Heart Less Love

Part Five: Regret

"The gate of tomorrow is not the light of heaven, but the darkness in the depths of the Earth."

(( A/N: Yay for the many kind reviews I've received... ))

Where she floated, it was dark and cold. There was no light, only the fading brilliance of something that had been sweet and wonderful, only the tortured memories left to plague her.

What good was knowing, if all that knowing did was to bring disaster, was to bring ruin and to bring empty hearts with empty nothing inside their deserted shells where love had once been housed?

She knew neither time nor erosion on the rocks of this frugal living. The cold sustained her, her memories supported her and the aching regret ate away at her for all time.

Once, in the skies had been silver wings flashing as a roar of engines filled the belly of the beyond, trails of smoke loomed white to the distant, twinkling stars and she regretted nothing. She had thrown it all away and where had it gotten her?

…Yet still, there was hope.

Her breathing was definitely better.

She exhaled a sigh of relief she hadn't been aware she was holding in, swabbing her hands on the soft towel spotted with blood. A needle and thread lay to the side, glittering strands of her magic fading away into nothing about the thread. A sterilised sheet of white was drawn to the chin of the girl laid in the bed, trying to relax despite sweat staining her brow, matching the spattering of blood droplets on the white sheets about the right shoulder. The black hair was matted with grime, sweat and blood and the smell of the sick wound its way into the room so deeply that she had been forced to open a window to let the chill of the evening into the room.

She had spent all day hovering over the inert, hardly sustained form of the girl- no, Yuffie was a woman grown now- the woman who clung to life by a slender life line. That's right, sometime in the distance between then and now, Yuffie had grown older. That was all part of being alive, she supposed, the getting old, the decaying part.

The wound had been of particular concern however, a smooth puncture hole through the right shoulder and the shoulder bone shattered by the force pushed through the very blade. It was the cause of the buckled collarbone, upwards at an awkward angle that had been pressing dangerously on the oesophagus and preventing the swallowing of frenzied saliva produced by panic. It was otherwise smooth and without any ugly tearing that would denote a serious wound. The loss of blood and the bone that needed setting were the real extent of her practised, polished healing handiwork.

On the opposite side of the bed, Vincent stood like a shadow in the small box room that Cloud had been using as his bedroom in the time visiting. It was frugally decorated, perhaps to fit his bleak nature, she mused a little, with white walls, pale linen covers and the minimum of furniture. The only small nods to vivacity were the pictures of the small tightly knit group of companions strewn over the room. And, she noted with a strange pang in her chest, a vase of yellow nodding flowers.

They seemed to be incredibly important, but she couldn't say why.

"What happened to her?" She whispered, not taking her eyes from the yellow blooms. It seemed always easier now to avoid the accusing, haunted and hungry stares of people, staring right through her to the hidden depths she tried to hide away. "The wound is… unnatural. It's as if something tore right through her in a perfect tubular shape."

"There was a monster in the mansion," he shrugged.

"What did it look like?"

"It was human shaped, but as if in great agony. There was a lot of fur and, as you might have surmised already, tentacles instead of arms. She was too quick to react, rather than too slow. She got to her weapon before I could caution her and ended up getting hit for her troubles."

"I see. If she'd been awake, she could have used some of her own techniques to sustain her wound." She smiled, looking down at the woman who cracked her eyes open briefly in the haze of sleepy after effects that often came beyond surgery.

"She has the soul of a kid," he snorted.

"Ah, Vince, don't tell me you don't like that," she croaked, then tried to sit upright. Aerith placed her hands to the shoulders of Yuffie, imploring her to lie still but at the same time, shocked at how desperately cold the skin of the Nin' was. "I'm alright, really. It'll take more than some dumb attack to keep me down."

"See," Vincent rasped, "She just doesn't know when to be good. Should we confiscate her toys?"

"Back off, Vince, touch my materia and lose your other hand!" Yuffie snapped back, then she blushed rosy red, "I er mean, boss… that is…"

Aerith laughed instead, pulling her hands away, "Well, if she has it in her to snap back at you like that, and still blush like a sunset, then she's right for once I'm afraid. She's already fighting her way to recovery!"

"Yeah, see, us Wutai Ninja, we are made from stern stuff!"

The door behind them opened a crack, and Tifa popped her head around, and then opened the door wider with a smile on seeing Yuffie sat up in bed. Aerith crinkled her a soft little smile, then fought a giggle as a sighing Cloud brought in a tray laden with mugs of Tifa's favourite drink (though she would die before admitting it openly – it was probably why she always felt the need to foist it on other people) – Hot cocoa.

"I thought we could hear raised voices. You're looking a little better, Yuffie." Tifa came over to lean down and peer at the girl, her eyes serious, "But you should really eat more."

"Tifa, you're like a mother sometimes," Yuffie huffed and folded her arms, then winced at herself. "Ouch, not the best idea. Oh, is that cocoa, for me?"

"One mug only. Don't stretch for it, you'll only pull at the wound."

"I won't," to her credit, the ninja actually managed to wait before smiling guiltily, "Besides, Aerith-sama might end up upset and annoyed with me, if I did."

"Aerith, upset?" Tifa laughed well naturedly.

The subject of that small exchange blushed to her roots and took a mug to warm her own chilled hands on. Cloud appropriated a seat for himself on the dresser which creaked a little alarmingly. Aerith watched him get seated, then with a healer's eye, made sure that Yuffie hadn't stretched her bandaging from place too much. It was, however, their martial artist and 'mother' that broached the real subject.

"Now, are you going to tell us what is really going on?"

Vincent glanced darkly at her from under his newly shortened fringe; his eyes were glowing eerie red in the shadows, and then slipping to Yuffie who had paused in sipping her drink, turning pale. The Ancient was mildly surprised to see that the violet eyes were riveted on her in absolute horror.

"…"

"Come on, you know you could have had Yuffie's wound treated by a local Materia Master. Instead, you come all this way just to have Aerith look over the wound. I'm pretty sure it's got something to do with what you're not saying. Or why, Yuffie is looking at my girl like she's going to explode or grow a second head," Tifa grinned and threw a sidelong look in her direction, "You aren't, are you sweetie?"

"I'm trying to give it up," she murmured softly, a wry twist to her mouth, "I find it hard to get in my clothes when I do."

Cloud and Tifa both chuckled at her short little quip, but neither of their visitors said a single word. Yuffie's eyes had fallen down to peer into the swirling chocolate depths of her mug, stung to tears by the rising and pungent steam.

Vincent shifted a little, looking at her directly. "It has to do with you."

"With me?" Aerith said in some surprise, folding her hands, the ridges of her fingertips in the prints still marked with bloody residue. For some reason, the sight of blood on her hands made her feel incredibly queasy. The flutter in her belly told her that this queasy feeling wasn't about to go away either. Vincent was silent, looking at her.

"Once, long ago, many terrible things happened."

Aerith almost wrenched her head, trying to turn and see the speaker – everyone was suddenly frozen, unmoving in the space. It was a man, stood in the doorway, head to foot in a black shroud so she could see not a single thing of him. It was the same figure from the beach visit, she would have sworn her life on it, the lives of everyone and everything she cherished in this world. He was watching her back, without twitching a muscle.

"Tifa, can't you…"

"They can't hear you. Look," he gestured.

She looked. Indeed, they were all still staring at Vincent, hanging on the sentence that was yet to come from his mouth. Tifa's eyes were glazed over, leaned forward to hear with a mug clasped in her hands. She was stuck in splintered time, between the moments of now and then.

"…Wh…what is this magic?"

"Time magic. Don't worry; it was lost a long time ago to us. But more importantly, I have to tell you. Once, long ago, many terrible things happened. But the worst sin we were ever to commit, was a sin you should be familiar with. Don't be frightened."

"Frightened?"

"Are you ready? Are you really and truly ready in your heart of hearts?"

"…" She looked down, "I don't have a choice. I have to be, right?"

"That's the…spirit…" crooned the amused voice as she looked back to Vincent, the figure in the door fading into only shadows, time catching back up with its self.

He looked at her, all glowing red eyes and hollow cheeks, a sorrowful face he tried to hide behind his scrap of a scarf, bled with the blood of many, many years and many, many sins. She looked steadily back at the man called Vincent Valentine, as he began to explain about the writing on the walls of the Nibelheim mansion. Even when Tifa's hand crept into hers, squeezing gently, all she could feel was a strange and gentle regret.

That everything she had done, it was back to this once again.

The fluttering in her stomach, just under the scar, wouldn't go away…

The house had long since grown quiet, the breathing of people in the restful sleep without dreams filtering through the halls and melding with the sounds of night outside, the night of Edge City.

She stayed by the window, hands upon the sill and her fingertips touching the wood with soft brushes at the grain. Normally, she would be curled up into bed, but watching Tifa sleep for once, had been unable to put her own fears to rest and allow her the oblivion of dark, dreamless slumber. Instead, the night sky with a thousand fires near and far called her, and she stayed there to just watch them, asserting her own place once again in this insanity of living.

The truth was, she knew she should remember it all.

There were large holes in her memory that she could not reconcile with. She had a home, didn't she? But when she went there, she found she couldn't recall her mothers face, or the people of the slums who had lived through the terrible times of Midgar and the Meteor. She remembered Denzel from the time spent in the Life stream, but Marlene was a strange fiction, a girl she should know, but didn't. They spoke sometimes, about things they had done or seen, sometimes turning to her with a smile and a soft 'Isn't that right, Aerith?'

And she'd smile, and nod and go along with it. But really, she couldn't remember it. She didn't remember the ship to Costa Del Sol. She didn't recall the sweltering heat of the Canyon and desert. She knew there were secrets and lies all clouded around Nibelheim, but why, how, she couldn't have said for certain.

She still forgot how to dress the table for dinner. She'd be easily distracted sometimes when ironing and leave the iron standing on clothes, only to hurry back to smoke and wonder where the fire had come from. She cooked instinctively, but couldn't tell when pressed, one herb from the next. The bed was made, but all back to front and the housework done but objects unfamiliar sometimes, like vases or chairs and she would move them around in a haze of forgetting and remembering all in one go. When outside there would be the sound of engines, she would hurry there and find only the blue sky and her distant thoughts tormenting her with noises that no object could represent.

The worst part was the dreams.

In her dreams… she was dying all the time.

Aerith curled her hands into balls, feeling her skin stretch and her eyes narrow at the hands, as if holding them tight would grasp these memories back to her, memories she was afraid of knowing or perhaps never really knowing.

"Aerith?"

She turned her head just a little, but the sense of him was familiar. The strange taste of regret in her mouth whenever he spoke her name like that, the fond way he always stood and the tone of his voice, dry and somewhat unsure. That was all that made up the sensation of a being called Cloud.

"I just wanted to see the sky," she said softly.

"The sky? It is pretty, but the lights here make it hard to see." He came to stand next to her, looking up at the sky, "Light bleeds into the sky, making it reddish. Out in the country, the stars were brighter."

"I think I liked it there, but you take what you can get, here."

"I suppose, when it's all you can get, you can't argue."

"…"

Cloud looked across at her. She kept her eyes on her hands instead – it seemed to her as if every time someone looked at her, she guiltily looked away. What a strange and curious thing. She could meet his eyes, if she wanted to, but for some reason, with everyone, she found herself looking away.

Aerith couldn't stand the image of the 'Goddess' in their eyes, not even in his eyes. That made up dream of someone she wasn't, someone she couldn't be. She was just someone who got unlucky, did lucky things and managed to pull through despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

He said, in a voice as soft as hers, the old voice he had used with her when they had travelled, but how she knew that, she couldn't tell, because no memory could support it; "Are you frightened?"

"Me? Fearless Aerith, frightened?" She laughed, a tinkling silvery laugh, raising a hand to her mouth to do so. That was habit too, a little pang of regret told her. Yes, she laughed into her hand because she was always afraid of spitting when she laughed, what a strange habit. Her laughter slowly faded and she stared at her hand, amazed at recalling such a thing.

Cloud was silent as she, until with such concern in his voice, he said, "You alright?"

"I…" she jerked her green eyes from her hand to meet his faintly glowing blue ones, then looked away frantically, lowering the hand to grapple with the necklace. "I was lost in thought then, sorry."

"It's okay. But really though, something attacked those two and those words…"

"Cetra. So few know to call the Ancients that. But…"

"Many know that you live once again, by the grace of the Planet." He looked across at her, "Aerith, I have to ask."

"Cloud?"

"Will there be more trouble again?"

His heart was in his eyes. The look made her breathless, the sheer worry painstakingly marked across his brow and the faintly quivering line of his lip. She knew, as surely as she knew that she would never be exactly the same as before, that this was not only concern for her and for himself… but for the girl sleeping like the dead in her bed, in the bedroom set furthest back from them.

But what could she say, except the truth? She had never condoned lying, not to her closest friends. No white lie to cover up any failure on her part. Nothing would do. So with a heavy heart, she replied, "I don't know. Probably. You know how it is, you do one good deed, and people expect ten more…"

"You think that way?"

"Oh goodness," she laughed a little, "Well, a little, but not in a bad way. You know, I was dead and I still had to keep an eye on you all. Even when things seemed their worst. It was as if, only I could do something… and deeds after deeds, I'd keep helping."

"Like the rain," he tilted his head, "I remember the rain. It was beautiful. Then, you were there, calling to Kadaj, telling him to come home…"

Kadaj. That's right, she told herself, there was someone called that.

She had reached from the beyond and forever to take his wearied and painful soul back to the life stream. Like everyone before she had helped so willingly, he had reached out to her and crying, called her mother.

Mother.

What was that, where was her mother?

She smiled sadly, lowering her eyes until the eyelashes hid the sparkling green, "My powers to heal. I'm good for things like that, you know, healing, helping…"

"But now with this new threat to you… I…"

"I won't go again," she said softly, "Never willingly."

"I'm sure you said that last time," he retorted. She drew back a little from the sting in that comment, ducking her head away. "Aerith, I mean… I'm sorry."

"It's alright, you know? I'm alright with it. You're all still angry at me, some way or another. I'm surprised Tifa hasn't said anything to me yet about it. I'm waiting, for her to explode on me, like the fire she's made from!" A small smile creased her mouth, a fond smile, "But you're the first to really say something. And I want you to know, I am sorry. I really am, very, very sorry. I wish I had had time to tell you all, but it was all happening so fast and I didn't know what to make of it. The Temple ruins affirmed the deadness in my heart I had feared. When you didn't wake up, time was already running out and I had to go away… I had to."

"You could have waited."

"But you were sick," Aerith looked up at him, "How could I ask that of anyone? So I went, thinking I'd be fine, thinking I was just jumping at ghosts, at nothing. Instead, it turned out the way it did. But, thinking on it, maybe it had to. Maybe I had to… go."

"You didn't have to die, that's… that's just plain stupid talking."

"Is it? Inside the Life stream I was able to command the force of life itself. I could mould and shape the force, the void, and the lives of everything. Otherwise, Meteor would have barrelled through the Planet, aided by the Holy power that the Planet had summoned up. Anguished, in pain, it sought to rid itself of humans because it was finally alone. But if I hadn't been there…"

Cloud looked horrified, "What is that you're trying to tell me."

"That because I died, I was able to stop the Planet from extinguishing itself and you all at the same time. Don't underestimate someone who hands out blame, as you should well know, Cloud." She smiled and rested her elbows on the window sill, looking up to the stars, "It was in agony, all alone, and wanted to punish humanity. When you spent your time lamenting me, instead of punishing others, you placed all the blame on yourself. Whilst all the actions were different, in radical ways, the end result was the same. Destruction. And if I hadn't been there, both of you wouldn't be right now, along with a lot of innocent people."

"I… never thought of it like that."

"So that's why… if tomorrow, there's more danger, if tomorrow I must do yet more deeds, then I'm ready to."

He laughed and she looked at him from the stars. He was smiling, a real smile, showing teeth and crinkling up his nose, a hand into his golden halo of hair. "Aerith," he said in delight, "You really are a star, yourself."

"Cloud," she laughed, blushing.

"Well, alright, whatever comes your way, I'll be there to get in its path first. I promise."

"No promises," she admonished, "Promises are easily broken. Just try, instead. Trying your hardest, I won't be at all disappointed by you. I'll try my hardest too."

"Try, eh?" He rubbed his chin and then turned to look up at the stars too, "Well alright, I can do that. We'll both try our best."

"Of course!" Aerith looked back, examining constellations and starry stellar pathways on the throat of velvet forever and nothing, or something. It was a comfortable silence for a good ten minutes, until he nudged her shoulder and she looked to him. He was looking down on her, smiling a little sadly.

"Hey, did you ever see my mom?"

"In…?" she queried, and then at his nod, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't. Don't take it badly, but she must have been happy and passed on into the life stream to become something else."

Cloud smiled, "I think she'd be a tree, a willow tree. Mom always liked willow trees."

Aerith smiled, a little regretfully, "So did I."

In wordless companionship, they stayed there as moments passed by, staring up to the stars and seeking their own peace with the events of what might be tomorrow…

Die Cetra, Die.

She was turning away, so slowly then. I could have moved.

I could have done something.

Instead I sat and watched the world, the sky, the heavens and hell all open up for her and me and my broken, forgettable heart. I watched her fall in sweet slow stances, ticking by as the clock in my heart grew louder.

I could have.

Die, die, Cetra, please die.

She ate everything with care and drank only when she was thirsty and even then, never touched a drop of alcohol. She loved the simple things, the simple bits of life. She didn't like meat but wasn't too picky about what she would eat, and could she eat? She ate like it was going out of fashion. Where was it stored?

The energy and vivacity she gave to my life. And as soon as it flared into something, it dwindled just as quickly into nothing. Into death, it flew away on silent wings.

I didn't do anything.

Cetra. Die.

I spent so long dreaming of her. I spent so long, thinking of her. I spent hours, nursing the cracks in my heart and trying to pretend that each day, each drink I wasn't driving myself closer to ruin, driving myself closer to the edge of despair where only I knew the names and faces of people who lived there. I set up house and home for myself and waited. I waited for you there, to come and take me away.

You came back to me instead, sweetly smiling.

And even then, I would hear him snarling even as you forgive him.

I can't forgive him, so accept that. I hate him. I hate him with all my heart and soul.

I HATE him. Do you understand that?

In my dreams, always snarling, always driving down with the point of glittering diamond blade and always, always saying:

Die, Cetra, die.

…the fade of her conscious thought into the dream was slow, but she knew at some point the dream had taken over and the nightmares ramblings she endured were gone. Replacing them was instead a wide field of flowers and she was stood, naked and hip deep in flowers of all colours. The sun was bright and the sky the bluest she had ever known it to be, fluffed with clouds and the far sprung cries of birds that wheeled and enjoyed life overhead.

Tifa ran through the grass and away from the darkening patch of blood where she had once been stood.

In the distance, she never saw the figure of the lone man in black, watching…

Aerith smoothed the dark hair. She had finally crawled back into bed to be with her lover and partner, to find that Tifa had rolled over restlessly in her sleep. Her nightshirt of white and black stripes horizontally was tucked up, it was ridden to her armpits, exposing her soft skin and the boyish underwear she wore to bed, slung low on the cure of her hips. Nothing about her love suggested that she was in any shape or form, boyish; she had curving hips and breasts, an hourglass figure and a heart shaped face. In comparison, Aerith felt slender, skinny and boyish.

She kept smoothing the dark hair, waiting for the dreams that plagued Tifa to go away, gently touching her cheek sometimes in fond motions. The moonlight loved the glow of Tifa's skin and was attracted there, as bees to pollen.

She loved everything about her, she realised with a dull ache in her heart. There was nothing she could find at fault, for of all things in this world, she had come back for her, really. She had given up hopes of the Promised Land, she had given up yesterday and all that she was for her. That was her love, that was how far she would go to lie here, in the moonlight and watch her sleep. Her fingers ghosted over the long dark lashes and then gently traced the curve of the jaw line.

It wasn't long before she was humming softly to herself, the song of a thousand words and none that was once played on the piano that sat not ten feet from where she was on the bed, the ivories tinkling and producing the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. Tifa's heart and soul had been poured into that melancholy void, filled with music, with aching, voiceless need for her.

She answered.

She had come back.

…but now?

Aerith laid down, moving so her nose was touching to Tifa's, her hand sliding down to press itself against the rise and fall of Tifa's chest, feeling the heartbeat hidden behind ribs and flesh. It was steady and pure, it was alive and vital and she loved listening to it, when she slept, lying down in the cool of the night. It was the clock to set her life by. But now, she just felt it thud and felt inexplicably sad.

She didn't know when it was that she started crying.

The tears were cold, her face curiously motionless, for she wept without sound or screwing up her face as many women tend to do. Instead she let the tears drip and fall as they may, cold on her feverish skin and salted as the sea of which she dreamed about sometimes, on a foreign shore, in a foreign world of dreams and sometimes and maybes. She stroked the area above Tifa's heart and whispered.

"I'm sorry."

Because that was all she could ever say now.

She was sorry. Sorry for the uncertain tomorrow. Sorry that she was born a Cetra, an Ancient with powers to heal the Planet and therefore, tied intimately to it, to some alien being. She was sorry she had left, and come back and brought only a handful of broken memories with her. Sorry that yesterday was a stranger with a familiar face. Sorry, sorry, sorry, always and forever, sorry.

But most of all, Aerith was sorry that she loved her, and all her love ever seemed to do was bring about pain and heartache. But she kept on loving, more and more each day, with sweeter pain and sweeter joys. The greatest woe, her undying, unquenchable love for Tifa… and the tomorrow, the uncertain tomorrow it would bring.

Her tears slowly grew hot as she whimpered, curling in close to the sleeping girl, "…Tifa…"