I wrote this a year and a half ago and just recently found it on my backup hard-drive. I'm still not crazy about it but I felt like any Cleris is worth celebrating since we aren't the biggest community (I call absolute shenanigans on that! We should be number 1! Ahem...) and every little bit counts. Even if it sucks like my early attempts at writing i.e. this.

Anyway, review if you want. It would be greatly appreciated.

Cloud Strife was many different things to many different people but here in the sanctum of their bedroom it only mattered what he was to Aeris. To his glowing new wife, Cloud was many things. He was safe and warm, honest and fragile, vunerable but strong. He was home. And naturally home was predictable and comforting and soothing.

Though they had only been married for less than a month, Aeris had picked up a rather needy habit. Not that Cloud seemed to mind. He'd probably give her the stars if he could.

Every night she gave him the same request - "Talk. Just, talk." And so that's how every night Aeris Strife nee Gainsborough found herself drifting off to sleep with the sound of her husband's voice enveloping her.

The first several times she had asked him to talk - to just ramble on, Cloud had found it hard. He had no idea what he should say, how he should carry on this one-sided conversation. She had suggested to him to tell her about his childhood. She wanted to know more about young Cloud.

For some nights her heart was disquiet as Cloud recounted his boyhood, one that wasn't filled with as much laughter and joy as Aeris wishes it had been. Instead, he spoke of loneliness and being an outcast, of always being picked last or outirght ignored. Though his voice did the trick on those nights, she did not sleep peacefully, her dreams filled with visions of a spiky-haired little boy with bright blue eyes that were filled with tears haunted her.

Around the fourth night, Cloud stopped speaking of disappointment and isolation and instead started to tell her about his mother, Stratus Strife. And with the tales of his mother the desperation, the sadness in his voice melted away. Though the woman was long dead it was clear she consumed the better part of Cloud's good memories. Aeris found herself wishing he could have met her. Meet her and tell the woman she did a fine job raising Cloud...

And it was on one of these nights that it happened.

Aeris was tired, more tired than she normally would have been. And this time Cloud's story had the opposite effect on her, instead of lulling her into slumber she found herself watching the side of his face as he regaled her with a rather funny anecdote about one time he got in big trouble with his mother and several neighbors. It seemed even back then trouble followed him.

"And I swear I never ran so fast in my life," Cloud's eyes crinkled at the corners, a smile tugging at his lips as he reminisced. "I thought they'd kill me for sure." And he laughed. It was small and subdued but it was there and distinctly Cloud. In these moments the years and the stress seemed to melt away from his handsome face and Aeris couldn't help but beam up at him, more enthralled by his own contentedness than anything.

"Mmm," Aeris smiled at him, "Well, nice to know you get along a little better with people now, huh?"

"Only a little," and this time Cloud laughed a little louder. "So, you are still awake after that?"

"Only a little."

So he did what he had grown accustomed to doing. He told her more stories. About the time he found a lost puppy and hid it in his room for nearly a week, the day he ran away from school and made it all the way to the neighboring town only to return at lunchtime because he was hungry, how he got the faded scar across one shoulder blade while trying (and failing) skateboarding for the first time. Childhood things. Childhood memories. The sorts of stories that just became so much a part of yourself at some point, that you could forget they were stories of yours at all. They were just what made you… you.

And she loved hearing about Cloud's.

She drifted closer and closer to sleep, her eyelids falling of their own volition, her thoughts wandering further and further from her husband and his gentle heartbeat.

Then it happened as her eyelids became too heavy to hold up. She heard it. The slight lilt to his words that she didn't hear very often. Almost too subtle to be noticed- and certainly she hadn't before. She perked up, ever so slightly, listening to him talk and letting the words wash over her as she hunted for that delicate difference to his vowels, as though he let the ends of his words dance.

It was definitely there, and it tickled her to think she'd married this man and never so much as noticed he had an accent. Though he masked it well adopting a Midgarian accent with scary precision, it was most certainly there. The remnants of a country life.

She smiled and rolled over, still barely able to keep her eyes open. It made sense that he would have one, she supposed, she knew he grew up in Nibleheim, but she'd never sought it out before. She didn't really take in much of his storytelling- she was far too tired for that. But she did take in the newly discovered accent that made her want to kiss him.

She must have smiled rather too widely at her new finding, because she was suddenly aware that Cloud had stopped talking and he was looking down at her, her head resting on his chest, with curious mako-blue eyes, clearly wondering why she looked so bemused.

"Aeris?" his voice was sleepier when he wasn't reminiscing, "What is it? Why are you smiling at me like Yuffie when she's stolen from me when I wasn't looking?"

"Your accent," she snuggled closer to him, "I've just discovered it."

"My accent?" he raised an eyebrow briefly, "I don't have an accent."

"Yes you do," she grinned at him, "trust me."

"No. I don't."

"Yeah, you do, countryboy," she giggled.

"I'm not - I mean - I do not."

"Of course you wouldn't hear it, silly," she yawned and grinned up at him, filled with mischief, "but it's there. I'm sure of it."

He frowned at her.

She smiled wider.

"Don't worry. It's cute," she consoled him, giving his arm a delicate pat, "very much so, in fact."

"What if I don't want to be cute?" followed by a sigh of defeat and a mumbled "Whatever..."

She ignored his slight whine and moved to hold on tighter to her former bodyguard, inching closer to his face to plant a gentle kiss on him before she settled back to lie her head on his chest.

"I wonder what other little secrets I'll find out about you know that we're married," she closed her eyes, "you're a very cute, very interesting husband."

She could imagine herself, happily unearthing them all, and hoarding her new discoveries like materia. Cloud was everything she needed him to be, everything she wanted him to be, and any new additions were sure to make her even happier. She loved him. Aeris was sure that all his secrets would be just as exciting, just as lovely. Just those little, precious things that would make her love him even more. She'd find them, each and every one eventually, and-

"I've been married twice before."

He was staring at her, deadpan, and she was staring back.

She sat up in bed, not even sure of what she was feeling. She felt like she'd been punched, hard, in the chest. Her wide eyes stared into his, unable to say even a word, but begging him to be lying. She was aware her mouth was open, but no sound stood a chance of coming out.

And suddenly a smirk appeared on his face, a damned smirk! He was unable to contain his mirth, and apparently unwilling to try. He grabbed her hands and pulled her back close to him.

"It was a joke!"

"A joke?" She tries to scold her face into a fierce frown but fails miserably. Instead, she settles on a begrudgingly amused expression that is one hundred percent genuine. Cloud making outright jokes didn't happen often, so when they did they were to be treasured. If only this one hadn't given her a minor heart attack.

And here she thought Cloud was predictable.

"Well," she huffs, deflating in annoyance every second longer she looks at his smile. "It wasn't very funny."

"That's because you didn't see your face!"

She couldn't help but laugh at that. She may not have seen her face but she could imagine it.

She was too tired for revenge that night and besides, Aeris had noticed something else that time, too. Something little and precious, one of her new secrets to be hoarded quietly for herself and herself alone. Something that was making her smile at the thought of her Cloud. How could she not have seen that before either?

His blue eyes had twinkled as he laughed. More than the simple way that other peoples did- no, it had been more than boring little glimmers of light. His really sparkled, feverishly bright. She wasn't sure how, or why, from the mako in his blood or the sheer mirth in his body.

As their smiles grew less wide, Cloud wrapped his arm around her bare shoulders to pull her close to him. She smiled against the soft skin of his chest and snuggled even closer. Surely there was no better place to be.

He was warm, and the rise and fall of his naked chest was rocking her to sleep. Words no longer needed.

She closed her eyes, content to wait for dreams to claim her as she simply let everything about him wash over her. His smell, the sound of his slow breaths, the way he tried to move carefully so as not to disturb her.

He was a very comfortable husband. His arms cradled her, gentle but strong. Protective.

She was drifting to sleep, carried by her happy thoughts of all the new things they'd get to do together. The things they'd see, the life she had to look forward to.

Aeris let herself fall asleep to the gentle rhythm of Cloud's heart.

End