Aeris Gainsborough. That was your name and it was a name that stayed with me even as I continued my life. It's funny how something as unimportant as a mere name can mean so much to a person. 'What's in a name, my dear child?' someone once asked me. 'A rose by any other name smells just as sweet. A name means nothing. What counted was the heart.' Oh I agree with that. But still, that name, YOUR name, stayed.

I still remember vividly the day I first saw you. As the carriage was pulled past the gate, I caught the sight of Cloud, my childhood friend whom I just met up a short while ago. And I also saw you. Aeris Gainsborough, although I didn't know your name back then. I remembered staring at you; curiosity mixed with a strange resentment and awe. Resentment for the fact that you're sitting next to the one I had a crush on, and awe because you were just simply so beautiful. So beautiful; like an angel. As the carriage was pulled away and the sight of you and Cloud began to disappear, I saw you standing up and for a moment, I thought I saw wings gracing your back.

All through the rest of the trip, I sat and wondered about you. Your image was ingrained within my mind, and every time I close my eyes, I could see you in the back of my eyelids. In a way, it was horrifying, the sheer amount of detail I managed to gleam just from a single glance. And in a way, it was a blessing. If a single image of an angel was all I could get, then I'll guard it close to me forever.

As I waited in the dark dungeon-like room in Corneo's mansion, I thought about you. What could've it been like if _I_ was the one sitting next to you on top of that slide? The image of you came to me swiftly and I imagined your voice, soprano, maybe and as soft as satin, telling me your name.

It was so horrible, yet so wonderful at the same time. An obsession blessed by the Gods, perhaps. I couldn't stop thinking about you. I didn't notice when Corneo's men leered at me; I forgot my mission, the point of being here in the first place. My world began and ended with that single image of you.

But then I heard my name being called by a voice I thought was my imagination. I turned and at the top of that steep staircase were you, wearing a blood red satin dress, hair tied back with a piece of ribbon the same color. The soft cloth hugged your body, and I felt I was going to collapse.

An angel disguised as a whore.

I wanted to laugh and vomit at the same time. You came up to me and offered me a smile. You told me your name. Aeris Gainsborough. And that named haunted my world.

I didn't even notice the other girl following you until you brought her into the conversation. In my mind, she was unimportant. Everything was unimportant, AVALANCHE, Shinra, Mako, everything. My entire being was focused completely on you and you alone. Aeries. Aeries Gainsborough. The Angel of Salvation.

And then, I recognized her. Cloud. It was Cloud, not just a nameless girl. Cloud Strife, my childhood friend, my crush, the only tie I have to the past I left behind in Nibelheim. Cloud.

And my newly built world shattered. Everything came back to me again. I was once more Tifa Lockheart. And within my being, in the depth of my mind, my soul wept at the loss.

I watched you on our journey. All the others thought it was because I was jealous of your closeness to Cloud. You thought so too, probably. But they were wrong; you were wrong.

I forced myself not to think about the implication of my feelings toward you. I pushed away all thoughts of your angelic voice, or your beautiful emerald green eyes. I refused to acknowledge the fact that I thought of you as an angel. I just refused.

But then, everything was out of my control.

I know whom it was that you like. Cloud, of course, the one I used to have a crush on. It was very obvious and everyone knew it. I remember that night the second time we went to Gold Saucer, how you evaded both mine and Yuffie's questions as to where you were going. You caught my eyes and a small smile was on your lips as you told us vaguely that you're going on a date. A date. Oh, but I knew who you went with, although you refused to tell us.

Never once through our journey did I thought of telling you. At least not until the end, and by then, it was far too late.

Everyone thought that Cloud was the one who mourned your death the most. No one thought that my grief was ten times as strong as his. No one even thought that I would mourn all that much at all. After all, in their eyes, your death was a good thing to me. In their eyes, with your death, I could get Cloud. But I didn't want Cloud. I never wanted Cloud, not even in the beginning. I wanted you.

But it was too late. Too late.

After the end finally came, after everyone went their own individual ways, I often lie in bed in the early dawn of day and replayed our journey over and over again. I would watch through my mind's eyes each single moment that I spent with you. I would wonder as those scenes played through, 'Was there another meaning behind her words? Could it be that she was hiding as well?' But no, those thoughts never stayed, and I never could use them to create a world of illusion. I may have thought of them under the bleak light of a new day, but I could never lie to myself. You loved Cloud, and that was the end of it.

Aeris. Aeris Gainsborough. How you shattered me. My world began with that first image of you, and ended with your death. Your face grace my dreams every night, leaving me choking on tears as the bleak light of dawn appear at my window. Your name continued to haunt me even after the end came.

Aeris Gainsborough... Oh how I hate you, my beautiful Angel of Salvation.