"What are ya doing here?"

Startled, Rufus looked up from where he lay curled on the floor. He winced involuntarily, thinking it was his father. Instead, he looked into a pair of amazingly intense green eyes, partially covered by a shock of fiery hair.

"I asked you a question, kid," the man said, tapping a long rod against his leg. "Whatcha doing in here?" He narrowed his eyes. The boy had to be the President's whelp, Rufus Shinra. He had his father's blond hair and good looks. At least, he would have if his lip hadn't been split and if the entire left side of his face hadn't been swollen.

"I-I-" Rufus shook his head, unable to come up with an explanation. "I'm sorry, sir. I'll get out of your way." Slowly, painfully, he tried to stand but only got as far as his knees when a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"Hold on, kid." The man tilted the boy's face to the light and examined the damage. "What the hell happened to ya?"

Rufus shrugged and turned his face away. "I got in a fight," he said softly.

The man studied the boy. He didn't like it when people lied to him, but it was pretty easy to guess what had really happened. And if that was the case, then he didn't blame the boy for lying.

"So where were ya going when ya decided to stop in the middle of my hallway?" A slight embellishment. The hallway wasn't really his, but it was his favorite place to go and think when he needed to.

No answer. Instead, two tears leaked past the boy's eyes and dripped onto his clothes. He sniffed and wiped his eyes as he tried to come up with a plausible answer to the man's questions.

"Ah, never mind. I'll just get ya cleaned up and get ya the hell outta here." The man stood Rufus on his feet, but before either of them could take more than a single step, a door opened beside Rufus.

"What is going on here?" a voice hissed from inside. Moments later, a man dressed in a lab coat stepped out and peered at the man and boy.

"Nothing, Hojo. Jes' getting this boy here taken care of." Hojo glanced at the boy again, then turned away indifferently.

"Rufus!"

The boy cringed at the sound of his name being roared through the corridors. Hojo and the other man spun around in time to see President Shinra storming down the long hallway in search of his son.

"Rufus! There you are, boy." Shinra grabbed the boy's wrist and jerked him away from the man's grasp. "What the hell are you doing?" Rufus shook his head and looked at the ground.

"Answer me!" Shinra backhanded his son with such force that the other man raised an eyebrow.

Rufus just whimpered and held a trembling hand to his bleeding lip. Seeing as he wasn't going to get an answer from his son, Shinra turned to the other man. "What was going on here?" he demanded.

"I found your son curled up in the hallway, here," the man said calmly, resting his weapon over one shoulder. "Seeing as he was obstructing the way, I was going to take him elsewhere." Shrugging, he turned and walked away, his blue, un-buttoned jacket streaming behind him.

"And you?" snapped Shinra, spinning around to face the Hojo.

The scientist shrugged. "I need complete and total concentration to execute my work," he said. "And with these two making such a commotion right outside my lab, that proved to be impossible. I was about to ask them to leave."

Snarling, the president turned away, dragging the boy along beside him. Rufus shivered, a cold knot of dread settling in his heart, as his father slammed the door to his office.

"Now," Shinra said, throwing the boy to the floor in the middle of the room. "I'll teach you never to make a nuisance of yourself again..."