A/N: Greetings all. This is not my first fanfic, but it's my first FFVII fic. It's sort of Angst With Lame Plot, so it's an AWLP? Warnings: Death and some expletives, but nothing too bad. Unfortunately, I do not own Reno or any of the others. If I did, I wouldn't be wasting time writing this story. Hope you decide to read and review; I would appreciate the meanest, most vicious criticisms you can give me. That way, I'll know what I did wrong so I can fix it next time. ^_^
Last Kiss
"I don't like this chopper, yo."
Tseng sighed. Reno hadn't stopped complaining since he'd learned they'd be working this mission with some of the former AVALANCHE members. Rude and Elena didn't seem to mind, but it was driving Tseng crazy.
"Reno, shut up."
Reno glared at him. "I'm just sayin' I should be able to fly my own chopper for this, boss-man. S'bad enough that I'm gonna have to deal with AVALANCHE in the first place..."
"Former AVALANCHE," Tseng corrected. "We're on the same side now, Reno."
"Whatever," Reno grumbled, finally falling silent. The Turks continued on their way through the ShinRa building to the helipad. Tseng instantly saw what Reno was so bent out of shape about.
The helicopter was clunky and fat, nothing like the sleek machine Reno insisted on flying. However, this helicopter would certainly be more comfortable, considering how many people were joining them on this mission.
They were all there waiting on the tarmac: Cid Highwind, Barret Wallace, Vincent Valentine, Cloud Strife, and Tifa Lockhart. Tifa was the first to speak.
"Thanks for helping us out on this," she said.
"Thank Rufus," Tseng replied simply, and they all got into the helicopter. Reno's complaining had toned down to incomprehensible muttering as he slid into the pilot's seat. The massive chopper came to life with a roar that made Reno grimace. With effort, he managed to get the machine off the ground.
And so the mission to rescue Yuffie began.
XXX
It wasn't a long flight, only about a half hour, but Reno was happy when he got to land the monstrosity of a chopper. Cloud Strife threw open the door and everyone piled out. Reno closed his eyes and sat back, folding his hands behind his neck. A smack on the side of his head made him curse. Reno opened his eyes and saw Tseng glaring at him.
"What?" Reno spat.
"Get off your ass and join your team," Tseng ordered. Reno looked ticked.
"No way, yo. I'm staying here."
Tseng waved Elena and Rude from the chopper and then lowered his voice dangerously. "Reno, you are participating in this mission if I have to hold a gun to your head the whole time to get you to do it. Move."
Reno obeyed sullenly. He scowled but did not bother to argue when Tseng added insult to injury by teaming him up with Tifa and Cloud. Usually Reno got along quite well with his former enemies, but not on a mission. Missions were for Turks and Turks only.
Though rescuing a ninja brat who'd been stupid enough to get herself captured in the first place was a pretty poor excuse for a mission, Reno thought as he followed Cloud and Tifa as they broke into the fortified building. It wasn't too hard; that sword Cloud had could hack apart a metal door in seconds. The other two teams were heading to the other entrances, hoping to cover more ground if they split up.
The inside of the building was decrepit and moldy.
"Nice place, yo," Reno commented, looking around. Neither Cloud nor Tifa paid him any attention. Reno hung back a bit; enough to tell them he wasn't overjoyed to be with them, either.
They met the first guards in just a few minutes, and Reno was disappointed when he didn't get to take out his anger on them; Tifa and Cloud took down the guards by the time he'd drawn his EMR. The former AVALANCHE members then continued forward. Reno grumbled moodily and hurried after them.
Shouts and gunshots echoed from a corridor to the left, but Cloud and Tifa went right, heading down a flight of stairs to the basement. They'd all figured that's where Yuffie would be held captive.
Sure enough, they found the ninja girl tied to a chair, duct tape over her mouth. Reno hoped Tifa and Cloud would leave the tape there, but removing it was the first thing they did.
"Finally!" Yuffie burst out. "What took you so long?" She eyed Reno. "What's the Turkey doing here?"
"Rufus lent us his Turks for your rescue," Tifa replied. Cloud cut Yuffie's bonds and helped her to her feet. "We've got a helicopter and everything."
"Score!" Yuffie crowed, stretching. "I'm in no mood to trudge all the way back to Midgar."
"Are you okay?" Cloud asked. Yuffie turned on him angrily.
"No!" she yelled. "I've been tied up down here forever! Just 'cause I tried to steal their Materia!"
Reno snorted. Yuffie opened her mouth, probably to shout at him too, but then Reno saw a flash of movement over her shoulder. His heart froze when he saw the gleam of a handgun.
"Look out!" he yelled, pushing her out of the way. The guard only got off a single shot before Reno drew his own gun and put him down. Yuffie had fallen to the floor, and Cloud and Tifa hurried to her side. Reno holstered his gun and quickly zipped up the front of his blazer, which he always left open. When he turned around, Yuffie was off the ground and in his face.
"Stupid Turkey!" she spat. "What was that for?"
Reno knew that she knew the answer, so he just gave a lazy shrug. Tifa grabbed Yuffie's arm and dragged her up the stairs. No one noticed that Reno was lagging behind more than usual. And not on purpose.
Cloud called Barret and Tseng to let them know they had Yuffie, and they all met back at the helicopter. Guards were pouring from the building and bullets ricocheted around them as they leapt into the chopper.
"Get us out of here, Reno!" Tseng ordered unnecessarily. Reno, strangely, had nothing to say. He lifted the helicopter off the ground and took them out of danger in a matter of seconds. Tseng was surprised at how adeptly Reno handled the chopper; no one else would have been able to maneuver such an ungainly machine so well.
But he said nothing. There would be time enough later for him to give Reno a sarcastic compliment, which he would then follow with an insult.
It was a time-honored tradition.
XXX
The flight back to ShinRa was full of turbulence, and when they arrived, Reno let the chopper drop onto the helipad roughly. Tseng winced and got angrily to his feet. When he reached the front of the chopper to tell Reno off, he felt his heart stop.
There was blood everywhere; drenching the controls, dripping onto the floor, creeping through the front of Reno's blue suit and staining the pale, pale hand he had clutched over the darkest patch at his stomach. Reno was hunched forward in his seat, held in place by the seatbelt. He was breathing in tiny, pained gasps.
Tseng stood, gaping in shock, then he leapt into action. He hurriedly unbuckled Reno from the seat and dragged him out of the chopper. Reno gave a quiet whimper when Tseng laid him down on the concrete. Tseng had never heard Reno whimper before. Ever.
"Rude! Elena!"
The urgency in Tseng's voice made everyone stop, and the other Turks sprinted to Reno's side. Rude put a hand on Reno's shoulder and Elena clutched a fistful of Tseng's jacket, but Tseng was too busy tearing open Reno's shirt to notice. He was searching for the wound, and he found it immediately; a great gaping hole in the middle of Reno's stomach.
Tseng swore. He yanked off his jacket, pulling from Elena's grasp, and wadded it up, pressing it into the hole to try to stop the bleeding. Reno winced.
"God, Reno," Tseng murmured. "What happened?"
Reno cracked open his eyes. "G-got shot, boss-man."
"I can see that!" Tseng snapped. "When."
Reno tried to shrug. "Rescuin' the brat."
Tseng wanted to turn and glare at Tifa and Cloud, but he couldn't take his eyes off Reno, who was growing more pale by the moment. Reno coughed and blood ran from the corner of his mouth, trailing down his skin until it vanished into his hair.
"Rude," Elena said. She was still trying to act professional, but her voice shook and she kept wringing her hands anxiously. Rude nodded and put his hand over Reno's body. There was the healing green glow of Rude's cure spell, the glow that would make everything okay–
And Reno screamed in agony. His eyes flew open and his body jerked as though in a seizure, his back arching off the ground. Rude stopped trying to cure him. Reno fell back to the ground, trembling and gasping.
"What happened?" Tseng demanded. Rude shook his head, brow furrowed.
"It won't cure," he said. "Reno, are you okay?"
Reno took a while to respond. "It...it shocked me," he panted. "Damn...bullet..."
He choked and fell silent as a wave of fresh blood burbled over his chin. Tseng cursed again as he wiped it away with his sleeve.
Suddenly, Tifa was there. She knelt beside Reno and took one of his blood-stained hands. "I'll watch him," she told Tseng. "Call for medical."
Tseng, though he was unaccustomed to receiving orders, gave her a grateful nod and pulled out his cellphone, dialing. Reno turned his head and looked over at Tifa with half-lidded, mako-green eyes. He blinked slowly at her for a moment, clearly puzzled. He didn't seem to remember who she was. At last, Reno smiled.
"Tifa," he mumbled. He sounded so tired. It scared her. Tifa shook his shoulder when those glowing eyes closed.
"Hey, stay awake."
Reno fought to pry open his eyes. There was a glimmer of mischief in them. "If I do...can I...have a kiss...goodbye?"
Tifa immediately glanced over at Cloud and saw he was frowning. "Watch it, Turk," he growled, but there was no strength to the threat. Tifa didn't think Reno wouldn't have paid any attention even if there had been. What was Cloud going to do? Kill him? Tifa tightened her grip on Reno's cold hand.
"Not a chance," she said, forcing to smile. "It doesn't count if you're not going anywhere."
Reno grinned, though it was really more of a grimace. "Can't...blame me...for tryin'..."
Tseng snapped his phone shut and came back. "Five minutes," he said. Tifa looked up at him, then back at Reno, whose eyes were closed again. Five minutes...would he be able to hang on that long?
As if in response to her thoughts, Reno stopped breathing mid-gasp. Spasms wracked his body as he fought for air, but he was too weak to cough out the blood that was drowning him. Tifa bit her lip as Reno's struggles faded and his head fell limply to the side.
That was when Tseng did something rather unexpected: he punched Reno. Twice. The first jab went directly to Reno's wound, shocking him awake and making him suck all the blood into his lungs, and the second was right under Reno's ribcage to his diaphragm, which forced the blood up and out.
Reno convulsed and jerked onto his side, sputtering a gout of crimson liquid over the tarmac. He could breathe again; not well, but it bought him a few extra minutes. Tifa had his hand in a death-grip.
Time seemed to crawl by as they watched Reno struggle to breathe. At last, a medical team arrived and loaded him onto a stretcher. Tseng nodded to Rude and Elena and they hurried to follow Reno into the back of the ambulance, which promptly screeched away towards the hospital, sirens blaring. Tseng straightened and turned to face the others on the tarmac.
"I apologize for the delay," he said. Had he not been missing his jacket and covered in blood, he would have been the very picture of professionalism. "Please, follow me for debriefing, and then you are free to go."
No one knew what else to do, so they did as Tseng said and followed him inside. Tseng logged in the mission on a computer and reported it a success. Tifa didn't think "success" was the right word. After he got them all to sign a Confidentiality Clause, he showed them the door. There was really no way to casually ask Tseng if he could call with the number to Reno's hospital room, so Tifa had to leave without it.
That bothered her more than it should have.
XXX
Reno flatlined twice on the way to the hospital. The second time, it took four tries to bring him back, and when the ambulance arrived at the hospital, the doctors immediately rushed him into surgery. Rude and Elena sat stoically out in the waiting room. Hours went by.
Finally, a doctor approached them. The news was not good: Reno had made it through surgery, but he probably wouldn't last much longer. The man said he was sorry, and then hurried away, as though afraid they would shoot him for being the messenger. Considering they were Turks, this was a pretty smart move.
When they were alone again, Elena called Tseng to report. Tseng was quiet for a long time.
"Say your goodbyes then come back to work," he said at last. Elena's throat tightened as she hung up the phone. Rude took one look at her face and he knew. He stood up and led the way to Reno's room.
Reno was sleeping, hooked up to machines that beeped and an IV of painkillers, tucked under the bleached sheets of a hospital bed. The doctors had taken away his uniform and dressed him in a white gown that made his eyes and cheeks look even more hollow. A tube was crammed down his throat, forcing hissing gasps of oxygen past his bloodless lips.
Elena stopped and stared, horrified. She had never really gotten along with Reno, but she liked him. Hell, everyone who met Reno liked him. He was a Turk through and through; he didn't deserve to die in a hospital. Elena knew they would all end up in the ground someday, but she had always expected Reno to go down in a fiery helicopter crash or maybe get caught up in an explosion when one of those bombs he and Rude insisted on tinkering with all the time went off. Something quick and flashy.
This was just so...not. Not quick. Not flashy.
Not Reno.
With effort, Elena managed to walk over to join Rude at Reno's bedside. She saw movement out of the corner of her eye, and she glanced over to see Rude reach into his blazer and pull out a pair of goggles. Reno's goggles. Elena had no idea how he'd gotten them. She supposed it didn't really matter.
Rude gently put the goggles into Reno's hand and closed his fingers around them, then he turned and left. Elena couldn't imagine what he was feeling; he and Reno had been partners for a long time; through thick and thin; cheating death at every turn. But now that was all over. Elena tried to imagine the Turk that would join their team, and failed. There was a big difference between filling in, as she had when Reno was injured, and replacing.
Elena looked sadly at the beeping monitor, which was moving very slowly. No one could ever replace him, she decided; he was Reno! Obnoxious, sarcastic, lazy Reno. He always seemed to be running his mouth off or getting into some kind of trouble, though right now he was being far too quiet. Only a few days ago she would have given anything for Reno to be so well-behaved, but now it was making her feel sick. Elena reached out and put a hand on Reno's cheek, stroking a thumb over the red tattoo across his cheekbone. She had always wondered how he got those tattoos, but had been too embarrassed to ask. Now she would never know.
But she was wasting time.
"We'll miss you, Reno," she whispered. Elena withdrew her hand and left the room. She had to stop thinking that Reno was going to get better. He wasn't. Not this time. The sooner she accepted that, the sooner she could stop–
Expecting to see Reno when she went into work tomorrow.
Waiting for him to clear off that pile of reports that were sitting on his desk.
Listening for his voice to hear him call her a rookie one more time.
Missing him.
Elena shook her head again and left the room. No, the sooner she accepted that Reno wasn't going to get better, the sooner she could go back to work. That's all. Nothing more.
She almost believed it.
XXX
Tifa glanced over at the door for the hundredth time. It was Thursday evening, and she was desperate to see one of the Turks. Every Thursday since The Remnants were defeated and Geostigma was cured, Reno and Rude, and sometimes even Tseng or Elena, had come to 7th Heaven for drinks. But so far there was no sign of them.
Tifa sighed and returned to work. She wanted to ask if Reno was okay. After giving it hours of thought, she realized that it was sort of her fault he had gotten shot. If only she hadn't been so busy looking out for Cloud and Yuffie, figuring that the useless Turk hanger-on could take care of himself, maybe she would've seen that guard in time...
And the way Reno had looked at her as he lay there, bleeding...that look had been on her mind all week, gnawing at her brain, making her spacey and forgetful. Even Cloud, usually not the most observant of people, had noticed and asked her about it. When Tifa admitted she was worried about Reno, he laughed.
"I'm sure Reno's fine," he told her. "He's too stubborn to die."
Tifa had smiled and agreed, but inside she wasn't so sure. She also wasn't sure why she cared so much in the first place.
Because he saved Yuffie's life.
Yes, that was it, Tifa decided as she slapped some guy's hand as he tried to grab her ass. But there was something bothering her about that, too. Why? Why had Reno taken that bullet? Tifa knew that he hated Yuffie, so why didn't he just step out of the way?
And why hadn't Reno said he was hurt? He'd just zipped up his blazer and flown them home like nothing was wrong. Sure, he was the only one who could get them out of there, (though Cid knew how fly choppers, he couldn't hold a candle to Reno's skills), and sure, if they'd stopped to help him they would have all been killed, but Tifa thought that he still should've mentioned it...
A familiar face snapped Tifa out of her thoughts. Rude was here. And Elena. And Tseng. Tifa made herself wait until they sat down before she went over.
"Hey," Tifa greeted them. Her smile slipped when she saw their faces. None of them looked like they'd slept for about a week. "What's wrong?"
"Liquor, please," Tseng replied.
Tifa hesitated, then she went to get them a bottle of her finest, strongest spirit and some glasses. She returned and poured the drink, then she tried again.
"Is it...Reno?"
The reaction was instantaneous. Rude became even more deadpan than usual, Tseng looked down at the table, and Elena's lips tightened.
"None of your damn business," Elena replied quietly, then she threw back a shot. If what Elena had said hadn't been enough to answer Tifa's question, the fact that the girl was drinking did. Elena was always too concerned about being a professional, emotionless Turk to actually touch any alcohol, even when she came here with Reno and Rude. She always ended up the designated driver, which didn't actually involve any driving, but a lot of yelling as she tried uselessly to keep Reno from going anything stupid.
Reno...
Tifa slipped into autopilot. "Excuse me," she heard herself say, then she walked quickly away towards the back room. She didn't see where she was going, and she bumped into someone just inside the door. That same someone caught her and steadied her. It was Cloud.
"Tifa? What's wrong?"
She looked up at him. "Reno's dead."
Cloud said nothing, and Tifa noticed that he didn't seem at all sad. Confused and a maybe a little regretful, but not sad.
Tifa backed out of his arms and stopped when she was out of reach. Even being a few feet away didn't soften the fact that Cloud didn't care. He never cared.
"Look, could you cover the counter for a bit?" she asked, her voice shaking. "I need a break."
"Sure."
Anyone else would have stayed, comforted her, but Cloud just left to go tend the bar. For the first time since she'd met him, Tifa wasn't sorry he was gone. That lack of sadness in his eyes made everything was different. It made her wish that she could go out into the bar and talk to a certain red-haired Turk who had made it a priority of his to come into her bar each week, to tell him something she had only just realized: that she didn't hate him. That she felt, in fact, the exact opposite, and had just been too blind to realize it.
Tifa went upstairs to her room. She sat down on the edge of her bed and looked into the darkness.
"Can I have a kiss goodbye?"
Tifa put her face in her hands and cried.
The End