I HOLD NO CLAIM TO ANY OF THE ORIGINAL FINAL FANTASY 7 CHARACTERS! NOTHING! :(
Chapter Thirty-Five
Reunions and Separations
They were in Junon again and Jena's nerves were driving her insane as she stood outside of Rufus' office, Tseng and Liana before her. The man didn't seem surprised at what Jena had told him, but then again, Tseng had known it since the beginning of this whole thing; or at least he said he did. Liana told her that she had felt the same the moment she met Jena's younger sister, and the woman was now speechless. Jena felt closest to Tseng and Liana but now…she was afraid that what she had told them was going to ruin everything, but the two of them assured her that nothing was going to change…and that they would be waiting.
"Go," Tseng moved out of the way of the door. "He's waiting."
"We'll tell the others." Liana told her.
Jena gave them a nod before knocking on the door and entering the room. Rufus' head immediately popped up from the desk, bags under his eyes. He had been sleeping. She smiled at him sadly as she shook her head. Some people might not have seen it, but Rufus had been working hard since the beginning of all of this and they might have seen him as the enemy, but he was nothing like his father was.
"Jena," The man rubbed his eyes before standing up. "Is something wrong?" The woman was silent for a moment, just staring at him as she summoned the urge to do what she was planning too. Her silence made Rufus worried. "Has something happened to your sister?"
Jena closed her eyes as they began to water up. "No, Jeanne's fine. I just…" Her voice faltered.
Rufus gave a soft smile before walking to her. "Don't worry, Jena. Everything will be fine. Though she's against us, I won't let any harm befall your sister."
The woman gave a sigh before opening her eyes again and gazing at the man before her. On top of all the things that he was worried about, he was still worried about her. Rufus was such a foolish man. Such a foolish, caring, loving man. Jena had been thinking about this for days now. She had decided that she was going to do this and it was now or never!
Rufus froze as Jena's lips crashed against his, but that didn't last for long as he gave back what he longed for from this woman for years. Her lips were as soft as he always felt they would be. She tasted of cinnamon and apples and her skin was so smooth. Rufus placed one hand on her hip while the other was on her neck. Both of them were breathing hard as they finally pulled back from the other, Rufus was wearing a large grin on his face but Jena's was still made of stone.
"What called that forward?" Rufus asked her.
Jena didn't look at him. She moved towards the window that was looking over Junon as the people all moved around. "I'm leaving," She finally told him.
Rufus raised his eyebrows. "But you just got here."
"No," She shook her head. "I mean…I'm leaving. I'm leaving ShinRa."
Rufus was silent for a moment and she turned to her see that his mouth had dropped open. "But…but why? You can't just leave! Not at a time like this! We're trying to stop the world from being destroyed! If you leave then-"
"That's the point, Rufus!" Jena cleared her throat, calming her voice down. "If this world is about to end…then I have to spend it with who means the most to me." She turned back to the window. "Jeanne has been kept from me for eight years. I've missed her more than anything. Fighting against her hurt me so much more than you could ever know…but since both sides are looking for a way to keep Meteor from landing, why can't we just work together? But I know that we won't and so…I made a choice. "I can't," Jena squeezed her eyes shut and took deep breaths. "I can't keep doing this. I'm not letting her go off without me again, Rufus." She turned and moved past Rufus, dodging his hand as he reached for her. "I'm sorry, but I'm…I'm going with Jeanne. Put me down as a traitor; I don't care." She began to move towards the door. "Just…let me get out of the building. If not, anyone in my way…" She didn't need to finish. "Perhaps…when all of this is over…you won't mind it if I come back to ShinRa…too you. If you can forgive me."
Jena didn't want to know what Rufus was going to do as his footsteps neared her so she just hurried from the room. She was afraid…and so she had to leave quickly. She hurried to the elevator and as she waited for the doors to close she saw the rest of the Turks come up the stairs. Elena and Reno wearing looks of horror on their faces; Rude even looked a little distraught. Liana looked sad and Tseng looked the same as he always did, but Jena had worked with him for years. She knew what he was trying to hide. Their heads turned to the elevator and as the doors closed, Jena lifted a hand in a sign of farewell. Reno ran to the doors to try and stop them but he was too late.
Jena leaned against the wall, trying to keep herself from crying. Now, if she would get out of Junon without being caught, everything would be fine. Now, she just had to let the others know. She pulled er cellphone out and dialed a number. She prayed that her sister still had Zack's phone.
~Hey listen, because I'll only say this once
Do you think that you could lose yourself in me?
I could say I want to die by your side one day
But I could never speak the words
Because they haven't wrote the words that mean enough to me
So together we can burn this way
Stop and say you love me, always, I'll say the same to you~
Cloud and Claire had told the others everything that they learned. No one really seemed to be bothered by it, though. Zeke seemed very pleased by it because Cloud had to apologize to him on behalf of his cousin. Cloud had even offered Zeke the buster blade, but the other man refused it, saying 'Zack gave it to you for a reason'. Tifa seemed to be very proud of the remaining Fair and the two of them disappeared somewhere on the ship.
Everyone had separated to their own little parts of the ship and Claire was looking for a certain man in red. She found him outside, gazing over the land as they made their way to Junon to get the last Large Materia. As they just stood there in silence, Claire had been trying to figure out what to say to him but nothing came to her mind. Now she felt like an idiot as she stood there, doing her best not to stare at the man beside her. She thought for sure that she would be able to talk to him, to ask him about everything. This man had been in her dreams since she was a child and she had finally released him from that room! She had tons of questions that she had been sure to ask him about but they just didn't seem to want to come out of her mouth around him.
Around Vincent, Claire just found herself wanting to only stare at him. He was nothing like anyone she knew; he was different from everything that she had ever known and she was finally coming to terms as to why. She had fallen for him.
Come on, when a guy's been in your head since you were 6 it's kinda hard not to. (XD) And now that she could actually talk to him she really started to fall. His voice…it was better than she had expected it to be.
"She does look like me."
Claire glanced at the man beside her, surprised that Vincent had been the one to start the talking this time. "Who does?"
"Sienna," Vincent answered her. "My daughter looks just like me."
"Sienna's…Sienna's your daughter!" Claire screeched out in shock and fear. If Vincent had a daughter that meant…
"You can call her that," Vincent continued to stare out over the land. "According to those books that Jeanne let me read, after the experiments were performed on me, my blood was used to create Sienna. That makes her my daughter, in some, strange way."
Now that she thought about it, Sienna did look like Vincent. A lot. That gave Claire a sigh of relief but at the same time she was still nervous. "Are you going to be able to fight her?" She asked him.
He gave a sound that sort of sounded like a snort. "I don't know her so therefore it doesn't bother me at all."
"How can you say that?" Claire demanded. Vincent looked at her with a slight look of surprise. "I know that you've never met Sienna but before all of this happened, she was a hero to everyone! She stopped the war with Wutai! She would help the children! She took Jeanne and Jena in off the streets of Junon! And just knowing that she is in anyway related to you, how can you willingly just say that 'you don't care'?"
Vincent stared at her in silence for a few moments before his look returned to normal and he turned from her again. Claire looked at him for a moment before crossing her arms. "It's funny…I thought that you would be a different person when I struggled to set you free. I thought that you would have been someone a much more…heroic, I suppose. But, I suppose when you see someone in your head when you're a child they're all heroes to you." She turned to leave, a picture of Sienna in her head. "Until you actually meet them, anyway."
~I found a loop hole for us now
It's called redemption of my history
Do you think you could look past my fears
Tell me now my love
Because I will lose it in your eyes, I see firelight in your eyes
I know that things will be better when you are by my side
By my side...~
"Why didn't you tell me?"
Jeanne lifted her head at the sound of the voice and turned from the window. Cloud was standing in her doorway, closing the door with a foul look on his face. She sighed, stuffing Sienna's Medallion back under her shirt. She knew the questions were coming. Now she had no way to hide the answers and no way to dodge them. "What do you want me to tell you, Cloud? I did what I did and there's no way that I can change it. I doubt you would have believed me even if I had told you everything from the beginning."
"You're not the same as when I first met you all those years ago. You've changed." Cloud's words were like a strike against her and it made her anger rise.
She whirled around and faced him. "Of course I've changed! Everyone I loved is now gone! Sienna and Sephiroth are the enemy. Jena's another. Angeal…I had to kill both him and Genesis! And Zack…Zack's gone now too! I couldn't save him! And you know what? You're not the same either, Cloud! What happened to the Cloud that Zack and I would always hang out with and laugh with us? Claire's just the same as she once was, but you're not!" Jeanne moved from the window and grabbed her coat from the bed. "Judge me in whatever way you see fit, Cloud, but I believe I did nothing wrong! I did what I thought was right and I wouldn't change it even if I could." She came to a stop as she pulled her jacket on. "All of this keeps happening everything that woman is brought into my life. First with Zack, and now with you! None of it started without Aerith!"
That boiled Cloud's attitude as well; in both ways. "Dammit Jeanne! Why can't you move on? Zack is dead! He's dead and he's not coming back!"
"How can you say that? He was out friend, Cloud! He was more than a friend to me! I…I loved him! I loved him and I couldn't stop him from dying! You were there that night!"
Cloud winced as he remembered Zack's back leaving him as he reached out for it, and then at his mangled body full of bullet holes as he laid there on that cliff near Midgar. "I…I know that…and I know that I couldn't do anything either! I just…" Cloud closed his eyes as he tried to fight the tears off. "And I couldn't do anything to save Aerith, either! I was standing right there and I couldn't do anything! It's all my fault! What if the same thing happens to my sister? To Tifa? Or the others? Or to…to you? What if I can't save you, too?"
Jeanne felt her anger slowly fade away. Cloud didn't need fighting right now, and neither did she. Not at this moment. She moved forward and carefully wrapped her arms around him. The two of them stood there in silence for a little while. All of this was coming to an end. Soon the world would be back to normal, but never for Jeanne and Cloud. Both knew that the other would be left feeling the way they did now and nothing could possibly make that go away. But maybe…just maybe, the two of them could find a way of release together.
Oh God! We're almost over! God, I wanna start from the beginning so bad! Don't worry though, we're nowhere near being done just yet! There's still more to come!
PLEASE REVIEW :)