After

Chapter 1
"Reunion"

"See you around, Spikey."

Cloud looked up to see Zack's ghost standing in the church doorway, waving him off, his form growing more translucent as he turned and walked into the sunlight outside, until he'd vanished from sight entirely. His mind was still in a haze. He'd been somewhere else, moments before. The Lifestream? The afterlife? Somewhere else, perhaps? Some 'other' place, between life and death. Whatever the case, he now found himself standing in a shallow pool of warm water inside the slum church, surrounded by his friends and a large group of children, some of which he recognized from the orphanage.

He felt utterly disoriented. He wasn't going crazy, was he? That was Zack he had seen just now, but... didn't he have Aerith with him? He could have sworn he'd heard their voices together, in that other place.

"Cloud?"

It sounded so much like her. No, it couldn't be..

He turned to see Aerith standing in the water behind him, her familiar, ever-radiant smile still on her lips. He simply stood there, stunned, as she moved in closer. Her smile turned into a mischievous grin as she approached, and she splashed some water on his face, giggling at his bewildered reaction.

"Aerith?" he sputtered in utter disbelief as he wiped the water from his eyes.

"Expecting someone else?" she replied, greeting his puzzlement with warm laughter.

Their friends only now noticed who it was standing behind him, and their discovery sent a wave of cheering and applause reverberating throughout the crumbling edifice.

"Are you feeling better?" Aerith asked.

Cloud looked down at his arms to see that the Geostigma infection was gone, washed away by the healing waters in which they stood. It didn't take long for their friends to notice, either, and before they knew it, the children were all leaping into the pool and splashing around, while the Avalanche crew erupted into yet more cheers. He turned his attention back to Aerith, who was watching him with a calm, gentle expression. Despite being surrounded by dozens of children, not to mention their friends from Avalanche, for that moment in time, it seemed like it was just the two of them there, alone in the crowd.

"Aerith, I.." he started.

Before he could continue, however, she launched herself at him, enveloping him in a tight hug. Her skin was warm to the touch, and he could feel her heated breath against his neck.

"I told you I'd come back," Aerith said, looking apologetic for a moment. "I'm just sorry it took so long. But I'm here now."

Cloud hugged her back, relieved to see that it wasn't just his mind playing tricks on him. She was very much alive.

And very naked.

He had only noticed just now, as she moved in this close. He'd wondered momentarily why she'd kept everything except for her head submerged. Now he knew. He blushed as she clung to his body, pressing her figure tightly against his own, making it evident that she wasn't letting go until she had something to protect her modesty with. "Um... guys? Little help?" he said, turning to the rest of the Avalanche crew.

Tifa was already halfway across the room, searching through his footlocker for any spare clothing to throw to them. The others, children and adults alike, simply broke out into laughter at their silly predicament.

Aerith drew back a little, enough to look him in the eyes. She held his gaze for what seemed an eternity. He tried to say something to her, but the words wouldn't come. He had a million questions for her, but the hows and whys could wait. They weren't important right now. She laughed again, running a warm hand down his cheek, as if to dispel any lingering worries from his mind. For the first time in years, he smiled.

A couple of notes on this collection:

1. "What is all this palaver?"

'After' is an alternative ending to 'Advent Children', and will be followed by a series of Clerith vignettes scribbled as they occur to me. 'Dirge of Cerberus' doesn't take place in this timeline. Don't expect many plot points or characters from the extended backstory to rear their heads here, either.

2. "What are you doing bringing dead characters back to life? That's just plain wrong!"

I realize that dabbling in resurrection has been something of a bugbear in the community for a while. This is 'Final Gritty Reality' we're talking about, after all. As far as precedent goes, however, my Exhibit A would have to be the final boss fight from 'Advent Children'. (Also, I'm pretty sure most people presumed Rufus and Tseng to be dead before the release of said movie. Maybe they just got better.) In any case, it seems a little hypocritical to extend this arbitrary rule only to certain characters.

3. "Why not just write an AU where Aerith survived?"

I don't know. I've never been keen on AUs, to be honest. It just seems to me that uprooting a set of characters from their canonical setting always causes them to lose something of their essence, if that makes any sense. The further one removes them from their original context, the less they remain themselves, IMO. Modifying the existing timeline in this manner seems to me a (slightly) less crass way of doing things.

4. "Will there be a plot?"

Not really. Technically, this collection might qualify as having a "plot" in the sense that these characters are progressing through linear time, and developing bit by bit as they go, but don't expect the "let's go save the world again!" kind.

Okay, done rambling now. See you next chapter.