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As the Highwind pulls away and ascends into the sky, the raw clench of his stomach alerts him he’s nervous. The discomfort is damn near unrecognizable, an emotion scarcely seeking him out as his persona follows a harsh and brazen trail. These jitters that rattle him aren't exactly welcome, although he acknowledges their presence and aims to uproot their hope of rendering him a bumbling fool.
His town is quiet. The residents have sought shelter indoors in fear of what’s coming. They see, just as he does, the rock in the sky surrounded by a red and orange glow which threatens to crush their lives into nothingness. The end of the World is nigh, and they are all living witnesses to its destruction.
Cid takes the dirt road to his home while a fresh wave of anxiety makes him sweat. His clothes cling to his skin as the surrounding air becomes that much thicker. It feels like he’s been gone for years—on the road to save the Planet, to see space and all its celestial glory.
He pats himself down, searching. The jingle of something familiar sounds in his breast pocket, and he’s pulling out a single key attached to a shuttle keychain.
That apprehension pokes at him again, reminding him to be afraid, and he quietly admonishes himself. He’s only days away from taking on Sephiroth, poised to destroy everything humanity ever built, and here he is, afraid to step foot in his own Goddamn house.
What a numbskull.
Somehow, he wades through the swamp of his fears and turns the key to release the lock. With a deep breath, enters his home.
The stillness of the house seems to steady him. Presently alone, he takes solace in the moments he has to calibrate himself to his surroundings, to gear himself up for a reunion that may very well be the last time he ever sees her. So long he’d spent berating her, yelling at her, cursing at her, all for doing her job.
All for saving his life.
He pulls the cigarette hooked on his ear and lights up. The smoke gives him something to focus on instead of the words hanging in the air like a taunt. Still, he reaches for these words, plucking them from space to construct his proclamations. He realizes quickly it’s nothing like building a machine. He lacks the finesse and the eloquent vocabulary to say exactly what he wants to, but he’ll try. He owes that much to her.
The kitchen table is pristine as always, his favorite green tea set sitting at its center. His chair is just as how he remembers it the day he set off on his foolhardy adventure with a ragtag team of saviors. He was more than happy to take a place on that crew, and he wonders if he would have ever been able to forgive her for ruining his dream if not for this journey. Never did he think it would be the evils of Shinra and Sephiroth that would make him see the error of his ways. Nothing should really surprise him by now.
Sudden exhaustion hits him like a brick, and the cigarette in his mouth nearly falls as he yawns before catching it between his fingers. Last thing he needs is to burn down the house—if he was lucky, if they all were, he might come back to it someday.
He crosses the floor to reach his room and he sees the door is cracked open. He doesn’t remember if he left it this way, and he can only assume she had cleaned it in his absence. Even while away, she continued to dedicate her life to serving him.
A wave of guilt slams him dead in his chest. She did everything for him without complaint, holding onto her own guilt to drive her to be his servant each and every day. He feels disgusted with himself.
Something tickles his mind before he goes through the bedroom door. He feels uneasy, the gentle creep of something amiss traversing his spine. It’s not quite an alarm of danger; something much less sinister. Whatever it is, it lurks beyond the door.
Pushing through, he blinks a few times before he can fully register the scene in front of him:
In his bed, atop the covers, lay Shera fast asleep. Her auburn hair is loose, spilling along the pillow she holds close to her chest. Her coat lays draped over the foot of the bed, the rest of her clothed in her yellow sweater and brown slacks which appear much more snug without the ill-fitting top layer. He spies her glasses perched on the nightstand, and he wonders if he’s ever seen her without them.
Parts of him he never thought would ignite for her came painfully alive. It was his room, yet he felt in violation of her privacy. But he couldn’t look away.
It is only now he seems to realize just how gorgeous she is.
The smoke in hand is no more than an ashy bud, snuffed by its own accord, and it hangs in his grip as he moves closer toward the bed, gray flakes falling with each of his movements. His heart is beating at a rapid pace; it’s so terribly loud and deafening he nearly shouts at it to shut the fuck up.
He’s nearly to the edge of it when the floor creaks beneath his boot, and Shera shoots erect with a start.
A smile finds its way to his face.
A high-pitched wail finds her throat.
Before he knows what’s happening, she’s on him like a leech, thumping her tiny fists against his hunched shoulders as he recoils from her strikes instinctively. She’s screaming, he’s cursing, and he’s backed into a wall before he can get a handle on the situation.
“Goddamnit Shera it’s me, Cid! Will you stop beating the shit out of me for two seconds!?”
His words get through to her, and she’s backing away in mortification. Stumbling, she fumbles for the glasses she laid upon the nightstand and trembles, putting them to her face. When her vision comes into focus, her hands fly to her open, gaping mouth as color paints her skin scarlet.
“I-I’m so sorry, Captain! I didn’t realize it was you.” Shame is written all over her face.
The old Cid would have been furious. The old Cid would have verbally torn her a new asshole as he allowed the rage to consume him and funnel outward like a tornado. But this new Cid, the one who forgave her, the one who realized just how much of an asshole he was and how her treatment was undeserved, can’t help but crumble into hysterics. He doubles over in a roar of laughter, tears squeezing from his eyes as he struggles to catch his waning breath.
She looks at him thoroughly confused, remaining rooted in place. “Captain? Are you okay?”
“Shera…” he squeezes out in between laughs, “The irony is...I deserved that.”
It’s clear from her expression that she remains perplexed, a tentative hand reaching out to touch his forehead. “Are you ill? Perhaps you have a fever?”
Cid swats her hand away as he straightens. His face suddenly turns solemn, regretful. He goes to take a drag from his cigarette, but finds it flattened against the ground beside his heel. He sighs. “Cut that shit out. I’m fine.”
She nods, clasping her hands in front of her. As calm as she appears, he assumes she must be an absolute wreck inside. “I should go then. I apologize for... this.”
He blocks the door before she can leave, and she peers up at him with a question in her eyes. There is no fear, and he’s thankful for that.
“Hey now, you don’t think I’m just gonna let you walk out of here without explaining why you were in my bed now do you?”
She averts her eyes, that rosy hue maintaining its position in her cheeks as she adjusts her glasses and purses her lips. Those wavy, silky tresses hang at her shoulders and his fingers itch to know their exact texture. To run his fingers through it. “Well, Captain, I…” Her brows furrow, and there’s a long pause before she huffs a sigh and slumps. “I regret to advise you I have no suitable explanation. Not one that isn’t a direct violation of your privacy. There is no good reason.”
There’s something endearing about the way she doesn’t hide or shrink back from what she’s done, even if she keeps her reasons hidden in a deep and dark place he’s not yet privy to see. She owns it and stands ready to accept the tongue-lashing she assumes is on its way. And why would she think differently? It’s what he’s always done, what she knows him for. And for the longest time, she believed she deserved it.
One sorry wouldn’t cut it. He owed her a lifetime of apologies.
“Look, uh…” he hesitates, reaching behind his head to rub his neck, “I got something to say to you.”
Shera patiently waits for him to speak, but her aura is anxious.
Everything he thought to say falls on its face. His brain is scrambled eggs, unable to form a coherent thought as those hazel eyes of hers stare and stare and stare.
“Fuck, I’m not good at this.”
“I accept whatever punishment you--”
“God damnit, woman! I ain’t about to chew your ass out!” He sighs, raking a hand through his disheveled mess of hair, “If you haven’t noticed, we might not have much time left on this Planet and I ain’t about to waste being home screaming at you for no good reason.”
She shakes her head. “You have every reason. I shouldn’t have been in here.”
“Well, maybe I don’t mind so much now.”
Time stills around them, and he’s swallowed a lump of air he’s holding in his lungs. Her eyes are wide behind her frames, the previous reflection of shame and mortification fading away, replaced with something he doesn’t quite recognize.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers.
Touching her frightens him, and he wonders if it would frighten her, too. He’s never struck her—he’s not a monster, merely a cantankerous fool who directed his anger at a woman who was only doing her job and doing it efficiently. He still can’t quite forgive himself for it. Perhaps he shouldn’t.
“So, here’s the thing. Chasin’ aliens and Mako infused wankers and government shitheads have done a spin on my head here. I uh…” he frowns, realizing that this apology thing is a lot more difficult than he’d bargained for. But he can’t give up now, “When we were in space, and all that happened. I didn’t really get a chance to say…”
It slithers up his throat, hangs on the tip of his tongue, but these mushy emotions make his stomach queasy and he chews on it instead. He can’t expel it, what he wants to say, and stands there looking like a moron.
A fragment of a grin touches her mouth as she peers into his bowed face. “Captain... are you trying to apologize to me? Again?”
It’s more than that, he realizes. More than an apology, more than wishing for forgiveness. He wants to spend the last of his free moments with her before the Planet beneath them blows to pieces. There is no guarantee he’ll win, there’s no guarantee he survives. His only guarantee is the remaining time he has left, and how he spends what is left.
“What I want to say is...” he stares off, his heart bouncing within his chest like a rollercoaster as his stomach ties itself into knots. When he looks back at her, to the beauty he ignored while playing the beast for so many years, he knows precisely what to do.
He can't change the past, but he'll do everything to improve the future.
“Shera… can I make you some tea?”
The blush in her face brightens, sending a signal through his brain and lights it up like a firework. She’s smiling at him as she adjusts her glasses at her nose, a gentle push up the bridge. “I would be honored, Captain.”
He shakes his head. “Not Captain. You’re callin’ me Cid from now on, got it?”
“All right, Cid.”
It takes a moment for him to realize he’s smiling too.
It took the end of the World for him to notice what was right in front of him, and boy did he have a lot of shit to make up for in a short amount of time. He owed that much to her.
And much, much more.