Homecoming - Chapter 1

Rated: T

Alleviate


Chapter Summary: After the long awaited reunion, Aerith takes Zack and Cloud home with her much to the behest of Elmyra.


Wow, it's almost a year to the day I completed Reunion and now I'm just finally posting the first chapter to its sequel. XD

You don't necessarily need to read Reunion before this but I recommend it. But if you'd rather not, basically, Zack survived his encounter in the wastes, returned back to Midgar with Cloud in tow, and finds Aerith in her church. After a tearful reunion, Aerith and Zack take up where they left off, both determined to help Cloud through his mako sickness and make up for all their lost time. Yadda, yadda, Zack Lives AU takes place lol.

BUT if you have read reunion, I am editing a continuity error in regards to this story. I'm pretending that Zack and Cloud made it to Aerith's church in the late afternoon/early evening rather than after midnight to do the time frame I wanted for this chapter, but other than that, everything else is the same.

I'm still not entirely sure where this story is going - I think it's going to be continuous but more like oneshots and snippets pressed together at some point. Chapters will vary drastically in length at some point and have more plot than others but they do connect and hopefully stay in order. I simply want Zack and Aerith making up for lost time they never got to have in OG. I may include Cloud and Tifa meeting up later on but we'll see how far this goes first.

One thing though, as of now I do not plan on getting heavily into FF7 with this timeline, I just want some fluff and angst and lots of love that these two precious babies deserve.

Well, enough word vomit, that is all. Enjoy.


"Here we are. I think these should fit him but I'm going to need to look for something in the attic for his friend. Poor boy is so thin so I'm sure one of your old pairs of pajamas would work," Elmyra's slightly frustrated tone was one Aerith had been all too familiar with from five years ago.

The slightly tense posture she'd accumulate whenever Zack had visited their home in the past was back; to Aerith, it made it easier to believe that this wasn't all just a lucid dream. It warmed Aerith's heart to realize that while her mother wasn't always Zack's biggest fan, she was at least accepting of his return and allowed him and Cloud to stay.

Sure, she hadn't been completely appeased by the five minute rushed explanation Zack gave, the ex-SOLDIER standing at parade attention at the front door (much to her giddiness), before Elmyra told him to shower and put his unconscious friend to bed in the guest room, but she accepted them inside their home regardless.

It wasn't perfect, but it was a start - baby steps would have to be enough.

All of it seemed so unreal still because merely an hour ago, Zack had been missing for five whole years and she had been questioning the possibility of him still even being alive when he came bursting through her church doors.

The reunion itself felt like a blur of emotions Aerith still had yet to process.

So many burning questions about his absence still bothered her but she forcefully pushed them to the back of her mind. Even the walk back to her house felt like it was happening outside of her body. Zack and herself quietly walking with Cloud's arm slung over both their shoulders, his steps clunky and slow while she ignored the blatant stares and questioning looks they garnered as they made their way through Sector 5.

Aerith focused on the path in front of them, one she walked countless times before, while she couldn't help but recall the brokenness in Zack's perfect blue eyes that wasn't there before. There was so much emotional baggage they both needed to unpack but that could wait. Now, all she wanted to do was take away that pain that was so embedded in his eyes; to hear him laugh and see that smile that was like the sun and have it warm her face again.

Yet the biggest part of it could still scarcely believe that this was reality.

That Zack was truly alive.

Five years of waiting and wondering and praying for him just to be alive. The fragile hope fading and her house of cards crumbling day by day. It had gotten to the point where she had almost lost all hope that she would ever see him again…and now, he was truly back…

Her long-lost SOLDIER had finally returned like he promised so many years ago…

Aerith tightly squeezed the skin of her forearm again just to feel that painful sensation in an effort to make sure she wasn't dreaming. The pinch was sudden and sharp with the blunt edge of her nail turning her skin white than red with the sting of pain that had Aerith breathing out a deep sigh of relief.

"Aerith…" Elmyra sudden voice broke her out of her reverie.

Aerith covered the red crescent moon with a trembling hand. "I-I'm sorry, what was that?"

Her adopted mother looked at her strangely but there was a somber warmth in her eyes that hadn't been there a few moments prior. Elmyra reached out a hand and Aerith remained still as the older woman gently brushed her cheek.

The familiar touch of those gentle fingers had Aerith finally feel the clinging wetness that she didn't realize was trickling in warm tracks from her eyes. The sudden realization that she was indeed crying was all it took for a explosive sob to rise in her throat; lower lip wobbling tumultuously even as she tried to control the abrupt and painfully sharp spike of grief that fell over her like an unexpected shower of cold rain.

Five whole years…

All the debilitating fear caused by years of haunting nightmares, visions of rain, cliffs, blood and bullets and the endless sky that took Zack away felt so real. Waking up only to face a possible future where she'd never see him again. Those years passing by and slowly but surely forgetting his handsome face, soothing voice and a blinding smile that put the sun to shame was finally over because Zack came back to her…

A choppy cry of emotion laced with grief, pain and the sweetest relief finally broke free from her lips - she'd never fallen apart in front of Elmyra until right now.

"...Oh my flower," her mother mused gently before wrapping her in a tight hug with the bundle of clothes for Zack resting between them.

A steadying breath had Aerith muttering out a broken, "I'm okay," the phrase automatic. A lie she'd perfected these last five years falling easily from her mouth even as her cheeks swam with tears and her throat grew tight with repressed sobs. But now those words were far more truthful than they'd ever been before…

Zack was here…he was finally home.

Heart near to bursting with the emotion of that internal statement, a sob was finally released from her mouth as Aerith buried her tear-stained face in her mother's comforting shoulder and cried and cried and cried.

Five years of holding every pain and doubt to herself while presenting the world with faked happiness, the dam finally broke wide open and Elmyra's arms were the only thing holding her together.

Elmyra didn't comment, merely wrapped her arms tighter around her trembling daughter. She'd stopped questioning a long time ago, knowing Aerith would never fully admit the anxiety and grief she lived with since Zack disappeared on his mission all those years ago. She merely got used to seeing all the fake smiles and broken grins while her adopted daughter's beautiful emerald eyes showcased nothing but agony, anxiety, and unshed tears.

The pain of those years was sadly all too familiar for Elmyra; her own husband's death still a dull ache beneath her ribs that never fully went away.

If she was honest with herself, it was the sole reason for her brushing aside and forced dislike of Zack. While he possessed a wonderfully kind soul, open smile and gentle heart and obviously cared for Aerith very much, he was SOLDIER. Military. Shinra... it was all the same. Whoever tethered themselves to one who was employed at such a profession, it always ended in heartbreak. So, when Zack left and never came back even years later, the look on Aerith's face slowly began matching her own in the mirror from her own years of waiting patiently for her husband to return home.

He never did…

All Shinra caused was agony, nothing but pain for those left behind and she never wanted Aerith (who was the only reason she survived her own grief over the loss of her husband) to experience it but she ended up falling for the First Class SOLDIER anyway.

Elmyra held her tongue for a long time. Her rare terse comments about moving on and even planting doubts in her daughter's mind about Zack's true whereabouts were only placed with the intentions that possible scenario would hopefully numb the pain. Because even Elmyra knew Zack would never do that to her daughter but yet she continued sowing doubt because even the idea of Aerith losing Zack to another woman would hurt much less than the truth of him most likely being dead and Shinra covering it up per usual…

All Elmyra wanted was to protect her...

For so long, she tried fruitlessly to convince Aerith to let Zack go; to accept he wasn't coming back from the mission and move on with her life and even perhaps to find someone new. Whether it was because of his death or he just found someone else to be with, it didn't matter, she just hated to see that profound emptiness in her daughter's eyes.

Yet even after five years, Aerith refused to let go.

Writing letters, selling flowers with a broken smile while still tying her fading and worn pink ribbon on the top of her braid every single day. Aerith clinging to her first (and only) love with an iron fist, her steadfast will was a testament to her unbreakable stubbornness and faith that Zack would return one day and when he did, she would still be waiting for him…

and Aerith was right…

It was an absolute shock to the system to see Aerith arrive with her long-lost boyfriend looking severely out of place in poor fitting clothes and a blonde friend who's eyes were open yet unseeing. The sheepish smile Zack flashed her as Aerith talked a mile-a-minute but it was Zack's eyes that hit Elmyra hardest.

Even as he gave a quick explanation with obvious holes in the story that edited horrific things Elmyra couldn't possibly begin to fathom, it was the look in his eyes that said it all. There was a pained broken spirit now inhabiting the once happy-go-lucky teenager her daughter introduced as her boyfriend all those years ago.

There was a story, a horrible one he had yet to fully tell, and Elmyra was scared.

The fear of him and his friend being on the run from the most powerful company on the planet was at the forefront of her mind, but seeing her daughter's hopeful face, Zack's forced smile and the blonde boy who's blank expression terrified her, Elmyra's walls she built crashed to the ground. Face still stern to hide the grief and guilt she felt, Elmyra let them in.

Despite her misgivings, Zackary returned; he'd come back for Aerith like he promised he would, and that would have to be enough for her.

While she wasn't crazy about Zack and Aerith's relationship in the past (mostly because of Zackary's previous womanizing ways), all it gave her now was guilt. It weighed heavily on her shoulders and eyes burning from unshed tears at the grief her daughter had been hoarding in her heart all this time. So, Elmyra pulled her adopted daughter closer to her chest and held on as tight as she could. All she could do move forward, be better toward the man her daughter chose to love and help them all heal. All she knew was that she refused to let Aerith hold all this grief alone anymore so she rubbed soothing hands over her daughter's back until Aerith finally got her shuddering breaths under control and ignored the cooling wetness of tears in the fabric on her shoulder.

After Aerith seemingly calmed, Elmyra pulled away slowly. A bit of sadness aching in her heart to watch Aerith scrubbing away tears from rosy cheeks with her hands that still contained soil under her short fingernails. Yet she didn't comment when Aerith finally looked at her with those doe-like green eyes, merely placed the bundle of clothes for Zackary in Aerith's trembling arms.

In that moment, there was so much she wanted to say her to daughter but the words that left were, "Alright. Enough dawdling, now go upstairs and give Zack those clothes and I'll be in the attic to find others that will hopefully fit his friend."

Aerith let out in the softest breath and gave her the most genuine smile. "...Thanks, mom," she whispered before she perked up and ran up the creaky wooden staircase with a spring in her step that Elmyra hadn't seen from Aerith in years.

It was the minutest smile, a spark that returned to Aerith's eyes that made the older woman who lost her husband to war so long ago, to finally smile as well.


FF7R DLC INTERGRADE SPOILER'S BELOW!

TURN BACK NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ THEM….

They all gone? Alright, here we go!

...OMG! Y'all….. It's been about a week since Yuffie DLC Intergrade dropped so everyone probably already seen the Zack cut-scene at the end and… I have no words. I truly thought it was a separate timeline that Zack survived his last stand…but no. They're in the same timeline somehow…at least I think/fervently hope so. I just realized this story won't follow the Remake canon at all now. XD But it's okay because I'm still gonna continue this. I have just been processing how all of this is gonna play out for FF7R part 2… I'm scared. Like, Zack is alive. As stoked and over the moon I am about that…like, what if it's just a setup for an even more tragic ending than Crisis Core (if that's even possible but SE will find one….)!?

Omg….I just don't know exactly how to feel about it. BUT can we talk about how absolutely ADORABLE Zack was in the final cutscene? How he was practicing what line to use when seeing Aerith again and just ends up running in there screaming "I'm BACK!" Like, fucking hell, how much cuter than this precious boi be!? Ugh but how his smile fell at the end killed me and his little broken "Aerith…?" LIKE NOOOO! T_T If anyone deserves a right to be happy, it's Zack and now Square is just tormenting him! T_T