Author's note: Hi all. Thank you for your patience with the last several chapters that were a dramatic shitstorm of the Avenging Angel saga. I have tried to bring the story back to what it was supposed to be about. With that being said, I hope you enjoy this new chapter.


Leonard Burns shifted in the exceedingly uncomfortable molded plastic chair in the surgery waiting room of the hospital. He took the small white box out of his coat pocket to toy nervously with the red ribbon.

His daughter was having another surgery; another painful skin graft to cover the burns on her face that could not heal on their own. The optic nerve in her left eye had received excessive heat damage as a result of the high temperatures her body sustained when the Infernal separated itself from her. Although Huang had left it alone, hoping it would repair and heal itself, the tissue had become necrotic requiring removal of the entire eyeball.

Burns had a special eye patch made for her. Black leather with wings that extended toward her hairline and the badge of Company Eight embroidered onto it.

His fingers reached up to touch the patch covering his own left eye. At least she would not be left with a painful stigma for the rest of her life. However, he doubted she would see that as a good thing. Without her Adolla Burst, she would never again experience an Adolla Link. Where Shinra Kusakabe was concerned, she would most likely see that as a bad thing.

Leonard Burns closed his one good eye and leaned his head back against the wall behind him. At this time, he honestly had no idea what his daughter thought or felt about anything. She had been in the hospital for nearly a month, undergoing treatment, both physical and mental, while steadfastly refusing all visitors except for him. His suggestions for her to talk to others, especially Kusakabe and Ōbi, went unheeded.

Perhaps she was angry or ashamed or both. She would not speak to any of her colleagues from the Eighth. He had withdrawn his orders for transfer. Although it hurt his heart as her biological father, he realized the last thing she needed was to be apart from the people that had become another family, a family even more real than him, to her.

Suddenly, there was a cacophonous banging of metal as if desks and chairs were being thrown against the wall followed by shouting. The ruckus caught Burns' attention, bringing him to his feet out of the chair. He slipped the present back into the pocket of his coat draped over his shoulders as he stepped out of the waiting room into the hallway.

"Captain Shinmon!" a nurse hollered, her furious, panicked voice echoing off the cold sterile bare walls and tile covered floors. "Sir, you can't go in there! She just came out of surgery!"

"Someone needs to talk sense into this stubborn pain in the ass," Benimaru rejoined, his affectless tone betraying no emotion not even his annoyance expressed by his words.

"Shinmon," Burns greeted his fellow captain and his daughter's first captain.

"Burns," he returned.

Before saying another word, both men fell silent looking at the nurse who ran up to them.

"Sir, I tried to stop him," she said to Burns.

"It's fine. How much longer before we can see her?" he inquired.

"I'll check with the recovery head nurse to see if your daughter is ready for visitors," she replied, casting a withering glance at Shinmon before hurrying through the double doors to the right that automatically opened for her.

"How long are you going to allow her to hide here and feel sorry for herself?" Benimaru demanded.

"As long as it takes for her to heal," Burns answered, turning his back on the man to walk to the window.

"You're speaking as a worried father not a Captain," he rejoined flatly, folding his arms over his chest. He sighed in exasperation at the man's seeming willingness to give up on his daughter.

"I take it you've heard she no longer possesses the phoenix or her pyrokinetic abilities."

"I heard. Why isn't Ōbi here giving her a pep talk and trying to convince her not to let that get her down? He should remind her she can still be a member of the force like him even without being a pyrokinetic."

"Is that what you're here for, Shinmon? To give her a pep talk?"

"Someone needs to," he muttered, hitting the doors with his fist to open them since they did not swing open on their own at his approach.

"Hey, Shinmon! What the hell are you doing?" Burns growled, following the bold and impatient man.

If his daughter had stayed a the Seventh, perhaps butting heads with the equally obstinate and strong minded Shinmon would have eventually broken her, tamed her a little. Maybe she instinctively knew that and it was one of her many reasons for moving on. He could not imagine what had happened to her to devastate her and put her in the state she is in now.

"Phoenix! Where are you?" Benimaru called out, ignoring the nurses who jumped to their feet to chase him as he passed the nurse's station.

"Sir, you can't be in here!" one shocked male nurse exclaimed pushing his hand against the man's chest to stop him.

"Get your damn hand off of me," the Captain on a mission warned him, flicking a warning shot at the nurse that knocked a huge hunk of concrete out of the column beside him.

The nurse roughly the size of Captain Ōbi but obviously not nearly as strong even with pyrokinesis, dropped his hand and permitted the man to pass. He coughed, waving away the concrete dust in the air.

"Captain Burns, can't you stop him?" a second female nurse asked him, desperate for assistance.

Leonard Burns exhaled, irritated by his fellow captain's behavior. However, he had no intention of stopping him. He was not about to start a fight with a fellow captain much less do it here in the surgery recovery room.

"Let him be for the sake of your other patients. He just wants to talk to Phoenix," he told her, watching the man continuing confidently on his way despite not knowing exactly where to go with nurse running behind him.

"Captain Shinmon, please," the rejected nurse begged, scuttling after him. "There are some very sick people here who need - "

"I know. And there is one who just needs some sense knocked into her to get over herself and stop indulging in her big pity party. Where is she?"

"Sir, come this way," she sighed, ushering him toward the glass enclosed room at end of the row. Her fingers grasped the handle on the sliding door, but she paused before pulling it back. "Please, try to keep it quiet, Captain Shinmon."

"I'll do my best. But I can't make any promises for her," he said, pushing back the door himself and walking inside.

Phoenix lay in the bed with her eye closed and oxygen tubes up her nose. Bandages covered the entire left side of her head including her eye. The skin on her face not covered was exceedingly pale and so white it almost almost matched the gauze.

Benimaru hated seeing her this way. It made him furious with Phoenix, her dead mother, the Knights of the Ashen Flame, Haijima Industries, and whoever else he could think of to blame for putting her in this pathetic condition. It also panged his heart because she looked dead. He had never seen her so frail and weak. She was too damn annoyingly stubborn to give up so easily.

Her hair which had returned to its coal black color had grown down to her shoulders and curled at the ends. He could only assume her eyes, or rather her eye, was once again a dazzling silver mercury color. Somehow he doubted her eye had retained that spark, the fire of determination that nothing to do with pyrokinesis.

Benimaru came closer. He slid his fingers along hers and across her palm before taking her hand into his. Her hand was disturbingly icy. The beeping of the heart monitor grew faster.

"All right, Fire Bird. Time to wake up. That's an order," he said, squeezing her hand.

Her heart rate spiked, setting off a series of rapid beeps. He waited. Nothing else happened.

"You never were very good at taking orders."

He sat down on the side of the bed beside her. Her eyelid fluttered when his body weight moved the mattress under her shifting her in the bed.

"You always did have a tendency to get up in your head and not be able to see past your own nose. The time for feeling sorry for yourself is over. Wake up," he ordered her gently, cupping her jaw with his hand.

His fingers stroked the bandages at her temple covering her left eye. The eyelashes of her other eye moved against her cheek then gradually parted revealing a bleary, unfocused silver iris.

"Welcome back," he greeted her, withdrawing his hand from her face.

"Beni," she croaked, gulping audibly. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to tell you it is time for you to get out of here and get on with your life. You've felt sorry for yourself long enough," he admonished her in his low voice.

"But Beni, I can't. I don't have - " she began making her excuses, but he cut her off not wanting to hear them.

"It's time for you to live up to the legend you were named for. So what if you were burned? Rise from the ashes and become something new. It doesn't matter if you're no longer a pyrokinetic. Ōbi never let that stop him. Take a cue from your current, Captain."

"He's no longer my captain," she argued, closing her eye again.

"He is still your Captain," her father said from the door.

Her eye flew open, and she raised her head from the pillow. Dizziness from the sudden movement made the entire room spin so she let her head sink back down into the pillow.

"I withdrew the request for transfer," he informed her, coming to stand on the other side of her bed.

"But why?" Her surprise widened eye settled on her father's face.

"Because you belong there, and I don't want to take you away from your family."

Phoenix felt Benimaru's hand tighten around hers at the mention of family. Her eye flickered over to his face. He was looking away from her, pretending to be interested in all of the moving lines and shifting numbers on the screen of the vital signs monitor.

"I'm sorry," she apologized, squeezing his hand to let him know she was talking to him. "I'm sorry I hurt you and everyone at the Seventh. I'm sorry I took advantage of all of you and selfishly fled like a coward. I'm sorry I - "

"Shut up would you," Benimaru murmured, sounding bored and just done with her shit.

"I am going to go ask the nurses for some water for you," Leonard Burns informed his daughter, leaning down to kiss her forehead.

"Listen," Benimaru began after Burns left the room. "You should have come to me. Told me what was really going on before you left."

"Would you have understood?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Probably not, but at least I would have had the chance to find out how I would react. It would have been nice to have the option to kick you out rather than you deserting us. You're so stupid. When you need something or are hurt or afraid...your family are the ones you go to. You don't run away to be with strangers."

"I'm beginning to understand that."

"I want you to know," he said his voice barely above a whisper as if he meant to tell her a long held secret. "I loved you. Just because I didn't love you the way you wanted me to, it never meant I didn't love you at all."

"I know," she sighed, squeezing the strong and comforting hand that still held hers. "That's why you're here now isn't it? I'm sorry I - "

"Uh uh," he admonished her, wagging his finger in her face. "Stop apologizing. It's not your style."

"I wish I had understood that...how you felt, back then."

"Well, like I told you before, I believe you're where you should and who you should be with now. Including that guy, Shinra." He smiled as he recalled how she had fussed at him for calling Shinra that guy with blatant sarcasm.

"Oh, Shinra," she gasped, pressing her fingertips to her lips.

"What about Shinra?" he inquired, staring at her with suspicion in his tic-tac-toe eyes.

Her cheeks were presently filling with pink color which gave her a healthy glow. When she avoided meeting his questioning gaze, Benimaru was pretty sure that meant she had done something stupid, acting solely on her emotions without employing rational thought.

"I don't think I'm with him anymore," she said, fiddling with the sheet.

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I kinda..." She cleared her throat. "Where is Dad with that water?"

"What did you do?" he demanded sounding like an irritated father in this moment.

"I broke up with him."

"Let me guess, you thought he would be better off without you and all of your emotional baggage. You didn't want to cause him anymore emotional pain, blah, blah, blah."

Her blush darkened to a deep crimson. She self-consciously scratched her cheek under the edge of her bandages and winced when her fingernail nicked the tender new skin that had been taken from her thigh and sewn onto her face for the graft.

"Something like that."

"Ugh...you impulsive dumbass."

~\..'../~


Two days later, Phoenix sat on one of the green benches in the middle of the garden courtyard behind the hospital. Her fingers shook as she reached up to adjust the eyepatch her father had given her.

She tugged at the edges of the baby pink cardigan draped over her shoulders. It was a gift from Hibana along with the shockingly demure rose colored dress the woman had given her as well. Not a hint of cleavage showed with square neck covering her chest to just below her collar bones and the skirt reaching below her knees.

A pleasant smile curled her lips when she thought about how Hibana had explained her uncharacteristic fashion choice by saying it was time for Phoenix to change her clothing style anyway. She said she should have a whole new look to go with her new life. Clothes make the woman after all, she declared before flipping her pink hair and walking away on her tall pencil thin heels. Although that was not the correct quote at all, she agreed it was time to make herself into someone new.

Phoenix looked down at her pink ballerina flats. She clicked her heels together and laughed for no reason in particular. The sound caught her off guard because it had been so long since she felt like laughing much less actually did. Yep. Big changes.

"Phoenix."

Hearing Shinra call her name behind her made her jump to her feet and spin around to face him. She bit her lower lip to hold in the gasp that tried to escape upon seeing him in his dress uniform. He had been wearing it the first time she ever saw him. He always did look exceedingly handsome in that uniform.

He spun his cap in his hands as they continued to stare at each other for a long moment. The corners of his mouth spasmed and crept upward into his apprehensive and somewhat scary grin.

"Hi," she said breaching the silence.

"Hi," he returned, his facial muscles relaxing into a friendly, and relieved, grin.

"I'm sorry," Phoenix said, offering him the apology she knew he deserved.

Her abdomen quivered with anxiety when he stared at her without saying a word, the smile fading from his face.

"That hurt, you know, you pushing me away. It was very selfish of you," he said, taking a step forward.

What could she say? He was right. Another apology would be unnecessary and self- serving, used only to evade taking the blame for her hasty and emotional actions that hurt him. Her knees softened, weakening when he took another step toward her before speaking again.

"What do you want from me, Phoenix? Why did you want to see me?" Shinra asked, dropping his hat on the bench and coming to stand right in front of her.

Phoenix struggled to choke down the lump in her throat.

"I want - " She immediately halted her words when he raised his hand, palm out toward her in a stop motion.

"Think carefully about what you want. You have one more chance with me. Do you understand?"

She audibly gulped then whispered hoarsely, "I understand."

Shinra moved his hands behind his back. He grabbed the wrist of his left arm with his right hand to keep himself from reaching out to her to take her in his arms and embrace her. She looked so wounded and vulnerable apart from her obvious physical injuries still on the mend.

Tender pink skin edged in white of her healing skin transplant covering half of her face was only partially hidden by the eyepatch hiding her empty orbital socket. She definitely had become her father's daughter. He could see pink patches of new skin that had grown by itself over the rest of her wounds dotting her porcelain white skin that was not covered by her clothing. He wondered how extensive the scarring he could not see really is.

Phoenix inhaled deeply, pressing her hand to her incessantly flip flopping belly as if that would make it stop. She slowly raised her single eye to meet his intense crimson red ones holding steady on her.

"I want to be part of something bigger than myself. I want to continue to stop the senseless deaths, to protect people, and to save the ones who can be saved." She inhaled a tremulous breath. "I want to fight the Knights of the Ashen Flame and make them pay for the lives they have destroyed."

Shinra's back stiffened and extended making him stand taller as he continued to keep his unwavering gaze on her face. He cleared his throat and gripped his own wrist tighter to keep from reaching out to her. Not yet. She is not done.

"I want to be a part of a family again. My family at the Eighth. I want to learn how to be a good fire soldier even without pyrokinesis." She resisted the urge to open her mouth and pant because she was finding it difficult to breath. Although she had always been quick to say exactly what she thought, it was never about herself, her true feelings, thoughts, and desires.

"How do you propose to do that?" Shinra inquired sternly, raising his nose in the air to break eye contact a little because his resolve was crumbling as he looked into her singular eye swimming with hurt and tears.

"Captain Ōbi never let his lack of pyrokinetic ability stop him from becoming one of the strongest fire soldiers out there. I shouldn't let it stop me either. I will never be as strong as him, but I can learn from him...learn what I can do to help fight alongside my fellow fire soldiers and friends."

Phoenix paused, forcing herself to inhale and exhale slowly and deeply. She chewed the inside of her cheek to stem the tears. She had something important she needed to say, and she could not allow the tears to fall because she did not know if she would be able to stop them for a while.

"I want to be with you. I want things to be like they were between us," she said, her fingers curling into fists while grasping the material of her skirt. Wrinkles in her clothing was the least of her concerns at the moment.

"Things will never be like they were between us," he stated bluntly.

"Oh," she gasped, lowering her line of vision to the ground. Her eyelids blinked fast in an effort to push back the tears but a few drops coursed down her cheeks.

The toes of his shiny patent leather dress shoes came into view as her vision started to blur behind the tears. She did not look up even when she felt his forefinger nudging under her chin. Stubbornly, she kept her head down not wanting to see him, afraid she might lose her tenuous grasp on her emotions completely. If things were truly over between them, why didn't he just leave?

"Hey," Shinra whispered softly, still trying to pry her chin away from her chest. "Look at me."

His request was gentle, pleading. Phoenix reluctantly relaxed her neck muscles permitting him to lift her chin. She held her breath as her eye connected with his.

"Things will be different between us whether we want them to be or not. But that doesn't mean it's all bad. Yes, things have changed, and we've changed. Do you think you're the only one who has been affected by all of this in ways we can never come back from?" he asked her. A genuine question he wanted an answer to as his eyes searched hers.

Phoenix slowly shook her head. His thumb pressed to her chin, tenderly grasping it between his thumb and forefinger in case she tried to look away from him again.

"It just means we have to go from here and make things better," he said, showing a maturity far exceeding hers as of late.

She mutely nodded her head to show her agreement.

"There is one more thing I want to know. Tell me why," Shinra requested. "Why did you want to end things?"

"I just thought..." Her breathy voice died away in an effort to push back her tears. She sniffled, finding her voice again. "I just thought you would be better off without me. Hell, I was scared of myself and didn't understand what was happening to me. I didn't trust myself or know what I was capable of doing. If I had hurt any of you...I wouldn't have been able to live with myself."

"You thought wrong. Your family are the ones you run to when you're hurting and scared, not away from."

"So I've been told," she giggled in an outburst of nervous laughter.

"So there's something I've been meaning to give you," Shinra said, taking his fingers away from her chin but she continued to gaze up at him.

"Oh, yeah? What's that?" she asked, her already tense nerves fraying a little.

Shinra lowered his lips to hers, pressing an innocent and sincere kiss square to her mouth.

"One thing that hasn't changed is how much I love you," he said, putting his arms around her shoulders to give her the hug he had been withholding.

"Oh, Shinra," she whispered through the flood of tears as the dam broke. Her arms hooked around his shoulders, hanging onto him with everything inside of her. "I love you too."


...And now we are back to our regularly scheduled romance between Phoenix and Shinra.