A/N: Written for Crisis Core day! 3/25/08! (US release date..) Sadly I don't own a PSP, so I can't buy it just yet. And all of my friends are going to have it before I do. -angsts - Anyway, I only finished it today on the 26th, but it's the thought that counts, I guess. Lots of dying and emo content in this so there's Crisis Core spoilers; but I guess we all know what happens...

And I need you
And I miss you
And now I wonder...

If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by?
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could just see you
Tonight

A Thousand Miles; Vanessa Carlton

.:silence.:

She thought that death was supposed to hurt more than this.

Wasn't it supposed to be agonizing to be run through with a blade? Wasn't it supposed to be scary to see the glint of the metal that's currently sticking from your body? Her head swung forward, and she stifled a gasp in her throat, her eyes falling closed a final time. The whole world became still to her, even though she could feel her hair coming loose and the materia falling with her ribbon, but even as it hit the water beneath her, there was no sound. When you die, there's noise and clattering and gasps and screams, or something? right?

Cloud and the others are deathly –a word that fits perfect in this situation, she muses – quiet. The transition into nothingness is an easy one. There's nothing left to hold onto in perfect, utter silence.

Almost non-existent pain like this is nothing, she's had feelings worse than this before. She can remember it like it was yesterday: how she had felt for one single moment all those years ago, that weird feeling in her bones, like pure electricity coursing through her veins. She remembers shuddering, and clasping her hands and praying. Praying for him as rain fell through the gaping hole in the roof of her church.

Something was wrong, something was happening.

Please, Zack, you're coming back, right?

Years passed, and she never knew his whereabouts, never knew if he was alive or….dead.. She never saw him, never got a single letter, never ever…

There were so many things she would never be able to tell him. She'd never be able to touch him again. Never be able to hear his smooth voice again, or the cheesy pick up lines that used to bounce around the walls of her church. She would have walked a million miles for him, she would have given up all of her flowers, she would have done anything, just to say goodbye.

It was like her heart had been crumpled carelessly, ripped up, and thrown with no remorse into a pile of trash on the worn streets of this city – this broken, bleeding, loveless city, the very city she called home.

The air is still hushed as she slides off the blade, body falling forward before she is caught by someone.

Zack?

It's not, because she hasn't seen him in years, she hasn't seen him since she was that naive teenager – since she was the "angel" he mistook her for when he first saw her.

Her vision is going white, and she feels something warm and leathery rub against her face. It's a gloved hand. It brushes back her hair and she feels warmth as the person leans in and she's hearing these angelic whispers of love and apologies in her ear, breath tickling her neck. Her eyes flutter open, and she's staring into blue eyes – eyes so so blue- eyes she'd thought she'd never see again.

At that Aerith gasps.

It's like her heart is being stitched back together, ironed flat so it's not crumpled, and sewn back into place with the most careful of stitching. Like it was never ever thrown into the trash in the first place. Like they were never ever separated, and he was there to see her fight, and he was there to cheer her on the whole time.

Like he never ever left her.

Even though there was silence, there was Zack.

And that was all she ever needed anyway.

If I could fall
Into the sky
Do you think time
Would pass me by?
'Cause you know I'd walk
A thousand miles
If I could,
Just see you
If I could,
Just hold you
Tonight...