Mm. ...not all inmates are brought here against their will. I wasn't. I chose this. Because...I wanted to do better, but I didn't know how.
[He still doesn't, but no need for a digression.
He glances down.]
After Meteorfall...I didn't get how everyone was just moving on from it all. I couldn't. I tried, but...whenever I closed my eyes, it was like everything was happening all over again, and nothing I did could stop any of it. The ruins of Midgar were right there every time I stepped outside. Then...then geostigma came, and it started to feel like everything we did was all for nothing. I know it wasn't - everyone's rebuilding, starting new lives, looking forward to a future, but...
...when I found Denzel, I thought I could save him. An orphan with geostigma, his parents died when the Sector 7 plate fell. I thought...if I could find a cure for him, then maybe it wasn't all for nothing after all. Maybe I could finally save someone. I couldn't think about anything else. I started...making excuses to leave home more often, for longer. Told Tifa it was just deliveries, more clients outside the city. We had Marlene with us, too, cuz Barret was traveling, and they needed me, but I...
[He trails off, and then after a moment, goes on quietly:]
And then...one day, while I was out...geostigma came for me, too. Felt like a message from the universe, that I was never gonna save anyone, not even myself. So I just...never went back. Stopped answering the phone. ...slept in your church.
[Oh...Cloud. No wonder they couldn't just pick up where they went off. No wonder she had hurt him, without meaning to. This explained...so much.
And he found a boy that needed a family, just like him too. And geostigma...it was a truly terrible disease. ]
You stayed in the church...all alone...?
Cloud...
[She didn't know what to say. He did so much, and didn't feel like it was enough. That he couldn't move on. She could say that people weren't moving on, they were just trying to survive but- was it true? She didn't know.
...didn't always feel alone. Sometimes it felt...like you were there with me. The other you, I mean.
[The one who stayed dead. A different Aerith. So just as she'd wanted to leave here with Zack...he left his family behind for her, in a way. It's no wonder at all that Tifa was fed up with his shit.]
Mm. But I didn't tell you to get it off my chest. I told you because...I see myself in what you've been doing. It felt like a lose-lose situation to me, too. We just made the opposite choices. If I stayed, I'd end up pushing them away anyway - punishing myself, and them in the process.
Instead, I just ghosted them, everybody, when I could've been there for them the way they were there for me. Shinra and Meteor and Jenova left a lot of mean and powerful things behind in their wake. I should've been there to protect everyone. But I wasn't, and Tifa...got hurt, Marlene got kidnapped, all our materia got stolen.
Guess that's why I'm not upset with you anymore. Been there myself. So...you're not alone.
[Then, with the smallest little smile,]
And now, if you berate yourself for it, you'll have to berate me, too.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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[He can guess why; she has a history of ignoring unpleasant things. But maybe she has a more specific reason, who knows?]
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I mean...you might not have known. And...I wondered...but I didn't want to push.
[Things have been delicate between them in the past. Though she also, well, does want to avoid some unpleasant things too.]
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[He still doesn't, but no need for a digression.
He glances down.]
After Meteorfall...I didn't get how everyone was just moving on from it all. I couldn't. I tried, but...whenever I closed my eyes, it was like everything was happening all over again, and nothing I did could stop any of it. The ruins of Midgar were right there every time I stepped outside. Then...then geostigma came, and it started to feel like everything we did was all for nothing. I know it wasn't - everyone's rebuilding, starting new lives, looking forward to a future, but...
...when I found Denzel, I thought I could save him. An orphan with geostigma, his parents died when the Sector 7 plate fell. I thought...if I could find a cure for him, then maybe it wasn't all for nothing after all. Maybe I could finally save someone. I couldn't think about anything else. I started...making excuses to leave home more often, for longer. Told Tifa it was just deliveries, more clients outside the city. We had Marlene with us, too, cuz Barret was traveling, and they needed me, but I...
[He trails off, and then after a moment, goes on quietly:]
And then...one day, while I was out...geostigma came for me, too. Felt like a message from the universe, that I was never gonna save anyone, not even myself. So I just...never went back. Stopped answering the phone. ...slept in your church.
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And he found a boy that needed a family, just like him too. And geostigma...it was a truly terrible disease. ]
You stayed in the church...all alone...?
Cloud...
[She didn't know what to say. He did so much, and didn't feel like it was enough. That he couldn't move on. She could say that people weren't moving on, they were just trying to survive but- was it true? She didn't know.
There was so much she didn't know. ]
Thank you...for telling me. I had no idea.
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[The one who stayed dead. A different Aerith. So just as she'd wanted to leave here with Zack...he left his family behind for her, in a way. It's no wonder at all that Tifa was fed up with his shit.]
Mm. But I didn't tell you to get it off my chest. I told you because...I see myself in what you've been doing. It felt like a lose-lose situation to me, too. We just made the opposite choices. If I stayed, I'd end up pushing them away anyway - punishing myself, and them in the process.
Instead, I just ghosted them, everybody, when I could've been there for them the way they were there for me. Shinra and Meteor and Jenova left a lot of mean and powerful things behind in their wake. I should've been there to protect everyone. But I wasn't, and Tifa...got hurt, Marlene got kidnapped, all our materia got stolen.
Guess that's why I'm not upset with you anymore. Been there myself. So...you're not alone.
[Then, with the smallest little smile,]
And now, if you berate yourself for it, you'll have to berate me, too.
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Maybe I will, someday. And come back with all the memories you, and Vincent, and everyone else tell me I've done.
It doesn't...feel like me sometimes. Hearing I did...save the world, with your help. That I may have cured Geostigma.
I guess...we need to remember...we don't give ourselves enough credit Cloud.
We're actually...pretty amazing. It'd make it kinda silly to scold, huh?