Max hurried to thumb the alarm on her phone so as not to wake Nero. She had to stretch; pinned as she was under a hundred-and-some pounds of sleeping Tsviet. Nero had wrapped himself around her overnight, though in a way that suggested someone who sprawled when asleep, and not a vague hope of getting lucky. Nero didn't seem to think of her that way, which was fine, if slightly disappointing. Maybe someday, but not now, maybe not ever, but that was okay. Hating to wake him, but not sure how to extract herself otherwise, Max poked him gently.
"Hey, I know your fangirls think you're Mr. McDreamy, but I gotta get to class. Wake up."
Nero started, body going rigid around her and his eye snapped open. There was a split second of panic, as if he could not remember her face, or where he was, and then it came back to him.
"Sorry," he yawned, reluctantly pulling his long limbs back. "I should go too."
"Go talk to Veld and Vincent?" Max suggested. "Really, they're not gonna let one shouting match affect how they treat you."
There was something sad and unnatural about fear in sleep-bleary eyes.
"No," he whispered. "No, I couldn't."
"Then talk to Tseng, talk to Reno, move into the Turk barracks. You shouldn't drop your job even if you have a falling out with your roommates. Maybe you guys just need a little more space of your own. Admittedly, one twin bed in a dorm isn't a lot of personal space, but it might be an improvement over trying to elbow into the ruts of two crusty old curmudgeons."
That made him smile.
"A single bed in a dorm, huh?" he mused. "That might be okay. I… It's hard to fall asleep on my own."
Max laughed. "Well that's the first time I've heard that phrased as a plus! Now seriously, I gotta get ready. Talk to Tseng!" she shouted as she shut the bathroom door behind her.
Knowing kids today didn't actually talk on their phones, Veld had thumbed an awkward text to Max, asking if she'd seen Nero. She'd typed back a cryptic note to meet her at the WRO cafe. So here he was, wondering why he was paying six gil for a cup of black coffee and scanning the crowd for her tell-tale periwinkle hair.
She came stomping into the cafe and thumped her backpack onto the table. "Okay, Turkmeister, you and me? We gotta talk."
She pulled out the chair across from him and sat down. "What the hell did you and Valentine do to Nero? He looks like he went six rounds with Sephiroth!"
"So you have seen him," some of the tension left him along with the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. Dammit, the kid had grown on him. "One of his shadow pets got loose in the bedroom the other night and I almost put another hole in the ceiling. I'm just glad I didn't hit Nero. I didn't cuss him out Max, honest to gods, but being woken up in the dead of night by shadow beasts is going to put a guy in a bad mood."
Veld sighed and sipped his over-priced coffee. He'd paid for it, he was going to drink every last drop. At least it was a decent blend.
"I'll admit I did not handle the situation as well as I could have, but Nero's got to understand that if he lives under my roof, he's got to-" Veld trailed off and rubbed his face with one hand. "Oh sweet Shiva, I've become my father."
"Veld, you and Vin don't seem to understand something," Max explained. "Nero's trying his damnedest to fit in up here, without any training I might add, and you just keep hitting him over the head with new demands. He knows about rules-Deepground was a military organization, for gods' sake! But our rules don't make any sense to him. They're not intuitive. You gotta give him a break!"
"I understand that," Veld said patiently. "Or I thought I did. Nero does remind me of Vincent sometimes; mostly because he seems to expect me to read his mind. I'm almost at that point with Vincent, but I've known him since...well, never mind since when. The point is, Nero doesn't talk to us. He's terrified of me, and only marginally less so of Vince. I like my kids to have a healthy respect for my authority, but he keeps projecting his concept of a commanding officer onto me, and I don't know how I can get him to understand that neither of us are going to hurt him."
Max bit her lip. "Sorry, Veld. I know it seems like I just came in here to yell at you. And I kinda did, but...I'm worried for him. I asked him to come stay at my place last night, 'cause he was exhausted. He's not sleeping well, or eating well, or...well, he's just wearing himself out looking for his brother and sister. Can't all the big life lessons wait until you guys find them?"
"We actually had a meeting about that earlier, but without Nero's expertise regarding Deepground's layout, it wasn't very productive." Veld fiddled with his coffee cup, consulted the table top for suggestions. "Do you think you could get him to talk to Reeve, or even Shelke? He knows her. I know he's probably not ready to talk to us, but I'd like to know that he's safe, and we really need his help if we're going to rescue his Deepground family."
"I suggested Reeve," said Max. "He didn't sound real enthusiastic. I never thought of Shelke, though. She works at the labs, I guess I could go talk to her there. And you could call Tseng. I told Nero to talk to him. Maybe you could ask him to tell Nero to talk to you? Tseng would do anything you asked."
Veld smiled a little. She wasn't wrong. Tseng was a good kid, but Veld hated to take advantage of their relationship like that. Still, Nero was more important than any imagined pride.
"I'll do that," he agreed. Whether Nero would do so would remain to be seen.
The I.T. labs were on the floor above bio-engineering. Max signed in at the reception desk and went looking for Shelke.
She wasn't hard to spot, being the only one who appeared to be about twelve years old.
"Hello, are you Shelke Rui? I'm Max Kimura from the Bio-Eng labs. Can we talk?"
Shelke blinked, somewhat taken aback. "Um, sure. What can I help you with?"
"I'm a friend of Nero Sable's," said Max. "And he's having a really rough time right now. I know you were in Deepground, too, so I was hoping you might have some advice. Veld and Vincent are just messing up on their own."
"So he's okay, then," Shelke breathed in a heavy sigh of relief. "I mean, I figured he was, but I couldn't help worrying. I heard about their...exchange of words. If you think it'll do any good, I'm willing to try. What did you want to know?"
Where to start? From the conversations she'd had with Nero, it was clear that almost nothing in Deepground was the same as it was on the surface. It was more surprising that Nero had done as well as he had so far.
"Well," Max said, "Nero kind of clashes with Vin and Veld on lots of things. Just ordinary daily stuff, but to him it's not. How did you adjust to the changes up here? I know you weren't born down there, but wasn't it hard coming back?"
"It was harder than I thought it would be," Shelke admitted. "I was nine when I was kidnapped. I haven't been free that long myself. I can fit back into the routine up here fine, but I still catch myself jumping at shadows, so to speak.
"It's funny, I spent a lot of time wishing I was back up here, but when I finally made it above ground, I realized how many bad habits I'd picked up. I think it's the waiting," she observed. "You're always expecting something to happen, a knife in the back, an ambush in a dark corner. I know in my head that that isn't likely to happen up here, but it's hard to turn off the reflex."
Max usually tried very hard not to remember Nero's story of what had happened to the couple caught kissing in Deepground. It wasn't easy. Shelke's words just confirmed that the overall atmosphere had been one of tension, suspicion and fear.
"Veld told me that Nero's afraid of him, like he's always expecting Veld to-I don't know, smack him around or something. I can tell that really bothers Veld. And Vincent's a little, well, off, but he's not the kind to hurt people for no reason. How do we help Nero to accept the fact that Vin and Veld aren't going to hurt him?"
"I don't know," Shelke said. "I...I'm not a psychologist. All I can really tell you is that down there, anyone in authority had almost absolute sway over everything you did. From the Restrictors on down, someone was always ordering you around, and you were often given conflicting orders just so they could watch you flail. Nero…" Shelke trailed off, paused as she studied the floor.
"Nero was special," she began. "Is special. They never repeated the dark mako experiment for a reason: he was too powerful for them to control physically. Even with the microchips...we might not have been able to escape the borders of Deepground, but I truly believe Nero could have taken down the Restrictors himself if they'd let him think he could do it. I suspect that's why they were hardest on him."
"Okay," said Max, making mental notes. "So let me see if I have this right. Nero's used to a lot more structure, somebody always telling him what to do. And if he slipped up, they came down on him pretty hard. So the problem is that up here, he's got too much freedom, and yet when he breaks the rules out of not knowing the right thing to do, they don't come down hard on him.
"Poor guy," she said, shaking her head. "No wonder he's all freaked out. Everything's all backwards and upside down."
"Pretty much," Shelke agreed. "I really don't know how you could convince him that by and large, people up here don't resort to that level of cruelty. It's not that he slipped up so much as he could never do anything right. Even as a kid, I could see him being set up to fail. The Restrictors did that on purpose. It took me a while to figure out why.
"It wasn't practical to use corporal punishment on the colored Tsviets; Weiss is too strong, Rosso can't feel pain, and Azul's just too danged big. The only way they could keep them in line was by jerking them around emotionally. I've seen enough punishments to know it's not about physical pain, although incapacitating Nero was an added bonus."
Shelke sighed, pushed her hair back behind one ear. "Nero's used to being reprimanded for no reason. He has every reason to think Veld and Vincent are setting him up, even if they're just trying to help. I'm not sure what it would take to convince him that they're on his side."
"I do," Max said, one hand over her mouth. "Oh gods, Shelke. He thinks they're messing with him on purpose! And then they don't follow through with the usual punishments. He must think they're planning something really awful. And the only way I can think of for them to get through to him is to do what he wants most. Help him find his family! I don't think he can ever go back to Deepground, there's not enough left in working order. But that won't matter if he gets his family back."
She pulled out her phone, checking her schedule. "I have another class this afternoon, but then I'm gonna talk to Veld again. If he can get Tseng to bring Nero, would you be willing to sit in with us? I mean Nero, Vincent, Veld, me, if they'll let me, and you? He needs their help to find his family, but they all need to work together. Would you?"
"Of course," Shelke nodded. "I'd be glad to."
"Great! Thank you so much! Um, I'd hug you, but I don't know if you do that."
"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not," Shelke told her with a shy grin. "I appreciate your asking. And...thank you. I'm glad Nero has a friend in you."
"He's a sweet guy," said Max. "I want to help him out, if I can. I'll call you about the meeting. Gotta run!"
Shelke waved at Max's retreating form. "It was nice meeting you!"