Desert Garden

x-x-x

I want to leave today
The sky is big and my life is small
I want to leave with you
So we can build a desert garden

The stars are far away
I can see them in my eyes
We watch them fade away
Like the moments of our lives

x-x-x

Part 22

x-x-x

Zack looked up at the sky. It was clear, with a hint of clouds on the horizon. Cloud was sitting up in the back of the truck with him, eyes downcast. He smiled at him and touched his hands.

"We're friends, right?" he asked, looking up into the vast unknown. He took a big breath as he climbed up on the truck to peer better at the sky, and that's when it happened. Gunfire.

"Pops, park us over by the rocks!" he yelled out, shielding himself and Cloud. He climbed out of the truck with Cloud in tow and set him by the rock face. He sighed, then laughed a bit as he tugged Cloud's head about, rustling his hair gently. As he left, he missed Cloud reaching out to him weakly. He was already gone.

When he climbed out of the rocks he met face to face with more than a hundred Shinra guards. He sighed, hands going to his hips.

"Boy oh boy," he said. "The price of freedom is steep." There was no way he could get through a wall that impregnable, but he had to try, right? Cloud was depending on him.

He smiled and unsheathed his Buster Sword, looking at it for a brief moment and remembering Angeal fondly. He raised it to his forehead and sighed. "Protect your dreams," he said, "and whatever happens, protect your honor . . ." His mentor would have taken these guards on. Above, helicopters with more guards soared. "As SOLDIER!" he yelled with finality as he charged into the fray. "Come and get it!" he cried.

Grenade after grenade was launched his way, and he deflected them all with his materia spells and his sword. More and more troops fell at his feet, bloodied and torn. But they kept pressing on, kept crowding him.

Memories flooded him as he fought. Sephiroth's smile, Cissnei's smile, Tseng's smile. Cloud's gentleness, calling him "sir". The more he fought the more he remembered. Cloud telling him he was a country boy too, smiling softly as he removed his helmet. Angeal saying "use brings about wear and tear" and telling him to join him in the fight. His eyes misted over and he let his blind rage take over, dodging more missiles and grenades. But it was no use, they kept coming and he was growing tired.

His breath heaved out of his chest and the area was covered in smog. Blood stained his face and uniform. It was hard to carry the Buster sword so he sagged. More troopers pressed in on him as he just breathed, and he took one final big breath before he came upon them and began slashing in a frenzy. Every action he did taxed him, drew on his strength which was waning. He relied heavily on materia, but nothing was working. There were still more troops, no matter how many fell at his feet. No matter how he cut a swath through them they were unrelenting, their full force on him. He thought of Cloud, how he had screamed when he was in the mako tube, clawing at his chest like an animal. He was like an animal now, screaming as he swung his sword.

Finally he could endure no more. As he lay panting on the ground covered in the blood of the troopers and his own lifeblood, he looked up as it began to rain, heavy clouds in the sky. His fingers twitched around the hilt of the Buster sword and with dull recognition he saw Cloud crawling toward him. His eyes were wet, and he wasn't crying because he was sad, but because Cloud had come back, had made it through all he had gone through.

The blonde dragged himself over Zack's body and recognition sparked in his eyes.

"Z-zack," he whispered.

Zack lay grunting and panting and managed out "for the . . . both of us."

"Both of us?" Cloud asked, as if just remembering how to make meaning out of words.

"That's right," Zack struggled, head coming up off the ground to look at Cloud. "You're gonna . . . you're gonna . . ." he reached his hand up and dragged Cloud's head into his chest, pulled him up for one final kiss. "live," he croaked out. "You'll be . . . my living legacy," he said, combing his fingers through Cloud's hair. And just like that he let go, eyes staring up at Cloud's, the moment heavy between them. He knew he was dying, and he wanted Cloud to live on in the wake of his dreams. He looked toward the Buster sword.

"My honor . . . my dreams . . . they're yours now," he said offering the blade to Cloud. Cloud stared at it in disbelief, stared at Zack in disbelief, but he took the hilt slowly, carefully, as Zack pushed it into his arms with his last bit of strength.

"I'm . . ." Cloud started, as if he didn't trust his voice. "Your living legacy," he said, tasting the words.

Zack smiled, feeling the cleansing rain wash his tears away, most of the blood that marred his handsome face, and then he died, eyes closing softly, taking one last look at Cloud.

Cloud choked on emotion, on sobs that wracked his body, and then he screamed with the full power of his might as he clutched the Buster sword to his chest. His blue eyes stared up toward the heavens as visions of his friendship and more passed over him, felt the final kiss on his lips. And then the sky opened and rays of light hit his face as they pushed passed the clouds. He looked at Zack's peaceful expression, the way he'd kept his honor to the very last. He saw in his mind's eye Zack's smile, how he had always treated him tenderly. He remembered how he'd begun to wake up on the back of the truck, how he could do nothing all this time until Zack left him, how he'd reached out to him.

"Embrace your dreams," he heard echoed in his mind, "If you want to be a hero, you need to have dreams."

"Thank you," Cloud whispered, taking a deep breath. "I won't forget." Then he stood and squeezed his eyes shut on the memories that flooded him. "Goodnight, Zack," he said as he turned his back on his mentor and lover and started dragging the Buster sword after him. Behind him, Zack was returning to the lifestream. Cloud vaguely remembered that he'd wanted wings, so he could fly like his mentor, and he wished as he walked that he'd get them in death.

As he walked he lost all sense of what he was and everything jumbled in his brain. He knew he was Cloud Strife, but big chunks of his memory were gone or missing and he eventually assumed Zack's persona in part. He didn't remember or couldn't.

"I'm Cloud," he told himself, "SOLDIER 1st Class."

But was it true? Snatches of the labs kept plaguing him. He'd wake up with his hand clutching at his chest. And he mostly kept to himself.

That's when he rode the train into Midgar. It had taken him so long to get there, and he half didn't know why he was going there.

He took odd jobs, claiming his was Ex-Shinra. Ex-SOLDIER. He knew he'd been running from them, but couldn't place why. He'd stare curiously at his sword, knew it was the Buster sword and knew it was important, but he didn't know why.

One day he ran into a girl in the street who was selling flowers and some part of him vaguely remembered that flowers were supposed to be important, but he didn't know why.

"Don't see many flowers here," he commented. The girl had smiled and offered him one. He paid one gil for one of them and stared at it dumbly as she left. Why were flowers so important?

"You don't see flowers in Midgar much, sir," he remembered himself saying to someone ages ago, it seemed. Who was that?

"You wanna be in SOLDIER, right? Then, hey, protect that with everything you've got. It symbolizes everything you'd ever want to fight for. Being in SOLDIER isn't about physical strength as much as it's about the strength you've got in here," he remembered someone saying, pointing to his chest.

He shook his head and continued on through the streets of Midgar.

Eventually he met someone from his past. Her name was Tifa Lockhart. She had long brown hair and big brown eyes and she said she was from Nibelheim.

"Nibelheim," he repeated.

"Yes, where we're from, silly," she said.

He remembered Nibelheim ending up being burned down by . . .

It was Sephiroth.

He knew Sephiroth was his childhood idol. He discussed him with Tifa as they watched the stars the night before he left for Midgar.

Tifa was gesturing at the flower in his hand.

"You almost never see them in the slums. A flower for me?" she asked, her eyes lighting up. "You shouldn't have." She took it from him and placed it in water.

He knew Tifa was important, and he remembered looking up to her almost when they were kids. He asked her how old they were now and she laughed as she told him, telling him he sure had a bad memory.

He found himself opening up to her little by little, but never knew he'd never made SOLDIER.

"You were always in fights," she recounted. "The other children didn't like you much, or your mother, but I liked you," she said softly.

Slowly Tifa began opening herself up to Cloud too. They were childhood sweethearts, she said, with a blush.

Somehow in the back of his mind he thought he was betraying some memory of someone, but he couldn't figure out who. The memory of wings and flowers persisted in his memory.

"Those wings," he'd whispered to himself in the night, "I want them too."

So Tifa became important to him, and later the flower girl he'd met earlier.

Eventually he remembered Zack, that he'd never been a SOLDIER, but Tifa didn't fault him for it. They grew closer, and he watched over Marlene and Denzel, who were important to her and became important to him too.

He was already the champion of the planet, a hero, when they first made love. He thought of Zack, of all he did for him, and told her all about him, what they'd meant.

"He would have wanted you to be happy," Tifa said, and he knew it was true. He thought of Angeal and Zack, and him and Zack, and now his life with Tifa. He slept in the flower garden in Aerith's church often, hiding from the world. Part of him was distant, not wanting to give too much of his heart to Tifa, but she was persistent.

In the end, with Sephiroth defeated and Jenova a notion of the past, he thought he could breathe now, but the past always came to haunt him.

Still he grew flowers and regularly made Marlene crowns out of the marigolds he grew. Zack and Aerith's sacrifices would not be for nothing.

Tifa let him have his space and let him come to her when he wished to. Their business was booming and the planet was healing.

"I'm," Cloud said as he stood beside the rusted Buster sword that marked Zack's grave, "your living legacy. I won't forget you, Zack," he said, pressing two gloved fingers to his lips. "Goodnight," he said and got on Fenrir and took off. Tifa had been waiting for him, and took his fingers and pressed a kiss into them. Cloud smiled.

"Where to now, Cloud?" Tifa asked him.

"Anywhere you want to go," he answered easily.

"Let's go see the flowers," she hummed thoughtfully.

x-x-x

I want to leave today
The sky is big and my life is small
I want to leave with you
So we can build a desert garden

The stars are far away
I can see them with my eyes
I watch them fade away
Like the moments of my life

x-x-x

End