A/N: Haha, I do realize most of my Zack/Cloud plotbunnies are quite similar. ;\ I like this one, though. And yes, Cloud was supposed to give Zack flowers in AC, but it was cut out. Uhm, PM me and I'll see if I can find the pic for you? Anyway. Yeah. Ficlet
It had been years since they had last met. Years since they had laid eyes on each other. But they couldn't lay eyes on each other... Not anymore. One was left alone and alive, and the other, equally as alone, but left dead.
Blonde hair fought against the wind, and flew into Cloud's face. He brushed a few strands of his hair out of his face to see clearly. With one hand he gripped a modest bouquet of vibrant flowers.
Standing in front of the edge of a cliff, Cloud sighed. That sword--the one he had placed there in memory of his former best friend and hero-like figure, Zack, was all that remained. Occasionally the area would get a few wolves, such as there were now. After hearing the soft sound of paw colliding with earth, Cloud"s somber gaze drifted toward a lone wolf half-hiding behind a rock. Eyes locked onto each other and stayed that way for about a minute. Eventually after that period of utter silence, the wolf hid behind the rock entirely.
The blonde went back to staring at the flowers in his hand. What am I gonna do with them? Now, not being one of great compassion, he had difficulty understanding "being polite" and respecting graves. He was "respectful" enough to put the mighty blade down as a grave marker, but he couldn't think of anything else to do.
Why was giving his friend flowers something so foreign to him? Of course, he hadn't cried when Zack had died. Yeah, he felt grief, but he couldn't express it. Crying wasn't something he understood.
Shaking slightly, he lifted the hand with the bouquet to his chest, extended a little in front of him. Should he put the flowers down? The ex-mercenary sighed. It didn't feel right. Should he do more, should he do less?
In the end, all he could do was mutter their last goodbye. "I promised I'd live out both our lives..." He gazed intensely at the sword, nostalgia growing. He gripped the flowers tightly, as if that bouquet could connect him to his dead friend. "Easy to keep that promise." With an almost amused fragment of a smile graced on his lips, steps were taken away from the sword, toward the very edge of a cliff; so close that if Cloud took another step, he would surely fall off.
The delivery boy extended his arm in front of him, gazing at those vibrant flowers one last time before he dropped them off the cliff. And with the final view of those animated petals drifting in the wind, he almost automatically spoke to himself as he returned to his monochrome world.
"For the last time, so long."