I just want to thank everyone for supporting me so well in all of your reviews. Everything from the "Good. Keep going." to the detailed reasons why you liked my story so much has helped me a lot when writing this and I felt I needed to tell all of you.

Disclaimer: I still don't own FF7 but after the blue suit men episode that I've had to deal with I don't mind saying it quite so much anymore.

Anyway…

Chapter5: Decisions

Spirituality had never been high on Tifa Lockheart's list of things she put much stock in. The biggest leap of faith she had taken was when she thought she would be able to see her dead mother again if she crossed over her town's mountain. And now she was suppose to believe that this young woman named Aeris was the last living member of a long dead race that had superior intellect and magic powers like the ability to talk to the planet?

'I'm beginning to see why the system is so screwed over in ShinRa. Everyone there has to be insane,' she thought as she walked down the streets of the slums with Reno. The two were silent as she followed Reno to the place where he had told her the Ancient was said to stay for the majority of the time. There were conveniently no people around and she couldn't help but laugh silently at the ironic feeling in her gut that the ones that had fled quickly from the streets because of her uniform were the same kind of victim as she was.

"What'll happen to her when we capture her?" Tifa asked.

"She'll be handed over to the Science Research and Development Department for experiments," Reno replied. Something in his voice sounded a little disgusted with what he was saying. "It's said she can lead us to the Promised Land and give Midgar and the slum people eternal happiness."

"So what's the problem?" she asked.

He whirled around to look at her and gave her a small pout. "If there's eternal happiness than I'm out of a job."

"I'm sure," she said and rolled her eyes. She noticed a small church that resembled the rest of the streets, falling apart, but it still didn't have the hopeless look the other buildings had. It was close to one of the gates leading out of the city, so some sun shined in through the glass walls and gave the church a sort of comfortable little look. It reminded Tifa of home. "Is that it?"

Reno looked over his shoulder and nodded. "Yeah, that's it. Want the honor?"

"I'm going in alone?" 'So much for back up.'

"She's tricky. I'm waiting outside if she runs."

She gave him a curios look. "How many times has ShinRa tried to capture her?"

"Enough to give Hojo a conniption fit if she gets away again. But we can't use too much force because she's too useful to risk losing her. Not to mention she's just a sweet girl." He muttered the last part and Tifa wondered if she even heard it.

"I'll go inside," she said and slipped past him and into the door.

Aeris was kneeling over a garden of flowers like she was in the middle of prayer. Her back was directly towards the newbie Turk and all around her flowers were in bloom. It was a sight that seemed unreal to Tifa, to see this girl tending the flowers in the light that supposedly had forsaken Midgar along with the flowers that had done the same. Even without seeing the face of this person, Tifa could see an angel in this dead world. The guilt that she was about to hurt the girl because she had to nearly made Tifa retch.

"I didn't know the Turks had gotten a new recruit," a small voice spoke from the bent figure. She stood and turned to Tifa, dusting herself off. The photo of her gave her little justice. It couldn't capture the sparkle of life and hope in her earth-green eyes or the look of kindness but firm determination in her face. Even the brightness of her clothes seemed to radiate her will to survive in the home handed to her compared to the drab clothing most citizens of Midgar wore in the cracked streets. It was hard to believe that they were so close in age when they were in such different positions.

'And I need to subdue her,' Tifa thought in pity. But if it was for Aeris or herself, she couldn't figure out.

"I'm here to take you to ShinRa. Don't resist and you won't get hurt," she said. There was no choice in this matter. She needed to do a good job no matter what she was assigned. She needed the trust that would let her tear the cursed company down.

The young woman shook her head. "I'm sorry," she whispered softly. "But if I go to ShinRa willingly or by force, I will be hurt. I can't go with you."

Tifa nodded. "Then I don't have a choice," she replied and rushed the girl.

Aeris didn't seem frightened. She gripped the watering can nearby and before Tifa noticed, had flung it at her face. Tifa only barely had time to knock it away in midair before she saw the girl run into the back entrance.

"Shit!" she snapped before bounding after her. "Reno! She's heading to the back! Try and head her off!"
Not even knowing if he had heard her, she slipped into the shadows of the back room. Holes were everywhere for someone to slip through and escape to the outside and Tifa hoped this wasn't about to turn into a manhunt. Only by luck did she see her hop out of a particularly large hole and was able to follow her.

Back in the street, Reno was nowhere in sight but Aeris was barely ahead of her. Tifa broke of into a mad dash and in no time had tackled the girl and pinned her with the cover of a pile of trash blocking them both from view.

The look in Aeris' eyes was terrified. She resembled a powerless butterfly, waiting for the cruel child to tear off her wings in the name of fun.

'Could this be the look the townsfolk gave Sephiroth before they died?' she found herself thinking.

Tifa slowly let go of the strong grip on the other young woman's wrists and shook her head. She couldn't do it. She couldn't destroy some one else's life for the sake of her own goals, no matter how just they were. If she did, then she'd be no better than those she hated. "Run," she whispered. "Find somewhere good to hide and get out of here. Now."

"Why are you doing this?" Aeris whispered as she sat up.

"It doesn't matter! Go!" she hissed.

Tifa stood and looked past the pile of trash to look for Reno. Still gone, she signaled to the Ancient to run.

Moments after she safely disappeared, Reno exited the church. Tifa ran up to him in hopes of keeping him distracted long enough for Aeris to get away efficiently.

"Where were you!" she cried angrily. "Where was the back up you promised me? She got away because you weren't there to block her!"

"I heard a crash and you yelled something so I went inside to check it out. I thought you were in trouble," he explained. "She got away?"

Tifa nodded.

"Then the troops will look for her and report if they find anything," he told her with a shrug.

"What? We won't even look for her ourselves?" she asked.

"We have enough on our plates without having to worry about Hojo's pets. We only show up every once in a while to keep that mad scientist off our backs for the majority of the day. And besides, I have another assignment to take care of. And you need to make a report to Tseng. About time for you to learn the not-so-fun part of the job."

"Talking to the boss?" she guessed.

"Paperwork," he said. The fact that he wasn't smiling or acting at all in his usual joking matter slightly worried her.

---------

"I'm done," Tifa happily moaned as she slid face first onto her desk. Her office was smaller than Reno's, and much less messy, but it held the same amount of stress. As a soldier, she had never had paperwork to do. The higher ups took care of such things. But now she had no choice. Though Tifa would have felt better if she was still out in the slums, making sure that the Ancient was safe instead of pushing paper around for the benefit of the company she wanted to see crash and burn.

A glance at the clock told her that she didn't have much time to rest. It was getting towards morning hours and she still needed to report to Tseng. Gathering up the paperwork that she would need, she stood and walked out of her office. Tseng's office was a long stretch down the hall from her own and she felt herself nearly falling asleep from the walk there. She couldn't wait to curl up for the night and rest.

The office door of Tseng's room was unlocked as she opened it. She had knocked for a few moments before she had noticed that the lights were off inside and decided to check it out. Light from the hallway streamed into the room and onto his desk. Tifa shrugged and walked inside, not even bothering to flick the light switch on. She'd drop it off and head home. There was no real reason to speak with Tseng directly, her report was more than enough to explain everything, and not to mention all the other paper work that she had been forced to do on top of that. And besides, there was a chance that Tseng had already gone home. She wasn't about to try and wait for him.

The folder was almost dropped into Tseng's 'To Do' box before she noticed a file lying open on his desk. The picture looked familiar and after squinting in the darkness, she recognized the face. It was Andrew Bloir.

Tifa looked up and checked her surroundings as if she expected someone else to be in the room as well, just waiting to catch her doing something wrong. There was no one but her. She quickly thought over her situation. The file laying on his desk so haphazardly could only one of two things: either Tseng was still in the building and was only planning to be gone for a moment, or Reno had just left it for his boss like Tifa had been planning to do. The later was much more likely.

She decided to take the chance and snag the file. She knew there were no cameras in the Turk's floor; the blackmail would be endless if it fell in the wrong hands, and as long as she returned the papers before Tseng came back in the morning than no one would be the wiser. If this presented Tifa with some way of getting back at ShinRa than no lost amount of sleep could make her regret it.

The pace back to her office was restrained. She was alone on the floor as near as she could tell but she didn't want to risk being caught looking too eager by anyone. Eventually she reached her office and walked inside. Slipping into her seat, she began to look over the file.

"A security guard?" She asked out loud as she flipped through papers. Hadn't Reno said he worked in a department? How could a lowly security guard get any important computer programs that the black market would want? But then again, anyone could sell anything in the slums, as long as it was important enough to buy. What would a guard have to offer?

The rest of the file hardly helped. It seemed that Mr. Bloir was just a regular guy. Single, had been with company for about ten years, and had been a good worker the entire decade. Then something occurred to her.

"I saw his file before," she whispered to herself. This file wasn't the same as the one she had been given before she had been sent to capture him. "I was lied to."

She spun toward her computer and clicked in a few keys. It wasn't hard to pull up what she wanted. The newspaper blared at her from the screen and she read the title.

'Andrew Bloir Arrested for Dealing in Black Market.

He was captured by soldiers in the afternoon of Thursday. He will be tried on Saturday by the Midgar Court...'

Tifa skimmed the rest of the paper and found what she was looking for. It seemed that the reporter was under the impression that Andrew was an accountant in the Weapon Development Department. No one would doubt he would be able to get important info in such a place. But Tifa knew that the paper was owned by ShinRa, and the information you could get there was next to worthless. Why take a man and lie about his entire history of ShinRa employment though? Could it be that he had gotten a hold of something from the Weapon Development Department and ShinRa just didn't want the people to know a security guard, who should have known next to nothing about the department or it's files, had been able to get info? Or was it that he had gotten something much worse? The later was unlikely. What could be worse than files about weapons of mass destruction?

She took a second look at the newspaper on the screen in hopes of finding out where he had sold the files, but there was nothing. Figured.

----------

I was trying to find a good stopping place and this seemed the best as any. Sorry for there not being any Rude in this chapter. Don't worry though; they spend nearly the entire next chapter together to make up for this boring one. I hope that the plot is starting to be a bit more apparent without being obvious. I always have a tendency to either give away too much or too little in a mystery. Please review to let me know how I'm doing.

Also, the people that have asked me for another Reno/Aeris (since my Curious fic) kind of hedged this chapter. I didn't originally plan to add any Re/A to the fic but if people like this it may turn out that way. Keep in mind though that there won't be a lot of it since this is a Tifa centered fic. So let me know if you're going to want more. Especially you, Random Reno Fangirl 5.