Cloud! You need to come ASAP!
He speeds up Fenrir along the hot asphalt of the road that leads to Midgar, blind with urgency, muscles tensing, hand gripping the throttle firmly. The roaring cry of the motorcycle crawls deafeningly across the canyon walls. Yuffie's call had triggered in him a primal flight reaction, a flood of adrenaline that shot through him like a drug and made him feel completely alert.
People are turning crazy! They're taking Aerith's flowers! All of them!
He feels Aerith's body holding him from the back, her arms gripping him tightly around his waist.
She wasn't supposed to be dealing with this and he's supposed to make her feel safe. So far all she has seen is trouble and pain since she's been back. It's not right, it can't be right.
I've called Tifa, she's heading this way with Barret. I'm here with Cid and that Turk Tseng. But we can't hold them much longer.
With his blood rushing furiously through his veins, feeding off the mako running in it, he pushes Fenrir further, faster. Time is running out, in every sense of the meaning.
Please hurry!
When they arrive at Midgar, the rubbles force them to walk the distance to the church by foot, Fenrir can't pass through all of the wreckage. Aerith sprints ahead breathlessly, Cloud barely has time to shut the engine off to follow her.
She pushes away weather-worn concrete blocks with her bare hands, mustering all the strength she didn't know she had, scratching fingertips, scrapping knees, she jumps over uneven floors of stone pieces and scrap metals cracked by the impact of the meteor, her eyes set on the half standing walls of the church. It had lost most of its roof, the entrance archway and a side wall are the only erect foundations.
It stands hauntingly broken, its sculpted archway stained by ash, gashed by downfall. But it stands, harboring the roots of its existence, her flowers, where the fading memories of the beginning of her quest to save the planet linger. Where she met Zack, where Cloud found her for the second time and he became her bodyguard, became so much more. The place of her revival. There's too much history, the flowers have seen too much and kept too much.
She shouldn't have left the church so long without care, the guilt grows in her chest with each step she takes.
How could she have been so reckless about it?
"Have y'all gone crazy?" She hears Barret's alarmed voice projecting over a chorus of other voices. As Aerith approaches, the first person she recognizes is Yuffie, her small figure standing tall on top of a fallen pew, defying the small crowd of people whose backs were turned against the church's entrance.
A flash of black comes into vision, close to Yuffie, and as she turns towards it, she focuses her gaze on Tseng, in his usual dark suit. He glances at her, but his expression, or his lack of one, remains the same as he turns back towards the people in front of the flower bed, calmingly standing in their way.
Then, looking past the crowd, she gets a glimpse of pale yellow and white, limp and broken, laying around the floor at their feet.
Too late.
A shuddering gasp escapes her lips followed by a lump forming in her throat with the flower bed coming into view, dug and torn apart carpeted with dead curled leaves scattered all around its broken floor.
As she walks towards the flowers, with tears blurring the shine of her jade eyes, the intruding people slowly become aware of her presence. They turn gradually silent as they notice her walking amongst them and open up a soundless path so she can walk through.
She doesn't look at their faces, but feels their eyes on her, examining her, whispering words of both disbelief and inquisitiveness. Some of them know her from a life time ago in the slums, others are watching her for the first time. Some don't know of her death, the part that does, doesn't manifest. None of them realize the pain they had caused.
She reaches the flower bed, what's left of it, a few of the flowers resisted the intrusion but the rest of them didn't and what had been once a sacred place of sturdy resilient yellow lillies, is now a cemetery of dead clumps of grass, yellow, brown and dark sorrowful green.
She drops down on her knees, crumples forward, her hands twine with the stirred cold earth. Beneath her hands she feels its dull heartbeat, throbbing weakly, sparser, with each painful breath of frail life.
She doesn't notice the people carrying chunks of earth, she doesn't notice their hands filled with flowers plucked out against their will.
She doesn't even notice the tears.
She can't blame them for holding onto whatever hope they can find.
But it didn't have to be like this.
She would have given them all of the flowers if they asked, without tearing the place apart.
"Aerith…" Tifa's quivering voice calls, the Cetra feels her friend's hand on her shoulder, gentle and warm, a sunny beam of light gliding down the sky on a grey rainy day. "You should be ashamed of yourselves! All of you!" Tifa screams, her ruby eyes fill with angry tears as she straightens up against the crowd, frowning with resolute determination, refusing to accept what they had done. "You know her, she's your friend. How many times did you come to Aerith for a kind word? For a piece of advice or a comforting hand? This… how could you do this? What you did here… isn't going to save you!"
"Something has to." A faint voice rises from the crowd. For an instant, the tremble of its rhythm sounds remorseful.
"The flowers are the only things growing, so it must be this land!" Another voice exclaims more stubbornly. Tifa doesn't recognize them, they can't be the same people that helped build a different world. Her hands turn into shaking fists and she breathes in trying to maintain self-control. How did it come to this?
"I want a piece too!" Someone from the back shouts and inflames their purpose like setting a paper on fire, the crowd shifts, advances on the girls, Cloud moves ahead in response, ready to draw his sword for her, but before he gets to that, the roaring sound of a gunshot bounces across the church's walls, underlined by shocked screams and scared gasps. It's a crude reaction, but it makes the mass of people freeze to a halt.
Riffles of dust cascade down the walls as the thundering sound reverberates into the air in waves that quake the sudden silence of the voices. Some of the people, the satisfied part, melt away carrying in their hands pieces of the flower bed with them. Others linger.
"Enough!" Reno growls loudly from the back of the church, his voice is sufficient to scatter more people around, his arm still rising up in the air, his hand holding the fired gun. "You've got what you wanted, now get the fuck out of here! Before I start aiming much lower."
The remaining people finally exit the church like a flock of scared sheep, the sound of their footsteps quiets down until all they can hear is the sigh of the wind promenading through the hollow gaps of stone.
Melancholy embers in each of their hearts as they watch Aerith's small frame kneeling on the remains of what had once been her beautiful flower bed. The earthy scent of moist dirt and dead leaves lingers in the air, carried by the air slipping through the open altar.
The memories run through her mind like a silent film as she recollects on the moments, good and bad, from the place so close to her heart.
Now there is nothing left of it.
"One date ought to do it." She remembers the look on Cloud's eyes as she teased him. Dumbfounded and disconnected, as if she was talking in a different language.
The flowers had seen it too.
When she used to hear them laugh, their faint whispers telling her it was a good day, that they were happy or sad in their simple heave of life, watching as the light bloomed their petals open, hearing them say they trusted Cloud…
Now she senses the ones still standing weeping faintly about the fallen ones. No voice, no whisper, no gleeful sway of their leaves under the light shafting through the whole on the roof. Everything is silent. Everything is toneless.
Cloud walks towards her quietly, drops down on one knee next to her and places a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"I'm sorry." He says earnestly. Him too, had the same memories of her on that flower bed. They had opened his conscious into understanding the mystery of Aerith's ancestry. More recently, when she was gone, the church had been his safe haven during his darker times, many nights had he crashed there to feel her presence and the flowers had been the only thing that could somehow ease his pain.
"It's okay." She forces a smile, wipes the tears off her face. "No matter, they'll grow again right? They're much more resilient than they look." She says cheerfully but her brittle smile isn't enough to keep her voice from failing. "I'm here, so they must be able to grow again right?" Her thoughts scramble inside her brain. Cloud watches with his heart in his hands as her fingers desperately graze along the fallen petals all around her. He leans in, cradles her in an embrace, taking her frantic hands in his steady hold.
"Aerith." Tseng calls, stopping at her side. Though she knows he's not one to show any kind of affection, she sees his hands tremble and she realizes he must be struggling to keep his emotions from spilling out.
He crouches down carefully next to her. His hand hovers brief seconds over her shoulder, but before it can land softly on her, his gaze flickers towards Cloud, determinately holding her in his arms.
Acknowledgement crosses the Turk's features that the florist is with the ex-soldier. For a split of a second, she notices disappointment in Tseng's dark eyes. His hand falls limply to his side as he averts his gaze towards the ground, his face masking back to his emotionless gaze. Aerith is not ignorant to know how much her return had shaken him up and though she has always considered him a friend, what he feels for her isn't important right now ."It's good to have you back." He says simply before standing back up.
"Damn that shit was intense." Cid interrupts, snapping his knuckles and glancing uneasily past the Turks in the back of the church. "Crazy sons of bitches, where did all of 'em come from all of a sudden? Have nothin' better to do than destroy what little beauty is left in this Ramuh-forsaken piece of shit world. No offense." He lifts a hand at Aerith.
"We did everything we could to stop them." Yuffie jumps off her pew, walks closer to Aerith. "We just weren't sure about using violence against them. We know some of them..." She glares at Reno in the back.
"It worked didn't it?" Reno's draggy voice resonates through the walls as he shrugs.
Yuffie rolls her eyes and then softens her gaze at Aerith again. "We'll get them back to what they were before." She collects some of the broken flowers, tries to make them stand but they end up falling listlessly back down. The young ninja princess smiles weakly.
"Thank you guys." Aerith says. She stands up, shakes the dust off her skirt and straightens up. "Can't really blame them can we?" She swallows, trying to gather her thoughts as best she could. With every breath she takes, the adrenaline racing in her body gives way to a sad tormenting emptiness. "Look around, it's death everywhere we look. Can't really… can't really blame them." Her voice catches, tears begin to uncontrollably roll down her face as her green eyes flicker around at each one of her friends who had gathered to protect her heritage, her connection with the planet.
The frail structure keeping her together falls.
Her knees waver weakly and she slumps down. Cloud catches her right before her knees hit the floor, pulls her up and holds her close against his chest. Her hands grip his shirt tightly as her shoulders shake under his arms.
"She's so weak." She says in between gasps for air. She can feel what seems to be the planet's last breaths, they gush through her like gentle flurries of a cold subtle breeze that bleeds through her veins. "It might be too late." She says feeling useless.
"If anyone can do it, it's you." Cloud says softy against her ear. His smooth gentle voice streams down to her heart, slowly rekindles the last glimmer of hope she has left in her.
Drawing strength from his words she looks up at him, the soft hues of blue in his eyes send her heart racing, stop the tears from falling. If he believes in her then she can't give up.
He takes the chance of her face rising to cup his fingers on her chin, nudging it softly up a bit, he gives her a small reassuring smile. "Whatever it is you need to do, we're right here."
"Goodness gracious, I know this is like, a tragic situation, but please get a freaking room." Yuffie slides her hands down her face, her eyes rolling up.
"I mean… right?" Tifa shrugs lightheartedly, her lips breaking at a gentle smile.
"We already have one." Aerith says in a weak voice, wiping the tears from her eyes while pulling slightly away from Cloud's embrace. She smiles at the girls, grateful at their attempt to lift up the mood and fill her heart back with warmth.
"Use it then." Yuffie says, a wide grin of satisfaction spreads across her lips as she proudly rejoices on making Aerith smile and Cloud blush.
"We should regroup back at Seventh Heaven." Barret suggests, clearing his throat. "I'm sure we have a lot to talk about."
Aerith casts one final look at the crumbled flower bed, sheltering in her hands some of the fallen blossoms she's taking with her. Cloud pauses to wait for her, his comforting hand lodges softly on her back while his eyes flit the direction hers are looking at and before they turn around they share a nostalgic glance with each other.
"Cloud." She stops abruptly on her feet and he turns around to face her. It's something she doesn't quite understand to the fullest, but knows it's important to say. "I'll fix it." She tells him assuringly, the green of her eyes glistens in full decidedness.
He nods. A small smile graces his features as she reaches for him to tuck a flower under his suspender. The gesture sparks in him a wistful anxious feeling of comfort that spontaneously sends his hand to wrap around her wrist as her fingers linger around the leather of the strap. Their hands intertwine as they resume their walk.
It must have looked petty to her friends. They know her connection with the flowers and why they were so important to her as a mean to listen to the planet. But still… they're just flowers to them. They're just flowers to the people who took them. They don't see them laugh or cry, hear them talk or sing. If anything, they think they're pretty and that's about it.
It came to her as she kneeled there amongst the broken petals.
Should they ever be separated again, the flower bed must be intact so they can meet again. She may not be sure about many things but of that she is certain.
She doesn't tell him though. No need to just yet.
As they leave, they don't notice the subtle glimmering torrent of green specs of light that swirl around the altar, floating in the gentle breeze.
They meet Vincent at Seventh Heaven. He had stayed behind to aid at the hospital, they were short on people who knew how to use materia and he volunteered to stay and help. It seemed like everyone was busy these days.
"I get we need to talk and all, the planet needs to be saved again, but I don't get why these guys are here!" Yuffie stretches her hands towards the three Turks, sitting down in one of the bar's tables. "Especially that asshole over there." She glares unmistakably at Reno.
"Hey shortie, show some respect to your superior materia hunter." Reno smirks while resting a foot over his knee, slacking back against his chair and placing his hands behind his back in an overconfidently posture that matches the bright flaming color of his hair.
"In your dreams turkey!" Yuffie growls. "Seriously, why are they here?"
"As much as I don't like the idea either…" Tifa says chewing worriedly on her lip. "We might need their help figuring things out about what we're going to do about this whole planet emergency."
"It's okay." Cloud reassures as he sits beside Aerith. "Our interests are the same, at least for now."
"What do we know so far?" Barret asks from his stool at the bar. With Marlene at school, he had the time to sit down with the group and discuss their next steps, it falls on him the reminiscence of the old times during Avalanche's gatherings. It tightens his chest. "Cos' I feel like I know nothin' 'bout what the hell is going on!"
"Well, we know the planet is slowly dying." Tifa says, eyes distant in thought. "It rains, sometimes, but nothing grows. The deserts are taking over the land, monsters are going berserk on people. Air is getting polluted. There's a kind of strange dust in the air already, that makes it hard to breathe."
"Whoa! That's worse than I thought! Thank you for that Shinra. 'Ppreciate the end of the world vibe. Again." Barret grunts towards the Turks.
"Hey, meteor sure as hell didn't help now did it?" Reno grunts back.
"Meteor was child play compared to the damage your President inflicted on her first." Barret fidgets on his seat, visibly itching over the Turks presence. "Can't believe we're still fighting for this shit." He mumbles to the side.
"Okay, no need for that now." Tifa shakes her head lifting her hands at the two. "We need to think forward, not back." Her burgundy eyes land on her Cetra friend. "I know it's been a pretty long day… but what did you guys learn from Rufus?"
"That Aerith is the one who can heal the planet back to life." Tseng says from his spot on the table, his eyes closed in contemplation, legs and arms crossed in his straight-back position.
"What?" Tifa's voice fades like the finishing notes of a sad melody.
"It's starting already." Tseng opens his dark-brown eyes to look at the fighter. "Nature is slowly moving under the ground. Trying to take over again since she's been back."
"That true?" Barret asks, his small eyes opening wide.
"We've seen a small amount of it." Aerith nods slowly. Her hands curl softly on her lap as she sits in a chair next to Cloud. "Rufus showed us." The waning life of the planet had left a clinging feeling of uneasiness in her chest ever since they left Rufus' office.
"Then, what, we wait for it to replenish? Is that all we have to do?" Yuffie asks, a glimmer of hope in her eyes that that could be all it took.
"Wish it was that simple." Tseng says, Rude shifts silently next to him on his chair. "We can't simply wait, it's not happening that fast. Three weeks into Aerith's return and so far it has barely shown."
"Then…" Vincent starts. "What are our chances?"
"Princess has to step up her powers' game." Reno says, his green eyes raking with presumption at the Cetra, Cloud's body stiffens uncomfortably next to Aerith.
Tseng stands up from his chair, walks towards Aerith's table, his haughty eyes lower on her.
"You know what to do?" He asks, though his voice is firm, he always attempts to smooth it down talking to her. It's imperceptible, but Aerith has always been able to recognize it.
She shakes her head meeting his gaze, her lips press into a thin line as a thousand thoughts run through her mind.
"Let us know as soon as you find out." The Turk says. "We'll search about it too. Shinra must have papers, documents, we can look around. Maybe we can find something out."
"Hah!" Cid snorts from the wall he's leaning one foot against. "That is if we assume we're going to trust your asses."
"You kinda have no choice there do you?" His voice is languid as Reno stands up to stretch. "Fix me a drink will you sweetie?" He tilts his chin at Tifa as he walks to the bar to rest an elbow over the counter.
"Making yourself a little too comfortable aren't you?" Tifa's face flushes a deep red as she leans against the counter, not really sure if she should waste one of their remaining bottles she's keeping on him.
"Ain't this a bar?" Reno grumbles mockingly, winks at the raven-haired behind the counter. His shoulders lift as he leans closer towards her.
"You staying?" Tseng asks his partner as he prepares to leave.
"Just for a while." Reno replies over his shoulder. Tseng nods and waves them a lazy hand as Rude joins him walking out of the bar.
Cloud eyes the obnoxious Turk in front of Tifa, staying behind like a leech. He still isn't certain they can trust them, everything is doubtful when it comes to the Turks and he can't ignore the anxious concern that always seeps inside him whenever they're present.
Another thing he becomes aware of is the sudden quietness taking over Aerith. He turns his attention at her by his side, her eyes gazing off sightlessly into the distance, her furrowed brow and darker shade of the once lively green of her eyes make him wince. It aches to see her so sullen and the helplessness of it all.
He misses the gleeful sound of her laughter, the small wrinkles at the corners of her eyes when she grins, the carefree warm blush of her cheeks… he misses what they were once and the promises he made her that he never got to keep and he misses her flirtatious nature whenever he'd cast a glance at her and she would take it as a hint to start a conversation… he misses… he misses her.
"You okay?" He asks and watches as his voice slightly startles her back into focus.
"Yes." She says and her smile brightens up just by looking at him.
The answer doesn't satisfy Cloud. "Anything I can do?" He asks, leaning slightly towards her so they share a quiet moment between them.
"You already do too much." Her smile remains, but so does the hollow sadness in her eyes. "I'm sorry I'm always worrying you."
"When things settle down a bit, let's do something fun." He says, it surprises her, the idea should fill her chest with joy, it does, but… she can't keep a nervous knot from forming in her stomach.
"Are you asking me on a date?" Her eyes light up as she pushes her restlessness away. A glimmer of mischief crosses her bright eyes, it brings him closer to that awkward feeling he always experienced when she used to banter him.
"Yeah…" He says, she sees pink flowering his gentle freckles.
"That would be nice." She says, and rests her head on his shoulder. Cloud closes his eyes leaning his head against the crown of hers. He wanted to be able to do this for a long time, comfort her, hold her, like he never could when he was too broken to console anyone. Nothing stopped him from being there now. A lot has been said that day, and a lot has been destroyed and lost. She needs the rest and he sure will abide.
They remain like that for a while, silently hearing Reno and Barret arguing over the Turk wasting good alcohol unnecessarily.
Somehow the plain loud bustle between the two rivals sounds comfortingly common to them.
Someday soon… the triviality of serving a Turk a drink would be the most of their worries.
He'd make sure of that.
Cloud finds her by the porch of the bar when the sunlight coats the hills with a thin layer of orange golden powder. It had became a habit of hers, watching the sun going down everyday and he wonders if it is related to her missing it when she was gone.
She was once afraid of the sky… but now she is just drawn to it. It reminds him of all the things he usually took for granted.
He sits next to her, quietly takes a moment to settle his gaze on her delicate features soaking in the evening glow of sundown.
He always finds something new when he looks at her. A different light, a different expression, a small dimple or tiny mark. It makes his heart speed up at the same time his tongue freezes on the words that almost get their way out. He finds it both odd and surprising how much he wants to say, how little he's able to. It feels they never get the chance to be themselves, there's always something in the way.
"You're staring." She says softly, smiling.
"Can't help it." He chuckles lightly.
The peaceful moment is suddenly interrupted by a sharp crashing-glass sound coming from inside the bar, followed by Reno's growls and Yuffie's high-pitched yells.
Aerith giggles. "Seriously I'm with Yuffie, what is he still doing here?"
"I guess not even he wants to go back to his boss." Cloud shrugs.
The fading accents of her laughter ensue a tranquility that end of day. "Hey Cloud…" she calls. As she stares into the streets, she notices a small languid flame flickering in the distance against the dimness of dusk. "I think I know what to do… to bring back life to the planet."
The small oscillating flame nears in, slowly and silently closer to the bar, the waning light of a streetlamp gently casts down on the lustrous crimson color of the swaying body carrying it in the shadows.
"You do?" Cloud doesn't notice him approaching as he looks curiously at Aerith.
"I couldn't just say it right there and then in the Turks' presence… not when we don't know if we can trust them right?" She smiles as she sees the softening features of their tiger-like friend.
Cloud averts his gaze to the scattering sound of the swift footsteps he hears getting closer. Blue-eyes widen in surprise that Red is back.
"It's Holy." She says quietly.
Notes:
Hi! I feel bad for the flowers, I guess, people in the situation they're in, watching everything dying around them but the flowers, would react that way. They don't realize what they're doing as their desperation grows thicker, blinding them. But their behavior has a purpose later on.
Don't worry, it will all be okay in the end… or will it?
Anyway, Red is back, this last quiet scene was supposed to be for next chapter but hey, it's Holy.
Ah, anyone else has a thing for Reno?
Thank you for reading everyone, thank you.