Blurry

If there was one thing Aeris Gainsborough didn't do, it was cry.

She never cried, she was tough as nails, that's what she told herself. She may have felt like just sitting down and wailing at times, but she always refused the urge and put on a happy exterior. That was what being strong was about, right? She refused to shed tears, because if she allowed herself to cry for all the sadness and wrongdoings she'd seen and experienced, all the cries the planet whispered to her in the dead of night (worse nowadays that there was no warm shoulder to curl up next to), all the laments of the broken on the streets on the slums, she'd never again experience the sensation of dry eyes.

It was best not to cry at all, she rationalized.

That's why when her throat closed up and her nose prickled and eyes stung, she forced herself to think of calm, happy things. Like the fact that a new patch of peonies had sprung up in her garden yesterday, seemingly out of nowhere, and were crowding together with the rest of the vibrant organized chaos in her garden. Or that ten whole people had asked her for flowers today, and my oh my, where did she get such lovely flowers in so depressing a slum?

Simple thoughts. Happy thoughts.

And if one tear dared leak out past the restraints of her eyelashes, she knew the rest would soon follow. So she blotted her eyes quickly (telling herself she should just look into pollen allergies) as she scratched another line on the rotting underside of a pew and quickly calculated how much water she should bring for the plants tomorrow.

There were so many lines, so many scratches it may very well have just been the style of the wood to have so many straight, precise little markings on it, so many lines for so many days since she last saw him, since he last gripped her hands and her heart and told her not to give up on him, he'd be back soon, he promised, and once he did, once he was on top of SOLDIER for good, he'd take her away from this depressing place and show her Costa del Sol and the Gold Saucer and every fun place imaginable and they'd take the world by storm because when you're in love you can do anything, be anything, and they'd traverse the world and be important people together and be rich together and just be together.

One hundred eighty-six lines later, Elmyra told her to stop dreaming, she was sorry, but Zack probably wasn't coming back and she should stop waiting around for him.

That was the first night Aeris ever yelled at her mother.

The exacts words in their row were lost in the faulty fabric of her memory, but she remembered her mother's weary eyes, they looked so tired, watching her as she shouted (her voice shaking with some unnamed emotion) that Zack was coming, he'd promised, he'd never leave her to fend for herself, he was only gone to help build the future they'd have together, the life they'd live that would belong on the pages of fairy tales everywhere.

She remembered her mother burying her face in her hands and telling Aeris to go back to bed, please, and just forget this ever happened, didn't Aeris know she was only looking out for her best interests?

She remembered staring at Elmyra for a moment that might as well have been an eternity for all the emotions that were emanating from her before turning on her heel and running off.

She spent that night in her church, staring up at the hole in the ceiling he'd made, and feeling the blossoms of the flowers of the garden that has resulted underneath her.

x

Aeris crawled out from underneath the pew, dusting her jacket off, the tears already stalled in her eyes and her cheery exterior restored. She strode over to the garden and inhaled slightly, the aroma of flowers making her feel content and relaxed.

Kneeling down, Aeris clasped her two pale hands together and exhaled deeply before shutting her eyes and feeling herself melt away slowly, pouring through the cracks in the wooden floorboards, dumping into the earth and thus, simply letting herself coexist with the planet, just for a little while so that maybe she could help shoulder some of it's burden and do what she could to stall those mournful cries that seemed to rend her from the tip of her scalp to the soles of her feet.

The sun was shining brightly (though it always was in her corner of the world) and she loved it like this, because with the rays of daylight pouring over her back and bathing her in it's warm glow, she really did feel like an angel, a princess from the fairy tales wearing a crown of radiant sunshine and if she just wished hard enough, she could have her prince back too.

It used to be that there never was anything specific she prayed for, she just let herself wish for the betterment of the world as a whole (as the last Cetra, it was the least she could do). But now, she focused on the idea that maybe he'd come falling through the sky just like he did so long ago, he'd come crashing in with a big thud and a cheeky grin that belied the pain he must have felt. She focused on that look he'd given her when he blinked open his eyes, that look that only his unfathomably blue eyes could achieve and with that look she felt like he'd read her heart and soul like an open book because his gaze made her feel so bare and exposed (but that was okay because she knew he'd be tender and careful with her). And oh, that look, she could remember it, it was burned into her retinas, it set herself on fire, that look. And today (and tomorrow, and the day after that) she wanted to be selfish and all she wanted to pray for was for him to just be here with her, for him not to have left and be gone…

She was praying, praying, she didn't care if he fell right on top of her like he had all that time ago, all she wanted was him, him, any part of him, any sign of him, anything to prove to her mother, to herself, that he was coming back for her, that he still cared, that he wasn't dead. He couldn't be dead, he wasn't dead, if he was dead than… no, he wasn't, he wasn't, why was she thinking like this? He was alive, he had to be because who could take down Zack Fair? Besides, people like Zack didn't die because good people don't die, life is fair, and those who work hard are rewarded and those who are in love have the best of fortunes.

Please… I need a sign… something… anything…

Thud.

"Ow!" Aeris was knocked unceremoniously over as from out of nowhere (no, she actually had a sneaking suspicion where) a figure fell from the sky and bowled her down. She rolled over, narrowly avoiding the gigantic sword that had come loose from its sheath and nearly shaved off her shins.

… That sword. That arrival. That hair. Oh God, this was too familiar. Oh God, were her prayers being answered? What was this? Who was this? What was going on??

Aeris's heart pounded wildly somewhere in the vicinity of her esophagus as she slowly crept forward towards the still form. She couldn't believe it- here was the sign she'd asked for. She never would have thought somebody would actually answer.

She stopped once she reached the figure, it's back turned towards her. Did she really want to see its face? What was she going to see? This was Zack's sword, no doubt, and the uniform of a SOLDIER… she wished her heart would shut up already, she was trying to think.

Eventually her inner compassion and refusal to let anything that was injured remain untended forced her to extend a shaking hand that matched her shaking heart and gently turn the body over, relieved to see the tiny rise and fall of his chest.

He wasn't bleeding, it was amazing he'd survived the fall, who knew from how high he'd fallen? He was probably bruised, though those ridiculous spikes had softened the impact on his head, at least.

It was amazing how rational her healer's mind was being when her emotions were in mass chaos.

This was Zack, but yet… it wasn't. He was smaller and looked hunched, his hair was blonde and he was wirier and he wasn't Zack at the same time he was.

But by the gods there were so many similarities. This couldn't have been a coincidence, it couldn't have been. Maybe it was Zack, sent to her in another form. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Her hopes gingerly allowed themselves to be raised as she examined the body, ensuring that there were no major injuries that needed immediate attention. She started with his startlingly youthful face, which looked so unblemished, especially for a SOLDIER. Zack had had numerous nicks and scratches all over his body, the stories of which he had related proudly to Aeris one night when they had been snuggled together in this same garden. This man didn't have any such scars, except for one incredibly long and deep scar on his chest that was mirrored on his back- something must have run him right through (in the back of her mind she dimly wondered how somebody could survive something like that). She finished pulling off his shirt and completed the examination, and respecting his privacy, didn't go any further. He was going to be fine, she concluded.

And now that her mind had been put at ease, her heart took over and she bent over his body and debating momentarily on the wisdom of this particular move (though only momentarily because she was already set on carrying it through) when she reached forward and slowly but surely, pried open one eyelid to stare into the stranger's eye.

Aeris didn't know what she was expecting, to be honest. Maybe to see Zack's bluer than the sea, sky, sapphire eyes? Maybe to see that same life and joy and laughter that had always, always existed in him? She didn't know, all she knew was that she had to look, and she did for just a moment before letting her hand drop and turning away a little too quickly.

They were blue, yes, blue like Zack's, blue like the blue of a Mako-infused SOLDIER, but tired and unfocused and not just because he was unconscious. Serious and foreboding and angry and cold and nothing, nothing like Zack's. And then she got that even though his hair was overly spiked like Zack's, even if he came crashing through the roof and landed in her church like Zack, even if he had Zack's sword, this was not Zack.

And her hopes were dashed and she was falling hard, and now she felt like she was crashing through a roof and there were splinters in her heart and everything was building up inside her head and she needed self-control, remember, should she up the prices on her flowers?...

It wasn't working, all she could think was that she was never getting him back. Because Zack would never give his sword away, ever, he'd never leave her here in the slums when he knew what he meant to her, he'd nevereverever break his promise unless the unthinkable happened.

Zack was gone, she didn't want to accept it, she wasn't going to accept it, because accepting would mean a little piece of her dying inside and she wanted to be lively but it was so, so hard right now and AerisdontcryAerisdontcry and somehow she managed to drag herself over to the pew with all of the markings and she leaned her head against the cool wood and shut her eyes, because there was something hovering on her eyelashes and if she let it fall that would mean she had accepted it and she couldn't do that just then.

She couldn't look at him, the fake Zack that looked like him but wasn't him, she'd look at the door and wait for the real Zack, he'd come soon, and she'd be waiting. But something was breaking inside of her and she longed so deeply for his warm, tender embrace that would stitch up this jagged cut soso easily, but their absence made it all the worse. She had known it (she had known, for God's sake), that if she let one tear fall she'd let them all fall, for every terrible thing that she had ever witnessed or experienced that she'd refused to cry for in the past, for all the atrocities that her psuedo-inner strength refused to acknowledge because she was too-damn-strong for it then.

And in the quiet daylight in her peaceful church in the middle of the Sector 5 slums of Midgar, she cried herself to sleep and forgot about trying to be strong or tough or act like it didn't matter, because this was something that sure as hell mattered (and hurt) more than she thought was ever physically possible.

Before her tired eyes let her fold into sweet slumber she noticed that she had slipped down and was now lying flat on her back, staring up at the markings underneath the pew. They were the last things she saw before she drifted away and the first thing she'd see when she woke up.

An infinite amount of lines for the infinite amount of days before he would come and take her away, before he would come and fulfill his promise.

Because he was never. Coming. Home.

A/N: Will rewrite this... eventually. Reviews tickle me :)