The girl sees me. It's only a brief glance, but her dark eyes search me for a moment. No, we've never met, child. That's for younger Turks, who probably knew you. So I keep walking, and I can't see that bedraggled unintentional parade.
A small and firm hand stops me in my path. I suppress the urge to lash out, like I always do when people touch me. I don't like being touched, it does strange things with my mind and... I just don't like it.
"Remove your hand." It is withdrawn and I turn around, expecting a beggar or my much late executioner. But it is... the girl. How strange.
"Excuse me? Do I know you?" she has a worry filled voice, the kind that must be quite endearing if you are her friend and quite grating if you are not. She looks like she should be younger too, but for those strange eyes.
"You're a little young to. I highly doubt it," I reply in a crisp and polite manner that is befitting such a benevolent situation. Yes, it lacks the warmth that it should, but this girl is not mine, nor would I want her to be.
"Maybe you have a son or daughter I know?" Old fags like me leave no genetic legacy. And the closest to that? Maybe Tseng, but I haven't had the nerve to go and see him yet. She could very well know him, but does it matter? Not really.
"Oh... I'm sorry." She downcasts her eyes for a moment and then looks up. She's searching again and her eyes hold a momentary recognition. But it's not me she sees.
"Go join your friends, kid. You did good," I say, with nothing else for this conversation. She nods and her brows furrow as if she's still trying to figure me out. It's really not worth it, go back to your friends. And without thinking, I give a little bow before departing.
I only get a yard or so away before she's speaking again.
"This is going to sound strange, but... there's a Turk... his name was Tseng... did, did you know him?" I turn around too quickly and I know I'm caught. She smiles.
"Did you?" I am careful to use the past tense. Very few know just how many of the Turks survived, and I am a wealth of secretive information. Unlike Tseng, who was carved for excellence in execution of task and unlike Vincent, who was built for killing, I was always the informative source.
Always a little nosy. A little curious.
She nods slowly. Another girl? Tseng, you certainly got around, didn't you? "He... well, you remind me of a story of his, that's all." People with such empathic perception are uncommon in any age. Oh, I bet she was such a pretty little spy back before the Midgarian apocalypse.
What was it you said? About things you wanted to protect and couldn't, Tseng?
"I... I should get back before Barret wonders. I'm Tifa, if you should ever want to... reminisce." Her long hair swings behind her as she walks and I'm left to my failing nerve and images of older times. I don't leave her with my name, and I don't think she was looking for one. Must have spooked her with something. No idea what.
No, the woman you were protecting was very different. And old lovers have such a different way of running into old teachers. I was the only one that ever had the privilege of seeing you break down.
You never drank, on the few occasions I went with the others to the bar. I had always appreciated your candor, your dedication to your work. Maybe it was that little bit of my younger self that I saw in you, maybe it was that you behaved like I'd always wanted Valentine to act.
"Reno and Rude are destroying things again," he said, carefully looking over his shoulder, neat ponytail shaking with the sudden movement. I hadn't really been paying attention to anything, considering they'd dragged Trip and Anna in barely alive. Tseng had only been leader for a month then, and it wore on him as much as me.
And not being out in the field... well, my hands were shaking. I itched to go out and protect them. My children, you could say. I wanted to yell and scream at them for their failure. Except, it wasn't their failure to get injured like that...
"Sir? Can I... can I ask you something?" Tseng had turned his attention away from the mayhem, and his attention was fully upon me.
"What is it?" I had already told him of his failure. The after time spent in this smoke filled bar was my penance.
"Has the job... has it ever gotten in the way of something you wanted to... protect?" I had a ready response for that. Utter denial, complete rhetoric.
"There should be nothing standing in the way of your work. Any ties that you have... break them. You can't be a professional and a romantic." His eyes hardened for a moment, and I couldn't help but wonder if I'd hit the point a little too hard. I had done it, and so would my protégé. It was the order and cycle of things.
It was the order.
"But... what if it's... wrong?" The whiskey throated jazz singer hit a high note and the rest of the crowd stopped drowning in their booze. The odd silence in her vocal reverb didn't help my already shaking hands.
"Redefine it, then. Or... forget." I wanted to tell him to run away from this life, if he was already thinking like that. Tseng was far too young to sound like an old man. He was far too young to start with, a little war prisoner that had decided he had seen the light.
And he believed.
He nodded and I knew there would be no further argument. Tseng never argued, and up until five minutes ago, he had never asked a question like that. There was a measure to their lives, all the kids, that I had missed and was still missing.
"You have nothing to worry about, sir," he mumbled before breaking up the potential brawl that Reno was in the middle of. A sense for trouble, I'd taught him that until it was instinct.
Funny how now I don't even notice when an odd girl walks up behind me. Or even the change in my surroundings as I walk to the Tower, out of rote and nothing else.
"Sir?" That sense of being followed had never left me, not in the entire time I watched the heroes, not in the entire time I walked back to hell. I may not notice the girl, but I'll always notice an assassin.
"You have a clean shot," I answer. They had survived; there was no real point in me sticking around like this.
"I'm not here to kill you," he steps out and I should have known this whole time.
"Hello, Tseng. You're looking well."