Note: If Cloud or Aeris had a chance to tell their story—but had to keep it to just a few of the moments that stand out—what moments of their lives would they choose to share? For Cloud, these might be some of his picks. This is their story as Cloud would probably tell it (in my mind). A bit of angst and fluff.
This one's for kikofreako (who requested this story and therefore, is the one who deserves all the credit), for all the wonderful encouragement, support, and inspiration. For the touching stories. For being such an incredible fellow Cleris fan. And well…just because. I hope you like it.
Forgiveness
~~~~ooo~~~~
"Geez, stiffer than the stiffs back home," Hades muttered behind his back as he walked away. "Still, suckers like him are hard to come by."
Bastard.
If he didn't need what this job would give him so badly, he'd show the damn god what he was really made of and wipe that smirk off his face permanently. Gods weren't the only ones who could make someone wish for death.
Cloud entered the arena, unable to help noticing again the pair of innocent blues on the kid as he sized him and his friends up. His eyes went to the weapon he'd seen in the boy's hand when he'd walked by them earlier…and his eyebrows shot up.
Shit.
What the fuck was this? What the hell was Hades playing at? Was the kid completely stupid? Did he really think this was just a game? He was holding a toy, a bloody freakin' toy, of all things. A fucking keyblade.
He was hallucinating, he had to be.
But no matter how he blinked, all he saw was the kid brandishing that ridiculous thing as if it was some goddamn sword.
By contrast, the buster sword he was carrying over his shoulder felt very real, and was more than capable of slicing an opponent cleanly in half with one swift stroke despite the bandages. The same thing couldn't be said of the toy the kid had.
The big blue eyes were watching Cloud tentatively, but bravely, undaunted. All guts and not a lick of sense.
Hell if he didn't hate himself sometimes.
A small part of him almost hoped there was more to the kid than what he was seeing. He'd made it this far in the games, hadn't he?
But time was running out for him. And he couldn't forget what it would mean for her if he went down.
He leapt forward, swung the sword…
~~~~ooo~~~~
"What's wrong?"
He gave a start, turned to look over his shoulder, and frowned, not a little exasperated that she could still sneak up on him after all these years. At least, he thought with a sigh of resignation, she was still the only person who could do so.
"Nothing." He turned back around, propped his elbows up on his knees, and went back to staring at his boots.
"Come," Aeris laughed softly. "I know you better than that." Her footsteps were light, airy, almost soundless as she walked up behind him. "Even Yuffie knows something's wrong. She saw you sitting here all by yourself from above, and almost barged over to cheer you up but Leon put a stop to that idea."
He winced. He wasn't up to Yuffie's particular brand of cheerfulness on his best days, and especially not on a day when company was exactly what he'd been trying to avoid. Leave it to her to be the one to spot him from the top of the wall.
Aeris came down the last step and moved around to stand in front of him. He looked up and was almost blinded by the setting sun at her back, obscuring her face and figure, and she quickly knelt down so that he was now looking at the way the sun's rays caught her hair, threading it with a multitude of colors.
"Leon and the others—" he began.
"They're fine," she said firmly. "The committee is not going to fall apart just because one of its members skips out on a meeting." She reached out, took hold of his hands, and pulled them down from his face. "What's on your mind, Cloud?"
He clammed up.
Her eyes caught and held his as she rubbed a thumb back and forth over his gloves. "Whatever it is, it's eating at you inside."
He opened his mouth but nothing came out.
Coward. He'd spent all day trying to think of a way to get her alone, to talk to her in private, but now that she'd solved the problem for him and sought him out, he found he didn't have the courage to do what he'd intended.
"Who can you tell if not me?" Her eyes were so green, so warm. They would be filled with disgust and hatred once he confessed everything.
Regardless, she had a right to know. And the longer he kept it from her, the more he only despised himself.
The words came out slowly, reluctantly. "I've been sitting here thinking…trying to figure out how to tell you…" he trailed off.
"Yes?" Aeris asked gently when the silence had stretched on for some time.
He took a deep, calming breath. Exhaled quickly. "I should've told you the last time I came back."
"You can just tell me now."
This time, the words came out in a rush. "I signed a contract to kill someone."
Her eyes darkened. Not with dislike or horror, but with pain and understanding. And something else he couldn't quite bring himself to believe, not after what he'd just revealed. No way in hell could he believe that.
When she spoke, her voice was quiet. "I knew that."
He should've figured she did.
"A good man. A hero. And innocent people and children who got in the way."
She gave a small nod. "In times like these, it is inevitable that the number of casualties will rise like nothing we've seen before. But we all bear part of the responsibility for the innocent lives lost, every single one of us."
Cloud stared at her. She wasn't reacting at all the way he'd thought she would. But she hadn't heard the worst of it yet.
"I didn't just let someone die. I almost took an innocent life. A child's life. Deliberately," he said in a brusque tone of voice, harsher and crueler towards himself than anyone else.
"But you didn't."
"Not for lack of trying." He met her gaze squarely, refusing to let her run or back away from the truth of his words, to view his actions as anything other than what they were. "If that overgrown mutt hadn't knocked me out, I would have."
"No. You would've made the right decision."
He looked incredulously at her, unsure as to whether he should laugh or curse. "I wouldn't have hesitated to kill him," he said bluntly.
"You're wrong. And if you think claiming otherwise or anything you say or do can make me turn away from you, think again."
"Damn it!" he swore, suddenly frustrated as hell. Pulling his hands from hers, he rose to his feet and took a few steps back. Unfuckingbelievable. He was the one backing away. "Are you even listening to me? To yourself? I'm telling you I made the choice to kill an innocent child. What if I told you I'd been ordered to take out someone whom the worlds had been in desperate need of?" He would have destroyed their only hope. The one who was supposed to save them all. Didn't she realize that?
She stood up too, following him step for step as he moved backwards up on the stairs. "I'm listening. I hear you. And it probably would have bothered me if it hadn't weighed on your conscience one bit." His back hit the wall, and she grabbed his right hand again, holding it between both of hers with a grip far stronger than he would've guessed her capable of. "But you only almost took an innocent life. You didn't go through with it."
He made a sound of impatience.
"And Sora's still alive. You obviously didn't kill him."
He stared at her again.
Her mouth curved upwards. "I know about Sora too."
"He told you?" he asked weakly.
"Yuffie threatened to strip him down to his undies then string him upside down from the bell tower, and swing away at it until he spilled what it was he was so clearly bursting with at the seams to hide from us. When he has a secret from you, he's like a puppy with an itch he can't quite reach," Aeris laughed. "Yuffie's description, not mine." She looked at him and he could swear she was seeing straight all the way down to his black soul. "You didn't know he was the keyblade master when you fought him."
He couldn't say if that would have made a difference.
"He told me I would find what I was searching for," he said at length.
"Yes, he's quite the optimist, isn't he?" she smiled. "Sounds like Sora."
"Even though I went after him, he still had kind words for me afterwards." He was bewildered by it even now.
"Children have big hearts," she said gently. "They can forgive anything and still love the very ones who hurt them." The tone of her voice and the expression on her face had him wondering if she wasn't speaking of feelings much closer to home. "You must not have tried very hard to kill him."
Cloud shook his head. "Tell me you don't really believe that."
"I believe in you," she said quietly.
He opened his mouth to tell her how stupid believing in him was, that he was the last person she should place her faith in, and that anyone else would be a better choice, but she gave him a look that stopped him in his tracks.
"Do you always have an answer for everything?" he asked instead.
"Not always." She tilted her head, regarded him thoughtfully. "For instance, I don't understand why you agreed to work with Hades."
Hades? Just how much had Sora told them?
"He offered me a deal I couldn't refuse."
"What was it?"
He let out a heavy sigh. "You."
The look she gave him told him he wasn't fooling her one bit. "There's more to it than that."
"I was desperate. I would've done anything. Binding myself to him seemed little enough in return for finding you."
"You didn't have to take up with him. You would've found me on your own eventually."
"Don't you know, Aeris?" he asked, surprised he had to explain that one to her. "I'm weak. I took the easy way out."
But she did know. She knew him too well.
"You felt it, didn't you?" She looked wonderingly at him. "You knew it. I could've borne anything but losing you…"
"Don't say it," he said forcefully. "I had to get back. I needed to get back to you."
"It doesn't make it any less true if I don't say it. The darkness was always closest to overpowering me whenever I felt you on the verge of succumbing to it. So when you felt you couldn't hang on for much longer, you made a gamble that Hades would keep his end of the bargain if you agreed to do what he asked, and you'd get what you hadn't been able to do on your own."
Cloud stared at her, completely and utterly floored.
She smiled, and he couldn't deny what he was seeing in her eyes anymore. He would probably never understand it but he couldn't deny it. Moving in closer, she slid her arms around his neck, and he found himself unable to break free of her gentle hold.
He didn't want to break free.
"You did it for me."
The fear, the dread, the self-loathing he'd lived with for so long slowly began to disperse as she held him in her arms, her body soft and warm against his. Loving.
In time, it would all go away. With her beside him, perhaps even the impossible could be attained someday.
~~~~ooo~~~~
"And then what happened, Daddy?"
He looks at the little boy sitting quietly on his stool, head cocked to one side, eyes wide with fascination as he listens to the new story his father is telling.
"Well, Mommy kissed Daddy and said 'I love you.'"
"Like Mommy kisses Angel?"
Cloud smiles. "Just like she kisses Angel."
"And like she says 'I love you' to Angel?"
"Exactly like that, son."
"And did she call Daddy her itty bitty, sweet little muffiny-munchkin, and try to eat Daddy up?"
"Well, no," he admits. "That she didn't."
"Oh." The young boy considers his father for a moment, then says decisively, "Angel will tell Mommy to do that to Daddy too."
"Thank you, buddy," he says gravely.
His son nods and prompts him to keep going. "What happened after that, Daddy?"
"After that, the darkness went away, and there was peace and happiness everywhere."
"And then Angel came."
"Yes," he says softly, "and then you came. And oh, what a day that was." He slips with ease into the familiar phrases his wife uses so often, and although he can't quite say them the way she does, the same emotions are in his voice. "The most wonderful, glorious day of our lives." His eyes drift over the features of the diminutive figure before him. "And every day has brought only more happiness since you were born."
"And Angel had hair like Daddy and eyes like Mommy," the boy repeats word for word a line he's heard so many times before from both his parents, this small child with a grasp of language far beyond his years who is also proving to have a natural inclination for retaining all kinds of information and details from his favorite stories. "And Mommy cried."
"Yes," Cloud nods, and continues the rest of it for the little boy. "You had the best of us and a heart bigger than the world is round. Everything we could ever want and more." He glances up at the other pair of bright green eyes that has been watching them for some time from the kitchen doorway, the love in the emerald depths for the man and child they're currently resting upon plain as day even from where he is sitting on the living room carpet. "A million blessings in one tiny baby..."
"…and more love than the universe can hold in and for you," Aeris finishes, her voice tender. "Our own precious, little angel."
Their son grins. "Tell about that, Daddy."
"Dinner's on the table, sweetie," his mother objects.
He turns to her. "After the story, Mommy?"
Cloud lifts him into his lap, and runs a hand gently through the soft, pale hair pointing every which way on the small head. "Why don't we save 'Angel's Story' for bedtime tonight?"
"Daddy won't forget?"
As if he could ever forget anything regarding this little one. "No," he says solemnly, "I won't."
"Daddy?" The child's inquisitiveness reminds him of another curious young boy who'd once taken on whole worlds and trounced all his enemies with a keyblade. A frickin' keyblade.
"Yeah, Angel?" He stands up with the boy in his arms and moves toward his wife.
His son may never be chosen to wield a keyblade, but Cloud is grateful for that. Still, his time will come and when that day does, Cloud has no doubt he will blaze his own trail and forge his own destiny.
Saving a world or two will be nothing for this small boy when he's already done the impossible. He'd come along and finished the job his mother had begun:
He's taught his father how to forgive himself.
"Why did Daddy keep covering Angel's ears?"
Aeris' soft laughter fills his ears.