The doors of the church slam shut, startling the flower girl enough that she nearly tumbles backwards into the garden. The figure that is hunched over the doors is a faded memory, a ghost that still torments her. Aerith’s gaze holds steady, her body unwilling to turn. Even when she knows it is just a trick, a cruel way to remind her of him, she doesn’t look away.
The voice echoes throughout the worn pews and arched ceilings, calling her name like the sweetest reminiscences she can conjure. Her hands clutch the flowers in her hands when he begins to approach, and she feels as if her entire world has shifted upside down. “Stop it” She barks, her voice cracking when he apologizes. Her feet tumble back, finding that she feels nauseous all of the sudden.
In all her dreams, in all her fantasies, they’ve never been able to talk. His voice had withered in her head, the way he sounded, his laugh, and it felt too real now. “You’re not real” She mumbles, hands forgetting the flowers and letting them fall. Fingertips move to wipe away the tears that collect in her eyes. “You’re not real” A mere whisper to herself, viridian irises now searching the high ceilings. When she spies none of the ghosts, her gaze falls back onto Zack.
“What was chasing you?” There is a sliver of hope in her voice, feeling some type of realization strike her. Her chest rises, a shaky breath when she looks back to him. He did not disappear; he didn’t turn into a monster like in her dreams. He still stood there, looking like a broken man who had come home.
“…You died” A whimper while she chokes back tears, “T-they came and told me, you died” Aerith is crumbling in front of him, unable to stop herself from the way her heart is cracking open. Her knees sink into the wood, falling apart in front of him. Her face is buried in her hands as she struggles with the onslaught of emotions.
She had never imagined seeing him again. Never thought that his boots would thump against the wood and he’d be waltzing back in the church. The way his voice sounds against the wood feels foreign and familiar all at once
Aerith had played this on repeat in her mind when he first left. How it would feel for him to come home, for him to sweep her up in his arms. As time wore on, the fantasy became a nightmare. And when she realized he’d never come back, she had lost hope.
Everything in her is telling her this is real, but Aerith is terrified.
The world is cruel, and fate has been even more so. He shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t have come back to see her. Wet eyes peak back up when his voice cracks, ‘I had to see you, no matter what’ She wants to call him foolish, to scold him, to tell him to leave. It would be safer, it would be the smarter choice.
They’ve never been smart when it came to one another. Always risky, tempting destiny like a game of chance. She worries now at the hand they’ve been dealt. Zack shouldn’t be here.
“You shouldn’t…you can’t…”
Here, of all places. Where they met, where they had fallen in love, where Aerith felt her world shatter.
There’s a small moment where she begins to panic, feeling as her lungs could not keep up with the air she needs. She prays that the world will lay down for a moment, that time itself would not intervene.
★ ―――― “You’re not real,” she whispers.
And the words hit him hard, stops him in his tracks, leaves him blinking at her from confusion as his eyebrows furrow ever so slightly. He’s reeling.
“You’re not real,” she says again and he feels his heart drop.
He stands there with his hands in the air, as if he was about to run up and embrace her, but he holds empty air instead, his hands grasping nothing as she still stands a few feet away--
“What was chasing you?” She asks, brokenly, her voice still soft and aching, and though she speaks in whispers it feels like she’s screaming at him.
He fumbles for a moment, opens his mouth and shakes his head, shuffling a boot over the wooden floor.
“A sandy ghost... thing...” He mumbles at her, feeling a little lost and numb at her words that are deafening in the silent church.
He wishes he had more to say--a better description at the very least. But the words die on his tongue as she stares at him, as if she’s the one that is seeing a ghost.
Zack’s hands finally fall to his sides, slack and empty. He watches as her knees crash to the rotted floor--he watches her crumble away before him, turn to ash from the sunlight burning too brightly. Zack finds tears cropping into his eyes too, and he’s breathing hard as she rips him apart.
I’m not dead, I’m right here! He wants to yell at her, but he’s too stunned to say anything at all as she mutters on, as her eyes glaze as she looks at him--
He can’t stand it anymore.
He rushes over to her and he crashes into her, falls to his knees in a tangle and grabs her into his arms--he’s crushing her into him, and he evenlopes her too easily with his broad shoulders, and he cradles her there in his warmth--
“Shh, shh,” he’s crooning into her hair, rubbing small circles into her back.
He finally draws away from her a little, enough so that he can see her face all teary and quivering and full of a sadness so raw, and he manages a watery smile.
He takes one of her hands into his, and he presses her fingers right over his heart. And his heart throbs, churns, beats rapidly from her touch.
“You feel that?” He whispers to her, stroking a piece of stray brown hair to tuck it behind her ear. “I think that means I’m alive. At least, I finally feel alive now that I’m here.”
He cants his head, his smile persistent if not fading a little at the edges.
“Shinra tried their hardest to kill me... and they will likely try again,” Zack admits this with a shuddering breath. He might always have to run away. “But I fought them and I’ll fight ‘em again, every time, if it means I can keep coming home to you.”
His hands come to rest on her shoulders, gives them a gentle squeeze.
“I’m really here,” he tells her with a boyish smile. He chuckles breathlessly, a little helplessly. “I’ll always find you again. I won’t ever stop looking for you, no matter how far apart we are.”
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