Tseng and Reno are standing guard outside of her father's office, but whether they're there for the president's protection or hers, she isn't certain.

The both of them look slightly uneasy, even Tseng with his impressive ability to suppress any sign of emotion (years of being a Turk will do that to you), but he opens the door for her as she approaches, allowing her to pass over the threshold and into her father's empty office.

She hadn't really felt up to it, truthfully, but there was no possible way she was going to fall back asleep. It had taken a long time to convince Reeve to close his eyes and rest, despite his protests.

First he had insisted he needed to get to work, and then he had insisted he needed to go downtown to see if there was anything else he could do, but Charlie held up a mirror to let him see the state of himself, face drained of color, bleeding through his bandages, dark shadows beneath his eyes. It had taken soft kisses, soft touches, a couple of whispered words of comfort (her heart hadn't really been in it, but she couldn't just leave him to sulk and overthink everything while she was gone), and then he was fast asleep, nuzzled against her chest.

Of course, she doesn't blame him for not wanting to sleep. Every time Charlie had closed her eyes the night before, she could feel the heat of the flames licking her cheeks, could hear the screams, could see people engulfed in flames and streaking down the street half-naked, their clothes burned off.

She had dreamed that Reeve was one of those poor victims, trapped beneath the weight of the city that he helped build, killed by the reactors that he helped design.

It hadn't been until Rufus arrived, fresh off a private plane from Costa del Sol at the request of Tseng, that they had been able to calm Charlie, who had been desperate to have someone go back for Reeve.

She had felt like a child again when Rufus snuck into her bed to wrap an arm around her, only this time, Mother wasn't here to take her away.

Still feeling sick to her stomach, the bright lighting of President Shinra's office making her head ache painfully, Charlie steps up to the front of his desk, hands held behind her back.

At least she had been given the opportunity to change into something a little more presentable, but her clothes are loose and flowing, to keep from sticking to the burns up and down her side and arm, the flesh on the side of her neck and jaw still slightly raw.

When she hears the sound of the doors closing behind her, every last one of her instincts is telling her to run, but her body has a hard time catching up with her head.

"Where is Reeve? He hasn't come to see me yet," President Shinra begins gruffly, and Charlie can tell that he's angry. She can only hope that he's angry with her, and not Reeve. "It's been hours."

"He's sleeping, daddy," she says gently, hoping that he's left undisturbed. "Leave him alone. He was out late last night, helping people. He needs to rest."

President Shinra doesn't answer, dragging a hand down his face and groping off to the side for his cigar. She's done it now, she thinks, whatever she's done. He gets heavily to his feet and lights his cigar, flicking a handful of matches against the thin striking surface on the back of the matchbook.

The smoke makes her already churning stomach even worse. She inhales and exhales deeply, trying to keep from vomiting all over her own shoes on her father's shoes.

"If I ever catch your brother in bed with you again, I will send him so far away that he'll never be able to get back." He throws the matchbook back on his desk, taking a few angry puffs of his cigar. "No doubt the boy would crawl back to Midgar on bloodied hands and knees if it meant laying claim over his sister."

Charlie narrows her eyes. She isn't going to apologize for that. Why would she? Rufus had come to her when she needed him most, thanks to Tseng's quick thinking, and had wiped her tears away, kissed her forehead, comforted her until she was able to sleep. Her father wouldn't know the first thing about comfort, especially considering his failed attempt at doing so earlier this morning.

When it's clear to her father that she has nothing to say, he puts his cigar down, still burning, in the ashtray. Past him, through the windows, smoke still lingers in the air from the fires that have only recently been put out. "What have you done, girl?" he asks her in a low voice, walking around his desk to get nearer to her. "Do you have any idea what you've—"

"I didn't do anything," Charlie counters, swallowing hard. She should have known the moment she saw the Turks outside the door what was going to happen. They aren't there for protection—they're there to make sure no one else interrupts what's about to happen, and to make sure Charlie doesn't leave. This knowledge makes her take a small step backwards. "I was almost killed in that explosion last night—"

"Yet here you stand."

Charlie can feel her heart leaping in her throat. "Father, I didn't—"

"I know you had something to do with this," he hisses, pointing a fat finger in her face. "You escape with your life, sending as many beggars as you can into my building, to shelter them, to feed them, to care for them, all while parts of two sectors have been burned to the ground." President Shinra moves closer, but Charlie has nowhere to go. She knows that neither Tseng or Reno will allow her to leave, not while her father is right here. "This has your stink all over it, Char, and I'll not stand for it any longer!"

The blow he delivers to her face brings her to her knees. Her face feels like it's swelling with impossible speed, stinging and burning, lights popping behind her eyes. Charlie cradles her cheek, trying to keep the tears in her eyes from falling.

"I knew I should have kept the Turks involved!" he continues, and Charlie can hear the soft metallic clinking of his belt buckle, making her feel like a child again, cowering in her bedroom. "I never should have allowed you to lull me into a false sense of security—" She hears the satisfying and frightening thwip! of her father removing his belt completely in one swift movement—"I should have had them at your side even while you slept!"

Hunched over on her knees, Charlie covers her face, afraid to look up, afraid that the leather will connect with her cheek and split open her lip, black her eye, break open the freshly stitched up wound on her face.

President Shinra scoffs. "You don't sound surprised, Char," he grumbles, sounding as if his cigar is back between his lips.

"Rufus told me you were having me followed," she confesses, summoning the courage to look up at her father again. His belt is in his right hand, folded over, tapping the leather against the palm of his left hand while puffing hard on his cigar.

"Clearly your brother needs to remember his place, as well."

She gets painfully to her feet, standing up as straight as she can and wearing the mark on her face like a trophy. "I had nothing to do with this."

Her father lowers the hand with the belt to his side, sneering at her as he picks up a piece of paper from his desk. "You disrespectful, ungrateful brat," he continues to sneer, offering her the paper. Charlie takes it from him, skimming it over. "You will give this speech tonight, this very evening, to be broadcasted in every home in Midgar . . . every home that still stands, that is."

Charlie's chest heaves as she reads through the material. Her own father actually believes she would read this? Does he really think she would stand before a camera and promise to hunt down Avalanche like dogs, only to hang them in front of the reactors? It's sickening, and part of her thinks that President Shinra already knows she has no interest in following through with it.

After a long five minutes, Charlie holds out the paper again. "No," she says flatly, trying to keep her voice level.

Her father's face immediately hardens. "You will read that speech—"

"I'm not reading that speech, daddy." And in a fit of rage borne from the horror she witnessed just last night, Charlie holds up the paper with its handwritten notes and cruel promises, and tears it in two, letting both pieces flutter to the ground at her feet.

"What did you say to me, girl?"

"I won't read it."

His mouth a tight line, President Shinra puts his cigar out, gripping his expensive leather belt in his hand, his knuckles white. "You're damn bold for a girl whose brother isn't here to protect her," he begins, taking a few more steps closer to her. "Would you like to try that again? About the speech?"

Charlie stands her ground, her entire body trembling in fear. Maybe if she yells, Tseng and Reno will hear her begging for help, and maybe they would call for Rufus. Rufus would come for her. Rufus would save her from a beating.

She shakes her head slightly, chin held high. "I'll tell Rufus what you did to me," she says, hoping that her threat works.

Instead, her father laughs. "Your brother has tried to have me killed more times than you know, girl," he says, lifting the hand with his belt, "and I'm still alive."

He brings the belt down once, a test, not his full strength. Charlie bites down hard on her lower lip as it strikes her shoulder blade. She drops to her knees, letting her back take the brunt of it.

"If your brother hadn't taken half your beatings when you were younger—" The belt comes down again, in the same place, stinging a little harder, even through her clothes—"I might have been able to inspire a little discipline in you—" Again, harder—"or maybe a little damn respect."

President Shinra raises the belt high, and Charlie trembles, feeling eight-years-old again.

Reno's heart thumps against his ribs with each thwack! that comes from the interior of the president's office. He counts them. One, two, three—and then the sound is lost, drowned out by a horrified and agonizing scream that tugs at even his cold heart.

When he can hear her muffled sobbing accompanying the brutal beating she's receiving, he closes his eyes.

He's known Charlie a few years shy of a decade, and while she's an annoying, condescending, bratty little tease, she must be the last person in the world who deserves the lashing she's getting.

"C'mon, man, we have to go in there. We have orders to protect her," he murmurs to Tseng, whose composure, he's sure, has not yet broken. It won't, not until he sees the condition she's in afterwards. That's usually how it goes. "We have orders to keep her safe."

Reno opens his eyes to find Tseng looking right at him, unsurprised by his outburst, unsurprised by everything. "Not from him."

"Don't worry. She's looked worse."

Reeve turns very slowly to look at him, the both of them standing at the end of Charlie's hospital bed, the same bed he had slept in with her last night. There's an incredulous look on Reeve's face, softened by the exhausted and concerned expression that's been there since Reno had brought her in.

"Your adult sister was just beaten by your father in his office after barely escaping a terrorist attack last night," he says, as if this is news to Rufus. "Are you incapable of feeling any sympathy?"

Rufus's jaw clenches. Reeve has spoken out of turn, and he knows it, the color draining from his bruised face, looking like someone used him for a punching bag.

The bastard could probably afford a few solid blows to the face, just to keep him humble.

His fingers twitch, itching to wrap them around Reeve's throat and choke the life from him, just to finally put an end to it all, even if the end is messy and careless and without any sympathy for him at all. It would be what he deserved after the way he had thrown himself at Charlotte, vulnerable and naive, taking her in her own childhood bed all those years ago.

But Charlie would never forgive him if he laid a finger on Reeve.

"You've never seen her after a beating, have you?" Rufus asks sharply, trying to keep his voice low in an attempt to keep Charlie from waking in the middle of an argument between them. "I suppose you wouldn't have. Father hasn't beat her in years."

It's true, of course. After Rufus had made it clear to his father that he would take any beatings reserved for Charlie, President Shinra had relaxed a little bit, growing busier and not able to find the time to beat his children with the most expensive belts on the market.

It had been a terrible thing to see her afterwards. Her body bruises so easily, and it always has, and they stick out like sore thumbs all over her pale, milky skin. Sometimes the edge of the belt would strike her just right and set her to bleeding all over down her back, down her sides.

But he refrained, for the most part, from hitting her face. Their father insisted on keeping her face pretty, at least, for fear that she would accomplish nothing if she looked less than perfect.

Even now, her face seems untouched by their father. Her cheek is a little pink as if he swatted at her, but it's hidden by the bruises and cuts that have adorned her face since the bombing last night.

"No," Reeve rasps, catching Rufus's attention again. He can't remember if they've ever had a civil conversation (alone) that's lasted more than five minutes before. He thinks he would remember that, but doesn't know that Reeve is exciting enough to actually be remembered by him. "There was one time, a few months after I met her."

Rufus frowns, trying to think back. By Reeve's timeline, that would have put Charlie at around seventeen. What had she done that warranted a beating? And where had he been?

"Her entire back was black and blue, and your father's belt buckle had bitten into her skin near her lower back." Reeve folds his arms across his chest, watching her sleep, turned slightly away from them to keep pressure off her back. "It was me she came to. I won't forget that night."

He remembers now. Charlie and her wild mouth had brought up their mother during a heated argument with their father. "She didn't come home all night. Father had the Turks out looking for her."

"She was with me."

Rufus cocks an eyebrow. "An underage girl walks up to your apartment late at night, and you just . . . let her in?" He narrows his eyes, but Reeve doesn't falter, nor does she seem the least bit ashamed. "Hope you've since kicked the habit. Charlie would be severely disappointed."

"You think I should have turned her away?" Reeve sighs heavily. "She came to me crying, and after showing me what had happened . . . I wasn't going to send her back to your father after seeing that."

Rufus grinds his teeth, thinking hard. He can nearly feel steam blowing from his ears. Looking down at his sister like this causes rage to burn bright in his chest. The desire to get back at his father and the desire to find out what Charlie could have possibly done to warrant this are his first priorities.

Before taking his leave, he turns to Reeve and takes a step closer. Reeve is a few inches taller, broader in the shoulders, broader in the chest, bigger overall, and yet he seems to shrink before Rufus regardless.

"If you ever," he hisses, hating that he has to look up into Reeve's eyes, "hurt my sister, I will put a bullet between your eyes myself. Understood?"

Reeve doesn't seem cowed, only making him angrier. "I wouldn't dream of it, sir."

She doesn't want to talk about it.

She's never been one to over share, and the both of them are extremely guilty of internalizing everything to the point of silent suffering, he knows, but it's dangerous to doubt Shinra Inc., especially in their position.

He knows she isn't sleeping, and sometimes, when he comes home late at night, Charlie is still locked in her office, the light seeping through the small gap between the bottom of the door and the hardwood flooring.

She tries to climb atop him one night, startling him out of sleep, but in the end, she finds it too painful. He can't find a place to put his hands that doesn't hurt her, and something about making love to her in their expensive apartment overlooking the destruction of Sector Eight only days after he witnessed the aftermath of the reactor bombing doesn't sit well with him.

And then one night, about three days after the bombing, Charlie comes out of the bathroom in silent tears, looking down at him in bed as he reads, eyes skimming over the same sentence five times, comprehending nothing.

"Reeve," she says, very seriously, "do you still think I'm pretty?"

Of course he does, even if her face makes him wince now. Her bruises are healing, changing colors across her slightly swollen face, and small cuts litter her soft skin. He tells her so, even though it seemingly does nothing to comfort her.

She clenches her jaw, swallowing so loudly that he can hear it from the bed. "I refused to give the speech my father wanted me to."

Reeve looks at her for a long time, closing his book and placing it carefully on the nightstand. "And that's why . . . ?"

Charlie nods, smiling tearfully. "Ask me how I feel about it."

He hesitates, wondering if this is the concussion talking. "How do you feel about it?"

"Liberated."

"You ignorant, bottom-feeding slut. You used me, goddamnit. You used me. Did you really think that was a good idea?"

"I didn't—"

"Are you so incapable of following directions that you couldn't build a simple bomb with the detailed instructions right in front of you?" she continues, pacing back and forth in front of the sofa painfully. Every inch of her body hurts. "I knew you weren't listening. I knew that you weren't going to be able to do it. Gods, how stupid can you be! You almost killed me! You blew half the sector! More than that!"

"I built that bomb exactly like you said," Jessie retorts hotly, voice shrill and grating on Charlie's ears. She folds her arms across her chest. "If anyone here used anyone, it's you that used us. Your bomb wasn't like what you said it would be and you made us look bad—"

"Oh, no, no, no," Charlie interrupts, using the best 'president's daughter' voice that she can muster, which happens to be very, very good after years of practice with incompetent employees. "My bomb was perfect. Do you want to know how I know? Because I don't make stupid little mistakes like you do. My bomb was going to blow the core of the reactor, and because of your ineptitude, hundreds of people died, and you've cost the company millions of gil in damages, gil that could have been put towards things to help your slum-dwelling little friends." She steps closer to Jessie, knowing that she likely doesn't look very good, her face still healing. "Your ineptitude almost killed me and my fiancé, who spent the entire night cleaning up the mess your ragtag, drunken band of vigilantes left behind."

Jessie says nothing, and Pia sits still in her armchair, very used to hearing Charlie go on like this, but there's still a hint of fear to her, which pleases Charlie immensely. Averting her eyes, Jessie has the grace to at least look ashamed.

"Tell me," she continues, stepping closer to Jessie. "You're supposed to be the good guys, aren't you? So how many lives did you save that night?"

Jessie turns her face further, to show Charlie her cheek. It's clear that Jessie feels at least some remorse, but what had she expected? Did she really think it was smart to blow a reactor with a bomb she wasn't certain would only disable the core? It's her own fault for messing up. Charlie had given her all the instructions and explanations she needed.

"Look at me," Charlie hisses, and Jessie slowly brings her face around, looking at Charlie's, eyes roving over the lacerations and bruises that decorate her face. "It hurts to eat, it hurts to walk, it hurts to sit and it hurts to lie down, I can't have sex, I always have a headache, and every time I close my eyes, I can see people running in front of me with their skin on fire and I can hear the screams of the hundreds of people that you killed."

It's admirable, really, how well Jessie keeps her composure. Charlie supposes that women must feel less threatened in her presence. Men are always so weak, doing whatever she says whenever she tells them to, but that probably has something to do with Rufus, and the known fact that he's not above torture or murder or kidnapping or extortion—all through the Turks, of course.

"Because of you and your complete lack of understanding, my fiancé is being forced to work late into the night again in the hopes of rebuilding what you've destroyed of both Sectors One and Eight," Charlie goes on. She could go on for the entire night. It's not like Reeve will be back anytime soon, and it feels good to yell at someone about it. "I thought you were supposed to be professionals."

"We are," Jessie protests vehemently.

"Are you?" Charlie asks, narrowing her eyes. "Because we've got your number. You do realize that there are security cameras within the reactors? You thought you could just waltz in unnoticed? You left a trail of bodies behind, Jessie."

Reno had shown her a little of the tapes. The film wasn't exactly clear, but clear enough that she had been able to pick out Jessie without issue, unfamiliar with the other members, though one had seemed familiar . . . with a sword on his back that she hasn't seen since . . .

Well, swords can look alike, she supposes.

"Who's your hot friend, Jessie?" Charlie raises her eyebrows, watching the blood drain from the girl's face. "He should probably lay low for awhile. Wouldn't want anyone to catch him, would you? Never know who might be wandering around the slums lately."

The three of them are quiet for a long time. Shouting has definitely helped. Charlie feels much lighter than she had when she initially walked inside Pia's top-side apartment, clear of the damage Avalanche's bombing caused.

"My father would have you all arrested," Charlie says quietly, the rage lessening in her. It's frightening, though, to have nothing besides the gnawing guilt in her chest. "He would have one member of Avalanche hanged outside each reactor, as a warning to anyone else willing to go to extremes."

"You'd be short a few people," Jessie says, making Charlie blink in surprise. "Wouldn't be enough for all the reactors."

Charlie forces herself to smile, if only in appreciation for the girl's tenacity. "I am risking everything to help you," she murmurs in Jessie's face, smooth and clean and free of scratches, untouched by her own mistakes. "I'm risking my job, my livelihood, my life. I will not lose everything over a bunch of second-rate drunks who call themselves heroes."

"Then I guess you don't want to work with us anymore," Jessie says with a soft sigh, taking a step backwards and sharing a nervous glance with Pia. How easy it would be to pull the gun from the back of her pants, to end it here and now, to declare to her father that she did better than give a speech. "Guess that means we're enemies again."

"Don't be a moron. I know how difficult it must be for you, truly." Charlie exhales through her pointed nose, teeth gritted. "I want you to bring me all the tools I need for a bomb. I'm building it myself this time."

She can't help but smile at the look of pure joy on both Jessie and Pia's faces.

"Shut up already."

Cid clamps a hand down over the girl's mouth, pushing into her and pulling out and pushing back in, closing his eyes. He should have known picking up some girl at the bar was a bad idea. It's always a risk with bar girls, and this one, though skinny and flexible and a real sweet-talker, likes to make noises that do anything but turn him on, and her mouth is too wet when he kisses her, so he decides he's okay with not kissing her anymore.

He had no intention of bringing home some fucking broad when he stumbled into the bar tonight.

But she had slipped into the stool beside lonely ol' Cid Highwind, no older than twenty-five, her eyes bright and her cheeks pink and a little bit of lipstick on her oversized front teeth.

And she's blonde. He can't help it that he's got a weakness for blondes.

It had been over the moment the girl flipped her hair over her shoulder, looking proud of herself as she said smugly, "People always tell me I look like Charlotte Shinra. You would know, wouldn't you?"

Cid hadn't been able to tell if she was mocking him or not. She seemed so fucking innocent, asking him that question like he wasn't still hopelessly in love with the girl that ruined his life.

So he had brought her home, the eager and excitable thing she is, and she had spent some time trying to get him off, and looking down to see the top of a blonde girl's hair at his crotch had been intoxicating. In the dark, she could be Charlie . . . if she learned to keep her goddamn mouth shut.

Cid flips her over, onto her stomach, trapping her between the bed and his chest. She doesn't complain, and with her wild moans muffled by the mattress, he's able to hear the noisy vibrations of his phone ringing on the nightstand.

"Sorry," he murmurs, hips stuttering as he continues to slam into her from behind, wanting to reach out and thread fingers through that blonde hair, to pull hard, to tilt her face back and try to point out the noticeable differences between her and Charlie. "It'll go off in a sec."

He glances over towards his phone just to see who's calling. It's probably someone whose power went out or whose generator stopped running or someone who needs him to fix something. No one else would call so late—

His entire body tenses, his hips stop their movement, and his heart sinks into his stomach.

"What's wrong?" the girl asks him as he slips out of her, reaching over for his phone clumsily.

"Hang on—it'll just be a minute—" He holds the phone up to his ear, hoping the girl has the decency to be fucking quiet while he's talking to her. "Hello?"

There's the sound of her hanging up, hanging up without speaking one goddamn word to him. Cid looks down at his phone again to make sure he hadn't been imagining things. Pulling up his recent calls, he sees her name right there, right at the very top: Lottie.

Glancing down at the girl, his cock throbbing painfully, Cid touches her name and puts the phone back up to his ear. Maybe it was a mistake, maybe she accidentally called him and only realized it was him when she heard his voice, but maybe it wasn't an accident.

"What are you doing?" the girl asks him, pouting. "Get off your phone. You can't stop now."

"Just hang on a minute if you know what's good for ya. This is important."

The phone rings once, twice, three times . . . nine goddamn times before he's sent to her voicemail. The beep lets him know that it's recording, but he can't find words to say, instead breathing heavily into the mouthpiece, probably leaving her the creepiest fucking voicemail she's ever received.

When he tosses his phone back onto the nightstand, he doesn't really think he's going to be able to finish.

"Who was that?"

"None of your goddamn business," he snaps at the girl, the girl who looks absolutely nothing like Charlie. "What're you doin' askin' stupid questions for?" He rolls her onto her back again, looking down at her open body, her legs wrapping loosely around his hips. Cid shoves her legs off. "Get outta here."

"What the hell is wrong with you?" the girl asks, getting angry, and Cid has to laugh because at least something about her is similar to Charlie. However, the girl seems to think he's laughing in her face. "You're not even going to get me off?"

"No," he grumbles, rubbing his eyes as she moves around, gathering her clothes and dressing as quietly as possible.

She throws his own clothes at him, and then one of his own pillows on her way out, but Cid catches it with ease, leaning back against the headboard.

Cid picks up his phone again, wondering if she's listening to his creepy fucking voicemail, if she listened to him breathe at her for a few seconds. He wonders if he should try again—maybe she had been distracted, maybe she hadn't seen him call, maybe she would answer this time, if he tried one more time, just to make sure—

A text comes through with a ping! as he hears the front door of his house open and slam shut. His breath hitches.

I did something that scared me. Are you proud?

He can't help but smile, sitting up a little straighter and letting his eyes wash over the words no less than ten times each.

Have to know what you did before I can say I'm proud.

Cid waits, pulling his pants back on and cleaning up the mess they've left his bedroom in. The blankets are hanging off his bed, one of his pillows has been thrown clear across the room.

When Charlie's message comes through again, he runs to his phone, though he'd never admit it to anyone.

If I told you, I'd have to kill you.