A/N:
I began this story concept during a pretty dark time in my life but never finished it…I hope this does not offend anyone or cause any undue stress. Please do heed the warning.
Warnings: Potentially disturbing themes including attempted suicide.
Word Count: 2,270
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plotline.
Never Too Late
By Catsitta
"It's okay…just hold my hand…you'll be fine. Everything's going to be fine…"
How Cloud wished his words were true. Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes as he squeezed the clammy hand enclosed within his own. Her skin felt so cold…too cold. And the blood. Gaia the blood! It was everywhere. Smeared against the walls, puddled on the floor, pooling beneath her small frame.
Brown eyes like glass stared into space, unseeing. Curly brunette tresses clung in a matted mess against sweat slick skin.
"Stay with me, Cissnei," he begged, fumbling with a roll of bandages with his free hand.
The blond SOLDIER Cadet had seen the Turk in many serious conditions. He had seen her trapped in a coma for a week after a mission gone awry. He had seen her on the verge of unconsciousness as she struggled to tend flesh wounds before she bled to death. He had seen her covered in bruises from head –to-toe with a broken arm and three cracked ribs. He had seen her fight until she could not fight any more and collapsed from the effort, too proud to admit defeat. Too proud to admit she needed help—a curse even the best of Turks were afflicted with.
But this was the first time that Cloud had seen her give up.
After all those missions. After every sacrifice. After everything she lost in the name of duty, Cissnei had thrown her life away. Acted as if she was but a used rag to be tossed out. Pretended as if no one would care if she died. Ignored the fact that Cloud had given her his heart and stood by her, even if it was often at a distance, when things grew rough.
Cissnei was one tough cookie, no one could deny that. She was strong, smart, resilient and beautiful—a dangerous combination of desirable traits—and she had a warmth about her that was too often lost by those of her trade. Among the Turks she was a second mother, or the mother they never knew, despite the fact that she was only a couple years Cloud's senior…and he was only fifteen. Yet here she was, all in crumbles, waiting to die.
Cloud refused to believe that she would do this to herself. Refused to believe she would lay down her life so easily…without a fight. There had to be a reason Cissnei was in this state. Didn't the blood trailing on the tiles suggest that there was movement? Perhaps even a struggle? The blond drew in a shallow, shuddering breath and settled his eyes on the reflection of light against the blood-stained water of a half-filled tub.
He had turned the faucet off only a minute ago, hoping that it was enough to cleanse her wounds…they were deep and he was not a medic. He barely knew first aid! And without a PHS, materia or even time to summon help, he knew that scant knowledge and items he had at hand were the only tools that could save Cissnei's life.
The blond blinked away his tears and began to wrap bandages around her wounded wrist, his gaze lingering on the fact that her blood was continuing to flow…it meant she was alive, but for how long was anyone's guess.
No. She would not die. She could not die…
She had been his first friend in Midgar. The first girl who paid him more than five seconds of attention. It had been a haphazard string of events that led to their meeting and Cloud remembered how flustered he had been to meet a Turk…and a girl Turk at that. Cissnei was so full of smiles, then, so bright. She laughed at the way Cloud stumbled over his feet, awkward with his latest growth spurt and lacking the social grace to compensate for his clumsiness. Yet, somehow, as their paths continued to cross, even briefly, he found himself growing fond of the strange Turk.
After the first clumsy kiss he stole from her after she returned from a mission, ruffled up but no worse for wear, Cloud knew his fate was sealed.
His young heart ached for something unknown. Something needed yet forbidden. She was a Turk. He was training to be a SOLDIER. They were on two opposite sides of the spectrum…of the world. And she was practiced in the ways of combat. Initiated in to the crimson world of death. While he was but an untried youth, too innocent for his own good.
"That's what I like about you," Cissnei had confessed when Cloud had asked aloud what she could have possibly liked in a kid like him. "You're not broken. Maybe, I want to keep you that way. Maybe, spending time with you makes me feel clean...as if my hands are not so stained…."
Stained.
Cloud looked at his hands. Never before had he ever taken a life, yet here were his hands, streaked with crimson.
With a shake of his head, he reached for another roll of bandages from the box at his feet.
He had found the kit under the sink during one of his brief visits to Cissnei's apartment. As she was the only female Turk currently, she had no partner living in the extra room. No one was there to watch over her…to keep her safe. To take care of her when she came home injured and locked herself away and denied herself proper care. So she took care of herself. She had enough bandages, ointments, and needle-and-thread to tend an army…
Cloud had never asked why. He knew. He had seen her dig a bullet from her arm before in the middle of a field mission. As an infantryman, he could only observe the Turks from afar and pray that the girl he adored—no, it was more than that—loved, was alright. Pray that she stopped the bleeding before it became infected or was attacked again. Cissnei could and would fight through the pain. He wished she wouldn't…just for once, he wished she would have asked for help.
From anyone…
From him.
Especially if she was lurking so close to that edge of her own sanity…everyone has a breaking point and after too many shattering blows, they fall to pieces.
He would have done everything in his power to help. Wasn't that what boyfriends were for? Well, maybe she was not his girlfriend but Cloud did not care. He still felt responsible for this wonderful person whom gave him a reason to continue with SOLDIER, if only to indulge in a few moments of her time and attention. And, he knew that she felt for him a little more than just friendship. Otherwise, why would she invite him to her apartment now and then? Out of all the people in the building, from SOLDIERs to Turks to other officials—why him?
It is said that like attracts like: they were both lonely souls.
She had the pieces that were missing from his life. She made him feel wanted…complete.
And now she needed him.
No…she needed him before now. She simply had not admitted it. She hid away her pain, perhaps even from herself. Everyone knew Turk's walked along a dangerous line and could plunge off the edge at any moment. It would not be the first time one has attempted suicide because the demons in their pasts were too much to handle—the nightmares were all too real.
But why had Cissnei masked the darkness, that black void of desolation that was so easy to slip into and so difficult to escape, with a smile. Why had she filled everyone else's world with joy and take away their sorrows if she hurt this badly? Why did she hide the signs?
Or had no one seen them…had she been reaching out this entire time and felt as if her voice was falling upon deaf ears? Had she been fighting so long that her strength of will finally collapsed from beneath her?
Cloud stroked her brow, brushing damp curls behind one ear.
She was still so cold.
She had lost so much blood.
And she was still losing, Cloud realized with a note of distress. The bandages, which reached from palm to elbow, were quickly changing from white to red. That, and he had yet to tend the wounds on the insides of her thighs.
So much blood…
Too much blood.
"It will be okay…" Cloud murmured, dipping his hand into the water and unplugging the drain, allowing the water to disappear. "Just stay with me…"
His brain urged him to give up. To admit that it was too late. That she had lost too much blood and was good as dead. There was nothing he could do to save her.
But as Cissnei's eyelids fluttered (she was likely in shock, in too immense of pain to feel much more than numbness), Cloud's heart skipped a beat.
'It's not too late,' he silently assured himself,'It's never too late.'
And long into the night, he kept up that mantra.
000X000
Reno sighed around the cigarette between his lips. Smoke curled up into the night sky like an ethereal mist—reflecting the various neon lights that adorned Midgar like bright tattoos over a scarred complexion. Pretty yet hideous at the same time…ironic. He held in his hand a crumpled slip of paper, a message written upon it in his own handwriting. Not that the intended receiver knew that…
The Turk took in a deep drag of nicotine, allowing the bittersweet poison to flood his lungs. It burned slightly, but it was a familiar breed of pain. Hardly noticeable anymore.
His thoughts lingered on the events of the day. How he had watched his fellow Turk change before his very eyes. It was a subtle difference, but the way Cissnei held herself and spoke earlier was not the same as she had for the past few weeks. Reno knew the job was getting to her. It was making her will threadbare. But she had come to terms with it and that unsettled him. Accepting defeat, allowing it to consume you with calm resolution, was the beginning of the end.
And, he was not supposed to meddle. It was an unwritten part of Turk code to allow those that cannot take the pressure, to snap. If they wished to end their life, then so be it. But Reno could not do it. He may be a Turk, but he was not heartless. Cissnei was like a sister to him…and he was one of many who referred to her as 'Ma' or 'Mama' or 'Mother' from time to time. She was quite the mother hen…and he loved her for it. Loved her enough that it was dangerous.
Only the foolish became attached to anyone as a Turk: friend, family, or otherwise. They never took lovers, though they often had one night stands; they never married—many have left families behind; and if they had kids, they never recognized them, even as illegitimate children—it was safer that way.
Call him a fool. Reno would not deny it. But Cissnei needed a second chance. She needed someone to save her from herself. Someone who could give her their love without expecting it back.
So he wrote a note and left it in Cadet Strife's locker, a keycard with clearance to the Turk floor and a key to Cissnei's room enclosed in an envelope beside it. Of course he had not signed it, but the subtle 'you-know-who' inscribed at the bottom had been enough of a clue for the boy. The blond was infatuated with her; it didn't take a genius to figure out what those sidelong looks and worried hours spent at the hospital when she was comatose meant. It was no surprise when the boy snuck up to Cissnei's room after training, a hopeful gleam in his eyes as he cradled the letter in hand.
Reno let out another billow of smoke.
About an hour ago, Tseng had texted him the news.
Cissnei was in the hospital—her very life hanging on a thread as the doctors rushed to perform the blood transfusions needed to save her.
The Turk Director had failed to mention how she got there. Only briefly informing him of her state and the fact that someone had attempted to stop the bleeding.
The smallest of smiles quirked upon Reno's lips. He had swept through Cissnei's apartment shortly after receiving the message and found the note as well as his other 'gifts' to the Cadet on the floor. After gathering them up, he peered in the bathroom, the gory scene greeting him but a trivial matter. Bandages lay in a tangled heap on the floor and there were streaks of blood that suggested a body being dragged.
However, in the rest of the apartment, the carpet was only spotted…suggesting her rescuer was carrying rather than dragging her.
Cloud could not have managed that alone. Reno had checked the files. The skinny kid had potential but little in the means of strength. Someone else had become involved in Cissnei's rescue.
Another Turk.
"No one believes it's your time, kid." Reno drawled, dropping his cigarette and crushing it beneath his heel. "Guess your talk of guardian angels aint just talk after all," he stuffed the note into his pocket. "But you'll have to wait to get your wings. We need you here…"
The redhead turned and walked back inside the ShinRa building.
He did not notice the feather spiraling towards the ground, adrift despite the utter lack of breeze.
fin
A/N: Thank you for reading.
A/N 2: At some point, we all need a guardian angel. Someone who can pick us up and put our feet back on solid ground when we cannot save ourselves. Someone who is willing to tell us that it is never too late when you feel it's over, time to give it all up. And sometimes, we take for granted the second chances we are given…and sometimes, we realize how precious life can be.
We realize it is time to live.