“you may forget, but let me tell you this: someone in some future time will think of us.”
sappho’s poetry starters / not accepting.
cloud knows that the earth remembers - he’s seen the lifestream dance and sing and whisper, thousands upon thousands of voices, lives gone by, recorded in the living, breathing earth. someday, he will die, as he has lived: sad and twisted and fundamentally alone, welcomed into his mother’s loving arms in the form of swirling green breath. someday, everyone will die alone. cloud has long accepted this, that no matter how you live your life, you’ll always leave it alone.
(there’s a flash of painful memory behind his eyelids, bloodsoaked, rain, rusted sword, a cry of grief, a click of something awful in his mind.)
it’s a nasty, horrible thing. and so cloud has done in the past what cloud strife does best: repress, repress, repress. press himself down until someone else takes over and does it for him, pushes the memories away until he can’t think of anything. he remembers, not knowing his own name at one point, not knowing his own goal or likes or dislikes, his past. the trauma does that to you, strips everything away, until you’re nothing. because being something is more dangerous.
but cloud doesn’t live like that anymore. he doesn’t have to. he has friends who like him, he has a family who cares for him, he has a wife who loves him. truly. he couldn’t forget any of this, even if he wanted to. he does, some days, the pain piercing him like a knife through the chest. his first reaction is always to run. his second is to forget. but he cannot do either. not while tifa is relying on him so much, and he on her. they have children to take care of, businesses to run. they have lives to live. they have each other to love.
“i promise, tifa. i won’t forget again.” his voice, heavy with conviction, his hands, shaking, as he takes one of hers in his own and brings it to his mouth to kiss. “i’d never... i’d never do that to you again.” i’m sorry. hangs in the air, unspoken, and yet said time and time again. i won’t leave you. is also there, twisting and curling like a promise. i love you, whispers against the back of his neck. he’s said it a thousand times over, and unlike the other ones, this one being unsaid is a comfort - he doesn’t need to say it, because she knows, and he knows that she knows, and that’s what matters.
they have each other, and even if they die alone, the earth will remember that, and so will they. and that’s what matters. and that’s how it has always been, and always will be.