"Yo!"

I almost dropped the novel on my face when the door to my room flung open without warning. Heart pounding, I shot up to a sitting position just in time to see the disheveled form of Reno wheel himself inside.

"Christ, Reno! Ever heard of privacy?"

He twisted in the seat to knock the door shut with as little care as he had opened it, then turned to face me.

"Yeah, well, I would've knocked, but I figured you wouldn't open the door for me anyway, soooo..."

He raised his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug.

I slammed the book shut and threw it onto the bed. It bounced and landed on the floor, but I ignored it, instead glaring at my intruder.

"Do you really think you have the right to just barge in here as you please?" I demanded, my voice going up a pitch.

The shameless bastard seemed amused by my indignation. Sadly, I wasn't surprised.

"Eh, y'know," he drawled with an infuriating smirk. "Turks ain't s'posed to have the instincts for doin' the right thing, yo."

"Oh, well, doing the right thing is overrated, isn't it?" I noted, my tone just as wry as his. "Just look where it got me. Locked away and forgotten, in this miserable place where anyone can just burst in at any time. No life, no privacy and not even a single, bloody cup of coffee for months!"

The impromptu rant just erupted before I could stop myself. Perhaps I should have kept my emotions under tighter control and not tempted fate by lashing out at one of Shinra's thugs for the second time in a matter of days, but there was a limit to how much I would take quietly. This devil of a man had a talent for flinging me right over it.

Besides, it felt damned good to let some of it out.

Reno once again chose to remain unthreatening. He snorted, unfazed by the outburst, then studied me with curious eyes.

"How exactly did doin' the right thing bring ya here?"

Here, as in this strange world I had been cast into. The question caught me off guard. It was the first time he'd broached the subject since the interrogation.

"I told you how I got here," I growled, gritting my teeth as memories of that awful time returned to me, fragmented but all too vivid for my liking.

"No, you didn't. You never said why, either."

It may have been true. I didn't like to dwell on those few days and wasn't about to go over them just to confirm or deny. What I did remember was the crushing helplessness when my explanation was rejected as mere flight of fancy.

"Are you prepared to believe me this time?"

"I'll listen. I ain't promisin' nothin' else."

A blunt answer to a pointed question. I responded with a bark of laughter.

"Then why the hell should I tell you anything?"

Reno cocked his head to the side and studied me with a raised eyebrow. A few red wisps fell into his face and he blew them out of his eyes before answering.

"'Cause I reckon that after months among lunatics and other poor saps drugged up to their eyeballs, ya might wanna talk to someone who's got enough brains left to understand what you're sayin'. Someone who ain't one of the white coats who think you're crazy."

Persistent, wasn't he? He had something of a point, too, as evidenced by the absence of a point-blank refusal on my part. Now that I had been persuaded to emerge from my walking coma, I was thoroughly sick of my isolated existence. Speaking to him, though... That was one hell of a step to take.

"Is this an interrogation?"

He snorted and rolled his eyes. Irritated, I turned mine toward the floor. The book was splayed open on the floor, its pages fanned out and exposed after the unkind landing. I wondered if that was how I would end up feeling once the Turk was done with me.

"I ain't fit to work, sweetie, that's what the damn doctors keep tellin' me. Just offerin' a friendly ear outta my own curiosity, yo."

"Friendly, huh? I hope you left the knife at home, then."

My bitter comment was met with silence. I wasn't expecting that.

"Look," Reno began after a few moments, then hesitated.

My brow knitted at the uncertainty in his voice. I glanced up to find that he, too, was frowning and watched me with an odd look on his face.

"I ain't gonna apologize for doin' my fuckin' job, but–"

I looked away with a sharp exhale. He paused again, as if he was having trouble finding the words for what he wanted to say.

"FitzEvan, I didn't want to hurt ya. I don't enjoy that shit. That's why I threatened ya like that. I figured somethin' big and scary would be the quickest way to get the job done without things gettin' ugly."

My jaw dropped in utter disbelief.

"Without getting ugly? You were going to fucking blind me!"

"But I didn't, did I?" he protested. "I could tell ya weren't trained for that kinda thing. You're just a scientist, right? I knew you'd give in, yo."

He was serious, I realized. That's why his expression looked so strange. It was sincere. No wonder, then, that I'd been so perplexed by it.

"And if I hadn't?"

"I would've cut ya real slow," he said calmly. "There would've been plenty of time to change your mind before it got bad."

The only sound that came out of my mouth was some kind of a strangled snort. I had no words. No words at all.

"I know it sounds kinda fucked up," he sighed, "and I guess it is. That's me, babe. That's Shinra." He laughed; a humorless, hollow sound. "Hell, that's the whole world right now. All fucked up."

The man actually looked ashamed. Sitting there in his wheelchair with bandages all over his thin body, shoulders slumped and head hanging, I almost felt sorry for him.

More than anything else, though, I was confused by his sudden confession, and suspicious of it.

"What brought this on?"

He shrugged and picked at the splint on his broken fingers. My eyes lingered on the injured digits. Right now, he had said.

"It's got something to do with whatever got you beaten up like this, doesn't it?"

Reno's fingers froze for a moment.

"I guess," he admitted. "This time, it got ugly."

I frowned again and let my gaze wander upward to study his face; as tired and joyless as his laughter only moments ago. I got the feeling he wasn't referring to his injuries. He had spoken those words with purpose, chosen them with care. Was he saying he'd done something he didn't want to? Had he hurt someone severely this time?

Was he looking for some kind of absolution? Forgiveness? What the hell made him think he'd get any from me? I huffed and leaned back against the wall, crossing my arms over my chest.

The Turk kept poking at the finger brace harder and harder, until he jabbed it hard enough to hurt, judging by the grimace that appeared on his face.

"Hey, stop that. You'll make it worse."

To my surprise, he didn't respond with a smartass remark. With a frustrated sigh, he wrapped his good hand around the armrest of the wheelchair instead. Moments later his fingertips were drumming out a muted staccato rhythm against the plastic.

Again, I wondered what had happened.

I considered what he had told me. It was "fucked up", as he'd described it, but I had to admit there was a twisted logic to his reasoning. Maybe Reno was telling the truth. Maybe he didn't enjoy hurting people. From what I'd seen, the man could be dangerous, brutal, even ruthless. His recent behavior didn't strike me as sadistic, though. Reno pushed my buttons, sure, but to be honest, most of the time his teasing was more akin to lighthearted ribbing than malice, especially since the tearful breakdown he'd induced.

It also seemed like he wasn't quite as heartless as his usual apathetic manner would suggest, and that a conscience was buried somewhere deep underneath that cocky bravado.

Then again, so what? In my book, there wasn't much of a difference between a bad guy and a nice guy doing bad things. Either way, people got hurt. The Turk may not have left physical scars on me, but waking up in a cold sweat from half-remembered nightmares? That was a big fucking problem, not to mention the lingering anxiety that followed me into the waking world.

My grim thoughts worsened my strained mood. The compulsive drumming wasn't helping, either. Ready to lash out, I jerked my head around to face him, only to find him staring at a spot on the floor, with an uncharacteristic, haunted look dimming his eyes. I hesitated. The man obviously had his own share of invisible damage.

"What about the next time you're ordered to hurt me, or someone else?" I had intended to ask him. "You will do it, even if it gets ugly, won't you?"

"I ended up here, because I was trying to save my world," I said instead.

I didn't enjoy hurting people either.

Reno raised his face, bewildered at first, as if he no longer remembered asking me the question. Then the expression shifted into one of surprise.

"Holy shit. Don't tell me you're one of 'em tree-hugger terrorists after all?"

There was a word that showed up in almost every conversation I'd overheard lately. First the buzz was about bombed reactors, then a whole part of the city itself. Now people saw eco terrorists everywhere.

"Oh, for crying out loud," I sighed. "This isn't about political ideals."

"Uh huh. That's what all of 'em say, if they ever stop yellin' 'bout suckin' the planet dry–"

"You want to hear this or not?" I snapped.

The Turk looked annoyed and at the verge of saying something, but instead pressed his lips into a thin line and crossed his arms over his chest. Leaning back in his wheelchair, he arched an eyebrow. I could barely keep myself from rolling my eyes at my petulant audience.

"Everyone knows Earth is dying," I said, after a moment's deliberate delay to see if the redhead would actually let me speak this time. "More and more crops are failing, and people are falling ill because of inadequate nutrients in what little we can still grow. The climate has been unstable for decades now and the storms are worse every year. It's only a matter of time."

I lifted my legs onto the bed and pulled them closer to sit cross-legged as I spoke, then rested my elbows on my thighs, hunching forward. I must have looked as dejected as I felt.

"Cobalt Industries does government-sanctioned research into ways to save humanity. Research on crops and soil improvement, mostly, but it also funds a number of more... experimental ideas." I sent a crooked smile his way. "Outlandish ones, some might say. Desperate plan Bs. Our project was one of them."

I rubbed my temples, debating what to tell the man, then sighed again. Pointless, all of it.

"According to my contract, I'm not allowed to speak freely about the Gateway project. I'm not even supposed to mention the name, but... Well, it doesn't matter much now, does it?"

I glanced up at the man in the wheelchair. His head was tilted to one side, showing a blank face. I had no idea what he was thinking. Reno could apparently be a decent listener, when he wanted to. He had made no attempt to interrupt as I spoke; just watched me with slightly narrowed, hooded eyes. He nodded, urging me to continue.

I took a deep breath and a moment to gather my thoughts.

"I'm a biologist, so I don't fully understand the technical details or the science behind it. My role was to study and predict the effects of various unusual forms of energy on organisms. Radiant energy, electromagnetic fields, that sort of thing. Basically, to evaluate the safety of Gateway travel."

I pushed my hands off of my knees and placed them behind me, leaning back. It had started when I was in my early twenties, finishing up my bachelor's degree, with more and more peculiar questions on biology, posed by Victor – my father's colleague and friend at the time. It felt like a lifetime ago. I tilted my head back, studying an unremarkable point near the ceiling while I tried to sum up nearly a decade of history.

"Victor was the visionary with the original idea. James lead the engineering team that built the Gateway itself. A device that would allow teleportation and, ultimately, even travel between worlds."

Even now, after all I'd been through, there was a note of incredulity in my voice. At times, it was easier to believe that I had been locked up in a mental hospital due to the imaginations of a deluded mind, rather than that I was on an interplanetary voyage gone wrong.

"Hypothetical worlds, at the time," I corrected myself. "The theories were intriguing, but we had no proof it would work, you see. When Victor first suggested it, I honestly thought it was nonsense. Crazy talk. I'm still amazed he got the funding for it." I chuckled. "Desperate times, desperate measures, I suppose. We still didn't know for sure if it would work when we were attacked. By terrorists."

I glanced over at Reno with a pointed smirk. The corner of his mouth twitched in response. Then my gaze dropped and the smile faltered.

"They call themselves Orca. A violent group who only care about saving themselves. Victor and I were in the labs when they invaded the facility. It all happened so fast. James..." I hesitated, swallowing hard. "James betrayed us. He disabled security so that Orca could just march in. We were defenseless."

My voice had nearly broken when I said his name, but when I continued it was cold and hard. I stared stubbornly at the insignificant spot on the wall, my hands twisting the fabric of the blanket as they balled into fists.

"While travel between worlds was still unproven, we'd had successful trials with short distance teleporting of simple, inanimate objects. Imagine that ability in the hands of a militant terrorist group. Victor and I decided to destroy the Gateway."

I paused, my brow scrunched up by the effort of trying to remember the details beyond the fear and panic. It was all so chaotic in my mind.

"When we got to the main lab, Victor surprised me. He pushed me into the Gateway chamber and barred the door. I guess he wanted to send me to safety first, but something went wrong. There was an explosion. Then..."

I gnawed on my lip in concentration, trying to discover any memories beyond that point.

"Then nothing," I exclaimed in frustration. "That's all I remember. Everything goes black and the next thing I know is waking up here."

"Huh," Reno said after a few seconds of silence. "Guess that explains the ring, yo."

"What?"

I gave him a mystified look and he gestured to my left hand. Oh. Right. If I squinted, I could still make out the faint outline around my left ring finger. An aggravating reminder of a broken heart and a naive dream of a better future. My jaw tightened and I turned my head toward the wall. My grief was my own business. It certainly wasn't the concern of a nosy, uninvited visitor.

"Is that all you have to say?" I asked, my voice flat.

"It's been botherin me, 'kay? It ain't the sorta thing someone does without a reason, y'know, but I couldn't figure it out."

"Well, I'm glad we were able to clear that up."

"Easy on the sarcasm, honey," Reno retorted, then continued with a more pensive tone after another brief pause. "This James dude, you said he built the thing?"

I nodded.

"Then why risk your lives to destroy the prototype? Won't he just make another one?"

"He can build a new Gateway, sure, but he can't use it without the right parameters. Vic is not only a physicist and mathematician, but a gifted programmer as well. He created most of the Gateway control systems, not James. We planned to wipe the local memory banks and fry the circuits for good measure."

I couldn't bring myself to say "was", even though that was far more likely. Not if I wanted to keep some semblance of dignity. Already, my chest felt tighter. I cleared my throat and continued.

"And... as brilliant as Vic is, he can also be neurotic, even paranoid. He kept the code base locked away off-site and used encrypted data to communicate with the Gateway." I sighed and shook my head. "I don't think even Vic expected something like this, though. To be stabbed in the back by our own."

It was odd. I was more affected by Victor's probable demise than the cruel end of a four-year-long relationship. I hadn't cried over James. I refused to.

"So, think there'll be more of ya droppin' by for a visit?"

That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? Not just for me, but for the security of my captors. I considered lying about it, but decided that, too, fell into the category of "pointless". The eagle-eyed Turk would pick up on it, anyway. I wasn't much of a liar.

"After all this time? Unlikely. Maybe the prototype was damaged beyond repair in the explosion. Or maybe I wasn't as important to them as I thought."

Bitterness twisted my attempt at an ironic smile into a sneer. I had alluded to Cobalt, but the face I saw in my mind's eye belonged to my deceitful engineer.

Reno tapped the armrest of his wheelchair with light fingertips as he digested my answers.

"Y'know, when you first talked 'bout Cobalt Industries and fancy research teams, I thought you were just another do-gooder with a grudge against Shinra, only with more imaginative lies than usual." He smirked. "Then, ya got started on secret projects and Earth and whatever the fuck. I decided you had to be totally nuts."

At least he was honest with his outspoken opinions. I supposed that counted for something.

"And now?"

It took great effort to remain still while the man examined me. I was glad my own gaze was already directed elsewhere. Unless I was spitting mad, I still had trouble meeting his eyes. Every time I avoided them, it felt like particularly aggravating – not to mention humiliating – proof of my acquiescence.

"Dunno. We couldn't find ya in our records. No name, no fingerprints, nothin'. Reeve says that suit ya came with has some pretty weird tech and we never figured out how you made it past all the security checks on the way to Hojo's lab, without bein' seen or picked up by any cameras."

He raked his undamaged hand through the mess on top of his head, lips pursed in deliberation. For a moment, I glimpsed the Turk at work and was struck by the intelligent spark that gleamed in his eyes.

"Then there's the stuff you don't know. I mean, who the fuck hasn't heard 'bout chocobos, right? I can tell ya somethin' real crazy and you don't even bat an eye. If all that's just an act, you should hit the fuckin' stage." He paused, flashing me a grin. "Just so ya know, ain't no chocobos with polka dots. No jungles north of Midgar with freaky statues of dudes with huge dongs, either. And Gold Saucer don't fly 'round the world."

My eyes narrowed as my cheeks heated up. "Oh, you little son of a..."

The man just shrugged.

"Hey, don't get mad, sweetie. Was just tryin' to figure things out. Testin' theories, y'know?"

The more I saw of Reno, the more I realized that the sloppy look and behavior were, at least to some extent, a deceptive impression he enjoyed cultivating. The man strived to be underestimated. I couldn't understand it.

"Your story's still pretty out there, but I've seen some of the weird shit the eggheads in our labs have come up with. I guess maybe it's possible you ain't a total nutjob after all."

My eyes were still averted, but I could hear the smirk in his lazy drawl toward the end.

"Hmph. Likewise, I suppose."

"C'mon, Fitz, what'd I tell ya 'bout sarcasm?" he chuckled. "Still, what I think don't matter much. 'Fraid you're still stuck in here 'til the big bosses say otherwise."

He'd been keeping his tone light, but for a second I thought I detected a sour note seeping in and sent him a curious glance. Then I realized what he'd said and tensed. Hojo had lost interest in me due to his conclusion that I was just a madwoman with a wild story. If he decided I was once again worth his time, or if one of the other higher-ups assumed a traveler from another world posed a threat...

Oh, no. Why hadn't I just kept my big mouth shut?

"I think I prefer to stay ignored," I said stiffly.

Reno gave me a long, thoughtful look.

"Y'know, I think you're right 'bout that," he agreed with unnerving sincerity, then cleared his throat. "I oughta get back before someone comes lookin' for me. See ya 'round."

With surprising speed and agility, he wheeled himself around and let himself out of the room, leaving me alone with a growing sense of unease.