In the lifestream under Mideel I was remade. Tifa never takes credit for anything and she says I put myself back together but she was my patient guide, as she always is. Was I healed? I came back to myself there. Yes, that's true. But in coming back to myself I lost you. Or at least that's how it felt.
Zack Fair, Soldier first class. What were you like in Gongaga when you were young? You told me bits and pieces as you lugged my useless carcass half way across the planet, but I don't remember. I wish I could remember. Did you always want to be in Solider? Did you always know that you would make it? I know one thing. You were never an outsider like me. Shame never made you angry and weak. You would have been one of the popular ones. Always laughing. When I was a child I would have envied a boy like you. I might even have hated you. Now there's nothing but admiration and love.
Like Tifa, you were so patient with me. Why do people give me so much and why did it take me so long to appreciate it? It wasn't until I threw it all in Sephiroth's face shouting, "There's not a thing I don't cherish!" that I realised that it was true. I said I pitied him because he didn't get it at all but that was harsh when I hadn't got it either until that moment. Until you made me see it.
When I let go of you in the lifestream it was like a bereavement but I had to do it. You were inside me. I had replaced the weak self in my head with your strength and you don't know how much it hurt to let that go. I lost you three times. Once when Shinra killed you. Once when I selfishly took you to be myself. And once when I remembered the truth and lost you all over again. And I held on to the pain for so long. How could I be your living legacy when I still wasn't even properly myself?
Instead of doing what you would have done, making your plans and moving on, I clung to my failures. Aerith. Tifa and the kids. My inability to help you when Shinra came for you. I was nothing but a weight dragging you down. Geostigma was inevitable. It was only the outward sign of a deeper illness.
If you had never been a part of me, I would never have found the strength to fight back.
Now, if I feel the old doubt beginning to ask its questions, I laugh like you would have done and I think about the future.
I hadn't known you long before you died, but we had the most intimate connection. You took care of me when I was sick and we were fugitives. I was as helpless as a baby. I borrowed you when I was too damaged to be myself. You gave me strength in the last battle, and you showed me that I didn't need you any more. More important even than that, you taught me that although I can fight alone, I don't always have to. Your example gave me back my life. I lost you, but you will always be with me.
Perhaps at last I am ready to be your legacy.
When I think about him, which isn't often these days, I do pity Sephiroth. For all his power, he never had much in his life. Few friends. No real allies. He never had a Tifa to show him the way.
He never had a Zack