Chapter five is here after a bit of a hiatus. Wasn't sure how to work this chapter, and I ended up rewriting it about a dozen times. It came out too long, but that's just how it ended up. Reeve is a very indecisive man. He needs to make up his mind before everything degenerates further. But he just can't figure out if his decision is going to be the right one for everybody. Or anybody.
"...and I thank you again for Wutai's aid in this matter. I'll speak to you again soon. Yes. Good-bye."
He sighed, snapping his phone shut, pinching tiredly at the bridge of his nose.
Things were getting almost too overwhelming, having to run back and forth between Kalm and the shantytown set up for refugees outside of the remains of Midgar. Everybody wanted answers, and try as he might, he didn't have all the answers to their problems. Not immediate ones. And there were just some questions he couldn't bring himself to own up to.
What of AVALANCHE?
AVALANCHE?
AVALANCHE?
At least he had managed to track down Domino and Hart, get them in to help him. The mayor had never been anything more than a lame duck figurehead. But he was still a boon. Kept the people of the slums copasetic while the executive scrambled to keep the relief effort going along smoothly.
He'd been going back and forth with Junon, Costa del Sol, Rocket Town, even Wutai, any country with even a semblance of a decent economy. They needed food, supplies- both medical and basic necessities, and they needed personnel to help with tending to the sick and wounded, and to help him begin with the arduous process of rebuilding so all the displaced masses would have a place to live.
And maybe if he got things going along at a steady clip, people would be too preoccupied to badger him for information on the status of AVALANCHE.
He didn't know how much longer he could keep the charade up. People didn't know. Shinra had kept information under wraps about Sephiroth, about the Meteor, about AVALANCHE's true involvement in affairs. Did he dare tell them? Should he try to reveal the truth about them? About Cait Sith? About Shinra?
The people of Midgar, Hell the whole world, had been lied to and subjugated long enough. Shinra had built and maintained itself on deception. Subjugation.
Lies.
But he didn't know if he should tell them the truth. If he could.
They'd probably tear him apart. He was all that was left of the old regime. The people wanted someone to blame. And Sephiroth was gone. Dead...
And he wasn't going to give them AVALANCHE.
He'd let the masses tear him limb from limb before he gave them up.
He'd never really thought he'd be in this position. Never wanted to be. For all he'd despised Shinra's underhanded methods, lying and deceiving had been his whole M.O., even before he'd infiltrated AVALANCHE. He was a businessman after all.
Even so, he was probably the only man for the job. He had the strength, the ties to the old regime, the resources. He could get the funds if he needed to.
After all, his deception had run both ways for a while. And he doubted Rufus and the others would be able to raise a fuss from beyond the grave if he started funneling old resources into rebuilding.
At least they had the Head of Urban Development at the helm now.
At least they had someone who gave a damn to try and rebuild.
He made his way down the hall, coming opposite of one of the nurses pushing along a trolley of medical supplies. She stared at him over the blackened, bandaged bridge of her nose, scowling heavily. The look didn't suit her young, freckled face. But he was used to seeing that look, at least in passing, from all the nurses. Hell, he was surprised if any of them except for 'Marx' didn't glower or mutter at him as he passed.
To them, he was just as bad as AVALANCHE was. He'd brought them here. Forced them to tend to the rebels' wounds. Swore them to secrecy with underhanded means.
After all, he'd explained, with the state of the world as it was now, stable jobs may become rather difficult to come by.
Underhanded and nasty again, he knew. But he couldn't help it. AVALANCHE had done their part to save the world, and people didn't know.
People hated them for it.
Of course, Julia, the nurse he had just passed, may have had good reason to dislike them. She had gotten in Barret's face, sneered and called him a monster about what AVALANCHE had done in Midgar. Spit out all the same statistics that Shinra had been shoving at the people from the beginning.
Barret had been scrambled in the head ever since the Highwind crash, and he had a guilt complex over his deeds that went far beyond his gruff exterior. He was hurting; bad. He didn't want to fight anymore, didn't want to try to justify himself to someone that wouldn't face the truth. But even he had his limits.
Marlene's presence, and the timely intervention of the Turks, was the only thing that had saved Julia from worse than just a broken nose. Last he had seen, she had been stalking from the room, hand cupped to her bleeding nose, while Reno walked alongside her, mumbling lowly. He had heard the redhead murmur something about Sector Seven. He had seen the way her eyes grew wide as dinner plates, and after that, she had never harassed Barret again.
Never even came by his room.
He almost felt bad, playing this game. Threatening to have them shit-canned and blacklisted if they blabbed about AVALANCHE to anyone.
But, desperate times...
Besides, they were his friends.
No. Not his friends. Hell, they were barely even Cait Sith's friends. Even if that cat-and-mog duo had just been a front, Shinra's means of getting inside information on AVALANCHE, Reeve had given him his own personality. Sure, he himself was a gambler, a fortune-teller, but Cait was a whole 'nother take on it. Cait Sith was like a separate person entirely. And they knew Cait. They didn't know him.
But he knew them. He'd seen them through thick and thin, bad times and worse. He'd comforted and cried with the others when Aerith died. He'd aided them in one fight after another. And even though he'd betrayed their trust, he had come to them when they'd needed it the most, orchestrating Barret and Tifa's escape from the Junon gas chamber.
And he wanted to help them again now, show them that not everybody in the world was against him. He may not have been Cait Sith, but at heart, he was still on their side.
He just hoped they knew that.
He glanced toward the open door to his left, hearing Marlene's voice wafting out into the hallway. She was a sweet girl, bright and inquisitive. He'd taken quite a liking to her when she and Elmyra had been captives of Shinra in their ploy against the rebels, and it was obvious that Tifa and Barret loved her to death.
She seemed to bring at least a little joy to all of them. She'd liked Nanaki while he had still been among them, and struck up conversation with Cid and Yuffie eagerly. The only painful thing was that she kept asking about Cloud. She'd never known Vincent.
They'd explained it as gingerly as possible. The child understood death. He could still remember her sobs when he had gone to Elmyra's home, as Reeve, not Cait Sith, and told them about Aerith's death.
And she had cried again, hearing of their dead comrades. Only, it hadn't been as hard for her. Yes, she was saddened, and realized that it hurt her father and his friends deeply, but she didn't know Cloud as they had. Hadn't seen him straighten his mind out, emerge from that emotionless persona he had constructed for himself.
She would grow up and move on from the hurt, maybe forget about Cloud, unless she came upon an old picture of her father's; relegate him to a hazy memory in the back of her mind. But for the rest of them, Cloud and Vincent's deaths would be much harder to move past. They hadn't even died in battle. They'd perished afterwards, by some freak chance.
It wasn't fair. It never was.
He chanced a peek into the room, seeing Marlene sitting Indian-style on Tifa's bed, the martial artist sitting in a similar fashion, still wearing one of the paper-thin hospital gowns, bandaged arm sitting in her lap. There was a beat-up canvas rucksack between them, and the little girl was digging elbow deep through the contents.
He noted grimly that there were two other packs on the ground by her bedside table, Vincent's gun and bronze gauntlet set beside the left one. The Turks had scavenged through the crash site for their belongings, found their traveling packs, which for most of them, contained their only real belongings. Nanaki had been given his before he left for Cosmo Canyon early that morning. The others had all gotten theirs. Reeve hadn't gone through Cait Sith's bag yet, and he didn't know when he'd actually get around to it. It looked like Cloud and Vincent's bags had been left in Tifa's possession.
Strong girl.
"Look at all these flowers!" Marlene murmured in surprise, pulling a handful of lilies and roses from within the depths of the pack, the whole bunch wrapped safely in a length of pink cloth. They had probably been in the bag for some time, but they were in perfect shape, the delicate blossoms still bright and supple, not dried and cracked as they should have been after so long.
The girl may not have noticed, too busy looking through the possessions, but he definitely noticed the wounded cringe that passed over Tifa's features, the way she squeezed her eyes shut and turned her head away; swallowing harshly as she struggled for a brief moment to keep herself composed.
He hovered at the doorway, swallowing hard himself as Marlene pulled out a candy dispenser shaped like a chocobo. Cait had picked that up at some chintzy little shop in Wutai. Terrible likeness of the bird, near perfect likeness of Cloud's ridiculous hair. He could remember inputting all of the cat's movements as it slunk around Cloud's shoulders, making terrible jokes, and popping candies into the blonde's mouth every time he'd opened it to protest.
It hurt, way down in his chest, to think about things like that.
Much too raw.
Had it really only been a week?
It seemed longer than that. Much, much longer.
He sighed and spun out of the doorway, back bumping against the wall, and he dropped his gaze to stare at his shoes, mind and vision swimming. This was no good. Everyone seemed so much more justified in their grief.
He felt like such a liar, grieving with them when he had never really been there. The others, they talked about Cait Sith sometimes, both the first and second robot. And Tseng had been kind enough to bring him the scrapped remains of the cat-bot, melted and charred away to its metal skeleton, Cid's haphazard wiring job and the bloodied PHS still attached to it. It was in his temporary lodgings, which in actuality was just one of the vacated rooms at the end of the hall, right next to Barret's room. He had too much of an attachment to it. It was his success, his brain-child; his pride and joy. He didn't have the heart to get rid of it, even though it was a charred husk of its former glory, stinking of charred foam rubber and synthetic materials. They hadn't brought back Chippy, which he was a bit disappointed about, to be honest. But, as Reno had so succinctly put it, the mog had been 'smashed to shit' in the crash. He felt badly that it had just been left there in the remains. Robot or not, he liked to think they had their own personalities, deep down.
To him, it was almost as if he was just leaving a body out in the open to rot. There was no indication when, if ever, the twisted carcass of the airship would be taken care of. It was in a remote area, and there were far more...pressing matters to attend to now.
"Mr. Executive?"
Reeve snapped out of his morbid musings at the voice, and turned to see the red-headed nurse, 'Marx', regarding him coolly, a clipboard clutches under her right arm. He wasn't sure he exactly liked her tone of voice, and steeled himself for whatever possible rants she could open up on him.
"Yes... erm, Marx?" He responded uncertainly, unsure of how to address the woman. 'Marx' couldn't be her real name, unless it was a surname. But that was the only name he had heard her called by, by Tifa and Barret. From what Elena had told him, she had practically threatened the rest of the staff when the rebels had been brought in, needing emergency care. Many of the nurses initially refused to lay a finger on them, but 'Marx' had stepped up, throwing her weight around and forcing them to do their jobs. It hadn't won the woman much favor with the others on the staff, but she just brushed it off brusquely.
Thick-skinned broad. He respected that.
She chuckled lightly and approached him, tapping the clipboard against her hip. She picked an errant strand of hair from her impeccably starched uniform before straightening and clearing her throat. She was taller than him, thickly built and she had tiny crow's feet straggling from the outer corners of her eyes. A few errant strands of silver hair were flecked through the red, which was pulled back in a neat bun, the waves and curls pinned firmly into the updo. Her hair was nothing like the brilliant shade of Reno's hair, it was more of a washed-out shade of orange-red. Overall, a rather plain and unremarkable woman. She didn't seem the type to have an association with AVALANCHE.
Of course, those were exactly the type of associates the rebels needed. Somebody who wouldn't bring attention to themselves.
"Really now, 'Marx' is just a... well, like a code-name I suppose. Our network had them because they didn't want to possibly give the authorities a lead on who was aiding them. Conspiring against the government is an act of treason, as we both know." She juggled the clipboard to her other hand before thrusting out her right hand towards him "Janice Talbot. I'd prefer if you didn't call me Jan."
"Pleased to meet you." He responded amicably, meeting her outstretched hand with his own. "I'm-"
She nodded before he could get it out, nearly crushing his hand in her firm shake. He didn't think he winced at the unexpected twinge of pain.
"Yes, yes, Reeve Tuetsi. Wouldn't be a very fine conspirator if I didn't know my regime figureheads, now would I, Mr. Executive?"
"I suppose not." He agreed, grimacing a little as he pulled from her hard grip, trying not to shake away the pain too obviously. "And I'll agree to not call you Jan if you agree to not call me 'Mr. Executive'."
"What can I say?" She shrugged loftily "I've been following the news reports, 'Shinra Executive' and your name are tossed together rather cozily."
"I wish it weren't. Shinra's dead." He replied.
Mm. What a loaded statement that was.
"Finally." Janice snubbed, wrinkling her nose a little in a piggish fashion. She shook it off after a second though, and straightened back to her professional demeanor. "Anyhow, I wanted to speak to you because your friends, Mr. Strife and Mr. Valentine that is, are going to be cremated in the morning, and I thought you would want to pay your final respects to them before then."
Friends...
He nodded slowly, frowning.
It all seemed so informal. But Tifa had adamantly refused the idea of a funeral service, and, much as he disliked it, he now had to agree with her. They probably shouldn't go out in the open like that. And he had no idea where either man would have wanted to been buried, if they had even wanted to be buried. After all, both of them had been rather enigmatic. He could figure where Cloud may have wanted to be put to rest, but as for Vincent, he doubted that any of them knew for certain.
Speaking about his past, it was as if it left a bad taste in his mouth. And obviously, he had good reason to despise it. He was a changed man from what he had once been, Hell, he had monsters lurking within him, what could have possibly been some sort of super-human abilities. He was a man out of his time, and what he didn't make known to the others was probably never going to be known now.
"Thank you." He nodded finally, looking anywhere but at her.
"Just let me know when you'd like to go see them. I'll escort you down to the morgue when you're ready. I'm on the night shift tonight, so I'll be-"
"Actually," He interrupted, finally meeting her gaze again "If it's no trouble, would you be able to take me down there now? I've got a lot of matters to attend to in the morning, and I need to catch some shut-eye."
Understatement of the year, right there. He felt like he could sleep for years, given the chance.
Janice seemed to mentally come to the same conclusion, and smiled wryly.
"You've barely slept a wink in the whole time I've seen you here. Tough as it must be on you, I have to say, it's...refreshing to see a new way take hold. Tifa and Barret have spoken rather highly of you and your commitment to the life of the Planet."
They fell in step together, heading along the path that Reeve had been trailing down before getting sidetracked, and he sighed, shaking his head. It came as a bit of a shock to hear that Tifa and Barret actually thought something of him. If he were in their positions, he doubted he'd feel anything but ill will toward himself.
"At least others have faith in me. I'm playing this all by ear. I came up with so, so many contingency plans for possible problems if the Planet survived the Meteor, but enacting those plans is an entirely different matter. I don't know how long I can keep everything under control. And I'm no leader. Everything's in chaos, and I doubt I have what it takes to keep the people in line. The regime crumbled, and the people are going to get restless and resort to lawlessness and anarchy if a stable institution doesn't take hold." He pinched at the bridge of his nose again, and squeezed his eyes shut, the exhaustion creeping closer as he mulled over the unpleasant facts. "Aaaaaand, there's the little matter of my secret double-life as a member of AVALANCHE. They'll rip me to pieces if word spreads about my work as Cait Sith. I... honestly have no idea how I've managed to keep things going for this long. I'll be fucked once the shock wears off."
One firm, meaty palm clapped down on his shoulder, squeezing lightly, and Janice gave him a stern look.
"The news reports have been favorable. And I've seen you in action when you were behind Cait Sith. You've got plenty of charisma, and plenty of underhanded schemes swimming around in that head of yours. Right now, people are anxious for any kind of leadership, and as long as you keep it tight, and don't resort to Shinra's old ways, there probably isn't much worry about a coup. Besides, the Turks are still with you, they're mean motherfuckers, I'll give them that. It'll help. You've always been billed as a man of the people in Midgar, so now's your chance to prove it. You'll be fine as long as you're honest. Well, mostly honest, anyway. Can't lay all your cards on the table."
He looked at her, shocked at her words of support. If anything, he figured she'd hold him in contempt for his work with Shinra.
"I-" he floundered for words, and finally managed to spit out the first thing that crossed his mind "Wait, when did you meet Cait Sith? I've never seen you before."
She dropped her hand from his shoulder and chuckled lightly.
"When a few of you had infections from poorly treated wounds and didn't have any antibiotics. I was contacted and made my way out to meet up and check the damage. I had to wear that ridiculous get-up to avoid showing off any recognizable features."
He remembered now, the fully cloaked figure. Wearing male clothing. Wide trousers, heavy boots, a trench coat, scarf, gloves, hat, as well as a ski mask and glasses, she had indeed been an enigma. He had observed his recordings of that encounter probably hundreds of times, trying to find anything he could that he could turn over to Rufus. They had always assumed the mystery associate to have been male, due mostly on the build of them, and the voice, which had been gruff and low, obviously as a result of some form of modulation.
"Brave woman. I spent quite a lot of time trying to figure out who you could have been. Any of you that ever made an appearance did an impressive job of hiding your tracks." He admitted, rather impressed with how complexly structured the underground associations that AVALANCHE held really was. "How long had you helped them for?"
"Since the start. I worked as a nurse in Midgar before I moved out here. Five years ago, Tifa ended up as a patient in the hospital. Badly burned forearms, horrible wound across her chest, she was comatose for some time. I was in her room when she came to, and when she was recovered a little, we got to talking. She told me about what happened in Nibelheim, what had happened to everyone she had known. I was horrified. The whole incident was covered up by the government. I had never much cared for the government before, I'd been a triage nurse during the war, and that certainly hadn't raised my opinion any, but that was the turning point.
"I offered to take her in, but she felt it was too risky. She moved to the Slums when she was well enough, wanting to hide; disappear. That's when our 'code-names' took hold. I funneled money to her, both of us using assumed names. Over time, once she teamed up with Barret and the others, I became their medic, of sorts. Any bad injuries, and I would go to them and patch them up. When things started getting hairy, Barret told me that I should get out of Midgar, in anything happened. I didn't listen, figured that if I did, it would be suspicious. When the support of Sector Seven was destroyed, I was at a medical conference in Rocket Town. I came back and my home and the hospital, Hell everything was destroyed. I moved to Kalm, stayed with my sister for a while, and took my job here. I kept in touch with some of their other associates as discretely as possible, and that's that. Some of the others here probably realize I'm something to AVALANCHE now, but short-staffed as we are with so many resources going to the recovery effort, I don't think I'll have much trouble with anyone for now."
Well, it certainly explained why Barret, while still delirious, said he was glad to see she'd made it out of Midgar.
They walked the rest of the way to the morgue in silence, Reeve not completely sure he wanted to take one last look at them. He'd barely been able to look at them when he'd first found them; found Nanaki keening by Cloud's body, the beast shaking with fear, his one working eye squeezed shut against looking at his friend, who had died staring directly at him, head tilted completely wrong. Tifa had been curled up with Vincent, pale and blood-soaked, the tattered remains of the cape that hadn't been torn to bandages doing a poor job of covering the obviously gruesome remains. One eye had been half-open, seeming to follow the rescue crews around as they milled about the debris, almost accusing them for what happened.
The bodies had been down there for a little over a week. No more presentable, the decay setting in, despite the cold temperatures in the morgue. There were no morticians to make them more presentable. No real reason to make them more presentable. It wouldn't be how he wanted to remember them, but if he looked at them now, he knew the sight of their corpses would be burned into his memory.
Janice tugged at the lanyard around her neck, pulling a keycard from where it was hidden against he chest, and swiped it through the reader, waiting for the access light to go on with a soft ping, before hitting the call button for the elevator. They stepped into the small lift, and Reeve stared ahead mutely as she hit the button for the basement, her idle foot tapping the only thing breaking the silence that had fallen between them.
He was suddenly uncomfortable to be in her presence. He wanted to ignore all this, wish he'd never met AVALANCHE or gotten mixed up with their group in the first place. He could remember, a number of times, wishing that President Shinra had picked somebody else, anybody else, for the job as a spy.
This was one of those times.
Hell, the past few months had been one of those times.
She must have picked up on his agitation, because she looked over at him as the elevator slid to a stop, studying his pale face and shook her head lightly, sympathizing with him.
"Don't..." She shook it off momentarily, rethinking her choice of words "We're all broken as Hell over this. Maybe in different ways, but-"
"All of us?" He interrupted lowly, shooting her an incredulous look, like he couldn't understand what she was saying. "Who is 'all' of us?" The public wasn't cut up about it. The Turks certainly weren't, despite their... history with the rebels. The only people that did care were the remaining rebels.
And that was only what, half a dozen?
Pathetic way to end. Not a fair lot, for all they'd had to sacrifice; all they'd gone through.
"The people who cared about them." She nodded back, instantly. She didn't beat around the bush with the matter, reading between the lines of his question. "The people that know the truth."
He didn't answer, merely looking away like a scolded child. He was so intensely focusing on keeping his gaze off of her that he missed their destination by a few steps, still walking slowly as she stopped abruptly by a set of cold-looking double doors.
The metal was scuffed repeatedly from waist-high downward, despite the cool gleam that spoke of repeated attempts to clean away the unsightly marks. It spoke of the number of gurneys that had been wheeled into the foreboding looking room, everything within it having an unwelcome looking wash to it, from the unkind lighting and all the stainless steel.
There was a lone figure in there, standing by two covered gurneys, the bodies covered in crisp white sheets. It was Barret, the hulking figure standing there, shoulders sagging; defeated. As Reeve stared in at him through the doors, he let out a sigh, breath misting in the controlled climate.
"You can take as long as you like." Janice murmured quietly to him, hand on his shoulder, her mouth almost uncomfortably close to his ear.
"Okay." He replied distractedly, eyes focused on Barret, mind made up that he'd rather not intrude. He could wait, or come back some other time.
Or, Hell, he could just forget the whole thing altogether.
"He's been in there for a long time." She went on, leaning forward to scrutinize him too, appearing just in the edge of Reeve's peripheral vision. She frowned, clicking her tongue unhappily at the sight. "Might do him some good if he had somebody in there with him."
If he wanted somebody in there, they should just get Cid or Tifa. He'd gotten along with those two the best out of all that were left. Bar that; Tifa was his closest friend in the world. He was the slightest bit thankful that those two had both survived. They were all that was left of the original group. Would they have been able to go on if one had lost the other?
"We never really... We don't get along." He admitted, almost childishly. You'd better watch my back to the end... partner. That cold, unflinching look still bothered him to this day. He'd saved them to try and make it up to them. Provide some sort of penance, prove something to them. He'd also handed the black materia over to them, but it hadn't been enough. It would never be enough.
"These days, you need all the friends you can get." She shrugged, earnest in her albeit cliché statement. Almost as soon as the line was out of her mouth, the hand was gone from his shoulder, and Janice was making her way back to the elevator, leaving him to continue staring at Barret, not all that convinced by her words.
He wasn't sure how long he stood there. Long enough, he supposed. More than long enough. Just staring through the slightly distorted plexiglass window, wondering if Barret could just stand in there all night, thinking about them, thinking at them.
He probably could. Hell, knowing the other man like he did now, Barret was probably blaming himself.
He didn't look up as the elevator motor purred quietly, ignored the muted footsteps clomping toward him. Didn't even pay attention when they stopped right behind him. He could see a ghostly little reflection of the nurse behind him, but he looked past it, still contemplating the scene within the morgue, trying to decide if it was worth it.
"Sir?" She started crisply, though her hail was pointedly ignored, the executive making no move like he had even heard her rather shrill voice. She huffed and grabbed his elbow, letting out a small growl of frustration. "Sir! You can't be down here! This is a restricted area, and I have no idea how the likes of you got down here but you have to leave-"
Oh, that just...
"Nurse Talbot gave us permission to be down here." He answered back stiffly. "If you have a problem, take it up with her. And if you have a problem with her, I'll hear about it, and you'll be blacklisted the world over so fast you'll be broke and holding a gun to your head before you even know it."
The voice didn't even sound like his. Too low, too menacing. In the vague reflection, he could see the nurse flinch back, face twisting in some indistinguishable expression.
"I don't know who you-"
"I'm the man who's going to hold this world together." He replied simply, no longer dwelling on the insecurities he had expressed to Janice. He had to take charge. What would there be for AVALANCHE if he didn't set the record straight? The public despising them? Wanting to kill them? Indecision or not, he wasn't going to just let it happen. "You leave him alone. Our friends are dead. I know you couldn't care, but we do. You leave him to mourn as long as he wants. All of you. He deserves that much."
Barret suddenly turned and looked, hearing the commotion the nurse had made as she stormed off, and he and Reeve locked gazes, just staring at each other, a dazed look to Barret's face, as if he couldn't comprehend the other man. His large left hand picked at the bandages covering the stub of his other arm uneasily, and his normally hard visage looked so old and vulnerable now.
Reeve half raised his hand, moving to push the door open; go in there and talk to him. After all, the other man knew he was there now, and the bleeding, wounded look in those brown eyes was almost too much for him.
But instead, he stopped, palm hovering inches from the door, brow crunched in contemplation. How hard was it, to just open the door and take a few steps to the other man?
No, he finally decided, hand falling back to his side, his gaze finally breaking away from Barret's. His fingers drummed against his palm, once, and he finally turned away, making his way back toward the elevator.
The others could all do this, but he couldn't.
Besides, he had work to do.
For their sakes.