Once Upon an Immortal City
I'll let my stories be whispered when I'm gone...
01: Why?
He only had his back turned for a second. It was only that.
In that second of split time, where he had fallen to one knee and placed a pained hand over his shoulder where the bullet bit deep, his hand had loosened it's grip on the heavy sword. It was enough time for Cloud to run forward in a rage-fuelled mako haze, tearing the sword out of his hand and swinging it with a roll of his slender shoulders, overhead and cutting through two soldiers. Zack gritted his teeth, trying to focus against the pain but he was sluggish and slow; what had been in those bullets?
The last thing he saw as he lost consciousness was the sight of his friend hitting the ground next to him, blood clotting the dirt and eyes; nice blue eyes haunted by mako, staring up at the sun. Then, there was only silence.
"And yet you are alive, so deal with it."
"I'm alive," he breathed, lifting a hand to his face in the dim room. He was sequestered in a hospital wing of the ShinRa building, all other beds were empty save his own. Sometimes nurses came in to check on him, in immaculate white uniforms pinned with the red lurid logo of the company. Other times there were doctors. Once or twice, there had been Professor Hojo. He had stayed still, still as he dared without stopping his breathing, glaring hatefully up at him with his good eye: the other still swaddled in bandages and padding.
The good professor had merely smiled beatifically; He was the present delivered on a silver platter for his consumption.
Nimble fingers felt skilfully about the socket of his eye. They hadn't explicitly said if he could regain sight, let alone if he even would. Having an alarming loss of depth perception left him with crawling skin. His hearing too had suffered, both eardrums were blown out and still repairing slowly under the intensive materia treatments. His hair had been cut, not to any sort of style, roughly hacked off close to the scalp so they could bind him and treat him. Two small cannula were embedded in the side of his head, the side where he had an eye covered up. He didn't even want to consider what they were pumping him full of.
His body had been riddled with bullets but by some miracle he had managed to pull through it, taken away from the slaughter in secret by the Turks, by the silent and unknown orders of the President. He had a public image to maintain and specimens such as he was were far too valuable to lose. Especially now that no one knew what had truly become of Sephiroth.
He had heard the nurses speaking fearfully about it, in voices louder than whispers; still assuming his hearing wasn't repairing as quickly as it was. There were, after all, benefits to being a Soldier. His body had vanished, gone, after Cloud had thrown him aside into the reactor core, deep down where the mako bled out of the world.
Zack didn't think he was truly dead.
But then, Zack Fair would have also bet his last pay check that he could have saved Cloud.
He still remembered Cissnei's face as she left the small box of letters on his bedside table. The box was beautiful, it was carved with flowers, vines and leaves and on the lid was a sunrise, circled with stars fading into clouds, in delicate, poignant relief. Her slim hand had tapped the lid of the wooden box, fingers trailing thoughtfully a moment.
"Inside here are all the letters she tried to send to you. All the hope and love she has for you is in this box, packed away neatly and waiting for you to be ready to read them. I can't tell you when that will ever be."
Her eyes were dark with wisdom, the weight of it almost crushing thought out of his head and her smile was more than a little sad. Zack forgot often, too often, that she was a Turk as well as a woman. She was as human as everyone else was, more or less, and everyone suffered, one way or another. She just continued looking at him, hand still on the box lid; it acted like a weight preventing him from lurching out of his bed and snatching it up, devouring the letters with a mind driven by frenzied need to feel anything, something again!
"You know as well as I do that what you must do now is choose. Where you go, what you do, how you live. All this is your choice, Zack. Grief hurts, you blame yourself, you always will."
How bitter those words had been. How bitter and dark, like orange peel burning in the back of the throat. She lifted her hand off the box and closed the white curtain around the bed as she left, with just her sad voice echoing behind her.
"And yet you are alive, so deal with it."
He turned his head, stubbly hair prickling roughly on the pillow, so that his good left eye could see the box. It smelled a little like sandalwood and rose blossoms. Zack reached his hand out and lifted the lid, just enough so that there was air moving in and out of the box. There was a faint tinkle, was there jewellery or stones in there, clattering against one another? But there was the sudden smell of grass and spring rain and the earth that had caught on her boots and dirtied her hem.
He slapped the lid shut.
Instead of drawing the box to him, he picked up the slim PHS and thumbed the quick-dial number, bringing it to his right ear, a faint hum of electricity making him wince. Ringing tones made his teeth ache and his brain burn with pain, but he bore it.
"Hello," said the calm and even voice at the other end of the phone.
"Alright," he murmured, "You have a deal."
"Are you... are you sure about this?"
"As long as you don't hurt her," he closed his eyes and sighed. Sometimes the choices were like looking into muddy water and hoping for the best. "I'll do it."
"Good, I'll come by tomorrow with Reno."
"Tseng," Zack sighed, "Don't bring him, he's an annoying little bastard at the best of times."
There was laughter, short and dry. "Tomorrow, and he's still coming. Expect us after eleven."
The phone hung up, beeping quietly the dead tone into his ear. Zack let his hand fall away from holding it so close, snapping it shut with a quick flick of his fingers. He didn't bother looking at the box, not now.
Some things, they were worth forgetting.
Dear Zack
Today I planted a new row of hyacinths down by the foot of the second pew. I love their scent when the air warms up. I wonder if the sun they're supposed to be seeing makes them glow the way I imagine it does. I look forward to seeing the
"Darn," she muttered, scrubbing at a cheek furiously. Then she dabbed at the paper. Somehow, no matter what she did, she always ended up crying like a baby when she wrote these letters. After all, the massive jolt of pain she had felt... there was no way she could mistake that.
"Aerith!"
Tipping writing sand over the letter, she hoped it would soak up the tear stains as well as any excess ink. However, her useless eyes were a completely different matter. She shifted in her chair so she was staring intently into the small stand mirror she had on the desk. Yep, they were puffy and red rimmed and looked completely atrocious. She looked... awful.
"Now listen here, you," she poked at the mirror then waggled the finger, "Stop it, right this instant. Stop being such a sap. It's over with. Done with."
Then why even bother to write letters? -
"Oh super low blow there, mind, really smooth." Aerith huffed and folded her arms, "It's closure, that's all. I mean, I know he'd never read them but it makes me feel better."
Why would you need to feel better if it was over with, done with? You are so infuriatingly inconsistent at times! -
"B-because, well... I... be..." Aerith flushed, "No, I refuse to dignify that with a response. You're being alarmingly confrontational today! Or I am. Or... oh Planet, am I developing a split personality?! Urgh..." she covered her face with her hands. She wasn't ever really sure if she was arguing with herself or the personification of the Planet as part of her personality. It led to some very startling and odd conversations between parts of her mind, parts that made her sound completely doo-lally if she ever stopped to think rationally about it.
Now was one of those times when she really didn't have time to ponder it, as her mother called louder, finally getting her attention. "Aerith! Please child, come downstairs! You're being asked for!"
"Urrrrgh just when I look like a swamp monster," she groaned, getting up from her desk and instantly knocking the sand canister all over the floor. "And of course... of course! OF course!"
No, this wasn't a time to panic or freak out or even kick at the sand. Though she was sorely tempted to. Instead, she pulled her hair over her shoulder in that thick braid she wore it in and left her room, coming down the rickety and rather steep stairs to peer into the open-plan living room and dining room. At the table was a young woman she recognised.
"Jessie!" She said in surprise. "Why, what brings you here?"
The brown haired woman blushed, making her freckles on her button nose burst into life. She ruffled at her hair nervously, eyeing the clean floor and the dirt she'd tracked in without thinking about it, "You mean apart from making your mother's life atrocious?"
"Nonsense dear," Elmyra said, already sweeping at the dirt with vigour.
"That's true, mom loves to clean." Aerith smiled, crossing the joined rooms to the table, "I think she'd go crazy if she didn't have a floor to sweep or a pan to wash."
"Not that I don't lack for it should my little girl attempt to cook," Elmyra returned that smile, "I've never seen anyone use so many pots and pans for a simple meal before."
Jessie chuckled, "Mrs Gainsborough, I think she's learning, that's all."
"What, learning to make a mess?!"
"Mom!" Aerith huffed, sitting down in a chair.
Elmyra chuckled and continued to sweep at the dirt, so Jessie's attention was directed back to her. Jessie had eyes set a little too close together to be called truly pretty, but they were a gorgeous shade of brown, the same colour that made Aerith think of loam. She often tried to get her hands on the rich dirt for her flowers. But she never said as much to Jessie. No one wanted to think of others seeing their eyes and mud in the same light, even one so obsessed with botany as Aerith was. "Well I actually came to ask a favour today."
"A favour?" Aerith blinked, "You can have anything you want, within reason, I'm not going to that bar again. You drink too much."
"No no, something you're good at."
"I was good at drinking!"
"You were good at holding the floor down," Jessie said wryly, "Thank goodness it didn't escape."
Aerith bit her lip, trying not to laugh. That evening had been a riot of her unable to find legs to stand on and Kayla attempting to drag Haryettie and Jessie into a bartop dancing session. No, not an experience she was willing to attempt again so soon. The embarrassment was still strong, despite her amusement. "So what do you want?"
"You know," she paused, looking behind her. Elmyra had propped the broom by the door and was shaking out the brush-pan into the composting pile. Jessie rushed on quickly, "You know I'm in Avalanche right? Well we got this new member, but she's still banged up pretty bad. Only the materia user over in seventh is on holiday, he's gone visiting family in two. I mean, she's been spitting up some blood and some of her old wounds are aching and I wouldn't ask just-"
Aerith held up a hand, "No, I get it, it's fine, really. I'll come with you."
"Really? We don't have much money but-"
She smiled, how dear and silly her friend was. "Jessie we grew up together, don't be totally ridiculous. But you can always let them know that I want to try expanding my flower selling. Word of mouth is always super important for business!"
"Of course, oh, you're the best!" Jessie smiled brightly.
"Yep," Aerith laughed, "I guess I just am. And not just at floor-wrangling!"
The girl in the bed had dark, deep eyes with a tinge of distrust in them. But she was hunched over, in so much pain that the healer didn't need to touch her to know. Wordlessly she knelt by the bed and forcefully, with deceptively strong hands, pried off the fingers clamped about the breastbone.
Under the hands, reluctantly torn from hiding the skin and flesh, was a ragged and deep scar. It was puckered and angry and had been ham-handedly stitched up. When the cool fingertips of the shorter, slender woman moved along the spine of angry flesh, hissed expletives hit the lips of the bed-ridden patient but she didn't pull away. If anything, the patient pressed into the fingers, taunting, daring and even begging for them to fix her. Those dark eyes challenged with an angry, hurt fire that said 'Fix me. Break me. One or the other.'
It was old, old enough that it should have healed well by now, had a healer with half a brain had hands on it. Instead it wasn't. So she looked to see that Jessie hovered in the shadows by the door and nodded her head. The door closed, latch locking the two women inside. She turned her attention back to the scar, rather than those eyes, gathering her magic into her fingertips, to weave the sutures and undo the damage, even reknit the flesh as would be needed.
"I won't lie to you, this will really hurt," she said softly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," the voice in reply was harsh with pain, not all of it physical. "Can you fix me?"
The hope poured there was vibrant in it's desperation. Aerith closed her eyes briefly, then placed her palm over the chest of the girl, squarely over the area of the ribcage where she could feel the heart beat strongest. Then she looked up at her. There was a year or maybe less between them. That was all. It may as well have been a gulf.
"Do you want to be fixed?"
The girl stared at her, eyes burning. Then she was surprised by the pressure against her hand. It was the unshrinking, unwavering hand of her patient. The palm was taunt with callouses and hard word, knotted sinew and lean, trained muscle with long and clever fingers. Her hand was being pressed upon, hard into the scar-wound, so hard that it tore, blood seeping against her palm. The medic in her drew back in revulsion, but physically she stayed still.
"My name is Tifa Lockhart," the patient said then, still staring at her, "I'm from Nibelheim and ShinRa destroyed my entire life, everything. I don't have enough hope to give to the wish to be fixed. Instead, all I can do is wait..."
She nodded, then replied as she began her magic to the silence of her patient, silence that ate up pain and spat out nothing. Tifa was strong, she marvelled. "I'm Aerith... let me fix you..."