The child without a name grew up to be the hand
To watch you, to shield you or kill on demand.
- Hand of Sorrow, Within Temptation
"Hey, Cissnei! I'm Jessie. Welcome to AVALANCHE!"
Cissnei smiled politely and pretended to listen as the girl Cloud had been talking to when she'd first introduced herself rambled on excitedly. She didn't really want to be welcomed to Avalanche. She just wanted to talk to Cloud and get things over with, but Cloud was nowhere to be seen. Cissnei wondered why she'd even agreed to join. She supposed she hated Shinra, but she hadn't really planned to fight them. Shinra was just a cold, impersonal company that was blind to the things it destroyed. Mostly, she just hated herself for serving them until it was too late.
"So I guess you'll have to change, huh? We can't have you going around looking like a Turk. I mean, I guess Cloud does go around looking like a SOLDIER and everything, but, well, Cloud's not really one of us, he's just some mercenary Barrett hired." At this point, Jessie paused expectantly and look at her, so she supposed she was supposed to give a reply.
"I'm sorry?"
"I was saying you should change out of your Turk uniform."
"Oh. I don't really have anything else," Cissnei muttered.
"No problem. Wait here, I'll get you something!" With that, Jessie skipped off and Cissnei let out a sigh of relief. It wasn't that she was anti-social or didn't enjoy other people's company. She just felt too drained to engage in long conversations, and would have preferred time to sort out her thoughts. Alas, it seemed unlikely she would get that time, because as soon as Jessie was gone another girl came up and sat besides her.
"Hello. It's Cissnei, right?"
"Yes, and you are...?"
"Tifa Lockheart. Um, you said you knew Cloud?"
Oh. Great. Bad enough that she'd have to tell Cloud who she was; she had no intention of having to discuss it with Cloud's friends as well. Though, how much did they know about Cloud's real past, anyways? "Not well. I mean, we both worked for Shinra."
"Ok. I was just wondering if..."
Cissnei didn't get a chance to find out what Tifa had been wondering, because at that moment Jessie burst back into a room holding a yellow dress.
"Cissnei? Come here. You have got to try this on."
"Are you sure?" Cissnei asked. "It doesn't look very... practical."
"It's fine. I've fought in it before. Also, it would look amazing on you."
Cissnei eyed the dress uncertainly. It was certainly... pretty. "Just try it on?" Jessie pleaded. Cissnei sighed.
"All right."
"Great! You can have my room to get changed in."
Once in Jessie's room, Cissnei put the dress down on her bed and sighed.
Once out of her suit, she would be leaving behind any evidence that she had ever been a Turk. That shouldn't have been a problem; she'd chosen to resign, hadn't she? And Cissnei wasn't even her real name; she'd changed identities before, once, easy as breathing. And she wanted to change. Being Cissnei, the Turk meant being Cissnei, the girl who had let Zack die. The coward who wanted to disobey her orders but could only go so far, and 'so far' had not been far enough.
Taking a deep breath, Cissnei unbuttoned her coat, quickly and furiously, not pausing to think. Once off, she flung it onto the Jessie's chair where it would be out of her line of sight. The tie came next, then shirt and pants, and then it was time to pull on the dress. Once it was on, she let out a soft sigh of relief. There; that hadn't been so difficult, had it? Certainly no more difficult than leaving her shuriken on Tseng's desk along with her report and a form of resignation.
There was a mirror on Jessie's desk, and she studied herself in it. The dress made her look... lighter and softer, somehow. She'd always been petite, but the dress took advantage of that and made her seem like a young girl. More innoccent than Cissnei had ever been. A little... a little like Aerith, in fact.
"Cissnei, are you dressed?" Jessie's voice echoed through the thick wooden door.
"I'm coming," was Cissnei's reply. She opened the door and stepped out. When Jessie saw her, she gave Cissnei a wide, appreciative smile and a thumbs-up.
"Perfect. You look stunning."
Cissnei said nothing.
One of the other Avalanche members - short and a bit on the pudgy side, who Cissnei didn't remember having been introduced to - peeked into the hallway. "Hey, Jessie - woah. You did not tell me the new member was so pretty. Cissnei, you have to change back if you want any of us to be able to concentrate around you."
"Um." Cissnei blushed and felt a sudden urge to run away and hide. What was wrong with her? This was just harmless flirting. It shouldn't have been making her uncomfortable. She'd never had any trouble with flirting when she'd been a Turk - how else could she beat Reno at his own game? As long as her feelings weren't involved, it couldn't hurt her.
That's what she'd told herself when she'd found herself spending far too much time with Zack, talking, laughing, teasing. She didn't care, so it didn't matter. She'd just wanted a break, and Zack had been very good at providing that. And it helped that he was kind of cute.
And then, slowly, she'd come to realise that she did care but it was too late because she couldn't stop caring, and so she was doomed to get hurt because there was no way a Turk falling in love with a SOLDIER who already had a girlfriend could have ended well.
"Thank you for letting me try on the dress, Jessie, but I'd prefer just a plain tracksuit or something, if that's alright with you."
Dinner was pretty bland; peas and mashed potatoes, with everything tasting far too watery for her taste. Cloud sat across the table from her; she was careful to keep her eyes on her plate as though it held something truely fascinating in order to avoid having to meet his gaze. She should never have tried to talk to Cloud. She would never work up the courage to apologize to him, and he would just keep waiting for her to tell him what she'd tried to say when she'd first approached him.
At least I have a place to stay and something resembling a plan for the future now. She wasn't really sure if she wanted to stay with Avalanche. She didn't want to fight her former comrades. Her fingers clenched around her fork. Tseng wouldn't feel betrayed, but he'd waste no time in adjusting to her as an enemy. Rude wouldn't say anything, as usual, but he wouldn't look at her - even through his sunglasses. She didn't really care how Elena would feel; Elena was just a rookie with no idea of what it really meant to be a Turk. And Reno... Reno would be hurt, in as much as any Turk was capable of feeling hurt. Any Turk except for me. How did I let myself get so emotionally involved in things?
"So tomorrow, we'll be blowing up the Mako reactor in Sector One. Cissnei, do you have a weapon?"
"No." Cissnei twisted her fork around in her plate. The food was very unappetising. "I used to fight with a shuriken." She'd left it behind when she left the Turks. "I'm also trained with knives or a gun, or just about anything except a sword." Swords were for SOLDIERs; more showy than practical. A Turk wouldn't lug around a conspicuos slab of metal almost as large as she was, no matter what it symbolised. Honour, dreams, legacies; those were SOLDIER things. She didn't want a symbol to remember Zack by - she just wanted Zack.
"We'll have to get you something, then. There's a weapon shop around the corner; they have all sorts of things."
"Thank you, uh..."
"My name is Biggs."
"Thank you, then, Biggs." She took another mouthful of food, and was tempted to spit it out. What had she been thinking of, again? Oh, yes. Turks set no store in symbols - except when Cissnei used them to show that she was leaving something behind, like the Shuriken or the uniform.
"Yo, Biggs," Barret put in. "Can ya watch over Cissnei tomorrow, make sure she doesn't do anythin' suspicious?"
"Sure, no problem."
"I could do it," Cloud put in quietly. Cissnei winced to herself. Her comments yesterday must have made Cloud curious. Now she'd have to talk to him at some point. Preferably later rather than sooner.
Cissnei found herself remembering the time, not long after she'd first joined the Turks when Tseng had called her into her office.
"... meant, Cloud, but I don't trust ya. Yer both Shinra scum..."
She'd sat down in front of him and he'd studied her for a long time. She remembered her hands sweating nervously as she wondered how she'd displeased him. Finally, he spoke: "That locket you had with you, with pictures of your parents. You haven't got it anymore?"
It was a statement, phrased as a question. Cissnei had tried to figure out what he wanted. Was he trying to see if she'd left behind Anna Taylor, slum orphan to become Cissnei, Turk-in-training?
"I threw it away, sir."
"I see," Tseng said and for a long time he was silent. Had she said something wrong? Hadn't he wanted her to leave her old identity behind? Perhaps he disapproved of the frivulous symbolism of the action. "Was it difficult?"
"No, sir," Cissnei had replied after a little too great a hesitation. This time, Tseng hadn't waited before speaking again:
"You're lying."
Cissnei had looked down at her lap and tried to hide that her cheeks were slowly turning red. It had been more difficult then it should have been, but she'd done it anyways. Wasn't that enough?
"Turks lie, but they have to know when. Don't lie when you can't get away with it; that means don't lie to me." She'd lied to Tseng later, though, on the phone, and he hadn't called her out on it. She still didn't know if that meant that he'd believed her, or just that he'd been as unwilling to hurt Zack as she had been. Maybe it would have been better if they'd taken him; at least they would have taken him alive. "And more importantly, never lie to yourself." He stopped and watched her expectantly.
"Yes, sir," she'd muttered bashfully.
"You try to pretend that you don't care about anything because that's what you think a Turk should be like, but you do. You are a sentimental person, Cissnei. It's good for you to hide that from others, but always admit it to yourself. When you try to hide or bury it, you risk it turning up at the worst moments possible and hurting you. If you really didn't care about that locket, it wouldn't have mattered if you'd kept it. You threw it away because you knew it would hurt you to do so. A word of advice, Cissnei; don't hurt yourself. It isn't good for you."
"Yes, sir," she'd said again, but she couldn't agree with him. He just didn't understand. Everything passed; everything faded. Just like her parents had, just like Zack. She had to be willing to let those things go; getting attached meant getting hurt. She'd never be strong until she could be like Tseng, cold, detached and accepting. She had to...
"Cissnei!" Biggs' voice called her back into the present. "Are you listening?"
"Yes; I'm sorry."
"Right. Well, the plan is..."
She hadn't taken Tseng's advice in the end. She'd hurt herself, like a child touching a heated oven, not realising it would burn her. She'd tried to play both sides, helped Zack as much as she could without doing anything she couldn't just walk away from. She'd done too much; she hadn't done enough. And when she finally had handed in the retirement form it had only been after Zack's death had shocked her into seeing that she had to choose a side.
But what was the point of choosing the side of a dead man?
"Cissnei!"
"I'm sorry." She got to her feet. She couldn't stand being in that room any longer, with people talking and Cloud looking at her, his eyes full of questions she didn't want to answer. Don't get attached, don't get attached. Pretty Mako eyes and a light, easy smile had been all it had taken to make her forget that mantra, forget everything she knew about the world and all the things she should have known to be impossible. "I need fresh air. Can someone catch me up on the plan later?"
"Now wait a second here, ya can't just go and -" But Cissnei was out the door before she could hear the rest of Barret's complaint. She clicked the door shut quietly behind her and took a deep breath. It was a calm, quiet night. The clouds had cleared away and she could see the stars. Cissnei sat down and pretended Zack was there to watch them with her.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed! I'm glad you're interested. I'm not extremely familiar with the FFVII fandom so forgive me if I make any mistakes. I hope you like this chapter.