Author's note, important! I realise there are two (that I know of) stories uploaded here – an Aerith/Cloud one, and an Aerith/Leon one – that read almost exactly like this; well, that's because they were plagiarised directly from this fic. I just wanted to make a note of that before the flames started coming in. The stories in question were published here on the 25/04/07, and I am currently in the process of updating my FFNet account; this was originally posted to the LJ community skystones on the 16/04/07. Enjoy!
Parts I-III are pre-KH, and part IV is set directly after the ending of KH. This was originally a set of drabbles, but quickly got out of hand. It sort of comes full-circle, but may not link together perfectly.
i.
Aerith is ten when she first falls in love with him, after tripping and being caught by his clumsy teenage hands. She does not forget that day easily; the way Radiant Garden was in bloom, or the way the other boys laughed at Squall for helping her, but two years pass and the memory is bitter, unwanted, and reminds her of things that no longer are.
He has an arm around her this time, little Aerith, only twelve years old and so, so scared, and one hand on the back of her head. The world is ending, and she's screaming that she hates him, so let me go, because I can help them, Squall, and all he can do is told her tighter as she kicks his shins and pulls at his hair, and let her know that he's shaking just as much as she is. The shadows are pealing themselves off the walls again, their sickly yellow eyes watching their every move, and his father's gunblade is far too heavy for him to support with just one hand.
Squall starts off whispering, but he's screaming now, pulling Aerith closer to his chest, and it's no use; even if he can hide the bloodshed from her, she can still smell it. It sticks in the back of her throat, and she can still taste it, dry against her lips, long after Cid's rushed in to save them because their parents no longer can, long after the walls have crumbled and they're floating in space, lost like specs of dust.
After that, he's no longer Squall. Leon, he tells her, and she replies that she likes the name, but she'll miss Squall nonetheless. And that's how life is from then on: her, Leon, Yuffie and Cid, all cramped into a kind-but-bizarre old wizard's house in a strange, mismatched world.
Everything happens so quickly, until one days Leon turns to her and says, "It's been a year already."
And he sounds perfectly calm and collected about it, voice level, but his knuckles have turned pale around his coffee cup.
Aerith tilts her head from across the dim kitchen, and says, "You know, we're like an old married couple."
Leon would have laughed, had it not rang true. Up every night, sleep fractured by the cries and screams of Yuffie, still too young to accept or understand just what happened to her world, or why porcelain hearts broke over her parents' bodies before their eyes became quiet and clouded over.
Aerith kicks a chair out from the other side of the table, and drops herself into it. There are thick, black marks under her eyes, but she is still smiling – for his benefit, he thinks, because Yuffie is not the only one plagued by such nightmares – and tells him he should go back to bed. Just as he is about to protest, she pours the rest of the steaming coffee from the pot, and it warms between his hands.
"You're not tired?" Leon asks, and she shakes her head firmly, blinking all the while to reclaim her wandering vision.
"We've all got to help out," she replies, taking idle sips of her own drink.
Leon frowns. "That's not the answer I was looking for."
Aerith pushes the ashtray across the table with one finger and says, "Even Cid's doing more than he should for us."
"Come on," he says, taking her arm by the wrist and pulling it away from the broken ash, "Go to bed. I can see to Yuffie myself."
She is about to argue, about to say something, when she loses the words and lets her head fall flat in her arms. Yawning until her eyes water, she murmurs her thanks and apologises in the same breath, and he brushes through her hair with one hand.
Leon watches her stumble down the corridor and drinks until the tea turns cold in his throat. Not until the sound of Yuffie's sobs have relented in favour of sleep does he let himself move, and by the time he makes it to his room the door is ajar, and Aerith has not even managed to get the duvet over herself.
He sighs, but is not surprised; everyone has their nightmares. Everyone needs comfort. He closes the door behind him, quietly, and arranges the bedsheets around her shoulders the best he knows how. Sitting down by her, he murmurs, "An old married couple indeed," into his hands, back arched, and when he pulls them to his shoulders to tug off his shirt they're wet.
It works well enough for another year; Yuffie either dreams less or learns to bite her lip and keep the fear lodged in her chest, and so they sleep more. Traverse Town grows, changes everyday and is never like home, and Aerith stays by Leon's side, through thick and thin, and the times where he just wants to hold her by the shoulders and scream that everything's his fault, that the Garden was destroyed because of him; because he's not strong enough.
The second time she falls in love with him she is fourteen, and he has just learnt how to swing his gunblade with one hand. How it gets to this, though, she isn't quite sure, but Leon finds himself vaguely wondering how such a vibrant girl has such pale skin.
He's seen her naked before, of course, in rough bits and pieces, whether it's because the bathroom door was left unlocked one too many times, or because she rushes to Yuffie's room in the night in nothing more than an oversized shirt, but this – this is different.
In his mind she is still that ten year old who tripped and fell amongst the flowers, but as he opens his eyes and lets go of a deep breath, she's standing before him at the edge of the bed, hands tentatively rested on his shoulders. His have found themselves at her sides, and they trace down to her hips. Aerith has her dress unbuttoned to the waist, and it's fallen off her shoulders, hanging idle around her.
He feels himself tug at the remaining few buttons as he rests his head against her chest. Her fingers curl in his hair as she murmurs something, and only grasp tighter as he pulls her onto him.
-
The next morning everything is painfully normal, with the exception of Cid who finally quits smoking, and Leon, who kisses her for the first time.
ii.
In the two years that follow, three people from the same world, or connected in some other way she can't understand, fall into Traverse Town. Two winged men come and go, one searching more enthusiastically for something private and sordid than the other, but at first, neither of them catch her attention like the black-haired girl who follows in their wake.
Tifa, her name is, a strong girl with clenched fists, but Aerith can tell she's been crying the first time they meet. She smiles softly, puts her flower basket on the ground and sits on the steps beside her. She's hardly surprised; more and more people are turning up like this everyday. Aerith does not even think to ask if she's alright.
"Lost?" Aerith asks, and the girl still has her head hung, dark hair masking her face.
She nods a little, and Aerith goes to place a hand on her shoulder. Before she has the chance, the girl's thrown her head back, is looking her straight in the eyes, and Aerith finds herself taken aback. Later that night, Aerith drags her to Merlin's house, a smile across both their faces, and shows her off to Leon.
He looks up from whatever he's doing - whatever it is he does these days – and clears his throat.
"She can stay, if Merlin's willing to magic up another room," he says dryly, and turns back to his work.
Despite his distance, Aerith clasps her hands together happily and thanks him. Tifa looks on curiously at what seems to be an aged, dysfunctional family, and only feels awkward and out of place. Yuffie pokes her head around a corner, shouts out an enthusiastic "Hello!" and disappears before Tifa even has a chance to wave back.
Aerith laughs under her breath, and turns to Tifa. "You'll get used to it."
-
At first, she's sure it's just a silly little phase that all teenage girls are supposed to go through. Tifa is amazing, she can't deny that, but holds herself back. Doesn't touch her as often as she'd like to. Doesn't let her hands wander as she brushes Tifa's hair, or rubs away her sores and tends to her wounds, and certainly never tells her as much as she ought to, because it's the kind of thing she'll get over. She tells herself it over and over, repeating it like a mantra, every time she wants to wrap her arms and lips around Tifa.
But now she's nineteen and Tifa is still beautiful, and it's still enough to make her writhe under her own fingers against twisted bedsheets in the dead of night. Aerith doesn't feel as if she's grown up at all. They spend the days together from the time Tifa appears in Traverse Town, and it never really occurs to Aerith that one day, Tifa will be gone.
Cid's the one who breaks the news to them – he has the gummi ship up and running, and he can take Tifa on the journey she's so desperate to start any day now.
Tifa stands in her doorway, everything she owns bundled up into one little bag and slung over her shoulder. Her fists are clenched, just like the first time they met, and Aerith focuses her eyes them. Either they're shaking a little, or Aerith's vision is becoming blurred by tears – but she can't speak, all of a sudden, and the goodbye in her throat is too hard to say.
She closes her eyes as if will make her braver, and at the same time she begins with I guess this is - she hears Tifa's bag thud against the floor, and the sound of her footsteps follows. The next thing she knows the tears have stopped, Tifa's hands are holding her face, and in the silence before their lips meet Aerith feels her heart jerk. Tifa presses her lips against hers, desperately pinning Aerith against the wall behind, and yet, Aerith still can not bring herself to kiss back.
It lasts a moment more before Tifa suddenly pulls back, slowly wiping her lips with a gloved hand.
"I'm sorry," she says, face red, "I shouldn't have done that - "
Aerith decides it's better to ignore whatever the awful confusion running through her is, and reaches back out to Tifa. She pulls the younger girl towards her, and doesn't realise she's been holding her breath until she plants her lips hard against Tifa's neck.
"No, you shouldn't have," she agrees, pushing Tifa towards the bed, "I should have done this a long time ago."
iii.
At first, Aerith feels as if she's doing something horribly wrong. That Cloud – the one who comes and goes in her life like his namesake – has warned her all about him, but somehow she can't bring herself to fear the silver haired swordsman. Oh, he's not evil, as the others insist; cruel beyond reason, and yet she can't help but be drawn to him.
It's curiosity, mostly, and she reasons that just talking isn't doing anything wrong. Sephiroth rarely comes to Traverse Town anyway, only when the darkness abides him, and Aerith knows it's not because he values her company that he seeks her out.
"Still after Cloud's heart?" she asks, making herself known as she approaches him on the edge of town.
Sephiroth laughs in that dry, patronising way of his, and does not even turn to look at her.
"I could ask the same of you."
Aerith smiles to herself, and takes a seat on the wall behind him. She thinks that perhaps it was once part of the Garden, but she can't even remember that much anymore. Aerith is lost in her thoughts, trying to remember what home was like a lifetime ago, and when she looks up Sephiroth's eyes are burning into her.
"Whatever you think there is between Cloud and I...," she says, a little sadly, maybe, "You are mistaken."
Another laugh, coupled with a step towards her. "He seeks the light."
"He flat-out refused mine," she snaps back.
She is angry now, and it was foolish of her to come; she always ends up like this around him, red-faced and white-knuckled. She wants to lash out and hit him as he stands in front of her, towering over her. Instead Aerith grits her teeth, jerks her head away, and Sephiroth brings up a hand to her face and plays with loose strands of hair between his fingers.
"Yet if I took you, I'm sure he'd come running," Sephiroth muses out loud, and Aerith does not flinch in the way he would like.
"Then why don't you?" she demands, looking at him straight in the face.
She immediately regrets it, because no sooner than the words are out Sephiroth's hand is wrapped around her exposed throat. Trying her best to stay calm, she feels Sephiroth pull her to her feet, fingers tightening as he lifts her. It is not enough to stop her breathing, but it burns horribly.
Aerith's hands wrap around Sephiroth's wrist to keep herself steady, on tip-toes now. He won't, he won't, she tells herself, and she hears the ring of his blade as he pulls it from its sheath. Eyes closed and lips pressed together tightly, she feels a pain cut through her before the blade touches her skin, a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach as if it's something she's felt before.
The blade doesn't splice her skin, barely even rips her dress.
"Because that wouldn't be half as fun," he tells her, a cure spell already warming the one hand that still holds her.
Aerith's hands tighten around his wrist and pull it away from her, refusing to let the magic do its work.
"You're just like a Heartless," she tells him, and wouldn't believe he wasn't one if she hadn't felt his heartbeat for herself, "Worse, actually – you know what you're doing."
Sephiroth laughs at the girl. There's just something about her that amuses him so, in this world of darkness and confusion. One look at her, and he feels disgustingly enlightened.
iv.
"You're back," Aerith says quietly, and can no longer remember how many times the words have passed her lips before. Her smile is thin this time, he notices; she doesn't want to say it anymore. She shouldn't have had to say it in the first place.
Cloud nods once, and doesn't take his eyes off the ground.
"Aren't you?" she asks when he says nothing in reply, and leans down to look him in the face. She isn't sure of what she's going to find anymore.
Instinctively Clouds looks away, but she can see his eyes clearly enough. She sighs heavily; there's nothing there that frightens her, nothing she can't bare to see. Nothing but Cloud. Aerith leans in closer when he does not reply, her breath brushing against his cheek as she wraps her fingers in the rich red fabric of his cloak. In these two years... she isn't sure she can stand to hear what he's been through yet.
Cid awkwardly clears his throat from the other side of the room, and drags out a protesting Yuffie as he leaves. Cloud visibly relaxes as he hears the door close behind them and murmurs, "Yeah, I'm back, Aerith."
"For good?" It almost isn't worth asking.
"For now."
This time it's Aerith who turns away, back to him, and she has to dig her heels in to stop herself leaving the room. If she does, she's sure Cloud will be gone by the time she returns. That's just the way things are. Cloud stands besides her, and he's never been good in situations like this; never will be. Aerith is surprised by the way he takes her hand in his own, and so she says:
"I suppose it'll have to do." Her voice as not as soft as she meant for it to be.
Cloud frowns, but pulls an arm around her nonetheless. She doesn't mean to let herself sink into his arms as easily as she does, but the way she buries her face in his chest feels all too natural, and so she wraps her arms around Cloud so tightly it hurts. Aerith feels her whole body ache from years of pretending not to care.
"Hollow Bastion's not even your home," she says, voice muffled by the folds of his cloak, "I didn't expect you to come."
Cloud rests his hands on her back and says, "I've been trying to, for a long time."
"And you'll leave again."
"I'll come back again," he says, not quite sure of himself, "If you'll let me."
Aerith makes no answer, but to Cloud's surprise reaches up to kiss him. It has been so long that he has forgotten the exact way they fit together, and his memory's betrayed him in the past when he tried to remember just how she tastes or feels pressed against him, where she should be. It all floods back, the good and the bad, and he only holds on tighter.
When she pulls away, no longer looking quite so lost as before, Aerith places a hand against his chest. She can feel his heart beat faster than before, and if she closes her eyes, she can almost reach out and touch his light, still rough around the edges, with her fingertips. She rests her head in the crook of his neck. The darkness has not taken Cloud Strife's heart; now if only he could realise that the light he seeks so desperately isn't as out of reach as he's convinced himself.
He kisses her forehead, and she doesn't let herself believe that just maybe he'll stay this time – but for him to end up in Hollow Bastion when the worlds restored themselves is something special; something she can't comprehend. It makes a sensation of hope she hasn't felt in years rise up and settle in her chest.
-
When Aerith wakes the next morning, she almost expects the bed to be empty. Stretching out, before she even opens her eyes, she feels Cloud's wing spread flat across her stomach and smiles. There's still one more day at least, then. Cloud is sprawled out on his front next to her, exhausted, and in the thick of sleep. She watches him for a moment before sitting up and folding his wing. He stirs a little, but does not wake.
Tugging a hairbrush through her knotted hair, Aerith wraps a dressing gown around herself and makes for the kitchen. It's early, the sun has barely crept through the windows of their makeshift home, and yet Leon is already sitting at the table, coffee in one hand.
"Oh," she says, consciously making sure that her dressing gown is tight enough around her chest, "I didn't expect you to be up yet."
Leon looks up and smiles in a way she would have missed if she wasn't looking for it, more relaxed than she's seen him in a long time – however, she thinks it might be too bold for her to call him Squall again. Not yet, anyway; the air between them is still tense. She knows she blushes as she sits down opposite him, but he kindly ignores it and pushes a cup of coffee towards her.
"You and Cloud – " he begins suddenly, and Aerith almost jumps in her seat.
"I'm sorry," she blurts out, "When we were together, we – "
Leon shakes his head to silence her, and she sinks back in her seat, flustered.
"We were young," Leon concludes, dismissing all those years with a simple hand gesture. "It's in the past. So long as Cloud is right for you, I'm... happy."
And he does not sound it, but there's a look in his eyes that tells Aerith he's going to make sure Cloud treats her well, no matter what his own feelings for the swordsman are, and she nods gratefully. She gets the feeling she will not be the only one to protest when Cloud next tries to leave.
"Squall?" she says, and his faces softens at the sound of the name – of his name, "Thank you."
She doesn't know if she can make him stay, and she doesn't know if she can bare him gone again; but of all her loves in the whole of her life, Aerith finds that Cloud Strife is the one she cannot let go of, no matter how foolish she knows it to be.