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.

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starrienight : Aww thank you! You make my day when I get a title email that you've left me a review :) Reno is so cute, I want one!

Chapter 23 : The Beginning Of The End

Tifa was first to wake the next day. She had no idea what time they had finally fallen asleep after what was hands down the most passionate night Tifa had ever had with anyone. Memories of the night flooded her head along with a dull ache between her legs. She sat up slowly in bed, noticing the lamp was still on. As a result, she could clearly make out Reno fast asleep beside her. He was lying on his front, his arms stretched up under the pillow with his head facing away from her. A smile crept across her face as she watched him for a few more seconds before she slipped out of bed. She had no idea what time it was and she was loathe to leave the warmth of the bed, but the call of nature couldn't be ignored any longer. After she was done, she left the bathroom and creeped through to the livingroom where she tried to source her clothes. She had forgotten that they had been removed in the heat of the moment and were thrown here and there. She decided not to put her underwear back on since she had already worn it longer than she would have liked, slipping the tshirt and sweatpants back onto her naked body. She wondered if Reno would mind if she washed her things and dried them before she left. She felt a small pang of disappointment in her chest as she thought about heading back to her hotel. She tried to push it away as she collected her delicates and headed into the spare room to grab her jeans. She searched for her sweater before she remembered that Reno had taken it off her when she had been too drunk to undress herself. She rolled her eyes at herself and attempted to creep back into the bedroom silently to find her clothing. It was pointless though, Reno stirred as soon as she came back into the room.

"I hope that's you comin' back to bed." He drawled, his voice still thick with sleep. Tifa located her top and picked it up, smiling.

"Actually, I was going to wash my things if that was ok. So I have something to head home in when we get out."

"I kinda hope we're trapped in here for another day." Reno smirked, rolling onto his back ad stretching like a cat. She laughed at him as he made some small squeaky noises at the apex of his stretch before he sighed contentedly. "But hell, I suppose ya gotta wash them sometime."

Reno dragged himself out of bed and headed into the bathroom. Tifa headed into the kitchen to wait for him. By the time he joined her after pulling on some clothes of his own, she had a coffee in her hands which she was sipping at with a satisfied smile. He led her to the garage that he'd mentioned earlier through a door in the spare room. She was able to hand wash her underwear and shove the rest of her stuff in the machine. One she was done she headed back to the living room where Reno was reclined on the couch, dozing. She wondered how he managed to be sleeping again less than an hour after they had woken up. She leaned on the back of the couch, looking down at him for a few moments before one eye creaked open.

"You sure like watchin' people sleep, Lockhart."

"I can't believe you're actually trying to sleep again."

"Hey, I had a tirin' night." He grinned widely. Tifa opened her mouth to reply but didn't get a chance as Reno sat up and grabbed her, hauling her over the couch to pull her on top of him.

"Reno! Gods, you could have just have asked!" She scolded as she sat up a bit to look down at the smiling redhead beneath her.

"Where's the fun in that?" His eyes narrowed slightly as he leaned up towards her. She rolled her eyes before she pressed her lips against his. Reno's arms slipped around her, one hand disappearing under the tshirt to slide up her spine. Upon noticing she hadn't put her bra back on, he grinned against her lips and slid his other hand down under her clothes in the other direction, his eyes widening as his fingertips met with the smooth unclad flesh of her rear. He gave it a little squeeze and Tifa laughed slightly. He pulled her flush against him and deepened this kiss, his hands wandering under her clothes as he clearly decided that last night hadn't been enough. She felt herself starting to melt against him when there was a knock at the door. She pulled back and they stared at each other for a moment, before they both looked at the door, then back to each other. Reno reluctantly removed his hands with a groan and Tifa sat up and moved back on the couch to let Reno stand up

"Was that...?"

"Sure sounded like it. And it better be fuckin, important" Reno grumbled as he got up. He went to the door and opened it. Tifa looked over the edge of the couch in his direction. She noticed that she was actually light coming in now and she heard Reno laugh. "Well, fuck, partner. No phonecall first?"

"When did that ever matter?"

"Well I might not be alone."

"It's 2pm. Who would still be around to put up with your terrible patter til this late in the day?"

Tifa listened to to the exchange and felt a bit of panic welling up inside her. She knew that voice, and all of sudden she felt very vulnerable getting caught red handed before she'd had some time on her own to figure out what the last two days had actually meant to her. Should she hide? Would Reno care? She didn't have time to make a decision before Reno walked back into the room, his hands shoved in his pockets. He stopped and turned to acknowledge their visitor.

"Rude, you remember Tifa right?" He jokingly reintroduced them. The stoic bald Turk entered the room, closing the front door behind him quietly, and looking over in her direction. He raised an eyebrow slightly but otherwise his expression didn't change. Instead he turned to Reno.

"Do I even want to ask?"

"That depends. How many details d'ya want?" Reno joked. Tifa's face felt like it was on fire and she was grateful when Rude raised a hand.

"I was implying that you were holding her here against his will, not that. Try and have a bit of decorum, Reno."

"Oh yeah, 'cause I'm well known for that shit." Reno scoffed as he flung himself onto the couch beside Tifa and nonchalantly wrapped an arm around her shoulders. Tifa gave Rude a timid smile as he walked round to sit on the other end of the couch from them.

"I, uh, got lost on the slopes and ended up stuck. Reno found me and brought me back here to clean off. Then we got snowed in." Tifa summarised. Rude simply nodded, his hands clasped together as he rested his elbows on his knees.

"I come to check in with Reno every few months. Just to keep him up to date since he's on vacation at the moment."

"Rude, she knows. No need to try and skirt round the details." Reno said with a lazy wave of his hand. Rude's eyebrows lifted and he glanced at Tifa, obviously surprised that Reno had shared his situation with her. She nodded a little before she got up off the couch.

"I gotta go see to my clothes. They need to go in the dryer." She made her excuses and headed out to the garage to give Reno and Rude time to talk. It wasn't really an excuse, she really did need to see to her garments. But Rude turning up had popped her little bubble and she needed to sort her feelings out about what came next. She transferred her clothes into the dryer, biting her bottom lip slightly as she looked around the room. She noticed a large fridge in the corner and opened it, finding the beer she hoped she would. She had it open and half of it drained in record time as she leaned back against the fridge. What would Rude think of finding her shacked up with Reno? And she was wearing his clothes to boot, with probably a severe case of bed head. She thought back to what they were doing before he knocked in the door and was suddenly grateful that he knocked instead of just walking in. She covered her face with her free hand and groaned. It was like being caught by a parent. Still, Reno hadn't seemed too fussed. But then not much rattled the redhead.

She waited in the garage while she finished her beer, then she paced for another ten minutes before she realised she was going to have to go out and face the music sooner rather than later. When she re-emerged she was surprised to see Rude was nowhere to be seen. Reno was reclined on the couch but he sat up so he could look over at her.

"Thought ya got lost out there. You ok?" He asked, raising an eyebrow. Tifa tried to shrug nonchalantly.

"Fine. Just making sure everything was clean enough. Where's Rude?"

"He left. We're gonna catch up later. He figured now that we're free you'd probably be headin' soon so he gave us a bit of time together." Reno explained. He patted the space beside him and Tifa wandered over hesitantly before sitting down beside him. Reno noticed she left a bit of space between them and he frowned. "You sure yer ok?"

"Huh? Yeah. Of course I am. Why?"

"Well yer sittin' all the way over there for a start." Reno spread his arms to exaggerate the space between them, and not just the literal space. Tifa sighed slightly and pulled her legs up under herself.

"I'm sorry. I just... I felt like we were in this little alternate reality bubble and seeing Rude just reminded me that normality had to come back eventually." She fiddled with the hem of her tshirt. Reno reached over and intertwined one of his hands with hers, making her look up at him. His aquamarine eyes were staring right at her, all mischief gone.

"Tifa. Do you regret what happened?"

"No! But... It was never going to be forever, was it?" She tried to play it cool but she noticed Reno's eyebrows lift almost into his hairline. "I mean, you just saw this as a one night thing, didn't you?" She noticed Reno didn't answer right away and she could have sworn she saw a flash of emotion cross his face before his lazy grin spread across his face. Was he hurt?

"Sure, Lockhart. Just wanted to show ya how a real man is in bed." He teased wth a wink, although it was lacking the conviction she was used to hearing. He jumped up off the couch, almost a little too quickly, stretching his arms above his head.

"Reno?"

"Yeah?"

"Are you... I mean. Did you...?" Tifa didn't know how to finish those sentences he looked down at her with that lopsided smile of his.

"Relax, Tifa. It's been an interestin' and hella fun two days but I haven't fallen in love with ya just yet." His tone was playful, but Tifa noticed him shifting in his feet slightly. Just yet? Why did he word it like that? Did Reno want to see me again? Tifa's head spun. She was about to question him again when he stalked off in the direction of the spare room.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm gonna get a shower. You can grab one after me, then I'll walk ya into town. The hire place usually ain't open on a Sunday but I'll phone the owner ahead and explain the situation. Rude is in the town bar anyway so I'll go meet him when you're on yer way." Reno's voice trailed off as he disappeared into the room, his tone a little too chipper. Tifa sagged into the couch, a dull ache in her chest. She knew she had to get back, she was supposed to check out of her hotel two hours ago and she knew they'd only keep her stuff safely locked away for a finite amount of time. She also knew that she couldn't spend the rest of her days frolicking around in bed with a certain ex-Turk. But the fact that the time to leave was almost here upset her more than she wanted to admit even to herself.

Tifa was still sulking on the couch when Reno walked out, a towel round his waist and another smaller towel in his hands as he attempted to dry off his hair.

"S'all yours. Towels are in there."

"Um. Thank you." She mumbled as he disappeared into his own bedroom. The bedroom they'd woken up in together earlier, surrounded in an afterglow only achieved after a night like the one they'd had. Tifa sighed and headed into the en suite in the second bedroom, disrobing and stepping into the shower. As she washed her hair, her mind raced. This had been the equivalent of a holiday romance, right? She was being ridiculous to think Reno would want to see her again in that way. After all, she still lived in Edge and he lived here. It was ridiculous that she was even thinking about this. Reno was a well known womaniser, regardless of the fact that he obviously took very good care of his lovers. She was probably just a conquest to him. She frowned as she rinsed her hair off. It hadn't just felt like a conquest to her, but maybe the lust filled haze had made her think he'd been behaving a certain way when he hadn't. He'd opened up to her a lot, but maybe it was because he knew he wouldn't see her again any time soon.

By the time Tifa shut the shower off and stepped out to dry herself, her head actually hurt from over thinking so much. She dried off and realised with a groan that she had no clean clothes to change into. The thought had barely left her mind when she stepped out and saw her clothes, dry and folded, on the the edge of the spare bed. Reno must have collected them for her while she was showering. A ghost of a smile crept across her lips and she shook her head to get rid of it. She dressed in her jeans and sweater, sighing slightly as she missed the comfortable material of the clothing Reno had leant to her. She also noticed that her clothes smelt almost funny for some reason. She realised with some degree of horror that she was missing the fact that they didn't smell of Reno. She had well and truly lost her mind.

Scoffing at herself, she left the room and spotted Reno in the hallway. He was pulling on his warm layers, obviously eager to get going. She felt her heart sink a little as she walked over to meet him. She noticed his grin was present but it didn't crinkle the corners of his eyes like it usually did.

"I cleaned off some of the gore from your waterproofs as best I could." Reno spoke before she had a chance to, holding up her outer garments. She noticed that he had in fact done a reasonably good job of cleaning them up. She gave him a small smile of gratitude.

Once they were both sufficiently wrapped up, they left the cabin. Tifa noticed that a small tunnel had been dug in to give access to Reno's front door but the majority of the cabin was still engulfed in snow, which is why no light had made it in the windows. There were still men with various diggers attempting to clear snow around his cabin and she looked at him, amazed that so much effort had been put into rescuing them so quickly. Reno shrugged and mumbled something about Turk privileges but otherwise didn't say much as he walked her to the hire store, which now had two snowmobiles parked outside. Reno had obviously called ahead whilst she'd been showing and the owner simply handed him a set of keys with a gruff warning not to wreck 'this one'. Once they walked outside, Tifa's curiosity got the better of her.

"What did he mean by that?"

"Sorta wrecked a snowmobile. Or two. Well, it was actually five."

"You wrecked five snowmobiles." Tifa didn't know why she struggled to believe it. Maybe the was the fact that the hire place only had six racks outside, meaning he'd destroyed nearly all of them.

"Hey, I paid for the damages. He ended up gettin' upgrades in fact! I actually did him a favour." Reno snorted, heading over to the blue and white snowmobile parked out front. Tifa couldn't help but smile behind her scarf.

"I'm surprised he let you hire any more."

"I told him I'd upgrade them all again if I smashed this one up." Reno's eyes twinkled slightly, the closest to his usual self Tifa had seen him since Rude had arrived. Tifa blinked a few times as Reno flung his leg over the mobile and out the keys in the ignition before turning them, bringing it to life.

"Um. Reno?"

"I told him I'd just drop you off and bring it right back. Another condition." He explained as he patted the space behind him. Tifa looked at him nervously, wondering just how he had wrecked the others.

"No crazy stunts, okay?" Tifa warned him as she climbed on behind him, secretly pleased that she got to spend a little bit more time with him.

"No promises." Reno chuckled with a hint of glee as he revved the engine and took off.

AN : Awww the holiday romance is nearly over! And Tifa has jumped to a lot of conclusions but it didn't seem like Reno intended on calling it quits quite so soon! If only they would just communicate properly...

Many thanks to animefreak9058 for the follow and favourite! Hope all you guys enjoy this new chapter! Not long to go now :(