Disclaimer – I do not own Final Fantasy VII.

Wayward

He contemplated sticking his sword into his foot. It would certainly circulate blood through his extremities again. But it would hurt. Badly. It was a tough call, really: frost-bite versus bleeding out. In the end, however, he decided that he shouldn't punish himself; Sephiroth was the one who brought him to this godforsaken place—however indirectly. If the goddamn murdering, silver-haired, son of a bitch was in front of him at this very moment, he would stab him with his sword. Except he wasn't. But he would be soon, if Cloud had any say in things. They would find him in the Temple of the Ancients but, unfortunately, they had ended up on the upper borders of the northern continent on their way from Rocket Town. They were lost, confused, and forced to postpone, for an indeterminate amount of time, their fateful meeting with Sephiroth.

His eyes darted to and from the open tundra all around; he was suspicious of the encompassing darkness—he doubted he could see much beyond fifty yards in any direction even with his MAKO-enhanced vision. He readjusted the scarf to cover his mouth and as much of his nose as possible. At least he was almost there. He could hardly feel much thanks to his armor; apparently steel wasn't too great of an insulator. Another thing to blame on Sephiroth.

But he wouldn't need an insulator, not inside the Tiny Bronco, where Cid managed to get the heater up-and-running. The heat would warm his freezing feet and fingers and improve his current nasal functions. He sped up to hobbling speed and tapped the door. It was almost frozen in place. He hopped from foot-to-foot as he waited for Aerith to either open up or confirm his identity. His teeth chattered this close to sanctuary. It was almost like staring through a shop window at a toy you couldn't have.

Impatiently, he considered making more of a ruckus but figured that Barret and Cid, at the very least, would not take very lightly to having their beauty sleep cut short; they would be difficult enough to deal with when they were shaken awake for their turn at lookout. He pitied the fool who had to do that.

Through the grimy glass window, Aerith's shadow put on a thick coat and moved to the door. Her voice was muffled but she sounded sleepy. "Have you cross-dressed before?"

The tinge of regret that floated through Cloud's dulled consciousness at waking her vanished. He glowered. "Yes."

With a thud and a rusty creak that seemed much too loud in the still silence, the thick slab of steel wheeled on its hinges. Cloud's mood lifted as he slipped inside. He stifled a laugh and shut the door behind him.

Aerith hopped backwards to accommodate his entrance, her pink dress covered entirely by a black coat that added a foot to her waistline and hung dangerously close to her feet. Thick, insulating fur rimmed the hood and framed her heart-shaped face, which almost glowed in the darkness. He could see all of her curves and features but from the way her eyes bore into empty space beside his head, she likely couldn't see her own hand if she held it up to her face.

Her fingers landed on his arm and spidered up and down to grasp his hand. "What are you laughing at?"

Her weight pressed against him. She was trying to catch her balance, he told himself. Cloud cleared his throat. "Nothing."

In a whisper, "Yeah, right."

"Your jacket's just…interesting." His words were like a shout in the night.

In the corner of his eye, Cloud noticed Barret's large, blanketed mass shift in his sleep, cuddling closer to Cait Sith's pink, plush, mechanical body. On the other side of the stuffed toy, Cid lay undisturbed on his stomach, expelling rolling snores from his throat. The three were in a tight row, just barely fitting in the width of the plane's hull. Directly their feet, Yuffie murmured, "Not the koala bears!" Red XIII lay beside her, likely the only one who didn't fear for his materia, seeing how deeply he slept. The last pair, Vincent and Tifa, was beneath them, Tifa taking up most of the blanket space. Vincent didn't seem to mind much. Then again, the man didn't seem to care about anything at all. Neither stirred. The stillness returned. The pounding of seven hearts pressed against his ears like a handshake, as if he were listening to his own pulse. Seven people breathing slowly, in time, a natural rhythm that could only be achieved by the quiet rocking of the sea and through the proximity that seven people squeezed into the hull of a tiny aircraft-turned-sea-vessel merited. He managed a smile.

Aerith shushed him playfully. "There's nothing wrong with my coat. Cid lent it to me." She smiled, and spun back and out, like they were engaged in a dance and he had spun her around. Only, he hadn't. At all.

Her heavy boots were just a faint pitter-patter against the plane's metal grating. When she stopped in front of him, posed in a manner that imitated Tifa and Yuffie's victory stances, her serene eyes basked in the faint moonlight. They seemed only to exist to maintain an outward appearance of regality. He was almost compelled to kneel before her. "I think it's beautiful."

He brought his—and by extension, her—hand back down from the air. He took in her coat again with a less than admiring eye. "I think beauty is subjective."

"And what would your version of beauty include? Motorcycles? Buster swords?"

The words spilled from his lips. "Flower girls."

Her grin warmed the air and the regal quality in her countenance faded. She stepped closer. "All of them?"

"Just one."

He was sure he wasn't supposed to notice that, for the first time he had known her, the tint of her cheeks matched her dress. He was also sure he could see a smile peeking out from under all that coat and hair.

But the smile dissolved as her lips strained to a thin line, as pale as his blade and almost as sharp. The fleshy rouge of her cheeks became overcast, as if the silence had managed, once and for all, to oppress this personality.

"I wish you hadn't said that."

Cloud froze—and it wasn't because of the damp chill of snow in his socks.

She side-stepped past him, avoiding his eyes, and departed a sad glance, instead, towards Tifa. And then he understood: they had bonded throughout the journey, forming a friendship that overrode romantic entanglements. Their loyalty was now to each other; it now ranked above him in importance. All this…had nothing to do with him and everything to do with him.

Cloud couldn't stop himself. "No, you don't."

He hadn't turned around. There was hesitation and then an answer he could not hear, even with all the enhanced hearing in the world. The wind was too insistent; her voice drowned in the sea of snow and biting, whistling air. The door squealed close and she had said nothing at all. He was as cold now, with the heater grumbling behind him, as he had ever been before.

It had always been easier to blame Sephiroth.

Author's Note – Dedicated to Janine. Any constructive criticism or review is most welcomed and appreciated.