Chapter 25: Lost and Searching
When I woke up I was in bed with Cloud. He had his arm wrapped around me, sharing his warmth. A smile was on the edge of his lips, bringing one to mine. I looked up at the ceiling thinking of our argument the other day. Truthfully I thought that our relationship was going to end in the gutter, but here we were, perfectly normal again. Ever since Cloud had become a mercenary and was out working more often than not it felt like our trust had been shattered in to millions of pieces, and I was scrambling to put it back together. Part of me didn't want to scramble anymore, but majority of me did not want to lose him. I was in love with him, and I promised him that I would never leave him. That was a promise that I was determined to keep.
Cloud groaned and slowly flashed his mako blue eyes at me. "Good morning," he smiled kissing me on the forehead. There was no feeling that could match the amazing feeling of waking up and seeing the face of the one you loved. "How long have you been awake?"
"Not long," I replied.
"You should have woken me," he smirked.
"You looked so peaceful that I couldn't. Did you have a good dream? You were smiling," I asked him curiously.
"Yeah," he said getting up from the bed and picking up his work shirt. He slipped in on and began to change in to the rest of his mercenary clothes. Then he fell back on to the bed trying to put on his boots.
"About what?" I asked helping him lace up his shoes.
"Nibelheim when I was a child," he told me. "You were in it actually. I dreamed I met you in Nibelheim and none of this Shinra and SOLDIER insanity ever happened."
"That would have been nice," I smiled. "Off on another job?"
"Yeah, some organization that Tifa wanted me to help. AVALANCHE or something like that. I should be back by the end of the night, but don't wait up for me too late," he suggested making his way to the kitchen. I followed behind him in my pajama shorts and oversized t-shirt. He grabbed a couple slices of bread and headed towards the door.
"Do you have to go so early?" I asked sadly.
"Sorry, they want to discuss plans with me and they want me there early. Apparently there is a lot to discuss. Tifa said that this organization could be a long term client for me so I don't want to upset them." Cloud swallowed down one of the slices of bread and started on the second piece at the door.
"You're probably going to piss them off anyways," I smirked.
"Very funny," he retorted. Then he opened the door and kissed me quickly. "I'll see you soon. I love you."
"Love you too," I said as I watched him walk out. I continued to watch him while leaning on the door frame until he disappeared behind the crowd of slum houses before me. I let out a long sigh. Every time I watched him go it made me debate on whether I wanted follow him and join his business. Even though he'd said he would be back tonight I still hated seeing him go. Rael walked up from behind me and stretched.
"Did Cloud just leave again?" He yawned.
"Yeah," I turned to face him. Then I laughed, "do you know how freaky it is to see you and Cloud one after another? Seriously how do you two look insanely similar. If I didn't know any better I would think you two were brothers, or twins!"
"We are brothers at heart," Rael shrugged, then stretched again. He slowly trudged in to the kitchen and opened the rickety fridge that Larch and Let had found and barely put back together. He grabbed the gallon sized jug of milk and lifted it to his lips. When nothing came out he brought it down to his chest and stared inside. "Ah, we're out of milk."
"I'll go get it later," I told him. "Drink water for now."
"Disgusting," he groaned.
"Don't complain," I pointed at him. "Anyways, you and Serae seem to be getting along quite well these days."
"More than well," he winked at me. "Much more."
"Ah, I don't even want to know," I sighed.
"Come on, you're basically living in a house full of couples." Rael began to count with his fingers. "There's Serae and I, Varst and Merule, Larch and Aurale, and hell even Let and Atricus seem to be pretty fond of each other. The only one who isn't coupled up is Xantus and I don't know what is running through his mind half the time. I'm pretty sure he has some girl up on the plate or something. It's not anything abnormal or anything though, I mean we're all in our twenties already, that is except for Atricus. She's almost there."
I laughed. "Maybe you've got a point there."
"Ever since you and Cloud quit SOLDIER it's been quite boring though. Maybe we should all go on an exciting mission instead of sitting around." He suggested.
"I'd rather not. I've had too many exciting missions to last a lifetime." I told him then I made my way back to my room. Soon I had my clothes on and was out to buy the milk before the rest of the house woke up. When I got back with the milk almost everyone had woken up. Aurale thanked me as she took the milk off of my hands and poured a glass for herself.
"You're always working so hard, you know?" Aurale said sloshing the milk around in her mug. "Maybe you should just take a day off and let the rest of us take care of the errands for today."
"Sure," I nodded. "Thanks."
Somehow after being told that I could take a day off I had found myself at the park in the slums. Whenever the group and I weren't at the church we would be at this park, filling up every inch of the slide and toys. That was back when we were a whole, but now our numbers had been cut in half. I was still determined to find the second half of my friends that everyone else still thought of as rivals no matter what. Among them was Zaneit, and though it had been a long time since I was in love with him and that time had passed I still cared for him as a friend. It was almost a fact that you would always care for your first love.
I sat at the top of the slide thinking of the long list of missing friends. There was Thearin and Dephnia Sephlit, Argon Thantus, Atsic Maticus, Grandet Fletcher, Melstone Katren, Frausic Van-Galheim, and finally Zaneit Roht. Each and every one of them were important to me in their own special way. I knew that the friends that I had found were not very fond of the others anymore, and I couldn't blame them. They'd once told me that I was the tether that tied the two groups together and made them friends, when they thought I'd died that tether was broken and they immediately began arguing. That would fit right in with Xantus' story about the legend of the Ancient Eve. I didn't like to think about things like that though because it meant that we weren't our own person. We were just a piece of an all-powerful being. "It's just a story," I told myself over and over again, completely wiping away the fact that Xantus could shoot orbs of light from his hands, and Atricus was emotionless and expressionless.
Heavy footsteps sounded out from behind me, and I quickly spun around to see who was sneaking up on me. "Who's there!" I cried defensively feeling my old SOLDIER instincts rise up inside of me.
"Whoa, I'm not going to attack you or anything," Zack laughed putting his hands up in the air. "You just seemed so deep in thought and I didn't want to surprise you."
"Oh, perfect job, Zack. You did exactly what you intended not to do," I sighed, calming myself down.
"Sorry about that," Zack said climbing up the slide and sitting next to me. "No errands?"
"I get a break today apparently. What about you?" I asked with a shrug.
"Same with me, and Aerith insisted that I let her sell flowers on the plate alone. She wants to start learning a little independence. I can't say that I'm not at least a little worried about her though," Zack explained scratching the back of his head. "Pretty girls alone and the men on the plate don't really mix too well."
"Pretty girls and you don't mix well. All you do is play around and ask girls on dates," I scoffed.
"Hey, I've changed these past four years too. I had a lot of time to calm down my hormones in that tank they stuffed me in," he joked.
"Idiot," I laughed pushing him down the slide. He slid all the way to the bottom and then turned around to look up at me. As always he had on his hundred watt smile, forcing a smile out of me too.
"Don't stay out here too long Felicis," Zack advised. "Pretty girls sitting alone in the park don't really mix well with some men in the slums."
"You're leaving?" I asked sounding more disappointed than I would have liked to sound.
"Yeah, I'm really starting to worry about Aerith. I'll just go up and check on her. I'm sure that she won't be too mad if I do that," he waved goodbye with a smile.
"Okay," I waved realizing that he'd only come over to greet me in the first place because I seemed distressed. Zack was worried about me. "Idiot… you don't always have to look out for me. You really haven't changed one bit." I said to myself.
Another Reactor had been blown up by the AVALANCHE organization again. Cloud didn't come back that night. I didn't expect him to return, but it was still disappointing. Sometimes his missions would take a whole week. For some special occasions it would take even longer. Aurale forced me to take a break once again, pushing my duties on to Atricus and Xantus, but even with my break I found myself busily tidying up the house. If I wasn't working then I didn't know what I would do. Living normally was completely different from living as SOLDIER like I was accustomed to. When I was a SOLDIER I was always on a mission, but normal people had so much free time on their hands. I didn't even know what to do with so much time. The cleaning lasted until sunset, and once again I found myself lying around with a couple hours left in the day for me to spend. I didn't even know what everyone else around the house did all day, after all I was usually the only one up and moving around. With nothing to do I began to count the holes in my room's ceiling, but every so often I lost count and was forced to begin again. After the first few times I restarted I gave up and found myself with nothing to do again.
All of a sudden there was a banging on the front door that shot me up from my bed. It sounded frantic, almost scared and I ran out of my room to see who was banging on the door. Quickly, I pulled open the door and Zack appeared panting and out of breath. Sweat dripped down the side of his face, and his hair was in matted clumps, like he'd run all over the slums and the plate and then ran to my house. "Zack! What's going on here!" I cried worriedly inviting him in and grabbing a towel to wipe away the sweat. He tried to explain, but he had no voice to speak because of his dry throat. It wasn't until I offered him water that he explained.
"Aerith is missing. She went off this morning and she hasn't come back yet. She should have been back home by now, even her mother is worried… your mother," he corrected himself. "I've searched everywhere for her, but I can't find her."
"Calm down. Have you searched everywhere?" I asked getting a little worried myself.
"I've searched everywhere on both the plate and the slums. I don't know where else to go." Zack sounded stressed and afraid. Worry surrounded him like a fog and seeped from his pores. I'd never seen Zack like this before. For the first time in all of the time that I'd known him he looked truly scared.
"I'll help. Everything is going to be okay, Zack." I tried to console him. "Aerith is going to be okay."
The two of us went out to search for Aerith again. I had to constantly calm Zack down, telling him to take it slow or we would never find her. We walked all over the sectors, but did not find a thing. We couldn't find any hints on where she might be, even though we asked almost everyone we ran in to. It was dark out, with hints of the sun beginning to creep out from beyond the horizon. The search had lasted all night and there was absolutely no sign of Aerith anywhere. I had begun to worry about Cloud myself. I had traveled through every nook and cranny of every sector; I should have run in to him at least once on my way. It made me wonder where he was. AVALANCHE had achieved their goal of blowing up the next reactor so Cloud should have come back the night before, even if it was late at night.
Finally we decided that if we didn't rest we wouldn't be able to go on. Worried and tired, we trudged back to my home. Zack refused to return to Aerith's house until he found her, saying that he wouldn't be able to face Elmyra without bringing Aerith back to her safely. By the time we got back to my house the sun was already in the sky, and our eyes were sleep deprived. Zack slept on the floor in my room and I fell on to my bed, already feeling sleep pull me in to it's grasp.
"Sorry we couldn't find Aerith, Zack. We'll try again when we wake up," I mumbled half asleep. "You really love her don't you?"
Zack made a tired muffled sound on the ground, curled up on the blankets that I'd messily set up for him to sleep on. "Rather than love…" he began, but didn't finish before the both of us were curled up in sleep's arms.
We slept through the whole entire day without meaning to. I had a dream that I was different person that night. The woman had long white disorderly hair that matted, and frizzed every which way. Regardless, she was still quite beautiful with her ruby red eyes. I roamed across Gaia aimlessly, unaccepted by everyone but still living for some reason. People feared me because I harbored a power that no one could wield. People had others that had more power than them, which was why people hated ancients. In the dream my name was Eve…