Chapter Text
"I admire you, your bravery, your confidence, I really do," Tifa said.
Aeris felt a bit light-headed. The praise she didn't expect.
"I was thinking, if you were the one confessing to him, you wouldn't have any problems."
"I'm not so sure. I don't think," Aeris laughed, recalling a memory, "I don't think he would want to play along with me."
She looked at Tifa from the side, "If I'm gone, you'll still love him. I don't want him to be alone."
"What? Yes, of course I'll care about him. Especially if you're going... What? What do you mean?"
Aeris looked at her lap. "I'm not going to live past Disc 1. Sorry."
"What?"
Broken creaking, data tapped into magnetic memory, timeline disrupted, don't you dare stop-
"Aeris, hey-"
"What are you talking about?"
"You just don't have to go off on your own. Just stay with us. Please. We'll get Sephiroth together. You don't need to be in danger."
...
Aeris stretches out her arms, wraps them around herself.
Cloud was coming after her. She could tell because the Ancients told her.
The Cetra loved the ocean, the limestone and still-alive coral, glass floating in water, undersea depths.
She could distract herself more, as if she could stop what was coming next. Tell herself she was taking a day off. There was no sign of Sephiroth. Maybe she didn't want to admit she was wrong. But she didn't want to go back just yet.
...
Nanaki doesn't bristle. Tifa yells at him to get over himself, of course he's not going to turn evil.
Aeris doesn't understand why, but she's not put off. That's Tifa! Of course she's going to be Tifa. She pats him on the nose in consolation and he lets her.
Nanaki murmurs to himself, "Cheerful and grumpy," knowing he's not getting one without the other.
...
Cloud flirts with Aeris slowly. Watching it is like watching a dream.
It requires some pushing to get him to go on a date. But that doesn't mean it isn't worth it. Aeris likes seeing him smile.
Tifa finds she likes seeing Aeris smile, too. And when Cloud tells her about how he had a good time after, she listens with all her heart.
...
She doesn't know what she sees in him.
Or maybe she does. It's worse, that she knows him and yet-
"It's okay, everything's going to get fixed," she reports.
She was right to be alone. It was easier to avoid attacks with a smaller party, and she hadn't needed to equip Materia to get this far. When Cloud attacked her, when he gave the Black Materia to Sephiroth - yes, it all made sense. It was okay. The Ancients explained it.
Is that what happened?
She doesn't know what she saw.
The Ancients are very patient with her, when she explains it over and over. Each time, the details fill in a different way. Cloud is there, Cloud and a child-Cloud. Cloud gives Sephiroth the Materia. Cloud is attacking her, but it's alright, it's for a reason. She doesn't know what's going on. She knows what's going on now?
Yeah, she knows what's going on now. She just didn't see it. That's good. This is all inevitable. What happened before with Mom was, too, but it's okay. It's all for a reason.
...
Her hands are clasped in prayer.
He pulls out his sword for a reason.
Aeris doesn't move.
He raises it above his head.
Is it the ocean she hears in the Ancients' whispers? Is it the blood rushing in her ears?
Like a daydream, she watches. "Stop!" Tifa shouts and Cloud clutches his head. His words are mumbled and miserable, and she can't hear them over the sound of Tifa jumping on the stepping-stones.
Tifa runs in between her and Cloud.
There is a shadow from above, black cape like billowing skirt, and Tifa—
—yells, and—