I was going to make this chapter be about Zack in Modeoheim (the time when Angeal dies) but decided that it kind of put me in a rut. So this is going to be just another random recon mission and not the pivotal one that happens in the game.
For the hundreth time she flipped open her phone.
"I'm heading to Modeoheim right now. I stopped by the church before I left, but you were gone. I'm sorry I didn't get to say goodbye.
-Zack"
It was dated three days ago. Tseng had sent her a message the morning of, explaining to her that it wasn't safe to go to the church that day. He said that a batch of experiments had escaped and she was not to leave until they were taken care of. He didn't really explain much, but Aerith was almost looking for a reason not to go anyway. So she stayed inside, telling herself that it was for her own protection.
Not wanting to have to explain Tseng, and then subsequently everything weird about herself, she simply said:
"Got stuck at home. I'm sorry."
She had sent the message a few hours after receiving his, and had not received another message since.
She ran her fingers over the letters of Zack's name. Her phone was long and the screen tinted an unpleasant, old yellow, but his name shone a deep, inky black. She had been apart from Zack for longer than she had known him, and yet . . . she missed him.
She, as with all humans, found a way to cope with the absence, and busied herself with work around the slums. The summer heat blazed in the dirty town, and just going outside seemed a job in itself. But she managed to drag herself out of bed each morning, sweat clinging to her neck and face, to take care of things. She mostly stayed in Sector 8 and in the church, but every once in a while she would venture to the other close slums.
Summer rain pounded the plate above her home. She could almost feel the world shaking above her.
It was twilight now, and the world was getting dark. She wondered what gentle rain sounded like, and what it would feel like when it hit her skin. All she had ever heard was the hardest of rains, and even then it just sounded like dull thunder against the metal. It was beautiful when it rained in the slums, but only because all the water that collected on the plate was flushed down to the edges of the circle, creating surrounding walls of water in the slums.
Aerith sighed. You could never get close enough to the beauty though, because the chain link fence the bordered the slums made it impossible. You could leave to get a closer look, but once you were gone there was no way to get back in without a passport or a key and not one person in the sums owned either of those.
She sat on her bed, feeling nostalgic. Her room seemed too small for her. It felt like it was swallowing her up. She fell back onto her bed, too caught up in thought to care about anything. Truthfully, she hadn't been able to sleep well since Zack had left. Always half expecting him to crawl through her window in the middle of the night, or call her or anything. But none of those things had happened and she couldn't help feel as though her had forgotten her.
She thought about how meaningless her life had been before Zack. What did she do with her days? How did she even occupy her time? She couldn't remember. The hours dragged by without Zack, and were gone to quick when he was with her. Time hated her.
She thought of the strange men in town who were addicted to drugs. She thought of their arms, riddled with bruises, and there faces empty when the drug wasn't flowing through their tired veins. She had been afraid of them, but now realized that she was just like them. She had become an addict.
She had taken a hit, and enjoyed it so immensely that she disregarded the side effects. She looked past the warnings and now that the drug was gone, she felt empty. She might as well just leave her house right now and go sit under the dilapidated awnings with them. She would fit right in.
Zack, however conflicted towards him she might have felt when he left, was her life. She almost laughed at how much she had taken Tseng's words to heart. Who cared if it he frequented Wall Market? Who cared if he fucked a lot of women? It didn't matter to her anymore. She couldn't believe that she had wanted to punish him for that. It seemed so trivial now that she couldn't even see his face. Just because she was a prude didn't mean that everyone around her had to be.
Suddenly Aerith's phone vibrated. Startled, she grabbed it and flipped it open. It was from Zack.
"I'm sorry I couldn't write sooner. We are on our way home now. I missed you so much.
-Zack"
Her face lit up. Her room didn't seem too small anymore. She wasn't tired. The night air made her feel alive. She quickly wrote back.
"When can I see you?"
A few minutes delay.
"We're flying above Kalm right now. I'll be in Midgar thin the hour. Are you at the church?"
Her heart accelerated. He wanted to see her.
"No, come to my house. My mother's home, but she'll want to meet you anyway -
Aerith thought for a moment, and wondered if she was being too forward. What would her mother think anyway if she told her she met this guy only a few days before and was already inviting him to her room? No, it would probably be best if she didn't know yet. She deleted the message and started over.
Suddenly, she realized that her mother was not home. Tonight was poker night, and her mother had not missed a single night since her small group of friends had started. Vaguely, she remembered her mother saying something about leaving, but Aerith had not cared enough to pay attention.
"I'm at my house. Use the front door."
All she got in reply was a simple 'OK'.
She felt as though she needed to clean her house, but realized that her mom kept it clean anyway. Aerith was restless. Zack was coming to her house. She would be able to feel him, a solid entity, next to her again. All she wanted to do was be held by him, pressed close, breathing the same air, hearts beating rhythmically together.
A minute passed. Still no Zack.
Two minutes.
Three.
She was going insane sitting on the couch in her small living room.