Chapter 5: Under the Starry Sky

As night went and morning drew, Cloud dressed and went to Tifa's house. By that time, dawn had struck and Tifa had just gotten down to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.
"Hey Tifa. Where's Aeris?", said Cloud as he entered her house.
"Good morning to you, too." Tifa responded. "And she's still asleep. I guess being dead takes a lot out of you."
"Well they call it eternal rest so that's probably not it." A soft yawn was heard as Aeris descended the staircase, still in a somewhat revealing nightgown.
"Um, morning Aeris.", said Cloud, blushing furiously.
"Oh, right. Sorry. I'll change.", she said as she ran up the stairs. Cloud and Tifa were starting up the stove when Aeris came down and said, "Don't worry about breakfast. I'll do it."
"Are you sure Aeris?", asked Cloud.
"Yeah, I used to make great breakfasts back at home!" And in a flash she was working up the entire kitchen, moving here and there, while Cloud and Tifa watched in awe at the table. There were loads of pancakes, eggs, bacon, ham, some steaks for steak and eggs, sausages, toast, and English muffins. Cloud and Tifa stared at the feast that lay before their eyes. Just then, Vincent opened the door after being in the mansion all night. At first he looked and gaped at the food and then froze as soon as he saw Aeris.

"Holy hell! Since when did dead people do your breakfasts?!" Vincent shouted hysterically.
"Uh, hey Vincent.", said Aeris nervously. Vincent then walked over to her, quickly examined her, and then gave her a light pinch.
"Ow! What was that for?!", cries Aeris.
"Um, Vincent, if you sit down we can explain.", said Tifa. So they all sat down and ate while discussing what happened.
"Hmmph. So what do you think will happen when everyone else sees her?" Vincent asks.
The ringing of the PHS cut off Cloud's response. "Hello?", said Cloud.
"Hey Cloud. It's Cid. Apparently Shera is again, right.sigh.about the engine. I'll need as much help as I can get. So move yer' ass and bring Tifa and Vincent to help us out here."
"Um, Cid, I already have something important going on and it's a bit of a surprise-"
"Oh, right you're "kinda busy" with Tifa. Yuffie said you were kissing and-"
"No, not that kind of busy! Wait, Yuffie said something? Anyway, I'm not talking about that!"
"Don't worry, I won't say anything."
"No! Hear me out! I'm not talking about that! Look, I can't go there because I'm a little tied up, but Tifa and Vincent can go."
"Cloud, you shouldn't ditch people like that."
"Sigh. Let me straighten this out. I have to do breakfast dishes, therefore I'm tied up. Vincent and Tifa can go, because they're not doing anything. Got it?"
"Right, right, sure. Well you better get here eventually cause' if not, my spear goes straight up your ass!"
"Okay! Okay! See ya."
"Well," says Tifa, "you volunteered to do the dishes."
"But that was the cover for-"
"No, you clearly volunteered for the dishes.", interjects Aeris with a wide smile, playing along with the joke.
"You too?" he asks.
"I agree.", says Vincent.
"Come on! You can't be serious! I hate dishes!"
"Nope. Besides, we have to go.", says Tifa as she and Vincent leave the table to go see Cid.
"Don't worry. I'll help you.", says Aeris. Anyway, I think you might need to drop me off back at my house to check in with my mom. She might worry." She starts giggling. "If all those reactions from you guys are individual from seeing me, imagine what will happen when the rest sees me.
"It'll be absolute chaos.", says Tifa as she steps out the door. "If you're not at Cid's soon, we'll try and make an excuse. Just don't forget about Aeris."
"Okay, see ya' Tifa ." Cloud starts clearing up the table miserably as Aeris puts them in a stack next to the sink.
"So, all you're doing is dropping me off?", she asks.
"That's all you said for me to do.", replies Cloud.
"You're still my bodyguard."
"You already paid me."
"How about another date?"
"You always say that."
"I don't hear you complaining."
"True.", says Cloud, scraping off food. "I.hate.doing.dishes." When they finally finished, they walked out to the stables and they both get on Knight and left toward Midgar. This time, Cloud let Aeris be in front and direct his chocobo. As he was riding behind her, he couldn't help but admire all of Aeris' soft features, against his hard, muscled one. He looked at her perfect body, although not different from Tifa's, and looked at her smooth, delicate skin, and her long, silky auburn hair that hung in a twisted ponytail. As soon as he took it all in, her head turned around to show how much fun she was having. Her face was the definition of happiness to him. He loved the shape of her face, the way the sun and moon twinkled magnificently in her deep, clear green eyes, and if this wasn't enough, he loved the way her smile lit up her face. Her smile had always made him feel as if his heart were getting lighter and as if he were floating on air. But soon enough, they arrived at the gate to Midgar. They quickly found their way to her house and received an immediate greeting.
"Aeris! Oh! You're home!", greeted Elmira enthusiastically.
"Hey mom. I'm gonna go wash up and change, okay?" Tomorrow is when everybody sees me, so I should at least be clean." Aeris climbed up the stairs as Elmira offered Cloud a seat and they sat down to the table to talk.
"She's really something special.", said Cloud.
"I could tell that you felt that way just by looking into your eyes.", said Elmira. "And what peculiar eyes you have.", she said, looking at Cloud's glowing blue eyes.
"All people exposed to Mako showers have glowing eyes.", said Cloud.
"You act so much like Zack, but she seems to actually like you more than him.", she noted. "He was a real ladies man, but I'm sure Aeris told you this though."
"Yeah, she has."
"She was quite taken with him, but so were most of the other girls. It's strange how that she could find someone that was almost identical, but you don't seem to have a way with the ladies like he did. You're just.different."
"I'm not a romantic. I never really have been. She owes me another date you know. For being her bodyguard."
"And did you accept it?"
"Yeah."
"Well then, I guess that was a bad question if I already knew the answer."
"I'm ready to go Cloud!", Aeris said as she came back down the stairs.
"Okay, let's go." Elmira smiled back at them, looking at how happy Aeris was with him.
They were back on Knight, as Cloud awaited for directions to go on their date.
"Where do you want to go?", asked Cloud.
"You decide. Just not back to the Gold Saucer since we were there on our last date."
"Okay. There's this one place I thought you might want to see.", announced Cloud. They began to ride off in the direction of Cosmo Canyon. Aeris wondered why because they had already been there. Knight suddenly climbed up a steep mesa, and Aeris held before her eyes the Forest of the Ancients.
"Wh-what is this place?", she stammered.
"The Forest of the Ancients.", said Cloud. While removing some brush so Aeris could see better. Aeris and Cloud entered looking in at the lush greenery that was yet untouched by the hands of man.
"I can hear the Planet better in this place.", she finally said. "But right now I'm with you, so I only want to be with you and hear only you. Come on. Let's do something fun."
"Hmmm, I think I know something we can do.", said Cloud with a smile.

"What?!", yelled Aeris from the top of a snowy peak. "Snowboarding?!"
"Yeah! You'll love it! I was nervous the first time but it was still fun!", said Cloud, bursting with excitement.
"If you say so.", she said nervously.
"Alright! Here we go!" Cloud leaned in and started his descent.
"H-hey! Wait for me!" she yelled and started after him.
"Wh-whoa!", She cried uneasily. "This is what you call fun?!"
"Just give it a chance! Now come on! I'll race you!", called back Cloud, now speeding up, tightly rounding his turns with perfect ease.
"AA-aaah!", she yelled as she swerved down the trail. Eventually she got the hang of it and finally caught up to Cloud halfway down the track.
"See Aeris! It's not bad!" he called. She leaned further and pulled ahead of him.
"Hey! I thought we were racing, not playing follow the leader! See ya'!" And she widened the gap. Cloud leaned further and caught up.
"Now who's gonna be playing follow the leader?", he said with a grin and pulled out ahead again. With a playful smile she moved out next to him and both raced down the track, keeping pace and distance with one another, until Aeris hit a bump and was sent flying into a snow bank.
"Aeris!!", called Cloud as he ran up to the pile Aeris was in.
"Ouch.",she mumbled from under the weight of the snow. She stuck out her arm and eventually climbed out.
"Are you okay?", he asked as he helped brush snow off of her. She was still smiling though.
"That was fun!"
"Aeris, you always look on the bright side."
"Well," she replies, "There's no use in being negative. Besides, do you want me to be all moping like you?"
"Hey! Moping? Does it look like I'm moping!?"
"Maybe."
"What does that mean?!"
"You figure it out. Come on. Let's go." She begins walking toward the ski lift.
"What!?" He begins walking after her.

They're back on Knight, as it is Aeris' turn to pick something.
"Sigh.how about we go somewhere warm and relaxing now. After wearing a dress and snowboarding, I can't feel my ass."
"Hahaha!" Cloud begins laughing.
"What!? You're ass would be freezing, too! Of course, I don't think anybody would want to see you wear a dress."
"It's just that I never heard you say 'ass' before."
"Oh ha ha, that doesn't entitle you to laugh. Now let's go."

They arrive in sunny Costa del Sol, and enter their beach cabana.
"Okay Cloud, I'm gonna go change. If you get done before me, you can just go to the beach and I'll meet you there.", says Aeris as she enters the bathroom. Cloud does change into his blue trunks before Aeris finishes, so he collects up the lotion, towels, and umbrella and heads for the beach. He lays down the towels gently, and starts rubbing on lotion. He then lies down, face up, eyes closed, with a pair of sunglasses shielding his eyes.
"So Cloud, what do you think?" Cloud sits up and takes off his sunglasses and sees Aeris in a two-piece, spaghetti string bikini. "Do you like it?"
"Uh heh heh heh..", laughs nervously as he begins to get a slight nosebleed, but it's not really bad and is hardly noticeable.
"Before I can let my hair down, could you put some lotion on my back?", she asks as she sits down next to him and picks up the bottle.
"Uh, sure." He squirts some on his hands and starts rubbing, his nosebleed getting a little worse and starts blushing.
"Ooh, the lotion's kinda cold." she says. "So Cloud, how are you enjoying yourself?", she asks as soon as he's done.
"Uh, well.", he says as he moves back to his towel.
"Oh yeah, I forgot about my hair." She pulls down her long hair and she lets it flow down her back, and it shines radiantly in the hot sun. "Is that better?"
"." He's completely speechless as he looks at her, and his nosebleed gets a little worse as she smiles at him.

"Excuse me, sir.", says this large woman with a slightly hairy back that you might mistake for a man, and if you didn't mistake her for that, you might mistake her for a beached whale in a bathing suit. "Would you mind putting lotion on my back? You did a nice job on this other young girl, so would you mind?" Cloud looks back at Aeris, wondering what he should do, looking a bit frightened at her, since it looks like this lump of a woman would eat him.
"Go on Cloud. Who knows, you might get her number.", she says sarcastically with a large smile.
"You owe me.", he says as he walks away with the woman.

He looks back at her longingly as he begins putting on the lotion, hoping she would bail him out.
"Hello there, miss.", says a smooth, deep voice from behind. A handsome young man stood behind Aeris, and she turned around to look at him. "Would you mind if you went with me on a walk on the beach?"
"Sorry, I'm with someone else." He stroked his dark hair back and said, "He looks a little busy with his other companion over there." Cloud was almost done rubbing, but he felt he needed to boil his hands to kill the germs.
"Mmm, you do a good job there.", said the bloated woman. With these words, Cloud grew even more nauseous. When he was done, he looked over back at Aeris, and saw her talking to the young man.
"So would you mind accompanying me?", he asked again.
"Sorry, I already said I was with someone else.", she repeated.
"Nobody ever says no to me,", he says with angry arrogance.
"Well, I think I just did.", said Aeris, yet the man tried to keep his temper.
"Come on, I'm much better looking than him."
"Aeris? Are you okay? Who's he?", asked Cloud as soon as he got to her.
"He was just leaving.", she said.
"I'm afraid I'm won't without you."
"Look bud, you'll be eating dirt if you don't back off.", warned Cloud. The man, who stood taller than him, compared his size and said, "What are you gonna do, tiny?" He then was about to punch Cloud, when Cloud had already, easily sidestepped and gave a punch to the gut. The man wasn't too badly hurt, so he punched back at Cloud, and hit. The man then felt a tap on his shoulder from behind, and turned around to see Aeris. "THWACK!" Aeris had punched the man in the face, giving a broken nose and knocking him unconscious.
"You okay Cloud?", she asked.
"Uh, yeah." It didn't even look like Cloud was hit, because even though he was smaller, he was more muscular than the man. "Where'd you learn how to punch like that?"
"Tifa taught me.", she said, returning to her towel and lying back down.
"Well you had it better off. I think that lady liked me."
"That was a lady? I thought it was a man in a woman's bathing suit."
"We'll probably never know.", he shrugs. She laughs at his joke and says, "So what about your hands. Are they still there?"
"Just barely. Let's go before she comes back. She might want me to rub her feet and make kissy faces again."
"Again?"
"Trust me, it wasn't pretty."

"Where are we going now?", she asks to Cloud as they mount Knight again.
"Let's go back to Nibelheim to get some rest.", he says.
"I hope you're not suggesting anything."
"No."
"Good, because it's been perfect so far." They charge off toward Nibelheim, passing, lush scenery as they move. The sun is setting as they head west, painting clouds around it with color, creating a picturesque landscape as they pass over a chain of mountains. They enter Nibelheim again, and then enter the kitchen of Cloud's house.
"Okay Cloud, I'll get dinner and you move the table and two chairs into the backyard.", said Aeris. Cloud had no idea what was thinking, but he did as she bade him to. "Okay, now set it.", she said as she handed him some utensils. Cloud again did as she wished, wondering what she was planning. "Now just wait outside." He waited outside on one of the chairs under the silent moonlight. Aeris moved outside with two candles, which were already lit.
"Hoo boy.", thought Cloud as she moved them onto the tables, as he wasn't much for conversation, and still getting nervous as he thought of her in the bathing suit again. "So what haute` cuisine are you preparing?", he asked, trying to shake his nervousness.
"You'll see." A few minutes later she came back out with two plates and sat down.
"BLT sandwiches?", he said curiously.
"What, I'm no Iron Chef.", she retorted, sarcastically. "Besides, I have something special for dessert."
"Aeris," said Cloud after a few bites, "I've been wondering. Was Zack at the Planet?"
"We're here, alone, under the moon and stars, having a candlelit dinner, and you're thinking about Zack, my ex-boyfriend who has been dead for 5 years?", she said, looking straight at him.
"It's just that I wanted to know who you loved more. And if it were me, is it just because I act like him and look like him?"
"First of all Cloud Strife,", she began, "I left the Land of Boundless Happiness to see you again. Next of all, Zack was there in the Land of Boundless Happiness, and then you ask me whether or not I love you more than him when I leave all that to be with you."
"Okay, okay I get it now.", he admits. "It's just that it kind of bugs me that we were so much alike and that you just happened to fall for both of us."
"Don't even worry about it.", she says, smiling again.
"Yeah, I guess maybe I shouldn't be dwelling on the past all the time.", he says apologizing for breaking the mood with his question.
"Those who live in the future will live a bright one, but will never savor the moment. Those who live in the present will savor the moment, but not necessarily have a bright future. And those who live in the past, will understand or at least grow to appreciate it, but neither will the present or future be theirs, as they had forfeited their existential purpose."
"And what existential purpose is that?", he asks.
"What everyone exists for. Hope, happiness, and love. Life without happiness isn't worth anything. Hope allows us to always be seeking something lost and never give up, like looking for a light in the darkness.
"And love.?", he asks.
"To love and be loved. That is the most important thing. You can't love without getting anything in return. And that, is the truth to our existence."
"Not power or immortality?", he asks.
"Power corrupts.", she says. "And immortality isn't perhaps the preservation of the human body, but the spirit. It is impossible to keep youth, but the spirit can live on forever. That is why there are traditions. To preserve the immortality of the spirit of whatever is celebrated."
"Did you learn that on the Planet?"
"No.", she says looking back at him with her clear green eyes, sparkling in the radiant glow of the moon. "I learned that from being with you. I'll go get the dessert." She leaves, the table, but quickly returns with the dessert.
"So what's this?", he asks.
"My almost-famous death by fudge cake."
"Just to be safe, what's it made of?"
"Well it's a small devil's food cake soaked in fudge with chocolate ice cream with chocolate sprinkles, garnished with chocolate mousse with a chocolate coating, and a touch of caramel."
"Hmm.this'll be good then.", he quickly takes a bite. "Holy crap! This is like pure chocolate!"
"Good isn't it?" she said smiling.
"Couldn't picture living without it.", he says taking another bite.
"I found out about the time Zack was leaving that," she began, " chocolate releases something in your brain that makes you feel better. So this was a major pick me up when I made it."
"So what did you mean by telling me about existential purpose?", he asked as he couldn't relate what she said with him.
"I meant that you always live in the past, so you're not happy.", she concluded.
"Intelligent, and a good cook.", he said topping off the cake.
"I'm glad that's all you see me as.", she said with another sarcastic tone.
"Oh, there's more than that.", he says. She stands up and walks over to the hammock that Cloud usually lies in, looking up at the endless ribbon of stars, tracing shapes through the Milky Way. Cloud got up, and slowly sat down next to her.
"What's up?", he asks.
"Nothing.", she sighs back. "A little tired I guess."
"So what are you looking at?"
"I learned that everyone has their own star. Which one do you think is yours?"
"That one.", he says, pointing.
"That's the moon.", she says laughing a little. She lies down gently on the hammock and Cloud follows.
"Cloud?"
"What?"
"Do I ever have to leave here?", she asks at about no more than a whisper as she felt the warmth of Cloud's arms cradling her.
"Not for a while."
"Good."
"Hey, I learned this trick using comet materia.", he said as he lifted his hand, glowing a green color. A shower of shooting stars came coming down in front of them.
"Cloud that's amazing! But how-"
"You talk too much.", he interrupts, then kisses her deeply.
"You talk just as much as me.", she says and kisses him back.
"Cloud?", she whispered in his ear as she moved his head across his.
"What?"
"I love you."