Chapter 5: Just Yours
The first light was not a color, but a sound. It was the hushed chatter of birds outside the window, a delicate rustling in the thatched roof, the soft, almost imperceptible sigh of the world turning towards the sun. Cloud became aware of it in stages. First, the warmth. Then, the scent—her skin, sleep, the faintest trace of lavender from her hair where his face was buried. The solid, reassuring weight of her body against his, the slow, even rhythm of her breath beneath his cheek.
He didn’t open his eyes. He simply tightened his arms around her waist, locking her closer. The memory of the night—the tears, the vulnerability, the absolute surrender—washed over him like a tide, leaving a strange, hollowed-out peace in its wake. He felt flayed open, but somehow, held together.
Aerith stirred. A soft hum vibrated in her chest, a sound of pure contentment. Her fingers, which had been splayed across his back, began to move. They traced the notches of his spine, traveled up to the nape of his neck, and gently brushed the hair from his temple. Her touch was feather-light, exploratory.
“Time to wake up, my hero,” she whispered, her voice husky with sleep.
The word was a shard of ice in the warm cocoon. Hero. It came with a weight of expectations, of duty, of a sword that waited leaning against the wall. He shook his head stubbornly, his nose pressing into the softness of her breast. His voice, when it came, was muffled and thick, stripped bare.
“Not a hero here,” he grumbled. A pause, a confession as profound as any he’d ever made. “Just yours.”
Her breath caught. The hand on his neck stilled. He could feel the sudden, quickened thud of her heart against his ear. In those four words, she heard everything. The abdication of a role he’d never chosen. The surrender of a solitude he’d worn like armor. The gift of a man, not the legend. This tender, stubborn, broken-open man existed only here, in this bed, for her.
She didn’t say anything. What could possibly follow that? Instead, she bent her head and pressed her lips to the crown of his head, holding them there. Her other arm wrapped around his shoulders, holding him as he held her. They stayed like that as the room lightened from deep blue to a soft, pearlescent grey.
Finally, she chuckled, the sound vibrating through him. “Well, ‘just mine’ is a lot heavier than he looks. My arm’s falling asleep.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. He didn’t move.
“Cloud,” she singsonged, poking his side. “I have to water the flowers. And there’s probably no food in this place. We should find breakfast.”
“Later.”
“It is later.”
He finally lifted his head, just enough to look at her. His hair was comically mussed, his eyes still heavy-lidded. He looked younger. “Five more minutes.”
“You said that ten minutes ago,” she said, grinning. She booped his nose with her fingertip. “Come on. I’ll make tea. I think I saw a little tin… if the mice haven’t thrown a party.”
The mundane reality of it—mice, tea, chores—was an anchor. It pulled him gently back from the sublime intensity of the night into something softer, domestic. He sighed, a long, theatrical exhale that made her smile widen, and loosened his grip.
She slithered out from under him, the loss of her warmth immediate and regrettable. The cool morning air hit his skin. He watched her pad across the room, completely unselfconscious, bathed in the growing dawn light. She found a simple, woven robe and slipped it on, tying the belt around her waist. She moved to the small hearth, her movements efficient and graceful as she rummaged for a kettle.
Cloud pushed himself up onto his elbows. He felt strangely weightless, as if a fundamental gravity had been altered. The sword by the door was just an object. His armor on the floor was just scrap. The only thing that held any mass, any meaning, was the woman humming a tuneless song as she filled a kettle from a ceramic pitcher.
“See? Survived the night,” she said, glancing over her shoulder at him. Her eyes were bright, sparkling with a private joy.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the worn floorboards cool under his feet. He didn’t reach for his clothes. He just sat there, watching her. “You knew we would.”
“I had a good feeling.” She set the kettle on a hook over the now-smoldering fire she’d coaxed to life. “Mostly because I told the bad feelings to take a hike. They listened. For once.”
A ghost of a smile touched his lips. He ran a hand through his hair, trying uselessly to tame it. The events of the previous evening settled into him not as a shock, but as a new, quiet fact. He had broken down. He had wept in her arms. And she was still here, making tea. The world hadn’t ended.
“The teaset,” he said quietly, remembering the shards in his pocket from a lifetime ago. “The one from the market.”
She paused, her back to him. “What about it?”
“I’m… sorry I broke it.”
She turned, leaning against the rough-hewn mantel. Her expression was soft, understanding. “Cloud, you dummy. You bought it for a dream. And last night…” She glanced toward the bed, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. “We sort of made a new one, didn’t we? A better one. You don’t need a porcelain teapot for that.”
The water began to simmer. The sound filled the quiet cottage. She fetched two simple clay mugs, wiping the dust out with the edge of her robe.
He stood, finally, and found his pants. He pulled them on, then walked to where she stood by the fire. He stopped behind her, not touching her, just sharing her space, watching the steam begin to curl from the kettle’s spout. He could feel the heat from the flames on his bare chest.
“It wasn’t just a dream, Aerith,” he said, his voice low. “The crying. That was… real.”
She turned within the circle of his nearness, tilting her head up to look at him. Her gaze was clear and steady. “I know. That’s why I’m here.” She reached up and brushed her thumb over his cheekbone, where the tear tracks had been. “That’s the part I wanted.”
The kettle whistled, a sharp, cheerful sound that shattered the intensity. She laughed, turning to lift it from the hook. “Timing,” she muttered, pouring the hot water over the dried leaves she’d found in the tin. A fragrant, earthy smell bloomed between them—mint and something woodsy.
She handed him a mug. Their fingers brushed. The tea was too hot to drink, so he just held it, letting the warmth seep into his hands.
“So,” she said, blowing on her own tea, her eyes twinkling over the rim. “What does ‘just mine’ want to do today? Besides hold me hostage in bed, I mean.”
He took a sip, the herbal liquid scalding his tongue. It was bitter, then sweet. Like most things with her. “You said something about food.”
“Right. The heroic quest for breakfast. Think you’re up for it, oh mighty warrior of mine?” She nudged his bare foot with her own.
Before he could answer, a sound cut through the peaceful morning—the distant, frantic chime of a PHS. It was coming from the pile of his discarded gear. His and hers.
They both froze. The lightness in the air evaporated, replaced by a sudden, familiar tension. The outside world, with all its demands and dangers, had found its way in.
Cloud’s expression shifted, the softness hardening into something more guarded, more prepared. He looked from the buzzing gear to Aerith’s face, which had sobered instantly.
“Tifa,” they said in unison.
He set his mug down on the hearth with a soft click. The man who had cried, who had clung, who had whispered ‘just yours’, was receding. Another man, the one with the weight of a planet on his shoulders, was putting himself back together. But his eyes, as they met hers, held a promise. He was still hers. He was just going to have to save the world first.
She drifted off listening to the new, slower rhythm of his heart, a smile touching her lips.
Dawn crept in not as a shock of light, but as a gentle greying of the room’s shadows. The candle had long since guttered out, leaving a faint scent of smoke and beeswax hanging in the cool air. Aerith woke slowly, the deep, pleasant ache in her muscles a vivid souvenir of the night. The first thing she felt was warmth. Solid, breathing warmth along her side, a heavy arm slung possessively over her waist.
She opened her eyes. Cloud’s face was buried in the crook of her neck, his spiky hair tickling her chin. His breathing was deep and even, a quiet sound she could feel in her own bones. She lay perfectly still, savoring the weight of him, the simple reality of his body curved around hers. A lock of her own hair had stuck to her cheek, and she carefully brushed it away, moving with a slowness born of not wanting to fracture the moment.
As the grey light strengthened, she carefully shifted, just an inch, to see him better. He had slid down slightly in the night. His head now rested not on her shoulder, but against her chest, his face turned inward, pressed into the soft swell of her breast. One of his hands had come up in sleep, his fingers splayed loosely over her ribcage, his thumb just brushing the underside of her breast. The sight of him there, so utterly vulnerable and ensconced against her, sent a wave of tenderness through her so fierce it stole her breath.
This was the side of him only she knew. The fortress of him, all sharp angles and sharper words, had crumbled last night. What remained was this raw, emotional core. This man who dreamed of sunflowers and paint-peeling porches. This man who cried so easily, so heartbreakingly, when the things he longed for—when she—touched a wound so deep even he couldn’t name it. She loved that part of him more than anything. She loved that she was the catalyst, the safe harbor where that hidden self could finally, bravely, come to life.
He looked younger in sleep. The perpetual faint tension between his brows was gone. His lips, usually pressed into a firm line, were slightly parted. She could feel the soft puff of his breath against her skin. He nuzzled closer in his sleep, his nose pressing into her, a quiet, contented sigh escaping him. The arm around her waist tightened, pulling her fractionally nearer.
A smile bloomed on Aerith’s face, slow and private. She lifted her hand from the quilt and brought it to his head. Her fingers slid into the surprisingly soft spikes of his hair, careful not to pull. She simply rested them there, feeling the solid curve of his skull beneath her palm. He made a low, humming sound deep in his throat, a vibration she felt more than heard.
The light was getting stronger, turning from grey to a pale gold. A new day was insisting on itself. Birds began their chatter outside the window. She knew they should get up. There were always things to do—flowers to tend, deliveries, the precarious business of living under the Plate. But the thought of moving, of disturbing this perfect, tangled stillness, felt like a crime.
She shifted her hand, her thumb stroking a slow arc just above his ear. “Cloud,” she whispered, her voice husky from sleep. It was barely a sound.
He didn’t stir.
She tried again, a little louder, her fingertips drifting down to trace the shell of his ear.“Hey. Cloud, baby?” The endearment, so new and precious, felt warm in her mouth. “Do you want to wake up?”
His response was immediate and definitive. A low, incoherent grumble of protest vibrated against her skin. He pressed his face more firmly into the softness of her breast, his nose and lips burrowing as if seeking deeper shelter. His arm clamped around her like a vice, holding her fast. His free hand, the one resting on her ribs, flexed, his fingers curling inwards slightly in a possessive, sleepy grip.
Then he spoke, his voice muffled and thick with sleep, the words a warm, damp brush against her skin. “No. Please.”
The sound was so unabashedly soft, so shamelessly needy, that her heart squeezed. This was the man who faced down Behemoths without flinching, begging for five more minutes curled against her. The shy reluctance in that single word, please, undid her completely.
A soft laugh bubbled up in her chest, a happy, breathless thing. She felt his lips move against her in response to the tremor of her laugh. He was kissing her skin. Not in a sensual way, but in a drowsy, instinctive protest, a series of soft, sleepy presses as if to physically quiet her and lure her back into the warmth of sleep with him.
“Okay,” she breathed, her voice laced with a love so vast it felt like its own kind of weather inside her. Her fingers resumed their gentle journey through his hair, massaging his scalp in slow, hypnotic circles. “It’s okay. Shhh. Take all the time you want.”
He let out a long, shuddering exhalation of pure relief, his entire body going lax against hers once more. His breathing began to even out again, deepening back towards sleep. But he didn’t stop the soft, absent-minded kisses. They were lazy, unhurried tokens of affection, each one a silent punctuation mark in the quiet room. He kissed the curve of her breast, then rested his cheek there, his eyelashes fluttering against her skin as he fought to stay in the delicious limbo between sleeping and waking.
She watched the light grow. It painted a bright rectangle on the far wall, inching slowly across the aged wood. Dust motes danced in the sunbeam, turning to tiny, swirling stars. She listened to the sounds of the Sector waking up—distant voices, the clang of a shop shutter, the ever-present hum of the reactor—but they felt miles away. Her world had condensed to this bed, this quilt, this man breathing against her heart.
She thought of his tears. The hot, silent flood of them in the dark. The way he’d clung to her afterward, a man clinging to a raft in a stormy sea. She hadn’t been afraid of his sadness. She’d understood it. It was the sound of a dam breaking, of a lifetime of lonely strength finally giving way under the weight of a gentle touch. Her love had done that. Not by force, but by simple, persistent presence. By believing in the dream of the house with the peeling paint even more fiercely than he did.
He kissed her again, this time a little more deliberately. His lips lingered, soft and warm. “Aerith,” he murmured, her name a sleep-slurred secret into her skin.
“I’m here,” she whispered back, her thumb stroking his cheekbone. “Right here.”
He turned his head just enough to lay a proper, soft kiss over her heart. Then another, just below it. He was mapping her, in his half-asleep state, with a tenderness that made her throat tight. His hand on her ribs slid up, his palm coming to rest fully, reverently, over her breast. Not to arouse, but to hold. To keep. It was a gesture of such profound, quiet ownership that her eyes pricked with tears.
This was the truest thing. This quiet, sunlit claiming. This unarmored version of Cloud Strife who just wanted to hide his face in her warmth and be still. This was the man she was building a future with, one shaky, beautiful breath at a time.
The sunbeam climbed higher, now touching the foot of the bed, gilding the rumpled quilt. The noises from the slums grew more distinct. A day of mundane reality was patiently waiting for them beyond the cottage door. But for now, for this stolen, golden stretch of morning, time was theirs to waste. He breathed against her, slow and steady. She combed his hair with her fingers, each pass a silent promise.
Take all the time you want. He was. And she would let him. She would lie here forever if he needed her to, a sanctuary made of flesh and devotion, while the sun rose and the world turned and the dream of sunflowers took root, right here, in the quiet beating of their hearts.
She drifted off listening to the new, slower rhythm of his heart, a smile touching her lips.
Dawn came as a slow bleed of pewter light through the single window. Cloud woke to it gradually, his senses reassembling in a foreign order. First, the smell: woodsmoke, dry herbs, and beneath it, the warm, sleeping scent of Aerith’s skin. Then, the feel: a profound, limb-heavy warmth, the softness of a mattress, and the smoother softness of her body curled back-to-chest against his. His arm was locked around her waist, his hand splayed possessively over her stomach. The memory of the night returned not as a shock, but as a deep, resonant hum in his bones. The confession.The tears. The way she’d held him through it all until sleep had claimed them, tangled together.
He didn’t move. He just breathed, his nose buried in the mess of her hair. He felt the gentle rise and fall of her ribcage under his palm. This, he realized with a clarity that was utterly peaceful, was the first thing he’d ever wanted to memorize.
Aerith stirred, a soft murmur escaping her. She stretched slightly, her body pressing back into his. He felt her awareness return, a subtle tensing, then a melting as she recognized his shape around her. Her hand came up and covered his where it rested on her stomach, her fingers lacing with his. No words. Just the slow, syncopated beat of their breathing in the quiet room.
After a long while, she shifted. “I’m hungry,” she whispered, her voice raspy with sleep.
“Hn.”
“You must be, too.” She gently pried his hand away and slipped out from under his arm. The cool morning air hit the skin she’d been warming, and he almost pulled her back. He watched her, bleary-eyed, as she moved naked through the dim room. She didn’t reach for a robe. She simply padded, bare-footed and unselfconscious, to the small hearth, her skin glowing in the low light.
Cloud pushed himself up on his elbows. The quilt pooled around his waist. He watched her kneel, the elegant line of her back, the shift of muscle in her shoulders as she stacked kindling and struck a spark. The fire caught, orange light licking up, painting her in sudden, dancing gold. She stood, stretching her arms overhead, a silhouette of perfect, unadorned grace against the growing fire. She turned and caught him staring. A slow, sleepy smile spread across her face. “See something you like?”
He just grunted, falling back onto the pillow, but his eyes didn’t leave her. She laughed, a soft, warm sound, and turned to the small pantry.
The cottage slowly filled with the sounds and smells of morning. The crackle of the fire. The dry rustle of grain being poured into a pot. The clean scent of water hitting oats. Aerith moved with a quiet efficiency, her motions fluid and familiar. She fetched a jug of milk, a tiny clay pot of honey. Cloud watched it all from the bed, a spectator in a private play. This was the dream, he thought. Not the future one with the porch and the sunflowers, but this right now. The peeling white paint was just details.
He finally slid out of bed. The plank floor was cool under his feet. He found his pants, pulled them on, but left them unbuckled. He didn’t bother with a shirt. He walked to her, drawn not by hunger for food, but by the magnetic pull of her presence, of the sight of her moving unclothed in this domestic space.
She was stirring the oats, her back to him. He stepped close, his bare chest meeting the warmth of her skin. She leaned back into him immediately, a soft sigh escaping her. He wrapped his arms around her, crossing them over her stomach, and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“You’re in the way,” she murmured, but she didn’t stop stirring.
“You’re cooking.”
“Astute observation.” She tilted her head back against his shoulder, looking up at him. Her eyes were the color of summer moss in the firelight. “Comfortable?”
“Yeah.” He nuzzled into her hair, inhaling deeply. The garden herbs from last night were a faint ghost on her skin now, layered with something deeper, something fundamentally her. It was a clean, warm, human scent. It was the smell of her sleep, of her skin, of her. He’d smelled a hundred perfumes in the Midgar slums, all of them trying to mimic something like this and failing spectacularly. This was real.This was alive.
He loved it. He loved the affect it had on him. It unclenched something in his chest, a fist he hadn’t known was still tightened. He pressed his nose to the juncture of her neck and shoulder, breathing her in like a man coming up for air. His arms tightened around her.
Aerith hummed, a low, pleased sound that vibrated through her back and into his core. She let go of the spoon with one hand and reached up, her fingers sinking into the hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re like a big cat,” she said. “Marking your territory.”
He didn’t deny it. He just made another noncommittal sound and kept his face buried against her skin, his lips occasionally brushing her shoulder. The heat from the fire kissed their legs. The pot began to simmer, releasing a warm, nutty aroma. With him anchored to her back, she continued to cook. She reached for the honey pot, her movement causing his arms to shift with her. He adjusted his hold, his hands sliding to rest on her hipbones, his thumbs making absent, slow circles on the soft skin there.
She drizzled honey into the pot, then added a splash of milk. Each action was a small intimacy he felt through his whole body. The shift of her muscles, the flex of her arm, the way her weight settled against him. She was completely at ease in her nakedness, and that ease seeped into him, melting the last of his residual tension.
“It’s almost ready,” she said softly. She tilted her head, offering him more of her neck. He took the invitation, pressing a slow, open-mouthed kiss just below her ear. She shivered. “That’s not… helpful for stirring.”
“Don’t care.” His voice was muffled against her skin.
She laughed, and the sound was so bright and easy it made his throat tight. This was it. The simple, impossible miracle of a morning.No missions. No monsters. Just her, and warmth, and food, and her scent wrapping around him. He could feel every breath she took. He could feel the minute shift of her balance from one foot to the other. He could feel the quiet, powerful life force that seemed to radiate from her very pores.
She switched off the small burner and moved the pot aside. For a moment, they just stood there, wrapped together in the silence, watching the fire pop and settle. His hands slid up from her hips to span her waist, his fingers splayed wide. He could feel the gentle inward curve, the subtle architecture of her ribs beneath his palms. He wanted to map all of it, memorize every dip and plane with his hands.
“Cloud,” she said, her voice barely audible over the fire.
“Hm?”
“Last night… what you told me.About the house. The sunflowers.” She paused, her hands coming to rest over his. “I want that, too. More than anything.”
He froze. The words hung in the air, delicate as soap bubbles. He’d laid that dream at her feet, raw and trembling, and she had not only caught it, she was now holding it up, showing him she wanted to carry it with him. He couldn’t speak. He just turned his head and buried his face deeper into her neck, holding her so tightly he feared he might hurt her.
She understood.She always did. She patted his hand. “Breakfast is getting cold, big cat.”
He reluctantly loosened his grip. She fetched two chipped clay bowls from a shelf and filled them with the steaming oats. She carried them to the small table, and he followed, a half-step behind, like a planet drawn in her orbit. She sat, and he took the seat beside her, not across from her. Their knees touched under the table.
They ate in silence for a few minutes. The porridge was sweet, creamy, perfect. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted. He watched her eat, a smear of honey on the corner of her mouth. He reached out, his thumb brushing it away. She caught his wrist, turned his hand, and pressed a kiss to his palm. The gesture was so tender, so unthinkingly affectionate, it stole his breath.
“Today,” she said, letting go of his hand and returning to her food. “We should go to the market in Sector 5. I need more seed packets. The blight took out a whole row of yellflowers.”
He nodded, taking another mouthful. The dream of the far-off field with sunflowers folded seamlessly into the reality of a market run for seeds. It didn’t feel like a downgrade. It felt like a beginning. “Okay.”
“And you,” she said, pointing her spoon at him. “You need a new shirt. That one smells like a perfume counter exploded on it.”
A faint, almost imperceptible smirk touched his lips. “Thought you took care of that.”
“I did,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “But I think we should burn it, just to be sure.”
He grunted, the smirk deepening. “Whatever you say.”
She smiled, a triumphant, beautiful thing, and went back to her breakfast. Cloud watched her, the early light now fully filling the room, gilding the edges of her hair, the curve of her shoulder. The ghost of a child’s kick was still just a dream in his palm. But her warmth against his skin this morning, the taste of her honey-sweetened oats, the simple plan for their day—this was the foundation. It was real. It was here. And for the first time in as long as he could remember, the future didn’t feel like a cliff’s edge. It felt like something he could walk into, with her hand in his. He finished his breakfast, every bite a silent vow.