Part 3Father and Daughter

The day after I broke the news to Rude, I walked into work to see that everyone was giving me strange looks. I tried to ignore them but the difficulty of that was high. I walked through the Turk offices to find that this was the root of it all. I walked past Reno, who, when he caught sight of me, made a face that made him look like he had just swallowed a whale. Elena, too, gave me an odd look; she stared at me like I had two heads. Tseng seemed to be the normal one. When he saw me, he just glanced up at me from some papers in his hand then back as he normally did. When I came across Rude, I realized what this was all about. I waved a good morning to him but he just grunted and pretended that he had not seen me at all. In fact, he made it priority to avoid me all day. I could not understand what had caused this strange behavior in my staff until I remembered the events of the morning before. Of course, I slept with Rude's daughter. He would have talked to Reno about Adela and me, then Reno would have blabbed to Elena and from there, it was an explosion of gossip that no one could stop. I cursed Reno's talkativeness and retreated to my office where I stayed the rest of the day, not even leaving for the toilet.

When noon rolled around, I was so caught up in my work that the thought of lunch was far away and when the ring of my office phone on my oak desk cut through the silence, I nearly jumped several feet in the air in astonishment. Looking at the small screen displayed on the phone, I read the word "floor." I thought it was strange that the floor receptionist would call me but I picked up the receiver anyway and placed the phone to my ear and mouth. "President Shinra speaking," I said uniformly.

"Sir, there's a girl here for you," the receptionist spoke a little awkwardly. "She says she brought you lunch." I frowned. What was he talking about?

"Did she say who she was?" I pressed for more clarification.

"Hold on a minute, sir." I could hear some talking in the background but could not make out what the people were saying, and then the receptionist came back on. "Um, she says her name is Adela. She wouldn't give me a last name but she just told me that you would know who she was."

I felt a smile creep across my face at the sound of Adela's name. "Does she look to be around seventeen with dark hair, dark skin, and dark eyes?" There was a short pause on the other end of the line before the receptionist answered with a confused "yes." I let out a small chuckle. "Send her up," I ordered.

The man at the receptionist table began to argue. "But sir-."

"Send her up," I repeated, interrupting him.

He sighed and gave an exasperated "yes sir" and hung up the phone.

"This is unexpected," I mused, leaning back in my padded swivel chair. She arrived ten minutes later, carrying a small, cardboard box under her right arm. "How did you get here?" was my first question as she poked her head inside the door. She had no car that I knew of and Healin was too far away to walk from. She entered and shrugged.

"Cloud," she said. I looked at her suspiciously. "He stopped by Healin and I asked him for a ride here. You can't go without a lunch, now, can you?" she added and held up the box. Smiling gratefully, I took the box from her and inhaled deeply. My God! It smelled delicious!

"What did you bring?" I asked, opening the box with care so I did not ruin anything.

Adela shrugged. "Just two beef and bean burritos, a salad, an apple and some lemonade. I know how you hate chili, so I left that out. It should taste good either way." I took the food out of the box, and, when I set them down on my desk, I noticed she fidgeted uncomfortably.

"What's wrong?" I quired. She looked up at my face and swallowed.

"It's nothing, really. Just…" She trailed off, averting her gaze to the floor. "Your staff kept giving me strange looks when I got up here, even the Turks. What was that about?" Startled, I looked down at my food and began to unwrap the carefully wrapped paper towel the burritos were stored in.

"Don't worry, they gave me strange looks as well," I said. "I haven't left my office all day."

She looked at me, confused. "Why-?"

"Rude," I answered to her unasked question. "You remember when he stormed out of the apartment yesterday morning and why? Well, apparently, he told Reno about it, then Reno told Elena and now the whole thing is a big mess."

She nodded. "I see," was all she said but I could tell she wanted to know why Rude had acted as he did aside from just me sleeping with someone. She bowed her head then turned to leave. "I should go. Cloud wanted me to stop by Tifa's bar and see the kids." I stood, my mind unable to control my body anymore, and ran over to her, slipping my arms around her waist and stopping her from opening the door. "Rufus?" Her voice sounded alarmed, confused and curious all at once. She obviously had no idea what I was doing, and neither did I for that matter.

"Don't go," I found myself saying. "I'll take you; we can both visit the bar together. Just, stay with me?" She was so alluring that I could not help myself. I bent my head forward and pressed my lips to her shoulder, lightly kissing the bare skin there. I inhaled her scent as I breathed and she smelled strongly of lavender and chamomile. She took a breath in slight shock then turned around to face me, her face hopeful.

"You mean it? I can stay here with you?" she asked, a tiny bit excited. I nodded and she threw her arms around my neck happily. When she drew back, she looked at me for a few seconds then moved in and pressed her lips to mine. My eyes widened in surprise but slowly closed as I drew her in closer to me and picked her up, beginning to walk backwards towards my desk. I hit the corner of the desk and stopped, the edge of it digging into my thigh. I flipped us around so that she was between me and the desk, then picked her up, brushed some items aside and sat her down on the hard oak. She moaned happily as I moved to lick under her earlobe and slid my hand slowly up her thigh and under her short skirt. My other hand found its way under her perfectly fitted tank top and gently caressed her back. I was about to help her remove her green shirt when there was a loud knock at the door to my office. I jumped, startled, and released Adela.

"Fix yourself, quick," ordered her quietly, and she immediately obeyed my order as I turned to the door and said loudly, "Come in." The door opened and Tseng popped his head in just as Adela had finished straitening her shirt. "What do you want?" I snapped angrily.

Tseng appeared unperturbed by my annoyance as he said, "I need to talk to you for a minute, sir."

I glared at him. "Very well. Fire away."

He glanced quickly at Adela, who made a confused face, and then back at me. "In private," he added and I nodded.

"Adela, could you please stand outside the office for a minute while I speak with Tseng?" I opened the door for her and she walked out. As she passed me, I noticed she had a sad look on her face so I bent down and told her I would see her after I had a quick talk with Tseng. She seemed to brighten at this before hurriedly leaving the room. Shutting the door, I turned to the Turk in front of me and glowered. "Now will you please tell me what this is about?" I demanded.

"Actually, I'm speaking on Rude's behalf." I raised an eyebrow at this but the Wutaian Turk continued anyway. "He wishes you would leave the girl alone. He doesn't want her involved with the company anymore than she has to be."

I interrupted him. "What makes him so protective of her when he just discovered that she existed two days ago?"

"You may have just told him that Adela was his daughter, but he knew he had one all along." Tseng's composer never changed, he kept his face strait and calm. "This is nothing new to him."

"He knew Adela was his daughter?" I was confused. How could he have already known?

"Well, he knew he had a daughter from Costa Del Sol, but he didn't know what she looked like until you told him. He had left her and her mother right after she was born because he said he couldn't take care of either one of them." I crossed my arms across my chest and glared at the man.

"Is that right?" I motioned toward the door. "Thank you for your time, Tseng, but I will not get rid of the girl. However, I will try and keep her away from Shinra problems as much as I can." I opened the door only to find Adela jump back suddenly from the door as if she had been listening in and stare at me, upset. As I asked him to, Tseng left, patting Adela on the head before walking down the hall towards his office.

"You knew," she said after she came back in. I could see she was having trouble holding back tears as she looked at me. "You knew and you didn't tell me. Why?" I did not have an answer. I said nothing but watched as, with every passing second I did not say anything, her tears began to slip free of her eyes. It pained me to see her cry, but I forced myself to look at her as her bottom lip quivered and she looked back at me as if I were someone she did not know, someone she never knew. "How long have you known?" She asked a different question and this time I actually had an answer.

"Three months," I reluctantly told her. I hoped this information would not hurt her any more than she already was, but as soon as the words left my mouth, I saw that my hope was shot down. She could not keep the tears back any longer. They gushed out of her eyes as if a dam had just been broken and she turned away from me.

"Who, exactly, is my father?" she asked, not turning to look at me. I told her it was Rude and she began to cry even harder. She would not speak, or even acknowledge my presence in the room. Timidly, I reached out a hand and touched her shoulder; she flinched at this touch. "Adela, I'm sorry. I would have told you had I found the right way and time. Believe me, hurting you was the last thing I wanted to do."

She whirled around to face me, anger plastered across her tear-stained face. "How do I know that?" she asked angrily. "How do I know you're not lying to me right now?" I tried to reach out and wipe the tears away from her eyes but she swatted my hand away as if it were an annoying insect and bolted out the door.

"Adela, wait!" I cried after her but my cry fell on deaf ears. She did not hear me, too lost in her sorrow was she to comprehend what I was saying. I let out a long, exasperated sigh and followed her out the door, jogging down the hall until I found she had sought comfort in Elena. They were walking slowly down the hall, Adela crying into the young Turk's shoulder and Elena had her arm around Adela and she was speaking soothing words to the young girl. When I arrived, Elena looked up at me and scowled. I stopped in the middle of the hall as Elena and Adela entered Reno and Rude's office. I did not want to cause unwanted anger by being there, so I did not follow them inside. Instead, they had left the door open, so I stood in the doorway and leaned against the doorframe; I listened in on the conversation happening in the small Turk office.

"Is it true, Rude?" I heard Adela ask as Rude held her in his arms as a parent would his child. "Are you my father?"

Rude was silent for a few moments before drawing her head back and kissing her forehead. "Yes," was all he said.

Her voice was shaky when she spoke again. "Wh-why didn't you come back f-for mother and me?" she asked.

He sighed. "When I came here, I had every intention of returning when I had enough money to take care of you." He paused for a moment before continuing. "But I didn't anticipate becoming a Turk. I wanted to come back for years, but my job would not allow me to." Rude looked down at his seventeen-year-old daughter who was sobbing uncontrollably.

"Did you know I was your daughter when we first met?" she asked, her voice sounding like she did not want the answer to be yes.

Her father shook his head. "No." The corners of her mouth moved slightly into a small, almost indistinguishable smile. "I did not."

This time, Elena asked the question. "But how did you not know what she looked like? Surely her mother would have sent you a picture of some sort."

Again, Rude shook his head. "I never received anything of the sort. Adela grew up without me watching." I smiled, she finally found her father. That's what she came here for in the first place, right?

"Congratulations, Adela," I found myself saying. "You found your father." Adela looked at me, her expression hard, and Rude turned his head and glared at me through his sunglasses. I waved them off as I left and headed back to my office. It hurt me to do that, to leave without giving Adela a joyful hug and saying I was happy for her. However, I do not think the others thought the same thing for I could feel their cold stares on my back as I left.

Once in my office, I sat down at my desk and did something I never thought I would ever do. For the first time in my life, I cried.

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I did my best trying to keep the original Final Fantasy characters in character so please forgive me if they leave their character personalities slightly in some parts. I'm not done yet so I hope you enjoyed. Please review!