Part III
The sun was sinking towards the horizon as Sephiroth and Aeris stepped outside. Behind them, the chatter of voices from inside the restaurant faded with the closing of the door. Just for that moment, he felt a hush, as though the city were holding its breath, as though Aeris were holding her breath. It had been two months to the day since she had opened her door to him.
She turned and smiled at him, and there was a warmth there that he had seen her turn on her friends, that he had surely envied without ever realizing it, back before they had ever spoken.
"Let's go down to the docks," she said.
Even after he had donned his thin disguise of a dark-haired stranger, Sephiroth had anticipated some recognition by his former men. But as the days had gone by, there came none. Instead, people only looked at him now as a man, a casual conclusion he had never before been subject to. And now, when people saw him walking together with Aeris, their gazes warmed. They saw only a couple, soon-to-be parents, something which was true enough in a literal sense, but nevertheless an image he could not wrap his mind around. The months to come might make a father of him, but he was certain it would be in name only. He had barely any concept of what a father should be like.
But if Aeris shared any of his thoughts, she never showed it. If anything, she looked pleased by the glances they received, and by the occasional congratulations of passersby. Despite the circumstances, Sephiroth was sure she was looking forward to being a mother. With each day the life growing inside her became less a reminder of what had happened and more just another child soon to come into the world. To Aeris, at least. While it was a relief to him to watch the gradual change in her expression whenever she glanced at her belly, the regret never left him.
None of it was surprising, really. Aeris had always shown herself more resilient than he. He knew something in him had changed, was still changing, but it was nothing so apparent as the return of warmth to her eyes.
Even Junon itself outpaced him, its people surprising him in their efforts to return their emptied city to normal. By now some order had returned in the wake of Weapon's attacks. The soldiers who patrolled the streets still did so in the name of Shinra, but all their ties to Midgar were severed, and they reported only to the senior officers of Junon's remaining military. Slowly, people who had fled to the outlying villages had returned, though not enough to disguise the number of dead Weapon had taken with it to the sea. Not enough to dislodge Sephiroth from the abandoned apartment where he had been squatting either.
Repair efforts were concentrated along the docks. Stretches remained in ruin, but many now boasted work crews during the day, and enough repairs had been completed to reopen the port not too many weeks ago. A few cargo ships from the west lay at anchor, but their crews and wares had since disembarked. The repair crews were readying themselves to head home as the pair approached. Here, as elsewhere in the city, all was falling quiet.
Sephiroth had spent time enough in Junon during his years with Shinra for the sunset over the ocean to become familiar and unremarkable. But four months in this city had not dampened Aeris's wonder. Inversely she seemed to enjoy the sight more and more each time. Her eyes now were fixed on the sea, and he could see in them the sparkle of awe.
He thought he could almost understand. He could remember the first time he had seen the sky as a child, through the windows of some office where he was being presented. It had captured his attention and distracted him nearly enough to affect his evaluation. Aeris, her childhood split between Shinra's labs and Midgar's slums, must have gone at least as long without ever seeing the sky, and she probably had seen the ocean for the first time just that summer, when she had left the city with Cloud.
He could have understood her awe, had it been that first time now. But for each visit to lose nothing in her eyes, that was something else.
"You've been quiet tonight," Aeris remarked.
"That should come as no surprise," he said. He did not look at her now but out over the ocean. He did not want to see how her expression might change with the reminder.
"You act like I'm going to tell you to get lost tomorrow." Her voice at least betrayed no change. She sounded as light-hearted as before.
"I don't want to overstay my welcome."
"You're welcome to do as you like."
Sephiroth did look at her then. She meant it earnestly, he could tell, but while there was an invitation with her words, there was no expectation. He was free to stay or go as he liked, but either outcome would be fine with her.
"You release me from my obligation to rot, then?" was what he asked.
"Of course. I..." She hesitated, searching out the right words before she went on. "When I said that to you, it was because I wanted you to understand. You'd done an awful thing, so many awful things, and I wanted to make you feel what that had done to the rest of us, because I didn't think you could understand. But I think you do, now. Or you're starting to. So it wouldn't help anything, forcing you to do that to yourself."
"You mean for when I finally do return to the Planet."
"In this life, too."
"I still have no intention of spending the rest of it repaying some debt to the world."
Aeris smiled as though he had said something funny. "I know. That wouldn't be like you. But you don't need to go so far to make a difference. The workers rebuilding the city aren't doing it out of guilt, or just because they want to help. They're doing it for a paycheck. They're just living their lives."
"So you expect the same from me," he said doubtfully.
"You've done all right here, haven't you?"
He said nothing, and she went on.
"I know you don't get out much and talk to people. But some people are like that. I think you would've been the same even if you'd been able to lead a normal life."
"Perhaps."
"So? What do you think you'll do now?"
Sephiroth looked out over the ocean. He knew what she expected him to say, but she didn't seem to have thought it out as much as he had. "I have been asking myself the same question," he said. "I... have enjoyed my time here, much as it surprises me to say it. But I would only get in the way, if I stayed."
"Reno will just have to get over it," Aeris said, and the trace of stubbornness in her voice actually made him smile slightly. Even if it wasn't as strongly as he would have wished, she really did want him to stay.
"He won't get over it," he stated.
She opened her mouth to protest, but then shut it with a frown. Even she had to admit that he was right. "I guess not," she sighed. "At least, not so soon."
"You are the woman he loves, and I am the man who raped you. It isn't in his nature to be forgiving."
"It's hard for most people, to forgive that."
Sephiroth was silent for a moment. Then he said, "You haven't forgiven it, yourself."
"...no, I haven't. But maybe I've accepted it, that it happened to me. It's in the past now."
"If that's true, then these two months have been a success."
"They have," she agreed, and turning to face him, she lifted a hand to touch his face. Her fingers brushed across his forehead, his cheek, his jaw line, as though tracing out some change she saw in him. "You've proven to me that I wasn't wrong in believing I could bring out this side of you. I was only wrong about when, and what it would take."
"I wish now that you had been right," he said, although it felt weak to say such a thing aloud. Of course they both knew it, and there was no point in dwelling on it. He had missed his chance. Nothing would bring it back.
"I know." She withdrew her hand, reluctantly. "But, it didn't ruin everything, did it?"
He wondered why she was asking him, as though she herself hadn't quite realized where things stood between them. He reached out to her in turn, tracing her cheek with a thumb. He leaned down, cautiously at first should she pull back, and pressed his lips to hers. It was a kiss softer and more chaste than any he had ever given. There was no eagerness in her, but no repulsion either; she did not draw back. He let it go on only a moment, just long enough to record in his mind the feel of her lips, just long enough that when he pulled away, he imagined he could still taste her, and the smell of her lingered.
She was looking up at him. Her green eyes were gentle, warm, but there was no awe there, not as there should have been if she really had still been in love with him.
"Not everything," he said. "But enough."
He let his fingers trace the curve of her face and then fall away, and her smile faded.
"It would have been nice, I think," she said softly. "If things had gone differently."
"If things had gone differently," he repeated in agreement. "But they didn't. And now, you no longer want from me what you did then. Not from me."
She frowned slightly in confusion at his last remark. "What do you mean?"
"You hide it well," he told her, "but you miss him."
"...we are living together. It'd be strange if I didn't." Even now, her emphasis gave her away, that stubborn insistence on the present tense even though the Turk hadn't set foot in Junon in nearly a month.
"It isn't only that." Sephiroth pressed his lips together, and then went on, trying not to show the effort each word cost him. "I won't pretend to like the man. He is no saint either; any Turk has committed his share of atrocities. But where you're concerned, he did everything that I refused to. He had no delusions of being set on that path. He did as he wanted, and his aim was you."
"I know," she said. "I know how he feels about me."
"And your own feelings, do you know those?"
Aeris continued to frown at him, as though he were prying into something he weren't supposed to. "I care about him, just not like that."
"You say that because you've been saying it a long time, and because you're angry with him." A stab of jealousy made his voice harder than he would have liked. "I've learned to recognize denial."
"You think you know my own heart better than me?"
Sephiroth's gaze strayed down to her lips, and he recalled the feel of them from moments earlier. "I still remember how it felt to kiss you, then. You hated me and you loved me at the same time. It was intoxicating. I didn't understand it then but I remember it and I understand it now. You wanted it and you wanted not to want it. But now... there isn't either. You no longer hate me for what I've done. But you don't love me."
The stubbornness in her eyes gave way to a pained expression as he spoke, and at last she glanced down. "No. I don't."
"I shouldn't pretend that I know exactly what it is you feel for him. I can't know what you would do if he were standing here in my stead. But I do feel certain that you'd like for him to be standing here."
"Sephiroth..." She let out a breath and looked back up at him, smiling in what seemed like self-reproach. "It's a funny thing, I almost want to apologize to you. But I can't help how I feel. We're friends though, aren't we?"
For the two months that she'd put up with him, she had never once described their relationship that way. They hadn't been friends, or lovers, or anything but two people attempting to ignore something that had ruined a part of each of them. To be friends was more than he should ever have expected from her. "Yes," he decided. "I suppose we are."
"Then, since we're friends, I expect you to keep in touch, wherever it is you've decided to go tomorrow." She seemed to take it for granted both that he had made up his mind where to go and that he had no interest in telling her now, when neither was true. It would have been strange for him in the past not to know his own plans, but in the past he had always been tugged this way or that, by Hojo or Shinra or Jenova. He had never let it be purely his own decision, what he did with himself. Arguably, it was no different now, but Aeris only wanted to know what became of him. It was his choice what that was.
"I'll try," he said.
"I mean it," she pressed. "Don't just disappear. I'll... I'll miss you again."
"Whatever my intentions, I doubt you have much to worry about. I had enough trouble avoiding you just those first two months."
Finally a real smile came back to her. "Then, in another two months maybe."
"Maybe," he agreed. The sun had set, fading reds and deep oranges lingering in the sky. "Shall I walk you home?"
"I'd like that."
Sephiroth didn't offer his arm, but she took it anyway as though in some last effort to hold onto him, and what had vanished between them. For his part, he entertained no delusions but enjoyed the moment for what it was. Friends... It was certainly something he could live with.
Returning to Midgar wasn't something Aeris had imagined herself doing, not so soon. It was a very different place now than the Midgar she had left that summer, darker and wilder, unbalanced. Scrap-heaps of buildings had been thrown up along its edge from rubble dragged out of Sector 7, home now to those who had fled the pitch black of the slums but who found themselves unable to escape Midgar completely. Makeshift paths wound through the collapsed sector, made at first by the scavengers and used now, too, by those trying to reach the upper plate. The paths ran into the old train tunnel winding around the central pillar, leading at last to Sector 0, the home of Shinra Headquarters.
The trains hadn't run since before Meteorfall, and the empty tunnels saw only sparse foot traffic. Aeris encountered only one other person in her walk upwards, a skinny teen who watched her hungrily from the shadows but who hadn't yet crossed that line that would bring him to attack her. She kept her distance all the same, much as she might have liked to offer him something. She was taking enough risks coming here alone.
Emerging into one of the stations on the upper plate, Aeris spared a glance for the Shinra building looming above just a few streets away. All of its windows but those at the very top were lit against the night, warding off the things that skulked now in Midgar's shadows. She was surprised to find that the sight of it brought only a frown to her face, and no anxiety with it. Shinra had lost interest in her; it had enough on its hands.
She used the building to get her bearings, and made her way out of the station and down a street into Sector 2. It was late, something which had always meant nothing in the slums and which meant little more to those on the plate, even if they could tell when the sun had gone down. There were people out on the streets, walking with their heads down, trying to pretend that everything was as it always had been by ignoring everything around them. It would have been a hard night for her, had she still been selling flowers.
No one paid her any more mind than any other passerby. She felt almost as though she were invisible, not exactly a ghost but someone living in a city of ghosts. It was an eerie feeling.
Aeris had walked many of these streets before, as a flower seller, but at last her path took her down an unfamiliar road. The pedestrians thinned as she passed out of the commercial districts and into streets lined with houses and low apartment buildings. Finally she reached her destination, and took a scrap of paper out of her pocket, half to confirm the address and half just to stall a moment.
She hadn't so much as heard from Reno since he'd left Junon. It was Elena who had called the apartment to let her know that he'd come to stay with her and Rude in Midgar, Elena who had given her the address. She'd sounded unsure over the phone, like she didn't know whether to offer sympathy or an I-told-you-so, because it was Reno, after all. In the end she'd wound up going on about the place and how Rude was so much more mature and that Reno was going to be a terrible influence on him and she'd already wound up cleaning up after the two of them one night when they'd come home drunk. Aeris had listened patiently until Elena realized she was babbling and hurriedly jumped to the goodbyes. Reno had good friends, at least, was what she'd thought.
Now the narrow house stood in front of her. No lights were on, but behind the blinds on the first floor, a light flickered from someone watching television. Aeris hadn't called ahead. No one knew she was coming, and it was possible no one was awake this late. But if she knew Reno's habits, she could imagine him sprawled across a sofa in front of that television, not long from falling asleep on the remote. Their TV set back in Junon only operated by remote half the time, and when the noise of it had woken her in the middle of the night, she'd had the hardest time digging it out from under him to turn the volume down.
She hesitated, looked at her slip of paper one final time, and then made herself walk up the few short steps to the door, and knock.
There was no change inside the house, and she had to knock again twice, more loudly each time, before she heard the television volume spike briefly and then cut off. The house went dark for several minutes. Finally a light came on near the door and there came the sound of someone fumbling with the lock. The door opened a crack and Reno peered out blearily.
For an instant they both stood looking at each other with their mouths half-open, words not coming to either of them. Then Reno flung the door wide and some jumbled attempt at speech left his mouth. "You-- Where did-- How--?"
"Can I come in?" she asked.
"Uhhh, yeah." Reno scrubbed a hand through his hair and stepped back from the doorway. He had definitely been asleep. His hair was messier than usual, matted on one side of his head and unbound so that some of the longer strands fell over his shoulders. His feet were bare and he wore only pants with an undershirt half tucked into the waistband. With the cold February air creeping in through the doorway, he shifted from foot to foot uncomfortably.
Aeris stepped in so he could close the door behind her, but didn't shrug out of any of her things yet.
"I'm sorry about the hour," she said.
"Don't worry about it." The mumbled response was mechanical. He was staring at her like he wasn't entirely sure he was awake. His eyes had been on her face from the moment he'd opened the door, and only after a long moment did he take in the rest of her. His gaze fell on the curve of her belly, barely discernible beneath her coat, and at last he gave himself a little shake. "What are you doing here?"
"Well..." she began, fussing absently with a loose thread on her coat sleeve. "This wasn't really a conversation I wanted to have over the phone."
Reno's brow furrowed, and she could tell he was expecting some kind of bad news. "What conversation?"
"I miss you. I wanted to ask if you'd come home."
"Aeris, I told you before--"
"Sephiroth's not there anymore," she interrupted. "It's been two months. He left."
It took him a second to shut his mouth. After several more seconds had passed, he opened it again and asked carefully, "So you mean... you're not with him?"
"That's right."
Reno looked confused more than relieved. "Did he do something?"
Aeris shook her head. "No, nothing like that. I'm just... over him. He wasn't who I needed him to be, when I needed it. It's too late now."
A little smile came apparently unbidden to Reno's face, and he quickly tried to sober his expression again. "That's the smart choice, kicking him out again."
"I didn't kick him out," she said. "He just decided it was better for him to leave for a while."
He shrugged. "It works out to the same thing, right?"
"I guess so." Aeris studied his face with a little smile and then glanced past him towards the living area. Sure enough, by the illumination from the hall light, she could see a sofa half-buried in blankets and wrinkled clothes, and a television in front of it. She looked back at Reno. "I hope you haven't been stuck on the couch the whole time you've been staying here."
He scratched his head. "Kind of. I've been too lazy to unfold the bed."
"All month?"
"I guess I kept thinking I wouldn't be here that long."
"I guess I've been thinking that, too." She stepped closer to him, brushing some of his hair back over his shoulder. "If I tell you something, do you think we could clear out of here tomorrow? Midgar's worse than I remember it."
Reno's hands were fidgeting at his sides, as if he were holding them back. "Tell me what?" he asked.
Aeris looked up at his face. "I think I might be falling in love with you," she said.
He couldn't fight the smile this time. "That a fact?"
"Mm, I'm pretty sure. I did come all the way here just to say it."
"So you did." He let his hands find her hips, and then slid them up her sides and around her back, drawing her close until he could rest his chin on her head. "Well, if I had my way, you'd be a little too tired to clear out of here tomorrow, but I'm willing to compromise."
"I don't know how Rude would feel about that anyway. It's his couch, isn't it?"
Reno pulled back from her to wave one hand dismissively. "I've had sex on that couch before."
"Well, I haven't, and I'm not about to." He started to protest, but she leaned up to kiss him, cutting off whatever he was about to say. He didn't seem to mind, and returned the kiss eagerly, and by the way he guided her towards the couch, he hadn't exactly given up on convincing her. She let him get close enough to start laying her down on it, and then pulled back to press a finger to his lips. "Nothing below the waist until we're back in our own bed," she said.
He gave an exaggerated groan and dropped his head down into her breasts. "Okay, okay, but it's been months, you know. That's like a record for me."
"You might have to come close to breaking it again before long," she reminded him.
He looked up at her in surprise. "No way. We are so having kinky pregnant sex."
"Reno..."
"Kinky. Pregnant. Sex," he repeated.
Aeris let out a sigh that couldn't disguise her smile. "I'll see how I feel about it then, all right? But for now..."
"Right," he said, and as if there weren't a moment to lose, his lips were pressing against hers again and his fingers deftly stripping her out of her coat. And she surrendered herself to the warmth of him, the comfort of his body against hers. For all his eagerness, he was as gentle as he had been their very first time together, as if he understood that this moment was special, too. Now that there was nothing in the way, now that a part of her wasn't always locked somewhere in the past, she could be here in the moment.
And it wasn't just a comfort, like it had been in the beginning. There was something new, something that excited her and made her look forward to every moment they'd spend together hereafter. Love, she guessed, not unrequited or held in check by any secrets, just the feeling by itself, as it should be. It didn't exactly feel safe--it was Reno, after all--but it felt right, and that was plenty.