...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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[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?