Echo - Okay, I won't kill your character. lol. I don't know when she'll come in, but she will make an appearance. I don't know how long she'll be in the story, though. Any other request? I'll try my best (hey, that rhymed)
NarcissisticRiceball - Haha. I tried REALLY HARD on the explanation (Reno's). I'm glad it played off well. I kinda feel sorry for Vince. He has PSYCHO parents, man! Well, at least Reno's a psycho...
Moonshine's Guide - Well... I'd rather not have Rude as my model, say. I don't know about Rufus's future yet. I haven't thought about it. I did get your OC, thanks so much! She will make an appearance.
RaspberryPolarBear - THANK YOU! You fell for it! I tried REALLY hard not to give away that it was a little kid Arie was chasing. I guessed that Reno would be ah... blunt. Heh heh. I tried really hard.
I Less than Three Holland - I can have a godmother. I never actually thought about that, good point. He is a cute little thing. I kinda imagined Reno's kid to be this obnoxious brat, but I decided against it.
GacktLover14 - umm... are you saying how I make stuff realistic? I dunno. I usually write as if I'm transcribing from a movie scene so maybe that's why. I try to keep the story going, so that might be another.
Chapter 2: Retribution Begins
Life, Arien thought glumly as she stood, definitely sucks.
Vince was still at Ivy's house; Ivy's son, Jay, and Vince happened to be good buddies. When it was time for the small child to go home, he cried and swatted his mother's hands away and threw a major temper tantrum. Ivy had smiled and offered to extend the stay through the night. Vince, with his face crumpled and in tears, glared at his parents with his best Reno-ish glare. Arien sighed, Reno chortled.
Arien sighed and acquiesced to her son. And now, Reno and she were going to pick him up.
The sky was blue, clouds floating happily in the sky. She was warm; it was spring, gingham eyelet shirt perfect for the weather. Her jeans rustled against each leg; hands jammed in the pockets and shifting the weight from one leg to another, she waited for the redhead to come pick her up. Nothing could go wrong today. Reno would come, about five minutes late; he would kiss her and apologize, then they would drive to Ivy's house, pick up Vince, maybe go shopping, then go home. Rude and Elena were on the shift today, so they had an entire day off. It was a family day.
"Good weather."
Arien nearly jumped, then angrily reminded herself to be vigilant. She was supposed to be alert, but the warm weather had lulled her. She turned her head, her raven hair rustling, her blue-green eyes wide open.
"…Jack?"
The man's eyes widened as he stared at her.
Jack McKinnon was formerly Arien's crush in the military academy. Unfortunately, Arien was one of the oddballs and much disliked among boys; she boasted the only full score in Physics and tended to compete against the males, rather than try to be friendly with them. Jack hanged around with girls who were pretty, soft, and not on the career-track, who cared about cooking and make-up. Arien hanged out with the career-track people like herself. When they had graduated, they separated ways; Arien was still in touch with her best friend from the academy, now a military commander in Mideel, and that was it.
Now the past was coming back, with its humiliation and angry eyes. She kept it down. She had a different life now, with an eight-digit paycheck and everything money could buy and more.
"Is that you, Arien?"
Arien smiled, but she felt it was an awkward smile. "It's been long."
He seemed awkward as well, but perhaps that was not because he suddenly had been recalled from the past; dressed in a suit and looking tired, he looked much older than her, although they were born in the same year and graduated from the same class. Arien wondered what on earth she had seen in him. Certainly nothing she was seeing now; a tired man in mid-twenties, working for the bread and managing, but just barely.
"Mind if I smoke?" he asked.
"No."
He pulled out a pack, tapped on it, and pulled on out. "Want one?" he offered.
"No thanks."
He lighted the cigarette, and took a long time to inhale the smoke. "So, what have you been up to?"
"My job."
Jack looked at her, observed her. She was dressed simply. She could almost see his mental calculations, coming out that she was not too rich. She grinned; he was in for a big surprise.
Just then, Reno tooted behind her. "Arie! Let's go!" he yelled. He was not late this time. His silver convertible had the roof down, and she could see his flaming red hair, and his mischievous face. His young face, full of energy. She could see the view from Jack's eyes; a young man, almost a boy, with flaming red hair and bright aquamarine eyes, in an expensive silver convertible, dressed in a good shirt,, tooting and calling at her.
She pulled out her business card from her pocket, offered it as if it were a Royal Flush. "You can call me, if you'd like," she said, her voice calm. "That'd be my ride. See you around."
She slid into the seat. Reno drove away from Jack and her past, speeding her to the present.
"Who was that?"
"My former classmate," she replied.
"Just a classmate?"
"My former crush. I'm so glad he didn't pay attention to me." She laughed. "I gave up on my femininity when he rejected me to hang out with the 'cool people'. If he decided that he liked me, I'd probably ended up being someone boring."
"Are you still one of the 'uncool people', yo?"
"Not with you." She grinned at him. "Your red hair does it."
Jack McKinnon was confused. It was sheer luck that had made him stand next to Arien DeVir. He remembered her; an awkward girl with large hands and a sharp tongue, she used to have a crush on him. He decided to hang around with the popular crowd and dedicated his energy to that; Arien dedicated herself to studying and soon came to beat him in every single subject. Then they graduated, and he had heard that Arien had been accepted into the Intelligence service. And then that was it.
She had looked so vigorous, so energetic, compared to him. He had hoped that she had some meager living, but even that was not allowed. The red-haired male – probably her boyfriend – seemed to be drowning in gils. And the awkward girl with long hair had turned into a slender woman with large eyes and a pleasing smile. And his wife – one of the 'cool crowd' that he had hanged around with – was just like him, a tired woman with three children and too many worries.
He wondered if his life would have been different if he had accepted the Wutaian girl. Then it hit him like a tidal wave, something that he knew was bizarre, but could not really put his fingers on.
Weren't her eyes brown?
"So a little retribution is in order?"
"Disliking someone is one thing; complete classification as a lowly specie is another." Arien shrugged; it was late in the night, and Vince was asleep in his room. Arien and Reno were in bed together, Arien reading a file and Reno flipping through the channels.
"Need help with that?"
"I might. Can you stop fiddling with the remote? It's very distracting."
"Then how about this?" Reno tickled her. Arien hit him with a stack of paper in her hand, trying not to giggle.
"Now stop it."
Reno kissed her instead, making her drop the file onto the bed in a white flutter. "And what if I did this?"
"Then we'd be in big trouble tomorrow, because I wouldn't know what I'm doing."
"I can teach you that… maybe after a little exercise."
"I'm getting plenty everyday without your help, Reno. Running around the Edge is strenuous enough."
Reno smirked, knowing that when he would slip the tank-top off her shoulder, she would not protest.
Arien was in her office, a few days later, when she received a call.
"DeVir." It was from an outer network. She had no recollection of ever seeing the number. But since it had gone through the operator, this caller must know her.
"Arien?"
"Who am I speaking to?" She already knew the answer from the voice.
"It's Jack."
"Oh, hello." She wrote an arrow on the diagram with her pen, sandwiching the phone between her chin and her shoulder. She peeled off a blank note from the stack and scribbled, "possible entry point 2B", then stuck it onto the paper. "How may I help you?"
"Can I talk to you? In private?"
It was nearly lunchtime; she glanced at the clock and deemed that it would not be so weird if she left right now. "Sure."
"I…"
"I'll pick you up. That'll be easier for you to get out." She sounded confident and careless at the same time to Jack, a little cocky, even.
"Are you sure?"
"Trust me."
"Okay." He gave the address of the place he worked and the floor, then hang up. The address sounded vaguely familiar, but she dismissed it as some job-related déjà vu. She stood up, grabbed her blue-black uniform jacket and keys. She left her office and knocked on the next door.
"Yeah?" drawled a voice.
"Hey Reno? I'm going out for lunch."
"Going a little early today, eh, babe?" Reno walked out of his office and hugged her. He looked fresh; Arien suspected that all he was doing was playing solitaire on the computer and reading e-mails. "Mm, you smell good." He gently caressed her face with his thumb and kissed her. "God, you turn me on."
Arien rolled her eyes, but her lips curved into a smirk. "Reno, that's enough."
"You do, yo."
"I know that. I'm also hungry." She kissed him back, tasting cigarettes in his mouth. "Do you want me to bring anything?"
"Where you goin'?"
"La Soleil de Bordeaux."
"Bring me back some lunch, babe. And no Dijon crap this time."
"Hey, that's a delicacy," she said, in mock hurt.
"I don't care if it's delicate or not. None of that Dijon crap. And Vince was saying something about shrimps, so you better bring that back to him too."
She laughed. "Alright. No Dijon sauce." She started to walk to the elevator; the Turks were on the eleventh floor and she was not walking eleven flights of stairs. She waved as she stepped into the elevator. He waved back.
Pushing her arms through the uniform jacket and dropping the keys into her pants pocket, she leaned onto the wall as she waited for the elevator to reach the ground floor. When the door opened, she stepped out into the lobby, nodded to the lobby girl sitting behind the front desk, adjusted her tie, and stepped into the sun.
She drove peacefully, and pulled up in the parking lot without any trouble. She ran through the door, flashed her Shinra ID to the lobby person who tried to protest, pushed the elevator button, and crashed into the small cubicle. She walked off the elevator with a false serenity, her tie straight, a plastic smile on her face. She sneaked up behind the working man and said, "Boo!"
"Aaagh!" He turned around, then his face broke into a sad smile.
"How on earth did you get in?"
"Magic," Arien replied. "Let's go."
Jack stood up, grabbed his grey suit coat. "I'll be out for lunch," he said, but she could not see who he was talking to. Then he walked beside her. She could not help feeling excessively crisp and ironed next to him.
"Wow. What do you do for your job?" he asked when he saw her silver convertible. Somehow the Turks ALWAYS had silver convertibles. Arien suspected that it was part of their uniform, just like their sunglasses and their blue-black suits. He sat in the passenger seat as she pressed the button to lower the ceiling.
She drove for a few minutes, parked – illegally – on the street. A female police officer yelled at her.
"Can't you see that it says no parkin…" she stopped as Arien whipped out her ID. "Oh, never mind, miss."
"Thank you," she whispered, then walked up the steps to La Soleil de Bordeaux. "This is where I usually go for lunch." She did not mention that it was one of the priciest restaurants in the city, nor the fact that the prices meant absolutely nothing to her. Reno often ordered dishes here that could have fed the slums for a week without any thought.
Retribution was in order.
Jack hesitated as he followed her into the restaurant, but said nothing. Obviously he had never been here before; otherwise he would pale at the exorbitant prices. A waiter in a black bow-tie came skating toward her. "How many, ma'am?" he asked politely.
"Two."
"This way, ma'am." They were escorted to the usual seats, where the Turks usually occupied – all the way in the back. After taking the drink orders, the waiter left.
Jack opened the menu, and his eyes widened. "Wow. You eat here everyday?" he asked.
"No, not everyday. French makes me sick if I eat it everyday," she said absently, looking through the menu. What should she bring to Reno? He hated anything Dijon; he made sure she knew that. She had to admit that the Dijon sauce did not taste very good. Lamb steak with white sauce and asparagus? Perhaps. She usually ordered baked trout in gooseberry sauce, filled with chestnut and bread crumbs.
"May I have your orders? Any appetizers?" the waiter came back.
"Uh, just romaine lettuce salad with the usual." She looked at her guest. "You?" She nonchalantly added, "Put it on me. I'll pay with the usual."
"No," Jack protested.
"Yes." She fought the urge to say openly that he would never be able to afford the appetizers anyway; in the end she curbed her mouth. "I won't go on the streets because I paid for you."
When she saw that Jack was never going to order anything, she ordered another plate of salad.
"For the main course?"
"Uh, the usual trout for me, and I would like to take back the lamb steak with asparagus, and…"
The phone jingled. She pulled it out from her pocket, then whispered to her companion to order. "Hello?"
"Hey Arien. Do you know where Reno is?" It was Elena.
"No. He's not with me. I'm bringing back his lunch."
"Do you know where I might find him?"
"If I knew, half my trouble will be solved. You might want to try yelling at the top of your lungs that the 11th floor is under attack by naked models. That might summon him to the floor." She heard a sigh and a chortle.
"That won't work," Elena replied after she had stopped laughing. "He's not interested in one-night stands anymore, Arien. You made things worse."
"Oh, I'm sorry."
"Oh, never mind, here he comes." Then the phone went dead. Assuming that Jack had finished ordering, she nodded the waiter away.
"So… what do you do?" He broke the silence.
"I'm the chief tactician for the Research Department at the Shinra Company," she answered, drinking the water. "You?"
"An engineer at the AtCo."
Arien nearly laughed out loud. That was where she felt the déjà vu! AtCo was a company bought by Rufus, and was thus a division of the Shinra Company. What a fate! This man was her subordinate. She could get him fired. She could ruin his life with one key, one word.
"Arien?"
"Hmm?"
"Who… was that person? With red hair?" He seemed reluctant and eager at once to ask the question.
"Oh, him?" She tried to sound careless. "He's my partner. He's the chief of the Investigation Division of the General Affairs department, so that would make him my boss." She paused, then said, "not so much of a job as yours."
Jack winced. The soft piano music playing in the background suddenly had a jarred sound.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"You mean, buying you lunch? I don't know." She shrugged diffidently. "Certainly not because I still have a crush on you, rest assured."
He eyed her sadly. "You're doing this to spite me, aren't you?"
She eyed him back innocently, spearing the lettuce. "I can spite you from my office, without buying you lunch."
"Then why the hell are you doing this to me?" he demanded.
Arien thought about it. "Trying to renew an old friendship?" she offered as she grinned impishly. "Why? What am I doing to you?"
"Nothing," he stammered.
The main course came; they exchanged light words that had no meanings. Arien learned that Jack had three children and a wife; she offered very little information about herself. Evasion was one of her best skills as a Turk, and she used it without a thought. The jingle of the phone interrupted their light conversation. The ringtone told her that it was Reno.
"Excuse me," she said as she flipped her phone open. "What, Re?"
"Where the hell's my lunch?"
She looked at the watch; it had been only half an hour since she had left. "Jeez, Re, I'm actually eating lunch," she said, chortling. "Why don't you join me if you're that hungry?"
"I can't. Tseng locked me up in here."
"That is all too bad," she said airily. "I'm bringing you back something. Now be a dear and get back to work." Without a further word she hangs up. "Sorry about that."
"No, it's alright."
They continued to eat in silence, and Arien began to regret buying him lunch, when all of a sudden, he blurted out, "Arien, where did we go wrong?"
She stopped the fork and raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"We grew… so distant."
Arien was disgusted. He had a magnificent ability to translocate guilt to somewhere in the distance. Or maybe he had a very selective memory. Either way, the way he put on an innocent face was rather appalling. Her mouth twitched, but he seemed not to notice.
"I had my life, you had yours," she answered, while looking up at the wall by her; she never knew there was a painting of a very ugly woman on the wall, and suddenly that interested her. "We weren't that close our last year. You had your friends. I had mine."
"You're holding that against me."
"No, I'm not," she smiled. "I respected your freedom, that's all. I moved on. Pining after someone who will never turn to you is an utter waste of time."
"Am I a waste of time?"
"In a way, yes, you were. You had your popular friends; I had my own friends who really did not qualify as your friends. The rest," she said, shrugging with a knife in her right hand and the fork in her left, "is history, Jack." Seeing the poisoned dart register, she continued. "It was your choice, not mine. I was not going to beg on my knees."
"I… see."
The lunch was concluded in silence.
Reno broke the silence first. "So, how was it today?"
"My work? Or my retribution?"
"I know what you're doing in the office, yo. I give the damn thing."
Arien grinned, eyed him from the corner of her eye. "That, you do amply. Please stop touching my leg."
"You didn't let him screw you, did you?"
Arien exploded into laughter that had to be muffled with a pillow. "Oh Reno, you're hilarious," she said, gasping for breaths when the laughter had died. "Was that why you were touching my leg?"
"No, I just like to touch it." His eyes danced.
"We're not that far yet. But it's progressing." She grabbed a brush from the small table and began to brush her hair. "He asked me 'where we went wrong' today."
"Maybe he went wrong from the very beginning."
"Oh, cut him some slack." She leaned onto her boyfriend. "Am I seeing some jealousy?"
"Jealousy? Nope." He grinned as he tangled his fingers in her hair. The strands drew raven lines on his slender fingers. "I know I'm someone special for you, even if we break up in three thousand years and you find another dude… I was your first, after all."
"If I break up with you after three thousand years, I'll be a skeleton. I won't have another guy."
"Then maybe it's a good idea not to break up…" he grinned at her. "We can't anyways, not till Vince grows up. And by then, we'd be too lazy to break up."
"Hey Reno?"
"Yeah, babe?"
"Do you love me? And Vince?"
Reno stared at her. "That's a retarded question coming from a smart chick," he said seriously. "I don't love you two, but you two are part of my everyday life now. It'd be really weird if you guys weren't here…"
Arien smiled to herself. Reno was too shy, despite his reputation, to tell her straight in the face that he loved her. He wasn't Mr. Slick with her; instead, he was verbally clumsy.
But she took his reply as a yes to her question.