-Disclaimer- I do not own Final Fantasy Seven, nor do I own its places and characters.
Author's Note: Another short one. As mentioned, this is the last chapter and from Reno's POV. Sorry about the mistake, but this will be nine parts, not eleven. I've been debating this for some time, and the alternate endings will stay on my hard drive. Thank you for reading, and enjoy the finale of 'Angel.' This will show the softer and deeper side to Reno.
Epilogue
I looked at the engraved letters, etched heavily in the faded concrete sticking out of the grass. Waves crashed against the shoreline a ways away, but they were of no comfort to me.
That had been so long ago. . .
"That long?" came the soft query from beside me.
I simply nodded, eyes fixed upon the gravestone. 'That long' happened to be a long time.
A century.
One hundred years, and I had still failed to pass into the Lifestream.
I still looked the same as always, though my hair was neat and my clothes had a darker shade now. I remember, this day in the beginning of autumn, I wore my favorite, thin, black leather jacket.
My head was hung, silence being respectfully paid to the fallen.
My hands were in sharp contrast to the faded, now bronze-colored ring around the finger on my left hand, worn to a near-brown from working in the field I owned.
One hundred years seemed a long time, but when someone pulled back and looked at the time, not much could happen in that time to make a Planet-changing difference. One hundred years was just that, ticked away on the scale of history, but not going down as a major achieving time.
If they'd given me another century, and I would have bored myself to death.
But it seemed like too long in one or more ways.
A cold hand gripped my shoulder lightly, and I again felt the mist biting at my ice-like eyes. That hand had always seemed to be there when needed, one I was thankful for.
I looked up a bit, to see the leaves turning to yellow and in some places red, signifying August was upon us again. I could almost smile at the picture it painted, but not at that time.
I couldn't smile at anything right then.
But then I did smile as I looked to my right, to the face behind the hand upon my shoulder. Vincent Valentine looked back with that same impassive face, though in his eyes was a look of nothing but understanding.
So much had happened in a century, I wouldn't know where to begin even at this date. ShinRa had fallen again, and many new cities had popped up. The Mako Reactors were all gone, as everyone knew, and few had even heard of Materia by now.
The Turks were dead, the team and the people, save for myself.
I had, as Vincent said, outlived everyone I cared for and whom cared for me, but truly, I wouldn't change a thing that had happened in that time. So much hadn't happened, but what did was overly-Utopian.
"I can see you need a few minutes."
The hand left my shoulder, my eyes still damp from the unshed tears, but I no longer felt I needed to be perfect and unemotional.
Sephiroth had failed to make a come-back again, if you are interested, and nothing odd had come from the Lifestream, to my knowledge.
Tseng had visited many times in those hundred years, maybe to reminisce, maybe to look on to the future.
I learned that, when my time came, and if it did, I would be one of the lucky ones who got to make a few visits inside the Lifestream.
Many might ask, why I didn't just end it then, so I could be with her again?
That night she made me the promise, all those years ago, I had silently made one to myself, and I'd resisted the urge to break it for that long.
Believe me, it wasn't as easy as it sounds to keep myself alive as I could be.
I took the crimson red rose from my pocket, where I'd been holding it for the last few hours, but it was still more alive than I, and stared at it for a moment.
The custom hadn't faded with many other things on the Planet.
I knelt slowly and placed the plant gently on the stone platform jutting out, made for such things, and stood back up again.
In doing this, I looked at the stone figure perched on a pedestal, more of a kind of Jane Doe than a person. I liked to imagine a part of her trapped inside this, looking down on me every day for the last century.
I took my time in looking into the eyes of the chipped stone form standing infront of me, and unexpectedly, my first smile of the day came with the first hot path running down the side of my face.
I didn't exactly feel the continuation of tears; more like sensed it without knowing even that.
Once, this statue had been absolutely perfect in every way, but now the weather and age showed on it. Pieces were worn off by wind, rain had caused a bit of erosion, and sometimes the blizzards would be just too much and it would fall over, leaving me with the job of uprighting it again.
Infront of me, though, this angel looked as perfect as she had looked that first day in the bar.
I can remember, not two years after that, almost every feature of her visage as she gazed into my eyes that single day, standing infront of everyone we'd know throughout life. Even Rude had made an appearance, and forced Elena to come as well.
And, three years to the day from that month, as odd as it seems, I remember how I couldn't even put into words how beautiful she'd looked, even worn to her last ounce of energy.
The other eye had started its own small path of tears, stopping to drop from my chin onto the collar of my jacket.
I can remember, those years we'd been together, nearly everything, from the Den to the funeral.
And I wouldn't change any of it.
All through it, she'd never minded my condition, for she had put it in these exact words:
"If it happened to me, I can tell it would not affect us, but it happened to you, and I think the rule stays the same."
Indeed, she hit the nail on the head with that one, and I've never forgotten that one phrase.
"Are you ready?" Vincent's voice was welcomed, but I would've given a lot for just another few moments inside the graveyard.
I nodded and wiped at my face with the neck of my shirt, then turned on the ball of my heel and strode past him with as much happiness as I could muster, leaving behind the stone engraved with this:
Tifa Drannor
Loving Mother and Wife
May 3, 2065 - August 9, 2102
"You will never be forgotten.
Part-time Mother.
Part-time Wife.
Full-time Angel."
For the record, I was stricken down with a terminal illness seventy-eight years after that, and today, I live as one of the luckier ones in the Lifestream.
I couldn't be happier.
-~End~-
Author's Note: It was a bit hard to end this, and as much as I wanted to continue, I knew it wouldn't be as good if I did. I estimated the date, so. . .
Thanks from Haze to: W A F F L E, for helping me with the fight scenes between ViYlic and Andreeson, Reno and Sphiroth. Ultima, for trying his hardest to get me more readers. All of the readers who went from beginning to end without hating me in the process. Everyone else who motivated, helped, and inspired me to write this. Bascially, if you read even a chapter, thanks goes to you.
'Til next Fic,
-=Haze=-
.Exo. - 2003
"If it's good, you'll read it. If it's bad, you'll want the author's head on a stick. If you couldn't decide, you're one of the more untellegent readers out there." -- Exonym Cerebrus/Myself
Author's Note: Another short one. As mentioned, this is the last chapter and from Reno's POV. Sorry about the mistake, but this will be nine parts, not eleven. I've been debating this for some time, and the alternate endings will stay on my hard drive. Thank you for reading, and enjoy the finale of 'Angel.' This will show the softer and deeper side to Reno.
Epilogue
I looked at the engraved letters, etched heavily in the faded concrete sticking out of the grass. Waves crashed against the shoreline a ways away, but they were of no comfort to me.
That had been so long ago. . .
"That long?" came the soft query from beside me.
I simply nodded, eyes fixed upon the gravestone. 'That long' happened to be a long time.
A century.
One hundred years, and I had still failed to pass into the Lifestream.
I still looked the same as always, though my hair was neat and my clothes had a darker shade now. I remember, this day in the beginning of autumn, I wore my favorite, thin, black leather jacket.
My head was hung, silence being respectfully paid to the fallen.
My hands were in sharp contrast to the faded, now bronze-colored ring around the finger on my left hand, worn to a near-brown from working in the field I owned.
One hundred years seemed a long time, but when someone pulled back and looked at the time, not much could happen in that time to make a Planet-changing difference. One hundred years was just that, ticked away on the scale of history, but not going down as a major achieving time.
If they'd given me another century, and I would have bored myself to death.
But it seemed like too long in one or more ways.
A cold hand gripped my shoulder lightly, and I again felt the mist biting at my ice-like eyes. That hand had always seemed to be there when needed, one I was thankful for.
I looked up a bit, to see the leaves turning to yellow and in some places red, signifying August was upon us again. I could almost smile at the picture it painted, but not at that time.
I couldn't smile at anything right then.
But then I did smile as I looked to my right, to the face behind the hand upon my shoulder. Vincent Valentine looked back with that same impassive face, though in his eyes was a look of nothing but understanding.
So much had happened in a century, I wouldn't know where to begin even at this date. ShinRa had fallen again, and many new cities had popped up. The Mako Reactors were all gone, as everyone knew, and few had even heard of Materia by now.
The Turks were dead, the team and the people, save for myself.
I had, as Vincent said, outlived everyone I cared for and whom cared for me, but truly, I wouldn't change a thing that had happened in that time. So much hadn't happened, but what did was overly-Utopian.
"I can see you need a few minutes."
The hand left my shoulder, my eyes still damp from the unshed tears, but I no longer felt I needed to be perfect and unemotional.
Sephiroth had failed to make a come-back again, if you are interested, and nothing odd had come from the Lifestream, to my knowledge.
Tseng had visited many times in those hundred years, maybe to reminisce, maybe to look on to the future.
I learned that, when my time came, and if it did, I would be one of the lucky ones who got to make a few visits inside the Lifestream.
Many might ask, why I didn't just end it then, so I could be with her again?
That night she made me the promise, all those years ago, I had silently made one to myself, and I'd resisted the urge to break it for that long.
Believe me, it wasn't as easy as it sounds to keep myself alive as I could be.
I took the crimson red rose from my pocket, where I'd been holding it for the last few hours, but it was still more alive than I, and stared at it for a moment.
The custom hadn't faded with many other things on the Planet.
I knelt slowly and placed the plant gently on the stone platform jutting out, made for such things, and stood back up again.
In doing this, I looked at the stone figure perched on a pedestal, more of a kind of Jane Doe than a person. I liked to imagine a part of her trapped inside this, looking down on me every day for the last century.
I took my time in looking into the eyes of the chipped stone form standing infront of me, and unexpectedly, my first smile of the day came with the first hot path running down the side of my face.
I didn't exactly feel the continuation of tears; more like sensed it without knowing even that.
Once, this statue had been absolutely perfect in every way, but now the weather and age showed on it. Pieces were worn off by wind, rain had caused a bit of erosion, and sometimes the blizzards would be just too much and it would fall over, leaving me with the job of uprighting it again.
Infront of me, though, this angel looked as perfect as she had looked that first day in the bar.
I can remember, not two years after that, almost every feature of her visage as she gazed into my eyes that single day, standing infront of everyone we'd know throughout life. Even Rude had made an appearance, and forced Elena to come as well.
And, three years to the day from that month, as odd as it seems, I remember how I couldn't even put into words how beautiful she'd looked, even worn to her last ounce of energy.
The other eye had started its own small path of tears, stopping to drop from my chin onto the collar of my jacket.
I can remember, those years we'd been together, nearly everything, from the Den to the funeral.
And I wouldn't change any of it.
All through it, she'd never minded my condition, for she had put it in these exact words:
"If it happened to me, I can tell it would not affect us, but it happened to you, and I think the rule stays the same."
Indeed, she hit the nail on the head with that one, and I've never forgotten that one phrase.
"Are you ready?" Vincent's voice was welcomed, but I would've given a lot for just another few moments inside the graveyard.
I nodded and wiped at my face with the neck of my shirt, then turned on the ball of my heel and strode past him with as much happiness as I could muster, leaving behind the stone engraved with this:
Tifa Drannor
Loving Mother and Wife
May 3, 2065 - August 9, 2102
"You will never be forgotten.
Part-time Mother.
Part-time Wife.
Full-time Angel."
For the record, I was stricken down with a terminal illness seventy-eight years after that, and today, I live as one of the luckier ones in the Lifestream.
I couldn't be happier.
-~End~-
Author's Note: It was a bit hard to end this, and as much as I wanted to continue, I knew it wouldn't be as good if I did. I estimated the date, so. . .
Thanks from Haze to: W A F F L E, for helping me with the fight scenes between ViYlic and Andreeson, Reno and Sphiroth. Ultima, for trying his hardest to get me more readers. All of the readers who went from beginning to end without hating me in the process. Everyone else who motivated, helped, and inspired me to write this. Bascially, if you read even a chapter, thanks goes to you.
'Til next Fic,
-=Haze=-
.Exo. - 2003
"If it's good, you'll read it. If it's bad, you'll want the author's head on a stick. If you couldn't decide, you're one of the more untellegent readers out there." -- Exonym Cerebrus/Myself