It was that evening, after Cloud had returned to tell Rufus's secretary that Sephiroth was to meet them on the roof at three in the morning, that Tseng found himself in Rufus's room, a converted storage closet adjourning the Turk offices. There was a new look in the boy's eyes, one of sadness and regret, as he picked up a silver music disk from the bedside table and placed it into the player. Soft strains of an opera—sweet and tragic already in the first notes—began to echo around the lifeless room.

Rufus sat down upon his bed, lying back and turning into the wall. Tseng joined him, sitting on the edge of the twin-sized bed, hands in his own lap. The beginnings of the opera's first act, the soft declarations of beauty and love, whispered about the room, and Rufus's eyes blinked gently at the wall.

"What did you want to be when you grew up, Tseng?" he asked quietly.

Reaching out slowly, Tseng took one of Rufus's hands in his own, entwining their fingers against Rufus's hip. "Oh, a lot of things…" he said after a moment, smiling down at his charge; "But I wanted to be a ninja, you know, most of all. Most little boys in Wutai want to be ninja at some point in their lives."

With a slow, languid motion, Rufus rolled over to his back so that their hands now rested on his stomach. He had a sleepy-lidded expression, one of rare contentment. Tseng leaned down and pressed a kiss to a pale cheek, feeling a small smile forming beneath his lips. Boldly, the Turk traced a hand up through the folds of his boss's jacket and vest, opening the buttons and lifting both garments over the boy's head so that Rufus lay in only his too-loose pants, belt, and turtleneck beside him.

"What did you want to be, Rufus?"

Tseng shrugged off his jacket and loosened his tie as Rufus's eyes unfocused momentarily in thought. With a slight smirk, Tseng quickly tore the turtleneck of his charge, shocking a surprised and pleased shout of laughter from Rufus just as Tseng began to make quick work of his charge's lower clothing.

"What did you want to be?" Tseng repeated, tugging the pants off the frail frame and exposing underwear-less skin. "You couldn't have wanted to be President of this company."

Rufus watched him with intense, aroused eyes as Tseng moved atop the bed, kneeling between his charge's legs. "When I was very young…" Rufus shivered as Tseng traced a healing scar on his thigh, "I wanted to be a pilot…"

--

Turkish Delights

--

24

Ender's Game

--

The boy looked like the female twin of his father. Vincent wasn't sure when exactly his brain had learned to conjure these odd comparisons, but he was glad of the flattened, stoic expression that Hojo had enforced onto his face for once. But it was true, that other part of Vincent said rather sulkily. The fine-boned features, the smooth skin, the delicacy to the movements—it was undeniably all Shinra, just softer, gentler, and less robust.

Blue eyes rimmed with green flicked back and forth between Vincent and Sephiroth. Rufus sighed, pressed half-gloved middle and ring fingers to his left temple, and pulled his words together.

"Right. Ah, yes. Your request for transport out of Midgar, Sephiroth, was, of course, not approved and I can't risk vetoing it." Rufus moved towards the landing pad where a helicopter was readied for flight. "I do owe you for the Wall Market incident, though, so here you are. I assume Mister Valentine knows his guns? I have dumped a few of mine into the back for you both; untraceable, but I'm not certain they would be satisfactory to a former Turk sniper. I fear I'm not much one for sniping, you see."

Sephiroth opened his mouth. "Is there someone flying that thing? Or is one of us supposed to?"

Rufus turned around and Vincent registered the heavily specialized arm brace the boy had on his right arm. Materia, most of them mastered, glinted off of it.

"You can fly helicopters quite well, Sephiroth, if I recall the Wall Market incident correctly," the President answered with an amused look. "Or do you always fly sloshed? If so, you only need to name your poison and you'll be good to go."

"Go where?"

Rufus gave Sephiroth a blank look. "I never thought you a fool, General," he deadpanned in a flat tone. "Anywhere. Just not here or anywhere near here. Go to Icicle Inn. Go to Wutai. Just don't get caught."

Vincent had known Solomon Shinra when the man had just begun to show badly hidden interest the young photo girl. It was interesting for him to look now at the product of that reproduction gamble, to stare into eyes that once commanded him into danger and now looked to his son with a certain kind of kindred. But Rufus smelt different than his father. He had the smell of some of the monsters that Vincent had encountered in mako hotspots but also had a scent that was undeniably human, as if he was a fusion of the Lifestream and humanity.

"Rufus." Sephiroth inclined his head and motioned for Vincent to follow him to the copter. "You are a good friend."

The Shinra President stood very straight and was painfully silent while the pair moved into the contraption, Sephiroth adjusting his long sword so that it sat more comfortably once he got himself into the pilot seat. Vincent threw his cape over the back of the passenger chair, still not taking his eyes off the younger boy.

Slowly, Rufus backed up from the helicopter, the blades of the chopper picking up the stagnant air and churning a breeze that whipped away at his blond hair. Solomon Shinra never looked like that, so forlorn and touched by a single phrase of kindness. Vincent frowned inwardly. Was everyone in this world so damaged?

"Thank you," Sephiroth called out.

And Rufus gave him a broken smile, raising that heavily armed hand in a wave. "Don't get caught," he repeated.

He didn't say it aloud, but Vincent knew that the end to sentence would have been I don't want to have to kill you.

--

Reeve Tuetsi had been programming though most of the early morning and had only just realized that it was prime time for a warmer cup of coffee. He had wandered out into the hall barely noticing that the lights were mostly off and that everyone else had gone home to get some shut eye.

"Tuetsi."

Not everyone. Hojo appeared to be watching sugar crystals swim about the foam of his latte. For a moment Reeve just stared, wondering whatever could be so important that the scientist would be waiting from him this early.

"Don't stand there gaping at me like a fish," the scientist snapped irritated. "Are you going to listen to me or not?"

Reeve did the only logical thing that a person could do in a moment like this: he traveled over to the coffee maker and stuck his mug under the flow. Behind him, he heard Hojo shift his hunched shoulders.

"I'm probably going to be fired soon after the trials start."

Personally, Reeve wondered why Rufus hadn't fired them right off. Indeed, Reeve was certainly not one of the most popular people at Shinra Electric. The not-so-secret whispers of him being the former president's favorite fuck-toy and that being the real reason he moved up so quickly had no doubted reached his son's all-hearing ears.

"Once I'm gone…" Reeve frowned; was that sorrow that he heard in Hojo's voice? "Someone will need to finish my work with the specimens. I'm entrusting that to you. Loz cries a lot, but he's easy enough to handle once you distract him. Make sure Yazoo isn't exposed to too much cold or warmth. And watch Kadaj; he'll need more help than the other two."

"You gave them names."

Hojo glared at him. "So what if I did?"

"Experiments are experiments. Names show attachment. You made that mistake with Sephiroth."

He wondered when he'd become so cold, when he'd come to understand how Hojo's mind worked. Maybe it happened when he first accepted the breeding job that Solomon had taunted him with; maybe it had happened that night he shared that damn, cramped bed with the scientist when Rufus had accidentally mastered his Destruct materia in the Turk training area; maybe it had been in the moment that Hojo refused the comfort of his body in the cold, had pushed Reeve away and mumbled something about sodomy and sin and never, never, never again don't you dare touch me damn it.

"Take care of them… when I'm gone."

Hojo was Reeve's only friend as much as he hated to admit it, the only person who knew that of the old dreams and goals of the cat breeder. They had shared hours upon hours working on the embryos, turning the tubes in the trays, injecting DNA and nutrients, hoping against the odds that just one would live.

My mother didn't want me. She only wanted a girl.

I was a mistake. I'm not supposed to exist.

"I'll do it."

--

Transcription: First Day's Testimony of Rufus Shinra

--Identify yourself for the court.

--Rufus Shinra. I was born November eighth fourteen years ago.

--Your relationship with the defendant?

--I am his son. First and only.

--Tell us about your mother.

--…What do you want to know about her?

--What was your parents' relationship like?

--They were pleasant to each other, but their relationship was… strained.

--Why do you think is?

--I don't think this. I know this. My mother was weak. My father hates weakness in any form, especially physical weakness. It wasn't my mother's fault, but I often surmised that he blamed her for what wasn't her fault.

--Tell me about the night your mother disappeared.

-- Witness sounds irritated. Don't coddle me with your eyes like that; it's rather distracting. A sigh …I had just turned twelve. I had a fight with my father over the account records. We often fight, my father and I. Back then I always lost. Anyways, it was a more… passionate fight than usual and I had an accident involving a stairway and the accounting logs.

--An accident? Could you please clarify that?

--I was helped, rather quickly, down the stairs and the hardcopy of the logs had a nasty collision with my chest. I'm sorry, I must amend that statement. The collision by the logs happened several times from different angles. The last time I saw my mother was when I woke up after getting treatment.

--Did she or your father say anything odd?

-- Long pause I wasn't supposed to hear anything.

--What did you hear? Rufus, you need to tell the court in order for –

--Do you have a family, Prosecutor?

--Well, yes, but –

--Then you should understand that condemning any family, even righteously, isn't easy. Witness coughs; takes a sip of water. My father's exact words were that he wanted to "screw her after dinner". They didn't. Actually, they didn't even have dinner together that night. My father called my mother to his room and I heard her scream…

--Then what?

-- Then that. Nothing else. I never saw her again.

General noise in the gallery. Judge calls order.

--Rufus, I want you to take a look at these papers. They are believed to be execution orders for one Angela Shinra.

Movement of papers; tense silence.

--…Where did you get these.

--I'm sorry; I can't tell you that. What can you tell us about the content of these papers?

--…Execution orders, first class security, delegated to Turk Commander Veld, for one Angela Shinra; threat to company prosperity and to life of heir. Suggested method of death is strangulation. To be personally supervised by President Solomon Shinra. Location of… Shinra Midgar apartment…

--If this is too much for you, Rufus –

Sound of glass exploding. Screaming. Judge calls order.

--No. No, it's not. Witness is breathing heavily. Yes, it's what it looks like. I always suspected Father would have had it done that way. He never does anything himself.

Judge adjourns the still agitated court for the day. Court to reconvene at nine tomorrow.

--

Reno shifted away from the fuzzy television picture, his lips pursed and eyes shadowed momentarily before he blinked both signs of worry behind his normal mask of happy mischievousness. Next to him Rude adjusted his glasses, hiding away any signs of discomfort he might have left watching their boss being grilled on such a personal level.

"If we get up to the reactor before tonight and finish the inspection, we should be able to submit a report as early as tomorrow morning," Rude said, getting up from the bed and adjusting his tie into perfection.

"We need a guide."

Rude nodded and went downstairs, leaving Reno to get dressed. The mountain was sweet on his lips, but the morning already tasted bitter.

He'd seen that look, the one that Solomon Shinra had been wearing throughout his son's testimony, before. It was the same one Reno's father had worn when he thought of his time as a Turk.