I do apologize for the typos in this--it's very late and I'd rather get this up tonight than wait until tomorrow…I've been slacking. I've been…bad.
Chapter 50
Angel was sitting on the couch in her and Reno's home, an ice pack resting on her forehead as she lounged on her back. Presently, she was suffering from one of her knock down migraines, but since she was pregnant, she didn't dare take anything for it. Sometimes, she'd found out, the best way to deal with the pain was just to lay down and tune out, and she was doing a fairly good job of it, until the doorbell rang.
Dana came bounding in from another part of the house. "Want me to see who it is, Mommy?"
Angel just lifted her hand and waved, indicating yes.
Not shy in the least, Dana skipped off down the hall and opened the door. She came back a few moments later. "Mommy, it's Quiggers."
Deciding that her rest was over, Angel sat up and set the ice pack onto the coffee table. She locked gazes with her daughter. "What have I told you about calling him that? He doesn't like it."
"Daddy does it." Dana didn't see any reason why she shouldn't be allowed to do things as her father did.
"That doesn't matter." Angel slowly stood up, wincing as the stabbing sensation in her head worsened. "Don't call him that."
Dana huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Fine, Mister Sharday is here."
Angel patted the girl on the head as she walked to go see what the researcher wanted.
Once at the door, she offered Quigley a smile, despite how she felt. "Hey, what are you doing here?"
Quigley was obviously uncomfortable about something. "Can I come in and talk to you about something?"
Angel stepped aside and let him enter. "Sure."
They went into the family room and both sat on the couch there.
"What's on your mind, Quigley?" Angel asked, wondering if this had to do with Porter.
"I thought about even telling you this, but decided that I needed to." Quigley squirmed where he sat, obviously not well with what he felt he had to discuss with Angel.
She was able to appreciate that he was acting strangely, and wondered what was going on. "Okay, go on."
"Reno…" Quigley leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, "he said something today and maybe he was joking, but…"
"But what?"
"I'm not entirely sure that he was joking at all." He turned his head and locked into her gaze. "Angel, he tried to tell me that he can see Porter and Tseng."
Angel knit her brow, remembering how Porter himself had come to her to say that he'd caught Reno talking to himself not so long ago. "But he seemed serious?"
Quigley nodded a little. "Yeah."
Angel stood up, her headache now doubling. "Fuck…"
Knowing that it wasn't like Angel to curse, Quigley grew worried. "Angel?"
She spun around and faced him. "You're…you're not the first one to say something like this."
"I'm not?" Quigley got up as well, and took a few steps toward her.
"No." She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, I'll talk to him tonight to see if he was just being an idiot or if he's…"
The researcher saw the tears that immediately came to her eyes. He reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder. "Angel?"
"It's okay." After offering him a forced smile, she shrugged. "I'm just stressed with being pregnant and all…and the prospect that my husband might be insane…"
Now, Quigley felt downright terrible about having said anything to her. "I'm sorry…"
They met each other's gazes as they heard the front door to the house open and then slam shut. From the footsteps coming down the hall, they both knew that it was Reno.
Quigley frowned for a moment. "I should probably go so you can talk to him alone."
She simply nodded and then watched as he headed out.
Reno stopped as he ran into Quigley. "Hey…what are you doing here? You're not nailing my woman, right?"
The blond couldn't help but laugh a little. "No, I was just checking in with her. I need to get back to the base, though."
"Okay, bye." Reno let him pass and then went over to Angel, placing his arms around her. "Hey, Babe."
Angel embraced him in return, resting her aching head upon his shoulder. "Reno…"
There was something in her tone that immediately struck a chord within him. Reno brought his wife out to arm's length and looked into her eyes. "Babe?"
"Sit down."
He quickly did as ordered, looking up at her. "What's up?"
Angel gathered her thoughts for a moment, before crossing her arms over her chest and looking at him. "People have…noticed something about you since you were shot."
The ASRIO leader just blinked up at her. "Like?"
"Before the mission, Porter came to me." She moved and sat beside him. "He told me that he saw you standing in the base, carrying out a conversation with absolutely no one."
He tensed his jaw, not knowing what to say, but suddenly knowing why Quigley had been there.
"And Quigley just told me that you said to him that you can see both Porter and Tseng." Angel reached over and placed her hand upon his leg. "Reno, please tell me that you were just joking with him…"
His expression turned absolutely pitiful and he dropped his gaze to the floor. "Oh…"
"Reno," Angel reached up and touched the left side of his face, making him look at her again. "Tell me you were just messing with him."
He couldn't lie. Of all the people in the world, Reno was facing the only one that he couldn't lie to, and inwardly, he cursed himself for what he was about to say. "Babe, I don't know how to say this without you thinking that I'm completely nuts, but…"
Tears were in her eyes again. "But what, Reno?"
"I do." He closed his eye and hung his head. "I see them. They talk to me. I'm not fuckin' around."
She let the tears fall. There was something profoundly wrong with Reno if he was hallucinating to that extreme. Instantly, she regretted having allowed him to reattain his status within ASRIO. "Reno…there's something wrong with you. You need to get help for this otherwise you're going to have to resign your position."
"There's nothing wrong with me, Angel!" He looked up and into her eyes again. "They're real. Yeah, the injury did something to me, Babe, but they're really there, talking to me. Tseng even told me something that I didn't know, and then I found out that it was true. If I was just making them up, he wouldn't have been able to do that."
She knew that he was being sincere, which scared her. Whatever was going on was real to him, signifying that he was having some severe disorder going on. "Reno, you'll have to see someone about this. I'm taking you to go see Dr. Zennell."
Reno knew that name well. It was the local shrink that some of his men had been referred to before. "I'm not crazy…"
"Reno, you just sat here and told me that you're seeing dead men and that they're talking to you." Angel wiped her eyes. "That's not normal, and you didn't do it before you got shot."
He gave passing thought at that point of telling her that he had been going to Tseng's room for years and imagining talking to him all along, but that, he didn't think would help his situation. "Fine, I'll go see him."
"Good. I'm going to go take Dana to Jessie's, and then we'll go." Angel gave him a kiss on the lips quickly before getting up to go get their little girl taken care of.
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Jeanine had gone out grocery shopping and came home, immediately sensing that something was wrong. Sitting on the front porch was every mirror from within the house, wrapped in newspaper and duct tape. Aaron was sitting out on the lawn, reading a book that Jaras had let him have from the store.
She went in and set the grocery bags down in the kitchen and put them away, before going to look for her husband. Jeanine found him in the bathroom, placing the last bit of tape over the newspaper that he'd covered the large and unremovable mirror with in there. "Jaras?"
He looked over at her and smiled, acting as though nothing was wrong. "You're back?"
"Obviously." She motioned toward the mirror. "Do I want to know what's going on?"
The color instantly drained from his complexion and he knit his brow. "Jeanine…it happened again. I was in here just to take a shower, and my reflection started talking back to me and…and Sephiroth came out of the mirror to try and grab me."
Jeanine gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. "Jaras…"
"I know, it upset me, I assure you." He set down the tape roll and sighed heavily. "I supposed that if I couldn't see myself in the mirror, maybe it wouldn't happen again. Once I get the rest of the Jenova out of me…I'm hoping that it will stop."
"I think we should go see my dad and have him run a test on you just to see where you stand with the level of Jenova, Jaras," she said quietly, letting her hands fall back to her sides.
He nodded and smiled. "That's fine."
"Okay, let's go." Jeanine reached out and took his hand.
They walked out of the house. Aaron was still in the same spot that he'd been when Jeanine had gotten home.
"Aaron?"
The boy looked up and over at his older brother. "Yes?"
"We have to go somewhere for a few minutes. Are you all right to stay here?" he asked.
Aaron, quite content with what he was up to, smiled. "Yeah, I'm good."
"Okay, we'll see you." Jaras walked off with his wife.
They reached her father's clinic after a while, where he was working with Janice sitting idly by.
Brandon looked at his daughter and Jaras. "Is something wrong?"
"Can you run a test to see if the amount of Jenova in Jaras has at all dropped since his treatment?" Jeanine remained at her husband's side.
"Why?" Brandon crossed his arms over his chest and met his son-in-law's gaze. "What's going on?"
"I've had something happen." Jaras was ashamed to discuss it, and it showed. "I feel like I'm suffering the onset of Jenova madness."
"And this started after the treatment?" Brandon asked.
"Yes."
"That makes no sense, Jaras." Brandon was perplexed.
"I know, but…but what if something was done to the Jenova that was injected into me as to make it immune to Mako?" Jaras frowned and narrowed his eyes, not willing to outright say that Sephiroth had told him this.
"I don't see how Jenova could be altered in any way that would do that, Jaras." Brandon shook his head. "I'll run the test, though, if it will make you feel better."
"I'd appreciate that." Jaras produced a smile and went over to sit on one of the clinic's beds.
The old man came over a few minutes later and took a small blood sample from Jaras' arm. With that in hand, he vanished into the small lab that he had set up in the clinic and got to running the test.
Jeanine and Jaras remained together, awaiting the answer in a nervous silence. Janice was sitting some distance from them, flipping through one of the old magazines that was lying around.
Brandon came out a while later and looked over at Janice. "Can you come here for a moment?"
She nodded and got up, going to his work area with him.
"Look," he ordered, pointing at his microscope.
Dr. Arlin did as asked, and looked through the eyepieces at the blood film. "What am I looking at?"
"That's what I just got from Jaras."
She examined it for a few moments. There was nothing unusual. His red cells had all stained uniformly and were consistant in size. There were white cells scattered about, but they, too, looked completely normal. "It looks fine to me."
"Exactly." Brandon reached over and turned off the light to the microscope as Janice straightened back up. "It's absolutely normal. There's not one hint of any Jenova cells on that smear. Not even one."
Janice nodded. "So, the Mako treatment worked?"
"Yeah, I don't even see a reason after looking at that to even bother with the other two treatments. He's clean." Brandon frowned. "That's bad."
Dr. Arlin understood all too well. "Because that means it's all psychological, then."
"Whatever has happened to make him think that he's beginning to undergo Jenova madness is all in his head, yes." Brandon sighed. "I'll get Jeanine."
He looked out into the clinic and waved his daughter over.
"Well?" she asked, anxious for some answer.
Brandon looked into her eyes. "The test is completely negative."
Jeanine couldn't quite accept this. "It…it can't be… Dad, he's seeing things."
"He's actually seeing things?" Brandon hadn't been aware of this.
"Yes." Jeanine was scared. "What does it mean, then?"
"You tell me, Jeanie." Brandon looking into his daughter's eyes. "You're the psychologist."
Her heart instantly began to race and her hands were shaking. "Maybe…maybe it's just stress from what he'd gone through when he was kidnapped."
"Perhaps." The old man went and sat on the counter. "It could have to do with the Mako he ingested, too. That can have mental effects. After all, he lost his memory for seven years after his immersion in the Lifestream. Who's to say that it couldn't cause hallucinations or such?"
"Right." Jeanine huffed. "Okay, I'll go tell him. If it was just from the Mako, then it shouldn't get any worse and eventually, it should go away."
"If it's from the Mako, yes." Janice felt bad for the other woman, seeing how stressed she was. "Most likely, that's what it is and he'll be fine."
Jeanine nodded. "Good. I'll go talk to him and take him back home."
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Quigley returned to the base and went to his lab, to check on the compounding machine's progress. He looked at the display, seeing that the drug was almost complete. Pleased with this one small bit of good news, he collapsed behind his desk and let his head fall forward, hitting the wood surface with a resounding thud.
"That's not good for you, sweetie."
He looked up, his eyes reflecting his exhaustion. It was Amy. "Oh, hey."
She came over and sat on the edge of his desk. "Quig, you've really been burning the candle at both ends since…you know."
The blond propped his head up on his arms. "I know, but…I've had to keep my mind occupied."
Amy pushed aside some of the things on his desk and then laid on her side, facing him. "I could keep you occupied."
He smiled at her offer, but that was just something that he knew he couldn't manage for the time being. "I'm sorry…"
"It's all right. You've been through a lot lately." Amy reached over and touched the side of his face. "I've…I've just missed you."
"I guess I haven't been a lot of fun as a boyfriend, huh?" he closed his eyes at her touch.
"You've done fine, you've had good reason."
"Well, once this drug is made up and Vincent, Cid, and the boy are all helped, then…then I'm done. I told Reno today that I wanted to go after this and that you did, too." Quigley looked at her again.
Amy visibly winced at this news. "How'd he react to that? I know you're really important to this place."
"He took it surprisingly well. I told him that I'd still offer my services as a consultant when needed, and that seemed to help." Quigley's tiredness was crushing in on him as his body was finally faltering in his stress. He yawned and stretched slightly.
"Quigley, I think you need to get to bed." She got off the desk and stood up.
"I tried laying down earlier, and I just ended up staring at the ceiling for two hours." He rubbed at his eyes.
"Well, I'll make sure that you have something better to look up at than the ceiling. Come on," she said, extending a hand toward him.
Stressed, tired, and in mourning or not, something in her body language caught his attention. He took her hand and got up, letting her lead him from the room.