✿ a story of petals

in the increments that he’s spoken, those few words strung together to form sentences, there’s something underneath what he isn’t telling her and seems to refuse to, and maybe this is just a realization that he never will. she’ll not force it out of him, she knows she can’t, but this isn’t something she’s equipped to deal with. she doesn’t know what she can give him that’ll make him talk to her.

tifa knows she’s not the best at communication herself - actions and gestures are what she knows best. she spent five years keeping her emotions locked away, focusing on the task at hand rather than dwelling on memories. she realizes she’s standing on the other side of the counter now, putting distance between herself and cloud and this realization is another sort of pain - the kind she’s inflicted upon herself because she isn’t certain of who he is anymore.

he told her, when it felt like it had been at the end of all things, that he wanted to live. when they were camping out in the ruins of midgar, barret finding supplies hidden within the rubble, and the three of them talking and laughing and going over memories they shared - which wasn’t that long ago, but having been through all of that, it felt as though tifa had lived several lifetimes. the things she’d done and seen and been a part of, she’d swear she could fill several books with those experiences alone.

she remembers how barret was the one who initiated the idea and cloud was also on board, giving tifa that nudge to start again. and she did, then barret left, leaving marlene behind, so he could settle his own past and come back thinking he deserved the second chance he’d been given. 

❛ what is it that you think i’m expecting from you? ❜ it’s a night of firsts, she’s coming to realize, and maybe this was long overdue in the making - that this was going to happen with the way things were headed, that she begun to wonder if cloud had made a mistake in coming back here, starting up again from the ground up - just like everyone else had. 

❛ the bar…this was barret’s idea. i know his heart is in the right place, and he means well, and i guess it was the idea of his role as a leader while we were in avalanche together, that made it seem like it was the right choice. back then, i wasn’t thinking about opening up a new bar because there was just so much going on…i didn’t - i didn’t know what i wanted…

…just knew that if you were by my side, i could handle anything that would come our way. ❜

she feels like she’s aged a full year but with the added sensation of having lost much of her vitality from coming out the other side of a great ordeal. idly, she wonders if this is some kind of after effect from meteor or witnessing the lifestream pouring out from the earth’s surface…or if it’s just the realization of having a conversation such as this, getting her thoughts in order as they come and doing her best not to stumble over them.

it’s making her wonder if she’s really herself tonight.

❛ …if you don’t know what you want, why did you start a business? why did you decide to stay here in edge? ❜ with me…

☆ ━━━ Cloud tries to retrace his steps back to where this all started as she asks, “What is it that you think I’m expecting from you?” 

It’s such an honest question he’s surprised by it, so used to the way Tifa hardly ever says what she’s thinking, as cryptic as Cloud in merely a different way. They both locked their words tight, only giving just enough to get through their days together--maybe Tifa had more warmth about it, but he knows it’s all about give and take with them. Hasn’t it always been?

When they first reunited back in Sector Seven, in a shabbier Seventh Heaven than the one they sit in now, she knew he was different. She knew he wasn’t right in the head--but there was only so much she could tell him. Only so much she could give him so that he wouldn’t break, not then, not when the world was ending. 

They made a promise when he was a kid and suddenly he was going to war for it. 

It kickstarted this endless cycle of give and take, he realizes. 

But in the end, even after they both lost everything, Cloud is still taking.

He’s stealing her time. 

Tifa goes on and Cloud stares at her, his surreal blue eyes glinting in the dark like two luminous lamps boring into her, unflinching in their intensity as he listens. His face is drawn, blank, cut sharp by the shadows cast over it. He’s hunched over the bar, his arms folded atop it and while he seems somewhat calmer now there’s a dangerous edge to his solemn gaze, a faint flickering in the depths of his sapphire eyes.

She asks him, “...Why did you decide to stay here in Edge?”

He finds there’s no easy answer, no pretty lie he can throw out there to diffuse the tension clouding the air around them. He knows what she wants to hear: I stayed for you. But he finds he can’t say it, he can’t keep lying to her.

The truth tumbles out of his mouth thickly, “I wanted to be forgiven.”

It’s all he’s ever wanted.

Words keep sputtering from his lips, unbidden, like a dam finally flowing free: “I thought if I did everything right this time... things would be different. But it’s all the same, no matter what I do.”

And still his gaze lingers on her ruby eyes, blue hitting red, a terrible and beautiful clash of color.

“I can’t--” He takes a breath, hitches his shoulders and then steels himself for his next words: “I can’t be the family you lost, Tifa. If that’s what you want, I can’t--I’m not enough anymore.” 

             In her shock she almost laughs when he tells her she can’t. Has he learned nothing? Does he think she will not do something cause he says he won’t  a l l o w  it? But there’s something in his words that makes her think. How would Sephiroth know she’s alive? How did he know where to find her after she left everyone without a word? There was just that strange dream… It didn’t feel like a dream and looking at Cloud now she thinks it wasn’t one. There’s a connection between Cloud and Sephiroth, isn’t there? The way he could control him at the Temple of the Ancients. Sephiroth doesn’t have to know where she’ll go, Jenova can’t stretch that thin. But maybe that involves not telling anything to Cloud too, playing along with his plan, acting like she agrees with his idiotic idea that she should just lay there and wait for the end of the world. The lifestream is still very faint, she’s not sure if they’re close to a reactor or if she’s just too weak to listen properly but she’ll ask them, she’ll trust them. For now she’ll let it go with the boy who looks like he’s the one who almost died.

             Aerith holds out her hand to him, gestures for him to come closer, smiles.  ❝ No promises. But I trust you. You didn’t kill me back then and you won’t do it now. ❞  How can she convince him that he’s stronger than Sephiroth? A voice at the back of her mind misses Zack. Zack would know exactly what to say here, he’d have the best pep talk to make sure everyone was full of confidence. She never had that confidence. She wishes she did. She wishes she could just wake up in the morning and be sure she could take on the world.

          ❝ You are dismissed from bodyguard duties. You don’t have to protect me anymore. ❞  She never needed it. Reno was never gonna hurt her and she clung to it as an excuse to spend more time with Cloud, to look into those pretty eyes, to try and find all the differences between the sword he carries and another one she knew years ago. It seems like the pressure is doing him more harm than good and this isn’t what she wants. If she should die, she doesn’t want it to be on his conscience. He should be able to move on without wondering if he could have done more, not when she’s the one putting herself in harm’s way.  ❝ Your work here is done. There is nothing more you can do, okay? Whatever happens now, it’s on me. It’s not on you, not on Tifa nor Barrett nor Nanaki nor Cait Sith. I make my own choices and I don’t wanna live with regrets and you’re just gonna have to accept it, okay? ❞  

             She’s trying to sound as kind as she can be, as understanding. Because she does understand it, she knows first hand what it feels like to have someone you love die right in front of you, to beg them not to, to beg them to hold on cause you need them, but they just slip away and your words aren’t enough to hold them to their body. She misses her mom. Not the one from the slums, the one who died because they put so many chemicals in her that she never stood a chance at a life outside of ShinRa. And even if she wishes she could go back and change the outcome, she knows she can’t. And even if she could go back, her mother wouldn’t have allowed her to change a thing. So guess she just has to live with it, just like Cloud will have to if that happens.

☆ ━━━ Cloud watches her carefully and sees that she gives in far too easily--he was tight with anticipation for a fight. He thought she would cry, throw a fit, make grand declarations in this lonely, dusty room.

Instead, she holds out her hand.

And this small gesture makes him want to cry all the more.

Because he knows he doesn’t deserve her kindness, not when he was so willing to break her to pieces to keep her safe. He’s always willing to go too far, eager to inflict carnage wherever he walks so long as he protects everyone. And now, seeing Aerith lying on her bed with that bandage holding her together, he knows he can’t protect anyone. 

Cloud had wanted to shield Aerith from war, yet somehow he dragged her to the frontlines. He tried to hold her back from a fight that was all about her. 

He stares at her fingers outstretched towards him, gazes at the inches that keep them apart and they seem like miles all of a sudden. How can he cross all the blood between them, as if the maroon carpet is a ruby ocean of gore that separates them? How can he swim through their mistakes to reach her?

He hears her words dully, as if they are coming from such a great distance to ring hollowly in his ears. There is no fear in her voice as she beckons him closer. 

His boots thud over the carpet quietly as he steps to her once. And then again. His hesitation is maddening, but he’s terrified of being close to her. Because every time he looks into her green eyes he remembers every moment he hurt her--

The awful few minutes after he handed over the Black Materia, as he convulsed and struggled against the ribbons pulling his fists up--the very strings that dragged his feet to her and made him take these same gloved hands to crash against her body--

She didn’t even scream as he beat her.

He takes one more step to her, hesitates at the edge of her bed.

Cloud wonders what keeps her talking, why does she want him closer? Why doesn’t she SCREAM at him? Why doesn’t she give him what he deserves already?

He slides the Buster Sword from its sheath on his back--it hisses whisper-soft as it is brandished in the orange-red light from the lamp... to Cloud it looks as if it is stained with blood too. He quickly perches it against the foot of the bed, rapidly wrenching his eyes from its tainted steel.

He then takes a tentative seat on the very edge of her bed, perched on the corner like a bird ready to take flight at the slightest disturbance--he sits there stiffly, one hand on his lap while the other is clenched in a fist on the quilt of the bed. 

“You are dismissed from bodyguard duties. You don’t have to protect me anymore,” she says as the dust motes swirl through the amber light. 

He flinches just slightly, twisting her words in his head just so: 

     ( It’s because I CAN’T protect you, isn’t it?                I won’t blame you for not trusting me. )

She goes on softly, telling him there’s nothing more he can do. And he knows this well--at this point, what good is he anymore? Sephiroth can control him, he’s a hinderance to the group, a ticking bomb that can go off at any moment--

He knows what he needs to do. 

He shifts his gaze to another black and white photo on the bedside table--a man and woman on their wedding day. They grin up at Cloud with tears in their shining eyes, a happiness so profound on their faces that Cloud can’t look at them long. He forces his eyes to settle over Aerith as she finishes speaking--

You just have to accept it, she says too easily.

But Cloud is burning alive from all of his mistakes.

It’s funny, he thinks abruptly, this is going to be the last time he sees her and he has nothing to say.

While Aerith devises her own missions in this little room, Cloud has devoted himself to a course that intercepts everyone’s grand plans--he’s already stayed up throughout the dark hours of night and decided. 

So, as both his hands clench into fists, he asks her so quietly it could have been missed if the room wasn’t already so silent: “...Do you regret meeting me?”

@storyofpetals​ liked for a starter 

Cloud hadn’t been too sure what to make of it all in the beginning; the lifestream, Cetra, the Planets cry. It was all so much to take in all at once and if he wanted to be completely honest with himself, he was guilty of taking it all with a pinch of salt. Such fantastical ideas were the things of fairy-tales; all very outlandish and hard to believe. At least, that was until their venture into the Valley of the Fallen Star, with Cosmo Canyon nestled at its very centre. 

It was here, beneath the gravity of Bugenhagen’s wisdom that the smog surrounding Cloud’s otherwise cynical outlook suddenly dispersed, broadening the horizon of understanding just a little bit more beyond what he’d once believed to be an acknowledgement of reasonable comprehension. 

Yet he had never been reasonable, had he? Least not where Aerith’s word was concerned. She had spoken, and he had listened but had he truly believed...? Buried so deep in his bones now was that perpetual ache birthed from his own ignorance, a rattling guilt he was unable to shake while heavy soled feet crunch and scrape against the stony path snaking from the observatory into the town proper. 

The night air was cold against his skin, a stark contrast against the warm glow of the eternal candle burning at the very heart of this place. Enough at least to prickle the fine fair hairs on each arm, enough to compliment the regrets of many a dismissed conversation the flower peddler had graced him with, even if the information she honed in regards to her heritage and her strange relationship with Gaia was merely conjecture on her part. He should have listened more closely, taken her more seriously, instead it took the clarification of a stranger to drive home the magnitude of whatever perils waited upon the very cusp of life itself. Cloud didn’t quite understand what that meant, at least not yet, but that didn’t take away the capability to learn more along the way, right? To know whatever was to come would be arduous was enough for him to realise that he and his dysfunctional team were in way too deep to merely take a step back. 

Before he’s able to think on this any longer, allowing his bright gaze to wander to the pillar of flame burning brightly before him, a familiar shadow came into view; melancholy and alone perhaps seeking solace or inspiration from the eternal candle itself as so many others had done before. 

        Aerith. 

Cloud ascends the steps leading up the mantle of that flame, and he seeks her out on the farthest side only to find he had no words to offer. Instead he just stands there lost in the glow of the fire shining upon her. She was always so beautiful, dearest Aerith, and in his awe of her sat there upon the rock Cloud draws nothing but blanks even when her emerald gaze drifts about his face quizzically. And with her expression comes the inevitable embarrassment sinking into his gut and forcing him to turn away. 

“We should think about leaving soon, yeah?” is all he says in that moment, brows furrowing against the heat of the fire and the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to deliver much else. 

✿ ━━━ Aerith can hear the Planet even now, among all these glittering stars above her that twinkle like cold diamonds caught in the navy satin of a dark sky--she can hear the guttering moans as the Planet takes another blow, as the dead’s whispers mingle with the breeze flowing through her hair. She can hear them always--there’s no escaping the incessant screeching of a dying world. She can taste its rusty blood on her tongue, feel each burn as more Mako is wrenched from its soil--

Even now as she sits beside this everlasting fire, she can feel the Planet’s ache.

For awhile she sits beside the fire and her green eyes stare inside its red, flickering depths, her expression solemn. Aerith wonders what her life would have been like if she was never born a Cetra--would her mother be alive now? Would Shinra overlook her as just another girl in the crowd? ...Would she be deaf to the Planet’s torment, such mournful cries that keep her up late at night when they are at their worst...?

She sits there and she dreams about a life she will never have.

Because every step forward gets harder and harder to achieve--her smile a little more fleeting as they march towards the end. As if, somehow, she knows. As if maybe the Planet is trying to drag her back before it’s too late. 

Her thoughts whirl in her head and she’s nearly drowning in her needling anxieties when a voice comes out of the gloom, crisp and almost monotone: “We should be leaving soon, yeah?”

Aerith blinks and catches sight of Cloud on the other side of the fire, looking away from her puzzled, searching expression. She doesn’t stop her gaze even as he stares at the dirt. 

She presses her pink lips together, glances into the churning flames for only a moment before settling her gaze over to Cloud’s blue, blue eyes again. She’s hesitating, as she so rarely does. Wasn’t it Aerith that merrily trotted with them, so eager to discover what being an Ancient meant that Cloud often had to tell her to wait or stop because she was always bursting forth without him, excited at a new sight or monster--

But now that she has an idea of what being an Ancient actually means... she’s floundering.

Her hands shake, but she hides them among the folds of her pink dress. She could never tell Cloud about her worries--he couldn’t understand... could anyone? 

And she is reminded, as if she’s been abruptly stabbed in the heart with a knife, she is alone.

She pulls on a thin smile, an automatic twitch of her muscles, but the joy never reaches her eyes. 

“I know, but...” She trails off for a moment and then, pressing a strand of brown hair behind her ear so that her bangles jingle at the motion, she says: “Can we wait here a little longer? I just need a few more minutes if that’s okay...”   

She clasps her hands together then in her lap, but still her wide eyes never leave Cloud’s face. 

{ ooc: hey guys! i’ve missed you all tons and roleplaying in general, thus i thought i might try another stab at being active! i plan to work through whatever drafts i have collected at this time--don’t feel pressured to reply if you don’t wanna! it has been awhile so i understand~ 

6 am… Aerith’s come knocking at his door at 6 am? Cloud groans low and puts a hand to his head. A headache is already building behind his temples. Still, he listens as she starts talking, frowning deeper and deeper as she goes on and tells him what she needs his help with. 

He is a little impressed by the information she’s gathered, he has to admit. She sounds well-prepared, but man, it’s a bit much to spring on someone this early in the morning. “You couldn’t have asked me earlier?” he grumbles, but seeing that bright smile… fuck, he knows he’s going to give in. He can’t very well let her go there on her own either. 

He has no idea why she doesn’t want to be seen by Shinra personnel, but he has a feeling it has to do with the Turks showing up to try and take her. If her evasive answers when he’d asked about them then are anything to go by, he doubts she’ll be any more straight-forward now so he doesn’t bother questioning her on that. 

He sighs. “Let me get my sword.” With that he heads back into his tiny apartment (if it can even be called that), splashes some water on his face to try and wake himself up a little, and grabs his sword. He puts it on his back and returns to her. He steps outside and locks the door behind him. “Let’s get going then. Quicker we get this over with the better.” And then he can try to get some more sleep. 

✿ ━━━ “You couldn’t have asked me earlier?” He mumbles with a slight edge of annoyance in his tone.

Aerith’s bright happiness dims a little at his words, her fingers finding her silver bracelets and worrying over their shiny surfaces. She bites her bottom lip for a second before she answers:

“I was only told this morning it would happen... we have to get the flowers and bring them to their house by sunset,” Aerith tells him softly. “This mission is time sensitive.” 

Then Cloud says “let me get my sword” and for a moment she is left outside his door, waiting among the sunshine and chattering of Sector Seven. He reappears only a minute later, the Buster Sword tucked in the sheath on his back. Aerith reels back her excitement, reminding herself this is a dangerous mission, though she always pretends everything is lighter and easier than it appears--she’ll only tell Cloud what he wants to hear and drag him into this mess with her, because she hates to be alone. 

It isn’t fair, but still she smiles on so easily.

She nods at him as he suggests they get going--Aerith begins to move to the stairs descending into the morning chaos of the streets in the slums. As they walk, Aerith produces a shiny green apple from the depths of her basket. She presses it quickly into Cloud’s gloved hand. 

“Eat this, okay?” She chimes, returning her attention ahead as she clomps down the stairs. The moment her boots hit the dirt of the street, she turns to Cloud and wears a wary expression, glancing around. “One problem we face is that we can’t take the trains... another acquaintance of mine followed me out this morning--he’ll be the guy wearing a suit in the slums, so keep an eye out for him.”

Aerith continues walking then, her basket swaying with each hurried step she takes. 

“We’re going to take a shortcut through Wall Market to get to Sector Three, I hope you don’t mind. I’ve heard Wall Market is pretty tame during the day, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get through now...” She explains all this while she walks, rushing pass people hurrying to work, ignoring the merchants outside their shops near begging for an early customer--she’s focused, more so than usual. 

She looks over to Cloud as she continues, “While we’re in the city, it doesn’t matter much if Shinra grunts or even the Turks see me--but the second we step outside Sector Three’s gate we have to stay out of sight. Shinra doesn’t care if I stay inside their cage, but the moment I try to leave they start to get worried about me.” She sidles up next to Cloud as she whispers to him, “It’s a little embarrassing actually.” 

She giggles, energetic even now at this early hour. 

“I think that covers the details--sounds pretty easy, right?” She asks, leaving no room for questions, her eyes glittering up at him in that pretty way.

Her green eyes say: Just trust me.

Zack can’t describe how it feels when Aerith presses into the embrace. She’s so warm and soft and she’s here and real… She smells like flowers, and for a moment he just presses his face against her hair and inhales her familiar scent. Just holding her calms him. She’s always been good at that. He too easily remembers the comfort she gave him right after he’d been forced to strike down Angeal. She’d always been his home, his rock. His tears dry up after a moment, but he still holds her close. As suspected, he finds it very hard to let go, but as long as she doesn’t ask him to, he doesn’t plan on doing so. 

Her words make him sigh. “They did,” he says solemnly. “We’d almost made it to Midgar when they caught up.” It had definitely been a reckless decision, but he hadn’t been able to help it. His drive to see her had been too strong. That, and he honestly hadn’t known where else to go. He couldn’t go back to Gongaga - his stop there and run-in with Cissnei had made that much obvious, and he didn’t know where else he could have found some sort of sanctuary for himself and Cloud. He had told himself that they could hide out in the slums among the mass amounts of people living there. Hiding out, working as mercenaries… It had been a naive little dream, but he had clung to it, believed in it. 

Embrace your dreams. The words he’d lived by. The morals of honour that had been passed down to him by his late mentor. He had tried, he really had, but there had been nothing honourable about working for Shinra. Angeal had tried to tell him. Genesis too. Hell, even Sephiroth. ( I may leave SOLDIER ). They had been used and abused by the company too, in even worse ways. Believed themselves to be monsters. Angeal had rather died than continue living like that. Genesis had sought revenge, and Sephiroth… he really had become a monster. 

Zack, meanwhile, had wanted so desperately to keep believing in SOLDIER honour, that he’d been doing the right thing, and yet, in the end, his own faith in Shinra, in SOLDIER, had faltered as well ( SOLDIER is a den of monsters. Best not to go inside ), but by then it had been too late. It’s depressing to think about. How different things could have been if he hadn’t been so naive. 

Her next words steals the breath from his lungs for a moment. He stares at her, horrified and disbelieving at the same time, but his expression soon settles into some sort of terrible realisation. It makes sense. He’d put Cloud in a First Class SOLDIER uniform, given him his sword… Hell, he’d talked to him a lot during their time on the run, to keep his spirits up, to keep his sanity intact. He’d told Cloud all kinds of stories, about himself, about Shinra and SOLDIER, mostly the good memories, but some of the bad too. He hadn’t really thought Cloud could hear him, but what if he’d picked up on things, fragments maybe, but still? 

Cloud… broken, disoriented, traumatized, having just watched his best friend die in front of his eyes… dealing with that by taking on another identity, the identity of someone he’d looked up to. Someone who had made SOLDIER… 

“Fuck,” he gasps softly, “I… I need to talk to him. We need to talk to him. And… to Tifa too. I don’t know why she’s not told any of you what really happened in Nibelheim, but…” Maybe she’d just wanted to protect Cloud. It’s obvious that she cares a great deal about him. 

The question is if Cloud can even handle the truth at this point. His mind must be fragile. Zack had caught him looking at him like he was trying to remember, and he’d looked almost pained. Like it hurt to try and recall. He doesn’t want to overload Cloud’s brain with memories he may not be ready for… but they can’t really let him go around thinking that he is Zack either, can they? 

✿ ━━━ Aerith listens as Zack reveals that he almost made it to Midgar when “they caught up”. The words are vague, but Aerith is grateful for it--because even with what little he describes she can see it all so clearly: Zack standing before a slew of Shinra grunts and SOLDIERs, all intent on his destruction--looking into the eyes of people he once knew that now wished him dead...

The rain of bullets--the bloodshed--

She can see everything and it breaks her heart all the more.

Aerith looks to her hands laid out over Zack’s sweater and she asks, hesitantly, “That’s when you gave Cloud the Buster Sword... isn’t it? I recognized the sword Cloud carried right away, but--I never knew how to ask him about it. I knew... you would’ve only given it away if something terrible happened--maybe I was scared what he would tell me...”

And she had been right--the Buster Sword was likely given away the moment Zack knew he couldn’t go on and somewhere between watching his best friend die and holding that sword in his hands, Cloud lost himself.

She glances up to Zack at his quiet exclamation--she watches his expression melt into terrible disbelief. He says they need to talk to Cloud and Tifa and Aerith sags in his grasp at the words. Aerith tried before to reason with Cloud, though in her own round about way--she felt Cloud had been too fragile then for the whole truth... and now, with Zack back in the flesh and her brush with Sephiroth so recent, how would he handle the truth now?

But something else tickles Aerith’s mind, a nagging reminder--those few seconds she nearly forgot about in the chaos of the moment...

Cloud tried to kill her--she remembers now when she looked up at him he had the Buster Sword out in his hand and the blade quivered in his uncertain grasp. He took a lurching step to her, raised the sword she knew in another lifetime, and struggled not to slice her apart with it--

“There’s... something wrong with Cloud, something else...” She sighs as she tries to make sense of the jumbled, hectic moments. “I think Sephiroth can control him. He--he tried to kill me Zack, but I know it wasn’t really Cloud! Sephiroth is pulling his strings somehow. I don’t know why or how--”

Her gaze locks with Zack’s blue eyes, her green alive with furious flames melting into cool steel.

@azure-steel​ says: 💋 - //I'll pop a lil kiss here for Aerith~

( send ‘💋’ for my muse to boldly go for a kiss on yours. )

✿ ━━━ Every step they take closer to the Temple of the Ancients has her both elated and terrified. She wants to charge ahead as fast as she can--yet she frets over what is waiting for her at the end. 

There’s a certain amount of anticipation that keeps her awake tonight--green eyes wide as they watch the stars glimmer far above her, laid out over the plush grass beneath her thin sleeping bag. She tries to succumb to her weariness--today has been a long march, Aerith insisting they rest only when absolutely necessary--but a tingle of nerves dance beneath her pale skin, like sizzling electricity buzzing her back awake the second she begins to doze--

Aerith glances around her--there’s a small fire still dimly flickering on, a few gurgling flames try their best to remain alive, sparking and guttering in the dark, near their doom of ash and smoldering embers... Aerith moves her gaze along, sees Barret laid out on the ground much like her, but she can’t tell if he’s awake or not--she merely sees his shape in the darkness, shadowy and a million miles away...

Her eyes move on and they stop, steady, as they linger on the Buster Sword.

Cloud, of course, wears the sword strapped to his back while he overlooks the landscape beyond, dutifully diligent as he keeps watch over their meager camp. He faces away from her, so she can see the sword glow red from the fire, as if it’s drenched in blood.

She crawls out of her sleeping bag then, breathless as she climbs to her feet--

For some reason, it feels like her end is so, so close--like she’s running right to it with open arms, inviting her own demise with twinkling laughter falling from her innocent lips. But there’s so much she still wants to do--her life has a thousand missed opportunities... yet, maybe tonight she can claim just one of those moments, right now under all these stars as her witness...

Before it’s too late.

She stands behind him as she whispers his name, “Cloud.”

He turns to face her, those bright eyes of his glowing despite the shadows pressing in close around them. 

She quickly steps to him then, hurrying closer to him before her resolve slips away, just like all those tantalizing glimpses of the future she got that, in the end, never made any sense to her and disappeared at her touch--

Cloud looks a little stunned, unable to do much else but gape at her as her thin fingers weave into his, grasping both of his hands and anchoring him here with her. She’s always been terrified he might sink beneath the waves in his head, drowning in this façade of what he thinks he should be. 

“I want to meet the real you, one day,” she tells him gently and she gives his hands a small squeeze. “But even if I can’t--I want you to know... this was enough for me.”

She stares at him as she steels herself for everything she’s about to lose, right now and beyond, her heart always on the line...

“And I’m sorry if I expected more from you than you could give,” she whispers this truth so softly it could be missed, but she never looks away from him. “I’m sorry I saw someone else in your skin... it wasn’t fair.”

Her guilt runs deep, as if it flows in her blood, pumping through her tormented heart, rushing through her veins to wash over her completely--

It threatens to force her under with its stormy waves...

And that guilt is going to devour her as she takes one last step closer, filling all his inches with her body, pressing in until she can feel her dress crumple against his chest--their hearts hammer together and she dares to steal this moment before she can never have it again--before fate makes her choose...

She drifts her face closer to his, holding her breath, and only closes her eyes at the very last second, the moment their lips brush over each other.

Aerith sinks into the kiss so easily it breaks her heart--his lips like marble and cool against her fiery mouth, yet tender too, in that shy boyish way that brings up bittersweet memories, even now. Her hands drift over his chest and cling to him, keeping him there with her for only these precious few seconds--

And then, she knows, she has to let him go.

She breaks the kiss quickly--it lasted only a minute, but she can feel the heat of it searing over her heart and she won’t easily forget it. Her breath comes out in little broken puffs and she’s shaking her head, stepping away as easily as she pressed in.

“One day, I hope you can forgive me,” she murmurs, smiling hollowly despite the tears shining in the depths of her green eyes.