raspberryturk | Edge, Friday Afternoon

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Edge, Friday Afternoon

Distress calls from Rookies, left, right, and center. That was what Reno came home to, after over a week without phone reception out in the wastes. And now it was the countdown, before one Rookie would get here, with Ifrit only knew what kind of trauma fresh in her head.

Pick up the phone. Dial numbers. He had well over an hour, between the time Ino's portal would arrive to pick her up, and the time it would actually make it into Edge, after all.

"The boss sends me on one mission in the middle of nowhere, Mako, an' the whole universe goes to Hell without me, zoto."

[NFB for distance, as usual. Open for anyone who needs a Reno call or who wants to give one, all calls will sit chronologically before a certain Ninja visitor, yo.]

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That was a long, kind of strained silence on the other end of the line, yes.

...

"Well. That ain't good."

Reno: Master of understatement.

"Not really," she agreed. "Now the other Zack is wondering what I meant by it, and I had to tapdance around. Told him I was just pulling shit out of nowhere to upset him."

"Figure the kid's stupid enough to buy that?"

... Well, Reno wouldn't put it past him, anyhow.

"He's not stupid," Elena said carefully. "Optimistic as all hell. Believes in things. I told him the company does shitty things from time to time, but that doesn't make the rest of it not true."

Reno considered that for a moment. He hadn't been there. He couldn't judge what went on in that conversation, what that spike-haired kid took out of it. So, whatever.

"You know... It's a damn shame we can't make damn sure that Zack ain't our Zack, somehow."

Just... you know. Reno musings.

"Rescue him?" Elena said, her voice softer. "If we knew for sure that it would all work out -- with Sephiroth --"

That was what was killing her. The uncertainty. Pulling Zack free of his fate might condemn the world ... or it might not. She was going to let him die for a 'maybe.'

Reno had a small kickline of Rookies panicking at him today. Maybe that was why he was trying to be all... Something.

Maybe being a gardener had just made him soft.

"If it ain't our Zack, maybe we could."

Sure, some other world might get shit for it. Or, on the other hand, maybe things would work out just as well. Better. Something.

Uncertainty sucked.

It really did. You never knew what you might be fucking up. Maybe just by coming to Fandom, that Zack was already different and wouldn't go through all of it. The hell of it was, you couldn't know.

He'd fed her strawberries and bounced at her and she was just going to let him die.

This job sucked some days.

"Going soft on me?" she teased, gently. "I thought that was my line."

"I ain't soft," Reno said, and it was too soft to be a growl, so so much for that. "Just thinkin', you know. Maybe shit would'a gone better if he'd been alive. Less dyin' all around."

Right. You keep telling yourself that, Reno.

"Feels like a second chance to get the mission done. Rescue Zack. An' if Tseng finds out, he ain't gonna let the kid go back to his own world, is he? I mean, clearly there's a good reason for Tseng to never find out. Could fuck everything up. Might not, though. Zack ain't there either way, right? Damn it."

Look, all of his rookies ever had liked Zack. This wasn't about Zack and it wasn't about Tseng. This was about Rosalind and Cissnei and Dinah and Elena and ... so on.

"That's not why we're not telling Tseng," Elena reminded him. "It's because Tseng shouldn't have to make this choice. He'd hate himself for it, no matter which way it went. I don't know if we have the right to save him, any more than we have the right to let him go back. We might create one of those time-loop paradox things. Or maybe nothing happens. Or maybe Cloud dies. There's no way to know."

"If it ain't our Midgar, then maybe we get to not give a shit. Why else would Fandom toss him at us like that?"

Sigh.

"Fuckin' hell. I am gettin' soft."

Elena exhaled, running a hand through her hair. It was messy, as always.

"I think it's just Zack," she said. "I know I'm not supposed to talk to him, but I went to apologize anyway. He's got a good, big heart, and it's not fair what happens."

She made a grouchy noise. "Not fair that that other-me's dead, either. Someone could've warned me, when I took the job. Lots of it will suck, get used to it."

"Can I tell you that now, retroactively? Welcome to ShinRa, shouldn'ta taken the job, it's made of fuckin' ass?"

Hey, it was worth a shot.

"You can tell that Zack to pass on the message to me, an' I'll be sure to let you know when I meet you. I think."

"It wouldn't have helped," she sighed. "Tseng warned me about not taking the job. I didn't listen to him, either."

Wasn't the slums, wasn't living under her father's roof. She didn't give a damn what anyone said, she wanted the job.

"But if there's something else you want me to pass along, let me know. Good chocobos to bet on? You could make a fortune."

Reno laughed and gave his head a shake.

"Hyperion, yo. I knew it then, an' I still know it now. Can't go wrong when you're bettin' on Joe, zoto."

"Always bet on black?" she laughed. "I heard there were a couple of gold ones now and then, but I doubt any of the jockeys looked that good."

Man in a black hat. Suave as hell.

"Reno? Did anyone ... warn you? When you were recruited."

"I didn't give 'em the chance."

No, he didn't have to think long and hard to come up with that reply.

"You know what Sector Five looked like, Elena. They mentioned a way out, an' I would'a gone with 'em if the job consisted of shovelin' chocobo shit for the rest of my life. Fuck, I got to choose, SOLDIER an' the Turks. Uniform looked better, here."

It was difficult to tell sometimes, with Reno, whether or not his ramble had crossed some vague line from earnest right on over to bullshit.

"I cannot picture you in SOLDIER," Elena giggled. "They have to follow orders. And wear the suits properly. I wouldn't be surprised if the lower ranks have curfew."

Elena had gone to the Academy. The military loved telling you what to do.

"I wonder if anyone's ever turned it down," she mused.

"Wouldn't surprise me none," Reno mused. "I figure there were enough people who knew enough about us back in the day that one or two people probably knew better, yoto."

Typically people who had been burned by ShinRa before. Who managed, by some miracle, to still be alive.

Or whatever.

"Do people get to turn it down?" Elena asked. "I mean ... if I had said no ... they just smile and wave and move on to the next target? No hard feelings?"

That seemed a little saccharine, for ShinRa. But Tseng had seemed sincere, when he had given her the choice. Maybe the offer had been under the table.

Reno lifted a shoulder.

"Might depend on the situation," he noted. "Remember, we're the guys who'd press-gang unwilling bastards into SOLDIER. I figure if the company decided that they really fuckin' wanted us, they'd get us. But, then again..."

He pursed his lips, looking at the ceiling.

"It's a shitload more important that the Turks are loyal to the company than damn near anyone else. We learn the dirty shit. If we don't wanna be here from the get-go, we ain't what ShinRa's lookin' for. Cut the loss, move along. Nobody knows nothin' about what we do until after we say yes, anyhow."

"Maybe it's not a straight black-or-white," Elena said thoughtfully, as she inspected her own ceiling. "Maybe they try to persuade you, talk you around into wanting to join. I can't imagine them investing the energy to identify a candidate and then let that go without a peep."

"Well, yeah, they're gonna talk you into wantin' to join," Reno replied. "I think at the same time, they ain't gonna ask unless they already figure you're fuckin' idiot enough to agree to do it, yo."

Which was a fair assumption, wasn't it?

"Better than life under that plate," Elena said simply.

Half the slums hated ShinRa, but no one turned down a chance to get out. Not even if it meant selling yourself to that same damned company.

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Edge, Friday Afternoon

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