Aerith couldn't stop staring at the massive wolf Cloud had ridden up on, which was now parked on the street in front of her apartment. Of course, it wasn't an actual wolf. As she looked at the motorcycle, however, she couldn't get the image out of her head.
Cloud chuckled as he finished what he was doing on the other side of the bike, standing up and walking over to stand next to her. "You can't seem to take your eyes off Fenrir."
"Fenrir… is that its name? It's just so… huge."
He laughed harder at this. "It's certainly one of a kind. Cid's the only one I trust to run maintenance on it." Running his hand over the front of the bike, he smiled wistfully. "Cid was one of the two who played a huge role in its construction," Cloud explained, a strange note of pain entering his voice.
Recognizing the look on his face, Aerith decided to not poke for more details—despite being curious who the other person was. "And the plan for today is to head outside the city on it?" she asked, somewhat skeptically. She'd never ridden on a motorcycle before, and she'd be lying if she said she wasn't a little nervous about the prospect.
"Yup," Cloud replied confidently, his voice regaining its normal warmth. "I actually found a place just yesterday. As soon as I saw it, I knew it would be perfect. You'll want to make sure to bring your jacket. It's pretty far from the city, and once the sun sets, it'll get pretty cold out there," he warned.
"Are we camping?" she asked in surprise, slightly nervous as she moved to grab the jacket she'd bought the other day from the coat rack inside the door.
"That was my initial plan, but if you'd rather not, we can always head back to the city."
Aerith considered this for a moment. It was still hard for her to trust, even after everything Cloud had done for her. Eventually, she shook her head in response. "No… no, it's fine. I think I'd like to try it, as long as it doesn't suddenly start raining out of nowhere."
"I've actually got a pair of tents packed away in Fenrir's storage, just in case, but I think we'll be fine."
She watched as Cloud bent down and popped open a hidden compartment on the side of the bike. He reached in and pulled out a helmet that mirrored his own, before turning and offering it to her. "Here, you'll want to wear this to be safe. I've been driving for years and never come close to an accident, though, so there's no reason to worry."
Aerith accepted the helmet and was able to slip it over her head easily enough. She was glad she always wore her hair in a braid so the wind wouldn't end up tangling it. The strap to fasten it, however, proved to be much more of a struggle.
"Cloud, how does this strap work?" she asked after a few failed attempts.
"Oh, you have to slide it through both the metal hoops first, then bring it back around between them, through the larger one. That should let you cinch it until it's comfortable," he explained.
"And are we going to be able to talk to each other during the trip, or will it be too hard to hear anything?" she asked, as she finally got the helmet to fasten thanks to Cloud's instruction.
"If you reach inside the right side of your helmet you'll find a button and a little wheel. The button will turn on your helmet's intercom and then the wheel controls the volume."
Aerith fiddled around with the helmet for a moment before she found what Cloud had described. "This feels very fancy," she commented, pressing the button. "Can you hear me?"
"Perfectly," she heard Cloud say into her ear, a little quiet, so she turned the volume up. "We should be good to go, hop on behind me once you're ready."
She nervously eyed the bike once more, feeling her heart racing slightly as she walked over and placed one foot on the passenger footrest. Placing one hand on Cloud's shoulder briefly, she swung her other leg over the bike and settled onto the seat behind him. Aerith was so used to walking, she worried being perched like this while moving at the speed of a car would be too much to handle.
"Make sure to hold on tight and then try and keep your weight centered, I'll handle the rest," Cloud said.
She yelped in surprise as Cloud started up the engine, the noise catching her off guard in conjunction with the feeling of the bike coming alive under her.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, sorry," she apologized, her face heating up. "It just took me by surprise, I'm good."
"I hope," she muttered softly under her breath.
"You'll be fine, trust me," Cloud replied, and she blushed even harder as she realized the intercom had still picked her up.
As they rolled out into the street to start their journey, Aerith tightened her grip around Cloud's chest. Resting the side of her head against his back, she hoped she'd get more used to this quickly. She was a little surprised Cloud was okay with having her so closely pressed to him, but he had been the one to suggest this. A part of her she'd never noticed before stirred in excitement at the feeling of his back against her, and she focused on that instead of how quickly the ground was moving.
Cloud struggled not to react as Aerith's death grip made him realize just how close together they were. He honestly couldn't remember the last time he'd been in physical contact with anyone for such a long period of time—much less a woman he was gradually growing more and more attracted to. Cloud realized he'd been so eager to show her the location he'd found, he hadn't given enough thought to how closely pressed together they'd be during the ride.
He was fairly confident she was able to tell how fast his heart was beating, given that one of her hands was gripping his shirt right over it. Hopefully, that wasn't making her more nervous. Aerith certainly wasn't helping the situation either, her grip tightening every time they took a turn or he accelerated to pass a car. Cloud was distinctly aware of her breasts in particular, as they repeatedly made their presence known against his back with each squeeze.
Eventually, once they'd left the confines of the city, and the traffic all but vanished, her grip relaxed and he could tell she was beginning to actually enjoy the experience. As the last signs of Midgar faded behind them, Aerith spoke up, breaking the silence that had lasted since they'd left. "So, I actually did some research since the other day, and it turns out the fear you mentioned has a name: philophobia."
Cloud was shocked to hear this. Not that she'd looked into it, but that there was an actual word to represent his fears. "I… It never even crossed my mind this was something other people dealt with. I assumed it was a unique weirdness I had. I guess I assumed that it wasn't… important enough to be an official thing, you know?"
Aerith's head nodded against his back. "I don't think it's terribly common, but as I looked into it more, some aspects of it were uncomfortably familiar. I can certainly relate to it myself," she said quietly.
Cloud fully understood what she meant, after what she'd told him the other night. He realized, with some surprise, how much it hurt him to hear her admit that. His own pain was a familiar companion at this point, but hearing someone else going through the same thing was so much worse.
"In any case," she went on, "now we both know more about it, I'm hopeful we can work together to, if not overcome it, at least learn to manage it."
Her arms squeezed around him again, this time in the form of a hug. And, for a very brief moment, Cloud felt himself relax slightly in her arms—actually enjoying the physical presence of another person for the first time in years. The sensation ended as quickly as it had arrived, but Cloud found himself hopeful, for the first time he could remember, that maybe this bond forming between them could last.
"Yeah… yeah that sounds promising! Thanks for letting me know, I really appreciate it," he replied, surprising himself with how much he meant it.
As they continued driving through the countryside into the late afternoon, Cloud felt Aerith growing more and more relaxed behind him. Eventually, she was no longer leaning against his back and mostly using her thighs to keep herself in place, her hands resting on his waist. He was surprised just how much he missed having her pressed against him. Finally, they reached the rest stop that marked the end of their journey and Cloud pulled into it, parking the bike.
After Aerith hopped off the back and started stretching her legs out, Cloud got to work unpacking the various things he'd prepared for the evening. Since the sky was still clear, he decided to leave the tents packed away. Worst-case scenario, he'd run back and pick them up, but he hoped it wouldn't come to that.
"Now what?" she asked him curiously, walking over to join him.
"Now we've got a short hike up to there," Cloud replied, pointing with his head to the wooded hill next to the road. "It should only take us about half an hour, tops, while carrying all this."
"And what's waiting for us up there?" she asked, bending down to grab a bundle of blankets.
Cloud picked up the cooler he'd packed that was full of food, careful not to jostle it in the process. "You're going to have to wait and see," he responded, one corner of his mouth rising.
Aerith pouted slightly at this but didn't press him any further. Together, they set off up the gradual slope, Cloud leading the way through the trees, making sure the makeshift path was clear for her.
"So how'd you find this place? It feels like we're in the middle of nowhere," he heard her ask from behind him.
"Pure luck," he said, laughing as he admitted it. "I've always been more at home outside the city than trapped inside its concrete walls. I try to get out whenever I can, which—thanks to Fenrir—isn't usually a problem." He glanced back to make sure she was doing alright and was pleased to see her still right on his tail.
"Yesterday, I happened to stop here and decided to take a look around. Once I'd climbed up here, I knew it was the perfect place for our date," he finished, pausing to kick aside a fallen tree branch before looking back once again. He was caught off guard when he saw how happy she looked. As they drew closer to the peak of the hill, the slope increased to the point where they focused on walking, a comfortable silence filling the woods.
"Oh Cloud!" she exclaimed in joy, as they passed through the last of the trees into a wide-open clearing at the top of the hill.
He'd hoped she would enjoy it, but was shocked to see actual tears in her eyes as she covered her mouth with one hand. The clearing was an explosion of color, blanketed in a massive variety of different flowers, but overwhelmingly dominated by the yellow lilies Aerith had introduced him to.
"You like it?" he asked, hopefully, the answer already obvious on her face.
She only responded by vigorously nodding her head, still apparently too overcome with emotion to be able to speak.
Wanting to give her some time and space, Cloud gently extracted the blankets from her arms. He carefully made his way through the flowers until he came to a large open area near the middle of the clearing, which was mostly grass and dirt. He spread the largest of the blankets out for them to sit on while tossing the other to the side for later.
As he was preparing to open the cooler and start laying out dinner, Aerith made her way over to join him, sitting down across from him. Her eyes were red, but the tears were gone, and she was smiling brightly.
"Thank you, Cloud. So much. I...," she paused, seeming unsure of what to say. "This has already been such an incredible day."
Cloud softly smiled back, her mood too infectious to resist. "I'm glad you've enjoyed it so far. Hopefully, the food won't let you down."
He pulled out the salad on the top first. It was an arugula base, covered in a generous helping of crumbled blue cheese, candied walnuts, bacon bits, and fresh strawberries. He drizzled a light raspberry vinaigrette over it before gently tossing it and setting the bowl down on the blanket. Next, he brought out the main course, pesto chicken kabobs, with a variety of grilled vegetables between each piece of chicken. Lastly, from the chilled section of the cooler, he pulled out a bottle of champagne, which he expertly uncorked, before pouring them each a glass.
"Dinner is served, madam," he announced, giving Aerith a seated bow.
"Cloud, this is incredible, did you make all of this yourself?!"
"No," he admitted, chuckling. "The salad was easy enough to throw together, but I bought the kabobs already prepared, if I had made them, you'd probably be equally shocked, but for all the wrong reasons."
"I'm sure that's not true," she said in amusement, serving herself a large portion of the salad first.
Cloud held his breath as she took her first bite, but the low noise of appreciation she made along with the look of contentment on her face, caused him to let it out in relief. He served himself a smaller portion of the salad and grabbed a kabob. "I'm pretty sure the only thing I've been able to cook and not ruin were military rations, and those are made to be indestructible in the first place."
Aerith laughed at this as she continued to eat her salad, taking an occasional sip of her champagne. "That was back when you were still a SOLDIER?" she hesitantly asked, after finishing the last bite.
Cloud felt himself stiffen as he went to pull a piece of chicken off his kabob. He'd been the one to bring the subject up, however inadvertently, so he answered once he'd finished chewing. "Yeah, up until four years ago that was the core of my existence," he answered, leaving it at that.
He could see her processing this information—trying to place the date to what she knew of that time—but Cloud wasn't surprised at the frustration and confusion he saw on her face as she failed to make any connections. The truth of that day had been buried deep. He was one of only a handful of people still alive who knew what had happened. And as comfortable as he was getting with Aerith, he wasn't ready to tell her more about it. Not yet.
Together, they finished eating in silence—Cloud thankful it was more respectful than awkward. Hoping to lighten the mood, he reached back into the frozen section of the cooler, looking over at Aerith. "Still have some room for dessert?"
Her eyebrows rose at this. "You even brought dessert?!"
"Just a bit of salted caramel ice cream," he said, grinning, holding a small container in one hand and offering Aerith a spoon with the other.
He laughed softly as he watched her attack the ice cream, sneaking his own bites between hers, their spoons occasionally clinking together by accident, causing them both to giggle. As they finished off the dessert, the sun passed behind the horizon, casting the sky into a beautiful array of reds and oranges. Cloud took a few minutes to pack everything back into the cooler, before sitting down next to Aerith to enjoy the remainder of the sunset.
As the last of the color bled from the sky, Aerith's hand gently came down to rest on his, and he instinctively jerked it away, regretting his action even as it happened, but unable to stop it.
"Sorry," she apologized before he was able to. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. I'll try to be better about the whole touching thing."
He sighed in frustration, not at her, but with himself. "You shouldn't be apologizing for that, I know it's a normal thing for people to do. I'll... try to work on it."
He shifted on the blanket slightly, moving so he was sitting behind her with their backs touching. "I know it's not much, but I think this is the most I can offer right now." Hesitantly, he reached back and gently placed one of his hands over hers.
He felt her head shake from side to side before she nestled it into his shoulder. "No, this is fine. I'm happy with whatever you're comfortable with."
Cloud was surprised to note just how comfortable he actually was right now. His best guess was it had to do with how closely they'd been pressed together earlier, which had been far more intimate than now. He'd missed this, he realized—how relaxing it was.
"So tell me more about you, from the time before SOLDIER. I want to know all about little Cloud."
He grunted in amusement, taken slightly off guard by the question. "Not really sure what to say to that, I feel like I had a pretty boring time growing up. I was born in Kalm, both of my parents died while I was very young so I don't remember them well."
He thought for a moment before continuing. "I do remember always getting in trouble as a kid, though, especially for cutting class in middle school."
Aerith laughed at this, causing him to smile before he went on. "Kalm was too small to have a high school, so I ended up moving to Midgar at that point. I remember being shocked at how big the city was. My new class alone was larger than the entire population of Kalm.
"I suppose I was a bit of a delinquent in high school. I'd like to blame it on being distracted by exploring the city, but really I was never that interested in classes. I ended up barely graduating, somehow, but knew I was done with getting an education. I decided to enroll in the military, which is how I eventually ended up in SOLDIER. And that's pretty much my past in a nutshell."
"I wonder if we would have hung out in high school if we'd gone to the same one," Aerith mused.
She shivered against his back, and he realized her jacket wasn't enough to keep her warm as the temperature continued to drop. "I'm getting up quickly," he warned her. He waited until he felt her weight shift off of him, before standing up so she wouldn't topple backward. Cloud grabbed the spare blanket from where he'd left it, before returning and draping it over Aerith.
"Awww, such a gentleman," she teased. "Thanks, Cloud."
He thought she was smiling up at him, but by this point, without the light of the moon, it was hard to be able to tell. "Not a problem," he said, returning to his position behind her, happy to not flinch as she nestled up against him once more.
"Are you sure you don't need some as well?" Aerith asked, concern clear in her voice. "I'm not really sure how we'd be able to share in this position, but I'm sure we could figure something out."
Cloud lightly shook his head in response. "Nah, I'm fine. Part of the whole SOLDIER thing. We're trained to endure extreme temperatures," he explained. "Now it's your turn, I want to hear about your life growing up too."
"I'm not sure mine's all that interesting either," she laughed. "I was born and raised in Midgar, so I've always been used to the city. My dad passed away while I was a child, but I still have a few faint memories of him. My mom's still alive and well, she lives in Sector Five and is retired now.
"Unlike you, I like to think I was a model student. And, as I already mentioned, while my grades were always great, my social life suffered for it. I never really had a lot of friends, and I never dated in high school, since I was so focused on my classes and getting into a good college.
"You… already know what happened there," she said, hesitating, for a moment before going on. "Ultimately, I graduated with my Biology degree. Once I started looking for jobs, I realized I had no idea what I wanted to do with it. I got an offer to work for Shinra, but I've never really been a fan of that company so I turned them down. In the end, I decided to try and start a business of my own, and that's how I started selling flowers."
Cloud struggled not to react as she said that cursed name. He could taste blood in his mouth and realized he'd accidentally bitten his lip. Ignoring it, he focused on the feeling of her behind him. At least she'd been smart enough to stay well away. He wished he had as well.
The cold night air was filled with only the sounds of the cicadas as Aerith finished. Cloud felt himself relaxing slightly, the rhythmic chirping of the insects calming his taut nerves. A cry of pure joy from Aerith stilled them momentarily, and he felt her back shift against his.
"Cloud, look!" she exclaimed. "You can see the stars so clearly now! It's so beautiful…"
Cloud looked up, but with the way they were sitting, he was only able to see a portion of the sky. Aerith seemed to also realize this, scooting away from him before lying down on her back. He decided to mirror her, lying down so their heads were next to each other with their bodies lying in opposite directions.
"Look, you can see the cactuar," he said, pointing out the constellation in question.
"And there's the chocobo!" Aerith observed happily.
Together, they pointed out all the constellations they could find. Cloud was filled with satisfaction that the final aspect of his plan had worked out so perfectly—Aerith seemed to be enjoying it as much as he'd hoped she would.
After they'd run out of constellations and were enjoying the view, a question popped into Cloud's head. "If you could go anywhere in the world you wanted, where would you go?"
"Hmmmm, that's a good question…" Aerith replied, thoughtfully. "A lot of places come to mind, but I've always loved the pictures I've seen of Gold Saucer." He could barely make out the outline of her head as he saw her nod to herself. "Yeah, I guess I'll go with that. What about you?"
"Oh… I can't come up with a specific location, I think I'd be happy anywhere I went with you," he replied, unthinkingly, only realizing what he'd said after it left his lips. Cloud felt the blood rush to his face, thankful for the near-total darkness at this point for concealing his embarrassment.
"That's so sweet of you," Aerith eventually responded, her voice thick with an emotion Cloud couldn't fully place.
Cloud wanted to melt into the ground in embarrassment. He couldn't believe he'd actually said that. After considering saying something else, he instead decided to leave it be. Hopefully, he hadn't upset her.
Aerith yawned, and his body followed suit, the excitement of the day winding down. Together, they fell asleep under the stars, Cloud more calm and relaxed than in years.