"Just wait. I have a cute friend I want to bring," she told the guard with a giggle, curling a ringlet of brown hair round her finger flirtatiously.

If the smirk on the man's face was any indication, Corneo's mansion would be easy to sneak into, just so long as Cloud actually agreed to her plan. When she skipped back to him, the mercenary was staring, lips slightly parted in shock before he managed to splutter: "Aerith! I can't…"

For all his cool attitude, Cloud sure got flustered easily. His cheeks were even reddening. She hadn't lied to the guard about having a cute friend to bring—though 'beautiful' fit, too.

Aerith tilted her head as she asked, "You are worried about Tifa, aren't you?" Still tongue-tied, he only gave a curt nod. "Then come on, hurry!" She knew he was working on a protest, which made it imperative she herd him along the main street of Wall Market before his brain started forming coherent sentences again.

She wondered if he would have skipped straight to outrage if she'd said "beautiful". The word fit, though. Sector 1's dim lighting had underscored the mako glow of his eyes and his confident pose while obscuring finer details, but she'd had a good look at him the day before—after, of course, she'd checked he was alive and relatively unhurt from the little tumble into her flower bed—and, even tensed in pain, dirtied by grime, his somewhat delicate features stood out clearly.

"I don't look like a girl," Cloud's brain finally offered, and Aerith grinned, grateful he wasn't looking back. She imagined he'd be a little put out to hear the truth of his androgynous appearance.

"Do you have any other ideas?"

Apparently Cloud's brain decided to sputter and die again, because no counter suggestion was heard as she directed him to a dress shop. Once inside, he adopted a bored, resigned expression and hovered behind her—I am not here by choice, she could hear him screaming, I am here because I am her bodyguard, made mighty by testosterone, and never will I wear women's clothes—as Aerith chatted up the clerk and found out her father, the dressmaker, was out drinking. This time Cloud knew not to dally and walked out ahead of her. She noted with amusement how he stayed close enough to see where she turned without making it clear to bystanders who was leading who.

"I'm still waiting, you know."

"I'm thinking," he answered.

"Sometimes," she said helpfully, "you need to wing it." Although, she was impressed that he hadn't rejected the idea flat out. He was really considering doing this for Tifa's sake, even if it obviously embarrassed him. It was the sort of crazy thing Zack would have done for a friend in trouble. …Not that Zack had ever stood a chance of passing for a woman.

The moment of truth came when they found a dark-haired man nursing a drink at the bar, tape measure still slung over his shoulder. "I own the dress shop," he slurred when they asked, "but I ain't your father."

"Make me some clothes." Once Cloud had made up his mind, the embarrassment vanished, his posture relaxed and cocky. Until—

"I don't make men's clothes. And I don't feel like makin' anything right now," the dressmaker groused.

From the brief sideways glance Cloud sent Aerith, this had not been in his script. Which…well, she hadn't really thought of it either, but she'd told him to wing it and she would too. Maybe she could pique the man's interest.

"Cloud, you wait over there for a second. I'll try and talk to him. Why don't you go over there and have something to drink?" Since he wasn't completely comfortable with the idea yet, it was better if he didn't hear what she was about to say. Once he moved away, eyeing her with no small suspicion but out of earshot, she leaned in towards the dressmaker, adopting a conspiratorial whisper. "You know, mister. He always said that, just once, he'd like to dress up like a girl…" One innocent lie, intrigued dressmaker, and tape measurement in the bar on a mannequin-stiff Cloud later, a dress was in the works.

"How did you convince him?" Cloud couldn't help but ask while they waited for their meals at the local hole-in-the-wall diner.

"My feminine wiles."

"I don't know there's anything feminine about it," he muttered, and she swatted his shoulder before leaning towards his stool.

"Are you denying my charms?"

His body veered away by reflex, as much as he tried to shrug it off. "Don't tell me you're paying him with a date too."

She feigned offense with an exaggerated huff and pout. "What kind of girl do you take me for?"

"A sneaky one," he answered, but there was a smile tugging at his lips.

After the barbecue dishes were finished, it was back to the dress shop; the silk dress was ready, the changing room open, and Cloud hastily hid to try it on. Aerith counted silently; twenty-nine seconds passed before Cloud asked (or at least, began to ask) the predictable question:

"How…" She was already parting the curtains to poke her head in. "…Do you put this on—whoa! What are you doing?!"

"It's still not right." She overlooked his half-dressed state and furiously red face to address the more important problem: he didn't quite look like a girl yet. "A wig! That's what you need!" His haircut wasn't necessarily a boyish style—actually, she had no idea what sort of style it was—the problem was it bunched too close to his face, drawing attention to some of the harsher lines in his face, his oft-stern expression.

"Umm, I thought you might," the shopkeeper said. Aerith ducked her head back out to look at him. "Talked to my friend about getting one. You know the gym? You'll find a lot of people there like you. Go talk to them."

When Cloud re-emerged in his faded SOLDIER uniform, his face was not one brimming with confidence. It was one that still had pinked cheeks and questioned what he'd gotten himself into. "'Like you'?" he mumbled. "Aerith, what did you tell him?"

She shook her head. "Does it matter?" They weren't likely to see the dressmaker again, after all—unless Cloud got hooked on drag. He seemed to care a lot about people's opinions, come to think of it. "Anyhow, we got a pretty dress!"

As matters turned out, Cloud found out the essence of what she'd said in the tent-gym, when Big Bro flexed his muscles and asked him, "You the one…who wants to be cute?"

"Cute?"

Aerith had never heard the word uttered so distastefully and quickly cut in. "Right." From the side she caught Cloud shaking his head and then scratching the back of it. The gesture was familiar, in a way that ached worse than the slide down a flight in her church had. She could see Zack doing the same too…one of his quirks.

After talking with Big Bro, she decided that Zack probably would have done the same were he here, caught between personal embarrassment at this scheme and mortification that Aerith was even passingly familiar with Wall Market's layout. The Zack she had loved would—but maybe the real man would've been more vocal about his distaste and walked out already.

She shook her head as Cloud and Big Bro moved off a little ways, getting needed space for their little competition. Her arms folded, right hand fingering the hem of her bolero. She was still wearing pink for a boy who would never come back: someone who, in retrospect, she wasn't sure she'd known as well as she'd thought.

Back at the park, she had almost asked Cloud about him—had come so close. But there weren't that many First classes, and Cloud had still been clueless when she mentioned having a boyfriend amongst them. She'd started to doubt herself. The two of them must have been close to share mannerisms, right? Hadn't Zack ever talked about a girlfriend who grew flowers, the only flowers in Midgar? A girl who always wore a ribbon he'd bought for her, who'd promised to wear pink the next time they saw each other?

Hadn't she been important enough to mention at all? Or had she just been someone to whittle away downtime between missions?

So when Cloud had asked his name, she'd said it wasn't important. She didn't need to ask about Zack now; she knew she wouldn't see him again. She just wanted to keep a tiny hope that he'd cared about her. That she wasn't a stupid, pathetic girl for waiting five years to see someone who didn't take five minutes to break up with her.

"You know that guy?"

Aerith blinked, looking up at Cloud—when had he snuck back to her side?—and then down at the blond wig dangling from his hand. Glanced at the bodybuilder whose direction she'd apparently been staring in, seeing the bulky man for the first time. "No, just figuring out how I can get muscle like his," she said flippantly, and squawked when Cloud plopped the wig backwards on her head. The flopping sound sent all dark thoughts fluttering away. "I already have the hair for this, thank you very much!"

"Hold onto it for me," he said, straight-laced as though he'd never had a silly impulse in his life. She took the fake hair off with both hands and never took her eyes off him, fascinated by how he could change like quicksilver. "How much time do we have?"

"Hmm? Oh…At least four hours, Don's mansion lets girls in pretty latet."

"Let's say three. C'mon."

She followed readily. "Where are we going?"

"I don't look like a girl. We're going to need more than a wig and a dress."

She could have said that no, actually, for him the wig and dress would suffice, if she hadn't been choking on laughter that not only was he agreeing to her plan, he was expanding on it, determined to succeed even if it meant combing Midgar's seediest sector for women's accessories. Tifa really was a lucky girl; Aerith was almost envious she had someone as wholehearted as Cloud in her life.

"I think I'm jealous," she told Cloud two and a half hours later, green eyes taking in every inch of his face.

The mercenary backpedaled hard at those words, edging towards the Honeybee Inn. "I'll wash it off."

"Oh no you won't! And waste all that makeup?" The ladies working in the hotel certainly knew their cosmetics; the right combination of eye shadow, blush and lipstick, applied lightly for a natural look, and most girls could only wish they had a face like Cloud's. Too bad he didn't appreciate his lucky genes. "Besides, you already took forever in there." Forty minutes felt like eternity when she was being leered at by every guy. If Elmyra ever heard about this, she'd have a stroke. "What were you doing? Get distracted?" she teased.

He looked intensely uncomfortable, maybe even ashamed for a brief second, then shrugged Zack's shrug, going back to cool and cocky as he casually brushed back his hair. "Girls took too long. I think this is enough—" he gestured at the items they'd gathered, but she interpreted it as 'enough embarrassment'— "So let's get back to the shop."

More of his mercurial nature. She knew he wouldn't listen if she told him dropping the "tough guy" act was okay; but she still wanted to say it, and that strangers' opinions weren't as important as his own (besides, they would already draw their own conclusions from the makeover), and that, if he really wanted one almost-stranger's honesty, she'd already decided she liked her earnest, awkward, overprotective, serious and teasing bodyguard—

This cute, beautiful, handsome man—

Her footsteps paused for a few seconds as she gazed at the blond almost-stranger, as though just realizing who was in front of her. This ex-SOLDIER who was like Zack, but not Zack, and not like Zack at all in many ways. And then she shook her head, dismissing the thought, and picked up the pace so she wouldn't fall behind. When she caught up, her arm looped around his, just for that instant of unshielded surprise. "This is a scary place for girls," she reminded him. "C'mon, bodyguard."

Aerith wonders if—after she tells Cloud how she feels—he'll ask why she loves him. When she fell in love. Did it start when she sold him a flower, and her jaw nearly dropped in surprise at his bright eyes? Was it on the Gondola, amidst the fireworks? When he came to rescue her from Shinra and her chest nearly burst with joy that she had a savior? When he promised to take her on an airship? Did it blossom in a flower bed?

Maybe she'll lie and say it was one of those times. Then again, maybe not.

She imagines the real answer is going to upset him at first. He might get the wrong idea…but it's the truth.

It started with a pretty silk dress.