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Stepping through his own door seemed to snap Rufus back into reality. He wiped an arm across his face, shrugged off his coat, and moved with great purpose toward the bar. He also began apologising profusely.
"I am sorry, Elena. I don't know what… it's the stress." He dumped a couple of glasses on the counter and reached for her spirit, vodka, before his own. She took a seat, removing jacket, artillery and shoes. She knew the drill as well as any Turk; they were not going anywhere for a while.
"Hold the ice."
She smiled at him, taken as ever by his manners. He offered a fleeting smile in return, eyes bloodshot, and pushed the vodka orange toward her. He knocked back an unseemly measure of scotch before slumping over the counter himself, the bottle in easy reach.
"You need a haircut," she noted.
He nodded, running a hand through the fine, blonde hair so many teenage girls admired.
"Ah yes. Wouldn't want to let the side down."
"Rufus…"
The look he gave her then offered her permission to say or ask anything; it was soft, vulnerable. Her fingers clenched unconsciously around her glass. She had never seen him like this, although she suspected Rude and Reno had, perhaps more often than she cared to imagine.
"Did you… did you meet Tseng in Wutai?"
He sighed. It was an idiotic question, but they both knew she was really asking something else.
"No. After his recruitment the company endeavoured to keep Tseng away from Wutai as much as possible, for obvious reasons. I met him when I was eight. At Headquarters."
Elena did not know what to say. She watched the President pour himself another scotch, and just as she was about to ask another misleading question-
"I wanted to impress him." Glazed eyes scrutinizing the remainder of his drink. "For a long time. He inspires honour, Tseng… I never believed he was a traitor. After my father moved me to Junon, he became my bodyguard… I'm sure you know the rest."
It pushed the boundaries past breaking point, and it was an issue her fellow Turks would never, never have dreamt of pursuing. But with Rufus Shinra bleeding openly before her, she had to know.
"But you went to Wutai. With him."
For a long time Rufus said nothing. When he spoke his voice was very quiet.
"After the war. I… was able to… facilitate a reconciliation between him and his mother. It won me his loyalty."
"I think… Rufus, I think you already had that. I think you always had that."
He smiled at her sadly. She knew it, now, she read it in his face. It was not Tseng's loyalty that had been won in Wutai. It was his love.