Disclaimer: Finial Fantasy belongs 100% to Square Enix. Plotline is our own.

Chapter 8: Re-Wrapping Christmas

Ryu sat in one of the chairs in the interrogation observation room after she'd been cleared by medical. Her slashed hand had been bandaged, her bruised and battered knuckles cleaned and taped, and her various other minor injuries tended to. Tseng had ordered her to report to the interrogation room. So here she was her knees drawn up to her chest, her chin resting on them, watching as Reno interrogated the slaver. Rude was with her in the observation room watching her, evaluating her she knew. This was part of a Turk's job. She watched impassively as the normal mask Reno wore slipped away to reveal the sadistic killer inside. He was no longer joking, carefree, and crude. He meant business and he was brutally efficient.

-Probably part of the reason he's second in command. He's a good Turk, he knows his job.- She mused.

It took time, but Reno pried the name of every person he'd sold a girl to from the slaver. When it was over Rude dimmed the screen so she could no longer see what was left of the man. Ryu looked at him.

"Can I leave?" Rude nodded. Ryu stood and calmly left the room. Once she knew no one could see her, she sprinted to the stairs and ran all the way to the top of the building.

Panting out of breath, she emerged on the roof to the biting chill of the wind. She was grateful for it. She could blame any stray tears on it.

She sat with her back to the chopper shed, where they stored random things needed for the roof, like snow shovels. She curled up in a ball and stared at her bandaged hands.

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Reno emerged on the roof top and headed to the chopper. He needed to relax, and sitting in the chopper helped. Flying it was better, but he didn't have any reason to fly it. While he was walking, a speck of red caught his eye. Reno turned his head and saw Ryu sitting with her back against the shed. Worried, because she wasn't wearing a coat, Reno walked over to her.

Ryu looked up from her contemplations when warmth settled around her chilled frame. Reno had draped his jacket over her.

"Won't you get cold?" She asked. Reno smiled and shrugged as he sat next to her.

"You could share." He told her, playfully. Ryu smiled sadly and cuddled close to him. She let him wrap his arms around her, so that the jacket covered both of them.

"What's bugging you, neesan?" He asked. Ryu bit her lip.

"Tseng made me watch the interrogation. He said it was my introduction to the subject." She told him. Reno cursed silently. Even he would admit he'd been too brutal with the slaver, but he'd hurt Ryu, threatened to sell her.

"I am sorry you had to watch that." He told her quietly. Ryu shook her head.

"Today I stopped being a child." She said. Reno cocked his head to the side confused.

"You haven't been a child for a while yo" He said.

"Today was the first time I killed a person Reno." Reno closed his eyes, understanding.

She'd taken another's life for the first time. The shock had shaken her. Reno knew from what he'd seen of the corpse and the sounds of the fight that he'd heard, it had been up close and personal. She'd probably been within inches of him when he'd died. She wasn't the kind of person who didn't care about life, she cared deeply.

"I don't know what to say neesan. Killing has never bothered me," Reno said, leaning his head back against the wall of the shed and closing his eyes.

"Ever since my family moved to the slums I've been fighting, first it was fighting other kids who picked on me, then it was over resources, then it was fighting and killing for money." He said. He fell silent. He didn't want to explain how what had happened in the interrogation room was normal for him if a bit over the top.

"I never thought I'd have to kill anyone growing up, I never saw it in my future. When we came here I worked on accepting that I probably would have to. I can kill monsters no problem but I watched him die Reno." She raised a hand and brought her thumb and index close together barely touching.

"I was this close to him when I stabbed him with the glass shard." She said. She blinked as she remembered how the energy behind his remaining good eye had faded as he'd died. Reno gently rubbed her back under the jacket.

"I'd say it gets better with time. But I don't know." He said. Ryu laughed grimly.

"I know it does." She lightly punched him in the chest. "You suck at giving advice. You're supposed to have all the answers." She said teasing him. Reno laughed.

"I am not." He said.

"You are to. It's right there in the sibling hand book: when a sibling is depressed the other is supposed to have all the answers." She said. Reno laughed.

"Where is this hand book, I need to read it?" Ryu smiled and rapped her knuckles on his skull.

"It's in your head silly." She teased him. She sobered and winced, cradling her hand. Reno frowned and took her hand in his, examining the bandages.

He guessed she scraped her knuckles fist fighting, and she'd cut her hand on the glass when she'd stabbed the body guard.

"A simple cure could heal these." He said frowning. Ryu shook her head.

"I know but I don't want them healed just yet." She said. "I want to remember that taking life has a price." She said. Reno didn't respond.

"I know to get guys like him, guys that don't care, he saw women as things to be possessed and sold, they meant nothing to him as living beings. To get guys like him you have to get down in the mud with them and be willing to be just as ruthless and evil as they are to protect innocents. It's a hard line to walk." She said. Reno sighed.

"It's not even that, we're assassins our job is to do as we are ordered." He said.

"I know." She said.

"You're not really cut out to be an assassin." He sighed.

"Hey." Ryu protested. She frowned, "I know. I can use the skills but I don't have the heart for it."

"Lack of heart." Reno corrected her. She punched him.

"You have a heart. You care about me don't you? You care about Rude and the other Turks." She said, "It's just that for you orders are orders." Reno sighed and stood. He pulled her to her feet.

"Come on neesan." He said and towed her toward the chopper. "Let's go flying."

"Can we?" She asked following him. Reno nodded his head.

"Sure."

.

Matti looked up as Tseng entered the office just as his PHS went off. Tseng answered it. Matti tuned it out and focused on the report he was summarizing for the computer.

Tseng sighed and sat in his chair, as Rude came into the room. Tseng looked up at him.

"Well?" He asked. Rude shrugged.

"She handled it well." He said. Tseng pinched the bridge of his nose, a habit he and Matti shared.

"Report in full." He said.

"She didn't flinch or hide. Nor did she appear disturbed by Reno's methods. She also seemed to understand what was happening." Rude reported. Tseng nodded his head.

"Of all of them I thought she had what it takes to be a Turk." He said. Matti filed the conversation for later consideration.

.

Once Reno had the chopper in the air, Ryu looked out the co-pilot's window. The land stretched out before her. It looked like patch work quilt.

"You know, having seen an interrogation it won't be too long before Tseng has you in the room interrogating or at least helping." Reno said.

"I know." She said. "It didn't bother me." Her hand clenched. "He got what he deserved and if you hadn't done what you did we would never have found where the girls went. Now they can go home to their families. Sometimes the end justifies the means. When it comes to act against someone in the wrong I won't hesitate but an innocent I might. A child I could never kill."

"You'd be surprised what you'll be willing to do once you've been a Turk for a while." Reno told her. Ryu nodded.

"I am not really surprised. I am sure over time I'll be able to do whatever I have to do." She said sadly. Reno scowled.

"Don't." She looked at him surprised.

"Don't ever change who you are Ryu." He continued. Ryu smiled.

"We're people, human beings, we are always changing Reno. We can't help it."

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Alanna opened her eyes. It was dark in the room and warm. Her mako enhanced senses noted the beating of a heart near her, also that the source of the darkness was soft against her face, and there was weight on her arm. She sat up slowly, not wanting to leave the comfortable warmth. Genesis was curled up on his side facing her, his arm that had been draped over hers had fallen to the bed beside him. Her face had been pressed against his shirt clad chest. Startled, she leaped to her feet simultaneously jumping off the bed. Her mako strength took her nearly to the wall. Angeal was sitting on his bed reading; he looked up when she jumped off the bed, her face red. He raised one eyebrow at her. She flushed harder and pointed at him.

"Not a word." She hissed before she dashed from the room. Angeal smirked very softly at her retreating figure before he shook his head and went back to his book.

When she reached the safety of the room she shared with Mary and Piper, Mary was the only one there. She was just coming from the shower.

"Where were you all night?" She asked with a smirk on her face. Alanna noted sourly to herself that Angeal and Mary reacted very similarly to things.

"Shut up." She muttered before she started to change.

.

Alanna had her nose buried in a large cup of coffee as she sat in the lounge of the inn when Angeal came down. The others were still sleeping, well except Zack he'd been up shortly after Alanna had woken and with him had appeared Piper. It seemed that Zack had slept in the double bed with Cloud rather than wake her up and make her leave his own bed. Currently the three, Zack, Cloud, and Piper were playing in the snow behind the inn. Cloud had woken up not too long ago. So really the only one still sleeping was Genesis. Zack had collected the local children and was helping them defend their fort from Cloud and Piper.

Angeal sat across from Alanna after he'd gotten his coffee and breakfast. She flushed bright red remembering exactly why she was hiding in her coffee. He smiled gently.

"He didn't want to wake you last night. You seemed..." He trailed off. Alanna frowned waiting for him to continue.

"Well you were crying at one point. He is worried about you." Angeal said with a frown of his own, looking out the window and watching the kids. He turned to look back at her as he took a sip of his coffee.

"Are you okay?" He asked. Alanna nodded her head.

"Bad dreams. Bad memories." She told him slowly. Angeal turned his head to watch as Mary came down the stairs dressed to go outside.

"Looks like she's going to go save Piper and Cloud." Alanna said. She smirked at Angeal over the top of her coffee. It was a classic evil, or at the least mischievous look for her. When he turned and saw her look, he flushed slightly.

"Mary huh?" He shook his head.

"It's not..." He started, but then Genesis came down the stairs. Alanna sunk into her seat and pulled her cup of coffee closer.

Genesis got his food and sat at their table. He barely looked at her.

-This is going to be hell until we get back to Shinra- Alanna thought to herself -Ice hell no less.-

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Piper, Alanna, and Mary entered the Turk floor, heading to Reno's office. Their files on their closing papers for the mission were there. The sounds of rock music came from his room as they approached.

Ryu was sitting with her back to them as she wrestled with a pile of files, trying to get them back into the small filing cabinet. Piper knocked on the cubicle doorway.

"Hang on just a sec unless it's an emergency, and then state it efficiently." She said.

"No emergency. Just need our paperwork." Piper said, bouncing on her toes. Ryu nodded her head.

"How was your mission?" She asked her back still to them.

"Interesting I suppose." Mary said smirking at Alanna.

"Good." Piper said.

"Ice Hell." Alanna said, sticking her tongue out at Mary. Ryu laughed.

"How was your mission?' Piper asked. Ryu shrugged.

"Pretty good." She finished stuffing the files away and picked up some others as she turned.

Her bottom lip was bruised, puffy, and bitten. There was a fading green smudge on her left cheek bone. She held the files out and they saw the tape on her knuckles and the light bandage on her left palm.

"What the hell happened to you?" Mary asked sharply. Ryu shrugged.

"Mission didn't go perfectly. I got a little banged up." She told them.

"A little?" Alanna said sarcastically. Ryu grinned.

"Well I didn't go to the hospital so I'd say it was little." She said.

"If you say so." Piper said. Ryu smiled.

"So what happened during your mission?" She asked.

"Alanna spent the night with Genesis." Mary said. Ryu raised an eyebrow. Alanna flushed and pushed Mary.

"Not like that! I had to guard his and Angeal's room it was late when they got back, so I sorta fell asleep and they didn't want to wake me." She said quickly. She pointed to Piper, "She spent the night with Zack and Cloud."

"In a DIFFERENT bed." Piper stressed. Ryu laughed.

"Anything else fun happen?" She asked.

"Angeal's got a thing for Mary." Alanna said at the same time Mary said,

"Alanna fell asleep on Genesis's lap in the chopper." Ryu grinned and handed them their files she could see Tseng approaching.

"Have these filled out by tonight and get them on Rude's desk. He has to review them before they go to Tseng." She said as Tseng walked by.

"I'm glad you guys came back in one piece."

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A/N: Sorry for such a short update. There are three more chapters lined up to be posted, but I have not had time to edit them yet. Unfortunately, with forty to fifty hour work weeks I barely have enough time to sleep and eat…. So this has been put on the backburner. So, enjoy this little piece and look for more tomorrow… with any luck.