Note: This occurs several years after KH2, and Cloud and Aeris are married. I can totally see that happening, and I guess that's why when the idea for this piece came to me, it kind of wrote itself, and other than just a few minor changes, it doesn't look much different from its first draft. Major fluff piece.
Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me.
Golden Days
Cloud nods to the other men and they retrieve their respective weapons from the ground before moving forward to collect their wives.
Having come down from the steps after the men's sparring had ended, Aeris and her friends are now standing off to one side of the old courtyard their husbands use for practice, saying good-night to one another.
"Come." Cloud motions his wife over with a wave of his hand, and glances up at the darkening sky as he pulls his gloves off and slips them into his back pocket.
As Aeris nears him, her steps slow until she has come to a standstill, just a few feet away in front of him. He looks inquiringly at her. She is looking at him as if awestruck.
"You are so beautiful," she whispers.
His throat tightens. She always gets it the other way around. She has no idea just how beautiful she is, especially at this particular moment, her face serene and content as she stands under the courtyard lamps that cast their warm amber glow onto her, amplifying the natural inner radiance she has always had. His love has increased that light and now, pregnancy has given a new glow to her.
She looks healthy and fit and so beautiful, it almost hurts his eyes to look at her. It's as if she's been born to bear his children. To be the mother of his children.
An image flashes across his mind, a memory…and yet, not a memory, unbidden and unwelcomed, dashing that thought to bits—Aeris under water. Him alone. Grief wells up inside of him, and he gives his head a hard shake, trying to shake the image away, forces himself to smile at her happy face.
The bright smile she gives him in return is all the answer he needs.
Still, his heart aches. How he wishes she could always be the mother of every child he'll ever have. That she could always be with him. He tries to quell his sudden dark thoughts. What he has is far more than he'd ever dared to hope for. Each day, each minute they have with each other; they are not to be dismissed so casually.
He cannot see what lies ahead for them but these bright, glorious days of peace and joy, filled with so much love and warmth and laughter, are surely just the beginning. The baby she carries represents the future and their hope of a life spent together. It lies before them, a vast, yawning gulf yet to be written. Mysterious. Unknown.
They have so many more memories to make together.
"How's my son today?" Cloud asks, keeping his voice deliberately low.
"Perfect," she replies, and her eyes shine at the question. "Just like his father. He never gives me any trouble at all."
"He loves his mother."
Aeris smiles softly and places her hand gently over her stomach where a small tell-tale bump can now be seen if one knows to look for it. Her eyes are so tender and full of love, they look like pools of molten green lava as she gazes back at him in the stillness of dusk.
"Come here, wife," he orders.
She obeys him immediately, walking the few steps over to him until they are standing face to face just a few inches away from one another.
One of his hands cups her face as the other drops discreetly between them to the stretched material at the front of her dress, covering it protectively, over the new life that is growing inside her womb.
And her. Their child is not the only one he feels such a strong desire and need to keep safe.
Cloud caresses her stomach gently as he bends his head to place a soft kiss on her lips, and her hands come up to grip his hair hard as she responds to him with the same sweet fire he's always known with her. He runs the pad of his thumb lightly over her smooth cheek, cradling her face more securely in his hand as he kisses her with all the passion and tenderness he feels for her, and she sighs blissfully into his mouth.
"You're beautiful," he murmurs, drawing back to look down at her radiant face.
"If I am, it's because of you, and because I'm carrying your child. Your baby makes me beautiful."
"You were always beautiful," he corrects her as he tucks several strands of glossy brown hair that have escaped from her braid behind her ear, and she slides a hand down to let it rest over his nape.
"But I've never felt better. I honestly believe my purpose in life is to be with you and to be the mother of your children. I was meant to bear your child." Aeris' words, nearly identical to his own thoughts, are quietly spoken, serious, and without a trace of doubt in her voice.
"I do too," he says with absolute conviction. He rubs his hand over the slight bump in her belly, unable to wait for the day when he'll be able to feel the life that they've created inside her, so fragile, so precious, and so new, moving under his palms.
"I love you, Cloud."
"And I love you."
He tugs his wife into his arms, and they stare at each other under the glittering lights of the courtyard and the stars high above them. Her fingers gently stroke the hair at the back of his neck as Cloud studies her face, memorizing every feature exactly as they are in this moment. The air around them feels warm and heavy, and a passing breeze suddenly sweeps by, bringing on its wings the indistinctive murmurs of their friends' conversations.
These halcyon days are truly the sweetest and happiest days he has ever known. That he'll ever know. These days in which he has truly lived. Every second and every minute. Fully embracing them with everything he has.
This life of theirs.
Many years from now, in the autumn of his life, when everything else is gone and forgotten, these short, fleeting days are the ones he'll remember, if only ever-so-faintly, wistfully, painfully, and lovingly.
Always so lovingly.
Every day with her.