A/N: I realized that I never did a disclaimer for this story, so hopefully it's been obvious that I don't own Final Fantasy VII, and I never ever will. If I did, I would not be a starving college kid, job hunting at every spare moment I have. Hum...
Please review! Reviews make me happy, and all warm and fuzzy inside!
Chapter 7: What You Do
Being friends with Reno apparently really just meant that it was less awkward being in a room with him, and that he found it easier to tease Bee mercilessly whenever he could. He called her many different names, his favorites being little bug, insect, angel, goody-two-shoes, perfect princess, and pipsqueak. Bee found that writing her list for Reeve took much longer than she had originally intended for it to take, seeing as Reno didn't leave Bee alone even after they agreed to be friends. He continued to try and push her limits, leaning close to her, touching her shoulder or neck unnecessarily, playing with her hair, and making crude comments about getting her back into bed with him. But he didn't try to kiss her again, and he never brought up the occurrence like he did their once night stand together.
He also never mentioned anything or acted that way when other people were around, Bee noticed. He had arrived at Yuffie's room the next morning to pick up her list for Reeve, and had opened his mouth to make a snide remark about Bee's bed head when he saw Yuffie in the background of the room, packing up several papers from her desk in a small duffle bag. He quickly shut his mouth, took the paper from Bee and thanked her professionally, leaving the room swiftly, confusing Bee to no end. However, a half hour later when Bee left the room to find Tifa, she found him leaning against the wall outside Rufus's room, presumably waiting for the former president to be ready to leave. He noticed her approach and as she passed him, he wished her a good morning and informed her that her bed head earlier had been pretty sexy. She blushed furiously, said nothing, but shook her head and walked faster down the hall to Tifa's room. His laughter followed her all the way there.
Reno's friendship also apparently entitled him to also volunteer to help with Bee's shop, shocking Reeve, Rufus, Tifa and Cloud when he told them of his decision. Reeve had looked to Bee for confirmation while Rufus just shrugged, saying that he needed Reno to go to the shop anyway, it wasn't his problem if Reno wanted to stay longer than necessary. Cloud watched Reno intently as Bee also shrugged and said that if Reno wanted to help out, she wouldn't say no, but he would have to go through a brief training with Bee. He agreed, looking back at Cloud, his face impassive, and then headed for the helicopter that would escort the Turks and Rufus back to Edge. He gave them all a small wave and pulled himself up into the pilot seat, then took off after Rufus had gotten in beside him and buckled himself in. When Cloud turned to look at her, his face stern, Bee only shrugged.
"We decided to be friends," she told him nonchalantly, earning herself two incredulous looks, and one very confused look from Reeve.
"Friends?" Tifa asked in disbelief, "You decided to become friends with a Turk?"
"You're the one who said that the Turks had changed," Bee reminded her older friend, crossing her arms over her chest, and looking up to watch the helicopter disappear over a mountain in the distance. She felt her hair flicker around her in the light breeze that was running through the valley the headquarters was located in. Behind her, she heard Yuffie yelling at Cid, probably because he was making fun of her getting ready to hide in the engine room, but Bee continued to watch the spot where the helicopter had dipped over the mountain top.
"I know I did," Tifa relented, "But I just never really thought that you and Reno would ever..."
"Get over what happened," Cloud finished for her, ignoring a confused look from Reeve.
Bee finally looked away from the mountain and decided to look down at her boots. There was a scuff on the black leather of the right one, she would have to try and get it off later on.
"I'm trying to forgive myself," Bee explained, her voice low, "And him. I figured becoming friends with him was a good first step." Her other boot was fine, she decided, so she turned to examine her jean shorts instead, pulling at a stray thread.
"I guess..." Tifa consented finally. Beside her, Cloud nodded in agreement, but he couldn't keep the suspicion from his face. Bee had finally turned around and noticed it.
"What?" she asked him, frowning up at him, the thread on her shorts forgotten.
Cloud shook his head and turned to head over to the Shera and murmured under his breath, "I may have to have a chat with Reno..."
"What? Why?" Bee asked, trailing behind Cloud and catching up with him, peering up at his face. Beside her, Tifa chuckled good-naturedly and grabbed Bee's arm, tugging her away from Cloud.
"I agree with Cloud," she told Bee, wrapping her arm around Bee's shoulders. When Bee looked up at her, she smiled down and placed her forehead on Bee's own. "Don't worry about it."
Reeve followed behind, completely out of the loop and confused, and realizing nobody was going to explain anything to him.
The flight back to Edge was mostly uneventful; Bee spent much of her time napping in one of the storage rooms below deck. She had never liked flying much, she found airships to be too big, too unrealistic, and she only ever went on the Shera because she trusted Cid as a pilot more than anybody else on the planet. It was why she hung up in the rafters on the bridge and no where else. She could keep and eye on Cid and make sure that he was doing his job. However, this time she wandered her way into a stray storage room on some obscure part of the air ship, found a spare blanket in a random box, and laid down in a corner, curling the blanket around her and letting the hum of the engines lull her to sleep.
She slept peacefully for more than half the trip until the sound of the storage room door sliding open woke her. She straightened quickly from her corner to see Vincent Valentine enter the room and look down at her quizzically.
"Do you often sleep in random storage rooms?" he asked her, the barest hint of amusement in his voice.
Bee gave him a bashful smile, and stretched out her arms above her head. Sleeping on the ground had given her a crick in her back. "Not really," she told him shyly, feeling a blush creep up her face.
Vincent said nothing, but moved to lean on the wall across from her, crossing his arms and looking at Bee with interest. She ducked her head at the scrutiny. She had never been particularly close with Vincent; he had never been one for conversation. Even Shelke talked to her more than he did. He also wasn't around all that much. He had been to Bee's shop only to help build it, never coming by again afterwards, and when he visited the 7th Heaven, it was to spend time with Shelke. It surprised her that he didn't leave right after he found her in the corner of the room, waking up from her nap.
"What is it?" she asked him, after he continued to look at her. His stare made her uneasy. His crimson eyes seemed to pierce through to her very soul, delving into her darkest secrets.
"You've involved yourself with a Turk," he told her. Okay, so maybe he could see her darkest secrets.
"Umm..." Bee was lost. She honestly had no idea how to respond to that. Did Vincent know that she had slept with Reno? Or was he just aware that they were familiar with each other?
"Cloud told me about the night at the bar," he told her calmly.
"He did?" she asked him. She was hurt that Cloud would go around telling people about that night, especially when he knew that she was already very upset about it. "Why would he do that?"
"Because I was once a Turk," he told her. He gave a hint of a smile when he saw her shocked expression and he continued, "A very long time ago. And I became involved with a woman. It ended... badly. Cloud knew this. He asked for advice to give you. He thinks that having Reno's attention will end badly for you."
Bee said nothing, not really knowing what to say. She wasn't exactly involved with Reno, but he did seem to pay a lot of attention to her. She had assumed it was because she was such an easy target for his teasing, a way to blow off some steam. The fact that they had slept together, she assumed, just made it that much easier for him. Becoming friends with him had not seemed like that big of a deal to her. She knew that she would be seeing much of the Turk over the next few months, and she did not want his presence to be an awkward one. And, as she had determined the day before, she actually like Reno, enjoyed his company, more than maybe she was willing to admit.
"Turks do not often have relationships with other people," Vincent explained, "Having a lover, or a friend, usually ends up getting that lover or friend killed. The Turks have many enemies that would be willing to exploit a relationship as a weakness."
"I'm not in a relationship with him," Bee told him defensively, blushing all over again. First Cloud, now Vincent? If she had to talk about sleeping with Reno with another one of her male friends again she thought she would be permanently stained red.
"You slept with him, and have subsequently agreed to start a friendship with him," Vincent told her, watching as Bee picked furiously at a string on her shorts, trying to avoid eye contact with him, "You have agreed to help in a dangerous WRO operation, deliberately put yourself in danger, and have little to no fighting skills."
She winced at that. She had always known that her lack of defensive or offensive abilities had always held her back from joining her friends on their more exciting adventures. It was probably why Aerith never went to say good bye to her the day she left; Aerith probably knew that she would have begged to go along, and she would have no way to survive. She had been a healer from day one, with no weapon or even offensive spells to speak of. It was a fact that had always killed Bee inside.
"It seems like you're aiming to get yourself killed," Vincent told her, his void still devoid of emotion.
"I'm not changing my mind on any of those things," she said, hating how weak her voice sounded.
"I didn't say that you should," he replied. Bee was now wrapping the string on her shorts around her pointer finger and tugging on it, finally ripping it from the denim. She tossed it aside, and finally looked back up at him. "I came here to tell you not to pursue anything further with Reno. It will only end up with you getting hurt, or even killed. Even if it turns out that Reno has sincere feelings for you, no matter how unlikely, entering into a relationship with him would not bode well."
Bee's brow furrowed. "I never thought of having anything more with Reno," she said indignantly. It was the truth. Asking for a friendship with Reno had been something Bee never thought she would have done, let alone asking for him to be her boyfriend. Just the thought made her laugh. Reno didn't seem like the boyfriend type to her. He had been perfectly fine with having sex with her, no strings attached, and was willing to do it again. That was not something Bee looked for in a guy. She even assumed that he agreed to be her friend because he probably thought that that was the best way to have sex with her again. Maybe this was all a ploy, and she would get duped in the end.
"I didn't think that you were," Vincent admitted to her. She stared back at him and once more managed to make a small smile appear on his face. "I merely wanted to warn you that should you develop feelings for Reno, you should try your hardest to forget them, and if need be, cut Reno out of your life completely."
She stopped to think about this. Could she develop feelings for Reno? It was possible, she had to admit to herself. Reno was the opposite type of person she normally made friends with. Yet she had found herself wanting to be around him. She found him attractive, liked his sense of humor, and he had already showed her that he had a gentle side the night they were together. She had never considered it before because of the fact that Reno was a Turk, a killer, and had already shown to Bee that all he was interested in was sex. But just because he didn't want more from her, didn't mean that she couldn't one day want more from him. She suddenly hated Vincent at that moment for bringing this up to her. If he hadn't opened up his mouth, maybe she never would have thought about this.
"You would have eventually," Vincent told her, startling her from her thoughts.
"Can you read minds or something?" she asked him, perturbed with how he seemed to know everything about her with just one conversation. She watched in utter shock as Vincent actually managed to chuckle at her and shake his head.
"No," he relented, "But I know Reno. He's a charmer. Cocky. And very dangerous. He didn't become second in command of the Turks because he was harmless."
"Second in command?" Bee repeated, sitting up straighter in her corner. The blanket slipped off her shoulders and revealed her blue and white sweater. She was always cold when she was on the airship, and had slipped the sweater on just before boarding.
Now that she thought about it, someone had definitely mentioned he was second in command at some point... didn't they?
"Yes," Vincent answered with a nod. He frowned at the girl in the corner. "You are also... younger than him."
"I'm younger than almost everybody," Bee retorted barely suppressing a roll of her eyes. When Vincent did not reply she had to ask, "How much younger?"
"Perhaps that is something you should ask him.." Vincent said, regretting bringing up the subject. He pushed off of the wall and before Bee could protest he had walked to the door and slid it open. He did turn back to her before leaving however and told her, "Think about what I said. You have always struck me as a smart and responsible girl, with always innocent and good intentions. I've never had to worry about you like I do Yuffie. I know that you can take care of yourself, but Cloud worries about everyone all the time. Just be careful." He left right afterwards, sliding the door back in place behind him.
Bee remained staring at the door, thinking about Vincent's words long after he had left the room, the blanket laying on the floor next to her, and she had forgotten why she was ever cold in the first place.
The supplies for Bee's antidotes arrived at her shop just two days after she had returned. Which meant that when she went downstairs that morning in order to open up her shop, coffee in hand, she found Reno, the Turk with the sunglasses, and about five large boxes all piled into the main part of her store.
She almost dropped her coffee mug when she heard Reno greet her, "Hey there, little bug. Came for a visit!"
Her mind buzzed from adrenaline, scared half to death by the intrusion. She took in Reno sitting on top of one of the boxes and the other Turk leaning against the counter, looking back at her. So many thoughts ran through her head, but she finally settled on asking, "How did you get in?"
"Swiped your spare key from your kitchen last time I was here," Reno said simply, giving her a shrug and his usual smirk, ignoring her enraged glare. He stood and motioned to the boxes. "Reeve sent us with your stuff, yo. He wants you to start working on the antidotes today."
Bee couldn't help the forlorn look on her face. She wasn't looking forward to slaving away for over a month on the same antidote over and over again. Yes, she loved making antidotes more than any of her other products, but she didn't like the thought of making one antidote every day for the next few weeks. It would getting boring and tedious after the first day, she knew it already.
"Alright," she said sadly, "So, who's watching over my shop today?"
Reno looked at his partner with a grimace. "Ah, I knew we forgot something when we left Reeve," he said sullenly. He perked up quickly though and looked back at Bee. "We can do it today then!"
"We?"
Bee looked at Reno's partner by the counter. It was the first time he had spoken since Bee had first seen him in her shop the previous week.
"Come on, Rude," Reno chastised playfully. When Rude only stared back at him, he gave a exaggerated huff of frustration and said, "Fiiiine. I will be the one to watch over the shop today then. Way to bail, partner!"
Rude nodded, and walked to the door, opening it to head back out. "Don't get too distracted. Tseng will come looking for you if you're gone all day," he told Reno. Reno gave him a wave of dismissal and Rude left with a shake of his head, the door clicking behind him. He turned his attention back to Bee, noticing her looking at the boxes a little dubiously.
"What?" he questioned her.
"We should've gotten him to help us move the boxes..." she said sullenly. The boxes were fairly big, and moving all five of them would probably end up being a huge hassle.
"You think I can't do it?" Reno asked, pretending to be hurt. Bee turned her dubious look on him this time and he just chuckled at her, bending down to lift one of the boxes. He stood gracefully, his arms wrapped around the sides of the box and he looked at Bee who eyed him warily. "Where to?"
"Where the other boxes are," she told him, leading the way back to her work counter, peering over her shoulder the whole way to make sure he didn't drop the large box. Luckily, her worry was for naught as Reno easily carried the box back to the counter, shoved it underneath and then went back for another one. It didn't take long to bring all five back and when he was finished, Reno stood and grinned cheekily at Bee.
"Told ya," he teased, "Don't you remember my rock hard abs and solid arms?"
"No," Bee deadpanned, moving to slice open each box with a pair of scissors.
"Really?" he asked, actually upset this time. He watched as she peered into each box, discovering the contents of each and then writing on the top flaps in bold letters so that she would remember later on which box contained what supplies.
She didn't look up from her work and she shrugged at him. "I think you overestimate how much of that night I remember," she said soberly. It was true; Reno often made small jabs at her for one thing or the other about that night, but Bee didn't always get the joke. He apparently had not been as drunk as she had been and had remembered everything about that night, and it was really starting to bug her.
"Really?" he repeated. Bee looked up when she heard his tone of voice, and giggled at his horrified face. "How can you not remember spending the night with me?"
Bee stood up, straightening her shirt out as she did, and walked past Reno, heading for the shop door. She turned the sign on the window to OPEN and then walked back to her company. "I didn't say I don't remember all of it," she said off-handedly, "But I would prefer not to remember it. I'm not proud of that night, remember? We had a nice little talk about how I shouldn't blame you for it?"
"Bee, babe," he said, his voice almost begging, "Come on. How could you not remember or even not want to remember that night? It was probably the best night of your life. I gave you pleasure in so many ways, you melted in your bed."
She tried her hardest to ignore him, turning instead to look over her display of potions, thinking about where she would start Reno off on his crash course of running her shop, but he came up behind her and she yelped when he felt his lips on her neck.
"Don't tell me," he mumbled into her neck, "that you don't remember my lips on your skin." He tugged Bee's hair out of the way, and she felt his tongue swirl around to her ear. She could feel the goosebumps raise on her arms and her neck, and the image of Reno in this exact position flashed through her mind, though they were distinctly naked and in her bedroom. Reno sensed her hesitation and gave a dark laugh into her neck. "You do remember. Maybe we should close down shop for the day, and I should remind you all over again about that night."
She whirled around and shoved as hard as she could at his chest. He staggered back, surprised that such a small thing could muster so much strength. She was seething at him, frown lines creasing her high forehead, her hair askew from where he had previously had his hand in it. He held his hands up in forfeit, suddenly very afraid of the girl.
"Okay, okay," he said quickly, "No more jokes about that. I get it, yo. Sorry."
She only grunted and turned back to her potions. She was proud that she had managed to not yell at him again. It wasn't like her to yell, and it frustrated her to no end that he was the one person who managed to push her limits. But he needed to learn that this was nothing to joke about with her. She could take crude remarks, his inappropriate jokes, but only when they did not involve her night with him.
"Come here," she said gruffly, waving him over, "I need to explain everything to you."
He moved to her slowly, afraid that maybe she would whip around and slap him once he got close enough, but once he had reached her side, she really did start to give him lessons in alchemy. He listened closely, for once paying careful attention to everything she told him. He even impressed her by asking her questions every once in a while, such as whether or not he should recommend hi-potions instead of regular potions in order to make more money (no, only recommend them if the situation deemed a hi-potion necessary, she wasn't a money grubber), when he should suggest an elixer instead of something less potent (whenever someone had more than one symptom, but not more than one poison as poisons could only be cured by antidotes), and if he could bother her while she was working in case there was a question he couldn't answer (yes, her customers always came first). Deeming that he was finally ready, she let him take care of a customer that walked in five minutes later and was extremely impressed when the woman left with the proper antidote in hand and Reno hadn't even asked Bee for help. She beamed at him like a teacher would to a student, and told him he could handle things from there and she went to her counter again, rummaging through her boxes.
She was in the middle of making her tenth antidote when Reno plopped onto the stool that Bee seemed to never sit in. He leaned his elbows on the counter and placed his head in his hands, watching as Bee carefully heated the temperature of the hot plate below a beaker.
"You do this really fast," he told her, genuinely surprised with how many she had made already. The shop opened at eight in the morning and closed around five, and at only noon, the counter was full with phials of completed antidotes.
"Pay attention for customers," she ordered, thumbing through a pile of plants in front of her.
"Geez, relax, insect," he said defensively. He motioned to the store behind him. "There's nobody here and if someone walks in I would see them from here and go take care of them okay? I got bored of just sitting at the counter when there isn't even a customer in here. What do you do when you get bored anyway?"
She managed to spare a glance at him, looking up from her plants, but only for a second. "I make more products," she said blandly.
"That's it?" he asked her incredulously. He had taken his head off of his hands, but kept his elbows on the counter and crossed his arms over each other. "Don't you ever stop working and have fun?"
He watched at she scooped a bunch of chopped up plants into her hand and threw them into the beaker, adjusting the temperature. She had asked Reeve for a bigger set of beakers so that she could make more antidotes than just one at a time. Now, she could do three or four at once, cutting down her time significantly, but requiring a bit more prepping time for each plant.
"Do you?" she countered, disinterested in his question, "You're a Turk. You're never off duty."
"Touché," he relented, "But still, I get off some days. I go drink, or sleep. I like sleeping in. I find a pretty girl sometimes and take her home. I practice with my EMR. I bug Elena or Rude, though Rude usually just shoves me off. I like gambling too, though Edge doesn't have any good places for that. Wutai does though. And I like watching movies sometimes."
"You do?" Bee asked, finally hearing one that didn't disgust her. She had perked up, actually listening to him now.
"Hmm? Yeah," he replied, disappointed that out of all of his activities, she picked the most boring one to respond to. "Mostly action movies, but I like mystery a lot too, and comedy, though it's hard to find a good comedy out of Midgar. My favorite movie is Materia Rush. You ever seen it?"
She turned back to her beaker then, holding her hand out over it and casting Poisona. "No," she told him with a shake of her head, "My mom couldn't afford a TV when I was little. When I moved here, I had lived for so long without a TV that it never really occurred to me to buy one. I've never watched a movie in my life."
She waited for Reno to make fun of her for a moment or two, but when his jab never came, she looked over at him to find his face furrowed deep in thought. He was frowning deeper than she had ever seen him frown before, and the expression in his eyes was unreadable. She backed away from him a little, nervous under his troubled gaze.
"What?" she almost whined at him. She removed her hand from her beaker and placed it on the counter, waiting for the liquid inside to turn a darker color.
"You... You've never seen a single movie in your entire life?" he asked, his voice a blend of concern and disbelief.
"Slum girl, remember?" she reminded him with a shrug, "There's a lot of things I've never done or seen. You usually need money to do things exciting."
"You have money now," he pointed out, waving a hand at her shop.
"I do," was all she said back. Reno knew this already, she had to make a great amount of money selling her products in her shop. She had enough to pay bills, to eat, and buy drinks most nights as well. However, her tone insinuated that it was not a topic she wished to discuss and so he changed subjects.
"So, you never told me what you do for fun." He prodded her side, and was rewarded with the smallest of giggles. He grinned at her, but left her side alone again, waiting for an answer.
"I go to the 7th Heaven and play with Marlene and Denzel, or I drink sometimes, like the night you met me," she answered briskly, annoyed that he had tickled her.
"That's it? You have to do more than that. You said you had boyfriends, that you had men hit on you in Tifa's bar. And you got drunk with me. You have to get drunk often, right?" he drilled her with questions, watching as her brow creased with each one.
"I had two boyfriends," she said with a nod. She was pouring the beaker into new phials now, capping each one tightly and then sliding the wooden rack they were in down the counter past Reno to join the others. Thirteen down, just 987 to go, she thought glumly. "Neither could deal with my work ethic after a while. They thought that my patients were more important than they were, and they didn't like it. I never go home with the men that hit on me in Tifa's bar, but I do flirt with the more charming ones. That's how I met my previous two boyfriends. You were the only person I ever left with, and that was the drunkest I've ever been. I like getting drunk on occasion, usually with Yuffie, and usually by the time I am drunk, I'm upstairs with her in her room where nobody else can see me."
Reno paused to think this over, and came up with just one conclusion from Bee's little rant. "You," he told her, shoving his finger in her face for emphasis, "are way too serious all the time. You need to have more fun than that."
She swiped at his finger, knocking it away from her face so that she could kneel down and go through the boxes of supplies again and find what she need for yet another batch of potions. When she stood back up, Reno was still looking at her expectantly. She sighed and leaned on the counter beside him, turning just her head to look at him. "Yeah?"
"Yeah." He nodded at her and she couldn't help but laugh at how sage-like he was trying to be. "What do you want to do to have more fun?"
"I don't really have time for much fun..." she admitted, her eyes drifting upwards as she thought, "As soon as I close up shop I go around to my patients. That takes several hours because I do it all on foot. I get dinner at a different place almost every day though. I have a goal of going to every food place in Edge."
"Well, that's a start." Reno shrugged, and watched as her eyes went back to his. "What do you want to do though, if you had more time?"
"If I had more time, and the materia, I would want to learn how to cast offensive magic spells," she told him seriously. When he opened his mouth to tell her that wasn't fun, that was training she cut him off. "You said you train with your EMR for fun! And besides, I think I would like that because it's so different from my healing magic. And it would be helpful for when I am in Wutai."
"Alright, alright," Reno relented, jiggling his hand at bit, "I will give you that. But what about something else, with no work at all?"
Bee thought about that, long and hard, upsetting herself a bit when she discovered how hard it really was to answer his question. Any other person could answer this easily, even Cloud. Bee knew that Cloud really liked taking pictures of beautiful scenery on his travels. His photography decorated the 7th Heaven. She didn't have any hobbies except alchemy, and while it was soothing to her, something familiar, Bee realized that it wouldn't make her happy forever.
"I like climbing things," she finally answered. When she saw that Reno didn't understand she quickly tried to explain herself. "At Aerith's church, and on Cid's airship, I like climbing into the rafters. I like climbing buildings and jumping from roof top to roof top to get to my patient's houses. If I had more time, I would go climb the mountains outside Edge."
"Strange, but I'll take it," Reno replied, pursing his lips a bit and mulling her answer over. "I'll have to take you sometime."
Bee almost dropped the new beaker she had picked up. She caught it, thankfully, and stood slowly, watching Reno with each inch that she rose. He hadn't smirked at her, or made a suggestive comment about getting her alone on a mountain top, so she assumed that he was being serious.
"Really?" she questioned, suspiciously. She just couldn't picture him climbing a mountain with her. When she tried, the image of him plummeting from however many hundred feet up all the way back down the mountain kept coming to her head.
"Yeah, really," he told her, completely serious. "Just gotta figure a way to get your little angel visits shorter."
Bee opened her mouth to argue, but the door to the shop opened then, and her words died in her throat. She smiled at the customers, and gestured to Reno who immediately stood and sauntered over to the two women, throwing them both his lop sided grin and asking how he could help them in the most seductive voice he could muster. Bee rolled her eyes and returned to her work, thinking that Reno had forgotten about his offer already. As she looked over her work in front of her, she knew she would forget soon enough too.