For goodwitch08.
Stricken.
His pale, aristocratic face is tipped toward the window, the sunlight turning his hair a golden red. The President is breathing steadily, but he is lost amongst the life-support machines. What little skin is visible – hands, feet, most of his right arm – is badly burned. Blood seeps through the bandages to stain his white clothing (always white, even near death). They have more surgery to do, apparently, a lot more surgery. Cure magic to cast with the utmost of care. Tseng told them not to expect a conversation with him – not a lucid conversation, at least – for several weeks. He is at the edge of a coma, they believe.
The Turks are to watch him in shifts; one of them is to be with him constantly. Tseng did not leave his side for over 24 hours, despite his exhaustion, and then Reno paced and fought his way through 8 hours of soul-destroying guilt. Rude took his first shift with trademark stoicism, but he said nothing to her when she arrived to relieve him. He merely nodded and brushed past her, leaving the door open. She had closed it softly behind her with shaking hands.
He is painfully small to her now, painfully fragile. She recalls her past efforts as a bodyguard, the pride she felt that he was content to be guarded on occasion by her and her alone, a tiny blonde girl, a rookie Turk. And she had done well. She did not have Reno's wit and flair for conversation, or Rude's knowledge and shared love of scotch and some of the other, finer things of life. And of course, she could not compete with the fierce devotion and friendship that Tseng offered Rufus. But she is a proficient martial artist and an excellent, near perfect shot – one to rival Vincent Valentine, Tseng had once remarked, causing her to blush outrageously. She would lay down her life for Rufus, and the President knew it.
She remembers the first night they had all gone drinking together, Rufus and his Turks. She had been delighted to see Tseng knock back the spirits with the rest of them, amused at Reno's antics, glad to see Rude smiling like an idiot. They had spilled out on to the street at past four in the morning, Tseng making the attempt to hail a cab. And as she had wandered absently into the road, Rufus had snatched her back and pulled her close to him, and the fast car had screamed past with a screech of brakes. He had looked down at her and laughed –
"Saved your life!"
And she had laughed too, and Reno had been near hysterical. The rest of the night was a blur of Tseng and Rude, still sober enough to function, hauling the three of them into a taxi and then into a hotel. She had woken up to find Reno passed out next to her (he had no qualms about invading personal space), and to find that she was wearing the President's coat. She knew then that she was a Turk, that this was the only family she would ever need. That Rufus Shinra was her reason for being.
She sits carefully at the side of the bed, and looks at him because there is nothing else to look at. They would have left him in the collapsing Headquarters. She is crying freely now. They would have left him there to die, alone, abandoned by his Turks. If Tseng had not cheated death, displayed the courage and conviction that they all should have displayed, then Rufus Shinra, the centre of her world, would not be here.
And a part of her blames Reno. A part of her thinks angrily, derisively of his street-urchin childhood, his base survival instinct, and she resents that he chose his own life, her life, Rude's life, over Rufus. Because she would have sacrificed them all on a hopeless mission. She would have led them back into the falling HQ, she would have buried them all in the rubble – better to have died in the attempt, than to have lived with the knowledge that they had failed him. She knows it is irrational, but the scarred and ruined body in the bed defies the rational.
We will redeem ourselves. She wills him to recover. Give us another chance and we will redeem ourselves.