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The first time Cloud crossed the path leading to the new Seventh Heaven after a long day of work was painful, unbearable, in every sense of the word. To the point the knot stuck in his throat tightened him breathless. To the point his body felt so numb he had to force himself to walk.
He had to find the strength to climb up the stairs to the bar, open its doors and pretend everything turned out okay while the crippling emptiness stabbed through his heart like a sharp cold knife tearing at his very soul.
First it had been Zack.
Then Jessie, Biggs, Wedge...
Then her...
And her...
Her death had shattered him into pieces he had completely lost, irretrievably so, he could never be whole again.
How was he supposed to go on when so many he loved were gone under his watch?
Their blood in his hands, in flashes of crimson red amidst the rain.
Her blood in his hands, blending in the silvery ripples of the lake water.
He had failed them all.
The second time he crossed that same path for the first time seemed like a fragile hazy moment suspended between present and past.
A walk through the thin veil between worlds and time.
The lonesome street looked the same as before, the same colors, the same gravel ground, the same uncertain quietness and he started loosing his mind to the depths of his confusion.
He doubted what was real and what wasn’t as the memory of the pain was still too vivid in his heart. It ached, it still ached; it had left a scar so deep sometimes he woke up screaming in the dead of night, even though it had happened in a different lifetime. Dreaming made him see it, so he avoided sleeping.
He paused at the stairs, afraid to climb them and find her gone.
Afraid to climb them and his reality was another.
That somehow it had all been a sick lie and he was forever stuck in a continuous loop where no matter how hard he tried, it always ended up the same fate.
That somehow seeing her in a long white gown that shined as bright as a waxing moon had been just a dream.
Seeing her reach him illuminated by the sunlight streaming through the ruins of her church, her arm looped around Barret’s as he gave her away; had been nothing but his twisted imagination. And the way she smiled as if the world hadn’t collapsed and there were no debris under her feet but a bed of yellow flowers...
The look on her face that day as if the world didn’t exist beyond that rubbled altar; he was afraid that none of it had been real.
That the moment she put a ring on his finger and looked up at him with lips trembling at the verge of laughter, had floated away in the wind, dispersed into dust; and the last thing he heard was the sound of her voice fading away.
A moment in time as feeble as a whisper under a storm.
His fingers clenched around the rail of the stairs. The air was cutting especially cold that night, a presentiment to his worst nightmare.
Looking up he noticed the lights were on and as he moved he could hear the chattering of people from the inside while he hesitated outside.
He felt exhausted, broken... the last few steps he had to take seemed like an impossibly steep road, the only obstacle standing between him and the encircling shadows of his fear.
He pushed the doors open and the murmuring voices came close to a stop. He doesn’t focus his gaze on anyone.
Instead, he achingly searches past the blurry figures standing in the room, until his eyes find a glimpse of pink at the bar.
Aerith was light in the black void. As so, she brings him back from the darkness.
She sat with her legs crossed, a drink in her hand though she had only accepted it out of courtesy. She tucked a lock of her silky brown hair behind her ear and smiled genuinely, talking to Tifa who stood behind the bar laughing along with her; he felt unworthy of her love.
She was unbelievably beautiful, her playful innocence left him mesmerized every time. And he wonders why in the world had she chosen him to be her husband. Though his selfish rumpled heart gloated on her having done so.
And they were all there.
He breathed out the air he had been holding in.
Relieved.
Lightened.
Alive.
He smiles whilst the clench around his heart loosens.
Noticing the sudden lowering voices, she turns to the door, looks in his direction and his eyes meet hers.
She smiled at him in warm adoration before standing up to greet him. The ring on her finger glinted in yellow gold as she dusted off her pink skirt.
He was home.
And she was already there waiting for him.