Father...

Rufus Shinra was regally posed back in the company helicopter, poise evident even with his head cast to the side as he gazed out at the sprawling mass of darkened gems that was Midgar, light eyes glaring through the protective glass at the streets below. It normally wasn't the kind of thing that caught his eye, but he couldn't help but to watch a couple strolling down the early morning street, the girl's hand going from a complacent state of relaxation to one of excitement as she dragged her date forward. As far as looks went, the female's face was too avian for the vice's liking, her beak-like nose standing out in the gray-purple light, her date more than effeminate enough to compensate for that fact. So far as everything else went, the buffoon was obviously out of his league with a girl like that, but neither seemed perturbed by the pronounced class difference; on the contrary; the couple was all smiles as they ran into the theater, the usher just barely letting them scrape by for the start of the show. She was clearly the one who had paid to see that over-rated stage massacre, and yet there was no trace of contempt for that fact...

"I don't really get it myself," Reno, the red-headed Turk that had picked him up from his Junon escort and was taking him back to the main building for a late morning meeting, spoke up from the pilot's chair, flying with such careless ease that he was able to glance back at the young VP, "But people really do love that show. Say," He turned back to the controls briefly to make sure that they were maintaining their current altitude, "You're dating the star, aren't you?"

Cheval Glass - the lead actress of the current iteration of the famed 'Loveless' - was indeed linked romantically to the second most powerful man in town, but it was a relationship as fabricated and trifling as the woman herself, although she had made the counterargument that their sham was more parallel to his insincerity and cynicism. However you looked at it, the sparkling diamond on display was flatter than one of Rufus' crisp suits after it had been picked up from the cleaner and not worth one red gil.

"..." Rufus looked away at the very idea of having an honest conversation with the vapid creature under discussion, turning his attention instead towards his faithful pet and security dog, Dark Nation. He had had the creature since it had been a pup, and it was the one constant in his life since that time. How long had that couple been together, and how long would they remain? It was a valid enough question, but speaking from what he knew personally, it wouldn't last much longer, because there was always something or someone better to step in as a replacement for their so-called 'happiness'.

Everything was just a revolving door, but once his old man found 'the Promised Land', maybe things could change, and people would stop lying to themselves with their delusions of joy... Personally, until actual evidence presented itself, he viewed his father's foolish dream as just another waste of good money, but in the long run, once people realized that no such thing existed, it would ultimately end his way and everyone would admit what miserable fools they were.

"Hurry," The blonde's crisp exclamation come so suddenly that Dark Nation jerked its head up, fangs barred for an attack that wasn't coming. Stroking the beast's head to calm him down, Rufus' hand went automatically to a favored place just above the base of his pet's skull. "I'm going to be late for my meeting." As if the dunderheads could figure out how to sit down their own, let alone hold meetings to oversee Shinra's vast empire without him (and yet they had managed all these years)...

Why his father relied on those imbeciles, or better yet how, Rufus couldn't figure out for the life of him...

Hmm, father...

Father?

It was raining outside, something he had never seen before growing up in Midgar, but they weren't in Midgar now; they were at their summer home. His mother - face blocked away a combination of rough wind tousling through her golden curls and a white parasol sweeping up to protect her from the water - called out to him, telling him to not play in the street. Only half listening to her as he ran wide, impatient laps around the grounds, Rufus waited for any sign of the company car to peek up over he hedges: His father promised that he would come this time for sure. His father had promised him that fuzzy ideal of a happy family photograph...

Hours passed. A car rolled up the muddy path just as he was beginning to lose faith that his old man would ever show up, the loose soil squelching beneath the tires, spattering anything unfortunate enough to be in the way. This had to be it, this had to be him! Running down the little hill he had settled on while he waited in the rain, Rufus saw his mother ambling gracefully up to the car, fair head held high as always. She didn't see her son as he sprinted forth, thinking him off with the nanny when in reality he had stolen away from his afternoon nap, but she did see the person sitting inside the car as the door opened, and she was less than happy to be greeted by the Turk sent in her husband's place, already knowing the cause of this latest dismissal...

Dark hair knotted at the base of his neck, a bespectacled man spoke automatically, as if he were a machine relaying a simple message. "The president wishes to offer his condolences that he couldn't make it in person-"

The blonde woman shook her head as if stricken, heart closing off as if she had suddenly been widowed, years of repressed rage taking hold of her tiny frame. "I am not some employee! He cannot treat me this way, he just can't!" She had known for years of his various affairs, but she had never said it out loud before this point. "What about Rufus?! He's the real son, not some bastard spawned from one of my husband's little side pieces! So how can he find the time to have all of them when he neglects his own proper heir?!"

Proper heir? What did that mean? Slowing to a stop just outside his mother's line of sight, the young boy listened to his mother's shouted rants, more than furious that his father had failed to show up for the third weekend in a row now. "Mother?" He looked over at the car, seeing the Turk seated so calmly inside, unaffected by this. How he hated them for that, for delivering this kind of news, for keeping his father so busy that he couldn't see his son like he had promised. Surely the Turks could deal with whatever was keeping his father away? He had always been told that they could do anything, so why did his father not come? Unless... he didn't want to come? "Father isn't coming, is he?"

Scowling over at the Turk in the car as if this was personally his fault, the wife of the president shook her head and attempted to sweep her boy into her arms so that they could go inside and get out of this horrid weather, but he would not budge. "Rufus, you know that your father loves you more than anything, but work keeps him so busy that he can't come home-"

"No!" Father promised that they would be happy, that they would truly have it all...

Father promised...!

Father lied. Rufus was alone in the world, and the only he could really trust in was himself...

A big round of thanks to frankannestein for the review! Constructive criticism is what will help make this a more enjoyable experience for as all, and as a writer, it's one of the biggest and best building blocks for future success! So please, if there's anything at all that any of you would like to say about this, I am listening!

Anyways, I want it on the record that Rufus is one of my favorite characters in the series; I'm only going with how I picture him to be before the first/original game, and especially before the movie, which unfortunately is as a major jerk. That's putting it simply. As for his dreams of the promised land, I always wondered about his belief in it. Personally, I still wonder, but for the sake of this story and canon, I'm saying that Sephiroth's return and all of that was enough evidence for Rufus to buy that the promised land could possibly exist. But who knows, maybe he always did believe in it... And yes, Loveless has shows that start early in the morning. It is an epic after all.

Please review.

I do not own FFvii or any of its characters. I do own Larette.