raspberryturk | Rude's Apartment, Edge, Thursday Evening

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Rude's Apartment, Edge, Thursday Evening

Rude's couch was lumpy and hard to sleep on.

Rude's couch was lumpy and hard to sleep on, Rude's booze was running low, and the lighting in Rude's living room sucked.

All that, and Reno had more reading material than he could have ever hoped for. And a bean sprout in a plastic cup sitting in some wet paper towel. And a pair of cacti that he hadn't managed to kill yet. And an anxious ferret, attempting to help him either with the booze, or with the reading, whichever Mako happened to be able to reach more easily at the time.

As such things went, after a week and a half back in Edge with no outlet to the real world, it was time for Reno to take a break. He'd written a letter earlier in the week in reply to one that he'd gotten last week Thursday, which was all well and good... but dammit, he needed to hear a voice that didn't belong to a Turk, a member of the WRO, or some random person living on the street corners in Edge.

Spare Gil for the homeless, they'd beg, and he'd toss them a few, just because he had a few to spare. But not without a mumble and a frown.

Yeah. You an' everyone else, yo.

He needed to make some freaking phone calls, or he was going to go out of his mind, damn it.

[NFB for distance, open to anyone who thinks that Reno would have a reason to call them! Or, heck, open to anyone. He's bored, he'll probably just hit buttons until he hears familiar voices, at this point.]

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That made Reno freeze for a moment. He was making a conscious effort not to freak, don't mind him.

"You know, I actually have experience with that?"

Freaking Jenova. Freaking shapeshifting aliens. Augh.

"Yeah?" Dinah asked, trying to keep her voice upbeat. "I didn't know that. Were yours green? And speaking another language?"

"She was kinda more of a dead... blue," Reno noted, frowning as he thought on it. "And didn't do no speakin' at all. Did a lot of buggerin' things up, though. The company I used to work for got their hands on her, did some messed up experiments mixin' her DNA with people, or monsters, or people in order to turn 'em into monsters."

The company Reno used to work for did a lot of things that he wasn't terribly proud of.

"Not pleasant stuff. Is everyone doin' okay after that?"

"Wow, that's creepy, sheesh." Dinah frowned, reaching out to pet Camille. "Yeah, we got everyone back. They grabbed Grace Winchester and the Mayor's little girl. Their parents were pissed. Well, like you'd expect. I guess the aliens wanted to convert us, or something, and thought we'd give in if they had hostages." She sighed. "And Tahiri took out their queen."

"You know, I don't think I know Tahiri, but all power to her, yo." Reno sighed and thunked his head back against the floor. "Hooboy. Leave it to Fandom to try an' bugger people up, huh? How are you holdin' up, Rookie?"

"I'm... I... I've been better." Dinah looked down at Camille and blinked hard. "I had to kill two of them," she said, very quiet. "It kind of freaked me out. I talked to Tahiri, but still. It's strange."

"It's... kinda eat or be eaten, even on Fandom," Reno noted, carefully. "The people who live there usually make it through in one piece, but it'd suck to be the person who didn't. They were... doin' some pretty bad stuff, it sounds like. I'm glad to hear you're still in one piece. And the rest is normal, Rookie. It ain't made to be easy."

"Yeah. It would suck." Dinah nodded, listening, grateful Reno got it. "I wish I could take it back," she said in a small voice. "But. Doesn't work like that, does it?"

"Not unless you really, really don't want it to," Reno mused. "Around here, the guys you really, really wish would stay dead have a funny way of not."

He sighed, thunking the back of his head against the floor again.

"You can't take it back, no. But you can accept that you did what you had to do, when it had to be done. And you can atone for it."

"How?" Dinah asked, plaintive. "I don't even know those guys' names. And all their people left. I'm not sorry we saved people, but I don't know how to make it-- better. I guess."

Reno sighed. It wasn't an exasperated sigh or anything. It was just... a sigh. Thoughtful, maybe. Or tired.

"Hey, Dinah. How do you feel about storytime?"

"I'm good with it. If you've got time," she said carefully. "And you want to."

"I always got time for a Rookie," Reno promised, and then shut his eyes, thinking carefully on what to say, next. "You know, I've been places, and I've done things I ain't proud of," he began. "Killin' comes easy to me. That ain't because I was born good at it or anything. That's what I did, for that company. Kidnap, cheat, steal, threaten, bully, and kill."

He paused for a moment more. If she wanted to hang up now, he wouldn't exactly blame her, here.

This wasn't what she'd expected to hear. Dinah's first impulse was outrage; but then she paused, thinking. He was trying to rebuild Gaia; he'd helped with the defense of Fandom. "What made you stop?" she asked, her voice low.

The change in tone wasn't missed by Reno. But he was thankful that she was giving him a chance to push on regardless.

"A few things," he replied. "Somethin' happened, turned the company against us Turks because we refused a job that would'a had us killin' one of our own. The rest went off to take care of a monster that would'a destroyed the planet, against orders an' all that. I never saw 'em again."

It was very hard for him to say all of that evenly. The Turks were Reno's family.

"That didn't stop me. Just made me stop carin'. About everything. Took the world nearly fallin' down a second time for me to think things over. Took it nearly fallin' down again after that for me to quit."

Parts of this she got instinctively; if someone asked you to betray your own team, your best friends, forget it. Job over. And oh, that had to hurt, it sounded like Reno hated the words coming out of his mouth even as he said them, that most of them died saving the world. So, so much. "I'm sorry," she whispered."

Part of it made no sense to her. But it sounded really important to him. "I don't exactly get that part," Dinah admitted, voice quiet. "That it took that much to make you care. But." She frowned, thinking of people she'd met in New Gotham, mostly in the Narrows. "You didn't have that much to lose before that, did you?"

"Until Fandom, the only thing I ever had to lose was the Turks," Reno agreed, his voice sounding a little more flat than usual. "They were the family I never got, and we were doin' dirty shit, sure, but it was the only thing I could ever say I really accomplished."

Another sigh. This was was a little more heavy than the last.

"If you can't atone for those two, when they didn't give you no choice, does that mean I should stop tryin' to make it up to what's left of Midgar?"

"No, I--" Dinah frowned, again, trying to make the pieces of that fit together in her head. "Separate things. I mean. We can't fix it or undo it or make it not real." Oh, and that hurt to admit. For both of them. "But." Her voice strengthened, calmed a little. "I guess making things better before it gets to that point-- that's the best way to remember them, hunh?"

No graves to visit, or prayers to say that those two dead soldiers would understand. But maybe it was about doing her damnedest, her very best, to make sure that there didn't have to be a next time-- or that at least it would always be the very last resort. "Keeping the faith."

"Keeping the faith," Reno echoed, and then he fell quiet for a moment.

He had never really been the faithful sort. Maybe he should change that, someday.

"Yeah, Rookie. That's what it comes down to, in the end. You do what you can to keep it from gettin' that bad again. You make better whatever you can make better while it needs to be fixed. It don't undo nothin', no, but it means you're still tryin'. That's what matters most."

"Okay." Just having something to do, a goal to focus on connected to their deaths, helped. "I can do that," Dinah said, breathing out. Not quite relief. Maybe that acceptance he was talking about. "If you can do it, I can do it."

"We can do it," Reno replied, picking up his tone a little more. "You got the guts for it, Rookie. I got no doubt you'll make good."

"And you've already got a plan," Dinah said, smile in her voice. "Greening the planet, and all." She stroked Camille's fur back along her spine, something uncoiling in her too. "This helped."

"Good to hear," Reno decided. "You'll do fine, Dinah. You're a good kid. Even when circumstances suck."

"Thanks, Reno." She smiled, hoping he could tell far away on another planet. "You're a good guy. The Rookie salutes you." She grinned. "Get sleep! Eventually!"

"Sooner or later," Reno promised. "Take care of yourself, Rookie! It was good talkin' to you, yoto."

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Rude's Apartment, Edge, Thursday Evening

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