Leon saw him coming before anyone else. His jaw tensed, eyes narrowing slightly, and his hand tightened compulsively on the handle of his gunblade.

Come back just to leave again? he didn't say. Get a sick thrill out of breaking hearts?

He stayed silent, merely watching as the young man with one wing approached the gates of Hollow Bastion. As if compelled, Cloud looked up to the top of the bailey and raised a hand in greeting. Leon nodded curtly, keeping his expression neutral, not removing his hand from his weapon.

"Is Aerith here?" Cloud called up to him.

No. Go away. "Probably in the library," Leon called back.

Cloud nodded in acknowledgment, then went through the gates and into the town square. Leon followed him with his eyes, noting his path - and the fact that he ducked into Hollow Bastion's flower shop before continuing on to the castle.

Aerith twisted a curl around one finger absently before turning the page and sneezing loudly as the old book coughed out a cloud of dust. And it was, of course, in that moment - eyes watering, hand spattered with spit, sniffling - that Cloud appeared. Aerith wanted to disappear into the floor.

"Hey," he said quietly, a small smile quirking his lips.

Aerith flushed, tucking a curl behind her ear, wiping her hand on her dress as inconspicuously as she could. "Hey," she replied awkwardly, unable to keep an answering grin from her face. He really did have the worst timing ever.

Silently, he pulled his hand from behind his back, revealing a small bouquet of peach roses tied with a light pink ribbon. She looked between him and them for a moment, confused, and he pushed the flowers at her again.

"For me?" she asked, green eyes widening. He nodded, and she lit up, taking the flowers from him. "Oh, Cloud!" Shifting the bouquet to one arm, she jumped up and hugged him, kissing his cheek. "You shouldn't have! This must have cost you a fortune!"

Cloud shrugged, hugging her back, allowing himself to hold her close for a moment. Her slender body fit so well in his arms, and she was always so warm, with a faint scent of flowers and sunshine. Reluctantly, he stepped back, but let his hands rest lightly on her bare arms. "It was no big deal."

It hadn't been cheap, but it had been worth it to see the way her face lit up, for that glow that made her even more beautiful when she was happy.

She turned away to shut her book, then smiled at him. "Should put these in water," she said, shifting the flowers to her other arm, leaving the one closest to Cloud conspicuously available. Smiling to himself, Cloud offered her his arm, and Aerith beamed and thanked him as he led her from the library.

The question hung heavy between them as Aerith ran the stems beneath the water so she could cut them. Cloud sat at the kitchen table, a glass of water sitting untouched in front of him.

Finally, she cut the stems and arranged them in a cut crystal vase, trailing her fingers along the petals with a small smile before pouring herself a glass of iced tea and sitting across from Cloud.

"How long do you have?" she asked after a long silence.

Cloud became very interested in his water, not wanting to see the inevitable hurt and disappointment in her eyes.

"Tomorrow morning," he replied softly.

"Oh." Her fingers twisted together, but she managed a smile. "So you'll be around for dinner?"

Cloud looked up and saw the barely-veiled hurt behind the hope and nodded. "Of course I will."

They smiled at each other, and for a moment, they could pretend things were normal.

That night, at dinner, everyone was thrilled to see Cloud, with one exception. Though Leon wasn't outright hostile - in fact, when he was directly addressed, he was quite pleasant - he did his best to stay out of the conversation. Luckily for him, it wasn't too hard, since Sora and Yuffie were only too happy to fill Cloud in on their exploits since the last time he'd visited. Instead, he let his gaze travel between Aerith and Cloud, glancing down or away whenever one of them looked over to him.

"These flowers are beautiful, Aerith," Kairi said.

"Thank you!" Aerith replied, smiling at the younger girl. She looked over to Cloud with a fond expression on her face. "Cloud got them for me." Kairi turned to her and widened her eyes slightly, and Aerith merely smiled.

Leon shifted his gaze to Cloud, who was still being assaulted by Sora and Yuffie.

" - and then we - "

"No, that was when it - "

" - seventeen times! Then I - "

" - then we - "

Cloud caught Leon's eye and, before Leon could look away, silently begged the other man for help. Despite the fact that Cloud topped Leon's list of Least Favorite People, he couldn't just ignore that. Leaning over, he lightly hooked a finger in Yuffie's collar.

"Hey, Yuffie," he said. "Go help Aerith with the cake in the kitchen."

"Huh?" The young ninja turned from Cloud, surprised.

"Go help Aerith get dessert from the kitchen," Leon repeated, a little more slowly and a lot more sarcastically.

"It'll be good to have an extra pair of hands," Aerith added, first smiling at Yuffie as she got up, then beaming gratefully at Leon. Leon couldn't help but smile back, even though he knew he was only getting that smile because he'd helped Cloud.

Dessert was a multilayered chocolate affair with a little too much icing and inexpertly piped red and blue flowers on top. Aerith had Cid cut the cake, but told him to give Cloud the first piece, since he was "the visiting hero." It took a lot of effort for Leon to keep his eyes from rolling out of his head.

Once dessert was over, Yuffie, Sora, and Kairi left to watch TV, Cid went outside for a smoke, and Leon and Cloud were left sitting awkwardly at the table while Aerith began clearing the table. Her arms full of dishes, she smiled at both of them - either oblivious to or (more likely) doing her best to ignore the tension hanging almost palpably betweem them - and went into the kitchen to load and start the dishwasher.

Neither man wanted to be the one to break the increasingly oppressive silence, so they sat and fidgeted.

Suddenly, Leon stood. "I'm gonna go help her," he muttered, and stalked into the kitchen. Cloud was relieved to be alone for a minute. He enjoyed his trips to Hollow Bastion - seeing his friends and being around others was a nice change - but after so much time alone, the clamor of the castle could get jarring. Resting his elbows on the table, he massaged his temples and rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to alleviate the headache he could feel starting to throb behind his eyes.

In the kitchen behind him, he could hear the murmurs of Leon's voice, followed by the bright tinkling of Aerith's laughter. For a moment, he felt a brief flare of ... was that jealousy? It couldn't be, he decided. He wasn't jealous of Leon. That was ridiculous.

He sat up straighter as Aerith and Leon came back into the dining room, and Aerith perched lightly on the table by him, placing a warm hand to his head.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked, and Cloud couldn't help but smile. Somehow, her warmth and gentle touch were dissipating his headache, just as he'd kind of suspected they would.

"Headache," he responded with a small shrug.

"Yuffie and Sora can be a handful," Aerith said with a smile, letting her hand drop. "Want me to walk you back to your room?"

"Sure." Standing, Cloud offered her his arm, and Aerith took it, beaming at him.

"G'night, Leon," Aerith twinkled, reaching out to squeeze the brown-haired man's arm. "See you tomorrow!"

"'Night, Aerith," Leon replied, smiling at her. His eyes shifted to Cloud, and his face tightened slightly. "Cloud."

Cloud awkwardly bid Leon goodnight as well, and they exited the room quietly. Once they were clear, Leon stared after them for a moment, and a muscle in his jaw jumped. Then he shook his head, and headed out the other way.

"Well, here it is," Aerith said with a laugh that was trying too hard to be carefree. She gestured to Cloud's room grandly - it was actually the guest room, but Cloud was really their only frequent visitor. Sometimes Tifa stopped by, but she usually stayed with Aerith, and Cid would put up anyone really important at the inn. As a result, the guest bedroom eventually evolved into "Cloud's room," which he appreciated it: it meant when he was done with the whole Sephiroth mess, he had somewhere to call home.

"I mean, I guess you know where it is," Aerith was saying. "You stay here every time you visit, and it's not like the rooms change or anyth - "

That was when Cloud kissed her. It wasn't anything big or sloppy or dramatic, just a soft, chaste kiss on the lips, his hand gently cupping her cheek. When he pulled away, he licked his lips, and he could taste the sweet vanilla flavor of her lip gloss.

"Cloud," she said softly, and he could see the confusion tinged with sadness building in her eyes, and he immediately regretted the kiss. It had been wrong of him to give her false hope - and equally wrong for him to delude himself.

"Good night, Aerith," he said, and he couldn't resist touching her face one more time before withdrawing to his room.

Aerith touched her lips in the darkness of the castle hallway and stared at her fingertips stupidly for a moment, as though they would be able to answer the questions boiling over in her mind.

Cloud left very early the next morning, soon after sunrise. Aerith discovered this when she came into his room to wake him and found the room empty, the bed as crisply made as though it had never been slept in.

Had anyone been in the room, they might have seen Aerith doing something that looked very much like wiping tears from her eyes. But any moisture was gone, and her smile firmly in place when she turned back out to the hallway. After all, there was breakfast to make, books to be studied, and a thousand little things that needed to be done. The castle - and life - couldn't stop because of something as silly as a broken heart.