AUTHORS NOTE: *passes out* ok ok - this chapter is abit longer than my last ones! Quite ABIT longer.. but it couldn't be helped! This is *THE* chapter.. where Cloud meets.. oh! Shhh! read it yourself! ^______^ From now on all chapters will be Cloud AND Aerith (until they're in different places again, that is). So that's another 60 chappys to look forward to! heehee! Just to answer afew questions and stuff i'm been asked on msn (kisakiayena@hotmail.com if you wanna add me and chat! or mail me!):
Yes, there'll be new summons, new materia, new monsters, new weapons, new items and heaps more that aren't in the ff7 game (like 'Flood' materia! Didja like dat? :D) as well as all the old ones! Yay! ^.^
Uh-huh! REALLY 60-70 chappys in this story!! LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG! ^.^
Yepsies, I am gunna put all my ficcies on a site (I'v written more than just this one!!) along with my aerith/cloud, dark cloud & KH drawings and my original manga 'Haru Hana' *lets out a breath*
I usually type chappys pretty quickly, but it really depends on stuff like writers block.. ick! on average i like doing about 2 a week! ^.^ v
There, done! Oh! and thanks to everyone who reviewed! You're all gems! Only 8 gems but.. I WANT MORE! GIMMEGIMMEGIMME! heehee! please please R & R.. I'm on my knees begging! ^.^
Enjoy this chappy as much as I enjoyed typing it! Seeya next time! Ciao! ^.^ v

Angel Reborn
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CHAPTER SEVEN

CLOUD
in
"Flower in the Forest"

ahista no imagoro niwa, watashi wa kitto naiteru.. anata wo omotterun darou.. *

~Costa Del Sol area - setting out for Midgar~
•°•
The sun shone brightly in through the curtained window of Clouds luxury Villa, situated on the outskirts of Costa Del Sol - eventually rousing him from a fitfal sleep rought with memories of Aerith that seemed to flourish in his subconcious. As usual he had a huge hangover and reeked of beer and stale cigarette smoke from the previous nights events, but just like every other morning he managed to crawl out of his bed after afew minutes of grumbling over the thumping headache he'd aquired and trudge half-heartedly to a welcoming shower. Where it not for Aeriths constant memory and Clouds insistant hunger, he'd not bother to get out of bed in the mornings at all.

After having completed the mornings daily ritual of fully waking up, dressing into a fresh change of clothes and throwing the soiled pair onto the ever-growing heap by the washing machine, he was summoned by a loud knocking at the door.

Sure enough, it was Tifa - dragging behind her a pajama-clad and still very groggy Yuffie who was still clutching a pillow and trying desperately to sleep as she was being pulled along.

'Good morning Cloud! You ready for our big exciting adventure?' Tifa chuckled, flashing him a bright smile and jostling past him, into the villa.

'Pretty much..' Cloud sighed and scratched the back of his neck nervously. Confused, embarrassed, nervous - these where the only times he ever indulged in his cute habit. 'But Yuffie looks.. asleep.' The teenage ninja had managed to somehow drift over to the comfort of Clouds couch and now lay there - finally contented in having found a resting place and snoring quietly. Tifa smiled.

'No problem - watch this!' Stepping a little closer to where Yuffie slept, she raised her voice slightly 'What's that? a MATERIA sale you say?? all MATERIA prices slashed to half-price???'

That did it. All thoughts of sleep and the lack of it where thrown out the window - as well one very soft and downy duck-print pillow, which landed in Clouds seldom used and algae-ridden backdoor swimming pool.

'MATERIA?? HALF-PRICE??? WHERE???' Yuffie was staring at Tifa wide eyed, even jumping around afew times with excitement at the announcement of such a fantastic offer.

'Well if you think THAT'S amazing.. I know where there's bound to be FREE materia, maybe even loads of it!' Tifa continued, beginning to enjoy the joke. Yuffie was snagged - hook, line and sinker - at that moment the villa could have fallen down around her and she wouldn't have even flinched.

'Where??'

'At Midgar of course! So get dressed and we can go!' With that Tifa grabbed one of the ninjas wrists and proceeded to drag her out the front door, calling back to Cloud over the noise of Yuffies outraged protests, 'Meet you by the Highwind in five!'

Shaking his head slightly at Tifas sneaky tactics, Cloud took some aspirin and sat down at the corner of the couch - adjusting his armor, items pouch and materia before strapping Ultima Weapon to his back and locking the house as he set out.

It was still quite early in the morning, something that was all too evident in the serenity cloaking the usually bustling resort town.

'Even the birds are still asleep,' Cloud muttered to himself as he strode to where the enormous airship was ancored, just outside of Costa Del Sol, and yawned sleepily. Suprisingly, the hangover that Cloud was sure would add on to the already nerve-wracking events of the day, had already began to fade considerably - leaving Cloud feeling that maybe for some absurd and way out reason.. the trip to Midgar wouldn't be at all like he expected it to be. 'If Aerith were here.. it would be a perfect outing,' he thought sadly to himself, 'naturally. If Aerith were here I wouldn't be such a sad case.. .' Deep sigh.

Cid welcomed Cloud to the highwind with a friendly nod. 'Ya ready Boy-o? Lets get this show under way!' Lighting a cigerette, Cid climbed the ladder up to the deck - shortly followed by Cloud.

As the airship slowly descended into the radiant morning sky, Yuffie, Tifa, Cloud and Cid all gathered on the bridge and stared out in the direction they were flying.

'It'll be weird to see Midgar all.. flattened.' Tifa sighed, a tad saddened. Cloud had to agree with that, as well as all the memories it held - Midgar had been home to many, some having never seen the world outside of the reinforced steel fences. The toll for right of passage out of Midgar and in had been rediculously high, meaning that the few gil residence of the slums could scrape together made little difference in allowing them freedom and the chance to see the world.

Aerith had been one of those people - until Cloud had fallen down into her life, literally. It still touched the handsome mercinarys heart the very same way as it had when he'd bought a flower from her, back in the early days of avalanche - how such a delicate woman could survive in the run-down and infested slums, careing only about bringing some happiness into the lives of others around her, be it simply with a petit blossom.

'Oohhhhhhhh.. how much longer is this gunna take?' Yuffie's voice, laden with sickly discomfort, snapped Clouds mind back to the present and he viewed her pale complexion with understanding sympathy. She was facing Cid and gripping his sleeve tightly, almost pleading for the answer.

'A little while yet, why don't you head on up to the deck and get some fresh air?' Yuffie nodded at the suggestion and slank towards the door, moaning all the while and shaking slightly. 'Poor kid.. .'

Feeling the need for some fresh-air himself, Cloud soon followed suit behind the air-sick ninja.

Once up on deck, Yuffie wasted no time in emptying the contents of her stomache over the side of the railing before slumping down heavily against it. 'When exactly did you get over your travel-sickness?' She asked in hope. Cloud sighed and turned to Yuffie with a smile.

'If I remember correctly.. it was in my second year of being a Shin-Ra gaurd. I guess after a while of bumping along pot-holed grassland roads I just sort of got used to it - began to forget about even getting sick!' Cloud absently stroked the tuft of hair on his chin, staring off into the distance. 'I wouldn't worry about it too much, just hurl to your hearts content until your body gets used to the motion of the transport in question.'

'Well it had better be soon..' Yuffie grumbled quietly, accepting the pat of empathy Cloud placed on her shoulder.

The conversation was cut short when the blonde mercinary heard a loud cry from the bridge.

'CAPTAIN! EMERGENCY!!'

Frowning slightly, Cloud began to make his way back down to where Cid and Tifa were, wondering what could have caused this serious need for alarm.

Everything else happened so quickly.

One of the Highwinds turbines began to make a strange whirring sound - much like that of metal scraping heavily against metal. Long trails of grey smoke soon followed, billowing forth from the left-hand motor and threaded with the orange-red glow of sparks as they shot past on the fast-moving air currents. The airship pitched violently from side to side after this, imbalanced out of lack of thrust from the destroyed turbine. On the upper deck, Cloud was thrown off his feet and tossed like a ragdoll against the hard metal railing, crying out with the pain that bit into his body on impact.

Not allowing himself to give in from the agony the assult had caused, he gritted his teeth and crawled over to where Yuffie was shreiking in terror up against the supporting bars - her knuckles white as ivory as she clung on for dear life.

'HEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP!'

Moments after having reached her, Tifa and Cid scrambled up onto the deck, rushing over to pull their injured friends to their feet.

'CLOUD! ONE OF THE MOTORS BLEW - WE'RE GOING TO HAVE TO CRASH LAND THE HIGHWIND!' Cid shouted above the noise around them. 'TAKE CARE OF THE GIRLS, I HAVE TO GO BACK DOWN!' Cloud nodded grimly and watched as Cid slipped out of view, leaving him to sheild the two girls from the onslaught of smoke and sparks that showered around them.

'CLOUD.. I-I'M SCARED!!' Tifa whimpered, pressing herself closer into his arms as tears began to stream down her face.

'IT'LL BE OKAY TIFF!' Cloud assured her, patting her on the back comfortingly. 'WE'LL BE FINE!'

'I'M TOO YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL TO DIE!' Yuffie voiced alongside them, stomping a foot in annoyance as she gripped onto Cloud aswell. 'I'V STILL GOT TO GET YOU GUYS TO SIGN MY MATERIA CONTRACT!!!!'

The ground was steadily rising up to meet them as they clung together, finally touching the Highwinds underbelly with a sickening metallic rip.

Tifa, Yuffie and Cloud were thrown halfway across the deck. Luckily for the two girls, Cloud cushioned their fall somewhat when they landed, bearing the brunt of the jarring impact.

Cid appeared soon afterwards, ushering them down the metal ladder and out onto the grassland some meters away.

As Yuffie began to heal all the wounds they'de sustained, he looked back over to his damaged airship and frowned, cursing silently.

'Damn crew haven't been doin' their job right!' Lighting another cigerette he contemplated the extent of the damages, his face a mask of darkness as he strolled around inspecting this and that.

Tifa sighed, seeing her plans of visiting Midgar slowly fade to non-existance. 'So much for *that*!'

Cloud - who had recovered somewhat by this time - got to his feet from where he sat near Yuffie and reached into his item pouch, producing a small globe of materia and presenting it to Tifa.

For a moment she remained unresponsive, simply staring at the glowing pink sphere with a thoughtful expression, but than a delighted smile broke out on her face and she lept up quickly. 'Chocobo Lure! Of course!!'

Catching the large yellow birds was no real trouble now that the majority of monsters had been cleared off the face of the earth, thanks to Holy. So after finding a set of tell-tale clawprints at the edge of a cluster of tall grass, Tifa clicked the bright materia into an empty slot and wandered into the dense shrubbery, returning a short time later with two perky chocobos trailing behind her.

After feeding them a small bunch of Memett greens each, Yuffie ran over to get Cid so they could be on their way, only to come back announcing that he was going to stay and work on the damaged airship instead.

So Tifa and Yuffie mounted one of the chocobos, and Cloud the other - setting off at a steady gait towards the ruined city.

The ride to Midgar was quite long from where the Highwind had crash-landed and the three friends let out a sigh of relief as the town of Kalm came into view. Kalm was a small community that boardered where the capital of Gaia once stood.

Tifa and Yuffie were riding some way ahead of Cloud - both more eager to reach Midgar than he was - so they were the first to notice the extremely.. floral.. transformation.

'Oh my gosh!! What in the world?! ' Yuffie pulled the chocobo they rode to a halt and both girls gaped at the mass of trees and flowers that met their view up ahead, struck absolutely speechless by the sight.

Clouds first reaction was to blink several times quickly, unsure if what he was seeing was an illusion or not. 'Midgar?! ' Stopping alongside the other chocobo, he began to stare aswell. 'What.. happened to it?!'

After some minutes, Tifa broke out of the silence they'de all become accustomed to and turned to Cloud slowly. 'Lets go and check it out..' she whispered - still too shocked to adopt a normal tone of voice.

'Right.' He agreed, nodding and nudging his chocobo into a quick trot.

Drawing closer to the forest Midgar had become, Yuffie exclaimed 'It must have taken a helluva lot of gardeners to plant all those trees!'

'Look! Yinberries!.. and over there - Ripplefruit!!' Tifas eyes glittered as she pointed them all out with joy. 'This new Midgar is delicious!,' she giggled.

As the three friends dismounted at last, Cloud left Yuffie and Tifa to snack off the fruit-laden trees and decided to explore a little.

On the one side Cloud thought that Midgar looked alot better as it was now.. even though he had no idea how it had gotten that way! ..On the other side his heart was aching with the thought that all Aerith's memories had been buried along with it. Although he'd originally felt like Midgar was the last place he'd want to come back to because of the feelings it would cause in him, more recently Cloud had decided that revisiting might sooth the pain he felt inside.. knowing he was closer to memories of the past. Overall he just felt sick in the stomache.. sick and just a little bit curious.

After scrambling to the base of the covered ruins and using nearby branches to pull himself to the top, he paused for a moment, studying his surroundings carefully.

Cloud couldn't just dismiss this whole 'junk-to-jungle' thing as easily as Tifa and Yuffie did, so he began to walk around in search of some answers as to why it had all happened. 'Could it be the effects of Holy? or the Lifestream?' That seemed like the most probable explaination.. 'But than, why are the trees only growing on Midgar? why not on the grasslands beside it?' ..Puzzling.

It was after about five minutes of scrutinising that Cloud stepped out of a patch of dense foliage and into a small glade. Afew birds chirped on the whispering tree branches, but other than that there was complete peace. Many flowers grew here, alot more than anywhere else that he'd seen on the ruins so far. Cloud crouched down and studied them with a gentle smile. 'Aerith.. flowers always remind me of her.. remind me of how she used to walk around carrying that basket filled with them.. the way her eyes used to light up whenever she saw one.. and of the time when she tried to tuck them into my wig when I was dressed like a woman.. god I miss her.. .' A single lonely tear trickled down Clouds face and he slowly wiped it away, plucking a flower from it's stem and inhaling it's sweet fragrance while he reminiced over wonderful times.

It was as Cloud opened his eyes after a short period of remembering, that something caught his eye. It was the smallest movement in the corner of his vision - but enough to cause him to rise up and take a closer look.

Quietly pushing back some leaves that were obscuring his view, Cloud peeked out into another glade - one completely surrounded by a tall tree called Yuotsu (a tree with holy properties). The foliage from the tree formed a lose canopy over the glade, with shafts of sunlight filtering through it onto the soft grass below.

The thickest ray of light shone down apon a solitary praying figure, facing away from Cloud.

The figure of a delicate and beautiful woman..

Cloud froze.

'N-No..'

'It.. it CAN'T be.. it just.. can't!.. I'm dreaming!'

The flower he held in his hand dropped silently from his clasped fingers, floating down to land at his feet, forgotten.

His vision swirling crazily with a million sights - Cloud passed out cold.
•°•
©Erica Runge - 5th of February, 2003. All main characters, etc ©Squaresoft and FFVII. Songwords ©Utada Hikaru.
* [translation: 'at about this time tomorrow i'm sure i'll be crying.. and i'll probably be thinking of you..' - "First Love" ~ Utada Hikaru ^.^v ]