CHAPTER FOURTEEN: SOME DREAMS ARE EASIER TO WAKE FROM THAN OTHERS
In which Aviva makes a resolution, and Cissnei has some news for Reno

Page from Aviva's diary, August 17th 2001

…Last night I had the most terrible dream. I dreamed that this is a dream, my life here with Shinra. In my nightmare, I woke up back in my old room in Corel feeling so afraid, and I said, oh no, oh no, I'm not really a Turk, it was just a dream. Then I heard a voice saying, no, this is the bad dream, and then I woke up for real all covered in sweat, and I realized I was still in Midgar in my own bed, in my own apartment, with Roz asleep in the apartment next to me and Mr Tseng in the apartment on the other side, and I thought THANK GOD, I'M SAFE.

I try really hard not to, but sometimes I remember that stupid thing I did the day I started work here. The thought of it makes me go hot and cold all over. I was soscared. I was convinsed the Chief would realize what a big mistake he made hiring me - I was just waiting for him to come tell me I'd got it all wrong and was too cheap and stupid to be a Turk and he was going to send me back to Corel where I belonged. Probably it was a lucky thing Mr Tseng hadn't given me my gun already because I was so desparate I think I might have shot myself. And then I would have never known R, and I'd have missed all this!

The Chief was so kind. They were all so kind. I'd been expecting anything but kindness. No one's ever mentioned it. It's like some other person did it. Not me. The Chief said that was how it would be. He said to me that I was in a new life now and I could let go of the old one. And he said that he couldn't promise I'd like everything he asked me to do, but that he could promise that I would always be valued. Isn't that beautiful? I hope one day someone writes it on my tombstone.

I never want to let him down again, never, never, never….

*

At the end of August Reno was surprised to get a telephone call from Cissnei. When he heard her voice on the other end of the line, his hands began to tremble.

She said, "Are you busy? Can you meet me at the Goblins? I'm at the table in the corner."

"Are you OK?"

"Yeah. Just come."

No prizes for guessing what this was about. He wanted to run to her. His heart was pounding as if he'd already run there and run back and run there again. But he didn't want to rouse suspicion. Rude was looking at him shrewdly behind those purple-tinted lenses.

"Just going for a smoke," he said, standing up.

Cissnei was waiting for him at a table in the darkest part of the bar. "Your hair," she said. "It's like sending up a flare to announce your entrance. Look, I got you a beer."

He sat down opposite her. "You haven't called me for months. What's wrong?"

She was fiddling with the beer mat, would not meet his eye. "I'm going overseas. For quite a while. A year, maybe. On an extended assignment."

Had the Chief found out? he wondered. Was this her punishment? Aloud he said, "Overseas? Again? Where now?" working hard all the time to keep his face from giving anything away.

"I'm sorry, Reno. I just can't – I can't tell you anything about it."

"Is it with Lazard? For SOLDIER?"

"That mission's been compromised. The Chief's pulled me."

It was as he'd thought, then.

He managed a credible, "Why?"

"Look – you might as well know…." She was bending the beer mat back and forth, breaking it slowly down the middle. "No, that's not fair. I want to tell you. Oh, let's not pretend, Reno. I know you know about Zack and me. Don't you?"

He took a deep breath. "Yeah."

"Well, it's all over. He's dumped me."

She was so beautiful. So beautiful and desirable and hot. And the longing he'd had to smash Zack's face in when she looked happy was like nothing compared to the urge he now felt to kill Zack for making her so sad.

"You're worth ten of her," he said.

Cissnei's head jerked up. "Who?"

"Well, that Ancient – "

"Does everyone know?"

"Ciss – we all do surveillance duty."

Shreds of beer mat were scattered over the table. Cissnei hadn't touched her drink. She said angrily, "Who else knows about him and me?"

"No one. Just Rude. I told him. I saw you at that party – that's how I knew."

"I know. Zack told me he saw you there. That's how I knew you knew. And also, because you stopped calling me."

She picked up another beer mat and began tearing it to pieces. "It was that terrible day, the day you were trapped on the elevator. That's when it started to go wrong. He'd never seen me working anywhere but in the office before. I never… well, I never told him that I wasn't a Turk, but usually I didn't wear the suit. Lazard likes women to wear dresses. And he never asked – "

"You mean he didn't know?"

Cissnei sighed. "Yeah, stupid me. How could I have thought he'd never find out? Anyway, that day…. The Chief sent me out to fight the crazy robots, but I can't fight in a dress, so I went to our lockers and got changed and got my weapon. I probably wasn't thinking straight. I was so worried about you, you tit. So then I went off after those one-winged things, remember? And then he showed up, and Tseng came, and you guys left, and… Oh God, his face. He said, you're a Turk? Like I'd told him I was a child molester or something. And Tseng was looking at me – you know the way he does. So I thought, shit, cat's out of the bag now. And then Tseng sent me off to deal with the Genesis copies, and Zack followed me, and… I don't know, Reno. I think I must be the dumbest bitch alive. I was attacked by one of the clones and he tried to help me and I said "No!" because I wanted to show off. Show off. That I can fight as good as he can. I must need my fucking head examined. Then we had some asinine conversation about wings and freedom and how the clones weren't monsters." Cissnei sighed. "And then he has to go falling out of Reactor Five right into her flower bed. So up there," she flicked a hand, "We have a bloodstained monster-killing Turk in a suit, and down here, a beautiful shining angel in a frilly dress. So that was it for me."

"Ciss, don't do this to yourself."

"Don't get me wrong," she said. "He wasn't – unkind. I mean, the sex was good. I think he'll miss that. And to be fair, he was honest about it. He said he couldn't be with me any more because of his feelings for her. Of course like an idiot I said, what does she make you feel that I don't? And he said, when I'm with you I feel like a boy, but when I'm with her I feel like a man. I guess I deserved that."

"But she's just a kid."

She looked at him wildly. "Have they - ?"

"Not as far as I know. It would be in the reports."

"The reports." She shuddered. "Every word. Every step. Every kiss. I never understood before how awful it must be. To have somebody watching everything you do. Reno, you wouldn't….? No, no," she shook her head with a grimace of disgust. "It's just a matter of time anyway. He's crazy about her, and he – he's so driven. I never told him about her. I mean, that she's an Ancient. Does he know? Does he know she's being watched?"

"You've been out of the office a while, haven't you? You should give us more credit."

"You're right," she said, her mouth beginning to tremble again. "I'm sorry. I feel like such a failure. And I've wrecked the goddamned mission too, and the Chief is so pissed with me. It's like I can't do anything right. And Aerith can do no wrong. Aerith doesn't compete with him. Aerith is afraid of monsters. Aerith feels so safe when he's around. Aerith doesn't swear or drink or get blood on her face when she kills people. She's kind of a nice girl that way."

"For fuck's sake, Ciss, it's not like Zack teaches nursery school for a living."

Cissnei gasped, and all of a sudden she was laughing in an astonished kind of way, laughing and crying and rubbing her face with her hands, smearing the tears everywhere. Her eyes were red and her nose was running and she still looked gorgeous. He wished he had a handkerchief to give her. Mozo and Rude would not have been so badly equipped. So he stood up and offered the only thing he had – the tail of his shirt. She stared at him, really focusing on his face for the first time that night, and snorted with laughter.

"Oh, Reno, how I do so fucking love you. I'm not going to blow my snot all over your dirty shirt, so sit down."

"I'll get some toilet paper," he said.

All the way to the bathroom, and all the way back, he was warning himself, whatever you do, don't say it. Because she doesn't want to hear it. All she wants is a shoulder to cry on.

When he came back, she had managed to pull herself together a little, and was tidying her hair with a comb. He gave her the wad of paper. She dipped it into the beer, to dampen it, and while she cleaned her face all he could think of was licking those tearstains from her salty cheeks and kissing those red swollen lips –

"Zack's crazy," he blurted, "You are the hottest thing in Midgar."

He heard himself saying this, and the sane part of his mind shouted You idiot!

She batted her eyelids at him. "You sure know how to cheer a girl up."

Did she think he didn't mean it? Then he might yet cover up his clumsy confession. He could turn it into a joke, make her laugh.

But his big mouth wanted its own way and it said, "No. Seriously."

She saw that he did mean it. He watched the realisation take hold of her: first surprise, then alarm, then dismay. Her look became guarded; she folded her arms over her chest, pulled herself in like a wary animal crouching down in the grass. He could have kicked himself.

"Are you coming on to me?" she asked quietly.

"No," he said; and then, accepting that the damage was done and it was useless to backpedal any longer: "All right, yes. Sort of."

She put her hand over her mouth and stared at him, round-eyed. Almost anything would have been better than that look – a box on the ears, a kick in the teeth, a knife through the heart.

In a voice barely more than a whisper, she said, "What do you take me for?"

What kind of question was that? How was he supposed to answer it? "Nothing – I mean – I just had to say it, Ciss – " He reached out a hand to her.

"Don't touch me," she spat, recoiling. "Do you think I'm desperate?"

Ouch. Low blow. "No – I just meant – "

"What's wrong with you?" She wasn't whispering now. "I've just lost the love of my life and I'm sitting here pouring my soul out to someone I thought was my best friend, only to discover that the whole time all he's been thinking of is how long it'll take him to get into my knickers."

"That's not true. I – "

"I should have known better. Everything's just one big joke to you, isn't it? No - don't talk to me. Don't you fucking speak another word." She stood up forcefully. "I'm leaving." He pushed his chair back to go after her, but she whirled round, turning on him a face as savage as a wounded cuahl. "Don't you follow me. Keep away from me. I'm warning you. At this precise moment I feel like the thing I want most in the world is to kill somebody, and right now you are at the top of my list, you false friend, you – you - stupid - prick."

He let her go. Or no, that wasn't quite true. All the rest of that day and the days that followed, as he played the scene over and over again in his head, he saw himself standing there, helplessly watching while she elbowed her way through the crowded bar, and all the time, even after she was gone, and for days and weeks thereafter, he was waiting for the right words to come to him, the ones that would put everything right, turn everything around. But the end was always the same. Cissnei was gone. He had blown it.