"Come in."
T'seng didn't even look up as the door to his office opened. Unlike President Shinra's, his workplace had a more comfortable, more relaxed atmosphere. Instead of a huge panoramic window view, the walls were colored in a tasteful gray, and the entire room was furnished in matching black leather. On the whole, T'seng never spent much of his money on luxuries for himself, with one exception. His desk. Carved from a single piece of solid mahogany, it was trimmed with black lacquer and silvery adamantium, giving it a distinguished look, while remaining both comfortable and serviceable.
There were times that T'seng felt a twinge of guilt over the desk, but the Ancients knew he deserved something in return for the work and effort he put into his job. His co-workers were constantly telling him to relax, to take a break and go somewhere. They told him he needed a vacation.
But, with his signature stubbornness, T'seng put aside all thoughts of a rest and instead threw himself into his work. Maybe someday, when he finaly retired and would put ShinRa behind him forever-
"Sir?"
A familiar voice cut through his musings. T'seng looked up and nodded at his newest, and youngest, employee.
"Have a seat, Reno," he said, motioning to a pair of black leather chairs in front of the desk.
"Thank you, sir." Reno sat down and looked about him. T'seng could tell that he was terribly uncomfortable, but was unable to pinpoint exactly why.
"What can I do for you?" the leader of the Turks asked conversationally.
"Well, sir, when you came to see me the other day- you- ah-" Reno cursed silently. This wasn't working at all the way he wanted it to. He was struggling to put his thoughts in order when T'seng, with impeccable timing, saved him from making a bloody fool of himself.
"It's been three months now, hasn't it, Reno?" he asked, suddenly understanding what the younger man had come for.
"Sir?"
"Three months since you came here."
"Yes, sir. Just about three months."
"Reno, in those three months I have learned to read you remarkably well, considering the circumstances. And, I have found that I can almost invariably tell when something is troubling you, like it is now."
Reno sat back in his chair and rested his forehead against his fingertips. He let a long moment of silence pass, then spoke.
"How well do you know me, sir?" he asked, lifting his head and looking T'seng directly in the eye.
The leader of the Turks ran a slim hand through his black hair and thought.
"How well do I know you, Reno?" he repeated. "I know that you were born in the slums of Sector Three. I know that you were thrown out into the streets when you were eleven years old. I know that you had a younger sister who you took care of for five years. I know you were part of a gang called the Scavengers. I know that your sister was murdered by a gang from a different Sector."
"In other words," Reno cut in, "you don't know much." T'seng said nothing, inviting him to speak.
"What you don't know," Reno said harshly, "is that my mother died two years after she gave birth to my sister, and we went to live with her brother and his wife. What you don't know is that every night my uncle came home drunk and beat the hell out of anything in his way. Including me. What you don't know is that I let him beat me senseless every night so that he wouldn't hurt my sister. What you don't know is that the night after he threw us out, he killed his wife and two kids then OD'd on drugs.
"What you don't know is how we struggled on the streets for two years, doing everything we could to survive. What you don't know is how I had to stand in the shadows and watch my sister steal from passers-by like I taught her to. What you don't know is how much it hurt to know that I had ruined any chance she might have had to grow up right and good because I never gave her anything but lies. What you don't know is how I did things that are positively unspeakable so that she could eat more than twice a week.
"You don't know that the Scavengers got their name because they were one of the lowest gangs in the hierarchy of the slums. You don't know that I was the one who became their brains and made them stronger. You don't know that when I was sixteen, I was kidnapped in the middle of the night by a rival gang and tortured in an alleyway in front of my sister. You don't know that I was left for dead on the streets after they beat me and killed her.
"There are things about me that no one knows. There are things about me that if you knew, you would be sick to your stomach. There are things about me that still wrench me awake screaming at night. There are things that I wish I had never seen, never known, never lived. But I have. And nothing can change that.
"Rude had said something to me yesterday, when you came to my apartment. He told me that you cared about me. I didn't understand what he meant, at first, because it had been so long since anyone had given a damn about me. I don't know why I decided to come here today, to tell you about me, things no one else had ever known. I just- I knew that you wouldn't laugh at me."
T'seng closed his eyes for a long moment. When he opened them again, Reno was staring back at the ground.
"I shouldn't have wasted your time," the young Turk said and started to rise. "I'm sorry, sir. I should go."
"Wait."
Reno halted in mid-stride and turned, surprised. "Sir?"
"Reno, I told you yesterday, that I would always have the time for another Turk. Did you think that I was lying?"
Reno's silence was his answer.
T'seng sighed. When he spoke, his voice was soft and filled with a kind of distracted pain. "I don't lie, Reno. At least, not to another Turk. You will find that it's the same with Rude. Turks do not lie to each other. Understand me, Reno? We have no other loyalties but to our own, and those ties are stronger than anything you have ever known. I know for certain that Rude would take a bullet for me, if the need should ever present itself.
"We may work for ShinRa on occasion, but in reality, we are an independent faction, and no one on the outside can ever have our complete allegiance. But inside, it is vitally important that we understand how strong our ties are and to what extent they reach. And let me tell you right now, Reno, that my ties to you and Rude and any other Turk cannot be broken. If I was faced with the choice of either killing you or getting killed myself, I'd choose the latter and take out as many of the other bastards as I could. Do you understand me?"
Reno stood there dumbly, at a complete loss for words. He nodded once.
"I can't take away what happened to you, Reno, I can't just erase the past no matter how much I want to. But I can tell you this: give us your loyalty, and I can make sure that none of us will let anyone hurt you again if we can prevent it, so long as you are a Turk."
"Yes, sir." Reno's voice was a dry whisper. "Thank you, sir." T'seng nodded, and the young Turk took his leave.
As soon as Reno left and the door had shut, T'seng leaned back in his chair and raised a single elegant hand to his temple. It never got any easier. Time and time again, he sat there and listened as someone, someone lost and afraid, poured out the contents of his soul to him. Men and women both came to him, knowing that he would listen, that he wouldn't laugh at them. That he would care.
And he did. He cared. He acted as the father to the family that was the Turks. He acted like he remembered his own father acting when he or one of his siblings needed guidance. But that was before everything had been taken from him, before his world had been devoured by the flames.
He still felt them, sometimes, circling him, separating him from his family like an iniquitous wall of hell. He still felt the heat as their red hot tongues licked at him from the walls, from the floor, from all around him.
He remembered how, when the smoke had finaly cleared from his eyes, he found himself alone on the streets. He remembered the hunger, the cold, the fear, but most of all, he remembered wondering why.
Why had he survived? Why hadn't he joined the rest of his family, consumed by the fire, but not alone? Why did the Fates decide that he should be the one to live?
He never found the answers to his questions, no matter how many times he asked. Finaly, he stopped asking altogether. He was alive, and that's all he needed to know. One day, perhaps, one day soon, the Fates would make it clear to him why he had been spared. Until then, T'seng lived his life day in and day out, never complaining, but always wondering.
And until then, T'seng would made sure that none of his employees or fellow Turks would ever have to wonder why no one cared. Because he cared. And he let them know, too. He swore to himself that no Turk would ever feel as lost and as helpless as he had, alone in the streets, so long as he had the power to make it so.
"And maybe one day," he said to no one in particular, "you'll let me know why I survived."