Chapter Two: Shinra and Lockhart Together At...

Even from across the lobby, Tseng could hear the dangerous grind of gears in Elena's head.

He waited until the elevator doors shut on their newly arrived visitor before shooting her a stern look. "I see what you're trying to do, and I warn you—you're playing with fire."

"Playing with fire?" Elena rolled her eyes and began walking toward the desk. "And you say I'm dramatic."

Tseng shook his head. "You shouldn't have insisted that Tifa go up there. Rufus didn't sound pleased about the idea at all."

Elena jabbed a finger across the counter. "Look, you said last night when you got home that you've never seen him look so happy."

"I did not say that," Tseng protested. "I said Rufus seemed like he was having 'an agreeable time.'" He paused in consideration. "I'm not even certain Rufus knows the meaning of the word 'happy.'"

"Do you know what I think?" Elena asked. "I think—"

"No, don't say it." Tseng raised a hand to swat at the words he could feel coming, but he knew it would be like trying to ward off an earthquake. "I'm serious, Elena. Don't think about it either."

Elena grasped his hand in both of hers, fairly vibrating with excitement. "But, Tseng, listen! All Rufus needs is the right person to come along, and that person just left in the elevator—I just know it! Look at Reno and Rude! Half of Avalanche! Tifa is like a black leather sun that all these man-planets orbit around. If anyone can do it…"

"Do not get your hopes up," Tseng told her. "Trust me, Rufus will find a way to crush them. I've seen it happen too many times—which is exactly why Tifa Lockhart is never going to make Rufus happy."

Elena set her jaw in a way Tseng had come to dread. "Bet me she won't."

Rufus was not happy.

The morning, which had started out with so much potential, was now a brakeless car speeding down a very steep hill with obligatory sharp rocks and a deep lake at the bottom. How it had managed to run away from Rufus was, at the moment, beyond his comprehension, but damned if he wasn't going to find out later which Turk was at fault.

Rufus did a quick once-over of his office and wondered if anything about it would make his impending guest feel threatened. Perhaps Ms. Lockhart would be impressed with the spotless white carpet, or the shades covering the wall of windows on the far end of the room that let in just the right amount of light (Rufus knew because he'd had the luminous flux measured). Perhaps she might agree with the catalog that the "warm, medium brown" desk he stood behind was "crafted in a style that suggested a modern sensibility with a deep respect for the past." She might even admire the way the boxy, white basilisk-leather chairs in front of the desk were expertly angled to encourage conversation, even if Rufus himself did not.

But no, given Ms. Lockhart's personality, she'd probably notice how the shelves of the floor-to-ceiling bookcase behind the desk were completely bare. Or the absence of artwork on the walls, the lack of a candy dish on his desk (not that there was room for one anyway), or the missing personal photos with their weird, forced smiles. She'd probably pity him.

The much-anticipated knock on his door still made him jump, and he cursed under his breath before calling out, "Enter."

As Rufus settled back in his chair, he prepared himself to face some kind of inevitability. Did he deserve a comeuppance? Rufus supposed so. He'd wronged so many people in his reasonably short life, he imagined a long line of retributions just waiting to sock him in the gut with a shouted, That was for Francis! Maybe today would be Tifa's gut-sock turn. It was already a brakeless-car-steep-hill-sharp-rocks-deep-lake kind of morning—all he needed was a few more fatal hyphens to complete the set.

The door cracked open before widening to a gap big enough for Tifa to peek through.

"You said 'enter,' right?" she asked.

Was this a test? "I did."

The door opened fully, and Tifa stepped into the office, bringing a green, wind-blown scent into the sterile space. Her dark hair tumbled down around her shoulders and over a snug-fitting t-shirt, and tucked under one arm was a motoring helmet.

The cuffs of Tifa's loosely rolled-up pants made a soft swishing noise as she approached the desk. "I thought you had, but it sounded kind of muffled through the door. Also, it took like five minutes for you to respond so I wasn't sure."

Rufus scoffed. "It was hardly five minutes."

"It felt like it," Tifa insisted. "Anyway, I only stopped by to return your coat." She pulled out a roll of white cloth from the helmet, shook it out, then draped it over the back of one of the chairs. "See? I even got the wine stain out."

"My coat?" Rufus said. He dimly registered the spot on the lapel where a glaring red splotch had been. "Right. My coat. Truthfully, I imagined you taking it home and burning it."

Tifa's eyes flitted around the room with unconcealed interest. "Why would I burn your coat? The stain wasn't that bad. All it took was a little club soda and…" Her eyes landed on the corner of the desk. "Why is there a photo of us on the front of the Costa del Sentinel? Is that what I think it is?"

In the rush of inspecting his office for anything offensive, he'd forgotten the stack of other newspapers Tseng had warned him about. Damnation. On a normal day, Rufus considered himself a huge fan of irony. Today, however, he wished it had minded its own fucking business.

"May I see it?" Tifa asked.

Unable to come up with any excuses that didn't make him sound totally guilty, Rufus decided to give honesty a try. "Be my guest," he said. "I haven't read it yet, but please believe me when I say I had absolutely nothing to do with anything they printed about us. We are both victims here, Ms. Lockhart."

Whatever words Tifa had about it were sealed behind a pursed, grim line as she set her helmet in the chair with the coat. She gathered up the newspaper, and after flipping through several pages, spread it open on the desk.

Rufus leaned forward for a look. Since his view was upside-down, he had trouble locating the offending article at first. No photo accompanied this one, thank Gaia, but everything else about it was outrageous.

Shinra and Lockhart Together At Public Event

Former hero of the planet, Tifa Lockhart, was spotted in the company of former defiler of the planet, Rufus Shinra, at the Shinra-hosted photography exhibit "Regrowth" last night. The two, who were once on opposing sides during the Meteor Crisis, seemed to have put their pasts behind them, spending the entire evening glued to each other.

The rest of Lockhart's AVALANCHE team members, including housemate/rumored love interest, Cloud Strife, were surprisingly absent. A source close to the pair reports a nasty breakup weeks ago with Strife that had Lockhart running to the open arms of his rival, Shinra. "Rufus was only too happy to step in and pick up the pieces," the source says. "He's always had his eye on Tifa, and he knows an opportunity like this doesn't happen twice."

And how does Lockhart feel about Shinra? "She's still living with Cloud," the source continues, "so it's obvious that Rufus is just a distraction...but an enticing one, at that. Only time will tell what her intentions are toward either man."

"What?" Tifa gasped. "That's crazy!"

"Utterly ridiculous," Rufus agreed. He sat back in his chair. "I'm hardly enticing. Furthermore, they forgot the colon in the name. It's 'Re'-colon-'Growth' like an email subject line. I know because I came up with it myself. It's about our growth, see, but also our regrowth, like a phoenix rising from the ashes to become a slightly more responsible…Ms. Lockhart, what is it?"

Tifa's frown was fierce enough to break the desk in half. "I was just trying to think of who this source is. It has to be someone close to you."

"The only people close to me are the Turks," Rufus said, "and they know better than to use my name and 'too happy' in the same sentence. There is no source. The whole thing's made up."

Tifa's eyes widened. "Really?"

Rufus unearthed Gaia Weekly from the drawer where he'd hidden it and opened it to the society page. "Here's another one," he said, sliding it across the desk to her. "Note the altered photo."

"They can do that?"

Her naïveté of their predicament might've been amusing had Rufus not been in the other half of that photo. While Tifa pored over the feature, he recalled an article in Gaia Weekly written a year ago, about the slow cleanup efforts in Midgar. Embedded in his memory was a particular quote about Shin-Ra's "abuse of power under the guise of the greater good." Hypocrites! He wanted to ask them what printing lies and trumped-up speculation for the general, uninformed public counted as if not an abuse of power.

"You know…" Tifa's voice cut off the rising heat of Rufus's thoughts. "Cloud warned me last night that it was reckless to go to a Shin-Ra exhibit, but I wanted to prove a point, and now it's turned into this really huge mess, and I'm sorry you got dragged into it."

Had Rufus heard her correctly? Not only was Tifa sorry—and not the cheap "please don't fire me, boss" kind of sorry, but the authentic kind that usually fell in the bailiwick of Truly Good People—but she also thought it was her fault they were even in this situation.

Oh, irony. How it was redeeming itself.

"I'm going to Gaia Weekly's offices right now and see if I can straighten this out." Tifa's lower lip jutted out in a resolute pout that might've been adorable on a less deadly person.

Rufus shot to his feet in alarm. "No, wait. You can't."

"Why not? Someone needs to tell them there's nothing going on between us."

"But they don't care," Rufus explained. "Scandal sells, you see, and denying it only makes it worse. Trust me, I've been through this before. The best thing to do is simply avoid each other. Interest in us will die out, and the gossips will move onto the next thing."

Tifa digested this information. "Well, that shouldn't be too hard. It's not like we ever talked before last night."

"No, certainly," Rufus agreed. "You have your bar, which I never frequent, and I have my work, which you're not involved in. Shouldn't be too difficult at all."

"Then I guess I should get going, huh? I still haven't eaten breakfast." Tifa's gaze made one last sweep of the room before she reached down for the helmet that lay in the chair. "Goodbye, Rufus." She held out her hand.

Flashes of the early morning returned to Rufus, of a dream so pleasant it made him melancholy. And it hit him then, that Tifa's retribution wouldn't be a hard punch to the gut. It would be an open hand offering every good thing he didn't deserve, only to withdraw the moment he reached for it.

Unless.

"Unless you don't leave just yet," Rufus said.

Tifa lowered her hand. "I don't know. Isn't that kind of counterproductive? And besides, I feel like you were busy working until I barged in here and interrupted you."

That was an extremely accurate description of what had happened, but now Rufus didn't mind so much. "Ms. Lockhart, there's always work to be done, and besides..." His eyes fell on the stack of newspapers still menacing the corner of his desk. "We might be in other papers. It would be good to know what's being said about us. So we can avoid doing that. Too."

Tifa's expression was dubious. "If you say so…"

Before she could change her mind, Rufus pushed a button on his phone. "Tseng!"

"Sir?"

"I want you to get two iced coffees from that place around the corner and pick up an assortment of whatever pastries they have."

"Yes, sir."

He closed the connection and found himself confronted with a wide grin, one that he almost returned. Almost.

"How did you know I was going to head there?" Tifa asked.

"I have an uncanny sense about these things," Rufus answered.

And it was true. He very often knew what people wanted, and very often he chose not to give it to them. However, with a whole line of Francises still awaiting their retribution, Rufus figured now would be a good time to change that.

"Did you hear that?"

Tseng sighed. He knew he shouldn't have left it on speaker. "I'd be hard pressed not to, as I was standing next to the phone."

"But did you understand what you heard?"

Triumph glinted in Elena's eyes, and for some reason, Tseng felt like quashing it. "I'm to get two coffees and some pastries," he said. "What else is there to understand?"

Elena shook her head. "Men really don't get it, do they? Do I need to point out the fact that Rufus rarely allows people to linger in his office? Or that he's ordering breakfast for the two of them? Or that he never eats in front of someone else?"

"Or you want it to mean something so badly you're seeing signs that aren't truly there," Tseng countered. "As my father used to say, 'An adamantaimai does not trade its shell for another's.' I've known Rufus far longer than you, Elena, and I can guarantee you it doesn't mean anything—or if it does, it's not in a way you would like. Now, are you staying here or coming with me?"

Tseng headed for the front door confident in his admonition: Do not put a heart in Rufus. The last thing he wanted was for her feelings—or Ms. Lockhart's, for that matter—to be crushed by an outcome that anyone with even a passing awareness of Rufus Shinra could predict.

A warning lay within the Gongaga Gazette for the young adults who were using the reactor ruins as a popular make-out site, but the two-spread newspaper—if it could even be called that—had little else in it other than the usual small-town happenings: births, deaths and all the ephemeral milestones between.

Rufus tossed the Gazette onto the small pile of already-reads. Across the desk, Tifa sat in one of the chairs with her sandals off and her legs tucked into the side of the chair, wholly engrossed in the Fort Condor View. She read the same way she fought, he noticed, chin tucked down and eyes narrowed beneath half-lowered eyebrows.

"What are you reading?" Rufus asked.

Tifa looked up from the page. "Oh, nothing about us. It's an article about the first chick since Meteorfall taking its first flight. I guess conservationists were worried the condors' reproductive cycles might've been irreparably harmed from the event. It's a really good story." She smiled at him in that satisfied-soul way of Truly Good People. "Do you want to read it?"

Rufus recoiled a little at the thought. "No. I only read business journals."

"Only?" Tifa tilted her head at him. "That seems dull. You never read for fun or to unwind?"

The idea baffled Rufus. "When would I have time to do that?"

"You have to make time," Tifa said. "I mean, I take Sundays off. Maybe you should too."

Rufus almost laughed. He cast a rueful glance at the permanent stack of budget reports on his desk. "Ever heard the saying 'No rest for the wicked?'"

Tifa looked unimpressed. "Okay, maybe that's your reason, but why make Tseng and Elena come in?"

This time Rufus did laugh. "Ms. Lockhart, those two are hardly innocent."

"Still, they looked bored. I bet they'd love to have the rest of the day off."

Rufus frowned. "Why? Did they say something?"

"No, but…" Tifa shrugged her shoulders and settled further into the chair. "Couples do stuff on the weekends. They go places, take walks, watch movies—you know, hang out…"

Curiosity flared in Rufus. "Is that what you do with Strife?"

Tifa snorted and shook her head. "Cloud would have to be home for any of that to happen."

Rufus blinked in surprise. "Then you and Mr. Valentine…?"

Tifa picked up the View and shook it to the next page in a dry crackle of noise. She glowered at the paper and said, "Vincent only does stuff with me because I call him up and beg him to, and when he answers, it's always 'What do you want?' like I've just interrupted something very important."

This news also surprised Rufus. "Valentine does that to me as well, but I thought it was merely another perk of being a Shinra."

"Nope. He does it to me too." Tifa glared at the page a moment longer before a corner of her mouth tipped up. "Going to put it in his file?"

"I should, shouldn't I?" Rufus mused. "Under his list of annoyances, just write: EVERYONE. That should cover it."

A laugh erupted from Tifa, throaty and robust before climbing into a feather-light trill contagious enough to draw a chuckle from Rufus. The term "simple pleasures" had always fallen into the rustic and folksy realm to him, the kind of thing old people said from their rocking chairs about, well, their rocking chairs. But it sprang to mind now, watching her eyes dance with amusement, and just like the night before, it gave Rufus an inordinate amount of satisfaction to have caused it.

A knock sounded from the open doorway—Tseng with a white bakery box in hand—and Rufus immediately sobered. "Enter."

Tseng glided into the office, followed by Elena with their drinks. "There is a sizable number of pedestrians out today," he announced, "so I took the liberty of moving your scooter into the lobby, Ms. Lockhart."

"Oh, thanks," Tifa said as Elena handed her one of the coffees. "I guess traffic has picked up a bit since I arrived. I appreciate it."

Tseng collected Rufus's coffee from Elena then set it and the bakery box on the desk. "Will that be all, sir?"

Rufus felt the pull of Tifa's gaze, silently urging him on with those oddly compelling brown eyes of hers. He should've resented the interference—she was an outsider, a former enemy, what did she know of running a company?—and the loudest voices in him screamed to resist her.

"No," Rufus said. "There's one more thing. You two…take the rest of the day off."

Tseng openly gaped at Rufus. "Sir?"

Rufus suppressed an urge to laugh. "You heard me. Go. Enjoy your day before I regret it."

Elena quickly stepped forward. Her eyes flicked from Rufus to Tifa then back again before she grasped Tseng's hand. "Come on, Tseng," she said. "We've got plenty of stuff to do. Thank you, sir. Goodbye, Ms. Lockhart!"

"Goodbye! Have a good day!" Tifa called back.

After they watched Elena march a silent Tseng from the room, the grin Tifa turned on Rufus was as wide as he'd ever seen it.

"Now was that so hard?" she asked. "For what it's worth, I think you did the right thing."

Of course she did.

"Of course I did," Rufus said.

But, secretly, he sympathized with Tseng. This new world of peace and rocking chairs and weekend errands was a dizzying labyrinth of unknowns to men who had spent most of their lives caught up in the great Shin-Ra machine. Apparently, without these women to guide them out, they'd be lost, stuck in corners and dead ends or returning to places they thought they had left, wondering how everyone else found the time to be so damned happy.

AN: If you're enjoying this so far, I'd love to hear from you!