Author's Note: Thanks for coming along for the ride. We're just a few pages from home.

WHEN THE LEVEE BREAKS

BY RENO SPIEGEL

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Reno half-walked, half-fell down the stairs at the back of the house-turned-apartments, letting gravity carry him.

He'd felt slightly awkward asking if he could pay a little extra and have the basement all to himself, probably because he hadn't been used to asking permission at the time he'd moved in, but the landlord hadn't had any problem with him just taking it. "We don't get down there much," she'd admitted, showing her age. "You clean it, you can have it." So Reno had hauled a good deal of junk out of it, boarded up the door and windows, and called it his workshop.

He spent a lot of time in the basement, though it probably wouldn't seem that way to anyone else. There were a few chairs down there, mostly ones from the kitchen that he hadn't had room for, and a counter bolted to the wall. A single light bulb in the middle of the room cast old, dim light on the place, and he didn't want anything else. Being in the basement felt like being in the Turks again – he couldn't see clearly, but he felt completely at home when he did have something to do.

He did most of his thinking in the basement, which was probably why he was going down today.

He clicked on the light as he walked by and took off his shoes on the bottom step, feeling the stone floor on his bared feet. He flexed his toes, his leg giving its usual twitch, and took a final swig of beer. Tossing the can into the trash, he retrieved another from his miniature fridge and sat at the counter to open it. He'd had the cans so long that he knew instinctively which ones were safe and which ones –

Reno tried to put Elena out of his mind. It was easier than he'd hoped it would be.

His old company ID was tacked to the wall, joined by various newspaper clippings about their more high-profile jobs. There was also a photograph of the first Blue Rally in Mideel, an event put together to raise awareness about local crime. Almost the entire population had turned out. The townspeople had started wearing blue ribbons in a kind of quiet resistance to the small gangs that had emerged from the post-Meteor crisis – gangs whose foundations were that the world's destruction at the hands of Sephiroth had been predestination, and that the Cetra and AVALANCHE had interrupted the balance of the universe. In retaliation, crime had risen astronomically as street gangs and individuals tried to "take back the destiny of the Planet," as they put it.

Reno had started the Jackals on conflicted interests. In one side of his head, he wanted some rebellion under his command, some group of ragtag antiheroes of his own. In the other, he'd wanted to see his just how together his community could come, and the response was overwhelming.

Other experiments littered his workbench. He'd taken to restoring children's toys out of nothing but boredom, and he put down his beer to nudge a small car in tiny circles around the gouged wood. He repaired watches and left them to tick noisily in the corners, built picture frames out of wrapped aluminum from his trash, and tinkered with gadgets to see exactly what they could do. He, too, had always admired Cid Highwind – had even respected him just a little.

Suddenly the plastic car's race against itself stopped.

A golden, metal hand was resting on Reno's shoulder, sending chills down his back.

"Motherfucker," he gasped, too impressed to stay silent. "I'd wondered."

A chair slid into place next to him, and he felt the barrel of a shotgun on his neck before the hand disappeared, his companion perching on his seat but keeping his weapon leveled. "A wildcard of sorts," he whispered.

Reno turned his head, meeting the red eyes of Vincent Valentine. "Shit," he swore, almost smiling. "They said that up 'til Hojo, you were the most loyal son of a bitch they could've asked for. They had no clue, though."

"Sure, they did," Vincent replied, curling his metallic fingers around his raised knees. He was dressed as modestly as he could be, golden wrist barely confined to his coat sleeve. "Why do you think they sent me a card?"

The redhead scoffed. "Cheers."

Vincent Valentine had aged just slightly, but he had always been sallow anyway. He had stubble, no doubt from living on the streets and shaving with rudimentary tools, and his cheeks were starting to pull into his mouth. His diet had been less than ideal.

The coffin in the mansion in Nibelheim had halted his life's progression, but his body was still training itself to wear out, in a sense. Where the rest of them had put on eighteen years, Vincent had done experiments on himself, computed the math, and discovered that he was moving at a third of the pace, but that it was speeding up. Hojo had been a sick man, though, and Holy knew if he might accelerate past the normal rate and begin decaying on overdrive. He hadn't held on to too many aspirations, though, which made coping with this idea a little easier.

But there was nothing that either of them had to say to one another. They'd never been friends. They'd only been interested in each other in the professional sense, which left no room for small talk or catching up.

They, too, knew the score.

"I followed her here from Junon," Vincent said, his face devoid of expression. "She's gotten bad at covering her tracks. I lost her for a moment, when she was crossing, but when I saw the bodies in the alley, I knew she must be in Mideel. I paid people to watch the inns; waited outside your door. When you stopped talking, I figured it was over and came in. I believe I shot your pillow, though."

"I'll forgive you."

"That's okay." Vincent tilted his head slightly. It was just an honest statement.

Reno found no reason within himself to be scared. The appearance of Vincent Valentine itself had shaken him to the core for a moment, but the reality was that this was all according to plan. He was actually comforted in a way. Decades out and having fought ShinRa tooth and nail, the long-haired man that sat before him still held allegiance to the Turks and to what signing the contract had meant.

In a way, it was proof that none of them had wasted their lives, and it was the most that Reno could have asked for.

"Do you want a drink?" he murmured.

Vincent considered this for a long while. His arm hadn't moved a millimeter, true to his expertise. They had been looking each other in the eyes, his near-demonic and Reno's ice blue. He had lost track of how old he was, of how long he'd been in the coffin, of how long he'd been in and out of the Turks – and even he was starting to wonder when his body would let itself feel tired. He went weeks without sleeping, days without eating or drinking, and felt like he was perpetually moving for no reason at all. Even experimenting on himself had lost its flair after a few years, and he'd started walking across the Planet then. He hadn't made it far, though, having crossed expanses of land in thought with himself and wondering what it was really all for – walking, staying still, working, living, dying, any of it. After paying a brief visit to Midgar and the old ShinRa building, shielded by his sheer lack of belief in disease, death, and afterlife, he'd settled as best he could in Junon, closest to the Turk that was least likely to notice him, and had waited to meet one of them like this ever since.

Slowly he set the Death Penalty across the workbench and let his feet land on the floor, as much of an affirmation as either one of them could expect he would give. Reno drew his dagger from his waistline and set it on the counter as well. He reached across the back of his chair to the refrigerator, taking two cans from the same side that he'd taken Elena's from. He handed one to Vincent, each still meeting the other's old, tired gaze.

They opened the cans and drank until there was no more to be had.

Reno leaned forward once more, turning on the radio, then he sat back and closed his eyes.

As they sat, eyes closed, the same euphoric fantasies that had lulled Elena into her death washed over him – over both of them.

They bathed in the rich feeling of having the weight of the world on their shoulders, but having absolutely no obligation to do anything about anything anymore.

Vincent suddenly didn't feel so young, and didn't feel like he'd missed out on anything while he slept three decades away. He didn't worry about the killing and the hardship, and AVALANCHE, his weary mind reflected, had been the best possible choice of a path in life. Chaos wasn't in his brain, talking him into doing crazed things to his body, and he was almost giddy when he realized that Hojo hadn't existed at all – that he'd read about him in books and fabricated corporate files. In his last moments, in fact, he was nothing short of certain that he had two real, live, warm, moving hands, and that he was running them through Lucrecia's hair once more.

Reno didn't feel so old, either, and couldn't care less about the twitch in his leg or where all his family had gone or what kind of life had led to him tinkering with children's toys in the basement.

The idea of the Jackals was suddenly funny – how could he have thought that he could replace the warmth and comfort he found in fellow Turks? So Rude had been a little distant, but they would patch things up like they always did. He didn't think that his last meeting with Elena had turned out so bad after all, and that eventually she really would find Tseng and get to tell him how she felt about things. Reno planned on cracking him on the skull for giving them such a scare, but they'd cracked each other tons of times, and usually laughed it off.

As he settled into his chair he found himself sighing, though, because there was truly nothing better than the feeling of sitting in his workshop, knocking back a few drinks in the company of an old friend.

"Nope," he mumbled, fending off a yawn, "nothin' better than that."

Author's Note: The way I write is by watching stories play themselves out in my head, and trying my hardest to capture in words what I'm seeing. That being said, the ending wrote itself, and I really don't feel like I had much of a hand in it. If there's something wrong, I'm probably the person to talk to, but only barely.

In all honesty, though, thank you for sticking around for seven chapters, and for putting up with my self-discovering author's notes sandwiching the story every time. It's beyond appreciated. Moving into a world of "real" writing – outside fanfiction, that is – makes you realize how important a community of readers and writers coming together really is for the spirit of the craft, and I can't thank all of you enough for your support over the years. This website started my writing, and now it's the best thing I've got going for me.

A few chapters in, I started thinking about Jess' reviews to keep me going, and this is the part where I officially dedicate the story to her. It might have taken me 'til the back cover to do it, but it needed to be done all the same.

Here's to the best of days for all of us. I hope to see you around. If you ever want to talk about something, my email's on my profile, and I answer nearly anything. Take care, you lot.