This is my first attempt at fanfic, FFVII or otherwise, (blame all this on Crisis Core, it owns my soul) so feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!


Cloud remembers Zack, even when he doesn't; he could never match Zack's determined optimism and energy, not even in imitation, but with every breath he takes he slots together the shattered pieces of another identity and fills in the negative spaces as best he can. It's almost instinct more than anything else, Zack's final wish lodging so deep in his mind that even the corroding shroud of mako cannot displace it.

Aerith sees it in him. Maybe that's why they seem to fit together so easily, both of them chasing after echoes of the same ghost. Zack is there in the set of his shoulders, in the controlled swagger of his walk, in the tilt of his head and arch of his brow, but he is incomplete, the image full of gaping holes and ragged edges. It's something that tugs at him and leaves him looking always up towards the sky with a feeling he can never quite bring himself to name; his breath catches and his heart stops and he doesn't know why. He knows that it worries the others, that they think he's strange, aloof, damaged, but how can he be anything else when the restless ache in his heart that won't let him sleep reminds him that there is something missing.

When Tifa lays a gentle hand on his shoulder and asks him to remember their promise he says that he does, but it feels distant, and all he can do is watch her with cool eyes devoid of recognition; the man who sits before her holds promises with only one person, but he cannot tell her that because he doesn't fully know it yet himself, though he will. After Sephiroth and the Lifestream he will remember slowly that this is not who he used to be. He will recall expressive blue eyes and easy grins and the weight of a strong hand clapped against his shoulder and ruffling through his hair. He will remember cold rain and freezing mud and the heat of another's blood on his cheek. He will never have everything back but he will have enough, enough to remember what really matters.

The ache in his heart will never die.

No, he never forgets Zack; it is the uncertain young Shinra trooper who once dreamt of making SOLDIER that has slipped from his memory – that boy died in pain and grief and horror on a cliff just outside of Midgar and was forgotten. Zack lives in his every thought and breath and step; he is, after all, his living legacy.