"I can't stop thinking about it, Lottie."
He paces restlessly back and forth in front of the bed. She leans against the windowsill, arms wrapped around herself as she watches him with a small smile.
"I can't stop thinking about it." He combs his fingers through his hair, looking half his age, excited and bouncing on his feet. "I mean . . . that was our dream, wasn't it? Goin' into space? In our rocket? And it took us years, but we fucking did it."
Charlie can't recall ever seeing him so excited before. "I'm so happy for you," she tells him earnestly.
Cid stops abruptly, right in front of her. His eyes shine bright blue in the pale lighting of the moon and the ominous glow of Meteor that filters through the window. "Lottie . . . Charlie . . ." He touches her upper arms, squeezing gently and looking right into her eyes, the corners of his eyes crinkling with his wide smile. "If them two idiots hadn't been there with us, I would'a never wanted to come back."
She blinks in surprise. His voice is so serious, which is at serious odds with his expression, an uncontrollable grin plastered to his face, only serving to make him more handsome.
"You did it, Charlie. We did it, after all this time." He looks at her for what feels like a long time, his smile slowly fading. "What's wrong?"
Charlie shakes her head, not wanting to seem dismayed. Her resolve must have weakened in the face of his own excitement.
"Tell me."
She hesitates, glancing up into his face again. "Do you really think the world is going to end?"
Cid squeezes her arms tighter, but certainly not tight enough to hurt her. "I dunno," he answers. "I'm just happy to be with you."
The words are like a knife to the heart. She's so happy to be with him, too, but if the world is ending, there are other people she wants to see, other people she wants to spend her last days with, like her real family.
She wants to see Veld again and tell him everything she couldn't think to say when she met him in Junon.
She wants to see Tseng again and spend time together in a comfortable silence, to talk about days long gone and friends that will never come back.
She wants to see Reeve again and be held by him one last time, to thank him for loving her for so long, to thank him for everything he has ever done for her.
She wants to see Rufus one last time, because he's still her brother, and despite what he threatened to do to her, he had still taken care of her when they were younger, had done everything in his power to make her feel loved and wanted and happy.
Charlie knows that these people she's with are not her family. Cid, despite how much she cares for him, is not her family. And even entertaining the idea that she might love him is frightening, because it feels like turning her back on all of the people who had cared for her nearly all of her life.
"Cid, I . . ." She squirms in his hold, turning her head left and right, uncomfortable making eye contact with him.
"I know," he says. "Don't think I don't know how this is gonna end."
Bewildered, Charlie stops her shifting. There's no way he could possibly know how she's feeling or what she's thinking. "How do you think this is going to end?"
He gives her an exasperated little smile, too knowing. "I always knew you'd end up goin' back to Midgar, no matter what happens with Meteor," he rasps, his face very close to her own. "You don't belong here, with us. You've got your own family waitin' for you."
How could I have possibly allowed him to know me so well? she can't help but think.
"Then what are you doing?" she asks breathlessly, his face moving closer.
"I'm sayin' a proper good-bye this time," he whispers. "And I'm gonna let you break my heart all over again."
That seems like a very large weight he's dropping on her shoulders. Part of her wants to let Cid break her heart, as well, if it means being able to spend a few more days with him, but her heart has already been broken so many times, and she isn't certain she's ready for it to shatter all over again.
"You don't seem like a man who has his heart broken very easily, Captain."
That makes him smile again. "I care about you a lot, Lottie."
"I care a lot about you, too."
His smile grows, a genuine and sentimental little thing, but she only gets to witness it for a few moments before his mouth is on hers. Knowing this may be the last chance she ever gets, and wanting to make the most out of it, Charlie kisses him back.
If she were braver, or bolder, she might slip her hands underneath his jacket to push it off him, or she might slip her hands up his shirt to feel his slightly ribbed muscles beneath her hands. She wants so badly for this moment to last forever before Meteor hits, but all she can think about is Reeve Reeve Reeve Reeve Reeve, and how much she still loves him, and how much she wants to see him again.
She doesn't care if she never gets the chance to properly love Reeve again. All she wants is to be with him, to let him know that she hasn't forgotten about him, to let him know that she would be happy to die at his side, holding him while the world burns around them.
But what if she never gets that chance? What if she's fated to spend her last days with Cid? Should she allow herself such a selfish indulgence, even if it were to hurt someone she loves very much?
Kissing Cid is one thing. She's kissed him before, and she's recently done far worse things with her own brother. But to give Cid something she's only ever given Reeve seems wrong and dirty.
Charlie didn't leave Reeve because she didn't love him. She left him because she loved him so much, and all she wanted was to keep him safe. She understands now that she went about it entirely the wrong way, but it's too late to go back and apologize now. Not after finding out about Cait Sith and Veld and Tseng. Not after what she's done with Cid.
Things have moved very quickly between her and Cid, given their constant close proximity to each other, the things that they've been through . . . even earlier today, they had achieved their dream together, the dream she had given up on years ago. The timing is bad, just like it was all those years ago, when she fired Cid and turned around a week later to find comfort in another man's arms.
He breaks apart from her, breathing heavily and nuzzling his face into the crook of her neck, holding her tight against his chest. "Do you wanna bring some drinks out to the deck?"
With her eyes still closed, Charlie wraps an arm around his neck and scratches lightly at the back of his neck, toying with the ends of his hair. "I would like that very much."
"Okay. Put a jacket on first. I don't want you catchin' a cold."
Charlie does as he says, and Cid leads her through the long corridors of their airship by the hand, until they reach the double doors that will lead them back outside and onto the deck.
He stops abruptly in front of them, turning around and chewing anxiously at the inside of his cheek. He always does that when he wants a cigarette.
"Okay, close your eyes."
Charlie frowns. "What? Why?"
"Just do it. C'mon. Close your eyes."
She sighs, but obliges after he gives her a pleading little puppy-dog look. She hears the opening of the doors, feels a blast of chilly air, and Cid leads her outside with both of her hands in his own.
"Ready?"
"For what?" she asks again.
"Open your eyes now."
Charlie opens her eyes, hands falling back to her sides. For a moment, she's completely speechless, taking in the scene with her lips slightly parted, unable even to form a coherent thought.
"What is this?" she finally manages to say.
"A celebration." Cid puffs his chest out, putting his hands on his hips and looking far too smug for his own good. "We did see our dream come true earlier today."
There's a blanket laid out on the center of the deck with extra blankets and pillows off to the side (clearly taken from empty rooms aboard the Highwind), an open cooler full of beer and one bottle of champagne, and a lantern. There are several containers of food set up on the blanket, with silverware and glasses.
"I had the crew help me get set up," he admits, kneeling down upon the blankets and popping open the bottle of champagne, pouring it into the two glasses. "I know it's late, but we can sleep when we're dead, right? So come celebrate with me."
She lowers herself onto the blanket, holding her jacket around her. They toast each other with shy smiles, sipping at the champagne. It's cheap and, frankly, tastes very bad, but she drinks it for his sake. Cid nearly chokes on it, his face twisting in disgust.
"Fuck, that's sweet." He coughs, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his jacket. "That's terrible. You like that shit?"
"You don't have to drink it if you don't like it," she laughs, watching the relief wash over him as he puts the glass aside. "Was that supposed to impress me?"
"Maybe. Did it work?"
"Oh, Cid," Charlie answers, laughing again. "You don't have to try and impress me. I like you just the way you are."
If this was his last night alive, Cid thinks he could die happy.
He can't stop looking at her, feeling as if he's seeing a side of her he's never seen before since meeting her all those years ago. They're able to spend a full hour and a half talking about outer space, talking over each other in their excitement, laughing together.
The alcohol and cool breeze keeps a healthy flush on her face, and she lies on her side with her elbow propping her head up, tangled blonde hair combed over with her fingers. Every so often, she bites down on her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth before smiling at him like she hasn't a fucking care in the world.
He's gotten used to the sight of her without makeup or jewelry on, without her hair done in a fancy little fucking braid like she usually had it during long days on the road, without expensive clothes clinging to her body, but it all still feels very intimate.
Even when they had worked on the Shinra No. 26 together, she had still been Charlotte Shinra, daughter to President Shinra, heiress to the Shinra Electric Power Company. But here she's just Charlie, just Lottie, and she may not even be a Shinra at all.
She talks a lot that night.
She tells him about Veld, about the Turk that she had known for as long as she can remember, who had cared for her like a father, who had cooked for her and read to her and helped her with school work, who had tucked her into bed at night and called her 'little princess'. Veld had taught her how to swim, she says, and never yelled at his subordinates in front of her after he did it once and made her six-year-old self cry.
She tells him about her real father, and the abuse that she and Rufus had been subjected to. She talks about watching her brother get beaten bloody on a fairly regular basis, and talks about the open contempt her father had shown her.
She tells him about Tseng, and how long it had taken for him to warm up to her, who ended up being one of the best friends she could ever have asked for.
She tells him all about Angeal and his friends (it's jarring to hear her speak of Sephiroth as an acquaintance, a stark reminder of who she really is) and her mother, who she wishes could have been alive to see the rocket launch into outer space.
It all sounds so fucking sad coming out of her mouth. Charlie seems to have accepted all this as relatively normal, but Cid thinks her upbringing, her lack of a real childhood, the constant and prolonged absences of her father, the casual way in which she speaks about being a young girl surrounded by trained (and trusted) assassins, or the casual way in which she speaks of her first love being some sort of monster . . . it all seems slightly unnatural, unsettling.
But he isn't about to stop her. She talks like she's never had a chance to speak about it before, and she speaks fondly of many memories from her girlhood and the time spent with the Turks, even though it makes Cid feel anxious. He can't imagine that the Turk that left him for dead in his home could be so fucking warm and loving towards her.
Briefly, he remembers their time in Wutai, and how Charlie had walked up to the red-headed Turk without fear as he tried to kill that slimy fuck Don Corneo. She hadn't been afraid at all, despite what he was doing. She knew that the Turks wouldn't hurt her, and while it all makes sense now, it's still odd.
She says nothing of the jerkoff she was going to marry, only recalls how they had met for the first time. After that, it's radio fucking silence on Reeve.
And then she's quiet for a long time about everything, looking up at the night sky, taking a sip of beer, running a hand through her hair.
"I'm going to tell you something," Charlie continues after a while, still looking at the stars. "Something I've never told anyone before."
"Okay," Cid replies, because he doesn't know what else to say to her.
And she doesn't hold back. She tells him the truth about herself and Rufus, how it had started when they were merely children, how it had started as something that brought them both comfort and feelings of love, and eventually graduated into something that became their little secret, something no one else knew about them, something they swore to forget come morning.
He has to admit to himself that it's slightly horrifying and a little bit uncomfortable to hear Charlie speak of her pretty tame sexual escapades with her own brother, not bothering to go into explicit detail about things, but making it clear that things had happened, and those things had happened with her consent, and that they were well aware it was wrong, but decided to keep doing it.
She tells him what happened in Junon, and how she had convinced Rufus to let them all go by putting that mouth of hers to work, and tells him how she had shared a bed with Rufus for that week and let him kiss her and touch her, how she had kissed and touched him in return.
Charlie has a multitude of excuses prepared, quickly getting defensive despite Cid not saying a single fucking word about it. He tries not to let anything show on his face, either, but the thought of kissing that pretty little mouth of hers after she had used it on her own brother makes his stomach flip.
They were lonely children who only had each other, she claims.
There was no one in the world that she could trust more than her brother, she claims.
No one had ever talked to them about anything relating to sex, so it was left to them to figure it out themselves, she claims.
It took them a long time to realize what they were doing was wrong, she claims, and besides, they never really had sex.
Rufus was the only man who ever consistently loved her, she claims, and why shouldn't she show her love to him, after everything that he'd done for her?
And to Cid's surprise, Charlie confesses that both Veld and Tseng had been very aware of her close relationship with her brother, and claims that her father nearly killed Rufus when he caught them both in bed together one day.
She's blushing when she finishes, and there are tears running down her cheeks, and she's looking at him like she's begging for him to stay. Charlie smiles weakly, wiping at her face with the sleeve of her jacket, and clearing her throat. When she speaks, her voice is hoarse.
"And now you know everything about me," she croaks, lifting her eyes to meet his own again. "Maybe I'm not the perfect little princess everyone likes to think I am."
Unsure of what to say, unsure that he's capable of saying something that will make her feel better, Cid reaches out to fuss with her hair, pushing some stray strands from her face and tucking them behind her ears.
Charlie gives him a small smile again as he wipes at one of her tears with his thumb. Her skin is so soft and so smooth, pale as snow in the moonlight and absolutely glowing with the orange light that radiates off Meteor.
"Do you still like me?" she whispers to him.
Cid smiles back at her. Of course he still likes her, and he'd still like her even if she admitted to fucking her brother, because he knows who she is and doesn't ever have to be left wondering why she is the way she is now.
"Yeah," he answers softly. "I still like you."
She looks disbelieving, but relieved all the same. "I loved you, you know," she says. "And when you left, you broke my heart. I cried for weeks over you."
He almost reminds her of the fact that she was the one who sacked him in the first place, that it was her fault he was sent far away from her. But he holds his tongue because, despite whatever false memory she's conjuring up, she's just said the words he's been aching to hear from her for years.
It doesn't make him feel as happy as he thought it would. Maybe because she isn't confessing to loving him now. He knows that's a lot to ask, given that she just recently broke off her engagement to someone she genuinely loved, but it would be nice to hear it, even under false pretenses, even said simply because the world might end soon.
"I dunno what you saw in me, Lottie." He exhales loudly, the ghost of a laugh. "A pilot from some . . . backwater fuckin' country town."
The corners of her lips curl upwards into a sad smile. "How could I not have loved you?"
"We were too different," he shrugs, adjusting his elbow against the pillow, his arm growing tired. "I didn't realize that, back then. But I know it now."
Charlie doesn't have anything to say to that. No doubt she knows it's true. He isn't ever going to be one of those rich fucking pricks that drool over her, that can offer her the entire fucking world with a snap of their fingers. He isn't ever going to sound sophisticated, isn't ever going to be some kind of businessman, isn't ever going to attend board meetings and charity balls.
"Did you mean what you said on the rocket?" she asks him. "Am I your girl?"
It sounds so fucking childish when she says it like that. Is that what I sounded like? You fucking moron. "Yeah," he replies. "'Course you're my girl. Long as you're here with me."
"And if I were to leave?"
Cid scoffs, feeling on the spot. "Then at least I'll get a proper good-bye this time." He sighs, feeling exhausted. It must be getting very late. "I just want you to be happy, Lottie."
She looks at him for a long time, like he's crazy or something. For a few seconds, he fully expects her to tear him a new one, just because she has this look in his eye that he identifies with her rage.
But she only kisses him, soft and gentle and sweet, just long enough for him to understand what she can't bring herself to put into words.
He wakes before Charlie does.
The sun has just begun to rise, and they're still on the deck of his airship. He can't move—he doesn't want to move, not with her head in the crook of his arm and her hand up his shirt, palm splayed over his chest, over his heart.
He drags a hand down his face, knowing that he'll have to wake her soon. They've left their mess scattered all over the deck, and his half-full glass of champagne has spilled during the night. When he moves his leg, just barely, he accidentally kicks some empty beer bottles around.
He doesn't even remember falling asleep, only able to remember how heavy his eyes had gotten once Charlie started running her fingers through his hair. How she had wormed her way against his side and up his shirt, he has no idea, but it's not like he cares much.
Looking down into her face, Cid wonders how many of these stolen moments he has left.
In another life—in a life without Meteor—he doubts that he would even have these little moments at all. With their impending doom impossible to forget, things have moved much quicker than he anticipated. He never expected to so easily forgive her for the things she's done, never expected to so easily fall right back in love with her like she hadn't been gone for years, never expected to so easily gain her trust.
Now that he thinks about it, he understands why it was so easy. Out of all their companions, Charlie shared a history with him. They gravitated towards each other. They had common ground. They trusted each other with their lives, even if they didn't agree with each other.
But she's someone else's girl, no matter what he says, and the dickhead who she really loves is waiting for her in Midgar.
"Lottie . . ." he whispers, threading the fingers of his free hand through her hair. "Wake up, honey. We gotta get back inside before those jackasses get here."
"Just a few more minutes," she murmurs against his shoulder, shifting closer and holding him tight before her grip on his torso slackens and she's asleep again.
A few more minutes, he thinks. Let the world fucking stop. Let me have this one fucking thing.
A few more minutes. Well, he doesn't see anything wrong with that.
"You're up bright and early," Yuffie remarks, giving Charlie's arm a few light punches. It's something Charlie has grown accustomed to, and it's almost too easy to ignore now. "Hope you two were thinkin' about how we're gonna take out Meteor."
"My hopes were pinned on the rocket, and that didn't work," Charlie says, shouldering her out of the way as Yuffie's fingers stray towards the many buttons across the console in front of them. "Don't touch anything, Yuffie. The last thing we need is for the Highwind to become inoperable."
"Well, we have to think of something!" Tifa sighs heavily from the front of the bridge, watching through the front as the airship slowly rises from the ground.
"Can't waste time worryin' now," Cid adds, standing on her right. His arms are folded over his chest, and he looks more confident than he seemed last night, when he was confessing his fear of the world ending to her. "Every second we spend worryin', things are only gonna get worse and worse."
Barret scoffs, moving closer to them. "If you've got a plan, Captain, then share it with the group, why don't you?"
"Man, I don't have a damn plan!" Cid runs a hand through his hair, groaning. "Just been doin' a lotta thinkin' lately. Been feelin' introspective."
"Introspective?" Charlie repeats.
"You ain't the only one who knows fancy words, okay?"
"No, I've been thinking, too," Cloud interrupts them, before Charlie can giggle at the smug look Cid gives her. "About everything. It feels like the world is so wide open, and no matter where I go or what I do . . . nothing will change."
"Maybe." Cid doesn't sound too convinced of it, however. "I used to think the planet was huge, but from outer space . . . lookin' down at it from that escape pod, I realized how small it really is. And Sephiroth . . . festerin' inside of it like a sickness, floatin' in the dark in the middle of this infinite universe. Someone's gotta protect it. And that someone is us."
When he notices Charlie watching him, he puffs his chest out, as he's wont to do. It makes her smile, and his enthusiasm makes her feel hopeful and confident that he's right. "So what's the plan?" she asks him after he fails to elaborate.
He clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck. "I told you, I ain't got one yet."
"I might have an idea, in the meantime," Nanaki speaks up, padding forward on light paws and sitting down beside Charlie's legs. "We still have the Huge Materia. We need to put it somewhere safe, and I can't think of a safer place than with Grandfather."
Charlie tenses, turning very quickly to look down upon Nanaki. "In Cosmo Canyon?"
"Indeed." Nanaki smiles, as much as he can for a creature such as himself. "He may be able to offer us some insight while we're there, as well."
He leaves the unspoken part hanging between himself and Charlie. A chance to visit her mother, to receive that closure she's been so desperate for. It almost feels like the end of her journey, the end of a lifetime of wonderings. It would be bittersweet to find that end.
"Okay," Cloud tells them, nodding. "We'll go to Cosmo Canyon first."
She can't help but feel anxious as the Highwind sets off for Cosmo Canyon.
She paces the length of her quarters, heart racing. She doesn't know why she feels this way, because it's not like she's meeting her mother all over again. Her mother is dead, and Reeve had told her so through Cait Sith. She had missed her opportunity to go to Cosmo Canyon, she thought, but now she's received her second chance.
Just like her rocket. Just like Cid. Things Charlie once felt gone forever to her, dreams long dead, suddenly being revived by a series of most unfortunate and coincidental events that will, inevitably, lead to the planet's destruction.
Charlie is relieved when Cait Sith saunters into the room, always so light and graceful on his feet. "Feelin' okay?" he asks, watching her pace for a moment before clambering up onto the bed.
"I'm nervous," she admits, crossing the room to close the door. "I can't think straight these days." Wringing her hands together, she walks to the window, watching the ground fly by beneath them. "I just feel so helpless."
"Hey, we'll think of a plan." Cait Sith doesn't have half the confidence in his voice that Cid did. Charlie can't help but share that doubt, that skepticism. "There's gotta be a way."
She turns around to face the cat, looking at him curiously for a few moments. "How does that work, exactly? I mean . . . how do you work?"
"Ah, it's a whole thing," the toy shrugs modestly. "Rather tell you in person."
Charlie smiles at him, turning away again. She can see the shadows of the distant mountains from her window. "What do you think would happen to me if I went back to Midgar?"
"I don't think your brother would execute you," he replies, voice stiff and formal again. "But I think he would be content knowing you were in the city, and carrying out your duties as vice president."
"And if I came back . . ." she begins again, looking away from the window and turning her face away from Cait Sith. "Could I see you again?"
There's a long, discouraging silence that follows her question. Charlie can't say she doesn't understand, but the disappointment is a hard thing to swallow. And then he says, "You'd come all this way just to turn around now and go back to Midgar?"
"Why shouldn't I? It's not like I'm doing anything here. I can't change anything here." She turns around to face him again, biting down on her lip. "The least I could do is bring comfort to people before Meteor hits."
"You're running away."
"I'm not running away," she answers quickly, with a scoff. "You know I don't belong here. They know who I am—"
"And we all came back for you in Junon. No one was willing to leave you behind, even knowing who you were."
It must be a combination of the stress Meteor has inflicted on her and the idea of seeing her mother's grave that causes tears to well up in her eyes. "You could never understand what—"
"I could, if you talked to me, if you trusted me." Cait Sith stands up on the bed, and she hates him for that moment. She hates that Reeve is hiding behind a toy, unable to have this conversation with her himself. "Why are you here anyway?"
"Because I had nowhere else to go," she says, surprised the answer comes to her so easily. "And I think they're doing a good thing, but . . . I'm not one of them. I'm still Shinra, and I know that when they look at me, they're remembering everything that my father's company ever did to crush their livelihoods."
Though Cloud and Vincent are Shinra, as well (former Shinra-men, they would argue), they were given the choice to give it up, a choice that Charlie will never have. Without Shinra, they are still capable of fighting and saving the planet, while Charlie will always be powerless and useless without the company behind her.
"I have to go back and do what I can in the final days. It's the only way I'll be able to help." She wraps her arms around herself. "But it's . . . difficult to say good-bye."
Cait Sith is quiet again for a few seconds, thinking. "What if you didn't go back to Midgar at all? What if you went somewhere else instead? Somewhere that I can assure that you'll be safe?"
"Like where?"
"Junon," he answers simply. "If the world is coming to an end, might as well spend it with your family, right?"
Charlie smiles, but it doesn't stay for long. "Why didn't you tell me about Veld?"
"It was better that way," he tells her, reminding her of someone else she knows. "It was better for him."
Cosmo Canyon is rustic and quaint, but not displeasing altogether, carved into and built on top of red rock that makes everything look bright orange with both Meteor and the sun beating down on the village.
When she looks up to the very top of the village, she can see the observatory that Nanaki had told her about, its massive telescope pointed right at MEteor.
Cait Sith tells her that it's a scientific community, and she might like to poke around and talk with others that share a love for space and the stars and the planet, but it's the very last thing she feels like doing, especially when the residents start looking through their windows and filtering out of their homes to catch glimpses of Nanaki and his odd group of friends.
She finds that a lot of eyes are drawn to her, and it makes her anxious. Surely these people are aware of her identity, as she very much looks the part of a Shinra. Her father had been right about the "Shinra look" inherited by both of his children.
Nanaki leads them to the very top, to a small building in the shadow of the observatory where his grandfather has taken to living. Papers are scattered everywhere throughout, and several star charts line the walls. There is far more technology here than she's seen throughout the entire village, though she hasn't seen very much of it, and a lot of that technology is stamped with a very familiar insignia, and oftentimes the words SHINRA RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT DEPARTMENT are stamped themselves.
Bugenhagen is an old man, far older than she imagined, and he floats around on some sort of Shinra tech that she's never seen before, that seems to hum as he hovers in front of her.
"Welcome, friends," he announces to them all, smiling down at Nanaki, who leads them further into the home, into a side room that's less cluttered than the kitchen area. "I am sorry we must meet under such dire circumstances."
"We've come to seek your wisdom, Grandfather," Nanaki tells him, sitting back on his hind legs.
"Ho ho hoo! Is that so?" The old man's eyes sweep across the room, taking in all of their faces. "Nanaki, I see you have brought a new friend with you. Are you not going to introduce us?"
"Yes, Grandfather. This is Charlotte Shinra. Charlie, this is my grandfather, Bugenhagen."
Bugenhagen floats right to her, extending his hand and looking delighted. Charlie shakes his hand firmly. "It's so good to finally meet you," she says.
"And you, of course," Bugenhangen replies, smiling warmly at her before releasing her hand. "Your mother was always so certain that you would find your way here eventually. We spoke of it the last time your friends came here, the first time. I expect you've been informed?"
"Yes," she answers, though it's not an answer she wished to give. "Cait Sith told me. And your sentiment . . . it was very lovely. Thank you."
"Of course. When we all finish here, I would be very happy to show you the things of hers that I have kept. She would want you to have them, I think."
"That would be wonderful."
Once again, she's left with a horrible sense of anticipation. She can hardly focus on anything anyone is saying, and when Bugenhagen asks her to look into the deepest reaches of her heart, she comes up short and empty-handed, and it only serves to make her feel worse.
It comes down to Aerith, in the end. It comes down to her sacrifice, to her interrupted efforts when it came to stopping Sephiroth. It comes down to the City of the Ancients, where Charlie remembers feeling the world stop as Sephiroth drove his sword right through her.
It doesn't take long to come up with a temporary plan. The Huge Materia is able to be stored safely in Bugenhagen's laboratory, and the old man decides to go north with them.
"You're comin', too, ain't you?" Cid asks her quietly as they all agree to restock on supplies and get some rest in before the journey.
She agrees, but she can't say why. Maybe she wants to find out as much as she can about how to save the planet. Maybe she just wants to be with these people for a little bit longer, just enough to prepare a decent good-bye.
Charlie is left behind as her friends take their leave of Bugenhagen's study, and when it's just them, Bugenhagen turns to face her, hands held together. "Are you ready, Miss Shinra?"
No, and I never will be. But she can't think of a better reason than that to visit her mother's grave now.
The grave happens to be on the edge of a red rock cliff, overlooking the canyons and valley below, and the ocean in the far distance. She has to climb stairs that have been carved into the rockface, following after Bugenhagen at a slow and steady pace, the air growing thinner the higher she climbs. The old man takes his leave of her, giving her some privacy, as they approach the grave.
Whatever flowers Cait Sith had placed here are long gone. Instead, there is a lone tombstone, the weather worn rock making it difficult to make out the inscriptions from far away. When she kneels in front of it and brushes off some of the dust, it's easier to read. For the moment, the only sound is the occasional rushing of the wind.
E.T.G
1956 — 0006
DEDICATED PLANETOLOGIST
DEVOTED DAUGHTER
BELOVED MOTHER
It's inadequate, she thinks. Her mother, who had helped shape her into the woman she is today, receiving such a vague and ingenuine tombstone upon a rocky cliff . . . it seems insulting. The gravestone seems uncared for, and tears burn in her eyes as she tries to knuckle them away like a little girl.
"Why didn't you come back for us?" she whispers to her mother, wondering if she can hear her, somewhere deep within the Lifestream.
Charlie remembers little of her mother. Sometimes she remembers words and phrases, her imagination unable to conjure up the rest of the scene, unable to remember the context of it all. Sometimes she dreams of her mother's face, the image flickering when she wakes.
"Why didn't you tell me you were dying?" she cries, holding her face in her hands. "I would have come . . . I would have come to see you . . ."
Perhaps it's better this way. Perhaps it's better that her mother will never be forced to see what happened to her children, to see the way the company had twisted them, turned them into people they otherwise would never be. Perhaps it's better that her mother be spared the burden of that guilt, of that knowing.
She kneels before her mother's grave for a long time. She watches the sun rise to its fullest, and watches it slowly begin to sink in the sky. So deep in her thoughts, Charlie doesn't hear the pattering of feet against the dirt until it's right behind her.
It's easy for Cait Sith to climb up her side, wrapping his little arms around her neck and clinging to her. Charlie finds herself clinging to him, as well, holding him like a child against her. It's unsurprising that he would make his way up here to see how she's doing, but what does surprise her is the additional hand that comes down on her back.
Cid kneels at her other side, the owner of the hand that splayed against the middle of her back, and he isn't alone. The shifting of sabatons gives away Vincent's position right behind her, and Cloud, Tifa, and Barret have come with flowers to place at the base of her mother's grave. Nanaki howls at the impossibly huge Meteor coming towards them, and Yuffie comes up directly behind Charlie to hug her.
Charlie buries her face into Cait Sith's fur, crying quietly as her friends sit in silence with her. The breeze tickles the back of her neck. The wind seems to whisper to her, speaking words unintelligible into her ear. The arms around her neck tighten, and while she knows he's only a robot, he feels real enough in the moment.
It means more to her than she can say.