Author Notes; So, here is the next chapter of Tenacity! I'm sorry about the craziness, and I promise that I will get back to you in the reviews! Oh, and to FireofAnubis, I kind of stole that thing in your picture, the quote? I figured that at a certain part it would fit in really well.

Disclaimer: I, Strange and Intoxicating -rsa-, do not own, think I own, or will ever own Final Fantasy VII or its Compilations. I write this because it's fun and I have no life—the end.


Chapter Forty Seven: Paling Light

No one spoke. In the haven in Zack's mind, it meant a good thing—no one was hurt, everything was going to be okie-dokie, and there hadn't been a man wanting to trade lives of himself and his girlfriend in the middle of the sand, surrounded by bikini-clad natives. It wasn't true, of course he understood that, even if he muttered under his breath, but there was something more going on. The air seemed to dampen, as if a rain cloud dripped its precipitation onto the ex-SOLDIER's being and caused everyone in the hotel room to lose their voice.

Unnerving didn't even begin to cover it.

Cloud sat near the window, hitting his head against the windowsill and hands folded in his lap. The blonde spikes drooped, conveying the mood of all those around him. It was mood-changing hair, almost.

"So," Tifa sat near Yuffie, who was unnaturally silent, almost passive. The dark-haired woman untied her hair for the third time, Zack noticed as Tifa sent another snapped hair-band to the trash, the thin rubber only making it half-way there. "Hojo is after Cloud and Aeris, Sephiroth is after the world, and Shinra is after us? Is there anyone we haven't already piled into that list, or should I expect at the next stop to be suddenly attacked by tourists and materia-sellers?"

"You'll probably be attacked by materia-sellers the moment you walk out of this hotel," Red growled from his seat near the edge of the bed, where his tail beat upon the post.

Zack looked down. "Why'd you say that?"

Red's tail turned into an arrow, the end pointing directly at Yuffie, who laid down and buried her head into the pillows. "She stole an astronomical amount from them earlier in the day."

A muffled "It was only a few," came from below.

Red snorted and with one swift movement of his tail the bag that lay next to him on the floor toppled over and a hundred balls of different sizes and colors spewed out, all shining brightly in the dull light of the setting sun. It sounded like a thousand twinkling bells, all bouncing off of the wooden floor, and the rays of light shone through, making a myriad of kaleidescope pictures on the surface.

Zack grunted. "Oh, that's just great. Which one of you left her to her own devices for more than fifteen minutes?" No one answered, but Zack hadn't expected one. He looked around the room, at all of the tired and worn faces staring back at him, or staring into him, and something nagged at his insides, trying to worm its way out and into the real world. "Doesn't matter, anyway."

On the other side of the room sitting in the bathroom with the door half open was Barret, who was pulling at the inside of his sailor jacket. On his face there was something close to smugness. He had said something, words that had little meaning or sentiment, and Zack was beginning to think that on occasion, Barret just enjoyed listening to himself speak.

"Whu' can we do 'bout it?"

"Which part?" Aeris sat in the nearby chair, rocking it back and forth. "The part with Yuffie, or Hojo?"

Something was ticking not too far away. Zack noticed the sound, a rally cry to the bored and ignorant, and he focused on it. There wasn't much he could or wanted to do that had contact with the others. Not now, at least. Not at that moment of time, where the world seemed to be flipped on its back, raw and tender belly bared to the hungry wolves.

Hojo wants Cloud, and there is nothing more terrifying in this world than that man. I would never even think about giving him away, even for my own health. He's my buddy, my closest friend. Sometimes I think he's like another part of me, a little mini-Spiky.

But there's a movement, and I feel it in my very marrow, that doesn't want that. I don't get it, but I feel it. The feeling was something that had been lurking in the shadows since before their arrival in Midgar. When the night was quiet and Cloud was asleep, Zack could almost swear that he could feel a faint breeze against his cheek, a whisper that fell through his mind like sand and a sieve. There probably wasn't anything actually there, thoughts of a mildly insane mind that hadn't properly slept in a few weeks the cause, but it didn't change much.

Zack had never been a deeply religious or devoted man. In his childhood the world was based more on the rituals of the family and the community—bonfire nights and sleeping under the stars to celebrate the warmth of a new year, or candy made from the sweet sap of the bark and the honey made by the bees, which was only given on a birthday. There were no gods then; the only thing in existence was the raw power of nature and its beauty that shone in the firelight or the sweet-soaked fingers.

In his adolescence, the gods he worshiped were mortal men with bodies of rock, lithe like tigers, graceful like butterflies and as poisonous as belladonna. Their faces were implanted and imprinted into Zack's mind from every magazine article and sparring match he had ever seen, their movement fluid like the river. Angeal had been one, the other Sephiroth, and another, one less popular, was Genesis. These three men formed a set of gods for the mind of a soon-to-be warrior.

By his late teenage years, even as he was gripped with the magnetic pull of the gods of war and death, he was pulled into something much more sinister. They were the goddesses of lust and vanity, the gods or futile emotions and one-night stands. Not as common as for others, they still held a major role in Zack's life, the moments of forming beginning with a simple bodily contact.

But was there something out there, a celestial entity that looked down on him and watched and guided as he slept? Was it the working of an overactive imagination thanks to five years spend locked inside of a tank with the only friend he had left screaming? Or, maybe, just maybe, there was something larger than him, looking down at him, playing the puzzle of life with him. Which move should he make? Should he believe in fate calling to him and telling him where to go, where to head to belong?

Zack didn't understand what it was, whatever it was, but there was something pulling him towards Cloud. It would have been foolish to not notice; they would sleep feet apart and in the morning their limbs would be entwined, or they would be not speaking, and in the next moment the ice above their heads was broken into a thousand pieces and nothing was there to stop their voices from reaching one another.

Aeris tapped him on the shoulder, pulling Zack back from the clicking of peace, back into the world where there was still a hundred randomly colored balls of materia scattered across the ground, and Cloud had begun to bang his head on the windowsill just a little louder.

"What is it?" he asked, his violet eyes searching Aeris's, which were filled with an emotion Zack couldn't quite pin-point. Her eyes were large and one of her hands was fiddling with her large braid, which was furling loose at the bottom. It almost seemed like she was nervous, Zack noticed how she stood a little back, and once again he wondered how long he had zoned out for.

The sun had gone down and the air had turned sharply cold. Cloud still sat below the window, his gaze not moving, and the others a far-off world.

"Where'd the others go?" Zack asked Aeris, who was not given a moment to answer.

"Wanted food, so they went to their rooms to call for pizza," Cloud answered, his voice ecumenic.

The ex-SOLDIER looked out the window of the hotel, the last traces of the sun gone from the sky, the moon rising up over the water. "I see..."

"The sky," Cloud added before Aeris took Zack's hand and lead him out of the door.


"Hey, where're we going?" Zack asked for the thirteenth time as he followed, legs dragging through the cold sand. The ocean water blew against his face and the salt made his eyes water for a brief moment.

"Just stay with me," she said, leaning down after she pulled off her boots, tying them together and tossing them around her neck. "I just wanted to come out here; let you see." Aeris grabbed the raven-haired man's hand again, leading him off.

The tiny speckles were getting into his eyes and hair, and Zack was pretty sure he had lost part of his body back a few feet, where he had nearly taken a head dive into the hole in the middle of the beach, but he continued on. Aeris, in the moonlight, looked scared, tired. She looked hungry and hurt, and whatever she wanted Zack would give without the slightest of thoughts. It wasn't important to him, a trip in the moonlight on the beach, but it seemed to be for her.

Aeris's eyes were frantically running over the ground, as if she was looking for something she lost. This continued for nearly a mile from the hotel, deep into the beach in the opposite direction.

After a quick deliberation where Aeris looked twice into the sky, searching for something she could only see, Zack found space in the sand below, where she pulled him down.

"Just sit here," she murmured. Aeris sat between Zack's legs, her dress tickling Zack's boots.

"What are we doing?" the ebony-haired man asked as he rested his head on top of Aeris's brown hair.

The woman sighed and snuggled a bit closer, nudging Zack's arm, which he put around her. There was a piece missing, like a test that skipped a question. "Do you feel like there's something missing between us?"

The sky glittered like diamonds, and Zack looked up and stared. "I'm not sure, Aeris. What are you talking about?" There were so many shapes and sizes in the night sky, all bright and beautiful in their own way. It was a maze of passioned fireflies in the sky of the night.

"If you could catch one of those," Aeris raised her arm into the air, reaching to catch one of the shooting stars that darted across the sky, "would you give it to me?"

Zack nodded.

The next words came out as a whisper, "Or would you it to him?"

"Him who?" Zack squirmed against the cold sand. He didn't enjoy the road the conversation was going down now, one that wasn't all to pleasant and, if anything, completely uncomfortable. Who was she talking about? Why was she talking like that?

Aeris turned her head to his face, their eyes meeting in the dark. "I've always been there for you, you know that. I've cared for you in ways I've never cared for anyone else in this world, and that'll never go away. I've been wondering, Zack," she lifted her hand and slipped it into Zack's hair, "if you feel the same for me, too. Do you?"

There were many things he could have said, all amounting and fabricating into the meaning of 'yes' but Zack's tongue seemed to swell in his mouth and he was mocked by the brightness of the sky. "I..." swallowing uncomfortably, the words choked in his throat, which was constricting tighter and tighter. "I... uh, yeah."

You are the biggest fucking retard that's ever walked the face of the Planet! Zack mentally screamed as Aeris turned back around and slowly removed his hands from where they were a moment before.

"You don't," she swallowed, breathing irregular. "Zack..." She stood up, surrounded in the sand that was cold and forlorn, like the facial expressions that adorned her pretty face. Aeris was pretty, with her thick brown hair and innocent face, filled with knowing eyes, green like the emeralds of the world. They were always looking further than the sky, and she twisted around in front, her dress playing with the winds.

"You don't love me anymore, do you?" Though the words were spoken quietly, almost too quiet to be heard, they were.

Zack tried to get up from the sand, to do anything to calm the woman down, but Aeris raised up her hand. Her eyes were closed. "Zack, why do you do this to me? I can't be like I used to be."

"What are you talking about?"

"I dealt with the women and Reno for so long that I could feel myself breaking apart, and I did it because I loved you, and I knew deep in you, you loved me, too. The planet was always telling me to stick by your side, that I needed to stay next to you because you needed me, more than I ever knew." Aeris took in a shuddering breath and moved her hands over her eyes. There were tears now. "But now, the planet doesn't whisper a word. Our fates have been so intermingled for the past six years, and now it's crashing down on the both of us and I can't stand to watch it again."

A tremor shook the earth. Thousands of fireworks exploded in the sky, their bright colors and smoke blocking out the light of the paling light of the moon and the stars.

"It was fate."

The black-haired man watched them come down, once so high up in the air, but now plummeting to the surface, their light fading out before hitting the water. "So, you never wanted to be with me?" he asked quietly. "You just stayed with me because the planet told you to, whispered in your ear that I needed to be with you?"

"It was fate, Zack," Aeris replied. "You don't play with fate." There were tears. Many of them rolled, and left tracks down her cheeks.

"Fuck fate! I've never loved someone as much as I loved you—"

"Loved...that's what we are, now. A past tense for something that belonged in present." After wiping away her tears, Aeris leaned forward, placing her hand's on Zack's. "Zack, I was never meant to be yours. No matter how hard I tried, I always knew that this would be the end. There's nothing I can offer to keep you with me, by my side; not my body, not my heart, nothing. I'd give up my life to keep you happy."

Zack could feel his stomach flip. The world was flipping over and the gunpowder was itching his throat. He wasn't crying—the smoke was bothering his eyes. SOLDIER's didn't cry. You weren't a man if you cried.

But what about Cloud? He's cried; I've held him when he's cried. He's more of a man then I could ever be.

"He was yours, Zack. it was never supposed to be me, but him."

"Him who?"

"Zack," Aeris sniffled once and composed herself, removing her hand away. It felt cold, now. The presence that had lingered with him was fading into the smoke and the sandy beach, into the cold desolate waters. "Zack, please don't make me say it. You know who."

Zack grabbed his hair, emotions flooding through his system. "I don't know who you're talking about, Aeris! I love you, love! I don't love Reno—I swear it. He was just a fling five years ago; there's nothing of that left."

"I've seen you look at him, Zack. He's so fragile; I think I could break him with a word, sometimes. But other times," her voice swelled, "I think he could climb over a mountain and still be able to stand without so much as breaking a sweat. That's the kind of person you need, and he was destined to be with you."

"But I don't understand what you're talking about," Zack's voice broke. A tidal wave could have washed into the sand and Zack wouldn't have noticed. There was a world folding in on him, a world that was so bright no matter the circumstance, and the tips were fraying and soon it would tumble down.

"He's waiting for you," the brunette's words still made little sense—who was waiting? The fickle fate or destiny? Death? Love? There was no name.

Zack closed his eyes, waiting for him to sink. The fireworks let out one last bang and Zack opened his eyes, seeing Aeris watching. Her green eyes were mirrors to the sky, large pieces of green glass that reflected the beauty of the night, in the last explosion of light.

The sky went dark as the tips of the falling embers caught in a wave.

"I never was sure if I could give you away," Aeris mused, her voice floating through the eerily silent beach. "I thought that I could have, in the beginning, but I never thought I would truly have to say goodbye to you."

"This isn't goodbye."

The Ancient cut him off. "This is goodbye to a relationship that has lasted for longer than it should have. Cloud will understand."

What does this have to do with Cloud?

She answered, even though the question never entered the air. "He'll understand because he loves. He loves too much, and he loves you."

As the smoke billowed in the wind, the sky became clearer, and with it the pale moonlight and the stars, which hated the ex-SOLDIER more than words could have explained.

For the first time in far too long, Zack felt the liquid of emotion swell in his eyes. Blinking them back, Zack walked forward with feet that hadn't been there before, walking toward the new fate that Aeris spoke of, one carved out with a flimsy knife and too much patience.

Tears made tracks in the sand, back to the hotel, back to the world, back to the fate that cut strings too early.


The hotel room was silent. Cloud lay on the mattress, his spiky hair flattened into the pillow. It was like trying to find what didn't belong—Cloud sleeping in a bed, warm with sleep and dreams, or the man standing in the center of the room with tears as his only friend. It was too easy to see who didn't belong, even in the darkness of the night.

He tried to be quiet, but there was no way he could have seen the bags in the middle of the room, or could he have foreseen his eminent tripping. He landed with a thud that rocked the hotel room, and let out a startled yell.

Cloud jumped from the bed, his eyes wide and feral. They stayed that way, Zack noticed as he waved to Cloud from the floor, until the blonde was able to take in the fact that it was not a robber or insane scientist, but a sobbing and broken man.

"It's fine," Zack waved, his words accentuated by a sniffle.

"Are you crying?" Cloud rubbed his eyes with one hand, reaching forward for Zack's hand to help him up off of the floor.

"I'm not crying," Zack said, indigently. "I was outside and there was smoke. Just got some in my eyes; not crying."

Cloud snorted and mumbled a "Whatever,"as he pulled the raven-haired man u from the ground. They clunked heads and Zack let out a whimper.

"Now," the blonde asked, his fingers still laced with Zack's, "why are you bawling your eyes out? Did something happen?"

Do I tell him or not? Aeris said that, and even though it's not true, I don't want to play that game. Not now, not ever. I love the little Chocobo-head.

"Just let it go."

"No!" Cloud snapped back, pushing Zack backwards into the bed. The ex-SOLDIER hit with a clunk.

"Chill out Cloudy!" Zack yelled, trying to yank his hand away from Cloud's, but the blonde refused to let go. The room became tense.

Cloud shook his head. "Shut it, Zack." With the other hand Cloud swiftly moved a few tears away. "Whatever it is, you can tell me. We're friends, right?"

Though Zack didn't want to say anything, not about Aeris or her words, or even the basics of the conversation without any details whatsoever, he couldn't deny the warm touch he yearned discretely for.

"Cloud, just don't say anything about this, not now." He laid his head on Cloud's shoulder, which was comforting.

And for the first time, Zack allowed himself to cry again. Like a newborn child exposed to the first light of life, the window stood open in the corner allowing the moon's rays to come inside. They melted with the darkness, and he felt safe.


Yep. That's right. I moved things a bit faster because I love you guys, and I wrote this as fast as I could. I've been only able to write at night as of late, so be happy that I haven't really slept for the past few days. I really liked this chapter, and the next one should begin to show the aftermath of Aeris and Zack's little chat. Well, it wasn't little, now was it?

Please Review!