“I've dreamed my own death too, you know.”

The tiny woman with the mousy brown hair looked up from where she was searching for her teapot underneath the counter, blinking her grey-green eyes with surprise. “Well, I…” she flustered, brushing her hands off on her skirt as she rose to her feet with the object in hand. “I…” She stammered once more and then turned to fill the teapot with water without answering the younger girl.

“I'm sorry,” she said softly, a hint of a smile playing across her delicate features. “I have an awful habit of saying things I shouldn't…”

“Oh no, no bother at all,” the other replied quickly, her hands shaking as she set the tea pot on the stove and turned it to boil. “I just wasn't expecting that…all…well…out of the blue and such.”

“But I'm right, aren't I?” She leaned forward to rest her chin on her hands, her emerald eyes keenly taking in the other as she sat down across from her and nervously folded and unfolded her arms.

“Well, doesn't everyone dream strange things now and then?”

“My dreams have never been just dreams though….” She sighed, a strange expression passing over her face, and turned to look around the room. “It's very kind of you to put us up for the evening.”

“Oh, it's not trouble at all, Miss Gainsborough…“ she replied, calming slightly as the topic was changed, one hand coming up to push her glasses a little higher on her face, force of habit.

Aerith giggled slightly and reached a slender hand across the table to touch the older woman's. “Please, call me Aerith…”

“Alright…”

The two gazed at each other for a moment and then Aerith spoke again. “Why do you let him treat you like that?”

Shera knew what the girl meant, but deftly avoided the question. “I might ask the same of you, Miss…er…Aerith…” she replied with a hint of a smile, nodding her head towards the window where the rest of the group had followed Cid to take a look at the infamous rocket. “I see that brunette making eyes at the blond fellow…”

“Cloud?” she replied, withdrawing her hand and frowning slightly. “What makes you think there's anything going on between he and I?”

“I didn't say there was,” she replied, rising as the whistle of the kettle went off. “But seeing as you just confirmed that there is…” She grinned now, turning to lift the pot off the stove. She stretched up to the cabinet, and was surprised again when the younger girl came to her assistance, retrieving the two cups from the high shelf.

“I see you are as keen an observer as I,” Aerith remarked, setting the cups down and retaking her seat at the beat up wooden table. “But you didn't answer my question.”

Shera poured the tea carefully, offering a bowl of sugar cubes to her guest, before replacing the kettle upon the stove and taking her seat again. “Mine for yours?” she suggested and Aerith grinned.

“Deal.”

“Well…” she started, taking a sip of her tea, “It's like this…Captain and I…we're two halves of something. Been each other's world for so long that I dun think either of us would know how to get by without the other.”

“Understandable, if you've been together as long as you say you have…but…”

“Now, now, little one, let me finish,” Shera remarked somewhat brightly, setting down her cup and folding her arms across her open lab coat again. “Captain, for all the great man he is, can be a darn stubborn fool. I suppose I can be a mite eager to please, which doesn't help.”

“But the things he says…”

“Are only things he says out of frustration. I know…I know somewhere under that, Captain cares for me like I care for him.”

Aerith frowned, adding another sugar cube to her mug as she blew on the tea. “But…he never says anything nice to you.”

“He doesn't have to.”

“I don't understand…”

“Someday you will…someday you will…” Shera's eyes gazed at a point over Aerith's head as she sighed, and then as she sipped her tea she turned to look at Aerith. “So what about you and this Cloud fellow.”

“He's my bodyguard,” she supplied and Shera let out a hearty laugh.

“I didn't think you were the likes of needin a bodyguard, dear.”

“I'm not really,” she confessed with a grin. “I…I'm a long story, I guess. I'm different.”

“Ay, we all are, in our own ways…are ya smitten with him?”

“I don't really know,” she answered softly, looking down into her tea as she swirled yet another sugar cube around with her spoon. “I just know I had to go with him. The Planet told me so.”

“The Planet, eh?”

Neither said anything for a moment, and then Shera rose to pour herself another glass. She eyed the clock on the wall and then peered out the window. “They won't be back for some time yet, I'm thinking…”

“I'm sorry if I said something wrong…” Aerith offered, pursing her lips.

“No need to be apologizing to me,” Shera replied, picking up a rag and a gun from a table next to the stove. She sat down again, running over the barrel with the rag and Aerith tried not to watch her. She'd never been particularly fond of weapons like that.

“I'm just never sure how people will take hearing the truth about me. I like to pretend I'm just like everyone else…but they don't hear the things I hear, dream the things I do…”

Shera listened quietly as Aerith tried to explain a little of her origins, and the reason the group was after the black cloaked man. “Ye got a lot on your shoulders…” she said when Aerith finally lapsed into silence again.

“I guess so…maybe I'm just used to it,” she replied. Her tea was now decidedly cold, and she took a sip of it, smiling slightly. Her mother, her real mother, had made tea cold, back when she lived in the snow.

“Have you told Cloud about the dreams? The dreams about the city and the water?”

“No,” she said with a shake of her head. “I don't think I'm going to.”

“And why is that? I'm sure he'd be worried.”

“That's just it,” she said stubbornly, finishing her tea and setting the cup down with a satisfying clunk. “I don't want anyone to worry about me. I do what I have to do…for the planet, for Cloud…it just is…”

“Maybe you be understanding the captain and I better than you think,” she offered quietly, setting the now shiny gun down on the table. “Love…whether it be for this planet or for someone else…not something you can understand in a day.”

“Sometimes not in a lifetime,” Aerith shrugged, turning to glance towards the window. They could hear voices off in the distance that signaled the return of the rest of the group.

“You come back and have tea with me sometime again,” Shera said quietly, standing up and reaching to remove the two cups from the table.

“Yeah…I'd like that,” she replied with a smile and a hint of understanding in her eyes.

“”It's hard to find company for a good cup of tea these days.”