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10. Legend: Big Brother

He never figured himself big brother material. He barely remembered his parents and knew he had no siblings, so when the kid used the name, all huge eyes and innocent smile, it threw him for a loop. People didn't call him cutesy names. Generally they screamed or ran away. Sometimes they did both. Sometimes they didn't get the chance. The really stupid ones ran in the wrong direction and he had to watch their faces as they blew up.

He stopped what he was doing and looked at the kid. "What'd you just say?"

Her smile wavered. "You don't like it?" Her feet backed away a step. "Did I offend you?" She sounded scared. Shit, she had a right. He could be one terrifying asshole. Not that his enemies ever got close enough to see his best hairy eyeball.

He had been called worse. Not many people knew his real name. Actually, most people didn't. He had elected a long time ago to keep it that way. He didn't have family to protect – no Super Sekrit Identity for him – so who cared what he chose to call himself? He could go around demanding everyone refer to him as Senor Bubbles McFuddy-Duddy Chuckle-Pants, and he would get a lot of weird looks, but nobody would actually care, just so long as he got his job done. In point of fact, he found it funnier to leave out his name when introducing himself. It was entertaining to see what people came up with when they didn't know what to call him.

During the war had been the worst – or was that best? – time for inventive, ego-boosting nicknames. His favourite was 'Death God of the Battlefield', although 'Legend of Bloody Death and Fiery Glory From Above' was glorifying if you didn't mind sticking around to finish saying it before the detonator went. He had liked 'Emperor of Fire' until he realised the Wutaians who called him that had actually named him after some old dragon from their mythology. Those names gave him the kind of gravitas most guys could only dream about. They made sure people were afraid before they even met him, even when they knew nothing else about him. You couldn't buy that kind of celebrity. Those who knew him as a ruthless sure-shot explosives expert had a reason to fear him, but he liked the boogieman effect too. Not a lot of people could say the mere mention of their nickname reduced grown men to jelly.

'Big Brother' was a let-down in comparison. He looked at the kid and realised it wasn't the only thing that had faded like hot tongs in water after his stint in Wutai. He had come down in the world, too. Nowadays he felt like some stupid errand boy. While part of him was glad to be out of that stinking jungle, and a tinier part was actually tiring of bloodshed, the rest chafed against the limitations peace-time placed on him. It had been a while since he got any real excitement. Being a Turk was cool, and Midgar had its own kind of stimulation, but it just wasn't the same.

The kid was still looking at him. Damn it; she expected an answer. What had she said? He wracked his brains like a broken fruit machine. A few memories jingled out. He shrugged. "Whatever. Call me Shirley, if you like."

She giggled. He softened, even as the back of his brain protested any kind of softness. Softness got you killed. Death Gods, Fiery Dragons and Legends of the Battlefield weren't soft.

This one was a good kid. You didn't find many of those in this city. A street brat – Midgar specialised in those – who hadn't turned bitter or mean yet. That made her unusual all by itself. He pegged her about eleven or twelve, small for her age and not long in this kind of life. She hadn't been born a street brat. She was still drawn to people like a moth to a flame. Established street-kids learned a long time ago that the kind of people they met were only out for what they could get. If you trusted too easily, you got taken advantage of, which meant hooking, drugs, both, or worse.

Ifrit's balls, sometimes he hated Midgar.

The kid's fine-boned face was extra angular from malnutrition. Her cupid's-bow mouth looked even bigger set against her hollow cheeks. She was all set to be a looker when her hormones really kicked in, which would have been great if she had a home and three square meals a day, but being attractive was dangerous on the streets. It wasn't safe to stand out.

Maybe that was why he hadn't shooed her away in the beginning. He had seen orphans in Wutai, orphans in Midgar and orphans in all the places he had visited in between. He was sick of seeing desperate old eyes in young faces. She wasn't quite there yet, so he had let her stick around while he and his team camped out here, and found satisfaction as the desperation leeched from her eyes with each passing day.

As far as he could tell, she didn't run with any local gang. He reckoned that was good. The gangs were bad news. A kid like her would get chewed into mince in five seconds. Poor diet and hard living had slowed her development, but puberty wasn't far off, and puberty on the streets brought all sorts of unwelcome attention whether you were a looker or not. He thought she had started hanging around while his guys staked out the reactor because Turk suits kept undesirables away. That was fine by him. They were waiting for the crooked arms dealer selling weapons to the anti-Shinra organisation holed up inside – a bunch of idiots who actually thought their HQ was secret. He had nothing better to do while he waited, and the kid played a mean game of cards for someone with such an innocent smile.

It was the shoes that told him he was really going soft. He should have told her to get lost long before, but especially after the shoes.

He didn't even know why he bought them. He just saw them in the window of a store, walked inside, paid and left again, like he did it all the time. He didn't even know if they'd fit; let alone why he bought them. When he saw them on the display stand, he just had a blinding flash of her toes crushed into those ratty sneakers. She had looped elastic bands around the ends to keep the soles on. The previous night one had snapped and pinged off, striking the back of his hand. He had joked she was trying to make him show his cards. She had just blushed and looked embarrassed.

He didn't make a big deal out of the gift. When she arrived, faux-casually emerging from behind the line of garbage cans, he tossed the box at her and lit up one of his trademark cigars, like he had picked it up at a thrift store and it meant nothing to him. They were hand-stitched, one-of-a-kind exclusives, according to the tag. Like he knew enough about footwear to care?

"You'd make a good big brother," she said now. "I never had any brothers or sisters, just my Poppy. He's … gone now. My mom died a long time ago. I never knew her. It was just me and Poppy until a few months ago." She paused. "Now it's just me." Her smile turned sad and wistful.

What the hell? 'Wistful'? There was a time he wouldn't have known the meaning of the word. Now he was seeing it in some scrappy kid's eyes, like some sentimental romantic novelist? He was supposed to be a professional spy, intelligence gatherer, explosives expert, trained killer – the works. All that bad shit was his bad shit. She should call him 'Bad Shit', not 'Big Brother'.

Why hadn't he driven her off the first day he caught her watching them? She had crouched like the garbage cans were a good shield, and kept glancing over her shoulder like she was waiting for someone to jump out and try to bash her head in.

Fuuuuck. I do not need this. When did I become a damn humanitarian? He resisted the urge to throw up his hands and announce she was no longer his problem. Damn, he was in deep. He pushed the unwelcome feelings aside and shoved them down deep. He didn't have time for this now. I got a mission. Mission first, then mental breakdown and identity crisis when I got time. Yup. Good plan.

He never asked her name. Maybe he thought that would be a step too far – as if buying her pretty footwear wasn't already verging on pervert territory. He was a stone-cold killer, but he was no paedophile. He didn't know her name and she didn't know his, so the brief time they spent together had an unreal quality. He could believe he was still the Death God of the Battlefield instead of a washed-up has-been trading on his old reputation while he settled into a cushy job as a secret agent in a snazzy suit without a mosquito or Wutaian poison-blowpipe in sight. He could sit and play cards because he knew he was badass and didn't need to prove it to anyone.

An subordinate approached, adjusting collar and cuffs as he walked. The idiot was too concerned with his appearance and not enough with the murderous look he was walking onto like a sharpened stake. Putz. A lot of the new generation of Turks were putzes. They had no style or panache. Most didn't even know the meaning of 'tragedy', and they definitely hadn't lived it.

He didn't rise, watching the subordinate through his one good eye. He had lost the other a long time ago. People were intimidated by an eyepatch, even if they didnlt want to admit it. It went with the nicknames to add to his general air of mystique and badassery.

"We have movement, sir."

"Have the idiots inside decided to give themselves up?" A vain hope, but it didn't hurt to ask. He didn't bother investing much seriousness in his tone.

The anti-Shinra group had snuck into the mako reactor and taken secret control – and thus had the whole city secretly hostage – but made no move after that. At first he thought they were just stupid. Then he thought they were biding their time, waiting for something – or someone – to make a move before they made theirs. They were the slowest negotiators he had ever dealt with, but his orders were to negotiate, no matter how long it took. Even if it did mean staring at the wall most of the time and turning into a tub of lard as he waited for something to do that didn't make him want to rake his fingers down a cheese grater with boredom.

"We got ourselves a guy sneaking into the reactor through the sewers," said his subordinate.

That made him take notice. "The mole?" Someone inside Shinra had been selling arms to this group on the sly; but surely the goofball wasn't stupid enough to come here, in person, right now, when the shit was about to hit the fan n spectacular fashion? Never underestimate the level of stupidity in the average human brain, especially when there's money involved, he thought. What he said was,"Define 'got'."

"Tracking right now, sir."

"So you haven't actually caught this person."

"Uh …"

"And yet you're coming to me, interrupting my game, to tell me there's someone, perhaps an important someone to our mission, sneaking into the reactor – right past our operatives – even though you've made no move to apprehend them."

"We were ... um …" His colleague flushed with embarrassment. Dumb rookie. He almost bowed as he backed off. "I'll take care of it and get back to you, sir."

"You do that."

"You can be real mean sometimes," said the kid when the guy was gone.

He grunted, moving the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. "Who asked you?"

She wrinkled her nose. Then she got up, sidestepped and pirouetted, stopping with one foot raised to admire her new shoes. At some point before the hard times, she had studied ballet. He wondered, briefly, about her life before 'Poppy' bit the big one. Who would she be right now if her father had survived?

Stupid question. Dealing with what-ifs was about as much use as a teaspoon for shovelling chocobo dung. What if he hadn't gone to Wutai? What if he hadn't become a Turk? What if Sephiroth hadn't existed? What if Shinra had never been formed? What if mako's properties had never been discovered? What-ifs were ridiculous because they made you dissatisfied with things as they were. Better to just deal with the here and now.

Except that, for him, the here and now quickly became the here and there. And there. And some over there. And a few pieces over there. And some more over there.

Veld came for him when he didn't report in immediately. He knew his boss was there behind him, peering through the still-clearing dust and smoke. He didn't turn around. He waited for Veld to speak first. There was nothing he wanted to say – nothing he could say. The mission had gone south after the interloper was spotted in the sewers and the terrorists inside the reactor decided it was a good time to test their new weapons on the Turks outside. Somehow, he had lost his team of rookies before his explosives could take care of the enemy. The mole escaped in the melee. Yet somehow, that wasn't what made him feel like someone was digging shrapnel out of his chest with rusty tweezers and no anaesthetic.

Veld looked pointedly at the shoe. He arched both eyebrows. He didn't know about the purchase or the gift. He just saw one small red shoe in the hands of his best operative, surrounding by debris and bodies, but no arrests and no information to lead to one. The shoe was probably all that was keeping Veld from busting a gut.

He held it so tight the new leather creaked and split. His grip was astonishing. He knew he wasn't big brother material. He had always known it, but for a brief sneeze of time, he had almost permitted himself to pretend.

He hadn't held her as she died. There hadn't been enough of her left. Handfuls only. Who could comfort a bit of intestine, a shred of lung, or one charred kidney? Her face was gone. He stared at the wreckage, trying to picture her before she faded and joined the other faceless masses of dead in his memory. Fields of bodies – men, women and children – spread across the back of his mind like a fungus. He recalled soldiers dangling from trees, or knelt at the base, their guts spilled out from ritual suicide when they knew the battle was already lost. There was no quarter there; no reasoning with someone willing to take their own life, and the lives of their loved ones.

At least red doesn't show the blood so much, he thought distantly. The shoe with the price tag was missing. The kid hadn't had time to pull it off. You couldn't return only one shoe from a pair.

Veld was on guard. If Veld was ever afraid, he seemed it now. Or perhaps that was just his damaged eye. His eye-patch was gone, exposing the livid purple scars beneath He had fashioned a new patch out of torn fabric from his jacket. He had used his Phoenix Down. Veld would be pissed about their budget, too; the bottom line was sinking lower and lower, and Phoenix Down was expensive.

Veld said his name. he sounded like he was speaking from far away. Tinnitus as well? This day was getting better and better. He had gained a little sister and lost her again in a couple of hours. He had stepped over the bodies of his team, who had looked to him and his experience for guidance to keep them alive. All that, and he hadn't even traded balanced their deaths with the name of the crooked arms dealer. If he ever met that guy again, heads would roll – one in particular, and it wouldn't be his own.

Veld was insistent. The leather of the shoe squeaked as he grip tightened even further. The shoe was tacky now. Blood had dried between it and his palm. His bare hand stuck to the wretched memento. The kid deserved some kind of memorial, but like hell she'd get one. Nobody cared about street-kids in Midgar.

"I will not cry for the sake of my family," he said, searching his memory or something appropriately sentimental, like infantrymen in Wutai had said over their fallen comrades' freshly dug graves. "But instead … uh, mourn this day for their death."

Veld looked at him askance. It was clunky and mawkish, but it would do. Nobody ever said he was good with words. Nobody ever said he was good at anything, except killing, blowing shit up and striking fear into the hearts of his enemies with the mention of his name.

Yeah. And nobody was right, too.