It's nothing personal.
He's just done with this shit.
He doesn't know how long it's been since she has left, but it has been enough time for him to finish the construction of their house and for the seasons to change from a golden shade of red and orange to the melting of the silence caused by the shimmering white veil that had coated trees and hills and hearts…
He stands at the door, looking at its polished wooden surface that matches the ones of the windows. Cream-painted walls glistening under the sunlight, a brown pastel tiled roof made with scavenges he collected from the rubles of her house in Midgar and a small fence around the space where she would grow a garden.
"Lillies and daisies! Oh and tulips, the white ones, I'd love to have them all here!" His mind conjures up the memory of the plans she made while they were there, it seemed so long ago.
He breathes out in a huff and cleans the sweat off his forehead, the sun was beginning to warm. He hasn't entered the house yet, can't bring himself to alone. He'll wait for her, even if it takes years, even if he never gets to enter, he won't without her, it doesn't make sense.
He throws the shovel he's been holding for who knows how long to the ground. And locks his sword to his back, grazing his fingers along its materia slots making sure he had fitted them in correctly, can't trust his thoughts or actions lately.
He shrugs. Who cares, it's not as if he wouldn't do it without any materia, he only needs that one Yuffie had given him.
He walks away from the house into the beaten path that disappears behind bushes and trees, the plains are no longer deserts, now vegetation has grown around Edge almost as if it wants to engulf the town and swallow it into its dark green throat.
He hastens his steps, bringing his legs into a speed run, more eager, more furious, he jumps over fallen branches and foliage that prick and pull at his feet. The trees disappear into a blur of light and green shadow as he sprints.
He had been still for too long, numb for too long, but now he can feel his muscles adjusting to the type of exercise he has been forcing them to. He doesn't feel them burning, nor do they complain if he strains himself too hard.
Driven by impulse he casts the warping materia, and in the fraction of a second, he disappears into a space curving dark spiral that flashes before him.
Sword already in hand and directed downward, he hears the wind sipping through his hair, whooshing in his ears and furiously flapping his sleeve as he lets himself free-fall. He slices through the air towards the red dragon stirring under his feet. He's but a dark dot in the sky compared to the massive body of the monster.
He sees the void black eyes of the creature staring up at him, expectant of his attack. It opens its mouth and several rows of frowzy teeth come face to face with the blond. He watches as a blueish spark swirls deep into the creature's throat as it breathes in the fire spirt it wants to flush his way and when many would shake in absolute terror Cloud only smirks at the sight.
Shifting in the air to change the angle of his landing, out of the dragon's aim, he manages to come down to his feet gracefully onto the dragon's head. It immediately jerks it, the blazing fire gushes out of its jaws aimlessly and briefly as Cloud jumps off towards its torso. The dragon stands on its back feet, trying to shove its threat out of its back and Cloud glides down its neck onto the floor where he somersaults back to his feet.
The dragon follows his movement with a heavy turn of its head and a fast whip of its tail, but Cloud is faster, much more agile than the beast, though it may be stronger than him, it was huge.
Blue eyes blazing with mako don't take too long scanning the dragon as it already had positioned itself in front of Cloud to suck in air for a renewed assault of fire.
Cloud lets it form it this time and as the creature readies itself to blow the flaming breath at him, he hoists his sword to shield himself from the blazing flames.
Instead of running the other way, Cloud darts straight into the combustion. He feels its heavy pressure impacting his sword and he pushes forward towards its source, feet steady on the ground with knees bracing all of his strength as the force shackles him to the bone. He grits his teeth and growls as he defies the poundage of dragon's breath.
The fire burns against the metal of his sword setting it ablaze, the arm pushing its surface fizzles as it boils under it. It's agonizing but he's been through worse, he can barely feel that. Sweat creeps down his temples, the heat starts eating at his clothes, it licks his skin as he endures the blazing shower.
Stop it! Just stop that! Her voice reverberates through him like opium diffusing into his bloodstream.
His eyes widen, he casts warp.
And he crashes down on his back onto the flower bed, rejoicing on the spell of her voice flowing inside him.
With fuming spread arms and legs, he looks up at the broken ceiling above him, the sword fallen by his side. His chest heaves heavily as he let's out a hollow laugh.
Repeat.
He spends his days in a continuous loop of staring endlessly at their house - never going inside. Pulling up a fight with a monster to hear her voice. Crashing down on the flower bed where he remains until the sun is but a spectrum of golden light in the sky.
Got to sleep.
Wake up alone.
Do it all over again.
He knows it's pathetic, but he does it all just to hear that little remnant of her voice he can't even confirm it's really her or his sick mind playing tricks on him.
Still… it's better to hear it, as brief as it may be, than having nothing but silence.
He finds her in his dream that night, hands clasped behind her back, looking up at the night sky, watching a thread of Lifestream glimmering across the stars, swirling gently into the darkness of space. She turns to look at him, ever smiling. He tries to reach her, he never can.
He opens his eyes as the sound of an insistent knock on his door steers him awake. He puts on a blue shirt and some pants he finds laying around and reaches for the door, eyes squinting with the clarity of the day as it spills onto his face.
"What?" He grunts.
He hears a bitter sneer before his blue eyes finally focus on Tifa. "Guess he's alive." She says, hands on her hips, head shaking reprovingly.
"Looking good there champ." Reno's sarcastic voice rings annoyingly in his ears.
"The fuck's he doing here?" Cloud asks scornfully.
"Cloud, come on." Tifa ignores him. "What are you doing?"
"Need something?" He sighs impatiently kneading at his temple.
"I need you to get it together!" She snaps, he can feel the irritation rising in her voice and he should… but he doesn't care. "We barely see you if I don't come here to check on you. Do you intend to spend the rest of your life like this?" Now where has he seen this very same scene before? She peers above his shoulder into the dark of his room and he closes the door a little so she can't. She averts her ruby eyes to him, stares him up and down a moment as the words build in her lips. "You look like hell."
"No shit." He huffs. It's nothing personal, he's just done with it all. Their constant worries and questions, the constant ache of his chest, not knowing, not acting, the constant nothing. He's fine, he's just… sick of it. "Would you get off my back please?" He says. "I'm asking nicely, let me deal with it my way."
"Your way… you'll kill yourself like that!" She says and he clicks his tongue in disdain.
"Don't worry about me." He replies bluntly, his gaze drawing down to the floor.
"If she saw you like this…" Tifa's voice comes out barely in a whisper.
His blood rushes, his gut sparks. "What, what would she do?" He defies. His eyes dart back up, ice cold. He'd love to hear it.
"She'd slap you awake! That's what she'd do."
"Yeah… If she was here to see me like this, I wouldn't be like this." He says in a broken, almost strangled voice. "Leave me alone." And he shuts the door close.
He sighs deeply as he leans his back against the door hearing their footsteps drifting away. He runs his hands through his hair and his eyes fall on the flower pot she had left on top of their table and that he hasn't touched since then. Forgotten but it's not empty. It's filled with three dry flowers that limp down dead along the clay pot, their brown petals grazing the surface of the table, withered and ridged by time. Just like him.
"A little yellow color, to brighten your days!" She smiles warmly and he feels his eyes burn at the memory. It's all he has now, memories of her.
"Yeah…"
He drags himself towards the bathroom, turns on the water tap in auto-pilot and splashes his face with cold water, running his hands down his face. Taking a look in the mirror he almost doesn't recognize who he finds.
Dark circles tug his eyes down, his far too pale skin has lost its healthy glow and a bunch of freshly healed scars from the fights had drawn disordered white trails across his arms, glazed over with the smudge of burnt skin from his last encounter with the dragon, he didn't even bother to heal and only then realizes it still aches. Looking closely, he's almost specter instead of man.
If she saw you like this…
He shuts his eyes close as his hands curl around the sink, knuckles turning white out of blood as he grips it.
She wants to cry, let the tears fall, but she can't. She's already broken, dried out of them, shattered by the exhaustion of the hurt within her heart. She screams his name…
…the empty silence bounces back stabbing at her chest.
Zack came to meet her but he no longer is Zack. His soul has already merged into the Lifestream flow, now he's just a current of light in the dark.
"I'm proud of you both." His voice is calm and warm and she feels his wide smile even though she can't see it anymore.
"Thank you for everything." She tells him and his love floods all around her while he lingers.
She knows that while she had been sent back he had been present, guiding them, helping them on their mission and only when she summoned Holy for the second time he was able to become one with the Planet. And that's when she stopped sensing his spirit flowing through her veins.
Her mother Ilfana came to her too, brought her soothing words. It helped for a while, she had missed her, but her mother didn't fill the empty hole inside her heart, nothing could, and she didn't have the answers Aerith so desperately wanted to hear.
Time flows differently in the Lifestream, hours are days, days are months, which is all the more painful. Life in the living moves faster, everything ages faster while she's just in suspension, invisible and empty.
She doesn't know how long it's been… but after battling against her fate with all that she had, all she came to realize is he can't be without her anymore.
"Please… let me go back. He's hurting."
You were there on borrowed time. The voice vibrates low and gently from the depths of the cosmic world she sails endlessly.
"You can't expect me to believe you're incapable of keeping me alive."
You are a Cetra before you are human.
"Then I don't want to be a Cetra anymore."
You are a child of the Planet… if you refuse your heritage, you will not be allowed into the Promised Land.
"He's my Promised Land."
Is he more important than your blood?
"He is…. He fought for you, for life. They took everything from him."
…..
"Please… let me be with him."
……
"Please, there has to be a way."
……
"Please."
…..
And after a long moment that to Aerith passes like an eternity of waiting, she's taken to stand before her physical body. She sees herself drifting along the surface of a silver lake, wavering ripples of water draw larger circles around her as she floats, asleep. She reaches for her hands, clasped together on her stomach and her skin feels so cold she draws back her hand.
You were chosen by Holy. If you crave for the living world a choice must be taken, like many before you did. Your body has been preserved should a new threat come upon the Planet you would be awaken again to fight it, so there is still hope.
But if you want to live amongst the humans as one, a sacrifice must be made. When you die, your soul will become one with the Lifestream like the one of a human.
Aerith feels her world shatter beneath her. All her life, since her childhood, she has heard about the Cetra, the ancestry that she carried within her. Men wanted to know her secrets, her mother's secrets and she never was able to understand them herself nor the interest it caused in those men in the labs. She knew nothing about her ancestry, about the mysteries of the heritage that runs in her blood. But she has always known her spiritual connection with the Planet was special, even though it had caused her so much pain.
To her, the choice is simple, easy to make. She should put the Planet first, love Her more than anything else, she should be the Cetra the Planet needs her to be. For everyone's sake.
But she isn't.
Your answer?
Spring bears witness to a time of renewal, the grass grows longer drinking on the morning dew that glitters with encapsulated sunlight, animals shed their winter coats and the flowers bloom their lively hidden colors.
It is a season of awakenings.
Aerith slowly opens her eyes to a golden-rose dusk sky shimmering beyond the holes on the ceiling. Her body feels heavy as she sits up on her flower bed. She lifts her hands to look at them with curious piercing attention. She feels real, her skin is pored and opaque and warm despite the cold soil under her.
She hears the noises of nature becoming clear in her ears, the wind sighing, branches creaking, leaves skittering, the flapping wings of birds finding shelter for the night, small animals moving in the low bushes; never more aware of the world breathing in and out.
But the constant starling of the Lifestream that she used to incessantly feel streaming along her blood like the gentle seeping of a brook that muffled everything else, isn't there anymore. All is quiet under her and within her. She questions if she has lost her ability to hear the Planet, but that is something she can find out about later.
She looks around the empty church. It's quiet, silent, deserted. Green vines had snaked up the stone walls and around its pillars, it looks like a structure made entirely of plant life.
She runs a hand over the flowers, grazing delicate fingertips on their velvety golden petals, they had remained the same as if time hadn't penetrated into that small patch of earth.
Lovers used to give these when they were reunited…
A sudden whizzing noise disrupts the air next to the place she's sitting on amongst the flowers and she flickers her gaze up towards the sound just in time to see him falling from above onto the flower bed as if he had just crashed through the roof; which would be an impossible thing to happen, wouldn't it? Petals of lillies waft all around them with the impact of his body on the ground. Emerald green eyes widen both in surprise and in utter amazement. Her heart starts pounding in her ears, her mind races and hot tears sting her eyes as she stares at him.
Blue eyes the color of the sky, brightly and widely look up into the ceiling. A smile shines on his lips though he looks like he had just been ran over by a truck — dust smudges his cheeks and scratched elbows bruise his tense arms. He rolls over struggling to sit up — clearly hurt in his stomach as well.
His eyes… his blue eyes she loves so much finally shift her way and their gazes meet.
And once he takes her in, realizing he's not imagining her, he smiles…
And she smiles back…
"Took you long enough." He says in a gentle smile that so rarely brightens his face.
"You know me." She sing-songs.
And he also knows the answer even though he asks…
"Forever?"
"Forever."
The touch of his hand blooms over her palms, warm and longingly, they are finally reunited, connected by the Planet pulsing beneath them. A bond that shall never be broken.
Inside Cloud's room, beside a pot with three sunshine-yellow lillies, stands a small materia orb that glows a pale green light. It never did much, the time it stayed in place close to the pink ribbon of the last Cetra to have carried it. But it witnessed the growth of a love capable of transcending worlds and time. The burdens it carried, the obstacles it overcame.
It never did much… but what it did brought hope into a broken world whose faith resided in its last Cetra who never questioned the actions of both the Planet and the humans living in it.
In the end, a second chance has been conceded, because Holy stands for everything that's sacred in the Planet. And what could be more sacred than those who protect the fragile whisper that is life?
Cloud wraps his hand around the small one of the boy's. Bright blue eyes, filled with endless curiosity and chestnut-brown locks of flurry hair, much less spiked than the ones of his father's. They walk up the hill to its top and find her there already staring at the city of Edge spreading across the plains as far as the eye can see.
It's a beautiful day, one of those when not a single cloud can be spotted in the vastness of the blue sky. Her pink dress flutters in the sunlight and grazes over the grass under her feet. She turns to look at them and as the wind dances around her hair, she gently tucks a strand behind her ear.
She welcomes them into her arms, Cloud rests a hand upon her waist and pulls her near while the boy eagerly wraps his arms around her legs.
Her gentle smile never leaves her face as Cloud kisses her forehead. Everything he holds dear is right there.
The world is peaceful, no more threats, no more bleeding, no more distance pressing upon them.
There's only life and continuity.
Notes:
I almost pulled a RomeoJuliet kind of ending there haha it crossed my mind, what a turn it would have taken, but I thought better lol
I feel I should say a few things about the ending though. I've read somewhere that the humans in Gaia were Cetra that settled down into a specific place and lost their nomad characteristics. (Please do correct me if I'm wrong) so I kinda went for that with Aerith's choice to become human instead of Cetra so she could live her life beside Cloud freely as one. I'd like to believe the Planet conceded her her wish but didn't really take all of her powers away so she will always have that connection with the Planet but the immortality of her soul is gone, which is a good thing since she can be together with Cloud even after they're gone into the Lifestream.
Differently to the beginning where Cloud is just grieving, here he is angry. At the Planet, at their fate and the helplessness of it all. And I wanted to end the story where we started, at the church with them meeting again.
Well, hope you guys liked the ending and the story. And I'll see you around!
Thank you those of you who read and commented and followed and stuck around overall, it means a lot!
AnriMia: I hope I didn't disappoint you!! Hope you liked the story!! I'll see you around :D thank you so much for your support!!
Koskaoru: I'll send you a private message too, but thank you so much for all of your reviews!!! :) I hope you liked the ending!!!