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It begins with flashes.
The first time Aerith thinks she sees him is in the wastelands, right after Midgar. Just for a second, his face flashes before her eyes. Scarred. Bruised and battered and dirty. But it’s Zack, right in front of her, as real as she’s ever seen him.
And then it’s gone. He’s gone. The image of the only man she’s ever loved is replaced by the wasteland ahead of them again. Her eyes search the skies for just a moment. Every step she takes will bring her further away from Midgar. Further away from the steel sky under which she fell in love with him. Now, the sky above her head is vast and endless and the same color as his eyes. She doesn’t know how to handle this feeling.
Only a week or so after she felt him enter the lifestream, felt his soul’s presence fade from her consciousness, she meets a man with the same eyes as him, and naturally she attaches herself to him. It dulls the pain a bit, as she’s brought along into a world of violence and rebellion.
Now, suddenly, as she leaves her entire life behind, it’s as if Zack’s presence has returned, a constant buzz under her skin, like something calling out to her in a language she doesn’t understand.
Her memories come and go as they travel the continent and she loses more than she gains, leaving her empty and lost, grasping at the frayed edges of fleeting mementos. She doesn’t know what it all means. His parents in Gongaga hasn’t heard from him, but in a boat in Cosmo Canyon, she’s sure she feels his touch as she lets the water caress her hand.
It’s too much, not enough, and so she trudges forward, in the only direction she knows. Tifa holds her hand as she tells her hopeless stories. Strokes a thumb over her knuckles, soothing and soft. The only one Aerith can tell it all to. As they piece together their stories, their memories, it becomes even more clear that there are no traces of Zack after that mission in Nibelheim five years ago. Tifa barely remembers anymore, but she tries her best to fill in the blanks.
In the Temple of the Ancients, she loses track of him, has to focus on the overwhelming presence of darkness all around her, on the war waging beneath the surface. On Cloud, as something eats away at his already fragile sanity.
In a world she doesn’t recognize, with a mind she can’t comprehend, she indulges in him, and there’s something there, a spark of someone else between the parts of him he can’t seem to piece together.
It doesn’t matter, because afterwards it’s swept away with the memories, and then it’s full steam ahead again.
In the Forgotten Capital, Zack is so present, she can almost taste him on her tongue. She’s swept up, fractured apart, but he’s here, she’s sure. So she sends warding spells into nothingness, and they connect to something, something she can’t see, not yet. She does everything in her power to connect, because if he’s here, maybe she can bring him home. If he’s here, maybe she can save him.
Cloud is by her side, and he’s more like Zack than ever, as he grasps his sword in one hand, raises it above his shoulder, readying his stance for the fight.
The fight is harsh. Hard and bloody and hopeless, but they find their way to victory somehow. Her hand gasps Cloud’s, weaves their fingers together, lets power surge through them.
Then, everything happens, all at once. Metal screams as swords clash above her, and until…
Quiet. A calm stillness, in stark contrast to the frantic fight.
Her consciousness becomes whole, only to fracture once more, and as Sephiroth fades from her sight, the Forgotten Capital looms around them yet again. She’s cradled in Cloud’s arms, Tifa jogs up next to them, Yuffie and Barret, Red and Cait, Vincent and Cid in tow, falling to her knees with shocked tears clinging to her eyelashes. Something’s been lost, but Aerith doesn’t feel as empty as she did before. She’s alive, and she isn’t sure she should be.
Out of the corner of her eye, another figure stumbles into her field of view.
A bright light goes out, and the gloom adds to the deafening silence. She feels Cloud’s heavy breathing as his chest heaves against her back, the gentle caress of Tifa’s hand on her cheek, but Aerith’s attention is elsewhere, stuck on blue eyes and a mane of black hair.
She’s frozen at first. Is this a trick? She knows what they’re chasing is trying to turn them against each other. And just a moment ago, Sephiroth stood before them, twisted and distorted but real.
”Zack?” She rises from Cloud’s arms, the fatigue of the battle forgotten. She steps past Tifa, who follows her gaze. Aerith hears a soft gasp as she shuffles past her.
His eyes are wide, the look on his face confused. Then, his blue gaze lands on her. And at once he softens, shoulders dropping, jaw unclenching.
”Aerith.” Her name is a hymn on Zack’s lips. ”There you are.”
She should be careful, keep her guard up. She should doubt it, keep him at arm’s length. Because how can he be here?
Then, his hand lands on her cheek, and her body sings. No one could fabricate this feeling.
Tears are starting to glitter in his eyes and his hand falls, sliding up to rest on her waist instead of her cheek. In a fluid motion, he pulls her close, holding her so tightly she loses her breath for a second. She had almost forgotten how tall he is, and stands up on her tippy toes to return his embrace.
She could never forget his touch though, could never forget the scent of him, the feel of him against her. It’s been five years, and finally whatever was knocked askew when he disappeared has been put back into place.
It’s like coming home.
Tears prickle at her eyes, and she hears him sob softly into her hair.
They’re interrupted by Tifa’s desperate voice, calling out Cloud’s name. When they pull apart, Cloud is keeled over, kneeling in the dirt, Tifa next to him, a hand on his shoulder and a panicked look in her eyes.
”Cloud?” she exclaims, and when he doesn’t react, she cups her hands around his face, forcing unseeing, pale eyes to meet hers. Zack bolts up, but Aerith grabs his wrist, stopping him in his tracks. She doesn’t know why, but every nerve in her body tells her not to interrupt.
”You know him, don’t you?” she asks instead, looking up at Zack.
”He’s my friend,” Zack tells her, as his eyes glaze over with guilt. Aerith slips her hand into his, squeezing gently.
She watches quietly, as Tifa closes her eyes, resting her forehead against Cloud’s. His breathing evens out, his forehead relaxes. When his body grows slack, he slumps against Tifa, who’s there to catch him, like she always is.
Once Cloud’s stable enough to move, they start making their way out, only stopping when the eerie woods leave way for vast plains.
They make camp at the edge of the forest. Having Zack there changes everything, but at the same time, everything feels just as natural. Cloud is a little bit more quiet than usual, and Tifa hovers over him, keeping close wherever he goes. If Cloud minds, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t talk to Zack, and Zack surprisingly doesn’t push the issue. So neither does Aerith.
”You kept the pink.” Rough fingertips traces the whimsical pattern of her dress as they sit down by the campfire. Zack’s voice is low and thick.
”In case you came back,” she tells him. It’s the truth, and at this point, she’s so used to the color, she has a hard time picturing changing it.
”Shit—” His eyes meet the cold night sky, and Aerith thinks he’s holding back tears again. ”I’m so sorry it took me this long.”
A pause, and the silence is not uncomfortable in the slightest.
”I got your letters,” he says, breaking it again. ”I got them too late, but I got them all. Read every single one.”
She’s been writing them for years. At one point, it became habit, writing to him, telling him about what’s happening in her life. Her desperate efforts, not completely futile in the end.
”Do they still hold up?” she asks. ”I was only seventeen when I wrote the first one.”
”They’re the most valuable things I own,” he tells her with zero hesitation.
If she hides her face in his sweater, he can’t see the tears prickling at her eyes again.
He can’t explain why he’s here, and Aerith is scared to death that he’ll disappear if she takes her eyes off him for even a second.
”One moment I was in the church in the slums,” he tells her. ”And the next I was here.”
He tells her of a world where the end is nigh, where things have all gone wrong. Aerith shivers, a feeling of unease trailing over her skin. She remembers too, the bits and pieces not stolen from from her clinging to her mind, and she doesn’t know what any of it means.
Aerith digs her fingers into her forearm, pinching herself until she sees the beginning of a purple bruise forming against pale skin. When she looks up, Zack is still there, warm and solid and alive. So, she allows herself to fall.
If this is just for tonight, if this is just a very realistic dream, she’s going to savor it. So she leans back against him, watches their little group as they gather around the campfire. Everyone has been surprisingly okay with Zack joining their ranks, more worried about Cloud and his fraying mental health than anything else.
It’s not that Aerith doesn’t care about Cloud, but he’s not top priority. Besides, Tifa keeps close to him, and Aerith sends a reassuring smile towards her across the campfire, as Cloud slumps against her side.
Zack traces his fingertips over Aerith’s shoulder, pressing the occasional kiss to bare skin.
”What’re you doing?” she murmurs. His eyes are almost fluorescent in the dim light, and Aerith can’t stop staring at him.
”Freckles,” he speaks into her skin. ”You never had freckles in Midgar.” Then, he pauses, dread falling over his face for a moment as he pulls his head back. ”Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume—”
She kisses him to shut him up. The first time in five years.
Maybe it’s true. She’s changed under this eternal sky, without the plate and the sky lamps shielding her from the blazing sun above. In Costa del Sol, her skin turned from pale to pink to tanned, a smattering of freckles on her cheeks and shoulders, a new her peeking through to the surface.
She’s changed since last time they met. Everything has.
Zack too. His shoulders and chest are a bit broader. A few new scars create silver lines against his golden skin. But his smile is the same. His scent, the feeling of his arms around her waist. Her name on his lips like a prayer.
His kisses, soft and playful, gentle lips worshipping her like a goddess.
They’re older, they’ve changed more than either cares to admit, and maybe this all won’t work out. Aerith glances across the campfire, where Tifa leans into Cloud’s space, telling him something in a low tone, as he stares into the fire. Aerith’s belly flutters, and she snuggles into Zack’s side, while Barret and Cid’s arguing voices echo from somewhere by the tree line.
Zack regards her in the dark, follows her gaze across the fire.
”Do you have feelings for him?” Zack’s voice is low, the words murmured into Aerith’s hair. After a little pause, she pulls away to meet his mako gaze, glowing faintly in the dark. He’s surprisingly perceptive, the happy-go-lucky attitude often effectively hiding the sharp SOLDIER underneath.
”I think I might,” she says simply. The revelation hits her at the same time as she says it, and there’s no reason to lie. She glances at the duo on the other side of the campfire again. ”Her too. Will that be a problem, you think?”
She didn’t mean to fall in love again. It just sort of happened, somewhere between the flush of Cloud’s cheeks and the fire in Tifa’s eyes.
Zack sighs, then shakes his head. ”I don’t know.”
Then, a gentle hand at her chin, lifting slightly. His eyes flicker down, to her lips, then up again, to meet her gaze in a quiet question. Aerith nods, and when Zack leans in, his lips are so soft against hers that she thinks she might cry.
”But,” he begins again as they pull apart. ”If tonight is all I get, it’ll be more than enough.”
She keeps her gaze on Cloud and Tifa as she cuddles into his side again, watches as Tifa murmurs something to Cloud. Watches Cloud’s entire being light up as he hides a shy smile from her. Welcomes the butterflies in her belly this time.
”I guess I was right,” Zack muses and she feels his chest vibrate as he chuckles.
”Hm?” Aerith glances up at him.
”He did have a pretty little girlfriend waiting for him in Nibelheim.”
”You knew her too?”
Zack shakes his head, and his face turns pained again. ”Only met her once. Can’t imagine she thinks very highly of me.”
”She’s not the type to hold grudges.” It’s only half a lie. Tifa would never admit it, but Aerith can see how her smile tightens when Zack’s name is mentioned, like he’s nothing to her but a painful memory. ”I’m sure you’re fine.”
”I hope so.” He grins a little. ”Can’t have my girlfriend’s girlfriend hate me, now can I?”
”Oh, be quiet, you.”
As everything quiets down around them, Aerith looks across the campfire again, traces Cloud’s form with her eyes. In some ways, they look so much alike, and for a while, they occupied the same space in her mind. Maybe that’s where the feelings started.
Maybe that’s why she feels so much for Cloud.
In the midst of a grief she couldn’t put into words, after a loss so drawn out that she could only bury her feelings somewhere far beneath the surface, she met a man with Zack’s eyes, who fell through her ceiling like he had once done. A man with Zack’s sword, and the same SOLDIER swagger and confidence. It’s what intrigued her right away, what drew her to him, made her so reluctant to let him go.
She’s spent weeks by Cloud’s side, and the more time passes, they separate in her mind, as she catalogues the differences between them. Where Zack pushes back and doubles down in the face of her flirtations, Cloud blushes a pretty pink and gets tongue-tied. Where Zack is a strong jaw and tanned skin, Cloud is soft and blonde and freckled. Where Zack is intense and carefree, Cloud is dry and sarcastic.
The tempered steel and pulsing mako underneath is so similar, the way they handle a sword, the way they will without hesitation step between the barrel of a gun and someone they need to protect. But Cloud is Cloud and Zack is Zack, and in the middle of it all there’s Tifa, who’s held Aerith’s hand through sleepless nights, whose crimson eyes and guarded smile play on repeat on the insides on her eyelids when she finally does manage to doze off.
Aerith is all over the place, both sure and unsure of what she’s feeling.
What she is certain of is that Zack’s shoulder is warm and solid beneath her cheek, and maybe this isn’t something she needs to figure out tonight.
She gets a night of dreamless sleep for the first time in weeks.
At dawn, they’re ambushed, though. A pack of nasty fiends that catches them just as they’re about to pack up their camp.
”Get behind me,” Zack roars, the blue of his eyes cracking with toxic green, sickly mako, reacting before anyone else has even fully registered the threat. Aerith grabs her staff, feels the magic flow through her, the materia activating at her touch. Cloud seems to be in better shape after a good night’s sleep, and Tifa always straps on her gloves the minute she’s out of bed.
Zack takes the lead, ever the SOLDIER. Aerith is mostly surprised Barret and Cid actually takes his orders to spread out so that they’re facing the fiends in smaller groups. He jumps into action, the rest not far behind. Dancing across the field, weaving through enemies, slicing and cutting. Punching and kicking when the sword isn’t enough. Aerith realizes she’s never seen him truly in action, and it makes her blood run hot. She shoots spells, throws potions, keeps watch of the others from a distance.
She gasps, too slow to intervene when Zack fumbles a parry against a particularly nasty beast.
Cloud pulls him out of harm’s way though, deflecting the hit before ramming his sword through the fiend’s skull.
”Thanks, buddy.” Zack’s voice is low and breathless, and as he claps his hand down on Cloud’s shoulder, there’s no twitching, no cramping. Just a small smile and a hummed response.
When there’s only a few fiends left, rounded up on a small patch of grass, Aerith swings her staff over her head. As she conjures bolts of lightning that rains down on the fiends, the ground shudders beneath them. Neither Cloud nor Tifa bats an eye, but Zack stares at her, mouth hanging open.
”Whoa.” Aerith can’t help laughing at his dumb face. ”I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t expect that.”
”What were you expecting?” Aerith challenges him. ”A damsel in distress?”
”You?” His serious face breaks into a grin. ”Never.”
Then, before she has time to react, he swoops in, hooking a hand under her knees, bracing the other behind her back, lifting her up effortlessly. Aerith giggles, wrapping her arms around his neck instinctively as he kisses her.
”I’m so proud of you.” Then, more serious. ”I don’t think you realize how ridiculously in love with you I am. With who you were, and with who you’ve become.”
He’s always been blunt, honest blue eyes never having been able to lie to her.
”I just wish I could have been here to see you through it all.” There’s something pained in his voice, rough and hurt, and Aerith kisses him sweetly, trying to soothe whatever she can. Her fingers trace over the scar on his jaw.
”You’re here now. That’s all that matters.” I’d like to spend more time with you. Aerith remembers the words she told him all those years ago, when she was still young and bright-eyed. ”As long as you don’t leave again.”
”Never.”
”I’m serious. I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
When he looks at her, his smile sunshine manifest, she feels warm inside.
”I wouldn’t dream of ever leaving it.”