Updated16th May, 2006: Minor edits, primarily changing the paragraphing in places and abit of rephrasing or adding a line here and there.

Author's Notes: First, thank you to all who reviewed and read! i'm glad you liked her in chapter 1, Alwani; she'll be appearing more in this chapter and the next. -luff for the Reno-tologists- You guys are so sweet T.T Thank you. i really appreciate it :) And thanks to Erailti for the favourite, that was a big but pleasant surprise!

It was a great relief to hear that most people thought Reno was IC. It's quite scary to take on a much loved character and try to write as him or her, especially for the first time. Hopefully this chapter won't disappoint. There isn't as much Reno in the chapter, at least not directly - he's seen through the eyes of two others instead, mostly. Far less humour this time round as well, though i think the lighter tone will be back in the next chapter.

Tseng appearance is dedicated to the lovely Mudskii - hope i didn't slaughter him with my depiction x.X

Disclaimer: Reno, Tseng, Rude, Elena and Rufus are property of Square Enix.

Islands

Chapter 2: Memories and Midnight Visitors

He glanced over at the younger man again, only turning his eyes, and yet, so smoothly that it would have appeared to anyone who happened to observe him that he had only been letting his eyes drift in a cursory way, perhaps out of boredom.

In truth, it was a skill he had trained himself in many, many years ago and that had come into use in even more missions. And, occasionally, during more peaceful times as well such as these, when he wished to remain undetected to evade his actions being questioned. Tseng had no use and little patience for what he considered unnecessary expenses of energy.

Any admiration for his skillful eye-manipulation was unlikely to come from Reno's corner however, not because that man was unaware of Tseng's ability - he had been the first since Veld to notice and comment on it, in fact - but that Turk had his own eyes closed, bobbing his head and occasionally singing along to whatever it was that was currently in his music player. He had given up trying to talk to his silent leader for the time being, something that the Wutaian was grateful for, though he knew that the lull would not last long.

"EL-E-VA-TION!"

Tseng didn't so much as blink at the sudden shouted lyrics. Reno called it music, but Tseng has his doubts. His personal hypothesis was that the tracks the red head favoured and tended to blast in the office were really recordings of someone slowly drowning a cat. A particularly large-lunged, angry feline at that. It was popular though, if the frequency of such sounds being played on the radio was any indication. Maybe he was just getting old. With a faint sigh that was swallowed easily by the rhythmic whirring of the helicopter blades not that far overhead, Tseng turned his thoughts from the yowling of half-dead cats to his own half-life.

He'd never really had much of a life after he'd become a Turk. Shin-Ra tended to do that to a person.

Reno had once only half-jokingly commented that working for Shin-Ra was like being a prostitute, without the sex. Rude had given a wry half-smile and shaken his head; Elena had frowned and looked down into the swirling depths of her shot glass for answers that weren't there -silent for once as she struggled to find something positive to say -and Tseng... Tseng had merely raised his own glass and calmly emptied it, hardly seeming to acknowledge his subordinate's words. Hardly seeming to care that he had been the one responsible for dragging each of them down with him along the rocky, twisted, one-way road of Shin-Ra's building. Not that they had all been wide-eyed innocents before - they had known what they were in for when the option had been presented to them, and they had chosen to follow him. Their eyes had been wide open, true, but not in innocence.

Except, perhaps, for Reno's.

In past and present, Tseng closed his eyes and let the thoughts wash across the darkness behind them.

It would have come to a surprise to almost all who knew him (or thought they did, Tseng mused,) that the flame-haired devil-in-a-blue-suit had been the only one of the presently four Turks who hadn't known what the job entailed when he had agreed to sign on.

It had been a chance encounter that'd made their paths cross. Tseng had been on a routine mission. The suspect had managed to evade capture, though not give his pursuers the slip, and run into a busy street in one of the shopping districts to make his get away. And maybe he would have managed it too, if he hadn't decided to shove a red-headed delivery boy out of his way. Focused on only the task at hand, Tseng had barely noticed the boy, no more than sixteen, as he dashed past him in pursuit of his quarry. But he had been forced to notice when, fifteen minutes and countless, winding streets later, he found his target at last - face down and barely conscious in an alley, with an annoyed young man standing over him.

"Nobody messes with my hair." The suspect's gun was in the boy's hand, but it was obvious from his grip that he had no idea how to handle it. What had caught Tseng's attention however was that - unlike him - the youth didn't look winded by the chase in the least. There was a slight sheen of sweat on his face and neck, but that was about all. He'd also been left behind the Turks when they had last seen him.

His partner had caught up by then, and proceeded to take over custody of the suspect and his weapon while Tseng questioned the 'witness' as per protocol. His name was Reno, he said, and no, he had no idea what the hell was going on; he'd just had a shitty day and that guy - he gestured at the apprehended man - shoving him , which had not only broken the glass cases he'd been about to deliver but messed up his hair, had been the last straw. He asked why the police in Midgar wore expensive-looking suits rather than the uniforms the ones in Kalm wore. Tseng had replied that they were Turks, not police, to which he received a blank stare, and then a shrug. The Wutaian had been surprised that this Reno didn't ask any questions, and it must have shown in his face... he had been younger and a little more open in those days, the present-day Tseng thought, they both had been... as the boy suddenly grinned and said that he didn't hate life enough to ask too many questions of a guy with a gun. A card was given to the almost too-thin boy, with the offer of possible work at Shin-Ra if the life of a delivery boy got too mundane for him. The Turks had parted ways with him then, without another word.

Two days later, the phone rang.

Days melted into weeks that wove themselves into years, and suddenly, a decade had come and gone. Had it really been that long?

Tseng felt the mechanical heartbeat of the chopper against his temple as his weary head leaned against its insides. He dragged his lids open again and glanced at Reno. The man had come a long way from the gangly, vain youth he had met all those years ago. He was still skinny, excessively protective of his hair and cocky, but he was also sharper, more sarcastic, and knew how to handle guns and more with the precision and confidence that only came from experience. Shin-Ra had eroded whatever innocence he had carried with from Kalm, and the boy had grown into not just a man, but a Turk.

The sense of almost paternal pride -or maybe it was more the pride of a craftsman admiring his best work - which Tseng allowed himself was tempered by a sudden, inexplicable sense of loss and guilt. He turned his gaze away, letting it pass over the land that skimmed past, 30 000 feet below the small metal cabin. They would be arriving back in Midgar in less than an hour.

Almost as if he had been listening to his commander's thoughts rather than to his dying-feline-screeching, Reno's voice carried across the small space, over the noise of the helicopter. "Boss?"

Tseng nodded almost imperceptibly. He was tired. They were returning empty handed, again, he thought with frustration. No, not they, he was: it was his personal mission. Reeve had seemed hesitant, uncomfortable even when Tseng had told him what he wanted to do, but he hadn't exactly said no. It would have been pointless anyway; Tseng would still have gone, and they both knew it. It had been pointless in other ways too. The lead had only terminated in a dead end, as all the others had. Rufus simply wasn't ready to be found yet, and until he was, Tseng would not find him. But that didn't mean he wouldn't try.

Perhaps that was really why Reeve had let him go - he knew that the efforts would amount to nothing.

The Turk commander was convinced that the apparent new President of Shin-Ra was not as ignorant about the true Shinra leader's mysterious disappearance as he claimed to be. Reeve was as much a puppet for Rufus as Cait Sith had ever been for Reeve.

That realisation, when it had come, that realisation had... hurt. Rufus had been under Tseng's watch for years, almost since he'd begun his career as a Turk. In a strange sense, they had grown up together, one into the future leader of Shin-Ra and the other into one of the company's most valuable employees. Tseng had watched the once spoilt but normal little boy grow from Rufus into Shinra, and the blond youth had watched the black-haired man sink into his role as a Turk. Or at least, Tseng had thought Rufus had watched.

Rufus seldom let anyone into his confidence, but over the years, that role had fallen more and more onto the quiet man from Wutai. They had never regained the almost-friendship that had developed before the young Shinra had been plucked from his sheltered, comfortable home life to start his grooming for the presidency (or rather, vice-presidency), but there had been... something left in its place. Trust, mutual respect, maybe. After Meteor, Tseng had been one of the few to know that the former President was still very much alive, and the only one to know that he had not in fact been crippled. Rufus had not wanted the other Turks to know the latter, and Tseng had agreed without question, though not hesitation.

It was only after his disappearance that the truth had been revealed to the three - to much surprise on Elena's part and more cursing on Reno's. Perhaps it had been uncharacteristically petty of him to repay the 'betrayal' of the unexplained vanishing with the revelation of his secret, but it hadn't mattered at the time. What did matter was that Rufus was gone and his bodyguard didn't know where, why, or how.

It hadn't been a kidnapping; they had been able to ascertain that much. The rational part of Tseng's mind told him that he had no need to know or worry, that Rufus had his reasons and would be able to take care of himself, that if he had wanted the aid of the Turks, he would have demanded it, as he had so many times before.

Logic dictated that Tseng had no reason to feel... anything. Tseng may have been a trusted employee of his, but that was all. Reeve had been told because he was needed in Rufus' scheme. And you are not.

"Boss? Oi, Planet to Tseng, do you read?" A light kick accompanied the words.

He glared at Reno, unfolding one arm to dust off his pant leg. "I was listening." An eyebrow raised in question.

"I'm bored."

Tseng sighed as he closed his eyes again and waited for the inevitable.

Reno did not disappoint. "Are we there yet?"

"... No."

"Are we there now?"

"No." He wished again that he had brought the Materia to cast a Sleep spell on the annoying redhead.

"... How about now?"

Another kick followed when there was no answer. A thin line formed between Tseng's brows. "No."

He didn't need to look to see the grin on Reno's face. "And now?"

"NO."

"Fine, fine, no need to get testy, I was just asking. Tch."

A few moments of peace returned. Reno turned to look out of the window and Tseng relaxed slightly, glad that it was over. Lost innocence or no, Reno still acted like a child sometimes, and was just as exhausting to deal with. It was hard to believe that he would be approaching thirty in another few years.

"Tseng?"

The Wutaian twitched imperceptibly. "How long do you think it will take before your body impacts -"

"Why didn't he tell us?" The playful tone was gone from Reno's voice and his blue-green eyes when Tseng's gaze snapped up to the younger man's face. "I thought he trusted us."

The blades of the helicopter continued to spin above them.

Tseng almost wished that Reno had resumed the infernal, childish questions.

He thought about pretending not to know who Reno meant. He thought about replying that he did not know, and that it was not their concern and that their job was to make sure he was safe, not to question the motives of his actions. He thought about, for just this once, at 30 000 feet in the air with no one else but Reno and the pilot to bear witness, letting the walls between himself and the world down and admitting how many times he had asked himself that very question, and that none of the answers made him feel any better.

Tseng looked out of the window at the city growing larger with each beat of the chopper's metal heart. His eyes sought and found the new Shin-Ra building, glimmering like hope in the last rays of sunlight. "We'll be there soon."

She sat at the dining table, hands and eyes steadily, meticulously working their way down the piece of paper before her. The hour hand of her watch was pointed slightly past 3 when she glanced at it. Sleep didn't feel any nearer than it had four hours ago, however. Note to self: No coffee after 6pm. At this rate she wouldn't be able to get any rest 'til daybreak. At least it was a Saturday, she could afford to sleep in.

There was still half an inch of papers left to go through anyhow; she might as well just finish those off so that she'd have the rest of the weekend free. Perhaps she'd spend one afternoon at the cafe across the street, reading that book her brother had given her last Winter Fest. The weather had been nice lately, it seemed almost a waste to spend most of the day indoors.

Her eyes rose from the table with its several neat, white plateaus to the window opposite from where she sat. Outside, the world was still. It was a fairly quiet street at night, something that she appreciated greatly since she lived on the ground floor. Streetlamps cast their hazy but constant glows on the street they stood guard along, while the cafe's lights winked invitingly at passers by. It was the only lighted property along that side of the road, as far as she could see. The cafe turned into a bar by night, but the doors managed to contain most of the noise within the walls of the establishment, so it hardly bothered her or any of the other residents. Except perhaps for Mr. Jenson on the second floor, but he complained about everything, so nobody but his poor cats listened to his ranting anymore. The fact that it wasn't as heavily patronised as the pubs in the more central parts of Midgar was probably a contributing factor. Whatever it was, she wasn't complaining.

As she was about to lower her eyes back to the patiently waiting stack of papers, the cafe's door swung open.

Light and sound spilled out onto the darkened lane for a moment, before it closed again and silence returned. The figure staggered a bit as it stood before the closed door, as if deciding where to go next. Bright red hair was visible even in the half-light of the predawn street.

Him again, the woman thought with some amusement.

Over a week had passed since she'd first encountered the man, sprawled across the hallway. They had not met face to face since, but she had happened to see him sauntering over to the cafe-turned-bar some evenings ago, probably after work; and again, the next day, and every one since. It wasn't that she had been purposely looking out for him, honestly, she was a creature of habit and had settled into the routine of sitting at the table everyday after coming home, not long after moving in. Then one day, he just so happened to choose to walk across to the bar at the same time that she had looked up.

There was just something about him that made him difficult to ignore, and she couldn't put her finger on what it was. It wasn't the shock of crimson hair; even though that certainly did grab one's attention, there was something else that made it linger on him. She had always liked to observe people, and the Turk was definitely an interesting subject.

Maybe that was it, she thought, the Turk suit, and all it represented. She had read the occasional mentions of the Turks in newspapers over the years, and heard the whispered rumours about the true nature of their jobs. Henchmen, murderers, monsters, demons, they'd been called, along with long strings of other unsavoury names. Someone had even claimed that they'd been single handedly responsible for the Sector 7 incident.

That had been the rumour that had scared her the most; kidnappings, assassinations, these seemed so removed from her life that it was easy to imagine that they were nothing more than stories. It was harder though to ignore an entire chunk of a city that had been completely destroyed. Could someone really have done that - deliberately, knowingly condemned all those people to death? Who could be that heartless?

All these thoughts and more had run through her head when she had first heard that there was a Turk living in this very apartment block. She had seriously considered looking for another place for a time, because of that, but finally decided that she shouldn't throw away such a good offer based on a handful of rumours. Even if such a person was living in the block, well, she would just hope that they would never run into each other. That was one of the perks of living in a city after all, the sense of anonimity.

And then, after almost a year of blissful ignorance, she had come home one evening to find a man in the distinctive blue-black suit... lying on the floor and shouting obscenities at the lift. He certainly hadn't looked like a cold-blooded killer, or behaved like one. Granted, her experience with other cold-blooded killers was limited. Although she did sometimes wonder about some of her kids...

She idly tapped her red pen on her lip and continued musing over the strange contradiction between her imaginary version of the creepy-Turk-who-lived-in-her-block and the real one that she had actually observed, trying fruitlessly to reconcile the image and the truth - or what she thought was the truth, from the short encounter. Then she shook her head and laughed ruefully at herself, shuffling those thoughts away with the finished papers. If she wasn't careful, she'd turn into one of those little old ladies who did nothing with her days but peer in at her neighbours' lives. Maybe Sheila was right, she did need to get out more. Tomorrow, she promised herself, Tomorrow I'll go out and socialise with actual humans instead of my books or piano or wondering about the nature of strange men who might-or-might-not-be-ruthless-mass-murderers.

She added that to her mental "To Do" list with a sigh. It wasn't that she was anti-social by nature, it just seemed that people didn't want or know how to respond to her. They either looked at her with either disgust or pity, or simply pretended that she wasn't there. All three reactions frustrated her. All anyone seemed to notice was her chair. Why was it so hard for others to see that she was just a normal human being, and treat her like one? What I wouldn't give for just one day -

A sudden scraping sound broke through her thoughts. The woman's dark head shot up, and her eyes went to the window.

She screamed as someone calmly climbed through her open window and started walking across her floor.

The cafe continued to wink silently from across the street.

Congratulations if you made it to the end XD; i was going to include the next scene in there instead of splitting it off into another chapter, but i thought that over 3k words for one installment was quite enough. Feel like writing it now, but it's past 3am here now too - purely coincidence. You can probably guess what will happen anyhow XD Comments welcome, as always!