[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.
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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.
no subject
[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.
no subject
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?