Disclaimer: Final Fantasy does not belong to me...however much I may like it to. I own no characters, places etc. etc. so please don't sue me! I'm a nice person :)

Author's Note: Chapter Twelve...PLEASE review as I really enjoy reading your views and they inspire me to get better! It would make me very very happy! Anyway stop reading this and get on with reading the fic! Hope you enjoy! :)

Chapter Twelve: Waking to Reality

"Rude…"

The young male's eyes flickered open, though his vision appeared somewhat hazy; the grey, slate rock walls melted seamlessly into the cold floor, whilst his own, outstretched fingers twitched softly against the scene.

His mind was racing and yet tangled, with the previous events still fresh and ringing painfully upon his senses.

What had happened, and what was going to happen now?

How long had he been lying there for?

All sense of time seemed to have faded away, leaving only a plain realisation.

They were alone, and disabled.

Reno did not even know what kind of condition his partner was in. He didn't even know if he was alive.

"Ru-"

His second call attempt ended short with a wet, bloodied cough which erupted from his throat with a rough groan.

His body was failing.

It had been broken from the inside, and he could feel it.

Every nerve had been stripped, with every end feeling as though it was slowly being consumed by a glowing, hot ember.

An array of warmed, salted tears spilled from his aquamarine gaze, and prickled rather sadly across his skin.

Though not due to the constant pain, but though the hopelessness of the situation.

He couldn't move, he couldn't see, he couldn't hear, and soon enough he wouldn't be able to speak.

"Pathetic…"

The word practically grunted its way from the young Turk's lips.

It really was pathetic. Him, Reno of the Turks was lying, beaten and broken upon a lone cave floor, while his partner crippled somewhere close, and all down to his own stupidity.

He had been bold once, cocky, and oh so cool, his feelings completely safe, with his quick, superior wit and EMR as his weapon.

But now, everything was different. He'd let himself be weakened. He'd let himself be weakened by her.

Maybe it was her, maybe she was the problem.

"No."

His voice emerged at no more than a whisper.

"No…she's not…"

It couldn't be, surely. She was his salvation, his key to becoming a better man.

But what did that mean, really? Would he be so much greater through giving in to his feelings, or would he just be another pathetic idiot?

That's what he'd always assumed, that the emotional of nature were feeble, weak, vulnerable, and just that little bit stupid.

He'd never intended to become one of them. He was always going to be 'Reno of the Turk'; dangerous, cunning, deceptive, witty, and confident, without any ties or attachments.

Maybe he should've stayed that way.

A low growl rumbled within the depths of his throat.

These weren't his thoughts.

This mass of confusion and anger was someone's…something's idea of a game.

He was being played with. Deceived. Tricked. Manipulated.

A dark, disturbing laugh echoed around the cavernous space with a painful dullness, causing the young male to twitch uneasily.

"What…"

Reno's unsteady gaze attempted once again to focus, though the figure from which the disturbance came was nowhere in sight.

He tried rather unsuccessfully to lift his throbbing head; his weakened state causing his whole cranium to come under a relentless attack from an array of dull pangs.

Within moments the slight tension he had created in his neck in order to rise, disappeared, thus allowing his head to fall back down upon the rock with a numbing sharpness.

After what seemed like a decade of silence, a serious of hurried stop steps clacked upon the rock, followed soon after by a light, familiar voice that sounded close to his own, deathly-still form.

"Sir, he's over here."

A soft, presumably feminine hand brush across his forehead.

"Reno…"

Her tone was stern, and cold, and yet still seemed sincere in its concern, as though the soft, caring side of her was battling against the restraints that what been forged through some terrible experience.

A steady pair of foot steps approached now, their soles, from what Reno's frazzled sense could tell, where notably less heeled.

"Elena, how does he look?"

Their was a short pause before the young female answered, though this time she made a point to keep all emotion from her statement.

"Not good Sir."

The raven haired Turk superior emitted a long, deep sigh.

"What happened here…?"

The question seemed to be aired to no one, and yet it was one that quite clearly needed an answer.

The female shifted slightly;, noted by Reno by the rustle of her suit.

"Is Rude still-"

"Alive? Yes...but only just."

Another short paused sounded out between them, interrupted only by the red head's rugged breathing.

After a few moments, the young female started up again, her voice quiet and yet unfazed; complete and to the point.

"Do you think he'll recover?"

Tseng emitted a disinterested sigh as he spoke.

"I don't know…we don't even know what was done to him… to either of them."

If Reno had been able to, he might have knocked his superior out.

How could he be so uncaring?

True they were Turks, but they were once something of a family, they looked out for each other.

But then, everything had changed, up at the northern crater. With the remnants.

The woman stroked another strand of Reno's blood soaked locks away from his face, with something of a saddened disposition.

Tseng grunted with what the red head took to be displeased amusement.

"Don't pity them Elena…"

Reno's body twitched, as he felt his mind become heavier and heavier by the second, and soon enough his conscious state was something past, though before the darkness completely took hold, he heard his superior utter the rest.

"…it's probably their own fault."

Reno's eye lids creased, as his facial muscles clenched, and soon they fluttered open, to reveal his aquamarine gaze to the organised whiteness around him.

His mind fell blank and yet he still possessed so many confusing thoughts.

He attempted to perform some sort of motion with her hand, but only managed a slight twitching in his fingertips.

His head refused to move out of exhaustion, but his senses were still allowed to work.

Although hard, plastic tubes had been trailed up his nostrils, filling his lungs with a cold, steady rush of air, part of him was still able to smell something, something familiar.

It was so calming, and somehow meaningful to him, and yet he couldn't figure out how, or why.

He took another breath, and allowed the scent to circulate within him, before the drowsiness set in once again, bringing his lids down, to a gentle close.

The days pasted by so quickly now, that they appeared like mere moments to the red head.

At least he assumed they were days, after all he was kept in a constant state of near unconsciousness, with the white blare from artificially lighting, and the quiet, undistinguishable murmurings of pristine nurses as his only comfort.

He knew where he was, well at least to some extent; he'd been brought to one of Shin-Ra's medical facilities, and from the glimpses he'd caught of the employees' uniforms, he was back in Edge.

That little fact alone brightened his thoughts.

He was home.

Though how he had gotten there, and what on earth had happened to him was still something of a mystery.

For a moment there, in that darkened place, he had thought that perhaps he might have died, but of course, that would have been far too simple.

His body felt numb, and from the amount of painkilling drugs they insisted on pumping into his system every other hour, it was probably a state he should wish to remain in.

He didn't have the strength, or ability, as of yet, to lift his own head, and take view of the body he was unable to move.

Part of him thought it for the best. Though being left to imagine what sort of state he could be in was something dangerously close to mental torture.

His dreams appeared little more than hazy delusions, with every image and word so clear and yet not able to make sense.

The events surrounding the mission had played a starring role in his 'hallucinations'.

Brief glances of mountain sides, and emerald groves flittered about as backdrops for the whispered snippets of conversation, snatched from unmarked points along their journey, though one moment did appear more vivid than the rest.

That last fleeting moment, as Rude fell slumped against the cave's cold, smooth floor, with a lifeless thud.

He didn't know what had happened then, and he had not yet been enlightened since his arrival at the hospital.

His partner could have been long since buried, or lying a few beds away from his own.

He did not know.

The young, bedridden Turk still wasn't, even now, sure about how his own fate had played out.

How had he gotten out of that place, and how had he come to be here?

Shin-Ra must have found them, but how? Neither could have sent out a signal, and the help could not have arrived so soon as to find them alive surely?

It almost made him angry, their rescue being actioned so quickly; if it had been so easy for them to be found and retrieved, why hadn't Shin-Ra displayed the same swiftness in the missions objective.

Everything could have been handled so easily, it almost seemed stupid that both he and Rude had gone to such trouble to venture there, when, in fact, there wasn't really a need.

But, again, Reno knew better than to voice these concerns out loud, that kind of talk could get him into the sort of trouble that, even he, wasn't keen on facing.

The raven haired male stood quite still, his body completely in line with the side of the railed hospital bed, and beside him stood the young suited blonde, though her composure appeared to lack the same, stern quality.

Reno had been listening quietly, but intently for the past ten minutes, whilst his superior drawled a load of information that, although somewhat important, didn't interest him in the slightest.

"…and you'll have slight memory loss.''

The young red head smirked slightly at that.

"Yeah I'd already gathered that…"

Tseng didn't seem to appreciate the male's 'amusement' at the comment, and narrowed his eyes warningly.

"What about Rude?"

Reno's inquiry rang in the air for some time before being answered.

The raven haired male remained unmoved, as Elena began to answer.

"He's..."

Her voice wavered ever so slightly, as she tried to regain control of the emotion that was threatening to be released.

"...in a stable condition."

Her gaze, which had been fixed upon the bed-sheet, lowered swiftly, and began taking interest in the polished surface of her superior's shoes.

Tseng on the other hand appeared to be hinting at a disconcerting glare, as if to say 'no thanks to you'.

Reno swallowed; his throat rapidly drying out with every passing second.

"What does that mean?"

The raven haired male raised his brow with a simple, yet complete supremacy, whilst his tone conveyed his obvious disappointment in its meaning.

"He's in a coma."

The red head took a deep breath as he processed this new information; his partner was in a state of comatose, but he was alive.

After a few moments, and a little inner coxing, Reno's brow cocked, and his eyes narrowed with a hint of confused curiosity, as he decided to finally ask the question that he'd wanted an answer to for some time now.

"What the hell happened?"

Tseng shrugged.

"We don't know."

Reno's gaze lowered for a brief moment, before it shot back up to meet, once again, with his superior's

"Did you get it? Whatever it was, that you sent us up there to get?"

What happened next disturbed the red head more than he liked; for the swiftest of moments Elena and Tseng appeared to share a nervous, if controlled glance, both having something rather too knowing held within their gaze.

The motion was over within the blink of an eye, but he'd still managed to catch it.

Tseng spoke sharply.

"That's really none of your concern anymore."

He took in a deep, loud breath, before beginning to head towards the doorway.

"There are some forms we need you to sign."

"Elena will help you with them."

Reno eyed the young blonde with an intent, narrowed gaze.

"Elena."

His tone was hushed, quiet, and edged with a certain deepness.

The female's gaze stayed fixed upon the papers within her grasp.

"Yes?"

"Has…"

His fingers began to trace unmarked patterns upon the bed-sheet.

"…has Tifa come to see me? I mean, whilst I was-"

"She was never here."

A warm, somewhat comforting smile began to form upon the young blonde's face, but it soon vanished.

Instead she emitted a firm cough, along with a rather unfelt explanation; every syllable aching with s Tseng-like sternness.

"…She's not allowed inside the facility Reno, Shin-Ra policy."

Reno's brow furrowed.

"Oh…"

He averted his gaze for a moment, as he lost himself in thought.

"I could have sworn…"

A slight silence passed, before he let out a light sigh, though his tone still seemed somewhat unconvinced.

"…never mind."

"She has been informed of your situation."

The young male's gaze lifted instantly, along with a slight brightening of the eyes.

"I want to go see her."

This time it was Elena's turn to lower her brow.

"You can't."

Her tone softened, and yet remained somewhat questioning.

"You're too weak…and your condition is hardly-"

"What? What do you mean?"

Reno's frown was more out of unfounded alarm than anger.

"Well, you're disabled Reno…"

The young female's tone darken, as the mass of confusion and disbelief at her colleague's unawareness of what she, herself, was now having to explain.

"…from your waist down…surely the doctors told-"

"No."

Reno's eyes were fixed steadfastly upon the wall opposite him.

"They didn't."

A slightly rusty, though unforced chuckle rumbled from the male; he'd had no idea, he'd just thought they'd doped him up to the point of numbness.

"It might not be permanent."

Elena sighed.

"You'll just have to give it time."

She took out one of the papers she'd been sorting, and slide a pen from her top pocket, before handing them out towards him.

"Sign this."

Something metallic clattered down by the far end of the corridor that lay along side the young Turk's hospital room.

The sound received no response from the red head, whom had remained quite awake since the lights had been dimmed so many hours earlier.

He didn't feel tired; after all, he'd been spending so much of his daylight hours confined to his room, and to his bed.

He didn't feel ill; his body had been dosed so highly that it no longer felt like his nerves were on fire, and, of course, his lower half had stayed free of feeling without the use of drugs.

His mind wasn't even racing, if anything, it was rather calm; after spending so much him worrying and attempting to decipher each and every little action he had made over the past few weeks, Reno had exhausted himself.

The young male emitted a long held breath, allowing his fingers to clutch tightly at the bed's sides, as he struggled to hoist himself up.

By the time he'd managed to sit up, and pull his unfelt legs around, his heart was beating almost painfully against his ribcage, and his upper muscles seemed to twitch in protest.

A wheelchair stood ready, beside him; it's thin, leather seat, and cold, metallic frame seemed to ooze weakness, and the thought that he might have to spend some time within its confines made him feel so very hollow.

The contraption creaked lightly as he thumped his uneasy body down upon it.

He'd made the trip to the bathroom a few times now by himself, and although it was difficult and tiring, he couldn't stand being taken by a nurse like some kind of invalid.

After managing to direct himself over, and through the doorway, which in itself was rather ill-designed for wheelchair users, Reno slowly made to travel down the grey, dull-lit corridor.

He did have his own toilet within his room, but it was crammed, and had the distinct air of being for someone so much older than himself; he disliked it.

Instead he was heading towards a public set of facilities that lay between his ward and the one neighbouring it; this one appealing to him so much more than his own.

His flame red locks bounced lightly as he thrust his shoulder down with a push upon the wheels, though as he made to turn into his said destination, his head gave a sharp jolt, and his chair came to an abrupt halt, as his aquamarine gaze caught a glimpse of something he'd been imagining since he woke up in his white, dull room.

Rude. There he was. His form outstretched with a perfect stillness upon one of the beds, his cubicle separate from the rest, though there was clearly no danger of him being 'disturbed' from his slumber, with the amount of tubes and attachments coming from him.

Life support some might call it. The machine beside him beeped systematically with every open and close of the aerated tube threaded through his nostrils.

It looked so peaceful, so easy, so simple, and some part of Reno couldn't help but wish he was in the same state.

Rude was able to hide, he didn't have to face the reality around him.

He was lucky.

The young Turk's head lay nestled within the white, soft folds of the pillow, which stood, propped up, against the wall behind his bed.

His body, although now positioned differently, seemed to remain, quite stationary, as though he had been manipulated like some sort of doll.

The small, flat screen television that hung upon the opposite wall flashed brightly with some incessant run of advertisements, each one just as irritatingly cheerful as the last, though when his Turk Boss proceeded to enter unannounced, it offered little relief.

Reno's aquamarine gaze flickered over to the raven haired male, though he made sure not to make eye contact.

"Sir."

As his superior glided over to his bedside, the young male couldn't help but narrow his eyes, as he came to notice the lacking presence of a certain female.

"Where's Elena?"

Tseng's own hard gaze remained set upon the plain, undecorated wall which lay opposite the door, though his tone was placed directly and sternly at the patient.

"She's busy sorting out your mess."

The words, although spoken without so much of a hint of emotion, still seemed able to silence all thoughts of argumentative reprisal within the red head.

A few moments passed, whilst the raven haired male slowly made his way around to the end of the bed, before beginning to absentmindedly flick threw the clipboard-papers.

"I've come to inform you that you'll be free to leave."

Reno's brow rose slowly as the confusion set in.

"What?"

Tseng appeared to take little notice of the male's reaction, and instead carried on rolling out commands.

"You are to stay at your apartment for the rest of the week…full recovery may take sometime…"

A short silence sounded as the older male took in a long, weighted breath.

"…and there are still things we need to sort out."

The red head twitched slightly, with his brow furrowing soon after.

"'We' Sir?"

Tseng placed the clipboard back in its metallic holder with a careful precision.

"The company."

Reno's throat clenched tightly, as a slow swallow passed down it. His gaze fell set upon his own, motionless feet, as his mind became prepared for the inevitable.

"You screwed up Reno, and although Shin-Ra may not be what it once was…it still has its standards…and the President is not about to forgive failure."

"Shit!"

The red head clasped one of his hands in the other, and rubbed it softly.

After spending a good part of the last hour rather slowly hoisting himself and his wheelchair up through a mass of stairwells and littered hallways, Reno had not only exhausted himself, but had been left with an array of rubber-burn marks upon his well-used palms.

It would have been somewhat untrue to say there had been no-one around to help him with his upward journey, in fact, many a resident had crossed paths with his own, and although he was not completely against asking for assistance, their reactions seemed to erase any possibility of it.

It wasn't so much that they said anything, I mean he may have been injured, but he was still a Turk, and that was enough to keep most people silent, but then, there sound wasn't always needed.

A couple sneered to the point of smirking, a few of the more aged neighbours whispered to each other with an annoying sense of interested amusement, whilst a group of children hurried past with an unmistakable glint of fear within their eyes, and yet there was something else, just the slightest amount, from all of them; pity.

It confused him.

He hated the sap he was turning into; it used to be so much easier, it all used to be so simple, so straightforward.

When did it change? When did he change?

Reno emitted an aggravated grunt, as he fumbled about within his jacket pocket for the small metallic key, which would allow him to once again, into his home.

"Ah ha!"

The smile that curled at the corners of the young male's lips was, albeit small, filled with a proud delight.

Within moments he had the item placed securely within its designed lock, and was busily attempting to force a turn from it, though the whole action was soon proven to be unnecessary, as a bright click sounded from the other side, and the door was drawn to a full opening, to reveal someone rather unexpected, and maybe just the slightest bit unwanted at the present time.

The young female gazed down at him, through crimson-tinted eyes.

"Hello."

A/N= Oh my, I am so sorry for how long things took me to actually get up! Believe me I'm actually embarrassed! I've had the most terrible writer's block now for the past week, and not only that, but there was a whole heap of problems that were dumped on me at the weekend that have been troubling me all week! So my concentration was been a bit lacklustre.

Anyways onto the chapter!

He's back! In Edge! I know there's still a lot that I've left unexplained, but there's time for that, plus its all part of something bigger that'll be explored further in the sequel.

I wanted to show hints of the aftermath of what had happened, but still leave exactly what Shin-Ra did/are doing unseen, because obviously, this is somewhat Reno's story, so he wouldn't know.

Also the part at the beginning isn't meant to be showing what happened to him after the end of the last chapter, but rather, what he dreamed/believed to have happened, so parts are somewhat hazy.

Oh and I will try my very best to get the new update up a lot sooner!