Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII and all related characters and materials are property of Square-Enix.

Five To Ten
By: Nanaki BH

Rufus twirled his pen anxiously and stole another glance at the digital clock that sat on his desk. The seconds were inching toward ten o' clock and it couldn't get there soon enough. Usually, his mind wasn't on such things. The clock was merely there as a useful way to remind him of when he should send something out or when he should expect company. It was never there for him to wonder about when he should take a break or to tell him when working late was becoming too late.

Leave it to Reno to inspire more nerve-wracking feelings in him. Earlier, some time around when lunch would normally be (though Rufus was insistent on powering through it to get more work finished) Reno had popped into his office. Naturally, his first inquiry was why he wasn't having anything for lunch. The president simply tried to wave him away after that for being a nosy pest, but apparently the Turk wasn't there just to act concerned.

Ten o' clock, he told him, up on the roof. He had something he wanted to show him later and he wanted him to come up to check it out. The time specifics confused Rufus more than the location, but he didn't get a chance to ask anything of Reno before he ducked out the door. He was left in his office alone to think about it for the next several hours.

For starters, meeting up with Reno was always optional. Granted, he did enjoy the meetings Reno usually planned for them, but he didn't like feeling obligated, especially when he still had a giant stack of things to sort through. But after finding out about this vague plan of Reno's, his attention was completely divided. Something was nagging at him, trying to remind him of something that the digital seconds of his clock and the dates on his calendar didn't show.

He finally set the pen down when the minutes reached five to the hour. An exasperated sigh fell from his lips, disappointed with the sad amount of work he accomplished since Reno's visit. Stacking the things in front of him and placing them neatly off to the side with the rest, he pushed back in his chair and stood. If nothing else, he could resume work after entertaining Reno with just a moment of his time, he figured.

Another minute passed and his cellphone rang, nearly vibrating itself right off the edge of his desk. He grabbed it before it could take a nose-dive into the floor.

"Yes?"

"Geez, it's just me," Reno answered, sounding put out. "Where are you? I thought I told you ten, right?"

"It's five- four to ten. I don't know what clock you've been looking at, but this one is-"

Reno laughed. "Okay, your clock's more accurate, whatever. Same difference. You should be up here is what I'm saying. We've got a breeze tonight. Feels nice."

"I'm already halfway there," Rufus lied, grabbing his keycard from its spot next to his keyboard. He quickly crossed to the door and had it closed and locked in a second with one wave of his card. "What are you planning on, anyway?" For some reason, he was picturing wine and candles but that was only something in movies and sounded so completely not like Reno.

"You'll see when you get here. Ah- shit, that burned..." Reno trailed off, sounding like he'd just hurt himself.

"What did you do?" Rufus asked, making his way toward the elevator.

Reno laughed a little half-heartedly. "Nothing, nothing. It's all good. Look, you'll totally see when you get yourself up here, alright?"

"Well really, I am almost there." Rufus punched the button for the top floor and waited as the numbers climbed, hearing nothing but silence following on Reno's end. "You didn't really hurt yourself over there, did you?"

"Hell no, I do this all the time, I'm fine. I mean, uh... Seriously, you'll see. Aren't you, like, here now anyway? You should be at the door here like right-"

His sentence was cut short when the door to the roof opened and Rufus stepped out. His coat flapped gently behind him and he crossed his arms when the summer wind picked up more.

Reno grinned, his cellphone still pressed to his ear. "See, like that." He flicked it shut and slid it into his jacket pocket. "Glad you could make it."

Rufus sniffed, turning his head to the side. "As if you didn't expect me to come. But is that a..." His eyes locked onto whatever it was that Reno was crouched over and messing with on the ground. The cylindrical object looked suspiciously like a...

The fuse on the top spontaneously ignited again and Reno quickly licked his fingers to dampen it.

"...Sorry, it keeps doing that." He waved around his hand to get the sting out.

Rufus was a little at a loss for words. So it turned out that Reno had invited him up to the roof to watch him set off rockets? Probably some more ridiculously expensive pyrotechnics paid for by the company. Leave it to Reno to re-purpose such things. He stood with arms akimbo and looked down at his Turk with disapproval.

Feeling the look burning a hole into him, Reno jumped up holding the thing nervously. "You won't regret coming, I promise. I just need to get it all in place."

'It all' included about five other rocket tubes of similar size. There were a few other discarded ones laying about that Rufus assumed to be duds or rejects. On the bright side, at least that meant that Reno had been testing things before trying to show off, unlike some other unfortunate situations in the past. One time, he'd come back in with both his eyebrows nearly burned off.

The stash was run over to the empty landing pad and Reno stood in the middle of the circle he created with the rockets.

"You look like you want to get your arms blown off," Rufus chastised, positive that no one in their right mind should be lighting so many things like that so close together.

He only received a shrug and a lopsided grin in response to that remark. "You can stay right there, if you like. Or back up an inch or two. Up to you."

Not feeling like having his eyebrows singed off, Rufus decided to move back another couple feet, finding himself close to the doors again. Well... If he needed to make a quick exit at any point...

Reno seemed pretty confident in his skills, though. He brought his hands to his hips before making any moves. "So have you really not realized what's special about today yet?"

Rufus shook his head.

Reno's arms were flung comically in front of him in defeat and he gave an exaggerated sigh. "I can't believe it! Today's an important day, though!" He waved his hands around at the things on the ground. "It's the anniversary of the day you became president, the day you had the ceremony in Junon! You remember now, right? Nobody got to celebrate it for you after that cuz of... Well... But now look at you! Look at all of this," he said, gesturing widely to the building as a whole and the other company-owned buildings that surrounded them that were still lit in the dark of Edge's night. "I thought you deserved for someone to just... tell you congratulations. Especially after all of that."

Arms still crossed over his chest, Rufus' fingers dug into the sleeve of his jacket. Expression at first unreadable, a smile slowly spread over his lips.

"I'm surprised you remembered that. Gaia knows I didn't."

"I was just thinking about how long it's been since then and it kind of just came back to me." A hand wandered into one of his pockets and fished around until he procured a lighter. "Kay, here we go."

Quickly, Reno got to work lighting each individual stick. He managed to burn himself twice and knocked over three of them, but somehow got out of the circle of explosives before any of their fuses reached their ends. He ran over to Rufus and grabbed him around the waist when the first one went off.

Rufus was secretly glad for Reno's arm around him, otherwise he may have fallen over at how loud and bright the thing was. It wasn't like what he was expecting at all. Suddenly, the 'duds' laying on the ground made more sense when he realized that Reno must have been messing with them to turn what was once probably a plain explosive into a fantastically colorful firework.

The second one went off, then the third followed after it, awkwardly timed.

"Uh, sorry," Reno apologized quietly, pressing his cheek against Rufus' shoulder. "I had to mess with 'em and some of them keep reigniting for some reason, so they turned out a little weird, but..."

"Doesn't matter. They're nice. Thank you."

Reno glanced up and noticed the way Rufus' eyes followed the brightly colored flashes in the sky, a wistful smile set in place on his features. Even with the loud fireworks display happening above them, Reno found it hard to look away from the purely serene look on Rufus' face at that moment.

"You deserve it."