Smoke and Shattered Mirrors,

By Ealinesse

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Final Fantasy, just the plot to this story, and a couple of painfully annoying original characters. Woohoo. ^_^

Summary: A stakeout doesn't go as planned, and the two people least happy about it are the same two who have to drop everything and work together to keep themselves alive… and sane.

Warnings: Language, (Kiwi Spelling), More Language.

Category: Action/Adventure, Bad Humour, Reno being immature… Nothing too unusual, really.

Chapter Four...

Reno got to his feet with a stifled groan, very aware of the blood-soaked cloths at his feet, and the equally blood-soaked material that was doing a pitiful job of concealing his injury. Ignoring the wave of dizziness that tried to knock him back to the ground, he sucked in a sharp intake of breath as his side twinged with pain. It felt like someone had shoved their entire fist into his side, and rearranged his insides inch by painful inch.

Oh wait. Scratch that. They had.

Stretching as much as his protesting wound would let him, Reno raised an eyebrow as he caught Yuffie slouched against a tree, eyes closed. He stopped the frown before it developed, wondering if, by some stretch of the imagination, she had teleported over to the tree in a matter of seconds and fallen asleep in the process.

He had only closed his eyes for that long, right?

He looked upward through the canopy of trees, but found no answer there. Hell, he couldn't even see the sky, let alone the sun. He glanced at his watch, then realised he had no way of telling when Yuffie had started hacking at his side. He would have cursed if he could have, though right now his tongue was doing a good job of impersonating a dehydrated lump of meat, and was entirely incapable of producing anything resembling a decent sound. This time he did frown. Losing time was never a good thing when you were running for your life.

Striding over to Yuffie, Reno smirked, shrugging the avid feeling of dread into the back of his mind. He crouched beside the slumbering figure, more than prepared to give her the fright of her life, when a pair of very wide, very lucid eyes snapped open and fixed him with an amused stare.

"I see you're feeling better."

Reno blinked, managed to conceal his shock, and took a step backward as Yuffie got effortlessly to her feet before him.

"What, cat got your tongue?"

Though the tone was decidedly sarcastic, there was the smallest hint of relief in the words. Reno shrugged and cleared his throat. "Must be the company."

Yuffie raised her eyebrows. "Yup. Definitely feeling better."

"No thanks to you." Reno lifted the hem of his tattered and filth-ridden shirt. "What were you trying to do, anyway, tenderise it before you got to the bullet?"

Reno watched as the brunette paled slightly, then finally offered a slightly negligent shrug. He almost felt sorry for her as he realised she really had been worried about the damage she'd caused…

"Actually, I was. I'd always wondered whether Turks bled red."

… Almost.

Reno scowled. "Sadist."

"Turk."

He ignored the retort, and instead took a quick glance around their immediate area. When he recognised nothing, he looked again. "What the hell," he muttered after a moment.

"What the hell… what?"

"What way did we come from?"

There was a moment's silence. "That way?" was the eventual reply, though it was less than helpful.

Reno felt a day's worth of pent up anger bubble up inside him. "You don't know?" he exclaimed.

"Hey, in case you haven't noticed, neither do you!"

He pointed a gloved finger at Yuffie. "I had an excuse!"

"And what was that?"

"I wasn't in my right mind. I was-"

"Since when has that ever mattered?"

Reno blinked. His eyes narrowed. He bit his tongue to hold the retort back. "Brat," he spat when he couldn't hold it in any longer, and continued looking around. From behind him there was a snort, and the low rustling sound of someone shuffling around on the bed of leaves and twigs that was a constant in this accursed place. After another few moments he heard a satisfied exhalation of breath.

"Aha!"

Reno cast a steady glance over his shoulder. "What is it?"

Yuffie pointed to a spot beyond him, tilting her head briefly in decision. "We go that way."

Reno frowned and turned to where she was pointing, not understanding. "What's so special about that way?"

Yuffie winced and offered a light shrug before picking disgustedly at a branch beside her. "It's in the opposite direction to the bloodstains on the trees."

Reno's eyes narrowed, but he said nothing. Instead he spun on his heel and made his way over the small creek and into the forest, the sounds of hundreds of tiny twigs snapping as Yuffie followed wordlessly behind him.

*  *  *  *  *

It was getting dark. That was the first thing she was becoming painfully aware of. The second was the fact that Reno was lagging further and further behind. Yuffie winced as her thoughts came in time to reveal a solid curse from behind her that only solidified her claim. She turned back to face the Turk, and saw him pushing his way unsteadily through the dense foliage, struggling against even the weak grip the branches held on him. He didn't look happy.

She nearly stepped forward to help, but held back at the last minute. When she'd done so about five minutes ago she'd nearly had her head decapitated by a flying branch, and her eardrums burst by curses – some of which she was sure even Cid hadn't heard. So instead she turned around and kept walking. And walking.

… And walking.

Yuffie stopped with a heavy sigh and held her hand out in front of her face. She frowned. Yup. It was definitely dusk, not just the weather, though it wasn't like she could tell by looking up; she couldn't remember the last time she'd seen the sky. She had to squint just to see her hand in front of her face properly.

She turned to Reno. "I think we're going the wrong way… the forest only seems to be getting thicker…"

Reno walked straight passed her, and didn't even look up. "I wouldn't be surprised."

Yuffie frowned, then on second thought raised an eyebrow. "Don't you care that we don't know where we are?"

This time Reno did stop. He looked up at her, though his expression was hidden by the deep shadows. "When you're being hunted, it's better to be lost than found."

Yuffie blinked as Reno continued onward, ignoring the way the knot in her stomach seemed to rumble as she realised that this wasn't going very well. She was supposed to be drunk, smashed right off her face at the biggest party of the year… and Reno… Hell, he shouldn't have even been sitting up with that injury, let alone walking around aggravating it. She sighed again. Right now, she was sure she'd give anything to get out of the accursed place.

*  *  *  *  *

Yuffie stumbled out into what she initially thought was a clearing with the faintest inkling of hope in her chest. She looked up, having to shield her eyes against the intensity of the light, dull even as it was. It was with a strange kind of relief that she watched the white and yellow spots dancing in front of her eyes; she could see the sky, at last. However when her eyes finally adjusted, she felt her jaw drop, and the tiny glimmer of hope in her heart flared into something more tangible as she forced herself to blink not once, but twice. This wasn't just a clearing…

"Well I'll be…"

It was a road. A genuine, straight gravel, honest-to-God road. And by the looks of the fresh tracks it was frequently used. She felt a slow grin creep across her face before she could stop it, and she turned to face Reno. "We're out!" she crowed. "Goodbye trees! Goodbye forest! Goodbye twigs in my shoes!"

"I thought you said your shoes didn't get twigs in them?"

Yuffie snapped her mouth shut, then did her best imitation of a carp out of water for a few seconds. "I just guess I'm a whole lot more tolerant than you."

Reno raised an eyebrow. "I'll believe that when I see it."

But Yuffie wasn't listening. Now that they'd finally reached… well, somewhere, there were more decisions to be faced. Like which way they were even supposed to go, for instance. Yuffie surveyed the road from all angles, looking left, then right, then straight ahead into the forest that spanned across the other side of the road as well. She frowned, her mood already dampening. Reno had said they were to make their way to Junon – how were they supposed to get there if they didn't know which way to turn?

"Are you coming, or are you going to just stand there all day?"

Yuffie jumped and spun around. Reno was nowhere to be seen. She looked up and down the road, frowned, and looked up and down the road again. Had she spent so long in her little dilemma that Reno had somehow gotten way ahead of her? Somehow she doubted it. Reno was still obviously hurting, and all of that blood loss and expenditure of unnecessary energy was slowing him down more than he was willing to admit.

"Where are you?"

"Over here."

Yuffie turned to the voice, her eyes widening as she realised that he was standing a fair way away from the road, and was beginning to walk along the treeline. "What are you doing down there?" she called out, confused. "We should flag down a car to take us to Junon."

"And what if the car we flag down turns out to be Donovan's? What then? Run through the forest again to the other side? Hitch a ride? Climb a tree and hope like hell they won't find us? What?"

Yuffie's frown deepened. Reno didn't turn around when he spoke, just kept walking. She looked up at the sky, and realised that now that her eyes had finally adjusted to the previously unaccustomed brightness, it was a lot darker than she had initially thought. It was heading towards the end of dusk, and night in this area fell quickly. She sighed. "It's getting dark, we can't keep walking along these trees. You know how it was last night, and it's worse now; it's cloudy. I suppose we could use the torch, but-"

"Wrong."

Yuffie crossed her arms across her chest and scrambled down the small bank to the treeline. "What do you mean, 'wrong'?" she muttered as she caught up to the Turk.

"We can't use the torch. If Donovan is searching this area for us, then don't you think two people walking along the road with a torch would be a little suspicious?"

"… Oh."

"Yes. Oh."

Yuffie ignored the complacent tone in Reno's voice. "So there's no way we can-"

"No, Yuff. No way at all. We're walking, get used to it."

She scowled. "So I stole that torch last night for nothing?"

"Probably. Why, what does it matter?"

Her scowl deepened. "It doesn't now, but I'd like to think that there would be at least some benefit to getting tied to a tree for a day."

There was a short silence, and Yuffie used that time to pout, thrusting her bottom lip out generously and crossing her arms across her chest.

"Quit your moping."

Yuffie raised a delicate eyebrow. "And why should I do that?" she muttered petulantly.

"Because you're not the one with a fist-sized hole in your side."

"Feeling sorry for yourself, too, Turkey?"

"At least I have a reason to be."

Yuffie sighed, her irritable mood fading at the words. He was right. She was unhurt, and merely cold and hungry. He was injured, cold, and just as hungry as her, not to mention the fact that he had someone hunting him. She imagined this was not how he'd expected this stakeout to go. Catching up to Reno, she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. "What's between you two, anyway?"

She had expected Reno to offer a flippant reply and a casual smirk. What she had not expected was for him to stop and turn away, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists at his side. Yuffie took a wary step forward, something in her telling her to keeping pressing, even though alarm bells were going off inside her head. "… Reno?"

"Blood."

"… What?"

"It's a matter of blood. It doesn't concern you."

"Okay, but-"

"Just don't ask about it again."

"But I-"

"I said no, brat." And he walked away, features cast in shadows so deep that Yuffie couldn't see anything but his slumped posture, his slight limp. The jaded ferocity in his voice was the only thing that belied his battered frame. "Just… don't."

*  *  *  *  *

She didn't know what was making her do it, but for the past half an hour she'd stuck to Reno's side like glue. The earlier tension broken, Reno's only comment as the inky pitch of evening had closed in was a snide remark about her being afraid of the dark. Now, though, she knew why.

Yuffie watched with barely concealed alarm as the Turk's legs, which had been taking him less and less far as the evening grew on, suddenly gave out beneath him. Again, she didn't know how, but seconds later she was right beside him, his arm slung across her shoulder in a flash as her body struggled to allow for the weight he'd suddenly let fall. As what she'd just done registered and Reno's scrutiny turned to her, she was glad the darkness hid her blush.

For a few seconds she merely stood there allowing her body to compensate for the sudden burden. A moment later she straightened her back, painfully aware of the heavy breathing right beside her. This time there was no denying that Reno was in pain.

"Are you okay?" she whispered.

"Goddamnedmotherfuckingsonofabitch," was the breathy reply.

"… Reno?"

"Fine. I'm… fine, Yuff."

Yuffie let out a frustrated sigh. "Reno," she warned, "I've seen fine. And you, are definitely far from it."

"Just what… are you implying?"

She smirked, curbing her worry at the humour hidden under the words. "That we have to get to Junon."

"We are."

Yuffie felt a small pressure on her shoulder and realised that Reno was trying to push away and get himself to his feet. She placed a firm grip over the arm she'd slung over her shoulder and squared her jaw. "Oh no you don't, Turk. Stop pushing yourself. Accept the help, because it'll be the last time I let you away with slacking off."

There was a snort, accompanied by a low hiss of pain. "You said that last time."

Yuffie blinked, a feeling of déjà vu flashing in her mind. It was gone as quickly as it came, as was the scent of dry grass and the metallic tang of blood. She took a slow step forward, realising that the distinct lack of food, water, and medical supplies was not helping Reno to recover the way he normally would. She allowed herself a small smile of satisfaction as she felt Reno take an equally small step forward. "And look where that got me," she replied a second later. "I seem to recall being left at the public toilets while you jumped through the back window to get away."

In the darkness Yuffie caught the barest flash of white teeth, and an equally vivid glimmer of glowing Mako eyes. "I told you earlier, it must have been the company."

Yuffie feigned hurt, but kept walking. At least he was talking in whole sentences now, and he wasn't snapping at her the way he had before. This was a drastic change in mood. "That company bought a decent Antidote for a very sick Turk, and carted him around in the sun for a day and a half."

"Funny. I seem to remember being dumped on the ground because a certain someone told me they weren't going to carry me for any more than half a day."

Yuffie swore under her breath. "You were delirious."

"I wasn't that bad."

"De-nial. You couldn't even talk without sounding like a full-fledged drunk."

Again there was a grin. "It was a pity trip. You were nicer to me when you felt sorry for me."

Yuffie painted a glare onto her face. "I did not feel sorry for you!"

"Did so."

"Did not!"

"Did… shit!"

Yuffie blinked. "Well that's new."

Her only reply was for Reno to lift a finger to his lips and then point to a web of trees to their left. "Go!" he whispered hastily, and she complied, at the same time noticing the brightening beam of oncoming lights. She felt a small pang of longing, but realised that signalling a car would not, by far, be the smartest thing to do under the circumstances.

They hurried over to the cover of bushes, ducking behind branches and holding their breath as the car sped passed. As the car and the steady hum of its engine faded out into the distance, the silence remained. And yet it was an even longer moment before either of the two made a move, and a short time more before either spoke.

Yuffie shivered, suddenly cold. Probably due to the fact that I had to practically strip to stop Reno from bleeding like a stuck pig. She looked up at Reno, who looked to be in no better condition himself. "Keep walking?"

"What do you think?"

Yuffie practially gulped, imagining the stock of blisters she was going to be adding to the already large pile. "… Along here?"

"You bet."

Yuffie groaned and pulled Reno to his feet, again keeping a tight reign on his arm as he attempted to pull away. She dug her fingernails into his hand and gritted her teeth. "Turk, it helps if you're conscious. I am not carrying you if you pass out from straining yourself. Stop being such a difficult bastard. You've never had a problem with being lazy before."

"… Well I wouldn't want to spoil the fun, would I?"

*  *  *  *  *

"Yuck! Turk, this better just be mud, or otherwise you're cleaning my shoes when we get out of here!"

Reno smirked and took a deliberate stumble, his amused expression trailing off into a grin that was hidden by the darkness as he heard Yuffie curse from beside him.

"Reno!"

"What?" he answered after a moment, regaining his feet, the short instance of pain and dizziness well worth Yuffie's reaction. "Don't tell me you've never been on a farm before, Yuff."

"Reno… Don't tell me you want to end up face-first in this… this…"

"Shit?" Reno raised an eyebrow and snapped his mouth shut as he felt the support against his side being withdrawn. He snorted and shrugged, and the firm grip returned. He heaved a silent sigh of relief. He had little doubt that Yuffie would have carried out that particular threat. However, despite how he often spent his nights getting well acquainted with the ground, this was one particular evening he had little desire to roll in a sty of mud and animal filth, no matter what Rude would have said.

Five minutes later, mud dissolved into shingle, then shingle into loose concrete block. Reno narrowed his eyes, squinting in the odd half-light of the farm's courtyard. They'd seen the driveway not ten minutes ago, and since the two of them had fervently agreed that they were sick of walking, they had decided to pay a visit to the farm in the off chance that there would be a vehicle available for the stealing. He smirked. Permanently borrowing. Crashing.

Whatever.

"See anything?"

Reno offered an awkward one-shouldered shrug. "Nothing. But what do you expect when it's pitch black and all of the shed doors are closed?" When Yuffie made no move to react, Reno jerked his chin in the direction of a looming black shadow that was out of the immediate vicinity of the yard's lights. "Come on. This way."

It was clumsy progress from that point on. The obviously ancient paving was uneven and cracked, and many times the two found themselves straying back onto patches of mud, or into hidden puddles. After what seemed like forever – but what really could have been little more than the space of two hundred metres – they reached the shed, and consequently, its large, shackled, corrugated door.

"So… how do we get in?"

Reno's face donned an expression of disbelief. "You really haven't been on a farm before, have you?"

"Yeah, well… You don't exactly scream country bumpkin yourself, you know. If my mastery at breaking and entering extended to places like this," she waved her free arm in a vague sweep of the area, "then we would have been out of here long ago. As it is, I doubt you have any idea what you're doing."

"I'm not the one who has no idea how to open a shed door."

"You haven't proved that you can yet, Turk."

Reno raised an eyebrow. "I got you out of that bloody rope, didn't I?" He pointed somewhere to the left of the door, squinting his eyes as he recognised the familiarity of the chains. "Mush, poochie," he muttered under his breath, a tiny smirk twisting the corner of his mouth.

Yuffie, who had already started leading him along, stopped. "You did not just tell me to mush."

Reno pressed his lips together and waited for the unspoken threat to be carried out. He had little doubt that he was very soon going to be in deep dooky.

There was a short sigh. "You're lucky you're injured, Turk," came the unamused voice from beside him. "The last thing we need is to get that wound infected with this crap. I've already told you, I'm not dragging your dead carcass home."

Reno smirked. Well if she wasn't going to carry out on the threat then...

*  *  *  *  *

Five minutes later any amusement Reno felt was gone. He glanced acidly out of the corner of his eye, the effect ruined by the mud and Leviathan-only-knew what else streaked down the side of his face. Yuffie may not have wanted to drop him in the muck, but she certainly had had no qualms about flicking it up at his face in warning.

Reno let his scowl deepen as Yuffie's wide eyes wandered bemusedly over the various equipment in the truck. "… You don't know how to drive a car, do you?"

Even though it was dark, Reno could see the sheepish grin that fluttered across her face. "Uh… no. But how hard can it be, right?"

Reno sucked in a long, slow breath, ignoring his side as it twinged in protest. "How can you not know?"

"… Because I never learnt?

"How old are you?"

"Nineteen…"

"And you don't know how!"

"I've never had to before! What was I supposed to do? Take a crash course in driving before I left? How was I supposed to know I'd end up following you to hell and back instead of partying to all hours of the night!"

"I thought you hated public transport because it made you sick?" Reno muttered.

"I do!"

"Then wouldn't it make more sense to learn to drive and get your license? You feel a lot better when you're in control of the wheel!"

Yuffie's mouth opened and closed a few times as if she were going to say something, but then thought better of it. She frowned when no words came.

"Exactly," Reno retorted to her silent glower. "And if you didn't know how to drive, why the hell did you get into the driver's side in the first place?!"

Yuffie blinked. Scowled. "The steering wheel is on the other side in Wutai. I'd forgotten that. I thought I was getting in on the passenger side."

Reno hastily flicked a stray strand of hair out of his eyes and screwed up his face in frustration. Making up his mind, he sat forward, reached for the door handle, and hissed unconsciously in pain when he realised that now he was seated it was going to be a hell of a lot harder to get back up, no matter how uncomfortable the musty, scratchy old ute's seats were.

"Get out," he snapped as he opened the door, "I'm driving."

"Oh, come on," Yuffie replied, equally exasperated. "It can't be that hard, right?"

Reno craned his neck around and gave Yuffie a blatant, meaningful stare, before casting his gaze over the ruddy gearstick, the large, unwieldy wooden steering wheel, and the gas pedal, which seemed to be at least a foot away from coming even close to making contact with her feet. He snickered and resisted the strong urge to roll his eyes.

"Do the terms 'no power steering' or 'manual transmission' mean anything to you?"

"… They would if you gave me a second to figure it out."

Reno sighed, trying to will his frustration at the world to stay under the surface. "You may have never driven before, but this is not the time for a few lessons. We're about to steal this guy's truck for Chrissake, the last thing we want to do is wake him up just because you've no idea how to drive and have smashed the bloody thing into his fuckin' house! We're trying to get away, not get caught, Yuff."

Yuffie had the good grace to look slightly abashed, and she slid out of the oversized seat and around to the passenger side in a second, hovering only slightly as Reno made his own painful way to the driver's side door. He thought he heard the vague mumblings of an apology stir on the wind, but didn't say anything. He could have easily been mistaken.

Reno pulled himself up into the seat without a word, allowing himself a low whistle of relief as the old, but clearly serviceable truck, started with little complaint. Slamming the car into gear, and all too aware of Yuffie watching him out of the corner of his eye, he emphatically put his seatbelt on before releasing the clutch and moving the vehicle slowly out of the shed.

Neither said a word as the large ute slipped out under the cover of darkness and onto the weathered gravel drive, both parties wincing in unison as they heard the many small stones pop and crackle loudly under the weight. Without mishap they crawled to the road, where Reno finally flicked the lights on, and they sped up and at last felt some semblance of progress as tree after tree passed them by.

Silence reigned in the musty cab for a moment, and during that brief time Reno mused over how long it would take Yuffie's curiosity to get the better of her.

It wasn't long in any case.

"So, uh… What's manual trans-thingee-mahoosy?"

*  *  *  *  *

AUTHOR'S NOTES: …. Um, what can I say? Oops? *Winces* *Ducks flying vegetables* *Hides*

My apologies to anyone who was actually following this story. I had a severe stage of 'I'm too lazy to get off my ass and write the next part'. Forgive me, I'll start the next part right now. *Nodnod*

Until next update!

~~Ealinesse. ^_^