Hmm…. Not sure if I like this one or not.

'Course, I seem to say that every chapter, ne?

Anywho, sorry about the review replies not getting done, as well as the late chapter. It's been rougfh, if you know what I mean. *sigh*

The plan is to finish the review replies tomorrow before Japanese class, but we'll see! Thank you all so much for reviewing last chapter. Even if I'm lazy about replying, I can say that those reviews were probably the only reason this chapter got written! I might not have had the inspiration otherwise… Things have been pretty crappy.

So, yeah. Don't own, don't sue…

Enjoy!

*11/19/08 Edit. Just added a few things in the second half of the chapter. Doesn't change anything plot-wise, but makes things much less rushed. (Thanks General Poeticus. You got me thinking!) I'm a lot happier with this chapter now.

*01/22/08 Edit. Wow. I must be really dyslexic. Because I went years without knowing the Centra were the Cetra. I guess I got FFVIII and FFVII confused or something.... thanks for pointing out my mistake! so yeah, fixed that. Gah. That'll teach me.


Aeris winced as she heard the front door latch behind her, slightly remorseful for sneaking out against her mother's wishes like this. She resolutely ignored her conscience and continued down the well worn path to the market and then the church. Sometimes there were more important things in life than being an obedient daughter. Trying to figure out why the world had ended and restarted itself was probably one of them.

It had been two days, but she still couldn't think of that horrible, horrible moment without fighting back tears. Zack and her mother had both tried to help, but they just couldn't understand and Aeris didn't think she wanted them to. As the last Cetra, she was constantly connected to everything and everyone around her. Even when she couldn't "tap in" to the planet because of the nature of the slums, she could still tell it was there. To have it suddenly ripped away—to hear the simultaneous wails of agony in the Lifestream as it died―was quite devastating. She would have been irreparably traumatized if it weren't for one single fact:

Everything came back.

She didn't know what to make of it. One moment every rivulet of the lifestream was suddenly roiling with death, Gaea silent for the first time in her life and everything green and good and living was gone. The next minute it was as if nothing had happened at all. She might have been tempted to believe it was some kind of nightmare if her ears were not still ringing with screams.

As it were, she was considering two of the most plausible options. Either Gaea was trying to give her some kind of warning, frightening enough that she would take action, or she was going insane. Either way, she didn't think she liked the way this was going. Impending doom or slipping sanity? Not a fun choice to have to make. So instead she was heading back to the church. It was easier to commune with the planet there. If there was any place to find answers, the church would be it.

It didn't take long to get to the old wooden doors that had become so familiar to her over the years. Her journey went without incident, which was strange when she considered the increase in monsters lately. But then again, Aeris had caught a glimpse of a black suit and red hair when she was passing through the market. Her "guardian angels" seemed to be roaming around again. She shook her head as she stepped down the aisle, perfectly aware of the Turk now leaning beside the open church door. She wasn't worried. Tseng and his group had been watching her for years and they hadn't tried to drag her off yet. It would be some years before she ran out of time and Hojo decided he wanted her back.

Aeris banished those depressing thoughts from her mind and knelt beside her flowers. It was hard to calm herself enough to access the lifestream, but she managed within a few minutes. She had done this often throughout her life in Midgar. Dipping into the lifestream to speak with the planet was comforting, and seemed to make even this concrete jungle seem sane. The lifestream was familiar to her. So she was almost sent careening back to the church floor when she realized that it wasn't.

It was still the lifestream—still comforting in its strange way, still roiling with warmth, but it seemed to have picked up a whole new feeling. It was tainted by pain and regret and the fear of a hunted animal. She felt like crying in frustration. She knew something horrible had happened the other day! Something horrible had changed the lifestream and she'd been powerless to stop it.

The calming tendrils surrounding her sensed her distress, and brushed against her mind in an attempt to help. Life itself had always adored the Cetra. It lavished attention on the last of its favorite children, like a child itself in its simple care. Aeris smiled as the bright green snaked its way protectively around her. Her dear lifestream had not changed at all, it seemed. No. Something within it had.

With that realization came a sudden increase in the constant buzzing in her ears. The distant voices of her ancestors became louder and louder, rising to a crescendo in her strained psyche. Stop! She tried to command them, but she was never very good at communicating with the Cetra. Gaea, the Cetra?! She could feel their black terror, was choking on the poison that had pervaded them. They were the source of the lifestream's taint? What in Gaea's name was going on!?

Death, renewal, survival. The Cetra were hurting her with this sudden, direct contact and Aeris felt the pain burn through her like a white-hot flame. Was she screaming? She wasn't quite sure. Was it possible to scream in this place? She tried to gather her thoughts back together to ward her attackers away but they did not allow her enough time. Necessity, Destruction, Rebirth. They were obviously trying to tell her something, but the Cetra as a whole were too much for her still physical mind. Aeris scarcely had the energy to breathe, let alone understand.

Caught up in the overload of senses and too much knowledge, the flower girl scarcely noticed when tendrils of green dragged her quickly away from the threat. Aeris smiled as soon as she was able to think again. The lifestream was pulsing warm and protective around her, masking her from the mind of the Cetra horde. She didn't understand why her ancestors were now so corrupted, nor why Gaea was choosing to be silent through it all, but it was good to know the lifestream itself remained unchanged. Sometimes, it was hard to remember that the lifestream, planet, and Cetra were three separate entities. It usually did what Gaea and the Cetra commanded it to. Still, knowing the lifestream was safe was a small consolation. There was something horribly wrong with the Cetra. And she hadn't felt or heard the planet even once yet, so who was to say Gaea was any better off? This little information gathering quest of hers was earning more questions than answers and she wasn't quite sure what to do.

She was just about to give up and go back to reality when she caught sight of her strange surroundings. The lifestream had carried her to a part of itself she'd never seen before. Once the black spots had stopped dancing through her vision, she felt herself reel in wonder. Instead of the uniform green she'd come to cherish, the waves around her were an undulating rainbow of light, pervaded by the occasional green wisp. It was beautiful, but not impossible. Something as diverse and wonderful as life itself didn't have to be consistent. No, what made her forget everything she was trying to do and stare was the figure drifting towards her on a wave of green.


Cloud had been here for what felt like an eternity, drifting among the fragments of nightmare, when the world began to shift. The memories, if that was what they even were, retreated to some other part of this empty void. He aimlessly pondered the relief he felt at their passing. Why should it matter to him whether he saw them or not? Had he been a part of that world at one time? No. He was sure he had always been here amongst the lights and the silence—adrift in an empty nothing. That was simply who he was, wasn't it?

The arguments he wanted to make against his own thoughts slipped away like water, and Cloud soon forgot that he had ever been confused in the first place. He simply closed his eyes and indulged himself in the blessed emptiness. Finally he was here, he could finally rest. But as soon as the thought came, it left. He wasn't sure what his mind meant by "finally," and he didn't care enough to try and remember. He felt completely and utterly free for the first time in his life. Cloud was almost sure he would simply dissolve into another of the billows of light around him, free to twist amongst the empty beauty of the place for all eternity.

"Who—who are you?" The voice came to him despite his willing it not to, and Cloud frowned. This newcomer sounded… familiar? Exhausted and, for some reason, disappointed, he forced himself to open his eyes.

"Aeris?" Long brown hair bound in a braid and eyes green as the lifestream met him and her name crossed his lips before he even knew what it was. She looked as surprised as he felt when he said it. He could feel the naiveté coming off of her in waves and something told him that wasn't right. She had always been strong, understanding, and much older than her years. But if that was true, why did she seem like such a child? Cloud shook his head to clear it. He didn't know this girl at all. Why did he think he did?

"Yes." She finally managed to answer, her green eyes wide. She was staring at him like he was a foreign object, and for some reason that frightened him. "Are you… like me? Are you another Cetra?"

"No." The answer was instinctual and out of his mouth before his dysfunctional mind had a chance to question it. "I'm…" What? What was he anyway? Phrases flitted horrifying about his thoughts and it was all he could do not to scream. SOLDIER, puppet, hero, failure, all tried to come out his mouth at once.

"Are you ok?" This… Aeris was close enough to touch him now, and part of Cloud was desperate for her to. Any kind of human contact would be welcome here—if only to let him know he truly existed. Another part of him was terrified for the exact same reason.

"I don't know." He thought he felt no emotion as he said the words, and yet they came out as almost a sob. Why should he be upset? Or even confused? He was fine. He was an entity of this place. He had always, and would always, exist here for eternity. Wrong, the emotions locked within were screaming, you don't deserve such a reality as that.

"Who am I?" Cloud asked the girl before him and prayed that she might know. He was slowly realizing that he had forgotten, and halfway wondered if he had ever really known. Aeris quickly adopted the mothering look he'd seen her wear so often. Wait… he knew her?

"I'm not sure." She spoke clearly and calmly, completely different from the frightened child she'd been before. Aeris always had a way of being brave when others were hurting.

She smiled at him and he couldn't do anything but watch as the demon came down from above and pierced her beating heart. His mind was too full of grief and rage at the time, but later he would realize that she knew death was on its way. She had made sure to smile for him one last time.

Cloud shuddered against the memory, wondering where the hell it had come from. Was that… his memory?

"But… maybe I can help you find out?" The flower girl was so kind. She always had been, he knew. He looked at her outstretched hand and marveled at the trust she was giving him even as he recoiled from it. He had no doubts that she could help him, but after that vision he wasn't sure if he wanted her to. If Aeris said she would do it, she would. This was the same girl who had saved the planet from beyond the realm of death after all... Cloud had no idea where that thought came from, so he decided to ignore it.

The blond took a deep breath and placed his hand in Aeris's. Even here in the afterlife, she smelled like those flowers in the church. …The church…?

He breathed deeply as the pain set in, clutching his arm and trying not to scream. The scent of Aeris's flowers filled him, and seemed to dull the pain at least a little bit. Here like this, in the church, it almost felt like she was trying to comfort him. Cloud's head hit the wood floor as his body gave in to the agony of Geostigma, and he prayed to Gaea that it would all be over soon.

Cloud's eyes went wide, and suddenly everything was rushing back at full speed. Faces and places a thousand different things rushed forth all at once, and he thought for sure his mind would burst. He cried out and tried to block the memories as they got progressively more horrifying.

He stood in shock, completely terrified at what he'd done. Zack's sword was lodged firmly in his hero's back and he didn't know what to think as that beautiful man fell limply forward, silver hair sticking to the still-warm blood. He had been angry. He had wanted to hurt someone to fill the gap his mother had left, but never never had he thought he would actually do any damage at all. If he had thought it would be so… easy he never would have… oh Gaea, what had he done?

He didn't want to remember. He didn't want to remember any more, damn it! He'd killed himself just to get away from these horrible memories. But the fact that he knew that only proved that it was too late. He knew who he was even if not all the holes were filled, and he loathed that reality with all his being.

"Aeris… I'm sorry." He choked as he watched her die again, his traitorous mind playing that event among others before his eyes as he struggled to remember names and faces. She didn't seem to understand, and if Cloud had not been re-living his life he might have had a better chance of realizing something was wrong.

"Why? You haven't done anything." Cloud just shook his head at the familiar answer and forced himself to come to terms with what had happened and who he really was. He'd been in this place many times before, and he knew its welcome embrace well. What nightmare awaited him in the real world? Cloud couldn't remember what had happened to land him here, but he could feel his real body just barely on the edge of his consciousness. He was still alive.

"I'm sorry." He repeated again as her face grew blurred and distant. How many times had he met her here in the lifestream? He couldn't remember, but it had been so very long. Even if he was denied from death yet again, suicide had been worth it just to see her face once more.

Cloud forced himself to turn away as the last of the lifestream fell into darkness. His own memories left his soul bleeding as they escaped their fragile prison, but he didn't try to stop them. If it was his fate to keep existing forever, then so be it. He would keep breathing for as long as Gaea planned on torturing him. But that didn't mean he had to live. Cloud had stopped doing that long ago. He wasn't even really sure what it meant anymore…

Cloud gritted his teeth against the pain as he latched onto reality, fighting his way through the dreams and lies he'd built around himself. The sweet rest he had so longed for slipped further and further away and it took all Cloud had not to hold desperately to those last vestiges of peace. He had no place there, and he knew it. Aeris had told him so often enough. The ex-hero felt empty and hollow as his soul bound itself firmly to his body. He felt his lungs fill with air and couldn't find the energy to be upset. Even though he knew his body must not have done anything for days, he was more exhausted than he'd ever been in his life. Cloud closed his eyes again, didn't remember opening them in the first place, and didn't worry about monsters finding him here. What would they do, kill him? He hoped so, but doubted it. It seemed he wasn't the only one who would never be a memory.

Cloud smiled bitterly at the irony and fell into blessed sleep.