The Way Back to 429, Post-Vortex

[the_merriest]

Two daughters, very different, both gone. One wee Turk, not hers in any sense, gone as well.

Rikku was walking back to the dorms, very, very slowly. And trying not to sniffle quite so much. And failing.

She reached over, almost instinctively, for Reno's hand.

(for the modded one)

Comments

[the_merriest]

She looked at him for a long moment, and then sighed. "Okay. Yeah. I wondered. But that's because ... if you're really saying you never did, with Jenny, I'll believe you. But ... I thought you had, and then hey, some universe where we don't work out, you got back together with her, and it ... made me wonder. That's all. I'd never ... all I did was miss you. Kissing someone else would've never even occurred to me, it's not the point. Nothing happened. I just ... wish I didn't feel stupid and insecure and ..."

"Most of it's complicated, with us." She was chewing on her lower lip, now. "And Rede's yours, not mine, I have no business ... a-acting like this."

I love you too, Mom. She tried not to wince.

[raspberryturk]

He stopped walking, there. Turned to her and reached for her hand again.

"It's just you, Rikku. It's gonna stay that way. I mean that."

And then his eyes drifted to his shoes again.

"He was more yours than mine, I think. I don't think he ever saw me as anything but a senior Turk. An'... maybe that's for the best. He gets the hugs from you and the orders from me, because nobody who really cared about him should be tellin' him to-"

...

"If he doesn't get in touch with me, over there, he's got Rude. And Rude'll bust down fuckin' walls to get him out. And Tseng'll call in a freakin' airstrike if he's gotta. I mean... They probably got bits of him cultivatin' in there. Or of... Cissnei. That's," breath, "that's Turks. All of those kids, they're Turks. Not ShinRa. Fuck the fuckin' company. Those kids are ours."

[the_merriest]

"We had to," she said quickly. "It's self-defense, it's his life or Hojo's, and are you sure this Hojo's dead? Can't we go kill him again and make sure? Can you call Tseng and ask him ... I don't know. To check records? Something? Anything?"

Her brain caught up to her ears, and she clasped her fingers around his. "Cissnei," she said, catching the subtle pronunciation shift. "She was a Turk? One of the ones ..."

He'd said Avalanche had taken out most of them, some dark summon, they never came home again.

[raspberryturk]

"Hojo's dead, but I'll be tellin' Tseng about this, in detail, just in case..." In case there's some little Rede here who has no hope of ever...

"It was Tseng's first assignment as head of the Turks. Him, Rude, and Me, we had to go and help our commanding officer, who was on the run from ShinRa, fake his own death. The rest, they were gonna save the world. Tseng's been walkin' on glass with the rest of us since. He and Cissnei were... close. She was... a good Turk."

[the_merriest]

"The worst part about saving the world is the body count," Rikku said, very softly, squeezing his hand. "I bet she was. You have to tell me about her, some time."

There was a pause, while she weighed whether or not to go further.

"So why did he need dossiers? If it wasn't to ... m-make sure you weren't, you know. Involved with an anti-government agent and things like that." Which. He kinda was. "It's not like he'd look at it and go, hey, that's awesome, keep dating her, this is a fabulous idea. Right? I mean, that's why you didn't ... tell him, isn't it?"

[raspberryturk]

"I didn't tell him because I didn't think you were any of his business." Reno lifted a shoulder. "You were mine, and not compromising the assignment any, so I figured, he didn't have to know."

He shrugged a shoulder. "And then I vanished on him for weeks, and when I get in touch with him again, it's with an 'oops, sorry boss, defied a direct order not to get involved with the angels.' And..." Sigh. "He just wants to know what it is that I care about enough, it's worth dyin' for. He's lost enough of us on his watch already, Rikku. He don't care where your from, or what you did, and he doesn't give a fuck how you affect ShinRa. Just if maybe you're affectin' me somehow."

He paused, and then shook his head.

"Haven't sent him anything that actually said anything, anyhow. Didn't think you'd like him knowin' about you, but if I don't do it, he'll look, or he'll have Rude look. I dunno."

[the_merriest]

"I am affecting you," she said softly, pulling his arms around her and stopping them both for just a moment. "And how do you know he won't ... freak, if he knows my past? I mean. We knocked down a government. I was executed for treason. I could be ... I don't know. Convincing you of all kinds of anti-government ... stuff. Bad influence. Whatever you want to call it."

[raspberryturk]

"Because he's known for months now that you and I've been seein' one another. By now, he probably knows it all anyhow, and he'd have brought me home in a flash if he was concerned."

He shrugged again.

"Right now, this is more a test to see how much he can trust me to be honest with him, Rikku. Not you."

[the_merriest]

"You trust him," she said carefully. "He'd protect you, and Rude, and the newbie." The one whose name she didn't remember, dammit. "I have no reason to. I can't. He ... he doesn't know me, he doesn't owe me anything. If he thought I was bad for you ..."

She let out a breath again. And her voice, when it came, was barely audible.

"He called me mom."

Not Tseng, no.

[raspberryturk]

Reno nodded faintly. That moment. Where they whispered between themselves, and both of them were crying.

There was more 'family' between Rikku and Rede than there was between Reno and Rede, and Reno knew it.

"You're the closest he ever had," he said, tightening his arms around her. "Maybe he'll find somethin' half as good when he gets outta there."

Not if. Not allowed to think if. If right now would kill them both.

[the_merriest]

"He will," she said, squeezing hard and trying not to start crying again. Failing at that, mostly. "H-he'll have you, and Rude, and you know damn well you're gonna make sure he's fed and safe and loved."

No crying. Not crying. Mostly not crying. "Wh-why did you say ... Ruba's not gonna happen?"

[raspberryturk]

"Because I'd have to be a pretty sick fuck to bring someone as beautiful as Ruba into the kind of life she'd be stuck with if she had me as a dad."

Wouldn't that be something, on, like, career day at school?

'My daddy is a fireman!' 'My daddy is a doctor!' 'My daddy goes to work an' kills people an' crushes cities!'

Functional family unit, right there. Poor kid.

"Ruba was.. too happy to be the kind of girl whose father is tangled up in all this other bullshit. Her Reno must've had some way out. I dunno."

He paused, shut his eyes, and dammit, he wasn't going to cry, here, too. "I want her back."

[the_merriest]

"She was happy," Rikku said, holding him close. "O-ours and ... happy. And maybe that sounds b-boring to you, being settled down somewhere, but it sounded ... beautiful. To me. She wanted to kill monsters and steal their stuff and then go for cookies."

[raspberryturk]

Reno shook his head quickly.

"No, not boring. Doesn't sound boring," he said.

Well. A little boring. But only if it was, like, picket fence kinda shit. So not his shtick.

"She- really? Monsters?" He grinned faintly, at that. "She, uh. She wanted to tickle everyone on the planet, for 'world dompinayshun.' And then make 'em give us ice cream and cookies."

[the_merriest]

"She wanted to take down a behemoth and be a bad-ass fighter chick," Rikku said, grinning. "I think maybe we didn't do the overprotective thing, with her."

[raspberryturk]

"Speak for yourself," Reno replied, and that faint grin was a little less faint, there. "She, uh."

He blinked, and then he proceeded to look a little baffled, then.

"When she found me? She snuck into my room, and she crawled into bed with me. Just cuddled up all cozy-like."

So, so baffled. "Do kids really do that? I mean... Really?"

[the_merriest]

"Snuggle?" Rikku asked, smiling. "You bet they do. Bayla only really stopped bouncing when we got her to curl up. She probably does that a lot. Wakes up in her bed and comes to stay in ours for a bit."

Well. She happened to know for a fact that Renos were cozy.

[raspberryturk]

"A lot? Really? That's, like... A common... whatever?" That had to sink in for a moment, there. "...Whoa."

Was it apparent that Reno's experience with kids was zip? It was? Oh, good.

[the_merriest]

It was also apparent that Reno hadn't had a very snuggly childhood himself, which Rikku had ... mostly suspected, but it was still a little heartbreaking.

"You were all warm and safe," Rikku explained, settling into his arms. "Probably climbs onto your lap and falls asleep there, too. She loves you."

[raspberryturk]

"She..." Whoa. "I love her too," he mumbled, pressing his face into her hair and closing his eyes. Inhale. Exhale. Okay. "I miss her. And I got no idea how someone so..."

Innocent. Happy. Beautiful. Perfect.

"So fragile could feel... I dunno. Safe. Like that."

[the_merriest]

"With you?" she said softly. "I'm not surprised at all. She knows nothing in the world can hurt her, or Daddy will beat it to a pulp. She knows you'd do anything for her."

That had been obvious from the look on his face, whenever he held her.

[raspberryturk]

"Yeah," he agreed, and he was smiling again. "I would."

He had to gather as much of Rikku as was possible into his arms now, and hold her close, and maybe never let go. Because there'd been too much letting go, tonight.

"I want her back."

[the_merriest]

"Me too," Rikku said, trying not to sniffle again dammit and squeezing him harder. "I w-want ..."

Can't say that. Would scare him and he'd leave and he'd stare at you funny and and and --

"I w-want her. And u-us and whatever life she has and I want all of that and I don't care, I do."

[raspberryturk]

He didn't run away.

At that particular moment, he was too busy squeezing the crap out of her and trying not to break down and cry again to even think that he should be running away.

Because... Because, dammit, he... he wanted that, too, whatever that was. And wouldn't run from it, and shouldn't have let them leave, and and and...

"E muja oui," he murmured.

[the_merriest]

Her shoulders were shaking and she felt her eyes burn as she pulled him closer, he couldn't get closer, he had to get closer a-and he said ...

"E-e muja oui, duu," she managed, and she was sniffling on his jacket and she didn't care. "Y-you ..."

She leaned up and covered his mouth with hers. See, they could get closer, after all.