Author's Note: Here's something: I started writing Final Fantasy VII fanfiction in elementary school. I'm in college now. Everything else has changed, but I still come back home – how lovely that feels.

There wasn't even a chance to knock before he answered. He caught her by the wrist and wrenched her elbow against the door frame, knocking the gun out of her hand. She remembered how thin his fingers were and then he used them to wrench her to the ground. She felt pressure come down on her left ankle – she'd always known that telling him she'd sprained it in school would come back to bite her in the ass someday.

She didn't move. It wasn't a time for moving. It was a time for some serious reflection on both their parts. When he finally took pressure off her ankle, she rolled to her back and looked into his eyes. He looked so much older than she'd expected.

"We died," she said.

"I know," he replied. "I sent flowers, just like I promised."

She scowled. "He fucking hated flowers."

He grinned. "I know. Isn't it great?"

- - - - -

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

BY RENO SPIEGEL

- - - - -

It was rainy. It was always rainy – Meteor had made sure of that. It had created streams of wind that had never stopped circling the Planet, lapping at the sea and carrying rain back and forth over the port cities.

Junon was practically a floating metropolis now. The sea had started to erode its underside, but the new, humanitarian ShinRa was constantly employing more people to go beneath it and maintain the gargantuan air tanks that made sure it stayed afloat. On a particularly tumultuous day in the water, the roads would shiver ever so slightly, and a driver might notice more bumps from the buckling of the highways.

Scarlet had practically elected herself mayor of the city. She said it was the only place that still had any class. Cigarettes were made in bulk, not in basements; they sold real diamonds instead of mythril knockoffs; sometimes they would host opera groups from Cosmo Canyon – "Cosmo has class, too," she'd admitted, "but it also has sand; it has lots and lots of sand." – and the major businesses would buy packs of tickets, send their employees out for nice dinners on the corporate dime, make them remember the arts. Scarlet had sworn off militaristic action since the crisis, and made herself into a fitting public figure.

No one could really get past the crisis. Probably the healing process would take a number of generations. In a few generations the winds might cease and the divide might disappear. People took one of two stands on what had happened: either they refused to talk about it, to acknowledge the tragedy, or they were so wrapped up in it that they wanted the reality to remain and for nothing to be changed.

Midgar was a quarantine zone. The combination of toxic material, Mako, and unknown supernatural energy had made the city only more uninhabitable. The raging fires had burned themselves out within a year, but word had come a few months later that there were still surviving scientists locked in a bunker beneath the old ShinRa headquarters. Hojo had barricaded them in when he'd gone mad, and they'd been turning the place upside down for chemicals when they found an emergency radio. After a number of exchanges back and forth with the government of Junon, the consensus was that, given there were means and knowledge for the production of edible material, the survivors should do their best to create a small community and society, and assistance would come when the city was once again safe for a rescue crew. The evolution of language had turned the survivors' speaking habits into incomprehensible scientific jargon, but communication had been kept and there were reportedly three children that would take over when the need arose.

ShinRa had immediately reevaluated its goals and nearly closed its doors. The public address set to be broadcast all across the Planet via television was hijacked, however, and the populace was faced by a small black cat wearing a crown, explaining the need for organized cleanup and a strong workforce to which the public could connect and through which its wishes could be developed. It said not to give up and for the public to keep its eyes open no matter what it looked like. Recognizing the cat as Reeve's puppet Cait Sith, Scarlet found him and demanded an explanation. No one had details between that and the next press release, but he'd made a strong enough case to keep ShinRa on its feet. He was voted in as president shortly thereafter.

The Planet was rebuilding itself, but the process would not be as swift as its near-demise.

Elena felt the same way, a lot of the time. She was living comfortable in Junon, of course, but almost two decades later, she couldn't get past what she had seen. She was still rebuilding herself, but she had to figure out who she was first. "A temporary fill-in" was what she'd been signed up for when Reno had gotten his arm broken on the Sector 7 pillar, and all of a sudden she found herself facing god-like swordsmen, eco-renegades, and the true face of ShinRa Electric. The first time she'd called home to tell her mother about what they were having her do, she was met with a strange man's voice. He said simply, "Never use this number. Never give this number to anyone. You have no mother. She has no daughters."

Tseng had been there to comfort her. It was then that the Turks became all she had for a family – in retrospect, that had probably been the point.

She'd never married; never had children. She, too, had relocated to Junon, hoping to connect with the childhood she'd spent with her father there – but all she could think about were things like Rufus and his parade, and Heideggar's laugh. She'd thrown her television into the bay with the rest of the city's trash, because it never had anything too hopeful to say. She opened the blinds for the sunset, and the sunrise if she was awake, but otherwise nothing. She paid her rent by slipping an envelope under the door – her landlord had no idea who she really was, or rather had been. She went grocery shopping, but it wasn't hard because she lived above the store. She only used one clerk and only said "Thank you."

She'd rationalized it one day by explaining to herself that it wasn't a lack of faith in humanity, nor overarching loss of hope because of the state of things – it was because she'd become so adapted to the life they'd given her. All she knew were mission briefs, data analysis, tracking, hunting, progress reports, noon meetings, employee evaluations, fighting, wounding, killing, burying, and making sure no one saw her hands shake. She'd bought so far into it that she wasn't sure there was another way to behave, and she was afraid to try it. Even though she was almost twenty years older, she was still afraid she might be a Turk before a person.

But she could thank them for making her self-sufficient. She hadn't needed anyone else for years now, hadn't made a phone call in so long that she occasionally forgot people communicated with the electricity that just turned on her lights and her blender, toaster, egg-beater. She did get the mail, though. She wrote terse letters to Rude and Reno and often got responses. They were the only people she had any sort of communication with these days.

So when she got the letter, the diamond-shaped seal over the flap, she knew exactly who was trying to say what to her. She sat at the kitchen table, left hand dipping a tea strainer into a cup, right hand shivering just slightly as the paper settled into it, but she could still read it just fine.

-

To Ms. Elena Simms:

As you may know via your involvement in the company, ShinRa Electric has

been engaged in a process to revamp both the company's function as well as

its image. Such adjustments have included the employment of more janitorial

staff, the renaming of the Weapons Development Department to the Safety

Procurement Division, and increased work to translate the messages of the

Last Seven beneath the ruins of Midgar.

I send this letter to regrettably inform you that your current department of

employment, the Investigative Division of the General Affairs Apartment, more

commonly referred to as "The Turks," has been subject to a nomination and

subsequent vote of disbandment. The nomination passed 17-6, with two

members of the committee abstaining ( Ms. Scarlet Chassity and Mr. Andrew

Veraldei ). In short, your payroll account has been removed from our records

after a severance deposit had been made, and your standing within ShinRa is

that of "formerly employed."

If you have any questions or concerns in regards to this change, or if you wish

to apply for employment within another of our divisions, please contact me personal-

ly at the number on the attached card. My extension is 650588.

Respectfully,

Fiona Fringe

Senior Consultant

ShinRa Electric, Inc.

-

Even after Tseng had died, the Turks had stayed together as sort of a renegade outfit within ShinRa. After the building itself was gone, however, they struck a deal with the board. "In our line of work," Reno had said at the meeting, "it's not like we can just go out and be receptionists. We can't function without that fear that someone's going to harbor hostility and bomb our homes, but we also can't function without paychecks. As payment for our involvement in the Meteor incident, we're here to request an annual salary until the company deems it fit to let us go." Scarlet had agreed and they'd left the room, left the building, and soon left each other alone.

The letter in Elena's hand said what she'd figured it would say: the company officially deemed it fit to let them go.

She looked over Fiona Fringe's business card, but it wasn't the one she was really interested in. She was thinking about the other card in the envelope, the one that was placed under Tseng's explicit orders. When he'd founded the Turks, fueled by memories and caricatures of fellow street gamblers and thugs that were in their own way "too good" for that lifestyle, he'd given a request for one piece of information to be passed down the lineage of the company. He'd insisted that any letter of termination be accompanied by a white business card with a black arrow on it – that was all. He said that the Turks would understand.

Elena reached into the bottom of the envelope and retrieved her card. There it was, inconspicuous as anything else: just a plain white card with a hand-drawn arrow that pointed out her kitchen window.

She closed her eyes for a moment. It had been eighteen years since their last mission. Eighteen years since they met AVALANCHE in the tunnels, Rude had been nicked fairly well by a flying star, and they had looked at each other wondering just how long it could last. Eighteen years since they'd been told that their leader, their friend, their comrade was found with a sword run through his stomach. It had been eighteen years since the last time they went to a bar, the last time they all met for dinner, the last time she'd made sure she was taking her tie off the coat rack and not Reno's.

If she thought hard enough, she could still smell them.

In eighteen years, though, she'd never made another friend. She'd never really connected with anyone the way she did those people – and if not them, then at least that job. She'd felt more uncomfortable in her own skin than in the navy suit in her closet. She could still feel the texture of their specialty paper in the employee files, and she knew she could probably still snipe birds from the telephone wires. She'd never really disconnected with the lifestyle. She'd never let Tseng go and she'd always hoped she might get a letter one day that read, "Fuck sitting down; let's keep going." She'd been so much younger than Reno and Rude, who knew how to disengage and remember the life outside the clothes, that she'd never been able to do just that.

When she'd signed the contract, she'd pledged her life to the Turks. She'd given up her family and her life for a team she was only supposed to be on for a few weeks. She'd been a SOLDIER recruit. The only thing she couldn't change once she was a SOLDIER was the Mako injection. She could've gone back to the way she'd lived, outside the company, but they'd said she'd have to sign the paper anyway if she wanted to be a temporary Turk, if only for legality. She'd committed herself to following every order of her superior, and when he was gone, she barely knew what to do.

When she'd signed the paper, she'd read the condition of the business card. Tseng had been alive then and she'd said "Yes, sir," by putting her name on the line. She'd always wondered if it would come to this: the ShinRa envelope under her door, the word that she was officially on her own.

She made her own decisions now.

Elena had stopped dipping the tea strainer some time ago, and her feet found the cold wood beneath the chair. She stood slowly, testing this newfound world, this world without a leash tied to ShinRa Electric. She made the same walk she made every night to her bedroom, but this one felt different. She wasn't just walking into her bedroom this time.

The closet doors creaked open. Suddenly her clothes looked boring. The blouses she only wore around the house looked flimsy. Her jeans were dull and she felt like she was as stale as they were. She climbed up on the small ladder – "Hell no; she's too tiny," Reno had said around his cigarette when they'd hired her –, hand fumbling around the shelf for the box she hadn't moved in years. When she had it, she walked to the bed and put it down, opening the lid among a cloud of dust.

In all her years watching the people of Junon wander their streets, she'd seen a lot of people carrying guns, but she still knew that hers shot better than theirs. No matter how much people had spent on a suits, she'd always known that they didn't fit them as well as hers would fit her. Industrial-strength bleach had kept the collar of her dress shirt from yellowing. She always took off both her sleeves at once, so it was still tucked neatly inside the jacket. Elena thought that perhaps the folds had permanently damaged the fabric, but she pulled it out and it looked no worse for the wear. It felt healthier than she did.

It felt more comfortable than anything she'd done in almost twenty years.

She couldn't help it. She found herself stripping her clothes off, watching scars from the job learn to breathe again as she did. When it came to putting the suit on, it was muscle memory; one sleeve after another, flawlessly tucking in the shirt, getting her holster settled and her gun into it, stepping into shoes that were tied at just the right spot, bending her knees to make sure the pants wouldn't hinder her if she had to jump a fence. She'd lost weight since the job, and gotten only slightly taller, but she still felt at home in the moment.

She could almost feel her dissatisfaction with her choices melt away. She felt like she could talk to every cashier downstairs, make a thousand phone calls, paint her nails, throw back a few shots and laugh outrageously at the bar now, because no one could touch her. It wasn't only the physical part of her that felt like she was where she was supposed to be; it was like she actually was twenty years younger, rolling around the Gongaga jungles with her teammates, ducking shrapnel and firing out car windows.

Her mind came back to Tseng's card in the envelope. He knew and she knew that they would all be getting them – Reno, Rude, and herself. They all knew what that card meant, but she wasn't sure they would actually follow orders. Tseng had died and times had changed and her friends had moved on much sooner than she would. They'd probably gotten soft and forgotten how good it felt to stand at attention sometimes.

Still, it tugged at her. She wasn't sure how long she had been standing there in that suit, just listening to her own breath, but the back of her mind was a black arrow on a white field, pointing out her front door. Under her breathing she could hear Tseng in the President's office, saying that it didn't matter if ShinRa knew what it was sending – the Turks had it covered.

The Turks had it covered.

She remembered the time they'd met and she felt like she could fall in love with the way he spoke and knew just what he wanted in life. She'd never met anyone that seemed so without regret. Even in the SOLDIER bunkers she could hear crying at night – but Tseng never looked behind him. She remembered how it had felt to have that taken away from her, and now to have the company taken away from her. The letter in the envelope had severed her one tie to Tseng, as fictitious as it was, and only with a pair of sunglasses in her hair did she realize how infuriated she was.

She knew she had to go, and she knew why. She knew she had to follow his last order, or she would never be satisfied with herself again.

She took nothing. She knew that everything would be just the way it was when she got back, whether it took days or months. She didn't have a car, but she suddenly didn't need one. She knew that it would work out because something within her told her that Tseng was guiding her now, and he hadn't failed her yet. She took her suit, her sunglasses, her gun, the white business card, and nothing else. No identification, no responsibilities, no gil – the way they used to go into a job, even their dental records forged.

She felt like she could breathe again.

She felt alive.

She felt dangerous.

Author's Note: To my old readers: It's been a while, in a number of ways. So hi. Nice to see you again. How have you been? Would you like a multi-chaptered story? Hopefully? Okay. I haven't written prose in a while, so please go easy on me. But y'know, fuck sitting down; let's keep going.

To my new readers: Let me explain what Final Fantasy VII is. It's a video game made in 1997. It was not made recently; it was never played on cell phones; there were never movies or videos or books, except the ones that we've written. If you try to tell me anything otherwise, I'm not going to hear you.

Now that we've got that out of the way: Thank you all for supporting me, seven years later.