Ex - First Class SOLDIER Cloud led with silent, awkward authority. But the distance between him and his comrades was more than the distance of leadership. There was something about Cloud that emanated aloneness. Listening to his silence and looking into his unnatural blue eyes, she perceived only a vast emptiness.
"Let's see how compatible Cloud and I are!" "You are perfect for each other!"
There was an emptiness in the planet that resided in her. She hadn't always been able to put her finger on it the way she could now. But it had always been there, whisping around the barren lands, scraping at her heart. She'd felt it almost as long as she could remember but she didn't know why, couldn't name it. Only now did it make sense. The last Cetra. Alone.
"But I'm...we're here for you right?"
Cloud was a blank slate. Only not the kind wiped clean and ready to start fresh. No, Cloud was the kind of blank slate that had once held your dearest, fondest memories before they were scraped out of your life, carved with a knife that cut to your very heart. The emptiness in Cloud wasn't blankness, she realized, it was an invasive darkness that he couldn't escape. It took away everything he had until he was left solitary and alone. The last defense against the enemy.
"Cloud...I'm searching for you."
In the end he wasn't the last defense. She was. She started it at the Forgotten City. Saving the world. Freeing him from his darkness. For herself. To know one of them could be happy, one of them could be rid of this pain, this emptiness. And maybe if he could be happy, if he could let someone in (let her in) then she, too, could be free.
"Cloud, you take care of yourself."
But it was Sephiroth who freed her. With one fell swoop she was reunited with the planet, with her people. And, for the first time, she wasn't alone anymore. It didn't take away the pain she thought it would. Because she could still hear him. Still see him. Still feel his pain. She finished it for Cloud. She succeeded in saving the world, but she failed at the task she'd wanted most to accomplish. She'd left him alone. More alone, this time, than he'd ever been before.
"Aeris is gone."