Chapter Text
She was dead. He couldn’t believe it.
After regrouping on autopilot in the Seventh Heaven, he’d finally registered the truth: Sephiroth had killed Aeris. She was never going to laugh, never going to smile, never going to pick a flower again. He hadn’t realized how much she meant to him, but not he was here, and he knew. He knew it in the hole that felt like it had been punched in his chest with a razor shard of glass. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to think, it hurt to do anything at all…
The worst thing was the second realization: She was dead because of him. Back when they’d met in the square, he’d told her he was involved in dangerous things, and it was true. But rather than backing off like any folk with common sense, she’d asked him if he thought someone was after him. She is-was, the word made his chest ache worse but he wouldn’t lie to myself-one of the most friendly and alive people in the slums. Dimly he heard Tifa sobbing and Barret saying something along the lines of “wasn’t supposed to be this way!”, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d never been one for emotions anyway, and he’d likely just make the situation worse.
If only he’d protected her better…not dragged her into the whole situation in the first place…not alerted her when he’d left Elmyra’s house…told her to go home instead of letting her drag him along in that one town…Heck, she’d’ve been safer in Shinra’s hands, maybe he should’ve just let Reno have her back then. He was a failure as a bodyguard, and he couldn’t stand it.
And Tifa…Maybe he should have focused on Aeris rather than let himself get distracted in an imagined relationship with her… Then he surely wouldn’t have gotten nearly as lax on his job as a bodyguard…not even as a bodyguard, as her friend. It was his fault she’d died.
“It’s all my fault….I shouldn’t have let her get involved…I should have protected her better when we found out she was an ancient…” Tifa’s voice cut through his pit of self loathing. How strange, to have her echo his thoughts so well…He almost wanted to laugh, but when it came out it was more of a choked sob noise.
The world had not been kind to Cloud Strife. He’d joined SOLDIER to attract the attention of the girl he’d liked since they were kids and to get glory and fame, and instead he ended up dropping out and ruining said girls life. He’d allowed people through the walls he’d put up to allow him to work a job as lonely as mercenary work, only to have said people either die, be seriously injured, and probably hate him. He’d tried to chase a solution, but the solutions left him deserted and confused in the middle of nowhere. Elmyra had been right to tell him to leave her daughter alone. All he did was mess things up.
Looking around at his so called ‘friends’, the ones he was supposed to help, as Tifa cried and Barret yelled and banged his fist on the counter, Marlene stared anxiously at her father, and Wedge sat and looked like someone had killed his dog, he knew. It had never been so clear.
He stood so abruptly, he knocked over the barstool. The noise caused everyone to look up at him, startled. Of course. In times of trouble they’d always looked to him as a leader, someone to look up to. He’d failed them. He’d failed them all. They watched, probably glad, as he made to leave the bar.
“Wait! Cloud!” Tifa. She was holding onto his arm suddenly, and the gesture reminded him once again of Aeris and the way she’d said, ‘Mine!’ that one day as she had clung to his arm in a similar way. He didn’t turn, afraid that a look in her eyes would break down all his resolve. “I-I know that, when you’re hurt, the first thing you do is run, and I’m begging you, please don’t leave. We need you more than ever, I need you…” At that he turned, unable to resist, to find her eyes filled with tears and desperately searching his.
In that single glance, all of his barriers broke down, and all the memories flooded loose, flowing together and mixing like a river. I’ll never leave you, I promise, he wanted to say, he’d said before, there wasn’t much of a difference at this point. But it wasn’t true. He knew it. He couldn’t keep that promise, not that one or the one they’d made as kids. He was leaving, like he’d said he wouldn’t.
“Tifa…I’m sorry. I can’t. I-I can’t… I have to go.” Gently, he removed her arm and refused to look back. Despite this, he knew what her expression was. Knew all of their expressions, swimming behind his eyelids as he closed them to avoid the tears. Heartbreak, outrage, misery, betrayal.
Suddenly Wedge yelled in frustration. “Goddammit, Cloud, now’s not the time to leave! Think about what Jessie would say! And Biggs, if he was still conscious! Aeris would be disappointed in you, and you know it! Get back here and join the pity party with us, we didn’t say you could leave!” A fit of anger was rare for Wedge. “I fought on an empty tank all that fight, and you insult it! You insult all of us, by deciding that you’re just going to up and leave after all we’ve been through…” his eyes welled up and he burst into tears, sobbing hysterically.
“He’s right, Cloud. You’re staying here.” Tifa said. It was enough to almost bring those tears from his eyes…But he couldn’t stay. And crying had never helped anyone. He wouldn’t hurt them further. It was because he loved all of them that he couldn’t stay.
“Attack! Attack on the water tower!” Came screaming from outside.
“Help!” Screamed a woman's voice hoarse with fear. “My baby’s up there!”
“Duty calls. Will you be joining us, merc?” Barret demanded, brow furrowed.
“Be safe, Daddy…” whispers Marlene. “You’ll come back, right?”
“Of course. Daddy promises.” Barret says, squatting to her level to give her a kiss on the forehead.
He’d do one last mission, and then he’d leave. This exact second, when they had their fighting faces on despite everything they’d been through, it was too painful to do so. “I'm coming…” He said it so quietly, yet they heard all the same. Or maybe they were only going to accept one response. He couldn’t tell.
They ran out to the plaza, Tifa leading the way to the tower, easily viewable from the bar. As soon as they got out of the bar, though, they all collectively froze. “The whispers…It’s them.” Tifa breathed.
“We have to help! There’s a little girl in there!” Barret yelled, probably imagining Marlene up there. Sure enough, there was a little girl on the top, screaming as the tower was swarmed by the whispers, probably invisible to everyone but Tifa, Barret, and him.
“Let’s go.” He resigns himself to the familiar rhythm of doing a mission with them, and finds it’s easier to stop thinking about Aeris this way, by distracting himself in the heat, tension, timing, utter rhythm of a battle. The physical labor seems to seal her into the box in the back of his head for trauma and misery. In a battle, he doesn’t have time to think about emotions, doesn’t have time to get distracted, or he dies. Then again, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. He’d stop endangering people at any rate…
The whispers swarm them the second they’re on the tower, and he loses track of what’s where. Vaguely, thanks to his instincts, he knows he's somewhere around the top floors. Saving this girl has become his world, he’s narrowed his thoughts down to that much in the last minute or so to keep away the sorrow. So he continues to ascend…Until it happens. Sharp pains in his head, his vision is fading, changing, shifting, going green and gray, like the world is glitching. He feels like he might throw up, the pain certainly is enough to make him.
He doubles over, feeling sweat sliding down his face, the pain crippling him. He can’t feel anything or see anything, only pain like a spike being driven into his brain. One particularly sharp stab causes his knees to slide out from under him and then suddenly there’s arms around him, helping him keep his balance. He’s lost all feeling in his body, but he relaxes, because it’s probably Tifa or Barret helping him stay on his feet… Or so he thinks, until the pain fades just the slightest bit and he sees: the hand on his chin is much too long and slim and cold finger wise to be Tifa’s. Barret doesn’t wear black gloves with flecks of blood on them. There’s only one explanation: Sephiroth.
Strangely the only thing his addled brain can think about this is, who’s blood? And as for his body…It freezes, still and stiff with pain, shock, fear. Dimly he could feel perspiration sliding down his face, warmth dripping from a cut on his cheek he doesn’t recall getting and his eyes seemed half open as he drooped, completely helpless against Sephiroth, head aching.
“Everyone else is fighting for their lives.” Sephiroth’s cruel, deep, resonant voice rang in Cloud’s ears. Do something, move something! He begged his body, but he couldn’t even twitch as Sephiroth’s hand tilted his chin up to allow his eyes to focus, barely, on Sephiroth’s unnerving green ones. “What would they think if they saw you like this?” Sephiroth asked, a cold smirk showing on his handsome face. He felt the blood draining from his face and Sephiroth’s cold cold eyes were the last thing he saw before he passed out.