Chapter 14: The Biggest Exception
Bee was escorted out of the hospital with exactly two weeks left before her deadline to have all the antidotes finished for the WRO. Her back had healed completely, it no longer ached and she was no longer tired. It was time to get back to work.
Tifa had gone to pick Bee up in the older girl's truck, bringing Marlene along for the ride. Bee sat in silence the whole ride to her shop, only opening her mouth to thank Tifa for getting her and then letting Tifa know that Elena would be watching over her that night, and that Rude would be taking over tomorrow. Elena had talked to Bee about her bodyguards ahead of time. Even Tseng would be watching over Bee at some points. Yuffie had volunteered already, and Cloud would be with her several days as well. The only one who would be absent was Reno, a fact that did not go amiss to the martial artist.
The only female Turk met Bee at her shop, waiting patiently outside. She had gone ahead to scout out the area, making sure there were no more men waiting. She had even borrowed Bee's key, checking every room, in every closet, under Bee's bed, and even under the staircase. There was no sign of anyone, not even that anyone had been there recently. Bee offered Elena the couch, but the Turk declined, telling Bee that she would not be sleeping. Bee was under twenty-four hour guard, and the shifts were cyclical. A change when she woke up, a change at lunch, a change at dinner, and a change when she went to bed. And then repeat the next day. No one was going to harm her again.
She went to bed that night, curling into a ball on her side, her blanket draped over her for comfort. She fingered the bracelet around her wrist, turning it over and over, tracing the intricate patterns etched into the silver. It was the first night she ever went to bed with it on, as she had always been afraid to break it in her sleep. But she wore it that first night, and for the rest of the week, finding comfort in an item given to her by a man who had represented perfectly what it meant to be a hero. It was funny, when she had seen Reno walk away to face the Wutains that had attacked her, it had reminded her much of when Zack had left her house, the very day he gave her that bracelet. She slept that night and dreamt of the backs of her friends as each walked slowly away from her. Each looked heroic in their own ways, but as she ran after them, they disappeared, just as they were about to face her, dispersing into a dark smoke that choked her, making her wake up several times throughout the night.
It didn't take long for Bee to get back to making antidotes. She had noticed that her time with Reno had slowed her down a bit, but now she had a lot of free time. She used the excuse of working on them to not visit the 7th Heaven, to not go eat at random places at Edge. Bee's routine became more monotonous than before she had even met Reno. She woke up, got ready for the day, ran through directions with whomever was running her shop for her that day, made antidotes, closed shop, saw patients, ate dinner while making more antidotes, made even more antidotes, showered, went to bed. She did not break the routine, and did not try and talk to anyone.
Yuffie always chattered away endlessly, uncomfortable with how silent her friend was being. Bee always participated in conversation, but her words were hollow, meaningless, and dismissive. This caused Yuffie to talk even more, ask more questions, invite her to more places. Yuffie never asked about Reno, which was the one good thing about working with her. But keeping conversation with her was exhausting, and Bee found she couldn't keep up with her friend, often falling behind and letting Yuffie carry the conversation for her.
Elena did not come by as often as the others. She claimed to be the only one capable of office work besides Tseng, and he was usually busy with everything else. Elena was more the Turk who assessed Bee's mental stability the first two days, then left Bee to the others. Bee didn't mind being observed by Elena, that wasn't bothersome or annoying to her. Many people had looked at her the way Elena had those first two days. Calculating how Bee works, wondering how she does it all. It was the underlying pity that Bee felt from Elena's gaze that bothered her, like Elena knew something that Bee didn't. And no matter how much Bee tried to ignore it, it was always there, peeking through the curiosity Elena showed in Bee. Pity for her situation? Pity for Reno? Pity for a unknown factor? Bee had no idea; there were a number of things Elena could pity Bee for, countless silly things that Bee cared not to list, and not to think about. But Elena kept looking, kept calculating, kept pitying. And Bee kept ignoring, kept pretending it wasn't there.
This was why she liked working with Rude the most. He never tried to talk to her, never bugged her with conversation, and she never saw what his eyes gave away because of his sunglasses. Sometimes, she even forgot he was there until he was forced to ask her a question that he couldn't answer for a customer (which happened most often with him, but never really bothered her). She often wondered if he hated her, he had been Reno's best friend after all. She wondered if when he looked at her, he saw the biggest source of Reno's pain, and if he resented her for that. She didn't know, and she knew she probably never would.
It was not until Wednesday, her third day into her new routine, that Rude approached her.
"I lost somebody I loved once," he told her in his deep voice from behind her. She jumped, having been focusing on her plant-cutting so intently, she had forgotten he was there. Again. He had come to her from behind her, looming over her at the counter with his tall frame. His lips twitched in the barest of smiles and continued, "I had a... an almost girlfriend."
Bee regarded him warily as he sat on her unused stool, sitting with perfect posture. His head was angled her way, so she assumed he was making eye contact with her, but she wasn't sure.
"What happened?" she asked, not knowing what else to say.
"She was part of the original AVALANCHE," he told her.
"The one before Barret," she clarified. Rude nodded and Bee told him, "I don't know much about them."
"We were ordered to defeat them. She asked me out in order to place a tracer on my phone. I was informed she could not do it because she actually cared about me. So she protected me by leaving me. I wish she hadn't. I didn't know her long, but I knew that I wanted to be with her. And I understood why she left, but to this day, I always wondered what would have happened if she had stuck around, if we had worked things out." It was the longest thing Bee had ever heard Rude say, maybe it was the longest thing he ever said. She couldn't help but stare at him, wondering where this was coming from.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked him, completely forgetting about her plants at this point. The stem lay in pieces in front of her, cut into fractions of what it once was, but she ignored it.
"Because I do not want that for you and Reno. I do not want to watch as my partner goes through life wondering what would have happened if he had worked things out with you. It is a painful and slow healing process, losing someone that is more important than your own life. Time does not always heal everything, I know from experience. Do not let yourself experience this as well." He left her, returning to the register counter behind the work station, and did not speak to her again, did not even wait for her to answer him. And that was how it remained every time afterwards, and Bee was left to mull over his words, wishing he had stayed silent more and more as her thoughts went on and on.
Bee's least favorite person to work with was Tifa (who did not act as bodyguard but often relieved a Turk of shop-keeping duties), because at least Yuffie had the common sense to ignore the huge bomb in the room. Tifa did not, and constantly tried to get Bee to talk to her about Reno, but that was the last thing she wanted to do. To talk about Reno was to acknowledge that they had been real, that he was a physical being and had been involved in her life. It was why she never went into her living room again after she came home from the hospital. The TV was still there and while Bee could not bring herself to throw out such a gift, she also could not bring herself to be in the same room as it. To sit on the couch alone instead of snuggled into Reno's chest. To watch a movie without being able to discuss it with Reno afterwards.
But Tifa insisted, asking, asking, asking. Poking, poking, poking. Prodding, prodding, prodding. It was to the point where Bee had to remind herself over and over again that Tifa was only concerned for Bee's well being, only wanted to see her friend smile again. Tifa believed that talking it over with Bee would make it all better, but Bee knew this was not true. No amount of pouring her soul out to her friend would make Reno come back. No words could be said that would suddenly magic Reno to her shop. Nothing could be done to change the fact that Reno was a Turk, and Bee was a civilian. There was no point at holding sand together anymore for Bee. It was gone, lost in the wind and blended in with the rest of the sand. Tifa never took the hint, however, and pressed Bee endlessly to call Reno, ask how he was, try and figure out what went wrong. But to Bee, there never was anything to figure out. She already knew.
The first day Tifa had watched over the shop, she had asked Bee to go to dinner, knowing that Bee would probably miss going with Reno.
"It'll be fun! I've never gone with you before!" Tifa exclaimed happily, leaning over Bee's work counter, smiling down at her.
Bee looked back up, trying desperately to hide her annoyance. She loved Tifa so much, and she knew that her friend was just trying to make her feel better. She had made a lot of progress in just that one day on her antidotes, so she had been trying to concentrate on making yet another box full when Tifa had walked over to talk to her.
"I wasn't actually planning on eating out tonight," Bee told her, her voice neutral. She looked back down at her work, silently willing Tifa to leave her, let her be, let her deal with this all herself. But Tifa persisted.
"What? You eat out every night! Come on, I'll ask Yuffie to come! Won't that be fun?" Tifa pushed, placing a hand on Bee's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Tifa, but I fell behind in my work. I really need to get these done. I was just going to make dinner here and continue my work. I don't want to disappoint Reeve," Bee responded. Tifa wanted to argue back, Bee knew it, but she was being ignored now. Bee had returned to her antidote making with even more fervor and Tifa knew she was dismissed. She walked away from her friend, but looked back sadly at the younger girl. Bee was trying to act tough, hold it all in, but Tifa knew that without Reno, Bee was going back to how she had been before, if not worse than before. Bee was retrogressing in Reno's absence, and it killed Tifa to feel like there was no way to help her.
Cloud was another Bee didn't mind working with. He usually kept quiet, already knew a lot about Bee's store and didn't often need her help with anything, and he did not look at her with pity in his eyes. Bee knew that he had tried talking to Tifa on several occasions about Bee, telling her to calm down, leave Bee alone. Bee was thankful for that. They had a mutual and unspoken agreement that they would not mention it, and both would go on acting like normal. This meant that when Cloud asked Bee what she wanted for her birthday, or what kind of cake she liked the best, Bee answered politely and truthfully. And then Bee would ask Cloud about Wutai, about how Denzel and Marlene were doing, if Shelke was making progress, and he would answer back too. But like with her talks with Yuffie, Bee's words seemed empty, her questions an act, her voice rehearsed. She was going through the motions on a reflex, but had no heart in them, a body without its central control. Cloud noticed, and let it go, because he knew pointing it out to her so soon after her heart was hurt, would rub it even more raw, and she would never recover.
He did, however, on Tuesday, ask her about her brother.
"Have you spoken to Toby since you last saw him?" Cloud asked. He had just helped out a customer pick out an ether, and the question seemed random, pulled out of the air. Obviously, Cloud had been thinking on the subject previously.
Bee was kneeling on the ground, packing up her antidotes in another box, taping it shut and labeling it. She shoved it under her work station, noting that Elena would be coming later on and that she would have to let the Turk know she had finished another bunch.
"No," she replied, trying to convey that she didn't want to talk about it.
If Cloud understood her intention, however, he ignored it and continued, "Are you planning on talking to him soon?"
Bee paused before going back to working on even more antidotes. She looked over at Cloud who stood precariously by the register counter, his back to the window in the front of the shop. The sunlight cast highlights in his hair, making it seem even lighter than it already was. Bee remembered briefly when she thought that Cloud was the most beautiful man she had ever met. How the times have changed.
"I don't think so, no," Bee answered finally.
"He's your brother, Bee. You can't avoid him forever. You are one of the lucky ones, you can say you have family," Cloud pointed out. Bee was surprised to see disapproval on his face, and she immediately became ashamed of herself. Cloud had never looked down at her in her life, nobody really ever had.
"I know this, it's just..." Bee trailed off, embarrassed and confused by her actions at the same time.
Cloud moved towards her then and placed his hands on her shoulders, as he normally did when giving her advice. She looked into his face and was reminded of her dream two nights ago and she felt a deep sadness. One that she could not explain.
"Toby hurt you, I understand that. Tifa understands that, Yuffie understands that. We get why you never talked about him. But he is your brother, and he looked for you. He searched because he loved you. He still loves you. And he was not the only one to do the hurting. You hurt him by not forgiving him. You should talk to him about it all," Cloud lectured softly, never letting Bee's gaze wander else where even though she desperately wanted it to.
"I... I know. You're right," she finally consented, "But I can't right now. I don't think... I don't think I'm in a good enough place right now to have that conversation with him. I would end up hurting the both of us all over again, and then who knows if he'll even want to talk to me again."
Cloud nodded and let go of Bee's shoulders, taking a step back from her. "I understand. Just don't let something so important and rare as family slip away easily."
"I won't," Bee replied, nodding in return, "I promise."
It was the only time anyone ever mentioned Toby to her, and the only time Cloud had broached a personal topic with Bee.
Finally, there was Tseng. He normally took the night shift, when Bee was sleeping. She almost never saw him. He hid outside, on the rooftop across from her shop, keeping watch like a shadow in the dark. Therefore, Bee was surprised when Thursday morning rolled around and Tseng was waiting for her downstairs, having just relieved Rude of his duty. She had wondered if he hadn't ever approached her because of their past encounters while he watched over Aerith, but it obviously wasn't the case if he was seeing her now.
"Tseng," she greeted politely.
She started to walk over to her work bench when she heard him call her name. Her real name. She whipped around, having completely forgotten that he knew it. Aerith had called her name a thousand times over as a child, of course Tseng knew it. Yet, he had never told anyone, as far as she knew. Nobody had told her otherwise at least.
"Do not use that name," she told him through gritted teeth, anger surging through her suddenly. She was not entirely surprised at her anger, she had been on edge lately, a ticking time bomb. She prayed that Tseng, of all people, would not be the one to set it off.
"I apologize," he said, holding his hands up in a sign of surrender.
"What do you want?"
"We are going out," he said simply, heading for the door without waiting for a response. "Your shop will be run by Yuffie today, she will be here shortly. You can continue making antidotes later on."
"What?" Bee was completely taken off guard by his assertion. Where could Tseng possibly want to go with her?
"I have a car waiting for us. We are taking a short trip," he told her, unperturbed by her concern. He started to head out the door, ushering for her to follow. Right on cue, Yuffie appeared in the window, waving happily at Bee and smiling hugely. She bounded in through the door, and practically jumped on Bee, smothering her in a bone crushing and breath stealing hug.
"Bee!" she yelled happily, "I heard Tseng was taking you on a trip today! Have fun!" She let go of Bee, then leapt over the register counter with a flip, amazing Bee once again with how flawlessly she performed her acrobatics, how easy she made it seem.
The over enthusiasm Yuffie was showing was her way over trying to make Bee feel better, she knew. Yuffie was always a hugger, always a happy-go-lucky type of person, but her clinginess and friendliness as of Bee's return from the hospital had taken an upturn to soaring new heights. Yuffie was thrown by Bee's sullenness, and felt that she had to compensate for it, urging Bee to go back to the way she was in her own way. It wasn't working, Bee knew, and she was slightly annoyed with it, but she never said anything to Yuffie about it. She was humbled, in a way, that her friend was so worried for her, as was Tifa, so she never reprimanded her friends. They only wanted her to be happy again, and that wasn't wrong of them to do.
Tseng eyed Yuffie warily, then gestured to Bee again. She followed, waving to Yuffie on her way out. The two walked in silence to the end of the street where a small car was parked inconspicuously in the alley way. Tseng got in the drivers side, nodding for Bee to take the passenger seat. She did so, sitting delicately on the leather seat, looking around the car with interest. Tseng started the car and Bee watched as he pulled it out of the alley and onto the street. He glanced at her briefly then asked, "Have you never been in a car before?"
"Not one like this, no," Bee said honestly. She was sitting far up on the seat, almost touching the dashboard. Her hands were gripping the seat on either side of her legs, forming dents in the leather. "There were no cars in the slums. Otherwise I've only ever been on Cloud's motorcycle, Cid's airship, and Tifa's truck. And I've only been in Tifa's truck two or three times. And the helicopter ride to and from the WRO building was my first time in one of them."
"Well, relax," Tseng told her, revealing just a hint of amusement at her nervousness, "I've been driving for quite some time, and this car is very safe. Sit back in the seat."
Bee felt herself blush at his comment, embarrassed that she had been so nervous. She sat back slowly, fidgeting against the seat until her back met the leather behind her. Tseng then explained how to put a seatbelt on, which she did so, and marveled at how the whole thing worked. Tifa's truck was so old, the seat belts were rusted, and Bee had never paid them any mind. Her child-like wonder at the seatbelt and the car itself caused Tseng to crack an actual smile, one that went unnoticed to Bee as she was too busy looking around at the car with wide eyes. She asked Tseng several questions about the car which was so different from the truck, such as how did it move, what did it run on, how did it stop? Tseng answered them as best he could, catering to her wonder and awe as best he could. Bee didn't even notice where they were headed until they were already out of the city, and far past the overlook where Zack had died.
"We are going to Midgar?" Bee piped up, finally observing the environment outside of the car.
"Yes. We will park the car just outside the entrance and walk from there," Tseng told her with a nod. He turned off the road then, driving the car over the grass terrain that surrounded the immediate outside of Midgar. It was a rocky drive, but Bee still recognized where they were.
"Why are we going there?" Bee asked, and Tseng knew that she had figured out where they were going.
"Because you need guidance that nobody else can give you," he said simply, ignoring her stare of surprise and continuing to drive over the grass. He finally stopped on the dirt just outside the entrance to Sector 5 and the two exited the car and passed into the dirt and grime of the old slum.
The rubble and trash was nothing new to Bee. She had walked through it for two years, had helped orphans working in it. But the sight of the plate decimated above never ceased to throw her off. She could see the sky now, something she had never been able to do in the slums when she had actually lived there. It was jolting to look up and see the vast blue above her, a sign of freedom over an otherwise shackling ground. She stared up at it as she and Tseng made their way to the church. He held the large door open for her, and she thanked him then headed it. He left it open after he had gone through and noticed that Bee had stopped just inside.
"The flowers have started to wilt," she whispered in horror. She ran forward then, bypassing every pew, jumping over rubble on the ground, and circling around the pond of water. She knelt just outside the field of flowers and held a hand out to one of them, noticing that the edges were browning, the stem bowing a fraction.
"Because she is sad," Tseng told her, coming up behind her and looking at the flowers as well.
"What?" Bee asked, and she couldn't help but be slightly annoyed at how he sounded like he knew Aerith so well.
"She is sad that you are sad," Tseng told her. He knelt beside Bee and also laid a hand on one of the flowers, stroking a petal and frowning at it. "When she is sad, the flowers wilt. It has always been this way."
"I forgot that you would know because you stalked her," Bee snapped angrily. She stood and walked to Zack's sword behind the flower patch and sat beside it, placing a hand on the edge that was not sharp and running the hand down its length, finding comfort in the cool metal.
"I protected her," Tseng defended cooly.
"You kidnapped her!" Bee argued back, raising her voice more than she wanted to.
"I did," he agreed with a nod. He looked down at the flower, his frown still in place, and said, "It was wrong, I know. But at the time, I thought that I would be able to protect her even from within Shinra. I was wrong to think I could ever get Hojo to back down. I knew her before you even did, did you know that?"
"What?" she asked. She had let go of the Buster Sword and was eyeing Tseng with suspicion, not really believing him.
"Aerith lived in Shinra with her mother for quite some time," he told her with a nod, though still not looking up from the flowers, "I knew her then. She never told you that she knew me, did she?"
"No," she replied, her brow furrowing, "She never mentioned it. I thought that when I fell on you, it was the first time she was seeing you..."
"Do not be upset by her omission. She most likely did not want you to worry for her, or for yourself. Everyone, even people in the slums, know the Turk uniform. If you ever saw her conversing with me you would have been very scared, perhaps scared enough to not be around the girl that associated herself with a Turk," Tseng explained, finally looking up at her. He stood now and moved to sit on one of the closer pews.
"No... I understand," Bee murmured, ducking her head. They sat in silence for a moment or two, with Bee observing the wilting flowers in dismay, trying to think of how to make them better.
"She regretted not saying goodbye to you after she left," he told her suddenly. She looked up at Tseng and tilted her head a bit, silently asking him to continue. "She left Midgar without saying anything to you. When I captured her, I think she knew that that was the start to a long journey, one that would take her away from Midgar and you. Elmyra was there when I took her, and Aerith got word to her that she was safe, but she never sent anything to you, not even a letter. She asked me after I captured her to not saying anything to you, no matter what happened to her. She knew you would try to rescue her, or follow her. I think that decision weighed heavy on her."
Everyone has things they want forgiven in their lives. Aerith wasn't any different.
Clouds words rang in Bee's head at Tseng's presumption. She had originally thought that there was nothing that Aerith could have possibly wanted to have been forgiven for. The thought that Aerith had wanted to be forgiven for not contacting Bee after she left Midgar touched Bee, and saddened her at the same time.
"It would upset her to see your life now," he told her, catching her attention again, "Aerith was full of life, full of happiness and adventure. I often had a hard time keeping up with her, she moved through life so fast. You were like that too, once. I remember you tagging along after her, trying your hardest to keep up. I wish now I had sent Reno out to watch Aerith so that he could have seen what you were like back then."
Bee blushed again. "I was a child," she argued, "Of course that's how I was." She ignored the part about Reno. It was easier. Why think about what could have been, what could be? It was too painful.
"I was not like that as a child," Tseng told her, "I don't believe any Turk was a normal child. You lived in the slums, you worked even as a child, but you had Aerith to bring you happiness. It was why you treasured her, why you believed that even though she was gone, her work should continue on. And she would be proud of you. But I don't believe she would approve of your wallowing in misery, of going through the same thing every day. The flowers started wilting on Monday."
Bee said nothing, felt nothing. She already knew this, had known it even before she had met Reno. Cloud had already made her realize how she was trying too hard to be Aerith and forgetting the most important parts of her old friend. Aerith was spontaneous, perky, optimistic, and stubborn in the best possible way. Bee was none of this. There was no point in denying it. She had tried her hardest to live out life as Aerith would have, and failed completely and miserably. She had forgotten how lively Aerith was, instead focusing on the good that Aerith did.
"She loved Zack," Tseng told Bee. She was caught off-guard by the random comment. "With everything she had, she loved him. He was the greatest thing she had. When he disappeared, she held on to the notion that he was alive and that she would see him again. She wrote him eighty-nine letters, in hopes that he would receive them. She gave them to me, but only the last one ever got to him. I never read them, she would not have wanted me to, but I don't think she would mind if you read them." He slipped a hand inside his suit jacket and pulled out a stack of letters, each sealed in a white envelope. They were tied together in a string that was frayed, the letters were obviously old. Tseng stood and walked over to Bee where she still sat by Zack's sword, and handed them to her. She took them, treating them with as much reverence as she possibly could, running a hand over the paper delicately. She seemed afraid that they would slip away, crumble into a thousand little pieces if she put too much pressure on them.
"You kept them all this time?" Bee asked in wonder, turning the letter stack over and noticing Zack's name written in Aerith's handwriting on the top envelope.
"I did. They were Aerith's last gift to him. It would have been wrong of me to get rid of them. I had every intention of giving them to him. I... never got to," Tseng admitted, his voice pained. Bee looked up at him with sadness in her gray eyes.
"The Turks have not let that mission go, have they?" Bee whispered, remembering the way Reno had reacted when he talked about that last mission.
"We all felt responsible," Tseng explained with a nod, "Zack... we had the chance to make sure Hojo did not take him, but we were ordered to stand down. We did, though not without protesting. When Zack escaped, we thought that we could make it up to him by going after him, helping him back to Midgar and hiding him. We failed, and Zack died. I think it was the last straw for the Turks. Most deserted soon afterwards."
"Reno... told me there were more Turks in the past, but he never went into specifics," Bee remembered with a nod.
"Yes," Tseng confirmed, but then let the subject drop and instead addressed the letters again. "Read those on your own time. You should be honored to have them. I feel that out of everyone, she would want you to read them the most. You knew them while they were together. Not many other people can say that."
"I will. Thank you, Tseng. I'm very grateful that you would think to give them to me," Bee told him, meaning every word of it. She had hated Tseng for many years. She was realizing perhaps she had judged too quickly, never really took the time to observe what he was actually doing when it came to Aerith. He talked of her with such fondness, it surprised her. Maybe she had never really known him at all.
"You're welcome... Bee. Your real name is on file, you know. I sometimes wonder why Reno hasn't looked it up yet," Tseng pointed out, pure curiosity in his voice. He sat beside her, glancing at the Buster Sword, appraising it with sharp eyes. He then turned back to the flower patch, wondering if they really were together in the Lifestream.
"What does it matter?" Bee asked, a small bite to her question, "I don't think he cares now anyway."
"I think he does. I think he cares very much." He waited for a reaction but got none. Bee stared stubbornly out at the flowers, her chin on her knees, her hair falling over her shoulders. "You know, Reno was always a complex Turk. He lived for his job, always performed well. Despite his frivolous attitude, he was one of the best Turks we've ever had. It's why he's second in command now. He put up a happy front, but sometimes when I looked into his eyes, I could see how dead they were. I would have to look closely, but it was there. Most Turks had that look, but Reno's were... filled with insurmountable pain. More so than the others. I think he has been doing this for so long, he forgot what it felt like to really be alive. Until he met you. You made him remember how to be a real person again, how to live a life with happiness. You gave Reno hope again."
"And then took it away from him," Bee retorted, not looking at Tseng, not moving her head off of her knees.
"No, he did that himself."
"I don't see how." Bee's voice was almost bored now, like she was no longer interested in the conversation, that it was too tedious to continue.
"You think that he stopped seeing you because he saw how different the two of you were. You think that he saw that you were not fit to be in the life of a Turk. You feel as if you could never involve yourself in that kind of life," he paused, and noticed Bee still was not looking at him, "which is understandable. Not many people could deal being with a Turk. Many people have tried, and failed. I have seen marriages end over it, long term girlfriends and boyfriends leave because of it. However, none of those relationships were you and Reno. You have the added bonus of being protected by Cloud, Tifa, and Reeve. The Turks do not have a quarrel with them anymore, you would never be put in direct danger because of an order to harm you. Rufus has had a change of heart, and most of our orders are now to protect people. If there was ever a time to be close to Reno, it would be now."
"We weren't dating," Bee retorted.
"No, but your relationship was special," Tseng pointed out, "Never have I seen anyone make Reno smile the way you do. Never have I actually seen a real smile from Reno before he met you. In truth, Reno stopped seeing you because he believed that he was hurting you by being around you. He thinks that by being with you, he was tainting you, making you less of a person than you were. And he believed that you were the image a perfect person, someone to admire. Someone to protect. So he believes that in order to protect you, he has to stay away from you. Protect you from not only future attacks, but from himself as well."
She finally looked at him with sad eyes, the rest of her face expressionless. But when she spoke, she had never sounded more like a child, both to her ears, and to his. "How do you know that?"
"Elena had spoken to him a few days ago. She relayed the conversation to me, but I had already conjectured that that was his reasoning."
"That's stupid," she scoffed, ushering the smallest of chuckles from Tseng. She gave him a sheepish smile in return and took her head off of her knees.
"I agree, but your reasoning is just as stupid." She frowned at him and he ignored it. "You see the world in black and white, wrong and right, bad and good. I noticed you had this conception of the world even as a child. Aerith was good, Shinra was bad. Your family was good, Toby leaving was bad. Zack was good, I was bad. You never stopped to think that maybe there was an in between. Maybe there is a gray middle, a compromise to all things. In my experience, a lot of things are black and white. But there are always exceptions, and you and Reno were the biggest exception of them all. You two were the middle ground between Turk and Civilian. You two were the gray. And now, as soon as things take a turn for the worse, you both decide that there is no gray again, there is only black and white, there can only be Turk and Civilian. Never both together."
Tseng laid a hand on Bee's cheek that was opposite from him. She was so shocked by the contact that she allowed him to turn her head to face him, look up into his steely back eyes.
"I have always thought it ironic that you have gray eyes," he informed her, "To never see the color in the world, yet look through that color every day of your life. It has always been right here, literally within you, yet you have never grasped it."
He let go of her cheek, but she did not look away and instead stared up into the face of the man that represented such evil in her life. She remembered how much she had hated him as a child, hated the way he watched Aerith, hated the way he made Aerith afraid. But she had never paused to really think over why Aerith was afraid. She had assumed that it was because Tseng was an unknown, a man from Shinra who was after her. But now that she knew the truth, it was probably because Aerith had been afraid that Bee would ask questions, would find out about Aerith's heritage. Aerith had spent her entire life denying what she really was, hiding from Bee her unusual quirks. If she really hadn't been afraid of Tseng, maybe Aerith was afraid of Bee leaving her the entire time. Maybe that was why she left without saying goodbye to Bee. So many maybes, and no certainties.
No certainties except for Reno. Reno had been the only thing Bee had ever been sure of in her life. The only thing she knew without a doubt that made her happy. Reno simply being with her had filled her life with more happiness than she had ever known. And she had just let him go without even fighting for him. Had let him slip through her fingers without even trying to catch him. Maybe she could never have all of him. But perhaps she could have most of him. She would take that, she decided, as long as he stayed in her life. She would take whatever he could give her, and she would hold it close and treasure it, because he chose to give it to her, and from what she understood from Tseng, she was the first person to receive anything from Reno in the way of relationships. Yet she let him go so easily. Like he had been nothing to her, and that was the opposite of the truth.
"Think about what I have said," Tseng told her, standing, "Read the letters. When you are ready, I will be out by the car and I will bring you home." He left her then, with the letters still clutched in her lap, teetering on her legs. She watched him go in silence, not arguing with his request. Instead, she moved to sit in the middle of the flowers, and untied the knot of the string around the letters, letting it fall uselessly on the grass below. She grabbed the letter on the bottom, and opened it, making sure it was in fact the first letter, and then began to read.
A/N: I have to apologize for being away so long, work has seriously taken over my life to the point where I have so many papers stacked up that are both late and coming up. Next week is finals week, so I will not be posting next week. However, I will go back to posting once a week after finals. Yay! I can't wait. Thank you for your patience, and I would love to hear about what you think about my Bee/Tseng interaction!