Done as yet another attempt at the CloudxAerith 100 themes challenge. This theme is clock.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the game, all I own is this story.

Btw, I altered the storyline slightly, in AC, after Aeris walks out of the church, that's the last time Cloud sees her. Didn't really happen, but it did for this story.

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Cloud sat on his bed, staring at the far wall. Lost in his memories, he sighed slightly. He missed her, he really did. He went through a whole stage of thinking about suicide, but he never did it. Maybe he was to scared to kill himself, in case he never did meet her. He wouldn't know, he would have to wait until he died of old age. She wouldn't allow him to die otherwise, he already knew that from experience.

Nonetheless, he was impatient. He needed to be with her, physically. Cloud closed his eyes, feeling the tears behind his eyelids. She wouldn't want him to cry, but sometimes, he just couldn't help himself. Cloud felt a tear escape, and then they all fell, until he was crying rivers, his body shaking uncontrollably as he sobbed.

Don't cry.

I don't want to see you sad.

Don't make me cry as well Cloud.

Please.

Cloud's head shot up when he swore he heard a voice, but there was no one inside the room, nor was there anyone outside the door when he opened it. Wiping his tears, he staggered slightly back to his bed, and threw himself upon it, looking up at the ceiling.

"Now I'm hearing voices, I must be crazy." He sat up, and held his head in his hands. A tick tock sound in the room stopped, and Cloud looked up to see that the clock on the wall had stopped. Getting up slowly, he took it of the wall, walking to his desk in the corner of the room, which had paper scattered all over it, for Cloud wasn't really organized. Pulling open a drawer, he took out two batteries, and took the old ones out from the back of the clock, threw them in the bin beside the desk, and put the new ones in.

Placing the clock back on the wall, he stepped back and looked at it. It was a present from Aeris when she was still alive, when the group had stopped at Costa Del Sol. It looked like a beachball, and she had told him that she would buy everyone something, to remember her by when the journey was over.

Did she know? Did she know she was going to die, and tried to make sure everyone remember her when she was gone? Cloud would have to ask her if...no, when he met her again.

Cloud sighed once more, and lowered his head. He felt the tears gathering again, and one fell, a single tear. "Why can't I reverse time? Then stop it when we were together on our date. Then we would have forever together, no? He realized he was talking to no one, and no one was going to answer. He stepped towards his bed, and got under the covers.

Thirty minutes later, Cloud slow breathing showed that he was asleep. Suddenly, a pale figure sat on Cloud's bed and started stroking his hair.

You can't reverse time Cloud,

Nor can you stop it.

But when we meet again,

We'll be together...

Forever.

The figure faded into nothingness.And then Cloud, whatever he was dreaming of, smiled.