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CHAPTER SEVEN - INSANITY

'I cannot take this anymore ... Saying everything I've said before ... All these words, they make no sense ... I've found bliss in ignorance ... Less I hear, the less you say ... You'll find that out anyway ... Just like before ... Everything you say to me ... Take's me one step closer to the edge ... And I'm about to break ... I need a little room to pray ... 'Cause I'm one step closer to the edge ... And I'm about to break ... I've found the answers aren't so clear ... Wish I could find a way to disappear ... All these thoughts. they make no sense ... I've found bliss in ignorance ... Nothing seems to go away ... Over and over again ... Just like before ... Everything you say to me ... Take's me one step closer to the edge ... And I'm about to break ... I need a little room to pray ... 'Cause I'm one step closer to the edge ... And I'm about to break ... Shut up when I'm talking to you! ... Shut up! ... I'm about to break ... (Linkin Park: 'One Step Closer')'

Gym. Remains of Wall Market. Afternoon.

Reno pounded on the punching bag, unleashing his frustrations on the stuffed column of leather, imagining it was her that he was pounding on. How dare she go running to Reeve to complain about him when she was saying the same things! And to be threatened by Reeve with the excavation of the Shinra building with her- that was just inconceivable!

But that wasn't what was bothering him. When he'd stood there, so close to her, nearly nose-to-nose, with her breath blowing lightly on his face, her scent creeping tantalizingly into his nose, all he could think of, all he could remember, was kissing her. And that part of him that he had been before wanted to do it again. Like he had the first time.

He'd walked her up to her door after their second date. The first date had ended with a pleasant 'Good night' and he'd departed after restraining himself from his desire to kiss her. He didn't know what she was thinking as she stood there this time, but she wasn't making any moves to go inside either. Was that a good sign? He didn't know. He didn't have much experience with women beyond a few drunken one-night stands. He certainly hadn't had to worry about whether or not a 'good night' kiss was going to send them scurrying away from him. But this girl- she was different from them. He worried about what she thought of him, worried that if he tried to move too fast, she'd bolt and run from him. He didn't want that. He truly liked her. Liked her for more than the simple pleasure he could usually find between a woman's legs.

"I had a great time, Nathan." Her voice had broken through his thoughts. She looked at him hesitantly, as if trying to figure out why he had been staring at her, something that he hadn't been aware that he had been doing during his internal debate on whether or not he should kiss her.

'Just ask her.' A voice inside his head screamed at him. 'Ask her?' he'd answered back, amazed at the idea of being chivalrous and actually asking her such a question.

"Tifa." He smiled at her, trying to hide the nervousness. He was acting like a schoolboy, not a twenty year old on a date. "Do you mind if I-" This was crazy. Him, asking her for a kiss! "If I kiss you good night?" As soon as the words had left his mouth, he'd felt foolish, waiting for her to say no.

She'd smiled at him then as she responded with, "I'd like that."

Relief washed over him as he had leaned over and given her a very soft kiss on the lips, nothing more than that. But it was enough for him to feel the softness of her lips against his own, to feel her breath, and to have her scent permanently embedded in his mind.

"Fuck." That's all he'd wanted to do again. Kiss her. But instead, all he'd managed were those hateful words, 'I may have fucked you once, but I'm not above killing you now.' He moved to pound on the bag again, trying to replace those words echoing in his mind.

He threw all of his weight, which admittedly, wasn't all that much, into the next punch in an attempt to force away the memory only to find that the bag appeared to be stationary and that he suddenly felt like he had pounded on a brick wall.

He cursed loudly as he rubbed his aching arm that had absorbed the impact of his last punch. "Fuck. You could at least warn a guy before he punches a brick wall."

Rude shrugged as he released the punching bag. "Pay attention, Reno."

Reno snorted. "You sound like Tseng."

"And you shouldn't be so hard on Tifa." Rude said as he emerged from behind the punching bag that he had been holding.

So that was the reason for Rude's visit. He rarely disturbed Reno during a workout, but apparently Rude was trying to play peacekeeper. "I know what you're thinking, Rude, but that doesn't mean that I have to be nice to Ms. High and Mighty."

"I said not to be so hard on her." Rude responded.

"Same fucking difference."

"No."

Reno growled. Sometimes talking to Rude was the same as talking to a brick wall, and it was rare that he ran into two of them in the same day. He rubbed his shoulder that still ached from his encounter with the first one. "So tell me, Mr. Smarty Pants, what's the difference?"

"Try to understand. She's lost everything."

"That's rich, Rude. We all have."

"The Turks still have each other." Rude's tone was unwavering. His tone rarely changed from being flat and unemotional. Only when Rude was truly wasted or truly hurting did his tone ever change, and that was something that Reno had only seen happen twice.

"Now you sound like one of Elena's fucking self-help books." Reno grabbed his tank shirt from the nearby metal bar and pulled it over his head. Gone was the blue suit of the Turks. As much as he'd hated to abandon the first and only symbol of structure in his life, it hadn't been practical for the current efforts. He now wore faded jeans, scrounged from the small amount of luggage he had carried with him throughout their travels.

"Don't be hard on her because she doesn't have any friends." Reno mimicked the tone of the countless books Elena had left laying around the Turks' Lounge.

"It's not my fault she couldn't handle me and my world and decided to associate with all those Rebel assholes." Reno stopped for a moment, realizing what he had just said. Realizing that a small piece of the hurt he'd been carrying around with him had just slipped out. He silently muttered an angry curse to his head for allowing his heart to speak for him. It had been her nearness earlier. Her closeness. He cursed himself again for letting himself get that close to her.

Rude backed away from Reno as the scent of his friend's unwashed, sweaty clothes accosted his nose.

"When Reeve opens the Midgar Dry Cleaners, I'll make sure Elena's the first in line with my laundry." Reno smirked as he saw Rude back away. He knew he smelled awful. They all did. Sweat mixed with dirt and ash from the rubble, mixed with blood from injuries before and now during the cleanup, did not make for clean bodies.

Rude rolled his eyes behind his sunglasses and stated dryly. "I'm sure she'll appreciate that."

Reno wiped the sardonic smirk from his face as he continued, changing the thread of conversation that his heart had allowed to slip out. "But there's something I don't understand."

Rude looked at him, and it was only because Reno had known the other man for so long that he knew the unspoken request that begged for Reno to continue.

"She killed Suni. She killed your wife, Rude." Reno stated in an attempt to talk some sense into his friend, to make him remember. He himself missed the woman with the sunny disposition. She had been one of the few people that went beyond just tolerating him, but even tried to include him. And he dared to think that maybe she even liked him. But Sunami, or Suni as she preferred to be called, was gone. Killed in the explosion of the Sector Five Reactor where she had worked the evening shift. She and Rude had been an unexpected couple, as different as night and day. Suni had been outspoken and outgoing, whereas her mate was stoic, introverted and tacit.

"It was Shinra." Rude spoke softly, but convincingly. He spoke like a man who had faced his demons head on and was ready to move forward with whatever life decided to hand him.

"Shinra didn't blow up the Sector Five Reactor."

Rude shook his head. "Shinra created everything that we are. From the Mako Reactors to the destruction around us. Think about it, Reno."

This was crazy. Reno had never seen Rude behave so strangely. Or speak so much.

"Maybe you should think about it, Rude." Reno's tone was laced with the unspoken sentiment that Rude had just spoken blasphemy.

"I have." Rude smiled a rare smile, remembering the graceful tilt of Suni's head and the contagious smile that went straight to her eyes that she always bore for all around her.

Holy, how he had loved her, and not a day went by that he didn't mourn her, but life in the slums and in the dangerous world of Shinra had taught him well, and he had long ago learned that you took the good with the bad and cherished the good memories as they dwelt side by side with the bad. Suni was gone, and nothing was going to bring her back. He hurt and he grieved, but Suni would've wanted him to continue on. She would've wanted him to be happy. Just as he would've wanted her to continue on if something had happened to him.

As a Turk, he'd lived on the edge of danger every day. She had known that he might not come back to her at the end of the day or the end of an assignment, and she had accepted that. Suni was now a part of the past, and there was no use looking to that past when there was a future still ahead for the living. That was something that Rude knew that Reno had yet to comprehend.

"But I don't blame Tifa for her death." Rude's tone was soft, but firm. "You shouldn't let your personal feelings cloud your judgment. It's a second chance for all of us."

"You're fucking insane." Reno knew that, despite the fact that she had left him because he was a Turk, Rude still liked Tifa for the almost peaceful side that she had brought out in him. Granted, Rude was older and wiser and often saw the world with a different slant, but Reno couldn't believe the bullshit that he was hearing.

He turned and walked out the door and towards the bar, shaking his head. Maybe in a glass of that comforting amber liquid he could find something that held some semblance of normality. Because the rest of his life sure didn't.