"Long time no see, Vincent."

Grisham moved slowly forward, until he was fully bathed in the light of the room. He hadn't changed too much; a little more grey had edged its way into his brown hair, wrinkles creased his face where there had been none before and a long battle scar traced a path down the side of his right cheek. It ran from near his eye to just above the corner of his mouth, giving his expression a perpetual smirk.

The Turk stared long and hard at his former mentor. Both of his guns were gripped firmly in his hands, but he made no attempt to raise them yet. For the time being Grisham was unarmed, and there could still be some rational explanation for this whole situation. His mind threw up a range of potential scenarios from body doubles to a test devised by Shinra himself (a long shot, but he wouldn't have put it past the wily President), yet none of them quite seemed to answer all the questions going through his head. He was reasonably certain however, that the figure in front of him could fill in a lot of those holes, so it was in his best interests to talk first and shoot later.

The two men stood there for what seemed like an eternity, silently appraising each other. Eventually Vincent broke the deadlock.

"I suppose it's a cliché to say that I thought you were dead" he said grimly, still making no threatening moves and trying his best not to look too intimidating, a difficult task for the six foot plus Turk at the best of times. "You were supposed to have been killed on an assignment three years ago, and I don't believe in ghosts."

Grisham's mouth twitched upwards in a half smile, the scar accentuating the movement. "Observant as always" he commented dryly. "Rumours of my death are greatly exaggerated. As you can see with your own eyes, I am alive and well."

"For the time being." With every passing second, Vincent became more firmly convinced that although this was indeed his former employer, this was not some kind of test and that something was seriously amiss.

The ex Turk's smile didn't slip for a second, ignoring the implied threat. "And you" he went on smoothly. "Leader of the Turks yourself now, I see."

"You've been keeping an eye on me again, have you?" enquired Vincent, referring to the first time they'd ever met.

"As ever. What sort of a man would I be if I didn't take an interest in my protégé?"

"You're supposed to be a dead one."

Grisham nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah" he said roughly, "that's what Shinra wanted anyway." He studied Vincent's face, perhaps hoping his words would provoke some kind of reaction in his former pupil, but a blank visage stared back at him. Unfazed he carried on. "Osborn was supposed to finish me off, make it look like an accident. Luckily for me, I was able to persuade him otherwise."

Turks killing Turks? Under order of the President? Vincent was unsure of precisely what to make of this new development, but he was damn well not going to show it. "So what exactly are you trying to tell me?" he asked, carefully keeping any sign of emotion out of his voice.

"You were always observant Vincent, but you were naïve with it." Grisham shook his head in reprimand. "I found out too much for Shinra's liking, about what he was really up to. There was no way I could go public with it, we both knew that, but he thought I was a time bomb." Grisham stuck his hands in his pockets and scuffed his feet. Vincent noted the movement warily, but continued to listen. "I thought I was safe if I kept quiet, but Shinra figured it'd be even safer with me out the way. He went to Osborn - turned out that he had a few skeletons in the closet, so was putty in Shinra's grubby little hand."

Vincent thought back to the Osborn he'd known, a man who'd grown up on the streets of Midgar and got to his position on the strength of guile, cunning and sheer brute force. He'd calmed down once he'd joined the Turks, and risen to become a respected member, but he supposed that if any of the group back then had a shady past to hide, it would have been Osborn. But the man had been so shocked when they'd been told that Grisham had died, he couldn't possibly… Could he?

"But like I said I was lucky. I found out about the plot before Osborn could take me out, and confronted him. He could have killed me there and then, but I came up with a plan whereby we could both get a good deal."

"You faked your own death." It was a statement rather than a question, and the only logical explanation. A part of him couldn't help but give a grudging respect to Grisham. How would he have reacted in the same position he wondered? Would he have had the nous to sniff out the plot and turn it in his favour? Of course, he had to consider, would he have got himself in that position in the first place?

"It fooled everyone. By burning the body in a fire, we were able to conceal the corpses' true identity. The doctors ran a DNA check to be certain, but Osborn substituted the samples for some of my own cells, so it came up as a perfect match. Osborn saved face and his job, I saved my life." Grisham assumed an expression of curiosity. "Whatever happened to him anyway?"

Vincent raised his eyebrow. "You don't know? I thought you'd been keeping tabs on us."

The former Turk smiled his crooked smile. "Just you. It's difficult enough for a dead man to enquire about one Turk let alone all of them."

"He was killed a year and a half ago, by Mak Xu."

Grisham tutted. "That bastard?" He rolled his eyes up to heaven. "Ah, he should have known better than that. Xu was always a slippery customer. "

"He too is now a dead man."

"Heh, serves him right. Wondered how long it would take for him to end up six feet under." The man rocked back on his heels. "Well, what do you say, it's almost like old times, eh?"

The leader of the Turks frowned. No, he wasn't going to drop his guard that easily. Even at just twenty six, he was a seasoned professional and it would take more than a little bit of reminiscing with a ghost to shake him. Not to say he wasn't concerned by what he was hearing. The waters were getting muddier by the second and corruption within the ranks was bubbling to the surface. But he refused to let these concerns interfere with him – instead, he did what he did with all the feelings he had no desire to deal with. Bundled them up and shoved them to the back of his mind. Just because the new development was something personal to him, was no reason to allow himself to lose focus or be influenced by it. The response was so immediate as to be second nature. If his brain had allowed him to be worried, it might have spent a few moments dwelling on just how easy it was becoming to suppress his feelings.

He decided to steer the conversation back on to a more relevant topic. "Why are you telling me this?" he asked. "I'm sure you didn't come here to start waxing lyrical about the good old days?"

Grisham's smile vanished almost as quickly as it had arrived. "You've come a long way" he said solemnly. "When I first saw you I reckoned you'd become one of the best Turks we'd ever seen, and I think I was right." He withdrew his hands from his pockets, and Vincent saw with a sinking feeling that one of them now held an exquisitely crafted revolver.

Damn. He could see where this was going.

"You're right" Grisham confirmed. "I'm not here for pleasure, its business. I'm here because I've been paid to be here. On account of my knowledge." He tapped at his temple with his free hand. "Turns out that this ex-Turk has quite a bit of valuable information up here, for those who can afford it, that is."

"You sold out for money?"

The dead man waved his revolver negligently. "My soul to Shinra, my knowledge to money" he replied. "When you've been off the radar as long as I have there is little else that matters, aside from revenge. Then I found myself in the enviable position of being able to stick two fingers up at old man Shinra, and get enough cash to ensure my 'death' is an extremely long and happy one."

This was starting to make a bit more sense now, even if the motives involved struck Vincent as being remarkably... petty. He knew for a fact that there were men out there that would pay a fortune (or indeed kill) for the kind of data a Turk had access to. Shinra had numerous enemies, and any one of them would love to get their hands on this kind of information. He was able to narrow it down to a potential three though, as only a select few would have funds enough to throw around. If Grisham had sold company secrets to one of them, that explained how the terrorists were able to gain access to the Reactor so quickly and efficiently.

"And the others?" Vincent enquired, indicating the pile of corpses with his head.

"Disposable" answered Grisham nonchalantly. "Hired off the streets by a third party, just to cause a bit of damage as a message to the mighty Shinra." He turned his gaze to the bodies littering the floor. "I must say I'm impressed with the way you dealt with this rabble."

Vincent saw Grisham's finger sneaking nearer the trigger on his gun. Just the smallest motion, but enough to make him consciously relax the muscles in his own arms, ready to move if the need arose. He could tell that Grisham was trying to unnerve him, leave him open and exposed. It was what he himself would be doing if their roles were reversed. Perhaps if he went along with it… "And now you're going to have to deal with me?" he asked rhetorically.

"Maybe yes, maybe no. You see, I'm offering you a choice."

The leader of the Turks gave a smirk of his own, letting Grisham see cracks in the armour. "A choice?" he said mockingly. "Would this be anything like the choice you offered me five years ago?" Grisham didn't reply, just stood there. "Let me guess, join you or die."

"I work for a very powerful man, Vincent" the ex leader said persuasively. "Shinra won't last forever and you won't want to be where you are when the fallout hits." He took a few steps forward. "I can stop that happening..." His gun arm moved, fixed on the man in front of him.

Now Vincent did react; one of his guns was level with Grisham's chest in an instant. Neither man pulled the trigger; pupil nor master could quite bring themselves to end the other's life.

"You forgot what I told you when we met" Grisham chided. "I know you better than you know yourself. You can't shoot me. You joined me then and you'll join me now. Wutai will crush Shinra! Get out now, before it's too late! I'm giving you the choice."

Vincent shook his head slowly. "You've given me enough already" he said. Indeed, Grisham's last statement concerning Wutai had quickly narrowed down the choice of financial backer to one man and one man alone. He had all the information he needed.

"What?"

"You never had any intention of letting me leave here alive" Vincent reasoned. "You knew that Shinra would send the Turks in to deal with this job, and you knew that would mean me."

Grisham feigned shock. "Never! I mean this Vincent" he wheedled. "You know you can't bring yourself to shoot. I am offering you the chance to stay alive. Take it! Wasn't I like a father to you? You know you can trust me…"

His finger pressed against the trigger of his gun, but Vincent was the faster. The look of hurt upon Grisham's face twisted into one of determination, then pain. His eyes lost their focus, but they never left the Turk in front of him, even as he sank to his knees.

Vincent watched passively as his mentor, the man who had spent years looking over him, guarding his back, coaching him in the skills he had today, collapsed slowly to the ground. A hand clutched spasmodically at a bullet wound straight through the heart.

Grisham's own gun fell from a limp hand, clattering on the floor, and he stared up at Vincent, confused. He seemed unable to reconcile the act with the young man he used to know. His breath came in ragged gasps, rattling through lungs rapidly filling with blood. A thin red trickle oozed from the corner of his mouth, as he opened it in one last attempt.

"Wh… Why?"

His body gave up trying to support his weight, and he fell back onto the hard metal floor. Vincent stood towering over him, stony faced, gun barrel still smoking.

"Perhaps you don't know me as well as you thought" he said simply. "Didn't you remember what you said to me? Never trust a Turk."

He stood there, not moving while Grisham's laboured breaths grew more infrequent. His eyes glazed over, the light in them dimming. He never said another word.

And Vincent felt nothing.