Her mother was already waiting in the lobby with a less-than-pleased look on her face. Biggs and Wedge were also there as well, flanking her sides with understandably terrified expressions. Her mother had probably already learned everything from both of them, which meant she was most likely in for a hell of a time once she got home.

Cissnei accompanied her down the escalator, not looking too happy. Jessie had already apologized to her about her actions and Cissnei seemed to understand and accepted why she lashed out on Reno like that, but Jessie knew – and perhaps Cissnei did as well – that it was going to take a lot more than that to clear the hot air between them. She did pass the word from Reno, though, mentioning that he really did feel guilty about what he did the night Sector 7 fell ("'I won't make any excuse. It was our job and we did it regardless of the consequences. I deserve all those punches.', that's what he told me."). It didn't make Jessie's anger go away, but at least she probably won't beat his face to a pulp if she ever gets to see him again.

It was a silent trip home. Jessie and her mother didn't say a word to each other all the way there, with the only interaction between them was Erica's firm grip on Jessie's hand as she practically dragged her own daughter home. She was surprisingly stronger than Jessie thought, so even if she wanted to run away again (which was increasingly becoming a more and more appealing choice), she couldn't. Biggs and Wedge wanted to accompany their friend back but Erica's death glare discouraged them from doing so, and the last Jessie saw of them before splitting up was both of them giving her sympathetic glances. Biggs, in particular, looked like a kicked puppy. Poor guy was probably blaming himself for the whole mess she was in right now.

The closer they were to home, the more dread Jessie felt brewing inside her. She'd rather take on squads of armed soldiers than facing her mother's wrath. She had never seen her mother getting really upset before. In the years that they lived together, Jessie knew that her mother always remained kind and comforting even through the worst situations. Then came Sector 7's fall, and she was never the same again. The smile that was often seen on her face disappeared, replaced by the constant look of distress and sometimes anger. Jessie began to wonder if she has ever seen the real Erica Rasberry at all in her entire life?

By the time they got home, it was already dark. Erica still didn't say a word as she led Jessie into the room and motioned her to the dinner table for two. She then walked over to the nearby kitchen and started to wash the dishes in the sink, still without saying any word.

The silent treatment. Jessie thought. Well, that was way worse than anything she could've said to me.

'The silence is deafening' was a phrase that Jessie was familiar with but she always believed it was just a figure of speech. Now, however, she'd rather be shouted at by her mother right now than just sitting there in uncomfortable silence and not knowing what she should do. She felt like she was sitting next to a bomb that could explode at any moment, and the worst was there was nothing she could do about it.

Summoning whatever strength she could muster, Jessie dared speaking out first, "Mom, I'm sorry. Sorry that I made you worry…again."

Still no reply. The only sound in the room was the sound of running water as Erica continued to do her dishes, her back still turned toward her daughter. Jessie made an audible sigh, hoping to at least get her attention, to no avail. This is getting ridiculous.

"I already said I'm sorry!" Jessie spoke again, raising her voice a bit, "It's not like I planned for any of these to happen, okay? I just lost it out there. Everybody could, right?"

Yet more silence. Erica placed a washed dish on the shelf as she moved on to the next. Jessie's temper began to flare up despite her best attempts to hold it in. What the hell was she supposed to do? What will it take for her mother to talk to her back!?

"Stop ignoring me already!" She finally snapped, "Just say something! Anything!"

"WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY!?" Erica finally turned back and screamed at the top of her lungs, startling Jessie to her core, "WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY WHEN YOU NEVER LISTENED TO ME!?"

Jessie was too stunned to say any retort. She was expecting her mother to snap at any moment but it still drove her entire body numb when it eventually happened. The bomb exploded, just as she feared.

"I told you to stay here, and you ran away!" Erica continued furiously, "You still hang out with the wrong crowd! You pick fights with dangerous people! You keep doing everything I told you not to do! DO YOU ENJOY HURTING YOUR OWN MOTHER OR WHAT!? Do you!?"

"THAT'S NOT FAIR!" Jessie screamed back. If she wanted to go there, then let's fucking go there, "You always held me back! All I wanna do is help people and you won't let me do it! The only thing I can still do, and YOU WON'T LET ME DO IT! What the fuck do you want me to do with my life, huh!?"

"So you wanna die, is that it!? You wanna get yourself killed so much!?" Erica slammed her hands on the table, "YOU WANNA DIE JUST LIKE YOUR FATHER!?"

"AHHHHH!"

Once again, Jessie's body started acting on its own as something inside her snapped, hard She ran forward and pushed her own mother back into the counter behind her. Erica cried out in pain as the force sent both her and her daughter into the ground.

"YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND!" Jessie yelled into her mother's face with a voice loud enough to make her throat hurt, "You never knew how much dad sacrificed for us so don't fucking dare talk about him like that! You and your stupid housewife gig will never get it!"

"How fucking dare you, you ungrateful bitch!?" Erica wasn't about to give in. She slapped Jessie in the face and pushed her back, sending Jessie into the fridge behind her, "You have no idea what your father and I went through. Don't you fucking dare!"

"YOU LET HIM DIE!" Jessie rushed at her mother again, slamming her into table behind her in a rage, "You let him overworked in Shinra's murder reactor! You knew it and you did nothing! You let him die!"

"HE DIED TO SAVE US, GODDAMN IT!"

That got Jessie to pause.

"…what?"

Erica was panting hard from the fight. She struggled to the heavy breathing to get the words out, "You father…died…to save us," She repeated again, "That night…when he fell…when he…fuck, not again…"

Finally freed of her daughter's hold, Erica crumbled onto the floor. Her body was trembling.

"He stayed behind…to fix the reactor…" Erica mustered the strength to continue, "His shift was done…He was supposed to come home, but he…he told me there was a leak in the mako storage and he had to fix it first…He told me that if it didn't get fixed, it could explode…"

"You're lying. You yourself told me that he overworked!" Jessie retorted stubbornly, "He overworked and passed out near the mako storage! That's what you told me!"

"Because he didn't want you to worry!" Erica cried out, "What was I supposed to say? 'We lived next to a reactor that could blow up at any moment?' Your father gave everything he had to make sure that we could stay safe, even if it meant he had to expose himself to mako at lethal levels. That's why he fell into a coma. That's why he died with Sector 7 when we couldn't get him out…"

"So just tell me so! You didn't think I could handle the truth?! Why all the lies!?" Jessie asked. More lies. Why did everybody keep lying to her? Why does everybody keep making the decisions for her? It's as if her entire life was never her own in the first place.

"It's not that you can't handle the truth, it's what you'd do after knowing it," Erica avoided Jessie's gaze, "The Gold Saucer offer, remember? You were so excited when you told us they offered you a role there. It was everything you dreamed of since you were young. I didn't want to tell you because I knew you'd choose to stay here rather than following your dream. Who am I to deny you that?"

"And who are you to make my decisions for me!?" Jessie demanded, "This is my life, mother! How could I go away when dad was on death's door!? I couldn't just leave both of you alone, could I!?"

"And did I make the choices for you, Jessie? Did I!?" Erica retorted strongly, "You chose to stay here and I respected that. Hell, I was actually happy that you decided to stay with me. With your father. It wasn't the best life we had, but at least we were together. But then you started working with Avalanche and kept it hidden from me! You put yourself in so much danger and I didn't even know about it until you almost got yourself killed! Is this what your father would've wanted, Jessie!? He didn't almost get himself killed for you to be this reckless with your life!"

"I was trying to save him!" Jessie argued, "You know full well what Shinra was doing with the mako and what it means for dad when he returns to the planet! I had to do something!"

To Jessie's puzzlement, Erica chuckled lightly, "Of course you would…of course you would say that."

"What do you mean?"

"It's exactly what your father told me the night he stayed behind at the reactor," Erica continued, "'I had to do something, dear', he said, 'because if I don't then a lot of people are gonna die, including you and our little girl'. Heh, he was always a stubborn one, that man…Could never overlook a problem if he could help it…Probably why I fell in love with him, actually."

Erica smiled a little, cherishing her late husband and their last memory together, then the smile faded, "Gods, why must you punish someone so harshly simply for doing the right thing?"

Tell me about it, mom. Jessie couldn't help but feel a bit amused, in the ironic 'curse-you-fate-for-my fucking-life' sense. She sat down on the floor next to her mother, her eyes never leaving Erica's face.

"You took so much after him…doing the right thing even if it cost you a piece of yourself," Erica spoke as she stared into the distance, "I wish I could be as strong as both of you, but I can't. I just can't…"

Erica started sobbing as tears ran down her face uncontrollably, "I can't lose you. Not again," Her voice trembled, "I can't lose you too. Rowan was enough. Don't ask me to lose you too…"

Jessie just sat there in silence, unable to say anything as she watched her mother keep repeating the same words over and over. I can't lose you please don't ask me to. Before long, Jessie was crying as well. She gently reached her arm across her mother's shoulder and embraced her close. Her mother wordlessly did the same. For a long while, they just sat there together, bodies leaned against each other for comfort, no words exchanged but the occasional sobbing as the only noises in the room.

Jessie didn't know how much time had passed before she parted from her mother. Five minutes? Ten? Thirty? An hour? It didn't feel long enough. She couldn't remember the last time she hugged her mother. Probably went back as long as when they were both living in Sector 7. The feeling was almost nostalgic. She missed it so much. The feeling of warmth and safety in her mother's arms. For a brief, fleeing moment, all was right in the world.

"I don't know what I should do," Jessie began first, "I feel so lost all the time. Feel like I always mess up everything I do. I can't do anything right and it just frustrates me so much just thinking about it,"

"You're not the only one, Jessie," Erica replied softly, "When Rowan died, something inside me died, too…And that was before I learned about what happened to you. I felt like I am powerless to do anything to protect the both of you. Every day I asked myself: 'why couldn't it have been me instead?' like a broken tape. Why didn't I do more? Why didn't I try to stop Rowan that night? Why did I never suspect your involvement with Avalanche before? Everything that happened afterward didn't help at all, either. Between losing you for real and the end of the world…I honestly don't see much of a difference between the two. I'd rather die than live in a world without you and your father."

Erica chuckled bitterly at the thought, "You must think I'm such a selfish person, aren't you?"

"Takes one to know one, mom," Jessie joked, hoping to lighten the mood. She smiled a little when her mother actually did giggle a bit. Suddenly, Jessie remembered one of Elmyra's advice to her. Something that probably should be able to cheer her mother up a little.

"A wise woman told me earlier today: 'nobody really knows what they're doing'," She began, then she chuckled a little upon realizing the irony of what she just said. Still, she kept on going, "Sometimes we do things without thinking them through, just because we want to. I wanted to save my dad so much, so I joined my friends in taking on the most powerful corporation on the planet while we can barely save enough money to fund ourselves. We never had a chance to win from the start, yet I still went along with it, just because I wanted to…because I loved dad that much and would do anything for him. Heh, I was such an idiot, weren't I?"

"'The Rasberrys – the family that never knows what they're doing'…would make for a nice epitaph for all of us, don't you think?" Erica smiled in acceptance, "At least you're brave enough to fight for what you believe in. That's more that can be said for me. I'm proud of you, Jessie, and you know that I'll always support you whatever you set your mind to. It's just that…I don't want anything to happen to you as well. I want you to be yourself, but I also don't want you to get hurt. It's this dilemma that's killing me inside every day and I don't know how to make it go away."

"I'm so sorry…I had no idea…"

Guilt surrounded Jessie once again. She knew how much her mother cared about her and how she never wanted her in any danger. That was why she never told her about her activities with Avalanche. She figured her mom already had enough headache to deal with trying to sustain herself without her husband there for her. She didn't need to worry about her daughter's life as well. That was until the gist was out when everything literally came crashing down with Sector 7, anyway. It wasn't until this very moment that she truly realized just how much damage was done by hiding the truth from her mother.

In the end, they were both damaged people, traumatized by their shared loss and dealt with it in different ways.

"I'm sorry that I made you worry, mom," Jessie spoke, putting her hands over Erica's and holding them firmly, reassuring her that her daughter was here with her now, "I should've considered my choices better…or at the very least talk it out with you about what I planned to do first. I thought I had it all figured out, but then things started to go downhill and…I freaked out. I wanted to do anything to make up for my mistakes, but nothing's working, and I got more and more desperate…"

"I understand, honey," Erica leaned her shoulder on her daughter's, "Mistakes are easy to make and it's even easier to make them worse. I have more than I hate to admit myself, but I can't deny one thing: I should've been there for you more, Jessie. I shouldn't have let you deal with the grief alone. Instead, I wallowed in self-pity, uselessly praying that everything will somehow get better on its own. I was too afraid to do anything because I didn't want to make things worse than they already were. Well, look where that got us. I'm so sorry that I was never there for you, Jessie."

"I guess we both could learn a thing or two from each other, then." Jessie mumbled. She turned to face her mother and wrapped arms around her in a tight embrace, "I'm here now, mom. I won't be going anywhere this time. This time, we'll get through this together, you and me."

"Yes, honey. We'll do this together. We'll make your father proud," Erica added. She was crying once again, but this time it wasn't out of sadness, but relief.

"I love you so much, mom."

"I love you too, sweetheart."

Once again, the two Rasberry women just sat there curled up together on the floor, wrapped in a tight embrace and let the warmth did all the talking, to send a simple message telling each other that they were safe and sound right beside them, that they were not alone and never will, that whatever hell life decided to throw their way again, this time they'll face it together.

An eternity had passed, or at least Jessie wished it had felt that long, she and Erica finally parted from each other. They helped each other off the floor and proceeded to clean up the mess from their earlier outburst. The first challenge they faced together as a family. After a while, the dining area and the kitchen were back to normal, as if nothing had ever happened. They shared a proud smile with each other before Erica proceeded to cook dinner for both of them.

"Aw, you're making pizza tonight!" Jessie spoke happily after she smelled what Erica was cooking, "Damn, Wedge would hate missing out on this."

"I'll save some extras in the fridge, then, so you can give them to him and Biggs later," Erica offered, "Consider it an apology from me. Gods, I hope I wasn't too hard on both of them these past few months."

"Nah, those guys could use some good lectures, really," Jessie jokingly said, "Let it be known that nobody can cross my mother and get away with it, not even my own friends!"

"Heh, you're damn right, honey." Erica grinned, "And nobody should mess with my daughter if they know what's good for them, too. You certainly let that red-haired bastard learn the hard way today, didn't you?"

"Damn right I am."

Jessie gave her mother a thumbs up with a playful wink. If there is one thing they have in common, it's that they are some pretty stubborn women who wouldn't take no for an answer. Sometimes it got them in trouble, and sometimes it got them out of it, too. The realization made Jessie feel relief in a way she never had since her father was alive.

It's going to take a while before their wounds are fully mended, but tonight was a step in the right direction, at least that's what Jessie believed. The rift between her and Erica was still there, but it shrank away considerably when they decided to really open up to each other. At the very least, they finally knew where each other stood, and that way they can know how to support each other in a way that both of them are okay with, and Jessie couldn't be happier for it.

Well, at least before Erica decided to drop another surprise for her.

"By the way, while I was out looking for you today, I happened to come across something you might be interested in," Erica continued, "There's a new theater opening up a few blocks from here. There's no performance yet, but I saw an ad saying something about role auditions there. Maybe you would like to check it out later?"

"Mom…"

"Yes, sweetheart?"

"You're the best."