Yesterdays Recalled

by Thyme In Her Eyes

Author's Notes: Another 'fic written for the CxA Forum's 100 Themes Challenge. This little story was written for the theme "Time", and is set some years after the game (you can ignore or include the Compilation's events if you like). Also, I own neither the characters or the franchise. Now, happy reading!

-- YESTERDAYS RECALLED --

All of memories keep you near,
In silent moments imagine you here...

– Within Temptation ('Memories').

x-x-x

I should know better than anyone how easy it is to colour the past. Even now, when I feel so much stabler and more confident about myself – more comfortable in my own skin, you could say – but I still second-guess myself on a lot of things. I still ask Tifa sometimes if the details we recall match, just in case. Memories are totally subjective things after all, so how accurate are they?

I'd like to say 'so what?' when I think of these things, and I sometimes sink to that. They're my memories, so why can't I keep a certain version of events? But I know I can't go down that road again – I've just got to accept that memory is imperfect and we have to hold onto the truths we know, but at the same time I never want to start deluding myself again. Just because I choose to believe things happened a certain way, it doesn't mean that that's how it really was. And what's more, Aeris deserves better than that.

It was just confused fragments of me who knew her and still remember her, and I worry that now that I'm whole, and my memory with me, that I could piece those fragments together incorrectly and end up with a false vision of her. A lot of the time when I'm reflective like this, I feel I owe it to her to figure it all out and remember her as she was. Or maybe I'm still trying to find some meaning and consolation over something that ended before it even started, even so many years after the event.

Well, they say that people stay with you as long as you remember them, so I want to remember her right. That way I can be sure.

It's kinda a bad habit of mine, remembering things as better than they really were, and playing up my role in them. Time's a funny thing too: it distorts, exaggerates and downplays the past in a way that's almost random and combined with my foggy head, it makes dwelling on the past a seriously disorienting thing to try.

But I like to focus on that time, when – with help – I managed to piece myself together and really see myself for the first time. It's a positive thing for me, thinking back to those times. And I like to remember Aeris especially. Sometimes it feels like it was only yesterday when we last talked, and other days it'll feel like a lifetime. Kinda fitting, considering how it often feels like I led a whole different life when I knew her, and it simply got split in two sometime shortly after her death, when in reality everything was brought together. It just feels strange and disconcerting sometimes because she wasn't there to see it, and can't know me now. But it's funny how I'll fleetingly remember her hand covering her mouth as she giggled, or lightly touching my shoulder, and I'll feel whole and real.

Am I remembering the past as better than it was, just because now I know how fragile and doomed it was? My memories of her are so strong and so clear, but I feel so insecure about them for that exact reason, and I'm reluctant to trust myself even now. Maybe when I think of her, I'm actually getting the details all wrong.

Things are that much hazier now, and I could count on one hand how many photos I've seen of her her, and none of them belong to me. So the visual reminders are few, and the important things slips away into the past that much quicker. But then Reeve will reminisce about the good old days with me and mention the time Cait Sith interrupted my date with her and suddenly I'll be back in the Gondola, listening to the exploding fireworks and the roaring cheers of people far below us, and I'll see her face in front of me so clear and precise, as if it was only yesterday.

Was she as cheerful and full of life as I remember, or is that an exaggeration? After all, her life hadn't been an easy one either, and she'd suffered her share of losses. Maybe I only remember her as strong and smiling, always with wry and playful comment ready, because I needed it to give me strength. Maybe I still don't know what to think, maybe she still has the power to fluster me and tip me upside down from beyond the grave. Maybe she still giggles somewhere and tells someone I'm being 'cute', and maybe – just maybe – I wouldn't mind some of that.

Was it me she was smiling out and trying to tease out all that time, or him? Was it me that drew her, or the broken parts of Zack I carried inside? Not that I'd ever blame her if it was. But sometimes I still kinda hope...

It really bothers me when I flip things around, and ask if maybe it was the stolen aspects of Zack inside my head that came to care about her so much. That's the one thing I don't want to be true. But it's easy to get over those doubts, because days will come along when I'll really want to talk to her – not about anything profound or resolving, but just about boring regular stuff, the kooky thoughts I feel weird about sharing with most of the others, the stuff she always encouraged me to talk about. That's when I'll realize that I'm the one who misses her, and strange as it sounds, it helps.

Maybe I should've paid more attention to her when she was no more than an arm's reach away, and all this might be easier to unravel. Sometimes, even though my head was miles away from stuff like girls or what the future might hold, I wonder these days about what the hell was so important that it kept me from paying attention to her. To appreciating her while she was there, getting to understand her better. Probably because I didn't know what would happen next, and people are like that. I know now that she wanted to be closer to me, but let's face it, I knew it then too. I knew it, but I didn't even know myself or what was happening inside my own head back then, and in a way I know I did my best, but I still blame myself now and then for not opening my eyes just a little more. Who knows how much good it could've done me?

One thing I'll always carry with me is the memory of how she smiled at me, seconds before Sephiroth took her life away. Her eyes lit up with gentle surprise, then joy, as if the whole world just fell away for her in that instant. As if I'd been what she wanted to see the most. On my part, everything else receded for a moment, and she was all there was – I hadn't ever felt that before, and sometimes I think that that's when she really had me, messed-up and fragmented though I was. I can still feel the impact of that precious smile now, and it makes regular life without her easier and harder to shoulder at the same time, knowing how pleased she was to see me, not knowing what was to come. It eases so much to know she was happy, but I hate how unfair things were for her.

But again, how can I know how accurate this recollection is? Was her smile really as beautiful as it is in my head now, or have I just built it up over time? Did grief and longing perfect her image? Maybe she didn't even smile at me at all; maybe she kept her head bowed and continued praying in silence, and I've just imagined and imposed the smile on her because I wanted her to know I was there, because I wanted some form of goodbye. Don't think I'll ever really know.

It's pretty possible that even if she did smile at me, I just didn't notice it. I remember her as so beautiful in that moment, but it could be that I wasn't focused on her at all, being so lost in my own head and all my stupid thoughts and troubles...

No, that can't be true. Settling my past and avenging all my pain and anger on Sephiroth drove me back then, and stopped me from seeing everything else that surrounded me, but I know that after she left the group to stop him alone, all I could think about was her, and saving her. I know how important she was to me back then, how nothing mattered more than getting to her and making sure Sephiroth wouldn't dare touch her. Even the Black Materia and what I'd done at the Temple fell by the wayside back then, and all I focused on was reaching her wherever she was, and finding her first. Maybe that's why I didn't see anything else after I dropped my sword and she opened her eyes and looked at me, full of understanding, forgiveness and hope. That's what I remember more than anything, and I won't let my own doubts take that away from either of us. Even so many years later, with so much more in my life and my future, I have to believe that her smile was real.

Sometimes, I consider asking someone who knew us both back then. Not Tifa, it wouldn't be right – but one of the others. I want to know sometimes what they thought of her, and how we might have seemed when we were together. Happy? Or something else? There was something there between Aeris and I that made it all real, no matter how messed-up and distracted I was, but pinning it down is a tough challenge.

Not that it'd ever work that way, with memory being so subjective and all. No-one else experienced her like I did, or knew her like I did. So the things they remember will never be enough, and I just have to deal with it and find my own way.

And if I'm remembering things wrong, if I'm just imagining the affection she showed me and how it seemed so genuinely directed at me in spite of all my walls, lies and illusions. That's when I start to think that if I am playing it all up, and imagining that she cared for me more than she really did, it's because I wanted it to be that way and I wanted her to look for the real me. At times like that, I feel closer to a meaningful answer than ever, but I wonder if I'm ready to go there. If I'm strong enough to take it. For her, I want to be.

Life goes on, I learned that a long time ago, but she's a face I'd never want to forget. And truth is, my questions scare me sometimes. Mainly because I don't know what's worse – to remember her wrong, and twist her into some rosy ideal and leave the human Aeris behind...or to know that I really did think that much of her. That she could easily have been perfect in my eyes.

That's when I choose to look away, and ahead. I know she'd be annoyed with me for being like this, but I get the feeling that she might be a little glad and touched too, and that's alright. I'll see her again one day, and I'll know I'll find whatever I'm looking for when that day comes, but until then I'm going to make the most of my time here – time to pay attention to and hold on tight to the people important to me now, as well as reflect on the ones who can't be with me, and wish otherwise.

Years ago, Tifa told me that Aeris looked to the future more than any of us, and I recognized straight away that she was right. So I'll stick to my old system – if Tifa remembers something the same way as I do, then it's real. So no matter how many painful questions I happen to stumble across in the future, that's something I can always hold close to me. And it's how I'll always remember Aeris Gainsborough.

-- FIN --