raspberryturk | Edge, Saturday Afternoon

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Edge, Saturday Afternoon

It was a good thing that Bat Eyes were so damn easy to take down, Reno mused, as he wiped some bloody monster sludge off of his baton and onto his pant leg. Things had been busy in Edge over the past few days. A few monsters had wandered into the outskirts of the town out of the ruins of what used to be the Midgar slums, and they were having their hungry ways with the locals.

Which suited Reno just fine. He got the pleasure of being hired on by the WRO in order to take care of the threat while they continued working on setting up their military, and on top of the pay that they were giving him to deal with the job, he got to keep whatever the monsters dropped when he took them down, too. Mostly ethers and bubblegum money, but he could live with that.

He finished rummaging through what was left of the corpse of the last one as it faded away to join the lifestream, or whatever it was that dead monsters did, and then he took a seat on the nearest bench, sprawling out, looking up at the bluish-gray haze of sky above him, pulling out his phone, and turning it on.

Sometimes, rebuilding wasn't really so bad after all.

[For anybody who wants to phone or be phoned! NFB for distance, of course! Zack-related spoilers throughout the threads. Read at your own risk, yo.]

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"But one of ours," Elena said. She was getting better at following what Reno didn't say. Amazingly, considering how much he talked, that was usually more important than what he did. "And it found its way to your island."

"SOLDIER," Reno clarified, nodding and pursing his lips just enough to inspect what was left of his smoke out of the corner of his eye. "Dead at least three years. Fandom's time-travel crap has an interestin' way of bringin' up names you never thought you'd hear in the context of, 'so, I was talkin' to this kid the other day.'"

"SOLDIER has a high mortality rate," she commented, trying to see where this was going. Tempted to fish a cigarette out of her own jacket pocket. "There was the Wutai war, and then that whole nightmare with Genesis, right before Sephiroth changed sides."

He had announced that rather dramatically by setting all of a small village on fire.

Some would call it 'flair.'

Others would call it 'being a psychopathic silver-haired mama's boy sonfoabitch half-alien freak rat-bastard in an ugly coat.'

Mostly just Reno, though.

"The SOLDIER I'm talkin' about was there to see it all, yo. Talk about experienced."

"Very few SOLDIERs could say they saw all of it," Elena said, thinking her way through. "Lots of rank-and-file members, but for first class, that's a narrow pool. Angeal was dead before Sephiroth turned."

It couldn't be a rank-and-file member, or Reno wouldn't have recognized the name. And he wouldn't be reacting like this if it was just any SOLDIER, either.

The Turks had failed one mission for Tseng, one that he hadn't quite gotten over. It was before her time, but it had hit some of them heavily. Cissnei, for one, and her sister Rosalind as well.

"Zack's in Fandom."

Reno didn't really answer to confirm that assessment right off the bat. He just turned to look at Elena, a slow, lazy grin cutting over his lips. One of those, 'this sucks, but I'm impressed and trying to show it,' looks of his.

"See, Rookie, this is why we keep you around."

"And here I thought I was eye candy," Elena said automatically. "Reno, you can't tell Tseng. You know that, don't you?"

"Funny, I was gonna tell you that you couldn't," Reno sighed, right back on track with the serious conversation. "Zack's there, we're here, it ain't got nothin' to do with us, anyhow, yo."

Though it was still clear that this bothered the hell out of Reno.

"It would kill him," she said, shaking her head quickly. Zack. Zack, at that island. "He would have to go, and say something, and possibly ruin the whole ... reality of ... temporal ... I don't understand time loops, but you're not supposed to fuck them up, and he would."

Or, worse, he would realize that he shouldn't, and leave Zack be. Let Zack traipse off unknowingly to his death. Add even more guilt to what he was carrying. It was unfair to do to him.

It would weigh heavily on her, not telling him, but she'd rather carry that sin than foist it onto him.

"Save Zack, doom Gaia. Or maybe not. I dunno, Elena. Maybe he could'a did the same thing Cloud did back then. Maybe he could'a done it better. Maybe there would have been two of 'em fightin' Sephiroth, and it would'a been no contest, and Meteorfall wouldn't have happened, either."

There was a long, pained pause, there.

"Maybe not. That's what fuckin' kills me, here. The kid's alive. He's still a 2nd. We could save him. But it's too damn risky. And if Tseng ever finds out...?"

"Or we intervene, and maybe Zack lives and Cloud dies," Elena considered. "It wasn't Zack that threw Sephiroth into the reactor, that first time. Maybe Cloud has something that no one else does. Or maybe they both live happily ever after, and one of them marries that Ancient, and Midgar is saved."

Elena wasn't sure Midgar had the right to be saved, but that sounded like treason, so it was better left unsaid. She sat heavily onto the bench, putting her head in her hands.

"We have no right," she said. "No right to interfere, no right to let him die, no right to save his life, no right to warn him. And if Tseng finds out, he'll hate us both."

"See, this is why most people know better'n to ask Reno what it is that's eatin' at him," he replied wryly. "Unless you're Rude. But Rude's a nibshit anyhow, yo."

He meant that lovingly, really.

"Fuckin' Fandom."

"I'm glad you told me," Elena said, surprised to realize it was true. "I don't know why, but I am."

She thought for a moment of Rosalind, the perfect, goody-goody sister she could never live up to. What would she have done?

Easy. Rosalind would have gone straight to Tseng. Tseng had a right to know and decide for himself. Tseng was the Director, and deserved all relevant information. Rosalind always followed the rules, no matter how hard the outcome.

Elena wondered, for the very first time, if she was a better Turk than her dead sister.

"I'd rather he hates us than himself," she said carefully. If Reno wanted to laugh at her for it, he could. It sounded ridiculous, out loud like that.

"He hates himself enough already," Reno agreed with a sigh, giving his baton a restless smack against his shoulder. "You should be glad you never got to see his face the day he was sendin' us out to find the guy, yo."

Tseng had been damn sure that the Turks could make it there, first.

The infantry's choppers had made it there, first. That much ate at Reno, still. He was the pilot, damn it. He didn't make it.

"It's practically his hobby," she nodded, pushing off from the bench to stand up again. "I remember ... how he was, when we heard about the Ancient. Was it that bad?"

Reno had been flying over a barren desert wasteland, looking for something that didn't want to be found. But then, all of the Turks had blamed themselves, for what happened to Zack.

"Almost worse," Reno signed. "He wasn't actively tryin' to save the Ancient. He didn't have his hopes up."

Aerith had been a shock. Aerith hadn't been a crashing failure and a race against the clock.

"There ain't many people I think Tseng has actually been able to consider a friend, yoto. Sure, he cared for that Ancient a lot, but he actually got to talk to Zack."

"He turned her in," she reminded him. "Guilt in new and fascinating ways. Betrayal, and so on."

It really was Tseng's hobby in life. She would hardly be surprised if he kept some sort of a whip in his desk, just for self-flagellation of the decidedly not-kinky variety.

"He doesn't have many friends, does he? He holds himself off from us, as the Director. And the Ancient, he ... cared for her, but you're right, that's not entirely the same."

'Cared for' was easier than talking about how Tseng had loved Aerith, for reasons that were entirely personal and that Reno should not tease her about.

"Do you think he talks to Rufus?"

Oh, the joys on the effects that unrequited love had on the psyche of the Director.

"Talks to Rufus? What, like, personal conversations an' junk?"

Some little piece of Reno's brain was kind of fraying at the thought.

"As a friend," she said. "He certainly doesn't talk to us. But Rufus is the Boss, so maybe ..."

He was staring at her, in horror, and her own mind went to very scary places.

"You don't think ......"

...

Oh. Oh, ow, Reno's brain. Reno's friggin' brain.

"I think if the two of them ever got together, Meteor and Holy would combine forces to put an end to it all, right then and there, yoto."

Edited 2009-05-25 21:02 (UTC)

"Maybe that's why Midgar fell," Elena said sourly. "Their forbidden passion made Sephiroth want to end it all."

He was always angsting after someone or other. The Ancient was dead, which made her perfectly unattainable and therefore safe, so it might still be her. Or maybe he had moved on to Rufus. No one had bothered to tell her. She asked, occasionally, and usually got strange looks for it. Bastards.

"No, I'm pretty certain it was because Sephiroth was fucked in the head," Reno replied. See, that made everything better again!

"I'm pretty sure that Tseng would sooner light his own face on fire than sleep with Rufus, though."

"You forget, Tseng would enjoy lighting his face on fire," she sighed. "It would hurt a lot, and then he'd be in pain for a long time, and he'd have fucked-up scars, and everyone would look at him like he was a freak. Don't suggest it to him, he might try it."

Hooboy. Somebody here was bitter.

"I'll keep that in mind," Reno replied, dryly. "You know, maybe he ain't such a sucker for punishment as you figure he is, Elena. He's just doin' his job."

No, Reno had never in his entire life figured that he'd be defending the Director to the Rookie.

"Is he?" she asked coolly. "I think he enjoys his misery. He could come drinking with us, you know. It wouldn't kill him. He could make friends. He could go to a bar and take a pretty girl home. It's a shitty job to have, but he makes it worse."

Edge, Saturday Afternoon

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