Tifastrife7 really liked this little drabble and asked me to post it. So... blame her if you don't like it.
Disclaimer: FFVII and all the characters/places therein belong to SquareEnix.
Tifa paced.
She washed the clean dishes, straightened the straight bar stools, threw a few practice punches into empty air. She snuck into Denzel and Marlene's room, trying to find a moment's peace in the children's sleeping faces, but even there, it eluded her.
She was starting to feel like she had entirely too much in common with fishermen's wives and SOLDIERs' fiancees.
Always waiting, praying, worrying. Waiting for the worst.
For God's sake.
He was just a stupid roll in the hay, just a moment's weakness. When had it become more than that?
She knew when. On one of his days off, while Barrett was out chasing fame and oil fortune, Reno had flown her and the kids out to Costa del Sol. He'd spent a lot of the day rollicking on the beach with them, everyone screaming with laughter. And then a sudden, massive undertow hit them, and a second later—-a giant green monster came rearing up out of the sea.
Denzel and Marlene were safe: Tifa kept them clamped to her sides. But another kid—-some little girl-- stood petrified on the sand, watching a tentacled arm descend on her.
Reno dove for her.
He hadn't even thought about it. Not that he ever really thought about anything.
He seized the girl bodily and rolled with her out of the way, and a second later, the monster was pulling back to sea, being driven back by a group of armed townspeople. Apparently, they'd had trouble with this thing before.
Reno stayed with the girl long enough to find her mother, then trotted back to find them, his grin looking only mildly shaken.
Tifa had known then, absolutely, that he would have given his life for that girl, and never even considered it heroism. Just—-the thing you do.
It didn't matter that the girl was no one to him, or that she was making herself bloody hard to save.
And now, now Tifa knew she had probably seen him for the last time.
He was flying north with all of the remaining Turks. And if that weren't enough to get the alarm bells ringing, he had paused on his way out, and touched her face lightly in a gentle gesture-- more intimate than most of his kisses.
Just a single flicker of seriousness in a face that laughed at everything.
And she knew . . . he was doing something for Shinra that he didn't believe in. And he wasn't sure if he was coming back.
The hours turned into days, the silence growing ever-more ominous. She prayed for the phone to ring. Prayed that it wouldn't. Would anyone even think to call Reno's latest fling?
There was an unnerving thought. What if he had come back safe and sound, and was now out celebrating with someone else?
She shook her head, trying not to think of his straight row of perfect teeth, his jaunty smile, his wild blaze of flaming hair.
An intriguing figure, not quite an enemy. The kind of guy a girl should know better than to even hope to keep to herself.
The phone's quiet trill made her jump out of her skin and she landed—rather ungracefully— on the floor beside the bar stool.
This was it. The dreaded call.
It would be Rude, telling her he'd been shot, his chopper had crashed, they needed a civilian to identify the remains.
Stop it!
Her hands shook as she snatched the receiver.
"Hey-hey, yo? Remember me?"
Her breath left her in an audible whoosh, and she sagged against the counter, tears starting in her eyes.
"Of course I remember you."