Autumn, you're in the Sleeping Forest, but this time you come ready to say goodbye, and this time the you is plural. You've travelled for weeks because you couldn't think of a destination, because the slums weren't her life, just where she spent it, and the City of the Ancients wasn't the end of her life, just where it happened. You head there anyway, but when you step into the forest, you know. This is where it has to be.

You're carrying the box, of course. Reno has offered to carry it a hundred times but the burden you're removing is yours, so the box must be too. The forest still whispers and twitches in your peripheral. You wonder how many other people have left secrets here, and know that even without Lunar Harp it is on your side. You wonder if Aeris left anything here in the forest's care.

Being autumn, the forest drapes the floor in gold and orange, its branches dripping fire all around. His hair catches in the light occasionally and he fits right in, disappearing briefly as he passes through the foliage. He follows you trustingly, even though you don't know where you're headed. You twist and turn where the forest takes you, and when you finally come to the clearing you stop.

You move to the centre and kneel, and he sits across from you, soil staining the knees of a suit that, after all this travel, was still immaculate. You shuffle the leaves aside and dig into the rich earth; five, ten, twenty handfuls of dirt. Your hands are filthy but you don't have anything to wipe them on, and besides you don't think Aeris would mind this kind of dirt.

The box sits between you, and you lift the lid. The first thing to catch your eye is the one that always did; that innocent pink ribbon, helping to hide the real character of the wicked flower girl. You had expected to have to wrestle it off Marlene – the little girl was notoriously talented at losing everything she owned, but the ribbon hadn't left her hair for a moment in almost two years. However, when you knocked on her door she just smiled at you and reached immediately to untie it. The girl has more than a glimmer of Aeris in her, and when you told her she blushed, and grinned for a week straight.

You trail the ribbon into the hole, releasing it as easily as Marlene had, even if it doesn't feel easy. The next item is old and dying itself, and drops a single yellow petal into the hole as you lift it from the box. Tifa had understood almost as innately as Marlene, and retrieved it for you without asking questions, probably without needing to. You weren't surprised that she still had it, but now she was finally coming to understand other things as well, as she'd asked you to stay for dinner, and invited Reno to ask Rude as well. When you left later that week she had the bald Turk taking over your mop duties, and when you pointed this out she'd whispered that in the very least it meant that the two of you would come back.

The final item in the box is a folded piece of parchment, ancient and crumpled. It buzzes with a tangible aura, but the words dance in front of your eyes, assembling themselves again in the corners of your vision. You know from experience that when the time came they would dissolve back into clear, firm lines, as Omnislash had for you the moment you were ready. But this is Great Gospel, and the words would probably never be read now, ever. You fold it into a small square and drop it into the hole, then you both push dirt over to cover it.

When you're finished he looks at you, and you just look back, suddenly exhausted.

"How am I supposed to feel?" you ask him.

"It doesn't matter, Strife," he replies, "As long as it's something."

It's everything, you think. It's swirling and painful and surely it's too large for a single human to contain. You pat down the earth some more because it's something to do with your hands, and your eyes, and you don't know what else you're meant to be doing. You can feel him watching you, it's something he does a lot, but today he also reaches forward, grabs both your wrists, and when you look up he gives you something to do with your mouth that you weren't expecting.

You have sex on top of the newly turned earth, with the ribbon and flower and the final limit just inches below your curling toes and clutching fingers and so many acres of skin. You can feel your moans being swallowed helpfully by the Forest, and wonder briefly if it's Aeris helping you – but you shove it away because fuck Aeris, you're fucking the stupid red-headed idiot who's been waiting 7 years and following you over the same three continents a hundred times and it's good, it's great, it's wonderful, gods, it's gold. Everything is gold.

You lie under the canopy for a while, you don't know how long. You don't speak, because you don't need to. You used to wish you could turn back time; to go back to the days when it was you and Zack and Reno, before you'd ever met Aeris and before either of them could hurt you by leaving. It was a stupid wish, you can see, because losing Zack meant that you could find yourself, and losing Aeris made you be yourself, and losing Reno only meant that you could find him again, on your own terms this time.

You leave knowing you'll probably never be able to come back again, and completely fine with that. The spot is marked with a thick SOLDIER first class shirt – it was too big on you anyway, you don't know why you still wore it – and a crumpled tie that he says he just didn't feel like putting back on.