He only sees Aeris angry once. (Later, he wonders if it's because she rarely got angry, or if it's because she bottled her emotions up until they spilled over, messy and tangled as her hair when she sinks to her grave).

Yuffie glances up from where she's propped against the tree, tries for a smile that gleams even in the low light of sunset, but then she sucks in a pained breath, smile falling. The whole area smells sharp like blood, metallic, and it's only then he sees Cid, head in Yuffie's lap, limbs spread at awkward angles. He wants to ask what happened, the two had just gone scouting for a place to camp, that's all, and they're by far the best at it, but his thought breaks off sharp as Aeris shoves Vincent out of her way, hands glowing bright, bright, and she presses too-strong healing magic into both Cid and Yuffie.

Then Cid sits up, curses flying from his mouth, and Yuffie's yowling like a wounded beast, and Aeris looks at them, eyes cold like ice materia, and asks, her voice low, a tone to it he's never heard before, "Why didn't you have a Restore materia with you? Potions?"

"Shit," Cid wheezes, lighting a cigarette with hands that shake, not from blood loss, "Thought potions would be enough, but we ran out. Fuck."

In a single fluid motion, Aeris rises, and says, quiet, sharp, "They're there to be used. You shouldn't have been unprepared," and she moves past all them, even evading Tifa's grab for her.

"...I found a place," Yuffie says a moment later, her voice small and shaking.

She points at a clearing a ways away, and, with glances back towards Aeris, the group moves over there, to set up camp, and everyone keeps looking at him as they work, expectant despite the hush, and, eventually, he lets out a sigh, breaks the heavy silence. "I'll go," he says, and the swell of relief nearly makes him choke.

It's funny to think that they believe he can do anything about it. From day one, Aeris has moved to a drumbeat unlike any other tempo he's ever heard, and, frankly, he doesn't think anyone else is any closer to understanding her. Cloud puts a hand to the hilt of his sword, and doubles back to find her.

Aeris doesn't move when she hears him coming, despite the leaves and twigs that snap and crunch beneath his shoes. Her boots are sitting beside her, one toppled over as though she'd thrown it, and her socks are stuffed inside them. She's buried her feet and hands in the dirt, eyes shut, head tilted back.

For a moment, he thinks he should go back, let her be, and then she asks, softly, "Cloud?"

"...Yes. Are you all right?" and he's not equipped for this, not good at solace or people or anything else along those lines.

It's almost too dark to see the way her mouth twists, expression breaking a little, composure slipping, and she says, softly, "...Yes, I'm fine," but he at least knows enough not to buy it, and she realizes it a second later, adds, "Fine enough."

He swallows, decides, and sits down beside her, leaves enough space that they're not touching, and he's not disturbing her boots.

Silence is heavier than the promise of night on the air, and it's getting hard to see, even with his enhancements. Briefly, he wonders what Aeris can feel through the dirt, wonders if she can feel the unfurl of bat wings, or the night flowers opening petals to drink in the moonlight. "...Worried about them?" he tries.

"We have materia, we have potions. It shouldn't have been a problem," she says, her voice hard like the canyons.

Cloud pauses, looks up at the first stars appearing, and says, "Curatives can't fix everything."

"It would have been easily prevented if they had been prepared," she says, fingers shifting, scraping against the earth that understands her better than anyone or anything else does, "That was just—" her words stop, jar him.

He looks at her; her head's bowed now, and he thinks about reaching out to her, offering comfort, but he clenches his hands instead, turns his gaze back to the stars, because they're closer to him than she is, in some ways. "Aeris..."

"I'm sorry," she says, finally, trying for a tone more akin to the brightness of the sun than the glint of steel in moonlight.

Even he isn't so dense. "...Something like this happen..." he stops, finds the next words seconds later, "Something like this happen before? In Midgar?"

He doesn't look at her; he has a strong feeling she doesn't look at him, her gaze inward, earthbound. But she lets out a breath, heavy, and then says, "Not many people had money in the slums. People get sick or injured? They spend money meant for other things on potions and remedies."

Cloud convinces himself, then reaches out, places a hand gently on her shoulder, and she tenses before relaxing, leaning into the warmth.

"But they'd buy and buy and buy, and they wouldn't get better. Turns out sellers watered the potions and remedies down to make them affordable," she stops, and then continues, a sharp bitterness to her tone that surprises him more than her anger, "Making them affordable made them useless."

And he turns over what she said in his mind, then compares it to how she reacted. "...You lost someone, didn't you?"

Aeris remains silent, and, for an instant, he thinks she's going to answer him, but then she moves away from his touch and stands.

"I overreacted. I should apologize," she says.

He rises a moment later, and he looks at her, catches her gaze before she can evade in the pretence of picking up her shoes. "I'm sorry," he says, "I should have made sure they were prepared."

Her hand comes up, and she brushes her fingers along the inside of his wrist, bracelets tinkling so he knows this is real, and her smile has this sad cast to it. She says, voice soft, "We're all to blame. Nothing's perfect."

Not saying anything, he reaches, catches her hand, squeezes it, because he never knows what to say, has never been good with words, really (or at least, he thinks he's never been good with them, because, sometimes, his memory's a little fogged over, like a mirror just after a shower, and he can't be positive), but he can do this, can offer this, and Aeris accepts it with a softening in the edges of her smile.

"I can't read," she says, suddenly, like she's casting him a line, something to latch onto, to bridge this gap that's so wide.

But he doesn't know what to do with that, either, tightens his grip on her hand, and her fingers wiggle, like they're trying to spill secrets Aeris doesn't know how to explain, but he can't understand the code of her fingerprints.

"...I'm sorry," he says after a moment, "...That's why you were upset. In the library."

And she nods, encouraging, but he tears his gaze away, because her eyes are bright and green (like Mako, like materia), but there's loss there he wants to understand, something expectant, and he can never seem to get anything right, why should he be able to get this right? Why is it she keeps coming to him, when he can never seem to give her what she's looking for?

"Aeris," her name is a rasp.

He looks at her again, and in the brief instant he looked away, her expression's crumpled like a ribbon trodden in the dirt she loves, and she pulls her hand away. "Maybe I'll learn, someday," she says, and bends down, to pick up her boots with the same ginger care she'd handed him that flower with the first time they met.

"We should get back," he says, tongue betraying him, voice harsh like sandpaper.

Aeris only nods and he follows her back to camp, where everyone is silent and they watch her move with to that tempo no one else can hear. For a moment, she just eyes them, and then she murmurs, "Sorry for snapping," and then she curls in on herself by the fire, light flickering across her face.

Hanging there for a second, watching Aeris lace her boots back on, he says, "We should be more careful," and they nod at him, because they've chosen to follow him, "Good night," and he slips into his tent.

Sleep comes dragging, and when it does, he dreams of materia, hard and cold.