Disclaimer : I do not own FFVII, Crisis Core, Advent Children, or any of the characters that you recognise. As much as I love these guys, they belong to those other guys.

Chapter 3 : It's A Small World

Of all the people in all of Gaia I could run into out here, it had to be her.

Reno tried to keep his eyes expressionless as his fingers flexed around the wooden handle in his hand. It had been a long time since they'd been enemies, but that didn't mean she'd be thrilled to find out that he was the one who had helped her. Even when he'd been drinking in her bar before he'd left Edge, she was always cold towards him. He always felt like she was on the verge of bringing up Sector 7 whenever she narrowed her eyes at him.

Her eyes weren't narrow now, though. They were sparkling and grateful, in a way that Reno had never seen them. Mostly because Tifa never looked at him with gratitude before. He quickly became aware of the silence stretching between them and her smile was slowly fading. Shit. What do I say back? Reno's mind began to race. On one hand, he could just pull the scarf off his face and let his rather memorable tattoos give his identity away. Or he could remove his hat and his bright red hair would do the same job. What then? Would she storm off? Slap him even, out of embarrassment for flirting with him of all people? Reno went for the other option.

Lie outright.

"Tifa, huh? Good ta meetcha. We better get going if you wanna get back home before nightfall." Reno dropped the tone of his voice slightly as he turned on his heels and started off towards town, not even looking back to see if she was following. The crunching of snow behind him a few moments later told him that she was though. He sighed and inwardly grumbled to himself that any chance he had of talking her into spending the evening in his company was well and truly dashed now. Not that he hadn't in the past entertained the idea of an evening with the busty brunette, he was a warm bloodied male after all and Tifa wasn't exactly hard on the eyes. But he was pretty sure she was still obssessed with a certain chocobo-headed hero. His inner grumblings were interrupted as Tifa suddenly appeared right beside him and he couldn't help but jump a little in surprise. She had pulled her scarf back up to ward off the cold but her goggles remained in top of her head and she started at him with those big eyes. How was it possible for someone to have eyelashes that long?

"You ok? You took off kinda suddenly there." Tifa kept pace with him, trying to look him in the eye, but Reno kept his gaze straight ahead. She frowned behind her scarf. They had been chatting fine a moment ago, almost playfully. Tifa was surprised herself at how chatty she was with a random stranger. But the point of this holiday for her was to get away from Edge and the same people day in and day out. No one here knew her, so why couldn't she have a little fun without worrying about the consequences? She raised an eyebrow as she stared at her companion. She could swear he was trying his best to avoid her.

"Jus' don't wanna waste time if you gotta try and catch a snowmobile from the hire place. Modeoheim isn't exactly a huge town and with it bein' the weekend, chances are some of the locals have hired them already to go up to Icicle Inn to head to the bars up there. There isn't a hotel you could stay at either…" Reno let his words drift off. He was rambling. What was wrong with him? He mentally slapped himself. He could feel Tifa still staring at him, her long legs easily keeping pace with him even as he sped up slightly. He heard her sigh quietly.

"Ok ok. I get it. Just didn't think you'd all of a sudden wanna stop talking to me. You seemed chatty enough before." She tilted her head slightly, stuffing her hands in her pockets before remembering the gunk that still covered her. She couldn't help but let out a disgusted groan as she pulled her hands back out of her pockets and spread her fingers, watching the stringy gore cling to her gloves. Wrinkling her nose, she wiped her gloves on her jacket, only making the mess worse. Tifa sighed in exasperation before she turned to look at the man next to her, noticing his shoulders shaking slightly. Surely he wasn't cold? He wasn't half as wet as she was. And he said he was out working, so surely he'd be used to the temperature. It then clicked why he was trembling.

"Are you laughing at me?!" Tifa stared at him, pulling her scarf down to reveal her mouth hanging open in shock. One minute he wasn't talking to her, then he was back to mocking her?! How rude!

Reno nearly dropped his axe as he tried his best to contain his mirth. He couldn't help but notice Tifa out the corner of his eye trying her best to clean her gloves and just spreading the muck around on her jacket. It was like something from a comedy sketch. When she moved her scarf to stare at him open mouthed, he couldn't hold back anymore. He wasn't even sure why it was so funny. Maybe it was because Tifa had no idea who it was underneath the scarf and hat. He reckoned she'd be more embarrassed if she knew, which in turn made him laugh harder. Through eyes screwed up with laughter, he saw that although her brows were furrowed in annoyance, the corner of her mouth was lifted in a barely controlled grin. He wiped at his eyes as he managed to calm himself down.

"Sorry. Don't even know why that was so funny. How could you forget you were covered in wolf innards? Hope there was nothin' valuable in your pockets." Reno chuckled slightly, his need to keep staring straight ahead forgotten as he watched her face. Tifa stuck her tongue out at him before she pulled her scarf back up.

"I'm glad you're amused. At least it got you talking again." She replied, her eyes still glittering slightly. Reno couldn't help but smile behind his scarf. She obviously didn't know who he was yet, so maybe he could keep conversation up until they got back to Modeoheim. Surely there would be no harm in that.

AN: So, Reno knows who she is but isn't giving away his identity just yet! Sneaky sneaky Turk. How will Tifa react when she realises it's a certain redhead under there? Heh heh. Bit of a shorter chapter this one, but it seemed like a good place to cut it off.

I got over excited and posted three chapters pretty much back to back. I'm having fun with this even if no-one else is haha! Lemme know what you think if you do stumble across this fic! :)