, for some reason, I try and not look.

I slip inside of her and she gasps, and I can't stop a low, thick groan from emitting from my lips.

It's not slow and romantic, filled with sweet kisses and promises of a better tomorrow or assurance that we're not using each other. It's the opposite; we don't kiss at all, and though she arches into me and grasps my shoulders and whimpers in need, I feel like it's not me she's seeing, and I don't mind, not when she's this tight and I'm this hot and she pleads to go faster so I do, I do, and it's too much too soon, it's been so long since I've even acknowledged my sex drive and here it is--

"NNG!"

She lets out a whimper, and I push my face into her shoulder as I release, shaking and quivering all over. I collapse on top of her naked self and for a moment we lay there, panting heavily and warm from what's just happened.

"Yuffie," she says quietly, and the gravity of what I've just done smacks me in the face like a gust of cold wind. I pull myself out of her and reach for my pants, sitting on the edge of the bed. She crawls up and hugs me from behind, pulling my chin so I face her, and the look she gives me is to die for.

"Wait a minute," she says, and kisses my cheeks, which are still unusually warm. "You don't have to cry, Squall. It's alright."

"I-It's Leon," I manage, a harsh whisper once I realize that I am crying, and I attempt to shove her off of me, attempt to gather the scraps of my masculinity (what's left of them, anyway), because heroes don't cry and I couldn't even tell I was, but she shakes her head and gives me a smile that promises she understands everything, which makes me furious because I don't even understand, and what we did was wrong, but not to her.

"No," she shakes her head and smiles. "You can bottle him up again after this moment, but right here and now, this is Squall."

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- Aerith -

Once Leon has cleaned himself up and is dressed again he leaves, and I wish he didn't look so wounded and hurt by his own actions, because when he gets like this he spends more time in the waterways than is healthy, and there are a million and one reasons as to why he shouldn't, but his pride is such that he won't emerge until he's encased in iron and feels numb and cold.

I like to tell him he'll get asbestos, but the truth is he's poisoning himself with guilt.

And Yuffie, poor Yuffie--what must she think that we didn't go after her? We always do. I insist upon it. Squall would rather just ignore her completely when she gets like that-because he says it builds character, not because he doesn't want to- but he doesn't understand girls. I do. I know it sounds horribly presumptuous, but I understand mostly everything.

I slip in through the door, and pick up the discarded towel. I fold it gently and then dress in the pink dress I'd been changing into when I'd been walked in on, and gently, I kneel by the bathroom door.

"Yuffie," I say. "It's time to come out now."

And for a moment there's silence, and when the door opens it's flung with such force that I almost fall backwards--luckily Yuffie's there to finish the job, and I find myself sprawled along the floor with a wriggling ball of Yuffie burying her face into my stomach.

"D-D-Did…A-Aerith, I heard you--I --this--"

"Shh, it's okay Yuffie," I try and comfort her. She shouldn't have been here for that, Squall's dam breaking like that. Se looks up to him so; and besides, she so young, barely a teenager, and so much has happened to her. Little Yuffie with her fire and her independence and her love for Squall and I is the strongest girl I know. She peers up at me and instead of a child I swear I see her at twenty-two instead, fully grown, and I know she's going to be lovely (and a heart-breaker.)

"Did Squall…did he…did he rape you?"

She always says the strangest things; I chuckle and hold her closer, stroking her hair and trying to comfort her. She's so strong and she always tries to act more than she is, but she's such a tough girl that I can never help myself. She says she hates my doting, how I always love to hold her, but it's so moving to see someone trying so hard in such scary times.

"I think, for Leon's sake, we shouldn't ever talk about what happened," I tell her carefully.

"What if Cloud finds out that you did that?" she says, and my heart skips a beat or two, and I blush, not out of shame or worry, just from the thought of him. Cloud…

"Aerith," his whisper is hoarse as he moves inside of me, the very first time, and his skin is warm and his hands are clammy but there has never been a moment more perfect than this one, and when I whisper his name, he kisses me so hard my lips scrape against my teeth and bleed.

"He would understand," I murmur. She looks up with confusion in her big, grey eyes, and finally she scowls and pushes me away.

"N-No he wouldn't! He loves you, and you love him, and you're not supposed to do that with people you don't love! Cloud's your prince, and Squall, he's--he, uh--he isn't yours, he doesn't belong to you the way Cloud does!"

"That's right," I nod, running my fingers through her hair. It's so soft, even now, when I know for a fact it's been a day and a half since she's showered. I look up at the clock and watch it as it ticks cutely. "But Cloud and I promised…he has to take care of something first."

"Before you can be together?" she elaborates, and I nod. She quietly absorbs this information and I hum for her for a few moments, despite the fact she always says she hates it when I do, but I know for a fact it's the only thing she can remember about her home, and a song is much better than nothing. Then she nods and stands up, brushing herself off. She glances inside the Red Room and flushes.

"…I'm not going to sleep in there anymore."

"Fair enough," I nod, my face cracking a grin. "I'll tell Leon when he gets back."

"Good," she seems slightly relieved, though still shaken from the experience. I would say it's something we should watch, but I have the slightest inclination that it isn't going to happen again, that this slip in our composure will be forgotten in time, a bittersweet moment of complete breakdown.

I leave her in the Green Room with her Bible that she can't read, and as I look at the rumpled red blankets I can feel hungry eyes of stormy blue on me, and feel rougher, older, more experienced hands gripping me, needing me. Beneath me the planet cries with infection, and my heart flickers light from a far away land, and I feel both elation and deep sorrow at the same time.

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- Epilogue; Cloud -

I haven't finished what I set out to do all those years ago, but this may be my last chance to go back, and in the difficult and dangerous choice between vengeance and home, I choose the latter, because at least that might guarantee me both. The worlds are changing again; there is less light than ever, and the darkness is thicker and harder to penetrate, but it's time I fought for our home rather than for another's.

Of course, anonymities like Yuffie and Squall are difficult to come by. Luckily, though, Cid is synonymous with 'the gummi guy,' and everyone knows him because of this whole mess. Tracking him down isn't difficult, and when he sees me, he just rolls his eyes and points to his newest ship, a retake on his original Leviathan.

"Best I drag your rotten ass home, 'else pinky'll cut off my nuts."

The whole trip home I can't even find the energy to debate whether my decision is the right one or not; as a matter of fact, I'm so sleepy that half of the time I can't remember. Sleep isn't something a mercenary for the devil gets a lot of, particularly one with a cause like mine.

We make our way up the remains of the castle, that they now call the Hollow Bastion. It's a violent name for a violent place, Cid tells me, as we climb the jagged rock edges, up to the castle's main entrance.

And it's amazing, that we walk inside and she's just there, prettier than my memory did justice. She's taller than the fourteen-year-old I remember, and curvier, but she's still got those eyes, the brightness tinged with a hint of mysteriousness. Squall is watching with eyes that burn, and beside him, Yuffie looks like she's about to die from smiling too wide. She has that same baby face, but she's grown so much, skinnier and shorter and more vibrant than ever.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I'm dimly aware that I've missed out on a huge chunk of her life. I left her to pursue something, and in that time these three have laughed and cried together, growing tighter and more a part of each other than I can imagine. They've bonded through survival, where I've survived alone.

Yet Aerith is here, and she looks glad to see me. We approach each other, and the intimacy of this moment takes me by surprise; I drop my gaze.

She twists herself to meet my eyes, playfully scrunching her nose at me.

And I don't know that at that second, Squall is remembering the feeling of lips against his tearful face, or that Yuffie's recalling a hazy, misty morning crying her childhood away on a bathroom floor. All I know is that for the next minute, we're standing right in front of each other, and if we make it past this minute then there might be another, and another, and maybe not many more than that. But this moment is ours; it is small but it is invincible and impenetrable, and it's worth everything.

(Fin)