Pairings: Cloud/Aeris
Description: Tifa describes her changing feelings, and the relationship between Cloud and Aeris.
What the Flowers Say
I understand now. I had been living with my irrelevant jealousy for two years- and it has been killing me. The way he always retreats to the remains of her church. His church now i suppose. He tends to the gold and white blossoms there, always bringing several home. I hated it at first, how he would fill vase after vase with them and randomly place them around the bar and inside the lodgings upstairs. After a while, however, i realized just how much those flowers brightened the place. The children, Marlene and Denzel, seem to run around and laugh more. Even the bar's customers seem to laugh more jovially in their often drunken stupors instead of wallowing pitifully. The greatest change, however has been in Cloud himself.
I have known him almost my whole life: seeing as we grew up right next door to one another. But rarely, even as children, did I see him smile. Yet now, he smiles more often. Never a lot of course, it's just not in his nature. Yet I will catch him on his own, off in a sort of daydream, smiling. Or he may lightly hum from time to time: always the same tune that i had never heard before he began humming it. He is always happiest when he is around things that remind him of her.
I have wished for a long time that he could smile that way while thinking of me. But he and Aeris have a special kind of bond. One that is unbreakable: even though her body and soul now belong to the planet. I recognized their bond immediately, from the first moment I met her. He had come to rescue me but worried much more about her safety when they arrived together. He had known her only for a few hours, yet they acted as if they had known one another their whole lives. Every so often during our journey i would awake at night to hear whispering voices and quiet laughter a short distance from our camp. The first time I heard this I peeked out of my tent and recognized the faint outline of his spiky blonde hair and her long brunette braid and pink hair ribbon. They never sat too close. Although the glances they would give each other, clearly wondering what the other person was thinking did not go unnoticed. In battle he would always fight close enough to her, so he could jump in and save her just in case.
I won't forget when we reached the exit of the Temple of the Ancients and she asked Cait Sith to use his fortune-telling abilities to determine she and Cloud's compatibility. The stars said they were a perfect match. A perfect match. Cait Sith was speaking so excitedly, saying he would be their preacher, matchmaker, whatever they wanted. Whenever it happened. But that cheerful and quirky young woman never got the bright future she deserved. Nor did that emotionally scarred and tortured young man. Instead she resolved herself to leave us behind and try to save the world on her own, with our enemy fearfully watching her every step. So that brave soldier was forced to watch as his bright future died in his arms. I had never seen him cry. Not once. Until that day, that moment when all our lives were turned upside down. He fought the oncoming battle like a madman, like he had nothing left to lose. Yet after the battle ended, he was deathly silent, no longer bothering to hide the emotions now swirling in his eyes. He carried her out, carried her like she were a queen meant to be touched by none other than her loyal knight.
He blamed himself for her death for two years. He was her bodyguard, he was supposed to protect her. He loved her, though he would never admit it to anyone. I'm not sure he's really even admitted it to himself. He had to save the world again, defeat Sephiroth again to finally let go of his grief. But I could have sworn, while we wre standing there in the church to celebrate our victory, that his eyes traveled to the door, and widened in surprise. That was the first time I saw him smile. He saw her. He must have. He is the only one of us that could have. Their bond is unbreakable, though they be two worlds apart. I realize this now. I know that he doesn't need her physical presence to know she's always there. He has her love and devotion, and she his. He can visit her in his dreams until the day he leaves this world as well. He is happy with his life, just as it is. And it is finally time for me, Tifa Lockheart, to move on with mine. It is my turn to find the love and devotion I deserve, even if it is merely that of my strange extended family.
"Thank you, Aeris." I whisper as I take a snow white lily from the nearest vase and weave it into my hair. A new day has dawned.
-fin-