Author's notes

I started this fic thinking I was going to write a one-shot, another 2000 word piece or so that highlighted some of the moments Gast and Ifalna had together. But somehow this grew into an epic, and then the idea to build it around the framework of Cloud finding Gast's research journal came to me... and that was that.

Anyhow, I wanted this to be a very... emotionally charged piece. I always view Ifalna and Gast's relationship as a sort of desperate one, in which they both probably knew they were doomed in the end. But more than that I wanted to show how I saw Aerith's parents... the wise, but lonely ancient and the extremely intelligent and yet still somewhat naïve professor. I saw them as separate pieces of Aerith's personality, their daughter taking the best from them both. And most of all I wanted to compare it to the short time Cloud and Aerith had, and show what might have happened... if time had been allowed for it. Hence why I wrap the story with another one dealing with Cloud. The whole thing is pretty bizarre and far outside my normal purview as a writer, so please review, let me know what you think.

Also, chapter 3 contains a lot of dialogue from the game, and if you haven't seen these hidden scenes, you'll want to go to the Icicle lodge. Somewhere (I forget how) you trigger an event where "videos" play back. There's a few interview snippets, with Gast asking Ifalna, who seems very trusting of him, about the Cetra. The last few snippets deal with Aerith's birth and Hojo coming by 20 days later... and, well, you've read the story so you know how that plays out.