Aerith was never one to act against the planet's inanimate will. She fully understood and appreciated the rhythm of the planet's pulse and, therefore, the necessity to return to its veins as components of a bloodstream. Although her heart was not in it, she was ready to dissolve into amorphous particles among the waves of the Lifestream once the battle against Sephiroth and Meteor had ended. So when the formidable loss of identity did not occur, she was relieved but somewhat befuddled. No elements of the ominous angel, Jenova, had melded with her cells, something that was asphyxiating the process of the merge with the Lifestream for many. True, she had been a Cetra, but their return was only slightly coagulated, not blockaded. Her soul hadn't faded since death at all. Being a Cetra wasn't enough on its own. Her boundless will was still clinging to the world of the living. Because of Cloud. She would be insoluble and impervious against the cycle of the planet as long as she longed to be with him. With that realization, solace quelled the flames of rue that plagued Aerith's heart. It was a promise to stay with Cloud so long as she desired it to be so.

After the defeat of Sephiroth, Aerith decided it would be best for her consciousness to hibernate. Now that her task was done, she wanted a chance to retreat to herself. And so she entered a sort of rest mode. She dreamt of many things; mostly, she dreamt of Cloud. Of finally reuniting with him one day. But Aerith also dreamt of Iflana. She had searched the Lifestream for her mother, but her soul never responded. She slept for a very long time, her mind riddled with dreams of the people now gone to her.

Aerith wasn't sure how long it had been when something sharp disturbed her slumber one day. It started off as a thorn, just barely noticeable but impossible to ignore. The more attention she lavished on it, the more vivid it grew. A silent scream that she couldn't hear, but she could suffer to feel. Shortly, an intense cry in anguish and trepidation overcame her entire being as it called to her. Her core reeled in sorrow as it surmounted her spirit, a magnetic force swallowing her into something indescribable. After intensely pulling against it, Aerith found her struggles futile, and she allowed herself to be taken by it so as to see the source of such a desperate cry. The Lifestream itself sucked her into a blinding whiteness until the cry had completely withered away along with the green streams of energy.

She was very unsure of where she was or what was happening. She searched for something, anything, among the curtains of white draped over her. Looking down at her ankles, she noticed something rather unusual. Transparent films of flowers seemed to hover about her ankles as if they were faded impressions. And as she continued to adjust to her new surroundings, they became less like impressions and more like actual flowers until Aerith found herself standing in a true-to-life field of pale yellow and white lilies. She understood now.

"Cloud..." He was calling to her. Now that she was in what seemed to be an alternate plane of the real world, his mental call had tapered off. Was he hurt? Had something happened to him? After all this time of silence, Cloud must've been feeling something terrible if it was able to penetrate the solidity of his guilt. Knowing that her mind could never relax lest Cloud was suffering, nothing could stop her from waiting there until his guilt could no longer mask his desire to see her.

Aerith stood and waited, faithful that he would come as soon as his sentiments would allow him. She knew how hard everything had been for him all these years. All the time, she just waited patiently. He would make it eventually. His cry had been so desperate, not even his guilt could hold him back for too long. And as she sensed his guilt slowly yield to his pure despair, she could feel his thoughts and memories more clearly. The Forgotten City. He was riding to where she had died. And he was thinking about her too; he was resurfacing the pain that her death had brought upon him along with the scar it left him. And then he came. At that moment, she felt everything: his Geostigma, the guilt lingering in his heart that he had to temporarily overcome to see her, the newly brewing battle, everything. He had sought her out in the subconscious depths of his mind, and now he was at a loss for words.

"So you came, huh?" she said. Her voice sounded aerial as it echoed across the mosaic of flowers. "Even though you're about to break, right?" Turning herself slightly, she reached up, and gently placed her opalescent hand on the arm that had been torturing him so, faintly curling her fingers around his shapely muscles. When she felt him recoil slightly, it further confirmed her fears that Cloud had been blaming himself for her death all this time, and he was too ashamed to even accept her simple marks of affection. He was acquiescing to grief and the eventual finality of Geostigma. Little could've saddened her more than to feel the one person who had become her very existence so utterly hopeless at the hand of desperation. His will was cracking under the cumbersome burden he had weighed himself down with. "I'm sure this will be a good thing," she reassured. His austere spirit swelled for a moment as he took comfort in her simple but thoughtful words. "Question! Why did you come?"

"I ... want to be forgiven. Yes, I want to be forgiven," his simple answer was.

"By who?" she replied playfully to counter his staunch seriousness. Reminded of the lively Aerith Cloud had once spent so much time with, he turned to look into those green materia orbs of her's. And just like that, he was withdrawn from her again. Aerith's head sank as his consciousness returned to him. Her honey-brown bangs fell together at her forehead, and masked her face. She wrung her hands, holding them level to her breasts. She just hoped that he was going to be alright.

..-+-..

Aerith floated among the sinuous curls of Lifestream. She allowed for the waves, iridescent with a green hue, to envelop her in the inimitable vibration of spirit energy. It had become a sort of hobby of Aerith's. No peace compared to being held by the very life of the planet as it's soft crooning whispered you into a state of bliss. As she lay atop the crest of a stream, she retraced his image in her mind. First, his blond locks that were untamable and tousled in every direction which only made him all the more adorable to her. The contrast of his milky white complection against the Mako-lambency that his eyes gleamed in bright blue. That little awkward smile he gave when he wasn't quick enough in hiding flushed cheeks. A projection of Cloud seemed to assemble itself in the Lifestream as Aerith thought about him, a mirage in the dark only illuminated by oscillating, phosphorescent streams of life.

"Thinking about Cloud, I see. As usual," a bodiless but recognizable voice called out. Zack took shape. Her thoughts were broken, and his image disintegrated. She looked over at her good friend.

"Don't you ever miss anybody?" Aerith asked inquisitively, turning away. Zack scratched his head of raven hair.

"I wish my parents knew I was okay. But they'll get along without me." He laughed, and lightly pushed Aerith's shoulder as some sort of comfort. "Oh, boy. Aerith can't be happy without her precious Cloud?" he mocked. Aerith turned towards the pompous boy who was once her first love, a tender smile on her pretty face.

"Cloud's happy, and I am too. I can tell. He seems a little lonely though. I was just thinking that I want to be there to comfort him," she said. A vision of the recent past washed over Aerith's mind: Cloud holding a small bundle of yellow daisies to his nose. He seemed to be at peace, at least as far as her apparent telepathy was letting her know.

"He's got Tifa to keep him company. Why don't I keep you company?" he offered in his usual suave way. Aerith could only giggle at his lack of understanding. He couldn't feel Cloud's emotions and wishes as she could, and he certainly didn't fathom the depths of her's.

"You don't fall in love with people based on who can keep you company. It's too bad you never knew what it feels like to love someone, Zack," she said.

"Ouch. Well, I offered. But you can't say you never miss those old days between us," he cajoled with a playful wink.

"If I miss anything, it's those old days with Cloud."

"Do you always fall for the ones with spiky hair?" Aerith looked at her old friend. She broke down into laughs, and her eyes shut taut in physical zeal.

"Well, he did remind me of you at first. But then he turned out pleasantly different," she teased after catching her breath.

"Ah, thanks. You know what? Sometimes, I wonder why I bother hanging around you instead of other girls who actually pay attention to me."

"Yeah, me too," she joked.

"Fine, if that's how it is, I'll go somewhere else. Call me if you want some company." And with that, his soul merged back into the current of the Lifestream.

Aerith drifted through the depth's of the inner planet. The emerald Lifestream was ablaze all around her. She watched globes of the planet's energy float all about her, jouncing among the waves of life. The colorful, playful dance of Lifestream reminded her of... fireworks. Vivid fireworks that sounded like magnified popcorn popping slowly and looked like glowing bubbles bursting magically. That was their night, alone on the gondola together. It was as if the fireworks were just for them. It felt as though the fireworks were just for them.

Their night...

"Enjoy the sights of the Gold Saucer," the smiling employee beamed at them. Cloud extended his hand gentlemanly, and Aerith took it as she stepped up into the gondola. How sweet of him, Aerith thought... maybe he liked her after all.

She sat on the wooden bench by the window, and Cloud soon sat across from her. Of course he would be too nervous to sit next to her; she had hoped he would, but she was aware of it being wishful thinking.

"Have you been having a good time?" she asked.

"Yeah, actually, I have," Cloud answered. He reached behind his crown, and scratched the back of his skull as he always did when he felt a pinch of social anxiety, that slight embarrassment that he frequently experienced when he was honest with Aerith.

"I'm glad," she smiled assuringly. The ride jerked forward for a moment, and slowly ascended as they began their tour of the sea of lights among the dark night.

Aerith admired the spectacular Gold Saucer through the glass parallel to her. Spotlights ignited underneath them as they maneuvered between the tracks of a roller coaster and turned upwards towards a spherical moon.

"Wow... how nice," she managed to say breathlessly. "Oh! Look, Cloud." The two of them peered out the window to catch a glimpse of multicolored chocobos racing fiercely down the track. "It's so pretty," she said.

They exchanged a moment of comfortable silence. Aerith's face glowed with excitement as she gawked at the fantastical sights of a night at the Gold Saucer. Cloud's gaze seemed fixated upon his lap as though he were lost deeply in thought. She fancied to herself what Cloud might be turning over in his mind. She quietly chuckled at the hopeful idea that he was gathering the courage to kiss her, but she was fully aware that Cloud was too dense to have realized her feelings for him by now, and he would be too afraid to make a move, even through the sweet instants of their date.

It was the first time since they had met that Aerith and Cloud could have some time alone together, the looming threat of Sephiroth surprisingly absent from their minds. Over the time of their journey together, she was aware that she had cultivated feelings for Cloud, and that awareness was now at its pinnacle as they spent the enchanted evening with one another, alone.

The entire sky was transformed into daylight by dozens of explosive colors, delayed popping sounds following their illumination. A rainbow of sparks filled the Gold Saucer. Aerith's eyes changed focus, and she found herself staring at the reflection on the glass: Cloud staring in peaceful reverence at the beauty of the chromatic lights billowing before them. Their date, interrupted to watch the fireworks in awe. Intoxicated with bliss, Aerith's inhibitions fled through the perspiration of her eyes, and irrigated down her cheeks. Beneath the romanticism of incandescent fireworks, it was clear to her that what she had been feeling all along was love, and she wanted little more than for him to kiss her lightly inside the anonymity of their private gondola. Now was the time to let him know. Resolved to tell him everything, she discreetly wiped her cheeks with the back of her palm. Aerith found herself wordless, still entranced by the glorious display before them.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" she whispered as she looked down at her lap. She felt Cloud's stare turn upon her. She fiddled with the silver bangles adorning her wrists. How could she say this the right way?

"...first off, it bothered me how you looked exactly alike," she began as she referenced her first love and her first heartbreak. "Two completely different people, but look exactly the same. The way you walk, gesture... I think I must've seen him again, in you..."

Yes, they had looked so similar, Cloud and Zack. And that was what Aerith had first found appealing in Cloud. Because of that, she had flirted with him even when they had just met. But while it had started off as mere flirting, it grew into something more. Cloud wasn't like Zack inside. Cloud was softhearted and caring-- although he wouldn't let you know it when you first met him. He was shy, and he kept himself withdrawn. He didn't easily let people know what his thoughts were, but she could tell without the words. Looking like Zack only made her flirt with him, but being Cloud made her fall in love with him.

"But you're different. Things are different..." she trailed off. She promised herself to be brave. As she racked her mind for the right words, the entire gondola was swarmed with starry fireworks. "Cloud... I'm searching for you." She peeked up at him to try and read his words off his eyes, but they only displayed confusion. Leaning forward, she reached out, and cupped Cloud's hands in her's. "I want to meet you."

"But I'm right here," he replied. She shook her head gently.

"I know, I know. What I mean is..." She laced Cloud's fingers between her's. "I want to meet... you." She felt his understanding now. Waiting for some sort of reply, she was granted a smile. Not a heartwarming, loving smile. A cute little smile that matched his reddening cheeks. She knew that he wasn't used to this kind of open affection.

"Aerith," he began. And the ride came to an end as the gondola halted at the platform.

Aerith's memory was soon disrupted by something.

"...Aerith," she heard his voice say. Was it a memory? Or was Cloud really speaking to her? Closing her eyes, a picturesque vision of Cloud sitting in her church was projected onto the retina of her soul.

"Cloud! I'm here; I can hear you!" she gasped in joy.

"I have so much to tell you. But I... don't know how to say it all."

She listened intently as he vociferated his deepest secrets to her. His regret over her unwilling martyrdom. His blaming the cruelty of fate for what happened. His desire to change the past. His hopeless yearning to be with her.

"...I'm sorry," he continued. "You probably don't like me talking like this. You're a part of me now. I won't let myself forget that. Every day I feel like you're not around, I'll remind myself that you're with me no matter what. No matter what. I know I can't feel your presence like I may want to, but at least we'll always be together in some way. Right...? I can't take that for granted. But I still need these breaks from everything every once in a while. Back at Seventh Heaven, I have my family and my friends. But I still need these times... to be alone with you. That's okay, isn't it? Thanks... Aerith."

After he had drifted to sleep, Aerith opened her large eyes. For a moment, all she could do was hear his heartbreaking words replay through her mind and, incidentally, the Lifestream.

"Cloud... I'm so sorry. Why do you always have to be in so much pain? You miss being together... but that's not really what's bothering you, is it?" She nodded her head in agreement with herself. Yes, that wasn't the purest form of what tormented him. "Drifting apart, that's what you think. Because you can't see me or touch me, I'm only a series of memories in your subconscious... that my love for you is dissolving, right? Can't you understand, Cloud..." Aerith held her hands to her chest.

That date at the Gold Saucer: those few moments when the entire world had melted away and they were the only ones left, when the fireworks pulsated through the evening sky for them, that glance they exchanged as Aerith wove their fingers together and let him know what was orbiting her heart, the understanding they both shared despite the abrupt end to their conversation. How could he be so unsure of the truth now?

"You know where I will be. Come find me if you need to. And Cloud, you take care of yourself, so you don't have a breakdown, okay?"