AUTHOR'S NOTE: I never thought I would be writing a love series about Cloud and Aeris as their relationship progresses throughout the game. It just happened, really.

This...this is the first story in the series, "Reawakening to a Red Heart". It is set that fateful day when Cloud and Aeris meet after that Mako reactor explosion in the streets of Midgar.

The second story is "Our Love is a Fairy Tale", set that night of Cloud and Aeris' date, told from Aeris' perspective. The third story is "Black and White Angels", set at when Aeris gets killed, told from Cloud's viewpoint. The last story is "Sprectre from the Past", how Cloud reacts when he is alone after he goes back to when he goes back to that church in Midgar, and sees Aeris' ghost floating above her flowers...it is told thought Cloud's eyes. These other three parts are already published under my profile.

Please read them.

I dont own Final Fantasy, and you can reach me at:

sm (underscore) scales (at) yahoo (dot) com

This story is dedicated to a friend...or at least someone who used to be one...

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Why are there explosions everywhere?

Who is this man, who bumped into me?

What is happening?

Is the world that we live in falling apart?

There is chaos everywhere. Everyone is screaming and running in fear away from the Mako Reactor, and this man runs into me.

I see those cold marble-green eyes, and I feel like I am about to drown into them, fall in so deeply that I might never be rescued away from him.

H-He reminds me...

I stand up from the dirty ground, and smile softly at him. I feel the blood rush into my face as I look at him, and I feel myself beginning to blush. I turn my head away slightly to the left, so he can't see my cheeks turn a brilliant shade of crimson. He gives me a fifth carbon copy of a smile, and that marble in his eyes just seems to weaken slightly. He speaks a few words to me, but I am not paying attention.

Wake up girl, what's happening to you?

Why is your heart racing, why is your mind running forward at train speed, why do you want to be with hi-

NO. I don't.

I can't love anyone.

I can't be with anyone.

I don't deserve it, I can't handle it.

I have hurt those that I cared about in the past... Zach... I destroyed him. And he is dead now. I can't fall for this stranger. I don't even know his name...and...I just met him. I mean, seriously. I won't fall in love I won't imagine the future with him I won't think about what it would be like to be wrapped up in his strong arms and to be shielded from all the dangers in the world I won't imagine the two boys and one girl named Mia that we could have or the house we would live in or anything like that with him. That is silly. I will never see this man again.

Yet his gaze... It makes my soul melt.

No love. Love is such a joke after al-

I shake my head free of all of these emotions as he reaches his hand out to me.

Is he asking me out?

Is he asking me to be with him?

A flower. I pluck a white flower out of the wicker basket lying on my arm, its smooth texture rolling beneath my finger tips as I hold it out, my hand slightly quivering, at him. He accidentally brushes my hand when he takes it. My body lights up like an electric wire, the touch resonating in my heart and in my soul, falling from my fingertips to my toes. He is so gentle... He turns and walks away without another word.

I wake up to reality, away from my little dream world that only holds me and this stranger inside of it.

I turn and run away, the tears flowing freely down my face, as the destruction reigns all around me.

-fin