A/N: I hope everyone has had a good holiday! :) Sorry again for taking so long, but tis the season. ;)

THANKS SO MUCH to everyone who reviewed since last time. It means a lot, and I appreciate it a great deal. Please continue to review. Thanks again, and I hope you like this chapter.

Regret

Even just a month ago, if someone had asked Zack what was most important to him, he would have stated that, obviously, it was being a hero.

Because…well, that had been his dream. Who didn't want to be a hero, to be admired as someone trustworthy and strong? Even more than that, it was something Zack was sure he could do, an accomplishment that wasn't so unreachable as anybody claimed. If he worked hard enough, trained enough, than he'd be the heroic figure that was waiting for him.

But as he lay there, on the cold ground with only the metallic taste of blood in his mouth keeping him conscious, Zack found that his mind didn't want to think those thoughts. He couldn't mourn and lament the man he might never be, the figure of awe and inspiration that he might never become.

Instead his cloudy vision filled itself with illusions, the bulky objects lying in front of him playing like a television screen. Wires became neat braids decorated with pink ribbons, buttons and knobs shifting into friendly, and beautiful, green eyes. The distant clanging of matching swords and the accompanied howls and cries of pain felt like delicate laughter dancing through flower petals.

And as he lay there, head pounding, wounds spouting blood, limbs shaking as if he'd never have the strength to push himself back up again, Zack wasn't sorry that he never became a hero.

Zack was sorry that he'd let Aerith down.

The tiny folded square of paper in his pocket felt like it was a trillion pounds, pressing against his leg and reminding him...

You promised her.

He remembered her bright smiles that used to be so shy, the way her face had fallen as his phone had begun its siren ringing. Once, the sound had given him an optimistic cheer, a chance to prove himself to the world. At that moment, it had felt like a curse, tearing away from someone who brought him real honest happiness.

He recalled himself nodding, promising promises when in the end it seemed that he had only been promising her castles in the sky that he wasn't going to be there to build. Zack wondered if she was waiting for him, the sun painting itself in her hair in the way that rendered him speechless some times. He wondered if he was worrying her, and a wave of guilt washed over him, because he never wanted to make her feel that way.

Zack loved Aerith. He had only wanted to make her happy, to make her laugh, to make her feel as if the world was full of something ready to be discovered, the way she always made him feel. He had wanted a chance to hold her when she was breaking, put her back together again, the way she had done for him. He was going to take her up into the real Midgar, erase her fear with the sight of the beautiful blue sky and the clean air. Zack wanted to take her home to Gongaga, to show his parents that he had found someone he could always come home to.

Zack wanted to marry Aerith. He had spent so many sparing sessions distracted with visions of "I do's" and "In sickness and in health's." He'd taken free time he had and spent it in shop windows, staring at rings that he still hadn't had enough gil to buy. He'd been so close, and the pile in his drawer was only a little bit away, not that it mattered now.

Zack was going to live a life with Aerith. He was going to go on his missions, save the day as he had always dreamed, and come home into the arms of someone he loved. They were going to raise a family together, have children and give them everything they could.

There were so many things that he had been sure they were going to do, lives they were going to have. A life that was started when he awoke and saw her eyes, a life that was supposed to be continued by the list in his pocket.

As he lay there, he knew he'd failed. Yes, he'd failed his mission and let an entire town burn to the ground. Yes, he'd failed himself and become a weak victim instead of the demigod that he had always been sure he'd be.

But more important was the fact that he had failed her, and while he could take the rest, that was a burden he could not bear.