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[Note: some of the Shin-Ra mission storyline has come from the game Before Crisis, so there are spoilers. However, it is an adaptation, and not all of the Shin-Ra political storyline in this story has come from the game, but is original content, so you won't have seen it if you've played the game. However, this chapter spoilers every FFVII game out there, even Dirge of Cerberus, a bit, so be warned. Also, there is no seeqpod of this song atm, so sorry bout the huge you-tube. ] (edited 31 Jan to find new you-tube cos other one was removed by user)

Standing alone with no direction
How did I fall so far behind?
Why am I searching for perfection,
Knowing it's something I won't find?

Later that year, not long before the Nibelheim incident, I finally decided to do something about my flashbacks and nightmares.

Well, no, closer to I was kinda forced to.

Mid-year, there'd been an attempted kidnapping, from the Shin-Ra building, no less, on one of the main research professors, Hojo. Fuhito, somehow, managed to breach all security, grab Professor Hojo and steal a helicopter off the roof. Tseng and Sephiroth managed to get the professor back, but not before Sherin and Jask were badly injured. Kytt and I weren't at HQ at the time, but from what I was told, it was pretty touch-and-go as to whether they would survive. There'd been an explosion. Those never went well.

Gods help me, the only thing I thought when I first heard about it was that I was glad it wasn't Reno.

Pathetic.

What I, what we, probably should've done was wonder a bit more strongly how the hells Fuhito managed to get in the building in the first place. Gods know, if we'd known better, woulda made my next few years a different matter.

Like, maybe I'd've been around to live them.

So much fucking time wasted, and for what? Y'know, it occurs to me now that hindsight would be a lot more helpful if we thought about it earlier.

Oh, c'mon. That was almost amusing.

Anyhow, I think I'd managed to keep most of this from Katelyn, but my nightmares were not getting any better. She did suggest that I see someone about it, but as I've mentioned, I pretty much told her to mind her own fucking business.

I should probably apologise for that. Think I will, once I'm done here.

By the time I'd changed partners, though, the dreams had changed, though, and for the worse. The more "normal" ones I had of Reno left me, and the darkness grew, but not in the way you'd think. The dungeon was no longer the recurring nightmare. It was, instead, replaced with images of me killing Reno, over and over. Beating him to death, usually. And I'd wake up, retching, shaking with the horror of it, cos it felt kinda real. Like I had.

But I hadn't. I never had. I never did. Never would, no matter how I felt, how much he pissed me. I'd never wanted to.

The idea of Reno dead was enough in and of itself to fuck me up so I could never get back to sleep. The fact of me doing it? Haunted me, even during the day.

It still felt real, like I'd actually done it. Belted him. It got so I had to keep reminding myself it wasn't true, cos I knew it couldn't be. Of all the acts of violence I'd committed, that was not one of them. I'd never hurt Reno that way. Not even back at school. Even that day he'd caught me with Fraser he'd managed to pummel on my face not because he was better at it but because I didn't hit back, all my declarations to the contrary aside. Not at him. It wasn't in me.

Hells, even if Stevens hadn't walked in on us that day I came onto Reno, there was no way I'd've gone further than I did if Reno'd kept objecting. Even as an arsehole sixteen year-old, I did know when to stop.

I was not my father. I was not.

Problem was, I never really convinced myself, to the point I'd search my memory to try and figure out when I'd done it, and I couldn't, because... I hadn't.

Hadn't I?

It was during this period of time that I really grew to appreciate Kytt. Before these dreams hit me, she never asked, not once, what was going on, but when the worst of the other ones hit, I'd wake up and she'd be sitting with me. Just there, no recriminations, no dramas. I went down with one of those headaches, she covered for me.

Those she did ask about though, after the first one, which took me down after a mission in Costa Del Sol. "You taking care of these?" she said, after the worst of it had passed.

"Yeah."

She gave me a very direct look. "No, you're not."

"Doesn't happen often enough to worry about."

"You're a grown man, so I'm not going to baby you. Is this going to stop you from doing the job?"

"Hasn't so far."

She nodded. "If you don't do something, and this ever happens again, I will contact medical myself, right, Raith. Up to you which doc, so better tell me who, now, or I'll be doing the choosing."

She meant it. "Mir," I said. "No one else. But it won't happen again, don't worry."

"Hm. If you say so." She sighed and sat down on my bed. "Come here."

I hesitated and she gave me a withering look. "I'm not coming on to you, dipstick."

"I know that. I'm just worried you'll rip my ears off."

"Only if you don't stop being stupid. Come here and lie down."

I obeyed, and she sat my head in her lap and put me to sleep with the best pressure-point head massage I'd ever had. Five Gods, but that woman's fingers are strong.

These nightmares, though, were different. First one was not long after that mission. Veld was fired, then he was back, Reno could've died... must've set something off. I don't know.

I did know one thing. It just about (I hate saying this) broke me there for a bit, the thought I'd kill Reno. Or I'd hit him. Or I'd... be my father.

Kytt, if she was around at the time, handled these differently. She woke me, and she'd hold my wrists or rub my back or grab a bucket or bowl or something and hold it for me until I'd stopped trying to empty my stomach.

This didn't happen every night or whatever. Just occasionally, but they stayed with me, and she knew it. She could tell.

There was one that was really bad, when Kytt and I were on a mission trying to track down a minor Avalanche base in Gongaga. The strangest thing was it wasn't bad because I killed him. It was worse. I didn't kill him at all. It was in my apartment back at HQ, and all he'd done was come and talk to me. And I kissed him. And then I hit him, until he'd landed on the floor. And then he left. And it was worse because, more than any of the other dreams I'd had, it felt like a memory.

Of course, now I know that was because it was.

At the time, I just... well, let's just say, again, I'm glad of Kytt. She's aware of how much breaking down that night cost me and she's never spoken of it again. Good of her to let me blubber in her lap. Fuck. I was not good.

I'm pretty sure it wasn't all Reno I was dealing with. There was a lot of hangover from that year in the dark as well. I guess that's kinda obvious.

"What's going on?" she said quietly when I'd calmed down a bit.

I shook my head.

"Yeah, okay, you don't have to tell me what it was about. It doesn't matter." She paused. "I've seen this before, Raith, in the army. Soldiers who have a particularly traumatic time of it and never really recover."

I bristled at that, a bit. "I ain't a weak coward."

"Oh, I know that. Neither is anyone. Fact is, it's the strongest who get it the worst, cos they think they can deal on their own." She ran a hand over my head. "Stronger to have the nerve to share, don'tja think?"

"Probably." I sighed. "Appreciate what you're trying to do, but there's just no point."

"Of course there's a point," she said. "It's clearly messing with you. Don't you want that to stop?"

Yeah, I did. I really did. But I had to work Reno out of my system to do it, I thought. After all, the dreams were about him. So I'd do that. And I didn't need to bother Kytt with it.

I think I kinda missed the point, huh.

"Something else I learned in the army," she said.

"What's that?" I said.

"A distracted soldier is a dead one. I worry about you."

"I'll be fine," I said. "But, y'know, thanks."

She sighed, and nudged me until I'd rolled onto my stomach, then climbed in next to me. "Keep hands to self," she said, then dropped a hand on my back and rubbed it until I'd fallen to sleep.

So, Jask and Sherin. Yeah. We'd been called back to Midgar, when they were injured, to help clear Kimara bugs out of the sewers, mostly because with a team down, Dallas and Braden off doing something else, and Tseng busy with a project that had him spending a lot of time tailing SOLDIERs and some girl under the plate, there was no one else, really, I guess. Maxx and Katelyn, and Kytt and me were put on rotation.

Kimara bugs, beasts, whatever, are related to the mantis, but, y'know, much bigger. And not quite as easy to squash. I mean, we're not talking just "big as my hand" bigger. We're talking about the kind of bug that if it turns up at your family picnic, it ain't looking for the scraps. It's going to eat your kid.

They die messy. Green gunk. Even Kytt, who is the least girly woman I know, has "ew" moments with those things. Yeah, me too.

Shin-Ra infantry didn't deal with them well, apparently. From what I'm told, something Katelyn said if I recall correctly, there was no way the troops should've had any problems with them, but Heidegger really had fucked up their training, and they really weren't that effective en masse. Not the fault of the troops, really, but it doesn't take long for corruption to seep through from the top down, and the top was fucking corrupt.

Didn't see much of Reno and Rude at the time. Probably just as well, given all the effort I was putting into "letting Reno go."

By August or so, Sherin and Jask were good to go again, and since we were all in one place (Dal and Braden included; they'd arrived, separately, that day, and Dal was due to go out again afterwards), that meant the bar, of course.

I really don't remember much about that night. I think I might have been the first of us to come down sick. I remember leaving Kytt talking to Dallas to go to the bathroom because I was feeling too warm, and kinda woozy. I would've thought it was how much I'd been drinking, but I hadn't actually gotten to that, yet. Reno was with Kytt and Dal when I came out again and for some reason that just made me angry. Like, "I wanted to attack him" angry. So I retreated outside of the bar to their tables out the back and sat there for a while, trying to calm down because, as I've mentioned, there was no way I was letting that impulse take hold. I couldn't calm down, though.

Then the stomach cramps started.

It was Sherin who helped me home. She'd seen me go out the back, she told me later, and had bought me a drink, but then realised I was not "a well puppy." She got me back to my apartment and stayed with me, until I actually passed out and she therefore felt free to ignore my previous instruction not to call anyone, and she called Kytt.

Kytt, of course, called Doc Mir.

I was pretty sick for a few days, and the only way I can describe it is that it felt very similar to how I felt coming off whatever that crap Corneo gave me was, before I'd met Sherin.

Similar. Different, but same. In this case, though, when I did get better, it wasn't gradual. It was more like, a light switch. I went to sleep, felt like shooting myself. Woke up, was fine, apart from some residual tiredness.

It wasn't until I went to see the doc that I discovered that Reno and Katelyn had gone down with it, too.

First of all, of course, she chided me for not calling her earlier, given the headaches and what-have-you I'd already had.

But then, she commented, "no one else had any pre-symptoms."

"What do you mean?"

"Reno and Katelyn were also sick. You, then Katelyn, then Reno, in quick succession."

"We all came down sick at the same time?" I asked, alarmed.

She nodded.

"Was anyone else affected by this?"

"No, you don't have to worry. I have tested all of the other Turks present at the bar, starting with Rude, Kytt and Maxx, and they were negative."

A thought occurred to me. An uncomfortable one. "How about Sherin?"

"Also negative." She looked at me calmly. "Is there a reason you singled Sherin out?"

I hesitated. "This is confidential, right?"

"This conversation is, yes."

"Before Shin-Ra... before... y'know..."

She nodded. "Corneo's." She looked at me sympathetically. "Can't heal it until you can say it, Raith."

I winced. "Yeah. Before... that. I was, um... with Reno." I swallowed. "And he and Katelyn have had a similar association at one time."

"I see. You're wondering if Reno is Patient Zero. Or, perhaps if you are, if the time line I'm picking up on is correct?"

"Kinda."

"And I take it you believe Sherin would be at risk from you, in that case."

"Yeah." And Tseng, too, I supposed, in Katelyn's.

"No. What was ailing you is not sexually transmitted. Very few of our diseases are, and none of those are deadly."

Funny, how that made my stomach sink. I was hoping Doc Mir would say it was, even though by the timing I knew it couldn't be. Why? Took me a moment to work it out. It was cos if that was the case, and Rude didn't get sick, then it meant that he and Reno hadn't--weren't--

"Besides," Doctor Mir said, "the three of you have more in common than the fact you've all been in proximity, of whatever kind, Raith," she said. "And if my hunch is correct, there is one other person who should have fallen ill, but didn't."

"Who?"

"Dallas."

"Who... also has Reno in common?"

"No, Raith, it's not him."

I watched her face for a moment, then leaned forward, catching her eye. "You can stop humouring me, Doctor. You already know what this is, and I know it."

She sighed. "I shouldn't be telling you this, at all. Thing is, Shin-Ra or no, I became a doctor to heal, and I think you, in particular, need to understand the nature of your illness--and I'm talking about your illness since leaving Corneo's, not just the recent... event."

"I don't understand."

Her lips pressed together for a moment, and she glanced at the security camera in the corner of her office before turning her head slightly and speaking again. "Consider that the four of you were all essentially raised, from a very young age, by Shin-Ra, even Katelyn," she said. "And that's all I can say, for now. But you're a smart boy. I'm sure with that, you can figure it out."

"It's not a lot."

"No. It isn't. But, fact is, I can't help you if I'm dead, can I?" She looked down at some papers. "And I am the only one who knows some--only some, mind--of the specifics who will not shoot you if something goes wrong. You do need friends. But I would be very discreet who you talk to about this."

I remembered Braden's warning, then. He also knew something. I needed to find out what.

"Doctor--"

"I can't tell you any more right now. Please don't ask me to." Her tone was matter-of-fact, not pleading. "But, at the slightest re-emergence of symptoms, I want you here. Hear me?"

I nodded. "You're expecting a re-emergence, then?"

"In your case, given the garbage Don Corneo gave you, absolutely."

"I do have a right to know what it is that's going on with my body."

"Yes," she said, giving me a direct look. "You do. And one day I will find out who gave Corneo that shit and heads will roll." She glanced at the clock, then. "Now, unless you have some more immediate questions regarding how you are feeling right now, I'm afraid I have rounds."

I did have questions, but... "Sure. Thanks, doc."

She smiled briefly and stood. "No problem. I'm just sorry it's not more, for now."

I walked out of her office no more the wiser, really, but still satisfied with what I knew. Mostly. Later, I wasn't, because it was later that I really found out what Shin-Ra was capable of.

Black ops was one thing. Nibelheim. Well. Nibelheim was something else altogether. We were ordered, afterwards, never to talk about it. I figure I ain't talking, I'm writing, and writing wasn't mentioned, so... yeah. Nibelheim.

Reno and Rude turning up that day I coulda done without. See, the nightmares had stopped for a bit, after that illness passed, like that switch had been turned off in my brain, there, as well.

I didn't stop dreaming about him though, but the next lot of dreams were back to the worst kind. I'm not going into detail, but let's just say that I could've done without Reno romping buck naked through my head on a regular basis.

Kytt found the whole thing amusing, I think. Every so often, when we were on a mission, I'd wake up from one of these and she'd be lying on her side on the other bed, up on one elbow, head on her hand, a thoughtful look on her face.

"That sounded like fun," she said once.

I turned and faced the other wall.

"Seriously, Raith, I know I rib you about your chastity and in all seriousness, that's your decision and none of my business, but you have to be easier on yourself."

"Pick someone up in every port like my partner does?"

"If it floats your boat. But no, that's not what I meant. I was actually talking about what drives you."

I turned back. "Oh really. And what do you think that is. My dick?"

She threw me a half grin. "Was in the army a long while, bunked with a lot of soldiers, so I'm past that whole 'men only have one small brain' bull." She considered. "Well, there are some that do, no doubt. But you ain't one of them."

"Thanks. I think."

"Your body's dealing with all that without your say-so, anyway, by the sounds."

My ears grew warm.

"Oh, stop that," she said. "I don't get embarrassed because I bleed once a month so why should you because of some wet dreams?"

My face got hotter. Kytt could be very earthy at times, and it mostly didn't bother me. Still. I had grown up in a boy's home, right? Discussions of wet dreams I could cope with, but... five gods.

"But no, what is driving you is something else entirely. And you need to look past this whole 'only one person in the world for me' bullshit you have going on. You know, preferably before it takes over and destroys you. You have enough going on without adding self-propelled crash and burn to the list."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I mumbled.

"Ugh. Baby, you're a sensual guy. If I've read you right, and I think I have, you're at your happiest in the sack. But there's something in you that demands it's with the 'right' person. Now, there is nothing wrong with that, believe me."

"So what's your point?"

"My point is you're fixed on who that should be, so in the absence of availability, you've cut off all chance of being halfway happy. Maybe you need to learn to look wider, y'know?"

Yeah... no. But I wasn't going to argue with here. There was no point. "Oh. I see how it is. You finally decided to come onto me, Kytt?" I said, grinning.

She threw her pillow at me, with impressive force, I should say. "Arsehole."

I tucked it under my head. "Keeping this. Thanks."

She snorted and grabbed the other one off her bed instead. "Fine. Don't get it soggy."

Anyway, I got off point there for a bit, but Reno turning up in Nibel was not something I was happy about. I wasn't fond of Sherin--I'm still not--but an evening drinking with Kytt, Sherin and Jask was just what I needed. No Reno. No worries.

But, no.

As it turned out, it was just as well they were there, but I'll get to that.

Kytt was, of course, thrilled to see the pair of them. Zack and General Sephiroth were there as well, along with a couple of guys who'd come with them. I never caught the name of one of them, but the other was Cloud, the young guy I'd met back at Icicle with Zack. He kinda took off by himself, sat at the bar, which gave Zack a moment's pause, if I recall.

Never did work out the dynamic between those two; Zack and Cloud. Guess I didn't try that hard, not my business. Didn't matter in the end. Doesn't matter now, I guess.

The General didn't last long, heading up to his room, which also made Zack's face darken in consternation. I hadn't seen much of Zack since that failed mission in Icicle; since we'd both been forced to kill the two SOLDIERs. He was friendly enough as he chatted to me, light enough, but there was something in addition to what he'd been before.

Responsibility, was my guess.

Reno didn't say anything, and lasted about ten minutes before he picked up his drink and sat at the bar next to Cloud. And then spent the next half-hour to an hour coming on to the kid to the point where I swear to all Five Gods they were close to making out at the bar, in front of everyone.

In front of Rude? Just... shit.

For some reason, though, instead of watching Reno, I found myself watching Rude, who was, in fact, watching Reno. He hid it well, but he wasn't pleased. At least, I didn't think he was. His face was one of those where some days you couldn't tell if he was looking at you with a grin on his face or a scowl. Kinda looked alike to me.

If Zack hadn't broken it up, who knew how far he would've taken it? Going by the hungry look in Reno's eye when he watched Cloud go up the stairs, I sure did.

And under Rude's nose, kinda like he had with Katelyn.

All I could think was, what a shithead.

I tried not to dwell on it, but I couldn't help it. Just as I'd felt when I'd known about Katelyn, I felt, still, like Reno was cheating on me, not Rude. Messed up, but that's what it was.

And the Sephiroth set the town on fire, and Reno, and Rude, acted promptly and with all that was necessary to do what needed to be done, to have us work as a team in our attempts to help whoever could be helped.

Not that, in the end, it mattered much, because... fuck me dead, as Rude would say, but I couldn't believe the... fucking gall. Where did Hojo get off... no. Here I should probably stop. Sophistry about talking/writing aside I have already said more than I should have.

I can tell you one thing. That was the day I learned to hate him, in that way I mentioned earlier. All I can do is try to explain how I got there, after all that time. I'll leave it to you to see the stupidity in it.

I'd let him go, and he hadn't noticed. I'd tried everything I could to be a good Turk, and he hadn't noticed. I'd worried about him, wanted him, needed him, and as far as he was concerned, I didn't exist.

On that day, we worked well together, him and me, and Rude. And, yet, despite everything I did, everything I tried to do, all he could see was Rude. Despite his fucking cheating, he thought he could act like Rude really mattered to him. He was betraying the person he'd left me for, and it was all a big fucking game to him.

He taken, and left me with nothing.

All I had left of Reno was my hatred for him. And that was just fucking fine by me.

Here's evidence of how screwed up I was. In trying to hate Reno, because it really was an effort, I focussed my energy on Rude. Now, don't get me wrong, here. I've mentioned, when it comes to Rude, I like the guy. I respect him, mostly, but I've already covered that. When it comes to Turks, the closest friendship I have, besides Kytt, is Braden. And Dallas, motherly little firecracker that she is, when I see her. She's great. I got to see more of her at that point, because after she broke up with Braden, the second time I think it was, she moved in with Kytt.

I'm fairly certain Dal's aware of Reno's and my history, and equally certain she has no idea about my year in the Corneo Home for Wayward Employees. To her credit, I think, she never brings either Rude and Reno's current status or our history up, with either Kytt or me. She doesn't ask, I don't tell. Makes a night out with the two girls and a round of beers a lot more pleasant, all in all.

Oh, and for the record? Braden's an idiot.

We Juniors all looked up to the Seniors--moreso after Nibelheim. Actually, I'm pretty sure after they handled Nibel, Reno and Rude gained almost idol status, especially with the youngest of us, Jask. And professionally, I was much the same way, with both of them. If either of them, on the job, asked me to cut off my own arm, I would've done so without asking why.

We trusted those two that much.

However, I never felt "close" to Rude, not so much. I want to make that clear. I wasn't developing a crush or nothing. But somehow, trying to distance myself from Reno involved trying to protect Rude from him.

Yeah. I don't know, either. Even now. Even writing this, I think... what in the Blue Hells was I thinking?

I was able to justify it, of course. The man'd saved my life; done what Reno wouldn't. What I'd wanted Reno to do.

So when I saw Reno, the day before the launch, chatting up some girl, I went into overdrive. Reno'd cheated on me, with Rude, but that'd somehow, despite my dislike of that fact, been glossed over by the fact I'd done the same thing, with Sherin. No, it was more the abandonment of me in that place and the helping hand he'd given to Shin-Ra to keep me there that'd spelled "betrayal" to me. Dumping me on my arse was one thing, but where he'd dumped me... fuck.

Yeah, bear with me. I know.

But now, he was doin' the same thing to Rude. Again. Third time I was aware of. Katelyn, first up. Then the open lust on that Cloud kid, And now, some random whoosit? Hells, Rude didn't deserve that.

I still don't think Rude deserved that. It still irritates me, frankly, but I guess I've always known Reno was the restless type, and if Rude was--is?--that "disciplined", as Kytt said, it'd drive Reno nuts. I guess I should be surprised, happy, even, that I had Reno to myself for as long as I did.

Still.

Reno was only flirting that day, I still knew enough of him to be able to tell, but it sent me up in flames, y'know, on "Rude's behalf." I mean, dumping me was one thing, but where did he get off fucking with Rude's head?

Maybe it was part empathy. But it was more shitty head case rot, really, that drove me to do what I did next.

I was still angry when I tried to go to bed that night, so, of course, I couldn't sleep. And in a moment of fucking shocking arsehole timing I will forever hate those Five bastard Gods for, Rude came out of the room he shared with Reno as I was coming out of mine. He didn't see me, but he was... I dunno. Done. Sad.

And I figured, given my loyalty to the Turks and to Rude's actions that saved my life, that he needed to be warned about Reno, who Reno "really was" before he was hurt, more.

So I followed him up to the roof, and I opened my stupid mouth and told Rude that Reno'd told me Rude was dead. Oh, and by the way, that Reno and I'd been involved while Rude'd been away doing whatever it was he was doing. I think my exact words went some thing along the lines of "thought you'd like to know where he was coming from re you when he was fucking me." I might've added a sir to that.

I'm not going to repeat the conversation, because a play-by-play just ain't... no. But I think it's fair enough to say that the nice little tidbit I left Rude with sums up the general tone:

"Don't get in too deep with him. Reno's a good Turk, I'd follow him anywhere professionally, but there's a reason for that. He don't feel. He will take what you've got and then let what's left eat you alive and you'll somehow think it was your doing. Turks can't afford that, Rude. Not at the moment."

Look, I'm not going to try and justify my behaviour here. Sometimes, we do arsehole things. It was either convince myself I hated Reno or be eaten up by my feelings for him. At the time, there was no third option for me, cos I was a louse. A messed-up, shitty bug. I wish I'd been better. But I wasn't.

I do feel like I need to say something in my defence, though, cos I'm still kinda defensive about this whole thing (have you noticed?). I was being an arse, but I wasn't trying to be a complete arse. I really did have Rude's interests in mind.

Well, I told myself that last, anyway. I believed it. I did.

Okay. Fact is, that wasn't one of my better days. I wasn't lying when I told Rude during that conversation that I was scum.

Either way, when I spoke to Rude, I had no idea he'd just found out Felice had died. I didn't find out myself until I'd returned to our room, and Kytt walked in quite a bit after and gave me one of her "you arsehole" looks.

"What?" I said.

"Raith, sometimes you just shit me so much I want to rip your face off. What is your damage?"

"Heh?"

She sat on her bed. "Heard some of your tete-a-tete with Rude up there."

I shrugged. "Yeah. What about it?"

"The man's mother just died and you drop that on him? What's wrong with you?"

My throat closed, a little. Shit. Gods, Reno. "Felice died? How?" The thought genuinely saddened me. And, more, I knew how that would hurt him, and... damn. Why was it that every time I'd managed to work Reno out of my system something like this would happen and I'd end up feeling for him again?

Yeah. Maybe I should change that to "every time I thought I'd managed to work Reno out of my system."

Kytt frowned slightly. "You look like you care."

"That's because I do." I pulled on my shirt again. "I liked the woman, and she deserved better than she got. She shoulda lived a full, long life, not died before she'd reached fifty just because she couldn't afford medical."

"I actually believe you mean that."

"I'm not a complete bastard."

"You want to know somethin', Raith? I don't think you're nearly as much of a bastard as you make yourself out to be."

"Whatever you say, dear."

She stripped down to her shorts and tee and hopped under the covers, yawning. "Want to tell me about it?"

"Not particularly, no."

"Fair enough." She lay down and closed her eyes, then opened one. "If you're going to dream tonight, could ya keep it down a bit?"

I blinked. It'd been a while since I'd had one of those dreams. "Say what?"

She got a sheepish look on her face. "Er. Not that. I meant the chatter. You've been rambling in your sleep again."

I stood. "Sorry. Didn't realise I was so noisy."

"You stopped, for a while, after you were sick. These ones seem more normal-like, not so much the terrors you had. But you're still loud."

Probably still Reno-related. I sighed and headed towards the door.

She lifted herself up to one elbow. "Where are you off to?"

"Pay my respects."

"Raith, it's almost 0200. Let people sleep. Gods, get some sleep yourself."

"I need to--"

"It's not about what you need right now." She sighed. "Second time I've said that tonight."

She was right, of course. Five Gods, poor Felice. And Rude. Fuck, but I had shitty timing.

And Reno...

"You look so damned sad," she said.

I raised my head, intending to make a sarcastic comment, but at the look on Kytt's face, changed my mind. "So do you."

"Don't like it when my buddies are hurtin'."

I noted the plural, but didn't say anything.

She frowned slightly, then sighed noisily. "Turn the light off before you get back into bed, wouldja?"

I nodded.

Her eyes narrowed. "You are such a liar."

I paused in the act of switching off the light. "I'm sorry, what?"

"You heard me."

I hit the switch and stripped down to my jocks for bed again, before getting in. "Not in the mood, Kytt."

"You lied to Rude. Point-blank."

"Uh, yeah. It's none of your business, but no, I didn't. Reno said what he said and Rude deserved to know. Sure, my timing sucks, but--"

"Whatever happened in the past with you and Reno, what you just said to Rude was a gross act of personal betrayal against Reno and you know it. And I don't believe for a moment you said it cos 'Rude deserved to know'. You have no loyalty to Rude, not on an emotional level."

Her words stung. Probably because, deep down, I knew what she was saying was at least partly true. I didn't much want to see that at the time. "Man saved my life, Kytt."

"Did he just. So your repayment for that is to try and drive a wedge between him and his best friend just cos you want said friend for yourself and you think Rude's in the way."

"I do not want Reno for myself."

"And that, there, is the lie."

"Lie? Yeah, I don't think so. Want to talk about betrayal, Kytt? Reno has a good handle on the concept, believe me. I don't want him. I'm not that stupid."

"I call bullshit, Raith." There was a pause. "Not that you're stupid, although I might reserve that one, cos it's likely I'll need it, soon enough if this conversation keeps heading in the direction I think it is. But, like it or not, I know you, babe. And if you aren't, deep down, hankering after Reno almost every second of every day then I will cut off my hair."

"Well, I look forward to seeing the short 'do then." I turned on my side, facing away from her. "You don't know anything about me."

She sighed, and there was the sound of rustling and her bare feet on the timber floor before she sat on my bed next to my hips. "I know more than you think." Her finger traced my back, along the scars left by Corneo's whips and knives. "I know that you've been through something horrible and you won't talk about it."

"We've discussed that. Past is past," I mumbled.

"Not if it affects now it isn't," she said. "And it does."

"If you say so. What does that have to do with me being a liar? Which," I added, "I'm not, but thanks anyway."

She patted my shoulder peremptorily. "Okay, I guess if you don't realise you're lying, it isn't lying. But, you are. Mostly to yourself. I think you're so damned used to it you don't even see it any more. Kinda like all that shit you're carrying around."

I didn't say anything. What was there to say? She was either right, and I had no clue, or she wasn't, and I'd never be able to convince her she was wrong.

"You don't believe me," she said.

"I don't have an opinion."

"Tell me something, Raith. When I told you about Rude's mother, who was the first person you thought about? I'm willing to bet it wasn't her. And it wasn't you, neither. And it sure as hells wasn't Rude."

I ground my teeth together. "I hate Reno. He is a cheating--"

"Oh, you so don't hate him, unless you count that peculiar 'if I can't have him, no one can' hatred of the obsessed. All that bitter will eat you up if you let it, you know."

"What the fuck does that matter to you?"

"I like you. Hate to see it happen." Another pause. "You're not alone, here, you know that, right?"

"Everyone's alone, Kytt."

"Well, far be it from me to disagree, but I guess that's your choice." She crawled into bed behind me and leaned her forehead against my back. It was kinda comforting, even if I did feel like, to use her phrase, ripping her face off. Wasn't her fault, I guessed. I was on edge. "Goodnight, Raith."

"What, no mandatory instructions on keeping my hands to myself?"

"Don't be stupid. Even if I didn't trust you, I know I'm not your type."

"No, just a lying bastard."

"Just that."

Yeah. She knew me well.

"Besides," she said, her voice muffled by the covers. "Ain't always about you."

Oh. Okay, then. "Maybe I need to worry about your hands then."

"Don't be an idiot. You're not my type either."

I yawned, then, and tried to go to sleep.

"I have to ask something," she said suddenly.

I rolled over so I was facing her. "Don't let me stop you."

"Why Reno? What is it about him that has everyone so...?"

I raised my eyebrows, surprised. "I thought you liked him."

"Oh, no, don't get me wrong. I do. I like him a lot. He's a good fighter, team player, can trust him in a dangerous situation. Good boss, tries to do what's right. Has my loyalty, anyway, and that takes some doing. He's funny, smart, and cute, I guess, although that sexy smile thing he throws on does fuck-all for me. But still... I don't get it."

I shrugged. "I guess people like who they like. The smile did do something for me... once."

"Once." She snorted indelicately. "You're not going to want to hear this, given you hate him, so, so much, but I'm sorry whatever happened still rips you up as much as it does." She was quiet a moment, her face serious, and still sad. "Y'know, in a perfect world..."

"What?"

"Nothing."

A thought occurred to me then, one I knew was absolutely true. "Yeah, Kytt, really. And you call me a liar."

She gave me a steady look. "I'm sure this train of thought has a caboose."

"All that stuff you said to me once about Rude being just a bit of fun, for, y'know, two years? Liar."

"Won't deny it. I lie all the time. It's my job. But not to myself. And," she added pointedly, "I would not try and destroy Rude just to spite myself. You don't own people, Raith. Rude's not a prize to be fought over or grabbed at. And neither is Reno."

"Yeah, I'm aware Reno's no prize."

"So not what I meant."

I almost grinned. "You spend too much time with Dallas. You're starting to sound like a girl."

"Do you want me to beat your head in?"

"So you're telling me that if the opportunity didn't present itself, you wouldn't be jumping Rude quicker'n he could say nothing?"

"Sure, I would, if I thought he wanted or needed it and there was no one else involved. But I wouldn't try and pull his world apart to do it. That's not an 'opportunity' as you put it. That's bastardry of the lowest order."

"Whatever." I rolled over again. "Sleeping now."

She grunted, Rude-like, and was silent for a long time. Then, "Raith?"

"What," I said, almost asleep.

"If you even think about going back into shithead mode and using this information to further your own agenda I will kick your fine arse from here to tomorrow."

"Mm," I mumbled. "Get in line. Now shut up and g'sleep." I'd had enough "truth" for one night.

Thing was, I knew she had a point. I just didn't want to see it, not then. It actually only really sunk in the next day, just before the launch.

Not every day a man gets to see the destructive results of his own handiwork, even if those results weren't consciously what I'd intended.

No, really. They weren't. Maybe, deep down, they were. But, still.

Kytt and I'd started work earlier than most because Rufus wanted to arrive to the launch before his father and bask in the crowd a bit. Least, that's what I thought it was. Kinda wanted to upstage, I think.

And wasn't the President pleased about that. All of the execs were supposed to arrive at the same time for the pre-launch show and "ascend the dais" together, behind the President, and the VP--Rufus--so President Shinra put the no-bloody-ways on Rufus' little conceit.

Not that it mattered. Kytt and I were still called in earlier than intended and had to guard him for an extra hour just so's he could spite daddy.

Pain in the arse. I had intended to drop by Reno and Rude's hotel room, pass on my condolences.

Yeah, for the record, that really was what I wanted to do. No other agenda, as Kytt put it. Just... Felice'd made me uncomfortable, a lot, but I think it was cos she treated me like family. I didn't know what that looked like, so I didn't know how to feel, or how to respond. Plus what I've already noted, re echoes of Rude. But really, I liked the woman. She was one of the good ones.

But I wasn't to have the chance.

Not long before the rest of the Shin-Ra entourage were due to arrive, I noticed a television cameraman setting up in an unauthorised position, up the ramp behind the dais back towards the route back to the hotel behind the complex. I let Kytt know where I was going and headed up the ramp to the top, then up the stairs.

The cameraman wasn't happy, but his press pass was valid, his story checked out and he moved on without incident.

I went to head back down the stairs, but just below me, at the top of the ramp, were Reno and Rude, clearly in a pretty intense, private conversation. A difficult one, at that.

I couldn't leave, not without them seeing me, so I had an uncomfortable ring-side seat. That's probably understated, that "difficult." I'm still having trouble with my own part to play in that, I guess. I didn't hear anything, and I didn't want to, but the body language said enough. Fairly screamed at me, even without the fact we're trained in that kinda thing. Rude was... distant, Reno was angry, and it was all bad.

Then Rude walked down the ramp toward the meet-up point and Reno watched him go. And I... shit. I was unprepared for my own reaction to the look on his face in that moment. It made me hurt. He looked so... hopeless. Alone. Like, the world sitting on his shoulders and no one to share it with. The last time I'd seen him that defeated was when Felice was going into hospital and he'd been forced to ask me for help.

Felice. Damn. I really was a shithead. Intentionally or not, I'd kicked them both when they were down.

If Rude'd told Reno what I'd said to him, the last person Reno'd want to see was me, but, I dunno, selfish being what it is, I had to say something to him. And I couldn't leave him like that. So I descended the stairs just as he turned.

I almost lost my nerve, truth be known. The expression on his face changed immediately, from bewildered to you have to be shitting me. He really didn't want to see me, right. But at least he wasn't angry.

So... "Hey, Reno. How're you doing?" Stupid question, really, but, well, stupid was how I rolled, apparently.

"Not now, Raith," Reno said, his voice harsh, and I was prepared to go, okay, no problem, and talk to him later to say sorry about Felice, cos, well, it needed to be said. But then, he paused. "What?"

I swallowed. "I heard about Felice. I wanted to say..." Oh, gods. How pathetic was it to try and make anyone feel better about someone dying? "It'd be kinda useless to say I'm sorry. But I am."

Reno nodded, his jaw tense.

Fuck. "Can... I do anything?" Like you haven't done enough already, fuckwit, I thought to myself.

Reno shook his head.

"Yeah. Okay." Hells, I wanted to say more, but I figured I should leave him alone, considering. Yet, stupid ruled the day for me, right? "I'm having trouble believing it; I can't even imagine what you're feeling. Felice was a strong woman. How does someone like her just... die?"

"She didn't just die. She killed herself." He looked at me, then, like he'd just realised he'd said that out loud. "No. Raith, you can't tell anyone that. No one."

"Sure. No problem."

He grasped my upper arm and turned me so he could look me in the eye, his face desperate. "I mean it. Rude can't ever know. It'd destroy him."

I felt a pang, then, as I wondered why he'd never been that vehement for me. But, I just nodded. "I get it. He'll never hear it from me. You have my word." I grimaced. "If that means anythin' to you any more."

His eyes searched my face, and then he nodded, letting go of my arm.

I wished he hadn't. "What happened?"

He looked at me helplessly, like he needed to talk but didn't know where to start.

"C'mon," I said. "You need to tell someone or it'll eat at you."

"The operation did some damage that was worse'n we ever knew at the time, got worse as time went on. She was starting to lose her ability to remember things."

I swallowed. "That sucks."

"Kyrie told me that Felice just knew that she was getting past the point she would be able to remember anything, and she didn't want to go out that way. So she stuck a needleful of pure Kandy in her arm. Blew out the back of her..." he trailed off, and his face... gods.

The back of her head, he was going to say, sure as if she'd put a gun in her mouth, 'cept slower and less sure. The thought made me feel sick. The actual of it, how she'd suffered, and the fact Reno was going to live with it, alone, just to keep Rude from the pain of knowing. I wanted to... I don't know. Erase all of that for him? Hold him? Tell him it'd get better, even though it wouldn't? Sounds stupid. But... yeah. "I don't know what to say."

"I just wish--" he grimaced and looked at the pavement.

"What?"

He looked up again. "That I coulda done more."

What? More? Reno was blaming himself? Hells, but that shitted me. It really shitted me. "Reno, you went above and beyond for her. It was Rude who up and left and--"

"Don't."

"You can't be thinkin' that of you, though. You were there for her when her own son was--"

"I said, 'don't'." He set his jaw and looked out towards the launch pad. "You don't know what you're talking about."

That's right. I'd forgotten. Rude could do no wrong, no matter what he did. "Yeah, well, not like you ever explained it to me too clear." Fuck. I hadn't meant to say that.

His throat worked as he stared at that rocket for a moment longer. "What happened?" he said in a voice so low I could barely hear him. Then his eyes met mine. "How'd I lose you?"

I frowned, confused. How had he lost me? How could he not know that? Where I'd been, what'd been done, who'd done it, how he'd just left me there, for the very person who'd abandoned both his own mother and Reno, the very person he was now defending, the person he'd lied to me about? My first instinct was to fob the question off. I was slipping again. I wanted to protect myself from him; try to hate him again. It was the only smart thing to do.

I mean, wasn't it that I had lost him?

But, looking at him, another part of me wanted to just say, you didn't. You never did. No matter that you left me to rot so you could run off with someone else. That part of me wanted to believe that he didn't know about Corneo's; that, whatever'd happened, it could be fixed. That part of me wanted to fix it. That part saw all Reno was dealing with, all that he was trying to hide right then, and wanted it to stop. And it could forgive anything. Even... that.

And, even knowing I was being dumber'n a dead chocobo, turned out that was the part that spoke first. "Yeah. Maybe we should talk about that, y'know, when we're done with this launch thing."

He didn't answer right away. He just looked at me, his face blank. I watched as he took the crap and packed it up, and put it somewhere it didn't show so much, till he was all Turk again. "Yeah," he said, lifting his EMR and dropping it on his shoulder. "Job to do. Can't ever be gettin' in the way of that."

The tone in his voice was not one I'd heard before, and it made me hurt for him, again. Even when he'd been miserable at Corneo's, I'd never heard him so cynical. Didn't sit well with me, turned out.

As my eyes met his, I wanted to know why he'd become like that. I couldn't figure it. More, I realised then, in that moment, that while I knew why I'd been angry with him, I had no fucking clue why he'd been so angry with me. And had he been? Or had I somehow set him off? What'd happened in that year? Why hadn't he come for me? And why'd he lied to me about Rude? If I never asked, he'd never tell.

It was only then I realised that I'd never actually fucking asked.

"What?" he said, his voice hard.

"Not what I meant," I said. "Just... not the time now, is all."

"Really."

You know what smacked into my mind right then? That day Reno'd asked me why I loved him. Not if I did, but why. Like, he really didn't get why anyone would. He looked that way now, like he still felt that way. I hadn't understood that back then, at all, but looking at his face in that moment, I thought I did. He'd needed to hear the why, and I'd denied it to him, just cos it was so clear to me, clear as breathing, that I just couldn't separate the if from the why. Maybe if I'd said even that... maybe. Or, maybe if we'd had a conversation back when I'd first started, instead of me getting all defensive and... well, it's not like he's ever asked me, either, I thought. Why does it have to be me? Why did it always have to be me?

No.

Wait.

He had just asked me.

He was asking me now. Fucking rotten timing, but there it was. Even if nothing came of it, even if I still wanted to hate him, at least I'd know. Right then, that seemed like the most important thing. It wasn't, I know now. But then, it seemed like it. "Yeah, really," I said. "Not a conversation easily ended in--" I glanced at my watch-- "fifteen minutes."

His face softened, a bit, but the eyes were still wary. "Guess not," he finally said. "But..." he looked at the pavement, again.

My earpiece crackled, then, a buzz from Kytt to let me know that Rufus wanted me to get back to work, but I ignored it. "What?" I said, carefully.

"I did, didn't I," he murmured. "Lose you." He looked up again, his face miserable. "It was me."

It was me. I wasn't sure exactly what he meant by that, but... it got to me. Big time. Even the side that wanted to keep hating him. I'm not sure why but I think it's because somewhere, deep down, my intuition unconsciously twigged to something that I now know to be true: he really didn't know. I didn't know this, then. All I knew was that I wanted things to be back the way they were.

I'm not sure who moved, him or me. I think it was me, truth be known.

It wasn't even a kiss, really. It was more the lightest brushing of lips, over in the time it took for the wisp of a notion to create a thought. Just long enough to know. Just long enough to realise what I was, for me to back away, and just... run. Well, no, I didn't actually run, not physically. But still... you know what I mean. I told myself that Rufus would have my hide if I didn't go, now. He would. But that wasn't it.

I ran 'cos of that knowing.

And all through the launch ceremony, up to the aborted launch itself, that kiss burned me, and not in the way you might think. It burned me, because what I knew, then, was that what Kytt'd said the night before was absolute truth. I could see, had seen, that Reno and Rude were imploding, probably because of what I'd said, and I was fully prepared to take advantage of that. I was treating Reno like some sort of prize.

More, while I bleated about 'betrayal' and how Reno'd jumped to Rude the moment I was out of the picture, here I was hoping he'd do the same thing all over again, except in the opposite direction.

What the in the Blue Hells was wrong with me?

Reno and I did need to have a conversation, it was true, but I needed to, somehow, repair the damage I'd done first. Thing was, I had no idea how I could.

And I wasn't sure I wanted to.

Scum. See?

Anyway, I still don't know why, but Reno missed a large chunk of that ill-fated launch and I didn't get a chance to talk to him because I was sent to Wutai almost immediately.

That was probably good, because it gave me a chance, a couple of weeks or so, to really stop and have a look at what I was, what I was doing. What I thought I was doing. We didn't have a lot of time off-duty, but what time I did have I spent walking, having a look around Wutai, which had been turned into somewhat of a ganky tourist town since the war.

I thought. A lot. About nothing, and about Reno, and about who I'd turned into. I didn't much like what I saw.

What I saw was someone who'd been obsessed, someone who'd wanted something, or in my case, someone, so badly that he would do anything to possess it, and then justify his actions to himself in an attempt to make them look better. I've said a lot about that already, so I won't rehash it.

There was a lot of truth in the bullshit I'd told myself over the years, sure.

What I saw, by the time I'd finished walking, was that I needed to 'fess up to Reno about what I'd said to Rude in Rocket. He deserved to know. I needed to apologise to Rude for being such a shit.

And I needed to leave Reno alone. In my head, in my heart, wherever. He wasn't mine, even if I would be his until the day I took my last breath.

When did I lose my sense of purpose?
Can I regain what's lost inside?
Why do I feel like I deserve this?
Why does my pain look like my pride?

~ No Roads Left , © Linkin Park

To Chapter Twenty-Three of Reno's Story

And the Sephiroth set the town on fire

[Note: Some of the Shin-Ra mission storyline has come from the game Before Crisis, however, it is an adaptation, not a re-telling of the game, and not all of the Shin-Ra political storyline in this story has come from the game, but is original content, so you won't have seen it if you've played the game. Warning: BC end-game spoilers in this chapter].

Leave Reno alone. That was a difficult thing for me to think, and an even harder concept to grasp. By then, I'd known him; loved him; on and off, for almost twenty years.

That was when I started writing all of this, you know. While I was in Wutai. Just the first bit. I started on the rest much later, after I woke up. After the mission to Cosmo Canyon. I look at it now, and I realise I was wrong about a couple of things, because I didn't know. About my mother, for one.

It was hard, because I'd written nothing but reports since school. It was hard, because it was new, this thing, this trying to explain. I'm still not really sure why I started it. Maybe it was just me trying to sort stuff out in my head, y'know? That's probably part of it. But another part is, I dunno. Like, when all of this goes down in history, and it will, I'm one of those who will not be a stand-out. And that's okay. People remember those like Reno, and Tseng, and Rufus Shinra. And Zack Fair. And Sephiroth. I doubt that anyone would even remember my name, a hundred, a thousand, years from now. But, still, maybe I just wanted to tell someone something about me. Even if it is just the air.

Anyway.

Leave Reno alone.

At the time, I really did mean that I should let him be, let him find his own way. But there is another meaning to that sentence. All it takes is a comma.

Leave Reno, alone.

And, well... I wish I'd seen that earlier.

One of my biggest regrets, lately. That I didn't. And I'll be damned if I know how to fix it.

Then again, maybe I'm reading too much into his behaviour, lately. Maybe I'm just seeing what I want to see. I want him to miss me. I'm a shit, I know, still. After all, he's got Rude. He ain't alone. And it's not like it wasn't my own stupid fault.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I have to say that I was real impressed by how Braden handled the financial crisis in Wutai. The man is deadly when he needs to be--he uses that sword of his like an extension of his arm--but, while Wutai has been pretty much under Shin-Ra's thumb since the end of the War, it's still sensitive when dealing with anyone but Lord Godo.

Godo capitulated pretty quickly once Sephiroth became involved up there, and the area is now little more than a tourist destination. It's safe to say, I think, that some pockets of Wutai society despise Godo almost as much as they hate Shin-Ra.

Occasionally makes me wonder how it was Tseng ended up at Shin-Ra. Wutai monks are about as separatist as you can get, never mind that strictly speaking, Godo is supposed to be the de facto Head of the Order.

I don't understand the subtleties, but Braden has them down. He is arguably the best diplomat Shin-Ra has, and managed to slice through a lot of the bullshit, especially when one of the financial heads almost shot down the entire deal with a few misplaced words. If it'd been me, I woulda just shot the lot of them and had done with it.

Efficient, quick, end of competition. Would've solved the problem.

Yeah. Corneo's methodology of business participation strategy. Not known for its tact, which would be why Braden was in charge instead of me, I guess, huh. We were up there, strictly speaking, as bodyguards, but Tseng knew what he was doing, making sure Braden was part of the command group.

I came into the hotel after one of my walks and he was sitting in the lobby's lounge, looking for all the world like he needed a handful of painkillers.

"You're up late," he commented.

"Back at you," I said, dropping in the couch across from him. "What's up? You look pissed."

"I am. Bureaucratic stupidity annoys me."

"As opposed to normal stupidity."

Braden looked at me over the rims of his glasses. "Oh, no. These morons take it to a whole new level. Wutai was once a proud country with an alive culture. Godo's turned it into a ratty tourist region and most of our execs are not making friends here with their attitude." He sighed. "And now I get to finish it all on my ownsome."

I frowned. "Why."

"Trouble's flared up in Corel. Avalanche have taken over the new reactor site en masse."

"Thought we dealt with them."

He shook his head. "Apparently they've been in hiding. Tseng's information has them in the dozens down there. Rest of you are heading to Corel first thing to sort it out. You'll meet up with Tseng, Reno, Rude and Dallas and take care of it."

Funny, you know, how the thought of dealing of Avalanche didn't bother me at all, but as soon as Braden mentioned Reno, my mouth went dry. Avalanche, I could deal with, see, with that aforementioned "just shoot 'em all" policy. Reno, though... I wasn't looking forward to that conversation, because I knew that it would be the end of everything.

Well, no, everything had already ended, but it would be the real end of hoping it hadn't.

"You all right, Raith?"

"What?" I looked up at him. "Yeah."

"You don't look it."

"Look pretty beat yourself."

He shrugged. "Is what is. Go get some sleep."

I didn't get a lot, frankly. I was too busy doing that toss and turn thing you get when the brain won't shut down, until Kytt threw her pillow at me and told me to either shut the fuck up or smother myself.

I was almost on the chopper out of Wutai before I remembered that I hadn't even spoken to Reno since that day at Rocket, and that it'd probably be a good idea to make an appointment or something.

Appointment. Yeah. I was tired.

I garbled something into my voicemail recorder, I forget what now, cos I all I could think of was that he was going to hate me. I didn't send it though. I just... I dunno. Yeah. See: all I could think was that he was going to hate me. Guess that speaks for itself.

We were to meet with Barret Wallace, a man who'd been instrumental in helping Shin-Ra bring the reactor to Corel.

Before we met with Barret I tagged Rude, who was standing off to one side of the clear area where we'd landed the 'copters, looking over the tent city further down the way a bit, his arms crossed across his chest. I followed his gaze. Reno was walking with Tseng down the hill, and they were engaged in some fairly heated conversation. I tore my eyes away. "Sir," I said.

"Hm?" he said.

"I know we don't have a lot of time here, but, just quickly, I owe you an apology," I said.

Rude raised an eyebrow like he didn't know what I was talking about.

"What I said at Rocket. I didn't know... I am real sorry about your ma."

Rude's face was stone. "No matter," he said tersely.

"No, it does matter," I said. "I was well outta line. I have no excuse."

Rude was silent for a moment, then nodded. "You need to talk to him," he said.

I didn't want to interfere any more. "I--"

"Raith." Rude pulled his shades off and looked me in the eye. "He didn't know. None of us did. You need to talk to him." He paused, watching my face. "Make it soon. And consider that an order."

I blinked. Rude never did that. But what could I say to it, then? "Yes, sir."

He nodded, put his shades back on and turned his back to me, walking towards Corel. I watched him, puzzled. He had no reason to do that. None, at all. And I had every reason in the world to obey him, but for reasons I'm still not sure about, I didn't want to.

Maybe it was guilt.

My reluctance lasted for exactly how long it took to see Reno again, face-to-face, like. All because he caught my eye and almost smiled at me, a bit. So, with my heart racing as it was, I guess the blood kinda rushed to my little brain and halfway down to the reactor I hit that send button. Truth be known, I probably would've even if Rude hadn't ordered me to.

I hadn't expected an immediate response. Again, I really don't remember what was said, but I do remember how I felt.

Fucking terrified.

I didn't have time to dwell on it, though. The mission started out well, but when Rufus Shinra turned up and revealed he'd been Avalanche's inside man at Shin-Ra all along it all went kinda pear-shaped. For a start, he told the literal swarm of Fuhito's Ravens to kill the lot of us. He didn't look impressed when Fuhito turned the order back on him, though.

You know, it didn't even occur to me at the time to wonder why it was we all tried to protect Rufus Shinra, when the bastard had just ordered each of us dead. It was our job. That was all.

Now, I just figure we've all been tampered with. I have my reasons. It might just be paranoia, but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Whatever the reason, it would've been real nice to know about the planned detonations earlier, but Rufus likes his melodrama, so last minute it was. Fuhito was prepared to kill his own people just to get all of us. I remember thinking something along the lines of and I thought Corneo was bad, before I fell, along with Shears, who was hurt much more than I was. I might have landed on the guy.

I'm still not really sure how that happened. I think there was an explosion, although I'm also pretty sure it came from the reactor core and wasn't what Rufus'd expected.

I actually don't remember much else about that day. I do remember Dallas coming in and trying to get both of us out. Turned out Fuhito was trying to kill Shears too. And there was something about Fuhito using some sort of materia on Elfe in an attempt to destroy the world.

These fringe groups always attract the crazies, I guess.

He gave me that materia I ended up with, you know. Shears. He thought it'd help save Elfe. Yeah. I took it. I felt sorry for the guy. I knew love when I saw it, and he was a goner.

I didn't feel the reactor building fall on my head, thank Shiva.

. . .

Did I hurt? No. I didn't think so. Where was I?

A sense of déjà vu washed over me. I'd done this before, surely.

Someone was there. "Reno?"

"No. It's just me. What have you gone and done with yourself this time?"

I turned my head, and saw her. She looked familiar, but I couldn't place her for a few minutes. She reminded me a little bit of Dallas, but that wasn't right. Redhead, but not Reno, cos, y'know, she. Then I realised... the last time I'd been out for a while for any reason. It was the same girl. Woman. Whatever. "Oh. Hello," I said, like I'd just bumped into her in the street.

"Hey."

Wait. Was I dead?

"Oh for pity's sake, Raith, not that again. Let's get past this now. You're not dead."

Fair enough. "Um. You're not going to make out with me again, are you? Because that was real disturbing last time."

"Oh, I will if you want. You're really very good at it, you know. You gave me shivers--" She pointed at her stomach-- "right here. Some people can just kiss, natural-like, and you're one of those. But, no, I was really only trying to get your attention then." She paused. "Which was rather pointless, after all that. You didn't listen to me, did you."

"I don't understand what you mean."

"I know you don't. That is exactly my point."

"Maybe if you'd told me anything useful, I would've understood."

"Don't be snide."

"Sorry." Wait. Why was I apologising? "I still have no idea who you are."

"Does it matter?"

"Well, yeah. As far as I can tell, you're in my head. I'd kinda like to know who's living in my head."

"Don't be silly, Raith. No one truly knows who's living in their heads. You do happen to like redheads, though, I've noted. Why, I wonder?"

"I really couldn't say." It was really only one redhead, anyhow.

She raised her eyebrow. "What would your life have been if you'd never met him, I wonder?"

I couldn't answer that, either. But the prospect filled me with dread.

"Besides," she added, as I drifted, "for all you know, you're the one who lives in my head."

. . .

Reno.

Reno.

Reno...

Rude.

Leave him alone.

I can't.

So let me die. Please let me die...

"Don't die... not alone." Huh? Kytt?

No one was there.

. . .

Images flashed through my head. Buzz. Stork. My father... my father, beating... my mother. Screaming. Hers. Mine.

Oh gods.

It felt like a memory. He killed her.

I slept... How could I sleep, after that?

"I'm curious, Raith." The woman-girl was lying on her stomach, chewing on a piece of grass... grass? I looked around. We were out in the most beautiful place I'd ever seen, washed in sunshine, green and grassy and smelling of coffee and hay and sweet red wine and Reno's hair... no. I'd never seen this place. It wasn't real.

Oh, but it was so real.

"What about?" I said.

"Why are you trying to die?"

"Because I'm no use to anyone out there."

"That's a lie."

"Why is it lately that every time I try and say how I feel I get accused of being a liar?"

She considered for a moment, rolling onto her back. "It might be a matter of definition," she said. "In my case, I'm just talking about the opposite of truth."

"Truth is relative."

"Ah. There you go. Now you're thinking. Yet, if that statement is also true...?"

"Then... it's... logically inconsistent. If truth is relative and that statement is also true, then truth is not true, which would not make it truth. So, truth can't be relative at all. Truth must be truth whether we believe it to be the truth or not."

She smiled. "So is the sky blue because it reflects the ocean or is the ocean blue because it reflects the sky?"

I frowned. "What does it matter? They're both blue."

"And now you understand." She cocked her head on one side. The movement reminded me of Reno. Or maybe Dallas.

I realised, then, that I'd thought that already. And, no, I didn't understand. Not really. I still don't.

. . .

"I'm still curious," she said.

"Will you ever not be?"

"Are you making fun of me?"

I grinned. "Would I do that?"

"Sure you would," she said.

"Sorry. What do you want to know?"

"Why do you think you are of no use?"

I thought about for a while. "I don't know."

"Don't you remember?"

I frowned, trying to recall. "No."

"I think you're afraid."

I sighed. "Of what, exactly?"

"You think no one loves you."

I had no response for that. It was true.

"You're silly, Raith. I love you."

"You're a manifestation of my highly deranged mind. You hardly count."

She pouted, which made me laugh, because the gesture didn't really suit her. "You really know how to hurt a girl." Then her face grew serious. "Besides, you're wrong."

"If you say so." Wait. "What am I wrong about?"

"Well, I don't think you're deranged." She rolled onto her stomach again, then reached out and touched me gently on the forehead. "You know there's more than one kind of love, right?"

"I'm not stupid."

"That remains to be seen," she said dryly. "Close your eyes."

"Why?"

"Oh, just do it," she said. "Or we'll be here all year."

"Whatever." I did so. Almost immediately, an image--memory?--dropped into my head. Not much, just a pair of gentle, dark-lashed, violet-grey eyes, looking down at me, accompanied by a general feel of safe. My mother. No. I opened my eyes.

"I know." Her hand stroked my face, then. "Close them again, okay? You need to see this."

"Are you doing this?"

"No, baby. This is all yours."

I sighed. "Okay." Swallowing hard, I complied.

"She was really beautiful, your ma. It's not difficult to see where you get your looks from."

I could see her. She really was. And she looked happy.

She was singing to me. Beautiful woman, beautiful voice, clear as crystal, low and deep. So pretty... then another face appeared next to hers, like he'd put his head on her shoulder from behind to look down at me as well.

Dad?

It couldn't be. I couldn't remember ever seeing my father happy. I couldn't even remember seeing him smile. But there he was, grin splitting his face, whispering something in my mother's ear... and she laughed.

And my father rubbed his hand over my head...

"See?" the girl-woman said into my ear.

I opened my eyes again. "What are you trying to prove? That I'm as capable of wishing for the impossible as anyone else?"

"Oh, no, Raith. Don't you understand? These are your memories. That was real."

"So once they were happy, then it all went wrong. How does that change anything?"

She gave me a withering look. "You've forgotten what you were thinking about, haven't you."

"Heh?"

"Why you were seeing that?"

"Well, hells, woman, apparently I'm unconscious or dead or something. My brain's not working so good. You could cut me a break."

She snorted. "Your brain doesn't work so good even when you're not injured." She grinned then, and stuck her tongue out at me.

Yeah. Whatever. "What went wrong?"

"What always goes wrong? Life, circumstances... somewhere along the line, your father made a poor choice, lost control of who he was and did a very bad thing, and then couldn't live with it."

"So he dumped me."

"Or he had a moment of clarity and knew that your broken leg was the least that could happen if he didn't let you go."

Oh. "I did fall off the roof."

"You did."

"I don't get it. Really."

"No. You get it. You just don't want to accept it."

"You think you have all the answers, don't ya."

"Well, you said it. I am in your head."

"So could you pretend I have the brain pan of a small rodent and spell it out for me, then. I'm too tired for this shit."

"Your father loved you."

I let my mind chew on that for a moment before responding. I remembered. He'd cried when he'd picked me up off the ground that day. I did remember that. I did. Try as I could, though, I couldn't remember if he'd said anything to me the day he'd taken me to Stevens. All I could remember of that day was Stevens, and Stork, and Reno.

"There's another one," she said.

"Sorry, what?"

"Principal Stevens. You were one of his favourites, you know that, right? He put a lot of time and energy into you."

"He felt sorry for me."

"He loved you. He did right by everyone, much as he could, but a few of you he thought of almost like sons. You, Reno, a couple of others."

"These are borne of my memories, right?"

"Mostly, yes."

"So... this is my ego talking, then."

"Don't be ridiculous."

I didn't answer.

"Oh, for gods' sakes, Raith. I am so not in the mood for this." She sighed. "Fine, if you are going to be stubborn about it." Images of a few more faces dumped into my head. Stork. Kytt. Dallas. Braden. "Love, love, love. Sure, not the way you wanted it, but all the same."

Someone was conspicuous by his absence, I noted.

She made a frustrated sound. "You're an idiot. If you'd close your eyes and really listen, you'd already know the answer to that one."

"But..."

I could've sworn she actually growled at me then.

I did. I listened. Wait. I could hear something, but it was like listening to a voice you thought you recognised through a crowd of people talking. But then... "Gods, Raith. Please don't leave me again." Reno...

Except... what did he mean, "again"?

. . .

I stared at the clouds. You know, if I squinted I could almost see a Shin-Ra 'copter in the distance. Not quite, but almost. If I closed my eyes, I could almost hear his voice, close, reassuring. Fingertips brushing my forehead... although maybe that was the long grass bending in the breeze. "I like it here."

"You can't stay."

"Why not?"

"This is not your place. You still have things to do."

I turned my head and looked at her. "Is this the Lifestream?"

She snorted. "Of course not. You have to be dead to go there."

"Is it nice?"

"How should I know? I've never been. Not dead and all."

I smiled and looked up at the clouds again. "Couldn't hurt to ask."

"Hm," she said.

"Hm, what?"

"You did hear me when I said you couldn't stay here, right?"

"Sure."

"You're way too comfortable."

"No, I get it. I think. Or, I would, if I knew where 'here' was. Probably. I'm just... I dunno. It's been a shitty few years, y'know? It's nice to just watch the sky for a bit."

"You don't feel like something's missing?"

I sighed. "I can't remember a time when I didn't feel like that, with the exception of about a year when I was working for Corneo."

"Oh, Raith. Something, not someone."

"You know better than that. That someone is everything, as far as I'm concerned. At the moment, though? No. I don't know where I am, although I can only presume laid up in a hospital somewhere, but I don't feel like anything's missing. I feel like... is he here?"

"Course he is."

"Yeah? Why?"

"Because he needs to be."

I didn't speak; not sure I believed her.

"Don't call me a liar, Raith." She sounded annoyed.

I sighed. "You're just saying that because you think that's what I want to hear."

"It is what you want to hear. Doesn't make it any less the truth."

"Okay."

"So why are you avoiding him then?"

. . .

It was dark; my head pounded with the vestiges of a headache that never quite left me. I'd forgotten, I think, what it felt like to live without some kind of pain. I was lost, alone, in a dank cell with no hope of release.

And he was there.

But, no. He wasn't. Not really. He was in my apartment, where I was. It was dark, but it wasn't the bitter darkness of a clammy dungeon, that stank of shit and piss and blood. It was a soothing dimness of a closed blind with warm sun behind it, a warm sun that nonetheless caused pain.

And he was there.

"What are you doing here?" Me. That was me.

He looked confused, wary. He tried to talk, but before he could I grabbed him, drew him to me, and kissed him. And he wasn't... him. No. He was him, but I didn't...

I punched him.

What?

And... pain, like stabbing. Someone stabbing me. What the fuck is that noise? Beeping? Like... no. Sleep. Too much. It's all too much.

I hit him. I did hit him.

But he was there.

But I hit him. So why was he there?

I think I cried, then.

. . .

I asked her what her name was.

"We've had this conversation before," she said.

I searched my mind. "No we haven't," I said. "I've asked you who you are, but that isn't the same thing."

She smiled, then. "Oh, sweet boy. You are definitely my favourite."

"Favourite what?"

"Just my favourite."

"What does that mean?"

She tapped me on the nose with a forefinger. "Stop looking for metaphor in everything, Raith. It makes me irritable. Sometimes what is said is exactly what is meant."

"Heh?"

She laughed. "You know something?"

"Apparently not."

"You've been asleep for a long time."

"How long?" It didn't feel like a long time.

"A while."

"How long?"

"Don't be silly. You're wasting time. He's waiting for you, you know."

Reno was waiting for me? "What does that mean?"

"Well, if you never wake up, you'll never know, will you?"

"I want to know who you are, first."

"Well, I can't tell you that."

"Why?"

"Because I'm not really sure myself."

Oh. "Why didn't you say that before?"

"Because it's kinda a lonely thing, you know?"

"Yes," I said sadly, "it is."

"You can name me if you like."

I considered. "You don't know my mother's name, do you?"

"I'm sorry, Raith. I don't."

"Was worth a shot."

She smiled. "It's been fun. Open your eyes."

I opened my eyes. I couldn't focus for a moment, but I could hear the sounds, smell that unmistakable hospital aroma. Gradually, though, I could see. Good. I was in a main ward. So, I can't have been there for long.

I could hear Dallas, saying something. Braden, too. Slowly, their faces came into focus, but my eyes looked for just one face. A face I couldn't find.

The girl-woman had been wrong. There was no Reno.

He wasn't there.

He probably never had been.

It's easier to run
Replacing this pain with something more
It's so much easier to go
Than face all this pain here all alone

Was all of the stuff I "saw" during my coma real, or just products of my own imagination? I really can't say. I'd like to think that some of it is true, y'know, stuff that was well buried. Like, me ma didn't just leave, and my dad dropped me off with Stevens cos he gave a shit. Then again, that's kinda like wishing my mother dead.

Not really, I guess. Even now, that part just feels true. I'd like to think the bastard didn't mean it, though.

Yeah, I'm tending towards 'real', I guess, especially in light of what Doc Mir told me later. I'll get to that in a sec.

This is going to sound stupid, but the entirely commonplace events after I came to were harder on me than even Corneo's. Maybe it's because I missed three years of my life and I hadn't noticed them pass. Maybe it was because of expectations. I really thought he'd be there. I don't know. It's just that, deep down, I haven't felt more alone in my life than I have over the past year. Mostly my own fault, but anyhow, that's how it is.

It was Braden who told me that I'd been unconscious for three years.

Three fucking years. Just... gone.

Kind of explained Reno's absence, I guess. A lot can happen in three years. Kytt wasn't there, either, I noticed, although I was told it was because she was out of Midgar.

I don't want to go into that day. All I remember was Reno and Rude showing up soon afterwards, Tseng in tow. Clearly, whatever problems they'd had were resolved. They related, as normal. Whatever that is. Braden and Dallas left, and Tseng filled me in on what was going on. Veld had a death order on his head. I mean, bloody hells. And they hadn't found him, not in three years.

Either Veld was very good, or they hadn't tried that hard. Turks were better than that.

Tseng had Veld's position, now, of course, and Reno had Tseng's.

Fuck. Reno had been promoted? Over Braden's head? And Dallas'? I didn't ask. It was too... bizarre.

I didn't look at him. I couldn't.

Three fucking years?

Then Tseng dropped the anvil on my head. Like the bulding hadn't already been enough.

"Reno," he said, "I think it would be a good idea if you partner Raith through his rehab."

Reno hesitated. Clearly, he didn't want to. But then, he said, "Okay, boss."

Tseng nodded. "I trust you'll make sure he's actually fit before we send him out a new mission."

"Will do."

"What, no sick leave?" I said dryly.

I was rewarded with two identical blank looks.

"You've used up your allotment, I believe," Tseng said mildly, but his eyes were amused. "Let's try to not make it necessary for you to need more, shall we?"

"Sir," I said.

Tseng smiled. "It is good to see you awake." He left, then, Rude in tow.

"So," Reno said.

"So."

"How are you feeling?"

"I'll keep." I still couldn't look at him.

"I guess you're tired."

"Yeah." I winced. "I mean, yes, sir."

"You don't have to call me that, you know. Not when there's no one else around."

I did look at him, then. He was watching me, steadily, and there was something in his face I couldn't put my finger on. I stared at my hands. What was up with him?

"I'll go get the doc, then," he said after a long, uncomfortable silence.

I nodded, and Doc Mir came in.

I stayed for about a week, in the open ward, until she was satisfied that I wasn't going to relapse or some such nonsense. Reno came by every day. I have no idea why, because he didn't say much, unless I did. He just sat.

Kytt, of course, phoned as soon as she heard.

I just wished everyone would leave me alone. It was strange. I was still a part of the team, but I wasn't, any more. Everyone had moved on, and I was still three years in the past.

It took me a while to deal with that.

Three days after I was released from hospital, Doc Mir dropped by my apartment. "Well, Raith," she said, "I'm very happy with the results of all of your tests. Everything seems to be normal."

"Comparatively speaking," I said dryly.

She smiled briefly. "Yes, well." She made a couple of notes. "No more nightmares?"

"None."

"Hm."

"Hm?" I said.

"I'm wondering if it isn't all somehow... fixed," she mused.

"Doc, you're starting to worry me now."

"Oh, okay. Raith, I'm sorry. I'm thinking aloud. It has to do with all of the problems we were discussing before your accident."

"Better fill me in then."

She hestitated only slightly, then smiled again. "All right. This is what I knew. What you were given at Corneo's was a prototype of a serum that Hojo's department had worked on for some time. The purpose was to compel someone to tell the truth under questioning." She frowned. "It was supposed to allow the questioning of things that the subject was either forced to forget or had wiped from mind voluntarily."

I swallowed. Turks were taught those forgetting techniques during early training. It was easy enough to re-create false memories simply by recalling the information you needed to forget and reprogramming your mind to re-store it as something else. People do it all the time, actually. The purpose was to do it consciously. The thing was, there was a theory that, kinda like a hard drive on a computer that'd been wiped, memories could be recreated from old data in the brain. I guessed that was the theory Hojo was working on. We'd be warned about that possibility. We'd also be warned that current drugs out there, used by other than Shin-Ra, were not pleasant.

Well, neither was the one they used on me. "You say 'was'," I said.

"It has never been used, because it simply did not work, and the side effects--"

"Hallucinations?"

She nodded. "Rendered the resultant data too suspect; inaccurate, and the project was abandoned way back when Veld was still a Junior. However, in your case, your hallucinations seemed to have more than an element of truth about them. No one was ever able to sort out why. It was my job to find out." She pressed her lips together. "I didn't figure it out, but that was mostly because I hadn't been given full access to the required information. Veld didn't want Hojo involved, so I only had what Veld had to work with."

"And I take it he wasn't well-informed."

"The trouble with you, Raith, is that through no fault of your own, or, for that matter, Shin-Ra, you were involved in more than one of Hojo's past experiments. I'm still not sure how much Veld knew that he didn't tell me. My first real clue that there was something else going on with Veld was when you, Reno and Katelyn went down ill--and Dallas didn't. Then again," she added, "that may've had nothing to do with Veld."

None of that rang true, frankly. "Element of truth about them," I said.

"Sorry?"

"My hallucinations. At Corneo's. Had an 'element of truth about them'."

"I don't follow."

"Braden and Tseng were, I'm told, looking for me. Shin-Ra, I am told, didn't know where I was. How the fuck did anyone at Shin-Ra know what my fucking hallucinations were? I'm not even sure what they were."

She frowned. "I don't have an answer for that, I'm afraid."

"Don't, or won't tell me?"

"I don't know how they knew, or who 'they' are. All I know is the data I was given when you were first brought to me. I don't know how Veld got it. Look, it is obvious that, while Shin-Ra officially didn't know where you were, and Turks claim--Tseng and Braden, at least--they didn't know, either, someone gave Corneo that drug. And the results of that year are in the system, although so deep that I only had what Veld gave me to go by, and that was not complete. Hells, I still don't have a full picture. I'm still trying to sort out who knew what." She grimaced. "And my security clearance is a lot higher than yours."

Corneo had Reno... "Reno," I said.

She blinked. "I seriously doubt it, Raith. The timing's all wrong; there is no way--"

"No. I don't think he was involved." Don't think it any more, anyway. "He was threatened." I really didn't want to go into detail as to why. "I didn't believe Scotch when he told me they had him. Next day, he turned up with a vid of Reno handcuffed to a table in a room I now know is within the Turk interro unit." Although, why Reno would've been held like that by the Turks was completely beyond me, too.

"Someone from Shin-Ra gave Corneo that vid, you think."

"Clearly."

"Is my thinking, too."

"Any idea who's been doing this?"

She sighed. "It could be anyone." She glanced at her watch, then. "I am sorry, but I have another appointment." She stood. "As soon as I have any idea at all about this, I will talk to you."

I nodded. "I appreciate that."

"It really is good to see you doing so well, Raith."

"You took good care of me."

"I did start to wonder at my lack of skill, there, for a while." She frowned again. "There is something else, but it sounds very... fanciful."

"Throw it at me anyway."

"Now that I have what I believe is full information--as full as I can--I have a theory of why you were in that coma for so long without any real noticeable physical changes from our side."

"I don't understand."

"Normally, Raith, anyone in a coma for as long as you were would--should--suffer a decline in function. Even with the best possible nutrition and physiotherapy available, there should have ben substantial muscle wastage. You had none of that."

I blinked.

"There was also the matter of your non-responsiveness, to the point where I did wonder if you had any brain function. You were clearly not vegetative, though. It didn't make any sense to me at all."

"And now it does?"

"I think that Hojo's drug, in combination with what you were given when you were at school and the materia, caused some sort of..." she trailed off. "This sounds ridiculous."

"No more than me still being here after three years."

"Time anomaly."

I raised an eyebrow.

"No, more like some sort of suspended animation."

I nodded slowly. "That does make sense, actually. I definitely didn't feel like three years passed, Doc. It felt more like... days. Maybe weeks."

"What was it like?" she said.

"I'd rather not go into it. My brain seemed to be sorting... stuff. It's kinda personal."

She nodded. "I understand. But that may have been the Hojo drug component. The materia was protecting you, physically, and the stuff you were all given at school..."

"What was that?"

"To cut a long summation short, Shin-Ra used a drug on boys that showed potential in your school. You and Reno were part of that, along with a few others. The purpose was to enhance your natural abilities, physically, mentally. Sometimes it took well, sometimes it didn't. Those who seemed to make it through school without ill effect were tagged to be Turks or put thorugh the Academy. You and Reno were two of the very few who made it through the school with minimal side effects."

"Minimal?"

"Nightmares, occasional bouts of temper."

That explained a lot. Reno's nightmares back when we worked for Corneo made sense to me, now.

"Once inducted into the Turks, I believe--but cannot prove--that you were all dosed again, maybe just to see what happened, maybe because it was necessary. I don't know. That's why you were all sick. The second round did not react well."

"Dallas."

"Wasn't. I've yet to work out why."

"Maybe whoever did it knew the risks and didn't want to possibly subject her to it."

"Possibly. In some boys, the drug made them prone to violence, but in those cases, they couldn't be taken off the drug easily because the withdrawal was deadly."

"How so?"

"It sent them mad."

That made me think of Stork. He always had been a violent shit. Maybe it hadn't been his fault, after all.

"I believe most Turks who made it through from that system before you and Reno were dosed again during training. There were two, before you boys. Both of them died. One, I believe you knew. Hamill."

I swallowed. Fuck. "He was Reno's roomie at school. Does he know Hamill's dead?"

She nodded. "Offically, he was shot during his first mission out. I have my suspicions, though, that there was more to it."

I didn't want to know. I hadn't known Hamill well, but he'd been where I'd wanted to be. Then I remembered something. "Kandy," I said.

"I'm sorry?"

"I don't know if this is relevant to you, but while I was Corneo's... guest, the guy who was supposed to keep me alive took pity on me, I guess, and threw a bit of Kandy in my water one time. Not enough to get addicted, he said, but enough to deaden the pain. But, given the taste of the water, I think he'd been adding a pinch all along."

"Mako," she said thoughtfully. "Hm. Well, it is partially Lifestream, so perhaps it has some sort of memory function."

"I thought a lot of my dead parents at that time, Doc." Well, I didn't know my father was dead, but it was a fair assumption, because if he wasn't, he'd been a Kandy addict for at least twenty-five years. They rarely lasted five.

"Gods. See, now we're beyond science and heading into what I'd consider the theological realm."

Theological... "Well, no. Mako is Lifestream." That was, after all, Avalanche's problem with it. They believed that in using mako for energy, we--Shin-Ra--were pulling the life out of Planet. "That much is a fact."

"It's the concept of the Lifestream being the souls of the dead that causes me pause, Raith."

Well, it would, I guessed. The idea of using my dead mother to power the streetlights was not a nice one. "I don't think that's what it is. People go to the Lifestream, they don't become a part of it."

"And that, we could discuss for days, and never answer, because we don't really know."

"So. The long and the short of this is you're concerned I'll go nuts."

"No. The long and the short of it is, I think whatever happened during your coma has fixed the problems you came out of Corneo's with. But, and this is a very large but, there is also the possibility that, one day, you willsimply go 'boom'." She watched my face for a moment. "I don't think that will happen though. Outside of understandable tendencies, you have not shown a partiality to random violence."

That wasn't completely true, if my memory was correct. I had, once. At least. If it was true. I didn't say anything, though.

Doctor Mir looked at her watch again. "And now I'm late. I really have to go. But,please, keep in touch, and let me know right away if anything changes. Okay?"

I nodded. "Will do. Thanks again."

"Anytime."

I showed her out, then sat on my couch for a while, trying to digest what she'd told me. Someone had given Corneo that drug, and whoever that was, knew I was in there, and was happy for me to languish... and had probably also provided Corneo with that vid. Someone who wanted Dallas kept out of it. Someone who knew about the experiments at the school.

Hells, it certainly explained why Turks had worked so hard to get Reno and me in. What it didn't explain was, why did they take so long? And why hadn't whoever it was that knew where I was juts told Braden and Tseng I was there, earlier? Unless... Reno was the Control Group, and I was the experiment. The thought made me sick. I wondered, briefly, if that was randoma or just luck of the draw. If both of us had been picked up by Turks that day, would one of us've been handed back? If both by Corneo... well, you get the drift.

I didn't realise it at the time, but i think I actually absolved Reno, then. Not that it mattered.

Really, I needed to go back to Corneo's and question Scotch, maybe. Trouble was, I'd been ordered a long time ago to stay away from there, indefinitely. Fuck. Had Tseng known? I didn't like to think so... and I didn't think so. Braden hadn't. That, I did know was true... even if he had a very good reason to keep Dallas out of the second round of "drug therapy."

Shit, how had we been given all of this? I didn't remember being given any injections at school. Blood tests, yes. But just before we were all ill... no. Nothing. Food? Water? Air?

Who knew?

I didn't get much chance to muse any futher, because Reno arrived, then, to take me for a workout at the gym.

He didn't speak until we'd both changed and were out on the floor. "Let's see how you're doing, eh? Up to it?"

"Yessir," I said.

Reno looked annoyed for a moment, then shrugged, looking me in the eye. "Seriously, Raith, lay off that 'sir' shit."

"Is that an order, boss?"

His mouth twitched. "There is no way I can answer that question that won't smack of irony, is there."

"Probably not."

He sighed. "I just..."

I waited for the rest of the sentence, but it wasn't forthcoming. I decided to leave it. At the time, I just didn't want to hear what he had to say. He didn't want to be called "sir"? Well, tough luck, I figured. That's the job, right? He took the promotion, he got the stuff that went with it, including the respectables.

Besides, it was easier for me to keep an emotional distance when I was reminding myself that he was doing Tseng's old job. At least I knew that Reno wouldn't pull rank in the same way Rufus was with Tseng.

I still can't get over that. But like I said, a lot can happen in three years. Rufus under Turk lock and key, by order of his father, no less. And, apparently enjoying that way too much. A death order on Veld. Avalanche as quiet as a feather on a still day... Reno, my boss. Well, that hadn't changed, really. But there was a world of difference between Senior Turk and Two IC.

Hells, I wonder how that works with Reno and Rude.

I probably shouldn't think about that, either.

At least Braden and Dallas were together, at the time. Didn't last, of course. Never seems to. Those two are hopeless that way.

It was a good workout, very close to some of the final Basic tests. Reno ran me up ropes and had me run through forms, watching with a neutral face and nodding when I did well.

Very different from rookie training, way back when.

I did find it difficult to concentrate when we sparred, though. It was his touch, even in that situation. It kinda... burned, to use a poor metaphor. Like, I realised just before I went down zero for three, that part of the reason was that I was, underneath, avoiding him, so that made me slow.

He stood up from bout number three with a raised eyebrow. "C'mon, Raith," he said quietly. "I know you can do better'n that."

"Not today," I said. I sat down on the mat, elbows on my knees, feeling more done than I should've, even considering. I shifted my shoulders, stretching them, then nodded a "thanks" to Reno as he handed me my water bottle.

"Too much?" he said.

"Bit on the tired side," I admitted.

He dropped onto his arse on the mat opposite me and took a mouthful of his own water. "Yeah, cos it ain't like you haven't slept enough lately."

I yawned. "You'd think, huh."

His brows creased as his eyes met mine. "You okay?"

I have to admit, the tone in his voice sent a warmth through me that went well beyond mere exercise. It also made me pay attention. It sounded like, almost like, he cared. You know, beyond the concern of one Turk for another. I... wanted him. I did. I reallydid. But it was more than that. I missed what we'd had--the talking, the laughing. Touch. Working together. Being together. Curling up against him at night. Knowing that there was one person out there who'd fucking cared if I lived or died. Or had, until...

Rude said he didn't know.

I tore my gaze from Reno's. Whatever he'd known or not known, the fact remained that he'd taken off to be with Rude. He was only there right then because Tseng'd ordered him to be.

And my head liked to lie to me. He hadn't been there when I woke up.

Besides, I couldn't look at him without seeing what I'd done. What I thought I'd done. I frowned. "Reno, I need to know something."

"Sure."

"Because I don't... remember. And I should, because I--" I stopped. I couldn't explain.

"So, shoot."

"Okay." I took a breath and let it out, trying to steady my mind. "Did I ever hit you? Like, really hit you?"

Reno's face registered surprise. "Sorry, what?"

"When we were together. Or later. Or before. In anger. During sex. Any time. Did I ever hit you?"

"You don't remember?"

"I--I think I do."

His eyes narrowed. "If you're asking, you don't."

I swallowed, sick to my stomach, because now I knew. No. "That's not an answer."

"No," Reno said, "it's not."

"What did I do," I said, barely able to get the words out.

Reno caught my eye. "Nothing that matters."

"What. Did I. Do?"

He looked uncomfortable. "While you were a rookie, I came to your apartment to apologise for my behaviour in training and you took to me." He grimaced. "That sounds worse than the truth. I walked into your apartment uninvited and actually didn't ever say sorry... I am fairly sure you were out of it. Like, it wasn't you, or you were sleepwalking or something." He bit his cheek. "It was my own fault. I shouldn't've been there."

"Reno."

"No. I walked into your home, uninvited, after I'd driven you into the ground to the point of exhaustion and treated you like shit. You were half asleep, clearly not there properly and I didn't leave when you asked me to."

I stood, pacing. "Don't make excuses for me."

"I ain't." Reno's voice was calm.

I stopped and looked down at him. "I'm sorry."

He stood, then, and regarded me for a moment, crossing his arms. "Look, Raith, I'm going to accept that apology, but not because I think you needed to make one, because you didn't, but because you're beatin' yourself up over nothing."

How could he say that? "It wasn't nothing."

He grimaced. "Okay. I understand the significance, and that's not what I meant. I'm glad you brought it up, though."

"Why?"

"Well, before all this, before your accident, something I was going to say when we..." his voice trailed off, then. "I did it, too, so I need to say sorry."

Obviously three years in a coma'd stuffed my memory some, because I couldn't place what he was talking about. "Huh?"

"Remember the day I shot Seleen? Landed you on your arse?"

I frowned. Was that all? "You thought I was taking advantage and defended yourself."

"Yeah... no. Intent is the thing, here. You believed one thing when I was thinkin' else. Course, I'd forgotten to actually tell you that, so I went arsehole instead."

"But--"

"You making excuses for me now?" His look was direct. "Hells, we fought at school, too."

It wasn't the same thing. "We weren't together then. In either case."

He raised an eyebrow. "Or when you were a rookie, neither, much as--" He sighed. "Look, it really doesn't matter. What's past is past, y'know?"

Yeah. Not. He could say he understood the significance, but he clearly didn't. "It fucking matters to me," I muttered.

Gods. Two things I swore I'd never do, lines I'd never cross, especially not with him. Cheat, or hit. And I had done both, and I couldn't even properly remember the second one. He couldn't understand that. How did I know I wouldn't do it again?

"Raith--"

"Forget it, Reno." I couldn't face him, so I turned, and walked out of the gym without further word. My father, if what'd been in my head was true, hadn't meant to kill my mother. How soon would it be before I was doing the same thing, especially if I didn't even know I was doing it? Sure, I wasn't on Kandy like my father'd been, but I had been on something.

For all I knew I still was.

Like it, or not, seemed, deep down, I was just like him, that man who supposedly protected the last person he cared about by getting me out of his life.

And, I had to do the same, just in case I went 'boom'. It was easier that way.

If I could change I would
Take back the pain I would
Retrace every wrong move that I've made I would
If I could stand up and take the blame I would
I would take all my shame to the grave
Just washing it aside
All of the helplessness inside
Pretending I don't feel this place
It's so much simpler than change

~ Easier To Run, © Linkin Park

To Chapter Twenty-Four of Reno's Story