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- The Forgotten Forest
Cloud is lucky enough that 7 seconds is more than enough because by the time Aerith’s body collapses against his, the head of the Sephiroth clone is rolling against the floor.
Yuffie says she gasped because of the body, Cloud knows otherwise.
A red glow engulfs her before she can take her last breath. She’s only down, Cloud whispers to himself. She’s only down, she’s only down.
She’s only downshesonlydown shesonlydownshesonlydown.
She was only down.
Because miraculously, her eyes open and her gasps are fuller and she hasn’t grown cold yet.
But then she coughs, Cloud swallows thickly, turning away. He turns her away.
The first feather hits the floor.
Cloud sews her wound himself.
Tifa personally argues with him, she says, we agreed to find a doctor even before this— she didn’t risk her life to tell us her premonitions for fun.
Cloud shakes his head but stays silent, I’m handling it, he says.
Tifa leaves the room, the wound makes me sick, she lies.
Cloud finishes sewing her wound. She barely loses any blood. It’s a miracle, he thinks, that Sephiroth didn’t hit any major organs. But then again, Cloud doesn’t make the same mistake twice.
Aerith hasn’t woken up yet, but she’s alive.
- Icicle Area
Cloud insists that he carry her the whole way.
He says he’s the only one capable, quite rudely, but he says it and doesn’t take it back. He claims that she keeps him warm. Nobody believes that. She’s almost a corpse.
He only slips once or twice. Barret attempts to hold her on his shoulder while Cloud passes a particularly tricky rock ledge. Cloud almost breaks his wrist.
Nobody tries anything after that.
I’m sick of this, Aerith mumbles.
Cloud hugs her close, I know, is all he says.
Over the next few hours of climbing, they learn that Cloud is on the precipice of snapping. Tifa seems to be the only one to understand. She’s the only one who knew of the incident before it happened, besides Cloud, of course. Sometimes it scares her, how protective he is of her, but then he remembers that she’s important. It still doesn’t ease her mind.
As Tifa goes to bed that night within the small confines of the traveler’s cabin, she shivers. Cloud has reserved the only bed for himself and Aerith, periodically checking her wounds, her breathing, her eyes, checking her stats. She doesn’t see his eyes close longer than it would take him to blink. This goes on for the whole night.
Tifa only knows this because she hasn’t gone to bed either. She can’t. Not after the scene that she witnessed earlier.
Aerith’s heart stopped, for a millisecond, she swears. She has never seen Cloud act quicker, she hasn’t seen him demand anything any louder than he did at that moment, begging Barret for a Phoenix Down, pleading and begging on the verge of tears.
Cloud keeps hold of the Phoenix Downs now.
When they wake, Aerith smells faintly of singed cloth. When she coughs it sounds labored. Tifa won’t tell Cloud, but she swears she saw her cough up red feathers.
Cloud’s fire materia has leveled up, yet she hasn’t seen him use it on anything but feathers that trail their path.
- Icicle Inn
Good news. Her skin isn’t as red. Her wound is sealing itself up. He makes sure to periodically check the thread, the seams, he makes sure to apologize whenever he puts rubbing alcohol on her skin. He knows it burns, not nearly as much as the Phoenix Downs he’s been using, but it still burns, and he’s still sorry.
Her heartbeat stutters for a minute, Cloud is sure his may stop along with hers.
He uses a Phoenix Down again, just in case, he can’t tell anymore.
Vincent stops by. He says that the Innkeeper is politely asking them to leave, as Cloud’s incessant arguing with his friends, the customers, and the innkeeper himself is scaring away customers.
Cloud answers with his sword, nearly nicking Valentine’s arm.
He responds by leaving Cloud and Aerith be, ignoring the pile of red feathers poorly hidden by Cloud, ignoring Aerith’s labored breathing accompanied by the orange feathers crumpled between her fingertips.
Vincent advises the party to keep out of Cloud’s room for the next few days.
- Icicle Inn
We have to leave, whispers Tifa. She damns the day that Shinra invented enhanced hearing.
I know, but what will we tell him, asks Cid. Grief isn’t exactly Cid’s thing.
There’s nothing to say, he’s not giving up, says Valentine, partially resigned to leaving Cloud behind.
I’m not leaving him, Tifa states with hostility between her words, and Yuffie shivers.
Cloud is rubbing off on her.
It’s only when a choked sob escapes the doors behind the room no one dares to enter that Vincent perks up. A thought passes each of their minds, one by one, but nobody says anything.
The familiar red glow escapes the room.
Tifa’s gaze falls to the floor.
But I can’t watch him fall apart like this, Tifa mumbles.
Red has been particularly silent since the attack. Most blame it on Cloud’s silence, but some know the truth.
He fears her death and nothing of his own, Red mentions, it’s futile to get him to stop, but it may just be his actions that finally put her to rest.
Tifa asks what that’s supposed to mean.
Nobody has to answer that question.
Red enters the room. Tifa reaches for him and receives a disapproving look from Vincent.
She lets her hand fall once more.
Another one? Tifa briefly hears.
Silence falls between them.
It’s no secret, Cloud, Red admits.
Silence.
She’s dying, Red states.
I know, Cloud says.
Do you? Red asks.
More silence.
Tifa can’t bear to listen. She heads in for the night.
When she wakes in the morning, Aerith is walking around.
- Northern Crater.
It’s the first time that Cloud has smiled in weeks, and of course, it has to be followed by bad luck because the universe refuses to let Cloud Strife be happy.
She collapses at the entrance to the aforementioned “promised land”, red feathers escaping her throat the more she coughs.
Cloud kneels, attempts another Phoenix Down, abusing its power, but by now he’s delusional, and anyone who attempts to stop him is delusional as well.
Aerith does.
It’s okay, she says through crooked words that slowly echo behind mouthfuls of feathers, I’m okay.
She frowns at his sad expression, she wishes he would speak, that he would aid her.
He has nothing left to say. But he obeys, only for her.
Slowly, as eyes peer down at her like blazing flames, Aerith tries her best not to slow them down, because Sephiroth is right there, and they’re so close to victory.
She puts a hand down, then a foot.
Slips.
Cloud offers her a hand. She pushes it away.
She tries again.
Slips.
Coughs once more. No hiding now. An orange feather escapes her lungs and like a fiery vengeance that begs to be set free, a choking sob escapes her throat as she snatches the feather from the air, crushing it between her fingers.
The dust falls like sand in her hourglass that ran out all too quickly.
She lets her fist fall to the floor, head hanging low. A predetermined destiny is all she can adhere to.
Now what? Where does the sand go of the hourglass is shattered, left to time’s desire?
It takes her two more tries to even sit up straight before she gives into Cloud’s begging. Begging . Tifa nearly hurls.
In the end, her heart stops before they can lug her comatose body into the crater.
Another Phoenix Down is used.
- Wutai
It takes Barret and Tifa to hold just Cloud’s arms back. They only became worried once Yuffie’s face went purple and Cloud’s fingertips left bruises on Yuffie’s neck.
It was only a prank, she says, only a prank, she says through sobs, but Cloud is inconsolable.
The vial of Phoenix Downs now toppled to the floor after Cloud lunged at her, fully intact, but he shouts at her regardless. Incoherent death threats fly through the streets of Wutai, accompanied by pleas from Yuffie that only fall upon deaf ears.
I just wanted to make my family proud, she sobs, you cherish them so much I just thought they would be powerful if Wutai finally had them, I didn’t mean to—
And yet she’s cut off.
If you ever need one of those goddamn feathers I’m making sure nobody uses any of it on you if it’s the last thing I do.
Yuffie returns the materia and Phoenix Downs, though Cloud only seems to care about the latter.
Yuffie decides to stay with her family in Wutai after that.
Nobody has heard from her since.
- Mideel
By now, Cloud has spent all of their Gil on Phoenix downs, potions, and curatives that still don’t work. He doesn’t get to see if they work. Tifa does. Tifa takes care of them, both comatose.
It takes all of her strength not to give up on her.
She watches her body. Watches her chest rise and fall, slowly , in a way that hiccups and stutters and in no way gives her a healthy amount of oxygen to keep her going.
Tifa pretends not to hear the doctors.
It’s incurable, if Phoenix Downs continue to be used to her the feather growth will only continue within her lungs.
Tifa pretends not to hear them.
The next time Aerith’s heart stops, Tifa doesn’t have to listen to her chest closely to figure it out, she’s lucky enough to have a heart monitor hooked to Aerith to know when she needs… assistance.
The doctors aren’t around.
Tifa hesitates.
The room is silent except for the high-pitched ringing of the flatline.
Tifa gives in, imagining Cloud waking up to see her corpse. She can’t do that to him.
The monitor continues, slowly.
She shivers.
- Mideel
On the day she woke up in Mideel, Tifa actually smiled. Surprisingly, the same day that Cloud did, just many hours later. Cloud didn’t say a word to anyone until she woke besides whispering incoherent apologies to Aerith for not being there with her. The coughing has gotten worse, more frequent. More brutal. The fits will last for hours. Hours of her just hacking up feathers. Vincent has looked into the feathers and snuck a few into the places where he can be alone just to examine them. They aren’t Phoenix Downs, they don’t behave like Phoenix Downs. In fact, it’s highly likely that they’re just normal feathers.
As far as Vincent is concerned, Cloud seems happier with her being conscious. Worried, but happier.
She is still connected to life support.
None of them know what to do. Aerith still counts her days.
- Mideel
Vincent never tells Cloud what the doctors said about Aerith.
Unlikely to ever recover, most likely stuck in a plane of existence between life and the Lifestream, they said, are you sure you want to keep her on life support?
Vincent knows his answer, he hates her suffering. But, he also knows Cloud is sure. And Vincent would like to keep his life.
So, he doesn’t say a word.
Cloud wakes one day.
Cloud looks at her, tears streaming down his face. He knows what needs to be done but nobody tells him to let it happen. They can’t. So he doesn’t
Vincent stands beside Cloud, silent as always.
What now? Cloud asks.
We keep going, Vincent replies.
- Highwind
Tifa tells everyone that she thinks Aerith isn’t going to wake up next time. Everyone except for Cloud.
Surprisingly, everyone agrees. Not because of her physical state, but rather her mental state.
As an Ancient, I suspect that she finds comfort there in the moments when her heart does stop, Red ponders out loud, it must be heartbreaking to be pulled from that.
Tifa casts a glance at Cloud.
He’s laughing at a joke that Aerith must have mentioned between coughs. He keeps a hand on her back, making sure she’s stable as she leans against the railing.
Nobody will say it, they all know, it’s much more comforting seeing Aerith smiling than dead.
They’ve visited many places in the last few days, all per Aerith’s request, and with Cloud around they have no place to say no, not like they would want to.
Kalm.
Junon.
Costa Del Sol.
Midgar.
Icicle Inn. Aerith requests to go there alone, to visit a specific cottage and say a few prayers. Cloud doesn’t let her, instead insisting that he join her in case ‘it happens’. When she returns, her eyes are glassy and dimmer, as if she is missing something she’ll never get to know.
Barret chimes in, Cloud and her are happy, who are we to stop that?
She’s saying her goodbyes, Red says, and everyone is aware but him.
- Highwind
Cloud watches the sunset.
Aerith, he says.
She hiccups, being caught off guard, she thought she was doing a good job sneaking up on him.
Heya, she responds.
She stumbles over to the railing.
Silence, but for the roaring of Cid’s engine.
…
Sometimes I think I’m dreaming, she admits.
Yeah? He asks, thinking the exact same thing.
Yeah, she responds.
Her gaze finds the sunset over the Nibel mountains. She asks Cloud if he could still see this kind of sunset when he was living in Nibelheim.
He says no, that he’s only been able to see this kind of beauty from a different angle.
They admire it.
…
I’m not supposed to be here, she whispers, this isn’t supposed to happen.
And she trembles, for she knows that Cloud hates these kinds of conversations.
He takes a shaky breath, I know.
…
Eventually, her hand finds his, shivering, but still there. She means to speak, wholeheartedly, but another fit of coughs erupts from her throat. Cloud has handled enough of these to know what to do, but it still hurts his heart seeing her like this.
With determination, Aerith fits a few words in between her wheezes and gags.
I just, she stutters, I’ve read books about stuff like this. It’s only ever been fantasy, but whenever I read them, it never ends happily.
Cloud can’t look at her.
And I think that’s why I never liked them, she continues, because they don’t have happy endings, and somewhere deep inside myself I thought I’d never have to worry about not having my happy ending.
Here I am, she says, rubbing the back of her neck.
Here you are, he responds.
The sun keeps setting. Cloud curses the day he was born.
A shaky gasp escapes the flower girl. Then a squeak, then another gasp, and against her wrist Cloud can feel her pulse slow down and Cloud prays more earnestly than he ever has and hopes to God that he doesn’t have to watch this lovely woman die in his arms over and over again.
But she’s a fighter.
So, when she gasps again, she finds the strength to speak this time.
Promise me, she whispers, squeezing his hand tight, resting her forehead against the side of his head, that next time, you’ll simply let me go?
And for a moment, Cloud wants to say no. Cloud, a selfish being, a cruel soul, a lonely harbinger, wants to say no. But he can’t, because it’s her, and when has he ever been able to say no to her?
His knuckles turn white against the railing and his face pales. His lips purse together and he squeezes his eyes shut hoping that when he opens them, he’ll have experienced one whole bad dream.
But no, he has to say something .
So he whispers, hoping that maybe she won’t hear him.
Okay.