raspberryturk | Office Hours, Thursday

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Office Hours, Thursday

Reno... really didn't have anything better to do today but come and hang out in his office, no.

Okay, sure, so there was the mother of all freaking bouquets on his desk, courtesy of his smart-assed co-teacher. And the flowers were starting to go a little...

Uh. Soggy, Reno supposed, was a good word for it.

So he was here today, up to his elbows in rotting flowers, with his nose wrinkled as he picked out all the valuable little nick-nacks from inside of it.

Pearls? Seriously?

The one upside, anyhow, was that Reno could sell some of this crap off and send the money back to Edge or Junon or something. This monster could totally go a long way, back home. Not that he suspected for an instant that maybe something like that was what Genesis had in mind...

[Open door, open office! Since I remembered that Reno actually has one of these things, today!]

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Reno just gave his shoulder a shrug at that.

"Zack ain't really the problem," he noted, idly. "He stays good right up until the end, you don't gotta worry about that, yo. If anything, that treatment's gonna keep him from bein' screwed with more, down the road."

"How so?" Anakin asked, settling back into his chair.

"Well," Reno leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest, "there's a mess all on its own, zoto. Zack ends up goin' to this place, I ain't gonna name names or nothin' here, where one of them other Jenova-experiments goes completely bugfuck insane. Takes out the whole damn down, smirks at the survivors through the flames, that kinda crap. Between Zack and some no-name nothin' of an Infantry kid, they manage to take the guy down, but both of 'em are hurt pretty bad in the process."

And then Reno was giving his arms a stretch, casual as-you-please.

"ShinRa's health plan ain't exactly what they make it out to be when you sign up for SOLDIER, yo. Both of 'em were taken in for observation by the very wrong kinda doctor, yoto."

"I have a bad feeling about this," Anakin replied. "What happens then?"

"Few years of experimentation hell, bein' kept in a basement somewhere, while the doc who's got 'em tries to turn 'em both into copies of the psycho that got 'em into that situation to start with. Zack's considered a failed experiment. His SOLDIER cells ain't susceptible to this clone gig. His buddy ain't so lucky, and ends up genetically screwed ten ways to friggin' Sunday. That said, he's considered a failure, too."

Reno cast a glance at his desk. Damn, he needed to get a coffee maker or something for his office.

"Years later, Zack finally gets a chance. Busts 'em both out. But his buddy's pretty much just comatose by that point. Too much Mako has this funny way of throwin' people into comas. Most of 'em never wake up again. That don't stop Zack from haulin' his pal all over The Planet, on the run while ShinRa's got damn near their whole army chasin' after the escaped test subjects."

And the Turks, but Reno wasn't fessing up to more involvement in this mess than he really needed to.

Anakin's eyes were wide despite himself. "What happens next?"

Reno gave his shoulders a shrug.

"I wasn't there to see, but I saw enough of the reports passed around after the fact, yo. The army caught up with 'em. Zack must'a killed... shit... hundreds of men, easy, fightin' 'em off, but you get enough bullets in you, you gotta stop movin' eventually. The army didn't bother lookin' for Zack's pal. A case of Mako poisoning that bad... ain't like he'd get better from it, anyhow." And then Reno cracked a smile that wasn't pleasant in the least. "Only, he did. Spent the next... shit, year or so, thinkin' he lived Zack's life. We dunno how he got all them ideas in his head. Probably, Zack spent his time on the run talkin' to him 'bout this and that. Ain't like he ever got any company, otherwise."

Anakin let out a low whistle. "So does this whole thing have to play out exactly this way?"

Reno twitched a crooked little smile.

"There's the thing. The shit that went down in that facility is what messed up both of 'em, sure, but it's also what made Zack's buddy strong enough to take down the guy that they took out before. Because some guys just don't know when to stay down for the count, yo."

He sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

"I ain't drooling coma-boy's biggest fan. He an' I had it out more'n once after he woke up again. But if he wasn't tryin' to figure out who he was, if he didn't think he was former-SOLDIER, livin' Zack's life, odds are high that when Jenova's freakish clone-spawn came back to destroy the world, there wouldn't have been nobody there capable of stoppin' him from pullin' it off. Rocks fall, everyone dies, game over."

Anakin's eyes looked remorseful, but he nodded. "It's like a game of dominoes," he said. "You need them to fall in a certain way."

"Yeah," Reno sighed. "It's messy. Gaia is full of messy shit. Zack's one of them dominoes somewhere along the way. Things are already in motion, there ain't no way to keep it from gettin' bad. But it's all a measure of how bad it gets, from here."

Which was horribly pessimistic. Reno was well aware of that. But he hadn't survived the end of the world several times over by being a sunshine-spewing optimist, either.

Well, he was talking to a man who was ready to watch a planet explode in order to save the other version of himself, so Anakin wasn't exactly in a position to judge motive.

"So Zack's rescue of his friend is the key," he said quietly. "And I don't think that even if I wanted to, I could stop Zack's impulse to save someone he cares about."

"Probably not," Reno agreed with a small nod, looking back toward Anakin. "The kid's already taken down dragons and gods. There ain't a hell of a lot that's gonna keep him from savin' the only other person he's got in the world, several years down the road."

Really. He'd sacrificed himself for it. For someone who shouldn't have ever woken up again, anyhow.

"Gods plural?" Anakin said, not sounding jealous at all, really.

Well, only a little?

"Yeah, sure," Reno replied, shrugging. "But deities kinda work different on Gaia, I think, than most people around here figure 'em for. Ifrit's the Gaian god of fire. One of the dragons we seen him take down once? I'm pretty sure is actually stronger'n Ifrit."

Of course, Reno was completely unaware of Zack taking on Minerva, the Goddess of The Planet entire, and winning. That was both way, way down the road in Zack's lifetime, and something that ShinRa never got wind of.

Zack was such a sparkly little Stu. Oh yes.

Anakin looked a little relieved because he had Issues and needed to be a giant badass at all times.

"Is there anything else you think I need to know?" he asked.

Reno tilted his head a bit at that question, pursing his lips in thought.

"Guess that depends entirely on what you were hopin' to take back to tell the Puppy," he replied.

"An understanding that his life will not be taken from him for foolish reasons," Anakin said quietly.

Reno actually bit the inside of his cheek a little at that, taking a moment more to contemplate what might be the best to say, here.

"... Kid's gonna live through hell," he replied, honestly. "I don't think there's nothin' anyone can say that'll make that easier on him. But he saw the aftermath, yo. That's after four years of cleanup. I wouldn't like nothin' more than to find some way to keep it from havin' to happen. Not for his sake, really. He's datin' one of my Rookies."

And if Reno had any clue that she'd taken off and made a Turk of herself, he'd be pitching a fit.

"But when the options are one kid, and then some mass destruction later on, or the whole damn planet, him included anyhow..." Shrug. "It ain't foolish. I don't think it's foolish."

Anakin looked pain, but he nodded. "It's not easy, being on this side of the timeline and just waiting for the other other foot to drop, is it?"

Reno's smile took on a slightly bitter bent, then. "I let the kid down once already," he noted. "We Turks were on orders from our Director to find him before the army could, yo. I think my chopper was the closest, and I still didn't make it on time."

He gave his head a slow shake, trying to buck some of the melancholy while he was at it.

"Ever since he showed up, I've been thinkin' of ways to do it this time. But the risk outweighs the reward. It's friggin' stupid. This place is such a godsdamned tease."

Anakin nodded. "My daughter," he began quietly, shaking his head. "It's going to get really ugly for her soon."

There was a moment's pause, and then Reno let out a slow hiss of air between his teeth.

"She make it through okay?"

"If she didn't, I'd be setting the galaxy on fire to make her timeline change," Anakin admitted.

Reno actually huffed a little laugh, at that. It was a Reno thing. If there was an inappropriate moment to insert a chuckle, Reno would be there, doing just that.

"Family, huh?" Reno was no good at that 'family' thing. "Closest I got's one of my old Rookies, from years back. I think I can save her without damnin' the whole Planet. Ain't quite the same as a daughter, nah, but... Hey. Shit. I can kinda relate, yo."

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