Hello. This is the second ending to "My Last Moments With You". Although you could say that it's another story altogether. It depends on how you want to look at it. Either way, I hope you enjoy it! Please read and review!
"Hey, time to wake up, Zack."
I groaned as I heard my name being called, feeling comfortable while I slept and did not want to get up just now. So I chose to ignore whoever it was that was calling me.
"Didn't you hear me?" the person asked as a sigh escaped his lips. "It's time for you to get up, Zack, or should I say Zackary?"
At the mention of my entirely full name, I felt my eyes suddenly fly open. Only one person apart from Sephiroth would ever call me by my full name. But it could not be him. There was no way it can be, unless…
"Finally, you open your eyes, pup," I heard the man say and that confirmed everything for me. I immediately turned my head around and saw the person who I had least expected to see; my mentor from when I was climbing up the ranks in SOLDIER, Angeal.
"A-Angeal?!" I cried out in shock for I could not believe what I was seeing. Was it really him staring at me, with his one white wing stuck on his back and showing off all of its glory? Was this really the man who I killed with my own two hands at a time that still only feels like yesterday?
"Yes, it's me," he smiled warmly as he gave a hand to me in order to lift me up from the sitting position I was in. "Who else would call you a pup, pup?"
I immediately took the hand that was outstretching towards me and he lifted me up. However, I held onto the hand as I let the momentum throw me towards my mentor and I gave him the biggest hug I ever gave him. God, I had missed him so darn much over the days, which were in actuality years but felt like days to me, that I just had to do that. Amazingly, I did not feel him try to resist, as he normally did whenever I tried to do that. I guess he was expecting it and was the easiest way for him to say that he missed me, too.
"How have you been holding up, Zack?" he asked as I was slowly pulling away from the hug.
"I-I've been doing alright," I answered as looked at him, still not believing that I was now seeing him. "B-but if I can see you, then does that mean that I…"
"Before we get to that, there's something that I need to ask you," my mentor interrupted me, bringing a hand in front of me to shut me up. "What did those bastards do to you?"
"I-I don't know," I admitted, surprised at how angry he sounded. "G-Genesis and Dr. Hollander said something about Hojo injecting me and Cloud's body with cells that came from both Jenova and Sephiroth when I saw them. They've been doing that to us for four years while keeping us in stasis. They even went so far as to put Cloud into a Mako tank and pump him full of the stuff. They almost frigging killed him! I swear, once I find that bastard of a scientist, he's going to wish that he never did what he did to him and me!"
"Sounds like you and this Cloud are best friends," Angeal said in a calmer tone than before, his eyes seeming to figure out something from the things that I had already told him. "Or am I missing a piece of the bigger picture?" he added with an amused look.
"Uh, wh-what are you talking about?" I asked once I had managed to calm down a bit.
"Oh, come on, Zack. Did you honestly think that I wouldn't have noticed? I've been trying to watch over you here in the Lifestream ever since you bested me in battle. Over the months that have pasted while you were conscious, I noticed that you've grown somewhat of an attachment to one of the infantryman that was sent with you to find me at Modeoheim. I believe Cloud is that very person, is he not?"
"Heh, I guess I just can't hide anything from you, can I?" I chuckled softly as I saw that his years of being dead certainly did not affect his keen senses. It was then that I became aware of my surroundings. Everything around me had a green hue to it, both a dark and light green. At times, small white smoke-like wisps appeared between the greens and gave it the feel of a moving mural on a wall. I suppose that was how the Lifestream looked like.
"Of course you can't," Angeal replied with a smile. "After all, I've been mentoring you for so long; I can almost tell what's going on inside your mind. I'll be damned if I can't read you anymore."
"Yeah, well, that darn sense of yours is always right, if I remember correctly," I said with a reminiscent sigh. "You were always right because of that, too; just as you are now."
"And don't you go forgetting that, pup!" my mentor said with a laugh that lasted for a good minute. Even though I did not see anything funny about it, I still laughed. I guess it was because of the fact that I was standing in front of Angeal again ever since that incident. It must have been my body's way of relieving the pent-up stress I've been dealing with ever since I escaped the Nibelheim Mansion some time ago with Cloud at my side. I must admit, it really did lift up my spirits, as if a weight as been lifted off my shoulders by simply laughing with my long lost friend; something that I have not done for the longest of times.
"Oh, it has been a long time since I laughed like that," I said as both us started to calm down a bit. "I've been on the run for so long, I've almost forgotten how it felt just to relax for a bit. But since I had Cloud with me, the whole journey was a lot less stressful than it probably would have been if I had just left him at the lab."
"But then you won't forgive yourself if you ever did that," Angeal pointed out. "It's not like you to abandon a comrade in need of help when you know you can provide it. Despite knowing that he would only slow you down in the state he was in, you still took him with you wherever you had in mind to go to."
"Y-yeah…," I replied silently, suddenly remembering about Cloud, my little Chocobo. I remembered that I had left him all alone, despite my efforts not to do so.
He's probably crying his eyes out for me right now, I thought as I felt tears of my own starting to build up in my eyes. I don't blame him either. I'd be doing the same thing if I were in his place.
"Do you remember the time when you told me your dreams when you joined SOLDIER and what I said about it?" I heard Angeal ask as I tried to stifle a sniffle. I nodded my head yes. "Well, it appears I was wrong. It took you a while, but I'm sure it's safe to say that you have achieved your dream. You've definitely became a hero."
"Y-you really think so, Angeal?" I asked, feeling myself brighten at what he just said.
"I do," my mentor simply said with a smile. "It takes a lot of guts to do what you've done. You've went against the one you trusted for the sake of saving the world from his insanity; you saved me from myself when I was unable to do so; you saved your closest friend from the hell you two were in when you could have easily just left him behind; and you stuck with him ever since, even though you could have easily just dumped him at some place and left him to die. Everything that you've done up to this point is something that your average person probably wouldn't have thought of doing. You not only stuck up and looked out for yourself, but you also helped those around you despite the hardship their burdens brought upon you. Those actions are the markings of a true hero, Zack. You have proven me wrong in your dream being unattainable by doing the things that I myself might have not been able to do. I'm truly proud of you for achieving your dreams."
As I heard my mentor make this speech about all the things I had done in the past and made them into a kind of glamorous picture of me being a hero, I was just totally taken aback. I could not believe that he was actually giving me so high of praise and going so far as to say that I have done things he himself could not have done. I was truly touched by everything that he had said. I did not even notice my mouth was open in awe until he placed a gentle hand on my chin and closed it for me.
"You were even willing to sacrifice your own life for the one that you truly cared for," Angeal added in a whisper as what I swore were the beginning of tears started to form in his eyes. "If nothing else, I am quite sure that you are a hero in his eyes. You have also become a hero in my eyes, too."
"B-but my time as a hero was sure cut short by those…those Shinra bastards!" I nearly shouted as I felt a wave of anger sweep through me and warm streaks of tears rolling down my cheeks. "Yeah, I saved the life of the one who mattered more than my own, but…out of the whole time we were together; I've never gotten a chance to spend any of it with him, except on official business. I've always hoped that when he got better, we would be able to do things like any normal couple would do; go on dates, celebrate each others birthdays with a big bang, possibly even get together officially, all that good stuff. I'm…glad that Cloud's alright and living, but…I never wanted to leave him all alone, especially not like this! It's just not fair, Angeal! It's just…not fair!"
At this point, I was so consumed by anger and tears that I could not say anything anymore. All I could do was cry and cry while thinking about the love of my life, the one who always gave me something to look forward to after a mission; my Spiky, Chocobo buddy; my Cloud…
"Hey, what's done is done," Angeal tried to comfort me as he wrapped his arms around me in a soft hug, something that he rarely ever did with me, but I was too distraught to think about that. The only thing that could penetrate my thoughts on Cloud were Angeal's words to which I sought comfort in. "You can't change what's already happened to you in the past."
"I know, Angeal," I whispered between sobs. "I just…sometimes wish that were possible, e-especially now."
"I know exactly how you feel," my mentor said sadly, probably because this was something he could relate to. "But what you're asking for is truly impossible. All you can do now is try to see what the future holds for you. Speaking of futures, I've got something to tell you that I think might perk your puppy dog spirits up," he added with a smile as he let me go.
"It'd have to be something really amazing in order to bring me back to my normal self," I replied somewhat bitterly as I rubbed the remaining tears out of my eyes. "Otherwise, I don't think that anything you say to me is going make me all happy and perky again."
"Oh, I'm sure that this will do the trick. Do you know why I'm here talking with you right now, Zack?"
"It's because I'm dead."
"That's…not exactly the case here."
"What are you talking about?" I asked as I figured Angeal was just trying to cheer me up by saying something other than the obvious. "How else can I see you if I'm not dead?"
"Well, for starters, you're right now hanging at the very edge, and I mean very edge, of life's cliff. Just one little nudge and you'll be living here in the Lifestream with me."
"Wh-what are you saying?" I inquired, my brain trying to comprehend what my mentor was saying. "Y-you're not telling me that I'm still…"
"Alive?" he finished the sentence for me as he pinched his thumb and pointer finger to the point that they were almost touching. "Yes. Just barely, but enough to be considered alive."
"What…b-but…I…," was all I could manage to stutter for my brain just suddenly gone into overload at the news I just heard. I was really still alive? I had actually survived all those wounds that the Shinra army gave me when I was trying to protect Cloud? The person in front of me must have been kidding around with me. There is just no way I could have survived with all those wounds. Despite me once being a SOLDIER, 1st class, I knew that my body could not take all that abuse, pumped up with Mako or not. There was just no way.
"I know what you're thinking, you little pup," he chuckled as he made to close my mouth that had fallen open without me knowing again. "You're thinking how everything I've just said is impossible. You're thinking that your body has taken too much of a beating in order to even have the Mako flowing in your veins be of any help. I assure you, you are still very much alive; although maybe not in the sense I, and I'm sure you, as well, would like to be. And let me tell you this; the Mako in you had nothing to do with all this."
"B-but then how am I still alive?!" I asked, the initial shock now wearing off just enough so I could talk again. "How can I be seeing you and talking with you? How in the world did I survive?!"
"Well, when you fell unconscious, your spirit was literally sent to the front doors of the Lifestream, which is where we are now. I'm on my side of the door where those that have truly departed go to rejoin the stream. You, on the other hand, are standing on the side where only your sheer will and hope to live reside. In other words, it is those feelings that are the reason you are still alive, or at least your body is. It is those feelings alone that keep you tied to the world apart from the Lifestream."
"M-my hope and will to live?" I repeated dumbly, my ears not believing what they just heard.
"That's exactly it. I pretty much already expected that to be the case before you came here. Your spirit was always filled with hope and the strong will to live out your own life. It's not a wonder that you're still on the other side of the Lifestream's door."
I just stood quietly in front of Angeal, feeling immensely shocked for the second time in a matter of minutes. This time, though, I was shocked because I was happy. I had finally let it sink in that I was still alive and had a chance to be with Cloud again. I just could not believe it. I was so happy; my ears had barely missed the sound of a voice of which I thought had called my name.
"…hold it together…" the voice said faintly, so faintly that I had to strain my ears to hear it. "…still alive…"
"Wh-what was that?" I asked as I began to look around for the familiar voice I heard. "Th-that sounds so much…like Tseng's voice. B-but how can that be?"
"It seems as though you finally realized that you're still alive," Angeal told me with a small smile. "What you're hearing now are the voices of those who are around your body in the real world. You're starting to regain your senses and your ability to perceive the world around your body."
"Wh-what does that mean, Angeal?" I inquired as I continued to look around for the source of the voice.
"…on, Zack. You can pull through…" I heard Tseng's voice laced with the unusual tone of panic in his normally calm demeanor. "You're not…type to give up…"
"It means that the spirit that governs the Lifestream, better known as Gaia, the spirit of this planet, is offering you another chance at the life that you so yearn to live."
"Are you serious, Angeal?! Are you saying that Gaia is actually going to let me walk around on the planet again even though I'm as close to death as one could be?"
"Pretty much, Zack. However, I must tell you something before you make your choice too hastily. Do you know of the old stories and legends that the residents of Cosmo Canyon speak of?"
"S-somewhat, although I don't know a whole bunch about the old geezers' stories. All I know is that Gaia is supposed to be the spirit who protects and guides her people that live on her planet."
Good, that should save me a lot of time in explaining. Did you also know that she is the one who guides us to whatever fate she has planned for all of us?"
"Sh-she's the one who controls everything on the planet? She decides who gets to live and who has to die?"
"To put it quite succinctly, yes. However, that wasn't the case with both you and Cloud. She did not foresee the travesty of your futures. Your capture at the hands of a mad scientist, the subjugation of both you and Cloud to his insane experiments, and your unfortunate demise were all parts of a new fate that had somehow warped your original fates and dominated your futures."
"I-I was killed because of a demented twist of fate? If that was so, then was everything I've done up until now also a part of the twisted reality that wasn't supposed to be a part of my life?"
"Not entirely. I don't know all of the details for the planet, through the messages she sends through the Lifestream, only gave me the bare specifics when she sent me to talk to you about this."
"…wanted to see…family again, don't you, Zack?" I heard Cissnei's tearful voice ask me. "What…tell your family…you die?"
"Gaia told you to go meet me in her stead and tell me everything that you just said?" I asked with raised eyebrows as my mind started to become confused.
"Actually, it was more that I begged her to let me come and talk to you," Angeal admitted as I saw a slight blush graze his cheeks; another unusual thing that I never seen him do before. I guess his years in the Lifestream kind of mellowed him out a bit. "I wanted to the see how much the boy that I left those four years ago has grown. I must say, you truly didn't disappoint me. You look just as I imagined you to be, although maybe a little more ragged and, dare I say, protective of your boyfriend?"
"I-I'm not overprotective of him!" I retorted as I felt my cheeks redden. "I'm just…easily worried about him, that's all."
"If you say so," my mentor replied with what I thought looked to be a knowing smile. "Anyway, Gaia said that your fate had been playing out its intended course up until you were paired up with Sephiroth on the mission to Nibelheim. Your original fate dictated that you were to be stuck doing mountains of paperwork. She didn't tell me how it happened to be so, but you were the only one out of place in that scene."
"…still no response!" an energetic voice, one that sounded like Reno's, stated in a frustrated tone. "The guy's…like a rock!"
"So that's when my fate started to take a trip down the wrong path?" I asked as I tried to temporarily block out the voices of those around my body but still kept an ear out for them in the back of my mind. That and I was silently sad for the first time in my life about missing out on paperwork. Especially if it was paperwork that could have avoided this whole mess I was in.
"Yes," he answered plainly. "Because of that, though, your misguided fate also managed to interfere with that of another. Just one other, though. I'm sure you can take a guess as to who that is, can you?"
"I-I'm the one who messed up Cloud's fate?"
"I wouldn't really put it that way. It was your misguided future that tampered with Cloud's. He was originally supposed to have been held back from the mission at the last minute. At least, that's what the planet told me."
"So wait a minute, if that's the case, then does that mean Nibelheim itself was also a part of this whole twisted fate thing?"
"Unfortunately, no. That part had already been preordained. The only ones that were out of place were you, Cloud, and Sephiroth."
"Wait, what?!" I exclaimed so loudly that probably all of the beings in the Lifestream must have heard me. "Sephiroth was also a part of all this sick, twisted stuff?"
"Apparently so," Angeal said with a shrug. "Gaia said that he wasn't supposed to have figured out about Jenova, yet he ended up doing so. If I have all my facts right, then I can take a guess that this whole mess probably started just a very short time after the Nibelhiem mission was assigned to Sephiroth."
"But that doesn't make sense," I said as I started to become more and more confused. I never was the type to just sit down and think a lot, but this whole thing just really captivated me, even if it was not the right time to be captivated. "How can something as rock hard as fate be broken so easily and suddenly at what seems to be a very specific point in time? It sounds as though someone had it all planned out, if you ask me."
"If there is an answer for that, then only Gaia herself would know. However, I think I can make an assumption with everything that I know. Do you remember what you've learned about Jenova when you were at the mansion?"
"Uh, I think I stumbled onto a report that said something about Jenova being discovered in some rock that crash-landed onto this planet 2,000 years ago or something like that," I frowned thoughtfully as I ignored the voice of another person around my body. "I don't see, though, what she has to do with… Wait a minute; you're not trying to say that…"
"Yes, I am," Angeal replied with a simple nod. "I believe that Jenova is the key to this whole thing. Being that she is a being foreign to the planet, Gaia must not have been able to figure out what she was capable of or even who she was, for that matter. That being said, Jenova took advantage of that during the Nibelheim incident and warped Sephiroth's fate; thus unintentionally causing the warped fates of you and Cloud in the process. My guess here is that since you greatly trusted Sephiroth, his changed fate also had an affect to yours. Being that you and Cloud had formed the same strong bond of trust, he, in turn, was affected by your changed fate, as well. Complicated, I know, but that's the only conclusion I can come up with. Only Gaia herself has the right to prove me wrong on this, and I don't think she'll be willing to talk to me about it."
"…Boy, you must have had a long time to think about this, Angeal," I said, completely blown away at what my mentor told me.
"Being stuck here in the Lifestream for four years can do that to a man. Anyway, I think it's time now for us to transition out of the opinions and back to the facts. As we already discussed earlier, your body is still alive, yet your spirit is here at the boundaries of the Lifestream. Because of this situation, you have two choices in front of you. The first one is that you choose to let your spirit rest and come over here to where I'm standing. The second choice is for you to go back to your body and live out the rest of your life. The choice is yours to pick. This is a part of your fate that you get to choose; an opportunity not so often bestowed upon your average person, so choose carefully, Zack."
For a few moments, I just stood there in shock. I waited for what Angeal had said to me to sink in before I actually thought about it. This was the time where I was able to take control of my fate. I was able to choose what path I wanted to walk. Did I want to pass on into the Lifestream where the harshness of the world could never touch me, or did I want to go back to that harsh world, the world where all of my friends and the ones I love reside in?
"He's just not snapping out of it, sir!" I heard Reno's voice even clearer than I had earlier. It was almost as if someone had cleaned out the gunk in my ears and I could hear every word he was saying. "Nothing we do seem to be getting through to him!"
"So you're saying that we should give up?" another Turk's voice, Rude I believe his name was, though I was not sure for I rarely ever heard him speak, asked. "How unlike you, Reno."
"Keep trying," I heard Tseng order the both of them. "As long as the heart monitor is still registering a pulse, continue on with the resuscitation attempts. Do not stop until his heart stops first."
"Before you decide on which path you take," Angeal spoke up, tearing me away from the Turk's voices, "I want to tell something Gaia wanted me to impart to you. She said that she's sorry for the pain you and Cloud had to go through because of this whole ordeal. If you do choose to go back, she plans to make it up to the both of you."
"Is she going to make it so it seems as though none of this has ever happened?" I asked, sounding a little bit too hopeful at the possibility.
"Unfortunately, she can't do that," he replied with a shake of his head. "Even though Sephiroth's path during the Nibelhiem incident wasn't guided by her, the destruction of the town by his hand was. Even though it did not happen the way she had originally planned it, she can't turn back the clock on a fate that was partially guided by her hand, even though a part of it was warped."
I sighed sadly at this. I knew it was too tall of an order to ask.
"However," he continued as he studied my saddened expression, "she does have the power to turn back the clock for both you and Cloud, from a biological standpoint. In other words, if you choose to go back to the surface of the planet, Gaia will turn back you two's biological clocks and you'll be back in the bodies you had four years ago. It'll have none of the beastly tests that were experimented on your bodies. Your bodies will take on the form from before you were all captured. You'll turn back into an 18-year-old and Cloud into a 16-year-old.
"Also, she'll go ahead and dull the memories of the time while you two were being experimented on. It'll still be there in your minds, but it won't be as pronounced as it has been. It'll be more like a very distant memory that you just can't recollect no matter how hard you try; although I doubt that you would try to do that. The only thing you two will be sure about the memory was that it wasn't a very pleasant one. And as if that weren't enough, she's also managed to change the orders that the Shinra army had about 'exterminating' the two of you. In other words, she's made it so that those orders never existed. Being that everything that's happened to you and Cloud since the Jenova incident was not preordained by her, she has the right to change your past around a bit. Just think of all this as the greatest 'I'm sorry' gift that you'll ever get in your entire life."
Upon hearing this, my spirits suddenly shot back up. A chance to gain back our four years of lost time together? A chance to lead a life without the signs of the experiments that were done on us in our bodies anymore; a chance to be able to forget almost all of the pain and suffering that we were forced to endure during our capture and imprisonment? That sealed the deal for me.
"I'm going back to my friends," I told Angeal without a single hesitation. "I want to live out my life to the fullest with them all around me. I want to be together with Cloud for as long as I can. But most of all, I want Cloud to live a life without the results of the hellish experiments in him or his memories. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I knew I had a chance to fix him up and passed up on it."
"I figured you'd say that," my mentor said with a smile. "Very well, then. Let's go ahead and start with the extraction process."
"Extraction process?"
"It's just a term Gaia used. It's her way of saying, 'Let's get you out of the Lifestream and back onto the surface of the planet.'"
"Then let's do it!"
"In order for this to work, you must concentrate of the voices of your friends. Close your eyes and try to concentrate only on their voices."
Before I did what he told me to do, though, I decided to Give Angeal one last hug. I knew that this was going to be the last time I would see him, so I just had to say goodbye to him one last time.
"Thanks for everything, Angeal," I thanked him. "Thanks for teaching me and being my mentor. I'll never forget the things you told me. And don't worry; I'll make sure to remember to uphold my honor, no matter what I choose to be when I go back, although I can definitely say that it won't be with SOLDIER again."
"You're welcome, Zack," he said as he hugged me back. "Or should I say, little pup? After all, I think this will be the last time I can call you that. Now go ahead and close your eyes."
As I closed my eyes, I felt one more question that I had to ask before I was ready to leave. Keeping them closed, I asked, "Do you know how Cloud's and my fate are going to be playing out now that everything's changed? I-I need to know."
"Huh, it's funny," I heard him very lightly chuckle as I felt a hand rest on my shoulder while seemingly trying to dodge my question. "All this time, Gaia has been able to regulate everybody's fates and futures, with the exception of the two of you. It's been a rule ever since she was born, or so the legends about her say. Oh well, there's always has to be a first time for her to break those very rules."
"Are you saying that she's allowing the two of us to have control over our own fates?" I asked as I almost opened my eyes in shock. "Are we free to do whatever it is that we want to do with our lives without worrying about what she has planned for us?"
"Don't open your eyes," Angeal told me while not answering my question. "Just concentrate on the voices of your friends. Here their calls for you and follow the sounds the voices make. Do not let you eyes guide you from this point on; rather, let the voices that you hear and your heart guide you."
"Come on, Zack!" I heard Cloud's voice cry out for me. "You've got to pull through for me. Remember the time that you promised me that you won't leave me alone again? You said that you would never break that promise."
"Cloud!" I exclaimed, turning my body to where I thought I heard his voice, my eyes still closed and my ears working hard in their place.
"Hey, I think I just saw a twitch!" Reno exclaimed, his voice practically on the borderline of a shout.
"It looks like he's starting to come to," Tseng calmly replied. "Keep at it until he's fully conscious."
"Follow the sounds of their voices," Angeal instructed me as my legs suddenly started to move on their own accord. It was almost as though the voices themselves were trying to pull me towards them, trying to guide me to the salvation where I knew I could live on with my life. "Let them lead you to the way out."
"Come on, Zack!" I heard Cissnei call to me in a hopeful tone. "I know you're still in there. Hurry up and snap out of so you can stop worrying us."
"She's right, you know that?" I heard another woman's familiar voice say. "You have to hurry up and come back so we can all stop worrying here, especially Cloud who's been crying nonstop ever since we found you on the cliff edge that he hasn't been able to say much of anything apart from all those terrible things that were done to the both of you."
"Aerith!" I heard myself exclaim, a feeling of joy spreading through me as I was finally able to hear her voice after so long.
"Yes, it's me, Zack," I surprisingly heard Aerith's voice answer back calmly. "I know you've been busy catching up with your friend, but could you please hurry up and come back? Everyone's on pins and needles here trying to get you back to us."
"Y-you can hear me?!" I shouted, somehow managing to keep my eyes shut the whole time as I stopped walking. "How are you able to do that?"
"I see a member of the Ancient clan is still alive," I heard Angeal say in what was his version of an awe tone, whenever he starts off his sentences with "I see…"
"You knew that Aerith was an Ancient?" I asked, only to be answered with one of his chuckles.
"I don't even know who Aerith is," he laughed. "All I know is that only the Ancients have the gift to converse with those who are within the Lifestream, or at least at the boundaries of it. Being that she is able to talk directly to you, I can safely say that she's one of them."
"Heh, heh, it sounds like you were right about him, Zack," I heard Aerith giggle lightly as I imagined her covering her mouth slightly at this action. "He is a very smart person. It's a pleasure to finally get to speak with you, Angeal."
"As it is with you, Aerith," he greeted back as I imagined him giving off a smile. "Seeing that you're both Zack's friend and an Ancient, could you see to it that he makes it out of here safely? I feel that you know more about this process than I do, and I would hate to lead him down the wrong path out."
"I would be happy to do so," she happily agreed. "I hope that your soul can now find peace knowing that your student is faring well on his own."
"Ha, ha, you truly are an Ancient! Yes, I can now relax knowing that everything's going to be alright. Goodbye, Zack. I promise you that the next time we meet, you will truly be on my side of the Lifestream. Until that time comes, you live your life to the fullest and happiest it can be. I know that I did."
With that said, I heard a shuffle of his feet as he was presumably now going back to the inner sanctum of the Lifestream. Not feeling ready to have him leave me yet, I hesitated in my footing as I tried to go to where I last remembered him to be at.
"Angeal, wait!" I called out to him, my eyes seemingly remembering to stay closed no matter what.
"Oh, yeah, there's one more thing I forgot to tell you," I heard Angeal stop in his tracks and the shuffle of feet as if he turned around to face me. "If you and Cloud ever do join together in marriage, then you have my blessings," I heard him say with the sound of a smile in his voice. "I've never thought about judging you for who you were for you were not only my student but also a friend. I will always be your friend, no matter what. Don't ever forget that. Goodbye, Zack. It was an honor for me to have had mentored you during your time in SOLDIER as I'm sure it was for you to have me as a mentor. You truly have grown beyond my wildest expectations."
With one last small chuckle, I heard his feet shuffle again and his footsteps continuing on their way deeper into the Lifestream. They never stopped again as the sounds became fainter and fainter.
"Bye, Angeal!" I called out to him just as I felt his footsteps leaving my range of hearing. "I'll never forget you or the things that you've taught me. I promise I'll uphold my honor, just like you've always reminded me to do! I'll make sure to teach Cloud about all that, too!"
For a moment, I thought I heard a whisper of a chuckle coming from him. However, as quickly as it came to my ears, it was gone, and the footsteps of my mentor faded away and became nothing more than a distant memory.
"Are you ready to go now, Zack?" Aerith's voice softly questioned me, sounding cautious as if I were about to break down at any moment.
"Yeah, I'm ready," I answered softly as I restarted my walk towards the sound of her voice. "Go ahead and lead me out of here, Aerith. You're the leader here."
"Alright, just continue to follow my voice and you'll be back with us in no time. I'm sure everyone will be relieved once you've come to."
"Sir!" I heard Reno's voice exclaimed so loudly that I had to cover my ears a bit in order to avoid a possible headache. "We have another reaction from him! I think he's starting to come around."
"He is?" I heard Cissnei ask. "You better not be joking with me this time, Reno. If you are, I swear I'll kill you for this!"
"No joke this time, girl," the man said. "I saw his eyelids move a bit."
"He's right," Rude's stoic voice came to my ears. "They twitched, as did his ears just now."
"Hmm, I wonder if she had anything to do with this," I heard Tseng's voice say with a hint of a smirk in it. "Make sure he doesn't suffer any problems when he wakes up."
"Zack," I heard Cloud's voice call out to me with more hope in it than the last time I heard it. "Come on, hurry up and snap out of it. I know you're in there!"
"Don't worry, Cloud," I answered him, even though I knew he could not hear me yet. "I'm coming. Just sit tight for a little while longer."
"Hey, he just mumbled something!" I heard my spiky-haired boyfriend exclaimed in surprise and happiness. "I don't know what he said, but he actually said something! He's actually starting to wake up!"
"Just a few more steps and you'll be back with us," Aerith told me.
"I really can't wait for that," I replied with a smile. "I'm going to be back with you guys. Just wait and see."
"…'Wait and see?' huh?" I heard Tseng say thoughtfully. "Well, once you're fully awake, you can tell us what you mean by that."
"Huh?" I heard myself say in a really groggy voice as I opened my eyes. Everything looked so blurry since I had them closed for a while. Once they regained their focus, though, I did not see the greenish colors that I associated with the Lifestream. Instead, I saw the makings of a building; wooden shafts that made the foundation of the roof and walls that seemed to have been made out of gray bricks.
"It looks as though you've finally decided to wake up," Tseng said to me, although my senses were still trying to find themselves and I could not catch everything he said.
With great strain, I turned my head towards the direction of the voice. In doing so, I managed to notice a lot of wooden benches along the sides of the building with a walk aisle between the two of them. It was then when I figured out where I was at. I was in the church where Aerith tended her flowers. But what was I doing here?
"Don't strain yourself, Zack," Tseng told me as he came into my range of vision. "You've been out for quite a while and I don't want you to put any stress on your body. The last thing we need is for you to go out again due to overexertion."
"T-Tseng?" I said questionably, my voice still holding onto its grogginess. "Wh-what's going on? Why am I here?"
"Zack!" I heard Cloud shout as I felt the thuds of his feet coming towards me in excitement. "You're finally awake! God, do you know how worried I've been all this time? I thought that… I thought that you were dead!"
It was then that I felt a body press into mines, which was still lying down on whatever it was that I was lying on. Assuming that it was Cloud's, which was later confirmed when I saw a tuft of spiky blond hair, I figured that this awkward position was his way of giving me a hug.
"Reno and Rude found the two of you on a small cliff on the barren fields of Midgar," Tseng explained as I saw him move towards a man with flaming red hair that looked too red to be real and a bald man with dark shades over his eyes. "They found you lying in a pool of your own blood with your friend slouched over you and crying. Apparently, they say you were unconscious and, judging by the amount of blood they said there was, weren't sure if you were going to survive the trip back. It's a miracle in itself that you did, for when I took a look at you myself, your wounds were just too extraordinary. That and you felt ice cold to the touch."
"Was I…really that close to dying?" I asked as Cloud got off of my body and started to sniffle a bit.
"You gave us all a scare with all those bullet and missile wounds on you!" Cissnei, who walked up from behind Tseng from somewhere, replied, her eyes red from the crying she had been no doubt doing. "Why didn't you run away from the Shinra army before they tried to kill you?"
"That…was kind of impossible, Cissnei," I muttered as I tried to sit up, Cloud immediately putting his hands on my back as a support in case I fell back, allowing me to concentrate on keeping my voice steady. "I may have run away from small pocket groups of Shinra soldiers while traveling half way across the world and carrying a comatose Cloud with me, but I can't run from what seemed to be the entire Shinra army, much less carry him with me like that. That's asking too much of me."
"So you decide to stay behind and try to protect your little buddy here?" Reno asked as he seemed to be looking at a few computers that were in the room. It was then that I realized I was attached to those computers. It looked as though they have been monitoring me for a while now.
"Looks like it," Rude answered as he was calmly looking through some papers in his hands.
"Where's Aerith?" I asked as my eyes scanned around the church for her.
"She's over by the flowerbed, Zack," Cloud told me as he tilted his head in the general direction. "She's been praying for you every chance she had. She told me that you were like a brother to her and she would continue to pray for you until you came back."
"Sounds like where she would be right now," I said with a small laugh, an action I soon regretted for my body started to ache all over because of that. I felt Cloud's hand tighten on my shoulder, which had made its way there from my back sometime ago.
"Try not to move your body too much," Tseng warned me. "We had to do quite a few operations on you to get those bullets out of you. Thankfully, Rude here has had years practice with surgery; otherwise this wouldn't have been as easy as it was."
"I suppose you couldn't have just waltzed me into a hospital, now could you?" I asked in a sarcastic manner.
"If you had a death wish, then we could have done that," Cissnei answered me, picking up some papers from a small table that held some of the computers. "Even though Shinra thought that they had killed you, I don't think they were that quick to drop the order issued by Professor Hojo and authorized by the president. After all, you were a SOLDIER, 1st Class, second best only to Sephiroth himself before he went insane. They said to keep the order in effect for six months before dropping it."
"How long have I been out again?"
"Almost four months," Aerith's voice suddenly spoke up, causing everybody except for Tseng to look at her from her spot at the flowerbed. "We were ready to call you dead if you didn't wake up in another month."
"F-four months?" I repeated in shock as I felt my body stiffen. "I've been out of it for four months?!"
"Pretty much," she replied calmly, looking at me with a smile. "Your consciousness, though, woke up about an hour ago."
"What do you mean by 'his consciousness,' Aerith?" Cloud asked in a tone laced with confusion.
"I'll explain it to you some other time, Cloud. Right now, though, I think that it's important if Zack gets his rest now. After all, I heard from the Turks that you were lucky to have even been on the road to recovery."
"The girl's right," Reno said as he took a break from looking at the computer screens. "Since we couldn't get you to the Shinra Hospital, much less one of the other public hospitals around here, we had to do everything in this dump of a church. That being said, we were really strapped for supplies because of that. We may be Turks and have influence over people, but we certainly can't go around asking for a lot of things that we don't really need without raising any suspicious eyebrows. The president would be hounding us for an explanation."
"In other words, your chances of living were really low," Rude added in bluntly. "I had to make due with what little supplies I had on me. I made up excuses for other supplies that I needed by visiting public hospitals and saying that the Shinra Hospital needed an extra equipment or two. After all, they are supposed to yield their equipment if a Turk acting on 'Shinra business' asks for it."
"That still left us with another problem," Tseng explained while my head started to whirl around with the barrage of things that were being thrown at me all at once. "Trying to save you with a prescribed dosage of Mako would have been out of the question. All Mako injections are located in the Shinra Headquarters' lab, all of them closely guarded and regulated by Hojo himself. Trying to even get an empty syringe out of his lab is like trying to breathe while trapped in a rock. He's too attentive over his own stuff, despite his rather eccentric looks and total attention to his experiments saying otherwise. So we had to try a different method."
"We had to try and give you a blood infusion instead," Cissnei continued as she pointed to a bag stained with red splotches on a metal stand. "That also wasn't easy. Why did you have to go ahead and have the rarest blood type in the world?"
"Uh, that's not really my fault, Cissnei," I said with a crooked smile. "I just happen to be a really special guy."
"Maybe too special for your own good," Rude said in his blunt tone. "Your blood type is so rare; only a handful of people on this planet have it."
"That…I did not know," I said slowly as I let the seriousness of my blood kick in. "Is it…really that rare?"
"Don't even get me started on that," Cissnei replied in a tone that said she did not want to remember that moment. "Rude and I have one very common type while Tseng, Reno, and Aerith both had another type of the same commonness. I was beginning to think that everything we went though to save you was going to be for nothing."
"The only one who's probably within arms reach with your blood type was the dead weight you've been carrying around with you," Reno stated as he pointed at Cloud. "Ironic how you were carrying around the one thing that could save your life this whole time."
"C-Cloud saved me?" I asked as I immediately turned my gaze at his direction. His cheeks had turned somewhat pink and had a nervous smile on his lips.
"Well, I just happened to have heard them talking about your blood type and started to wonder about how familiar it sounded," he said with a small shrug. "It was while they were arguing about how to get you the blood when I finally remembered that I had it. Of course, they almost made me not go through with me giving you my blood because they were still concerned about me."
"Of course we were still concerned with you," I heard Rude state as I kept my eyes on Cloud's still reddening face. "You had just recovered from your comatose state a day earlier and you're demanding to give him blood? You're not a SOLDIER. Your body can't handle that much stress after something like that."
"But sometimes, one must put their life on the line to save another," Tseng replied with a small sigh. "I guess it was also Cloud's way of trying to repay you. After all, from the story he's told us, you risked your life by trying to keep the army occupied and not find where he was hiding. Rude was still reluctant on doing it, I was forced to make it an order. We may all be Turks, but I'm the head man who speaks for us to the president."
"That explains why you were able to order Rude around. But still, I can't believe that the little Chocobo here had the very same type of blood I have. I knew we had quite a few things in common, but this just takes it to a whole new level."
"I thought I said for you to stop calling me a Chocobo," Cloud pouted playfully as I shot him a big grin.
"Uh, Rude?" Reno spoke up in a questioning tone as I saw him looking intently at a computer screen. "You might want to come and see this, man."
"What is it, Reno?" the blunt man asked as he walked over to see what the man wanted him to see. "Is everything alright with his body?"
"Uh, you could say that," the red head answered in an unsure voice. "But if you look at this chart and compare it from before he woke up…"
"Hmm, now that's interesting," the black shaded man said with a raised eyebrow, therefore prompting Tseng and Cissnei to see what was being shown on the computer.
"Uh, what' s interesting, guys?" I asked in a loud voice as their backs completely covered what little view I had of the screen from my spot. "What's going on there? Am I dying or something?"
"Zack!" Cloud exclaimed, clearly not happy at the joke I made, however unintentional it was. "Don't say that!"
"…Sorry, bud," I apologized softly. "I didn't mean it."
"I know," he acknowledged as he gave me a hug. "I just…don't want to be reminded of that time on the cliff where they almost shot you dead. If I had woken up just a second later, you…"
Before he could say anything more, I moved back from our hug, placed a hand on his chin, and connected my lips to his. I could only guess how much he had missed me over the past four months I was out, but I knew that I missed him while I was talking with Angeal in the Lifestream. The last thing I wanted him to do now was to think about how the whole thing could have played out differently.
As I pulled away from his warm lips, I felt a tug of a smile at the corners of his mouth. When I looked at him, he was indeed smiling.
"Don't think about 'what if', Cloud," I told him in a whispering voice. "That doesn't matter anymore. What matters now is what you did at that moment. If you don't have any regrets about what you did, then you shouldn't be worried about 'what if's'. Do you regret what you did four months ago for me?"
"Of course I don't, Zack!" Cloud immediately replied. "There's nothing to regret about that moment."
"Then stop worrying about it, Spiky," I smiled as I gave him another quick kiss. "After all, it was you who saved me from their last round of bullets. And it was through that that you were able to really save me by giving me some of your blood. So promise me that you will stop thinking about that from now on, okay?"
"Alright, I will," he sighed while giving a small smile at me. "Just try not to scare me like that again, okay?"
"I'll try. By the way, did you know that I was pretty close to being inside the Lifestream while I was out of it?"
"You were? What happened in there?"
"Oh, nothing much. I just learned from my mentor Angeal, who decided to pay me a little visit, about my fate being screwed up simply because Sephiroth's was messed up first and that Gaia had nothing to do with it."
"The legends about Gaia were true? Boy, that must have been a bad way to figure it out."
"You're telling me. Oh, and for the record, whatever managed to break Gaia's chain of fate seems to have had it planned right when the disaster happened. Angeal thought that the timing was just too perfect for it to be coincidence. Either way, he thinks that Jenova, the one that caused all of this trouble in the first place, was the cause for Sephiroth's fate to become twisted."
"Wait a minute, I thought that you said your fate was messed up. How can that be if only Sephiroth's was supposed to be that way?"
For the next five or so minutes, I explained everything that I heard from Angeal to Cloud. He just stood there trying to let all the information sink in while trying to reel in the shock of hearing that his fate was also messed up too. Tseng, Rude, Reno, and Cissnei, were all still hovering over the computer, trying to decipher whatever it was they were looking at.
"Boy," Cloud let out slowly once I finished my explanation. "So basically, you and I are now back into our original bodies from four years ago? We've essentially regained our four years of lost time? And to top it all off, Gaia has decided to let us make our own fate, let us choose what we want to do with our future?"
"That's pretty much it, Spiky," I confirmed. "Don't forget that she said that she was going to make sure the order that was made to hunt me down doesn't exist in the past. She also said that we would forget about something bad that's happened to us four years ago.."
"Which would be?" the blond asked me as if I would know the answer.
"Uh, I think if I had known the answer, I would have said it already. I think she's already erased whatever bad thing we endured over the past four years. Otherwise, we would probably still be remembering it."
"Well, just make sure that you two don't try too hard at remembering it," Aerith spoke up, cutting in between our conversation. "Once Gaia erases a memory from somebody, there's no way that they're going to remember it unless she gives it back to you. I doubt, though, that you want to remember such a bad thought."
"Oh, I definitely don't want to remember whatever it was we forgot," I agreed with her. "All I want to remember now are good memories."
"That's good to hear, Zack," she smiled as she twirled a white daisy around in her hand. "However, I'm sure the Turks still remember what Cloud told them about that one memory. I'll go and make sure that they don't tell you anything about that. Otherwise, that would somewhat defeat the planet's purpose in making you two forget."
"We'd appreciate that, Aerith," Cloud thanked her with a nod of his head as she turned towards the Turks.
"Hey Aerith," I called out to her before she took a step away from us. "Thanks for leading me out of the Lifestream."
"Not a problem, Zack," she laughed lightly before making her way to the Turks and telling them about what we had just talked about.
"So, what do you think we should do now that we have everything behind us and a second chance at our lives?" I asked with a wide grin.
"You should go ahead and rest up a bit," Cloud said while putting emphasis on the first word. "You just woke up not too long ago and I don't want you to go collapsing on me."
"Oh, come on," I whined while putting on a pout. "I'm so awake; I feel that I can practically do whatever I want to right now."
"Which I why I say that you need to have some rest," the blond replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "It's when you feel like you can do anything that you start to feel really drained. No doing anything until you at least get some rest."
"Oh, fine. You sure know how to make a guy feel down, you know?"
"And I know just how to perk him back up, too," Cloud said with a smile.
That's when he leaned towards me and we kissed again for the third time since I woke up. He was right; he did know how to make me feel better. Then again, just being with him always makes me feel better. Hopefully, with this second chance at life that Gaia has given me and Cloud, we can forge a great new future that will support the both of us. At least it's safe to say that Gaia's hand at our future no longer holds us down. Our future is truly an unpredictable one. But that's just the way I like it, and I'm sure that's how Cloud likes it too.