A/N: Reno's talking to me again, and boy has he had a lot to say lately. Wicked red-head.
Enjoy.
fire mystic
X
Sitting in the same spot at the kitchen table, Tifa rested her head in her hands, eyes closed as she inhaled the aroma of the strong cup of coffee that rested before her. It wasn't the hard truths that made the morning tough. Tifa had faced those sometime in the middle of the night. It was the complete lack of sleep that was making for a painful morning. If she had been able to get just a few minutes, it seemed, it would be easier to face the excruciating light that was now filtering through the curtains. The coffee was helping, but not nearly enough. The only comfort she had was that the sleepless night had been spent well, admitting a few truths to herself and bringing reality into focus.
The suggestion that she was jealous had infuriated Tifa, but it was the realization that Elena was right that exhausted her. Of all things that could go wrong, could cause her to be off her game, and it was as simple as this...attraction? lust? ...she felt towards a red-headed punk turk. She wasn't even sure what it was, but it was there. She had spent half of the night debating attraction versus lust...or both. And just when she thought she had answered that debate with lust winning out, the question of attraction would weedle its way into another nook of her brain. He was physically attractive, no argument there. That wouldn't be enough to win the argument, but there were other qualities that fit into that category as well. As young as he was, he was independent and sure of himself.
"And let's not forget how charming he can be," Tifa muttered to herself as she lifted the cup in front of her to sip her coffee. She sipped too much and managed to burn her tongue as the argument started once more, and the coffee sloshed as she slapped the cup back to the table.
It was frustrating how true that was, yet entirely sarcastic at the same time. He was charming; he had to be to do his job as well as he did, at least as far as Tifa had observed. It also didn't hurt for manipulating secretaries and the occasional back-alley rendezvous.
Then there was the way he seemed to be watching out for her in his own way.
"Grrughhh!" She stood up, pushing away from the table. "I have to stop thinking about this!"
Her cell phone started ringing and she looked around for it, annoyed that her only distraction at the moment was so closely tied to what she needed the distraction from. But the Shinra phone lay silent and dark on the table near her coffee cup. In all the melodrama of working for Shinra, she had forgotten she had a cell phone of her own. She found it on the nightstand by her bed. She checked the screen and smiled as she pressed accept.
"Hi Cloud. What's going on?"
"Hey Tifa. I'm in Edge. Wanna meet up?"
In some ways, this was going to be difficult. Tifa had always had a thing for Cloud, and like the cartoons with the angel and devil sitting on your shoulder taking different sides of a situation, Tifa was torn between listening to two voices of conscience when it came to Cloud. One voice said it was never going to happen; that as much as she wanted it to, as much as she was attracted to Cloud, there would always be a distance that Cloud would always maintain, a somber silence between them that would never be comfortable. The other voice continually convinced her to hold on to her hope, that one day, with no warning or great drama, that distance would be gone and the silence understood. The end result of these two voices? No matter how much time had passed, no matter what logic she applied, when the phone rang, she would go, the hope re-kindled, the warm feelings she had for him once more stirred as if they had never slipped.
She met him at The Bean Shoppe, a little coffee shop that was out of the main line of traffic, but near a little park not far from Tifa's apartment. Cloud would never come to the apartment; he would have felt like the walls were closing in on him.
He was leaning on his bike when she got there, and he went into the shop long enough to get them coffee and they walked into the park, sitting on a bench in a quiet corner. This is what it had been like forever, since they were kids. They would sit, occasionally talking, but mostly silent and contemplative, and time would pass, sometimes hours before they once again went their separate ways and it would be months, sometimes years before Tifa's phone would ring again. She called more frequently. Cloud never answered.
To anyone observing, they would have appeared to be the perfect couple, able to sit and talk, but also able to sit quietly together, and sometimes it was comfortable. Their shared past allowed for a connection that was familiar and didn't require conversation. But there remained that certain something that Tifa couldn't identify that kept her and Cloud from taking that step from friendship into something more. She glanced down at the space on the bench that separated them. The symbolism of that space said it all. It raised a lump in Tifa's throat that made it hard to swallow the bitter coffee she was drinking. If it bothered Cloud, he never said anything and Tifa forced the coffee down. Elena was right; She should switch to tea.
Unable to stand the silence anymore, Tifa stood and stretched, smiling down at Cloud.
"C'mon. Let's walk."
Walking didn't make for much better conversation, but at least it was a change of scenery. Cloud walked along beside her, nodding when she occasionally pointed out something in a shop window.
Then they turned a corner and nearly ran into Reno. In her surprise, Tifa nearly dropped the coffee cup she was carrying, and Reno's hand was that quickly there to steady it, his fingers sliding confidently around hers, steadying her even as he studied Cloud Strife.
"Hey Strife. Long time, no see."
"Reno," Cloud acknowledged. "Yeah, I've been on the road." Tifa stood back observing the two of them, marveling at what a small world it was. Reno had a bit of a smile going on, totally unreadable, but Cloud looked considerably uncomfortable and, Tifa realized, was staring at Reno's hand wrapped around her own. That hand slipped away before Tifa could comment, but the warmth remained. She cleared her throat.
"I didn't know you knew each other."
Cloud shifted his gaze to her, then eyed Reno. "Yeah, we know each other."
"Cloud briefly worked for Shinra," Reno explained. "That was a while back, though. How's it going, Strife?"
Cloud completely ignored Reno's question. "Question is how do you two know each other?" The question startled Tifa. Cloud sounded almost jealous. Or angry. She checked Reno's reaction and found him checking hers. Wow, this was uncomfortable.
"Oh, I forgot to tell you about my new job, Cloud. I work for Shinra. Mrs. Shinra, to be exact. She needed a personal assistant, and I guess I happened to be in the right place at the right time." She still wasn't sure about that. Her life had taken some crazy turns since she had accepted the job.
The expression on Cloud's face was hard, and the tone in his voice was flat. "You work for Shinra?"
"Ah, come on, Cloud," interjected Reno. "It's not that bad. It's not like she's becoming a Turk or something. She just runs errands for Old Lady Shinra. It's no big deal."
But obviously it was. Cloud shook his head, looking around as if he were lost.
"I gotta go." He was already turning back the way they had come, and Reno just shrugged.
Tifa was monumentally confused. "Hold on Cloud. Wait!" She rushed to catch up with him, leaving Reno to do whatever it was that Reno did. "Wait!" She hissed again as she caught up with his suddenly long, hurried stride and spun him about with a hand on his arm. "What the hell was that all about?"
He pulled his arm away, half turning away before turning back to her. "Shinra, Tifa? You went to work for Shinra?"
What the hell was his problem? "It was a good offer, Cloud. I'm not doing anything wrong."
"Not now, maybe. Just give it time. Shinra can't be trusted."
"Like Reno said, I don't really work for him. I work for Mrs. Shinra. Running errands, picking stuff up for her, dropping stuff off. And the pay is more than fair."
"Exactly how much are they paying you for these errands, Tifa?" She hesitated long enough for both of them to realize it was way too much money for what Mrs. Shinra had asked of her so far. After a few seconds, Cloud nodded. "And that doesn't make you suspicious?"
Unsure what she could say to that, Tifa said nothing, and when Cloud turned and walked away, she let him go.
Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, THUMP, THUMP. Where in dreamland was that sound coming from? If Tifa could have observed herself while she slept, she would have seen her face scrunch as she tossed in her sleep, trying to figure out what was causing that repetitive THUMPING noise. In her dream, she was walking down a never-ending hall in Shinra headquarters, not sure what she was looking for, but knowing she would recognize it when she found it, and that infernal thumping was coming from every direction at once, and no particular direction at all.
She woke suddenly, lost for a moment, thinking she would find herself waking in that endless Shinra hallway. Getting her bearings, she realized the thumping persisted.
"It's the door, dumbass," she muttered to herself as her head fell back on the pillow. "Just someone banging on the door." She glanced at the clock. Two fifteen in the morning. Damn, had she slept. Between lack of sleep from the night before and her stressful visit with Cloud, she had been exhausted when she came home, and tumbled into bed by seven, falling asleep within minutes and not waking until the thumping.
She shuffled past Elena's room, the door open. Why hadn't the thumping woken her? And who was that at this hour anyway? They needed to stop pounding on the door.
"All right, all right," she called. "I'm coming." The noise ceased and there was an eery silence. Tifa checked the peephole to find what kind of lunatic had woken her up at this hour. Hell, they'd probably woken the whole building. She bowed her head, hesitating with one hand on the doorknob and one on the lock, when she discovered who it was. Slipping the lock and pulling the door open, she faced Reno. His expression shut down anything she had been about to say, stole the unspoken words of annoyance right out of her mouth. He looked desperate. And worried. And his voice, when he spoke, was all seriousness.
"Hurry up and get dressed. I need your help."
"What?" she blurted out, trying to make sense of what was going on.
He pushed his way past her into the apartment, but didn't meander as he had before. "I need you to help me with something."
"Help you?" Was this part of her dream? It was two something in the morning, and Reno was pounding on her door asking for help? Tifa couldn't get clear the cobwebs in her brain fast enough for this. She breathed deeply as she shut the door, doing her best to for her brain to function rationally. "What are you doing here, Reno? Do you have any idea what time it is?"
He turned on her, his speed and intensity scaring her, making her back up a step, into the solid bulk of the door. "I don't have time for chit-chat, Lockhart. You didn't answer your fucking phone. You're on the clock and this is fucking important. Now get dressed."
Well, wasn't this an epic fail. Heart beating wildly, Tifa sidestepped out of his reach toward her bedroom. "Can I have five minutes?"
"Just hurry up. I'll wait here." He leaned back against the door she had just vacated.
In her room, she checked her phone. Seven calls from Reno. No messages. Shit. She needed to be more on the ball if she planned on keeping this job. She grabbed fresh clothes and crossed the hall into the bathroom. Brushing out her hair quickly, she pulled it into a high ponytail and quickly washed her face and brushed her teeth, refreshed her deodorant and changed out her clothes at emergency speed. Racing back to her room, she pulled on a pair of sneakers and glanced in the mirror. She had looked better, but she it was acceptable for a two in the morning emergency. Grabbing her jacket,she headed out to find Reno still leaning where she had left him. Maybe it was a Turk thing.
As she passed Elena's door, she remembered Elena had gone out with a friend. Apparently they were closing down the town, and Elena would probably crash somewhere for the night.
"I'm ready." He was looking at her intently, completely unreadable, but something was lurking behind his close scrutiny. Would it be worth it to know what he was thinking at this moment? Tifa wasn't sure.
"'Bout time, yo." He pulled the door open, pushing her into the hall. He impatiently waited as she locked the door, and then it was everything she could do to keep up with his long stride as he led her out to a motorcycle parked at the curb.
"I'm not a mind reader, you know." She said as he climbed on the motorcycle. "How was I supposed to know you'd be banging on my door at two something in the morning?"
"Next time, answer your fucking phone. Now, get on the bike, yo."
She couldn't argue with that. She climbed on the bike as he started it, and put her hands on his waist just in time for the bike to jerk forward.