A/N: Okay, I had originally planned for the previous chapter to be the last one for this fic. But then I thought that there really needed to be something that bridged the end of CC with the beginning-ish part of the original game, so I wrote out this little epilogue. Oh, yes, the angst continues! But this is the FOR REAL ending, I promise. lol

Epilogue
Different Stars

So I will hum alone too far from you
All that I say now is nothing to you
We will lie under different stars
I am where I am and you're where you are
You're where you are

-Trespassers William

Nearly three months passed before she saw him again -- not counting the night, one week after their interlude, when he had come to her home to tell her that Zack was gone -- and he was a different man. She was rushing through the streets of Sector 7, trying to get back to Tifa's bar and retrieve the little girl -- Marlene -- before it was too late. He stepped out in front of her, and his expression was not exactly welcoming.

"Tseng!" she gasped out, honestly shocked to see him again after … well, everything that had happened in the not-too-distant past.

He regarded her with his cool steel-grey eyes. "You're in a hurry," he said. "But you should really think about getting out of here."

"Yeah, I know," Aeris told him. "I'm planning to leave, but there's a little girl that I need to get. I need to take her somewhere safe."

"You have made a lot of new friends," Tseng commented, his tone non-committal. "I'd hate for something bad to happen to them."

Aeris froze. He'd never used that tone with her before -- the persuasive, do-what-I-say-or-else "Turk" tone. "What do you want, Tseng? Just let me get Marlene to my mother, and then I'm yours. Please don't hurt them," she implored, hoping that her old, dear friend still lived somewhere inside this angry, bitter man.

"Fine. I will accompany you on your errand, and then you will come back with me to Shinra. In return for your cooperation, your new friends will not be harmed."

Aeris closed her eyes. All the years she spent avoiding this very moment -- all the years that this man had helped her to do just that -- and this is what it had come to. "Okay," she said quietly. Had what had happened between them hurt him so badly that he refused to acknowledge what they'd had, not so long ago?

I trusted you! she screamed inside her head.

She hurried through the streets of the sector, telling everyone that she saw on the streets

to get out. She was surprised and pleased to note that Tseng did the same thing. At least he hadn't become a total monster -- that was something, right?

"Why are you doing this, Tseng?" she asked him.

"I'm doing my job," was all he said.

"Your job sucks," she said flatly. They reached the bar then. "Just wait out here. I'll get Marlene, and then we can go."

Less than half an hour later, Aeris was in the back of the Turks' chopper, and they were flying over Sector 7's pillar. She saw Cloud, Tifa, and Barret as the helicopter approached the edge of the platform where the Turks had placed the bomb that would cause the pillar to crash down on the sector. It was mindless, and her stomach churned to think of the lives that this would cost. She wanted to scream and yell at Tseng, to kick and scratch at him, anything to make him call off this nonsense.

She could see the anger on Cloud's face when he caught sight of her in the helicopter. "Aeris!" he called out.

"Oh, it's nice that you could all see each other one last time. You should all thank me," Tseng sneered, and Aeris gaped at him, horrified. Who was this man?

"It's okay!" she yelled back to him, and then she turned her attention to Tifa. "Tifa! Tifa -- don't worry! She's safe!" She saw Tifa nod, and knew there was nothing left for her to do now. She could only hope her newfound companions would make it out of this situation alive -- otherwise all of this was for nothing.

It was then that Tseng did something she never, not in a million years, would have expected him to do. He slapped her. Hard. Hard enough that she fell back inside the helicopter, her hand going to her cheek instinctively.

She never looked away from Tseng's face though, and she didn't allow her expression to give anything away. She kept her face stony, her mouth in a firm line, and fought the tears that were threatening. No, she would not cry in front of him -- whoever he was now.

She leaned back over the edge of the chopper. "Hurry and get out!" she called to her friends.

She didn't hear what Tseng said next, and before long, the chopper was heading back toward the Shinra building. She was taken almost immediately to a holding cell in the building's science department -- a room that was all too familiar to her. Much of her childhood had been spent in this room, or another one just like it.

She lay back on the lumpy cot and closed her eyes, massaging her cheek gingerly. It really hurt. "Bastard," she cursed under her breath as she finally allowed the tears to fall.

She just didn't understand this. How had it gotten so bad, so quickly?

She had no idea how much time passed before she the door to her cell swished open. She sat up ramrod straight when Tseng entered the room. She hoped her face wasn't tearstained -- she didn't want him to know she'd cried for him.

He handed her an icepack, but before she could accept it, he knelt on the floor in front of her and held it to her cheek. His other hand took hold of one of her own. Aeris was sure her face must have been showing about three hundred different kinds of shock. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I wish I would have had more time to explain to you -- before. But the president is in an uproar, and the only way I knew for sure to keep you safe was to come after you myself. I'm sorry you didn't have a choice. And I'm sorry for hitting you."

"Oh, well, that just makes it all better!" Aeris quipped sarcastically, taking the icepack away from him and standing up from the cot. She crossed the room, putting as much distance between the two of him that she possibly could. Which wasn't much, considering the room's tiny dimensions.

Tseng stood up and turned to face her, though he didn't try to approach. Well, at least he wasn't a complete moron. "Aeris," he said, but she held up her hand.

"Please. What could you possibly have to say to me now? Is this like payback or something? I break your heart, so you smash my jaw?"

Tseng's expression was pained as he looked at her. "I can't let on to them that you are anything more than the Ancient to me. My job would be in jeopardy, as well as both of our lives," he told her seriously. "I don't want to do this, but I don't have a choice."

"You could leave, Tseng," Aeris said, forgetting that she was supposed to be mad at him. "Just get out of here. Take me with you, and we could go meet up with Cloud and the others. They're fighting Shinra! You'd be free of them, for good."

We might have a chance … But she didn't say that out loud. She knew him well enough to know that that would be his first thought, any way.

But Tseng shook his head sadly. "It's not that easy. As a Turk, I know too much. I would not be allowed to live. As long as I stay loyal to Shinra, in their eyes, I can make sure no harm befalls your friends, or you. I couldn't bear it if I were the reason for something terrible happening to you, Aeris."

Despite everything that had happened earlier, Aeris found that she believed him. Tseng did not lie to her -- he never had before, and she refused to believe he was going to start now. She took a few steps toward him. "Tseng."

"I'm sorry I hurt you," he told her.

She shrugged and reached for his hand. "Been hit harder," she said breezily. "And I think -- I think I probably hurt you way worse."

"That doesn't excuse my behavior. I am not above reproach here."

"Fine," Aeris said. "You're a rat bastard and I think I'm probably going to hate you forever now." She grinned at him. "Better now?"

He laughed a little. "Much. Thank you, Aeris."

"Oh, don't thank me," she said. "I've done nothing but bring trouble to you from the moment you met me and you know it."

"Wouldn't trade it for anything, though," he said, and she believed he truly meant that.

"I do not understand you, Tseng," she told him in a wonderstruck tone.

He looked at her, and she could see all the yearning and longing she knew that he felt for her. "I wish I could stay with you," he told her. "But I'm being sent on assignment to Gongaga soon. Gods-willing, by the time I get back, you won't be here any longer," he added pointedly.

Aeris nodded, understanding what he meant -- that her friends would come for her, and take her far away from here, in a way that he couldn't, himself. "So then … this is … goodbye?" she said, and she was amazed at how forlorn she sounded.

When Tseng walked out of this room, it truly would be the end of a very important epoch in her life. If she ever saw him again -- and at this point, that seemed highly unlikely -- everything would be different. This was the last time they would speak as friends.

Without thinking, Aeris threw her arms around him and held him. This time, he actually reciprocated the gesture and wrapped his arms around her slight form. "Godspeed, Aeris," he whispered in her ear then. "I'll think of you when it rains."

Aeris closed her eyes, and didn't even try to stop the tears that fell then. "Goodbye, Tseng." She pulled back from the hug, just enough to stand up on her tiptoes and brush her lips lightly over his. Then she stepped back from him reluctantly. "Thank you. For everything."

He turned away from her then and walked out the door. There was nothing else to say that hadn't already been said.

The End (for real)