Angels In Flight

Author's Note: The song for this part is 'My Immortal' by Evanescence.

Part VI

My Immortal

I'm so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears

Gods, what have I done? What have I let her make me do? That girl... so pure... so kind... so very dead. And I was the one to take her life. Oh, how I tried to stop myself-- tried to slow my descent so that she had time to run. Tried to yell a warning or angle Masamune away, but failed to overcome her will.

I saw so much of myself in Cloud's eyes when he looked up at me, clutching Aerith's body. Those blue irises held the same devastated grief that mine had when I held you, Genesis. And as Aerith's blood spilled and I felt her life slip away-- Masamune skewered through her chest-- all I could think of was you. How it had felt as you went still in my arms.

I wish you could be here for me now. Even if it was just so you could end my life-- free me from my torment. From this endless purgatory. I had thought it was over when Cloud threw me into the Lifestream; four years ago in Nibelheim. I had thought-- as I was falling-- that the blonde infantryman had won some sort of victory. But he hadn't. He only served to make Jenova stronger and gave her a chance to tighten the noose.

And now he has paid for that mistake. Paid for it with Aerith's life. I wish I could apologize to him. I wish I could do for them what I did for you. But Jenova is content with her victory over the Cetra girl and I could never force her down long enough to resurrect Aerith. Even as I think it she howls at me in rage and I feel her tighten her control.

I miss you, Genesis. I miss how you made me feel. I miss the freedom you gave me. I miss the way your presence could drive her back. I want nothing more than to return to the days where we used to just sit in my apartment, cradled in one another's arms. At least I can feel you again when I reach out to you over that strange, wavering link. It means my spell is working. Your soul has already returned from the Lifestream to inhabit your sleeping body. I can't wait to see you again.

I know it will be a long time yet before you will wake. You're still weak, that much I can feel. Were you to leave that protective shell now you would only die again. I must be patient. And yet, I fear that I will not live to see your eyes open once more on the world. Jenova will not stop in her quest, and neither will Cloud. I will eventually be forced to fight him and I can only hope that he will emerge victorious. I regret that I will likely not be able to keep my promise. I won't be able to come back for you.

And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave

I sometimes wonder why I made that promise to you. I knew then that I would either be dead or under Jenova's control when you awoke. But the declaration had given me hope. I feel now that I'm about to let you down. After all you've been through, the last thing you need is to wake along, another vow broken.

I wish I could just let go, and let myself give up. At least then every moment wouldn't feel like torture... like a betrayal. But your presence-- the wavering link between our minds that we forged so long ago-- keeps me from giving myself over to her. You breed hope in me, and sometimes, I wish you didn't.

Hope just seems so bittersweet now. How can I hope for anything? After all the lives I've stolen. The residents of Nibelheim, President Shinra, Aerith. My deeds under Jenova's reign have shattered any chance I had at redemption. Were I to face the Goddess now I would be happy just to die.

I wish I could without hurting you. But I know that it would break you to lose me and I've hurt you enough. Perhaps too much.

Because your presence still lingers here
And it won't leave me alone.

Even though you don't do it consciously, I can feel you urging me to live. Every time I give up your spirit finds some way to revive my will to fight. I suppose it's your way of trying to be there for me. Your way of apologizing.

Even now, as I think of you, I long for nothing more than to be back in that cavern. I long to just sit there and await your return to the world. Alas, Jenova has other plans for me. Her Reunion approaches and I'm to be her vessel.

I can distantly feel my actual body rebuilding itself at the Northern Crater. All the remnants of me floating in the Lifestream are reforming there-- their Jenovian power to reunite manifesting all on its own. It seems I'm more like 'Mother' than I thought.

Yet, while all my physical wounds have been healed, I still feel each and every torturous wound your words gave me. I still feel the pain of my heart tearing itself apart in rage and grief. Loving you and yet hating what you had become. Not knowing whether to let you go or kill you. Not knowing which was more merciful.

I've forgiven you now. I've forgiven every action, every word, and every consequence. But I still feel the pain. I can't think about you without seeing you dead. I can't imagine your voice without hearing it spewing poisonous taunts.

These wounds won't seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase

But as much as the pain refuses to leave, all these memories are, in a way, a blessing. I still feel the hurt, yes, but I also feel the pleasure. I still feel the love that we shared. I still feel that warmth in my soul that is you. Time has dulled the edges of my worst wounds, but not the devotion I hold for you.

You were my only; you still are my only. I've never shared with anyone else what I've shared with you. I've never felt that passion with another, nor shared that pleasure that I always found with you. My heart still races just thinking of you-- pinned beneath me, crying out your ecstasy to the world. Even were you to die I would still be faithful to you. I could never be with any other without feeling as though I were betraying you.

I know full well what you'd say to that. You'd tell me to move on. You'd scoff if I said I could never love another the way I loved you. But you know what I'm like. Was it not Angeal who said: "The General's like a crane. He's big and silver and he mates for life."

I've given so much of myself to you that I'm no longer sure where I end and you begin. I know you had given much of yourself to me in return before the degradation drove you mad. It was only then that you tried to gather everything you were into yourself, afraid to trust anyone lest some other little piece of you be lost. Perhaps if I survive then we can start again. Because I've already forgiven you. It's myself I haven't forgiven.

How could I? I failed to save you, failed to protect you, failed to be there for you. I failed to control my own body, failed Zack, failed Angeal... I failed everyone. I was the world's hero, and the one time I was truly needed-- the one time it really mattered-- I failed.

Once upon a time I was there for you whenever you needed me. You had only to call and I was there.

When you cried I'd wipe away all of your tears
When you'd scream I'd fight away all of your fears

For a while after you left I lived in fear thinking that you had resented how I protected you. You'd always been so competitive and independent. I worried that I had smothered you and had driven you away. But you had never seemed to mind when I'd offered comfort, offered advice, or risen to your defense. It didn't even bother you when I took the occasional mission for you. You said yourself once that it made you feel pampered. You never asked me to back off.

But then as you tore the world apart you made it clear to me that you hated being treated like anything less than my equal. That all my pampering had somehow stolen your glory. I know now that those thoughts were simply the byproduct of an enraged and decaying mind, and that you didn't really mean it. But, like everything else, it stung.

I was always there for you, even when I was risking everything. I have stood before Summons whose powers were beyond me; I have fought hordes of monsters; I have dug through rubble with my bare hands to protect you. I was there for you when you couldn't save that little Wutaian girl-- Xin-- who'd helped us into the fort. I helped you limp home after you broke your leg in that chopper crash in the northern mountains. And what frustrates-- no, infuriates-- me is that I can't do that for you now. I can't control my actions and I can't be there to comfort you. I can't even apologize.

And I've held your hand through all of these years
But you still have all of me

That is why I hate her so much. She keeps me from you-- keeps me from protecting you at your most vulnerable. I dread to think of how they try to get to you. I can only hope that my magic was strong enough to resist the Tsviets' power. For they still answer to the Restrictors, and the Restrictors answer to Hojo. I would grieve to see you back in their clutches. Weiss, whose genetic material is so much like my own. Nero, his brother, darkness a very part of his being. Rosso, her soul broken and twisted. Azul, his sheer strength nearly unimaginable. They would... no... they already have broken you. I spared them and their masters once, but I wouldn't be so kind a second time. I do not easily forgive those who have wronged me. And for them to hurt you is to wrong me.

For you are a part of me, as I am a part of you. Everything I am belongs to you. My body, my mind, my heart, my soul. You have owned me right from the moment I first laid eyes on you. And even with Jenova restraining and controlling every movement, every action, I still belong only to you. You are the fire that found me, gripped my soul, and never let go. A purifying, cleansing flame that burns away all my pain and fear and shame. When you are near, she has no power over me. You are my shelter, my safe haven. The firmament in the maelstrom that is my mind. You are a constant and it breaks my heart to know that I can't be that for you.

You used to captivate me
By your resonating light

It seems so strange to think that you are dead. Well, technically. You were always so lively. Always the spirit of any situation. You made yourself the center of attention; a consummate host, and a spotlight-hogging guest. You were vibrant, you were exuberant, you were alive.

And now you're not.

I try to remember you as you were in our Halcyon days. Back when we were innocent to our origins and free of the darkness that came with that knowledge. Back when you used to smile at me and no malice lurked in your gaze. Back when there was no voice in my mind urging me to butcher you.

Back when I loved you, and you loved me, and that was all that mattered. When I was your Seph, and you were my Genny.

But now I'm bound by the life you left behind

I think there must have been something to that legend about the Paopu fruit. Ever since we shared it that day in the orchard I've been able to feel your presence even when you're not with me. I've felt your emotions, felt your pain, your pleasure, your fear, your happiness. We've been connected; bound. Whenever misfortune befalls one of us, the other suffers as well. When one finds a stroke of luck, so does the other.

When you died I felt it. Like some part of me had died with you. I felt empty; hollow. All that was left was Jenova and my heartbroken consciousness. But as I have endured, I've felt your strength growing. Day by day your presence gets stronger. I can't wait to hold you in my arms again.

That is why I have to fight her. I have to resist and endure and keep up the pressure. Perhaps I can eventually learn to push her out. I hope I can do so before she uses my body to kill again-- or worse.

I want you to know-- to actually believe-- that I forgive you. I can't bring myself to be angry. I love you too much for that. I forgave you long ago. I even promised myself that were I forced to kill you, I would take my own life to be with you. But it never came to that, all because of one sleepy little town and its dark secret.

Your face it haunts my once pleasant dreams
Your voice it chased away all the sanity in me

I still have nightmares where all I see is your face, drained with degradation and filled with sickening madness. Other times I see you world-weary and slipping away in my arms. I would wake from them in tears if only I had such control of my body. But she does not allow my body to sleep with me, and she certainly would not allow it to shed tears.

The worst nightmares though, are those in which I hear what you said to me in the Nibelheim reactor. In which I relive the moment when I turned my back on you. The moments when you tore my heart to pieces with only words. You drove me away from the sanity I had been barely clinging to. You drove me into her clutches and I have yet to escape. I think that you are the only one who can pull me from the dark depths I'm drowning in. I hope you will get the chance to.

As I walk away now, in the depths of this ancient forest, I wish I was holding your hand. To feel your fingers entwined with mine would be the sweetest and simplest of pleasures, and I could die with the intensity of my longing for that. Sometimes phantom sensations will race through me, and I'll feel you, but it is fleeting and never enough.

I've tried so hard to tell myself that you're gone

I don't know what's easier. To imagine that you're dead, to give it that finality, or to remember that you're waiting for me. Sometimes it tears me apart. I'll tell myself that you are gone, returned to the planet, just to keep myself from worrying about whether or not the Tsviets have got to you. Worrying if they're hurting you-- slowly killing you again. I take comfort in the fact that I sense only peace from you.

And though you're still with me
I've been alone all along

But you can not yet be here for me, and I find myself lonelier than ever. She is the only company I have. And I am alone in my fight. I will have to defeat her without your help.

I only fear that I won't be able to, and that one day the task of killing me will fall to your hands. I trust that you would do what was necessary, but I know that you would never smile again. Just as I wouldn't had I been forced to execute you all those years ago. You would fade away and I don't want that to happen to you.

If only to prevent hurting you, I will fight. I will fight and I will win.

I promise.