Author's note: Hi everyone! First of all, thank you for all the lovely reviews people have been sending me!! You're great and you know who you are! :D Well, I feel like explaining something before this chapter and here it goes: as you may have noticed I have been sort of following the game line from FF7! But of course, if I reproduced the exact aspects of the game it would be boring right? So I'm following the game in a way but definitely not entirely! I'm making up things of course to create my story! So yeah, I hope you enjoy reading it! Thank you so much!!!

Zack's Final Mission

Chapter 6: The hero returns

He carried her in his arms worriedly and carefully down the road avoiding the inquisitive gazes upon them as he walked towards her house which was the last one of the street where some red and yellow colours could be seen in the corner spreading from the flowers in her little garden. Her head was gently leaning on his right shoulder as he carried the girl and every two seconds he checked on her face soundlessly sleeping.

Her chestnut brown hair was covering her cheek and her light pink lips were pressed in a thin line. Her cheeks were fading red; she looked tired and as she slept it seemed as if she had just run a marathon.

What has she done?

Why was he alive?

How did she find him?

What brought him there?

Those were all questions he had to remember to ask her when she wakes up. She would clarify him. He felt so confused, his chest was holding in a feeling of betrayal from what had happened to him before he thought he had died. Shinra turned against him; everything he believed in felt like a knife had impaled him through his back and contorted in it leaving an untreatable wound there.

He was angry but he had to keep it real. Acting with his heart would cause him to barge into Shinra and kill every living person in there who was responsible for what had happened to him and Cloud. He didn't know what became of Cloud. That was another question to add to that list he had for Aerith if she could help him. Maybe she had heard of something.

No… He couldn't react by instinct, Aerith needed him sane. His first priority now was her. After all, she waited for him all those years, she kept writing and wishing to hear from him. She was probably the reason he was still standing, so first he would take care of her, be by her side and then he would make a plan to deal with the other situation. He needed to know the truth about Shinra, but that didn't matter for now, he would not think about it anymore.

Apart from all of that, he felt fine for someone who had almost been killed by a whole army. Nothing was hurting and his body felt healthy enough.

Once he reached the house, Aerith's adoptive mother's eyes widened tearfully as she looked up at the tall SOLDIER carrying her daughter. She had met him almost five years ago one day Aerith had brought him there to have lunch with them. Elmyra liked him in a heartbeat. He was everything she had hoped for to her adoptive daughter and she knew how happy he made Aerith. When he was gone it was like half her life was sucked away from her although one who didn't know her enough wouldn't notice.

Elmyra was well aware of where Aerith was going everyday for about two weeks when she left the house to only return at night. She had informed her mother that Zack had returned and that he needed her there so the woman was not surprised to see Aerith asleep or Zack awake. But still, she couldn't help feeling amazed to see him there after so long has passed.

She walked Zack to Aerith's room and left the two there closing the door behind her with one last worried glance at her daughter.

Zack laid Aerith down on her single bed and looked incessantly at her peaceful figure. It came to him then that he hadn't seen her in what seemed like forever but she looked exactly the way he had imagined her to be after five years. She hadn't changed much; she looked more grown-up of course. After all she was seventeen when he last saw her.

He smiled slightly as he realized she was dressed in pink just like he had asked her to be every time they knew they would meet. Also, the pink ribbon he had offered her was there on her hair. There was no ring on her finger so he couldn't help feeling happy she had not been taken from him, at least he would like to think about it that way.

A feeling of kindness and admiration towards that girl overwhelmed him as he kept looking at her. He felt a sudden knot forming in his throat, regret for leaving her like that without any sort of news from him. But why had she been so devoted to him through all this time?

Love… He finally knew what it felt like.

"Sleeping beauty." He whispered while leaning down and pressing his lips tenderly to her forehead before pulling a chair to sit down by her bed. "I have so much to thank you for." He rested his head between his hands passing them along his dark hair and looking down at the floor.

"This was definitely not the way I imagined our reunion to be you know." He let out a tiny laugh and shook his head while looking back at her. "I'm going to tell you how I had imagined it would be but you have to promise me you won't say I'm mushy."

"I had thought you would see me rising in the distance surrounded by light and then you'd start running full-speed towards me with this huge smile on your lips! Then when we finally touched, I'd catch you in my arms and lift you by the waist in the air swirling!" Zack smiled widely making the gesture with his arms of catching her in the air and hugging her tightly. But looking down at her his smile faded little by little. "Wake up soon… please… So you can laugh at me, with me."

Outside at the edge of the desert ahead the air felt hot but there was a light breeze blowing which made the sunny day pleasurable. A group of tree were about to go into their next destination.

A piercing sharp pain stroke Cloud's brain causing him to grab his head in between his hands and fall down on his knees holding in a cry of pain as he bended on the ground throbbing. The other two members of AVALANCHE quickly ran to him helping Cloud up worried about what was happening to him.

"Cloud!" Tifa called to him.

"What's wrong man?" Barrett's strong voice asked as he helped him up by the shoulders.

"Nothing." Cloud lied since he was feeling better now. He was hiding the fact that he had been getting strange dreams at night and sudden flashes of memories from different events suddenly appeared in his head through that sharp pain and a flash of light once in a while. Tifa and Barrett exchanged uneasy looks not convinced by his answer. The time was coming when he had to tell them his story before he got to them, but not right now…

Cloud looked back one last time at the doors of the dark city of Midgar they were leaving behind before turning his back and walking away followed by his two friends and avoiding the feeling inside him of leaving something unresolved there.

Zack stretched his arms up and yawned sitting on his chair, irremovable from Aerith's bedside. Unexpectedly, Aerith's eyes started moving, blinking as she gently tried to open them only to be hit by the morning light coming from outside. Zack smiled widely realizing she was finally waking up. His heart started beating faster, his stomach felt nervous that she would soon be talking to him again. He waited there, grinning happily for her to notice he was there beside her. After so long has passed, he was there; he kept his promise to come back… Well he didn't say how he'd come back, but he did.

"Fred… is that you?" Aerith mumbled in between semi-closed eyes and in a rough voice looking at Zack.

"Fred?" Zack's smile faded and he got up from the chair in shock. "Who the heck is Fred?" He exclaimed in a shriek.

"I'm just teasing you…" Aerith's eyes were fully opened now and she grinned at him letting out a small clear laugh before sitting up on her bed, knees hanging down from its side. "Welcome back!"

"That was so not funny! You almost scared me to death with that Fred!" Zack shook his head but then he realized what he had just said, not the best choice of words to express himself. "And I could tell you the same thing. You slept one day and a half all the way through! You got me worried about you."

"One day and a half?" Aerith blinked. "That must be my new record. I thought it would take me longer to wake up."

"Don't even joke about it!" Zack almost yelled. "It looked like an eternity you were out. I… thought I'd never hear your voice again."

"Zack…" Aerith rose to her feet and got closer to him shaking her head at how impatient he had always been. Zack remained frozen, his body tightened at her proximity. She lifted her arms and placed them around his neck resting her forehead on his chest as he laid his chin on the top of her head raising his arms around her waist.

Time seemed to stop in that moment and it felt like he couldn't breathe or swallow while feeling her touch.

"You're here…" She whispered letting the tears fall silently to the surface of the white shirt Elmyra had given him that was once from her husband.

"I'm sorry it took me a while." Zack truthfully replied closing his eyes and narrowing the embrace while letting his fingers go through her hair and softly caressing her neck with his lips. He still couldn't believe he was finally touching her, he needed to make up for all the time lost.

"This should be remembered as the day Aerith Gainsborough sees the blue sky for the first time in 22 years…" Zack grinned looking back at the apprehensive girl following him down the street. After Aerith had promised him she felt perfectly fine and Zack got all the answers for all the questions he had for her they felt that there was still so much more left to say but they needed some time away from that place, some time just for the two of them and that had to be outside the city. "Wow… We're getting old."

"Are you calling me old?" Aerith raised an eyebrow at him.

"Not at all!" Zack apologized smiling.

Suddenly they heard unfamiliar footsteps approaching them and abruptly coming to a stop just behind the two. They slowly turned to see a tall man in a black suit with pale white skin and dark hair tied in a pony tail standing there looking with wide shocked eyes at them and stading there statue-like by the picture of the two.

"Tseng…" Zack's mouth dropped open.

- To be continued

Note: And that's it for now!! Uh Tseng! Thanks for reading!! Until next chapter!!