Hawke woke up on Genesis' couch. She was warm and impossibly comfortable. The air was still.
Her eyes drifted open to stripes of sunlight streaming across a mahogany coffee table. The glow caught on the white of a single coffee ring staining the wood. Her sleep fogged mind caught on it, circling around the incongruous detail in the otherwise pristine apartment. Maybe it was an artistic statement.
The events of the previous night returned to her in dribs and drabs. She stretched out a hand from under the blanket and ran a finger over the coffee ring. The magic channels in her hands ached. After the shared meltdown on the kitchen floor, Genesis had figured out how to banish the wing. It hadn't taken very long, he just decided to do so, and then did. They burned the blighted towels, kitchen chair, and the loose feathers out on the balcony while the sun rose.
Hawke sat up, pushing aside a cashmere blanket. She rubbed at her face and looked around blearily. It looked to be around mid afternoon.
The apartment was quiet. The door to genesis' room was open but there was no more noise that way than any other. She hadn't taken any time to look at the place closely the night before, but it was warm and bright in the daylight, with white walls and thick plush carpet that her feet disappeared into.
She didn't even remember taking her boots or armour off the night before but it all sat neatly stacked at the foot of the couch now. She didn't remember having a blanket when she laid down either.
She padded into the kitchen, yawning as she went. Paintings and murals hung on the walls but it felt curiously impersonal. Like an expensive showroom.
The kitchen smelled of the lemony disinfectant they had mopped with, but there was something else. A hint of coffee. She followed the olfactory trail to a slick machine with a baffling number of buttons that she tapped at it until it deigned to fill a mug for her. She wrapped her hands around the hot cup and sighed, shoulders relaxing.
Out of the corner of her eye she spied a folded note standing up on the kitchen bench. She eyed it passively as she took a long sip.
The apartment was very quiet. Genesis technically had the day off to recuperate so he didn't really have to be anywhere. She swirled the coffee in her cup. She wasn't going to begrudge anyone the need to make themselves scarce the morning after. She drained her cup and picked up the note. It held no surprises, except perhaps how utilitarian his handwriting was.
That left her unattended in his apartment. She cast a glance at his library nook. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
She left soon after, pulling the door locked behind her. The rest of the world was still exactly where she left it. She stretched out her shoulders and made her way below plate and got stuck into her work for the day. The previous days of erratic and skipped sleep, immediately after the marathon Fade mission, had left her bone tired and off her game. She fumbled pay negotiations and walked away with only half what a job was worth, before some kid picked her pocket and made off with it all anyway. She shrugged her shoulders and called it a day.
Her phone rang as she climbed the stairs to her house. Genesis' face flashed on the screen: a photo she had taken from an old ad campaign with a fast food company, in which he was pretending to laugh while eating a salad.
She picked up with a mix of anticipation and trepidation. The last few days had been such an emotional rollercoaster she had no idea what to expect next.
"Hawke speaking."
Genesis cleared his throat with waspish pomp and then recited, with a voice dryer than the Anderfels:
"''A bather whose clothing was strewed,
By breezes that left her quite nude,
Saw a man come along
And, unless I am wrong,
You expect this last line to be lewd.'"
A laugh burst from her before she could stop herself. She had wedged that particular ditty into the pages of a very dry looking book on military strategy she found in his library nook.
He sighed with exaggerated long-suffering. "How did you know I would pick up this book?"
She blinked. Her smile turned wicked. "Oh, Genesis…"
"...You didn't."
She snorted.
"Did you stuff bad limericks into all of my books?" he demanded, doing a poor job of pretending to be outraged and not amused.
"Did you leave me unattended in your house?" She had surprised even herself with the sheer number she remembered. Even as voracious a reader as him wouldn't discover them all for months.
"I leave you to enjoy your sleep in peace and this is the reward I get?"
"No good deed left unpunished." She slid her key into the front door lock.
"Alas, I am a victim of great injustice." His voice softened a moment later. "I did need a laugh today."
She smiled. "You're welcome."
She pushed the door open. Two men in black suits stood in her empty living room, watching her.
"Oh, there are Turks in my house," she said into the phone, bright and cheery. "Tseng, Reno, how are you?"
"Been better," Reno replied, unsmiling.
Tseng said nothing. The lack of furnishings made the house look larger than it was and the two intruders stark and unavoidable. Her mind raced, were there others in the rooms? What did they want? They could have jumped her when she opened the door if this was a kidnapping. Reno had his work face on, and she didn't know Tseng well enough to tell anything from his expression of posture.
"I'd better be off," she said, giving them her back as she closed the door and started laying down some of her things on the kitchen bench, keys, wallet, ethers. "They look like they want something."
"Are you safe?" Genesis asked, all business.
"Oh, as much as anyone can be. If I disappear off the face of the planet you know who to take it up with." She winked at the Turks as she turned to rifle through the fridge.
"Pretend to hang up. Leave the phone face down on a table and I'll stay on the line."
"You too, see you next time." She made an exaggerated kissing sound into the mic then tossed her phone onto the pile with her keys and focused on the contents of the fridge again.
"Welcome to my house, gentlemen, I was starting to wonder if the invites had gotten lost in the mail somewhere."
"Ms Hawke." Tseng's voice was colder and less revealing than Rebellion's imitation.
Hard soles clicked on her wooden floor, Reno gait, but with less slouch than normal. He stood behind her, between her and the door.
She cracked a beer open and handed it back to him. He took it on reflex.
"We're not here for a party," he said.
She turned, holding a leftover souvlaki wrap, and kicked the fridge closed behind her.
"Yeah, that's not for you," she said, and took the beer back.
There was no remnant of his jovial street rat persona left. He stuffed his hands in his pockets and jerked his head towards the living room. She took a large bite of cold lamb and tzatziki and wandered past him.
There were only two old dining chairs at the side of the room by a tiny table on which sat a forgotten glass of water and a bowl she'd been meaning to put some fruit into. Barred windows with no curtains let in the cold light of the underplate lamps.
Tseng pulled out a chair for her. She obliged and sat. He sat opposite her and pulled out a worryingly tall stack of papers. Reno lingered behind her just out of her field of vision. She turned her chair so she could see them both, leaned back against the wall, and put a boot up on the table.
"We have some questions for you," Tseng said, unphased by her irreverence.
She smiled and picked the wilted lettuce out of her wrap, dropping it onto the table and making him move his papers. "How can I help?"
An interrogation followed. The questions began plain and routine, who were her parents, what was her date of birth, where did she source her weapons and materia, and then they started jumping erratically between subjects she couldn't follow. They took turns pelting her with questions, united and unflinching.
She kept her smile affixed and refused to let them set the tone, being as harmlessly distracting and misleading as she could be. They kept their faces blank and refused to let her throw them, rarely engaging with her distractions.
Tseng asked if she had ever worked in the Bone Village. Was she in contact with Wutaian insurgents? Had she heard of the Da Chao incident? What did the words Project G mean to her?
"How long have you been smuggling Cetran artefacts?"
"No time at all," she replied.
"Were you an associate of Ifalna Faremis?" Reno asked.
"I don't know who that is."
"What is your prognosis for Commander Hewley?"
She shoved the last of the wrap into her mouth and took her time chewing. She wasn't supposed to know anything about SOLDIER. It wasn't just the degradation that was a secret, everything about SOLDIER was a secret. She swallowed.
"I don't know what prognosis means."
"Prediction," Tseng said.
"Well, I hear he's a virgo, if he can learn to embrace his fun side this should be a good week for him."
"What is your relationship to Commander Rhapsodos?"
"Friends with benefits. Or benefits with friends? Who's to say."
"Do you understand that he has a debilitating and contagious illness?"
She snorted a laugh. "SOLDIERs don't get sick. Everyone knows that." She ran a finger around the rim of the half full water glass, amusing herself with the whine it made.
"Do you have a gun license?"
"I don't use a gun," she replied.
"That isn't what I asked."
She knocked the glass over. He startled and moved his leg to avoid the splash.
"Fine. You got me. I don't have a gun license."
He pursed his lips at her little distraction. She smiled what was probably a very smarmy smile.
"Paid any taxes this year?" Reno asked.
"Yes," she replied, remembering a drunken conversation he obviously didn't. "Have you?"
He glanced at Tseng then shot off a question on a different topic.
Tseng cleared his throat, sparing an infinitesimally brief frown for Reno, and then reasserted his place in the conversation.
"What are your feelings on Mako energy?"
She shrugged. "Does anyone have feelings about the electrical grid?"
"Answer the question."
"Keeps the lights on, that's pretty good."
"How long have you been running the vegetable market?"
"Ask him." She nodded at Reno. "He was there the day we opened it." She tossed him the Sense materia she lifted from his pocket when they passed each other in the kitchen. He caught it with a scowl. It disappeared back into his pocket.
"Who taught you Cetra alchemy?" Tseng asked.
Reno started moving around the room, aimlessly wandering. She tracked him in her peripheral.
"Nobody. Travelling mercenaries taught me how to avoid running out of health potions."
"How did you get the heavy metals out of the Midgar soil?" Tseng asked.
"I... didn't?"
"Then why are there none in the produce you sell?"
She snapped her fingers. "That'd be that lye fertiliser we used. Balances out the acid."
"Do you have a background in biology?" Tseng asked
"Not an academic one."
"Please explain."
"I hunt a lot of monsters." She shrugged, trying not to look at Reno who was weaving his way closer to her phone. "Blood and guts are pretty biological."
"What about virology?" Tseng pressed, crisp and focused.
"There was that whooping cough going around the other month."
He held out a piece of paper for her. "You checked out these books from the local library."
She glanced down at a complete list of every book she'd ever taken from the under plate library, including the one she had put in her bag and forgot to actually check out.
"So I did."
"What is 'the blight'?" Tseng asked.
She blinked. "I don't know, what is it?"
Reno lingered near her phone, rifling through her paraphernalia.
"You were looking for it," Tseng said, demanding her attention again.
"Was I? Mustn't have found it."
Reno flipped her phone the right way up and she turned to look. The screen was bright with an ongoing call and contact photo. Reno flashed her a grin. He flipped the phone upside down again and took the battery out. She felt her stomach lodge in her throat. She winked back at him.
"What were you expecting to find?" Tseng asked.
"I don't remember what I was doing on Tuesday, let alone what I was thinking nine months ago." It came out waspish.
"You were at the Gainsborough residence on Tuesday," Reno said. "Where you slept for twenty seven hours."
She looked between them. She was running ragged and she didn't know how much she had accidentally given away. Genesis and Aerith trusted her with a lot, and neither could bail her out here. She had to be better.
"Nothing to say?" Tseng asked.
She tilted her head. "You didn't ask me a question."
"Do you know where Commander Rhapsodos is?" Reno drawled.
She stood and Tseng's hand moved closer to his jacket lapel. She stretched her arms up over her head. "He's just gotten back from a mission," she said, carelessly cracking her joints. She wandered around the room, moving towards the windows, making Tseng turn to keep her in his line of sight. "Wait, I'm not supposed to know that, am I? Let's pretend I said he's still away."
Tseng gave her a hard look. "Are you telling us what you're supposed to know or what you do know?"
She smiled impishly. "I'm sure you're smart enough to tell the difference. I've never been a very good liar."
"Why do you oppose Shinra?" he asked blandly.
"I oppose those moreish lemon tarts in the foyer café. As for the company itself… the worst thing it's ever done to me was break into my house at dinner time." She crossed her arms and leaned back against the window sill.
Tseng flipped through his papers and held out a photo for her. "Which materia is responsible for this attack?"
She looked down at a black and white photo of herself casting Crushing Prison on a hell-house outside of the Fat Chocobo. She remembered that fight, Reno had been there but not much use. Evidently because he had been taking photos. Her mind ran through materia types, she didn't know that many besides the elementals. If she made a stab in the dark would they produce one and ask her to replicate the attack?
"That's my limit break," she settled on. "I don't carry any materia when I go drinking."
Tseng nodded. "Do you know what Sense materia does?"
She shrugged and took a guess. "It tells you how injured your opponent is?"
"It tells you what materia they're carrying," Reno said. He held out his hand.
She grinned and tossed back his fire materia.
"Do you believe in the 'Promised Land'?" Tseng asked.
"I believe in 'getting through the day'. I have little faith in promises."
He leaned back in his chair and watched her with an odd look. "I'm surprised to hear that. Do you know why we watch Aerith?"
She stared him down. "Yes."
"How do you know?"
"She told me."
"And do you believe you can protect her from us?"
"I don't understand the question," she replied, failing to keep the facetious tone from her voice. "Are her bodyguards not acting in her best interests?"
"Shinra acts in the public's best interests. Sometimes that necessitates personal sacrifice."
"Does it?"
"Please answer the question."
She sighed. What did he expect to hear? There was only one possible answer.
"No, I'm not going to try and single handedly fight off Shinra's secret police." She raised an eyebrow and looked between the two of them. "Have I not been cooperative? Honestly. No gratitude."
Tseng rose to his feet. "Your cooperation has been noted, Ms Hawke." He turned away from her, and gathered his documents back up. "Will you be available for a follow up interview at a later date?"
She looked at his back in suspicion. The interrogation had taken two long and meandering hours, and yet it had been too easy.
"What happens if I say no?"
"We'll take you into custody," Reno said.
She barked a laugh. "Well in that case. I'd be delighted to hold a follow up interview."
Tseng nodded and the two headed to the door. Reno made a detour to her fridge and Tseng didn't wait for him, stepping out into the dark.
She scowled at the Not-a-Templar helping himself to the only quality stout she had managed to track down.
"I'm not buying you another round for at least a month, you rat," she said, shooing him away after he'd made his selection.
He waved off her. "It's just work. It's not personal."
"Yeah, yeah, it's in an impersonal breaking and entering."
He grinned and put the can in his jacket pocket, weighing the whole thing down awkwardly. She just wanted him out so she could sit down and be glad at getting away with it.
"By the way," he said. "You can't trigger a limit break if you're not carrying Materia."
"What?"
"Well, you know," he made a vague gesture at himself and his grin dropped. "Humans can't."
She froze. The relevance of Sense materia dawned on her.
Reno let himself out.
She stood alone in the middle of her empty kitchen, a mage known to the authorities.
Genesis scowled at his phone.
He was in the overbright waiting room of the SOLDIER infirmary again, sitting in the corner until the brief window when they would let him see Angeal.
Hawke's phone call had cut out without warning half way through the interrogation.
He gave it ten minutes but she didn't call again. He didn't want to risk blowing their cover but he couldn't simply do nothing. He called her and it went straight to voicemail.
He pulled off his headphones with a snarl. He knew enough about Turk procedure to know what it probably meant. Sephiroth looked at him curiously from the other side of the room.
Damn them. They had been asking her about the degradation and a laundry list of things about SOLDIER. It didn't sound like they were working their way up to an arrest, or they would have brought her in first and questioned her second, it was an interrogation in the purest sense. She was fending them off well enough, but she was improvising her way around a minefield she didn't know. They had come prepared.
Did she realise the extent to which they were grilling her for intel leaks? The traps they set and danced around, the number of highly classified subjects they name dropped, looking for a reaction?
He had been careful. He only spoke of Shinra's secrets in places he knew to be secure or in the Fade. Not careful enough. They knew far too much and suspected him of leaking more.
He did not have Shinra's trust anymore. And Hawke was facing the consequences on her own. His hand squeezed into a fist.
Damn Shinra.
He sent her a message, asking her to call when she could. What else could he do? He was on the other side of the city, if she was in trouble there would be nothing but the cleanup crew to find by the time he got there. They almost certainly timed the interrogation for when he had to be inside HQ. The Turks were such very good planners.
He bowed his head.
"You can see Commander Hewley now," the nurse at the desk said.
He sucked in a breath and stood.
The nurse gave them the room number and they walked through the halls.
This wasn't a first, going to visit a friend in the infirmary. SOLDIERs got hurt all the time, and he personally visited anyone in his units who was injured enough to justify an overnight stay.
The heavy silence as he and Sephiroth found the door and then waited to see who would open it, that was a first. Genesis shook himself and pushed it open. He wasn't afraid to face the truth.
Angeal slept peacefully in the centre of a pastel painted room. He looked pale and still had those dark purple lines running up his neck, but he wasn't thrashing or humming anymore. They had rehydrated him some, and his body had been given enough nutrients so his enhancements weren't eating him alive anymore. The coma appeared to have slowed the Blight for a moment.
Genesis took Angeal's hand.
"Sleep it off, why don't you?" he said quietly. "We'll take care of the rest."
"But don't sleep too long, Angeal," Sephiroth added. "You always said we get into trouble when you're not around."
Genesis managed a smile at that. "I'm going to commit arson everyday until you wake up."
"He won't, I won't let him."
He squeezed Angeal's hand, then let go and stepped back, letting Sephiroth have a moment.
There was a potted plant in the corner. He rubbed a leaf between two fingers. It was plastic. Angeal would have preferred a real one, even if it did attract bugs. He would get one of the little ones from Angeal's apartment brought in. It would make him smile when he woke up.
He heaved a breath. The scientists would probably kill it. He would be tempted to return the favour.
He crossed his arms. He wanted to set the whole ward on fire.
Sephiroth joined him in the corner. He tapped his bracer and then a very thin, humming shield sprung up around him. Any recording devices would only pick up white noise.
Genesis raised an eyebrow at him, intrigued. Sephiroth had a lifetime of bad blood with the Science and Research Department, but he rarely acknowledged how little he trusted them.
"There was a board meeting. I was asked to sit in," Sephiroth said quietly.
"Yes?"
He looked back over his shoulder. "If Angeal hasn't shown signs of improvement within three month they're going to retire him and send him out to hospice care."
"Three months." Genesis' arms dropped to his side. "A lifetime of service and they give him three months?"
"The war is over, there isn't the same demand for high ranking SOLDIERs."
"So they're cutting their losses." He shouldn't have been surprised. He shouldn't have been hurt.
"Yes." Sephiroth looked down. "The president wanted to give him only one month. Three was the most I could convince him to agree to."
Genesis clenched his jaw. "So what happens in three months then?"
"We support Angeal however we can."
"And Shinra?"
"There will be more work, with one less First."
Genesis stared at him. "Workload. That's your first concern."
"Of course not," Sephiroth's eyebrows pulled down. "I'm being practical. Without Angeal-"
"You're content to passively watch them toss him aside now that he's no longer useful. That's being practical?"
Sephiroth scowled. "What else would you suggest I do?"
"I suggest… we do something about it."
He shook his head. "You said it yourself, there's nothing that will help. I'm doing all I can."
"No, you're not," Genesis scoffed. "I know what you're capable of, don't insult me."
Sephiroth rolled his eyes. "What do you expect me to do, blockade the doors? Cut down the president? Turn on the men we lead, on the scientists keeping Angeal alive? Don't be ridiculous."
Genesis looked at him. It was funny how Sephiroth's mind always ran straight to violence, even if only in denial of it. He had imagined this conversation many times. He had expected it to be dramatic, elaborate, and beset with coy double talk. It was foolish of him to expect Sephiroth to do anything other than cut to the heart of the matter.
"What's ridiculous about it?" he asked quietly.
"Everything." Sephiroth crossed his arms.
Genesis waited him out.
Sephiroth's look turned slightly concerned. "What are you going to do?"
"Shinra isn't going to let me do anything, is it?"
"No."
"And you're Shinra," Genesis drawled.
"So are you," said Sephiroth. "So is everyone."
"Only until it's my turn to be… retired." Genesis put his hands behind his back and looked up at his friend and rival and commanding officer. "Tell me, Sephiroth, what would you do if it were you on the table?"
Sephiroth's expression turned wooden. "Don't ask me that."
"No, I am asking. It's Angeal today, tomorrow it's me. What if it were you, no longer strong, smart, and everything else you pride yourself on, what if it were you counting the days until Shinra decided to cut their losses?"
"I have other uses to the company," he replied, voice dull.
"And if you didn't?"
"Shinra senior is susceptible to the sunk cost fallacy, he wouldn't waste the years of investment."
"Indulge me. Say he did 'waste his investment'." Genesis stepped closer and lowered his voice. "What would you do?"
A muscle in Sephiroth's jaw ticked. "I wouldn't have the opportunity to do anything about it. The decision is not mine. No more than it is yours."
"You want me to die quietly!" Genesis hissed.
"It's better than dying alone over some empty gesture of defiance," Sephiroth snapped back, "shot down by your own troops, leaving me trapped here on my own." He halted and retreated into himself as soon the words were out of his mouth. A blank mask slammed down over his face and turned to look through the blurry shield at Angeal.
Genesis's brow knit together. He shook his head. "It's not fair to put that on me."
"Nothing is fair."
Genesis made a noise of frustration and dragged a hand through his hair. "It wouldn't end that way. Not if you came with me."
"What for?"
He recoiled, hurt. "For… for Angeal, for some little justice."
Sephiroth sighed, his shoulders sinking. "There's nothing else, Genesis. The only medical attention is here, the only answers are here."
"They don't have any answers, can't you see that? There are no answers, only Shinra's ambitions and the consequences we have to suffer for them!"
Sephiroth raised an eyebrow at him. "Do you want to face those consequences alone or here, with people who care about you? There's nothing to be gained by leaving or making some kind of… statement, except making your own life harder." He shook his head. "Don't compromise what little freedoms we have."
Genesis opened his mouth to respond. Sehiroth flicked a finger and the shield died. Genesis' mouth snapped shut. He scowled. Sephiroth marched out of the room.
A/N: You didn't think Hawke was going to keep getting away with everything forever, did you? Thanks for reading! Reviews and concrit are much appreciated and let me know what you want to see more of.
Next Time: Getting our game faces on.