III: Phoenix in flight

A small city had sprung up beside Midgar, the embodiment of the ceaseless efforts of the World Restoration Organization. The inhabitants called it the Edge, although there were those who favored the name Neo Midgar.

It felt exactly like they were preparing to depart on a mission, standing here on the helipad waiting for the next shuttle to come in. She had told herself: enough, be happy, stop wallowing in nostalgia, but it welled up again as the familiar beat of helicopter blades above them sounded.

Tseng glanced at her, and she couldn't help but smile back, and was rewarded with one of those terribly rare and unguarded smiles from her one-time superior. Superior. Turks were Turks for life, and Tseng would always be the boss to her.

"Remember," he said, and she grinned at that, seeing the same thoughts reflected in his eyes.

"Gongaga," they chorused together.

"Scarlet," she said.

"6 hour flight," he replied, and they shuddered in mock horror.

The deafening thunder of the helicopter coming in to land drowned out conversation after that, and the pilot hopped out, signaling them to board. Ladies first, Tseng indicated, to which she paused for a heartbeat, decided: To hell with it, and stuck her tongue out at him before clambering on board.

They glided into Junon on the wings of sunset, the sky a burnished gold that reminded her all too sharply of Meteor and the Weapons. Sunsets here had always been beautiful, viewed from the incredible floor to ceiling windows of the Junon Headquarters. But now that memory was punctuated with blood, the screams as soldiers were cut down, and all too starkly: Rufus, fists and teeth clenched, leaning against the glass, a strangled growl of sheer frustration rumbling low in his throat.

She had always been afraid of him; this boy President made of ivory and polished glass. Remote and untouchable, seemingly unflappable as he snapped out orders, the solid pillar of strength in the middle of the whirlwind of chaos. But as energy blasts plowed into their fortifications that day and defeat became inevitable, he had glanced up, and in one unguarded moment, turned to her, helplessness and gut wrenching guilt written on his features.

"Sir," she had said, shocked to see her leader falter.

What have I done, his eyes read, and it seemed as if he would break, more lost than she had ever seen him… than anyone had ever seen him, she suspected.

"Sir," she had said again, training stepping in; Tseng's relentless drilling that they existed for the President, that they existed to take the fall for the President, that they were Turks and they were not allowed to falter, not even if the world ended… "What are your orders?"

And with nothing more extravagant than a shuddering breath and a blink of blue eyes, he had snapped back to himself, spinning to the communications panel and ordering the retreat.

It had been the last time she had seen him. They said he had stared death in the eye without blinking, that he had died like a Turk or a SOLDIER, embracing the end without fear.

Tseng was watching her when she turned her attention from the view. She met his gaze – something had changed, after all, in those years, if she look straight into his eyes without the overwhelming urge to look away. "Is something wrong?"

For a moment, it seemed as if he would speak, then he turned away, shaking his head.

"Tseng," she said, a shade reproachfully.

"I invited you to dinner once," he said, not looking at her. "May I apologize for my inability to attend on that occasion and extend another invitation?"

He remembered. Something that must have been sheer joy surged up in her, that this hadn't been a fluke, that it hadn't been a spur of the moment decision, that maybe, just maybe, he liked her enough that…

"Absolutely," she replied.

"Would madam be free this evening?" he asked, and now there was a sparkle in his eyes as he faced her once more.

"Why I do believe I shall be," she shot back, and it felt as if the world clicked in that instant, as if both of them had crossed some unspoken, invisible line.

"Well then. We should try the Junon Imperial Hotel, if it's not burnt to the ground." Tseng made a mock grimace. "Everything seems to have burned to the ground since I returned. Including my Midgar apartment."

-v-

The Junon Imperial, it turned out, was somewhat battered, but still standing, and the restaurant there was still as excellent and as pricey as ever. It was also, Elena thought to herself in the quietest corner of her mind, terribly romantic. Except that she didn't have anything formal but the Turk uniform she was presently standing in. Given that Tseng was also immaculately turned out in the same, it leant the air of a business meeting rather than a date.

Ah well. One took what opportunities one got.

Wine made the conversation flow – smoothly, lightly, touching first on speculation as to where the others could be, questions about each other's lives in the intervening years, reminiscing about the past, news of the present. Good topics. Safe topics.

Elena got tired of it very quickly, interesting though Tseng's stories were.

"Is it," she asked, not sure whether it was the wine making her bold, "Standard practice for the Director to invite his newest recruit out for dinner?"

Tseng was never caught unawares by something as simple as conversation.

"No," he replied, mirror smooth.

She had made sure that she wasn't holding anything. It turned out to be a good thing as it felt as though her heart had stopped in her chest at that simple admission.

Clink of dinner cutlery as Tseng delicately placed his fork and knife together on an empty plate. Brush of fabric as he placed his elbows on the table, crossing his fingers and resting his chin atop them. Watching her.

"And then?" she prompted, feeling vaguely as though she was falling. Too far down the rabbit hole. One had no choice but to keep going.

Tseng smiled, removing his elbows from the table and adjusting the napkin on his lap. "You were never one for tact."

"Why bother to beat around the bush?" she mumbled.

"Indeed," Tseng replied.

"Especially around taciturn Wutainese," she retorted.

He laughed at that, a quiet chuckle that brought a blush to her face despite her best efforts to hide it. "I believe then, you know the answer."

"One is never certain until one gets it from the horse's mouth. Isn't that what you told us?"

"Indeed." Fingers smoothing the edge of the tablecloth. He inclined his head. "And I believe I also told you, and Reno especially, that haste is inadvisable."

"Tseng," she asked, trying not to let the disappointment that was trying to well up overwhelm her. "Can't you give me a straight answer for once?"

The smile faded from his face. "I am sorry.. It was …discourteous of me." He paused. "One is uncertain, you might say. We are not… who we used to be. And there are other matters I must resolve first."

"But…"

"I cannot give you anything. Not with the future so uncertain. Too many things are hanging in the balance."

"It doesn't matter," she whispered.

The honest sincerity in his face nearly broke her heart. "I care for you, Elena. More than a Director should care for one of his Turks, given that they are likely to die in the battle to come. But if all goes well, there may be no more battles. And maybe I could give you a better answer then."

There were a million things she wanted to ask him. Like how the future was uncertain. Like whether his 'maybe' was more of a 'yes maybe' or a 'no maybe'. But she knew it herself: here in Junon they were safe, for a little while, but outside, a hostile world still waited.

"I would give you more than just bitterness and a life in exile," he said.

"You're too much of a gentleman," she said. But isn't that part of what I love about you? That someone like you should still exist in this world… "But you don't need to protect me, you know. I can look after myself. We could… we will find the rest… and build something more than just a life in exile."

"That we will," he replied. "That we will."

-v-

The morning dawned clear and cold. Tseng, Elena discovered to her secret delight, wasn't impeccable in the mornings, not until he had two cups of coffee at least, and a splash of cold water to the face. Only then would he fish around for his tie, slightly muzzy, and fasten the shirt cuffs, and finger-comb his hair into some semblance of respect.

It would be different, she rather suspected, if an enemy had come through the window, or if his PHS had gone off – she had seen him snap from completely asleep to completely awake in a heartbeat and put a bullet through the heart of a would be assassin from across the room in less than 2 seconds flat. But when off-duty, it seemed that even the Director could and did crash.

By the time they made their way out of the doors of the suite, though, he was every bit as professional as he normally appeared, on the PHS to order a cab to the airport as they strolled down the corridor together.

"We're late," he grumbled, as he snapped the PHS shut and shoved it into a jacket pocket. "Flight's in 15."

"Flight?" she asked. "I didn't know we were catching another flight?"

"Not ours," he replied, stifling a yawn. "But you'll see when we get there."

She glanced at him, puzzled, but he didn't offer any further explanation.

The airport was cold and windy. Elena stuffed her hands into her suit pockets and firmly told her spine to stop shivering. It was undignified. It was un-Turklike. It was weird, why they were standing here waiting for a flight that they weren't going to catch. She'd thought that someone would be on the flight, but the passengers from the helicopter – a family of six – had disembarked a while back and were unfamiliar to her.

"Tseng?" she asked.

"Late, as usual," Tseng murmured. "We really shouldn't have hurried."

"But there's no one…?"

With a roar, a helicopter zipped right overhead, came to a dead stop in midair, and then started flying backwards towards the helipad that it had overshot, before thumping down with a decided crunch.

"I… only one person flies like that," Elena gaped.

"I agree," Tseng said.

The door of the helicopter opened to eject the pilot, who paused only long enough to rip off the headset before turning… and stopping dead in his tracks. "Fuckin' Jenova," he said.

"Is that any way to greet your boss?" Tseng asked. "Reno?"

"Well, gee. Damn. I don't know," Reno said, still staring. "When your boss has been dead for like … four years, I don't think there's a standard protocol."

"Nevertheless."

"Well, and if it isn't the rookie too. How's things?"

Elena couldn't help it. "What… did you do with your hair?"

-v-

Reno ran his fingers through jet black strands that would have looked reminiscent of Tseng's, except that all the gel in the world couldn't tame those spikes. The twin marks under his eyes were gone – plastic surgery, he said, couldn't afford to have them, too distinctive…

"You look Wutainese, you know, with those features and that pale complexion…" Elena said at last, as they hunched over their beers in the bar along Junon harbour. She felt uneasy about being here. Alone they might not have been too recognizable, but with all three of them in the same place… it kept feeling as though someone would put two and two together (or two and one, maybe), and then the whole place would be coming down around their ears.

Tseng, however, looked completely unfazed as he chuckled a little at her comment.

"The eyes, man," Reno shot back, jabbing a finger towards said eyes, which were still that shocking shade of green. She'd thought that he was from SOLDIER, the first time she had set eyes on him, and maybe it wasn't that far off. Maybe he really had had mako injections. She'd never asked.

"Do you know where Rude is?" Tseng queried, swirling his glass as if he were drinking wine instead of Junon Bitter.

"I don't know." Reno paused to light a cigarette, something he had never indulged in before, and fiddled with the pilot's goggles hanging around his neck. "We were all split up after Meteor hit Midgar… He's probably dead. I've been flying over half the planet and I haven't seen sight or sound of him…"

"You didn't see sight or sound of us either," Elena felt compelled to point out.

"Well, you—" distinctive Reno finger jab at Tseng, "were dead, so you don't count. And you—" distinctive Reno finger jab at her, "were holed up in a backwater."

"So?" she shot back.

Ever dramatic, Reno slapped his palm against his forehead and mumbled: "Rookies."

Elena took a drink and grinned. Her very own crazy family, reunited again. Much as Reno drove her to distraction with his stupid antics and the whole rookie thing, it was so good to have him around again. And not just you and Tseng and might bes and might-have-beens, a voice whispered in the back of her mind. She shushed it into silence.

"We can't possibly search the entire globe looking for him," Reno was telling Tseng. "He might be dead. He's definitely hiding. He's not going to turn up so easily. Hell, I don't even know how you found me."

"Intelligence gathering is my specialty," Tseng said dryly.

"You don't know until you don't try," Elena added.

"I hate to sound callous… but… what're you planning on doing? A big family reunion?" Reno's tone inched into the sarcastic drawl she remembered so well. "We're not Sephiroth clones. Besides, we're not exactly welcomed around here. Individually, we may have been able to escape notice, except for Mr Wutai over there – your fault for looking so pretty for the cameras. But in a group… we're too damn obvious."

Oh, now that irked her. Turks didn't give up, no matter what the odds were. They'd certainly drilled that into her, over and over again. And perhaps if she'd been alone, if she'd never found the rest, why that would be a different story. But here there were three of them together again, against all possible odds, and if that wasn't a sign… a sign of something… and he was just writing it off, telling them to go back to whatever miserable lives they'd been leading before that…

And in that instant, everything that had been nagging her from Kalm to here became crystal clear. There was no going back. There was no hiding any more. That kind of life… wasn't a life worth living. "We're going to rebuild Shinra Company," she found herself saying, mind filled with images of yesteryear. It wasn't just about the Company. It was about a time when the Turks had once been a force worth reckoning with. It was about a time when they had been the ones standing between the world and a disaster. A time when they'd had a mission, and a goal, and something to work towards. Her sister had been part of that team. Her sister had died being part of that team. She could do nothing less. 1

Reno snorted. "Dream on, rookie."

"We're Turks!" Elena hissed at him. "We can do anything if we put our minds to it! We can't be just…just… normal. Mediocre. Doesn't it bug you?"

It was almost gratifying to see Reno look away, unable to meet her eyes. "Look," he said, after a pause. "I'd like to have the good ol' days back as much as you do, but we're not businessmen. You need people who're good at that shit. Executives. You need Shinras. Hell, seeing how damn senile the old President was getting towards the end, probably only Junior had an icicle in Hell's chance of even putting the company back together again. Only problem is that they're all busy chillin' in the Lifestream now."

"Oh look at you!" Elena snapped. "Just scraping by, hoping that someone doesn't recognize you, just making enough to get yourself smashed the next Friday…"

"You got any better plans, Rookie!" Reno snarled, banging his glass down on the table and drawing stares. They glared at each other, both almost too furious to speak, and the other people at the bar quietly found other things to look at.

"Suit yourself," Elena said at last, disgustedly, and turned her attention on her beer.

"What about you, boss?" Reno said, turning to the silent Tseng. "Surely you're not just in it for the thrills."

"I'm just following orders," Tseng said mildly.

"Orders?" Elena and Reno chorused, and Tseng shot them both a bemused glance.

"That night, when I was in the Shinra building… I was also searching for something."

"Impossible!" Elena said. "The place was cleaned out… I made sure that even the data was destroyed or encrypted."

Tseng smiled at her. "You don't have access to everything. There are sections of the Shinra internal network that aren't housed in the central data center. For most intents and purposes, they don't exist. They're completely off the main network."

"So did you find, man?" Reno asked. "What were you looking for? The lost Shinra fortunes?"

"Rufus' final orders."

"What?"

Tseng took his time answering as he fiddled with his glass. "In the last moments before Weapon struck the office, he encoded a set of orders, directed to Rude, and through Rude, to the rest of you."

The shock that rippled through her at those words were like lightning to the nerves. She found that she'd moved, unthinkingly, to the edge of her seat, leaning forward across the table. Orders? Some plan? Some kind of… they had to be authentic. Tseng would never have followed them otherwise.

"And what were the Chief's famous last words?" Reno asked.

"He ordered us to Wutai," Tseng said.

"Wutai?" Reno demanded, and Elena could feel her eyes widening.

"That means, if Rude's still alive, he would have headed for Wutai…" she postulated.

"Why Wutai?" Reno persisted. "Of all the forsaken places on this ruddy planet…"

Tseng met their incredulous stares evenly. "He didn't say. I can postulate… there were old supply caches and abandoned outposts in Wutai from after the Shinra-Wutai war. There may have been something left there."

"Dude." Reno ground his cigarette out in the ashtray. "That's so stupid."

If Tseng was fazed by the remark, he didn't show it. "Nevertheless," he said calmly. "Are you with us?"

There was a brief silence, and Elena found herself watching Reno like a hawk. Read the body language, they had taught her in basic training, and here she could almost see the internal struggle. The fidgeting, the refusal to meet Tseng's eyes, the way he worried at the hem of his pilot's jacket…

He's not going to do it, she thought suddenly, and the disappointment that followed that was almost painful. He's given up. He's… oh senpai…

Reno's eyes met hers at that moment. And narrowed. He spun back to Tseng. "You know I can't resist when you ask me like that. Fine. I'll schedule myself on the next flight to Rocket Town and bring you guys there, and we'll see how that goes, right? No one flies straight into Wutai now. After Meteor fell, they had this whole resurgence of anti-Shinra, anti-evil foreign aliens sentiment and closed themselves off…"

"Rocket Town will be fine," Tseng said, as Elena blinked and wondered if perhaps Reno had seen something of her thoughts in her gaze.

"But no one gets into Wutai!" Reno protested.

"I am from Wutai," Tseng pointed out.

"And you look like you're from Wutai," Elena couldn't resist pointing out, indicating Reno's hair.

"Whatever, man," Reno pulled his legs off the neighbouring stool, and adjusted his jacket as he stood. "You guys are on crack. But who knows. You might just find something."

Elena exchanged glances with Tseng as they stood, adjusting ties and jackets. He was smiling.

-v-

To be continued.

1 Elena refers to the events of Before Crisis. This fic is an alternate universe and hence does not follow the BC-canon, and is designed to be spoiler-free hence the lack of elaboration.