Disclaimer: We all know I don't own anything from FF7 or square-enix/soft. No characters. No locations. No vehicles. No Chocobo. All I own is myself, and I'm not even sure about that one.

Oh well, at least this story's mine. See, I can see the silver lining to every Cloud... :-p

Sorry, couldn't help that one :-p

Don't upset the Lifestream... I want to share the fun too! Wait for meeeeeeeeeee!

Past Imperfect : Rude -The Tree of Hope

They were to meet the next day, the twenty-third of December. Rude was a bit late that time, what with all the ruckus that was happening in town these days. Many things were on his mind, mostly the AVALANCHE situation; in fact most of the crisis was thanks to them. They had to find a way to put a stop to that organisation, before they did something stupid and compromised the safety of the whole planet. He was a Turk; he had to protect the Shin-Ra and he would do anything to honour his duty.

"What's wrong Rude? You seem strange today." She was observant as ever; she could read him better than most people who had known him all his life, and somehow, that hurt and warmed him at the same time.

"Chelsea…"

"Hmm?" She looked at him enquiringly, the flecks of gold in her eyes glowing in the dim light.

"You don't…" He forced himself to continue, "…have to lie to me."

"What do you mean?" Her gaze, once so open and guileless became shuttered even as she said those words lightly.

"…"

He had always found silence to be quite effective during interrogation sessions. Invariably, the suspect would begin to fidget under his wordless stare, becoming increasingly uncomfortable as time wore on. In a closed room, total silence makes five minutes appear to be fifty, and thirty a lifetime. Sometimes, the suspect would break and speak up when he could no longer endure the silence; sometimes, he or another Turk would have to start the interrogation. But in either case the stress caused by that technique left marks. Unnerved and vulnerable, the suspect was easier to manipulate by a hundred-fold. He had never encountered anyone without Turk training who could withstand that treatment. It did not fail him in this instance.

Chelsea lowered her eyes completely and tried circumvent the question. "…I…got here half an hour ago. I wouldn't lie to you, Rude."

"Whatever happens…my feelings for you won't change."

His gaze was inscrutable behind his ever-present shades, and his voice was a neutral as ever. Any other man uttering those words would have injected a melodramatic note. But not him. This bespoke the seriousness of the situation, how much he actually knew, and how deeply he really cared. Her shoulders sagged, as if under a heavy weight. Still, she smiled, even as tears threatened to spill over her cheeks.

"Rude…" But she did not go on.

The silence dragged on between them. Rude kept ordering stiff drinks and downing them in one go, one after the other, under the bemused eyes of the barman. Most men would have died of alcohol intoxication by now, but this one kept going as if the drinks would help him find salvation or forget something really unpleasant.

Two hours and still nothing. He decided to take the matter in his hands and stood up, startling her. He made a beeline to the bathroom, and when he came back, he had his answer. He silently sat back down, pocketing his PHS which he had left on the table.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing…"

She was flustered, blushing, her gaze a little too bright for truthfulness, her smile too ready on her lips for spontaneity. She was too suddenly back to her laughing, teasing self, for no apparent reason. So this was it. His throat constricted, making it hard to breathe and harder to speak.

"Hey, Chelsea… tomorrow… let's go see… the trees light up"

"The one at the western park, right? It will be so much better seeing it with you this time than seeing it alone…"

"……I…have something to tell you there."

"Oh? I wonder what it could be. Oh, this is really getting to me. Tell me now."

"No…" Rude shook his head. Two could play at this game. "Tomorrow."

He watched her get up and leave precipitately, declining for the first time his offer of walking her back home. He would be waiting for her, the next day, under the tree. He watched her walk away and stop as she reached the door. She turned back one last time and their eyes met over the length of the room. He took his fill of her, for tomorrow was suddenly uncertain, as slippery and fragile as dreams. He could see it in her eyes and he wished so hard that things could be different. Goodbye…

Reno knew too. At the end of their shift the next day, he cornered his partner.

"Rude! Going to meet that woman again?"

"…"

"I wouldn't if I were you."

"…"

"She-"

"I know." That effectively shut up his colleague. "Don't say another word."

"Rude… you knew?"

"…sorry. I know what I'm doing." On those words, Rude left his shocked and mildly amused colleague. Reno had tailed Chelsea last night and knew who she was. He also knew what his friend was trying to do. Rude might think that he was still green around the gills, but there were some things in which the older Turk had less insight than he did.

'Ah, well. Good luck; you'll need it old man. That's a damn difficult path that you've chosen and it's going to be tough for you for quite some time.'

The day was darkening as the sun prepared to set over Midgar; Rude, a young man not yet thirty, but with already more than half a decade of service in the Turks waited for the woman he loved to come to him under the tree of hope. She never did.

That same rookie who had tailed him some days ago came instead, bearing a message from her. The rookie had followed her, discovered her secret: she was an AVALANCHE spy. But she had fallen for Rude, and couldn't –wouldn't- betray him. In the end, she was branded a traitor, because she had listened to her heart and had not wiretapped his PHS when she had the chance to last night; the rookie had to intervene to save her from being terminated. Before leaving she had said those words:

"AVALANCHE and Turks are sworn enemies. It is impossible for us to be together, not in this life. Please, can you do me a favour? Tell Rude… when I'm reborn, I'd like to meet him again."

Rude walked away from the tree as it started to light up. Today was the twenty-fourth of December, and people in all of Midgar were home, celebrating, spending time with those dear to them. Lights from their windows spilled into the snow-covered streets, casting golden splashes of life on the icy crystals, brightening the stark reality.

Let them be happy, as he had been happy for a while. Now, it was over; she was gone and he was alone again, back to reality. It was not just the future that was a fantasy; the past too could be a dream. But it was the kind of reverie to be treasured, a pleasant interlude in a dark life to warm a path as cold as the one in front of him…

As Rude gazed into his glass, he reminisced of the past, and the past brought a small, strange smile to his lips. Maybe that was why he liked that bar. The original one had been destroyed, but something about this one reminded him of the place. He lived in the present. This era was different from the future he had once thought certain: Midgar was gone, and a new world had emerged, one which did not revolve around Shin-Ra. But he, like everyone else, liked to dream of the past.

He threw a couple of coins on the table and walked away in the cold winter wind, back to home, back to the Turks. The streets of Edge were devoid of the usual throng on this twenty-fourth of December dusk. And far, far away, emptier streets of a city once teeming with life glimmered as snow smothered them in a pristine white shroud; for a moment, he could imagine them as they had been that day, so many years ago… but the looming silhouette of what was left of the Shin-Ra building reminded him of the present and all of its uncertainties. Maybe one day these very streets he was walking would be ruins too… this life just a passing vision, after all; eras came and went, like waves crashing on a beach. He had once thought the future mapped out, immutable; he had learned the hard way that everything that came to be inevitably changed, and passed away silently into the twilight of life. Better go with the flow than seek to change fate against all odds. But still, some things remained constant; he had been a Turk, he was one and would probably die one.

And the Tree was still here… of course, it was not the same tree. That other tree had died two years ago, but the tradition had gone on and miniature lights adorned this one too. He stopped for a moment to watch it light up, casting multicoloured hues on the snow and forming a mosaic where the colours blended and moved away at the winter breeze's whim. The Tree of Hope…

Past, present and future… just dreams. Promises that never quite faded away as yet another life bloomed, shadows of hopes never quite forgotten for they coloured this drab reality like the lights coloured the blank snow, making the passing of days sweeter in expectation of their fulfillment; an extinguished candle was just one waiting to be rekindled, its embers secretly glowing with life in the deepest, darkest night and lights separated were only awaiting for the moment when the wind would bring them back together again.

The Tree of Hope blazed in the silent city of Edge, a coruscating beacon of colour representing every secret wish held within every heart, illuminating the infinite cold. The solitary Turk turned and walked away in the peaceful night.

'Yes. Let's meet again in another life…'

Author's Notes:

Moonshine's guide... Rude is lonely but he has loved and been loved. I think he's been lucky in that. Bittersweet though this whole affair is... things like that do happen. sometimes, you meet someone and it's perfect, but you can't be together. After some time, you accept it and move on. and you just hope that you'll be together again someday, maybe in another life if you believe in reincarnation.

This is his story, and I wanted so badly to write it I spent sleepless nights thinking about it. At some point while i was revising the whole thing for the nth time, i had all of the ff characters screaming lines to me... it was pretty confusing and scary. sweatdrop i'm not crazy, it's just that this kind of things happens when i'm thinking too much or trying to. Maybe it was my muse. Yeah, blame it on the muse :-p

Ok, the last paragraphs were my FFX/spirits within 'moments'. Blame it on Gackt's Sayonara, Princess Mononoke and co if you want. But the first draft of the story finished too abruptly for my taste, and i wanted the bar to figure in this last bit again, being given i had started with it in the previous chapter. Full circle. loves this word

If you think that this last bit was a bit hard to understand, let me outline my motives behind the lyricism... god knows it took me a while to understand why i was writing all that. Double-guessing yourself is always hard. (if you find any other hidden meaning, just let me know ;-)

Circumstances change... Shin-Ra had fallen, Midgar is in ruins, eras pass and fade to let a new one through. but even when eras change, some things don't... like hope, like love. Hope doesn't pass away. Hope remains inspite and despite of everything...

So this means... i think i'll let you tell me what this means ;-)

Take care,

Celeste