She was thirsty. Not so much hungry; honestly, she wasn't sure she'd ever eat again, but damn could she go for a drink right now. Even just water--actually, getting boozed up probably wasn't the best idea anyway.

Tifa was back in the corner again, languishing in moderate bodily discomfort and trying not to move. Maybe she should have made a break for it. How far would she have gotten? Where were Hojo's labs anyway? It wasn't like she could run off and leave Aerith behind... Maybe Reno knew that. Maybe that was why he'd told her.

She still couldn't sleep. She'd even tried curling up on the bed; she just felt naked and exposed, flashes of being pinned there under Reno's knee, her arm about to splinter under his hands... But even in the corner, she couldn't manage--Reno was right, of course. She was the roach that sold them all out.

Maybe getting boozed up wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. All those people...gods, how was she supposed to live with that?


He was irritated. Not so much angry, but all in all downright peeved. Tseng had caught him nursing his ribs in the lounge, curled up fetal-style on the sofa, and had forced him to take three days off to heal. Imagine! Lord Reno of the Turks on a leave of absence? Because some psycho terrorist had sucker-punched him? Inconceivable! Unforgivable! Now he was going to get flak about it for the rest of time and he was going to have to deal with training his temporary replacement. Ugh...that Elena... She was cute and energetic, certainly, but she had about all the charm of an over-carbonated soda, the delicacy of a bag of bricks, and all the subtle elegance of a pissed-off wet coeurl.

She was definitely going to need some hardcore Turk Lessons. But he supposed it was better than trying to take on Cloud Strife again injured. Even if the guy was just fooling himself into thinking he was a SOLDIER 1^st Class, he did a pretty damn good imitation.

Before he could get to showing Elena the ropes, however, he supposed he was going to have to take care of his pet revolutionary. It wouldn't do to let her starve or anything. How much did girls need to eat? Reno had never ah...kept one. Loading up a plate with whatever strange concoction they had cooked up in the cafeteria today, Reno nabbed a slice of pie for himself and nibbled at it as he headed up the stairs toward the cells on the 67^th floor.

He hesitated just outside the door to her cell, then gave a long-suffering sigh and swiped his card, entering his access code and slipping inside, kicking the door closed behind him. He spied her sitting there in the corner and ambled over toward the little table beside the bed.

"It's good to see you're making yourself at home," he muttered, shaking his head.

She looked up this time as the door opened, and for a moment, her dry sleepless eyes were wide and wild, but in an instant, the terrorized grief had slicked away and she was frowning at him, eyes narrow and wary. He was carrying a tray, presumably to feed her. Aww, what a nice guy.

"Guess the higher-ups get all the pretty room service," she commented wryly, a thin smirk on her lips. The split there had dried, crusted with blood, and as it'd dried it had pulled slowly apart, splitting it more. It hurt like all hell, not that she let on, but with her smirk came a slow-welling bead of fresh blood that shimmered as it slowly broke over her chapped lips. It hurt too much to wipe away.

Reno shivered at her insinuation, an image of Scarlet fawning over the President creeping into his mind, and he shook his head quickly, setting the tray down with a clunk on the table. "You got a pretty weird sense of 'pretty'," he mused, making a rather comical face. "Eulll..."

Then he gestured at the tray.

"Brought you something," he said unnecessarily. "I...wouldn't trust the mystery meat," he warned, "but the potatoes ain't bad, and the pie's pretty good." He shrugged. "You'd think the most financially sound company in the world could afford better catering services..."

She watched him warily, running through theories in her head before deciding Reno really was just...bringing her food. Why poison her or drug her when they could just as easily shoot her in the head or strongarm her wherever they wanted her to go? "Heh, maybe my sense of pretty's screwed up," she commented, ignoring the food for the time being, "but yours has gotta be, too." She hoped he'd brought some water with him. Her skin was crawling and her spine ached; the destruction she'd witnessed the night before had all but wrung the will to live out of her, but...gods, what she wouldn't give for a drink of water.

He lifted his eyebrows at her. "Mine?" he asked. "What makes you say that?" He wondered if he'd just been insulted somehow... Well, she'd already insulted him the first time around, but...more often than not a veiled slight just skirted right off unnoticed. He sat down on the bed again, then frowned at the tray of food on the table. "Oh! Right..." He patted the pockets on his jacket--breast pocket, left outside pocket, right outside pocket--"Ah! There it is..." Reaching inside the jacket he pulled out a little pint-sized bottle of water and set it down beside the tray. "If anyone brings you coffee," he said firmly, "don't drink it." He made a face again. "The coffee in this place is worse than the meatloaf."

Damn. To crawl forward and grab that bottle now, or to suffer with pride until he left again? ...Well, he probably watched her on the security feed when he wasn't in the room; he'd know anyway. But she wouldn't crawl.

Slowly, Tifa rose to her feet, cursing inwardly at how she swayed--lack of sleep was really doing a number on her. "No coffee," she echoed, stepping towards the table and grabbing the dismayingly small bottle of water, "check." Leaning on the wall, Tifa cracked the seal on the bottle and opened it, bringing it to her lips to take an eager swig--and then yelping in sharp pain instead.

Reno jumped at her cry, wondering how in all hell she'd managed to hurt herself on a water bottle, and his hands had flown down to his sides, braced against the bed in preparation to leap to his feet if necessary.

She managed not to drop the bottle, but she did spill some and drop the bottle's cap; her now free hand was at her face, fingers cupped over the split lip, which hurt so badly her eyes were stinging, glittering with tears she couldn't let Reno see. He'd think she was weak, crying over something so slight. Just a weak little woman... Her fist clenched after she pulled it from her mouth, and she swallowed slowly, lifting the damn bottle and carefully pouring it between her cracked lips.

She should have waited.

He tilted his head. "...The hell did you do?" he asked, making a face at her. "You act like the water was boiling or something." His expression softened somewhat as he rose to his feet and approached her slowly. "Are...you okay?" he asked, looking apprehensive. Was this some clever ploy to catch him unawares? Because she was going to have to try harder than that to get him to drop his guard...

She didn't answer him, not until she'd finished off the water. Her lips were wet; she'd dumped a little on her chin, and now the blood was running freely through the water on her face. Setting down the bottle, she met his gaze with narrow eyes and slowly, slowly brushed a finger across her chin to get the moisture off. She couldn't even touch her lip it hurt so badly. How'd she managed to forget about the injury anyway? She'd been too thirsty; she hadn't been thinking about her lip... As her hand fell away from the bottle, Reno could see half-dried blood smeared across the top. "...Yeah," she told him, folding her arms and looking away, rubbing the back of one arm with the other and feeling more than a little stupid.

He gave a low whistle. "You...were very thirsty," he stated, looking surprised, and then he winced at the blood running down the side of her lip. "Damn, girl...did I give you that?" he asked, frowning and taking a step closer to her. The split didn't look terribly deep, but if she kept splitting it open again and again it was going to get infected. Clicking his tongue, Reno slipped his fingers into one of the outer pockets of his jacket and fished out a small pill-bottle. He twisted the cap off and tapped the side of it, a small indigo-colored sphere about the size of a gumball dropping into his palm.

Reno flicked his wrist and caught the Potion orb between his thumb and forefinger, then extended his hand toward her. "Here," he said; "this oughtta help. Is that all the injured you got?" he asked, grinning, and whistled again. "I'm impressed." Nevermind that he'd actually been actively avoiding hitting her...

Something in the back of his mind actually felt...guilty. Here he'd been spending the entirety of the day nursing his own injuries (which were, decidedly, her fault...), and he hadn't even considered how injured she might have been. Reno didn't entertain himself an overly benevolent Good Samaritan by any means, but...he was the one who had brought her here. He figured he should have at least had the common courtesy to Cure her or something.

Now that there was no more water to be had, Tifa just slowly sank down the wall again, holding up a hand like she was signaling for him to stop. "All the injured you can see, at least." Honestly, she wasn't really sure if she was injured; her whole body ached and she felt kind of numb--shock, her mentor called it. Sometimes people in bad accidents could have broken necks and still get up and run around, none the wiser... Tifa hurt all over, couldn't sleep, couldn't even dream of eating anything, even a Potion. For all she knew, her neck was broken too.

Well, Reno had flipped her and threatened to break her arm...so her neck probably wasn't broken. And all her limbs worked. But damn she ached. Reno hadn't ever kicked her, but Cloud had once, trying to get her out of that damn pyramid of Reno's...and Cloud was strong as all hell. Internal bleeding was a possibility...but still she sank to the floor and gestured for him to put his damn Potion away.

He held his hands up placatingly. "Hey, babe, I was just trying to help," he said stiffly; "no need to get shitty with me about it." He moved back over to the bed and sat down again, setting the Potion down on the dinner tray and plopping his chin down into one palm, his elbow on his knee in his rather usual posture. "You gonna just hole up over there in the corner the whole while you're here? Cuz uh..."--he bounced pointedly on the mattress--"for a cell bed, this mattress ain't too shabby, yo. I swear it ain't booby-trapped, either. No spikes or nothing..."

Something like anger welled up in Tifa, but she was too exhausted to really dwell on it, so it crashed on her like a wave and then abated. She was too tired, too...sad... Her bar was gone, the slums were destroyed... Cloud might have lived but Barret... Barret wouldn't have survived. Barret wasn't a SOLDIER 1st class. Barret was just a man from Corel with his best friend's little girl and a whole lot of passion. He was nothing more than human, and perhaps slightly less.

And so was she. "No, I...tried," she mumbled, hugging her knees and resting her temple blearily on them so she could watch him. "Can't. Happens every time I get people killed--to some extent, at least." And through the narrowed suspicion in her eyes Reno could see flickers of that harrowed grief from before. She didn't mention how badly he'd spooked her with the pinning her to the bed thing; she didn't want that used against her later, by someone a bit more malicious than Reno was.

"How do you do it?" It was half honest question, half indictment. Reno killed a lot of people, and it seemed like he was getting on fine. Might as well find out some secret tips from the professionals while she could, right?

He snorted. "I remind myself that 90% of the people living on this planet don't give a shit about anything but themselves," he said, his voice smooth and clear like fresh ice. "And I...remember that any of them would just as soon shoot me, 'thout even knowin' the first thing about me." He shrugged and leaned back on his hands again. "That's actually the big problem, now ain't it? Nobody knows a goddamn thing; you all always make ShinRa out to be the bad guy when you don't know a damn thing about what we do, yo." He chortled almost bitterly. "We're not gods (though the chief might disagree) and we're not monsters (though I know you disagree); in fact, really everyone's the same--nobody's special. Cut me and I'll bleed same as you, sweetheart." He flashed a rather fetching smile. "You're all so busy damning us that you never bothered to ask what we're up to in the first place."

It was amusing, he mused, that the planet was so convinced that ShinRa was horrible and wicked, when it was much more true that without ShinRa, Gaia would have fallen apart decades ago.

"It doesn't matter what you're up to," she found herself saying. "The ends don't justify the means." For either of them. Tifa was a monster and she knew it. She blew up buildings, took innocent lives, all for the cause--all for the end. And not even her ends justified the means. "And if your means involve razing a town or two and crushing the slums you created, well...bad is bad is bad, no matter what you think you're doing." Her voice was raw, kind of hollow and harsh, though part of it was that she was still thirsty.

He shrugged again. "Sticks and stones, babe," he replied. "Fact of the matter is that life on this wretched little rock would suck balls without ShinRa. You'd have no heat, no power, no light, and no lives. The cities would be overrun with disease, and you'd all prolly be starving to death." He looked thoughtful. "Unless you're good at hunting and gathering..." He chortled. "The field fiends don't seem to take too lightly to agriculture, but...well, I hear coeurl meat is re~al tender."

Reno laughed and licked his lips then.

"Half the people on this little rock wouldn't even be here today without ShinRa," he concluded then, regarding her coolly. "We gave them life." His eyes flashed menacingly. "If they see fit to waste it biting the hand what feeds 'em, I see no foul in taking it away again."

"Bastard," she breathed, unable to look at him then. She clenched her jaw so hard her split lip stung and the backs of her eyes prickled. How could he be so cold? "You don't--you can't just--how could you?" Her eyes lifted then and glowered at him, though they glittered, betraying her. "Mothers don't kill their children, Reno, even when they misbehave. Even if you gave them life, it's not yours to take away, you--fathers die for their children, not--not kill them when it's convenient." She looked away again, and just in time; a tear made its exodus down her cheek, and she'd been half a second away from him seeing her cry.

"Giving them life is a shit excuse for taking it away again. Better that you weren't involved; you'd rather betray the ones counting on you? You're supposed to protect them!" Gods, she needed to shut up. She wasn't even talking to Reno in particular anymore, but rather to the Turks, to SOLDIER, to all of ShinRa. "You'd kill your own son and lie to his brother about who was at fault?" They were, after all, going to peg her with it, weren't they? It was the smart thing to do... "If you made them then they're family, don't you get that?" Okay. Seriously. Stop ranting to the scary man and get some sleep, Tifa. "Or do you get it already," she postulated petulantly, "and family just doesn't matter to a guy like you?"

Reno was on his feet before he even had time to think about what he was doing. In an instant, he had closed the distance between himself and Tifa, his hand shooting out to snatch the front of her little white shirt, and he physically lifted her away from the floor, pulling her upward and looming over her.

"Now you look here, little girl," he snarled, his eyes glittering murderously. He swung his arm out toward the wall, as if to bring attention to all the people who lived beyond it, and then continued, his voice gravelly and dark. "If any of those ungrateful bastards out there in the world gave even a fraction of a damn about anything, they would know just how fucking much the ShinRa Company has done for their worthless lives, they'd think twice before blindly following the shit-stuffed propaganda of a fucking terrorist organization who was solely responsible for summoning a monster that would have destroyed the whole planet if left to its own devices." His fingers tightened in her shirt and his eye twitched furiously. "If I had a son, you can bet your fine little ass he'd know better than to waste his life believing everything he sees on television and hears out of the mouths of a bunch of crackpot tree-huggers!"

He dropped her shirt and she plunked back down onto the floor, and he straightened, shaking his head in something like disbelief. "Don't you ever--ever--presume to tell me jack shit about family, Tifa Lockhart, or how much it fucking matters, yo." His lip curled in disgust, and he actually had to fight the urge to spit. "You don't know anything."

She hit the floor and wavered, but stayed standing; the things about Fuhito and Zirconiade slid right off--that hadn't been her, hadn't even been AVALANCHE. Fuhito was an insane bastard, and the plan to usurp him just hadn't been fast enough. They weren't all like him. Well, not outwardly, anyway.

But he proceeded to inform her that she knew nothing about family, and if she hadn't still been spooked from the last time she'd tried it, Tifa would have punched him again. As it was, she got right up in his face, blood running down her chin as she split her lip wide open with the force of her scowl. "Don't you fucking tell me what I do and don't know," she snarled, grabbing for his own shirt in her anger before she could realize that was a very bad idea. "I know more about family than a scum-sucking shit like you could ever know! They protect each other, fight together, live for and through one another--they are what you are, and if every single one of them was murdered then you wouldn't care how much the great and glorious ShinRa had done for them before snuffing them out like--" Her voice cracked and she just pushed on, pretending she hadn't noticed. Unfortunately, the break had caused a mental stumble, and she was suddenly out of things to say. "I will presume, O Lord Reno of the Turks," she spat, "to tell you about family if I damn well want."

Reno let her finish, her voice reverberating off the walls of that little cell, angry echoes of rage and bitterness and young naïve hope that Reno had given up long ago. He gazed down at her slim fingers tangled in his shirt, then lifted his gaze to her eyes, staring her down coldly.

"Best be careful with that presumptuous nature of yours, babe," he warned darkly, reaching down to wrap long fingers around her wrist. "Throw it around in less tolerant company and you'll find yourself staring down the barrel of a gun; I guarantee it." He squeezed his fingers around her wrist until she squeaked in pain and her fingers released his shirt, and he tossed her hand aside, his bright eyes narrow and filled with something that teetered between anger and pity. "I protect and fight for the people who I love--the people who would cover my back in return, yo. I fight for their sake, to protect them from idiotic forces like yourself who would see fit to snuff them out like...what precisely were you going to say? I'm curious."

He lifted his chin then, his lips drawn tight and his jaw clenched. "I may have pushed the button that killed a thousand people yesterday," he admitted, and then scoffed sharply, "but at least they didn't die for a lie I fed them."

He turned on his heel and stalked toward the door, then paused as he reached for the door handle and scowled at her over his shoulder. "On that note...if you know so much about family," he posited at her quietly, "then why hasn't your beloved SOLDIER come to...ah...snuff us all out yet?" He shook his head. "You sure you're not just lying to yourself, too?"

And he twisted the door handle sharply.

He didn't see her eyes widen in shock at that last jibe, didn't see them quickly close as she turned her face away. He was right, though--maybe Cloud wasn't coming. Maybe he'd died, or...maybe he couldn't make it this far. Her fists clenched and she grit her teeth, and she just stood there shaking until he was gone. Bastard...you bastard...

"...Like candles," she told the door once it'd closed, sinking slowly to her knees, her fists on the floor. That's what they'd been, candles. Tall, white candles that were her only light in a dark, dark world.


Reno stepped out into the hallway and jumped, startled to see Rude standing across the way, his heavy arms folded sternly across his chest and his eyes hidden behind his ever-present sunglasses. The redhead hesitated outside the door, then twisted and locked it behind him, turning to frown at his partner. "...What?" he asked grumpily, and Rude quirked one eyebrow.

"You shouldn't antagonize her like that," he chided, and Reno bristled.

"She started it," he grumbled, folding his arms and leaning against the wall, scowling.

Rude frowned. "And you continued it," he indicted, and the redhead glared at him.

"What was I supposed to do," he challenged, "just take her crap?"

The taller man just shook his head. "You didn't have to be cruel," he chided, and Reno's eyes flashed.

"There's a difference between cruelty and honesty," he snapped. "She was being cruel. I? Was being truthful."

Rude lifted his chin. "Of course."

Reno glowered down at his shoes. "Did you even hear what she said, man?" he asked, pausing and then lifting his eyes back to his partner. "About the ends not justifying the means and how family don't mean nothin' to me..." He scoffed. "Nasty little witch, she is. She talks like she knows--like her wretched little band of radicals would understand anything about what family is about."

Rude capped his sunglasses and shook his head. "An enemy is just as capable of love as an ally is, Reno," he said quietly, and something cold and sharp laced through the redhead's gut.

"...Eh?" He meeped rather pitifully as Rude turned on his heel and headed back down the hallway. "R-Rude, waitasecond--" Reno stumbled forward--one step, two--then swallowed hard as a sick feeling of disgust surged up in his gut. He looked down at his hands, steady and fine-boned, and swallowed the bile welling in the back of his throat. "Love, huh...?"

Dammit...and he'd been doing so well this time around. It certainly wasn't the first time Reno had personally extinguished a large number of lives at once...but it was certainly the most he'd killed simultaneously, and probably the most underhanded and cowardly method to-date. He'd managed to keep his head pretty well this time--he'd even slept a few hours last night. He'd convinced himself those people in Sector Seven had been nothing but whores and druglords and other such scum who were probably better off dead anyhow... But...

Reno reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet, retrieving a worn old photo from the billfold and running his thumb over the cracked, yellow edges. The happy face of a young girl with copper hair and a smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks smiled broadly back at him from the faded depths of the old photo, smiling like she hadn't a care in the world. He shook his head, brushing his fingertips over the girl's face and then putting the picture back in his wallet.

He was right--Rude...was right. He was usually right, but it didn't usually hit Reno quite so sharply when the older man corrected his standpoint. Of course an enemy could understand love. Just because they disagreed with your view on things didn't make them monsters. Just because those folks down in Sector Seven were poor and misguided and screwed up...didn't mean they didn't love their families. Just because Tifa was his enemy didn't mean she didn't know how to love her family...or how to miss them now that they were gone. If that was the case, it would hold true for him as well. Reno wasn't so foolish as to think that there was anyone on this little planet who wasn't someone's enemy...and if being the bad guy in someone's eyes meant you were blind to love, then there was surely no love to be had.

If Tifa didn't understand solely because she was his enemy...then he didn't understand because he was hers. But he...he did. He did understand...which meant she did, too. They...they all did.

Reno stumbled forward and rested his brow against the wall, sinking to his knees on the cool linoleum floor.

"I am such an asshole..."


Ω the spirit makes human Ω

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