Digging Deeper
"Dad, will you-... Dad just take a deep breath, centre yourself. I know you're worried but I'm being careful," I got myself into my apartment and dropped my bag on the floor, turning and locking everything up before pulling off my jacket.
"Nevina they could be listening to you right now," my dad was, understandably, worrying about my situation. I was worried he was getting himself too worked up but, parents are parents, I'd be worried if he wasn't.
"My phone's a secure line, I'd made sure of that," I insisted. I'd opted to leave out the fact that Reno had confronted me over looking at the Nibelheim files a few days back. That was worry they didn't need. Annoying since they could sense someone being hidden from them but couldn't pry. "Look, I thought I'd just tell you what happened that night. It'd been bothering me and, you know, maybe nothing will come of it."
"Sweetheart you can't be certain of that," Dad continued. I sighed and walked to my kitchen to put my kettle on. "Anything to do with Shinra, Soldier, Turks... you know you can't just walk away from that." I sighed again, knowing where this was going. "I know you made your choice, and I respect that, but-"
"Dad, don't," I weakly pleaded. "It's... it's nearly been a year. Nothing has happened since then, except this... unknown. I know he's not Soldier, I don't know what he gained from lying to his team like that but it felt odd that they would appear in the middle of a night, during my shift, and suddenly he knows things of Shinra when he wasn't First Class."
"What about the woman you said was with him?"
"She didn't say anything... she didn't recognise me either so, I dunno," I shrugged. "Dad can you Mum on the phone before I go? I'll need to make something to eat soon I'm starving."
"Okay sweetheart but... just be careful, okay? I love you."
"Love you too, bye," I heard shuffling and the phone exchange hands.
"Hi darling," Mum said.
"Hey. Sorry about worrying the two of you. I just thought the situation was odd and, well, you were already picking up on it," I said.
"You're our little girl, no matter how old you get. Of course we'll worry and we'll always worry about this situation," I nodded absently at her words. "We'll try not to be broken records over it; you know how we feel about the entire situation."
"I know what I got myself into, Mum," I felt like a broken record on the matter, too, but they needed the reassurance. "I'll be fine, okay? I need to go but I'll talk to you later, okay? Love you."
"Love you too, Nevi," I hung up and put my phone on the counter, quickly glancing to see if anyone had tried to message me but there was nothing. I made myself something quick to tide me over and headed to my laptop, popping in the memory stick I had taken from my pocket, heading to check the news about the ceremony in Junon since I'd missed it. I watched some footage and everything looked all shiny and lovely on the surface despite the rumours circulating about the people in cloaks and the damage the main Midgar building has suffered.
While I caught up with the newsfeed, in the background of my laptop, it was downloading more files. I clicked back and forth from windows to check it was loading and, as soon as it finished, I moved it over into the memory stick and deleted it from the laptop's drive, clearing any traces of my access, and closing my back door. I checked to see if there was any updates on Sephiroth's whereabouts, or the group Avalanche. No finalised reports but rough outlines of the scenario: eyewitness accounts and a number of squads who went to investigate where killed. There was a map of the attacks and their times to see if there was a pattern. All in the upper city, crossing from one end to the other and ending at the harbour. All of this seemed to happen around the time of the ceremony but stopping an hour or so before Rufus Shinra boarded the ship and set out for Costa Del Sol. There were zero sighting of Avalanche in the city. I also spotted a footnote regarding Hojo's resignation shortly after President Shinra's death and a possible connection. I frowned, knowing the possibility of Hojo's involvement was almost absolutely certain.
After reading through the updates I closed the file, moving into another folder, slowly looking through its contents. Nothing directly regarding current events but it still centred me somewhat. That's what I needed to do, just ground myself. I knew right now I'd be grasping at straws and the bigger picture hadn't been brought to light yet but I had to know what was happening. I'd went this far, anyway.
My main problem was that my resources were limited. I'd managed to work around the authorities before but back then I had support. As Reno said the Turks could only cover me for so long. I could almost see the exact path laid out before me, just as before, and was already coming to terms with how it would be. Some things, I knew, would happen whether I wanted them to or not, such is life.
Ideally for answers I would have to go to Nibelheim, right to the source of the experiments. I knew I'd get a clearer answer there but I couldn't just up and book a trip to the next continent over without arousing suspicion and running into Shinra. Another part of me wanted to go to Banora but I knew it would only upset me to go there. I sighed to myself and looked around my apartment. I was at a complete loss as to what I should do. The sensible thing would be to wait, take a breath, and watch how things unfold then act accordingly.
After I finished eating and tidied up I decided to settle down for the night. I knew that the best thing to do was to put this on the back burner since there was no point in letting this upset or frustrate me. I'd have to play the waiting game for now, wait for more information, wait for an opportunity to present itself. I'd watched others play the waiting game, their anxiety and their stresses being pushed down as they focused on their goal. I've had to be the one to talk and soothe the worries of those around me, be the support they needed to go on. Now I was by myself because we were all walking on thin ice.
I checked to see if any old films were on the TV. There was little point in worrying about things before my control. I may not know what I can do yet but I'll figure it out.
Sorry this has been on a long hiatus I'm trying to get back into the swing of things after having a kind of rough time recently, but still sorry for people following I do feel bad.
