The Path Ahead

ONE

Aerith smiled fondly as she watched Cloud and Jessie hurry out of Fort Condor's mess hall. Or rather, Jessie eagerly tugging Cloud by the arm, giggling her way out the door. Tifa and Biggs' departure was more understated and reserved, but in reality no less excited. Aerith couldn't blame them. Like Cloud and Jessie, they'd been apart for a month now, finally reuniting here just in time to help defend this place from Shinra and its assault force. The fortress had held, but not without cost. Many lives had been lost, and others badly wounded.

Nearby, Lena sat in her wheelchair, paralyzed during the fight with the monstrous Grandhorn. Although she was calm and cheerful on the outside, Aerith sensed the pain, fear, and sadness Lena was only barely keeping in check. She would walk again one day—Aerith's magic, when she'd saved her, had seen to that—but it wouldn't be anytime soon. Her road to recovery would be a long and hard one. Still, Aerith knew she'd push through it with her typical resilience.

As if he'd sensed her real feelings, Wedge took Lena's hand as he sat by her at the table, the food for once forgotten. Only she had that effect on him. And after a few smiles and quiet words, they were sharing soft kisses together. Although Aerith was happy for them along with Cloud, Jessie, Biggs, and Tifa, it also reminded her that unlike them, she didn't have anyone special, no one to hold her and make her feel cared for in a way that no one else could. Not anymore.

Zack was gone, had been gone for years. Aerith had held out hope for a long time, refusing to admit the harsh truth to herself long before she'd felt the terrible reality of it herself. She'd sensed it that day, but the truth was, she'd known all along. He was never coming back. He never had, not in all the times this journey had played out. And it had, again and again. She had only the vaguest sense of the cyclical nature of what she and her friends were doing, only that they'd all done it before. Over and over again, and in mostly the same way.

It wasn't just about time, though. Aerith felt it was more than that. As if an untold number of alternate selves had made a similar journey, were making it even now, or had yet to even begin it. She could almost feel them if she concentrated hard enough, her other selves. The planet was more than just what she could see and touch.

It was a multilayered, living, breathing entity made up of countless variations of their reality, each existing independently of each other in the same place and time but unable to detect, interact with, or interfere with one another. At least, usually. But there were always exceptions, as Aerith was learning. She and her kind were one of them, more aware of the planet's true nature than anyone. Perhaps there were others as well, points of intersection where different worlds could meet. But that path, she felt, was meant for another to take, not her.

That moment in the sewers when Cloud had touched her and she'd seen his visions of Jessie's fated death in the Sector 7 pillar, a death that she'd never escaped in most of the other variants but which Cloud had saved her from in this one, was when Aerith had first known that more was going on with their journey than it seemed.

She could also sense what lay ahead, the deep darkness that waited for her, and she knew what it was, what it meant. But she didn't want to think about it right now, or the loneliness it brought her. So she turned her attention back to the party, sipping her drink, talking with those of her friends that were still there, and listening to the music. Jessie wasn't the only one who could wear a cheerful mask.

As the hours went by and the party went late into the night, Aerith watched the rest of her friends leave to go get some rest. But she stayed behind, still wide awake and not tired just yet. To distract herself from her pain and her morose thoughts, she danced a bit more, not caring a bit that she was just about the only one out there now. There were only a few people left at the party by this point anyway.