A/N: Rated M for language and sexual content. Standard disclaimer applies.
Updated 9/17/2020: Massive edits throughout. Character's injury adjusted for accuracy. New scenes added.
Chapter 18:
Tifa was no stranger to bar fights. In fact, she had to break up several each week in her own establishment. The combination of alcohol, daily tensions, and heated conversation often resulted in two or more patrons engaging in violent behavior.
The brawls were much easier to deal with when Cloud was around. While Tifa could take out anyone threatening to fight in her business, all Cloud had to do was tap the tip of his sword on the floor in sight of the stewing customers and the disagreement would come to a halt. Just the threat of facing the Ultima Weapon would strike fear in the patrons, causing them to retreat, often with quick apologies.
Tifa's weapons, being her fists, weren't so easy to grab attention without an actual blow. Having dealt with multiple fights, however, her customers knew that if she started toward them with her fists raised, it was time to calm down. Occasionally the fight would be in the early stages, with the participants circling each other over toppled chairs. If the cheers from the witnesses weren't too loud, Tifa could stop the fight with the sound of creaking leather as she pulled on her gloves. She loved when that happened, but the circumstances had to be right.
Rarely, Tifa actually had to use brute force to stop a ruckus, though she tried to avoid that at all costs. Beating up paying customers shouldn't be good for business, but she had always received applause from those watching when she leveled someone who had gotten testy.
Then there was the fact that she was a famous martial artist. While she had needed to subdue customers before, none had ever attacked her. They came to her bar to drink and look at a beautiful, famous woman. They neither wanted to harm her beauty nor take her on in a fight. She had already proven to many now-bruised egos that she couldn't be taken down by anyone. She had fought Sephiroth himself. No construction worker or coal miner or even professional fighter could compare to that.
Because of the nature of the fights and their timing, she never really had to worry about weapons being used. Sure, sometimes a patron would smash a bottle and try to use the broken end against their opponent, but no one dared to bring weapons into her Edge bar.
Until tonight.
It started innocent enough, two customers who had been in before and appeared to be chums engrossed in a heated political discussion while drinking hard liquor. One of the patrons, a large, burly man who may have been even brawnier than Barret (without the gun arm, of course) seemed to be getting angry fast. The other man, a short, stout individual with thinning hair, was matching the larger man's energy.
Tifa couldn't help but overhear the argument once it reached the volume that caused other patrons to stop what they were doing and glare. The two were hashing out whether coal and oil were any better than Mako as an energy source. At some point, both sides seemed to forget what their original positions were and took to outright personal insults toward the other.
Once the larger man stood up from his chair, causing it to fall backward and the table between them to screech as it shifted several inches at his sudden movement, Tifa decided it was time to step in and stop the altercation before it went any further.
"Excuse me," she said as politely as possible while still imposing a sense of authority. The two men continued to stare angrily at each other without acknowledging her presence. "I think it's time you two left."
That sent the two men into a rage, the likes of which Tifa had not seen since she operated a bar in the Sector 7 slums. It was not uncommon for patrons at the old Seventh Heaven to draw weapons on each other. Heck, even Barret had unloaded his gun arm in fits of rage back then. Tifa couldn't count the number of days she spent trying to sand down and cover bullet holes in the walls.
The larger man started shouting obscenities and reached into the back of his waistband to pull out a Peacemaker, which he promptly pointed at his drinking buddy. The smaller man retaliated by pulling out his own firearm, a Quicksilver, and aimed it right back at his discussion partner.
Tifa took a step back from the two men. She slowly reached down into her pocket, keeping her movements low and steady to hopefully stay out of their peripheral vision. The men were locked onto each other, neither moving nor saying anything. The other customers had abandoned their tables and backed against the wall when the men first stood up. They were now frozen in place, some holding their hands up to beg for their lives.
The room was uncomfortably quiet. The other patrons didn't even appear to be breathing, so afraid of what may happen.
Tifa removed her Premium Heart gloves out of her pocket, sliding the weapon over the leather of her skirt and then stretching them down along with her arms to squeeze her right hand into one glove. She took extra time to pull the edge of the glove back over her wrist to secure it to her hand before taking the other one and doing the same with her left hand.
She then bent her elbows to begin raising her fists. Once her fists were in line with her waist, she raised her elbows so that her hands were in a defensive position in front of her face. She also placed her right foot back a step to allow better footing.
She had practically been moving in slow motion as everything around her was stopped, as if they were all in a movie scene.
"I said," Tifa finally broke the silence, "I think you should leave."
She bent her knees and readied herself for battle. Upon hearing her words, both men pointed their guns directly at her face. Then, realizing the other was unguarded, they turned their weapons on each other. They changed their targets multiple times, now unable to decide whether they should shoot each other or the bartender who had challenged them.
It was at that moment the door to the bar was opened, the familiar chime of the bells ringing overhead. Neither Tifa nor the men with guns had time to register that someone new had entered the establishment before they were surrounded, as if the people who had entered had teleported from the door to where the fight was about to begin.
Tifa blinked and saw Rude standing in front of her, on the other side of the men. He, too, had his fists up and staggered in front of his face, prepared to assist her in the fight. Also in Tifa's line of sight was Elena, who stood to Rude's right and had the end of her pistol just millimeters away from the smaller man's face.
Tifa instantly felt calmer seeing the Turks in front of her as backup.
"Move one inch and I'll send you to hell," Tifa heard a familiar, missed, and cocky voice from behind the larger of the two men.
She couldn't see him, but Reno had his mag rod pressed against the man's cervical vertebrae, right at the base of his skull.
What happened next truly did move in slow motion for those involved.
Tifa had one gun pointed at her face (the large man's). She used the slight apprehension he exhibited when Reno spoke to swat his gun away from her with the back of her right hand. He didn't drop it, but was now pointing toward the back area of the bar, away from any other patrons.
In the instant it took the man's face to contort into one of shock – his mouth opened, his eyebrows lifted, and his eyes widened – Tifa spun to her right, lifting that same leg behind her and bending her knee so that when she twisted back around her heel would connect with the large man's face. As her foot hit, the skin of the man's cheek rippled across the rest of his features, causing his lips and nose to gravitate to the left, almost to the point of ending up on the side of his face. A bicuspid dislodged from his mouth, twirling in the air like an asteroid floating through space as it passed underneath his front teeth, arching down toward the floor until it was lower than the countertop, lower than the seats of the stools, lower than the footrest of the stools, and finally hitting the floor with a clicking sound before bouncing twice more and landing again with a similar sound. Finally, it slid a few inches to its resting place near the front door.
The large man's eyes rolled back into his head as blood and sweat evacuated his head due to Tifa's blow, joining their toothy brethren on the floor near Reno's boot.
As the large man was reacting to what would cause him to black out and crumple to the floor (only to wake up later in the hospital with the worst headache of his life), the smaller man's lips formed a circle in order to say something. Perhaps the other man's name in a suddenly concerned kind of way.
In his surprise, the stout man stopped aiming his gun at the larger man and instead started shaking both his arms in a frightened and confused manner. He was still holding the gun, and it wavered back and forth through the air, sometimes pointing up, sometimes pointing down, and passing the middle of an arch in between.
Tifa's foot landed in perfect formation after she completed her full turn and dealt the large man a devastating kick. She landed gracefully, as if in a choreographed dance, as the large man's head was nearing the floor. His left hip hit the wood first, then his elbow, then his shoulder. He was lifted off the ground by his own momentum for mere centimeters before landing once again. This time, his head hit the floor as well, but his eyes were already closed, unconscious before Tifa's foot had even fully passed the width of his shoulders. When unconsciousness hit, his fingers went limp and his firearm fell from them, following a similar course as the tooth. The gun finally landed next to the large man's head, wobbling on its grip for a second before settling just as Tifa's foot planted on the floor nearby.
It all happened so fast that Reno barely had time to step back to avoid being brought down with the large man as well. All he managed to do in the time Tifa took the man out was to twist slightly, his mag rod still positioned as though he were about to attack someone. Rude's eyes were trained on the stout man as this all occurred, assessing the situation to see if this man decided to put his gun down instead of attack after seeing what had just happened to his friend. Elena still held her gun to the stout man's head but shifted her eyes and then the rest of her face to look to the left and watch the big man collapse.
Tifa's next charted attack was to disarm the stout man. She really hadn't needed the Turks to interfere, but they had been enough of a distraction to be helpful, so she was certainly grateful.
There are moments in time that latch onto a person's memory to be relived over and over again. Moments one reimagines in the hopes they can figure out what they could have done differently to change the situation and then spend an even greater amount of time punishing themselves for not taking a different course of action in the first place. Sometimes only one person experiencing an event comes away with such a moment engraved into their psyche. It can be due to one's feelings about the other people involved or even one's own view of oneself and how they should act in certain situations.
Reno was about to have one of those moments, and though it would embarrass him to the end of his days, it was created for both of the reasons listed above.
The stout man now had his free hand on his forehead and was obviously in crisis over his friend on the floor. As he brandished his own weapon about subconsciously, haphazardly around the room, he accidentally squeezed the trigger. It didn't even register to him at first, as the bullet corkscrewed through the air in the blink of an eye, heading toward – and then into – its unintended target. The gun had been angled somewhat down when the shot was fired.
Elena's gun fired in return, sending bitter jealousy through Reno and Rude's spines as they wished they had been the ones to take the man down.
Reno had remained where he had been all along but was pointing his EMR at the stout man when the gun went off. Rude was lunging forward to grab the man when Elena's gun went off, causing an explosion of blood to fly back toward the Turks and the patrons who were still crouched down and trying to escape along the wall and out the front door. The fight had been over once the guns had been pulled out. Elena's face and torso were covered in blood. Rude did not escape the splatter but was still reaching toward the man and not in a position to stop.
The focus of the other two Turks gave Reno the opportunity to witness what would become one of those "moments." He was a few feet back from the stout man when his gun fired. At the edge of his vision, Reno saw where the bullet traveled. Even as everything moved slowly around him, he did not see the bullet specifically, but he saw its consequences.
Tifa's abdomen, a little to the left of her belly button and beneath her kidney, dimpled suddenly. Blood spurted out instantly, as if it had been waiting for a chance to escape. After the initial release, blood seeped out of the wound as Tifa started to move backward toward the ground by the force of the impact. Her knees were beginning to buckle when her right hand reached across her belly to inspect what initially felt like she was stabbed – or possibly electrocuted. She was moving backward, and as her hand made contact with her wound, her other hand reached out as she stumbled into the barstools at the counter, desperately trying to brace herself on the bar counter. She was only able to keep herself righted for a second or two before her knees finally buckled and she started sliding down to the floor. Her backside finally reached the floor; a couple of the stools moved slightly but did not fall. Tifa leaned back against the base of the bar, her left hand still outstretched on top of a stool after it had slipped off the counter. She could now feel something slick on her fingers and started to look down. The liquid pooling on her leather skirt would appear to be simply water reflecting the black of her skirt had it not been for the lights above showing its dark red tinge.
All at once, things sped back up to normal. Rude and Reno practically raced each other to get to Tifa's form as she fell to the ground. The other patrons successfully evacuated. Rude had to jump over the stout man's body to get to Tifa at the same time as Reno, one on each side of her. Elena re-holstered her gun and walked over to crouch in front of the brunette on the floor, blood still dripping from her hair and face.
Reno was tugging at Tifa's right arm to get her to lift her hand so he could see where the bullet entered. Rude was waiting for her to move her hand at Reno's coaxing so that he could inspect the wound. Elena put a hand on one of Tifa's legs, which were stretched out in front of her.
"Are you okay?" Elena asked reflexively.
Tifa actually didn't seem that concerned with what was happening.
"Yeah, I think so," she replied, not completely sure why she was surrounded by Turks at the moment.
"Let me see," Rude said.
"Lie down," Elena commanded.
Tifa hesitated a moment and looked at each of them before begrudgingly obliging. Now Reno simply lifted her arm so that she would move her hand as he sat cross-legged on the floor to allow Tifa to use his knee as a pillow. Rude had the better view of her wound.
"It… didn't come out," Rude said, with just the faintest hint of concern. To those who knew him, he was downright despondent in his tone.
"Guys, it's nothing," Tifa insisted. "I'm fine. I have been shot before." Her speech had started to slur when she added: "Including by you."
She kept her eyes locked on Reno's and lifted her right hand in an attempt to point at him. In her weakness, she misjudged the distance between her and his face and ended up poking him in the cheekbone, just barely missing jabbing a finger up his nose. He moved his head back awkwardly at her poke, squinting the eye nearest to her extended index finger, before her hand slowly fell along his skin, down his cheek to his jaw, then tracing a line down his neck, to his chest – causing him to shudder at the memory of being her adversary. Her strength finally gave out and her hand fell from his skin to rest on his other thigh, just above his knee.
His left eye twitched and he felt his heart flutter at her brief touch.
"Hey now, I never actually hit you like this," he countered, looking down at her head situated in his lap.
It was true, Reno may have shot at her in Gongaga, but he made sure no bullets actually landed. She received some grazes, but never anything serious or near vital organs. Rude hadn't thought about it then, but Reno was a damn good shot, the fact that he never hit Tifa now made more sense in conjunction with all his other suspicions.
"I'm calling an ambulance," Elena suggested, looking over at Rude, who nodded. The blonde Turk pulled her PHS out of her pocket and flipped it open to call emergency services.
"No, come on," Tifa said, her focus on Elena. "Can't you just stitch me up like last time?"
Her head half turned, half fell under its own weight toward Reno as she pleaded. He couldn't help but smile at the notion that she would rather let him touch her now than go to the hospital. What difference a couple months and some flirting made.
"We could, but you may very well die," Rude said. "It'll be better if we just take you there now."
Tifa closed her eyes. This was not how she planned this day ending. She had woken up with the determination to move forward with her life and to move on from Cloud and Reno. Now Reno was sitting right next to her with a – was that a look of genuine concern? Nah.
And then she looked down at herself. Rude was pressing the wound to try to control the bleeding, so she couldn't really see it, just all the blood that had soaked her tank top and slicked over her skirt and down her leg. But she certainly now felt it. She groaned. This was all just so inconvenient.
"Fine, let's get it over with," she said.
She tried to start lifting herself up off the floor, but the Turks wouldn't let her.
"Just stay still," Elena said, placing a hand on Tifa's shoulder. "The ambulance is on its way."
Tifa groaned again.
"Ack," she coughed. "I can get myself there."
"Yeah, okay tough guy," Reno teased. "You just chill here. You'll be back to kicking patrons and taking bullets in no time."
Breathing hurt. Tifa couldn't remember the last time she had been injured to that point. It wasn't like the bullet was anywhere near her heart or lungs, it's just that the skin around it stretched when she tried to breath. Her heart was beating kind of fast – for several reasons – and when she tried to concentrate on slowing it down, she ended up taking deeper breaths, which hurt the wound.
Aside from the pain, she was just plain embarrassed. She should have taken down the other man as soon as she finished with the larger man. She should have gotten out of the way of the gun. Now she was being treated like a child by the Turks. Because of this stupid, and, in her mind, non-life-threatening injury.
Before Reno was able to clearly tell what had happened, a thousand possibilities went through his head. When he first noticed Tifa was hit, he imagined her collapsing and never getting back up. He ran to her but kept himself from cradling her in his arms like someone in some tragic movie. She wasn't that hurt – even if gunshot wounds hurt like a motherfucker – so there really was no reason for him to get so worked up, or so he told himself.
Yeah, he wished he had stopped her from getting hurt, wished he had just electrocuted the big man instead of giving him a chance to give up. If he had, Tifa could have focused on the stout man and avoided injury. He wished he had taken the bullet for her.
Wait, what?
Why was he thinking about all these things? Okay, if she died, he wouldn't be able to fuck her, and that would be a huge bummer for him, but that wasn't the only reason for his concern, was it?
Thankfully the ambulance arrived to take his attention – oh, and Tifa. She tried to keep the paramedics from putting her on a stretcher, insisting she just needed to "walk it off," but they insisted. She tried to tell them to just help her stand up and then she could sit on one of the benches in the ambulance. No dice. The paramedics also wouldn't patch her up and let her get herself to the hospital.
Finally, she relented and looked positively bothered to be forced to ride in the ambulance on the stretcher. She tried to cross her arms to pout, but she couldn't even do that as the paramedics were tending to her wound.
"You'll come, right?" she asked in a hazy fog. "I… can't see the stars."
Her question didn't seem directed toward anyone in particular, as she wasn't looking at any single Turk when she said it. Elena wasn't even sure if Tifa had meant to say that.
"Sure, we'll see you soon," Elena said in a comforting voice.
Whether Tifa really wanted them there or not, Elena's motherly instincts had taken control. No, she didn't care for Tifa too much, but when she saw someone injured – and it wasn't someone she was killing – she instantly went into "care" mode.
The Turks watched the ambulance drive down the road and locked up the bar before heading back to Rude's home to get his car. He coincidentally – seriously! – lived the closest to Seventh Heaven.
The hospital in Edge was pretty nice, considering how young the city was. It had actually been one of the first structures built, for obvious reasons. Thousands were injured during Meteorfall, and Junon's temporary hospital couldn't accommodate everyone. Reeve directed aid crews to immediately start work on a building near the medical tents to serve as the hospital. Over the next few months, it was expanded and remodeled to upgrade the portion that was built hastily in the beginning.
The Turks sat in the emergency room waiting for news. None of them really wanted to be there. Not because of anything related to Tifa, but because it was so damn boring and ordinary to be waiting. Plus, they weren't her family, so the medical staff wasn't that accommodating and wouldn't provide much information. After several hours, a doctor came out and addressed them.
"You're all here for Tifa Lockhart?" he asked. The Turks nodded. "And none of you are her family or spouse?" They shook their heads. "Well, there's not much I can tell you since you're not her emergency contact. Do any of you know how to locate Cloud Strife? The number she provided is no longer in service."
Reno clenched his teeth as his nostrils flared. That bastard. He was already an asshole for running out on Tifa, but now she was injured and he was her emergency contact. Reno realized he was clenching his fists, imagining himself punching Strife in the face.
"We don't know where Cloud is," Elena said. The doctor looked unfazed.
"Are you friends of hers?" he asked.
"Yes…" Elena said, a little unsteadily.
"You won't be able to see her tonight, I'm afraid," the doctor said. "We just finished her initial surgery, but she's going to need at least one more to repair the damage to her organs. The bullet did some damage, but we were able to remove it."
The Turks' eyes widened in unison. It was rare that bullets were actually able to be removed. Reno and Rude each subconsciously raised a hand to cover a scar where a bullet was still lodged in their muscles – Reno, his right shoulder; Rude, his left leg.
"Will she be alright?" Rude asked in a compassionless tone that startled the doctor.
"We're hopeful, but we don't know at this point. If you could leave contact information with the front desk, we'll be sure to call you with updates." The Turks nodded and the doctor turned around to leave through a pair of double doors leading to the operating rooms.
Elena blew air out of her mouth in surprise. Reno laced his fingers behind his head and Rude crossed his arms over his chest, all three looking at the floor.
"Damn," Reno said.
Tifa had seemed so annoyed by the injury, he didn't think she was in that much danger, even though he knew how critical gunshot wounds were – especially when they were near internal organs. But the fact that Tifa Lockhart could die from a stupid bar fight? It was inconceivable.
"I... I can't believe it was that bad," Elena said.
"Yeah…" Reno added, scratching the back of his head. "Guess there's nothing more we can do here, huh?"
At that moment, he felt his PHS vibrate in his pocket and pulled it out to check.
"1 text message from Shotgun."
"Delivered! Let me know when you want to meet up again ;)" it said.
He closed his phone without responding. A few months ago, he would have smiled to himself and considered her offer. He wasn't above sleeping with a woman a second time, even if he hadn't done it, but it was pretty clear why she sent the text. No challenge, no thank you. But things were different now, though he wasn't entirely sure why.
"I guess not…" Elena said. She looked to Rude, who simply nodded.
"Excuse me, you were the three here for Tifa Lockhart, right?" a nurse beckoned from behind a counter nearby.
"Yes," Elena answered as the three took a couple steps toward the nurse's station.
"Does she have any other family in town we could contact?"
"She doesn't have any family," Elena said. Because of Shinra.
"Oh, hmm. Whose number should I put down?" the nurse asked.
Elena looked back at her coworkers. Reno turned to look at Rude as the bald man snapped his eyes back toward the redhead, each trying to figure out why the other was looking at them. Elena rolled her eyes and faced the nurse again.
"I'll give you my number," she said before writing it down on the form handed to her by the nurse.
The first update didn't come until the following morning. The three were lounging at their desks lazily passing the time before going on patrol when Elena's phone rang. Tifa was out of her second surgery and a third didn't seem necessary at the time. She was awake and mildly irritated.
The doctor, oddly (to Elena) asked if she knew any of Tifa's medical history and informed the Turk that she could visit the bartender until 9 p.m.
"Wanna go now? Before patrol?" Elena asked her two male colleagues, already knowing the answer.
"Extend your patrol to include your trip to the hospital," Tseng ordered from his office.
When Reno looked over to the boss, he could see the raven-haired man hadn't even looked up from whatever he was working on.
It took some time to get properly directed to the Intensive Care Unit where Tifa was still being kept, but the Turks finally found the correct waiting area. Lefts and rights and sets of double doors all led them to a small, windowless area with about two dozen uncomfortable chairs and a decent view of the afternoon slowdown. Nurses and doctors occasionally walked past the area, avoiding eye contact, as they went about their days. It didn't seem like patients were being moved into or out of the unit, and even though the Turks were trained to listen to the murmurs of strangers to glean information, they heard nothing regarding Tifa. The guy in room 12 was probably a goner, though.
They must have waited more than an hour before someone in scrubs finally came to get them and lead them to Tifa's room. The room itself was on the large side, with a private bathroom and long window on one side. A long bench sat beneath the window for guests and there was a large glass wall facing Tifa's bed where doctors and nurses wrote extensive notes regarding her care, including medications and when she needed to receive them.
Reno was no stranger to hospitals, and approached the wall to study Tifa's immediate medical history. He had glanced at Tifa as he entered, but the sight of her with all the medical equipment keeping her alive drove a knife through his heart and triggered something he hadn't thought about in far too long. Though he didn't show it, he tensed up and turned to the wall to catch his breath and calm down, memories of the past suddenly too intense.
He'd lost far too many important people in his life, and nearly lost Tseng, to be able to handle seeing anyone else he cared about in a hospital like this.
He recognized some of the medical jargon that detailed her surgeries and the change in her vitals since the previous night. Elena and Rude each stood on one side of her bed, furrowing their brows at the number of machines hooked up to the bartender.
Tifa perked up when they entered, but her eyes lingered on Reno for a second too long, leading her expression to wan, her eyes shifting to look down.
"How are you feeling?" Elena spoke first.
Tifa had a mask that helped her breathe, but she was able to lift it to speak in short sentences.
"I. Want to. Go. Home," she said in short, exasperated breaths.
"Sorry, you're not out of the woods yet," Elena said, her tone soft. "I think you'll be stuck here a few more days."
"Aren't you Turks?" Tifa asked in one excruciating breath. "Can't you sneak me out?"
Rude crossed his arms and let out a little chuckle. Tifa looked up at him with pleading eyes. Was he the weakest link? Questionable. He liked her, but that might actually work against her as he might want to make absolute sure she was okay. Elena always struck Tifa as a by-the-book kind of woman, and probably wouldn't be open to flouting hospital recommendations.
And then there was Reno, who still had his back to her while studying the wall. He was definitely a rule breaker, but where had he been the past week? He might decline to help her just to be an ass. He was a loose cannon. He was her best chance.
"You need to stay here," Rude suggested. "You're barely alive as it is."
Tifa huffed.
"The bar," she said, though she knew it wouldn't be convincing.
"What about it? We locked it before we left," Elena replied.
Tifa was hoping they hadn't so she could make the argument about urgency.
"I don't. Want. To be in here," she pouted. One of the monitors indicated her respiratory rate had increased.
"Then you shouldn't have gotten shot, yo," Reno offered, turning with enough courage to stand at the foot of her bed. The words stung him as soon as they left his lips.
Tifa, Elena, and Rude all shot him a glare and his expression retreated.
Tifa didn't think she felt any pain – it was thanks to the morphine, but still. She wanted to go home. She didn't have time to be sitting in a hospital with such a wimpy wound – at least in her eyes.
Barret and Marlene were coming next week. She needed to clean up the bar. She needed to do any number of things that would be put off while waiting to get out of this place. She felt lonely home alone, she felt even lonelier here even though she would be surrounded by strangers.
"Is there anything else you'd like us to do for you?" Elena asked.
Tifa shook her head.
"I'm tired" she said, defeated and losing awareness.
"Okay, we'll come back later, if you want," Elena offered.
"Sure."
"And if they take too long to release you, we'll kick their asses," Reno said confidently, jabbing his thumb into his chest.
Tifa smiled weakly. It quickly faded as she watched Rude and Elena leave. Elena lingered in the doorway and turned back just in time to catch Reno standing next to Tifa and removing two fingers from her forehead. The bartender's expression was unreadable as Elena tried to figure out what had just happened. Reno didn't say a word as he passed his colleague out the door.
The crushing loneliness set in once Tifa found herself alone in the sterile gray room in an unfamiliar place. She wanted to lay on her side and curl up like she did when she wanted to pretend to shut out the world, but moving made her side ache, even with the pain medication she was on. At least she was exhausted enough to fall asleep in the position she was currently lying.
Later…
Tifa was woken up by a nurse to have her bandages changed, unaware of how much time had passed since the Turks left. She was luckily in a private room, since she was wearing just panties under her hospital gown, which needed to be lifted for the nurse to gain access to the wound. Tifa found the whole ordeal profoundly uncomfortable. She was used to dressing her own wounds, or having Aerith, Jessie, or Yuffie do it. She didn't like letting strangers touch her. She still wished she had never let Reno stitch her up months ago. She never would have even entertained the thought of kissing him – and she wouldn't be having so many competing, not to mention annoying, feelings trapped in her head.
She looked outside at the sunset as the nurse worked, not wanting to see how bad the wound still was so she could maintain some ignorance. Maybe she could convince the Turks to break her out.
"Can I go home now?" she asked the nurse, still needing the mask to breathe comfortably.
"You're gonna be here a few more days," the nurse said. "The bullet did quite a bit of damage."
The nurse finished dressing the wound and readjusting Tifa's gown. She was just leaving the room when the three Turks returned. Tifa didn't want to admit it, but she was really glad to see them.
"Feeling any better now?" Elena asked as she walked to the foot of Tifa's hospital bed.
"Much," Tifa lied, her breathing difficulty showing the Turks the truth.
"Have you seen it?" Reno asked.
"The wound? Just saw. Not serious," she said between staggered breaths.
"You were shot," Rude said. He didn't say it in an informative or snippy way, it was more like he really thought she wasn't taking this seriously. There was a hint of concern in his voice.
"Yes, and I'd like to go home now, please," it was the longest sentence Tifa had been able to put together since she was out of surgery. Reno snorted.
"She says from behind her breathing tube," the redhead added sarcastically.
The Turks stayed and chatted with Tifa a while longer, continuing to dismiss her requests to leave the hospital while still hooked up to so much machinery.
As they were leaving, Elena again turned to see Reno pulling his hand back from Tifa. He was further along in the act than the last time she caught him, but she knew that whatever he was doing would confirm all her suspicions. She made a mental note to turn back quicker next time.
Saturday
Reno arrived at the hospital as soon as visiting hours began, thinking his colleagues would never expect him to wake up so early. He was allowed back to Tifa's room just a few minutes later and was shocked to find an elderly woman already sitting beside the brunette's bed. He jumped back out of the doorway and pressed himself against the wall, hoping he hadn't been seen.
As he stood with his back to the outside wall, he tried to place that old woman. She looked familiar, but he couldn't quite place her. Did Tifa have a grandmother? No, she didn't have any living relatives that he could recall, but it had been a few years since he'd last checked her file at Shinra.
If he recalled correctly, Tifa was a ward of an elderly woman when she first came to the slums after the Nibelheim incident, and this could be that woman – but Reno could swear he had seen her more recently.
Before he could figure it out, the old woman left Tifa's room and passed him in the hall with a sly grin that appeared as she neared.
"You go on in, I'll come back later," she said quietly as she passed Reno. She didn't even look at him as she spoke.
Reno took the opportunity to slip into the room, now noticing that Tifa was no longer wearing the mask to help her breathe. She looked better than she had the past couple days, but she was still pale and weak. Her hair was oily and her eyes were sunken and dull, though they flickered with something as he strolled across the room to take the chair vacated by Marle.
"You're here early," Tifa pointed out.
"Yeah, well, the bar we had to go to in your absence doesn't have the right scotch," Reno said without faltering.
"You here to break me out?"
"I would if I thought you could handle it, Lockhart."
Tifa said nothing and an awkward silence fell over the room. Apparently, Reno was not the one who could get her out of here.
Reno fidgeted in his seat uncomfortably, thinking of something to say. Why had he even come here? He should have just waited until Rude and Elena suggested a visit instead of coming on his own. He hated hospitals, he hated seeing people in hospitals, but the thought of never being alone with Tifa again had been scratching at the deepest recesses of his mind.
"No more mask?" he asked after several moments had passed. Tifa instinctively reached up to touch her face where the breathing apparatus had been.
"They removed it this morning. I think it was holding me back, honestly."
"Oh yeah, you know how doctors are, always trying to hold you back from getting better," Reno teased, the corners of his lip twitching upward. Tifa gave him a knowing glance with a warm half-smile.
"They said I still have to stay here a few more days, but I'm feeling much better," Tifa said after another pause.
"Tell ya what, if you can hop outta bed without any pain and without tearing anything, I'll take you out of here right now," Reno offered.
Tifa considered attempting his offer on a prayer but knew she would fail.
"You don't even have to hop; you can just get up normally."
Tifa continued to stare blankly at him.
"Can you even sit up without pain?"
Tifa shifted slightly and moved to sit up, but pain shot through her abdomen as soon as she made the attempt. She fell back onto her pillow, wincing.
"Shit, Lockhart, that wasn't a challenge. Pull anything?"
"No, it just hurts."
"Looks like you're stuck here, then."
Another silence. Tifa sighed before a smirk spread across her lips.
"You didn't just come here to get me to tear my stitches, did you?" she asked, tilting her head on the pillow in his direction.
"So, what if I did?" he retorted with a smug grin. "Who was that woman in here before?"
"You mean you don't remember?" Reno shook his head. "You gave her a child a couple years ago."
"I… what?" the redhead asked, his voice tinged with fear.
"Yeah, during Meteorfall," Tifa said, snickering at the discovery of what would actually make Reno nervous.
"But I didn't sl—" it finally hit him; where he had seen that woman. He had given her the small child he had found during the calamity. "Oh."
"After you did that, she started finding more children and opened an orphanage," Tifa explained. "She's actually rather grateful for what you did, since it gave her a new purpose."
"To be honest," Reno said, looking away from Tifa and scratching the back of his head, "I was just lookin' to pawn the kid off on someone."
"Oh, she's well aware of that, but it worked out anyway," Tifa informed him with a warm smile. "So, back to the reason why you came here so early on a Saturday by yourself…"
Damn, his subject change hadn't worked on her, she was too smart for his tricks. The truth was he hadn't come up with an explanation for why he set an absurdly loud alarm to force him out of bed at the crack of dawn to get to the hospital without Rude or Elena finding out.
"I don't really know, guess I just know what it's like to be stuck inna hospital away from everyone you know," he said, scratching his head again.
"It's really boring. There's nothing to do."
"Can I getcha anything?"
"Seriously?"
"Sure. I recommend puzzles. I used to do crosswords and sudoku when I was laid up with no possible escape," Reno said, proudly.
"You did crossword puzzles?"
"Your low opinion of me never ceases to amaze, Lockhart."
"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that," she said. "It's just… I've always been really bad at crossword puzzles, so I'm always impressed when someone says they can do them."
"Just need some practice," Reno responded while tapping the side of his head with an index finger. "I'll pick you up a book since you'll have time. Anything else?"
Tifa wanted to ask for a hot shower, but knowing Reno, she decided against it.
"Well… some books would be nice."
"Any particular kind?" Reno suddenly looked shocked. "Don't tell me you like trashy romance novels, Lockhart?"
"They're not trashy!" she insisted before covering her mouth and blushing.
"Big mistake, Lockhart," Reno said smugly. "You're getting a big stack of the filthiest, nastiest girlie novels Gaia has to offer."
Tifa returned his smug look. "You realize you'd have to buy these supposedly dirty novels, right?"
Reno dismissed her with a wave of his hand. "No problem, I'll just balance them out with some nudey mags. Really throw the clerk for a loop."
Tifa started to laugh but immediately winced and clutched her injury.
"You sure you didn't come here to rip my stitches?" she asked.
Reno opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by his PHS ringing. He held up an index finger toward Tifa and checked his caller ID.
"It's Elena, give me a sec," he told her before bringing the phone to his ear. "Yeah?" he said, pretending to sound as if he had just woken up. "Now? I guess… I'll meet you there." He snapped his PHS closed and looked back toward Tifa, who had regained her composure from the pain in her side. "She asked if I wanted to come with her and Rude to see you," Reno told her. "I gotta duck out so they don't know I was already here."
"Why didn't you just wait to come with them?" Tifa asked, her face contorted into a confused expression.
"Keep asking myself the same question," he answered, scratching the back of his head.
He looked at her a moment, debating whether to continue with his traditional hospital goodbye but decided he had embarrassed himself enough for one day and turned to stroll out of the room with a lazy salute instead. "See ya in a few," he said before disappearing out of the room completely.
About 45 minutes later, the redhead returned, trudging behind Rude and Elena and seemingly more tired than he had been when he was alone with Tifa.
"The mask is gone! You must be feeling better," Elena asked once she saw the bedridden young woman.
"I am, but they still won't let me leave," Tifa sulked, attempting to cross her arms over her chest but flinching when even that slight movement caused her some pain.
"They'll let you out when you're capable," Rude said flatly.
The visit continued as the previous ones had. When it was time to leave, Elena turned quickly in an attempt to catch whatever it was Reno was doing when he thought no one else was looking, but instead of seeing him standing beside Tifa, she crashed right into his sturdy chest.
"Forget something?" Reno asked in a mocking tone. Elena's cheeks flushed and she turned back around to quickly leave the room, huffing out a "no," as she did so.
True to his word, unfortunately, Reno did return the next day unaccompanied but with a stack of maybe seven romance novels, which he left at the nurse's station with an embarrassingly loud announcement that Tifa could hear from her room. She closed her eyes tight and waited to scold him for his transgression, but he didn't enter her room.
A few minutes later a very confused-looking nurse carried the books into Tifa's room and set them on the bedside table.
"Did you order a bunch of 'dirty' novels?" the nurse asked, quoting one of Reno's less colorful descriptions.
Tifa turned red and rolled her eyes as the nurse removed herself from the pile of books. The stack fell as she placed it on the flat surface and she bent down to pick up those that landed on the floor. She replaced them to the table and gave Tifa some kind of look – somewhere between embarrassment and sympathy – before leaving the room to check on other patients.
The martial artist rotated her head to look at the pile and noticed a thinner book within the stack. She reached for it, carefully tugging it free and bringing it to her. It was a book of crossword puzzles. She smiled and placed it back on the table, making a mental note to ask for a pencil when the nurse came back.
It wasn't until later that day that Elena finally caught Reno in the act. The three Turks had again visited Tifa in the afternoon, and Elena had again turned to watch Reno as they were leaving. This time, instead of bumping into him, she caught him standing at Tifa's side looking down at into her eyes as she became weary. He brought his index and middle fingers to his lips, kissed them, and pressed them to her forehead.
Elena quickly left the room before giving Reno a chance to find out he had been caught.
The rest of the week dragged on as Tifa imagined it would. She felt better each day but still slept a lot, mostly to pass the time. She managed to make progress on several of the crossword puzzles that Reno had left her but couldn't shake the habit of checking her answers in the back as she went along. She soon gave up and relegated herself to reading the novels the Turk had brought. They were indeed filthy, far too raunchy for her taste, but it was either that or continue to frustrate herself over the crosswords, so she chose the former.
The Turks visited every day – well, most of them did. Sometimes Elena wasn't there in the evenings. Rude would say she had a prior engagement and Reno would make some crude comment about where Elena might be – and whom she might be with. Even Tseng visited once, to Tifa's surprise; a further show of bygones and appeasement.
"Rufus sends his regards," Tseng had said, leaving the barmaid wide-eyed and wondering if her hearing had become damaged.
Finally, the day came for Tifa to be released – just one day before Barret and Marlene were set to arrive. Marle tried to be the one to help get Tifa home, but the bartender insisted the children were more important, which left the Turks to accompany her home. Marle had taken care of Tifa before – for years – and she didn't want to feel like an injured 15-year-old again. Not that the Turks were her first or second choice, but her options were limited and Elena was persistent, claiming she wanted to make amends for failing to keep Tifa from getting shot.
The three Turks were currently sitting in the waiting room of the hospital wing where Tifa had been moved out of the ICU. Reno was leaning back deeply into the small arm chair, his legs stretched far out into the central walkway of the area and his shoulders nearly touching the seat cushion. Someone at the hospital had told Elena that Tifa was ready to be discharged, but they had already been waiting an hour at this point. Rude sat with his arms folded across his chest and his head tilted down in quiet contemplation. Elena was playing on her phone.
"You can come back now," a nurse said as he approached the three Turks and motioned for them to follow him back to Tifa's room. The glass board in this room had already been wiped clean, as if the whole ordeal had never happened, something for which the brunette was thankful. All of her IVs and monitors had been detached and she was sitting on the edge of the bed fully dressed in an outfit Marle had brought from Seventh Heaven, her legs dangling just an inch or so off the floor. Finding her something to wear out of the hospital was not a task she wanted to leave up to the Turks, even Elena, as she knew the blonde wouldn't be able to keep Reno out of her home.
A doctor was standing next to her with a chart and some paperwork for her to sign.
"I just want to go over that list of instructions to care for your wound one more time so that they are aware in case you need help."
He then rattled off a list of what she needed to do. No strenuous exercise (Tifa swore she heard Reno snort). Change bandages regularly. Etc., etc. Tifa knew the drill. She nodded along politely, antsy to leave.
"Okay, that's it, good luck," the doctor said before getting up and leaving.
Tifa was a little stiff as she set her feet firmly on the ground. Reno was reminded of how Tseng looked when he and Rude evacuated him from the hospital during Meteorfall. Just as they did then, the two male Turks stood on either side of Tifa to help her balance as she stumbled.
"I can do this," she insisted, trying to remove herself from the two Turks.
Reno and Rude looked at each other and shrugged. It wasn't like they were afraid the hospital would collapse as they had been with Tseng, and they weren't itching to get back to their patrol either. They let Tifa hobble on her own, reaching out anytime she staggered and looked as though she might fall.
Rude helped her into the backseat of Elena's car. Reno took the front passenger's seat. There wasn't anything he could do publicly to continue his plan to cozy up to her, so he opted for looking disinterested. He watched in the rear-view mirror as Tifa leaned against Rude in the back seat. He felt just the slightest heat in his chest when she again leaned on Rude as she walked from the car and into her bar.
He ran up the stairs ahead of Rude and offered cliched words of encouragement to her, moving his hands to motion her forward, like she was a child taking her first steps. Tifa did not appreciate it.
The effort had made her tired along with the restless nights spent in the hospital and the whole ordeal in general, so the Turks helped her into her bedroom.
Reno looked around as he assisted her. It was the first time he was seeing her home in the daylight, but he couldn't exactly enjoy it (he'd prefer to be ravishing her instead of studying her furniture). He was in her territory, nonetheless.
Reno was behind Tifa and Rude in the hallway when he heard Tifa gasp.
"What?" she said in hushed surprise.
Reno smiled to himself, knowing she had just seen the vase with beautiful white flowers sitting on her nightstand. When Shotgun texted him the night Tifa was shot that she had delivered the flowers, Reno had to make a decision: Either let the flowers rot wherever Shotgun stashed them or break into Tifa's house and put them in water. He chose the latter, opting to spend as little time inside the home as possible. He wanted to be called upstairs by Tifa, but not like this.
The gift both delighted and frightened her. Someone had clearly broken into her home to leave the flowers, something she just now considered.
Elena was on the same page and readied her gun. She then inspected the other rooms in the hall in case the intruder was still inside. There was no one. No windows opened and nothing else disturbed.
Reno let a self-satisfied grin cross his features.
Rude helped Tifa sit on her bed. She kept her eyes on the flowers the entire time, studying the shape and size of the petals. They were rare flowers that could only be found around Mt. Nibel. They were her absolute favorite.
No card or tag. Nothing to indicate who they were from.
Her heart skipped a beat. Cloud definitely knew these were her favorite flowers. Her hope faded as she quickly realized surprises like this weren't Cloud's style. He would have been there to deliver the flowers, or he would have left evidence of his visit. He was an excellent fighter, but stealth wasn't his forte.
Stealth.
Tifa took a sniff of the flowers and glanced over at Reno. He looked exactly as he did that night outside her bar in the rain, when he wasn't reacting to her quip about him waiting in the rain for her. He was really good at acting like he didn't care. But Tifa now knew that was his reflex response when faced with anything that could be emotional.
It had to be him, but how did he know? And how did he get them? She hadn't told him she liked these flowers – but he did know she was from Nibelheim. But so did a lot of other people!
She was too tired for this right now. She slowly scooted back on her bed up toward her headboard so she could lie down properly.
She wasn't even able to say goodbye to the Turks before she passed out.
Barret and Marlene would be here tomorrow.
Elena did her own inspection of the flowers to look for a note or anything to explain how they got into Tifa's room. Seeing no evidence pointing to a culprit, she encouraged Reno and Rude to leave with her.
Rude had this sinking suspicion now. He didn't see Cloud as the "anonymous flowers" type of guy, and he could only think of one other person who would be so underhanded. He didn't want to confront Reno, as it was clear his best friend couldn't have physically delivered the flowers himself. Well, he may have, but that would require him to take one of the Shinra helicopters late at night, make the trip, pick the flowers, and be home by morning. Something told him Reno couldn't have done this. The man loved to sleep and hadn't missed work – he was always late, but no later than usual. It just didn't make sense.
Yet still, Rude strongly suspected Reno had something to do with it – and he didn't like it.