She looked at the daisy. It was delicate, beautiful. Its petals were soft-looking, untouched by colour, untainted by the world. She wanted to protect it.
"Do you love Cloud?"
Tifa looked sad. "I want to... which isn't to say... I love him... but..."
"He isn't real?"
Tifa looked at her in surprise, she'd thought the other girl only just met Cloud. How could she know?
"He's... Cloud, but not. I do love him..."
Aeris nodded. "I love him," she said simply.
"I love him, too," Tifa said quickly. Aeris laughed. "We're both crazy," she said, smiling sweetly.
She loves me not
~ ♥ ~
She looked at the flower, struggling between the pavement cracks. It was a shining star amidst the grime so beautiful and strong...
"Did you ever..." She paused, unwilling to go on.
"What?" Tifa smiled encouragingly, linking her arm through Aeris'. "You can tell me...?"
She smiled, there was no way she could say it now, with Tifa so close.
"I was... just wondering what Cloud was like as a child," she said instead.
Tifa's face fell. "We weren't close... I had my own friends and... I was shallow and..."
She didn't want to continue, so Aeris rubbed her arm comfortingly and ignored the nervous feeling in her stomach.
~ ♥ ~
The flower was white, perhaps pink would have been more suited? But no... Aeris may wear pink, but her soul, her innocence was white.
They became friends, despite all the odds. Tifa glanced warily at the girl beside her.
Sometimes she wished... what did she wish?
She loved Cloud, in a way, but she could tell he didn't love her. She wanted someone to hold her and tell her everything was alright... she wanted to feel warm, despite all the killing, to feel loved despite all the hate...
She didn't know if Cloud loved her friend, but how could he
not? Aeris was the sort of person it as
impossible not to love. Is that why
I want to bury my head in her hair and cry til nothing hurts... why I want to
kiss her, just to see if it helps... to hold her when she's in pain and laugh
with her to ease it...?
Aeris stirred slightly in her sleep. "You should sleep, Tifa," she said softly, pulling Tifa down beside her, then falling back asleep.
Tifa lay awake, acutely aware of Aeris warm form by her side.
~ ♥ ~
She was used to beautiful flowers, but this one was different, because it represented something more. A flower she couldn't pick, couldn't uproot...
"Tifa?"
"Yes?"
"Nothing..."
Why couldn't she say what she wanted to? She constantly flirted the edges of
admitting her infatuation. They talked
about everything else; her relationship with Zack, her feelings for Cloud, her
childhood... everything but what they felt for each other, and what the White
Materia means...
They were such good friends, how could she jeopardise that? How could she risk losing it all... and risk losing Tifa even as a friend?
"Just..." She trailed off again, she wanted so much to tell her...
Tifa grabbed her arm and spun her around. "What?" she asked, laughing, "You're driving me crazy here!"
"It's just... how do you feel about... um..."
"Spit it out!" Tifa said, frowning in mock anger at her blushing friend.
"I-it doesn't matter..."
Tifa threw her hands up in exasperation, resigned to not knowing whatever it was Aeris couldn't tell her.
/How can I face death, and monsters and Hojo, but I can't tell Tifa that I think... that I might... be in love with her...? /
~ ♥ ~
Like a dandelion puff in the wind she was gone. Leaving us behind not because she didn't care but because she cared to much.
Tifa lay under the stars, completely impervious to their twinkling glory. Sephiroth had the Black Materia... and Aeris was gone...
She felt selfish for regretting the second more than the first. But Aeris was more immediate, she knew her, they were friends... she missed her... she...
/What if I die without ever telling her how I feel... without knowing how she feels.../
She didn't even let herself think about the other option... the other possibility.
She could hear Nanaki snoring softly across from her, Barret mumbling under his breath... even Yuffie's soft breaths and Cid's deep even sighs...but she couldn't hear Cloud; his SOLDIER trained and Mako-enhanced sleep was too silent... and Aeris... she couldn't hear Aeris... because Aeris wasn't there...
All of a sudden the air seemed heavier. Aeris was like a flower she was beautiful and fresh she bought happiness to everyone around her. Without her, without knowing where she was... life was heavy.
/How could you leave me... us? Why didn't I tell you sooner? /
~ ♥ ~
Her beautiful face was all she could see when she closed her, was the only thing that kept her going.
The end was nigh. She half-laughed at the clichιd thought. Whatever happened now, win or lose, she wouldn't live to see it. Her affinity with the Planet told her that.
/I don't regret it.../ She tried to convince herself that, and for the most part it was true. She wanted to do this for the Planet, for her friends, her parents... for herself but... Why didn't she tell her when she had the chance?
She hated her cowardice, she could face death with a smile, but she couldn't tell a girl her friend that she loved her.
"It's better this way... I can go to The Lifestream with the love of a friend."
Maybe it was true, but it didn't stop the empty ache of regret.
~ ♥ ~
A flower crushed and broken, its perfect beauty still evident, but marred, twisted, destroyed... Life no longer flowed inside, its growth staunched forever...
She was trying to be brave, to keep going, but she was dead inside. She slept by Cloud now, lending what comfort she could, and sharing body heat to be warm outside.
It hurt. All of it. That she was dead, that she died for them, that they had to keep fighting when they just wanted to die.
She wasn't jealous that Cloud loved her; how could she be when she suffered the same?
/I'm sorry, that I never told you... I'll never know what you would have said... I'm glad that you died happy... but I wish I could have gone in your place.../
There was no question that they'd keep fighting, they owed it to her memory.
She wanted to leave something concrete in memory, evidence that she existed, that she was mourned.
She bent to pick a flower, and paused, the Planet has already had its brightest blossom plucked too soon... then knelt and kissed the flower instead.
"I love you." Goodbye...
Perhaps it was her imagination, but she caught a faint breath of flowers, and she could almost hear a voice answering her.
It must be a dream and an echo, but the air felt lighter.
/I love you.../
~ ♥ ~
A thing of beauty is a joy forever...
Aeris looked at the glistening tears running down the face
of the woman she loved. I'm sorry
that I didn't tell you...
Existence was so much more intense in the Lifestream, she could feel all existence through her veins. Life... death... it was all a continuation.
She could meet again with her loved ones: her parents, her friends... Zack.
Meeting him was hard, because she had loved him with all the intensity of a girlish crush cut short. But now there were no more illusions, no more doubts...
She loved Tifa, and she would wait for her.
/Goodbye, Tifa, I hope you and Cloud are very happy... I will wait for you, and I will be happy for you.../
"I love you..."