The nights are unpredictable.
Sometimes he dreams about endless fields of yellow and white flowers under a cloudless blue sky, a place where the wind catches freely on Aerith's hair and makes it swirl like the fallen leaves of autumn and her hands reach out to him and pull him to her.
But sometimes…
Cloud still dreams about fluorescent green. About the claustrophobic green aquarium walls of a tube, where he's breathing the same liquid and living in the same liquid, watching powerless, moveless, as they take his blood and then inject him with something else. About wanting to scream but being restrained, shut and immobilized by swarming hands and chains like a wild beast. About wide blue eyes with dilated pupils under the blinding artificial white lights of a cold bland room.
He still dreams about fire. A dark red glow of flames and ash that engulfs his village, his house and his mother to oblivion and blazing green eyes that ignite the devastation.
He still dreams about Zack. About his blissful laugh and encouraging smile, his extended hand and his confident gaze, his body on the floor punched with thousands of bullet holes, crimson red streaming down his hands and the rain washing it away.
He still dreams about Aerith.
Transparent and fading, smiling with tears in her eyes and her chest sobbing a goodbye.
He still dreams…
When Cloud wakes up the night is still cloaked of a despairing black darkness. The faint moonlight slanting through the semi-open shutters draws a strip pattern on the floor, inching in on them closer to the bed, an anchor light to lean on against the dark.
He sits up and lifts his hands with palms towards the sky, watches them tremble, bloodless, which makes him blink in confusion, it had felt so real he could have sworn he had smelt the iron scent of the mako in Zack's blood. He lets his head fall on his palms and curls down on his stomach. His fingers sink in his hair and his body aches like he wants to come out of his own skin.
Next to him, Aerith's body feels warm against his leg, her touch is the only connection he has with reality as the feel of her skin is the solace that keeps him from breaking. Still… the nightmares linger vividly on his confused mind in fragments of disengaged images.
Glowing green spilling amongst shattered glass.
All-consuming shrouds of fire.
The pounding sounds of hundreds of machine guns.
So, so much pain.
It takes everything he has to swallow down a sob as silent tears roll down his cheeks. He grits his teeth to try and stop his body from shaking and his mouth from screaming, painfully pressing both his hands against it. His heart thrums in his chest and his pulse rushes so fast in his neck, he rocks forward and back to calm himself down.
"What's wrong?" He hears her voice and his body stiffens. He didn't want to wake her, didn't want her to see him like this. "Cloud." She calls, worry in her voice. Her hands slide up his back as she sits, rest on his shoulders in soothing strokes.
"I'm sorry I woke you."He tries to control his breathless voice while his hands run through his hair. He turns away from her and lets his legs hang from the edge of the bed as he does.
"I'm here." She knows. She knows his nights are filled with terrors from the past. She hugs him from the back, rests her chin on his shoulder. Her body pressing against his back feels like a gentle warm breeze, heating his ice cold skin on a freezing winter day. When he doesn't move, she plants soft kisses from his shoulder tracing a path up his neck.
Her sweet warm breath tickling his skin eases the tension built up on his shoulders a bit. Her hands turn his head slightly to the side as she shifts next to him, angling his face towards her. Under the dim light she finds his blue eyes staring into space in disturbing lifeless detachment, completely unemotional, while empty tears dampen his face. It terrifies her, her heart painfully skips a beat at the pain and sadness behind his blank gaze.
"Cloud." She calls, her breath quivers as she invokes him. She kisses his lips slow, gentle, as if reaching for a scared sparrow, afraid a sudden movement will frighten him away. Her thumbs wipe the tears off his face.
Then, after a few seconds of quiet internal struggle that make her stomach wrench with grief, he twists around towards her, wraps his arms around her tight and buries his head in her neck while his fingers claw at her back, holding on to her as if nothing else exists in the world but them, grasping on to her to come back to reality and out of the recollections behind his lids.
She weaves her fingers through his blond hair with tears welling up in her eyes as she holds his shaking body. His pain is her pain.
His skin feels cold, so cold under her arms, but beneath it she can feel his drumming heartbeat strong and incessant against hers.
"I'm here." She repeats, her sweet voice and the scent of flowers lulls him softly. She wants him to know he's not alone anymore, that the past is long gone.
Cloud sighs heavily and waveringly against her, tries to rid himself of the unpleasant darkness that had penetrated his defense during a time when he's most vulnerable at, though the nightmares had left in him a persistent sensation of uneasiness that is hard to ignore.
She holds him tighter, as tight as her arms can, every ounce of raw emotion in her gushes out to the surface and as the love Aerith feels for him flows through her in an otherworldly immenseness she finds herself vowing that she will not allow anything to break his spirit again.
They remain holding each other in silence until her embrace starts healing the bleeding wounds in his heart slowly back whole, lifting his disquietude away little by little.
Until the pearly glow of the morning dapples through the blinds in woven rays of crisp sunlight, making specs of dust lazily dance in the shafts of light.
The last thing Cloud wants is to put up with Rufus and his wandering affairs, but curiosity took the best of him. Reno had mentioned what he wanted was important, but what's important to the Turks doesn't exactly qualify to what's important to Cloud. Still, Tifa insisted they might have information about the planet and the lack of green life and that was enough to convince Cloud to meet him.
He just wasn't sure about Aerith.
"Are you sure you want to come with?" Cloud asks tentatively as he parks Fenrir outside Healen Lodge, Rufus' new residence, just outside Edge. The wooden Cabin stood tall in the middle of the sun-baked arid desert, there were dead curved trees all around it and a waterfall cascading down the rugged terrain under the cabin's timber.
Shinra had built it years ago and it was meant to become a private hospital for the rich and powerful. But it was abandoned later after it had been built for the purpose didn't really attract the minority in question, it was too far from the city's vices, too secluded for their greedy minds. Rufus took advantage of it being abandoned to settle his office back on.
"Very sure." Aerith says. "I couldn't really let you come meet these guys all alone mister!"
"Afraid they'll bite me?" Cloud smirks at her innocent confidence.
She stares, wide-eyed at him, then giggles. "Not bite, no. I doubt they would try. But they can get into your head and I don't want them to upset you." His night had been a difficult enough one.
Cloud sighs, sadly she knew more than anyone about what it was like to be around the Turks. They had been a part of her growing up, always lurking around close, watching her from street corners, rooftops, always a few steps behind. The reminiscence makes him shudder and he tries to ignore the persistent burning in his chest.
"I just hate them for all of what they made us go through." He says, his gaze set on the hauntingly standing location of the house above. The Turks have always been a constant reminder of all things wrong about Shinra.
"That's all in the past. I'm no interest to them anymore." She reassures and intertwines her fingers with his as they start climbing up the steps towards the cabin.
Reno is by the threshold when they approach the entrance, casually leaning one shoulder against the door frame, his shirt sloppily hanging loose from his pants, chewing on a toothpick with a slithering smile spread across his lips. His stuck-up attitude alone irritates Cloud at first sight and he's reminded again how much he loathes the guy.
"Hey there princess, boy-toy." He tilts his chin.
"Dipshit." Cloud greets back.
"Always the charmer." Reno chuckles stepping aside to let them in. He makes a kissing sound as Aerith passes by that she chooses to ignore but makes a mental note to get back at him the first moment she can in different circumstances. Doesn't stop her from glaring daggers at him though.
The inside of Rufus' new office is much more humble than what he was accustomed to in the Shinra building. Here there are no opulent chairs or mahogany desks made of the finest cherry-tree wood in Gaia, no golden adornments on the walls or marble floors. It's a plain and empty bright office room with a small desk and chair and nothing that could be resemblant of what Shinra had been once. The windows where Rufus stood in front of, behind his desk, allow them to see the wasteland-brown desert landscape extending for miles and miles on end.
Rufus turns around to face them. Though he stands in a simple place, nothing like his previous one, his smug posture hadn't changed as his eyes looked down at them through his stern glaciar-blue gaze.
"You brought her with you." It's the first thing he says. Primitively Cloud's hands curl into fists at his sides. There's no remaining calm when it comes to Rufus. Just hearing his voice sets an uneasy feeling across Cloud's chest.
"That a problem?" Cloud asks, staring directly back at the fallen President.
"No." He says promptly. "I'm actually glad you did." He lays his avid sharp eyes on Aerith and to her surprise, slowly nods his head respectfully at her. They know Rufus was incapable of feeling anything that wasn't the thrill power and influence gave him, what could a florist urge in him any genuine interest unless he had his own hidden reasons for it.
"What does that mean?" Cloud asks with suspicion eroding inside him, he could smell the putridness of Rufus for miles, something was definitely not adding up.
"Look, setting our differences aside. There's something you need to know. Both of you. Something that involves the very life of this planet and the survival of mankind." Rufus says, he places his fists on top of his desk, leans in.
The Cetra and the mercenary stay silent to let him continue. Curiosity with a hint of disgust piquing the more he talked.
"I realize… The toll Shinra has taken on the planet… it had her dying, withering, and we're going to die with her. Surely you have noticed the deserts, the drylands where nothing grows except death. It's not even just the food, it's oxygen and water becoming toxic. People started noticing, it's impossible not to, and therefore they are panicking." Rufus says solemnly. "Conversations about the Promised Land—
"You're not going to ask her about that are you?" Cloud frowns, his blood starting to rush as a darkening chill runs down his spine.
"I'm not like my father." Rufus spits out rigidly, and then his frown drops to the floor as if he wasn't sure about why he had said that. His gaze slowly lifts to stare off into the distance, his voice comes out hollow and lost in thought. "He was obsessed with it, drained the planet dry on the hopes of finding this promised land so he could do the same to it too. I'm smarter than that, I know it's futile to think such place is waiting for us, it's a fantasy, it doesn't exist. Life is for the living but we can't live if we don't have a planet."
"What does it have to do with us?" Cloud asks distrustfully. "It's not like we can fix your shit. Make the planet prosper again, you're the ones who bled it dry in the first place."
"That's where you're wrong." Rufus straightens up, regaining whatever splinter of confidence that had left him seconds ago. "You can. How is it that the Cetra is here when Sephiroth killed her? She has to be the key to it." He slants a hand towards Aerith.
"No way." Cloud takes a step forward in defiance, gets in front of Aerith protectively, one hand automatically lifting to the hilt of his sword. "You're not going to lean on her to cover for your past mistakes."
"Don't worry, I'm not going to try anything, she's too precious." Rufus says. The revolt twisting in his stomach ignites Cloud's mako, makes his eyes light up their green glow, at the words that seem to treat her as a possession. He feels bile crawling up his throat. Just like Hojo saw her. "I need you to come with me." Rufus lifts his hands bracingly. "I just want to show you something." His gaze shifts from Cloud to Aerith.
As Cloud doesn't move with daring determination growing stronger each second against the other man, the tension in the room becomes knife-cutting stiff.
"First of all…" Aerith interrupts with a light voice breaking the unnatural silence hanging in the air. "I don't like it when people talk about me like I'm not in the room." She steps forward to get next to Cloud. "Second, I don't like you. You always hide behind your pawns, get them to do the dirty jobs for you." She advances until she stops right in front of Rufus' desk. "But I recognize regret when I see it. Recognize humbleness - as little as it may be - when I see it. Never thought I'd say this about you, but I believe you."
"Aerith." Cloud breathes discouragingly, she may search for hope in him but Cloud is sure it's hopeless to think Rufus is capable of changing. Cloud's hand drops down from the hilt of the sword.
"No, I know what I'm saying." She looks slightly back at Cloud to give him an acknowledging nod, then turns back at Rufus. Her green eyes unfalteringly scanning him, her braid gently dancing with the movement of her head. The faith deep in her heart that no one is dark enough to be beyond saving flutters growingly in her chest. "You're rotten, but l think everyone deserves a second chance. And if it's redemption you want, you're going to have to prove it."
"Smartest words I've heard in a long time." Rufus grunts in accordance as he averts his gaze from her. "I've had nothing but time to think about all of what Shinra has done. I just want to make amends and I want to live, I want all of us to."
Cloud kneads at his temple, Rufus has always been a master at making his head ache and his little attempt at a theatrical enactment of regret isn't fooling him. How is he supposed to believe a word he's saying, when it comes from someone who has been nothing but selfish to his own needs, or cared about anything less than his own priorities, cruelly stepping over everyone and everything to get it done. Not only he had been blind to the atrocities that went on behind Shinra's closed doors but also he gave continuity to them.
"I'm not as forgiving as Aerith is." Cloud shakes his head. "But if you want to help, then help. What is it you want from us?"
"Just… To follow me." Rufus groans. He motions for a door in the back of the room.
A brief uneasy silence lingers as Cloud's eyes analyze the door first, hesitantly wondering if they could really trust him.
"Don't try anything. You won't live to see another day and then all of your worries will be automatically solved." Cloud says unrelentingly at last, wouldn't be such a bad idea, but he ends up trusting his SOLDIER instincts that there is no danger behind that door.
"I wouldn't dream of trying anything with you." The glint of Rufus' eyes carries nothing less than the knowledge of the things they had done to the mercenary, and the things he knew Cloud could do to him if he wanted, from past experiences with him, no matter how many bodyguards he had around.
Cloud glances uncertainly at Rufus, it was still the President of Shinra standing in front of them, cold-hearted and austere like he had always known him but the look on the other blond man's face, they notice as they approach him, showed a certain shade of tiredness, sunken eyes, pale complexion, even his light locks of blond hair had became whiter in the course of a year.
As soon as Rufus opens the door, their eyes fill with a color they haven't seen in a great amount for a long while. Green. Everything is green. The light filtering through the glass windows touch the leaves as the one of a greenhouse, casting on the newborn two-palms short trees, each one growing in each vase, displayed into four rows of five vases.
"They're not many, but it's a start." Rufus says from the door.
Aerith eyes widen with utter amazement. She walks further into the rows of plants. Crouching down next to one of the vases, she presses her hands softly down the moist warm soil pulsing with life, the moving earth runs through her fingers and presses deep into her nails, she has missed it, so much, the feel of breathing earth under her skin. She closes her eyes to try and calm her mind and shut down her thoughts to let the voice of the planet wash over her senses.
When before, with Shinra draining her life, she had heard screams and felt the agony of the planet's pain, now there is a blood-freezing silenced emptiness. Aerith's eyes immediately fill with tears for the weakness that overwhelmed her was like nothing else she had ever felt before when connecting to the planet. The lifestream flow is barely perceptible, the planet is alive by a faint string of persistent will to survive. Time is running out, dangerously, imperatively, urgently.
"How did you do this?" Cloud asks watching apprehensively as Aerith grazes her fingers through the tender surfaces of the small green leaves, watching as her tears fall softly on the small amount of living earth inside the vase she's leaning against. Her distress makes it hard for him to concentrate and resist the urge to fidget towards her but he knows she needs the moment alone to link with nature so he remains rooted to the floor and lets her have her time with the planet's energy.
"I didn't."
"Then how is it that they grow here?"
"We've planted these as an experiment about six months ago when we started noticing nothing was growing anymore." Rufus explains. "My scientists have been watering, caring, even temperating the room to the perfect ambience for the plants to grow. Nothing could get them to life." Rufus pauses for a second as he stares fixedly at the Cetra. "Can you guess the time the seeds finally started germinating?"
A tiny fragment of discomfort flashes through Cloud's body. He doesn't say anything, already knowing the answer to the question. His eyes linger on Aerith as his heart pangs inside his chest.
"Exactly three weeks ago."
Exactly by the time Aerith was brought back to the living side of Gaia.
"Why didn't you tell anyone about this?" Cloud asks, his voice having a hard time finding its way out.
"What do you think will happen when we tell everyone about who can save us from damnation?"
Cloud shrugs.
"You may not know people like I do, but trust me on this one. The less people know about Aerith, the better for her." Rufus says.
"Why do you care?" Cloud eyes him dubiously.
"I told you." Rufus' stern gaze shifts distantly on Aerith. "I want everyone to live. The Cetra have been an important part on the ecosystem. They have a deep connection with the planet, they keep nature in balance, help it flourish, it's something that runs in their blood, her blood. It's just a theory, I've had nothing but time to think this through, but I guess, like everything in life, everything in the universe wants to live, to survive. Maybe Aerith's return was the last resource the planet had at survival. Maybe she can make the soil prosper again. Heal the planet."
"Learnt all that from your father?" Cloud asks unforgivably.
"And how is it that you expect me to do that?" Aerith stands back up from amongst the new trees, wiping her tears away from her cheeks and straightening up to face Rufus. "I've never done anything to help plants grow… didn't even know how to use my materia until it was time. My mother, which your institution killed when I was only five years old, didn't have the time to explain it all to me about my heritage."
Rufus hesitates at his own father's past actions. "You've kept flowers growing in Midgar haven't you?" He asks her, she nods.
"Did you use your powers around the flowers?"
"No, just cared for them, talked with them. I felt closer to the planet when I was amongst them. It always felt… so peaceful when I was tending to their needs."
"Your presence alone was what made them grow."
"But we're talking about the whole planet here." Cloud says. "She was responsible for a small portion of Midgar where the flowers grew."
"I don't know the details of the Cetra's powers. All I know, is before she came back, these were all empty vases of earth with seeds inside that were as good as dead." Rufus shakes his head.
"This is crazy." Cloud huffs.
"Just think about it." Rufus says. "It makes sense. As far as what you can do to accelerate the process of healing the planet, that is beyond my own comprehension. But at the rate these trees are growing so far, we won't live to see another year." Rufus sighs. "Riots will come up too, pillages will take place, it's only human it happens. People want to survive and soon life will become a fight for exactly that."
"Not all of us are like you." Cloud says ruthlessly. And he thinks about the people living in Edge, how all of them had came together, rising from the ravage of Midgar, to build a new city from zero. How could they turn on each other's, destroy the hope that had been slowly regained?
"No, not all of us are." The president of Shinra, if Shinra still exists, says. "But there will be people who will cause chaos. It's already happening."
"What do you mean? Where?" Cloud asks.
"Your church in Midgar." Rufus says. "Some people spread the rumor that the flowers there grow because of the earth underneath. They're trying to take it."
"No…" Aerith's voice fails into a faint whisper, her hands lift to clap over her mouth as she feels her heart twist and her stomach fill with foreboding dread about the news of her sacred place being raided and Cloud watches helplessly as her eyes widen in shock and her body starts trembling.
In his pocket, Cloud's PHS phone starts ringing, sealing what they had just been confronted with.
"Take Reno and Rude with you." Rufus says with urgent promptness, anticipating the reason the call is about. "They'll help."
Notes:
The first part of this chapter is a slightly silent one where I focused on their feelings and the pain in Cloud's heart. The second one, on the contrary, is a long talk with Rufus where he shows regret and tries to help save the planet informing Cloud of what he knows. I meant to update this chapter tomorrow (because I'm never happy with the final version and the extra day is always welcome, sometimes it's hard to be completely satisfied) but I have a busy day so I moved it a bit early, hope you don't mind.
Those of you who are still sticking around thank you very much for reading, hope you continue to do so.
Aerith adventure begins this chapter.
I was going to include the church scene here but it would turn out very long so next chapter it is. See you then!
AnriMia: thank you again for your kind kind reviews! :D hope you keep enjoying the story, you got everything right!! ;)