world enough and time

by fleetingfamiliar

Summary:

What Aerith meant was, we have to go after her. She wanted to know what kind of girl made a boy who fell from the clouds stop in his tracks, touch golden petals like he thought they might break, and gaze up at the sky like he was counting stars.

Tifa thinks of Aerith, of the way she had leaned in to the whispers, followed the laughter. She wants to answer more of Aerith’s questions. Hear more of her laugh. Get back to Sector 7, show her the bar, find out why it is that the air feels clearer around her.

(They might fall in love.)

Chapter 1: the worst place this side of the slums

Aerith was having a spectacularly strange day.

The sun - the real sun - had already been dipping below the steel horizon of Sector 5 by the time she had made her way from the even cobbles of the upper plate, which she liked to try and hop between without stepping on any of the gaps, down and down and down to the hot dirt paths of the slums, just starting to cool in the manufactured evening light. The train had been late, though that wasn’t unusual in the manic late afternoon rush of the commuter sector. Her carriage was heaving with blank-faced men in suits that hadn’t quite been tailored properly, the passenger at her elbow engrossed by whatever latest Shinra drivel flickered on the screen of his PHS but with slouched shoulders too broad for her to properly snoop over.

The church had waited for her, patient as ever. She had breathed in its quiet air, traced her fingertips along the smooth arch of the doorway and the crumbling grooves of its sandstone sconces, pressed the palm of her hand to the middle wood panel of the heavy door, still holding on to the last echoes of the day’s warmth. A moment alone with the planet.

That’s when the boy had crashed through the roof. Made rather a large hole, in fact, and a terrible heap of debris in the centre of her flower patch.

Cloud. There was something about him she couldn’t find a name for. The subtle blue of his eyes, like the sky, shot through by that preternatural acidic mako green. The soft spikes of his pale hair swept over that seemingly permanently furrowed brow. A gait which felt familiar carried by a body which wasn’t. The immediate dread right behind her sternum that she knew him, even though they had never met.

Except they had met: topside. Sector 8. Loveless Street. The buzzing pink-hued lights of an evening showing, eclipsed by the smoke rising from the distant figure of the recently-bombed mako reactor. His wrist in her hand as she had reached for him, desperate to get away from those–

But they hadn’t met, not really. He had a closed-off persona and the face of resting discontent to match, he didn’t like when she looked him directly in the eyes, he glanced at her when he thought she wasn’t looking almost as though he felt that dread in his chest, too. He had followed her glumly around Sector 5, charmingly resisted even cracking a smile at her jokes, held a single reunion lily up to the evening light in her mom’s garden, twirled the stem in his gloved fingers, and looked like he was thinking of someone else.

So when he had sat next to her in the depressing rubble of the playground, close enough that she could see the ridges in that funny sleeveless turtleneck of his (too familiar, the light itch of the fabric the same, the scuffs of the pauldron the same, the smell of the leather the same) it had felt only natural to ask him about Zack. Who of course he didn’t know, because he was a random boy from Sector 7 who had tumbled through her ceiling not even 12 hours prior - Shinra is a big company anyway, you probably weren’t even the same cohort, it’s just an odd coincidence - the explanations were forming in her mind before she could realise that he wasn’t even looking at her any more. His attention had been dragged elsewhere.

Tifa. That name had come up, when they were running errands for the kids at the Leaf House. He had paused in the middle of the street, brought a hand to his temple, stared off into the middle distance, muttered ‘Tifa’. Not his girlfriend, though. She had checked.

That far-off look in his cloudy blue eyes was the same as when he had spun the flower in his hand earlier, thinking about someone else. Tifa. The girl Aerith couldn’t quite get a glimpse of as the chocobo cart trundled past them with a kweh and a rumble of dust, which Cloud had jumped up and run to, run to Tifa: Aerith couldn’t see her as he had spoken to her, short words exchanged under both their breaths, before he hopped back off the cart and just stood there in the middle of the road, again. Aerith was starting to wonder if this was something he made a habit of.

So, when she had jogged to catch up with him and leaned close to his side and said ‘You have to go after her’, what she’d meant was we have to go after her. She wanted to know what kind of girl made a boy who fell from the clouds stop in his tracks, touch golden petals like he thought they might break, and gaze up at the sky like he was counting stars.

Admittedly, she hadn’t imagined ‘going after her’ would involve another shift trailing behind Cloud while he completed errands which dropped fortuitously at his feet wherever he went, even in the seediest district of the undercity. She hadn’t imagined it would involve a dress made of silk that felt so expensive she was scared to move in it and a full hour being prodded and yanked into shape by a rather haughty woman who smelled faintly of cheap perfume and expensive cigars. She couldn’t really justify why she had put her body on the line against bandits, creatures that reeked of the undercity pens, and decommissioned Shinra robotics with a penchant for violence, for a girl she didn’t know. Something about the way he had looked at her, the green in his eyes focused into a barely-there ring around his pupil, before glancing back to the receding shadow of a chocobo carriage that carried Tifa away to what Aerith had always assumed was the worst place this side of the slums. Something about the worn-leather smell of his bracers, his gloves, that heavy belt that she’d only seen one other person wear. The way he stood like he thought he was taller, shoulders set back and arms crossed. The soft scratch of his knitted vest against her arm when he’d caught her about to stumble from some scrap roof as though it was second nature.

(And maybe more than a little curiosity about a girl in a carriage, too.)

And all that curiosity had led her here: the worst place this side of the slums, Cloud carried off who knew where by a man somehow more hideous than his reputation, introducing herself to a very pretty girl in a very short dress.

Tifa was fascinating. She was beautiful; sleek dark hair and deep brown eyes so rich they were almost red, all smooth collarbones and taut muscle and careful poise. Aerith had watched Tifa and Cloud intently as they had discussed the mission, yada yada, Avalanche, yada yada, Sector 7, yada yada, Shinra - that got Aerith’s attention. Their conversation had hung awkwardly in the air between them while Cloud’s eyes danced everywhere in the room but Tifa and Tifa tried, and largely failed, to tug the tight material of her skirt further down her thighs. Ah. Aerith was starting to understand Cloud’s earlier ‘it’s not like that– I don’t know how to explain–’.

Tifa was rummaging through the greasy pockets - eugh - of one of Corneo’s lackeys, maybe looking for keys or ID or some other such useful thing Avalanche agents looked for on missions. Aerith was still standing helpfully, dumbly, holding the steel chair she had hit the other crony, now keeled over on the concrete next to her, over the head with.

‘Oh! Let me help,’ she offered. She was a little distracted thinking of the sweep of Tifa’s leg over her head to take out the man whose pockets the mysterious girl now rifled through.

Tifa turned her head to her, the dark sheet of her hair slipping over one shoulder as she did so. She had tied it back with a neat little tie right at the end, crimson like her irises as they caught the overhead light. She straightened up with little effort - full crouch sustained and finessed out of using just her thighs - thighs in long compression stockings, which Aerith definitely wasn’t still thinking about. Tifa had looked great in that dress, velvety and a rich indigo which complimented the warm tones in her eyes, but she looked more comfortable out of it. The flickering basement light sloped against the planes of her stomach, the flex of her bicep as she lifted her arm, the feathers tucked into the bands of her gloves. She moved gracefully, with purpose. Aerith felt rather clumsy standing there with her folded chair.

‘No need,’ Tifa said, a slight breathiness still in her voice. Warm, like honey. ‘Found what I needed.’ She held a small key to the light. Brass, heavy, rounded at one end. She flashed Aerith a grin and tilted her head to one side in a motion that caught Aerith slightly unawares. Tifa, calm and collected and strong. Cute. The curiosity that had nestled itself inside Aerith’s ribs glowed.

Corneo was in for a spectacularly bad evening.

Notes:

an introduction. sorry for all the Cloud in this. this isn't about him

Chapter 2: the graveyard

Summary:

this kind of assumes that you know/remember the main plot points of remake. because these early chapters are really more aerti vibes than plot. but hopefully you enjoy the vibes either way :)

‘Aerith!’

Tifa is reaching out for the girl just seconds before the makeshift raft she’s been tiptoeing across starts to sink into the putrid water below them. Aerith tumbles towards her with a yelp, boots scraping on the edge of the sewer platform, falling into her in a pile of damp skirts and flailing arms. Cloud, slow on the draw, calls out something over her shoulder - she catches Aerith by the shoulders, uses her own weight to pull her backwards and off the raft as it disappears into sludge.

A shaky laugh. Tifa can feel the warmth of Aerith’s body and the heavy breaths she’s taking as she finds her footing and looks up at her. Tifa has a few inches on her, and finds herself glancing down into a pair of bright, grateful, very green eyes. Aerith blinks through long eyelashes and offers her a sheepish smile.

‘Thanks! You saved me,’ she says, patting Tifa’s bicep gently. Tifa realises she’s still holding Aerith’s arms a little firmly and lets her go in a hurry. Her warmth is suddenly gone. A blush threatens Tifa’s cheeks.

‘Least I could do,’ she replies, laughing nervously despite herself.

What a lame thing to say - she moves as if to take it back, to say something cooler to this strange and beautiful girl who has fallen into her world, but Aerith has already turned her attention to Cloud and is teasing him about something which is making him shrug and consult the ground, chagrined.

Aerith is clambering up the ladder they’d been aiming for before Tifa can say anything else.

Instead she watches, with fascination. Aerith is cute; she walks with a spring in her step which is unusual for people in the slums. It makes her braid swing behind her and the thin material of that little pink ribbon bounce as she moves. Tifa can’t help but follow her with her eyes as she climbs, boyishly, hand over hand until she throws herself over the top rung with a hup and then turns to flash a grin down at Tifa and Cloud.

Tifa tries to look away, to hide that she was staring, but doesn’t quite do it fast enough. Those eyes are so green.

She shifts her gaze to Cloud, who is inspecting his own boots and avoiding eye contact with either of them. Cloud is a lot of things: quiet, introspective, antisocial. He isn’t usually shy. Tifa cocks her head and watches him.

Aerith had joked with him as though they were longtime friends. As far as Tifa knows, they had only met yesterday.

Tifa can’t help but be intrigued by her.

The three of them walk in silence for a while. Every step seems to be leading them further in to the sewers, and Tifa is starting to feel stifled. The space around them - it’s hardly air - is thick and smells awful. It’s humid. Tifa pulls at the neckline of her tank top, feels the sweat that’s gathered there. She thinks about peeling off her gloves. Sector 7 is dusty, with a heat that usually dries out your throat and makes you cough. Humidity isn’t something she’s all that used to.

She adjusts her suspenders over her shoulders, and lifts the weight of her hair off the back of her neck briefly. The sooner they find the exit, the better.

---

‘Cloud!’

In the space of moments, Tifa is taken aback by two things.

The first is the readiness with which Aerith grabbed her hand the second the concrete underfoot gave the first sign of crumbling. Tifa had barely registered it, but as soon as the bridge gave way under them and sections of stone started to tip into the murky water below - as soon as Tifa felt the swoop in her stomach of her centre of gravity shifting in an instant - she had felt the warmth of Aerith’s fingers slotting between hers, palm flat against her own, yanking her to the other side with more strength than Tifa had honestly expected.

The second is the speed at which, seeing the streak of yellow hair disappear as Cloud stumbled and fell alongside several pounds of concrete, Aerith had sunk to her knees on the damp ground and heaved her staff over her shoulder (she twirled it off her belt with astounding dexterity - lithe fingers twisting it and hooking some hidden button so the telescopic pole unfolded at each end). Tifa is only seconds behind her, grabbing the staff below Aerith’s hands with both of her own and cementing her weight between one foot and one bent knee. She feels the strain. Closes her eyes. Even with Aerith behind her (right behind her - she can feel her pressed against her back, feel her breath in her hair), Cloud isn’t exactly light.

‘Three– two– one–’

They heave.

Cloud pitches over the edge and lands in a damp, weighted pile a few feet from where Aerith’s staff has ended up.

Aerith, on the other hand, is once again closer than Tifa expected.

Tifa peels her eyes open and shifts under the new weight pressing on her torso. Her own breathing is heavy, and she can feel Aerith’s against her ribs, hands planted either side of Tifa’s body, both of them pressed to the cold, grimy sewer floor. Tifa suddenly feels very self-conscious of how sweaty she is, how her shirt is clinging to her, her hair sticking to the nape of her neck–

Aerith shifts. As she moves her head to look at Tifa, her bangs fall over her eyes and brush against Tifa’s collarbone. Aerith pouts and blows hair off her face.

‘Oof,’ she says quietly. Looks at Tifa, and breaks into an impish smile. ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this.’

This time, Tifa can’t stop her blush. For the second time in as many hours, she finds herself face to face with those green eyes. This time, she notices the freckles across Aerith’s cheeks, too. Pretty.

Nope. Now is not the time. Tifa moves to prop herself up on her elbows, peering over Aerith’s shoulder in the hopes that she might take the hint and get up too. She doesn’t. Tifa looks past Aerith’s form at Cloud, who is brushing sewer muck off the front of his cargo pants and attaching that oversized sword back to his pauldron. He catches her eye and winces awkwardly.

‘Thanks. Sorry about that.’

Tifa feels the vibrations through Aerith’s chest when she says, ‘No need to be.’ She turns back to Tifa with that smile again. Tifa can’t help but feel endeared. She pushes Aerith gently away from her - the other girl follows suit this time, clambering to her feet and brushing off her skirt then reaching down and offering Tifa her hand.

Tifa stares at it. Feels Aerith’s eyes boring into the top of her head. Feels warmth moving up her cheeks and into her ears. Now is not the time for this.

She takes Aerith’s hand anyway. Does most of the work in pulling herself up with her quads, then lingers a minute with Aerith’s fingers in hers. Her hand is small, and Tifa can feel even with her fingerless gloves on that while Aerith’s palm is soft, the callouses on her knuckles give away hard work. Maybe from holding that staff, from twirling it around in that expert way she did. Maybe something else she does with her hands. Didn’t Cloud say she was a gardener or something?

Tifa starts when those fingers squeeze hers. She glances up, accidentally meeting Aerith’s very direct gaze.

‘Oh, she would have loved your hands,’ Aerith says, prodding the muscle between palm and thumb.

Tifa pulls back. ‘Who?’

Aerith giggles. It’s a sweet, airy sound that echoes slightly off the sewer walls. She doesn’t answer, just bends to pick her staff up off the ground where it had fallen, closes it up, and slips it back onto her belt in one practised motion.

Tifa swallows hard. She looks back to Cloud, who has started off without them and who Aerith is all but skipping to catch up with.

She wonders where exactly it is that he found this colourful flash of a girl.

---

‘Tifa?’

There is a hesitation in Cloud’s voice as he touches her shoulder lightly. He probably didn’t want to make her jump. Tifa knows it’s stupid to be afraid, but she is.

In her five years of living in Sector 7, the train graveyard is a place she has religiously avoided. It’s mostly kids who tell the stories about people going in and never coming out. But Tifa knows that kids often cut right to the truth of things like this. She thinks of Marlene, asking for bedtime stories and then holding her duvet close under her chin as Tifa described monsters and heroes that were so real for those few minutes. Monsters that Tifa had fought her fair share of in the Sector 7 scrap yards in recent months. Who’s to say the ghost stories aren’t true, too?

She turns to Cloud. He’s looking at her with his usual unreadable expression. If she knew him worse, she might not be able to say for sure that it was concern in his strange blue-green eyes. But she does know him.

‘I’m fine,’ she lies. ‘I just feel awful that we lost track of Aerith.’

That part is true. At the gates of the graveyard - when that odd chill had crept up on them, kissed the back of their necks, whispered past them almost like laughter on the breeze - Aerith had stiffened, stepped ahead of Tifa, glanced back at her with surprising resolve in her pretty face.

I’m game, she had said, and had marched off into the fog. And now they had lost her.

One moment they had been walking together, steps in sync, Aerith close at Tifa’s elbow. She’d been asking Tifa a whirlwind of questions - so, Tifa, how long have you lived in Sector 7? About five years. Do you like it? It’s alright, I guess. I knew you couldn’t have been there long. I haven’t seen you around. Well, Sector 5 is a little far. I used to sell flowers in 6 and 7. I know I would have remembered you. Oh.

Tifa is regretting that she wasn’t a better conversationalist. She was almost as bad as Cloud. For some reason, Aerith made her feel unusually shy.

‘Tifa. Over there.’

Cloud is sprinting through the mist before she can answer, past an abandoned carriage which is creaking ominously in a pool of flickering light. Without thinking, Tifa shoots after him. She tries not to focus on the fact that once he’s gone more than a few steps ahead of her, she can’t really see him anymore - can just make out the familiar shape of his shadow, hear the familiar sound of his breathing. She tries to ignore the faint whistling of wind through the struts of metal and heaps of garbage that fill the abandoned train yard. Tries not to tell herself that every creak and groan and clatter is a ghost from one of Marlene’s stories. She thinks of Marlene’s determined little face, her sharp brow under that dark fringe. She would be brave. Tifa can be brave too.

The laughter on the wind is back. Tifa shrugs off the shiver that crawls up her spine. She can’t see Cloud at all anymore. There are shapes darting through the fog, but they aren’t him, they don’t have that awkward gait or familiar presence. Tifa thinks of Aerith, of the way she had leaned in to the whispers, followed the laughter. The ghosts in Marlene’s stories were people once. She squeezes her hands into fists, grips her thumbs until the knuckles pop. Get it together, Tifa. She wants to answer more of Aerith’s questions. Hear more of her laugh. Get back to Sector 7, show her the bar, find out why it is that the air feels clearer around her.

She slows her breathing. Focuses her mind, the way Zangan taught her. Breathe. Listen. Feel.

To her left, familiar movement. Heavy boots on concrete. The sloping drag of a large sword. She moves towards the sound instinctively, following her feet, following the noise, following the laughter on the wind–

A new shape appears into view. Two shapes: one is the hulking form of Cloud, crouched over something and shielding it from the wind now picking up speed. The other is smaller, slighter, doubled over low to the ground. Braided hair. That pink ribbon. Tifa jogs closer, crouches down.

She puts a hand out and presses it lightly to Aerith’s shoulder.

Aerith lifts her head to look at her. Her green eyes are dark pools in the low light. Tifa doesn’t quite recognise her expression. She looks pale, hair framing her face and casting shadows across her cheekbones. Her hands are tucked close to her chest. She’s breathing slowly, unsteadily.

‘We found you.’

Only as Tifa says it does she feel the tension in her throat release. She can feel Aerith trembling. She wants to pause and hold her closer, wants to give her some kind of reassurance. Thinks of the kindness she showed those spirits. Doesn’t know her well enough to know what to say.

There are tears clinging to Aerith’s lashes. Something childlike in her eyes. A fragile, naked fear of being left behind.

Aerith smiles. Bright, grateful.

‘I guess you did.’

Notes:

train graveyard is one of my fav sections in remake (even though it made me rage in the OG because i could NOT work out which trains moved). i really love what it adds to Aerith's characterisation so early in the story. my pookie<3

thanks for reading :)

Chapter 3: don't be a hero

Notes:

woag! two chapters! for the price of one! happy new year..!

Follow your heart, that’s what Aerith had said. Tifa had taken her hands with a palpable earnestness, looked at her with those dark eyes full of hope, and said I have to help them. And Aerith had told her to follow her heart.

Stupid, she thought then as she kicked up dust and shouldered past recently-crumbled piles of rubble. She should have said something like, be careful. Or don’t be a hero. Something that might have conveyed, it won’t help them if you get hurt too.

She didn’t think it would have stopped Tifa. But it might have let her know that Aerith cared.

Aerith veered to one side as the beam of a ramshackle slum hut, derelict even before it was crushed and burning, slanted towards her with a heavy groan. She coughed soot out of the back of her throat and blinked back embers, one arm slung over her face to shield it from the heat. Two children barreled past her out of the rubble like mice, faces grimy and clothes scorched, skittering further in to the sector, further in towards where the fires were hottest. Aerith had never seen such chaos.

Marlene. Aerith called to mind that sweet little face, cheeks flushed and mouth stern, big eyes under neat bangs. She had seen what Tifa had seen - a little girl, cowering and afraid, hiding from imaginary ghosts in an imaginary graveyard. She had seen Tifa’s fear, very real, felt the care rolling off her in waves. They could almost have been sisters, Aerith thought, with that same sleek dark hair and those same firelight eyes. She had to find Marlene.

It was hard to move against the flow of people pouring out of Sector 7, gunning for whatever safety they could find, and every third step was countered by the rough push of a shoulder or crowding of frightened mothers and crying children. Aerith felt cramped, the heat gnawing at her, shortening her breaths. She had to find Marlene.

The bar - neon sign and old saloon doors, smoked up windows now choked by climbing cinders. On any other day Tifa’s bar might have been abuzz with a friendly glow, right in the centre of town, run by a pretty girl. It didn’t feel it then, with the debris of a Shinra helicopter jutting angrily out of the dirt in front of the porch and the welcome sign hanging off its hinges, a spill of gasoline coughing up licks of flame all along the stairs and the wooden rail. Tifa’s bar. Tifa’s friends. A pang of guilt shot through Aerith - there was nothing she could have done. They couldn’t have known. She couldn’t have helped.

With ashes floating through the air around her, some caught in her bangs and some drifting to her shoulders, Aerith closed her eyes. She listened for the hum of the planet. She felt the drumming of the ground under the panicked footsteps of everybody moving away from the helicopter, the bar, the flames. The tickle at her skin like a hushed breath of each strand of the lifestream passing by, crossing over. She felt it like an old friend. She thought of Tifa’s face again. The curve of her cheekbones and the slight flick of her hair where she’d tucked it behind one ear. The slanted shape of her eyes, the deep red-brown colour like hot clay, lit from within. I can’t stay here. The whispers tugged at her. I have to help them. The buzzing under foot grew stronger. I need you to–

Aerith thought that she would always have done anything Tifa asked of her.

---

Aerith hated cages. She hated cages, she hated laboratories, and she hated Hojo.

The cage he’d put her in this time was stifling. The air was thin, the floor was sticky, the faint smell of something rotten wafted up through the grates in the floor. To start with, in the long night when she could no longer stand, she had holed herself into the far corner with her back against the cold glass and knees held close under her chin. Then he had brought her a chair - not a kindness, but a reminder. That when she was in here, he had her totally under his thumb.

Sometimes she would glance across to the next tank along, where the creature was.

She couldn’t really make out its details in the low, artificial light of the lab. She caught glimpses of dark, tawny fur as it slunk in slow circles round its enclosure. Heard its low snarls and the tear and shred of rending flesh when Hojo or one of his rattish assistants tossed chunks of meat to it. Felt the shake of its anger as it flung itself against the bars over and over. She could sense the rage rippling from it, rolling out low to the ground like fog. Something savage and animal. It didn’t frighten her.

There were hours when meat and stale bread was thrown over the top of her tank, too, and hours when nothing and nobody visited her. In those hours she would close her eyes and imagine that her mother was still with her; feel her braiding her hair, tucking her bangs aside, humming one of her old songs as Aerith drifted to sleep against her. Dropping kisses on every bruise and nick from a needle. Cradling her as she cried on the nights when kisses and songs weren’t enough.

Aerith had lost track of the days some time ago. She was prodded and poked at all hours. Hojo would sit in front of the glass and chide her, try to coax some reaction out of her, well into the night and sometimes early in what she assumed was the morning, before any of his white-coated helpers had slunk in. She had given him nothing. Sometimes she stared at him until he left her alone. Other times she would hold her breath until stars danced at the back of her eyes. She wanted to spit at him through the glass. Wanted to toss his stupid chair at him until it broke. Wanted to push him through those bars and let the creature rip him to pieces. It helped, thinking of these things. It helped hold back the tears at least until he had turned his head.

Today she was trying a different tactic. She was standing - she didn’t want to give Hojo the satisfaction of seeing her weak - with her arms at her sides, listening to the steady prowl of the creature as it made its rounds of its box. This time when she closed her eyes, she thought of different faces.

She thought of Cloud. His uncertain posture and his downturned mouth. The way his pale hair fell over his face slightly more to the right than to the left. Those green-shot eyes that didn’t belong to him, his uneven pauldron and that familiar sword. He had the faintest freckles across his cheekbones. She wondered if maybe they’d come out more if he got some sun. Maybe she could convince him to go west, to Corel, to the beach. After this. After they made it out of this.

She thought of Tifa. Her eyes certainly belonged to her, that unusual jasper colour echoed in the warm tones of her skin. She didn’t remember if Tifa had freckles - she should have looked closer. Aerith wondered if that one earring she wore meant something to her. Had someone given it to her? A relative, a childhood crush? Tifa was beautiful. Aerith half wondered if Cloud was in love with her, if Tifa was in love with Cloud. It didn’t seem that way; there was something else there, simmering under the surface of them. Something a little rougher than love. Cloud looked at Tifa like she reminded him of somewhere else, somewhere he couldn’t quite remember. Tifa watched him like he used to look at her differently, and maybe she wanted him to look at her that way again. Aerith didn’t know how he could ever have stopped looking. Aerith thought–

‘Aerith!’

Tifa’s voice. Well, that was new. She supposed it was only a matter of time alone in here before she started hallucinating. She was starting to question if the creature in the other cage was really there at all, or just a manifestation of some corralled, angry part of her.

Aerith opened her eyes. And felt her heart rise up from where it had sunk right to the bottom of her feet, rooting her in place–

Tifa was here. Tifa was pressing her hands up against the glass, eyes searching her with an open relief that made Aerith feel slightly exposed. There were other shapes moving behind her: Cloud, looking worried in his own kind of way, and a very large man with a vest that seemed more bandolier than jacket and what looked like a huge gun in place of a right hand.

The man was saying something, but it sounded muffled and far away. Aerith stepped closer to the glass, laying her palms against the outline of Tifa’s as though she might be able to feel her through it. Tifa leaned in close, and Aerith could just make out: ‘Stand back! Barret will get you out.’

The man with the large gun was pointing it in her direction. Or rather, the direction of the panel that opened her cage. Ah. She was going to want to stand all the way back. She crowded as far back as she could, cramming herself into the curve of the back glass panel, and threw her forearms over her ears.

In fairness to Hojo, his mechanism put up a good defence, but it was no match for Barret’s full weight thrown behind a stream of bullets. Sparks flew, and Aerith squeezed her eyes shut and shielded her face. The door panel let out a single, low beep and a depressurising sigh as the glass slid open and the cool outside air of the lab rushed in.

All at once, Aerith needed to get out. She keeled towards the now yawning front of her enclosure, losing her footing slightly on the threshold, and found herself tipping forwards into the man whose name was apparently Barret. She held onto his arms for balance as she righted herself. He was steady and stable, and smelled like gunsmoke. She looked up at him sheepishly.

‘Thanks,’ she offered. He towered above her, but looked down at her over his sunglasses (sunglass? inside the Shinra building? she supposed she was in no place to judge) with a smile that made her suddenly feel very safe. He patted her shoulder with his one big hand.

‘Thank you for saving my Marlene,’ he said, voice low and warm.

‘Aerith? Are you okay?’ Aerith peeped over Barret’s arm. Tifa. She felt like she could breathe - admittedly, the dank and fetid air of a Shinra lab, but at least it was air - for the first time in however many days. Aerith looked at Tifa with every bit of gratitude she had.

‘I think so,’ she said. You came, she thought. ‘Thank you.’

Tifa’s fingers ghosted over Aerith’s shoulder. Her earring caught the light as she tilted her head in that endearing way she had done before. Aerith could look forever. Tifa squeezed her arm. Solid and real.

Tifa went to speak, but Aerith’s attention drifted past her to a shock of red fur and the nervous flicker of a tail from between the now opened bars of the next cage over. Her creature. So it was real after all. Tifa’s gaze had followed hers, and she now looked at Aerith warily.

‘We might have a new friend,’ Aerith said. ‘You like cats, right?’

---

Aerith tucked her knees under her chin as she sat on the curb of the Midgar expressway and thought to herself that maybe the sky was a little too big.

Barret was right that the air was fresher here. Even just a few miles outside of Midgar, that faint but constant smell of mako that clung to the inside of the nose was gone. When she breathed in - really breathed - it filled her lungs, cool and sharp, oxygen that went straight to her head and made her slightly dizzy. It was strange for something as simple as breathing to feel so different. It was strange to look up and see that endless stretch of blue, wisps of cloud streaking across its expanse like so much smoke in the air. She traced them with a fingertip: cirrus, altostratus, stratocumulus. Elmyra had a book about clouds, collecting dust on the bookshelf in her spare room until Aerith had barreled into her life and read it and countless others cover to cover, begged her to buy more, refused to go to bed until she’d flipped through the ones with pictures or explained in detail the ones without. Aerith tapped her toes on the hot concrete. Elmyra would have liked to see these clouds.

There was a flicker of orange in her periphery. A pause, and then another, followed by a grumble. Aerith couldn’t help but grin.

‘The great outdoors bothering you, Red?’ The swish of Red’s matchstick tail came dangerously close to the hem of her skirt this time, and she swatted her hand at him. He grumbled again.

‘These flies have no understanding of personal space,’ he said. One buzzed at his chewed-up ear. He tossed his head grumpily, and Aerith laughed.

It was nice to see him like this, properly see him. His coat was a sleek terracotta in the midday sun, the deeper crimson of his mane shifting and the metal of his jewellery clinking as he shook his head back and forth. His front paws were folded sternly in front of him, pads lifted off the heat of the baked pavement, and his tail continued to swish between them. She had never seen another creature quite like him. Not quite feline, not quite canine, something a little feral smouldering behind his one good yellow eye. And yet he radiated kindness like warmth. A friend, the planet had told her, in that usual cryptic way. Not so much words as a feeling - the rough wet of his nose, the scruff of his mane where it was braided below each ear, the way he couldn’t help but purr when she scratched under his chin. Even in the lab, she had known he wouldn’t hurt her. She felt it now in the gentle hum of his presence at her side. He was warm and alive.

Aerith dropped her voice low. ‘Better company than Hojo though, I’d say.’

Red tilted his head in her direction, flicking one ear to deter another insect. He rumbled deep in his belly. Aerith couldn’t say for sure that his bared fangs were a smile, but he rested his head back on his paws contentedly. She rubbed between his ears. He let her do it.

‘Hey, Aerith.’

If Aerith’s own ears could perk at the sound of Tifa’s voice, she thought they probably would. Tifa’s shadow fell over her, a welcome reprieve from the full blast of the noon sun.

‘Ah, stay right there,’ Aerith teased, ‘my personal parasol.’

Tifa laughed in that warm, breathy way she always did. She seemed especially tall from this angle, Aerith so low to the ground and Tifa hovering above her, backlit like an angel. Her dark hair fell over her collarbones as she leaned down slightly.

‘Ever hitchhiked?’ she said.

Aerith sat to attention with a sudden desire to please. ‘Sure. When you stick your thumbs out? To pick up cars? I’ve never done it, but I’ve read about it. Why? Is that what we’re doing? Did Barret change his mind about us walking the whole way?’

Tifa held a hand out to ease the barrage of questions, but she was grinning. She stepped back - Aerith groaned as her personal shade moved aside - and gestured towards the road. ‘Want to take a shift?’

Aerith hopped to her feet. For some reason, she wanted to impress Tifa. Country girl Tifa, seen-the-world Tifa. It suddenly felt like knowing how to hitchhike, feigning some kind of knowledge from having been anywhere outside of the Sector 5 slums, was the most important thing in the world. She stood ramrod straight, and could swear she heard Red chuckle. Could cat-dogs chuckle? She skipped a couple of steps away from the pavement and into the road, and thrust both arms out with her thumbs sticking towards the sky.

‘Like this?’ Aerith puffed her chest a little. This was surely expert hitchhiking posture.

She heard the sound of Tifa laughing behind her. She stole a glance down at Red. Could cat-dogs look… pitiful? She was about to ask him, but then she felt Tifa move in closer behind her. Felt a hand on her back, a hand at her waist. She stood perfectly still.

All at once, Tifa was breathing gently against the back of Aerith’s collar. The hand at the small of her back was gentle, a barely-there pressure, but it sent a tingle up Aerith’s spine. The other hand took her left elbow with two careful fingers and bent it just so - Aerith intuited that she probably didn’t need that second thumbs-up anymore - and placed Aerith’s left hand on her own waist. Eased a rotation of her hips so that she was facing forwards. Tifa straightened out her other arm, and patted her shoulder for good measure.

‘There,’ she said quietly. Right by Aerith’s ear. Her words tickled the back of Aerith’s neck and ruffled the hair of her braid. ‘Just like that.’

It wasn’t very often that Aerith felt herself blush. She knew that she floated through life with an easy smile and a flirtatious habit - she liked it, she liked making others smile, liked it when they got a little self-conscious and she could tease some confidence out of them. She didn’t often find that self-consciousness turned onto herself. But something about Tifa’s proximity was sending goosebumps up her bare arms and making her sweat under her collar. She could probably tell herself that it was just too long in the bright grasslands sun. Or even embarrassment at having been perhaps the least natural hitchhiker in history.

Tifa was stepping away, holding out her own arm in much more practised form, allowing Aerith to stare into the space between them and watch the muscles of Tifa’s lower back as she rocked slightly on her heels.

Interesting, Aerith thought. Interesting that someone could catch her at her own game. Interesting that someone’s closeness could make her so aware of her own body. Interesting that it was Tifa.

Interesting that Tifa would touch her, just because.

Maybe Aerith could think of some other things that she wasn’t very good at, if she was going to have such an enthusiastic teacher.

Notes:

this one took me a long time to write for some reason. getting inside Aerith's head is hard, especially in the early game where it's unclear exactly what she knows. but I wanted to write some more scene setting, before getting to the Yearning. that's coming next. >:)

Chapter 4: the inn at kalm

Notes:

as promised. the Yearning

The door closes behind her with a shuck of the sliding bolt, and she is alone.

Alone, with Aerith.

Aerith doesn’t really seem to do companionable silence - she is humming a soft tune under her breath, something Tifa doesn’t recognise but that sounds wistful. Almost sad, though she herself doesn’t seem it.

‘What song is that?’ Tifa asks, undoing her boots and leaving them in a tidy pile by the wooden skirting board.

Aerith pauses from where she’s been tucking her jacket over the back of the rickety chair that sits by the window of the quaint inn room. Everything in here is plain, modest: a three-legged chair by a dusty, unused vanity, a small shuttered window with a view across the street to the sheltered market stalls of Kalm, traders already starting to pack up in the buzzing evening warmth.

‘Oh, it’s something my mother used to sing to me,’ Aerith says. She looks fixedly at the back of her coat, fiddles with a loose thread at the shoulder. ‘I think it’s some old Cetra song. I don’t remember the words.’

A sore spot. Tifa tries to steer away.

‘Well, it’s pretty, even without the words. Do you prefer the bed?’

‘Huh?’ Aerith looks up at her then, and tilts her head. Tifa immediately stumbles, stutters out an ‘I mean— if you want to sit— for the– or should I?—’ and feels embarrassment crawl up her throat and settle familiarly across her shoulders. Of course Aerith had been joking, of course she was just playing along to ease the tension, the tension Tifa had made, Tifa and Cloud—

‘Oh, right, my massage!’

Tifa glances up, and Aerith has instantly brightened. She claps her hands together, and the motion makes the bow in her hair flutter as the fading light from the open window scatters behind her like a halo. ‘This is so exciting,’ she babbles on, ‘we can make it just like a real massage parlour, I’ve been to one so I know all about them now…’

Aerith mutters happily to herself as she teeters across the carpet, hopping on one foot to unlace a boot, almost losing her balance as she swaps to do the other, kicking them under the bed with a haphazard glee that could almost fool Tifa into thinking she had slept in this room for days. It’s fascinating, this way that Aerith can ease into any space as though it were her own. It’s like she fits in everywhere, like every pocket of the world welcomes her in. Tifa never feels that sense of place - maybe she had, just about, in Sector 7, until it crashed down around her and she was back to being off-balance and aimless. Always running, never coming home.

Aerith flops onto the bed with an exaggerated sigh, and pats the mattress as though to test its sturdiness. Apparently content, she turns her attention to Tifa, who realises that she hasn’t moved from the doorway.

‘Well?’ Aerith’s voice is light, and she wiggles a little on the bed. ‘Is my masseuse on her way?’

It’s only now, as she glances over Aerith and notes her easy smile, her bare shoulders, the smell of Kalm’s fresh country air which still clings to her dress and her hair, that Tifa realises she may have made a disastrous miscalculation. She is suddenly overwhelmed by the thought of stepping closer to Aerith - of sitting near her - of touching her. Aerith swings her feet back and forth. Tifa grounds herself in the familiar creak of her gloves as she clenches and unclenches her fists.

Tifa steps closer one breath at a time. The carpet is surprisingly soft under socked feet, and the quilt when she reaches the edge of the bed is well-used but not rough. She runs her fingers along it, counting the threads. When she sits next to Aerith the flimsy mattress caves slightly under her weight. Aerith wrinkles her nose at her, flicks her braid over her shoulder, and then turns away, shifting so she can tuck her feet under her knees and sit criss-cross facing the wall behind the headboard. Tifa tries not to note the way the bed frame creaks with the movement.

‘Uh– so where do you want me to start?’ Tifa asks. Wishing she could sound even a little more cool. As Aerith thinks, she tips her head back slightly as though she’s going to try and look at Tifa upside down. She grins at the ceiling.

‘Shoulders, please, maestro!’ Tifa feels Aerith’s goofiness melting away at her own frosty awkwardness. She presses her palms together and cracks her knuckles, leaning over Aerith with the best mimicry she can make of what she thinks a professional masseuse might sound like.

‘Coming right up, ma’am. No squealing, please.’

Aerith’s grin turns devilish and she wriggles. ‘No promises,’ she says.

Tifa swallows, inhales, musters her courage. It’s no big deal. They’re friends, aren’t they?

Friends, Tifa thinks as she lays her hands gently on Aerith’s shoulders. She’s soft, especially in these places usually covered by her jacket. Soft skin, but tense; Tifa can feel it when she flexes her fingers and presses in slightly, can feel the tight ribbons of trapezius muscle where they pull away from the curve of Aerith’s spine. Aerith shudders slightly.

‘Sorry! Too hard?’

‘No - your hands are just cold,’ Aerith says quietly. An unusual quiet has come over her, heavy, like it might crush her if either of them speaks. Tifa takes her hands away from Aerith’s skin and rubs them together quickly, generating friction and heat. She hears Aerith giggle.

‘What?’

She feels more than sees Aerith shake her head. ‘You’re silly,’ she says.

Tifa pouts. ‘You’re the one who said they were cold.’

She huffs hot air onto her palms once, twice, then returns them to Aerith’s shoulders. She settles into it this time, and Aerith sinks into her with a light exhale. Tifa is hardly an expert at this, but she has nursed enough stiff joints and bruised limbs to know the basics. She presses the knuckle of each thumb into wherever she finds a knot, works it out, smooths the muscle with the flat of her four other fingers. She realises too late that she maybe should have taken off her gloves for this, but is secretly grateful for the barrier between her own skin and Aerith’s. Even just where she feels it at her fingertips it sends sparks through her.

She works thoughtfully, meticulously. Focuses on symmetry. On calm. It’s easy. The gentle tick of the clock on the bedside table and the measured sounds of Aerith breathing softly are almost meditative. She works upwards to the back of Aerith’s neck, releasing tension all the way up to her ears, and then down to her scapulae, the round curve of her deltoids, the bumps of her spine. Aerith is sitting very still. Tifa can’t help but trail two fingers gently over each vertebra from the base of her neck down between her shoulder blades, counting them slowly until she skims the top of the back of her dress. She has two freckles right between the ninth and tenth that look like a pair of stars. Tifa hesitates in the space between fabric and skin. She wants to touch those freckles with the tip of her finger.

Thoughtlessly, she rests the flat of her palm on the back of Aerith’s ribs. That seems to send a shiver through Aerith which breaks Tifa out of her daze, and she snaps her hand back.

‘Sorry, I–’

Aerith hasn’t turned her body, but has tilted her chin into the crook of her shoulder. Almost looking at Tifa, but eyes not quite level with hers.

‘It’s okay,’ she breathes. She stares down at the quilt. Tifa fiddles with one of her gloves, then clears her throat. Tries to force the image of those two stars out of her mind. To shake the sensation of Aerith’s skin from her memory.

‘That should be a little better, at least. You really were pretty stiff.’

Seated awkwardly and unable to move backwards from Aerith, she does the next best thing she can think of and stands upright from the bed. The space between them deflates in an instant. Aerith looks up at her. There’s something in her expression Tifa can’t place, but it makes her stomach sink like a stone. Guilt that drops through her like it weighs a tonne. Tifa doesn’t know what to say, so she says: ‘Let’s get ready for bed.’

Aerith nods wordlessly. Tifa turns her back to her and draws in a shaky inhale. Tries to push the guilt away.

She can hear Aerith moving behind her as she tidies up the space, sorts through their bags and folds up her outer layers in a neat pile. She undoes the straps on her vambrace with practised care, slipping the straps through their buckles with one hand and sliding the whole thing off, discarding it with her socks, sleeves, and her gloves. She loosens both suspenders from her own shoulders - tries not to think about Aerith’s, about that space between her shoulder and her neck - and unclasps her belts and her skirt. When she is left standing in just her shorts and tank, she turns back to face the room.

And finds Aerith already looking at her. She is right by the bed, as though she needs it for support. Tifa absently notices that she’s retrieved her boots from where she tossed them earlier and has tucked them politely under the chair that holds her jacket, on which she has carefully folded and placed her ribbon, her worn silver bracelets, and the leather necklace she wears. She is standing quietly in just her dress, the tie at the front of it undone, her hair now free from its braid and spilling in honeyed waves over her collarbones. Tifa doesn’t think about those curls tumbling over where her hands have been. She feels so exposed she might as well be stark naked.

‘Which, uh, bed would you like?’ She can barely stutter out the simple question. What is wrong with her?

‘This one,’ Aerith responds automatically. She is pointedly avoiding eye contact with Tifa.

Tifa feels that sinking guilt again. She’s done something wrong. She glances over Aerith in the dim light - Aerith must have switched off the overhead lamp while Tifa was busy, and is now bathed just in the low orange light of the bedside candle. She looks vulnerable like this. There is a nagging voice in the back of Tifa’s mind saying you took advantage of that, of your friend - Tifa shuts it up. It’s a voice she has heard before.

Tifa nods, moving across the carpet towards the other bed. It makes the same creak when she sits on it. She tucks her feet into the scratchy duvet.

‘Good night, Aerith.’ She blows the candle out.

As soon as she is in the dark, the nagging voice comes creeping back. It tugs at her. She squeezes her hands under the thin blanket, folds them both against her stomach and focuses on her own heartbeat. Her mind drifts back to those two freckles between Aerith’s shoulder blades. She can’t shake the feeling that it’s a part of her friend she shouldn’t have seen.

Friend. We’re friends, aren’t we? Jessie used to say things like that. Somehow it’s always Jessie that Tifa thinks of, when she thinks of touch and feeling and skin. You need to loosen up, Tifa, she would say, feet tucked behind the legs of a bar stool and elbows pressed into Tifa’s space. You’re no fun. Not everything is the end of the world, you know? But it had been. Jessie is gone. The smell of her hair, the way she would lean too close to Tifa after a post-mission debriefing. The way she would blow Tifa a kiss for luck before throwing a dart against Wedge, or hook her arm through Tifa’s on an evening stroll back to Stargazer Heights. The glint in her eyes when she had asked have you ever kissed anyone? The hot press of her mouth against Tifa’s neck, her collarbone, her temple. The taste of cheap alcohol from someone else’s tongue. She’s gone.

Tifa slides one hand up from where it rests against her stomach and ghosts a finger under her vest and along the hard, angry scar that runs from just below her ribs between her breasts. It’s strange - when she presses against it like this she can hardly feel it, yet there are some days when the memory of feeling is almost too painful to bear. She thinks of Cloud’s face as he had talked about what Sephiroth did. Did to their home, to her. Wonders if he would feel guilty if he touched her scar, if he felt the rough, uneven skin. Wonders if she would ever let him.

She catches herself imagining her fingers against the untouched skin of Aerith’s chest, Aerith’s clavicle, Aerith’s throat. Not everything is the end of the world. You’re allowed to feel, you know. That guilt creeps in again.

There’s a stir from the other side of the room. A rustle of blankets.

‘Tifa?’ Aerith’s voice is desperately small, desperately quiet. Like maybe she hopes Tifa won’t hear.

‘Yeah?’

A pause, the intake of Aerith’s breath.

‘Thank you,’ she says. ‘No one has– no one has touched me that gently for a long time.’

Tifa’s heart nearly breaks. She sees Jessie’s face, her lopsided grin. Aerith would have liked her. She imagines, for a split second, Aerith’s hand against her chest. She swallows the guilt, and whatever scarier thing is hiding beneath it, deep down into her belly and shuts it away.

‘Any time, Aerith. Goodnight.’

Aerith doesn’t respond.

Notes:

I read your backstory book Tifa Lockhart I know you had something a little lesbian going on with Jessie Rasberry...

Chapter 5: the whole wide world

Notes:

hello... so sorry to anyone reading this about such a long time with no update... i've been very busy with a dissertation and exams and the crushing weight of the world we live in. you know how it is. but now i have more free time and more creative energy, both of which i can spend thinking about aerti. yippee.
aerith-centric chapter this time. i miss her. she is only 15 minutes old... let her see the world square enix. i beg

‘Hey, Aerith? What do you think about these dandelions?’

Aerith lifted a hand to her forehead and squinted against the light. It was still a strange sensation, the real sun on her skin. The air here was cooler than Midgar, and cleaner than the slums, but she almost missed the closeness of it all. There was something about the city that was always around you - a weight, a heaviness - that felt like it was lacking out here on the grassy cliffside. Everything felt so distant.

The sun didn’t seem to bother Cloud. He was looking over at her with his usual hunched awkwardness, the pale dust of the grasslands’ paths kicked up across the toes of his boots and the cuffs of his fatigues, a slight wrinkle of his nose the only indication that the light was more than he’d been used to recently. Aerith thought bright and airy suited him, complimented his pale hair and light eyes. She guessed maybe this was what it was like, back home. His home.

Cloud was holding in one hand the basket Chloe had given them, and in the other a fistful of yellow-petaled shrubs that he seemed to have torn straight from the roots. Aerith couldn’t help but chuckle as she stepped closer to him.

‘Those aren’t dandelions.’ She reached out a hand and took his offering, separating two sets of leaves from delicate stalks and holding one in each palm. ‘They aren’t even the same flower, silly.’

Cloud reddened, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘Oh.’

Aerith chuckled. ‘This one–’ she held up her left hand, pointing out its narrow stem and small, sharp edged leaves– ‘is hawkbit. And this one–’ in her right hand, a wider flower with bigger, rounder leaves– ‘is called catsear.’

Cloud looked from one to the other, then at her. ‘They look the same to me,’ he said.

Aerith shook her head from side to side, feeling the gentle swish of her ribbon at her collar. ‘Terrible,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll never make a florist out of you at this rate.’

Cloud frowned, and rubbed his jaw. He did that sometimes, when Aerith teased him - as though it were an old injury that bothered him when he was nervous. Aerith brushed him off, placing both yellow flowers into the basket. He might have been a first class SOLDIER, but Cloud was far from a first class botanist. She patted his pauldron sweetly.

‘Maybe look for some daisies to go with them? Oxeye would be nice.’ Cloud stared blankly. ‘White ones, Cloud. With big yellow middles.’

She left him to toss up clods of dirt and mumble about dandelions and daisies, and moved through a taller, wilder patch of grass until she approached the edge of the hill. The sky was so big and so blue. Past the rocky crags on both sides, it seemed to stretch on forever, interrupted by only a faint border of wispy clouds where the soft colours of the air gave way to the deeper, plunging greens and blues of the northern ocean, all at once so close and yet so incalculably far. Aerith took a deep breath, filled her lungs with that fresh, clean air. It smelled faintly of salt, and stung the back of her throat.

I wish you could see this, mom. There’s so much beautiful world out there. Aerith’s fists tightened. To think what Elmyra’s garden could be like, with a sky like this to watch over it. With fresh seeds, not squashed in the bottom of Aerith’s pack and carried all the way from the plate in the dark, and real, clean water. To think that Ifalna could have taught her the names of all these plants by showing her how to pick the real thing, how to separate the leaves out from the stalks, how to shave off the thorns so as not to cut the soft skin of her fingers, rather than from books and childish chalk drawings on the walls of Hojo’s lab. Aerith wondered what colours her mother’s eyes might have been in real sunlight.

Turning on her heel, Aerith scanned the rock faces and found the distant, tiny figure of one of Midgar’s spluttering mako chimneys. Small enough now that it looked almost like a child’s toy. Far enough behind them that she couldn’t hear it, the low mechanical hum and the coughing of vents and pipes, or smell its constant chemical haze. It had to be several miles due south of this quiet, flower-filled hillside not far from Kalm. Aerith felt a brief satisfaction at the passing thought that this was the farthest north she’d ever been, followed immediately by a flush of anxiety at how much further they had left to go. There was so much world out there.

That didn’t matter now. How far they had left to go, or how long it might take them. They had jobs to do, things they could help people with. Chloe and Billy were just kids trying to get by. Aerith couldn’t forget the looks on their faces when they had told Cloud about losing their mom. Couldn’t forget the spark of hope in Billy’s eyes when Cloud had mentioned that Aerith knew a thing or two (or several, she’d like to think) about flowers.

And she had also certainly noticed the proud quirk of a smile that Tifa had given her over Cloud’s shoulder when Aerith had taken Chloe’s sketch and said confidently that she could find ‘just the thing’. It had sent a rare shiver of nervousness through her. Since when did smiles from friends make her nervous?

Since Tifa, apparently. Since the buzz of Tifa’s proximity had registered on Aerith’s radar and now she couldn’t stop thinking about it. Since the solid touch of the flat of Tifa’s hand against Aerith’s bare back in the room at the inn. The night of silence they had spent together afterwards, just a few feet away from each other. Aerith had meant it when she’d said no one had touched her that gently in a long time. There was something so effortlessly gentle about Tifa - she was firm, grounded, but so gentle. Aerith could see it in her smile, in the way she spoke so quietly to Cloud when his headaches were flaring up. In her eyes, when the light caught them and–

Ah! Inspiration drifted through her. She wheeled around, taking distracted note of Cloud in her periphery where he was crouched and looking for white flowers with yellow middles, and scanned the line of the path, the spots of thicker shrubbery and patches of thistles between dusty rocks where the ground sloped up into the side of the cliffs. If Cloud’s dandelions were common here, up where the air was thin and the open country spread out for miles below this rockface, then she wondered if–

‘There you are!’ Aerith found herself led by her feet, hop-skip over a couple of bigger boulders and through a patch of angry thistles which bit at her ankles, until she could stop and crouch down to pluck the very plant that had come to mind. There were only a few of them, dotted along the ridge as though just a handful of seeds had been flung from on high: tall, pale stems crowned with small bunches of dark, velvety red petals. Placing her own basket on the ground beside her, Aerith very carefully stripped some of the long leaves away from the soft flesh of one stem, cupping the flower in her palm so it didn’t fall, and gave it a sharp tug. It came away with little effort. She brought it up to her nose and breathed deeply - vanilla, rich and warm toned.

Aerith felt her inhale catch a little. It was a smell she wasn’t expecting to be familiar with. One she wouldn’t have been, just a few weeks ago. A deep, woody smell, full of sweetness that was alien to Sector 5. It was what Tifa smelled like.

It felt like everything was Tifa, recently. That was new.

She glanced back at where she had come from. Down at the bottom of the incline, a stone’s throw from where Cloud was now scrutinising between two identical white flowers, was the rest of their unlikely travelling troupe. Aerith paused for a moment, heart swelling as the sun danced over them; Red lounging in the patch of shade cast by Barret’s broad shoulders, Tifa absentmindedly using him as a support while she loosened her biceps in an overhead stretch. Aerith’s friends. Barret, who had been cleaning his sunglasses on the tattered hem of his vest, lifted an arm to wave at Aerith. She waved back, and, her own basket forgotten amongst the weeds, teetered her descent back towards them. Barret was pushing his glasses up his nose when she hopped her last step and joined them at the foot of the hill, and was gesturing up to where she had been:

‘Aerith, your basket. I ain’t leavin’ here–’ he paused for a disgruntled sneeze– ‘with nothin’ to show for it.’

Tifa chuckled, not unkindly. ‘Barret’s finding that he and the great outdoors don’t… get on very well,’ she explained.

‘It’s just dusty,’ Barret countered. ‘Won’t be beaten by no damn flowers.’

‘You’ll get used to it, silly,’ Aerith offered, ‘and besides, it’s worth it to breathe in some nature. Being cooped up in the slums like that all the time, it’s no good for anyone.’

Barret was already grumbling something in response and walking away, Red XIII slinking in his wake to avoid the sun, leaving her and Tifa alone with a final half-hearted complaint about it being stupid as hell, humans being allergic to the world and all that shit.

Aerith suddenly felt shy.

‘I’m not going up there to get the basket for you, if that’s what you’re waiting for me to offer.’

Tifa’s voice was playful. Lighter, maybe, than it had been the past few days in Kalm. Aerith blinked up at her, into those deep red eyes. Wondered if some of Tifa’s walls might be coming down. If maybe she had anything to do with it. Worried that she had stared for too long, that Tifa might find it weird, Aerith broke into a grin.

‘It’s okay, I’m going back up there anyway. I actually just wanted to give you this.’

Into the space between them, she brandished her treasure. Tifa reached out a hand and took it, painfully careful not to let her fingers brush Aerith’s for too long. Even so, Aerith felt the jolt she had in Kalm at the presence, albeit momentary, of Tifa’s skin against hers. She could blame it on the heat, probably. Surely.

Tifa’s eyes were wide and hopeful. Aerith, stupidly, pointed at them: ‘They match. You. Your eyes, I mean. They - it matches your eyes.’

Well played, nice and cool, Aerith. She certainly won’t think you’re weird.

‘And they - they also kind of smell like you. Or you smell like them, I mean. Not that I’ve been - you know - just that I’ve noticed - anyway.’

Just getting weirder, Aerith.

‘Sorry, that’s probably weird. It’s called a dark vanilla orchid. I just - it just reminded me of you, that’s all.’ She was already turning on her heel in the dust, ready to make a break back up the hill where the air was clearer and she was less likely to embarrass herself, which was apparently all she knew how to do around Tifa. She was seriously going to have to work on this. Before she could escape, though, she felt the touch of Tifa’s hand on her arm. She looked back.

‘It’s beautiful, Aerith.’

Those eyes were so big, so dark, so beautiful. The flecks of red in the deep brown were more visible out in the open like this, the slant of her cheeks, the softness of her jaw. Even her hair, so endlessly dark, seemed to light up in embers in the sunlight. Up close, she really did smell like vanilla. The touch of her hand felt warm.

‘Does it mean anything?’ It means everything, thought Aerith. I think you might mean everything. Does that sound crazy? ‘You know, the flower language that you’ve talked about before. Does this one have a meaning?’

Aerith opened her mouth to reply - tickled that Tifa had paid attention to her daily ramblings, bristling with pride at a chance to show off - but as she recalled the worn pages of Elmyra’s copy of A Beginner’s Guide to Floriography, brimming with tiny typeface and beautifully detailed watercolour images of every shrub, flower, and foliage native to Midgar, she paused. Felt more of that warmth creeping up into her cheeks. Tifa’s hand didn’t move. Those dark eyes bore right into her.

Type: Wildflower. Region: Alpine.

Aerith blinked at Tifa a few more times.

Family: Orchidaceae. Genus: Gymnadenia.

‘Er… not really. I mean, I - I don’t remember.’

Colour: Red.

Those big, warm eyes softened into a smile. Kind, patient Tifa. ‘Don’t worry, I just wondered. It’s really beautiful, Aerith. Thank you.’

She squeezed Aerith’s forearm a little, which sent another jolt down Aerith’s spine.

‘Don’t mention it,’ Aerith squeaked. As Tifa tucked the flower into her belt, beamed at Aerith one last time, and drifted over to where the boys were arguing about whether or not the two leaves in Cloud’s hands were the same shade of green, Aerith ducked her head low and spun to face the cliffside. Took a steadying breath. Hoped that Tifa hadn’t seen the blush rising up her neck like steam from a mako generator.

She patted down her bangs, which were blowing wild in the hillside wind. She smoothed down the front of her dress. Trailed her fingers over the flower pendant at her throat. Tried to push the memory of Tifa’s eyes, her mouth, the curve of her face, the smell of her, deep down somewhere. Somewhere that it wouldn’t keep popping up at inconvenient times. Somewhere that might allow her to think of something else, anything else, for the first time in days.

Aerith straightened herself up, adjusting her jacket.

She had a basket to retrieve.

She had flowers to collect.

Notes:

shoutout to all my fellow alpine wildflower enjoyers. i like to imagine kalm/the midgar grasslands as being kind of vaguely northern european. it's also important to me that cloud is a little bit stupid. i hope this comes across. and fwiw, i think aerith genuinely did 'forget'... but then she remembered. and she can't stop remembering... ;) thanks for reading!