A furious wave of déjà vu ripples through Aerith as she peers up at Sephiroth, who is nearly blinding in his transformed state. He leers down at them in triumph, even though no battle has begun, and the wings encircling him beat furious currents of ethereal wind at those who have come to clip them. Aerith squints against the gusts and flinches as the Planet's pulsing cries dull the orders that Cloud is shouting from beside her.

This isn't the way it's supposed to be, she knows—though she can't explain how exactly to set reality on its proper course. There is a piece that is missing from this puzzle. A key. A catalyst. A connection.

Sephiroth knows it, too. After all, this is his own orchestration. That's why there is victory in his movements as he begins to summon inky wisps of magic. Aerith has felt his otherworldliness over the course of her journey with Cloud and the others; his manipulations and machinations have been too knowing, too informed. Sephiroth is transcendent in a way that bodes ill for their efforts, like he knows the path that lies behind, ahead, and the tracks that branch off into different fates. The Planet has alluded to this, in vague echoes of feelings and impressions delivered by the cool touch of the long-defeated Whispers. It has sent her flashes of another time—a decimated Midgar, curling viridian tendrils of the Lifestream bursting from the ground, a black blight marking people. Aerith feels the Planet's will in these visions and even though they have terrified her since the first night she was touched by the Whispers, she now realizes that the scene before her is devastatingly worse.

She is not simply afraid of Sephiroth. She fears his confidence. She is horrified by the sureness on his face.

And in turn, that realization gives her the elusive peace that she needs to confront the knowledge that she has been burying for weeks.

Aerith is the piece that is out of place. As Sephiroth levels her with a wicked smirk, singling her out, she knows it to be true—feels it in her trembling bones.

Cloud's sword is in his hand and his muscles are tensing in preparation for an opening attack. Aerith takes a moment to admire the resolve in his stance—resolve that is no longer the shadow of Zack's persona twisting into Cloud's, but the strength that Cloud has discovered within himself since Tifa pieced him together in the Lifestream. He is fierce in his determination to protect his loved ones, the Planet, and the memories of his fallen best friend and hometown. He is not healed, but he is growing.

Still, Aerith knows that he will not fulfill the request she is about to make of him. But she asks anyways, ever aware of Tifa standing firm on his other side.

"Cloud," she says in a quiet voice. He will hear her, even over the howling gales.

He pauses, having sunk down into the beginnings of a lunge, and glances at her.

"We won't win," she tells him with a sad smile. "We won't beat him unless things are set right."

Cloud looks at her oddly. Beneath his bewildered expression, Aerith sees the stirrings of trepidation and she knows that some part of him can sense the wrongness of this situation.

Good. Maybe that will make it easier for him to eventually forgive her.

"What are you talking about?" he shouts through the wind.

"He's too strong—even if we defeat him, he's fed enough power into Meteor that Holy won't be able to overcome it," she says. "The Planet will need help."

"What kind of help?"

Aerith meets Tifa's merlot gaze over Cloud's shoulder. Her eyes are heartbroken and aware.

"My help. I need to join the Lifestream so that I can direct it against Meteor."

"Join the…" He frowns as he takes only two seconds to consider her words, and then his confusion melts into blistering fury. "No. Absolutely not. Aerith, that's crazy!"

Sephiroth has grown tired of waiting. He volleys a barrage of sundering energy at them and everyone scatters, leaping away from the soul-sucking orbs. Barret rolls to his feet and releases a scatter of bullets. Yuffie launches her shuriken and Cid leaps with his spear. Vincent transforms while Nanaki and Cait Sith send colorful blasts of elemental magic flying.

But all of this is peripheral to Cloud's fierce eyes pinning her down.

"There's another way," he insists. "You can't just make this call based on a hunch!"

Aerith is strangely tranquil, and she wonders at that even as reality begins to splinter around her. "It's not a hunch. It's the truth—I've tried to ignore it, but now I'm sure. This has to be done—it's the only way."

He shakes his head, jaw working. "I won't do it."

"I know," she replies with the mischievous smile that is typically reserved for when she is proven right—how is she so calm that she can feel such a way? "I'll give your love to Zack."

And then Tifa is darting around Cloud and plunging a dagger into Aerith's chest.

The pain is immediately debilitating. Aerith's breath hitches as agony blossoms across her whole torso, but then numbness and cold quickly chase it off. Tifa's gloved hands catch her when she collapses, and tears splash onto her cheeks. Over Tifa's shoulder, Aerith sees Cloud stagger back a step as he gapes in mounting horror.

"I'm so s-sorry," Tifa gasps brokenly. "Aerith—I—"

"No. I'm sorry," Aerith whispers, her hand managing to weakly blanket Tifa's. "Thank you, Tifa. For…everything."

The world melts away into a cacophony of Tifa's sobs, Sephiroth's incredulous roar, Cloud's enraged scream, and the haze of violence. Aerith feels her body relax and then she feels nothing; she sees the core of the Northern Crater distort and then she sees nothing.

The nothingness is comforting. But it doesn't last long.

Sensation returns, but it is somehow different—more and less at the same time. Orientation blossoms in the darkness and her feet find something solid upon which to balance, though there isn't any sort of gravity to hold them. Through it all, there is a new rightness to the world as the Planet's aura coos in satisfaction.

Aerith opens her eyes.

"Hey," a familiar voice greets her as she spots an easy grin. "I missed you. But we'll have to save the catching up for later—I think you've still got work to do."

.O.O.O.O.O.

"Hey," chimes a soft voice from behind him.

Cloud turns away from the window that was commandeering his attention and peers at Aerith over his shoulder. She's leaning against the doorway of the Highwind's barracks, arms folded over her long nightgown and her auburn hair unbound. A pensive smile curves her lips and its dimness makes him wonder if it's a mere product of muscle memory; like him, she seems to have something on her mind. It's been just over a day since he washed up on the wrecked shore of Mideel with Tifa after their tumble into the Lifestream. He took a bit of time to touch base with the group, explaining to the best of his ability what exactly happened, and then he promptly holed up in the barracks to attempt to figure it all out for himself. The others obliged his unspoken request for solitude, until now. The quiet has allowed him to turn a stern sort of examination inward; it feels as though he's been trying to solve a puzzle with only half the pieces and even though he finally found the missing bits, they came to him turned upside down and out of sequence.

Luckily, he's reached the point at which everything—his jumbled memories, the spotty timeline of events, the truths and fictions of his personality—finally seems somewhat settled, so Aerith's intrusion doesn't derail any precarious mental processes.

In fact, he realizes suddenly, Cloud owes her an explanation. For all that she has done to drag him out of his self-imposed prison of aloofness, he will attempt to repay her by telling her the truth about Zack. He omitted the name of his "friend in SOLDIER" during his explanation to the team, having figured that Aerith deserved a more tactful explanation and not a bombshell dropped in a room full of people. But now that it's just the two of them, he will tell her the whole truth.

"Hey," he returns. He shifts his seated position on one of the bunks so that his back rests against the headboard. Aerith accepts the unspoken invitation and perches on the end of the bed.

She looks pretty, Cloud diagnoses, but the thought no longer inspires a reaction within him.

"How are you?" she asks simply, still searching him. Maybe she's looking for signs of impending insanity. No, he quickly decides, she's looking for differences. Cloud is finally and completely himself, and Aerith has never known him as such. She's making observations of whatever within him is new to her.

He runs a hand through his hair. "Better," he admits, somewhat sheepishly. "I just needed some time to think and remember."

Aerith nods and turns her gaze to the window, fixing it on the dark sky outside. It is uncommon for her to have to search for what to say, Cloud knows, which makes it all the more obvious when she does. He chooses to take the burden from her and blurts out the nervous words rattling around in his mouth before they can retreat back down his throat.

"My friend from SOLDIER—his name was Zack."

Aerith's body tenses and her head whips around to pin him with bright green eyes. A stilted gasp flees through her parted lips and hitches her shoulders.

"What?"

Cloud can't look at the maelstrom of emotions whirling in those eyes, so he looks down at his lap. In a rush of words littered with sudden pauses and wavering tones, he recounts the course of his friendship with Zack in as much detail as he can conjure. Aerith is silent the whole time, clinging onto every piece of the tale like one would cherish the final drop of water in an endless desert. Tears swim in her eyes when Cloud braves a glance upward, though they don't fall until he reiterates the nature of his recent madness in more depth than he divulged to the team—the mesh of Zack's actions with Cloud's own past.

When he is done, he falls into a drained silence. But a brilliant catharsis also descends, and Cloud just wants to collapse into a dreamless sleep so that he can bask in it before the worries of the world can return and cast it away.

Aerith wipes at her cheeks and sniffles delicately. It takes a few moments for her to speak.

"Zack fell through the roof of the church in Sector 5," she reveals in a watery voice before continuing in an uncharacteristically inarticulate rush. "Just like you. He bought me a ribbon and built me these ridiculous wagons so I could sell my flowers and I—I know that it's been years, but I just—miss him. I think that I…sensed it when he—he—"

She takes a deep breath as if to recalibrate.

"I just never knew what happened. I'm…really glad that you were there, with him, in the end."

Cloud takes in her shaky smile and feels a sudden burst of affection for this girl who has journeyed with him around the world, searching for the secrets of her heritage and striving to save the Planet. The positivity that she has maintained the face of her burdens is impressive to him—it always has been, but it is even more so, now. Mapped out in the lines of her face, he sees his own assurance mirrored back at him. He knows that the two of them are finally on the same page—Cloud is not Zack—and their friendship sheds all of its confusing undertones in exchange for a simple purity that feels nothing short of refreshing.

Cloud feels the corners of his lips turn up and Aerith blinks in pleasant surprise.

"Tell me more about these wagons," Cloud requests.

They pass hours talking and laughing about Zack Fair—the hero of their lives.


A/N: Hello, hope you're doing well :) Welcome to The Hardest Path, a sort of what-if scenario, as I'm sure you've gathered. This will be packed with angst so if that's not your cup of tea (though I'm sure you have some affection for the genre if you're an FFVII fan), I would kindly suggest you check out some of the other amazing FFVII fics that are out there.

This idea came while I was contemplating the extent of Cloud's emotions about Aerith's death; specifically, how thoroughly and completely he blamed himself for something that was literally out of his control. Anyone who's played the Remake will understand-SPOILERS-that it is entirely possible that Aerith will either die in a different way or just not die at all, with the new direction they're going in (personally, I hope they keep her death the same. It's too characteristic of FF7's essence). But as we know from the OG's ending, Meteor would have won if not for Aerith being in the Lifestream. A popular theory is that Sephiroth, knowing this, will let her live and that Cloud will be forced to kill her to save the world. Keeping in mind how distraught Cloud was when NOT being directly responsible for her death, I don't think he's equipped to cope with ACTUALLY killing her. Tifa, on the other hand...

Despite what you may take away from this opening chapter, this is a Cloti story. Buuuut I still love some wholesome Cloud x Aerith friendship. Thanks for reading!