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It’s strange, burying Aerith.
Because the thing in Cloud’s arms—the thing that looks just like a terrible imitation of her, the posture all wrong, the set of her lips odd and the gaping hole in her chest unnatural—isn’t Aerith. The longer he’s held the body—and he’s held it for so long, for too long—the more detached he feels from it. He wonders why Tifa reaches to arrange her curls and necklaces just so, why Barret cradles and adjusts her head against Cloud’s shoulder, why everyone is so insistent on touching her in some way, tears in their eyes and sobs caught in their throats. Maybe he’d feel the same way, if he hadn’t been holding her when she breathed her last. He felt the difference when she was gone.
He can’t cry anymore. He’s cried enough already, and now his head hurts and his throat hurts but he barely notices it because nothing compares to how his heart hurts.
Yuffie takes Aerith’s—no, her body’s—face in her hands and presses her forehead to it, crying as Cloud holds her up, as Yuffie barely restrains the sobs shaking her. He wants to tell her, don’t you know that’s not Aerith?, but he doesn’t, because he knows she doesn’t understand; none of them do, because why else would they be acting like that’s still her cradled in his arms?
Or maybe they do. He can’t tell. Maybe they’re staying as silent as he is, because admitting it would mean admitting something quietly terrible in its truth.
Even so, when he takes a step towards the water, he falters, nearly tripping; it’s Vincent who catches him, holding him steady. Cloud thinks he hears him say “I’m sorry,” (sorry for what? Aerith’s alive, she’s just not here) but he can’t tell through the pounding in his ears.
Aerith is gone Aerith is gone Aerith is gone
it tells him, but he doesn’t believe it, because whatever he’s holding isn’t Aerith, and he’s almost certain that if he turns a corner she’ll be standing there, ready to playfully jostle him and peck his cheek and hold his hand and laugh with the others like she’s laughing for both of them. It would be warm, and wonderful, and—
The water’s cold. Aerith’s laugh isn’t.
He bends down to press a kiss to her forehead as he feels it leaking into his boots, sweeping against his leg as his skin tightens in response to the temperature. Some part of him understands this is the last time he’ll ever do this, but another part insists that it doesn’t matter; he’s already had all their last times, and he’ll never have another, because this isn’t Aerith.
Aerith doesn’t lay so still; Aerith’s head doesn’t loll when he shifts her in his arms; Aerith wouldn’t just let him dunk her in water like this without at least giving him a splash back.
He wishes he could say it doesn’t feel right to just leave her here, but he’s not leaving her; he’s leaving something entirely different behind, something that isn’t her.
Aerith’s already gone.
But when she floats a short distance from him, slowly starting to sink, he suddenly grabs for her, draws her back, holds her close, and he feels a painful sob in his whole body, but nothing happens, nothing comes out; it can’t.
He can hear Tifa on the shoreline, breathing “Cloud,” through her tears, her heart breaking in her voice, and he turns and looks at them all, his breath caught in his throat, his arms clinging to Aerith— not Aerith not Aerith not Aerith not Aerith— like his life depends on it.
There’s a splash, and then Barret is in the water with him. Tifa. Yuffie. Cid, who only gets a step or two in before he goes back to swing Cait Sith up onto his shoulder and carry him over. Vincent. Nanaki.
He doesn’t realize that he’s let go of her until she’s gone.