Who: Aerith and Zack When: The day after his arrival Where: Xavier Memorial Hospital What: Finally reunited Status: Closed and completed
These had been some of the longest hours of Aerith's life. She hadn't even had a chance to be happy about Zack's arrival yet, as the moment he arrived he was already in grave danger. She felt helpless, unable to help him now that she was powerless. But she ran to the hospital the moment she saw Zola's stating of his name.
She wasn't even sure what all they'd done. She knew he had been in the operating room for what FELT like an age, followed by one of the doctors telling her that he needed to recover, but should be just fine.
It took everything out of her, and as she sat at his bedside, watching over his unconcious form, eventually she fell asleep, slumped forward with her head laying on the bed next to him.
It seemed like the surgery was just as well as expected with the extent of the arrival's injuries. The main point of it was to get the bleeding under control. The SOLDIER was going through blood fast than they were able to get it in. It seemed like they weren't going to be able to get him on the other side of it. It was quickly determined to reach out the Ms. Bennet and she was rushed to the hospital where her blood was taken for the transfusion. It wasn't the first option but it was what had been decided halfway through the surgery.
There wasn't a lot of Claire's blood used. Enough to start the healing process which would be a lot faster now. Even before they started closing up the wounds he had arrived with had started healing. He was brought to the ICU where only one person at a time was allowed to be with him.
The evo's blood had a couple of hours to travel though his body. He slowly started to blink as he looked around the room. His chest felt like there was a heavy weight on it as it was still healing. Although there was no actual wounds there anymore. He moved one of his arms then felt someone's hair. "Aerith?" he said hoarsely as his mouth was dry.
That voice rang through her ears even while asleep... she had longed to hear it again for so long, that when it came? It pierced through her subconcious and startled her awake. She blinked her eyes a few times, raising her head and sitting up straight, before processing that he was AWAKE. She looked at him, eyes welling up with tears as she let it sink in. The gem had finally brought her love back to her.
"Zack... it's really you..."
The last thing Zack remembers was laying there with Cloud over him. He wasn't sure what was going on right now. One thing was for sure, he didn't think that he would be seeing Aerith again. "It's me," he said as he smiled at the woman he had grown to love. "And it's you. What happened? How? How are you here?" Of course he didn't know where 'here' was. He could have asked for water but all he wanted to do was look at her for a moment. Just a moment in case it was all a dream and neither of them were there.
While he'd previously been a couple years older than her... she looked to be about the same age as him now. She looked the same, just... a little more mature. "It's a long, long story, Zack. Short version is: a magic gem pulled us from our reality into another one. I'm... from about two years after you..." She winced, changing up a bit. "About two years after where you were."
Zack wasn't sure what was going. She looked the same but she looked different. He didn't know why that could be but it had also been four years since they saw each other. Actually it had been longer than four years apparently. "It just brings people here?" he hadn't heard of anything that could do that. His first concern was why the gem pulled them there. Did it want something from them? "Are you okay?" He started to look her over to make sure she wasn't hurt at all.
"I've never been more ok." She said with a laugh, tears flowing down her cheeks now as she took his hand and squeezed it tenderly. "I've missed you so much... heavens, you've missed so much..."
"I missed you too. I wanted to come back to you, I did," That had been the plan but it didn't seem to work out that way. He wasn't sure how they both ended up getting pulled by this gem but he wasn't going to question that part. It was only the part of why they were even there that he was questioning. "I was going to."
"This place is a gift, Zack. By this point in our world? Neither of us are around anymore. But here? We have a chance at a life together." She told him, gently stroking his hair with a gentle smile.
"What?" It wasn't hard for Zack to miss what she said there. That neither of them were around anymore. "No, no you were around. You were back home." He had decided when he was laying there on the ground that she was his home. That as long as she was okay that he was okay, even if he wasn't going to be. He closed his eyes for a second when he felt her fingers in his hair.
"Relax. Please. We're both safe now." She said softly, closing her eyes. "Sephiroth... went completely insane. Tried to destroy everything. Managed to take me out along the way."
Zack tried to jump out of the bed when he heard that Sephiroth had killed her. He recoiled in pain as he fell back against the bed. The wounds may have been gone but there was still a lot of the pain throughout his body.
"Zack? Stop. I mean it." She said, voice a little more firm. "New beginning, remember?" She said, finally letting the relief of him actually being here wash over her. "There's a lot to process, and a lot to accept. He's even here now too. Sephiroth, I mean. He surrendered rather than harm anyone and is peacefully sitting in a prison cell right now."
Zack could feel the rage towards Sephiroth fuming. There was a time that he trusted, even liked this man. Any of those feelings were long gone now. "I can't stay in the bed if he's here," he had to protect Aerith. Even if Sephiroth had surrendered and was being peacefully. After what he had seen the other SOLDIER do, he wasn't convinced that would be for long. Especially now that he knew what Sephiroth did to Aerith.
"I'm sorry I wasn't there for you, to protect you," He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against her. Feeling safe and at home in their closeness.
"Don't you dare apologize, Zack. Nobody could have stopped anything that happened. Cloud, Tifa, and the others? They beat him at the end of it all. And now we're here. And that's all I want to focus on."
Zack couldn't help but feel like he failed her somehow. He wasn't there to protect her when she needed him. She said for him not to apologize but he felt like he should. "We can focus on that," he said with a soft nod. He just couldn't get up to hold her right now. His chest and abdomen hurt so much when he tried to move. "Can we get out of here?"
"Soon. We just need to get the doctors to say it's ok." Aerith told him, leaning in to kiss his lips softly. "I just got you back... I'm not taking any chances."
There was nothing he could say after he felt those lips against his. It was like he lost the argument before they even had it. "So I'm kind of stuck here," he said with a strained laugh in his voice.
"Mmhmmm." Aerith said with her typically sweet, upbeat tone. "I know exactly how to pout if need be to get what I want."
Zack rested back against the pillow as he smiled at her little comment. He had no idea how much he missed it until it was back in front of him. He was already feeling tired again from the brief attempt on trying to get up. "You'll with me?" he didn't want to be apart from her quite yet. He closed his eyes but was still awake.
"I haven't left this room since they let me in." She pointed out, squeezing his hand. "And I'm nowhere near ready to go anywhere yet."
He gently squeezed her hand back as he laid there in the hospital bed. He was glad that she was fine with staying with him. It wasn't exactly the perfect place for them to be together again. He was trying to stay awake for her.
"It's ok. You can sleep." She told him in a soothing tone, placing her hand gently on his forehead. "Just recover. So we can start enjoying our lives together." It was taking everything in her to not jump around excitedly, now that everything was calming down and seemed to be alright. He was back. Zack had come back to her. "We've got a lot to catch you up on, so you'll need your energy."
"You sure?" Zack opened his eyes for a moment. He didn't want to leave there to sit at his bedside. It seemed lonely even if he was phyically there.
"I'm positive." She replied, kissing him again. It was hard for her to stop herself from just crawling onto him and cuddling him, but again! Rest!
Zack still wasn't sure about just falling asleep and leaving her to sit over him. He moved over to one side of the bed. Cringing in pain as he slides over to provide her plenty of space. "That doesn't look comfortable," he said about the chair and he knew from laying there that the bed was.
She raised an eyebrow, looking fairly amused by his attempts to be chivalrous even in situations like this. "....don't go getting any ideas, mister." She joked, carefully sliding in next to him.
He leaned his head against her, "Wouldn't dream of it." He couldn't believe how more comfortable it got with her laying next to him.