He covers his eyes when he enters the bathroom, her favourite mug in his other hand. Angling the fingers over his face enough to see the floor, but not her, he approaches and holds the mug out to her. He needn't have bothered – he never had any other time he'd been in the bathroom with her in the bath – but he feels that perhaps he should bother. These sorts of things, little though they are, matter, and it's important that she feel – respected? Valued? Not stared at like he wants to – to –

Cid, he thinks to himself, as her fingers brush his on taking the mug, sending an electric shock the length of his arm, followed quickly by a blaze of fire so hot he'd think she'd thrown the tea on him, you are a grown man. There's no need for him to blush the way that he is, just because some slip of a girl is naked in front of him and he'd very much like to take her to pieces with whatever piece of him she let him use.

He breathes out hard, a little harder than perhaps he should have, if he were unaffected by her, and she laughs, just once, more of a giggle really. Fucking Planet below.

'I'll, um,' he starts, hand still over his eyes, free hand now gesturing wildly over his shoulder, 'I'll – uh – yeah.'

Cid Highwind is a grown-ass man, thirty-two and very nearly thirty-three, standing taller than a lot of men and broad in the shoulder and broad in the bollocks too, and yet here he fucking is. He hasn't been skittish around a girl for some twenty years, and he has never been skittish around this girl for as long as he's known her. He should probably stop calling her a girl, she's as grown a woman as he is a man, but there's something just so – so –

Fuck it.

The door bangs shut behind him, and he hears her titter again.

He scrapes his hands over his face and groans into them. Just drink your tea, you fucking coward, and behave yourself.

Shera comes out of the bathroom some half an hour later, and she's flushed, eyes bright behind her glasses. Her hair's still in a steam-curled, damp-edged knot atop her head, and her fingertips are pruned when she puts her mug in the sink. He's not watching her like a hawk, but he can't take his eyes off of her. She's wrapped up in a bathrobe, and he's not sure she's wearing anything underneath it, and he's suddenly very fucking glad he's sat flush to the table and she can't see his toes curling in his socks against the rug.

Stop it.

Fiddling with her fingers, she opens her mouth, and then closes it again. Looks at him, looks at her feet. Picks at the edge of a nail.

'I – I didn't expect you home,' she says.

'We need to talk,' he blurts out, and they both flinch.

'Oh,' she says, and colours. 'Um. I'll – I'll just go. Get dressed.'

'It's not a bad talk,' he hurries to say, and feels his cheeks heat.

Since when did he care if she thought she was in trouble? He'd never cared about telling her when she fucked up, and never cared about how she felt when he did so, so why did he care now?

Stupid question, because he knows why, but he has to tell himself something.

'Okay,' she nods, and skitters for a moment before scurrying to the door and out, up the stairs, and he can hear her banging about above him, her footfall oddly heavier than normal as she slams and bangs cabinets.

Is she – is she trying to decide what to wear? The thought amuses him, humbles him. He's never bothered to notice what she wears, not really, not beyond a cursory glance to make sure she's dressed appropriately for the weather, and to get a sly eyeful of her arse if she happens to be in shorts, but that's besides the point! The idea that she cares about the impression she's about to make, that she wants to – he doesn't know, impress him, make him feel a certain way? It's hilarious, and sad, and he rubs his face again. He's so fucking in love with her and he knows this for the truth that it is, that she'd be able to wear a fucking burlap sack and still be the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and for fuck sake!

He can almost hear Aerith laughing at him, and if they all die, he will find her in the Lifestream and he'll kick her fucking arse.

He steps outside to smoke, because it's something to do with his hands, and it'll calm his nerves, and it's better than sitting there staring at the door, waiting for her to come back.

When she comes out to him, he's sat on the porch step, looking out over the quiet of Rocket Town, cigarette stubbed out between his feet. Barefoot and in her too-long ShinRa-issue pyjama bottoms, she plonks herself down next to him, and knots her fingers in her lap.

'It's been pretty decent weather,' she says, and gestures at Meteor, red and bigger than ever, above them, 'considering the, you know. Meteor.'

He nods, and picks at a stray thread on his trousers.

'You, uh,' she starts, and then falls silent.

'I just,' he starts, and then stops.

'You go,' they say, at the same time, and both of them chuckle, looking at their feet and rubbing their necks.

Shera looks at him expectantly, and Cid licks his teeth, looks at her, studies her face, and then looks at his feet, takes a deep breath.

'Talking to that old bastard up at Cosmo,' he starts, and clears his throat. 'The old man. Red's grandpa, however the fuck that works. Fucking weird, the lot of them – whatever! The old timer up at Cosmo, he said that, so he said that Meteor – fuck sake, this is – so we have about a week, before Meteor hits.'

'A week?' Shera echoes, and the sadness in her eyes nearly floors him.

No fear, no terror, just sadness.

Cid shrugs.

'A week, so he said. And Cloud, he – he wants us to be sure, that if we – the barrier around Sephiroth is gone. We can go there right now and kill the fucker. We can fucking destroy that motherfucker, and we can – we can end that part of it. But we need to find a way to stop Meteor. We think that if we – if we can get Sephiroth out of the picture, that Holy has a chance. But Cloud wants us to be sure that if we're doing that shit, if we're getting into this fight, that we know what we're doing. That we've got our big almighty reason to fight.'

Shera's eyebrows wrinkle, but she nods, encouragingly.

'Barret's gone back to Marlene, obviously. And everyone's gone home, or to somewhere they love, to – to – to someone they love.'

His ears are burning, and he chances a glance across at Shera; her cheeks are pink, her gaze in her lap.

'You came home,' she says, barely above a breath, almost lost in the breeze.

'Yeah,' he breathes back.

For a moment, their gazes meet, and they both flinch, faces heating.

'Cloud said, if we don't want to go back, we don't have to. We can, you know. Stay. And – I dunno – enjoy our last days, maybe. I guess.'

Shera chews her lip, and nods.

'I understand,' she says, 'it can be a scary thing, especially not knowing if you're going to win.'

He glances at her again; her gaze is off into the middle-distance, her expression indecipherable.

'You're going back,' she says, not a question, not a command, not really anything at all. Just a statement of fact, a truth universally acknowledged.

He nods.

'I can stay. If you want me to.'

'I want you to go.'

He breathes deep, in through the nose, out through the mouth. His fingers curl in against his thighs, one by one, extend again.

'I love you,' he says, in that same statement of fact tone that she'd used.

For a moment, she doesn't reply. He doesn't dare look at her.

'You,' she says, and then stops. When she tries again, it's just, 'I.'

He says nothing, doesn't really dare.

'I – Captain. I – I don't understand.'

He snorts, and jumps to his feet, paces up and down the path and feels each and every stone beneath his feet, because he's just in his socks, and he's going to put holes in them, but fuck it. He can't sit still, not with the heat of her against his arm, the clean citrus smell of her soap in his nose, the softness of her breath in his ear. Fuck sake!

'What's not to understand?' he demands, a little harder than he means it to come out of his mouth. 'The fuck can't you get? I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you since the first fucking time I saw you. I'm going to be in love with you until the day I die, whether that's in seven days or seven fucking years, or another fuck-knows how many!'

Shera blinks at him, owlish and almost comical. Her eyebrows crease, her mouth downturns, and his stomach drops, his heart quick to follow. She's going to reject him.

'Captain,' she says, too soft, and gets to her feet.

Instinctively, he steps back, knees bent enough to give him lift to jump.

'I – I didn't know,' she says, and the look on her face is breaking his fucking heart.

'Never fucking said it, did I?' he snaps. 'Only just fucking realised it was love!'

'Only just,' she echoes, and then draws a breath. 'Captain, I – didn't you – didn't you know that I – Captain, I've loved you for – for years. Since – I don't even know when, it just was. It was you, it was always you.'

For a moment, the universe stops, as it had in that moment when Barret opened his stupid fucking mouth, and he feels trapped, utterly consumed by the vast gaping emptiness of the universe falling out from beneath him.

'What?' he asks, and finds himself powerless to move as she steps into him, toe-to-toe, her bare feet farmer-pale in the darkness settling around them.

Her fingertips find his, gentle against the calluses on his palms, and he's loose-limbed, loose-willed enough to let her take his hands, hold them in hers. He doesn't think he's ever held her hand, not really. Grabbing her hand to pick her up when she falls over or needed a boost on the scaffolding doesn't count. Just holding her hand and feeling the heat of her skin, the softness of her fingers, the calluses on her palms. Shit.

'I love you,' she says, gentle, her eyes bright in the light of Meteor.

He stares at her, and she watches him back. It takes him a second, but he realises that she's nervous. As though declaring his sentiment returned is somehow something to be nervous about. What is he going to do? Reject her? He already said he's in love with her, didn't he? What has she got to be nervous about?

She's still holding his hands.

He curls his fingers, and she lets go like she's been burnt. The loss of her skin against his, the warmth, the softness, it sends the universe crashing back into him, a hard landing in a churning ocean.

'I love you,' he tells her, again, because he can't seem to keep it in his mouth.

Her smile is gentle, but it reaches her eyes, sets them alight. His fingers itch, and he, far more tentatively than he thinks he should be, reaches up to touch the soft curls of hair at her temples, brush the strands back, tuck them behind her ears. Her eyelashes flutter, her cheeks flush.

'I – I can't kiss you,' he says, and he couldn't have shocked her more had he had an electric current.

'Why not?'

He almost laughs. Shakes his head. Looks at her mouth, and licks his lips, bites down on them hard.

'I've – I've tried to live my life with no regrets. I don't want to die with one.'

She almost looks offended and he does laugh this time, cups her face in both hands, and marvels at the way her jaw fits so perfectly in his palms, her ears fitting between his fingers. The ring through the shell of one of her ears, such an errant and bizarre thing that he'd never really paid any attention to before, it brushes against his fingertip, and he strokes the line of it once before settling his fingers.

'It's not that I don't want to,' he assures her, and her eyelids flutter, close, and he can count her eyelashes. 'Because I do. Fuck me, I want to so badly. But I – I wouldn't be – I couldn't stop, at just a kiss. And I don't want it to be – it's not the right time, or place, and I – so I can't kiss you, you get it? I don't want this to be the only – I'd rather not know at all. Than to know and leave you here and never – I love you.'

The last comes out as a laugh, breathless, giddy.

The weight it takes off of him, years and years and years of – of – self-loathing, and hatred, and yearning, and lying to himself, so much just. Gone.

Just like that.

For a few long, impossible moments, they stand there and watch each other, and then Shera's fingertips curl around his wrists, press soft to his pulse, and he lets her pull his hands down, hold him steady for a second. Then she huffs out a breath that ruffles her hair and slips between his arms, hers wrapped tight around his waist. Fuck him if it doesn't feel like the most perfect, meant-to-be, pre-destined fucking thing he's ever felt. Like most things where she's concerned, he's never really hugged her. Draping themselves over each other for support when drunk, or injured, or asleep, that doesn't count, and the embrace they'd shared when the first rocket made it, that doesn't count, either. This is just. A hug. Pure and simple.

It's a hug, and he likes the feel of her in his arms, and he buries his face in her neck, spreads his fingers to feel the heat of her back, the dip of her waist, which isn't really a dip at all, but it's there, and he can feel it, and he can feel her against him, and shit.

Her breath is hot against his neck. She might be crying. He doesn't mention it.

When they finally manage to peel away from each other, aware that they're outside, in the middle of the night, and there's what's waiting for him on the morrow, she insists he come inside, and tries to insist he go to bed.

'No,' he says, shaking his head, 'no, I have – I have a lot of things I need to say.'

Her ears flush, but she smiles and shakes her head in turn. 'You've said the only thing that really matters,' she assures him.

His turn to blush, and he's glad nobody's around to see it, because he's not sure he's ever stopped blushing, and he's thirty-fucking-two!

'Shera,' he says, 'listen. I need to say that I'm sorry, and I need you to fucking listen to it. The way that I was – I was fucking horrible to you. And you can deny it, and you can make excuses for it, but I was horrible. I was horrible, and I was selfish, and I took so much of my anger out on you, when it was never you I was angry with. I was angry at myself, and I was angry at ShinRa, and I was angry about so many fucking things, but it was never you.'

'I know,' she says, and he knows that.

'I know that,' he tells her. 'You know me better than I fucking know myself! But I have to say it! Fuck sake, Shera, I – I ain't good with this shit. I don't know how to apologise, or how to love you, or how to – fuck, I don't know this emotional shit!'

She laughs, and touches his face, strokes the stubble on his jaw. His eyes fall shut, and he turns into the touch, feels the pad of her fingertip against his lip.

'You're doing fine,' she assures him, and the trace of her finger against his cupid's bow sends fire across his skin, a sharp jolt to his brain and his –

'I want to do better,' he breathes.

His lips catch against her finger, and his breath shudders.

He thinks she laughs.

'You'll do better,' she says. 'You're a good man, Captain. You've always been a good man.'

'I've made you cry.'

He feels her breath against his mouth and almost flinches, but then her nose touches his, her forehead.

'I cry easily,' she says. 'You were hurting.'

'That's no excuse.'

Her breath smells of tea and her skin of citrus and his fingers curl desperately at his sides, knuckles against the skin.

'I was rude about Isak,' he tries next, and she laughs, shuddering against him.

'Isak,' she echoes, and shakes her head. 'Captain, I'd tried to – I didn't know what to do, and you weren't – you didn't seem interested – and Isak was nice. But he wasn't you. And it never went further than that dinner. You – '

'I was fucking vile to you about that,' he says, 'I said some things I fucking regret. Absolutely fucking disgusting, but I said it. I'm sorry.'

They'd never talked about it. She'd come back after a week, because of course she did, she was always coming back, and he'd known it in his gut that she wouldn't be gone forever. But he'd been stewing in it for a week, and when she'd come back, acting like he didn't exist, he'd been just as wretched about it as he had when he made her leave, and then she'd rounded on him, and that backbone had been so – so – fuck he'd wanted her so badly that he couldn't breathe for it. Seeing a little bit of fire in her, he hadn't known it was a turn-on, but it had been, and she'd said her piece, and he'd kept his trap shut, and that was the end of that, they'd not said anything else afterwards. Just gone back to normal, pretending like it hadn't happened.

'We talked it over,' she says, which is kind of her, considering that is very much what they didn't do.

'Shera,' he sighs.

'Captain,' she replies.

He opens his eyes, finds hers shut, and watches her for a moment, blurred with the closeness.

'I don't want to go,' he whispers, and it's not a lie, but it's not true.

He wants to go, knows he has to go. But he could stay here, in her arms, with her, he could live out the rest of his life, he could only have a few days left, and he could have her, make up for the time they lost.

'You're going,' she says. 'But you're not going yet.'

'Not yet,' he repeats.

Her nose rubs his, and then she pulls away, just enough that he feels her loss like a limb.

'You need to rest,' she says, 'you've got a big day tomorrow.'

It all feels so incomplete, so many things they haven't said, but her expression is one of no argument, and he doesn't know what to say to her now anyway.

'It'll be an early start,' he says, sighs.

'Then you'd best get to bed.'

He can't help himself.

He says, 'are you joining me?'

Her laughter is the most wonderful thing he's ever heard, and it carries him up the stairs and to bed.

The morning dawns warmer than he's used to. It's not actually warmer, it's as cold as every other morning, but he finds himself buoyed by the weight off his shoulders, and the warmth of knowing, once and for fucking all, that he's in love, and that love is returned. What the living fuck he did to deserve that, he doesn't know, but he did, and he's not one to look a chocobo in the beak.

He grabs his trousers, clean socks from the drawer, and for a moment hesitates, doubled over at the dresser and staring at himself in the mirror atop it. His hair is a mess, his stubble unruly, and his dark circles are worse for having lain in bed most of the hours he'd been in it, staring at the ceiling and grinning to himself. Fuck sake.

'You're a grown man,' he tells himself, and ruffles his hair, trying to get some semblance of order to it.

Really, it needs cutting, too long on the top and only held in any sort of place by his goggles, but whatever, he could be dead soon, who cares about his hair? Not him, that's for fucking sure, and there's some traitorous little part of him, deep in his gut, that thinks he should probably keep the length, even if it's beginning to curl like his mother's does, just because he thinks Shera might like to hold onto it.

But that thought, and all the thoughts that accompany such a rush of heat in his blood, are thoughts for a time where he's not looking at his death in the face, and he so he puts them aside, in a neat little box in the back of his brain.

Heading downstairs with a shake of his shoulders to right himself, he finds Shera in the kitchen, spoon in her mouth as she potters back and forth at the stove. The kettle is just beginning to steam, and she's humming to herself, getting down mugs and the tea caddy and she's –

She's –

Fuck him, he loves her.

'Good morning,' he says, and she nearly swallows the spoon.

'Captain!' she exclaims, when she's done coughing up stainless steel.

He tries not to laugh, but he can't stop the grin, and he comes to take her waist, so straight and soft, in his hands, pull her close. Her nose obligingly comes to rest against his, tilting to let her forehead bump, and he grins, feels the warmth of her breath against his face.

'Good morning,' she whispers, and he huffs out a contented breath.

His fingers trace the shape of her waist, her hips, run along the waistband of her trousers, and he tries not to flush at the way she shivers at his fingertips on her skin. He doesn't know if she's ticklish. He wants to know.

'Did you sleep okay?' she asks, but her breath is uneven, and the words shudder.

'Yeah,' he nods, enjoying the brush of her nose. 'You?'

He can feel her gaping at him, her eyelashes against his cheeks as they flutter, and her breath catches. His fingertips ease under her t-shirt, rest against her skin firm and tender both, and her weight shifts; her toes are curling. Her fingers come to clutch at his t-shirt in turn, holding onto him and holding him close.

'Yes,' she breathes, belatedly.

The kettle starts whistling and they leap apart. Shera's face is red, Cid's feels hot.

'I, uh,' he says, and backs away, picks up the clothes he'd dropped on the table. 'I need to – won't be five minutes.'

He gestures hopelessly at the bathroom, and Shera nods quickly, whirls around to take the kettle off the hob.

'Take your time,' she says, 'it's early.'

But it's not early enough. He showers and shaves and stares at his reflection for a moment. This could be the last time he sees her. He should kiss her. Even if he has to chain himself to a fucking wall so that he doesn't go further than that, he should kiss her. He should.

She deserves that. He deserves that.

What if he does die, though, and then Cloud manages to find a way to boost Holy? To save the world? What if he dies and she lives and then she's got to live with the maybe of what they could have had? No, no, better to have nothing at all than to have an almost.

Okay. Fuck.

There's tea and breakfast waiting for him when he finally finds the balls to get out of the bathroom, and she's sat looking out of the window, tea cradled in her hands and fuck, it nearly takes him off his feet.

'You're beautiful,' he tells her, and she flinches, looks at him, her cheeks pink.

'Oh, hush,' she says, shaking her head. A strand of hair drops across her brow, brushes her nose. He has never envied a strand of hair before in his life.

'I mean it,' he tells her, and comes to sit at the table, stretching his legs out to rest his feet against her ankles. 'You're beautiful. I always thought so. Fuck sake, four-eyes, I nearly fell off that fucking scaffolding when you walked away the day you rocked up.'

She laughs, and brushes her foot against his ankle. It's so natural, so right. He cannot believe that they've wasted so much time. He looks at her mouth, her lips plush and pink and so fucking kissable, the dimples in her cheeks where her smile reaches the edges of her eyes.

'Captain,' she says, and he's so fucking glad she doesn't use his name, because he feels like he's on a trigger, like he wouldn't be able to think if she used it.

'Yes,' he replies, and she just laughs again.

'Eat your breakfast, I'm sure your PHS will start ringing soon. Everyone will come back.'

He looks at her, the way the sun and the red light of Meteor flashes in her eyes, the softness of the flush in her cheeks, and he wonders if they will.

He's got a mouthful of the last of his toast when the PHS first rings. It's Barret.

'Yo, man, when you coming to get me?' he demands, as soon as Cid's answered the call.

Cid replies without swallowing. 'Let me eat, fuck sake.'

Shera tuts at him and takes his plate. He can feel the hunger in his expression when he looks at her. She flushes, and dithers, and whirls on her heel.

Barret laughs, and tells him to let him know when he's on the way, and hangs up.

Cid hasn't even put the PHS down when it rings again. Yuffie this time, demanding to know when he's coming, or if it would be quicker for her to go to Cosmo to join up with Red and Vincent, who had apparently made his way there during the night, the fucking lunatic. Cid tells her to wait, that he'll be there as soon as he can.

'Fuck sake,' he says, when he hangs up and stares at the device. 'They're all coming back.'

Shera, washing the dishes, chuckles.

'I did say, Captain,' she tells him, gentle, 'you've been in this together from the beginning. Nobody's going to leave now.'

'I suppose not,' he agrees, leans back in his chair to frown, rubs his neck with both hands, digs his fingers into the bones. 'It feels. Very not real.'

She pauses, looks over her shoulder at him, up to her elbows in suds, and he watches her eyes track the length of him, flicker over his face.

'Are you rested?' she asks, 'I don't have a Restore materia, but I – '

'I'm fine,' he assures her, and shoves up from the table.

The PHS rings, and he ignores it.

She watches him, eyes wide, and he comes to stand close to her, toe-to-toe, hands caging her in against the sink.

'Captain?'

'Listen,' he breathes, and tries to commit her face to memory. 'Listen, if I – I don't know what's going to happen, I don't know if we're going to – fuck me, I don't know if we're going to make it. Against that motherfucker, or if we're gonna stop Meteor, or – I don't know. But listen, Shera, you need to know. I love you.'

Her smile comes shaky and unsure, but there. She nods, and her hands are wet when they touch his.

'I love you,' she repeats.

They stare at each other for a minute, and then he jolts back, struck by the lightning realisation of how long he's been lingering.

'I need to go,' he says and hates the look on her face.

'Yes,' she nods. 'I suppose so, yes. Um. Please be safe.'

He smiles, just for a heartbeat, barely a twitch of his lips.

'As safe as I ever am,' he assures her, and goes to pull his boots on.

She hovers at the doorway as he shrugs into his jacket, and wrings her hands.

'Come home?' she says, and it comes out as a question.

He cups her face in both hands, thumbs rubbing across her cheeks, and if they're a little wet, well, he's not going to say anything.

'To you,' he agrees, and pulls her closer to press a kiss to her forehead.

Fists squeezed tight against his sides, he doesn't dare look back to her as he leaves the house, the town, the last vestiges of peace.

The final fight, he realises, as the Highwind comes back into view, and Tifa and Cloud beneath it, looking uncomfortable but too close, it's going to begin.

No turning back now.