He had been feeling a little uneasy these past few days. It started when she briefly touched his hand when they were gathering flowers to give the children at the orphanage. He never usually feels anything special when he is close to a girl.
And he had been touched by girls a lot lately. Jessie had touched him way too much for his liking before and yet when she did he didn't feel anything out of the ordinary. He had touched Tifa a couple of times too, grabbed her arms to protect her in fights, hold her hands while leading her on the run.
But the flower girl's touch had been different. Their hands brushed each other and while he just froze and stared at the flowers in his hands, she looked at him and smiled. Just smiled, like it was normal on a daily basis to just touch people like that. Not people, him, he'd like to believe.
She then took that hand and started motioning it inside hers showing him how to carefully hold a flower and cut it without ruining it. Her hands were brown with dirt and when he asked why she didn't wear gloves she told him she liked to feel the living earth on her skin.
She had grabbed his hand before though, the first day they met, asking for help from those shadows. But it didn't start there, that uneasiness. It started on that garden under the hot summer sun. Her smile reached her eyes, she tilted her head to the side, a smudge of brown dust on her cheek, and his blood rushed to his cheeks. The hell? He wondered, and looked away.
He stayed another night in her house though, to much for the annoyance of her mother as he had noticed. But Aerith wasn't done with his help to aid the people of Sector 5. She had told him he needed the reputation so people would hire him in the future and he chose to believe that because he felt the need to spend more time with her.
"I'm sorry!!" He heard her voice over the water running down the shower. He had been all day digging dirt, planting new flower seeds with her after they gave the flowers to the kids. He needed to wash off the dust and polen from all the gardening. Couldn't help muffling a "I'm not a fucking gardener." under his breath as he watched the brown water go down the drain as it slid down his body.
"I forgot to give you a towel! My hand is covering my eyes, I'm coming in!" She opened the door so she could step in the bathroom to leave the towel on a small round stool placed near the bathtub. He was covered by the shower curtains but peeking a bit just so she wouldn't stumble on anything and fall head first into something she shouldn't, she noticed his silhouette.
He couldn't help but think her mother would have had a heart attack that moment if she was home and saw her enter the bathroom he was using.
"It's fine, just leave it there." They were both adults, there was no need for all that ceremony just to leave a towel, he thought. But she was a beautiful woman, any other guy might have taken advantage of her kindness. They had basically just met and she was already offering him a place to stay, entering the bathroom of a total stranger taking a shower.
Aerith knew that too, and she knew people would have started commenting already about her new friend through the town but she didn't care what they would say, she felt comfortable with him. He reminded her of someone from the past. His eyes, they were almost alike. The same glow, the same kindness and pain of someone who went through hell and back. She felt he needed her, just like he did back then. No, she wasn't going to think about him. She had suffered enough. Cloud was someone else, and yet it was as if she had known him for a long time now.
At night when he went into his bedroom to rest, she stayed there looking at the door of his room from the outside for a while. She remembered the first night he had stayed there a long time ago. The screams from the nightmares after his friend had been killed. He felt so lost, so broken, she regretted not being able to do more for him. Was it a SOLDIER's curse? To always be suffering from all the losses, all the dreadful things they forced them to do?
She didn't know why she stayed there guarding Cloud's room for that long. She was probably waiting for his screams, his nightmares, she'd be ready to hold him if it happened. But instead of hearing him scream, she heard the doorknob make a clinging sound and open to reveal the blond soldier, fully dressed and with his sword on his back, ready to leave as if it had been arranged.
His eyes widened as he saw her standing there.
"Going somewhere?" She composed herself and managed to say, placing her hands on her hips, scolding.
"I-" he started. Her mother had asked him to leave and never come back. She had told him he was trouble. He didn't owe anything to that girl and he had better things to do so yeah he would leave. But he did owe her, she had taken care of him the minute he fell through that roof on the abandoned church. Before he could finish, she placed a hand on his chest and pushed him back into his room shutting the door behind her and frowning as if he was a child in trouble. What was it with her? Why didn't she just leave him alone?
"You're my bodyguard, and you're still at your job, where do you think you were going? What if I got kidnapped in the middle of the night?" She asked, crossing her arms to her chest.
"Please.. I'd be more worried about the kidnappers." He replied, from the time they had spent together he had already realized she was a force to be reckoned with. Standing up to the Turks like she did, what was with that anyway? Making people in Sector 5 do what she said, making him do what she said. He wondered what sort of power she had over him. Gathering flowers wasn't really something he had ever imagined doing and yet...
"Is that so?" She asked, was it a smirk on her lips? He couldn't help being drawn to that confident way she acted at times. "How about I be your bodyguard then?" She winked, his body stiffened.
"Why won't you just let me go?" He asked, he really wanted to know.
"Because I'm not sick of you yet." She replied and it awakened something in him. A light very subtle tingling sensation of warmth in his chest. No one had ever wanted to be in his presence for more than 10 minutes, except for Tifa or Jessie, he was quiet, and often cold when he talked, what was it with this girl? Had he given her reasons to like him? He didn't think so.
"So get some rest, and tomorrow I can drop you off at the way to Sector 7." She continued. "And don't try to sneak up on me again. Or do you want me to keep guard all night here for you?"
"If you want.. I won't stop you." He replied, a wave of cockiness took over him, he could play that game too if he wanted.
"If that's what I have to do." She would definitely win that. She pushed him back again until he fell on his bed and she didn't took her hands of his chest until he was lying down on the bed. He looked at her, his aquamarine eyes glowing in the faint light, intrigued with her next actions. "I'll just stay right here until you fall asleep." She sat down on the bed at his feet.
"What if I don't want to sleep?" He asked, his eyes didn't leave her figure, he was starting to understand how to surpass her teasing, wanted to know where she'd go.
"Then we'll have to come up with something better to do." Her heart rate went up. His gaze was starting to make her nervous. He noticed the change inside her chest, her body tensed, he could feel these things, her feelings and what they did to her body, it was due to the mako poisoning he had been subject to, his soldier nature. So he had caused an effect on her, she caught his interest.
"Any ideas?" He continued, he was enjoying her restlessness.
"What is up with you tonight?" Aerith smiled in surprise to his forward attitude. The cool, quiet soldier she had met was flirting with her? She wasn't having it, that had to be part of a strategy to keep her off her posture and trick her into leaving in the middle of the night. She got up from the bed and started walking towards the door.
"Aren't you staying then?" He asked, getting on his elbow.
"I'm just going to grab my pillow Mr. Soldier." She replied turning back at him. "You're not fooling me with that attitude."
He fell back on the bed again, ran a hand through his hair. She was smarter than that, and he couldn't help but like that she wouldn't leave him be. Part of him was just trying to make her leave so he could leave but part of him wanted to know where she'd go.
She came back to his room with her pillow on her hands, wearing a white night dress with thin straps that left the most part of her shoulders bare. Her hair was down and her brown waves cascaded down her back. He swallowed, the uneasiness in his chest started tightening.
"Where are you going to sleep?" He raised an eyebrow. The bed only fit him in it and there was no couch in the room.
"Well, with you." She stated, like it was obvious. "Scoop aside to the wall. And I'm not going to really sleep, I'll just close my eyes to rest. I'm not taking the chance of you using your soldier super powers to sneak up on me while I sleep."
"Aa-" he stuttered while she sat on the bed and then laid down, back towards him. He didn't think she'd take this through.
"Does this make you nervous Mr. I'm-too-cool-for-picking-flowers?" She asked teasingly.
"What would your mother say if she caught you?" He could only ask.
"I'm not doing anything wrong. Just making sure a friend doesn't bail on me." But she really wanted to feel the warmth again, like she had when it was with him. She had been so lonely since he left, she always felt lonely as it is. Cloud came to her life and her heart awakened once again, since the moment she met him on that street. She didn't think she'd meet him again but there he went falling down the roof into her life. When she was close to him, like that, laying down next to him, she felt safe. He gave her that comfortable feeling, as much as he tried to keep her away, she wasn't going to let him keep her out.
"I'm really not comfortable. I have no position with you here taking most of the bed." He said after a few minutes of turning around several times, trying as much as he could to not touch her body. As much as he wasn't going to try anything, he was only a man and this beautiful woman laying so close to him could awaken in him things he wasn't really prepared for right now. Her mother was probably downstairs doing something, completely clueless to what was happening over her head.
"Excuse me? You're the one taking most of the bed!" She turned around to look at him. "I'm almost falling off! You don't have to stay away from me, it's a small bed, touch me if you have to. We're grown ups."
"Fine." He laid down placing one arm around her body, trying to think of her as a pillow and spooning her legs and back on his legs and chest. "Is this ok?" He asked for permission, should she start thinking he was taking advantage.
"Yes." Her voice came out a whisper. Cloud didn't realize then how important it was for her that he'd be holding her that night. Her hand took his after a while, and he leaned his forehead to the back of her neck. She smelled of lillies, the only flower name he had memorized when they were at the garden.
The next day when he woke up, Aerith was already downstairs waiting for him.
"My mom has work to do today, she's not here. I told her I'd take you today." Cloud couldn't help letting out a relieved sigh for knowing he wouldn't be crossing paths with her mother.
"I think I over slept." He looked at the time and realized he had slept too much, he never did.
"I'm glad I was on my guard for the night. Should any menace appear, you'd be sleeping like a baby."
"Ha. Ha." He said sarcastically. "Funny."
They left the house after eating and getting ready but when they reached the town they were stopped by some of the residents to make a couple of errands Aerith had promised the day before, including helping the kids with a monster that was terrifying them near the lake.
Cloud was already a hero to the kids by the end of the day and he wasn't really used to all the attention but the kids started warming up to him as surprising as it was for him to admit.
Aerith smiled as she watched one of the little girls holding his hand all the way until the exit of the town where they would leave through.
When they were finally able to leave, it was already starting to get dark. Aerith knew a shortcut to Wall Street where the gate to Sector 7 was but it was more dangerous. They agreed to cross it anyway, Cloud thought they would be alright. Took them a few monster fights and cross a couple of bandit gangs but nothing Cloud couldn't handle. He tried so hard to keep Aerith away from getting hurt that he ended up being stabbed in the arm by one of the bandits. They had to sit down for a few minutes so Aerith could heal him.
"You should have let me fight more." She said as she examined the wound. The cut wasn't too deep, just below his elbow, but it was bleeding a lot.
"I had it." He replied, watching as she reached for the small green cure materia. She held it in her hand and took it to her lips. She whispered some words to the green orb and it started glowing in a green fluorescent light towards Cloud's wound. A few seconds later the cut had almost healed and the blood stopped.
She took his arm and examined it again with her hands, caressing his skin in the most tenderly way where the wound had been. Their eyes met for a moment, and he felt the need to look away to the ground.
"So, we should keep going, we're almost there." She got up and they both resumed walking.
They reached the playground Aerith had been telling him about. He heard her talk about some past life she had when the playground wasn't destroyed and abandoned, she used to go there sometimes to sell flowers.
She climbed the slide and sat down on top of it, motioning for him to join her.
When he did, he sat far from her, they were about to separate anyway. She didn't care, she closed the distance between them and leaned against him.
"No need to be shy now, we already slept together." She said and it took him off balance. "I mean, in the same bed." She giggled, he grimaced.
"Say Cloud..." she started, her voice serious now. "You were a SOLDIER, first class?"
"Yeah..."
"That's weird." She looked down. "You were the same rank."
"As who?" He asked intrigued.
"The first guy I ever loved." She said. And he couldn't believe how that information just made his heart sink. He felt a tightness in his chest that almost took his breath away. Of course she had to have someone, just looking at her was making him uneasy, was she the real reason he had been feeling like that lately?
"What's his name? I probably know him." He tried to sound cool but the way he shifted on his seat showed his nervousness.
As she started saying a name, his vision went blank, his head started throbbing in the sharpest pain. He placed his hands on his head trying to hold on to something but he only saw green, a fluorescent liquid green bubbling with his breath inside that tube he was being kept in everyday. Looking up through the green liquid he could see another tube like his with someone inside sitting asleep against the glass, spiky black hair, his limbs completely numb alongside his body, his chin on his chest, he looked dead if it wasn't for some bubbles forming with his breath and floating up to the top of the tube.
He could smell the disgusting scent of the mako he was inside and almost made him vomit, it all felt so real. He started screaming at the top of this lungs, madness taking over his senses, he couldn't be there again, not again, had it all been a dream?
"Cloud!" He heard a voice in the distance and tried to follow it. "Cloud! It's me! I'm here. It's just you and me."
He opened his eyes and tried to focus his vision. He didn't see the mako green anymore, it was dark and the air felt right to breathe, cold. He looked at her, she was on top of him. Somehow they had come down from the slide and he was laying on the ground on his back. He felt her hands on his face, holding him, a concerned look across her face.
"What happened? Where did you go?" She asked as he sat up. He placed an elbow on his knee and placed a hand on his forehead as a tear escaped one of his eyes.
"I thought I was back there." He cried, still not looking up. She held his cheeks between her hands again and lifted his head up so he could look at her.
"I'm here." She said. Whatever he had been through before, it had broken him to the core. Maybe that was the reason he had all his armour up when it came to showing feelings. He didn't want to get close, to open up because his wounds were so deep that he needed someone to save him from that past.
"I don't know what's real anymore..." he let out, for a moment his walls came all down. It was just Cloud with her, not the SOLDIER, not the bodyguard, not the hero, just Cloud.
She looked into his eyes as they glowed softly back to its true aquamarine color now, the light of the mako dimming. She leaned forward and placed her lips on his, not thinking anymore. Her hands went to the back of his neck and she felt his on her back, desperately holding her tightly. She sat on top of him and kissed him eagerly, his lips complying to hers.
"This is real." She said parting, her forehead pressed against his. They were breathing heavily, their heartbeats thumbing in their ears.
Suddenly, they heard the huge metal doors separating them from Sector 7 make a shrieking noise as they opened.
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Author's note: I'm not sure if this ends here or I'll continue to Wall Market. This was meant to be a small one shot but I got a little bit carried away! Anyway, if you're here, thank you for reading!!!