Running
Disclaimer: Not mine.
A/N: I'm not sure this one came out right...May it make as much sense as it did in my head.
It's easy to run away. Reeve's subconscious knew that fact very well. He'd been running all his life. Even if he didn't realize it.
Being the Head of Urban development had made it even easier to run away. It meant he could bury his head in the sand and pretend if he didn't know what the other Heads were doing it wasn't happening. If he didn't know what went on in the slums then he could deny the misery that smothered the place.
If he didn't know he wasn't responsible. He could run from action, from punishment, and even from guilt if he didn't know.
Reeve had been running for most of his life.
So it surprised even him when Cait Sith, the very incarnation of escapism, had forced him to stop running.
Through the puppet's eyes he could no longer deny what went on in the slums – the misery that spurred Barret and Tifa on as much as their desire for revenge. He was forced to observe first hand the results of what Hojo had done with human experimentation, to know where the funding really went. The lies about vaccinations and benevolent research that he had tried so hard to convince himself were true finally failing him.
To acknowledge the company he worked for was killing the plant and mutilating its denizens. Knowingly.
Cait Sith's eyes had seen these things, its ears had heard these damning truths Reeve had so long run from. And he could no longer deny their existence. The puppet had forced him to know, and that knowledge called for action.
For Reeve could only ignore what he didn't know. Turning a blind eye was, in his mind, one thing but knowing and doing nothing was another. That he could not do, his own odd code of ethics prohibiting such a thing.
The irony of the situation escaped him. Reeve would never realize what made the others snicker at his robotic puppet wasn't just its outrageous appearance because that would have meant he knew he was running. The rest found it hysterically funny that his ultimate escape, being another person entirely, had proven the thing which made him stop running.
Some wondered if Sephiroth would have the same problem. "Puppets" they had found, had a strange way of changing the puppeteer. Nothing happened without an equal and opposite reaction. But they doubted Sephiroth could stop running like Reeve had. He was too far gone, because good men had done nothing when it had been needed the most, had pretended it wasn't happening when Hojo had decided a child would be the perfect specimen.
Despite the cause being a robotic stuffed animal, the others were glad Reeve no longer ran from the truth. For they all knew better than most the only thing needed for evil to succeed was for good men to do nothing.
The End