Chapter Seven

"It wasn't meant to kill us." Reno said, looking at Rufus when they were back at Healin Lodge and sitting in the President's office.

"What?" Elena asked, "They tried to blow us up."

"No." Tseng agreed with Reno, "They didn't."

"What...?"

Reno watched Elena frown in confusion.

"They could have actually blown us up." He told her. "Instead, the first explosion came from three floors up in the building behind us. It was made to look good. Sure, it threw shit all over us, but it did no real damage. Not to us. The second one... that was meant to kill, but not us." He looked at her, "That was meant to kill some of the crowd, just as it did..."

"But..." Elena frowned, "Why?" she looked to Tseng.

Tseng shook his head and it was Rufus who answered.

"It doesn't matter why." He said, "We can use it to our own advantage. We can blame them for Barron's death and the bombing. We can unite with the public against them, and make everyone see once more just how much they need ShinRa."

Reno watched Rufus fiddle with the sleeves of his suit, pulling the cuffs down over his hands. Though Rufus had said nothing about it to them, they all knew his Geostigma was getting worse. He was going out in public less and less and there was nothing they could do to help him. Yet. He knew they'd find something. They had to.

When Rufus had released them from their debriefing, Reno headed straight back to Edge and to Aura's house. He stalked up the road and to her door, not even bothering to have changed out of his uniform. Knocking sharply on her door, he waited impatiently. The door opened slowly and he pushed in. Aura stepped back hastily, out of his way. He swung the door shut behind himself and turned to look at her. She watched him silently, warily. His frustration vanished the moment he saw the cut across her cheek and he moved forward, backing her into the wall as he checked her over.

"Aur... You're bleeding. Are you okay?" his hands moved from her shoulders to her chin, tilting her face up gently so he could better see the cut. It wasn't too deep, but would probably leave a light scar. "What were you doing? Why were you there? You promised me that you wouldn't go!"

She slapped his hands away from her and she moved away from him. He watched her eyes look him over slowly. After a moment, she spoke.

"You're a Turk, aren't you?"

Reno swallowed thickly. "... Yes."

"An assassin."

"Sometimes."

"You killed Hugo Barron."

He nodded silently.

She moved around slowly, not taking her eyes off him. He watched, scared of what she might do next. He'd often wondered what she would do if she learned what he was. Would she accept it, or would she tell him to leave and never come back? If she did, would he be able to? He didn't know.

"... Are you hurt?" she asked softly.

"No." He shook his head and she moved closer. He held his breath, watching her.

"Are you... good at it?"

He nodded again.

"Of course you are." She murmured, running a hand through her hair, "You're resourceful and clever..."

"Aur..." he began, but fell silent when she shook her head.

"No, Reno..." she said gently, "Don't explain..."

"But-"

"No." She repeated, moving closer. "You don't have to."

Reno blinked, staring at her. "Why?"

"Haven't we always done whatever we had to to survive?" She asked before she let out a soft breath, "This is no different."

He was silent until she went up on her toes and threw her arms around his neck. Wrapping his own arms around her waist, he closed his eyes in relief. "I thought you'd hate me..."

"I could never hate you. No matter what you did."

Reno bit his lip to silence any confessions that might slip out. He wasn't too sure about that.

"Besides," Aura murmured, "Now I can worry less about any random idiot jumping you on the street and managing to stab you. Turks are properly trained..."

"Yes. We are." He agreed.

"Of course, you can still be blown up..." She replied.

Placing his hands firmly on her hips, Reno moved her back from him gently. "Speaking of... Why were you in the Marketplace today when you told me you would stay away?"

"I needed gloves." She replied evenly.

"You could have been killed."

"So could you..." she retorted, remembering the way debris had fallen onto the podium, and the way he'd pulled that blonde woman down. "Who's the blonde chick?"

"What?"

"She was standing with you on the podium. I saw you pull her down."

"Oh, Elena." He said, sitting on the armrest of her couch. "She's our Rookie... Well, not really a Rookie anymore... but I still like to call her that... It annoys her."

He watched Aura blink. "I see."

"Yeah..."

"Was your President hurt?"

"No." He stretched lightly. "None of us were..."

"Most of the crowd weren't that lucky." She murmured, sinking down onto the couch herself.

"I can see that..." he took hold of her chin again to have another look at the cut across her cheek. She eyed him ruefully. "Do you have a Potion or something for this?"

"No..." She said softly, "Maati has said he'll bring some stuff back for me from Junon... But things are getting hard to come by, like I told you before..."

"Have you at least cleaned it?"

"Not yet... I just got home before you started pounding on the door..."

"What took you so long?"

"... I was helping people."

"Oh." He went through the pockets of his suit. Turks usually carried a small medical kit for emergencies. He rarely used it, but he hoped there would be something of use in it. Opening it up, he looked at the various items. It wasn't quite the same as the kits the other Turks carried as when Reno had first joined ShinRa he'd discovered that he had some pretty nasty reactions to some of the common medicines that were used above the plate. The ShinRa doctors had put that down to him coming from under the plate. Apparently, most of the people born in the slums had been affected in some way by their close and constant contact with mako waste. As most of the drugs in the slums were cut with mako, and Reno's own mother was a junkie, he guessed he'd been messed up by her. Though he'd never touched the stuff himself, his blood was still different to people from above the plate. The first time he'd been given something to help with pain relief back when he'd still been in training, he'd ended up having seizures. It had taken several similar incidents before the doctors had even worked out what was happening.

Looking at Aura, he wondered if she would be the same. Then, remembering the night he'd first met her, he figured she probably would be.

It was early evening when seventeen year old Reno had wandered down a fairly empty street, absently looking for something to entertain himself with. Feeling a slight chill, he pulled the collar of the awesome new jacket he'd won in a bet up to protect his neck and looked over his shoulder when a nearby light flickered out. It had been an alright day, he had to admit. At least tonight he would have something to eat and drink. That couldn't be said for every day.

He'd just decided to give up and go home, well, back to the room in some dilapidated shack that he called home, when he heard a scuffle down a nearby side alley. At first, assuming it was a prostitute earning herself some money, he'd dismissed it and was already walking past when he heard the cry for help.

Pleas for help weren't uncommon in the slums, and if one expected to last more than a few days, one did not go racing off to answer those cries. But, the sound of deep voices followed by a young female shriek had him frowning and then, against his better judgement, he headed down the alley to see what was going on.

When he'd gotten far enough into the alley, Reno stopped, taking in the scene before him. Two men who looked to be middle aged were holding a struggling girl against the alley wall.

"What's up, yo?" he asked when one of the men had turned to look at him.

The girl chose that moment of distraction to kick the guy in the shin, forcing him to let her go. She'd taken two steps away when the other man had swung her back around and into the wall again. Reno looked at her when she snarled. She looked only a few years younger than him. Fifteen, maybe. She had thick dark hair that resembled a birds nest, messed wildly about her pale face and wide green eyes. He could see that even in the dark of the alley, and that's what really caught his attention.

"What do you want?" the larger of the men snapped at Reno.

"Just... heard the commotion."

"That's a big word for a slum rat."

Reno blinked.

"Ro, maybe he likes to watch..." The second man snickered.

"Ah..." Reno nodded, "So you fellas come down here to find women..." he looked at the girl, "Or, girls..."

"Younger ones make more money." The first grunted, looking back to his mate who pulled a syringe out of his pocket and started preparing it. It was then that Reno understood. They'd come down here to find some young thing to inject with whatever shit was in that needle, and turn her into a mako whore. They'd get her hooked on the stuff and have her whore herself out to make them money in return for her fix. Involuntary images of his mother whoring herself for her own fix flashed through his mind and he clenched his teeth.

The girl whimpered and tried kicking at the man holding her when the one with the needle advanced on her. "No!" She cried, "You can't!"

"Hold her, Ro!"

"What's it look like I'm doin', Jace?" Ro snapped back.

"For Shiva's sake!" Jace muttered, grabbing the girl and driving his knee up hard into her stomach. The girl choked and collapsed down on her hands and knees.

Reno didn't remember making the decision to act, but he'd grabbed a random piece of something from the piles of garbage in the alley and struck Ro across the head with it. The big man let go of the girl and turned to face him, snarling. Reno was ready. He knew how to fight. He'd left his mother when he was twelve and he'd been on his own since. He wouldn't have been alive if he didn't know how to fight. He'd always been fast and that had always served him well against big guys like Ro. That didn't stop Ro from knocking him sideways into the wall, though.

Stumbling, Reno looked past the big man to see Jace on top of the girl, his knees pinning her shoulders to the ground as he held one hand above her head. Reno heard her screaming in outrage and he heard as the scream turned panicked when the syringe was pushed into her arm. Turning again, Reno threw himself at Ro and after a series of well practiced quick movements, the big man lay unconscious on the ground.

He hated these bastards. As if the people living down here didn't have a hard enough life without being turned into addicts for someone else's profit. These men were the worst kind of scum. They used a person up until they were too broken to even lay on their backs to earn them money, and then they tossed them back into the gutter with no way to support themselves or even feed their addiction. These men and women usually died within days.

Striding forward, Reno picked something else up from the piles of garbage and then swung it as hard as he could at Jace's head. With a sickening crack, the man slumped sideways off of the girl. Reno kicked him further away. Then, clenching and unclenching his hands, he looked down at the girl.

She lay on her back, her breathing panicked and rapid. "You okay?" he asked.

She didn't reply, her head moving from side to side as if she were looking for something as her breathing became more erratic.

"Hey..." he knelt down to her. "Are you-" he broke off when he caught sight of her face. He eyes were glazed. "Shit..." he muttered, laying a hand on her arm. He frowned when he realised that she was ice cold. "Hey..." He said loudly, taking her chin in one hand and making her look at him. Her skin was already clammy and as he felt a shudder run through her he knew what the problem was. Dirty mako.

"Cheap bastards." He muttered.

Aside from getting addicted to the mako in the drugs in the slums, users ran the risk of getting something cut with dirty mako. The offcuts that ShinRa deemed unclean or not good enough to use and had discarded were often used to cut various drugs under the plate. If an addict didn't end up dying from on overdose, they usually died from a bad reaction to dirty mako. He'd seen it time and time again. Apparently Ro and Jace had gone for the cheap option in finding a new investment and had injected this girl with something cut with dirty mako.

"Shit." he muttered again.

"Don't..." She whimpered.

"No, you're okay." He told her, unsure if she could even hear him. She convulsed and he looked around, not knowing what to do. There was nobody to go and find who could help. Probably nobody who even would help. He was on his own. Like usual. "What's your name?" he asked, again not sure she could hear him.

The girl blinked, shuddering visibly as the dirty mako made its way through her system. He watched her try to focus on him. "A-Aura." She forced out with clear effort.

"Okay, Aura..." he looked around again, "I'm not going to hurt you, okay? I'm going to take you somewhere. Somewhere safer."

He doubted that she was even aware of him as he picked her up and carried her home. Then, laying her on the thin mattress that he slept on on the floor, he bit his lip. She was now shaking nearly continuously. The only thing he knew was that people who had taken dirty mako needed to be kept warm. That made sense as she was freezing cold to the touch. Taking his jacket off, he draped it over her. Then, looking around he found the two thin blankets that he had and also put them over her. He then sat down beside the mattress to watch her.

After an hour or so, she looked at him, and he realised that she was actually seeing him. "What... what's your name...?" she asked between chattering teeth.

"Reno."

She simply nodded, or, Reno thought it was a nod, though it was hard to tell with the way she was shaking, and then her eyes closed again. He watched as convulsions shook her.

Then, knowing what he needed to do, Reno shuffled closer and slipped under the blankets. Carefully, he wrapped himself around the girl he didn't know and held her tightly as the convulsions continued to rip thorough her and she shivered continuously until morning.

Yeah, Reno was fairly certain that Aura would have similar reactions to common medicine from above the plate. Luckily, his kit had been made for him and would likely work just as well for her.

"Drink this." He handed her a small vial and decided not to mention what he'd just been remembering. He guessed she'd been reminded of it only too recently when they'd seen that junkie not long ago.

"What is it?"

"An antibiotic."

"Oh." She unstoppered the vial and swallowed it obediently. "Ugh. Nasty."

"But it'll stop you getting an infection."

"Mhmm." She handed him the empty vial back and he returned it to his kit. "... What will happen with the situation at the marketplace? The ... bodies... and mess...?"

"It'll be taken care of."

"By ShinRa?"

"Yeah."

He looked at her as she stayed silent. After a moment he got up, "Come on." He said, "We'll clean that cut up and then I should get back..."

"I can do it."

"Yes, but you're going to let me do it." He answered, pulling her toward the bathroom. He ignored her slight huff and pulled what he needed from the bathroom cabinet. "Sit." He ordered, pointing at the edge of the bathtub.

"I'm not your damn rookie." She muttered, nevertheless doing as he instructed. Reno just grinned.

"I can see that."

He carefully cleaned the cut and patched it up before announcing himself "Done." He then put everything away and headed back down the hallway to the front door. Aura followed him silently.

"I'll come and see you in a few days." He told her softly. She nodded. "Take care of that cut."

"Okay."

He hugged her gently and then opened the door, stepping quickly out into the cooling evening air. That had gone better than expected. She didn't seem too phased about him being a Turk, though he suspected she might give it more thought if she knew all the things he'd done. There were things he couldn't forgive himself for. He huffed and walked faster, trying to keep his mind from thinking about Sector 7.

What was done was done. Nothing would change it.

Scratching at the dried blood on his shirt, he made a face. He really should get changed out of his uniform. Switching directions, he headed for home instead.

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