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51. Cissnei: Mail Carrier

Cissnei regarded the approaching man warily. She'd worked with Kakutou when he was just a rookie; when had trouble reconciling the skills that had made him a good detective with the rule-bending that would make him a good Turk. Over six feet tall, built like a brick outhouse, and with the chiselled jaw of classic movie heroes, Kakutou looked like someone who could knock seven bells out of anyone who looked at him funny. In actual fact, despite being a martial arts expert, he was a remarkably gentle man.

Or at least, he had been. Cissnei knew better than anyone the four years could change you. She wondered how all the things she'd learned from Rude had affected someone like Kakutou, who had balked the first time he had to kill a man in more than self-defence.

Her apprehension dispelled a little when he took Aerith's hand and actually bowed. He didn't go so far as to kiss the back, but it was close. "Good afternoon. You must be Miss Gainsborough."

"I am," Aerith said politely, but Cissnei caught the wariness in her eyes as well. They'd come out alone, just the two of them, to meet him on the fringe of town. It was risky, but Cissnei had insisted there be no onlookers. "You must be Mr. Kakutou."

"Just Kakutou, please," he said warmly. He had the kind of rich deep voice that, once upon a time, made victims feel safe and witnesses feel like talking. "I am, after all, to be your husband."

Aerith stiffened all over for a second, and then relaxed back into her regular stance. It wasn't quite as naïve as it had been when she lived in Midgar. Even though Sector Five was under the Plate, somehow Aerith had managed to grow up with minimal fighting skills. She'd started some kind of half-assed training, but Cissnei had taken those basics and moulded them in their years on the run together. Aerith wasn't a natural fighter, but she could hold her own with a bo-staff, and knew the value of running away versus standing her ground against stupid odds.

Kakutou looked up at Cissnei. He had always been so courteous with women. It had royally ticked off several female Turks who didn't appreciate being treated like the weaker sex – Youhei most of all, which was paradoxical, since she and Kakutou were the two hand-to-hand experts and should have gotten along much better than they actually had.

Cissnei tilted her chin. "We don't have many details."

Kakutou nodded. "I'm the absentee husband who has finally caught up with my family, who fled our caravan when it was attacked by raiders. Cissnei, you're my sister, and now I'm back you're going off to find your own husband, who also went missing in the raid."

"We're gypsies?" Aerith said in surprise.

Cissnei wondered who had come up with the cover story. Tseng, perhaps? It seemed a tad too romantic for him. Maybe Kakutou himself had concocted it. If so, he was missing a career in sappy novels.

"Aerith, are you sure you're okay with this?" It was a ridiculous question to ask. Like they had much choice in the matter? Still, Cissnei felt bound to ask it. Four years together hadn't made them best friends, but it had bred a sense of responsibility.

She wondered whether Aerith felt the same way, or if she preferred to view the whole thing as yet another period with someone who would inevitably leave her. Aerith seemed to live her life in chunks defined by the people in it and the people who weren't – Hojo and the Shinra scientists, her mother, Zack, her foster mother, and now Cissnei. Small wonder she clung to the hope that those from previous chunks would someday return and break the cycle of loss and abandonment.

Aerith nodded. "You're a Turk," she said softly. "You have a job to do."

Cissnei felt an ill-defined emotion slide through her at the words, but shook it off and turned to Kakutou, ready to give him the lowdown on how to keep them alive until he was relieved or the threat had passed – whichever came first.

Cissnei had now come to accept that Aerith would probably never see Midgar again. It was just too dangerous. Hojo wasn't going to lose his vaunted potation as Head of Science anytime soon. With him at the helm it would never be safe for the last of the Ancient bloodline to be anywhere near Shinra's capital. If the time ever came that Tseng couldn't distract, dissuade or get his superiors off his back about this, things might be different, but for the foreseeable future Aerith was banned from Sector Five and the life she'd left behind there.

As she took Kakutou's map and started walking into the wilderness to find the chopper waiting to take her back to Midgar, Cissnei resisted the urge to look back. She only turned when Aerith called out.

"I … I need to ask a favour," she said in as embarrassed a voice as Cissnei had ever heard from her. She handed over a small box that looked like it had once held a gift, if the purple ribbon on the outside was anything to judge by.

Cissnei looked between it and Aerith, waiting for an explanation.

"You've already done so much for me," Aerith continued. "You and Tseng both, but I … the thing is … I know you told me never to write anything down, but I've been writing these letters, you see … whenever things got really hard and I … I kept them safe and just kept adding to them wherever we went … I had to rescue them a couple of times, when we left suddenly … I'm sorry I broke the rules, but I couldn't not tell … I just … I had to …" She fumbled for words that wouldn't come. Then she stopped and took a breath as if steadying herself. "If you could give them to Tseng, he'll know what to do with them. He's always … I mean … he'll know," she finished lamely, sounding nothing like the scion of a dead race and everything like a young woman cast adrift in a world that had always laced her good fortune with a bitter aftertaste.

Cissnei's throat seemed to close. "They're for Zack, aren't they?"

Aerith nodded. "Please," she said. Sometimes her sincerity could still knock Cissnei for six. It was difficult to believe someone could see and experience the things Aerith had and still remain such a good person. Almost sickening, actually, but at the same time reassuring. There were so few genuinely good people left in the world.

Aerith was one of them. Zack was another.

Hands not trembling, Cissnei took the box.

Turks didn't cling and didn't linger. This was just an assignment. A really, really long and involved assignment, but still just part of the job she'd been trained for. She'd been a Turk since she was a kid. She knew the deal. She had been reassigned and that was all there was to it. No biggie. This assignment and the one she was walking into were both just paperwork waiting to happen.

Nonetheless, not looking over her shoulder was the hardest thing she'd ever done, and the stab of guilt that she was going to find Zack when Aerith couldn't made her feel like the biggest heel in the universe.

She stared at the box in her lap when she was strapped in, fingers cramping until they were well into the flight. Rude was piloting. As ever, he wasn't much for small-talk. Silence filled the cab apart from the steady throb of rotors and engines. Cissnei stared out of the window at the countryside and towns zipping past. She'd visited a lot of them. They all looked a lot smaller now. Kind of insignificant compared to where she was headed.

Her eyes kept being drawn back repeatedly to the box, and her mind raced. Finally, as if ripping off a band-aid, she removed the lid, picked up the first sheet of carefully folded paper, and started to read even though she knew she shouldn't.

Not all the papers in the box were letters. Cissnei's stomach cramped.

Turks weren't supposed to feel guilt. They were just supposed to get the job done. That was the motto: Turks always get the job done. They weren't supposed to have regrets.

But Cissnei did. Far more than was right – or healthy – for any Turk to have.

Not and survive.