Endings of a Broken Heart
Author's Notes: As of 01/30/2010 this chapter has been re-edited and reposted! So please read again!
I'm a girl and I'm trying to write this story, mostly, from Cloud's point of view. So do forgive me if it might seem a little weird. This is an AU.
Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy VII and all associated characters. I own nothing but the plot.
Full Summary: Here is a story of two people who came to be together because their dreams of love didn't work out. What they didn't know was that despite the tests of faith, the confusion of who to love, the awkwardness of being together, and the painful crushing of dreams was that they were really meant for each other. That their dreams were really just that, dreams. They were simple fantasies and the objects in them were only covering up who their souls were searching for and haven't found.
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Desperate fingers clutching at his shirt and a small river was trailing its way down his neck and sliding underneath the material. He holds her, unsure.
"It hurts, it hurts so much."
What does? He asks inside his own mind, he doesn't say it out loud. But still, somehow she could understand what he was trying to say.
"It hurts to know that everything you thought you wanted for so long, isn't at all what you wanted. Where your dreams ended and you're faced with reality and you can't really figure it out."
"It's confusing, I know." He tells her. A sniffle.
"And you're here and you're in reality, not in some dream of mine."
"And it's hard to face me, isn't it? Because I'm not part of your dream." He finishes for her, because he knows exactly what she wants to say because it is what he is thinking.
She nods, her cheek straining the thin cotton of his shirt.
"And I'm scared. So scared. Reality is so scary!"
"Because I'm here and you're not sure for how long."
"Because in dreams, there is always a way to go back. But reality keeps moving forward, even when I might lose you."
He looks down at her then. Her long black hair has stuck to her tear stained face and he thinks…he thinks that she is still as beautiful as she is with sunshine in her eyes and bright smiles. He feels his insides shaking, although as his hand reaches out it is perfectly fine. His fingers meet her clenched fists at his chest and slowly, he unravels it. He twines their fingers together.
She looks up at him. There is fear and so much hope in there that it suffocates him. His mind feels numb. He brings their joined hands to his mouth and his lips grazes the small, but he knows how strong they are, knuckles. He keeps his eyes locked on hers.
"You got me now. You'll always have me."
More tears. She hugs him tightly, burying her face once again in his chest.
"You'll always have me, somehow and in some way, you'll have me too." She whispers. Her hands reach to his shoulder blades in this hug. "Maybe we can face reality together."
Maybe we will find that this is better than our dreams. He thinks as well.
But somehow…Cloud couldn't shake the feeling that this was somehow goodbye.
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Blue eyes blink open. It takes him a few minutes of snoozing before he gets out of bed officially. He doesn't bother grabbing a shirt as he walks about his room simply in a pair of low rise sweat pants with his navy blue boxers peeking over. His hand ruffles his messy and always somehow spiky hair and follows up in a few stretches.
The first thing he does is drop to the floor after that. Cloud always starts his day with a workout. First three sets of fifty pushups and a quick jog around the block a couple times before he took a shower. By twenty, he is awake. He finishes his work out with an hour left to shower, eat, and pick up Aerith from her house.
Cloud slips into a clean white t-shirt and a pair of dark navy blue jeans, with a small tear towards the end of a pocket. But he doesn't care, it is clean and it is simple. He takes a black cotton ribbed sweater and throws it over his head, not bothering to zip it up. White sneakers slide onto cotton socked clad feet and after saying goodbye to his mother while grabbing a piece of toast, Cloud is out the door.
He always takes his car to pick her up. He has a motorcycle too but it was special to him, it was his father's before he had died. And he never went to pick her up in it because she almost always wore a skirt or dress and couldn't ride it. Cloud thinks she wouldn't be caught dead riding on a motorcycle anyways.
So he took his slightly beat up black Mustang that he had gotten from the auto shop he worked at, discounted and fixed up to pick her up. It was a nice car but he would hate to take it on a road trip, he hated being in confined spaces for too long. He pulls up to a nice creamy yellow house, with beautiful flowers blooming all around the front porch. He knows that Aerith and her mother loves to garden and that the flowers that take over their house is because of that.
Aerith comes out today with a pink blouse and a knee length flowy deep pink skirt and a pair of dark brown leather boots. Her hair is braided in its typical fashion, tied together by a light pink ribbon. She was such an explosion of pink. She laughs when she calls out his name, her emerald eyes like gems laid out in the sun.
He clenches the steering wheel tightly as his heart clenches almost painfully when Aerith slides into the passenger seat and presses a friendly kiss to his cheek in additional greeting. She chatters on about what will be going on but Cloud can't help but think that maybe he should've turned his head a little, "accidentally", so that her lips could press against his even for just the briefest of moments. Some days he wishes he could hate her, hate her enough that he could stop liking her and just be the friend she sees him as. And some days he feels crazy, like he's soaring through the sky on the high of love.
Because she always makes him feel special with that bright smile and those eyes that seem to look at him like there was just the two of them in the world. Because she always makes him feel needed when she calls him during the day just to chat or for a ride, or for his company to go somewhere. Because she makes him feel alive and happy and content and calm, like the harsh reality that is life just doesn't apply when you're with a girl like her.
And Cloud is bitter. Because he's in love with a girl who always sees him as "just a friend".
But still, he dreams. He dreams at night of holding a girl wearing pink, a stark brightness against the darkness of his clothes and his personality. He dreams of kissing soft lips and seeing emerald eyes turn just a shade darker in passion. He dreams of saying words he's never spoken and promises he only wishes he could make. He dreams of an explosion of warmth and happiness and the shaking of his world and the grace of her softness when she catches him.
Aerith…the stuff of his dreams.