Unexpected Guest
It felt like it had been a long time since Cloud had laid his demons to rest. Sephiroth was gone, his remnants sent to rest within the lifestream, may it be kinder to them than they probably deserved. Aerith and Zack were gone, returned to the lifestream to watch over him still. He was okay with that. He wasn't sure that he'd ever be at peace, not when he'd failed so many people but for now, life was pretty settled.
At least, it was for all of two and a half weeks.
Deliveries were hardly the most thrilling thing in the world after everything he'd been through but he didn't need thrills anymore. He didn't need anything to do with Shinra or their new resolution to right their many wrongs. Didn't need anything that he didn't already have right then.
Or at least that was what he had thought before he laid eyes on a man he thought he'd never see again.
He had just returned from a delivery, back to the church that held so much meaning to him and the people he knew. Though he'd relocated himself and his belongings to the smaller rooms beyond the nave after the healing waters had become a feature, he still called the church home over the rooms above Tifa's bar. Maybe he wouldn't lose them if he stayed a little further away. So far it had seemed to work because he'd only nearly lost himself since he'd chosen to take up residence in the church.
Something had felt different from the moment he'd stepped within its great doors and it was cautiously that he picked his way around the ever clear waters held where Aerith's flowers had once bloomed.
Nothing looked out of the ordinary until he moved into the small room housing his meagre belongings.
There, sitting against the wall and seemingly fast asleep was none other than Angeal himself.
The raven didn't stir and Cloud didn't dare step closer lest the man disappear from before his eyes, just as Aerith and Zack had. He looked so damnably real, like Cloud could reach out and touch him but Gaia, the blond was afraid to even breathe too hard lest the vision before him be taken from him once more.
He wasn't real, he couldn't possibly be, yet Cloud's heart ached with the need for him to be more than just another ghost.