Shade
by TwinEnigma
10.
How could you?
The demand echoes oddly in his half-waking state, dissonant against the faint sounds of Elmyra moving around downstairs. Then, there is a sudden, thunderous bang and he finds himself on his feet, heart thundering in his ears.
For one awful, paralyzing moment, he thinks they have found him.
But no ShinRa come.
The door stays firmly shut.
There are no footfalls on the rickety stairs.
And when he slowly, carefully, opens the door, there is only the empty hallway and the murmur of voices from downstairs.
Silently, he edges down the hall, avoiding the creaks in the old floorboards, and presses himself flat against the wall at the top of the stairs. He can see Elmyra near the bottom, standing stiff as a steel beam, her face set in a hard, unhappy frown. For a moment, her eyes dart to the stairs and to him, as if to say "do not move." Then, her eyes snap forward again.
"I don't think you understand the danger you're putting yourself in," a crisp, half-familiar voice states.
"I told you: I don't know what you're talking about," Aerith states, waspishly.
"Aerith, I am not saying this as a Turk, I am saying this as your friend," that voice bites out and he knows this voice – a Turk, a Turk, where had she met a Turk, especially someone like…
Tseng: the name practically pops into being from nowhere and with it, a cold feeling settles in his gut as a face slots into place with the name.
Tseng looking down at him distantly, as scientists spill into the reactor, as Hojo tsk's and hums and cackles.
Tseng deliberately turning away.
Tseng doing nothing.
It all comes to him in a sickening rush, leaving him reeling and disoriented.
"You can't do this by yourself," Tseng continues. "I know you think you can, but there are things you don't know. It's not what you think. I know you want it to be, but it isn't. And I am telling you, as your friend: you are in danger. Let me help you."
"I don't need your help," Aerith snaps, "Since I have no clue what you're talking about and there is literally no reason for you to be here, wasting everyone's time like this."
There is a scrape of a chair and Tseng says something, but it's too low and he's too far away to hear it properly.
"Get out, now," Aerith snarls in response and he can practically feel the chill fury in her voice. "Or I will throw you out, I swear it."
"Aerith, be reasonable," Tseng sighs. "You know that's not-"
"Out!" she roars.
"I'll come back later," Tseng says and it's a surreal sort of sensation to hear him sound so resigned – even subdued. He is, after all, the quintessential Turk: cool, distant and professional no matter what horrors lie before him. He was a friend, once, maybe, but it feels like it happened to someone else, like he'd met a ghost of a man who probably didn't even exist anyway.
Tseng had been there, looking down at him, when he was drowning in Mako – he's sure of it.
The front door opens and closes, this time softly.
He hurries back down the hallway to his room and cautiously peeks past the threadbare curtains, watching as Tseng leaves.
The Turk pauses, looking back, and he cannot help but feel that Tseng knows he is there, that he is watching him go. Another chill slips down his spine.
He nearly jumps when the door to his room slams open and Aerith barrels in, shaking with fury.
"How dare he," she says hotly, marching towards the window and yanking the curtains closed. "I can't believe him. How dare he! Everything is fine."
He blinks, staring at her.
"And I certainly don't need that kind of help," she practically growls, balling her hands into fists. "There's got to be another way."
He hesitates, looking past her, towards the old, tarnished and cloudy mirror on the dresser. His face is shadowed, the silver hair darkening to a deep grey in the growing artificial twilight, and for a moment, it doesn't seem like his reflection at all, but someone else's. It's as if he's disconnected from that body in the mirror – he doesn't know who that person is, but it's not him.
All of a sudden, he is terribly afraid of himself and he doesn't totally understand why, except that it has something to do with the unpredictable blackouts and flashbacks, those terrible, terrible nightmares, and the feeling that this is not him. And in that awful moment, an eerie, crystalline clarity settles over him. He realizes then that Tseng is right: Aerith and her mother are in terrible danger – and he's that danger.
Something inside him is broken and broken badly. He knows this and it terrifies him. There is no telling when he'll next black out like he did in Wall Market. There is no telling if or when he'll lose himself in a flashback. There's no telling what will happen when he does, but he remembers the blood and the ash on his hands. He knows he'd done something awful that night and if he ever – if he ever hurt Aerith or her mom, he'd never forgive himself.
"We'll go to Mideel," Aerith says, firmly. Her eyes are intensely alight, burning with resolve as she begins pacing the length of the room. "The doctors there are supposed to be good – the best with Mako poisoning. We just have to get out of the city. It'll be hard, but… I think I know of some people who could help. They could get us out of the city. We can do this. It'll be fine."
He rolls his bottom lip under his teeth, worrying the skin a little as he watches her and can't find the words to explain the horror growing in his chest for fear of breaking her heart again. "Aerith, what if…"
"Don't worry," she says, sitting next to him. "It'll be fine."
He shakes his head. "What if Tseng is right?"
"What?" she asks, blinking in bewilderment. "He – no, you didn't know him very long before but I've known him for years – practically all my life. And he's a Turk, they - Turks lie, all the time, with a straight face and smile. It's what they do; it's who they are."
Logically he knows that, but it's like knowing a fact from a textbook and it is distant, out of rational reach on the other side of the choking realization that he might be a ticking time bomb, one that could go off without warning.
"And we don't want his brand of help; trust me, we don't," she adds, placing a hand over his.
He tries not to flinch at the gesture, but he is afraid: afraid of himself and afraid for her.
There is something wrong with him – something terribly, dangerously wrong.
"Aerith, I think," he starts, pausing to look down at his hands again. They are pale and clean now, but he can almost feel the itch of blood and ash on them. In the back of his head, he hears screaming.
"I think I might have hurt people."
For a moment, she does not say anything. Then, she nods and grips his hand tightly. Her other hand comes to rest on top of their twined hands. "Don't worry. We'll figure this out," she says at last. "It'll be fine."
He wishes he could believe her.