Time’s Tears For Lost Loves

The city of Midgar lay in silent ruins. A twisted mass of metal amongst the barren wasteland, it’s shattered habitat abandoned by it’s citizens. No-one was going to rebuild the city devastated by Meteor. Instead, they would go somewhere else. Run away from their problem instead of facing it. That was fine. If they could do it, why couldn’t he?

Because running away solves nothing. Time catches up with you. You of all people should know that.

Cloud tried to push the thought away, but something refused to let him forget. He was tired of running away, of turning his back on his problems. Yet he had done it again. He had run away from his problems. He had run away from her.

Cloud sat on the dry grass on a small hill over looking Midgar. This was the spot…the place Zack had sacrificed himself for Cloud. Since then Cloud had tried to make that sacrifice worthwhile. And he had, he had saved the world from Meteor. He had defeated Jenova and Sephiroth. But for Cloud that wasn’t enough. He had left Tifa, and failed to protect Aeris when she needed him most.

Aeris.

The thought of her was like a stabbing pain in his heart. Losing someone close was bad enough, but to see it happen…to see it happen and not be able to do a thing to stop it. It made everything a thousand times worse. He could still remember every detail of that fateful night on the crystal altar. It was funny how the small things were so much clearer than the rest of it. The questioning look on her face as his own sword stopped inches from her face. Her silent acceptance of her fate. The way the white materia bounced slowly across the altar and down the steps behind him. The way she fell limply into his arms. The smirk on Sephiroth’s face as he pulled the great Masamune from her dying body. His smirk, that smirk, would haunt Cloud for the rest of his life. A reminder of yet another broken promise. He had broken a promise and lost a close friend, yet he had just done the exact same thing again.

When I’m in trouble, my hero will come and rescue me.

He wasn’t sure why he had left Tifa. She deserved better than him, but it didn’t stop Cloud feeling as if he had abandoned her. Tifa was all he had left. Sephiroth had taken the rest but Tifa was with him to the end. She was the reason he had been able to fight Sephiroth, he couldn’t have done it without her. Midgar, Nibelheim, even the lifestream, she had been there with him, never losing hope. Cloud could never have faced Sephiroth without Tifa by his side. She, above all people, knew the hatred he harboured for the former SOLDIER.

Sephiroth

The name meant nothing now. His former idol, the person he had looked up to and admired most. Cloud thought back to his early days with Shinra, before Nibelheim and Jenova. Sephiroth had deserved the respect he commanded. He was a great and noble warrior, and even though he was cold and distant, he had honour and integrity. People respected and admired him and, in a way, people loved him. He represented strength and hope.

Sephiroth and Zack had been the two people Cloud had aspired to be like. Sephiroth’s strength and Zack’s carefree easy going nature. Now neither of them were here. Cloud had defeated his idol and lost his best friend.

Three of the most important people in his life were dead, and he had just walked out on the fourth.

Tifa, Aeris, Zack and Sephiroth. One way or another, he had loved and lost them all. The planet had lost two noble warriors, a mortal angel, and would now be without the friendship that had saved it.

Cloud could feel the tears pricking at his eyes. He let them come, not caring anymore. So many people had been hurt and so much had been lost. They weren’t just Cloud’s tears for past friends, they were time’s tears for lost loves.