Okay, after a week delay or two, here's the long-awaited results of my exam (oh really, you guys really wanted that):
I passed Quantum Mechanics at the top of my class! Yeeey!
Now that being bragged about (sorry, very short responses today, I'm knackered):
Moonshine's Guide - We'll see if Reno's castrated or not. And whether Vince will die or not.
Echo the Ethereal Swordmast... - Calm down!
Mister Bigbucks - Lol, thanks!
G.P. Larue - Sorry?
Anyway, Here it is:
Chapter 22: Rebuilding
"WHAT?"
"You heard me," said the priest with a calm voice. "Now do it."
Arien did not move. Neither did the redhead.
Nothing moved.
"Come," said the priest impatiently, "time is wasting."
Nothing moved.
Then Reno moved. He walked over to the priest, his face devoid of expression, his eyes cold as ice. He turned on his EMR in his hand.
"So I'm the child of miracle, huh?" he said quietly.
The priest nodded.
"Well, guess there's no miracle for you guys," he said calmly.
He then raised his arm, and with a blow took the priest's head.
Time snapped into motion, and things began to move.
"Reno! Go!" Tseng was yelling. "Grab them and go!"
Reno did not say anything. Carrying the comatose body of a woman and the body of the child in each arm, he sprinted, and disappeared into the darkness.
When Tseng and Elena came out into the sunlight, there was Reno sitting on the ground by the woman and the child.
"Arien?"
Reno shook his head. "She lost too much blood. She's still unconscious."
"We'll have to transfuse blood from her son in the chopper," Tseng said as he pulled out his phone.
"I. Am. So. Fucking. Tired." Reno crashed onto the sofa after throwing his mud-stained jacket and his shirt onto the coffee table, ignoring Arien's frowns. Arien took the liberty to change into a white tank top and loose white pajama pants after ripping off the bloody gown. She sprawled onto the floor, inspected her hands. "Same here."
"Vince?"
"Asleep."
Vincent Miller had fallen asleep in his mother's arms on the way back home, and neither parent was surprised about it; the child must have had a terrifying month in his own way. Arien did not know how to apologize to the child; how do you tell your son that the reason he was separated from the parents and spent being shuffled everywhere was because of what his parents did for their jobs, their connections? She hoped that Reno had an answer, or at least the nerve to give the wrong answer.
"You know," Arien said vaguely, "I might resign."
Reno raised his head from the sofa to look at the Wutaian. "You can'tquit the Turks! You'll be on 24/7 surveillance, constant suspect."
Arien shrugged. "I'm on 24/7 surveillance anyway, living with you. It's just that…" she paused for a moment. "I feel like this entire thing was my fault because I was too busy, you know? If I had been more attentive…"
"I'm your boss, baby. And I'm not permitting that."
Arien sighed. "We'll talk about that later…"
The window right above the sofa crashed, showering Reno with glass. Instinctively he covered his head with his arms and rolled onto Arien, who groaned as his full weight came crashing down. Reno knocked over the coffee table as he got up, then hastily ducked onto the floor, seeing a small cylinder with smoke coming out of it.
With a panicked look on his face, Reno pointed toward the bedroom. Arien rolled and stood up, sprinting toward the dark corridor. Seconds later that seemed like an eternity, she came back, sleeping infant in her arms shrouded in a thick blanket. Just then, a larger cylinder followed with a blue read-out timer. It said 25:43.
"Oh, come on." Reno groaned. He turned to Arien, who looked back with a bewildered look. He motioned toward the back door. Arien made a cutting motion across her neck with her hand, then pointed at the front. Reno shook his head, then yanked her arm and made her stand up. Her silhouette showed up, and a few bullets came soaring past. Arien ducked, then ran through the kitchen, Reno behind her, grabbing weapons within hand's reach as he went. They dashed to the garage, where Arien threw in her son in the back seat of Reno's car. Reno slid into the front seat, and was starting the engine as Arien closed the door and opened the garage entrance.
"Stay down!" Arien shouted as she saw Vince raise his head. Hearing the tension in his mother's voice, the boy stayed down as Reno backed out of the garage haphazardly, knocking a pair of garden shears over. The car crashed into a man who was standing there with a machine gun in his hands.
"Stop the car."
"Are you kidding?" He asked incredulously.
"Stop the car!"
Reno slammed on the brakes and the car screeched to a halt. Arien flung the door open, and grabbed his machine gun, the spare clips, two pistols, and a few throwing knives, then promptly shot the man in the face. She slid back into the seat, slammed the door. "Go!"
They were just pulling out of the driveway as the house exploded. Arien did not say anything, but Reno sighed as they saw the house burst into flames, raining the area with large lumber pieces, splinters, and glass.
"I guess we're back to square one," Arien sighed as well.
"We might as well as live in a trailer park, this is getting fucking dumb."
"No." Arien paused. Then, "Where are we going?"
"Well…" Reno pressed on a button on the cell phone docked in front of the vent. "Hello?" said a female voice. He told the phone that they were coming to stay over, then pressed "end".
"I guess Elena's?"
With a screech, the convertible drove away, five cars following. Reno looked in the side mirror as he drove down the expressway. "Baby, we ain't alone."
"I know." He heard the click as Arien loaded an uzi. "Don't tip the car over."
"Huh?"
Arien rolled down the window, and leaned out, pulling the trigger. Reno swerved as he dodged a car in front. Arien smashed her forehead on the window frame as she tried to sit back down. "Ow! Reno!"
"Get rid of 'em and I won't have to do this!"
The reply was a sharp rapping noise as Arien leaned out again and pulled the trigger. The front window of the leading car shattered. Arien instinctively ducked as the bullets were issued from the front and the second car and ricocheted off the roof. Reno laughed.
"Shut up." She stuck her upper body out again. "Why is your car bulletproof?"
"I made it that way."
"Huh." She nodded as she aimed. "Good thinking." She pulled the trigger again.
"Arie?"
"Yes? I'm a little busy."
"Open the glove compartment." Arien reached over, hand grasping for the handle. Reno opened it for her, and she reached in. Brought out what was in the compartment.
Hand grenade.
"There's three in there. Toss it in the car."
"Slow down, then."
Reno obliged, and Arien's head popped out from the window, followed by a hand grenade the traveled through the broken front window into the seat of the front car. Another followed into the second car, then another into the third.
"Go! Go go go!"
Reno accelerated; Arien's body lurched forward with the momentum. She closed the window, then picked up the phone. Reno sneaked a look as she dialled. They saw fire explode in the back, and the stalker cars flipping over with crashes, spewing out car parts everywhere. The highway was plunged into mass confusion, with horns blaring and fire blazing.
"Who…?"
Arien's gestures told him to shut up. "Hello, Rufus?"
"What is it, DeVir?" replied the calm voice.
"Can Reno and I take off for a few days?"
"Hmm." Silence. "Alright, but why?"
Reno saw Arien's mouth curve into a mirthless grin. "Our house got trashed again."
"Who?"
"I don't know, sir. Let me get back to you on that." She hung up the phone while Rufus' voice was still echoing out. She looked at the uzi she took from the man back at the garage, turned it over, looked at the bottom of the barrel. She squinted as she read the letters engraved on a small metal plaque.
"J.U.N.O.N. Unit 391." Said the plaque. She picked up the phone again. "Sir?"
"DeVir, I trust your sudden disconnection was not on purpose." Rufus sounded annoyed, and rightly so; not many people had the nerve to hang up on Rufus Shinra. But then, Arien was not in a norma situation. She was sitting in a car that was going down the highway at 120 miles per hour, driven by a half-naked male that was snaking in between the cars. Their house was nothing but ash and fragments of wood. This wasn't normal at all, even on Turks' norm.
"No sir," Arien lied as Reno coughed, masking his laughter. Arien glared at him. "I think I know who did it, sir."
"And who is it?"
"Someone who has the power to order Junon military unit 391." She stopped, giving Rufus the time to figure it out. "Your fiancée's brother, sir."
Elena was already waiting when Reno pressed the button by the front entrance. The door buzzed; Arien flung it open, then took the stairs instead of the elevator. Reno scowled at the thought of carrying Vince and climbing the stairs, but followed wordlessly.
Elena opened the door before she even rang the doorbell. As the three piled in, she hastily shut the door behind them. "Just set him on the sofa, I guess," she said apologetically. "Sorry. I don't really have an extra bedroom…"
"Where does Tseng stay then?" Reno asked tactlessly. Arien stepped on his foot; just then, Vince opened his eyes.
"Hi, Aunt Elena," he said drowsily.
"Hey Vince. How are you?"
"I'm… okay… I guess…" His eyes closed again. Reno set him on the sofa, then pulled up a blanket that Elena had readied over him. Vince fell asleep right away. Reno sat on the floor, looking exhausted.
"Ya know," he said to no one in particular, "I was kinda hoping for a good night's sleep in my own bed."
Elena looked down at the redhead. "I'm guessing you two didn't really get to rest?"
"Well, we just lay down in the living room." He yawned. "Didn't really get to do that a lot before we had to run like hell."
"Who was after you?" Elena asked, but the question was never answered, as the landline trilled its shrill interruption before either of them could answer. Elena ran to the phone, and picked up. Reno listened in; Arien had fallen asleep, leaning onto Reno's shoulder.
"Yes sir… yes, affirmative, sir." Elena was nodding as she said yes, and Reno found that funny. "Yes, they're here. Vincent Miller as well. I understand." She nodded again. "Perfectly understood, sir."
After Elena finished talking, Elena opened her mouth but Reno shushed her. "She's asleep," he whispered, meaning the woman who was smiling as she slept. Elena smiled.
"I didn't expect you to care about her so much, Reno."
If Reno's body was free, he would have shrugged. But since his shoulder was occupied, his expression told the same thing instead. "Neither did I," he admitted honestly. "But she's the only woman who could have my kid, and well… that means something." Yes, she was more than just any old girl from the Shinra tower for him: lover, partner, mother of his spawn. Arien. Her game face was so cold, so heartless, yet when she was out of the uniform… different story.
"Anyway, what was the call about? Lemme guess, Rufus, right?"
"Yes." Elena sat down, facing him. "He wants Clarissa's brother executed."
"And why the hell did he call you?"
"Well, he thinks that you need a little time to readjust. So he's sending me."
"What!"
"Mmnnnn…" Arien moved. As he ran his fingers on her cheek, she nuzzled his neck and started sleeping again. Her small breaths tickled his skin; he twirled a strand of raven hair in his fingers, feeling the silky texture.
"Don't wake her up," Elena admonished with humor.
"Why the hell does it have to be you?"
"Because you've been working the longest and the hardest, Reno," Elena said gently. "You deserve some time off."
On February 23rd of the same year, ten days after Renaldo Miller's return to The Edge, Amedeo Lucienza of the Intelligence Service was systematically tortured and then executed in secret by the Turk leader and his subordinates. His partner, the Commander of Informational Tactics, did not attend the scene.
On the same day, the construction for a new house on the site where the Miller residence had been annihilated began. The new house was to have three more rooms than the previous version, with expanded plot of land for a garden.
On February 24th, Arien DeVir, Vincent Renaldo Miller, and Renaldo Miller moved into a temporary residence in The Edge complex. Arien found the property fully furnished, and leased it for three months.
On February 25th, Renaldo Miller was persuaded to take the next step.
Reno did not like what he was hearing. He didn't like it at all. "No freakin' way!"
Zen Fletcher was sitting in the Turk leader's office, not on business – although he did have a desk few floors below – but for something much more personal. An advice, he had said. Reno was wondering what the hell he meant by "advice". This wasn't an advice; this was just really a bad idea, a foolish idea.
"No freakin' way."
The said topic was not something drastic and life-threatening, as Elena had surmised. It was about marriage. Zen had casually asked for an appointment. Reno, thinking that it was probably "Intelligence business", said yes. And now here they were, Reno standing behind a desk – more like a mess of unfinished paperwork, bits of food, CD-ROMs, disks, and scraps of paper – and Zen calmly sitting in the only chair that Reno had not tampered with.
The logic was simple enough. Vince had much more legal security with the parents married, and besides, didn't Arien want to marry? It was the right time, and as a normal person it would be more ordinary to get married. It would put up a good façade. E.t.c. E.t.c.
"She's never told me," Reno retorted. "And I think she'd have told be my now. Now GET OUT OF MY ROOM!" Vince needing legal security was just a load of crap; Rufus had an army of lawyers, and if Vince ever needed to get out of a scruple like that, Rufus would just order one of the lawyers to prove Vince innocent. Hell, the President had done it enough times for Reno himself. Occasions happened in gunfights. Dignitaries didn't necessarily dodge bullets on time, and some important people just had the misfortune to be in the wrong place, namely in his way.
"Can you really imagine Arie as 'Mrs. Miller'?" Reno demanded. "Hell, I can't."
"You're just unsure if she's committed enough to say yes." A secondary-school level taunt, but for Reno, it worked.
"Fine!" he barked. "I'll ask her right now."
"Okay."
"Well, stand up!" Reno ordered. "You're coming along so she can see exactly whose stupid idea this was!" Without a stop Reno stormed out of the office, and barged into the room next door, where Arien was sitting peacefully behind a desk, filling out stacks of paperwork that she had neglected. A phone was under her chin, and she was reading something on the computer screen at the same time. Everyone had similar piles on their desks on this floor, and not one of them seemed to be lessening in amount. She looked up in surprise as she stopped her hand. Vince was sitting in the corner in a large chair, reading a picture book; the safest place, Rufus decided, would be in Arien's office. So here the child was, unaware that he was surrounded by the most dangerous people in the world.
"Arien!"
"Yes sir?"
"This is off the clock, so get out of that sir shit. I need to ask you something."
Arien put the pen down, sat up straight, steepled her hands on the desk, and looked at him straight in the eye. Vince, oblivious to his father's sudden appearance, kept on turning the page, reading the words out loud to himself. "Yes Reno?"
"Marry me."
"What?"
"You ain't deaf, so stop playing deaf. Marry me."
"Do we have to do it now?" Her face was serious and all innocent. "I have work to do, and I'm a little busy, Reno. Do you mind if we do it later?"
Reno threw his hands up in the air, then looked at the blond man. "Told ya."
"Arien."
"Oh hello Zen." She moved her gaze to him. "How may I help you?"
"He… Reno's serious, Arien."
"No I'm not!" came back the reply.
"He is?" She ignored Reno's murderous glare. "Well, I won't mind. But it won't really change anything except my name, now, would it?"
"Is that a yes to his proposal?"
Arien picked up her pen again. "I'm not too crazy about it, but I'm not refusing it either." She began signing her name in neat cursive. "It's up to Reno, really." After signing her name, she picked up another packet of paper, placed the first page on the scanner, and pressed a green button. A beam of light flashed through the glass then moved steadily as it read the paper and transferred the paper image onto the computer. She saved it, opened it up on a word processor, and began typing.
And that signaled the end of the conversation. Zen left right away; Reno ruffled his son's head then returned to his office.
Reno was just exiting his office when Arien was leading Vince out of hers. "Ready to go home, kiddo?" He asked his son cheerfully.
"Home?"
"Yeah, home." He picked up his son, since Arien was juggling keys, a bag, cell phone, beeper, laptop, and PDA. "Come on. Let's go home and play with the new toy till dinner."
"Yeah!" Vince's face shined. Arien glanced sideways, then burst out laughing.
"What, yo?"
"I didn't really see you as a my-home daddy." She giggled. "I find it amusing."
"Yeah, because I'm supposed to be selfish and indulgent, right?"
Shrug. "I guess?" She pressed the button pointing down. The elevator dinged. "You first," she offered.
"Heh."
The drive home was silent. Arien seemed to be deep in thought, and Vince was not a loud child. When they got home Arien changed then set to making dinner.
It was after Vince was deeply asleep and they were both in bed that Arien spoke a word about it. Reno was flipping through the channels when Arien suddenly asked, "Did you really mean it?"
"Mean what, yo?"
"Never mind." She turned her back toward him.
"What?"
"Never mind."
"Arie." He grasped her shoulder and forced her to turn. "You promised that you won't hide anything. Well, don't."
She shook her head, fanning her hair out. Her face was calm, but her eyes showed… sadness? Disappointment? "I just… thought you were serious when you asked me to marry. That's all."
"Did you want to?"
"Nothing would change, would it?" To that, Reno agreed. Nothing would change if they were legally a couple. Nothing. "But… I don't know how to explain it. I can't figure it out myself. But Father… well, I haven't done anything for him, and I know that he'd rather see me married than… just a lover."
"Hm." He thought for a moment, fiddling with the ring that was attached to the chain around his neck. He knew that his own father happened to like Arien DeVir, thinking of her as a sensible, smart girl who just wasn't sensible when it came to… men. But his father did think that Reno was pretty lucky compared to Luca, who was married to a bubblehead of a woman. Of course, no one in his family knew what exactly he did for his job, and Reno didn't really plan for them to find out anytime soon. Or for that matter, ever. He turned and asked, "what if I was serious?"
"Nice joke."
"No, I mean it." He continued to touch the chain. "If it wouldn't change anything except your name, then might make it legal, ya know? Less trouble afterwards."
If Reno was expecting a shout of joy from her, he didn't get it. She didn't say anything for a while, then said, "Just tell me what to do, Chief. I'll take your lead."
Reno laughed at his title. "Okay, yo," he responded. "Just one thing."
"Yes?"
"If we do get married, the marriage contract is gonna include a clause that says no weapons in the bedroom."
Arien laughed as Reno had expected. That silly fight was still fresh in their memories, but it sure had turned out just as destructive. "Okay, fine," she said. "But I'm not saying anything for my fists."
"That, I'm not worried, yo." He winked. "I can take you out anytime."
He received a snort as a reply.