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CHAPTER TWENTY - UNCOVERED
'What else should I be ... All apologies ... What else should I say ... Everyone is gay ... What else could I write ... I don't have the right ... What else should I be ... All apologies ... In the sun ... In the sun I feed as one ... I wish I was like you ... Easily amused ... Find my nest of salt ... Everything is my fault ... I'll take all the blame ... Aqua sea foam shame ... Sunburn with freezeburn ... Choking on the ashes of her enemy ... All alone is all we are ... (Nirvana: 'All Apologies')'
North Corel. Mayor's Home. Evening.
After Reno's sullen departure, the remaining members of the group from Midgar had moved inside Barrett's home and were comfortably seated on soft furniture. Elmyra had done wonders with Barrett's home, and she was currently serving the group lemonade and cookies.
"Tifa!" Marlene shouted excitedly as she ran from the doorway of the living room and launched herself into Tifa's lap.
"Marlene." Barrett tried to look stern in order to reprimand his daughter for her acrobatics into the young woman's lap, but Tifa had already enveloped Marlene into a hug.
"Hey, Marlene! Have you been keeping your dad out of trouble?" Tifa asked the young girl, amazed at how much she'd grown in the last year.
Marlene nodded. "I've been teaching him how to talk right and to watch his temper."
Tifa smiled. "He told me. You should be proud of him."
Marlene nodded. "Miss Elmyra and I have been decorating!"
Tifa looked around the room and noticed Barrett watching the exchange between herself and his daughter with pride in his eyes. "It's very pretty in here."
Marlene smiled at the compliment and whispered, "Is that Jessie?"
"Yes, it is." Tifa wrapped her arms around the girl as she sat on her lap and whispered, "I don't think your dad's going to be happy hearing her story though."
Jessie sat across the room from Tifa and Marlene, looking and feeling very small as the large chair seemed to envelop and hide her. While she knew Tifa was on her side, she was nevertheless worried about Barrett's reaction. She was also concerned about her brother's sudden flare up of temper, and hoped that he was okay. She knew this was where it all happened, and she understood each's reluctance at forgiving the other, but she also knew that both of them had the perfect opportunity to put the past behind them, right here where it had all ended. If only they'd both stop being so stubborn.
"Jessie." Barrett spoke to her, knocking her out of her reverie. She sighed quietly to herself. Too much heartache and too many secrets, but now was the time to unburden herself and put one of those secrets to rest.
Jessie smiled nervously. "Yes, Barrett?"
"You're alive. How'd you manage that?"
"The Turks rescued me." He'd asked a question, so she answered it honestly, but waiting for the torrent of temper that was sure to come from Barrett. He'd never been known for his patience or long fuse.
Barrett turned red beneath his dark skin, forgetting himself and dropping back into his normal speech patterns. "Turks?! What dem damn Turks got to do with it?!"
Jessie spoke softly. "I was one, a honorary one at least."
Barrett rose from his seat and turned towards the door. "A Turk! I trusted ya!"
"Barrett." Tifa spoke softly. "There's more to it than that. Listen to what she has to say. Please?"
"I always believed in our cause, Barrett." Jessie spoke, finding some strength from a inner pool buried deep inside herself. "What Shinra was doing with the Mako Reactors was wrong."
Barrett glowered at Jessie and Tifa both, "Damned Shinra! In my own group!"
"I'm not proud of what I did." Jessie frowned. "But there was more to it than what you think. I wasn't asked to infiltrate Avalanche to spy for Shinra. That was only secondary, and what I received from them in gaining access to the Reactors was far greater than they ever received from me."
Barrett stood there silently, not moving any further towards the door. Jessie took this as a sign that he was waiting for her to continue.
"Like the rest of you, my life before Avalanche wasn't very good. I grew up in the slums, and from the night that our parents died my brother and I took care of each other before he was forced into Soldier. After that, I ended up in the Honey Bee Inn. I just needed to be off the streets."
Something started to soften in Barrett, hearing that the girl had ended up in Corneo's filthy den of avarice, but there was no way in Meteor that he would let her see it. He wanted to hear the rest of her story.
"Soon after my brother was promoted to second-in-command of the Turks Avalanche's fliers started appearing all over the place." Jessie smiled. "I'd seen them, and while I usually had information to give to my brother about the various problems in the slums, I had nothing on Avalanche, except the personal conviction that you were right."
"Who's he?" Barrett asked, looking for an answer as to just which Turk Jessie's brother was, already suspecting that it was the volatile Turk that he had encountered earlier.
"Nathan Reno." Jessie said proudly. She was proud of her brother, even if Barrett would never understand that. Nathan was her twin, the one person in the world that understood her better than anyone else.
"Ya gave away information to the Shinra!" Barrett waved his gun arm in the air, exploding again upon hearing that Reno was the brother of one of his group's members, and that she had passed up information to him prior to joining Avalanche.
"Papa!" Marlene rushed over to him and threw her arms around him, in an attempt to calm him down. He usually had a hard time staying angry when his little girl was hugging him.
"Barrett." Tifa spoke gently. "Please let Jessie finish. She's already said that she got more information from them to help us than she ever gave them."
Barrett picked up Marlene and lifted her to his shoulder as he stood there, glowering at Jessie and Tifa both. He glanced over to Reeve and Cait Sith, the former was seated quietly on the sofa with Tifa sipping his lemonade and the latter stood quietly in the corner, remembering how Cait had spied on Avalanche as well.
When she noticed that Barrett had calmed somewhat again, Jessie continued. "Yes, Nathan is my brother, and he did convince Tseng to train me to infiltrate Avalanche, but Nathan knew that I believed in your cause. He only wanted me out of the Honey Bee Inn." Jessie paused, watching Barrett's face remain impassive. "I can't say that I never gave them information. I did tell them of the impending Reactor Five explosion, but it was after the bomb was set."
Barrett's face turned red with fury. "Reactor Five! Ya almost got us killed by dat robot thing!"
Jessie frowned as Barrett spoke. "I was only trying to save a friend."
"Damned Shinra!!" Barrett would hear none of it. "All of dem shoulda died!"
Reeve turned a pasty white at Barrett's words.
Tifa spoke softly, seeing Reeve's reaction and trying to soothe the man's anger. "If she hadn't, we never would've fought Air Buster, Cloud wouldn't have fallen through the church and met Aeris. We wouldn't have raided the Shinra building to rescue her, and wouldn't have found out that Sephiroth was still alive." Tifa paused, letting that sink in. "Barrett, we'd all be dead if she hadn't. Sephiroth would've summoned Meteor, and we would've been totally powerless to stop it."
Jessie was shocked as Tifa spoke. If what she was saying was true, and she doubted that it wasn't, in her futile attempt to save the life of one innocent, she had inadvertently set in motion the events that would save the world. Jessie smiled softly. 'Guess I did get to save the world after all.'
"Sector Seven." Barrett yelled, still not having forgotten or made any steps towards forgiving the Shinra for that destruction. "Dey dropped the plate on a sector of innocents!"
"Innocents died on both sides, Barrett." Tifa told him gently. "When you look at it, there really isn't much difference between Avalanche and the Turks. We bombed reactors. They dropped a plate. The difference is in name only. Both sides have blood on their hands." She regretted that Reno wasn't there to hear that. He needed to know that she'd finally understood what he had been telling her since the end of Meteor.
"You been hangin' around the Shinra too long!" Barrett yelled. "Done forgot what we's fightin' for!"
"It's over, Barrett. Shinra is dead." Tifa got up and walked to him, touching him on the arm. "It's time to let it go."
'Good advice.' Tifa thought to herself. 'Maybe it's time I took it as well.'
"Papa, don't be mad at Tifa and Jessie." Marlene told him in soothing tones, calming him visibly. He hated getting upset around his daughter.
Barrett stood there silently as Tifa's words and Jessie's story sunk in. Maybe Tifa was right. He'd worked the last year rebuilding North Corel, fueled by a desire to atone for his sins of letting Shinra build that damned reactor and steal away the lives of innocents. It appeared that Reeve was trying to do the same thing in rebuilding Midgar. Hadn't Tifa said that Reeve had come here to discuss business?
"Jessie." Barrett spoke, turning his attention to the young woman who had shrunk back into the oversized chair in which she sat.
Jessie looked up at Barrett, expecting to see fury in his eyes. Instead she found kindness and forgiveness.
"Is that story all true?" He spoke, finding once again the language skills that Marlene and Elmyra had been coaching him on.
Jessie nodded and could barely find her voice. "Yes. Nathan Reno is my brother, and I spied for Shinra, but I always believed that Avalanche was right."
"Come here." Barrett's tone was firm and commanding.
Jessie rose from the chair and walked towards the large black man, not sure what to expect. He embraced her in a giant bear hug, lifting her off her feet and taking her breath away.
"I… I forgive you." Barrett spoke, a tear slipping out of his eye, at his first utterance of those words ever.
Everyone in the room smiled in relief.