Aerith had been awake for some time now, listening carefully to the movements of those around her as Avalanche found ways to pass the time, waiting anxiously for either her or Cloud to awaken. She wanted to let them know she was okay, to stop lying here and hiding her recovery from them, but the voice of the Planet rang through her mind, urging her to move and to do so alone towards the North. Now that Sephiroth had the Black Materia, there was a task that she, and only she, could perform. The others must not accompany her and must not interfere.
And that necessitated the wait, even as the Planet seemed impatient and anxious that she act sooner rather then later; her friends were not about to let her journey alone, and they would sooner split the group to allow both a careful vigil over the unconscious SOLDIER and be able to assist the Cetra in her appointed task. She suspected that Tifa would be the most obvious to stay behind. Likely Barret too, worried about the ex-SOLDIER's actions in the foundations of the Temple. And maybe there would be an insistence that Cait Sith remain here to narrow the chances of Shinra finding more about the Cetra, more about the Promised Land. That was after all where Sephiroth had to be headed.
She probed back with her mind seeking answers from the Planet; what was requested of her and why she had to leave her friends behind, but the Lifestream would not divulge any further details. It needed her in the North before Sephiroth had his chance to cast Meteor. More would be related later and as needed; including her specific role.
After hours of waiting, the bustling members of Avalanche gradually stilled, and the Planet urged her movement again, promising that all were within a deep slumber. Stealthily, she slid from her bed, clothing rumpled and her hair matted. Her heart raced with an increasing need to move and she fidgeted restlessly as she fought against the pull. She glanced at the bed opposite her and the blonde man who lay within it, his eyes closed and his breathing even. She tried to pick over those frenzied few minutes after the Temple's implosion but before she could focus on her memories the Planet's voice surged and she found herself moving.
She crept away from the sleeping SOLDIER, noting Tifa slumped at the end of Cloud's bed, and Barret beside the door. One hopeful and one cautious about the outcome of Cloud's awakening she suspected. Outside the pull intensified but she resisted, now realising where she was; Gongaga. Zack's birthplace. She shiveringly remembered the previous visit to the ravaged village and just how shocking she had found his parent's words. They were so anxious for any news of their son, missing ten long years now. They'd had no contact with him since his last letter five years ago; the letter in which he boasted at now having a girlfriend. The older couple had made a surprising leap in logic and assumed that she, in the company of another SOLDIER who had never known her ex, was the girlfriend referenced in the letter. She hadn't known what to think in those confused moments; was that singular mention really referring to her? It couldn't be; after all Zack hadn't actually cared for her. Had he? Standing there facing the distressed parents, hearing their strange certainty that she was the subject of the letter, her feelings of betrayal faltered and begun to fade.
She'd spent so long assuming that he had simply chosen to never come back. A soap opera she miserably watched one dingy and depressing afternoon offered her an unwanted and unpleasant possibility; he'd met someone new on his mission, someone who excited and interested him in a way that his slum girlfriend never could. She didn't feel able to measure up to this hypothetical other girl, imbuing her with attributes of the soap opera character and assumptions of how far she'd gone with Zack; from shared touches (she had touched Zack so infrequently), to kisses (he'd never tried and neither had she) and sex (a step further then she had ever considered at the time).
After they left the ruined village she'd tried so hard not to dwell on the implications of the couple's words, and how it called to mind a moment a few months before. She'd been in the church as usual, wearing the ribbon he'd bought for her, wearing pink just like he'd asked. Zack had only requested it for their next date, but she'd grown impatient, wanting to have that date as soon as she saw him again; still prepared to wait even after she could no longer work up the motivation to write him another letter. Where had those letters gone? Had he received any of them, or were they piling up for him at Shinra? She hoped against odds that he had at least read them even if he'd been unable to reply. The last letter had pained her to even consider penning, but it had been so very, very long since their last phone call, and she knew she had to start moving on. As much as it hurt, she needed to reach for the future. And she knew she hadn't been able to.
She'd worn the dress out of habit that day. Well, maybe not completely out of habit. Some deep, dark part of her would never quite believe he had found someone else and hoped desperately that he would just walk back into the church as he had after other missions. If he had she didn't think she could be parted from him. If he walked in she would hug him as tight as possible, would never let him go ever again. Suddenly she felt it. She became overly aware of her surroundings; there was a hyper-vividness to the church, the colours of the flowers, the rain dripping down through the plate-gap high above the church and through the hole he'd made in the roof.
There was a familiar sensation then, something she'd felt before. Aerith shook herself, reluctant to dwell on that day. She'd forcibly put it out of her head afterwards, never wanting to admit that she did recognise those sensations, those feelings, the whispers and what they meant. That she'd experienced almost the same thing once before. The previous time it hadn't scared or worried her, but the reaction from Elmyra had confused her as she told her adoptive mother that her husband had returned to the Planet. This was only the second time she had ever experienced that feeling (No), and given that she did not feel every life-form who returned to the Lifestream (Please no), the number of people whom the Planet would let her experience their return was extremely low (I knew, but didn't want to), and then there could only be one person missing from her life that could have died (Please... Please forgive me Zack).
She dredged her buried memories, feeling hollow inside as she relived that moment of sensation, accepting the knowledge and the truth, that gazing up into the falling rain, she had felt Zack Fair die. She had felt him lose his grip on the world and disperse down into the Lifestream, mingling and fading from solo clarity into the chorus that made up the voice of the Planet. She hadn't wanted to ignore it, hadn't wanted to pretend that everything was okay, that Cloud's fall into the church, his mannerisms and quirks hadn't evoked Zack at every turn. But to accept that he would never come back? Even after she had officially given up (but unofficially never could. She could be happily married to the best man in the world, live a life of luxury and she would still abandon it all if he came back to her)? No, she had never truly been able to abandon that hope.
But here, in Gongaga as she prepared to perform a task that was hers alone, she couldn't lie to herself anymore. Zack was gone; she'd known for months but never let herself dwell on it, hoping against the odds that maybe she'd run into him. Finding his hometown had seemed a good bet, but to find they had less information then she did had staggered her, and still she'd clung to her assumption. Aerith began to cry, stood in the Gongaga graveyard. There was no grave for Zack, but she knelt amongst the monuments and cried harder, pressing her head against the ground, letting her tears wet the soil as grief spiralled and twisted inside her. Zack had died and she had felt it and pretended she didn't. She tried to take solace that he had clearly still cared for her; cared for her sufficiently to try and make it back to her. She was certain that she could not have felt his passing otherwise.
He had loved her after-all. Just as she'd secretly hoped even as she gave up. Her dress, her ribbon and her job, it all reminded her of the missing SOLDIER. The Planet's pull slowly intensified, and almost unconsciously she found herself rising from the graveyard and beginning the long walk away from the village. She would do this task for the Planet and then maybe she could start moving on. Maybe then she could let go of the ribbon and the dress. Maybe then she could truly look to the future rather then hoping for a return to the past.
A/N: The idea of Aerith in the bed opposite Cloud's at Gongaga is a borrowed head-canon from ariescelestial.