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CHAPTER THIRTEEN - PENANCE
'Clean … The cleanest I've been … An end to the tears … And the in-between years … And the troubles I've seen … Now that I'm clean … You know what I mean … I've broken my fall … Put an end to it all … I've changed my routine … Now I'm clean … I don't understand … What destiny's planned … I'm starting to grasp … What is in my own hands … I don't claim to know … Where my holiness goes … I just know that I like … What is starting to show … Sometimes … As years go by … All the feelings inside … Twist and they turn … As they ride with the tide … I don't advise … And I don't criticize … I just know what I like … With my own eyes … Sometimes … Sometimes … (Depeche Mode: 'Clean')'
Shantytown. Reno's Tent. Night.
He tossed and turned, his mind unable to release the thoughts that plagued him and let him fall asleep. Normally, he had no problems sleeping; his body sore and tired from a day of hard work, but tonight… tonight was different. His jaw ached where Tifa had decked him, leaving him the painful reminder that she was perfectly capable of kicking his ass if she chose to.
But that's not what was keeping him awake, and he knew it. It was the memories she had evoked in him when he had confronted her again, driven by the alcohol in his system. The feel of her skin beneath his caresses still lingered on his fingertips and he touched them, rubbing them, trying to wipe away the sensory imprint of her against his skin.
Holy, what had he been thinking? Touching her like that. Letting himself get lost in the memory. He was stronger than that. He had long ago learned to lock that frivolous nonsense inside, to be cold and numb. He was a Turk. He had killed people in cold blood, taken sleeping children to Professor Hojo's lab to be used in the madman's twisted experiments, extorted, threatened, and spied.
He growled as he pulled himself to a seated position, the blankets pooling around his waist as he held his head in his hands, flinching when he pressed too hard against the sore spot on his jaw line. He was going soft. He tried placing the blame on her presence. He pressed against the sore spot again, this time almost enjoying the pain. Although tonight had dredged up memories he would rather have forgotten, of a time where he had found an escape from the dirty work that he did, where he had been able to forget for a brief time that he was a Turk, he knew that it wasn't just Tifa causing this churning- dare he call it emotion- within him.
It was this place, this work. He was no longer a hired assassin, the cold killer who could kill for money and rest easy at night. He wasn't doing what he did best. That was his apparent penance for carrying out Shinra's orders with meticulous precision. For delivering Shinra's carefully orchestrated plot of world domination to the masses. He was now nothing more than a highly glorified janitor, working to clean up the mess that he had helped bring onto this city under the now-flimsy guise of "just doing his job".
He jammed his fingers through his tangle of red hair and sat up straighter as he reached for the mangled pack of cigarettes next to the cot he slept on. He slid the lighter from the pack along with a cigarette. His hands shook as he fumbled while lighting the thin cylinder, a task that he had done thousands of times before. Even when drunk off his ass, he rarely had problems performing the task that was as automatic as breathing to him.
But tonight the emotions collided within him, bringing to him sleeplessness and a loss of coordination. He cursed her then. Cursed her for staying. Cursed her for not staying out of his way. Cursed himself for not avoiding her as he'd originally intended. Cursed himself for letting him feel something for her so long ago.
He took a long drag from the cigarette, letting his mind wander to anywhere, anything, but her. 'Midgar. Fixate on that.' Though he tried, even that stirred up emotions that were better left locked away. His childhood in the slums, his parents' death… he shook his head to clear those memories, moving forward to his days with Shinra and the sense of belonging he had felt, despite the demands of his job. But now, while it hadn't been officially declared, it was becoming more and more recognized that the Turks were nothing more than another memory of Shinra's golden age, existing now in name only. Because of that none of them were quite certain where they would fall in the new Midgar. And he as their leader, found it very hard to fill Tseng's shoes now that Shinra had fallen.
He didn't worry much about Elena. Although he would never admit it to her, he had extreme confidence in her ability. She made a good Turk, and while she wasn't aware of it, he knew all about the blackmail stunt she had pulled with Tseng in order to become one. Fortunately for her, Tseng also had possessed confidence in her ability, and had admired her spine for daring to blackmail him. Otherwise she wouldn't even be alive today. She was a lethal shot with a gun, and she had excellent organizational skills. He'd coerced her several times into filing his reports with Tseng, stating that was the job of the "rookie". He was brilliant at the dirty work, but the whole concept of paperwork confounded him.
Rude, however, was another matter. The man was strong and good at hiding, and while he said he didn't blame anyone for Suni's death, Reno knew it had hit the man harder than he would ever admit. As Sector Five's reactor exploded in a brilliant fireball, Reno had found his friend in his office, his head hung, defeated, as he stared out the window. Rude had looked up as Reno entered and where normally the stoic man would've placed the stone mask he wore to hide the pain, this time he hadn't. It had never been spoken between them, but Reno was certain that Rude just hadn't been able to that time. Suni had been his life.
He had noticed the phone's receiver lying haphazardly on the desk, as though it had been dropped after a vain attempt to save her. But he understood. Reno would never admit to it, but he himself had made both an uncompleted phone call and then a mad dash down the hallway towards Rude's office as the news of Sector Five's imminent explosion came in from their operative in Avalanche. But he too had been too late.
He sighed in frustration as he lay back down, aquamarine eyes staring at the canvas ceiling of the tent, shuddering as the realization hit him. Elena was rapidly becoming Reeve's personal assistant and second-in-command, if his leaving her in charge during his recent absence was any indication. Rude was dealing with his own pain in his own way, and had taken on the role of personal counselor as some sort of twisted therapy. Tifa was in charge of making the mines safe, but he didn't know where he fit in to this grand scheme. It was something new. Rude was right. The past was gone and, without the security blanket of Shinra and the Turks, for the first time in a long time Nathan Reno felt utterly lost.