Prompt: #13 Grave

Summary: There was so much more than bodies that they needed to bury.

Grave

There were so many reasons for him to stay away from here. It seems like ages ago that he had been a kid and thought he would become a famous hero. That he would come back to his small, remote hometown and prove that he was worthy. Only to come back a couple years later and not being able to make it up higher than a grunt. How he had hidden his face behind a helmet in shame because he was just as much a failure as he had been when he left. Then disaster had happened and things had just gotten worse. Coming back here brought so many memories into clarity that he's frozen stiff where he stands. Was he any better than when he left so long ago? He was still that little coward that wanted to hide behind his helmet.

"Are you all right?" Tifa asks, taking hold of his hand as they stand together.

"We should have done this a long time ago," he replies, staring down at the small gravestone that they stood in front of.

"We were a little busy," she reasons, with another squeeze to his hand.

He squeezes it back to return her comfort, but he knows she can see the guilt in his eyes.

"We can do it all properly now," she insists. "Not rushed and torn and…"

"Not completely broken," he finishes.

"I was gonna say when we were ready to pay them proper respects," she finishes. "I don't think your mother would have wanted you to feel guilty about this too."

"I forgot them," is the quiet response.

"You remember them now," she says. "That's the most important…and you're here to pay your respects. It takes a lot of courage to do."

"For you too," he says, looking at her. "You were the one who first did all this. By yourself too."

She tries to shrug indifferently but he knows it had been hard to do all by herself. With the wound in her chest still relatively fresh and her heart broken, not knowing how she was going to survive now that her hometown was completely destroyed. Her anger had been the only thing giving her the strength to pick herself back up and carry on. While he had been gone.

"When you didn't remember that I was there that night," he says slowly, keeping a firm hold of her hand but unable to look into her eyes. "Did you hate me?"

"Hate you?"

"For not being there."

"I've never hated you," she makes sure to say. "It hurt a lot that you didn't seem to remember me when we saw each other again. The boy that had promised me that he would be my protector grew into a man that forgot who I was. That was hard."

His eyes of intense mako blue stare up at her.

She turns to smile at him. "Can we bury that too? Like we're finally burying all of our loved ones in our little town?"

"It just doesn't seem like enough," he says softly.

"I don't think that really matters," she replies. "As long as we never forget those that have gone, it's enough."

"You think so?" he asks, looking at her hopefully.

"The wrong thing to do would be to forget them entirely and ignore that they ever existed," she affirms. She jerks on their joined hands. "So stop feeling so guilty."

"I'm not sure there will ever be a time that I won't feel guilty," he admits.

"Then you bury some of it here too," she says. "Then we can really move on with our lives."

He doesn't say anything to that. He's not sure he can say anything to that.

"Besides, you were there, remember?"

"Of course I remember," he says, jerking his head up to stare at her.

"You stopped Sephiroth," she points out. "And you've stopped him ever since. I think you've more than made up for anything you think you should've done."

He lets out a long breath and looks older than his young age.

"You're acting like an old man."

"I feel old," he admits.

She gives him a sly look that he can't interpret but she speaks before he can find the courage to ask. "Then that means I'll be the winner who gets to the water tower first," she teases, letting of his hand and starts running in the direction of the trees. "First one there gets to drive Fenrir back home!"

Without any further ado, she takes off with a rustle of cracking branches and rustling leaves.

"I'll show you old man," he says with a smirk before rushing after her and feeling a little more of his guilt lessen when he does.