She hadn't slept; she couldn't sleep. The shrieking metal, the wrenching pipes and snapping wires, sparks and gas and fire and smoking wreckage piled thirty feet thick over thousands of bodies, children and mothers, sisters and brothers, fathers... The life crushed out of all of them in an instant, and all because of her.

Biggs...Wedge...Jesse...

Barret...

...Cloud...

They were just five, she knew, just five of thousands, but their deaths hit her the hardest; every time she closed her eyes, she heard metal shriek and children scream, and she saw Cloud and Barret, fighting beside her, fighting Reno and losing precious time...and the plate fell and she knew they hadn't had time to get out--there was no way they'd have had time to get out. Even after Reno had bailed, grabbed her and vaulted over the railing and into that chopper--fuck, that chopper had hauled ass out from under the plate, and it'd still gotten caught in the shockwave of it. Cloud and Barret were...gone...

It was all gone. And if she'd just been more careful, been smarter, not let them find out where she'd been basing her operations--or if she'd...just...been better at this, better at leading AVALANCHE, better at... If she'd--she was so petty; this was all so petty. She wasn't in this for the planet, and she knew it. She'd just...her father... ShinRa had taken that from her and--and now her personal revenge had gotten thousands of people killed, snuffed out at the touch of a button.

She had gotten Cloud killed. The backs of her eyelids showed her those eerie glowing green eyes, almost turquoise, eyes that shouldn't have been Cloud's--his were blue... But those eyes watched her, betrayed and accusing--this was your idea, Tifa, they said. If you hadn't made me join up...

She thought about the little girls that played outside her bar. Marlene played with them sometimes, when she wasn’t dutifully helping Tifa with the business. Those little girls with their pigtails, the scrawny puppy they ran around with--they were dead. And the boys who chased those girls with sticks, the ones she'd pulled aside and yelled at a few times, the ones she caught buying the girls ice cream a few days later--they were dead, too. And the ice cream vendor. And his family. And their families. On and on and into the thousands, all gone, all dead and gone...and all because of her.

It never stops. Destruction to destruction, first Nibelheim, then the reactors, then all of Sector Seven--they couldn't win, not with stakes like that. They couldn't beat ShinRa. She couldn't beat ShinRa. They razed her town and she'd blown up some buildings to retaliate, and they...crushed...their own town...just to stop her. They were...unstoppable, unfeeling, the big bad ShinRa Corporation--she couldn't hurt them. There was nothing she could take away from them that would do any damage, and anything so great it would cripple them was...something she never could destroy. She could blow up all of Midgar, in theory. And that'd sure as shit hurt them. But...she wasn't willing to kill the rest of the city just to make a dent in their bottom line.

She was sitting in the corner of her holding cell, legs drawn up to her chest, forehead resting on her knees as she hugged her legs to her. Why was she still alive? What were they going to do with her? Why the fuck had Reno pulled her off that platform anyhow? Why not let her die with the rest of AVALANCHE, the rest of Sector Seven? She deserved it more than anyone else had. At least she'd actually done something wrong. Cloud...he'd just been following the advice of a friend. And those kids? What'd they ever done? What'd their parents ever done; what'd that gods forsaken puppy ever do wrong anyhow?

There were tears in her eyes, and she bashed her forehead repeatedly against her knees, wondering how much time had gone by, what day it was now--had it been minutes, hours, since they'd thrown her in here? She figured she was somewhere in ShinRa tower, but beyond that...just a cell. Aerith was gone, too. Maybe they'd killed her already. Tifa had no idea.

〆

Reno curled an arm around his aching ribs and swore colorfully, glaring daggers at Tseng as the dark-haired man continued to lecture him on the repercussions of his actions. His gaze swam to the harsh white walls of the med wing, and he scrunched up his nose at the sharp antiseptic smell in the air. He hated the med wing, and getting scolded by Tseng was only adding to the list of traumatic experiences the redhead had endured on the 65^th floor of ShinRa Tower.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Tseng snarled, slashing one thick hand through the air as if he were cutting down an opponent with a sword. "We were instructed to secure the Ancient. There was no sub-clause about bringing any of her girlfriends along for a goddamn slumber party."

Reno narrowed his bright eyes and scowled at his superior. "Oh stuff it," he griped, wincing sharply when the little blonde nurse who had been flitting about him prodded his ribs with a shockingly cold stethoscope. He swatted at her, glowering. "Leave off, wouldja?" he grumbled. "I'm fine--it ain't like I never broke any ribs before."

Tseng rolled his eyes. "Are you even listening to me?" he asked darkly, and Reno looked up, blinking at him.

"I'm sorry, Boss, were you saying something?"

Tseng's palm met his brow audibly. "Just...do something about her," he ordered, waving his free hand and shaking his head. "I don't care what, just...figure something out. We've no use for her."

Reno looked somewhat abashed. "You tellin' me to just off her?" he asked, his voice thin, and Tseng's dark amber eyes met Reno's intense turquoise ones with an almost tangible spark of electricity.

"I said I don't care," he repeated. "Do as you like with her, just...do something." He kneaded his brow and turned to head out into the hallway. "I have to go report to the president that we've acquired the Ancient. Let the nurse finish your diagnosis and then go deal with the prisoner."

The redhead scowled. "She ain't a prisoner, Tseng," he replied. "I didn't bring her here to keep her here."

Tseng whirled, his eyes sharp and irritated. "Then what, praytell, did you bring her here for, Reno?" he demanded. "Playtime?"

Reno snorted. "Well, I guess I figured it wouldn't hurt to have a little extra ante," he said, his lips curled devilishly. "If Cloud and his band of heroes survived the fall of the plate, I'm sure they'll come back for their precious Ancient." He chuckled. "Can't be a bad idea to have an extra chip on the table, can it?"

Tseng just shook his head. "Just...make sure she's kept out of the way," he said, and Reno's eyes reeled ceilingward.

"You got it, yo," he said with a mock official tone, one hand lifted in a salute. "Want I should hog-tie her?"

Tseng didn't reply, he just moved silently out into the hall, shaking his head all the while. He was convinced that his second-in-command was surely going to be the death of him one of these days. Reno waited for the little blonde nurse to turn away long enough to grab a rather frightening-looking piece of medical equipment (though Reno was inclined to think that all medical equipment was designed with mad science involved... Surely the med wing wasn't placed so near Hojo's laboratories by mere coincidence) and then quickly hopped down off the table.

"Ah--Mr. Reno, sir, I wasn't through!" she protested shrilly, and Reno lifted one finger to his own lips, shushing her softly.

"I won't tell," was all he said, and then before she had a chance to object further, he had hurried out into the hallway, sighing quietly as the heavy glass doors slid silently closed behind him. Wiping a hand across his brow, Reno chuckled faintly to himself. The less time he spent in the med wing, the better, as far as he was concerned. Who knew what they might subject him to in there? And while his ribs were still aching horribly from his little altercation atop the plate, he figured pain was nothing he couldn't deal with. If anything had been broken, it was fixed now--Tseng had been so generous as to use a Cure spell on him after they'd made it out of the blast radius of Sector Seven--but the swelling would take a day or two to go down, and the bruises...well... It was rare for Reno to go about his daily life without a handful of bruises.

He stretched his arms up over his head and then let them fall back down to his sides, grimacing as his ribs twinged, and then whipped his neck from side to side to snap a crick out of it. Rolling his shoulders, he shoved his hands into his pockets and moved for the stairwell. If Tseng was gonna throw a hissy fit about the Lockhart girl being here, Reno supposed he might as well see what sort of use he could put her to. He didn't know if Cloud and his cronies had survived the fall of the plate--maybe no one was coming for her anyway--but he somehow hadn't been able to leave her there to the same potential fate. Bad enough he had killed thousands of innocent people at the touch of a button (though he supposed it could be argued for just how innocent most of the slum residents were)...but when he'd run past her and spun her around as he made for the railing, her hands had clenched, her fingers tightening in his sleeves, and something behind Reno's heart had squelched suddenly.

Against his better judgment, he'd nabbed her around the middle and taken her with him, and only as he had plunged over the edge of the plate toward the helicopter waiting below, Tifa's fists pounding painfully against his head, had he wondered if that hadn't been the stupidest thing he'd done all week...

〆

Obviously, they had some brilliant plan--why else would Reno have abducted her like that? She was a terrorist; fuck, they'd dropped the plate to smash her bar--why save her? It made no sense. There had to be some motive behind it, something dark and sinister that she could only guess at. What was she to them? Leverage? Did they fear the other factions of AVALANCHE moving on Midgar in retaliation? She doubted the organization had that much centrality, though...some of the leaders were pretty charismatic. And one in particular might see fit to get up in arms if he thought she'd died. Maybe.

Maybe they wanted to make her the scapegoat. That'd be right up old man Shinra's alley, dropping the plate and killing thousands and pegging her for it--that must have been it, really. They'd been trying to kill her; the only reason they'd save her is so they could kill her in a more useful fashion. Shunt the blame for Sector Seven onto her and then end her life--it was a good plan, objectively. Nothing less from the great and powerful ShinRa Company.


He paused in front of the room where she was being held and hesitated. ...Well...shit. He hadn't really planned past here. Well, no, he hadn't even really planned up to this part. What was he supposed to do now? He had saved Tifa from the fate of Sector Seven, but what was to become of her now? He guessed she was sort of his responsibility now--great. Just what he needed. A pet terrorist.

With a heavy sigh, Reno pulled his keycard out of his pocket and slid it through the reader beside the door, punching in his seven-digit PIN code and waiting for the little green light to flicker on. Then he grasped the handle and twisted it, tugging the door open and stepping inside.

Tifa didn't move as she heard someone outside the door; the door opened and she saw shoes, black shoes with a ring of dirt around the soles. Swanky shoes, treated like shit and caked with a bit of dried mud, sloppy and unprofessional.

So it was Reno, then.

Closing her eyes, she slowly drew a long breath to calm herself, to get the shining tears out of her eyes. She wouldn't let him see her cry, that was for sure. Damn bastard had caused all this anyway--really, she shouldn't have been loathing herself for the destruction, but the man standing before her. Reno. The redheaded bastard who'd pressed that button, and even more than him, the fat cat who'd ordered the button pressed, old man Shinra himself.

He closed the door, which surprised her for some reason, and she grit her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for something, a bullet in her head or that EMR of his across the face. Nothing. If they were going to torture her, they'd probably do it somewhere else--what was he waiting for?!

Finally, her head snapped up; she couldn't stand not knowing anymore. But there he was, weapons still peacefully holstered, just watching her, apparently at a loss for words. Or maybe it'd just felt a lot longer than it'd really been--maybe he'd only been standing there a second or two, and her sleepless mind was running away with her. Or perhaps without her. "What?" she grated, her voice thick with lack of use and tighter than she'd wanted it to be. She sounded traumatized, and she didn't want that, but...well, she figured he wouldn't be surprised if she sounded a little uptight.

He just lifted his eyebrows and shook his head. "Nothin'," he replied simply with a shrug, his hands in his pockets again and his expression somewhat bored. He honestly had no idea what to do with this girl. He couldn't just let her go; what would she tell the rest of AVALANCHE? If ShinRa released their prisoners of war, as it were, then nobody would ever take them seriously again. So...she had to stay. But Reno honestly had to wonder how long her welcome would last.

...At least she'd been quiet so far.

He ambled over to the bed and sat down softly, his elbows braced on his knees and his hands dangling loosely between them. He frowned at the girl on the floor before him, his gaze tracing the lines of her face. She was very pretty (or at least he had to assume she was when she wasn't scowling at him), even with dirt on her face and a split lip. His eye twitched--he hadn't meant to hit her, although she'd had few reservations when it had come to punching him. He wasn't certain if he'd flailed to avoid a punch and backhanded her with his EMR, or if she'd somehow managed to end up in his line of fire before he'd had a chance to redirect it, but however she'd managed to get bloodied, he didn't like it.

Reno was a Turk...but he didn't hit girls. And he didn't appreciate Tifa Lockhart making a liar out of him.

He lifted a hand to his own lip, brushing his thumb against the left corner. "You're bleeding," he said mildly.

"Still alive then," she concluded, narrow eyes never leaving his face. What did he want? Why was he here? She risked probing the split in her lip gently, with the tip of her tongue, and found that the four words she'd uttered, probably combined with her fierce scowl, had indeed made it start bleeding again.

This bullshit had to stop; she was getting twitchy. "So how come?" Short, direct, pointed and to the point--why was she still alive?

He regarded her a moment. "How come you're bleeding, or how come you're still alive?" he quipped, his face breaking into a snide grin. "The former, as I'm sure you're aware, is because I somehow managed to crack you in the face with my EMR, I think..." His smile leaned suddenly toward slightly sheepish. "That was unintentional," he admitted, though he figured he was really only pissing her off anyway. He paused, then continued, "As for why you're still alive...well...the way we see it, you might be useful for something, so...there's really no point in killing you." His eyebrows lifted slightly. "Yet, anyway, I suppose."

He wasn't really trying to scare her, but Reno found honesty tended to unnerve most people, and Reno was hard-pressed to be much of anything but brutally honest.

"Unintentional," she echoed, not even reacting to his little 'why you're not dead yet' speech; it was about what she was expecting. A little better, actually. "Sure, you're a regular angel--it's not like you showed up to kick the shit out of us or anything." All the talking was making her lip ooze, and she lifted a hand to rather defiantly wipe away the rivulet rolling down her chin.

Reno snorted. "Hey, I never claimed to be one of the good guys, babe," he assured her. "All I said was I didn't mean to crack you across the face with my EMR." He clicked his tongue. "Most people would ah...take that as an apology instead of throwing it back in spite," he remarked, then shrugged. "But hey, I guess you never claimed to have any class, either."

"Tch," she scoffed, wiping the blood from her fingers onto the floor in an arcing smear. "Lived below the plate--none of us have any class. We're not even human, really. More like cockroaches." Her eyes were fierce and narrow as she shifted, sitting mermaid-style in her miniskirt, since she wasn't about to cross her legs in front of him. "Squash us like bugs; hell, why not?" All her grief and self-loathing were warping with his presence, twisting into something grand and self-righteous and vicious--she recognized it, and let it happen. She'd done it before, and she could do it again. "So how's it feel to hold the biggest can of Raid ever?"

He regarded her a moment, and a long, thin smile smeared over his lips. "I dunno," he replied; "ain't like I've never killed a thousand people before." He shrugged. "But roaches'll live forever if they're quiet, yanno?" His smile warped into something ugly and disgusted. "How's it feel to be the roach who sold out the rest of them?"

Her jaw clenched; her eyes flashed, and she said nothing for a moment. "What use could ShinRa possibly have for one last roach?" Gods, just get it over with already. She knew he could kill her easily if he wanted to; Cloud was really their only saving grace in that battle--she knew about Reno of the Turks. He took out the entire Junon faction of AVALANCHE, by himself; Cloud was a SOLDIER, 1st Class, and that was the only reason they'd won that fight.

If you could call it winning.

Tifa did, however, take the opportunity to stand up; she wanted it to seem fairly natural, after all. Attacking him recklessly wasn't exactly out of the question--if they were going to kill her anyway, she might as well go down fighting. "I've got nothing, wouldn't be useful even if I wanted to."

He just barked a laugh. "We ain't expecting you to be willingly useful, babe," he told her, shaking his head. "Roaches ain't got no functional purpose in the world, now do they?" He angled his chin, his bright eyes glittering rather cruelly. "But they're plenty good to use for scarin' folks, wouldn't you say?"

He leapt to his feet, so quickly she barely saw him move, though he grimaced from the sudden movement as his ribs were jarred. Ignoring the onset of pain, he snapped one knee up and curled his foot behind the opposite leg in a classic woman-scared-of-something pose, and pointed at the floor. "Eek!" he howled. "A roach! Oh kill it--kill it!"

With a raucous laugh, Reno put both feet back down on the floor and folded his arms, all the mirth and amusement gone from his expression as he stared coolly at Tifa. "You can blame all kindsa things on vermin," he said to her. "Filth. Disease. ...Death." He didn't smile, but his gaze narrowed. "I'm sure we'll find something you'll be good for."

In all honesty, Reno didn't really want to use her to scare anybody...or to take the fall for anything. She was obviously broken up about all this plenty already. He was starting to wish he'd never taken her off the plate in the first place...at least if she'd died there she wouldn't live in fear of dying horribly here. Reno had never considered himself a particularly nice guy, but he didn't really get off on scaring girls. And while Tifa didn't really look scared at the moment, he didn't figure there was anybody sane on the planet who wasn't scared of a horribly painful death. And everyone knew that ShinRa was the leading expert on that product.

...Uhm. Okay, his words had great import but...uh...Reno was fucking ridiculous. She'd never seen a better impression of a freaked-out fancy lady, even counting freaked-out fancy ladies themselves. Still, it didn't really lessen the weight of the conversation much. "All the things I'm seeing myself good for end up with me dying anyway." She was stalling. He was so fast... She'd seen him go from sitting to standing in the blink of an eye; she knew he'd taken out a whole army of AVALANCHE...she couldn't take him. She'd be dead in three seconds.

Tifa would never admit it, but...she was scared. Not of dying--she'd...stopped being scared of death long ago, or at least she told herself she had--no, she was scared of...Reno. And what he could do to her between point A and B.

He sat back down on the bed, frowning, and then lifted a hand to rub his chin before extending a hand vaguely toward her, his palm lifted as if he might have intended to physically hand her an answer. "Way I see it, we're all gonna die eventually anyway, am I right?" he posited, and then leaned back on his hands on the mattress. "Maybe if you're nice we'll make it quick and easy instead of long and painful." He grinned almost fetchingly. "And perhaps later rather than sooner." He looked thoughtful then. "Unless you'd prefer sooner."

"Maybe I would; later seems to involve a little bit more of you hanging around." She wasn't too concerned with an overly long and painful death--if they tried to drag her off toward some torture chamber she was sure boss Shinra had next to his office, she'd put up enough of a fight for them to down her. Really, she had bedsheets and could probably fashion some other sort of weapon from something lying around the room...

He puffed a laugh, his brow knitting together as he lifted one hand to splay over his heart. "Aw, now...come on, babe, don't be like that," he chided with feigned injury. "You'll hurt my feelings!"

"Yeah, not so sure you've got any."

He pursed his lips. "You're cold, Tifa Lockhart," he accused, shaking his head.

Folding her arms, she leaned against the wall and glowered past him, at the door. ...Huh. That door didn't have a lock or anything from the inside; Reno had either locked himself in there with her (which...she wouldn't put past him, all things considered. He...was the most cold-blooded nitwit she'd ever met) or that door was unlocked. What floor were they on? Probably pretty high up; it'd make escaping more difficult.

Reno was fast. He'd catch her if she bolted. Unless she could get the door closed and locked behind her. That'd buy her at least some time. Her nerves jangling, Tifa prepared herself; she tried to take a deep calming breath that didn't look like she was getting ready to pull something.

He sat up and leaned forward again, his hands draped between his knees like before. "Tell you what," he piped up then; "why don't you try being honest with me, since I'm being so very straightforward with you?" He lifted his chin. "What is it you think you're here for?" he asked. "I'll tell you, if you really want to know...but...indulge me with your hypothesis. I'm just dying to know."

Tifa was suddenly faced with an urgent and very dire decision--make a break for it and possibly escape from ShinRa Tower, or surrender her chances at freedom so she could try punching Reno in the face.

Yeah, well...it's not like she had anything to escape to, anyway.

His face showed little reaction to her sudden (and frankly unwarranted, in his opinion) lunge at him, save for a slight widening of his eyes and the sharp arch of his eyebrows. Oh~ she wanted to play rough, did she? Shifting quickly, Reno let himself fall backward as she threw the punch, her fist skating mere centimeters above his face as he let his back fall flat against the mattress. Her lips parted in an 'o' of surprise as her punch missed its target, and Reno grinned like a shot fox.

"Too slow, my dear," he breathed, snapping an arm up and wrapping long fingers around her wrist and then twisting his own body sharply, hissing in pain as his ribs screamed in protest to the movement. Gritting his teeth, Reno snapped back to his feet, swirling his fingers around Tifa's wrist as he moved and rather effortlessly flipping her over, pinning her shoulders to the bed and pressing her opposite arm to the mattress with his knee. Looming over her, he tugged gently on her captive wrist, then lowered her arm over and across her chest, his free hand flat against her elbow and forcing her arm straight.

He let out an audible sigh and shook his head at her. "Now, just what were you trying to pull, babe?" he asked, leaning forward and grinning down at her. "Who do you think you're dealing with? Surely you know better than that~"

Fear was not something Tifa Lockhart liked showing, not now, and not ever. So instead, she glowered, gritting her teeth and refusing to feel vulnerable, pinned to the bed in an arm lock by the great Reno himself, the grinning bastard. So she clenched her jaw and jerked her chin slightly, her eyes narrow but unflinching as she looked up at him. "You're one to talk about knowing better," she hissed through her teeth.

And he just laughed. "Knowing better than what?" he challenged. "Better than to put a slum out of its misery?" He shook his head and gave her a reproachful look. "Or better than to think AVALANCHE could do a damn thing to stop me...?"

She didn't answer--she couldn't. Her body was rigid, braced for pain; her heart was racing so fast it hummed in her ears, and still she dared him, "Do it."

Reno looked thoughtful. "Why should I?" he asked.

"If you're not going to," she grated, "why hang on?"

He leaned down closer to her face and gave her a lidded gaze, inhaling softly through his nose. "Because," he purred, "I like the smell of fear." And with that, he released her roughly, backpedaling off the bed and propping his hands on his hips.

Bastard sure as shit knew how to send a girl into a panic, didn't he? She'd honestly been scared he...anyway. Now he was off her, and she sat upright, bending her arm and holding it to her chest, glaring at him. "Is that so? How like a dog."

He chortled. "Spoken like a true bitch," he shot back, his bright eyes slit with irritation. He rolled his shoulders and dusted off his sleeves, then lifted his chin and regarded her calmly. "If you're actually curious," he continued after a moment, toying with the cuffs of his jacket sleeves, "I didn't bring you here to kill you." He glowered at her. "I brought you here so you might survive the fall of the plate." His gaze narrowed. "It'd be a shame if your little Ancient friend lost everybody, wouldn't it?" he posited then, a grim smile on his face as he turned to head for the door. "Don't taunt death, Tifa," he warned, casting a haunted look over his shoulder at her, the corner of his mouth curling up in the barest-bones hint of a smile; "you never know when it'll lose its patience."

And he pulled open the door to head back out into the hallway.

"--Aerith's okay?!" Even pride wasn't as important as friendship; if...Reno had something he was willing to share about her, then...well, that was something.

He paused in the doorway, his pinkie finger wiggling in his ear, and twisted to face Tifa, a frown on his face. "She's...alive," he said. "But you'd better hope your boyfriend comes for her soon. All the things Hojo could do to her, well..."--he shrugged--"your guess is as good as mine, babe."

She let the boyfriend remark slide; she was more concerned with the way Reno spoke of Cloud--like he was alive, out there somewhere, biding his time and planning to raid ShinRa Tower. "...He's alive?"

He shrugged again. "He is a SOLDIER 1^st Class, isn't he?" he asked, grinning darkly. He snorted then. "Beat those bastards down and they just keep getting up again." He regarded her wisely. "Rather like...cockroaches." He reached for the door handle again.

She didn't speak to him again. But as he made his way out into the hallway, he was rewarded with a dry and mirthless laugh.

〆

Stepping out into the hallway, Reno closed the door behind him, turning to enter his security code into the panel beside the door again to lock it tight. He leaned on the wall a moment, one hand braced beside the panel and the other arm curled around his torso. He grit his teeth and squeezed his eyes closed, twisting his fingers into the rumpled fabric of his shirt and grimacing fiercely. Dammit, that had hurt. Wrenching himself around like that to break Tifa's attack and disable her instead...yeah, it had saved him some face--literally--but man was he paying for it now.

He jumped when a thick hand gripped his shoulder, and whirled with a yelp, then crumpled into a wretched ball of pain crouched on the floor, grumbling sourly as Rude recoiled and folded his hands together where he stood looming over his partner. "What were you doing?" he asked quietly, and Reno snapped his head up, glowering fiercely at the bigger man.

"That woman is insane," he snarled, waving a hand over his shoulder. "You know she tried to punch me in the face?"

"Does that make the boss and I insane as well?" Rude countered, capping his shades and arching one eyebrow.

Reno just grunted noncommittally.

"Boss told me you brought Tifa here," he said, shaking his head and reaching a hand down to pull Reno to his feet; "I...didn't believe him."

Reno grabbed Rude's hand and allowed him to pull him to his feet, still grimacing. "Yeah, well...don't get your hopes up," he groused, cradling his aching torso with his free arm. "She's a crazy psycho bitch; I wouldn't try putting the moves on her."

Rude frowned. "That's not her," he said simply, and Reno quirked one eyebrow. He tugged his arm from Rude's grip and grunted as he moved past the bigger man, headed down the hallway.

"I'm tellin' you, man," he called over his shoulder, "stay outta there." He paused and turned to frown at Rude, something almost sad glinting behind his gaze. "You'll only be disappointed." And with another pointed wince, Reno wrapped both arms around his bruised ribs and staggered down the hallway toward his quarters. He had a feeling things were only going to go downhill from here...


Ω the die is cast Ω

---

Welcome to Crossing the Rubicon, a divergent timeline fic by turkish_delight and aenigmadarai. This fic was sort of the result of the marriage of two ideas... One was spawned from a particular line in a different Tifa/Reno fic we've been working on, Beyond Good and Evil, where Reno offhandedly mentions to Tifa that he rather wishes he'd taken her away when he'd had the chance atop the pillar of Sector 7, and the other was simply the draw of a divergent timeline. Weary of Alternate Universe fic, but already in the thick of one that maintained the canon timeline, we decided to try something a little less commonly seen in fic. This story illustrates one of many 'what ifs'.


This fic is written in the same canon universe as Beyond Good and Evil--that is, the canon universe of FFVII and its compilations--and so those of you who share in our OCD may want to check out some of the liberties we have taken with FFVII's Gaia that are detailed in our fic reference wiki.