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Another scorcher, Zack thinks as he crosses the distance between the edge of the sector and the old church. He’s not sure if she’ll be there, but he really hopes so this time. It’s been one of those weeks that only the flash of her cheery smile and voice like birdsong can fix.
Just a few more steps, but he comes up short when he hears it. A melody is floating toward him on the summer air, the thick kind of breeze only found in Midgar where it’s more gasoline and old metal than salt with a hint of citrus. He realizes she’s humming this light, joyful tune that starts his boots forward again. It’s like an irresistible tide, washing him right up the steps and toward the church doors.
But he’s hesitant when he reaches to open those doors and stops with one hand frozen over the push plate. He thinks that he could listen to her hum this tune all day and it would be time well spent. He fights a silent war on whether to interrupt or just let her enjoy whatever it is that has her humming this way. One deep breath and that city smell is replaced by the soft scent of fresh flowers, that’s all it takes for him to make up his mind.
She’s always had this weird sense, like she knows he’s there before he can even cross the threshold. To his surprise, this time she just keeps humming while she tends the flowers. As he moves through the aisle, he notes the way the rays of summer sunlight float down to her, setting her chestnut hair ablaze in a brilliant shimmer. A damn beautiful sight, he tells himself.
“What’cha singing?” He finally asks, coming to a stop at the edge of the flower bed.
Aerith stills with her fingers threading through stems the color of emeralds. “Just this song I heard the other day.”
She brushes flecks of soil from her hands as she stands, glancing his way. Her eyes catch that sun and he thinks for a moment that it’s entirely possible she’s a window to the Lifestream itself. Something inside him eases just a little.
“Tell me about it,” he says as he rounds the flowers and wraps his arms around her.
She melts into the embrace, resting the back of her head just so on his chest. He likes the way she fits beneath his chin and he presses a kiss to the top of her head.
“Oh, you wouldn’t like it,” is all that she offers.
He huffs a laugh, stirring her hair. “And why is that?”
“Because it’s romantic.” She says the word as if it’s somehow going to insult him.
“Let me get this straight,” he starts, swaying her gently. “You think,” he nuzzles her ear. “That I,” then her cheek. “Am not,” and closes in with a playful nip to the neck that makes her shudder in that cute way. “Romantic?”
“Zack!” She plays like she’s trying to pull away, but it’s obvious she’s content to stay right where she is.
“You know what I think?”
“Hm?”
She shifts just enough to face him, peering up with this expression like whatever it is he’s going to say is the most important thing to her. All that tension he carried in here just evaporates like drops of rain on the blazing roads outside.
“I think that I can’t wait for these assignments to ease up.”
She quirks a brow when she nudges, “Oh?”
“And for a few more years to go by.”
“So we can get old?” She laughs as she jabs a finger at his stomach.
He joins her quick burst of laughter, but the gravity of what he wants to tell her pulls it away too quickly. He fumbles for words for a moment before he realizes she’s given him an opening with that tune. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?”
“Um…”
“No really! Follow me,” he says with a featherlight kiss to her forehead. “I think it would, because then. Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long.”
“For what, Zack?” She queries, her features molding into a more pensive expression.
“To just be free, able to spend time together without my PHS ringing off the hook. No more long separations. Maybe even find a place of our own.”
He’s trying to read her eyes, but they’ve gone to a place he can’t follow.
Grasping at straws, he adds “And wouldn’t it be nice to live together? In the kind of world where we belong?”
That’s when it seems to him that she’s caught on. She slaps him on the bicep and gives him a look that he’s not sure he’ll like the consequences of.
“You know it’s gonna make it that much better when we can say goodnight and stay together, right?” She says it in this sing-song sort of way that still manages to be brimming with sarcasm, sweet and tart at the same time.
He laughs in earnest and gives her a squeeze. “See, I knew that song.”
But she seems to tense up as she pushes out of reach, scuffing her shoes against the wooden planks. Wandering away, she tosses a question over her shoulder, “Did you mean it though?”
His boots thunk against the floor as he sidesteps in a hop to block her path. He stops her with a hand on her shoulder and brings the other to capture her chin. She doesn’t resist when he lifts her face to search her eyes.
“Aerith, of course I meant it.”
And he can think of nothing in the world that he wants more when she brushes her lips against his in one of those sweet kisses that makes thinking of anything else at all entirely impossible.
“Wouldn't it be nice if we were older
Then we wouldn't have to wait so long?
And wouldn't it be nice to live together
In the kind of world where we belong?
You know it's gonna make it that much better
When we can say goodnight and stay together”
-The Beach Boys